December 21, 2016

The German Girl - Armando Lucas Correa

Atria Books, October 18, 2016.



Five Stars



In 1939, 12-year-old Hannah Rosenthal and her parents are attempting to flee Nazi-occupied Germany in any way possible. As part of a privileged, upper-class Jewish family, young Hannah is shocked by the sudden change of political climate in Hamburg, although her Aryan appearance gives her some protection. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Hannah is safe to wander the city, but her father has lost his job and her mother shuts herself away in their glamorous apartment, afraid to go outside.


The Rosenthals’ chance for escape eventually comes in the form of an ocean liner travelling to Havana, Cuba – the S.S. St Louis offers Jewish Germans safe passage in exchange for an exorbitant fee. Fortunately, the Rosenthals are able to pay, and they bring along a family friend and his son, Leo. Hannah and Leo already have a strong friendship, and they make a pact to always be together. Their time on the ship is a magical interlude of masquerade balls and gourmet meals – but it all comes to a sudden end when the Jewish passengers are denied entry at the port of Havana.


The salvation of the St. Louis becomes a death trap as the passengers are forced to return to Europe. Only a few wealthy people are permitted to disembark, including Hannah and her mother – but their companions, including Leo, are left behind. The fates of the remaining passengers of the St. Louis are tragic and each deserve to have their story told – however, in this novel, we follow the lives of Hannah and her mother as they attempt to immigrate to isolationist America, and eventually settle into life in Cuba.


The novel picks up again in present day New York, when 11-year-old Anna Rosen receives a letter from her great-aunt Hannah in Cuba. Hannah raised Anna’s father, who was later killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Their shared history brings them together, as well as the parallels of their historical circumstances – the U.S. isolationism after 9/11 mirrors their rejection of Jewish refugees at the start of WWII. It also bears a disturbing resemblance to today’s political circumstances, and the fear of Syrian refugees.


When Anna and her mother travel to Havana to visit Hannah, we learn how the Rosenthals survived after their journey on the St. Louis. The novel carries them through Cuban history, including Hannah’s younger brother’s participation in Castro’s revolution. It shows the movement of history, and how none of these events happened in a static situation – every choice made in the past is continually and perpetually affecting future generations.


Even though The German Girl focuses on a weighty, heartbreaking period of our recent history, it is easy to forget that this is historical fiction. Every scene is described in a vivid and heartbreaking way, with no dry recitation of facts. The story of the over 900 passengers on the St. Louis who drifted from country to country during WWII, searching for a safe harbor, is haunting and meticulously researched, and yet it is written with ease and grace. This is a beautiful novel with a powerful message that is incredibly applicable to world events today.


I received this book from Atria Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

December 18, 2016

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife - Meg Elison

47North, October 11, 2016.



Five Stars



In San Francisco, an obstetric nurse notices an alarming trend – an increase in women becoming dangerously ill and dying during childbirth, along with their newborn babies. At the same time, more and more people of both genders begin to succumb to this fatal fever, and the unnamed nurse is one of them. When she wakes up in the hospital, everyone around her is dead and the world has changed forever.


We learn from various sources that the fever has killed approximately 99% of the earth’s population – and only about 1% of the survivors are women. Live childbirth is now nonexistent, leaving the world with no future and no hope of salvation. For the unnamed protagonist, this new world is threatening and violent – the surviving men are dangerous and wish to control the few women who remain. The midwife ventures from the hospital to her home – where she narrowly survives a vicious attack – to the now unpopulated city of San Francisco, and eventually into the wider world. She wanders aimlessly, uncertain of the purpose of her existence, and as she explores our decimated planet, we witness the atrocities of humanity alongside her.


With the end of civilization as we know it comes a new structure of power – gangs of men who capture the rare surviving women and keep them enslaved. They are raped and often tortured, as these men act out their urges to control and subjugate women. The misogyny in this new world mirrors that of our own, except it can be enacted without repercussions. To avoid this fate, the unnamed midwife hides her femininity by binding her breasts and wearing masculine clothing. She gives out fake names and identifying details, so that we only slowly learn the truth about her life before the fever.


Most of the midwife’s journey is explored through her journal entries, which are rambling and emotional, and always feel authentic. In this way, we gradually get to know who she really is, and who she is becoming in this new world. She eventually discovers a greater role for herself in defense of women and their fertility options – she collects and distributes birth control, and guides women who have already conceived through the process, which often ends badly. It is not until the end that she finds a glimmer of hope for the progression of humankind.


