#108: Now You See Him

Now You See Him, by Eli Gottlieb

(New York: William Morrow, 2008)

Summary:
"The deaths of Rob Castor and his girlfriend begin a wrenching and enthrallingly suspenseful story that mines the explosive terrains of love and paternity, marriage and its delicate intricacies, family secrets and how they fester over time, and ultimately the true nature of loyalty and trust, friendship and envy, deception and manipulation.

"As the media take hold of this sensational crime, a series of unexpected revelations unleashes hidden truths in the lives of those closest to Rob. At the center of this driving narrative is Rob's childhood best friend, Nick Framingham, whose ten-year marriage to his college sweetheart is faltering. Shocked by Rob's death, Nick begins to reevaluate his own life and past, and as he does so, a fault line opens up beneath him, leading him all the way to the novel's startling conclusion."

Opening Line:
"At this late date, would it be fair to say that people, after a fashion, have come to doubt the building blocks of life itself?"

My Take:  
Side note:  While the barrage of end-of-year books I've just posted may have gotten somewhat out of order, I do know this was the last book I read in 2012. Just as parts of our lives have their own soundtracks, much of what I've done and read this past year comes with its own scenic backdrop. (Of course, some of the scenery was prettier than the rest.) There are novels I know I read in Boston because I can't see their covers without picturing the bedspread in my Boylston Street apartment; others I place in D.C. from the memory of painstakingly cramming the flimsy Days Inn pillows into place behind me so I could lean back while I read. Strangely, I could certainly look it up, but I don't know what I read in Pullman. I can see the autumn Palouse light, golden on the rolling hills and tinged pink through my window; I know I sat in the Lighty Hall atrium at lunchtime with a mocha in my right hand and a book in front of me. (What I remember from that trip is the podcast -- Frontline's "God in America" -- that served as its soundtrack: gasping uphill through the wildfire and paper mill smog in Lewiston on the way to the Nez Perce County Fair; twilight descending between the downtown taqueria with the mural and the community garden's fading sunflowers as I took the scenic route back to my hotel; gazing out the airplane window as Minneapolis fell away and realizing I'd be back amid the familiar bustle and mess of my family within hours.)

But this book did not come to Pullman. This one came to Boston over New Year's; I fiddled with the adjustable mattress as I sprawled on my bed in the Revere, the air smelling faintly of peppermint shampoo, Eliza channel-surfing and Mike doing game prep on his laptop at the art deco-inspired desk. Perhaps I sipped a glass of the wine we picked up at the 570 Market on our way back from dinner at Addis; it's likely I schlepped it to Manchester in my satchel when we drove up to see the NH side of the family.

If only. If only I could make the time to capture moments like this more frequently, rather than just sneaking them into tangentially-related blog posts like Jessica Seinfeld's vegetable brownies.

But oh, yeah, the book. Gatsby a la Richard Russo, if you transplant the title character from Roaring '20s Long Island to 21st-century Mohawk small-town Upstate New York. This is a good thing, and a good (if sad) story.

#105: Tumbleweeds

Tumbleweeds, by Leila Meacham

(New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2012)

Summary:
"Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has been dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move from her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme. She is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall, orphans like herself, with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. Taking the three friends through their growing up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, the novel expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age. Told with all of Meacham's signature drama, unforgettable characters, and plot twists, readers will be turning the pages, desperate to learn how it all plays out."

Opening Line:
"The call he'd been expecting for twenty-two years came at midnight when he was working late at his desk."

My Take:
Silly, entertaining, but forgettable fluff. We all have our guilty pleasures; this one wasn't the best of its kind I've read, but it wasn't the worst, either. That's all.

#93: Ten Thousand Saints

Ten Thousand Saints, by Eleanor Henderson

(New York: Ecco, 2011)

Summary:
"Adopted by a pair of diehard hippies, restless, marginal Jude Keffy-Horn spends much of his youth getting high with his best friend, Teddy, in their bucolic and deeply numbing Vermont town. But when Teddy dies of an overdose on the last day of 1987, Jude's relationship with drugs and with his parents devolves to new extremes. Sent to live with his pot-dealing father in New York City's East Village, Jude stumbles upon straight edge, an underground youth culture powered by the paradoxical aggression of hardcore punk and a righteous intolerance for drugs, meat, and sex. With Teddy's half brother, Johnny, and their new friend, Eliza, Jude tries to honor Teddy's memory through his militantly clean lifestyle. But his addiction to straight edge has its own dangerous consequences. While these teenagers battle to discover themselves, their parents struggle with this new generation's radical reinterpretation of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll and their grown-up awareness of nature and nurture, brotherhood and loss.

"Moving back and forth between Vermont and New York City, Ten Thousand Saints is an emphatically observed story of a frayed tangle of family members brought painfully together by a death, then carried along in anticipation of a new and unexpected life. With empathy and masterful skill, Eleanor Henderson has conjured a rich portrait of the modern age and the struggles that unite and divide generations."

 Opening Lines:
"'Is it dreamed?' Jude asks Teddy. 'Or dreamt?'"

