Tag Archives: family

The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood – 6/10

Advent with Atwood, Modern Masters December 26, 2012 Comments: 2

“Why stir everything up again after that many years, with all concerned tucked, like tired children, so neatly into their graves?”

margaret-atwood-blind-assassin

Iris Chase, heiress to the Chase family button-making business and married off to rival Richard Griffin, takes the opportunity towards the end of her life to revisit her story. Along the way we are treated to excerpts from the book penned by her prematurely deceased and decidedly odd sister Laura, newspaper clippings telling of the untimely demise of multiple family members, and Iris’ life as an elderly lady back in the town where she grew up.

If you’re interested in my thoughts as I went along, here are links to read-along parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The strands of the book varied greatly for me; I loved Iris’ story as an old lady, reminding me of Moon Tiger, one of my favourite book, as well as having strains of The Help. Gentle, smooth, comfort reading. The newspaper articles were intriguing, moved the plot along smartly and added a sense of location and community and times. Iris’ memories of childhood were the best part for me; Very Dead End Gene Pool with overtones of Blackberry Winter, but more positive. She tells this section very slowly, which strings out the reading pleasure and increases the bitter anticipation of the tragedy we already know will happen. In terms of the pulp novel/sci-fi subplot: I never connected with the people or really understood the relationship – there was a neat twist at the end but I could have lived without it; as for the dreadful fantasty writing…

It became more and more readable as it went along; possibly because there is less and less of the sci-fi story and more of the slow-motion train wreck of Iris Chase’s life. Interspersing it with her days as a pensioner is sort of reassuring because we know that she’s going to get through all the mildly unpleasant parts of her life intact, and we already know that Laura will drive off the bridge so now we’re sort of just waiting for it to happen.

Atwood writes fluently and elegantly but without much showiness; I only noted a few quotes:

“On the main street of Port Ticonderoga there were five churches and four banks, all made of stone, all chunky. Sometimes you had to read the names on them to tell the difference, although the banks lacked steeples.”

“Alone and therefore neglected, neglected and therefore unsuccessful. As if I’d been stood up, jilted; as if I had a broken heart. A group of English people in cream-coloured linen stared at me. It wasn’t a hostile stare; it was bland, remote, faintly curious. No one can stare like the English. I felt rumpled and grubby, and of minor interest.”

and my favourite, which tops this review.

It’s a sad novel; an inevitability of tragedy hangs over the protagonist. I did enjoy the description of life in between-war Canada, the life Iris had before and after marrying new money (it reminds me of something I’ve read recently, a woman who marries for money rather than love… ah – Wallis Simpson).

It turns very interesting from a semi-unreliable narrator point of view;  Iris is quite happily telling us all her marital woes while she fails to notice anything about Laura at all, and fails to protect her from the Richard and Winifred double act. Old Iris’ morbid (she even calls it lugubrious) discussion of her own death interspersed with her observations on her very unhappy marriage adds even more darkness to the domesticity. The marriage is quite oddly unhappy, actually – the dynamic of the traditional over-bearing mother-in-law who won’t let go of her son is occupied by Winifred (“Freddie” – really?) the older sister, which struck me as very strange. Why would Richard choose a wife so far his junior if he enjoys the company of his older sister as a peer? Or is it just poor coincidence that the age gap was so large and really it’s just the Chase business that Richard wanted?

I was so pleased when the sci-fi stopped. I know it was intentionally awful, but still.

The twist in the The Blind Assassin affair reduced Laura as a character for me; she became a little girl once more. The slightly autistic, reserved but also impetuous trouble-maker of the family; no longer a sophisticated woman of intrigue. Iris grew in my eyes to become much stronger, with backbone (which is an odd reaction for me. I abhor infidelity in novels).

The ending felt very rushed. Suddenly Laura was dead, and Richard was dead, and Iris is clearly on the way out herself; either Atwood ran out of time (highly unlikely) or simply decided she was done with the part of the story she wanted to tell.

