Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Lisa See

Set in China in the early to mid 1800s.

When Snow Flower and Lily were kids, their friendship was arranged by Madame Wang. A contract is drawn up and the girls agree to it and it is supposed to last as long as they are alive. It was a way, perhaps, to give women a relationship that was closer and longer lasting than those of the marital relationship. Because marriages were arranged, love was not a factor and men often took concubines when their wives became older or when the man became bored. So the sworn friend provided that long term, loving relationship lacking in marriage. 

The two girls do become good friends and grow up together and when they can't be together, they send each other messages written in the folds of an ornate fan which becomes a simple history of their lives. 

At first, it is clear to Lily that Snow Flower comes from a higher status family than her own. Snow Flower's clothes are nicer, her speech and manners more refined and her ignorance of household chores indicates those chores are taken care of by servants. Lily teaches Snow Flower the tasks that Lily performs every day, cooking, cleaning, caring for the elderly and the little kids. And Snow Flower teaches Lily the refinements she has been taught in turn. 

Foot binding was common in China at the time. I am not going to discuss a custom that I feel is depraved and barbaric except to say it was part of a young woman's appeal to a potential husband. Because Lily's bound feet were considered particularly appealing, she became the wife of man of higher status and privilege than her humble farming family.

However, even though Snow Flower's bound feet were also considered beautiful, she did not find a high status spouse but instead was married to a butcher. Snow Flower's father was a drug addict and a gambler and he bankrupted his family and a butcher was the best Snow Flower could do for a mate. 

It's not surprising that Lily and Snow Flower were not that close, given the disparity in their adult lives. As Lily's fortunes rose, Snow Flower's declined. Add to that the stress of a war that sent the people fleeing for their lives from their villages to shelter in the distant hills. Lily and Snow Flower became more dissatisfied with each other. While Lily wanted Snow Flower to try harder to improve her life and the lives of her family, Snow Flower wanted Lily to accept her and her life for what it was without nagging her to do better. Lily became distraught and cut Snow Flower out of her life. It was only as Snow Flower was dying that Lily came to understand how she had failed her lifelong friend.

This was a fairly interesting story. I have to admit that I hated the way women were treated in it, everything about the coldness and cruelty made me angry and distressed. On the other hand, the Chinese civilization is thousands of years old and apparently that system worked for them, as vile as it seems to me. 

This is not a happy story, the lives of the women as described in the book are miserable. They are hemmed about by rules and traditions and limited in every way, even the better off women have very little freedom and very little choice in how they live their lives. Throughout the story, we are reminded that women were viewed as evil and as a burden to the families unfortunate enough to produce them. Such sad, miserable lives and I was not sorry to be finished with the story.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Savannah or A Gift for Mr. Lincoln

 

By John Jakes

Set in late 1874, this is the story of the citizens of Savannah, Georgia on the eve of the takeover of the town by General Sherman, the Union general famous for the trail of destruction he left behind as he and his army advanced across Georgia in 1864.

The main character is spunky Hattie Lester, twelve, the only child of an landowning widow whose spouse died in the war. Hattie is an ardent supporter of the Southern cause, mainly because her father died for it. 

As Sherman draws closer, the citizens of Savannah are understandably nervous, given the destruction for which he is famous. As the Union forces draw nearer, Hattie and her mother leave their rice plantation and move in with a family friend, Vee, a spinster piano teacher in Savannah. Vee lives in constant fear of being attacked by looters, thieves or Union troops. That is until she makes the acquaintance of a wounded Yankee soldier, who was shot defending her and her home from Yankee looters. 

Meanwhile, Hattie gets into a confrontation with General Sherman and kicks him in the ankle. At the time, she did not know who he was. But whether that would have made a difference in her actions is debatable. The General becomes a benefactor to Hattie because he is missing his own family and she reminds him of his daughter. (I believe this part of the story is entirely made up.)

In the end, the fearful citizens of Savannah had little to fear from Sherman and his arrival ended the Northern blockade of the city, which enabled food and goods to once again enter the city at a time when resources had grown very thin for many people there.

This was a pretty good read, if a bit pat in its handing of the different plots in the story. I did find the first part of the book much less interesting than the later part where the Union Army took over the city. 

Here is a review by the Historical Novel Society.

The Last Kids on Earth

 

By Max Brallier, Art by Brian Churilla

It's an ordinary day and four kids are on their way to school when everything falls apart. Most humans suddenly become zombies and giant, vicious monsters appear everywhere. 

The four kids scatter and thirteen-year-old Jack ends up living in a tree house alone. After struggling to survive for several weeks, he manages to contact his good friend, Quint, the science nerd. Later on Jack and Quint bring the school bully into their gang. Dirk, the bully, is just trying to survive like Jack and Quint and he is strong and brave and a good man to have on your side in a brawl. 

