Bet Your Bottom Dollar

 By Karin Gillespie

First book in the Bottom Dollar Girls series.

Elizabeth works in a dollar store in a small town in South Carolina. She doesn't expect much from life and views herself as very ordinary. She is also recovering from being dumped by her fiancé who left her for another woman. 

A friend introduces Elizabeth to her grandson, Timothy Hollingsworth, who has come home to run the family business, a paper company. The friend talks Elizabeth into giving Timothy a chance and they start dating. At first, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and Elizabeth is getting discouraged. She enjoys being with Timothy but can't figure out why he doesn't seem like he wants a more intimate relationship. Turns out that he is a bit on the shy side and it isn't much longer before he pops the question and the two of them have a quickie wedding and are married. 

Problems arise because of questions about both of their pasts. For instance, why does Elizabeth look so much like Timothy's grandmother when she was a young woman? Who was the mysterious man Elizabeth's mother was involved with before she married Elizabeth's father, a man she only refers to in her diary as B? And why did Timothy's parents treat him so coldly that he feels so disconnected to both his mother and his father, who is no longer alive? 

Meanwhile, the man who dumped Elizabeth is back trying to win her over again, claiming that he made a terrible mistake and he never stopped loving her.

This was an OK read. This one was also supposed to be funny but wasn't. I did enjoy reading it and I enjoyed the mystery but it just never seemed to be the "delight" the blurbs promised. Or that I would "laugh myself sick" reading it. Neither of those things happened. It was fine. But not interesting enough to entice to read the other two books in the series.

Kirkus Reviews has a review of the novel.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

 

By Marina Lewycka

Nikolai is 84 years old and in love with a 36 year old Ukrainian woman named Valentina. Nikolai is also Ukrainian but he immigrated to the UK after WW II. 

Nikolai has two middle aged daughters, Nadezhda and Vera. Not surprisingly, the two daughters are strongly opposed to Nikolai's involvement with Valentina. They try to reason with their father, pointing out that the woman is just looking to establishing a residence in Britain by marrying a British citizen. He doesn't listen. Valentina is a very attractive sexy woman and he has fallen under her spell.

Nikolai does marry her and it soon become clear that she wants whatever she can get out of him. It also becomes clear that she married him believing he had way more money than he really has. She is constantly after him for more money, more things, more access to his savings. It also becomes clear that Nikolai is not the only man she has dangling after her. And that she was probably a prostitute back in Ukraine. Nikolai remains smitten and spends too much money trying to satisfy her many demands. 

His two daughters intervene and convince him to file for a divorce. He is reluctant but agrees to file. He continues to waffle on going through with it though. When Valentina was with him, he could fool himself about himself. This cannot last, though, because she comes pushy and angry and threatens him. She eventually leaves his house, along with her teenage son. Though she no longer lives with Nikolai, she still pops in and out of his house and his life, trying to squeeze more money out of him, even trying to gain possession of his house. He is lucky that he has two daughters who do what it takes to protect their vulnerable father from the predacious Valentina.

This was an OK read. The four of them, the father, the two daughters and Valentina struggle against each other, first one is on top and then the other is on top and always there is Nikolai's indecision. He just liked thinking of himself as the manly 84 year old with the sexy young wife, the envy of all the other men. Never mind her selfishness and greed and bad character. It isn't even about the sex, which doesn't go much beyond the fondling stage. 

My main problem with the story, other than that it was way too long, is that it is not funny. The reviews said it was funny. The blurbs on the cover said it was funny. It wasn't. I wanted funny.

Back to B.C.

 

By Johnny Hart

Excerpts from Hart's daily comic strip, B.C. from the late 1950s to early 1960s. Second book in this series.

Hart's B.C. comic strip is charming, funny, innocent and the humor holds up more than sixty years later. A pleasure to visit this collection again. 

I Still Dream About You

 

By Fannie Flagg

Margaret Fortenberry is a beautiful woman. She was so pretty that she had a real chance to be crowned Miss America. But unfortunately, she was Miss Alabama at the time of the civil rights struggle and the state of Alabama did not welcome the reforms. And so the judges of the Miss America pageant decided picking Miss Alabama would be too controversial. And so Maggie missed her chance at big time success. Truth is, beyond being staggeringly good looking, she really didn't have much to offer the world. She wasn't particularly talented or smart and, even though beautiful, she was too short to make in the world of high fashion modelling. And so, she ended back in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, selling real estate. She never married and she never had children, she lives alone without even a pet to keep her company. And now in her early sixties, she is seriously planning to kill herself.

But daily life keeps getting in the way of Maggie executing her plan. She keeps having to put it off to handle the problems that just refuse to stop popping up and getting in her way. Until finally, things calm down enough for her to put the plan in motion. Her clothing has been donated, credit cards paid off, utilities cancelled, bank account closed, key hidden under the doormat and a goodbye letter left on the table in her apartment. Nothing and no one to stop her. 

