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Unleashing Mr. Darcy by Teri Wilson

February 24, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Paperback, 368 pgs
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Unleashing Mr. Darcy by Teri Wilson takes Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and creates a modern version that will have readers laughing and shaking their heads in frustration as Elizabeth Scott enters the prestigious world of dog shows, where Donovan Darcy reigns as judge.  Unlike the young ladies of the classic novel, women are able to carve their own futures and hold jobs; they no longer need to rely on finding a husband to be happy.  Elizabeth Scott, however, is even less interested in marriage given that her mother owns a bridal shop and insists on fixing her up with eligible men.  She’s made her way as a teacher at a private high school until one day a student in her class is suspended from the lacrosse team because of his failing mid-term grade.  While suspended from her job, she enters her new pup in a dog show where she meets the drop-dead gorgeous and brooding Donovan Darcy, as well as the Barrows, a couple from England that shows terriers.

Like Austen’s novel, Darcy is prideful and Lizzy is prejudiced, though given her treatment by her employer, readers will understand where her prejudice against the wealthy comes from.  Wilson’s modern Darcy and Lizzy are at odds for much of the novel, and while their miscommunications could be addressed more quickly, there would be far less enjoyable banter between the two.  Moreover, Darcy does focus a great deal on Lizzy’s appearance as a reason for his attraction, which can be disheartening for those who view Darcy as more attracted to Lizzy’s personality, intelligence, and loyalty to family and friends.  Given that this Darcy is known for his professionalism and restraint, it’s fascinating to see how Lizzy’s presence makes him lose control in a number of ways.

Wilson breaks open the fascinating world of dog shows, and its wonderful to see how the arena is governed and how rules are sometimes circumvented by participants.  One of the best scenes of the novel is when Darcy quotes from the breed standard in the ring, and Lizzy takes it the wrong way entirely.  Unleashing Mr. Darcy by Teri Wilson is a fun read and is much better than the Hallmark movie version (though Darcy in that film is very easy on the eyes).

About the Author:

Teri Wilson is a romance novelist for Harlequin Books and contributing writer at HelloGiggles.com. Her most recent book is ALASKAN SANCTUARY, set on a wolf habitat in Alaska. She’s also the author of UNLEASHING MR. DARCY, now a Hallmark Channel Original Movie premiering January 23, 2016. Teri loves books, travel, animals and dancing every day.  Visit her Website.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Beautiful Possible by Amy Gottlieb

February 23, 2016 by

tlc tour hostSource: TLC Book Tours
Paperback, 336 pgs.
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The Beautiful Possible by Amy Gottlieb will immerse readers in the religious fervor of Judaism, which is both beautiful in its confinement and infuriating in its inability to be more flexible. Opening with Maya Kerem reminiscing about her parents, the novel seems as though it’s going to be a love story about her parents, but then, readers are introduced to German Jew Walter Westhaus, whose life is shattered one night by the Nazis in 1938.  The tragedy he experiences in his apartment pushes him into blind action, leaving his homeland to board a boat and travel not to Palestine as he and his fiance dreamed but to Bombay, as he follows a man with a brown felt hat.

“They are alone for four days and their recognizable lives become obliterated, irrelevant.  For both of them, this time is not joyful, but necessary.” (pg. 199 ARC)

Despite the complications and the religious context, the story of Walter is one that is familiar, a man who becomes lost in the face of trauma and who wanders to find meaning in what’s left of his life.  The man with the brown felt hat befriends him among the spices and dreams of a different life for Walter.  He begs Walter to come to America and become a scholar of religion and faith.  This is a friendship held at a distance, a connection that allows Walter to meet Sol Kerem and Rosalie Wachs, with whom he will be connected in the most beautiful and impossible ways — creating a deep love and braided life that is beneath the surface of all that they are.

The poetry of the Torah and the other texts examined in Rabbinical school by Walter and Sol mimic the beautiful relationship between Sol, Rosalie, and Walter, an impossible braid that cannot be broken because if it were, all strength would be lost.  While Gottlieb’s characters are each lost in their own way, when they come together, they find the strength and faith they need to keep going, even when they are miles and countries apart.  Like the intertwined relationships of the novel, Gottlieb weaves in religious texts and rituals in a way that is seamless and artistic, making beautiful the impossible.

