Is what I say about Swamplandia! by Karen Russell.
I really liked it, although I started it around 6pm on a Sunday night when I found out I had gotten into a book club that would be discussing it at 7pm on the upcoming Tuesday night, so I basically skimmed the last chapter sitting at the bar at 6:45 on Tuesday.
Too distracted trying to get out of here (Friday!) to say that much about it, but basically I thought the two main characters were really strong, all were well developed, and I appreciated that the story was spun out at its own pace, and not for the reader's benefit. I thought the beginning was way too jam-packed with adjectives - and that's coming from ME - but either Russell hit her stride, got more confident & streamlined, or I just stopped noticing. I was certainly engrossed in the story; Russell switches back and forth between her main character, a young girl, and the secondary (in my opinion) main character, the girl's somewhat older brother, and I think it's a testament to the book that as I was reading each character's chapter (the pov switched back and forth), I was torn between wanting to really sink in to the story and hand, but also race ahead to see what was going on in the other storyline, that we had just left.
It's also a HUGE thing that when the presumably (or so I thought, at least) child-molester character starts hanging around our young female protagonist, as much as I was shouting "RUN AWAY!" there was also part of me that was like "Sh*t - I know this is bad, but I really want to know where the author's going to go with this."
A lot of research, particularly into Florida's settlement history, clearly went into this, which I appreciated, although I think Russell did occasionally fall into the trap of "I found this fact, it's so cool, I need to use it!" when less might have been more.
The setting was fantastic, though, a family living on an isolated island (at a somewhat, and clearly deliberately, vague time) where they run an alligator theme park and pose (more or less) as an "Indian tribe" (kind of). Just very unique, and rich - much like the landscape she describes in loving and sometimes overwhelming (but not really) detail.
Certainly got a ton of - amazing - press when it came out, and it had been on my list to read forever, near the top always but never quite there, so I was really happy to have an excuse to finally make myself skip it to the front of the line.
Showing posts with label the South. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the South. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
Spellbound?
So, this is almost embarrassing.
I read a book last night.
Like, I got into bed, started a book, finished a book about ninety minutes later (I hope it was an hour and a half, and not two hours - I'm not totally sure), then went to bed. Way too late. Was I entranced? Perhaps by the herbal spells that feature prominently in the book?
The book was Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen. It's been on my to-read list forever, so long I had forgotten why I had added it (probably one of those "other people who viewed this title also viewed..." listings), but Widener didn't have it, and I never remembered to go to the BPL and get it. But I was wandering around the other day, after picking up Swamplandia! and remembered & found it.
It's a not-very-long novel about a family that seem to be some kind of witches, that live in the South, garden, and have a magical apple tree. There's also, of course, romance, sisters, endearingly batty old ladies, a bad guy, a precocious child and...hmm, I think this story is called Practical Magic, no? But however formulaic and predictable it might have been, it was engaging and I tore through it. It was a perfect bed-read, I was sated and sleepy at the end - I just wish I had split it into two or three sessions!
The way the book was written, and the cover blurbs or something, made me think this is part of a series, maybe about the town, if not the same two sisters who are the protagonists in Garden Spells... I think it was the way that different families around town were given different characteristics, it's just asking to have spin-off after spin-off. Or you could mosey through the main family's family tree (literally, too, their apple tree is a character itself) generation by generation of strong-willed women who eventually find the right man. Or maybe not a series, but a lot of similar books? Certainly the author had a TON of books spread over a couple shelves in Copley.
I believe my original notes on the to-read listing were that this sounded like a beach book, and I was right, more or less - beach, bed, lazy day wherever. Not great literature, but if there are more out there, it might be worth sometimes having one on hand for when I don't really want to think, but just want a nice story about nice people.
I read a book last night.
Like, I got into bed, started a book, finished a book about ninety minutes later (I hope it was an hour and a half, and not two hours - I'm not totally sure), then went to bed. Way too late. Was I entranced? Perhaps by the herbal spells that feature prominently in the book?
The book was Garden Spells, by Sarah Addison Allen. It's been on my to-read list forever, so long I had forgotten why I had added it (probably one of those "other people who viewed this title also viewed..." listings), but Widener didn't have it, and I never remembered to go to the BPL and get it. But I was wandering around the other day, after picking up Swamplandia! and remembered & found it.
It's a not-very-long novel about a family that seem to be some kind of witches, that live in the South, garden, and have a magical apple tree. There's also, of course, romance, sisters, endearingly batty old ladies, a bad guy, a precocious child and...hmm, I think this story is called Practical Magic, no? But however formulaic and predictable it might have been, it was engaging and I tore through it. It was a perfect bed-read, I was sated and sleepy at the end - I just wish I had split it into two or three sessions!
