I love Kate DiCamillo’s writing. Her books weave together hope and goodness and sorrow without ever being sappy or sentimental. She reminds me that evI love Kate DiCamillo’s writing. Her books weave together hope and goodness and sorrow without ever being sappy or sentimental. She reminds me that even in this world of loss and loneliness and cruelty and disappointment, there are egg salad sandwiches and pickles and music.
And maybe a dog that smiles. And shows us that we have each other too.
“Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us.”...more
Four stars for readability! Twelve-year-old Ethel has bad skin. REALLY bad skin. She tries to be invisible at school, but middle school doesn’t work tFour stars for readability! Twelve-year-old Ethel has bad skin. REALLY bad skin. She tries to be invisible at school, but middle school doesn’t work that way. The cruel comments about her skin hit hard. She’ll do pretty much anything to cure the acne. And she does. Including a dodgy Chinese “traditional cure” from the internet combined with way too many UV rays from a seen-better-days tanning bed. Which, surprisingly, actually does improve her skin.
But it also turns her invisible.
Like a lot of good stories, this one isn’t about what it says it’s about. It’s about family and secrets. What it means to be a friend. Figuring out who you are and who you want to be. The surprising truths behind seemingly bland faces.
“The Last Days of Ptelemy Grey” is not magical realism. But, in a similar fashion, it overlays a fanciful storyline atop an absolutely real world.
Wha“The Last Days of Ptelemy Grey” is not magical realism. But, in a similar fashion, it overlays a fanciful storyline atop an absolutely real world.
What I love about the book is the beautiful writing, the deep and genuine insights, the way it tosses off Truth without explanation. Because when we see Truth, we recognize it. We don’t need rhetoric.
Ptelemy Grey is an old man. He has lost his ability to think clearly. His confusion isolates him from those who love him and makes him an easy target for those who do not. He lives in squalor, dependent on a nephew he barely remembers for help with groceries and bank business.
His world is an interior one, where the child Ptelemy (Li’l Pea) and long-dead friends and relatives speak in his mind. His love and grief for those past companions is deep and true. The horror of how they died and the casual racism underpinning his life and theirs is always with him. But he can’t make sense of things. He knows that there are very important tasks that he must complete before he dies.
But what are they?
He can’t remember.
The story of the book is the story of his journey to remembering who he is and what he must do.
And it is beautifully told.
Some quotes below:
[ON HEAVEN AND HELL]
I think there’s a long line up there in heaven an’ yo’ place in that line is predicted by what you done wrong. The worser thing you did puts you that much further to the back of the line. The people done the lesser is up to the front.
“Now, the line start in downtown heaven and goes all the way to the barracks of hell because the two places is connected, just like good an’ evil in the same man. So anyway, when you die you get a number that stands for what you did wrong. So if you had two mens, a black one and a white one, and the black man stole the white man’s pig to feed his kids and then the white man shot the black man’s son because he couldn’t find the thief… well the white man gonna get a much bigger number for murder than the black man will for stealin’. So, forgettin’ any other misdemeanors, the white man will have a hotfoot at his place on line and the black man will hear harp music comin’ from just up the way.”
“But what about the boy?” Li’l Pea asked.
“What boy?”
“The one that the white man killed.”
“Him?…. They ain’t no special numbahs for the victims. Just ‘cause they grabbed you and chained you, just ‘cause they beat you an’ raped your sister don’t mean a thing when it come to that line. God don’t care what they did to you. What he care about is what you did.”
[ON ETERNITY]
A moment like that, like when you fishin’ or after you done made love with your woman and you smokin’ a cigarette while she sleep…that’s the kind of time that’s just so wonderful. That’s when you can think because you ain’t hungry or lustful or in it with somebody wanna waste yo’ time. You could be just sittin’ there by yourself and you could see what you need to do, the way God do in eternity.
