On Folly Beach by Karen White

Title:  On Folly Beach

Author:  Karen White

Release date:  May 4, 2010

Publisher:  NAL Trade

Pages:  416

Genre:  Adult fiction, Mystery

Source:  Publisher

Emmy Hamilton has only heard of Folly Beach in stories from her mother before she decides to buy the local bookstore, Folly’s Finds.  She is hoping that moving to a new place and having a new purpose in life will help her move on after the loss of her husband in Afghanistan.  When she arrives at the book store and begins setting in to her new position as owner of the bookstore, she finds a bunch of love letters hidden in old books.  As she sets her mind to unraveling the mystery of what these letters are really about, she realizes that several of her new friends on Folly Beach might be related to the authors, and they might just know how to tie up the loose ends of the mystery within.

I only became familiar with Karen White’s work once I began blogging, but I’ve come to find that she is an excellent mystery writer.  Her mysteries are not simply mysteries – they are often delightful reads with wonderful characters and beautiful writing. On Folly Beach definitely lived up to the expectation I’ve come to have with her books.   This is an absolutely wonderful novel and I think it may be my favorite of Karen White’s so far.

My favorite thing about this novel is, hands down, the sense of place that White conveys with her writing.  I could literally smell the salty ocean air of the beach, visualize the small town where everyone knows everyone else, and I truly felt transported to Folly Beach every time I picked up the novel.  I’ve noticed that White does this particularly well in her books, but On Folly Beach stands out especially in this respect.  Perhaps it’s because I love the idea of beach towns so much, but honestly – the sense of place alone won me over.

Luckily for readers not so infatuated with beach towns as me, there’s more to the novel than the beach itself.  Emmy is a fantastic character who is easy to love, easy to root for, and easy to believe in.  She is destroyed by her husband’s death, yet finds it within her to make a drastic move to another part of the country and start fresh doing something completely new – owning a bookstore.  She discovers the love letters and immediately craves the knowledge of what really happened to the two lovers.  And instead of just being curious about them, she actively searches for answers.  She also quickly makes friends with some of the locals, even developing a possible love interest, and I love that White was able to balance Emmy’s authentic grief with her very real feelings of needing to move on with her life and meet someone new.

The story goes back and forth in time between Emmy’s story in the present day and Maggie’s story in the early 1940′s.  I loved reading Maggie’s story because it was clear that Emmy and Maggie were somehow connected, and the more I read of Maggie’s chapters, the closer I knew I was getting to finding out how.  Maggie was a great character, too, although I’m not sure I liked her as much as I liked Emmy.  I did enjoy the historical aspect of the novel – I am fascinated by stories about civilian life during wartime, and as much of Maggie’s story was related to how the war affected their family, On Folly Beach definitely fit that bill.  And the mystery about her was just icing on the cake!

I’m so happy I’ve continued to read Karen White’s novels because I am just so impressed with her work.  I loved On Folly Beach and I truly can’t recommend it enthusiastically enough!

Happy Anniversary Penguin Books! + Giveaway of In the Woods!

I recently received an email from the lovely Lindsay at Penguin alerting me to the fact that today – Friday, June 30th – is Penguin’s 75th anniversary!  How exciting!  They have put together a website dedicated to celebrating their anniversary, which has a ton of interesting and fun book-related things to check out.  To celebrate their anniversary, I have a fantastic giveaway for all you wonderful people of a copy of Tana French’s In the Woods.  This is one of my absolute favorite books – I LOVED it when I read it last year [my review] and if you haven’t read it yet, I seriously beg you to enter the giveaway.  You will not regret picking up this novel.

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is comment on this post..  Make sure to include a valid email address as I will need that to contact the winner.  I will choose one winner on Saturday, August 7th so you have until that morning to enter (around 10 am or so eastern standard time).

Thanks for playing!  And be sure to check out Penguin’s Anniversary Site.

