The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I did enjoy reading this book but I don't think it was a great piece of literature. I don't want to be snobby about it, but it did seem a bit cliche and predictable. And the characters thinly drawn...at least some of them. But I enjoyed reading it, so I feel bad be critical. After all, shouldn't reading be pleasurable?
But really....did all of the white women have to be so evil? Except for Skeeter, of course, the author of the book that is being written within this book. The Help tells the story of black women working for white women in Jackson, Mississippi. They are surrogate mothers to the white women's children, cooks, cleaners, servers, and more. But they can't use the family bathroom, have their children share schools, or the lunch counter with anyone who is white. One of the white women, Skeeter, an aspiring writer, decides to be brave and tell the story, anonymously, of the women who have been so crucial in the upbringings of all of these white women, but who live a very separate and not equal life. Apparently, Kathryn Stockett, the author, felt compelled to tell this story after moving to New York and feeling conflicted about her prior life in the south. So, the book seems semi-autobiographical.
Now, on to the problem I had......
I am sure that there were (are) plenty of women like Miss Hilly, one of the worst white offenders in the book, but she was painted in such a negative way; you wanted her to get lynched. And really, is the point of the book to want bad things inflicted on anyone in the human race?
I don't know.....maybe I am missing something here. Please. Weigh in.

Bent Road by Lori Roy

Good read but it took me a while....
The Scotts are a family of five who move from Detroit, Michigan to get away from race riots and phone calls from black boys to their eldest daughter. Arthur, the father, is from a farm in the Midwest and decides to take the family there to live. Not easy for his wife, Celia, who has a good and happy life. And there's more. Eve, Arthur's youngest sister, died under mysterious circumstances twenty years earlier.
The kids, young Evie, Daniel, the middle child and the oldest daughter, Elaine, each face their own challenges in Kansas differently and adjust differently.
These challenges are set against the serious threat of violence and murder. The reader knows that there is more than meets the eye.
Arthur's quest to protect his family from racial strife instead brings them closer to danger, family intrigue and violence far scarier than anything they witnessed in Detroit.
It's a good read and quite well written.

The Submission by Amy Waldman

This was such a thoughtful and well written book. I really took my time reading it because I wanted to think about the characters and the issues and the politics presented.
The story...yes, it is fiction, takes place after 9/11 and opens with a jury debating the various design submissions for a memorial at the site of the attacks. The panel consists mainly of artists, and there is one woman, Claire, who is the spouse of a victim. She rallies for one design, which most of the others haven't chosen as their first selection. Claire's influence, probably because of her status as "family member," helps to bring the others to her side.
The submission and selection process is anonymous; the jury do not know the identities of the artists/architects who have submitted designs.
When the name of the artist selected is revealed as Mohammad Khan, outcry from the public is loud and antagonistic. Khan is American, and pretty mainstream at that. While he is a Muslim, he is not a practicing one and is basically non political.
The novel describes conflicts, mind shifts, prejudices and sensitivities of the characters and the public during this difficult time in our history.
There are several very interesting characters and

Light from a Distant Planet by Mary McGarry Morris

This was not on my "Want to Read" list because I didn't know that Mary McGarry Morris had a new book out. She is one of my FAVORITE authors, especially "Songs in Ordinary Time." I want to read that again now.
I really enjoyed this book although I have to say, at the beginning it seemed slow. But she was building up the characters so strongly at the beginning and that ends up being so crucial to the story.
I went online and read some reviews of people who compared the main character, Nellie, to Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Yes, there are similarities. Both are extremely ethical and honest. And they feel that they have a special "sense" when it comes to understanding people. And Nellie does.
She is a very well drawn character. This coming of age story is a murder mystery, coming of age, and family drama. I really liked this book and found myself actually reading passages over again. Nellie's struggle to "do the right thing" causes so  many conflicts with her family and within herself.

