419

Will Ferguson's 419 is the winner of the 2012 Giller Prize.

From the book cover:
A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine.

A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in sub-Saharan Africa.

And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet looking for victims.

Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: "Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help..."

When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of one such swindle, she sets out to track down - and corner - her father's killer. It is a dangerous game she is playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine.

Woven into Laura's journey is a mysterious woman from the African Sahel with scars etched into her skin and a young man who finds himself caught up in a web of violence and deceit.

And running through it, a dying father's final words. "You, I love."

My Review:

I totally see why this novel won the Giller Prize. It deals with a topic that we hear about more and more here in North America - those pesky phishing scams that often target senior citizens. The title '419' comes from the section of the Nigerian criminal code that deals with Internet scams and the obtaining of money by deceit or other illegal means.

Will Ferguson's writing style is easy. 419 isn't one of those books you can't put down. It's the type of book that you're happy to pace yourself with and get to the end when time allows. A few online critics have bashed 419 for having superficial and meaningless one-liners. They compare 419 to Will Ferguson's other  novels,  the memoirs Beyond Belfast, Hitching Rides with Buddha and Canadian Pie about his travels in Ireland, Japan and from Yukon to PEI, respectively, and his satirical novels Happiness™ and Spanish Fly. I've never read any of his works before so I didn't have anything to compare 419, and thus found it to be a satisfying read.

My only real complaint would have to be the ending. I didn't get the answers I was seeking, the ones that compelled me to flip through this 393-page novel. The reader is given back stories for all but one of the main characters in the novel. Oddly enough, the characters current circumstances drives much of the plot, yet the reader does not get even a glimpse of how she came to be in her current situation.

At the end of the day, 419 is still a damn good book.

4/5

Ru

Kim Thúy’s Ru made the 2012 Giller Prize Short List.

From the book cover:
I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns.
I first saw the light of day of Saigon, where firecrackers, fragmented into a thousands shreds, coloured in ground red like the petals of cherry blossoms or like the blood of the two million soldiers deployed and scattered throughout the villages and cities of a Vietnam that had been ripped in two.
I was born in the shadow of skies adorned with fireworks, decorated with garlands of light, shot through with rockets and missiles. The purpose of my birth was to replace lives that had been lost. My life's duty was to prolong that of my mother.

My Review:
Based on the author's childhood and immigration to Montreal in the mid-1970s, Ru reads like a series of poems. It can be a bit hard to follow as the plot jumps back and forth in time. Nonetheless, it is an amazing narrative of the experience of Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s.

The book's narrator and protagonist, Nguyen An Tinh, shares her experiences as a member of a  wealthy South Vietnamese family, to her family's flight amidst the danger and uncertainty of the Vietnamese war. The family, along with many of their relatives eventually settle in Quebec. Nguyen's story is in places over-the-top sad. At times I found myself questioning the truth in all of it. On the first page, she claims that she was born to replace the lives lost during the Tet offensive and to prolong her mother's life. In all of the poems that make up the novel, not one illustrated this summary. In fact, her mother seems to be a strong willed woman who was able to adapt quickly to the family's changing circumstances, and was thus able to coach her children to make the most of a new life.

Then there are the sections where she shares the experiences of sex workers, victims of sexual interference and the heritage of the children of Vietnamese women and American soldiers. Having all of these other stories mixed into Nguyen's story gave the novel of feeling of desperation. Like someone who's been without a voice for too many years and all of a sudden has a voice and feels compelled to spew everything least their audience should disappear.

4/5

The Burden

From the book cover:
The burden of one sister's love for her younger sister - whom she's sworn to protect - has a dramatic effect on both their lives.

My Review:
Laura Franklin was a plain girl yearning for her parents' love and attention. When her older brother, Charles, dies of infant paralysis, she is certain that her parents will have no choice but to love her since she's all they got. When they announce that they are going to have another child, she prays that it will be a stupid girl that they won't pay much attention to. Laura gets her wish when her little sister, Shirley, is born. Unfortunately for Laura, Shirley has Charles' eyes which cause their parents to love her that much more. Laura begins to pray that Shirley will be sent to heaven. One night while their parents are away, the house catches fire and Laura makes a split decision to risks her own life to save Shirley. From then on, she vows to love and protect Shirley.

As they grow up, Laura sacrifices her own future in order to make sure that Shirley is happy and safe. Shirley loves her sister in return but feels a tremendous weight on her shoulder from carrying around the expectations that come with being loved.

Laura's love for Shirley goes so far, she ends up murdering her sister's husband to enable her sister to marry the man she thinks she should have married in the first place.

The Burden is my least favourite Mary Westmacott novel so far. I've read four of her six novels so I think I know what I'm talking about.

2/5

Whirl Away

From the book cover:
The stories in this dazzling new collection look at what happens when people's personal coping skills go awry. These are people who discover their anchor-chain has broken: characters safe in the world of self-deception or even self-delusion, forced to face the fact that their main line of defense has become their greatest weakness.

From the caretaker of a prairie amusement park to the lone occupant of a collapsing Newfoundland town, from the a traveling sports-drink marketer with a pressing need to get off the road to an elevator inspector who finds himself losing his marriage, these are people whose lives are spinning wildly out of control as they try to navigate their way through their rapidly changing worlds.

---

My Review:
The twelve short stories in this collection have more in common than the theme of coping skills gone awry. They all feature a slice of Canadian life. Most of the stories are set in Atlantic Canada - a region that seems to inspire a lot of Canadian literature.

The thing I admire most about this collection is Russell Wangersky's writing style and his ability to set the scene quickly while giving the reader enough information to become emotionally involved in each of the short stories. Most of the stories are 20 pages or less, yet almost every single story came to a gut-wrenching climax that led me to ask 'How would I cope in a similar situation?'

