Category: Books

I’m a little bit shy of 100 pages in to Kate Atkinson’s 1995 debut novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum, but from page one I was hooked. The protagonist launches herself at the reader with the declarative first two-word sentence, “I exist!” at the moment of her conception, and drags you with her as she gets to know her slightly twisted and eccentric British family.

Kate Atkinson can write. Oh, how I wish I could write like this! And it’s her first novel, which makes me unsure whether I want to admire her or dislike her for such a perfectly constructed and beautifully written story. Her prose reminds me of Margaret Atwood at her best, but without the overt intellectual challenge that Atwood’s work so often has. In fact, now that I think of it, she also reminds me a great deal of Alice Munro, except that her spin on magic realism is more satiristic realism. And speaking of powerful Canadian woman writers, there’s more than a passing resemblance to Carol Shields here, too. Hmmm, no wonder I like it so much.

Each chapter (so far) juxtaposes a year in the life of Ruby, the protagonist, with a”footnote” from her past, a clever device Atkinson uses to jump back and forth in time. The footnotes are almost as long as the chapters, and tell stories from Ruby’s maternal ancestors, so far through the first and second world wars. Although the footnotes are colourful and interesting, they’re not as enjoyable as the main narrative simply because they lack Ruby’s delightfully wry voice and insight. She describes her first lonely night outside the womb, in the maternity ward:

It’s very dark in the night nursery. Very dark and very quiet. A dim blue light shines in one corner, but most of the cots are just black coffin-like shapes. The darkness stretches out to infinity. Space winds whip through the icy interstellar spaces. If I reached out my tiny, wrinkled fingers that look like boiled shrimp, I would touch – nothing. And then more nothing. And after that? Nothing. I didn’t think it would be like this. It’s not that I expected a street party or anything – streamers, balloons, banners of welcome unfurling – a smile would have done.

My only complaint so far is that the book is packed so tightly with an excess of quirky characters in three different generations that I’m having trouble remembering who’s who. (This, admittedly, may be as much a problem with my inability to hold a thought in my head lately as with any fault in the narrative.) And while her writing is simply gorgeous, there is a grim brutality just beneath the surface in parts of the story that for some reason I am finding very unsettling. And yet again (she hedged), I admit that the grimness of some of the characters is compelling in itself. Ruby’s mother in particular, the chronically overwhelmed and underenthused (and unfortunately named) Bunty comes to mind as a character that I find profoundly unlikeable – but relentlessly interesting nonetheless.

One of the first books I reviewed was a later Kate Atkinson book, Case Histories, but I wasn’t nearly as fond of that book out of the gate as I am of this one. I think, in fact, this one may turn out to be one of my favourites. Highly recommended!

In a rare exception to my (patent pending) ten-pages-in book review, today’s review comes after I have voraciously consumed and thoroughly enjoyed the entire book.

Today I have the great honour of hosting a stop on the blog book tour for Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined. This book is an anthology of small works of fiction, literary non-fiction and poetry that have appeared in the Literary Mama e-zine and have been lovingly assembled by editors Andi Buchanan and Amy Hudock.

Remember the book review I did last week, where I complained that the book was sterile and devoid of emotional impact? I said it lacked any insight into the act of mothering. This wonderful collection is the antithesis of that. It teems with emotion, with meaning, with – with – well, with motherness. In every single piece, I found something that resonated with me. The essays moved me – some to tears, some to laugh, many to think.

Here’s how much I liked this book: Andi was nice enough to send me a courtesy copy for review, and while looking for it earlier this week to put a few finishing touches on this review I realized that my copy had disappeared. Gone. Last time I saw it, it was dangerously close to the pile of mostly-digested weekend newspapers (which are now consumed over the course of days instead of hours). I suspect it got recycled. But I’m going to buy myself a copy, because I liked it that much.

Anthologies are perfectly suited for busy mothers who love to read. Dipping in and out of this collection was like snacking on indulgent little treats, rather than sitting down to the full meal that is a novel. I stole 15 minutes after my shower one Saturday morning to read Cassie Premo Steele’s charming fiction vignette Chocolate, about a mother navigating the minefield of teenage sexual curiosity while making a cake with her daughter. I was moved to messy public tears on the bus while reading Heidi Raykeil’s Johnny, an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir about losing her infant son. After enjoying Jennifer Eyre White’s essay Analyzing Ben one Sunday afternoon at the tail end of naptime, I was compelled to read parts out loud to Beloved and couldn’t get through them without snickering.

