BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

Reviews by Shannon L. (Portland, OR)

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The Divorcees
by Rowan Beaird

An eye-opening picture of a ranch vacation in the 1950s. (1/10/2024)

The Divorcees is a novel about divorce in 1950's America. The facts are pretty simple. If you were a young, unhappily married woman in America, you had very few options to escape your marriage. You were considered the property of your husband with on;y a few personal rights. …more Divorce was not one of them. The state of Nevada was different. It granted divorces with minimum requirements that required a short residency.
   The Divorcees is the debut novel by author Rowan Beaird, who takes her readers to the Golden Yarrow, a divorce ranch near Reno, Nevada. While The Golden Yarrow is fictional, it was patterned after one of Reno's more respectable divorce ranches, a temporary home-away-from-home for the young women living through their six weeks of in-state residency and completing endless paperwork. These were usually young women of means who would be provided a safe, protective environment where they would spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys at the local saloon. Many did not know what they would do next.
   The primary character is Lois Saunders. In her early 20s, Lois had thought that marrying “the right man” could cure a deep loneliness. As picture-perfect as her husband was, she was suffocating and wanted out. Out was a divorce which her husband refused her. Her father agreed to finance her stay at the respectable Golden Yarrow divorce ranch.
   At the Golden Yarrow, Lois found herself living with five other women each on her own path to freedom. They took advantage of the warm sun, riding horses during the day and visiting a local tavern at night. To Lois, it was as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, was prim and stifling. It did not take Lois very long to realize that her entire life had been lonely, both as a child and as a married adult. She began to push against the limits that have always restrained her.
   Late one night a mysterious guest arrives. Her name was Greer Lang, bruised and beautiful, she was the last to arrive. She was unlike any woman Lois had ever met. With Greer, Lois thinks she has found the excitement that has been missing from her life. Greer dares her to do things Lois would never do on her own and they develop a friendship unlike any Lois has had before.
    From here, author Beaird weaves an engaging tale of longing, learning, and personal growth. She goes deep into the pain of divorce, female friendship and the difficulty of starting over as a single woman. These women are not characters in a novel. Any one of them could have been someone we know, real and complex. They all harbor truth they aren’t willing to share and they will do whatever it takes to keep it hidden. These are women the reader doesn't have to like but she will care what happens to each of them. Beaird's settings are vibrant but she does not let Reno or the ranch become characters in the story.
    I really enjoyed the novel because of the historical divorce information and the unique idea of the divorce ranch. Unfortunately, somewhere around 100 pages into the book, Lois's widely varied escapades became a bit confusing. Her plans for criminal activity weren't terribly shocking but seemed to come out of nowhere. Her story brought a disbelief to the narrative and that was disappointing.
    I am a child of the early 50s. My mother had no choice but to work. As a result I had a strong, working woman, with a family of four to feed, as my role model. I did not expect the divorcees to be so resolute, but in their own circumstances, they strong and brave. They just wanted a path to get on with their lives in an era that still looked down on them. I want to thank Book Browse, if they had not offered me this book to review, I doubt that I would have read it. (less)

The Roaring Days of Zora Lily: A Novel
by Noelle Salazar

a good old-fashioned saga (10/10/2023)

Spoiler Alert: I loved this book!

The Roaring Days of Zora Lily is a refreshing saga of family ties, friendships and love. Zora is a young woman who demonstrates that working hard to achieve a personal goal is worth every effort and mistake.

Her story opens in 2023 inside …more the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History as a costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer's label, leaving her to wonder – who is Zora Lily?

The story flashes back to Seattle in 1924 where we meet Zora Hough and her poverty-stricken Seattle family of nine. Zora spends her days looking after her younger siblings. She helps her mother by sewing up holes and fixing hems to bring in extra money. Still in her early teens, she is working her fingers to the bone so the family can survive. At night, as she lies in the bed she shares with one of her three sisters, secretly dreaming of becoming a designer like Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin. Zora loves to sew and earns a reputation as "being a magician with a needle."

Author, Noelle Salazar, is a skill-master at painting vivid snapshots. It is easy for the reader to imagine the characters, locations, fashions, and clubs. While most of the story takes place in 1924, the readers are smoothly carried back and forth between 1924 and 2023. We can visualize where we are without being overwhelmed with too many details. Both the narrative and the characters feel real. It is easy to care about secondary characters, such as her mother and her friend Rose Tiller.

