THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES by Kim Fay

"The one thing to remember about an adventure is that if it turns out the way you expect it to, it has not been an adventure at all." - THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES

The adventure begins in Shanghai in 1925. Irene Blum, passed over for her expected promotion to the curatorship of the Brooke Museum in Seattle, has arrived to meet Simone Merlin and recruit her on a mission to recover scrolls that will illuminate the history of the mysterious Khmer. Irene's father had bequeathed a letter proving the existence of the scrolls to Irene's mentor, Mr. Simms, who presents this evidence to Irene when she leaves the museum in fury. Along for the ride are Marc Rafferty, recommended by Mr. Simms, and Simone's recruit, Louis Lafont, a competitor of Irene's. Naturally, everyone has ulterior motives and secrets, which just keeps things interesting. Running underneath the story (and bubbling to the surface) is the colonial attitude of ownership in another country's treasures and questions of a country's right to control its own history.

Fay evokes her settings (Shanghai, Saigon, and, finally, Cambodia) with rich prose:

"Breathing in the scent of fish drifting on a current of lemongrass and star anise, she felt her strength begin to return. And it amazed her that somehow, despite how this part of the world wearied her, it also gave her sustenance--just to stand in the middle of it, sheltered from the midday sun by the flaming petals of a coral tree."

Along with the spices, Irene and Simone breathe in the history and culture of Cambodia, and it is a heady brew. The sense of place and time and culture is well-balanced. The only sour note for me was the relationship between Marc and Irene. He irritated me - much more Kate Capshaw than Karen Allen - and the romance, compared to the mystery and adventure, simply wasn't that interesting. But then, I've never found the love interest component in adventure novels or movies to be the most compelling part; if that's something you enjoy, simply ignore my mild complaint. Adventure, betrayal, mystery, history, culture, and exotic locations - an excellent way to pass the time. I recommend THE MAP OF LOST MEMORIES to anyone who loved Indiana Jones films but wished they had a woman at the center.

Source disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers Program.

THE GIRL BELOW by Bianca Zander

THE GIRL BELOW is an extraordinary first novel suffused with a creepy surrealism that makes the pages turn themselves. The main character, Suki Piper, is twenty-eight years old when she returns to London after over a decade in New Zealand, where she sought her absent father following her mother's death. There is no magical reunion, but Suki remains there, working and sharing a flat. By the time she returns to London, her roots there have all but dried up, and she crashes, increasingly unwelcome, on an old friend's couch. A visit to her childhood flat folds her into the family of Pippa, her old babysitter, whose ailing mother, Peggy, needs care. Pippa also hopes that Suki will be a good influence on her surly teenaged son, Caleb. Suki has her own demons: surreal experiences that might be hallucinations or might be time travel. She continues to be pulled back into a horrifying time in her childhood involving a debauched party thrown by her parents and a visit to a creepy WWII bunker. She shares these hauntings/visions/time travels with Caleb and is dismayed when they follow her to Greece, where she has joined Pippa at Peggy's deathbed. Zander shifts easily between Suki's childhood, her time in New Zealand, and the present. Suki is a fascinating character, a woman vaguely haunted by her past and unable to grasp her present. Her jobs are meaningless, her friends superficial, her boyfriends hopeless. She stays in New Zealand despite her father's rejection of her, even running errands for him and his new wife just to feel a part of something. Her hard-partying life doesn't fill the void she has felt since that mysterious incident at the age of eight, and she drifts into Pippa's family without really meaning to: Pippa pulls her in and Suki doesn't resist. Pippa's brother, Harold, offers a look at her future: "The thought of ending up like his when I was in my forties, still stewing over what my parents had or hadn't done to me as a child, was dismal, and it struck me that there had to be a cut-off point, where it all stopped being their fault and became my own" (p. 198, uncorrected proof). This is the point of crisis that Suki has reached, and it is not clear at first whether her visits to the past will stop her drifting, heal old wounds, and prevent her ending up like Harold. Zander uses, to great effect, several images from Suki's childhood to evoke dread. Every time the Wendy tent appears, or she hears the scraping of the bunker hatch, is chilling. Even the hot sun in Greece can't dispel the Gothic gloom. Eventually the threads come together to suggest a future for Suki, but be warned: if you like every little thing tied up in a neat bow in the last chapter, you may find the ending unsatisfying. Since the novel deals extensively with the unreliability of memory, I closed the book (which I could not put down and thus read in one sitting) feeling as though Suki's journey had been told in a complete and beautiful way. I highly recommend this novel. Source disclosure: I received an uncorrected proof through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program.

BOUND by Antonya Nelson

This is a beautiful little book, not, despite references to the BTK serial killer, a thriller or mystery. Instead, the killer hovers at the periphery of the novel, connecting past and present, rich and poor, emotion and reason. All the characters are bound to each other, and throughout the novel, their connections deepen and evolve. In the end, we are all connected, though some connections have more impact on us than others.

