BIG GIRL PANTIES by Stephanie Evanovich

Sometimes a book’s title is enough to get me to give it a try. That’s pretty much why I read Stephanie Evanovich’s Big Girl Panties. Something about that title seemed to capture good humor and a bit of snark, two characteristics I generally like in a chic lit title. In this case, the title didn’t really disappoint.

I found myself involved right away because the book starts with Holly’s rock-bottom moment: having to squeeze herself into an airline seat next to a clearly annoyed – and gorgeous – man. She’s clearly mortified by her situation, but rather than withdraw, she finds herself telling her seatmate the sad tale of how she got to this place in her life. A quiet, brilliant Brown graduate, she had lived a happy if withdrawn life with her investment whiz husband, until a long illness left her a lonely widow at 32 years old. During her husband’s decline, Holly let herself go completely. Her Adonis-of-a-seatmate is horrified that he’s been so judgmental, especially since he’s a highly-paid personal trainer to the stars. In a fit of remorse he offers to take over Holly’s training. And that’s when you know things are going to get interesting.

But the critical part of the book comes down to whether or not Logan (a.k.a. the Bronzed God) can handle the fact that he’s fallen in love with a woman who represents less than society’s “ideal” woman. And that’s where the plot falls a bit short, because the love interest is not as loveable as I would like. He’s not just a bit flawed; he’s totally obnoxious. Even he knows it:

But when Logan was alone, his body drained and exhausted of every available ounce of testosterone, he would catch himself thinking, How can I help her get that weight off? Or, Maybe just a little bit of liposuction is in order. He knew medically that she was an endomorph, that no amount of exercise and dietary changes, short of starvation, would have her reaching a single-digit size. He knew logically she was healthy and her body was as finely tuned and conditioned as any athlete’s. She had followed every piece of advice he ever gave her. He preferred going to her house instead of bringing her to his to avoid any drop-bys that could lead to confrontations. He rationalized that the reason he never took her out was because she preferred a quiet existence, devoid of the hectic pace of the high-profile nightlife. He also knew he wasn’t being completely truthful. p. 222

What a jerk! The point where Holly finally hauls off and belts him wound up being the highlight of the book for me.

Okay, it wouldn’t be fair to say whether or not he’s redeemable or not. I will say the book is entertaining, even though the most likeable characters in it aren’t the main ones – that job is reserved for Logan’s best friend the baseball player and his sassy wife (apparently their story is in Evanovich’s next book). This is a breezy evening of a read, and I really liked Evanovich’s sometimes-caustic writing style. I just wish both the main characters (including the mostly wishy-washy heroine) had been stronger and easier to like. I am definitely looking forward to her next book!

I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, and received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other takes on Big Girl Panties, check here. Thanks, Trish, for including me on the tour!

THE SUPREME MACARONI COMPANY by Adriana Trigiani

I’m originally from Queens, NY. I’m from a big, Catholic family that still chronicles life events by the parish they took place in. (“Remember when Michael was born? We must have been living in Elmhurst, because he was baptized at St. Bart’s.”) I love food and travel. And for many years my husband and I ran a business together. Little wonder, then, that I loved Adriana Trigiani’s The Supreme Macaroni Company. As usual, I felt like I knew every character in the book.

The novel (the third in Trigiani’s Valentine Trilogy) begins with couture Italian-American shoe designer Valentine Roncalli’s engagement to the older, infinitely handsome Gianluca Vechiarelli, an Italian leather maker. I found it a very satisfying place for an adult romance novel to begin. After all, anyone who’s been married for any length of time knows that’s when the work actually begins. And that’s exactly how it is for Valentine and Gianluca. Once the romantic haze of courtship is done, every couple is faced with making one life out of two separate ones. The Supreme Macaroni Company celebrates the hard work, negotiation and forbearance that make a marriage work – along with a healthy dose of good humor.

One of the core elements of the book is the unexpected culture clash that comes with the marriage of an Italian-American woman to an Italian man. So much of Valentine’s definition of self in the earlier book was wrapped up in her ethnicity. In the US, she’s Italian-American – emphasis on the “Italian” part. But as she spends time with her Italian husband and his extended family – his pregnant daughter and his enigmatic ex-wife, especially – she is forced to redefine her emphasis, becoming increasingly aware of the “American” part of the equation:

During my travels in Italy, the Italian wives seemed practical and a little removed. There appeared in them a resignation to the order and roles established in life as it had been for generations. How was I going to continue to be the woman I was, split between these two cultures, who had little in common when it came to a woman’s ambition and drive? I figured I was in for it. What, I didn’t know. But I loved Gianluca and figured it had to go my way. This is also the hallmark of an American sensibility. Things naturally work out for the best when intention is clear. Or do they? p. 104

The Supreme Macaroni Company is so much more than chic lit, although I have seen it described that way. It continues Trigiani’s ongoing meditation on the vanishing world of fine craftsmanship. It also delves into the economic issues involved in America’s cheaper-is-better, import-driven economy. But it remains a romance at its heart, and I enjoyed almost every page of it. Every page, that is, until the ending, which I found absolutely heartbreaking, especially as the end of a trilogy. I thought it was just too sad a way to finish, undercutting the overall tone of the series, I thought. It’s listed as the last book in a trilogy, but I’m hoping that it also marks the start of another series, because I would really hate to be saying good-bye to Valentine and her family forever.

I read this as part of a TLC Book Tour. I received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. And I honestly loved it! Thanks, as always, for including me on the tour. Please check the other stops on the tour for additional opinions about The Supreme Macaroni Company. Sorry this post is a bit late - the end of the semester combined with Christmas to keep me from the fun stuff!

FIESTA OF SMOKE by Suzan Still

I love novels about novelists. I love novels about Mexico. I love novels about love. I love novels that are descriptive, written so that other places, people and relationships practically walk off the pages and into my living room. Suzan Still’s Fiesta of Smoke is that kind of novel.

Graduate student Calypso Searcy meets Javier Carteña when he accidentally knocks her over, running away from a shoplifting incident. He tracks her down and breaks into her apartment to apologize. This marks the beginning of a love affair that will span decades and borders and marriages and love affairs with other people, as Calypso slowly comes to take on Javier’s cause – social justice for Mexico’s indigenous people – as her own.

Still writes characters I’d like to meet, in circumstances I have trouble imagining. I absolutely love how she brought the unlikely chemistry between Calypso and Javier to life, as when they meet after years and sit next to each other at a jai alai game:

At the point where their bodies met – their hands and arms, tips of their shoulders, their thighs and feet – all along the left side of her body, in fact, there was blissful peace, as if that portion of her flesh, at least, had finally come home to roost.
He leaned into her in that way he always had when they were at odds, of ignoring her and communicating with her at the same time. It was the feeling of utter physical intimacy. She relaxed into this sensation, precious beyond thought. The jai alai games continued below but Calypso was sunk in a sea of both remembrance and immediate awareness. At last, she understood Camus: she was lucid and in ecstacy. p. 163

What do I not love? Novels that bounce around in time. I’m a chronological kind of girl, and I don’t really enjoy starting at the end or in the middle. And then heading somewhere else. My one quibble about the book was the way it ricocheted between decades and locations and different parts of characters’ lives in a way that I found kind of confusing. And let’s face it, the situation in Mexico – corrupt politicians, paramilitary organizations, unbelievable wealth next to unfathomable poverty – is confusing enough.

