How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney

Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023--San Antonio

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney was longlisted for the Booker Prize and was named a New Yorker best book of the year among other honors from other sources.  It takes place in a village in western Ireland.  A young boy is starting his secondary education and apparently has Aspergers Syndrome--mentally high functioning, yet not socially inept.  It is the story of his challenges, especially when going into a new situation.  His English teacher who is used to working with special needs students takes him under her wing to help him deal with the adjustments needed in the new school.  And the book is her story, too; one of a woman who has unsuccessfully tried to become pregnant through artificial insemination twice and failed and who is realizing that she and her husband are no longer in love with each other.  Another teacher of woodworking also takes an interest in the student by involving him in building a currach, a homemade Irish boat made with reeds as a means to teach him to deal with the chaos in the world--to learn to accept that things may not go the way they are planned.  The best parts of the book are the ones where the student is reacting to what is happening.  The way he thinks is hilarious at times!!  The story bogs down at times when it is about the failing marriage of the English teacher, and there seems to be more information than needed at times about the process of building the boat.  But it is a delightful book in general.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.   

Open Throat by Henry Hoke

Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2023--San Antonio

Open Throat by Henry Hoke is a fascinating short novel.  It all takes place in the mind of a cougar living in the Hollywood Hills.  The cougar has learned to understand and think in English because of all the encounters he has had with hikers, campers, etc.  He tries to avoid direct encounters with humans and has never eaten human flesh before.  He actually considers homeless human campers as his alternative family, since he has come to be alone in the hills over time and one of the humans in the camp (who all know he exists in the area) always leave a bit of meat for the cougar under the bones he throws away from the meals they have eaten.  Life as he prefers it is becoming harder for the cougar, however.  There are more and more encounters with humans.  And eventually, a fire occurs that destroys his habitat sending him fleeing into "elay" (the spelling he hears when humans talk about the city) as his only escape.  There is so much to appreciate about this story--the imagination required to write it, the humor that occurs based on the spellings used to express what the cougar thinks he has heard, the dignity and morality that the cougar tries to build his life around, the stress that the development of cities places on the natural animal inhabitants of the land, etc.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it.  I'm down-rating it to 4 stars out of 5 only because of the improbable chance encounter with a known human (from previous encounters in the hills) that occurs at the end of the story.

Kunstlers in Paradise by Cathleen Schine

 Monday, Dec. 25, 2023--San Antonio

Kunstlers in Paradise by Cathline Schine has some intriguing elements, but it wasn't a novel that grabbed me and kept me interested in the story throughout.  Julian, a 21-year-old with no motivation to become an adult was not a character to admire in any way.  And by the end of the novel, after his parents had quit supporting him in New York and he had spent a year living with his grandmother in Los Angeles, he was still a dreamer with no solid plans; he had just shifted to a new location and was happy he could continue living for free in his grandmother's guest cottage as he figured out what to do with his life.  He announced a new "idea" of what he might try as his aim in life with a likelihood he would not be successful.  The grandmother has stories she shares of her early life in Los Angeles as a Jewish refugee from Vienna.  But as one more fantastic story after another gets told the logic of such a life of experiences becomes less and less likely.  The title seems to imply that the book is about lots of artists ("kunstlers" being the plural of the German word for artist), but the book is really about the aimless young man-boy and his grandmother.  Other famous immigrants from Europe who were real people do come and go in the stories of the grandmother, but this is fiction so the stories are not true.  And so much time is spent telling about one of those artists, Arnold Schoenberg, and his introduction of atonal music that I became bored and was wishing the grandmother would move onto other stories of her life.  It seems like a slap-dash of stories barely tied together, all involving famous people but none being true,  and the sum of them not really adding up to much at all.  It was on the NPR list of best books of the year, but I disagree.  I gave the book 2 1/2 stars out of 5 which seems generous.

You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince

 Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023--San Antonio

You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky is a gay romance that was on a list of best LGBTQ+ novels of 2023.  The main character is the son of two rich parents.  He is considered to be a lost F*ck-Up who regularly makes headlines in tabloids in a negative way.  He also suffers from GAD (generalized anxiety disorder--a mental disease diagnosis) which is likely part of the reason that so many things go wrong in his public life.  And he runs with the wrong crowd--one that loves to be the center of attention by being seen with him and associated with him in other ways.  Unfortunately, so much of the beginning of the novel is written to make a point of how bad his behavior and his reputation is before any mention of the cause is encountered; I almost quit reading the book because I wasn't enjoying reading about such a spoiled, bad brat.  After a few days of having been sent to his grandparents rural community for the month of December to avoid another scandal in the headlines, things begin to change.  Set during the Christmas season, this is a coming-of-age (at the late age of 21) fairy tale of love and redemption.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5--2 for the first half and 4 for the second half.  It's not great writing, but anyone who can make it through the 2-star part of the story will begin loving it during the 4-star part.

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023--San Antonio

The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese is a New York Times Top 10 book of 2023 which was also recommended by NPR, Oprah, and other sources.  It's a saga covering three generations of a Christian family in Kerala, the southwestern state of India that is known for waterways and palm trees and for regularly electing communist governments in modern times.  The book is set in the scope of the early to the late 1900s.  There are many characters, but they all tie together in some way and often leave the story and return later.  Its a story of a mysterious disease that causes drownings over many generations of a family, of corruption, of arranged marriages, of the caste system, of the plight of lepers, and of other factors of life in Kerala.  As a person who has visited Kerala 3 times and spent months there as a volunteer in a school, I could relate to so much of what was happening in the book.  But it is a fascinating story that keeps re-hooking the reader to continue even though it is almost 800 pages long and at times seems as if it has wandered too far off track creating concern that all will not be tied together at the end.  The reader who continues will be rewarded.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5. 

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry

Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023--San Antonio

Old God's Time by Sebastian Barry was long listed for the Booker Prize and named a top book of 2023 by many reviewers.  It is beautifully written.  The format is like a stream of consciousness going through the mind of one man which, with so many details, slowed down my reading speed but allowed me to appreciate the beauty of the writing.  It is the story of a man and his family, all of whom had had sad lives.  He is retired and is the only one still alive. He and his wife grew up without parents present.  There are stories of abuse and neglect.  When they meet, he can't believe such a beauty would be interested in him, but their common backgrounds attract each to the other.  He has become an criminal inspector for the Irish police, and she is working in a cafe.  They have married and have had 2 children.  Slowly, the flowing thoughts going through his mind reveal the secrets of what has happened over the years. Central to the story are two priests, one who has abused young girls for years and one who has abused young boys.  The retired inspector is living in a small apartment attached to a small new castle (from the early 1900s).  It is in a remote seaside area of Ireland.  He has maintained a quiet, private existence in the 9 months since he retired.  But he is contacted by two young policemen whose boss (who was a partner on the force with the retiree decades ago and who has remained friends with him) has recommended they visit him to get information about one of the priests.  Decades ago, the retiree and his partner had investigated the priest, found lots of photos of nude young boys, and had tried to charge the priest with crimes.  However, the higher authorities, all good Catholic Irishmen, had given the evidence to the Cardinal and the priest was allowed to continue his misdeeds.  With the church losing lots of its influence in current times, they were trying to find witnesses who would be willing to testify against the priest.  But there is also a complication due to the fact that the other priest, the one who had molested young girls, had been murdered years ago with no clear proof of who had done it.  The two priests had been close friends, so digging into the case against one led to digging into the other, since there is a chance in modern times that DNA could be found on items of clothing that had been retained in storage.  But the book is mostly a slow reveal of the lives of the retiree, his wife who died just before his retirement, and his two children who both died as young adults.  It's the story of how it is hard to escape the past and its influence on the rest of one's life.  And its the story of a man aging who seems to be having memory lapses and maybe hallucinations.  It's a very good book.  I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

Old Babes in the Woods by Margaret Atwood

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023--San Antonio

Old Babes in the Woods by Margaret Atwood is a collection of short stores which was named a Top Book of the year by the BBC.  Some of the stories are very creative.  Some are hilarious.  Some are interesting, but maybe a bit too mundane (or maybe just a bit too long to maintain interest).  My reactions went up and down over and over.  When I really liked a story, I couldn't wait to get to the next one.  When a story seemed to drag on too long, I would count the pages to see how many more until the end of that one.  Overall, I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Blackouts by Justin Torres

Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023--San Antonio

I finished reading Blackouts by Justin Torres last night.  When I was about 25% of the way through the book, it was named the winner of the National Book Award for this year.  It's not a traditional novel; many reviewers have called it an experimental novel.  It is built around a meeting of two men who originally met when they were both in a psychiatric hospital--when one was a teenager and the other was a middle-aged adult.  The older man is now dying in a facility called The Palace and the younger one, who has now middle aged, has come to say goodbye to his friend.  But both men have a need.  They need to share their lives with each other in an attempt to make sense out of what has happened to the two of them throughout their lives and to other homosexual and bisexual men and women throughout time as a result of society's efforts to justify, classify, and treat the existence of the sexual orientations of non-straight people.  Stories of real persons who were actually part of this history are introduced--ones who strived to prove that sexuality differences are normal and ones who tried to connect them to aberrations.  The use of eugenics is discussed.  Ethnicity differences come into the story.  The title of the book comes from two aspects of the story:  1)  From published books that had most of the print blacked out because of the discussion of non-heterosexuality being considered worth censoring, and 2) From the fact that the younger man, of Puerto Rican descent, was committed to the asylum not because he was gay but because he suffered from blackouts that seemed to be a common form of hysteria for people from Puerto Rico.  It's not a book that is easy to read.  But it is fascinating how the author has brought all of this together in such a complex story.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

 Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023--San Antonio

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld is centered around the life of a writer for a weekly satire comedy show on TV (like Saturday Night Live).  She is a 38-year-old woman who is happy with her life and her professional success in general, but, although having been married once and had a long-time fuck buddy, she has never had a fulfilling love life.  After working for 10 years at the show, there is a guest star for the week, a singer whose music she doesn't particularly like, who is both the guest host and the musical guest.  In her role as a writer, she finds herself writing skits that he will be in and also helping him with a skit he has been working on and wants to submit.  She is feeling something going on between the two of them, but doesn't trust that it is actually happening.  He may be feeling the same way, but is not communicating it well.  The question is whether they were really both interested in each other or not.  It's going to take time and more awkward encounters to find out.  It was fun to read, but is not great literature.  Still, I gave it 4 stars out of 5.

The One by John Marrs

Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023--San Antonio

The One by John Marrs seemed so familiar for the first 3 chapters or so.  Even one of the sentences at the end of one of the chapters made me think I had read it before.  But I searched through my records I keep of books I have read and it wasn't on the list.  And I checked the Netflix filmed version of it to see if I had watched that, but I hadn't.  So I kept reading and it started to seem "fresh."  I'm wondering if I read part of it and quit it sometime in the past.  It is an interesting novel, but I wouldn't call it a very good one.  It is set in the future when a researcher has discovered a mutation in a gene that allows her through gene analysis to match each person in the world with their ideal lover.  People download an app, spit on a swap and spit on it, send that in, and wait for an email to tell them who their perfect match is.  The book followed about 5 couples who have been matched.  It's strange that the "one perfect match" could be anywhere in the world but is often within the same region of a country where they both live, but that would be the only way the stories could be told; otherwise, most people would not have the money to travel travel around the world to meet their true match.  It's an okay book to read with some exciting twists regarding the matched couples.  Then it ends with uncertainty regarding what is going to happen to some of the characters.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.

The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylvainen

Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023--San Antonio

The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylvainen is a fascinating novel that was a finalist for the National Book Award this year.  It takes place in Lappland and is the story of the end of a lifestyle that had existed for centuries--ended by a combination of factors including governments deciding to close borders that had allowed natural migration for the Sami people and their reindeer, governments deciding to provide settlers with free land within the natural seasonal migration routes of reindeer, and conservative Christian missionaries supported by the government-sanctioned church enforcing lifestyle changes (due to their belief that only their religion was right and that native non-Christian people should be forcefully converted to it while taking advantage of them in very non-Christian ways).  It reminds me a bit of what has happened in so many places such as North and South America, Hawaii, etc.  The book follows the lives of a number of Sami family groups as all of these changes are occurring and also the lives of members of one extended family of religious leaders.  Traditions of the local area are being suppressed while the incoming settlers and ministers are trying to uphold their own long-held traditions in this land where they are the newcomers.  The description of the Sami people's lives is told in such detail that the reader is enlightened while also suffering along with them as the story spirals downward toward tragedy.  It's a sad story, yet so enlightening.  I gave the book 5 stars out of 5.

The Words that Remain by Stênio Gardel

Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023--San Antonio

The Words that Remain by Stenio Gardel has been short-listed for the National Book Award within the category of Translated Novels.  It has a unique format.  And it does an admiral job of trying to address the problem of people not being able to comprehend and empathize with persons who are different from themselves.  In this case, it is with matters of sexuality.  The story is built around the life of Raimundo, an illiterate Brazilian peasant.  As a young man, he has come to realize he is different--that he has no sexual interest in females.  He and his best friend have fallen in love, but they know to be cautious.  When their relationship is discovered by Raimundo's father, there is no tolerance for it.  He is forbidden to see his friend again and is severely beaten on the back nightly with a belt for 16 days because the father says "the only right thing" for a man is to marry a woman and have children which will eventually lead for grandchildren; it is the responsibility of a man to do this rather than to bring shame on himself and his family.  But he learns that he is not the first in his family.  His father had a brother who was gay and the grandfather indirectly killed him by forcing him, as a non-swimmer, to swim into the middle of the river where he drowned.  Raimundo's mother is no help.  Only a sister who does not know the whole story shows concern for what is happening.  When his friend misses an appointment for a secret meeting together at the river where Raimundo has planed to propose running away, Raimundo feels betrayed by the love of his life.  His sister brings a letter home from school that the friend has given her to relay to Raimundo even though Raimundo cannot read.  Instead of allowing his sister to read it to him, he leaves home taking the unread letter with him wondering for years what it has said.  Eventually, when he is in his 50s, he starts going to adult classes to learn to read and write so he can eventually read the letter.  During that time, however, he has tried to hide his sexual orientation from everyone and has mostly worked as a laborer for trucker drivers traveling routes around the country.  But a transsexual prostitute he has encountered outside an adult pornographic cinema won't let him hide.  She publicly calls him out among his friends after, he, too, has shown intolerance and inability to understand why she is the way she is.  It takes decades for him to accept himself without shame.  He eventually leaves the trucking business because the heavy lifting has caused health problems, and he even befriends and becomes the roommate of the transsexual prostitute.  Eventually, he makes the trip back home to find that his parents are deceased and that his sister still cares for him and is glad to see him.  It is revealed at that time point that his young lover has married and had children and grandchildren, but just as Raimundo has never forgotten him nor quit yearning to be with him, the lover also has never forgotten Raimundo or quit yearning for him.  Both have lived lives that were not satisfying because of intolerance, shame, and miscommunication.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023--San Antonio

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride proved to be thought-provoking in terms of the discrimination that minorities--racial and handicapped--face and have always faced in America.  Set in a small city in Pennsylvania in the 1930s, when vaudeville was still alive. the main characters are mostly among the Blacks who have moved north from the south and the Jews who who have migrated there from various parts of Eastern Europe.  Some of these live in a mixed (Black and Jewish) neighborhood apart from the main town--an area ignored in terms of city services with dirt streets, water only from a public pump, etc.  It is the type of area where redlining was used at that time too keep the undesirables of society forced without special sections of a city.  For the most part, the Jews and the Blacks are friendly with each other and disliked by everyone else.  They have learned to take care of their own with as little interaction as possible with the police and the main families of the city (other than working for them as maids, drivers, laundresses, etc.)  The first half of the book establishes these relationships and what life is like, in general, in the town.  It's the second half of the book where certain characters come alive and grab our attention: the 12-year-old Black boy and the childless couple who informally adopt him when his mother dies in a stove explosion that makes him deaf and temporarily blind, the Jewish theater owner and his wife runs runs the grocery store that serves the community, the woman who is called "Paper" because she provides the news of everything happening in the community to all those who will listen to her, the adult brother and sister who don't talk with each other over long-held grievances, etc.  Then in the last quarter of the book, there is the most interesting character, a young boy who suffers from cerebral palsy and has been abandoned by his family to live in a state hospital for the mental patients; I dare any reader not to fall in love with him!  It's a fascinating book.  I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.  

