The Witch Elm by Tana French

Tana French is becoming a favorite!  Loved her first book and now I love her newest, too.  This one is from the point of view of a male....interesting for her.

Anyway, like the other book (In the Woods) of hers that I read (and like all of her books I hear), this is a psychological thriller.  The story line is important, but more important is the character study.

You get to know the main character, Toby,  over time and his pesona evolves over the course of the book. Really interesting how she does this.  Here's what one reviewer said so succinctly:  

...but it is really a deeply subtle book about privilege: how clueless, apparently decent guys can float through life unaware of the injustices around them, sometimes even ones they have committed.

I think I need to read more Tana French books!

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

I love this quote from a Washington Post review of this book because it captures the essence of why I loved reading this:  

...this is a novel about how families create their own history and mythology — and how those assumptions about the past haunt their relations with each other.

There is so much going on in this family, and between the different family members. I just loved the characters....and in the end, the father, who is not so sympathetic earlier in the book, reveals himself to be a much different person than he tries to project to the world.

More from this review:

Part of what makes Mirza’s novel captivating is her ability to shift among perspectives so gracefully. We feel the panic of Amar’s parents as they struggle to find some effective balance between discipline and indulgence. And we feel the torment of Amar’s conviction that he doesn’t belong, that he’s not right, that he doesn’t deserve the blessing of salvation and, finally, that he’s not a Muslim. Yet the real agony, which Mirza plumbs with such heartbreaking sympathy, is Amar’s incurable longing for the balm of belief and the embrace of his devout parents.
In prose of quiet beauty and measured restraint, Mirza traces those twined strands of yearning and sorrow that faith involves. She writes with a mercy that encompasses all things. If the demands of Islam make Rafiq behave cruelly toward his only son, those same demands eventually inspire a confession of affection that is among the most poignant things I have ever read. Each time I stole away into this novel, it felt like a privilege to dwell among these people, to fall back under the gentle light of Mirza’s words. 

Highly recommended!

Re-Read: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

I just joined a book club at the invitation of a work friend. She and I always talk about books and she invited me to join her lovely group.  Even though I had read this book just a year ago, I picked it up again because I realized that I recalled so little about it. I did recall that I liked it, however.

Oh my God! It disturbed me that I remembered so little as I started it again. It's a fabulous book but I must have just skimmed through it because the details were really unfamiliar to me.

What a great story and how much I learned about Koreans and Japanese and the intense animosity the Japanese have for Koreans.

I highly recommend this book for its characterization, historical perspective and engaging storyline.