My Take:
Perhaps I was feeling unusually uncharitable here, as I read this one right after Imperial Bedrooms and had had it up to here with drug-addled adolescents before I tackled the first chapter. That said, Ten Thousand Saints didn't overwhelm me. It wasn't repugnant the way IB was, and the characters here were rather more sympathetic -- partly because it's set in the '80s and definitely conveys that this was a different time, and partly because it's easier to excuse adolescent behavior when it actually comes from adolescents.

And perhaps I just bring too much of my own baggage to the story. Jude and Teddy are of my generation, a mere two years older than I am, which means I should be able to relate to their world ... but I really can't. Sure, I grew up 30 miles from the NYC where much of the story is set, but that may as well have been another universe, and my suburban adolescence was probably more sheltered than most. Mine wasn't a drugging or even hard drinking crowd, if the motley handful of not-yet-cool nerds I occasionally socialized with constituted a "crowd" at all. I never had any burning desire to fit in either with the stoners who make up Jude & Teddy's clique at the beginning, and I don't think I knew such a thing as straight-edge existed at the time. Punk, yes, but much as I loved the music, I was well aware a big-haired teeny bopper from the 'burbs would have been eaten alive in that environment. Instead, I contented myself with volunteering at a crisis line throughout high school and growing vicariously wise through the lives that touched me there.

It's interesting, too, to look back on the '80s with enough distance and perspective that you're aware of the hallmarks of the era. As a middle and high schooler, I knew something about the culture and history of the 1920s or '40s or '60s -- enough to reference an era convincingly in a term paper, or make guesses about how my grandparents' adolescence differed from my parents' or my own. But I couldn't articulate what made the '80s the '80s or what future generations would see as the hallmarks of my decade, any more than my daughter can define the 2010s or a particularly conscious fish could tell you what it's like to breathe water rather than air. Ten Thousand Saints depicts the era as a very long, unglamorous morning after the hedonistic '70s, with the principals' parents as the clueless hung over guests you just know will spend the next week bragging about how awesome the party was and how wasted they were, and Jude, Johnny, and Eliza the housemates who get stuck cleaning up all the spilled food and broken glass. Jude's mom, Harriet, is the canonical leftover hippie, naming her kids after Beatles songs (Jude's sister is Prudence), selling handblown glass in a small town in Vermont, and earning the bulk of her income selling bongs; his father, Lester, is a successful Manhattan pot grower who takes pride in being a cool, approachable pseudo-stepdad to his girlfriend's daughter Eliza but hasn't bothered to contact his own kids in who knows how long. After Teddy's death, Jude and Eliza's guilt leads them (with Johnny's help) to discover the no-drugs, no-drinking, no-sex world of straight edge, drawing spiritual sustenance from a Hare Krisha temple whose connection to the former is never exactly clear.

Henderson's writing is clear, understated, and sad, and the setting an interesting, unusual one. I only wish the characters (yes, this is always a sticking point for me) felt big or complex enough to live up to it. The book was OK, and I finished it -- but it felt more like a duty than a pleasure to get through (although it did get somewhat better in the latter part).

#92: Imperial Bedrooms

Imperial Bedrooms, by Bret Easton Ellis

(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010)

Summary:
"Bret Easton Ellis's debut, Less Than Zero, is one of the signal novels of the last thirty years, and he now follows those infamous teenagers into a more desperate middle age.


"Clay, a successful screenwriter, has returned from New York to Los Angeles to help cast his new movie, and he's soon drifting through a long-familiar circle. Blair, his former girlfriend, is married to Trent, an influential manager who's still a bisexual philanderer, and their Beverly Hills parties attract various levels of fame, fortune, and power. Then there's Clay's childhood friend Julian, a recovering addict, and their old dealer, Rip, face-lifted beyond recognition and seemingly even more sinister than in his notorious past.

"But Clay's own demons emerge once he meets a gorgeous young actress determined to win a role in his movie. And when his life careens completely out of control, he has no choice but to plumb the darkest recesses of his character and come to terms with his proclivity for betrayal."

Opening Lines:
"They had made a movie about us. The movie was based on a book written by someone we knew."


My Take:
I've never read Less Than Zero, nor have I seen the movie it inspired. And frankly, after finishing Imperial Bedrooms, I'm not particularly inclined to do so. I've read and enjoyed books with unlikeable characters, even anti-heroes, before, but this ain't one of 'em.

The good, only because I feel compelled to say something positive about a novel heralded with such fanfare: Ellis's run-on sentences do succeed in creating the fast-paced, disorienting mood he seems to be striving for. An example, chosen purely by opening the book at random, is as follows:

"At Dan Tana's we're seated in the front room next to a booth of young actors and Rain tries to engage me, her foot rubbing against my ankle, and after a few drinks I mellow into acceptance even though a guy at the bar keeps glancing at Rain and for some reason I keep thinking he's the guy I saw her with in the parking lot at Bristol Farms, his arm in a sling, and then I realize I passed him on the bridge at the Hotel Bel-Air when I went to see Blair, and Rain's talking about the best way to approach the producer and director of The Listeners in terms of hiring her and how we need to do this carefully and that it's 'superimportant' she gets the part because so much is riding on this for her and I'm zoning out on other things but I keep glancing back at the guy leaning against the bar and he's with a friend and they both look like they stepped out of a soap opera and then I suddenly have to interrupt her."

I wish I could say that's exceptional but it's not. Annoying sometimes, yes, but I'll allow it as a deliberate literary technique.