In general, though, I loved the book, and would certainly recommend it to lovers of contemporary fiction. The military themes and the precarious situation in Mexico give the book, especially the ending, a bit of the feel of a thriller. I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, and received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. Thanks to Trish for including me on the tour! Follow this link to see what others had to say about this title.

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by Neil Gaiman

I love how Neil Gaiman’s books find both magic and terror lurking in the most mundane places. In The Ocean at the End of the Lane, an introverted little boy finds a mystical world at a farmhouse just down a bumpy road from his house – a place of both wonder and fear. But more fabulous than the full moon that always shines on one side of the house to the little nameless boy who is the main character in the story is actually finding a friend, in the person of a strangely mature 11-year-old girl named Lettie Hempstock.

The little boy meets Lettie and the other Hempstock women when his family car is used by a tenant to commit suicide on their property. This sad act sets off a chain of events that puts the little boy, his family, Lettie Hempstock and perhaps the whole world in danger. But in the background of all the harrowing activity is the absolute calm of the Hempstock farm, where Lettie, her mother Ginnie, and grandmother Old Mrs. Hempstock live in absolute harmony with nature: where the fires are cozier, the kittens are cuddlier and the food tastes better than anyplace on earth. Which makes the juxtaposition of good and evil in this book particularly jarring.

This story certainly bears some resemblance to Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book -- but definitely at an adult level. No children’s book could deal so forthrightly with a father’s attempt to murder his own son – or that same father’s entanglement with an evil nanny. Still, Gaiman brings so much whimsy to the characters that you find yourself lulled into a false sense of security – and then startled back into remembering this is not a “warm and fuzzy” tale. For example, after one near death experience, the young boy’s mind turns to spotted dick, a favorite dessert:

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I found joy in things that made me happy. The custard was sweet and creamy in my mouth, the dark swollen currants in the spotted dick were tangy in the cake-thick chewy blandness of the pudding, and perhaps I was going to die that night and perhaps I would never go home again, but it was a good dinner, and I had faith in Lettie Hempstock. p. 206

This is a unique story, despite the fact that the Hempstock women are reminiscent of the Fates –- life forms so old and powerful that even the Greek gods could not understand or sway them. But the similarities ended for me there. I absolutely couldn’t put this book down. I imagine many people will have this one on their R.I.P. VIII lists this year, and I don’t think they’ll be disappointed. Thanks so much to Carl V at Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting!

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a free copy of this book for review. I borrowed the e-book from my public library.

LOTERÍA by Mario Alberto Zambrano

I’m sure I’m not the first person to call Lotería by Mario Alberto Zambrano “devastating” – after all, any book about a child we encounter when she’s already in the state protective custody system is bound to be that. So the issue wasn’t about whether or not this would be a sad story, but whether or not this would be a sad story with a unique point of view, a story that somehow opened us up to sadness in a new way. I’m not saying that would be easy, but then I didn’t take up the challenge, Zambrano did. And in my opinion he was somewhat successful, but not entirely.

The book is in the form of a journal written by Luz María Castillo while she is being held by the State of California. Her father is in jail, her mother has disappeared, and her sister is in the Intensive Care Unit. She refuses to speak with the people assigned to help her, but at her Tía Tencha’s request she writes a journal entry for each of the cards in the Mexican bingo game La Lotería that she just happens to be carrying with her. I found this a bit far-fetched, frankly. Not her naïve aunt believing her journal would clear her brother of the charges against him – that made sense – but of her casual suggestion to use the cards as prompts. It felt too much like a “literary device” to me.

What Zambrano does very well is get us into the head of an 11-year-old girl, however. Her love of her family, her inability to contextualize her parents’ behavior, and her sibling rivalry all come through beautifully. She isn’t the easiest child to get to know, and so her circuitous inner dialog makes sense. She has been through a lot:

We locked the door and held each other like if we were waiting for an earthquake, afraid the ceiling might cave in. A chair would slam against the wall and we’d flinch. Glasses would break. The walls would tremble. They’d scream so loud it felt like wolves were tearing up the house, saying words that didn’t even make sense anymore, and the sounds that did come out of their mouths were like dogs. p. 143-144.

But while Zambrano does write beautifully, I found Luz’s story to be a bit contrived. To be honest, I am getting pretty tired of every book I read having a scene with a young girl having some kind of sexual encounter. I think it’s a dangerous thing to make a real problem – sexual behavior toward children – some kind of literary trope. Modern authors seem to think there’s only one way to show that a woman has had a rough time of it. In this case, I really don’t think the encounter with Luz’s cousin moved the story forward at all – it didn’t lead to more understanding of the characters or of their actions. So I found it distracting, rather than insightful.

Zambrano is a very talented writer, and I do look forward to reading his future works. He has an opportunity to give a real voice to the Mexican-American experience, and with his obvious talent I believe as readers we’ll all be richer for it.

FTC Disclosure: I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, and received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other takes on Mario Alberto Zambrano's Lotería, please follow the links here. Thanks, as always, to Trish for including me on the tour!

Book Review: FLAUBERT'S PARROT by Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot is a strange book, indeed. I spent the first half thinking I was reading a book about a literary obsession when I suddenly realized I was reading a book about a widower trying to understand his relationship with his late wife. Talk about confused! Several months have gone by since I read it, and in retrospect I believe one story was actually told through the other. But somehow I can’t quite decide whether or not I think Barnes pulled it off.

Let’s start with the fact that although I have read Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, it was a long time ago. And that is the only Flaubert novel I have read. I have not read, most importantly, A Simple Heart, also known as The Parrot which winds up being central to the plot – or at least what there is of a plot. I had no idea about Flaubert’s family life, his philosophy, or his, shall we say, eccentricities. That didn’t actually detract from my enjoyment of the novel, because I found reading the biographical bits on Flaubert really fascinating. But it certainly may have impacted my ability to decipher the story.

The ostensible plot involves a retired British doctor and Flaubert aficionado, Geoffrey Braithwaite, touring through France in search of the answer to a mystery: which of two ancient stuffed parrots claiming to be so is actually the one that stood on Flaubert’s desk while he wrote A Simple Heart? What, in a nutshell, is the inspiration for genius, appeared to be the question to which Braithwaite was seeking an answer. But what the asynchronous narrative slowly reveals is that Braithwaite believes understanding Flaubert’s life and inspirations will help him understand his own domestic story – one that has the small, sad dimensions of a Flaubertian tragedy.

