Current Reads for October 2020

I’m back and looking forward to another successful reading month as we approach the end of 2020, and thank Christ because this year has been horrendous. For September, I decided to switch gears in my reading choices, something that was slowly developing in the months prior, and those choices focused on contemporary Japanese fiction. I’ve finished a few wonderful titles: Territory of Light, Miracles of the Namiya General Store, and Tokyo Ueno Station.

October will be more of the same, but with a couple new releases that I am perhaps excessively excited about:

Earthlings by Sayata Murata

Murata made a splash with her short novel Convenience Store Woman, and Earthlings is her sophomore English release. This work seems darker, with more mature and serious themes than her first English work.

Natsuki isn’t like the other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch, or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to part the two children forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.

Now Natsuki is grown. She lives a quiet life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by pretending to be normal. But the demands of Natsuki’s family are increasing, her friends wonder why she’s still not pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki’s childhood are pursuing her. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares herself with a reunion with Yuu. (Goodreads)

Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami

I’ve read Mieko Kawakami before and she never fails to disappoint with poignant and insightful works. Plus, Breasts and Eggs is one work that I was eager to get for it’s feminist examination of social issues important to Japan, particularly in light of how conservative the country tends to be on issues. It wasn’t originally as long as it is in English, having been expanded with a later look at the women this novel focuses on.

An earlier novella published in Japan with the same title focused on the female body, telling the story of three women: the thirty-year-old unmarried narrator, her older sister Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter Midoriko. Unable to come to terms with her changed body after giving birth, Makiko becomes obsessed with the prospect of getting breast enhancement surgery. Meanwhile, her twelve-year-old daughter Midoriko is paralyzed by the fear of her oncoming puberty and finds herself unable to voice the vague, yet overwhelming anxieties associated with growing up. The narrator, who remains unnamed for most of the story, struggles with her own indeterminable identity of being neither a “daughter” nor a “mother.”

In this greatly expanded version, a second chapter in the story of the same women opens on another hot summer’s day ten years later. The narrator, single and childless, having reconciled herself with the idea of never marrying, nonetheless feels increasing anxiety about growing old alone and about never being a mother. In episodes that are as comical as they are revealing of deep yearning, she seeks direction from other women in her life—her mother, her grandmother, friends, as well as her sister—and only after dramatic and frequent changes of heart, decides in favor of artificial insemination. But this decision in a deeply conservative country in which women’s reproductive rights are under constant threat is not one that can be acted upon without great drama. (Goodreads)

Paprika by Yasutaka Tsutsui

I’ve had Tsutsui’s novel on my shelf for awhile, and I’m hoping before the end of 2020 that I can knock it off my TBR. I received it as a gift, and I cannot wait to see how far down the rabbit hole of weirdness it takes me.

When prototype models of a dream-invading device go missing at the Institute for Psychiatric Research, it transpires that someone is using them to drive people insane. Threatened both personally and professionally, brilliant psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba has to journey into the world of fantasy to fight her mysterious opponents. As she delves ever deeper into the imagination, the borderline between dream and reality becomes increasingly blurred, and nightmares begin to leak into the everyday realm. The scene is set for a final showdown between the dream detective and her enemies, with the subconscious as their battleground, and the future of the waking world at stake. (Goodreads)

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda

A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women—who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive “feminine” passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company. (Goodreads)

This was a pure Instagram addition after seeing it on another Japanese Lit feed. The title makes me giggle, and I love it.

One non-Japanese book I’ve started is Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, the second installment in the All-Souls Trilogy. I was in the mood the other night for something witchy and this fit perfectly with my mood. I loved the first, Discovery of Witches, so hopefully this won’t disappoint. If you like vampires, witches, elements of dark academia, with plenty of history, wine tasting, and paranormal romance done in an adult and smart way–then this is for you. 