[ON BEING VERY YOUNG AND BEING VERY OLD]
Old man like me don’t have no first blue sky or thunderstorm or kiss. Old man like me don’t laugh at the taste of a strawberry or smell his own stink and smile. You right there in the beginnin’ when everything was new and true. My world is made outta ash and memories, broken bones and pain.
Old man sees the same things and walk the same roads he know so well that he don’t even have to open his eyes to make his way. Right and wrong two sides’a the same coin for me, but for you there’s only right. Somebody say sumpin’ an’ you hear ‘em just like they say…. I hear everybody I evah knew talkin’ ‘bout things nobody knows no more. I hear preachers an’ judges, white men and black. I hear ‘em talkin’ ‘bout tomorrow when I know that was a long time ago.
[ON THE SOUL]
“What’s a soul, Coy?”
“Do you look at your mama sometimes and feel love in your heart for her?”
“Yeah. Sometimes when I come home an’ she’s cookin’ an’ the house smell like chicken and dumplin’s an’ she see me and smile I get the jitters in my legs an’ start laughin’ an’ she smiles harder and calls me her li’l brown nut.”
“That love in your heart is your soul…. Some people lose they souls along the way. They don’t feel no love or pride or that there’s somethin’ in the world bettah than they lives.”
[ON LOVE]
I don’t need nobody to take care’a me, not no more. I just need somebody to want to....more
This book was intense, with a noir setting and a fantastic storyline. As I was reading, I believed every word.
Mercy Lewis is a basketball goddess. DeThis book was intense, with a noir setting and a fantastic storyline. As I was reading, I believed every word.
Mercy Lewis is a basketball goddess. Despite her humble background, her grandmother’s cultish religious faith, and her mother’s callous absence, Mercy is something special.
Illa is a ghost. Tiny and ignored, she manages the basketball team and harbors a friend crush for Mercy - who treats her kindly but, like everyone else, forgets about Illa.
Annie is a force. Filled with anger and energy and beauty and charisma, she loves Mercy. And Mercy loves her back. They are their own unit.
And Travis. Unmarked by the devils and damnation of Mercy’s upbringing, the tragedy of Illa’s, and the dark storm of Annie’s, Travis has love. Parents. Sisters. Words on his wall and songs in his guitar. Travis knows tenderness.
Set against the backdrop of an oil refinery gulf town, with its heat and humidity and thick stinking air, the story unfolds - about beautiful girls on the cusp of adulthood, blamed and shamed and revered for their radiant sexuality. They are afraid of God and Satan and each other. They wear their purity rings with their skimpy outfits, want to be sexy, want to be popular, want to be good.
There are shades of Frollo and Esmeralda from Hunchback of Notre Dame and of Salem’s infamous witch trials. There are mysteries that remain unsolved and storylines that are incomplete.
But I couldn’t stop reading. And when the ending arrived, I was satisfied....more
Kristen Hannah’s “The Women” is a page turner. I truly couldn’t put it down, stayed up late reading, made myself late for work so I could read a LITTLKristen Hannah’s “The Women” is a page turner. I truly couldn’t put it down, stayed up late reading, made myself late for work so I could read a LITTLE more.
It got me thinking about the horror and tragedy of Vietnam - and the whiff of ignominy that still haunts us half a century later.
It brought to mind the differences between World War 2 movies and the war movies made post Vietnam - and how few of them are even made about our military involvements of the past 20 years or so.
It made me consider the time period of the ‘60s as representing a pause in our understanding of ourselves as Americans. BEFORE Vietnam, we shared an overall faith that our country was both great and good. Our democracy was a beacon of light. We were the City on a Hill. Our president would not lie or cheat to make sure he wins the election. We would not secretly invade other countries. We fought wars to free the oppressed and bring good into the world. We would NEVER kill women and children, spray chemicals known to be toxic, torch entire villages. We were America!
Vietnam removed our blinders and changed our definition of patriotism. Some of us doubled down into a kind of blind loyalty to country: America, love it or leave it.
