Tag: Book review

Review: The Wildlands by Abby Geni

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Alexis: Read 1/4/19

I’m not too fond of prologues, but I found the prologue of The Wildlands to be the perfect introduction to the book. It describes, in detail, Cora’s first memory: the category 5 tornado which destroyed her childhood home and left her, and her siblings, an orphan. I loved Geni’s descriptions from the start. When Cora looks outside before the tornado strikes, the sky has turned green: “…I glanced out the window and saw the Oklahoma sky soaked with a new color. Damp jade. Split pea soup. Moss on stone.”

I was involved in each character’s storyline, especially Cora and Darlene’s, but also Roy’s and even Tucker’s, despite his violence. Geni captures emotions well, whether through her character descriptions or the descriptions of the harsh and barren Oklahoma landscape. She paints a picture of loss, poverty, and family. Many scenes in this book are vividly dark and disturbing, and Geni does a good job of showing how they affect Cora both psychologically and physically. Geni’s writing style mimics the sense of loss that follows the characters throughout the book. Despite the plot, The Wildlands is more of a character-driven story.

Cora’s relationship with her sisters feels raw, real, and appropriate for a nine-year-old. Her relationship with Tucker, however, is borderline obsessive. I couldn’t blame Cora for this, considering her painful childhood, but it was still disturbing at times.

I’m an animal lover, and I found Tucker’s theories about animals and mass extinction interesting yet terrifying. Seeing his thought process was an interesting insight in how someone’s interests can turn into a dangerous and radical obsession. The scenes with the animals towards the end of the book are surreal and poetic.

I understand why Geni includes the epilogue, but I felt like it was unnecessary. The book ended on the right note, but the epilogue drew away from it.

All in all, this was a well-written and thought-provoking read.

VERDICT: 4 and ½ out of 5 books

Review: Everything Under by Daisy Johnson

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This is a DUAL Review!

“I’d always understood that the past did not die just because we wanted it to. The past signed to us: clicks and cracks in the night, misspelled words, the jargon of adverts, the bodies that attracted us or did not that, the sounds that reminded us of this or that. The past was not a trailing behind us but an anchor.” -Daisy Johnson, Everything Under

Anna: Read: 12/17/18

I like lots of things about this book. l love Daisy Johnson’s writing style and enjoyed reading about Gretel’s complicated relationship with her mother. I love character driven “what happened” narratives, and this one intrigued me from the start.

This is a very ambitious book that tackles mother and daughter relationships, dementia, sexuality, adoption, abandonment, and homelessness. I was left with the the feeling that there was too much going on. There’s lots of good tension throughout the book with what happened to Marcus, and with the Bonak.

I really enjoyed the parts with Gretel’s mother and I wasn’t sure the point of making it the retelling of a certain myth that you figure out later in the book. The modern retelling didn’t enhance the story in any way. Coincidence is definitely a theme here that is a big part of classical myth, but I’m not sure I entirely bought the ending. It was beautiful writing all the way through, but it just felt too random and jarring.

Alexis: Read 12/22/18

I’m mostly going to agree with Anna here. Johnson’s writing style is lyrical and ethereal, made more so by the lack of quotation marks and her plentiful metaphorical descriptions. As for the genre, I would describe this as a modern magical realism book. Half the time, I wasn’t sure if what Gretel and her mother see and talk about is real or just in their heads.

I liked the emphasis on words, whether Gretel and her mother’s words or the very real words of Gretel’s work as a lexicographer. Overall, I enjoyed learning about Gretel and Sarah’s relationship. Marcus was an interesting character, and he felt more real to me than either Gretel or Sarah, though I’m not sure certain if him being trans worked for the book as a whole. On the other hand, Fiona’s character felt real and raw, and I felt that she was a better representation of a trans character than Marcus. I also wasn’t really a fan of the jumping around in point of views; it interrupted the flow of the book for me.

VERDICT: We both had similar mixed feelings about this book, and give it a solid 3 out of 5 books.   