Catherine is at the novel's center. The third (her mother, Grace, would say "trophy") wife of the fickle Oliver, she is nearing the age at which Oliver has left his previous two wives for a younger sweetheart. She is fascinated by the coverage of the BTK killer, returned to Wichita after all these years. She and her improbable friend-from-the-other-side-of-the-tracks, Misty, had relished the coverage of the original killings during their high school years. When Misty dies, Catherine finds out that her old friend had not only named her now fifteen-year-old daughter after Catherine, but has left guardianship of Cattie to Catherine. Catherine, who had given up on having children (Oliver had had a child with each of his previous wives, then had a vasectomy), decides to meet the girl, who is currently missing, before making a decision. Cattie becomes a rescuer of dogs and fugitive along with the PTSD-stricken soldier, Randall, one of her housemates. Dogs play key roles in this novel: Cattie obsesses over the fate of Max, whose empty kennel was found in Misty's car, Catherine's beloved corgis stand in for her absent children, and Cattie and Randall rescue a dog they call Bitch and her puppies. The BTK killer is another thread that secures multiple connections, with even Catherine's intellectual mother, Grace, watching the coverage from her nursing home. Catherine reflects on her childhood in the wake of Misty's death and of the killer's return.

BOUND is a slender novel, more a long short story in feel, but Nelson's gift with language gives it a deep richness that excuses a few dangling threads that leave the reader speculating. Connections can be strengthened or made more tenuous, and it is refreshing not to find out how every connection ultimately ends.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

YES, MY DARLING DAUGHTER by Margaret Leroy

I give this one four stars for Gothic atmosphere and general creepiness, but only two stars as a novel. Leroy is an excellent writer, and the inexplicably creepy Irish seaside is a perfect setting for the bizarre. Grace's four-year-old daughter, Sylvie, is an odd child. She screams when water touches her face, suffers from hideous nightmares, and claims that her friend Lennie "is not MY Lennie." She draws the same house over and over and is obsessed with a photo of a place she's never been. With Grace's life falling apart, she tries a psychiatrist, and then, increasingly desperate, an expert in past lives. The novel takes some time to hit its stride, and Grace is an irritating woman. She throws on her tightest jeans and spindliest heels whenever an older man with rescuing potential is on the scene (Sylvie's uninvolved father was an older married man). She is reluctant to push Sylvie to find out the truth, which is natural, but not the way Grace waffles, which seems designed simply to add an extra hundred pages to the narrative. The paranormal psychologist, Adam, is not well fleshed-out, and his relationship with Grace lacks authenticity. Still, despite some eye-rollingly convenient coincidences, flimflamming to draw out the inevitable conclusions, and glaringly obvious clues, the creepy Gothic element is enjoyable. A good beach read.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

Flashback Friday - Barbara Kingsolver

THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver: My book club chose this novel. It had been years since I'd read Kingsolver (THE POISONWOOD BIBLE), and I remembered that it always takes me at least a hundred pages before I connect to her characters, but once I do, the bond is absolute. Her plots are so complex and sprawling that being dropped into the middle of a world she's written is disorienting, even off-putting. But that world is so rich that it seizes the reader's imagination and won't let go. I emerge from a reading session forgetting for a moment that I am not in the kitchen of Diego Riviera and Frida Kahlo's home, where a meal for an exiled Trotsky is being prepared. This sprawling novel takes place between 1929 and 1951 and addresses Mexican history and art, the rise of Communism, the Red Scare and HUAC, American internment camps during World War II, and Jim Crow laws.

The novel is made up of the notebooks kept by quiet, unassuming Harrison Shepherd, product of a discontented Mexican mother and rather boring American father. His mother leaves Washington, D.C. to follow her oilman lover to Mexico, where Harrison primarily grows up, shadowing the kitchen. The skills he acquires in making pan dulce translate eerily well to mixing plaster for muralist Diego Riviera, and he soon becomes a part of the Riviera household, befriending Frida Kahlo and typing for Trotsky, who is in exile. At night, he works on his own novel, set in the Aztec kingdom. After Trotsky is assassinated, Harrison is sent back to the United States, where he becomes a well-known novelist just in time for McCarthyism to mark him as a Communist.

In less capable hands, this could have been an utter mess that no amount of suspension of disbelief could clean up, but Kingsolver is a master. She deftly blends fact and fiction and her insertion of the quiet Harrison into major world events brings them to life. Frida Kahlo and Trotsky, in particular, are rich, complex characters. Harrison is a perfect counterpoint to his larger-than-life companions, and his life, in its own quiet way, is just as compelling. A lacuna can refer to the underwater cave that challenges Harrison as a boy on Isla Pixol, or to a section of missing text, like the notebook from Harrison's childhood that has disappeared. Harrison himself is something of a lacuna, lifted from his rightful place in American literature by HUAC. As the underwater cave opens up into a sinkhole in the jungle, a place of ancient sacrifices. Harrison begins as a cook in Mexico, but emerges a literary force in America, only to be pushed back into obscurity.

