The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez

256 pages

Published Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. 

 Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.
 
The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

My Thoughts: 

A little more than five years ago, my husband and I went to hear Julia Alvarez speak. At that time, I had a couple of her books on my to-be-read list, but hadn't actually read anything she'd written. I was so impressed with her that I knew I needed to rectify that. This is now my third of her books and I've several things to be true of her books: 

• The themes of family (especially sisters), the immigrant experience, home, and storytelling will appear. 
• The writing will be beautiful. 
• The book will make me really think and I'm bound to learn from it. 
• It's possible that I may feel like I'm in over my head. 

This book was no exception. I'll admit to wondering, in the beginning, if this book might be more cerebral than what I was up to when I began reading. But I also knew that I wanted to see how it would play out so I continued reading and Alvarez began pulling me in, even when it became apparent that magical elements were going to be involved (and you all know how tricky that it for me!). 

For a bit I felt pulled about, from one person's story to another's, from Alma's story to Filomena's story. Gradually they became one and the need for that background for each of them became apparent as the stories told by those buried characters begin to emerge. 

Manuel Cruz is Alma's father, a man who long ago spoke of a of mysterious place, a place his daughters mocked him about. Then one day he stopped speaking of it and, as he slipped into dementia, he stopped telling his girls anything about his past. 

Bienvenida is based on the real wife of Rafael Trujillo. Her she is a woman who gets swept up in the make-believe world Trujillo creates in wooing her and remains blind to the person he really is until she is forced to leave the country so that he can marry a new woman who can give him children. 

Filomena is a woman who grew up in the slums, whose mother abandoned her as a child and whose father was abusive. She and her sister, Perla, get tricked into coming into the city and working as maids for a wealthy family. When Perla becomes pregnant by the family's son, they are forced to marry. When he lands in trouble for going against Trujillo, the young family is sent to New York City and Filomena is deprived of the sister she's become estranged from and her beloved nephew. 

As Filomena listens to the stories in the cemetery, we begin to see how Alma's father's, Bienvenida's, and, eventually, Filomena's mother's stories are intertwined. 

As the book moved between the stories told by the characters in the cemetery and the real lives of Alma and Filomena, I never found myself confused or trying to race through one story to get to the next. For me, everything was laid out and unfolded perfectly. I grew to care deeply about these characters, even those who were more deeply flawed. In just 256 pages, Alvarez took me from doubting this book to wishing it were longer, not because it didn't feel complete; but because I wanted to hear more of the stories. 

The Buddha In The Attic by Julie Otsuka

The Buddha In The Attic by Julie Otsuka

Published August 2011 by Knopf 

144 pages

Publisher's Summary: 

A novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought over from Japan to San Francisco as "picture brides" nearly a century ago. 

In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of these women, from their arduous journeys by boat, to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; from their experiences raising children who would later reject their culture and language, to the deracinating arrival of war. 

Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times.

My Thoughts: 

This is one of those books that's been on my radar for years, but like so many books, it just keep sliding down the list of books to read (because, you know, shiny new books). But when I made my book club read a 500 page book in February, I knew I needed to give them a short read in March and suddenly this one popped to the top of the list. The Buddha In The Attic has everything in a novel that I want when I pick books for my book club: diversity, uncomfortable themes (and history), and timely themes. 

The Buddha In The Attic has the added advantage of being written in an entirely unique way. Told from a first-person-plural point of view, there are no characters that readers will follow throughout the book. Repeatedly Otsuka refers to "we" or "our," allowing her to tell many stories at once, in a cadence that is nearly poetic and often hypnotizing. It would have been impossible, without needing 800 pages, to tell so many stories if each option of what these women lived through had been told by a specific individual woman. These women come to the United States as "picture brides" for Japanese men who were already here. Most had been deceived into accepting the marriage but most had very little choice, regardless. Many found good lives with good men, more had very hard lives, often with very hard men. Some ended up in brothels. 

"On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some o us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes, but many more of us came from the country and on the oat we wore the same old kimonos we'd been wearing for years...Some of us came from the mountains, and had never before seen the sea, except for in pictures, and some of us were the daughters o fishermen who had been around the sea all our lives." 

The women adapted. Areas developed that were strictly for the Japanese. Many became housekeepers or worked in shops, or did laundry. They farmed. They had families. Their children sometimes died, sometimes turned from their Japanese heritage, often found themselves ostracized both the whites and the Japanese. 

Only in the final section do we get the point of view of a white woman, describing the town she lives in after the Japanese have gone. Some she says, are happy to see them gone, some sorry, others wondering if they should have done more. 

"We wonder if it wasn't somehow all our fault. Perhaps we should have petitioned the Mayer. The governor. The President himself. Please let them stay. Or simply knocked on their doors and offered to help. If only, we say to ourselves, we'd known." 

"People begin to demand answers. Did the Japanese go to the reception centers voluntarily, or under duress? What is their ultimate destination? Why were we not informed of their departure in advance? Who, if anyone, will intervene on their behalf? Are they innocent? Are they guilty? Are they even really gone? Because isn't it odd that no one we know actually saw them leave." 

But how quickly the Japanese are forgotten. They're places in society taken up by others; their names blurring, their faces even more so. It feels a bit jarring to end the novel with a chapter told from the white point of view but it works as a reminder of how easy it is for those of us with power and privilege to stand by in the face of injustice, to move on with our lives, to succumb to fear mongering. It's a reminder to readers that, while this novel is a work of historical fiction, it could just as easily have been written about current events. History does, indeed, repeat itself. 

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

Read by Alma Cuervo

6 hours

Published April 2020 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Publisher's Summary: 

Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words. 

Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

My Thoughts:

I'll be honest - I picked this book because it was an audiobook that was available and not very long; it was helped by the fact that it was written by an author I'd heard speak a few years ago and was really impressed with. 

Julia Alvarez books are (it seems to this reader who is only on her second Alvarez book) always full of things to think about and to discuss. Here Alvarez touches on family, sibling relationships, immigration, culture, loss, mental illness, and loss of identity. In addition to the questions the publisher's summary asks, I felt like Alvarez was asking us to consider what we owe others and what we owe ourselves and who should we put first. More than once Antonia, when trying to decide what she should do, thinks of the airline imperative to put your own mask on first in an emergency before you try to help others. 

