Thursday, October 31, 2024

2024 #46 The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (McBride)

 

The Heaven & Earth Grocery StoreThe Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Honestly a 3.75 for me, but with some really strong sections between 4-5 stars. That's my biggest issue with the book--unevenness. Some of the characters are so well written: Moshe, Chona, Dodo, and even "Monkey Pants." There are everyday heroes and everyday criminals and that seems to be a lot of the point. In a small town in Pennsylvania people are living their stories as they intersect with ethnic and racial tensions that range from making assumptions to violence. The book dragged in places for me--I did not find Fatty and Big Soap as compelling as Nate, Paper, and some of the other sundry personalities. McBride town-builds (as opposed to world-builds) and does so very effectively. I just struggled with being teased by one thread only to have it supplanted by another less interesting one.

What is important, however, is that the book really drives home that the world (and race relations) is NOT black and white. People have intersectional identities that both enrich and complicate their narratives, and McBride zooms in on a town that acts as a microcosm of this more general truth. The "guy next door" is always going to be a lot of things, and how we bear witness to each other things makes (and sometimes breaks) a community.

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2024 #44 Our Missing Hearts (Ng)

 

Our Missing HeartsOur Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Nonsense, mystery, and magic." The mainstays of childhood. Or so they should be. In Celeste Ng's dystopic not-so-distant-future novel, stories and poems figure heavily in the fight against tyranny. The novel is beautiful and distressing all at once. Rather than solely focused on the political, Ng crafts her tale around 12 year old Bird (aka Noah), whose mother has seemingly abandoned him in the wake of the Crisis, to live in a campus dorm with his father who works at the university library as a clerk, although he had recently been a professor. One is swiftly aware that life under PACT (Preserving American Cultures and Traditions) has come with many terrors and secrets, not least of which is children who have gone missing. Strange artistic forms of protest begin to appear, resistance in the form of yarn and hearts.

"They [the police] are equipped for violence, but not for this" the narrator tells us as the police stand around a tree that has been wrapped in red yarn.

The most impactful dystopias are those that are not a far reach from our realities--ones where we can say "It CAN happen here." While there are moments where the backstory of the poem (All Our Missing Hears), in particular, got a bit heavy-handed (hits you over the head with the message and drags on a bit), the book is full of grace and small acts of heroism that blossom into resistance. But it is also about people and relationships. For once, I loved the ending, as it was real in feeling and drove home the point of the book better than some of the more obvious attempts at a cautionary tale. And yes, librarians might save the world.

Lucy Liu's reading was near perfect -- without caricature, but just subtle enough to clearly define the individual characters.

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Monday, October 21, 2024

2024 #43 Yesternight (Winters)

 

YesternightYesternight by Cat Winters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Slow in the beginning, but it picks up quite a bit of speed. What was refreshing in the audiobook (and the print version, I suppose, since some of it is the language) is that the characters have modern relevance--there is no false 1920s affect--they are just people living their lives. Rebecca and Michael, for example, could easily be a twenty-first century pair of exes. Voiced by Xe Sands, with only a bit of artifice when it came to the male voices, the story traces the journey(s) of Alice Lind, a young itinerant child psychologist whose assigned to administer psychological tests to school children. In the small coastal town of Gordon Bay, Oregon, she encounters seven-year-old Janie O'Daire, a math genius who holds secrets and truths that force Alice to confront her own assumptions and beliefs.

Certainly it is a haunting tale, and the subtext of Alice's challenges as a woman in male-dominated field sometimes comes crashing through without subtlety, but it does help shape her character. I found some of the descriptive detail superfluous, ranging from an obsession with the weather to a rather graphic encounter in a hotel room, made tedious because I didn't much care for either character enough to be privy to their intimacy.

That the ending is unresolved and we are left wondering what the future holds was actually refreshing. There are a few annoyances around the name "Nel" and at least one of the possibilities doesn't even seem to be an intentional red herring (Eleanor - "Nell"). That's not really a spoiler. There's also an exponential increase in speed in the last quarter of the book, which I found a bit aggravating. Having invested so much in Alice, her story moved far too quickly for me once Janie's was "settled."