At the end of the day, I think being able to throw ourselves into someone's else story is why most of us read. Thus, I'm adding Russell Wangersky's Whirl Away on my 5ers list.

5

Unfinished Portrait

From the book cover:
Bereft of the three people she has held most dear, Cecilia must decide if she has the strength to come to terms with the past.

My Review:
I think what I like most about Agatha Christie's works as Mary Westmacott is the character development. In her murder mysteries, everything moves so fast there isn't much opportunity to really get to know and understand the characters. Unfinished Portrait has a lot of similarities with Giant's Bread.
Unfinished Portrait is Celia's life story. However, the narrator who is an injured painter trying a new medium (writing stories), points out in the prologue that it's such a common story that it could be any one's story.

The story opens with Celia at a seaside resort getting ready to commit suicide.

Celia had a happy childhood. She lived on a beautiful country estate and was loved and adored by her mother, father and grandmother and teased by her older brother. Her father has a heart attack and dies when she's eleven years old, and from then on she and her mother live very modestly. At this point, her brother, who is several years older than her, has already left home to join the army.

Celia grows up and marries Dermot despite her mother's fears that he can't be trusted and her grandmother's general warnings about the fickleness of men. Celia and Dermot are happy for 11 years. During that time, Celia gives birth to their daughter, Judy and Dermot gets a good job that affords them a life of luxury. When Celia's mother dies, things quickly spiral out of control, and she finds herself without all the people who matter the most to her.

As I was reading this novel, I kept thinking about how Celia is a version of Nell, and Dermot a version of Vernon from Giant's Bread. It's like they couldn't be together in that story, so the author tries them out under different circumstance in this novel. Unfortunately, the results are just as disastrous.

Unfinished Portrait really made me think about the different types of people that make the world go around.

4/5

The Complexity of a Soldier

From the book cover:
No one knows the heart and mind of a soldier. Every day they must face scenarios and life choices that most of us will never even imagine. When Rory Nichols joins the army, this hard lesson hits hard and fast. After 911, he is deployed to Iraq. He and his wife, Emily, face sacrifice and strife which they fear their young marriage may not survive. Pushed to his limits, Rory begins to ask questions. Then one day, he receives a fateful phone call relaying the most wicked of betrayals. He rushes home to face an enemy he had not predicted. In this penultimate moment he will right a wrong and stand for what he believes in at all costs; making a statement to his country, to his family, and to all victims of this seething crime. It is a story of life, love, and rising above the acts of war and abuse.


My Review:
Behind all of the cheese, this is a mediocre coming-of-age novel. The main character, Rory, is desperately trying to discover his true self by escaping from his small hometown, while his best friend is trying to break away from family expectations and give the system the finger.

The romantic and familial relationships are  cliched and typical of the type of stuff found in self-published novels.

Emily is a sweet, pure, beautiful blond that embodies the American girl next door myth. Her love for Rory is loyal and unwavering, even in the toughest of times. Rory respects his parents, even though they don't see eye-to-eye on many things, including Rory's decision to seek out a career as a police officer, thus moving away from the family's ranch. Rory and his brother Rodney love wrestling but truly love and respect each other. Minutes after receiving a black eye from his brother as he's about to leave for a date, an eighteen-year-old Rory is thinking about how much he really loves his brother. It just doesn't ring true. And there are many other examples where the characters' emotions lack depth.

Although Rory is the story's main narrator, Emily, Rory's best friend J.T., his girlfriend Abby, and Rory's daughter, Callie, all take turns narrating at various plot crossroads. A writer of a higher calibre would have used these different characters to add emotional depth but in this case, it's basically a regurgitation of Rory's thoughts. The only slight exceptions are J.T. and Abby.

The 'wicked betrayal' eluded to on the book cover does not  occur until the last quarter of the book and it comes across as being one last ditch effort to add a little more drama and to tug at the heart strings. The final pages are so unreal, this book might as well be classified as fantasy.

2.5/5

The Song of Achilles

From the book cover:
The legend begins...
Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. "The best of all the Greeks" - strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess - Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine - much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles' mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred for mortals.
When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece , bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

My  Review:
Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles is the winner of the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction. Achilles is Ms. Miller first novel. It is based on Homer's  Illiad poem.

I really enjoyed reading this novel. It definitely a good book. It one of the stories that sparked my interest and sent me on to the world wide web to further investigate and get the back story on some of the people/gods mentioned.

I'm a bit surprised that Song of Achilles  won the Orange Prize. It seems like cheating, taking the plot of someone else's poem and developing it into a novel. Yes, Ms. Miller did bring the characters to life. Yes, her writing style did make this novel a pleasure to read, but still it doesn't seem fair to the other authors who actually developed their own plots.

Achilles is a historical fiction, one could argue that all historical fictions steal their plots from a story already written. What do you think? Am I overreacting?

I'm going to hold off on rating this book until I've read Homer's poem.

The Hound of Death

From the book cover:

Twelve unexplained phenomena with no apparent earthly explanation...

A dog-shaped gunpowder mark; an omen from 'the other side'; a haunted house; a chilling seance; a case of split personalities; a recurring nightmare; an eerie wireless message; an elderly lady's hold over a young man; a disembodied cry of 'murder'; a young man's sudden amnesia; a levitation experience; a mysterious SOS.

---

My Review:

There’s no question that Agatha Christie is the queen of mystery, this short story collection just adds further evidence to the heap.

 

One of the things I enjoyed about this collection is the absence of Hercule Poirot. I think every Agatha Christie fan has their least favourite of her detectives. If you’ve been following my reading challenge, you know that I’m not a fan of the little detective and his grey cells.

