Category: books

books, reading

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

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Each summer of her life Belly, her mom Laurel and brother Steven go to Susanne’s house on Cousins Beach to spend the summer with her and her sons Conrad and Jerimiah. Laurel and Susanne have been friends forever. The children are brought up as one family in the summers. Belly, the youngest and only girl, from the beginning just wants to fit in. As she hits her tween and teen years, we are given glimpses into each summer in random order. You see shifting attitudes as the children grow and hormones rage. You also see how divorce can change some dynamics, as well as illness.

In this sweet coming of age story, you see all the normal anxieties of teens – especially of teen girls – on how to navigate friendships, body changes, and newfound love. Touching, even if a bit predictable, this is well worth the read.

books, reading

Ali and Nino by Kurban Said

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Written in 1937, and originally published in German, the author is thought to be Lev Nussimbaum, a Jewish writer that used the pseudonyms of Essad Bey and Kurban Said. Born a Jew, he converted to the Muslim religion. Before the true author’s name was unknown, the Nazi regime included his works on the list of “excellent books for German minds”.

The story is set in the early 20th century on the cusp of the Great War in Baku, Azerbaijan. There we meet a schoolboy – Ali Khan Shirvanshir. We learn of his ancestors – great warriors of high esteem and standing in the community for centuries. He is Asian at his core – a man of the desert, just like his ancestors. He is also Mohammeded (Muslim). We learn of the many tales, songs and verses created in honor of his ancestors and homeland.

Baku, newly rich with oil resources, has been a source of Western interest. Most recently conquered by Russia, the Western world has come to encroach its ways on this Asian country. Ali is enrolled in a Russian school, which tries to impart the Western ways on the future generations. The home culture remains strong, however, with teachers still in fear of real life retribution from the long established families.

With the Russians came the Georgian aristocracy. Christian in faith, Western in manner, they believe the natives of the country are barbarian – with blood feuds, eating with fingers, and drinking. Nino Kipiani, a princess of this world, is the love of Ali’s life. From the beginning, Ali Khan is torn by his love of the woman and her Western sensibilities. He loves to look at her, and touch her, but that would never be allowed for Muslim girls. Nino, for her part, is a strong believer in her Christian Orthodox religion, enjoying the approving looks of all men, and refusing to hide under a veil. These two opposing views of the world, while at conflict with each other, are part of the reason they love each other.

Throughout the story we learn of Muslim ideology, deep rooted differences in customs of Shiite, Sunni, Turk, Armenian, Georgian and Persian beliefs. These two lovers overcome the weight of ancient customs and the expectations of the “modern” western world to be married.

Both are torn by the love they have of each other, and the weight of their history and expectations of life. We learn here – and must remember that this was written almost 100 years ago now – that the East and the West view the world differently and judge each other in different ways. Until the West and East sensibilities understand and appreciate the differences, there will be no understanding that the ancient rules of civility that were created by the ancestors will always be a part of who the people are.  Expecting something different without that historical context or understanding is at the West’s peril. The same is true of the West, also, who must remember that their way is not the only way.

As for the marriage of Ali and Nino, there are times when it seems they have found a place to live together, but that is only true when they are alone together. The expectations of others breaks the peace they found.

Is there any way that a man of the East can come to terms with the sensibilities of the West? Or can a woman of the West agree to the terms of the East? With the unrest we are seeing around the world, is the moral to the story that we can learn to love each other, but we can not learn to live in peace together?   

books, reading

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

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If you don’t know Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, you are in for a crash course. The theme of this play is also the theme of this book, even if it is shown in a round about way. This is told in three acts.

The Play’s Act One focuses on Daily Life. You meet the townsfolk, learn of the gossip around Simon Stimson, the town alcoholic. The day closes with you seeing two main characters – George and Emily – on the cusp on growing up. In Tom Lake you meet Lara, her daughters and her husband. You learn the everyday trials they all go through and how they end up together during the pandemic.

The Play’s Act Two focuses on Love and Marriage – the preparation for George and Emily’s marriage. Both say they are not ready, but George pledges to stay home to take over his uncle’s farm and Emily accepts her place to be his wife. Tom Lake shows you the complicated lives of Lara and her fellow community at a regional theater named Tom Lake. You see what people yearn for, how they want things to be, and how they interact. You even meet the town’s drunk.

Act Three is nine years later, we witness Emily’s funeral, having died in childbirth. She goes back to witness her 12th birthday and realizes you never pay attention to the things that matter when you are doing them. The question of whether anyone truly values the life they live while they are living it is asked, and answered, no. Tom Lake shows the choices made to make things change, how they create a type of death of the starlet that was Lara, but the birth of the woman Lara was meant to become. You see her choosing to make things be a certain way, staying at Joe’s uncle’s farm, choosing to live the life he offered her.

