Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Wendy's Review

Mom disappears into thin air two days before Christmas without telling me? Of course it’s complicated. Just because it’s complicated, just because you think you can’t ever know everything about another person, it doesn’t mean you can’t try. It doesn’t mean I can’t try. – from Where’d You Go, Bernadette -

Fifteen year old Bee is wise beyond her years and when she scores exceptional grades in school, her parents promise her a trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette, Bee’s mom, is far from your average mother. Once a famous architect in Los Angeles, she now struggles to fit in with the super mothers in the elite Seattle, Washington area. When she disappears only days before Christmas, she leaves behind a guilty husband and a questioning daughter who will go to any extreme to find out what happened to Bernadette. Bee begins to piece together school memos, email messages, newspaper interviews and bits of “evidence” in the days leading up to Bernadette’s disappearance. The result?  A wildly entertaining, sometimes poignant, and often hilarious story about parenting in the 21st century, religion, American culture and finding oneself in the process.

Maria Semple is very funny. Her novel is often bitingly sarcastic as she skewers the superficiality of elitism. Semple has written for the television series Mad About You and also Ellen…and her ability to write satire is unparalleled. I found myself literally laughing out loud at the situations in which Semple’s characters find themselves. The book pokes fun at the green movement, private school parents (and the administrators of those schools), and corporate America, while delivering a tale about the relationship between mother and daughter.

One of the themes of the novel is identity – specifically Bernadette’s identity of artist which becomes lost amid her role as wife and mother. One character from Bernadette’s past observes:

If you don’t create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.

That observation is prophetic and it is this idea of being true to oneself which ultimately drives the narrative in this delightful book.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette delivers on many levels: great characters, an original plot, and a witty format. Short listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year, it also demonstrates that smart women’s fiction has found its way into the literary circles.

Readers who are looking for humor, great writing, originality and ultimately characters who touch their hearts, need look no further.

Highly recommended.

Flight Behavior - Wendy's Review

A small shift between cloud and sun altered the daylight, and the whole landscape intensified, brightening before her eyes. The forest blazed with its own internal flame. “Jesus,” she said, not calling for help, she and Jesus weren’t that close, but putting her voice in the world because nothing else present made sense. - from Flight Behavior -

Dellarobia’s life changed at seventeen when an unplanned pregnancy forced her into marriage…the same year she was orphaned when her mother succumbed to cancer. Despite a miscarriage, she stayed in her marriage to Cub, a man whose life is defined by his parents – the rigid Bear and his opinionated and religious wife, Hester. Now, ten years later, Dellarobia is disillusioned with her life as mom to two young children, barely scraping by on a small sheep farm in Feathertown, Tennessee on the edge of the Appalachian mountains. She longs for a brighter future, a more romantic relationship than the one she has with Cub, and an escape from the poverty and sameness of each day. So one day she heads up the mountain to consummate a tryst with the telephone guy. But instead of discovering love,  Dellarobia finds the trees on the mountain aflame with Monarch butterflies. Believing this to be a message from God, she turns back down the mountain and vows to stay in her marriage and make it work. The butterflies soon become a sensation, bringing a team of scientists to Dellarobia and Cub’s farm and upending the tenuous balance in a family which is living on the edge.

Barbara Kingsolver’s newest novel explores the impact of global warming and the divide between science and religion. Kingsolver lightens these heavy themes with warm hearted, genuine characters and a finely wrought sense of humor balanced by poignancy. Dellarobia is an insightful, smart woman who has been denied an education. She loves her kids. She grapples with her faith. She longs for a life of beauty and meaning. She is one of those characters who a reader can get behind even though she is far from perfect.

Kingsolver lays down a dilemma for Dellarobia:  Should she stay in her life and make it work, or should she take flight? Her journey is  symbolized by that of the butterflies – insects who migrate thousands of miles even though they have never been shown the way. What choices do we have when faced with potential catastrophe and the unknown? How do we determine truth? What factors influence our decisions and beliefs?

I am a huge Kingsolver fan. I love her beautiful prose, her complex characters, her sense of humor, and the relevancy of her themes. I expected to love this book, and it did not disappoint me. Critics of the global warming argument may be put off by the underlying message regarding the dire nature of environmental change, but no one can fault Kingsolver’s imagination and ability to bring to life a set of characters facing one of the most controversial topics facing this generation. It is her skill at character development against the backdrop of nature where Kingsolver shines, and in Dellarobia, she has given her readers a character who is truly memorable.

Highly Recommended.



FTC Disclosure: I was sent this book by the publisher for review on my blog. Thank you to TLC Book Tours for giving me the opportunity to share this novel with my readers. Please visit the tour page for links to more reviews.

The Light Between Oceans - Wendy's Review

He struggles to make sense of it – all this love so bent out of shape, refracted, like light through the lens. - from The Light Between Oceans, page 225 -

A lighthouse warns of danger – tells people to keep their distance. She had mistaken it for a place of safety. - from the Light Between Oceans, page 227 -

Tom Sherbourne carries the scars of war after spending four years on the Western Front during WWI. He returns to Australia and accepts the job as light keeper on Janus Rock – a distant and isolated outpost a half day’s journey from the mainland and the small town of Partageuse. It is in Partageuse he meets Isabel, a young woman whose indefatigable spirit captures his heart. The two marry and begin their life on Janus Rock where the waves and wind, and the gorgeous landscape fill their days. Isabel quickly becomes pregnant, only to lose the child to miscarriage. Two more pregnancies end in disaster…and it is in the sad days following her last pregnancy when Isabel hears a baby’s cry. A boat has washed up on Janus Rock carrying a dead man and a very much alive baby girl. For Isabel, it is the miracle she has been waiting for; but for Tom the arrival of the boat will challenge his sense of right and wrong and test his marriage to Isabel. Tom’s decision to allow Isabel to keep the infant girl (who they name Lucy) and allow the death of the baby’s father to go unreported will have consequences which will profoundly impact not only he and Isabel, but a third person – Lucy’s biological mother who has never given up hope that her baby will be found.

