Adult Fiction

Tell the Wolves I’m home

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by Carol Rifka Brunt
ages: adult
First sentence: “My sister, Greta, and I were having our portrait painted by our uncle Finn that afternoon because he knew he was dying.”
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It’s 1987, and June is 14 years old. Her uncle Finn has recently died AIDS, something which (as I well remember) is new and Scary in 1987. Finn and June had a special bond, they shared interests and outings, but it was more than that: to June, Finn was the only one who really Understood her. And to say his passing has really upset her is an understatement.

Little does she know there is a balm for her wound (sorry: too much Jane Austen lately): Toby, Finn’s boyfriend, whom the family shuns, reaches out to June for help and healing. Together these two people who cared immensely for Finn, and whom Finn cared for as well, might just figure out how to go on living without him.

While I enjoyed this novel, and I understood June’s connection with her uncle, a couple things bothered me. First, I’m not really sure it needed to be in 1987. Perhaps it was just so the family could be so deeply homophobic (they’re okay with Finn being gay, he’s just not allowed to have a relationship, so he keeps Toby under wraps). Maybe it was so that June could run around the forest behind her school or into NYC on a whim, because as we all know, parenting in the 1980s was much more permissive than it is today. But it disappointed me that there wasn’t much done with the whole AIDS scare. There were brief mentions of it here and there, but I didn’t feel anything substantial was achieved by it.

What I did like, however, was the exploration of June’s relationships. Not only with her uncle and his boyfriend, but also with her mother and sister as well. June’s perceptions of all those relationships were — partially because she’s 14 — off, sometimes drastically. And it’s a growing process for her to realize that everything isn’t quite how she perceives, that the truth of everything is multilayered and complex. For me, the true draw of the novel, the true heartache, was watching June grow up.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Audiobook: Madame Bovary

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by Gustave Flaubert
read by : Donada Peters
ages: adult

So,  thought I’d listen to the classics this year. And, since I’ve never read Madame Bovary, I figured why not listen to it? I admit that I had no idea what it was about going in, and also that the back blurb was singularly unhelpful.

That said, even though Donada Peters sounds vaguely like Judy Dench, I found myself highly — HIGHLY — bored with listening to this one. After a while, Peters voice began to grate on me, and I just bailed. Nothing — not a single thing — about the story was drawing me in. Not the characters, not the writing, and definitely not the narration.

So, that leaves me with this: was it the translation? Was it the audiobook? There has to be a reason this is considered a classic. Should I give it another try?

Big Boned

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by Meg Cabot
ages: adult
First sentence: “You came!”
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Others in the series: Size 14 is Not Fat Either

Heather Wells, former pop star and current assistant Fischer Hall director, is quite happy with her life. Sure, her new boss is a bit of a stick in the mud, and sure her boyfriend Tad is a vegan who doesn’t watch TV and is trying to get her to *gasp* exercise, and sure it’s not really the guy she wants to be with, but all in all, she’s doing okay.

Then, one morning without warning, her boss gets shot in the head.

Something about Heather just attracts murder, doesn’t it?

An aside: about a third of the way in, I started wondering: how long can Meg Cabot keep up this Death Dorm thing? I mean, three murders in the same hall over three books? I need to read the next one to figure out whether or not she branches out and starts solving murders at other places.

This one was actually murder lite this time around. Heather, of course, is on the case (no matter how much Cooper tries to tell her not to get involved), mostly because her grad assistant Sarah’s not-quite-boyfriend is the primary suspect. Of course he didn’t do it, and it’s up to Heather to figure out who did. Mostly, though, this was Heather obsessing about her relationship with Tad and wishing that Cooper was her boyfriend. That’s not to say this wasn’t interesting — Cabot is really a fun and engaging writer — but that I don’t think I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time around. Perhaps because it was that I read it rather than listening to it (the narrator really was that good). Even so, I enjoyed hanging with Heather and her crowd, and even though the mystery wasn’t that great, it was good enough.

Which means: 1) I’ll be reading the next one eventually and 2) it’s some good fluff. I’m converted to the cult of Cabot.

Audiobook: To Kill a Mockingbird

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by Harper Lee
Read by Sissy Spacek
ages: adult
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I’m not going to sum this one up; everyone has read it already. So here are my thoughts from listening to this one for the first time since high school.

1. They say the n-word a lot. A lot. And, while I understand that it was part of the south in the 1930s, it sure made me uncomfortable.

2. I had to keep reminding myself that not everyone in the south is like most people in this book. That we need more Atticuses and Scouts and Jems and Boo Radleys in this world and less Bob Ewells.

3. That said, Sissy Spacek’s Southern drawl was just delightful. I got out of the car many a time speaking Southern myself.

4. Not much happens in the book, which surprised me. Check that: two Really Big Things happen, but in between it’s a lot of daily life, a lot of character sketches. And I wasn’t bored. Which also really surprised me.

