Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (Evening Edition book club)
** spoiler alert ** I really don't get why people love this book so much. I wouldn't have read it if not for book club, and I'll be interested to see how the discussion goes. Jane Eyre is supposed to a feminist ahead of her time, but really she's an orphan who works hard to survive - the only feminist things she does is turn down a marriage proposal to a man she doesn't love and refuse to be a mistress to the man she does love, but who's married. I understand that women in her day didn't have many options outside of being married, so that IS feminist, but overall she's not a character I even liked very much. There is SO MUCH description about EVERY LITTLE thing and EVERY thought that comes into her head that I quickly started skimming through all the descriptions. So much stuff happens to her that it's hard to remember that by the end of the book she's only 20 years old! She's an orphan from soon after birth, raised by an aunt who clearly did not want to raise her, sent off to boarding school at 8 years old where half the time she didn't have enough to eat, ends up teaching at the boarding school for 2 years before advertising as a govnerness and winding up at Thornfield Hall where she meets Mr. Rochester. This is where the feminism aspects of this story quickly fade for me. Here are all the appalling things Mr. Rochester does that any self-respecting feminist would RUN from:
He fakes an engagement to another woman to make Jane jealous.
He dresses up as a gypsy to tell Jane's fortune and tries to trick her into admitting that she loves him.
He hides his crazy wife in the attic and proposes to Jane and only admits the truth when his brother-in-law shows up at the wedding to stop it.
He then tries to get Jane to be his mistress since his wife is crazy.
Sounds like potential husband of the year material to me! After Jane runs off from all this craziness she ends up homeless and begging until she HAPPENS upon the doorstep of her only living relatives (she doesn't find that out for about a year though) where her cousin repeatedly tries to get her to marry him - not because he loves her he's clear he doesn't, but because he wants to be a missionary and feels like he should have a wife to help out - another AWESOME guy. At this point Jane decides to find out what's happened to Mr. Rochester and finds out that his crazy wife burnt the house down and died and he became blinded and crippled. Then of course they get married and after they've been married for 2 years his sight is miraculously restored! Really. There is just WAY too much crazy going on here. I had to make myself finish it and that was only for book club. Ugh. Do NOT see why so many people love this book.
He fakes an engagement to another woman to make Jane jealous.
He dresses up as a gypsy to tell Jane's fortune and tries to trick her into admitting that she loves him.
He hides his crazy wife in the attic and proposes to Jane and only admits the truth when his brother-in-law shows up at the wedding to stop it.
He then tries to get Jane to be his mistress since his wife is crazy.
Sounds like potential husband of the year material to me! After Jane runs off from all this craziness she ends up homeless and begging until she HAPPENS upon the doorstep of her only living relatives (she doesn't find that out for about a year though) where her cousin repeatedly tries to get her to marry him - not because he loves her he's clear he doesn't, but because he wants to be a missionary and feels like he should have a wife to help out - another AWESOME guy. At this point Jane decides to find out what's happened to Mr. Rochester and finds out that his crazy wife burnt the house down and died and he became blinded and crippled. Then of course they get married and after they've been married for 2 years his sight is miraculously restored! Really. There is just WAY too much crazy going on here. I had to make myself finish it and that was only for book club. Ugh. Do NOT see why so many people love this book.
Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala
On the day after Christmas 2004 Sonali Deraniyagala was celebrating the holidays with her husband, two sons, and parents. When the Sri Lanka tsunami hits her whole family is killed - Sonali is the only survivor. Wave is her memoir of the event of the tsunami and how she grieved and healed afterward. She remembers little of the actual tsunami, but what's amazing is that years afterward when she's able to revisit the site, she is able to find some of her family's belongings half buried in the sand. While I didn't expect this to be a happy book - it's pretty rough all the way through. I guess I was hoping for a little ray of hope by the end, but she is still just surviving one day at a time. Although she is able to remember happier times with her family without spiraling back into grief. It's not a bad book, but definitely not in any way a happy one, so I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone.
