Adult Fiction

Cold Comfort Farm

6 Comments

by Stella Gibbons
First sentence: “The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s a bit early-20th-century with the language and the pacing. And there’s some illusions to sex. But, really, if you think you can manage, go for it. It’s in the adult section of the bookstore.

This is one of those classic books that somehow I missed growing up. I don’t know why. I kind of knew it existed: knew there was a movie, knew that it was a book… but not enough to really know anything about it. So I went into this one blind, and the edition I got (pictured above) didn’t help me much, going in: it looks like it’ll be a bit of a silly book, with some weird characters.

And that’s pretty much accurate.

Flora is, as the first sentence indicates, unable to support herself, being one of those “educated” women (it is 1932, after all; I have no reason to believe this wasn’t meant to be contemporary). So, she decides, with her 100 pounds a year, to take advantage of hospitality of her relatives, writing them to see if they’ll house her. The most interesting letter she got was from Cold Comfort Farm, which said that they had once done her father a great wrong, and that they are not like “other folk”. Of course Flora finds this intriguing. And so, she’s off to Cold Comfort Farm to see what mysteries await her.

There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm, from the dawn of time (or at least since they came into possession of it), and because of the iron fist of Aunt Ada Doom, they are a weird bunch. The whole book is Flora sticking her nose into everyone else’s problems to fix them, thereby making Cold Comfort Farm a happier place.

And it’s a hilarious ride. (Maybe not laugh-out-loud funny, but definitely amusing.) I adored the characters: the rogue Seth, the grumpy Reuben, the over-religious Amos, the depressed Judith, the hippie (she’s ahead of her time) Elfine… there’s just so much to enjoy here. My favorite was Mr. Mybug, who was obsessed with sex, mostly because he was SO ridiculous. The only thing that I felt was left hanging was the Thing that Aunt Ada saw in the shed that made her SO crazy (I wanted to know, dangit!), but other than that, this was an absolute delight.

I’m so glad I finally read it. (Now to watch the movie!)

The Wonder Garden

Leave a comment

by Lauren Acampora
First sentence: “John likes to arrive first.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy pilfered from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There’s a bunch of f-bombs, but not as many as you’d think. Also some mild drug use and off-screen sex. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

If I had to choose a favorite way to read short stories (other than not at all), I prefer them to be interconnected ones. Ones where it almost seems like I’m reading a novel. So, I was immediately made curious about these with the words “intricately interwoven stories”. Yes, please.

And, at first I enjoyed this. One minor character from the previous story would show up as the protagonist in the next, giving layers to what had previously went on. Some stories were odd (the insect installation), others kind of weird (the accountant-turned-hippie). I don’t know if I was truly enjoying it, but I was interested.

But about 2/3 of the way through, it fizzled. I was tired of trying to remember which story what protagonist showed up in. I was bored with the way it interconnected. And the stories weren’t enough to keep me interested; I just couldn’t find myself interested in their lives, and the words just weren’t pulling me in.

It could totally be me: short stories and I aren’t always the best of friends and I may have just not been in the mood for this. But, it is possible that it may have just worn out its welcome.

Audio book: Something Fresh

Leave a comment

by P. G. Wodehouse
Read by: Jonathan Cecil
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there! (Though it looks like this one is out of print…)
Content: There’s really nothing. Some smoking. A few words of mild swearing. I’d give it to a high schooler who was interested in Downton Abbey. It’d be in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

Ah, Wodehouse. I had a square on my bingo card that was “Published exactly 100 years ago.” I did some research, and when I discovered that Wodehouse had a book I’d never read out that year, I jumped at the chance.

There’s a lot going on plot-wise in this one, though it mostly surrounds a scarab that is inadvertently stolen from an American millionaire, Mr. Peters. His daughter, Aline, is engaged to the Hon. Freddy Threepwood, the son of the Earl of Elmsworth, who is the one who walked off with the scarab. So, Peters hires Ashe Marson (and Aline hires Joan Valentine) to pose as his valet and get the scarab back. Unfortunately, at the castle, the Earl’s secretary, the Efficient Baxter, is super suspicious and is thwarting all attempts to return the scarab to its rightful owner. There’s several side love stories as well as a bunch of ridiculous relatives as well.

Silly, no? Well, it’s Wodehouse.

There were several audio versions of this, and I picked one at random, not knowing what to expect. I wasn’t terribly impressed; it was hard to tell, sometimes (especially since Wodehouse does rapid-fire dialogue), who was talking. And Cecil’s American accent was HORRIBLE. Awful. Seriously. As was his women’s voices. (Sometimes, he wouldn’t even bother with changing his voice for the women.)

