The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd

Amy    

historical fiction

The Indigo Girl is is a fictionalized story of real-life Eliza Lucas who, when left in charge of her family’s Charleston, SC plantations at the age of 16 in 1739, managed them with business savvy and ignited the indigo industry in the region. She faced many hurdles on a multitude of fronts but persevered with the help of some true friends and supporters.

I really enjoyed Eliza’s story and was rooting for her the whole time.  The story’s momentum slows a bit during details of indigo farming, but Eliza’s drive, good sense, and practicality won me over.  The other characters with whom Natasha Boyd populated this book were all easy to visualize and several were easy to love.  I found myself hating to turn the audiobook off at times and wished I could keep hearing more of the story.

The narrator, Saskia Maarleveld, was wonderful.  She had many different character voices and a clear tone with a lovely accent.  Her voice acting was terrific and really fit the characters in the story.  A+!

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Amy  

historical fiction

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a life story told in first person by an old woman, Lily, looking back on her life. It was historically educational and it’s the kind of book that makes me glad I was born in my current circumstances.  Life was not fun for women in 19^th century China.  Many of the behaviors, belief systems, and traditions were such that women held no value, spent most of their childhood being made ready for an arranged marriage (and the foot binding scenes were excruciating), and then spent most of their lives slaving away for their husbands’ families and having babies. Within this framework, we receive Lily’s story centered around her friendship with Snow Flower.

This just isn’t my kind of novel.  It was depressing and slow.  I really do not have anything else to say about it. This is my second Lisa See novel and I didn't enjoy the first one I read either. I might not have finished this novel except that it was a book club selection and I have several friends who love this novel and this author.  Different strokes, as they say.

The audiobook was narrated by Jodi Long who sounded like she had a stuffy nose.  Right off the bat, that was distracting and unfortunate. Her voice acting was alright except that most of the novel she’s speaking in Lily’s “old woman” voice which was lacking in emotion and did nothing to make the story exciting to hear.  It added to my feeling of being dragged along against my will.  I give her a B-.

The Reason You're Alive by Matthew Quick

Amy    

fiction

The Reason You're Alive is a short novel and is told by a crotchety Vietnam veteran who is broadly liberal-hating, doctor-mistrusting, and self-righteous.  His outlook on people is largely stereotype-based. I feared I would not be able to get through it at first. However, the reader starts seeing chinks in his armor fairly quickly so I stuck with it.  David is closed-minded about most things yet surprisingly open-minded about people, especially when looking back on his life after removal of a brain tumor. For all his bluster, he truly has made connections and become friends with a diverse group of interesting people about whom he deeply cares.  He has a soft spot for hard-luck cases and has survived a difficult life.  While he is rough on the outside, he’s a true softy on the inside.  He possesses some ideas that are hateful and some qualities that are admirable. He’s complex yet simple.  He has a nuanced philosophy of life. I grew to like him, despite his flaws, the more I read.  In the end, it’s a book about acceptance, forgiveness, and love.  And Matthew Quick has populated another novel with interesting, quirky characters.

The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve

Amy   

historical fiction

The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve got off to a very slow start for me.  The book summary calls Grace an extraordinary woman. She is definitely nothing special at the beginning. In fact, she’s just an ordinary dissatisfied housewife doing whatever is expected of a housewife after WWII.  Nothing in her life brings her joy and, likewise, almost nothing upsets her very much. She does not even sound very excited about her children.  This section was boring. However, I think it was made even worse by the automaton narration of the audiobook. (More below).

Then, Grace and the kids are chased from their house by fire and she does, extraordinarily, know how to give herself, her children, and her best friend a chance to survive the ordeal.  She is strong (as she must be) afterwards.  And she is admirably driven to be able to provide for herself and her family in the aftermath.  While the story did get much more interesting after the fire, I kept waiting for Grace to do something exceptional.  Basically, with a lot of good fortune peppered between the ordeals, she made the best of her situation and did what she had to do for her children.  Did Grace grow as a person during this novel? Definitely. I liked that growth a lot. But was she extraordinary? No. To me, she did what she had to do and used her brain. I appreciated learning about the fires that ravaged the Maine coastline in 1947. How tragic and terrifying and relatable to the more recent California fires.

In the end, this is the story of a woman who was able to escape from a difficult life and make her own happiness.  I applaud her. But the novel itself had predictable major plot points.  I think I would have enjoyed this one more if it weren’t for the audiobook narrator, Suzanne Elise Freeman.  The novel is written in third person and much of it is narrated with little character dialogue.  And these narrations were read with almost no emotion whatsoever and very robotically.  It drove me nuts.  It was like listening to someone reading a manual.  She did alright with the dialogue sections but they seemed few and far between. I give her a C- because, although she had a clear voice and was able to carry a few different female voices, I truly believe she stole my enjoyment from this novel.

Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

Lynnie

young adult, contemporary fiction

As far as I can tell, Moxie is a book designed to introduce young girls to the notion that we need to stand up for and support other girls, which is a GREAT message. Occasionally, it's also about feminism, though less so. I think that a young reader, particularly someone in middle school, would really enjoy this and feel inspired after reading it BUT the boys in the book are portrayed as such misogynistic neanderthals that I hesitate to actually recommend this to anyone; I mean the boys in the book are depressingly, exceedingly horrible. Even the guy that's supposed to be cute and central to the main character's romance is a major moron at times in the story. I guess he's supposed to be there to prove that all boys aren't misogynistic neanderthals but, honestly, that could have been achieved by just making sure that every other guy in the book isn't one.