Review: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

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Anna: Read 12/13/18

I have mixed feelings about this book. I really enjoyed the beginning, which follows siblings Rachel and Nathaniel after their parents mysteriously leave them in the care of a guardian. I love a good coming-of-age story. The beginning is also when the relationship between the characters had the most tension and intrigue.

I then struggled through the second half of the book, which focuses on Nathaniel uncovering his mother Rose’s backstory. This is where I lost interest, as the narrative completely lacked the suspense of the first half. The complete lack of characterization of Rose, coupled with the lack of empathy we feel for her as a reader in the first half when she leaves her children without explanation, made me uninterested in her life and career.

Something that surprised me about this book, and something that I liked, is the fact that it is set in the near-immediate aftermath of World War II. Going into reading this, I had assumed it was set during the war. I enjoy World War II fiction, but feel that this is an important and overlooked time period, especially since none of the characters were soldiers so it featured no war scenes.

Perhaps I would have enjoyed this more if the second half mimicked the dark and atmospheric half of the first. I just didn’t connect with any of the characters, besides Nathaniel. I just couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, feel any connection to their lives. And I particularly disliked the twist about the Darter near the end. The story also left a couple loose ends, which felt like an attempt at depth; however, it just further highlighted how undeveloped the characters felt to me.

VERDICT: 3 out of 5 books

Review: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

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Alexis: Read 12/10/18

This is a hard book for me to rate. The story, as are all Holocaust stories, is dark, harrowing, and resonant. This is a story of survival and love. It focuses on Lale and Gita, who manage to fall in love amidst the horrors of Auschwitz.

Parts of the novel hit me hard. It’s impossible to read a book about the Holocaust and not come away emotionally affected by it. The knowledge that this was not only based on a real historical event but also on the lives of two very real people played in the back of my mind as I read. I liked that it was written in present tense, which propels you into the story.

But how do you rate a book like this? The perspective is one of the most interesting parts of the book. Lale, as the Tattooist, has a higher position than most of his fellow prisoners. I was wholly involved in his storyline of using his position in order to barter jewelry for food, help feed other prisoners, and help save other prisoners’ lives. His feelings of revulsion at tattooing his own people conflict with his instinct to do what he must to survive.

Yet chunks of this book still fall flat. The writing style is awkward in places. Half of Lale and Gita’s relationship feels real and raw, and half feels stitled. In the “about the author” section of the book, it’s mentioned that Morris originally wrote this story as a screenplay, and this seems to fit with the style of some sections of the book. Near the end, it’s mentioned that Lale’s way of dealing with the horrors of his imprisonment is emotional detachment. This could be the reason for the stiltedness, as the writing could reflect Lale’s repressed emotions. However, I don’t think this was a purposeful choice on Morris’ part.  

VERDICT: 4 out of 5 stars

 

Review: The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo

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Alexis:

I liked the first half of The Light We Lost—not the prologue, but I’m not really a fan of prologues unless they give important historical/background information.

The book is written in first person in the eyes of the main character, Lucy. Throughout the book, she addresses a “you,” which refers to her first love, Gabe. Each chapter ends with Lucy posing a question, or a series of questions, to Gabe. At first, I liked this formatting, but it got repetitive and old fast.

The beginning of the book focuses on their relationship, which lasts just over a year. Their relationship is a classic first love relationship. Lucy and Gabe are infatuated with each other, and their relationship mostly focuses on their physical chemistry. They share their hopes and dreams with each other while living in New York City.

Then they break up. I liked reading about Lucy’s grief and seeing how she deals with her loss. Lucy moves on; Lucy meets another guy. Yet Gabe is ever-present, whether in the back or the front of her mind. Even five, ten years down the road, all Lucy can think about is Gabe, and this begins to feel repetitive and, frankly, annoying.

I kept yelling (metaphorically, of course), “Lucy, you are a grown, married woman! Get a grip and stop only thinking about yourself!”

