Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez- Book Review

Earlier this month, the long list for Canada Reads was announced. For those who are not familiar, each year, a long list is released and then is narrowed down to 5 books for all of Canada to read. Each book for one week is defended by a celebrity and is narrowed down to 1 book for all of Canada to read. It really is a fantastic concept and is fun to watch as people argue about why a book is relevant and needs to be read.

One of the books on the long list this year was Scarborough and it was one of the 7 books I purchased out of the 10 announced that seemed interesting. Let me assure you, my hope after reading this book is this not only needs to be on the shortlist, but might be the winner this year (granted, I have not read all of them yet).

Scarborough is an impoverished neighborhood east of Toronto. It is where immigrants often wind up and is a diverse group of people living together outside of the big city. That is about the only Canadian centric piece of information needed as the rest of the book could be applied to any neighborhood like Scarborough.

The book is told through several eyes, children and adults, and focuses in on the school where all of these children go to school. There are also a series of email exchanges between the protagonist teacher, Ms. Hina and the school administration as racism and Islamiphobia rears its head.

There is so much in this book, it is almost impossible to cover in a tiny review. There is racism told through the eyes of on of the fathers, poverty as many of the kids go without food, neglect as one child is often left alone to fend for herself, sexuality as one child discovers his orientation, and just plain old everyday school life.

The kids pick on one another as classism comes into play in their teases. There is the hiddenness of poverty as one girl brings a lunch bag, but it is never filled. There is a little bit of everything and there is a gut punch within the book that just ups the ante.

This is not a heartwarming, the teacher will make good in all of these kids lives type of book. This is a real look at the cycle of poverty and race as individuals try to make the best out of situation where there are so many things working against them. This is definitely one to read.

I gave this one 5 stars.

Who Is Vera Kelly by Rosalie Knecht- Book Review

If you have read any previous entries for this blog or followed my profile on Goodreads, you will know I am a big fan of the publishing house Tin House. I enjoy what they publish because often I find myself thinking about the titles long after I have read them. The books tend to get better as they age in my brain.

This would definitely be one of those books. I will admit while reading this through the first time, I was not a big fan which was surprising. I loved Relief Map by Rosalie Knecht, but something was not clicking with me with Vera Kelly. When I finished it, I started it again knowing the end of the book and just read the first quarter of the book again. That is when it clicked for me.

Vera Kelly is a book about self discovery.

Throughout the book, we alternate between two time lines one is later in her life where she is on a mission to eavesdrop on a political conversation in Argentina which begins to turn ugly during the revolution. The second timeline is her younger years where she is shaped by time in juvie, she has sexual encounters, and becomes the person we see in the later years- an almost accidental spy.

This is a slower moving book for a spy novel and that, I believe, is where the disconnect came for me. When I read the blurb and it mentioned spy, my mind went to Bourne or Bond or Atomic Blonde, but this is not that. There are action sequences, but this is primarily a book about self discovery. How did this girl, now a woman wind up in this predicament after just wanting to live her life around gay bars and struggles with rent. How do we become the person we are today?

Once that epiphany happened- self discovery first and spy second, I began to churn this book a bit more in the brain and wound up enjoying it. I will not go so far as to say it is my favorite Tin House books and I still think Relief Map is a better read, but this one is worth a read through too. Just don't expect big action, cool gadgets, or explosions. This espionage in the truest sense as you spy into her life and watch her become the person she becomes.

I gave this one 3.5 stars.

*I want to thank NetGalley and Tin House for the advanced copy. I received it in exchange for an honest review.*

Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner- Book Review

This book came out at the worst time for a book like this to be released. We are in the midst of the #metoo movement where movie execs, actors, and other people in show business are being revealed to have done and said things completely inappropriate (putting it mildly).

In the midst of this come Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men with a book about stalking an underaged girl. While not unheard of in the writing world with such hit books as You or Diary of an Oxygen Thief, it is just really bad timing right now.

If we attempt to push the timing aside, Heather, the Totality is still an ok novella (more on that later).

The book centers around 4 characters- Mark- Heather's father, Karen- Heather's mother, Heather, and Bobby- Heather's stalker. The bulk of the book is about Mark and Karen's relationship as Heather grows up to be a teen. As time moves forward, Mark and Karen's relationship begins to get tense as Heather gets older.