Maggie's sorrow and disappointment with the mistakes of the past and with the loneliness of her declining years are understandable. I suppose most people in their later years look back and regret wrong decisions, I know I do. For one, I wish that I'd finished college. Maggie has her regrets too, mainly that she turned the hometown boy down when he proposed to her, instead heading off to New York to make it in the big city. Part of her depression is rooted the death of the woman she worked for at the real estate office who died very suddenly and unexpectedly. This woman, Hazel, was successful, driven, and, at the same time, kind and considerate of her fellow humans and of the people who worked for her. Her death left a painful void in Maggie's life and without her leadership, the company is struggling. 

So, although I did understand Maggie's suicidal depression, [SPOILER] I have read several Fannie Flagg novels over the years and I really doubted she would end up dead. She was the perfect heroine of a Fannie Flagg story, beautiful, kind, good natured. There was no way Fannie was going to let her kill herself. I did find it a bit amusing how fate keeps Maggie from going through with her plan. 

It was a good story even if Maggie seems a bit clueless throughout the novel. She's a sweet lady and she certainly got her happy ending. In spades!

Kirkus Reviews has a review of this novel. 

Everything I Never Told You

 

By Celeste Ng

Marilyn and James met in college. Marilyn was studying to become a doctor and James was a professor. They started dating and Marilyn became pregnant. They got married at city hall, against Marilyn's mother's objections. Doris Walker did not want her daughter marrying an Asian American man.

Being pregnant, Marilyn quit college and became a mom instead. Secretly, though, she still dreamed of going back to school and getting her medical degree. So when her two children reached grade school age, Marilyn moved away and enrolled in college again. But she wasn't gone long, because she soon discovered she was pregnant. So back to being a wife and mother and finally giving up on her dream.

When Lydia, James and Marilyn's second child, was sixteen she died of drowning. It was eventually ruled a suicide, as there was no indication of foul play. This was a terrible blow to James and Marilyn and to their two other children, Nath, the oldest and Hannah, the youngest. Nath and Lydia had been very close and Nath was the only one in the family who knew Lydia was unhappy. Because Marilyn, thwarted of her dream, had transferred it to Lydia. She talked herself into believing that Lydia's dream was to become a doctor. But Lydia was just going through the motions, studying hard only to please her mother, not actually caring about the career her mother was pushing on her.

And there's Nath. A studious teenage boy who has a dream too: he wants to be an astronaut. But his father wants his son to be the guy he wasn't when he was in school: a popular jock. But Nath is not a jock and he is not popular and his father thinks his dream of becoming an astronaut is stupid. 

Meanwhile, Hannah. The invisible child. As her parents' dreams for the two older kids occupies so much of their time, Hannah gets overlooked. Just a grade schooler, she lives on the edges of the family, idolizing her older brother and sister, loving her mother and father, and staying under the radar.

It's a complicated family relationship and Lydia's death and James' unfaithfulness has thrown everything into chaos.  

This was an OK read. I found Marilyn's and James' blindness to how their  expectations of their children are ruining their relationship with the kids very strange, given how smart they think they are. I also got rather bored with the story and really just wanted to finish it, get it over with. And there is a lot of stuff about how James and his two Asian-looking kids are treated like outsiders by the locals.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

 

By Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant is a single woman of nearly thirty. She works in an office and has been there for nine years. She's a bit of an odd duck and has no close friends at work. Or any friends at all. 

As a child, she nearly died in a house fire and has a scar on her face that some people find distressing or off-putting. But she is a fairly practical person and her solitude doesn't bother her much. Or rather, she deals with it on the weekends by drinking vodka by herself in her apartment. Her only company is a houseplant she calls Polly.

Three things happen that begin to chip away at her solitude, all three involving men. First, she develops a crush on a singer, Johnnie. Second, a new employee at work, Raymond, seems to like her and invites her to have lunch. Third, while out one day, she and Raymond see an elderly man collapse on the street. They stay with the man, Sammy, until the medics arrive. They also accompany Sammy to the hospital. Eleanor and Raymond become acquainted with Sammy's family and attend a welcome home party in Sammy's honor after he gets out of the hospital. And Raymond also introduces Eleanor to his mother who is quite elderly and suffering from arthritis. 

Eleanor is not romantically interested in Raymond. She has constructed an improbable fantasy around the singer, Johnnie. The good thing is that it has given her the motivation to update her look with new clothes, makeup and a new hairdo. As a result, her coworkers have also warmed up a bit to her and she has been offered a promotion and a small raise. She is finally starting to live a little. Then she goes to see Johnnie perform and something about it causes her to realize that she was just fooling herself. She goes on a bender, drinking herself into stupor. Raymond comes to check up on her and cleans her up. Clearly, she needs professional help. So she starts seeing a therapist and the walls she built around the fire that left her scarred slowly start to come down and she faces the truth she had hidden from since she was just a kid. 

