Reading Recommendations from the Northwoods

Apples Never Fall--Liane Moriarty

 

Moriarty's newest book is not "literature," and in any discussion, I could talk about some of its shortcomings.   But, I thought it was quickly readable during winter days, a book that kept my interest.

It's a family book.  The Delaney parents are ready to retire from the tennis academy that they have run for their entire marriage.   All four of their grown children have been competitive tennis players, but now have mostly grown beyond that.    

The family's balance becomes upset when a young woman shows up on their doorstep, apparently a victim of domestic abuse.  The mom Joy befriends Savannah, and even lets her gradually become a member of the household.    A mystery of sorts follows, as both Joy and Savannah disappear, and questions arise about whether any of the other family members could be responsible.

I've never been a tennis player, but I was interested in details about competitive tennis, and especially about rivalries that can be created.    I thought the parent/child and sibling/sibling relationships were interesting.   I didn't solve the "mystery" early, so kept reading to see where the plot was going.

So, see what you think.   Moriarty's books, of course, have been adapted for movie and TV, and certainly continue to be popular.

 

Thanks for sticking with me

 

You can see that I haven't had any books to write about for quite some time.   I just paged back on this site and saw that at least twice before over the years, I had "run out of steam." Then months later, I'd decided again to resume writing some posts.

Now I will give it a shot again.   Especially, thank you to four different friends who have told me in the last two weeks that they missed my book recommendations.   I am grateful for your encouragement!

 

Music of Bees---Eileen Garvin

 

I liked the setting of Music of Bees, as I remember how lovely the fruit-growing areas of Oregon were when we visited there.

I really appreciated being able to learn more about bees, a topic I wasn't very familiar with, and described here with love and respect.

I liked the three unconventional and well-developed characters:   Alice, a grieving widow trying to run an orchard on her own;   Jake, a teenage paraplegic struggling after a horrid accident;  Harry, an isolated young man hunting for a job he can tolerate.  

I liked the environmental slant, as Alice and other farmers strive to protect their lands and crops from pesticides and big business.

I think this would be an easy-going book club book, with interesting characters and a positive ending.   

   

"The Music of Bees tells a hopeful, heartwarming, uplifting story about the power of chosen family and newfound home and beginning again. Its delightful cast of characters is the perfect balance between quirky and familiar, flawed and endearing. And oh the bees!"

 

Cloud Cuckoo Land---Anthony Doerr

 

The first thing I can tell you about Anthony Doerr's new book Cloud Cuckoo Land is that it is accessible and very readable.     Even if you loved his  All the Light We Cannot See, you may feel daunted at first by this new 600 page book, especially when you know it is set in three extremely different times and locations. 

Believe me---and better reviewers too---when you are told that all three stories do come together, with parallel events, characters, and themes.    

In small-town Idaho in the present day, 80-year-old Zeno is directing a children's play, when an explosive device goes off in the library.      

In the 1500's, two youngsters--a poor boy Omir with a pair of oxen, and an orphan girl Anna who loves books---are on opposite sides of the city wall during the siege for Constantinople.

And, in a spaceship in the 22nd century, a young girl Konstance and her family are escaping the Earth for a safer, distant environment.

I cared about the characters and settings in all three locations, and didn't find it difficult when the author would move between stories.    But, I also read the book in one uninterrupted period when I was home with a bad cold.   I do think I may have found it harder to read over a period of weeks, when I would have been less able to remember details.    I think it may be a good winter, curl-up-and-read book for sure.  

You can tell the book is difficult to summarize.   But, I believe the author is a genius----how he was able to create these whole worlds in his own creative mind and make them come to life in readable prose.     I will be eager to hear how other readers respond to this very well-reviewed book.

