Fiction | A V. Disappointing Jonesy Reunion

Helen Fielding reboots the saga of her famous Bridget Jones with a third installment called Mad About the Boy. It's been quite a while since we've heard from Bridget; The Edge of Reason (the second installment) was published 15 years ago, though we've seen her more recently thanks to the 2004 movie adaptation.

Bridget's story doesn't just pick up where it last left off; instead, Mad About the Boy starts with just about as much time having passed in Bridget's world as in ours. She's no longer a 30-something hot mess navigating life as a single lady. Now, she's a 51-year-old hot mess, once again looking for love but this time with two kids in tow.

Now, my last few posts have been pretty verbose, so I'm just going to sum this one up as succinctly and bluntly as possible.

Our beloved 30-something Bridget was generally a ridiculous human being in the most lovably flawed way. She was constantly trying to figure out how to succeed at work and how to succeed with relationships—the pressures to be your age, as a real grownup, though it's just not happening for you so you keep on drinking the cheap wine of your youth. She was entertaining and mostly relatable.

Now the 50-something Bridget has the money and luxuries of someone who has matured personally and professionally over the past 15 years...but she is still as laughably immature, only now it's not very funny. Now, Bridget just needs a good kick in the pants and be told to GROW UP, because she's not living or dealing the way someone with her responsibility should be. It's like she's holding on to the poor decisions of her youth when she should really know better. And with the annoyingly excessive references to Twitter and other pieces of "young and modern" technology and society, everything about this book just feels like it was trying too hard to do something that didn't need to be done in the first place. Like really, this is how you revive your most beloved character, Fielding??

I will leave you with my own modified haiku:

Like Sex and the City 2
I find this book
Wholly unnecessary.

Reading Roundup: Women's Fiction

I remember how huge Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap was when it first came out; this was a book that women came to Sunday School talking about, read during the week, and passed along to another reader the next Sunday. I maintain that in the year 2000, word of mouth had spread Big Stone Gap through women's circles of probably many southern church communities. Well, I guess I was just 14 years behind schedule.

Ave Maria Mulligan is our unconventional narrator—at least, unconventional by the standards of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. She's 35 and unmarried and is such a part of the town that, as the pharmacist, knows just how to handle everyone's little eccentricities. Her life never seemed unpredictable but suddenly it's like the stars are out of line and everything new is happening at once, offering Ave Maria new opportunities she never even imagine. I guess I have to go with the church ladies on this one; wonderfully quirky and lighthearted with a main character to root for—I can understand the mass appeal, because you just want to see where Ave Maria's life leads her. Fortunately for me now in 2014, the success of this one did lead to three more in the series!

So Beth Patillo's Jane Austen Ruined My Life is one I would maaaaybe consider more as "chick-lit" than "women's fiction," because it's really just a romance at its root. But hey, we're a judgment-free zone on this blog, and chick-lit is definitely fine by me! (Although, I will complain if some of their premises are just ridiculous!!) Also to note, this book is the first in Patillo's series of Austen-inspired novels, but they're each an independent story, not a continuous series.

In Jane Austen Ruined My Life, Emma is an English professor that has just been discredited both personally and professionally—her god of a professor husband has just cheated on her and subsequently that "other woman," formerly her own TA, has accused Emma of stealing work and calling it her own. To escape, Emma heads to a cousin's in the London suburbs to regroup and try and find the famed but elusive lost letters of Jane Austen. If you've read any amount of chick-lit, you can probably figure out how the plot is going to go, but it's quick and enjoyable, and the extra mystery of Jane Austen letters is intriguing. Plus, Patillo has a nice, conversational writing style that is lighthearted and not obnoxious.

My favorite of this batch was an NPR-featured book, The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore. This story follows three friends—Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean—from their adolescent life in the 60s to their middle-aged present. They've always lived in their same Indiana town with the one constant in their life being Earl's diner, where you can find them in their same booth every Sunday for lunch.

Though I wasn't very impressed with this at the beginning, I got so into it that I read the whole thing in about a day. The characters are wonderful; Odette, Clarice, and Barbara Jean are so incredibly different from each other, and Moore, thankfully, treats them equally, giving life to all three of his characters in vivid detail. The storytelling is compelling with perspective hopping from past memory to present-day, giving the reader the insight needed to understand the depth of Moore's "Supremes." It's obviously a character-driven, rather than plot-driven, story, and the best kind where you barely care what it is that happens because the entertainment is in reading how your characters deal with it. I find it amazing how well this male author voiced three very distinct women characters! The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat tells the story of very normal things happening to very normal (but extraordinary, lovable) individuals with humor, wit, and a lot of heart—much more than just a "fun" read.

Reading Roundup: Sweeping Sagas

Because it's probably hard to keep track of my reading tastes from 4 years of random blog posts, I'm just gonna state as a fact that I love sweeping historical fiction sagas. Love 'em. I will devour them. And because such novels are often chunksters, not only are the stories enjoyable, they feel extra rewarding when you finally get through them! I've read a couple lately that I'd recommend to any other fan of such types of books.

The first is another Rosamunde Pilcher pick, Winter Solstice. As I've posted before, she has become one of my favorite authors I would've never picked up, because, if you remember, she was cursed with a publicity department that made all her book covers look like romance novels. And not that there's anything wrong with that genre, it just scares off some folks and is also deceptive...these aren't romance novels!

