Now the only friendship I still had, however unexpected, had been upended. I was tired of being adrift. Tired of romance and attraction and all the complications and ruination it entailed. Tired of trying to find some pattern, divine or not, in what had happened, what was happening to me. Most of all, though, I was tired of Jane Austen ruining my life. – p.146
Emma Douglas has just found her husband cheating on her, and she blames Jane Austen’s novels (as well as her parents’ own happy marriage) for leading her to believe that there are always happy endings. Devastated by her personal and professional life, she travels to England in search of Jane Austen’s missing letters, where, coincidentally, she also bumps into her old college friend Adam.
I really enjoyed Beth Pattillo’s ‘what-if’s’ concerning Austen’s personal life and letters, particularly her take on which of Austen’s books most closely mirrored the author’s (imagined) life. I was also fascinated by Emma’s treks around Austen’s old haunts and the real personal history of the author. Mixing fact and fiction, this book is a fun and quick read that most Austen fans will appreciate.
2009, 270 pp.
[Disclaimer: This copy was obtained from my public library.]
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park won the Newbery Medal in 2002. It is a tale of duty, loyalty, and perseverance. The book is set in 12th century Korea.
Tree-ear, an orphan, works for a highly esteemed potter, Potter Min. Although Tree-ear would dearly love to be Potter Min’s apprentice, what he really does is just ‘the grunt work.’ Potter Min is unwiling to accept Tree-ear as his apprentice because it is traditionally passed down only to sons, and Min’s son has died. When Tree-ear is sent for a long journey to the Emperor’s palace to demonstrate Min’s work, his character and perseverance is tested.
This book is excellent for demonstrating character qualities to children. Recommended.
2001, 192 pp.
Rating: 4/5
I listened to Life As We Knew It on audio cd with my 15 year old son. He wasn’t impressed with Miranda’s cutesy character at first, but I told him to hang in there, and he ended up being glad he did. We plan on listening to Pfeffer’s The Dead and the Gone if it comes out on audio at our library.
In the story, an asteroid has struck the moon with catastrophic consequences for Earth. Tsunamis, floods, volcanoes, and electrical and food shortages ensue. The book sort of reminded me of a teen version of The Road. Miranda struggles along with her mother and brothers just to survive. She also struggles with the typical teenage problems of today. It made for a few good discussions with my son.
He and I are looking forward to the ‘boy version’ of events in The Dead and the Gone. The second book is also in a different setting (New York vs. rural Pennsylvania), so that element should be interesting as well.
Tomato Girl is a heartbreaking novel of love, desire, and madness.
Ellie is in love with her father Rupert and just adores him. She loves spending time with him — especially when she can help him in the store he manages. Not only does Ellie’s father takes care of her when her mother is unable to, he also manages and cares for Ellie’s mother when she is in one of her ‘moods.’
Although Rupert loves his daughter dearly, he is also falling in love with the girl who brings in the tomatoes at his store. This has severe repercussions for everyone involved, not only leaving poor Ellie caught in the middle but also worsening her mother’s mental condition.
Pupek manages to make us sympathize with all the characters involved and thankfully, also provides other characters for Ellie to lean on in a difficult situation. Her best friend Mary, a concerned teacher, and a loving black couple all do their best to support Ellie. Tomato Girl really makes one realize there are consequences to every personal decision, and that all our choices will affect our family members as well.
While I liked the book, there is a magical element to the book at the end that I didn’t care for, and I sometimes felt Ellie’s voice was too old for 11, and sometimes I thought she seemed too young for that age. These are minor criticisms, though, and Jayne Pupek is certainly a promising new novelist.
CLOSED If you’d like a copy of this book, just go to Novels Now, where I am giving away an autographed copy. All I ask is that you haven’t read the book yet, and that you’ll make an effort to read and review it on your blog in the next 6 months.
Per Petterson’s book, which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2007 Dublin IMPAC Award, is one to read slowly and savor. It’s definitely character driven, but oh, what a beautiful read. It also gives a strong sense of place for Norway.
The story flashes back and forth several times between Trond’s childhood and the present. The story starts out in the past, near the time of WWII. Certain events take place, and later, as an adult, Trond’s understanding of them shifts. In the present, he lives self-sufficiently and, except for his dog, alone. He also reflects on significant events in his adult life and tries to understand his reaction to them. Everything falls a little more into place for him when two people search him out, one from the present, and one from the past.
My library has another of his books in translation, To Siberia, and if I don’t read it this year, I’ll definitely be picking it up in 2009.
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
–Gerard Manley Hopkins
Grief is such an individual, totally consuming, and heart-wrenching experience — especially when the death is by a young person or is totally unexpected. This book explores the grief process very well. Margaret and Nico are teenage sisters. While Nico generally seeks out her parent’s approval, Margaret is a little on the wild side. However, that is not what gets her killed. Margaret has a heart problem and ends up drowning in the lake near their home.
