Review: Sula

Picking up Sula as selection for my book club, I was excited to read my first Toni Morrison book! After all, she’s pretty legendary. I’d never heard of Sula and therefore didn’t know what to expect. While it wasn’t a page-turner or a book that I found myself thinking of throughout the day, it had some important themes and interesting tropes that lent itself to comparison with other contemporary black pieces of work.

Sula follows the friendship and journey of two best girl friends from a predominantly black neighborhood in the South from 1919 to 1965. It follows how the paths of the two girls diverge as Sula leaves town for years, loses contact with Nel and later returns after many affairs with men attending college. Nel, meanwhile, has stayed in town and become a housewife. Picking things up where they left off isn’t so feasible between the women, who though having suffered similar traumas, have different outlooks on life and ways of managing that trauma.

In Sula’s life, several of her family members have died as the result of fire, and they are not the only ones to do so in this short novel. The fire and burning theme was clear but almost too obvious. It was repeated over and over and could have been more subtle.

Sula also reminded me of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and The Color Purple (the new musical movie, which is my only point of comparison). The pacing of Sula reminded me of Do the Right Thing in that the entire time, the reader/viewer is witnessing microaggressions and traumas, but not necessarily knowing where the story is going. So initially, it feels like a slice of life story. Then all of a sudden, there’s a huge, aggressive climax (a tunnel collapse in Sula and the death of a black man in Do the Right Thing) when I realized “oh, this is what this was all leading to: absolute chaos and change, which is profound and unsettling. The setting of Sula, however, reminded me a lot of The Color Purple, and Sula, the character, reminded me of Shug Avery in Purple in that they are strong women who have the courage to leave town, have affairs and return home, not caring what anyone else thinks of them.

Again, Sula was not my favorite book, but feels like important literature about black culture and understanding.

Review: Before We Were Yours

Recap: The location is a hospital in the South. The time is the 1930s. The twins delivered did not fare well. The parents are destroyed.

And now here we are, in present day, following the life of Avery Stafford. The 30-something lawyer is used to living in the limelight of her father and his long political reign. But now he is sick, and she is forced to prepare to take his spot in politics as he also deals with an ongoing scandal involving nursing homes. In visiting her grandmother at one, Avery meets another elderly woman who is completely taken with her. A misplaced bracelet and a curious family photo forces Avery to return to the woman as she itches to learn more about her and whether this woman is somehow connected to her own family.

Now we are back to the 1930s, and Rill Foss is left in charge of her brother and sisters after their parents rushed to the hospital. Living on the river in Tennessee, they are now orphans as their parents never return. They are scooped up and taken in by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, and they face every form of abuse: verbal, physical, sexual. Living in a constant state of fear, Rill feels compelled to take care of her siblings, but there’s only so much a 12-year-old girl can do.

The stories of Rill and Avery intertwine more and more throughout Before We Were Yours in a beautiful and mysterious way, but it’s the fact that this historical fiction novel is based on true events from the real horrors of adoption in the 1930s that make this book so haunting.

Analysis: One of the characters we come to know in the book is the woman who run’s the Tennessee Children’s Home Society, Georgia Tann. But Georgia Tann was a real woman, known for having made adoption in the United States an industry and for charging families an exorbitant amount of money for adopting children. These children were bought and sold, practically as a form of slavery and treated traumatically in the process.

Author Lisa Wingate tells this story through the lens of a little girl during the time and through the eyes of a present-day woman who, like many of us, had no idea any of this was happening in the 1930s.

Despite the horrors, Wingate does an excellent job of keeping the reader invested in the characters, curious about what happens next and still manages to offer hope through the love we see shine through her characters. Before We Were Yours takes a bit of time to get into, but once you start to put together the pieces of the puzzle and realize that Rill and Avery and the old woman she meets are all connected, the journey to get there is worth every word.

MVP: Rill. She has been through so much and has been forced to grow up very fast at a very young age. She has no choice. But she does it with vigor and comes out on the other side.

Get Before We Were Yours now in paperback for $10.29.

Or get it on your Kindle for $12.99.