All of the stories in the collection contain some element of the occult, although sometimes it’s simply someone playing tricks, the intention is there.

My favourite story in this collection is ‘The Fourth Man.’It centres around a young woman with multiple personalities. Three self-important professionals (a doctor, lawyer and clergy man) sit in a train discussing an intriguing case about a young woman with multiple personalities. Because of their various fields, they feel confident that they will be able to come up with an intelligent solution to the mystery surrounding the girl’s death. The fourth man sits in their cabin listening to their reasoning and then blows the whole case wide open, proving that they are not as worldly as they think themselves.

My least favourite is the title story. It felt twice as long as its 19 pages. I struggled to get into it and couldn’t wait to finish it. The narrator is dull and protagonist and antagonist did not interest me in the least.

3/5

A Daughter's A Daughter

From the book cover:
A daughter's opposition to her mother's plan to remarry threatens to destroy their relationship.

My review:
This is my second Mary Westmacott novel, and I have to say I absolutely loved it. I feel like it should be a play. It's short at 183 pages and very sweet and entertaining.

The novel takes place over the course of four years. When it opens, Ann Prentice is at a train station feeling very lonely, having just seen her only child, Sarah, off on a three-week trip to Switzerland. Ann is the quintessential doting mother. She's raised Sarah by herself with only the help of her maid, Edith. Ann was widowed when Sarah was just three years old.

Later that same day, Ann meets Richard Cauldfield at a dinner party hosted by an old friend. She feels an attraction to him but does not get to speak to him much during the course of the evening. The next day they bump into each other at a greenhouse and are inseparable for the next three weeks. Before Sarah's return, Ann agrees to marry Richard. When Sarah returns she is none too pleased about the impending nuptials and does her best to bring a stop to them. She succeeds and in doing so, jeopardizes her own future.

A Daughter's A Daughter is very thought provoking. I have two daughters of my own and think I would be inclined to make the same decision Ann made in choosing her daughter over Richard. That part is not shocking, what shocks are the changes that take place in the two women after Ann's sacrifice.

5

In the Himalayan Nights

From the book cover:
Dehradun City, Himalayas, India 1977: Two bright, beautiful, lesbian research assistants accompany their Indian professor to this city near the tense borders of China and Nepal to observe the "holy-war" dance of the Mahabharata and its link to polygamy and local heroes (or villains?). The girls begin to question the holiness of the Bhagavad Gita's two polygamist avatars while watching the dance, even as they fall in love with India and their friendly hosts. While gathering data on women's rights violations, caste discrimination, and animal cruelty, they discover more about their own culture, their relationship and themselves.

When their hosts uncover the women's secret love-life, they turn against them and the research team's existence is threatened. Will the Indian "holy-war" become a personal one between locals and outsiders, men against women, polygamists against lesbians, Indians against Americans?

My Review:
I have mixed feelings about Anoop Chandola’s In the Himalayan Nights. On the one hand, I really enjoyed reading it because it exposed me to the basic tenets of the Hindu faith in an unbiased format. But on the other side, I’m disappointed because it doesn’t quite live up to the synopsis on the book cover.

Narrated by Archi Rainwal, an Indian professor who works in the United States, the novel is for all intent and purposes a re-telling of the Mahabharata – the Sanskrit epic about the 18-year war between the Pandava and Kauravas princes. The war would have taken place sometime between 8^th and 9^th century BCE. Himalayan Nights is set in Dehradun City, Himalayas, India in 1977.

Professor Rainwal, his wife, Tula, and two research assistants, Marla and Jennifer are in the northern region of India to study the dance of a Mahabharata and how it relates to modern Indian society, female roles, the caste system and the country’s heroes. The chapters alternate between modern India (1977) and the war. In the modern sections, Professor Rainwal speaks with members of different sections of Indian society to get their thoughts on the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita (the scripture part of the Mahabharata), India’s caste system and other topics that arise from the nightly dances.

The story really isn’t about Marla and Jennifer. Professor Rainwal describes their backgrounds and provides the reader with info as to what they think about certain topics and their general dispositions but it’s really not a story about their relationship. In the last few pages of the novel, their Muslim interpreter/tour guy tells the professor that he’s discovered Marla and Jennifer naked in bed together and that they shouldn’t be honoured, but no real fuss is made. The professor is relieved that there is no mention of the CIA, because that would put their research project in jeopardy. The story then fast-forwards to Dr. Rainwal's return to the U.S. and he mentions that he hasn’t seen or heard from Marla since the night he discovered the truth about her relationship with Jennifer. But, he does mention that he’s seen Jennifer’s work as a research assistant. Marla was the more vocal of the two so it leaves one to wonder whether something happened to her.

Despite my thorough summation of the novel, I don’t feel I’ve spoiled it for anyone wishing to read it. It’s such a full book with so many little details that I’m definitely going to read it again. This story reminds me of Greek mythology, particularly the Trojan War.

4/5

About the book:

In the Himalayan Nights by Anoop Chandola

ISBN: 978-0982998700

Publisher: Savant Books & Publications LLC

Date of publish: March 24, 2012

Pages: 286

S.R.P.: $16.95

TurboCharged Recipes

From the book cover:
TurboCharged Recipes: Delicious Fuel for Your Fabulous Fat Burning Machine is a perfect stand-alone on an excellent companion book to the highly acclaimed rapid fat-loss and health book TurboCharged: Accelerate Your Fat Burning Metabolism, Get Lean Fast and Leave Diet and Exercise Rules in the Dust.

My Review:
TurboCharged offers classic recipes with healthy ingredients. I didn't try all of the recipes, instead I tried to select one or two recipes from each section.