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023--San Antonio

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett is a slow-reveal novel.  A woman in her late 50s finally tells her 3 adult daughters the story of her younger years when she was an actress, had a 3-month affair with an actor who became famous, how she met her husband (their father), and how the actor and his brother remained occasionally intertwined with her life.  It has been a very popular novel since it was released last month.  I had to wait about 8 weeks to get it from the library using Libby for my Kindle.  It's a fascinating story with the two main characters (the mother and the actor) going their separate ways and what it means in terms of their happiness.  Plus, the slow-reveal aspect means that new twists occur every few pages.   I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023--San Antonio

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng is historical fiction that takes place on Penang Island (which I have visited twice) during the period beginning slightly before and through WWII.  Although fiction, the story blends with the known details of what the war was like in this part of the world--the fierce terrorist acts by the Japanese occupiers in China and the other Asian countries (including a complete failure to follow generally accepted rules of warfare), the harsh treatment of and conditions for prisoners, etc.  The story centers around the mixed race (half Chinese/half English) son of one of the wealthy British families that had been operating a trading house (supplying rubber, tin, spices, etc., to Britain and bringing in exchange needed items to the market in Malaya) for centuries.  As a half-cast, the boy has never felt as if he fit anywhere.  He has no close friends.  He spends much of his time alone on an uninhabited island the family owns that he can reach by rowing a small boat from the family estate.  When a Japanese man arrives and rents the island from his father, the son feels betrayed.  But the man has been raised by monks and trained in the practice of Aikido, a centuries-old martial art.  Seeing both the loneliness of the boy's life and realizing how befriending him could be of benefit in accomplishing goals he has been assigned that are the reason he is in Malaya, the man offers to become the boy's teacher.  The story describes the rituals of the martial arts training, the development of the friendship, the eventual use of the boy to gain critical information, the tension as the Japanese military invades the island, the decision the boy has to make to protect his family in a way that he is uniquely qualified to do so during the occupation, the horrors that take place during the occupation, and the constant strain between the boy and his teacher/friend during the occupation.  It's a good book that vividly describes almost all aspects of the story. It's easy, as the reader to become emotionally involved.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black

Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023--San Antonio 

Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black is an emotionally moving story about a Black man raised in rural Arkansas by his strict grandfather and loving grandmother.  I could identify with so many things written in it--even simple things like aluminum markers on graves because people were too poor to buy tombstones, girls who got pregnant in the 50s being shunned by the community, families keeping secrets from the past, men not being able to show or verbally express their emotions, believing and behaving the way one does because that was how you were taught to believe and behave, not even thinking of questioning things, etc.  The book consists of a series of writings during the last days of life for the man to his estranged son.  He tells his family history, his personal story, his regrets, his growth in understanding and accepting over time, etc.  The reviews make a big deal over the fact that he is writing to his GAY son, but the same story could have been about him writing to a shunned daughter who got pregnant outside of marriage or to someone after some other reason that estrangement has occurred; the author just decided to make the estrangement be over the son being gay.   It's a great book because of what it is telling about the father's life--what it was like for him as a child, how he met his eventual wife, how his beliefs and how he was raised caused problems in his relationships with both his wife and son, how he eventually began to change as a person, and his suffering and his regrets as he did change and looked back at his life during the final days of it.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.  

Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023--San Antonio

I started reading Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Larua Warrell three weeks ago.  It has great reviews from others, but I kept putting it down without motivation to pick it back up.  Finally, after reading 5% of it, I decided to start another book.  At the end of reading that book, I really wasn't motivated to pick this one back up yet.  So I started reading another book; it, too was rather boring although I finished it hoping all along that it would get better because BBC had listed it as a top book of 2023.  I have now started a third book because of a lack of motivation to pick this book back up, especially after the last book was also boring to me.  I can't even remember what happened in the part I read of this book.   So, I am quitting this book at 5% with no rating.

The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley

 Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023--San Antonio

The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley has been on lists of books to read this year, but I found it to be BORING!!  Most of it is detailed descriptions of the day-to-day thoughts and events in the life of a female lawyer who has moved from the Midwest to New York City and worked her way up to the point where she seems to be the top mid-level one on the office team with hopes of being named a partner only to find that a new face has shown up at that level and has become the preferred person to the point that she is even given the court case that the protagonist has spent weeks preparing.  In the meantime, her boring private life is also described in detail.  I believe I could write a synopsis of this whole book in 10 sentences or less and that a reader who had read it would find no unexpected surprises when reading the whole book!  I do not recommend it to anyone except maybe someone who needs a book to read and has already read everything else available.  I gave the book 2 1/2 stars out of 5.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023--San Antonio

In Memoriam by Alice Winn is an excellent book.  It grabbed my attention from the beginning.  And even though much of it is set during WWI with all the gruesome details of the horrors of that war, I never wanted to put it down.  Most of the characters are young male upper-class students who have attended a British public school.  The two main characters are two boys/young men who have been best friends for years and who have secretly loved each other but never confessed that fact to each other out of fear that their love would be rejected and their friendship affected negatively.  Not until they have each volunteered for the war and ended up as officers in the same regiment (with one having been there for 6 months before the other arrives) is there ever any affection expressed between them, and it comes then due to the horrors of the war making them realize that they may never have a future beyond the war and must make do with what little time they have during the war until they die.  But tragedies soon begin to occur that keep pushing them apart and affecting the health of each (physical for one and both physical and mental for the other) as the war continues.  What makes reading the story so difficult is that their lives become so difficult when the reader knows the war is only about half over.  Will they ever be able to be together again? If so, how can they live their lives the way the prefer given the draconian laws in England against homosexuality?  And if they can be together again, will each still be able to love the other considering the traumas from the war that have affected them?  I highly recommend the book and gave it a rating of 5 stars out of 5.

After the Funeral and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley

 Aug. 25, 2023--San Antonio

After the Funeral and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley is a book of short stories set in English in recent times.  The stories are well written and are interesting, but I found them to be a bit bland--lacking in ways such that I would put the book down after reading only a part of a story and then not pick it up for a couple of days or so.  Usually, I finish and return a book within 3-5 days.  I have had this one over 2 1/2 weeks!  (At one point I put it away and read another more interesting book because I needed to read something I was enjoying more.)  There are no exciting events in the stories; these are slice-of-life stories that are centered around women and what is happening within a given period of their lives.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Southernmost by Silas House

Friday, Aug. 18, 2023--San Antonio

Southermost by Silas House was a troubling novel for me.  Uncomfortable decisions are being made throughout it.  The characters seem real, although not all are likable.  The character flaws that exist in many adults are evident throughout the book which also deals with intolerance (social and religious), vindictiveness, and meanness.  Although there are some wonderful situations, something bad is always around the corner throughout the novel.  The story centers around a man and his son.  The man has been raised within fundamentalist Christianity and is the pastor or such a church.  He is married to a woman who is actually more fundamentalist than he is.  As their son grows up, the father delights in his tenderness and love for all things.  The mother secretly takes him for counseling because she thinks he needs to learn to be more manly to get by in this world.  The boy's goodness and gentility actually provide insight to his father regarding the intolerance he has exhibited toward others and leads him to begin to question whether what he has preached as acceptable behavior is truly just and whether it truly matches what Christ taught and exhibited in his life.  The consequences of his expressing this change in belief result in great changes in his life that lead to a poor decision that makes things even worse for his and his son's future.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5 mainly because of how much of it made me uncomfortable.