The main character of Winter Solstice is the middle-aged Elfrida Phipps who's just moved to the quaint village of Hampshire and befriended a local family—Oscar, a retired musician, his wife Gloria, and their preteen daughter Francesca. Then we have Carrie, a young woman returning to England after the end of a relationship in Austria; and Sam, a young man returning to England after a failed marriage in New York to revive a local textile mill. Each having suffered their own tragedies, these people converge at Corrydale, a cozy old Scottish estate, where they each aim to escape and find solace.

Of course their lives intermingle as relationships form between Pilcher's characters that each have their own very different past. Creating these relationships is what Pilcher is good at. Everyone has a story, and everyone is likable; the tragedies and pitfalls are always situational, never the fault of cruelness or selfishness in others. Her stories highlight the positive attributes of people with an always optimistic tone. The endings will always be happy, so I guess in that sense, she does follow the rules of Romance. All Pilcher's novels I've read have a cozy setting, and this one particularly so—perfect for cold winter days bundled under a blanket!

The other family saga I recommend is Leila Meacham's Roses. Set in small-town Texas where cotton, timber, and textiles are in the town's very foundation, Roses tells the story of the three industries' founding families and the choices that led them where they are today.

The story opens with the last day of Mary Toliver's life, when the reader finds out a last-minute change to her will is going to bequeath her cotton empire to timber tycoon Percy Warwick instead of her niece, the always-intended successor. What follows is a decades-long history that explains Mary's decision, revealing the relationships, secrets, and tragedies that have defined the Tolivers, Warwicks, and Dumonts.

Like Winter Solstice, Roses is a chunkster, but it also reads very fast. The narrative jumps between past and present keep attention without confusing and slowly reveal new pieces to the puzzle. Mary Toliver is a really headstrong, independent, and passionate character that you want to fully understand, and you keep reading with the hope the story will help you do so. Ultimately, the story is about making choices about what's most important in your life and living with those consequences. I thought the ending wrapped up a little quickly, but it didn't detract from the reading experience before that; I wasn't ready to see the conclusion of these characters!

It's Fall! Reading Roundup: Part 1

It feels like I haven't done a reading roundup in a while because I've actually stayed on top of my review writing! I guess that is pretty representative of my summer—it was gloriously relaxed after what was a very hectic, stressful spring. WELL, it's back to a busy fall with work and class (last semester!) and too many other things on the docket that seem to keep me busy nearly every waking hour. (So maybe some of those "things" are actually just binge-watching Revenge, but it's still an important thing!) Anyway, it's time I play catch up before I get unmotivated from being too far behind...

Alice Mattison's When We Argued All Night is an epic story of friendship, following two Brooklyn boys Harold and Artie through several decades of their lives. Beginning in 1936, we meet two young men who are full of ideals, trying to find their place in world that feels chaotic. Through their personal lives (jobs and wives and children) and what's happening in the world around them (World War II, the Red Scare, and Flower Power), Harold and Artie remain each other's counterpart and confidante. Somehow.

Harold and Artie have the type of friendship that seems incredibly toxic because it's so competitive. They feud like crazy, but we have to somehow believe that their relationship behind the words the author put on the page is actually full of love and respect. I couldn't really feel it...because they were both just so selfish! I didn't find either of them very likable—their flaws were certainly apparent!—but I enjoyed the book because I liked the structure of the story. I love the multi-generational saga; I love reading about characters strongly shaped by their time. So while this book may supposed to have been about friendship, I liked the historical aspect better. Peter Lefcourt's An American Family has that same sweeping saga structure.

Evenings at the Argentine Club by Julia Amante is one of the very first books I got from a publisher as a result of this blog...which means it's been sitting on my shelf a long time! This was the perfect choice to follow When We Argued All Night because I knew it would be light, enjoyable, and really fit the mood I wanted. (Sometimes, you just have to save a book for years, waiting for the right moment to read it!) This story centers around Victoria, the eldest daughter of Argentine immigrants who have made their life in California owning a popular Argentine restaurant. Victoria has always been deeply connected to her family and culture, helping with the restaurant at the expense of her own dreams. She's never had much of a relationship; she wasn't ambitious with college; and she's never thought much about it until an old school and family friend, Eric, returns and reminds her about a life outside their close-knit Argentine community.

This actually reminded me quite a bit of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, just in terms of theme and characterization. But that's not to say this is just a re-telling of that story with a different culture. Victoria is her own character, and it's enjoyable to see her determination and success as she blossoms on her own. Definitely a quick and fun light read that's the perfect antidote to the heavier stuff.

Reading Roundup: Maybe If I Were Older...

Despite my love of Southern lit, and despite Lee Smith being a preeminent author of modern Southern lady lit, The Last Girls is actually my first encounter with any of her books. This story reunites a handful of college friends on a Mississippi River cruise, decades after their first trek down the river on a makeshift raft as young, idealistic co-eds, at the request of the husband of their recently deceased friend, Baby. It's one of those situations where completely different personalities come together because of a common bond. We meet four modern-day characters from the original gaggle of girls [there are like a dozen of them, so why do we meet only four?], and these women all have their flaws. They've lost touch; they're mostly cynical; and none seem too pleased for this reminder of their pasts.

I didn't like a single character in this book. And as a result, didn't really like this book at all. It felt like all these people had been dragged down by things in their life, when nothing really bad had happened to them to warrant such a negativity. [They're all middle class and white and probably just bored.] I think the author was trying to say a lot about life and friendships and secrets and how these things shape the person you eventually become. Maybe I just not old enough to understand and appreciate that kind of reflection, but I find it hard to believe that every single character had somehow morphed into a shell of her former, youthful self. There was such an aura of negativity that I wondered why any of them agreed to this trip in the first place. So maybe The Last Girls was not the best intro to Lee Smith. [It is, by far, her lowest rated on Goodreads.] We'll have to try again.