Jack has a crush on a girl, June, and he is determined to see if she has survived the monster/zombie apocalypse and he and his pals head out into a monster plagued world to locate June. Or die trying?

A child, 10 to 13 years old, might enjoy this graphic novel. It's nicely illustrated in full color. Jack and his friends are intrepid and manage to take care of themselves all by themselves. 

I read the book to make sure it was OK to give as a Christmas present. And it is OK. But, wow, was it boring! Kids might not find it so, but I sure did.

FGTeeV Blasts Off

 

By the YouTube stars known as FGTeeV and FV Family; Illustrated by Miguel Díaz Rívas

The FV family, Duddy, Moomy, Lexi, Mike, Chase and Shawn visits the National Space Center and end up taking an unauthorized trip in an experimental space ship. They get tricked into going on an intergalactic trip to find several vital artifacts that are crucial to the survival of humankind, or so they are led to believe. Turns out that was a lie put forth by a conniving little troll known as Xyle, the game store owner with whom the family is very familiar.

Anyways, they have exciting and improbable adventures on exciting and improbable planets and end up bringing a disaster back to Earth where the truth is revealed about Xyle. But the family steps up and counters his evil plans through a variety of video game challenges. 

This was a fairly interesting story, even though meant to entertain kids, which I expect it does. I enjoyed it and was surprised by the Xyle plot.  

I must admit that I have no idea who these YouTubers are. The book claims they are very popular which I suppose is true. I don't watch YouTube for kids. I bought this book as a gift and read it to make sure it was appropriate for the person I am giving it to. Which it is. It's pretty good, really.

Living in the Country Growing Weird

 

By Dennis Parks

From the University of Nevada Press:

"In 1972, Dennis Parks, a young potter with a promising academic career ahead of him, decided to move to Tuscarora, a near-abandoned mining town in remote northeastern Nevada. Parks and his wife were attracted to Tuscarora's isolation and beautiful setting, and they believed that it might be a healthy environment in which to raise their two small sons. This is Parks' account of his family's life in Tuscarora, a tiny settlement whose population even forty years later numbers fewer than twenty permanent residents.
Parks created a pottery school that attracts students from around the world and developed for himself an international reputation as the creator of powerful, innovative works in clay. Meanwhile, he and his family had to master the skills required of those who choose to live in the back country--growing and hunting their own food, renovating or building from scratch the structures they needed for residences or studios, resolving conflicts with neighbors, inventing their own amusements. The transformation from middle-class urbanity to small-town simplicity is, as Parks reveals, a lurching and sometimes hilarious process, and the achievement of self-sufficiency is similarly fraught with unexpected challenges."



Dennis and his wife Julie made a good life for themselves and their two boys in the very isolated town of Tuscarora. They managed to make ends meet without feeling too deprived of the finer things in life, according to what he writes in his book. One of his sons, Ben, joined his dad at the pottery school and continued on with it after Parks passed in 2021.

You can find out more about his life in this obituary on the Legacy.com website.

This was an inspiring read and makes the simple life seem very appealing. It has lots of black and white photos in it but their quality is rather poor.

The First Eagle

 

By Tony Hillerman

A policeman, Benny Kinsman, is investigating a tip he received that a man known for poaching is back at it again. So Officer Kinsman heads out into the wilds of northern Arizona to catch the poacher, Robert Jano, in the act of capturing an eagle, a protected species. 

Acting Lieutenant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal Police is expecting Kinsman in his office for a meeting and when Kinsman doesn't show up, Chee goes looking for him. He finds the poacher, Jano, standing over Kinsman's body and immediately arrests Jano.

Meanwhile retired policeman Joe Leaphorn has been hired by a woman to find her missing niece, Catherine Pollard. Pollard went missing the same day as Officer Kinsman was attacked. Leaphorn doesn't believe in coincidences and agrees to try to find the missing woman. He seeks out Officer Chee, seeking to speak to Jano to find out if he noticed Pollard when he was in the area or if he had seen the jeep she was driving. Leaphorn finds out that a jeep was seen by a local not too far from the area where Kinsman was killed. And Chee finds out that Jano also saw a jeep while he was out poaching eagles. Using this information, the jeep is located and there is blood on the driver's seat. It begins to look like Kinsman's murder is possibly connected to Pollard's disappearance. And that Jano is not the killer.

This was an OK read. There is some rather technical stuff about scientists investigating diseases carried by animals that can spread to humans, namely bubonic plague and hantavirus. Of course this figures into the plot and it is not a red herring. But the killer's motive came as a complete surprise to me and made sense in a sad way. One can only hope that the killer's conclusion about the fate of humankind doesn't happen.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

These Old Shades

 

By Georgette Heyer

The story is summarized by the author herself towards the end of the novel:

'"Once upon a time—there were two brothers. I have forgotten their names, but since they detested each other, I will call them Cain and—er—Abel ... The hatred grew and flourished until I believe there was nothing one brother would not do to spite the other."

