Mariana

Mariana by Susanna Kearsley (1994)

Julia Beckett first saw the house in Exbury when she was five, but somehow knew that it was hers. She came across it again by accident (or not?) a couple more times before finally purchasing it and moving in. Settling in, she begins to have strange experiences, as though she is suddenly transported back in time to someone else's life. Someone named Mariana. These visits are brief, but Julia becomes obsessed with trying to learn the connection between her life and Mariana's and discover why she seems to have been destined to live in this house. So obsessed that she begins to lose hold on her real life, and she must struggle to make peace with the past so she can live in the present.

I quite enjoyed the story of Julia moving to this small town, buying her house, and getting to know the local people. She worked as a freelance illustrator of children's books, making it easy to uproot her life and move from London to this small village. Mariana's story was also fascinating, though not especially happy. She lived in the 1600s and after her mother died of plague, Mariana was forced to go live with her cruel uncle at his house in Exbury, where things only got worse for her. Julia and Mariana led very different lives in very different times, but I really liked reading about both of them.

The reincarnation aspects might be a bit much for some people but I thought the stories were quite nicely woven together and I was happy to suspend my disbelief and go along with it. (By the way, that's not a spoiler - you know very early on that Julia is supposed to be the reincarnation of Mariana.) Likewise, there was a lot of talk about fate and destiny, concepts that I find a bit ridiculous but again, I'll believe anything for a good story. It seemed like I knew a lot very early on, but there were still twists and surprises, including in the several love stories. Altogether, I thought it was quite well-crafted.

The only thing that bothered me was the character Mrs. Hutherson, who obviously knew the answers that Julia was looking for, but insisted that she find out for herself. This is a pretty common trope in books and movies, but I've always found it irritating. I just don't think that character added anything to the story. Other characters, however, were more interesting and played more important roles. Vivien, owner of the local bar in Exbury, was a welcoming friend to Julia, and Geoff made for a dashing and enigmatic love interest. Even Julia's brother Tom, a vicar, lived nearby and was a source of support when Julia's strange visions started.

Mariana was Kearsley's first novel and although it wasn't perfect, I'd be happy to read more of her books. I first heard about Mariana on Shelf Love, a blog I really enjoy partly because of how many books they discuss that I've never heard of anywhere else. It's a shame that Kearsley doesn't seem very well-known; in fact I bought this as an ebook because it's not available in my library system. A few others are though, including The Winter Sea which my mother just read and highly recommends. I'd definitely like to try this author again, and I think The Winter Sea might be my next choice.

Sunday Knitting

I've taken a small break from my sock and shawl to work on a small, brightly colored gift.

I've been wanting to use brown and blue together for a while, and I find it quite fetching.

The free pattern is a bit frustrating and difficult to understand, but I think it's going well despite the difficulties. More when I've finished!

Every Day

Every Day by David Levithan (2012)

A isn't a boy or a girl, doesn't even have a body. Every day, A wakes up as someone else, lives as that person for a day - trying not to alter their life too much - before then moving on and becoming someone else for the next day. (We first meet A as a boy and for simplicity, I'm just going to use male pronouns.) A doesn't know why his life is different from everyone else's and doesn't try to control it or build relationships with anyone and is always careful not to leave a trace of his presence. Until he meets Rhiannon, and then everything changes.

When I first heard about this book, I thought the premise was dubious, but as I read I became fascinated by this idea. A had experienced so many different kinds of people that he understood a lot more than most people do. He had been chronically ill, blind, a drug addict, rich, spoiled, everything you can think of. It gave him insights into human nature that nobody else can really have, especially at so young an age when most teens' experiences have been quite limited.

Despite these insights, it's also true that he was never any of these things for more than a day. That also means he had never been anyone's child, sibling or friend for more than a day. Tomorrow meant nothing because tomorrow he would be somewhere and someone else. He realizes at one point that nobody has memories of his childhood, he'll never have anyone to grieve for him, or to remember him when he's gone. It's a bit mind-blowing if you think about it.

Convenient to the plot, A was always in the US, pretty much confined to one part of the country. This made it easy to further the plot by being able to hunt down Rhiannon pretty easily, but was a bit disappointing. I would have loved seeing him try to adjust to other cultures around the world. I found his experience as a body-hopper much more interesting than the romance that was supposed to be central to the novel. I'm all for a good romance, but can't even buy someone falling in love with someone from spending an afternoon together and then not being able to let go, risking everything to be with them again. The ending also left me unsatisfied, but I'll leave it at that so as not to spoil anything. Other readers obviously feel differently about the romance and the ending based on their reviews.

