Anxious People

I could not have selected a better book to finish up my 2020 reading with than Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. This quirky, humorous novel about a sensitive, important subject really helps to zoom in on what is most important in life. Our connection to other people.

2020 has been a total dumpster fire of a year. Plans needed to be shelved. I learned that people whom I considered friends had very different values than I have, making me wonder if we can still be friends. (In some cases yes, in other cases no.) Virtual contact with others became a lifeline to the outside world. And reading helped me get through the year.

Again I say, this book was the perfect book to finish on the final day of this terrible year.

Backman, author of A Man Called Ove, which I loved, and My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry, which I liked (a little too much fantasy-type writing in this one), really hit it out of the park with Anxious People.

It's the story of a bank robbery gone wrong. Maybe. It's about a hostage situation. Maybe. It's a story about idiots. It's about truth.

It's about marriage, compassion, family relationships, finding meaning in life. All told through the story of a seemingly random group of people thrown together at an open house for an apartment in a small town. There's the wealthy banker, the long-time older married couple who can't stop  bickering. There's the newly married couple expecting their first child. There's the elderly woman, the real estate agent, the rabbit. 

We meet Nadia, therapist to the wealthy banker. Jim and Jack, the cops called to bring the hostage situation to a safe conclusion, are important characters in the story, too. Every single character in the tale, except for perhaps the hostage negotiator, has a story of his or her own. Each has longings, each has a desire, whether acknowledged or not, to be connected to others. I'd be hard pressed to give a better explanation than this without giving away much of the novel.

As in Backman's other novels that I've read, the characters are quirky. As you might know by now, I love quirky characters. He doesn't come right out and tell the story. He lets the story evolve. It's full of surprises and the reader wondering, "Hey, why didn't I realize that before?" It's important to read Backman novels carefully to be able to put all the pieces together.

I don't know that I'd say that Anxious People was the best book that I read in this terrible year. But it was in the top ten and it was the best book to finish the year with.

Happy New Year!
Happy reading!

 

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

 

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine. Or at least she says she is. And she's sort of convinced herself that she really is fine. And that's the way Eleanor's story in Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman begins.

(Kind of like my mom in the last years of her life. She was always "Fine," whenever you asked how she was. In fact, everyone was fine and everything was fine. Was she trying to convince herself or just convince me?)

Eleanor is a 30-something living a solitary life in Scotland, working as an accounts clerk at a graphic design firm. She goes to work, where she spends much of each day judging her co-workers. She spends her lunch hour at the same spot eating the same thing every day, while doing the crossword puzzle. And then she goes home, alone, to eat (pesto during the week, pizza on Fridays), drink vodka, read, and sleep. A really sad existence. No friends. Unless she goes to her corner convenience store over the weekend, she can go from leaving work on Friday to returning to work on Monday without speaking to another soul.

At 30, Eleanor has zero social skills, an outdated way of speaking, and an odd sense of dress that she thinks should make her invisible, but rather makes her stand out as an oddball instead. She spots a musician with whom she "falls in love" and dreams of a normal future on the arms of this rock star.

In the process of trying to recreate herself to be the perfect mate to the musician, Eleanor is removed from her routines. While out of routine, she and a co-worker witness a man collapsing on the street and get him to the hospital. She is drawn into the lives of these two men and this is what really starts Eleanor's whole world changing.

I found parts of the novel extremely predictable, but Honeyman's descriptive language and development of the characters were a joy. Even when Eleanor rediscovers some not so joyful parts of her past, we are rooting for her. I'm sure I'm not alone in being able to connect with Eleanor on some levels. I don't want to say that this is a feel good read, because it truly isn't. But I did really enjoy reading it.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

How coincidental that two novels were published about the Pack Horse Library project within a few months of each other! Kim Michele Richardson's The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek was published in May of 2019 and The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes just a few months later, in October. I read The Giver of Stars earlier this year.

Shall I start with the comparison of the two historical fiction novels? Hard not to compare them since they are pretty similar. They both use the backdrop of the Pack Horse Library in which to set their stories.

I think I'll start with the biggest differences first. To me, The Giver of Stars is primarily a story about friendship and about overcoming odds. The romance got a bit schmaltzy at times, but I enjoy Moyes straightforward writing style. And since it was the first of the two that I read, I got to learn about the (mostly) women who drove all over Appalachia delivering books to communities that wouldn't have had access any other way. So that's The Giver of Stars. The main storyline of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek was about skin color. Notice how I didn't say "race"? The main character in Book Woman is Cussy Mary, also called "Bluet," one of the blue-skinned people from Kentucky. People afflicted with an enzyme deficiency can have blue  skin. In the 1930s in Kentucky (and I'd imagine a while afterwards), those with blue skin were lumped with "the coloreds." This is a big part of the story. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is almost a coming-of-age story about what it was like for Cussy Mark to reach adulthood as someone with blue skin.

The biggest similarity is that in both historical fiction novels the main characters are book women and have a love of books and words.

As soon as The Giver of Stars was released, there were accusations of plagiarism. That Jojo Moyes had copied many of the ideas from Kim Michele Richardson. I don't know if that's true, and I don't recall anything strikingly similar between the two plots. I would imagine that the similarities exist in description of the Pack Horse Librarians, but I can't be sure.

Richardson's language is a little richer and probably more fitting with the time during which the novel is set. Sometimes that language slowed me down a little, but not in any terrible way.

I gave both novels 4-stars on goodreads. That was a rounding up for The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, but a solid 4-stars for The Giver of Stars. Which is not to say that I liked the latter much more than the former. I just found Moyes a bit easier and quicker to read, and I love stories about women's friendships and second chances a bit more than coming of age stories at this point in my life.

You can't go wrong with either novel.

Florence Adler Swims Forever

As soon as I finished reading Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland, I gave it four stars on goodreads.com. It's been a few days  and now, as I'm deciding what to write about this debut novel, I'm wondering why I gave it 4 stars. It's a story about family secrets and I'm not sure I am crazy about the resolution of some of the conflicts. Then, after thinking a little bit more, I realized that I gave Florence Adler Swims Forever 4 stars because I really enjoyed reading it. It's not one of those novels where the characters or plot will stick with me forever. But I just plain took pleasure in the time I spent reading.

The book is set in Atlantic City in 1934. Life for the Jews in Europe is becoming more and more difficult. Atlantic City is an enclave for Jews who had immigrated in an earlier wave.

