Julie Otsuka’s The Buddha in the Attic is extraordinary. I’ve read nothing quite like it. It’s a novel that reads like a short history (130 pages) and a free-form poem. The characters are not particular individuals, but rather the Japanese American community and white America. The time frame is from the turn of the century until 1943, when Japanese Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps. In all my years as a reader, I can think of only two novels made me truly […]
Good, Could’ve Been Great
About 130 pages into Among the Ten Thousand Things, the author, Julia Pierpont, starts a new section of her book with the title “That Year and Those That Followed.” In the following chapter Pierpont’s story jumps forward many years. Up to this point she had carefully unveiled her characters and plot. It was detailed and purposeful. And then, all of a sudden, it jumps forward years. And from that point forward I lost interest in the book. It’s as if she didn’t know what to say when […]
The Rainbow Man’s kind of a dick
I picked the Kindle version of this book for free as part of my Amazon Prime membership. The once monthly offer of a free book is nice in one respect because it gets me to read things that are out of my comfort zone. It’s not so nice when you’re a confirmed non-believer and you realize about halfway through the book that you’re reading a Christian novel. I’m sure I selected it because of comparisons to Flannery O’Conner in the reviews but other than […]
A Regency office romance
From Amazon: “This witty and wonderful Regency romp features a plucky young heroine—the advice columnist Dear Annabelle, writing for The London Weekly—who, following the advice of her own readers, sets out to capture the heart of her handsome employer by any means necessary.” Okay, I should have known better as soon as I read ‘plucky young heroine’ , but alas, I didn’t. I’ve read other books by Ms Rodale (The Wallflower Trilogy), and enjoyed them well enough, but this one was a little too insubstantial. […]
Dissection of Dysfunction
Paula Fox’s 1976 novel examines one family’s intense and contentious relations with each other. While the hurt, anger and divisions have been years in the making, all it takes is one dinner together and its aftermath for the reader to gather the depth of the discord and the underlying reasons for the dysfunction. The Maldonada family, as one might guess from the name, is both Spanish and “given toward evil” — a very poor translation of what I think that name means. Evil is too […]
I Hope People Don’t Describe Me Based on My Moles (PLEASE)
Rob and Anna are an English couple on vacation. On their first night, they meet an American couple who run boat charters to Roatan. Rob feels an instant connection to Owen and wants to take them up on their offer. Anna, however, is “always cautious and afraid of everything” as Rob describes CONSTANTLY to anyone who will listen. So of course, Anna has a few thoughts about spending 10 days on a boat with two people she barely knows. Geez Anna, what a buzz kill […]
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