Monthly Archives: February 2012

Book Review: May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

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May the Road Rise Up to Meet You by Peter Troy (pub date 2/28/12)

“Ethan lad, if it’s a happy tale you’re after, then sure you was born in the wrong land.”

I’m not really Irish, except on St. Patrick’s Day of course.  But as wife to an Irish-Italian husband and in-law to a “wicked cool” Boston Irish family, I’d like to think I know a thing or two about Irish stories.  Specifically, they’re depressing, and they’re full of death.

All kidding aside, May the Road Rise Up to Meet You does start out depressing and with a death, but turns out to be a very uplifting story in spite of the heavy subject matter.  Set in the mid-19th century, it starts by telling the story of twelve-year-old Ethan McOwen, who is one of four protagonists in the book.  Still grieving the death of his older sister from the potato famine, Ethan is sent by his mother from Ireland to join his father and brother in America.  He lands in New York, and years later when the Civil War breaks out he joins the Union army’s Irish Brigade.

Interwoven with Ethan’s tale are the stories of three other characters.  Micah is a black slave who is separated from his family and sold to a cruel master.  Mary, another slave, is treated kindly by her masters yet longs to be a free woman.  Finally, Marcella is a young woman from a wealthy Spanish family, disowned by her father for supporting the abolition movement. 

Eventually, all four characters cross paths, and the result is a sweeping saga that turns out to be not just an Irish story or a Civil War story, but an American story.  It’s the story of four people trying to find freedom and acceptance in different ways, and the journeys they take to get what they want.  In my opinion, Micah and Mary were the more interesting characters simply because they were so conflicted.  Ethan and Marcella weren’t necessarily bad characters but they were a little bit “goody two shoes” and could have used some spicing up.  However don’t let this deter you from checking out this book.  So pick up May the Road Rise Up to Meet You for St. Patrick’s Day, or if you enjoy American historical fiction!

Book Review: The Dressmaker

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The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (pub date 2/21/12)

The one hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is an occasion for remembrance and also for marketing gimmicks.  James Cameron will be re-releasing his immensely famous film this year (supposedly in 3D), and there will be tons of books, both fiction and nonfiction, published on the subject.  As someone fascinated by the Titanic and by the time period, I was really excited to read The Dressmaker.

The story centers around Tess Collins, a poor servant and aspiring dressmaker, who runs away from the house she is serving in and attempts to board the Titanic at Cherbourg.  As fate would have it, she meets renowned fashion designer Lucile Duff Gordon and convinces her to take Tess with her to New York as a maid.  Tess and Lucile both survive the sinking, and the ever-fortunate Tess is given a position in Lucille’s design studio.  But as rumors spread about Lucile’s ignoble actions during Titanic’s sinking and an investigation ensues, Tess becomes unsure of who or what to believe about the scandal.

I wanted to like this book, and I can see that it tried, but about a third of the way in I could tell that the story lacked substance and was slowly going nowhere.  The characters were flat and the writing and dialogue pretty dull.  Despite being based on historical events, the book failed to breathe any life into the time period.  Alcott is ambitious but amateurish, relying on nearly nonexistent conflict and a love triangle (sigh) to keep the story moving forward.  I found myself skimming the pages by the time I got to the end.

To give credit where it’s due, however, I will say that Alcott did her homework when it comes to the sinking of the Titanic.  There really was a Lucile Duff Gordon who was a popular fashion designer, and she and her husband were investigated for their alleged actions during their rescue.  And several of the other well known Titanic passengers, including Bruce Ismay and “the unsinkable” Molly Brown also make appearances in the novel.  Unfortunately these people, while fascinating in real life, came across as lifeless and stilted in the book.

All in all, The Dressmaker isn’t terrible, but it’s unoriginal fluff with boring stock characters and a pretty lame ending.  If you want to get your Titanic fix, I suggest finding another book or just watching the movie. . .even if it means having to hear that Celine Dion song again.

Book Review: The Miseducation of Cameron Post

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The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

“It was guys and girls who kissed–in our grade, on TV, in the movies, in the world; and that’s how it worked: guys and girls.  Anything else was something weird.”

I first heard about this book after reading an interview with author Emily Danforth on Slate.com, and decided right away that I needed to read it.  What I got was a beautifully written and inspiring coming-of-age story, set during the early 1990s against the backdrop of the socially conservative American midwest.

When we first meet Cameron, she is twelve years old and just lost both her parents to a car crash.  What no one knows is that just hours before the crash, Cameron had been kissing her best friend Irene.  Slowly she struggles to come to terms with her parents’ death, a part of her wondering what her parents would have thought if they had lived to find out that she had kissed a girl.

