The Red House

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The Red House, by Mark Haddon

When Mark Haddon wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, he was using the voice of a character with Autism and so his flight-of-ideas writing style was fitting.  In this novel, about a family reunion of sorts, however, he has no excuse.  This book starts with a good idea, interesting characters, and important issues that arise between them.  Unfortunately, the writing is so choppy and confusing that it is a painful book to try to muddle through.  From paragraph to paragraph, the primary character changes and by the time the reader decodes whom the writer is speaking about, the character changes.   And after all this hard work, the story is largely bleak and dreary anyway.  There is no humor at all — not even the sarcasm and cynicism that would complement the pessimism of the book — but just a hopelessness that soaks through each character.

So, confusing and depressing — a pretty lousy combination!

Oxford Messed Up

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Oxford Messed Up  by Andrea Kayne Kaufman

This book was a disappointment.  It sounded like a fun love story about an American, Jewish girl, albeit one with severe OCD, who goes to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and meets an equally screwed up boy with whom she shares a bathroom.  They bond over their mutual obsession with the music of Van Morrison and their relationship becomes mutually therapeutic.  It’s a cute idea that unfortunately is poorly executed.  The writing is exhaustingly repetitive and each idea is drummed in ad nauseum.  There are no complex characters — they are all unidimensional and flat.  A number of subplots are left unfinished and there are many ignored opportunities to develop characters more deeply.  In addition, dialogue is limited and dull.

There was also a surprisingly offensive sentence in this book:  “While her family was not particularly observant, they were not among the reform and conservative Jews who celebrated Christmas.”   While some Jews may choose to celebrate Christmas, this sentence makes it sound as if anyone who is not Orthodox generally celebrates Christmas.  This is simply not true.  It’s a weird statement in a weird book.

If you are interested in knowing more about what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is like, you might find this book something of a psychology lesson.   I was just kind of hoping for a good summer read and this was not that book!

The Invisible Bridge

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The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer

I have a love-hate relationship with Holocaust-related books.  I hate them because they are painful and tear at my heart and I often can’t sleep at night because of them.  I love them, because they are essential to keeping the memory of what happened burning in our minds and they are often poignant and dramatic stories in and of themselves.  I have read many, although each time I am leery about starting them.  This one I put off for a long time, but it was recommended by so many people that I had to give in and take the plunge.

This one, though, was worth the heartache.  It is a brilliantly written story of a young, Jewish man named Andras who goes from Hungary to Paris in 1937 to study architecture.  While there, he falls in love and gets swept up in the politics of war.

This great literary saga truly captures the day-to-day miseries of the Second World War.  The characters are loved and lost just as they were during the war.  The separations and sacrifices are dramatic, just as they were in real life at that time.  This book is also unique both in how it goes into detail about the earlier antisemitic forces both in France and in Hungary (prior to the war) and in its description of the war in Hungary specifically, which is often omitted in Holocaust books.

In short,  The Invisible Bridge is worth every tear you will shed.

Gone Girl

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Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

This is truly the perfect summer/beach read.   The story is about a couple who are about to celebrate their 5th anniversary and suddenly the wife, Amy,  goes missing.  There are, of course, shady circumstances surrounding her disappearance and the story takes many, many very unexpected twists and turns.  This is the kind of book that when you read, your own spouse gets annoyed because every so often you’re yelling at the book (“Oh, no!” or “Seriously??”) like a bit of a fool.  But you won’t be able to stop yourself because it’s that crazy!

I had fun with this one.  The characters are very complicated and while the husband is certainly the protagonist, he’s not exactly a hero in my mind.  And until the very end, the author is relentless with the surprises!

I will admit, I did quite a bit of yelling at the book at the end.  It felt initially as if it stopped short.  But after digesting it for awhile, I realized that it was the way it had to end.

I would love for others to read this one to see if you agree!

The Dovekeepers

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The Dovekeepers, by Alice Hoffman

Wow, is all I can say about this book.  This is a must-read for anyone with any interest in the dramatic, heroic story of Masada.  By telling the story through the voices of 3 main fictional women who live on Masada before and during the siege of the Romans, the author takes the reader through the harshness of desert life and the barbarism and the humanity that coexisted there.  As you develop an empathy for each character and their personal plight, you then go through the actual siege with them and even though the outcome is known, the story is still gripping and suspenseful.  This is to the Masada story as Mila 18 was to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the story is just as dramatic.

