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 In order to win the hand of his sweetheart Anna, Dutch Jacob de Zoet must make his fortune, and that is how he finds himself bound for the Japanese port city Dejima. Immediately on arrival he frets about his family Bible, worrying it will be censored in a place where he isn’t permitted to practice his own religions, but as he begins to experience life at the port he realizes he has larger problems to contend with. Even when he attempts to expose injustice, he is himself punished for not colluding in various schemes to get rich quick, and he finds himself disturbingly attracted to a young midwife that couldn’t be further in character from his intended.
I am probably the only person in the entire English-speaking world that hasn’t fallen in love with this book. It’s my first read by David Mitchell and I wonder if my expectations were too high. There were things I enjoyed about it and things I didn’t; I could see its merit but I’m afraid I’m forced to conclude that this really just wasn’t perfect for me.
My main problem really was that I just didn’t get on particularly well with Mitchell’s writing style. It felt weighty and elaborate, in that it actively slowed my reading down in ways I didn’t appreciate. His writing has been praised up and down for its beauty, but I only felt like there were moments of brilliance amidst a whole lot of muck. I didn’t appreciate the clipped sentences, short paragraphs, broken dialect – all of it just genuinely frustrated me. But then he’d go off onto something else, and immediately I’d be startled out of my annoyance by a lovely passage. I especially appreciated the ones about language and thought, so much that I’ve even managed to put a bookmark in (very rare, I assure you):
The word ‘my’ brings pleasure. The word ‘my’ brings pain. These are true words for masters as well as slaves. When they are drunk, we become invisible to them. Their talk turns to owning, to profit, or loss, or buying, or selling, or stealing, or hiring, or renting, or swindling. For White men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.
When I read that, I wonder if I should have just spent more time trying to read it instead of getting annoyed that the book would not be read at my pace.
Anyway, I liked other parts of the book too, such as Jacob’s overall honesty and faith. I thought he was a wonderful character; I liked the other Dutch characters considerably less and as a result I wasn’t crazy about the sections set on the port. What I really did enjoy was Orito’s narrative in the middle, in actual Japan. This was the first and last part of the book that I was actually compelled by and genuinely enjoyed reading.
And then I got to the end, and suddenly had a strange nostalgic fondness for the whole journey. I thought the end was really well done and got across not only the epic nature of Jacob’s life but also the very fleeting nature of it. Who is going to care what we’ve done, what we’ve stood for, after we’re dead? Unless we are very famous – and even then only sometimes – no one is going to remember.
So I closed the book feeling a lot more gracious towards it than I did when I started, and that’s why this review is so conflicted. Because I genuinely did not like parts of it, felt they were a slog, wished I didn’t have to read the book. Then I loved other parts of it and wished the whole book could have made me feel that way. I can certainly see why The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet has been nominated for the Booker prize, and I have decided I will try some of Mitchell’s other work to see if I like it better. This one was an effort, but I do think it was worth it, and I’m glad I read it.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
 Ten year old Margaret Beaufort wants to devote her life to prayer, perhaps becoming an abbess in the process, since she can’t ride to the glory of her country like Joan of Arc. As she grows and gives birth to a son at the age of 13, though, Margaret realizes that she is called to a different purpose, to put her son on the throne of England. Through three marriages and countless smiles of false loyalty, Margaret never loses sight of her goal, even when it drives away all the people who might once have loved her.
Once again, Philippa Gregory has written a book which has me a little bit torn. It didn’t start off well. I didn’t believe Margaret Beaufort would idolize Joan of Arc. As far as I’m aware, English people at the time merely thought of Joan as an heretic, when they thought of her at all. I severely doubt a ten year old girl would have ever even heard of her, let alone decided she wanted to be her. And it got worse when she believed her pregnancy was of paramount importance to England. The wars were starting, yes, but the king had a son, and even if he didn’t the Yorkists had a better claim since they weren’t descended from a line specifically NOT allowed to take the throne. Henry did become the Lancastrian claimant, but only because literally every other choice was dead.
