March 30, 2016

The Vegetarian - Han Kang


Hogarth, February 2, 2016.

Four Stars



The Vegetarian is a very strange, very beautiful little novel, although the title is a bit misleading. While the main character does adopt an increasingly restrictive diet to control her emotions, the novel (and the character’s choice) is ultimately a study of mental illness – how it manifests in different ways, and how it affects not only one person, but everyone around them. It is also an allegorical novel that explores the boundaries of what’s acceptable in modern day South Korea.


Yeong-Hye has a recurring nightmare that leads her to renounce meat because of her dream’s violent and graphic content. Her vegetarianism soon becomes an extreme form of veganism, in which she feels ill even when she touches the flesh of her husband. Not only does she want to consume plants, she wants to become plantlike – rooted into the earth like a tree. Her choices are seen as an act of subversion in traditional Korean society, and Yeong-Hye soon becomes estranged from her family, and eventually her husband.


Yeong-Hye is imprisoned within her own body, and we find it hard to understand her motivations, especially because she never gets to tell her own story. The first part of the novel is narrated by her husband, who barely understood his wife to begin with, and he seems almost happy to be rid of her after her mental breakdown. In the second and third parts, Yeong-Hye is described by her brother-in-law and sister, respectively. Trapped by mental illness, she is unable to speak for herself. From my perspective, she seemed like a completely different person in each section, causing me to question who she really is. Her husband finds her boring and domestic, while her brother-in-law sees her as erotic and mysterious. Yeong-Hye’s sister finds her weak, yet manipulative, as if she is using her illness just to control everyone around her.


Kang’s writing style is compelling and unusual, but it is also unnerving – Yeong-Hye is truly impossible to know when we hear her voice only filtered through the minds of others. This is a novel in translation, although it doesn’t feel that way. The language is stripped down and deliberate. Everyday situations are made surreal, and interspersed with bizarre sexual encounters. Each section has some temporal overlap, but for the most part, Yeong-Hye’s story moves rapidly forward.


In the end, Yeong-Hye’s mental illness is one of obsession, and it becomes increasingly disturbing to witness. She essentially wishes to remove herself from the food chain, but as she transitions to a more plantlike state, she also loses her identity – and becomes a blank canvas for others to project their own obsessions. I feel like there are also parallels to South Korean politics, but they are somewhat obscure. As odd and unusual as it was, I found The Vegetarian to be an intriguing read, and surprisingly plot-driven for a novel of the mind.


I received this novel from Hogarth and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

March 27, 2016

The Forgotten Room - Karen White, Beatriz Williams & Lauren Willig


NAL – Penguin Group, January 19, 2016.



Three Stars



The Forgotten Room is a collaboration between three authors known for their historical, multi-generational love stories – and they are here, doing what they do best. The novel follows three women and their experiences in one house, a Gilded Age mansion that was passed down through a complicated family, and later recommissioned as a WWII hospital. Chapters bounce between the perspectives of the three women – Olive, who is present shortly after the house is built; Lucy, who reenters the house during the 1920s; and Kate, the only female doctor in a hospital full of wounded WWII soldiers.


It takes some patience to follow these three separate storylines, especially since all three women are very similar in both their descriptions and their voices. I found it hard to differentiate between them, and Kate’s story was the only one I really connected with. There were also a lot of parallels between the girls’ stories, and it felt like the authors were trying too hard to line them all up – everything was very convenient. I also spent probably too much time trying to figure out which of the authors was telling the story at any given time.


So we have three different historical settings, which should make things very interesting, yet I felt that the actual world-building was missing. The house is described in detail, but the actual setting of time and place is somewhat ignored. The history aspects of the novel had so much potential to add to the story, but I left the book not feeling like I learned anything about these three exciting eras. However, the novel is strong in historical romance tropes, which did nothing to add intrigue – it’s hard to connect to the various love stories when you know it will all be resolved in the end.


I was caught up in the mystery for the first half of the novel, but then it just got muddled and confusing, and I found myself losing interest. There were too many connections to keep track of, and I wasn’t emotionally invested enough in the characters to want to keep up. And in fact, none of the romance storylines were even all that romantic. All of the minor characters (and most of the main ones) are stereotypes, with no really unique characteristics. In fact, overall there was really nothing special about this novel, but it’s still possible to enjoy it if you stop trying to make sense of everything and just let the authors lead the way.