The other portion of the first half of the book is Bobby's upbringing and his imprisonment. He has a rough life and becomes more and more psychotic as he grows older. He is arrested for rape and attempted murder after becoming obsessed with a woman.

The back quarter is what happens when these 4 characters come together. Bobby is working construction outside of Mark and Karen's apartment and begins to notice Heather.

It is difficult not to spoil this book because the first thing that will be noticed is how short it is. In print, it is 145 pages. My ebook version had it shy of 100. It reads more like a novella than a full novel. It is very short, especially for a storyteller like Weiner.

While the premise is about the stalking, the bulk of the book is about the prequel of what is to come. I think the reader would be surprised how little the book is about Heather and Bobby.

What I did love about the book was the ending. I will not talk about it, but what would be interesting to pay attention to is how Mark reacts. He does not know Bobby's thoughts, so pay attention to how things play out.

I gave this one 3 stars. I really was hoping for more, but I think the mindset with the #metoo movement and the shortness of the book worked against it.

*I want to thank NetGalley for the advanced readers copy. I received it free in exchange for an honest review.*

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld- Book Review

Sometime during one of the big Amazon sales of ebooks during the Christmas season, I picked this one up after seeing the starred reviews. I was looking for a good thriller and wanted something for the new year. This was such a “fun” book that I couldn’t put it down and read it in almost a day.

Naomi is a child finder. When the police have a case going cold and give up looking for a lost child, Naomi can be called by parents as a private investigator. She is blunt to the parents in her manner of speaking, but is excellent at what she does. Naomi never gives up.

Madison is an 8 year old snow child. She lives and was born in the cellar of Mr. B. She has some memories of a past little girl named Madison, but she is a snow girl born 3 years ago. Mr B can be very cruel at times, but each and every day, her relationship with Mr B grows. She has made it her mission to touch his heart and help him realize he is a snow child too.

Madison is the little girl Naomi is searching for and will not stop until she finds her. The problem is she is in a place in Oregon where there is perpetual snow, deep forests, and tons of tunnels. Finding Madison will be tricky, especially since Naomi still needs to deal with issues from her past.

The entire book is told in a back and forth perspective between Madison and Naomi within the chapters. Time also jumps a little as we learn about Naomi’s past and her past traumas. There is also a side case Naomi is working on at the same time, so we jump there on occasion. There is no warning for the jumps and it takes a moment to get oriented, but it flows quite nicely.

The technique that most stood out for me in this book is how little violence there is. This is a horrific story, as is the side story. There are some horrific things that happen, for example, Mr B rapes Madison, but it happens off page and there are no details of it as Madison doesn’t know what happened. It is completely left up to the reader to fill in the blanks. There are no gory descriptions of things, there is very little violence (Mr B hunts and there are descriptions of skinning the animal), yet there are some graphic and cringe worthy activities that happen, but everything is off the page or something else is described. Naomi finds a dead body at one point, but rather than talk about what she is seeing, she just describes that she knows there is a body because of the smell, so she describes the smell. It was very clever.

If you are looking for a quick thriller to start your year off, check this one out. I really enjoyed the time with it. I gave it 4 stars.

Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff- Book Review

If you asked me if I would be reading a book on President Trump a week ago, I would have stated “absolutely not!” Then a tweet happened, a lawsuit, and a threat to shut down publishing of a simple book by the President of the United States, and like many readers, I found myself reading a book on President Trump.

Now it is difficult to separate all the hubbub around the book from the book itself, in fact I am still amazed the President has had two press conferences, several tweets, a lawsuit, and used his staff to try to fight this book (a book that would probably have gotten published and read by only a few readers if not for the President), but I will try to focus on the book only.

If one goes into this book looking for some new revelations, especially if one is already critical of the President, you probably will not find many. The book paints the White House as a place where individuals vie for power to bend the President’s ear. It shows a White House where individuals are more against one another rather than working toward a common goal. The book really centers on Trump’s staff rather than the man himself. While Trump is a constant presence within the book, he is painted as a blank slate who when he sets his mind on something, it is set regardless of facts presented. His staff’s role, in the book, is to try to sway him their way.

Wolff paints Trump as a man who did not want the Presidency, but wound up being elected much to the surprise of others. Due to his inexperience, he desired to surround himself with family and people within his inner circle trusting only them.

