The Book Woman's Daughter

The Book Woman's Daughter is the sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book which was about the Packhorse Librarians in Kentucky at the earlier part of the 20th century. One of the librarians was Cussy Mary, a blue-skinned person (due to a medical condition) who was called the "Book Woman" by the families on her route through the Kentucky mountains.

This sequel picks up with the arrest of Cussy Mary and her husband, arrested for intermarrying between races. Their teenage daughter Honey is left alone.

Where will Honey live? How will Honey live? She sees a sign that the public library is trying to restart something similar to the Packhorse Librarians' routes. Honey applies for the job and gets it.

Honey faces many challenges as she tries forge ahead in life. She makes new friends that she learns to rely upon. This was less historical fiction than The Book Woman's Daughter, although it was written about an earlier time period.

I listened to a library copy of the audio book - and because it expired before I got to finish it, I had to rerequest it and wait for it to be available for borrowing again. That's the only reason why it took me so long to finish. Personally I wouldn't consider this a standalone novel, but if you read and enjoyed The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, I think you'd really enjoy this one as well.

 

Four Treasures of the Sky

Jenny Tinghui Zhang's Four Treasures of the Sky is a beautifully written novel about a decidedly ugly period of United States history. This novel is set in Idaho during the 1800s.

Main character Daiyu's life does not go as planned. When she's a fairly young girl, her parents get arrested and her grandmother feels that it's safer for Daiyu to life as a boy in a large city rather than staying in their little fishing village. Life isn't easy on the street, but eventually Daiyu, living as a boy, finds a place in a calligraphy school. That's where she learns many of the life lessons that will help her survive many other hardships that come her way.

Eventually, she finds herself in Pierce, Idaho. This is where the story that Zhang's father stumbled upon on a trip out west is told.

Zhang's use of language is so beautiful and the connections to calligraphy throughout the novel are incredibly thoughtful.The story of prejudice, injustice and violence towards the Chinese throughout USA history as recently as, well, now (think of anti-Asian acts of violence during the early days of Covid). It can be a very difficult to story to read, but it's well worth making the attempt.

I listened to Four Treasures of the Sky. My edition of the audio book came with an interview with the author. That's where she talked about her father coming across an historical marker in Idaho that started her quest to tell this story.

 

One Last Stop

My daughter recommended Casey McQuiston's Red, White & Royal Blue quite a few times, but I never got around to reading it. When I read about One Last Stop, this novel intrigued me. A novel set on the Q-line of the NYC subway. In Brooklyn, no less. It sounded kind of sort of time travel-ly which is a type of fantasy that I thoroughly enjoy.

It took me awhile to get into One Last Stop but by the end, I took such great pleasure in reading this book. Of course I loved the setting. I also loved the characters, and not necessarily the character development. That was okay. I loved the development of the relationships between and amongst the different characters in the novel. I'm not just talking romantic relationships. (This is a romance novel. The main couple would be August and Jane.)  I really loved watching the friendships deepen.

August is bumbling her way through college. She just doesn't feel like she fits. She's finally at Brooklyn College, close to graduating, when she meets alluring Jane on the subway on her first day of school. After madly crushing on Jane for months, she realizes there's something up with her and sets about to help her. In the process, she starts needing other people, something she hasn't ever needed to do at any other point in her life.

Other than sexuality, there are no grand themes here. Instead there are lots of reminders of what the 70s were like and what things are like now. Once I got into the story, I thoroughly enjoyed reading One Last Stop. I highly recommend this one.
 

Fifty Words for Rain

I'd seen so much buzz about Asha Lemmie's debut novel, Fifthy Words for Rain and was really hoping for something great. I was disappointed. This is the story of Nori, the mixed-race bastard granddaughter of a cousin of the Emperor of Japan after World War II. Nori has never met her Afro-American father and gets dumped on her grandparents by her beautiful, restless mother when she's about 8 years old. Nori is an embarrassment to her grandparents so is kept hidden up in an attic. Her maid needs to sneak her downstairs to use the bathroom. And the baths she is given? They're filled with some chemical in the hopes that it will lighten Nori's complexion.

Things change when Nori's half-brother, the hope of the family, comes to live with their grandmother. It opens up Nori's world.