Mini-Reviews (TSS edition)

Well another week has come and gone and not much happened for me blogging-wise.  There are a few reasons for this; primarily, my job is sucking the life out of me lately.  I have been working long hours and the days have been stressful.  I work in sales, and as anyone else who is in sales will tell you, when your team is behind on your goals it is just a nightmare.  At least the company I work for is pretty great about giving us overtime and things like that, but still – we feel the pressure, big time.  So I’ve been coming home from work exhausted every day, not feeling like doing much except read or watch TV.  The other thing going on in my life is that I’m trying to get in better shape, so I’ve been committed to hitting the gym 3-4 times a week.  I can’t say I’ve been too successful at this but I’m certainly trying.  So that takes up some of my extra time too.

Anyway, I figured a cure for getting so behind on reviewing is throwing a bunch of mini-reviews out there.  Besides knocking them off my list, I will feel better knowing that I got to tell you about all these great books I’ve been reading!  Because for the most part, they really have been great.

First, I read The Bermudez Triangle for the GLBT challenge and also just because I’d been meaning to try Maureen Johnson for awhile now.  This young adult novel is about three best friends – Nina, Avery, and Mel – and when Nina goes away to college prep camp one summer, Mel and Avery fall in love.  That’s the premise, but it’s about so much more than that.  It’s about friendship, and crushes, and first love, and figuring out who you are, and navigating the treacherousness that is high school while being different, and so much more.  This novel was extremely refreshing.  The relationship between Avery and Mel was full of issues, just like any other relationship, and while some of the issues had to do with their being gay in a straight world, many of them did not.  Much of what happened was typical stuff that happens when teens find their first love.  The friendships between Mel, Avery, and Nina were about as authentic as possible, and it’s clear that Maureen Johnson really gets teens.  She so accurately portrayed real teens without being too angsty and/or annoying, and although this was my first Johnson it will definitely not be my last.  I really loved this one – YA fans, this is a must-read.

Next we have There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Fay Greene.  This is a nonfiction read about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, specifically about one woman,Haregewoin Teferra, who in Ethiopia has taken in dozens of AIDS orphans and created a sort of orphanage for these children.  The book is part memoir, as Greene herself had adopted two AIDS orphans before meeting Teferra, part political and social history of AIDS in Africa, and part journalistic investigation of Haregewoin’s life and what she’s done for kids in Ethiopia.  For me, this format worked extremely well.  I learned a lot about the AIDS pandemic and for that reason alone, I highly recommend the book.  But also, Haregewoin’s story is remarkable – she is an amazing person with this incredible gift for selflessness, for taking in those who have no other opportunity or chance at life, and for turning their lives around, and it is inspiring to read her story.  I really can’t recommend this one more enthusiastically – it is a must-read for lovers of nonfiction, for lovers of learning, and for those of you who deeply care about some of the more important world issues.  Although I must warn you, it will make you want to adopt an AIDS orphan – I definitely had visions of adoption dancing in my head after finishing the book.

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell is a compilation of many of the pieces he wrote for the New Yorker and it is very typical Gladwell.  He writes about the obscure, mundane stuff that people normally don’t think twice about, yet he makes it interesting.  I listened to this one and as I’ve said before, Gladwell could read me the phone book and I’d be happy.  There’s just something about his narration that I adore.  Having said that, I found this to be the weakest of his four books simply because there wasn’t a core theme tying everything together.  I more enjoyed his other three books, where he was trying to make a larger point which ties everything together.  This one was just more random, and although I enjoyed many of the pieces, others bored me.  So, okay book, but as usual for Gladwell and me, great listening experience.

Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen was one I got on impulse, downloaded to my iPod, and began listening immediately.  This novel is about Van and Linny, Vietnamese-American sisters whose parents emigrated from Vietnam just before Van’s birth.  This is a character-driven novel at its best.  The book is not full of action, of plot twists, nothing like that.  Rather, it is about the relationships between the sisters, their parents, their significant others, and their heritage.  While both Linny and Van believe themselves to be regular American girls, free of their parents’ ties to Vietnam, over the course of the novel they realize their heritage is more important to them than they may have believed. Short Girls is an extremely accomplished novel, and I enjoyed every minute I spent with Van and Linny.  I absolutely recommend picking it up.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick was a recommendation from Eva, and what a fantastic recommendation she gave.  I’d never read a book about North Korea, and probably because the country is so closed, I knew little about it before reading this.  Of course I knew the basics, but Nothing to Envy really gets in there and exposes the hidden realities of what life is really like in this isolated place.  Demick actually spent time in North Korea, but the meat of the book is taken from conversations and interviews she had with several people who defected and now life in South Korea.  I don’t know what else to say about this one except that it is fascinating and eye-opening, tragic and heartbreaking, yet it is a must-read.  I feel like a more educated, knowledgeable person having read it.