While I enjoyed The Roaring Days of Zora Lilly, the narrative's pace would improve if it moved a little faster and Salazar moved the focus to fewer and more important characters. The "story" would jumped off the page with fewer minor characters and issues with prohibition in their lives. Then, the reader could see Zora interact with the difficulties in her own personal and work life as she grew and matured from Zora Hough to become Zora Lily.

I hesitated reviewing fiction set in the Roaring 20's but The Roaring Days of Zora Lily a really good read and enlightening about the time period, fashions and social life of 1924. I recommend this book to historical fiction readers, especially those who enjoy reading about the 1920s.

In The Author's Notes, Salazar tells us that her great grandmother's name, Zora Lily, was her inspiration for this story. Although she lived during the time of this story she in no way had a glamorous life but this story is a reminder that she too was special.

I highly recommend The Roaring Days of Zora Lily and Salazar's previous books
The Flight Girls and Angels of the Resistance. All three are stories of female spirit and perseverance.

Do not miss this gem! (less)

Clytemnestra: A Novel
by Costanza Casati

A Woman Ahead of her Time (1/2/2023)

Set in Ancient Greece around 650 BC, author Costanza Casati has chosen Clytemnestra for her debut novel. Clytemnestra, humanized from the most well-known of the Greek myths, was a queen, a mother, a murderess and a warrior who led a life of love, hate, jealousy and power. …more Clytemnestra was the daughter of King Tyndareus and Leda, the twin sister of Helen, princess of Sparta, the eventual wife of Agamemnon and the Queen of Mycenae. She was a woman bred for power in a world that wasn't ready for her.

Casati faithfully follows the works of Aeschylus to write Clytemnestra's life. As elements are stripped away and focus is on seeing these characters as mortal humans, the story is no longer just a fantasy. This carefully drawn piece of historical fiction connects a variety of familiar myths, family feuds, war and daily life in the world of Ancient Greece.

Clytemnestra is divided into five chronological parts. The story begins in Sparta where Clytemnestra was raised. Casati lays the ground work to show that Clytemnestra saw herself on equal footing with men and the survival skills of a warrior mentality. Casati shows a different side or her infamous sister, Helen, and her part in the Trojan War.

An early life full a tragedy shapes Clytemnestra's intense approach in early adulthood. This was a very tough time to be a really strong, assertive woman. She had lots to learn and develop the courage to use it. Experience alters Clytemnestra and we see it as she confronts each loss, fear and woe. Sometimes, she crumbles and sometimes she hardens, but she always fights her way through.

Casati develops Clytemnestra as a powerful female protagonist and a character with which you will develop a love/hate relationship. This is Clytemnestra's story, in her own words, and even then the truths illuminated were harshly exposed.

Always staying true to Greek myths and legends, Casati casts a new light on Clytemnestra, the most hated queen of ancient Greece. You will suffer with her, you will love intensely as she does, and ultimately you will seek her revenge like it was your own.

Casati was born in Texas, in 1995, grew up in Northern Italy and lived in London for five years. She studied Ancient Greek and Greek literature at a classical Liceo in Italy and went on to graduate school in the Warwick Writing Program. Her passion for ancient history shines in her work. I loved Clytemnestra and can hardly wait for her next novel. (less)

Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey
by Florence Williams

Heartbreak is not heartbreaking! (12/29/2021)