Still, I'm glad I read it. Although I didn't love it madly as some do, it was imaginative and gave me a lot to think about. I like David Levithan's writing style and will certainly read more of his books in the future.

The Cry of the Sloth

The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage (2009)

The subtitle to the novel is The Mostly Tragic Story of Andrew Whittaker Being His Collected, Final, and Absolutely Complete Writings. Andrew Whittaker is an aspiring author, literary magazine editor, and landlord. The writings included here are pieces of his (terrible) novel, rejection letters to hopeful contributors to Soap magazine, signs reminding his tenants of such matters as where to leave their trash, letters to those who haven't been paying rent, correspondence with his ex-wife Jolie, as well as other letters to friends and acquaintances regarding his dubious plans for a literary festival. From these writings we glean his loneliness, mental instability, and utter failure in every aspect of his life. He's socially inept, in financial ruin, drinks too much, hoards, and feels completely out of control. It's as though he has no idea how any of this has happened to him, where those piles of boxes came from, why he has no money.

Although it's fascinating to read about the sort of person who would write letters to the newspaper under fake names, or spend an entire day rearranging the contents of boxes in his house, we are so close to his downward spiral it all starts to seem frighteningly possible. It only took his wife leaving him to set him off and before he knew it he was completely falling apart. He can't manage the simplest task, everything he does becoming a comedy of errors. At the doctor's office he tries to pull a single bill out of his pocket with his finger in a splint, gets his hand stuck in the pocket, and ends up flinging out a wad of cash that flutters all over the room. When the papers in his house start piling up he begins taping them together, so that when he tries to pull out one document, the entire tower topples over.

The book's title refers to the sound made by the ai, which Andrew tries to imitate, having apparently no idea how ridiculous this is to everyone around him. "I did it at the post office the other day when the clerk told me I had insufficient postage on my package."

When I read, I use little scraps of paper to mark the pages with passages I want to go back to, lines I may want to quote, passages that are especially funny or clever. As soon as I began reading this book I knew I'd have to try and hold back, but my copy still looks like this.

Clearly it's not helpful when you mark every third page, as it seems I've done here. I may as well reread the whole thing. I suspect someday I will.

The novel's style is clever and witty, the main character completely unlikeable but tragically comic. Or maybe comically tragic? It reminded me of The Hottest Dishes of the Tarter Cuisine, absurd and sad at the same time. Because it's a collection of various short pieces of writing, it's a great book to pick up when you only have short snippets of time to read. You can even open it up and read random passages without context to get a taste of Andrew's life.

Years ago I read Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife, which is one of my very favorite books. Now you are 2 for 2, Sam Savage! I'm only sorry it took me this long to read another book by this incredibly talented author.

Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (2012)

A British spy plane has been shot down, the pilot presumably killed and the passenger captured by the Gestapo. After being tortured she finally relented to making a deal and promised to tell them everything she knew. This is her confession.

The narrator begins by saying that she's a coward. That she's going to be killed in two weeks anyhow but has sold her information to prevent torture that is too frightening to think about. Then she goes on to tell a story about two young women from different walks of life who meet during the war and become best friends and eventually are thrown together on a dangerous mission.

The narrator describes herself in the third person in her confession, which was a bit difficult to get used to, but other than that it was easy to read, conversational and not at all how I'd expect an actual confession to be written (and thank goodness for that). The narrator was called by several different names in the course of the book and maybe it's this masking of identities that made me feel like I never really knew her very well. It didn't diminish the effect of the story at all though, especially since I got a much clearer picture of her pilot friend Maddie. Maddie gets a turn at narrating later on, but I don't want to reveal much about the later part of the story. But I was glad to finally hear from her, especially after learning so much about her from her friend's perspective earlier in the book.


I almost gave up 80 or 90 pages into it, because it wasn't grabbing me. I think I had just been reading it in fits and starts and was a bit put off by all the discussions of planes and whatnot. And then we got hit with a blizzard and I sat down with it for an hour or so, and I am so glad I gave it another shot.

It's hard to say actually what is so fantastic about this book. Partly it's just the perspective - the British experience of World War II, but also British women in the military. Planning spy missions! Caught by the Gestapo! The whole worldview of the two women, their experiences and fears, are so different from anything else I've read about this period that I had to keep reminding myself it's the same World War II I've read about before. I probably wouldn't even have picked this up based only on the description. My interest was piqued by the many rave reviews, which were well deserved.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher (2012), narrated by David Tennant

Jamie was just five years old when his sister Rose was killed in a terrorist bombing. Now ten, he lives with his dad and his sister Jasmine, Rose's twin. Months ago his mother left for another man and the rest of the family had to move to a new house. Jamie's father drinks way too much and pays more attention to the urn of Rose's ashes than to his still-living children. He raves against Muslims, who he holds responsible for her death, and gets angry when he doesn't think Jamie affords Rose the attention and respect she deserves. But Jamie barely remembers Rose, never mind missing her or feeling sad about her death. Of course he won't tell his father that. Neither will he tell his father that the only friend he's made at his new school is Muslim.