Russell Hoban's Turtle Diary was this month's book club pick, and while I was neutral towards it [mostly just thought it was boring], I was excited for the discussion; we have such a range of ages in our group that I knew others would be able to provide insight I never saw.

The story follows two characters—two strangers—whose lives are pushed together by the most random of situations. William G. and Neaera H. are both adults living fairly quiet, lonely lives. William was once married but now lives alone and works in a bookstore. Neaera writes children books and self-describes as a spinster without cats. They're both drawn to the turtle tank at the London zoo and become obsessed with the idea of freeing the turtles. The short chapters alternate in perspective, but their thoughts are often so similar that you forget whose thoughts you are reading.

I think that's much the point of this story. It's about these two people who feel utterly unconnected finding a connection in an unlikely place. It's not a cute story; it doesn't follow the expected trajectory of a romance. It has a lot of thoughtful musing on life and relationships; the sea turtles represent something to each of them, and that's why they find a connection there. As I was reading this, I felt too young for it. And older members of our group agreed. I think the right kind of reader can grab onto a lot in this story. There is a lot that can be taken away; maybe I just need to save it for a re-read in 2043.

[PS: You may recognize the author's name; Russell Hoban is the author of the "Frances the Badger" children's series. True classics!]

Fiction | One More Dilly Bar

Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore is the perfect light summer read that doesn't feel too fluffy. It's got more meat than your average chick-lit, but it's not too bogged down with literary drama to keep it from being enjoyable. I've had it on my list for years just because of its sweet Southern title that rolls off the tongue.

Meet Catherine Grace—daughter of a small-town preacher, smart, spunky, and dying to get out of Ringgold, Georgia. Catherine Grace has been plotting her escape for as long as she can remember, making plans over Dilly Bars at the local Dairy Queen with her sister Martha Ann. The two sisters live with their father, the local Baptist preacher; their mother drowned when the girls were young. Catherine Grace's only connection left with her mother is Gloria Jean, a neighbor and good friend of the girls' mother who helps Catherine Grace plot her escape as soon as she turns 18.

When her eighteenth birthday rolls around, Catherine Grace's bags are already packed. She heads to Atlanta to start a new life, because, at the root of it, she just can't understand how anyone can be happy stuck in Ringgold, Georgia. In Atlanta, Catherine Grace gets settled in a new job and a great place to live. Having worked so hard to escape home, it's only fitting that she gets dragged back by a family emergency and once there, gets some news that rocks her world. Faced with home and family or the life she made for herself, Catherine Grace must decide where she fits and which place feels more like home.

Ultimately, this book is about family, and everything that comes with it—love and mistakes and forgiveness. It's about home and figuring out where that is and what it means. Catherine Grace follows the same path that many people do—belittling a town she hates and all the people in it, only to realize there's nothing actually inferior about it (or them). She was a protagonist to cheer on, understanding her mistakes are the most human of human mistakes as she tries to figure out her place in the world. Gloria Jean is the most refreshing, heart-warming character as one who knows her faults but lives and loves anyway.

I recommend this as a good summer read, and if you enjoy, follow-up with these titles for a similar reading experience: One, Two, Three, Four

Book Tour: The Mermaid of Brooklyn

If I was planning on having children anytime in the near future (disclaimer: I am not), Amy Shearn's The Mermaid of Brooklyn would make me seriously rethink that decision. And, actually, is making me reconsider having children ever.

The story's main character, Jenny Lipkin, is one of those Park Slope stereotypes that most of New York City usually speaks of with disdain. (That's my characterization, because that is how it is in real life.) She was a successful magazine editor who just decided to give up her career to have kids and stay home and raise them. Thus she becomes part of the Park Slope Bubble, spending days within a 5 block radius of home, where neighborhood politics gain a little too much importance—it's almost like high school again, stuck in this small insular community where the smallest gossip inevitably gets blown out of proportion because there is nothing better to do and this small world becomes your ENTIRE LIFE and you think everything else in the neighborhood, in the CITY, revolves around you.

Ok, so now do you understand the type of world Jenny's living in?

On top of that, her husband went out for cigarettes one night and just never came back. So now Jenny's stuck with two small children, her only support system being in-laws that she's never felt completely welcome around and her best mom-friend in the neighborhood. Jenny also appears to have a history with post-partum depression, though it's never overtly identified or explored. When Jenny's driven to the edge, she does the unthinkable and jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Except she survives. And when floating there under the waters of the East River (gross), her body becomes inhabited by a mermaid that brings her back to life, puts her on a train back to Park Slope, and helps Jenny put her life back together. But this mermaid bit isn't really the main point of the story—don't worry, it's not that much fantasy. It's more about the situation Jenny is faced with and how she copes.

This was an odd book for someone my age and in my situation. I live in NYC and can understand Jenny's feeling of isolation 100%. I loved how she observed her own community with such a grain of salt, understanding "this place is ridiculous, but somehow I became a part of it and now it is my life." What I can't relate to, though, is the isolation that comes with having children. I'm sure it's one of those things you don't understand until you experience it, but Jenny frustrated me often because she was just so whiny, woe is me, no one understands my pain, self-absorbed. She focused on surviving but in the most noxious way possible, with a mentality of "I don't deserve this" rather than "I can get through this." For that, I failed to garner too much sympathy for her.