We are often asked to consider if a book is character or plot driven. When I finished this one, I really wasn't sure what the answer was. A lot happens here but I never felt like the action was the true point of the book. Then, too, although we meet a lot of characters here, we only truly get to know Antonia. In the end, I wasn't even sure I knew where Antonia's brain was at. Or, for that matter, what was going to become of any of the characters. As much as I loved all the questions Alvarez asked, her beautiful writing, and all of the references to literature (and Cuevo's reading), I guess I just wanted some answers to what happened to the characters. There are, after all, no answers to so many of the questions the book raises.  

I'm evidently alone in that opinion, though. It was one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2020 and Entertainment Weekly called it a tour de force. 

Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie Macdonald

Fall On Your Knees by Ann -Marie Macdonald

Published January 1997 by Simon and Schuster

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

The Piper family is steeped in secrets, lies, and unspoken truths. At the eye of the storm is one secret that threatens to shake their lives — even destroy them. 

Set on stormy Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia, Fall on Your Knees is an internationally acclaimed multigenerational saga that chronicles the lives of four unforgettable sisters. Theirs is a world filled with driving ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love.

My Thoughts:  

When I was selecting books for my book club I was looking to find a book by a Canadian author set in Canada and came across this book. It sounded like just the kind of book we'd find a lot to talk about so I added it to our list and picked it up early to check it out. The verdict? It's definitely a book with a lot to talk about. But we won't be talking about it. 

Fall On Your Knees is a beautifully written book, filled with vivid imagery of two vastly different islands - Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and Manhattan - and the people who inhabited them in the early 1900's. Miners, immigrants, dreamers, survivors. It is the story of family, love, race, religion, ethnicity, abuse, death, obsession, mental illness, determination, addiction, forbidden love, dreams, and nightmares. Macdonald has created some characters that will stay with me for a long time - especially two sisters and their niece who must survive the incredible loss and life with the monster who caused all of their pain. 

As the story moves back and forth in time, some things become revealed to readers that are not revealed to the characters, other secrets are held back, leaving questions to be answered. Unfortunately, as the story came to the tipping point, Macdonald chose to tell the story in a new way that pulled all focus away from the characters that I'd become invested in. While that piece of the story was integral to getting Macdonald to where she wanted to go with her story, I wish she had found some other way to get there without breaking away from the other stories. Still, when I came to the final few dozen pages of the book, it was more than satisfied with the way Macdonald closed out her story of the Piper family. 

Now, back to why my book club won't be reading this book. In 2002 Oprah Winfrey chose this book for her book club. If you know anything about the kinds of books Oprah used to chose for her readers, you may begin to understand what's in this book that caused my reaction. Let's just say, we have members who have young children. As a mom myself, I couldn't have them reading this book. 

Behold The Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Behold The Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

Read by Prentice Onayemi

Published June 2017 by Random House Publishing Group

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library (I also own an ecopy)

Publisher's Summary:

Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future. 

However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ façades. 

When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.

My Thoughts:

The Guardian says: "This is not a story of noble immigrants versus the evil banking class: Mbue is too skilful for that. The Edwardses are self-absorbed and selfish but slim bridges of genuine affection exist between them and the Jongas. On the other hand, the Jongas are not simple Africans who eschew materialism and can teach the Edwardses how to live a contented life. Both Jende and Neni rejoice in the consumerism of America and grasp at all that capitalism has to offer."

I agree 100%. In Behold The Dreamers, Mbue has created characters who are multi-dimensional. The Jongas are both naive and willing to do what it takes to get what they want. The Edwardses can be both generous and courteous and yet incredibly blind to real life. The Jongas are no less generous but Jende has a temper and Neni's morals might be called into question. All are, at heart, good people who are, as we all are, flawed. 

In this story about power, both the Jongas and the Edwardses are trapped in a powerful system, albeit one that stronger favors the Edwardses when it comes to the ability to survive. In Jende's interview with Clark, Clark barely registers the meeting while it means everything to Jende. Cindy thinks nothing of passing on their castoffs yet for Neni these are things that will make the Jonga's lives so much easier. Jende is powerless in the face of the immigration bureaucracy and at the mercy of those who claim to understand it. Yet, Clark is also trapped in a powerful system - he finds himself helpless in the face of his company's dealings. And Cindy, who is living a life of luxury, is also living a life filled with dread that "her people" will find out the truth about her past and the truth about her addiction. 

An NPR review of this book says that Mbue can be unsparing in her depiction of the elite who didn't see their existence threatened by the financial collapse. It was simply a terrible inconvenience. One of Cindy's friends complained that they might have to fly coach or let go of their help and actually have to cook for themselves. No worries that the rug would be completely pulled out from under that cook if she/he lost their job. Clark lands on his feet almost immediately but, as we all remember, so many others were devastated by the financial collapse of 2008. 

I've owned an ecopy of this book for some time but (as so many books on my Nook do), it has languished, unread. When one of the categories for my book club for 2021 was a book about immigrants, I knew it was time to pull this one out. I'm so happy that I did. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy this book, it's going to make a great book to discuss this month. 

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang

How Much Of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang

Read by Catherine Ho and Joel de la Fuente

Published April 2020 by Riverhead Books

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.

My Thoughts:

I've been struggling with writing this review. I've put it off repeatedly. I know I'm supposed to have been blown away by this book; it was on the Booker Prize long list, for heaven's sake. It's like nothing I've ever read before, the writing is impressive and the narrators are terrific. Zhang shows us the Wild West in a way that we've never seen before, an American West populated by the kind of people who have been conspicuously absent in other stories about the settling of America. 

Finally I decided it was time to really think about this book. It was another one of those books that made me wonder if I just wasn't smart enough to "get it." Then two things came to me. As original as this story is, it is also a quest story, a trope I'm very familiar with. And then there are the similarities to William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Zhang's book is entirely her own story but much of it also entails a family carting a dead body around, looking for a place to bury it, and even has a chapter where Ba takes over the narration, much as as Faulkner's Addie Bundren did. Once I realized those things, I knew that my feelings about this book had nothing to do with me not being smart enough. 

