Review of THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME by Laura Dave

 2.5 Stars

This is another of those much-hyped books that left me unimpressed.

After a year of marriage, Hannah’s husband Owen Michaels disappears, leaving her with his sixteen-year-old daughter Bailey.  His last message to his wife is “Protect her” and Hannah knows that he means Bailey.  The FBI is investigating the tech firm for which Own has worked.  Though the CEO is charged with fraud, Hannah refuses to believe her husband was involved and thinks he may have disappeared for some other reason.  The two women set out to find Owen but discover that he had many secrets about his past. 

Hannah is the narrator; unfortunately, I found her bland and boring.  What is emphasized about her is that she is a saint in her dealings with her stepdaughter.  Bailey is going through a difficult time and she is a teenager, so some of her behaviour is understandable, but in many ways she is just a spoiled brat.  Owen seems never to have said no to his daughter, even when she treats Hannah contemptuously.  Hannah constantly makes excuses for Bailey’s behaviour, tiptoes around her, and lets her get away with everything, so concerned is she that Bailey like her.  Isn’t it time that Bailey learn that the feelings and needs of others are important?

A major focus of the book is the evolving relationship between Hannah and Bailey.  As expected, Bailey gradually accepts that Hannah is someone she can trust.  I think, however, that Hannah could have shown a bit more backbone in confronting Bailey.  Putting a child’s welfare above one’s own is admirable, but Bailey is sixteen, not six, and a few blunt, honest conversations would have been helpful.  Hannah speaks of grieving privately only after Bailey has recovered from her loss.  Why doesn’t Hannah show her sadness and point out what she has lost?  Bailey is sixteen, not six, and it’s time to stop being selfish.  At one point, Hannah says, “She is yelling at me because she wants to be yelling at him.  It’s a feeling I can relate to.  I’m just as angry as you are, I want to say.”  Eight times, Hannah uses the phrase I want to say; I wish she’d just get on with it!  Bailey’s behaviour might be realistic given the circumstances and her upbringing, but Hannah’s reactions are not. 

The mystery surrounding Owen is solved easily by a woodturner who becomes an amateur detective.  Of course she has Bailey’s help, Bailey who can’t remember anything but then conveniently remembers very specific things from twelve years earlier.  With little skill and effort, everything falls into place.  And some of the things mentioned are just bizarre:  when the identity of L Paul is revealed, it makes no sense that she is a conservator, a guardian who cares for and protects a person?  There’s a “most recent” will and then a “final” will?  Hannah’s best friend from a small town on the Hudson River coincidentally ends up living nearby on the West Coast? 

This book is over-hyped.  The writing is mediocre, the plot is predictable, and the ending is cheesy.  It has little to recommend it other than it is a quick read.  I don’t recommend it unless you’re looking for some mindless fluff.  

Review of THE OTHER PASSENGER by Louise Candlish (New Release)

 3 Stars

The novel opens on December 27, 2019, with Jamie Buckby being questioned by the police about Kit Roper, his friend and fellow river bus commuter who went missing just before Christmas.  Apparently Jamie was the last person to see Kit before he disappeared, and a passenger on the river bus witnessed the two of them arguing.  Via flashbacks, we are told how Jamie and his partner Clare met Kit and Melia Roper in January of 2019 and what transpired in the year since then.  Jamie claims innocence, but it seems he is not being totally honest.

The story is narrated in the first person point of view by Jamie so only his perspective is given.  It is not long before it is clear that he is an unreliable narrator who is withholding information.  For example, in the first chapter, he comments on being childless:  “No parent would do what I’ve done this last year, or at least not so readily, so heedlessly.”  Of course, he doesn’t elaborate on his actions.  Later, he tells himself, “Don’t think about the peninsula.  The apartments, the bedrooms, the secrets” without explaining what happened that must be kept secret. 

The characters are difficult to like.  All seem self-centred.  One is devious and manipulative, while another has a sense of entitlement and is constantly complaining.  Common sense seems to be in short supply.  Everyone seems untrustworthy, so who is playing whom?  Everyone is deceptive and is willing to betray others.  Virtually all the seven deadly sins make an appearance:  pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, and sloth; even gluttony in the over-consumption of alcohol is evident.

Given the almost 20 year age difference and different lifestyles, it is difficult to see what attracts Clare to Melia.  Financial inequality exists between Jamie and Clare and that might not be a deal breaker, but Clare’s reaction to Jamie’s behaviour stretches credulity.  What does Jamie offer Clare, much less Melia?