The pacing of this is slow as you become absorbed in Jenny's small little world. And as you read, you're left questioning the validity of much of the story. Did things happen? Is this all metaphorical? Does it even matter? Shearn has chosen an interesting way to tell a story that will connect with many readers—many mothers—who have probably felt very close to the edge one time or another. And so because I haven't felt that, I'm not totally sure what to take away from the end, if anything. Maybe someone who has been there, done that would finish the last page and say, "YES." But I was just sorta left with, "Okaaaaay...."

This would be a great book for a book club of ladies who can relate, because it has many discussion points. No issue is too obvious; they are presented subtly or somewhat hidden beneath layers. It would be a good one to explore with a group.

This post is a stop on The Mermaid of Brooklyn's TLC Book Tour! There will be many more fabulous bloggers posting their opinions in the next two weeks; the tour runs through May 3rd—visit the tour page to see the schedule and follow the discussion.

Fiction | Tales from the Typing Pool

On February 14, 1953, Valentine's Day, Caroline Bender received a dozen long-stemmed red roses from Paul Landis with a humorous card. Mary Agnes Russo received a box of chocolates in a heart-shaped red box trimmed with white paper lace from her fiance Bill. Gregg Adams didn't know it was Valentine's Day because she had a hang-over and she was trying to revive herself sufficiently to attend a general audition for the ingenue lead in a forthcoming Broadway play, a role requiring a girl with clear eyes and a winningly fresh face. Barbara Lemont stopped on her way to work to buy some heart-shaped candies for her daughter Hillary. And April Morrison fainted on the sidewalk in front of Rockefeller Plaza.

Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything is sort of considered a best-selling classic. I read it once back in high school when it had a first "resurgence" as a readalike for fans of Sex and the City—independent women surviving in the big city...ok, I can see it. It's had a more recent second resurgence as a readalike for Mad Men—different appeal factor (historical setting) but still relevant. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was reminded of this book by a Mad Men list on NPR long ago, but it actually took NINE MONTHS of waiting on the NYPL hold queue to finally get this book. (Note to NYPL: consider purchasing additional copies, also because the single one in your system is completely falling apart.)

Though I had read this before, I remembered nothing from it except that I was pretty sure I liked it the first time around. The Best of Everything is set in 1950s New York City and focuses on the often-overlapping lives of five young women. They can all be considered "modern" women, because they're in their early- to mid-twenties...and not married. They've chosen, for one reason or another, to join the work force, and it is that one you often see on Mad Men—secretaries in typing pools. In this case, it's a publishing house that bring these girls together.

What really gives the characters some depth is that they're going against the grain for women of the era. but they're not necessarily okay with it. For some, it's not so much a choice to be single and working, rather a necessity—or at least a natural consequence—of some past experience. Caroline's fiance broke off their engagement; Barbara has divorced her husband and is raising their young daughter. While being a single girl in the city is beyond common—maybe even the standard—in today's society, all of these characters are experiencing life at a time when the norms are changing but haven't quite changed yet. There's a lot of conflict and tension you can feel between these girls and the world they live in. They're not quite sure where they fit in, and you, the reader, start to feel a little out of place as well.

However, don't get the impression that all of these characters are all strong, independent women that deserve resounding applause. Sometimes, they are terrible. And pathetic. And you want to yell at them because they're actually taking a step backwards for women everywhere. But one of the fascinating things about this book is how relatable it can be. In this regard, it is sort of like Sex and the City, because something that someone does is probably going to strike a chord. As Jaffe was writing this, she shared pages with girls like her characters who were dying to read more, because finally, this was a story that felt true to their own lives.

So while you can finish this and say, "Thank god I don't have to live in a world with such expectations," the relationships, the loneliness, the uncertainties, and conflict between self and society—and all the emotions involved in finding one's place—are still there. And you realize, there are more commonalities than you may want to admit!

Fiction | Rosamunde Pilcher Is Beach Reading At Its Finest

Last summer when I was on vacation, I read Rosamunde Pilcher's Coming Home. The cover really looks like it's a romance novel, but I assure you that it is not! Not that I minded that so much, though, because the cover just made it look like the perfect beach read that it was.

Last month when I was visiting home in Nashville and took a trip to McKay's, I was determined to pick up another Pilcher book—any Pilcher book—for another great summer read. I opted for September, which was written five years before Coming Home but takes place about 40 years after and has equally as awful of a cover.

It is NOT an awful book, though! September takes place in the lush green landscape of Scotland sometime around what I can determine to be the 1980s. (It was written in 1990 and the narrative sounds rather 'present' as opposed to 'past'.) Supposedly this is a very loose follow-up to her most popular, The Shell Seekers, but from what I've gathered, it only really has one character that sort of overlaps.

The Scotland in this story is one that still holds tradition close, especially in the upper echelon of society. It's early summer in a rural Scottish town, and head matriarch, Violet Aird, is helping a neighbor plan a great big party for her daughter. Violet's son Edmund is a businessman often away working, while his much-younger wife Virginia spends her days around the estate, caring for their 8-year-old son. Longtime friends of the Airds, Isobel and Archie (aka Lord Balmerino) are technically "rulers" of the land and estate, but declining income has brought them down to middle class, requiring them to open their home to vacationers during tourist season. Meanwhile, Edmund's daughter Alexa has finally found a boyfriend in London (Noel Keeling; here's where Shell Seekers comes in!); Archie's free-spirited sister is debating a return to Scotland after decades away; and a mental patient returning home unnerves the entire family.

