Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock – Matthew Quick

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Christie

Today is Leonard Peacock’s 18th birthday. It’s also the day he has elected to kill himself – but first he has to kill his former best friend, Asher Beal. Before he can do that, though, he has some gifts to deliver, gifts he’s wrapped in pink paper and packed in his knapsack along with his grandfather’s P-38 WWII handgun.

I want to give them each something to remember me by. To let them know I really cared about them and I’m sorry I couldn’t be more than I was – that I couldn’t stick around – and that what’s going to happen today isn’t their fault.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is a smart, funny, heartbreaking novel by Matthew Quick, perhaps better known for Silver Linings Playbook. I was immediately enchanted by Leonard’s charming, wry and honest narrative – he is immediately believable and sympathetic.

Leonard isn’t your run-of-the-mill teenager. He’s a thinker. He’s also in real emotional distress. It’s no wonder. His father, a former rock star currently on the run from the IRS, and his mother, a fashion designer who lives in NYC with her French boyfriend, are clearly terrible parents.

As Leonard makes his way through his day and we meet the four people he deems worthy of parting gifts, it’s easy to see how lonely and isolated he is.

First there’s Walt, the old man who lives next door. “I met Walt during a blizzard” Leonard tells us in one of the novel’s frequent (and often caustic) footnotes. Leonard’s mother, Linda, had asked him to go “shovel the driveway, even though it was still snowing, because she had to go out to meet another fake designer or some bulimic model.” Walt is an old movie aficionado and soon enough he and Leonard are quoting Bogart and Bacall back and forth at each other.

Then there’s Baback, a kid Leonard has known since grade nine. When Leonard discovers that Baback is an extremely talented violinist, he bribes Baback to let him sit and listen because listening to Baback play is “by far the best part of my day.”

Then there’s Lauren, the home-schooled Christian who hands out pamphlets at the train station. (Sometimes Leonard rides the train into the city, following random adults to see whether there is, in fact, any potential for happiness once you’re out of high school.) That’s where he first sees Lauren and he dreams of kissing her, although they can’t seem to overcome the obstacle in their way: Jesus.

Finally, there’s Herr Silverman, Leonard’s favourite teacher. Herr Silverman encourages his students to think for themselves, a quality Leonard feels is lacking in other faculty members. Also,

There have been days when Herr Silverman was the only person to look me in the eye.

The only person all day long.

It’s a simple thing, but simple things matter.

I’m a teacher; that hit me in the gut.

Leonard goes through his day, hinting at something horrible that happened between him and Asher, the something that necessitates his rash decision to end both their lives. With each gift, he half hopes someone will notice that something is wrong and, thankfully, someone does.

For anyone who has ever felt ‘other’, for anyone who ever considered ending their own life, for anyone who has ever felt neglected, unseen, or desperate, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is the book for you.

Highly recommended.

Think of a Numb3r – John Verdon

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Christie

John Verdon’s debut novel Think of a Numb3r introduces readers to retired NYC detective Dave Gurney, the man responsible for catching several well-known serial killers. Now he lives a quiet life in Walnut Crossing with his second wife, Madeleine. He spends his time “enhancing, clarifying, intensifying criminal mug shots” which he sells through gallery owner Sonya Reynolds, a woman he spends just a tad too much time thinking about.

Out of the blue he receives a message from an old college classmate, Mark Mellery. Mellery is ” the director of some sort of institute in Peony and he did a series of lectures that ran on PBS.” Mark needs Dave’s help. He’s received a cryptic note:

Do you believe in fate? I do, because I never thought I’d see you again – and then one day, there you were. It all came back: how you sound, how you move – most of all, how you think. If someone told you to think of a number, I know what number you’d think of. You don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you. Think of any number up to a thousand – the first number that comes to your mind. Picture it. Now see how well I know your secrets. Open the little envelope.

The note is creepy; the fact that the envelope contains the very number that Mark thought of, creepier still. Mark claims that the number he thought of – 658 – “has no particular significance to me.” The note also asks Mark to send $289.87 to a post office box in Connecticut. Mark has sent the money, but the check has not been cashed. It’s a perplexing situation and Mark is looking for some guidance.

