Adult Fiction

Audiobook: Size 14 is Not Fat Either

Leave a comment

by Meg Cabot
read by Kristin Kairos
ages: adult

Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

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

3 Comments

by Susan Vreeland
Read by Kimberly Farr
ages: adult
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

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

1 Comment

by Aldous Huxley
ages: adult
First sentence: “A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

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

Leave a comment

by J. R. Moehringer
ages: adult
First sentence: “He’s writing when they come for him.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

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

Leave a comment

by Pauls Toutonghi
ages: adult
First sentence: “Everyone knows that the Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

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.

Frozen Heat

1 Comment

by Richard Castle
ages: adult
First sentence: “Oh, yeah, that’s it Rook,’ said Nikki Heat.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Heat Wave,  Naked Heat, Heat Rises

On the one hand, I miss the fluff of the first two novels in this series. It used to be that it’d just be a recap of the season, with a plot that loosely ties together different episodes. But, starting in the third book, these took on a life of their own, and in this one there was very little about the season that I recognized. I wonder if that’s because there isn’t much to work with, or because the story in the books is so far removed from the story on the show that it really is its own animal now.

That isn’t to say that I didn’t like it: I did. But much like seasons 3 and 4 of Castle, the books have become more serious, and I can’t help but miss the fluff.

It’s been 10 years since her mother’s murder, and although Nikki Heat has moved on, she hasn’t forgotten. So, when a woman shows up dead in a meat truck, shoved inside Nikki’s mother’s suitcase, she realizes that she has her first lead on her mother’s case in a long, long time. She digs in, and comes across firewalls — in her precinct, in her personal life, in the secrets she’s digging up  — and is thwarted on every turn by the dead bodies that keep piling up.

Of course, her lover and sometimes partner, journalist Jameson Rook, is there to help sort out the puzzle pieces, whisk her off to Paris (for research! And for a RTWOTC — Romantic Trip While On The Case),  and to be emotional support when things get too much for the stoic Nikki Heat.

Hubby asked me when I finished how this held up as a mystery. Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m not well-versed enough in the genre to tell if this was a good mystery, or if it was just a by-the-numbers one. But, I was entertained, it did keep me reading, and I didn’t figure out the twist ending (though, to tell the truth, I wasn’t working that hard, either.)  But, since it’s so far removed from the show at this point and has resolved things that the show has left hanging, I’m curious to see what the writer(s) of this one come up for next year’s book.

Could be interesting.

A Desire Path

Leave a comment

by  Jan Shapin
ages: adult
First sentence: “By the time Japan surrendered, Andy’s disappointment extended to just about everything.”
I’d tell you to buy it at your local independent bookstore, but you can’t. 😦
Review copy provided by the author.

It’s the 1930s, the height of the Depression, and everywhere people are struggling. To find work, to find a path, to find themselves. Andy’s in Washington, D.C. when he meets up with an old friend (she always liked him more than he liked her), Anna Mae, who, in the wake of her successful books about Communisum, has fallen in with a hot-shot defense lawyer. Andy falls for the lawyer’s wife, and they fall into an affair. One which goes on for a while, but is finally ended because Ilse isn’t willing to leave her husband and family. In the midst of all this, Anna Mae has her own trials: her father’s mind is going, and she needs to find a home for him, since she’s in Russia and neither of her brothers live nearby. On top of that, after years of reporting on Communism, Anna Mae finally has decided to take the plunge and join the party. Except the people in charge of the party in Seattle are petty and want revenge for the part they think Anna Mae has in all this. Ilse, over the years, is an impartial observer of all this, not really engaging — aside from her affair with Andy — and mostly just being a friend.

I was offered this book to review because I liked the author’s previous one, quite a bit. She seemed to have a way with making grand epics seem personable. But this three-pronged story didn’t do that for me. I struggled to connect with the characters, to find meaning in why these three disparate stories were connected. Aside from the obvious — that they knew each other, and knowing Anna Mae led Andy and Ilse together — there really wasn’t any reason for their stories to be told together.

Out of the three stories, though, I did find Anna Mae’s fascinating. The book I would have really loved to read is the one about Anna Mae, about her journey into reporting about Communism, the reasons behind her ending up in the Soviet Union, her tumultuous relationship with her father, how she and Andy met. In comparison, Andy and Ilse’s affair seems trite, a fleeting moment of passion without the depth that I think the characters wanted to believe they had.

Shapin’s writing is still spare and elegant; giving life and meaning to lives that aren’t that meaningful. It’s what kept me turning pages, even while I was frustrated with the direction of the story. I really did want to like this book; I like the author. But in the end, I just felt that it was flat. Which is disappointing.

Audiobook: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

4 Comments

by Helen Simonson
read by  Peter Altschuler
ages: adult
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

A while back a woman came into the store looking for some Georgette Heyer books. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any in the store (shame on us), so I started hunting around for some read-alikes. She’d read all the obvious ones (Jane Austin), we were lacking in Shannon Hale as well, and then I stumbled upon this one. I remembered, somewhat vaguely, that it was British and that it had gotten some good buzz, and so I recommended it to her. She bought it, and I crossed my fingers that it would work.