M. L. Stedman’s debut novel, The Light Between Oceans, is a compelling story about love, loss, loneliness, and the consequences of our moral choices. Stedman’s prose is haunting and filled with symbolism grounded in the natural world. Janus Rock isolates Tom and Isabel, which makes their choice to keep Lucy easier – it is just them, on a rock, in between the oceans. It is only when the return to the mainland for an infrequent vacation when they are reminded they are not alone in the world.

Tom’s journey is one of recovery from a less than ideal childhood and the horrors of war. He carries guilt and a desire to put things right again. His conflict lies between protecting Isabel and Lucy, and the idea of justice and resolution for Lucy’s biological mother. Whatever he decides will cause pain to someone. Tom clings to what is real and solid – the lighthouse and its duties, the predictable rise and fall of the ocean – to travel his path…so when faced with the intangible and unpredictable, he finds himself floundering.

He must turn to something solid, because if he didn’t, who knew where his mind or his soul could blow away to, like a balloon without ballast. That was the only thing that had got him through four years of blood and madness: know exactly where your gun is when you doze for ten minutes in your dugout; always check your gas mask; see that your men have understood their orders to the letter. You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is just speculation. – from The Light Between Oceans, page 33 -

The Light Between Oceans is beautifully wrought, but not without its flaws. Some plot points felt a bit implausible or contrived, and the novel begins slowly. I read this book for an online book club, and some participants stopped reading because they found the story to slow to engage them. Although I agree that Stedman takes her time to develop the characters and their conflicts, I loved the alluring imagery and lyrical cadence of Stedman’s prose. Sticking with the book proved to have its rewards. Stedman ultimately creates memorable characters and a story which reminds readers that life is complicated and the decisions we make can have devastating consequences not only for ourselves, but for others.

Readers who enjoy literary fiction and like books with complex characters who are driven by internal conflict, will find themselves drawn to The Light Between Oceans. M.L. Stedman’s first novel is a meditation on love and loss, and is a moving introduction to a new voice in literature.

Recommended.

Gone Girl - Wendy's Review

What are you thinking, Amy? The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do? -from Gone Girl, page 3-

But I may be wrong, I may be very wrong. Because sometimes, the way he looks at me? That sweet boy from the beach, man of my dreams, father of my child? I catch him looking at me with those watchful eyes, the eyes of an insect, pure calculation, and I think: This man might kill me. -from Gone Girl, page 205-

Nick and Amy Dunne have been married exactly five years when Amy suddenly disappears from their home leaving behind a suspiciously staged scene, blood evidence and clues for a “treasure hunt.” Nick has no real alibi and his lies to police are beginning to make him look like a killer. Meanwhile, Amy’s diary reveals a woman who longs to be the best possible wife, but who fears her husband. As the evidence piles up against Nick and television shows spin the case, it looks like an arrest will soon happen. But is everything all that it seems? Could Nick be innocent? And if so, what has happened to Amy?

Gillian Flynn has written a smart psychological thriller about a marriage which has gone terribly awry. Gone Girl is a black comedy of sorts. Neither Nick nor Amy are reliable narrators and Flynn moves back and forth from each of their points of view to build a story with lots of sharp twists and turns. The drama unfolds, not only through Amy and Nick’s limited narration, but also on the television news shows which supply their own spin. The novel provides a satirical look at social media, the US justice system, and modern marriage.

I wasn’t quite sure if I would like this novel, but I was pleasantly surprised at its clever wit and well-developed characters. Readers will find little to like about Amy and Nick – two very dysfunctional people who cultivate their toxic relationship despite its psychopathy. Flynn writes skillfully, and manages to keep the reader turning the pages in spite of her characters’ poisonous personalities. I was reminded of Louise Erdrich’s brilliant novel Shadow Tag which keeps the reader off balance while its characters manipulate and damage each other. 

Gone Girl is not perfect – there are some plot points which require readers to suspend reality in order to believe the story line (especially during the novel’s final pages). I was easily able to do just that which I think speaks to the exceptional character development early on. 

Gone Girl is suspenseful, original and surprisingly funny. Readers who enjoy psychological thrillers and twisty plots will find much to love about this book.

Recommended.



This novel has been nominated for the 2013 Edgar Award – Best Novel and long listed for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

The Monsters of Templeton - Wendy's Review

Up surfaced the monster, and after the monster there came the crowd. – from The Monsters of Templeton, page 34 -

 Willie Upton arrives back in her hometown of Templeton after a lurid affair with her archeology professor. She leaves behind her potential PhD in the Alaskan wilderness to return to her roots in upstate New York. Hoping to find comfort in a place that has always felt unchanged, Willie instead finds her former hippie mother, Vi, immersed in born-again Christianity and a town in an uproar over the dead body of a monster which as surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass.

I come home to Templeton because it’s the only place in the world that never changes, and I mean never, never changes, and here’s this half-dead lake. I always thought, hey, if the ice caps melt and all the cities of the world are swallowed up, Templeton will be fine. We’d be able to make do. Plant vegetables. Bunker up, sit it out, whatever. But it doesn’t seem right anymore. Does it? – from The Monsters of Templeton, page 131 -

Within days, Vi reveals that Willie’s father is not an unknown  hippie from the psychedelic days of San Francisco, but instead someone Willie knows well and who shares her family history. On a quest to discover her father’s identity, Willie digs deeply into the backgrounds of the people from the town’s by gone days, and reconnects with friends from her past.

Lauren Groff’s complex and riveting first novel explores identity, the irresistible pull of our pasts, and the history of a small town in upstate New York. Groff based her story on her real hometown of Cooperstown, New York and borrowed liberally from James Fenimore Cooper’s massive cast of quirky characters in constructing a novel rich in folklore and historical references.