The story is told from Nico’s point of view, and about her struggle to get through each day, each month, each year. She worries about her own health and about how her parents are coping with her sister’s death. She’s concerned for her sister’s boyfriend and how he’s dealing with it. She even endures those around her who try to make her into parts of Margaret instead of herself.
Finally, the story ends with an adult Nico writing about how she and her family have recovered from their grief over the years. Although — as anyone knows who has been through it — you never really get over the death of someone close to you.
This autobiographical novel by Sylvia Plath certainly gives insight about her mental illness. It’s a fascinating peek into the author’s troubled mind.
Esther Greenwood (a thinly veiled Sylvia) is bright and appears to have it all, but why and where did her life go wrong? It seemingly begins when she is rejected for a writing class at the same time she is having relationship problems. Her downward spiral is swift. Esther demands much of herself and of others, and when perfection is not attainable, she cannot accept it. Although she is then admitted to a mental hospital, the book (unlike the author’s real life) eventually has a hopeful ending.
This book was a quick read, and I know I will be reading it again at some point as it is very compelling. I’ve twice seen the movie Sylvia starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and I definitely believe it added to my appreciation of the book.
A quote from the book:
The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.
I felt like a racehorse in a world without racetracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.
From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was EeGee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
I started out not liking the writing style of this book at all. This is the first Proulx book I’ve read, but if her other books are written in the same style, she is the queen of both the sentence fragment and the comma splice. I get that some of the sentences were supposed to be news headlines, and I found that to be clever. However, not all of them were and it truly was like fingers on a chalkboard to me. After a few chapters, though, I found the storyline very compelling. The characters were well drawn, and I was sympathetic to their life situations. I discovered that I wanted to keep reading so I could learn what happened to them.
Quoyle and his family go from the States back to Newfoundland, which is where his father was originally from. Everyone there knows about the Quoyles and it isn’t all good. Quoyle is a kind man, but a bit of a bumbler, or so he thinks. He has a job at the local newspaper writing about car wrecks and the shipping news. (I could have done without the detailed newspaper reports of the s*x abu se cases.) He takes care of his little girls, Bunny and Sunshine, as well as his aunt. Or is his aunt taking care of him? (I was fascinated by her character, especially the certain incident with the outhouse!) All in all, it’s an engaging domestic drama taking place in a freezing, unforgiving climate.
In the end, I still didn’t like the writing style, but I did enjoy reading about this family and Newfoundland. I’m now looking forward to viewing the movie adaptation.
1993, 337 pp.
Rating: 3.5
Winner, Pulitzer Prize
Winner, National Book Award
This book created a little controversy when it won the Newbery Medal because it contains the word ‘scrotum’ in relation to a snake bite on a dog. I’m almost conservative as they come, and I don’t see what the big deal is. I really liked this book and found it to be very charming.
Lucky is a girl whose mother has died and who lives with a Frenchwoman. They live in the desert of California in a very small (population 43) community. Also in her life besides her French guardian Brigitte are Miles, a cute little boy whose favorite book is Are You My Mother?, and Lincoln, a boy her age who is obsessed with knot tying.
These relationships and the longings of this little girl form the heart of the novel. I really cared about these characters and found myself rooting for all of them.
Now the only friendship I still had, however unexpected, had been upended. I was tired of being adrift. Tired of romance and attraction and all the complications and ruination it entailed. Tired of trying to find some pattern, divine or not, in what had happened, what was happening to me. Most of all, though, I was tired of Jane Austen ruining my life. – p.146
by Linda Sue Park won the Newbery Medal in 2002. It is a tale of duty, loyalty, and perseverance. The book is set in 12th century Korea.
Tomato Girl is a heartbreaking novel of love, desire, and madness.
Per Petterson’s book, which won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2007 Dublin IMPAC Award, is one to read slowly and savor. It’s definitely character driven, but oh, what a beautiful read. It also gives a strong sense of place for Norway.
This autobiographical novel by Sylvia Plath certainly gives insight about her mental illness. It’s a fascinating peek into the author’s troubled mind.
I started out not liking the writing style of this book at all. This is the first Proulx book I’ve read, but if her other books are written in the same style, she is the queen of both the sentence fragment and the comma splice. I get that some of the sentences were supposed to be news headlines, and I found that to be clever. However, not all of them were and it truly was like fingers on a chalkboard to me. After a few chapters, though, I found the storyline very compelling. The characters were well drawn, and I was sympathetic to their life situations. I discovered that I wanted to keep reading so I could learn what happened to them.
