A Woman Is No Man

 Etaf Rum has written an incredible book about the life of Palestinian women living both in the Mid East and in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, NY.  Similar to other Semite religious groups, when practiced in the extreme these lifestyles are both dangerous and in today's modern world, so unnecessary.

A Woman Is No Man follows the story of three generations of Palestinian women, as children, daughters, wives and mothers.  Starting back when Israel was still called Palestine, we meet the family of Kahald and Fareeda who are displaced from their homes by the Israelis and are living in poverty in a camp.  As a young couple with small children they save their money and move to America looking for a better life.  But also wanting to keep their religious and ethnic practices.  Unfortunately men are the stronger, controlling force and women have no voice in this society.  They brings those ideals with them to America.  When it is time for their oldest son to marry they travel back to their homeland to find a bride.  As is the custom, an arranged marriage is contracted and Isra is brought back to Bay Ridge to join the family.  She is completely unprepared for the life she has been thrust into.

Amazingly, we read this story from the viewpoints of various women in the family at different time periods, the mother-in-law, Fareeda, Isra and her daughter, Deya, and for each generation things do not change dramatically. The other unbelievable thing about this story is that each chapter is dated and we are not reading about history, this story takes place in current day.  

A beautiful story that fully exposes the rawness of these women's lives.  A woman is not a man, so they are not allowed to do so many things that men can do, but also as a woman is expected to do so many things, take of the house, the children.  They are really the backbone of the family and in a way are actually stronger then the men.

A Single Thread

Tracy Chevalier has written a book about the the complexities of women's lives in the early nineteenth century following the first world war. A surprising little sleeper of a novel.  Found this one and thought it was not going anywhere at the beginning but then, it surprised me by dealing with some interesting topics that would have been kept behind closed doors in 1932.  

If you are not following the prescribed pattern of marriage and family, then you are a spinster who should stay home and take care of your aging parents.  To deviate from that path is frowned upon and confuses the world around you.

Meet Violet Speedwell who is an unmarried woman who is frustrated by the expected norms of her time. She is labeled a surplus woman, one of many who are not married and their chances of finding a husband are reduced by the loss of men's lives in World War One.  Running away from a disagreeable mother who has lost both her son to war and her husband, is always sharing her negativity toward Violet.  

Violet moves to a neighboring town, gets a job as a typist and takes a room in a boarding house.  She tries to make friends and fill her life with interesting activities.  She finds her fulfillment with a group of broderers, women who create embroidery for seat cushions and other decorative objects for the church.  She discovers that she loves being a broderer, feeling apart of the group of women at the local church who embroider seat cushions and kneelers.  

Violet shows her confidence as she negotiates with her boss for an increase in salary and more heat in the office.  She spreads her wings as she makes friends and connects with her brother and his family.  She even looks for love.  Thus finding companionship and creating art that will leave her legacy, Violet is content, until things happen that could shake up the comfort she has built.   There are some unexpected twists and turns in the quiet novel. 

Rachel to the Rescue

 Looking for something light to lighten the current political mood is Rachel to the Rescue by the fabulous author Elinor Lipman.  She is one of my favorite authors and her books are always so appropriate to the topic she is writing about.  She know how to use humor to make a point.  IF you have been using the late night TV news satire programs to make it through the last four years this book is for you.

Rachel has left her parents in New York and moved to Washington DC looking for work.  She gets a job in  the Trump White House in an obscure office.  Though she is happy to be working she is incredulous about what is happening in the Trump administration and what her job entails.  In a late night indiscretion she sends an inappropriate email and is fired from her job.  Leaving the White House and crossing the street on her way out she is hit by a car.  As she is recovering from the incident in the hospital and finding out what happened following her release is the stuff of comic relief.  

Lipman takes us on a journey that really plays on all the craziness of the last few years and how this absurd scenario could possibly have almost really happened.  I think that is what makes this novel so much fun.  You can almost imagine it happening.  There are roommate friendships, romance and intrigue.

Elinor Lipman has done it again with a terrific entertaining satire on current day.

The Girl in The Blue Coat

The Girl in The Blue Coat, written by Monica Hesse, is an outstanding book for teens and adults. Though the premise for the story is about the Holocaust, it is not the same as any others you have read.  This novel takes place in 1943 German occupied Amsterdam.  It is a touching sweet plot about how the teenagers there became engrossed in helping the underground and rescuing their Jewish neighbors as the Nazis overtook their country and brought the war to their doorstep.

Hanneke is only sixteen when her boyfriend is killed fighting the encroaching German army.  She leaves school and takes a job working for the local undertaker.  Her main tasks are secretarial, but on the side he asks Hanneke to deliver some black market goods to different clients around the city.  She never shares this part of her responsibilities with her parents. But then one of her customers, Mrs. Janssen asks her not for coffee, cigarettes, or nylons but to help her find Mirjam, a missing Jewish 15-year-old girl in a blue coat who seems to have disappeared into thin air.

As Hanneke tries to locate the girl, she realizes there are people her age, some of whom she went to school with, who are doing even more dangerous tasks to help the Jewish people being taken away from the city.  Her eyes are opened to the horrors of what is happening around her and they want her help.

She gets more involved as she tries to find out what happened to the girl in the blue coat. She also starts to get involved in helping others in the Dutch resistance.  She is awed by what some of the other teens are doing and she realizes there is no room for selfish behavior and looking away.

This is a beautiful coming of age story. An unforgettable novel about the war and how a young Dutch girl’s life-changing decision to find a missing Jewish girl affects her and the people around her.  Well researched and wonderfully written, the book is a nonstop reading experience about  the horrors and intense realities of the Holocaust from a different perspective.  

