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Monster Trouble! by Lane Fredrickson, illustrated by Michael Robertson

October 9, 2015 by

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 26 pgs.
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Monster Trouble! by Lane Fredrickson, illustrated by Michael Robertson, was a big hit.  Winifred Schnitzel has an active imagination and is fearless, even when monsters arrive in her bedroom.  Like my daughter, she loves Halloween, monsters, and ghouls, but what she doesn’t like is interrupted sleep.  She tries to ignore their noises and their distractions, but it’s of no use.  The more the monsters come and visit, the sleepier she is during the day.  She can’t even have fun.

While the immediate subtext for adults is that this child who loves monsters is having dreams that keep her from achieving full rest — they might be nightmares.  Parents can use this story to teach little ones about being strong and taking care of their nightmares with their imaginations.  Winifred uses a Monsters Beware book to lay traps, use smelly cheeses, and more to get the monsters to leave.  But the biggest weapon she has is her love for all that’s ghoulish.

Monster Trouble! by Lane Fredrickson, illustrated by Michael Robertson, has been read more than once, and my daughter adores the colorful “scary” monsters and the traps Winifred sets for them.  We were giggling as the monsters get trapped and outwit her, until finally she turns on the love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

The Color Monster: A Pop-Up Book of Feelings by Anna Llenas

October 2, 2015 by

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 20 pgs.
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The Color Monster: A Pop-Up Book of Feelings by Anna Llenas is a wonderful use of paper art and color.  Imagine a gray scale world in which the monster is the only one in color, and his rainbow of color signifies that his emotions are out of control.  This young lady has the patience of a saint as she kindly explains the situation to the monster and they set off together to sort out his emotions.

The young lady and her monster go through the book sorting out the emotions by color into jars from the sunshine of happiness to the blue rain clouds of sadness.  In addition to using paper art, these pop-out images also utilize other materials, including string.  And by the end, she and her monster uncover another emotion, one that they haven’t even labeled, which is accompanied by pink hearts.  The Color Monster: A Pop-Up Book of Feelings by Anna Llenas is delightful to look at and read, but it also is a great tool for helping young kids sort out their emotions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor

September 30, 2015 by

Source: Penguin
Paperback, 256 pgs.
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Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor is told from two points of view, including that of poet Emily Dickinson, and the reader is given a glimpse into the secluded life of the poet through her own eyes as well as those of the new maid and Irish immigrant, Ada Concannon.  Concannon has had wanderlust for some time, and her daydreams have pushed her out of favor with the family her siblings and mother work for, pushing her into a new life in America.  Although she will miss her sisters and family very much, she’s eager to see the world beyond her home.

“‘You cultivate possessiveness,’ Vinnie once told me.  ‘You smother Sue, and every other acquaintance, with friendship.'” (pg. 27 ARC)

“Oh, chimerical, perplexing, beautiful words! I love to use the pretty ones like blades and the ugly ones to console.  I use dark ones to illuminate and bright ones to mourn.  And when I feel as if a tomahawk has scalped me, I know it is poetry then and I leave it be.”  (pg. 40 ARC)

The Dickinson’s are well respected in Amherst, though Emily’s recent withdrawal from society has become part of the town’s gossip.  As a maid in the Dickinson household, she is privy to the inner workings of the family but is also expected to maintain its secrets.  O’Connor has created a believable Emily in terms of action and manner, and her portrayal of immigrants, particularly the Irish, rings true.  O’Connor adopts Dickinson’s style of economical word use to tell her story and it works really well.  These foil characters work well together, as a mutual respect blossoms and friendship emerges between these women.

“But how can I explain that each time I get to the threshold, my need for seclusion stops me? The quarantine of my room–its peace and the words I conjure there–call me back from the doorway.  Ada could not truly appreciate that the pull on me of words, and the retreat needed to write them, is stronger than the pull of people.”  (pg. 52-3 ARC)

“From now on I shall be candle-white.  Dove-, bread-, swan-, shroud-, ice-, extraordinary-white.  I shall be blanched, bleached and bloodless to look at; my very whiteness will be my mark.  But inside, of course, I will roar and soar and flash with color.” (pg. 121 ARC)

Readers will be thoroughly taken in by this novel about Dickinson and the Irish immigrant’s life, and O’Connor provides a real motivating factor for Emily’s seclusion from the outside world.  As Ada’s life is threatened, Emily is forced to act and in so doing, she must leave the home in which she finds solace.  Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor is stunning and one that should not be missed.  A definite best book of the year.