Thoughts? Thoughts on the book as a whole? on the read-along experience if you joined in? (as a straight-through sort of reader, read-alongs are a very different animal for me).

Additional information:

Before I Met You – Lisa Jewell – 6/10

Current Affairs December 20, 2012 Leave a comment

“I am living in Zone Three,” she said with a grim smile. John winced sympathetically.

before I met you

Having looked after an Alzheimer’s-riddled step-grandmother for five years, Betty can’t wait to dash off to London when a will mystery needs to be resolved. She finds herself in 1990s Soho struggling to make ends meet, dealing with a mad neighbour, falling in love with a rock star, and slowly solving a mystery from her grandmother’s heyday.

I love these back-and-forth through history books (e.g. Russian Winter, Blackberry Winter, The Sandalwood Tree). It feels like two stories for the price of one; although, in this case, the two stories felt unrelated for quite a long time – Betty takes ages to get anywhere with her search (which is, perhaps, for plausibility). Both Betty and Arlette are strong, gutsy women with cracks in their veneer; both girls go to London to make their fortune and fall on their feet, but trip over a fair amount. Jewell writes realistic women who screw up their lives, who don’t live perfectly, who don’t always get their happy ending. The men were stronger than in other such books I’ve read (particularly Blackberry Winter) but still mostly boorish and minor; Godfrey is very much the exception, and the racial/social politics was a good serious note to a fairly fluffy read.

Things I loved? 1920s London. 1990s London. London London London. This book knows where it’s set. Oh, and Guernsey too, but I don’t know Guernsey. The London of this book is not quite my London (2010s London), but I know it pretty well and Jewell writes it so enthusiastically – she clearly knows the city very well. Also – Arlette’s glamour – her perfumes, her wardrobe, her friends – she embodied the 1920s London so well. Things which irritated me? The rock star side plot. Betty behaved a bit stupidly on several occasions for no reason that I could discern except that the author wanted to fit some romance into the modern story (the old story had romance aplenty, and well written). 6/10 feels a bit harsh, but the novel lacked something – substance? Grit? I’m not sure, but I came away feeling a bit unsatisfied.

Oh, and that quote at the top? I chose it because I live in Zone Three. And I love it. No sympathy needed (although a little travelcard subsidy wouldn’t go amiss).

Additional information:

Copy kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review – quite some time ago.

Publisher: Random House, 456 pages (paperback)

Order Before I Met You from Amazon*

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The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D – Nichole Bernier – 8/10

Comfort Reading October 31, 2012 1 Comment

“She had a fleeting thought of the things that had not happened – a self-detonating martyr, Chris’s burned wallet returned to her by the embassy – and wondered if things would ever be simple again, a trip just a trip a sound on the porch.”

The key to this novel is whether you can ever really know what someone else thinks of you – or whether you can ever really know them at all. Elizabeth has died in a plane crash and left her life’s journals to her best friend Kate rather than to devastated husband and now single dad-of-three Dave. Dave’s peeked and found a man’s name, not his own, and is pretty grumpy about it. Kate takes the trunk of journals on holiday with her family for the summer and becomes absorbed in the history of her friend, discovering that things were not at all as they appeared.

Elizabeth is a real piece of work (in a crazy but good way) – but I suppose she has to be or this wouldn’t be much of a book. Kate strikes me as much more ploddy and calm, but then Elizabeth writes about how her friend took down some precious comments in the playground, or Kate  recounts moments in fast-paced kitchens – so I suppose self-image is under consideration here too. I love the idea of learning about a person through their journals – it’s so honest and unflinching and unfiltered. Kate discovers lots of things she had no idea about, realising that maybe Elizabeth wasn’t just the perfect housewife she appeared to be, but had struggled with grief and solitude and a career behind the scenes.

Bernier writes at length and often and with real emotion about the struggle of a mother – whether to go back to work or not, how to balance her own needs with those of her children and husband. Fear is also a recurring theme – the novel is set in “the nervous summer after 9/11″ and Kate is constantly scared of terrorism. Or disease. Or fire. Or anything really, she’s just afraid. These themes are some of the best parts of this book; Bernier approaches them from a number of angles and puts her characters in difficult situations to test out their responses.

