This was a compulsively readable and ultimately enjoyable book, full of excellent details about life in North Korea. It’s a novel that involves a lot of physical transformation–the main characters eventually travel all the way to America–but my favorite aspect was the psychological journeys that they undertook. The emotional change of going from living under a very controlled and oppressive regime to finding yourself in a world where few people care what you do or what happens to you must be incredibly intense.

It’s hard not to compare it to  The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, and in comparison it does come up lacking, but it’s a strong book for other reasons. I found All Woman and Springtime to be more accessible and easier to decode. The narrative spends more time inside the main characters heads, and transports them to situations that seem more familiar to my western eyes. Not that what Johnson did was terribly experimental, but Jones’ novel follows a more traditional arc. I wouldn’t want to choose one over the other, they both are really important reads.

I loved Gi’s math ability and it’s development as a coping mechanism, but I thought it was a little too convenient a way out at the end. One of the strengths of this story is that the characters always seem to be experiencing things that many other women have had to face, and while they are very unique individuals, you get a sense that their experiences are representative of the the experiences of many others first in their escape from North Korea and then in their treatment as sex slaves. This feeling is undermined by the happy ending that is dependent on the fact that Gi’s math abilities are one-in-a-million.

I also loved that Il-sun embraced her life in the Seattle sex house and tried to do what she could to be on top where she was. I wish that the narrative had stayed with that story arc for longer. Even if it still lead to her downfall, let her character have a chapter of strength and success before the downfall.

Overall, I think it’s a great story and well worth reading. It would make an incredible book group pick.

Pieces of Sky
by Kaki Warner
Berkley
October, 2011

I’m very thrilled to have discovered this author. I love a good romance, and although I’ll read and love books that are completely unrealistic and the characters are idealized versions of unattainable beings, I’d rather they have a few flaws and lives that are less than perfect. So I’m bound to love a romance novel that starts out with a pregnant heroine and a slightly flawed hero who is definitely not the man who filled her belly. I almost wish the author hadn’t wimped out and had the pregnancy be the result of a rape. Think of how interesting it would be to write an actual love story with a heroine who had made some pretty big mistakes–like we all do–but still was worthy of the center of attention.

Still, this was an excellent Western Romance, complete with the man-land connection (they always are devoted to the land) and a threat to the ranch, and a stagecoach and everything you could want. It’s fresh enough that you don’t feel like you know everything that’s coming yet it delivers the requisite happy ending with all the sexy bells and whistles and with some pretty intricate storytelling.

My favorite part I can’t quite tell you about, but I can say that I loved the way Jessica got to be her own hero in several parts. She did have quite a few crumbling moments, when she did the damsel in distress thing and Brady got to come to her rescue, but she also had a few moments where she got to handle shit herself. I love those moments. I also love the moments that make you tear up, and this book is definitely full of them.

Kaki Warner’s a great writer (go Pacific Northwest authors!) and I’m looking forward to reading Open Country next.

—Nici

Blueprints for Building Better Girls
by Elissa Schappell
Simon & Schuster
September, 2011

This interlocking collection of short stories swept me up and firmly invaded my heart. Each story features women attempting to deal with serious experiences, and sheds light on the inner struggles that we don’t always share and sometimes we don’t even admit to. There’s humor here, lurking in the shadows of their hearts. These shadows are forged either in pain or in shame, and are not easily reachable, but Schappell moves you through their lives with ease and beauty and honesty that is as electrifying as it is unforgettable.

I was most touched or moved or whatever you want to call it by the story featuring a young college age girl taking her Alzheimer-afflicted grandfather out to lunch. As you move through the scene, it becomes apparent that she’s left college after suffering a rape at the hands of a . . . friend? Well, a potential romantic partner and someone within her circle of friends. In any case, it’s shattered her and she feels unable to talk about it. She and her grandfather–now living in a home and only partially able to identify and connect with his granddaughter–have a disastrous lunch, an unsafe car ride, and–finally–a one sided conversation about what happened to her. It’s an incredible story,  and it only would make the book worth reading.

Although I can’t remember if race was ever firmly addressed, but it did feel a bit like this was portraying white middle- and upper-class women–and as one I connected to all the characters in one way or another.  I wonder what the book would look like if it had involved women of explicit race or who lived in less affluent situations. Would the reader still feel this strong connection between the characters? Would it still seem as cohesive?

These are good questions, wish I had a book group to discuss them with. All said, I loved the book. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to take a peek into the heads of some troubled women.