Review: The Storyteller’s Secret

Recap: It’s after Jaya’s third miscarriage that her marriage falls apart. A journalist in New York, she is at a loss. She no longer has her husband to turn to for support, and her relationship with her mother has always been difficult, lacking love and support. It’s around this time that Jaya learns the grandfather she never knew is dying. He lives in India, where her parents were born, but her mother has no interest in returning home to see her father. Confused and alone, desperately seeking comfort and support in her family, Jaya decides to visit India, to get away from her own problems and to meet her grandfather and learn why he sent her mother away to America many years ago.

By the time she arrives, he has already passed. Inside her mother’s childhood home, she instead finds Ravi, her mother and grandmother’s servant. Ravi welcomes Jaya instantly and over the course of several weeks shows Ravi around India and tells her about her grandparents. It’s a long saga about love, secrets and finding one’s own path. It’s a story that even Jaya’s mother knows nothing about. It’s a story that changes her perception of her life, world and family forever. In looking to the past, Jaya is able to better understand her present and re-shape her future.

Analysis: In its simplest form, the plot of The Storyteller’s Secret sounds like the start of Eat, Pray, Love: woman’s life falls apart, woman sets out on journey across the world, woman finds herself. But Secret also adds the element of the past. The story also changes time periods and storytellers, switching back and forth between Jaya and her grandmother, Amisha, decades earlier. It gives the story an extra layer of depth and mystery that the read is dying to uncover. I found I could not put this book down, desperately wanting to know what happened in Jaya’s family history and how it affected her today.

The title of the book is a reference to so much storytelling that’s happening here: the narration from both Jaya and Amish, the story of Jaya’s past as told to her by Ravi, and the storytelling that Jaya does as a journalist and that her grandmother used to do as a writer and writing teacher. The parallels between Jaya and her unknown grandmother are beautiful and help to deepen the bond between Jaya and her mother. The story is moving in its statements about different cultures and especially womanhood: relationships between women, the strength of women and the sacrifices they make for their families.

The Storyteller’s Secret is a powerful, unstoppable read that makes you laugh, cry, think and feel. A truly excellent story.

MVP: Ravi. While the women are the focus of this book, Ravi may be the real star, the glue that binds together the woman of generations past and present, telling the stories that Amisha is unable to tell in her death. His generosity and love knows no bounds.

Get The Storyteller’s Secret in paperback now for $8.97.

Or get it on your Kindle for free.

Review: That Crazy Perfect Someday

Recap: The year is 2024. Self-driving cars are the norm. Surfing is an Olympic sport. And Mafuri Long is hoping to win the gold medal in the sport against her arch nemesis Kimberly Masters. But in the middle of her surf game and focus are her father and his ongoing mental health problems, the loss of her mother still eating at her all these years later and her best friend getting married and being MIA.

At her best friend’s wedding, she befriends her little brother Nixon — who she’s not interested in romantically, but who “gets her” as a person. She continues riding waves so well, her coach is assured she’ll likely win gold at the upcoming Paris Olympics. Her dad swears he’ll behave himself while she practices for the last few weeks before the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

But suddenly her world implodes when Kimberly Masters starts a rumor that Mafuri is doping, and in her time back home in the States to deal with her legal battle, something completely unforeseeable ruins her shot at the 2024 Olympics. Her dreams are crushed, and so is Mafuri. All that she’s been working for has been for naught. Now it’s time to find out what she really wants, besides surfing. And suddenly, her world changes again.

Analysis: Author Michael Mazza takes what could be an obviously predictable story and instead turns it on its head. Not reading much about the book before actually reading it, I just assumed this would be the story of a girl accomplishing all her dreams. But it’s not. And it’s even better because of it.

So many obstacles are thrown Mafuri’s way — from the quasi-absurd to  what I imagine would be the norm seven years from now. (Speaking of which, Mazza does an awesome job of creatively portraying what things might be like by 2024 with his depiction of self-driving cars, drones, and updated cell phone and medical technology.)

Mafuri is completely broken down two-thirds of the way into the novel. But breaking her down only helps to build her back up, and while I enjoyed the surfing storyline, she ultimately became empowered when her surfing dreams were crushed and she found a new dream and goal to work toward.  In the end, That Crazy Perfect Someday is really a story about family. The ending doesn’t answer all questions but leaves you with the feeling that everything’s going to be okay, and after seeing what she’s gone through, okay is more than enough.