The book was slow-going, but it wasn’t as heavy as it sounds. In fact, there are quite a few very funny bits. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is entitled “Braithwaite’s Dictionary of Accepted Ideas,” which encapsulates the conventional wisdom about Flaubert and his work with tongue-in-cheek encyclopedia entries:

WHORES: Necessary in the nineteenth century for the contraction of syphilis, without which no one could claim genius. Wearers of the red badge of courage include Flaubert, Daudet, Maupassant, Jules de Goncourt, Baudelaire, etc. Were there any writers unafflicted by it? If so, they were probably homosexual. (Kindle location 2525)

The book is beautifully written, I’ll say that. But there was something of Joyce’s Ulysses in this to me, so think with literary illusions that I couldn’t get a fix on the book I was actually supposed to be reading. The book ought to come with The Parrot as a pre-req – maybe I would have understood it that way!

Book Review: THE FORRESTS by Emily Perkins

I love big novels about small things. Because no matter how strange the events and circumstances surrounding individuals are, it’s a person’s relationship to those events that imbues them with meaning in the end. I think my predilection for those kinds of small insights in writing explains why I was so totally captivated by Emily Perkins’ latest novel, The Forrests.

Lee and Frank Forrest grew up in wealthy households, but by the time we meet them the money they had counted on has been squandered away. They leave the US with their four children – Michael, Evelyn, Dorothy and Ruth – for an unconventional life in New Zealand. The third-person narrative focuses on the two middle children, Evelyn and Dot, and their attempts to make a life for themselves despite the uncertain, hand-to-mouth existence their parents have provided – a lifestyle that seems to be fine with Frank, but which is increasingly difficult for the children’s mother, Lee. It also focuses on Daniel, a child taken in by the Forrests, whose presence at first anchors the family, and then pulls it apart.

The Forrests live a patched-together life, which Perkins emphasizes in the patched-together chapters of the novel. I’m not usually of a fan of non-linear narrative, but in this case the device gave me real sympathy with the Forrest siblings, whose circumstances were constantly changing because of their parents’ inability to plan for them. I had to figure where I was and what had happened to get me there at the beginning of each chapter, reorienting myself to new circumstances like an often-uprooted child must have to do. At times, I admit, it was slow going, but it kept me focused, trying to understand their world.

To say that The Forrests is beautifully written doesn’t really do it justice. Reading it is like driving a circuitous route through varied terrain, each vista totally gorgeous, but not wholly connected to the last. Perkins’ words spill together, leaving the reader awash in emotion, stretching to reach the plot beneath it:

The mention of his name made Eve want to rip a hunk of grass from the earth. This could not be done, and nothing could be said to her sister. Better to bury Daniel because face it, she’d had no right to him and she’d wanted him for so long and followed him across the world and by anyone’s standards she probably deserved to have him leave her but she could never, never tell Dot. How to know whether the secrecy – really the lying -- came from love, or shame, or the sheer envy of having been the one left out by those two for all that time? They’d never talked about it but she knew, like she knew Michael being a pot fiend when their parents insisted it was just that he was shy. Could she judge whether or not Daniel had been worth it? She was frightened that, if she looked in her heart, she would discover that he was, and would have to face up to what that meant, now he was gone. “Actually, I should get home. I’m on dinner. What should I make?”

I cannot recommend this book highly enough for lovers of contemporary literary fiction. Perkins is inventive and daring with language, describing in extraordinary detail what might have been ordinary, even tawdry lives, if they had not been examined closely. I will definitely be seeking out her previous books.

I read this book – albeit in delayed fashion – as part of TLC Book Tour. I received a galley of the book in return for my honest opinion. Many thanks to Lisa Munley at TLC for shifting around some deadlines to accommodate my unexpectedly difficult schedule this summer. I’m glad to be back blogging, and I’m looking forward to seeing what has been going on while I’ve been away!

For other reviews of this book, check the TLC links here.

Book Review: TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG by Connie Willis

Connie Willis’ To Say Nothing of the Dog introduces readers to a near future when Oxford historians routinely travel through time for investigative purposes. Their work is underwritten by a wealthy, overbearing American – Lady Schrapnell – whose pet project is the rebuilding of the Coventry Cathedral to reproduce its appearance on the day her revered Victorian-era grandmother saw it for the first time, and thereby changed the course of her life, as well as the whole family’s. But the small-scale interactions of the historians and their environment set up the possibility of large-scale disasters down the proverbial road: like the possibility of the Allies losing World War II.

The book represents a loving homage to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, whose subtitle was “To Say Nothing of the Dog.” Ned, the time traveler tasked with finding an artifact from the Coventry Cathedral called “the bishop’s bird stump,” has made so many time jumps that he has a form of the bends, and misunderstands the mission he’s on. And like Jerome’s crew, Ned and new found friends Terence St. Trewes and his absent minded Oxford don Professor Peddick travel the Thames in a skiff, and find more adventure than the relaxation they so desperately need.

I think it’s taken me seemingly forever to review the book because this Hugo-award winning novel defies simple description. Yes, it’s a time travel story. But after reading it, I’d probably categorize it under “humor,” before “science fiction.” Because unlike other novels that might focus on the mechanics of voyages in time and space, this book shoves those aside, focusing instead on the truly hilarious consequences of unintended actions. I adored the way Willis took a beloved classic and retrofitted it – even allowing the characters from the original to make a cameo appearance! Oh, and there’s even a couple of love stories.

In fact, if there’s any downside to the book, it’s that Willis seems to gloss over some information about the “world” she’s created that the reader could really use. For example, what is the new time traveling ability based on? Why do individuals react to it so differently? If I was in a mood to be particularly persnickety I’d call it somewhat troublesome that the book’s ending reveals that one of the science fiction “premises” the story was based on was completely unfounded. But it feels like quibbling, because those things didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book.

If you’re looking for a light and amusing sci-fi title, this is definitely it. I’d also suggest it to those who love contemporary humor titles, especially Douglas Adams (although I’m certainly not promising you’ll love it as much as Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and Christopher Moore (and I’d call this a clear winner over his Fluke). I was planning on counting this for Carl V’s Science Fiction Experience in January, but couldn’t get my act together to get the review up in time. Reading this did inspire me to seek out a few more sci fi titles, so it’s still a win!

In 140 Characters or Less: Time travel hijinks, in search of a cantankerous cat.

Book Review: Catherine McKenzie’s SPIN

I worked in publishing for about ten years before I went to graduate school. Which is probably why I felt an immediate affinity for Catherine McKenzie’s debut novel Spin. When writer Kate Sandford got an interview at her favorite magazine, The Line, I remembered walking into the USA Today offices for the first time. Okay, I didn’t go down in flames spectacularly by showing up to my interview drunk. And I didn’t get an offer to “try out” for my dream job by going undercover at a rehab facility to spy on a famous actress. But I really did relate to the whole “trying-to-get-a-job-in-publishing” pressure that Kate put herself through.

Kate is a very likeable character: talented and driven, but also deeply flawed. She meets starlet Amber Sheppard and is amazed to find her a real person with real problems. Problems, as it turns out, that aren’t so different from her own.

Spin would have been a pretty light chic-lit title, if not for Kate’s own emerging realization that outside of the tabloid spotlight, she has more in common with Amber than she ever would have believed.

