Tag: book review

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 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, 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!   

African Experience, book-review, books, literature, read around the world, reading

Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

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by Shehan Karunatilaka

Maali Almedia introduces himself with what should be on his business card:  Photographer, Gambler, Slut. He awakes to find himself in what seems to be a government office. He isn’t sure he if he is dreaming or awake because of the “silly pills” he had taken the night before. He slowly comes to realize that he is dead – murdered. Around him are lines and chaos as people try to figure out where they are and what comes next. He is faced with a dead political activist, who is to help him prepare to go “into the light” after having seven moons (days) to come to grips with this and prepare himself. He is also pursued by a slain member of the JVP (communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s group) that is seeking to gather an army to exact revenge on those that killed them and thousands of innocents.

Through eavesdropping and memory, we learn of Maali’s history, of the country’s history, and the history of people he knew. He roams through the rooms where his friends and his enemies are looking to find him. Along the way he also meets some that he photographed when they were dead.  We learn of the atrocities he witnessed and documented. He decides it is time to show the reality of what he has seen now that he is dead. To do this, Maali makes pacts with The Crow Man, a medium, to give information to Jaki, his best friend, to find his photos. You also meet DD, Jaki’s brother and Maali’s lover, and their father, a minister in the government. Other players are leaders of waring factions across the spectrum: Army, Tamil, LTTE, arms dealers from Israel, CIA and CNTRE from Canada and Europe. Everyone has a hidden agenda, and if you get in someone’s way you end up dead. We follow those sent to get rid of the bodies, too.

In the end, Maali must come to a decision – what did his life stand for and how does he want to move forward. You need to read to the end to see if he goes to the light or not, and to discover what he finds his role is in this life. I can tell you, however, that people end up where they are supposed to be. 

Very well written. I was surprised how much this story captured me. Going back and forth from the in between and life, as well as to memory, worked seamlessly. You felt the confusion, and the despair, and the absurdity, as well as the relief when things are finished, even if they didn’t work out the way it was hoped. There is always time to do better. Not an easy story, but I am glad I read it.