The Good Lord Bird

This is the March pick for the book club I attend.  I was excited to read it because I heard so many good things about it. Unfortunately when I started reading it, my excitement waned. I even fell asleep a few times.

The narrator, Onion, is a boy with feminine features whose father is killed during an altercation at his job between John Brown and a slave owner. This is the same John Brown who raided Harper's Ferry in 1859. In the frenzy of his father's death, John Brown takes Onion with him believing he is a girl. Onion, whose real name is Henry Shackleford, tries to explain that he's a boy, but never fully gets an opportunity. He is given a dress and that seems to be the end of that.

The rest of the book follows Onion as he continues to dress like a girl, yet seek true freedom.  However, the longer he remains with John Brown and his so-called army, the more he becomes connected with them. He sticks around to help them arrange the raid on Harper's Ferry. If you want a little historical background on the Harper's Ferry raid, Wikipedia has pretty good entry. Onion is not being held hostage or kept in slave bondage. He stays and returns of his own free will. He, in fact, has several opportunities to flee to the North and be free, but his growing affection for Brown's abolitionist ways keeps him there even when everything goes horribly wrong. Along the way he meets Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas. There is some chatter about how Douglass is portrayed as a bit of a womanizer, but I didn't see a problem with how it was written.

As I said, there were parts of this book that put me to sleep. John Brown's character for one. Every time he's talking, it's a drag and uninteresting.  Also any battle scene bored me to tears, but that's just because I've just never really been into reading about battles. The parts of the book I enjoyed were Onion's interactions with everyone outside of the group of abolitionists. How he deals with wanting to be a male, yet having to keep the disguise going in order to live is pretty entertaining. There are some comedic moments, but I never laughed out loud as some of my friends who read the book said they did.  I almost wish the book were just about a young male slave passing as a boy or vice versa trying to make it up North. That, alone, could make for a more compelling story. I really just found the book to be OK. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. It's your call if you want to give it a try.

Half of a Yellow Sun

It was time for me to revisit one of my favorite authors, Chimamanda Adichie. I'm waiting for the library to deliver my next book for the little web class I'm taking so in the interim I picked up an older Adichie book. I read her most recent book in July, and if you read my post about it then you already know I have a mild obsession. I actually thought I read Half of a Yellow Sun before, but I didn't.  I think I bought it in the past, but I may have loaned it out prior to reading or lost it in a move or donated it. Either way, I read it now and yes I enjoyed it immensely.

When I was reading this book, I was so vividly transported to Nigeria that the reading environment around me (coffee shop, my apartment, the park) would dissipate. I would look up and blink a few times and remind myself I was not currently in Nigeria or Biafra. The book also permeated my non-reading life in odd ways. For example, I made a stew the other day. While I was making it, I cut the meat for it into very small bits because I wanted to make sure there was meat in every bite.  In the book there is a lot of discussion about whether or not people have meat in their soups because there is a war going on and subsequent food rationing. Here I was cutting up meat for a stew thinking "I am glad I have meat in my soup".  That is a testament to the power of good writing. Adichie does this for me in all her writing.  She has a way of pulling you into the story and the story into your life.

The book is beautifully written. The story follows five main characters, Olanna and Kainene (sisters), Odenigbo and Richard (their significant others), and Ugwu (the houseboy) as they start off in a united Nigeria and are thrown into the Biafran war in the late 1960s.  It has all the expected drama of war; bombs, deaths, evacuations, displaced family, famine, starvation, and so on.  However, the personal experiences of each character and how they respond to their rapidly changing environment is the real story. I admit my knowledge of African civil/ethnic wars is abysmal. After reading this story, I did more research into Nigerian history and the Biafran war.  It made me appreciate the story so much more.  I am truly a fan of Adichie's work and I expect I will be a lifelong one.  If I taught a literature class I would make this required reading.  I highly recommend it.

