Everything I Never Told You
Title: Everything I Never Told You
Author: Celeste Ng
Genre: Fiction
Length: 297 pages
Leave it to me to take an 80 degree Christmas day to snuggle under the softest blanket to ever touch my skin and read the most beautifully depressing book. The blanket, a gift I received this morning, is the same color scheme as the Penguin trade paperback edition cover of Ng’s work. And as I sank into a cloud of a blanket, I also became lost within the pages of a story that begins: “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know that yet.”
Ng’s book is a beautiful representation of a family trying to come to terms with their differences and contradictions – within society, among themselves, and in the depths of their own souls. A mixed marriage in a time when it was not only uncommon, but in some states still illegal, James and Marilyn are more different than their skin tone. James, desperately trying to blend in and fade into the crowd, while Marilyn is ever the opposite – wanting to be unique and important in a generation of women who are still encouraged only to please their husbands.
“[…] her mother promised to teach them everything a young lady needed to keep a house. As if, Marilyn thought, it might run away when you weren’t looking.”
Nath is the oldest of James and Marilyn’s children, the big brother who does his best to be his little sister’s only emotional support in a family dynamic that is oppressive, codependent, and full of too much subtlety and things left unspoken. Lydia, the people pleaser, is dead; and Hannah, the youngest of the children, is unnoticed.
Despite being a celebrated bestseller, I was surprised to find a number of poor reviews. People unhappy with the layers of the storytelling, of being spoon-fed too many sides of a story. People annoyed by how over the top and unrealistic the characters are, calling them allegorical or fairytale-like in their melancholy and their lack of cohesive expression. I find myself at odds with these reviews. I disagree completely, having loved the way Ng tells the story like a tide coming in… in three different tenses, the tale splashing over your toes, receding so you could see it from a distance, then rushing toward you to engulf not just your toes but the tops of your feet as well. Again. Again. And again. Until your whole body is submerged. Until the entire story has saturated you, body, mind, and soul.
People who do not recognize these characters have the blessing of never living in a dysfunctional family. People who cannot see how very real these portraits are, how they sting in their accuracy, have – perhaps – not lived long enough to see how someone’s childhood shapes them in a way that easily distorts the lives of their children in a slightly different way, and can keep going for generations until something tragic occurs to shed the tiniest bit of light on what has never been spoken aloud. People who don’t understand this novel, have never seen loss and grief played out… have never sat wondering how well they knew the person who has just left them forever. Have never sat and realized that when someone is gone, there are pieces of them no one will ever know, because no one can completely know another’s mind.
“The things that go unsaid are often the things that eat at you–whether because you didn’t get to have your say, or because the other person never got to hear you and really wanted to.”
This book is gorgeous, and a little bit awful. It will strike a chord and leave you questioning how your own actions will be perceived. I will keep my copy and I anticipate reading it again in the future.
“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”
Ross Poldark
Title: Ross Poldark (Poldark Series Book #1)
Author: Winston Graham
Genre: Historical Fiction
In 1945 Graham Winston released the novel Ross Poldark, the first of what would later become a twelve volume saga of regarding the Poldark family.
The series was infinitely popular during its time, and went on to become a classic, taken to the screen by many, including my favorite: Masterpiece Theatre.
Graham’s work outside the Poldark series is even more extensive – his career as a novelist resulted in over forty titles being published in his lifetime.
I’ve run the fiction department of a bookstore for years. On and off since 2007, to be exact. I know the fiction/literature department of most bookstores like the back of my hand. Yet, I’ve never read any of Graham’s work until now – and I vaguely recall only seeing one of his books grace my fingertips ever. His books have never made a sizable appearance on the shelves where I work. Had we seen more copies of his work over the years, I certainly would have read his work by now as he’s right up my alley.
Poldark is for the Jane Austen and Bernard Cornwell lovers, a historical fiction piece too wonderful to ignore. Set in the late 1700’s (just a few decades after Outlander), Ross Poldark chronicles the return of the title’s namesake from America, where he’s fought in the revolution and been rumored dead. He arrives to find the woman he loves has not waited so patiently after all and is engaged to his cousin.