MVP: Mafuri. She is a badass who knows her worth, knows her power, makes her own decisions and bounces back from anything. Things aren’t easy, and she knows it. She gets down on herself and her world like anyone else. But eventually she keeps on going, and her resilience is inspiring.

Get That Crazy Perfect Someday in paperback for $11.55. 

Or get it on your Kindle for $10.97.

Review: True Colors

Recap: Winona, Aurora and Vivi Ann Grey have been three peas in a pod since childhood, sisters brought especially close together after the death of their mother when they were young. But as they hit their 20s and they started to go their separate ways, tensions grew between them. Winona remained single but excelled in her career. Aurora started a family, acting as the peacekeeper in the family. Vivi Ann remained a beautiful free spirit, inheriting the talents of her mother: riding horses. Vivi Ann is her father’s favorite as he grows increasingly depressed and ornery over the years after the loss of his wife.

But then Vivi Ann meets Dallas, an Indian in their world of cowboys and ranches. Hired as a ranch hand on their farm, Dallas feels immediately connected to Vivi Ann, and she to him. But she’s already engaged to “the perfect man” Luke Connelly, who just so happens to be Winona’s high school crush. Vivi Ann’s decision followed by  a murder in the town that involves her family sends the story off into the stratosphere and the Grey family spiraling .

Analysis: Like other Kristin Hannah books, the story is told through the eyes of each of the sisters, each chapter revolving between points of view, helping to paint a brighter picture of each character. Aurora, the girls’ father and Dallas remain the most underdeveloped as the story really focuses more on the oldest (Winona) and youngest (Vivi Ann) sisters.

After the scene it set initially, the book seems to move in one direction but then makes a stark turn around a third of the way into the book with the murder plot. For a story about sisters who have lost their mom, have a disconnected father and have a stranger enter their lives, it felt a little unnecessary to throw in any more drama. That said, the book really moves initially and slows down in the middle to end. There’s a period in which a long time passes in the book and the story seems to drag because of it, then rushing into a neatly wrapped up ending.

I really enjoyed the book while reading it and loved the story. I enjoyed the development of the relationship between Winona and Vivi Ann too — a sister relationship that no one would understand but sisters. I just wish both the amount of time that passed in the lives of the characters and the literal number of pages it took me to get there were a bit more concise.

MVP: Winona. At times she was pathetic and extremely bitter, but of all the sisters, she still seemed to be the one who most had her life together. She may have been defiant at times, she’s a woman who knew what she wanted.

Get True Colors in paperback for $10.

Or get it on your Kindle for $9.99.

Review: All the Best People

Recap: There are secrets abound between four women of three different generations in a small town in Vermont. It’s 1972, and Carole is a mother to twin sons and a daughter and wife to an auto shop owner. But suddenly her days are filled with more people than just those who she lives with; she starts hearing voices, hallucinating, wondering if she’s becoming “crazy,” just like her mother was.

The book flashes back and forth between Carole, her “crazy” mother Solange, her sister Janine, and her daughter Alison. We learn how and why Solange went “crazy,” why the relationship between Carole and her sister Janine is so complicated, and why Alison is struggling to grow up in a world full of women who seem as though they haven’t quite figured things out yet.

Alison doesn’t fit in at school and instead spends time crushing on her teacher. Aunt Janine is also crushing on the same teacher, as she works to find a new husband after hers died. Carole, meanwhile, is dealing with the voices, visiting her mother, wondering if she’s suffering from the same disease. All the Best People delves into the complexity of women, their relationships with men and each other and the constant struggle they endure between heart and mind. As the story continues, secrets are revealed to the reader and ultimately each other that help explain why they are the way they are and what that means for their future.

Analysis: It’s hard to write a true “recap” of a book like this because the plot of the novel comes from these four women living their everyday lives, truggling together, yet separately. Maybe it’s because I’m a woman or maybe it’s because I have trouble keeping my attention on one storyline at all times, but books formatted like All the Best People always work for me. It always helps to get in the minds of each of the main characters. Each character in this novel is so complicated, especially Carole. The way author Sonja Yoerg writes Carole’s chapters as she gets sicker and sicker is great; the writing parallels the symptoms of the character’s disease and helps us to better understand what she’s going through.

MVP: Carole and Alison. I’ve already explained why Carole is great, but Alison is brilliant. She’s completely aware of and in tune with everything going on in the world around her, no matter how young and “naive” she is. She’s the child in this story, but it’s clear in many ways she’s smarter than the adults around her.