Perhaps those are not on the strict factual side like dates, but they stuck out and annoyed me, so I figured I’d include them; they both do enhance the story, so I can’t really blame her. After that, the plot improved significantly and I didn’t land on anything else that had me really irritated. I seriously cannot read a book about the Wars of the Roses without picking something out that I don’t like or think is inaccurate – so others are free to ignore my complaints and/or dispute me as they like.
Secondly, Margaret annoyed me beyond belief. Her stance of declaring her whole life preordained by God, her coldness and selfishness – not at all in line with a woman who truly deserved to be called by God – had me pretty much crossing my fingers that Gregory would change history just so Henry could not become king of England. I wanted to smack her so she would show some sort of emotion besides cold-hearted ambition. The author did not succeed in making her a sympathetic character in any way.
Negativity aside, though, this was actually quite an enjoyable book to read. It read quickly and was surprisingly exciting, especially since Margaret saw hardly any action herself. She’s also a bit of a rare subject for a novel, so I actually enjoyed seeing things from her point of view even if I did want to punch her most of the time. In fact, she fit my previous perceptions of her pretty closely. Much as I wanted her to become sympathetic, it’s hard to imagine that woman who had some sort of kindness in her could turn into the Margaret Beaufort who later moved into the palace with Henry VII. The fact that I could actually enjoy reading a book about such an irritating woman is perhaps a testament to the fact that Gregory can tell a story well.
If you enjoy historical fiction, I do believe you will enjoy The Red Queen. Gregory does a good job bringing history alive and even the changes she makes that have me annoyed do fit the context of the story. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed this one quite as much as The White Queen, but I would recommend both.
In conjunction with the Simon & Schuster UK blog tour, I have five copies of this book to give away to UK and Ireland residents! If you’d like to enter, please fill out the form below. The giveaway is open until midnight UK time Monday August 16th.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free for review from the publisher.
 Shoko, a young Japanese girl, is uncertain of her future in Japan; she is clever, but she can’t get very far without marrying someone of her class. She and her father eventually decide that she should marry an American, so when she starts dating Charlie, the decision to marry is an easy one. Years later, Shoko suffers from the same ailment that killed her sister, an enlarged heart. Uncertain of how long she has left, Shoko longs to return to Japan and make amends with her family, but the doctor deems her too unwell. Instead, her daughter Sue, with whom she has always had difficulties, heads off to find them for her, learning much more than she would have expected about her mother in the process.
I was a little wary of this book when I started, simply because I wasn’t sure if it was for me. Similar books have ended up with me disliking them, and despite near universal praise I thought I might not like this one either. I was completely wrong, though; the power of Dilloway’s storytelling swept me away and I got completely caught up in Sue and Shoko’s individual stories.
As always, though, my favorite part was that set in Japan during Shoko’s youth. I always prefer the historical fiction over the modern day part of stories. It frustrated me that her intelligence couldn’t get her anywhere, that she had to marry because that was simply what young girls did. She worked, but it was clear there was no path for her. I was also fascinated by her motivations in marrying Charlie – overall, I thought this section was just really well done.
I also found the relationship between Shoko and Sue to be completely believable. I could easily understand how Sue resented her mother and the way her childhood had been different from everyone else’s, but saw how much she still cared for her. Their relationship felt very real to me and though I haven’t experienced that particular one, I think any pair of mothers and daughters could see something of themselves in their bond. Sue’s discovery of her mother’s past in detail – things that they’d never discussed – was also a fantastic journey of discovery, made even better by the fact that her daughter went along, too.
This was also a quick, delightful read, with nice even turns of phrase and nothing to really distract the reader from its central mother-daughter storyline. I did find that it even had a bit of suspense, as after Shoko’s heart surgery the book switches to Sue’s perspective and we have no idea what’s happened to Shoko. It added tension to her discoveries and gave the book an edge of unpredictability when the rest of it was fairly straightforward.