Florence Adler, the title character, actually has a fairly minor role in the book. She drowns in the ocean off the coast of Atlantic City while training to swim the English Channel in the first or second chapter. What happens after she dies is the basis of the novel.

Florence's sister, Fanny, is hospitalized, trying to save a pregnancy after losing a baby the summer before. Their mother, Esther, thinks it's important to keep the news of Florence's death from Fanny. Members of the family are harboring their own secrets as well. 

Beanland had an interesting way of storytelling. She wrote a chapter from each character's point of view in each section of the novel. That was a very effective way to fully develop the characters.

The author's notes and interview at the end of the book were very interesting as well. Beanland had a great-great-aunt, Florence, who drowned similar to her character Florence. She's taken a family story and adapted it. And it works!

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters

When I was on Overdrive to request Barack Obama's newest memoir, I came across this picture book. There was a waitlist for it so I added my name to the list.

Of Thee I Sing is billed as a letter to Obama's daughters. It was written in 2010 when Obama's daughters were still very small, but I was still expecting a little more heft to this picture book. I had no idea who the target audience was. I guess in my "fifth grade teacher" mindset, I was anticipating a a middle grade picture book. It was exactly that.

This is a picture book that could be read to very small children as is to introduce them to some of the historical names of people who showed some sort of strength or drive in their lives. And even though it's short on details, it could be a great intro to a fourth or fifth grade class when starting a unit about Americans whose lives have had a big impact on society. It took me about 5 minutes to read Of Thee I Sing from cover to cover, but I could imagine the way I might have used it as a read aloud in my classroom.

Obama has a way with words and the illustrations by Loren Long were beautiful. 

In the right situation, this is a lovely picture book to share with some young people in your lives.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Lori Gottlieb's memoir, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed was highly recommended in Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. The idea of the group is to recommend titles so there is nearly no discussion about the books to avoid spoilers. (Details about the books are relegated to a different Facebook group.) I really had no idea what to expect, even after reading a blurb.

This memoir was definitely a heftier read than I expected it to me, but it was so worthwhile. I guess you have to believe that talk therapy is good for mental health in order to really get anything out of this book.

Lori Gottlieb takes an indirect career route to becoming a psychotherapist. She's been at it for a few years when she's blindsighted when "Boyfriend" dumps her. She's having trouble getting through the days and determines that it's time for the therapist to find a therapist.

By sharing anecdotes from Gottlieb's sessions with her patients (not her preferred term) and her sessions with her therapist, readers get a better understanding of what therapy can and can't do. Her narrative is completely relatable. I found myself nodding, laughing, being very moved as I read through the memoir.

I think this could be a great book to discuss with the proper book club. I know I'll recommend this book to others. Everyone should be able to get something very positive out of the experience of reading this book.

 

The Takeaway Men

A girlfriend recommended The Takeaway Men by Meryl Ain. She said it was a nice change of pace for a Holocaust book. Rather than focusing on the atrocities of the Holocaust, it deals with several Jewish families in Northern Queens (New York City) in the 1940s thru 1960s. Of those that lived through the Shoah in Europe, there were some who preferred to keep all their memories and feelings bottled up inside and there were some who felt that it was important to share what they experienced so something so horrific won't happen again. That is very much like real life.

The problem with this novel, though, is that it attempted to cover too much (Holocaust, immigration, religious observance, marital relationships, sibling relationships, death, mental illness, the Rosenbergs trial, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some other things that Ain includes in this relatively short novel. Because it is a short novel, nothing was covered deeply enough for me to feel satisfied. Many of the stories that Ain started to share weren't resolved or were dropped midstream.

I think that Aron, Judy, and their twins, Bronka and JoJo are considered the main characters, but other characters, a whole host of characters, got nearly as much attention. I would have loved to have more to a few of the stories than these relative shallow stories.

I also had a problem with the title, "The Takeaway Men." Unless that was a common phrase used in the 1940s and 1950s, it surprised me that two children, an ocean apart, would use  the same phrase. And while "the takeaway men" make the two appearances in the novel, that's not what the story is really about.

The is Ain's debut novel, and it read like a debut novel. The writing was simplistic and descriptive in a way that doesn't add much to the story. I'm sure there's a phrase to describe this type of reading, but I can't place my finger on that right now.

I'm not sure if I'd recommend The Takeaway Men, and the next time I speak to my friend, I'm going to probe a little deeper to ask her what she thought about different aspects of the book.
 

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

 

We've been living in window replacement hell for the past two weeks. It probably would have been stressful in normal times, but that stress was compounded by doing a project such as window replacement during a pandemic. All the people in the house, touching surfaces, using the bathroom. Very stressful! That said, I have  been reading. I just haven't had the time to sit and blog.

Another book club book, this one for my Jewish book club, that I've read months in advance, just hoping that I can remember enough for a good discussion.

In Sarit Yishai-Levi's The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, readers follow the stories of mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, parents and children, all told within the backdrop of the  30 years before and after the creation of the state of Israel.

There's was lots about the days before the creation of the state of Israel that I didn't know. Things about Ottoman rule especially. I did stop to research a little bit while reading, one of the big huge benefits of reading on an electronic device. I also learned quite a bit about Sephardic culture in Israel - and how wide the gulf was between the Sephardic Jews and the Ashkenazic Jews.

My biggest beef with the novel that covers 4 generations is that very few of the characters were at all likable. However, the sense of Israel was strong. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this novel, and I think it will make for a good book club discussion.

The Book of Two Ways

I love Jodi Picoult. There are very few of her novels that I haven't read. But I really didn't love her latest, The Book of Two Ways. This is a novel with a great story line. It's about Dawn, a woman who is thrown a life curve. She's all set to get her doctorate in Egyptology when her mother lets her know that she's deathly ill. Being the dutiful, loving daughter and older sister that she is, she leaves Egypt and returns to Boston and her life is forever changed. Or is it? Are their second chances in life? 

Dawn becomes a death doula. She's a social worker who helps with non-medical end-of-year issues for patients and their caregivers. She's a support for them during a heartbreaking time. That's the story line that I most enjoyed reading. What "business" is most important for us to take care of before we die so we can go with  the fewest regrets. At least that's how I interpreted it. 