As with other books I’ve read recently about women, the men are a little flat and predictable. Don’t go back to work. We don’t need the money. The kids need you. Or do go back. Whatever. I don’t care if you’re worried that I’m travelling in Bali and Jakarta and Cambodia. Don’t mess up my memories of my dead wife. Have another kid. Don’t tell me when you might have cancer. I just felt that Bernier made them much less intricate than Kate and Elizabeth so that they could cause actions by the women, but not make any real contribution to the plot themselves.

Lastly, the setting – how are there this many idyllic islands in the US that I didn’t know about? Other novels with islands: Love Anthony, Blackberry Winter, Snow Falling on Cedars. Ideally, the protagonists should have a part of the island that is little known, not overrun with tourists. There must be seclusion but also neighbourliness. Is this a thing over the pond? I’m a little flummoxed because it seems a bit twee. Anyway, it’s all pretty and serene and relaxing.

I don’t seem to have justified an 8/10 rating here. Put in this way – I cracked it open about 4.30 on Friday. At 6.10 I looked up, a bit choked up.

Additional information:

Blackberry Winter – Sarah Jio – 8/10

Comfort Reading October 25, 2012 Comments: 4

“Your sentimentality about weather is adorable, but don’t get too excited. I’m still wondering how I’m going to write six thousand words on snowmen.”

In 1933, Vera Ray finished her night shift at the Olympic Hotel and stepped out into an unexpected May snowstorm. Arriving home, she found her three-year-old son Daniel missing – and his teddy bear lying in the snow. Nearly eighty years later, another May blizzard sets reporter and newly bereaved mother Claire an assignment. Can she find out what happened to Daniel all those years before?

There’s a small taste of mystery here, with a break-in and an inconclusive coroner’s verdict, but mostly this is an investigation in the context of a marriage in trouble, interspersed with moments from the past to keep the reader interested if not better informed than our sleuthing protagonist. High society is under the microscope, as is Depression-era poverty and life as a single mother in the 30′s.

Vera is a lovely character – determined, loving, resolute; and broken by the disappearance of her son. Claire is charmingly fallible and ill-at-ease in her husband’s social circle. Top marks go to the best friends – Caroline and Abby are both no-nonsense, fun-loving and capable of spurring both the more demure heroines into a bit of action when necessary.

The novel is very firmly set in Seattle – I’ve never been, but I felt well grounded there. And now I know that Pike Place is a market and not just a Starbucks brand! There was some beautiful writing about Puget Sound and Bainbridge Island, and I’d be keen to see some of the places in the book if I ever make it to Seattle.

In its structure, this really reminded me of Russian Winter which I read earlier this year and very much enjoyed – the young woman digging secrets out of the past, intertwined with the young woman several decades ago who suffered a change of fortune. If you enjoyed that, read this, and vice versa.

A few tiny criticisms:

- I felt the men were generally undercooked. Ethan has a couple of odd-but-convenient-for-the-plot changes of heart, Dominic was a bit too nice, Sven was quite an interesting character but not developed as much as he might have been.

- I was a bit fed up with Claire by the end; she had become quite selfish and self-indulgent (admittedly, she’d had a rough year).

- The unexpected ending (which was delightful) then dragged a bit, or became too sentimental as they go to the old apartment – I wanted something with a bit more snap to it.

Having said all of that, it is a beautiful book with a solid but not gruesome mystery, and a complicated protagonist. Definitely worth checking out.

Additional information:

The End of Your Life Book Club – Will Schwalbe – 10/10

Non-fiction October 8, 2012 Comments: 4

‘That’s ok, I have a copy,’ I told her, which was, in fact, true. There are certain books that I mean to read and keep stacked by my bedside. I even take them on trips. Some of my books should be awarded their own frequent flier miles, they’ve travelled so much. I take these volumes on flight after flight with the best of intentions and then wind up reading anything and everything else (SkyMall! Golf Digest!). I’d brought Crossing to Safety on so many trips and returned it to my bedside unread so many times that it could have earned at least one first-class ticket to Tokyo on Japan Airlines.