And, ultimately, this is what I have a problem with in the second half of the book. The characters become self-absorbed and predictable. I simply didn’t care about them anymore. The plot rambles, and most of it deals with Lucy’s feelings of insecurity in her relationship and her life.

Of course. That was my first thought about the ending: of course that’s how it would end. I might have been on board if Lucy finally changed at the end, if she grew up and accepted what wasn’t meant to be, but she didn’t.

VERDICT: 3 out of 5 books

Review: The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

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Anna:

This is a spoiler free review!

It’s 1859, and English nurse Lib Wright takes on a mysterious case in rural Ireland. She’s assigned a devout little girl, Anna, who claims to be living without food, under God’s will. Lib’s job is to watch the girl at all hours and report to a committee if she is sneaking food or not. Lib arrives expecting to catch the girl sneaking food within a matter of hours. But as Lib becomes more involved in the girl’s life she begins to see that this religious family is far from what it seems.

I picked this book up in the $1 section of the Strand when I was living in New York. I haven’t read Donoghue’s wildly successful book, Room, but I both love and am horrified by the movie. I found myself picking up the British edition of The Wonder when I was studying publishing in Oxford, England after college. It has one of those semi-vague descriptions that somehow is totally intriguing. I’ve had this book on my radar for a while. I was excited to also read an Irish author for the first time.

I think good historical novels are such an accomplishment, and this one captures religious tension between Catholics and Protestants, as well as the cultural differences and prejudices between the English and Irish. One of the biggest endeavors this book takes on is exposing hypocrisy in religion and and warning against the danger of extremism. The protagonist, Lib, does not identify with any faith or God herself, which alienates her, but also often allows her to act as one of the only characters to think and see clearly. As a nurse, she also represents science and rational thought.

This book doesn’t portray Catholics in good light, to say the least. Anna’s family is devout to the point of desiring sainthood over the health and life of their own daughter. Though Donahue exposes the dangers of religious extremism, she doesn’t completely criticize against religion as a whole. Anna herself becomes a dear friend to Lib, who has never allowed herself intimacy with a patient before. Lib recognizes and admires Anna’s good character and extreme bravery and strength. Lib’s love interest, Byrne, identifies as a deeply religious man, who is still able to see the dire consequences of the family’s extremist behavior. These two good characters prove that Donoghue does not condemn all faith as a whole, which I appreciate.

Donoghue also scrutinizes men in positions of power. Both the town’s head doctor and the priest are exposed as self-serving and using Anna’s publicity for their own means. They both are privy to ghastly and private information concerning Anna’s physical health that they conceal for the sake of town peace.

Another overarching theme is the question of if a mother/parent always has the child’s best interest at heart.

One of the things I love about The Wonder is that it kept me guessing up until the end. I didn’t think Lib’s own backstory is as compelling as it could have been, and it’s also easy to guess from the beginning. This book is so unique, and I would recommend it for a suspenseful, intelligent, and atmospheric read.

VERDICT: 4 out of 5 books

Review: The Pisces by Melissa Broder

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Anna:

This book is crazy…but very smart. Following the breakup with her long term boyfriend, Lucy takes up her sister’s offer of living in her beach house in Venice Beach for the summer and house sitting her sister’s beloved dog. There’s only one requirement- she must attend a sex addiction group therapy. But she leaves that all behind when she meets the fantastical and beautiful merman named Theo.

The first thing to know going into this book is that it features lots and lots of sex. Honestly, this book probably has the most explicit sex scenes I’ve ever read. That’s all I’m going to say about that, but I can’t review this without acknowledging that that’s a substantial part of the book.

There are pretty much spoilers throughout the rest of the review.

I hated Lucy from the start and had trouble feeling any sympathy for her throughout. First of all, she’s definitely taking advantage of her graduate program by putting off her book on Sappho that the department is paying for. When she meets Theo she finally starts writing the book again. The department likes the new direction, but pulls her funding and suggests she pursue a trade publisher instead, which I found hilariously karmatic.