The midwife’s journal entries are alternated with passages told by an omniscient narrator, whose words are clinical, detached and heartbreaking as they describe the fates of the people that the midwife meets along her journey. In particular, we learn the fate of the midwife’s boyfriend, who disappeared after she was presumed dead from the fever. Recalling their life together keeps the midwife grounded, yet she doesn’t learn how close they were to each other until it is much too late. Although she refers often to this heterosexual relationship, the midwife’s own sexuality is fluid, and it affects her interactions with the men and women she meets in unexpected ways.

This novel inevitably invites comparison to other books and movies in the post-apocalyptic genre. For me, it was especially similar to the first few moments of awakening in The Walking Dead – but instead of zombies, the threat is human, as men turn on women with violence and disrespect. In an overdone genre, this novel is fresh and exciting. It moves at a slower pace than we are used to, but it is filled with real moments that are dark, gritty and all too possible.


I received this book from 47North and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

December 14, 2016

Hag-Seed - Margaret Atwood

Hogarth, October 11, 2016.

 
 

Four Stars


 

Hag-Seed is the latest installment of the Hogarth Shakespeare series, in which authors rewrite the stories of Shakespeare, with a contemporary twist. This series started out strong, with Jeanette Winterson’s The Gap of Time, but I wasn’t as excited by the next two books. However, Atwood’s quirky sense of humour is the perfect match for a retelling of The Tempest, making this book unexpected, clever and fun.  

 

Felix is the artistic director at the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival, and he is looking forward to starring as Prospero in his version of The Tempest, when he is suddenly deposed by his devious assistant, who has gradually been taking over Felix’s job. Like Prospero, Felix goes into exile with his young daughter Miranda – but unlike Prospero, Felix’s exile is self-imposed in rural Ontario, and his daughter in fact died as a young child, although her spirit becomes his constant companion.

 

As Felix takes on Prospero’s persona, he also comes up with a complex plan for retribution. He takes a job teaching theatre to prisoners at the Burgess Correctional Institution, showing them how to act, create costumes and sets, and learn digital effects – the year-end plays are recorded and shown to the other convicts on video, to prevent any violent uprisings during a live show. After many years, the stars align for Felix like they did for Prospero when a violent storm brought his enemies to the island – Felix learns that his former assistant and his political allies will be attending the screening of this year’s play. Naturally, Felix decides to stage his own version of The Tempest to enact his revenge.

 

The convicts who participate in Felix’s theatre program feel strongly about their roles in the play, and they truly empathize with the characters they are playing – especially the actors and their supporting teams who play Caliban and Ariel, Prospero’s faithful servants. The prisoners come up with relatable, modern motivations for their actions in the play, and they even make up a ridiculous rap about Caliban and the various insults he is subjected to, which is where the title of the novel comes from. Their dialogue is unlikely to be realistic for hardened criminals, but it is funny and it humanizes them in an entertaining way.

 

As Felix adds new twists to the play to incorporate the politicians, he creates illusions and adds hallucinations to the experience – and he is also influenced by the ghost of his daughter Miranda, whose participation in the play is unexpected. This is the first book in the Hogarth Shakespeare series in which the characters are aware of the original text – Felix is acting out The Tempest, and yet he is a part of a larger retelling of the same play, creating complex and metafictional layers to the novel.

 

Hag-Seed is classic Margaret Atwood, witty and smart – she even manages to bring a healthy dose of Canadiana to Shakespeare’s classic play. Although the plot is often silly, it still made me laugh out loud, and I think Shakespeare would have approved. This novel stands on its own, but it is so much better if you know the story of the original Tempest. Is Hag-Seed an improvement on the original? Probably not, but it adds something new and fresh, and I think that’s the whole point.

 

I received this book from Hogarth and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

December 11, 2016

Away from the Dark - Aleatha Romig


Thomas & Mercer, October 18, 2016.

 

Four Stars


 

Away from the Dark is the highly anticipated sequel to the first novel in the series, Into the Light. When we last saw Sara and Jacob, they were happy and in love, living in a tight-knit religious community - rediscovering the joys of married life after the accident in which Sara lost her memory. In fact, Sara is so happy, that she decides to stop taking her birth control pills, without telling Jacob. What she doesn’t realize is that the pills also act as a memory suppressant, given to her by her supposed husband – and as her memories return, she also realizes that she is not actually Sara.

