Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

I had been curious about this book and this author for quite some time, having heard about him and the book on the NYTimes Book Review Podcast.  But I never took it out when it was "new" and "hot."  Recently, on another podcast I listen to, Pop Culture Happy Hour, one of the hosts during the segment, "What is making us happy," mentioned this book. So I took it out as an audiobook and listened to it on my walks.  It was gripping and gritty and very well written.  A little violent for me, however.

I respect the author a great deal and I thought the story was great, if not a little bit "too relevant."  After having seen the movie, American Fiction, this book struck me as one that was written for this specific genre.  The difference between this and the books referred to in the movie is that this is a VERY well-written book.  

Two fathers, one black, one white, both ex-convicts, are on a mission to find their gay sons' killer.  Neither father bought into their son's life-style, so there was a lot of regret and angst in the story.  But there was also a lot of violence along with the sentimentality.  I truly enjoyed the book, even though some of it rang as a bit cliche for me.

But I just may read another Cosby book.  I like a good crime story once in a while.

The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

I listened to this book and what a treat!  The language, the flowing passages with such level of detail, the rich characterizations....all were enhanced by the beauty of the narration. 

Alice McDermott is an amazing author and I just read two in a row by her.  There are several more, but I have other things on my list right now, but I must get back to this author.

From Amazon:

On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens a gas tap in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his pregnant wife—that “the hours of his life . . . belonged to himself alone.” In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Saviour, an aging nun, a Little Nursing Sister of the Sick Poor, appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.

In Catholic Brooklyn in the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence, and yet his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives—testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.

Absolution by Alice McDermott

Interesting book about the US's early years in Vietnam.  The characterizations are compelling. I found the story a little confusing at times, because of the way it skipped around in time. But all in all, a great book.

Maureen Corrigan's summary:

The main character is a newlywed, a young wife who is pulled into this group of women who are doing charitable work in Vietnam while their husbands are busy doing something else. And without being heavy-handed, McDermott manages to make a connection between the insistent charity of these women and early American intervention in Vietnam.

All the Broken Places by John Boyne

Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn’t talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age twelve. She doesn’t talk about the grim postwar years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn’t talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich’s most notorious extermination camps.

Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry’s beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-won, self-contained existence.

Immersive, chilling, unputdownable, All the Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel’s girlhood in Germany and present-day London. Here, Gretel is at a similar crossroads to the one she encountered long ago. Then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief, and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before—whatever the cost to herself.

Wellness by Nathan Hill

 

Really liked this book.  There was so much to think about on so many topics.  

From NPR:

When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria. 

For the first time, Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize each other, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other.

The Guest by Emma Cline

 

This was a very interesting book, especially the end!  And I am not alone in that appraisal.  I was not expecting the end at all!

And I am pleased about that, because the end that I was envisioning would have been somewhat obvious. Not that I was certain how it would end, but I did not think it would end well.

That is all I will say about that!

The main character, Alex, is certainly not a sympathetic one; she is quite an enigma actually.  I didn't like her. I kept trying to figure her out and I can't say I ever did and I think that is the author's intent.  I should really listen to an interview with the author to try to figure this book out.  I am glad I read it, but I am not sure what Emma Cline wants from her reader.

Matrix by Lauren Groff

 I read this for my book club and it took me a while to get into it, but in the end, I loved it.  I listened to this book - for the most part - and the narration was suberb. I think I got so much more from it being read to me.  The language is beautiful and lyrical, even though a lot of the story is grim.

This is a novel that purports to tell the story of a real nun who lived in the 12th century.  Not much is known about her, so Lauren Groff tells HER side of the story and she does it very well!

Tender Mercies by Dennis Lehane

I have not read a Dennis Lehane novel before and have always wanted to. When this came out and was reviewed, it had a great deal of appeal for me because of its historical significance; it's a crime novel set in "Southie" in Boston and takes place during the very difficult time when the schools were desegregated. I heard the author interviewed and heard about the character development and it sounded interesting.  And it was!

