The Woman Beyond the Sea

The synagogue book club read The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi three years ago. We all loved it. When we saw Yishai-Levi had written another novel, we wanted to read it. I'm going to miss our next book club meeting, but I try to read along anyway. I liked The Woman Beyond the Sea but I didn't love it. I think it's because the story started a little too slowly for me. Once I got to the second half of the novel, I thought it was a page turner. But it took awhile to get there.

Lily and her daughter, Eliya, have a difficult relationship. They've always had a difficult relationship. Shaul, Lily's husband and Eliya's father, keep the family together at an emotional cost to him, too. 

Jewish baby Lily was abandoned by the woman who gave birth to her when she was a few days old. At a convent. As Lily grew up, she took comfort in sitting with a picture of Mary and Jesus, but on some level, she felt like she never fit in there. That not fitting in and something missing from her life follows her through until Eliya is a young woman.

Eliya, likewise, feels like something is missing from her life. Like her mother, she feels that she's missed out on the love of a mother. It's evident in many of the choices she makes during her university days.

Both women need to come to moments of self-acceptance and perhaps forgiveness.

Lily's story is told third person while Eliya's story is told first person. But it's definitely both of their stories. The timing jumps around a little bit, going as far back Palestine during the early days under the British Mandate up through the time just following the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The history of Palestine and then Israel is essential to the plot. (Oh, how I'd love to get back to Tel Aviv and stroll along the beach.

I gave this novel 3 stars on goodreads.com, rounded down from 3.5 and it was only that low because of the slow start. However, I would still highly recommend this novel for book clubs. I think it will lead to a great discussion.
 

Looking for Jane

Heather Marshall's debut book, Looking for Jane, was so incredibly powerful. It's also incredibly timely, about women's right to choose.

This story jumps around quite a bit. The story is told from the perspectives of several characters over several time lines. It did get confusing at times, and after finishing the book, I still have a few questions about pieces of the story that didn't make sense or were never followed up.

But wow! I'd still highly recommend reading this novel. It takes place in Toronto so the restrictions to abortion are those that existed in Canada - and which are not currently under attack. Themes covered in the novel are the fight for right to choose, illegal abortions, adoption, artificial insemination, and motherhood.

The three main characters are Angela, Evelyn, and Nancy. Angela discovers a letter meant for Nancy, sent 7 years prior to the discovery of the mislaid letter. Angela goes in search of Nancy or the letter writer, Margaret. Including Margaret, the four women's stories are all interlinked. The connections are slowly revealed.

This is an important book to read now in the United States. It gives a good understanding about what life for women is heading back towards  now with the overturning of Roe.

 

The Push

Ashley Audrain's novel, The Push, was not what I was expecting. At all. I'd heard that it was disturbing, but a worthwhile read. I'm not sure why I avoided reading any summaries or blurbs before I picked it up. But there you go.

Blythe comes from a long line of bad mothers. After marrying her college sweetheart and starting a family, things start to unravel. Being a mother doesn't come naturally to Blythe nor does she find mothering easy. While adjusting to her new role, she's overwhelmed and exhausted. Things don't get easier. She wonders if there is something wrong with her daughter, is it in her head, or is there something wrong with Blythe. Her husband and her mother-in-law tell her it's all in her head.

Blythe and her husband, Fox, plod along and decide that they'd like a second child. Blythe's experience with her second, a son, is so completely different from her experience with her older daughter. That further convinces her that the problems with her daughter are her daughter, not herself.

In an instant, life changes for the family. Roles are redefined. New friendships are formed. Personal history is remembered. 

A real page turner. Not for the faint at heart since some of the scenes where motherhood is its worst are a little difficult to read.

 

Little Fires Everywhere

 

Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere was the perfect type of story for an audio book. It was engaging in just the way I need an audio book to be.

Little Fires Everywhere starts with several fires being set at the Richardon's large family home in Shaker Heights, Ohio as the Richardson parents and the Richardson's oldest children watch their home burn to the ground. All suspect that the youngest child, Izzie, is the one who set the fires. Intriguing, right? Makes you wonder right off the bat why they all seem so certain that their youngest daughter was the arsonist... or why Izzie might want to burn down the house.

I did a little research about Shaker Heights, Ohio, to discover if it really is as orderly as it was portrayed in the novel. Shaker Heights in a nearby suburb of Cleveland, one of the first true suburbs in the United States, and it was developed as a planned community. In the 80s, integration was encouraged - and planned. To this day, it has strict building codes.

