Book Review: Mother’s House Payment
09 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: bipolar, child abuse, depression, fathers and daughters, memoir, mother daughter relationship, neglect, nonfiction
Mother’s House Payment by Ronnie Schiller (Kindle only, 2011)
“Depression follows mania. A manic person falls like Icarus, plummeting away from the sun into the depths of the sea.”
One of my professors recently said something very simple yet very brilliant about the difference between fiction and nonfiction: we want our fiction to be realistic and we want our nonfiction, especially memoirs, to be larger than life. There is some truth to that statement in this short but powerful memoir by the author of the Infernal Stock series.
Mother’s House Payment is the story of Schiller’s own life, and how she struggled to overcome her traumatic childhood. Born to a mother who never wanted her, Schiller’s childhood is marked by abuse, neglect, and being passed around among parents and step-parents. Still fighting deep emotional scars in her teen years, she experiences mental illness which leads to self-harm and eventually hospitalization. As an adult, she finds difficulty in maintaining healthy romantic relationships, and tries to finally break free of her unhappy, co-dependent marriage.
This is not an easy book to read. It’s raw, gritty, and uncomfortable. But it’s also very well written, and a story that deserves to be told. It shows just what happens to victims of abuse when they grow up, the burden they carry with them into adulthood. And the sad fact is that there are many abuse victims who were not as fortunate as Schiller to have gotten help and turned their lives around.
Mother’s House Payment is a sad but hopeful memoir, and I give a lot of credit to the author for finding the strength not only to help herself, but to share her story with the world. The book is currently selling well in the Kindle store, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it got picked up by a larger publisher sometime in the future.
Early Review: The Cranes Dance
01 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: ballet, dance, drug addiction, fiction, psychosis, sisters, swan lake, women's relationships
The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey (pub date 5/15/12)
“Little girls are romantic. We learn quickly though, how to suffer, how to endure differing. By the time a little girl has become a young woman she has learned how dangerous a thing it is to dream.”
I love stories about ballet dancers. Save the Last Dance, Center Stage, Black Swan, I’ve seen and love them all. Maybe it’s because I hung out with a lot of Dance majors when I was an undergrad. There was something about their world that fascinated me. The discipline, the stress, the constant strive to achieve perfection. Even though I was a TV/Film major and therefore an “untouchable” in the hierarchy of my college’s performing arts department, I got to spend time with dancers and learn the lingo and etiquette of the ballet world.
So naturally you can see what I was so psyched to read this book, and I was thrilled that it did not disappoint. The Cranes Dance is a refreshing look at the life of a professional ballerina, written by a former professional dancer.
Kate Crane has always been a talented dancer. As a teenager, she earned a scholarship to a prestigious ballet academy in New York City, earning a position as a soloist in the ballet company shortly thereafter. But while dance comes naturally to Kate, personal relationships do not come as easily. Kate keeps people at a distance: her boyfriend, her friends at the company, and her parents. The only person she has ever been close with is her younger sister Gwen, who is also a ballerina at the same company. But Gwen cannot handle the stress of being a professional dancer, and suffers a mental breakdown which forces her to leave the company indefinitely.
Slowly this book explores the relationship between Kate and Gwen, a relationship marked by love and jealousy. With fascinating insight into the world of professional ballet, The Cranes Dance is a compelling read. Kate is a great character, and it is interesting to see how her guilt over Gwen’s breakdown affects her mentally and physically. What I enjoyed most about the book was Kate’s sarcastic wit, demonstrated in the first chapter when she gives a plot synopsis of Swan Lake:
“This is meant to show us that off at the lake, Odette has a sense that she is being betrayed and is trying to warn the Prince, but of course this doesn’t work. We are in Days of Yore, and it’s not like she can text him or anything: Odile not 4 real. C U at Lake 2nite. xoxo
Odette.”
This is sort of “chick lit” I guess, but not in that saccharine Lifetime Channel sort of way, since this book is more serious than that. If you are interested in dance, or enjoy stories about women’s relationships, you will enjoy this book just as much as I did.
Early Review: A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar
28 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: fiction, missionary women, mother daughter relationship, muslim land, muslims, relationships, sisters, travel, women's relationships
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson (pub date 5/22/12)
“The tide had moved up the shore at an incredible rate and with the sound of shingle dragging up, and drragging down, taking away with it all the lies she had been told as a child. . .”
Now that summer is fast approaching, this is a great book to read for the season. Full of exotic travel, interesting characters, and excellent writing, it’s a summer read with substance.
A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar is an inter-generational drama about love, loss, and betrayal, peppered with the intrigue and danger of the mysterious Far East. In 1923, sisters Evangeline and Lizzie are on a missionary journey in the Turkish city of Kashgar. Led by the matronly figure Millicent, the ladies are spreading the Gospel in a land mostly populated by Muslims, while Evangeline takes notes for the travel guide she is planning to write. When the trio finds themselves the subjects of a local dispute, their lives quickly change in ways they never thought possible.
