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Friday, August 31, 2007

books for August

1. An Invisible Sign of My Own -- Aimee Bender -- 2.5
   • I was bewildered by this book, honestly. I liked the premise (math-obsessed young woman teaches school, encounters other numbers-obsessed people, has a father with a mysterious and symbolic-seeming non-disease, buys an ax), and the writing was good, but it took the whole "adult fairytale" genre (think Jonathan Safran Foer, but less graphic) to some extremes that I just didn't get. I didn't know if the book was one random unrelated oddity after another, or if every oddity had some deep meaning that I was supposed to ferret out. The problem is, there were so many oddities that it made me tired trying to figure out which was the case. There are some good moments here. It's kind of a shame that the weird ones overshadowed them.

2. Dream When You're Feeling Blue -- Elizabeth Berg -- 4
   
   • Elizabeth Berg is one of my favorite authors, and yet if you had given me this book without her name on it I would have had no idea that she had written it. She's cast herself completely against type, to mix my media and my metaphors appallingly, in writing this little gem of a historical novel about a family of sisters and their experiences during WWII. This doesn't have Berg's trademark zingers -- those "of course I've always thought that, and just never known it" moments that can make me cry if I read her books too late at night; it's more plot-driven than her books generally are, and the style isn't as comfortable and easy with itself as her work usually is. But it is a story with a lot of heart, lovingly constructed, and sweetly told. It's an homage to a generation of men and women who deserve our praise and respect, and I recommend it.

3. Nineteen Minutes -- Jodi Picoult -- 5
   
   • I have been dreading writing this review. Not because I don't love the book, which centers around a bullied boy and the school shooting he perpetrated, but because I love it too much and I know I can never do it justice. I wish I had enough money to buy a copy for every student in every public high school in America; I would send marked copies to a dozen or so people from my past as well. Truly, Jodi Picoult has found her way into the head of an emotionally abused student in a way that no other author I have ever read has managed to do, and has documented her character's journey to violence with heartrending acuity. The supporting cast is well-drawn as well. Please, if you haven't read this already, read it now.

4. The Reluctant Fundamentalist -- Mohsin Hamid -- 2.5
   
   • This novel is told entirely in the narrative voice from the point of view of a Pakistani man who attended university and then worked for a year in America. The writing style didn't endear me to it, and the "don't you see, Americans, that everything you do is just wrong wrong wrong and that's why everyone hates you so much" theme didn't please me much either. Not that it didn't give me anything to think about, but every time I had a "hmm, you know, I'd not thought of that in precisely that way before" kind of moment, it was followed up by a load of such stereotypical Ugly American tripe that it lost its intended effect.

5. How to Talk to a Widower -- Jonathan Tropper -- 4
   
   • I really liked this. People compare Jonathan Tropper to Nick Hornby with good reason. You might also say he's like a man's Marian Keyes -- riotously funny, but full of wisdom on deep topics at the same time. This book centers around a young widower and the complications he faces as he attempts first to hold on to his grief and then to let go of it. Everyone who's ever grieved deeply will find something with which to identify here. Recommended.

6. Lost and Found -- Carolyn Parkhurst -- 2.5
   
   • Not a badly-written book; it moved along at a good pace, and it held my interest even though I was completely unfamiliar with its premise (a reality show). I even liked some of the characterizations quite a bit. The 2.5 is because I am so so so tired of books where the Christians are caricatures of evil badness and hypocrisy, while the unwed lesbian mothers are angels sent from heaven. Yawn. Except, oh yeah, heaven is full of evil bad hypocrites, nevermind. Obviously it's the author's right to write her characters however she sees fit. It's also my right to trash her narrow-minded decisions in a review.

7. Plain Truth -- Jodi Picoult -- 4.5
   
   • Just when I was thinking, "you know, I would LOVE to see a book from a mainstream point of view where there are Christians like the majority of Christians I know, portrayed in a realistic and non-negatively-stereotyped manner", along came this beautiful book, again by Jodi Picoult. (This one wins the Least Annoying Picoult-Patented Last-Minute Twist award from me, by the way, at least of the books of hers I've read to date). The story centers around an Amish woman and her community, as they are rocked by an accusation of infanticide against one of their own. I don't agree with everyone's actions or decisions, but I love the way Picoult treated her characters. The Amish are real people; the attorney who finds herself living far closer to them than she had ever thought she would is a real person, too, and their interactions ring with truth and compassion and true open-mindedness. Recommended.
   
   
   
8. Nickel and Dimed -- Barbara Ehrenreich -- 2
   
   • This much-talked-about bit of journalistic nonfiction left me cold, honestly. Everything from Ehrenreich's tone (condescending) to her methods (attempting to live as "the working poor" for a month at a time, three separate times, three different places) and her politics (I probably don't have to elaborate) bothered me. Her whole premise is undermined by the fact that her experiments were managed in a completely inaccurate manner. Diving into minimum-wage work as she did, she had no way of actually knowing what she professed to be telling the world in her book: what life is like for the poor. On the one hand, she had money going into the experiment for start-up expenses, a luxury that most of the working poor can't manage (she admits this); on the other hand, in her brief episodes of "slumming", she had no way of learning this crucial fact: Life is hard when you're poor, there's no doubt about it. But life is also full of joys and friendships and families and love and trials just like anyone else has. This book wasn't a complete waste of time -- the writing is engaging, and it may at least educate a class of people who've never worked for minimum wage and may not ever have thought about the fact that a waitress is actually a person.

Comments

Posted by: Kat with a K at September 1, 2007 04:49 AM

Posted by: Denise at September 2, 2007 09:18 AM

Posted by: Maria at September 2, 2007 10:51 AM

Posted by: Rachel at September 2, 2007 11:22 AM

Posted by: Denise at September 2, 2007 03:45 PM

Posted by: dichroic at September 3, 2007 02:45 AM

Posted by: Jo at September 3, 2007 08:12 PM

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