I love the full cast of this novel, and I assume the rest of the series. Not only does it follow the eventful lives of Ross and his cousins, Francis and Verity, the ex-lover Elizabeth, servants including a scullery maid Demelza, and an entire town of miners living on Poldark land. Graham does a little bit of third person head hopping, but never leaves you confused and maintains a streamlined storyline.
I am eager to read the second installment, Demelza, and am equally eager for the second season of the PBS series, Poldark.
Spelling V
Title: Spelling V
Author: Meb Bryant
Format: Kindle
I finally found a cover for my kindle – one that fits, one that I like. It’s a little brown leather ditty with quotes embossed in ink-black cursive. Finally, it has the feel of a book rather than a device; something I can set down and not tuck away in the box it was shipped to me from Amazon.
I bought the cover at Half Price Books last night. First thing this morning I charged my kindle and chose what book to tackle first.
Then I remembered Meb Bryant.
“She had an orange belt in karate… he had a leather belt in the loops of his jeans.” I read that and snickered. Good one, Meb.
Bryant is clever and has a way of writing something shocking with prose that urges you to continue to read something horrific and not be shocked. Think Nabakov writing Lolita – except with stories Bentley Little would be proud of. The only way Spelling V could be more disturbing is if Bryant had lingered over the story for a few hundred pages.
Bryant artfully maps out the lifetime of a control freak, a codependent, and psychopath, and it’s pretty darn riveting. I especially love that one of the characters reads Bryant’s novel Harbinger of Evil. I’m a huge sucker for when authors do this. I like the idea of one interconnected world within an authors fantasies.
Give the best holiday gift this season: buy yourself a short story to read in between holiday meals and excitement and leave a review. You deserve a break and indie authors thrive on reviews.
The Good Neighbor
Title: The Good Neighbor
Author: A. J. Banner
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Genre: Women’s Fiction/ Suspense
Length: 196 pages
It was the perfect weather for a book like The Good Neighbor, rainy, eerie, and a too cold for my Texas bones. So, naturally, I enjoyed it immensely.
It may be Banner’s first (official) suspense novel, but this debut definitely shows obvious signs of Anjali Banerjee’s skill and efficiency when it comes to weaving a winning storyline. She artfully introduces you to all the relevant characters without confusion and quickly drops you into the midst of the dilemma.
It’s a little predictable and not a terribly riveting thriller, but it’s paced quickly and therefore makes for a great day off leisure read while hiding from the rain.
The novel reads nearly like a screenplay and could be easily adapted for an HBO or Lifetime special. I’m looking forward to more of her work and will happily drop a few bucks on another one of Banner’s novels (and a coffee ) to curl up with.
The Writing Circle
Title: The Writing Circle 
Author: Corinne Demas
Publisher: Voice
Genre: Women’s Fiction / Literary Fiction
Length: 305 pages
I loved this book. It has a slow, steady pace, but one worth indulging in. Demas has the writing style I was going for when I first tackled the genre with The Bookshop Hotel series. However, in her prolific career, she has mastered the craft in a way that proves I have so much to learn.
The Writing Circle is a much darker story than it appears to be at first glance, or even in the first half of the story itself. It chronicles the lives of Nancy, Bernard, Virginia, Adam, Chris, and Gillian as they discuss and critique their craft. Nancy is a novelist who writes and edits a medical journal by day. Bernard, a biographer. Virginia and Chris are both published fiction writers as well. Adam is the youngest, an aspiring writer; and Gillian is the most renown of the group, a poet short-listed for a Pulitzer.
A lot of reviews on Goodreads complain about the number of characters and many readers say it was hard to keep track. I didn’t find this a problem at all. If anything, I marveled at Demas’ ability to write a third person limited omniscient viewpoint with so many distinct voices. She has nailed the ability to travel seamlessly from one character to the next without head hopping, while restricting the inner monologue and recollections to only that which carries the narrative of the specific story she is trying to tell. The book is brilliant. I hope my third book displays at least half as much talent and craftsmanship.
I look forward to reading more of Demas’ work. She has a lot to choose from.