This is a glorious novel of history, revolution, and culture, an incisive commentary on modern society, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. Very highly recommended.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG by Kate Atkinson

I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –
No One He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –

- Emily Dickinson

STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG by Kate Atkinson: Kate Atkinson's fourth novel about semi-retired private investigator Jackson Brodie. Brodie has discovered Emily Dickenson, an appropriately melancholy muse, and echoes of longing, of nostalgia, of isolation, reverberate throughout. Although the Jackson Brodie novels appear to a mystery series, Atkinson has never really left her literary novel origins. Yes, Jackson ultimately solves murders, but at their heart, these novels are about finding the lost (especially lost girls), the connections between human beings, and the way the past is never really gone. This novel opens with the story of a murdered prostitute in 1975. Rookie cop Tracy Waterhouse (who has eradicated all traces of femininity in an attempt to break the glass ceiling) is deeply moved by the small child who spent three weeks with his mother's corpse before discovery. When she tries to find out what became of the child, she is told to forget about it. Fast forward to present day. Tracy is now retired from the police, and in her capacity as a mall security guard, she finds herself purchasing a mistreated little girl from a prostitute because she can't bear to leave the child to be abused. Meanwhile, Jackson Brodie is a vagabond searching for a con woman and hints of the origin of his adopted client. At the same time, he is ticking ruined abbeys of Yorkshire off his "must visit" list, and improbably adopts a small dog. His search will cause his sphere of events to intersect with Tracy's. Also in the mix are Tilly, an aging actress slowly succumbing to dementia, Tracy's former colleagues, a social worker, and another private investigator named Jackson whom our Jackson is starting to view as his doppelganger. All these barely connected stories are about to collide, pushing the events of 1975 into the light of the present day.

Kate Atkinson is a master of creating a cohesive story from distinct and apparently unconnected events, of bringing together characters who appear to have nothing in common, of drawing together past and present. STARTED EARLY, TOOK MY DOG has the feel of a Dickinson poem; it moves more slowly and embraces elegiac pauses. For all the searching for lost girls, all the nostalgia as Jackson and other characters wonder how the world reached this state, Atkinson's wry, piercing humor prevents excessive melancholy.

While this novel could be read on its own, I highly recommend beginning with CASE HISTORIES.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

Laughing Out Loud

HEADS YOU LOSE by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward: I've been trying to review this book in a more sophisticated way than my initial response ("OMG, so funny!!!" does not really constitute a proper review). Few books make me laugh out loud in a "the guy next to me on the plane keeps looking at me like I'm nuts" way, but there wasn't much breathing room between bouts of cracking up as I read HEADS YOU LOSE. The premise is brilliantly metafictional and the execution flawless. Lisa and David are supposedly former romantic partners who have decided to collaborate on a mystery novel. Since they don't get along, their method of collaboration consists of alternating chapters. In between chapters, their email exchanges are included. It's hard to decide which is funnier; the increasingly messy murder mystery as the writing turns from collaboration to competition/revenge, or the hostile e-mail jabs between the co-authors (Lisa reminds David that he wouldn't be publishing a novel without her name THAT BIG on the cover; David mocks Lisa's grammar and word choice).

The mystery begins with siblings Lacey and Paul finding a headless body on their property. Since they grow marijuana, calling the cops is not an option, so they move the body...and it comes back. The metastory begins with a polite, civilized e-mail exchange, swiftly switching to pointed criticism (ostensibly of the written work, but clearly about their relationship issues) and outright hostility. The characters and plot of the novel suffer (to hilarious effect) from the co-author bickering. During one chapter, I laughed so hard I cried. Trust me, while the whole novel is funny, you'll know when you get to this particular chapter, a response from David to Lisa's exasperation with the unnecessary big words he throws around. Recurring disagreements are brilliantly teased out as Lisa kills off David's favorite character and David refuses to provide any explanation for a plane crash early in the novel. The characters snipe at each other in eerie echoes of Lisa and David's issues, and serious disagreements on the plot make for an increasingly bizarre novel-within-a-novel.

This book is funny. Go read it. And if you just can't get enough, the metafiction continues at the book website.

Source disclosure: I received an uncorrected proof courtesy of Penguin Group through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Review Snippets: Part Two

And onward with the reviews....

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf
This book's description really grabbed me, mostly because I was curious what a golden girl high school student could do that was so bad that her parents disowned her, her own sister will no longer talk to her, and she was just released after spending five years in prison for what she'd done. I'm not going to give too much away other than the book starts with three young twenty-soemthings dealing with the aftermath of one girl's decisions five years earlier.

Gudenkauf does a good job of slowly revealing the truth. But the ending is quite a bombshell and a bit over the top. While this book seemed well-written, it definitely is not an "enjoyable" read just because the subject matter is rather sad. But it's not a bad read either. It's one of those "can't look away from the train wreck" kind of books that makes you want to keep reading to learn what really happened.

Allison thoroughly reviewed The Clouds Beneath the Sun awhile ago. And she rated it very highly. Welllll....maybe I had too high expectations going in. I thought it was about 100 pages too long and Natalie's inner struggle whether to testify or not began to bug me. She seemed to get almost whiny. And the ending just down right made me angry.

As a random sidenote, there's an "author's note" at the end that provides a sort of epilogue to the book. It tells us where certain "characters" ended up. And it confused the hell out of me. Were these real people? That's how the author wrote this note. It seems to suggest the characters were real people. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Source disclosure: I receive and e-galley from netgalley.com of These Things Hidden. And I own a copy of The Clouds Beneath the Sun.

