Watchmen on TV, Mrs Everything Review, The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami, The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen, Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly, A Gentleman of Means and Devices Brightly Shining by Shelley Adina, and the Glass Ocean by Williams, Willig and White

Happy Mother's Day tomorrow to all you hard working moms out there! I plan on delving into my TBR and doing a little shopping with my son. Meanwhile, I've been in a reading frenzy, and I've got 6 books to review today, in addition to posting a review from Shelf Awareness of a book that I want to read that isn't even on the shelves yet. 

My husband and I have both read Moore's Watchmen graphic novel, and we watched the original movie made from it, but with today's CGI technology, I think this latest TV adaptation will be spectacular.

TV: Watchmen

HBO released a teaser trailer for Watchmen http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40633330, based on the comic book epic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Deadline reported that "even as Game of Thrones winds down, HBO has been ramping up another sprawling adaptation of a genre epic that defies almost every traditional expectation about episodic television.... Set in an alternate history where superheroes are viewed as outlaws, the new drama from executive producer Damon Lindelof is rooted in the same universe as the source material but strikes out in new directions with unfamiliar characters and a different story to tell."

The cast includes Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Jean Smart, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hong Chau, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, and James Wolk.

The "tick, tock, tick, tock" chant in the teaser "is an effectively unsettling way to introduce a show that may end up with a reputation for memorable sonic moments that get in the ear and stay in the head," Deadline noted. "That's because Nine Inch Nails musicians Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (who first worked together as film composers on The Social Network) will be creating the original music for the series." Watchmen will debut on HBO in the fall.

I really want to read this book, and I am so excited that I had to post this review from Shelf Awareness, an email newsletter for booksellers, librarians and bibliophiles.

Review: Mrs. Everything

Jennifer Weiner (Good in Bed; Hungry Heart http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz40633343) has created a novel for the ages in Mrs. Everything, which is as impressive as it is ambitious.

Just shy of 500 pages, Mrs. Everything is a skillfully rendered and emotionally rich family saga capturing 70 years of American life as experienced by two Jewish sisters. The novel begins in the 1950s in Detroit, where Jo and Bethie grow up in a Jewish suburb. Bethie is the apple of her mother's eye, while Jo, the oldest and more unconventional in her appearance and interests, clashes with her mother's expectations. Jo realizes from a young age that she's gay, and this sets up conflict not only with her mother, but with society in general, and Jo struggles to fit in. In her early chapters, Weiner crafts a compelling Bildungsroman. The two sisters form an unbreakable bond when their father dies prematurely, leaving their mother in financial hardship. The sisters' relationship is further tested when an uncle begins abusing Bethie and the two girls must form a plan to fight back.

With vibrant descriptive powers and a potent sense of history, Weiner delineates her protagonists' college years. She reveals the 1960s in alltheir heady psychedelic delirium. Jo becomes a progressive activist and meets the love of her life, Shelley, while Bethie becomes a drug-imbibing hippie and vagabond of sorts. The two sisters take much different paths into the '70s and '80s. Sick of having her heart broken by women, Jo settles down with a husband and raises three daughters.

After traveling, emotionally scarred Bethie ends up in a women's commune outside Atlanta. She marries a former classmate, an African American man named Harold, and eventually turns the commune's homemade goods into a business empire, completing a curious arc from hippie to entrepreneur.

Mrs. Everything is an unapologetic feminist novel. In lesser hands, the male characters in the book could come off as villainous clichés. Weiner, however, shows convincing command of her material, fully fleshing out the pernicious effects of patriarchy. There's the aforementioned abusive uncle. There's a rape that takes place in the supposedly free-love culture of the '60s. There's the abortion doctor who slut-shames Bethie. There's rampant sexism, body shaming, clueless cheating husbands and one obstacle after another as the sisters push to define themselves in the new millennium. Weiner risks the narrative collapsing under the weight of so many issues, but she largely succeeds due to her overarching vision and her commitment to the reality of her characters.

That the novel's timeline ends with the 2016 presidential election and the MeToo movement is fitting. Events come full-circle, and Jo's daughters have more options, thanks to the women before them. That doesn't stop Jo from worrying about the pressures placed upon them. "Women had made progress--Jo only had to look as far as the television set to see it--but she wondered whether they would ever not try to have it all and do it all and do all of it flawlessly," Weiner writes.

Mrs. Everything defines a formative period for women in the U.S. Weiner shows that big, expansive social novels are not only still possible in our fragmented society but perhaps necessary. Mrs. Everything is a great American novel, full of heart and hope. --Scott Neuffer 

The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami is exactly that, strange in format and bizarre in content. This tiny novella has about 50-75 pages to tell the story of a boy who visits a library wherein the librarian imprisons him and tries to force him to read so that the librarian can eventually eat his brain, which would be enriched by difficult reading. It's illustrated with unusual drawings/paintings that don't really illuminate the text at all. The front cover of the book flips up like a notepad, and the books text looks like it was typed on an old fashioned manual typewriter. There are no page numbers, and it reads like a weird, drug-fueled anecdote that someone would tell you at a party after having too much to drink. I didn't like the story or understand its significance, so I will give this tiny novella a D, and I would only recommend it to those who find weird stories entertaining.

