Saturday, February 22, 2020

All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg

This seemed like a very different book for this author.  I recall the Middlesteins being funny. This book was not! But it was powerful.  The reader REALLY hates Victor, the husband who cheats (in many ways), hurts, abuses and doesn't even seem to care!

Love this final paragraph from the NPR review:

Attenberg brings air into this potentially suffocating story with wit, and with occasional digressions into some of the peripheral people the Tuchmans encounter without a thought as they move around post-Katrina New Orleans — a trolley conductor, ferry worker, EMT, and coroner. Initially jarring, these reminders that the people who make the city run have their own histories and troubles underscore the fact that life can be challenging. But they also reassure us of the possibility of not just good in this world but decency.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

There There by Tommy Orange

Read this for my book club (#1) and it was powerful! We all agreed about a few things, however.  The ending? Very abrupt.  But I think that was his intent.
Reading this right after Trevor Noah's book was interesting. Many parallels, even though they are VERY different books!
From Westchester Library System, here's a description of what this book is about:
Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame in Oakland. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Black has come to find his true father. Thomas Frank has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the Big Oakland Powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions.

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

I learned a lot from this book and was totally engrossed in it. I didn't really know that much about Trevor Noah and I don't watch the show, but it gave me so much insight into apartheid and living in South Africa during that period of time, and beyond.
The book is funny, of course, but really disturbing at the same time. One incredible thing about his life, is his mother and her influence on him. At the start,  you think she's kind of a bitch....too stern and strict.
But in the end, the last chapter is devoted to her and it's so touching. This was well worth reading.