Book Review: The Rope Walk by Carrie Brown

Read for book club (11/2010) at Crystal Lake Public Library. I found this book to be touching, sweet, and introspective. I really enjoyed it!

The main character is Alice, and the novel takes place around Memorial day, her 10th birthday. She is the lone girl in a house with her father, a Shakespeare professor, and 5 older brothers. She is a bit of a tomboy but quite smart and kind. During the summer she meets and becomes friends with a few special people. The first is Theo, a mixed-race boy from NYC, who ends up becoming a good friend of hers after a little time. The second is Kenneth, a "cool" artist who makes nifty mobiles (reminded me of Alexander Calder a bit) and is unfortunately sick and has lost his site.

This brings the three of them together because Alice and Theo end up visiting Kenneth daily to read to him from books, which begins a great friendship and a love for Lewis and Clarke. The two children end up creating a rope walk for Kenneth so he would be able to go for a walk in the woods and not get too close to a dangerous waterfall (where the book title comes from).

You definitely feel a sense of childhood wonder and innocence while reading this book (like Alice dreamily looking at the beautiful mobile in the library). Eventually you see some of the realities of life creep in and how the children have to deal with the mistakes of adults. It is endearing and hopeful though, and I would certainly recommend it to those who enjoy a good story!

And so it goes...

Book Review: The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian

Read for book club (10/2010) at Crystal Lake Public Library. This is my favorite book club read so far! I absolutely loved this book! This is the one that has stuck with me the most, out of anything I have read the last couple of years, but especially from the book club reads.

It is a fun, touching, sad, but spunky novel about an elderly couple's trip across country via the famous Route 66. The voice of the book is Ella who tells about her life as they travel from their home in Michigan to their final destination in California. It could be a sad book because the two of them are ill but instead the writer's voice is so good that I never once felt sad just thrilled from one page to the next.

Ella's husband John has Alzheimer's and as the book progresses we find out she is sick as well (cancer) but determined to have one great final trip no matter what happens. They used to take good old fashioned road trips with their children and she recalls some of these fondly for us. Other moments which should be sad are really funny, like when they are camped out for the night and they both somehow end up hitting the ground and cannot get up. Ella is a real spitfire and she makes a fantastic protagonist!

I learned a lot from reading this book about love, health, determination, and humor in the face of what is almost certain embarrassment and could easily become depressing. I was mad at her for the ending, and despite seeing it coming a mile away, I still wanted to turn those pages every minute. Our group had a fun time reminiscing about the good, bad, and ugly things that happened during road trips in our own lives; and thanks to our smart librarian, we all brought along some of our own road trip pictures to share on the day of our discussion which were really fun to look at!

I also got a little education about the American road and Route 66 in the process. There is a great greenhouse near my house that has these giant statues that I always wondered about because they seemed so odd (The Greenhouse of Crystal Lake). It turns out they are pretty common if you have traveled on or around Route 66. Apparently there were a plethora of Paul Bunyan statues along the way, and many of them were re-purposed by local businesses and used for their own signs, like the ones near me at the greenhouse of Paul Bunyan and an Indian Brave. That helped clear it up for me because I couldn't figure out why they had these bizarre and massive things where people go to buy their plants!
I seriously adored this novel and would recommend it to anybody who wants to reminisce about the good old fashioned family trips they had, to think about what it means to grow older with the love of your life, and how to do things your way every step along the journey of life, come what may!

And so it goes...

Book Review: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Read for book club (9/2010) at Crystal Lake Public Library. This book is the memoir of writer and journalist Jeannette Walls. It is an honest but sentimental look at her life growing up in a poor and dysfunctional family that lived at first out west in Arizona and then moved to rural West Virginia. Eventually she strikes out on her own and moves to NYC in hopes of a better life.

At first you kind of want to shake her and ask her why she was so loving and kind to her parents! Her father was a drunk and a dreamer who came up with nutty ideas and rarely accomplished a thing. Her mother was an artist who, in her own mind, sacrificed life and fun for her children. In reality he was just a drunk who made things up and she was a lazy spoiled brat who acted like she was 12 years old and had no responsibilities. They were appalling and should be ashamed of themselves! They weren't creative, they were just drunk and pathetic. For example, the idea where the memoir gets its name, her father tells them he is going to strike it rich and build them a dream home. They decide to proceed and start excavating the ground behind their shabby home, only to end up having it sullied by pitching the trash into it because they don't pay any of their bills. The mother finds it a waste of time to take care of anything domestic (like say feed her children) because her time could and should be better spent painting.