There were, though, a number of things played against this book for me. First, it was a terrible time for me to be reading a book so focused on death and so unremittingly sad. It was too soon after my mom died. Then I listened to about two-thirds of it before my loan expired and it took several weeks for me to get it back. I'd lost the flow. The things that had pulled me in seemed to be gone. All I was hearing, when I picked it back up again, was unrelenting trauma. 

I began to be a little upset with Zhang for all the terrible things she was putting Lucy through, for all that pain she had heaped on Sam. Clearly it was a book that made me care about the characters. It's a book that I'll be thinking about for a long while. Which makes me really wish that I had read it at a different time, without that break, and maybe with a better understanding, going in, how very dark it is. 

The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper

The Girl in the Painting by Tea Cooper

Published March 2021 by Thomas Nelson 

Source: courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:

Australia, 1906 Orphan Jane Piper is nine years old when philanthropist siblings Michael and Elizabeth Quinn take her into their home to further her schooling. The Quinns are no strangers to hardship— having arrived in Australia as penniless immigrants, they now care for others as lost as they once were. 

Despite Jane’s mysterious past, her remarkable aptitude for mathematics takes her far over the next seven years, and her relationship with Elizabeth and Michael flourishes as she plays an increasingly prominent part in their business. 

But when Elizabeth reacts in terror to an exhibition at the local gallery, Jane realizes no one knows Elizabeth after all—not even Elizabeth herself. As the past and the present converge and Elizabeth’s grasp on reality loosens, Jane sets out to unravel Elizabeth’s story before it is too late. 

From the gritty reality of the Australian goldfields to the grand institutions of Sydney, this compelling novel takes us on a mystery across continents and decades as both women finally discover a place to call home.

My Thoughts:

I read one word when I received the pitch for this book...Australia. I've told you before that we have several Australian families we count as friends. Because of them, I have a special fondness for that country. Book written by Australian authors, especially historical fiction books, aren't that easy to find so I was excited to have a chance to read one. 

This is a story of immigration to Australia and how those immigrants helped build the country...how they worked together and fought each other and became Australians. Cooper clearly sets the her story in Australia, describing the landscape and referencing landmarks; I always have an extra appreciation for a book that can do that, especially when I am so hoping for it. She's also used a number of historical events to place her story in a time and place. 

Cooper has crafted a book with multiple time and story lines. If you've been reading this blog long, you'll know that I often have problems with that but Cooper makes it work because all of the time lines revolve around the same core story line. Running throughout the timelines is the thread of a mystery but solving the mystery isn't the point of the book. Cooper includes the themes of prejudice, love, and honesty. At it's heart, thought, this is a book about the bonds of family and what makes a family. I loved that Cooper's leading ladies were intelligent, educated, and strong. 

This was just the book I needed right now, even though I couldn't help but keep thinking of my mom as I read it because I know she would have really enjoyed it. I was completely caught up in the story and couldn't put the book down. 

Thanks to the ladies from TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other opinions about the book, check out the full tour here.

About Tea Cooper:

Tea Cooper is an Australian author of historical and contemporary fiction. In a past life she was a teacher, a journalist and a farmer. These days she haunts museums and indulges her passion for storytelling.

Connect with Tea

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Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Read by Bahni Turpin

Published September 2020 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary: 

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, love.

My Thoughts:

Transcendent: adjective

• beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience
• (of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material universe
• surpassing the ordinary; exceptional

Two years ago I read Gyasi's debut, Homegoing, and was so impressed with her writing and the story she told. I knew that I would read her next book and requested it from my library before it was even available. I was not alone - it took until November for me to get the book. It might have been because other people had also been impressed with her first book or because this one is gaining high praise from all quarters. For good reason. This book lives up to its title in every way. 

It's a complex novel that handles a lot of themes beautifully, never becoming overwhelmed by them. Gyasi's characters are complicated and wholly developed and I felt so deeply for them. Gyasi looks at the immigrant experience from the point of view of those who choose to stay and those who choose to return home. But this is not just an immigrant story. It's the story of parenting, the relationship between parents and children, the pressure we put on our children, marriage, addiction, mental health, faith, and science. 

Certainly these are not, on their surface, characters to whom I shouldn't necessarily be able to relate. But I can relate to the experience of being the mother of an addict and the constant fear that you are going to lose your child. Mercifully, I did not lose my child to a drug overdose as Gifty's mother did; but I can absolutely imagine finding myself reacting in the same way, being crippled with grief and depression. I also related to Gifty's struggle to reconcile her religious upbringing and faith with science. Even as Gifty is studying science and running an experiment she hopes will help people like Nana, she longs for the days when she could put herself in a higher beings hands. This conflict is one of the strengths of this book, of which there are many. 

If you've listened to any other books read by Bahni Turpin, you'll understand why she was the perfect choice to read this book. I'm always impressed with her work; you absolutely find yourself believing you are listening to the characters tell their stories. If you choose to read this book, I highly recommend the audiobook. I was about a third of the way through this book when I knew it would make a great choice for my book club and put it on our calendar. I recommend it for your book club as well. 

The Last Story of Mina Lee by

The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Published September 2020 by Park Row Books

Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

Margot Lee's mother is ignoring her calls. Margot can’t understand why, until she makes a surprise trip home to Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. Determined to discover the truth, Margot unravels her single mother’s past as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother, Mina. Thirty years earlier, Mina Lee steps off a plane to take a chance on a new life in America. Stacking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing she expects is to fall in love. But that moment leads to repercussions for Mina that echo through the decades, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death. Told through the intimate lens of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand each other, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a powerful and exquisitely woven debut novel that explores identity, family, secrets, and what it truly means to belong. 

