#BookReview: The World We Found - Thrity Umrigar

To say I'm disappointed in this latest novel from Thrity Umrigar would be an exaggeration, but in no way was I as engrossed in this story as I have been with her previous work.  The World We Found centers around four women who were friends in university.  Years later, only two of them are still close.  Yet, when called on by one, all respond.

Of the four women, Armaiti, Nishta, Laleh and Kavita, I found Kavita the most interesting and Armaiti the least.  In college, the women were revolutionaries, but as adults, they're far removed from those optimistic, carefree, world-changing days.  As each woman prepares to be reunited with her friends, the reader is given a glimpse into their present-day lives.

Nishta's circumstances changed the most, from an outgoing and outspoken college student to a quiet and obedient wife to a husband who had also changed drastically from his college days.  Laleh used her family's money as a college student to address any and all problems and that didn't change as an adult.  Armaiti, though the focal point of the story and the reason why the women were reuniting, was an extremely uninteresting character.  Kavita was most interesting to me because, in her, Umrigar presents a character unlike others I've read about from this area.  Her lifestyle is not one that's readily talked about in that region, so it was nice to see that subject tackled.

Overall, I didn't feel a connection with any of the women, so it made listening to the book a task, rather than something I enjoyed doing. 

305pp
Listening time: 10 hours, 41 minutes
Published: January 2012

 

Theme: Get Here by Oleta Adams

#BookReview: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

I really enjoyed this book once I got into it, but I feel like I should warn anyone that plans to listen to the audio version that it can be very confusing.  There are a lot of characters to keep up with and I've found that when that's the case, it's easier to actually read the book so you can refer back to previously read passages to figure out which character is which.  Since I listened to the audio version, I was confused for at least the first hour or so.  After that, it was smooth sailing.

Crazy Rich Asians revolves around three cousins, Nick, Astrid and Eddie.  Members of a family so wealthy that they own homes in places the average person doesn't even know exist, the Youngs are a force to be reckoned with, as Rachel Chu soon finds out.  The ABC (American Born Chinese) girlfriend of Nick, Rachel is a New York professor who thinks she's going home with her fellow professor boyfriend to visit his family for the summer.  Nick fails to tell her that she's about to walk into a lifestyle that looks like something straight out of Dynasty meets Dallas multiplied by 100, and will have to navigate an obstacle course only made more challenging by the fact that she's an American.

The beautiful Astrid seems to have it all, a new baby, a loving husband, and she reigns over Singapore society.   She's blissfully unaware of any problems in her world.  Though money has always bought her happiness in the past, this time it may prove to be a hindrance instead of a help.

Even as a child, Eddie was a bit of an ass.  Nothing has changed as he's gotten older.  Always concerned about having the best of everything and more money than anyone else, he's also obsessed with making sure his family is always photographed looking their best in the Hong Kong society pages.  Others live and learn from their mistakes, but Eddie has been making the same ones his whole life.

Though Astrid and Eddie's stories are touched on, Eddie's less than Astrid's, it's really Rachel and Nick that are the focus of Crazy Rich Asians.  The characters that Kevin Kwan has created are so over the top that one thinks he made them up, while secretly wishing people like this really exist.  Big screen rights have already been sold and I'm dying to see what becomes of this entertaining story in the hands of Hollywood.

416 pp
Listening time: 13 hours and 53 minutes
Published: June 2013

 

Theme: Marry Me by Jason Derulo

#BookReview: Loving Donovan - Bernice L. McFadden

When you choose to love someone, you agree to take on all of their baggage, knowingly or not.  The day Campbell chose to love Donovan was the day she took on the voice of ghost in his head, a domineering and ever present grandmother in his ear and a life time of watching his father just exist.  Indeed, Campbell took on much more than she knew.

Growing up, Campbell watched her father cheat on and leave his wife for another family.  As a teen mother, Campbell watched her daughter's father leave her.  As an adult, Campbell watched her best friend give herself away because the man she loved didn't love her enough.  With all those factors working against her, it would be easy to write off men, to write off love altogether.  Yet Campbell still believes in love and, though she's hesitant to seek it for herself, she's willing to take a chance.

Donovan had no business looking for love.  In all fairness, it feels like he knew that, but then he met Campbell and, for a time, logic and reasoning escaped him.  Everyone is entitled to love, but Donovan had things in his past he needed to work through before bringing anyone else into the picture.  Having been loved the wrong way in the past and the present, it's no wonder that he doesn't know how to accept being loved well and right.