I received this novel from NAL – Penguin Group and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

March 23, 2016

The Good Goodbye - Carla Buckley

Bantam, January 19, 2016.



Four Stars



This is the story of Arden and Rory, cousins who lie unconscious in the hospital burn unit as the novel opens. There was a fatal fire in their shared dorm room, and as police question the girls’ parents, the parents themselves begin to question how well they knew their daughters. On top of all that, the parents have their own conflict, as Rory’s father’s bad investment choices may have lost the restaurant that he co-owns with his brothers’ wife, Arden’s mother.


Rory and Arden are cousins, but they grew up like sisters, born only months apart. They attended the same private school, although Rory was the popular girl and Arden the straight-A student. Their sister-like competitiveness extended from grades and friends to love interests, and their love triangle may have been the cause of the fire – however, the girls cannot speak for themselves, so we only see flashbacks leading up to the fire, making the story much more intriguing. There were definitely some really great plot twists – I had a lot of guesses, but I was still surprised many times.


Arden’s mother, Natalie, plays a large part in the story, and it was interesting to see how her perspective of her daughter’s life contrasted with actual events as seen through Arden’s eyes. The novel plays on the fears of parenthood, questioning how well parents can really know their children. The girls are 18-years-old, technically adults and suddenly given (perhaps too much) responsibility. They are forced to make life-altering choices, yet their parents still shelter them from their own concerns.


The contrast between Rory and Arden is a clear example of nature vs. nurture – the girls are so similar, raised together and attending the same schools, yet they have completely different goals and motivations. In fact, the girls are not the only diametrically opposed characters. There are also Vince and Theo, the girls’ fathers who are also twin brothers; Arden’s younger siblings, twin boys; and the contrast between Natalie and her sister-in-law, who make wildly different decisions regarding the upbringing of their children. The character pairings explore how people can respond so differently to the same situations, for better or worse.


The Good Goodbye was very entertaining, and definitely kept me guessing. I might have appreciated a bit more depth of emotion, but it wasn’t necessary, and the characters were strong overall, especially within the thriller genre. Many of the scenes were well-researched, especially the medical scenarios involving the girls. Even with similar characters, their voices were distinct, with separate voices and personalities – although the girls sometimes seemed a little too juvenile for their age. The ending was handled well, and tied everything together, making this a really fun, thrilling read.


I received this novel from Bantam and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

March 20, 2016

Between Here and Gone - Barbara Ferrer

Diversion Books, January 12, 2016.

 

Two Stars


 

My main issue going into this novel was that, based on the synopsis, I was expecting historical fiction, and instead it turned out to be a romance novel with only tenuous historical ties. However, I think the plot would be confusing even for fans of the romance genre, as it doesn’t follow any of the usual tropes. The love triangle, if you can call it that, was very messy and did not feel very realistic. The few scattered historical facts were interesting, but there just weren’t enough of them to flesh out the novel.

 

The story begins in the 1950s, with Castro’s takeover of Cuba. Natalia and her family, members of the Cuban aristocracy, flee to the United States – but instead of starting fresh, they cling to the old customs, living in limbo as they hope to return to Cuba to resume their former lives. Natalia, however, wants to move forward, and even Americanizes her name to Natalie. She fully embraces her new reality, moving to New York and finding a job in a restaurant, as well as another job tutoring students. She abandons her former life of privilege, and exists in poverty, sending her meagre earnings home to support her family and pay for her brother’s private school.

 

Natalie’s immigrant experience was actually really interesting for the first half of the book, and her character was sympathetic, with a lot of depth. It was a coming of age story in an unfamiliar world, with no familial support. However, the plot took several completely unexpected (and really, unexplained) detours in the second half, and the novel became very hard to follow. Natalie runs into complications at work, and ends up being hired to ghostwrite the autobiography of a wild young socialite. Meanwhile, she stumbles into romantic relationships with two different and unlikely men. The twists became melodramatic and I just couldn’t suspend disbelief enough to buy into the story.

 

Between Here and Gone started out strong with the historical background, but the romance plot couldn’t stand alone once the author abandoned the historical details. It almost felt like two different novels that were forced together into one, and I ended up skimming over a lot of unnecessary descriptions. Natalie was a strong young woman who became weak, and I lost interest in her story.