I kept expecting something to happen that would really shake things up. But in my opinion, the story just kind of plod along. In the end, I was left with more questions than answers in a very dissatisfying way. Lemmie's use of language is beautiful so this wasn't a difficult book to read. But while there might not be another novel that tackles this story, there are many much better books to read. I wouldn't recommend this one.

The Testaments

Was Margaret Atwood's The Testaments much easier to read than The Handmaid's Tale (of which it is a sequel) because The Handmaid's Tale told such a dire dystopian story which seems far too similar to what we're living in now and The Testaments seemed somehow more hopeful? The Testaments was more "entertaining" and less horrific on many different levels.

The Testaments takes place about 25 years after The Handmaid's Tale. It's told from 3 different perspectives: Aunt Lydia, one of the female elders of the community and from two teenage girls, one growing up in Gilead and the other growing up in Canada. In many ways, this is a typical coming-of-age story, even though the upbringings of the girls is anything but typical. It gives us a much better idea of the workings of Gilead.

I don't want to give too much away and I'm struggling to give you a better idea of the plot of the book without spoiling it for you. Of the two books, The Handmaid's Tale is the one with the larger message, the one that is more scary and the one that really makes you think.

 

Brave New World

I can almost imagine that I never read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley way back in high school since so much was unfamiliar. But I do remember the fact that I didn't like it when I read it back then and some of it jiggled memories in my brain. This reading was basically like reading a book I'd never read before. I could call this post "Brave New World Revisited" but I can't because that's the name of another book.

What did I think? Well, back in 1970-something, I would have given this book just one star on Goodreads. This time around, I gave it three stars. And I reflected that my personal sense of this dystopian novel would have been quite different as a teenager than it is as a "mature adult."

Sometime in the future, when people might be grown solely in test tubes (no more crazy ideas like mother or father), happiness and comfort will trump knowledge, beauty and wonderment. That's what Brave New World is all about. Humans are predestined to a certain castes when the embryos are developing inside of bottles. Each caste has a certain place in the social order. Okay, yes, that's what caste is. But each caste, in addition to their tasks to keep society going are provided with amble leisure time and pleasant ways to spend it. There's always soma in case someone needs a vacation from reality.

Unlike other dystopian novels I've read of late, this one is a little far fetched so looking at it very generally, it might be a bit less disturbing. But then, when I started to think about how happiness is more important than knowledge, well, isn't that what is happening in Florida now? How students are not to be taught subjects which might be uncomfortable for them? That's when my thinking went in a really dark direction.

If you're of the believe that it's important to read the classics, perhaps you should add Brave New World to your list if you haven't already read it. It was a quick enough read. Then again, there are so many good books out there. You decide.

Lessons in Chemistry

In Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus tackles a huge societal problem in a fairly light-hearted way. It's the story of chemist Elizabeth Zott, chemist, taking place in the late 1950s to early 1960s when most doors were closed to women chemists - or scientists - or most professions that weren't teachers, nurses or secretaries.

While working at Hastings Research Institute, Zott meets Calvin Evans, an extremely brilliant chemist. Evans seems to be the only one to appreciate how brilliant Zott is. The chemistry between them is something else. People seeing them together were sickened by how perfectly well-suited they are for each other.

One thing leads to another, Zott gets fired from Hastings and an opportunity to host a cooking show "Supper at Six" pretty much falls in her lap. It's referred to as a cooking show, but to Zott, it's a show teaching chemistry - and teaching women that the status quo isn't working for most. Daring women to take "a moment for yourself," advice from her neighbor, Harriet.

It was Harriet who told me to use that moment to reconnect with my own needs, to identify my true direction, to recommit. 

I'm trying to think of which book I can relate this one to. Maybe The Rosie Project? I'm just not sure. If you can think of which book you'd connect this with, I'd love for you to let me know. Three books I've read this year that have a connection (specifically women's roles that involve cooking specifically) are:
                        The Secret History of Home Economics
                        Miss Eliza's English Kitchen
                        The Kitchen Front

The book has important messages to communicate about women's roles and opportunities, single parenthood, and afternoon television in the 1960s. Family is not necessarily those who gave birth to you.

Some of the book was a little far-fetched. I'm talking about you, Six Thirty, Zott's beloved dog. Towards the middle of the novel, I kind of wanted things to hurry up. And then they did. And the end of the novel flowed beautifully.

I'd recommend this for an easy read about how far women have come since the early 60s and which will have you thinking seriously about how much farther we still have to go.