All of the meals fall into one of six categories:

1)Meals with whole protein and/or fat alone or combined.
2)Meals with fresh, whole fruits or vegetables.
3)Meals with 90% whole protein and/or fats and no more than 10% vegetables.
4)Meals with 90% vegetables and/or fruits and no more than 10% whole protein.
5)A smoothie with water (or ice) and a scoop of 100% whey, egg or pea protein powder with no more than 3 grams of carbohydrates and about 25 grams of protein.
6)A smoothie with water (or ice) and 1-2 whole fruits and a scoop of 100% whey, egg or pea protein (optional).

Following the categories above is suppose to help the body burn excess fat. Maybe I've always been a healthy eater and just didn't know it, because I didn't find any of the recipes that I tried different than any of the things I would normally make for my family.

Seafood Marinara

The Seafood Marinara was about the only dish that didn't pass my family's taste test. I used a white wine and halibut and I served it on a bed of spaghetti noodles. If I were going to try this recipe again, I wouldn't put in on noodles and I would probably skip the wine and use muscles, shrimp and scallop for the seafood. To be fair, the recipe didn't call for a halibut, it said to use your preferred seafood. 

 

Seasoned Salmon

 I make grilled salmon at least once every two weeks. When I made the seasoned salmon, my family couldn't tell the difference between the salmon I usually make for them. This is a good thing because the seasoned salmon is baked!

Chicken Marinara

The chicken marinara is one of my two favourite recipes. It's tasty and very wholesome. My entire family felt good eating this dish over a bed of bismati rice.

Fruit Salsa

 Meh. It was a bit too spicy for my kids and my husband and I prefer our fruit whole. I think it would be a nice garnishy side dish for large family dinners. It could replace cranberries at the Thanksgiving table for those who prefer a bit of spice.

 

 

Unfortunatley, I didn't get a picture of my favourite recipe, the Medican chicken.  I loved it so much, I making Mexican turkey this year for Thanksgiving!

 

TurboCharged Recipes is a great kitchen staple cook book. It's got some very basic recipes that everyone should have in their possession.

 

 

3/5

 

About the book:

TurboCharged Recipes by Dian Griesel, Ph.D. and Tom Griesel

ISBN: 978-1936705078

Publisher: Business School of Happiness Inc.

Date of publish: May 2012

Pages:268

S.R.P.: $24.95

 

The Island Horse

From the book cover:
Ellie believes that she will live in her little village on the coast of Nova Scotia for always. But when her father gets a job on Sable Island, she must say farewell to her beloved home and her mother's final resting place. Not even the idea of seeing the wild horses that roam the island can ease the pain of leaving. And after arriving on the sandy, windswept crescent of land, Ellie feels adrift and alone...until one afternoon when she wakens on a dune to find herself looking into the curious eyes of a wild stallion. Little by little, as the days pass, Ellie gets closer to the beautiful chocolate-colored horse. Yet she soon discovers something that could take him away from his home, his herd and her. Ellie has lost so much already. Will she lose her island horse, too?

My Review:
Susan Hughes clearly has only the best intention and inspiration for writing the novel, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Admittedly, The Island Horse is far from hell but it is rather dull and by no means a pleasurable page turning read.

Set in the early 1800s, Ellie is a nine-year-old dealing with the death of her mother and a move away from the only home she's ever known to a remote island that she laments is not fit for human life. Perhaps because I'm use to modern kids who tend to be coddled by over-protective parents, I have a hard to finding Ellie's maturity believable. She's nine years old and baking bread, preparing meals and taking care of herself for long, lonely days while her father works.

The plot development in this novelette is very rough. Not enough quality time is given to making Ellie's attachment to her island horse, Orchid, believable or even her budding relationship with the only other little girl on Sable Island. There's a lot of untapped potential as far as the plot goes. This was especially evident after I read the Arthur's Note at the end of the book. It's a brief history lesson about the real Sable Island and how Susan Hughes made the decision to write this novelette.

This book is geared towards children seven to 10 years old. The writing is very simple and straightforward. There are no pictures but there are small black and white sketches at the beginning of each chapter.

2.5/5

About the book:
The Island Horse by Susan Hughes
ISBN: 978-1554535927
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Date of publish: March 1, 2012
Pages: 160
S.R.P.: $16.95

About the author:
Susan Hughes is an award-winning author whose books include Case Closed?, No Girls Allowed, Earth to Audrey and Virginia. She has loved horses since she was a child and has long dreamed of setting a story on Sable Island. Susan lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Murder on the Orient Express

From the book cover:
Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. One of his fellow passengers must be the murderer.

Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man's enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.
-----


My Review:
Murder on the Orient Express is up there with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Peril at End House, when it comes to expecting the unexpected. The tone of Orient Express is very different from Agatha Christie's other Hercule Poirot mysteries. Without his trusted sidekick Hastings, Poirot is much more likable. He has no one to boast to or to diminish so he just goes about solving the case.

This novel also stands out against Christie's other mysteries for its pro-America leanings. On several occasions through the novel various characters praise America for its modern forward-thinking leaning and its multiculturalism.

Unlike many of Christie's other murder mysteries, there is a moral dilemma involved in the solving of this case. Will Poirot side with traditional justice or back the vigilantes?

Murder on the Orient Express is a great book to take along for a three-hour flight or road trip. It's a quick, entertaining and pleasant read.

