The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline

Amy   

historical fiction

The Exiles described the mistreatment of several girls in the 1840s. It particularly focused on Evangeline, a 20 year old from England, who was wrongly charged with theft and attempted murder, and Hazel, a 16 year old from Scotland who had been forced into theft by her mother. As convicts, they were both transported to Hobart City, Australia to carry out their sentences. Meanwhile, Matthina, an 8 year old native Tasmanian who had been taken from her people on Flinders Island was also brought to Hobart City to live at the governor’s mansion as a sort of pet. All three girls had been exiled without anyone to speak up for them.

The difficult circumstances of the characters in this novel pulled me in immediately.  Christina Baker Kline is good at setting the stage so that it feels genuine. Her characters are very well drawn and sympathetic.  Their stories were heartbreaking but compelled me to keep returning to the book to make sure they’d be okay.  Unfortunately, they were often not okay.  Their stories actually began to feel too depressing in the last third of the book. Women were not valued in those times and the lives of female prisoners were so much worse than of those who were free. This book was often hard to read.

The Exiles made me appreciate the time and place in which I live.  I learned a lot about the European justice system for women in the 19^th century and a good bit about the history of Australia.  I appreciated the characters more than the story itself, though.  I did not love the way the situation played out with the “bad guy” near the end and I hoped to learn more of Matthina. It just felt that some aspects of the story were too simple while the characters’ suffering was maintained for so long. But I feel this book will stick with me for a while.

   

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter

Amy   

fiction

Matt’s life is falling apart. Due to some bad business and investment decisions, he’s on the brink of losing everything including his wife. He ends up turning to a crazy solution to dig himself out of his troubles.

Jess Walter is so witty. I loved his novel Beautiful Ruins and, particularly, his writing. So I read The Financial Lives of the Poets to experience another novel by him. This one was very different! What a crazy story full of humor in the face of bad decisions and financial ruin! The writing was sometimes done as a stream of consciousness with no periods for miles.  But it worked!  It felt a bit frantic but that is exactly how Matt was feeling.  I loved the LISTS!  And the poems! And the alliterations! And the fun with words.  Walter is really a master of the English language. He also populated these pages with wonderful characters who were so easy to visualize and understand.  But the tale being told ended without the fun with which it started. It became a sobering cautionary tale fairly quickly near the end. It left me feeling not as great about it because the whole thing, while whacky and bizarre at times, ended up too real. 

   

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Amy   

historical fiction

The Paris Wife describes the brief love story and marriage of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, Hadley.

This fictional account told from Hadley’s point of view is a slice of life story from the time Ernest and Hadley met until their divorce. It was filled with romance, tension, and some juicy details which kept me engaged for the most part.  It was tough to read the tragedy of Hemingway’s wandering eye in the midst of friends who were, apparently, of a time and place where philandering was the norm.  The amount of time that was allowed to pass without him being held accountable for Hadley’s unhappiness felt interminable. Although, it is true that Hadley had also done a few (un-premeditated) terrible things for which Ernest had forgiven her. Mostly, I found their lifestyle fascinating—living and vacationing in various spots in Europe for long chunks of time, attending never-ending parties, drinking in excess, and hands-off motherhood norms from that era. They certainly lived large with very little money. It was also very interesting to read about Hemingway’s methods of writing and his drive for success. He had been friends with many famous people but alienated many of them after a while. I appreciated Paula McLain's research and thought she did a good job bringing Hadley to life.

   

The Law of Moses (#1) and The Song of David (#2) by Amy Harmon

Amy  

young adult, romance, fantasy

Moses, who had been an abandoned crack baby at birth was reluctantly raised by his dead birth mother’s family members being shuffled and passed along from place to place. The novel begins when he comes to live with his great grandmother for his senior year of high school.  He’s an unusual guy with a ruined reputation and the small Utah town residents mostly avoid him. However, Georgia is drawn to him and builds a relationship with him. Then, Moses is torn away from her life and both of them must face some harsh realities.