My Thoughts:

Told in alternating chapters between Mina and Margot, Kim tells the story of Mina's immigrant experience  and Margot's story of growing up the daughter of a single-mother, undocumented immigrant. Like so many books with dual narratives, Mina's story line is stronger than Margot's. It felt like Kim had the idea for Mina's story and designed Margot's piece as a vehicle to explore one piece of it. 

Margot's present day story line requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief and lacks the passion and the emotional depth that Mina's story has, although Margot's story when she looks back on her life growing up with her mother has more emotional heft. It was easy to believe that Margot would have had incredibly mixed emotions growing up with a woman who didn't fit in in the country they live in and who seems to be completely consumed with working. As Margot tried to discover if her mother's death might have been something more than an accident, I enjoyed the "mystery-to-be-solved" element of the story, although some of the pieces felt a bit forced and I didn't care much for the piece that involved a police detective. 

Mina's story is heartbreaking even before she arrives in the United States. Unfortunately, we know from the beginning that her life doesn't get better and ends sadly. It's an important story to explore right now as we struggle with what who we should allow to immigrate and how we treat (and mistreat) those who do.

As with so many relationship stories, so much of how the characters feel about each other has to do with a lack of communication.  How might have Margot felt about her mother if she knew why her mother refused to learn English? It always makes me wonder, when I read books like this, what have I not said to the people I love that I should have said. There were so many times Margot's and Mina's relationship might have been different if Mina would have knocked on Mina's closed door or Margot would have learned Korean so it was easier for the two of them to communicate. 

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
Published 1991 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Source: bought my copy of book club

Publisher's Summary:
In this debut novel, the García sisters—Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía—and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father’s role in an attempt to overthrow a tyrannical dictator is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wild and wondrous and not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways, but the girls try find new lives: by forgetting their Spanish, by straightening their hair and wearing fringed bell bottoms. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents sets the sisters free to tell their most intimate stories about how they came to be at home—and not at home—in America.


My Thoughts:
Last spring my husband and I went to hear Julia Alvarez speak and were both so impressed with her story and what she had to say about being an author. I knew it was time to read some of her work so I put this book on my book clubs list for 2019 to make sure that I did just that. I decided to start with her first novel, a book that is very much based on her own life history.

What I Liked:

• I loved getting the story from multiple points of view - each of the girls and both of their parents get a chance to shine and let readers see where they came from and how that past affected their acclimation to a new culture. Every one of them had a very distinct voice.
• Alvarez really brought the culture and history of the Dominican Republic alive.
• I appreciated looking at immigration from the point of view of a family that not only came from wealth but was very familiar with the U.S. before they arrived. Still, the change was difficult as Papi was not able to pick up work in the U.S. as a doctor. And in this land built of immigrants, those whose families had been here longer were quick to try to squash the newbies. 
• The relationships between the immediate and larger families felt very real. These sisters had each others backs but they also had their quibbles with each other and resented being lumped as "the four girls."

What Didn't Work As Well For Me:

• I understand why Alvarez told her story in reverse chronological order but by the time I got to the end of the book, I was struggling with remembering which of the sisters had grown up to do what. I think I would have been happier with a more linear story line that allowed me to stack experiences on each other for each of the girls and the family.
• Because of the reverse chronology, we also don't get what feels like a more traditional ending. I'm not sure I felt satisfied, then, by the ending which was actually the beginning. 

Will I read more by Alvarez? Absolutely. I know she has more to teach me about the land of her family. I'd also like to pick up some of her poetry. 

The Wangs Versus The World by Jade Chang

The Wangs Versus The World by Jade Chang
Published October 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Source: my ecopy purchased for my Nook

Publisher's Summary:
Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands - and his pride.

Charles pulls Andrew, his aspiring comedian son, and Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, out of schools he can no longer afford. Together with their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York hideout of the eldest daughter, disgraced art world it-girl Saina. But with his son waylaid by a temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smash-up in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the old world and the new, between keeping his family intact and finally fulfilling his dream of starting anew in China.

My Thoughts:
I've started this review three times and deleted everything I'd typed. I liked this book; I really did. But it's been a month since I read it and I'm having a hard time remembering the details of it that made me like it and the things that kept me from loving it. Back in the day, when I was blogging like I was getting paid to do it, even if I couldn't get a full review written out right away, I'd start a draft and getting some rough thoughts put down. Too bad I don't do that any more, it would really be helpful now. Luckily, I read it on my Nook so at least I do have the things I highlighted! So let's try doing this review this way:

What I Liked:
I'm a sucker for stories about families, especially when they involve a road trip. As a veteran of many a trip in the family station wagon growing up, this book took me right back to those days, to the ways being stuck in that car and sharing experiences could both drive you crazy and bring you closer. When you can relate to a book that way, it's always a point in favor of the book.

Curiously, I actually felt a bit sorry for Charles which helped me care that his journey was a eventually a success and to know that I'd feel bad for him if it wasn't For a guy that had been smart enough to build up an empire to be so clueless about what was going on around him, and for his chances for success, made Charles more likable than rich guys losing it all usually are.

I loved the relationship the siblings had with each other. They didn't always get each other, they often annoyed each other. But they had a bond forged from the loss of their mother. And I enjoyed watching each of them grow throughout the book.

What I Didn't Like:
Ok, maybe "didn't like" is too strong a phrase. Let's say these are things that didn't work for me.

I sometimes felt like Chang wasn't sure if this book was about Charles' journey, or the family finding a way to overcome their loss, so much as it was a story about Saina. Chang spends a lot of time tells us about Saina's experiences as an artist and her fall from grace, as well as her relationships with men. Strangely, I felt less sorry for Saina than I did for Charles which may account for why I got tired of reading so much about her.

But then I felt like Chang also got a little long-winded when she went off with Andrew on his solo expedition. I just really wanted things to feel a little more balanced.

Things That Caught My Attention:

"The only people who still used mules for anything other than entertainment were the mujahideen and the Amish, both lost tribes fighting for the useless past."

I'm pretty sure it would never have occurred to me that the mujahideen and the Amish had anything in common, but it turns out they do.