Pedro & Daniel by Frederico Erebia

 Monday, Aug. 14, 2023--San Antonio

I actually read Pedro & Daniel by Frederico Erebia about two weeks ago and forgot to post my reivew of it.  It is a young adult novel about two Mexican American boys growing up.  It's an awkward life in many ways.  One of the brothers is darker than the other which often makes a difference in the cultures of people of color.  In fact, Pedro, the darker brother looks just like his absent father which is a frustration to his mother, since she went against the family's wishes to marry a man from a darker-skinned, less financially successful family than hers.  Both boys are gay, but are so different in almost all other ways.  Pedro plays football and is more like the macho concept expected of boys in the culture.  Daniel plays with dolls and refuses bend to the wishes of his family to be more like a man.  But the boys depend on each other to mentally deal with the various types of abuse they face within the family (both immediate and extended) and elsewhere.  Both want to get away from home as quickly as possible.  It is a wonderfully written story that continues through the 80s and the AIDS epidemic with both brothers as adults still supporting each other and struggling in terms of their relationships within the family.  Although fiction, much of it is based on the real life the author had with his brother Daniel.  Readers should be ready to be greatly affected emotionally.  I gave the book 5 stars out of 5 and kept thinking about the boys' story for days after finishing reading it.

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023--San Antonio

Crook Manifesto is the fourth novel I have read by Colson Whitehead, and it may be the last.  I seldom read multiple novels by the same author. Of the 3 previous novels, I gave 5 stars out of 5 to two of them (The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad) and 4 stars out of 5 to the other (Harlem Shuffle).  Although this book got great reviews, it was not nearly as enjoyable to read as those 3.  Most of the book is a detailed description of the history of crime in Harlem given at a rat-a-tat pace with lots of details.  I had to keep pushing myself to pick the book up again.  It didn't read to me like a novel until the final 10%.  The research that must have gone into that first 90% had to be extensive and impressive, but it didn't payoff as enjoyable reading to me.  I only gave this book a rating of 3 stars out of 5. 

This Other Eden by Paul Harding

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023--San Antonio

This Other Eden by Paul Harding is a sad story based on some true events.  It takes place in the early 1900s on an island off the coast of Maine.  I group of freed blacks and mixed-race people had come to the island in 1866 and settled there. Seven generations had continued living there in one-room shanties with no conveniences at all and cut off to a great extent from life on the mainland.  At the time of the story, the group consisted of about a dozen people with some of them shows signs of inbreeding.  Their daily lives were still lived much like those of all their ancestors in the previous decades.  Their clothing was warn and patched.  The only change of significance was that a school had been built on the island and a man who spent his summers on the mainland came to preach on Sundays and to teach on 3 other days of the week.  He managed to get assistance from the people on the mainland for building the school, providing supplies, and also supplying aid to the residents of the island.  But that resulted in the mainland people becoming more aware of the conditions on the island and to consider the situation to be a "problem" that needed fixing.  Eugenics was a topic throughout the world at the time, so men from the mainland came with calipers, and other measuring devices plus a camera to get photos of the inhabitants of the island.  They observed and wrote a record of the lifestyle there--people living in filth, children born of incest, trash everywhere.  They felt they had to "rescue" the people which would include putting the children in homes or asylums.  They also observed the potential of the island being developed with a hotel that would draw tourists to the area.  The book is a sad description of what happened to the lives of those living there and how the actions taken were a disgrace with significant consequences.  I found it hard to read the book at times because of the actions occurring.  But it is well written and is fascinating to read, too.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5. 

The East Indian by Brinda Charry

Thursday, July 27, 2023--San Antonio

The East Indian by Brinda Charry is a novel about the first man from East India to arrive in Colonial America--at Jamestown, VA, in the 1600s.  It is not a long novel, only about 270-280 pages.  It is fiction, but the author built the story from researching multiple references of East Indians in Colonial America along with references about life in Colonial America before the slave trade started (due to the number of people coming from England being too small to meet the demands of the land owners and because slaves were harder workers than white men and were owned for the rest of their lives which made having them so much better for the landowners than having to give up the rights to indentured men and women after 7 years).  Life seems to always, no matter when in time, be about men with money trying to take advantage of men without money.  The book made me think of the factory workers of the late 1800s/early 1900s,  sharecroppers of the mid-1900s (whose lives were much like those of the the indentured men in the 1600s in this novel--designed to keep them down and bound), as well as the workers today for companies such as Starbucks, Amazon, cleaning service contractors, airport wheelchair and luggage handlers, etc., who are expected to do demanding jobs at wages that are not enough to support life.  (I've recently been explaining slow service in luggage getting to carousels at our airport this way:  When you only pay a person $11-13 per hour and expect them to handle luggage outdoors in 104 degrees every day in a state that just passed legislation that employers are not required to give water breaks, is it any wonder that they might just not show up?)  Anyway, this novel starts in India and follows the life of an East Indian male who doesn't know his father and whose mother is a "kept woman" by English colonial occupiers.  His life is ruled by circumstances.  He finds himself shipped to England.  Then he is kidnapped and put on a ship to America where he is the first East Indian to arrive there.  He is regularly misidentified as a Moor, a Turk, a Mohammedan, etc., and called such--too black to be white and not black enough to be an African.  He sold into indentured service where life is miserable.  The book continues to follow his story through various changes in life.  It's an interesting book which the BBC called one of the 16 best of the first half of 2023.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Leg: The Story of the Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It by Greg Marshall

 Sunday, July 23, 2023--San Antonio

Leg:  The Story of the Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It by Greg Marshall is a memoir.  I had almost given up on memoirs because of how uninteresting the last 3 or 4 of them I started reading were.  The reviews for this one were so great, that I gave it a chance.  I'm so glad I did.  It is so often hilarious that I enjoyed guffawing frequently!  The reason that "Limb" is in the title is because the protagonist has born prematurely with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck resulting in him having cerebral palsy.  But his family never told him that was why his right leg was shorter and less muscular than his left one; they just told him he had tight tendons.  Therefore, Greg grew up limping but not aware of the cause of his handicap.  His outlook on life was mostly positive even if he was shy.  The best parts of the book are the first third or so of it when he is still a boy growing up in Utah in a non-Mormon family and the last fifth of it when he is trying to find love while being handicapped in two ways. (Keep reading to learn how.) But there are other complications in his life:  His mother develops lymphoma and spends decades fighting it.  His father develops Lou Gehrig's disease and dies at 55.  Added to that, as Greg goes through puberty, he comes to realize that he is gay and that his penis is affected by the CP disease causing him to suffer from partial erectile dysfunction.  His mother, although ill with cancer, is a force to be reckoned with.  His father, is like a saint in the way he protects his son and accepts him with his handicap and his being gay.  And Greg, who has to figure out on his own what having "tight tendons" truly means medically as a young adult, has to, once he is an adult, come out TWICE (as having cerebral palsy and as being gay) to everyone in his life.  Throughout it all, he is delightfully funny.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish is the second book in a series of four.  I enjoyed the first book, but was not overly impressed by it.  But this one had better reviews, so I decided to give it a chance.  It is better.  It's not a great book, but it is a good read and has fewer weaknesses than the first one.  I did think one "twist" in the story was a bit unreasonable and a weak choice--the whole plan (not just related to the building's use) for what to eventually do with the home the main character had inherited from his grandfather and was remodeling.  It's a niche series, and I would not recommend it for everyone.  But this story was better than the first--enough for me to give it 4 stars out of 5.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