Of note: I get very uneasy with the subject of rape and sexual exploitation and there are several descriptions of it in the book as a weapon of war. This was not unexpected, but I always like to give people a heads-up about it if you have uneasiness like me.  However, there are tender love scenes between the couples as well so the contrasting effect is helpful. 

Sacré Bleu

I enjoyed Lamb, which is also by Christopher Moore, so when my book club selected this book I thought it would be a good read.  However, I was bored by the entire story.  Now, mind you, my first degree is in Art History so I thought it would be interesting to see the various artists portrayed in a work of historical fiction. Alas, I had to buy a cup of coffee to finish the last 100 pages.  The book starts with Vincent Van Gogh's apparent suicide.  But was it really a suicide?  That is what fellow artists Lucien Lessard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec try to discover.  Along the way, we discover that there is a supernatural duo that is leading painters to go mad, lose huge chunks of their memories, and forget about masterpieces they have created.  There is a lot of time jumping in the story. Within one chapter you may be reading about 19th century France and then you're back in 12th century France.  That was a little annoying, but I dealt with it.  What really became old quickly were all the sexual and phallic jokes.  Listen, I was in 6th grade around 1988-89 and I got my fill of prepubescent humor.  One or two jokes, whatever, but an entire book throughout which one guy uses the word penis as his punch line?  I'll pass, and you should too. 

The Winter Rose

This is the sequel to The Tea Rose that I read in December 2012.  It is a trilogy, but I don't know if I will make it to book three.  If I do, I think it will be later this year or maybe next. I really enjoyed Book One.  I enjoyed Book Two as well, to a certain extent.  There did come a time where my belief could no longer remain suspended.  We find ourselves meeting Fiona and Joe again, now happily married. This time around, however the focus of the story is Sid Malone (Fiona's criminal brother) and his love life.  He falls for India Selwyn Jones, a physician working in the slums of London. India is just as much the strong heroine as Fiona was in The Tea Rose (up to a certain point....then she gets a bit bland). Now, as we all know, falling in love with a strong-willed good girl is where all the problems start for a bad boy and thus the story takes off and we travel from London to Africa to California. There is love, deception, redemption, and adventure.  I did find myself rolling my eyes at some of the "coincidences" that occurred and the blatant stupidity of some of the characters to see what was going on in front of their own eyes.  I also began to get upset with the characters because if only they would speak a few words of truth instead of trying to be so secretive about every damn thing there wouldn't have been so much drama, and perhaps 200 pages could have been shaved off the 700+ page volume.  I just needed to accept it for the soap opera that it was.  I do think it was a solid sequel, but it didn't leave me excited for the third installment. Nice travel read on an e-reader if you don't want to lug the heavy tome with you.

The Tea Rose

I have always been a sucker for a good epic saga.  The Tea Rose is the first in a series of three books.  I stayed up nights, bleary-eyed reading this book because I enjoyed it so much.  I skipped sleeping on two flights in order to read this book (and I'm usually that person that immediately puts on headphones and takes a nap on a plane). So it's safe to say I really got into it. While there is a fair amount of sappiness, that is to be expected when you set a book in late 19th century London and New York and have two young people torn apart by a string of events, yet still so in love with each other.  It's a given that there will be forlorn looks and sweet caresses so just give in and enjoy it.  I also found it refreshing to finally have a heroine with some gusto.  I often lament to my friends about the lack of a good strong heroine in current fiction.  Well the main protagonist in The Tea Rose (Fiona) may be grieving over her poor schmuck of an ex-boyfriend, however she channels those feelings of betrayal, sadness, and anger into a life full of success instead of laying around the rest of her life whining. I think that's what kept me going. Fiona is strong-willed and takes on the world. This is a good winter book, because at 545 pages you can settle down with a cup of tea, get cozy and enjoy losing yourself in late 19th century London and New York.