Some of us started asking more questions. What are we doing and why and and who is hurt by it? We looked at our own history and saw a glimmer of what we more fully recognize now: that the legacy of slavery and indigenous genocide is shameful and has terrible, ongoing consequences.
Vietnam set the stage for today’s deeply divided landscape, in which half the country elected a corrupt businessman as president while the other half looked on in shock and dismay. Vietnam was the starting place for “alternative facts” and the disruption of our core democratic principle - free and fair elections.
So the book got me thinking.
In spite of all of that, “The Women” misses the mark. Kristin Hannah did her research about the experience of nursing in that time and place. The dismissal of the women in Vietnam, the precise descriptions of the uniforms, the settings, the PTSD - it rang true. I believed in the doomed love story and the deep and abiding friendships that continued long after the war. I liked her use of music to show the passage of time.
But.
Kristin Hannah manipulates her readers. The endless train of dead and dying in field hospitals is heart stopping and soul wrenching. It heightens the drama, as it is designed to do. But what about soldiers who went home with treatable injuries? There weren’t ANY of those?
Frankie works hard to move forward in her life. But reminders of the war years emerge in homecomings and incidents - ALWAYS at the exact moment of a significant New Life event. Every. Single. Time.
It’s not easy being a Kristin Hannah character!
Worst of all, Kristin Hannah neglected to do actual book research. We don’t come to learn or understand anything new and meaningful about the time period, because the author herself doesn’t have a deep understanding of it.
So it’s a good read.
But it turns history into plot points and never goes more than surface deep.
Refugee tells the stories of three families in search of asylum: Jews escaping Nazi Germany in 1939; Cubans in 1994, hurrying away before Castro chargRefugee tells the stories of three families in search of asylum: Jews escaping Nazi Germany in 1939; Cubans in 1994, hurrying away before Castro charges his mind about permitting Cubans to leave; and Syrians in 2015, running away from the civil war. Each story is told through the eyes of a child on the cusp of adulthood
There is a sameness to the three stories - moments of terrible fear and inescapable loss punctuating hours of monotony and pain and discomfort. Each story has its roots in historical events and is based on the lives of real people.
And it’s almost too much.
I learned a lot from this book and the author’s note at the end. I never knew the circumstances of how the Jewish refugees on the ship “The St. Louis” were refused entry into the US. I didn’t know there was a surge of Cuban refugees in 1994. I didn’t know what faced Syrian refugees (and others from Africa and the Middle East) if they survived the hellish crossing of the Mediterranean.
Reading on my overstuffed couch, a comfortable century and a half away from my own family’s immigration story, listening to Donald Trump tell lies about Haitian refugees in Ohio and plant fear in the minds of his supporters - I feel helpless. There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of refugees seeking asylum right now. Like the characters in this story, like so many of our great grandparents, they escaped a hell and survived.
But they have not found their happy ending.
America can no longer pretend to be a force for good in the world. ...more
This was a slow starter for me. But the more I read, the more invested I became.
Frances and Bobbi are young and beautiful, high school sweethearts whoThis was a slow starter for me. But the more I read, the more invested I became.
Frances and Bobbi are young and beautiful, high school sweethearts who are now college best friends. They perform poetry together, live together, depend on one another.
The two of them form a foursome with writer Melissa and her hunky actor husband Nick. Everyone is very smart and wry and understated. There is a dispassion about their interactions. But underneath - underneath is all the messy emotion you expect.
Not a lot happens in this book. Despite the title, there isn’t a single conversation.
And yet.
Somehow, in the sparest of prose, this novel gets at something real - about that moment of being young and smart and well-read; confused and insecure and awkward; trying hard to figure out what you’re supposed to be doing. And realizing that in the end - no matter how sophisticated you come off - life is brutal. There are fewer choices than you thought. No one has it together. And you just keep moving forward. ...more
This is a quiet, interior read. There is no great secret or mystery at the heart. Just the common, unremarkable story; the devastating, extraordinary This is a quiet, interior read. There is no great secret or mystery at the heart. Just the common, unremarkable story; the devastating, extraordinary story of surviving the Holocaust, moving to Canada, and making a new start.
