A Book I Read In One Night

 Find Layla, Meg Elison

    I stayed up late reading this one. It was an Amazon First Reads that seemed ok. As much as I hate the word "unputdownable," it applies here. 

    Layla is a neglected 14 year old who loves science. She cares for her little brother, even though he annoys her sometimes, and gets good grades in school. She, like most neglected children, has developed a solid set of protective measures- forging her mother's signature, covering up her home life. She's aware that her life is bad but doesn't have any tools to change it, only those to mask it. She's bullied and teased and copes with science.

    After going viral with a video of her biome, a dark apartment with significant water damage, infestation, and filth, Layla runs away. Her world is collapsing around her. She's a child who is more afraid of the unknown than of the known squalor. She's also a resourceful young woman.

    Now, this is a YA novel, so it's not necessarily going to be believable (although some of y'all don't know just how badly neglected and abused children are treated every day), and it might not wrap up in a tidy package. But here's the thing. It gives a kid credit. And it also shows adults failing kids. And it shows an incredible resilience in children. And the weight some children bear and adapt to. Layla compares herself to both Dr. Jane Goodall and the gorillas Dian Fossey studied.

    Despite the heavy subject matter, this is a very quick read. There's no fluff. I think it's good for adults to read to kind of check our assumptions about neglected and abused children, and also for middle graders to read to see the struggles their peers may have that are hidden.

    

Another Immigrant Song

 A Woman Is No Man, Etaf Rum

    I mentioned way back in Americanah that I took a class on immigrant literature in college. Turns out that I seem to appreciate these novels more and more each year. What Rum has done in these pages is craft an intimate portrait of the complexities of leaving one's home for a new one.

    A Woman Is No Man collects the stories of a handful of Arab women, centered around Isra. Teenage Isra lives in Palestine and is contracted to marry a man living in New York. Her relationship with her mother is complicated and distant, even when they live together. In New York, Isra follows the lead of her mother-in-law, Fareeda, following the cultural rules as she understands them. Much to Fareeda's disgust, Isra gives birth to four daughters. Isra's husband, Adam, resents her more with each subsequent girl as he also spirals down under the pressure of his familial role as eldest son. Deya, Isra's oldest daughter, is the focus of the later tales as she uncovers the truths about her family's life before her parents died. Sarah, Fareeda's only daughter, befriends Isra and later Deya and serves as a catalyst for their story arcs.

    So, of course, a story about immigrants is going to discuss the balance between assimilation and honoring culture. It's going to talk about the otherness of no longer being a countryman and not belonging to the new home. There's expectation, shame, loss, possibility. And a story about women is going to delve into the roles of women in societies.

    What Rum does nicely, by telling multiple stories, is illustrate that there are no easy answers for these women. All of them lose their home in some sense, by military force, by arranged marriage, by escape, by finding the truth. And, mostly, none are satisfied. It's both very real and very sad.

    It's easy for an outsider to think there are easy solutions to difficult situations. Battered women should leave their partners. Child brides should run away before they are married off. "Why doesn't she just ... ?" Rum pulls at those threads and shows that, even the right choice, can lead to terrible consequences. And that, I think, is the universal truth revealed in these pages.

    A Woman Is No Man is heavy, tragic, and very lightly hopeful. Its characters are sympathetic, even when you are angry with them. It's frustrating and painful. It's one you should read.

Short List of Good Books from the Interim

I don't have the time or desire to pore over all the books I read in the gaps in my timeline, but here are a few titles that I enjoyed and think people should read.

YA:
The Other Half of Happy, Rebecca Balcarcel

The War that Saved My Life, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

The Girl Who Drank the Moon, Kelly Barnhill

A Snicker of Magic, Natalie Lloyd (if you like Because of Winn-Dixie)

Lighter Side:

Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes

Holly Banks Full of Angst, Julie Valerie

Daisy Jones and the Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid (like Behind the Music in book form)

The Vine Witch, Luanne G. Smith

Myths:

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Circe, Madeline Miller

Alternative History:

His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik (Temeraire series)

Racism in America:

The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas

An American Marriage, Tayari Jones

The Nickle Boys, Colson Whitehead (I sobbed at the big plot twist)
The Blood of Emmett Till, Timothy B. Tyson

Ok, so some of these fall into multiple categories, but that'll do for now.

Reese and My Sister Made Me Do It

Yes, it's been a long time since I typed up anything about what I'm reading. Don't worry, I've been reading. And listening. And logging titles in my Goodreads. But I'm back here talking about books because ... well, my sister asked me to and I get more out of this than I do ticking a box on a Bezos app.

Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng

As usual, I didn't read any reviews before diving into this novel, which the aforementioned sister also told me to read. It has an overall high score on a few platforms, but the very first review of Goodreads is a funny 1-star. It seems the reviewer doesn't do much self-reflection on her reactions to what she reads and actually demonstrates one of the main themes of the novel- the narrowness of (white) suburban life. The reviewer talks about how Ng lays the story out as black/white good/bad, without any apparent connection to which characters also live that way. The irony seems lost on her completely. 