I could go on all day drawing your attention to this morsel or that throughout the anthology. I usually find myself only skimming poetry, partly because I am intimidated by it, but I am haunted by Megeen R. Mulholland’s Miscarriage of an English Teacher and have gone back to it several times. The sense of struggling for control, of insisting on the importance of the mundane, of breathing in tiny irregular breaths because you can’t open your lungs enough for a full breath – it’s exactly how I felt after my own miscarriage.

This book makes me want to write. It has inspired me. And I don’t mean that in a hyperbolic way; I just mean that it makes me want to find the time and to really try my hand as a writer. It sure satisfied the reader in me!

By happy coincidence, my friend and bloggy mentor Ann Douglas is also hosting a stop on the LM blog book tour today. It was through Ann that I was first introduced to Literary Mama last year – and for that I am deeply grateful.

You know what this book is? It’s a perfect Mother’s Day gift. No, scratch that – it’s the perfect gift for a mother, just because.

I’ve been agonizing over this review.

About a month ago, I received an e-mail out of the blue, asking me if I’d be interested in receiving a book to review. I was so excited and proud to have been deemed worthy of solicitation! (Yes, I am easy to please.)

Before I get into the actual review of the book, I thought I’d share a couple of thoughts on the process. Maybe it’s because I’m a communicator by day and a blogger by night, but I’m fascinated by how bloggers have become a market worth targeting. Businesses are quickly learning that bloggers are valuable opinion leaders. We’re the ‘connectors’ in Gladwell’s Tipping Point model, the ones who build networks and share information. Bloggers have reach, and even those of us with only moderate readership have a strong voice. We’re turning traditional marketing models on their ears in many ways, and smart businesses are ready to take advantage of it.

It’s flattering to have been chosen to get a free book, but I’ve recently heard of bloggers being offered all sorts of cool stuff to review: DVDs of the Electric Company, free cleaning products (!), and even trips to Amsterdam.

And now the crux of my dilemma. I received the e-mail offer, and I said ‘Sure, I’d love a free book.’ There were no strings attached, no promises on my part to do any kind of review, let alone a good one. The publicity agent gave me some background info and a couple of jpegs, should I wish to incorporate them into my review. And less than a week later, my brand new book arrived.

The problem is, I didn’t really like it. In any other circumstance, I would have posted a scathing and sarcastic review of this book. I would have had a lot of fun mocking it. But I want to be nice, because they were nice and sent me a free book. So here we go.

I’m reading Kathryn Sansone’s Woman First, Family Always. Kathryn is an American mother of ten kids, and the book is her way of helping you live your life with the same level of success, satisfaction and happiness that she has achieved.

Kathryn was ‘discovered’ by Oprah (yes, that Oprah) when she attended a taping of Oprah’s show for her 40th birthday, and in the post-show chat had the opportunity to tell Oprah that she was staying fit even though six months pregnant with her ninth (!) child. Oprah was enamoured, so much so that she paid a visit to the Sansone family and even featured them in her monthly magazine, and shortly thereafter voilà, Kathryn became an author. She says, “[Oprah] referred to me as the role model of motherhood – quite a hefty title, but one that makes me think I might be able to affect a wider group of women with some practical advice that has helped me through the years.”

(pauses to gather thoughts and dial down sarcasm-meter)

The book is divided into three sections – Your Self, Your Marriage, and Your Family & Kids – and each section has 30 ‘reflections’ ranging in length from a couple of paragraphs to a couple of pages. They are not quite self-help, but neither are they anecdotes; they fall into a bland and colourless netherworld between the two. For example, reflections in the “Your marriage” section include:

11. Don’t Nag
12. Argue – the Right Way
17. A Little Lipstick Goes a Long Way
19. Make Your Bedroom Your Sanctuary
20. Date Nights are a Must

Similarly, the “Your Family & Kids” section includes reflections titled:

7. Be an Emotional Coach
11. Mind Their Manners
19. Teach Kids to Manage Time
And even,
22. Select the Right Paediatrician for You.

