Devourer of Books

I was unable to attend Tuesday’s advance screening of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” as we were traveling home from vacation, but my coworker Katie went in my stead and was kind enough to write down her thoughts about the movie for us.  Thanks, Katie!

The Embers by Hyatt Bass

The Aschers are a family that has fallen apart.  Emily Ascher is recently engaged and determined to hold her wedding on her family’s property, which includes the remains of their old summer home.  Her mother, Laura, doesn’t really understand this desire, after the tragedy that unfolded there, thus creating conflict between the two women who have never really needed a reason for conflict.  Adding to Emily’s burdens surrounding her marriage is her father: long divorced from Laura and distanced from Emily, Joe is unsure how to relate to his daughter and isn’t particularly good at keeping in contact – to the point where Laura warns Emily that she may need a backup plan for someone to walk her down the aisle.

“The Embers” is not a static book.  Not only does the narration switch frequently from Emily, to Laura, to Joe, then back again, but the time period switches from the present (2007/2008), to the time when a tension-filled family finally dissolved (1992/1993).  I know that this bothers some people, so be warned if you are one of them, but I thought that Bass did it well.  The time period of any given chapter is listed at the top of that chapter, and the book is even broken into three sections of seasons to give the reader a sense of exactly how time is moving.  The narration changes are not explicitly indicated, but I never had a problem figuring out whose point of view I was experiencing.

My favorite part of this book was the way that Bass created her characters.  Emily, Laura, and Joe are all deeply flawed human beings.  In some ways they reminded me of the characters in Zoe Heller’s “The Believers,” except they didn’t make me want to rip the pages out of the book so I would never again be subjected to their horribleness.  Joe and Laura already had problems, but the tragedy that struck their family left all of them emotionally scarred.  They weren’t particularly likeable characters, per se, but they were real and sympathetic, and I didn’t find them DISlikeable.  This seemed like almost a psychological look at the events of their lives and how they caused them to relate to one another.  You could get a particularly good view of this because of the narration changes, and it was occasionally heartbreaking to see how past hurts caused them to misinterprete each other’s actions.  I thought the ending of “The Embers” was perfect, particularly Joe’s ending.

Whether or not you’ll like this book seems to depend (based on others’ reviews) on how you feel about the characters.   A few people have really hated them, and I can understand how that hampers enjoyment of a book (see my review of “The Believers”).  However, I found them to simply be real, if somewhat dysfunctional, and I thoroughly enjoyed “The Embers.”

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

Thank you to Hyatt Bass and Henry Holt Publishing for sending me this book to review.

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, The Birth of the “It” Girl and the Crime of the Century by Paula Uruburu

I have had an interest in Evelyn Nesbit every since I saw the musical “Ragtime” (based on the E.L. Doctorow book?) years and years ago.  There is a song, or possibly two, about her.  All I knew about her was that she was the ‘girl on the swing’ and was involved in the ‘crime of the century.’  Something about her husband shooting her old boyfriend, Stanford White.  Thus when I was offered the chance to review Paula Uruburu’s “American Eve” about Nesbit, I enthusiastically agreed.  I love learning things, and this was definitely a topic that had piqued my interest.

I was shocked by what I learned of Evelyn’s life.  I had no idea that she was so young when ‘dating’ Stanford White.  Their relationship would have been considered statuatory rape, although his seduction of her was much closer to actual rape that anything merely statuatory.  Evelyn led a tragic life, beginning with the death of her father.  From there on out, she was simply used by all those close to her: by her mother for financial gain, by White for sex, and by her husband for his revenge fantasies about Stanford White.

“American Eve” was well-crafted and well-written.  Uruburu balanced reporting just the facts (leaving out any added drama) with a style that kept the book interesting.  In some ways, “American Eve” reminded me of “Devil in the White City” in the way it filled in many other historical details of the age around its story, but it didn’t have the tendency I found with “Devil in the White City” to occasionally get somewhat dull.  Not only did I learn about the lives of Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, and Henry K. Thaw, but I also gained a better understanding of early 20th century American culture.

This is a very readable biography with a lot of cultural history included.  If that’s your kind of thing, I would definitely recommend “American Eve.”

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

Thank you to the publisher for sending me this book for review.

Mama Knows Breast: A Beginner’s Guide to Breastfeeding by Andi Silverman

I read “Mama Knows Breast” a couple of weeks before my baby was born.  Although I had been to a breastfeeding class at the hospital a few weeks earlier, I was exhausted that night and not at all sure that I had retained much.  And if I didn’t remember much then, how was I going to remember anything after giving birth?

But then Andi Silverman sent me a review copy of “Mama Knows Breast: A Beginner’s Guide to Breastfeeding.”  I carried it around with my while my husband and I ran errands, and I just kept sitting in the car while he ran in places, soaking up every bit of knowledge that I could.  After giving birth I could not consciously remember a single piece of information from the book, but I had internalized enough of it that I felt very confident about breastfeeding.  Since then I’ve enjoyed flipping back through it from time to time and have especially enjoyed checking out the ‘from the mouths of moms’ features throughout the different chapters.

If you or someone you know is about to become a breastfeeding beginner, this book can help you feel more confident and, really, what is more important as a new mom?

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

The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal by Sean Dixon

The Lacuna Cabal is a very different sort of young woman’s book club.  First of all, they only read literature.  Absolutely nothing frivolous.  For another thing, they like to bring their books to life, to act them out, truly experience them.  The Lacuna Cabal hasn’t been quite the same, though, since the death of Ruby Cognill some months ago.  Thus when Ruby’s twin Runner has a book that she very much wants the Cabal to do, it is hard for them to turn her down.

Interestingly enough, “The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal” is narrated by two of the members of the Cabal who break the 4th wall and speak directly to the reader.  Oh, and they often include footnotes during their story.  It was quite disconcerting at first, having the narrator(s) speak of ‘we’ and in footnotes.  Of course, once I was introduced to the rest of the characters they were so odd that I barely even noticed the ‘we’ narrators.  There is Missy, their leader, who was older than she liked to admit and desperate to become pregnant by any means; Emmy who did not want to be a part of the book so was fictionalized by being given subltly striped (and color-changing!) skin by the narrators; Romy who secretly loved Emmy; Priya the folk singer; and Aline who is waiting for her gender reassignment surgery to physically become a woman.  Not to mention Runner Coghill, who is perhaps the oddest of all.

So Runner asked the Cabal to next study a story she has on old stone tablets that turns out to be the Epic of Gilgamesh.  They end up ‘recruiting’ two young men to be Gilgamesh and Enkidu and much drama ensues, culminating with quite an adventure.

If you’re feeling fairly skeptical about “The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal” at this point, I don’t blame you.  I’m not sure whether the plot or the characters are odder.  In fact, as I was reading it I kept saying to my mom and my husband, “this book is so weird!”  However, each time I followed that up with “but I really like it!”  My description of this book makes it sound ridiculous, I know, but it worked.  At least for me.  It might not work for everyone, you have to be open to the oddity.  I was totally enthralled, though.  There is some foul language and sexual content, but – to me at least – it didn’t seem gratuitous in context of the story.

If you’re feeling up for something a little different, I think you should give this a try.

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

Thank you to  Other, Press and Tony from Blue Dot Literary for sending me this book to review.