I learned so much from this story.  I learned about the Essenes, a sect of Judaism that existed at this time which dictated strict adherence to the Jewish laws and a strict avoidance of any violence whatsoever.  I also developed an appreciation for the mystical beliefs that still prevailed at that time.  Even though Judaism preached belief in one god, there was a lot of belief in sorcery and spirits and angels and demons as well.  Mostly, though, this story gave me, in vivid — really graphic —  detail, an idea of how harsh life in the desert is.  I felt as if I myself was tasting the sand in my food and feeling the pelting heat of the sun.  I felt a relief as they did when the rains came.

I loved this book.  I’d love to hear how you feel about it if you have the good fortune to read it!

Slammed and Point of Retreat

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Slammed,  and Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover.

A “slam” is a poetry contest where the contestants perform their poetry before an audience who then judges them, sort of an American Idol for aspiring poets.  It is a slam which brings together the 2 main characters of these books:  Lake, a girl whose father has just died and who has just been uprooted with her mother and younger brother, to Ypsilanti, MI, and Will, her new neighbor across the street.  They connect immediately but quickly stumble upon a huge barrier to their relationship.  Obviously, since there are 2 books, there is an ongoing relationship of sorts, but the ups and downs are extreme and the reader is pulled right inside their hearts to feel the rollercoaster ride right along with them.  The poetry woven in so beautifully throughout the story gives it an added dimension and the quirky characters that surround Lake and Will add some welcome levity.  Possibly the only characters who remain somewhat flat are their 2 younger brothers who play a huge role but are not developed to their fullest, in my opinion.

In the second book, however, a couple of new characters are introduced, and one, the younger brothers’ friend, Kiersten, is my favorite.  She’s an 11 year old poet, sage and wiseass, and everyone in the book adopts her as their best friend for very different reasons.  I sort of felt that way, too.  She becomes quite the heroine at the end and you can’t help but smile and silently cheer for her when you read about it.

Basically, I laughed, I cried…  but for real.  When I don’t want to read another book right away because I still want to live with the characters for a little while longer, I know I’ve read a good book.  This is one of those.  Actually, this is two of those!

The Glass Castle

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The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

This book has been recommended to me for years and because I knew it would be disturbing, I sort of avoided it.  But I finally resolved to read it and I’m glad I did.  This is a true, autobiographical story about a girl raised by 2 parents who were, to say the least, unconventional in their philosophy on child-rearing.  It begins with Jeanette, at the age of 3 years, trying to make herself a hot dog (because her mother was busy with her art) and burning herself on the stove to the point of needing to be hospitalized for weeks for burns and skin grafts.  When she returns home, she is back at the stove, making another hot dog and cheered on by her mom who claims she should not be afraid of anything!

So begins a life of chaos.  Jeanette’s mother is an artist and writer who does not believe in rules, structure or discipline and who clearly wrestles with depression.  Her father is a brilliant man but cursed with alcoholism and is unable to maintain a job for any length of time.  Whenever the family begins to get behind on paying the few bills that they actually pay, or gets in trouble with the law, the family picks up in the middle of the night, without packing anything, and moves to a new town to begin anew.   The children frequently are hungry and forced to scavenge for food, in dumpsters, in the cafeteria garbage cans at school.  They are frequently the target of derision and even violence by their peers, because of their abject poverty.  What enables her to survive is the powerful bond between Jeanette and her siblings who protect each other fiercely.

And yet, what makes this story so moving and so engaging is the complex nature of the relationships between Jeanette, her siblings, and her parents.  Like all people who do bad things (or make poor decisions), her parents are complicated.  Her father, for example, who often drinks away the family’s money meant for food, also imparts wisdom to his children.  On a particularly touching and moneyless Christmas Eve, he takes each of his children out to look at the stars and “gives” each of them their favorite star as a special present.  There are these very touching moments that he does share with his children that make him a somewhat sympathetic figure.

So while I found myself yelling out loud at her parents and feeling aghast at some of her experiences, I understand why Jeanette had sympathy and love for her parents.  They were still her parents, no matter how neglectful or irresponsible they were.  She tells her story honestly and simply and vert clearly presents her struggle to love them in spite of her knowing even very early on that her parents were often wrong.  Her story is probably more common than we would like to think as is this struggle.