“…the secret of these weeks will resound in my bones as private music that only I will be able to hear.” (g. 70 ARC)

The Beautiful Possible by Amy Gottlieb is a rapture where decisions are not analyzed but made, and where love is the driving force of faith.  Even in death, a story can live on, unraveling its intricate and closely held secrets for all to behold.  It’s a mystical take on the average lives we lead and how they compare to the dreams of something more that we harbor in locked places.

Rating: Cinquain

About the Author:

Amy Gottlieb’s fiction and poetry have been published in many literary journals and anthologies, and she is the recipient of fellowships from the Bronx Council on the Arts and the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. She lives in New York City.

 

 

 

 

 

I’m calling this my A Fiction Book set during WWII.

Filed Under: ARC, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2016, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

Those Girls by Chevy Stevens (audio)

February 17, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Audiobook, 10 CDs
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Those Girls by Chevy Stevens, narrated by Jorjeana Marie, Emily Woo Zeller, and Nicol Zanzarella, is a dark novel of abuse and its consequences.  The Campbell sisters — Jess, Courtney, and Dani — have lived a downtrodden life in Western Canada, and they try to stay out of the way of their abusive father.  Forced to flee, these teenage girls find a lot more than a life on the run, and the experience they have in small town changes their lives forever.  Stevens has created story that seems sensational and the events a bit convenient, but at its heart there is a strong bond between the sisters that is integral to the story.

There are a lot of frustrating moments in this book, with the girls doing things the reader knows are a bad idea.  Readers will want to slap them silly.  Graphic violence against women can be found in these pages, and a lot of it is tough to take.  Much of the story is told from the point of view of the youngest sister, Jess, who like a true innocent and naive girl, follows her older sisters blindly at times.  She is naive until the worst happens to her, and she has to think like her older sisters to help break them free.  Once free, these girls begin their lives under new names, and readers will think that their story of survival is over … but it isn’t.  Fast-forward 18 years, and the story continues with Skylar, the daughter of one of the girls.

There is a lot of detail in these girls’ movements, particularly as they are going through the abandoned buildings and other locations.  In many ways, the pace of the thriller is bogged down by a lot of these details.  It feels as though the tension is being dragged out on purpose, particularly in the latter half of the novel when Skylar is telling the story.  The older girls are clearly still dealing with PTSD from the trauma, but they also are incredibly naive.  Some of the plot twists are predictable, and the things that the attackers continue to get away with is a little too convenient.

Those Girls by Chevy Stevens, narrated by Jorjeana Marie, Emily Woo Zeller, and Nicol Zanzarella, is a tough read for the graphic violence and the stupidity of the characters, particularly Skylar given what she knows happened to her mother.  This is a little too predictable and sensationalized, but the relationship between the sisters is strong and will hold readers’ interest.  It’s just too bad that Dani’s voice is not heard until the final chapters.

Rating: Couplet

About the Author:

Chevy Stevens grew up on a ranch on Vancouver Island and still calls the island home. For most of her adult life she worked in sales, first as a rep for a giftware company and then as a Realtor. At open houses, waiting between potential buyers, she spent hours scaring herself with thoughts of horrible things that could happen to her. Her most terrifying scenario, which began with being abducted, was the inspiration for STILL MISSING. After six months Chevy sold her house and left real estate so she could finish the book.

Chevy enjoys writing thrillers that allow her to blend her interest in family dynamics with her love of the west coast lifestyle. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s camping and canoeing with her husband and daughter in the local mountains.