The part of  the novel that I didn't enjoy was all the scientific stuff. I could be interested culturally in the Egypt information, but some of it read too much like a textbook. I found the pictures of the hieroglyphics distracting while I was reading. Dawn's husband is some sort of science professor. I've already blanked out what kind and I just finished the book a few hours ago! Conversations about his work went totally over my head! Even Dawn's teenage daughter is a science geek and at one point she's talking about some experiment and I felt my eyes glaze over.

I read this on my own, but it would probably make a great book club book as there is so much to discuss.

 

Girl, Woman, Other

I was very engaged in Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other. It's the January choice for my community book club. I probably should not have read it so far in advance since it's a book with lots of characters, lots of nuance. I hope I remember enough to be able to discuss it intelligently two months from now. I'd love to be discussing it now. There's just so much meat to it.

Now, how to describe this fictional title. Is it a novel? Is it a compilation of related short stories? I'm not even sure how I'd categorize it. Evaristo's writing style is unique. It's a combination of prose and poetry.

But what is is about? It's about the intersecting lives of several women. Mostly in England. Mostly women of color.  It explores their relationships with their parents, their partners, their friends. It examines their sexuality. It dissects career choices. It's about identity. It's about how to fit into society. Like I said, there is so much there.

What can readers relate to? What can readers learn from the characters in the book?

I found a great blog post that with some notes written down now should help me remember some of the things I'll want to bring up at book club  in January. I need to explore that website to see what they have for other books I might have read.

 

Okay, let me get this off my chest straightaway. Beach Read, the title, the cover, totally misleading! I knew from reading the summaries that Emily Henry's Beach Read was about two writers, each suffering from writer's block. That's why I picked up the book. I thought the fact that the setting was a beach was going to be a bonus. I love the beach. I love reading about the beach. This novel had so few references to the beach and almost no scenes that took place on the beach. Like I said, totally misleading.

I'm not a romance reader, typically, unless the romance is between a divorced mother of three or an older woman. But Beach Read was the right book for  the right time for me. Just how many tell all political books can one person read in a row. I enjoyed the snarking repartee between January and Augustus. I enjoyed the friendship between January and Shadi. I wouldn't say I really cared about the characters, but I was curious about them and how they ended up where they were at the start of the story. This was an easy, comfortable read.

Now I can get back to reading something a bit more serious. 

Rage

I had no desire to read yet another book about the trump presidency. Plus I figured I'd heard all the key points in this narrative by journalist Bob Woodward by just watching TV. For awhile, it seemed that every day a new tape was released or that Woodward was being interviewed somewhere. But, my older daughter had requested this book from her library and when it became available, it was in e-Pub format (which she knows is my preference) and not Kindle format (which is hers). So I read it.

As expected, there were no real surprises. So much of trump's interviews had already been broadcast... and I'd already wondered why the heck trump would submit to the interviews and then answer in ways that were less than flattering and in many cases idiotic? I guess that's another book that Mary Trump might  want to write.

What will really stick with me, though, after reading Rage, is that my long held suspicion that things were undisciplined in the White House from day one was 100% spot on. 

Bob Woodward will need to write a follow-up book or update the epilogue or in some way update this book once we are looking at trump through the rear window. It's very current. Reaffirms things I'd already been thinking but until this nightmare of a presidency is over, the story cannot be fully told.

And now, for now, I am putting the trump book club on pause! With just a little over a week left until "Election Day" (whatever that exactly means this year), I just can't take anymore.

Melania and Me

 

I gave Stephanie Winston Wolkoff's memoir tell-all, Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady 3 stars on goodreads. It didn't give me much insight into Melania. She is pretty much the shallow person that I thought she might be. But when I read this a story of an uneven friendship that eventually exploded, that's where it held some interest to me.

Unlike Wolkoff, I was in a friendship where I gave much more than I got. Not nearly as extreme or high-profile as this situation. Plus I never felt as used as Wolkoff, nor was I thrown under the bus like Wolkoff. But I gave more than I got. And eventually I was forced to walk away from the friendship. 

Most of the "juicy" bits about Melania had already been shared on TV so I really didn't need to read them here. I also felt my eyes glaze over as Wolkoff went into the finer details of some of the inaugural stuff. I really didn't care then, I don't care now, and I doubt that I will ever care.

If you're curious, it's a pretty quick read. But that's about it.

Squeeze Me

I am normally a huge Carl Hiaasen fan and I am really not a fan of the current occupant of the White House. That made me think this novel about a wildlife wrangler based in Palm Beach dealing with an influx of pythons in Palm Beach, the location of the "Winter White House" would be right up my alley. There were some laugh-out-loud moments in the novel. After all, Hiaasen can be really funny. But the overall novel just  fell flat with me. 

In addition to being really smart-aleck funny, Hiaasen tends to focus on environmental issues and there just wasn't enough of  that in this novel. I tend to think that's what was missing for me.

A socialite in the POTUS fan club gets swallowed by a burmese python. The plot follows Angie, the wildlife wrangler, trying to figure out what's going on with the chief of  police and Secret Service. At a point, I really didn't care what was going on.

It was also unclear when this novel was supposed to be taking place. There were several references to the pandemic, but was the pandemic over? It didn't seem as though any virus mitigation efforts were in effect. So that was confusing and made me feel like this novel was rushed to print.

I hardly ever say this, usually giving a qualified recommendation, but you can give this one a miss. The blurb about the book was probably the best part.

 

Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump

I seem to be reading all the trashier tell-all books about trump. Michael Cohen’s memoir, Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, was the latest.

If you’ve ever heard Michael Cohen speak, well, that’s exactly how he writes. Doesn’t appear to be any ghost writer here! In my opinion, he seems sincere. He’s sincere about coming to the realization that sticking with trump was cultish. This book also seems like a sincere attempt at getting back at trump in some way. And I’m totally fine with this. I took what he said with a grain of salt, but even if only half of it is totally accurate, that’s a lot of bad stuff.

Because Mary Trump is a psychotherapist, I expected to find her book, Too Much and Never Enough, the most insightful regarding trump’s mental health. I actually found Cohen’s book more revealing. I definitely have a better understanding of trump’s behaviors after reading this book.

It’s a sad story. Yes, Michael Cohen was thrilled to be in trump’s orbit. However, he really paid a price with his family, even before he spent time in prison. And the story of trump makes me feel sad for any involved in his wrongdoings who just kind of got sucked in.

Next up in the tell-all book club… Stephanie Winston Wolkoff’s Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady. This e-book checked out of the library just as I started Disloyal. No way could I read these two back-to-back.