Last, I picked up Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart because of the huge success it had around the blogs last year.  This novel is told from the point of view of high school student Katie D’Amore, who lives alone with her dad in their big house ever since her mother passed away last year.  The book is about Katie’s attempts to put her life back to normal since her mom’s passing, but also about a mystery she is trying to solve at her summer job working at a local estate.  The book is multi-layered and written beautifully.  Katie comes across as a completely authentic teen dealing with the loss of her mother, and yet there is so much more to Katie than grief.  She is a complex personality and much growth happens to her throughout the course of the novel.  I really enjoyed this one; it was a quick read but the writing was lush and beautiful and the characters were fully realized.  I now understand why people love Beth Kephart so much!

Well there you have it.  I’m caught up on much of my review backlog.  I still have three more to review, but those will all get their own posts, and I’m really hoping to finish another book today.  We might hit the beach later which is sure to give me some reading time in the hour’s drive there and back.

What are you up to today?  What are you reading this weekend?

The Local News by Miriam Gershow

Title:  The Local News

Author:  Miriam Gershow

Release date:  February 24, 2009

Publisher:  Spiegel & Grau

Pages:  384

Genre:  Adult fiction

Source:  Author

Fifteen-year-old Lydia Pasternak’s older brother Danny has just disappeared, and overnight her life changes.  She was once practically invisible in her own family, overshadowed by her popular, athletic, fun older brother, and now she is the only one her parents have to pay attention to.  She was once invisible in her school, too, but now everyone wants to talk to her about Danny, wants to get her perspective on what might have happened to him, how she is feeling, how her parents are holding up.  Although Lydia’s feelings about Danny have always been mixed, she finds herself caring deeply about learning where he is, and becoming involved in the investigation.  As time passes without answers, Lydia’s life goes on, completely different from before, yet so much the same.  And when Danny’s whereabouts are finally revealed, Lydia is changed forever.

Can I just say how much I loved Lydia in this novel?  What struck me most about The Local News was how refreshingly real Lydia’s character was.  She and Danny hadn’t gotten along for years, in fact he was her biggest tormentor, always making fun of her, hurting her physically, encouraging his friends to do the same, etc.  So it only makes sense that upon his disappearance Lydia didn’t really know how to feel.  On the one hand, he’s her brother, of course she’s upset and wants to find him, but on the other hand, it’s quite a relief not to worry about what kind of mood he’s in all the time.  The way Lydia navigated between these two extremes of emotion in the wake of Danny’s disappearance rang so true to me, and I loved that about her.

While the focus of The Local News is Lydia, the other characters were well-drawn too.  Her parents, while seemingly absent from her life throughout the book, reacted in the way any parent would react if their golden child disappeared from their lives.  And I liked that Gershow made no fuss about the fact that Danny was their “favorite” – in some families, that’s just the way it is, and Lydia’s parents clearly placed more importance on Danny’s well-being than Lydia’s.  Perhaps they felt that Lydia could take care of herself, that she didn’t need them as much as her brother, or perhaps his personality was just easier to love than Lydia’s, whatever the reason it was apparent that Danny was the star of the family.  And I loved the authenticity of this family, as heartbreaking as it was for Lydia.

What impacted me the most about this story, as I closed it for the last time, was all of the unanswered questions. The reader does learn what happened to Danny, but there are so many what if’s about the ending.  I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t get into the specific questions I had, but let’s just say that I was left thinking about this novel for a long time.  And for me, that’s a great place to be after finishing a book.