A few years later, Cameron is living in rural Montana with her religious aunt.  She has had a few more experiences with girls, but is still questioning her orientation and therefore keeps her feelings to herself.  Not ready to be ”out and proud,” she goes on a few dates with a boy from her school, but soon finds herself overwhelmed with feelings for her new friend Coley.  Though at first Coley insists that she is not “that way,” she and Cameron quickly begin an intense (but still awkward) relationship.  But things change drastically for Cameron when her aunt discovers her “sin” and sends her to Promise, a Christian boarding school whose agenda is curing teens of homosexuality. 

What I loved most about this book was that even though the protagonist is a gay teen, this is still a relatable coming-of-age story.  Cameron experiences all the same uncertainty, self-doubt, and peer pressure that any other teen experiences.  She really isn’t so much a pioneer for gay rights as a teenager who just wants the freedom to be herself.  And I think that’s something that anyone, gay or straight, can relate to.  Cameron is still a wonderful character.  Smart, funny, mischievous, and at times very poignant:

“At Word of Life I felt like a big, shiny, obvious goldfish, a goldfish well known to have homosexual tendencies, so basically a big, gay goldfish in a tank with eighteen other such goldfish, wheeled in and parked in a pew for two hours, much to the delight of the crowd.”

This book received some criticism for not portraying the teachers and counselors at Promise in a more negative way.  However misguided their beliefs are, they are not the snarling, abusive beasts we expect them to be.  But subtle as it is, the book is still very critical of conversion therapy.  One chapter in particular is graphic enough to show how dangerous this therapy really is.  The overall message is clear: you cannot pray the gay away. 

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a beautiful story.  Danforth’s portrayal of the teenage experience is authentic, and Cameron’s story is one you won’t soon forget.  I would recommend this book to anyone because it’s more than an LGBT story, it’s a human story.

Early Review: Flatscreen

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Flatscreen by Adam Wilson (pub date 2/21/12)

I can usually relate to books with protagonists who find themselves disenchanted with the reality of their lives.  It’s a common theme in today’s media, as the Y2K generation is now turning thirty and realizing that the so-called “American Dream” is a lot harder to achieve than they were told.  The bitter disappointment of life can make for a very powerful story.  Unfortunately, this book is neither powerful nor poignant.

Flatscreen tries to put a new spin on the typical “loveable loser finally turns his life around” story.  Eli Schwartz is a twenty-year-old kid who never went to college and lives in his mother’s basement.  He has no job, no propects, and no drivers license.  He spends his time alienating anyone who tries to help him, doing drugs with his friends and stumbling into random sexual encounters.  Eli’s comfortable existence is shaken when his mother decides to sell her house.  Strangely enough, he becomes friendly with the buyer of his house, Seymour Kahn, who is basically an older and slightly more depraved version of Eli. 

Despite my best efforts, I found this book grossly disappointing.  What I thought was going to be a humorous insight into the “failure to launch” phenomenon was instead a meandering story told by an intensely unlikeable character.  Eli is a spoiled rich kid who has yet to get over his parents’ divorce and refuses to take any responsibility for his life.  His feeble attempts to redeem himself at the end of the book were not enough to make me like him or the story.  Furthermore, I found the writing style distracting and rather annoying.  Wilson’s constant use of sentence fragments and stream-of-consciousness style were often difficult to follow.  It’s a style that works for Chuck Palahniuk because Chuck Palahniuk is brilliant.  It doesn’t work in this book.

I was really looking forward to reading this book when I downloaded it from NetGalley.  Maybe I should have been warned by the letter of praise from Wilson’s editor that was attached to the advance copy.  Some may enjoy this book, but I found it unoriginal and overall pretty dull.

Early Review: The Darlings

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The Darlings by Cristina Alger (pub date 2/16/12)

Inspired by the not-too-long-ago Bernie Madoff scandal, and in light of the seemingly endless financial recession still going on, here is a novel by a new author that takes us inside the privileged lives of the Manhattan elite.

The Darlings is about a fictional Manhattan family and what happens when their world comes crashing down.  Carter Darling is a billionaire financier and the embodiment of the term ‘WASP.’  With a beautiful wife, two perfect daughters, and endless connections, he does indeed lead a charmed life.  He has just hired his son-in-law Paul as the head of his hedge fund’s legal team, a position Paul is happy to accept. 

But things begin to quickly unravel for the Darling family the day before Thanksgiving.  A tragic event shocks the financial world, and invites unwanted media attention on Carter’s financial dealings.  With an investigation by the Securities Exchange Commission looming overhead, the family members become suspicious of one another, and betrayal and heartache are quick to follow.

This was a very interesting book to read, with a storyline quite relevant to the time.  Cristina Alger has a law degree and has actually worked as an analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co., making her the ideal person to write a story like this.  But in addition to having the necessary knowledge and experience to make this story come to life, she is also a great writer.  Her characters are living, breathing people with needs, fears, insecurities, joys, and aspirations.  Alger’s writing takes us to the forefront of a lifestyle filled with prestigious schools, charity balls, summers in the Hamptons, trips to Nantucket, and Park Avenue apartments.  But it’s a cut-throat lifestyle too, a world in which not everyone survives:

“Manhattan was a Darwinian environment: only the strongest survived. The weak, the nice, the naïve, the ones who smiled at passersby on the sidewalk, they all got weeded out. They would give up. They would opt out.

