October Book Review
It's almost halfway through November, and I'm finally posting my October reviews! Time seems to accelerate these last remaining months of year, am I right?
In addition to my usual go-tos of contemporary literary fiction and current non-fiction, I read a modern-day classic (Rebecca - 1938) and a true classic (Jane Eyre - 1847) this month. It was such a refreshing change that I am going to make an effort to include more classics in my reading life. I just need to stop putting every Shiny New Book I see on #bookstagram on hold at the library, because between my library holds and my three book clubs, my TBR stack is perpetually ridiculous.
Okay! Onto the reviews!
by Kirstin Downey 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I read this one a few years ago for my neighborhood book club, and I read it again this month for the senior book discussion group I lead at the library. I gave it 5 stars the first time, and I’m keeping the rating the same. This is a fascinating look at a woman who gave us many of the labor standards we take for granted today, as well as many of the hallmark policies from the FDR Administration. It is a true shame that most Americans do not know Frances Perkins as a great leader in our history.
She was a woman who saw problems around her, rolled up her sleeves and worked to foster change. Her career started in local politics in New York after being truly appalled by the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in 1911, leading to the fire safety codes that we still employ today. Due to her own traumatic labor and delivery experience, she started a public health program, reducing the maternal death rate by 60% (this was before the use of antibiotics.) It’s all the more admirable to note that many of the early policies she was able to push through were enacted before she herself had the right to vote!
She was the first female Cabinet member, appointed by FDR to be his Secretary of Labor. The minimum wage, social security, the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, unemployment insurance, child labor laws, fire safety codes: these are all policies Americans enjoy because of Frances Perkins. The one remaining issue she worked hard to enact never made it through: health care. The country was drawn out of the Depression and into World War II, and Congress and the American people lost their focus on social programs as they turned their attention to fighting the war. We are still feeling the ramifications of this today.
I like to think that if the internet and social media were around in her day, she’d be on par with The Notorious RBG. She was a brilliant and tireless feminist icon who accomplished great things in the name of improving the lives of her fellow citizens.
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wow. This book is why I read fiction. The author made me look at my assumptions about people I only know from news headlines and see them as human beings. I cared about each of the characters and was rooting for each of them, even when that meant I was rooting for conflicting outcomes. It was also a page-turner; I couldn’t read it fast enough. I don’t know how to review this without giving the story away, and you should get to enjoy this one without spoilers. Highly recommend; I’d give this one 6 stars if I could.
I read this one on my own when it first came out, then re-read it for the book discussion group at One More Page Books AND for my neighborhood book club. Just saying.
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Sometimes you find the right book at the right time. It was the weekend of the Kavanaugh confirmation, and I was feeling rather distraught. I couldn’t focus on anything, and I needed a book to take me to a completely different time and place. Rebecca was sitting on my Kindle, waiting for a moment such as this. This book is a classic for a reason. It’s the kind of book you curl up with, cup of tea in hand and a blanket across your lap, getting swept up in the story. This starts out as a slow burn; then suddenly, about halfway through, I could feel my pace of reading speeding up as the narrative got more intense. It’s a classic reading experience. I don’t know how else to describe it without giving too much away. The house and a dead character loom large throughout the entire book, while the first person narrator is never named. It’s brilliantly done. If you’re looking for a delicious read, this is it. Like I said, it’s a classic for a reason.