The great thing about this Pilcher book, like the last one I read, is that the tiny details don't really matter. Pilcher writes with a style—a sweeping family narrative that has just the right amount of sentiment and drama; it's never over the top with one or the other. You don't need the details to get sucked in, and, frankly, you'll probably forget most of them once you've finished. But with Pilcher, you don't need to remember the details; the process of reading her books is simply enjoyable, and they have enough heft to keep you satisfied for a while. If you don't even remember the characters' names a week after turning the last page, you'll at least recall, "Oh, I really enjoyed reading that. I should read more."


**Note: The non-romance-y, legit-looking covers of several Pilcher books come from a 2005 re-issue by British publisher Hodder. This now makes sense why I can't find them anywhere (yet, why are they default cover on Goodreads??).

Reading Roundup: Eclectic set of fiction

October is here in full force, and it's already been a busy one! I spent six days in Nashville, wrote a paper for class, sped through my book club book, and celebrated my birthday—all in the past ten days! Thus, a reading roundup is necessary to get myself caught up and let you guys know what I've been reading!

I checked out Beth Hoffman's Saving CeeCee Honeycutt from the library and downloaded to my eReader for a day at the beach day back during Labor Day weekend (so long ago!). In case you don't recall, it got quite a bit of buzz in the blogosphere back in the Spring of last year. Well, I finally got around to reading it! It was perfect for a beach read, because I read the whole thing in about 5 hours sitting in the sun.

Twelve-year-old CeeCee has a big burden on her shoulders, and that burden is her mother. With a distant father that's always traveling for work, CeeCee has become the main caretaker of her crazy mother—a woman who thinks she's winning a Georgia beauty pageant in 1951, even though it's 1967 and they're in Ohio. After tragedy strikes, CeeCee finds herself living in Savannah with a great-aunt where she can finally be the one looked after, instead of doing the looking after. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt is sort of a coming-of-age tale for CeeCee as she adjusts to her new life in a new part of the country, new social issues, new relationships, and finally has room to discover herself.

The cast of characters was amusing and diverse in scope, and this was an enjoyable read—great for the beach. And...just that. I bet it was a big book club choice for 40-something Southern women. Similar to The Help in that it has a real easy writing style, reflects that Southern vibe, and sorta touches on social issues but not in a really gritty, intense, profound literary way. In that way, it makes both these books and any similar seem kinda formulaic. But I mean, I still enjoyed it.

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The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy was a book that I've been wanting to read for months (maybe even a couple years?) and just never got around to it. Finally after one book club meeting, I decided to buy it on a wine-influenced whim (is that why wine is served at our meetings?). I read Dundy's other novel, The Old Man and Me, last year, and supposedly The Dud Avocado is the better one (though they both have their cult following). In Dud, Sally Jay is an American that's headed to Paris in the 1950s to live as one of those "lost youth" so prevalent in literature at the time. She's witty and charming and sometimes a little crazy like any good young ingenue. 

Well, here's the thing. I read this so long ago, and this whole time I've struggled on what to write about it. I had the same issue with The Old Man and Me. And because the writing is just so full of subtle wit and a highly developed (in terms of writing) and complex character, I feel I can't do it justice by just reading it once. So I'm not going to say much more about it, except this: The Dud Avocado and Dundy's works require more than a single light reading, and I hope to give them that...at some point.

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My hiatus from the Penderwicks didn't last long, because I picked up the most recent in the series the last time I was at the library. The Penderwicks at Point Mouette is the third in the series by Jeanne Birdsall that follows the adventures of the Penderwick sisters and their friend Jeffrey. This time, Daddy is on his honeymoon in England, Rosalind is vacationing at the beach with a friend, and the rest of the Penderwicks (and Jeffrey) have headed to Maine with Aunt Claire. 

I liked this better than the last one, and I appreciated the details that made it a small departure from the previous two. Skye's character was developed and came into her own as she performed the role as the Oldest Available Penderwick; Jane experienced her first real disappointment with love and a more grown-up world; Jeffrey was finally a leading man rather than just supporting cast as he got his own unique storyline; and the girls all had learning, growing experience when Daddy wasn't there to fix everything. 

I don't think the Penderwicks series has quite as much depth as some of my other childhood favorites, like Anne of Green Gables or Betsy-Tacy, and part of that may be due to its ensemble cast as opposed to a single main character. But, Birdsall has created characters and stories that are fun to follow and are pretty timeless experiences of childhood and adolescence.

World Party: Communist Cuba

Finally...I fiiiiiinally read a book for the World Party Reading Challenge. The country assignment for May was a choice: any one with a Communist history, past or present. Well, I wasn't about to devote months of my time to old Russian literature, so I opted for Cuba with Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban. I don't know much about Cuba beyond Castro, so, why not?

When I opened the book and saw a family tree before the first chapter even began, I knew I was in for some trouble. Oh god, how many people am I going to have to keep track of? Well the answer to that is about 5. No, include spouses; make that 9. No, 10. And include children. 15. 14? I lost count.

There's not much plot, just a set-up of the characters: Celia and Jorge are the head of the family tree. They have three kids—2 girls and a boy, but the boy we don't really hear from so much (unless I totally missed it). The two girls, Lourdes and Felicia, have their own husbands and kids and their own mess of issues. Sometime in the 1960s (I think?), Lourdes left Cuba for Brooklyn, NY, and Jorge eventually followed because of illness. So only Celia and Felicia (and the absent Javier) are left in Cuba. And Felicia is pretty crazy. Certifiably. Crazy as in, she sets fire to her first husband's face, burns a woman's scalp at a hairdresser, and throws another husband off a rollercoaster. She practices black magic; her kids think she's crazy and seek out their dad. Meanwhile in Brooklyn, Lourdes runs a bakery; her daughter Pilar is mostly Americanized and completely late-70s punk; and the two fight all the time.

