Forgive my ignorance, but I did know that China has been trying to seize control of Tibet but I never really understood why. Barbara Demick delivers a non fiction book that feels like fiction but delivers a remarkable arc of history spanning Mao's Long March through the current day. The novel speaks to us in the form of various individuals who tell their story intermixed with history and complete with vivid and horrifying details. Centered around the town of Ngaba was the first interaction of the Chinese communists with the community. As these communists escaped their own fight dealing with the Chinese Nationalists, the soldiers in the Red Army were desperate and hungry. They stole items from monasteries, ate votive candles shaped like buddhas that were made composed of barley and flour (To the Tibetans it felt like they were eating the Buddha himself),destroyed monasteries, deposed a king, ripped up floors for firewood, seized their essential livestock , and even defecated on their religious texts.These rounds of defiance and crackdowns generated the only way the Tibetans felt they had to resist. To date there have been 156 self immolations that we know of that progressed to swallowing gasoline and covering themselves with wire laden blankets. To date 156 immolations that we know of have taken place. These rounds of defiance and crackdowns induced the only way the Tibetans knew to resist. The reader is exposed to the horrific situations through historical events leading up the present. Many Tibetans have fled to Lhasa, the home of the Dalai Lama, but despite the material things that have accumulated in their lives, want they want and don't have is their freedom. This book is so much more than the simple words I am trying to convey. If anyone is interested in learning and understanding this chapter in the Tibetans' lives I urge you to not walk but run to read a brilliant and heavily researched novel that is ingeniously created.

In the age of covid-19, when we all would all like to escape to the moon, Julie Clark offers up the perfect remedy. Speeding forward like a locomotive, the book pulsates with the energy of a good suspense novel, while creating heart stealing characters. Claire is married to a powerful, rich, handsome man but who abuses her physically and emotionally behind the scenes. Eva, the other main character, brought up in orphanages,has a hard time adjusting to life and gets involved in manufacturing and selling drugs to survive. Both want to escape their lives and when a chance meeting occurs at the airport they decide to switch tickets and identities. The consequence of that becomes the main focus of the book and structurally is ingeniously crafted. Friendship, "the Me Too Movement "and morality come into play in this propulsive novel that begs to be read in one fell swoop. Thank you Ms. Clark, for giving relief to part company from the real world around me.

Breathtaking.. Heart stealing characters. A voice that somersaults on the page. Pulsates with urgency and lingers with hope. My absolute favorite of 2020. A mosaic of small chapters, descriptive snippets of the Israeli Palestinian confrontations examined through the voices of the actual individuals, Bassam Aramin and Israel Rami Elhanan . In 1997, Rami's 13 year old daughter was killed by a suicide bombing on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem. Ten years later, Bassam's daughter was killed by an Israeli's 18 year old border guard with a rubber bullet when she was going to buy candy. These two men who were acquainted previously through an organization called Combatants for Peace join Parents Circle, a group of fellow mourners who are joined together by grief to encourage a peaceful solution to their respective struggles. Their search for peace in the narration of their powerful stories and discourse forms the struggle to find common ground. Their stories are one of aching humanity.This is a book that begs one to feel and experience, rather than one just reading their tragedies.

Prior to reading this, I knew nothing about the author, nor his place in history as the frontman of the band Airborn Toxic. In fact, as I immersed myself in the book, I had to remind myself that these events really happened to someone, sometimes outlandish and always painful. I immediately had the same feeling that I had when I read Educated, but this time a startling story of a blighted life from when he was first raised in a famous commune/cult called /Synanon. Separated by their birth parents the children had to live on their own in the "School" after 6 months. One day his mother escaped with him and his older brother Tony but life inside was more stable than the outside world. A narcissistic mother who expected her children to care for her, frequent men, temporary husbands, violence, drugs and alcohol permeate the book and wreak havoc in all their lives. Enter Dad. The ex husband. Another character who though he was an ex junkie and prisoner, spends summers with the kids in a crude but very warm and loving fashion.The book starts from Mikel's perspective as a child and metamorphosis into a more mature man as he struggles with the questions of life and experiments with who he wants to become. It is the struggles and love that are the backbone of this book, and pulled at my heart heartstrings. The pain was raw, and I found myself constantly underlining passages . Readers will understand later when I say.."He saw me!"..Definitely a book not to miss!