Though both Donovan and Campbell come from "broken homes," Donovan's demons are more difficult to overcome.  In great part, it's because he's faced with one of them daily.  We often hear or experience mothers raising their daughters and loving their sons.  One of Donovan's biggest problems is that he's been raised by a weak father and an overbearing grandmother.  Shrouded in her love for Donovan is a need to keep him broken down enough to stay with her and, should he find the strength to leave, playing on his insecurities and fears enough to make him stay.  I find fault with Solomon, Donovan's father, as well, because its his weakness and his mother's forked tongue that is to blame for the demise of his marriage to Daisy and drives him and the young Donovan back to his mother's home.

The underlying reason for Grammy keeping first Solomon and then Donovan so close to her is selfishness and her fear of being left.  Being domineering and demeaning drove her husband away, but that's not enough to make her change her ways.  Instead, she directs her attention at Solomon, at first building him up, only to break him down later when he dares to love Daisy.  And when Donovan dares to love Campbell, she steps in and begins to slowly whittle away at the confidence that Campbell's love has given Donovan, planting seeds of doubt.

I've spent this year going back and listening to McFadden works that I've previously read.  I've heard and learned something new from each book by listening that I didn't get from reading and Loving Donovan is no exception.  Perhaps it's because there's a tendency to skim pages when reading that you can't do when listening.  However you choose to, you absolutely must give McFadden's works a try.

226pp
Published: January 2003

Theme: Hello Like Before by Bill Withers

When is Reading not Reading?

Last week on Twitter, I saw a retweet come across my timeline that made me pause.  I can't remember who the original tweeter was or their exact wording, but the gist of the tweet was that people that listen to audio books can't claim to have read them.  Really now?  Not only do I listen to audio books, I tend to remember them better than books I've literally read.

For most readers, their earliest memories of books are those that were read to them by a family member or teacher.  As a toddler, my parents read to me. By age 3, I was reading on my own.  Reading to children increases their intelligence and their vocabulary. One of my fondest memories of grade school is of my third grade teacher, Mr. Benke, reading the class the complete Chronicles of Narnia.  Even though I read the books myself, Mr. Benke had a way of doing the voices that made me remember his telling of them much better than I remember my reading of them.

So fast forward to 2010, I'm tired of Steve Harvey on the radio telling women what they're doing wrong; I'm not there for Tom Joyner and his undercooked, over cackling self; and once Gary spills the Tea on the Ricky Smiley show, I have no use for them either.  I had previously shunned audio books as an old lady kind of thing (thanks, in part, to the fact that the only people I knew that listened to them were, um...old ladies).  But when I couldn't take any more of the testosterone heavy morning radio, I grabbed the first audio book that looked appealing at the library.

My first listen was Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.  Now this is a book that I might have put down or would not have given serious consideration if I were to physically read it.  But to listen to it was magical.  My drive time seemed to fly by and I found myself delaying going into the office so I could listen just a few more minutes.  Now while I have delayed going in because I'm reading a particularly good book, I never mastered reading and driving.  Audio books became the perfect solution to my problem.

For anyone that thinks listening to an audio book doesn't count and offers an easy way out, it takes me an hour to read 100 pages.  I can plow through the average book in three to four hours.  Audio books, not so much.  I'm currently listening to Chimimanda Ngozi Adiche's Half of a Yellow Sun.  At 433 pages, I could have read it on a Saturday afternoon.  Listening time is 19 hours.  Given that I only listen when I'm driving, it's taken me two weeks and I still have two CDs left.

Granted, audio books provide a pleasant distraction when I'm driving, but they also give me time to really digest what I've just heard.  This summer I've gone back and listened to several Bernice McFadden books that I previously read.  Each and every time I've heard something I didn't catch when I was reading the book.  And as much as I loved Erin Morganstern's The Night Circus, I probably wouldn't have been as enthralled with it had I read the physical book.

Make no mistake, listening to an audiobook is not the same as watching a movie and claiming to have read the book.  Studios, writers, etc. often change plots, lines, characters in movies that vary greatly from the book.  Audiobooks, unless abridged, are the book, in its entirety, simply being read aloud.  There's no doubt, at least in my mind, that listening to a book is just as worthwhile as reading it.

#BookReview: Red Polka Dot in a World Full of Plaid - Varian Johnson

Had I not been desperate for something to listen to on a recent road trip, I probably would have never picked up this book.  That's not to say that anything was too terribly wrong with it, it just trended on the YA side and that's not really my thing.  But given the choice between listening to this and the same 10 songs over and over again on satellite radio, I went with this.