The similarities of Lara’s story to the play are compelling. Set at the time of the pandemic, Joe and Lara’s grown children return to their cherry farm in Traverse City Michigan to be together. Three daughters – Emily, the oldest is the most capable and willing to stay on the farm; Maisey is in veterinary school, looking to help others whenever she can; and Nell is pursuing acting full time in New York. Lara had been an actress, and had known a famous actor – Peter Duke – whom Emily was sure was her father. During this time together the three daughters finally prevail on Lara to tell them her story. Even the three daughters line up with the three acts of the play – the youngest pursuing a lofty future, the middle content to make everyone comfortable, and the oldest knowing her role in the play.

Without too many spoilers, the story unfolds in similar fashion to that of the play – straining for a future; wanting it all; and understanding what is at stake. For both, the need to understand the value of the life you live is the key. While the play ends in three acts, the book shows that Lara learned the lesson of the play and looked to ensure the life she lived was real and what she wanted. She never regretted anything, and felt that she had lived understanding the true lessons. Her life was the one that Emily wanted, but didn’t get. While the play leaves you sobbing, this leaves you a bit melancholy for what can so easily be lost, but also hopeful that the play will continue on with future generations in their own ways.

books, reading

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

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Another engaging story on the strength of women and their need for self-determination.

First we meet Mia, walking away from all she knows and then we are sent to an other time, much earlier. We meet Ivy, who helps drive the story, even when it is not really about her. Mia takes over the story again, and we follow until there is another time shift. While these shifts are confusing and not at all realistic, they are mystical.

Ivy, a wild child of a rich Boston family, gets pregnant and is slapped when she asks her father for help. She leaves that night, since she has no hope of help from the father of the child, or choices to make over her own body. She joins The Community, a cult with a charismatic leader with a need to rule with an iron fist, only finding his lies after the marriage.  

Mia needs more than The Community can provide her. Through the intervention of her mother, Ivy, she discovers the world of books – something forbidden in The Community. Through these books she finds redemption.

That redemption for me goes a bit wonky when she falls through time to meet Nathaniel Hawthorn, the man who’s book she finds herself in and discovers her own strength. An overriding theme here is that no one saves you but yourself. And that is what ultimately happens.

Well written, enjoyable, but not my favorite of this author’s.

book-review, books, Family Drama, Hispanic and Latinx Cultures, reading

Neruda on the Park by Cleyvis Natera

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Who would have said that the earth with its ancient skin would change so much? Pablo Neruda

The Neruda quote is a wonderful way to kick off this story. This is about what change can bring about – both good and bad – when you make choices in relations to that change.

Change always seems to happen at once. Luz is awakened by the crashing of demolition on the building next door. She heads out in her power suit to meet her boss, Raenna, who has said she has news. Luz is expecting to be promoted. She is, however, blindsided that she will be fired and is advised to quit before it happens. Luz is as shattered as the building. Even worse – Angelica, a former friend from school, was at her first day as a waitress at the exclusive restaurant where this happened – and heard the whole thing. How will Luz tell her parents, Vladimer and Eusebia, who had worked so hard to help her achieve this success?

As expected, Angelica tells the local gossips, The Tongues, before Luz can bring herself to tell her parents. Hurt about hearing the news from the Tongues, Eusebia is not paying attention as she is pulling a cart of dirty clothing to the laundry mat. She falls, hits her head and is shaken badly. The Tongues help her up and take care of her to make sure she is alright. But is she?

As the tenants around Northar Park are watching the destruction of the building, they all begin to receive notices from landlords of other buildings that the apartments they have lived in for decades will be converting to condos, and they can be bought out or just move. But where can they move that they can afford? What about all the time they spent building the community? What would become of them all? Eusebia, whose head continues to throb after the fall, becomes enraged at the prospect of being pushed out and hatches a plan to halt the building.

While the plan is being put in place, Luz attends a block party where she meets Hunter, the white developer that is leading the gentrification of the neighborhood. Undeniable attraction brings them together.  Just as with Luz’s career, there is a divide between where she came from and what she is defined as to be “successful”. She enters Hunter’s world of wealth and privilege with wariness and discomfort that she had shed at Harvard and in the NY law firm.  

We then hear the story from Eusebia. How she will make the area seem undesirable to those outside the community, orchestrating robberies, peeping toms, and assaults. All while Vladimer, her husband and Luz’s father, chases a suspect that killed a boy and wrote “Go Home” on the body for the NYPD. We eventually learn she had been reluctant to come to the US with a 9 year old Luz, and had always talked about moving back with Vladimer at some point. Unknown to her, he and Luz were building a dream home in DR as a surprise, but she no longer wanted to return.