So, the overarching story- a misfit living in a staid community- isn't new. It reminded me of Edward Scissorhands in a lot of ways. And, at times, I felt like it was too ambitious, trying to cram in too many conflicts and hot-button topics. But, Ng pulls all the threads together to set off the Big Finale. I imagine it like a person holding the tails of several helium filled balloons, each floating at a slightly different altitude, each with a different length of ribbon trailing. And Ng ties all those strings in a knot, but leaves a ragged, untidy tail at the very end. And here is one thing I really liked about the book.

When I'm in the mood for fluff, I want an easy story. I want people to fall together over time and live happily ever after. When I'm in the mood for a challenge, I like books like Little Fires Everywhere. There's no explicit happy ending for anyone. So I'm left to decide ... Does Pearl ever meet her grandparents? The Bryans? Does Izzy follow Mia's footsteps and become a great artist, or a poor drifter scraping by on talent? Will Lexie return to Shaker Heights upon graduation? Does Elena ever learn the truth about all her suspicions? Is the Richardson family every reunited? What kind of life does Pearl pursue? Does Mia ever put down roots? How does she handle Pearl becoming an adult? So. Many. Questions. And I feel like Ng has done well enough introducing me to the characters, that I have an idea of which path they will take and whether they will have regrets.

And while the novel tackles many topics like racism, classism, trans-racial adoption, immigrant experience, death, and abortion, I think the overall theme is regrets. Each character, even the minor ones, have a moment on which their lives balance and every choice they make after is based on whether or not they regret that initial one. Like Mia tells Lexie, they just have to carry it.

One writing choice I find interesting is when Ng calls the white suburban women by their first names and when she calls them Mrs. Lastname. It definitely sets a tone for the reader to distance themselves from these characters for large parts of the book, especially when they are doing the wrong thing. But it's also a snapshot into that suburban life. The rules, propriety, and formality. Last names surround these women and protect them from revealing vulnerabilities. Mrs. Richardson is a successful, orderly, pragmatic, and reasonable woman. Elena is a friend, a young woman who had to choose between safety and romance. Also interesting is that each of the Richardson children go by nicknames, the only characters to do so except for a bit parts played by college roommate, Betsy-cum-Elizabeth, and a professor's partner.

Several reviewers comment that they feel manipulated by Ng's storytelling, but also that the omniscient narrator is unsettling. They want to decide who is good and who is bad and simultaneously want the story from a single perspective. That, in itself, is a thread I'd like to pick at. Perhaps there is some resistance to feeling sympathetic towards a character they feel is immoral. Maybe there is some dissonance connected to the rule follower making several unethical moves. I didn't feel like any one character was the good guy or the bad guy, with the exception of Pearl, who is just batted about on the waves of everyone around her mostly. For me, it seems like the characters are all flawed, all make serious mistakes and bad choices, and then ... here's the message I think Ng is trying to give us ... they continue on with life, carrying that weight.

A Tale of Two Suspense Novels

Hello and apologies for my silence over the last months. I promise I have been reading and talking books and writing, just not here. That last one really hurt. I'll work on a summary of some of those from The Great Silence, but today I'm tackling the most recent titles.

One of my girlfriends kind of got me on a suspense kick with Blood Sisters, which I enjoyed and texted her more than once with "wtf?" I requested a few from some library sources I have and surprise! two became available the exact same day. It's hard not to compare them, so I'm going to.

Both of these were enjoyable, interesting, fast-paced, twisty- all the things you want in a thriller. But I have to say, A.J. Finn did a better job in crafting the story.

The Woman In the Window is the Hitchcockian-noir story of an agoraphobic psychologist who spies on her neighbors and witnesses something terrible. It leans on the unreliable narrator structure in a way that doesn't make me hate Anna, the protagonist. Yes, she drinks too much and mixes it with her meds (tsk, tsk, Dr. Fox), but I found it less annoying than the same ploy in The Girl On the Train. Some of the twists were predictable, some I expected but not from whom.

The Couple Next Door follows a couple and a detective in the days after the couple's infant daughter is abducted while the parents are at a party next door. It's definitely a unique premise that could spawn some thought-provoking conversations among parents (and probably lead to a bunch of pearl-clutching and sanctimommying, but let's stay positive for a few minutes). The title suggests much more interaction with the couple hosting the party, but they barely register. The husband is literally only in the first scene. And their big secret adds almost nothing to the plot. Although, with a cliffhanger ending, perhaps Shari Lapena intends to delve more into their lives. It's a page-turner, but in my opinion, falls short of its counterpart today.