This book is ride. Eleanor is a funny sad lonely woman. Her story is so tragic, so very sad. But she is hilarious at times, in the first part of the story, the part the author calls the Good Days, her observations are so amusing. I really enjoyed her take on things. But the last section, the Bad Days, was not amusing. I cried so much, reading her sad struggle with abuse and depression, how the system failed her as a child, her loneliness, her trauma, her suffering overlooked or unseen. 

When Raymond took her to his mom's house for a visit, Eleanor recognized all she had missed in life as a child:

"I placed the laundry basket on the ground and took the peg bag ... and hung it on the line. The washing was dry and smelled of summer. I heard the syncopated thud of a football being kicked against a wall, and girls chanting as a skipping rope skimmed the ground. The distant chimes of the ice-cream van were now almost audible. Someone's back door slammed, and a man's voice shouted a furious reprimand at—one hoped—a dog. There was birdsong, a descant over the sounds of a television drifting through an open window. Everything felt safe, everything felt normal. How different Raymond's life had been from mine—a proper family, a mother and a father and a sister, nestled among other proper families. How different it was still; every Sunday, here, this."

Eventually Eleanor realizes that her crush on Johnnie is merely that. Watching him onstage, it bursts upon her that she has been lost in a fantasy, a lovely fantasy, but a fantasy nonetheless:

"I didn't know the man onstage before me, didn't know the first thing about him. It was all just fantasy. Could anything be more pathetic—me, a grown woman? I'd told myself a sad little fairy tale, thinking I could fix everything, undo the past, that he and I would live happily ever after and Mummy wouldn't be angry anymore. I was Eleanor, sad little Eleanor Oliphant, with my pathetic job, my vodka and my dinners for one, and I always would be.  Nothing and no one —certainly not this singer ...—could change that. There was no hope, things couldn't be put right. I couldn't be put right. The past could neither be escaped nor undone. After all these weeks of delusion, I recognized, breathless, the pure, brutal truth of it. I felt despair and nausea mingled inside me, and then that familiar black, black mood came down fast." 

But the book has its lighter side, Eleanor's little comments on the people around her:

• "Heather [a social worker] used to do that too; I assume it's part of the job, checking to make sure I'm not storing my own urine in demijohns or kidnapping magpies and sewing them into pillowcases." 
•  "Sexual union between lovers should be a sacred, private thing. It should not be a topic for discussion with strangers over a display of edible underwear."
• "I have often noticed that people who routinely wear sportswear are the least likely sort to participate in athletic activity."
• "The streets were all named after poets ... who wrote about urns and flowers and wandering clouds. Based on past experience, I'd be more likely to end up living in Dante Lane or Poe Crescent."

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

 

Little Fires Everywhere

 

By Celeste Ng

Mia Warren has a complicated past, a past her teen daughter Pearl knows nothing about. 

All their life together, Mia has been on the run, running from who knows what. Now she and Pearl have settled into a new town, one Mia has promised will be their permanent home. This is a lie, although Mia did not know it at the time. Because the past catches up with Mia and once again they are running away. But this doesn't happen until the end of the story. 

So Pearl finds herself getting to know the family of the woman who is their landlord. Elena Richardson is an upper class woman with a four teen kids and a family history dating back to the early days of her home town, a suburb of Cleveland, Shaker Heights. The duplex that Mia and Pearl move into came to Elena as an inheritance from her mother. 

Mia and Pearl have never had much in the way of money and seeing how the Richardson family lives is a new experience for Pearl. She becomes really close to the two teen boys, Moody and Trip. Moody becomes her best friend and Trip becomes her lover, much to Moody's distress. 

Meanwhile, Elena's youngest daughter, Izzy, finds a refuge from her mother's constant criticism by helping Mia with her art work. Mia is a talented photographer who is still in the struggling artist phase of her career. Some day she will likely be a famous, well-paid photographer, but now she and Pearl live on her work as a waitress and, later, as housekeeper for the Richardsons. 

Mia makes friends with a young Chinese woman, Bebe, who lost track of her baby after she abandoned the baby at a fire station. Mia overhears a friend of Elena's talking about the baby she is adopting who was abandoned at a fire station and she lets Bebe know. When Elena discovers it was Mia who tipped Bebe off, she takes it personally and decides to dig into Mia's past.

Elena's anger is more that just distress at her friend's problems. Part of it is resentment of Mia, whose lifestyle reminds Elena of her own ambitions as a young woman. But Elena's digging upsets everyone and she herself pays the greatest price when her youngest daughter sets the family home on fire and disappears. This happens in the very beginning of the novel, so this is not a spoiler.

So the big mystery is what is Mia's dark secret about her past. Turns out it isn't a dark secret and it isn't even a big scandal. She just changed her mind about something and made her parents angry, adding to their disappointment in her chosen career as an artist/photographer. 