Bowls of Happiness
Title: Bowls of Happiness
Author: Brian Tse
Illustrator: Alice Mak
Translator: Ben Wang
Genre: Children’s Picture Books/ Education/ Cultural Studies
As the kiddo grows older, she’s becoming more apt to share her opinions on things. She’s at the phase where not only is she becoming more articulate, she’s realizing that people will listen to her when she is. She’s five, a just turned five, but five nevertheless.
That being so, I like keeping her in the habit of thinking about what she likes and dislikes about what we read. I enjoy having her reiterate what we’ve read, to know that she is listening and understanding.
“I like the way the flowers are pretty and I like the way Piggy sits in the flowers and sun. And the part where the birds sing. But when Piggy and the bats run away from the rain, that wasn’t really fun. When Piggy’s bowl was finished with the flowers and the bats, that looked really pretty. I like the yellow bowl, and the yellow bowl with Piggy on it. And I like the way there is a picture with flowers with no words. I like the yellow bowl with pictures of just flowers and leaves, it’s really pretty to me. I like the bowl with Piggy inside that is blue and branches and flowers and one bird. I like the white bowl with the pond and two birds. And I like the yellow bowl with flowers and blue kind of moons and patterns on it. I learned about love and Chinese and the way people love people and I learned ALL about bowls. I think all of it is cool. And at the end with the hand with the hole and the piggy nose is pretty cool to me, the one that comes from the other page.”
Then she proceeded to find all the capital I’s in the letter from Chiu Kwwong-chiu at the end. I’m pretty sure she likes the letter I as well.
All in all, I think this book was a huge success in our house. Mostly because stud
ying Chinese culture has always been important to us (I grew up in a Kung Fu studio) and the color yellow is kiddo’s second favorite color. There’s a lot of yellow in Bowls of Happiness.
I don’t think we’ve ever read a book laid out in this fashion, this size, separated almost in a chapter-like manner. (Story book first, then a detailed nonfiction section that could have easily been published as a separate title.) We’ve definitely not encounter one on this subject. It’s lovely.
Cultural and artistic studies are important for tiny people and teaching them about the artistry found in every day objects as well as museums is a key part of showing them the beauty of the world. I want my child to see beauty in her world, not through rose-colored lenses, but through intelligence and empathy.
Wren
Title: Wren
Author: Regina O’Connell
Genre: Young Adult/ Fantasy
Format: Kindle/ Ebook
One of the perks of being an indie author is that I encounter a lot of other indie authors. In doing so, I discover a lot of reading material that most people might not. With all this non-mainstream discovery, I get passed a lot of duds and a lot of gems.
Wren was neither for me. It was a good book among a lot of good books. It didn’t blow me away, but I didn’t feel like I wasted my time either. It was enjoyable and if the right person came along, I’d pass along a recommendation – not in a sing its praises from the rooftop sort of way, but in a there is an audience for everything sort of way.
Wren is a book for someone with an hour to kill who is in the mood for a fast-paced action/ dystopian fantasy. You are quickly dropped into the story and it’s easy to devour it. I read it in one sitting – so clearly it’s a fun way to pass time.
I’m not sure it will make a lasting impression, though. It’s not a story that will stay with me. It is a story that will compel me to read whatever O’Connell puts out next, when I have the time, just to see. She’s piqued my curiosity and I’m glad I had the opportunity to take a peek into her imaginary world and keep her writing career on my radar.
Party Lights
Title: The Summer We Read Gatsby
Author: Danielle Ganek
Publisher: Viking
Genre: Literary Romance
Length: 292 pages
Something about seeing all the Christmas lights go up, and holiday party planning for the winter, led me to this book – despite its summer setting in the Hamptons heat. I suppose the deep autumn of Texas has similar weather patterns to summertime in the country of New York, but I don’t know as I’ve never been there. I just know that it’s anywhere from the upper 80’s to the lower 40’s all this Thanksgiving week, depending on the moment and precipitation.
Christmas in Texas always has a flair of Fitzgerald about it to me anyway. This is the time of year when people pull out garden lights, candles, splashes of extravagant color, sparkly dresses, and dine outside where it’s cool. This is when we cook breakfast together in over crowded houses and drink mimosas until noon, only to start pouring wine in its place by lunch. (Naturally we evolve into beer and football by mid afternoon, but that’s not very Gatsby of us is it. We only have so much ridiculous classy flair before we go full on redneck, after all.)
