I wish I loved The Roaring Days of Zora Lily. Noelle Salazar, the author, addressed many of the elements present during the so-called "roaring twenties." She showed us the extreme poverty which lurked beneath the wealth of American society and integrated the working conditions of the lower classes into her dialogue. Zora's social life is a microcosm of the underground clubs where the poor forgot their poverty and the rich squandered their money. The longing to better herself through her dream of a dress shop of her own, is Zora, dreaming for every immigrant who came to this country in the mass migration between the late eighteen hundreds and the early years of the next century. And, in the time switch to the modern day with its character of a Smithsonian Institute conservator and her discovery while mounting a retrospective of costumes of the era, gives us a picture of the influence of Hollywood on culture and design of the twenties. All these historic events provide fodder for a richly realized story full of complex characters created by their place in society and economic status.
Instead, Salazar has written a book which, to me, is a step above a "cozy" in the way the lives of its characters evolve and in the short shrift given important events in American history. I wanted to like Zora. Instead, I found her ordinary and familiar with little depth and a lot of cliché. Sorry, I'd skip this one.

The spate of stories in which girl meets boy, girl becomes pregnant; girl runs away with boy and all live happily ever after has departed along with their attendant holiday symbols. If you're seeking a wonderfully creative twist on this trope, Iron Curtain, a love story, is just the book for you. With her tongue firmly in her cheek, the author speaks to us in the person of Milena Urbanska, the cherished daughter of a "hero of the Bolshevik Revolution." By the 1980's, her father is a highly placed official in one of the satellite states behind the Iron Curtain living in a mansion appropriated from the time of the Czar and peopled by servants and a wife interested in Western fashion, jewelry, and Russian Vodka. The author, Vesna Goldsworthy, employs enough irony, satire, and black humor in filling out her characters to give book clubs several months of analysis and discussion. Unlike dystopian plot twists which leave the reader deeply sad in comparing the ideals of the Revolution and the actuality of its lived daily events, Goldsworthy uses Milena's voice to both accept the constraints of her society while also mocking the gap between what could have been, and what is, in the reality of the Cold War. The romantic plot twist which brings a soviet princess out of her country to live in the alleged land of "milk and honey" with Jason, her English/Irish Marxist poet, takes Milena along the yellow brick road to a place of her own crafting where she shapes the life she wants using her own creativity and grit.

The Last Russian Doll by Kristen Loesch has the potential to be an exciting trip through Russian history via the life stories of its characters. Their stories evolve during the turbulent years between the Bolshevik Revolution and the era of Glasnost.

Unfortunately, this potential is not realized due to the complex interweaving of multiple plot lines by the author. Each chapter begins with a Russian folk tale. The tale's meaning is not embedded in the subsequent text, nor is it mirrored by the actions of the characters in the chapter that follows. It is not until the author explains their purpose in an addendum to the novel that we get a sense of why they were included at all.

Rosie, or Raisa, the main character, is searching for her identity, love, her father, and the meaning of her mother's strange doll collection. The result is an often confusing plot line with intersections of time and character which leave the reader struggling to discover who is doing what with whom.
As for the Russian history within which the plot progresses, I found that in order to make sense of its effect on the country and the characters, the reader needed much more information than was embedded in the text. The killing of the Czar and his family, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Siege of Leningrad, Stalin's corruption of the Revolution, and the period known as Glasnost were only briefly visited and barely explained.

Were I the editor, I would ask the author to simplify the plot and either focus her theme on the role of fable and superstition in the lives of the Russian people, or, clarify and extend the historical detail as it impacts on the character's choices and actions, or, concentrate on Rosie/Raisa's search for her identity.

The Last Russian Doll is not a book I would recommend either to the individual reader, or to Book Clubs.

The Empire of Dirt could be called a novel of female fears, difficulties and superstitions. Written in a singularly poetic style, and including the points of view of a superstitious grandmother, a pleasure seeking mother, and a teenager on the verge of womanhood, the novel addresses the challenges of womanhood. The interactions among these three characters take place in the "blind house," a crumbling and windowless box isolated outside of town.

These elements of plot, character and setting should have engaged my interest and caused me to relate to the almost universal female life events of birth, menstruation, change of life and old age. However, I found the characters to be depressing individuals who seemed to me to be generally lacking in either the will or the ability to navigate the waters (literal and figurative) of female maturation. Their interactions seemed more akin to the crumbling home in which they lived than to the natural emergence of personal strengths and understandings which we as women hope for. Were it not written by a respected female author, I would suggest that there are elements of woman bashing in the text.

My response may very well be culturally tainted by my own identity as an American feminist. Having said that, I apologize to Ms. Manfredi for disliking her book.

Andrea Yayura Clark has written a book full of important and interesting information about Argentina's so called Dirty War. She includes multiple sympathetic characters caught up in the violent changes in government and abuses of Argentine citizens centered around fears of communism and socialism.
The book is weakened by the extensive explanations of the various key incidents within this twenty year period. Instead of the history being told through the eyes of central characters, the history becomes a character itself. This doesn't allow sufficient time to develop more deeply the emotions and choices of the human beings on both sides of the mini-wars. Paloma, a main character who ends up discovering that her mother is one of Argentina's desapararecidos or disappeared could have been a more fully developed narrator of the story through whose eyes the secondary characters could have been more than mentioned in passing. In addition, the relationship between Paloma, her father, and her birth mother who is disappeared, needs more dramatic emphasis and clarity in the context of a book which shifts back and forth in a twenty year time period. The history of this period in Argentine history is largely unknown and needs to be told. It could have been told with less detail and more clarity in order to inform and engage the reader.