Now, I don’t usually drink in the morning, but there was something about that morning that felt out of the ordinary. It was a combination of things, really. Seeing the tiny plane I was going to have to fly in. Going undercover. Being about to meet a celbrity I’d been watching for weeks on television. Having the opportunity to finally get where I wanted to be as a writer. Going to rehab. It all balled up inside me, and I needed something to calm me down. The chamomile tea I had before I left for the airport wasn’t cutting it, so I headed to the always open airport bar and ordered a gin and tonic. p. 83-84

McKenzie did a credible job of showing Kate’s growing ambivalence about her assignment as Amber transforms from tabloid fodder to a living, breathing human being. Kate’s growing self-awareness definitely made the novel more interesting. That being said, I was sort of surprised by the grittiness of the story. Based on the description and the cover, I thought the book would have a “lighter” feel to it – but it’s definitely not a comedy, not even a dark one.

I also have to admit that the love story element didn’t work well for me. This may be because there were so many characters to keep track of – but there just weren’t enough interactions between the characters to truly develop a good romance. That’s not to say I wasn’t rooting for the main characters, I just didn’t feel all warm and fuzzy when the resolution came.

I liked Spin, and am intrigued by McKenzie’s writing. Her first-person narration was direct and accessible, without ever feeling “staged.” I’m looking forward to seeing what she does next.

I read this book as part of a TLC book tour, and received a copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other opinions, check out the links here.

Book Review: The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen

Most books about cross-cultural romances focus on the beginning of the relationship, that first, heady rush of longing and adoration that everyone recognizes – but that no couple can ever sustain – coupled with the shared desire to overcome societal obstacles to the liaison. Keija Parssinen’s The Ruins of Us gives us a glimpse of that fairytale 25 years down the road. And it confronts some really interesting questions about the nature of cross-cultural relationships, most importantly, “If we love someone because they are different from us, can love survive after that person makes our culture their own?”

Rosalie was a bartender/singer in Sugar Land, Texas, when she met Abdullah Baylani, a Saudi graduate student from a wealthy family. To Rosalie, whose happiest memories were of her ex-patriot childhood in the Middle East, “Abdi” represents an exotic life she longs to recapture. To Abdullah, she was a breath of fresh air, uninhibited and unconstrained by Saudi culture. But after a quarter century in Saudi Arabia, Rosalie now speaks (almost) fluent Arabic, and her once-red hair is hidden by a veil. She has learned to fit in to survive. But in Abdullah’s eyes, no matter how unfair it is, she’s lost a part of what made her so unique:

Recently she had watched the bright moon of Abdullah’s adoration waning, until it seemed to only reflect light from dying planets – a dull secondhand light. For years they had been a comfort to each other, but somewhere along the way their marriage had grown functional. Now she could only acknowledge that the devotion upon which she had built her world in the farthest province of a desolate land had dissolved under her feet. Kindle location 427

Rosie’s world becomes completely undone when she finds out that her husband has taken another, far younger wife – and kept it from her for more than two years. The revelation is further complicated by her teenage son Faisal’s increasing resentment of the “outsider” status that his “Ameeriki” mother forces on him. She turns to an old college friend, an ex-pat who still works for her husband, for support. But a relationship that would be totally understandable, even innocuous, in Texas, looks way different in the Kingdom.

I found Parssinen’s The Ruins of Us a thought-provoking look at the arc of an intercultural love affair. But the question the reader is left with at the end of the story goes way beyond culture: If you give up everything for someone else, what’s actually left of yourself?

This book is recommended for lovers of contemporary fiction, especially those who enjoy books situated in an international setting. I particularly enjoyed the depiction of family life in Saudi Arabia – Rosie and Abdullah’s blogging, rock and roll loving daughter Mariam gives us about as good a representation of the global teen culture as I’ve seen. It’s a quick read, and perhaps a bit predictable, but well-written and quite enjoyable.

Since Rosie is an immigrant in Saudi Arabia, this is my first book for Colleen's Immigrant Challenge 2012 at Books in the City. I am looking for non-US immigration stories this year, so if you have any ideas, let me know!

I read this book as part of a TLC book tour, and received a copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. For other opinions, check out the links here.

TLC Book Tour Review: Susan V. Weiss’ My God, What Have We Done?

How do we deal with the unforeseen consequences of our greatest efforts? What is the opportunity cost of action versus inaction? These are the questions that Susan V. Weiss’ new novel, My God, What Have We Done?, asks the reader to consider throughout the two stories she has surprisingly woven together in this remarkable new novel.

The first story is Pauline and Clifford’s. It’s the story of a modern, young married woman’s loneliness in her marriage. Pauline loves her self-possessed husband Clifford, and her needy children. Still, she can’t quite find happiness. She married a man who was quiet and distant, only to be disappointed by his solitary nature. Pauline is a frustrating character – she seems to desire movement and change when none is really necessary. Instead of enjoying the different phases of her life, she wishes them away for some other future that isn’t well defined, except for the fact that it isn’t the one she is currently building. Still, her struggles are both commonplace and touching:

But as much as a mother may love her child, the unvarying replay of challenges that need to be mastered during the process of growth and the repetitive schedule can become tiresome. While Jasper worked with all his might to become a toddler, I escaped the monotony of our days together by reading, and during these lapses of vigilance, my son sometimes would fall and cry, get frustrated and cry, miss my attention and cry. (page 131)

What young mother hasn’t felt that way? And yet Pauline seems to think that if she isn’t actively engaged at every moment, something is lost.

The second story is that of Pauline’s historical “crush,” J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer, and his wife Kitty, as Oppenheimer feverishly tried to finish the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico, during the final days of the Second World War. Kitty and her young son Peter have been dragged to the middle of the desert by her husband, where isolation and loneliness lead her to alcohol. Maybe it’s the historian in me, but it was this remote story that touched me the most. Kitty’s plight seemed out of her hands, compared with Pauline’s. The circumstances of her husband’s life separated him from almost everyone – even her, the person who had been his closest confidante. She knew enough about her husband’s work to know that she might be waiting for not the end of some annoying childhood phase, but the end of the world as she knew it, which served to make her struggles far more heartbreaking to me, despite the fact that her behavior was in many ways shocking.

Weiss dares the reader to compare the relative ease of our day-to-day existence with the hardships faced by the scientists working at Los Alamos. Their common purpose is extraordinary, although their diligent activity ultimately brings about the worst kind of destruction. How do we judge the result?

I enjoyed this book immensely, although I admit I found it a bit uneven. Both stories were very compelling, but Weiss’ philosophical musings on the meaning of the atomic bomb struck me as too direct – almost like some kind of omniscient Greek chorus. This would be a fabulous book for a book club – I can imagine people reacting to this book completely differently, depending on their age and life experience. I would recommend this book to both lovers of contemporary literature and historical fiction, as well as those who enjoy literature about the Second World War. There is something here for all of those groups.