Desperate for his mother's attention, Jamie attributes her continued absence to her boss Mr. Walker not letting her have time off. When he receives a birthday package from her with a Spider-Man shirt, he wears it all the time. His persistent optimism is so sad! His sister Jasmine is older and more grounded in reality, but doesn't want to dash Jamie's illusions. Their fierce loyalty toward one another was the very best part of the book.

I knew Jamie would learn a lot of painful truths in the course of the story, but he also gained a great deal of strength and confidence, thanks in no small part to his sister Jasmine and his fearless friend Sunya.

The audiobook is brilliant narrated by David Tennant. I was a bit dubious at first: a middle-aged man performing a first-person narration of a 10-year-old boy? But he captures Jamie's exuberance and humor just perfectly. (It also doesn't hurt that I just like listening to British people talk.) The musical interludes between each chapter were unnecessary and a little too long, but even that couldn't detract from the excellent production.

A really lovely, sweet book about family and friendships and growing up. The audiobook isn't available at libraries in my area (I got it from audible.com) but it's absolutely worth seeking out.

The Best Man

The Best Man by Kristan Higgins (2013)

Nothing can be as humiliating as being jilted at the altar, especially by a guy you thought was in love with you but who turns out to be gay. Faith Holland didn't wait around afterwards, but high-tailed it out of town and made a life for herself in San Francisco. But three and a half years later she has returned to upstate New York to do some work at her family's vineyard. Of course that means facing her ex-fiance again, not to mention his best friend - who Faith blames for everything - Levi Cooper. Unfriendly police chief Levi, who has always disliked Faith and makes no attempt to hide it and who is suddenly, strangely, compelling. How has she never noticed how attractive he is?

I picked up a Kristan Higgins book not long, an older book called Just One of the Guys. It was terrible. It read like something written by a twelve-year-old. With lots of exclamation points! In every paragraph! And "bleeping" used as a swear word, repetitively. But since I kept hearing how good Higgins is, I decided to try this forthcoming novel which will be published later this month. I'm glad I gave her a second chance.

Her language has improved greatly since that earlier book, but it's still homey and super-casual, like an email from a friend. Sometimes this extends to barroom language that's a bit jarring; I was ok with the use of "boobage" thought it was overused, but cringed when she used (more than once) "mighty rack." Nonetheless, the writing was generally easy to read, breezy and friendly and funny. I really liked her brand of humor, even it was a bit over-the-top at times. There were some scenes that actually made me snicker and I've been dying to share them with someone but don't want to ruin it by my terrible retelling. I'll just say there's a memorable scene in a bar bathroom that involves a Microfiber Slim-Nation undergarment, a powerful "child-sucking" toilet, and a doomed sweater. The book may be worth reading for this alone. But if that's not enough, there's also a really uncomfortable conversation between Faith and her ex regarding their old sex life and Justin Timberlake. You may not want to miss these things.

There was more subtle humor as well - of a variety I especially appreciate - in Faith's description of wine. Eons ago I visited many wineries and participated in tastings where I was subjected to wine talk that I find pretentious and ridiculous beyond words. In the novel Faith says it's all made up anyhow, and goes on to creatively describe wines thusly: "Passionfruit, pepper, a little honeysuckle, just a touch of pencil lead in the body, with a whisper of lychee in the finish." I love that. It's that sort of talk that finally made me realize I don't enjoy "tasting" wine, I enjoy drinking it.

The Blue Heron Winery was a pleasant backdrop, and Faith's family were charming and quirky. The story of Faith, her sisters, and their mother's death was an unexpectedly sophisticated addition. Faith was epileptic,  a seizure the apparent cause of the car accident that killed her mother when Faith was 10. She had felt guilty about this for years, and how she finally came to grips with it and spoke of it to her family was bittersweet and quite touching. Levi was also a complicated character, greatly affected by his time in the military in Afghanistan and his brief marriage to a woman he met there.

There was really a lot going on here for a romance novel. It's not high literature by any means, but there's a lot to like. I've been striking out a lot on contemporary romance and The Best Man has given me hope for the genre.

I received my copy of The Best Man courtesy of NetGalley