I started Moonglow by Michael Chabon right after finishing Disloyal. I thought that would be a big change. It was. Unfortunately, Moonglow was a bit too heavy for me to read right now. I need lightness. I dropped Moonglow and am now reading Squeeze Me. It’s never a bad time to read Carl Hiaasen.

28 Summers

I’m still very conflicted over my thoughts regarding Elin Hilderbrand’s latest novel, 28 Summers more than 24 hours after I finished reading it.

It was an easy, pleasant quick read. It was a romance. Perhaps it was a beach read, but I’m not really sure.

The writing in this novel evoked the beach far more than Summerof ’69, which I read earlier this summer. In fact, the beach felt like a character in 28 Summers. As a beach lover, I appreciated that.

Each chapter was a year between 1993 and 2020. She started each chapter with a recap of news highlights from that year. Being a current events junky, I did particularly like that. I especially love what she wrote for 2001. I’m not going to copy the entire thing, but after recollections of 

“A Tuesday morning with a crystalline sky…” she writes, “If there’d been anything else we cared about that year before this happened, it was now debris. It became part of what we lost.”

Now for what I didn’t like. First my small issue. I’m not sure why Hilderbrand thought it was necessary to let us know that Mallory dies at the end of the book right at the very beginning.

My bigger issue was the fact that this was a story about adultery (I hope I’m not laying out a spoiler). The story line revolves around the old movie,"Same Time Next Year." An even bigger issue was that there rarely seemed to be any guilt about the cheating. Won’t go into more detail here, but I found that disheartening.

Wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this beachy novel, but if adultery is not your thing, steer clear.

A Fall of Marigolds

 A Fall of Marigolds describes a scarf that is at the center of two different tragedies, taking place nearly 100 years apart. Susan Meissner use this to connect a story of loss at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 and the terror attacks in 2001 that brought down the World Trade Center towers.

In 1911, Clara is a nurse in New York City when she witnesses the Triangle Shirtwaist fire and suffers what she perceives as a great loss. She signs up to be a nurse on Ellis Island, so she can be in New York, but at an in-between place, that doesn't hold the meaning of Manhattan. There she meets an immigrant wearing the beautiful scarf. Clara learns that the scarf holds many secrets.

In Manhattan in 2011, approaching the 10 year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Taryn learns that there's a photo of her in People magazine wearing a scarf (the scarf) that she had just picked up from a client earlier that morning. Had she not picked up the scarf, more than likely she would have perished in the attack.

The dual story lines sounded very much up my alley, and even as I read the novel, I was interested to see how the two stories would be connected. In the end, the novel fell flat for me. It was more romance than historical fiction. There wasn't much to Taryn's story and while Clara's story was more compelling, it lacked something for me that I can't really specify. As to how the two stories connected in the end, I think I expected more.

This novel has gotten high praise in Renee's Reading Club, the group I belong to on Facebook, so it does hold a lot of appeal for others. But for me, it was just okay. A quick, easy, fluffy read. Which makes me wonder - how can a book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and 9/11 seem fluffy?

The Crazy Ladies of Pearl Street

I don’t know where I first heard about The Crazy Ladies of Pearl Street (and why do I often see it written as The Crazyladies...), but it’s been on my radar for quite a long time. Probably since it first was published. I guess I had an interest in reading it because my husband spent part of his growing up time living on Pearl Street. I really had no idea what to expect about this Trevanian autobiographical novel. No idea when it was set or who the characters were. And Trevanian? A mononymous author? What was up with that?

Turns out that this novel is set on North Pearl Street, Albany, in the 1930s. The mostly Irish part of Pearl Street. My husband lived on the other end of Pearl Street, the Italian part of Pearl Street in the late 1950s or early 60s. I envisioned relaying anecdotes from the novel to my husband about the place where he had called home. That turned out not to be the case.

I’m not really sure where the word crazyladies comes in to play. Yes, there were some crazy ladies living on Pearl Street. But the story wasn’t about them. They were merely the supporting characters in the story of Jean-Luc’s time on North Pearl Street. Were his experiences unique to unique to Pearl Street? Or could this story have been set in any poor immigrant neighborhood in the time after the Depression until shortly after World War II?

I liked the snarkiness of the first person narrative, and I loved the use of language. Otherwise, the novel dragged on and I pushed myself to read it quickly… so I could be finished with it. It was good enough that I didn’t want to drop it, but it was keeping me away from books that I imagined I’d like a lot better.

In reading reviews, it seems that fans of other works by Travanian seem to appreciate this one a little bit more. But after slogging through this novel, I have no intention of slogging through another by him.

 

Sima's Undergarments for Women

There's a kind of random story about Sima's Undergarments for Women. For years, I'd been hearing about how great our library's biggest fundraiser each year, the library book fair, is. If you get there early, there are great books available at reasonable prices. If you go later into the book fair,  you can fill a bag with books for just $5. I'm really a library kind of person so I was torn. Did I really want to buy any books? Did I want to support the library? Wanting to support the library won out. I showed up with bag and browsed the mostly picked off selections. I didn't find any books that I really wanted to read, imagining those got scooped up the first day. However, I found a few books that I wouldn't mind reading and then kept on browsing in an attempt to fill my bag. I'm not sure what attracted me to Sima's Undergarments for Women. Not a book I'd ever heard of. I was unfamiliar with the author. I must have scanned the back of the book and read the blurb, saw that it took place in Brooklyn, my hometown, and took it home. Now, remember that I live in rural central Florida. Kind of random that this book was at our library book fair.

The bag of books sat around for almost a year! Then, the photography prompt for one of my daily photo groups on Facebook was books or stack or something like that. I headed towards the book fair bag. (This is when I picked up Letters for Emily, part of this same book fair haul. I also took out The Violin of Auschwitz and Sima's Undergarments for Women.) I read Letters for Emily and The Violin of Auschwitz almost immediately. But for some reason, Sima just sat on the table in the family. And sat. And sat. Until the other day.

I added Sima to my goodreads that night. The next morning, I got a message from a Brooklyn friend of mine. Did I realize that the author, Ilana Stanger-Ross, was a graduate of the same high school that I graduated from? Nope. I had no idea. Then I wondered, will this make me enjoy the novel more? Since my mother identified so much with our high school (she graduated from the same high school, too), if anything, it made me think of my mom. And that's always good.