 

Sara is shocked as her previous identity comes flooding back to her, and she thinks she now knows everything there is to know about her imposter husband, Jacob. In fact, Jacob has a secret identity of his own – he is actually an FBI agent who has devoted years of work to infiltrating the cult known as “The Light”. When Sara finds out the truth, she decides she will remain with Jacob so they can work together to expose the cult leader, Father Gabriel. Although Sara has been assaulted and lied to, she is willing to sacrifice herself to prevent more women from being hurt.

 

This second novel started slowly, backtracking into the first book to revisit previous events. Technically, you could read this novel without the first, but the anticipation from Into the Light is what made this one so exciting. It is a well-developed, complex plot, but most of the development happened in book one, so this book was more about answering the questions set out in the first book. However, there were still plenty of unexpected twists. The romance elements were also more authentic in this, because Sara and Jacob could finally express their real personalities and get to know one another, as they struggled to come to terms with their new identities and salvage what was real in their fake marriage.

 

Once again, it was fascinating to explore the extent that people can be brainwashed to follow a charismatic individual such as Father Gabriel. Literature exploring cults and the indoctrination of their followers seems to be a common theme this year – we enjoy witnessing it from a distance, thinking we would never fall for it ourselves, but in fact it happens quite frequently. Romig does an excellent job of writing an exciting thriller with just a touch of romance, appealing to a wide audience. The novel ended with another shocking epilogue, leaving the series open for a possible third book, which I will certainly read if/when it is published.

 

I received this book from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

December 07, 2016

The Angel of History - Rabih Alameddine

Grove Atlantic, October 4, 2016.



Four Stars


The Angel of History takes place over the course of one night, as a writer named Jacob commits himself to a psychiatric ward. He has been hearing voices, specifically the voices of Satan and his companion, Death. As the night passes, Jacob recalls various incidents in his life, from his birth in Yemen, his upbringing in an Egyptian whorehouse, and his survival of the AIDS crisis as a gay man in San Francisco.


This novel is profoundly spiritual and philosophical, yet it is often funny and always touching. Jacob’s life has been filled with circumstances that would drive anyone to hear the voice of Satan, and yet he greets this new scenario with a quirky sense of humour. The story moves around the globe, addressing the struggle between memory and oblivion as Jacob recalls his past.


While Jacob sits in the waiting room of the psych ward, Satan and Death debate the state of Jacob’s soul – the structure of their conversation is often gimmicky, but it does frame Jacob’s story nicely. As in Alameddine’s other novels, he uses history and fable interchangeably to add depth to the present. His use of language is astounding as always, poetic yet accessible. The novel is heavy on religious symbolism, but it reads naturally and does not detract from the story.


Jacob lost six close friends to the 1980s AIDS epidemic, including his partner, and he nursed them all to the end. Devastated by these loses, Jacob is unable to write, although we see small pieces of his writing throughout the novel – the story he tells of his imagination as a small boy locked away is particularly heartbreaking. Jacob’s imagery is unforgettable, such as the party he attends in which the hosts have a “pet” Arab that they keep in a cage. These images are shocking, topical and darkly humorous.


The Angel of History encompasses so many subtle themes, each worthy of consideration. Alameddine questions the accuracy and fluidity of memory, as Jacob recreates his past. It is difficult to tell what is real and what is imagined, as is often the case with the hallucinatory nature of memory. Although many elements of the novel are very modern, it has a timeless feel, as Jacob is watched by fourteen saints who bear witness to the past. Jacob’s life is the intimate story of loss, contrasted with the epic scale of a battle with Satan. It is a portrait of a man who has lived one crisis after another, and come out on the other side.


I received this book from Grove Atlantic and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

December 04, 2016

The Guineveres - Sarah Domet


Flatiron Books, October 4, 2016.

 

Four Stars


 

Four young girls named Guinevere – Vere, Gwen, Ginny and Win – have all been abandoned by their parents to be raised by nuns in a convent called The Sisters of Supreme Adoration. The girls share everything, not just their name, and their consciousness is so intertwined that they even refer to themselves as “we” when acting alone. It doesn’t occur to the girls that their all-encompassing connection could ever be severed – until they receive unexpected guests at the convent.