From the first chapter, Lucy continually judges and puts down other women based on their appearance. She nicknames two women in her group Butterface and Cickenhorse, and even wishes for her ex’s new girlfriend to have a miscarriage. This made me wonder if Broder is intentionally calling to attention Lucy’s woman-hating behavior or being unfeminist for the sake of being funny.

Dominic the diabetic coonhound is by far the best character in the book, and I loved the descriptions of Lucy bonding with him when she first get to Venice. And then Lucy has to go and kill him. She gives him high doses of tranquilizers so she can have uninterrupted sex with Theo. I automatically dock a point from my rating if a dog dies in a book. I understand that he represents unconditional love, but I’m sick of the dead dog/loss of innocent trope and resented that he had to die.

Okay, okay. Here are some things I did like. I was really impressed by the use of the unexplained specs in Sappho’s work as a parallel to the blankness and emptiness Lucy feels without love and sex in her life. This shift to meditation on classical thinking complicated and difficult to follow, but ultimately succeeded, and there were some beautiful paragraphs about myth, love and emptiness.

I also really liked the dark twist ending with Theo. This worked really well, because the reader is left to wonder if Theo really existed at all, or if he was a symbol for suicide/depression/abuse. And, ultimately she says no to the fantasy of Theo and saves herself.

But kills the dog.

I think the story has merit, but I found some of the details gratuitous and anti-feminist, and the characterization frustrating. I feel like I need to read middle grade or something to cleanse my palate now.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 books

Review: Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney

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Anna: Read 11/26/18

I couldn’t stop reading this. It’s safe to say that I’m in love with Sally Rooney’s writing style- it’s exactly what I want in literary fiction with a modern setting. I also think it’s an accurate representation of my generation. It’s an accomplishment when a book involves technology without taking away from the quality of writing. Everything about this book feels so real. It captures the ideas and ideals of my generation so well, from fluidity when it comes to sexuality, to how frustrating it can be, as a full-time student, managing finances, friendships, and mental health.

I loved Frances as a character. All of the characterization was rich and complex, but especially the main four- Frances, Bobbi, Nick and Melissa.The relationships were complicated and meticulously fleshed out, and the dialogue felt so realistic. I was impressed by the way Frances and Nick’s arguments were written, even over email. This book is aptly named Conversations with Friends as the complexity, frequency, and realness of these dialogues is something that defines this book. These characters actually have real, interesting conversations, which is something I appreciate. There’s nothing worse than fake, fluffy conversation.

Here are some things I didn’t like.

(Below is where the spoilers live!)

I loved this book all the way through, but it would have had even more of an impact without the last chapter. The fact that it implied that Frances is going to enter into a “relationship” with Nick again takes a way a bit from the chapters before.

Frances’s endometriosis diagnosis was a bit strange. I think reproduction problems are important to talk about in fiction, and too often periods aren’t even mentioned in literature, even in explicitly feminist fiction. Though I really appreciated that aspect, I wasn’t exactly sure of its purpose in the plot. All that comes to mind is that Frances being sick interfered with her fixing things with Bobbi and Nick. It also made her think about youthfulness, womanhood, and pregnancy in a different way, especially since she thought she was having a miscarriage when she first experienced the painful symptoms. I wait to read other people’s full reviews until after I write my own, so I will be looking into other takes on this when I finish writing this.

I thought Bobbi was really annoying. She felt so condescending and controlling over Frances, even at the end when Frances had grown a lot and developed her own “real personality.” I liked how complicated and undefined their relationship was, but I couldn’t get over how preachy and elitist Bobbi is throughout the book.

A huge pet peeve I have is how easy it was for Frances to get published. There is NO WAY that her story would have been published in a prestigious journal AND that she was paid royalties for it. Frances wrote the story in one sitting, sent it in unedited, AND it was the first prose she had ever written in her life. As writers and as someone who has worked in publishing, Alexis and I and are very familiar with the publication process. Maybe it’s easier to get published in a journal in Ireland, but I doubt it.