Room by Emma Donoghue

Thank goodness I persisted and that my friends encouraged me to persist. Because the first time I took this book out of the library, I read a few pages, got discouraged, drew conclusions about it that were not even to close to what the book is about, and returned it.
I am so glad that I listened. What an amazingly intelligent and creative work of fiction! Room is told from the voice of Jack, a five year old boy who has lived his entire life in an 11 by 11 foot room with his mother, a captive - the victim of a rapist and kidnapper. She was "stolen" by a bad man (the way Jack describes it) on her way to the college Library and has been living there for about seven years. Jack is the man's son, but that is really never discussed between Ma and Jack.
Jack knows no other world and his days are full and rich the way he tells it.  There are "thousands of things" to do every morning and Ma has set up his life for him in a very interesting and rich way. Jack is happy most of the time, except when Ma is Gone. Everything in Jack's life is a proper noun: Room, Bed, Wardrobe, Rug, and the outside world in Outer Space. What he sees on TV is not real to him. Only he and Ma and Old Nick are real. Ma constructs a world for Jack that explains everything for him in a way he can accept and even love.
When she choreographs their escape, using Jack (what a bold and brave scenario she creates and gets Jack to go along with!) to accomplish the task, she ends up bringing Jack into a world that he is fears and hates. It was safer for him in Room; he becomes the focus of tabloid headlines when their escape makes it to the news.  He does't understand this new world. Why shouldn't Ma breastfeed him? How can those people who "live in the television" have depth and size? How would they fit?
Jack meets a whole new family and has to live without Ma for a while because she needs time to adjust to life again. He knows no other life than that which he had with her in Room.
Read "Room."  You will not be disappointed!

Now You See Me by SJ Bolton

This was an interesting psychological thriller, recounting the episodes of a "Jack the Ripper" copycat murderer.  On the anniversary of the original Jack the Ripper's first killing, a young detective, Lacey Flint, finds herself holding onto a dying woman while leaning against her car in East London, where the original murders took place.  She feels responsible for the woman's death because she was with her during her last breaths of life. Could she have caught the killer? The woman was still alive and her blood still warm and fresh!
Lacey soon receives a call from a journalist who supposedly got a letter from the killer and it shows that the killer is a Jack the Ripper copycat.
Lacey is somewhat of an expert on Jack and her knowledge becomes useful to the investigation.
Lacey becomes a suspect herself in the eyes of her nemesis, Mark Jonesbury, also on the case.
Throughout the book, it is clear that there is a link between Lacey and the murderer.  It turns out, also, that these murders have something to do with a set of twins and that Lacey is somehow involved.
I won't give any more away, but just say that it was a fast read - a good  mystery. Now on to more serious stuff!

Three Stages of Amazement by Carol Edgarian

I really enjoyed this contemporary American novel, dealing with one woman's challenging life in San Francisco in the beginning of the Obama presidency. Lena's husband, Charlie Pepper, is a successful doctor who seeks to abandon his practice to sell his invention, a device that will allow him to perform surgery remotely.
He sacrifices home and the responsibilities there for this dream and risks losing his wife and family life.
A complication arises when Lena's uncle Cal Rusch offers venture capital to support Charlie's project; without this money, the project could die.  Lena despises her uncle with good reason. But I won't give that away, nor will I give away how the issue is resolved.
The Peppers have two interesting children who are demanding; Charlie has little to do with them, but Lena works to keep the home front stable despite Charlie's absence. The theme of the struggle of love vs money is ever present in this novel.
The characters are interesting and real and the challenges they face equally so.
The book is so rooted in the present tense; references to Bernie Madoff, the troubled economy, the Obama presidency, all make for a very relevant read!

Never Knowing by Chevy Stevens

I found this at the library one day and since I liked her other book so much, I checked it out. Chevy Stevens does manage to write compelling, fast-moving novels. But I don't know that I can say this is a great book. The novel tells the story of a woman who was adopted early in life and who struggles when she finds out that her father is a serial killer and she is the product of a rape. She tries to help the local police find and apprehend her father, when he starts to seek her out to establish a relationship with her.
There is one "twist" in the novel that I will not reveal but it seemed a bit contorted to me.

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

This is an interesting coming-of-age story, but there are two young women at the heart; they are half-sisters, having the same father. James Witherspoon is a secret bigamist. The two daughters are just four months apart in age and each lives with a mother who is married to James.  Only one of them live with him full time and in public.  The first part of the book is told from the point of view of Dana Yarboro, a pretty and smart young woman who, with her mother Gwen, "surveil" to check up on James and his other family. The second part of the book is told from the point of view of Bunny Chaurisse Witherspoo, who is not as pretty as Dana, but has the advantage of having her father in her life full time. 


Dana always feels second best and she does get a secondary role in James' life. James tries his best not to have the girls' paths cross. But they do meet and of course, their friendship sets their worlds toward an inevitable collision.  


The fact that the story is told from both perspectives makes for an interesting read. At first, the reader feels that Chaurisse has all of the advantages; when you read from her point of view, a different picture emerges. She doesn't know that she has this "advantage" of a father who lives in the home. She speaks of a "silver girl" as someone who is better than she is - prettier, smarter, more popular. And when she meets Dana, that is what she finds. Dana knows that Chaurisse is her sister, but Chaurisse is in the dark.

Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan

I read about this on an NPR book review page. Actually, the reviewer was speaking of O'Nan's newest book, Emily Alone, but mentioned that if you have not read Snow Angels, you must. It was easy to find in the library so I checked it out. And glad that I did.
It is an unsettling story about death, murder, infidelity, poverty and more, and above all, a coming of age story about Arthur, a middle school boy in Pittsburgh, PA. The story starts on the day that his father leaves home and life changes dramatically for Arthur that day.
Arthur grapples with his parents' failed marriage and his feelings for Lila, a young girl with whom he rides the bus to school.  He also "deals" with the fact that he was the one to find the dead young child who wandered away from home one afternoon while her mom (his former babysitter and neighbor) slept on her couch. But Arthur really doesn't emote much about any of this; the reader can read between the lines and gather how these events are affecting Arty.
The story is gripping and quite short; I was able to read it in just a couple days. O'Nan is a gifted writer and I am anxious to follow up and read some of his other novels.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow

I read this book in just one day; it was so good and so well written. And not long, to be sure, so it was not tough. I spent 6 hours on an airplane during those 24 as well.
Anyway, I did love this book and highly recommend it. It tells the life story of a biracial girl and her struggle to find herself, her identity and make sense of who she is and what has befallen her.
Rachel was born to a Danish white woman and black serviceman overseas. She grew up on army bases in Europe and never had to struggle with the fact that her skin was black but her eyes blue. Once she gets to Portland, Oregon, after the tragic loss of her family, she has to grapple with these questions and the stares and commentary of people around her.
The characters are richly drawn, especially her grandmother, who she comes to live with in Portland, and Brick, a biracial boy who plays a big role in this story.
But I won't given any of it away. Just read it!

Blood Harvest by S. J. Bolton

A great summer read! Got this suggestion from an NPR.org page from LAST summer, so the book was out in paperback and I was able to get it at Barnes and Noble.
It was a great mystery novel. I haven't read one in a while and it was just what I was looking for on my vacation. It was fast, well-written and a gripping tale.  Some supernatural elements and takes place in the "moors" in England.
A new vicar, Harry, comes to a small town and finds himself hearing voices, feeling that someone is with him when there is no one there. The same things are happening for Tom, a young boy who lives in a new house next to the church. There have been three mysterious disappearances in past years of young girls; one of them supposedly died in a fire but her mother never bought that. Gillian, the mother, feels that her daughter did not die in that fire.
Harry meets the psychologist who cares for Gillian; romance develops; complications arise. Tom's young sister disappears and nearly dies.
As you can gather, lots of things go on but the story is easy to follow and has interesting characters and locale.
I read this in just a couple days - but I was on vacation and spending time poolside and beachside....just where I most love to read!

South of Broad by Pat Conroy

This started out so strong, but lost some of its appeal for me about 100 pages in. Not that I didn't enjoy the book; it was a compelling story, albeit a bit of a soap opera, but it drew me in. First off - the writing...so very good. Conroy's prose is exquisite. His descriptions and metaphors so beautifully drawn and rendered, like paintings. It was the over the top nature of some of the characters that let me down a bit; there was the cliche factor. Too predictable at times; I knew how things were going to turn out. Sine "Prince of Tides" is such a favorite of mine, I didn't expect to feel this way about this book.
But, heck....it's summer and you need some good soap opera fiction for the beach. And I did read a lot of this at the beach. On to more page turning for my week in San Diego. Gotta go pick something up so I can enjoy the incredible beach at Carlsbad this week!

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

This is a hard book to blog about. It was pretty intense and thought-provoking, even though on the surface it was an easy read about the "art world" in New York City. It deals with "beautiful objects," including the main character, Lacey Yeager. She is a young woman who takes a job at Sotheby's and learns the business of art.

Lacey is confident and takes risks to get ahead and does succeed and eventually opens her own gallery in Chelsea. Unfortuntately, her gallery opening is slated to occur in Sept 2001; her opening is not the one she expected.

Lacey knows how to make connections, often using her attractiveness and sexual prowess to gain acceptance. And she succeeds, to a point. This is a novel worth reading, especially for those who contemplate art, the art world and its politics.

