Review: A God In Ruins

A God In Ruins

By Kate Atkinson

Little, Brown, and Company May 2015

468 pages

From the library 

Readers went on a fascinating journey with Ursula Todd in Life After Life. Ursula loved many people, but perhaps her most beloved was her brother Teddy. In A God In Ruins, we follow Teddy through his experiences as a RAF pilot during WWII and into everyday life as a husband, father, and grandfather. Teddy shows us what it is like to live a future you never expected to see and to watch your children and grandchildren make choices you could never fathom.

A God in Ruins is told in alternating (and constantly moving) timelines, as we follow young, brash Teddy's days as a pilot and then the quotidian moments of work, family, and growing older. It could easily be called a war novel, as we follow Teddy on mission after mission. But I think it does this novel and Atkinson a disservice to leave it there. While we certainly see the horror and uncertainty of war, the more striking part for me was what came afterwards. Teddy feels the generational gaps very intensely, as his daughter joins a commune and makes irresponsible decisions that create a potentially unbridgeable gap between Teddy, his daughter, and his grandchildren. The heartbreak that he feels as he sees the lack of understanding and respect that the children have for him is palpable.

Teddy and his wife Nancy are forever distant with each other, as he wants to talk about the experiences of the war that forever changed him while Nancy is unable or unwilling to do the same about her time as a codebreaker. Teddy has never felt more like himself than when he led a group of men inside a tiny metal tube with a single goal giving each of them certainty of purpose. Teddy sees talking about it as a way to pay tribute to that time in his life and to the people who gave their lives during the war. How will anyone remember their lives and the sacrifices made by so many if no one is willing to talk about them?

Interestingly, Teddy sometimes muses over or tells his grandchildren about events that the readers experienced with him firsthand earlier or will see later in the book. And sometimes those events don't play out exactly the same way - no one has a perfect memory, after all. While Life After Life actually took readers through multiple versions of Ursula's life, this story reminds us that we are destined to live the important moments of our lives again and again as we retell our stories and remember our happiest and most heartbreaking experiences.

A God in Ruins is a tale about a family who fails, time after time, to connect with each other in meaningful and long-lasting ways. Atkinson manages to make us care for the most frustrating of characters as we watch the Todd family hurt and miss each other again and again. It is a story about war and memories and family and what it means to live a life that matters. This beautifully written book is a wonderful choice for the reader who is just encountering the Todd family for the first time or the one who adored them in Life After Life and is eager to spend more time with Ursula, Teddy, and the storytelling prowess of Kate Atkinson.

Review: Church of Marvels

Church of Marvels

By Leslie Parry

Ecco May 2015

320 pages

Read via Netgalley

 

In the last days of the nineteenth century, some of the inhabitants of New York City walk in the light of day and enjoy the extravagance and beauty of life. But others stick to the shadows, determined to survive without drawing any attention to themselves. Sylvan works cleaning the privies under the cover of darkness until he finds a baby abandoned in the muck. He decides he must find where she belongs. On Coney Island, Odile sets out to find her sister Belle after the death of their vaudeville queen mother and the destruction of the circus they called home. Across the river Alphie wakes up in a lunatic's asylum, unsure about how she got there and how or if she can escape. Each of their stories will intertwine in unexpected ways in the darkest corners of New York City.

The title and cover of this book suggest that the reader will be immersed in the sights and sounds of the Big Top. But we only visit the Church of Marvels in Odile's memory. Instead, this story follows the people who do not belong in polite society, the ones who hide around the edges or pretend to be someone else.  Ms. Parry takes us to an opium den where a gang of children scavenge to survive, into the pain and horror of an insane asylum, and behind the curtain of a notorious brothel. 

While I enjoyed this book, I thought it fell short in a few ways. I wanted more of the magic of the circus, but instead experienced the darkness and pain of the people that no one wants to see in the city.  If it had been presented as such, I think i would have been a better experience. Expecting one thing and getting another was frustrating. Then Parry waits too long to bring all of her characters and their stories together. When she does, it is terrifically compelling. But it feels like too little, too late. 

  

Church of Marvels is a powerful debut. The places inhabited by these characters may be dark and often distasteful, but Parry brings light to every corner to show readers the pain of those considered "less than" and the lengths they will go to in order to protect themselves and their loved ones. This author has a serious gift for creating a specific place and moment in time that is matched by few authors writing today. I will be watching closely for her next book. 

It's Monday and the reading is not going too quickly!

I spent this past weekend with my best friend, who was a stinker and got a fabulous new job across the country. Since she will be moving in the next month or so, we spent the weekend with our husband and boyfriend respectively, doing important things like having a wine and cheese party and visiting a secondhand bookstore.

I finished reading The Last Bookaneer and then apparently started a slow but serious non-fiction binge. I am almost finished with Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and feel like I am learning so much. 