About the Author:

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1970, Nuala O’Connor is a fiction writer and poet. Writing as Nuala Ní Chonchúir she has published two novels, four collections of short fiction, a chapbook of flash fiction and three full poetry collections – one in an anthology. Nuala’s third novel, Miss Emily will be published in 2015.

Nuala holds a BA in Irish from Trinity College Dublin and a Masters in Translation Studies (Irish/English) from Dublin City University. She has worked as an arts administrator in theatre and in a writers’ centre; as a translator, as a bookseller and also in a university library.

Nuala teaches occasional creative writing courses. For the last four years she has been fiction mentor to third year students on the BA in Writing at NUI Galway. She lives in County Galway with her husband and three children.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: ,

Dining With … Monsters: A Disgusting Way to Count to 10! by Agnese Baruzzi

September 25, 2015 by

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 34 pgs.
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Dining With … Monsters A Disgusting Way to Count to 10! by Agnese Baruzzi is a cute children’s book in which young readers can dine with monsters on some of their favorite foods.  From The Beast with Giant Claws and Scales to Mr. One-Eye Not-So-Nice, these beasts eat spiders, frogs, and more.  My daughter has read and re-read this book several times with me and she enjoys flipping open the flaps to count the disgusting creatures being swallowed whole.  Even when we are not reading together, she often opens the book and creates her own stories about these monsters.

The bright, bold colors in these drawings and the short little rhymes are engaging and entertaining, and these characters are scary and funny at the same time. It’s a fun way to count to 10.  At the end, there is even a recap of all the items eaten, so that young readers can recount these items.  Dining With … Monsters A Disgusting Way to Count to 10! by Agnese Baruzzi was a big hit.  Perfect for Halloween and for R.I.P. X.

About the Author:

Qualified from the ISIA in Urbino in 2004, Agnese Baruzzi currently lives in Bologna, Italy. She has been working as an illustrator and has been publishing children’s books since 2001 in several countries. She collaborates with advertising agencies and leads workshops for kids in schools and libraries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Teacher’s Pets by Crystal Hurdle

September 24, 2015 by

Source: Tightrope Books
Paperback, 150 pgs.
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Teacher’s Pets by Crystal Hurdle is ripe with innuendo, secrets, and more. Readers will venture into the wilderness with a class training group, as their instructor Cam teaches them about nature and all of its wonders. Through the interplay of free verse, overheard conversations between students and between teachers, as well as classroom assignments, Hurdle creates an absorbing setting in which the laws of the outdoors are internalized and the students learn to engage with the theory of evolution — “survival of the fittest.”

From "Robert Sedaris" (pg. 47)

He says some trees' taproots
probe and probe,
seek out the heat at the centre of the earth.

Man, I had no idea.
It's as if all my life I was underground
and have just now poked through the surface.

Robert Sedaris is a character full of foreshadowing, and he alludes to many events to come throughout the collection, but his lines are just subtle enough that they read like discussions of nature. In “Robert Sedaris” (pg. 83), “You hear the first little pop/and then so many that individuals can’t be heard,//they are all one./It blows up into something bigger/than you thought possible,/” Working on two levels, Hurdle has crafted a complex collection with multiple moving parts within and around it. In many ways, these little solar systems are orbiting one another and informing a larger sense of action and purpose.

Teacher’s Pets by Crystal Hurdle deals with some heavy issues and lines that should never be crossed — though they often are. These poems are by turns sad and will have readers shaking their heads at naive children, as well as shaking a fist at adults who should know better.

About the Poet:

Crystal Hurdle teaches English and creative writing at Capilano University in North Vancouver. She is the author of the poetry collection After Ted & Sylvia and her poetry and prose has been published in many journals, including Bogg, Canadian Literature, the Dalhousie Review, Event, Fireweed, and the Literary Review of Canada.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest

September 18, 2015 by

Source: Purchased
ebook, 296 pgs.
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A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest is a short novella in which Sophia Claremont is kidnapped by vampires and brought to The Shade to become a slave. She’s given to Prince Derek Novak as a gift from his siblings, though his brother Lucas has already claimed her in his mind. Sophia has had a rough time growing up and was finally settled with a neighboring family and her best friend Ben, whom she’s had a crush on for some time. But she also has debilitating anxiety in crowded spaces, almost like she’s on sensory overload.  However, when she finally awakes on this vampire island, very little is seen of her disorders, until she’s attacked one evening.