Think of a Numb3r is a well-written mystery but I found it just a tad slow. Even after the bodies start to pile up, I felt like the same evidence was being recounted too often. A lot of names to remember- DAs and other detectives and such. As for Dave, he just seems pissed off all the time. Okay – yes, there’s been tragedy in his life which may explain some of it away, but then the reconciliation with Madeleine at the end seems a little trite. We get to hear just a little too often how famous Dave is and , yeah, we get it – he’s caught some monsters.

As far as the mystery – it’s good enough. There are certainly some compelling elements – footsteps in the snow which vanish into thin air, clues left for the police which are clearly meant to demonstrate how smart the villain is. I just wish it had all unfolded a teensy bit quicker.

That’s amore

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Christie

Listen here.

Boy meets girl – it’s the oldest story in the book, right? And now, thankfully for modern readers, we can also add boy meets boy and girl meets girl (and they meets they etc etc)

A couple of years ago I talked about love and the sorts of stories that make my heart skip a beat, or more often than not, break…a feeling I have to admitting I like just a little more than is probably healthy. You can read about what I said here.

I am a romantic at heart. Sappy, even. I’m not sure I grew up believing that a handsome prince was going to ride in on his white stallion and save me, but I did believe in happily-ever-after, although I am currently on the fence about that now.

My most favourite kind of love story is the one where the couple overcomes tremendous obstacles to be together – sacrifices are made – or, even better, that they love each other deeply but just can’t be together. Angst, baby. Buffy and Angel. Hello.

So since Valentine’s Day has just passed, I thought I would talk about romantic books.

I cut my teeth on my mom’s bodice rippers – Rosemary Rogers type stuff. Sweet Savage Love. You know, wild men who can’t be tamed and the virginal women who tame them.

Clearly romance novels have changed over the years – like 40 of them – when I first starting reading them. Some argue that modern romance novels are actually empowering because they are mostly written by women for women, women are generally the hero – or should I say heroine – of the piece and then there’s the s-e-x. In the modern romance novel, women are often in charge of their own pleasure, something I doubt Rosemary Rogers would have acknowledged back in the day.

All that said – I still have a soft spot for romance between two people who have to overcome horrible odds…and if they can’t actually overcome them – even better. Clearly, I have a type and it’s all about the doomed love. I am the person who still blubbers like a baby watching Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet.

Ultimately, though, I think there should — at the very least– be the potential for a happy ending, even if it never actually happens.

So, if you are feeling the love – or you want to feel the love – or, you just want to curl up in a ball and cry…I have some recommendations for you.

The Lost Garden – Helen Humphreys

Humphreys is a Canadian writer and The Lost Garden is the story of Gwen Davis a young horticulturist in 1941 London. She gets a job leading a team of Land Girls at a neglected estate in Devon. They’re going to be growing crops for the war effort. While there she meets Raley, a Canadian officer waiting to be posted to the front. She also befriends Jane, a young woman whose fiancé is MIA. From these two people – in these fraught circumstances, Jane comes to understand the meaning of love. I was so enchanted with this book that when I was in England in 2007, my kids and I spent the day at The Lost Gardens of Heligan, an estate which is very much like the one Gwen works on in the novel.

Can I just share a little bit from the beginning of the book?

We walk the streets of London. It is seven years ago. We didn’t meet, but we are together. This is real. This is a book, dusty from the top shelf of a library in Mayfair. The drowned sound of life under all that ink, restless waves breaking on this reading shore. Where I wait for you. I do. In a moment. In a word. Here on the street corner. Here on this page.

But it is shutting down, all around me, even now, this moment that I stopped. The story disappears as I speak it. Each word a small flame I have lit for you, above this darkened street.

The Lost Garden is a really lovely, and surprising love story.