The way the book was written, and the cover blurbs or something, made me think this is part of a series, maybe about the town, if not the same two sisters who are the protagonists in Garden Spells... I think it was the way that different families around town were given different characteristics, it's just asking to have spin-off after spin-off. Or you could mosey through the main family's family tree (literally, too, their apple tree is a character itself) generation by generation of strong-willed women who eventually find the right man. Or maybe not a series, but a lot of similar books? Certainly the author had a TON of books spread over a couple shelves in Copley.
I believe my original notes on the to-read listing were that this sounded like a beach book, and I was right, more or less - beach, bed, lazy day wherever. Not great literature, but if there are more out there, it might be worth sometimes having one on hand for when I don't really want to think, but just want a nice story about nice people.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Confused / inspired
I just looked at the "Chronological" page, and I finished no books between 10/22 and 11/10? That can't be right. In fact, I know it's not right - just off the top of my head, as I consider it now, I know I read some okay book with Siena in the title. But I guess I never got around to noting it.
Anyways, I know for a fact that I both started and finished a book on Saturday, November 10, 2012 because I was on a plane, headed San Diego, and it didn't even come close to lasting through the Boston to San Francisco leg of the trip. The book: Cane River, Lalita Tademy.
It was kind of okay, though, which was cool. This was one of the last books I got well over a year ago (probably a couple years at this point), early in the days of this blog, when I was SUPER hung over one day and grabbed a stack of paperbacks from the bargain carts outside of the Harvard Bookstore. There was a PD James it took me over a year (I think) to read, the first of those mysteries about the female Episcopalian exorcist (Merry something?), one or two others (?), and this. It sat on my shelf for a while because the Oprah seal of approval, prominently displayed, worried me a bit - I was being snobby.
But last Friday evening I got the the BPL at 4:59pm and wasn't able to get in to pick up the book I had ordered for the trip, and I didn't want to waste money, so I made myself pick something to read on the plane from the unread paperbacks I had at home. This one was pretty fat (500+ pages) so I figured it would work.
It ended up being relatively interesting, both as a story and as a concept. The author started investigating the history of her family, and ended up learning a lot about the women in her family who had been slaves in Louisiana and then lived through the period preceding and following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Then she ended up writing a novel featuring the people she had learned about. It's kind of a cool idea, and I think I was especially drawn to it on Saturday (I plowed through those 500 pages) because I recently took up the challenge of writing, with the help of my grandfather, the story of the women in his life, his mother and grandmother, who dealt with the challenges of being black in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Northeast with some help from men (fathers, brothers, friends), but largely on their own. There were also illustrations of documents the author had unearthed (slave bills of sale, wills) and old portraits, which definitely enhanced my reading experience and is also something I had been thinking would be important for me own project. Cane River was explicitly the story of generations of women, who persevere sometimes with the aid of, but largely despite the shortcomings of, the men in their lives. I think I forgot it under my bed at R&M's place, but it was good. And a good reminder to me that even non-historians - maybe ESPECIALLY non-historians - can do decent research and tell a good story.
My grandmother passed away on Tuesday after declining for a few weeks; it was in the midst of all of that that I asked my grandfather if he'd help me with "our" project. I wanted something to keep him busy, and also to remind him that even if we're not blood, since he's my father's stepfather, he's my family, my grandfather in every way that matters, and nothing, including my grandmother's death, will change that. Potentially this project could turn into the subject of a class I'm planning on taking next semester, on writing a nonfiction book, but it's important to me because of him, and of my grandmother, a strong woman in her own right who would have loved the story and loved that my grandfather and I are doing it together even more. But it's a daunting project whatever I do with it, so Cane River was a nice reminder and inspiration, even if it wasn't the best book ever.
Anyways, I know for a fact that I both started and finished a book on Saturday, November 10, 2012 because I was on a plane, headed San Diego, and it didn't even come close to lasting through the Boston to San Francisco leg of the trip. The book: Cane River, Lalita Tademy.
It was kind of okay, though, which was cool. This was one of the last books I got well over a year ago (probably a couple years at this point), early in the days of this blog, when I was SUPER hung over one day and grabbed a stack of paperbacks from the bargain carts outside of the Harvard Bookstore. There was a PD James it took me over a year (I think) to read, the first of those mysteries about the female Episcopalian exorcist (Merry something?), one or two others (?), and this. It sat on my shelf for a while because the Oprah seal of approval, prominently displayed, worried me a bit - I was being snobby.