Jennifer Mathieu gave us a few really inspiring scenes and I love the girl power message as well as the Riot Grrrl primer, but I hate how all the boys in the book are just caricatures of the worst of toxic masculinity. You can have girl power AND boys that don't completely suck which is why this is getting 2 1/2 stars. I don't think you need to put men down to make women stand tall.

Tales of the City #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, and #6 by Armistead Maupin

Amy  


Tales of the City         
More Tales of the City 
Further Tales of the City               
Babycakes                 
Significant Others     
                                             Sure of You               



fiction

Tales of the City is a short novel about several people living in San Francisco in 1976.  It showcases the pre-AIDS culture of sexual freedom of the time and is, really, just a soap opera.  However, it is populated with lovable characters all struggling in one way or another. They make the novel enjoyable.  And many of them cross paths in unusual ways.  I can imagine it would have been fun in the format it was originally published, as a San Francisco Chronicle series by Armistead Maupin in the 1970s. 

This novel came to my attention as one of the Great American Reads novels and sounded interesting.  I’m glad I read it and will likely read at least one more in the series.  I thought it was good but think I would have enjoyed it more if I’d read it closer to the ‘70s and as a younger person.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by the talented Frances McDormand who is one of the few Triple Crown actors (winning two Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award).  As you can imagine, her acting was terrific.  However, I would not give her awards for her narration.  She does not have enough different voices in her arsenal and speaks very quickly much of the time. This makes it difficult to understand who is speaking during the conversations between characters—particularly when one or both of the characters are male. She does a better job differentiating female voices, but still not terrific.  Therefore, since her narration specifically caused consternation several times, I give her a B-.  Sorry Frances but outstanding audiobook narration requires a specific set of skills aside from acting ability.

The sequel, More Tales of the City, continues the stories of the characters we met in Tales of the City and picks up where the first novel left off.  We meet a few new characters who are as enjoyable as the original characters. This novel was better than the original.  The juice was juicier. The mysteries were more mysterious.  The fun was more fun.  If you liked the first novel, I’m quite sure you’ll like this one. I’ll definitely read the next one.

This installment was narrated by Cynthia Nixon. She did a great job with some unique female voices. However, her male voices were not as distinguishable. Her voice acting was terrific.  I give her an A-.

Further Tales of the City, the third installment in the Tales of the City series, continues the stories of the characters we know and love, picking up a few years after the second novel left off.  As before, we meet a few new characters and even get a fictional look into the lives of two well-known American individuals, Rock Hudson and Jim Jones. This one had the most structured plot so far.  However, it was extremely far-fetched, too coincidental, and overly convenient.  Yet, I continue to want to read more of the series. I’d like to know what happens to the characters.

This sequel, like the first novel, was narrated by Frances McDormand. She was better in this one so that I could distinguish different characters during a conversation.  But she still doesn’t have a lot of unique voices. I’ll give her a B+ for this one.

Babycakes starts 2 years after the third novel.  While the soap opera continued,

it felt wrong right off the bat.  There were overly descriptive sections which were boring. If I had been reading myself instead of listening to an audiobook I would have skimmed.  Several of our favorite fun characters were not much fun and put themselves in difficult spots and/or made poor decisions. It was also a heavier novel with the AIDS epidemic finally in the picture. Sadly, the storylines were all pretty ho-hum.  I’m disappointed in this sequel. I think I'll take a break and then probably try another sequel to see how things turn out with the characters eventually.

The audiobook was narrated by the amazing Alan Cumming and I had high hopes.  Instead, his nasal voice was gross at times. Several of his women’s voices were deeper than the male voices. His voice acting was mostly good but it couldn’t make the story seem more interesting.  Additionally, his treatment of a few of the beloved characters wasn’t in line with the treatment given by previous narrators which was frustrating and enhanced the unfortunate feeling that they had new personalities in this novel. I’ll give him a B+.

Significant Others is another fun installment. Life throws some curve balls at our beloved characters. There is not much new to say about the series. 

Cynthia Nixon narrated and, as with #2, did a great job.











Sure of You was supposed to be the final novel in this series so it served to close

the story arcs of the characters.  It reached its goal but was pretty boring and vilified one of the main characters which didn't make me happy. Of course, I'll read the next one.

The narrator, Eric McCormack, was the best one I've heard for this series. He was terrific! He lad lots of character voices and wonderful voice acting. Bravo! A+!

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Amy   

mystery

This book within a book written by Anthony Horowitz includes a) a mystery novel written by an author named Alan Conway as the final novel, Magpie Murders, in his Atticus Pund detective series and b) the overarching mystery novel that attempts to determine whether Alan Conway’s untimely death was a suicide or a murder.

As followers of my reviews know, I’m not a huge mystery genre fan.  I would never have read this book except that I owned it. I got it for free 2 years ago at the ALA Midwinter Convention where it came highly recommended and then sat on my shelf unread. Since then, it has received significant public praise so I was curious about it and finally got around to reading it.  They said it was different than the typical murder mystery.  And, I must say that I did enjoy most of it. 

I liked that it was a book in a book.  And I really enjoyed the “inner” Atticus Pund novel. The characters were fun and the story was a good one that drew me in. However, the more current “outer” story being investigated by Susan, the editor of the Atticus Pund series, was cumbersome and drawn out. Her character was awkward in her endeavors and her story was not charming like the Atticus Pund story. Much of it did not interest me. And the inclusion in Susan’s story of further writing samples went on too long and lost my interest. The one interesting aspect of Susan’s story was that it gave insight into the writing and publishing industry that I hadn’t connected with so well previously.

So, I MOSTLY liked it more than I expected to like it.