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The last thing Gail Caldwell expected to find when training her dog Clementine was a best friend, but that is exactly what she found in Caroline Knapp, and more. Gail and Caroline’s dog trainer suggested then spend some time together because they were so alike. Both women had puppies they’d gotten less than a year ago, they were both writers, both recovering alcoholics, athletic, and incredibly independent. From that fateful meeting, the women formed a lasting bond that would sustain them until Caroline’s death of lung cancer, a short time after being diagnosed.
Released earlier this August, “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” is getting a lot of buzz. While I was at BEA, a representative of Random House listed it as one of the publishing house’s top 5 picks for book clubs this coming year. I must say, for about 140 pages, I didn’t really see it, and that is a long time in a book that is less than 190 pages long.
It also took me about that long to realize what my problem was with it. “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” is billed as a memoir of Gail and Caroline’s friendship, but it was almost more of an extended essay about their friendship, without the strong narrative of many of my favorite memoirs. Not that Caldwell didn’t have a strong voice, she does, but her writing milieu is on the critical side. Caroline was the columnist and memoirist in their relationship. Knowing this I’m not surprised that “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” was so much more like an essay, but it did not grab me as quickly as a more narrative-driven version of this story might have.
Of course, I can imagine that in many was, the essay structure was easier to write than the narrative would have been. There is so much love and pain, friendship and grief in this story, that for Gail to have gone deep into the story of her relationship with Caroline might have been deeply painful. Unfortunately, the pain is much of what makes this story so compelling. It was during Caroline’s sickness and after her death, the last 40 or so pages, that “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” really came into its own. Suddenly the pages seemed to be almost turning themselves, and my heart was fully immersed in this story.
Although I’m sure it would have been infinitely more difficult to write, I wish that Caldwell had been able to infuse more of the emotion from the end of “Let’s Take the Long Way Home” into the beginning of the book. However, even though I more appreciated the book for what it was than truly loved it, I think it is a must-read for any woman who has lost a close friend.
This review was done with a book received at BEA.
* 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.
Well, if you follow young adult fiction even the tiniest bit, or if you’ve been reading any book blogs lately, you’ll probably know that this past Tuesday was the release date of “Mockingjay,” the final book in Suzanne Collins’ hit young adult series, “The Hunger Games.” I got myself a copy as soon as humanly possibly and hunkered down early, early, early Tuesday morning to read it before I could see any spoilers (which, honestly, I still haven’t seen any in inappropriate places). It left me feeling…mixed. If you really want to know you can read the spoiler-full review I posted on Friday.
After I finished “Mockingjay” I had a really, really difficult time reading. I picked up one book on Tuesday and read about 15 pages, and then never picked it up again. A couple more books got picked up, looked at, and put back down. I finally was able to settle on Sean Ferrell’s “Numb,” but even that took me much longer to read than normal, considering it was under 300 pages and a quick read. Although I couldn’t read, I was able to listen to audio, and when I stayed home from work with a bad headache on Thursday I pretty much laid in bed and listened to my Sara Paretsky’s “Body Work” for 4 or 5 hours. I think I finally got back in the swing of my reading with Jessica Francis Kane’s “The Report,” which I started late Friday night and finished early Saturday afternoon. It was fabulous, so look for my review on Tuesday.
Most of what I finished this week I also read this week, but here’s what I read that has not yet been reviewed:
The books I both finished and reviewed (or, as in the case of “Mockingjay,” ‘reviewed’):
I know, I know, they are strangely blue. I also want to say, yes, I may have technically finished 6 books this week, but “The Rembrandt Affair” and “American Music” were both nearly done at the beginning of the week, and “Body Work” was an audio. Plus, I read “Mockingjay” straight through in the middle of the night. It still ended up feeling like a slow week because after early Tuesday morning I didn’t finish anything else until Friday night.
This week I also reviewed:
and the audios of “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire”
Mockingjayby Suzanne Collins
Published by Scholastic Press
This isn’t really going to be a review, just thoughts about “Mockingjay.” After reading “The Hunger Games” three times and “Catching Fire” twice, and anticipating “Mockingjay” for a year, I think I’m too subjective to do an actual review. For my opinions about the previous books in this series, please see my thoughts on the audios and my reviews of both “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire.”
To be completely honest, I was sort of bored at the beginning of “Mockingjay.” Maybe not bored, exactly, but not nearly as excited as I thought I would be. In fact, I sort of wondered why I was up in the middle of the night reading. The fact that Peeta wasn’t around for a long, long time might have been part of it, but I think more it was that Katniss was just sort of moping around, unsure of what she really wanted to do. Plus, she kept ending up drugged in the hospital, which always felt like a slightly cheating way for Collins to get her through situations.
