coming into her own

A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: Not just any author could craft a compelling narrative from embroidery and bellringing, but Tracy Chevalier isn't just any author.  The book follows Violet Speedwell, a "surplus woman" after so many men, including her fiancé, were killed in WWI.  Violet's been living with her widowed mother, and has had just about enough of her constant complaints and criticisms, so she moves a scant 12 miles away to Winchester, home of the famous Winchester Cathedral (where Jane Austen and many others are buried).  As happy as she is to be on her own, she struggles with the challenges of supporting herself (she does have a job, but it barely pays enough for food and a rented room) and finding some kind of social life, all in a world that still doesn't look very fondly on women on their own.

On a visit to Winchester Cathedral, Violet stumbles up a Blessing of the Embroidery service, and decides to join the cathedral broderers, who are engaged in a years-long project to embroider new kneelers and cushions for the cathedral.  And thus begins Violet's journey of self-discovery.  Most of Violet's journey involves learning how to be a friend (this is what leads her to meet the bellringers), how not to be guilted into moving back in to take care of her mother, and, generally speaking, how to be an independent person.

Like all of Chevalier's books, the reader is immersed in the world that she creates with her words.  Even the details of embroidery stitches and the difference between ringing a set of 5 bells versus 9 bells is interesting as we learn alongside Violet and see the world opening up in front of her.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

Audiobooks or Reading? To Our Brains, It Doesn't Matter

I've been saying this for a long time...

Audiobooks or Reading? To Our Brains, It Doesn't Matter - http://bit.ly/2HsNDJy

NPR's 100 Funniest Books

Well, my TBR list just got a lot longer...

We Did It For The LOLs: 100 Favorite Funny Books https://n.pr/2KUjW4M

leap off the page

The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell
Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction
Review: What do the women of the copper country do while the men are down in the pits mining?  It takes no great imagination to picture them cooking, cleaning, mending, caring for children, and, if in much less dangerous conditions, generally working just as hard as their men.

According to Russell, though, they also organized.  At least in Calumet, Michigan they did.  When male union organizers got very little traction with the workers of the Calumet-Hecla mining company, where death or serious injury happened weekly, the latest death, with the resultant orphaned children, is the straw that breaks the back of Annie Clements's patience.  She organizes the women, and the union and most of the workers follow, if somewhat reluctantly.  Annie is a striking figure, though (no pun intended), and the walk-out soon becomes national news, thanks to the efforts of an aspirational photojournalist.

All of Russell's characters leap off the page, as anyone who's familiar with her work already knows.  Everyone from Annie to her anti-union husband, to James McNaughton, the manager of the mine, is shown to have at least one or two layers.  Incidentally, Russell pulls no punches in her descriptions of McNaughton's callousness toward his workers, a characterization Russell assures us is firmly based in historical reality.

Russell is known for the quality of the research she puts into her books, and this one is no exception.  But she also has the gift of communicating the knowledge she has accumulated without being didactic.  Having turned her attention to the beginning of the labor movement, she treats her readers to a heart-breaking look at what it cost the people who fought for the rights of all workers.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

perfect

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: historical fiction/fiction
Review: This is one of those books that just wow you.  Based on a true story, Whitehead tells us the story of a Elwood's experience in a Florida reform school in the 1960s.  Segregated and violent, Nickel Academy marks every boy who passes through.  As an adult, having made his way to New York City, he's created a good life for himself, but when the school is closed and archeologist's start discovering bodies of dead boys where they shouldn't be, he knows that it's time to confront his past.

It would be easy for this book to get weighed down with the brutality of the school and of the Jim Crow south in general, but Elwood's courage and dreams, and Whitehead's writing, lift the story above the mud.  The writing is very plain, but descriptive, allowing the actions, thoughts, and feelings of the characters to speak for themselves, making them that much more resonant with the reader.

As I read this book, I kept wishing it was longer, if only because it was so good that the ending was bound to be disappointing.  I can only say that I needn't have worried, as the ending was absolutely perfect.  Kudos to Mr. Whitehead.  This is a book that deserves to be read, and re-read, by everyone.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

like reading abstract art

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mokhtar and Max Gladstone
Rating: 1 star (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction
Review: Many time travel books are non-linear to some degree.  But this book charts a whole new path when it comes to non-linearity.  To be fair, the specifics of where are when are somewhat beside the point, but the places and times the characters go to have very few recognizable features, which leaves the reading without a hook on which to make sense of the narrative (if it can be called that).  It's kind of like reading abstract art.  Like abstract art, a very few things come into focus by the end if you stare at them long enough, but it requires way too much effort.  If you like that kind of thing, carry on, but it's really not for me.  And yes, I already know I'm a philistine when it comes to art.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

what exactly is the point?

Wilder Girls by Rory Powers
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction/horror
Review: Raxter.  The name of the island, and the small girls' boarding school on it.  And now, the Raxter Phenonomen, or the Tox, which is turning the island, and everything on it wild in various ways.  Nearly all of the teachers, and many of the students are already dead, and those who remain are holed up on the school grounds, waiting for the Navy and the CDC which are supposedly working on a cure.  Or are they?  It's clear that everything is not as it seems, and you'll keep reading this book to try to figure out what the real story is.  What is the Tox?  Where did it come from?  And is everyone actually on the same side?

Not all of those questions come with clear answers, although they're all answered enough to be satisfying by the end of the book.  But the one big question I was left with was, what was the point of this book?  Was it supposed to be something like Lord of the Flies where we see what happens to a society of adolescents when they're left on their own in dangerous circumstances?  Or was it supposed to be more about the Tox itself?  I just couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be getting out of this book.  Like I said, though, you will keep reading right to the end just to see who, if anyone, makes it out alive and whether they have any answers with them if they do.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.