What I can't get past, though, is the sheer, shallow, repulsiveness of the characters. Perhaps if I'd read Less Than Zero I'd feel some attachment to someone here, know some back story to make me care who lives or dies ... but I hadn't, and I didn't. I've said many times that any self-respecting sequel needs to work as a stand-alone novel, even if you know nothing about its predecessor, and Imperial Bedrooms fails on that score (if, indeed, LTZ was more engaging or the characters more likeable than I found them here). That, plus the fact that Clay is a sadistic rapist without even enough motive or complexity to be compelling in a Hannibal Lechter sort of way ... well, let's just say I'm glad the book was fast-paced and not all that long.

#89: I Thought You Were Dead

I Thought You Were Dead, by Peter Nelson 

(Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2010)

 Summary:
 "For Paul Gustavson, a hack writer for the wildly popular For Morons series, life is a succession of obstacles, a minefield of mistakes to stumble through. His wife has left him, his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, his girlfriend is dating another man, he has impotency issues, and his overachieving brother has invested his parents' money in stocks that tanked. Still, Paul has his friends at Bay State bar, a steady line of cocktails, a new pair of running shoes, and Stella. Beautiful Stella. With long, sleek legs, kind eyes, lustrous blond hair. Their relationship is the one true bright spot in his world. She offers him sage advice on virtually every topic. And she only wets herself every once in a while.

"Stella is Paul's dog, and she listens with compassion to all his complaints about the injustices of life and gives him better counsel than any human could. In fact, she seems to know Paul better than he knows himself. It's their relationship that is at the heart of I Thought You Were Dead, a poignantly funny and deeply moving story about a man trying to fix his past in order to save his future, and about a dog who understands just what it means to be a man's best friend."

Opening Line:
"In the winter of 1998, at the close of the twentieth century, in a small college town on the Connecticut River, on the sidewalk outside a house close enough to the railroad tracks that the pictures on the walls were in constant need of straightening, not that anybody ever straightened them, Paul Gustavson, having had a bit too much to drink, took the glove off his right hand, wedged it into his left armpit, and fumbled in his pants pocket for his house keys."

My Take:
Surprising. I wouldn't have expected to enjoy a novel that opens with a run-on sentence like this, or one where the protagonist's talking dog is an important character -- but this is a sweet, gentle story about a lonely man at a crossroads trying to come to terms and move forward with his imperfect life. (And the talking dog works, even for a diehard realist like me, if you read it as Paul simply talking to his dog while they're alone, and imagining what she might say if she could indeed respond. Don't all pet owners do this?) Paul's relationship with his struggling father, which evolves primarily over the internet, is especially poignant. His ill-defined relationship with Tamsen is an interesting plot line as well, though I wasn't as satisfied with the way Nelson resolved this one.

#88: The Quickening

The Quickening, by Michelle Hoover

(New York: Other Press, 2010)

Summary:
"Enidina Current and Mary Morrow live on neighboring farms in the flat, hard country of the upper Midwest during the early 1900s. This hardscrabble life comes easily to some, like Eddie, who has never wanted more than the land she works and the animals she raises on it with her husband, Frank. But for the deeply religious Mary, farming is an awkward living and at odds with her more cosmopolitan inclinations. Still, Mary creates a clean and orderly home life for her stormy husband, Jack, and her sons, while she adapts to the isolation of a rural town through the inspiration of a local preacher. She is the first to befriend Eddie in a relationship that will prove as rugged as the ground they walk on. Despite having little in common, Eddie and Mary need one another for survival and companionship. But as the Great Depression threatens, the delicate balance of their reliance on one another tips, pitting neighbor against neighbor, exposing the dark secrets they hide from one another, and triggering a series of disquieting events that threaten to unravel not only their friendship but their families as well."

Opening Line:
"My boy, you might think an old woman hasn't much to say about the living, but your grandmother knows when a person does right by her and when they don't."

My Take:
Lovely, lyrical language, but I felt like I missed something here. Maybe it's just that the characters and plot, like the setting and Hoover's writing, is spare -- so much so that it was hard to get much of a sense of Mary or of how the relationship between the two women evolved over time (though Eddie did feel authentic and likeable, at least where I was concerned). I've read books like this before, where we need to draw our own conclusions about characters' relationships based on a handful of events with many years in between, but here it just felt like there wasn't enough to go on to let me connect the dots. Eddie's eagerness to reconnect with her departed daughter and never-seen grandchild is compelling, but not given quite enough airtime (unless it was just too subtle and understated for me to appreciate) to fully draw me in. Might be better on a second reading, or with a group, but for now -- just OK.

#81: In the Kingdom of Men

In the Kingdom of Men, by Kim Barnes

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012

 Summary:
"1967. Gin Mitchell knows a better life awaits her when she marries hometown hero Mason McPhee. Raised in a two-room shack by her Oklahoma grandfather, a strict Methodist minister, Gin never believed that someone like Mason, a handsome college boy, the pride of Shawnee, would look her way. And nothing can prepare her for the world she and Mason step into when he takes a job with the Arabian American Oil company in Saudi Arabia. In the gated compound of Abqaiq, Gin and Mason are given a home with marble floors, a houseboy to cook their meals, and a gardener to tend the sandy patch out back. Even among the veiled women and strict laws of shariah, Gin’s life has become the stuff of fairy tales. She buys her first swimsuit, she pierces her ears, and Mason gives her a glittering diamond ring. But when a young Bedouin woman is found dead, washed up on the shores of the Persian Gulf, Gin’s world closes in around her, and the one person she trusts is nowhere to be found.