So, I asked my eighteen-year-old daughter why she reads romance. She was pretty quick to point out that most of the love stories she reads are unrealistic and that she realizes that. However, that doesn’t get in the way of her enjoyment. She counts books like John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook or The Last Song among her favourites. Nicholas Sparks definitely offers readers a heaping helping of schmaltz.

If you’re looking for schmaltz, you can’t go wrong with Robert James Waller’s 1992 novel The Bridges of Madison County. You could read this book in an afternoon; it’s short. I don’t mean to suggest that Waller is a wordsmith, but this book broke my heart when I first read it. Francesca is a war bride and she lives with her husband and her kids on a farm in Iowa and one afternoon – while her family is away at a state fair or something — she meets a photographer named Robert who is in the area to photograph covered bridges. The encounter changes her life and his, too. Sacrifices must be made. Their story is discovered by her adult children after her death and they are shocked to realize their mother was more than the woman who made their meals and washed their clothes. People might know the movie with Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood and it’s a decent version, but the book is pretty good if you have a couple hours and a box of Kleenex.

So clearly, I’ve just outed myself – if a book can make me cry the writing doesn’t even have to be stellar.

Now – how about a YA romance?

Easy – Tammara Webber

This is for mature teens…it kind of just crosses the line, but it’s about a second-year university student named Jacqueline who has just been dumped by her boyfriend. She meets Lucas and he’s — I suppose – the proverbial bad boy, but he’s not really. This book hit all my guilty pleasures and then some. There’s tension galore, there’s a likeable minor cast and the two main characters are smart and kind and when they finally reach their happily ever after, you’ll be swooning.

Yep – there’s something super satisfying about a love story. Check out these:

The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

I cried so hard when I read this book, I couldn’t even see the pages.

The Banquet – Carolyn Slaughter

Henry meets Blossom at Marks & Spencer. He’s a conservative architect; she’s a young shop girl. There’s is an all-consuming love affair. Carolyn Slaughter is one of my all-time favourite writers.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe – Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Two boys, true love. So beautiful and life-affirming.

Me Before You – JoJo Moyes

Just in time for the movie. Plain Jane meets handsome paraplegic.

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

My first-ever romance. And you never forget your first, right?

What’s your favourite romance novel?

Everything I Never Told You -Celeste Ng

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Christie

Lydia is dead.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve had such a visceral reaction to a book. I read the bulk of Celeste Ng’s debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, on my snow day (a gift for a teacher, even if it’s only because we get to catch up on marking/yearbook/planning – and, yeah, reading). I don’t think I will ever be able to adequately explain how I feel about this book or these characters.

Lydia is just sixteen when she is found at the bottom of the lake across the street from her home in small-town Ohio. It’s the 1970s, the decade in which I, too, was coming-of-age. On the morning she is discovered missing (and it is this “innocuous” fact that sets the story in motion) we see the Lee family dynamic.

As always, next to her cereal bowl, her mother has placed a sharpened pencil and Lydia’s physics homework, six problems flagged with small ticks.

Hannah, Lydia’s younger sister is “hunched[ed] moon-eyed over her cornflakes, sucking them to pieces one by one.” Lydia’s older brother, Nathan, is sitting on the stairs trying to wake up. James, their father, has already left for his job as a professor at the local college.

Lydia is never late. She is never anything but compliant. She is a “yes” girl, the favoured daughter. It is only after her body is found that her story, and that of her family, begins to unravel. And yes, you will want to know what happened to Lydia, but trust me, it’s just one of the many things that will break your heart in this magnificent novel.

While every family has their own secrets and burdens, the Lee family is further set apart because Marilyn is white and James is Chinese. Their story is integral to Lydia’s story. Marilyn herself was a gifted student, earning a scholarship to Radcliff, and there – while she heads towards a degree in medicine – she meets James, a fourth year graduate student in history. She is ‘other’ because she is a woman studying in a field that is dominated by men; he is ‘other’ because he’s Chinese. All Marilyn knows is that “she wanted this man in her life. Something inside her said, He understands. What it’s like to be different.”