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Friday, October 11, 2024

2024 #42: Do Not Disturb (McFadden)

 

Do Not DisturbDo Not Disturb by Freida McFadden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Honestly more of a 2.5 - 2.75 for me. For the first 25 chapters I kept thinking, "Psycho called and wants its story back." I'm all for troping the classics, but it didn't feel clever or original enough to be an interesting take on Psycho, OR, as was often the case with the wonderful TV series Supernatural a tongue-in-cheek parody, which I would also have welcomed. That said, for such a quick listen, I wasn't about to declare it DNF, and was happy that things started to take a turn in Chapter 26. But then....things got a bit wonky--as if the plot was being improvised on the spot. I've read other reviews applauding the "twists and turns" and for me it felt more like a windy road under construction with detours that warranted other detours, until finally arriving at an "Epilogue" which reveals a major plot point, and somehow inexplicably turns it into part of a happy ending tied up with a bow. The detours also don't explain the road we start on when Claudia is first narrating, unless I missed something. I'm just not clear on how a character can narrate actions in one way, only to have them be something else. And I'm being intentionally vague here so I don't give any spoilers. The reason given for the "something else" was all fine and good, but that reason wouldn't cover the early Claudia chapters. Also, loose ends---just one, but I'm unclear on Naomi's raison d'être. There were also long tedious passages that read like the author had attended a writing workshop focused on scenic description of the banal --who knew a TV antenna warranted so much prose? See also: wet socks.

Now, adding to the problems is the audiobook narration. A random chapter given over to a presumably male actor was weird and jarring after habituating Holly Adams's "male" voices. I found her voicing of Quinn to be very grating (and I know I'm not alone in this), and as others have noted, there was a very unique pronunciation of "masseuse" that was not French, nor was it even Franglish. That, however, was a very small issue. Also, Greta, described in the narration as having a "very slight accent" sounded like every stereotypical depiction of a Romani fortune teller since the dawn of depiction of fortune tellers.

I kept listening partially out of incredulity and morbid curiosity. The major plot twist was more like a restart, and the epilogue was cloying, and ultimately rather disturbing. I'm not sure I could come away liking a single character in the story, with maybe the exception of Scott, but everyone seems to have a pretty broken moral compass. I've read reviews that say many of the author's other books are better and I will be happy to try another because I did get a sense that she has some good ideas and writes vivid characters (even if they all wind up rather unlikeable). I'm also going to read the next one in print, because I feel the issues with the audiobook tarnished the experience. But it was a freebie on Audible, so...I'm not sad I tried it!

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Sunday, October 6, 2024

2024 #41: A Morbid Taste for Bones - Brother Cadfael #1 (Peters)

 

A Morbid Taste for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #1)A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Given that I'm generally a fan of monastic medieval mysteries, I'm not sure why it has taken me this long to finally read Cadfael! Perhaps I was unduly biased against Derek Jacobi's rarely smiling face in the promotions for the TV series in the 90s. My mother pushed me toward Peter Tremayne's (aka Peter Ellis -- now THAT's confusing/strange) Sister Fidelma series, which I love, but somehow did not seem interested in Cadfael. I'm going to guess renegade Celtic nun beat out male Crusader-turned-monk in my mother's hierarchy of protagonists/sleuths.

I adored it--the audiobook, narrated by Patrick Tull, was wonderful in picking up the subtle wit of Cadfael's thoughts and generally didn't feel it necessarily to inject gendered artifice into the voicings, relying more upon character differentiation. Many of the characters were surprisingly loveable -- including the good-natured and impish Brother John, and Father Huw--the parish priest at Gwytherin. I also appreciated that it was four chapters before anyone died (it is a mystery, so that's not a spoiler!) It did make it a bit predictable as to who would be the victim, but it was refreshing to have so much character building first. I might quibble with the end -- a bit too much effort to ensure we get closure on the various subplots, but it is a small quibble. The pro-Welsh quips and writing of scenic detail more than make up for it. I'm excited to read the rest of the series (finally!)

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2024 #40: A Gentleman in Moscow (Towles)

 

A Gentleman in MoscowA Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you told me that I would come to love a 462-page novel about an aristocrat held under house arrest in a luxury hotel in Moscow, I probably would have been skeptical at best -- visions of Eloise with a "touch" of Solzhenitzyn? How strange. But given the wide variety of personalities belonging to the myriad friends who recommended this book, I finally dug in courtesy of my local public library network.