From the NYTimes review:

That tumultuous summer provides the backdrop to Dennis Lehane’s excellent and unflinching new novel, “Small Mercies.” The book has all the hallmarks of Lehane at his best: a propulsive plot, a perfectly drawn cast of working-class Boston Irish characters, razor-sharp wit and a pervasive darkness through which occasional glimmers of hope peek out like snowdrops in early spring.

This book was very satisfying, but in the end, very sad. 

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

 

This is a long book and it took me a long time to read it.  I started out fast, really involved and engaged but I must say that my interest waned as it went on.

From WSJ:  The Barneses are the native Irish clan beset by catastrophe in Mr. Murray’s family saga. By outward appearances, they’re the envy of their small, unnamed city. Dickie, the paterfamilias, runs the local car dealership inherited from his father and has stayed on in his childhood house, with its huge woodland property in the back yard. His wife, Imelda, is a famous beauty who wields a credit card like a martial-arts black belt. Their children, Cass and PJ, have grown up with every material advantage. It’s the perfect domestic Icarus flight to bring crashing down to earth.

The problem for me was that I just did not care enough about any of these characters as I witnessed their missteps and outright outrageousness.  This is my first Paul Murray book and I had heard it reviewed very favorably.  I will not say that I did not like it, but I have not put in on my list of "Oh, you have to read this book!"

 

The Wind Knows My Name by Isabelle Allende

This was a good and interesting read, but I've liked other books by Allende better.  I have been reading and watching too many Holocaust related things lately.  Not that we should ever forget.....

From Amazon:

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht—the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

It took me a little while to get into this book, but once I did, I was hooked.  There is not a strong plot line, but the characterization holds your attention.  The book is graphic, with descriptions that may turn your stomach, but it's worth it.

Groff explores the flight of a young girl (she's just referred to as "the girl") as she leaves the Jamestown settlement, which is rife with disease (and not just pestilence).  There is a lot to flee in this settlement.  Groff slowly draws you into her character and her story, revealing bits and pieces as you progress through the book. 

This book is not for everyone, and at first I thought it was not for me. But just like "the girl," I persisted and am glad I did.

A Quitter's Paradise by Elysha Chang

 

I am not sure how I learned about this book....probably one of the "Recommended Books" articles I read. In any event, I am glad I read it.  It's definitely a perplexing book; the story rambles around and shifts back and forth in time. It introduces characters so haphazardly that I kept having to go back to see who they were, but they hadn't been mentioned before.  The writing is lovely, but was sometimes challenging for me.  Here's what Kirkus says about the book:

Funny, original, and overflowing with wisdom—this is an absolute delight of a debut.

And I do agree. It will be interesting to see what comes next from this author. 

The Postcard by Anne Berest

 

Lots of Holocaust reading and watching this month!  Winemaker's wife, Transatlantic on Netflix (based on Julie Oringer's book, "The Flight Portfolio." and now this book.  This was the best of the three, by far!

I have to do some research to find out how much of this story belongs to the author. It is classified as fiction, but the characters in the book have the last name of the author!

The NY Times in its review calls it an autobiographical novel, so I guess that answers my question!  Interesting that Julie Oringer wrote the review for the Times, too!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as much as you can enjoy a book about such a dire time in our history.  From her review:

“The Postcard” (translated into a lucid and precise English by Tina Kover) takes its readers on a deep dive into one Jewish family’s history, and, inextricably, into the devastating history of the Holocaust in France. Most memorable of the many stories Berest tells in its pages is the one that lends the novel its title: In January 2003, a mysterious postcard arrives at Anne’s mother’s house. The card, bearing a touristy photograph of the Opéra Garnier, is inscribed with the names of Anne’s great-grandparents and her great-aunt and -uncle, Ephraïm, Emma, Noémie and Jacques, all of whom died in Auschwitz. The names are written in ballpoint pen in wobbly letters, on a card that contains no other words, no signature and no return address.