"It takes a lot of support to heal a heart," says journalist Florence Williams in her latest book, Heartbreak, A Personal and Scientific Journey. Support, courage and the skill to write about that journey makes Heartbreak a gripping account of grief and healing. It is a …more merging of self-discovery and science that can change the way we think about loneliness and our health.
   After twenty-five-years, journalist Williams' marriage unexpectedly fell apart. Her despair was so severe that she ended up in the hospital, something she would never have imagined. "Physically, I felt like my body had been plugged into a faulty socket." Williams had lost weight and stopped sleeping. Her pancreas wasn't working and she couldn't think straight. She needed to do something about it.
   This was heartbreak and Williams wanted answers to the "havoc" occurring on her mind and body. Her first step was to revert to her comfort zone – journalism. She began by examining something called "social pain," the way our cells listen to loneliness. Williams wanted to understand why heartbreak hurts so much. Searching for understanding and trying out her own personal game plan were her way back to health. She tested her blood for genetic markers of grief, underwent electrical shock therapy and discovered that our immune cells listen to loneliness.
   Heartbreak follows a trajectory of heartbreak, from moments of shock to feelings of rejection and loneliness and finally toward some measure of repair. Williams takes her readers down a path from from neurological research laboratories to a Zen therapist's living room, from divorce workshops to the mountains and rivers that will eventually restore her.
   Williams book begins with a river and ends with a river. Williams opening statement is talking about her trying to load it on to the bow of her canoe as she prepares for a solitary trip down the Green River in Utah. "My biggest problem was the portable toilet. It was just too heavy."
   Her journey ends on a rainy April day by the shore of the Potomac River. Purging herself of the of the physical and emotional relics of her marriage, Williams sends her wedding ring floating downstream on a lettuce boat.
   We have all experienced some form of loss or grief. In Heartbreak, Williams tackles these tough, complex subjects in an offbeat way. It is a gripping account of personal grief and self-discovery and is written with warmth, wit and honesty. She captures the heart of divorce and a different, fresh way to look at recovery. I found it a powerful book.
   Williams is a journalist, podcaster and the author of The Nature Fix and Breasts. She is an editor, freelance author and both a fellow and visiting scholar at George Washington University. She lives in Washington D.C. (less)

The Sunset Route: Freight Trains, Forgiveness, and Freedom on the Rails in the American West
by Carrot Quinn

Interesting story (8/4/2021)

The Sunset Route is the memoir of Carrot Quinn and her years as a homeless, poor, white vagabond, a life that continues to define her. Carrot Quinn started life with her mother, Barbara, who struggled with untreated mental illness and a younger brother, Jordon. They lived …more in extreme poverty—with both children wanting for food, heat, stability, and love. Quinn's story comes in nonlinear flashes and can be tough to follow until you begin to recognize her style. Quinn's life is tumultuous. In some places these memories and experiences are hard to read. Mostly, it is the simple story of someone who doesn't give up.

Readers quickly understand that normality is life with a schizophrenic mother who believes herself to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary and an absentee father who has given up all parental rights. Quinn and her younger brother are victims of abuse, starvation and, then, homelessness. The Sunset Route opens with an older Quinn who is about to take us on our first freight train ride. By the time we leave Quinn, we will have learned more about riding trains free of charge and finding places to sleep and get food than we hope we will ever need to know. Quinn's life is never stationary. To survive, she adopts bits and pieces of other persons' identities, persons she meets along the way, whom she admires for their passions or their skills at survival. The Sunset Route is filled with vibrant snapshots of people, hitchhiking and, eventually, Quinn's true love, thru-hiking. (Unlike backpacking, thru-hiking is hiking an established trail from one end to the other.)

After a few years of struggle to keep her and her brother sheltered and in school, Quinn's grandparents finally take her in but they are not what she had imagined. They turn out to be very cold and abusive. They feed and clothe her but she is still denied the love she craves. Her saviors are her friends and strangers. Each friend she meets, in the various school systems she attends and on the road, give her the love and friendship severely lacking in her genetic family. Complete strangers offer her meals, rides and places to stay.

Quinn's lifestyle of jumping trains, hitchhiking, living place to place and dumpster-diving is not one I could recommend regardless of how abusive a child's home was, but it was the only way out she saw. By book's end she does find some, but not all, of her answers by living the best life she can on her own terms. I was constantly amazed by the fortitude if this young woman who has the strength to constantly start over again. Quinn writes with honesty, vulnerability and puts it all out there, no holds barred.

The Sunset Route was certainly interesting but a number of elements didn't work for me. The nonlinear structure blends time together, days, weeks and months pass without much remark. It is strongest in the middle. A lot of the chapters were pretty repetitive and it often felt like I was reading the same train-hopping story over and over. I never really cared about about Quinn or how she ends up. The book ends without a strong sense of closure. Simply, there was a lot of potential to the memoir but it never quite developed.

One big missed opportunity in The Sunset Route's is that it nearly begins and ends in Alaska but Quinn doesn't take advantage of the concept. The image of Alaska would have been a great bookend and theme to give the narrative greater significance. At the end Quinn is an adult looking for her mother. She has been away for two decades away and this concept that her travels were spent looking for something only to begin and end in the same place, Alaska, is important and universal.