4/5

Lord Edgware Dies

From the book cover:
Supper at the Savoy! Hercule Poirot, the famous little detective, was enjoying a pleasant little supper party there as the guest of Lady Edgware, formerly Jane Wilkinson, a beautiful young American actress. During the conversation Lady Edgware speaks of the desirability of getting rid of her husband, Lord Edgware, since he refuses to divorce her, and she wants to marry the Duke of Merton. M. Poirot jocularly replies that getting rid of husbands is not his speciality. Within Twenty-four hours, however, Lord Edgware dies.
------


My Review:
More than providing entertaining murder mysteries, Agatha Christie's novels - for me anyways- are a glimpse of the society of the early twentieth century. Hercule Poirot is suppose to be a well-informed and progressive detective, yet he makes a lot of generalizations about race, ethnicity and sex. When characterizing one of the main characters in this mystery he comments that she is a Jewess and thus shrewd and possesses a love of money.

In other novels, Poirot has made similar stereotypical comments about characters from various ethnic groups and in most brandishing some form of stereotype about women. I've come to the conclusion that Hercule Poirot and maybe Agatha Christie did not care much for actors. They are usually portrayed in less than a flattering light, and in this mystery it's no different.

Lord Edgware Dies is definitely one of Agatha Christie's best murder mysteries. The characters are all strange in their own unique way, and the plot is somewhat feasible which allowed me to actually solve the mystery on my own. And for once I can say there are no loose ends.

Another reason, I enjoyed this novel is Hastings. This time around his thoughts touch on Poirot annoying habits such a boasting and ridicule Knowing that he's just as annoyed with Poirot's arrogance, makes him that much more likable.

4/5

The Long March Home

From the book cover:
The Long March Home tells the story of three generations of women. Agnes, a young Canadian, goes to China as a missionary and falls in love with a Chinese medical student. Growing anti-western sentiment forces her to return home to Nova Scotia, where she discovers she is pregnant. Meihua, their American-born daughter, travels to China in search of the father she never met and winds up marrying a Chinese man, but the Cultural Revolution tears their lives apart. With both parents imprisoned, it falls to the family's illiterate servant, Yao, to shield their daughter, Yezi, and her brother from family tragedy, poverty and political discrimination, negotiating their survival during the revolution she barely understands. Only after her mother is released, does Yezi learn about her foreign grandmother, Agnes. Curious about her ancestry, Yezi travels to the U.S. to meet Agnes and learn about her life in China with the man her mother still longs to find.

My Review:
The Long March Home has the skeletal outline of what could have been an epic story about three generations of women. Unfortunately it all falls flat. 

Meihua narrators the first half of the story, which opens with her telling her husband, Lon, that she is pregnant with their third third child. The couple wonder whether it is wise to bring another child into the world in their situation. Lon is an ex-convict (it's hinted that his crime was political but that's never confirmed) and Meihua is half-American so there is concern that negative stigma will ruin their unborn child's life. Their oldest son, Dahai, was recently assigned to a mediocre high school, despite having the grades required for the best school in the area.

When the child, Yezi, is two years old, Meihua is arrested on charges of sabotaging the Cultural Revolution and sentenced to 13 years in jails. During Meihua incarceration, Yezi takes over the narration. Yezi's narration starts as the perspective of a six-year-old girl and continues to the end of the novel when she is a 15-year-old living with her maternal grandmother in Boston. Towards the end, the story seems very pro-western ideals. Yezi likes the freedom that life in a America provides and questions why anyone would want to go back to China where she was always afraid of what people would think.

I'm disappointed that there is no first-person narration from Meihua's mother, Agnes. She's the one who first ventured to China as a missionary. It would have been really nice to hear her story in her words, rather than having a teenaged Yezi summarized her grandmother's dairies.  I also found a lot of the dialogue and characters flat. It sort of brings to mind witnesses testifying in court. All of the intentions are good and everyone is sweet and kind.

3/5

About the book:

The Long March Home

ISBN:9781926708270

Publisher: Inanna Publications

http://www.inanna.ca/longmarch-over.html

Date of Publication: November 2011

Cloud Atlas

Epic. It's such an over-used word when it comes to describing movies and novels, but I'm afraid there's no better word to describe David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. It's so awesome that a major motion picture, starring Halle Berry, is due out this October.

Cloud Atlas is a giant puzzle that spans the space of centuries. It's told via six short stories.

'The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing' introduces the readers to a 19th century notary from San Francisco who has travelled to a small island in the pacific to conduct business on behalf of his employer. In the journal, Mr. Ewing speaks of his devotion to his religion and of the ills of the societies that he is visiting. His story stops mid-sentence approximately 30 pages in.

From Adam Ewing's stories, we jump to 1931 in 'Letters from Zedelghem', and the story of a young composer by the name of Robert Frobisher. Frobisher tells his stories via a series of letters to his dear friend Rufus Sixsmith. Frobisher starts off his narrative running out on a hotel bill. He makes his way to Belgium where he secures employment with a well-known composer by the name of Vyvyan Ayrs. Ayrs has lost his sight and requires Frobisher to write down his compositions.  Frobisher winds up involved in an affair with Ayrs' wife, Jocasta. Frobisher's narrative ends just as his affair with Jocasta has ended its honeymoon phase.While staying with the Ayrs, Frobisher comes across the pacific journal of Adam Ewing.

'Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery' takes the reader to Buenas Yerbas, California in the 1970s. Luisa Rey is a young reporter who makes the acquaintance of a 66-year-old Rufus Sixsmith in an elevator and earns his trust almost immediately. Sixsmith is a British scientist with a critical report about the hugely powerful Seabord Corporation's Swannekke Island power plant. After her encounter with Sixsmith, Luisa gets on the trail of the story. When Sixsmith is found dead Luisa gets a hold of his letters from Robert Frobisher. Having just gotten hold of Sixsmith's report, Luisa's car is driven off the road, and so end her section.

