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Banished! is how twelve-year-old Flavia de Luce laments her predicament, when her father and Aunt Felicity ship her off to …
Pauline Gedge never disappoints.
I do like books that follow multiple-generations of an immigrant family, and this novel fit the bill.
Also, this book had more of a plot than most I've read recently, but it was too much plot. I got lost in the convoluted story lines. I also had difficulty distinguishing among the characters. I often had to look back at the chapter heading to see which character was narrating and would sometimes have to look back further to remember who that character was.
** Spoiler ****
I also don't like when a story has too many coincidences, which I felt this one did. For the successive daughters in this family to become romantically attached to men who may or may not have been close relatives due to the machinations of the old matriarch and to secret infidelities was a bit too much to swallow. One such twist …
I do like books that follow multiple-generations of an immigrant family, and this novel fit the bill.
Also, this book had more of a plot than most I've read recently, but it was too much plot. I got lost in the convoluted story lines. I also had difficulty distinguishing among the characters. I often had to look back at the chapter heading to see which character was narrating and would sometimes have to look back further to remember who that character was.
** Spoiler ****
I also don't like when a story has too many coincidences, which I felt this one did. For the successive daughters in this family to become romantically attached to men who may or may not have been close relatives due to the machinations of the old matriarch and to secret infidelities was a bit too much to swallow. One such twist would have been plenty.
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That said, there was enough in the story and the writing to keep me reading, and that hasn't always been the case lately.
George Washington Black, or "Wash," an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is …
This is one of the better books I've read in a while. Above all, I believe a book should keep me wanting to turn the pages, and this one fit the bill.
Edugyan's writing is, as always, lush and evocative. Her imagery is on point, enveloping the reader in the worlds she creates. Her major characters are (mostly) complex and compelling.
Minor spoilers to follow...
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Where the novel falls short is in its coincidences. I don't mind stretching my imagination--I enjoy fantasy, for instance--but within that stretch, there has to be a scaffolding of believability. When the characters just happen to run across one another, such as when Wash sees Willard at the hanging, or when the Moroccan guide happens upon Wash, that scaffolding collapses. That is why I couldn't give this book 5 stars.
This is the continuing adventures of Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Victor Joseph, of Smoke Signals fame.
The day her children leave home, Eva climbs into bed and stays there. She's had …
This was an entertaining book filled with wholly unlikeable characters (with just a few exceptions). The story would actually make a good stage play, as it spirals into such a farce.
I struggled to stick with this one, a bit. It seemed very disjointed to me at first, and I had difficulty remembering who the characters were.
There are some wonderful turns of phrase in this book, though, and these kept me reading to see what else Coupland would come up with. A couple of examples are "..we ordered orange juice in an extremely Marge roadside diner," [Chapter 49] and "...San Francisco and wooden houses painted the color of children's thoughts [Chapter 48]."
After four years of college in America, Princess Christianna is determined not to return to …
OMG. I used to enjoy reading Danielle Steel in the summer on the beach (i.e. "trashy beach reads"), but I think this will be the last. I don't know if my tolerance is more limited, or Steele is losing it, but this book is so repetitive. It's ridiculous. And the poor little rich girl trope is nauseating. Bleh.
Unfortunately, I brought only two books with me on the trip, and I read the other first, so I was stuck with this one.
Not since Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Louise Erdrich's …
This is a compelling, well-written book with enough suspense to keep the reader turning the pages.
Orange has created real and gritty, yet sympathetic, characters. There is a web of connections joining the characters and leading them to the ultimate gathering--The Big Oakland Powwow and the book's Shakespearian conclusion.
My biggest issue with the book is that it focused on too many different characters, and I found it confusing. I couldn't keep track of them. Also, this made it more like a collection of short stories that tied together than a novel. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it may not be to everyone's taste.
This is one of the better books I've read recently. The author has a wonderful way with imagery and mood. Her characters are interesting, if a little one-sided, although this is intentional. I think the three women that are the focus of this story are meant to represent three different worldviews among Muslim women. Peri, like her home country of Turkey, is in the middle, caught between past and present, belief and doubt, traditions and modernism. I won't say much more, so as not to give anything away, but I definitely recommend this book, and I will read other works by Shafak.
"The Time In Between follows the story of a seamstress who becomes the most sought-after …
An interesting read about a young woman thrust into life in a foreign country at the same time as the Nazis were gaining power. She is hard working, intelligent, and resourceful, and these traits lead her into a world of secrets and espionage, where she must find her place.
It's an interesting read and well written, although there are some tedious spots that should have been edited out.