Willie is a young woman struggling to find her identity in order to understand her future. As she researches her family history, the characters from her past take turns narrating their often convoluted stories and revealing their dark, well kept secrets. Groff uses actual photographs and constructs ever evolving family trees as Willie gets closer to the truth about her family. 

The Monsters of Templeton is really a bit of a mystery novel, an unraveling of the past to solve the question of who fathered Willie. Groff also introduces a bit of magical realism with the monster of Lake Glimmerglass and several ghosts who help guide Willie to clues about her ancestry. But what works the best in the story is the crowd of characters who all vie for their chance to reveal their secrets.

Lauren Groff’s debut novel was nominated for the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers in 2008.

This book is recommended for readers who enjoy character driven novels, historical fiction and a bit of a mystery.

The Invisible Bridge - Wendy's Review

One and a half million Jewish men and women and children. How was anyone to understand a number like that? Andras knew it took three thousand to fill the seats of the Dohany Street Synagogue. To accommodate a million and a half, one would have had to replicate that building , its arches and domes, its Moorish interior, its balcony, its dark wooden pews and gilded ark, five hundred times. And then to envision each man and woman and child inside as a unique and irreplaceable human being, the way he imagined Mendel Horovitz or the Ivory Tower or his brother Matyas, each of them with desires and fears, a mother and a father, a birthplace, a bed, a first love, a web of memories, a cache of secrets, a skin, a heart, an infinitely complicated brain – to imagine them that way, and then to imagine them dead, extinguished for all time – how could anyone begin to grasp it? – from The Invisible Bridge, page 536 - 

 Andras Levi, a Hungarian Jew, finds himself full of hope and excitement on a train to Paris in 1937. He has won a scholarship to a school of architecture, an unbelievable opportunity for a Jewish man living in the shadow of war. In Paris, he nurses his art and ambition, finds camaraderie with men who will change his life, and discovers love with a beautiful ballet teacher. He misses his brothers – Tibor, a medical student who finds opportunity in Italy, and Matyas, a boy who is on the brink of becoming a man and whose carefree spirit finds joy in theater. But as Europe becomes embroiled in war, all three young men will find themselves back in Hungary and struggling to survive the labor service and the steady erosion of human rights as Hitler’s influence and power come ever closer.

Julie Orringer’s novel The Invisible Bridge is a searing, sweeping, and ultimately triumphant story about love, war, survival and the endurance of the human spirit. Andras, his brothers, their wives, their children, their parents, and the friends they discover are all wonderfully developed by the talented Orringer. Paris with its noisy bars and beautiful architecture and radiant theaters and opera houses comes alive as Orringer’s characters establish their lives and nurse their dreams of a future. 

The Invisible Bridge is a heartbreaking novel – how could it be anything less? One does not have to be a student of history to know the story of the Jewish people during WWII. But in this sprawling novel, Orringer puts a human face on the tragedy and gives her readers a glimpse of an often ignored part of the story – that of the Hungarian Jews whose government allied with the Germans early on and used its people as slave labor in the war machine. The sense of inevitability is strong as Orringer builds her story. I found myself breathless, emotional, wanting to stop the march forward as Andras and his brothers and the people they love are thrust into a world beyond their control.

He wanted to believe that someone could be watching in pity and horror, someone who could change things if he chose. He wanted to believe that men were not in charge. But in the center of his sternum he felt a cold certainty that told him otherwise. He believed in God, yes, the God of his fathers, the one to whom he’d prayed in Koyar and Debrecen and Paris and in the work service, but that God, the One, was not One who intervened in the way they needed someone to intervene just then. He had designed the cosmos and thrown its doors open to man, and man had moved in and begun a life there. But God could no more step inside and rearrange that life than an architect could rearrange the lives of a building’s inhabitants. - from The Invisible Bridge, page 432 -

As with all memorable works, The Invisible Bridge succeeds through its careful attention to detail, the development of its characters and the strength of its prose. Orringer has a finely honed sense of who her characters are – their fears, their vulnerabilities, their strengths, their dreams. She takes them to the edge, and then allows them to find their way back – battered, wiser, but never diminished.

There are big themes in this novel – the importance of art, the strength of familial bonds, the idea that we are but a speck in the universe being born along on a tide of which we have little control.

Of course. Why would a man not argue his own shameful culpability, why would he not crave responsibility for disaster, when the alternative was to find himself to be nothing more than a speck of human dust? - from The Invisible Bridge, page 489 -

It would be easy for an author to allow these themes to sink her novel into despair. But it is a testament to Orringer’s talent that she never vacates hope and a promise for something better for her characters.

It is no surprise that I loved this novel. I loved its scope, its humanity, and its honesty. I loved Orringer’s prose, and her ability to resurrect the feel of a generation marching towards war. I loved the characters – Andras with his generous heart, Tibor with his sensitivity and Matyas with his free spirit. I loved that Orringer did not abandon me in darkness, but lifted me into the light. This is a book that adds to our understanding of history and provides insight into the human side of war. It is remarkable. And you should read it.

Highly recommended.

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree - Wendy's Review

Short listed for the Orange Prize's New Writer's Award (2009)

I wanted Isaac to say that I meant something to him, that he’d be proud to take me as his wife. Instead, I felt cheap. This wasn’t how I wanted it to be. I had sold myself for a hundred and sixty acres of land. But it didn’t have to stay that way. I’d work hard. I’d prove myself. Isaac wouldn’t be able to do without me. - from The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, page 57 -

It is the early part of the twentieth century and Rachel is a black woman working as a housekeeper in a Chicago boarding house when she meets Isaac DuPree. Isaac is a Buffalo Soldier fighting Indians in the West and he dreams of land ownership – something that is now possible through the Homestead Act (a Federal law which gave an applicant ownership of free farmland called a “homestead” – typically 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River). Rachel is instantly attracted to Isaac, but Isaac is not looking for a wife…until he realizes that marrying Rachel means he will have 320 acres instead of just 160. They strike a bargain that Rachel will turn over her land to Isaac and he will marry her for one year. Fourteen years later, the couple is still together living on the unforgiving plains of the South Dakota Badlands with their five children. 