Thursday, July 13, 2023--San Antonio

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue is an Irish novel ranging over time from the 1980s until the near present.  Rachel is a student getting a degree in English at regional university in Cork while worrying about current expenses and future job prospects.  She is working part-time at a bookstore where she eventually meets James who becomes employed there and becomes her best friend.  Although James appears to be gay, he is not "out."  That appeals to Rachel because he becomes a non-threatening escort to events and eventually a trustworthy, yet intimate, flatmate for a very basic rental in a poor part of the city so that they can each live away from their parents.  James is not a student, but he is intelligent and witty and is much more comfortable in social situations than Rachel is.  Unfortunately, the timing for them is such that book sales are dropping due to the Kindle and a recession, so both worry keeping their part-time jobs and about their future job prospects.  Rachel is also quite immature and easily makes bad life decisions due to that and/or because she is a millennial who "wants it all." She doesn't have the reasoning ability to sometimes judge between what can be expected and what actions aren't appropriate.  (She cannot resist going through an employer's purse or bathroom and taking what she feels she deserves to have for herself!)  The other main characters are:  1) "Carey"is a sexually exciting partner for Rachel in a relationship that is on-and-off through much of the book because of her immaturity and tendency not to communicate about plans or problems.   2) Her major professor with whom, also due to her immaturity, she fantasizes (even though he isn't that attractive) about their developing a sexual relationship since she knows he is married to a former student.  Her major professor's wife who is a book editor who, upon her husband's recommendation (which is being made due to a form of blackmail by Rachael), hires her for an internship for a summer.  It's a story of miscommunications, misconceptions, and poorly managed lives.  For the most part, it is also a very entertaining story.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe + Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Saturday, July 8, 2023--San Antonio 

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe and Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World are a 2-part series of young adult fiction novels authored by Benjamin Alire Saenz.  Set in El Paso, the main characters are two somewhat misfit, loner-type boys who attend separate high schools (one at a public school and the other at a catholic school) who meet during the summer break between their freshmen and sophomore years at a local public swimming pool when Dante, the more outgoing of the two and an accomplished swimmer, notices Aristotle cannot swim and offers to teach him if he would like to learn.  They quickly become friends and begin the process of coming out of their self-imposed isolation in life.  It's obvious that the books are written not just to entertain the reader, but to try to teach adolescents how to think and reason, be tolerant, reconsider their relationships with their parents, appreciate life lessons and grow from them, etc.  The characters are charming and intelligent.  And over time, the story broadens to include other characters who become a group of friends.  The series covers topics such as love, loss, discrimination, angst, general relationship change over time, love and the fact it may not last over time, etc.  These books are among the ones that many conservatives in the USA are trying to ban from school and public libraries because Aristotle discovers he is gay over time and he and Dante, who already knew he was gay, fall in love with each other.  The closest the either book comes to describing them having sex is a simple sentence.  "We had sex."  There is nothing explicit.  I found the characters to be very interesting and funny.  I felt that the books suffered mainly because an over-abundance of both using the word "universe" and referencing cartography as an analogy for mapping out the development over time of a relationship.  I think an open-minded young adult would be think the books are wonderful.  I gave the first book 3 1/2 stars out of 5 and the second book 4 stars out of 5.  

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

Wednesday, June 28, 2023--San Antonio 

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu won the National Book Award for fiction in 2020.  It is the story of a young man who lives in Chinatown in Los Angeles with his father and mother.  All are working actors in films and TV series, but have had little success because of the limitations they face in casting due to being of Asian descent.  At times, the thoughts of the protagonist are hilarious.  But the purpose of the book does not seem to be to "entertain" as much as it is to show how racism and racist laws have held Asians back for most of the history of the USA.  The story is often told in TV or film "script" form which is interesting.  But it is told during the performance of the script in which actors often verbally address each other quietly off-script; it can be a bit confusing in terms of understanding what is happening.  And the end of the book seems to turn to magical realism where it is written like a script that is being performed with the characters becoming real people in a court case against the protagonist.  It's all very unique which is probably why it won the award.  But for me it was a bit too confusing (without enough hilarity) to rate it higher than 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Better Than People by Roan Parrish

Friday, June 23, 2023--San Antonio 

Better Than People by Roan Parrish is not the kind of book I normally read.  It hasn't gotten great reviews from "respected" sources, plus it is acknowledged as being a romance novel.  But the last 2-3 "good" books I have read were boring for me--to the point that it took a week to 10 days to finish a 350-page tome.  This book was on my list of books that were available from Libby (where I check out all of my books from the local library), the the readers (most of whom probably chose it particularly for the fact it is a romance novel) had rated it fairly well (4+).  Well, I won't rate it that high, but it was so enjoyable to read it; I found myself laughing aloud over and over again. It's the story of two gay men who find themselves living isolated lives in a small Wyoming town.  When one breaks a leg, someone tells him about an app he could use to try to find a volunteer to assist by walking his dogs and one of his cats twice each day since he was not going to handle the leashes and his crutches at the same time himself.  (He broke his leg during a regular walk with the pets by going after the spooked cat and falling down a ravine.)  The other main character answers the app request.  It seems to be lust at first sight on both parts, but there are problems.  The young man who answers the app and comes to walk the pets has severe anxiety problems when it comes to communicating verbally.  The one who has broken his leg is rather boisterous (to the point of scaring the anxious one) and was already depressed before the accident because of having felt that his long-time friend and business partner had betrayed him a few months earlier.  But a relationship slowly begins to develop after quite a few hits and misses.  It's the non-spoken coherent thoughts of the shy one that provide most of the laughs.  If he could only communicate verbally the words that flash into his mind, everyone would find him charming and funny.  As the book progresses, they both help each other (the pet owners suggests that the walker might be more comfortable texting what he wants to say) as well as falling in love with each other.  Pet lovers will especially like the book, since there are 4 dogs and 3 cats in the home which all become part of the story, too.  I became frustrated several times with things that just didn't seem plausible as part of the story.  One of the main ones:  The character with the broken leg, although gay, is quite manly.  Yet he uses "Darling" regularly as his term of endearment for the other character.  It just seems out of character.  But also there were points where something happened and I thought, "That doesn't seem right considering what was said earlier in the story."  (For instance, the walker can't hug his grandmother when he returns home because she is so allergic to pet dander, yet she can come to dinner later at the pet owner's home and they plan on having her over regularly as the novel wraps up.) Anyway, I gave the book 3 stars out of 5 (and considered 2 1/2 out of 5) because I enjoyed the story in general and I enjoyed laughing so much.  But don't read it expecting quality literature; it's just not that well written. 

White on White by Aysegul Savas

Tuesday, June 20, 2023--San Antonio

White on White by Aysegul Savas is a short novel, yet it moves at a slow pace revealing what is happening in the lives of two artists--one a middle-aged painter whose husband is a well-known art scholar and the other a graduate student researching how nudity was viewed in Gothic sculpture during the time it was made.  The student has rented an apartment in an unnamed city to conduct her research; the apartment is owned by the artist and her husband and it is understood through the rental agreement that the artist will be there part of the time working in her studio upstairs--the only part of the apartment that is off-limits to the student.  When the artist does eventually arrive, she lingers longer and longer.  The two develop a relationship that is based primarily on the artist's over-sharing of her past and her difficulties in deciding what direction she should go in creating new paintings.  As the reader progresses through the book, questions arise:  Why is the artist over-sharing?  Why is the researcher continuing to listen?  Is there an unknown hidden relationship to be revealed between these two?  Is the artist hoping to develop an intimate relationship with the researcher?  It's a mystery with the potential for a dramatic turn--either a horrific consequence or maybe just a simple reveal.  The author is allowing the researcher to question this, too.  The story, however, is more subtle than that with the ending raising questions rather than coming to a climax.  It is very well written, but do not expect action.  It's more like watching a European film where you, after 90 minutes of little happening, it ends leaving you with thoughts and questions.  I gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 4.

The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor

Sunday, June 18, 2023

 The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor is a mess of a book.  I've read his previous books, one a novel and the other a collection of short stories, and they were so good that I decided to give this one a chance as soon as I read it was being released.  I had to wait about 6 weeks with it on hold at my local library for reading on my Kindle.  It was not worth either the wait nor the amount of time to read it, but I did stay through the end of it.  This one is a hybrid--called a novel but really a collection of short stories in which some characters reappear (only occasionally) in other stories.  What are the problems:  1)  The first story, as well as a later one, both dwell on the critiques women are making of poems that have been submitted in a poetry class.  Their critiques are pretentious and the women seem to be poseurs trying to impress while also trying to tear down the writers.  Boring to read.  2)  In that first story and throughout the book the writer stays with situations way too long; so boring passages become a common element of the whole book.  3)  Throughout the book the author seems to be trying to impress us with his choice of vocabulary, similes, metaphors, etc.  It's distracting and boring when a reader notices something like this, because the reader's mind is pulled away from the story instead of staying in it.  4) There are too many characters with very deep backstories to keep in mind throughout the whole book as they come and go in the stories; that's sign that the author probably wrote all of these as short stories and was convinced to put them together and call it a novel.  5)  There are interesting characters who aren't covered enough and boring characters who are covered too much.  6)  To state it again within this list of points, whoever was the editor didn't do his/her job, so the book is a total mess!  I'm being generous when I give it 3 stars out of 5.   