"He [Charles] wished they [children] could stay hidden away, with the damp, trusting little mouths, until they developed some sort of hard shell impenetrable to drugs or sex or disappointment or any of the thousand poison-tipped arrows the world might aim in their direction."

Yes, yes, yes. Every parent ever can surely relate to this.

My book club read this book. We did a terrible job discussing it but I do believe there is a lot here for a book club to talk about. Family relationships, art, cultures, ethics, the immigrant experience, what wealth does to people. Also, I don't think I mentioned this yet, the book is frequently quite funny which keeps it from getting weighed down with its heavier topics.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Published September 2002 by Knopf Canada
Read by Kristoffer Tabori
Source: my audiobook purchased at my local library book sale; I also have a physical copy, the origins of which I don't recall

Publisher's Summary:
In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides finds herself drawn to a classmate at her girls' school in Grosse Point, Michigan. That passion -- along with her failure to develop -- leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. The explanation for this is a rare genetic mutation -- and a guilty secret -- that have followed Callie's grandparents from the crumbling Ottoman Empire to Prohibition-era Detroit and beyond, outlasting the glory days of the Motor City, the race riots of 1967, and the family's second migration, into the foreign country known as suburbia. Thanks to the gene, Callie is part girl, part boy. And even though the gene's epic travels have ended, her own odyssey has only begun.


My Thoughts:
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl...in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy...in August of 1974."


Once upon a time, I suppose I had some inkling what this book was about. Then I forgot. I just knew that it was a book that people raved about. So I bought it. Twice. Then, shortly after I bought the audiobook, I read somewhere that it was the first popular book with a hermaphrodite as its main character; and, I'm ashamed to say, I moved it to the bottom of the pile. And then I listened to podcasts instead of popping in the first disc. I could not imagine 500 pages about a hermaphrodite that wasn't just sensationalized. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

If you've been reading my Sunday posts, or follow me on Instagram, Snapchat, or Litsy, you've been hearing me rave about this book for the past few weeks, "One of the best readings of a book I've ever listened to; Kristoffer Tabori is amazing,""just blown away by Eugenides writing. Why did I wait so long?!" When the end-of-the-year post goes up with my favorites for the year, it's going to be pretty tough to top this one as my favorite audiobook of the year.

But just how did I overcome my qualms about a book featuring an hermaphrodite? I'm not going to lie; some parts of the book made me a little uncomfortable. But, then I've been working the past couple of years to read more books that make me uncomfortable so I appreciate the ways that Eugenides made me learn about human sexuality. In the end, what he seems to be saying about all of that is that it is who we are inside that makes us who we are, not what we are on the outside.

But this book is about so much more than gender identity. It's a coming of age story that's also about war, passion, immigration and the immigrant experience, the rise and fall of a city, racial tensions, religion, nature versus nurture, societies, the American Dream, gender roles, and, most of all, it's about family. The characters in this book will stay with me for a long time: Lefty and Desdemona who escaped the great fire of Smyrna and pursued the American Dream while never leaving their Greek customs entirely behind; Jimmy Zizmo, who was married to their cousin and took them under his wing but who also exposed them to the seamier side of America; Milton, who worked hard to leave behind his Greek roots and become a big man with his Cadillacs and unusual house in the tony suburb of Gross Pointe; the aunts, uncles, and family friends who made up the Sunday dinner crowd. They all made Callie/Cal who she/he was as much by who they were as by genetics.

Does Eugenides sometimes get a little verbose? Oh, yeah, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness. But I'm willing to forgive all of that for the empathy, sadness, humor, and insight that he has imbued his story with. As I said when I was getting near the end, I'm going to miss this book.

Love And Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford
Published September 2017 by Random House Publishing
Source: my ecopy courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:

For twelve-year-old Ernest Young, a charity student at a boarding school, the chance to go to the World’s Fair feels like a gift. But only once he’s there, amid the exotic exhibits, fireworks, and Ferris wheels, does he discover that he is the one who is actually the prize. The half-Chinese orphan is astounded to learn he will be raffled off—a healthy boy “to a good home."

The winning ticket belongs to the flamboyant madam of a high-class brothel, famous for educating her girls. There, Ernest becomes the new houseboy and befriends Maisie, the madam’s precocious daughter, and a bold scullery maid named Fahn. Their friendship and affection form the first real family Ernest has ever known—and against all odds, this new sporting life gives him the sense of home he’s always desired.

But as the grande dame succumbs to an occupational hazard and their world of finery begins to crumble, all three must grapple with hope, ambition, and first love.

Fifty years later, in the shadow of Seattle’s second World’s Fair, Ernest struggles to help his ailing wife reconcile who she once was with who she wanted to be, while trying to keep family secrets hidden from their grown-up daughters.

My Thoughts:
Sometimes it's good to be completely surprised by a book. Sometimes it's great to find, within a books pages, exactly what you expected to find.

Love and Other Consolation Prizes falls into that second category for me. I've read both of Ford's previous books (Hotel On The Corner of Bitter and Sweet and Songs of Willow Frost) and expect to learn a lot about the history of the Pacific Northwest and the Chinese and Japanese immigrants who came there when I open one of Ford's books. I expect that there will be children involved in the story and I expect that there will be tears (mine) at some point in the reading. Love and Other Consolation Prizes more than met my expectations in all regards.

"This is a love story, but so was the tale of Romeo and Juliet. That was the greatest love story of all time. And we all know how that turned out."

We don't know how Ernest Young's love story will turn out but this book is more than just a love story. It is also a story about families, even unconventional ones. It's a story about accepting people for who they are and about the kinds of sacrifices people are willing to make, both to get what they want and for others.

Ford also raises moral questions that don't necessarily have black or white answers. The character of Mrs. Irvine is a woman who pays for Ernest to attend a private school but only because it makes her feel better about herself. She doesn't care that Ernest if treated as a servant by the richer, white boys; she doesn't want to know that he is left out of all extracurricular activities. She is only too quick to punish him when he expresses the slightest self-interest by raffling him off to a good home. How he might be treated in that home interests her not at all, as long as the home belongs to good, white Christians. For the coming decades, she will make tirelessly work to destroy the home that Ernest does find himself in. Given that the home is, in fact, a brothel, is she wrong to do so? At Madame Flora's, Ernest is given his own room, clothing, responsibilities, and a fair wage. More importantly, he is surrounded by people who care about him, even love him. Which is the better woman?

