Ruth by Kate Riley

 genre: fiction

When Ruth is born into The Brotherhood, she is celebrated the way that all babies are celebrated.  In a community where the self is dead last on the list of priorities, Ruth learns quickly that she is nothing special.  It order to gain God's grace, she needs to make sure that her community continues to thrive and that she keeps allllll the rules that have been put in place to keep her from sin.  There are so many ways to sin, when you are Ruth and growing up on a Hutterite commune.  

On the one hand, this is phenomenal writing.  Over and over, the author's way with words truly jumped out at me in delightful phrases really captured the essence of something.  Learning about commune life is wild and really interesting and I have a lot of compassion for people who truly do believe that living this way is the road to happiness.  On the other hand, Ruth felt like an enigma.  She is wacky and kind of hates her life but also absolutely chooses to live it the way it is.  I wanted her to just see it for what it is and break free but she never got there, even though she could tell things felt off a little bit.  This is no Handmaid's Tale, in my opinion, because there is no real rage and it is hard to watch, this Patriarchal death grip on people's choices.  Like, EVERY choice.

Interesting book.

Vagabond by Tim Curry (audiobook)

 genre: memoir

I have been a fan of Tim Curry all my life. I first adored him in Annie and most especially in Clue, where he hilariously stole my heart in way that has endeared him to me in a real way I’ve watched him as the Pirate King on YouTube and loved him in Oscar, which I saw in the theater as a kid. OH and now I’ve seen him in Home Alone 2 now 17 times because my kids were obsessed, ha! I was too young to have Rocky Horror be a part of my life but I’ve always been aware of it out there in the zeitgeist. But my most favorite thing he’s done is his guest role on Psych as Nigel St Nigel and his deadpan lines in that episode will live on in our family forever.

I bought the audiobook both to support him and to hear him read it, unaware ahead of time that he’d suffered a stroke several years ago, so his voice is different. He’s still in there and you can hear the sarcasm and sometimes he actually laughed while reading. It was slow enough that I read on 2.3x but it really endeared him to me even more, learning about not just his hardships but all the opportunities he took advantage of, many I’d forgotten about or never even knew of. I had no idea about his childhood and I enjoyed learning about his early years as much as his time on the stage and screen. He’s vulnerable and honest and I just found myself grateful that he and his work have been a part of my life.

Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

genre: social history

I've been on a quest for the last decade to read the stories of women from the past, written in their own words.  There is a part of me that literally yearns to understand what it was like to be a women in times so different from my own.  When I saw this book at the thrift store, it immediately went into my cart not just because of the title but because of the author.  The two other books I've read by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich have had a deep influence on me and on how I look at a woman's place in early America.  This book, while admittedly sometimes a bit dry and slow, is also a fascinating look at the role women DID play in colonial time.  I think what's important about it is that whenever we discuss that period, we really only ever talk about men and what they were doing - with the exception of the Salem Witch Trials (which is briefly discussed in the book).

In this book we learn, with primary source documentation, that women were not just influential but a profound and necessary part of our country's growth and development.  We can also see the beginnings of some social movements (away from midwifery to obstetricians, for example) as well as how the Patriarchal order impacted the roles women could and did play.

It's a history book and it's not the kind that's written like a story.  It is a well-researched and deeply important treasure trove of knowledge of our fore-mothers and the context in which they learned and grew.

Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley (audiobook)

genre: young adult contemporary fiction

Lucy knows it is time to be on the run again.  Ever since her father died, the idea of "home" has been nebulous as various foster placements have resulted in relationships both stable and traumatic.  She only recently has learned that she is connected to the Ojibwe tribe but when Mr. Jameson shows up at the diner where she's working to try and expand that connection, Lucy knows she's better off on her own.  Until one moment changes everything and being alone is no longer an option.

The book is told in two time periods, sharing with us Lucy's experience growing up and in foster care switching to the present and how she's processing where she's ended up.  The truth is that it reads really fast, various mysterious threads and my desires to learn more about the Ojibwe people as well as the political and social ramifications of how our country has treated its First Peoples kept me very interested. I had to suspend my disbelief a lot when it came to the mystery plot.  For whatever reason, my brain just kept asking too many annoying questions that weren't really answered.  But overall, Boulley tells important stories in engaging ways, even if this one isn't my favorite of hers.

Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi

 genre: historical fiction

Sona's life in Bombay as a nurse in a British hospital in the late 1930s doesn't have a lot of happiness in it.  She loves her mother and enjoys her job, but money is always tight and with her clearly half Anglo and half Indian looks, she is often mistrusted before she even has a chance to explain herself.  What she does enjoy is working with her patients, and when the artist Mira Novak is admitted into Sona's care, the world suddenly seems much bigger.  As Mira befriends Sona and tells our naive nurse about her jetsetting life, Sona slowly awakens to the wideness of the horizon - and how little of it she has experienced.

You know I'm a sucker for a good historical fiction novel - but this one did not ever grip me the way I wanted it to.  It took me an actual month to get through its three hundred and fifty pages, although whenever I DID actually pick it up, I wasn't bored. I think the writing was just not that particularly good.  So much telling and so little showing. So much disbelief to suspend.  Word choice was bland and Sona made so many decisions I just did not understand, decisions with huge consequences that felt out of the blue.  I really enjoyed this author's book The Henna Artist but this was not for me.