This was a fun romance with magical realism which was terrific.  Technically, it’s a young adult romance but these characters acted more maturely than typical high schoolers. It felt more like they were in their 20s. The story wasn’t about school so I’m unsure why Amy Harmon chose to set them in high school at the beginning. I also didn’t love the bad guy’s motivation and confession at the end. It wasn’t believable. But, the serial murders were always in the background of the story and not a main focus so I won’t dwell on this disappointment near the end of the novel.

I really enjoy Amy Harmon’s novels. Now that I’ve learned her formula, I’m good with it. I like the way she develops characters and relationships. I look forward to the sequel to this one since I think it’s based on another great character from this novel! I was amused that she used the exact same city in The Law of Moses as in another of her novels, Running Barefoot, and then I grew very appreciative when she included a few of the favorite characters from that other novel within this story.  Well done!

The narrators were Tavia Gilbert, who has narrated several other novels by Harmon, and J.D. Jackson.  Gilbert did a great job, as always and I give her an A+. I also thought Jackson was terrific. My only problem was that he pronounced the name of the city in which the characters lived differently than Gilbert (and she’d been pronouncing it her way through the prior novel set in this city so it was the default). Granted, his character hadn’t grown up in the town always but his family was from there and he would have known how to pronounce the name of the city as a native would.  So, I have to ding him for lack of research. He also had a narrower voice repertoire.  I’ll give him an A-. 

Amy  

mystery, romance

The second novel of The Law of Moses duology, The Song of David picks up shortly after The Law of Moses ends but focuses on David Taggert’s life.  He’s Moses’ best friend and is now a successful businessman and fighter, living life on his own terms.  He meets Milie, who is blind, when she starts working at his club.

This was a heartwarming story and told from both Moses’ and Tag’s points of view. I loved that aspect and I also loved the characters and the events in the story. It held my interest entirely and was extremely touching at the end. The conflicts came from the mystery of Tag’s disappearance and from the enemies of the human body. I thought the topics, including autism and illness, were handled well by Amy Harmon.

The narrators were J.D. Jackson (who reprised his role as Moses) and Zachary Webber with a stellar performance as Tag.  Again, my only complaint is around the pronunciation of the small town in which Moses lives.  Moses’s pronunciation had been different than Georgia’s in The Law of Moses and now Tag’s pronunciation was a third version. Good grief. Come on! You people producing these audiobooks need to get on top of this sort of thing. Meanwhile, both narrators were fabulous voice actors but neither has a huge voice repertoire.  They did both voice Henry, a teenage autistic boy, very well.  I will give them As for being pretty perfect for this novel.

   

Verity by Colleen Hoover

Amy  

psychological thriller

Lowen, a down-on-her-luck novelist, is given the lucrative opportunity to be a co-writer with a best-selling novelist, Verity Crawford, who has been sidetracked from completing her most recent series due to a car accident. However, in Verity’s office, Lowen finds an unpublished autobiography which is disturbing and contains information Verity’s husband should probably hear about his family.

Colleen Hoover does a great job of pulling you in from page 1 and keeps you in her grip through the novel.  It’s sometimes the kind of novel you read while hiding behind your own hands because it feels like a car wreck from which you can’t turn away. You know something ugly is going to be exposed and you’re not sure you want to see it.

I loved the quick pace. I appreciated this psychological thriller and was anticipating a completely different ending. The novel’s ending was better than the one I was fearing, thankfully.

For those who don’t like explicit sex, this is not the novel for you!

The two narrators were Vanessa Johansson and Amy Landon.  I’m assuming Johansson portrayed Lowen and I think she did a great job with voice acting.  Landon’s Verity performance was often annoying to me. But the character is annoying. So, perhaps she did a great job after all.  The novel did not require a large voice repertoire from either of them but I wasn’t impressed with either of their male voices. I’ll give the ensemble an A-. 

   

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Amy  

fiction

Toby and Rachel Fleishman, parents of two children aged 11 and 9, are separated and the novel describes their current lives as well as their histories which led to their current situations.