How to Be an American Housewife was a speedy read that really engaged all of my emotions. I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys women’s fiction or historical fiction on post-World War II Japan.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
 Margaret Oades isn’t exactly thrilled that she has to move her entire family from England to New Zealand in the late nineteenth century, but she loves her husband and, as a woman with children, has few other options. And anyway, they will return in two years, or at least that’s the plan; her house is attacked by Maori, native New Zealanders, and she and her children are spirited into the night and enslaved for six years. In the meantime, Henry Oades, Margaret’s husband, is convinced that his family has perished, and moves to California, where he marries once again. When Margaret shows up on her doorstep, new wife Nancy Oades has no idea what to do – but the case of the two wives of Mr. Oades incites public scandal and personal difficulty that will impact the lives of all concerned in remarkable ways.
This was such an intriguing historical novel. First off, the initial setting of New Zealand in the late nineteenth century was fairly new to me in fiction, but New Zealand is one of the places I’ve had to write about at work, so I’ve done some research. This is the first time I can recall reading about it in fiction and it was marvelous to have it come to life, if only for a few pages before the horror happened. Throughout, through, I really enjoyed Johanna Moran’s writing, and I found the whole book smooth and atmospheric – the locations felt different and I appreciated each of them differently.
I also loved the characters here, mostly the wives. I immediately liked Margaret and found it hard to believe that I could like Nancy, too, but somehow I appreciated both wives and their difficulties while loving a single man. The novel conveys magnificently the strength of women; despite slurs again their reputations, physical violence, and simple jealousy, Nancy and Margaret remain admirable characters and hardly ever miss a step. While Mr. Oades, despite his seemingly kind and giving nature, remains just a shadow throughout the novel, even when he’s grief stricken about the deaths of his family members, the two women really come to life. If I couldn’t understand why they loved Henry, I could understand perfectly their reasons for staying with him; this is true of Margaret in particular. Nancy, it seems, could have easily left despite her recent marriage, but she is still in love with Henry.
The idea of this novel is great, too, in that it covers a little known lawsuit that actually existed in California. At this point, there appears to have been something of a hysteria against bigamy due to Mormons’ multiple marriages before reliable laws were enacted. I would find such censure in real life heartbreaking – as if Margaret Oades and her children hadn’t been through enough already – but sadly not unbelievable, especially not at this time. I was eager to know a few more details about the real life case and I wish someone would write an actual history about it.
Until then, though, The Wives of Henry Oades is a really engaging work of historical fiction – especially recommended if you’re interested in reading about strong women who make the best of what life hands them.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
 Amandine is an aristocratic child born of scandal in Poland just before World War II. She is born nameless, with a heart condition that means her continued survival is unlikely. Unable to bear the child’s presence, Amandine’s grandmother sends her to foster in a convent in France, careful to hide all traces of her ancestry bar one, an heirloom necklace. She even tells her daughter, Amandine’s mother, that her daughter has died while having surgery as an infant. Instead, miraculously, Amandine grows up dreaming of her mother, finding substitutes along the way, but never losing grasp of the fact that she has a mother who might want her. When World War II breaks out, Amandine and her guardian Solange set out across France, determined to find a safe haven in a country torn apart by war, and perhaps to find someone who recognizes the peculiar antique necklace Amandine wears.
In terms of plot, Amandine gets off to a painful start. The first chapters are riddled with the old countess’s (the grandmother’s) memories and the story of Amandine’s birth. There are pages of description and little to no action. Once Amandine gets to the convent, things pick up slightly and it’s easy to feel for the poor girl. When she goes to school, she is constantly mocked and also suffers when she has to watch the other girls reunite each weekend with their families. She has her long term guardian, Solange, but she’s no substitute for Amandine’s mother, no matter how much they love one another. Even as a child, Amandine is full of spirit and determined to defend herself and those she cares about, which makes it very easy for us as readers to care for her in turn. The rest of the characters are very well fleshed out, with believable internal conflicts revealed fairly slowly as the first half goes on. I really felt that this was a book populated by people, not just characters, if that makes sense.