Get All the Best People now in paperback for $8.82. 

Or get it on your Kindle for $11.99.

Review: The Tumbling Turner Sisters

Recap: Winnie and Gert come from an already poor family, but they’re about to be poorer. Thanks to their father’s drunken mishap and hand injury, he can no longer work in the factory where he’s employed, and now they, their mother, their two other sisters and baby nephew must find a way to keep going and pay the rent. Their older sister, Nell is too busy caring for her baby and too depressed over the loss of her husband to help. Their younger sister is still in school. But their mother is all too resilient to let the family fall apart. It’s the early 1900s. The solution is easy. Become a travelling vaudeville act. And that’s exactly what the sisters do.

They practice their tumbling and find an agent who books them gigs throughout Upstate New York. Along the way, Winnie meets a wonderful man who, unfortunately for her mother and her bias, is an Italian immigrant from Boston. His younger sister and Winnie’s younger sister become close friends as well. But Gert, the voluptuous older sister, falls for a black man, a fabulous tap dancer who performs in shows with them. Their love is kept secret for fear they would get in trouble. But a racially-induced misunderstanding eventually forces him to leave the show and escape, leaving Gert in shambles.

And as The Tumbling Turner Sisters continue travelling, adding things to their act and becoming bigger and better, it becomes harder or even impossible for Winnie and Gert to keep in touch with the men they love. They are finally reaching a state of comfort financially and emotionally until one tragic event changes everything. The girls start to realize vaudeville may not be forever, but where will The Tumbling Turner Sisters turn next?

Analysis: A story about four sisters growing up, working together, encouraging each other and trying to find their way in life, The Tumbling Turner Sisters is like a vaudevillian version of Little Women — a correlation made just a little too obvious with the author’s mention of the American classic within her own novel, as Winnie attempts to read Little Women, but is bored with it.

I suppose by contrast, The Tumbling Turner Sisters is more exciting than Little Women (though I will always love that book), and the narration helps with that. Each chapter goes back and forth between narration by Gert and Winnie, clearly the strongest characters in the novel and women in the family, offering differing perspectives on their lives, the theater and the world between 1918 and 1920.

Author Juliette Fay also does such an excellent job of seamlessly including historical aspects of the early 1900s America with her descriptions of vaudeville life that it helps to touch on the social issues of the novel, including  women’s role in society, racism and the economy. The setting is just as big a character as any, making it glaringly obvious just how far we’ve come since then (Women can vote! And go to college!) and yet, how little has changed in terms of racism. Her writing really puts things in perspective.

MVP: Winnie and Gert. Though initially described as sisters who couldn’t be more different — Winnie, the brainy type who wants to be a nurse and vote for the next President  and Gert, the Becky-with-the-Good-Hair of the novel who is beautiful and always has a suitor — they are also the most determined and focused on their goals and their family.

Get The Tumbling Turner Sisters in hardcover for $16.16.

Or on your Kindle for $12.99.

Review: On Grace

Recap: Grace May is both dreading and greatly looking forward to her 40th birthday. The idea of turning 40 is overwhelming for any women in this day and age, but she has a plan. Now that her sons are both going to elementary school full-time, she plans to go back to work part-time. She also wants to get back in shape and make time to reconnect with her husband, Darren, who’s seemed somewhat distant recently.

But then she learns the reason Darren has been distant; he reveals to Grace that he cheated on her a few months back, just once with a waitress on a business trip. Then Grace’s plan for a new job falls apart, and major life-changing news comes down about her best friend, Cameron. In a matter of weeks, Grace’s plan and vision of turning 40 is slipping through her fingers. Everything is falling apart at once. And her inherent need to be perfect isn’t making things any easier. Can she handle it all and persevere? Can she do it if it means changing the kind of person she is and changing her attitude? Is 39-going-on-40 too late in life to make that change?

Analysis: Susie Schnall’s On Grace reveals the spinning mind of a modern-day 40-year-old woman and how difficult it is to balance all of the important things in her life: marriage, children, work, and friends. And for Grace, it’s all about “doing it with grace.” Taken from a first-person point of view, the reader sees the inner workings of Grace’s neurotic mind, and as neurotic as it is, it is completely and utterly relatable. Reading On Grace, I felt so much better about myself, knowing that there are other women whose minds spin and run wild in the way that mine does at times. I think it’s safe to say it’s a woman thing, and Susie Schnall does a nice job of portraying that.

