Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks is about a Canadian teenage girl who is trying to cope with a myriad of issues. One of Odella’s parents struggles with alcoholism and abandons the family. Odella, the oldest of her siblings, tries to maintain order for the rest of her household while also dealing with the typical trials of the teenage years.
While I did enjoy certain aspects of the story, particularly the discussions on the characters’ Icelandic heritage, I’m afraid this book suffers from what I call ‘everything AND the kitchen sink’ syndrome. With themes of guilt, identity, alcoholism, abandonment, and h*mos*xu*ality — just to name a few, this book just had too much going on with the story in order for it not to feel a bit contrived. I just really believe that young adult novels, particularly short ones, are more effective when they deal with only one or two major issues. That is probably just a personal preference, though. Your mileage may vary.
The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman won the Newbery Medal in 1996. I listened to this one on audio, and the narrator did a fantastic job.
‘Beetle’ is an orphan girl who is a midwife’s apprentice. All the difficult aspects of being poor in Medieval times are aptly described in the story. There is hard work with very little benefit for Beetle, but yet she knows she is lucky to have her job. She learns midwifery from the very difficult Jane but thankfully doesn’t pick up Jane’s more callous traits. There are some very graphic birth scenes. I didn’t mind it as an adult who has had two children myself, but it may be a bit too much for very young kids. There are also some s*xual connotations in the book that were, to be fair, probably typical for the time period and setting.
One of the best things about this book is that Beetle (who later names herself more appropriately) finds her own inner strength and discovers what it is she wants out of life that is within her means. I really appreciated the book in that regard.
I guess there has been some controversy surrounding the book due to its more graphic content, but I think it is appropriate for 12 and up. I would encourage parents of younger children to read it first if unsure.
I refuse to apologize for completely loving this series. Pure, delightful, light-hearted fun. This one does have some serious subjects to it, but what I enjoy most about this series is that everything always turns out okay in the end. With all the heavy reading I do, it’s nice to be able to ‘take a breather’ with the characters of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
InMorality for Beautiful Girls, the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency faces a bit of a money crunch and considers relocating to J.L.B. Matekoni’s garage. Meanwhile, some creative double duty assignments are also given to Mma Makutsi. Precious Ramotswe takes on a case of an important government official who believes his brother is being poisoned, and Mma Makutsi does an investigation for a beauty pageant official. I found this latter case to be absolutely hysterical. It actually bumped up the rating from a 4 to a 4.5.
I listened to this installment on audio CD and loved the narrator, Lisette Lecat, who was also the narrator for Purple Hibiscus. I plan on reading and/or listening to the entire series this year and am absolutely looking forward to it.
I’m sort of at a loss when it comes to writing about Toni Morrison’s books. There’s always that element of genius in her work — I would say she’s a very worthy Nobel laureate. Somehow, though, her books always make me very uncomfortable. I guess they’re meant to do that. I always seem to absorb the emotions of the characters — which normally is a good thing — but oh, the depths of the emotions the characters experience! I probably did like A Mercybetter than others I’ve read so far, though perhaps Beloved will still be considered her masterpiece.
This story takes place in the 1680’s, in the wilds of a new America. Jacob is a man who disapproves of the slave trade yet makes concessions toward it. His wife Rebekka is a mail order bride from England, yet the two have a happy marriage. On their land they do have ‘help’ in the form of Lina, a Native-American, Sorrow, an orphan from the sea, and Florens, a slave girl given up by her mother whom Jacob takes as payment for a debt. Together they try to build a home for themselves, fighting against a harsh climate, disease, and inside and outside forces that seem bent on destruction.
With themes of racism, slavery, adventure, religion, and witchcraft, A Mercy is another brilliant work by a very brilliant author.
Hillary Jordan has written a very good debut novel that speaks on war, racism, marriage, and living off the land. The story is told by various narrators throughout the book. Henry and Laura are a white married couple who move to the Mississippi delta to raise cotton. Henry loves the land, but Laura misses city life and is deeply unhappy. She also has to live and deal with her racist father-in-law for the first time.