And then, I chided myself: if I recommended it to someone who liked Georgette Heyer (which I do), why wouldn’t I like it? So, I picked up the audio book to listen to while I putter around town sans kids.

The bottom line? It was a grand suggestion for someone who loved Georgette Heyer: at turns funny and sweet; very, very British; and with a lovely wedding at the end. I adored listening to it.

I do have to admit, also up front, that I adored it because Peter Altschuler is a brilliant narrator. All the right voices, all the right inflection (Roger was a Twit! I kept shouting at him. I’m sure the other drivers thought I was insane.), all the right emphasis in the right places, so I got the humor and I understood the conflict and I loved (absolutely adored) the Major.

For the five of us who live under a rock, the  basic story is one of Major Ernest Pettigrew, widower, whose brother has just died. He’s a bit at a loss the  day of, and so when Mrs. Jasmina Ali (widow), comes to collect for the paperboy, he just kind of falls into a friendship with her. He soon discovers that 1) she’s wonderful and 2) it doesn’t matter, to him, that she’s Pakistani, though it seems to matter a lot to the villagers of Edgecombe St. Mary. It’s a domestic drama: the things that happen are ordinary things. Antique guns are involved, as are American developers, and lots and lots of cultural tension. Through it all, the Major is impeccably honorable and quite British, but somehow, all comes right in the end (though there’s a bit of a tense scene wherein Islam does not come off well, and I thought was quite unnecessary), with the Major and Mrs. Ali following their hearts.

I didn’t realize that it was a modern setting, but for the most part, it all worked. The characters are really what drive this story: from the not-meaning-to-be-racist-and-yet-are village ladies; to the twit of a son Roger; to his American fiance, Sandy (I liked her too); to the orthodox, yet conflicted, nephew of Mrs. Ali, all are intriguing and complex. Very few (maybe the bumbling vicar, and the loud, obnoxious American developer) are straight-up caricatures, something which I appreciated.

A delightful way to spend a few hours.

Second Thyme Around

Leave a comment

by Katie Fford
ages: adult
First sentence: “Well? Are you going to come in?”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Ten years ago Perdita’s life fell apart. Sure, she was young — only 19 — but she loved Lucas. And even though their marriage wasn’t much of anything, he didn’t need to slap her in the face by running off with an older woman.

Now, Perdita has gotten her life together and owns a vegetable supply business, growing unique and unusual high-end vegetables for the local spa and high-end restaurant. Sure, she doesn’t have a boyfriend, but who needs one when her business and her relationship with her elderly next-door neighbor and close friend, Kitty, takes up so much of her time. So, it comes as a bit of a shock when Lucas shows up in the kitchen of the high-end restaurant she supplies, having taken over. Since when did he become a chef (especially since he was a stock broker last she knew)? And while he’s as abrasive and bossy as ever, since when did he develop a nice streak?

I picked this up because I wanted something fluffy, something fun, something romantic, and something British. On those counts, it succeeded quite nicely. It was quite fluffy, it was somewhat romantic, and it was definitely British.

But I’m not sure it held up as a story. Aside from the fact that it wasn’t insta-love (yay!), I didn’t get the chemistry between Lucas and Perdita. She spent the whole book hating him, thinking he was just boorish and domineering (which he was), and then, boom: she was back in bed with him. What makes them think that this time around they’d be able to make it work? Sure, she’s ten years older, but I wasn’t convinced that they’d be good together. Or even that they wanted to be together. It didn’t make sense.

Aside from that problem (major though it is), it was a fun little diversion. I just wish it could have been better.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

3 Comments

by Matthew Dicks
ages: adult
First sentence: “Here’s what I know:”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by my place of employment.
Release date: August 21, 2012

I’m kind of at a loss where to begin with this one. The owner at the bookstore handed it to me because it looks vaguely YA(ish), and imaginary friends have something to with kids, right?

But that isn’t what this novel is at all.

In a fascinating approach to things, Dicks has written a novel from the imaginary friend’s point of view. And, much in the way a fantasy writer creates a world, Dicks has created a whole world for Budo, nine-year-old Max’s friend, to reside in. First off: just because Max is the only one who can see him, does not mean that Budo isn’t real. He can see our world, experience our world, he just can’t interact with other people. He can, however, interact with other imaginary friends, and from doing that, he’s realized two things: 1) Max imagined him very well, because next to some of the other friends, Budo looks almost real; and 2) he’s quite old — being six — and that is unusual. Most other imaginary friends don’t last that long.

It starts out oddly; you don’t know quite where Dicks is going with this story, especially since it becomes very clear early on that Max has some form of autism. Although it’s never said outright, most of the signs are there. But as the story goes on, you realize that it’s because Max is autistic that Budo exists. And that fact becomes crucial to the plot.

I’ll be straight with you: I got to a certain point in the book, and I was afraid I’d have to abandon it because one character was abusing Max. That is not the case. There are scary, and sad, things going on, but it’s not abuse, thankfully. Because the book is remarkable. Not only for the world building, but for the heartbreakingly honest way Budo reacts to the situations with Max, and ends up being the unsung hero. I rarely think books are “heartwarming”, but I do think that of this one. Heartwarming, creative, unique.

Amazing. It will make you want to believe in imaginary friends all over again.