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is written in the first person narrative of Rachel, a woman who had dreams of her own wooden home but now finds herself barely surviving a drought, and desperate for the contact of other women. Fearful for her children and at odds with her husband, Rachel begins to hatch a plan to escape the Badlands and return to Chicago.

Ann Weisgarber’s novel is the story of one woman, but it takes a broader look at the struggle of blacks to break free of inequality and become landowners. Weisgarber also touches on the plight of Native Americans during the early part of the twentieth century…and about the rigid racial stereotypes which were typical at that time.

Through vivid descriptions of life in a barren and harsh environment, Rachel Dupree lives and breathes in the pages of this novel. Rachel is symbolic of the many women who ventured from civilization into the wilds of the west, helping their husbands to settle the land and facing drought, starvation, accidents and even the dangers of childbirth with courage.

The writing in this novel is unsentimental, Rachel’s voice often matter-of-fact, yet it is surprisingly moving. I found myself deeply engrossed in this very American story of a strong woman’s quest for a better life for herself and her children. Readers who love Pioneer history, will be drawn to Weisgarber’s novel which was short-listed for the Orange Prize’s New Writers Award in 2009.

Recommended.

The Memory of Love - Wendy's Review

And when he wakes from dreaming of her, is it not the same for him? The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love. – from The Memory of Love, page 185 -

Sierra Leone is filled with survivors of a brutal civil war – people who are moving through the remains of their lives, traumatized by loss.

Kai is a young surgeon working in the capital hospital and struggling with his own memories of a lost love and an incident he has buried deep within his heart. Elias Cole is an old man, dying in a hospital bed, and wanting to unburden himself of terrible choices he made, to re-write his own history and spin his story to his own advantage. Adrian is a British psychologist who has left his wife and daughter to come to Africa and help survivors to recover emotionally.

Bound together by their own secrets, desires and one woman, these three men’s lives will become interwoven in ways none of them could ever have anticipated.

Immersed in the novel are the stories of not just the characters, but of a whole country changed by war. Aminatta Forna explores the resilience of the human spirit, the fine line between truth and lies, betrayal, and the ethereal power of love in a novel which spans nearly two decades.

People are blotting out what happened, fiddling with the truth, creating their own version of events to fill in the blanks. A version of the truth which puts them in a good light, that wipes out whatever they did or failed to do and makes certain none of them will be blamed. – from The Memory of Love, page 351 -

Forna constructs her novel with three distinct narratives which move the reader back and forth from present time to when Sierra Leone was embroiled in civil war. The voice of Elias Cole is the echo behind the other stories. Here is a man who begins his narrative with his attraction to a married woman, but whose story changes as the reader begins to see the character through the eyes of others. Driven, competitive, and willing to do anything to advance his career, Elias is a man who represents the quiet support behind the scenes which allows evil to propagate.

Adrian is a complex character – a man who is searching for something greater. He loves his child in England, but has grown distant from his wife. He is drawn to the people of Africa and wants to understand their torments. The last thing he expects to find, however, is love.

How does a man whose task in life is to map the emotions, their origins and their end, how does such a man believe in love? – from The Memory of Love, page 362 -

It was Kai, however, who I was most drawn to in this novel of loss. A young and gifted surgeon, a man whose job was to put back together the physically shattered lives of his patients, but whose own life was emotionally fragmented. My heart ached for Kai. I wanted to know what had happened to him…and Forna waits until the end of the novel to fully reveal his story. It is Kai’s character who brings the novel full circle, who links all the characters together.

Close at hand a dog adds its voice to those of the others. Kai thinks of the day and the journey he now has before him. He does not lack the courage for it. No. Rather it was the courage to stay that had failed him. – from The Memory of Love, page 287 -

The Memory of Love is a quiet novel which reveals the people of post-war Sierra Leone: a boy whose father was murdered, a man rebuilding his body and dreaming of marriage, a woman ready to reclaim her son born of a rape, a community strengthened by its collective memories and cultural ties. Forna’s writing is graceful, introspective, and beautifully rendered.

The Memory of Love is a novel for those readers who enjoy literary fiction and works which examine African culture. It is a book about survival and the power of love to heal us.

Highly Recommended.

The Submission - Wendy's Review

 “[...]The attack made everyone afraid of appearing unpatriotic, of questioning government leaders. Fear has justified war, torture, secrecy, all kinds of violations of rights and liberties. Don’t let it justify taking the memorial away from Khan. Everything these past couple of years has been about abdications. Don’t succumb to the fear; don’t mistake the absolutism of Khan’s opponents for morality…” -from The Submission, page 226 -

Two years after the 9-11 tragedy, a group of jurors has been selected to choose a memorial design to occupy the space where the twin towers once stood. The jurors include art critics and one family member still reeling from the death of her husband. The submissions are anonymous to the jurors – they have only the designs and no names to make their final decision. After a contentious process, one design is finally chosen and the name of the designer is finally revealed…Mohammad Khan, an American born Muslim. Khan’s selection ignites a firestorm of protest. Should a Muslim be allowed to design this memorial which touches the hearts of so many Americans? Does one’s religion define who they are? Thus begins Amy Waldman’s provocative and deeply emotional novel.

Told in multiple points of view, The Submission takes a searing look at one of the most traumatic events in American history and examines our prejudices and fears seated in religious ideology, patriotism, and collective grief. Claire Burwell, the lone family member on the jury, is a complex character who initially fights for Khan’s design. But political pressure and media propaganda work on her emotions, making her doubt her convictions. Khan himself is an enigmatic character – a man who doubts his religion and then discovers it matters not what he believes so much as the label attached to him.

