nomadreader

The basics: The Stuff That Never Happened is the story of Annabelle and Grant, who have been married for over thirty years. They live in New Hampshire, where Grant is a professor and Annabelle illustrates children's books. My thoughts: The novel starts off well. I adored the first chapter; it was smart, funny and a good introduction to the character. I really enjoyed Annabelle. Then the novel begins flipping back and forth between 2005, when Anabelle and Grant's marriage is floundering with their children now grown, and 1977, when they met. Initially, this alternation helps build suspense and provide an interesting take on the characters. I'm fascinated by tales of marriage, and its shifts over time (I am a newlywed, afterall!) As the novel progresses, however, it starts to fall flat because it becomes more obvious what must happen. The past chapters became dull, as it was clear the action was leading to something. The present chapters started to seem almost dishonest, a...

The basics: The Art of Devotion , Samantha Bruce-Benjamin's first novel, is told through the voices of four women: two mothers and two daughters. The lives of these families criss-cross in a variety of ways on a beautiful Mediterranean island. My thoughts: I really wanted to like this book. I adore novels told from multiple points of view. I like stories of family secrets and interconnected generations. I like historical fiction (it's set in the first half of the 1900's.) I like books set in exotic locations. What kept me from loving this book? It was oh so very melodramatic. Bruce-Benjamin was so busy having the four narrators tell us what they were thinking and feeling the characters never actually thought or felt anything. The pacing was bizarre and unsuccessful for me. All of the narration read like a memoir; each woman's emotions were presented, but for most of the book, the reader didn't actually know what events they vaguely referred to. There was an omen o...

  The backstory: I thoroughly enjoyed Charles Todd's first Bess Crawford novel, A Duty to the Dead ( my review ), so I was eager to read the second mystery in this series. The basics: An Impartial Witness is once again narrated by British World War I Army nurse Bess Crawford, a delightfully independent, intelligent, feminist woman. Granted, Bess is developing quite a habit of finding herself in the midst of murder investigations, but she's relatively smart about it. My thoughts: Simply put, I enjoyed this novel even more than the first one. It's also refreshing to discover a mystery series that doesn't need to be read in order. There are a few mentions to the Britanic sinking, but the other events from the first novel (the mystery parts) aren't alluded to. The family and friends of Bess return, but their brief descriptions are helpful reminders for readers of the first book and adequate descriptions for those new to the series. Bottom line: it doesn't m...

The backstory: February, Lisa Moore's second novel (she also has a book of short stories), is on the 2010 Man Booker Prize longlist. The basics: The novel is written in short vignettes that jump back and forth through time. Each vignette has a descriptive title and year to guide the reader. The center of the story is Helen, who lost her husband Cal in the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger . Most of the events happen between 1982 and 2008, but Moore also jumps to the early days of Helen and Cal's relationship. My thoughts: I have rather ambivalent thoughts on this novel. Moore's writing is lovely. I tend to enjoy character-driven novels, but this one never fully captured me as a reader. When I was reading it, I was engaged in both the writing and the characters, but it wasn't a novel I pondered much when I wasn't actively reading it. The pacing was slightly off for me. I'm curious how much thought Moore put into the ordering of the vignettes. At times, the n...

The backstory: I've enjoyed Ayelet Waldman's essays in the past, and she's one of my favorite authors to follow on Twitter because she's funny, kind and passionate. When I was presented with the opportunity to read her new novel, I jumped at the chance to experience her fiction, and I'm so glad I did. The basics: Red Hook Road  is the story of two families united by marriage and the tragedy of the bride and groom being killed en route from their wedding to the reception. The story spreads out over four summers in Red Hook, Maine, where the bride's family summers and the groom's family are long-time, working class residents. There's a cultural divide as these families lives intersect. My thoughts: Tragedy strikes early in this novel, and it didn't affect me very deeply because I wasn't yet invested in the characters. It certainly affected me, but it didn't resonate with me. I was curious how Waldman would treat a story with tragedy at i...

The backstory: Other Press has quickly become a publisher I look to and expect to like all of their titles. When I stopped by their booth at BEA, I knew I wanted to snag a copy of this novel, and I was thrilled when I got it. The basics: The Quickening is the story of Enidina and Mary, two women with little in common except geography. Both live on a farm and they live near one another in a unnamed Midwestern state in the early 1900's. My thoughts:  Michelle Hoover was born in Ames, Iowa, where my grandmother grew up and where I spent much of my childhood visiting my great-grandmother. She's the granddaughter of four longtime farming families. My roots may not run as deep in farming, but I'm proud to be a sixth-generation Kansan. The Midwest is in my blood, and it shapes my cultural identity. I trace my family to Kansas and Iowa, and enough generations have called those states home that I truly don't think of the countries those first immigrants came from. All of t...

The backstory: I've read and adored Ana Menendez's essays in Vogue  in the past, but I had not read her novels. I had the intention of reading her novels since college, when I worked in a bookstore and got an ARC of In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd , which I moved an embarrassing number of times without ever reading it. I was thrilled to participate in this TLC tour for her latest novel, The Last War.  The basics: The Last War  is the story of Flash, a photojournalist married to a war reporter. The two have lived in wartorn areas throughout their marriage. This passage from early in the novel beautifully encapsulates both Menendez's writing and the characters: "We were the war junkies: Eros and Chaos, endlessly drawn to the ragged margins where other people hated and died. It was as if we believed constant movement would deliver us finally from the disappointments of ordinary life." (pg. 2) My thoughts: I loved this novel. I was captivated as muc...

The backstory: Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe  is Jenny Hollowell's first novel. Her short stories have been published in numerous places, and I remembered her short story in New Sudden Fiction , which publishes short-short stories less than 2000 words. The basics: Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe  is the story of Birdie, a young struggling actress in Los Angeles who left her life as a preacher's wife in Virginia to pursue fame. The quote on the cover nails it: "This novel is smart, spare, comic, and sad. It rings beautifully true." - John Casey My thoughts: Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe  is not a novel that grabbed me a reader right away. I enjoyed Hollowell's writing, but it took me quite some time to care about Birdie, the main character. The novel initially reads like short stories, and the shorts chapters in this novel would almost all fall into that category. (The book is 220 pages and has 79 chapters, some as short as one sentence). Unl...

The backstory: Tish Cohen's first novel, Town House, was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book for the Canada/Caribbean region. I haven't read Town House , but when I heard about her newest novel, The Truth About Delilah Blue , I was intrigued enough to read it. The basics: Lila Mack, born Delilah Blue, moved from Toronto to Los Angeles when she was eight. She hasn't seen her mother since she was eight, and although she loves her father fiercely, she feels abandoned. Her mother chose her art over her daughter, and Lila longs to be an artist too. Her sensible, salesman father, however, will only finance business school. Lila decides to work as a nude model for an art school so she can absorb the lessons of the instructors while getting paid rather going into debt. As the titles indicates, however, there are secrets lurking and the novel explores Lila's coming of age and coming to terms with her childhood. My thoughts: It would be simple...