But last Friday evening I got the the BPL at 4:59pm and wasn't able to get in to pick up the book I had ordered for the trip, and I didn't want to waste money, so I made myself pick something to read on the plane from the unread paperbacks I had at home. This one was pretty fat (500+ pages) so I figured it would work.
It ended up being relatively interesting, both as a story and as a concept. The author started investigating the history of her family, and ended up learning a lot about the women in her family who had been slaves in Louisiana and then lived through the period preceding and following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Then she ended up writing a novel featuring the people she had learned about. It's kind of a cool idea, and I think I was especially drawn to it on Saturday (I plowed through those 500 pages) because I recently took up the challenge of writing, with the help of my grandfather, the story of the women in his life, his mother and grandmother, who dealt with the challenges of being black in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Northeast with some help from men (fathers, brothers, friends), but largely on their own. There were also illustrations of documents the author had unearthed (slave bills of sale, wills) and old portraits, which definitely enhanced my reading experience and is also something I had been thinking would be important for me own project. Cane River was explicitly the story of generations of women, who persevere sometimes with the aid of, but largely despite the shortcomings of, the men in their lives. I think I forgot it under my bed at R&M's place, but it was good. And a good reminder to me that even non-historians - maybe ESPECIALLY non-historians - can do decent research and tell a good story.
My grandmother passed away on Tuesday after declining for a few weeks; it was in the midst of all of that that I asked my grandfather if he'd help me with "our" project. I wanted something to keep him busy, and also to remind him that even if we're not blood, since he's my father's stepfather, he's my family, my grandfather in every way that matters, and nothing, including my grandmother's death, will change that. Potentially this project could turn into the subject of a class I'm planning on taking next semester, on writing a nonfiction book, but it's important to me because of him, and of my grandmother, a strong woman in her own right who would have loved the story and loved that my grandfather and I are doing it together even more. But it's a daunting project whatever I do with it, so Cane River was a nice reminder and inspiration, even if it wasn't the best book ever.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
A Month's Worth of Books, pt. 3
And now the American edition...
First up, Serena, by Ron Rash. This was one I had picked up a long time ago from the library. I don't remember why; I think maybe I just saw it when I was looking for something else on a nearby shelf, and something about the spine caught my eye. It was a while ago, but I still remember it more or less. It was interesting. A solid, unusual premise - stone-cold WITCH (and I'm not being coy, she's not just a b*tch, she's scary mean) and husband in a ye-olde-timey logging camp down south. She, Serena, is definitely a unique character, and there several other characters that stand out or are appealing. The ending felt like it was out of character with the rest of the book, though, and I particularly didn't like the way the second main character, her husband, was developed...it was both predictable and a bit of a let-down. It was worth reading though; I'd be interested in learning what other people think about it.
Then I read The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, by Heidi W. Durrow. And it was GREAT. SO great. Just beautifully, gorgeously written. I'm loathe to refer to a book as "lyrical" because it sounds so unreasonably cheesy, but this book actually is. It's also sweet, funny, smart... Ha, I sound like I have a crush on the book! Let's see, how do I dial back the lovin' on the book...well, it's also terrifying in places. Except that it's terrifying when describing with admirable clarity what awful things people can do from and for love. So...yep, I would consider dating this book :)
Technically I suppose this is a coming-of-age story, and also about race, but both of those things inform the book, and lend it gravitas, without taking it over or getting predictable/stereotypical. The main character is a young half-Black, half-White girl, new to America (the child of a European woman and an African-American soldier stationed abroad) who is badly injured and loses most of her family in a horrific incident, and goes to live with her paternal grandmother. The story traces her twisting path to near-adulthood, as she tries to figure out if she's Black, and what that means, and how to process the tragedy she has barely survived, physically and emotionally. All of the main characters, and there are several, are fully-drawn and compelling. Durrow has a keen eye for just how to describe someone, and make a character come to life, and has her creations act in ways that feel completely true. She doesn't shy away from the negative or harder-to-accept aspects of her characters, but she approaches all of them with enough compassion that the reader always feels a respect for the character (well, not all of them, but a few of the minor characters do NOT deserve our respect). I wish I hadn't had to return the book today, because there is so much more I could say, and I had marked a bunch of passages that were just so fantastic I remember thinking at the time I wanted to post about them... Oh well, the only think I can really say about the book, the only thing that matters, is READ IT.
Another coming of age story, this one partially about race, is The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, by Susan Gregg Gilmore. So, this one is definitely one that I grabbed off the shelf while looking for another book, because the title just sounded funny. And of course it's library-bound, so it's not like I could read the back or anything, so it's been on my shelves at home for months now, and I had no idea what it was about, so then I started getting nervous that it might suck, and never read it. And, I'll be honest, I was on such a high after The Girl Who Fell From the Sky that I almost didn't want to read it because I was worried I would be let down. To my surprise, I wasn't. I mean, it wasn't a fantastic book by any means, but it ended up being a lot better than I expected.