I read this book as part of a TLC Book Tour, and received a free copy of the book in return for my honest opinion. I hope you’ll visit these other stops on the tour:

Monday, October 10th: Steph and Tony Investigate
Tuesday, October 11th: Col Reads
Wednesday, October 12th: Regular Rumination
Wednesday, October 12th: The Well-Read Wife

Book Review and Giveaway: One Flight Up

One thing I really like to do in summer is read books outside of my typical fare. So when I got an opportunity to review Susan Fales-Hill’s debut novel One Flight Up I said yes, mostly because I haven’t read much fiction from contemporary African-American authors, and I’m always trying to make up for gaps in my reading resume.

One Flight Up tells the story of four high school friends approaching their 40th birthday, each trying to come to terms with where her choices have taken her – and trying to decide if there’s still time to make changes. Think of the Sex and the City crew with a multicultural vibe, now relying on control-top pantyhose to keep those expensive pencil skirts looking smooth, and you’re starting to get the idea. All of these women are privileged, wealthy and accomplished. But none of them is really happy with their current situation.

The omniscient narration centers on perfectionist India Chumley, a brilliant, mixed-race divorce attorney (her mother is a white stage actress, her black father is long dead) who longs for love but is determined to avoid all the mistakes she’s watched others make in their marriages – which predictably leaves her single. Her married best friends fare little better, though. Abby, a Jewish woman, adores her philandering WASPy sculptor husband, despite his churlish, needy attitude. Latina heiress Esme loves her true-blue WASP Tim too, but doesn’t find their conventional life stimulating, emotionally or sexually. Obstetrician Monique married her Harvard educated husband and built the perfect African-American power couple. And now that she has it all, she realizes that she gave up a lot in bed. Are you getting the idea that the relationships in this book revolve around sex? You’re on the right track.

This book was originally described to me as “beachy,” but I’m not sure I’d describe it that way. The themes were too serious for what I’d describe as a true beach book. The characters are not the one-dimensional icons that often inhabit beach reads – they’re actually really complex, flawed and interesting. In fact, looking at my own 20th wedding anniversary this year, I admit I found myself wishing that at least one of the couples could be happy in that romance novel sort of way. But this book doesn’t provide those kinds of easy answers.

My biggest issue with the book has to do with balance. Male cheaters were all considered dogs. Fine, I’m on board. But they also seemed to be the only “sexy” men in the book. The faithful guys were all rather a snore. That sets every relationship up for failure, which might make good drama, but also sustains a stereotype of modern romance that I don’t really appreciate. All the women’s infidelities, on the other hand, seemed somehow “explainable.” But I’d argue that makes total sense from the perspective of a group of girlfriends. There’s not a lot you wouldn’t forgive your best girlfriend, is there? That's what I'm talking about.

Even though One Flight Up wasn’t what I expected, I did enjoy it. Fales-Hill is a good story teller, and I’m looking forward to watching her technique mature. It was fun reading a book from a different cultural perspective, especially one that takes place in my hometown of New York. (I could have missed the copious descriptions of designer outfits, but that’s just me. I’m sure to some people it would be fascinating.) If you like contemporary romances, and are interested in a multicultural perspective in your reading, I'd suggest you give this book a try.

This book in one sentence: Guys who cheat get caught, and girls who cheat get designer accessories.

THE GIVEAWAY: Atria Books has kindly offered a copy of One Flight Up for me to giveaway to a Col Reads reader from the US! Just leave a comment with your email address below by August 2. I’ll number the comments, and random.org will choose the lucky winner. Thanks to Cristina Suarez at Atria for providing this giveaway!

FTC Disclosure: Atria Books provided me with a copy of this book, in return for my honest opinion.

Book Review: The Penelopiad

Ever since I heard about the Read-A-Myth Challenge, so kindly hosted by JoV and Bina, I have been looking forward to reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. Written in 2005 as part of the Canongate Myth series, The Penelopiad is often described as a “feminist reinterpretation of Homer’s Odyssey.” And it definitely is that.

But now that I have read the book, I would argue it is actually far more than a simple reinterpretation of a myth. I believe what Atwood is actually doing with The Penelopiad is reintroducing feminism itself.

The reinterpretation of the myth is in some ways the easy part of the novella. As I mentioned in my previous post, Penelope is a surprisingly complex character, at turns very funny, snarky, desperate and hopeful: kind of like every woman you know. Her narrative explains her behavior throughout her long ordeal. She loves her husband, but is disappointed by him. She loves her son, but doesn’t trust his judgment. She loves her parents, but their relationship is not close. Once Penelope moves from archetype of patience to actual human being, she becomes more interesting and significant. And that underscores the importance of feminist literature. It reminds us that women have stories, women are funny, women watch movies: they are not bystanders to culture, they are participants in its creation. At one point, Penelope deals with patriarchal misconceptions about her directly:

The charges concern my sexual conduct. It is alleged, for instance, that I slept with Amphinomus, the politest of the Suitors. The songs say I found his conversation agreeable, or more agreeable than that of the others, and that is true; but it’s a long jump from there into bed. p. 143

She similarly dispenses with the idea that Odysseus himself did not trust her, explaining that he simply believed she would cry if he revealed himself, and they might lose the opportunity to surprise and overtake the Suitors.

The trickier part, as I see it, is the view of feminism Atwood leaves us with in The Penelopiad. One of the stranger parts of Odyssey is Odysseus and Telemachus’ slaughtering of Penelope’s maids once they regain control of his kingdom. Atwood anchors the book in this violent act against women by including the usually silent maids as a Greek chorus. They editorialize on events throughout the book, sometimes comically, sometimes angrily. The maids have been wronged by Odysseus, by Telemachus, by the Suitors, and even by Penelope herself, they believe. And to some extent, they function as the feminist consciousness of the book. But if that is what they are, it's important to note that they aren’t totally sympathetic. Thousands of years after the events of the Odyssey and Penelopiad, they seek vengeance on Odysseus. Even the dead Penelope finally asks, “Why can’t you leave him alone?” Penelope senses that continually addressing wrongs done cannot improve the present.

I believe Atwood is addressing some of the complaints about feminist scholarship in this novella. Is it anachronistic to hold men of the past to current standards of behavior? How can feminists give women a voice if they cannot work together – and trust each other? She doesn’t necessarily answer the questions, but she acknowledges that a new generation of women may not see the issues exactly the same as the previous one, and I think that’s very interesting!

I was unexpectedly without Internet access for the past couple of days, so I’m anxious to catch up and see what others thought of this book. Was it enjoyable? Difficult? Here’s what Bellezza, WeBeReading and Nonsuch Book had to say. If you've reviewed this book, please add your links in the comments, and I’ll include them in this post.

In addition to the Read-A-Myth Challenge, I also realized this book counts for the Once Upon A Time Challenge as well. So while I didn’t do so well on that one, I did get one book in at the finish! I’ll plan better for that one next year! Thanks to Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting!

Hipster vs. Vintage Book Reviews: A Red Herring Without Mustard and Behold, Here's Poison

Within the past week I read two mysteries, Alan Bradley’s A Red Herring Without Mustard and Georgette Heyer’s Behold, Here’s Poison. Both of them were enjoyable, but very different. In fact, they really provided such a contrast in approach that I thought I’d review them together, because I think the comparisons say a lot about the individual authors’ styles.