I am not sure that my review did justice to how much I loved the experience of reading The Local News, but I do know that it is a fantastic novel and a must-read.  I highly encourage you to pick it up for yourself.

TSS

Good morning, friends.  I am not sure what happened to me this past week – I sort of dropped off the face of the blogging earth for a few days there.  I definitely didn’t plan to take a week-long break from posting but I was just busy and before I knew it, it was the weekend and I had barely gave one thought to the blog.  I did get one post in – a review of The Summoning and The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong – but that’s about it.

In bookish news, this week I purchased The Passage by Justin Cronin, a book that everyone seems to be raving about.  This is a big deal for me because I very rarely buy brand-new books (my preferred methods of book acquiring are mooching, buying on sale, or simply using the library), but I received a 25% off coupon to Barnes & Noble from my credit card company, and that’s on top of the standard 30% off that the store was offering.  So I couldn’t resist.  I’m really hoping to start reading it soon, if only to find out what all the fuss is about, but I don’t know how soon is soon.  With my review commitments starting to really pile up, I might need to get through some of those books first.

Also, I recently got my first iPod (I know, I know… my first?  What was I thinking waiting so long?) and I’ve loved the experience of listening to an audiobook while doing just about anything.  I discovered that my library has a pretty good selection of iPod-friendly selections (about 1000 books) so for now I’m just using their site to acquire some.  Perhaps in the future I’ll join audible or something but for now the free ones are working out great!  Right now I’m listening to Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen and it’s translating very well to audio.  I also always have a book on CD going in my car at all times (currently it’s What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell), so it’s a perfect set up for me.  One book for driving and another for cooking, cleaning, working out, etc.  I love it!

Today I would really like to get a few reviews written, make time to hit the gym, and READ!  Also I have a Mary Kay party to attend (never been to one before – should be interesting) and need to stop at the grocery store at some point.

What are you up to this Sunday?

The Summoning and The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong

On one of my recent trips to the library, I saw both of these books sitting together on a shelf and the covers spoke to me.  They are just so pretty!  I decided to take them home, and what do you know, I actually enjoyed them both!  Since I am discussing both books, this post may have minor spoilers for the first book. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

These books (the first two in a trilogy, the third of which I hope to read soon) are narrated by fifteen-year-old Chloe Saunders, who in the beginning of The Summoning is sent to a home for troubled teens, Lyle House.  At Lyle House, she meets brothers Simon and Derek, and the girls in the house, who include her roommate Rae and mean girl Tori.  About halfway through the book, Chloe begins to understand (with the help of some of the other kids) that she is a necromancer, meaning she can talk to and summon dead people.  She also learns that Derek has some sort of condition that gives him superhuman strength, and that Simon has the ability to do magic.  They, along with Rae, hatch a plan to escape from Lyle House, and The Summoning ends with their escaping and being chased by their caretakers.  The Awakening picks up right at that point, and the majority of the second book focuses on their adventures as they run from the people at Lyle, who they understand to be trying to capture them for their special powers, not simply because they are “troubled teens”.

Young Adult paranormal fiction is all the rage these days, and to be honest I haven’t been involved too heavily in reading this genre, but I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed these two novels.  Kelley Armstrong managed to fully develop her characters, to turn them into teens I could relate to and even like, even though I have nothing in common with them.  Chloe’s journey was completely believable – in the beginning, she thought she was a mostly normal teenager and while she knew she wasn’t schizophrenic (what the doctors told her), she thought there was something weird going on in her brain.  Her gradual understanding of what she is, a necromancer, and what she has the ability to do, rang true to me.  She went from disbelief to shock to understanding to acceptance, and Armstrong did a brilliant job developing that portion of her character.  In general, Chloe was a fantastic narrator and a great character I could really get on board with.

What I loved about this novel, and what made it stand apart from other paranormal YA stuff that I’ve read, is there was no love story as the center of the novel.  A bit of teen angst, yes, but not really related to falling in love with the wrong person, “he loves me, he loves me not” games, etc.  While there ends up being a sort of love triangle by the end of the second book, it’s not so much a love triangle as more of a crush triangle.  I understand that something had to develop between these characters (the boys are cute, after all, and Chloe may be a necromancer but she still has a pulse), but I am happy that it took so long for Armstrong to develop it.  It felt authentic and I am interested to see where it goes.