Things started to turn around for me when Katniss went into the first disputed district. I loved how she stood up to Gale, determined to not just kill people who might be innocent. Finally, that felt like Katniss to me. It made me really dislike Gale, though, although he almost won my heart a bit with how he treated Katniss most of the time they were together in District 13.
The most horrifying moment of the whole book – perhaps the whole series – for me was Finnick’s revelation that President Snow had been pimping out the Victors. These are people that have had miserable lives in their districts, been pitted against other teenagers in a kill or be killed contest and manage to live, and now they are sexually abused? I almost threw up. “Mockingjay” got me really attached to Finnick, actually, and I was sort of devastated when he died.
A less devastating death for me was Prim’s. I know a lot of people didn’t like that scene, didn’t realize I was Prim, but I thought that was perhaps the most masterfully written scene in the entire book. I felt that I was truly experiencing the situation with Katniss, and she didn’t initially realize she was watching her sister die either. It seemed fitting to me that Prim died at the end of the series, since the entire thing started with Katniss trying to save her sister. It gave a sense of how much bigger than just Katniss and her family the entire thing had become, but was also a reminder of all that the people of Panem lost under the old regime and during the rebellion, a warning against complacency in the future. Plus, at least if Prim was going to die, she was dying doing something she loved and she felt was important, instead of being forced into the Games.
As to the romantic angle: I am SO GLAD that Collins did not kill off either of the boys. Regardless of who Katniss ended up with, if she had ended up with him only because the other boy was killed off, I would have been very annoyed. I was glad she ended up with Peeta, and glad that she realized that he is the one she needed, even if she hadn’t needed to get away from Gale after his weapon being used against Prim because, again, if she had seemed to end up with Peeta just because of Gale’s weapon I would have been really disappointed.
This review was done with a personal copy.
* 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.
The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, narrated by Carolyn McCormick
Published in print by Scholastic Press
Published in audio by Scholastic Audio
This is just going to be a commentary on the audio editions. I have previously reviewed the print versions of both “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire.” The following thoughts are completely spoiler-free.
When I first started listening to audio versions of “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire,” I was very disconcerted. There is pretty much no way at all that Carolyn McCormick’s voice could pass for that of a teenage girl. Don’t get me wrong, she has a gorgeous voice and I would love to listen to her read literary fiction, but it seemed very odd in the first person narrative of a teenager (incidentally, this is the second Scholastic Audio casting in a row in which I thought at least one narrator sounded far too old for their character – perhaps there is a dearth of narrators who can pass for teens?).
Although I had a hard time with such a mature voice narrating Katniss’s inner-most thoughts and giving voice to her words, McCormick did a fabulous job with the voices of other characters. Between “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire,” McCormick appears to have been given direction to actually do a voice for Katniss, instead of narrating in her own voice. Although it was still odd to hear Katniss’s thoughts in McCormick’s voice, it did help me believe her words as those of the teenager a bit better.
McCormick did a fabulous job with most of the voices, and imbued “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire” audios with the danger and drama of the books, so over all I would say these are highly recommended, even if her Katniss really had to grow on me. I can’t wait to get the audio of “Mockingjay” for a reread.
I borrowed both of these audiobooks from the library.
American Music by Jane Mendelsohn
Published by Knopf, an imprint of Random House
Milo is a severely wounded war vet. Honor is a physical therapist coming to the rehabilitation hospital working with Milo, massaging his back – and only his back, because he refuses to lay on his back. Except something odd is happening whenever Honor touches Milo. Somehow, memories of the past are welling out of Milo’s body when Honor works on him. Not memories of his past, but of seemingly unconnected people, primarily from the last 100 years.
Mendelsohn’s writing is absolutely gorgeous and completely lyrical. That being said, it took me quite awhile to get into the book. Although beautiful, the way the writing is crafted – particularly the lack of quotation marks and, occasionally, other punctuation – served to separate me from the characters and kept me from getting a good feel for them for a good 100 pages. Flashing back to the past didn’t help that, although it did provide the interest in the novel.
I loved the way the stories ended up coming together, for awhile there I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. I must say, I am still slightly unsure how the harem of the Ottoman Empire really connected to the other stories. It just didn’t seem to come together in quite the same way, although I have my suspicions of what we are meant to take from it, but all of the other stories connected to one another in just one way, and this didn’t quite fit the mold.
If you’re a fan of gorgeous writing, don’t hesitate to pick up “American Music.” If you tend to need a good measure of plot and character, stick with “American Music.” You may not be sure about it at the beginning, but the story will grow on you, and it is worth it by the end. Recommended.
This review was done with a book borrowed from the library
* 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.
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Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell
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