- Finn's characters are more engaging. We experience enough of Dr. Fox's interior life to get a feel for who she really is. We are told what Marco and Anne Conti and Detective Rasback are thinking, not shown.
- Finn's crime is the focus of the story, the conflict we want to be resolved. The missing baby is almost secondary to Lapena's story. More time is spent on the possible reasons Cora is gone than dealing with the aftermath of a baby vanishing. More time is spent watching the least sympathetic parent, which makes it hard to find someone to like.
- Finn propels the story from the first-person point of view. This, to me, makes all the biggest difference. The reader gets caught inside the fragile mind of one woman. You feel trapped in her obsession because she is the only one revealing the plot. I kept thinking how much more suspenseful the Contis' story would have been if only one of them had been telling it. Instead, we bounce around and have an omniscient third person telling us how everyone is feeling but never revealing intimate thoughts through action or inner dialogue.

Lest it sound like I hated Couple, I admit I will share it with friends. If you like suspense, it's a good, quick read. It's a good story poorly told. It's a rough draft that still needs editing.

So, those are the two books I read this week. I've got one more suspense novel in my queue before I switch things up.

Others that I won't be reviewing now but finished:
Charlie Bone series by Jenny Nimmo- decent. Not the world-building and complexity of Harry Potter, but an enjoyable child-discovers hidden talent/family secret arc.
Plantagenet series by Phillippa Gregory- reliably good. I enjoy Gregory's research-based imaginings of the lives of women in history. Particularly, I love that different women recounting the same events as friends and as enemies all have my sympathy. These books are the precursors to the wildly popular Tudor books from a few years back.
The Road to Jonestown about the history of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple. Though I took a course in college that focused on Jonestown, I learned so much from this. Warning- the back pages are full of very graphic images.
Hell's Princess- a disappointing offering from a well-respected true crime researcher. Belle Gunness lived on her murder farm in the small town where I grew up. While I did learn more from the book than I picked up at the county museum display, I was put off by the reliance on "yellow journalism" for research while also talking about how unreliable media was at the time.
The Light of Fireflies by Paul Pen. Wow. I should actually write a whole review of it. I wasn't expecting the thriller aspect of this one because it starts out more like book club lit. It's just a really compelling read. The translation to English is skilled and poetic. I highly recommend it.

That's about all the summarizing I can handle today. I downloaded several new titles on World Book Day and put in requests for 13 new books at the library, so there's more material to come. In case you missed it, I did a roundup of titles for the summer over at the Destin 30A Moms Blog.

The Book That Almost Broke My Blog

Trans, Juliet Jacques

I've been avoiding this post for months. I even read an entire series since this one, but I want to chronicle my reading in order. So, it's time. This isn't going to be easy.

I mentioned previously that I am trying to read more first-person narratives. And my desire for an authentic storyteller is hipster level. Enter, Ms. Jacques.

To begin, I'm going to share a little of my experiences with trans people. I went to a state school that had a surprisingly large group celebrating and supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Sort of. Those four years I was around people who explored, questioned, and experimented with their identities in many ways. It was at a drag pageant on campus that I learned an acquaintance from high school was performing. My favorite nightclub had drag shows. The restrooms might have had gender signs, but nobody paid attention to them. Honestly, it was one of the few places where I felt like I could just be me, safely, and nobody cared what that meant.

My senior year I moved into a small apartment complex that shared a parking lot with another. The two buildings faced each other. Naturally, many of us became friends. It was an eclectic group of people. It was home. Among the maybe 3 dozen people living in those two buildings, were David and Shel. David was David most of the time, except when he was Kenya- a crowd pleasing queen. It was easy to know which persona was present. Kenya was a character David became. Shel was different. Shel was born male and tried to live as a woman sometimes. It was a painful struggle for him (his chosen pronoun). He had tried hormone therapy in the past but didn't continue it. He hated being a man and was terrified of being a woman. Today he might call himself genderfluid, a term we didn't have back then. The point is, these were people I saw daily. They were friends. They were my most intimate experience with trans identities. I took that for granted.

Now to the book. Jacques has admitted that she didn't want to publish a memoir, a fact that is pretty obvious to me. It's a shame that the only story a publisher wanted to touch was this one because it is not well-written. To be clear, my problems with the story aren't with the overall content. It reads exactly like a book the writer never wanted to pen.

For a memoir, Jacques shares very little of her interior life. There's occasional discussion of depression or the anxious feelings she had when shopping. But mostly it's almost a third person limited narration of events of her life. There are detailed paragraphs about soccer/football plays and many references to the music scene she was into. Both were completely lost on me and did nothing to help me relate to the person behind the story. I can't blame Jacques for this, since she didn't want to write a memoir. But at the same time, I wonder why she bothered with publishing it.