I don’t believe I’ve ever read a novel where there is an omniscient narrator speaking about the characters in third person and then, after a while, she suddenly starts referring to herself. So, really, the novel is a first person narrative but she’s speaking about someone else most of the time as a person telling her friend’s story.  In fact, she’s only a minor character in the story. It was cool at first but then became annoying because this person would have no way to be omniscient in reality.  So, while it was an original story-telling device (in my reading experience), I was annoyed by it. And I was sort of shocked every time she started referring to herself in the story. I had to stop and think about who she was because she wasn’t a significant character.

The pages of Fleishman is in Trouble were filled with people I know—the struggles of adults, married and unmarried, with children and without children, and people who make questionable choices. I really felt validated by a lot of the commentary about working mothers. However, I also grew tired of the inner thoughts of the main character (Toby Fleishman) and the narrator (Libby). They were so wishy washy.  They were firm in their beliefs and then they were full of self-doubt. They were in control of their emotions and then they weren’t. Back and forth. Up and down. It grew a bit exhausting. I mean, people’s opinions and feelings are moving targets so I get that people can be wishy washy at times. But this novel just seemed to go on for too long in the segments where the characters were having inner monologues. Also, the whole point of the novel seemed to bemoan the status of women and the institutions of marriage and parenthood. While most of the novel held my interest and buy-in, the end seemed to just be whiny and made quite a pathetic statement about the lives of married women.  Sure, I completely know people who have difficulty understanding themselves and their motivations.  But there are also plenty of people who find happiness in their life decisions and are able to be flexible enough to go with most of the curveballs life throws at them.  This optimist of a reader did not really appreciate Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s doom and gloom.

This book addresses mental illness and how parents, or the lack thereof, form a child’s personality and drives. I do believe these were important insights. But it was also highly unbelievable that a loved one turns up to be gone without a word or a trace for WEEKS and no one calls the police! In what world would that really happen? How tragic and depressing.  It didn’t feel real. 

The novel paints an ugly picture of the dating scene these days. I’ve been happily married for 30 years but I’ve been aware of methods via which people can meet because of my own single mother, my friends who have divorced more recently, and the phone apps I know of. However, I’ve never taken such a deep, long-term look into the difficult and, often, distressing world of dating. This book thrusts you into the reality of the good sides and the bad sides of modern-day “hook-ups” and dealing with friends’ best intentions. And it’s definitely scary.  This book was educational in that way.  Toby is of my generation so those aspects felt very believable and relatable.

I read this for book club and I do think it will generate some good discussion.

The narrator of the audiobook was Allyson Ryan and she did a good job with the material.  My main complaint is that she didn’t have too many different voices in her repertoire. I’ll give her an A- since I did have trouble understanding who was speaking in several character discussions.

   

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendured Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler

 

Lynnie 

non-fiction

Wherever you fall on the spectrum of abortion/adoption debate, this is an important book to read. 

I was interested in this book for many reasons, but particularly because my mother was adopted in the '40s and we really only learned her true adoption story after her death.  I was curious to hear the stories of women who had limited choices and even less agency over themselves and their bodies.  It was a heartbreaking book and I often found myself in tears at the stories of these women that Ann Fessler has curated.

Regardless of their ages, the women in The Girls Who Went Away broke my heart and I was shocked at how many of the same threads ran through their stories.  Overwhelmingly, giving their children up for adoption was not something they chose; many were forced to comply by parents or by lack of family support, and even, in one particularly devastating story, by a husband who did not tell his wife of his intention to place the baby for adoption.  Can you even imagine?  

Lack of knowledge about sex and biology, lack of access to birth control, and lack of agency over their own bodies combined in a powerful combination to leave these women feeling shame, loss, sadness, depression, and many who felt manipulated, lied to, conned out of their children... no one in this book comes through unscathed, from birth parents and grandparents to the adoptees themselves.  