—Nici

The Rebel Wife
by Taylor M. Polites
Simon & Schuster
02/07/2012

I really wanted to punch Buck in the face. Not that I thought Gus ought to, no, I wanted that pleasure for myself. I thought perhaps what would happen would, and it did, and I was happy with it–I still would have liked a chance to deck him. Ass.

Let me start over.

This is an excellent historical novel, beautifully written and well plotted. Polites’ writing pulls you into the time and the place, prompts you to see life through different eyes, and teaches you a little bit about where we, as a country, come from–all while providing excellent and suspenseful plotting. The details are intoxicating, the characters are memorable, and it’s a bit of a nail-bitter all the way to the end.

It’s hard to imagine life in the post-Civil War South, but Polites gives you a great taste. It’s a desperate time, filled with traumatized people as the whole country tried to heal. The formerly-prosperous white population had to change in ways it wasn’t prepared for and wasn’t willing to embrace and the newly freed slaves faced the disappointment of little actual change in their lives. People tried to find safety, made choices they regretted, sold what little they had, and felt the shame of surviving.

I fell into Augusta as a character–submerged and sypathetic–and felt her struggle for security and safety and her painful growth all the more keenly for that identification. She married for security and now finds the world is not going to play along. Everything she knew has shifted and twisted and she herself is twisting into something new. I love that twisting.

I also fell in love with the character of Simon slowly and surely, and I wished to see more of him. There were many characters I wished to see more of–if I had one complaint, it’s that the narrative spent too much time in Augusta’s head. There were many characters that I found my self repulsed by . . .  well, I’m not spoiling the plot here. Suffice it to say, I had a hard time with a few, and I’m pretty sure I was supposed to.

If you like historical fiction, give this your time. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It would make a particularly good reading group pick–full of things to discuss and contrast.

The Invisible Ones
by Stef Penney
Putnam Adult
January, 2012

A great mystery with very memorable characters and very good atmospheric writing, I would recommend this to anyone who likes a bit of the exotic mixed with just a bit of suspense. Having just read
Gypsy Boy by Mikey Walsh (Thomas Dunne Books), I was really into the characters’ background as Romany Gypsies and I thought the two books presented similar pictures of the lifestyle–which makes me think that they’re being accurate.

The main detective–Ray–in Penney’s novel is a wonderfully flawed character, struggling with his obsessions over various women. His big advantage, or his strength as a detective, seems to that he’s obstinate. He keeps with the “case” after the client has been satisfied, after his employee seems to be finished, after everyone else is ready to throw in the towel. Much like he’s unwilling to give up on his marriage even after his wife files for divorce–refusing to sign the papers despite the obvious need to–or his rebound=like interest in a character who seems to be involved elsewhere. He’s not the type to trow in the towel, and at least in the area of finding the missing girl, it ends up paying off.

The other main character to love and to play foil to Ray is JJ, a young gypsy struggling to balance his family and school worlds whose whole life is thrown into question. He’s lovable and sweet, making a good contrast to the older, more complex Ray. His story line brings the gypsy life more into focus, and helps bring across the more positive aspects of the family-focus lifestyle.

My one critique: the surprise at the end was not really all that surprising, I had figured out what it most likely was way further and the build up had a bit of a feel of a let down. It was still a great story, but I would have shifted the focus so it was less on revealing, and more on characters dealing. Penney certainly did handle the dealing, I just would have put most of the readers attention there.

In the end, it was a really good read and I’d recommend it to mystery lovers and family drama lovers alike.

Carry the One
By Carol Anshaw
Simon & Schuster, 3/2012
carolanshaw.com

Carry the One begins in the hours following Carmen’s wedding reception, when a car filled with stoned, drunk, and sleepy guests accidently hits and kills a girl on a dark, country road. For the next twenty-five years, those involved, including Carmen and her brother and sister, connect and disconnect and reconnect with each other and their victim. As one character says, “When you add us up, you always have to carry the one.”   (Publisher Marketing)

Having just finished this novel and finding myself full of complex emotions over it’s content and it’s structure, the most real thing I can say about it is that I feel reborn, cleansed, and forgiven. I also feel like I’ve been given a precious gift.

There was a moment in the middle of my reading experience when I though perhaps I wasn’t going to like it. I lean toward action and drama, and this is a subtle, expressive winding between time and characters. There’s a melancholy to all of them, trapped as they are by shared tragedy, and as they grow and change over time their struggles are always overshadowed by their internal guilt over a young girl who will never grow up. Other than the driver–who is a minor character–the characters are not punished legally and instead form their own punishments over time. Alice–again being the best example–spends her life painting portraits of the imagined lost life of this girl, portraits that always surpass the beauty of the other works she does.