It took the author 18 years to write his novel. Who would have know how prescient it would become during the current "Me-Too" crisis. This is a very unsettling novel examining the life of a 15 year old girl who becomes enamored with her 42 year old teacher as he stealthily draws her in to his affections. Everyone can remember this period of "hormones walking on legs", the insecurities of that age, and for some the deep need for affection and love. Her teacher supplies all those to Vanessa with persistent attempts at grooming her. The author skillfully transitions from the present day to the past constructing the unstable emotions. Painful issues are explored about boundaries, consent, abuse, justice, responsibility, and victimization just to name a few. It is an all consuming read, infested with the ambiguities in scurrilous relationships.

I don't even know where to start. Reading this was like finding a precious jewel in the bottom of a haystack. I hadn't even heard about this book until a book friend that I respect introduced it to me. I will be forever grateful. I was transfixed by this quiet contemplative work that addresses so many issues. While finding myself simultaneously savoring and devouring this book, it made me think of the biblical Garden of Eden and how biting the apple thrust the characters into a crisis of faith and the spiritual death coming from banishment of the ideal world. The ties to the physical environment were so profoundly drawn, arresting and immersive. Indeed, I also found the inner dialogue and thoughts of the characters vivid and pensive. There are so many issues raised that capture the reader's attention regarding guilt vs. innocence, questioning of faith, painting as a creative modality to express one's emotions, sibling relationships, choices in life etc. I could write about the story but you can find that in the blurb. It's a book that is absolutely perfect for bookclubs. Just know that this is a novel you won't regret reading.

Once in a while, if you are lucky, a novel comes along that leaves you breathless and stunned. Pochoda's book threw me down a whirlpool sucking me under . Using descriptive street language ,the author explores the life of five different women who live in southwestern LA, a section known as "the corner." These very different women tell their individual stories in very explicit visual language but have the commonality of living through past and current violence . They are judged by police and the world by the color of their skin and /or by their occupation. When two girls are murdered in their neighborhood, their past surpassed pain dissolves and their connection to a serial killer surfaces. There is peril, brutality,grittiness and power in their words that felt so pictorial and real. I was living in their neighborhood;I felt immersed in their feelings. When the book ended, after I put everything aside for the whole evening, I just sat still, amazed, bereft and finally privileged that Pochoda offered an experience like no other. If I could rate this to the googolplex power I would. Admittedly, if you don't like audacious fierce novels, you might pause before reading this book. But for the others, run, run, run

A perfect book for a book club discussion! What indeed constitutes a good marriage? How do we even define that? This novel creates 4 marriages that are wildly disparate, emphasizing the foundation of McCreight's work. In this fast pacing mystery, it is peppered with surprises and forms a compelling read of twists and turns. Lizzie is at an elite law firm when an old friend from college calls her from prison and tries to coerce her into taking his case in the mystery of his wife's death. Chapters take us behind the scenes into the lives of his wife's best friends and husbands who all possess secrets that threaten to uproot their lives. This mystery will grant the enthralled reader a work to devour during this Covid crisis.

Fascinating historical fiction of Nancy Wake, a spitfire woman who, though only in her early 20's to 30's became a celebrated heroine in WWII. Through her work as a salty tongued firehouse, this Australian woman worked for the British as an intrepid spy. She went on missions that I found absolutely daring to help the French resistance movement. Her exploits and love for her newly wed husband was beautifully crafted and immersive. I could have done without the gratuitous sex scenes but that was a small blip in the overall scheme. Do not read the comments by the author contained in the epilogue until you finish the book. I was in awe of how much of the story was accurate. This tightly coiled book will be a favorite of those who like historical fiction, but others will stay for the suspense. Red lipstick will never be the same for me...

How do I begin to even talk about this hard scrabble book that I loved with such fierce intensity. Panowich is such a great writer; I was lucky to have found him before and read his previous two novels. I finished this book with tears streaming down my face. Who would have thought that I would be attracted to a southern noir novel set in the Bull Mountain area, north Georgia where criminals and fringe of society members live in a world of their own. A world is created whose characters spar between good and evil with pulse racing prose that whirls with tension creating an immensely compelling book. Dane Kirby, an ex-arson investigator lives in this brutal crime area and is called upon to investigate a bloody murder of several people ,and then assigned to a new female partner. But the carnage only leads to a circuitous trail of more crimes and massacres culminating in the search for a young autistic boy who holds the key to it all. It can be violent; but it is also about love, tenderness, and the deep bond of friendship. Oh, how I didn't want this to end!