Picking up from A Discovery of Witches’ cliffhanger ending, Shadow of Night takes Diana and Matthew on a trip through time to Elizabethan London, where they are plunged into a world of spies, magic, and a coterie of Matthew’s old friends, the School of Night. As the search for Ashmole 782 deepens and Diana seeks out a witch to tutor her in magic, the net of Matthew’s past tightens around them, and they embark on a very different—and vastly more dangerous—journey. (Goodreads)

Erika Robuck: Call Me Zelda

Title: Call Me Zelda
Author: Erika Robuck
Genre: 21st Century American Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Source: Local Library
Publisher: NAL and Tantor Media
Release Date: January 1, 2013
Format: Paperback; 978-0-45123-992-1; $16.00 & Audio CD; 978-1-45264-207-9; $39.99
Pages: 352; Runtime: ~12 hours
Rating: ♥♥♡♡♡

Summary: It is 1932 and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, is committed to a psychiatric hospital as she struggles with bouts of what Scott sees as madness. During her stay, Zelda grows close to her nurse, Anna Howard, and the two women become the other’s confidante. Told through Anna’s perspective, a complicated, troubled, and emotional picture of the Fitzgerald’s marriage unfolds. Anna is drawn deeper and deeper into Zelda’s troubles, wondering all the while if Zelda is the true artist behind Scott’s success. As Anna tries time and again to save Zelda, she soon learns that she needs to deal with her own demons, but that her fight may cost her. What follows through this narrative is an examination of the last years of Zelda’s tragic life and her much-maligned representation in history.

Review: I’ve been on a binge-reading spree lately regarding anything about Zelda Fitzgerald–I don’t really know why. I guess it started with my reading of Therese Anne Fowler’s Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, and it snowballed from there. I picked up both the paperback and audio book for Erika Robuck’s Call Me Zelda, thinking it would offer more insight into Zelda’s final years, since the Fowler’s focused more on the years before Zelda’s committal to a hospital. While it delivered on this front, it fell short on many others.

I’ll say now that I really, really wanted to love this book–but it turned out to just be “ok.” First, the point of view just doesn’t work. The story is told from Anna’s perspective, Zelda’s nurse, so Zelda takes a complete backseat to the story. I couldn’t connect with Anna, at all. I found her rather two-dimensional and faceless, a bit of a Mary Sue, and this limited my ability to immerse myself in this story. Anna’s narrative also limits how much we get to know the Fitzgeralds, because her perspective is limited to what she sees and learns from Zelda. A more omniscient third-person perspective would have been better suited for this story. It would allow readers an unbiased and in-depth look into the emotions, psyches, and inner-workings of each character. Anna doesn’t know Scott, but only learns about him through Zelda and limited interaction. She’s not a historical figure anyway as far as I know, so this just didn’t sit well with me. What resulted was a very biased and unfavorable characterization of Scott. I may not be a fan of his (though I love his work), but I want him represented fairly, and I don’t feel this was allowed because of Anna’s point of view.

This is my second complaint about this book: Scott’s portrayal. It seems in this narrative that he can do nothing right and that he’s just a nasty, self-centered man focused on his novels. This isn’t entirely true according to historical record and personal documents. Scott loved Zelda and she him. Yes, they had marital problems, but this is what makes their relationship real and what has made it last in stories and in literary history for decades. I am of the camp that believes Zelda’s “madness” was more due to patriarchal structures of the time, brought about by some of Scott’s actions and behaviors (chronic depression brought about by being forbidden to create and be herself, nothing more), but Scott is not without good qualities. He wants to do the right thing, to get her well, and he will do whatever it takes to have “his Zelda” back. That’s heartbreaking for how much love is behind that. He does what he thinks is best based on what he knows and what was available at the time; Anna is incapable of seeing past the frustrations and her blinded perception of him. There’s always two sides to every story, and domestic strife is a new level of issue, which is never black and white. This isn’t even considered in this narrative. Sp, I felt, in all, that Scott’s portrayal was completely unfair. I wasn’t overly happy with the portrayal of Zelda either for similar reasons regarding Scott’s portrayal. Zelda just comes across as a madwoman, and she falls rather flat in the narrative. Moreover, she becomes something of an object–something or someone people talk about, but that’s it. This novel carries her namesake, so I’d expect her to be the focus, but she takes a complete backseat to Anna’s musings.

