A Thousand Splendid Suns

As I have posted previously, I really liked The Kite Runner, Khalad Hosseini's first novel, and I was eagerly anticipating reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. I was not disappointed. Hosseini takes us back to Kabul, Afghanistan again from the time before the Soviet invasion through the Taliban take over. Unlike in The Kite Runner, the main characters were not able to escape the country and so we live through these tumultuous decades with them. Mariam and Laila are very different women approximately 15 years apart in age, but they end up married to the same man. As Hosseini tells both of their stories he is also telling the story of many Afghan women who lived through the Soviet-run period (women are equal to men) and the Taliban-run time (women will not show their faces). Although written simply, Marian and Laila became vivid to my imagination and I found that I cared very much about what would happen to them. It was difficult to read about the sorrows of the Afghan people, but an important education in a culture I am not too familiar with.

The Sharing Knife-Beguilement

As I've mentioned before, I am not a particular fan of the fantasy genre. I have made another exception with one of my favorite authors: Lois McMasters Bujold. She is the author of the wonderful "Miles" series (sf) as I call it, so I decided to give Beguilement a chance based also on the recommendation of my friend, Cathy. Beguilement is the first volume in a series called The Sharing Knife. We meet Fawn and Dag, the two main characters who meet very unexpectedly and end up falling in love. I'm not giving anything away, it's on the back of the book cover. Fawn is the youngest child of a family of farmers and has run away to start a new life in a town. Dag is a Lakewalker patroller who is separated from his group and rescues Fawn. Lakewalkers are people who practice magic and fight secret evil forces to protect all others. The magic and fantasy part of the book are not overwhelming and, therefore, not a put off to someone like myself. Fawn and Dag are incredibly likable and I found myself in a state of wishing I could know them. This book is well written (goes without saying with Ms. Bujold!) and the characters are relatable even if in a world that is unlike our own. I have already ordered the second volume from my book club.

The Handmaid's Tale

I had high hopes for this book. I really did. I kept reading and waiting and yet....I just kept feeling like I was rereading 1984. Same basic structure: a major country has been overthrown by a controlling, murderous, and mysterious group. All who could not escape live in a world without freedom or privacy. The main character is Offred, who narrates the story of her life as a handmaid. At some point, most of the world has become sterile and so procreating is controlled by the government. Handmaids are young, hopefully fertile, women who are owned by higher ranking officers to become pregnant, give birth, and then be tossed aside so the wives can raise the babies as their own. The story is creepy, but the plot felt unoriginal, and the pacing was for snails. I know I'm unpopular with this opinion and Margaret Atwood is a highly respected author, but I don't feel like I can recommend it to anyone who has limited reading time when there are so many other great books to read.

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones was my first read from Alice Sebold and I was not disappointed. A copy sat on my bookshelf for about a year when I saw a preview for a movie based on the book. Of course, it was time to read it if I was ever going to get to it. (Because, as any reader knows, the book is always better than the movie.) The Lovely Bones is told from the perspective of Susie Salmon after she has been raped and killed by a neighbor. I think I was sold on the book when she names her assailant within the first chapter. I was expecting the identity of her killer to be revealed throughout the book in some sort of predictable manner. Susie was killed in 1973 when she was 14 and she narrates the next decade of her family's life as she observes from "her heaven" but is not able to interact with them. Ms. Sebold writes from Susie's perspective with a genuine voice for a young teenager gaining clarity on what has happened to her. Although sad at times (obviously) the story is also funny and thought provoking.

Entombed

Although mystery/detective novels are not usually my genre of choice I really enjoyed the story, setting, pacing, and characters in this book. It is the seventh in a series of mysteries with Alexandra Cooper as the heroin. She is a prosecutor for special victims crimes in New York City. Entombed intertwines an old case for her, the Silk Stocking Rapist, and a new case involving the uncovering of the remains of a young woman behind the wall of a building that Edgar Allen Poe once lived. I really liked Linda Fairstein's use of Poe's poems and stories as a device to propel the plot forward and educate the reader simultaneously.

Beginner's Greek

Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl's phone number. Boy and girl meet approximately 10 years later. Will they ever get together? Well, we all know the answer to that. Although somewhat formulaic, the path to getting together was interesting as it wove the couple's story with their acquaintances, family, and friends. Although I felt out of my league with the higher-end living of New York City as a setting, I still enjoyed the descriptions of furniture, artwork, and buildings. Peter and Holly (boy and girl) are both very likeable main characters, which really kept up my incentive for reading. Beginner's Greek is a good read if one is in the mood for "chick-lit".

The Help

I think only a native to Mississippi could write such an engrossing tale of the ties and tensions between white women and the black maids who work for them in 1962. Kathryn Stockett wrote the first person narratives (there are three of them) with confidence and honesty. The three narrators are Skeeter, a young white woman fresh from college and looking for her place in life, Aibileen, an older black maid who is mourning her only son's death, and Minny, a younger black maid with a husband and kids to help support even though her smart alec remarks keep her from being able to hold onto a job for too long. The three of them begin a project which is dangerous for all of their lives: they write down the stories of maids in the homes they work in with hopes that it will become published. The Help is very personal, but also has historical threads running through it that keep it grounded. I highly recommend this book.