Still, there’s an appropriate place in my winter heart for this summer read, and I loved every second and every page of this witty little romance that had a Whole Nine Yards touch of mystery. I say romance, but the romance isn’t as much for *the guy* as it is for a house – Fool’s House – and a pair of sisters.
Ganek didn’t pull any punches, she created a perfect piece of over the top fiction with all the glitter and glam of the overly fictitious. All those moments you’ve had in your life when you’re staring at people thinking, what a character, they could be in a book. They are in a book. This book. The storytellers, the actors, the gay guy, the foreigners, the artists, the deceased benefactor, the millionaire, the villains, all the archetypes that don’t quite fit their mold… they’re all here, fluttering about like a party of confetti and lights, ready to entertain.
I loved it. It’s a keeper and I’ll read it again.
Anemogram
Title: Anemogram
Author: Rebecca Gransden
Publisher: Cardboard Wall Empire
Genre: Mysterious Fiction
Length: 242 pages
anemograph: (ə·nem′ə·graf, -gräf) noun Meteorol. An instrument that makes an automatic record of the velocity, force, or direction of the wind.
anemogram: An anemographic record
From start to finish Gransden’s work had a haunting feel to it. The description itself required to ask her before I agreed to review the book if I should be concerned… if there were any Lolita elements to the story. I was not emotionally in a place to handle anything involving molestation or inappropriate relationships.
No, the author assured me. No, I assure you.
Still, page by page, there’s the constant wonder if you’re about to get hoodwinked by the story. Gransden’s prose is songlike and her subject matter is mysterious and disconcerting, without ever crossing a line. Or did it? I’m still not sure.
Just as a ghost-like girl weaves in and out of the woods, in and out of society, almost like a dream, the story weaves in and out of itself – chapter-less – smoothly, but with the momentum of a sharp breeze at your back on a day you know you should have worn a sweater.
Something of the story feels a little Elizabeth George to me, and a little bit Chuck Palahniuk. (Two authors with nothing in common, except somehow they hung out in the recesses of my brain while I read Gransden’s work.) I wonder what she thinks of them.
I write this review now because the author has been waiting for it for sometime. I was sent this book from her in exchange for an honest review, but I think I’d have to sleep on it a bit before I truly know what I think of it. It deserves pondering, and discussion. It deserves a re-read in varying moods to see if that changes my own perception of things. How much of what I feel now is Gransden’s writing skill and the mood she wanted to portray and how much is because of my own current mood?
Anemogram would make for an excellent book club selection and I’d recommend it to a group who typically chooses mysteries, although I’m hesitant to place it in the category.
Learning Dangerously
Title: The Year of Learning D
angerously
Author: Quinn Cummings
Genre: Parenting/ Education/ Humor
I found The Year of Learning Dangerously tucked on a clearance shelf at work as I was cleaning the last hour of my shift. I bought it that night on my way out the door, and spent the following day off reading it.
I laughed. I laughed so hard I couldn’t breath. I loved it, every page, every moment, every encounter Cummings had with fellow homeschool families as she tried to find “her tribe.”
I couldn’t sit and read silently, every few lines I had something to share with whoever happened to be sitting next to me. I laughed, they laughed, we laughed until we cried. We felt for Cummings, all her quirks make her endearing to me. Her anxieties and personal electro-magnetic field make her my spirit animal.
While I laughed and felt camaraderie with Cummings in all her panic attacks, all her self doubt, but ultimately in her absolute decision that this was the lifestyle for her – my husband, apparently, spent that time doubting our educational plans. Plans we’ve had in place since before kiddo was even born.
It’s interesting how everyone’s life experience can be so different despite living and breathing the same air and being part of the same bubble. I see the world for what it is and find more determination for our lifestyle choices. Others look at the exact same thing and come to a completely contradictory conclusion, and give up.
Whatever your life choices, whether you are a homeschool family or simply people who love to laugh – Quinn Cummings’s memoir is fantastic. I couldn’t put it down and my abs thank me for it.
On a kick for parenting humor, I picked up It Sucked And Then I Cried by Heather B. Armstrong. I’ll let you know how it goes, but so far her snark is outstanding.
Anakalian Whims 