In spite of that, Wodehouse’s writing made me smile (I wonder: how much I’d have laughed if the narrator had been better?), the characters were sufficiently silly, and the plot was sufficiently ridiculous. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Blanding’s Castle.

Audiobook: The Library at Mount Char

1 Comment

by Scott Hawkins
Read by Hilary Huber
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: SO so SO violent. So VERY violent. And a LOT of swearing, including a big bucketful of f-bombs. You are forewarned. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

When the Random House rep came in to pitch this one, she started by saying “I have no idea how to  describe this book.” And it’s true: it’s about a Library. And librarians, but not the way you think. It’s about the end of the world, but not in the way you think. In fact, any way I try to sum this one up it’s going to end with: but not in the way you think. Throughout this whole book, that was the one constant: it’s nothing like you expect.

When Carolyn was eight, her parents died in a tragic accident, and, along with 11 other children, she was adopted by a man they came to know as Father. Father was a librarian, the caretaker of a most unusual library, and Carolyn and her new siblings became his apprentices, each learning a catalog. It wasn’t an ordinary apprenticeship, either: David, who was in charge of war, learned all the ways of war and death known to man (and some not yet known). He became awful and violent and cruel. Margaret learned the ways of death and the underworld, dying multiple times. (Another one, Jennifer, learned the ways of healing and was tasked with bringing everyone back from the dead.) Carolyn’s catalog was all the languages known to man, both ancient and current, as well as ones not known. To be simplistic, it was an awful existence: Father was heartless and cruel in his punishments, and there was no mercy to be seen anywhere.

But now, Father has gone missing, the siblings have been kicked out of the library, and it’s up to them — well, Carolyn, since she speaks English best — to figure out where Father is.

This is, unfortunately, one of those books that the less you know, the better. Know that Steve — an American man that Carolyn ropes into helping — is the heart of the book. And Erwin — an ex-military Homeland security agent — is crass and awful, but good at heart. Know that the end is worth the rest of the book. And that it definitely gets worse before it gets better. And that “better” is relative.

I was talking to another bookseller about it (one who read an ARC months ago) about how this one is best when read in a group, almost: you need another person to be able to process what happens. So, it’d be a good one for book groups, if you can handle the dark.

A bit about the audio: Hilary Huber was FANTASTIC. Seriously. In many cases, her narration is what kept me reading. Especially since, in many ways, listening to this book is more difficult than reading it: you’re not able to skim the really horrible bits. But her voice, and the way she chose to narrate this book, was amazing. So much so, that I’m going to look for more books read by her.

I didn’t love this one, but I am really glad I listened to it. There’s a lot to think about.

Gone With the Wind

1 Comment

by Margaret Mitchell
First sentence: “Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s mild swearing, and a LOT of the n-word. Take it for what you will. It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore.

I first read this when I was 15 or 16. I don’t remember why I picked it up, just that I did. I don’t remember what I thought of it, but it couldn’t have been much, since I really had no desire to ever visit it again. (I think I’ve seen bits of the movie.)

We picked this one for my in-person book group, partly because no one had read it in a long time, and partly because Samantha Ellis wrote about it in How to Be a Heroine. And so I began the slog.

Because it was a slog. It’s so sexist and racist, I couldn’t stand to read it for long periods of time. It really is Old South — and there’s still a lot of the Old South in the south — and that’s just hard for me to understand. Eventually, I took to looking at it as a sociological study: why was the Old South the way it was. Why couldn’t they shake their prejudices and adapt? Why were they still stuck in the Way Things Were and that’s they way They Always Should Be?

And Scarlett… on the one hand, she’s an incredibly feminist character: a person who is willing to do what needs to be done, in the face of the Patriarchy and Public Opinion; a person who flies in the face of convention. It’s amazing how modern she is.

But she’s also mean and cruel and opportunistic. And hung up on a fantasy that she needed to move past.

Maybe, though, that’s the point? That only the cruel people are successful? I don’t know.

In the end, I didn’t like it, not just because of the content, but because it was SO LONG. Seriously: knock 700 pages off of this book and maybe it’d be a decent story.

There will at least be a lot to discuss.

The Little Paris Bookshop

Leave a comment

by Nina George
First sentence: “How on earth could i have let them talk me into it?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a few sex scenes, mostly tasteful, though it gets somewhat crude once. There are also several instances of mild swearing. It’s in the adult section for thematic reasons.