My New American Life by Francine Prose

This is Francine Prose's newest novel so, of course, I had to put in on hold at the library. The story follows the "adventures" of Lula, a young Albanian working as a nanny for a Wall Street executive. His wife has left him and his son and Mr. Stanley (the employer) needs somone to look after Zeke, who is a high school senior. Stanley is friendly with Mr. Don, a high powered lawyer, who can get Lula her green card.
Lula, bored with life in the suburbs, becomes entranced by Alvo, an Albanian criminal who comes to the house with his two friends. She hides a gun for them and pines for Alvo to come back and take her out, which he eventually does.
Mr. Stanley's wife turns out to be more insane that we are aware of, Zeke is quite disillusioned and morose and Lula editorializes about life in America. This was an interesting read, but not nearly as good as "Goldengrove" or "A Changed Man."

  Prose seeks to show America through the fresh eyes of an outsider with a deeply ingrained, comic pessimism born of life under dictatorship, yet also capable of exuberant optimism, and the results, like Lula, are agreeable enough but not terribly profound. (

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

After I read "Half Broke Horses," I was encouraged to read this memoir by the same author. It took me a while.
Wow, what a book! It's hard to believe that all of the stories in this book are real; some are quite hard to fathom.
Interesting....after I read the book I "googled" it and found an interview with Jeannette Walls. Many of the people who read the book did not feel that it was "depressing," but uplifting.  The obstacles that she faced as a child were overwhelming but she and her sister and brother managed to get out and leave for NYC where they became successful in their own right.

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner

How funny that I started this book - by Jennifer WEINER - right before the Anthony Weiner story! A book by Weiner, about a male politician who "strays" at the time when the Weiner story was breaking.
Anyway, the book was entertaining, a fast read, with some sympathetic characters.
I especially liked the daugher Lizzie.
It was a good "easy" read and just what I needed!
On now, to more Francine Prose!

A Changed Man by Francine Prose

Francine Prose is quickly becoming a favorite author. I loved "Goldengrove" and now "A Changed Man." So very different books!
At first, the book seemed a little slow. But not the case...keep going.
The characters are painted vividly; the plot interesting, compelling, real.
Here is a quote from the NYTimes Book Review by Lisl Schillinger that sums up the themes beautifully:

"Here Prose uses the exaggerated failings of an ideological extremist to expose the wishy-washy but more pervasive moral failures of contemporary America: detached or absent fathers; frantic, overworked mothers; undernurtured children; checkbook philanthropy; media hypocrisy; the shortage of local heroes willing to help the people around them. But for all of that, the novel isn't a sermon or a lecture. Prose doesn't sit in judgment; instead, she holds a mirror up to her characters, reflecting both their imperfections and their charms."

The ending?
I won't say. I was so curious to see how Francine would wrap it up. I was surprised!

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

Boy, did I want to love this book and I just DIDN'T! Actually, I couldn't wait for it to end, and it went on and on and on. (It took me over 4 weeks to read it; I had to renew a 4 week book! That is not normal for me.)
Anyway, perhaps if I had not recently read an excellent novel about the siege of Leningrad, I might have been more favorably inclined to this one. But Helen Dunmore's "The Siege" was such a great novel about this subject and it did not go on for 635 pages like this one did. And the love story in this novel was nauseating, I thought. I did not have to read pages and pages and pages of kissing, caressing, fondling, etc. to get a thrill.
This book was just too long and to me, too trite.
Can't wait to start my new book. Hopefully, I will enjoy more.

Caribou Island by David Vann

This is a dark and disturbing, but very well written novel of despair, regret, loneliness and unfulfilled dreams. The novel takes place in Alaska, and the locale is just as important as any of the characters. I can't imagine the story taking place anywhere else. Irene and her husband Gary are at a critical impasse in the their 30 year marriage. Gary gets the idea that they have to leave their house with heat and running water and all of the traditional trappings of life, and build a cabin in the woods on Caribou Island. Why Irene goes along with this plan is somewhat of a mystery to me. Is it fear of being alone? Habit? Female subordination? It's hard to say. The book opens with Irene recalling the day she came home from school to find her mother hanging, a suicide. So from the start, we know that Irene has lots of issues. This event colors her life and her relationship with her daughter, Rhoda.
The sea, fishing, and nature play an important role in the book and are used as strong metaphors throughout most of the story. The powerful ending is not surprising, and I won't give it away. Caribou Island is a quick read, with short chapters, told from the perspective of the different characters. It's worth reading, but not light fare, to be sure!