The love triangle at the heart of the story is lovely - Fahn and Maisie are friends, both are in love with Ernest and he with them. Both Fahn and Maisie are fighting to make their way in the world and Ernest will do what ever it takes to try to keep them from becoming "upstairs girls." I wanted to wrap all three of them up in my arms and make life better, more fair. Later in life, my heart broke for Ernest again but Ford, as you will know if you've read his previous books, will not let this be an entirely sad story. There will be reunions, there will be hope.

Like his previous books, Love and Other Consolation Prizes would make a terrific book club selection. From the history of the two Seattle World's Fairs, the importing of Chinese and Japanese children to sell in the United States, the ethics of governments and police forces, the treatment of immigrants there is a lot of here to talk about. And that doesn't even touch on the themes of family, love, abuse, morality, and friendship. Ford packs a lot into this book, making it a lovely book with a lot of depth.

Mr. Rosenblum Dreams In English by Natasha Solomons

Mr. Rosenblum Dreams In English by Natasha Solomons
Narrator: James Adams
Published June 2010 by Little, Brown, and Company
Source: audiobook purchased at library book sale

Publisher's Summary:
At the outset of World War II, Jack Rosenblum and his family escape Berlin for London. Jack embraces the welcome pamphlet instructing immigrants how to act like "the English." He acquires Saville Row suits and a Jaguar. He never speaks German, apart from the occasional curse. But one key item—membership in a golf club—remains elusive. So Jack hatches a wild idea: he'll build his own.

Jack's wife, Sadie, does not share this obsession. She wants to cook her mother's recipes and remember the life they left behind. But when Jack relocates them to the country, Sadie watches their savings deplete as he pursues his quixotic dream.

My Thoughts: 
What is it about books set in England, especially books set in England which are narrated by Englishmen, that immediately calls to mind the word "charming?" It's a stereotype, I know, to call a quiet, gentle book charming, but the entire time I was listening to this book it was the word that kept coming to my mind.

And yet, the book is surprisingly timely, dealing, at it quietly does, with immigration and intolerance.

Jack Rosenblum is obsessive about blending in and works hard to become a very successful businessman. None of that matter, though, to the British elite who keep him from reaching his ultimate goal because of his Jewishness. Sadie represents another view of the immigrant picture. She misses her culture and language and longs for her family. Daughter Elizabeth, a small child when the family leaves Germany, is Jack's pride and joy. But as she becomes more and more British, he fears that she is pulling away from him and her heritage.

When Jack moves Sadie to a rundown country estate, the book came alive. The quintessentially quirky villagers, the local legends, the couple's slow acclimation to country life, and Jack's travails in building what his dream golf course brought warm, humor, and tenderness to the story.

I couldn't help but think of "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" (starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy and a movie based on a book), when Jack and Sadie first moved to the country, to a home with no indoor plumbing and holes in the thatched roof and to a land that refused to be tamed. I have a fondness for that movie which may have colored my opinion of the book at that point.

My enjoyment of this book can probably most be attributed to it being just the right book at just the right time for me, combining as it did a serious theme with a light touch, wonderful relationships, a lovely setting, characters I became attached to, and a very satisfying ending. I definitely recommend the book, particularly on audio.

When The Moon Is Low by Nadia Hashimi

When The Moon Is Low by Nadia Hashimi
Published July 2015 by HarperCollins Publishers, paperback edition April 2016
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher and TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Mahmoud's passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she's ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power.

Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: she must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister's family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness. Exhausted and brokenhearted but undefeated, Fereiba manages to smuggle them as far as Greece. But in a busy market square, their fate takes a frightening turn when her teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family.

Faced with an impossible choice, Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby, while Saleem falls into the shadowy underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe's capitals. Across the continent Fereiba and Saleem struggle to reunite, and ultimately find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives.

My Thoughts: 
So you know how publisher's summaries generally give you maybe a third of the story? Yeah, this one goes much further than that. So, if the summary intrigues you, add it to your list then don't pick it up to read the book until you've forgotten what you read here.

The other interesting thing about this summary is that it doesn't start at the beginning of the book. It's Fereiba's early years that color all of her choices - the death of her mother at her birth, a father who cannot stop grieving and can't face Fereiba without thinking of his dead wife, a stepmother who gives her just enough to make Fereiba hope for a mother's love but not much more, and an angel, who promises to watch over her through her life. For the first half of the book, the story is Fereiba's - a story of longing, heartache, anguish, fear, and hope.

Once Fereiba and her children are forced to flee Afghanistan, the story shifts and becomes more and more Saleem's story. Told from the third person, although Saleem's life is more desperate and more reflective of the trials of refugees, it becomes more distant and harder to connect with the story. Because Hashimi wants to leave her reader with hope, things never quite become as tense and horrible as they might have. Still, with the continuing refugee situation in the Middle East (and world wide), it's important to put readers into the shoes of the disenfranchised, to make those of us sitting in our comfortable homes understand how hard life can be and to, hopefully, become more compassionate.

You know how much I enjoy books set in the Middle East and this one was no exception. Hashimi does a wonderful job of immersing readers into the culture of Afghanistan and making them understand life, particularly as a woman, in the region. The book could have benefited from more editing where it sometimes became repetitive, but I became caught up in Fereiba's story, the story of a mother who is fighting to make a better life for herself and her children.

Thanks to the ladies at TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For more reviews, check out the full tour.

Nadia Hashimi’s parents left Afghanistan in the 1970s, before the Soviet invasion. She was raised in the United States, and in 2002 she visited Afghanistan for the first time with her parents. Hashimi is a pediatrician and lives with her family in suburban Washington, D.C. Find out more about Nadia at her website, connect with her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter.

She is the author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, which I enjoyed and reviewed here. As long as Hashimi continues to write books about the women of Afghanistan that make me think, I will continue to read them.

Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear

Leaving Everything Most Loved by Jacqueline Winspear
Published April 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: the publishers and TLC Book Tours

Remember last week when I hadn't finished this book when I was scheduled to review it? I finally finished it this past weekend and ended with somewhat mixed feelings about the book.

What I liked: I very much enjoyed Winspear's exploration into the life of Indian immigrants living in England between the World Wars, from young ladies who came to England as ayahs (nursemaids) only to be let go by the families who had hired them with no way home to Indian women who married British men and British women who married Indian women. All had such varied experiences and allowed Winspear to bring some Indian culture into the story.

The characters are familiar friends, although I wished we would have seen more of Priscilla (Maisie's outspoken friend) and Maisie's father who both liven up the books when they're around.

Winspear never gives away her mysteries; on the other hand, as Maisie begins putting the pieces together, it answer is always based on clues that Winspear has given readers along the line. It give me the chance to be challenged to try to solve the mystery but I'm never so far ahead of the game that things get dull.

The title is so well suited to the story, with both the young women who have traveled to England for a new life and Maisie who is planning on traveling to India leaving everything most loved.

With World War II looming on the horizon, Winspears' characters are being to see it coming and it raises some interesting moral questions which trouble Maisie and, I imagine, will cause her a lot more trouble in the new book.

What I didn't like: The relationship between James and Maisie seems stagnant and it's hard, given Maisie's thought process, to imagine that they are really as in love as Winspear tells us they are. Billy seems to be the character who will never live happily ever after, once again suffering in this book. It's a good friend to Maisie and I wish Winspear would have found a different way to move him forward without moving him backward first.

Honestly? It dragged a bit, with a lot of internal dialogue as Maisie pondered whether or not she should leave England for an extended trip following in her mentors footsteps. The idea seemed to come to her suddenly without a good explanation as to why she felt she should make the trip and then a lot of the book was spent as she tried to make herself take the leap.

Of course, we know now that there's another book after this one, but Winspear could easily have left readers with this book as the last in the series. So many things were tied up, with Billy, Sandra, and Frank all settled and the investigative business shut down. If she'd wanted to end the series in just the kind of way I like book to end, without everything ending neatly, she could easily have left us wondering where Maisie's journey would take her and whether or not she and James will every end up together. Clearly, that's not what she's doing but one does wonder if Winspear's grown tired of the series as was and is bringing Maisie back for a different kind of adventure. I've enjoyed the books enough that I'm sure I'll go along for the new ride with Maisie.

Leaving Everything Most Loved: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear

Leaving Everything Most Loved: A Maisie Dobbs Novel by Jacqueline Winspear
Published April 2014 by Harper Collins Publishers
Source: the publishers and TLC Book Tours

Publisher's Summary:
London, 1933. Two months after Usha Pramal's body is discovered in the waters of a city canal, her brother, newly arrived in England, turns to Maisie Dobbs for help. Not only has Scotland Yard made no arrests, but evidence indicates they failed to conduct a full investigation. Usha had been staying at an ayah's hostel, a refuge for Indian women. As Maisie learns, Usha was different from the hostel's other residents. But with this discovery comes new danger, as a fellow lodger who was close to Usha is found murdered.

As Maisie is pulled deeper into an unfamiliar yet captivating subculture, her investigation becomes clouded by the unfinished business of a previous case, and by a growing desire to see more of the world. At the same time, her lover, James Compton, gives her an ultimatum she cannot ignore.

My Thoughts:
I've been enjoying Maisie Dobbs for a few years now, thanks to the ladies at TLC Book Tours, and, since I like to try to read mysteries in March, I didn't hesitate to jump on board for March 2016 Month of Maisie Readalong to celebrate the release of the 12th book in the series. Unfortunately, because of a mailing mixup, I only received the book a few days ago and haven't had time to finish it yet.

Still, I've gotten far enough in to be able to tell you that this one is not only giving me exactly what I want and expect in a Maisie Dobbs mystery, it's got the connection to India and you all know how much I love novels about India. Over the past few years, I've tended to pick up books here and there throughout the series and it can be a little jarring to go backwards in Maisie's story or jump well ahead. This time, though, this one immediately follows one I have read and I'm better able to enjoy the arc of Maisie's life. I'm also impressed by Winspear's ability to pull in just enough of the history of the characters to introduce them to new readers without boring those for whom these characters are already old friends.

All that being said, I'll be back later this week for a full review of the book once I've had time to finish it. Thanks to the ladies of TLC Book Tours for once again including me in the Month of Maisie Readalong! For the full list of the books being reviewed, including a month of reviews for the new book, Journey To Munich, check out the full tour schedule.


Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Leaving Everything Most Loved, Elegy for Eddie, A Lesson in Secrets, The Mapping of Love and Death, Among the Mad, and An Incomplete Revenge, as well as four other national bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels. Her standalone novel, The Care and Management of Lies, was also a New York Times bestseller. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the Agatha, Alex, and Macavity awards for the first book in the series, Maisie Dobbs, which was also nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel and was a New York Times Notable Book. Originally from the United Kingdom, she now lives in California.

Find out more about Jacqueline at her website, www.jacquelinewinspear.com, and find her on Facebook.

The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee
Published by Viking January 2016
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Mercy, a young Korean American and recent Columbia graduate, is adrift, undone by a terrible incident in her recent past. Hilary, a wealthy housewife, is haunted by her struggle to have a child, something she believes could save her foundering marriage. Meanwhile, Margaret, once a happily married mother of three, questions her maternal identity in the wake of a shattering loss. As each woman struggles with her own demons, their lives collide in ways that have irreversible consequences for them all.


My Thoughts:
In June of 2009, I read Lee's The Piano Teacher. It was one of the first books I reviewed (as you can tell by my review!). I didn't do a favorite books list in 2009 so I don't know if it would have made a top ten list that year; but, six years later, when I was pitched this book, I still remembered being really impacted by that book. I was eager to see if Lee could have that kind of effect on me again.

I'm afraid I have mixed feelings about The Expatriates. 