The deft assured writing was the icing on the cake as it explored the history of schizophrenia and the price it cost for this family of 12 children. Six of the children were eventually diagnosed with this disease as the reader becomes intimately enveloped in their individual stories. A family is a system; what affects one member of the family is bound to alter another person's experience. Throughout the childrens' years the reader is assaulted by the damage done, by the horror and torture of the delusions and altered voices and by the lack of true and meaningful conversation with one another. This family become an investigator's dream to study the nature of this disease and ultimately helped to further define what schizophrenia is and is not. It was a fascinating story but difficult to even imagine how anyone could come out healthy under those circumstances. I did find it a bit tedious by the end, as I just didn't want to keep feeling all the hurt and lacerations it was doing to my soul.

Enter magical realism. Combine the mythology of the gods and their importance in the land of Hawaii. Produce a family that grapples about upholding their bonds to one another while escaping them and the land for freedom of a different sort. Bake for 376 pages. Serve to find the glue that binds the land and family making them healthier together than apart. The story begins when Noa falls overboard from a boat into a circle of sharks who save him and give him back to his parents whole and intact. Each chapter is narrated by a different character, from the mother, father and 3 children. Each grapples with their identity throughout the years, trying to understand themselves and the Hawaiian land that tugs at their soul. The book felt slow to me in the beginning and picked up pace midway. There is a lot of Hawaiian words that are not translated, leaving the reader to discern their meaning. I would give this 3.5 stars because I did enjoy it but the way the magic realism was characterized overwhelmed it for me.

This was no popcorn thriller that pulled you to alarming heights. No, this was a book to savor slowly enjoying each sentence, sipping slowly to obtain the full body and essence. Her words spilled out with a sumptous resonance, along with piercing observations along the way.It was also one of the most clever and unusual books I have discovered in a long time. I found myself rolling the words around my tongue, tasting their heft and density.There are so many passages I underlined that I felt were exquisite, wanting to store them away safely for my lifetime. The beginning of the novel was eerily prescient when she was taking about the sounds of the city. During this period of coronavirus, I experience sound so differently and find myself quietly tuning in to the absence and presence of echoes and noise around me. The book itself, you can read about in the jacket cover, but I found that it doesn't even do this book justice. If you want a contemplative piece, you will be in your glory.

Because I adore India and have traveled there several times, I treasured the authenticity revealed in this novel. There are some who may be reluctant to read this because it is filled with poverty, class divisions, sadness, kidnapping ,and abandoned children. However, from my time there I found a richness of spirit that is reflected in the characters. Despite very difficult circumstances, the children who narrate this book were independent, bold, saucy, and determined. We follow a triumvirate of children whose mandatory schooling becomes disrupted due to family obligations and religious tensions, to a life brimming with ambiguity in their day to day life and their future expectations. When children in their neighborhood go missing, the trio attempt to become"detectives" and try to find the answers. Muslim and Hindu tensions arise, which is not dissimilar to what is happening in today's world. The characters felt true to reality, from the scavengers, the beggars, to the local police. Narrated by the children, it felt genuine and honest. This is a novel to explore the credible issues in slum areas, the plight of the children living there, and the power of murkiness regarding their future worlds.

This storyline is a real departure from Fowler's usual historical novels, but I think she has come up with a winner that could be adapted for one of Reese Witherspoon's movies. Book clubs will have a lot to discuss with the issues that are brought up in fast reading prose. The neighborhood was at peace with Valerie, a college professor of forestry and ecology devoting much time to her trees and outdoor plants. This single parent had a biracial son who was competent, mature and a senior in high school. Everything was smooth until the Whitmans moved in behind their property and tore all the trees down damaging the roots of her favorite oak tree, to put in a big swimming pool. He was the caricature of the swaggering successful business man who loved to emphasize his success with material goods. He also had a beautiful stepdaughter that had taken a viginity pledge until marriage. The story is told from the neighbors' perspective as if they are hovering over the scene, gossiping and commenting on the unraveling of events. Ugliness transpires, with lawsuits, violence, an unjust legal system, and an unwillingness to be colorblind. It is very much a reflection of today's America. May this book be another catalyst for frank discussion.