Lily Azarov isn’t Lily Azarov. She arrives in Montreal in 1946 with a stolen name, an uncut diamond from the real Lily Azarov, and a plan to marry a nice Canadian Jewish boy, sight unseen.
She marries; she has a child, and she exits the story, leaving a permanent imprint. Her child is raised by the nice Jewish boy she married and his family.
The memory of the horror is in the air of the Jewish community. In the face of the teacher at schul who periodically stands stoically with silent tears running down his face. In the child who is disconcerted by the way her survivor father watches her sleep. In Lily’s departure, her inability to stand by the new life she craves.
Ruth, the daughter grows up. She does get to meet her mother, to make that connection.
But the story is still defined by loss.
This was not a page turner. But it is a story worth reading and remembering....more
“Mrs. England” put me in mind of Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw.” Only this one ended on a hopeful note.
I liked the story of Nurse May and the caref“Mrs. England” put me in mind of Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw.” Only this one ended on a hopeful note.
I liked the story of Nurse May and the careful care she gives to the children in her charge. I like her modern style of childcare, respectful and gentle. I was able to guess the gist of the mystery, but that did not make it less interesting. The atmospheric elements were on point. Altogether, it was quite a satisfying read.
My favorite thing was Nurse May herself. Despite a difficult past, Nurse May puts good into the world. I LIKED this girl who interrupted the most important test of her life to retrieve someone else’s pencil. And it pleases me that she ends in a good place. ...more
Shelley Wodehouse wakes up in hospital from a coma. She is outraged by the memory of her husband’s violence, which This was a great audiobook listen!
Shelley Wodehouse wakes up in hospital from a coma. She is outraged by the memory of her husband’s violence, which she knows put her there. But she has memory gaps. There are things that don’t make sense. And nobody will tell her anything!
Has her abusive husband been arrested? Why hasn’t she been questioned? Why hasn’t her mother come to visit? What doesn’t she know?
Over the course of the book Shelley recovers her memory, and we learn her difficult story from childhood onward.
It would be easy to dismiss this as a “domestic abuse novel.” And it is that. But it is also a plain good read, with well-developed characters and a compelling plot. ...more
I found this book pretty slow going, so only gave it 3 stars. But there is a lot I like about it.
First, the concept: as the reader, you get to solve I found this book pretty slow going, so only gave it 3 stars. But there is a lot I like about it.
First, the concept: as the reader, you get to solve the puzzles along with the characters. And you get hints along the way. But if you are stumped - well, they do give the answers.
I like that the plot line is set around a central mystery: Where did Clayton Stumper come from? Who left him on the front porch in a hat box?
I like the back and forth in time from Clayton the man to the time before Clayton.
I love the idea of the fellowship itself, how the story brings together quirky, brilliant minds to create a family, with all the beauty and all the pitfalls of the traditional kind.
I like the decency of the characters. Yes, life is filled with disappointment and heartache and ennui and the occasional true debacle. But there can also be good will and getting past the hard things. Despite the messiness of life, we can choose to be there for one another.
I like the love story. It is a small subplot, awkward and sweet and pleasing.
I like the way the book celebrates people who are generally overlooked: the artist who lives in his car; the woman past her prime who secretly wishes for a child; the brilliant chain-smoker with the fabulous hats who just wants to fall in love. We follow these characters up into advanced age. And they are granted the individuality and dignity and ordinariness of the under-40 set who generally populate the stories we come across.
This was a twisty, edge-of-your-seat story of lost wives and lost girls. What happened to Shelby Tebow, who disappeared while jogging? And Meredith DiThis was a twisty, edge-of-your-seat story of lost wives and lost girls. What happened to Shelby Tebow, who disappeared while jogging? And Meredith Dickey and her 6-year-old daughter Delilah, who go missing not long after?