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is such a moving story. I found myself wondering why I haven’t heard this life perspective told before; trans-racial adoption is fairly common in the US, and I feel like I have a good understanding of what that experience is like for the adoptive parents. I haven’t seen many memoirs written from the adoptee’s perspective, at least not one as honest and conflicted as this one. The first section could’ve been titled “The Repercussions of Naive White People and Their Good Intentions” or “Why Representation Matters.” The author was born in 1981, and at that time the conventional wisdom around adoption was changing. Previous generations were often never told they were adopted, or were only told once they became adults. The author always knew she was adopted, but of course this would’ve been hard for her parents to hide: she is Korean and her adoptive parents are white. But the early ‘80s was the post-Civil Rights era, in which we were all supposed to be colorblind. Her parents thought that love would be enough, that race and cultural identity didn’t matter, that as long as they loved their daughter as their own, what difference did her ethnicity make? Well, dear reader, it made a big difference. If you are the only Asian person in an entirely white town, and none of the adults ever talk about it, it matters. The author talks about how lonely it felt growing up this way, the bullying she endured in school, the pain of not knowing anyone who looked like her. The irony is, her parents attitude (“your race doesn’t matter so let’s never mention it!”) made it one of the central focuses of her life. The other central focus was the longing to know her origins. The rest of the book tells the story of her finding her birth family, and I won’t spoil any of it here. It’s not a Hallmark movie that ends with a reunited mother and child weeping in each other’s arms. It’s beautiful and painful and real, just like everyone else’s family. I must say, however, I also feel deep empathy for her birth parents. I can’t tell if there’s more to her childhood she’s not telling here, but at times she seems almost cold toward her parents. As far as I could tell, they were doing the best they knew how with what they had at the time. This is what all good parents do. I’m sure if they were to adopt a Korean baby now, they’d raise her with access to her culture and language in a way that just wasn’t done 30 years ago. The author is a mother herself now, and she talks about how she can’t imagine giving up her baby to strangers. Can she not also imagine desperately wanting a baby but not being able to conceive, the long wait and roller coaster ride of the adoption process, the giving your heart fully to a baby who may one day push you away, the fear of being told you’re not her “real” mother? Seems like grace should be extended to all parties here.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"‘I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.’” I’ve been wanting to read more classics, and lately, I’ve needed books to help me escape to a completely different time and place. (This is 2018. Surely you understand.) I thought it might be a slog to read a 500+ page book written in 1847. I had no idea this is a total page-turner about at 19th century feminist. Jane Eyre is a badass and my new literary hero! “‘Oh, comply! Think of his misery...soothe him, save him, love him...who in the world cares for you? Or who will be injured by what you do?’ Still indomitable was the reply: ‘I care for myself.’” Oh, Jane. I'm sure I will return to your pages again someday. Thank you for being just what I needed, just when I needed it.
The Terrible by Yrsa Daley-Ward 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished this one in a day. Whoa. I've never read anything like it. Sometimes we hear a story about someone who's been labeled in ways that society is quick to judge (drug user, prostitute, private dancer/escort), and it's easy to see those labels and jump to those judgments, all the while forgetting the person is a human being with a story that led to the present circumstances. And chances are, this human being did not start out in life with a stable home environment and loving parents who one day dreamed that she'd become a drug user/prostitute/private dancer/escort. Some painful, awful shit went down to get from there to here. This memoir tells that story. But it is unlike any other memoir I've ever read. It's as if you sat down for coffee with a stranger and she just started at the beginning, in a stream-of-consciousness narrative that immediately draws you in. Normally I don't like this style of writing, but it works here: there's a sense of urgency, as if she needs to get her story out of her soul and into yours before she loses her nerve, and she can't waste time with proper prose form and evenly timed paragraphs. And there is zero sense of vying for sympathy, or even a redemption story. (I kept waiting for it, the redemption part. We all love a redemption story, don't we? This is not that. This reads like she barely made it out alive to write it all down.) It knocked me out.
Transcription by Kate Atkinson 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Kate Atkinson has a particular kind of brilliance. I don’t know how to define it: it’s unique and delightful and riveting, and worth hanging in through the first 50+ pages. This is the fifth book of hers that I’ve read, and for some reason, they’ve all taken me a while to get into; there’s something just so British in her style that I have a hard time sinking in. But once I do, the pay-off is so worth it! Whenever I read a book synopsis and see the words “World War II,” I usually take a pass. They tend to be gut-wrenching reads, and is there really anything new to say? I’ve read so many WWII narratives, I just don’t have it in me to read more unless I’m truly compelled to do so. If you tend to feel the same way, rest assured, this book is truly original. A spy novel with a female protagonist, nothing overly macabre, intriguing and well-paced, with lots dry wit to boot. The author’s note at the end adds some fascinating historical context. It turns out, there is something new to say, there are stories about that era as yet untold. This novel is proof.