 

Between Two Kingdoms--Suleika Jaouad

 

Between Two Kingdoms is aptly subtitled "A Memoir of a Life Interrupted."     Suleika Jaouad is a twenty-three-year-old college graduate, in love and on her way to Paris for her dream first job, when annoying itches on her feet and legs develop.    She certainly could not have guessed that those innocuous symptoms could be the start of a fight with leukemia that would take four years of treatment to save her own life.

But, when she finally recovered, she realized she had no "real life" to get back to.   She says she knew how to be sick, but she didn't know how to live her life being well.    

And, that is the divider in the two sections of this very readable memoir.    The first half tells of the ups and downs of cancer treatment for Suleika and her family and boyfriend.   But, the second half tells of the 15,000 mile road trip she and her dog took, to meet people who had written to her in treatment, and to discover how she wanted to live again.

I thought both sections were compelling and memorable.   In each, Suleika was supported by others as she used her own courage and abilities to make the best life from each set of circumstances.   Her writing is easy to read, but carries you right along as she moves from one "kingdom" to another.  

(And if you watch Stephen Colbert on TV, watch for a famous person from his show toward the end.) 

 

"Between Two Kingdoms will resonate with anyone who is living a different life than they planned to live."   Tara Westover, author of Educated. 

“Memorable, lyrical, and ultimately hopeful: a book that speaks intently to anyone who suffers from illness and loss.”—Kirkus Reviews

 

The Five Wounds---Kirsten Valdez Quade

 

I read a lot of books----and then promptly forget many of them.   But, for The Five Wounds, I remember the characters vividly, even weeks after finishing the book.   

This struggling family in New Mexico is so believable and interesting that I thought about them when I was away from the book.   Amadeo is the 33-year-old unemployed son, living with his mother who supports the family.   His 15-year-old, pregnant daughter Angel shows up on their doorstep, after a big argument with her mother.   The plot follows those characters, in addition to Angel's baby son following his birth, her white teacher at her intervention GED program, Amadeo's uncle, and Angel's friends from school.

Book clubs will want to discuss if some of the plot sequences are funny (Amadeo's attempts to start his own windshield repair business, for example) or just plain sad.    And, I will be interested to discuss how the "five wounds" of Christ, referenced in the title, are reflected in the rest of the novel.   

The Five Wounds  is extremely well- written, but it's not difficult to read.  Let yourself get past the first few pages, which describe an old, traditional Good Friday procession, and I think you will find yourself drawn into the lives of this large American family.   It's one of the best books I have read for quite some time.

 

"With beautifully layered relationships and an honest yet profoundly empathetic picture of a rural community―where the families proudly trace their roots back to the Spanish conquistadors while struggling with poverty and a deadly drug epidemic―this novel is a brilliant meditation on love and redemption. Perfectly rendered characters anchor a novel built around a fierce, flawed, and loving family."
― Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

 

Send for Me---Lauren Fox

 

This lovely book, Send for Me, begins in Germany in the early 1930's, but it is not another "World War II book," which I have read enough of for awhile.  

As the Nazis gain power, young wife Annalise and her husband Walter are able to escape with their small daughter Ruth, joining relatives already in Milwaukee.   But Annalise's parents are left behind and must wait to get their permission to emigrate, thus the title of the book.    

The book does reveal the horror of having one's life totally upended, and the huge decisions to be made if and when to leave one's homeland.   But for me, the focus on the book was on the close relationships between mothers and daughters, and how both our pasts and our futures shape our daily lives.

Author Lauren Fox still lives in the Milwaukee area, and much of this fiction book feels autobiographical.   We could discuss which of the mothers and daughters portrayed are the ones she most empathizes with.    Separating the mostly short chapters are segments from the actual letters Fox's mother and grandmother exchanged, as they waited on either side of the Atlantic, hoping to be reconnected.  My appreciation of the book was deepened, knowing this personal information about the author and her family.  

Most of us know something about our immigrant ancestors, and Send for Me made me think of my own ancestors and the losses they faced to come to America.  And, I was also aware as I read of the displaced Afghan people who are now looking to start new lives in Wisconsin.   

