The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

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Joanna has just moved out to the suburbs and is looking to meet new friends.  She notices that while the men in town have a club of their own (that does not allow women to be members), the women do not – and worse, are not even bothered by this.  As she digs deeper into the history of the town, she sees that at one point, there was a women’s club and the women in town actually were once interested in things beyond caring for their homes and their families.  Something was up and she and her one friend, Bobbie, would get to the bottom of it.  But hopefully they’d do it in time…

Yes, I was probably one of the only women who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s who never either read this book or saw the movie before – so I was curious.  Little did I know how utterly creepy this book would be!  The idea that men would turn women into automatons that would only do housework and child rearing was both disturbing and outrageous, and quite a statement for its time.  The theme of squelching those who stood up for the rights of women was probably fairly radical for the very early 70’s, when this first came out.

Funny, though, because it seems that while this futuristic/farcical novel was written so long ago, and much has changed, much is still the same.  In so many countries around the world, women are still treated as Stepford wives.  In fact, right here in the good ol’ USA, our likely Republican nominee for president is married to one.  (Her hobbies are “pilates and reading magazines,” according to the New Yorker.)

As to the writing of the book, it is suspenseful and eerie, but I did feel like there was a gaping hole at the end, where there should have been more explanation about what happened to the women and how the transformation was accomplished.  I felt there was almost too much left to the imagination.

But if you haven’t read it, it’s a quick read that does get you thinking…  which is what books are supposed to do!

Life and Other Near-Death Experiences by Camille Pagan

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When Libby receives a series of 2 horrible pieces of news all in the same day, she feels her life is exploding.  While she tries to go to work and resume a sense of normality, she finds she just can’t  continue to deal with her impossible boss and the usual things she normally  has tolerated.  Suddenly, she is off on an adventure and ends up discovering how coping with her past traumas can enable her to face her current ones.

While this story is a little cliche and not entirely plausible, it is sweet and entertaining and actually a delightful read.  The writing is sarcastic and interspersed with sharp vocabulary and compassionately wise insights.

A good find on Bookbub – which I highly recomnend!

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

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I began this book with great anticipation.  It had been recommended to me by a few different friends, each of whose opinions I respected, and the setting was even in Italy, where I’d just been fortunate enough to have visited only a few weeks before.

The story is about Elena Greco, who grows up with her unwieldy friend, Lila.  Whereas Elena struggles with her own identity, Lila, who is fiercely brilliant and strong, seems to be very sure of who she is.  At a very young age, Lila asserts herself as a creative, intelligent and physically strong person who is able to pull everyone around her under her spell.  Elena has great difficulty doing anything of her own volition, as she, more than everyone else, is bound to Lila, somehow.  As they grow older, they are pulled in opposite directions:  Elena, deeper into the direction of more advanced education and Lila, deeper into the roots of their poor neighborhood in Naples.  While gang-style conflicts brew around them, they hold onto their bond as they navigate their way through adolescence.

I didn’t love this book as I’d anticipated, but I didn’t hate it either.   It is a coming-of-age story of young girls and their friendships and the typical adolescents’ striving for identity.  It is also an interesting look into the poor neighborhoods in Italy and into Italian culture in general.  The characters depicted here are colorful and evolving.  But I had difficulty getting past the writing/translation, which I felt was often awkward and grammatically strange.     I also had difficulty believing that a whole neighborhood could be completely obsessed with one individual girl, the premise on which this story is based.

I’m glad I did read it to know what everyone has been talking about.  At some point I may read the others in this trilogy – but I’m not rushing to do so.  Unfortunately, this one is not going on my “Must Read” list…

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

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It is fascinating how two books can be about a similar topic – suicide, actually – and be so very different in tone and quality.  This book, as compared with my last book (The Story of Ove), was quite the disappointment.  While the last one told the story with such tenderness and subtlety, this one was was harsh and heartless.  And even when the main character in the first was so gruff and quiet, he demonstrated such sweetness and caring for others that I felt I loved him nonetheless.  On the other hand, because this main character, Esther, was so disconnected and mean to anyone around her,  I felt as if I didn’t care at all what happened to her.

It may be that Esther’s experience of depression and suicidality was more realistic.  She describes feeling as if caught in a “bell jar” and not able to interact with the world in a normal way.  She does not seem to like anyone or really form any real bond with anyone.  Her relationship with even her own mother is threadbare and superficial.  She seems to feel no love.

Unfortunately, even if it is more realistic, it is not at all engaging for the reader.  Perhaps if I’d learned why she felt no love for her mother, I might have felt sympathy toward her.  Perhaps if there were some humor, some warmth, or some show of kindness in her at all, I might have liked her enough to care.  But she keeps the reader at arm’s length and does not let you in at all – and so the story falls quite flat.

I am hoping her poetry was better than her prose…

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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Ove has lost the one person in his life who understood him (his wife) as well as the purpose for him to get up each morning (his job) and he’s now trying to take matters into his own hands.  All he wants is to be reunited with his only love, his wife, Sonja.  Unfortunately, each attempt he makes on his own life gets interrupted by his prying, needy neighbors.  Even the cat seems to need him.  Is everybody helpless?  In spite of his grumpy-old-man exterior, Ove endears himself to everyone around him who recognize that he is in fact the kindest of hearts and the truest of souls.

Because of the tone of the story, which is written through the prism of Ove’s cynical and rigid perspective, I found it, at first, hard to get engaged in this story.  But gradually, there grew moments of subtle tenderness that were so utterly sweet that I was reeled in.  By the end, I was just mush.  Teary mush, actually.