 

I received this novel from Diversion Books and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

March 16, 2016

And Again - Jessica Chiarella


Touchstone, January 12, 2016.

 

Four Stars


 

And Again is a clever, conceptual novel that asks what you would do if you had a second chance to live life over. Four very different people are chosen for the pilot program of SubLife, a medical experiment that provides new, cloned bodies to replace the subjects’ damaged ones. The four patients are ordinary people, each with very different personalities – and they react to their new bodies in unique ways.

 

Each of the four characters had bodies that were damaged beyond repair – Hannah was in treatment for cancer, Connie was wasting away with AIDs, David had a life-threatening brain tumour, and Linda had been in an unresponsive coma for eight years. Their new cloned bodies, however, are genetically perfect, with no chance of their diseases recurring. The author doesn’t really go into details about the science behind the body-switching, so it’s necessary to suspend disbelief for that part of the story. The novel is more of an exploration of the philosophical aspects of cloning, so I wouldn’t classify it as sci-fi, despite the futuristic medical procedure.

 

Not only are the four subjects cured of their terminal illnesses, but the cloning has also erased all scars, blemishes and wrinkles, leaving their new bodies unmarked by their pasts. They struggle with their new appearances, but more importantly they have lost the ability to do many of the things that came naturally to their former bodies. For instance, Hannah’s identity is tied up with her career as an artist, but her new hands no longer remember how to hold a paintbrush. Chiarella has her characters question how much of our identities are formed from our physical bodies, as Hannah and the others struggle to reconcile mind and body in their new lives.

 

Because these characters are working to reconnect with their new bodies, much of the action occurs within their minds. However, the interactions between the four are intriguing as well – they are thrown together by circumstance and seemingly have nothing in common, but they are the only ones who truly understand what the others are going through. Each character has their own unique voice that stands out from the others, and the novel overall is very character-driven. These people are so unlikable in many ways, yet they are somehow sympathetic. It is only a brief snapshot of their lives, yet the author leaves us wanting to know more.

 

And Again has science fiction elements, but most of all it is a literary novel of ideas. It explores the ethical implications of a procedure such as the SubLife cloning, especially when one member of the group uses political power to gain access to the program. As a debut novel, And Again is excellent – a really original idea, executed in a new and fresh style. Without being preachy, the ideas presented make you consider what’s important in your own life – what’s left of you, without your body. Most of all, it makes you appreciate your own body, flaws and all, and how it has carried you through your own past.

 

I received this novel from Touchstone and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

March 13, 2016

When I'm Gone - Emily Bleeker


Lake Union Publishing, March 15, 2016.

Four Stars



Wow, this was a lot of drama for one family – fortunately, the plot device used to reveal all the drama was unique and interesting. As the novel begins, Luke has just returned home from his wife Natalie’s funeral, faced with the prospect of raising their three children alone. He is shocked to find a letter waiting for him – a letter Natalie wrote on her first day of cancer treatment, a year earlier. The letters keep coming, and although Luke has no idea who is mailing them, they become his greatest comfort.


That is, until Natalie’s letters begin to refer to secrets she has been keeping from Luke throughout their sixteen-year marriage. Between Luke’s own tragic childhood and Natalie’s complicated past with her high school boyfriend, the secrets just keep coming. The three children have their own issues, and Luke’s mother-in-law brings along more drama when she comes to visit. And we haven’t even gotten to Natalie’s best friend Annie and her suspicious husband Brian, or the babysitter Jessie and her mysterious illness.


Although there did seem to be an overload of mysterious drama, I did appreciate the fact that it didn’t follow a completely predictable path. At the beginning of the novel, I thought it would focus on Luke’s journey to heal after losing his wife – and it did, but there was a lightness to it, because of the mysteries he was busy solving. The letters distracted Luke from his sorrow, but the exploration of the past also kept the novel from focusing only on manipulating the reader’s emotions in the wake of Natalie’s cancer.


The only complaint I had was that everything was wrapped up too quickly and easily in the end – if I were Luke, I would have been asking a lot more questions, but maybe he was in shock after everything that happened to him. Overall, the novel was probably more like three stars, but I’m giving it extra points because I couldn’t put it down, and it was just so much fun to try to figure out all of Natalie’s secrets.


I received this novel from Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

March 10, 2016

The Blue Line - Ingrid Betancourt


Penguin Press, January 26, 2016.