Sima is a 60-something secular Jew living in Borough Park, Brooklyn, the neighborhood where she'd grown up. She runs a lingerie store out of her basement (which is a thing in Borough Park). In walks Timna, a beautiful Israeli, who just happens to need a job that Sima happens to have open. Once Timna is in Sima's life, it really stirs up memories of when Sima first found out that she and her husband, Lev, weren't going to have children and all the feelings associated with that.

I don't often read novels about 60-somethings in Brooklyn so I felt the connection. I enjoyed Stanger-Ross' writing style and enjoyed the book.

Red at the Bone

I'd read some Jacqueline Woodson as a fifth grade teacher so thought I'd give this novel a try. Red at the Bone is the story of a family, told from the perspective of each of the family members. It is about how one action leads all involved to a certain lifetime. The timeline of the story is disjointed, with each family member reflecting back to moments in the past, moments that are defining and dictate the future of them all. But that's okay. That's how the reader is able to get to the heart of each of the characters.

The novel starts with Melody celebrating her 16th birthday which is a milestone in her family. She's surrounded by her mother, her father, her grandparents and dear friends. Melody is wearing the dress that was bought for her mother 16 years earlier, that her mother, Iris, was unable to wear because of her unplanned pregnancy.

Woodson includes significant historical moments. The Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. The attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. She includes themes of race, coming of age, self-discovery, poverty, education, commitment to family, and life choices.

It was a very deep book. It might not be for everyone, but I really enjoyed it.

The Orphan Collector

In my current obsession with pandemic books, I chose to read Ellen Marie Wiseman's new historical fiction, The Orphan Collector. It was highly recommended in Renee's Reading Club on Facebook and it had great reviews on goodreads.com. I had high hopes. They were somewhat dashed.

The Orphan Collector takes place in Philadelphia in 1918 during the flu pandemic. German-born 13-year old Pia lives in the Fifth Ward with her mother and infant twin brothers. Her father, in a desire to show that he stands with his adopted country, is in France fighting in World War I for the United States. After Pia's mother is struck down by the flu, she is determined to care for her brothers until her father comes home. She leaves to get food for her brothers, leaving them at home. When she eventually returns, her brothers are missing. The novel is about Pia's guilt over her brothers' disappearance and her search for answers.

I'm not sure what it was about this book that I didn't like all that much. It was a page turner. I read it quickly and I did feel somewhat invested in Pia. Finn was definitely my favorite character in the book. I picked up one little Philadelphia geographical "error." When Pia was being taken to the orphanage, I could have sworn they were heading west. Yet she was able to see the Delaware River from the play yard at the orphanage. Small thing, and maybe I'm remembering incorrectly. That's not a reason for me to not like a novel, though. Maybe it's because there was no context given to the "orphan trains." Or because of the way the author handled Pia's "special gift." I wish I could pinpoint what the issue was.

Even with that, I would recommend you read this is if you want pandemic fiction.

The Book of Lost Names

 

As I was reading Kristin Harmel’s latest historical fiction, The Book of Lost Names, I kept feeling like I’d read this book before. Which would be impossible since it was just published in July of this year. It’s based on a true story so there’s a definite possibility that other novels with similar story lines were based on similar true stories. Overall, the book was unique. I felt like a snippet here was like one novel, another snippet reminded me of another novel. None of that, however, kept me from finishing the book in just a few days. It was a very engaging story.

 Eva Abrams is an 80-something year old librarian in Florida when she spots a New York Times article about books confiscated by the Germans during World War II that are now being returned to their rightful owners. The book pictured with the article is a book that Eva claims as her own. During the war, after escaping from Paris to the Free Zone, Eva falls into a job as a forger of documents to help refugees escape to Switzerland. As she creates new identities for children, she finds a way to record the actual names of the children too young to remember who they really were need to be recorded somewhere so their true identities can be preserved.  She and her fellow forger, Remy, create a code within a religious tome. Hence, “the book of lost names.”

 I highly recommend The Book of Lost Names.

The Saturday Wife

At our last synagogue book club meeting, one of the members suggested a Naomi Ragen novel for our next book. She described the plot line and it sounded interesting. 

“Beautiful, blonde, materialistc Delilah Levy steps into a life she could have never imagined when in a moment of panic she decides to marry a sincere Rabbinical student. But the reality of becoming a paragon of virtue for a demanding and hypocritical congregation leads sexy Delilah into a vortex of shocking choices which spiral out of comtrol into a catastrophe which is as sadly believeable as it is wildly amusing.”

Until I went to enter The Saturday Wife into goodreads.com, I had no recollection of reading the book. None at all! I had written just one comment as my review that first time, simply that the main character reminded me of a friend of my mom’s.

The Saturday Wife is Delilah’s story. From her days in college looking for an Orthodox Jewish husband to her life with Chaim, her husband, the rabbi. I don’t get the sense that Delilah was raised in a completely traditional Orthodox household. I wish Ragen had given us a little bit more of a backstory about Delilah. She seemed knowledgeable about the laws and customs, but it didn’t seem to come naturally to her. It seemed like she was always, from high school thru the last page of the novel, always on the sidelines, waiting to be picked to play on the cool girls' punchball team.

Chaim’s first job after his ordination as a rabbi was at his grandfather’s Orthodox shul in an aging community in the Bronx. At first Delilah thought she could be happy in that life. But then she realizes that she wants more. Chaim and Delilah take an interesting route to get from the Bronx to a wealthy, younger community somewhere in Connecticut. Ragen infuses some humor by using caricatures as the supporting characters. Although maybe they aren’t caricatures. Maybe the supporting characters are pretty authentic in a sadly ridiculous way. I’m guessing that I didn’t appreciate the humor the first time I read this since at the time I was in the member of a congregation that could have been the Conservative version of Swallow Lake. Since I can't recall reading the book, I'm exactly sure what I thought about the book, but maybe I was too close to it. I’m so far removed from that in my rereading that I did find the humor less biting and more funny.

It can’t be easy being the wife of a rabbi (or the spouse of a clergy). You become the unpaid employee of the congregation and you’re expected to live to a much higher standard than a mere congregant while living your life under a magnifying glass. This second time around, I was once again reminded of my mom’s friend, the rebbetzin. Her life could not have been easy. Heck, I know that her life wasn't easy!

I look forward to discussing this with my synagogue book club next month.