Other Reviews:

Filed Under: audiobooks, borrowed copy, fiction, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Jane Austen Lives Again by Jane Odiwe

February 3, 2016 by

Source: Author Jane Odiwe
ebook, 275 pgs.
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Jane Austen Lives Again by Jane Odiwe requires readers to suspend disbelief, and those fans of Jane Austen who wish she had written more than her 6 novels will surely have no problem doing that.  Her death is averted by her physician, who has discovered the secret to immortal life with the help of the Turritopsis dohrnii in 1817.  When Austen awakens she is in 1925, just after The Great War.  Many families, including rich families, have fallen on hard times and experienced great loss as many lost sons, brothers, and husbands in the war.  Times have changed for women, and Austen is able to get work outside the home to support herself, and although her family has passed on and she’s effectively alone in the world, she pulls up her hem and gets to work as a governess to five girls at Manberley Castle near the sea in Stoke Pomeroy.

“Having lived cautiously, and under strict rules and regulations for so long, Miss Austen felt the winds of change blowing across the Devon landscape.”

Cora, Emily, Alice, Mae, and Beth are a bit more to handle than Austen expects, especially as she is a little younger than she had been before the procedure.  Upon her arrival, Austen is faced with staff who are eager to gossip, which rubs her the wrong way because she prefers to make up her own mind about people.  The heir to the castle, William Milton, is one person who keeps her on her toes, and as Austen gets caught up in the drama of others, she begins to realize that her life would be empty without the Miltons in it.

Odiwe is one of the best writers of Jane Austen-related fiction, and it shows as she weaves in Austen’s own novels into her own novel.  Emma, Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice, and more are illustrated in a variety of situations here, and Austen is at the center of them all.  However, readers should be warned that Odiwe is not rehashing these plots point for point.  Jane Austen Lives Again by Jane Odiwe is her best novel yet, and if there were something to complain about, it would be that it could have been longer.

Rating: Cinquain

About the Author:

Jane Odiwe is an artist and author. She is an avid fan of all things Austen and is the author and illustrator of Effusions of Fancy, consisting of annotated sketches from the life of Jane Austen. She lives with her husband and three children in North London.  Check out Jane Odiwe’s blog here.

Other Reviews:

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins (audio)

February 2, 2016 by

Source: Audible
Audiobook, 11 hrs.
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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins — narrated by Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey, and India Fisher — is a mystery in which a woman with low self-esteem, who is an alcoholic, continues to stalk her ex-husband, mostly at a distance.  Rachel Watson’s divorce and drinking caused her to lose her job, but she still wakes up like clockwork to take the train into London so her roommate is unaware that she’s lost her job. She has some money saved, and even though she could be moving on with her life and getting a new job, she wallows in her sorrow at the bottom of a bottle, creating perfect, imaginary lives for the people she sees out the train windows.

Jason and Jess become a couple that she can imagine lives in marital bliss, but in reality, Megan and Scott Hipwell have a marriage that has lost its appeal, at least for Megan. She desires something more than what she has with Scott, who she fails to see as controlling even as he goes through her emails on a regular basis.  She wants her life to be more than just sitting at home waiting for her husband to come home.  Like Rachel, she is dissatisfied with what her life has become.

Rachel, meanwhile, is on the outside of her ex-husband’s life with his new wife and daughter, who continue to live in the house she and he used to live in, and she’s on the outside of the world looking in, much like she’s staring out the train windows.  She’s searching for something, she needs to belong to something, but what she ends up entangling herself in is something that could lead to her own death.  Meanwhile, her ex-husband’s new wife Anna is terrified of Rachel, worried that her stalking will turn to something more.

Listening to the audio was never boring and the different narrators helped when Hawkin’s story changed points of view.  Moreover, the narrator for Rachel really put you in the mindset of a broken woman who was down on herself, blamed herself, and was unable to break out of her self-destructive cycle of drinking and blacking out.  Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train is a twisted tale of the suburban lives we often perceive as idyllic, and the lives we believe we have but actually do not.  How well do we know our spouses, their experiences, their families, and how well do they know us?  Many of us have inner demons or secrets we would rather not face, so we lie about them to ourselves and those we love.

Rating: Quatrain

About the Author:

Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction. Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, Paula moved to London in 1989 and has lived there ever since. The Girl on the Train is her first thriller.

Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, purchased, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Fudge Brownies & Murder by Janel Gradowski

January 27, 2016 by

Source: Janel Gradowski
ebook, 209 pgs.
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Fudge Brownies & Murder (Culinary Competition Mystery #4) by Janel Gradowski, which also includes recipes that will make your mouth water, can be read as part of the series or on its own.  Amy Ridley is a foodie and food competition veteran who always seems to find herself drawn into solving local murders, using her unusual amateur sleuthing skills.  As she helps out her newlywed friends and makes sure Carla’s pregnancy brownie cravings are kept in check with new varieties, Amy has stretched herself into a foodie blog and into part-time work at the local market where other vendors from town sell their wares to customers.  What she finds, even as she’s getting better at blogging and creating new recipes, is that the local market crowd can be a deep pool of sharks waiting to take a bite, especially around the holidays in Kellerton, Michigan.

“Ester Mae’s bluish-black locks were teased and hair sprayed into an inflated up-do that a crow could easily nest in.”

Ester Mae is a brash woman who loves Southern cooking, and she has no qualms about stealing customers any way she can.  But look out if you get into her cross-hairs.  Amy only gets a small taste of Ester Mae’s attitude at the latest competition, but what she sees is a strong willed older woman who knows what she wants.  Amy is balancing all her new roles with the help of yoga and her yoga teacher and friend, Rori.  When someone ends up dead at the new culinary competition, Amy is less personally involved until her friend comes under suspicion.

“He blinked at Amy’s reasoning or Amy logic, which is what he called her ideas that were on the crazier side.”

Fudge Brownies & Murder (Culinary Competition Mystery #4) by Janel Gradowski is another fun cozy mystery that brings Amy Ridley into the middle of another murder investigation.  While she’s trying to help her friends prepare for their new arrival and keep things moving in her business venture, she also stumbles upon her own feelings about motherhood and while she tries not to think about them too deeply, she knows this is an issue she’ll have to confront soon.  Gradowski’s characters are always quirky and fun, and Amy tries to investigate murders without getting into face-to-face confrontations with suspects, but sometimes even the most careful sleuth can find themselves in a bit of danger.

About the Author:

Janel Gradowski lives in a land that looks like a cold weather fashion accessory, the mitten-shaped state of Michigan. She is a wife and mom to two kids and one Golden Retriever. Her journey to becoming an author is littered with odd jobs like renting apartments to college students and programming commercials for an AM radio station. Somewhere along the way she also became a beadwork designer and teacher. She enjoys cooking recipes found in her formidable cookbook and culinary fiction collection. Searching for unique treasures at art fairs, flea markets and thrift stores is also a favorite pastime. Coffee is an essential part of her life.

Other books by this author, reviewed here:

Filed Under: ARC, fiction, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , ,

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley (audio)

January 26, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Audio, 13 CDs
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The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley, narrated by Rosalyn Landor, was our January book club selection, which I read in December.  Carrie McClelland has been writing for some time and she has lived a life with her characters as most authors do, but in this case, her ancestors begin to speak through her.  A novel about the failed attempt to return the exiled James Stewart to the crown in the spring of 1708 in Scotland, McClelland is pulled in another direction when she realizes that her novel needs a new point of view.  In so choosing Sophia Patterson, her late-night writing takes a very different turn, as she uncovers her own family’s past.  In alternating points of view between Carrie as she meets the owner of a cottage she rents for writing and his sons and Sophia’s point of view, the story of her family comes alive.

The dramatic landscape and winter sea call to Carrie, like it called to her ancestors.  In many ways, Kearsley’s narrative asks whether memories can be inherited through DNA?  It also seeks to touch upon how much of our personalities and inclinations come from the people in our families who have gone before us.  The courage and power of love is palpable in Kearsley’s prose, and her characters face a number of obstacles beyond their control, at least in Carrie’s novel.  The life of an author can be lonely, and Carrie falls a bit quickly in love.  However, the author focuses not only on the romance of these characters in the present and past, the Jacobite Movement is well fleshed out, with intrigue and danger.  Landor is a passionate narrator, and she makes all of the twists and turns believable.

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley, narrated by Rosalyn Landor, is wonderfully crafted, combining history with romance in a fantastic way.  Landor does an excellent job with the Scottish accents and dialects.

