It's ALMOST AUTUMN! Can you feel the relief and joy in the air, my fellow book lovers? The end of August is nigh, and back to school and cool temps are just around the corner! This has been a painful and troubling summer for myself and my family, but we have all come through it and are looking forward to the "spooky season" and birthdays and holidays to follow. Meanwhile, though, I have managed to scrape together a couple of tidbits and 4 of my book reviews, with a bonus review by a freelance writer. Read on!
This looks like something I'd love to see, especially with the great cast. Plus, anything with cats in it, or cat owners, has got to be fascinating.
Movies:
Cat Person
The first trailer has been released for
the "darkly comedic dating thriller" Cat Person
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQGMwukI6ahvIh8nHQ~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nGXsOhpoMLg-gVd,
based on Kristen Roupenian's viral New Yorker short story, Deadline
reported, adding that the film, which premiered "to much buzz at
Sundance back in January," is set to open in U.S. theaters via
Rialto Pictures beginning October 6.
Starring Emilia Jones (CODA) and
Nicholas Braun (Succession), the project's cast also features Geraldine
Viswanathan, Hope Davis, Michael Gandolfini, Liza Koshy, Fred Melamed,
Isaac Powell, Isabella Rossellini,and Donald Elise Watkins. It was
scripted by Michelle Ashford.
Cat Person was directed by Susanna
Fogel, who had said earlier this year that "the idea of toggling back
and forth between the POVs of her protagonists was compelling, in that it
allowed her to explore 'miscommunications and the cultural
baggage that men and women bring into dating,' particularly in our
post-#MeToo moment," Deadline wrote.
This also sounds like something that would be a very engaging read...I love stories of the British people and their struggles following WWII. And the fact that it includes information about a 'chocolate war' with Cadbury, makers of the delicious creme eggs, only makes it more alluring to chocolate lovers like myself.
Book Review: Bournville
The years since the end of World War II
have brought dramatic change to Great Britain, and historians have
devoted considerable attention to that sometimes painful period of
transition. It's left to a talented writer like Jonathan Coe
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQGMwukI6ahvIh8kGg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nGXsOhpoMLg-gVdw
to assess the emotional impact of those societal shifts on the lives
of ordinary people, and that's what he's done with great depth of
feeling in his novel Bournville.
Coe's story--bracketed by a prologue
and a concluding chapter set during the onset of the Covid-19
pandemic--revolves around the family of Mary Lamb, born in 1934 in the eponymous
section of Birmingham, a village "dreamed into being by chocolate,"
after it was constructed as a place to house workers at the principal
production facility for Cadbury chocolate in the late 19th century.
Mary, a teacher, and her husband,Geoffrey--who trades his university
Classics major for a modest career in banking--raise their three sons
there, but the tranquil environment doesn't shield them from the social and
economic change unfolding in their homeland.
In addition to VE Day and the
coronavirus, the lives of the Lamb family and their offspring play out against
the background of four set pieces involving Britain's royal family.
Along with their fellow Britons, the Lambs experience events with
widely contrasting degrees of engagement, exhibiting a variety of
views on issues, like economics and race, that reflect their homeland's
diversity. Coe touches only glancingly on the 2016 Brexit vote, but
he prefigures that controversy with the story of the "chocolate
war," when Mary's son Martin, a Cadbury's marketing executive, travels
to Brussels to battle representatives of the continental
European countries who want to ban the import of his company's product,
claiming its vegetable fat deprives it of the status of real chocolate.
The novel's final section is a moving
account of life during the initial phase of the Covid-19 lockdown in March
2020. Summing up her long union to Geoffrey,
Mary modestly observes that "we've been happy, on the whole,
we've rubbed along together very well." That's also an apt description of how
this one deeply imagined family, if not necessarily all their fellow
citizens, have navigated the epochal changes of 75 years in the nation's
life. --Harvey Freedenberg
The Reviews:
The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman is a literary fiction novel with Hoffman's trademark magic realism woven throughout the pages and plot. I've read most of Hoffman's works, and her prose is the gold standard, always plush and filled with mesmerizing paragraphs that dig their hooks into your mind and soul before you've reached the first 50 pages. Hoffman has such a deft touch with grim subject matter, like death, abuse, and war, that she manages to take fearful and stale ground covered by many, less skilled writers, and plow up new treasures that make the reader see the events anew. Here's the blurb:
From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites
and the Practical Magic series comes an enchanting novel about love,
heartbreak, self-discovery, and the enduring magic of books.