The writing in this story is really very beautiful.  I so admire a writer who can create such colorful and deeply genuine characters as these and who can create such subtly charming moments between them.  Even when Ove is ranting at another – and he does so at almost every  other character – you feel the affection that is exuding between them.  You cannot help either smiling or tearing up through much of the story.

I highly recommend this book.  Just stick with it – it’s worth it!

The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks

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Caroline Jacobs was generally a quiet, reserved, almost meek person in her community.  So when she suddenly uttered a fairly obscene outburst at the PTA meeting, insulting the queen bee of the moms, it was unclear what was going on.  When her daughter Polly was brought to the principal’s office the next day, it just seemed to be the right thing to steal Polly away and take her on a journey – a journey to correct the mistake she’d made years ago in high school that had overshadowed her entire life from then on.

While at first this story is somewhat entertaining and a little suspenseful (you are curious what this incident was that she needs to correct) and how she “killed” her younger sister, which is foreshadowed early in the book, but it sort of melts down into a quagmire of ridiculous details and unlikely and unrealistic scenes.

I think this is a possibly good idea, but not very well executed.  Quite forgetable…

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

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Madeleine, Leonard and Mitchell are on the cusp of graduation from Brown University.  They seem to have it all, graduating from an elite university, each with their own talents and accomplishments, with their whole lives ahead of them.  But dig a little deeper, and you learn that Mitchell has been in (probably unrequited) love with Madeleine since freshman year, Madeleine is despondent after a breakup with Leonard, and Leonard is having a breakdown.  The story follows each of the characters just prior to and after their graduation, as Mitchell searches for his faith as he travels the world and Madeleine and Mitchell confront the pain and the swing of Leonard’s mental illness.

The author does an extraordinary job of painting Leonard’s bipolar disorder with tenderness, sensitivity and honesty, showing the various shades of the illness, with its extreme highs and devastating lows.  Leonard truly loves Madeleine but sometimes cannot make room for her in his world that is crowded with thoughts and emotions that overtake him.  And Madeleine tries to support him but there are many times when he is not “supportable.”  Leonard is particularly winsome, with a charm and intellect that endear the reader to him and his plight, and when he falls, the reader is right there with him.  But the reader is also privy to the effects of Leonard’s illness on many of those around him, and this is a sad portrayal of how this disease can affect so many.

Mitchell provides the lighter side of the story, with his almost comical travels and experiences.  As he searches for meaning through good works and volunteering, he learns about his own limitations.  He is not, as it happens, Mother Teresa.  His journey also helps him to come to terms with his love for Madeleine and gives him the courage to figure it all out.

I also have to confess…  I loved the locations of the scenes in this book.  The mention of places particularly in Providence in the early 80’s brought me back to my teen years and was so pleasantly nostalgic for me.  An extra bonus!

 

 

The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen

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Lindsay is a smart, driven, slightly compulsive and successful ad executive on her way to the top – until she finds herself in a very compromised situation that puts her career on the line.  She is totally thrown, because after all, she is the smart one.  Her twin sister, Alex, is the beautiful one.  This is how it’s always been, ever since she can remember.  How can she tell her parents that she’s no longer successful?  This would throw off her entire identity.  The journey into which Lindsay is propelled brings all of her preconceived notions into question and forces her to really examine her priorities — and her relationship with Alex.

What begins as light-hearted and somewhat comical actually builds gradually into a heavier and more substantial novel.  Lindsay exemplifies the pressure so many young people feel today to be perfect and successful, even at the expense of their personal lives.  It is hard for her when she takes a step back and examines what she has actually accomplished and what is really important to her.  It also examines stereotypes and the roles we are socialized to play, whether they reflect our true talents or not.

Throughout, however, the author writes with a voice that is full of both tenderness and sarcasm.   It is a fun, generally light read that is great for the beach or just for those late nights with the reading lamp on!

 

Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer

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Harry Clifton begins his life as the son of a poor widow, having to lick the bowl of his uncle’s oatmeal just to have a taste of breakfast.  Thought to be destined to work on the docks, as his uncle does, he avoids school as much as he can.  Fortunately, he discovers a mentor in Old Jack, who is thought to be crazy but who is actually very wise and kind.  It is Old Jack who actually instructs Harry and prepares him for the entrance exams to the prep school he ultimately becomes eligible for and this opens doors that Harry never knew could exist.  As Harry enters this world, he also eventually learns more about his own beginnings, including how his own father actually died and how complicated his beginnings actually were.

While this book was a fun read, it was not at all realistic.  Characters were too good or too bad.  They had connections that were beyond what might be coincidence.  And the plot twists and turns, while suspenseful and amusing, were not ones that were likely to ever have occurred.  I guess, though, that’s why they call it fiction?

The most frustrating part of this book, though, is the crazy, cliffhanger ending that is not an ending.  I hadn’t expected that I HAD to read the next book – and because of that, I’m not sure I will!  So beware -this is more of a commitment than you might think!

 

 

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

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Maisie Dobbs is a detective who is just beginning her own practice in post-WW I London. Her first case, a seemingly simple case of a jealous husband who is trying to figure out where his wife is going everyday while he’s at work, leads her to an investigation of much higher import.  As she becomes more and more entrenched in her investigation, she also comes to terms with her own very traumatic past, her having overcome a humble beginning and her very difficult personal experience of the war.

What begins as an entertaining, almost innocent, story broadens very gradually into a very stark commentary on war and its horrible effects on those who survive it.  With a subtle pen, Winspear writes a narrative of war that leaves the reader to draw the gorier details in the imagination.  What does come through with stark clarity, however, is that whether or not survivors of war return with outer scars, there are almost always inner scars that some can work through and some cannot.

This book is engaging, romantic, suspenseful and beautifully written – I very highly recommend it!