New Books and a Movie

Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Michael Keaton - Ed Norton - 2014

We were dying to see this movie as it got such rave reviews - 8.8/10 stars with its limited release. This weekend it made it to our cinemas, so we went to see it.  The movie was very different -- Michael Keaton plays a washed-up superhero who tries to make one final comeback.  The entire movie takes place on stage or in the dressing rooms basically.  The acting was fantastic, but in the end we were a little disappointed.  Should have gone to see St. Vincent.

Have (2) weeks worth of new books on my shelves. Have you read any of these?

• Home; Carson Ellis (Candlewick Press)
• Cody and the Fountain of Happiness; Tricia Springstub (Candlewick Press)

• The Dog Year; Ann Garvin (Berkley Trade)
• Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas; Stephanie Barron (Soho Crime)
• Keep Your Friends Close; Paula Daly (paperback swap member)
• The Pocket Wife; Susan Crawford (William Morrow)
• Flesh and Blood; Patricia Cornwell (William Morrow)
• The Map of Betrayal; Ha Jin (PPantheon)
• Family Furnishings; Alice Munro (Knopf)

Have a great week everyone!

Nora Webster; Colm Toibin

Nora Webster; Colm Toibin

Scribner - 2014

Set in a small town in Ireland, it’s the late 1960’s and our title character, Nora Webster, 40, has just buried her husband. A widow with 4 children, 2 daughters who are living away from home, and 2 younger sons at home. Nora is depressed and grieving even though Maurice's death was no surprise. It came after a long illness. 

Before Nora had children, she worked as a bookkeeper at a local mill, but left the job to be a stay-at-home wife and mother. Now a widow, she finds herself needing to sell property and thinks about returning to work in order to support her family.Now she's been left with very little money and no job.

So wrapped up in her own unhappiness, Nora doesn’t seem to notice how Maurice's death has affected her young sons. Donal has started stuttering and does not want to be in school where his father used to teach. She's is not a neglectful mother though, and when there is an issue at the school she steps in. She feels that her son has been treated unfairly, so she goes to the school and insists the situation be dealt with.

Nora comes across as an unsympathetic character: cold, matter of fact and prickly, but she is also a strong and intelligent woman. As the story progresses Nora evolves.  There is a scene where she cuts and dyes her hair, and then worries about how she will be judged by others given her fairly recent widow status.

I enjoyed listening to Nora Webster, read by Fiona Shaw. The writing is pretty simple and not at all flowery, but the writing excels in that even basic details about daily life do not seem boring. Nora wasn’t a character I warmed up to, but I admired her ability to deal with her grief, grow as a woman and find a place in the world for herself as a widow.  As always, Colm Toibin knows how to write about women.  A very good story - try it.

4/5 stars
(audio book sent by publisher)

The Snow Child; Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child; Eowyn Ivey

Reagan Arthur and Recorded Books - 2012

The Snow Child takes place somewhere around the 1920s, and tells the story of Jack and Mabel, a couple approaching 50 who moved to this Alaskan territory for a new way of life. Mabel is unable to have a child of their own after suffering a stillbirth back in Philadelphia.  Feeling like they need a fresh start, they move to wilderness Alaska. Knowing that living in the wilderness will mean hard work, something which the couple is not afraid of, they are not prepared for the harsh weather and food scarcity they face in their new surroundings.

Instead of the new area being a refreshing change of pace from their past in Philadelphia, life is rough and depressing. One day Jack and Mabel build a snow girl out of snow and decorate it with a warm red scarf. When morning comes the snow girl is gone but Jack finds child-sized footprints in the snow, and later, he sees a red fox and a young girl running through the snow. The girl is wearing the red scarf. Just who is this young child running through wilderness country in the freezing cold?

For a good portion of the novel the only people who see the child are the couple. She comes and goes and seems to disappear for long periods when the snow melts. Her name is Faina. When Mabel mentions the girl to her friend and neighbor Esther Benson, the woman wonders whether Mabel had imagined the girl rather than actually having seen her.

The story is based on a Russian fairy tale called The Snow Maiden, where a snow figure comes to life and draws her makers into its magical world. The Snow Child is a different kind of story about having hope when all seems lost. I don’t read a lot of books with magical realism, so I was surprised that I did enjoy listening to this novel, which was read by Debra Monk. I thought the writing was very descriptive, but felt the story itself a bit too long to sustain continuous interest (about 400 pp).  I loved how Mabel and Jack’s relationship had its highs and lows and eventually seemed to blossom again over the 10+ year time span of the story. The Alaskan terrain is beautifully captured, but in the case of foraging for food, killing a moose and chickens, I was upset by the fact TMI was detailed. I suspect that animal lovers will be troubled by this aspect of the novel. If you haven’t read this one yet, it's a good choice for a chilly or wintery weekend.

3.5/5 stars

(Library audio book)

Coming Soon to a Book Store Near You - Fifty Mice; Daniel Pyne

Here's my "Coming Soon to a Book Store Near You" pick for today.  What do you think about this novel -- would you try it?

Fifty Mice; Daniel Pyne

Blue Rider Press - December 2014

What if a man is placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program against his will? And doesn’t even know what he supposedly knows that merits a new name, a new identity, a new life?

 Jay Johnson is an Average Joe, a thirty-something guy with a job in telephone sales, a regular pick-up basketball game, and a devoted girlfriend he seems ready to marry. But one weekday afternoon, he’s abducted on a Los Angeles Metro train, tranquilized, interrogated, and his paper trail obliterated. What did he see, what terrible crime—or criminal—is he keeping secret? It must be something awfully big. The trouble is, Jay has no clue.

