Monthly Archives: January 2012

Early Review: Obedience

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Obedience by Jacqueline Yallop (pub date 1/31/12)

It’s difficult to think of the clergy, especially nuns,  as being regular people.  Because they have chosen a life of service to God, society expects them to be better than the rest of us, perfect, never tempted to do wrong.  Here is a novel that turns that idea upside down, and presents a disturbing story of forbidden love and betrayal.

Primarily set in World War II era France, Obedience is the story of a nun, Sister Bernard, who falls in love with a Nazi soldier.  This romance quickly becomes the defining moment of the young nun’s life, as it leads her to betray her religious vows and her country.  The story alternates between this time period and the present day, in which Sister Bernard, now in her nineties, is sent to live in a rest home after her convent closes.  Turned out into the world for the first time in sixty years, she is forced to confront the consequences of her actions during the war, and struggles to deal with the guilt.

This is an unsettling story, filled with contradiction.  Sister Bernard has sworn a vow of obedience to God, yet allows herself to become blindly obedient to her German lover, refusing to see the evil that the Nazis stand for.  The book also explores Sister Bernard’s personal relationship with God.  She once believed that she literally heard God speaking to her, and to her it seemed as if she was constantly unworthy of God’s approval:

“He thinks nothing is right.  I can’t please Him.”

But is it God who disapproves of Sister Bernard’s actions, or she herself who subconsciously thinks herself unworthy of love?  Jacqueline Yallop’s subtle, matter-of-fact writing style allows the audience to decide that for themselves.

What was interesting for me was that while I found Sister Bernard to be a disagreeable and frustrating character (frustrating because even after everything that has happened as a result of her misdeeds, she still thinks of her Nazi lover with fondness and nostalgia), I found the story to be rich and thought-provoking.  It took me a little while to put aside my displeasure for the protagonist’s actions and allow myself to consider her perspective.  It takes a good author to give an audience such a morally confused character and still write a story that is at times touching.

Obedience will surprise you, maybe even shock and anger you.  You will feel for Sister Bernard, yet still hate her at times.  But give this book a chance, because you won’t soon forget it.

Book Review: 1Q84

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1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (pub date 10/25/11)

I have never read Murakami until now, and I read somewhere that if you’re going to get into his writing, this is not the book to start with.  Oops.  It certainly seems that this is a divisive book.  People either love it or hate it, and even some of Murakami’s diehard fans were disappointed with it, as was The New York Times.

This definitely has to be one of the strangest books I’ve ever read.  I joked that it should have been called “WTF84.”  Clearly, it isn’t for everyone.  But if you have the patience and the imagination to stick with it, you may find it as peculiarly endearing as I did.

The plot of 1Q84 is almost impossible to describe concisely.  It’s a metaphysical science fiction story with crime, sex, and romance thrown in.  The title refers to an alternate reality set in the year 1984, and is a play on words; the words for ‘nine’ and ‘Q’ are homophones in the Japanese language.  The two main characters are Aomame, a fitness instructor and part-time assassin, and Tengo, a math teacher and aspiring author.  Gradually they come to believe that they have been transported to an alternate world, and end up in a strange plot involving a religious cult, a teenage writer, weird sex, murder, a sky with two moons, and a malevolent force referred to as “the Little People.”

It’s weird.  Really weird.  And my summary doesn’t do it justice.  But as it says in the book, if you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.  It’s a book that has to be experienced to be understood.  And if you look past the weirdness, you can see some very simple themes emerge in the writing, and that is what makes this book so interesting.  Underneath the convoluted plot are themes of love, longing, and free will versus fate.

One common critique of 1Q84 is that it’s repetitive, that the characters say the same thing over and over.  While it’s true that some lines are often repeated by different characters, I wouldn’t go so far as to call the book repetitious.  What some call repetition I call variations on a theme.  The book shows how each of the major characters reacts to the same strange events.  Each character makes his or her own discovery in a different way. 

At over nine hundred pages, this book requires some commitment to get through.  But it’s incredibly imaginative, amazingly detailed, and quite a mental workout.  It’s heavy on exposition and backstory, but the slow-building drama is worth it in the end.  Again I’ll say that this book isn’t for everyone.  But if you’re tired of quick and easy reads and are looking for something different, 1Q84 is about as different as literature can get.

Book Review: Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

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Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers (pub date 1/19/12)

Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

This is a book about the meaning of the mother-daughter relationship, and the devastation felt when that relationship is lost.  Set in beautiful coastal Maine during the 1960s, Red Ruby Heart is both a coming-of-age story and a story about the strength of the human spirit.

Twelve-year-old Florine has lived a pretty sheltered life in her rural Maine town.  She has two loving parents, a doting grandmother, and a spirited best friend.  The most drama she experienced in her young life so far was when she and her friends got into trouble for accidentally starting a fire at a neighbor’s summer home.  Then things in Florine’s life begin to go wrong when her mother goes on a weekend getaway with a friend and fails to return.  Her mother’s absense begins to affect her family in different ways, and Florine experiences a storm of emotions.  She rages against the mother whom she sees as having abandoned her, yet is still pained by her love for her. 

Red Ruby Heart is both tragic and uplifting.  It’s the story of a girl forced to grow up early, set in a time period when a generation of women were growing up and reclaiming their independence.  We are sad to see Florine enter into womanhood without her mother’s guidance, but feel her happiness and pain as she struggles to reclaim her identity without defining herself by her relationship with her mother.  Rogers manages to capture the wide range of feelings that teenage girls experience (the joy, the heartbreak, the uncertainty) and creates a dynamic character that readers can sympathize with.  The book concludes with a bittersweet ending  that is both fitting and memorable.