One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter
was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the
story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an
oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside
world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this
be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain
and loss that Mia carries inside her?
Through a journey of
heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised
with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can
transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and
writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is
more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any
chains that bind you.
As a girl Mia fell in love with a book.
Now as a young woman she falls in love with a brilliant writer as she
makes her way back in time. But what if Nathaniel Hawthorne never wrote The Scarlet Letter? And what if Mia Jacob never found it on the day she planned to die? Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote: “A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
This is the story of one woman’s dream. For a little while it came true.
I was thrilled by the twists and turns of the plot, especially toward the end, but I found the ending to be disappointing, (SPOILERS) in that readers never get the chance to know whether or not evil cult leader Joel was arrested and died, or whether he triumphed by finding the painting...and what of Nathaniel Hawthorne? Obviously he wrote the Scarlett Letter, but did he change any aspects of it due to meeting Mia? What happened to Mia and her baby? How does a time traveler have a baby with someone from the past? I don't like having questions by the time a book is finished, and I don't like vague allusions to things that might or might not take place. I prefer things to be tied up nicely with all the plot points resolved. Still, despite the weak ending, I'd give this book an A-, and recommend it to anyone else who wonders about what its like to grow up in a cult, and yearn for the freedom to read, and to all Hawthorne fans who understood the impact that a novel with a female protagonist would have in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Foundling by Ann Leary is another literary fiction novel that has a strong feminist through line and a gritty and determined female protagonist. With the inevitable Harry Potter-esque vibes of abused orphans and the tropes of powerful but corrupt people who prey on unwanted children (especially girls), the stage is set for a fearsome battle between good and evil, the rich and poor. Here's the blurb: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good House, the “harrowing, gripping, and beautiful” story of two friends, raised in the same orphanage,
whose loyalty is put to the ultimate test when they meet years later at
an institution—based on a shocking and little-known piece of American
history.
It’s 1927 and eighteen-year-old Mary Engle
is hired to work as a secretary at a remote but scenic institution for
mentally disabled women called the Nettleton State Village for
Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. She’s immediately in awe of her employer—brilliant, genteel Dr. Agnes Vogel.
Dr.
Vogel had been the only woman in her class in medical school. As a
young psychiatrist she was an outspoken crusader for women’s suffrage.
Now, at age forty, Dr. Vogel runs one of the largest and most
self-sufficient public asylums for women in the country. Mary deeply
admires how dedicated the doctor is to the poor and vulnerable women
under her care.
Soon after she’s hired, Mary learns that a girl
from her childhood orphanage is one of the inmates. Mary remembers
Lillian as a beautiful free spirit with a sometimes-tempestuous side.
Could she be mentally disabled? When Lillian begs Mary to help her
escape, alleging the asylum is not what it seems, Mary is faced with a
terrible choice. Should she trust her troubled friend with whom she
shares a dark childhood secret? Mary’s decision triggers a hair-raising
sequence of events with life-altering consequences for all.
Inspired by a true story about the author’s grandmother, The Foundling
is compelling, unsettling, and “a stunning reminder that not much time
has passed since everyone claimed to know what was best for a
woman—everyone except the woman herself” (Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author).
