Tag: book-reviews

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

Dinner at the Lakeside Supper Club by J Ryan Stradal

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This novel follows generations of women – matriarch Betty, her daughter Florence, granddaughter Mariel and great granddaughter Julia – as they live their lives in the north woods of Minnesota. This is a story of generational expectations, familial obligations, and family conflict. This story shows that those that know you best are the ones that hurt you the most.

The story flips back and forth between times and people, which at times can be confusing and difficult to keep track, especially if you are listening to this. The technique, however, is effective in revealing the story – as you are never really sure of the full history of life in a linear way as you hear the history and revisit it with different eyes of experience and maturity.

In linear fashion: Betty arrives with Florence in tow and finds a job, purpose and a future at the Lakeside Supper Club in Bear Jaw MN. Florence, in desperate need for love and acceptance creates that security for her mother with Floyd, while destroying it for him and his male partner. She is not formally banished from the place, but knows she is not welcome because of the price Floyd paid for her selfishness. Florence becomes a mother herself, and becomes preoccupied with keeping her daughter Mariel safe and close. When Mariel meets Ned, the heir to a family chain of restaurants, they fall in love and marry. After tragedy again strikes near Florence, impacting others deeply again, there is a distance between Mariel and Florence that keeps her from Bear Jaw again. Through a series of events when Florence waits to be picked up by Mariel at the church – for two months – Florence reveals that she was simply waiting for when Mariel was ready to let her in.

The complex relationships between these women also hides difficult realities. Betty is searching for security after she runs away with Florence from the Yellow House. The implication is that they fled abuse happening there, and Betty would do anything to make sure she didn’t face that again, including making Floyd give up on his secret love. Florence married and gave birth to Mariel, but couldn’t bear to let her out of her sight. She was doing the same thing that Betty did – trying to make sure she was secure, even at the cost of her daughter’s dreams of moving away. Mariel, having given up on her hopes, finds new ones with Ned, but again her mother’s focus on the wrong thing ruins everything for everyone else. After forgiveness has been found, and Mariel gives birth to Julia, there is little time for these two to get to know each other, for Mariel dies of lung cancer when Julia is four. Her father takes over the Lakeside Supper Club, but Julia knows that this has been saved for her future, as she will inherit it. She hates working there, loving nature instead. Ned allows her to strike out on her own at college in Ohio, and comes back to sell the Supper Club when she is 21. Julia had kept waiting for her mother to come to her to show her the way, but she never appeared. After she sells the place to someone local that will love it as her family did, her father then lets her in on the fact that her mother would be proud Julia was able to make her own destiny.

book-review, books, Family Drama, reading

The Real Mrs Tobias by Sally Koslow

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This is the story of three generations of wives that have married into the Tobias family. Veronika, a survivor of WW2, married David; Melanie (Mel) married their son Jake; and Birdie married the grandson Micah. Veronika is a psychiatrist, Melanie is a social worker and Birdie is an aspiring author. Birdie and Michah have been having challenges in their marriage, which comes to a head when a drunk Michah hits a woman with his food truck and runs from the scene. The meddling and self serving interference of both mother Mel is annoying. If we are to have any compassion for her it is very hard. All revolves around what she wants – to have her granddaughter with her always, regardless of what is best for the child or her parents. She is also unethical by keeping a patient she has a conflict of interest with (it was her nanny that Micah hit) and her counsel to her patients was about how it made her feel for her own choices. Veronika, also a meddler, is not easy to care about either. Condescending and self-righteous, she too meddles to her family’s life. In the end, however, all seems clear that the meddling can do some good, even if it is misguided. While I never liked most of the characters, I did want to learn how it was all going to wrap up.

book-review, books, mystery, reading, romance

Two books at once: Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder and Red, White and Royal Blue

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanna Fluke

A baker, Hannah Swensen, in a small town where everyone knows you, finds her dairy delivery man dead behind her store “The Cookie Jar” one morning before she even opens. We meet Hannah’s mother, who is intent on getting her oldest daughter married to any eligible bachelor she can find; Lisa, who works at the Cookie Jar with Hannah; Andrea – Hannah’s sister – and Bill, her husband, as well as their daughter Tracey. As Hannah helps Bill find clues to solve the murder, Hannah gets to know Norman – the newly arrived dentist in town that their mothers have fixed up. We meet other colorful characters of the town, all on the way to finding a second murder and ultimately find out “who done it.” Fun, not difficult to figure out, but enjoyable to read.

Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

A standard love story, but with the two fair haired boys of UK and US as the romantic pair. Focus on what you need to do to maintain the status quo, and the cost of familial expectations, versus being true to yourself. A fun read.