The 1923 story alternates with a story set in present-day London. Freida Blakeman is a world-weary young woman about to embark on a journey of self-discovery. She is aided by Tayeb, a Yemeni national living illegally in England, whom she recently befriended. Slowly, the connection between the alternating plots is revealed.
This is a rich book, touched with sadness yet still full of hope. The story sucks you in from the first page, and is well written throughout. I enjoyed the contrast between the two stories, not just in the settings, but in the situation the characters find themselves in. Evangeline, Lizzie, and Millicent are three British women in a foreign and sometimes hostile Muslim land, while Tayeb is a Muslim in England, a land foreign and sometimes hostile to him. And while the three missionary women face mainly external conflict, Freida’s conflict is all within herself. It’s s story about finding your roots, and about making your own destiny.
This is a great book for anyone who enjoys literary fiction, or stories about women’s relationships. A nice debut novel from a promising new writer.
Early Review: Grow Up
24 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: british, british coming of age story, coming of age, drug use, england, fiction, holden caulfield, teen boys, teen drug use
Grow Up by Ben Brooks (pub date 4/24/12)
“Cults are so oppressive. Except for the Manson Family. They got to try lots of exciting things.”
Coming-of-age novels featuring teen boys have always been both interesting and controversial. They tend to be more forceful, more strongly worded, and can sometimes contain more questionable material than feminine coming-of-age stories. From Catcher in the Rye to Lord of the Flies to The Diary of Adrian Mole, these kind of novels have made lasting impressions in the world of literature and have given us memorable characters for generations.
Despite best efforts, however, the protagonist in Grow Up is no Holden Caulfield or Adrian Mole. British teen Jasper Wolf spends his free time getting high with friends (he often resorts to snorting fertilizer) and advancing his sexual prowess. When he isn’t partying, Jasper is writing erotic fiction or speculating on whether his stepfather murdered his ex wife. He also sees a therapist, but subverts his therapy by making up stories about himself and his past. The plot basically meanders until the end, when Jasper achieves a mild form of enlightenment about taking responsibility for his actions.
What frustrated me about this book was that Jasper would have been a more interesting character, and the book as a whole would have been more worthwhile, if the lessons learned at the end would have been more pronounced. The book lacks catharsis and resolution, making the story leading up to the ending pretty much pointless. The writing was actually pretty clever at times, and Jasper had a humorous streak to him, which made it rather disappointing that the plot lacked direction.
Teens may enjoy this book for the sex, drugs, and language, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But more serious readers will likely finish it and think “so what?” I’m not in any way opposed to books that contain crude material (Trainspotting is still one of my favorite novels), but for me there has to be a point to all that debauchery. So while the book caused a minor stir when it was published in England (though it failed to impress some British book critics), I’m not sure what American readers will make of it.
Did you read this book? Tell me what you thought!
Early Review: Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage
20 Mar 2012 1 Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: 1912, famous titanic passengers, nonfiction, shipwreck, titanic, titanic centennial, wealthy titanic passengers
Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World by Hugh Brewster (pub date 3/27/12)
We’re only weeks away from the centennial of the Titanic disaster, and publishers are quickly coming out with new titles on the subject while they still can. And while there are numerous fiction and nonfiction books on the market telling the same story over and over again, here is a book that tries to do it a little differently. Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage focuses on the perspective of the passengers rather than the ship. The book gives extremely detailed accounts of the lives of Titanic’s most famous passengers. It looks at them as real people, rather than just a group of individuals aboard the same ship.
Through painstaking research and a lively writing style, Hugh Brewster recalls the life stories of John Jacob Astor, Margaret Brown, Lucile Duff Gordon, Frank Millet, and many others. The book gives their personal histories, their romances, their triumphs, and their scandalous secrets. Rare photographs and hundreds of quotations help breathe life into these biographies.
While other Titanic books focus mostly on the ship, with the passengers as an accessory to its story, in this book the passengers are the story. The book really gives readers insight and perspective regarding society and culture in the early twentieth century. If you’re looking for a factually accurate yet well-written account of the Titanic disaster, definitely check this book out. It’s a chilling reminder of just how compelling the tragedy is, even after a hundred years.
Early Review: Rain Dragon
12 Mar 2012 3 Comments
in New Release Reviews Tags: commune, fiction, living off the grid, organic farming, relationships
Rain Dragon by Jon Raymond (pub date 4/24/12)
“Now that my former life was so definitively behind me, I could see it for all its wonderful comfort and ease.”
Rain Dragon is a short novel about what happens when people get what they are searching for and still find themselves wanting more.
Damon and his longtime girlfriend Amy are young adults looking for a change from the grind of their daily lives. They decide to say goodbye to their jobs, their commutes, and their comforts in Los Angeles and join a commune of organic farmers. Amy seems to find her place in the community pretty quickly, while Damon struggles to fit in and has a difficult time letting go of his former life in Los Angeles. This disparity quickly puts a strain on their relationship. But soon enough, Damon’s luck changes when he is asked to take control of the farm’s marketing and branding efforts.
I’m still not really sure what to make of this book. It had a very promising and interesting premise, but I started losing interest about a third of the way through. The characters are underdeveloped, and the rest of the story was pretty weak. I found it pretty unclear what the true point of the story really was. Damon was a likeable enough character, but the author didn’t flesh him out enough to make him interesting.