Overall, I was hoping this novel would bring something new to the realm of biography, fiction, and scholarship on Zelda Fitzgerald, but it didn’t. It was just a basic, self-reflective journey on the part of the narrator as she comes to terms with her own life. The Fitzgeralds just serve as the tools with which to do this. It wasn’t groundbreaking. However, to be fair, it wasn’t a bad novel either. I enjoyed it for what it was–it was an entertaining weekend read, and a novel that was nice to have in the car on audio book for my daily commutes to and from work. But, if you’re looking for a work of biographical fiction that offers great insight into the stunning and interesting figure of Zelda Fitzgerald, pick up Therese Anne Fowler’s novel, or pick of Nancy Milford’s Zelda: A Biography.

Purchase:
Barnes & Noble
Kobo Books
Your Local Indiebound

Therese Anne Fowler: Z, a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Title: Z, a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Author: Therese Anne Fowler
Genre: Historical Fiction, 21st Century American Literature, Literary Fiction, 21st Century Women’s Literature, Biographical Fiction
Source: Local Library
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: March 26, 2013
Format: Audio CD; $39.99; 978-1-42723-014-0
Running Time: 12 hours; unabridged
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Summary: Beautiful Zelda Sayre is a Southern belle content on bucking social expectations for a young lady of her social and familial station. She’s smart, reckless, and bold. In 1918, she meets Lieutenant F. Scott Fitzgerald, a man who does not embody the qualities of a man her family would approve of–he’s not a Southerner, not wealthy–not much at all–he’s a writer–but she falls for him. Hopeful that his writing will take off and bring him wealth and status, Zelda marries him just as he sells his first novel. History is made. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald become literary legends, the figure heads of the Jazz Age and the Lost Generation, and with their fame comes the glitz and glamour of artistic and literary genius. This sweeping chronicle will take readers from America, to Paris, Hollywood, crossing paths with Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and more.

Review: I am generally fascinated with the first decades of the 20th Century, the Jazz Age and the “Lost Generation,” the unique post-World War I world that emerged after such chaos and destruction. Particularly, I’ve been interested in reading and learning more about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s often ignored wife, Zelda.

Zelda led such a glamorous but tragic life. She was her husband’s muse, and yet she was an artist in her own right–often pushed to the side by her husband in my opinion. Heavy drinking, chronic infidelity, and regular fighting plagued their marriage, with Zelda’s mental stability slowly spiraling downward.

This remarkable and often maligned woman is the focus of Therese Anne Fowler’s novel, Z a Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald.

Norah Vincent: Adeline

Title: Adeline
Author: Norah Vincent
Genre: 21st Century British Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women’s Literature
Source: Publisher in exchange for a review
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt
Release Date: April 7, 2015
Format: Hardcover; 9780544470200; $23.00
Pages: 288
Rating:  5/10 (2/5 Goodreads)

Summary: In this release by author Norah Vincent, we get a chronicle of the life of Virginia Woolf, or Adeline, and a glimpse into her tortured and often brilliant life and career, and her connection to some of the most notable writers of her time.

Review: Norah Vincent’s Adeline is another 2015 novel that examines the always-interesting and tragic life of the great Virginia Woolf. As I am a nut for books about Woolf and love her work, I was excited about this release, but that quickly disappeared and this ended up being one of my few, few DNFs.

First, and perhaps one of the biggest issues I had while reading Adeline is that I found this book extremely difficult to get into, and I struggled so much with the to desire to finish–and I couldn’t. It hurt a lot of the time, and that time spent on this took up too much time. The problem is the execution of point of view. The narrative could have been handled a lot better as the shifting points of view all come from internal monologues from the characters, and then they combine in other forms–first, third–this made it extremely difficult for me to keep track of who was talking and from which perspective, and whose point of view I was dealing with. A singular point of view (first or third person only) would have helped with a narrative that is extremely bogged down by the absence of any cues to make these transitions clearer and easier to follow. A lot of the time the POV would shift with no warning. Also in this vein: The novel’s prose was also quite difficult, bordering on pretentious. It was rather dull, it lagged much of the time, and this wasn’t helped with the strange POV. The prose also just wasn’t nuanced, atmospheric..it didn’t possess a “magic” that would make me want to keep reading. It was just dry, dense, and parts of it could have been condensed or removed.

