Devourer of Books

The Return by Victoria Hislop

Sonia is looking to get away for a bit from her less than happy marriage and travels with her friend Maggie to Spain.  They go to take dance lessons, but in a cafe one morning, Sonia finds more.  She knows her mother was Spanish but never returned after the Civil War, but she knows no more than that, either about her family’s history or about the history of the Spanish Civil War.  Befriending Miguel, the owner of the small cafe, Sonia begins to learn the story of the family who once owned it, before and during the ravages of the Civil War.

The Ramirez family was a fairly liberal family in conservative Granada, which did not bode well for the when the fascists wrenched control from the government, particularly as Granada fell rather early in the conflict.  Mercedes Ramirez was the heart of Miguel’s story and, as the youngest and the only girl, the heart of the Ramirez family.  She is a remarkable flamenco dancer and soon falls in love with Javier, an equally remarkable guitar player, for whom she dances.

Honestly, I found the arc of the story to be a bit predictable – the family’s story, that is, and how everything fit together, not the outcome of the war, that would be a silly thing to complain about.  I knew the connections that would be made far before the end of the story.  I also had a very hard time getting into the book at the beginning.  Sonia’s trip to Spain didn’t really capture my imagination, nor did some of the early descriptions of the family’s life before the war began.

All that being said, once the war started, the story really gained momentum.  I became enamored of Mercedes’ story, as well as those of her mother and brother and didn’t want to put the book down.  The writing and language was quite good throughout, I just wasn’t drawn into the plot or invested in the characters very quickly.  Once I was, though, I quite enjoyed the story.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from the publisher, by way of the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

So I’m already doing far too many challenges, but there are three more that I simply cannot resist joining, so I’m going to do it!

Flashback Challenge

The thing that frustrates me most about book blogging is that I never feel like I have a chance to re-read old favorites.  Mostly that’s the pressure I’m putting on myself, and partly is because I have far more unread books than I ever had before between blogging and BookMooch.  Before those two things and before I used the library I probably only got 25 or so new books per year, so I did a lot of re-reading, and I loved it!  Now it has been almost 3 years since I’ve read East of Eden!

In an attempt to remedy this, I’m joining the Flashback Challenge being hosted by Aarti.  I’m going to join at the Bookworm level (3 books), although I’m hoping I can get to the Scholar level (4-6 books).  I do know that my first book for this challenge is going to be East of Eden, which I reading for the Classic Reads Book Club discussion (which I’m in charge of!  check it out!).

Buy One Book and Read It

Hosted by My Friend Amy, the hard part of this challenge isn’t to buy books, nor is it to read books, but it is to actually read THIS YEAR the books I buy THIS YEAR.  That hasn’t happened much recently, so this could be much harder than it sounds. I’ll be participating at level 2: buy 6 books and read them by December 31, 2010.

Beth Kephart Challenge

This is another challenge hosted by My Friend Amy who, coincidentally, I have to thank for introducing me to Beth Kephart in the first place. I love, love, love Kephart’s work that I’ve read so far, so I’m excited to participate in this challenge!  I’m attempting the “Mix and Match” level, which is basically any four of Kephart’s books.

Here in Chicagoland we didn’t have the Snowpocalypse or snOMG that the East Coast got, but we did get a nice few inches, AND it wasn’t that cold.  The snow wasn’t too wet either, though, so yesterday we figured it was the perfect day to take Daniel out and introduce him to that weather event that will be an integral part of his life, based on where we live: SNOW.

Here he is, so excited to go somewhere with Mommy and Daddy that doesn’t involve getting in his car seat.

As you can see, he really wasn’t sure what to think about it.

We did finally get him to play with some in his hand, though:

A few other pictures from our snowy adventures:

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben Winters and Jane Austen

If you’re not sure what ‘DNF’ stands for, that would be ‘Did Not Finish.’

I actually thought I would be a perfect reader for these books.  I’ve come late to Austen, reading (listening to, actually) “Pride and Prejudice” about a year and 1/2 ago and loving it.  So I’m someone who enjoys Austen, but has not spent her life rereading it, so I’m not exactly an Austen purist.   In preparation for “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” I listened to an audio recording of “Sense and Sensibility” about a month before picking up the book.  I figured it would be helpful to be familiar with the story, but it probably wasn’t something I wanted to do back to back.

In that, at least, I think I was correct.  Having a basic idea of the flow of the story definitely helps negotiating the monsters.  Really, the monsters do bring an interesting element into the story.  In many places they are even very well integrated.  Other times, however, there seem to be long, meaningless expositions on the monsters that add nothing to the story, neither Austen’s original story nor the one that Winters is adding in.

Part of my disappointment was the sea monsters themselves.  I thought they would be very specific, attacking at key parts of the story, but they were generalized monsters.  Evidently *something* had turned all waterways in England into breeding grounds for a pestilence that hates humans.  In other words, anything that lives in the water wants to kill you.  Sure, there are some cool parts with giant octopi, but evil little fish are, in my opinion, sort of lame.

This really wasn’t a bad book, Winters did a fairly good job weaving his story into Austen’s most of the time.  Really, I just got bored with the joke.  I enjoyed it for the first 40 or 50 pages, but by page 75 I was continually flipping to the back of the book to see just how much longer this was all going to go on, by page 100 I decided there were just way too many other things I wanted to read to spend my time annoyed with a joke and wishing for the end of a book.

If you want to try it for yourself, buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*

This review was done with a book received from FSB publicists.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.

When She Flew by Jennie Shortridge

Police officer Jessica Villareal has always put much of herself into her job.  First it was her way to connect with the memory of her father who died in the line of duty, then it was because she believed in what she did, and finally because it was the only thing she had left.  When she was much younger she had gotten pregnant and then married to the wrong man.  Her daughter, who never forgave her for the divorce, also became a mother at a young age and went to go live with her father.  Their relationship is extremely chilly, and Jessica rarely sees her grandson.

In contrast to Jessica’s family, Lindy is incredibly close with her Iraqi war veteran father Ray.  He homeschools and she is an intelligent, well-read girl.  Except he clearly has some measure of post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as a physical injury from the war and is unable to find work.  Jennie’s mother turned into a meth head while Ray was in Iraq, so they had to leave her.  Now they live in the woods outside of Portland, very near to where Jessica  lives and works.

When Lindy is spotted in the woods by a couple of bird watchers, it is feared that she may be in the clutches of a child molester supposed to be in the area.  Jessica and her colleagues are called in to look for her.  When Lindy and Ray are discovered, the decision is made to put Lindy in foster care, separating her from her father.  This is a decision with which Jessica vehemently disagrees, and she must choose between her job and her conscience.

This book was so beautifully written.  Jessica and Lindy, in particular, were lovely, well-drawn characters.  The complexity of the decision as to whether or not Lindy should be allowed to stay with Ray was incredibly interesting as well.  I read this when my husband was sick, I was slightly less sick, and my baby was fussy all day.  Normally this could be a recipe for disaster with a book, but “When She Flew” completely captivated me and I actually ended up finishing the book in under 24 hours.  Well-written and interesting is very hard to beat!

I’m definitely going to be reading more of Jennie Shortridge’s work.

Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*

This review was done with a book received from a publicist.
* These links are all affiliate links. If you buy your book here I’ll make a very small amount of money that goes towards hosting, giveaways, etc.