As you might have guessed, I had trouble garnering anything helpful from this book. Sansone isn’t an expert – she doesn’t even have Dr Phil’s questionable qualifications. I’d forgive her lack of credentials in a minute if she had an engaging voice or a unique style to her writing – after all, you don’t need a license to mother, and she’s had a lot of experience. And it’s not the content I have issue with; it’s all reasonable advice. It’s just that it’s so sterile it’s devoid of any traces of humanity. It’s a self-help book written by a Stepford Wife.

A book written by a mother of ten kids has a lot of potential. I mean, I come up with stuff with only two kids, and she’s got five times the source that I do. I’d’ve loved to hear how you manage laundry for 10 kids, or what mealtimes must look like, or even how you get from one place to another with that many people to corral and transport. What’s it like delivering that 10th baby – do you need a sling to hold it in place for the last trimester? How do you make sure each child gets individual attention when they outnumber the parents five to one? But, unfortunately, rather than intriguing insight into the author or her day to day life, you get some platitudes and suggestions for living well.

She seems like a nice lady, she really does. And anybody who can raise ten kids has my respect. In the end, her key point that you have to love yourself and treat yourself well is a good one. Heck, I’d say 90% of the book is filled with good advice. And I’m really flattered that her publicist sent me the free book. So go ahead, take a read of it and let me know what you think. But I just couldn’t warm up to this one.

One of the best parts of the holidays is having a little bit of extra time for reading, once the chaos that is Christmas abates. By sheer luck, my turn in the queue for Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down came up after a wait of several weeks just in time for me to indulge in a little holiday reading, and I’m just far enough in to offer the latest in my ongoing series of 10-pages-in book reviews .

Even if you don’t recognize Nick Hornby’s name, you’ll recognize the titles of some of his books that have been made into movies: Fever Pitch , High Fidelity , and About A Boy. I have to admit, I’ve never read any of them, but High Fidelity is one of my favourite movies – mostly because I have a thing for John Cusack. But when I realized that the same person had written all these books, I had to take him out for a spin and check out his goods for myself. And that’s how a literary crush is born.

But back, for a moment, to the book. A Long Way Down is the story of four people whose lives, on an ordinary day, would likely never intersect. But this is no ordinary place, and no ordinary day. It is, in fact, New Year’s Day, and our four protagonists meet on the roof of a 15-story building in London, where each of them have come to commit suicide.

The story is told, by turns, through each of their eyes in a first-person narrative. Hornby does a wonderful job of making each character’s voice distinctive, so you never have to flip back to the beginning of a chapter to see who is speaking.

Martin is a smart, bitter C-list celebrity, a former breakfast television host who has become more infamous than famous after getting caught having a fling with a fifteen year old. He says of his suicidal tendencies: “On New Year’s Eve, it felt as though I’d be saying goodbye to a dim form of consciousness and a semi-functioning digestive system – all the indications of a life, certainly, but none of the content. I don’t even feel sad, particularly. I just feel very stupid, and very angry.”

JJ is an American who had aspirations to be a rock star but finds himself delivering pizzas. He quotes Oscar Wilde but can’t utter an entire sentence without using fuck as an adjective or an adverb. He tells us, “The trouble with my generation is that we all think we’re fucking geniuses. Making something isn’t good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something; we have to be something. It’s our inalienable right as citizens of the twenty-first century. If Christina Aguilera or Britney or some American Idol jerk can be something, then why can’t I? Where’s mine, huh?”

Jess is a wild and unstable young woman. I know her type so well, and yet am having a hard time describing her. She inhabits the polar opposite of my life of stability, sunshine and acceptance. She is shallow and thoughtless, and says whatever comes into her head. When another character mentions being engaged, Jess is shocked by the concept: “You did? Really? Okay, but what living people get engaged? I’m not interested in people out of the Ark. I’m not interested in people with, with like shoes and raincoats and whatever.” People with shoes and raincoats don’t deserve respect in Jess’ world.

And finally, there is Maureen, a middle-aged woman who has spent the last 20 years of her life as a single mother caring for a severely disabled son who can neither move independently nor communicate with her. Her innocent naivety born of inexperience is a foil for Jess’s overly well-informed naivety. In considering JJ, Maureen thinks, “without knowing anything about him [I thought] that he might have been a gay person, because he had long hair and spoke American. A lot of Americans are gay people, aren’t they? I know they didn’t invent gayness, because that was the Greeks. But they helped bring it back into fashion.”

(Sorry for the extensive quoting, but really, I could go on for days pulling lovely little bits out of this book.)

