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 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.
 John Sutherland grew up fatherless after his father died in an aviation accident while training for combat in World War II. (Did you know they allowed a 5% mortality rate in training for war? No? I didn’t either.) He grew up virtually motherless as well, since his mother was determined to live her life as she saw fit, whether that involved living in Argentina, sleeping with American soldiers, or leaving John to relatives on a regular basis. Throughout his childhood, John sought refuge in one thing, books. He lived and breathed the classics, ignoring his assigned work for his own personal choices. When he got older, John also found solace in alcohol, and the two remained standbys for much of his life.
I’m a bit torn about this one. I think I liked the concept more than the execution. I love the idea of a memoir about someone’s life in books, and this one promised that books saved Sutherland’s life twice. I didn’t really get much of that from the book, though, and overall it was much more just a life story than a life story in books. There are plenty of literary references, sure, and he does mention what he’s reading at times, but I think the entire book was hampered by the fact that I didn’t find John’s life particularly interesting otherwise and, more importantly, I didn’t really like John.
I can’t understand the pain of growing up without a parent, much less the pain of growing up pretty much without either of them, so I can’t speak on personal experience. I do think it’s understandable that he would struggle emotionally as a result. But some of his attitudes just failed to match mine so spectacularly that it made it hard for me to relate to him. As an example, John rarely read books for school on purpose. He hated assigned reading so, even though he was perfectly capable of understanding assigned texts and doing really well in school, he generally performed poorly on pretty much every exam he was ever given. This attitude follows him throughout his childhood, even though he must see that his grandparents and even his mother struggle along on a rock bottom basic education. He has opportunities – his mother pays for him to go to great schools – and he just throws them away. I’ve never really understood people who do this.
The worst part about it is that he then goes on to become a professor, just because there are so many positions and so few takers! It seemed wrong to me that someone who mostly disdained school throughout his life can then go on to have the best job in the whole system. I shouldn’t be so harsh, though, as people can change, and his eventual university education does leave a mark on him. I could more easily understand his willingness to bury himself in drink, but I was glad when he gave it up.
The other big problem I had was with John’s mother, who I think was the reason in large part he struggled through childhood. She more or less completely ignores him, pawning him off on relatives and friends, especially when she has a man around. She pays his way through life but seems hardly ever emotionally invested; it’s clear that John adores her but that seems mostly based around her beauty and her determination to have her own way, even at the expense of his own happiness. I can see that up to a point, but abandoning your child for three years while you go to live in Argentina? I don’t see that so much.
What I did enjoy was the historical background and the brilliant depiction of Britain throughout John’s younger years. He talks about things that were already disappearing, like quiet times fishing with his grandfather, and the history of Colchester (the town he mostly grows up in) and its schools. He’s undoubtedly a very good writer and I think he could pull off a novel if he tried, especially if he set it in the places he knows best.
The Boy Who Loved Books definitely had issues, but Sutherland is a good writer. If you can ignore the aspects I had problems with, I think this would be a good choice.
I am an Amazon Associate. I borrowed this book from my local library.
 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.
 When Shen Tai loses his father, he finds himself at loose ends, unable to reconcile himself to the required years of mourning which Kitai society demands. Instead, he goes to the site of his father’s last great battle, where thousands of bodies lay unburied and ghosts cry out for peace. Tai spends two years digging graves and laying bodies to rest. When Tai receives a message from a former princess of Kitai, now married to a Taguran in a bid for peace, granting him two hundred and fifty Sardian horses, he realizes that he’s received an incredible gift and his life is in danger. He discovers this in the worst way when an assassin comes for him, killing one of his closest friends; Tai must now head into the heart of the empire, facing guaranteed danger, to discover what his friend was trying to tell him and to figure out what to do with the horses.
Guy Gavriel Kay is one of my favorite authors, if not at the top of the list. I own and have loved every single one of his novels, and as such I have been anxiously awaiting my chance to read this. I adore his brand of historical fantasy – cultures I recognize instantly, with just a bit of added magic to make them new and his own. I finally decided I couldn’t wait any longer to read his newest release – especially when I was perfectly in the mood for a fantasy world based on the Tang dynasty in China – and I was not disappointed.