"Set against the gorgeously etched landscape of a country on the cusp of enormous change, In the Kingdom of Men abounds with sandstorms and locust swarms, shrimp peddlers, pearl divers, and Bedouin caravans—a luminous portrait of life in the desert. Award-winning author Kim Barnes weaves a mesmerizing, richly imagined tale of Americans out of their depth in Saudi Arabia, a marriage in peril, and one woman’s quest for the truth, no matter what it might cost her."

Opening Line:
 "Here is the first thing you need to know about me:  I’m a barefoot girl from red-dirt Oklahoma, and all the marble floors in the world will never change that."

My Take:
An engaging read in spite of the book jacket (which gives away and greatly overemphasizes events that don't take place till much later). The story is less about the disappearance of the aforementioned young Bedouin woman, and more about a very young woman's learning the meaning of marriage, friendship, and independence in a totally alien world. 

#78: Spring Fever

Spring Fever, by Mary Kay Andrews

(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2012)

Summary:
"The New York Times bestselling author of Summer Rental delivers her delicious new escapist novel about small towns, old flames, and deep secrets.

"Annajane Hudgens truly believes she is over her ex-husband, Mason Bayless. They’ve been divorced for four years, she’s engaged to a new, terrific guy, and she’s ready to leave the small town where she and Mason had so much history. She is so over Mason that she has absolutely no problem attending his wedding to the beautiful, intelligent, delightful Celia. But when fate intervenes and the wedding is called to a halt as the bride is literally walking down the aisle, Annajane begins to realize that maybe she’s been given a second chance. Maybe everything happens for a reason. And maybe, just maybe, she wants Mason back. But there are secrets afoot in this small southern town. On the peaceful surface of Hideaway Lake, Annajane discovers that the past is never really gone. Even if there are people determined to keep Annajane from getting what she wants, happiness might be hers for the taking, and the life she once had with Mason in this sleepy lake town might be in her future."

Opening Line:
"From her seat in the sanctuary of the Church of the Good Shepherd, Annajane Hudgens wondered if there had ever been a more flawless day for a wedding."

My Take:
I seem to be saying or at least implying this a lot lately, but meh. I expected fluffy chick lit, sure, but it wasn't particularly original or exciting at that. It's pretty obvious from the very beginning that Celia will turn out to be evil and Annajane and Mason will get back together, and sure enough, they do. The means by which they get there aren't especially novel or entertaining. In short, Summer Rental was much more fun. I came away from this one mostly feeling like I'd read variations of this story many times before.

#69: The False Friend

The False Friend, by Myla Goldberg

(New York: Doubleday, 2010)

Summary:

"Twenty years after Celia’s best friend, Djuna, went missing, memories of that terrible day come rushing back—including the lie Celia remembers having told to conceal her role in Djuna’s disappearance. But when Celia returns to her hometown to confess the truth, her family and childhood friends recall that day very differently. As Celia learns more about what may or may not have happened, she becomes increasingly uncertain whom she should trust.

"In The False Friend, Myla Goldberg -- bestselling author of Bee Season -- brilliantly explores the cruelty of children, the unreliability of memory, and the unpredictable forces that shape our adult selves."

Opening Line:
"The sight of a vintage VW bug dredged Djuna Pearson from memory."

My Take: 
Not sure I ever quite bought the book's main premise -- that Djuna wasn't taken away in a strange car, but fell into a hole in the woods, and Celia's been lying about it all these years -- but it still made for an interesting story about our memories of childhood and its friendships, our growing awareness of our parents' imperfections, and how our hometowns look from a distance.

#59: A Map of the World

A Map of the World, by Jane Hamilton

(New York: Doubleday, 1994)

 Summary:

"The book is concerned with how one seemingly inconsequential moment can alter lives forever. Alice Goodwin, mother of two, school nurse and wife of an aspiring dairy farmer in Wisconsin, is getting ready to take her two daughters and her best friend, Theresa's two little girls to their farm pond to swim. When she goes upstairs to find her bathing suit, Lizzy, Theresa's 2-year-old, slips away to the pond and drowns. It all goes downhill from there. The town tramp, whom Alice reprimanded for constantly bringing her sick son to school, accuses Alice of molesting her child. The entire town turns on the Goodwin family, fairly new to the area, and several other mothers come forward with tales of Alice's 'abuse'. Imprisonment, trial and loss of the farm ensue and Alice's husband and Theresa become 'involved.'

"The novel is essentially about a search for authenticity in the contemporary American midwest. A couple struggles to maintain their lives on a farm, keep to ethical practices of both farming and living, and to raise their two young children, but American society stymies their efforts. The novel is an indictment of the U.S. legal system, which works with the subtlety and mercy of a sledgehammer; the farming system, which values dollars over good food and the environment; and the American idea of marriage, which is falling apart from its own internal contradictions. However, the novel manages to be very funny throughout. Its humor comes out not just in the wicked, scathing sentences of its first third, told in a voice that one imagines is close to the author's own, but also in the structural choice of placing section two in the voice of the hilariously but tragically non-verbal husband. The contrast between husband's and wife's thinking is far more eloquent and entertaining than the recent popular psychological studies on the subject of male-female mental processes. Also included: the annoyingly efficient but oblivious mother-in-law, class and race differences but from a female perspective, and the politics of a small town."