13 Rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro

Here's an irresistible premise for you: an author takes a box of mementos collected by a neighbor who died without heirs, and incorporates them into a novel imagining the life of their owner. But, wait! Let's have an American professor in Paris find this box and write letters summarizing his findings. But the box should be left deliberately by the secretary of the department, who urges the professor to share his findings. And! Let the professor suffer from fevers that call into question the veracity of his letters. Are you confused yet? I have gone back and forth between rating this book five stars and rating it two. I settled on three, no - four, no three. I liked it, and I would certainly recommend it to a friend, but it's not quite...it doesn't quite...well, let me explain.

Shapiro's first novel is inspired by an actual box of mementoes she inherited after an heirless neighbor dies. She has always been fascinated with the box of treasures. What we choose to keep reveals so much about us, but also leaves great mysteries that can never be known for certain. This box belonged to Louise Brunet, who fell in love with her cousin (who was killed in the Great War) and married her father's apprentice. She teaches piano to Garance, a prodigy, and yearns for passion in her life. Shapiro imagines Professor Trevor Stratton scrutinizing the mementoes and finding their histories, their meaning to Louise, becoming gradually more obsessive and confused whether he has uncovered a truth or has only imagined it.

Shapiro's language teeters on the line between poetic and overwrought, crossing into both territories. I spent several minutes trying to decide whether certain passages were brilliant or cliched, and for some, I honestly still can't tell. Like this one: "The first time, the pain was so terrible that she'd thought it could not possibly get any worse. The second time, the pain had eaten her whole, had incorporated her into its being. Her flesh was pain itself" (p. 111). Since there are mementoes in the box from both World Wars, we are brought into both through the flashback/imaginings of Stratton, with mixed success. The two pages made up almost entirely of a story told in footnotes fell flat to me. Footnotes pull me out of a narrative like nothing else. The second person intrusions also pull me out of the story: "Inside you find a bit of change, scattered on the cloth lining like so much stray cash. Why not drop the coins one by one along the way and see where we wind up?" (p. 205)

Then there's the ambitious framework, in which Trevor Stratton and Josianne (the secretary) are barely developed characters. While the premise is interesting, Louise's story is simply far more interesting than the contemporary one. The ending for Trevor is ambiguous, but I'm familiar enough with French film that it didn't bother me. The disparity between the involving tale of Louise's life and the flat passages about Trevor and Josianne was simply too great. I have to admire the ambition of this novel, and Shapiro's boldness in execution, and I loved the story she imagined for Louise, but too many clever touches interrupted the narrative flow for me. Still, an utterly fascinating (if sometimes frustrating) read.

FTC Source Disclosure: I purchased this book.

Guest Post: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

I received a copy of Jodi Picoult's new book in the mail a couple weeks ago and just knew my friend Amber would want to read it. I knew I wouldn't be able to get to it for quite some time so thought she would love getting a copy before it even hit bookstores. I asked her if she wouldn't mind writing a review for the blog and here it is!! Thank you so much Amber! You can find out more about Amber here on her own blog. And now without further ado...the Sing You Home review:

Hello On My Bookshelf readers! I’ll be honest when Holly asked me to write a review of Jodi Picoult’s new book I was a little intimidated. Holly and Allison write amazing reviews and a good part of what I read comes from their reviews and suggestions. I love to read but I’m not much of a reviewer. I have a very hard time finding the right balance of information to include in my reviews, but I’m giving it my best shot! I will admit I am a fan of Picoult (I believe I have read all of her books) so I had high expectations for this book. I was not disappointed.

Sing You Home centers around three characters, Zoe, Max and Vanessa. Zoe and Max have struggled with fertility issues throughout their marriage. A tragic turn of events causes Zoe and Max’s marriage to eventually fall apart. Zoe, a music therapist, focuses on the one thing that can make her feel better, her work. During the course of her work she meets Vanessa and they quickly become best friends. When Zoe finally feels like her life is falling into place and she is genuinely happy again her world is rocked to the core by the actions of her ex-husband. She suddenly is thrust into a world where her character and morality are being questioned.

A couple of interesting things about this book, since the main character in this novel was a music therapist Picoult wanted to include some original music as a soundtrack to the novel, the chapters correspond to the tracks on a CD included in the book. Picoult wrote all the lyrics and her friend Ellen Wilber provided the accompaniment and the vocals on the CD. I have not yet listened to the CD, but I will definitely be doing so. The other thing I found interesting about this novel is that because it is told from the point of view of three different characters, each character had their own font throughout the novel. It was a great way for me to keep track of which point of view I was reading. Since some of the parts could have been any of the three characters view point it was easy to distinguish the characters when I got wrapped up in the story.

While parts of this novel completely infuriated me, it was also those parts that made me want to read faster to find out what was going to happen. I really enjoyed this book, it was thought provoking and made me smile, laugh and tear up throughout its pages.

Sing You Home will hit stores March 1^st, 2011.

Source disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher after requesting it on Shelf Awareness.

Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd

As I read Murder at Mansfield Park, I experienced the full range of emotional responses: I nearly flung the book across the room, I chuckled at Shepherd's mastery of Austen-like humor, I flipped back in frustration to the pages establishing the revamped relationships among characters. As I read, my star rating vacillated wildly. I have finally settled on three stars, which feels a bit like a copout. But this is really two separate projects shoehorned into one, and ultimately, I'm not convinced they coexist well.