While this probably isn’t my favorite of his works (I don’t think he’ll ever match The Lions of al-Rassan with me), it was nevertheless a beautiful, engaging read that pulled at all of my heartstrings and really captivated me in a way few books manage these days. The book is narrated mainly by Tai, with a few sections featuring his sister Li-Mei and the prostitute he loved before his father died, Spring Rain. I found Tai’s straightforwardness and modesty in a world of political subtlety to be very endearing, while Li-Mei was a strong woman put through things I don’t think many women of the period would have been able to endure. As for Spring Rain, I didn’t quite connect with her as much as the other two, and I think overall she was meant to have more emotional impact on me than she did. I was a bit more in favor of another direction for Tai, one that he eventually chose, and I think that limited her influence on the story. The secondary characters were also well done, particularly Wei Song, Tai’s Kanlin warrior. I loved her alternating fierceness and timidity; she was overall just perfect.
The plot is a bit complex, full of court intrigue and carefully planned interactions, but I thought was done quite well. I loved the political turmoil that Kitai was thrust into over the course of this book and its eventual consequences. For me, everything held together really well, and had me very interested in the actual history that took place over this time. I wondered how closely Kay stuck to known history and I’m really looking forward to reading some of the suggestions he gives in his author’s note to find out a bit more about the facts of the time.
Kay’s writing as always is gorgeous and lyrical. I regularly wish I could write like him every time I read one of his books. He’s truly masterful at getting across emotion and making scenes of carnage and death seem both beautiful and tragic at the same time. This one didn’t quite have the effect that some of his other books have had in the past, but it’s impossible not to get swept away by the stories that Kay tells.
While Under Heaven doesn’t quite rank as my favorite by Kay, he is an amazingly gifted writer and this is a historical fantasy well worth reading.
I am an Amazon Associate. Nymeth sent me this book when my blogger secret santa didn’t come through. Thanks again!
 Ruth Young is a professional ghostwriter, proud of her flourishing career but a bit tired of the constant demands of her aging mother and her busy boyfriend. Sometimes she even struggles to get along with her boyfriend’s daughters, two girls who used to adore her. As her mother’s condition worsens, Ruth finds herself much more interested in her mother’s history and tries to discover the roots of who she is and why they are both the way they are. With the help of her mother’s handwritten life story, Ruth may be able to find peace and resolve the many conflicts that are straining her life.
This was an “eh” book for me, but I don’t think it necessarily would be for everyone. I have a habit of ignoring book summaries in favor of just reading them straight, and this is often both a good idea and a bad idea. It’s a good idea because I really hate spoilers and I find most books are best read without any previous knowledge of anything. It’s a bad idea because if I have no idea what a book’s about, I can’t really tell if it’s something I’m not going to like, especially if I think it’s something different. And that happened here. I knew there was some modern day component, but I didn’t expect it to be two thirds of the book.
The story of Ruth’s mother is sandwiched between two halves of Ruth’s modern day life. While I really enjoyed the middle section, especially because I’ve developed a practically insatiable craving for historical fiction about China, I just didn’t like the parts about Ruth. I don’t think this is the book’s fault. I don’t like most books set in the present unless they have a little something extra to them, like fantasy or horror, or if they’re about an experience I’m completely unfamiliar with. I’m just not really interested in emotional family relationships, especially not when they’re set in a world I live in. So when I realized the whole book was mostly about Ruth’s adjustment of her modern day life, trying to fit her Chinese mother in more harmoniously with her American life, I was disappointed and I got through those parts as fast as possible.
Of course, I loved the middle section, and I really wish the whole book had just been historical fiction about Ruth’s mother. LuLing’s life and voice are powerful and moving. I was truly fascinated by her story of Precious Auntie, her nursemaid with a past to be mourned, and her own life’s progression when she realizes the truth. I was so disappointed when this section ended! I could have happily continued reading for much longer, but unfortunately the book switches back to Ruth about when LuLing is ready to leave for the United States.