What was he trying to see? He had been indifferent to the buildings when they stood, preferring more fluid forms to their stark brutality, their self-conscious monumentalism. But he had never felt violent toward them, as he sometimes had toward that awful Verizon building on Pearl Street. Now he wanted to fix their image, their worth, their place. They were living rebukes to nostalgia, these Goliaths that had crushed small businesses, vibrant streetscapes, generational continuities, and other romantic notions beneath their giant feet. Yet it was nostalgia he felt for them. A skyline was a collaboration, if an inadvertent one, between generations, seeming no less natural than a mountain range that had shuddered up from the earth. This new gap in space reversed time. – from The Submission, page 32 -

Waldman includes several engaging characters including a rabid journalist who is willing to twist the truth for a story, a power-hungry politician who finds the controversy is very good for votes, a radical anti-Islamic extremist, and a Muslim woman who is in America illegally and who is mourning her husband who worked as a janitor in the doomed towers.

This is an affecting novel which uses one question to propel its complicated plot. I found the title itself to be fascinating as it alludes to not only the design which is “the submission,” but also examines the process of judgement and the struggle for a common ground which unfurls throughout the novel. Synonyms for the word submission include: appeasement, assent, backing down, giving in, humility, resignation, and surrender. And, indeed, these are words which resonate in the story. Khan is forced to examine his motivations for submitting his design in the face of pressure to step down and give up the commission.

Waldman also explores creative inspiration. From where do our artistic renderings come? Is inspiration a simple process, or does it encompass experience, ideology and something less tangible which is difficult to define? Some characters in The Submission insist on labeling Khan’s design as anti-American and read intent where none may exist. Khan himself seems, at times, to wrestle with the origins of his work – what exactly was the inspiration? 

The Submission is compelling fiction and would be a terrific book club choice. It was recently nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction and I believe it deserves that nomination. Waldman writes with clarity and passion and challenges readers, especially Americans, to look deep within themselves about essential questions related to religion, politics and fear.

Highly recommended.

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State of Wonder - Wendy's Review

She knew the story of Orpheus, but it wasn’t until the singing began that she realized it was the story of her life. She was Orfeo, and there was no question that Anders was Euridice, dead from a snake bite. Marina had been sent to hell to bring him back. – from State of Wonder, page 124 -

Dr. Marina Singh has turned away from her chosen field of obstetrics after a terrible tragedy, and immersed herself in the safe world of research science with a Minnesota-based pharmaceutical company. She carries on a clandestine affair with her boss, Mr. Fox, a man much older than she whose first priority is the financial health of the company. So when the news that Marina’s co-worker, Anders, has apparently perished in the wilds of the Amazon while on a fact-finding mission, the last thing Marina expects is to find herself on a plane to the jungle. Marina is tasked with tracking down the elusive Dr. Annick Swenson, a former professor of Marina’s, who is being funded to manufacture a fertility drug. Dr. Swenson has spent years in the Amazon jungle, living with the Lakashi tribe, a group of natives who are exceptionally fertile well past menopause. But, Dr. Swenson answers to no one but herself. Well into her seventies and with a ruthless lack of emotion, Dr. Swenson is incomprehensible and fearless. And Marina is terrified of the woman.

It strikes Marina as odd that all these years later she still remembers Dr. Swenson in the lecture hall. In her mind’s eye she never sees her in surgery or on the floor making rounds, but at a safe, physical distance. – from State of Wonder, page 11 -

State of Wonder begins slowly, but gains momentum as Marina enters the feral world of Dr. Swenson. Plunged into the jungle with its venomous snakes, biting insects, unrelenting heat, and a culture foreign to her, Marina is forced to face her past and re-think her future. She has nightmares of losing her father, and begins to question her relationship with Mr. Fox. She struggles to reconcile the mistakes of her past, and wonders about her own capacity to be a mother.

Ann Patchett’s writing draws the reader fully into the world of the Amazon where morality and ethics have been abandoned by a team of scientists who are determined to make scientific breakthroughs at all costs. Thematically the book takes a look at the divide between cultures, the interference of others in the lives of native populations, and the harm that is often done in the quest for knowledge. Easter, a native boy who Dr. Swenson appears to have adopted, becomes symbolic of innocence lost in the face of “civilizing” native cultures. Easter, the most sympathetic of the characters, is also the most tragic.

Patchett’s novel also asks the question: How old is too old to become a parent? Although on its surface, there is a strong theme centering around motherhood, I was most moved by the examination of the importance of fathers in the lives of their children. Fathers in State of Wonder have either abandoned their families (through death or choice) or are simply non-existent. Dr. Swenson’s opinion is that fathers are inconsequential, not to be considered. In this sense, the novel takes a modern look at the role of fathers in the lives of their children.

Patchett writes with authority and a beauty which belies the darkness in State of Wonder. There are lovely passages and breathtaking descriptions. When Marina attends an opera in the city of Manaus, a depressing place full of squalor and heat and sudden downpours, the reader finds herself slipping beneath the skin of the character through the magnificent prose of the author:

Suddenly every insect in Manaus was forgotten. The chicken heads that cluttered the tables in the market place and the starving dogs that waited in the hopes that one might fall were forgotten. The children with fans that waved the flies away from the baskets of fish were forgotten even as she knew she was not supposed to forget the children. She longed to forget them. She managed to forget the smells, the traffic, the sticky pools of blood. The doors sealed them in with the music and sealed the world out and suddenly it was clear that building an opera house was a basic act of human survival. It kept them all from rotting in the unendurable heat. It saved their souls in ways those murdering Christian missionaries could never have envisioned. – from State of Wonder, page 123 -

Despite my overall favorable view of the novel, it is not without its weaknesses. The end of the book felt contrived to me and Marina’s decisions as the novel wound down felt out of character. I wish that Patchett had not wrapped things up so neatly, nor chosen to burden her main character with a cliched choice that demeaned her.  Had it not been for this disappointing finish, I would have rated State of Wonder much higher.