The meat of the book lies in all these characters and their differences in relation to their homeland of Cuba...mostly their feelings toward the revolution. Celia is very pro-revolution; Lourdes is very anti-; Pilar just kinda rolls her eyes at the whole thing since she never had to live amidst it, and she'd rather just get back to Cuba to visit her grandmother. Aside from the key phrases about the Cuban revolution like "Castro" and "Communism" and "Cuban Missile Crisis," I don't know very much about it. In fact, Castro is never referred to by name—simply as "El Lidar"—and it took me a bit to realize that's who Garcia was referring to. While reading this, I felt like a needed a whole 20th century history lesson so I could understand the full social, political, economic context of it all (that's what Wikipedia is for). While Celia and Lourdes' characters focus a lot of Cuba's politics, Felicia's illustrates more of Cuba's culture—the religion, the spirituality, the relationship between men and women.

Celia is obviously the rock of this novel—rock in the sense that everything kinda radiates out from her. We learn the most about her through her present-day perspectives and a series of letters she wrote for decades to her lover of young adulthood. Between Celia and Pilar, we see two completely opposite representations of what it means to be Cuban from different generations and different lifestyles; every drop of Celia's blood is Cuban, while Pilar lives in American and can't figure out where she belongs.

Each section of the book contains a narrative focused on each family member—Celia, Felicia, Lourdes, Pilar—but sometimes they're told in first person by the character, sometimes told in third person from an omniscient voice. It takes a while to get a grasp on each individual, and I was well into the story before I could focus on what was happening, rather than the structure. I think if I read it again, I'd get more out of it.

I'm often intrigued by stories of multi-generational families, some of who immigrate. My story is pretty boring in comparison...generations of my family have been in one city and are still in one city (not that that's bad...I'm the lone drifter and sometimes I wish I was in that city). I don't have a very colorful palate of experience when it comes to culture shock. So to me, it's interesting to read about the differences between the generations of a family who has come from the same place, because the differences are based on their own experiences. It makes me feel all warm and worldly inside, which may just be the point of this reading challenge.

Review & GIVEAWAY: The Postpartum Blues

If you read the back cover blurb of Deborah Copaken Kogan's Between Here and April, you get the impression you're about to embark on a mystery thriller. That's somewhat of a deception. In reality, Kogan uses a brief murder mystery to address much larger issues.

In Between Here and April, Elizabeth Burns is a journalist and married mom of two daughters. She's struggling with the demands and desires of both career and family, and she feels like she's sinking. When a memory from her childhood suddenly surfaces, Elizabeth becomes determined to discover the truth behind the disappearance of her first grade best friend, April Cassidy. The search doesn't take very long; after all, when a mother kills herself and her two daughters, the newspapers are sure to pick up the story. April's research gave her the WHAT, WHEN, and HOW, but she's looking for one more thing: the WHY? How could a parent do such an unthinkable thing?

All of this happens within the first third (or even quarter) of the book, and the rest of the pages are dedicated to Elizabeth's quest for answers—interviewing neighbors, friends, and family of April's mother, Adele. Kogan delves into the issue of postpartum depression head-on. Elizabeth tries to understand the situation as it was in the early-1970s, in a society before postpartum depression was recognized as a legitimate and treatable condition and when Vallium was the go-to cure for women, even if it didn't work.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it got a little preachy to me. I was looking forward to the mystery thriller the marketing blurb seemed to promise and the beginning started off strong. However, we soon found the main character being sucked down the same path as the woman she was investigating. It was hard to feel much sympathy for her; I mean, she is studying the very emotions she is feeling—can't she see what it is and get help rather than just succumb to it? Also, I don't have kids, so I couldn't relate on a very basic level. 

On the other hand, I understand how out of control a condition like this can make you feel—like there is someone else taking over your brain, you feel like a different person, and you just can't seem to get out of the funk. This is a symptom of any kind of mental disorder—panic, anxiety, depression—so many, many people could relate. In which case, the story becomes a kind of champion against the feelings of despair as we see Elizabeth deal with her own personal demons. This would be a GREAT selection for a book club, as it has a LOT to discuss.

Thanks to Algonquin, I have ONE copy to share with our readers! This contest is open internationally. For one entry each:

1. Comment on this post with your email address and answer this question (thanks to the book's discussion guide!): Are some things better left repressed or should they always be brought to the surface?
2. Tweet about this giveaway. (Win a copy of BETWEEN HERE AND APRIL from @fiveborobooks! http://bit.ly/54ln1P)

Deadline is Friday, February 5th at 11:59PM EST. The winner will be announced the following day. Good luck!

Review copies provided by the publisher.

Review: The Moon's Warm Embrace

Last week I saw the Broadway opening of playwright Tracy Letts' new show, 'Superior Donuts.' Letts' previous show, 'August: Osage County,' won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and enjoyed a long, successful run on Broadway. So of course, when his new show opened, everyone immediately compared it to his last one, when the two are very different. 

I hate this kind of comparison. It irritates me when an author's books or movies or plays are compared to each other in quality (particularly when one has been saturated in praise) rather than critiqued as independent works.

