Emma Donoghue has written a novel here that touches on so many topics. There are many balls that she throws expertly int he air and keeps them all aloft until the very end. She touches on the Holocaust, and Nice, France, intersecting that with modern life in New York and contrasting the bravery of the resistance and those secreting children out from under the Nazis noses to undercover confidential informant who is working to help the police expose a drug dealer.
We are introduced to Noah Selvaggio, the grandson of a famous photographer, Pere Sonne and son of Margot Sonne. He is turning eighty years old and for his birthday he is off to Nice, France for the first time since his mother sent him, by himself, at the age of three, to America, 1944 to escape the war, to meet up with his father, Marc Selvaggio. His mother joined them three years later. Noah never learned anymore about his mother's background and now she has passed on. His sister has also died and left him some pictures he is taking with him to France to try and identify.
Days before his departure, he receives a call from a social worker who informs him that his nephew who died, estranged from the family, from a drug overdose, has left an eleven year old son, Michael Young, who needs a home at least temporarily and Noah is the closest living relative.
As Noah and Michael set off for France they will experience a few huddles to overcome in how to relate to each other and how to work together. Donoghue tries to create the tension that happens when two people who have never met and have such different backgrounds need to work together. Noah has never been a parent, and Michael is that tough inner city kid who is worldly and not necessarily good mannered and polite. He is obsessed with his cellphone and video games.
I felt some of this was unrealistic for these unlikely traveling partners. I did not find that the emotional relationship between the two was well defined. As they are traveling together, Michael is helping Noah to recreate the history that his mother may have lived through during the war in Nice. But we are never told the real story which felt unfulfilling. Also, Michael seems to figure things out without any real facts. Noah, at the same time, is realizing that you don't always know the whole story and we make assumptions based on prior knowledge that could be wrong. So as he realizes that he may have missed judged his nephew, he becomes more sympathetic to Michael. But again we never get to find out the true story, which felt frustrating.
There is a happy ending and it is nice to see that each of the characters has grown and that there is a positive outcome, that life should treat these characters well in the future. That people are strong and resilient.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
The World That We Knew
Alice Hoffman has once again created a fascinating novel. I loved so many of her previous novels, including The Dovekeepers, The Museum of Extraordinary Things and The Marriage of Opposites. Her newest novel called The World That We Knew, is a historical novel that mixes reality and magical mysticism to build a story of love, loss and bravery during a time of hate and fear.
Though Hoffman has included Judaism in some of her other books, this time she has written indirectly about the Holocaust. She brings the reader into the room with a mother who wants to save her young daughter from the atrocities of war that she knows are coming. Lea Kohn has narrowly escaped being raped and her mother Hanni realizes that Berlin has become too dangerous to survive. Hanni does not want to leave her own mother behind so she contrives to send twelve year old Lea away.
To protect Lea she she goes to the Rabbi to create a Golem to accompany Lea as she travels to Paris and hopefully freedom. The Rabbi's daughter is convinced to create this mystical creature and also wants to send her young sister Marta along to escape. The Golem, Ava is created from mud on the banks of the river Spree. She is brought to life with the recitation of the secret name of G-d.
She is supposed to have no feelings of her own, just the desire of Lea's mother to love her like her mother would and protect her. Ava is tall, strong and confident. She learns languages — including birdsong — in minutes and can kill on Lea’s behalf.
As they travel together so many things change along the way. They relationship develops and changes. The reader more and more accepts the reality of Ava and her developing feelings for life and the world becoming more human as time goes on.
Ava represents all the parents who risk their lives and take extreme measures to save their children and protect them during the Holocaust. Using this fairy tale like soulless supernatural protector out of Jewish folklore to call attention to the harsh realities of World War II.
Though Hoffman has included Judaism in some of her other books, this time she has written indirectly about the Holocaust. She brings the reader into the room with a mother who wants to save her young daughter from the atrocities of war that she knows are coming. Lea Kohn has narrowly escaped being raped and her mother Hanni realizes that Berlin has become too dangerous to survive. Hanni does not want to leave her own mother behind so she contrives to send twelve year old Lea away.
To protect Lea she she goes to the Rabbi to create a Golem to accompany Lea as she travels to Paris and hopefully freedom. The Rabbi's daughter is convinced to create this mystical creature and also wants to send her young sister Marta along to escape. The Golem, Ava is created from mud on the banks of the river Spree. She is brought to life with the recitation of the secret name of G-d.