I read Red Herring first. I’ve been waiting for it since I finished the second installment in the series The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag, and it arrived on my Kindle the day it was released. Chemistry genius cum sleuth Flavia de Luce is thirteen now, still dueling wits with her (increasingly vile) sisters and trying to figure out her aloof father. Flavia’s first-person narration makes the series, frankly. She’s impetuous, sassy, and shrewd. But she’s also a child, so she doesn’t always completely understand the complex motives of the people around her. And she’s a bit sad and lonely, motherless because of her adventurous mother’s death when she was a baby. It makes for an oddly sympathetic combination – you just wish you could hug her, and tell her it’s going to be alright, but you know she’d blanch at the idea!

This time, Flavia is out to solve two crimes that she guesses are related: the beating of a gypsy who Flavia had invited to stay on a remote piece of the family estate, Buckshaw, and a the murder of local “tough” Brookie Harewood, whose body was artfully placed in the arms of Poseidon in a Buckshaw fountain. In the process she has to navigate a secretive sect of religious dissenters, the Hobblers, a ferocious London gypsy girl, and the estate’s arcane water system.

Red Herring is a mystery with lots of style. Because it’s part of a series, the characters are evolving in interesting ways, as Flavia begins to understand them more clearly. We are starting to see, for example, how very much Flavia’s father loves his family – and how very desperate he is to hold on to the family estate, which is at risk because of the onerous death duties owed to the government after his wife’s untimely death. Flavia’s sisters, Ophelia and Daphne, are evolving too, but in far less sympathetic fashion – in fact, I thought their evil was a bit “cartoonish” in this book. Inspector Hewitt’s fondness and respect for Flavia is growing, but so is his worry that she may be putting herself in danger. But the mystery itself in this one wasn’t so fantastic, I’m afraid. The chemistry tie-in was really weak, and the revelation of the murderer was anticlimactic. As for the title, I still don’t quite understand to what it alludes – unless it’s the fact that there are far more red herrings than actual clues to help the reader figure out the mystery. But it is a great title, isn’t it?

I followed up with my first book for My Reader’s Block’s Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge. Georgette Heyer was not a name at all familiar to me – in fact, many of the female names on the list were unfamiliar – so I signed up for The Golden Girls Challenge, decided to read at least 5 different authors, and started investigating.


Behold, Here’s Poison is a classic, country estate mystery. It’s so 1930s – everyone dressed for dinner, speaking wittily, loathing each other with class. The Matthews family, run by their tyrannical Uncle Gregory, is not at all unhappy when he winds up dead – except for the fact that it appears one of them must have done it. Oily Randall Matthews, Gregory’s heir, seems a likely murderer – but he has an air-tight alibi. Mrs. Zoe Matthews and Miss Harriett Matthews both hoped to inherit his house, and have something of their own, finally. Mrs. Matthews’ children, Guy and Stella, are tired of having their uncle derail their life decisions. Did they kill him? There are other family members, and even neighbors, with axes to grind. The cast of characters is extensive, and the formality of address – Miss Matthews, Mrs. Matthews, Mr. Matthews –had me re-reading at the beginning to make sure I knew who was who, but the characters had such well developed personalities that the confusion didn’t last for long. In fact, the only character I found kind of dull was Inspector Hannasyde, the Scotland Yard detective in charge of the investigation. His personality hardly develops at all, but maybe that’s just as well, as it lets the suspects shine.

The mystery is the key thing in this book. It’s so darn clever. The clues were there, but I really didn’t see it coming, which is what I love in a mystery. It’s clear that Heyer did her research – the murder weapon is a surprise, very unique and devious. So I’d say this mystery is all about substance. The dialog is good, the characters are well-drawn, but in the end it’s the crime you remember, not what surrounds it. It was a great find.

Both of these mysteries were 4 star reads, for completely different reasons. Neither was a 5 star, though, because neither delivered the complete package: style and substance. Both authors are obviously capable of it though, and I’m anxious to read more from both authors. Thanks to Bev at My Reader’s Block for hosting!

Book Review: Supreme Courtship

Humor is about the hardest thing to translate. You have to really understand a culture to crystallize the humor in it. Christopher Buckley, ultimate Washington insider,* really understands life “inside the beltway.”** Which is why he manages to make “nine old farts sending footnotes to each other” –a.k.a. the US Supreme Court – seem hilarious! Well, at least hilarious some of the time. And maybe that’s all you can expect from political satire.

The premise here is great. President Vanderkamp, a terribly earnest and therefore thoroughly disliked Ohioan, becomes miffed when two of the finest jurists of the age are turned down for a seat on the Supreme Court because Dexter Miller, the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wants the job himself. Throwing caution to the wind for once, he nominates TV judge Pepper Cartwright, a wisecracking, gun-toting, Prada-wearing Texas icon to the Court.*** Along with the arcane nature of Constitutional law, Buckley also expounds on reality TV, populism, and the nature of marriage. There’s something here for everyone, especially news junkies.

Part of the book works beautifully. There’s one exchange among justices made up almost entirely of Latin legalese that had me laughing out loud in the library. And Silvio Santamaria, clearly a send-up of the most despicable justice with whom I share an alma mater – Antonin Scalia – is a brilliant tribute to excess:

He was brilliant, with a wit as caustic as drain cleaner; good company if you were in his camp and look out if you weren’t. Silvio Santamaria didn’t take yes for an answer. He didn’t disagree—he violently opposed. Didn’t demur—he went for your throat. Didn’t nitpick—disemboweled you and flossed his teeth with your intestines. First-timers appearing before the Court for oral argument had been known to wet their pants and even faint under his withering questions and commentary (p. 71).

I actually hope Buckley gets back to Santamaria in another book – the character deserved more time!

Unfortunately, not all of the book hangs together that well. The romantic angle of the novel was weak – so weak it made me squirm a bit. And Latina bombshell Ramona Alvilar represented a very nasty and hackneyed stereotype. At times it seemed like a long time between laughs. But then, this is a novel about the Supreme Court, where things change at a glacial pace. Perhaps that’s what he was going for?

If you like Buckley’s other books, you definitely will not be disappointed with Supreme Courtship, as I wasn’t. It just wasn’t as sharp as Thank You for Smoking, or as gut-wrenchingly funny as Boomsday, but it does represent a broadening of social themes for Buckley, which I enjoyed. A solid 3 out of 5 stars – probably 4 if you’re the kind of person who actually enjoys watching 24-hour news channels when there’s no particular disaster to follow.

This counts for the Book Blogger Abroad 2011 Challenge, as it was recommended by yours truly! So thanks to Judith at leeswammes for hosting!

*Yes, Christopher Buckley’s work stands on its own, but it’s hard to separate his political sensibility from the fact that his father was William F. Buckley, Jr., which makes him a true American political scion. I probably wouldn’t agree with either man on anything, including day of the week, just on principle. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Buckley was raised on this stuff, and can be funny about it.