The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen, author of the Molly Murphy mysteries, was a real treat. A story with chapters that alternate between 1944-45, the end of World War II, and 1973, when the daughter of one of the main characters goes back to Italy to find out the truth about her father, who had an affair with a woman from a small Italian village. The prose is smooth and sweet, like a fine wine, while the plot moves along rapidly and without delay. Here's the blurb:

“Pass the bread, the olives, and the wine. Oh, and a copy of The Tuscan Child to savor with them.” —NPR
In 1944, British bomber pilot Hugo Langley parachuted from his stricken plane into the verdant fields of German-occupied Tuscany. Badly wounded, he found refuge in a ruined monastery and in the arms of Sofia Bartoli. But the love that kindled between them was shaken by an irreversible betrayal.
Nearly thirty years later, Hugo’s estranged daughter, Joanna, has returned home to the English countryside to arrange her father’s funeral. Among his personal effects is an unopened letter addressed to Sofia. In it is a startling revelation.
Still dealing with the emotional wounds of her own personal trauma, Joanna embarks on a healing journey to Tuscany to understand her father’s history—and maybe come to understand herself as well. Joanna soon discovers that some would prefer the past be left undisturbed, but she has come too far to let go of her father’s secrets now.

This book is worth the price for the delicious descriptions of Italian cuisine alone, but the fact that it's a real page turner only adds to reader's enjoyment. I loved Hugo's tragic tale, and Joanna's investigation that leads to solving several mysteries about what happened in the village during the war. That said, we never do find out what really happened to poor Sofia, or why (SPOILER) she left the village with a German officer. that was my only real qualm with the novel, other than the reliance on the trope of the beautiful, petite, irresistible blond heroine in Joanna. Other than that, I'd give this delicious tale an A, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys WWII stories set in Italy, and who loves Italian wines and cuisine.

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly, who also wrote the excellent Lilac Girls (which I read and enjoyed), is yet another war time novel, but this time it's focused on WW1, the Great War, rather than the horrors of WWII. The fact that there's also a focus on the Russian Revolution and the horrors that preceded it, and the deaths of the Romanovs and displacement of many "White" Russians afterward, truly takes this book into unexpected, unexplored corners of the Great War.  Here's the blurb: Now Lost Roses, set a generation earlier and also inspired by true events, features Caroline’s mother, Eliza, and follows three equally indomitable women from St. Petersburg to Paris under the shadow of World War I.
It is 1914, and the world has been on the brink of war so often, many New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanovs. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and became close confidantes. Now Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime, home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia: the church with the interior covered in jeweled mosaics, the Rembrandts at the tsar’s Winter Palace, the famous ballet.
But when Austria declares war on Serbia and Russia’s imperial dynasty begins to fall, Eliza escapes back to America, while Sofya and her family flee to their country estate. In need of domestic help, they hire the local fortune-teller’s daughter, Varinka, unknowingly bringing intense danger into their household.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Eliza is doing her part to help the White Russian families find safety as they escape the revolution. But when Sofya’s letters suddenly stop coming, she fears the worst for her best friend.
From the turbulent streets of St. Petersburg and aristocratic countryside estates to the avenues of Paris where a society of fallen Russian émigrés live to the mansions of Long Island, the lives of Eliza, Sofya, and Varinka will intersect in profound ways. In her newest powerful tale told through female-driven perspectives, Martha Hall Kelly celebrates the unbreakable bonds of women’s friendship, especially during the darkest days of history. 

While I enjoy historical novels and understand the huge amount of work/research that goes into them, I was surprised that Kelly allowed every tedious detail to slow down the plot at various points in the novel, so much so that I almost abandoned it during the first quarter of the 432 pages out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, things began to move more swiftly in the second half of the book. I will note right away that I loathed the character of  Varinka, an impoverished maid who steals Sofya's baby and never intends on giving the child back to his mother. SPOILER, while I knew that Taras was her brother before the big reveal, and that he was forcing her to have sex with him, I still didn't feel that gave her the right to first of all expose the baby to Tara's violence and hatred (he kept telling Varinka that he was going to 'get rid of' the poor child) and secondly to keep him from his mother, who, though she was originally spoiled and stupid about the world, soon grew to understand the plight of her fellow Russian exiles. There were still some unanswered questions at the end of the book, but it was, for the most part, a satisfying read. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to anyone who has an interest in Russia and America during the Great War.

A Gentleman of Means and Devices Brightly Shining by Shelley Adina are books 8 and 9 in her Magnificent Devices Steampunk series. I've been devouring this series for the past month or so, and I have to say that they get better with each new book. Adina's prose is rich and riveting without being too embroiled in the technical details, and her plots zing along at a gallop. Here's the blurb for book 8:How much must one sacrifice for the sake of friendship? Lady Claire Trevelyan has had to deal with betrayal before, in small ways and large. But none is quite so painful as the belief that Gloria Meriwether-Astor had deserted her and her friends and left them to die under the waters of Venice. When she learns that Gloria has inexplicably vanished, she has no choice but to follow her heart and attempt to find the missing heiress.

