What I'm Reading: "March"

As someone who loved Little Women and spent a short time in her early life wishing she could be Jo March, even for just one day - I was excited to finally read March by Geraldine Brooks. (Yes, I know it  won the Pulitzer Prize way back in 2006, but if you could see my TBR list, you would understand why it took me so long to get around to this)

March follows the father of the "Little Women" during the time he is absent from the original classic tale. It brings to life the previously untold story of his service as a chaplain in the Union army, as well as the back story of how he and Marmee met and fell in love. 

I feel that it's an interesting story. Good, but not great. It took me a while to get into the story as well as the characters. Papa March and Marmee are not exactly the kindly, understanding, loving characters we know from Little Women.  Mr. March is a bit self-centered for my taste.  But that very flaw is a big part of what drives his actions and the plot. My feelings about this book swung wildly from frustration to being completely enthralled.

March is also not an easy read.  Ms. Brooks doesn't paint a sugar-coated picture about the horrors of war, battlefield hospitals, or slavery. If you are sensitive to violence or brutality, you may want to give it a pass.

If you are looking for another Little Women, this isn't it.  If you are looking for a well-written alternate story to that childhood classic - pick up a copy of March.

⭐⭐⭐

What I'm Reading Wednesday: The Nature of Fragile Things

I featured this book last Wednesday on my Instagram, but I didn't get around to writing a blog post for it, so... here ya go!:  The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner 

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops a deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.

Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.  

The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear. (Description courtesy GoodReads)

This was a good story. Well written. Set against an interesting historical event.  I know that so many people really love this book.  And while I enjoyed it, overall it fell a little flat for me.  My problem is that I can't quite put my finger on why exactly that is the case. With the exception of Sophie, none of the other characters ever really came to life in my imagination, feeling more like bland stereotypical background characters.  Perhaps it's because I was hoping for more from the scenes involving the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and it's aftermath.  Maybe I just wasn't in the right headspace to fully enjoy the novel.  (shrug)

Please, don't get me wrong... It's a very good novel.  A nice distraction. And I don't regret reading it.  But, it just fell a little short of expectations for me.  

What I'm Reading Wednesday: When the Stars Go Dark

 Honestly, if you asked me - I would probably say that I don't care for thrillers.  Yet, I always read a few each year and almost always end up enjoying them.  So... take that for what it is.   One fine example of this is my most recent read:  When The Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain.  

Anna Hart is a missing persons detective in San Francisco. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna's childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever.

As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in.

Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives--and our faith in one another. (Description from GoodReads)

I have very much enjoyed Paula McLain's novels of historical fiction that I read but was a little hesitant to read this mystery/suspense novel. 

After personal tragedy shakes up the life of Anna Hart, a detective who specializes in finding missing children,  she flees to the small town where she found comfort from her troubled childhood with her loving and supportive (and now deceased) foster parents.  When she arrives, she finds that a young girl has recently disappeared and quickly becomes tangled up in the investigation.

When the Stars Go Dark expertly combines the fictional tale of the search for a missing girl in northern California with references to real-life missing person cases from the same time period, such as the disappearance of Polly Klaas.

I founded the story a little slow to start.  It took me a while to get through about the first third of the book.  But once it got rolling, I didn't want to put it down.

My one warning about this book is that if you are sensitive to books that contain child abuse/neglect, murder and/or violence, or sexual assault - give this one a pass.  

What I'm Reading Wednesday: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Out of sight, out of mind. We've all heard the expression.  But imagine truly living this to the extreme.  Imagine that as soon as you were out of someone's eyesight they completely forgot about you.  That's the case for the title character in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. (description via GoodReads.com)

It is fascinating to follow along as Addie learns to navigate a world where no one remembers her once they leave the room, or fall asleep.  Making it impossible to make friends, get a job, or even rent a room for the night.  I ached for her in parts and felt frustration at her for some of the choices she makes along the way.

There were a few details of the story that kind of made me pause.  For instance, Addie can spend an entire day with someone - drinking coffee or at a bar - but no one ever had to go to the bathroom or anything else that would cause them to leave her for all that time?  Ok... (shrug).  It's not a big thing, and easily forgotten. (kind of like Addie herself)

Over the centuries, Addie's focus becomes finding a way to leave her mark on the world.  To tell her stories. And in a way, deep down, isn't that what we all want?

All in all, it's an interesting premise for a novel and I enjoyed the read. 

 

Hemmingway's Third Wife

Thanks to Netgalley, I recently had the opportunity to read the new novel Love and Ruin by Paula McLain in exchange for an honest review...

Love and Ruin is a work of historical fiction which tracks the relationship of Hemmingway to his third wife, the famed war journalist Martha Gellhorn. 

Ms McLain takes us along from their initial meeting while Martha is on family vacation in Key West following the death of her father, to the Spanish Civil War where Hemmingway has encouraged her to follow him as her mentor and wastes no time making her his lover.  Their life together in the lushness of Cuba, to the vastness wilderness of Wyoming.  I found the story of this relationship to be a tumultuous journey of passion, love, and personal and professional jealous between two childish, selfish, volatile people which could only end exactly as it does.

Ms McLain is a beautiful writer of great talent.  I only wish she could find more likeable characters to bring to life.