**That’s Washington, DC, for those of us outside the beltway. People in DC are so inside the beltway they don’t even realize that other cities HAVE beltways.

*** Think Sarah Palin on the Supreme Court and you have the idea, although Buckley actually finished the book before John McCain plucked the woman who could see Russia from her house out of Alaska and onto the national scene.

Book Review: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

When I wrote up my goals for the year, I said I’d like to do more short reviews. This is one of those.

I picked up Rhoda Janzen’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress in an airport bookshop where the pickings were pretty thin (unless you happened to be a Danielle Steele or Stephen King fan, which I’m definitely not). The premise was certainly interesting: a worldly college professor, recently dumped by her newly out-of-the-closet husband, goes back to her Mennonite family to convalesce after surgery.

I generally like memoirs, and Janzen’s is both raw and real. It was good – it just wasn’t great. Maybe that’s because the cover design and copy made me think this would be hilarious, and it really wasn’t. There were some funny parts, but the overriding emotion of the memoir was bitterness, not mirth. Maybe she wrote it too soon after her divorce. I could really feel the sting of it, but I found it oddly deflating.

Still, the book demystifies Mennonites, appreciated because I live in an area with a significant Mennonite population, and didn’t really know very much about their traditions and history. I would recommend it to anyone interested in knowing more about the group. It would probably also be appropriate for someone going through a divorce, as it does have a positive message about resilience, and learning to appreciate what you have. Not at all a bad book, it just didn’t fit my life or mood at the moment – thank goodness.

Belated but very grateful: The Princess Bride Wrap-up

Not an excuse, but an explanation: I have been sick with a miserable cold and unfortunately too busy at work to take any time to heal (mid-terms, guest lectures, and letters of recommendation adding to my usual crazy schedule). So while I have been reading and thoroughly enjoying The Princess Bride Milestones, I have not found the energy for a blog post. Solution: Today I’m going to wrap up with my take on the last three Milestones, an unorthodox approach, but one that I hope will bring me some satisfaction – this reading thing is supposed to be fun, not stressful, after all! So here goes:

Milestones 3 and 4: In which the movie as most of us know it takes place, but way better

The Princess Bride is an “ensemble” film, peopled with supporting characters, but none truly “starring.” Yes, Buttercup and Westley’s love story is the central focus of the film, but it serves to tether the fine character performances to the script, rather than to dominate the action. The calculus of the book is quite different, however, and with fewer time-oriented constraints Goldman fleshed out some of the movie’s most colorful characters. This is why the best part of the book for me has definitely been the development of Inigo and Fezzik.

Inigo and Fezzik’s terrifying trip through the Zoo of Death was the best part of the book that didn’t make it into the movie. As they descend toward Westley, every level is booby-trapped with a menagerie of monstrous creature encounters, each of which tests a different skill. Fezzik and Inigo must prod each other through the levels, bickering and rhyming as they go.

Fezzik got up and lumbered after him, saying, “Inigo, listen, I made a mistake before, you didn’t lie to me, you tricked me, and father always said tricking was fine, so I’m not mad at you anymore, and is that all right with you? It’s all right with me.”

They turned the knob on the door at the bottom of the black stairs and stepped onto the fourth level.

Inigo looked at him. “You mean you’ll forgive me completely for saving your life if I completely forgive you for saving mine?”

“You’re my friend, my only one.”

“Pathetic, that’s what we are,” Inigo said.

“Athletic.”

After the Zoo of Death, the book was almost entirely familiar to those who had seen the movie: Miracle Max; the holocaust cloak; Buttercup’s unwelcome wedding; Inigo’s revenge on the evil Rugen; Westley’s outwitting of the slimy Humperdinck; and Fezzik’s rescue with four white horses. Only in the book, even Buttercup helps with the rescue, using her unwanted royal status to get the four past the brute squad.

Milestone 5: In which we almost get a love scene, and Fezzik is possessed

I have no idea what to make of the “first chapter” of Buttercup’s Baby. Here are the highlights of my inner rant while reading this section:

What the heck does Stephen King have to do with anything? Thank goodness Westley and Buttercup finally seem a bit "interested" in one another! Is Goldman really stuck on the sequel? One thing that the Introduction made clear was Goldman’s fondness for Andre the Giant who played Fezzik. I find it easy to believe that he planned a larger role for him in a sequel. But channeling some ancient midwife to perform Caesareans in caves? Stephen King playing Florinese kingmaker?

I could not wrap my head around it. Too much Goldman, not enough Baby. No wonder the second book has never been finished.

Did I like the book? Yes, very much. The only problem for me was its familiarity. I am not one to re-read books, although I can watch beloved movies over and over again. And I’ve seen the movie so many times, know so much of the dialog by heart in fact, that the book just held very few surprises. Still, I’m glad I read it, just to get to know Fezzik and Inigo better. As for the sequel, if this is where it’s headed, I’d suggest Goldman give up: his magnum opus is complete.

Many thanks to Chris at chrisbookarama for hosting this readalong. It was a pleasure reading everyone’s comments!

The Princess Bride: Milestone 1

One of my reading goals for the fall was to join a readalong. Reading is lonely business -- unless of course you're reading to someone else -- and I thought it might be fun to participate in an ongoing discussion. So I couldn't believe my luck when I stumbled onto an announcement that Chrisbookarama was hosting a readalong of The Princess Bride, a book I had never read, but based on a movie that I love more everytime I see it.

Which is why it came as quite a shock when I had some trouble getting into the book.

You see, I wasn't really prepared for the Introduction. I was all ready for true love and high adventure, and what I got was altogether different: William Goldman's "mockumentary" explanation of how he came to write both the book and the movie. Actually, the story is a pretty good one, albeit a little self-indulgent on Goldman's part, I think. I just hadn't anticipated it.

But once I got to Chapter 1 The Bride, the book delivered on the movie's promise. That's especially true because without the time constraints of a movie, Goldman has a lot more time to develop the characters. Buttercup, in particular, seems like a much more substantial character in the book, as when she declares her love for Westley, and he slams the door in her face.

"Chalk it up to experience, old girl, and get on with the morning. Buttercup stood, made her bed, changed her clothes, combed her hair, smiled, and burst out again in a fit of weeping. Because there was a limit to just how much you could lie to yourself."

The other characters are also more fleshed out -- Humperdinck, in particular, appears more villianous than in the movie, where Count Rugen appeared to be the "brains" of the operation. Now that the high adventure has begun, I am eager to read on. I'm also eager to hear everyone else's thoughts, especially about the way Goldman "inserts" himself into the text. Thanks to Chrisbookarama for hosting this readalong!

Next stop, Guilder!

Cutting for Stone finds beauty in the most horrifying places on earth

Abraham Verghese’s sensational Cutting for Stone is about destiny and finding your place in the world – about what is pre-determined, and what you can make happen on your own. The book follows the life of most unlikely twins Marion and Shiva Stone, their birth mother an Indian nun, their birth father a British surgeon, as they grow up in Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia. After the twins’ mother dies in childbirth, they are raised in Addis Ababa’s expatriate medical community by two Indian doctors, Hema and Ghosh.