I agree with the blurb that this book reminds readers that women had very little agency in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that all a man had to do if he wanted his wife's money and property was to condemn her to an institution and he would be believed over her when she protested the incarceration. There's also the through-line here of the doctors who preyed on poor women and women of color by falsely telling people that they were inferior to white middle class or high class women, and therefore they needed to be sterilized against their will so that they could not reproduce. I don't agree that this was a little known area of history, because I remember reading, back in college, about the sufferagettes and about imprisoned women in lunatic asylums kept in horrifying conditions and beaten/starved by the staff who believed them to be less intelligent than animals. Nelly Blye went into an asylum to report about these terrible conditions and things improved after she had her expose printed. I'd give this thought-provoking book a B, and recommend it to those who are interested in feminism's roots and hard-fought battles for women's rights. Curves For Days by Laura Moher is a delightful rom-com with a bit of a Southern flair, and prose that could be easily turned into a TV or movie script. Once I read that the female protagonist was a larger gal, or "curvy" as marketing professionals call it ("Fat" has too many bad connotations) I knew that I had to read the book. But even though the protagonist is a chubby gal, she is still described as being "petite" or short compared to the male protagonist, who is, as expected by romance novel tropes, a huge, tall and muscular man who towers over the gal, and can lift her without much effort, thereby infantilizing her in another trope of sexist romance fiction. Here's the blurb: How is Rose Barnes supposed to build the home (and life) of her dreams when her big, burly contractor keeps scowling at her?
Rose
Barnes has got curves for days—and to Angus Drummond, the big, bearded
contractor working on her new house, she's the perfect thorn in his
side. Little does she know Angus is perturbed on a daily basis by his
attraction to this cheery, smart-ass woman with her sunshiny enthusiasm,
her kindness, and her beautiful body.
Angus feels he
has a debt to pay to the world and doesn't deserve love until he pays
it. Best to keep his mind on his work and his hands to himself. But the
more Rose sees of Angus's gruff, honorable thoughtfulness, and the more
rusty laughter she surprises from him, the more she wants him too.
As
their unlikely friendship becomes love, antagonism turns to
partnership, and Rose's house becomes a home. But Rose is keeping a
secret that could blow up everything with Angus, and sure enough, it
comes to light at the worst possible time.
All of Rose's cheerful attitude and baby-like chubbiness somehow makes her like catnip to Angus, who longs to dominate her in bed. I didn't really see what Rose saw in Angus, other than a predilection toward child-like women, because he was a complete asshat to her for most of the novel. But, though they seem to be madly in love, one little thing that Rosie doesn't tell Angus comes to light, and suddenly he wants nothing to do with her. It's a huge over reaction, and rather immature and chauvenistic of him to treat her so badly about something she acquired via a will and that she had every right to deal with in her own way...but Angus gets butt-hurt over a woman having agency and authority over her own finances. What a jerk! But there is the inevitable HEA, and so things are at least tied up at the end. I'd give this fast read a B, and recommend it to anyone who longs to see women of size represented in romantic fiction. Bitterburn by Ann Aguirre is a fully fledged romantic fantasy, written in Aguirre's unique, succulent prose that will keep you turning pages into the wee hours. It's basically a re-telling of the Beauty and the Beast story, but here the author has managed to make the beast seem sensual and desirable in his cursed form, enough so that the female protagonist falls for him fairly quickly. Here's the blurb:
Amarrah Brewer is desperate and grief-stricken.
For
ages, the town of Bitterburn has sent tribute to the Keep at the End of
the World, but a harsh winter leaves them unable to pay the toll that
keeps the Beast at bay. Amarrah volunteers to brave what no one has
before--to end the threat or die trying.
The Beast of Bitterburn has lost all hope.
One
way or another, Njål has been a prisoner for his entire life. Monstrous
evil has left him trapped and lonely, and he believes that will never
change. There is only darkness in his endless exile, never light. Never
warmth. Until she arrives.
It's a tale as old as time... where Beauty goes to confront the Beast and falls in love instead.
The townspeople and nearly everyone else comes out looking like a bunch of asshats and evil racist jerks who are starving because they're too afraid to tell the beast that they can no longer grow food in frozen ground. The female protagonist, Amarrah, loves books and is thrilled with the library that will satisfy her mental starvation and the food that appears magically to feed her body. Unfortunately, there's no obnoxious Gaston and no charming talking furniture or teapots, just a curse that Amarrah must break before her village starves to death. It's unsurprising that she does mange to kill the curse, but the way she goes about it is as a witch who reads a spellbook, not someone who falls for the Beast before the final hour. Aguirre handles the sex scenes with aplomb and a deft touch, so it appears naturally woven into the tale as old as time. I'd give this book an A- and recommend it to any adult who likes imaginative re-tellings of classic fairy tales.
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