Life Drawing by Robin Black
Augusta (Gus) and Owen are both artists who move out to the country to live a solitary life with their art - she's a painter and he's a writer. When Alison rents the house next door, she quickly becomes a fixture in Gus and Owen's life. Gus realizes how much she's missed having friends around and quickly bonds with Alison. But when Alison's daughter comes to visit the dynamics change. When Gus and Owen lived in the city, she had had a brief affair and even though Owen forgave her and they moved on it still lingers in the back of their minds. And now Alison's daughter, Nora, seems a little too infatuated with Owen. When Alison moved in next door none of them realized how that one small act would reverberate through all their lives forever.
Having been married for over 15 years myself, I would be the first to say that marriage is not always easy and it's certainly not always fun and cheery. But when I read books like this I just feel sad for the characters - they seem so unhappy and it's like they think that's just what's normal for a long-term relationship. Also, with this book I almost immediately guessed the ending. To me this was just a sad book about two unhappy people who were trying to stick it out in their relationship and due to some bad coincidences it ends in tragedy for them. The most interesting part of the book for me was the art project Gus was working on for most of it - THAT was interesting, the rest of the book not so much.
Having been married for over 15 years myself, I would be the first to say that marriage is not always easy and it's certainly not always fun and cheery. But when I read books like this I just feel sad for the characters - they seem so unhappy and it's like they think that's just what's normal for a long-term relationship. Also, with this book I almost immediately guessed the ending. To me this was just a sad book about two unhappy people who were trying to stick it out in their relationship and due to some bad coincidences it ends in tragedy for them. The most interesting part of the book for me was the art project Gus was working on for most of it - THAT was interesting, the rest of the book not so much.
Seven Letters from Paris by Samantha Verant
When Samantha Platt was about to turn 40 she was unemployed, on the verge of divorce, and deeply in debt. To feel better about herself she digs out 7 letters she received from a Frenchman she met on vacation when she was 20. They only spent one day together, but after re-reading the letters Samantha realizes she feels more of a connection to Jean-Luc now than she does to her husband of 13 years! She decides to find Jean-Luc and apologize for never writing him back 20 years ago. When they reconnect it's as if nothing had changed from when they first met. They almost immediately begin emailing and calling each other every day. And when Samantha goes to France to reconnect in person, she KNOWS Jean-Luc is THE ONE. After struggling in an unhappy marriage for so long, Samantha is thrilled with her connection with Jean-Luc. Soon they are planning a wedding and she is getting ready for happily ever after 2.0.
While there are some stumbling blocks along the way, this story so perfectly comes together that you almost forget you're reading non-fiction. It's nice seeing Samantha go from so miserable in all aspects of her life to being swept off her feet by a great guy and into a wonderful new life. This is a fun, quick, and happy read.
While there are some stumbling blocks along the way, this story so perfectly comes together that you almost forget you're reading non-fiction. It's nice seeing Samantha go from so miserable in all aspects of her life to being swept off her feet by a great guy and into a wonderful new life. This is a fun, quick, and happy read.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
When Lydia Lee goes missing and soon turns up dead in a local pond her family is devastated. But, as each family member thinks back to the days leading up to Lydia's death they start to see their daughter and sister in a different light. Maybe they didn't know Lydia as well as they thought they did. Everything they thought they knew turns out to not be true. Finally in the last few chapters the reader hears Lydia's version of the days leading up to her death, so you know what REALLY happened.
I liked how the story was laid out and how each family member's side of the story is shown. But, it's also a sad book about miscommunication and misunderstandings. When reading it you want to shake some of the characters so they can see what is so obvious from the outside, but it's always easier seeing things clearly from the outside. When you find out what happened from Lydia's perspective it's even more sad. Overall, a well-written book, but still a sad story of a family who can't seem to really reveal their true selves even to each other.
I liked how the story was laid out and how each family member's side of the story is shown. But, it's also a sad book about miscommunication and misunderstandings. When reading it you want to shake some of the characters so they can see what is so obvious from the outside, but it's always easier seeing things clearly from the outside. When you find out what happened from Lydia's perspective it's even more sad. Overall, a well-written book, but still a sad story of a family who can't seem to really reveal their true selves even to each other.