“Sensational” is the exact word for this book, as Verghese offers insights into Marion and Shiva’s startling and visceral relationships with their seemingly star-crossed adoptive parents, their godmother who runs the hospital at which their parents worked, their panoply of family friends and helpers, their childhood playmate Genet, and finally and most importantly, each other. Even though they are born under the most horrible circumstances possible, the boys embrace their circumstances, proving that great love is possible whenever the right heart is willing. The author’s evocative writing, which is from the perspective of the older twin, Marion, allows us to experience the sights, smells, sounds, tastes and emotions of the boys’ world, but the narrative never comes to any conclusion about the world the boys “should” occupy – it is a book that radiates the current moment, even when it is relating the past.

One of the major themes in this novel is “belonging.” With whom do you fit in, and why? Is it community that makes a culture, or is it religion or is it geography? Midway through the novel, even though the twins are born in Ethiopia, and they speak Amharic fluently, Marion realizes that he is not seen as “Ethiopian,” but as an expatriate. Having realized how far out of the mainstream Addis Ababa is because of his late introduction to American rock and roll, Marion starts to rethink the romanticism of the expatriate life.

“I’d always thought the expatriates represented the best of culture and style of the 'civilized' world. But I could see now that they were so far from Broadway or the West End or La Scala, that they probably were a decade behind the times, just as I’d been with Chuck Berry.” (p. 314)

How far are you from your culture if you’ve never even seen it first hand? Can ancestors you’ve never met help determine the person you will become? Verghese examines the many reasons for leaving one's homeland, and the many reactions to those who already inhabit the places where immigrants land, from Africa to the Bronx.

This is a fascinating and beautifully written novel. I appreciated the complexity and enigmatic nature of the personalities portrayed in the book – there is neither good nor bad in these characters, only detail. In that sense, the novel resembles a medical chart, crammed with as much information, and as little bias, as possible. Not surprising as the author is a professor of medicine at Stanford. I loved the author’s ability to underscore the human predicament of even the most unlikeable characters. There is no “cartoonish” evil in this book – as in life, evil is subtle and situational.

Toward the end the book was a bit myopic – for example, there are many native born US American interns in New York City’s toughest hospitals, although the novel's characters categorically insist there are not. Clearly, Verghese is trying to make a case about the necessity of the educated immigrant class, but that case could have been made without the only stereotypes that inhabit the novel, the “high-and-mighty” American MDs. The rest of the book was so much more nuanced that I couldn’t help but be disappointed on that point.

Still, Cutting for Stone is a work of the first decade of the 21st century that no one who loves literature should miss. The author’s attention to detail and appreciation for other cultures is rare. The characters he creates are so real that I couldn’t help but wonder where they are now. I give this book an unqualified recommendation.

Ice Land: Of Valkyries and Volcanoes

If I had no other knowledge of the time period and place, here’s what I would know about medieval Scandinavia after reading Betsy Tobin’s new historical fantasy, Ice Land: 1) men were brutal; 2) arranged marriages were unhappy; 3) Asgard was some prime Icelandic real estate before the volcano Hekla chose to blow her top; 4) being a Norse goddess – even the goddess of love – was not all it was cracked up to be; and finally, in reference to #4, 5) the feathers were a nice perk, though.

Tobin’s novel is both imaginative and derivative. The Norse pantheon is, ironically, less known to English-speaking audiences than their ancient Greek and Roman counterparts. Tobin attempts to bring the Aesir to life, also ironically, just as they are about to fade from the planet, with the coming of Christianity to Europe’s last pagan outpost, Iceland. Freya, the Norse goddess of love, beauty and loss, is the first person narrator of the adventure. However, her personal reminiscences are mixed with the omniscient narration focused on other main characters: Fulla, a beautiful young woman from a traditional pagan (or godi) family, in love with the young man whose father killed her father (an old motif, but one sure to cause tension); Dvalin, half dwarf/half Aesir, marked by Brando-like internal struggle; Hogni, one of the last of the godi, trying to secure his granddaughter’s future in a world he will not see, and cannot understand. The change in narrations does serve to give us different views of Freya, but it also means that the book is at times disjointed.

The short passages narrated by The Norns (Norse goddesses of destiny) are particularly dissonant, as they mix modern knowledge of plate tectonics and vulcanology with the mystic ability to see the future when explaining Hekla’s machinations. These interludes stood out as particularly silly, frankly, and not up to the rest of Tobin’s accomplishment.

The book is imaginative because Tobin presents us with a very different version of the Aesir than might be expected. They have powers that humans do not have, certainly – humans don’t go flying around in falcon forms unless one of the Aesir is willing to take them along for the ride. But Tobin makes them far more human than godly, with their power based on their own astute public relations as much as their exceptional gifts. When asked by a young dwarf to tell him about her people, she struggles:

Where do I begin? With our deceit, our jealousies, our failures? Or with our own imagined triumphs, the heroic tales we’ve told each other for so long we now believe them to be true…I realize that the lines between truth and falsehood have long ago become blurred in my mind. (p. 140)

The book is derivative because it harkens back on so many levels to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s amazing The Mists of Avalon. Small band of true pagan believers? Check. Forced baptisms? Violent and greedy men bent on using the new religion to consolidate power? Check and check. Misunderstood humanoids of extraordinary power and beauty at their fin de siècle? Check. Romance despite the backdrop of complete cultural and social revolution? Check. In fact, Tobin plucks Asgard right out of the heavens and plunks it down in a mysterious Icelandic valley that can only be reached through a veil of water. (Hello, Morgaine Le Fay, here! The drippy trip to the magical world was my calling card – can you please send that back?) And while the placement of Asgard subjects it to physical, rather than metaphysical, decimation, the threat to the magical world permeates the book, just as in MofA.

The book also suffers from major lapses in continuity. Iceland was settled late in European history (the late 9th century, by most accounts) by disaffected Norwegians and Swedes who presumably took their culture, including their gods, with them. Why then the placement of Asgard in Iceland? Were the gods and goddesses commuting to Trondheim from their summer places near Reykjavik during most of their pagan reign? It’s silly to quibble with a fantasy, I understand, but that breech in historicity was so clear that I found it distracting. Another lapse involves the overlapping of two significant incidents in Icelandic history that actually happened 100 years apart. It’s the kind of thing that makes my inner medieval history major cringe.

Ice Land is a very decent beach read, especially if you’re dreaming about cooler climes in summer. It moves quickly and lightly, and the plot is interesting enough to keep you turning the pages. But if the literature critic from The Times of London really called it “Not just a good story, but one of the greatest,” as noted on the back cover, he or she seriously needs to expand the library. I think I’ll help by sending a copy of The Mists of Avalon.

This book counts for both the Goodreads Seasonal Reading Challenge and the Scandinavian Challenge. Can't fit it into No Ruts though, as I've definitely read something like it before!