Rebecca Wells' The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder seems to have gotten trapped in this pattern. The success of her previous Ya-Ya novels left high expectations for Crowning Glory, the first of her four books to feature new and different characters. The majority of reviews I read expressed disappointment with Wells' new novel, but I really don't understand them and completely disagree.

Calla Lily Ponder is the protagonist of the story, and we follow her life as she transitions from childhood to adulthood in the small town of La Luna, Louisiana. Calla enjoys a blissful childhood, soaking in the compassionate love of her hairdresser mother, M'Dear, and the nurturing light of the Moon Lady--"the feminine force that will guide and protect her throughout her life." Calla's childhood is defined by innocence until she is forced to grow up fast. Hometown heartbreaks lead Calla to New Orleans after high school to take up where M'Dear left off with her "healing hands." Calla enrolls at L'Academie de Beaute de Crescent as a fresh start, determined to develop her skill and passion for soothing pain and changing lives. But of course, New Orleans also brings a whole slew of new friends and a whole slew of new troubles.

This book had me hooked by the second chapter and crying by about the sixth. Wells' writing, as usual, oozes southern charm. She has created another leading character that is defined by her southern upbringing, one that is tied so tightly to her setting that she couldn't exist anywhere else. Family, love, heartbreak...the themes and emotions of the story are universal, but Calla is not. I loved the characters and their depth of emotion at very realistic situations.

Though it takes about four hundred pages to do so, this book is essentially telling you one thing: love, live, dance often, and believe that life (and the people in it) is basically good. So maybe that is more than one thing, but you get the gist.

Review: A Cold Corner of America

If I ever wrote a book, this would be it. I've asked myself before, "In creating a story, what is your thing?" What is that 'thing' about my life that is unique and worth telling? Well, I don't have much. The only thing I've ever been able to think of is that I'm a Southerner living in the North, but I lack the creativity to make that a story. And then I found this book.

Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter is author Lisa Patton's debut novel. A Tennessee native accustomed to long summers and brief winters, she spent three long, brutally cold winters running an inn in Vermont. And thus, a story was born.

Leelee Satterfield is happy with her life in Memphis. She's got her family, her four best friends, her husband she's loved since the tenth grade, and their two beautiful daughters. When her husband Baker gets a little antsy, he is inspired to buy a Vermont inn and haul the family North to run the bed-and-breakfast. And Leelee agrees...only because she has been love with him forever. But things don't go as smoothly as Leelee hopes and not only is her relationship on the rocks, Vermont is COLD. When Baker picks up and leaves Leelee with the inn, she must try to make the best of her misery and prove she's not just a helpless Southern belle.

I swear Lisa Patton was reading my mind as she wrote this. Either that or we think eerily alike. Our shared bitter hatred of the cold is one thing, but she goes into such detail on the tiny nuances that are so defining of me and my life up here. Like:

• "Memphis is my home. It always will be no matter where I live."
• "I know people say the summer is sweltering, but it never bothers me."
  
• Vermont = "a foreign corner of American" that is "sooo Yankeeish"
• "When I took my first sip, I could tell right away that it was Pepsi. I hate Pepsi."
  
• "...Northerners believe that anywhere with less than one million people is only a town." [We don't do 'towns' in the South.]
• "Barbecue to Northerners meant 'grilling out' so if I wanted a barbecue sandwich I might as well set my tastebuds on a hamburger." [The word 'barbecue': North = verb, South = food.]

Not to mention references to Corky's barbecue, Johnny Majors and Neyland Stadium, Mother's Day Out, and First Tennessee Bank—those little familiarities that you forget don't exist everywhere.

Needless to say, I loved this book. A well-developed main character that grew as the plot progressed, an entertaining ensemble of supporting characters, and a pleasing but not lame ending. I may be a little biased for this book for all the reasons mentioned above, but I still think it'd be an enjoyable (and hilarious) read for people anywhere in the country (or outside of it!).

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 29, 2009
Thomas Dunne Books
320 Pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-312-55660-0

Review copy provided by publisher (Thomas Dunne).


This is the first stop for me on the Literary Road Trip, hosted @ Galleysmith. I claimed my great home state of Tennessee. You may be saying, "But don't all of you live in New York?" and the answer is yes. But New York was already claimed by about four other people, and Tennessee was not. And as mentioned earlier, Tennessee will always be my home, no matter where else I live.

Tune in tomorrow for an interview with Lisa Patton, author of Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter!

Review: Starting Over

If you take one thing away from Heather Barbieri’s The Lace Makers of Glenmara, remember this: “You can always start again; all it takes is a new thread.” Kate Robinson grew up hearing this advice from her mother, which was drilled into her head during sewing lessons. Like her mother, Kate possesses a gift with a needle and thread, and their creative passion formed an impenetrable bond between them. But after a series of emotional blows leave Kate gasping for air, she discovers that her mother’s advice serves a much bigger purpose than a simple sewing lesson.

Overwhelmed and exhausted, Kate escapes her heartbreak and struggling fashion career with a trip to her ancestral home of Ireland. She stumbles upon the quaint coastal village of Glenmara and befriends a group of local lace makers. As Kate learns the secrets of their traditional craft, she finds the inspiration that has eluded her for so long—and soon the women are working together to create a line of exquisite lingerie. But not everyone is enamored with these new ideas. Kate’s presence in Glenmara has sparked controversy, and the women must summon the courage to face opposition and confront their own personal troubles. As they work together, the lace makers gain the determination to achieve their own goals and face their long-standing demons. 