Watching Hanneke grow up and find her voice and her inner strength.  Hanneke's handling of moral decisions and responsibilities keep the reader emotionally engaged in this page turner.

Evening

Evening, a novel written by Nessa Rapoport is an interesting look at family dynamics when a young person dies and the family comes together to sit shiva.  This is also a look at the complexities of sisterly rivalry.

Eve has run away from Toronto to New York City to escape the scrutiny of her parents, because she has chosen a less conventional lifestyle than her sister Tam.  Eve teaches adult education classes, living in Manhattan in a relationship that she does not think she wants to lead to marriage.  Her sister Tam has followed the more traditional route of marriage and children along with her successful television career.  At first it seems their parents are partial to Tam's choices and Eve is resentful.  

We meet Eve as she has returned home for the funeral.  Tam has passed after a battle with breast cancer. But as we meet all the characters at Tam's funeral, we begin to see the cracks in the facade.  Eve and Tam ended their relationship with a argument.  Tam wanted Eve to settle down and maybe move closer to home in Canada.  Tam felt Eve should follow the more traditional lifestyle and get married to the man she is living with and have children.  Eve got angry and words were exchanged that now can never be taken back.

Eve feels stifled by the family dynamics and is looking to escape with an old high school boyfriend who has come for a shiva call.   The book travels back and forth between the current time, and Eve's memories of childhood, growing up spending family vacations at their grandmother's lake front property.  Then in High School having a relationship with the handsome boy, Laurie.  Each chapter represents one of the seven days of shiva, with Eve spending her days sitting with her family and going out at night reconnecting and reliving her teen years with Laurie.  The interactions between the characters re-examine the history of all these family interactions.  Looking at where and how these relationships started and developed to the present situation.

There are always family secrets and things you may have misunderstood about even the people closest to you.  A well developed plot with twists and turns that bring you along to a satisfying ending.

Eight Perfect Murders

Eight Perfect Murders is quite the unique and entertaining mystery novel.   Peter Swanson has really researched his mystery genre and come up with the perfect crime.  

In a unique plot twist this novel is written as a memoir.  Writing in the first person, narrator and bookstore owner, Malcolm Kershaw shares his story about his life and relationships.  Writing about his marriage to Claire, his co ownership of the bookstore, Old Devils, with mystery author, Brian Murray and his wife Tess.  We meet Mal, as he is known, which he points out in French means "wrong".   So you as a reader you suspicious from the outset.  

Working in the bookstore one day an FBI agent comes in to ask about a blog post Mal had posted.  The post was list of the eight mystery novels that Mal thought presented the perfect crime.  A crime where the perpetrator would never be caught.  In these eight classic great mystery novels were crimes that possibly could undetected.  A heart attack that was induced by scaring the individual.  An alcoholic who died from over drinking.  How would anyone ever know if it was natural or murder?

With this premise, FBI Agent Mulvey first interviews Mal and then seems to take Mal into her confidence and they are looking for a copy cat murderer who is using the eight mystery novels in the blog to commit more murders.  As the reader follows this investigation you need to decide you believe and who you do not.  

This is a very interesting way to reveal a crime and a spellbinding way to keep the reader guessing what is happening and what will happen next.  Along the way Swanson brings in such great mystery novels. So many excellent authors.  These are my favorite ways to escape with a great mystery that keeps yo in suspense until that last chapter that Mal says, he thinks is corny but sometimes titled, "The Whole Truth" where the big reveal happens and ties up all the loose ends.

The Lost Boys

 Faye Kellerman is back with another mystery novel in the continuing series featuring Detective Inspector, now semi retired, Peter Decker and his lovely wife, Rina Lazarus  Along the way they have left the mean streets of Los Angeles and are settled down in a small town in upstate New York.  

Though Peter wanted something to keep him busy in retirement, he has found the this sleepy college town is anything but sleepy.  This time as he and his sidekick, Tyler McAdams are called in to helps search for a missing young man from a group home, they also stumble across a body from a cold case.  The body buried int he woods is the remains of a student from the local college who went missing ten years prior to being dug up.

Keeping true to the original theme of these mysteries, with Rina, religiously observant, sharing the lessons and practices of  Orthodox Judaism with her husband who has converted to Judaism and practices the faith as much as his work will allow.  Sprinkled with non Jewish associates who always seem to enjoy sharing in a Shabbat dinner or helping Peter stick to the rules of no work on the Sabbath.  Peter and Rina have surrounded themselves with children, grandchildren and a foster son and his girlfriend and Decker's partner, McAdams, who are always ready to learn about a Jewish practice or share in a celebration.

In this novel, we follow Decker and McAdams as they travel to interview family members of the boys who went missing ten years ago, trying to determine what happened in the woods that fateful weekend.

At the same time they are visiting the group home and finally the parents of a girl who also has disappeared with the young man missing.  The parents are all devastated about what is happening to their children.  But they all also realize that once your children leave home you can worry but you really cannot protect them anymore.  

Kellerman has many balls balanced in the air at one time through this novel.  Two cases and also some family drama.  Bringing back the subject of their foster son, Gabriel, and reminding us how he came to be apart of their lives.  Gabe's mother who gave him up, is back in his life and in trouble again. 

Another fast paced entertaining mystery with some of my favorite characters.  It is nice to catch up and Kellerman leaves a few dangling thread at the end to keep us hanging on until she can write and publish the next novel in this series.  I can hardly wait to find out what happens next.