Book Review: The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley

The whole way through this book I really wasn’t sure whether it was a novel or a memoir (I downloaded it onto my kindle and clearly just skipped past the cover page without a second glance since I now see that it obviously states it is the latter). What’s more, I really didn’t care either way!

The author does such a good job of making daily life for her family (transported from Maine to Beijing for two years) seem real to the reader that after a while I just stopped wondering whether it was imaginary or factual. It simply did not matter since either way I was vicariously living Beijing life along with the main character Susan (who, yes, also happens to be the author of the book). From her attempts to persuade her kids to take the terrifying school bus, to the bemusing experience of attempting to buy apples, to the bewilderment concerning what, exactly, a sweater party is, the frustrations of trying to get real world news on the Chinese internet and TV and to her wholly endearing terror when she thinks she’s about to get busted for buying pirated, non-government approved DVDs we experience everything along with Susan in HD and full living color! We feel what she feels, see what she sees, laugh, cry, exult and puzzle alongside her.

Even when cancer strikes, the author somehow manages to make the experience of this disease entirely real to the reader. We can still empathise with her. We still live life along with her.

Novel or memoir, it is regardless a remarkable feat of writing ability to create such reality. To bring along your readers in such a convincing way, to suck them into the goings on of your daily life in a way that doesn’t feel fake or contrived. To make them fully experience everything, rather than just passively observe. This is what I really look for in a good book. When I say that a book seems real, I mean that during the course of reading it, it has become real to me. 

Notable and Quotable

"She was a Southern girl, after all, and fainting was a Southern girl's prerogative. It instantly absolved a woman of so very many responsibilities."

- Lisa Verge Higgins (2011), The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship (NY, NY: 5Spot), p. 41

Book Review: The Covenant by Naomi Ragen

The Covenant is at once deep, rich, dark, traumatising and hopeful. It brings the reader to tears of distress and then to tears of joy. It is emotive and powerful and it is really an extraordinary little book. This is the type of book that makes you think. The type of book throughout which you feel your views, opinions and beliefs evolving and adapting.

I first came across it when it popped up on that oh-so-dangerous ‘More Items to Consider’ list on Amazon. I was intrigued and so I went about trying to find it in several bookstores. Unfortunately it seems that Ragen’s books are not widely sold in the UK, nor are they available on kindle so eventually I caved and bought a second hand copy from Amazon. I started reading it the evening the package arrived and basically didn’t put it down again until I was finished.

I am quite sure that in some circles this book could prove to be rather controversial but it really needn’t be. Yes, the author is an Israeli woman. Yes, it contains clear views on the legitimacy of Israel and the entire notion of a Jewish state (both of which I fully support though this is neither here nor there) but this is really not the central purpose of the book. This is not necessarily a story about an Israeli mother but about the horror of terrorism and the evils that we are all capable of. It is also about the will to live and the beauty of life. Its central message is really that life is a gift that we should all, regardless of creed or color, grasp with both hands, cling to and fight for.

The main character Elise is a Jewish mother but she could be a Catholic mother or a Muslim mother or a Hindu mother……

One of the crucial aspects of the book is that no character emerges from the calamitous events without suffering immeasurable grief. Not Elise, not her grandmother, not her grandmothers’ friends and family, not the terrorists, not the IDF, not the uncomfortably over ambitious journalist (it is a testament to Ragen’s abilities that it is impossible not to like this character a little bit, even though you so want to hate her). Even the brave woman who ends up rescuing Elise’s daughter, Ilana, does not get away free and happy. The message is quite clear—this is what apathy towards the gift of human life brings. I think the whole story is most succinctly summed up in the following quote:

“The two women, their souls seared and dissolved by shock waves of grief and loss, rocked together in a desperate embrace. The Arab woman’s ululation of mourning mingled with the Jewish woman’s heartrending cries of grief.

Arab and Jew, the tears were the same tears. The broken heart, the grief, the mourning, both the same….”

Excerpt from: Naomi Ragen (2004) The Covenant (NY, NY: St Martin’s Press) p. 271

Book Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

I read this book for the College Prepster’s brand spanking new book club (http://www.thecollegeprepster.com/2011/05/college-prepster-book-club-review-next.html).

 Given that she and her book club were the stimuli I finally needed to get started on this blog, it seems only right and proper that my first review be of this book.

I think the best word to describe the book would be: sweet. It is an incredibly sweet story, with incredibly sweet characters and an incredibly sweet ending. Deep, meaningful and evocative it is not but it is precious and charming. It is, in essence, a feel-good book, perfect for the beach or a plane journey. It won’t take your full attention and it won’t change your views about the meaning of life and the universe but it will make you smile.

It did, however, take a little while for me to get into the story. I felt that in the first few chapters Hoffman didn’t quite have the right tone for CeeCee’s voice and I spent some time puzzling over quite how old CeeCee-the-narrator was supposed to be when recounting her story. At times she seemed to sound just like the little girl that she was supposed to be but on other occasions the narrator would use turns of phrase and vocabulary that simply came across as too adult. It was a little off-putting and unsettling and is something that just a little further editing might have remedied quite quickly. Nevertheless, after the first few chapters, CeeCee’s narration settled down became more believable and I began to fall in love with the character.

One of the things that I appreciated most about the book was that it was a good story written in a mature way but that didn't include gratuitous sex scenes! My little sister is 13 but reads at a much more advanced level. She devours books and it is always a struggle to find grown up novels that she can really get her teeth into and enjoy but that don't have at least one extremely graphic (usually totally unnecessary) sex scene. It's not that she doesn't know about "all that stuff" but she certainly doesn't need to be reading vivid descriptions. There's a real dearth of age appropriate, yet mature and serious, novels for kids her age and so I'm always thrilled to find a great book that I (aged 21) can enjoy and that she can too.

All in all this was a most enjoyable book and one that I would recommend for anyone who wants a simple, straightforward and endearing summer read.