Category: Fiction

The blurb on the front of this book says it all in a nutshell: “Painfully beautiful…At once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative, and a celebration of nature.”

In Where The Crawdads Sing, Kya Clark, aka the “Marsh Girl,” is the ultimate outcast. But she didn’t choose to be this way. Instead, family circumstance and society led her there. Innocent, curious, suspicious, eccentric, we follow Kya throughout her lifetime. We root for her, we feel her longing, we hope for changes in her life. Those changes happen in dramatic ways, which I will let you discover for yourself. Suffice to say, she is greatly influenced by how she is treated (aren’t we all?) This brings the nature vs. nurture debate to the surface and forces readers to reexamine relationships in their own lives.

This is a book that has been in my Wish List and Holds for simply ages. It was worth the wait. It’s amazing to think that this is the author’s debut novel. Wow.

I will add that Kya finds herself in some sexual situations of about a PG-13 rating. Her solitude and wildness also affect her language and manners. But nothing feels gratuitous. All of it is part of her story, and that story is gripping.

9.5/10 Stars

First in a series that I may or may not pursue, The Cousins is about three teenagers who are invited to work at a resort on an island owned by their grandparents. This invitation comes out of the blue because their parents have all been cut off–emotionally and financially–for reasons they say they don’t understand.

Each chapter is told through the viewpoint of a different character. There are twists, turns, and deceptions aplenty as the cousins scramble to understand the long-held secrets in their family.

When I say that I may or may not pursue the rest of the series, it is only because the book felt plodding with an anti-climatic ending. After the labyrinth we are taken through, I think the reader deserves better.

8/10 Stars

When I was a student at BYU, I took a wonderful film class with Dr. Donald Marshall. He would send us to the university’s International Cinema (really a large lecture hall with a big screen) to watch films that have made their mark in history. Death in Venice, with Dirk Bogarde, was one of those films. Dr. Marshall advised us to pay attention to the marriage of visuals and Gustav Mahler’s haunting music. But it is only recently that I read the book.

In the wrong hands and seen through the wrong eyes, the character of Gustav von Aschenbach could be viewed as a creepy pedophile. He does, after all, follow a boy through the streets and beaches of Venice. But this is not a story about lust. It is a story about beauty and its fragility. Gustav is a famous composer, sensitive and protective of the elegant Polish boy, Tadzio. Meanwhile, a merciless epidemic is sweeping through the city, leaving much death in its wake.

As a naturally visual person, I am glad I saw the film first, even though it has been nearly thirty years. But it made an impression, and I was able to conjure up those decades-old images while reading Thomas Mann’s classic novel. We are in Gustav’s mind the entire time. We feel his longing, his pain, and his mortality. Like in the film, there is little dialogue, especially between the two main characters. Just an invisible cosmic thread that binds them together, like artist and subject. It is singularly unique.

9/10 Stars

It is always interesting when one of a book’s main characters has already passed away. The challenge, however, is not to make the deceased more interesting than the living. Unfortunately, this was not fully achieved in Christine Gael’s novel, Maeve’s Girls.

Maeve Blanchard is dead. She leaves a legacy of bootlegging, multiple marriages, riverboat gambling and, possibly, murder. For better or worse, she’s a tough act to follow. And that is exactly the task silently set forth for her daughters as they meet in La Pierre, Louisiana to settle Maeve’s estate and face their own personal demons.

There is Lena, the oldest, who left home at sixteen after being a surrogate mother to her three younger sisters most of her life. She’s headstrong and contrary. Kate, the second sister, is trapped in a stagnant marriage and acts as the group’s peacemaker. Sasha, the fiery third, is promiscuous, emotional, and unpredictable. Maggie, the youngest, was adopted by Maeve after her mother died. She’s level-headed, but always feels like an outsider.

Little Women this is not. Maeve’s chaotic history invites new drama into the lives of the sisters. Factor in the ultimatum Maeve included in her will which forces the women to live in her house for three months and it’s a hybrid version of Big Brother and the Kardashians.

The calming characters are the men: Joe Fletcher, the handsome sheriff who has eyes for Lena; Alastair, Maeve’s attorney; and Harry, Maeve’s rock-solid best friend.

A prerequisite for any novel is that the reader must care for the main characters. Without that emotional investment, it’s just lackluster voyeurism. That was the problem with Maeve’s Girls–I just didn’t care about any of them. It didn’t matter to me if they found love, success, or closure. In the end, Maeve was the real protagonist and the one whose story I would’ve liked to read in its entirety.

7.5/10 Stars