In 'The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish' we move forward and across the Atlantic to London in the early 21st century. Timothy Cavendish is a 60-something-year-old vanity press publisher who gets himself into some trouble when one of his authors winds up in prison for murder. The author's thug brothers threaten Cavendish with bodily harm in order to secure their brother's share of the profits from the novel that has become a best seller. Not having enough money to pay off the brothers, Cavendish leaves his office with his briefcase and a manuscript titled 'Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery', seeking help from his own brother. Cavendish's brother tricks him into committing himself to a nursery home. The section ends as Cavendish suffers a stroke trying to escape from the nursery home.

'An Orison of Sonmi -451' takes the reader to Korea in the distant future to a corpocratic world where clones (fabricants) do all of the jobs that humans (purebloods) find undesirable. Somni -451 is a fabricant who ascends the limitation set by her creators. Sonmi was designed to work in a diner but ends up working at a University after disguised union members identify her as having the potential to achieve ascention. Union is a group bent on revolt from the totalitarian society by aiming to give fabricants the same rights as purebloods while putting a stop to the over-consumption that is on track to destroy their society. Sonmi's section ends as she and a pureblood friend and mentor are forced to flee a movie theatre where they are watching an old film titled 'The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.'

'Sloosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rthin' After' takes the reader to a post-apocalyptic future. The legend of Sonmi -451 has survived and she is revered as a god in the backwards world of Hawaii in the future. Our narrator this time around is a young man by the name of Zachry. Zachry watches Sonmi's story through a futuristic recording device that he sneaks from Meronym, a visitor from an alternate society that is technologically advanced.

After this section, the story reverts back into itself with a conclusion to each of the previous sections.

4/5

Peril at End House

From the book cover:

Perched on the rocky cliffs of the Cornish coast, the imposing structure known as End House looms over the quiet hotel where retired detective Hercule Poirot is vacationing. Though the house is intriguing, its reckless young mistress, Nick Buckly, is even more so. She has narrowly escaped a recent series of life-threatening accidents, and something tells the Belgian sleuth that these so-called accidents are more than just coincidences or a spate of bad luck. Someone is trying to do away with poor Nick. But who? And what is the motive? In his quest for answers, Poirot must delve into the dark history of End House. The deeper he gets into his investigation, the more certain he is that the killer will soon strike again. And this time Nick may not escape with her life.

My Review:

Hercule Poirot and his trusted sidekick, Captain Hastings, are on the scene before the murder is committed in this entertaining and very unpredictable mystery. No one is as they seem, including the would-be victim, Nick Buckly.

Poirot and Hastings may be growing on me because I didn’t find them nearly as annoying as I have in the past. Poirot is humbled by his failure to stop the murder, and the length of time it takes him with his ‘superior grey cells’ to solve this mystery. Captain Hastings seems to have matured; he doesn’t give Poirot as many opportunities to ridicule him as was his habit in the past.

I’m always surprised by the amount of female stereotypes that Poirot and Hastings employ in trying to solve their cases. You’d think with a female author, there would be less of that stuff. I guess that's what makes Agatha Christie’s mysteries entertaining – her ability to detach from her own personal beliefs to create these lifelike characters that hold opinions, that I imagine, contradict hers.

4/5

Murder at Hazelmoor

From the book cover:
On a cold, snowy winter evening, six members of the tiny community of Sittaford are engaged in an amusing séance of table turning when suddenly there is a loud rap. The name of T-R-E-V-E-L-Y-A-N is spelled out, then slowly the table rocks out the letters M-U-R-D-E-R. One of the participants in the séance, retired Major Burnaby, is an old friend of Captain Joseph Trevelyan. While protesting that he “doesn’t believe in this tommyrot,” the Major is sufficiently disturbed by the eerie incident to slog his way on foot through the blizzard to Captain Trevelyan’s cottage in Exhampton, six miles away.

Captain Trevelyan has indeed been murdered. He has been dead for two, possibly three hours… about the time of the message from the “spirit world.” Inspector Narracott is called in on the case, and, on circumstantial evidence, arrests James Pearson. James’ fiancée, Emily Trefusis, promptly goes to work to prove his innocence… by proving someone else’s guilt.

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My Review:

Murder at Hazelmoor is a typical Agatha Christie murder mystery. There’s the plucky young heroine (for some reason, Emily Trefusis reminded me of Robert Munsch’s Princess Elizabeth of The Paper Bag Princess fame), the above suspicion killer, a bunch of shady characters, and of course the little side mysteries that are not solved to the reader’s satisfaction.

It’s almost impossible to dislike Ms. Christie’s heroines. They all fit the same archetype. If you want to get a feel for Emily Trefusis’ character, think Tuppence, Anne Beddingfield, Virginia Revel, Katherine Grey and Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent. They are all gutsy women who shrug of the 1920s ideal of a woman’s place in the world and are often way ahead of the men in their lives.

I felt tricked at the end of this novel, much like I felt at the end of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It’s one of those mysteries where the reader has to really look at what’s not written on the pages and invent possible scenarios.

Agatha Christie novels are great travel and vacation reads. I’ve accepted that they are not great works of fiction but I’m still disappointed when the plot elements don’t add up. Unfortunately that was the case in Murder at Hazelmoor.

2.5/5

Wally Wander

From the book cover:
When Wally is young she learns that being her friend can be dangerous to your health. As she goes through life, the idea of her deadly contamination persists and is even reinforced. As a result Wally begins to spend some of her time living somewhere else, upstairs in her head. Wally wanders into her space bubble which floats somewhere just below God’s space.

My Review:

Wally Wander is a thought-provoking novel about a dysfunctional family. Wally, the protagonist, provides first-person narration of her life story, starting when she is 12 years old.

Wally’s story is one of loss. She never really knew her father – he drowned when she was young. Her adopted younger brother, Oliver, dies in a tragic motor vehicle accident when she is 12 years old, and then shortly after Wally’s pet chicken is beheaded and eaten for dinner.