That said, this is a novel that I can recommend if only for its tension, setting, and Patchett’s alluring prose. Readers who enjoy literary fiction and want to be transported to the Amazon, will want to read State of Wonder. This is an excellent book for a book club read because of its multiple themes and moral questions.

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The Night Circus - Wendy's Review

Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. – from The Night Circus, page 381 -


“The circus arrives without warning.” This is the first sentence of Erin Morgenstern’s enchanting debut novel, The Night Circus. It sets the tone for a story of magic, love, and imagination. Celia arrives at her father’s home unexpectedly as a young child in the late nineteenth century, and is immediately put into training to become an illusionist. Her father is himself one of the most renowned illusionists in the world, but he is also a dark and menacing man with a penchant for cruelty. One day a mysterious man in a gray suit arrives and a deal is struck – there will be a competition between Celia and a player of the man’s choice, a game of sorts which will leave one person left standing.

Marco is a young boy, an orphan, but he seems to have what it takes to learn the art of illusion, and he becomes Celia’s opponent. Both Celia and Marco are unaware of each other as they are drawn into a circus like no other. The circus travels the world, suddenly appearing and opening its doors from dusk to dawn with its striped tents and unusual and remarkable acts which include fabulous illusions, a contortionist with a mysterious past, and red-headed twins who can see the past and the future. The circus delights those who visit it and attracts a group of people obsessed with following it around the world. As the game unfolds and the players become more defined, Marco and Celia discover something even more magical than the illusions they have been trained to create: love.

The Night Circus is a feast for the senses, conjuring up beautiful scenes and luscious scents. It twists and turns and leaves the reader wondering what is real and what is illusion? Morgenstern shifts the narrative back and forth in time, a technique which adds to the unsettled feel of the novel. I will admit that this time shifting felt confusing to me at first. But eventually, I stopped paying attention to the dates, and simply allowed the story to sweep me forward…and it was when I did this that the novel captured me.

The Night Circus is a wonderful feat of storytelling. It is perhaps this idea of story which resonated the most with me. Stories transport us to places we can only imagine. They have the power to move us emotionally. Sometimes they open a door to a place within us that we had not known existed. And that is what The Night Circus is all about. Morgenstern describes all her stories as being “fairy tales in one way or the other,” and I think that is an apt description of this novel. There is evil versus good, magic, enchantment, and a slip away from reality which is mesmerizing.

As I read this novel, I began to envision Morgenstern’s world of a mysterious circus. This novel would make a tremendous movie.

The book is not without its faults – a lack of depth to the characters, a confusing time shift in the narrative, a plot which is sometimes hard to grasp…but despite these faults, I found myself loving The Night Circus for its originality, allure and spellbinding imagery.

Morgenstern is a young writer with a unique and talented voice. I will be looking forward to her future work with great anticipation. Readers who love the thrall of a story, who wish to be swept up in a world of magic and illusion, and who delight in novels where imagery takes center stage, will want to pick up a copy of this book.

Highly recommended.

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Half-Blood Blues - Wendy's Review

Jazz. Here in Germany it become something worse than a virus. We was all of us damn fleas, us Negroes and Jews and low-life hoodlums, set on playing that vulgar racket, seducing sweet blond kids into corruption and sex. It wasn’t a music, it wasn’t a fad. It was a plague sent out by the dread black hordes, engineered by the Jews. Us Negroes, see, we was only half to blame – we just can’t help it. Savages just got a natural feel for filthy rhythms, no self-control to speak of. But the Jews, brother, now they cooked up this jungle music on purpose. All part of their master plan to weaken Aryan youth, corrupt its janes, dilute its bloodlines. – from Half-Blood Blues -

Hieronymus Falk, Sid Griffiths and Chip Jones are part of a jazz group living in Germany during 1939. It is a dangerous time for blacks in a country where Hitler’s reach is great. They are banned from playing their music, and then an altercation occurs which puts their lives in danger. The group flees to Paris and moves in with the beautiful and sultry American singer, Delilah. But war is coming to France as well, and before long jealousy and betrayal coupled with the uncertainty of war leave the group at odds. One morning when Hiero and Sid go out for milk, Hiero is arrested while Sid looks on, and the young and talented jazz musician disappears. Years later, in 1992, Sid and Chip return to Berlin to celebrate the life of Hiero whose early music has been resurrected. Old rivalries and forgotten history resurface as Sid must come to terms with what really happened in Paris so many years ago.

Esi Edugyan’s Booker nominated novel, Half-Blood Blues, is historical fiction which centers around the world of jazz during the years of World War II. Narrated by Sid in a rich dialect of American slang, it moves back and forth from 1939 to 1992, gradually uncovering the complex and conflicting relationships of the characters. Sid and Chip have an uneasy yet lasting friendship which is marred by the day Hiero disappeared. The dialogue between the men is one of mockery and jesting, and is filled with slang which was, at first, a bit distracting for me. The narrative is a reconstruction of a period in time, filled with musical references which evoke a sense of place.

Delilah is the spark which ignites the tension in the novel – a beautiful woman with a seductive personality who has the power to divide loyalties. Edugyan is quite skilled at character development, giving readers a deep look into the lives of her conflicted characters through the unreliable narration of Sid.

Edugyan tackles the themes of racism, antisemitism, betrayal, and love against the backdrop of the Jazz era in Germany. She is adept at conveying a sense of place through gorgeous descriptive phrasing. As Sid and Chip travel to Poland in 1992 in search of Hiero, they climb aboard a bus “yellow as a toilet inside, the seats foamless and reeking of old piss.”