The Sunset Route is a personal read about hard topics and is a story here worth telling. It has adventure and drama. Quinn never loses her ability to see the beauty in her surroundings and we see this through her writing. A last few pages show the potential for introspection and closure. Maybe she is already working on The Sunset Route, Part 2. (less)

Crossing the River: Seven Stories That Saved My Life, A Memoir
by Carol Smith

Beautiful but sad! (2/10/2021)

Crossing the River is the memoir of Carol Smith and the death of Christopher, her seven year old son. She describes her grief as overwhelming and lasting for decades. Smith is also a journalist who specializes in medical stories so she had many opportunities to meet and …more

The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir
by Sara Seager

READ THIS BOOK! (8/19/2020)

The Smallest Lights in the Universe: A Memoir is Sara Seager's life as a stargazing child, a famed astrophysicist and a widow with two children at 40-years-old. She is a pioneering astrophysicist and a professor at MIT. She led NASA's Probe Study team for the Starshade …more project and earned a MacArthur grant. Her story is an engaging, deeply emotional memoir.

The Smallest Lights in the Universe takes us on a journey through many pivotal moments in Seager's personal life and career. As a child, she loved astronomy and the fantastical ideas about life beyond our own planet. She shares her love of nature and some of the barriers she had to overcome in her career.

Life was not easy. Seager grew up in a dysfunctional family that included a stepfather she called "the monster" and an enabling mother. She spent her weekends with her biological father, a physician, who understood her and encouraged her love of the stars. As a female in science, Seager was constantly having to prove herself to keep her position in the field. This was tough because she was socially awkward, and no matter how hard she tried, she struggled to fit in. Some consolation came when, as an adult, she was diagnosed with autism and learned coping mechanisms.

Her husband Mike, a writer, editor and true advocate of her career, worked from home and was a commited house husband most of their married lives. Then he came down with a rapidly progressing stomach cancer. With only a few months to live and a body ravaged by chemotherapy, Mike wrote her a guide to life without him. It included everything from the grocery stores he uses to the hardware stores. Just a few days shy of her 40th birthday, he died. Seager was now a widow with two small children.

The stars had always been her closest friends and the place she could look to for help and consolation. They had taken her away from her dysfunctional childhood and they helped her cope while Mike was dying. Neither the stars nor her husband's thoughtful guide could tell her what to do next. She did the only thing she knew how to do: research. Not long after Mike's death, Seager uncovers a group of ladies who call themselves "The Widows Group." They became her anchors.

The Smallest Lights in the Universe is a refreshing read about someone who is successful in her field and yet struggles with a self-doubt and the awareness of not fitting in. Seager is very honest throughout the book and she really captures how research and discovery can be equally frustrating and rewarding at the same time. Her style of writing held my attention most of the time. It is an honest, deeply personal account of pain, struggles, achievement and joy, and an insightful account of her life and work of an astrophysicist. It gave me some understanding of the complicated aspects of space.

I have to say that I found some of The Smallest Lights in the Universe difficult to read. Seager's narrative style is very engaging but her explanations of concepts in planetary science moved to the verge of "too much" or overwhelming. When she explained her projects I got lost in the technical details. If she had simplified her language a little more, I think she would reach and engage a wider readership.

My favorite message from the Seager's story was "those tiny lights." These were what gave her a mental escape as a child and focus as a young woman. They led her to form strong connections with nature here on Earth, the universe and her future husband. Those stars could take her away from him but helped heal her when he died. They gave her perspective when she carried on for her children. The stars remained true as she found the courage to start again. (less)

American Dirt: A Novel
by Jeanine Cummins

Compelling Read (2/8/2020)

Sometimes it is difficult to be late in the review process of a book because so many people have already discussed and/or reviewed the book. The human reaction is to simple say “there is nothing I can add to this discussion.” I had already written a draft of American Dirt …more when all the discussions turned to a deafening uproar. I wanted to scrap my review and simply say “there was nothing I could add to this discussion.” That said, I have decided to post my review, anyway. Why? Because whether a reader agrees or disagrees on whether or not Jeanine Cummins has written an accurate book or has the right to tell an immigrant story from a hispanic point-of-view doesn't really matter to me. American Dirt is/was a compelling narrative! While I was reading it, the question of credibility never even occurred to me. The well-told tale was gripping! It was a novel that did't matter! So with this belated caveat, I offer my small but well-intended review.