About the Author:

Susanna Kearsley studied politics and international development at university, and has worked as a museum curator.  Her first novel Mariana won the prestigious Catherine Cookson Literary Prize and launched her writing career. Susanna continued her mix of the historical and paranormal in novels The Splendour Falls, Named of the Dragon, Shadowy Horses and Season of Storms. Susanna Kearsley also writes classic-style thrillers under the name of Emma Cole.

What the book club thought:

Everyone seemed to enjoy this book for the most part.  A couple members wanted a bit more of a supernatural element to tie together the past and present storylines.  It seemed like things happened to connect Carrie McClelland with her ancestors’ past, but it is unclear why.  The Past narrative worked better for me, but others didn’t seem bothered by the past or modern story’s disconnect.  It was definitely an engaging story with an expected happy ending, at least expected by most of us.

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

You by Caroline Kepnes

January 20, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 422 pgs.
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You by Caroline Kepnes is creepy, obsessive, and twisted, and Joe Goldberg and Guinevere Beck are certifiable.  This thriller will pull you in and suck you dry, as Beck walks into a bookstore and flirts with the wrong man.  Kepnes has created two downright sinister characters who are perfect for each other and when circumstance brings them together, everyone around them better watch out.  Check your morals at the door with this one; these two are not redeemable, but you can’t help but watch how everything unfolds between them and how it impacts those around them.  Truly one of the unsettling novels out there.  Kepnes’ prose easily draws in the reader, making them wonder who this obsessive man is and why he’s so drawn to this particular girl.

“‘This will sound crazy, but I’m saving it.  For my nursing home list.’
‘You mean bucket list.’
‘Oh, no, that’s totally different.  A nursing home list is a list of things you plan on reading and watching in a nursing home.  A bucket list is more like … visit Nigeria, jump out of an airplane.'” (pg. 8)

Through careful manipulation of social media and a few lucky breaks, this relationship begins to take a life of its own, and while both parties have their demons, it’s clear that they cannot keep away from one another.  Even though you know throughout what will happen in the end, readers will be up late and turning pages in this psychological thriller.  Joe sees himself as a protector, someone charged with saving Beck from predators, but those predators are not who you’d expect them to be.  Meanwhile, Beck loves new things, and this love of wanting and being wanted is something that drives her incessantly.

“‘There’s no such thing as a flying cage, Joseph,’ he said.  ‘The only thing crueler than a cage so small that a bird can’t fly is a cage so large that a bird thinks it can fly.  Only a monster would lock a bird in here and call himself an animal lover.'” (pg. 47)

Joe is her opposite in that he obsesses over old things and continuously covets old books and collects old and broken typewriters.  He’s waiting for social media to overheat and die, he prefers anonymity, but is it only because he feels unworthy or is it because it enables him to stalk and obsess more freely?  He hates pretentious people who live their lives for others and share everything with everyone, but he too is pretentious in that he’s a book snob.  Dan Brown is not a good enough author, and people should be reading Paula Fox, and they should never pretend to read books.

For those who do not like graphic violence or sex, you should stay away.  You by Caroline Kepnes is riveting and disturbing.  What does it mean to be you?  What is your true self and do you share that with everyone or only a special few?  And what if the real you is scary?  Do you share that self with anyone? Lock it up? Or simply let it out?

About the Author:

Caroline Kepnes is the author of You and Hidden Bodies. She splits her time between Los Angeles, California and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Find her on Facebook.

 

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2016, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , ,

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (audio)

January 19, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Audio, 6 CDs
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Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, narrated by Reese Witherspoon, was a book that was anticipated by many and vilified by others, and I honestly had no desire to read it because of the hype.  (I only picked up this audio because it was available at the library and I needed a new one.)  Jean Louise Finch, known as Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, has returned to Maycomb, Ala., and her aging father, Atticus.  As the civil rights movement gains speed and the NAACP continues to push for rights, the South balks at integration and federal government interference.