She is supposed to have no feelings of her own, just the desire of Lea's mother to love her like her mother would and protect her. Ava is tall, strong and confident. She learns languages — including birdsong — in minutes and can kill on Lea’s behalf.
As they travel together so many things change along the way. They relationship develops and changes. The reader more and more accepts the reality of Ava and her developing feelings for life and the world becoming more human as time goes on.
Ava represents all the parents who risk their lives and take extreme measures to save their children and protect them during the Holocaust. Using this fairy tale like soulless supernatural protector out of Jewish folklore to call attention to the harsh realities of World War II.
Monday, December 9, 2019
The Crepes of Wrath
As the snow is falling outside and winter has set in to stay for awhile, reading mystery novels that involve some delicious recipes to go along with a good crime to try and solve.
So I settled in with Tamar Myers series about Magdalena Yoder, the owner and hostess of the PennDutch Inn. But be careful when you book a room at this Bed and Breakfast, because this is the ninth in a series of murder mysteries that are happening in around this Pennsylvania Dutch Inn.
Magdalena has grown up in a Mennonite family in this Amish small town of Hernia. She inherited this house and now runs it as a B&B with her aunt Freni cooking in the kitchen.
In previous books these characters have been developed and details of their background has been elaborated on. In this book we find Mags with a full house, including a Hollywood couple and gym teacher. She tries to help her guests get the full Amish country experience, including paying extra to help clean, cook and even gather the eggs from the hens. At the same time she is trying to help solve the murder of town
Her sister, Susannah, is married to the Police Chief, Melvin Stoltzfus, who is very busy running his political campaign to get elected local councilman. So he deputizes Mags to help him discover the killer of both Lizzie Mast and then the subsequent death of Thelma Hershberger. Lizzie Mast was a friend but it is well known she was a terrible cook. But why would anyone want to kill her? Then it is even more complicated when Thelma is killed and we need to figure out how they were connected.
This just another fun cozy mystery that will keep you warm and comfortable as you read this formulaic novel and then you can eat some delicious comfort food as you eat some crepes with a variety of fillings.
Tamar Myers likes to write these simple cozy formulaic style mysteries and she has a following for this series and her other antique dealer series also. This Pennsylvanian Dutch series with recipes now has twenty one books.
More interesting might be that she is also writing a Belgian Congo mystery series, about which she has quite a bit of knowledge because she grew up there in the village of a headhunters. Her parents were missionaries and her childhood sounds incredible. I will possibly try and read one of the books in this series.
So I settled in with Tamar Myers series about Magdalena Yoder, the owner and hostess of the PennDutch Inn. But be careful when you book a room at this Bed and Breakfast, because this is the ninth in a series of murder mysteries that are happening in around this Pennsylvania Dutch Inn.
Magdalena has grown up in a Mennonite family in this Amish small town of Hernia. She inherited this house and now runs it as a B&B with her aunt Freni cooking in the kitchen.
In previous books these characters have been developed and details of their background has been elaborated on. In this book we find Mags with a full house, including a Hollywood couple and gym teacher. She tries to help her guests get the full Amish country experience, including paying extra to help clean, cook and even gather the eggs from the hens. At the same time she is trying to help solve the murder of town
Her sister, Susannah, is married to the Police Chief, Melvin Stoltzfus, who is very busy running his political campaign to get elected local councilman. So he deputizes Mags to help him discover the killer of both Lizzie Mast and then the subsequent death of Thelma Hershberger. Lizzie Mast was a friend but it is well known she was a terrible cook. But why would anyone want to kill her? Then it is even more complicated when Thelma is killed and we need to figure out how they were connected.
This just another fun cozy mystery that will keep you warm and comfortable as you read this formulaic novel and then you can eat some delicious comfort food as you eat some crepes with a variety of fillings.
Tamar Myers likes to write these simple cozy formulaic style mysteries and she has a following for this series and her other antique dealer series also. This Pennsylvanian Dutch series with recipes now has twenty one books.
More interesting might be that she is also writing a Belgian Congo mystery series, about which she has quite a bit of knowledge because she grew up there in the village of a headhunters. Her parents were missionaries and her childhood sounds incredible. I will possibly try and read one of the books in this series.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Waisted
OK, so I admit it, I am one of those women who has been obsessed with my body since my teen years. Always looking at others thinking I should be thinner, that I should have smaller thighs, that if my breasts were smaller I would look better in my clothes. Dieting was the focus of the 1970s and
it is only now, looking back from the weight I am today, (not thin), that I can see how great I really looked back then. Oh to weigh now what I weighed in High School!!!