The Vanishing Half

 

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett has appeared on so many different lists of books to be read since it came out in early June. It’s the story of twins, Desiree and Stella, and their respective daughters.  Desiree and Stella grew up in the 1960s in rural Louisiana. The town they lived in wasn’t even on the map or in any atlas. Desiree couldn’t wait to leave. It took more to convince Stella that it was time to go.

 

The twins lived in a “colored town” where everyone was light-skinned. Did that impact the way they understood race? They witnessed something pretty traumatic in their young lives which shows itself in their later lives in small ways.

 

After running away to New Orleans together, Stella next runs away from Desiree. At that point, the two sisters who had always been two halves of a whole, Desiree’s and Stella’s lives go in totally different directions. Stella marries a very dark-skinned man and has a daughter who is described as “blue black.” Stella decides to pass as white which she does quite successfully. She marries a white man who has no idea about Stella’s past.

 

The plot is a bit contrived. There are lots of unlikely coincidences. However, this novel about being true to yourself – and what that means – gives the reader so much to think about. It would be a great book for a book club to discuss. There’s that much there, not all directly tied to the plot line.

 

I only gave this novel 4 stars on goodreads.com. However, I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to think about how he or she thinks about race and identity.

The Pull of the Stars

 

The Pull of the Stars was my third novel by Emma Donoghue. (I first read Room, and more recently, in 2017, read Hood.) I think that The Pull of the Stars is my favorite. Donoghue started writing this novel, about 3 days in a maternity ward in a Dublin hospital for women suffering with influenza during the 1918 flu pandemic, in 2018. She submitted it to her published right about the time that the world learned that we were at the start of yet another global pandemic. Talk about being prescient!

 

What really astounded me were things that Donoghue wrote about 1918 Dublin that could be written about “Anywhere, USA” right now. Wacky treatments, conspiracy theories, propaganda. Patients being treated in storage rooms. Giving credit to frontline healthcare workers for going the extra mile.

 

All that was set against the backdrop of 1918 Dublin, in the midst of World War I and Ireland’s political upheaval.

 

This, however, is really a novel about women. Women’s lives, women’s friendships. The central character is Nurse Julia who lives with her brother, Tim, who was left mute by what he had seen during his combat days. She’s put in charge of a makeshift maternity ward, just for those women who have been diagnosed with influenza. The mothers-to-be had varying degrees of symptoms and came from a variety of  social circumstances. On Julia’s first day in charge, a young woman, Bridey, who thinks she’s “about 22” years old, appears out of nowhere and  becomes an amazing help to Julia in keeping things going in the ward.

This book might not be for everyone, but I enjoyed this well-written, totally engaging novel.

New York: The Novel

I can't honestly say if I would have loved New York: The Novel as much as I did if I wasn't born and raised in New York City. But I couldn't help thinking that I was reading about my history and not just the history of a city. I loved it. When I got to the end, I wished the book went on to cover the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. (Which takes me back to my big question - how does this crisis end?)

Edward Rutherfurd's massive tome takes us from the Dutch New Amsterdam of the 1600s to New York City after the fall of the World Trade Center. This was truly accessible history. Rutherfurd tells the story of the history of New York by following the stories of just a few families through the centuries. There's a Dutch family, a Native American family, an English family, an African slave family, an Irish family, an Italian family and a Jewish family. The histories of the families, in many cases, intersect on more than one occasion, making for an interesting saga. There's old money, new money, no money. There's business history and art history. The characters live through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the building of the railroad, Tammany Hall, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and, of course, the terror attack of 9/11/2001.

As much as the exact details of the history over the ages is different, so many things remain the same. I highlighted many passages from the book that ring so true to today. Haven't we learned anything from the mistakes and misuses of power that have gone on in the past?

The characters are authentic, the dialogue is authentic, the history matches what I've learned before. I'd highly recommend this novel.

The Third Daughter

I got the recommendation for The Third Daughter by Talia Carner from Renee's Reading Club on Facebook. Coincidentally, Talia Carner is a member. But that's neither here nor there. The historical fiction novel was highly recommended by many in the group and the idea intrigued me. Like "Fiddler on the Roof," which is based on Sholom Alechem's short story, Tevye, the Dairyman, The Third Daughter is based on another short story, The Man from Buenos Aires. 

In the late 1800s, when the pogroms in Eastern Europe were pretty horrific, there was a Jewish-run syndicate, tricking girls to leave Eastern Europe to travel to Buenos Aires to be forced into prostitution. They were effectively enslaved to their pimps and madams. This a a true thing and it went on for years.

The Third Daughter is the story of Batya. She and her father, the dairyman, her mother, and sister had just fled their shtetl when the met Reb Moskowitz, a gentleman who has returned from America to find a decent woman to marry and bring back to America with him. It didn't matter that Batya was just 14. He was going to take Batya with him to America and would marry her at 16. She would live a life of luxury. The parents, desperate, agree. They'd been trying to find a way to get to the father's brother in Pittsburgh, America. Little did they know that the America that Moskowitz was taking Batya to was Buenos Aires and that he was not the man he seemed to be.

The story, pretty gruesome to read at times, was gripping. It's based on an actual syndicate, Zwi Migdal. The entire time Batya is enslaved, she seeks a way to help her parents and sisters get out of Russia, even if it will cost her her happiness. It gives a good depiction of the different ways Jews were viewed in South America at that time.

I gave this novel 4 stars on goodreads.com. 

If You Want to Make God Laugh

I wasn't aware of Bianca Marais' second novel until my re-read of Hum If You Don't Know the Words. That was a wonderful book so I immediately requested If You Want to Make God Laugh from the library as soon as I read about it.

If You Want to Make God Laugh did not disappoint. Another truly wonderful novel. Once again, the setting of the novel is Marais' birthplace, South Africa. It takes place in the early 1990s, just as apartheid is ending. That's more of the backdrop of this novel. It's much more a novel about the lives of the women, the three main characters of the novel, Delilah, Ruth, and Zodwa. Each one is facing really dark days and  all are dealing with their own demons and disappointments. It's a novel about acceptance of life and moving forward. It's also a novel about love and commitment. The novel deals with other things - power, wealth, racism, AIDS, sexuality. But I can't say too much more without spoiling the novel for anyone who might read it.

Just know that I highly recommend this novel - and this author - to anyone.