Conversely, I found Ms. Vincent’s take on Virginia Woolf interesting and thought-provoking. This book made me want to research more about Woolf. Even though I’m already a big fan of hers, I feel like there are always new perspectives I’ve never encountered and that there is so much more yet to learn. This novel succeeds in offering new suppositions and making the reader think. I also appreciated that Leonnard Woolf was a focal point of the story, as I think he, a lot of the time, is ignored in favor of his more infamous wife. I’ve always kind of felt sorry for him. I also appreciated that the book’s sections were divided by the titles of Woolf’s novels; that was an interesting mood, and there are notes of her novels in what I could decipher. Woolf herself is intriguing if you can get past the prose, which makes the book feel too academic in these areas.

This novel is hard to get into, hard to follow most of the time, but the content is interesting, and the world-building good. I’d recommend this book only to die-hard Woolf fans–I guess I’m just not die-hard enough for this one. It was just too dry.

Alison Weir: The Marriage Game

Title: The Marriage Game
Author: Alison Weir
Genre: 21st Century British Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
Source: Publisher in exchange for a review
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Format: Hardcover; 978-0-34551-191-1; $26.00
Pages: 402
Release Date: February 10, 2015
Rating: 10/10 (5/5 Goodreads)

Summary: After the death of her sister Mary, Elizabeth Tudor is now the beloved Queen Elizabeth I of England. Though loved by her people, Elizabeth’s advisors push her to marry in order to cement her rule and legacy. Elizabeth has no real intention to marry, and the man she loves, the scandalous Robert Dudley, is not considered a suitable choice. What follows is a fight by England’s greatest and most beloved queen to prove that she can do the job of a man and at the same time chart her own destiny and that of her nation.

Review: At the top of her field as a historian and historical fiction writer, Alison Weir proves yet again why this statement is true. The Marriage Game chronicles the hunt for a consort to the crown of England for the nation’s queen, Elizabeth I.

One of the defining characteristics of Queen Elizabeth I is her unwavering devotion to her people during her reign, and her conviction that it was okay to be unwed in a century where being a single woman in a position of power was unheard of. The Marriage Game, I’m glad to say, touches on this part of Elizabeth’s life; she promised as a child never to marry in order to avoid the horrors of marriage and betrayal suffered by her mother, Anne Boleyn, at the hands of her father King Henry VIII. To keep this promise, Elizabeth navigates the body politics of being a virginal queen forever, married to her people instead of a man. This is one aspect of her that made her nation adore her, and Weir does an excellent job of conveying Elizabeth’s devotion.

What I also love about this novel is Weir’s development of Robert Dudley, the one man Elizabeth DID love enough to want, possibly, to marry if given the chance. He’s often demonized in most historical records and fiction, but Elizabeth loved him, and that really comes through here.

Weir’s novel is a well-written, fantastic addition to her already long repertoire of quality historical fiction. The plot is thick with intrigue, historical atmosphere, and is reflective of everything readers and historians love about Tudor England in the sixteenth century. Weir presents a portrait of the greatest English queen the world has ever seen in a real and fresh light. While there are certainly speculations and apparent-biases present, these do not detract from the still-apparent historicity of the novel; after all, this is historical fiction. What we are left with is a poignant and lovable story of the girl who proved a woman could do the job of a man, and do it better.

Again, Weir’s The Marriage Game is expertly plotted, the writing is superb, and this is one piece of historical fiction to be added to the modern classics list. It surpasses others that try to measure up.

This book is not to be missed.

Purchase:
Barnes & Noble
Your Local Indiebound

Priya Parmar: Vanessa and Her Sister

Title: Vanessa and Her Sister
Author: Priya Parmar
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
Source: Publisher in exchange for a review
Release Date: December 30, 2014
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover; $26.00; 978-0-80417-637-8
Rating: 10/10 (5/5 Goodreads)

Summary: This novel focuses on the famous Bloomsbury Group, at the turn of the 20th century in 1905, a group that boasted such prolific members as Virginia Woolf, EM Forster, Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, and so on. In the middle of this cast are the famous sisters: artist Vanessa Bell and her writer sister Virginia Woolf. The story follows Vanessa as she falls in love, blossoms into a successful painter outside of her more well-known sister’s fame, while also chronicling Virginia’s emotional and psychological downward spiral.