Opening Line:

"I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident."

My Take:

Yay! Once I finish this entry I'll be up to the book I'm currently reading.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

#53: The Interruption of Everything

The Interruption of Everything, by Terry McMillan  

(New York: Viking, 2005)

 

Summary:

Since Terry McMillan’s breakout novel Waiting to Exhale surged onto the bestseller lists, critics and readers alike have been captivated by her irreverent, hilarious, pitch-perfect tales of women’s lives and contemporary issues. With The Interruption of Everything, her sixth novel, McMillan takes on the fault lines of midlife and family life, reminds us once again of the redeeming power of friendship, and turns her eye toward the dilemma of how a woman starts to put her own needs higher on the to-do list while not shortchanging everyone else.

"Marilyn Grimes, wife and mother of three, has made a career of deferring her dreams to build a suburban California home and lifestyle with her husband, Leon. She troubleshoots for her grown kids, cares for her live-in mother-in-law, Arthurine (and elderly poodle, Snuffy); keeps tabs on her girlfriends Paulette and Bunny and her own aging mother and foster sister—all the while holding down a part-time job. But at forty-four, Marilyn’s got too much on her plate and nothing to feed her passion. She feels like she’s about ready to jump. She’s just not sure where.

Highly entertaining, deeply human, a page-turner full of heart and soul, The Interruption of Everything is vintage Terry McMillan—and a triumphant testament to the fact that the detour is the path, and living life 'by the numbers' never quite adds up."

Opening Line:
"The only reason I'm sitting on a toilet seat in the handicapped stall of the ladies' room is because I'm hiding."

My Take:
One of my more expensive finds from the May booksale at the Boston Public Library (think I paid a dollar for it), and a highly entertaining read. Things do tend to wrap up a bit too neatly and quickly at the end, which is often a peeve of mine, but it wasn't necessarily a bad ending -- just one that might have benefited from a loose end or 2.

 

#47: Dedication

Dedication, by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus (New York: Atria Books, 2007)

Summary:
"What if your first love left town, without a word to anyone, days before graduation?

"What if he went on to become one of the biggest recording stars on the planet and every song he’s famous for is about you? What if, after thirteen years of getting on with your life – walking past his face on newsstands, flipping past his image on TV, tuning him out on the radio – you get the call that he has landed back in your hometown for an MTV special two days before Christmas?  What if you finally had the chance to confront him?  What would you do?


"Kate Hollis finds herself on the threshold of her thirtieth birthday, about to discover that the only way to embrace life as a fully-fledged, well-adjusted adult is to re-visit seventeen."

Opening Lines:
"'He's here.'
 "'Laura?' I ask into the phone, disoriented, voice sandy with sleep."

My Take:
Saturday of my first weekend in Boston was wet, wet, wet. As in, the 40 days and 40 nights kind of rain. OK, maybe it was closer to 4 hours, but I still don't think I could have gotten any soggier even if there had been an ark instead of just a parade of duck boats swimming by. It only hit me that morning that I'd left both my raincoat and all my umbrellas back home in NY.

About 5 minutes later, it dawned on me that I might would get wet if I went out anyway, but I was about as certain to get weepy and fragile and withdrawn if I just sat here alone in my conveniently-located but poorly lit apartment, and ... well, wet stuff dries. So I set off down Charles Street with an adventurous spring in my step, snapping artful pictures of puddles and park benches with my iPhone. I fueled up for my trek beneath the tin-punched ceilings of Panifico and vowed to walk off my delicious but generous plate o' hash before I went back home. I fell in love with Commonwealth Avenue and its memorials on every corner, flanked by the hundred-year-old townhouses with their curved fronts and indecorous flower boxes who seem to be Boston's true grandes dames. I stumbled across a Marshall's incongruously planted between a Talbot's and a La Perla, finally brought an umbrella after I was drenched enough for my hair and jacket to drip a path through the store, and told myself the funny looks I imagined getting from the Back Bay Brahmins (well, any who'd wandered into Marshall's by mistake on their way to the Kate Spade in the next block) would make for a colorful story.

And since I was right there on Boylston Street anyway, and it was a rainy day, I found myself in Copley Square across from the Boston Public Library, which just happened to be having a book sale that day. You can guess where this is going. For a dollar or in some cases (i.e., if you ain't too proud to read anything from the paperback romance boxes) a quarter apiece, I could stock up on fun reads aplenty. Most are still in the apartment unread, but I did read Dedication (you knew I'd get there eventually, right?) a few weeks ago.

Decent, but I fear McLaughlin and Kraus may always suffer from the fact that they'll never write another Nanny Diaries. Dedication was pretty good, a fun read ... but I felt like I was meant to empathize with Kate a lot more than I did. Wondering about an old flame, especially if he's gone off and become famous? No personal experience but I can imagine how it might work. But the degree to which it's become an obsession, and to which it's been The Only Thing Jake seems to have written about over the years? Not feeling it. Worth what I paid for it, I guess, but not really funny or moving enough to keep it on my shelf long-term.