Their lives intersect on the roof, where each has come to commit suicide – some with more forethought than others. Distracted by their shared misery – misery being about the only thing they have in common – the unlikely quartet find that the moment for suicide has passed. Suspended in a strange limbo of thwarted suicidal intent, detached from the painful reality of their lives at least until the sun comes up, they band together for a kind of quest, and set off into the darkness of New Year’s Eve to find the fellow who has broken Jess’ heart. Really. When you read the book, you’ll get it. By turns madcaply comic and painfully insightful, it’s a moving and unforgettable story.

I officially have a crush on Nick Hornby now, in much the same way I have a crush on Douglas Coupland. (Is it weird that I don’t have much patience for chick lit, but am developing a thing for lad lit?) Hornby and Coupland are, in fact, very similar writers. They have the same ear for dialogue and eye for quirky characters, and both have their finger firmly placed on the pulse of modern culture. They both use humour and pathos to evoke how it feels to be alive and watching the world in the twenty-first century. Where Coupland’s work clearly echoes his own Canadian-ness, Hornby’s book is infused with what he referred to in a Guardian interview as “English miserablism”. I love this term – it captures perfectly the distinctive flavour of this novel and its characters.

I haven’t been this excited about a book since The Time Traveler’s Wife. Hornby is such an excellent writer that I’m disappointed I haven’t discovered him before now. I could go on – there’s so much more to say. Except I have to get over to the library Web site and reserve a few more of Hornby’s books, because I’m going to need a really good book when this one is done.

Time for another 10-pages-in book review. I’m a little less than a third of the way through Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, but it’s a surprisingly quick and easy read and if I don’t write this now I’ll be done the book soon.

The Penelopiad is one of the first three books in an ambitious series called ‘The Myths’ from Canongate Books. According to publisher Jamie Byng, “From the outset the idea was to approach topclass writers from all over the world and invite them to retell any myth in any way they chose. And in turn their myths would be published all over the world… By my calculation we will publish the 100th myth in this series on March 15th 2038.” I love the idea of retelling myths and finding relevance for the modern reader.

That’s exactly what Margaret Atwood has done. Penelope is the wife of Odysseus, hero of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. The Penelopiad is her story, from her unhappy childhood (her father tried to drown her) to her marriage to Odysseus (he won her in a footrace, after drugging the other competitors), her lifelong rivalry with her cousin (the beautiful and infamous Helen of Troy), and her struggle to manage the household for 20 years while Odysseus runs off to fight the Trojan war.

I remember struggling through The Iliad and The Odyssey in school. Matter of fact, I think I gave up and read the Coles Notes of The Odyssey to get me through the exam. While I’ll read just about anything, epic poetry has never been something I’ve enjoyed. I studied ancient mythology from dozens of perspectives in my academic career (I was a liberal arts student, after all), but no telling of these stories was ever so interesting, so compelling and so real to me as this version.

The story is told first person by Penelope from her current home in the afterworld, in a dry tone that is by turns imperiously detached and conversationally witty. You can’t help but laugh when she talks about the gods having sex with mortals: “To watch some mortal with his or her eyes frying in their sockets through an overdose of god-sex made [the gods] shake with laughter.”

Penelope’s unique perspective from Hades gives her insight into our modern world. She tells the reader, “More recently, some of us have been able to infiltrate the new ethereal-wave system that encircles the globe, and to travel around that way, looking out at the world through the flat, illuminated surfaces that serve as domestic shrines.” In Hades, she inhabits the past and the present simultaneously, making her voice resonate with the modern reader.

Hers is not the only perspective on the retelling of the Homeric myth, however. Every so often, Penelope’s murdered maids take over the telling, interrupting with skipping rhymes, poems and ballads. They are not so much a greek chorus as a chorus line, as cheeky as Penelope herself.

I got this book as a stocking stuffer, and that’s just about as perfect an origin for it as I can imagine. It’s light reading on a heavy subject, an enjoyable telling of a well-known myth from a fresh perspective. It’s clear Margaret Atwood had fun in turning Homer’s epics inside out, and I enjoy her work most when she doesn’t take herself too seriously.

And oh, how I wish I could turn a phrase like she does. That alone makes this book worth reading, just for the sheer joy of seeing words strung together with such effortless beauty by someone who truly has the gift.

By special request for James, who happened to ask the other day if I had any forthcoming 10-pages-in book reviews just about the time I was thinking of writing one.