“She was beautiful because, at a time when she had every right to be terrified, she managed to show comfort to another person who needed it.”

Derek, who has awakened from a 400 year long sleep, cannot stay away from Sophia and he keeps her like a caged bird in his treetop penthouse.  Her humanity has captured his attention, and even though her blood calls to him, he makes every effort to battle his desires.  As she teaches him about technology and he begins to show her respect, their bond intensifies.  Sophia is a naive character who is led by her emotions easily, and in many ways, she falls for the guy who acts like her protector — whether its teenage Ben at home or Derek the powerful vampire on The Shade.

“I know an excuse when I hear one.  Don’t you dare deceive yourself into believing that you’re the victim.”

A mantra that Ben has used many times to snap her out of her anxiety trances, Sophia finds it can be useful in more ways than one, but even as she tames Derek’s inner beast, she fails to see how she is a victim and needs to take action.  One failed escape attempt is all it takes for her to become complacent, which does little for the tension in the book.  While the characters, setting, and world are intriguing, there is little back story, which can leaving the feud between Derek and Lucas seem empty and can leave the lore of this vampire series feel incomplete.

A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest provides an engaging way to spend the afternoon, but unless there is more back story in the subsequent novels less telling, rather than showing, it would be hard to sustain interested beyond two more books.  There are 18 books in this series.  It boils down to wanting more from the setting and lore beyond the main characters who are dynamic and troubled.

About the Author:

Bella Forrest is the million-bestselling author of the “A Shade of Vampire” series.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Uncertainty Principle: Poems by Roxanna Bennett

September 16, 2015 by

Source: Tightrope Books
Paperback, 126 pgs.
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The Uncertainty Principle: Poems by Roxanna Bennett is a debut collection of poems in which the observation of events can have an impact on its outcome on the human and atomic level.  It is broken down into five sections — The Dominant O, Come From Away, Symptoms of the Disorder, The November Revolution, and Diminishing Returns — and each section delves deeper into the murk to uncover the momentum or the setting of events in motion.  Was it the abuse in childhood that forced her to be bitter and angry or was it being stood up that made her demand more power over her own life?

From “The Bottle Genie” (pg. 26-8)

I’m the empty window panes in a scissored newspaper, finger
of air beneath the door. I’m the cold chisel killing the torch singer,

the alembic that distills you to vapour. I’m what analyzes your
labelled slides, you in my eyes, magnified. I’m your cellar door.

Observation is not the mere passing of time for these narrating personas; it is an art form and a curiosity seeking to be quenched, even in the darkness of human suffering. There is a deep need to get at the root of a person, a situation, a motivation, a hurt. Beyond those who are observing, there are those who self-reflect, looking at the choices made and the life they live but from the outside — detaching themselves from those lives. Like in “Uprising” (pg. 31), “Limits of middle age fence/her in, a dozen lives ride/on her decisions. Memories,//raw beauty of teenage selves, memories,/youth that saw thoughtless uprising,/” where the woman is a decision-maker for those around her — probably her children and husband — and she is looking back to a time when she was not bound by her constraints and was free to turn on a dime and do something new without fearing the consequences — at least not having to fear how the consequences would impact those who rely on her.

From “Diminishing Returns” (pg. 121)

“We have navigated our worth
by the map of skin worn by another.”

…

“Hours dark wing-beats over the contours of her face.
We are the sum of all our choices, the origin of grace.”

Bennett also has a great series of poems in different sections of the collection that rely on echo, in which lines or phrases from one poem appear at the start of the next. These also ratchet up the tension in this collection, as readers are taken on a journey through rough waters and the unpredictability of the churning sea keeps them guessing. The Uncertainty Principle: Poems by Roxanna Bennett is a wounded animal howling in the dark, trying to make sense of the harm that has come and laid its insides bear for the alley cats to sneer and pick at, but it also is an examination of those trials and how they can define us or not, depending on the choices we make.