The plot picks up even more once the war arrives and with a few perspective shifts; the contrast between war-ravaged France and Poland and the initial chapters in the convent is striking. De Blasi effortlessly conveys the utter pointlessness of the war and the fragility of life at the time with a few well-written passages. Characters that were built up in the first chapters as complex human beings are struck down with barely a moment’s notice. The author’s writing is beautifully descriptive and I got a real feel for convent life and the French countryside, which makes the chapters about war even harder to read in comparison. And throughout, I was constantly hoping for Amandine to find her mother, which adds an extra layer of tension to the book’s concluding chapters.
Despite a slow start, Amandine revealed itself as a complex, engaging historical novel with strong characters and a distinct French atmosphere. It’s the perfect choice for the historical fiction reader craving a thoughtful read.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
 Eilis Lacey is quite content with her life in Ireland, living with her mother and sister. She doesn’t yet have a steady job, but she’s studying bookkeeping and hopes to get one when there are jobs available. She could go to England to get a job, like her three brothers, but she wants to stay at home. Unfortunately for that goal, her sister Rose meets with an Irish priest and decides that Eilis should try her luck in America. Eilis is secured a job as a shopgirl in Brooklyn, purchased sea passage and lodgings, and promised courses to continue bookkeeping. She finds that her life in Brooklyn is completely different from her life in Ireland, and she must grow and change to adapt in the city. When she’s called home suddenly, she then faces a choice; which life is the one she’ll stick with?
I loved this book. Loved it. I read it in a day and really hated all the times when I had to put it down. Others might call it slow, or quiet, but I just adored the development of Eilis’s character, the many discoveries she made, and how effectively I could put myself in her shoes. I loved the contemplative way in which the book was written; there’s hardly any action and all observations are third person but still from inside Eilis’s head. It made it so easy to really feel for her and wonder where her life was going and what she was going to do next.
I may also be a bit biased about this but I just adored the setting. I could easily imagine my own grandparents living a life similar to Eilis’s (although they were Italian, there are some Italians here), which brought a true personal touch to the entire book for me. I loved the descriptions of the subway, the streets, the houses, the churches, and especially Coney Island. Most of it probably looks the same now but it’s the attitude that matters here. Even Eilis’s job in the department store was absolutely fascinating for me, especially when the store decides it’s time to desegregate and starts to stock pantyhose suitable for all colors of women. Eilis, of course, is judged the only girl kind enough to serve the colored ladies, which gives us an up close and personal idea of what a real girl in her situation may have felt when she discovers that black women are the same as white women.
Finally, I absolutely adored the emotional conflicts that Eilis suffered and I felt that they were perfectly, beautifully true to life. I was amazed that Tóibín could get so inside a young girl’s head. I especially related perfectly to her feelings once she’d gone away from Brooklyn to visit Ireland – it does feel like a dream when you change countries like that, it’s almost too easy for it to become a distant memory in comparison to real life. I just couldn’t get enough of how real she felt to me, how her life is actually quite ordinary but somehow feels universal and significant. The world is changing, Eilis is changing, and the book depicts it all in such an understated way. I adore books that do that.
I loved Brooklyn and I really think it’s catapulted itself right to the top of my 2010 reads. I can’t recommend it highly enough and I will definitely be reading more by this author.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Orchid’s family is of ancient Manchurian lineage, but they are dirt poor throughout her childhood. When her father dies, things get even worse, and she is forced to move to Peking with her mother, brother, and sister to live in a small house with her uncle’s family. Orchid starts work in a shoe shop and actually enjoys herself, mainly for the tales her boss tells her about the Forbidden City and the emperor’s many palaces. When Orchid is told that she must marry her slovenly, stupid cousin, though, she seeks refuge from her fate in a contest to become one of the young emperor’s new favorite concubines. Orchid finds herself chosen, but her world in the imperial palace is nothing like she’d imagined.