Towards the last quarter of the novel, I was getting bored with it and pretty much skipped through a lot of it. I didn't find Mia's failure to honor her contract shocking. I did find her cavalier treatment of her parents and theirs of her rather off putting. And the rootless lifestyle she put her daughter Pearl through, never staying long enough in one place to really become part of the community. Her solution to her problems is to pack up and disappear once again, taking Pearl along, no choice in the matter. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

My Name Is Lucy Barton

 

By Elizabeth Strout

Lucy Barton is a young mother who became ill and had to spend many weeks in the hospital, trying to get her health back. Her mother comes to the city to be with her daughter at this time and stays by her side until it is apparent that Lucy is on the mend.

While there, she and Lucy share some memories of their time together. Lucy wants to have a closer relationship with her mother. But her mother just does not seem capable of being the mother her daughter would like to have. Unspoken questions cloud their relationship, including questions about Lucy's father and possible abuse. 

When the mother sees that Lucy is no longer in danger of dying, she leaves, still unable to tell her daughter that she loves her and leaving unanswered the questions Lucy has from the past. But even so, she has shown her love by being there until she was certain Lucy was getting well.

I cannot say I enjoyed this book. I kept waiting for the plot but it was just trips down memory lane for Lucy and her mom. In, fact, a couple weeks later, and I can barely recall any of it. I did finish it and was glad I did. 

Here is a review of the novel by Fiction Writers Review.

The Book of the Pig

 

By Jack Denton Smith, photos by Ozzie Sweet

I would call this book a brief introduction to the domesticated pig. It has lots of photos, but all in black and white, a strike against it, in my opinion.

It discusses the origins of the domesticated pig and its temperament and the benefits it provides for humanity and not just as delicious food. It also gives brief descriptions of the various commercial breeds of swine.

Clearly the author really appreciates and admires pigs which he claims are not the messy smelly critters they have been portrayed to be. He even says pigs are the smartest domesticated animal, smarter even than dogs, citing a five-year research program at the University of Kentucky which found that:

"...pigs not only are the smartest of all farm animals, but also are more intelligent than dogs, mastering any trick of feat accomplished by canines in much shorter time."

The author also quotes naturalist W.H. Hudson on the innate quality of swine:

"The pig is not suspicious, or shrinkingly submissive, like horses, cattle and sheep; nor an impudent devil-may-care like the goat; nor hostile like the goose; nor condescending like the cat; nor a flattering parasite like the dog. The pig views us as fellow citizens and brothers, and takes it for granted that we understand his language." 

 

So the book is a good, short introduction to the humble farm animal, the pig. But at only sixty-three pages it is only an introduction. It definitely paints pigs in a much kinder light than they are usually portrayed. It's just too bad none of the many photos are in color.  That would have really improved what is basically a picture book. Although the blurb on the inside flap of the book cover calls it a "photo essay." 

MAD's Maddest Artist Don Martin Bounces Back!

 

By Don Martin

A selection of Don Martin's comics, featuring mainly his characters Fester and Karbunkle. 

It opens with National Gorilla-Suit Day where Fester is upset about people celebrating National Gorilla-Suit Day by dressing up in gorilla suits. The conclusion: 

And A Visit To the Dentist which does not go well for poor Fester.

Followed by The Hardest Head in the World which is a satire of boxing movies. It stars Karbunkle as the man with the hardest head in the world. He becomes very famous but the high life causes him to lose his tone and his head shatters when a feather falls on it. But all is not lost, Fester puts him through a strict training programming. Karbunkle hardens up again and the story ends with him being dropped from a plane, head first, onto an Egyptian pyramid. 

Then Fester and Karbunkle star in Swan Lake. Fester appears as Prince Siegfried and Karbunkle as the Swan Maiden. Karbunkle presents Fester with an egg at the end when Fester was expecting a kiss.

Next is The Barber with Fester as a barber who unfortunately accidentally cuts off his client's nose.

After that is The Gourmet in which Fester eats a wet mop, thinking it is a delicious plate of spaghetti. How it ends: 

The final story is The Painters. Fester and Karbunkle are house painters and Fester ends up in the toilet.

These funnies are funny and crazy and fine examples of Don Martin's work. My copy of the book is dated 1963.  But even though the cartoons are more than sixty years old, they are still so much wacky fun to read and look at.

The Book of Bill

 

By Alex Hirsch

So there was this TV cartoon show, Gravity Falls. Now I never watched this show. But I was shopping for gifts for a ten year old child who requested books for Christmas. So I decided to get three graphic novels because I wanted to get fun books. But before I got the books ready to gift, I decided to read them to make sure they were appropriate. Two of them were OK, if a bit boring for an adult to read. But looking through The Book of Bill, I decided it was too much for a ten year old. So I read it instead.

It was kind of confusing, since I was not familiar with the TV series. It is copiously illustrated, full color, very artful. There is this thing, Bill, it's shaped like a triangle and is supposed to have escaped from a dimension that only exists in two dimensions which it destroyed while escaping. This Bill thing set its sights on Earth for some reason which had to do with its quest to rule everything? I'm not sure about that. Bill is a confusing thing, often referred to as a demon.