The ones who stayed long enough to raise children were the tough ones, the tenacious ones, the goal-oriented ones, the gold-digging ones, the deal-closing ones, the ‘kill or be killed’ ones, the ‘whatever it takes’ ones. They looked out for themselves and slept with one eye open.”

With a tight story and a surprising ending, The Darlings is an enjoyable novel by a new author to watch.  Regardless of whether you know anything about law or finance, this is a book that many different audiences can enjoy.

Early Review: The Quiet Twin

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The Quiet Twin by Dan Vyleta (pub date 2/14/12)

I can always count on Bloomsbury to deliver outstanding literary fiction.  Their books, including last summer’s release Salvage the Bones for example, always contain powerful stories that really make you think.  And The Quiet Twin is no exception.

This book’s plot revolves around the lives of the denizens of a working-class apartment building in Nazi-era Austria.  Anton Beer is a reserved and respected doctor who operates an office inside his apartment.  Professor Speckstein lives with his housekeeper and his teenage, hypochondriac niece Zuska.  Anneliese is a ten-year-old girl suffering from a physical disfigurement and living with her alcoholic father.  And then there’s Otto Frei, a secretive man who works nights performing a mime act in a burlesque house.  Yuu is a Japanese expatriate who is more clever than people assume.  Finally, the building’s janitor sees and hears everyone’s secrets.

A series of strange events links these motley characters together.  It starts when someone kills the Professor’s dog, one of several unsolved murders in the area.  Then the young Zuzka and Anneliese discover the secret that Otto has been keeping in his apartment, a secret that Otto is desperate to conceal.  The book’s principal theme is that appearances are deceiving.  Each of the character’s facades is broken down throughout the course of the novel, finally revealing the truth at the end.

The Quiet Twin is the stuff of a Hollywood Oscar contender: a bitter drama with conflicted characters.  I could almost feel the desperation and fear and smell the crumbling walls of the apartment building as I read this book.  Vyleta’s writing style is sparse but effective, and his story is disturbing because it draws its inspiration from reality.  The horrors of the Nazi regime (particularly its eugenics projects) serve as the backdrop for this story. 

If you enjoy historical fiction, this is one book you won’t soon forget.

My Interview in Apiary Magazine!

Interviews

Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed for Apiary, an awesome literary magazine based in Philadelphia.  We had a nice chat about the book industry and some of my favorite titles of 2011, among other things.  So if you’re curious to find out why I got started in blogging or what my thoughts on cheese are, you can find the interview here! 

And please check out Apiary‘s site for info on literary events in Philly such as poetry slams and writing workshops!

She’s Such a Geek!

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Hey ladies!  Have you ever been told that something you did was “pretty good for a girl”?  Have you ever been discouraged by others from taking a class or doing an activity because there were not a lot of women in it?  Or maybe you’re like me, and when you were a small child you were told by a relative not to let boys know that you were smart because they wouldn’t like it.  If any of what you just read pissed you off, then you need to read this book.

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For Christmas, my wonderful husband (who loves me for my brain and my body) surprised me with a copy of She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff.  Published in 2006, it’s a collection of short essays written by nerdy women from all walks of life.  They share their experiences with working in fields such as math, physics, computer technology, scientific research, and gaming. 

One thing that is really interesting about this book is the wide range of experiences shared by the authors.  Most of them have the shared experience of being made fun of for their intellectual gifts, but their personalities and backgrounds are so varied that each essay stands out on its own.  Some of the women are married with children, others are single, some are lesbians, and one is transgender.  One of the authors is physically challenged, and writes about how computers helped her manage her disability.  Another author write about how her success in her field sometimes causes conflict with her traditional Indian upbringing.  This is an engaging set of essays written by a varied selection of really smart women.  It shows that nerdy girls come from all kinds of backgrounds, and that they can do great things when they push themselves to succeed.

For me, the best thing about this book was that despite its feminist message, this is not a man-bashing book.  The authors are not a bunch of angry feminists who hate men.  The connecting theme of the essays is that it’s OK for girls to be smart, and smart girls should be encouraged to succeed the same way that boys are.  The book encourages us to challenge gender stereotypes and to realize that nerdy girls have just as much to offer the world as nerdy guys. 

So to the smart chicks out there, if you’ve ever felt weird or embarrassed about your geekiness, check out this positive and uplifting book written by a group of women who know what it feels like to be labeled as “the smart girl.”  You may just be surprised at how much you can identify with the authors’ experiences.