This was a short and beautifully-written book, full of love, and one that I will remember.

A novel of dazzling emotional richness that is based on letters from Lauren Fox's own family, Send for Me is a major departure for this acclaimed author, an epic and intimate exploration of mothers and daughters, duty and obligation, hope and forgiveness.

 

Malibu Rising---Taylor Jenkins Reid

 

I'm certainly not a California girl and know nothing about rock stars and surfers and famous swimsuit models.     But Malibu Rising gave me a taste of lives of the rich and famous living a beach life, and I thought it was a fun and unusual and even memorable summer book.  

Surprisingly, the main characters---four grown kids of a rock star father, who deserted them most of their lives---all seemed likable and understandable.   In spite of the ending where excesses of the rich and famous were on satirical display, the family members mostly seemed to support one another and come to terms with their differences.   

The author's descriptions made the characters seem real to me, even the self-serving, deserting father.    Reid's earlier book,  Daisy Jones and the Six, also showed a sympathetic view of lives of rock musicians, lives that are unfamiliar to most of us.    Some reviewers found the descriptions of excesses of drugs and sex upsetting, so maybe you will feel the same.   But, I thought the author was contrasting the real and personal lives of the four siblings with the ridiculous and dreadful choices that fame brings to others.

 

An Amazon Best Book of June 2021: This book is perfect for summer—think movie stars and surfing, flawed but loving siblings, and an epic party that ends in disaster. While the book unfolds during the course of a single day, flashbacks to when the siblings were kids and their rock star father abandoned them time and again reveal the complex dynamics still in force in their adulthood. After I finished this book, I would dream of these characters and their restaurant by the sea. Malibu Rising is a fun, unforgettable read.

 

The Plot---Jean Korelitz

 

It was hard to anticipate how a fiction book could have a plot about a plot---but this one does.    Author Jake has had one wildly successful book published, but now has been reduced to teaching in a workshop for hopeful writers.   One of his students Evan promises that he has a plot idea that will captivate everyone, and definitely lead to a best-seller.

But, Jake discovers Evan has died before ever getting that book published.   So he takes that same plot idea and writes a book that is yes, wildly successful.    Was he guilty of plagiarism, when no words had been written?   One character thinks that Jake is certainly guilty of theft, and that leads to the thriller part of this book's plot.  

I did figure out who the bad guy was before I got to the end of this book, and wasn't particularly "thrilled" along the way.   But the plot was interesting, as promised.   I mostly liked the thoughts about writing and how authors must reply on help from many others before their book can get published.

I thought it was a good summer read.   It was different from anything else I have read recently.    I'm finding uniqueness is becoming one of my main criteria for what I enjoy reading.

“Deep character development, an impressively thick tapestry of intertwining story lines, and a candid glimpse into the publishing business make this a page-turner of the highest order. Korelitz deserves acclaim for her own perfect plot.”
―Publishers Weekly (STARRED Review)

 

What Comes After---Joanne Tompins

 

 What Comes After grabbed me as a thriller---a small community experiences the murder/suicide of two high school friends.   What could have come between them?   A third character, a destitute teenage girl, appears to have been involved in some way, but the plot only gradually uncovers the role she played.

However, what I liked most about this book is what the title suggests---how people responded and began to move on, once the tragedy has occurred.   Important characters are two next-door neighbors, the mom of one boy and the dad of the other.   Tompkins writes with great insight, not only into the three teenage characters, but also into the adults in their lives.

The first reviews that attracted me to What Comes After told that the author deals with the role that religion and faith play in people's lives.  She is not preachy and does not suggest easy answers, but shows meaningful faith that supports but does not come easily.      

In the face of great pain, the ending was hopeful.   Tomkins' careful writing gave me new things to think about, and I will remember this book.   

 

With a propulsive mystery at its core, What Comes After offers an unforgettable story of loss and anger, but also of kindness and hope, courage and forgiveness.