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green (audiobook)

 genre: non-fiction

I remember learning, years ago, that the illness I kept reading in my classic novels called "consumption" was actually Tuberculosis. It blew my mind, that this Romanized death was in actuality an infectious disease. From that point I knew that TB had been around as a THING for a long time but until I read this book, I had no sense of the SCOPE. I loved learning about how TB has truly impacted global history not just in the epidemiological sense but in complete societal shifts. This disease has literally changed the world. 

 John Green takes all of the big and upsetting ideas about TB and sprinkles in between the stories of intimate devastation about individual people whose lives have been turned upside down by this bacteria. It is full of compassion and hope, while being bluntly honest about the injustice that exists between people who can afford care and people who cannot - and how this divide is both socioeconomic and racial. Millions of people are dying from a disease that is curable and it is up to us to decide that it matters. This is an excellent and informative book, narrated beautifully by the author.

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides (audiobook)

 genre: thriller

As a successful therapist, Mariana Andros is very in tune with human nature. And when a friend of her niece Zoe is found murdered, she can't help but become emotionally involved.  Back in Cambridge, where her own love affair with her beloved late husband Sebastian started, Mariana is pulled into the mystery.  What's the deal with this secret collegiate society of women?  And could Zoe's professor of Greek Tragedy be involved?

This is a psychological thriller that, while keeping me guessing, also had so many plot holes in the end, in my opinion.  It kept my attention and the writing was fine.  I do enjoy a good university mystery and I was surprised by the twist at the end but I had a hard time BELIEVING it.  Like I had to suspend my disbelief too much and it didn't click into place like the best kind of mysteries do.  Having already read the Silent Patient, I did enjoy a couple Easter eggs in there but in the end, this was more atmospheric than good.

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan (audiobook)

genre: speculative fiction

A hundred years from now, Ton Metcalf is a scholar living in a Britain that has been submerged beyond recognition.  Instead of an island, it is now an archipelago and in order to continue his research on a famous historical poet, he must travel by boat to reach far flung repositories of documents. Tom's world is the result of catastrophic climate change and while professors are still trying to teach the literature and poetry of our time, there is little interest when our kind of technological golden age has ended, apparently forever.  But Tom is obsessed with an epic poem that was written during the 2010s and that, while all the literature points to its existence, has been lost.  He is willing to do whatever it takes to find it.

Okay, the narrative format of this book eventually worked for me.  I don't want to spoil anything, but Tom's personal narrative wasn't as compelling to me as other parts, but by the end it all wound itself together really well.  I didn't really like any of the actual characters, so that damped things a bit, not a one of them felt sympathetic to me even while I was interested in what was happening.  I just really was intrigued by the future that Tom lives in as well as how he looked back at OUR time, at MY lifetime, from the eye of a future historian.  It made me look at fresh eyes with the marvel of the world I live in and with a preemptive grief for what stands to be lost if we don't collectively find a way to somehow do something about climate change.  I did not see the mystery unfolding until it was happening and so overall, 3.5 stars.

The Names by Florence Knapp (audiobook)

genre: contemporary fiction

When Cora arrives are the office where she must register the name of her beloved baby boy, the decision feels like a weighty one.  Does she give him the name that her husband expects or does she go with her heart?  With a husband like Cora's whose expectations are high and exacting, it is no small choice.  And in the novel that follows, we get to see three alternative futures that roll out from the different names that Cora chooses.

This book was breathtaking to me.  It was deeply painful and upsetting at times, domestic abuse is such an excruciating thing to witness and process.  But the rest of it?  The joy and the beauty and the rebuilding?  The messiness of family and relationships?  The fluidity of our stories when we can believe that we have the power to shape the kind of life we want to have?  The magical moments that remind us of how fleeting and miraculous this human experience is?  It made me want to hug these characters and cheer for them and raise a glass to their resilience.  It is lyrical and the wordsmithing just shines.  After the few few chapters, I got good at keeping people and timelines straight, although it did take a bit of effort. For me, the effort was completely worth it.  Five stars.

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica translated by Sarah Moses

genre: horror/speculative

The woman's story has been written on whatever she can find - WITH whatever she can find.  The words are written so she can process what she's seeing and experiencing, as well as how she got to where she is.  Her life as an "unworthy" member of the Sacred Sisterhood is one of privation and punishment.  But, when the earth around her is dead and broken, at least it is shelter and it is not being alone.  When another new woman arrives, however, our narrator does start having questions about her own time before she entered the gates and put on her white tunic.  What's so painful that she can't even remember it?

This is a freaky story, honestly.  It is violent and there is a menacing pall over everything that happens within the abandoned monastery where she now lives.  It's a religious/culty set up that I find intriguing and it's got a post-apocalyptic vibe that I like.  I still don't understand some of what I read, I feel like that's on purpose but it's a little unnerving.  But also, there is beauty here, some scenes that capture the magic of the ordinary when the entire modern world has crashed to pieces.  It is hard to think about a dead earth and what would happen to all of us and what kinds of societies WOULD exist when communication is nonexistent and survival is such a razor's edge.

Somehow, I have once again accidentally picked up a book with a sapphic love story.  It's not super graphic in a sexual way but it is graphic in a horror way that I tend to shy away from.  I can't decide if it is crazy beautiful or just upsetting with some parts that I really found memorable.  Clearly, I can't decide how I feel about it.  If nothing else, it definitely gave me a a Halloween vibe and I would read something else by this author for sure.  3.5 stars.