 

Outside of the protective walls of the convent, the world is at war. The conflict is unnamed in the novel, although it is likely World War II, based on other historical clues such as clothing and technology. Because we are never told conclusively where and when the novel takes place, the events have a sense of timelessness, and the girls’ coming of age becomes universal. The girls are isolated from the atrocities of war, until several unidentified soldiers arrive – injured and unconscious, the young men are sent to the convent to be taken care of until they can be identified by their families. The girls think that nursing the boys might be their way out of the convent – in the meantime, each of the Guineveres becomes attached to their own boy, as they practice falling in love.

 

The novel covers the events of one year, in which the girls’ feelings for the boys grow stronger, leading to almost fairytale-like scenes in which they share kisses with the sleeping boys. They analyze the soldiers’ possessions, hoping to get to know them, but in fact they are growing and learning about themselves. In between these scenes of convent life, we gradually learn the story of how each of the Guineveres ended up at the convent – they are tragic events that led to damaged and untrusting girls. The Guineveres intentionally isolate themselves from the other girls at the convent, and even the nuns hesitate to intrude on their special bond. The girls are fragile on their own, but as the Guineveres, they are powerful and strong.

 

The story is written from Vere’s first person perspective, although she speaks interchangeably for all four of the girls – in fact, Vere is surprised to realize that in fact they are distinct people who do unexpected things. Because the Guineveres were abandoned by their families in often horrific ways, their only concept of home is each other. It is not until they begin to develop romantic feelings for “their boys” that they begin to separate, as Domet authentically explores the wonder and confusion of girls becoming women. And when their innocent crushes on the soldiers are contrasted with a shocking sexual act, the girls’ bond is truly tested.

 

The Guineveres is a contemplative novel, written in moody and elegant prose – it takes the ordinary and finds the beautiful and magical elements within it. The convent setting and church doctrine are heavy but always interesting, especially as it affects the girls’ upbringing. The religious figures are multifaceted and realistic, with no clear demarcation between good and evil. It is of course strange that these girls share the same unusual name, but the strangeness adds an otherworldly quality to the story, enhancing the contrasting themes of The Guineveres.

 

I received this book from Flatiron Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

December 01, 2016

Cruel, Beautiful World - Caroline Leavitt

Algonquin Books, October 4, 2016.

 

Four Stars


 

In 1969, a time of peace protests and free love, sixteen-year-old Lucy has run away from home with her older, charismatic highschool English teacher. William makes Lucy feel special in a way she hasn’t felt before, and when they move to a rural cottage to start a new life together, she thinks everything will be perfect – but William is not exactly what he seems. He keeps her hidden at home, trapped in their off-the-grid farmhouse while he starts his new job and meets new people. When Lucy decides to set out on her own, her dreams are destroyed in a shocking and dramatic fashion.

 

Meanwhile, Lucy’s sister Charlotte was left behind. As the slightly older sister, Charlotte was always the responsible child who took care of both herself and Lucy after the death of their parents. She reluctantly starts college shortly after Lucy disappears, even though she would rather be searching for her little sister. We get to see Charlotte develop into a shaky yet strong young adult as she faces serious challenges and copes with the aftermath of Lucy’s adventure.

 

The strongest and most fascinating character in the novel is Iris, especially after we learn the details of her intriguing backstory. Widowed in her sixties, Iris was about to start her life over again – taking classes and booking trans-Atlantic plane tickets – when she was suddenly tasked with taking care of young Charlotte and Lucy. There is a surprising reason that seemingly distant relative Iris is given guardianship of the girls, one which she does not explain until the end of the novel. Throughout the novel, it is enough to witness the great care that she gives to the young sisters, as she sacrifices her best years to make them feel happy and loved.

 

The novel is developed in the shadow of world events, including the Vietnam War and the Manson Family murders. Lucy is especially frightened by these issues, and they bring an ominous feeling of threat to her idyllic life in the country. There are big events here, but the focus is truly on the smaller moments, so we feel that we know each character intimately. It is an exploration of unconventional families that must overcome unusual obstacles – and yet, tragedy will still strike unexpectedly, tearing apart the family unit.

 

Leavitt writes with deceptively simple prose, yet it disguises a great depth of character, plot and emotion – the author has an easy talent that is as straightforward as it is unforgettable. Because of its simplicity, the story is haunting, with no clear line between good and evil. With a somewhat open ending, nothing is clearly resolved, and that’s what makes this novel so realistic. These three women – Lucy, Charlotte and Iris – jump off the page and really come to life, leaving a legacy of a true to life family in all its complexities and love.

 

I received this book from Algonquin Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.