Those unfamiliar with Mansfield Park will miss a huge chunk of the fun here. In Austen's original, three sisters marry with varying degrees of success. Lady Bertram married well up and produced three children, Tom, Edmund, Maria, and Julia. Mrs. Norris did just fine, marrying the parson of the estate, and is now widowed with no children. The third sister married imprudently for love and produced a passel of children they can ill-afford, among them Fanny, the oldest girl, Susan, the next oldest, and William. Fanny is closest to Susan and William and misses them the most when she is sent to live with the Bertrams as a money-saving measure, where only Edmund treats her with kindness. Sister and brother Mary and Henry Crawford come to live in the parsonage. Henry begins a flirtation with all the girls, while Mary has her sights on Edmund. Shepherd interferes with the relationships and status of Austen's characters. Now Fanny is a spoiled orphan heiress who comes to live with her socially inferior cousins, the Bertrams, Edmund is Mrs. Norris's son, Henry Crawford has a profession, and Mary Crawford is a virtuous girl. This is the first reimagining of the novel. The second turns Mansfield Park into a Regency crime novel when Fanny turns up dead and Mr. Maddox is summoned to get to the bottom of the matter. This second approach has a number of effects: the servants figure more prominently, since they are a great source of information to Mr. Maddox, Mr. Maddox himself adds a wrinkle into the class portrayals, and much of the social commentary is redirected into the murder investigation.

I found a great deal of enjoyment in this novel, but I felt it was overly ambitious. Either of the two premises would have been sufficient, but both crammed together seemed excessive. Either shed light on class divisions by turning the relationships on their head or reimagine the novel as a murder mystery, but both is too much departure from the original material. Austen's own words are incorporated extensively, but Shepherd's prose blends almost seamlessly. She has an impressive command of Regency language and of Austen's brand of humor. Ultimately, there is simply too much going on here to really shed light on Austen's original, and the reader has far too many departures of which to keep track. I kept forgetting that WIlliam wasn't Fanny's brother in this interpretation, the class change for Henry was a sticking point, Edmund as Mrs. Norris's son...all this and more AND with a murder mystery thrown in. While there were fun, insightful parts, the rest was chaos.

An overly ambitious reimagining of Austen, but one with plenty of enjoyable moments.

Source disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman

Arcadia Falls had a little bit of everything! Good storytelling, interesting characters, and awesome atmosphere.

After Meg Rosenthal's husband passes away suddenly, she finds herself in need of a job to support her and her daughter, Sally. They move to Arcadia Falls where she starts teaching at an arts school. Meg's background is in fairy tales and part of the appeal of Arcadia Falls is the town's rich history in both the arts and storytelling. One of the schools founders created wonderful fairy tales which Meg grew up on. She couldn't resist going to the place that inspired it all. Just as Meg and Sally arrive and get settled, a student mysteriously dies. The death starts to reveal the dark side of the school and the town. Meg stumbles upon many secrets from both past and present.

Arcadia Falls has a very atmospheric Gothic feeling to it. I really liked how the fairy tales were woven into the story. I also liked the multi-layered historical aspect of the book. Without giving too much of the story way, everything and everyone seems somehow connected to the past and current stories taking place.

My only gripe about Goodman's book is that there seemed to be an abnormal amount of people drawn to one particular cliff on the school grounds. The number of people falling, dying, threatening to kill themselves at this cliff provided over the top drama.

I highly recommend this book, especially if you were a fan of Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale. This had a very similar feeling to it.

Source disclosure: I received a review copy of this from Ballantine Books as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

What can I say about this book that hasn't already been said? I put off reading it, despite the delicious title. After attempting to read Infinite Jest years ago, I was a bit off self-conscious postmodernism. This is a difficult book to review. The opening pages are...worthless, story-wise. "Rules and Suggestions for the Enjoyment of This Book" are almost unbearably clever. I flipped through them without thoroughly reading them. I recommend this approach. Later developments will make you glad for a passing knowledge of the self-referential (Hi! I'm writing a clever novel! See me writing a clever novel?) parody of a preface, but don't torture yourself by reading it word for word. For the first fifty or so pages, I was wondering, "Is Eggers brilliant, too clever for his own good, or both?" And then I got sucked into the story. Eggers is a brilliant writer with a gripping story: as a young man, he becomes an orphan and de facto single parent, trying to give his younger brother, Toph, the childhood he should have had. Less engaging is the considerable time Eggers spends on his tenure at Might Magazine, an above-it-all publication produced by a group of disillusioned young adults infatuated with their own cleverness. I simply didn't care about the magazine or the people devoted to it.

The description of his mother's end-of-life saga is difficult to read, not because it's clunky or poorly written, but because Eggers has captured the truth of dying in a painful, exquisitely beautiful way. And the relationship with the younger brother is equally well-written and beautiful. Eggers uses outrageous hyperbole to great effect, and if the reader is unsure how much of a grain of salt is required in the reading, well - that's life, isn't it? It's all relative, and what's true in Eggers's mind as he raises this child is not a lie, just as an outsider's perception is its own truth. Small, pedestrian struggles, like the desperate need for a washer/dryer are given equal weight with the bigger problems such as sister Beth keeping Toph in touch with his memories by pulling out photo albums while Eggers works harder to keep Toph distracted from the fact of his orphanhood. Eggers's parenting seems at turns irresponsible (as in the hideous weekly menu of bachelor dishes) and heartbreakingly conscious (as in his evaluation of potential girlfriends based entirely on their view of Toph and their life together).