Jean Perdu (which is French for lost) owns a small bookshop on a barge floating in the Seine in Paris. His specialty is figuring out what a person needs to read and then “prescribing” the Right Book for the malady. He calls his store the Literary Apothecary and has had some measure of success.

With everyone but himself.

His great love, Manon, left him 22 years ago, and Jean’s life has basically frozen since then. Sure, he’s lived — he’s in his 50s now — but he’s not Lived. And then he meets Catherine, and his life starts unthawing (but not in the way you think at first). He ends up on a boat trip (river trip?) down to the south of France to find Manon’s memory (she died soon after she left him) and to properly grieve.

This book is being billed as a bookish book, and it is in a way. It’s about the power of stories and narrative to help us through all times — both the good and the bad. But, it’s more about the healing power of grief. How, if you don’t let yourself grieve for what is lost then you can never move on, never really live again.

It’s very French, as well.  (A co-worker, who is very knowledgeable in All Things French, mentioned that this is a homage to Jean de Flourette and Manon of the Spring, both of which I saw when I was at BYU and probably should hunt down again.) There’s is a slight magical realism thread through it, in the way Jean could find the right book, to the power of food and company. It gets bogged down in the middle, during the river trip, and Manon’s travel journals, while providing some interesting insight to her and Jean’s relationship, interrupt the flow of the book.

That said, it was enjoyable, though it’s not my favorite bookish book about books.

Armada

1 Comment

by Ernest Cline
First sentence: “I was staring out the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: July 14, 2015
Review copy pilfered off the ARC shelves at my place of employment.
Content: There’s a lot of swearing, of all sorts. If you have a problem with that, then you probably shouldn’t be reading this. It’ll be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section of the bookstore.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies to quote was The Last Starfighter. (I know: there’s no accounting for taste.) I swear my brothers and I watched it over and over again the summer of 1985 or 1986) and there were lines that incorporated themselves into our everyday lingo (“I’ve always wanted to fight a desperate battle against incredible odds.”). But, when I tried to show it to my kids, I cringed: it’s a pretty bad movie.

So, when I started Armada by Ernest Cline, I cringed: he’s pretty much riffing off the idea behind Last Starfighter (and Ender’s Game): video games, believe it or not, have been training for the impending alien invasion, and since the mid-1970s (it’s set in 2017, as far as I could figure), the top players of the game Armada have been recruited to serve as the Earth’s Defense.

Zack Lightman is one of those players. He’s been obsessed with games, and specifically Armada, since was was old enough to realize that his father — who died when Zack was barely one — was a gamer and Zack wanted to emulate him. Zack’s crawled up the ranks in Armada, until he’s the 6th highest ranked player in the world. And then: he sees a spaceship, one straight from Armada. That’s when his life gets really weird.

Like Ready Player One, this one has a litmus test. If you like/get the following passage, this book is probably for you:

In that moment, I felt like Luke Skywalker surveying a hanger full of A-, Y-, and X-Wing Fighters just before the Battle of Yavin. Or Captain Apollo, climbing into the cockpit of his Viper on the Galactica‘s flight deck. Ender Wigging arriving at Battle School. Or Alex Rogan, clutching his Star League uniform, staring wide-eyed at a hanger full of Gunstars.

I won’t give away too much more of the plot except to say this:  it took a while to get into it, but I was glad I kept with it. I liked the direction that Cline took it in the end.  A good read.

The Viscount Who Loved Me

1 Comment

by Julia Quinn
First sentence: “Anthony Bridgerton had always know he would die young.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: Um… yeah…. it’s definitely an Adult book. *blush*

I’ve always said that I prefer plot and character development with my sex (in books). So, I went into this one (a YAckers read, of course) with hopes that it would be, at the very least, entertaining.

And, thankfully, I was rewarded. (Yay!)

The basic plot is was this: Anthony Bridgerton is a rake of the worst sort. It’s 1814, in the height of the Jane Austen era, when chaperones were needed and etiquette was severely structured, and Lord Bridgerton is running around making love to all sorts of women. (Unsavory women, too!) So, of course Kate Sheffield was not going to let him any where near her sister Edwina (seriously: WHAT KIND OF NAME IS EDWINA?), even though she’s the catch of the season and Bridgerton has got it into his head to marry. And everyone knows he gets what he wants.