This was a page-turner that was full of red herrings - and I fell for every one! I did not come close to guessing the ending.
If you are looking for something to keep you reading long into the night, this one will do it!...more
I listened to this on audio and quite enjoyed it. It’s the first of a trilogy, and I was very disappointed that Hoopla did not have the next two volumI listened to this on audio and quite enjoyed it. It’s the first of a trilogy, and I was very disappointed that Hoopla did not have the next two volumes!
The story is told in different voices, beginning with Irene Steele. When her husband dies, Irene is shocked to learn that he had been leading a double life. We are transported to an idyllic Florida Keys island, where we learn what’s happened from a variety of perspectives.
My audio choices differ from my reading choices, but I really enjoyed it as a listening book. ...more
Julian Jessop, former artist, playboy, and man-about-town, has gotten old and lonely. He looks back with wistfulness and regret at the years when his Julian Jessop, former artist, playboy, and man-about-town, has gotten old and lonely. He looks back with wistfulness and regret at the years when his beloved wife Mary was with him, cringing at memories of betrayal and callousness. In the 15 years since she died, he has stopped painting, retreated from the world, isolated himself.
He buys a school notebook, titles it “The Authenticity Project,” and begins writing:
“How well do you know the people who live near you? Do you even know the names of your neighbors? Would you realize if they were in trouble, or hadn’t left their house for days?
“Everyone lies about their lives. What would happen if you shared the truth instead? The one thing that defines you, that makes everything else about you fall into place? Not on the internet, but with those real people around you?”
Julian tells his story, then leaves the notebook in a local coffee shop for someone to find.
The notebook makes the rounds, traveling abroad and back home again, picking up stories as it goes.
A premise like this one runs the risk of being preachy, turning saccharine, being “heartwarming.” This one stays on course, with characters you believe in and enough surprises to keep you reading.
Made me wonder what would happen if I started my own authenticity project and whether any readers have decided to try.
A fun, lighthearted read, with enough gravity to keep it real(enough) world.
It would make a wonderful limited series on Netflix - wish someone would take up that project!...more
I loved this story told through letters and memorabilia. Somehow, this presentation brought World War II and the home front home to me in a way that cI loved this story told through letters and memorabilia. Somehow, this presentation brought World War II and the home front home to me in a way that countless novels, dozens of movies and documentaries, and multiple photographic histories never has.
The story was bookended by the discovery and reactions to the scrapbook by the daughters who found it. Those few pages told a different story. There we see the young adult condescension about parents and the superficial assumptions we make about the people who raised us. Also the realization that comes years later of the ways we didn’t ask the questions, didn’t bother to learn our parents’ stories, missed our opportunity to more deeply know our parents.
My own parents were contemporaries of the war bride and her husband. My father served in the navy; my mother was in the Waves. The world of this scrapbook was one they remembered well.
I wish I could have read this book with them....more
This is the story of a family that struggles. Cash, Fitch, and Bird are siblings in middle school together. Cash just wants to be cool, to play good eThis is the story of a family that struggles. Cash, Fitch, and Bird are siblings in middle school together. Cash just wants to be cool, to play good enough basketball, and to pass 7th grade (which he failed last year). Fitch and Bird are fellow 7th graders and twins. Fitch wants to play his favorite video game and navigate the social world without a) being harassed by his best friend and b) being followed by the girl who likes him. Bird wants people to be nicer to each other, especially her family. And to be an astronaut.
There was something honest at the heart of this novel. The parents who don’t really like each other. The isolation of being 12, even when you have siblings in your grade. The way families fail each other.
The plot centers on of the Challenger disaster in 1986, when a space shuttle including a school teacher in the crew disintegrated almost immediately after take-off. I had nearly forgotten about this tragedy. But it happened in front of the eyes of millions of schoolchildren, courtesy of NASA satellite connections with schools.