But finally, I think, I am mostly happy with myself and even though it would be nice to fit into that dress or those pants, I am happy with myself and not stressing over my weight. I am enjoying every day and exercising only because it is good for me...nothing in the extreme.
But I will say that to sit reading a book about dieting and food and extreme exercising and weigh ins, makes you think about eating and what should I eat as a snack while I am reading. So those cookies or chips probably are not a good idea and I should be eating some carrots or apple slices instead... oh does it ever really end??
Waisted by author Randy Susan Meyers is an incredibly well written novel with clever, witty repartee. The characters are well drawn and the descriptions of the weight loss program is an accurately created exaggeration of the weight loss TV programs. It is really true, the question of what lengths will people go to to achieve the ideal body. and also the idea of almost never being happy with the body you have and always having to maintain that level of intense exercise and restraint to keep the beautiful body when you get there.
So many of us grew up with Jewish mothers who thought they were helping us and themselves going from diet to diet and at the same time telling us to eat and finish everything on our plates.
This is the story of three women who meet after they each for different reasons feel that their relationships with men would be improved if they were thinner. They are, of course, obese so that there is a reason to try and lose so much weight that they go to get help. The ad they each have answered promises weight loss with dignity and caring. What they find is a group of people who are using humiliation and degradation to manipulate them and see how far they are willing to go to achieve their dream.
Over a light lunch, Randy Susan talked about her childhood, growing up in Brooklyn NY with her mother and shopping with her grandmother. Each of her novels are based on stories she has experienced and she does say that her personal characteristics are evident in the characters in her books. She talks about her relationship with food and about all the women she interviewed and research she did about what women go through to work toward their ideal body. personally, Meyers feels she has reached a good relationship with food and her body.
Randy Susan Meyers is the bestselling author of Waisted, Accidents of Marriage, The Comfort of Lies, The Murderer’s Daughters, and The Widow of Wall Street. Her books have twice been finalists for the Mass Book Award and named “Must Read Books” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. She lives with her husband in Boston, where she teaches writing at the Grub Street Writers’ Center.
Over a light lunch, Randy Susan talked about her childhood, growing up in Brooklyn NY with her mother and shopping with her grandmother. Each of her novels are based on stories she has experienced and she does say that her personal characteristics are evident in the characters in her books. She talks about her relationship with food and about all the women she interviewed and research she did about what women go through to work toward their ideal body. personally, Meyers feels she has reached a good relationship with food and her body.
Randy Susan Meyers is the bestselling author of Waisted, Accidents of Marriage, The Comfort of Lies, The Murderer’s Daughters, and The Widow of Wall Street. Her books have twice been finalists for the Mass Book Award and named “Must Read Books” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. She lives with her husband in Boston, where she teaches writing at the Grub Street Writers’ Center.
Sunday, October 13, 2019
The Chelsea Girls
A historical fiction novel that is a fascinating plot and keeps you reading until the very last page, written by Fiona Davis.
This is another fascinating historical novel taking the reader through history with a clever, fast paced plot. This novel illustrates what happened in America after the war. About how McCarthyism became acceptable and believable in this country.
Introducing readers to a group of young single girls who had performed for the troops in Europe, Davis sets the stage for three strong women who defied their parents and the conventions of that time. They loved the theatre and movies and craved fame. They travel to entertain the troops and all become friends. They even try to go against the army officers to save two young men who they believe are resistance fighters.
After the war they meet up again at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan and are pursuing careers in theatre.
You are drawn into the world of the Chelsea Hotel and the women who lived there. It is fascinating to think that at that time, women really did not leave home for a career and live alone. The hotel management was protective of their privacy. They had sort of a quiet sorority of a kind there. Then each women makes some choices that will change the course of history and their lives. McCarthyism had really taken hold in the US and people did not know how to stand up to the accusations against them. People were living in fear especially those who were in the media and show business. This book tries to show how you could get caught up in the mania and also how your could be ruined by the hysteria.
Each one has some secrets they are reluctant to share. As they negotiate life and love interests, their secrets will affect their lives and the lives of the others.