I’m not going to avoid further books by Amy Tan, but I probably won’t actively seek them out if they have that central focus on modern day women. If, however, you enjoy women’s fiction AND historical fiction, I think The Bonesetter’s Daughter would be a great fit for you.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 In one of many falling-down apartment buildings in Siberia, a group of people are trying to live with a ghost who won’t leave them alone. Mircha died in the winter from a fall, and as such hasn’t been properly buried. So he feels free to haunt the inhabitants of the building; his wife and son, Azade and Vitek, Olga, a newspaper translator, her son Yuri, his socially conscious girlfriend, and Tanya, a dreamy former museum guide. When a group of judges suggest that the museum where Tanya works, a collection of replicas and fakes, be judged for an award and funding, Tanya is chosen for the task and must enlist the whole building to help her succeed. But with a reckless ghost and a group of untidy children regularly hanging around, she fears her goal is impossible.
I think my first reaction to this book is ambivalence. I am fascinated by Russia; I love Russian history, Russian literature, the Russian language (I studied it for years), and visiting the country is one of my goals in life. So I fully expected to love this book, and was disappointed that it didn’t quite live up to expectations.
For one thing, it just felt meandering all over. There’s some supernatural activity going on; there is rather obviously a ghost haunting an apartment building, for one thing, but there is also a hole that goes nowhere and sprouts peculiar objects and a couple other strange things. I like magic in books, obviously, but there didn’t seem a reason for it here. It didn’t add anything but confusion to me. The story itself isn’t really that coherent; there’s a goal, but the chapters switch between characters and the book loses momentum pretty quickly every time.
Secondly, I just felt the whole plot bordered on ridiculous. The museum is not really a museum. How could it have won any awards when it is basically just a bunch of fake stuff that Tanya has mostly made? Statues are made out of foam, paintings are imitations, and worst of all, the icons are made out of popsicle sticks, foil, and gum, personally by Tanya. I could understand that the author was trying to get across that Russia isn’t what Americans think it is, especially after they’ve visited, but for me she went a step too far and I just struggled to enjoy the book. Although I will admit I had to laugh when she showed the visitors their copy of the rather disgusting fetus exhibit, which I think was collected by Peter the Great originally. I’m pretty sure most people would have a similar reaction!
If I liked anything, I did like Tanya, a chubby Russian girl with big dreams, all of which she writes down in her little book. She wants to become a stewardess on Aeroflot, Russia’s best airline, but she needs to lose weight first and just can’t manage it. She’s also very in love with Yuri (although why, I couldn’t tell you) and longs for him to abandon his noisy, greedy girlfriend Zoya but isn’t quite sure how to get him for herself.
Unfortunately, the many strands of The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight just never really tied together for me, and I didn’t quite get the point. Sadly disappointing.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
 This Sunday finds me in full relaxation mode, with a little bit of World Cup excitement mixed in. Normally, I’m not really a sports fan; in fact, I think it’s almost silly how worked up people get whether their favorite team wins or loses. In this country, it’s to the extent that it reaches violence – and all because someone didn’t kick a ball into a net? Team spirit is fine; violence isn’t so much. I’ve never understood that.
What I do understand, however, is money, and as it happens we’ve had a sweepstakes at work and I drew Spain. Since money is now riding on it, I’ve become a fan, and as such I’m really looking forward to the game later; even if they don’t win, it’s been exciting watching them get so close, and there is no negative feeling about the World Cup because England’s not in it anymore. I think it’s going to be a good evening.
While I’m waiting for this evening, I’ve already been reading. I’m not really an early morning type of person, but my body clock is and has always been extremely persistent, so every weekend I find I’m up and about around my normal work wake-up time, no matter how much I would prefer to stay in bed a little bit longer. I’ve put the time to good use this morning at least by finishing The Boy Who Loved Books by John Sutherland, a memoir about a boy whose father died in war training when he was very young, and who found refuge in books and booze (later becoming an English professor mostly by a stroke of luck). I’m now looking forward to starting Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, which has patiently been waiting on my bookshelf for a few months. I have tomorrow off, so I anticipate finishing it before I leave on Tuesday to visit my parents.