Ultimately sad, in that no cancer-defying miracle is forthcoming, but also uplifting in that Schwalbe had so long to come to terms with his mother’s imminent passing and to celebrate his mother’s life. Part book club record, part memoir of his own life, predominantly memoir for and homage to his extraordinary mother, a woman deeply committed to the needs of those less fortunate. It is obvious that Schwalbe had great love and great respect for his indomitable mother, and is truly grateful for the opportunity to share a beloved activity with her – and the opportunities for difficult conversations that the books provided. In a sense, the memoir will chronicle and assist Mary Anne’s legacy of libraries in Afghanistan and refugee camps in Cambodia, of refugees in Liberia and Pakistan and Thailand. This is (between books) the story of a woman who was ground-breaking and revolutionary in a quiet, mild-mannered way.

Schwalbe’s own life is perhaps less remarkable in events of his own making, but there is an untold story here – he walked away from a very successful career in publishing to “follow his bliss”. Throughout, his humility (inherited no doubt from the formidable Mary Anne) lets only a little of his personal achievements shine through – as relentlessly as Mary Anne refused to focus on her pain and suffering, so Will shines the spotlight back to his mother and their shared literary experiences.

All of that aside; the books. I slowed my own reading of this by making a note of works as they were mentioned – I wanted to look up a large number of them when I got back to an internet connection. It was only when I got to the end of the book that a clever editor had considerately put a list there! So if you read this, don’t worry about making notes as you go along. I wondered, a number of times, quite how Mary Anne, with her enormous programme of humanitarian work and commitments, had time to read so much. But then people look at me askance when I say I’m taking a book a day on a holiday, which I don’t understand, so I shouldn’t doubt another bibliophile’s capacity.

Will and Mary Anne read extensively, thematically (although that, perhaps, accidentally), thoroughly and resolvedly. There was always another book to surprise me (that they read and loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was both shocking and pleasing), another book which sounded daunting and impenetrable and an absolute must-read. Their love for literature is very clear, and their willingness to learn from the great (and not great) works of culture is admirable. Each chapter is named for a work that one of them was reading and some lesson that they learned from that work, or a difficult conversation that needed to be had. Schwalbe writes at just the right level about the books – most works get between a few sentences and a few paragraphs, but never more than that. There is a chapter of Tolkien vs. C S Lewis, but that is also mostly about the childhood of the Schwalbe brothers.

As one might expect, The End of Your Life Book Club prompted me to think about my own shared reading experiences, but that’s fodder for another post.

Additional information:
Copy kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher: Two Roads, 352 pages (hardback).
Pre-order The End of Your Life Book Club from Amazon*

* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting

When It Happens To You – Molly Ringwald – 8/10

Current Affairs October 3, 2012 Comments: 5

“It seemed to Greta that Theresa was one of those girls who spent all of her time being an imposition while obviously trying not to be an imposition. Almost everything Theresa said or did broadcast the message ‘I won’t take it for myself. You’ll have to give it to me.’”

Molly Ringwald’s debut novel is described as a novel in stories and is really a short story collection in which the characters recur from one story to another – it reminded me of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From The Goon Squad, which I disliked for its self-important and experimental nature. I much prefer Ringwald’s model, in which the characters are recurring although only tenuously, but time marches forwards rather than jumping about all over the place the way it did in Goon Squad.

Without the writing ever being spectacular or showy, Ringwald repeatedly pinpoints moments of life with heartrending accuracy – Greta’s desire to wear something a bit more flattering in case there are photos, Betty’s grief still being so deep that she pours an extra cup of tea even though her husband hasn’t been there to drink it in seven years. She writes with elegance about ageing and aimlessness, about a search for purpose and what happens when someone with extraordinary drive channels it in an unsuitable direction.