Marilyn’s career plans are pre-empted when she gets pregnant. She and James marry and move to Ohio. Of course, their union wouldn’t be quite so problematic now (I’d like to think, but there are always some people….), but it’s the late 50s when they marry. Another world, another time. And life, fraught as it is, moves on. But why is it fraught? Because James grew up attending private school for free because his mother worked there as the cook and his father the janitor? Because he never fit in anywhere? Because Marilyn didn’t want the life her mother had? Because of dreams deferred? And what happens when our parents’ lives are complicated and damaged by their own childhoods? Ah, we all know the answer to that question, right? It all trickles down.

Everything I Never Told You is an astounding, complex and heart-breaking look at the secrets we keep, not only from our families but from ourselves. Why we keep them, and the damage caused because of it, is just part of what happens in Ng’s book. The horrible longing we feel to crack ourselves open, the desire for true communication and intimacy, is another part. There wasn’t a single character in this novel I didn’t want to hug – I loved them all. That they were so fabulously human and fragile is a testament to Ng’s talent.

Highly (times a billion) recommended.

Pass it on

Posted on January 25, 2016 by Christie

Listen here.

Pass it on.

One of the questions that we often ask at book club is “would you pass this book on?” That got me thinking about my own personal criteria for recommending a book. I know that that’s what I do here with you…but who am I, really, to be making recommendations to anyone, right? Book love is so subjective.

I read a lot of books, but not many of them would fall into the “here – you gotta read this” category. So I started to think about my own litmus test for books…what books have I read that I would definitely press into the hands of someone else?

I think a book has to be well written. But that doesn’t mean that every single book I’ve loved has to be Shakespearean. Sometimes a book can be just super fun to read without all the literary bells and whistles, I am thinking about a book like …oh, who am I kidding? I took a look through the highly recommended section of my blog and really, all the books I’ve really loved have had that beautiful combination of story and character and writing. That is not to say that I haven’t read my share of books that have been fun to read, but would I insistently pass them into the hands of other readers? Do I think about them long after I’ve closed the pages? Probably not – so maybe that’s actually the test for me. Do I think about these books when I’m finished? Do I want other people to read them so we can share our thoughts? That’s the book I want to pass on. So – I’ve got three for you today, two adult and one YA read that I would heartily recommend to readers of all stripes.

Let’s start with the book I just finished and which I mentioned the last time I was here as a book that I hoped would be a page-turner and man, was it ever.

Descent by Tim Johnston

So, this is the story about the Courtland family, mom and dad, Grant and Angela, their 18 year old daughter, Caitlin and their 15 year old son. Sean. They are in the Rocky Mountains on a little family getaway before Caitlin heads off to college on a track scholarship. Early in the morning, Caitlin and Sean head out so Caitlin can run up the mountain with Sean following on his bike. Then, Sean gets hit by a jeep – strange first of all because they are literally in the middle of nowhere. He’s really badly hurt and when his parents get the call from the hospital they are also informed that Caitlin is missing. Fast forward a year and the Courtlands are still fractured. Dad has moved to the town where Caitlin disappeared; Sean is driving around the country aimlessly; Angela is back on the east coast living with her sister. They are all damaged. Johnston’s novel is the perfect combination of style and substance. The writing is sharp and lyrical, but it never slows the action down and – trust me – this novel has some pulse-pounding action sequences that were just so good. I would definitely hand this one over…like, not to keep, of course!

Our Daily Bread – Lauren B. Davis

This one I actually touched on a while back when I talked about starting a book club. I couldn’t stop thinking about this book for days and days after I read it. Despite the controversial subject matter, Davis’s book is so compelling, the writing so good and the characters so broken…it’s impossible not to read this book without feeling something.

Our Daily Bread concerns the fortunes of two families: the Erskines who live up on North Mountain and the Evanses who live down in Gideon. Albert Erskine is different from the crack-smoking/dealing relatives with whom he lives on a sort of compound. He’s smart and he wants more from his life, but life has dealt him a particularly rough hand. Bobby Evans has it tough in another way – as he watches helplessly as his parents’ marriage deteriorates he looks for a place to belong and, strangely, he and Albert become friends. The intersection of these two young lives makes for some compelling reading, I’ll tell you that. This book is, at turns, horrific and heartbreaking, but you will fall in love with these characters – I promise.