The main character needs to grow up in the 60s and 70s with her dysfunctional on the inside, but ever so proper upper-class Southern family, while figuring out what she needs, and along the way falls in love with the African-American son of her family's driver (I'm not giving anything away - that part was pretty predictable). At first the book just seemed kind of fluffy, and after The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, I just wasn't feeling that. But I ended up getting drawn in the the story, and attached to some of the main characters (the ones you should be, anyways), and enjoyed it, and it even gave me a little to think about. I thought the ending was particularly good, in so far as it was satisfyingly unsatisfying - we don't know exactly what happens, we don't even know if it's a happy ending or a tragic ending. Especially for a book that in many ways is just a good old-fashioned story, it was a bold choice on the author's part.
First up, Serena, by Ron Rash. This was one I had picked up a long time ago from the library. I don't remember why; I think maybe I just saw it when I was looking for something else on a nearby shelf, and something about the spine caught my eye. It was a while ago, but I still remember it more or less. It was interesting. A solid, unusual premise - stone-cold WITCH (and I'm not being coy, she's not just a b*tch, she's scary mean) and husband in a ye-olde-timey logging camp down south. She, Serena, is definitely a unique character, and there several other characters that stand out or are appealing. The ending felt like it was out of character with the rest of the book, though, and I particularly didn't like the way the second main character, her husband, was developed...it was both predictable and a bit of a let-down. It was worth reading though; I'd be interested in learning what other people think about it.
Then I read The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, by Heidi W. Durrow. And it was GREAT. SO great. Just beautifully, gorgeously written. I'm loathe to refer to a book as "lyrical" because it sounds so unreasonably cheesy, but this book actually is. It's also sweet, funny, smart... Ha, I sound like I have a crush on the book! Let's see, how do I dial back the lovin' on the book...well, it's also terrifying in places. Except that it's terrifying when describing with admirable clarity what awful things people can do from and for love. So...yep, I would consider dating this book :)
Technically I suppose this is a coming-of-age story, and also about race, but both of those things inform the book, and lend it gravitas, without taking it over or getting predictable/stereotypical. The main character is a young half-Black, half-White girl, new to America (the child of a European woman and an African-American soldier stationed abroad) who is badly injured and loses most of her family in a horrific incident, and goes to live with her paternal grandmother. The story traces her twisting path to near-adulthood, as she tries to figure out if she's Black, and what that means, and how to process the tragedy she has barely survived, physically and emotionally. All of the main characters, and there are several, are fully-drawn and compelling. Durrow has a keen eye for just how to describe someone, and make a character come to life, and has her creations act in ways that feel completely true. She doesn't shy away from the negative or harder-to-accept aspects of her characters, but she approaches all of them with enough compassion that the reader always feels a respect for the character (well, not all of them, but a few of the minor characters do NOT deserve our respect). I wish I hadn't had to return the book today, because there is so much more I could say, and I had marked a bunch of passages that were just so fantastic I remember thinking at the time I wanted to post about them... Oh well, the only think I can really say about the book, the only thing that matters, is READ IT.
Another coming of age story, this one partially about race, is The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove, by Susan Gregg Gilmore. So, this one is definitely one that I grabbed off the shelf while looking for another book, because the title just sounded funny. And of course it's library-bound, so it's not like I could read the back or anything, so it's been on my shelves at home for months now, and I had no idea what it was about, so then I started getting nervous that it might suck, and never read it. And, I'll be honest, I was on such a high after The Girl Who Fell From the Sky that I almost didn't want to read it because I was worried I would be let down. To my surprise, I wasn't. I mean, it wasn't a fantastic book by any means, but it ended up being a lot better than I expected.
The main character needs to grow up in the 60s and 70s with her dysfunctional on the inside, but ever so proper upper-class Southern family, while figuring out what she needs, and along the way falls in love with the African-American son of her family's driver (I'm not giving anything away - that part was pretty predictable). At first the book just seemed kind of fluffy, and after The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, I just wasn't feeling that. But I ended up getting drawn in the the story, and attached to some of the main characters (the ones you should be, anyways), and enjoyed it, and it even gave me a little to think about. I thought the ending was particularly good, in so far as it was satisfyingly unsatisfying - we don't know exactly what happens, we don't even know if it's a happy ending or a tragic ending. Especially for a book that in many ways is just a good old-fashioned story, it was a bold choice on the author's part.
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