Witherspoon is the perfect choice in a narrator for the story, and it is not just about her ability to play Southern characters.  She provides the right amount of empathy, emotion, and detachment needed by each of the characters to make them wholly different from one another, and yet still share similar experiences but view them differently.  There are differences between this novel (which is said to be Lee’s first) and the previously published book (TKAM), and those differences can be stark, especially when there are outcomes in the previously published book that go very differently here. Those are things an editor should have attended to before publishing, but are not the main crux of this story.

This is not about the rape case that Atticus defended, this is about us as children and how we generally worship our parents in one way or another, only to be disappointed that they are humans and not gods.  It’s a book about a young girl who worshiped her father, took in everything he said with little examination, and continued to apply it to her daily living.  Scout has held her father to an impossible standard, and when she returns to find him at a council meeting — one in which she would expect him to protest not take part in — her images are shattered, and she is forced to not only reconcile what she thought she knew about her father but what she knew about herself.

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, narrated by Reese Witherspoon, is a novel about finding the courage and strength to change and to help those around you do the same. The south was in the midst of heavy transitions when Scout returns, and while she was “blind” to the hearts of those around her, even when her eyes are opened to their motivations, it is clear she still has a lot to learn.  The end seems to leave things wide open and unresolved in a way, like Scout’s journey is not finished.

About the Author:

Harper Lee, known as Nelle, was born in the Alabama town of Monroeville, the youngest of four children of Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. Her father, a former newspaper editor and proprietor, was a lawyer who served on the state legislature from 1926 to 1938. As a child, Lee was a tomboy and a precocious reader, and enjoyed the friendship of her schoolmate and neighbor, the young Truman Capote.

After graduating from high school in Monroeville, Lee enrolled at the all-female Huntingdon College in Montgomery (1944-45), and then pursued a law degree at the University of Alabama (1945-50), pledging the Chi Omega sorority. While there, she wrote for several student publications and spent a year as editor of the campus humor magazine, “Ramma-Jamma”. Though she did not complete the law degree, she studied for a summer in Oxford, England, before moving to New York in 1950, where she worked as a reservation clerk with Eastern Air Lines and BOAC. Lee continued as a reservation clerk until the late 50s, when she devoted herself to writing. She lived a frugal life, traveling between her cold-water-only apartment in New York to her family home in Alabama to care for her father.

Having written several long stories, Harper Lee located an agent in November 1956. The following month at the East 50th townhouse of her friends Michael Brown and Joy Williams Brown, she received a gift of a year’s wages with a note: “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.” Within a year, she had a first draft. Working with J. B. Lippincott & Co. editor Tay Hohoff, she completed To Kill a Mockingbird in the summer of 1959. Published July 11, 1960, the novel was an immediate bestseller and won great critical acclaim, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. It remains a bestseller with more than 30 million copies in print. In 1999, it was voted “Best Novel of the Century” in a poll by the Library Journal.

About the Narrator:

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon, known professionally as Reese Witherspoon, is an American actress and producer. She began her career as a child actress, starring in The Man in the Moon in 1991. Witherspoon quickly established herself as a talented actress in films such as Pleasantville (1998), Election (1999) and Cruel Intentions (1999). While filming Cruel Intentions. Behind the camera, Witherspoon launched her own production company Pacific Standard in 2012, which was behind the 2014 films Gone Girl and Wild. The latter, based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed, stars Witherspoon as a woman who takes to the road after the death of her mother. Witherspoon has earned raves for the role, receiving Oscar, Golden Globe, and SAG Awards nominations.

Filed Under: audiobooks, borrowed copy, fiction, Harper Collins, historical fiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Close Quarters by Larry Heinemann

January 12, 2016 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 335 pgs.
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Close Quarters by Larry Heinemann provides a stark view of the life of draftees, like Philip Dosier (Flip), and he pulls no punches in his account of this young man’s life in war.  He’s too young at home to buy alcohol or to vote, but in Nam, he can kill, swear, smoke pot, drink, and die for his country all without explanation or understanding.  Troops are to follow orders, and not to question, but in Flip’s case, and those around him, ignoring, circumventing, or blatantly disregarding orders can be a sign of brotherhood or stupidity.  Close quarters is a fine-tuned look at soldiering, the interactions between grunts and officers, and the friendships fired in the kiln of war.