The heavy focus on relationships and adultery is perhaps to be expected in a novel about betrayal, although it does get pretty depressing. The chapters vary in strength, but that might be because a given reader will empathise with certain characters but not others. This is very much a women’s book – the men are generally negatively characterised (philandering, confused or dead).

Worth a read; I found it engrossing and elegant, if somewhat disheartening.

Side note: Molly Ringwald, author, is also Molly Ringwald, teenage star of films such as The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink. Which I’m glad I didn’t know before I read the book, because I think I would have judged the writing more harshly.

Copy kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 237 pages (hardback).
Order When it Happens to You from Amazon*
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Happier At Home – Gretchen Rubin – 8/10

Non-fiction, Review copies September 4, 2012 Comments: 4

“Yet again, I saw the effect of the resolution to ‘Act the way I want to feel.’ By acting in a thoughtful, loving way, I boosted my feelings of tenderness toward my family. And that contributed more to the happiness of our home than anything else I could do.”

I’ve been reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project blog for about 6 months now and I am always struck by how practical and normal and simple and approachable it all is. So I was DELIGHTED when I saw that her second happiness-related book was out of NetGalley.

In Happier At Home, Rubin undertakes another project – a project to make her home happier (having focussed on herself and her general life in The Happiness Project). It’s still quite general and focusses on truths that Rubin learned during her first project. She tackles various themes (possessions, parenthood, marriage, neighbourhood) on a month-by-month basis and while not everything works out how she had planned, she discovers a number of great changes in her life.

“In my mind, the entire globe revolves around a single spot, where a bridge red ‘You Are Here’ arrow hovers undetected above our roof.”

 The writing does seem a little relentlessly optimistic, and I’m a touch suspicious of the alleged perfect relationships with all family members; but it does come across as authentic and real. I found the chapter on marriage particularly touching – Rubin is not always successful in making the more generous choice, but it is very interesting to see someone with Rubin’s talent for articulating feelings examine intra-familial conflict.

“When my days were following their ordinary course, it was hard to remember what was truly important, and my happiness project helped charge my life with more gratitude and contentment.”

I did sit and read this straight through over a number of days (that is, I was reading it as a book rather than a reference text), but I’m very tempted to buy the book in hard copy as a reference text – something to dip into now and again for ideas and inspiration and consolation.

Additional information:
Copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
Publisher: Crown, 320 pages (hardback) – I read it on my Kindle.
Pre-order Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life from Amazon*
* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting

The War of the Wives – Tamar Cohen – 7/10

Fluff August 8, 2012 Comments: 3

“Simon now lives with his face to the wall. Every photo of him in the house is turned around so his nose is pressed against the cold plaster. Unable to see what’s going on. Out of the picture. Ignored.

How he’d hate that.”

Two wives. One husband. You can see how that might be awkward. Imagine being happily married for 28 years. You have three children, a lovely house and a husband who travels a lot – but even after all this time, you still love each other. Then one day you get a call that turns your world upside down: your husband is dead. You are devastated. You go to the funeral… and come face to face with his other widow. Another wife, another family. They never knew you existed, you never knew they existed. It can’t be true. It must be a mistake. It has to be her fault – all of it. Or: is it? But then again, not technically wives any longer. Widows. Two widows.

At first I was not convinced by this at all; both women seemed so insubstantial, spoilt, self-indulgent, but Lynsey Dalladay at Transworld has been so generous with review copies that I thought I would carry on (I couldn’t face writing the email to Lynsey to say I was abandoning it) and around page 150 it really picked up and suddenly I was hooked. Both women became more “normal” although both were still well outside the range of normal humans I interact with every day, and once both women were set on finding out what had happened and how they had been concealed from one another for so many years, it became a lot more gripping.

Some of the best writing is actually nothing to do with the bizarre conflict situation; it’s about the fear both women have of being left behind, of ageing, of not being perfect any more. Writing about the inherent distress of parenting teenagers, particularly in this age of technological openness and simultaneous concealment. When I was searching for a quote to top this review, I came across lots about ageing and teenagers, but actually not so many about the insidious betrayal at the heart of the book.