I was charmed by Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who has been in exile in Paris, only to be arrested upon his return to the mother country after the Bolshevik revolution. It is the arrest that starts the narrative, and Towles artfully employs flashbacks to fill in the backstory of the Count. According to Wikipedia, the formal structure of the novel is what we might call arch form in music -- the time intervals between each chapter double until we reach sixteen years later, and then it reverses, with the time intervals halving (16, 8, 4, etc...) until the final day. I will confess I did not notice this, nor have I confirmed it (having returned the book to the library), but if it is true, it is just one more delightful aspect of this subtle and enthralling book.

Yes, indeed -- perhaps subtly enthralling might be a better description. A few chapters in I was healthily invested, marveling that there were so many pages to go and yet very little had happened. But then we meet Nina, and Towles writes one of the most wonderful relationships between adult and child I've ever read. We don't need third person narration to see what happens to the Count. And what is so wonderful is that this is not a cliché tale of a child warming the stone-cold heart of the cantankerous adult. The Count is seemingly a constant model of affability and good cheer, taking his (relative) misfortune in stride, finding comfort in routine, books, food, wine and the ordinary miracles of the everyday. The relationship reminded me of one of my other favorite books (The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery), although Nina is far less precocious than Paloma , and the Count has social graces absent from Barbery's genius-in-disguise, Renée Michel.

While 98% of the novel takes place in the hotel, we see the Metropol as few do, courtesy of a "borrowed" key and later, as the Count takes up a job in the hotel. Without resorting to maudlin sentimentality, there are some significant shifts in the plot that other writers might lean into, but Towles casts both the dramatic and the mundane through the eyes of the Count, who remains even-keeled and debonaire, but NOT--and this important--NOT aloof. That's what makes him such a wonderful character. He is invested in loving what (and whom) there is to love. By the time we get to the "intrigue" of Book Five, we are already on board with wherever Towles wants to take us -- a planning meeting with the head chef Emile and the maître d' Andrey, or a meetup with the actress Anna Urbanova, or a game of "Zut" with Sofia--and we barely notice the shift into a different genre!

This book is, in short, a piece of art. It deserves to be read even by those who don't think they will enjoy it. Yes, it is literary--allusions and references abound -- to Russian literature, world history, and the movie Casablanca. It is not plot-driven until the last part of the book, but instead an opportunity to read beautifully rendered characters--even the antagonist (such as he is) is entertaining seen through the Count's general bemusement (and occasional amusement). Unlike other books garnering a five star review from me, this wasn't a book I "couldn't put down" but more of a book I "had to pick back up." I only read a few pages at a time (largely because I read before bed and I'm middle-aged), but I always looked forward to tuning in the next night. I was disappointed to say goodbye to the Count, but also pleasantly sated--a rare feeling with books these days.


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Friday, October 4, 2024

2024 #39 A Court of Thorns and Roses (Maas)

 

A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Definitely an entertaining ride, with some interesting world-building. I found myself enjoying the evil characters the most, or at least the "good" ones who had an edge to their personality (like Lucien and Alis, and even Night Court guy*). Feyre reminds me a bit of Lyra from Pullman's His Dark Materials series, but her pendulum swinging between totally trusting and ferociously suspicious started to wear me down.

Some of it felt a bit cliché, capitalizing on well-worn tropes of snobby sisters**, high fae and various curses. Tamlin's curse was WAY too specific and seemed to function as a scapegoat for the plot. I got tired of the reliance on glamours. And while I know the genre has its fans of the bodice-ripping passionate scenes, that's really not my thing. Particularly when they walk a VERY fine line when it comes to consent. 

I was mildly annoyed at the naming of the puka/pooka (audiobook, sorry) --- that's what you call a cute furry animal, not an evil thing.

I am glad I checked it out because I have so many friends who really loved it. I might even check out the next in the series because there are certain characters I'd love to see again. Ikeda's reading was quite solid and engaging.

*Disadvantage of the audiobook --- I have to look up spellings. Unfortunately, when I looked up Feyre, I got a major spoiler (although it became obvious before it actuallyhappens in the narrative), so I am not looking up how to spell "Reese/Rhys?" Hence, Night Court guy.

**Yes, I know that one takes an interesting turn, but I was so annoyed by her character I didn't care by the time we got there.

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