Before I go, though, I also have six reviews to write, packing and cleaning to do, and purchases to make. I’m not sure how much I’ll be reading this time; I’ll have Keith with me, for one thing, so I’ll probably be doing a lot less reading of review copies. Since I also have less of them, that’s probably okay – but I don’t know how much I’ll be blogging either. I’ll just see how it goes. I do hope to read The Passage by Justin Cronin on the plane. I’m hoping it’s exciting enough to take my mind off the fact that I’m in the air!
Do you have any exciting plans for the day? Will you be watching the World Cup final?
 When she was a child, Zoe Octavia Lexham frequently ran away. Despite that, her father took her to India when she was 12, where you guessed it, she vanished. After twelve years of searching and many fakes, Zoe finally escapes the harem in which she has been imprisoned and returns to London. She’s immediately recognized by Lucien de Grey, the earl of Marchmont, one of her childhood friends. Lucien has lost everyone he’s ever loved in his life, and he thought Zoe was one of them. After only a short while back in her presence, he realizes that he can’t let her go again.
I was hoping to enjoy this book like so many others have, but it let me down a lot. And that’s down to a single problem, which is the complete unbelievableness of Zoe. I’ll grant you that most historical romances are not exactly realistic and probably would never have happened within their own time periods, but often the emotions and situations of the characters resonate perfectly with modern readers like me. This was definitely not the case here. Zoe seems almost completely unaffected by her time in a harem. She’s technically a widow but of course she remains a virgin, even though we learn how she’s sexually experienced from attempting to seduce her former husband. Wouldn’t that sort of thing carry emotional scars? Instead, she seems to think it’s perfectly acceptable to fondle a man in her father’s house, rather than carrying any scars from being forced to attempt engagement in sexual acts with a man she didn’t like very much. They’re interrupted at least twice; where on earth was their sense of propriety? Why does no one care? It’s like her entire imprisonment is a mere excuse to make her a little bit less inhibited than a normal heroine would be, but without any drawbacks that a woman of her time period should have experienced.
It’s overall a very strange book; Zoe fits perfectly into society again when it suits her, like she’s never been away, but her lack of inhibitions doesn’t match. When she is reminded of her imprisonment, it’s on something completely unrelated, simply the concept of being unable to leave her house. I couldn’t understand why she was perfectly happy to use her harem skills to seduce Lucien but then cried when she couldn’t leave the house because her life was in danger. It made no sense at all to me, and as a result I just couldn’t like her. It would have honestly been a DNF if I didn’t know I could read it in two hours; I mostly just finished it because I figured I might as well.
It’s a minor point as well that unfortunately I don’t really like Loretta Chase’s writing. It always seems far too stilted to me, the dialogue unrealistic, and as a result I couldn’t believe in the love story either. I’d quote an example but unfortunately I’m at work without the book. It’s a shame because in theory I like the idea of Lucien’s personal journey, from his constant heartbreak to his ability to love again, but the rest of the book didn’t work for me. I just don’t think I’m interested in reading another book by Loretta Chase – not even the famed Lord of Scoundrels. Something about her writing doesn’t work with the way I think, so I’ll be avoiding her in future.
In short, Don’t Tempt Me shouldn’t tempt you at all.
I am an Amazon Associate. I purchased this book.
 The Radleys live on a perfectly normal street in the perfectly normal town of Bishopthorpe in Yorkshire. In fact, they do everything in order to be normal; they go to school, they go to book clubs, they even sometimes attend church. But the secret is that the Radleys aren’t normal, but it’s such a secret that their children don’t even know. They won’t be without that knowledge soon, though, and when they find out what they really are, they’ll struggle to keep it a secret for long.
