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I have sadly finished the third book by Kate Morton; sad because there are no more to read right now. I wrote about the first two The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden in a previous post. I did not read those two in the order in which they were written, but the order does not actually matter as Morton's books are not related to each other. What they do have in common is fantastic-ness.
The Distant Hours is again a work of historical fiction revolving around World War II. Edie discovers, in the present, after the delivery of a 50 year old letter, that her mother was evacuated to Milderhurst Castle during the war. At Milderhurst, reside the three Blythe sisters; twins Persephone (Miss Percy) and Seraphina (Miss Saffy) and their younger sister Juniper. They are the now elderly daughters of Raymond Blythe the renowned author of The True History of the Mud Man. There is not much else I can say without giving the book away. Just as with the other two, Morton has story-wrighted (just like wheelwrights, shipwrights, and playwrights are crafters, so too is Morton) a story of love, betrayal, death, longing, and loyalty that just carries the reader along. When I read her books my brain is firing all its neurons trying to figure out where she is going with these characters and their secrets. Sometimes I get it partially right and other times I am just wrong, wrong, wrong. But that is what I look for in a good mystery: brain exercise and twists and turns I cannot anticipate.
Read it! Then join me in waiting patiently (or not) for Morton's next book!
Alexander McCall Smith's latest is The Dog Who Came in from the Cold, the second installment in the Corduroy Mansions series. What I like best about the books of Alexander McCall Smith including The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, The Isabel Dalhousie series, The 44 Scotland Street series, and now The Corduroy Mansions series is the characterizations. Each of his characters is unique from all the others, and each has a quirk of humanity that all readers can recognize. The stories are positive and optimistic without being sickeningly sweet. Even though two of the series Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency and Isabel Dalhousie usually have a mystery at their center, sometimes an actual crime but otherwise mysteries of human behavior they are not frightening or graphic. Even the series that are not overtly mysteries certainly spend some time presenting human behaviors for our edification, to make us think about our own lives. I keep waiting in a pessimistic reader way for one of the books to sour me on AMS, but so far I like all that I read.
The Dog Who Came in From the Cold continues the story of those who live in and around the Corduroy Mansions block in Pimlico in London. (Incidentally, all of McCall's books make me want to move to their location be it Botswana, Edinburgh, or London.) There is literary agent Barbara Ragg and her new love Hugo, as well as her business partner Rupert Porter; psychotherapist Berthea Snark and her gullible brother Terence Moongrove and peripherally her son the snarky Oedipus Snark; the young art students Caroline and James who may or may not be a couple; and perhaps most significant in this book, William and his Pimlico terrier Freddie de lay Hay who is conscripted to work for MI6. It is not a comedy but there are funny parts, it is not a romance, but there are love stories, it is not a drama, but there is plenty of drama. The book is unlabel-able, but wonderful.
Recently I was given the opportunity to be a judge in the Nerds Heart YA tournament. I read Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves and Abe in Arms by Pegi Deitz Shea. I worked with Lisa at Lisa the Nerd in judging this round. We decided that Bleeding Violet would continue on in the tournament. I would recommend both of the books, but ultimately we had to pick just one and Hanna for all her oddity won our vote.
Bleeding Violet is the first of two books by Reeves that take place in the exceptionally strange town of Portero, TX. Hanna arrives in town to find her estranged mother because she needs a place to stay and is ultimately longing for acceptance. Hanna's father is dead, but continues to speak and appear only to Hanna. She left her aunt's house, believing she is dead after Hanna hit her over the head. Hanna also casually admits to suffering from both visual and auditory hallucinations. All this is why when Hanna begins to see odd things in the town the reader must wonder if they are real or simply manifestations of Hanna's illness. I will let you read it to decide, as by the end of the book I still was not sure. Complementing its odd subject matter and mind-boggling supernatural violence and action, Bleeding Violet is well-written; the reader is drawn to Hanna and her struggles, and roots for her to find a home filled with love.