It's been a long time since I stayed up late, unwilling to put down a book that has me in its thrall. The Family Chao is one of those books. Lan Samantha Chang has crafted a wonderful mix of family dysfunction, mystery, and humor. Her main characters are three brothers and their parents. Their lives center around love/hate relationships with both the successful Chinese restaurant owned by their mercurial and often cruel father, and their own desires to follow their individual dreams. Unlike other books with similar settings, these characters are not trapped in poverty or limited in ability. Each is talented and self-aware while also engaged in a struggle to break free of the life dictated for them by the restaurant and the Chinese culture of family interrelationships. In ironic prose and unusual turns of plot, Chang leads us through sibling rivalries, sexual coming of age, rejection of culture, and the murder of the patriarch.

Using interior monologues from each of the characters set against details of what it means to be part of a minority population in a small town in Wisconsin, the author arouses both empathy and annoyance in the reader for each of the characters' and their decisions. The plot contains enough surprise twists to keep us fully engaged from beginning to end as Chang takes us on a fascinating journey with a surprise ending. The Family Chao is a great book club pick. There's lots to talk about.

Elias Rodriques has the opportunity to use his book, All the Water I've Seen is Running, to explore the visions which his title can awaken in the readers' mind. It is lovely to think that, as our lives progress, we are running toward the sea from which we came.

His protagonist, Daniel, spent his teen years between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Ocean in a small Florida town to which he returns after the death of Aubrey, who was his best friend during his adolescence.

Instead of using location, activity, and dreams to take us through a poetic coming of age story, Rodriques chooses a convoluted plot which often leaves the reader confused as to the reason the scene is included in the book and the impact of the event on Daniel's life.

The author spends the bulk of the book reenacting the events of his youth with his surviving friends in a confusing stream of dialogue which is written in the patios of the poor, economically segregated and racist town in Florida to which he returns. With no clues to the reader as to their importance, he inserts tales of his
difficult family life, his relationship with his father, and the history of his mixed race Jamaican family in among adventures with his now older friends. The reader has to guess what the meaning of specific episodes is in the context of Daniel's life past and present.

Any one of these plot lines would have made a fascinating story about a man emerging from an ethnic group about which we know very little. Instead, the episodes of drunken memory-making lull the reader into simply examining the culture of a small Florida town and the effects of time on its mixed race track team.

It is difficult to tell if Daniel is seeking his true identity during his pilgrimage to Florida, or if he is reliving a life he regrets losing. His insights at the end of the book are poorly connected to his story-telling throughout. And, Aubrey, who clearly harbors depth of character, pops in and out of the story with little context to orient the reader to her presence or importance to Daniel.

A final chapter written in another voice than the author's adds nothing to the book and is puzzling in its inclusion.

Throughout the text, Rodriques demonstrates the ability to write poetically. I hope that he applies that ability in a more disciplined way in his next book.

The Last Tiara by MJ Rose was the kind of book one reads for easygoing immersion in an interesting story which demands little of the reader in terms of deep thinking or emotional response.
Rose uses the story of a tiara found by Isobel Moon in 1948 to tell the story of her mother, Sofiya Petrovich's life during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and her emigration to the United States. Alternating chapters move back and forth between the voices of mother and daughter. There is much potential in the book's premise to create deep characters with whom we can identify and sympathize. Unfortunately, the author chose to provide us with reasons for each character's decisions and to describe feelings rather than inviting us to intuit them. Thus, there was little to imagine and less to engage the emotions of the reader. Events unwind in the plot with allusions to complex motivations and noble feelings, but the author's writing style evokes neither. The banal, such as Isobel's affair with her boss is rendered in the same voice as the tragic, such as the death of Isobel's father and thousands of other Russians in the wake of the Revolution.
If a Book Club is seeking an easy read this is a good choice. Members can add depth to the experience by examining in depth Isobel's struggle to succeed in a man's world and comparing it to their own work lives. Or, the issues which lead to the Revolution and its ultimate effect on the history of Russia could be the basis of discussion and research.
Barring either of the above, The Last Tiara is a moderately interesting book to be read for relaxation between more challenging and insightful texts.

In her novel, Small Days and Nights, the poet-novelist, Tishani Doshi, invites us to join her bi-racial protagonist, Grace, as she negotiates a life marked by conflict, loss, and anger. The book begins with Grace, once an American wife with a career in that country, living unconventionally and unwillingly, with her sister, who has Down's syndrome, and a pack of dogs. Their lives in a crumbling complex set in the far south of India are integrated with political unrest and material disparity. They are both like and profoundly unlike their neighbors.

Grace is not a warm and fuzzy protagonist. It is the reader's task to discover both the reasons for her current status and the sources of her sense of emptiness. We are invited to think about, and either accept, or condemn, the ways in which Grace seeks happiness.

In almost brutally honest terms, Doshi describes the people in Grace's life, and the contrasting beauty and ugliness within Indian culture and society. Thoughtfully reading Doshi's text invites the reader to develop an appreciation for ambiguity in the character's life and our own. Her final chapter challenges us to ask what it means to be true to oneself.

This book is an excellent book club choice. It avoids cliches and gradually builds empathy for Grace, her sister, and their serially abused nation. I would describe it as a novel to be admired, rather than liked, but one which grows on you and is worth reading.