“I can never go home.  I just want to see it.  I won’t say a thing, cross my heart.  I just want to see it one more time.  I want to smell it, touch it ever so lightly, put my ear to it and hear it tap, tap, tap.” (pg. 279)

“When I first came into the platoon, that was what struck me about the tracks.  They were huge and lumbering, stunted animations of some slow and wild thing.  Noisy and fat, grunting cartoons, smelling of thirty-weight oil and gunpowder and beer piss, … And I am filthy all the time.  I feel that grit, that crawl of the skin, something itching all the time, and greasy.” (pg. 280)

As these men run on adrenaline and beer — one to get through the fear and the other to numb the horror — they are unaware that they have changed.  In the lulls between ambushes, missions, and unexpected firefights, these men are like friends who hang out drinking beers and becoming sounding boards.  To become a sounding board for someone else is far easier than dealing with the war’s affect on yourself in some cases, but there are some images that cannot be shaken.

Close Quarters by Larry Heinemann is claustrophobic in its graphic violence, its frank spoken dialogue between male soldiers, and the threat of war that surrounds them all — it’s that unexploded bomb in the next room.  It ranges from lull moments of camaraderie and R&R with a prostitute in Tokyo to the small round hole left in the head of the man next to you.  Heinemann expresses the complexities of war in one soldier’s account, and he examines post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) so that readers realize just how real the war still is even when veterans arrive home.

About the Author:

Larry Heinemann (born 1944) is an American novelist born and raised in Chicago. His body of work is primarily concerned with the Vietnam War. Mr. Heinemann served a combat tour in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968 with the 25th Infantry Division, and has described himself as the most ordinary of soldiers. Mr. Heinemann’s military experience is documented in his most recent work, Black Virgin Mountain (2005), his only nonfiction piece. Black Virgin Mountain also chronicles his return trips to Vietnam and his blunt personal and political views concerning the country and the war. He has often referred to his books about Vietnam as an accidental trilogy.

While serving in Vietnam, Mr. Heinemann fought in a battle near the Cambodian border in which filmmaker Oliver Stone also participated. Mr. Heinemann writes of the battle in his first novel, Close Quarters (1977), and in Black Virgin Mountain, and it also forms the basis for the climactic battle scene in Stone’s Platoon.

His fictional prose style is uncompromisingly harsh and honest, and reflects his working class background. His second and critically acclaimed novel is Paco’s Story (1986), which won the 1987 National Book Award for Fiction, topping Toni Morrison’s Beloved in a decision that some thought controversial.[1] At the time, Mr. Heinemann’s only response to the controversy was that the prize, a check for $10,000, was already cashed, and that the Louise Nevelson sculpture, a gift from the National Book Foundation, was not likely to be returned. Paco’s Story relates the quasi-picaresque postwar experiences of its titular protagonist, who is haunted by the ghosts of his dead comrades from the war. These ghosts provide the novel’s narrative voice. The story deals with the role of the American GI as both victim and victimizer. It is interesting to note that ghost stories are common in both American and Vietnamese literature about the war.

His third novel, Cooler by the Lake (1992), departed from the topic of Vietnam and was not very successful, either critically and commercially.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, fiction, historical fiction, Read in 2016, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen (audio)

December 30, 2015 by

Source: Public Library
Audiobook, 12 CDs
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The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen, narrated by Steven Pacey and translated by K.E. Semmel, is the second book in the Department Q series — though you don’t have to read the previous one to follow along with this one — and Detective Carl Mørck is leading the new department with his assistant Assad in Copenhagen, Denmark.  This department’s focus is cold cases, reopening them to find new clues with fresh eyes, and what Mørck finds is a little more is disturbing.  Reviewing a case of murders from 1987 that involved a gang of young men and women, the detective, Assad, and his new assistant Rose Knudsen are forced to reassess their world view and the motivations of killers.