About the Poet:

Roxanna Bennett studied experimental arts at the Ontario College of Art and Design and creative writing at the University of Toronto. She lives in Whitby, Ontario.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2015, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Same-Different: Poems by Hannah Sanghee Park

September 15, 2015 by

Source: Academy of American Poets (purchased)
Paperback, 72 pgs.
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The Same-Different: Poems by Hannah Sanghee Park, 2014 Walt Whitman Award winner, straddles the line between myth and reality, as Park examines some global myths from China and India to Norway and Greece.  She uses phonemes to uncover the secrets in the words she’s chosen to get at the heart of their meaning to not only reach an origin but to generate a response.  Upon first reading, these poems seem like an exercise in word play, but reading more deeply encourages readers to see the similarities and differences inhere in the words chosen and how those nuances should be celebrated.

From "Bang" (pg. 3)

Just what they said about the river:
rift and ever.

And nothing was left for the ether
there either.

And if anything below could mature:
a matter of nature.

Here the interplay of words peeks beneath the surface of creation myths from the big bang theory to the story of creation in scripture. Rather than focus on the age-old battle between whether creationism or evolution is the correct theory of what happened, Park asks “to have left the world,/to what is left of it –/could you have anything left to cove?” Rather than battle for the correct theory and covet the glory of being correct, shouldn’t we be more focused on the awe of it all and our minor part in it? Park forces readers to question their perceptions of what is important about life, not just what happens in their own lives but also the life around them.

& A (pg 22)

Being a matter
of importance, there

is no mastering
this but to bind you,

thrash and all, to the 
mast.  O you won't reach

irresistible song,
but the rope will teach

you the body's give.
Go down to the bone,

then tell me again
there what matters.  It

will give you every
-thing you need to know

about what I cannot tell you and then,
just maybe then, could it be enough.

Similarities and differences are looked at with new eyes, and in many ways, those differences can be dangerous. However, these poems suggest that even in these perceived dichotomies there is beauty, something to be savored and to be loved. In the final section of poems — Fear — the sum of the poems reads like a single force, gyrating and churning the seas of perception until the final lines. Park wonders aloud what it means to be the fear-driven species that strives to become the sole survivor and upon reaching the summit what is there left but more fear. From “Beyond the meadow, the horizon fails” (pg. 47), “what then to our victor’s highest marks?/Only fear regrouping in your heart of hearts.” And yet, despite all this dreariness and dark, Park leaves readers with a hope, a bleak hope — “everything in life is a placeholder.” The Same-Different: Poems by Hannah Sanghee Park is stunning in its twists and turns, but it will require several reads and recitation aloud in some cases. But the gems within these lines and phrases are well worth the work.

About the Poet:

Hannah Sanghee Park was born in Tacoma, Washington and earned a BA from the University of Washington and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the author of a chapbook, Ode Days Ode (Catenary Press, 2011). She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from The Fulbright Program, 4Culture, The Iowa Arts Council/National Endowment for the Arts, and the MacDowell Colony. Her work has appeared in various journals and publications, including LVNG, Petri Press, Poetry Northwest, and Best New Poets 2013. In 2014, Park won the Academy of American Poets’ Walt Whitman Award.

Park lives in Los Angeles, where she attends the Writing for Screen & Television Program at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Dark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn

September 11, 2015 by

Source: Harper
Paperback, 128 pgs.
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Dark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn, an actress herself, has embarked upon an ambitious collection that looks at the narcissistic and self-mutilating world of Hollywood through the eyes of actresses’ whose lives ended prematurely by their own hands or through the actions of others.  From the famous Marilyn Monroe to the less well-known Barbara La Marr, Tamblyn calls into question the need for perfection among female actresses and how hard it is to find work once these actresses reach a certain age.  There’s also one poem about Lindsay Lohan, which readers may have various reactions to, including shock, dismay, and possibly laughter. (if you want to read what happened when she read the poem, beware it is a bit of a spoiler about the poem)

From "Thelma Todd" (pg. 3-5)

At the bar I run into Nancy,
drinking away her forties,
her eyes are flush broken compasses.
Lost between age fifteen and fifty.

Fermented blood.
Deep-sea drinker.

I do not look into her ocean.
The fish there float to the bottom.
I fear I'll go down there too,
identifying with the abyss.
Washed up.
Banging on the back door of a black hole.

These poems are at best depressing and at worst horrifying. These sparkling actresses are snuffed out by the pressures of Hollywood, but they also have their own demons chasing them. Tamblyn’s sense of the tragic is acute when exposed in lines like these: “But first she said, I’m sorry, Charles, it’s over between us,/tied together the sheets of their love letters,/climbed out the window of his soul.//” (from “Dominique Dunne,” pg. 25) and “I’m going to floss my teeth with the public hair/of the Hollywood night air,/memorize my lines before I snort them.//” (from “Bridgette Andersen,” pg. 30-1) These women’s lives and those of living actress continue to become objectified, and it’s hard to imagine living with that on a day-to-day basis. In many ways, the collection almost suggests to those female actresses who have lived in Hollywood longer, continue to work, and do not fall into a spiral of depression that they are the exceptions.

