Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa

Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025--San Antonio

Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa was listed as a top book of 2024 by NPR and others.  It is a part of the "Remix" series where classic novels are reinterpreted by authors from marginalized backgrounds.  In this case, the original novel was Pride and Prejudice, and the character Elizabeth is written to be frustrated because "he" (who associates himself with the chosen name of Oliver) has always felt that he is a boy and hates being in dresses, does not ever want to get married, and, thanks to his older sister and two friends who know how he feels, is able to sneak out into society dressing and passing as a man.  (I assume the author is a transgender man and used his experience to reinterpret the character.)  Furthermore, the "awkward with women" character Darcy is reinterpreted as being attracted only to boys.  The story essentially follows the story of book that is being reinterpreted.  The aggressive mother is worried that her 5 daughters must find suitable men to marry because the family home/estate will be inherited by a distance male cousin as the closest male heir.  The father is still rather meek yet understanding (and in this version is coming to realize that his second daughter is more like a son than a daughter even though he does not completely understand the situation yet).  The character Wickham is still conniving to solve his money woes by marrying in a way that will solve those problems.  Etc.  It's an interesting concept.  To make the story work, the author has to overlook the general circumstances of the time for LGBTQ persons, but there is an addendum where he explains that there is historical evidence to support what he has written--evidence of the "male" member of a married couple being discovered as having female genitals upon death, for instance--and pointing out that there were no birth certificates at the time of the novel's setting so that a person could live as the opposite sex with no official records indicating that that he/she wasn't.  It is an easy read and is well written.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.  I probably will not read any others in this remix series, however.

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025--San Antonio

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst is on the "best list" of multiple publications for 2025.  I found the first half of it to be fantastic.  It was well written, gripping, and seemed very authentic for the experiences and thoughts of a young minority scholarship student attending an elite school.  I was ready to recommend it to everybody.  But the 3rd quarter of the book became a bland telling of event after event with gaps of time between them.  Maybe this was on purpose because one learns that the protagonist wrote much of the novel, then his husband wrote the rest from journal entries.  The final quarter of the book was a bit better, but the excitement for reading it never returned to that I enjoyed with the first half.  If the whole book was like the first half, I would have given it 5 stars.  However, my overall opinion now is that it should be rated 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Woo Woo by Ella Baxter

Monday, Jan. 20, 2025--San Antonio

I did not find Woo Woo by Ella Baxter to be an enjoyable novel to read.  It took me 2 weeks to get through about 225 pages!  Some aspects of it were interesting to consider.  Some were very confusing.  The central character is a performance artist.  She creates life-size puppet characters using silicone, fur, bones, fabric, etc., which she wears for live performances, for taking photographs, etc.  She also specializes in nude performances which are presented live in person or online and from which photographs are made to sell in the gallery that represents her art.  She has followers who wait for her next broadcast and comment online as the performance is occurring.  She suffers greatly from anxiety as scheduled shows at galleries approach.  The book covers a few weeks before her biggest gallery opening so far.  The stress and worry of this approaching event is depicted.  She "sees and communicates" with a fellow artist who is deceased.  She procrastinates as the gallery owner asks her to write the blurb to be put into the program describing her works to be exhibited.  There is a stalker outside the house--standing in the garden, passing notes under the door, etc.  But is he real or imaginary?  She expects more attention from her unbelievably tolerant husband, a chef working long hours in his highly rated restaurant, than he can possibly provide.  She worries constantly that the show will not be a success.  She enters periods of excessively wild online performances creating havoc and messes.  She needs constant assurance from others that she is a good artist.  And when the owner of the gallery that represents her gives her the big show she needs and wants, she wants to make the decisions about how to present the show rather than leaving them to the owner.  I am sure there are artists like this woman.  How people in her life put up with her for very long, I don't understand.  I would be running away from any kind of relationship with her.  She is too needy, too self-centered, too anxious, etc.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5 because I am sure it is a fairly well written description of what some artists are like.

There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr.