Our Daily Bread was long-listed for the Giller in 2012.

Finally, a YA novel that I would definitely pass on is Catherine Ryan Hyde’s Jumpstart the World, which I just finished last week. It’s the story of Elle, a fifteen-year-old girl whose mother sets her up in an apartment across town because her new boyfriend doesn’t get along with her. Yep – mom chooses the guy over her daughter. So, here’s Elle living on her own, starting a new school. She meets her next door neighbours Frank and Molly and is immediately taken with Frank, who seems really kind and nurturing…clearly traits her mother doesn’t possess. She also makes some friends at school – outsiders all…

Then she discovers that Frank is transgender and it forces Elle to really examine herself as a human being. What I liked about Jumpstart the World is that it never preaches. It will offer young people an opportunity to examine their own prejudices, for sure, but it also has a lot of really amazing things to say about love and family and accepting who you are. It’s really a lovely book and I would certainly press it into the hands of my students.

Catherine Ryan Hyde is probably best known for her novel Pay It Forward, a book I haven’t read – but I did read her YA novel The Day I Killed James and it was also excellent.

Descent – Tim Johnston

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Christie

I love it when a book lives up to its hype…and if you believed the accolades plastering the back cover and the first three pages of Tim Johnston’s novel Descent, you’d certainly be expecting great things. The Washington Post said “Read this astonishing novel. The magic of his prose equals the horror of Johnston’s story.” Esquire called it “Outstanding” adding that “the days when you had to choose between a great story and a great piece of writing” are “gone.”

I don’t even know how this book came to be on my radar – I just know that I had a picture of it on my phone and a couple weekends ago I was pleased to discover that Indigo had topped up my Plum Points and I had $100 to spend…but only that weekend to spend it. So, I flipped through the pictures of covers and chose five, Descent being one of them. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the book on Information Morning and decided that since I had, I should probably read it. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

The Courtlands are spending a little family time in the Rocky Mountains – a holiday before Caitlin, 18, heads off for her first semester of college. Her mom and dad, Angela and Grant, are clearly in crisis and then there’s Sean, Caitlin’s 15-year-old brother.

Caitlin is a runner and on the morning the story opens, she and her brother are heading up a mountain trail – Caitlin on her feet, Sean on his bike. Johnston meanders up the mountain with the pair as they bicker and share confidences. Then the unthinkable happens: Sean is hit by a jeep

…it came, monstering through the trees at an incredible speed, crushing deadfall, the whip and scream of branches dragged on sheet metal and then the suddenly unobstructed roar that made her wrap her head in her arms, the sound of tires locking and skidding and the thing slamming into what sounded like the sad tin post of a stop sign and then the meaty whump and the woof of air which was in fact the boy’s airborne body coming to a stop against the trunk of a tree.

When Grant and Angela get a call from the local police, they learn Sean’s been badly injured; Caitlin is missing.

Fast forward a year or so. Grant has moved to the area and is living on the property owned by the local sheriff’s father, Emmet. Sean is on the road, driving from place to place picking up odd jobs. Angela is living with her sister when she isn’t hospitalized for depression/mental health issues. Caitlin’s disappearance has fractured the Courtland family. It’s mostly the men that Johnston spends time with, allowing the reader a glimpse into their own personal hells: the father who can’t and won’t give up hope that Caitlin will be found and the son who can’t forget what happened that morning on the mountain.

The characters in Descent are trying to get on with it, but their personal pain is palpable. Grant works around Emmet’s property, sometimes pausing to “stare into the hills beyond the ranch, up into the climbing green mountains.” He hears his daughter’s voice and “take[s] his skull in his hands and clench[es] his teeth until he [feels] the roots giving way.”

As for Sean, he is closed off from the world. In one particularly horrific scene, he puts himself in harm’s way in an effort to save a young girl – perhaps in an effort to atone for the ultimate crime of not being able to save his sister. It’s not the only time he does something selfless, albeit, foolish. I just wanted to hug him.