There is a sense of fight in these poems, as if Tamblyn is calling attention to these tragic stories not only to encourage female actresses to shun these arbitrary pressures, but also to call attention to the public’s role in these tragedies. Celebrity lives have become fodder for the American public, and these poems want to demonstrate the darkness that can follow such attention. Dark Sparkler by Amber Tamblyn is an ambitious collection of poems that will have readers thinking about their own roles in celebrity gossip and objectification.

About the Poet:

Amber Rose Tamblyn is an American actress, author and film director. She first came to national attention in her role on the soap opera General Hospital as Emily Quartermaine. She also starred in the prime-time series Joan of Arcadia, portraying the title character. Her feature film work includes roles in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, The Grudge 2, The Ring, and 127 Hours; she had an extended arc as Martha M. Masters on the main cast of the medical drama House, M.D. She also had a starring role on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men during its eleventh season as Jenny, the illegitimate daughter of Charlie Harper.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: ,

Lives of Crime and Other Stories by L. Shapley Bassen

September 9, 2015 by

Source: L. Shapley Bassen
Paperback, 194 pgs.
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Lives of Crime and Other Stories by L. Shapley Bassen is an odd little short story collection in which the characters are hit with an unimaginable situation and they must cope with the ripples that disturbance creates.  Like many short story collections, some stories will resonate more easily than others.  The title story, Lives of Crime, has a surprise ending, while others are a little more predictable and some are cryptic.  Bassen provides a wide range of characters in a variety of dark situations, including one in which a student’s idea could be published under a credentialed professor’s name, rather than his own.

One of the best stories in the collection, Triptych, involves the restoration of artwork and the lonely life one restorer. Once she finds happiness with someone in her building and things seem to be going well, fate intervenes and turns her world upside down.  As echoes of the art world play out in reality, Bassen creates a series of devastating events that could leave some depressed in the corner.  However, like other stories in the mix, the reader is held at arms length from the characters by the narrative style.

Lives of Crime and Other Stories by L. Shapley Bassen is a collection of vignettes in the lives of those who are unaware that their fate is about to be taken out of their hands.  Each story is intriguing, but many felt unfinished or like they had abruptly finished before the reader was satisfied.  However, the unique situations and characters do provide readers with a lot to ponder, particularly about how they would react in similar situations.

About the Author:

L. Shapley Bassen‘s half dozen plays include Atlantic Pacific Press’s 2009 prizewinner, a comedy, The End of Shakespeare & Co , directed by Pulitzer judge George W. Hayden (Audio excerpt published online). Two more prize winners, from the Fitton Center in Ohio, the one-acts Next of Kin and The Reckoning Ball (the day Brooklyn’s Ebbett’s Field was torn down), were produced in 1998 and 1997. Next of Kin has also been published twice recently in Prick of the Spindle and Ozone Park Journal and was produced in 1999 at NYC’s The American Theatre of Actors. Ms. Shapley-Bassen was a 2011 Finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award, and currently (2013) she is Fiction Editor at The Prick of the Spindle. In 2009, she was on the team of the first 35 readers for successful start-up Electric Literature. She was co-author of a WWII memoir by the Scottish bride of Baron Kawasaki and won a Mary Roberts Rinehart Fellowship. Her stories, book reviews, and poems appear in many lit magazines and zines, including The Rumpus, Horse Less Press, The Brooklyner, Press 1, Melusine, New Pages, and Galatea Resurrects. She is a reluctant ex-pat New Yorker living in Rhode Island, now at work on a new play, Dramatic Anatomy.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch

September 8, 2015 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 240 pgs
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The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch is carnal and grotesque in ways that are vastly unsettling and may be tough to read for many.  Told from a variety of artistic points of view, the story begins with a young girl whose world is literally atomized in war-torn Eastern Europe and the photograph of her that makes the career of one narrator.  While the girl and the photo play a major role in the story, they are not the crux of Yuknavitch’s story.  They are merely a vehicle through which she explores the selfish need for artistic expression and the distortions that emerge.