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025--San Antonio

There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr., is a collection of short stories.  The stories are related to the experiences of Central American immigrants who came to the United States.  Some are science fiction set in the future (involving Central American immigrants).  Some have a gay male Central American immigrant as the protagonist.  The final story is written in a style of giving the reader options of what he wants to happen from one stage of the story to the next and provides the opportunity for going back and making different decisions at different points.  (This choice technique worked particularly well when reading on a Kindle.)  The stories were interesting, but I did not find myself dwelling on them after they were read.  In fact, as I progressed through the book, I had difficulty remembering stories I had already finished.  I can recommend the book for being interesting, but not for being great.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5. 

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024--San Antonio

Orbital by Samantha Harvey is a short novel which won the Booker Prize this year.  It is a novel without a plot.  Instead, it covers one 24-hour day in the lives of the 6 crew (4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts) on the International Space Station--from when they awaken one day to when they awaken the next.  We learn about each person including their backgrounds.  We learn what is happening on earth during that day.  We learn about a crew of 4 astronauts headed to the moon that same day--the first men to head to the moon in 50 years.  We learn about the daily routine of the lives of the astronauts--their exercise routine, their meals, their experiments, their special assignments sent from command for the day, their space walks, the effects of weightlessness on their bodies.  We learn about the disorienting factors of being on the space station--the constant noise, the minor cracks on the outer layer that are expanding, the mental disorientation caused by the 16 loops around the world it covers each 24 hours creating a repeating day-night/day-night situation every 90 minutes.  We learn about the geography of the earth and the views of it from low orbit as the station follows what appears to be a curving trail up and down and up and down with each rotation of the earth it makes (caused by the slant of earth on its axis because the space station itself is going in a straight circular line) with a slight change in position each round because of the slow turning of the earth on its axis.  The reader will come away from this book with a good understanding of what it is like to be in space on the station.  And a thinking reader should come away from it appreciating earth for the ease it is for us to live on it compared to how limited our lives would be if we had to live in space or on the moon or mars in artificial pods.  Once we destroy the earth to the point that people cannot live on it, the alternatives are not going to be very good--even for those billionaires with the money to make the move!  (Personally, I expect that we will just cause our own distinction since building an alternative place to live and work will be too expensive with too little too offer.  In fact, I now wonder why we are even thinking of spending money to send people to Mars.) I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Gretel and the Great War by Adam Ehrlich Sachs

Sunday, Dec. 22, 2024--San Antonio

Gretel and the Great War by Adam Ehrlich Sachs has received notable recognition from major publications for its unique format, but it is not an easy book to understand.  It consists of a series of short stories.  Set in Vienna when the Austro-Hungarian Empire is collapsing just after WWI, a young girl is found wandering the streets.  Since she does not speak, it is determined that she has never developed any language skills.  But after an article is written about her, a man writes from a sanatorium stating that he is her father and that she has had a rich language background because of books that have been read to her.  He sends the series of short stories to be read to her.  They each tell a story of someone having problems in life.  Because there is chaos following the collapse of the empire, many characters in the stories find themselves eventually sent to the same sanatorium.  To truly understand the book, the reader must have a rather extensive background of knowledge related to what was happening in Austria at this time--a country where psychiatry was developing as a legitimate medical problem that is treatable, where conservatives such as Hitler were rising up, where Zionism was a topic being controversially discussed, etc.  The stories provide a picture of the atmosphere in the country at the time.  The stories were interesting, but like many other readers, I had difficulty understanding what they were truly about and how they were all linked.   I gave the book 3 stars out of 5.  

James by Percival Everett

Saturday, Dec. 14, 2024--San Antonio

James by Percival Everett is one of the top books of 2024.  It won the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize, plus it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It is the retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the slave.  It is well written.  One of the features of the book is an emphasis on how the slaves had to constantly be acting--speaking the way they were expected to speak (even though they knew how to speak English and did so among themselves), walking the way they were expected to walk, etc., and the burden and stress this created in their lives beyond the hard work they were expected to do and the maltreatment they received.  I never read the Mark Twain novel when I was young, but I knew the general aspects of the story from short sections that were read in English class and articles and discussions about it.  Therefore, I don't know if someone already familiar with the story from Huck's perspective would get as much pleasure from reading this book as I did, since most of the details of the story were new for me.  But I thoroughly enjoyed it and appreciated the concept of the book.  I gave it 5 stars out of 5.