It seems that most reviewers speak of the surprise twists and turns in the narrative and, yes, there are some, but it is not difficult to determine who the ultimate “villain” is.  Any reader who pays attention and stops to question people’s motives (like Jamie should do) will be able to predict what will happen.  What is satisfying in the end is that everyone gets his/her just deserts. 

Jamie spends a lot of time on the river bus commuting to and from work.  Descriptions of the Thames are used to create atmosphere.  There are passages like “the river was liquid mud, stippled with rain, its lethal eddies and currents visible on the surface like feeding mouths” and “As we duck through the gold-studded red arches of Blackfriars Bridge, I picture the river bursting its banks and breaching us onto the South Bank, the humans fleeing from the slimy double-hulled monster, everyone screaming.”

This book is a slow burn.  It begins slowly and only picks up pace about two-thirds of the way.  It is not a boring read, but it is not particularly challenging either, so it might make for a perfect summer read. 

Note:  I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

 

Review of WHAT STRANGE PARADISE by Omar El Akkad (New Release)

4.5 Stars 

Readers should be forewarned that this book, which explores the global refugee crisis, will not leave them unaffected.

Amir Utu is a 9-year-old Syrian boy who is the only survivor when an overloaded, unequipped, and dilapidated boat sinks.  He washes up on the beach of an unnamed Mediterranean island where he encounters a local girl, 15-year-old Vänna Hermes.  In chapters entitled “Before” we learn about Amir’s past and how he came to be on the boat; in alternating chapters entitled “After” we see how Vänna tries to help Amir escape authorities and get to safety. 

Like the author’s debut novel, American War, this one asks readers to put themselves in the position of displaced and desperate people.  Amir’s family faces disbelief, selfishness, indifference, and callousness wherever they go.  They leave Syria because their home was destroyed and stay with Mona, a distant relative in Damascus, though “it was clear that Mona intended theirs to be a short visit, a temporary respite to wherever they were going.”  Mona, clearly a Bashar al-Assad supporter, tells Amir’s mother that she must be exaggerating what happened and that the destruction shown on television is “all made up” and tells her “’you really can’t let yourself be so easily fooled.’” 

Of course the migrants come under the control of smugglers who are concerned only with money.  Migrants are deceived into thinking they will get safe passage on a seaworthy craft, but conditions are horrific. I found the description of the sea passage particularly harrowing; more than once I was reminded of what slave ships must have been like.  In fact, some are intended “’for the market.’”   Even the migrants become concerned only with their own survival:  “somewhere along the journey they’d passed the point where human goodness gave way to the calculus of survival.” 

Any refugees who do make it to land do not receive the most compassionate of care:  “those who survived the passage were taken to wait while, slowly and with well-honed inefficiency, the system considered their appeals for asylum.”  A coast guard officer who finds that migrants were given faulty life jackets blames the migrants:  “’These people, they don’t think . . . They don’t plan.’”  For the tourism industry and wealthy tourists, migrants are an inconvenience:  a wreck on the beach “has ruined the tourists’ day, confining them to the grounds of their hotel. . . . a middle-aged couple argue about whether to demand a refund.”  A nationalist politician, questioning why all the migrants have phones and why the women keep asking for contraceptive pills, illustrates an ignorance of the nature of the migrants’ plight.

Many of the migrants hope to make it to the West, but they are warned about what awaits them.  One of the smugglers who admits to being a “black-market hustler” says, “’You think the black market is bad?  Brother, wait till you see the white market’” because “’when you finally get over there to the promised land, . . . you [will] see how those dignified, civilized Westerners treat you – when you find out what they expect of you is to live your whole life like a dog under their dinner table.’”  Amir is told, “’You are the temporary object of their fraudulent outrage, their fraudulent grief.  They will march the streets on your behalf, they will write to politicians on your behalf, they will cry on your behalf, but you are to them in the end nothing but a hook on which to hang the best possible image of themselves.  Today you are the only boy in the world and tomorrow it will be as though you never existed.’”

It is the children in the book who possess admirable traits.  Amir, who has so little, more than once shares food with others.  Vänna is empathetic and courageous; she vows that only when she sees Amir to safety will she return home to face the consequences of her actions. Appropriately, her surname is that of the Greek god who served as the messenger of the gods and protector of travellers; she shows how the gods want humans to act.  Most of the adults lack empathy and behave cowardly, though of course, “’only a coward survives the absurd.’” 

This book has so many strengths; it has realistic, well-developed characters and lots of suspense, as well as a theme which should have everyone thinking.  The ending may be unsatisfactory to some, but I found it most appropriate. 

