How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House Cherie Jones The title refers to the cautionary tale told to 13 year old Lala, by her grandmother, about what happens to little girls who are disobedient. At 18, Lala finds herself pregnant and living in a beachfront shack and in a volatile relationship with grifter husband, Aidan. On the night Lala gives birth, a white English tourist dies during a robbery and worlds collide. This is a harrowing story of endless contrasts. Strong women faced with the fragile egos of the men in their lives. Affluent tourism juxtaposed with the poverty of locals. Pink sands and a lush tropical setting belying the pain and generational trauma of those who inhabit it. Told via flashbacks and through three different marriages, this is an exploration of poverty, race, class and domestic violence. It is brutal and unrelenting in its cruelty and squalor, and yet the prose is so elegant, so luxuriously beautiful, that it somehow manages to transcend the ugliness. A brilliant, if difficult, read.
Catch and Kill Ronan Farrow You’ve heard the basics of this book in the headlines, so I’ll spare you a rehash of the details, but Farrow’s riveting narrative offers a crisp, in-depth account of the full scope of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. It’s astonishing, frequently horrifying and parts of it play out like scenes from a bad movie. And while the subject matter is far from pleasant, Farrow manages to find plenty of ways to add comic relief with his deft, wry humor.
The Secret Book Of Flora Lea Patti Callahan Henry In 1939, fourteen year old Hazel and six year old Flora are sent to live in the countryside of Oxfordshire to escape the war. While there, in order to distract and comfort her sister, Hazel creates the magical place of Whisperwood, which must be entered through shimmering doors to a world filled with woodland creatures, a castle, and a river filled with stars. It’s a world she shares with with no-one but her sister. But then Flora goes missing, presumed drowned. Twenty years later Hazel is working in a rare book shop when she is shocked by the appearance of a book titled Whisperwood And The River Of Stars. Is her sister alive? Hazel embarks on a journey to discover the truth. She re-visits old wounds, old relationships, and old haunts, putting her current happiness and security on the line. This is a story about stories, the mystery and magic they contain within and their power to transport us to the beauty of other worlds. It’s gently told with fairytale vibes — too gently told perhaps —I would have enjoyed this much more if it had sharper edges and a deeper bite.
The Liars Dictionary Eely Williams If you’re a lover of words this book is an intoxicating elixir of word geekery. A veritable cornucopia of linguistic playfulness. In 1899 London, Peter Winceforth fakes a lisp and toils, rather unhappily at Swansby’s New Encyclopeadic Dictionary, famous, mostly, for being incomplete. Out of sheer boredom, frustration or maybe lonliness he starts inserting Mountweasels into the dictionary. And what pray tell are Mountweazels? Well, I’m awfully glad you asked. They are fictitious words deliberately inserted into a reference work to protect against copyright. Genius. (And true!) Usually just one or two will get the job done but Peter has indulged himself by inserting many. Meanwhile, in modern day London, intern Mallory is tasked with ferreting them all out. Told in two timelines, this is the story of two socially awkward people, a century apart, who struggle to speak up for themselves and the voyage to self-discovery they both take on a sea of words.
Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow Gabrielle Zevin Sam and Sadie meet as kids in a hospital, drawn to each other by their love of video games. They become best friends only to go their separate ways after a betrayal. They don’t see each other again until a random meeting years later in college when they unite and create a hugely successful video game empire, along with Sam’s roommate, Marx, who plays an integral role in all that happens to Sam and Sadie over the next thirty years. It’s a soaring, magical, story about life’s possibilities and the choices we make, about love lost, found and lost again, about all the things which weave together the complex, messy web of life, juxtaposing it against the sharply organized tidiness of the world inside a video game. There is a lot of video game talk and world building here, but as a vehement non-gamer I can absolutely say that it is deeply fascinating and not at all boring. This is the rare book that actually lives up to its hype.
What The Mountains Remember Joy Callaway Belle Newbold has not set foot in the mountains since the death of her beloved father in a mining accident seven years prior. She returns to them under completely different circumstances. In the intervening years her mother, once poor, has married an Indiana gas magnate (under false pretenses, albeit not entirely intentional) and in April of 1913, they travel to Asheville, NC, invited by Henry Ford to join him on one of his famous Vagabond camping tours. Here she gets to witness the building of the stunning Grove Park Inn, which the locals have dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World. And Belle, who loves to write, is asked to write an article about the Inn after the journalist originally hired for the job is sent off in disgrace. Unfortunately, the thrill of her new job is tempered by the secret that she and her mother are hiding about their humble origins. In a society constructed entirely around wealth, class and provenance, Belle and her mother have put themselves in a precarious position, especially given that Belle is about to be engaged to a wealthy man. This book shines in its rich details about the design and building of Grove Park Inn and in bringing to light the history of Asheville as a mecca for those suffering from TB. And contrasting the poverty experienced by those working on the building with the wealth of those who will get to experience it, serves as an elegant backdrop. Unfortunately, its characters are utterly one dimensional, and its wordy, overwrought writing falls flat. Good intent, messy execution.