We do spend less time with Angela, but that doesn’t mean that we know less about her. She moves through her much diminished world like a whisper. Only a parent who has suffered the loss of a child could truly understand Angela’s debilitating sadness.

The girls’ heartbeat still played in her arms. In her chest. She remembered the hour, the minute, she was born: precious small head, the known, perfect-formed weight of it. All her fears of motherhood – of unreadiness, of unfitness– vanishing at the sight of that plum-colored face mewling in outrage. My child, my life.

Secondary characters, Emmet’s black-sheep son, Billy, for example, are equally well-drawn. Billy arrives back in town, much to the chagrin of his father and older brother, and swaggers his way into everyone’s bad graces. But even Billy is allowed his shades of gray – there are no stock characters here.

Into these complicated interior lives, Johnston deftly weaves the mystery of Caitlin’s disappearance. She is not a footnote, trust me. The story of her disappearance is unraveled with excruciating care and her story is definitely one of the things that will speed your journey through this book.

Descent is fantastic on every level and I highly recommend it.

Jumpstart the World – Catherine Ryan Hyde

Posted on January 21, 2016 by Christie

When Elle’s mother’s boyfriend decides he doesn’t like her, Elle’s mother sets her up in an apartment across town. The town happens to be New York and Elle is just 16. Catherine Ryan Hyde takes an almost unbelievable premise (like, what mother turns her kid out because she wants to placate her boyfriend?) and spins it into the beautiful and moving coming-of-age story Jumpstart the World.

On moving-in day, Elle meets Frank Killborne, her next door neighbour.

He had a big, friendly smile and there was something cute about him, but in a soft sort of way. Hard to explain what I mean by soft. Gentle, I guess I mean. He made you try not to find fault with him for some reason. The kind of guy it’s hard not to like.

Frank lives with his girlfriend, Molly, and it doesn’t take long for them to become Elle’s de facto family. It also doesn’t take long for Elle to develop more complicated feelings about Frank.

Jumpstart the World is populated with other interesting and sympathetic characters, too, particularly the group of friends Elle makes at her new school. There’s Shane aka Larissa, blue-haired and gay; the Two Bobs – a gay couple; there’s Wilbur, a quiet guy who wears make-up. These friends have varying degrees of influence on Elle’s life and are also responsible for the novel’s conflict. When they meet Frank, they point out what is not obvious to Elle: Frank is transgender.

It’s pretty remarkable that there’s a book like this available for teens. It’s the first book I’ve ever read featuring a transgender character, but the fact that Frank is doesn’t mean that Ryan Hyde starts to get all preachy. We might expect that since this story takes place in NYC, the world is filled with individuals ready to embrace everyone’s differences, but – of course – the world isn’t quite so open-minded and, as it turns out, Elle has some reconciling of her own to do.

Jumpstart the World actually tackles the questions of trust and family and what it means to give your friendship and love to another human being, regardless of their sexual orientation. There aren’t any easy answers in life and it might be a bit much to expect a teenager to figure them out, but each of the characters in this book have had their own life-altering experiences. And interestingly, Elle’s journey – painful as it is – also helps her to make a kind of peace with her mother.

I enjoyed this book. I liked spending time with Elle. I appreciated that her journey was a little left of center, but that she discovered – as she does with her cat, Toto, that sometimes “you just have to take a deep breath and let somebody love you.”

Highly recommended.

The Grownup – Gillian Flynn

Posted on January 14, 2016 by Christie

Gillian Flynn is best known for her smash hit Gone Girl , but her two other novels Dark Places and Sharp Objects are also excellent. Flynn is a masterful writer and her protagonists are generally prickly women with dark pasts.