The expatriate community is, perhaps, the most important character in the book. Because of Hong Kong's unique history, its expat community and relationship with the people of the city is also unique. Each of the ladies finds themselves in a different place in the expat community which is much less homogenized that you might imagine yet remains limited to certain parts of the city. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the lives of these people who live in something of a state of limbo.

As a mother, I absolutely connected with Margaret's story, her pain, her inability to move on from the terrible thing that happened to her family.  Hilary was tougher to connect with, to understand; she is a woman who seemed to want a child for all of the wrong reasons (although her situation is certainly not uncommon). I never could connect with Mercy, someone who seemed to have decided that she would never do anything right and seemed resigned not to bother to try. She may have been the character closest to Lee's heart, though; both are daughters born of Korean parents in a different country.

It took me a while to really be pulled in equally to each woman's story but when they all began to become intertwined, I definitely enjoyed the book more. Unfortunately, the ending struck me as both too neat and tidy (although I did appreciate that not all loose ends were tied up) and incredibly hard to buy into. Still, for a look into a world that is utterly unique and for Margaret's story alone, The Expatriates was well worth reading.

The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye

The Lighthouse Road by Peter Geye
Published October 2012 by Unbridled Books
Source: this book courtesy of the publisher - thanks, Caitlin!

If you've followed this blog for long, you know that Peter Geye's Safe From The Sea was my favorite book of 2011. I passed it all around and it was a hit with everyone who read it. It will come as no surprise, then that when Caitlin (Unbridled Books) offered me an ARC of Geye's upcoming book The Lighthouse Road I even stop to consider if I had time to read it soon; I knew I would make time.

Geye travels back in time for The Lighthouse Road, telling the story of a mother and son. In 1896, a young Norwegian girl has settled into Gunflint in northern Minnesota, after arriving there alone and friendless. Twenty-four years later, Thea Eide's son, Odd, is every bit a man of the land, working hard to make enough money to reach his dream of making his own boat. But he has also fallen in love with the one woman in town he shouldn't and being with her is going to mean leaving the only home he has ever known, saying goodbye to friends and escaping the man who delivered and raised him, Hosea Grimm.

"Years later, whenever he tried to reconcile the defining moments of his childhood with the man he had become, he thought of that moment on the precipice as a divining one, when he became, for better or worse, the person he would always be."

While The Lighthouse Road and Safe From The Sea are, on the surface, completely different stories, there are themes that tie the two together, most notably family. The Lighthouse Road looks at what makes a group of people a family, it also revisits the relationship between a parent and a child and the idea that the land itself can help form those relationships.

Geye's characters and the land are interchangeable - the land very much a character in the book, the characters very much formed by the land. They are people who have adapted to the land but who seem, at the same time to belong nowhere else. The land is raw and brutal, the people are tough and brutal and Geye spares his readers nothing from a bear mauling, a wolf pack attack, and a botched surgery. The cold, the wind, the isolation are all palpable.

It took me some time to become attached to the characters, for better or for worse, as the story moves back and forth in time. Geye writes such strong characters that it wasn't long before I was deeply invested in them, struggling to understand their actions, holding out hope for them, sharing in their sadness. Several days after finishing the book, I find myself thinking about Hosea and his "daughter," Rebekah, two incredibly complex characters.

There are little treasures of surprises in the book but Geye saved the best of last in this one - the final paragraphs left me gaping. Kudos, Peter Geye; I love an ending I never saw coming!

This is a book I would recommend to men and women alike. I only wish you could read it sooner! The Lighthouse Road is not even published yet and I am already looking forward to Geye's next book. He has quickly become one of my favorite authors, a storyteller who does not disappoint, with the ability to tell more than one kind of story.

Thanks to Unbridled Books for allowing me to get this sneak peek of The Lighthouse Road.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
262 pages
Published March 2010 Simon & Schuster Adult
Source: bought this one to read with the Omaha Bookworms

In Enniscorthy, Ireland in post World War II, jobs are tough to come by so when Eilis Lacey is offered a part-time job at a local shop she can't turn down the opportunity despite the fact that neither her mother nor her sister approve of the owner. Not long afterward, Eilis' beloved sister, Rose, tells Eilis and her mother that she has invited a Father Flood to tea. Father Flood is originally from Enniscorthy but is currently living in the U.S. His purpose in coming to tea is to invite Eilis to come to Brooklyn; he will sponsor her and has already lined up a job and housing. As she sits there listening to the good father, Eilis realizes that both her mother and sister are being unusually quiet and it comes to her that it's really already been decided that she will be going to America.

After a horrible journey across rough seas, Eilis arrives in America to begin her new life and soon settles into a routine that is, well, routine and a little boring. Despite living in Brooklyn in a very exciting time, Eilis lives a very insular life. She goes to work, she goes to night school, she spends what little free time she has almost exclusively at the boarding house. And in all of those places, Eilis makes almost no effort to befriend anyone. She can't seem to find the place where she fits in and the things that happen around her seem to affect her very little. Perhaps the only thing that she is at all aware of is all of the discrimination rampant in the ethnically diverse borough.

Finally Eilis meets a nice Italian boy and discovers first love and finally becomes more a part of America. Then a terrible tragedy takes her back to Ireland. Once there, Eilis begins to feel the draw of a real home, unsure whether she will ever return to America.

I read this book with the Omaha Bookworms for our May selection after it was recommended by one of our members (Mari of Bookworm With A View). Mari loved it, in no small part because it evoked memories of stories she had heard from her grandparents who were Irish immigrants who settled in Brooklyn at about the same time. Only half of the ladies had actually finished the book so it was hard to talk too much about the book but even those who had only gotten part way through the book were really enjoying it.

Time moves at quite a pace in Brooklyn; Toibin bypasses long periods of time between episode and vignettes. Toibin compares his writing style to Ernest Hemingway with good cause; he knows how to tell a story with just what is necessary to tell the story perfectly. Nothing showy or lush about Brooklyn. All of the emotion is just under the surface and yet it is palpable and the characters are believable and realistic. This book was twice short-listed for the Mann Booker Prize and now I know why.