The book recaps, I guess, the story of the series and of Bill's encounters and temptations of the people of Gravity Falls, mainly with the Pines family. Bill is a really negative being and clearly cares nothing about humankind and our little planet. It basically has nothing good to say about us or this planet. It really does have a wicked sense of humor. Although I don't care about the TV series or the characters eventual defeat of Bill, I did enjoy the humor that is one of the best parts of the book. For example:

"What Is a Human? A human is an organic machine made out of blood and anxiety, designed to deliver a random bundle of genetic material into the future and turn to dust."

"Bill, Have You Ever Been In Love? Sure—tell your mom hi for me! By the way, have you taken a DNA test recently? Not asking for any particular reason."

"Remember, pal, at the end of the day, love is just the pupa stage for hate."

"How You Will Die: 4. Shockingly assassinated while simply trying to ride in your motorcade through Dallas with the roof down in the year 1963"

"Life doesn't care about your meaning, so why should you care about its meaning?"

Parts of the book are quite funny but the part that recaps the war between Bill and the humans was not that interesting to me. Not surprising since I never saw the series. It's certainly going to be more interesting to those who enjoyed the series. 

 

A Hummingbird in My House : The Story of Squeak

 

By Arnette Heidcamp

Arnette Heidcamp had a garden full of the kind of flowering plants that hummingbirds like. In late October of 1988, after pruning her plants for winter, she noticed a young male hummingbird in the garden who was obviously looking for something to eat. She could see it was not in good condition for the long trip to its wintering grounds down south. Being fond of hummingbirds, Arnette  was worried about the little bird and managed to lure it into her house. She set him up in her sunroom which was filled with flowering plants that a hummingbird would enjoy. Plus she supplemented his food with a commercial hummingbird food that contained everything the hummer would need to survive until spring in Arnette's sunroom.

So from October 1988 to May 1989, Arnette had the pleasure of getting to know a charming little fellow who spent the winter living in her sunroom and being catered to in every way. She named him Squeak because he was quite the squeaky boy. They became quite close, Squeak even allowed he to stroke his chest and he became quite attached to her and followed her about the sunroom whenever she was in there with him. 

Arnette knew that when spring arrived, she would have to let Squeak go free. She hoped he would make her garden the center of his world and continue to be part of her life. But when he flew out the sunroom door in May, he flew away, never to return. But he went with her best wishes for his wellbeing accompanying him.

This was an enchanting look at the life of a young, male hummingbird who got to spend the winter being pampered indoors instead of facing certain death migrating south. A time the author surely cherishes in her memories and that she generously shared with the rest of us, letting us get to know Squeak too. Lots of color photos of Squeak included.

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay

 

By Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough

After finishing school, best friends Cornelia and Emily are given permission by their parents to embark on a trip to Europe, semi-supervised by their parents who are also traveling there but on different transport. This being in the early years after the end of World War I, they're traveling by passenger ship. 

Based on a true story, Cornelia and Emily are two innocents setting out to conquer their innocence and the world, or England and France anyway. Cornelia's parents pop in and out of the picture, just in time to save Cornelia from disaster when she comes down with the measles and when she gets attacked by bedbugs. Cornelia's father, Otis, was a big deal in theater and Cornelia has ambitions in that direction also. His theater connections allow the girls chances to meet some of the more famous players of that time. Plus sightseeing, shopping, dining out, meeting boys, getting to know the locals, Cornelia and Emily are having a trip to remember and a fabulous time!

They conclude the story with this touching paragraph:

"The day before our departure, we blew ourselves to a superb lunch at Prunier's, after which we went on a pilgrimage to say good-bye to some of the places we had loved best . . . the rose window in the transept of Notre Dame, the little garden of St. Julien le Pauvre, the tomb of Ste. Genevieve to thank her for having saved Paris for us, Manet's 'Olympia,' and the lights at dusk coming on up the Champs Elysees. We didn't weep, but we were awfully quiet. The thought that we were leaving it all behind brought a lump into our throats, and the feeling in our stomachs that we were in an elevator descending rapidly . . . not a gay little Paris ascenseur, but a big, grown-up, skyscaper one. It was the end of something and we both knew it. We would come back again but it would never be the same. Our breath would come fast and our eyes would smart when the Eiffel Tower rose again in the evening mist, but that would be because we remembered it from these months. There would never again be a 'first time.' Our hearts were young and gay and we were leaving a part of them forever in Paris."

 

This story is a real gem. First of all, it is hilarious. Two teen girls, taking their first steps into adult independence, trying to follow all the advice given to them by their parents, but failing almost immediately. Both girls were quick to abandon the safety purses given them by their moms, designed to be worn under their clothes and to hold money and passports, etc. But the purses tended to bang into the legs of their dancing partners and explaining to the guys what was happening was out of the question. And the girls had been advised by their moms to make the acquaintance of some older, respectable matronly woman passenger and become part of that woman's party. Instead they made friends among the young male passengers and never got around to getting to know a matronly lady.

Anyway, if you can find a copy of this book which was published in 1942, grab it and dive into another time and into the adventures of two American girls verging on adulthood, out on their own for the first time in their lives.  