Read this book about people who have “shed their belongings and their roots and their safety and their place of purpose and all claim to agency over their own being” and ask yourself what you would do if you were to encounter Amir.  Would you act like Vänna or like Dimitri Kethros?  We also need to ask ourselves what we have done since seeing the photo of Alan Kurdi in 2015, a photo which this novel certainly brought to mind.

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Review of THE SEVEN DOORS by Agnes Ravatn

 4.5 Stars

Three years ago I was very impressed by Agnes Ravatn’s debut novel The Bird Tribunal (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2018/02/review-of-bird-tribunal-by-agnes-ravatn.html), so I was excited to discover that she’d written a second book.  The Seven Doors is as immersive and compelling as her first novel.

Nina Wisløff is a classic literature professor nearing retirement and facing the loss of her childhood home because it is going to be expropriated for an infrastructure project.  At the same time, her daughter Ingeborg is looking for a larger house.  Nina’s husband Mads inherited a house which he has rented to a tenant, but Ingeborg thinks it might be perfect for her family so she and Nina visit the current tenant, a single mother named Mari Nilsen.  Ingeborg bluntly tells Mari that she and her son will have to move out.  A few days later, Nina learns that Mari has gone missing after leaving her son with his grandparents.  Feeling guilty that Ingeborg’s abrasiveness may have played a role in Mari’s disappearance, Nina starts to investigate what might have happened to her.

Characterization is excellent.  Nina is at a crossroads; she is dissatisfied at work and the loss of her home is emotionally devastating.  Feeling restless, she focuses on trying to discover what happened to Mari.  Once she begins, she refuses to give up, even when she is proven incorrect more than once.  There is much to admire about her; for example, she is caring and compassionate.  What appeals is that she is very relatable in her flaws.  Her relationship with her granddaughter will certainly make readers smile. 

Ingeborg is another interesting character.  She is like a human bulldozer who will manipulate anyone to get what she wants.  She is impatient, persistent, and aggressive.  Nina finds her daughter’s behaviour cringeworthy, but she knows what to expect from Ingeborg, and the reader does too.  Even Mari is well developed, though she is physically present only in one scene.  Indirect characterization, especially the comments of others, leaves the reader with a complex portrayal of Mari. 

Dialogue is not punctuated so the reader must concentrate.  That need for focus is a good thing because the writing is so precise that nothing is superfluous.  Near the beginning Nina gives a lecture on Greek tragedy.  Her students are largely inattentive, but a reader who skims will miss so much that is relevant.  In fact, the main points of her lecture serve as a blueprint for reading the novel. 

Not just Oedipus Rex but Aesop’s fables and the “Bluebeard” folktale offer foreshadowing, symbolism, and thematic depth.  I guessed the truth long before the ending, but I think that Ravatn wants the reader to know, as evidenced by the numerous examples of dramatic irony.  The focus is not what happened to Mari so much as Nina’s investigation and her refusal to give up.  Even suspecting the truth, the reader will undoubtedly feel the powerful impact of the last page.

This book is a domestic thriller with psychological overtones.  It begins slowly but suspense builds, and the Norwegian winter adds atmosphere.  But the novel is also literary fiction at its best because it enriches as it entertains.  I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for a unique read; actually, I think I’m going to re-read it, knowing I will find even more to admire in the elegant layering of the narrative.

Review of THE LOST APOTHECARY by Sarah Penner

3 Stars

This book is for readers wanting a light, entertaining read, providing they are content not to analyze too much.

The novel has two time periods and three perspectives.  In 1791 London, we meet Nella Clavinger, an apothecary who, from her hidden shop, provides poisons to women wanting to rid themselves of abusive men in their lives.  One day, Eliza Fanning, a twelve-year-old lady’s maid, comes for poison requested by her mistress.  The two develop an unexpected friendship.  Both Nella and Eliza’s points of view are given.  In contemporary London, we meet Caroline Parcewell.  She and her husband were to be celebrating their 10^th anniversary in London, but she recently learned of his infidelity so took the trip on her own. She goes mudlarking, discovers an apothecary’s vial, and sets out to find out more about it because of its unusual marking. 

The book starts strong but I started losing patience and interest with the oh-so-convenient plot turns.  Nella keeps a register in which she records all the transactions, in essence naming both the murderer and victim.  Her rationale is that she wants to preserve “the memory of these women in the register – granting them their single, indelible mark on the world” because “the existence of these women . . . would otherwise be erased from history.”  Despite the fact that numerous women know of the shop’s existence, she thinks it’s safe to keep this register, that any woman’s “’secret is safe in here’”?!  It’s also troubling that Nella never asks questions of her clients; she doesn’t question to determine if they want to kill a man because of self-interest or because of self-preservation.  It doesn’t matter to her?  Wanting to help women who have no other option to address the abuse they are experiencing might be understandable, but she prepares poisons without knowing whether the woman is “a victim or a transgressor”?