This was a low drama book. Not so much happens. Our characters live through their day-to-day lives. But it does reach some deeper chord of just being human, a kid in the world at a particular time.
And there is something kind of beautiful about that. ...more
Jade is a Black girl with opportunities. She takes the bus across town every day to the mostly white school where she has a scholarship. Her real frieJade is a Black girl with opportunities. She takes the bus across town every day to the mostly white school where she has a scholarship. Her real friends are in the neighborhood, but she has acquaintances she likes at school.
Her real goal? To travel. The white school has an exchange program. But - she isn’t selected for that. Instead, she is nominated for the Woman to Woman program. She will get a Black mentor to support her on her path.
This book gives a good look at what it means to be a teenager trying to make good, to appreciate support, and to get past well-intended condescension.
The book flap calls it “a thoughtful and relevant novel that explores issues of race, privilege, and relationships.”
I listened to this book on audio and was captivated. This is a story about a family: beautiful Cora, who loves her husband; Ernt, the husband, sufferiI listened to this book on audio and was captivated. This is a story about a family: beautiful Cora, who loves her husband; Ernt, the husband, suffering from PTSD after a stint in Viet Nam; Leni, their child who just wants everything to be ok.
It is 1974. Ernt is sure that he can find peace and purpose on the Alaskan frontier, where everyone is a survivalist.
The book spans decades, detailing the lifestyle, the hazards, and the stark beauty of life in the frozen north. The Alaskan landscape is its own character.
But it is mostly a story about family: love, violence, loss, and change.
This is a beautifully written story that will stay in my head for a long time....more
It took me a minute to realize that this book is about Angelina Grimke, whom I know to be a famous abolitionist. As Sue Monk Kidd tells it, Angelina’sIt took me a minute to realize that this book is about Angelina Grimke, whom I know to be a famous abolitionist. As Sue Monk Kidd tells it, Angelina’s less famous sister Sarah was equally impressive.
In the novel, very small Sarah, privileged child of prominent southerners, is traumatized by witnessing a brutal slave lashing. She stops speaking for a week, and when her words return, they are stuck in her throat. So begins a lifelong stammer that she is never fully able to conquer.
When Sarah turns eleven, she is given a personal slave as a birthday present. She rejects her gift in horror and uses legalese from her father’s law books to attempt to give the slave child, Hetty (also known as Handful), her freedom. When that is disallowed, she secretly teaches Handful to read and write, incurring punishments for them both.
Sarah and Handful tell their stories in alternating chapters, their experiences converging and diverging as their different worlds shape who they are. Sarah’s story is that of a proto-feminist. She comes into her own as an adult, finding her light and her purpose in the abolitionist movement.
Handful’s slave status permeates everything. We see how the gruesome experience of enslavement coexists with a carefully cultivated, genteel blindness on the part of white owners: vicious punishments, accepted by whites as as how we teach God’s purpose to those with dark skin; the unfortunate maiming that occasionally results from a punishment that is too vigorously applied; the casual shattering of slave relationships as loved ones are sold to maintain the family coffers.
I liked looking closely at this time period and being reminded of what slavery must have looked like. I liked learning more about the abolitionist movement and was surprised to realize that Quakers in the 1830s considered abolition to be an extremist position. I was engrossed on the story and read compulsively to the end.
But.
This is just a story. Sue Monk Kidd manipulated known information and created characters and situations that would add emotional depth and bestow plausibility.
I don’t suppose we know much about the real story of two southern gentlewomen who turned their backs on their world to pursue social and racial justice.
What a delight! It is rare to find a book that is both lighthearted and smart, where the story and the characters carry the overly optimistic bits, whWhat a delight! It is rare to find a book that is both lighthearted and smart, where the story and the characters carry the overly optimistic bits, where the difficult themes of toxic patriarchy, disappointment, and loss share a kind of equal footing with friendship, family, love, and surprise.
Loading...