The choices that everyone makes – to try to halt the building project, to participate in the schemes of Eusebia, or to build a home in DR, there are questions about what choices you make. How do you choose to support your family? How do you choose to react to a letter of eviction? How do you choose to react to those that choose a different reality? All these questions are the explorations of the members of the community.

The demolition was ahead of schedule, just like the dismantling of Luz’s career/identity and Eusebia’s definition of self. As the women begin to find themselves and their voices, the building begins to go up. Through shattering events, the world crashes in on the family again, and the community again embraces them and helps them move forward. Each woman is scarred, differently, but each will grow as they need.

There are many more ways in which the choices we make are shown, and how the culture of acceptable and not are bantered about. This book is a study of these themes, as well as the complexity of the relationships of women, especially mothers and daughters. The book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pueblo Neruda was quoted more than once in the book. This collection of love poems is an amalgamation of women he loved. This novel takes the name for the building, and I believe is the amalgamation of the many people we all represent to ourselves and the world.

book-review, books, Historical Fiction, literature, reading

The Women by Kristin Hannah

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At one time the US was filled with pride and unwavering belief in the government. When asked what would you do for your country, boys signed up to be part of the military with pride – theirs, their families, and the country’s. Then came that awful day in November when President Kennedy was shot.

Fear of communism spreading in Asia lead the US to begin its offensive in Vietnam, a place few knew where to find on a map. In the early days of the conflict Frances Grace (Frankie) McGrath attends her brother Fin’s going away party that his parents were holding before he shipped out. A recent graduate of the Annapolis Naval Academy, Fin and his buddy Rye were being honored by Connor McGrath, a father that took military honor to heart, and posted pictures of them on his “heroes” wall in his study. Frankie, a newly graduated nurse, signs up with the Army Medical Corp to be near her brother, but before she leaves, the family learns that Fin is killed in action. 

From her first day “in country” we see Frankie grow into a new person. The horrors she and her fellow nurses (and best friends) Ethel and Barb live through are as real and haunting as foot soldiers and pilots experienced. We see how Frankie opens herself up to being in the world. Throughout her time there she struggles with her belief in who she is, what she is able to be, and becomes a top-rated surgical nurse, a great friend, and more.

When finally returning after 2 tours in Vietnam, Frankie is spit upon and called a baby killer by strangers in the streets. She realizes her parents not only will not put her picture on the wall of heroes, but that they told their friends she had been studying abroad in Florence.

Women who served in Vietnam had an especially difficult time getting support when they returned; they were being told there were no women in Vietnam, or that they didn’t see actual combat. When reaching out for help, the VA shunned these women. When the men were starting to get help, there was still no where for these women to turn. The betrayal of the country, as well as the personal betrayals Frankie faced, add salt to the wound. Frankie finds help from the most surprising places.

A truly important story to tell, Kristin Hannah acknowledges that this took her decades to complete. She has done well by the women of Vietnam, being true to the horrors that impacted their lives both while they served, and for the decades since.  

Could this be a metaphor for the country? We went to Vietnam not knowing what we were supposed to do or who we were, and came back knowing less, only to struggle with what reality had dealt us. But in the end, battered and worn, we stand face to face again with who our true self is? Or could the relationships that Frankie have mirror the country? She was lied to, but wanted to believe so desperately. She struggled against what it meant about who she was. Did the country and Frankie keep themselves believing past the time they should have? Did the pain of betrayal bring the country to the brink? All are parallels I see clearly here. Ultimately, when the country faces itself years later, wiser about what happened, did we find our true selves again? Did Frankie? The question is left open.

books, reading

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis

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Another gem of a story that uses real life as a foundation.

Set within the famed art collecting Frick family, this is a story of differences – between those who inspire art versus those that appreciate it, between those with means and those without – and how they support and sometimes improve each other.

The tale is told from the view of two models, decades apart. First, a muse of the early 20th century known as Angelica. While modeling was considered sordid at that time, Angelica was always accompanied by her mother and believed herself to be a muse. She helped artists bring their vision to life. She began modeling to make sure that she and her mother were able to survive.

Veronica, a model in the 1960s, is also modeling to help her family survive, but times are different. Muses are no longer heard, and models are not valued except as ornaments. When speaking her mind, she is thrown out of the modeling job. 

As you hear each tale, interwoven expertly, we witness the cruel manner women are viewed and judged for their beauty, or lack of it, the lengths people go protect what they feel is important, without learning the whole story, and how cruel love can be at times.