The Grownup is Flynn’s latest literary offering, a slender little story you could polish off over a cup of tea and a biscuit. (Literally – it’s 62 pages long.) She thanks George R.R. Martin (author of Game of Thrones) for asking her to “write him a story.” This particular story actually won an Edgar, a prestigious award given by the Mystery Writers of America. grownup

“I didn’t stop giving hand jobs because I wasn’t good at it. I stopped giving hand jobs because I was the best at it,” says our narrator. Now she has painful carpal tunnel syndrome and needs to find another way to make money. She’s been a grifter her entire life, learning at her now-absent mother’s hem.

“I came to my occupation honestly,” she tells us. Raised by her mother “the laziest bitch I ever met”, the narrator now guarantees satisfaction at Spiritual Palms: tarot readings in the front, hand jobs in the back.

One day Spiritual Palms’ owner, Viveca asks the narrator if she’s clairvoyant and before she can say poltergeist, the narrator is giving readings to the public. That’s where she meets Susan Burke, a harried woman who proclaims “my life is falling apart.”

Wanting to help, imagining a life where she does, the narrator goes to Susan’s home, Carterhook Manor, and there things take a decidedly creepy turn.

I can’t say much more than that, really. After all, in the time it would take you to read this review, you could be half way through The Grownup. What are you waiting for? Go on.

Pulse Pounding Thrillers

Posted on January 11, 2016 by Christie

There’s nothing I like better than a thriller; it’s my go-to genre when I want to jumpstart my reading. I love a good mystery, a page-turning, heart-pounding, protagonist in peril book that I can’t put down. I know I am not the only one who likes suspense, just look at how popular books like The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl are. I love it when you find a book with the perfect combination of creepy thrills and stellar writing, so I thought I would share five books for any readers out there who are looking for something to curl up with while the weather is crappy.

Intensity – Dean Koontz

So, I read this book about twenty years ago. Koontz is a very prolific writer of supernatural fiction. I’ve read a few of his book, but this one was totally propulsive. It’s about a Chyna Shephard, a young woman who is visiting a with her best friend’s family when really bad luck arrives in the form of serial killer Edgler Forman Vess. What follows is a thrill ride that will have you turning the pages super fast.
Instruments of Night – Thomas H. Cook

You might have to order books by American mystery writer Thomas H. Cook online because it’s rare to find him on the shelves of our local book stores-which I don’t get because he’s fabulous. The first book I ever read by Cook was called Breakheart Hill and it had a killer opening line: “This is the darkest story I ever heard and all my life I have labored not to tell it.” I had to buy it…and I’ve probably read seven or eight books by him now. One of my favourites by Cook is Instruments of Night.

It’s the story of writer Paul Graves, a man who has spent his career writing about the horrible dance between serial killer and sadist Kessler (and his accomplice, Sykes) and the man who has spent his career chasing him, Detective Slovak. Instruments of Night operates on more than one level, though. Graves has almost completed the 14th installment of his series when he is invited to upstate New York to meet with Allison Davies, mistress of an estate known as Riverwood. Fifty years ago, Allison’s best friend, Faye, was murdered on the grounds and now Allison wants Paul to “imagine what happened to Faye. And why.” Couldn’t put it down

If you like literary mysteries- you’d be hard pressed to find anyone better than Cook.
Dark Places – Gillian Flynn

So everyone knows Flynn for her novel Gone Girl, but I actually read her book Dark Places first. It’s her second novel, her first is Sharp Objects…also really good, but Dark Places is – I think – her best. It’s about Libby Day, this rather unlikeable woman who has – no question – survived a lot of hardship. Her mother and two older sisters were murdered when she was a kid and her testimony helped convict her older brother Ben – who was fifteen at the time – for the crime. Flynn weaves the past and present together as Libby finds herself confronted with the truth of the crime that changed her life. Fantastic book.
End of Story – Peter Abrahams

You could polish off End of Story in an afternoon – because once you get going you won’t be able to put it down. It’s the story of tells the compelling tale of Ivy Siedel, an aspiring writer, who takes a job teaching writing to a small group of inmates at Dannemora Prison, in Upstate New York. When one of her students, Vance Harrow, turns out to be a talented writer, Ivy decides to take a closer look at his history and discovers something about him that both shocks and excites her…and changes her life forever.
And my last pick is a book I just purchased this weekend and I haven’t read it, but I am expecting great things because it’s been given copious praise by everyone and their dog. It’s called Descent and it’s by a new-to-me author, Tim Johnston. A family is on vacation. The college age daughter and her brother go out for a run and only the brother returns.