Indie books can be really amazing, but in this case there just wasn’t enough to really hold my interest.
Book Review: That Deadman Dance
08 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: aboriginies, australia, british, colonization, fiction, historical fiction, imperialism
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott (pub date 2/28/12)
“My people and I are not so good traders as we thought. We thought making friends was the best thing, and never knew that when we took your flour and sugar and tea and blankets that we’d lose everything of ours. We learned your words and songs and stories, and never knew you didn’t want to hear ours.”
The British colonization of Australia is a fascinating subject, and one that I’ve found isn’t explored too often in American literature. Just because it isn’t a part of American history doesn’t make it any less relavant to us. The British colonists’ relations with the Aboriginal tribes of Australia seem to closely resemble those of American colonists and Native Americans. It’s a relationship of fear and ignorance, and Australian author Kim Scott explores this history in his novel That Deadman Dance.
Set in the early part of the 19th century, the book tells the story of Bobby Wabalanginy, a young member of the Noongar tribe, and his experiences with the newly arrived British colonists at King George Town. Some of the British are warm and generous; Dr. Cross is kind to the natives and has a special kinship with a tribe elder called Wunyerun. After their deaths they are buried beside each other (as Dr. Cross requested), but while Dr. Cross is given a proper grave stone, Wunyerun’s grave lies unmarked. This sets the tone for the future relations between the British and the Noongar people.
What follows is a story of mistreatment and racism toward the indiginous tribes. The theft of food from the colonists’ storeroom is severely punished, yet the colonists feel entitled to kill as many whales and kangaroos as they deem fit. Years later a much older Bobby would become a local entertainer, putting on performances for the white tourists. He is now seemingly a shadow of his former self.
I’m not exactly sure what to make of this novel. I was excited to read it and I enjoyed the overall story, but often I found it difficult to read. The book often switches perspectives among multiple characters and switches to different points in the timeline, and this was done in such a way that it left me unsure at times of who was speaking or who was the subject of the chapter. However I will say that this may be due more to the layout of the unproofed Kindle version I read rather than the author’s writing style. Af of now I only have the advance e-book copy to go by, so it may be worth a re-read when the book is published in its final format.
I also found that some subplots were introduced only to be quickly forgotten. There was a hint of a romance between Bobby and a colonist’s daughter but then it was never brought up again. There was a lot of description about whale hunting, but I would have liked to see that description applied more to the characters.
Still, this is an important story that deserved to be told. The book was already released in Australia, where it won the prestigious Miles Franklin award in 2011. If you’re interested in Australian history or world history in general, That Deadman Dance is worth reading.
Book Review: The Coward’s Tale
04 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: coal mining, colliery accidents, family drama, fiction, literary fiction, mining, wales
The Coward’s Tale by Vanessa Gebbie (pub date 2/28/12)
“. . . for the Devil will not cross a scrubbed step. Indeed he won’t, for if he lives inside there is no need to cross it, is there?”
I love stories about real human drama. Sometimes a simple, down-to-earth story about human emotions can be more stirring and memorable than a dramatic genre novel. Debut novel The Coward’s Tale is just such a book. It’s about the strained relationships among families and neighbors, and about people who still suffer because of the actions of their parents.
In a small, close-knit town in Wales, a local beggar named Ianto Jenkins spends his days telling the life stories of the town’s prominent residents. For the price of some candy and a cup of coffee, Ianto will spill the townsfolk’s secrets to anyone who asks. Why is Andrew Bowen called ‘Baker Bowen’ even though he isn’t a baker? Why does the deputy librarian hate to see children playing? And why is Judah Jones obsessed with cleaning windows?
What Ianto reveals are the quirky, humorous, tragic, and disturbing histories of the town’s families. Bit by bit we learn that each of Ianto’s stories involves an accident in the town’s coal mine, an accident which has cast a shadow over the town for decades. But the one story Ianto can’t tell is his own: the story of why he is called ‘Passchendaele,’ meaning ‘coward.’ A bright nine-year-old boy named Laddy soon befriends the mysterious beggar, and tries to get him to tell his story.
There are lots of books out there about family secrets and tragedies, but The Coward’s Tale is exceptionally well written and clever. Ianto is an adept storyteller, and the ideal vehicle through which we discover the sad stories of the town’s residents. His own attempt to find redemption for his perceived sins adds extra depth to the story and makes the book a satisfying and worthwhile read. Ianto is a compelling character, seemingly lively and cheerful but also carrying an emotional burden. The writing draws the reader in and the prose is quite haunting at times.
This is a really good debut novel that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys British stories and dramatic literary fiction. I’d like to see another book from Vanessa Gebbie sometime soon!
Book Review: May the Road Rise Up to Meet You
29 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: abolition, american history, civil war, fiction, historical fiction, irish immigration, potato famine, slavery
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
26 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in New Release Reviews Tags: 1912, dressmaking, fashion, fiction, historical fiction, romance, social classes, titanic
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.