The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Saturday, June 10, 2023--San Antonio

I stopped reading The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras 5 days ago after reading 46% of the book.  I have had trouble enjoying memoirs before.  I was making slow progress on this one.  There were too many details of South American mythical beliefs and treatments by curandero healers with only minimal progress in telling the story.  It might be a very good book for someone interested enough in this topic to want to continue, but that wasn't me.  The story covers 3 generations of a family--a man, his daughter, and her daughter who live in northeastern Colombia (near the border with Venezuela).  Maybe if the pace of the story went faster with fewer details (and not so many repeated details), I might have finished the book.  Instead, I stopped reading and will rate it at best 2 1/2 stars out of 5. 

A Play for the End of the World by Jai Chakrabarti

Saturday, June 10, 2023--San Antonio

After enjoying his book of short stories recently, I decided to read A Play for the End of the World, the only novel written so far by Jai Chakrabarti.  An award winner and a book frequently recommended on reading lists, the protagonist is a young Polish Jewish man who lived in an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto in the early 1940s.  The director of the orphanage, knowing that he and the children would soon be taken to Treblinka by the German SS for extermination, had the children stage an Indian play, The Post Office by Tagore, as a way to prepare them for accepting their coming death.  Years later (in the 1970s), the boy who played the lead in the play and who escaped death on the way to Treblinka through a quirk of fate is living in New York where he has met the older orphan who befriended him in Warsaw and who also escaped death only because of being on a work errand at the time the SS arrived and escorted the others to the train for Treblinka.  Furthermore, he is dating a young woman he has met--the first time he has had a relationship with a female his age.  At the same time in eastern India refugees from the Pakistani civil war that resulted in the establishment of Bangladesh have encamped and established a village within woods where the Indian government does not want them to live.  A professor who knows the story of the production of the play in Warsaw and wants to fight the government's plans to expel (or maybe even kill) the refugees has decided that a production in the of the same play with the refugee children playing the roles might provide just enough publicity and international uproar to stop the government's plans.  He enlists the two survivors of the Warsaw orphanage to come to India and guide the production of the play.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti

Wednesday, May 31, 2023--San Antonio

A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness by Jai Chakrabarti is a book of short stories that is one of the best books I have ever read.  It's truly unique.  The author is a Jewish Indian who grew up in Kolkata and now lives in Brooklyn and the Hudson River Valley.  Some of the stories take place in India, and some of them take place among Jews (including Indian immigrant Jews) in New York.  All of the stories have a sense of being spot-on in terms of how life really is.  Maybe the fact that I have spent so much time in India and have seen so many films set among Jewish families is why I realized this, but I think anyone would find the stories enjoyable, too. I hated for each story to end, then I eagerly began the next.  It was so good that I have also checked out (on my Kindle from the library) another book by the same author that has won prizes.  I gave this book a rating of 5 stars out of 5.

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever

 Friday, May 26, 2023--San Antonio

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever had great recommendations--Crime Reads best debut of the year, Newsweek 25 best fall books, Literary Hub best book of year, etc.  And there were parts of it that I really enjoyed reading.  However, the two main characters who are very intelligent have psychological problems and are not smart enough to control themselves from very questionable acts including one illegal one.  It's the kind of book where you are supposed to like and root for the main characters even though they have done a despicable thing.  It didn't help that I was watching a Netflix series at the same time I was reading the book that is also built around two characters committing despicable crimes.  I found myself resenting the things the protagonists were doing and thinking that they should just get caught.  Anyway, it may have a 4.2 rating on Amazon and rave reviews elsewhere, but I am glad to have the book behind me and can give it only 2.5 stars out of 5.

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

Saturday, May 20, 2023--San Antonio

Victory City is the second novel I have read by Salman Rushdie.  Previously, I read Midnight's Children which is one of the best novels I have read with a particularly creative format and interesting characters.  This novel is also rather unique--written as if it is a translation of an ancient long poem about a great city that existed for about 250 years in India.  India is known for its poets who have written such long poems, and it has a long history of the comings and goings of great empires.  India is also known for its religious gods and goddesses.  This story is about a woman whose body was temporarily possessed by a goddess who gave her the assignment to take seeds she had given her and create a new city that would be an empire where women would be raised as equals to men and hold positions as the protectors of the city and in architecture, law, the arts, etc.  The woman meets two cowherds and takes them with her along with the seeds which are strewn overnight at the chosen location.  Then the women breathes the new city into existence over night--city walls, buildings, inhabitants, etc., and then spends days whispering personal histories into each inhabitant.  The two cowherds become the first two kings of the new empire (one after the other) and the woman is the queen during the reigns of both of them.  But the story isn't just about this.  It is the story of how there are ups and downs in the lives people and societies--how some leaders are good and others are evil, how some people think only of themselves while others show concern for their fellow citizens and society as a whole, how citizens can be swayed by stories or rumors, how whole societies can willingly give up their freedoms, how leaders of empires come and go both with and without heirs, how those leaders desire to increase their empires and/or ensure protection through conquest of others, etc.  It's a complex novel.  With each twist in the story of the woman's fate or of the empire's fate, it is easy for the reader to consider events in the story as relating to those of today, the past, or even possibly the future within our own society.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5. 

The Absolutist by John Boyne

Monday, May 8, 2023--San Antonio

The Absolutist by John Boyne is a very well written novel set during WWI that addresses questions such as the following:  What is the difference between a conscientious objector and an absolutist?  (The latter is a person who not only refuses to fight, but also refuses to do any work that would support the war effort.)  Do soldiers get away with bad actions?  (Bullying others and even killing others within their own unit?)  Does the military leadership truly live up to its high principles in wartime?  (Can an officer refuse to do anything about a soldier who has killed a member of the enemy forces who was under arrest rather than an active combatant at the time?  Should an officer give punishment assignments to conscientious objectors which are more likely to get them killed than the assignments of cooperating combatants?)  Can a person declare that he is living his life based on high principles while overlooking the negative affects of his decisions on others?  How can a bisexual man initiate a sexual interaction, especially more than once, while not being able to admit that he is anything but straight?  Are gay relationships destined to be doomed when one of persons is bisexual and the other is strictly homosexual?  Etc.  It's a story that had a similar emotional affect on me as Atonement did when I read it may years ago, and like the latter, I imagine I will find myself remembering and thinking about this book for many years.  I gave the book 5 stars out of 5.

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

 Friday, May 5, 2023--San Antonio

Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah tells the story of multiple characters who are connected by work and/or family relationships in East Africa from the early 1900s through the 1950s.  It was a period when East Africa was colonized by the Germans and then later by the British, and it covers both WWI and WWII.  Two of the main characters were local East African men who went to war with the Germans during WWI.  One disappeared and a major part of the book is about the concern for what happened to him and the the search for information about that.  The other man eventually marries the sister of the one who had never returned.  Both men came from illiterate families, yet learned to read and write German before and during WWI through unique circumstances--an accomplishment which was still unusual for native Africans to have accomplished by the time WWII began.  But the book has a broader sweep of storytelling.  It covers the caravan trading that existed in the area before WWI, the "pirate" trading (smuggling) by these same traders, he adjustment that had to take place as time passed with shipping rather than land caravans becoming the predominant form of transporting trade goods, the conflict of religious and native superstition beliefs for how to heal medical and mental illness problems, the racial discrimination that existed against local natives by the colonial settlers, and examples of how some colonial personnel were not racist and went far beyond what was expected in assisting the local citizens.  Overall, it is a fascinating story and is told well.  But for some reason, it seemed that during the last 15% or so of the book the author started rushing the story so that it would quickly come to an end; it became a tale of tying up all the loose ends.  That caused me to drop my proposed rating of 4 stars down to 3 1/2 stars out of 5 when considering the book as a whole.