5. I want to be a parent like Atticus. I sometimes wish my girls could have childhoods like Jem and Scout did.

6. Anyone who says that courts are fair is lying. Still. And that made me sad. Tom Robinson was TOTALLY innocent.

7. I think I finally understand the title now. It wasn’t something I remembered from before.

8. I’m so glad I decided to reread it. I hadn’t remembered much from the book at all, and it was delightful rediscovering this classic.

The Homecoming of Samuel Lake

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by Jenny Wingfield
ages: adult
First sentence: “John Moses couldn’t have chosen a worse day, or a worse way to die, if he’d planned it for a lifetime.”
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I finished this several days ago — having devoured it almost entirely in one sitting — and I’m still at a loss how to put my thoughts on this book into words.

The plot centers around the Moses family in 1950s Arkansas. John Moses, the patriarch, has been slowly drinking himself into oblivion, and at a family reunion, decides he can’t take any more and kills himself. This propels Willadee’s, John’s only daughter, husband, Sam Lake, back to Arkansas — granted, he didn’t have a church assignment for the year, so being unemployed kind of helped — to try and figure out what God wants him to do with his life. Their three children — Noble, Bienville, and Swan (yes, that is her name) — try to adjust to life as something other than preacher’s kids. Especially after they meet the neighbor’s boy, Blade Ballenger.

Actually, it was Blade’s father that kept me turning pages. And that solely because he’s the most hateful character I’ve read since Kristin Cashore’s Lek. He was pure evil, and many of his actions were more than difficult to stomach. And yet, I kept reading, desperately needing to know whether or not he got what I felt he deserved. I suppose it’s wrong to spend a book wishing someone would die a violent death, but there you have it: I wished it, and I wished it hard. (I was also depressed to realize that people like that exist. Still. It’s horrible.)

Even with the evil running through the pages, it wasn’t a dark book. There is a lot of love and hope in the pages as well. And thoughts about religion and God, too. And the characters were written — from John’s wife, Calla through to the rest of the family — in ways that made them all unique and fully fleshed out. And I really didn’t think there were any words out of place, which is unusual for me and an adult novel.

All of which made this one a book to both devour and savor.

Audiobook: Size 14 is Not Fat Either

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by Meg Cabot
read by Kristin Kairos
ages: adult

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I read a Meg Cabot book years ago, and didn’t have much love for it. Since then, I’ve felt I ought to give her a second chance, but nothing really pulled at me and said “READ ME!” So, I never did.

Then, one day, I found myself without anything to listen to in the car, and saw this sitting on the library shelf. I figured now was the time to give Meg Cabot another shot.

Heather Wells is in her second semester as assistant director of Fisher Hall, a dorm residence hall at New York City College. Last semester (the first book in the series, which I missed; I seem to be doing that a lot this year) wasn’t all that hot, with multiple murders, but Heather has high hopes that Fisher Hall will be able to shake its “death dorm” reputation. That is, until the head of one of the residents ends up in a pot in the cafeteria. Heather is bound and determined not to get involved this time — investigating is for the police! — but you know there wouldn’t be a book if she actually listened.

On top of the investigation for the dead girl, there’s also the problem of Heather’s ex-fiance who is getting married. Except he keeps calling her. And turning up drunk on her (well, her ex-fiance’s brother’s; he’s her landlord) doorstep. Which is not helping her plan to get together with her ex-fiance’s brother, Cooper.

So, yeah: even though there’s a mystery — and it’s not a bad one, either, even though I kind of called the ending, which I never do — it’s also a comedy and a romance. In short: just plain fun.

I don’t know if half the reason I liked this one so much was because the narrator was just so fabulous. (You know, I’ve never really determined what a “fabulous” narrator is. Maybe it’s just one of those “you know it when you hear it” things.) She made driving around town a fun experience, and I was actually a  little bummed when the book ended (and Heather didn’t get together with the guy I wanted her to!).

I’ve got to go out and get the next one (unless I need to go back and get the first one?), just so I can find out what happens next.

Audiobook: Clara and Mr. Tiffany

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by Susan Vreeland
Read by Kimberly Farr
ages: adult
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Clara Driscoll is the head of the women’s department in the stained glass “factory” of Louis Comfort Tiffany. It’s the late 19th-century, and she adores her job, but there’s one caveat: Tiffany doesn’t allow married women to work for him. So, every time marriage looms, she loses girls. She, herself, at the start of the book, is coming back after her older husband died. The women’s department is an important one; they handle the artistic windows — and, eventually, lamps — for Tiffany, because Tiffany believes that women are more sensitive to color and choose it better than the men do.

 But, Clara has to deal with the changing times, with the turn of the century, with the demands of her heart, and eventually, with Tiffany’s unwillingness to appreciate her for both her art and herself.