Also, the adventures in these books were paced very well.  Armstrong both gave the characters realistic obstacles and gave the reader enough action to keep interested.  As in most books that rely on action, everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong, but in a way that made sense.  She kept me turning pages long after I told myself I had to put the book down, and also I was kept guessing at what would happen next, there was not much predictability here.  Which of course, I love!

The Summoning and The Awakening are two very entertaining works of young adult paranormal fiction.  I highly recommend these novels – not only will you be kept engaged and on the edge of your seat, but you might just fall in love with the characters too!  I personally can’t wait to read the third book in this trilogy.

Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman

I read Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History and Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began separately, but they have since been combined into one book (The Complete Maus) and they are basically two parts of the same story, so I figured it just made sense to review them together.

If you are unfamiliar with these books, they are graphic novels/nonfiction/memoirs about Art Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, and his experience living through the Holocaust.  The first book deals with his life pre-war and just after the war began, and the second book begins with Vladek getting sent to Auschwitz and details his time there up until the end of the war when the surviving prisoners of the Nazi death camps were released.

I loved these books so much that I’m not sure where to begin with my thoughts.  I suppose since these are graphic books I’ll start with the illustrations - they were PERFECT.  I was invested in the story, not just through the words, but also through the pictures.  I can’t imagine how Spiegelman was able to draw places and events he never personally experienced as well as he did.  I felt so in the moment, such a part of Vladek’s life, and that is a rare feeling for me with graphic books.  Also, I loved the depiction of different nationalities of people as different animals – Jews as mice, Germans as cats, Americans as dogs, etc.  I thought it added so much to the story (not even going into the significance of which animals went with which groups of people).

Now, onto the story.  Vladek’s story is disturbing, heartbreaking, tragic, and so difficult to read at times.  Yet I couldn’t tear my eyes away, no matter how much I may have tried (okay, I didn’t try THAT hard).  His story was told in such a fascinating, heartfelt way that I couldn’t help but stay with him through it all.  It is never easy to read about life in a Nazi death camp but Spiegelman made his father’s story come to life, made his story one that I HAD to read, and let’s face it – it is important for us to read stories like this.  It’s important to remember that what we view as an event in the history books was reality for millions of people who suffered through it for years.  It is important to remember the people and stories behind the facts of history.  And Spiegelman brought his father’s story to the forefront of my mind, so much so that along with Eli Wiesel, when I think of the Holocaust now I will always think of Vladek Spiegelman.

Another great aspect of Maus is the interactions between Art and Vladek.  The story alternates between Vladek’s memories and Art’s interviewing Vladek to get to those memories.  It was really a huge part of the story, the relationship between Art and his father, and I think it added a lot to the story.  It allowed the reader to see another side of Vladek, to get to know the person behind the writing and drawing, and to watch as Art and Vladek grew their relationship, through theirs ups and downs as father and son.  These snippets of their relationship were so heartwarming, such a welcome break from the difficult scenes about the Holocaust.

I cannot possibly recommend Maus I and II enough.  If you are new to graphic books, this would be a perfect place to start, and if you are an old pro with the genre – why haven’t you read these yet??  In all seriousness, I loved reading these books and I give them my highest praise.  Art Spiegelman is pretty much a genius in my book.  I hope many of you pick up these books so you can come back and tell me what you think!

The One That I Want by Allison Winn Scotch

Title:  The One That I Want

Author:  Allison Winn Scotch

Release date:  June 1, 2010

Publisher:  Shaye Areheart Books

Pages:  288

Genre:  Women’s fiction

Source:  Publisher

Tilly Farmer’s life is exactly as she’d always hoped it would be:  she’s married to her high school sweetheart, working as a guidance counselor at her old high school, still best friends with her kindergarten best friend, and trying for a baby, which she thinks will make it all complete.  But one day, she encounters a psychic who tells Tilly she’s going to give her the gift of “clarity”.  Suddenly, she begins to see her life in a whole new way.  And what she sees forces her to question everything…

Allison Winn Scotch’s books have been talked about a lot around the blogs, and I’ve been anxious to pick up one of her novels for a while now.  Now I’m wondering what the heck I waited for because The One That I Want was everything everyone said it would be!  I’m kicking myself for not reading one of her books earlier.