“We are who we imagine we are.
Every self is a novel in progress.
Every novel a lie that hides the self.
This, reader, is a mother-daughter story.” (pg. 11)

The narration is urgent, like a slapshot in the gut at nearly every turn. While the writer’s friends and family seek to save the girl from the life she has been thrown into after the death of her family, it is clear that a birth has happened. It is the birth of art within the gruesome world the girl inhabits, and it is the birth of connection beyond art and family ties.  The girl reaches from within and from without to recreate her life to be reborn — not as a victim, but as a warrior.

“Pity the small backs of children, he heard her saying.  They carry death for us the second they are born.” (pg. 59)

The stories that begin at the heart of this girl, like the spokes in a wheel, turn and turn, spiraling out of control on a wagon that is hurtling toward a cliff, unless someone can stop it or redirect it. Will these players be destroyed? Will they be saved? Can this “blast particle … looking for form” endure the weight of these stories and their implications?

The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch pushed the envelope repeatedly, searching for the edge and spilling over it with its haunting images, desperate characters, and narcissistic art-making. It is the crucible of pain and suffering that molds us and pushes us to become, to move beyond the child of mere potential into something more tangible that can be criticized and critical. This crucible does not define us, however, unless we allow it to, and Yuknavitch is shoving readers toward a greater understanding of art and themselves.

**Beth Kephart reviewed this book, and I just had to get it from the library.***

About the Author:

Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of the widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water and the novel Dora: A Headcase. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the Iowa Review, Mother Jones, Ms., the Sun, the Rumpus, PANK, Zyzzyva, Fiction International, and other publications. She writes, teaches and lives in Portland, Oregon with the filmmaker Andy Mingo and their renaissance man son Miles. She is the recipient of the Oregon Book Award – Reader’s Choice, a PNBA award, and was a finalist for the 2012 Pen Center creative nonfiction award. She is a very good swimmer.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Race for Paris by Meg Waite Clayton

September 4, 2015 by

tlc tour host

Source: TLC Book Tours
Hardcover, 336 pgs.
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The Race for Paris by Meg Waite Clayton is riveting from the start and a careful blend of fact and fiction about WWII and the female reporters and photographers who were often relegated to the field hospitals and sidelines while their male counterparts were allowed closer to the front and on reconnaissance missions.  Clayton’s characters tough cookies, and they have to be as they face the possibility of death once they’ve ignored their orders to remain at the field hospital.  Liv Harper, an Associated Press photographer know for her blurred faces, and Jane, a reporter for the Nashville Banner, find themselves accompanied by Fletcher, Liv’s husband’s friend.  Fletcher is a British military photographer who often goes it alone in the field to gather intelligence with his photos for the Allied forces, but he’s had a flame burning for Liv ever since he met her.  This unlikely trio is determine to make it to Paris before the other reporters to photograph and tell the tale of its liberation.

“That was the way it was, covering war.  The little bits of detail you could get on paper or on film were just that, little bits that didn’t tell the whole story.  And you couldn’t possibly capture the whole of it no matter how far back you stepped.” (pg. 217 ARC)

Liv has secrets too, and only Jane is aware of some of them.  While Fletcher and Liv are striving toward the front as if chased by ghosts, Jane is tagging along, not so much for the good of her career as someone who cushions the blows that they receive along the way.  She becomes the sounding board for each of them, while she keeps her own council.  Jane is a strong woman, though timid, while Liv is a wild wire set to explode.  Fletcher has taken it upon himself to protect them both, though his desire for Liv often steers him into danger.  While Clayton’s triangle here could be construed merely as a romantic tug-of-war, it is isn’t.  There are more nuanced dynamics at play here, as WWII has touched Fletcher and Liv in very different ways and Jane is observing it as it plays out.

The Race for Paris by Meg Waite Clayton looks through the lens of journalists during one of the most sweeping, horrifying, and tense wars in our world history to provide an encapsulated view of the fighting, the discrimination against female journalists, and the battles dedicated people had to endure to achieve their goals.

About the Author:

Meg Waite Clayton is the New York Times bestselling author of four previous novels: The Four Ms. Bradwells; The Wednesday Sisters; The Language of Light, a finalist for the Bellwether Prize; and The Wednesday Daughters. She’s written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Jose Mercury News, Forbes, Writer’s Digest, Runner’s World, and public radio. A graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, she lives in Palo Alto, California.

Find out more about Meg at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

 

 

 

 

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