The Book of Negroes

 Since being "safer at home," I've mostly been reading e-books. So when a neighbor dropped off this book that she thought I might enjoy, I decided to save it for my beach vacation knowing I'd want to read outside... and that my iPad isn't the greatest way to read books out in the sunlight. I'd never heard of the book but was assured by my friend that I'd like it.

Someone Knows My Name is an older historical novel by Lawrence Hill. After reading it, I am surprised that I'd never come across this novel before. It's the story of Aminata, an 11-year old African girl, kidnapped from her homeland by slavers in the mid-1700s. She is marched over many months to coastal Africa from her home further inland where she is put on a slave ship headed towards South Carolina. She started out as a slave on an indigo plantation, eventually gets traded to an administrative type in the indigo industry. She ends up in New York City during the Revolutionary War, and then gets rewarded for her service to the king of England with passage to Nova Scotia and hope for a fresh start. Life continues to be hard and full of prejudice. Meena agrees to join with British abolitionists who are determined to create a colony in Africa, Sierra Leone, which former slaves can become "adventurers" and experience freedom for the first time. 

Meena, feeling like she'd lost everything that was every important to her decides that going to Sierra Leone will be her opportunity to go home. The home that she's longed for since she was first kidnapped many years earlier. Home is not exactly what she imagined, but she and the abolitionists realize the importance of Meena telling the story of her life. That brings her from Africa to England.

This is a sweeping saga in the life of a fictional slave. It was exceptionally told. It wasn't so much a novel about slavery as about the life of this one fictionalized woman. But I was either made aware of things in the history of slavery that I wasn't familiar with or that I'd forgotten all about. I'd highly recommend this novel.

Adequate Yearly Progress

 I can't remember when I first learned about Roxanna Elden's novel, Adequate Yearly Progress, but I immediately waitlisted myself at the library. I wanted to read a book set in a public school. 

When Adequate Yearly Progress popped up in my queue as school districts were debating with teachers and other public officials about how to reopen - this month in the South and next month in most other places - I wasn't really sure if this was the time to read a book set in a school in the pre-covid days. Finally decided to just go ahead and read it, even knowing that all the while I'd be thinking about the safety of in-person learning right now.

Covid aside, it was a light, easy read about the challenges faced by several of the teachers and the back-clawing of administrators in a high school in an under-served community of Texas. I think under-served was the term that one of the teachers finally decides to use.

The teachers in the novel are a mix of experienced and novice teachers. Lena, the English teacher, is a poet, really trying to get to her students. Hernan is a confident biology teacher who struggles outside of school. Maybelline is the data driven math teacher. Kaytee is the new teacher, part of a "Teach for America" type program, blogging about her classroom experiences but biding time until she can go on to law school. Then there's Coach Ray because what would a story about a high school in Texas be without a football coach. And then there is a new principal, assistant principal and superintendent, all in various stages of wanting to shake things up.

As a retired teacher, it brought me back. Much of what the teachers dealt with was so realistically portrayed. Meetings, pep rallies, interactions with students, the meeting of standards, dealing with administration. Keeping data! These teachers had to balance their personal and professional lives. It was a true portrayal of what can, at times, be a thankless career.

I'm not sure if I'd recommend this novel for everyone. I wouldn't recommend it to my teacher friends now who are dealing with the struggles of the pandemic. But it is a book that a teacher, maybe not right in the thick of things, should really enjoy.

Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters

I am a huge Jennifer Chiaverini fan. I loved her quilting books. I enjoyed Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker. But this one, Mrs. Lincoln’s Sisters, just left me flat. The novel itself was about Mary Todd Lincoln’s mental state growing up, as a young woman, as a new bride, as a mother, as First Lady, but there was nothing that made me care about Mrs. Lincoln or any of her many siblings. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. Compared to other Chiaverini novels, this one was slow going. I can’t recommend this book. 

Blogging on my iPad

Me figuring out what to do next!

I realized the other day that I had a problem. I have an old MacBook and an even old desktop PC. I was trying to design a custom notebook on a website and the editing tools did not work on either computer. Chatting with “Beth” on that website, I was told that Google Chrome was the best browser for the task. I have a buggy version on my PC that wasn’t helpful and I don’t have room on my MacBook for Chrome. I ended up installing Chrome on my not-quite-as-old iPad. Then I had the problem with Blogger yesterday. 

It must be time for a new computer!

New MacBook? New PC? Until I realized I’d installed Chrome on my iPad. And here I am. A computer purchase will come soon, I suspect. But until then, I’m be here. 

The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell

I'm in a Facebook group called Renee's Reading Club and everyone there has been raving about Robert Dugoni's The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell. It comes up all the time when someone is asking for a nice, good novel. Easy to read during a pandemic. A feel good novel.

I liked the book. It was easy to read. It was a good distraction from what's going on around us. The end left me with a feel good feeling. But did I love it? No. I merely liked it, although I really liked Dugoni's writing style. Would I recommend this novel? Sure. Why not?

Samuel Hill, a small town ophthalmologist, was born with an eye condition, ocular albinism, which gives his eyes a red color. When he started primary school, the kids called him "Devil Boy" which led to him being called Sam Hell. His mother always claimed that he had extraordinary eyes because he was going to have an extraordinary life.

It was Sam's two best friends, Ernie and Mickie, who helped him get through those primary school days and beyond. This is really a novel about friendship. What we need our friends for and how we give back. I was envious of the close friendships that Sam was able to maintain for so many years.

I'm hoping this won't be my last post for who knows how long. I'm having trouble with the new format of blogger. Once the "legacy" format goes away, unless they really fix the new format, I won't be able to post. Blogger says I'll be able to use the old format for another two weeks. And I'm sure I'll finish a few more books before then. In the meantime, this is frustrating. Follow me on Facebook if you can't follow me here.

I love the quiz show, Jeopardy

If you're not a fan of the syndicated tv quiz show, Jeopardy!, than don't even bother reading this memoir of host, Alex Trebek. This book is not for you. But if you are a fan, The Answer is...: Reflections on My Life is an interesting insight into the guy you've probably been watching on television for years and years and years.

There's nothing earth shattering in this collection of memories. Trebek comes across as a really nice guy who more or less lucked into a great gig which lead to a lovely life. He acknowledges that, too.