There are many plot twists and turns and ethical quandaries in this novel. They’re not hard to keep track of, but they are hard to pin down to a timeline seeing as some of the characters’ ages don’t seem to match up. (If I could change anything about this book, I would ask NovaMelia to divide the book into sections and clearly state what year the events take place in.)
After the death of Oliver and the pet chicken, Wally and her older brother, Norman, are sent to live with their aunt and uncle because their mom is not doing well. It’s not clear what their mother’s medical diagnosis is. The story then skips forward to when Wally is older and her mother has Parkinson’s disease.

I want to love this novel but I can’t because there are just too many plot elements that don’t add up. Years after Oliver’s death, Wally finds out that he was really her older brother Norman’s child with his adopted daughter, Rosie – Norman’s wife and Wally’s mother both wanted a child so they concocted a plan to have Norman impregnate Rosie through artificial insemination. At the time this occurred, Rosie, who is autistic, was supposedly at the age of consent. However, in the original scene where Oliver dies, Rosie is portrayed as a teenager. Years later, when Wally is all grown up, Rosie is still a teenager. She is suppose to be around the same age as her brother Nigel, who goes to live with Wally when he is 13 years old. Confusing, right?

3/5

About the author:
NovaMelia was born in England and moved to the U.S.A when she was seventeen years old. She attended the University of Pittsburgh where she studied creative writing and psychology. She has lived in a number of states - including Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Florida - and now resides in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, George.

About the book:

Wally Wander by NovaMelia
ISBN: 978-1-4327-7910-8
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Date of publish: February 24, 2012
Pages: 212
S.R.P.: $16.95

He Answered

From the book cover:

Lia finally had it all figured out. That was until that one traumatic day. A day that would change everything. Nothing would ever be the same again. No normal, rational thinking person would do that, would they? Could they?

My Review:

I really enjoyed L.V. Robinson’s writing style, I just wish she had put a bit (okay, fine, a lot) more detail into this book. There isn’t really a point to this story, lesson to be learned or inspiration to harness, it’s just one woman’s story; and it’s not even that unique a story.

Robinson opens with the climactic scene of Lia being removed from the home she shares with her leave-in boyfriend and their blended family. From there, we flash back to a seventeen-year-old Lia who has just moved into an apartment a few blocks away from her family’s home. Robinson then quickly takes us through the decisions that bring Lia to the opening scene. This entire novelette is 62 pages long with medium font and loose line spacing. A lot of important yet amazingly flat characters are introduced. Even Lia the main character is a mere skeleton of a character. All the reader really knows about her is that she believes in God. The title, He Answered, is a reference to God answering Lia’s prayers.

1.5/5

About the book:

He Answered by L.V. Robinson

ISBN: 978-1-4327-8450-8

Publisher: Outskirts Press

Date of publish: December 2011

Pages: 69

S.R.P.: $9.95

Redemption

From the book cover:
How do you keep going after the one person you always believed you were meant to be with forever gives their heart to someone else? Bryan Roemer never thought he'd have to answer that question; but after losing the woman he loved to another man, he is faced with a new reality. Meeting Mara - exotic, beautiful, sexy - on the flight back to California provided him with a welcome distraction to take his mind off his pain. Still, days are a blur. His nights are spent drowning in memories. At his lowest moment, his friends, Nick Flaherty and Carrie Mayer, summon him back east to photograph their wedding. Reluctantly, he does. Six months have changed Bryan. And when he arrives, the rest of the Circle find that he hasn't come alone. Something dark and sinister has come with him. Something that is determined to keep him at all costs. But waiting there for Bryan is a second chance. one that just might save his life.




My Review:
Redemption is the second novel in LA Kuehlke's Pursuit series. I haven't read the first novel, but that didn't matter as there are plenty of plot catch-ups via conversations about what happened last summer, and the main characters' thoughts and memories.

When I first started reading, I was a bit put off by the angels, demons and circle stuff. From the book's synopsis you don't get any of that, there's only one reference to the circle. I took that to be a circle of friends, which the characters are so it wasn't completely off.

I'm very much in the middle about this novel. It's an interesting, if not a completely original plot - angels and demons among us fighting for our souls trying to destroy us.

I didn't feel anything for any of the characters. They were all a bit too one dimensional for my liking. Bryan the hunky bad boy. Cassidy the beautiful and pure. Nick the happy, go-lucky who loves his cliches. Carrie the beautiful planner. Miranda the beautiful dreamer. And Derek, the hunky super cop.

The premise of the story doesn't add up either. According to Bryan and Miranda (the woman who broke his heart), they were never in a romantic relationship. They were just long time friends, he had feelings for her that she didn't return, instead she fell in love with Derek. That doesn't equal total devastation in my books.At least not enough to travel to the other side of the country and try to forget everything.

From the way this novel ended, I think the third book in the series is going to be about Miranda's little sister Lainey and her fight with demons.

2.5/5

To purchase a copy of this book visit the author's web page on the Outskirts Press website.

The Seven Dials Mystery

As my regular readers know, I’m in the midst of a long term Agatha Christie reading challenge. The Seven Dials Mystery is my 10th Agatha Christie novel, not counting Giant’s Bread (written under the pen name Mary Westmacott) and the short story collection Poirot Investigates.

What I’m finding thus far in my reading challenge is a lot of the plot elements from the various books continue turning up. The Seven Dials Mystery has many of the same characters from The Secret of Chimneys; Lady Eileen (Bundle) Brent is the main character with the bumbling Bill Eversleigh playing the role of a very important supporting character in this mystery-turn-romance novel.