Review: This book was freakin’ fantastic. I want to enshrine it with my favorite books of the year. I wish I could stop here. I fell in love with this story from the first chapter.

First, so much is known and written about Virginia Woolf; she’s one of the preeminent figures of feminism, of women’s literature; she’s the woman who could mingle with, hold her own with, and even outwit the masculine literary circles of her day, most notably the famed Bloomsbury Group. And she wrote fabulous, witty, intelligent, and insightful works. I’d argue that her body of work surpasses her male contemporaries.

However, Priya Parmar’s novel isn’t necessarily about Virginia Woolf; it isn’t even necessarily about her literary merit; instead, the focus is on Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell. Vanessa is not a novelist, nor is she even literary; she is a painter, a quieter artist that observes and critiques with brushstrokes instead of pen strokes. The narrative, told through Vanessa’s perspective, flows like paint on canvas; it’s colorful, it builds in layers, and is moving. Parmar’s choice of subject/protagonist and her writing are both immediately affecting, and the reader will be swept up with each stroke.

Moreover, the book is highly emotional with regards to the effect Virginia’s declining emotional and mental character has on her sister. We see a bright, talented, and loved sister wear the other down to a point where things cannot be forgiven. The emotional pull of the book is aided though the structure and style Parmar chooses to employ, that of a journal and through the addition of letters and postcards and telegraphs. This is a wonderful structural choice on Parmar’s part because it lends the reading experience a feeling intimacy and connection with the characters’ lives. It invites the reader in to the characters’ everyday lives and how they feel and what they think day-to-day. It also adds to the atmosphere within the story and reflects the literary and artistic nature of the Bloomsbury Group Vanessa and Virginia belong to, and while the book is not a “fast” read, the structure made it easy to digest. This choice also allows the story to build and keep the plot moving.

However, outside of it all, this novel is a wonderful look at sisters and the love that binds them together, along with the rivalry expected from two as gifted as they. Against the backdrop of the burgeoning Post-Impressionist and Modernist movements in art and literature and the many artists and writers wanting their voices heard against tradition, we see Vanessa struggling to free herself from various constraints as well. Additionally, it’s nice to see Vanessa Bell as the center of attention this time, and she allows us a raw, albeit heartbreaking, glimpse into their sisterhood and tragic estrangement at the hand of mental illness, betrayal, and as Vanessa decides that her own happiness, success, and future are just as important as her sister’s. When this happens, we see Virginia’s drastic and sudden swings in mood and personality. I personally find this book a perfect mirror to how Vanessa lives her life. While Virginia lives in the safety of her sister’s bosom and feeds off her sister for inspiration, confidence, and support, it’s really always about Virginia and never Vanessa. How this narcissism affects Vanessa is something she never considers. This book explores how Virginia overshadows, destroys, and robs many things from her sister.

Finally, as Vanessa’s muse and the subject of many of her paintings (she even painted covers at one point for her sister’s novels and arguably appears in Virginia’s novel To the Lighthouse as Lily), this makes the loss of the muse and artist’s inspiration all the more Shakespearean in tragedy. It is all particularly sad when Vanessa begins to move apart from her sister. I wonder if Virginia felt like Vanessa was the only thing keeping the flood at bay. This is a question raised in light of the reality of Virginia’s life story. Those familiar with it know that she commits suicide later in life in 1941, and though we never see it, readers will see the coming result even after they turn the last page.