The second book I read for the tournament is Abe in Arms. At first Abe seems to be a relatively normal teenager, albeit one who was rescued from the horrors of the Liberian civil war by a doctor and his family. He is a talented hurdler, close to his adopted brother, embarking on a serious relationship for the first time, and suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder as a direct result of his experiences in the war. The book is a powerful reminder of the horrors many children must endure in war-torn areas of the world. There are intense segments of the book describing Abe's experiences as he struggles to face what he saw and did. The subject matter is haunting and disturbing, however what takes away from the power this book could have is the mediocre writing. The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic and the language used by Abe and others underplays the horrors rather than intensifying the emotional impact. This is a book that should have made me cry, I wanted to love it for its powerful message and emotion, but instead I had to create the impact the author was trying to make for myself.
I enjoyed participating in judging for the tournament. I intend to read other books in the bracket and would recommnend visiting the site (linked above) to check out the other titles.
Ever since Good in Bed I have enjoyed the novels of Jennifer Weiner:
1. They take place in Philadelphia, so I get to hear about places I have been. In fact, in this book she references a stand in the Reading Terminal Market that is owned by the family of a good friend of mine.
2. She deals mainly with the lives of females as her main characters. It is always interesting to read various perspectives on the relationships between mothers and daughters, sisters, friends, etc.
3. Her topics are not sooooo trendy that the books will become dated quickly.
While I liked Then Came You, it is not my favorite of Weiner's books. The premise is that four women come together in the life of one child. One woman provides the egg, another is the surrogate, one is the mother, and the fourth is the aunt. Of course it is all much more complicated than that. I liked each of the women individually, and do enjoy books in which the perspective switches so the reader can get to know all the pertinent characters. But (obviously there was going to be a but...) I felt the idea that these four women would come together they way they did was too contrived, it just did not feel real to me.
Despite this assessment, I would still recommend the book. It has so many positive aspects relating to the individual reasons each woman becomes involved and her relationships with the people in her life who. Each of the women is likeable but realisitically flawed. Overall this is another strong story fom Weiner with fully developed female characters, I just did not care for the ending.
I finished The Help a few weeks ago, but wanted to wait until after my book club met to discuss it before blogging. I liked it about 100 times better than Wench. Sadly, I was one of two people who had finished the book in the group, so the conversation was a bit stilted.
The Help was everything Wench was not. The story was told from multiple perspectives, I cared about the characters, and there was a solid historical perspective. As I used to teach, all truly good novels that will live on beyond their time include commentary on religion, politics, economics, and society. While the society of rich/middle class white ladies in Jackson, Mississippi is the focus,the assassination of Medgar Evers takes place in the scope of the novel. The politics of a few characters who are running for state and national office is also an undercurrent. Additionally the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed "Christians" who treat the help as if they are not people touches every part of the story.
There are parts of the novel that made me angry, as they were meant to. Other parts made me cry. Any book that can truly raise the emotions of the reader is a success. As the author grew up in the area where the story takes place, I can only hope she got the historical details correct as I have no basis to judge. A non-fiction account of the same time period with interviews of both employers and employees would be a wonderful supplement to The Help.
The Help is all over the place these days in part because the movie is coming out this summer. I am a little wary about seeing it because I rarely think the movie version lives up to the book. But I will probably see it anyway as I liked the book enough to want to see the characters come alive, especially Miss Celia and Minny who were my favorites.
So far, I have read two novels by Kate Morton. The first was The Forgotten Garden, which I did not read all that long ago, but did not blog about for some reason. Maybe the I needed to wait for the impact of the second book I have read called The House at Riverton. The books are not related to each other, but I did read Morton's second book first. I think though I may have liked her first better, which I finished this morning in my jammies because I could not wait to find out how it would turn out. I went as long as I could last night, but my eyes just would not stay open for another moment. There is a third book called The Distant Hours, which I have placed on hold at the library.
All three of these books deal with family mysteries. The Forgotten Garden switches back and forth from the present of a young woman who has lost her husband and child in a car accident. After her grandmother dies Cassandra seeks to solve the mystery of her families origins. The story moves in to the past as Morton allows us to discover the clues along with Cassandra. While pieces of the mystery come out quite early one, the last one does not click in to place until the very end. In this way, the reader may feel like she has it all figured out, but does not. The main character in the past is a children's book writers who is herself adrift without family support. I read this on the recommendation of an English teacher friend who liked the inclusion of a literary mystery along with the family mystery. The garden is also a bit reminiscient of Frances Hodgeson Burnett's The Secret Garden.