 Furious and helpless, and convinced that the government has made a colossal mistake, Jay is involuntarily relocated to a community on Catalina Island—which turns out to be inhabited mainly by other protected witnesses. Isolated in a world of strangers, Jay begins to realize that only way out is through the twisted maze of lies and unreliable memories swirling through his own mind. If he can locate—or invent—a repressed memory that might satisfy the Feds, maybe he can make it back to the mainland and his wonderful, even if monotonous, life.

 Set in a noir contemporary L.A. and environs, Fifty Mice is a Hitchcockian thriller as surreal and mysterious as a Kafka nightmare. Chilling, paranoiac, and thoroughly original, it will have readers grasping to distinguish what is real and what only seems that way.

The Remedy for Love; Bill Roorbach

The Remedy for Love; Bill Roorbach

Algonquin - 2014

On the eve of major Maine snowstorm, Eric a small town lawyer is in the grocery store line behind a young woman who is shabbily dressed and appears homeless. Her hair is matted, she smells funny and she's also very thin.  As she counts her money, she’s short of cash and begins taking items off the belt so Eric offers to make up the difference.

Later after he’s left the store and is driving away, he sees the woman struggling to carry all of her plastic bags of groceries, so he stops to offer her a ride.  She accepts and he sees that she has been staying in a cabin meant for summer use down by the river. He feels bad for her and helps her get some wood to start a fire, and then goes on his way while the snow falls fast and furious. When Eric gets to his car he sees that it has been towed along with his cellphone which he left inside.

Not sure what to do, he returns to the cabin. Explains what has happened to the woman, who calls herself Danielle, and begs her to allow him to stay until the storm is over. She’s not too happy about it but allows him to stay.

Described as “intensely moving and frequently funny, The Remedy for Love is a harrowing story about the truths we reveal when there is no time or space for artifice.” Unfortunately, I felt none of this as I read.

Danielle and Eric are two characters who couldn’t be more different, and I can honestly say, I disliked each of them equally. Eric is still hung up on his wife who has left him and Danielle is possibly even more obsessed with her husband, Jimmy, who is serving in Afghanistan.   As the snow falls and the couple spends time together their stories evolve.

I loved the cover of this book and the overview sounded promising as well, but unfortunately I was disappointed. I felt the dialogue was rather boring, and, except for the setup, which was rolled out in the first few chapters, this was possibly one of the worst reading experiences for me in an awful long time.  I know a few other bloggers really enjoyed this one, but I must say....sorry, I just can’t recommend this one. 

1.5/5 stars (eGalley)

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky; Heidi Durrow

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky; Heidi Durrow

2010 - HighBridge Audio and Algonquin Books

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, is a coming of age story about a young (preteen) girl, who moves to Oregon to live with her black grandmother who she doesn’t really know.  Rachel’s father is African-American and was stationed in Europe when he met Rachel’s mother, Nella, a while woman.  Something has happened to Rachel's family and life as she knew it has forever changed.

Prior to moving to Portland, Oregon in the 1980s, Rachel never thought about race, she was a bright girl who has lived in many different places since her father was in the the military. In Portland, race rears its ugly head almost immediately. Rachel is a pretty girl with beautiful blue eyes, and it is difficult for her to fit in at school and in her new environment.  One of the black girls asks her, “what are you?” -  something that she never really thought about before. She learns to act like the black girls so that she isn’t continuously picked on.

 As the story progresses the reader becomes aware of some sort of tragedy that took from the rooftop of a Chicago apartment building that took the life of the Rachel's mother, and her three siblings.  The details of the incident are sketchy and Rachel’s father is not in the picture.

The story is told from different points in time and different points of view, including revelations from Rachel’s mother’s diary. (Nella's struggles raising racially mixed children on her own.) Other characters who knew the family share what they knew about the family as well. Bit by bit the reader gets more information about the rooftop tragedy and the history which preceded the terrible event.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky is a very good debut novel which was based on a true story. The focus of the story is more about Rachel and those who interact with her, rather than solving the mystery of the tragedy.  I listened to this story mostly in audio format, and I found Rachel’s voice to be authentic and compelling. My heart went out to her for what she experienced, and I admired her strength while struggling to fit in and survive after losing the people she loved the most.

4/5 stars
(library audio and arc)

First Chapter First Paragraph ~ Tuesday Intros - Crooked River; Valerie Geary

Every Tuesday I host First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where I share the first paragraph or (a few) of a book I am reading or thinking about reading soon.

Crooked River; Valerie Geary

William Morrow - 2014

SAM

"We found the woman floating face down in an eddy where Crooked River made a slow bend north, just a stone skip away from the best swimming hole this side of anywhere.  Her emerald-green blouse was torn half open and her dark, pleated skirt was bunched around her waist, revealing skin puckered and gray, legs bloated and bruised.  Her hair writhed like black snakes in the current.  I poked her back with a stick.  Not mean, but gentle, the way you might poke someone who's asleep.  She skimmed the surface, bumped against a half-submerged rock, and returned to where Ollie and I stood at the water's edge.  She bobbed there in the shallows in a tangle of brown leaves, her arms outstretched, fingers reaching, and it seemed like she was settling in to wait for someone else to come find her.  Like maybe we weren't good enough, Ollie and me, just two girls with skinny arms and skinny legs who didn't know the first thing about death. We did, though. We knew more than we wanted to anyway."

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What do you think?
Feel free to join in and post the Intro from one of your reads by linking below.