I was thrilled when Jeannette finally got the heck out of there and went to NYC, and was devastated when her useless and crazy parents showed up. They don't however sponge of her but rather choose to be homeless and squat in abandoned buildings and fight for their rights to do so. I cannot believe how gracious she was about such awful people who should have had their children taken away permanently and placed into protective services (an attempt was made but didn't stick). She lovingly recalls how he would teach them things (he was educated and a smart man) and how her mother was a free spirit. Personally, if these were my parents, I would have spent every page bashing them for their selfishness and despicable behavior.

It was a great read and one that spurred forth some interesting discussions in our group! I would recommend this to those that like memoirs and to those who want to appreciate parents who actually cared about them, even if they weren't perfect and dysfunctional, because they will seem like saints after you read about these two!

And so it goes...

Book Review: The Widow's War by Sally Gunning

Read for book club (8/2010) at the Crystal Lake Public Library. I enjoyed this book although the main character's independent and feminist ideas would probably never have held true for the culture/period in which it takes place.

The main character is Lyddie, the recent widow of a whaler in the 18th-century village of Satucket, Massachusetts. Her life and property are now in the hands of her son-in-law who she does not like, and who makes very evident that she should be quiet and pleased about her widow rights which are now to only have 1/3 of her house. She develops an interesting relationship with her Indian neighbor, becomes a nurse and an entrepreneur of sorts (selling and making things like cheese) and attempts to gain some sort of control over her life.

It is a good read which I would recommend to those who like historical fiction!

And so it goes...

Book Review: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Book club read (7/2010) at Crystal Lake Public Library. Normally I at least have something positive to say about a book, but definitely NOT with this one. I would honestly rather give myself a thousand paper cuts and pour a bucket of lemon juice on each one very slowly than ever read this book again! I will give you a general idea of the novel but trust me, I am telling you to skip it with every fiber of my being!

The novel takes place in a remote area of Norway with the main character Trond, a 67 year old man who has decided to live his life out in complete isolation, separated from anybody and everybody in existence, including his daughter (no telephone so people will never get to contact him). The "action" of the novel is when he runs into a "neighbor" who is the brother of his childhood friend Jon. This causes him to think about basically one event that happened during his childhood and that which gives us the name of the novel (happened in 1948).

Now from my point of view, literally nothing happens. I have read my fair share of intellectually stimulating books where there is not much action per se so that the point is to contemplate life in existentialist ways; and this did not do that for me at all! When the wonderful librarian who leads our book club asked what we thought of the book, I kid you not, you could hear a pin drop. I finally couldn't take it anymore and just said how much I hated it, which was followed by some sighs of relief and agreement from most of the crowd. To be fair, one woman did enjoy it but for the life of me I cannot remember why. It has won some awards though and apparently some people find it highly intellectual and stimulating, so give it a go if you so desire, but I would never recommend this book to anybody, ever.And so it goes...

Book Review: One Vacant Chair by Joe Coomer

A selection for the book club at my local library (Crystal Lake Public Library) that I read later on my own to catch up (orig. they read it for 4/2010). I enjoyed this book thoroughly! The main character Sarah is a bit of a Smart Alec and is going through some interesting middle-age issues: a loss of a not-so-loved relative, an impending separation/divorce?, and reconnecting with a quirky and fun relative, her aunt Edna, who only paints chairs. I enjoyed thinking about how simple objects like chairs can reveal so much if we examine them more closely, and the connection between the women in the novel despite their different personalities.

The main premise of the story is that Sarah's grandma has died, the crotchety and unpleasant matriarch of the family, who Edna cared for through a long and vague illness, and now Sarah has decided to stay with her aunt who becomes a sort of guru to her and cope with her husband's infidelity. Sarah is an overweight and unhappy but successful designer of kitschy Christmas ornaments, while Edna is an unmarried school cafeteria worker who is obsessed with painting empty chairs. The two are put together by the strange request of the grandma who wanted her ashes scattered in Scotland, even though she only saw pictures of the country in a book. It is quirky, odd, very funny, and sincerely an enjoyable read! I recommend this book to lovers of fiction who like a good laugh, cry, and introspection all at the same time!

And so it goes...

Book Review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This was a book club read for my local library (Crystal Lake Public Library) before I joined in June of 2010 that I read on my own to catch up later on (orig. they read it for 3/2010). This is a very bizarre tale to say the least! If you do not want to know the plot do not read on because I cannot think of a way to talk about the novel without describing what happens in the pages.