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

Sunday, Apr. 30, 2023--San Antonio

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty won the National Book Award in 2022.  Most of the reviews specifically use the words "work of art" to describe it.  It may be a work of art, but as  novel, I was not impressed.  There were too many characters with the book jumping from one to another to another and back and forth among them.  And was there something the writer wanted us to take through our lives with us based on the book?  If so, all I could find was that most of the characters were miserable and uncaring and that there is little hope for any good in life and our future.  A book of this length usually takes me about 3 days to read, but I had trouble reading more than a few pages a day and wasted a week on it.  I gave the book 2 stars out of 5.

Let's Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih

Sunday, Apr. 22, 2023--San Antonio

Let's Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih follows the lives of two estranged childhood friends--two loner-type pre-puberty boys.  One moves into the area and is befriended by the other on his first day at his new school.  It comes clear to the local boy that the household where the new boy lives is not a safe and healthy environment, so he also welcomes the boy into his family and home as much as possible which allows then both to develop a first true friendship.  After a few years, when the boys are just reaching puberty, the new family moves again.  Sebastian, who is left behind doesn't understand why, but he is deeply affected by losing his friend Oscar.  Oscar moves on with his life without ever responding to Sebastian's attempts to try to maintain contact.  When they, ten years later as college students at different universities, finally run into each other at party, Sebastian desires a warm response, wants an explanation for my Oscar didn't stay in contact, and hopes for a chance to renew their friendship.  Oscar, however, continues to be aloof.  They don't reconnect again, also incidentally, for another 10 years when they both live in the Washington, DC, area--with Sebastian being a suburban high school teacher and Oscar being a graphic designer living in the inner city.  At that time, each learns that the other is gay.  Sebastian has led a more subdued gay existence with a lover for 3 years who has recently left him.  Oscar is obsessed with living a life partying and of frequent anonymous sexual encounters arranged via a phone app.  Sebastian would like to redevelop their close relationship, but Oscar cannot conceive of such a thing; it would be too much of an interruption of his whole way of life, and Sebastian is just too boring.  In the meantime, Oscar meets an older man who is a known author of books about his own life of gay debauchery.  Oscar is worried that his fellow city friends are changing--developing relationships, marrying, moving to the suburbs--and leaving him behind, so he doubles down on continuing his life of random sexual encounters inspired the books that his author friend has published--books which are about the author having lived his whole life that way.  For various reasons, Sebastian and Oscar keep running into each other with each encounter being frustrating for both--Sebastian still wanting to experience the closeness they had as boys and Oscar fearing that any relationship with Sebastian would be an end to the way he thinks he should be living his life.  There are many details about events in the separate lives of each of them.  Both encounter problems that challenge them and the way they are living.  The book emphasizes that there is no one way to live life as a gay person, but also that such lives evolve over time.  I enjoyed the book and gave it 4 stars out of 5.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Wednesday, Apr. 19, 2023--San Antonio

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner is the second memoir I have read in a row, and both have been by Korean-American authors.  I don't usually read memoirs, but the previous one won a National Book Award, and this one was named as a top book of 2022 by Time, NPR, and other national media.  It's a good book, but like with the previous memoir, it took me longer to read it than a novel would; I put it down often (after only a few pages) and was not so quick to pick it up again.  The author emphasizes the tension between her and her mother based on the wishes and expectations each had for the other--tension that drove them apart until the mother developed cancer at a relatively young age and the daughter, putting her attempt at a career in music on hold, moved back home to help nurse her mother though her treatments.  Torn between two cultures her whole life with the American one the dominant one, the author grows in appreciation for the Korean one and the experiences she remembered with her mother after the latter has died.  Her efforts of remembering and writing about her mother during the mourning process eventually leads to the success she had always desired as a musician.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Stay True by Hua Hsu

Sunday, Apr. 9, 2023--San Antonio

Stay True by Hua Hsu is a memoir.  I usually read novels.  But this memoir won the National Book Award, so I decided to give it a try.  I almost quit it at the beginning due to lack of a plot and to being filled with details that did not excite me.  I put it down often after only a few pages at a time.  But I kept at it.  Eventually, I became more interested. And just after the mid-point, I never wanted to put it down again.  The story had pulled me in emotionally.  It is the story of a son of a Taiwanese immigrant family in California and the many friends he made in college after a high school period of leading a rather quiet and distant existence.  It took him a long time to determine what he wanted out of life, to make a "closest" friend, to begin dating girls, etc.  Then tragedy struck.  It is a stirring memoir devoted to learning how to leave living in the past, to re-evaluate one's life goals and develop a new outlook, etc.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5. 

The Sin-Eater's Confession by Ilsa Bick

Friday, Mar. 31, 2023--San Antonio

The Sin-Eater's Confession by Ilsa Bick was an interesting story, but it was hard to believe that a high school senior in line to be valedictorian and applying to Yale University would think so illogically and make such poor decisions as Ben did throughout it.  It was written for a young adult audience, so maybe many of the readers could identify with Ben and how he thought and reacted, but as an adult who could whose school success and experiences were similar to Ben's and knowing how mature I and others were who ranked highly academically in my class, I just couldn't believe all the times he made poor, illogical judgments.  But the basis for the story was legitimate:  Being friendly with a younger student (only one year behind in school but seeming more years behind socially) whose family hired Ben to work on their farm after their older son has died.  Being upset that a photo was taken of you without your knowledge and then published in a national art magazine.  Not being sure if you were straight or gay because your unrelenting mother made you study and volunteer all your extra hours outside of school to increase the likelihood of your being admitted to Yale.  Never having time to consider your sexuality under those circumstances.  Anyway, the book explores all of that plus the desire to make your own way in life (even if it is based on a horrible decision), observing something gruesome happen to a friend and running from it because the same thing would happen to you if you tried to confront the situation, keeping the secret of what has been observed so that you will not become implicated, etc.  Reviews are generally good, and the average rating on Amazon is 4 stars, but I gave the book 3 stars out of 5 just because I didn't think Ben's thoughts and actions matched his intelligence and his maturity level.

Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Garbielle Zevin

Tuesday, Mar. 28, 2023--San Antonio

Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Garbielle Zevin is a very popular book; I had it on hold at Libby for my Kindle for 12 weeks before it became available.  I can see why, because I thoroughly enjoyed it.   But I enjoyed it so much that I finished it in three days; I don't know how the previous readers could be so slow at reading it unless they also finished it fast but didn't return the book until its return was forced at the end of the 3-week loan period from the library.  Anyway, the unique way that the two nerdy main characters expressed themselves when young had me laughing aloud longer and louder than usual for me when I read something funny.  The book follows their lives from pre-teenage years though their 40s with periods of times when their relationship became very distant due to misunderstandings, misjudgments, lost opportunities, etc.  They both eventually become very successful game developers for games played on computers, on specialized machines such as X-Box, and on the Internet.  It is obvious that they should be close friends or even more with each other, but life gets in the way of things like that at times and then sometimes forces people back together.  That's what happens in this book.  Normally, a book about gaming would not interest me, but this book is really about the characters rather than the games they develop.  I enjoyed it so much that I gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.  

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

Friday, Mar. 24, 2023--San Antonio

The Book of Goose by Yiyun was listed as a top book of 2022 by TIME and others.  It is the story of two adolescent girls in a rural French village--one from a poor family and still in school and another who has dropped out of school to be a goatherd to support her one parent and her ill brother.  What made the book especially interesting for me was the perspective the girls had on life--a unique way for thinking about and analyzing things.  The goatherd has a somewhat confrontative personality and a great imagination.  The one in school has good penmanship and feels a very close attachment to the other.  Together, they have adventures that are thrilling and unusual.  But adolescence is different from adulthood.  As they both age into their late teens, there are societal expectations that cannot be avoided.  But before that time comes, the main part of the book deals with the fact that together the girls write a book that is published and becomes a sensation.  However, the result of that adventure is the beginning of the lessening of their ties to each other.  I enjoyed the book and gave it 4 stars out of 5.