Red Polka Dot is the story of Maxine, a recent high school graduate, who learns that the father she always thought was dead is, in fact, alive and well and living in Oklahoma.  Determined to meet him, she sets off on her own from South Carolina, only to have car problems.  Her best friend Deke comes to her rescue and the two make their way to Oklahoma where Maxine discovers that not only is her father Jack alive, he's white.

This first effort from Varian Johnson was crammed with entirely too many messages for such a short book.  There was Maxine's discovery that she was biracial and how it affected her outlook after believing that she was black for 18 years. In addition, she had to deal with how others around her reacted to her as a result.   There was also a strong Christian lit element with Deke and Jack both talking about their beliefs repeatedly and trying to convince Maxine to come back to church.  And then there was the problem of defining her friendship with Deke.  In the midst of this, she had to find time to create and define a relationship with her newly discovered father.  And like a soap opera, the author managed to wrap all of these issues up with a nice neat bow within a week.  While this may have played out well for a younger reader, it was too idealistic for a cynical older reader like me.

What did you like about this book?
It had good messages, there were just too many of them to give any one proper attention and fleshing out.

What didn't you like about this book?
The narrator of the audio book has the same last name of the author.  While Johnson is a common last name, I couldn't help but wonder if she was related to him.  That could be the only plausible reason for using her as the narrator.  I picked up a distinct Caribbean lilt in her voice, which was distracting since the character was supposed to be from South Carolina.  Another problem was that the narrator was only capable of doing three voices even though she gave voice to every character in the book.  As a result, all of the male characters, with the exception of Deke, sounded like an old white man sitting on his porch holding a shotgun and all of the female characters, with the exception of Maxine, sounded like Florence Jean Castleberry (that's Flo for those that remember the TV show, Alice).  It may have been more economically feasible for the author to use a relative to narrate, but the voices she used were annoying and made listening to the book almost unbearable.

What could the author do to improve this book?
Pick a theme and stick with it.

199pp
Listening time: 5 hours, 50 minutes
Published November 2005

Theme: At Seventeen by Janis Ian

#BookReview: The Personal History of Rachel DuPree - Ann Weisgarber

The book blogging community has been abuzz about this book for awhile, but it took some time for me to decide to read it. Even though I'm a fan of historical fiction and historical reality TV, like PBS' Frontier House, I wasn't sure that this story, set in The Badlands of South Dakota in the early 20th century, would be of interest to me. It's biggest selling points were that Viola Davis was working to option the rights to it and that it might be an interesting enough listen to keep my mother quiet on the five hour drive to take my daughter to college.

Rachel Reeves works as a cook in the boarding house of Mrs. DuPree, widow of the late Dr. DuPree and mother of Isaac, an army man. Before Isaac DuPree came home, Rachel believed that her days would be full of cooking for the boarders of the home. Isaac's stories about life in the army and his plans to stake a claim in the South Dakota Badlands fascinates both the boarders and Rachel.

Instantly smitten, Rachel dreams of marrying Isaac and starting life together. Mrs. DuPree will have no such thing and works feverishly to introduce Isaac to suitable upper class women. Isaac has no use for such soft women, but when the hardworking Rachel makes a deal with him that allows him to claim an additional 160 acres of land in her name in exchange for one year of marriage, he jumps at the chance. So begins their tale of life in the Badlands.

What did you like about this book?
It offered a story that hasn't really been told before. Although I was aware that there were African-American settlers, I can't recall reading any stories from their points of view. The author and narrator did an excellent job of bringing the harsh realities of life on the plains to life. Oh, and it kept my mother quiet for most of the trip!

What didn't you like about this book?
Isaac had an obvious disdain for Native Americans, so much so that at times I pondered ejecting the CD from my player. Though the possibility for his hatred was revealed eventually, I felt like the author really went overboard with her characterization of Native Americans as lazy and looking for handouts.

I also had a problem with Rachel's naivete as it related to Isaac. While he treated her as nothing more than a breeding ranch hand with little regard for her opinion, she followed him blindly repeatedly, at times to the detriment of their children. The characterization of Rachel as a physically and mentally strong woman seemed to be in direct conflict to the Rachel that kowtowed to Isaac.

What could the author do to improve this book?
The book was left with a bit of a cliffhanger. I don't need a sequel, but I would have liked a few follow up chapters just to wrap up the story line.

336pp
Listening time: 10 hours, 9 minutes
Published August 2010

Theme: Could've Fooled Me by Rachelle Ferrell