After the disappointment that was Katherine, I tempered my hopes for Empress Orchid. I would probably have waited a bit longer before reading it, but it was due back at the library and I had no choice. Besides that, I immediately wanted to read more about China, and particularly a book that was based on historical fact, after Under Heaven. I needn’t have worried about starting it so soon, though, because I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was completely fascinated by not only the characters portrayed within but also the entire Chinese culture that Min effortlessly depicts.
Orchid’s life in the book goes through a series of phases (and is picked up in the next volume, The Last Empress, which I have yet to read). She is first a pauper, a girl who would be beautiful if only she could actually eat once in a while or wear a pretty dress. She’s devastated by her father’s death, but that doesn’t stop her from seizing the opportunity to become the emperor’s concubine. Then she discovers life in the palace isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – after all, the emperor can have literally any woman he wants. He’s a spoiled brat convinced that he has the mandate of heaven, so Orchid (then Lady Yehonala) ceases to matter to him as soon as his gaze has drifted elsewhere.
After a bit of research on the internet, I’ve discovered that Anchee Min is actually a lot more sympathetic to Orchid than history has been. Here she’s depicted as a fairly wise woman who loves her son, loves her “husband”, and is much cleverer than anyone wants to give her credit for. I loved the politics involved in the book and I was fascinated by the extreme protocol of the Chinese court. It wasn’t as racy as I’d suspected either; the whole seduction part is a tiny fragment of the book. It’s much more about China’s collision with the rest of the world, the attitudes of the royal family to Orchid and towards the world, and about Orchid herself.
Empress Orchid was incredibly engaging and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone interested in historical fiction or China. I am definitely going to read the sequel, The Last Empress, and seek out more books about this time period in the future.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 Katherine is an American, one of the first to arrive in China when they begin to open up to the world in the 1980’s. Zebra is a Chinese woman who has had a tragically difficult life; she’s spent her childhood laboring with peasants and being regularly raped by her supervisor. She’s been transferred to a city temporarily to work in a factory and there she meets Katherine, her English teacher. All of Katherine’s students are fascinated with her, attracted to her, and eventually fall in love with her, especially the men. China isn’t easy on foreigners, though, and Katherine and Zebra are on course to learn that in one of the worst ways.
Ever since I read Pearl of China a few months ago, I’ve been eager to read more by Anchee Min. I got this secondhand a while ago and since it’s her first novel, I thought it was a good place to step back to and start again with her work. Unfortunately, I think I was wrong, because I simply didn’t like this book very much at all.
Perhaps I’m just being a little too prudish, but it bothered me how much the Chinese characters took advantage of Katherine. They played on her innocence regularly, knowing she wouldn’t understand, and it felt to me like they were leering at her constantly. I can understand a lot of the fascination on both their behalves, but the whole book just gave off too much of a sexual vibe, like they were constantly taking advantage of Katherine and sometimes one another. I didn’t really like Katherine, I felt she was childish and too susceptible to temptation, and when she tried to adopt a child I just got frustrated. I didn’t think she was at all mature enough to take care of a little girl. To top it off, some things were discussed frequently which in my opinion should probably be kept a little more quiet.
It’s a shame because I think it could have been an interesting book; after all, Zebra is learning a lot about what was kept from her during the Communist regime in China. I think her mind could have been expanded in different ways, rather than solely through this sort of obsessive sexuality. It definitely didn’t live up to my expectations. I didn’t even like the way it was written, which tells me that Min’s writing has advanced quite a bit in the past fifteen years. Some of the strange comparisons stick out in my head; she compared cracked lips to potato chips, for example, which didn’t really help me visualize anything besides a person with potato chips for lips.
In the end Katherine was a pretty big disappointment, but it hasn’t put me off reading more by Anchee Min. I think I’ll try some of her novels set in an earlier China; since I enjoyed Pearl of China, I may get on with those a bit better.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 Verna Krone leaves school after eighth grade to help her family get by. She’s sent to help out at a farm, where the master of the house leers at her and she misses her family regularly. She doesn’t stay long, though, and through a series of jobs moves herself up in the world until she makes a connection that enables her to become a nurse. Verna sees her true purpose in life as helping people and somehow she ends up helping a well-respected black doctor perform abortions, a profession that at this point in history could never lead to anything good.