This is another fascinating historical novel taking the reader through history with a clever, fast paced plot. This novel illustrates what happened in America after the war. About how McCarthyism became acceptable and believable in this country.
Introducing readers to a group of young single girls who had performed for the troops in Europe, Davis sets the stage for three strong women who defied their parents and the conventions of that time. They loved the theatre and movies and craved fame. They travel to entertain the troops and all become friends. They even try to go against the army officers to save two young men who they believe are resistance fighters.
After the war they meet up again at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan and are pursuing careers in theatre.
You are drawn into the world of the Chelsea Hotel and the women who lived there. It is fascinating to think that at that time, women really did not leave home for a career and live alone. The hotel management was protective of their privacy. They had sort of a quiet sorority of a kind there. Then each women makes some choices that will change the course of history and their lives. McCarthyism had really taken hold in the US and people did not know how to stand up to the accusations against them. People were living in fear especially those who were in the media and show business. This book tries to show how you could get caught up in the mania and also how your could be ruined by the hysteria.
Each one has some secrets they are reluctant to share. As they negotiate life and love interests, their secrets will affect their lives and the lives of the others.
My Ex Life
OK , os I am adding to this review ... I have reread the book and gotten the exciting opportunity to interview the author Stephan McCauley about this book, My Ex-Life. It has of course changed my perspective and increased my appreciation for the novel.
Though I say at the end of this review that it is a sweet and funny, there is so much more to this plot. Yes, the novel has quite a few funny interactions between characters. There are great, colorful and funny descriptions of characters, but each of these characters are very deep and complicated souls.
Each character has an ex-life in some fashion. Each character is flawed in some way. Each character is caring around a secret that is weighing them down.
David Hedges is living a swinging life of a single gay man in San Francisco. He is renting a cute cottage with a attractive address, having just broken up with his latest relationship, he works to help young graduating seniors apply to colleges.
His ex wife, Julie, is living on the opposite coast, just outside Boston, with her daughter and finalizing her divorce from her second marriage. She about to lose her house and her daughter is supposed to be applying to college. While going through some old papers, Mandy discovers her mother's ex, she writes to him asking him to come help her write her essay and fill out college applications.
Mandy thinks bringing her mother and the ex together seems like a great idea. The pressure is on from Mandy's dad to get focused on college admissions and he also want Julie to sell the house so he can put more money into his restaurant. He is ready to move on and remarry. All Julie needs now is money to buy him out. She is renting out rooms in the house as an airbnb. Her life is so mixed up and the reefer isn't help her keep a clear head.
David comes east and helps to fix not only the house, but Mandy, Julie and his life.
Following each of these main characters as they interact with each other and try to negotiate their lives, we learn about their secrets and desires. This book though written in alight hearted manner, really delves deeply into each characters inner thoughts and feelings. Even the supporting actors are well developed roles, which help the story unfold. The neighbor, friend who acts one way but is different on the inside and the creepy boyfriend, dangerous character in Mandy's life are perfectly portrayed.
I really got attached to Mandy , Julie's daughter, and was quite concerned as she seemed to be going down a danger path. As a parent, I was concerned about the lack of watchfulness that Julie was showing and the lack of knowledge that David had about how to care for a teenager.
A sweet, heartbreaking and funny novel about family, love and what being home really means. The dialog is snappy and very relevant. Sometimes family and caring for others is not limited to the one you are married to.
Though I say at the end of this review that it is a sweet and funny, there is so much more to this plot. Yes, the novel has quite a few funny interactions between characters. There are great, colorful and funny descriptions of characters, but each of these characters are very deep and complicated souls.
Each character has an ex-life in some fashion. Each character is flawed in some way. Each character is caring around a secret that is weighing them down.
David Hedges is living a swinging life of a single gay man in San Francisco. He is renting a cute cottage with a attractive address, having just broken up with his latest relationship, he works to help young graduating seniors apply to colleges.
His ex wife, Julie, is living on the opposite coast, just outside Boston, with her daughter and finalizing her divorce from her second marriage. She about to lose her house and her daughter is supposed to be applying to college. While going through some old papers, Mandy discovers her mother's ex, she writes to him asking him to come help her write her essay and fill out college applications.
Mandy thinks bringing her mother and the ex together seems like a great idea. The pressure is on from Mandy's dad to get focused on college admissions and he also want Julie to sell the house so he can put more money into his restaurant. He is ready to move on and remarry. All Julie needs now is money to buy him out. She is renting out rooms in the house as an airbnb. Her life is so mixed up and the reefer isn't help her keep a clear head.