Four Stars



Betancourt is a Columbian politician and activist, abducted and held hostage by the guerilla organization FARC during her campaign for president in Columbia’s 2002 election. She uses her experiences as a captive in the jungles of Columbia in this novel, an exploration of Argentina’s Dirty War. The setting moves from late-1970s South America to early-2000s United States, as main character Julia reflects back on her time in Buenos Aires during the war, while trying to manage her present domestic problems in the U.S.


The synopsis of the novel claims to include Magic Realism, which seems to have become a catchall phrase for anything remotely unusual that happens in South American literature. I don’t feel that The Blue Line can really be classified as Magic Realism in the vein of Allende or Garcia Marquez, but there is a supernatural element at play – Julia is a “seer”. She has inherited the gift from her grandmother, and the women experience visions of the future from an unknown perspective – it is Julia’s job to figure out whose vision she is experiencing, and she is often forced to intervene in order to prevent horrific events from taking place. These visions are used to create suspense throughout the novel, providing foreshadowing for a final climactic event that will take place before the novel ends.


In the alternating chapters that occur in the 1970s, Julia is a young woman who has fallen in love with the revolutionary Theo. He is involved with the infamous Montoneros rebels, and his sympathizing with the group makes a target of both Julia and himself. As the rebels are being rounded up by the corrupt government forces, Theo and Julia are separated. Julia spends many years in her search for Theo, and in the present day she is forced into the realization that love can’t always conquer all.


The lack of a happy ending (which we find out about almost right away, although the actual ending is still a surprise) makes the story so much more realistic, especially after the characters’ horrific experiences of war. The characters are strong individuals, especially Julia, who is a survivor in spite of everything. My only problem with the writing was that it was a bit jumpy and sometimes hard to follow – but it also added to the surreal feeling of the story. There were also some seemingly random plot lines, but it mostly came together in the end. The subject of war and its effects on civilians is very interesting and topical, and for the most part it felt authentic. The Blue Line is most definitely fiction with a political agenda, and although it does stand on its own, I sometimes felt that the story was being forced unnaturally to fit its agenda.


I received this novel from Penguin Press and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

March 07, 2016

My Name Is Lucy Barton - Elizabeth Strout

Random House, January 12, 2016.



Four Stars



This is a short little novel – not quite a novella – with a lot of weight to it. It is the first book I have read by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout, and it definitely left me inspired to read more. Strout uses spare, straightforward language to evoke a wealth of emotion. Over the span of five days, an estranged mother visits with her adult daughter, Lucy, who is in the hospital for an extended stay. The novel ostensibly takes place over these five days, yet it encompasses so much more than that, moving backward and forward in time.


There is tension between mother and daughter, but also a depth of feeling that bridges any estrangement. Lucy’s conversations with her mother are much more complex than they first seem, as she reflects back on an impoverished childhood that borders on abusive, and considers how her upbringing affects her ability to parent her own daughters.


Lucy’s observations on life are hallucinatory and dreamlike – her experience in the hospital pulls her from everyday life and she begins to lose touch with her reality at home. Because the doctors can’t figure out exactly what is wrong with her, Lucy is living in a sort of limbo, stuck between her past and future selves. She reflects back on a life as “Lucy Barton,” and wonders what it is exactly that makes her who she is.


The novel packs many themes into a small package, yet most important is the concept of family. Lucy’s thoughts explore the distance between people, in spite of their love for each other. She attempts to bridge this distance via shared memories with her mother, but their different views of the past only raise more questions on what is real.


Aside from Lucy’s roles as daughter, wife, and mother, she is also a writer – which forces us to consider whether there is an autobiographical element to Strout’s work. Lucy is focused on exploring why people should write and read. She comes to the realization that “[t]he books brought me things. This is my point. They made me feel less alone. This is my point. And I thought: I will write and people will not feel so alone!” (Loc. 279). The readers will feel less alone, but so too will Lucy, who uses her writing to connect with a larger community. Lucy is trapped inside her own head, as well as her hospital room, but she knows that fiction is the path to empathy with the world around her.


This is a simple story written in sparse language, but the subject matter is dense. Lucy is a well-rounded, multi-faceted character. I highly recommend reading this short novel in one sitting, which allows the reader to seamlessly pull all the threads together.