When everything falls apart in Grace’s life, weeks pass in the novel, proving that cleaning up the mess is no easy or time-efficient task. In an odd twist, however, the future of Grace and Darren’s marriage lies in the hands of Darren. That was my one issue with the book; in a book about women and how strong they must be, ultimately the final and most important decision made at the end of the novel is still made by a man. Ultimately, the future of their marriage was dependent on him. But in the end, Grace did have a happy 40th birthday, despite the unexpected, negative turns she had to take to get there.

MVP: Grace’s best friend, Cameron. As much as Grace has to deal with, Cameron has even more. She is easily the strongest woman in the novel, not only putting on a brave face and handling things matter-of-factly, but doing it with a positive attitude and outlook — something that everyone needs, especially in the most difficult of times.

Get On Grace in paperback for $13.50.

Or on your Kindle for $9.99.

Esquire Publishing Men’s Fiction E-Books

Children’s fiction. Young adult fiction. Women’s fiction. And now, men’s fiction. Esquire is trying to define what men’s fiction is by regularly publishing a new series of e-books written by men, starting this month.

According to The New York Times, the first volume became available yesterday, including short stories by Aaron Gwyn, Luis Alberto Urrea and Jess Walter. The stories are only being sold in e-book format. Another volume will follow every few months. Another three pieces will be published in the June/July issue of Esquire.

The new fiction pieces coming to the publication are important, especially as Esquire continues to pull out of the recession. Julie Bosman explains.

David Granger, the editor in chief of Esquire, said he has lamented the loss of space that magazines devoted to publishing fiction. The New Yorker is perhaps the most visible home for fiction in the magazine world, but many other magazines have cut back.

”It’s a struggle, because especially during the recession, we lost so many pages,” he said. ”Fiction begins to feel a little bit of a luxury.”

Do you think the new publications will open people’s eyes to men’s fiction? How do you define men’s fiction?

Male vs. Female Authors: The Double Standard

How likely is it that a man goes to a bookstore and purchases a pink book with a picture of a stiletto on it? Or a little girl on a farm? How likely is it that a woman goes to a bookstore and purchases a red book with bold, black typeface and some kind of faraway landscape? The fact of the matter is people really do judge books by their covers. And if that book seems remotely feminine and has a female author, a man will likely move on to the next shelf.

According to this important essay in The New York Times, “women’s fiction” consists of books that are written by women. But they’re not necessarily for women. And they certainly aren’t always “chick lit.” But many tend to lump women’s fiction and chick lit together — identifying these books as silly, quick reads about women and their romantic relationships with men as well as their friendships with other women. Essayist Meg Wolitzer uses Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot as an example of the exception to the rule — a book that has mainly feminine themes, but is written by a male. It’s been hugely successful, but women write books with similar content and themes all the time and don’t get nearly as much recognition. Is it simply because they’re women?

Furthermore, women’s fiction and chick lit are not the same. Women’s fiction can be as serious as any man’s book. And whereas a woman tends to be open to reading a book written by a man, men aren’t necessarily as inclined to read books written by women, as Meg Wolitzer explains.

Recently at a social gathering, when a guest found out I was a writer, he asked, “Would I have heard of you?” I dutifully told him my name — no recognition, fine, I’m not that famous — and then, at his request, I described my novels. “You know, contemporary, I guess,” I said. “Sometimes they’re about marriage. Families. Sex. Desire. Parents and children.” After a few uncomfortable moments he called his wife over, announcing that she, who “reads that kind of book,” was the one I ought to talk to. When I look back on that encounter, I see a lost opportunity. When someone asks, “Would I have heard of you?” many female novelists would be tempted to answer, “In a more just world.”

Wolitzer explains that women’s books are actually less reviewed, according to statistics gathered by a women’s literary organization called VIDA. She talks about the length of books, their covers, their jackets. But ultimately it all comes back to who has written the book. Wolitzer goes into incredible depth with this essay, and I urge you to read it in its entirety. While I often don’t think much about who wrote the book I’m reading, it’s something I’ll begin to consider now.