I must note that Parmar does take liberties with her interpretation of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. It’s generally accepted by historical and literary scholars that Woolf suffered from bipolar disorder (“nervous disorder” as they called it in her day) and a lot of her life was marked by severe and sudden mood swings, depression, etc., but scholars aren’t of the opinion that she was also narcissistic. However, this is historical FICTION, so readers should expect the author to offer new possibilities, and Parmar’s “Author’s Note” at the end offers some helpful explanation which I appreciated. In all, Parmar’s Vanessa and Her Sister is by far one of the best literary fiction novels of 2014. It is deeply moving, raw at times, and it captures everything readers love about pre-World War I-era historical fiction. Moreover, if you’re a fan of Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, the Bloomsbury Group, or all of them, make this your end-of-the-holiday or New Years read. This is an amazing work. Pick it up now.

Purchase:
Barnes & Noble
Kobo Books
Your Local Indiebound

Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis 2

Title: Persepolis 2
Author: Marjane Satrapi
Genre: Autobiography, Memoir, Graphic Novels
Source: Borrowed
Pages: 187
Format: Paperback; 978-0-375-71466-5; $12.95
Rating: 10/10 (5/5 Goodreads)

Summary:
Marjane’s parents send her to Austria to escape the Iranian Revolution and its new strict and oppressive social codes. Marjane lives, grows, and learns in Europe while she grapples with her identity as an immigrant and modern woman. As she becomes an adult Marjane realizes that she needs to return to her family and Iran to reconnect with and truly discover who she is. What she learns is that borders do not define a person and that what truly defines us is the choices we make and the character we build.

Review: This novel was freakin’ fantastic. It got my migrant studies part of my brain buzzing with excitement. However, the first thing that I love about this text is the art. The illustration style is different from a lot of the graphic novels I’ve read lately. It is much more focused on universality than absolute detail. What I mean by this is that you will notice, particularly with Satrapi’s illustrations of herself, the images convey a sense “this can be anyone and everyone,” that this experience gives voice to anyone fighting marginality and dealing with the migrant experience.

This experience with migration, being an “in-between” in a foreign country, and then returning home and finding you no longer fit in with your homeland is what Satrapi examines in Persepolis 2. In this light, Satrapi’s novel is set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, the civil war that ended Iran’s freer secular society and brought on an Islamic fundamentalist state. The loss of freedom to live her life as a free, independent, and cosmopolitan woman is why Satrapi’s parents send her away to Vienna, Austria. Unfortunately, this migration brings its own hardships and subtle forms of oppression. In Vienna, Satrapi navigates various social circles, none of which she belongs to. First, she finds herself in a group of communist-focused youth who she watches espousing the same ideologies that she left behind in Iran. She constantly cycles through friends and living spaces, which is an excellent metaphor for her continual migration though this is true to her real-life experiences.

Eventually, Satrapi feels like she no longer has a place in Europe and decides to return to her family in Iran. When she goes home, she has to learn to become Iranian again, to relearn Iranian customs and new moral codes. She must do all this while trying to be as free as possible in a country that won’t let her be so. Thus, she discovers that she is a foreigner in her homeland and as such a perpetual migrant.

Satrapi’s graphic novel is spare on prose, which is expected in a graphic novel, but what prose is included is focused on the important moments in her life, the things we must know, and what she writes is expertly done, poignant, and full of raw truth and honesty–all while being a bit cheeky about her experiences. This adds a unique voice to Satrapi’s work. Also, through this she retakes power for herself and embraces her cultural heritage. However, in the end, Satrapi must leave Iran again, this time for good. It’s interesting that once one becomes a migrant, one may continue to be a migrant or to at least occupy some in-between space; when putting down roots in another country, she will encounter the struggle with hybridity. It’s a complicated existence and she draws attention to this through a medium that allows her to illustrate in segments to mirror a segmented life. She does eventually come to a sense of wholeness and hope for the future, which in reality she finds.

In all, Satrapi’s Persepolis 2 is a beautiful, fantastic, and engrossing novel that deserves its place in the list of top graphic novels of the 21st century. If you’re looking for a great cultural read in an entertaining format, this is for you. I highly recommend this book.