Except, what he wants turns out to be Kate. *wink wink* *nudge nudge*

And that’s about all the plot there is. There’s a lot (a LOT) of sassy banter between Kate and Anthony and a lot (a LOT) of innuendo and under-the-surface desire before he’s caught with his mouth on her breast, sucking the “venom” out of a bee sting (at which point I was howling with laughter), and they were forced to marry. And then the real fireworks started. Two whole chapters of a sex scene (why was there a chapter break in between?) in which Anthony desires his wife and she lets him have his way with her. (I am SURE there’s a feminist objection here, but honestly, I couldn’t see it for the blatant disregard for the time period.) It was bad. It was so horrible and awful and blush-worthy, I couldn’t stop reading. It was just so bad it turned the corner into good. (Or at least deliciously mock-worthy.) Everyone murmured.   Or had husky voices. It was just too, too delightful.

There were some honestly good bits along the way. I really enjoyed the Bridgerton dynamic as a family: there’s a croquet game that was honestly a lot of fun to read. And Quinn made them a close-knit, loving family which is not something you often see. And there was a bit of depth in both Kate and Anthony; Quinn did manage to give them some fears and insecurities, so they weren’t completely one-dimensional.

Not usually my type of book, but it ended up being a great diversion.

Uprooted

Leave a comment

by Naomi Novik
First sentence: “Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy given to me by the publisher rep.
Content: There’s one graphic, but not explicit, sex scene. It’ll be in the science-fiction/fantasy section of the bookstore.

I picked this one up because our Random House rep said it was based on Beauty and the Beast, and we all know how much I love a fairy tale retelling. But, I didn’t count on how engrossing this book would be.

The rep was right: it is loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, but it’s so much more than that. In this valley in Polyna, their resident wizard, who goes by the Dragon, takes one girl every ten years to his tower. When he’s done with them, they don’t come back to the villages, so everyone (of course) assumes the worst. This year, a picking year, everyone guesses that he will take Kasia, our narrator’s, Neishka, best friend. But the Dragon comes, and he picks Neishka instead.

At first, this is terrifying: Neishka isn’t refined, she isn’t skilled for much of anything (except getting dirty), and she doesn’t want to be in the castle with this scary magician. But, as the book goes on, she discovers hidden talents inside herself: she’s a witch, one that is just as powerful as the Dragon, albeit wielding a different sort of magic from him. And its the combination of their magic that is able to confront the real evil in their country: the Wood.

I don’t want to give away much more than that, because this one is best discovered page by page. Novik has a way of pulling one into the story; this started out as a treadmill book (read twice a week for a half hour), but soon became the one I was spending all my time with. I wanted to experience Neishka’s story as it unfolded, with all the twists and turns and slow reveals and intricate pay offs.

M texted, recently, looking for a “Laini Taylor-esque” book, and honestly, this is what I thought of when she asked for that. Novik’s world-building is solid and always in the service of the story, rather than something separate. And, while her words aren’t gorgeous or lyrical, they’re more than pedestrian. They serve the characters and the plot, and make the whole work together just marvelously.

Just about perfect.

Station Eleven

2 Comments

by Emily St. John Mandel
First sentence: “The king stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are a half-dozen f-bombs, spread throughout the second half of the book. It’s a bit meandering, but otherwise, it’s a good crossover story, and I’d give it to a teen interested in the post-apocalyptic genre. It’s in the Fiction section of the bookstore.

It’s difficult, I think, to write a linear plot for Station Eleven. There’s a pandemic, obviously: the world has to end somehow. An aside: I think it’s interesting that the way the world ends in fiction these days is through sickness or climate change rather than some horrific nuclear event. Times have changed since Canticle for Leibowitz.

Anyway, a pandemic — Georgia Flu — sweeps through the world, with a 99% fatality rate. It kills you within 48 hours of catching it, so it doesn’t take long. That simple thing, changes the world. Station Eleven follows an actor, Arthur, and everyone his life touches — ex-wives, son, paparazzi, best friend, the child actors he was in King Lear with — before and through the pandemic, exploring the connections between them and the way everyone handles the New World.

The book was less about the pandemic or the world collapsing as it was about the connections between people. The action flipped between before the pandemic to 20 years after, only vaguely hitting upon time in-between. There was enough movement to keep me interested; the huge cast of characters were always doing something, and the non-linear plot helped with that as well. I think it was an intriguing reflection on the way our lives touch one another, how seemingly random occurrences to one person have great significance to another. Admittedly, there were times when I didn’t get the connections: the paparazzi’s story, for example, was so disconnected from the rest, I wondered why his was included. But for the most part, I found the book to be an intriguing examination of connection and humanity in a time of crisis.