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

Monday, Mar. 20, 2023--San Antonio

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub, named as a top read of the year it was released by EW, is different.  With a theme of time travel involved, one would think it would be for young adults, but it is about a 40-year old woman questioning the decisions she has made in her life rather than about teenagers.  The daughter of a man who has written a classic adolescent literature novel about two boys who time travel to solve crimes, she has had a privileged life--attended an exclusive private school and lived in an exclusive neighborhood in New York, yet she is working as an admissions officer at the same school she attended, has not gotten married and has no children.  She is mostly happy and contented with her life, but she can't help but wonder if she has missed out by not having been more successful in her career nor married a classmate who she loved and has become successful.  Plus, she has now passed the time when it would have been best to have tried to have a child and, although she loves her father, does not have a very close relationship with him anymore.  As the book proceeds, she accidentally discovers something that her father has known for years.  It leads them to become closer and causes her to question her life even more.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski

 Saturday, May 11, 2023--San Antonio

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski takes place in Poland during the last years of its communist rule with the Solidarity protest marches occurring and shortages of basic goods increasing causing lines to be necessary for every need for ordinary citizens.  It's the story of a group of young college students who are graduating and trying to figure out how their lives should go from that point.  Two of the young men are gay and meet during the mandatory 2-weeks of farm work (picking beets for this group) that all students must complete before their degrees will be awarded.  One is frustrated with the system and wants to find a way to leave Poland especially when he realizes that he has submitted the best proposal entering a doctoral program but will not be the one chosen because the others have more powerful connections supporting them.  The other is working to develop connections with influential friends who can assure that his life in Poland will be better than that of ordinary people.  The writing is extraordinary, and it is easy for the reader to become invested in the interests and desires of both young men.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Rough Music by Patrick Gale

Thursday, Mar. 9, 2023--San Antonio

I don't remember why, but I had read 8% of Rough Music by Patrick Gale sometime in the past and had returned the book without noting why I had quit reading it.  My memory seems to be that maybe I had a book or two that had been on hold for several weeks become available just as I had started this book.  I'm so glad I went back to it (reading it from the start to refresh my memory).  It takes place at a resort in Cornwall where members of a family have gone twice, about 32 years apart, for a summer two-week holiday.  The book deals with family relationships and variations in showing emotions.  The father of the family is the superintendent (or warden) of a prison who is somewhat emotionally stunted and spends little time with his family on a daily basis.  He is also a man who has grown up not learning much in a practical sense about personal relationships.  Sex with his wife occurred only after marriage, was the first time he had ever had sex, and involving a technique based on reading some pamphlets about what to do.  It was painful for the wife, who was also a virgin and didn't know what to expect, and remained that way.  So the relationship is a strained one.  Somehow they managed to have one child, a boy, while wanting more children but not knowing anything about reproduction cycles, womens' orgasms, etc.  But other characters enter the story--in particular the American brother-in-law and his daughter who come to England in the earlier trip after the father's sister has died in a strange way, and in the latter story, the male artist who is the landlord of the cottage.  A major theme of the book involves hidden, close-to-incestuous relationships--the husband's wife with the American man who married the sister and their adult son with the adult husband of the American-born girl.  It's a complex book, but one that is interesting and exciting to read.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Monday, Mar.  6, 2023--San Antonio

I thought I had already read Deacon King Kong by James McBride.  It was on all the lists of the best books of 2020.  But when I checked my record here of what books I had read, it was missing.  I was probably remembering another book by the same author that I had read previously.  I'm glad I figured that out, because I really enjoyed this book.  It is hilarious at times!  Everyone seems to have a nickname--Sportcoat, Bum Bum, The Elephant, Pudgy Fingers, etc.  It takes place in the late 1960s in a part of Brooklyn that had become a mixture over time of Italians, Irish, Jews, and Blacks but all but the Blacks were mostly gone.  Drug usage was increasing.  The old timers--an Italian who was still moving stolen goods and the members of the Five Directions Baptist Church are the central characters.  Deacon King Kong is the same person as Sportcoat; the former nickname is from his being a deacon of the church and an alcoholic who drinks homemade everclear which everyone calls King Kong.  Years ago, Sportcoat, because of his love of baseball, was a volunteer coach and referee of a kids baseball team at the projects.  Young people lost interest in the team as the neighborhood changed.  One excellent pitcher could have played college ball and turned professional, but he ruined his chances because of becoming involved in selling drugs.  Times are still changing, and harder drugs are coming to the community.  Everyone involved is manipulating to either get out of the business or to improve their status in the business.  The old timers are just trying to continue to get by as they observe the continued deterioration of life there.  It was such a pleasure to read this book laughing all the way through.  I gave it 5 stars out of 5.

My Policeman by Bethan Roberts

Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023--San Antonio 

My Policeman is a bestseller by Bethan Roberts which has been made into a popular film with middle-of-the road reviews.  In the book, it is a sad story, but one that represents what happened very often in Britain (and elsewhere) in the 1950s and 1960s.  It is the story of a gay man who felt he had to marry a woman to hide his natural proclivity.  By doing this, he trapped a woman into an unhappy marriage who is questioning why it is less than she desires.  At the same time, he becomes the lover of another man living life as a single person.  Because of the marriage, the gay lover is also trapped into a life that is less than desired, too.  There is misogyny; the married man expects his wife to put up with him being the boss and accepting that he may not be home when she wants him home which makes the wife even more miserable.  Everyone makes mistakes, though, and their lives fall apart.  One other side character is a single female teacher who becomes a friend of the wife.  She expects nothing, but friendship.  All suffer sad lives in a way, but there is some hope at the end of the story.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken

Friday, Feb. 24, 2023--San Antonio

I gave up on this book, The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken, after reading 60% of it.  I understood the concept of the novel--an adult author in sorrow from the loss of her mother remembering all she could to write a memoir of the experiences she had shared with the mother.  That all becomes obvious quickly.  By 60% of the way through, there were still just more mundane stories:  the mother had a small, wide foot and had trouble with footwear, the mother was not concerned about being on time except when going to the theater, the mother refused to let pain keep her from walking and lived another 7 years or so (after having had surgery) after it looked as if she would never walk again but she did, etc.  I just couldn't enjoy the book further.  It is well written, but boring.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5 which seemed generous since there was nothing about it that grabbed my interest.

If I Survive You by Jonothan Escoffery

If I Survive You by Jonothan Escoffery is about the lives of the members of one family in Miami--a family of Jamaican immigrants (except for the youngest son who was born in the US).  The first half gives the impression that the whole book will remained focused on that one boy who is obsessed with trying to come to grips with who he is.  His family tells of having ancestors who were European and West African.  His skin is colored, but light.  His hair is wavy, not kinky.  He is intelligent and speaks English like a "White person."  Blacks don't consider him to be Black because of his looks.  Jamaicans don't consider him to be Jamaican because of the way he talks.  Those whose families are from other parts of the Caribbean don't accept him because he doesn't speak or understand Spanish.  Whites don't accept him because he is obviously a person of color although it is hard for them to determine what kind of person of color.   His encounters with these groups are often hilarious.  When he does begin to befriend someone, he often spoils the relationship because of his search for trying to understand how he should be classified.  He goes to a Midwestern university and majors in English.  He can't get a job back in Miami afterward.  His father (who is now separated from his mother who has returned to Jamaica) has always considered this son to be "difficult" or "strange" for having no motivation and for being shy, quiet, not learning to speak within the family and neighborhood in Jamaican patois, kicks him out of the house a few weeks after he has returned to Miami from college due to his not showing any initiative in moving on in life--getting a job, planning for the future, etc.  But the book then starts having sections featuring the mother, his father, and his brother in which the reader learns their perspectives on all that has been happening within the family.  The young son lives a year in his car as a homeless person.  But he eventually gets a job working in a low-income housing development and eventually a better one more suited for him teaching at a private preparatory school.  His life continues to be plagued, however, with self-doubts, poverty, family problems, etc.  The book ends at a point where things can either turn around or continue to be bad.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.