Purchase:
Barnes & Noble
Your local Indiebound

Amy Bloom: Away

Title: Away
Author: Amy Bloom
Genre: Literary Fiction, 21st Century American Literature
Source: Publisher (Random House) in exchange for a review
Release Date: 2008
Pages: 240
ISBN: 978-0-8129-7779-0; $15.00; Paperback
Rating: 6/10 (3/5 Goodreads)

Summary: Lillian Leyb is a Russian immigrant who has come to America in 1924, not only to find a better life as most immigrants do, but this fresh start begins her journey toward finding the daughter she has lost. Her journey takes her along the famed “Telegraph Trail” and eventually all the way to Siberia.

Review: I was looking forward to this book, partly because I had never read Amy Bloom before (I’ve seen this book everywhere and have always wondered about it) and partly because I like historical fiction that takes place in the 1920s/Jazz Age. However, I quickly grew to feel that this book is just not for me. I have several problems with the general developmental choices Bloom took with her story, problems that I feel keep this narrative from being fully realized and from reaching its full potential.

First, I felt like Lillian’s story just wasn’t done any justice with the constant sleeping around she did in order to get anywhere in life. To me Lillian represents the immigrant experience at this time in American history, and I feel it cheapens what Lillian is trying to achieve. I like characters that achieve things on their own merit, not through sexual escapades. Could Lillian have achieved this without all the cheap romance along the way? I know it mirrors how dire her circumstances are, but still. This aspect of the book bothered me.

Most of the peripheral characters Lillian meets along her journey are never fully realized or developed; I kept wanting to know more about them, why they have to be in her life at THIS particular moment when she meets them, who they are, their backgrounds, and so on. Bloom does tie up loose ends though. She wraps everything up at the ends of these segments so we know what happens in the future with them. I wanted more than that–more show, less tell.

I did like the thematic focus and symbolism in this novel though; I liked how Lillian’s daughter seemed to be the penultimate symbol of the American Dream for Lillian. I felt that Bloom adeptly handled this quest for the young girl who represents the future–Lillian’s future. Not to mention that Bloom writes smooth, lovely prose. This book was just not for me. I will, however, definitely check out more of her books. I’m quite interested to see what else she has written, perhaps starting with her new novel, Lucky Us, just released this month.

Maria Semple: Where’d You Go, Bernadette?

Title: Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
Author: Maria Semple
Genre: Literary Fiction, Family Issues, 21st Century American Literature, Humor/Comedy
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Rating: 10/10

Preliminary Thoughts: This book has gone on so many rounds through the blogosphere, booktube, and book clubs that I think it’s more well-traveled than any human being. In all of this, it became one of the most popular books of 2012-2013. I am just now getting to it–why?–because I never read what everyone else is reading when they’re reading it. I don’t like to follow fads; I never have. Yet, this book was inescapable; the recommendations for it kept coming and after a trustworthy review, I felt I needed to read this, if only to see what all the hype was about. Boy oh boy was I blown away.

Summary: This book in a nutshell is about family and what it means to be one. More specifically, this book focuses on Bernadette, a one-time award-winning architect from LA who moves to Seattle after having endured a lot of hardship in her otherwise luminous life. Not only has she watched her prize-winning work destroyed by a rival, she has also lost on the home-front. She suffers several miscarriages, but she becomes a mother to “Bee,” her smart, witty, and loyal fifteen-year-old daughter who is not only her best friend but the glue that keeps Bernadette together. Then there is Elgie, Bernadette’s Microsoft guru husband who is mostly absent from her and Bee’s life. Yet, the family loves each other, and in a strange way their dysfunction works for them.

Bernadette and her daughter navigate the snippy, nosy, and pompous moms of their school and neighborhood, going against social expectations and being their own women. This causes friction in the community, but Bernadette and Bee just swat the “gnats” away as they come buzzing. Then,  the family’s and Bernadette’s stability begins to unravel, when Bee comes home with good grades in face of a prize her parents have promised her: a trip to Antarctica. The pressure of a trip involving Bernadette being confined to a cruise ship among people, in closed quarters, worries her, and her sanity comes under question as she starts acting strangely, outside of her usual eccentrics. Elgie, with the help of a motley crew of acquaintances, stages an intervention in the hopes of getting Bernadette help; what follows is a wild and thrilling quest of self-discovery, healing, and ultimately a reconnection for friends, family, community, and a woman who has been sorely misunderstood.