Unholy Night

I am the first to admit that I go to church on a regular basis.  I am also the first to admit that I am not a zealot so I can completely appreciate a story that depicts the three wise men as petty criminals.  This story was entertaining, enjoyable, adventurous and just plain FUN.  If you are easily offended by creative re-telling of religious stories then pass this book up because you will just get worked up and hypertensive.  If, however, you can appreciate someone using the imagination to create an action-packed adventure, go for it.  I enjoyed this book so much that I would put it in my top ten for 2012.  This is by the same author who wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as well as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (which I also enjoyed but it was early days for my blog so I didn't go into much detail).  Knowing that this is what Seth Grahame-Smith does, takes history and spins it, the reader should not be surprised that he tackled a religious story.  He does a fantastic job of doing it and if you have a creative and open mind, I highly recommend it.

                                    

The Poisonwood Bible

Finally!  I have wanted to read this book for years.  I don't know why I didn't get it from the library or purchase it sooner.  Anyway, I broke down and bought it a few weeks ago and started reading it a few days ago.  I finished it last night and it was a book that kept me up afterwards.  I had about 50 pages to go and thought "Oh I'll finish it tomorrow".  I turned out the lights and tried to fall asleep, but couldn't.  So I turned the lights back on and plowed through the last pages.  After the last page was turned and the book was closed I lay there for about an hour just thinking about everything that happened.  The last time that happened was with a book I finished in July 2011, One Day.  July must be my month for books that make me think in bed.

So on to the review.  The basic premise of the book is that an evangelical white Baptist preacher sets off on a missionary trip to the Congo in 1960 and takes his wife and four daughters along with him.  What happens while they are in the Congo then serves as the crux for character and story development.  I absolutely loved the book up until the fifth section.  The fifth and sixth section went on too long (150 pages of pseudo-epilogue). Then there is a small six-page section that, in my opinion, serves as a true epilogue.  Everything that was conveyed in both the fifth and sixth sections could have been combined and condensed into just a fifth section spanning no more than fifty pages.  After that, the true epilogue of six pages could have followed. That is my only complaint about the book.  Otherwise I loved the story and the way it was written. The prose is quite lyrical and poetic at times.  There were two scenes that made me teary-eyed.  For me, that says a lot because I am not often moved to tears by writing unless it's exceptional. I definitely recommend it, but just know that it runs a little long at the end.

Madame Tussaud

Michelle Moran, the author, is a favorite of mine and has yet to disappoint me.  This is one of the books recommended to me based on my previous ratings/reviews of the her work. A few years ago I read Nefertiti, and I was so absorbed by the story that now I read just about anything she writes.  I like the fact that she picks female historical figures who have either political strength or a great deal of personal inner strength.  I have to admit I've never been to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum. Having read this book, though, I will be making a trip soon.  The story focuses on her life during the bloody French Revolution and the political games she reluctantly had to play.  As a side note, when I was halfway through this book I watched Sofia Coppola's movie Marie Antoinette so I could have a bit of a refresher on the names, places, and fashions of that time (Cliff Notes!). Anyway, Madame Tussaud really had a fascinating life and I had a good time reading about it.  At the end of her novels, Moran always does a great job of letting the reader know what is historical fact and what is artistic license.  I have to say, though, she does not use too much artistic license because the periods she chooses to write about are rife with so much drama, there's really no need to embellish much.  So I would say go for it if this time period interests you.

The King's Mistress

First book of 2011. Historical fiction, based in Britain.  It was pretty good, but dragged in some parts. Also, I couldn't really get over the naiveté of the main character.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Very interesting is all I can say!  You will either love it or hate it. I couldn't put it down! In the end I really feel like the author created an interesting allegory for the evils of slavery.

The Heretic Queen

This author wrote a wonderful historical fiction book about Nefertiti (titled the same) that I couldn't put down.  The Heretic Queen is about Nefertari (the niece of Nefertiti).  I enjoyed this book as well and will definitely be adding any historical book by Ms. Moran to my reading list.