Anyway, allow me to begin by saying that I did not like Tilly.  I don’t “get” the small-town thing and I can’t imagine why anyone would want to work at their old high school.  If I was going to work in a high school I would never pick my own – that would just be too weird.  Besides the fact that Tilly and I are very different in our life choices, I found her to be extremely naive and selfish.  She looked at every issue that came up in her life in relation to how she was affected by it, which is an immature and childish way to look at the world.  But the beauty of this story is that Tilly has a huge amount of growth by the time the book is over.  She develops into a more mature person, more conscious of the people around her and what’s really important in life.  And she looks at her life choices and what she thought were her dreams coming true with a more honest eye – she begins to see things for what they really are, as opposed to what she wants them to be.  It is this character development that I think is the shining point of the novel.

I also enjoyed the tough of magic sprinkled throughout the story.  It doesn’t contain enough magic for the story to be unrealistic, but just enough to add a little something to the novel.  I have heard that this a common element in Allison Winn Scotch’s books, so I’m excited to read her other books to see how it plays into those stories too.

The last thing I want to point out is the ending – don’t worry, there are no spoilers here.  I just want to say that I think the ending was absolutely perfect.  Nothing too extravagant, no perfect happy ending for Tilly, but just enough open-endedness that the reader can guess how things will turn out for her, and can picture a whole new life beginning for her (in a good way).  It also made me want to read more about Tilly, which is a pretty good thing considering she began the story as a character I detested!

The One That I Want is a smart, refreshing novel that lovers of chick lit and women’s fiction won’t be able to resist.  There is a surprising amount of depth packed into this slim novel, and I was impressed by Scotch’s ability to take a character and really transform her into someone I went from hating to loving in under 300 pages.  I definitely recommend this novel and I’ll be reading more from Allison Winn Scotch in the very near future.

The Song of Hannah by Eva Etzioni-Halevy

Title:  The Song of Hannah

Author:  Eva Etzioni-Halevy

Release date:  August 30, 2005

Pages:  304

Genre:  Historical fiction, Biblical fiction

Source:  Personal copy

The Song of Hannah is the story of the prophet Samuel, told from his mother Hannah’s point of view.  Hannah and her best friend Pninah end up marrying the same man and vying for his love and attention throughout their adult lives.  The blessed Pninah is fruitful, having many children with their husband Elkanah, while Hannah remains barren for years.  Desperate for a child, Hannah prays to God and vows that she will give her firstborn son to Him to be raised in the church if only He will give her and Elkanah a child.  Not long after her promise is made, she learns she is pregnant and gives birth to a son, who she names Samuel and brings to be raised by the priests when he is only two years old.  Samuel is an important figure in the Bible, as is his mother, but Etzioni-Halevy tells their story like you’ve never heard it before.

Last year, I read and loved another of Etzioni-Halevy’s books, The Triumph of Deborah [my review] and I’d been meaning to read the other two books in this series ever since.  This novel was just as good as my first experience with this author’s work, and I’m very happy that I made the decision to continue with her books.

While the book’s title focuses on Hannah, and the book’s description focuses more on the prophet Samuel, this story is as much Pninah’s story as it is Hannah’s.  Pninah married Elkanah first, after all, and she never dreamed, in her worst nightmares, that her husband would also marry her best friend.  In those days, polygamy was accepted but, at least according to the story, it wasn’t too common.  So not only did Pninah have to learn to get along with her husband (whom she didn’t know all that well), move away from her family and all she’d ever known, learn how to be a mom, but she also had to compete with her best friend for her husband’s attention!  While I felt for both women in the story, Pninah was definitely the more sympathetic character.  Even when she made some choices I wasn’t fond of, I still found her to be a character I could really get on board with.