Review: I really didn’t expect this book to be as good and thoughtful as it was. As I said, I don’t usually read things that everyone else is reading, and I’m skeptical of massive fads. This book is definitely an exception, and I’m so glad I took a chance on it. Semple creates characters that are so well-developed, entertaining, and relatable that I felt myself easily drawn into their world, community, and personal lives. Particularly, I love Bernadette; I felt close to her and as if her struggle against her snide neighbors was my own. Everything that she has gone through in her life has shaped her into the person she is, and through the entire book I felt like everyone else had it wrong, that the community was crazy and not Bernadette. Moreover, I found myself getting really angry with her husband Elgie because he doesn’t ever take complete steps to understand how she has come to feel and be the way she is. He doesn’t take the time out to see things her way. The only one that does this is Bee. I think this is what Semple is trying to examine, and criticize, the preconceptions and judgements we force on people and the damage this causes. Semple does this is a highly successful satire that will leave you gasping for breath in the midst of laughter and tears. So, if you’re like me and haven’t yet read this book because you’ve been living next to me under that rock over there, take some time out and grab a copy of this book. Read it. You won’t be able to put it down–I couldn’t.

Thrity Umrigar: The Weight of Heaven

Title: The Weight of Heaven
Author: Thrity Umrigar
Genre: 21st Century Indian Literature, 21st Century American Literature, Postcolonialism, Cultural Fiction, Literary Fiction
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Rating: 8/10

Summary: Frank and Ellie have suffered the unthinkable: the death of their only child, Benny, to a mysterious and fatal disease. In an attempt to come to terms with their devastating loss and repair their marriage, they move to Girbaug, India, for a fresh start. They end up moving their entire lives, including Frank’s business with HerbalSolutions, a pharmaceutical company specializing in “wonder drugs.” Frank’s big money-maker from India is an anti-diabetes drug made from the leaves of a local tree. This tree is important to Girbaug’s citizens, especially to their traditions and livelihoods and this is destroyed when Frank’s company comes to town. What grows from the tension this blind corporate greed espouses is a downward spiral of native versus empire where Frank will be forced to come to terms with the consequences of his blindness. On top of this is Frank’s growing affections for their housekeeper’s and cook’s son, Ramesh. Ramesh, a boy with so much talent and promise, becomes the repository for all of Frank’s hopes and dreams, those hopes and dreams he lost when Benny died. Additionally, much to Ellie’s horror, Ramesh becomes a replacement for their son Benny. Ramesh’s father watches in horror as Frank begins to Americanize Ramesh, leading to another confrontation that will leave scars across Frank’s and Ellie’s lives. Ultimately, Frank will pay an unimaginable and heartbreaking price for everything.

Review: Umrigar is one of my favorite contemporary Indian authors, particularly because she has a talent for beautiful, lyrical prose and emotional and socially important themes. This novel was no exception. The writing in this novel is superb, and the emotion Umrigar pours into it is real, raw, and beautiful. I had only a couple gripes and most of them have to do with Frank’s character; he is exponentially selfish and short-sighted when it comes to how much his actions hurt not only his wife, but the villagers whose lives his company has ruined. I could not bring myself to like him. Moreover, there seemed to be an underlying “white devil” critique aimed at Frank portrayed through the abundant chastisement he endures from the citizens of Girbaug. It seems Frank can do nothing right (except for one gesture he does for Ramesh and his father toward the end, but a part of me thinks it wasn’t altogether altruistic), but this, I feel, is due to his selfishness; losing his son has destroyed the “good Frank” from before. This novel develops to be quite the postcolonial work. However, all of this, and particularly my dislike for Frank, has nothing to do with the quality of this book; the two are not the same. I believe the mark of a good book is that it makes you feel strongly about anything, even if it is hatred for a certain character, because that is how life is. The Weight of Heaven is a reflection of this, and Umrigar does it well. Overall, this is an excellent book, and like all of Umrigar’s work it is extremely engrossing, well-written, and a fast read; I recommend it.