I come by my love of reading honestly – one of my dominant memories from childhood is of my mother curled up around a good book. I used to read a lot of what she left lying around, which explains why I was reading Stephen King by age 10 (which, in turn, probably explains why I am to this day afraid of the dark. But I digress.) I invoke my mother here because she is still my ‘dealer’. She buys paperbacks like other people buy groceries, and every few weeks I come home with a shopping bag full of hand-me-downs, most of which I never get around to reading.

I never have to buy the latest James Patterson or John Grisham or Janet Evanovich or Patricia Cornwell or Richard North Patterson (I could go on, but you get the point) because I know the week it comes out in paperback, Mom will aquire it and send it my way.

All of this by very long way of introducing the fact that it was her who got me reading Greg Iles, and I look forward to his new material via my dealer. I’m about 160 pages in to Blood Memory, which is a little more than 10, but since the entire novel weighs in near 800 pages, I’m following the spirit if not the letter of my own formula.

It’s a good read. I’m having a hard time putting it down. The main character, Cat Ferry, is a forensic dental expert with a penchant for self-destructive behaviour. The novel is unfolding as two stories, one a set of serial murders in present-day (but hurricane-free) New Orleans, and the second the mysterious death of her own father 20 years before. Early in the story, Cat stumbles across evidence that makes her question the fact that her father was killed by a burglar, but her pursuit of the present-day serial killer and her myriad personal problems interrupt her quest for the truth.

It sounds a little formulaic when I lay it out like that, but it’s a compelling story well told. Cat is the kind of protagonist that a lot of male authors seem to create – smart, sexy, and stormy. She makes some irresponsible choices that make me cringe, but I can still relate to her on the smart and sexy parts at least. (Stop laughing. My book review, my bias.)

At least twice so far, Cat has made mention of Thomas Harris’ book Red Dragon, which is interesting because the story reminds me a lot of Silence of the Lambs. (Red Dragon was the prequel to Silence of the Lambs, where the character of Hannibal Lector is introduced. All books I also got from my mother, for what it’s worth.) Strong, smart lead takes on creepy psychotic guy. I’m sure if I picked up on it, the allusion was intentional on the part of the author, since I’m not one to catch subtleties.

There’s lots of delicious tension in this novel. The past intrudes on the present with an unsettling randomness that seems to be getting less and less random as the story progresses. I’ve lost my taste for a lot of the FBI/serial killer type novels lately, but this one has enough real character development and actual story behind it to make it compulsively readable.

My only complaint is that my wrist gets sore holding an 800 page paperback in bed, although I am grateful for the well-spaced font as I read blearily late into the night. I’ve been up past 10 pm twice this week reading it – that’s the wee hours of the morning by my standards!

Edited to add: I finished this one over the holidays. I kept finding excuses to hide in a corner and read a few more pages. In the end it was a real page turner, but also very disturbing. I didn’t really see anything come of the allusions to Thomas Harris, and the book went in a different direction than I was expecting. It was good, though, and I’ll look forward to the next wrist-breaking Greg Iles book when it comes out in paperback.

Categories: Books

I love character books. A book doesn’t have to have a strong narrative structure or a lot to say, but I do love a book with endearing characters.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is a charming, unique book full of quirky characters. I first heard about it from a classmate in my French class a few months ago. Her linguistic skills are a little bit more advanced than mine, but I did manage to understand and retain the fact that this book is part of a series written by a Scotsman who grew up in South Africa about a woman who inherits a considerable sum from her father and uses it to open a private detective agency – the very first one operated by a woman in all of Botswana, maybe all of Africa. Seemed a little incongruous at the time, but then my translation skills are questionable at best.

When I picked this book up, I was expecting something along the lines of Stephanie Plum in the books by Janet Evanowich. I like her books because they’re quirky and funny and fast-paced. The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is definitely quirky, but it is almost plodding in an endearing sort of way. Mma Ramotswe is insightful where Stephanie is dippy and polite where Stephanie is hopelessly crude. She’s also likely the size of three Stephanies put together. They’d probably like each other a lot, but I can’t imagine a universe where they’d intersect.

Having said all those nice things, I must now admit that I’m stalled about a third of the way into this book. I really like it, I would recommend it to you in an instant, but I’m not sure if I’m going to finish reading it. My number came up for The Kite Runner in the public library queue (I started at 585th in line back in the summer) and I dropped this to read it. Looking back, I’m not so sure I should have bothered, but that’s a blog review for another day. Even though I genuinely like The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, I’m having a hard time convincing myself to pick it back up again.