Caroline is even more unbelievable.  She finds a vial, explores an undiscovered building in the heart of London, and then links her discoveries to documents in the British Museum?  Everything she needs to find, she finds easily; everything just falls into place very quickly.  She has a degree in History but her poor knowledge of proper research skills left me wondering how she ever earned that degree.  This same person thinks that an application to a university guarantees acceptance, even for someone who has done no academic work for ten years?

The author is at pains to emphasize Caroline’s personal growth during her few days in London.  On her first day, she finds a vial and she immediately concludes that “This glass object – delicate and yet still intact, somewhat like myself – was proof that I could be brave, adventurous, and do hard things on my own.”  Only hours later, “I could feel the change in myself at this very moment:  the discontent within me seizing the possibility of an adventure, an excursion into my long-lost enthusiasm for eras past.”  After one day in the city, “The youthful, adventurous Caroline had begun to come alive again.  I thought of my unused history degree, my diploma shoved away in a desk drawer.  As a student, I’d been fascinated by the lives of ordinary people, those whose names weren’t acknowledged and recorded in textbooks.  And now, I’d stumbled on the mystery of one of those nameless, forgotten people – and a woman, no less.”  A woman who has apparently done no self-reflection for a decade, not even knowing that she is happy but unfulfilled, so quickly experiences epiphanies and can even narrate her own growth? 

There are other implausibilities.  An amateur stumbles on a centuries-long mystery?  Caroline finds that particular vial used by Eliza?  Caroline and Gaynor develop such a deep friendship after a couple of encounters, so that Gaynor signs a text message with “Gaynor xx” and even covers for Caroline despite suspecting that she has been less than completely truthful with her?  In 1791, Nella writes about “Ms. Allie Bechem” and about “Miss Berkwell”; I know that Ms. originated in the 17^th century, but why would the apothecary use two different honorifics?  The magical deus ex machina is also annoying, especially considering that Caroline dismisses magic; the author seemed overly concerned to have a feel-good ending.

This book is an easy read, a quick bit of entertainment.  Unfortunately, its shallowness and its contrived, implausible plot overshadowed my enjoyment. 

Review of THE FRENCH BAKER'S WAR by Michael Whatling

3.5 Stars

The novel is set in occupied France between October 19 and December 5 of 1943.  André Albert, a pastry chef, returns home from shopping to find his young son Frédéric playing in the street with no sign of his mother Mireille.  Hiding inside the pâtisserie is Émilie, a young Jewish woman.  André, desperate to find his wife, is willing to do anything to find her and bring her home, though his search often leads him into danger, as does his decision to shelter Émilie.  Though Émilie helps to look after Frédéric, she is reticent to speak about her past, and it soon becomes obvious that she is keeping secrets from André. 

The book’s focus is not on wartime battles but on the difficult choices people face during wartime.  Much of the conflict is internal; more than one character faces choices which are “cliffs with only rocks below.”  How can André get information about Mireille without drawing dangerous attention to himself?  Does he have a moral duty to help Émilie, a stranger, even though helping her endangers him, his son, and the entire neighbourhood?  Does a person have an obligation to speak up and defend a friend or reveal a truth if doing so puts one’s life in jeopardy? 

What the book also shows is the ways war transforms people.  Neighbours turn on neighbours or do nothing to help.  A man may rail against those who choose silence and lack the will to help others but, later, faced with “not only an obligation to his friends, but a moral duty, as well” finds that his own “resolve is fragile as a bird’s wing.”  One woman, because of her traumatic experiences, “resigns herself to endure life like it’s an affliction, anticipating nothing more than the bittersweet comfort of memories.”  Another woman cannot see to be forgiven, “Not after what she’s had to do – what she’s been made to do.  What she did to others.” 

A strong element is the complex characterization.  André, faced with the unexplainable absence of his wife, experiences a wide spectrum of emotions.  He’s confused and “imagines scenarios where Mireille could leave them, willingly or not.”  He’s hopeful that he can find out what happened to her and bring her home, but as time passes, he gives in to despair.  Certain actions he takes the reader may find difficult to approve, but given the circumstances, they are realistic. 