#32: The Last Time I Saw You

 

The Last Time I Saw You, by Elizabeth Berg (New York: Random House, 2010)

Summary:

"From the beloved bestselling author of Home Safe and The Year of Pleasures comes a wonderful new novel about women and men reconnecting with one another -- and themselves -- at their fortieth high school reunion.

"To each of the men and women in The Last Time I Saw You, this reunion means something different -- a last opportunity to say something long left unsaid, an escape from the bleaker realities of everyday life, a means to save a marriage on the rocks, or simply an opportunity to bond with a slightly estranged daughter, if only over what her mother should wear.

"As the onetime classmates meet up over the course of a weekend, they discover things that will irrevocably affect the rest of their lives. For newly divorced Dorothy Shauman, the reunion brings with it the possibility of finally attracting the attention of the class heartthrob, Peter Decker. For the ever self-reliant, ever left-out Mary Alice Mayhew, it's a chance to reexamine a painful past. For Lester Hessenpfeffer, a veterinarian and widower, it is the hope of talking shop with a fellow vet -- or at least that's what he tells himself. For Candy Armstrong, the class beauty, it's the hope of finding friendship before it's too late.

"As Dorothy, Mary Alice, Lester, Candy, and the other classmates converge for the reunion dinner, four decades melt away: desires and personalities from their youth reemerge, and new discoveries are made. For so much has happened to them all. And so much can still happen. 

"In this beautiful novel, Elizabeth Berg deftly weaves together stories of roads taken and not taken, choices made and opportunities missed, and the possibilities of second chances."

Opening Line:

"Dorothy Shauman Ledbetter Shauman is standing in front of the bathroom mirror in her black half-slip and black push-up bra, auditioning a look."

My Take:

I've read a few of Berg's novels over the years and my general impression is that they're solid if a bit inconsistent. I remember really enjoying Range of Motion, though none of the others stick in my head quite as clearly. Five chapters in and I'm most taken with Dorothy's humanness and vulnerability so far; Mary Alice seems just too meek and perfect, and Peter too stereotypically in hound dog, dump-your-loyal-wife-for-a-younger-woman midlife crisis mode. Lester has potential, though the long-ago loss of his pregnant wife and his absolute lack of interest in anything romantic since then seems a bit melodramatic. If nothing else, it'll be a good lazy weekend read after a busy week.

Not awful, and a fairly quick read, but not especially funny, entertaining, or memorable, either.

#27: Bound

Bound, by Antonya Nelson (New York: Bloomsbury, 2010)

Summary:

"Even after nearly two decades of marriage, Oliver and Catherine Desplaines maintain their secrets. Oliver, an aging entrepreneur, has spent his life looking for the next opportunities in business and in love. Catherine is his third wife, closer in age to his estranged daughters, and he's just fallen giddily, yet again, for an even younger woman.

"Catherine herself is seemingly placid and conent, supporting Oliver's career and heaping affection on their pet corgis, but she has ghosts of a past she scarcely remembers. When her best friend from high school dies, Catherine learns she is the namesake, and now guardian, of a missing teenage girl. Another specter of her adolescence has also risen: the notorious serial killer BTK (Bind, Torture, and Kill) is taunting Wichita police and boosting local news ratings after years of silence.

"In this time of hauntings and new revelations, the Desplaines grapple with their public and private obligations, their former selves, and uncertain ambitions. The couple, their past and future family members, and even the domesticated animals that circle them face the continuous choice between the suppression and indulgence of wild desires. Which way they turn, and what balance they find, may only be determined by those who love them most."

Opening Lines:

"The dog had two impulses. One was to stay with the car, container of civilization, and the other was to climb through the ruined window into the wild."

My Take:

Really wish I hadn't gotten too busy with Real Life to do this one justice, because this was a deceptively short book with a big impact and lot to think about. Really interesting characters here; I was all set to think Oliver, who's not only addicted to ever-younger trophy wives and girlfriends (his latest paramour, who we expect to replace Catherine by the book's end, is dubbed only Sweetheart, with no name or identity of her own), but willing to blow off a promise to visit his disabled mother-in-law in a nursing home while Catherine's out of town, was a complete heel, when Nelson surprised me by having him visit Grace (Catherine's 70-something mother, a former Women's Studies professor now enfeebled by a stroke) and relate to her with unexpected empathy and tenderness. As the title suggests, the novel seems to focus on themes of how our relationships and obligations to others -- particularly those who are weaker than we are, whether that's a frail elderly person, an orphaned teenager, a stray dog, or a willfully dependent spouse -- define us. For those interested in subtle, nuanced stories about love, marriage, and identity, this one's well worth a read.

#20: Heft

Heft, by Liz Moore (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012)

Summary:

"Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn't left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career -- if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel's mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur's. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene's unexpected phone call to Arthur -- a plea for help -- that jostles them into action. Through Arthur and Kel's own quirky and lovable voices, Heft tells the winning story of two improbable heroes whose sudden connection transforms both their lives. Like Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House, Heft is a novel about love and family found in the most unexpected places."