This book was incredibly compelling for me from beginning to end. We find out right at the start that Verna is helping the doctor with his abortions, then head back into the past to learn about her life and how she got there. Hers is really a very sad story of a woman constantly used and mistreated by men, which makes her hard and often unyielding – it’s no wonder she wants to help other women get out of their mistakes. She has enough bad relationships to make anyone wary of men.
I loved that this was essentially a true story rewritten in fiction. Part of me wondered if it would have actually been better as non-fiction, but I think it did its job really well. It does contain a number of little messages within; first and foremost that money isn’t really all that brings happiness. I think that, for most people, this is pretty obvious, but Verna was poor for so long that she truly thought money would solve her problems. It also focuses a lot on local politics towards the middle and end and the level of corruption was extremely depressing. I know these political machines existed to gain votes, but that doesn’t always make them easy.
The novel also deals with racial politics, especially at the end. Because Verna is white, she receives natural advantages, even when she’s poor. This is contrasted drastically with the doctor, who is black, and they have a number of uncomfortable interactions where the reader can simply feel the prejudice between them, the wrongness of it, and a desire to eradicate it.
Taylor’s choice to write the story in first person made Verna as a character very easy to feel close to despite her faults. I kept hoping for her life to get better, for her to learn a bit more about the good side of life, but she’s constantly battered on all sides. I did wish that we could have known a little more about the older Verna, when she became the author’s grandmother. Instead it ends just before that. But I think it’s a good sign that I was eager for more, to see how Verna kept on changing and growing as a person even into old age.
The Blue Orchard is a fascinating book that explores many issues of its time effectively and compelling. It’s the perfect historical fiction choice for those interested in a variety of aspects of postwar American life and I’d definitely recommend it.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
 Young Louisa May Alcott dreams of becoming a writer. She’s already published stories and dreams of making her living with her pen, but her father’s situation necessitates a move to the tiny town of Walpole, New Hampshire. Her family is forced to live on the charity of others due to her father’s refusal to work, but the four Alcott girls are still welcomed by the local townspeople. The young people, naturally, form their own groups, and within them a number of love stories take place. For Louisa, the young shopkeeper Joseph represents a different life, but she struggles to fit her love for him in with her aspirations as a writer.
I expected to love this book since it seems almost everyone I know has. I did enjoy it, but I definitely failed to fall in love with it. I loved Little Women as a child; it was the first novel I ever managed to read and I’ve read it countless times since then. I still hadn’t had any idea that the family was based on Alcott’s own, in some respects, but I clearly recognized many of the characters and enjoyed that connection in particular. I was, of course, one of the many girls who couldn’t understand why Jo didn’t marry Laurie (yep, I was a romantic when I was eight years old), but I could understand Louisa’s decisions here.
Louisa’s father Bronson was easily the most irritating character of the book for me. He lectures his daughters and his wife on proper behavior and tries to inspire his “values” in them, but despite his perfectly able-bodied status he refuses to work and instead spends days in his study reading and writing. Not for profit, of course; work is somehow not appropriate for him but it’s fine for his daughters to go off and earn money to support his lifestyle. It all made me quite angry, especially that the women were in such a position that they couldn’t leave him to suffer along on his own as they should have done.
I liked the romances and the community of young people; I thought it was all sweet and well done, even if I already knew how it was all going to end due to knowing a little about Alcott’s life. Knowing the ending of the book had no influence on how I felt about the middle bit, even if I did wish Louisa would run off to be with Joseph. I really wanted more of the genuine historical background; I understand that Alcott burned her letters
To be honest I’m not sure why I didn’t love it; I felt it was lacking something, but it’s hard to put my finger on it. I feel I should have enjoyed more a book with such strong literary and historical ties. Though I can recommend The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, especially to fans of Little Women, I wish I had felt towards it what everyone else seems to.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the Amazon Vine program.
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