A question for the commenting crowd: when you read, do you choose things that are familiar and to which you can relate, or do you like to read about people who are completely different from you, whose life experiences are completely dissimilar to yours? I was initially doubtful about both The Kite Runner and The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency largely because they are set in a world completely different from mine. What do I know of Botswana or Afghanistan? And yet, I found the setting and the striking differences from my experience to be one of the most compelling things about these books.

Categories: Books

I’m reading two CanLit memoirs right now, one forgettable and one fabulous. So while I’m considerably more than 10 pages in to either of them, I can’t help comparing and contrasting them.

The first is David Layton’s 1999 memoir and first book, Motion Sickness. It’s mostly the story of his childhood living with and without his father, famous Canadian poet Irving Layton, and his slightly off-balance mother. Because I so liked his debut novel The Bird Factory, I thought I would enjoy his memoir as well.

Not so much.

I’m about two-thirds of the way though, and I’ve actually stopped reading it. It’s a library loaner, so I’ve renewed it for another three weeks in case I work up the stamina to see it through to the end, but it’s probably going back unfinished. After quite liking his first-person protagonist in the fictional Bird Factory, I find his autobiographical self quite unlikeable. The story of his childhood, which mostly seems to consist of his mother dragging them from Toronto to Britain to Greece and points in between, is considerably less interesting that you might expect.

On the other hand, I am completely in love with the rather unlikeable Canadian author Matt Cohen only half way through his memoir, Typing: A life in 26 keys. He weaves his own “how I became a writer” story tightly into the coming of age of nationalist Canadian literature, against the backdrop of free love and free drugs in 1960s and 1970s Toronto. I’m half-way through, and with each passing page I further regret that Cohen died only two weeks after this book was complete. It’s a compelling story well told – what more do you want from a book?

If nothing else, these two stories are a good illustration of why you should write your memoirs at the end of your career and not at the beginning.

Do you read more than one book at a time? I usually have one stashed beside my bed, and another tucked into my bag for reading on the bus. I try to read non-fiction during daylight hours, because by the time I’m tucked into bed I want sheer escapist entertainment with no thought required. In general, aside from the slew of writers’ memoirs and manuals I’ve read lately, I don’t generally like non-fiction. What’s your favourite genre?

Categories: Books

I’ve just started reading Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland, so here’s my 10-pages-in book review, at about 30 give-or-take pages in.

I should admit a bias up front. I have a sentimental thing for Douglas Coupland, and he could write the instruction manual for my sewing machine and I’d read it three times. And because I have such a fondness for him, I tolerate, in the way we tolerate the idiosyncracies of the ones we love, a certain amount of quirkiness that I might not take from an off-the-shelf new author.

The thing about Coupland is that he writes to a me I sometimes wish I were. He writes to a me that is a little more hip, a little more jaded, a little more cynical. His work appeals to the slacker in me that rolls her eyes at the bright-eyed enthusiast who is usually in control. And yet, the same thing that draws me to his work is what makes me impatient with it. Sometimes it is too laissez-faire, too negative, too bleak.

This book seems a little bit less hipster than some of his other work, but his voice is so incredibly distinctive that I’m sure I could pick his style out anywhere. Ironically, voice is my only complaint with this book. The main character Liz Dunn is, demographically at least, quite a bit like me. She’s a mid-30ish Canadian working girl. She also happens to be friendless, incredibly lonely, and by her own description, quite fat, three things which I am gratefully not. But her voice lacks the insecurity that a lonely, overweight woman of my age would have. In fact, she doesn’t ring true to me at all. Then again, that divergence from what we might expect from stereotypes seems to help keep me interested in what happens to Liz.

It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but isn’t She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb also about a lonely fat woman? I hated that book. Found it depressing and pointless. Eleanor Rigby, at least, has some potential. Although I am having a hard time connecting with the protagonist, I at least am curious about her and wonder what her story is. It’s enough to keep me hooked.

I need some new suggestions. What have you read lately that you loved? I’ve requested The Kite Runner and Will Ferguson’s Happiness and Yann Martel’s Self from the library, but am queued at 302 for the former and 12 for the latter, so I need some instant gratification with vacation time coming up. Any recommendations?

Categories: Books