As we head toward a time when the guarantees of Roe v. Wade are on the edge of crumbling, when birth control is more difficult to obtain than erectile dysfunction medication, and as many states continue to demand men consent to medical procedures that their wives want, it was important for me to understand what those rights and privileges mean for women in society.  We cannot take them for granted nor underestimate their importance.   

 

 

 

 

The Thief (The Queen's Thief #1) and The Queen of Attolia (#2) by Megan Whalen Turmer

Amy  

young adult, fantasy

The Thief is released from prison in order to aid the king’s magus in a quest for an ancient treasure.

The skeleton of this novel was good but the bloated fat was too much for me. The meat of the novel only accounted for about 20% of the pages.  This book is written in painstaking detail. Honestly, I could completely zone out of the audiobook for long segments of time and missed nothing. The bulk of the novel was describing the actual journey—details like what they ate, where they stayed, how they cleaned, when they slept, etc. etc.  It was, seriously, too much. Sure, it was nice to get to know the characters well, but I did not feel this level of detail was required. It wasn’t that the detail was boring. It was just neverendingly tedious.  I kept waiting for something to actually happen! It finally got interesting right in the middle.  Then, we went back to more journey details before a good ending.

Megan Whalen Turner is also guilty of inserting too many lengthy folk tales/myths into the narrative. They were only barely related to the main characters’ storyline so I didn’t appreciate these breaks in what little momentum existed. I think this novel is geared more towards the middle grades and was too slow for me. 

Truthfully, I would have abandoned it at about the 1/3 mark if not for Steve West’s narration since I love listening to his voice. He gets an A+, of course.  But I’m not even sure I’d be willing to listen to Steve read the rest of the novels in the series if they’re all this bogged down.

Amy  

I was not inclined to read The Queen of Attolia since I didn't love the first novel in the series all that much. But I was encouraged by others to give the second one a chance.

Yes, it was better. There was more to the story and there was less infuriating detail about nothing important. But there was still quite a bit of infuriating unnecessary detail. Thankfully, there was only one tangential myth and it was an intriguing story. But, again, it did nothing to move the story forward nor did it have much to do with the storyline.

The title of the novel gave away the one potentially fun surprise that the novel had going for it. What a shame.

Of course, the best part was the narration by Steve West, my favorite audiobook narrator. He shined as always. I just wish I really cared enough about this story to keep listening to more novels in the series. Alas, I do not.

   

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis

Amy 

historical fiction, mystery

The Lions of Fifth Avenue is a fun historical fiction mystery told from two time periods and points of view. The first viewpoint is Laura Lyons who AMAZINGLY lived with her family in private quarters in the New York Public Library in 1913-1914.  The second viewpoint is of her granddaughter, Sadie, in 1993. The story includes librarians, rare books, hidden passageways, and second chances.

As someone with a Masters in Library and Information Science, I loved all the library stuff, both old and new.  I wish I’d had a chance to visit the NYPL but haven’t been able to scratch that off my bucket list yet. In any event, both the old library facts and the new library/librarian descriptions interested me and kept me going until the real mysteries kicked in later.  I felt that the starring women were engaging and I was curious to find out more about Laura’s life, both through her own telling and through her granddaughter’s research.

The novel went in directions I hadn’t expected and I learned a lot about the early feminism movement, the Heterodoxy Club of Greenwich Village, NY, and the plight of women in the early 1900s trying to earn degrees and being treated differently and judged by different standards than men, even within the same department and by the same professor. I always love learning more details about previously vague history because it helps me appreciate the struggles of the time so much better. This is one of those novels that opened my eyes to a fuller history.

There were definitely some poor choices by the characters and heartbreak in this story, not to mention an unlikely “bad guy”, but I did enjoy the tale very much! I liked the way the novel was crafted and told by Fiona Davis.

The narrators were Erin Bennett (Laura’s voice) and Lisa Flanagan (Sadie’s voice). They were both good voice actors but I didn’t care for Flanagan’s “narrator voice” very much. Otherwise, I must say that I was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t pay all that much attention to the narrators. I think that means they did a good job!  I’ll give them an A for this production.