Three Times Lucky

 

By Sheila Turnage

Moses Lo Beau was a foundling. As a baby, she was found floating on a makeshift raft in a flooded river. She was adopted by the man who rescued her from the flood, Colonel Lo Beau. Together with his partner, Miss Lana, they raised the baby that Colonel named Moses because of the similarity of the baby's rescue to that of the Bible story of Moses. However, this baby was a little girl, which the Colonel claims he didn't know when he named her Moses. Mostly she goes by Mo.

Apparently Mo's birth mother placed her baby on the raft to save her from the flood. It is a mystery that Mo would dearly love to solve as she writes letters to her "Upstream Mother" and places them in  bottles to be launched into waterways and rivers upstream of where she lives hoping someone will find them and that will lead to finding her birth mother. This is her fantasy, anyway.

But Mo has a good life in the tiny village where she lives. Colonel and Miss Lana are fairly strict parents, but loving and kind and well liked by the local community of which they are a vital part since they have the only eatery in the little town of Tupelo Landing, North Carolina. Their little café is the local gathering place and so Mo knows everyone and all their business too.

When one of the local people is found with his head bashed in, naturally Mo makes it her business to figure out what went wrong in the dead man's life. For this she enlists the help of her best friend, Dale, who is eleven years old just like Mo is. Together she and Dale start snooping around and getting into trouble and getting in the way of the police investigation being run by an out-of-town detective, Joe Starr. 

I enjoyed this story quite a bit even though I usually find stories about precocious children annoying. However, Mo is not quite as mouthy and bratty as fictional precocious children are often portrayed, probably thanks to Colonel Lo Beau, who has raised Mo with military precision. So she is more disciplined than the usual fictional wunderkind. 

The murder mystery is not the most interesting part of the story, it's mainly about Mo's antics and how she gets herself and Dale tangled up in the investigation. Dale even becomes a suspect even though he is just a kid and ends up being arrested. However that is just a ruse to lull the actual murderer into revealing him or herself. 

So this was an entertaining read even though its intended audience is kids in the 12 to 20 year old range, I'm guessing. I'm not sure how I ended up with the book as I don't usually bother with kid lit. But I have nothing bad to say about the story, the characters or the plot. I liked it! 

The Christmas Train

 

By David Baldacci

Tom Langdon used to travel the world, writing stories for newspapers and magazines about the people and events he encountered. His work sometimes took him into dangerous situations but after many years of that, Tom came back home to the US and started writing about much less dangerous subjects, maybe because he was getting older. Or maybe because a failed relationship left him floundering and directionless. 

He had been very much in love with Eleanor Carter and had even bought a ring, intending to ask her to be his wife. But it didn't work out. He never got around to asking and she wearied of waiting for him to speak up. So she gave up and left him.

Because of an unfortunate incident at an airport, Tom is banned from flying. He needs to travel from the East Coast to the West Coast to join his current girl friend for Christmas. So he is taking a train instead, using the train trip as a subject for story for work. 

But a big surprise is awaiting him on the train: Eleanor is on the train. She is still pissed and gives him the cold shoulder. She is doing a script for a big Hollywood movie director, Max. Max and his assistant Kristobal are also passengers on the train.

Tom gets to know some of the passengers and tries to get closer to Eleanor, even as she continues to treat him with contempt. But Max talks Eleanor into working with Tom on the script, forcing the two ex-lovers into spending time together. Tom never understood what happened and Eleanor finds it hard to understand why he doesn't know what went wrong. Just when it seems Eleanor is starting to thaw, it all falls apart again, leaving Tom feeling lower than low. Fortunately for the two former lovers, the weather is going to intervene, in the form of an avalanche that nearly derails the train in Colorado. 

This was an entertaining read. There was some religious mumbo-jumbo that was a tad annoying, but not enough to make me stop reading the book. The plot was a bit contrived, especially with the double avalanche, but whatever. There is a minor mystery on board too, in the form of a thief who is helping themselves to the passengers' money and valuables. I was relieved no one died in the course of the story although I was kind of expecting a corpse a la Murder on the Orient Express.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

The House on Mango Street

 

By Sandra Cisneros

A  collection of poetical short stories about the various people who live on Mango Street, with a young girl named Esperanza as the main character, observing the lives of those around her. Mango Street is located in a rundown part of town with people coming and going, some never staying long and many as immigrants from other countries. 

Many of the chapters are very short, just a paragraph of two. The author is a poet and her chapter on "Four Skinny Trees" is really poetry:

"They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn't appreciate these things. 

Their strength is their secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Let one forget his reason for being, they'd all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach.

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be." 

And these two chapters about what Esperanza wants out of life. The first in "Beautiful & Cruel":

"I am an ugly daughter. I am the one nobody comes for.

Nenny says she won't wait her whole life for a husband to come and get her, that Minerva's sister left her mother's house by having a baby, but she doesn't want to go that way either. She wants things all her own, to pick and choose. Netty has pretty eyes and it's easy to talk that way if you are pretty.