The Radleys has been moderately hyped over here in the UK, so I was a little concerned as to how I was going to react to it when I finally got to read it for myself. Luckily I really enjoyed it, and I found it both an interesting fantasy novel and a critique of modern middle-class British life. The Radleys are vampires from a famous vampire family, but they choose to be abstainers. Peter, the father, has been a vampire his whole life, whereas his wife Helen was only converted after she fell in love with him. The two children, Clara and Rowan, start the novel with no idea that they’re vampires. They don’t know why they’re excessively pale and always wear sunscreen, are always tired during the day, or suffer from migraines on a regular basis. Then, Clara is attacked, and everything changes.
I liked that this book was an urban fantasy which is completely different from the rest – the world is the same except for vampires, but the story doesn’t center on a pretty girl. Instead, we have this middle class family who really struggle to have normal lives, except for a wayward relative who comes along to mess everything up every now and again. The beginning almost reminded me of Harry Potter, with the family trying desperately to be normal and even the children trying to pretend that they’re not something out of the ordinary. Of course, the stories are nowhere near the same in terms of plot, but that’s the closest comparison I could think of.
I not only appreciated the story for itself, but I thought it was a very British, very humorous take on middle class life over here. By being so very typical, the Radleys made me wonder what other “typical” middle class families might be hiding, and why we really need to put up that front of normalcy when we might all be just a little bit weird (though we’re clearly not vampires). It’s quite a clever book and undoubtedly I didn’t catch all the little jokes that Haig made, but I enjoyed it a lot when I did find them.
Overall, I would definitely recommend The Radleys and I’m glad it’s been picked up for a film version – I think it would make a great one. For more information and sample chapters, check out the Facebook page.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from a publicist for review.
First of all, Happy Fourth of July to all Americans reading this blog! I hope you’re outside celebrating and watching fireworks later on.
This year, I resolved to read more deliberately. By that, I mean reading what I want to, when I want to, without worrying too much about books I “should” be reading. It’s about getting to those books I’ve meant to read for years. I’ve radically cut down on the number of review copies I accept – my parents have actually asked me why I’m suddenly not getting many books at home – and I’ve chosen only the ones that I would purchase if I saw them in the store.
I also decided to try and buy fewer books, but that isn’t happening and is a goal I’ve basically given up on. I have been buying at least a few every month and it’s an addiction I’ve more or less decided to allow myself. I don’t really buy anything else and now that I have a second shelf, I have a little room for them.
Now that it’s July, I thought it would be a pretty good idea to see how I’m doing with my goals overall. I have definitely been making more conscious choices. The last book I read, The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan, was one I’d had since 2008 and wanted to read pretty much the whole time, so I was happy to clear that off, especially since it didn’t quite live up to expectations. And I’ve just started Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay. He’s one of my favorite authors and I was determined not to let his newest book languish underneath shorter, more convenient books.
Unfortunately, though, I can’t really say that I’ve done so well throughout the first six months of the year. I’m still regularly choosing books that are shorter and easier because I know I’ll get them read faster, especially now that it takes me a day longer to read everything than I was used to. I still get frustrated if I haven’t finished a book fast enough. And even with my vastly reduced intake of review copies, I’ve managed to read more of them than I have of my own books. While it’s good that I’m clearing out some backlog I’ve had for far too long, I would rather the balance tipped the other way in future. Library books are a distant third; I love the library and free books that carry no obligations, but I find I’d rather clear a book off my TBR pile than devote a few days to a library book. I’d also like to change this.
So what’s my plan, going forward? I don’t know yet. I’ve considered resurrecting my schedule of a TBR book, a library book, and a review book. I like having a concrete stack of what’s ahead, but I’m worried I’ll rebel against myself, something I’ve done way too often in the past. I’ve considered trying to challenge myself to read all the books I’ve acquired in 2010 by the end of the year, which should actually be an easy accomplishment if I don’t buy any more, but we all know that isn’t going to happen.
Since I’m going to visit my parents for a couple of weeks this month, I’ve decided to leave it open for now and do as I please. In August, I’ll try to come up with a plan for choosing my reading more carefully, without automatically selecting a short book over a long one. But in the meantime, I’d like to ask you an important question: how do you choose what to read next?
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