Hap and Florence are a black couple living on Henry’s farm as renters. Hap is a preacher, while Florence is a midwife who also helps Laura with some of her housework. Their oldest child Ronsel is in the military and serving in Germany, and when he comes back, he has to adjust back to a way of life that he is no longer accustomed to. He does find a friend, however, in Jamie, Henry’s younger brother. But, this doesn’t sit well with Henry and Jamie’s father, and trouble ensues.
This book all too painfully illustrates how much African-Americans have had to go through in this country. It does seem like the tide has changed with the historic election of our first black President, Barack Obama. I sincerely hope that this event will be the turning point in race relations in the United States.
(All along while reading this book, I was thinking it was going to receive a 4.5 rating, but then at the end something is stated by Jamie that I was deeply offended by, and I changed my rating to a 4. It didn’t ruin the book for me, but I think a better choice of words should have been uilized to avoid offending some readers.)
Eugene is a mover in New York City whose favorite author is Constance Eakins. While doing a job one day, he runs into a biographer of Eakins who also happens to have a beautiful daughter, Sonia. Everyone else in the world believes Eakins is dead — that he just disappeared in Italy quite a few years back and never showed up again. He’s legally declared dead by the Italian authorities. Sonia’s father, the biographer, demands that it isn’t so — that his daughter speaks to Eakins regularly. But, no one has heard from her after her latest trip to Italy. Eugene decides to look for Sonia.
Meanwhile in a parallel story, an elderly Mr. Schmitz, also a New Yorker, is grieving the loss of his friend Rutherford who has just moved to Italy. He receives lucid letters from Rutherford at first, but then they become more and more incomprehensible. Schmitz also decides to take off for Italy to look for his friend.
This was a bizarre story that was unique enough to keep me reading and wanting to find out more. The book has quite a few fantasy elements too, and that was unexpected, but it certainly added to the story. It’s definitely a different book.
This is Nathaniel Rich’s first novel. It was released on April 17.
The continuation of Maus, and subtitled And Here My Troubles Began (From Mauschwitz to the Catskills and Beyond), Maus II is every bit as outstanding as Maus, and the two books really should be read together. In this book we learn more about the end of Vladek’s life, and one of the questions that is posed from the book is:
“They were survivors, but did they really and truly survive?”
Art’s struggles with his father’s personality — made so because of the war — are clearly shown. He is very honest in his portrayal, even to the point of demonstrating his father’s own prejudices — something you would think would be non-existent in someone who had been persecuted himself.
Brilliant. Powerful. Poignant. Intensely personal. In graphic novel format and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992, Maus is Vladek Spiegelman’s story of his survival of Auschwitz during World War II. It is also a story of the father-son relationship between Vladek and Art. In this first book, Art interviews his father about his intense past. Each nationality is represented as a different animal. The Jews are mice, the Germans are cats, and the Poles are pigs. We not only see the absolute horrors of Auschwitz from a survivor’s viewpoint, we also see one survivor’s son deal with the guilt of just being the son of a survivor.
I first heard about this book through Dewey for the graphic novel challenge. Thanks so much, Dewey, for introducing me to this astounding work.
Why not do a ‘twin’ review since I read them relatively close together? I had seen both of these movies before I read the books, and I recently re-watched The Hours because it was available for online viewing through Netflix. I’d like to watch Mrs. Dalloway again as well. The movie of the The Hours follows the book very closely-there are a few minor changes. Nicole Kidman does an outstanding job in this film. I was most interested in the Virginia Woolf storyline, so I was happy she was so well portrayed. It’s funny that Meryl Streep ended up playing Clarissa when she (Meryl Streep) is actually talked about in The Hours (the book). I don’t remember the movie Mrs. Dalloway much at all, hence the reason I wish to re-view it.
Well, on to the books. The Hours won the Pulitzer in 1999. It’s a cleverly told story that intersects the 3 women’s lives very well. However, it does change the story of Mrs. Dalloway into homos*xual relationships. It was interesting to see the twist in the storyline, particularly if you know the real one, but I couldn’t help thinking, “Doesn’t Clarissa (in The Hours) know that her life is too coincidental with the characters’ names from Mrs. Dalloway?” To me, it would have been a better story if Cunningham had left out all the references to the actual book itself. The reader knows that’s what it’s about, so why keep referring to it? It makes The Hours too unbelievable. It’s an interesting book, and I’m glad I read it, but I can’t help having mixed feelings about it.
