The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

I wish everyone would read this novel about a missionary family moving to the Congo back in the early sixties and the effect it had on both the family and the natives. Maybe people would be less eager to push their beliefs onto others and be more more willing to accept and appreciate cultural differences. I loved learning new things about Africa--its history and culture and language. I especially loved the four sisters and mother, who took turns narrating the story, and others, like Anatol and his intricately carved facial tatooes and Mama Lawanza. I didn't love all the characters. I wanted to jump into the book and strangle Nathan Price, the missionary bent on baptizing Congolese babies in the shallow, crocodile-infested river and neglecting his own babies and their suffering.

I will encourage my children to read this novel, because it is full of so many good things.

I highly recommend this novel. 

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James

As you know, I only post about books I love, and, as surprised as I was by this, I loved this book. I didn't love it for the writing. For example, each time, after the first ten times, the narrator said, "My breath hitches," I wanted to hurl the book across the room; but I could not pull my eyes away from the titillating plot.

Two worlds collide when a virgin about to graduate from college meets a wealthy, handsome sex slave master. The novelty of learning, through Ana's eyes, about this deviant other world is what most compelled me to keep reading. Along with Ana, I'd never heard of breast clamps and butt plugs and had no knowledge of the ways other props, like a riding crop, were used to create sexual pleasure. My curiosity about this world was greater than my frustration with the repeated words and sentence structure.

The characters, too, became endearing. Christian Grey's hard, cold, domineering cruelty is coupled with an emerging humanity and vulnerability I wanted to know more about by the end of the novel. I especially wanted to see Ana happy.

I recommend this novel.

The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht

Although I sometimes felt frustrated by the narrative structure of The Tiger's Wife, overall it was a satisfying read with its interesting characters, fantastical tales, and engaging voice.

The novel depicts the aftermath of a worn-torn Balkan region where Natalia, a young doctor, and her family feel affinities to both sides of the new border. Natalia journeys across it to help immunize the children of an orphanage, and, while there, searches for details surrounding her grandfather's mysterious death. The narrative oscillates from her childhood memories of her grandfather, to the legends her grandfather and other townspeople have told her, to her present job of innoculating and searching for answers. It took me a while to realize that the region itself, or its mythology, was the primary protagonist of the story and that Natalia's grandfather, the tiger's wife, the deathless man, Luca, Dursa the Bear, and even Natalia are secondary protagonists. Once I figured that out, I came to enjoy the novel; but in the first half, I kept asking myself, "Whose story is this?"

There were many moments when I could not put the book down. There were other times when I had to force myself to read on. With each new tale, I went through a "warming up" period in which it took a while for me to get into it, like with a collection of short stories that have different protagonists. By the last third of the novel, however, the individual stories started coming together into one satisfying, rich whole that surpassed the investment.

I would recommend this novel.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer

I started reading this novel at my eleven-year-old daughter's elementary school's roaring twenties gala. I knew to take along a book, because at the last school function, a seventies soiree, she asked me not to dance with her. Then I was crushed, but this time I was happy to find a little corner beneath a dim light and submerge.

I thought I would be crying my eyes out, knowing the subject matter was a boy's loss of his father on 9/11, but for the first third of the novel, and then intermittently throughout, I laughed my head off. I forgot I was at an elementary school dance, as I wiped tears from my eyes and threw my head back in uncontrollable laughter. A mother sitting next to me assumed I was laughing at a kid dancing in front of us. "He is hilarious," she said. I pointed at the book. "This is hilarious," but I didn't want to be sucked into a conversation with her, so I stuck my head back between the pages.

To me, the story was like a cross between The Incident with a Dog in the Nighttime and The Shadow of the Wind. Three different narrators, all with issues, are endearing and tragic in their own ways. We have the boy, Oskar, whose father is killed in 9-11; we have his grandma who helps to take care of him and whose family was killed in the bombing of Dresden; and we have the grandpa he never met and who also lost family and loved ones in Dresden, where he knew Oskar's grandma. There are a host of other interesting characters, equally memorable, which add great depth to the story and illustrate the genuine goodness people are capable of along with the evil.

It's interesting to see the parallels between the two tragedies generations apart and the struggle of the survivors to continue to live in a world where such things happen.

My book club hasn't yet met to discuss this story, but I couldn't wait to blog about it. We are in the process of finding a date on which we can all watch the movie together. After our meeting, I may update this entry to better represent the reaction of the entire group and to add my opinion of the movie.

I highly recommend this novel.

A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick

I read A Reliable Wife in one day. I literally could not put it down. I instantly cared for the characters, even though Ralph beat his son and Catherine was plotting to murder Ralph. Although the novel was written by a man, the internal lives of the characters were as fleshed out as one finds more frequently in stories written by women. One member in my book club said that she thought she was reading the words of a woman. To me, the sex gave the author away. More sensual and romantic than the sex authored by most men I've read, the shear abundance of it signaled to me that a male psyche was behind the story. Someone once told me that men have sexual thoughts throughout the day, and that was certainly demonstrated in this story. But I was not put off by it at all. I sympathized and longed for Ralph to find pleasure.

Everybody in my book club felt that Catherine went too far in her plot to murder Ralph, and that if she hadn't tried so hard to save her sister, her sympathy as a character would have been lost. And Ralph accepted too much. Once the horrible side effects of the arsenic presented themselves, he should have fought back, though I suppose his dilerium might have hindered that.

Tony was also nicely fleshed-out and complex. He was easy to hate, but also easy to understand. I was satisfied with the way the author ended the story, though not as sure as Catherine concerning whose child she carried. I was okay with that. I liked the ambiguity and felt Ralph would want to raise the child regardless.

I highly recommend this novel.

The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain

My book club read this novel about Hemingway this month, and every person in the club enjoyed it. Having read most of Hemingway's works, in addition to works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and Gertrude Stein (not to mention the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas--Stein's lifelong partner), I can say with confidence that McLain depicts the essence of Hemingway's life as a young man. The Bohemian lifestyle of the expatriates, the attention to the craft of writing, the struggles with finances, and Hemingway's interactions with other literary figures and their partners all ring true. I also felt McLain was able to show the inspiration behind Hemingway's writing of The Sun Also Rises, with wonderful scenes of the bullfights in Pamplona, Spain.

Told from the point of view of Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, this fictional interpretation submerged me into Hemingway's lifestyle and struggles while presenting me with a good story. I immediately liked Hadley and sympathized with her, feeling crushed by her husband's betrayals. There were moments I hated Hemingway, but McLain does a superior job of keeping him sympathetic to the end.

I highly recommend this novel.

Mothers and Other Liars, by Amy Bourret

How would you feel if what you believed to be true about your nine-year-old daughter weren't, and she was suddenly taken away from you even as you attempted to do the right thing? I don't think I could go on living, but Ruby does as she fights to be reunited with her daughter in Amy Bourret's well-crafted novel, Mothers and Other Liars.

With a literary, musical style and vivid characters and setting, Bourret takes us through Ruby's struggle in Santa Fe, New Mexico to avoid prison and protect her precious daughter, not to mention the baby growing inside of her. I found myself sobbing uncontrollably and clinging to my own daughter after sneaking into her room in the middle of night, just to remind myself that she was still there. I can't recall another book making me react so strongly. I could barely read between my tears.

Ruby comes up with a surprising plan to save her daughter, and, I have to say that, as a mother, I would have done the exact same thing! Ruby's actions are entirely believable and sympathetic, and I couldn't have been more pleased with the ending.

I highly recommend this novel.