No sooner had we sat down than the driver got out, banged shut all the baggage doors, and come back on board glowering. He yelled some words in Polish, but no one seemed to pay no attention. Then he sat down, pulled out some levers, started the old engine with a roar, snapped his dusty window open. The brakes groaned, the axles hissing under us like asps. And then there was a sound like an enormous pressure releasing, and that huge rusted bus started shuddering on its big tires, rolling slowly out into the dead road. – from Half-Blood Blues -

Despite its strengths, the novel is not without its faults. I found the pacing very slow in spots – surprisingly during the part of the book set in 1939 which I thought would have been the most intriguing. Instead, I found myself most enjoying the narrative with Sid and Chip as old men. Although there is supposed to be some mystery to what exactly happened in Paris and with Hiero, I found the tension in the plot to be a bit underwhelming. The use of dialect in the novel is both a strength and a weakness. Early on, I struggled to stay in the story, battling the unfamiliar jargon and slang. Later, I recognized this vernacular as an effective device to understand the characters better. Still, I think the use of language in the book may be difficult for some readers.

There is no doubt that Edugyan can write. Half-Blood Blues is a laudable and quite literary effort that is really about relationships and human flaws. Edugyan uses a volatile time in history as a backdrop to her characters which will appeal to readers of historical fiction who also appreciate literary fiction.

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Tides of War - Wendy's Review

Dorothy Yallop pressed her shawl and set the iron down flat on the hearth. Behind her through the window the River Waveney spilled out into the meadows and caught the last of the light from the bleached winter sky. A rising breeze moved through the naked willow branches; snow was on the way from the west. In the darkness the current of war came upriver on the evening tide, pushed unnoticed into every rivulet and stream, and seeped into the frosted ground. – From Tides of War, page 12 -

The year is 1812, the place England. The unconventional and personable Harriet Raven is about to say good-bye to her new husband, James, as he leaves for the Peninsular War as part of the Duke of Wellington’s troops in Spain. Thus begins a new chapter in Harriet’s life – that of the wife left behind while her husband fights battles on foreign soil.

Stella Tillyard’s debut novel is sprawling and filled with characters both historical and fictional. Harriet takes center stage in London and is joined by the Duke of Wellington’s savvy and independent wife, Kitty, along with the ever loyal Dorothy Yallop. While Dorothy waits patiently for the return of her husband, Kitty begins to invest her money through a questionable source, and Harriet becomes enamored with Frederick Winsor who is bringing light to London through his newly conceived Gas  Light and Coke Company.

Meanwhile, a bloody war is unfolding in Spain where James Raven, Dr. David McBride, Major George Yallop, Robert Heaton, and the unfaithful Arthur Wellesley (Lord Wellington) wrestle with their own demons and temptations.

The novel moves back and forth from Spain to London and spans the years 1812-1814. Narrated in multiple points of view, it portrays the struggles and strengths of the women who carried on their daily lives in London, as well as the brutal horror of war in Spain – including obscene war crimes, horrible injuries and sexual transgressions. Tillyard’s strength is her ability to bring to life the effects of war, especially for those men who peopled the battlefields.

[...] here in Spain, and in the army, all our pasts drop away from us. Stand in line though we do, the ranks invisibly rearrange themselves so that the ribbons of standing and wealth that tied us together at home fall away. – from Tides of War, page 127 -

Tillyard also illuminates the challenges women faced in the early part of the nineteenth century – their dependence on men, their lack of freedoms, their rather uneventful lives – and demonstrates the unusual freedoms which war brought to them. Not only were most women not allowed to have their own money, but they were also held to a high standard of loyalty…which their husbands were not.

It was not what he had done in Spain. That was to be expected. It was what Harriet had done, her betrayal of her marriage vow. – from Tides of War, page 314 -

Tillyard writes with authority, deftly handling the changes in point of view, and moving the narrative forward. Tides of War has a huge cast of characters and assumes some knowledge of the historical time period. Because of this, I found myself having to reference the character list at the back of the book, and even research some of the history of the time. Despite a slow start, the novel pulled me in and had captivated me by the midpoint.

Readers of historical fiction and those who appreciate a narrative which includes dozens of characters and introduces multiple viewpoints, will enjoy Tides of War.

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Swamplandia! - Wendy's Review

The Beginning of the End can feel a lot like the middle when you are living in it. When I was a kid I couldn’t see any of these ridges. It was only after Swamplandia!’s fall that time folded into a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. If you’re short on time, that would be the two-word version of our story: we fell. – from Swamplandia!, page 7 -


It has been a year since Hilola Bigtree died from ovarian cancer leaving behind her three children – Ava, Osceola (“Ossie”), and Kiwi – and “The Chief,” her husband. Swamplandia!, with their mother at its center, is the family business and the only life the Bigtree children have ever known. Wrestling alligators, selling “museum” trinkets, and entertaining the tourists who arrive on the ferry is what they have always done. But, now things have changed. Their mother’s loss has not only left them achingly alone, but has also left Swamplandia! without a star act. And there is a new game in town by the name of World of Darkness, a garish theme park of twisted rides inside a whale’s digestive tract and pools filled with ruby colored water. Kiwi, nearly seventeen and longing for a college education, runs away from Swamplandia! to become an employee at World of Darkness. Chief Bigtree mysteriously disappears on one of his vague “business trips,” and Ossie, just turned sixteen, seems lost in a world of ghosts and an old dredge boat. Ava, age thirteen, is left to her own devices and resolves to save Swamplandia! and her family before time runs out.

Karen Russell’s Orange Prize nominated debut novel is filled with quirky characters, rambling plot lines, and gorgeous descriptions of the Florida swamps. It is also a darkly constructed story about the individual nature of grief and loss. Each character in Swamplandia! is devastated by the loss of Hilola – a woman whose death-defying act of swimming with the alligators (called “Seths”) opens the novel. It seems that death is all around this family – from the monstrous Seths, to the World of Darkness where tourists are called “Lost Souls,” to Ossie’s flirtation with a dead teenage dredgeman, to Ava’s fantasy of visiting the Underworld and finding her mother. Each character is traveling their own path through grief.