Eggers goes all the way with his cleverness, and like all risks, some pay off, while some fall flat. An extended "transcript" of an interview to be on MTV's The Real World is used to reveal extensive background on Dave, and quickly becomes tiresome. And the disclaimer that, of course, Eggers realizes that it's a cheap literary device, doesn't excuse the tedium. I don't care how postmodern you are -- don't pull me out of the story. The list of "recipes" for disgusting bachelor food, though, was surprisingly touching and hilarious. The gimmicky ending, reeking of Joyce or Salinger, somehow worked for me. It brought the story to a satisfying close on an emotional note.

I'm not sure how to sum up this review, really. There's brilliance, but a too-clever edge that could have been edited out for a better story. Worth reading? Absolutely.

FTC Source Disclosure: I purchased this book.

Caught by Harlen Coben

I'm always excited when Harlan Coben comes out with a new stand along book! And Caught was no exception. I even pre-ordered it!

In Coben's latest novel, we meet Dan Mercer a social worker who unfortunately gets caught on television camera meeting up with an underage girl whom he had a relationship with through the internet. Wendy Tynes is a mercenary reporter dedicated to bringing criminals to justice. Though Mercer claims innocence his life is ruined. Turns out several of his college buddies have run into trouble as well. His friend Phil lost his job because of embezzlement charges, a doctor friend also finds himself in trouble, and a third friend is locked away in a mental institution for schizophrenia. As Wendy begins to doubt her claim that Mercer is a sexual predator, she investigates further to find the truth. A missing girl also falls into the story here adding more to the mystery.

I'm not sure if I have too high expectations for Coben's novels now having read and enjoyed The Woods, The Innocent and Hold Tight. Or if this was one was just sub-par for him. I was a little disappointed. The characters didn't engage me as much. And I found the story to be a tad bit boring. I had to force myself to read along and frankly, the reveal wasn't that interesting. It wasn't a horrible book, I just didn't think it was as good as some others I've read by him. This is a good one to bring along on vacation, but if you have other books in your queue, Caught could probably wait a bit.

The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

I love a good ghost story, and Wendy Webb's debut novel promises just that. Hallie James has lived in Washington with her father since her mother died during Hallie's childhood. As her father descends into Alzheimer's, Hallie receives a letter from Madlyn Crane, claiming she is Hallie's mother. The letter was sent by Madlyn's attorney on Grand Manitou Island in the Great Lakes after Madlyn died. Before he dies, Hallie's father confirms the story. Reeling from her father's death and the news about her mother, she goes to Grand Manitou to claim her inheritance. The island is an insular place, and its ban on cars adds to the creepy Gothic feel of the story, a step out of time. Hallie learns that her father faked their deaths after a young girl died in Hallie's home. Why? Could he have, as the islanders believe, caused the girl's death? And who is the ghost who sings childish songs that only Hallie hears?

This book actually didn't hook me immediately. The beginning, with Hallie in her run-of-the-mill Washington life, is not exactly atmospheric, and she seemed strangely detached from the life-changing news that her mother had been alive and her father had faked their deaths. She wasn't very fleshed out as a character. But once she reaches the island, the Gothic atmosphere creeps in. Her mother's elderly housekeeper begins to tell Hallie the story of her family's history, drawing her into the past in the midst of her adjustment to life on an island whose inhabitants had thought she'd died thirty years before. I actually had trouble falling asleep after reading a particularly eerie part of the book. There were two elements in particular that were supposed to surprise me at the end, so I was disappointed that I guessed them. One of them was obvious from the beginning. The book is saved by Webb's gift for atmospheric horror. I had genuine chills at parts of this book. The ghosts were creepy, if a bit on the cliche side. All in all, an uneven ghost story, but if you're looking for some delightfully Gothic chills, The Tale of Halcyon Crane will supply them.


Source disclosure: I received an advance copy from the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program.

Fool by Christopher Moore

Ah, Christopher Moore. I can always count on you for both erudite wit and bawdy humor. Turning one of Shakespeare's tragedies into a comedy chock-full of shagging, groan-worthy puns, potty humor, and, of course, mocking the French, takes a special kind of writer. Fool is Moore's retelling of King Lear from the point-of-view of Pocket, the King's fool. And now, it's a comedy. A very bawdy one (not unlike the Bard's own humor, really - all Moore missed here was a spot of gender confusion). I'm familiar with Moore's work, so I was expecting smart and funny, but I wasn't expecting such a sweet, tender story in parts. His endearing Pocket is lewd, randy, and respects no one, but as he is caught up in the political machinations of the plot, his gentle, sympathetic side is drawn out further. He's a surprisingly likable hero. Regan and Goneril are delightfully wicked villains, Lear is infuriating as in the original, and Pocket's dimwitted and perpetually aroused apprentice, Drool, is oddly sweet. For those (like me) who have not read King Lear in some time, Pocket explains the main plot points clearly and with great humor.