But their personal punishments are not the what I loved most, rather the way each of these methods of dealing with the past intertwines with the others–forming an amazing picture of reactions and dependencies. The interrelations of three siblings that form the core of the novel are very well described; complex and rich without being cliched or obvious. You feel perhaps that they are all family members of the author, she catches their foibles and friendships so well and there are so many slight surprises.

The other aspect that made me love the book: the slicing through time. Much like in another of my favorite books The Good Wife by Stewart O’Nan, Carol Anshaw is dipping us in and out of the time stream the characters are traveling through capturing a large span of time by focusing on very small moments. Each chapter could be days or years later than the previous and you spend a very pleasurable short time figuring out how much time has passed and what important things have happened. Whole swathes of characters lives are encapsulated in one short scene and presented to the reader through beautiful minutia, and you find yourself there for just the definitive moments. It may be the definitive moment as in when a fire cracker takes off an ear, or it just be the moment that a character realizes they are no longer in love. Either way it will be incredibly important and beautifully rendered.

Let me admit that this was my first Philippa Gregory read, although I do love historic fiction. I was very impressed by her writing style, by the level of details she provided, and by her ability to create suspense despite the general outcome being a forgone conclusion. I love the women she writes–they are complex characters, neither wholly good nor altogether bad who arouse your sympathies while still making choices you disagree with. I also loved the way she doesn’t get bogged down in time, skipping ahead years at some points and keeping the reader in touch with that sense of history happening. I think even those who’ve never read her should feel free to pick up this book to start out, and I know I’m going to go back for more.

The Angel Makers
By Jessica Gregson
I was all twisted up by this book. I had such strong sympathy for Sari, yet her actions were so outside of what I was comfortable with. All the men is this village go off to war and the women are left alone . . . and they figure out that life is a whole lot better this way. They get to flirt with the prisioners in a near by camp, they get to be in control of their lives, and they escape from domestic violence. And then the men come back. Sari’s medical knowledge givers her an option that none of the rest have, and when her fiance starts acting like an utter beast of a man, she flexes her options and removes him from her life. Although it seems like she’s gotten away with it, her actions have unintended consequences as other women blackmail her into helping them take the same route to freedom.

I tore through the pages, unable to look away from the comeuppance I knew was looming, unwilling to root for more deaths, and uncertain of what I would do should I happen to be in a similar situation. It’s thrilling and creepy book, all the more affecting for being based on a true story.

The Postmortal
By Drew Magary
What happens when death becomes the exception rather than the rule? Magary’s novel is quirky, hilarious (in that gallows humor way), and thoroughly entertaining as he explores the implications of this possible scientific “advancement.” Narrator John Farrell’s voice was so endearing, and his adventures in End Specialization are so wacky, that I was unprepared for the stomach-dropping finale. Much like The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Postmortal uses a not-so-distant dystopic future to make very strong points about life today. I loved it, and it’s still haunting me.

This year was the year of sewing. I fully intended to put my sewing machine into use, to master the art of turning cloth into finished items, and to wow all my friends and relatives with homemade gifts all year long. It’s April. I’ve made 9 pot holders.

However, they were really fun potholders!

I’ve been using Lotta Jandotter’s Simple Sewing as my guide because of all the books I’ve looked through, it seems to have the best instructions. It also really does have simple projects to start off with and slightly more complicated projects for once you get that confidence built up. I’ve done one or two sewing projects in my time, but I still need the hand-holding The pattens included–all ready printed out and just waiting for you to use me–have also been a great help.

The potholders were relatively easy to do. The trickiest part was doing the last finishing stitch. The pattern called for a topstich all the way around the edge, but my sewing machine was wimping out. I has used synthetic batting meant for heat resistance instead of the wool batting the pattern called for. This made it just that much thicker and I could get my pore old White to sew through it right at the edge. I had to topstitch further in–creating a ridge around the edge–and then hand sew the closures on the sides. It doesn’t look quite as profession as the photos in the book, but I never really expected it to.

Mother's Day presents ahoy!

I really enjoyed working from Jansdotter’s patterns. They are simple, elegant, and kinda hip.  At least I think they are. I certainly felt like I made gifts that will impress recipients and make them say “ohh, nice” rather than “ah….thanks?”