Chief Bigtree, the dad, is oddly disconnected from the reality of his failing business. He seems unaware that his children are falling apart. His reaction to the loss of his wife can only be called denial. Perhaps Ava understands this best of all when she observes:

You could become a fossil in your lifetime, I’d discovered. I’d seen the eerie correspondence between the living Seths in our Pit and their taxidermied brothers in our museum. The Chief could achieve an ossified quality, too, with his headdress skeletally flattened against the sofa back, drunk and asleep. – from Swamplandia!, page 238 -

Kiwi flees the family, and runs from the memory of his mother whose image he keeps taped to the inside of his closet door. He leaves behind the safety of Swamplandia! and enters society where his differences stand out and he struggles to fit in with his peers. Now seventeen years old, he is no longer a child whose eyes are closed to the stark reality of his parents’ world and as he navigates through his grief, he uncovers family secrets and a rage he hardly knew existed.

Ossie escapes reality by slipping into a world of ghosts and fantasy. On the cusp of womanhood, she begins a relationship with the ghost of a dredge boat, slipping out of the house at all hours and spending her time calling up spirits with the help of a mysterious book.

She set off across the muck as briskly as a mainland woman who is late for her ferry. Her footprints filled with groundwater and as I watched a dozen tiny lakes opened between us. Rain blew in from the east while out west the sun burned through a V in the trees, bright and gluey-gold as marmalade. – from Swamplandia!, page 127 -

But is is Ava, narrator of much of the novel, who is the saddest in her grief. She believes her mother has trained her to become the next amazing alligator wrestler. Ava tries to hold her family together, and when that fails, she dreams up a way to save Swamplandia! which includes applying to compete in an alligator wrestling competition, and hand raising a rare red alligator. Ava’s memories of her mother are clear and poignant, and cloaked in a child’s reflections.

Our mother, in several beautiful ways, may have been a little crazy. For example: who dries their clothing with a hurricane coming? Like Ossie, Mom got distracted easily. It was seventy-thirty odds whether she would remember a conversation with you. Her moods could do sudden plummets, and she’d have to “take a rest” in the house, but she’d always emerge from these spells with a smile for us. Until she got sick, I can’t remember our mother ever missing a show. – from Swamplandia!, page 43 -

Swamplandia! is, at its heart, about the love that binds a family together in the face of devastating loss. The strength of the novel is in its characters who are memorable and feel very real. Russell also excels at description of the flora and fauna of the Florida swamps. Where the novel struggles is in the plot which tends to drag until the latter third of book. Russell alternates between Ava’s first person narration and Kiwi’s third person point of view – a technique which tended to break up momentum in the plot. It felt, at times, like Russell could not decide whose story she really wanted to tell. Ava’s voice is, overwhelmingly, the strongest and could have carried the novel alone.

Despite its occasional humor, Swamplandia! is a dark novel which resonates with danger. Reality is often fragile and just out of reach. Not everything is as it seems. It is this haunting quality which carries the reader through the final pages of the book to an ending that stretches believability. In fact, the end of the novel did not endear me to it. Russell quickly wraps up the book and pins a little bow on it, something I found frustrating after some plot twists which took my breath away.

I did not love this book, but I found it interesting. Russell is a talented author whose child characters pulled on my heartstrings, but whose meandering plot kept me from fulling engaging in their story.

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Scottsboro - Wendy's Review

Even after all these years, the injustice still stuns. Innocent boys sentenced to die, not for a crime they did not commit, but for a crime that never occurred. Lives splintered as casually as wood being hacked for kindling. Young manhood ground to ashes. – from Scottsboro, page 1 -

Ellen Feldman’s novel Scottsboro is based on the trial of the Scottsboro boys where nine black youths were accused of raping two white women on a train in Alabama in March of 1931. Eight of the nine were initially found guilty and sentenced to death. The case was later heard by the United States Supreme Court in 1937, and although the lives of the nine were saved, it was almost twenty years before the last defendant was freed from prison. The case has historical significance because for the first time, a mass movement of blacks and whites (led by Communists and radicals) was successfully able to beat the Jim Crow legal system.

Feldman’s fictional retelling of the story introduces the reader to a female journalist named Alice Whittier who gets assigned the story and travels from New York City to Alabama to interview the two women who made the accusation of rape: Ruby Bates and Victoria Price. Both women come from poverty and have been forced to prostitute themselves to survive. Alice feels some empathy towards Ruby, a woman who appears to feel conflicted about the lies she has told. During the actual case, Ruby testified against the boys in the first trial, then later reversed her testimony in the subsequent trials.

The novel unfolds primarily through the voice of Alice, although Feldman also gives Ruby a chance to narrate the story in some chapters. I found Ruby’s voice the more compelling of the two. She is uneducated and highly prejudiced, and yet she seems to have a social conscience. Her extreme poverty and ignorance drive her motivations early in the book. She later becomes a sympathetic character when she tries to do the right thing.

“Ruby Bates would have broken your heart,” I said. “When you see what her life has been like, you can understand why she did what she did. All she’s known is poverty and misery and deprivation.” – From Scottsboro, page 137 -

I expected to really love this novel and instead I found it oddly lacking. Perhaps it was my inability to connect with the primary narrator. Alice reveals little of herself and feels a bit cardboard as a character. At times I felt Feldman was using Alice more as a literary device to tell history, rather than a fully developed character with conflicts of her own. There were times I wished Feldman had chosen to eliminate Alice altogether and instead tell the story from the opposing points of view of Ruby and one or more of the boys.

Because this is an historical case and the outcome is known, I believe Feldman needed to give the reader something surprising or compelling to enliven the plot. Instead, I found the novel lacked adequate tension in order to keep me satisfied and involved in the lives of the characters.

Scottsboro explores the themes of racism, antisemitism, feminism and social justice. Readers who are familiar with the Scottsboro case will not find much new information within Feldman’s novel. The research is thorough and Feldman does an admirable job of laying out the case – but often the novel feels like a piece of non fiction rather than a work of fiction.

Scottsboro was short listed for the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction.

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FTC Disclosure: I received this book through Library Thing’s Early Review Program.