"Cain, being the elder of these two brothers, succeeded in due course to his father ... Cain's succession but added fuel to the fire of hatred, and whereas our friend Abel was consumed of a desire to stand in his brother's shoes, Cain was consumed of a like desire to keep him out of them ... Cain took a wife unto himself and doubtless thought himself secure ... But ... the years went by, and still there came no son to gladden Cain's heart ... Abel ... grew more and more jubilant, and I fear he did not hesitate to make—er—a jest of his brother's ill-luck. [Cain's wife] raised her husband's hope once more. This time Cain determined that there should be no mistake. When madame's time was upon her, he carried her off to his estates, where she was delivered of—a daughter." ... Now observe the cunning of Cain. On his estate ... there dwelt a farm-labourer ... whose wife had just presented him with a second son ... [Cain] bribed this peasant to give him his lusty son in exchange for his daughter."

"Cain presently brought his family back to Paris ... leaving instructions that his daughter's foster-father was to leave his estate for some remote spot ... For twelve years [Cain's daughter] remained in the heart of the country, with her foster-parents, and was reared as their own child ... A plague struck down both foster-father and mother, but my heroine escaped, as did also her foster-brother ... She ... was taken to Paris by her foster-brother, a youth many years her senior ... He bought a tavern in one of the meanest and most noisome of your [Paris] streets. And since it was inconvenient for him to have a girl of my heroine's tender years upon his hands, he dressed her as a boy ... I shall not discompose you by telling you of her life in this guise ... Further, he married a slut whose care was to ill-use my heroine in every conceivable way. At this woman's hands she suffered for seven long years ... During those years she learned to know Vice, to Fear, and to know the meaning of that ugly word Hunger. I do not know how she survived."

"Then ... Fate stepped in again, and cast my heroine across the path of a man who had never had cause to love our friend Cain. Into this man's life came my heroine. He was struck by her likeness to Cain, and of impulse he bought her from her foster-brother. He had waited for many years to pay in full a debt he owed Cain; in this child he saw a possible means to do so..."'

So there you have it, pretty much the whole plot of the story. The girl, Leonie, is found by the Duke of Avon, an English lord visiting Paris. Her unusual coloring, bright red hair and striking black eyebrows and lashes grabs his attention. At first, the Duke believes she is a by-blow of his enemy, the Comte de Saint-Vire, a French nobleman that the Duke had a run-in with years ago. Comte too has bright red hear and striking black eyebrows. Doesn't take the Duke long to figure out that the person he thought was a teenage boy is in fact a young woman. Being an intelligent man, he realizes that Leonie was given up by the Comte as described above. This knowledge is the weapon the Duke will use to bring the Comte to his doom. And in the process the Duke will lose his heart to a beautiful, wild young woman who is twenty years younger than he is.

This is a very interesting tale. In the first part Leonie serves the Duke as a page, but eventually he sends her to Britain to learn to be a young noblewoman. Then he brings her back to Paris and introduces her to Paris high society as his adopted daughter. Let the fun begin!

Wikipedia has an entry about These Old Shades. 

Legacy

 

By Jeanne C. Stein

Book Four of the Anna Strong Chronicles

Anna is a human turned vampire unwillingly and who has been having a hard time accepting her new reality. For example, she has not shared her new status with her parents.

 She fell in with a vampire who promised to help her adjust but Avery turned out to be a complete nightmare. Eventually they had a showdown and Anna killed him, saving her business partner David's life, all of which occurred in previous books. 

David is in love with Gloria, a woman that Anna despises and she has been trying to convince David to dump. So it was quite unexpected when Gloria came to Anna for help because she was being blackmailed. Gloria's business partner has been pressuring her and now he has been murdered and Gloria is the main suspect, thanks to his vengeful wife's lies. 

Meanwhile, Anna has encountered a gang of werewolves and their leader, Sandra, has sparked a strange and inexplicable lust in Anna. Anna suspects some kind of spell or dark magic and so she agrees to meet Sandra at Avery's old mansion. Sandra and Avery used to be together and for some reason, Anna inherited his estate, which Sandra doesn't like. During their meeting, Anna sees Avery has possessed Sandra and she flees the mansion. She is completely unprepared to deal an Avery that is somehow still alive and living inside Sandra.  

This was an interesting story and easy to follow even without having read any of the earlier Anna Strong novels. The author gives you the data you need to understand the backstory without being boring or longwinded. The story is well written and held my interest all the way through.