While I didn’t expect the various twists and certainly got quite into the threatening darkness the novel takes on, I was unconvinced by the ending; the revelation was too brutal and sudden. There was a large cast of extraneous characters and a few too many diversions from the plot (e.g. a stalker in a cupboard committing vandalism). On the whole though, a gripping read worth making it through the lengthy set-up.

Additional information:
Copy kindly provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher: Transworld, 410 pages (hardback)
Order The War of the Wives from Amazon*
* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting costs.

Afterwards – Rosamund Lupton – 8/10

Current Affairs, Thriller July 3, 2012 Comments: 7

“I put nine years of experience, the NHS and John Lewis’ nursery department between my baby and the dangerous wilds of the Serengeti”

In Lupton’s latest (I loved Sister but had issues with the resolution), Grace Covey wakes up in hospital disassociated from her body. As she revisits her memories of how she got there, teaming up with her similarly badly injured and disassociated daughter, the criminal behind a terrible deed is slowly revealed.

I found the start fairly slow going, because I struggled with the narrative construct of disassociated spirits. Once I got used to that, I was completely engrossed – there was such a long suspect list for the arson but no one really seemed to have enough of a motive. The bad guy, when eventually revealed, was totally unexpected.

One of the reasons I loved Sister was because Lupton clearly understood sisterhood; the protectiveness of an older sister, the gentle loyalty of a younger one. Afterwards focuses on motherhood; I can’t comment as to Lupton’s ability to put her finger on what’s special about it, but I liked that as Bee was in Sister, Grace is plain and normal and a little jealous of the Shiny Mummies who turn up with their blow-dried hair. She worries about how much time her daughter spends on Facebook, and she’s a bit cagey about her sister-in-law.

Every now and again the writing was over-ambitious; there was a grab for the “literary fiction” section of the bookshop incongruous with the simple family setting of the tale. A little inconsistency and the initially off-putting narrative structure are really the only ways I can fault this excellent follow-up novel.

Additional information:
Copy … from my shelves. Since I moved, my sourcing information is gone.
Publisher: Piatkus, 450 pages (paperback)
Order Afterwards from Amazon*
* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting costs.

The Making Of Us – Lisa Jewell – 7/10

Fluff June 2, 2012 Comments: 2

“They were not identical, but they were alike. They were like her.”

In The Making Of Us, Jewell weaves together strangers united by common genes; children of the same sperm donor. Lydia has finally escaped from a cold and hated life on a Welsh estate. Dean is heartbroken when his girlfriend doesn’t survive the birth of their child. Robyn is set for a career as a doctor. Slowly they discover the truth about their parentage, but will it be soon enough for them to meet their father, who lies dying in a hospice?

Jewell does well to make three such disparate characters warm and likeable. Lydia is cold and has rejected the world, but we want her to find a man and learn to accept her best friend’s marriage and child. Dean is weak and broken by grief, but we know he can do better. Robyn seems to lead a charmed life. In a sense, this novel is a character study in pieces, united by the plot of the children finding each other and their father; it is the everyday stories of the children which are riveting, not their search for paternity.

I was underwhelmed by the Daniel storyline; Maggie and Daniel both seemed quite dull and unlike other “dying books” (The Love Verb, Before I Die), I did not get much of a sense of the disease, of the grief of onlookers, of the misery of those last few days/months.

I don’t seem to have praised this novel very highly – I did stay up quite late finishing it, which is always worth an extra point out of ten; it’s not a deep or meaningful novel, but perfectly entertaining.

Additional information:
Copy provided by the publisher in return for an honest review.
Publisher: Random House, 470 pages (paperback)
Order The Making of Us from Amazon*
* this is an affiliate link – I will be paid a small percentage of your purchase price if you use this link, which goes towards give-aways and site hosting costs.
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