My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain.

In the movies there is always one with red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all away. Her power is her own. She will not give it away.

I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate." 

 

And this one in "A House of My Own":

"Not a flat. Not an apartment in the back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after.

Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." 

 

An excellent ambition, in my opinion, and one I have yearned for since I was about the age of Esperanza, a young teen. Decades later I am still waiting.  

 

 

Monstrous Regiment

 

By Terry Pratchett

The little country that was Polly's home, Borogravia, was at war. Which was not unusual, it was frequently at war with its neighbors, being very vigilant against any intrusions across its borders. Part of the problem was the river that formed one of the boundaries was prone to change its course and thus creating arguments about the boundary location. The other was that Borogravia's religion was intolerant of other beliefs and its leaders were militant in their protection of the state religion.

What was different about this latest war was the alliance that had formed against Borogravia. Out numbered, Borogravia was on the verge of losing the war. Finding new recruits to fight was becoming increasingly difficult. The more men sent to the front, the more the home front suffered, as the able-bodied  men were swallowed up in the war. One of those men was Polly's brother, Paul.

So when the recruiters came to her town, Polly cut her hair and donned Paul's clothes and joined up, calling herself Oliver. She wasn't really interested in being a soldier, her goal was to find out if Paul was dead or alive and bring him home where he belonged. 

As the recruiters traveled to the various villages looking for new recruits, Polly came to understand that she was not the only female passing for male among the new recruits. Each had joined for different reasons, some to escape unhappy home lives, some looking for a lost lover, some who wanted to practice a profession that was not acceptable for a female. 

The truth about the war is finally revealed when the new recruits reach the front lines: Borogravia is losing and losing badly. They also know that the enemy has captured an important fortress and that it is where they are keeping the prisoners of war. Polly is desperate to get inside the fortress to find out if Paul is among the prisoners. So the small band of raw recruits remove their male disguises and don female clothes, determined to sneak inside the fortress as part of a group of local washerwomen. They manage to get past the first gate but are soon apprehended and locked up. All is not lost however and the women prove that even females can be good soldiers. 

This was an interesting story about women, of various sorts including vampires and trolls, trying be successful in a world that assigns rigid limits on the choices available to women. The humor, of course, comes from females trying to act masculine and how well they succeed or not. Pratchett is on the side of women being whatever they wish to be, without the traditional constraints placed on them by society's expectations. At the end of the story, it is revealed that several of the top military brass are women who have successfully passed as men for years and years. 

When the women find out that their sergeant knew they where women, they ask why he didn't say anything. His response: 

"You ain't the first," he said. "I've seen a few. Mostly by themselves, always frightened . . . and mostly they didn't last long. But one or two of them were bonny soldiers, very bonny soldiers indeed. So I looked at you lot and I thought to myself, well now, I thought, I wonder how they'll do when they find out they're not alone? You know about lions? ... Well, the lion is a big ol' coward, mostly. If you want trouble, you want to tangle with the lioness. They're the killers, and they hunt together. It's the same everywhere. If you want big grief, look to the ladies."

 

One Plus One

 

By Jojo Moyes

Jess Thomas holds down two jobs: she does housecleaning and works in a pub. She also has two kids to take care of, teenager Nicky, her husband's son from a previous relationship and her daughter with her husband, Tanzie, a grade schooler math prodigy. The husband, claiming stress and illness, vanished from their life and moved back into his mother's house. Claiming also to be too ill to hold down a job, he pays no child support. So when Jess found a big wad of money on the floor of a taxi cab, she decided to keep it even though she knew who it belonged to, having just helped a drunk customer home from the pub where she worked. 

You see, an opportunity had come Tanzie's way, a chance to attend an elite school that offered Tanzie a scholarship that covered 90% of the cost of attending. The rest would have to be paid by Jess. And she just didn't have the money. But this opportunity was too good to pass up. So she took the man's money that he unknowingly dropped in the taxi.

The man, Ed Nicholls, was one of Jess's housekeeping customers. Their relationship was casual, as he was never home when she came to his house to clean it. But she knew him by sight and where he lived, of course, and so offered to make sure he got home safely that night when he got sloppy drunk. She got him into the taxi, got him home, used her copy of his key to get him inside, got him laid down on his couch and left. When she got back in the taxi is when she found his money roll. It wasn't a huge amount, 500 pounds British, but when you're as strapped for cash as Jess was, it was just too hard to resist. And Ed lived in a new, luxury home and drove an expensive new car and she figured he would think he just lost it in his drunken haze. Not very ethical of Jess but the temptation was overwhelming. Because that remaining 10% not covered by the scholarship, about 5000 pounds, might be acquired if Tanzie enters a math competition being held in Scotland and the 500 pounds stolen money might be just be enough to Tanzie, Jess, Nicky, and Norman, their oversize dog north from Britain to Scotland. So Jess loads the family into an old junker car of her husband's that he left behind when he split and they head north. 