Today,March 11, the Supreme Court said" the Trump administration may continue its 'Remain in Mexico' policy for asylum seekers while lower court challenges continue, after the federal government warned that tens of thousands of immigrants amassed at the southern border.."Reading this one hour after I finished this powerful and haunting memoir it really hit home. Castillo came to the US as an undocumented 5 year old from Mexico with his family.What the author conveyed in a lyrical poetic fashion was an illumination like no other of the immigrant's dilemma . He never felt like he belonged in either country, felt invisible and was constantly in fear of his family's deportation. When his father was deported, he eventually went to see him after 10 years because he qualified for the DACA program. His constant anxiety only fueled his sense of cultural confusion. The book takes us through his shame, hope,love of family, and the very real process of documentation that immigrants must go through. Raw and unflinching, you will understand the world better if you read this now.

Voodoo.Hoodoo.Healing.The Civil War.Mother/child love.Midwifery.Slavery.These are an intricate part of Atakora's debut novel so intimately expressed with breathtaking intensity. The time period is before and after the devastation of the Civil War expressed through the slaves and master of a Southern plantation. Three women dominate the picture, MayBelle, the original Conjure or healer, her daughter Rue, who becomes schooled in her mother's ways, and Varina, a childhood playmate born to Rue's master.Shifting between chapters designated as "Slaverytime" and "Freedomtime" the author displays a powerful reckoning of slavery life and its injustices in heartbreaking detail. What I loved about this novel is the immersive quality to her writing, as if the author had indeed been a ghost watching their worlds unfold. Many secrets unfold through the twists and turns of the novel, through "healing methods",the birth of a"bedeviled" child with intense black eyes, and a roving preacher who has secrets of his own. Part of me had trouble with the relationship between Varina and Rue. Varina was so despicable to me in many ways, but Rue loved her none the less. Read this for a bird's eye view of slavery and war that highlights the plight of men and women and the lives of three stunning women.

May this 14 year old Nigerian girl never leave the imprint of her struggle, her humanity and her bravery from my brain. As she narrates how her world widens from her poor home in her village to the city of riches in Lagos, one watches the unfolding of the chrysalis becoming a butterfly. She dreams of becoming a teacher but her dreams were decimated when her mother died and her father married her to an older man in order to have money to support himself and his other two boys. As she continues to struggle through life, I was torn at my very being by her goodness, forbearance and compassion even when she was subjected to many abuses of the spirit and the body. Written in a broken English style, it was easy to immerse into this pattern and made the book feel more authentic. Not only was it a story of strength and empowerment, but the author made you feel you found the pulse that composes Nigeria. Seriously, I cannot recommend this book more highly.

When I read the premise of the book, I couldn't imagine appreciating it. Why did I want to read about a plane crash of 191 people where only a 12 year old boy survived? It felt depressing just twirling these words around my tongue. However, I was in for one sweet surprise. The novel introduces us to the complicated lives of the other passengers, told in alternating chapters,which are then counterbalanced with the softheartedness of other parts. The media blitz does not leave the young boy alone; he will never be the "normal" kid again. But we watch as Eddie becomes Edward and his physical and psychological healing is delicately displayed. His empathy to others as he tries to find his place in the world is a lovely thing to behold, gentle and sweet. And his sidekick Shay who he meets when he comes to live with his aunt and uncle is a refreshing counterpunch, a breath of fresh air, as a cheeky adolescent. All in all, a more compassionate read then I had expected.

Blurbs have covered the stratosphere heralding the publication of this novel. I am here to tell you that these comments are not hyperbole; all of them are well deserved. Simplistically, it is the story of one woman's heart wrenching flight from Mexico with her young son to El Norte to escape the cartel and its spiteful drug lord. The horror of the first chapter alone is enough to put one over the edge. However, it is the prose and the dramatic tension throughout that propel the dynamism of the novel. Cummins shines a lens on our own biases lumping all migrants together, and helps us understand the harrowing ordeal that they encounter to try and escape persecution. How sobering to think that she must have written this a few years before the issues that confront us today were not staring us in the face painfully day after day after day. It is also the story of a mother's deep love for her child that tugged at my heart's drawstrings with an aching hurt. This is a fabulous book for book groups but you might want a lot of wine to get you through the discussion.