It was funny reading about Frances interning at a literary agency, because I did that. I can say that part was realistic!

This book does so many great things and I enjoyed reading this so much that I am still considering bumming it up a rating, despite the unsatisfying ending. I can’t wait to read Normal People by Sally Rooney soon!

VERDICT: 4 out of 5 books

Review: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld

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Alexis: DNFed 11/25/18

Okay, so I rarely DNF a book. But I just couldn’t finish this. I was so disappointed because I love Pride & Prejudice retellings!

I only got about 45 pages in, then I skipped to the ending, and then I skimmed the middle.

To start, the writing style is just weird. It feels too flowery, too forced, like the author was trying too hard to sound like Jane Austen.

This is supposed to be a modern retelling. Instead, it ends up being a modern yet sleazy retelling. The story features a TV show that’s basically The Bachelor. There’s a lot of tasteless sex, and Lizzy and Darcy even have hate sex. Lizzy and her sisters joke about how they think Mary is gay so often that it makes me uncomfortable. A lot of other additions are completely unneccesary. 

Instead of being loveable and annoying, Mrs. Bennet is rude and annoying. She also seems to be prejudiced (ha) and she hates everybody. There’s a line where she says, “Liz…life can be very hard for mulatto children.” Yikes.

Check out this other line: “From his first sighting of Jane, Chip’s face crumpled; and the sequent gush from his eyes would surely have been sufficient to bathe a medium-sized dog: a corgi, perhaps, or a border collie.” What?

The beginning wasn’t good, there were four different—equally bad—endings, and everything I skimmed in the middle wasn’t good, either. This book definitely wasn’t for me.

VERDICT: 1 out of 5 books

Review: Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

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Anna: Read 11/16/18

In Salvage the Bones, Esch and her three brothers help their alcoholic brothers prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina with their father, who is often drunk. Esch’s mother died giving birth to her youngest brother, Junior. Her brother Skeetah’s dog, China, gives birth to puppies, who he hopes to sell as prized fighting dogs. The oldest brother Randall is distant but protective, and Junior is always getting into trouble. But Esch has her own problem—she’s pregnant.

I loved this book! This is my second Jesmyn Ward book after Sing, Unburied, Sing. Her writing is so atmospheric that you can almost feel the sticky Southern humidity as you read. Ward is hands down one of the most lyrical writers I’ve read, and it’s amazing how she can make something as devastating as the destruction of Hurricane Katrina into something beautiful and even hopeful.

The pacing in this is fantastic and mimics the calm before a storm. As the tension builds and builds and the storm approaches, Esch’s pregnancy becomes harder to hide. I loved Ward’s foreshadowing in China’s motherhood to her puppies, the approach of the storm, and all the water/flood imagery.

I also loved the narrator, Esch, and her family, despite their many flaws. Esch’s memories of her dead mother throughout her day to day life make her as present as the other characters, and these descriptions were some of my favorite parts of the book. You can feel their mother’s love in the family by the way they remember her moving around the house, which they ultimately have to fight to save from the hurricane. Esch’s relationship with her brothers and father shifts as the events of the hurricane play out. This is a fantastic story of family and brotherly sacrifice.

Despite the fact that China was a fighting dog, I enjoyed reading about the bond between China and Skeetah. Even though I’m ethically opposed to dogspotting, I found Ward’s ability to write such calm scenes alongside the bloody ones of the dogfights, and then the destruction of the hurricane, impressive.

A word of warning: don’t read this if you can’t handle dogfighting, or other bad things happening to dogs, if you know what I mean. Honestly, this might be the reason I’m not giving it 5 stars/books. 

VERDICT: 4 out of 5 books

I highly recommend checking out Jesmyn Ward. I’ll definitely be reading the remaining two books on her backlist very soon!