David comes east and helps to fix not only the house, but Mandy, Julie and his life.
Following each of these main characters as they interact with each other and try to negotiate their lives, we learn about their secrets and desires. This book though written in alight hearted manner, really delves deeply into each characters inner thoughts and feelings. Even the supporting actors are well developed roles, which help the story unfold. The neighbor, friend who acts one way but is different on the inside and the creepy boyfriend, dangerous character in Mandy's life are perfectly portrayed.
I really got attached to Mandy , Julie's daughter, and was quite concerned as she seemed to be going down a danger path. As a parent, I was concerned about the lack of watchfulness that Julie was showing and the lack of knowledge that David had about how to care for a teenager.
A sweet, heartbreaking and funny novel about family, love and what being home really means. The dialog is snappy and very relevant. Sometimes family and caring for others is not limited to the one you are married to.
Monday, September 16, 2019
Double, Double Toil and Truffle
Next in the Bewitched By Chocolate series by H Y Hanna. This is a cute cozy mystery series about a young twenty something girl who finds out that the woman she thought was her mother had really found on the side of the rode in a basket, left there by her true birth mother. When the famous actress who brought up dies, Caitlyn Le Fey leaves America and goes back to the English countryside to find her real family.
In this mystery series Caitlyn has found her birthplace, the little village of Tillyhenge, that is owned by the Fitzroy family. James is the current heir and handsome love interest of Caitlyn. She has also found the Bewitched By Chocolate chocolate shop run by the Widow Mags, who turns out to be Caitlyn's grandmother and her daughter Bertha who runs the local herb and remedy shop.
There is always a mysterious death in the village that Caitlyn and her best friend Pomona work to solve while Caitlyn tries to win the affections of James. It was cute at the beginning but now so many books into the series, her inexperience in the ways of love and flirting is getting a bit odd.
I get that the author wants to stretch the build of a romance between them but this has gone on too long.
In this novel, a woman comes to town saying she is a witch with potions and powers to place curses and cures on people. She stirs up the anger of the villagers who pay her and then don't get satisfaction for the magic skills they asked for. A famous witch hunter also appears in the village and is invited to dinner at the Fitzroy mansion. When a body turns up Caitlyn is on the trail to find out why the murder took place...
The best paragraph in the book is spoken by Caitlyn's aunt Bertha, when she explains about being in control over the power of witchcraft, " But how can you ever be sure you are in control, and it's not the other way around? You could become a slave to the forces of Dark Magic before you realize. The darkness is there in all of us you know, and it takes great strength of character to make the right choice - the difficult choice. To choose understanding over judgement, forgiveness over revenge."
I think this is a good message for everyone even those of us who have no magical powers and just need to make good decisions, and make our chocolate the old fashion way with our own two hands.
In this mystery series Caitlyn has found her birthplace, the little village of Tillyhenge, that is owned by the Fitzroy family. James is the current heir and handsome love interest of Caitlyn. She has also found the Bewitched By Chocolate chocolate shop run by the Widow Mags, who turns out to be Caitlyn's grandmother and her daughter Bertha who runs the local herb and remedy shop.
There is always a mysterious death in the village that Caitlyn and her best friend Pomona work to solve while Caitlyn tries to win the affections of James. It was cute at the beginning but now so many books into the series, her inexperience in the ways of love and flirting is getting a bit odd.
I get that the author wants to stretch the build of a romance between them but this has gone on too long.
In this novel, a woman comes to town saying she is a witch with potions and powers to place curses and cures on people. She stirs up the anger of the villagers who pay her and then don't get satisfaction for the magic skills they asked for. A famous witch hunter also appears in the village and is invited to dinner at the Fitzroy mansion. When a body turns up Caitlyn is on the trail to find out why the murder took place...
The best paragraph in the book is spoken by Caitlyn's aunt Bertha, when she explains about being in control over the power of witchcraft, " But how can you ever be sure you are in control, and it's not the other way around? You could become a slave to the forces of Dark Magic before you realize. The darkness is there in all of us you know, and it takes great strength of character to make the right choice - the difficult choice. To choose understanding over judgement, forgiveness over revenge."
I think this is a good message for everyone even those of us who have no magical powers and just need to make good decisions, and make our chocolate the old fashion way with our own two hands.
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