I’ll let you know how that one turns out.

Have you read any good thrillers? I’d love to hear about them.

Brooklyn – Colm Tóibín

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Christie

My fabulous book club kicked off 2016 by discussing Colm Tóibín‘s award winning novel Brooklyn. After our Christmas hiatus, we all enjoy getting back together for some yummy food, wine and great conversation.

Tóibín‘s novel, the story of Eilis Lacey’s coming-of-age in 1950’s Ireland and Brooklyn, NY, was a lovely way to start our new reading year, even if we didn’t all agree about the book’s merits.

Eilis is (I think – it’s never explicitly stated) a young woman in her early twenties who lives with her widowed mother and thirty-year-old sister, Rose. Rose is glamorous and independent. Times are tough in Eilis’s little town and so when an old friend of the family, Father Flood, arrives home for a visit from America and suggests he could help Eilis find work there, and perhaps further opportunities to improve her life, it’s decided that she make the journey across the Atlantic to settle in Brooklyn. Eilis’s story is actually quite common for the time period; however, one has to venture a little further back to fully understand the Irish immigration to America.

At Time.com, “Irish-American historian and novelist Peter Quinn explains, “The country wasn’t in the Second World War, it had been kind of cut off from the rest of the world, and it wasn’t part of the Marshall Plan. So it was still a very rural country.” The economy was at a standstill, while the U.S. was booming. Some 50,000 immigrants left Ireland for America in the ’50s, about a quarter of them settling in New York.

Women played an important role in that immigration process. Quinn explains “during the 19th century, the wave of Irish was “the only immigration where there were a majority of women.” And, thanks to a culture that supported nuns and teachers, those women were often able to delay marriage and look for jobs. By the mid 20th century, many Irish women—who also benefited from the ability to speak English—were working in supermarkets, utility companies, restaurants and, like Eilis, department stores. The fact that Eilis finds her job through her priest is also typical. “[The Catholic Church] was an employment agency. It was the great transatlantic organization,” Quinn says. “If you came from Ireland, everything seemed different, but the church didn’t. It was a comfort that way, and it was a connection.””

So here is Eilis, alone in the big city. Whether you like her or not (I’m sort of in the “indifferent” camp), Eilis’s story is certainly compelling. She begins a job at Bartocci’s, a department story run by Italians. Her goal is to make her way through the ranks and end up, hopefully, as a bookkeeper in the office, rather than a shop girl. Father Flood arranges for her to take a bookkeeping course at Brooklyn College. She’s a diligent and conscientious worker.

She lives in a boarding house run by an Irish lady called Mrs. Kehoe. She shares living space with a variety of other young women, some Irish, some American. We learn very little about any of them; Eilis tends to keep to herself.

And there you have it – Eilis in Brooklyn. Oh…then she meets Tony.

Eilis slowly became aware of a young man looking at her. He was smiling warmly, amused at her efforts to learn the dance steps. He was not much taller than she was, but looked strong, with blonde hair and clear blue eyes. He seemed to think there was something funny happening as he swayed to the music.

It’s almost impossible not to like Tony and his family. He courts her and they fall in love, but then personal tragedy strikes and Eilis has to return to Ireland.

Brooklyn does have something to say about the choices we make in life and why we make them – sometimes, it seems, we aren’t really sure; we’re just swept along by the tide. Some readers might be put off with the way ideas/characters/themes are introduced and then dropped without resolution. While it’s true that life often happens in this manner, I might have enjoyed just a teensy more follow-through.

Tóibín‘s prose is straight-forward, unembellished and allows his reader to fill in the gaps. Many readers will likely take issue with the novel’s conclusion, but I liked it – even if I didn’t particularly like Eilis.

The Ludic Reader

Tag Archives: 2016