I received this novel from Random House and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

March 04, 2016

Find Her - Lisa Gardner


Dutton – Penguin Group, February 9, 2016.

Four Stars



Find Her is the eighth book in Gardner’s Detective D.D. Warren series, which I have never read before, so I can safely say that this novel is a standalone. There is some backstory about D.D. and her family, but it’s not necessary to follow the action in this novel. The main focus is on Flora, a woman in her twenties who was abducted in college and held captive for almost a year and a half. After surviving her kidnapping, she has focused on training in self-defense to protect herself – and to go after other possible abductors. When D.D. first encounters Flora, she must decide whether she is a victim, or a vigilante.


When Flora is contacted by the parents of another abducted college student, Stacy Summers, she decides to help in the investigation – and then she goes missing herself. The novel alternates between Flora’s present circumstances and flashbacks of her previous abduction. Her earlier captor, a long haul truck driver named Jacob, dragged her across the country in a pine coffin and eventually coerced her into helping him commit crimes against other women. We don’t know how far Flora’s participation went – and sometimes it seems she isn’t sure, either.


From the first page, the author draws you in to Flora’s life, and it’s hard to put down until you find out what happens to Flora and Stacy. Although Flora is tough, sometimes unlikeable, and a potential criminal, it’s difficult not to sympathize with her. In fact, I genuinely liked the characters of both Flora and D.D. – even when they were working at cross purposes, they were both trying their best and living by a personal moral code. Both characters are strong women working to recover from a difficult past and learning to live again. There are many layers to them, and no real stock characters, even in the background.


Gardner is a talented writer who guides us through gruesome crime scenes and urges us to keep going, with the promise that there will be some redemption in the end. She allows the reader to truly put ourselves in the characters’ situations and explore the psychological depths that both women reach. Her explanations of the mind/body abilities to adapt and survive are especially impressive. It was disturbing to be inside of Flora’s head, but so incredibly believable.


The novel is fast-paced and the tension is constant, as you turn the pages quickly to find out what Flora will do next to survive. And beyond her current circumstances, we are also given an exploration of what happens after a victim is rescued. Going back to life as usual is impossible, as the victim has become someone else through her experience.  Flora’s story is intensely captivating, and I would definitely like to read more from this series.


I received this novel from Netgalley and Dutton – Penguin Group in exchange for an honest review.

March 01, 2016

Only Love Can Break Your Heart - Ed Tarkington


Algonquin Books, January 5, 2016.



Four Stars



In small town Virginia in the 1970s, eight-year-old Rocky idolizes his brother, Paul. While they share a father, Paul’s mother is an alcoholic who lives out of town, and Rocky’s mother is the much younger woman who replaced her. In spite of his distaste for his stepmother, Paul is happy to have Rocky tag along with him and his girlfriend as they cruise around, blasting rock music and generally getting into trouble.


As the novel moves forward seven years, Paul has disappeared and Rocky is now a teenage, engaged in a relationship with the neighbour’s daughter who is ten years older than him. Rocky’s family’s relationship with the family next door has always been troubled, beginning with Paul’s break-in to the house years earlier. When Paul’s reappearance in town coincides with a violent crime next door, he is the first suspect – and Rocky’s relationship with the daughter causes added complications.


The whole concept of small town life is so well written here. The community is suspicious of anything new, adverse to change. Gossip about the violent incident spreads rapidly, and Paul is condemned before the police have even finished gathering evidence. Remarkably, even with such a grisly crime as the centerpiece of the novel, this is above all a family drama – it has its own specific complications, but they play out universal themes. Like all families, this one is dysfunctional, with a rather large cast of characters that are accepted into the family unit.


There are so many themes and plot points at play here that it shouldn’t work so well, but it does. I think the main reason that it does work is the detailed characterization in which we can see into the heart of each major and minor player. The author delves deep into each person’s story, then brings them all together. The characters and themes are united by the voice of narrator Rocky, who makes astute observations of everyone around him.


Despite the central crime/mystery of the novel, this is a story of coming-of-age in the 1970s, with a soundtrack of rock and roll rebellion. There are no literary tricks, just good, solid writing. The language is evocative of its time and place, as expressed by empathetic, complex characters. In the end, the mystery of the crime is resolved, yet so many of the complicated connections between family members are left to the imagination, giving the reader a lot to think about.


I received this novel from Netgalley and Algonquin Books in exchange for an honest review.