The other thing I didn't care for was the complaining about how hard it was to transition. Remember, I had a friend who was never able to, even though he wanted to. Knowing how difficult and expensive it is for people here, having to live as a woman for a year before having confirmation surgery seems like a pretty privileged complaint to me. It's not a competition, of course, but if that's the hardest thing you have to overcome ...

There are things I really liked about the book, too. Just not the memoir part. Jacques weaves in a little trans theory and politics. She talks about how limited trans lit is- the same thing her own book suffers from. She gives very limited space to her life before transition, which I have deep respect for. If people want to get off on that kind of stuff, they can read Middlesex. I liked that she didn't write a sensational story, that there was no huge battle with her parents or a suicide attempt.

It's hard to give this one a rating. My feelings about it are too mixed up. Most notably is that, as a cis-woman, it's not really my place to rate Ms. Jacques' experience. The obscure scene references and distant storytelling are not good writing, in my opinion. At the same time, I realize that she didn't have many options. I'm glad I read the book, but I'm not sure I'm glad she wrote it.

Dreamland Burning

Dreamland Burning, Jennifer Latham

Brace yourselves for a bit of a rant that isn't directly about this novel and yet is. It's a re-hashing of my thoughts on The Help, so if you are tired of that one, feel free to skip this entry.

The concept of this novel is good. It has so much potential- two mixed race teens separated by decades, united by a corpse. There's a hint of mystery, some interesting historical detail, and a whole lot of trying too hard.

I'll start with the heavy-handedness of the social issues that create the tension of the stories. Considering that the central events revolve around a race-line conflict that left the black areas of Tulsa in ashes, we don't need to be hit over the head with "racism is bad, mkay?" And the supporting character, the girls best friend who also happens to be an asexual guy, is the weakest conjured sidekick I can imagine. He's got a cool car and he's asexual. He's asexual. Oh, by the way, he's asexual. He's also black- which would be much more pertinent to the main story- but we'll keep focusing on his sexual identity, regardless of how little it progresses the story. There are no situations where it's relevant, except to really make the point that their friendship is truly platonic. So it comes across as a detail that was just thrown in to make the whole novel more diverse. Same with the other teen's native mother, although her background gives a little bit of structure and context. We also get a homeless man and an addict as secondary or even tertiary (man, I love that word!) characters to round out our coat of many colors. And this, my friends, is also where I get my knickers in a knot.

This book is written by a white woman. Now, don't get me wrong, I love intersectional feminism and want WW to be good allies. Every important character in this novel is a Person of Color. All of them. Then why is Nice White Lady the one telling it? What insight could she possibly have into the everyday lives of mixed-race Tulsans that we couldn't get from, I dunno, actual POCs? Maybe, just maybe, this isn't her story to tell. Maybe, she could've told it from a different perspective that she can actually relate to better, and, therefore, made it more believable.

Elvis didn't invent rock n' roll.
Aibileen should've written the book, not Skeeter.
Miley wasn't the first to twerk.
The list goes on.

Now, without trying to sound like a hipster, I want authenticity in a storyteller. That doesn't mean that no white person can ever write a character of color, no straight person can ever write a queer one, no man can ever write a woman. But for the love of Benji, can we please, as white people who like to write, please take a step back? Can we please not assume we can tell these stories better than the people who have actually lived them? And, if we insist on still telling them, can we please do some actual first-person research? Maybe not try to frame an entire novel as a way to fix the social injustices that we are actually largely (if not totally) responsible for? I mean, can you imagine if Jodi Picoult tried to write Push? That's pretty much how this one reads.

And, let's be honest, the two main characters are heroes for different reasons. The young man, who passes as white but is called half-breed by the utterly one dimensional bad guy, who is not in touch with any of his native ancestry, swoops in during a tragedy to rescue a couple of black people that he happened to actually talk to. Thank you, White Savior. We're all so super grateful that you went from punching a guy and getting him worse-than-lynched to carrying beaten black men to a sanctuary. Really, it's great that this guy had a change of heart and did some pretty brave acts on that one single night, but ... then he gets to vanish. He's done his part. Give him a cookie. The young woman, who benefits from her white daddy's public standing, lives in her ivory tower, and is so far removed from not only her black ancestry but also even middle class life, gets to pin a rose on her own nose because she finally has empathy for a homeless man after he dies. I get it. They're kids. They haven't experienced the world outside of Tulsa. It's just so ridiculous that both of them have these massive changes of perspective seemingly overnight. It's so insincere and they have hidden in their privilege for so long I find them hard to like.

I could probably ramble on for several more semi-coherent paragraphs, but I won't. This story is weak and ambitious. It's not particularly well written. It's not challenging or engaging. I did read the whole thing, so it's better than The Orchardist. It gets credit for giving me something new to research- the Tulsa race riot. Dreamland Burning gets a lowly one and half Marias.

P.S. I'm trying to consume more works by outsiders. If you have a recommendation, drop a comment, please.