The House at Riverton kept reminding me of Masterpiece's wonderful mini-series Downton Abbey because of the inclusion of the perspective of the servants in a grand English home. The novel begins just before the start of World War I but is told by Grace who is now 98 years old looking for someone to whom to tell her story before all the secrets of the Hartford family are lost with her. She chooses to record her message on tapes she sends to her grandson whose whereabouts are unknown to her and his mother, though he sends postcards. Grace began as a housemaid at Riverton, but by the time she left service she was a ladies maid to Hannah Hartford, the eldest daughter in the family. It is difficult to talk about this book and The Forgotten Garden without giving away any of the mystery. One of the strongest elements of the book besides the characterization is the attention to detail when describing the time. I love historical fiction of this time period; so much changed in the way people lived and saw their place in the world because of World Wars I and II. So much of our modern sensibilities were formed by these incredibly destructive experiences. One can read history books to review the facts, but biographies and historical fiction are the only way to understand what people's lives were like if you are not able to speak with someone who lived through it all.
I am looking forward to the third book hoping for more of Morton's attention to detail and vivid portrayals of the way people are affected by history.
A friend recently told me she liked Eugenides from Turner's The Queen's Thief series so much she would marry him. Now, after having read the first two books in the (so far) four book series, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia I would not go that far, but he is admirable. I bought The Thief at a used book store almost a year ago. It was a Newbery Honor book, so I figured it would be good even if i did not love it. This book was published in 1996 when I was in a YA literature slump...basically I had no idea there was such a section in the bookstore/library. Now I find myself having to catch up on all the fantastic books I missed. Recently-ish there has been all sorts of uproar from fans of the series because the 4th book, A Conspiracy of Kings was released (March 2010). Rumor has it there may be more books on the way. I have both The King of Attolia and A Conspiracy of Kings available to read (I checked them out of my own library for the summer.), but I am going to take a break after the first two. As much as I like to be able to stay immersed in a world by reading all the books in a series right in a row, I think there is also something to be said for spacing out the enjoyment. Enough of my rambling. With Turner we again have an author who trusts in the intelligence of her readers. These books are complicated in their plotting with lots of political maneuvering and royal machinations. (I was determined to get that word in here...it is one of my favorites. It is fun to say, try it.) A reader really has to pay attention to keep up with the twists and turns. Each of the main characters is well drawn and even in only two books I feel like I am beginning to understand them. Watching the various rulers and their advisers plot and plan is fascinating, I would clearly be no good at ruling a country. Because of the various plot intricacies, I would not necessarily recommend this series for young kids. Tweens, teens, and adults who like this type of intrigue along with a dash of fantasy and romance are the best audience.
I know I lamented in a recent post that I was waaaayy down on the waiting list for this book at the library, but I put myself on the list in the other library system to which I have access and quickly found myself on the top of the list. I finished the book moments ago and rushed to the computer to write this review, which sadly is not going to be as positive as for Clare's other books in the Mortal Instruments series.
It just felt like she was trying too hard. The series had ended as a trilogy and for whatever reasons, that are obviously unknown to me, Clare went ahead and wrote a 4th book for the trilogy. (Yep, I said tri-logy.) She has also embarked upon another series: Infernal Devices, which has some overlapping characters with Mortal Devices.
MINI SPOILER ALERT: In City of Fallen Angels everyone is back from Idris and the battle with Valentine and his son Sebastian (Jonathan). Now that Clary and Jace can be together you would think the angst levels would be down, but not so....always a big fat wrench in the cogs of love. Vampire Simon and some of his werewolf buddies take center stage in this tale. While the adults have always been bit players in the stories, they move even farther into the background here. The two things I think bothered me the most are the contrived plot and excessive teen angst. Is it not enough to be a teen vampire, werewolf, Shadowhunter etc. without also being riddled by guilt, self-doubt, general mopeiness? While I realize this may be an attempt to make the characters more accessible to teens, I for one like to read fantasy because the characters are unlike me.
The book ends with a clear lead in for another in the series. It should be a few months before it is available since the second in the Infernal Devices series is due out in December. I will give the 5th book in the trilogy a try before I give up, but I have high hopes for more like the first 3: less angst, more action and adventure.