American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins, is being hailed as the “Grapes of Wrath for our times." I am not sure if this is the appropriate description. What I am sure of is that this story is a powerful exploration into the lives of people who have everything they care about ripped from their lives and, overcoming unimaginable trauma, manage to cling to a thread of hope. They sacrifice whatever is left to save themselves.

Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She has a young son and a journalist husband. She runs a bookstore. Her life is full of hard work but it is good and the family is very content. One day a man enters her book shop to browse. He is a reader and becomes a regular customer. Javier is charming and they will become friends. Lydia never suspects that from this very first visit her life is changed forever.

The opening paragraphs stun the reader and never let go. Cartel massacres throughout Acapulco have shrouded its citizens in ever-present tension and fear. Lydia and her son, Luca, find themselves fleeing from their home to escape contract killers hired by Jefe, the most dangerous drug-lord in the area. They have seen too much and Lydia knows their lives depend on them getting completely out of Mexico as fast as they can. Their perilous journey begins.

Cummins skillfully tells the story from both Lydia and Luca's points-of-view, enabling her audience to experience the contrast between an adult confronting the horrors of their escape and the naivete of child. The tension can be overwhelming but Cummins brings back that little bit of hope to keep us turning the pages. I was with Lydia in her fight for their lives. I was with both of them as they met other refugees along the way, never knowing who they could trust and who was a spy.

When reviewing a book my first question is always “Do I care about these characters?” The characters of American Dirt get an unequivocal yes! I not only cared about Lydia and Luca but all the nameless people they met along the way. I wanted to see their dream come true, a life free from the dangers they fled. I wanted their their dreams to come true.

American Dirt is not for the faint of heart. It's uncomfortable, full of graphic violence that leaves a trail of bodies in its wake. Hoboing with Lydia and Luca means the reader will travel two thousand miles with a constant chill down his or her back, never knowing what threat lies right in front of them. The trek is physically demanding. There is no way a mother and her son could prepare for this trek. They walk, ride trains like a hobo, and rarely sleeping two nights in the same place. I don't remember the last time I read deep into the night because I couldn't put a book down.

American Dirt is more than just a mother and son's journey. Cummins asks us to think about what we would do to survive what seems to be the unsurvivable? She does a careful job bringing attention to the refugee crisis without making it political. This could not have been a simple task since the author, herself, is married to a formerly undocumented immigrant. She says she started the novel to give a face to the migrants at the Mexican border. It became much more than that.

American Dirt has generated significant criticism. Questions such as whether or not Cummins, who grew up in Maryland in a working-class family and identifies as white, can of should be the person tell this story? She gets criticized for using too many cliches and stereotypes showing Mexico as a lawless, violent country overrun by drug cartels and corruption. And one Mexican-American writer called her novel “appropriating” and “inaccurate.”

Cummins does not disregard these criticisms. She concedes that she is an imperfect messenger for the story about migrants and she was afraid of getting it wrong. I don't know if the criticisms are justified. She researched the novel during trips to Mexico and by conducting interviews on both sides of the border. She spoke with people whose families had been torn apart by deportations, lawyers who work with unaccompanied minors, migrants in shelters in Tijuana and human-rights activists documenting abuses. It appears to be authentic and compelling.

I walked every step with Lydia. The descriptions of her emotions were impressive. Her shock and panic during and after a massacre, her courage and vulnerability on the road, and her strength and intelligence to do what it took to keep her son safe was heroic. There is no doubt in my mind that this will be one of the great the books of 2020.

Cummins is the author of three other books: The Outside Boys (2010), and The Crooked Branch (2013) and her best-selling memoir A Rip in Heaven (2004). She lives on New York with her husband and two children. (less)

The Girl in White Gloves: A Novel of Grace Kelly
by Kerri Maher

It's tough to be a Princess! (12/4/2019)

Grace Kelly was the world's Cinderella story. She was elegant and glamorous. She was the picture of perfection. Growing up in the 1950s, she was the princess all little girls wanted to be. According to Kerri Maher's new novel, The Girl in White Gloves, Grace Kelly's life …more was anything but princess-like. It was more like Megan Markle's, the duchess of Sussex, 2019 reality show.