Once again, a guest has been murdered at Chimneys. This time, it’s during a weekend hosted by self-made millionaire Sir Oswald Coote and his wife Lady Coote, who are letting Chimney from Bundle’s father Lord Chatham. At first the murder is ruled death by misadventure. Everyone except for the dead man’s dear friend, Ronny Devereaux, accepts the coroner’s verdict.

A couple days later, Lord Chatham and Bundle are back at Chimney, the Cootes' lease being up. Bundle stumbles upon a letter the dead man was writing to his adopted sister before his death and begins her own investigation. Things really start to heat up when Ronny Devereaux is killed. Bundle goes in search of the Seven Dials secret society and ends up finding her future husband.

The Seven Dials Mystery features a secret society with a mysterious leader similar to The Big Four. And, like almost all of Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries, it features characters masquerading as someone they are not. Despite all of this lack of originality, I really enjoyed this novel. I love the characters Bundle, Lord Chatham, Superintendent Blunt and Bill Eversleigh. I really hope to read about them again.

4/5

Orange July: Month in Review

I’m very pleased with the books that I read for Orange July. All but one made it onto my 5ers list of highly recommended reads.

The one that didn’t make it - Rebecca Wells’ Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood had too much hype. With it having been made into a movie several years ago, I was expecting something way better. The main plot driver (Sidda’s refusal to marry her fiancé because she feels like she doesn’t know how to love because of her mother’s abuse) feels overly contrived. I know that’s a weird thing to say about a fiction but unless I’m reading science fiction or fantasy, I like my novels to have a somewhat realistic plot.

About the Orange Prize

The Orange Prize for Fiction is a prestigious U.K. based award that celebrates full-length works of fiction written in English by female authors.

We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin is Lionel Shriver's seventh novel and winner of the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction. We Need to Talk About Kevin was made into a film in 2011.

From the book cover:
Eva never wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startling correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so annilistically off the rails.

My Review:
Eva Katchadourian is a strong, plucky woman who loves her husband very much and adores her daughter beyond limits. But she just can't seem to find a way to love her son, Kevin. Or so she believes. I believe otherwise. Eva doesn't like Kevin, but I do believe she loves him despite his unlovable nature and the many ways he has found to torment her and anyone around him who has a passion in their life.

Eva narrates the story through a series of letter to her husband, Franklyn. The reader doesn't find out where Franklyn is or why he's left Eva and taken their daughter, Celia, with him until the last few pages of the novel.

In her letters to Franklyn, Eva examines their relationship before Kevin, examines her pregnancy and every aspect of Kevin's upbringing until the day he commits the mass murders. Even after the murders, Eva continues to visit Kevin in juvenile jail and try to understand him. Throughout the novel, there is an subtle argument going on as to whether behaviour is innate or nurtured. Some of the more shocking passages led to my husband and I have this discussion. He believes behaviour is nurtured, while I believe it's 80% innate and 20% nurtured. After all, Kevin does show some signs of being influenced by his mother - it's all about how those common characteristics are channeled.

I highly recommended this novel.

5/5

White Teeth

This epic novel about two families centres around two unlikely friends: Archibold Jones and Samad Miah Iqbal. The two men meet at the tail end of World War II. Archie is a laid-back English bloke who flips a coin to make most of his decisions. Samad is a intellectual, Muslim immigrant trying to establish himself and build a life for his family in the west.

The 542-page novel opens on New Year's Day 1974, Archie has just separated from his first wife and has decided to end his life by gassing himself in a parked car outside of a halal butcher shop. The butcher comes out and interrupts him stating that he does not have the necessary insurance to cover suicides on the premise. Archie takes this as a sign that he is not meant to die. And thus begins a pattern of comedic and very clever dialogue.

Later that day Archie meets Clara, a 19-year-old Jamaican immigrant desperate to escape a mother and ex-boyfriend who are both fanatic Jehovah Witnesses. A month and a half later (on Valentine's Day) the two get married and a year later, Clara gives birth to Irie. Around the same time, Samad's wife, Alsana, gives birth to identical twin boys - Magid (older by  two minutes) and Millat.

Over the next 18 years, we watch as the two families grow closer as they face minor and major crises.

The story is told via a third-person omnipresent narrative in four major blocks that are then divided into smaller chapters. Each block focuses on one or more main characters, with the other characters assuming background roles.

In the first section titled "Archie 1974, 1945", we learn about the task that Samad gave Archie at the end of the war, on which their long friendship has been built upon. We're left unsure of whether Archie has actually completed the task.

In the second section titled "Samad 1984, 1857", Samad begins an extra-marital affair with his sons' music teacher, Poppy. Repelled by his own immoral behaviour, Samad becomes concerned about his sons' morality and decides to send them back to Bengal to be raised as proper Muslims. The only problem is he can only afford to send one. We also learn about Samad great-grandfather, Mangal Pande, who Samad views as a hero for starting the process of liberating India.

The decision Samad makes about which son to send back to Bengal has repercussions for his family and the Jones, as Irie eventually falls in love with one of the twins.

Zadie Smith is a master of writing dialogue. She uses a lot of colloquial terms so the reader really gets a sense of the multiculturalism of the U.K. over the span of 20 years. Well placed and spot on vernacular adds colour and humour.

Ms. Smith must have spent a great deal of time conducting research because she handles a very diverse range of topics in order to make the various 'experts' that appear throughout the novel believable.

This is my second time reading White Teeth. I got so much from the second reading that I will no doubt read it again in the future. Jammed packed with fanatics, it doesn't just entertain - it also gives the reader a lot to think about.

I'm not sure why it's called White Teeth. Many of the chapters are named after teeth or some kind of dental procedure but they could just as easily have been named after something else.

5/5