The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin
4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ *Audible Version
This is a beautiful audible book, narrated by Meryl Streep. I don't need to say any more about the quality of the narration, do I? I mean, it was read by MERYL STREEP. It's stellar and fantastic and all the other extreme adjectives I'm too lazy to think of. This is probably one of the few examples of an audio book being better than the print version. The story itself is haunting and painful and beautiful. If you are familiar with Christianity, you know that there are four testaments on the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth recorded in the Bible: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were four of his disciples, and all give their account of what happened. You'll notice there are no accounts written by a woman. I know, you're shocked. This account is told from the point of view of Jesus's mother, Mary. And in this account, she is not the Mother of the Son of God. She is the mother of Jesus, who was a baby, then a boy, then a man, a mere man, who lived and laughed and loved and then suffered a horrible death that she witnessed firsthand. It is not a religious book at all; it is a painful human story about a mother's loss, using a very familiar story as the canvas. This may sound strange, but I kept thinking of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and Freddy Gray and countless other lost sons as I listened to this. Stay with me here. These were young men who were murdered at the hands of a powerful corrupt system. After they died, the government and political movements vied to take control of the narrative of what their lives and deaths meant, and what their murders should mean going forward. Black Lives Matter was born from their deaths, and that movement continues with a life and a power of its own. The political backlash to BLM was also born, and that backlash also continues with a life and a power of its own, all done in these young men’s name. But behind those names and those political movements and those demands for social justice were human beings with mothers. And those mothers knew them as babies that they nursed, young boys with their private fears and joys, young men with their private feelings and hopes and dreams. And like the version of Mary we meet in this book, they may resent that their boy, their baby has been turned into something they don't recognize. Obviously, I don't know. I don't know those mothers. But I can't imagine the insurmountable pain of losing a child, especially to a violent murder, only to then have the public act as if they also get to have some kind of claim on him. In this book, the disciples push Mary aside as they craft the narrative of his life and death for their purposes. We feel her resentment at being cast out of her own deeply personal story. It reminded me how much we lose when we only get one (male) version of the story, any story. It's why we need a variety of perspectives in any storytelling. And it made me think how much richer the Bible would've been if women had been allowed to give their testimonies along the way.
The Library Book by Susan Orlean 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
10 stars. I'm swooning over here. If you are a library nerd, this is the book of your dreams. The Washington Post calls it "a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution." Consider me dazzled. The jumping-off point is an in-depth investigation into the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Library. That story is interesting and compelling and worth reading. But Orlean weaves those chapters with chapters on the history of the LA library, filled with fascinating characters and interesting stories, educating us on how a tiny collection of books (available to men only! shocker!) in the late 1800s evolved into the vibrant and valuable community centers we know our libraries to be today. Despite being an avid library user, I purchased a copy of this book. (I have precious little shelf space, so I rarely purchase books; however, I feel the need to support both the publishing industry and my local independent book store. Also, the publisher clearly cared about making a beautiful book!) As I said, the book itself is beautiful. Go to your local bookstore and check it out. I marked so many passages that I could fill your screen with endless quotes, but I won't steal your joy of coming upon them yourself. But library nerds everywhere, rejoice! This is the book you didn't know you were waiting for. And it will confirm something you already knew: libraries are the heart and soul of a community. It's one of the few remaining places that are free and open to everyone, filled not just with books and information, but people dedicated to preserving knowledge and serving their entire community, from the harried mom of a toddler to the bookish middle-schooler to the lonely senior citizen to the homeless person who is often hidden in plain sight. Sigh. I think I'm going to hug every librarian I see the next time I'm there.
Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South by Christopher Dickey 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I had to read this for the senior book club I lead at the library; I probably wouldn’t have picked this one up on my own. It was somewhat interesting, and I learned a few things I didn’t know before, but it never really grabbed me. I can’t tell if that’s the book’s fault or if I just wasn’t in the mood for this particular book at this particular moment. I did learn that the Civil War had global political implications, something I never learned about in school. I tend to think of that war as an internal conflict that didn’t extend beyond our borders, but of course a conflict on that scale doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Once the southern states seceeded, foreign countries with ambassadors in the US had to decide whether they recognized the new political state. England, France and Spain had stopped the slave trade in their countries, and they wanted to keep America from rapidly expanding (and therefore competing) with an unfair advantage because the US had free labor. England especially was in a predicament: they wanted to take a moral stand against slavery (in fact, Prince Albert made it his main cause), but they also needed the cheap cotton from the southern states in the US. If you are interested in reading about the Civil War, I’d recommend this book. It’s certainly an original exploration on a well-studied topic.
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A retelling of Beowulf. I don't mind telling you, having never read Beowulf, I had to look up a summary and needed to keep referring to it to fully grasp what was happening in the story. Normally I would find this extra effort annoying, but it's worth it here. The author has given us something truly original, a timely novel filled with social commentary. This is no small feat considering this is a retelling of an epic story written 1,000 years ago. The author takes an ancient story about Anglo-Saxon warriors battling monsters to defend homesteads, about mothers and sons and kingdoms, and sets it in suburbia. There is a mother who is a former Marine with PTSD living on the edges of a glittering gated community, living in isolation and fear as she stares at this glittering capitalist grandeur embodied in one wealthy family. It is a wealthy mother living in her own version of isolation, who sees certain mothers' sons as monsters. It's gripping and fascinating and also deeply weird. But it works.