Growing up in a rich neighborhood, Grace Kelley had a lot of expectations from her family and the Hollywood screen crowd. She had it all materialistically but, sadly, she was not happy and she was willing to leave it all behind to marry and live in a world of royalty. Like any great piece of historical fiction, this was the perfect set up for a very simple story: The unappreciated girl from Philadelphia sacrifices everything close to her just to defy her family.

As a young girl, Kelly spent her time chasing after dreams and the approval of those she cared about. Unfortunately, her family, and most importantly, her father, didn't approve of her ambition to be a Broadway star. Still, she was determined to have it all. This was where the lines between fact and fairytale began to blur. She traded Hollywood for a script-worthy crown and the loneliness of being a princess in a fairy tale kingdom. Her fans and loyal subjects couldn't grasp the harsh reality that the most envied woman in the world was not happy. She was starved for affection and purpose. Social expectations came with more twists and turns than Monaco's infamous winding roads and Grace was forced to find her own way. Each step required that she risk her art, her family and her marriage. The threat was that she could lose them all.

The Girl in White Gloves goes back and forth between Kelley's struggle to make a life for herself, first in the theater and Hollywood and then in a palace in Monaco. The story is moving and bittersweet. Maher turns her extensive research into a compulsively readable portrait of a woman hungry to find her place in the world.

The Girl in White Gloves is richly imagined and full of historical detail. Maher explores broader themes of challenging expectations and finding one's voice that set this book apart. The reader gets a genuine reflection of the times in which Kelley lived and Hollywood as it existed in the 50's and 60's. In many places it is a page-turner, full of joy and heartbreak. Who doesn't want to be a princess swept up by her prince charming? And, at what cost does being a princess come when you are already famous, an independent, strong Hollywood sweetheart who does what she wants? Can "Princess Grace" become as meek and subservient as will be expected?

Although Maher took some liberties with the story, the book feels right. She acknowledges that she has speculated about many aspects of Grace's life and adjusted the timelines. Maher also reminds readers that The Girl in White Gloves is not a biography but a novel with fictionalized characters and thoughts to help tell the story.

Anyone who loves the glamour of classic movies will love The Girl in White Gloves. Kerri Maher transforms Grace Kelly from a legendary screen idol into a real and relatable woman. I was captivated by Kelley's struggle for personal and professional acceptance, and her search for balance between ambition and family. I thoroughly enjoyed this peek into the life of Grace Kelly. Maher hold us spellbound with Princess Grace's desire and indefatigable will. It is intimate and is written in such a way that you actually feel as if you're spying on this icon.

I thank BookBrowse for the Advanced Reader's Copy. I learned a lot about Grace's life and the fascinating era that belonged to Hollywood. I enjoyed Maher's descriptions of life in Monaco and romanticizing about those who marry into royalty. Maher has imbued Kelley with grace, passion and strength. We can imagine Kelley's journey, her deepest thoughts, and her efforts to find a purpose beyond her royal duties. We recognize the constraints and expectations blocking her road to a happy, fulfilled life and how similar they seem to today's British monarchy and its 21st century princesses.

Even after all these years have passed, Grace Kelly's life still remains a source of interest, curiosity, and speculation among those of us from a certain generation. Younger readers will read The Girl in White Gloves and learn of the American's princess' story for the first time.

Kerri Maher's admirable novel has certainly piqued my interest and I have decided to do my own "research." I think it is time for me to watch every movie referenced in the story and make up my own story about the real life of Grace Kelly. (less)

Visible Empire
by Hannah Pittard

good but not great (8/18/2019)

Visible Empire opens on a humid summer day in 1962 when a Boeing 707, chartered to ferry home more than one hundred of Atlanta's most prominent citizens from a European jaunt, crashes in Paris shortly after takeoff. Overnight, the city of Atlanta changes. Gone are some of …more the most popular and powerful residents of the city. Left behind are children, spouses, lovers and friends faced with renegotiating their lives.

Hannah Pittard's latest novel fictionalizes a tragic but true event. She sets up a what-if tale of the aftermath of a mass tragedy that engulfs an entire community. It is the story of how a group a Atlantans are forced to respond and recover. It is a story of loss and how, when you lose something, your worldview is put to a real test. And, it is a story set in a fascinating time in United States history when Atlanta is already on the cusp of change with the urgency of the civil rights movement at its doorstep.

