The Last Summer of the Camperdowns by Elizabeth Kelly

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

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LOVED this book!

Riddle, a woman shunned by a man from her past during a momentary encounter, looks back on the summer that changed her (and his) life forever.  At the age of 12, Riddle was an accidental witness to a crime, but was quietly terrorized into remaining silent about what she heard and saw.  As her fretting over her own silence mounted, so did the confusion and mystery around the crime, and the circle of guilt enlarged like the rippling of water from a stone.  Riddle saw her own family become entangled in the mystery, and she saw first hand, how keeping secrets can haunt you and endanger you in the end.

What shines in this book is the writing – it is absolutely resplendent, with richly painted imagery and razor-sharp dialogue.  The banter between Riddle’s father, a war-veteran and politician running for office, and her mother, an actress who’s taken a break from acting but not from being glamorous and cynical, is full of jabs at each other that are biting and callous and occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious.   The setting is also near and dear to my heart – it takes place in Wellfleet, on Cape Cod, on a beautiful estate overlooking the Atlantic.  The characters are rich – figuratively and literally – and are adored and detested as the rich often are, and there is frequent commentary on both the power and the vulnerability of money.  There is also the component of the coming of age of Riddle, who is thrust into the lives of adults as she turns only 13, and her character is extremely sympathetic.

From glamor and romance to suspense and thrill – and especially fantastic literary sheen — this book has it all!  Highly recommended for that Cape Cod vacation – and any other time as well.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is a MUST-read!

Vianne and Isabelle, sisters living in France during the late 1930’s, could not be more different from each other.  Vianne is calm, very settled and contented;  while Isabelle is impulsive, daring and always desperately seeking attention and love.  Both, however, had their lives completely disrupted by the German invasion into France during the advent of the second world war.  And both resisted the Germans each in her own very brave way.  Through their miserable experiences during the war, they each came to understand each other and respect each other for who they really were and who they each became.

This book, while extremely emotionally difficult to read, was outstanding.  The writing was clear and fluid and just explicit enough to get the sordid details across.  The characters are beautifully drawn; both sisters became real people for whom I felt a powerful empathy.  It also was descriptive but still kept the action moving so that there was never a lull, never a single sentence I wanted to skim over.  It is a story that keeps your heart beating at high speed until the very last page.

Once again – a MUST-READ!

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This was one of those jewels that has you laughing even as you’re reading about a subject that is profoundly serious.  On the surface, the story reads almost like a comical documentary, with the narrative intermixed with comments given by each of the characters who were peripherally involved in the death of a character (this is not a spoiler — this comes out in the beginning, but through the whole story it is unclear who is killed by whom).  On a deeper level, though, the story deals extremely sensitively and honestly with the frightening issue of relationship violence.

Jane is about to move to a new area in Australia near the ocean with her son, Ziggy.  During the kindergarten orientation, an incident occurs with sweet, little Ziggy that initiates a huge divide among the mothers of the class.  As alliances form, each of the characters shows her true colors and the friendships begin.  Jane is initially secretive about her own past, but as she warms to her new friends, she sees that revealing her own story can actually free her of the burden of  it.  She also learns that she is not the only one with secrets.

The characters in this story are remarkably real and 3-dimentional.  The story also has a number of different corollaries, which keeps it moving both sideways and forward and also works to add to the suspense of who is killed and by whom.  And while the underlying message is clear and strong, there is  a warm humor threaded through which kept me loving this book.

Can’t wait to read more by this author!

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris (migrated from bookblogger)

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Wow.  I am a little speechless from this book.  It’s funny, too, because I started this book awhile ago and put it aside.  It felt very dense and I wasn’t sure it was worth the “work” of reading it.  Needless to say, I am glad I returned to it as it very quickly became not work but almost a driving force and kept me up to all hours of the night (luckily it’s vacation time!), needing to find out what happened next.

This is the story of the Dreyfus Affair, which if you are not acquainted with it, is the frightening, true story of a Jew, Alfred Dreyfus, who served in the French army in the late 1800’s who was accused and convicted of treason and punished in an absurdly inhuman way.  This historical fictional version of this dark episode in French history, is told from the perspective of a Colonel, Georges Picquart, in the army who was assigned to be the head of intelligence for France and who uncovers the true traitor.  The story is a brutal, gradual revelation of a top-level cover-up of a shabby investigation with the unsurprising victim a Jew.  Because of the persistence of this lonely officer, the case is reopened in spite of all the efforts of his superiors to suppress his work.

Here is another story of French anti-semitism, something that is echoed today.  Reading this leads one to wonder if anything has actually changed since the turn of the last century…

China Dolls by Lisa See (migrated from bookblogger)

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Three Asian girls — Helen, Grace and Ruby — seeking to reinvent themselves, meet as they each are auditioning for a dance club in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1938.  They instantly develop a friendship, a new experience for each of them.  The story follows them through the second world war, during which the paranoia over the Japanese, as well as each of their own secrets/ghosts, almost tear them apart.

Lisa See creates a heart-wrenching experience for the reader – each character is so lovingly portrayed and it is easy for the reader to be drawn in.  She also creates a real experience of the time in our history, the impact of a cruel war and its resultant prejudices on each of its individual citizens.

I heartily recommend this book – a definite “must read,” especially for those of us obsessed with historical fiction!

Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler (Migrated from bookblogger)

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Isabelle, an elderly white woman, has befriended her hairdresser, a younger black woman named Dorrie.  They have fallen into a comfortable routine, a weekly visit by Dorrie to Isabelle’s home, for Dorrie to fix Isabelle’s hair and truly to check in on her.  But even Dorrie is surprised when Isabelle asks Dorrie to accompany her on a mysterious journey to Isabelle’s hometown for a funeral. Dorrie embraces this opportunity to take a brief hiatus from her own family troubles, and she drops everything to help out Isabelle, Through their journey, they each share their own stories and the two come to understand each other in a deeper, almost mother/daughter way that truly tugged at my heart.

The story, almost prophetic in its timing, is about race and racism and in its tender way shows how while many things have changed over the years, many things have unfortunately remained the same in terms of black-white relations.  The women in this story defy the stereotypes and are so beautifully and realistically depicted that you can’t help falling in love with them both.  It is just remarkable to me that this is this author’s debut novel — I can’t wait to read her next!

My favorite part is the ending.  Not only is there a build up of suspense and a definite twist, but the author also finishes the novel.  All the pieces are wrapped up neatly in an incredibly satisfying, albeit sad, way.  It’s really a beautiful story.

Highly, highly recommend this book – and can’t wait to discuss it in our book club!

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This story very insidiously burrows its way under your skin and you cannot shake it off until you reach the end.  There is an eeriness about each character and a tension that is so taught that it grips your heart as you read through.  At the same time, you cannot help but feel a tenderness for each of the characters and it paints each in a human light, that is neither good nor bad, but very, very human.

It is the story of two main characters who are unconnected and wind their way toward each other in a most circuitous way.  One is Marie-Laure, the young, blind daughter of the locksmith for the natural history museum of Paris, just before the German occupation of WWII.  The second is a young German orphan named Werner, who is mesmerized by radios and sees his curiosity and natural ability in engineering as his ticket out of his small, mining village.  The story bounces back and forth between the two, and keeps the reader absolutely on the edge of her seat.  It is almost impossible to put down, actually.

While this is yet another book about WWII, it is a very different perspective on it.  There is very little about the treatment of Jews; rather, the focus is mainly on the effect of the German occupation of France.  In addition, there is also the struggle between the ideas of bad and good, and the idea that  “bad” can be defined as not doing good.  Werner, in particular, struggles with this in a vivid way.

This is a heart-wrenching story but a beautifully written one that I would heartily recommend!

 

The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman (migrated from bookblogger)

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This is a beautiful, heart-wrenching story that I would highly recommend for all comers.  Tom, the attendant for a lighthouse on a tiny, deserted island off the coast of Australia, and Isabel, his wife, discover a boat with a dead man and a tiny, crying baby washed up on the island’s shore.  Isabel, who has suffered recent miscarriages, desperately wants to hold onto this baby, to whom she bonds instantaneously.  Tom, a decorated war veteran and one who lives by the structure of rules, feels he must report the arrival of these two strangers.  Their decision at this pivotal moment defines the trajectory of the rest of their lives.

The writing in this book is stunning.  Each character is drawn so tenderly that you can’t help but feel empathetic toward each one.  And because each one is so dear, you feel absolutely torn by the ethical dilemma presented by the situation.  As time goes on, life gets more and more complicated and the story builds to an emotional, twisted crescendo and I for one could not put the book down.

Loved this story, loved the writing — definitely another must-read!

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Ifemelu is a young Nigerian woman who, after 15 years in the U.S. is making her way back home to Nigeria.  She has always been outspoken and has found blogging to be a surprisingly lucrative outlet for her poignant observations and strong opinions about race and racism here.  Something is missing, though, and she finds that she cannot deny her urge to return home to Nigeria.  As she prepares to leave, she arranges to get her hair braided and as she does she reminisces to herself about the significant relationships in her life — the love of her life Obinze, her other romantic explorations, her Aunty Uju and her dear nephew Dike — and it seems to fortify her for her journey home.

This is an elegantly written book with a lot of content.  It is a story about life in Nigeria; the struggle of the immigrant in a foreign land; and class, gender and race relations and tensions — I felt that I learned a lot about Nigerian culture and life there.  Ifemelu is also an exceedingly honest, blunt character who gives voice to the idea that racism has not been conquered but rather there is a pervasive anger that it exists at all.   Her character gives a sympathetic means of expressing these ideas and you can see from where they emanate.   The story is also overwhelmingly a love story, with a romantic tension that stretches through the whole book.   In this there is a universality about the book that any reader can relate to.

I think this is a beautiful story that has enormous weight and depth to it.  It is long, but each page is full of meaning.

 

A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

For a long time I put off reading this book…  The topic here, sex trafficking of minors, is not for the feint of heart.  Or for anyone with a heart, really.  On the other hand, it’s probably one of the most important topics we could be reading about.  It is a billion-dollar, world-wide nightmare for millions of underaged, vulnerable children and women and we need to understand the problem fully.

This also happens to be an incredible book.  The story is about 2 Indian sisters, Ahalya and Sita, who, after a tsunami has drowned their whole immediate family, are kidnapped and sold into slavery.  Meanwhile, Thomas, an American lawyer who is going through his own emotional crisis, is sucked into the sisters’ plight and plunges through a fight to save them.

There is utter suspense, there are twists and turns, and there is an emotional roller coaster the reader rides on that makes it absolutely impossible to put this book down.  Furthermore, I have to admit that a book has not made me sob like this one did in quite a long time.

It’s an important book for all of us to read and I’m glad I finally did.  Now we have to see what we can do to end this hideous crime!