The Perfect Gentleman by Imran Ahmad - Book Review

Jul 252012

The Perfect Gentleman: A Muslim Boy Meets the West by Imran Ahmad
Published by Center Street, an imprint of Hachette

From the publisher:

Both deliciously funny and deeply insightful, THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN is a beguiling multi-layered memoir that has touched the hearts of readers all over the world. At the age of one, Imran Ahmad moved from Pakistan to London, growing up torn between his Islamic identity and his desire to embrace the West. Join Imran in his lifelong struggle against corruption and injustice, and as he grapples with some of Life’s most profound questions. What does God do exactly? Do you automatically go to Hell for following the wrong religion? How do you persuade a beautiful woman to become your girlfriend (and would driving a Jaguar XJS help?) Can you maintain a James Bond persona without the vodka, cigarettes and women - even whilst your parents are trying to arrange your marriage?

Ah, The Perfect Gentleman sounded, well, perfect for me. I pictured a heartfelt memoir of an identity struggle. The structure that Ahmad uses for his memoir stymied me a bit, though. Most of the chapters were formulated to cover a single school year, often with surprisingly specific memories. This creates a narrative that lacked much of the cohesiveness that I expected and hoped for. Often themes are brought up that seem as if they might be important later in Ahmad’s life, but many of them fail to reappear in any significant way, although the very end of The Perfect Gentleman did tie a few things back together.

Ahmad is a good writer, but as occasionally happens with memoir, he and I simply didn’t mesh. The Perfect Gentleman is not the story I hoped for, and Ahmad’s humor doesn’t do much for me - perhaps I don’t do British humor well in print - although others may find his self-deprecating style charming.

I know there is a reader out there perfect for The Perfect Gentleman, but she is not me.

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Source: Publisher.
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The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian - Book Review

Jul 162012

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian
Published by Doubleday, an imprint of Random House

Laura Petrosian is an author of light-hearted women’s fiction who also happens to be 1/4 Armenian, although for most of her life she gave her heritage little thought. When an old friend calls, claiming she has seen a picture of Laura’s grandmother from the time of the Armenian genocide in the newspaper, she decides to delve more deeply into her family’s past and write a book completely different than anything she has written before.

In 1915, Elizabeth Endicott of Boston arrives in Syria with some minimal nursing training and the blessing of the Friends of Armenia in order to help the refugees and witness and report on the genocide occurring in the Ottoman Empire. While there, she meets and falls in love with a young Armenian engineer named Armen Petrosian who lost his wife and infant daughter to the marches across the desert.

Chris Bohjalian has called The Sandcastle Girls the most important book he will ever write, but it is not strictly didactic. Instead, The Sandcastle Girls is beautiful and sad; Bohjalian walks a fine line, sharing the realities of the tragedies of the Armenian genocide without being too clinical or engaging in emotional manipulation. His characters are realistic, flawed but likable. Particularly impressive is how he keeps even the most minor characters - the American consul, a pair of German engineers, an Armenian woman and the orphaned girl she has taken into her heart - engaging. Their stories are interspesed with Laura, Elizabeth, and Armen’s and Bohjalian manages to do this without slowing down the story. If anything, these additional stories add richness and layers toThe Sandcastle Girls, layers that help make it such a wonderfully epic and meaningful novel.

I’ve never read another work of fiction that has more completely and almost effortlessly captured the Armenian genocide of the early 2oth century. Bohjalian manages to capture both the emotional impact of the events in question as well as the facts and background, all smoothly within his narrative and without resorting to any info dumps. The Sandcastle Girlsis a truly wonderful and important novel. Very highly recommended.

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Source: Publisher.
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The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones - Book Review

May 092012

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones
Published by Harper Books, an imprint of HarperCollins

Sterne has been thrown into disarray. It is Emerald Torrington’s twentieth birthday and guests will be arriving any minute, even as her stepfather is off bargaining with business men beneath their status in order to keep Sterne in the family. If this was not all dramatic enough, shortly after their guests arrive, the Torringtons receive word that there has been an accident on a nearby rail line, and their house is being commandeered to house the survivors. The somewhat snobby family is not particularly happy about opening their house to third class passengers when they have a celebration happening, and so the small group is ushered into the morning room and all but ignored. The number of passengers seems to keep climbing, though, and they are getting increasingly frustrated with their inability to move on, and with the lack of contact from the Railway. It is the appearance of an old acquaintance of Mrs. Torrington’s from amongst the rabble, though, that really sets the evening awry.

The Uninvited Guests has a bit of a slow start, partially because Emerald and her family are not particularly appealing characters. They are overly proud and extremely concerned with their station in life, which certainly does not promote empathy. They spend a fair amount of time ridiculing the guests they have invited and worrying about showing off their greatness at the party, while simultaneously worrying about losing their grand estate and all that it represents. If you keep reading, though, the plot begins to slowly sneak up on you, and before long you will not want to close the book.

Once the night begins to fall apart, the reader gets caught up in Jones’s story, wondering if he or she has guessed correctly as to just what is going on with the guests and just what about this man from Mrs. Torrington’s past has her so upset. The Uninvited Guests was wisely kept to under 300 pages, much more might have made the characters hard to swallow, but at this length the storytelling was tight enough to engage the reader in the events of this bizarre evening.

Recommended.

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Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear - Book Review

Feb 112011

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear
Published by Penguin
Book 2 in the Maisie Dobbs series

My review of the first book in the series: Maisie Dobbs

At the opening of Birds of a Feather, Maisie is becoming pretty well established in her business. She has even been contacted by Joseph Waite, one of the richest men in England and a one-time client of her mentor, Maurice. Waite’s daughter has gone missing - again - and as Maisie begins to investigate, she discovers that there may be a connection to a series of dead women.

Birds of a Feather is precisely the book I was hoping for after Maisie Dobbs. In this second book in the series, Maisie truly comes into her own, and the reader is finally able to address her on her own terms, instead of dwelling extensively on her past through the copious backstory that comprised Maisie Dobbs. Here the reader gets to follow Maisie through a full and well-developed case. She has a great process and watching her work a case is fascinating.

I also appreciated that Maisie continued to develop as a character in Birds of a Feather. Since the action rested primarily in the present, Maisie was able to indulge in some introspection without losing the reader.

Based on my experience with the first two books, I think I would classify the Maisie Dobbs series as smart cozies. Not that other cozies aren’t smart, but there is an extra intelligence and class to Maisie Dobbs that makes the series particularly enjoyable. The great development of story and character, along with the somewhat more genteel inter-war time period make this a series that is suitable for and could appeal to a wide range of readers.

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Source: Library.
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