Pittard is an excellent, capable writer. We see her ability when she puts us right in the center of the chaos that remains in the wake of the crash. That sense of dread, denial and unknowing can be felt right along with the survivors as they learn the truth about what has happened. Visible Empire has the power to make us shiver but it never rises to its full potential. Pittard doesn't hold that tension level and she loses strength of her story as the number of characters grows. Missing is that magic of historical fiction when it creates a texture of lived experience, when it activates the senses and deepens the reader's engagement through feeling.

Visible Empire could have been a great novel. It had so many opportunities to do this and it just doesn't happen. Instead, the horror of the tragedy deteriorates into a TV soap opera with characters that never blossom into life. The focus is on Robert, Piedmont, Anastasia, Lily and Lulu. Robert, loses his mistress in the crash and copes with his loss by leaving his pregnant wife, Lily. Lily loses her parents in the crash and, in the aftermath, she loses her husband and her inheritance. Seriously?

Similarly, the plot, craving to be a meaningful piece of historical fiction only superficially touches on the important issues of segregation, Civil Rights, economic and social class, and family. If Pittard had picked only one of these issues and placed them in a larger historical context, her readers would have learned something much more significant about life and its options in 1962. All the pieces are there but Pittard never puts them together.

There were too many characters. I found myself wishing we could spend more time with certain characters and less (or no) time on others. For example, Piedmont Dobbs was one character I saw as having real potential. He is a young black man, a product of the dangerous times faced by Negroes in 1962 America. The civil rights movement had already begun and he is haunted by Emmett Till but instead of letting him grow, Pittard turns him into a shallow caricature.

If I could ask the author one question, it would be what was her novel about. Was was it about a plane crash in France where more than one hundred of Atlanta's wealthiest citizens perished or was it about infidelity, interracial romance or race relations in Atlanta? Regardless, the plot spiraled away from the incident, and into the corners of the lives of the people left behind – and not in an intriguing way.

While Visible Empire is a work of historical fiction many of its themes continue to be timely and important. Sadly, the book disintegrated (along with the plane) and never gave its audience anything meaningful. (less)

Beirut Hellfire Society
by Rawi Hage

Good book but it wasn't for me! (6/22/2019)

Rawi Hage's Beirut Hellfire Society was one of those books where each page was a renegotiation. One page I liked it and was glad I was reading it and the next page I hated it and felt I was wasting my time. By the time I finished the book, I knew. I did not like it. It was …more too too much for this old lady!

In the prologue, we meet teenager Pavlov with his father, the undertaker. Pavlov's father is taking him to a secret crematorium high in the hills above Beirut. This crematorium is for outcasts who are denied last rites and graves within the city limits of Beirut. It is primarily for the use of the Hellfire Society, a mysterious, anti-religious sect who arranges for the secret burials. Unbeknownst to Pavlov, his father's "side job" has been to take care of these misfits' bodies.

Chapter One is Pavlov's story. It begins several years after the prologue and his father has just passed away. He is approached by a member of the Society to step in and take over his father's work. Pavlov agrees to do this and, over the course of the novel, chronicles some of the lives of the both the living and the deceased residents of the torn and fading community of Beirut.

Pavlov has little problem stepping into his father's shoes. While he spends a little time trying to resolve his own questions about the point of war or even life itself, he has become indifferent to death. If asked, Pavlov would probably have said that he identified more with dogs than people as he witnessed parades of coffins pass by the window of his family's home. Bombs continuously fall on these funeral parades. As the war continues, the remaining strong, young men go off to war leaving fewer and fewer available to be pallbearers. When transporting the coffins of unmarried young men, the pallbearers dance down the streets, giving the dead a combination wedding and funeral.

Hage's characters, needing to be buried by the Society, are undesirable according to the laws of Lebanon. They are the homosexuals, the hedonists, the atheists and the sexual deviants. They are both colorful and intriguing. They are the strength and the downfall of this novel. Beirut Hellfire Society is the story of these characters and of people gradually being transformed by their geography.

This story seemed so promising and I was intrigued for a while, then, Hage lost me. The Beirut Hellfire Society went from compelling and tragic to confusing and repetitive. Hage truly captured the mood and atmosphere of a 1970s war torn Lebanon but he didn't stop there. Trying too hard, he forced ornate devices on his audience that didn't work. For example, Pavlov's obsession with Greek mythology was unnecessary and contrived. When Hage began to meander I decided he was struggling for a conclusion in a world where war didn't end.