Opening Line:

"The first thing you must know about me is that I am colossally fat."

My Take:

A fairly quick read -- think I polished it off in a day, give or take -- but with a much bigger impact than I'd expected. Very engaging characters; one Washington Post review calls them "quirky" but that almost trivializes how perfectly, painfully human Arthur, Kel, and Charlene become. Don't miss this one. So far, up there with The Namesake among my favorites of the year.

#10: The End of Everything

The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott (New York: Little, Brown, & Co., 2011)

Summary:
"In a placid 1980s suburb in the Midwest, thirteen-year-old Lizzie and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable, best friends who swap bathing suits and field hockey sticks and between whom, presumably, there are no secrets. Together they live in the shadow of Evie's glamorous older sister Dusty, who provides them a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities on their on teenage horizons. To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Lizzie's big-hearted father, is the world's most perfect place.

"And then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day. As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the balmy suburban community, everyone turns to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger? Would Evie have gotten into a car with a man?

"Compelled by curiosity and a desire to rescue the enchanted Verver household from ruin, Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth. Her days spent with a shell-shocked Mr. Verver, she devotes her nights to prowling through backyards, peering through windows, pushing herself to the dark center of Evie's world. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power as the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secret after secret and begins to wonder if she knew anything about her best friend at all."

Opening Line:
"She, light-streaky out of the corner of my eye."

My Take:
I've sometimes said, upon finishing books by Chuck Palahniuk or even Joyce Carol Oates, that I feel like I need to take a shower afterwards. I don't know if The End of Everything is quite that bad, but I did feel just a little ... I dunno, just icky. Certainly young adolescents' burgeoning awareness of their own sexuality isn't a new theme, and Abbott's combining it with a kidnapping angle is an intriguing idea. But IMO, a little bit of the young girl/ older man thing goes a long way, and in that regard, I think Abbott way overdoes it. Having an Evie who, at some level, wanted a relationship with Mr. Shaw? A narrator who has just a bit of a crush on her best friend's dad? An older sister who's affectionate behavior with her own father is starting to look more than a little inappropriate? Any one, perhaps even two, of these threads might have worked, but all together, they're too much. I went hunting online to see if anyone else had a similar reaction, and found this review by Ana on The Book Smugglers, which captures my problems with this book far more clearly than I could have. She says, in part:

"But I think that what discomfited me the most and makes me wonder is how, because the story is narrated by a naïve, unreliable 13 year old in the 80s, certain things remain unnamed (the setting in the 80s is quite important I think, to explain the lack of awareness?) This story clearly presents a disturbing portrait of things that are not quite right, of things that people won’t talk about or even name. I have nothing against things being open for interpretation but I would argue that even despite the unreliability of this narrator, certain events such as: the culprit being driven by guilt and killing himself in the end; Lizzie’s mother cryptically saying that things are not quite healthy next door; Dusty having serious mental issues, leave no DOUBT in my mind on what we are talking about here: incest as well as paedophilia. And yet the “relationships” between the three girls and older men in this story are constantly framed with the words “love”, “pure” “falling in love or being loved by” older men.

"I keep going back and forth about this, wondering if the narrative (again, by Lizzie, a 13 year old girl) and the 80s setting (and the lack of awareness about these issues) are enough to account for how Lizzie interprets these events and therefore it is down to the reader to name things and point fingers? Not to mention that there are enough consequences to some of the people involved in these events (death, loss of innocence, etc) not to make it an issue of metatextual lack of acknowledgment of those issues. ...

Also one last question: isn’t it disturbing how basically all female characters including the teenagers in this book are either attracted to married men or to much older ones and they are all, to one extent or another, victims of/dependent on those men? Lizzie’s mother is a victim of a marriage gone bad and only starts to recover when she meets a new man (married); Lizzie is a victim of a broken home and the lack of a father and a victim of the bad influence of the next door neighbors; Evie and Dusty are victims of their father; Evie is a victim of Mr Shaw (and a willing one disturbingly so); Evie’s mother is a non-entity, a shadow of her husband and even Mrs Shaw who never shows up on page, willingly helps her husband when he is on the run because apparently she can’t control herself or pities him even though he seems to be the worst husband in the world (not to mention a sick pedophile). I mean, how messed up is that? It is worth noting though that maybe this is totally intentional and meant to be one of those searing looks at American Suburban Life in the 1980s with women in their dependent roles with the poor children in the middle of it all and I am being entirely too contemporary in my interrogation of the text.

"... It is a good book, with positive things but ultimately it is not the sort of book that I, personally, care to read."

#110: Summer Rental

Summer Rental, by Mary Kay Andrews (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2011)

Summary:
"Ellis, Julia, and Dorie. Best friends since Catholic grade school, they now find themselves in their mid-thirties, at the crossroads of life and love. Ellis, recently fired from a job she gave everything to, is beginning to question the choices she's made over the past decade of her life. Julia -- whose caustic wit covers up her wounds -- has a man who loves her and is offering her the world, but she can't hide how deeply insecure she feels about her looks, her brains, and her life. And Dorie has just been shockingly betrayed by the man she loved and trusted most in the world ... though this is just the tip of the iceberg of her problems and secrets. A month in North Carolina's Outer Banks is just what each of them needs.