Mrs. Richardson is a perfect fit for Shaker Heights, where she grew up. She's a real rules player. Most things in her life seem pretty black or white with very few shades of gray. She owns rental property in a less affluent part of town from where the family lives and tries to rent it to people who she feels need some sort of assistance. New tenants, Mia Warren, and her daughter, Pearl, move in. Mia is an artist and she and Pearl have been on the move all of Pearl's life. Mia is as opposite from a rules player as you can possibly be. 

All the Richardson kids are drawn to either Mia or Pearl and the relationships are crossed and essentially change the dynamics between the members of the Richardson family. When a custody battle between Mrs. Richardson's oldest friend and a co-worker of Mia ensues, lines are drawn. Not just within the two parties involved and the Richardsons and Mia Warren but throughout the whole town.

I enjoyed listening to the book and might look for a way to watch the series on Hulu which I do not currently subscribe to.

The Seven Day Switch

After reading The Bluest Eye, I decided that I needed something much, much lighter. I went thru my Kindle library, spotted this title that I'd gotten as an Amazon Prime First Read that sounded pretty light. I mean, a book that is likened to Freaky Friday, that sounds pretty light, right?

I was afraid this novel would be a light romp about the "mommy wars." It's about new-to-the-neighborhood, Celeste, the uber stay-at-home mom of 3, and workaholic Wendy, mother of 2 who are polar opposites and unwilling to give the other the benefit of the doubt. Sparks fly whenever they're together.

At a kids sports program potluck fundraiser, both Celeste and Wendy bring their own versions of sangria. Competitive much? Wendy's was the typical type that the sports parents always request but Celeste's was a pink version made with some artisanal obscure vodka. Of course, Wendy tasted Celeste's on the sly. Of  course. Both women drank a little bit too much so weren't surprised when they woke up hungover the next morning. What did surprise them, though, was that they woke up in each other's beds, in each other's bodies, next to each other's husbands.

You know the phrase, Don't judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes? That's basically what this novel was about. In other words, don't make a judgement about how another woman might mother since you really don't know what goes on in her house behind closed doors.

That's only true until you switch bodies with someone. Then you have a right to judge. Sort of. Well, at least until understanding sets in.

I remember thinking when I downloaded this e-book that in my 60s I'm probably too old for storylines like this one. And maybe I am. Had I read this book when I was in my 30s or 40s, it probably would have hit a little too close to home. At my age, I was able to read it both for enjoyment and for it to spark some recollections.

I thought about being the married mother of three who might as well have been a single parent for all the help with childrearing and household things I got from my former husband. While I was still married, I worked part-time as a travel agent. This brought back memories of not fitting in with the full-time working moms nor with the stay-at-home moms. The full-time working moms considered my job a hobby and the stay-at-home moms wondered why I bothered working just to cover the cost of childcare. I then thought about determining what my choices might be once I was truly a single mother. Would my work as an independent contractor travel agent and trainer of travel agents be enough to provide for my family's needs? Child support was a help but it wasn't enough. I realized that I enjoyed the training part of my work much more than the booking of trips. (Although I will also love researching for trip planning. That is now a hobby.) At the same time, I realized that I truly enjoyed volunteering in the classrooms of my children. That's what made me consider going back to school to become an elementary school teacher. YES! I thought about all this as I was reading The Seven Day Switch.

I did have one kind of funny memory pop up while I was reading, too. When the kids were little, we belonged to our local Jewish Community Center. We probably spent nearly as many waking hours at the JCC as we did at our house. We'd frequently see this mom and her two kids at the JCC. The mom had some impressive career in her family's business. She was always neatly dressed, in full makeup. The kids were always well behaved. In the snack bar while my kids were eating chicken nuggets, her kids were eating hummus and carrots. They never seemed rushed. The dad would often show up as well. That's how they got dubbed as "the perfect family." I'd talk to a good friend of mine who didn't live near me and she'd hear all about "the perfect family" to the point that she'd ask about them if I didn't bring them up in conversation. I had not thought about "the perfect family" in quite some time. Now I really wonder what life was like behind their closed doors. Who am I kidding? They were probably perfect behind closed doors. Ha ha.

Quick entertaining book to pick up if any of what I've written about strikes your fancy.