Adler-Olsen creates a set of murders that are not only over-the-top, but the perpetrators are as well.  Their hyped-up sense of pleasure from beatings, killings, and torture is reminiscent of the television show American Horror Story.  Some of these killers come from the upper echelons of society, and like those before them, they believe they are untouchable because of their place in society and what they have accomplished.  It’s clear that these accomplishments are not enough to sustain their attention or satisfaction; these are men and women who are dissatisfied with their success and are seduced by the dark side (pun intended).  Despite these absurdly crazy characters, and the absent one from the murderous gang who seems to stay enough on the radar to attract the attention of Detective Mørck but not her cohorts, the story has great tension and a layered revealing of events that keep readers hooked.

The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen, narrated by Steven Pacey and translated by K.E. Semmel, is a well paced thriller with bits of comedic banker between Mørck, Assad, and Rose that will leave readers wondering about what they missed in book one if they start here.  This seems like a series readers will get sucked into without really knowing how.  The unusual characters, the foreign setting for U.S. readers, and the noir quality of the situations will entice readers to enter Adler-Olsen’s world cautiously.

About the Author:

Author Jussi Adler-Olsen began in the 1990s to write novels after having followed a comprehensive career as publisher, editor, film composer for the Valhalla-cartoon and as bookseller.

He made his debut with the thriller “Alfabethuset” (1997), which reached bestseller status both in Denmark and internationally just like his subsequent novels “And She Thanked the Gods” (prev. “The Company Basher”) (2003) and “The Washington Decree” (2006). The first book on Department Q is “Kvinden I buret” (2007) and the second “Fasandræberne” (2008). The main detective is Deputy Superintendent Carl Morck from the Department Q and he is also the star of the third volume, “Flaskepost fra P” which was released in the fall of 2009 and secured Adler-Olsen ”Readers’ Book Award” from Berlingske Tidende-readers, the Harald Mogensen Prize as well as the Scandinavian Crime Society’s most prestigious price ”Glass Key”. The fourth volume in the Department Q series, “Journal 64” was published in 2010 and he was awarded the once-in-a-lifetime-prize of “The Golden Laurels” for this in 2011”. In December 2012 the fifth novel was published, “Marco Effekten”.

Photo Credit: Eric Druxman

About the Translator:

K. E. Semmel is a writer and translator whose work has appeared in Ontario Review, Washington Post, World Literature Today, Southern Review, Subtropics, and elsewhere. His translations include books by Naja Marie Aidt, Karin Fossum, Erik Valeur, Jussi Adler Olsen, Simon Fruelund and, forthcoming in winter 2016, Jesper Bugge Kold. He is a recipient of numerous grants from the Danish Arts Foundation and is a 2016 NEA Literary Translation Fellow.

Filed Under: audiobooks, borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell

December 29, 2015 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 72 pgs.
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The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell, intertwines the fairy tales of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, and in this beautifully illustrated book, these fairy tales come to life.  In beauty and with courage, these young royals must beat back the darkness with cunning strategy.

Gaiman’s prose mimics the fairy tale language of these tales and he drops hints as to the identities of the queen and the princess.  Younger readers and their parents will enjoy these stronger role models, who do not wait around to be rescued but rescue themselves.  Rather than simply marry as expected, can a queen choose another path for herself, something unknown but more satisfying?  Should a princess wait for another queen to rescue her, or use her own mind to puzzle out a solution that can save her life and defeat the darkness?

While there are not seven dwarfs, but three, and they tend the queen with beautiful textiles, rather than jewels, these dwarfs are inquisitive and adventurous.  The detailed descriptions of the townspeople and their sleeping postures, alongside the illustrations, provider readers with a well-rounded picture.  The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell, is gorgeous both in visual beauty and in substance, mirroring the strong royals in Gaiman’s tale.

Other Reviews:

About the Author:

Neil Gaiman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, and is the recipient of numerous literary honors. Originally from England, he now lives in America.

Find out more about Neil at his website, find all his books at his online bookstore, and follow him on Facebook, tumblr, and his blog.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, fiction, graphic novel, Harper Collins, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2015, reviews Tagged With: , ,