There are some events which I found problematic.  At one point André leaves Frédéric entirely alone in the house when he goes to the church?  A person would be accepted as a member of a Resistance cell without any real hesitancy?  A man tells some Resistance fighters about a munitions factory as if it is news when it would probably have been common knowledge because a location with guards around its perimeter would surely have caught people’s attention?  Monsieur Durant gives money to Émilie without asking why she needs it?  On a Tuesday, André is supposed to be going to work, but he just doesn’t show up because he has a plan to follow someone, and there are no consequences to his truancy?  André decides not to go to a friend to apologize after an argument because “Already too much time has passed” when the argument took place only the previous evening?

There is an aspect of style which bothered me.  Though the author is obviously trying not to use clichéd comparisons, some of the similes and metaphors are awkward.  Some examples:  “A burst of their laughter skims across the water, taunting as the key to a dungeon cell dangling just out of reach.”  And “Her stomach heaves like she’s swallowed one of those squalls that come out of nowhere to capsize everything in its path.”  And “he’s lost somewhere under the surface of an ice-covered lake.  Whatever took place seems distant to him as the planets.”  And “Memories . . . she’d thought forgotten, return like an executioner to his duty after pausing to sharpen his axe.”   And “What started as a pebble in a shoe, soon will be the size of a rock under the surface of a calm sea waiting to cause shipwrecks.”  (As a former English teacher, I  couldn't help but notice the incorrect punctuation in these last two examples.)

Some of the comparisons are meant to fit the thoughts of a particular individual, but I still found them stilted.  A seamstress, for instance, has difficulty broaching a topic in conversation and so thinks, “It would be easier to fit a wedding dress on a spider”?  André, the pastry chef, “eases into sleep again like he’s being lowered into a cave black as a Périgord truffle” and “scrutinizes each face with the meticulousness of making a dozen identical entremets” and compares his tension and excitement to “what Cordon Bleu chefs feel before meal service”? 

Though not flawless, the book has much to offer.  It excels in its depiction of characters faced with very difficult choices.  And there are some surprising twists which the reader will not see coming but which are appropriate. 

Thank you to the author, Michael Whatling, for a print copy of the book. 

Review of THE OCEAN IN WINTER by Elizabeth de Veer (New Release)

 3.5 Stars

This novel focuses on the lives of three sisters whose mother committed suicide 25 years earlier.  Alex, the eldest, is a nurse who is travelling in India but is called back home when she inherits a ramshackle house.  Colleen, the middle sister, is a devoted mother whose marriage is disintegrating.  Riley, the youngest, is a model in New York; she is dealing with a number of issues but has cut herself off from her family.

Chapters are alternated among the three women, each of whom narrates in the first person.  It is obvious that the trauma of their mother’s death continues to impact them.  Alex had to look after her sisters because their father became emotionally detached after their mother’s death; she comments that “I don’t pursue the things I love because my family needs me.”  Colleen focuses on her children so much so that her husband feels unneeded and unwanted; he tells her, “’I know that’s because your mom wasn’t there to take care of you when you were growing up.’”  Riley describes herself as “Pretty and damaged, I am the daughter without a mother.”

Obviously, the book examines a number of heavy subjects:  mental health, sexual abuse, addiction, suicide.  Though it focuses on the long-term effects on survivors of suicide loss, there is also a great deal of compassion for those who choose suicide.  They are not portrayed as selfish or manipulative or melodramatic, but as victims of depression and despair. 

The novel begins slowly and that slow pace negatively affected my enjoyment.  Though gradually I became more interested, I remained bothered by the author’s tendency to explain everything.  For instance, she tells us that “Addiction changes a person from the inside out.  The poisoned urgency of narcotics takes over every conscious part of human intent until the person they used to be almost evaporates.”  Also, the reader is told that “The experience of sexual abuse in childhood does not end with the conclusion of the abuse.  It’s trauma.  It gets replayed over and over a million times in the mind of the survivor.  It makes feeling safe ever again difficult or impossible; survivors turn to drugs to blot out the memory.”  These didactic passages are unnecessary. 

There are also some events that do not ring true.  Alex inherits a house from someone she barely knew?  Letters are used too often to manipulate plot:  Alex “misses” a letter, a retired mailman doesn’t open his mail, and an unopened letter explains so much in the end?  A lawyer would allow his home to be uninsured?  The private investigator Colleen hires to find Riley doesn’t always seem to behave in a strictly professional manner. 

The book does end on a positive note which, given the title, I expected:  “The Earth keeps turning, every day, every night, each time giving us the chance to start over.  In the night’s darkest moments, we so easily forget that morning will come.  We can’t stop it; it simply happens, just like spring follows winter, just as the tides of the ocean rise and fall.” 

The Ocean in Winter does have some of the tell-tale problems of a debut novel, but there is still much to recommend it.  I will certainly watch for Elizabeth de Veer’s next offering. 

Note:  I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.