 

The Nature of Fragile Things

The Nature of Fragile Things is the third Susan Meissner novel that I've read in a little over a year. At the start of the pandemic, curious about life during the time of the Spanish flu, I read As Bright As Heaven. Then this past September, I picked up A Fall of Marigolds which dealt with the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire and September 11th. The Nature of Fragile Things is by far my favorite.

I didn't read the blurb carefully enough to know that this really wasn't about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. That was merely the backdrop. (I guess that was the case with the previous two novels that I read.) The Nature of Fragile Things is about Sophie, mail order bride to Martin Hocking. Sophie had emigrated from Ireland to New York City. She answered Martin's newspaper ad for a wife and a mother for his daughter, Kat. Sophie takes the train across the country. Martin picks her up at the train station and they quickly head off to get married. Sophie's life in San Francisco is more comfortable than she ever imagined and while she never develops a real affection for Martin - who is quite odd - her affection for silent Kat grows and grows, as does her concern over why Kat so rarely speaks.

A stranger had come knocking at the door of Sophie and Martin's house on the eve of the great earthquake which answers some of Sophie's questions but unravels a few more. It has Sophie leaving San Francisco to get some of her questions answered, especially those regarding Kat.

The Nature of Fragile Things is a novel about what it means to be a mother, a wife and a friend. It demonstrates how strong women's friendships can be.

This wasn't great literature, but it was a pleasure to read.

The Mother-in-Law

Reflecting on Sally Hepworth's mystery (?) thriller (?), The Mother-in-Law, now that I've finished reading it, this was probably not the best book for me to read at this time. (For the record, I'd call this family fiction since it didn't really fit my definition of thriller or mystery.) I figured, oh, I won't connect. I've been married for 26 years - over two husbands - and I've never had a mother-in-law. But little did I know when I started this book that while reading that my one remaining uncle, the uncle I've been closest to, would die one day ahead of the anniversary of my mother's death.

In this novel, Lucy has had a difficult relationship with her mother-in-law, Diana, from the moment they first met. Lucy admires Diana for her charitable work and admires the love that Diana and her father-in-law, Tom, have for each other. No matter what Lucy does, Diana just doesn't warm up to her or seem to even like her at all.

Diana and Tom have vastly different world views, yet their marriage works. They have opposite personalities, seemingly opposite values, but somehow, their marriage works. Lucy's husband, Ollie, and her sister, Nettie, have interesting relationships with their parents. Lucy and Ollie have three children while Nettie and her husband, Patrick, are desperate to have children. That causes friction all around.

Early in the book, Diana is found dead. Did she take her own life? Was she murdered? We read the story from alternating perspectives. The story, as it unfolds, is an interesting one.

What really spoke to me was the following reflection of Lucy's after her father tries to comfort her after Diana's death.

Even as an adult, it's easy to forget that your parents are people. Now, it occurs to me that of course he's been there. My mother's death had come right on the heels of Dad's mother, my nana. It's not something I'd thought much about back then, after all, my dad had been a grown-up and I was just a kid. And Nana, as far as I was concerned, had been old (sixty-one). But it was only a year later, almost to the day, when Papa, Dad's dad, dropped dead of a heart attack. He had been sixty-seven.

This isn't my normal type of book to read but it engaged me right away and kept me engaged toward the end. If life ever gets back to normal, I look forward to discussing this one with my book club.

The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter

When The Emperor of Shoes expired off my iPad while I was on vacation, I had to come up with something to read - quick! I scanned thru all the books I've accumulated through Amazon First Reads and ultimately selected to download The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter by J.S. Draggsholt.

It wasn't exactly what I expected. While it was mostly set in Sweden and the main character was totally Scandinavian, it made me realize that young mothers across the globe have more in common than the differences they might have. I could have plunked Ingrid Winter into New Jersey and the story would have made perfect sense.

This was Book #1 in a series, but it didn't seem like it. Ingrid and her husband have a little phrase they'd recite to each other when they were trying to connect. It seemed as though there should have been some back story. Actually, it seemed the back story was missing from most of the key points in the plot.

The book was silly. Ingrid Winter has a wild imagination but it seems as though she also has some skeletons in her closet. But why?

The language was very easy to read. The names were easy to follow. The translation was very well done.

But would I recommend it? Nope. Not really. Especially not to folks who buy a nice new house prior to selling - or listing - their current homes.