After his wife Kath’s death, Glyn is going through all her paperwork and finds a folder with ‘DO NOT OPEN: DESTROY’ on it. Of course he opens it, only to find a picture of his wife holding hands with another man. Glyn then sets out to find out about the details of his wife’s life that he never knew about, and he finds out that he really didn’t know his wife all that well. As he finds out more and more, he needs to enlist Kath’s friends and her sister Elaine to fill in the gaps to the mystery, ‘Who was Kath, really?’
This book is about marriage, friendships, and family relationships. Who takes precedence over whom and why. Who really knows the true soul of a person and why. How does one even go about trying to find out the true self of a loved one? This book really engaged me because of the intertwined, complex relationships of all the characters and how they related to the ‘mystery’ of who Kath really was. Recommended.
I knew I would probably enjoy The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle because it’s about a girl growing up in a small town in Colorado — this girl did the same.
Alice Winston lives on a horse ranch in the desert with her father and reclusive mother, while her older sister Nona has run off with a cowboy riding the rodeo circuit. With her sister gone, Alice’s father struggles to make the ranch profitable by boarding the horses of the wealthier women in town. It’s a lot of work for just the two of them, and somehow they make do for awhile. But all of them miss Nona and can’t understand why she’d leave the family and the ranch.
Meanwhile, Alice is dealing with being accepted at school and recovering from the death of a classmate. She experiences her first kiss and her first crush. She tries to make sense of the adults around her. I sympathized with Alice and winced at the all too familiar pains of growing up. I rooted for things to go her way. Sadly, however, life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan. Sometimes we just have to accept the way things are.
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns, – HAMLET
Lin Enger’s debut novel is a modern take on Hamlet, but with a few differences from the original. Even though I’m very familiar with the play, I found that Undiscovered Country surprisingly kept me in suspense throughout. There were just enough differences to keep me more than interested in the novel.
Set in wintry Minnesota, Jesse finds his father in the woods — dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. While the local law enforcement thinks it’s a closed case, Jesse refuses to believe that his father committed suicide and sets out to prove it. Of course there’s a suspicious uncle in the story as well as an ‘Ophelia’, but it doesn’t always follow the ’script,’ so there is that element of suspense to the tale.
Enger’s descriptions of the starkly cold winters in Minnesota really add to the atmosphere of the book, and his writing of the characters, though familiar, seem very real. We feel Jesse’s angst, just as we did Hamlet’s. We want justice, just as we do in Shakespeare’s play. I would love to read and compare this book to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and The Dead Father’s Club, both also modern retellings of the famous play.
Lin Enger is the brother of Leif Enger, who wrote Peace Like a River, which I loved, and also So Brave, Young, and Handsome, which I hope to read sometime this year. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for Lin Enger’s next novel as well.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
I really didn’t get all that much into the story until the ship sunk — it really gets going at that point. And then, just when I was getting tired of all the desperate tactics for survival in the lifeboat, another interesting development occurs. I was surprised by the twist ending as well, but it was a good one. I was impressed by the symbolism in the book. Recommended.
Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants tells a great story. I loved the story, and I loved the characters. I loved Rosie the elephant. I did not love the explicit scenes, particularly when I had to hear it on an audio CD. I was relieved to find that Natasha from Maw Books felt the exact same way. I think there is a strong minority of readers who are getting fed up with this type of content in books. I know I am. But, as I said, I wanted to continue hearing the story because other than those parts, it was very compelling.
Jacob Jankowski is the vet (with an asterix) for a second-rate circus. His services and presence aren’t always wanted by the circus regulars. The book is told in flashbacks to great effect. I really enjoyed that format for this particular story. The readers for the audio CD were David LeDoux and John Randolph Jones. They both were good, but whoever did Jacob Jankowski as an old man was brilliant. I thoroughly loved those sections.
Water for Elephants is not only a love story; it’s also about finding ‘family’ with those around you. I just wish I could have ‘redlighted’ a few parts.
I was shocked at the ending and thought it was another senseless death until I read Deathly Hallows. I never believed, though, that the ‘murderer’ was a death eater. I kept my hopes up that the person in question wasn’t really dead — just like I did with the murdered one in Order of the Phoenix. Alas, it was not to be…
"Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:27, ESV)
After his wife Kath’s death, Glyn is going through all her paperwork and finds a folder with ‘DO NOT OPEN: DESTROY’ on it. Of course he opens it, only to find a picture of his wife holding hands with another man. Glyn then sets out to find out about the details of his wife’s life that he never knew about, and he finds out that he really didn’t know his wife all that well. As he finds out more and more, he needs to enlist Kath’s friends and her sister Elaine to fill in the gaps to the mystery, ‘Who was Kath, really?’
I knew I would probably enjoy The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle because it’s about a girl growing up in a small town in Colorado — this girl did the same.
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi won the Booker Prize in 2002. It’s the story of Pi Patel from his childhood to his time on a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family and his father’s zoo animals sinks. Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger, shares Pi’s fate on the raft. Due to the tiger, he must constantly be on guard during his 227 day ordeal.
Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants tells a great story. I loved the story, and I loved the characters. I loved Rosie the elephant. I did not love the explicit scenes, particularly when I had to hear it on an audio CD. I was relieved to find that 
I was shocked at the ending and thought it was another senseless death until I read Deathly Hallows. I never believed, though, that the ‘murderer’ was a death eater. I kept my hopes up that the person in question wasn’t really dead — just like I did with the murdered one in Order of the Phoenix. Alas, it was not to be…