In the end, the story of how the postcard was sent is insignificant, but it weaves through the story to help the author tell it in a compelling way.  I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the subject or who is interested in Nazi-occupied France.  (My sister-in-law's family lived through this - and lived!

 

The Winemaker's Wife by Kristin Harmel

 

Read this for one of my book clubs and while I was able to finish it (I did care about what would happen), this is a formulaic book. The characters are predictable and wooden for the most part, the plot is predictable, too, and the writing is not anything to talk about.  It's interesting - there are two female authors who are easy to mix up: Kristin Hannah and Kristin Harmel; they both write the same kind of books.  I did like the Nightengale by Hannah, but I am not going out of my way to read any more Harmel books.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

This is the first book by this favorite author of mine and I had never read it.  Now I have and I loved it! From the NYTimes review in 2005!

Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, "Prep," is a four-year, semester-by-semester tour of Ault, a fictional private boarding school in Massachusetts that's populated with boys and girls in khakis and blue blazers whose names alone identify them as spawn of the prosperous. 

I think I have now read all of her books and I can't wait for more!

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

While reading this book, I had no idea that it was inspired by a real event: a young boy was the lone survivor of a plane crash.  The author became obsessed with this event, especially since she has two sons. She needed to find a way to express her grief and perplexment. How was this one boy going to deal with the tragedy - an event that would undoubtedly color the rest of his life.

She does it well. I think I appreciated the book much more when I learned that it was prompted by this true story, and this was her way to deal with the reality of it.

The characters are well developed, and the story moves at a gripping pace.  The chapters alternate between what happens on the plane and what happens to Edward as he learns to navigate his new life.  This is from the New York Times review:

If the “before” chapters provide the book’s propulsive momentum, the “after” strand provides its psychological insight and resonance. Not only has Edward suffered the trauma of the crash and physical injuries, he’s lost everyone he loves. He enters what his therapist calls a “fugue state” in which he “tries to stay away from thoughts and emotions, as if they’re furniture he can skirt past in a room.” The only one who breaks through is his 12-year-old neighbor, Shay. “No one can hurt you ever again,” she tells him. “You already lost everything, right?” 

Take What You Need by Idra Novey

Not sure where I read about this book and the author, but she is now on my want to read list! Here is a synopsis of a very interesting book!  I felt that there was so much to discuss about this book and the characters and the decisions that they make.  

Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she’s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind.

What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.

With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeros in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits.

Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most with passionate and resonance, this novel illuminating can be built from what others have discarded—art, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

She never disappoints, Curtis Sittenfeld! Except that I never read her first, "Prep." Now I have it from the library.  Will read soon.

I loved this book as a great summer read (but I would have enjoyed it anytime of the year.)  She delivers again. And I feel like it was a bit different for her.

The story is sweet and simple but with depth of character.  

From the NYTimes:

In “Romantic Comedy," we’re studying Sally Milz, a sketch writer for a weekly live comedy show called “The Night Owls,” similar to “Saturday Night Live” in both format and tone. She’s in her late 30s, white, divorced, funny but embittered by her life’s many little heartbreaks. When Sally’s friend and mediocre-looking colleague Danny Horst starts dating a very famous and incredibly hot actress, she writes a sketch for the show called “The Danny Horst Rule”: Men from “T.N.O.” can date way out of their league, but the same isn’t true for the women working on the show. (This seems like a bit of a Pete Davidson/Ariana Grande caricature, if only for when Danny comments on his fiancée’s Instagram post, “love u my moon girl.”)

Meanwhile, Noah Brewster — an aging pop icon — is hosting the show that week. Noah and Sally connect over a sketch idea he has, sparks fly and Sally then spends the rest of the book contemplating if someone like her (presumably plain-looking, at least in contrast to someone hot, rich and famous) can bag someone like him (hot, rich, famous).

Interesting how much she researched for this book, too.  SNL (TNO) is all over it!

The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

This is one of my favorite authors, but this was not my favorite book of hers.  I did enjoy it, but it was a little too long for me, without a lot happening in the middle section.  I did like the conclusion, but it probably was a little predictable.