"Ty Bazemore is their landlord, though he's hanging on to the rambling old beach house by a thin thread. After an inauspicious first meeting with Ellis, the two find themselves disturbingly attracted to each other, even as Ty is about to lose everything he's ever cared about.

"Maryn Shackleford is a stranger, and a woman on the run. Maryn just needs a few things in life: no questions, a good hiding place, and a new identity. Ellis, Julia, and Dorie can provide what Maryn wants, but can they also provide what she needs?

"Five people questioning everything they ever thought they knew about life. Five people on a journey that will uncover their secrets and point them on the path to forgiveness. Five people who need a sea change, and one month in a summer rental that might just give it to them."

Opening Line:
"It was not an auspicious beginning for a vacation, let alone for a new life."

My Take:
Halfway entertaining, but forgettable.

#108: Falling Together

Falling Together, by Marisa de los Santos (New York: William Morrow, 2011)

Summary:
"Following Love Walked In and Belong to Me, de los Santos's third novel embraces the draw of college friendships. Catalina, Will, and Pen (short for Penelope) meet on a drama-filled night their freshman year and from that moment are completely inseparable, a solid trio whose bonds seem unbreakable. But something serious does come between them, and after college the friends stop speaking to one another. Yet each one feels the others' absence deeply. Until one day when Pen and Will receive a curt email from Cat: 'Please come to the ten-year reunion, I need you.' It's a mystery that neither Pen nor Will can ignore. What they find at the reunion is unexpected. This novel is partly a deep look into a friendship and what strengthened it as well as what ruined it, and partly a mystery that sends Pen and Will halfway around the world to the Philippines. The story unfolds in pieces-why the friendships fell apart and what reunites the friends in ways they would not have thought possible are slowly unveiled. While the characters are lovely and the writing is heartfelt, the pacing can be slow. VERDICT: The author's fans will enjoy this nostalgic mystery with romantic elements." -Beth Gibbs, from Library Journals

Opening Line:
"Pen would not use the word summoned when she told Jamie about the e-mail later that night."

My Take:
A solid B to B-minus. Not awful but not especially original or memorable either. Either it was never made convincingly clear why such epically wonderful friends just plain stopped speaking, or I'd half lost interest by then and missed something important. Wanted to like it and care about the characters more than I did, but didn't quite get there.

#106: Call Me Irresistible

Call Me Irresistible, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (New York: William Morrow, 2011)

Summary:
"Lucy Jorik is the daughter of a former president of the United States.

"Meg Koranda is the offspring of legends.

"One of them is about to marry Mr. Irresistible -- Ted Beaudine -- the favorite son of Wynette, Texas. The other is not happy about it and is determined to save her friend from a mess of heartache.

"But even though Meg knows that breaking up her best friend's wedding is the right thing to do, no one else seems to agree. Faster than Lucy can say "I don't," Meg becomes the most hated woman in town -- a town she's stuck in with a dead car, an empty wallet, and a very angry bridegroom. Broke, stranded, and without her famous parents at her back, Meg is sure she can survive on her own wits. What's the worst that can happen? Lose her heart to the one and only Mr. Irresistible? Not likely. Not likely at all.

"Call Me Irresistible is the book Susan Elizabeth Phillips's readers have long awaited. Ted, better known as 'little Teddy,' the nine-year-old heartbreak kid from Phillips's first bestseller, Fancy Pants, and as 'young Teddy,' the hunky new college graduate in Lady Be Good, is all grown up now -- along with Lucy from First Lady and Meg from What I Did for Love. They're ready to take center stage in a saucy, funny, and highly addictive tale fans will love."

Opening Line:
"More than a few residents of Wynette, Texas, thought Ted Beaudine was marrying beneath himself."

My Take:
Maybe long-time faithful fans of the author would love and anticipate this book, but I'm not among them. My cardinal rule of sequels, or any books set in a universe the author's previously established, is that they need to work just as well as stand-alones for those who haven't read the others in the series. This one fails. Lots of stock, two-dimensional cardboard characters and ridiculous plot contrivances. Perhaps I've just read one chick lit book too many of late, but I feel a little like I just ate a full not-quite-half-gallon carton of ice cream by myself. The kind with rich but heavy little mix-ins in it.

#105: Wife-in-Law

Wife-in-Law, by Haywood Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2011)

Summary:
"Neighbors Betsy Callison and Kat Ellis were oil and water when they met thirty-five years ago. Betsy was a prim, neat-freak, Republican wife, and Kat was a wild, irreverent hippie liberal. But they soon discovered common ground that created a bond that has lasted for decades. Until Betsy's husband, Greg, leaves her for his secretary, then comes back sniffing around two years later and convinces newly widowed Kat to marry him!

"Not that Betsy wants him back, but it's hard to move on when the newlyweds are flaunting their love right across the street. But there's trouble brewing in paradise, and no one knows philandering Greg better than his ex-wife, Betsy. Can Betsy get involved in her best friend's marriage -- even if it means helping her wife-in-law figure out the same man she shared a bed with for thirty years?"

Opening Line:
"Somebody once asked me how I pick my friends, and I just laughed, because God usually does the picking for me, and believe me, He has a wicked sense of humor."

My Take:
Fluffy, corn-battered and Southern-fried fun, if not especially literary or memorable.