God's Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu

Saturday, July 28, 2024--San Antonio

God's Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu, a collection of short stories set in Nigeria and a winner and/or finalist for several prizes, is a rather daring book considering each story is about queer love.  Nigeria is a very anti-queer country with frequent stories of government raids and mass arrests.  And these stories reflect those attitudes of the people and the government.  Characters love in secret and range from the poor living in villages to successful professionals in large cities.    When parents learn they have a son who is gay, they and their priest try to beat the gay out of him with palm fronds leaving lifelong scars on his back.  Parents in several stories can only think of themselves--being shamed and embarrassed, being upset that they will never have grandchildren, and disowning their child.  When a singer has a hit record, his manager sabotages the singer's gay relationship.  The book is a downer because of this lack of acceptance of queer life in Nigeria, but the stories are so well written that an empathetic reader will be pulled into them. The author is living in the US where he teaches at a university.  I doubt the book would have ever been published if he were living in Nigeria, and it is likely that he would be arrested if it had been.  Every one of the 9 short stories is a little masterpiece.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Monday, July 22, 2024--San Antonio

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a novel about 3 generations of a Jewish family.  The story begins in the 1940s when Zelig escapes from the Nazis and comes to America with a formula for making molded styrofoam forms to protect products that are being shipped. It is the story of his widow, his children, grandchildren, and extended family members.   Zelig became wealthy, and his progeny have lived easy lives of luxury.  The one blip that has occurred prior the present was that his son, who took over the factory, was kidnapped when only two of the three eventual grandchildren had been born and were both young.  The kidnapping affected the lives of everyone.  Although the son came back safely after a ransom was paid, he had spent a week while kidnapped that resulted in life-long suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.  No one was, therefore, ever allowed to talk about the kidnapping--when it happened, what it involved, how it affected them, etc.  But most of the book takes place in modern times and is the story of the end of the family business and the end of the regular quarterly payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars that everyone in the family has come to expect.  Much of the first 2/3 of the book concentrates on the spoiled 3 children who were never learned to take any responsibility seriously, have wasted money along the way, and find unexpectedly that their quarterly payments have ended.  Other reviewers have talked about how funny the novel is.  I only chuckled a few times throughout the whole book.  As I read about each of these 3 adult children, all I wanted to do was to yell at them for the stupid decisions they were making in life.  The story does get better toward the end as everything comes to a head with unknown truths coming out and the family having to face a reckoning (of a sort).  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Paper Towns by John Green

Thursday, July 11, 2024--San Antonio

Paper Towns by John Green is a young adult novel.  It's an interesting story that seems to be well written.  It takes place during the last few weeks of the school year for members of the graduating senior class.  A female classmate was best friends with a neighbor boy living across across the street when they were in elementary school, but in high school, he runs with the nerds and she is with the popular crowd.  The boy has always continued to love her although from a distance.  After a night when she involves the boy in a wild plan for revenge against her boyfriend and other close friends, she disappears.  She has disappeared before and left clues, so the story revolves around the boy and his nerd friends trying to find the clues and solve the mystery of where she has gone.  Although it seems realistic, I do find the way that late adolescents think and reason to be frustrating.  At times I wanted to yell at the characters.  But at other times I laughed aloud.  It was an entertaining novel overall.  I gave it 4 stars out of 5.   

The Bell in the Fog by AC Rosen

Thursday, July 4, 2024--San Antonio

The Bell in the Fog is the second book in a detective series by AC Rosen.  I read the first book a few weeks ago.  My most recent books have been less than I hoped in terms of entertainment, so I checked this one out and read it in one day.  It takes place in San Francisco during the early 1950s.  Andy is a former cop who is working as a private eye.  He is hired to find some sexually candid photos and their negatives that are being used to blackmail a former colleague and lover in the Navy during WWII.  What he finds is photos of more than this one person.  Then, after returning the photos to everyone, he is confronted by someone else whose photos he doesn't have who threatens his life if his photos are not returned just like those of the others.  It's a period of corrupt cops, bar owners paying the cops for protection, everyone trying to keep secrets, etc.  And Andy is there to solve all the questions and to fall in love again.  I give the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

The House on Via Gemito by Dominico Starnone

Wednesday, July 3, 2024--San Antonio

I quit reading The House on Via Gemito by Dominico Starnone at 12% of the way through the book.  The book was long-listed for the International Booker Prize and seems to be well-written.  But reading it was just too tedious for me.  There were very long paragraphs and chapters, and the author just dwelled on and on about a young man's memories of his father who was despicable--a fabulist, a liar, an abuser, etc.  Why would I want to continue a 480 page novel that has made so little progress beyond describing the father for 59 pages?  There are more entertaining books available.  No rating.