    

I was searching for a new audiobook and decided to get I Am Malala from the library. A note to anyone who saw a crazy crying girl on the commute home on Thursday - I'm fine; it's just that listening to Malala talk about her plan in case the Taliban attacked her made my momma heart cry just a little bit. Next I will be reading Saint Mazie and I'm looking forward to picking up Welcome to My Breakdown when I finish that.

 

What are you reading this week? 

A Royal Wedding Giveaway

 

In some sort of mailing snafu, I ended up the proud owner of two advanced reader copies of Royal Wedding. This book is the latest installment in Meg Cabot's beloved Princess Diaries series. So of course, I'm doing what any good blogger should do - host a giveaway! 

This is my first time using Rafflecopter, so fingers crossed that everything is working correctly!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Late to the Party Reviews: The Language of Flowers

The Language of Flowers

By Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Ballantine Books April 2012

352 pages

From my shelves

 

Victoria is about to age out of foster care. She is furious at the system that let her down, at the foster parents that didn't keep her, and at a world that doesn't seem to care in the least. Victoria is living on the street until she realizes that her knowledge of flowers can go to good use. She begins working at a flower shop and finds she has a gift for putting together exactly the arrangements her customers need. As she begins to enjoy the comfort of routine and security, she has to decide if she can start letting people into her life. Can someone who has always pushed people away finally let herself be loved?

The Language of Flowers alternates between the present and Victoria's difficult past. We see her abused by foster parents who leave her out in the cold or refuse to feed her. But we also witness her tentative happiness with an older woman named Elizabeth. The mystery of this story is when readers see her progress with Elizabeth, but also know that she spent her last few teen years in a problematic group home. Victoria is often a difficult character to follow because she refuses help at almost every turn. For someone who has been abandoned and betrayed at every turn, she believes that her only recourse is to hurt people before they have the chance to hurt her.

Diffenbaugh has a real gift for writing. There were several moments when I had actual fear about what would happen to Victoria and other characters. It is a rare author who gives you no security about the fate of the people who live on her pages. I became really invested in these characters, from Vanessa herself to even the minor characters who hover around the periphery of the story. I also love that this author wasn't content to let readers know about the difficulty of aging out of foster care. She went and set up a foundation to help real-life kids through the process. Anyone who says fiction can't change lives isn't paying attention to Ms. Diffenbaugh's writing and tireless work through The Camellia Network.

The Language of Flowers is, dare I say, an important novel about a group of people who are all too easy to ignore. Few of us worry about the difficulties of children in the foster care system or their complicated transition into adulthood. This story is heartfelt and difficult, as any good tale about love and creating our families must be. I am really interested to see what Ms. Diffenbuagh does in her upcoming second book, We Never Asked For Wings, which will be out in August. 



Late to the Party Reviews are my thoughts on the books everyone else read years ago. I'm finally getting to them, so make sure to chime in and tell me about your experience with these stories!

It's Monday and I am reading about literary pirates!

Hey there, friends! How is life treating you?

This week, D finished his swim lessons and we celebrated my sister's birthday. On Sunday, we went to my childhood church, where my husband filled in as the preacher and I sang "The Prayer" with a friend for the special music.

Alright, I know, enough is enough. It's time to talk about books!

I finished Murder on the Orient Express after a month or so of listening during my commute. With my eyes, I read The Shore and am a little more than halfway through The Last Bookaneer.


   

 On deck for this week, I have Saint Mazie from the library and will be picking something from my shelves. I'm thinking I might pick Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Won't Stop Talking.

 

What are you reading this week?

The Folded Clock and the Purpose of Memoir

A few weeks ago, I settled down to read The Folded Clock. I had seen the book around the internet a few times and it was heralded as " a meditation on time and self, youth and aging, betrayal and loyalty, friendship and romance, faith and fate, marriage and family, desire and death, gossip and secrets, art and ambition." That sounded pretty good to me, plus I've been trying to add more nonfiction to my reading life.

I found the book to be a fine read. Each entry begins with "Today I," but they jump all over the timeline instead of chronologically covering two years. I found some of Julavits' musings interesting and often funny, but I never had that desperate feeling of needing to read some more right this moment. While I appreciated her honesty as she revealed some of her innermost thoughts and regrets, I also felt at times that she was trying to be sensational and I still don't feel like I really know her in any meaningful way.

Reading this book made me think, though. I wondered why we are so eager to read biographies and memoirs. In some cases, we learn more about the lives of people we admire - politicians, philanthropists, performers, or athletes. In other instances, like this one, the subject of the book has not accomplished anything to get her on any "most influential" lists. By her own admission, she leads a mostly quiet kind of life filled with teaching, writing, and family. So what is the impetus for reading about other people's lives?

Do we have an incurable desire to snoop on other people and appreciate that reading a memoir is a socially acceptable way to do so? Do we hope to find some insight into our own lives by reading about the experiences of others? Or is it just a way to connect with humanity as a whole - to understand just a bit what it means to be this particular person?


Why do you read biographies and memoirs?