But the decisions of the heart do not sit well with the gentlemen in her life, who had every reason to believe she planned to settle down at last--and suddenly Claire finds herself without a career, a fiancé, or the confidence in her own abilities that has carried her this far. Captain Ian Hollys is suffering from the megrims and cannot seem to recover from his dreadful experience as a prisoner. Alice's dream of captaining her own ship in England is scuttled. Tigg is struggling with a revelation that has turned his life upside down--and may result in a betrayal more harrowing than any the flock has yet seen.
Will the bond of friendship that has brought Claire and the flock together be the very thing that separates them for good? Or will love tip the balance and prove that what really defines a gentleman of means is none other than a lady of resources?

Book 9: On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Dreadful relations, high expectations,
And a sudden urge to pull up ropes and flee.
It is the event of the season-on Twelfth Night, the Dunsmuirs have invited the cream of London society to celebrate the marriage of Lady Claire and Andrew Malvern at a reception to which the Prince Consort himself is expected. Captain Ian Hollys brings his fiancée Alice Chalmers to London to attend and to meet his family-people who cannot see past her flight boots to the woman who stands by his side as an equal.

While adjusting to life as a newlywed, seeing to her business affairs, and preparing the Mopsies to return to school in Munich, Lady Claire is settling into her new life with joy. When two young cousins of Gloria Meriwether-Astor arrive in London, the inhabitants of Carrick House are happy to welcome them. Sydney and Hugh Meriwether-Astor are completing a world tour, and the Dunsmuirs' ball is just the thing to cap it off in splendid fashion. But Maggie learns that Sydney has his own plans for the family business-and they don't include cutting off the supply of arms to the Royal Kingdom of Spain and the Californias, as Gloria is determined to do.
It's time for someone with a spine, an airship of her own, and reasons to put fields of air between herself and decisions about her future to pull up ropes and warn Gloria that betrayal is closer than she thinks.

These two books cleared up many questions that were developing about the relationships fostered between various characters, while also moving the story arc closer to its conclusion. Though I love Lady Claire and the Mopsies and Andrew, I never quite warmed up to Alice Chalmers for some reason. Now that she's in a developing relationship, I feel a warming trend coming on! Meanwhile, though, I'd give both of these books an A, and recommend them to anyone who has read the previous 7 books. Onward, Steampunk fans!

The Glass Ocean by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White was a sumptuous novel of the events leading up to, and the aftermath of the sinking of the Lusitania during the Great War in 1915 by German UBoats. This story is told from the POV of three women, some in the past and one in modern times, and while that transition can be jarring at times, I did enjoy the historical view of life aboard ship and the class distinctions kept even while afloat. Here's the blurb:

From the New York Times bestselling authors of The Forgotten Room comes a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century—two deep in the past, one in the present—to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania.
May 2013
Her finances are in dire straits and bestselling author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks the one promise she made to her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother and opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change history. Sarah embarks on an ambitious journey to England to enlist the help of John Langford, a recently disgraced Member of Parliament whose family archives might contain the only key to the long-ago catastrophe. . . .
April 1915
Southern belle Caroline Telfair Hochstetter’s marriage is in crisis. Her formerly attentive industrialist husband, Gilbert, has become remote, pre-occupied with business . . . and something else that she can’t quite put a finger on. She’s hoping a trip to London in Lusitania’s lavish first-class accommodations will help them reconnect—but she can’t ignore the spark she feels for her old friend, Robert Langford, who turns out to be on the same voyage. Feeling restless and longing for a different existence, Caroline is determined to stop being a bystander, and take charge of her own life. . . .
Tessa Fairweather is traveling second-class on the Lusitania, returning home to Devon. Or at least, that’s her story. Tessa has never left the United States and her English accent is a hasty fake. She’s really Tennessee Schaff, the daughter of a roving con man, and she can steal and forge just about anything. But she’s had enough. Her partner has promised that if they can pull off this one last heist aboard the Lusitania, they’ll finally leave the game behind. Tess desperately wants to believe that, but Tess has the uneasy feeling there’s something about this job that isn’t as it seems. . . .
As the Lusitania steams toward its fate, three women work against time to unravel a plot that will change the course of their own lives . . . and history itself.

I found Caroline to be somewhat tedious in her oblivious attitude to those around her  who didn't have all the money and power that she had, and at the same time I grew weary of Tess's inability to extract herself from her vile sister's schemes. Sarah's story felt more authentic and interesting to me, probably because I know what it is like to be an impoverished writer looking for a good story to sell.All in all the three Ws acquit themselves well as authors, and manage to blend their styles nearly seamlessly. I would give this novel a B+, and recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Lusitania and what befell her guests and crew in 1915.