As with all Moore books, this one goes well over the top with some of the bodily fluid-dependent humor. I always find myself wishing he hadn't gone quite so far, or that he would leave that joke well enough alone after the fourth time, but that's not hard to overlook. I found this to be a really enjoyable read, and despite knowing the plot in advance, I was swept up in the action, and completely enamored with Pocket.

If you take your Shakespeare very seriously or find raunchy humor offensive, steer clear. Otherwise, I thought this a cracking good read with surprising depth.


Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

More Book Club Snippets

Our book club read Karen White's The Lost Hours in November and we picked The House on Tradd Street for January. The two books had a very different feel to them, although they both contained White's very descriptive style of writing. I have to say, overall, I believe I enjoyed The Lost Hours a bit more (mostly because I really enjoyed the historical fiction part of the book).

Tradd Street finds realtor Melanie Middleton inheriting an old historic house in Charleston after meeting with its owner only once. She's not sure why she inherited the house, but agrees to live there for a year and oversee its restoration before she plans on selling it. Before she realizes it, Melanie stumbles into a bit of a historical mystery. She has a gift and can see ghosts (there is even a quote that seems to poke fun at the Sixth Sense's famous quote "I see dead people".) :-) Melanie and her friends come across information both in reality and through clues from the spirit world that solve the decades old mystery of a woman's disappearance.

This book is actually listed as a "romance". I can see why it was categorized as such because Melanie gets involved in a bit of a love triangle. However, I see this book more as general fiction. It has much more to it than just the romance. This is also the first in a series by White, followed up by The Girl on Legare Street (which I seen reviewed very well around the blogosphere).

Overall, I found the book very difficult to get into. It didn't move fast enough for me. The first half to two-thirds were rather dull. The last third or so really picked up and left me liking it overall just because the book ended so well. I probably will take a gander at the second book, but not sure I'll continue reading the series. Maybe eventually, but there are plenty of other books I'll get to first.
Source disclosure: Borrowed this book from the library.

Laura Lippman's What the Dead Know served as our book club pick for October. I read this one pretty quickly. It was well-written and a good story, however, the subject matter is a bit disturbing. The book opens with a woman claiming to be a girl who disappeared decades earlier with her sister. The authorities pull her over when she appears to be involved in a hit and run accident and disoriented. They are not sure if they should believe she is who she says she is. The book is written both in present day and through flashbacks explaining what happened to the two sisters.

You spend much of the book thinking one thing is going on only to do an about-face at the end of the book and something completely different was really happening. The interesting thing is that when you finally find out the truth about what really happened, the rest of the story seems to be a little less disturbing than you thought while reading it (does that make any sense?).
Source disclosure: Off my bookshelf, originally given to me by a friend.

'Tis the season--Holiday Books 2009

Despite the fact that Christmas is nearly a month over now, I did some holiday reading in December and want to get at least some mini-reviews up. Perhaps you can decide to add them to your holiday reading/gift giving list for 2010.

I won a copy of Wishin' and Hopin' in a book blog contest. I was excited to win a copy because the book sounded interesting enough that I wanted to read it, but didn't grab me so much that I actually want to purchase the book (is that terrible?!). And I was pretty right about my initial assessment.

Wishin' and Hopin' describes 1960's life through the eyes of ten-year old Felix Funicello (cousin to Annette). I found this book to be only a so-so holiday read. It takes over half the book to even get to Christmas. Quite a bit of the story is the school year leading up to the holidays. While I love nostalgic holiday movies and books, this one did not hit the jackpot for me. It was mildly entertaining but Felix as a protagonist seemed younger than his age and I just didn't care for it that much. However, if you grew up in the 60's and attended Catholic school, you may have a greater appreciation for Lamb's story than I did. It also bothered me that the book ended with the family eating a holiday dinner at a Chinese restaurant (um....did Wally Lamb just finish watching the holiday movie "A Christmas Story"? Not very original, in my opinion).
Source disclosure: won in a blog contest

If you're looking for a nostalgic Christmas story, I don't think you can find a better book than Dave Barry's The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog. I first read this book two years ago, borrowed from the library. Barnes and Noble had it as a bargain book this Christmas so I just had to snatch up a copy of it and read it again. It did not disappoint, I loved the story just as much the second time.

I would definitely recommend this one over Wally Lamb's Wishin' and Hopin'.
Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

Secrets of the Christmas Box by Steven Hornby had sooo much potential. I really really REALLY wanted to LOVE it! However, it fell quite a bit short of my expectations. Cleverly written in 24 chapters, this middle-grade book could be read aloud each night from December 1st until Christmas. Secrets tells the story of Christmas ornaments come to life and the adventure that awaits them beyond the Christmas tree. However delightful the book synopsis sounds, this is actually quite a dark tale. Larry the snowman ornament's brother appears to be missing after the ornaments are all placed on the tree. Larry and his good friend Debbie along with a new toy solider ornament go off in search of Larry's brother. They discover along the way that things may not be as they seem in their little Christmas tree world.