I wanted to like this one, and sometimes I did. The narrator was good — nothing spectacular, but not annoying, either.  I enjoyed the whole stained glass part; I took a class a few years back, and that gave me enough knowledge to get a grasp on the artistic process that Vreeland was describing. And she described it well: I went, after, and looked up pictures of the windows and lamps she was describing, and they were fairly close to what I had pictured in my mind.

But honestly: it went on too long. Too much time, too few conflicts, too much describing, and too little happening. It’s not that it wasn’t enjoyable, it was just so slow. And I have other things I need to do with my time.

Brave New World

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by Aldous Huxley
ages: adult
First sentence: “A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories.”
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I’ve known for years that I ought to read Brave New World, that it’s a Classic, and one of those books that are the Foundations of Science Fiction. M has read it twice, though Hubby has yet to read it all the way through (shocking!). Thankfully, the Nook voted to read this one this past month, and I was able to take time away from my Cybils duties to squeeze in a bit of Huxley.

And my mind was boggled.

First off because this story was published in 1932. People! Aside from a some archaic treatment of Native Americans (a bit on the glorification side, and he called them Savages), it was mind-blowingly modern. His core ideas: that through science we would develop classes of humans, and brain wash them to be happy/content in their situation in life; that we would, through public policy, get rid of individualism and thereby ridding the world of wars and disagreements; that we, through tradition and education, would get rid of families and home, are all still issues that, for better or worse, are discussed today.

I’m not sure, in the end, whether or not I “got” it. Sometimes the structure was overly jumpy, and it left my scratching my head, wondering what on earth was going on. (*cough*chapterthree*cough*) But, it was fascinating to discuss, debating the merits of contentment with the merits of art and conflict. (I’m in the We Like Things Messy and Individual Camp.)

In fact, my favorite passage comes when John Savage (the guy who grew up outside of the Society) talks to Mustapha Mond (the World Controller):

“Isn’t there something in living dangerously?”
“There is a great deal in it,” the Controller replied. “Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time.”
“What?” questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.
“It’s one of the conditions of perfect health. That’s why we’ve made the V. P. S. treatments compulsory.”
“V. P. S.?”
“Violent passion Surrogate. Regularly once a moth. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It’s the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any inconveniences.”
“We don’t,” said the Controller. “We prefer to do things comfortably.”
“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”

And there you have it, in a nutshell. Brilliant.

Sutton

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by J. R. Moehringer
ages: adult
First sentence: “He’s writing when they come for him.”
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I know: a review is supposed to go here. Except that I was asked by my lovely friend, Wendy, to do a guest post for her Words and Music feature. Be impressed: somehow, with her help, we managed to come up with a playlist for this book. Go check it out.

(Please.)

Evel Knievel Days

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by Pauls Toutonghi
ages: adult
First sentence: “Everyone knows that the Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead.”
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I was in the mood for something weighty, in between all the YA and MG books I was reading, and I wandered around the bookstore looking for something suitable. I finally settled on this one, mostly because I was curious about a book (and an author) who can make more than one of the managers go all *swoon* every time they mention him.

Khosi Saqr is living a quiet life in Butte, Montana. He was raised by his single mom, and aside from a trip to a museum in Seattle, he’s never left Butte. Content, at age 23, to get up, go to work at the local historical museum, and be the taster for his mother’s (who is on medication for Wilson’s disease and has lots of allergies) Egyptian catering business (she’s white; it was his father who is Egyptian; she commandeered his family recipes), Khosi never really expected much from his life.

Then Butte’s Evel Knievel Days come around, and Khosi’s life is turned upside down. Next thing he knows, he’s done the impossible: gotten on a plane (against his mother’s recommendation) and flown to Cairo to find his father. What he does find is a mess: his father, a compulsive gambler and an equally compulsive liar, is getting remarried. And has neglected to tell his fiance, or his family, that he has a (living) son and ex-wife. Everything comes to a head when Khosi comes down with yellow fever, and his life hangs in the balance.

So, I’m not quite sure what to think about this now that I’m done. It was weird: part magical realism (he’s hallucinating a ghost that gives him advice), but not really. Part a foodish book (his mother cooks Egyptian food and he goes on about the eloquence and importance of dishes), but not really. Part a coming of age book (he goes to Egypt to find his father and reconcile with him after 20 years), but not really.

That said, I liked the book. Toutonghi has such a comfortable way of writing, a very companionable way of writing that even though it wasn’t really a lot of things, it was entertaining. I liked Khosi as a character, I liked going on his (somewhat weird) journey with him, and I liked the outcome: he was able to find a place to belong, and break out of his shell.

So, yeah, I can kind of see what the managers are talking about. He’s a good writer and an interesting storyteller. I’m not sure it was what I was looking for, but it was enjoyable at any rate.