I feel like she added too many characters, all of them interesting, but not all of them really contributing that much to the story. I had to have a paper next to me where I wrote down their names and a little bit about them.  The characters would pop up again later and I was not sure who was who.

But I am glad that I read it. 

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

This is a book read in one of my book clubs.  I did enjoy it and learned a lot from it.  However, it was not a book that was particularly "discussable."  One of my friends in the club said that it is considered Historical Anthropology, which is interesting, but I am not sure a real categorization in literature.  But that is not important.

Here is a good synopsis of the theme:  Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane paints an unforgettable portrait of a little-known region of China and its people and celebrates the bond that connects mothers and daughters.

There is lots to learn about tea, too!  The story is somewhat predictable however, which bothered me at the end.  But I am not sorry that I read it.  I just didn't feel like there was much to discuss.  In a book club book, I like to have conversations about the book, more than this lent itself to.

It.Goes.So.Fast by Mary Louise Kelly

I have been listening to this NPR reporter for years and she's always been one of my favorites.  Currently, she is one of the hosts of All Things Considered.  I heard that she had written this book, and I heard her interviewed about it, and I knew I had to read it.  I am so glad that I did.  One of the best books so far this year.

By the way, I listened to the book, in her own voice, which made it even better. I do recommend using that format.

In this memoir, Ms. Kelly describes how she has been juggling her life for the past 17 years as a mother and a professional with an extremely demanding but amazing job.  She realizes during her older son's senior year of high school that she has missed the majority of his soccer games, and soccer is his LIFE!

There are very interesting stories from "the front" covering the news,  accounts of her life as a mom and wife and yes, daughter.  I could not stop listening to this audiobook.  Get it and listen. 

Kunstlers in Paradise by Cathleen Schine

 

I loved this book! I have read many of Schine's other books, most recently the Grammarians and this new one did not disappoint!

Here is what the New Yorker says, 

Julian, a directionless young New Yorker, ventures west, to Venice Beach, to help care for his zesty ninety-three-year-old grandmother. When the pandemic descends, he finds himself sequestered indefinitely with her, as she recounts memories of her Anschluss-ruptured Vienna childhood and her family’s subsequent immigration to Hollywood, where she came to know legends including Arthur Schoenberg and Greta Garbo. The novel emphasizes echoes across history but explores intergenerational gaps, too, and—despite handling such weighty subject matter as survivor’s guilt, sexual repression, and the ongoing traumas of racial and religious persecution—maintains a remarkable lightness of tone and of characterization.

I was so pleased that I was reading this on my iPad because I was constantly looking things up and I learned so much about German intellectuals living in LA in that time period.  I was not aware that so many moved there to escape Nazism in Vienna (and other locales.) This was particularly relevant for me, having just seen the play, Leopoldstadt on Broadway.  

This book was a much more delightful way to acknowledge that time period.  

Highly recommend.  Loved the poignant ending, too.

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

I

truly enjoyed this book even though it had some slow spots.  It's a family story that deals with four sisters contending with love and loss,  estrangement and tragedy, and finding ways to deal with each other under these difficult circumstances.

There are two sisters who are twins and the two others who are very closely aligned with each other until one of them marries (the wrong man) and the sisters become estranged for many years.  I won't give any spoilers!

The Kirkus Review is linked, and I agree with it all the way!

So glad I read this book!

I Have Some Questions for You by Rachael Makkai

 

I loved her book, "The Great Believers," and I liked this book, but it didn't match the other in my estimation. It seemed to move along too slowly for me.

The story takes place at a boarding school and goes back and forth in time, from past to present.  The protagonist, Bodie, was a student there many years ago when a murder took place on campus.  The murdered girl was Bodie's roommate, but they were not close.  There was a "resolution" as to who committed the crime, but Bodie questioned it from the start. She goes back to campus to teach a course (she has a successful podcast) on podcasting and one of her students decides to use this murder as the topic of her podcast.