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.

book-review, books, literature, reading

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Barbara Kingsolver is an author that has proven again and again that she understands the way the world works, with all its ugliness and beauty. With this novel, she yet again proves her superior abilities in story telling. A retelling of Dicken’s David Copperfield in the early 2000s in rural Appalachia, this novel shines its light on the same institutionalized poverty that Dicken’s railed against in Victorian times.

This story introduces you to Damon, known as Demon Copperhead because of his bright red hair. Demon was born to an addicted teen mother that had witnessed the death of his father 3 months before he was born in a trailer in the mountains of Virginia. With every turn Demon faces more odds against him – an addicted mom, an abusive step-father, a dead father, and more with each month. As you follow the path that Demon follows, you see obstacles thrown in his way each time he tries to make things better. Hanging over everyone he knows in Lee County VA is the ever-present need for a fix to take away pain – physical and emotional. We find that, in truth and in fiction, this is because drug companies have identified the largest population on medi=care that requests pain medications to sell aggressively and deceptively to. The people that have already been harmed by the mining industry are then preyed upon by drug companies. While the drugs are a problem, as Demon’s friend from foster care, Tommy points out, this has been a war on people that are different. The Hillbilly jokes keep putting down those that can and do survive by growing, hunting and sharing to fill needs of hungry bellies. 

It is through Demon’s grit and resilience, and ability to make do with what he has and not hope for more, that he is able to survive his trials. Along the way you meet people that don’t care, that care only about themselves, and those that cared but are too jaded with the inability to change things. You also meet the most unlikely people that go out of their way to try to ease someone else’s load or try to help them find their way.  You realize that while there is dark in the world we live in, there is also some light in it.

Near the end you are rooting for some happiness to find him, and you are never sure. You care deeply for him by the time you turn that last page.  And you hope that the ride he is on is a positive one.

book-review, books, literature, memoir, Non-Fiction, reading, romance, Science Fiction

Happy Stories for Stressful Times

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In this crazy time of social distance, self-isolation and quarantine, there is nothing better than curling up and escaping with a good book. I spend a ton of time doing this. In order to keep up our spirits, I thought I would share some titles that are fun and enjoyable to help the time go. In no order other than the one that I thought of first:

A Man Called Ove: All about a grumpy man that finds his solitary world turned on its head when a young family moves in next door. He becomes engaged despite his best intentions, leaving you smiling all along.

An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic: Eighty-one-year-old Jay Mendelsohn enrolls in an undergraduate seminar his son teaches on the Odyssey. Explores both the story and their relationship. Sweet tribute to his father.

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood: Trevor Noah’s memoir of growing up in South Africa and coming to America to host The Daily Show on Comedy Central.

Daisy Jones & The Six: A fictional band who’s only album is an anthem for 70’s rock and roll broke up and no one knows why – until now. Hearing this story is a bit like Almost Famous, but even better.

Mrs. Queen Takes the Train: What would happen if the Queen of England went on a stroll without the knowledge of her courtiers? Find out here.

Roommates Wanted: 1990, Toby Dobbs is gifted a house for a wedding gift from his father. One month later his wife leaves, and Toby advertises for roommates. 15 years later they are still there. How to move forward in his life, now that his father is about to show up for the first time in 15 year? Smile and read on.

The Daily Show: An Oral History: How the show came into being, hosts changed, and how the show changed the country. As a fan of the show, and of Jon Stewart, I loved reading the behind the scenes and remembering when I first watched the shows/events they mentioned.

The Martian: A young adult book that had my son at the opening line (“I am F*&^*&%). I loved it because it was fun, stressful, and funny.

The Most Beautiful Book in the World: Eight Novellas: Eight separate stories populated by a wide cast of characters, all exploring what beauty is.

The One and Only: Love of football and romance combine in this story of a super football fan with a crush on the legendary head coach, her best friend’s father.

African Experience, Black Experience, book-review, literature, read around the world

Stories from Africa

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As I begin reading through my list of books to be read, I check out Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan. As I turn to start the book, I am met by a map of Africa. I see the following countries highlighted for me: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Benin, Gabon, Nigeria, Niger, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda. There are so many countries on this continent – and yet all of these are part of this book. I start to think about my arm chair travelling.

Without fully comprehending until the first story has finished, I begin to realize the richness of the collection that is before me. With as many religions as languages throughout Africa, this is an extremely complex and confusing place. A continent that had been under siege, either by force or not, the contradictions that the people bring on to themselves is so sad, especially in the context of the children’s eyes we are looking through. Africa is a story of stolen children’s lives.

Each story begins with innocence, and ends in terror, or death. The capacity for hatred, and for adjusting to survive, are just a hairs breath away from each other. We have heard of the terrors on tv, but these stories, told from a child’s point of view, kick you harder. Where innocence should be, there is nothing but wariness and fear. There is no way this will not impact the future generations and how they relate to each other and themselves.