I am glad that I finally made myself read this.  It’s not easy, but I think it’s an important book to read.

The Long Way Home

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The Long Way Home, by Karen McQuestion

This utterly forgetable but mildly amusing story is about 4 women (strangers) who agree to take a road trip together to help one of them reconnect with her (sort of) stepson.  The women are different ages and have almost nothing in common, one is a recluse who on a whim decides to break her years of solitude to join in,  and —  of course! —  one is a psychic.  Basically, this story is as realistic as me winning the Miss America Pageant and the lottery combined!

There are a few funny moments and little surprises, and if you’re looking for a light, mindless read, this may be for you, but it’s not a must-read by any stretch.  Just my opinion…!

Lone Wolf

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Lone Wolf, by Jody Picoult.

I LOVE Jody Picoult.  She has the uncanny ability to delve into the stickiest of ethical dilemmas and to elicit sympathy on the part of the reader toward each side.  I believe it is because she creates such beautifully complex characters, each of whom you want to win.

And in this book, she does it again.

The book revolves around a man who in order to fully study the habits of wolves, leaves his family to live in the wild among them, becoming part of a pack of wolves who take him in as one of their family.    After he returns to his own, human family, he has difficulty fitting in and circumstances lead to the breaking up of his family.  When he later suffers a severe head injury and is on life support, his son and daughter take up a legal battle to determine who will make the decision of whether or not to end life support.

In addition, throughout the book, the author weaves in various facts about wolves which make them appear more human than we are.  Each tidbit is actually quite profound and provides a metaphor for what is happening to the characters in the story.   I’m no naturalist, but I do find these facts very interesting.  Each little factoid also serves to increase the suspense in the book with each further delay in the progression of the story.

This is yet another craftily woven story by Jody Picoult.  You easily come to know and love her characters, you empathize with each side because each side is made valid, and you can’t help staying up late — no matter how late it is and no matter how important your work is the next day! — because you have to find out what happens (and there are a few major surprises!)

While some say Ms. Picoult has something of a formula, I say she uses what works —  and it always does!

The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Welcome back!  I just finished reading The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which I had never read before.  My kids were more fortunate than I — they just finished reading this book in school and had the benefit of discussions with a  teacher who was trained to help appreciate all the symbolism and deeper meaning in the book.  I might have enjoyed the book more if I’d had the benefit of this.  As it was, I did not like really any of the characters in the book enough to really care about what happened to them, so it was challenging to get through it.

Just to review the story for those of you who haven’t thought about this book in awhile…

The narrator is a man who is a neighbor/tenant of Mr. Jay Gatsby.  He observes that Gatsby has frequent elaborate parties in his ostentatious mansion on Long Island.  What we come to learn is that Gatsby’s innate drive for wealth and notoriety is propelled to new heights by his love for a woman, Daisy, with whom he’d fallen in love 5 years prior. Daisy is now married to Tom, who is cheating on her, and Gatsby’s goal is to lure Daisy away from Tom. Without giving away the whole story to those of you who have not read the book (or those of you who want to read it again), suffice it to say there are complicated relationships and Gatsby comes to a bitter end.

There is a lot in this book about class relationships — essentially, about the callousness of the “haves” and the jealousy of the “have-not’s.”  What seems to matter less to everyone in the story is love, and the denial of the importance seems to bring everyone to their piece of the tragedy.  This idea, basically that money can’t buy happiness, is what I see as the take-home message for the reader, but it is almost painful to get to that end.

Unfortunately, each character is almost completely unlikeable.  The narrator is a kvetch and is fairly self-righteous in his telling of the story.  He frequently promotes his own virtuous honesty but is hypocritical in each of his relationships, appearing to like the other characters but secretly hating them all. Gatsby is probably the most sympathetic character, but he is distracted and uses people to his own ends.  Each of the other characters lacks depth and feels very flat, including Daisy.  In fact, it is frequently noted that everyone loves her, but it is very unclear — at least to me — why!  The conversation between characters is either trite — boring, even — or just outright blunt and vulgar.  Worse, though, there is also a lot of chatter about the other incidental characters that feels superfluous and drags out the story without giving it any more substance.

I understand that there is a remake of the movie in the works.  I pray they find what I could not in this book in order to make it worth seeing!