I liked Hannah too, don’t get me wrong.  She didn’t have the greatest situation either – she also had to compete with her best friend for her husband’s love, she was the cause of losing the women’s friendship, and she was unable to have children in a time period when that signified something disastrously wrong about a woman.   So, yes, both women had it really hard, and the fact that they had to deal with all of these barriers to their own happiness just goes to show how difficult life really was for women years ago.

The story is told in alternating chapters, allowing the reader to hear from both women, and I really liked this setup.  It gave me a chance to understand both of their perspectives, and it created two very sympathetic characters who were both put in undesirable situations but were working to make the best of it.  One thing I wish could have been a bit better is defining the voices of both Hannah and Pninah.  I was unable to tell which woman was which simply from their voices, I had to go on context and other things (such as chapter headings) to tell me who was narrating.  In a story with two different narrators, it’s very important for the reader to easily distinguish between the two, and I had a difficult time with that.  However, I still liked the format of hearing from both women because otherwise I would have come off liking one and disliking the other, and as it is now they are both strong and powerful women, just trying to get by in an oppressive world.

If you like historical fiction, especially Biblical fiction, give Etzioni-Halevy’s books a try.  There is one more that she’s written that I still have to read, The Garden of Ruth, and I’m hoping it’s as good as the other two.  If so, it’s sure to be a winner in my book.

Bird in Hand by Christina Baker Kline

Title:  Bird in Hand

Author:  Christina Baker Kline

Release date:  June 29, 2010

Publisher:  Harper Paperbacks

Pages:  288

Genre:  Adult fiction

Source:  Publisher, TLC Book Tours

Bird in Hand is about two married couples:  Claire and Ben and Alison and Charlie.  Claire and Alison have been friends since childhood, and when Claire and Ben realized Charlie needed to be set up, they thought of Alison, and the rest was history.  Now Claire and Ben live a busy life in New York City, while Charlie and Alison live the quintessential suburban life:  Charlie works in the city, Alison stays home with their two young children, white picket fence and all of that.  But one night, when Alison visits the city for a professional event of Claire’s, tragedy strikes.  And it is this night that begins the rapid and tragic downward spiral of both marriages.

I’ve been interested in reading this book since I first heard of it around this time last year, so when I saw that TLC was touring it, I jumped at the chance to be involved. Bird in Hand was everything I thought it would be – smart, interesting, tragic, and I loved every minute I spent with these characters.

Hands down, the most compelling thing about this book is the beautifully rendered characters.  Christina Baker Kline managed to make me care deeply about all four of them, even though I didn’t always like their decisions or agreed with the way they were acting.  In fact, two of the characters betray terribly the other two, and even through all of that, I felt connected to each of them, I felt like I could understand where they were coming from, even though they were doing something I completely disagree with.  That should go to show you exactly how well-written Claire, Ben, Alison, and Charlie are in this novel – they felt like real people, making real choices, for real reasons that only they could understand.  I loved that.

The novel is mostly focused on the present day, but every couple of chapters there is one sprinkled in as a flashback.  The reader is always provided the year for the flashback, so it really gives a strong idea of how these characters grew to be so close to each other, how these two relationships became a foursome.  This was such a perfect way of giving the reader the background for these characters, because instead of telling us how they came to be friends, we are shown how these relationships formed.  By the end of the book, you have a complete picture of their lives in relation to one another, and it makes a lot more sense how things end up where they do between the four of them.

I can’t say that I loved the ending.  I don’t know that it could have ended better, honestly, it’s just that it was rather depressing.  I suppose the whole book could be looked at as depressing, but to me it was a study in characters and relationships and human nature, and sometimes those things are depressing.  But I did finish the book with an overall feeling of sadness, even though I really, really liked the novel.

If you like reading realistic fiction that focuses on characters and relationships, you MUST pick up Bird in Hand.  It is a fabulously written novel and exactly the kind of book I can gobble up like candy.  Although a bit sad, it is realistic and makes for excellent reading.  I will definitely be reading more from Christina Baker Kline.