They don't get far. It's an old car and it breaks down. Ed happens to be driving by at the time and he offers them a ride. Now Ed has problems of his own. He is being investigated for insider trading, which apparently is as illegal in Britain as it is supposed to be here in the USA. Getting away from his troubles for a few days is an attractive idea, so he agrees to drive them all north to Scotland so Tanzie can enter the math competition and win the money that will enable her to attend the elite private school. Complications ensue. And just when it seems Jess and Ed were destined to be together, Ed finds out what happened to his missing 500 pounds! 

I really enjoyed this story as unlikely as the circumstances that brought Ed and Jess together were. I found it very touching at times and even shed a tear or two. 

Here are some excerpts that really spoke to me. This first one from teenager Nicky:

"Mostly, I don't understand how the bullies and the thieves and the people who destroy everything—the arseholes—get away with it. The boys who punch you in your kidneys for your dinner [lunch] money, and the police who think it's funny to treat you like an idiot, and the kids who take the piss out of anyone who isn't just like them. Or the dads who walk right out and just start afresh somewhere new that smells of Febreze with a woman who drives her own Toyota and owns a couch with no marks on it and laughs at all his stupid jokes like he's God's gift and not actually a slimeball who lied to all the people who loved him...I'm sorry if this blog has just got really depressing, but that's how our life is right now. My family, the eternal losers. Mum always told us that good things happen to good people. Guess what? She doesn't say that anymore."

And this description of Nicky, when he first came to live with Jess and her husband:

"And when Nicky turned up two years later, and everyone had told her she was mad to take on someone else's child, a child who was already eight years old and from a troubled background—you know how boys like that turn out—she'd ignored them. Because she could see instantly in the wary little shadow...a little of what she had felt. Because she knew that something happened to you when your mother didn't hold you close, or tell you all the time that you were the best thing ever, or even notice when you were home: a little part of you sealed over. You didn't need her. You didn't need anyone. And without even knowing you were doing it, you waited. You waited to anyone who got close to you to see something they didn't like in you...and to grow cold and disappear, too, like so much sea mist. Because there had to be something wrong, didn't there, if even your own mother didn't love you?"

So it's just a silly and unlikely romance story, but there were parts of it that really hit hard and a bit too close to home. But it all come out like it should in the end because it is a romance and light reading and a break from the reality we all deal with in this life. 

 

 

 

 

Portnoy's Complaint

 

By Philip Roth

The story of a young Jewish boy from about age 13 to 33. Alexander is guilt-ridden and lustful. He doesn't get much emotional support from his parents. His dad works hard and has digestive problems, spends a lot of time in the bathroom. His mom is a bit nuts, using cruel games and tricks to discipline her son, locking him out of the house and threatening him with a knife. 

Alexander manages to survive his teenage years and grows up to become a successful lawyer, doing work he finds important and meaningful. But at age 33, he feels that something is lacking and that maybe he needs to settle down and start raising a family. But instead of doing that, he hooks up with various women, finally ending up with a beautiful New York model that he actually despises. He views her as stupid, ignorant, and slutty, all of which are true, unfortunately. She seriously wants to be his wife but he knows that would be a mistake, for him any way. They travel to Europe and after an adventure with an Italian prostitute, he dumps the  model and runs away to Israel where he tries to rape an Israeli female soldier. Tries. 

The story is told as a session with a therapist but at the end (SPOILER) you find that the session hasn't even started yet: "So [said the doctor]. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?"

I thought this was supposed to be an amusing story but I didn't find it so. It's just 300 pages of Alex whining about his life. He is not a good person, you discover as you read further in the story. He's a dickhead. Does he figure that out in the end? I don't know. Or care. 

How he sees himself, about midway in the story:

"...a brainy, balding, beaky Jew, with a strong social conscience and black hair on his balls, who neither drinks nor gambles nor keeps show girls on the side; a man guaranteed to give them [girls who would like to marry him] kiddies to rear and Kafka to read—a regular domestic Messiah! Sure, he may as a kind of tribute to his rebellious adolescence say shit and fuck a lot around the house—in front of the children even—but the indisputable and heartwarming fact is that he is always around the house. No bars, no brothels, no race tracks, no backgammon all night long at the Racquet Club...or beer till all hours down at the American Legion...what we have before us...is a Jewish boy just dying in his every cell to be Good, Responsible, & Dutiful to a family of his own."

 

So, I found the book kind of dull and Alex's nonstop whining tedious. I would sit down to read a bit of it and within thirty minutes I'd be falling asleep. This happened almost every time I tried to read it. I don't know, maybe I just couldn't identify with Alex Portnoy. 

It does have some amusing moments, like when he molests a piece of raw liver. And when he falls and breaks his leg chasing after a girl. And, this is kind of shitty to say, but his girl friend's note to the lady who cleans her apartment was pretty funny: "dir willa polish the flor by bathrum pleze & dont furget the insies of windose mary jane r"

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

 

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.