Throughout you learn about the Frick family, its famed art collection and library, as well as the spirit that helped build it, all through a mystery that keeps you guessing.  There are murders, thefts, and intrigues throughout, to keep you guessing who you can trust. There is even a scavenger hunt – leading to a hidden treasure – just as the story is a treasure hunt leading us to the truth. 

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, Middle Eastern, read around the world, reading

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam

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What would you do to be with your children?

This is the central question that Rehana Haque is faced with when widowed in East Pakistan.

The story opens with Rehana, freshly widowed, losing custody of her children to her brother and sister-in-law, who take them thousands of miles away from her. We learn that she will need more money to persuade the courts that she can care for them on her own.

Fast forward, we join a gathering of the 10th celebration of the children’s return to their mother. The children, son Sohail and daughter Maya are now university students. Rehana was able to get her children back, even though she never remarried. She was able to build a small home behind her large one, and rented the bigger home to a Hindi family. She built a community of women around her, and was comfortable and caring to others.   

The world around them is also changing. The elected Bengali official Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is arrested and barred from taking office by West Pakistani Punjabi and Pathans. A massacre was led by the West Pakistani to decimate the Bengali community they looked down on. Scores are forced to flee. This is when Rehana’s tenants allow their religious community onto the property to be safe from the massacre. Rehana – a non-Bengali originally from India – unhesitatingly opened her arms, and her limited resources, to make sure these refugees are feed.  

The arrest leads to students – including Maya and Sohail – joining the revolution. Sohail sees his mother’s love and undying devotion to him and requests her help for the rebels. She allows them to bring ammunition and people to stay and train in her yard. She gathers her friends to make blankets from silk saris for the rebels. She does all she can, without real thought to her safety, but always for her children’s. After a detonation that severely injured a rebel general, Sohail brings him to his mother for safety. Soon after, Maya is sent to Calcutta to write press releases for the movement and help at refugee camps.

As Rehana helps the general heal from his wounds, she finds herself attracted to him. She opens herself and shares her secrets of how far she has gone to protect her children. At this time, Sohail again asks his mother for intervention to gain the release of a man that married the girl Sohail loved. Rehana, unable to deny her child anything, goes to her brother and requests help. The tortured man she brings home, however, sickens her to what had been done to people. She flees to go to Maya. While there she ministers to those in the refugee camps, especially her former tenant’s wife.

Through all Rehana’s actions, she has been finding her voice, her desires, and her own strength. While this is a tale of a woman alone standing for herself, she also represents the spirit of Bangladesh. As the country is starting out, they too need to learn of their voice and strength. What both Rehana and Bangladesh will do for their children is almost anything. It is that love and understanding by everyone – those that sacrifice and those that are sacrificed – that brings about independence.  

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Today a woman went mad in the Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer

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This is a collection of essays that were written for magazines from late 1960s through the COVID pandemic. Each is a raw glimpse into a life that is extraordinary because of its ordinariness. 

The first story finds a young pregnant woman full of hope and expectations of the next chapter of her life encountering a distraught and overwhelmed mother with two small children blocking her aisle at the supermarket. As the pregnant woman tries to help, she sees through the terror of the mother the stark reality of being overwhelmed by children and how hard and lonely motherhood is. The expectant mother leaves far less sure of herself and the assumptions she made about what life would be after the baby is born.

The additional stories cover other areas of facing reality that was unexpected and now needed to be endured. The stories are told in monotone – underscoring the numbness at the center character of each story as they move through the motions of living. Each story covers a different time in the life of the seemingly same person – even if not explicitly stated. The sameness of this, to me, makes this universal for all people to live through these experiences.

The last story, a heartbreaking reality for so many during the COVID pandemic, brings the collection to a close with the reality that life is fragile, and no matter how much you try, our end is lonely and final.

Well written, full of raw emotion, this is an indictment of the assumptions we make of what life should be versus what life really is.

book-review, books, humor, memoir, reading

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson

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Jenny Lawson’s take on life is a one I am in awe of. Despite crippling anxiety and depression, as well as a host of physical ailments, Jenny’s approach to life is not like what many of us have been taught. Her stream of consciousness, ADD topic jumping, and battles with medical insurance actually makes total sense. And the stories she shares will bring you to tears as you laugh so hard you may just fall off your seat!

As always, Jenny brings her sense of humor to some dark subjects, bringing humanity to a disease that is not seen or widely understood – even by those that are in its grip. Her explanations of what she goes through should help more people have empathy for what people who have these illnesses go through. You may find yourself remembering when you felt like this but didn’t understand what you were going through. This deeply personal journey of life, with all its wacky tangents and challenges, gives hope to everyone that we can live a better life by surrounding ourselves with people who care, understanding and accepting yourself for your strengths and your challenges, and laughing your way through it all.

If you haven’t read any of her books, you should absolutely get one as soon as you can!