Mrs. Dalloway. I must be too dense in the literary sense, because I just don’t get this book at all. I had to stop reading it every half hour because it was just too much otherwise. I felt a similar way this year when I read Inheritance of Loss. I just don’t enjoy a book when I have to read it that way. I don’t get into planning parties or the minute details of such. In fact, I avoid that like the plague. I’m not into social scenes, either. In this book, everyone loves Clarissa, but isn’t she the most shallow character in it? I don’t get it. I would like to re-read it again in a few years to see if I feel any differently. At least I feel more enlightened that I have finally read Woolf. I’d actually like to read more about her than by her.
For The Hours: 1998, 226 pp.
Rating: 3.5
Pulitzer, 1999
Mr. Ives’ Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos was a Pulitzer finalist in 1996. Hijuelos had also previously won the Pulitzer in 1990 for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.
Mr. Ives seems to have almost the perfect life. He has a successful career and a happy family. He helps with community projects and events for his church. He is a man of faith. Then his son is shot and killed on Chrismas Eve coming home from choir practice. The son, Robert, was only 17 and wanted to be a priest. From this tragic event, Edward Ives struggles with his faith and the meaning of existence. He questions his once firm ideals. He grieves. He grieves for a very long time.
I don’t know if ‘enjoyed’ is proper in this case, so I will say I really appreciated this book, but it is not for everyone. It is definitely not a warm and cozy Christmas story, but it is one that seeks answers to the hard questions in life. If you’ve ever wondered why God allows bad things to happen, you might like this book. It really doesn’t even come away at the end with many very solid answers, but it does show one man’s journey through faith, hardship, and loss in a sensitive and thought-provoking manner.
Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks is about a Canadian teenage girl who is trying to cope with a myriad of issues. One of Odella’s parents struggles with alcoholism and abandons the family. Odella, the oldest of her siblings, tries to maintain order for the rest of her household while also dealing with the typical trials of the teenage years.
The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman won the Newbery Medal in 1996. I listened to this one on audio, and the narrator did a fantastic job.
I’m sort of at a loss when it comes to writing about Toni Morrison’s books. There’s always that element of genius in her work — I would say she’s a very worthy Nobel laureate. Somehow, though, her books always make me very uncomfortable. I guess they’re meant to do that. I always seem to absorb the emotions of the characters — which normally is a good thing — but oh, the depths of the emotions the characters experience! I probably did like A Mercy better than others I’ve read so far, though perhaps Beloved will still be considered her masterpiece.
Hillary Jordan has written a very good debut novel that speaks on war, racism, marriage, and living off the land. The story is told by various narrators throughout the book. Henry and Laura are a white married couple who move to the Mississippi delta to raise cotton. Henry loves the land, but Laura misses city life and is deeply unhappy. She also has to live and deal with her racist father-in-law for the first time.
Eugene is a mover in New York City whose favorite author is Constance Eakins. While doing a job one day, he runs into a biographer of Eakins who also happens to have a beautiful daughter, Sonia. Everyone else in the world believes Eakins is dead — that he just disappeared in Italy quite a few years back and never showed up again. He’s legally declared dead by the Italian authorities. Sonia’s father, the biographer, demands that it isn’t so — that his daughter speaks to Eakins regularly. But, no one has heard from her after her latest trip to Italy. Eugene decides to look for Sonia.
The continuation of Maus, and subtitled And Here My Troubles Began (From Mauschwitz to the Catskills and Beyond), Maus II is every bit as outstanding as Maus, and the two books really should be read together. In this book we learn more about the end of Vladek’s life, and one of the questions that is posed from the book is:
Brilliant. Powerful. Poignant. Intensely personal. In graphic novel format and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize Special Award in 1992, Maus is Vladek Spiegelman’s story of his survival of Auschwitz during World War II. It is also a story of the father-son relationship between Vladek and Art. In this first book, Art interviews his father about his intense past. Each nationality is represented as a different animal. The Jews are mice, the Germans are cats, and the Poles are pigs. We not only see the absolute horrors of Auschwitz from a survivor’s viewpoint, we also see one survivor’s son deal with the guilt of just being the son of a survivor.
Mr. Ives’ Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos was a Pulitzer finalist in 1996. Hijuelos had also previously won the Pulitzer in 1990 for The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.