There are a lot of coming-of-age stories out there, but this is one of the good ones.  Though it will likely be classified as “chick lit,” I think this is a story that men and women can equally enjoy.

Early Review: The Ruins of Us

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The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen (pub date 1/17/12)

What would you be willing to do to marry someone from another culture?  Imagine changing your religion, learning a new language, and moving to another continent to be with the person you love.

The Ruins of Us is about a woman who has done just that.  Rosalie is a beautiful American, born in Texas, who is married to a sheik named Abdullah.  Rosalie left her life behind to live with Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, and quickly adapted to Saudi culture.  She converted to Islam, learned Arabic, and dressed and acted as was expected of the women in Abdullah’s country.  Together they raised two children, and enjoy the life of luxury that Abdullah’s wealth has provided.  But Rosalie’s illusions of a happy life are quickly shattered when she inadvertently learns that Abdullah has taken a second wife, and had been keeping his other marriage a secret for two years.

Shaken and angry, Rosalie starts to reconsider her life with Abdullah and her place in Saudi culture.  What is interesting about the book is that it also considers Abdullah’s perspective on the marriage.  He is shown as a man who cares deeply for his wife, yet finds himself yearning for the person she was before they were married.  It is an interesting paradox to think that he fell in love with Rosalie because she was not like Saudi women, while knowing deep down that she would have to adapt to Saudi culture in order to be accepted by his family, and later resenting her for it.

The turmoil in Rosalie and Abdullah’s marriage makes them too preoccupied to see its effects on their teenage children.  Their daughter Mariam years to be a more modern woman, and begins pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior for girls at her school.  Their son Faisal takes the opposite approach; he falls in with a group of radical Muslim fundamentalists, and comes to hate his own American heritage.

This is a powerful debut novel.  The characters are bold and dynamic.  It is interesting to contemplate Rosalie’s character, a woman who prides herself on her independence and spirit, yet who chose to live in a country where she is not legally permitted to drive a car.  Abdullah is not entirely unsympathetic; he loves his wife but is conflicted by what is acceptable in his culture and how it affects his marriage.  This is a story about love and loyalty that is both well written and engaging.  It’s a relevant and entertaining read from a great new author!

Early Review: Taft 2012

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Taft 2012 by Jason Heller (pub date 1/17/12)

Quirk Books lives up to its name in this debut novel by Jason Heller!  Taft 2012 is a “Rip Van Winkle” story of epic proportions, as big as the protagonist himself, William Howard Taft.  (Sorry, I had to get at least one weight joke in there).

As the title suggests, Taft 2012 offers a what-if scenario in which former president Taft mysteriously disappears in 1912 after losing his re-election campaign (he actually died in 1930) and awakens in the present day.  Confused to say the least, Taft finds himself having to catch up on a century’s worth of change and progress.  His reappearance causes such a stir among the American people that he is quickly asked to run for President as a third-party candidate. 

An absurd concept, yes, but this book surprised me.  Most readers would likely assume that a man who lived a hundred years ago would be horrified at the current state of America.  But the modern Taft embraces his new country and is accepting of the many social changes that have occurred since his time.  Heller obviously did his homework on Taft’s politics, and he presents the new Taft much as he was when he was in office: fiscally conservative yet socially progressive, a moderate who followed the letter of the law.  What Taft does not support is lying and back-stabbing; and unfortunately he sees as much of that in today’s politics as he did in 1912 politics.

Though a fast read, this is an interesting book with a wildly original story.  Overall, it’s a fun and uplifting book.  And I have to give credit to the author for suggesting that perhaps what America needs is not another Republican or Democrat, but something different altogether.  The ideals expressed are so refreshing that if the real Taft did indeed come back, I’d probably vote for him too.

Neverwhere: A Blast From the Past

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I got hooked on Neil Gaiman after reading Coraline.  It was one of the books I wrote about in my grad school application essay.  A few months later I read American Gods and my mind was officially blown.  So I was thrilled when someone gave me a copy of his much earlier work Neverwhere for my birthday.  It sat on my ”to-read” shelf for a few months, but so goes the life of a book blogger.

    Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

By now, the plot of Neverwhere is pretty well known.  It has been a novel, a TV series, a comic book, and a stage play.  Supposedly it is going to be adapted into a feature film, but if that’s true I’m willing to bet it languishes in Development Hell for a few years and never gets made (as did the fabled Preacher movie).  But to give a quick recap, Neverwhere is set in modern day London, only what very few people know is that there are two Londons.  There is London Above, the one we know, and London Below, a secret city populated by strange and often dangerous people and creatures.  Our guide through this journey is Richard Mayhew, an average joe who discovers London Below when he gets swept up in a young woman’s quest to avenge her family’s murder.

This isn’t your average “down the rabbit hole” story…more like Alice in Wonderland on crank.  Gaiman’s story is engaging, satirical, and at times pretty scary.  While I enjoyed American Gods more, it’s almost unfair to say that since they are such different kinds of stories.  American Gods was just epic.  But if you enjoy fantasy and science fiction in the same vein as Doctor Who, it’s pretty safe to say that you’ll enjoy Neverwhere.  If you’ve heard of it but never made the time to read it, now is as good a time as any to start.  And I’m looking forward to reading Anansi Boys sometime in the near future!

2011 in review

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Thanks for making Chicks Dig Books a success!  Here are my stats for 2011.  Here’s hoping that 2012 will be even better!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 55 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.