The true reason individuals want to read the book is for the dirt. While there are some passages that go to those places, it is more a book outlining the first year of the Presidency. I found I often forgot certain things happened, until reminded by the book, as it seems this year has been filled with so many things. Whole speeches are presented, along with the dirt behind those speeches.

My biggest takeaway was around the leaks coming from the White House. Wolff suggestion was not only did those leaks come from Bannon and Jared, but possibly from the President himself. According to Wolff, the President would often speak to his friends unfiltered in the evening, dishing dirt, and sharing items. Those individuals would then turn to the press and leak them out. Wolff makes this point several times and even backs it up a bit with the incident at Mar a Lago where the President openly talked about North Korea in front of other diners.

As stated, I am trying to distance myself from the hoopla, so I will say as a heavy reader of books about politics and a reader of non-fiction, reading the book was a small chore at times. The book was often filled with whole speeches or lots of passages explaining items Wolff previous explained or went over. There were also a few typos and some mistakes, such as a Mike vs Mark at one portion. This though is to be expected in books of this nature.

I will address one big criticism of the book and that is the disclaimer in the beginning of the book. My guess is many who are lifting up this disclaimer as proof that this book isn’t truthful. It is a pretty standard disclaimer though to protect from lawsuit. My guess is it is also there because of the number of options Wolff heard. If two people say the President did such and such, but one said he did this and that, as a writer, he would have to figure out the place of truth and take a guess based on the three accounts. That is how I viewed the disclaimer.

As for the book itself, I found it a good book. I gave it 3.5 stars.

The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne- Book Review

Happy New Year! After a small blog break, I am back to review books and boy do I have a good one to start the year off!

I am going to give a tiny, itty, bitty spoiler warning in that I need to spoil one portion because this one portion leads to the second half of the book and it is difficult to review without that tiny spoiler.

This was my last book of 2017 and I had put off reading it because it is a giant book and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read a book where I know a certain part of the book will go, but enough people said “I had to read it!” So I did.

This book is the life of Cyril, a gay man from Ireland, beginning from his birth to his death moving through all the decades of his life. In Ireland, it was a crime to be a gay man, so much of the first half of the book is Cyril trying to live his life as a closeted gay man even going as far as getting married to his best friend’s sister.

(Here comes the minor spoiler)

On his wedding day, Cyril reveals to his best friend his true feelings and is forced to go through with the wedding, but runs away during the reception.

It is here where the second half of the book begins. Now far from Ireland, Cyril begins the rest of his life journey in locations where being a gay man is more accepted. He finds a partner, moves to NYC with him, after they take in and “adopt” a young man who was a former prostitute.

In NYC, Cyril becomes a volunteer in an AIDS clinic where his partner is the head doctor. This is during the 80s when AIDS is a new disease and is not completely understood by the rest of the community. It is still looked at as a “gay” disease. A major tragedy happens and a big reveal happens which brings Cyril back to Ireland where he must confront his life left behind as he lives out his later years.

This is a big, epic book, but so worth the journey! I know some who have stopped when Cyril was still in Ireland and I have told them to keep going or to jump to the 70s or 80s because it is during those years where his fuller story takes place. Even within my small summary, I am leaving out massive parts of the book. I keep stating, go through the journey!

The reason I didn’t want to read the book is I knew it would journey through the 80s and I heard it took place in NYC. I lived there at the time and saw some of the reactions and knew what AIDS did to the gay community and reading about it touches some old nerves. Even though I was a kid during that time, my church was one of the few churches helping AIDS patients and I saw firsthand how people discussed patients and how people were treated. The book does a very accurate portrayal of that time.

With all my gushing, I will state there is a very neat bow ultimately on this book, which comes off as believable, but just at the threashhold of believable. I could imagine some readers getting really turned off by the ending, but I thought it fit pretty nicely. I also use the happy ending as a way of getting people to read the book- his life will get better.

The final wonderful part of this book is Boyne dedicates the book to John Irving and has stated in interviews that Cyril has some Garp within his character and that is so true. It made me want to go back and read The World According to Garp because there are so many parallels. This is definitely Boyne’s love letter to Garp.

This was my last book of 2017 and my last 5 star book. It isn’t without problems, but this is simply great storytelling and character development.