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I waiting for a long time to read this book, and then it took me a really long time to read it. And that is because, I just couldn't REALLY get into it.  It was good, but did not compel me to read everyday. So days would go by and I would not pick it up. Then it would interest me, but my interest would wane again; I was determined to finish it because I did really want to know the whole story. Unfortunately, the whole story was not worth waiting 670 pages for. At least in my opinion.
I did learn a lot about Ethiopia and its culture and history. I liked some of the characters enough, but there was not one character - even Marion - that I was enamored with.
So, I finished it and am ready to move on with my reading.
BTW, I also had a bad experience with a Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants) book, that I didn't even finish. So that is why the big lag in my book blog.  I have to catch up! Went to Library and got a couple things today. Let's see if one, or both, pulls me in!

Just Kids by Patti Smith

I was never a big Patti Smith fan - not that I didn't like her, just that I was not really into music that much when she was hot. I was a new mom and busy with other mundane stuff. But I did enjoy this memior a lot. I learned a lot about Smith and "the scene" that was going on at the time, in music, art and literature. I especially learned a lot about Robert Maplethorpe.
The book is very well written; Smith could have found her fame in literature or poetry rather than music - and probably would have been happier for it at the time. But as this book proves - she did find her fame in writing. This book won a National Book Award for Non Fiction in 2010.

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

As soon as I finished the book, I was tempted to pick it up and start all over again...to get perspective, to revisit many of the events that don't quite come to full circle on the last pages. I really loved these characters, not necessarily as people I would want to be friends with, but as interesting, richly drawn human beings. Franzen really paints these characters as people who jump out of the text and become someone we can hate, admire, love, and argue or agree with. Walter and Patty, the couple in the novel, are so interesting and different.  The chapters that make up Patty's autobiography were especially enjoyable.
The plot involves politics, ethics, relationship issues, consumerism, sexuality, sustainability, trust, friendship and LOTS of familial stuff. The beginning chapters describing Patty and her parents and siblings was captivating, and of course, troubling.
Anyway, I could ramble about this book but won't. What I will say is that it was difficult at times to get through - not always a page turner, but never ever dull! My opinion of Franzen has changed dramatically; I have The Corrections but never got through it, but now I am ready to give it another go.

The False Friend by Myla Goldberg

I read Goldberg's book, Bee Season, several years ago and enjoyed it, so I grabbed this when I found it in the library. It recounts the story of a pair of 11 year old girls who were best friends twenty-one years ago, but who bullied and tormented other girls who wanted to be part of their clique.  The story is told in the present, from the point of view of Celia, who is now 32 and living in Chicago, and reliving the tragic event that separated the two friends permanently. Djuna, the other half of the duo, disappeared one day in Celia's company in the woods, and Celia has reminiscences of that day that haunt her and force her to return home to tell (or find out) the truth of what really happened.
The book explores how our memories of childhood are sometimes flawed and distorted, how we change as individuals with maturation and how terribly cruel young girls can be to each other.  The book took me back to my adolescence and how I sometimes was bullied or bullied others.  Celia deals too with her aging parents and their inability to express themselves about troubling events in their lives.  Celia does witness a breakthrough one morning when her parents do open up and talk freely about her brother's suicide attempt and Celia's friendship with Djuna (and how they disapproved of her friend.) But then an hour later, it was as if these conversations never took place at all and her parents go back to thier usual selves.
I did enjoy this short novel, especially near the end when Celia really comes to terms with who she was as a youngster. It is a tough topic to tackle and you have to give Myla Goldberg credit for dealing with it in such an honest manner.

America America by Ethan Canin

Is this a murder mystery? Political saga? Coming of age story?  Historical fiction?  Hard to say, but it is an interesting and captivating story with all of the above included. Corey Sifter, a young boy in upstate New York, becomes involved with a wealthy family who owns most of the land and runs the local business in town. The Metareys are industrious people, whose family emigrated from Scotland and became successful through hard work and ambition.  They take in Corey, employ him, school him at private school and even help fund his college education at Haverford, outside of Philadelphia. Much of the story revolves around Senator Bonwiller's campaign for the Presidency in the early 1970's and Canin combines real candidates (Muskie, Humphrey, McGovern) with the fictional Bonwiller. It becomes pretty obvious that Bonwiller is fashioned after Teddy Kennedy, although I read an interview that disputed that obvious parallel.
The story drifts back and forth between the present, when Corey is a 50ish newspaper publisher. The story starts as he is attending the funeral of Bonwiller. Then Canin goes back to when Corey was a boy and he tells the story in bits and pieces, relaying it in a way that holds the reader's interest with mystery and a some drama. He reveals important pieces of information very subtly, for instance, the fact that his wife is a member of the Metary family, but not necessarily the one the reader would have expected him to marry.
I did enjoy this book. There were passages that seemed a bit long-winded, but overall, it was an enjoyable and very interesting read.