I thought this would be a cute little tale to read to my children at Christmas each year, but I think it may be too dark and scary for younger children (with an evil Tree Lord and tree lights that hunt down and attack other ornaments) and perhaps a bit too young in subject matter for older kids who could actually read the book themselves. I'm not sure Hornby found the right audience for this one. In short, LOVED the idea of the book but was disappointed with the reality of it.
Source disclosure: Received a copy from the publisher through Shelf Awareness.

Susan May Warren's Christmas novella was quite entertaining at times and delivered a nice holiday message. I believe this would fall into the Christian Fiction category, but not too overtly. It didn't get too preachy and actually some of the church-related scenes were amusing to me.

The story follows Marianne Wallace as she plans to have her large family all together for one last holiday before her youngest goes off to college and her children all start to lead their own lives. Of particular interest to me is that the story takes place in Big Lake, Minnesota where Marianne cheers on her son as a football player for the Big Lake Trout. It's always fun to read books that take place in your home state. The Big Lake Trout and their drive to get to the state championship play a large role in this story, especially when the team mascot has a heart attack and Marianne is cajoled into donning the Big Lake Trout costume to cheer on the team. The description of her trying on the costume truly made me laugh. And as a mother, you realize there are all kinds of things you'll do for your kids that you never dreamed you would even consider! I really enjoyed the town and its characters and could identify with Marianne as a future version of myself. I would recommend this one as a fun holiday read (though I don't think it would top my all-time best holiday book list).

Source Disclosure: Received a copy from the publisher by contacting the author's website.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde: I have to confess that I'm not a dystopia fan. I have a pretty significant addiction to fantasy, but dystopia is not my subgenre. I'm not sure what it is, exactly - perhaps the appeal of fantasy for me is imagining a better world, not a worse one. Or that the dystopia I've tried has been (to me) intolerably bleak. But I avoid even highly praised books if they're described as dystopian. However, I *am* a Jasper Fforde fan, so I didn't even hesitate to pick up Shades of Grey on the release date, despite its dystopian description.

Eddie Russett's world is our world at some point in the distant future, after the Something That Happened, which ushered in an age of chromatocracy (rank determined by which color in the spectrum one can see) and strict, often pointless, rules according to the edicts of Munsell. Eddie can see only red, which places him well below the elite Purples and forbids him from marrying anyone Green (complimentary colors are forbidden to mingle). His world is artificially colored by the limited resource of scrap color mined from increasingly tapped-out supplies. He wants nothing more than to marry a woman from a redder family than his own to restore the Russett family's lost status, when he is sent to the village of East Carmine, on the almost-lawless Outer Fringes, to learn some humility after a prank on the headmaster's son. He meets Jane, a lowly Grey, who intrigues him with her lack of respect for the Rules and questioning of the caste system and its effects. He takes on a suicide mission to the deserted, dangerous village of High Saffron to seek a new source of scrap color, and learns more about his world than he really wanted to. What will he do with that knowledge in the next two books in the trilogy? I can't wait to find out.

Fforde's imagination is really a force to be reckoned with, and this is his most original effort yet. The chromatocracy is established as such a complete, believable fact that I had no difficulty suspending disbelief. Eddie is a likable hero, as ignorant of the truth about his world as we are, slowly learning that things are not as they seem. The bitter, determined Jane is a fantastic counterpoint to his blithe ignorance. The Something That Happened is never defined, but splashes of insight keep it a constant presence in the book, and the strange color perception is defined in a thorough, pseudoscientific way. The world is peppered with all those random details that make the Thursday Next series so enjoyable. In Eddie's world, spoon are scarce, the Greys eat all the bacon at breakfast, and killer lightning and giant swans are equally terrifying. A particular shade of green is a powerful painkiller, but is often abused.

This is the best of satire, fantasy, and coming-of-age stories all at once, a fresh and original start of what will undoubtedly be an amazing series.

Source disclosure: I purchased this book.

The Writing Class by Jincy Willett

The Writing Class is almost indescribably good, but I'm going to ramble on and on about it anyway. Amy Gallup was a novelist, but she peaked early and hasn't written in years, except on her blog, where she catalogues funny-looking words and creates debate about the sexiest letter of the alphabet. She's out of print, divorced, and bitter, and she survives by teaching creative writing through the university extension. Her thirteen students this session are the best group she's had in years...except for a prankster who leaves creepy voicemails, vicious comments and pornographic drawings on workshop writing samples, and a Ted Bundy mask in a student's car. When a student dies, the remaining class members band together to determine the culprit, knowing that one of them is a killer.

Willett deftly skewers the writing life and writing classes while maintaining the suspense of a murder mystery. We read writing samples from the class members, which run the gamut from cliched to overwrought, and provides clues to the killer's identity. One student, Carla, has taken Amy's class so many times that she quotes Amy when other students ask questions. Carla could have been a shell of a character, but Willett draws her developing relationship with Amy in a rich, complicated way. The other class members begin as one-note characters (Amy's class roster is hilarious), but we see them develop into realistic people. The And Then There Were None group dynamic is intriguing and very well handled. The group manages to avoid the fact that the killer whose identity they playfully discuss is actually one of them. This is a wickedly funny, thought-provoking, page-turner of a novel, and I'll be reading more of Willett's work.