So I have a lot more time on my hands in the summer, so in addition to all the projects I put off during the school year, I am also doing a lot of reading.
In the past few days I have read Withering Tights by Louise Rennison, Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, and City of Ashes, City of Glass, and Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare.
I loved Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson series, which begins with Angus, Thongs, and Full Frontal Snogging. I therefore had high expectations for her new character Tallulah in Withering Tights. I was not disappointed. Tallulah is spending her summer in Yorkshire at a performing arts school to which she may earn full-time admission if she does well at the camp. Unfortunately Tallulah does not have any formal performing arts training or talent. She is of course zany and funny, similar to her cousin Georgia, but not too similar; I am pleased that Rennison did not create a carbon copy of Georgia. Tallulah makes friends, meets some boys (of course) and ultimately has a fantastic summer stretching her talents to fit her long legs and knobbly knees. There are of course loads of Bronte references throughout, which may make some teens go out an read Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. I am looking forward to the next book which is coming out in the UK in February and will hopefully come here soon afterwards.
I have loved everything I have read by Libba Bray. What I like best about her is the wide variety of genres she covers. A Great and Terrible Beauty and its sequels are solidly fantasy with a touch of romance. Going Bovine is mostly drama, and Beauty Queens is unequivocally satire. And that is why it is brilliant. A plane full of teen beauty queens crashes on a deserted island hilarity and satire of everything from beauty pagents to presidential elections to reality TV ensue. As the girls learn to survive in a world where the pressures of beauty are gone we get to know each of the surviving contestants through her actions and interactions as well as delightful "Miss Teen Dreams Fun Facts" pages inserted between the chapters. Unsurprisingly the girls grow strong physically and mentally and form significant bonds with each other and their own ambitions and dreams. It really is a good story of feminine strength mixed with pokes at female stereotypes and expectations. One of my favorite aspects of the book is Bray's assumption that her teen readers are intelligent. Much of the satire is subtle, but she does not stoop to explain it all, she trusts her readers will understand and appreciate her digs. I like books that do not spoon feed teens and these types of books help make the case that YA literature can be as rich and literary as the classics.
Totally different are the books by Cassandra Clare...after the first of the Mortal Instruments series City of Bones I found myself 4th on the waiting list at the library for the 2nd book. Unable to wait I bought City of Ashes while on a business trip to Philadelphia. Luckily book 3, City of Glass was available at the library just as I was finishing 2. Ironically, the dust jacket of 3 states "final book in the trilogy" yet book 4 has recently been released....hmmm. I do not mind and am eager to read it, sadly though I am 24th on the waiting list as of yesterday. What makes these books so good is a strong female protagonist, an interesting hidden world of Shadowhunters (part angel demon catchers), Downworlders (vampires, werewolves, and the fey) and mundanes (regular ole people), and non-stop action. I have also read the first book in the next series (Infernal Devices) Clockwork Angel, which takes place in the same world, but before the time of the Mortal Instruments series. The premise of all the books is unique, the characters well-developed, andthe action precise.
I liked the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series as well as The Three Willows, a book for tweens more than teens. Sisterhood Everlasting is the first adult book I have read by Brashares. And yes, it is an adult book, but it is clearly aimed at all the girls who read about the sisterhood when they were teens and have themselves become twenty-somethings. I am a bit older than that, but can remember my 27-self well. Ann Brashares is not likely to be recognized with a Pulitzer or Nobel, but her books are solidly written, with few to no holes or implausibilities. What she does is make the reader feel what her characters feel, something I am highly susceptible to, so I laughed out loud a few times, garnering odd looks from my boyfriend who does not understanding my immersion in books. and cried some other times. I enjoy finding out what has happened to characters...later. I do not need to be there for every tiny step, but it is satisfying to come back to characters you liked the first time around. This is not a fluffy beach read, but it does still feel like a summer book and it moves quickly and switches from girl to girl...they begin the book together and each appropriately walk their own path until they come back to each other in the end.
I like Brashares because she reminds us about the strength of female friendships, the importance of love, the power of grief, the need for connections and all those other things we know, but need to be told again from time to time. There are no great revelations about life in this novel, but sometimes the comfort of familiar characters just living is exactly what we need.