My first Jeopardy! memories are early ones. I lived across the street from my elementary school and my mom worked as a substitute teacher at my school so I was able to walk home for lunch every day. Mom, my brother and I would watch Jeopardy! while eating our lunch, before heading back to school. It was the first run of the quiz show (from 1964 to 1978). Art Fleming was the host. Trebek eludes to fans like me in his chapter entitled The Answer Is... COMFORT.

"A lot of young kids at home and college students would watch the show on their lunch breaks. They grew up with it. So when we brought it back in 1984, they were nostalgic for it. And then they raised their own kids on the show." 

Apparently the show came back for 6 months in 1978. I was in college and only vaguely remembering thinking that it was back, but I would have rarely had time to watch then. I might not have even been in the United States for part of that time. Then, Alex Trebek brought the show back in 1984. And I was an immediate fan. And yes, I did raise my own kids on the show.

Another two quotes from the book:

"The show has become part of the fabric of American life. People say to me, 'My mother doesn't want us to call her from seven to seven thirty when Jeopardy! is on.' Or 'We have dinner with you every night.'"

"At some point - and it occurred slowly over the years - we made the transition from just being an enjoyable quiz show to being part of your daily life. There's something ritualistic about it. It's special but not in a big way."

So true. I knew not to call my parents when they were watching Jeopardy! and my kids (mostly) knew not to call me when it was on here. When I was with my parents, we'd watch it together. When my dad was in the hospital and then in rehab during the final 5 months of his life, he and I (sometimes with my brother, sometimes with my son) would watch Jeopardy. Dad was sharp until the end. My husband and I watched it every night we're home.

I've traveled close to where Trebek grew up in Sudbury, Ontario, so I could picture some of what he was talking about. And I was able to make some other little connections, too. Trebek writes about listening to far away radio stations on his little Philco radio. I had a transistor radio when I was little and I'd get to spin the dial, trying to see which radio station from far away I can pick up. It was always easier to pick up those distant stations late at night.

The book was just very recently written so Trebek is able to talk about his illness and about the coronovirus pandemic and the intersection of the two.

"With the coronavirus, we can't go out to eat, we can't go out to public places, even the park next door has limited its use. There aren't that many things available for us to do. Here I am wanting to enjoy what might be the last of my days, and what, I'm supposed to just stay at home and sit in a chair and stare into space?"

I did read online somewhere that both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune (which I was a bigger fan when it first came on TV) have started their productions back up again. They were put on hold suddenly in late March. We watched all the new Jeopardy! shows and then just randomly watched some of the shows they were replaying. I look forward to new episodes. And I look forward to seeing Alex Trebek again. I sadly realize that he is at the end of his life. I hope he's able to host the quiz show as long as he comfortably can. Then... who will be the new host? Betty White? Really? Ha ha.

The Book of Lost Names

Even though The Book of Lost Friends was slow to get into, in the end, I really enjoyed Lisa Wingate's newest historical fiction novel. Wingate is the author of Before We Were Yours, another historical fiction novel that I really enjoyed reading.

I bet if you asked most people what this book is about, they'd tell you it's about Reconstruction and the post-Civil War years. And that is what it's about. "The Book of Lost Friends" is a book that former slave, Hannie, and Juneau Jane, illegitimate daughter of Hannie's former master, keep to hopefully help former slaves reconnect with their families. "Lost Friends" was an actual advertisement published in Southern newspapers after the Civil War and read by preachers at Southern churches. Lavinia, Juneau Jane's legitimate sister, and Juneau Jane are looking for word about their father, mostly to protect their inheritances. At first Hannie follows them to make sure that her sharecropping contract is protected, but gradually she is led to search for her family that had been sold away over 10 years earlier.

The parallel story is about Benny, a brand new English teacher who has been sent to Augustine in rural Louisiana for her first few years of teaching in order to get student loan forgiveness. Many of Benny's student come to school hungry, when they're able to come to school. She yearns to find a way to connect to these students. Although Benny's upbringing was much different, she sees a part of herself and her teen years in many of her students making her want to connect even more. When Benny meets some old-timers from Augustine, she becomes interested in their stories. And realizes that perhaps her students should be hearing those stories rather than reading books like Animal Farm.

Benny's story was the story that I connected to. I really wanted her plan to reach these kids to succeed. I found that story more engaging than the 1875 storyline, but I also wish that there was more backstory to Benny's tale.

I think you really have to be a serious historical fiction fan to like this sometimes slow-moving book, but I did enjoy it and would recommend it to some.

The Girl with the Louding Voice

What a fabulous book! Even though I found Abi Daré's The Girl with the Louding Voice pretty predictable, it was wonderful storytelling and an excellent read.

This novel is the story of a Nigerian girl, Adunni, who only wants an education. Her mother always pushed her to get an education and Adunni dreams of becoming a teacher. Her mother told her to get a "loading voice," to be heard, to control her own destiny. Then... her mother dies. Adunni's life goes downhill from there.

Adunni doesn't stop dreaming, though. And she has the strength to keep moving forward even when others would have just accepted their crappy fates! Along her journey, she realizes that not only does she need to speak up for herself, but she needs to speak for those who aren't strong enough to speak for themselves.

Adunni is admirable and likable as are many of the other supporting characters. The reader gets the feeling that Adunni has a remarkable support system along the way. But maybe that's because she is so likable?

It's a sad reality that Adunni's reality is the reality for many girls in Nigeria, now in the 21st century.

Totally a worthwhile read.

Cilka's Journey

I was late reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz so by the time I read that Heather Morris book, everyone was already talking about Cilka's Journey. Both books were extremely well-written  and easy to read, if that can be said about a Holocaust novel. But where Tattooist was and continues to be the most hopeful Holocaust novel that I've read, Cilka's Journey was much more gut-wrenching. Where Tattooist is a story of hope and love, Cilka's Journey is a story about bravery and the will to live.

Cilka is a more minor character in The Tattooist of Auschwitz. She becomes one of the good friends of Gita. This is Cilka's story after she is liberated from Auschwitz. I had no idea that someone who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz for 3 years might have gone on to sentenced to years of being locked up at a Gulag in Siberia.

I knew nothing of the post-WW II Siberia or Siberian Gulags. I must have not read anything from the blurb of Cilka's Journey so I really didn't know what this novel was going to be about.

Cilka's Journey could be read as a standalone book since enough recollections are a part of this book to make the backstory from Tattooist not completely necessary. But I'm glad I read them in order. As with the first book, the author's note at the end of the book really clinched the book for me. I highly recommend them both.