You think it is going to be a tale about school chums, and in a way it is, but it is more of a sci-fi tale and one that makes you think about the moral implications of cloning. The characters are essentially that, clones, who are raised in a school and eventually become donors of organs, and are proud of themselves if they can donate four organs before death. The main character is Kathy H., who is a counselor and recovery assistant to these "donors," a profession called "carer" in the book. She is at a crossroads in her life and looking reflectively back at the school where she "grew up" called Halisham. What she is deciding boils down to whether or not she will continue on counseling the other clones as they donate themselves to death, their real purpose for existing, or if she will now become a donor herself.

The book makes you think a lot about human nature and about our rights to exist. Although these characters are clones, I felt bad for them that they didn't have a right to a "normal" life and that there whole existence was to give until they die and that they were brainwashed into believing that life actually mattered to them when they were really just alive to supply parts for "real" people. I am disappointed that I missed the book club discussion for this one because I would have loved to have known what the other ladies thought of this one! We have not read anything remotely like it since and I have been in it for nearly two years now.

It is definitely not your typical novel, and I would recommend it to people interested in books that make you think about what it means to be human and to sci-fi fans as well!

And so it goes...

Book Review: The Beekeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King

This was a book club read for my local library before I joined in June of 2010 that I read on my own to catch up later on (orig. they read it for 2/2010). I am normally not a big mystery reader nor have I read everything by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but I really enjoyed this book! I would like to read more in the series but there always seems to be so many things to read and so little free time on my hands!

The book is about a young woman named Mary Russell who becomes a sort of apprentice to Sherlock Holmes in his later years after he is retired. There are fun passages with danger and disguises, classic characters like Watson, and of course mysteries to solve. She is a great character because she is not just a bumbling sidekick but an equal to Holmes, so less of an apprentice at times and more of an equal getting some tips. She is not a typical woman of the times the story is set in (1915 England), with her intelligence level, wearing of pants, and her audacious nature.

I would definitely recommend this to lovers of mystery and Sherlock Holmes but also to those who, like me, might not necessarily be hardcore sleuth fans!

And so it goes...

Q&A with Robert Alexander on Skype!

So this morning I went to the book club discussion at my local library that I attend every month (http://www.crystallakelibrary.org/). Today we discussed the book from my last blog entry "The Kitchen Boy" by Robert Alexander (author pictured at the left). The extra special treat was he talked to us for about 30 minutes via Skype at the beginning of our meeting! He was really nice, personable, and intelligent! He answered a few things I was wondering about and cleared up a few issues I had with the book, like what I felt was the rushed ending in the epilogue. Apparently it was originally a bit longer (like 450 pp.) and the editor said it needed to be shorter. My guess is that is why the epilogue felt a little compact and too brief; they probably made him cut that portion of the novel down to size.  He said the magic number for book clubs to use books is about three-hundred to three-hundred and fifty pages, so they tried to keep it around that length.

I also took a gander at the website for the book to prepare for the chat and see what I wanted to ask him (http://www.sitestories.com/robertalexander/). It is really good and includes some pictures related to the Romanovs and some of the events and places in his novel, like the infamous twenty-three steps mentioned throughout the book. He was very candid and interesting and revealed to us that it is going to be turned into a movie with filming beginning next summer and released sometime in 2013. He wouldn't tell us the name of the actress portraying Alexandra but, he did reveal she was very good and that people from The Pianist and award winning foreign films were involved (screenplay by Ronald Harwood [wrote the screenplays for The Pianist, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, etc.], producer Glenn Willaimson [Push, Sunshine Cleaning, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, etc.). The novel should make a great film and I just had to share what a treat it was to have a Q&A session with the author! Thanks Robert!

And so it goes...

Book Review: The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander

Read for book club (11/2011). It was a good historical fiction read! Based on the last weeks of the last royal Russian Tsar and his family, the Romanovs, from the point of view of their loyal kitchen boy, Leonka.

It was interesting to hear about how they hid their jewels, passed secret notes to plan an escape/rescue, and to think about how they spent their last days. Some things stuck with me about people in general from the culture/period such as the guards who couldn't read, how much the Romanovs loved to take pictures (new and expensive hobby), how the royal family tried to lead something resembling their normal life, and how Leonka kept saying over and over again that they did it with such grace, yet even in exile they were much more well off than most of the country that they used to rule. The twists at the end felt rushed and hurried. They were fun little bits to add but I think it would have been better had the author spent more time with these portions rather than just throwing them about in a very short epilogue. I would recommend it for those who enjoy historical fiction or want a relatively light/easy but interesting read!

And so it goes...