Beirut Hellfire Society is worth picking up because it provides the reader with a clear tale of endurance and the predictable decline of a war torn society but the lack of cohesion let me down. Critics have praised Rawi Hage for his "fierce poetic originality" and "uncompromising vision." This may be true, but fewer outrageous and profane profiles would have served his purpose better. By the end I felt that this was more of a draft than a finished work.

Previous reviewers have cited this poetic passage from Hage's saga as a synopsis for the novel. It is beautiful and but worth repeating. This is a fable and the reality of life:

"These few left-over Christians in the Middle East should leave, the Bohemian said. They should leave this land and spread out all over the earth. The world is vast and these early converts are holding on, in vain, to their mythologies, religion, and a handful of picturesque valleys and mountains. Who and what are they fighting for? They should leave. Leave this country to the Muslims, and then the Muslims will leave it to someone else one day. I have never understood attachments to land and culture. Look at them, sliding one coffin after another into the pit! They wasted the little life they could have had elsewhere. They were never tolerated, and they tolerated no one. The Gods of these lands are cruel, jealous, petty, and archaic. These converts should leave and roam the planet..." (less)

D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
by Sarah Rose

Author Sarah Rose missed a great opportunity! (4/9/2019)

The cover was the first thing that drew me to D-Day Girls, by Sarah Rose. The graphics brought the prospect of a great story about the women who took part in World War II. Thoughts of women "spies who armed the Resistance, sabotaged the Nazis, and helped win World War II" …more brought even greater expectations. Historical fact and fiction from World War I through World War II are my go-to genres. There was no doubt in my mind that I would love this book but I shouldn't have been so quick to pass judgment.

The year is 1942. Europe is deep into the war and the Allies are losing. Churchill recruits thirty-nine women to become saboteurs in France. Author Sarah Rose draws on the lives of three of these women to tell the story: Odette Samson, Lise de Baissac and Andree Borrel. Women of different backgrounds all working together to derail trains, blow up weapons caches, destroy power and phone lines and gather intelligence. Their assignments were dangerous and most of the 39 did not make it home.

D-Day Girls had the potential of a great story but that didn't happen. Rose did an incredible amount of research and gave a good overview of the development of the Special Operations Executive (S.O.E) including sixty pages of footnotes and an extensive, useful bibliography. Readers will finish with the knowledge that spy networks were a primary ingredient in liberating France and winning World War II. The author didn't do enough here. She gives an impression that these were the only women working in dangerous, underground roles; they were not. She needed to make her narrative part of a larger picture in the extensive network of women doing every job imaginable.

Only because I was reviewing D-Day Girls did I finished reading it. There were times when I couldn't tell fact from fiction. Rose mixes reality and speculation. She tells her readers exactly what these three women were thinking and makes vast speculations about France's role in the war. Unfortunately, her notes do not support the narrative she presents and I wondered if she really had this evidence or these postures were personal opinions. D-Day Girls would have been so much better if Rose had made a clearer choice about whether she was historical fiction or non-fiction. Once she had that clear, in her own mind, a good editor could have helped her develop the suspense, danger and excitement that was hiding in this important piece of twentieth-century history.

While I cannot give this book a great recommendation, I hope Rose keeps writing. She has an eye for finding powerful true stories. (less)

The Summer Wives
by Beatriz Williams

Summer Wives is a great read! (5/8/2018)

This was my introduction to Beatriz Williams and I will read her again. While I have mixed thoughts about this book I will start by saying I enjoyed it very much. The book has a book that has everything from love to angst, genteel versus real down-home folks, secrets, …more

French Exit
by Patrick deWitt

A Truly French Exit! (2/5/2018)

A "french exit" is defined as rudely leaving without saying goodbye to your host..or slipping out with telling anyone. DeWitt's latest is definitely about slipping away! I don't even know if I liked this book...DeWitt game me characters I loved on one page and hated on the …more

To the Bright Edge of the World
by Eowyn Ivey

I am glad I read it but.... (9/14/2017)

I read this book for my bookclub. I liked it and I was glad I read it but I couldn't care about any of the characters and I need at least one connection who I really care about.

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