Barbieri found inspiration for this, her second novel, on a trip to the Irish coast and a New York Times article about Polish lace makers. Despite a fairly predictable plot, she has created an interesting story using exceptional characters and the dynamic backdrop of Glenmara, a traditional town trying to balance old world values with modern practices. Barbieri weaves together stories on life, love, friendship and family to create a multifaceted novel, where personal histories define her characters and influence their decisions.

In her affinity for literary patchwork, Barbieri has created an entertaining novel by blending a thoughtful story with a light read, perfect for this summer’s vacation.

-As featured in the July issue of BookPage magazine

AVAILABLE JUNE 23, 2009

HarperCollins

288 Pages, Hardcover

ISBN 978-0061721557

Review: How Three Women Change the South

My favorite source of book recommendations suggested I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett because its style is reminiscent of Keith Maillard's Gloria, our favorite book ever. Once I started this book, I could not put it down--and any bookworm knows that is a very fulfilling feeling while reading a book.

This is Stockett's first novel and the premier book published by Amy Einhorn Books, a recently launched imprint of Penguin Books. Stockett tells the story in first-person perspective through three women: Aibileen, a black maid; Minny, another maid and Aibileen's best friend; and Skeeter, who has just graduated from Ole Miss. It's 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi, and civil rights seem to be on everyone's mind...everywhere else in the country besides Jackson. Skeeter isn't your average cotton trust fund baby. She didn't go to college to find a husband--she wants to be a writer, and she's discontent with the lifestyle in Jackson. When a New York City publisher tells Skeeter to write about something that matters, she's inspired to write about the experience of black maids working for white families. She enlists the help of Aibileen, Minny, and others and begins a dangerous project that questions the "lines that define their town and their times."

This story is both heartbreaking and hilarious as the author paints a vivid picture of the South pre-Civil Rights. Stockett does an excellent job of creating a realistic voice for each of her three characters. Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter each have a unique story to tell, and the reader learns the intimate details of all three lives. I found while reading that I would pull for each of them, as the author created three very likable, albeit very different, characters. As I mentioned in my previous post about Best Friends, I love books with detailed character development, and this one fit the bill. The main difference with this one is that the novel actually has a clear plot, told from alternating perspectives of its main characters, which I find to be less common in books that delve deep into its characters. It was definitely a pleasant surprise, and while I didn't want the story to end, I was satiated when I finished because the story had a conclusion.

The author's inspiration came from her own childhood; she grew up in Jackson, where every white family had black help, and it was just assumed that the rest of the country lived the same way. Being from the South myself, this book had a particular draw for me, mostly from a historical perspective. History books tell me how things were before Civil Rights changed race relations in the South, and I can find the evidence of it or hear about it from my parents; but it's usually hard for me to believe, because it's a side of the South I have never seen, nor experienced. Life at this particular moment in history is usually clearly defined as a certain way (as things generally are when viewed from a distance) and that way is defined by the strong racism by whites against blacks. But this book shows another side, one that includes more personal experience than retrospective fact. Life isn't as clear as black and white; relationships can have a gray area; love can exist with hate; and the old lines that define society can be crossed. This was a highly engrossing read that led me to brush up on American history, and one that I highly recommend.

Review: The Thin Lines of Friendship

At the end of each school year in high school, I would go to the Borders near my house, make a list of all the books I wanted to read, and check them all out from the library. I put Best Friends by Martha Moody on that list around six years ago, and I just got around to reading it.

Moody tells the story of two girls who attend college at Oberlin in 1973 and are paired as roommates their freshman year. Sally Rose from California and Clare Mann from Ohio could not be bigger opposites. Their personalities seem to be backwards, based on the states they each call home--Clare is a hippie reactionary and Sally is likened to an innocent farm girl. They form a deep friendship, though, and this book follows their relationship from college through the changing times to their early forties.

Clare is intrigued by the Roses' seeming perfection, confidence, and strong bond, and she visits Sally often. California, to Clare, has an enchanting quality that gives her a sense of belonging she never felt back in Ohio. After college, Clare becomes a lawyer, Sally an AIDS doctor. Both have failed marriages, complicated relationships. The one constant in each of their lives is the friendship. Told from Clare's perspective, the novel follows the lives of each woman through husbands, children, and family troubles. As the years pass and Clare becomes closer to the Rose family, she gets entangled in their secrets that could potentially damage her friendship with Sally, and watches as this family that once seemed to hold a mythical perfection crumbles to human proportions.

Moody writes with one of my favorite styles; she focuses on detailed character development and relationships rather than following a plot with a simple introduction, climax, and conclusion. She allows the reader to get to know these characters over a long period of time, and we can observe their personal growth. We understand the decisions they make and their relationship with each other. I thought Moody perfectly illustrated the thin lines that exist in friendship--knowing when to keep your mouth shut, remaining supportive despite difference of opinion about another's decisions. Clare constantly found herself in these situations with Sally, having to ask, "At what point is honesty worth risking the friendship?"  

Though a fairly long novel (around 500 pages), I got through it pretty quickly, because I was always drawn into the lives of these characters. While reading, I was wondering if I was going to end up liking or disliking it, on a whole. I mean, I must have enjoyed it to some degree since I kept reading, but I came to the realization that I did not really care for either of the characters. Neither had qualities that made them especially likable, though I didn't dislike them either. Overall, it was the style that kept me interested--getting a glimpse into these people's lives and constantly wanting to know what happens next. Sadly, like with every novel written in this style, no ending ever feels adequate, because you don't want to stop reading while you know the characters are still living.