bad husbands

Audio book: Mexican Gothic

Leave a comment

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Read by: Frankie Corzo
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is mild swearing and three f-bombs. There is also some disturbing sexual imagery (but no actual sex). It’s in the adult fiction section of the bookstore

Noemí Taboada is a socialite in Mexico City, without much of a care in the world. Her job is to get married, though she tends to go after boys of whom her father disapproves. Then, as a response to a disturbing letter, Noemí is sent off to High Place, in the mountains, to see what is going on with her cousin and her new husband, Virgil Doyle.

What she finds is a whole lot of weird. Creepy family, creepy house, weird dreams… and it gets increasingly more disturbing. The only ally she has (she is rarely allowed to see her cousin) is the family’s youngest, a 20-something boy named Frances. Perhaps, with his help, she can figure out what the heck is going on, and how she’s going to get out of the mess she found herself in.

Oh, man, this was creepy. Partially it was the narrator, who read it in a super calm voice, even when things were going all sorts of crazy weird. It bothered me at first but eventually it added to the tension of the book. It was wild. And the story itself? Gothic to the core, with an added race factor. The Doyles are not just creepy, they’re racist and Moreno-Garcia plays with at that in some fascinating (and haunting) ways.

It’s not my usual fare, but it was perfect for October.

Audio book: Clap When You Land

Leave a comment

by Elizabeth Acevedo
Read by  Elizabeth Acevedo and Melania-Luisa Marte
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Or listen at Libro.fm
Content: There is a scene of sexual assault and one of almost-rape. There is also swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Camino Rios lives in the Dominican Republic, where her father — who lives in the US — vists every summer. Yahaira Rios lives in the US with her parents, except every summer her father goes to the Dominican Republic for “work”. And then, one fatal day, the plane that their father is on crashes into the ocean, killing everyone on board.

What follows is a story of loss, of grief, of forgiveness, of finding. Told in verse — and beautifully narrated by Acevedo and Marte — it follows the two months after the plane crash, as Camino and Yahaira find out about each other, and come to terms with their beloved papi’s other family, and find their way through their grief in the aftermath of a tragic accident.

Acevedo brilliantly captures not only the grief, but the differences between growing up in the US and growing up in the DR, and the challenges that each one brings. I loved the way both Camino and Yahaira had things they loved about their father, but they also had to come to terms with his deception and imperfections.

Truly an amazing book.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Leave a comment

tenantofwildfellby Anne Bronte
Fist sentence: “Dear Halford, When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life, previous to our acquaintance; and then you requested a return of confidence from me.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s a lot to digest: a lot of characters, etc. and there’s some reference to… unsavory… things but nothing actual. If you can handle any Bronte or Austen book, then this is for you. It’s in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

I picked this one up on M’s recommendation (I’m not a Bronte fan); she said it was her favorite of the Bronte books she had to read in class, and that I might like it.

The basic plot is this:  a woman — Mrs. Helen Graham — moves into an empty house with her son. She soon becomes the subject of gossip in the neighborhood, and garners the interest of a young man, Gilbert Markham, who soon professes his love for her. Unfortunately, Mrs. Graham isn’t free to love, and she — through letting Gilbert read her diary — confesses all to him. And the all is sordid. She thought she was marrying a good man (or at the very least, an okay one that she could reform) and it turned out that she, well, didn’t. He was a liar, a cheat, a philanderer, and not very kind her her. She put up with it for a while, for the sake of their child, but eventually had enough and left.  Which was unheard of in 1847.

So, on the one hand: good for her! Good for her for getting her and her child out of the marriage. Good for her for sticking up to her beliefs. Good for her for staying strong.

But.

Ugh, why do the Brontes have to be SO moralistic? Was it just a Victorian thing? Even though she was the victim, and I think her husband was all sorts of Awful, she was SO very moralistic. She had absolutely no faults about her, and was always right. Which makes for a very boring main character. It was all: oh! look at the virtuous woman and how she suffers. And I don’t mean to demean women’s suffering or the fact that they were (are!) treated badly at the hands of men. It’s just that, as a character in a book, reading about someone who is So Good is kind of, well, dull.

And then there’s the end. (Spoilers ahead.) She goes back to her husband when he gets ill (really?) because she’s So Good. And then he dies, so she’s free to remarry Markham and live happily ever after. Nice and all, but I dislike the Victorian (again!) notion that a woman is only happy with the (right) man. I’ll give Anne props for including the (right); I’m sure societal conventions were more along the lines of marry the girl off, as long as he’s rich who cares. (See: Jane Austen.) It makes me glad for how far we’ve come.

Or maybe just reading the Brontes makes me irritable. They’re all melodrama and no humor or societal observation. Give me Austen any day.