Bodie has ideas as to what happened and who the murderer is, and she speculates throughout the book what could have happened.  The plot moves along somewhat slowly, but we learn a little more with each chapter.

Small World by Laura Zigman

 

How does the death of a child impact a family?  Monumentally, obviously and this book tackles that difficult subject delicately, but with humor and pathos.

It is also about sisters and the issues between them.  I love this quote from the book, and the accompanying narrative from the NYTimes:

Our narrator, Joyce, sums up the aftermath of this loss using the technical term for crooked teeth: “You are born into malocclusion. Into an unlucky family with a disabled child, then a dead child. The hole caused by her absence will eventually cause everything and everyone to shift, and drift, the same way teeth do, after an extraction.” Lenny and Louise never recover; he dies of a drug overdose that may or may not be accidental and she channels her heartbreak into all-consuming activism on behalf of disabled children. Lydia alights for California as soon as she graduates from art school. And Joyce spends as much time as possible at friends’ houses, scrutinizing their framed family photos with the zeal of a detective on the trail of a promising lead.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

 

Another reread for one of my book clubs. I hardly remembered much about this book.  I did enjoy it, but I recall liking it much more the first time.  He is a very clever writer with a lot of humor and pathos.  Most of the people 

Mercy street by Jennifer Haigh

 

Read again for book club. Liked it even more 

Foster by Clair Keegan

A gorgeous little novella! Read in a couple hours, but don't rush through it; the writing is wonderful!

Some snippets from the NYTimes review describe this perfect little book:

"The narrator is a young girl in rural Ireland who is sent by her parents to live with the Kinsella family while her mother, Mary, carries to term another child in a household already bustling with siblings. The Kinsellas, John and Edna, have no children of their own and will foster the girl on their small farm in Wexford, toward the southeastern coast of Ireland.

Keegan’s novella is a master class in child narration. The voice resists the default precociousness and walks the perfect balance between naïveté and acute emotional intelligence.

There is a sadness hovering over the Kinsella home, where “there is no sign, anywhere, of a child.” The girl senses a particular absence in the boy’s clothes she’s given to wear after a bath, and in the wallpaper of trains that covers her bedroom."

The Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker

We read this for Book Club and it was so well received by all of the women.  I was not as gung-ho.  The problem I had with the book was that it didn't delve as much into the history part as I would have liked.  The story was based on the fact that Aaron Burr's daughter, Theodosia, was shipwrecked and never found again.  From the NYTimes review:
 

Theodosia’s story is just one of two enigmatic plot lines in Michael Parker’s latest novel, “The Watery Part of the World.” The other is inspired by the real lives of the three last inhabitants of a barrier island in the Outer Banks, an attempt to explain what led these elderly people to abandon their homes and move to the mainland in the early 1970s.

Maybe I didn't give it enough attention; I was so busy at this time that I had trouble getting through it.  

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

I chose this for one of my book clubs because I was resistant to reading it and knew I would HAVE to if I picked it for the book club. After all, it's on just about EVERY best list from 2022, including Obama's.  Well, in spite of all that, it was not my "cup of tea."  I simply do not enjoy that genre, even though I tried with everything I had to enjoy it.

I respect the author, her intellect, her writing, her ability to weave a story.  But I simply could not really get into it, try as I might.  

We did have a good discussion because the book raises interesting questions and issues.  There were 5 of us in the group today, and only 1 of us really enjoyed it.

But the rest of the world does and I am glad for the author.  I much preferred her prior book, "The Glass Hotel."

Best of Friends by Kamila Shamsie

I stuck with this book to the end, and I am glad I did, but I lost interest along the way - until the end, which I thought was powerful.  The reviews on this book were mixed; Shamsie's "big" novel, Home Fires, was highly praised, but I didn't read it.

Anyway, this book has interesting themes and issues that circle throughout, and I learned a bit about Pakistani politics along the way. I am glad I read it and stuck with it. I really did like the ending, even though it seems that most critics favored the parts that took place when the two friends were 14 years old, in Karachi.