In Search of the Perfect Loaf: a Home Baker's Odyssey by Samuel Fromartz
One of my cooking goals is to make homemade bread regularly, so I thought this would be a good book to check out. Fromartz has been baking bread at home for awhile, but had never been able to create a baguette at home. He gets the chance to go to Paris and work in a boulangerie and write about it for a travel magazine. This inspires Fromartz to travel other places known for certain types of bread and learn their techniques and then try to continue adding to his home baking repertoire. At the end of each chapter he gives a recipe that is discussed in that chapter with the helpful added notation of "easy, moderate, or difficult." After reading this book it seems like if you bake bread regularly it gets easier, but getting into the habit and being successful regularly takes a lot of time and patience. It also seems to help if you work from home or are home more often for the multiple steps of baking bread regularly. Overall, it was an interesting book and hopefully one day I'll meet my goal of baking my own homemade bread regularly.
The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
Addie Baum is the youngest child in her family and the only one born in the US. Her family emigrates from Europe and her parents are suspicious of anything too "American." When Addie's talents are noticed in school she hopes to further her studies, but her parents expect her to work and contribute financially to the family. While growing up in Boston during the early 1900's Addie experiences a lot - WWI and II, Prohibition, the suffragette movement, and falling in love. The story is framed as Addie talking to her granddaughter in 1985 when she is 85 years old. She's experienced a lot in her lifetime and her story flies by so quickly. This was a really quick read that I finished in about 2 days. I couldn't wait to see what happened to Addie next. While her story is not all happy, overall it's an uplifting story of a woman who experienced almost the entire 20th century.
Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey
Anna was a young, healthy woman who suddenly developed a severe sensitivity to all light. It started with working too long in front of a computer screen burning her face, then developed into florescent light bothering her face, soon her whole body was affected and she had to spend months in complete darkness to heal the burning feeling in her skin. She had been with her boyfriend Pete for about 2 years before this started, and once she realizes the extent of it she ends up moving in with him so he can help take care of her. For seemingly no reason she will get a little better and be able to go out in low-light situations (dawn or dusk) for awhile and then she'll have a set-back and have to spend months in almost complete darkness to recover. When she has to stay in total darkness she relies on audiobooks and word games to keep her sanity.
This book sounded interesting, but I found the way it was written sometimes hard to follow. It's very rambling and doesn't follow a clear timeline. She mentions that being in the darkness you tend to lose track of day and time, so maybe it was intentional. But, I want a more direct story with what happened with her diagnosis, did she have to sell her house, etc. I feel terrible for her and can't imagine having such a rare and debilitating disease with seemingly no cause or cure. But, I didn't love the book - it was just OK and I wouldn't really recommend it.
This book sounded interesting, but I found the way it was written sometimes hard to follow. It's very rambling and doesn't follow a clear timeline. She mentions that being in the darkness you tend to lose track of day and time, so maybe it was intentional. But, I want a more direct story with what happened with her diagnosis, did she have to sell her house, etc. I feel terrible for her and can't imagine having such a rare and debilitating disease with seemingly no cause or cure. But, I didn't love the book - it was just OK and I wouldn't really recommend it.
No Book but the World by Leah Hager Cohen
This was a very odd and depressing book. The story is told in a very haphazard way with current events and flashbacks together in the same chapter with hardly any differentiation. It's told from Ava's perspective and all you know in the beginning is that her brother Fred has been arrested and she is in the town where he's being held to try to see him and speak with his court-appointed lawyer. While she's there she continues to remember their unconventional childhood and wonder how much that may have contributed to the trouble he's in today. What I find particularly odd about this book is that is SO unbelievably obvious that Fred is seriously autistic, but no one close to him seem to realize that. The book is set in current times, yet somehow no one seems to see that Fred is severely autistic. The events that lead up to Fred ending up being arrested are so sad and terrible that it was hard to read even though it's fiction. Ava is not a sympathetic character, but I did keep reading because I wanted to see what happened. Overall, I would not recommend this one. Very depressing and sad and pretty much nothing redeeming with the story.
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