Dana Swier Huff's Blog, page 69
June 14, 2011
The Kitchen Daughter, Jael McHenry
Ginny Selvaggio is different. She doesn't like to be touched. She doesn't look in people's eyes when they speak to her. She finds socializing excruciating. But she's also a wonderful cook and finds solace in the kitchen. At twenty-six, she's never been on her own, but her parents die in a car accident while on vacation, and Ginny has trouble coping. Her sister Amanda wants to sell their parents' house and have Ginny "evaluated" for Asperger's Syndrome. Ginny is afraid it's a tactic to prove that she's incompetent so that Amanda can sell the house. Meanwhile, Ginny befriends David, the son of her cleaning lady Gert. He's a wounded soul, mourning the death of his wife a year earlier.
I really liked Ginny. I related to this book on a more personal level than some readers might because I have two children on the autism spectrum. No two people with autism are exactly alike, and it precisely the way that autism is often portrayed in the media—not wanting to be touched, for one thing—that made it hard for me to believe my son was autistic. He loves hugs, and he has never minded being touched. However, Ginny's character comes across as genuine. The obsessions with odd things from Turkish rug patterns to letters written by nuns is familiar. When my children have an interest, it's like an obsession, and they can stay fixated on it for months, especially my son (right now it's Angry Birds, but it has been fruit and movie logos). I don't know what my children will be like when they are grown up. I don't think about it a lot. It's too cloudy, for one thing. I just don't know what they will be like or be able to do. I just can't picture it. This book gave me a glimpse of what they might be like, however.
Another aspect of the The Kitchen Daughter I really loved was all the food, cooking, and recipes. Each chapter is focused around a different dish that Ginny cooks. She discovers that she is able to call forth the ghosts of the people who created the recipes when she cooks, and she is able to learn some important things about her family and herself. I even tried making the Midnight Cry Brownies recipe, and it was delicious. The brownies are a sort of cakey brownie, and they call for course salt, which settles to the bottom as the brownies bake. The resulting taste might not appeal to everyone, but I loved the mix of chocolate and salt. David's ancho chili hot chocolate sounds pretty good, too. I can't wait to try that.
I did truly enjoy this novel. I read it in three or four gulps. It has something to say to everyone about what normal truly is, what grief can do, and the importance of living for those left behind after loved ones die. It's a really impressive debut. I can't wait to read more from Jael McHenry.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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Post © Dana Huff
The Kitchen Daughter, Jael McHenry
June 13, 2011
Musing Mondays—June 13, 2011
What's the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn't put it down?
I devoured Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen (review) in the space of a day, but I can't remember how late I stayed up reading to finish it. I do remember clearly staying up really late because I was hooked on Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly (review). It's not something I have done in a while; I have had a run of four-star and lower books. It's usually the five-star books that keep me up at night. I will say that The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry is running on five stars right now, as is The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School by Alexandra Robbins. I think some of the books that have kept me up most have been the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games series. I have yet to read books to match those two series for making it impossible for me stop turning pages.
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Post © Dana Huff
Musing Mondays—June 13, 2011
June 11, 2011
Book Trailer: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Via Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Like Carl, I haven't paid much attention to book trailers. Well, to be more precise, Carl says that he "poo-poo[ed] the concept." I didn't poo-poo the concept, but I often forget about their existence altogether, and some of them are pretty good vehicles for generating interest in a book. Like the one above. I know after reading Carl's glowing review of the book and viewing that trailer, I decided to read it.
Social media is great for sharing reading. I decided to read this book soon based on a blog post and YouTube video. I have my Goodreads account publish books I add to my to-read pile on my Facebook profile. My mother-in-law bought Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children after seeing my post on Facebook that I intended to read it.
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Post © Dana Huff
Book Trailer: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
June 10, 2011
Friday Finds—June 10, 2011
I only have two finds this week. The first comes via an Amazon recommendation. 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman sounds like a fascinating read. Probably my New Yorker friends will laugh at me for being surprised about this, but when I Googled the book title, I found out that 97 Orchard on the Lower East Side is a the home of the Tenement Museum. The book looks like a pretty cool read, although reviews say that it focuses less on the families and more on the food. I should have thought "edible history" made that clearer, but maybe not to some.
Another find this week came straight from the publisher, who asked if I'd like a copy of The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth: Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School by Alexandra Robbins. Of course I said yes! I'm a geek! Anything that looks like it will celebrate my kind of people is welcome, but once the book arrived, I realized it is really more about high school culture, or at least it appears to be. I do think it looks interesting, though.
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Post © Dana Huff
Friday Finds—June 10, 2011
June 9, 2011
A Jane Austen Education, William Deresiewicz
Part memoir, part literary criticism, William Deresiewicz's book A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter examines the life lessons Jane Austen's six major novels had for the author, a former professor at Yale and literary critic. The book is organized around the six novels and different lessons each taught (along with a concluding chapter):
Emma Everyday Matters
Pride and Prejudice Growing Up
Northanger Abbey Learning to Learn
Mansfield Park Being Good
Persuasion True Friends
Sense and Sensibility Falling in Love
Until the very end of the book, I wasn't sure whether I liked the author. He slowly reveals some of the problems he had and how he became the person he is today through his reading and application of Austen's lessons. In the process, he is truthful about his character as it was being formed, warts and all. By the end of the book, however, the author emerges as a thoughtful, likeable, and worthy gentleman. His lessons are sometimes hard-won, and Deresiewicz does not stint at telling the truth, even at his own expense. His insights into Austen's novels, particularly Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility, made me think about Austen's novels in new ways. If you are an Austen fan, Deresiewicz will help you see her novels in a new way, and if you aren't one, he just might convert you. Most of all, he made me want to pick up Austen's books again to see if I could see in them what he did. I can't believe I missed some of this stuff. But that's what good teachers do—they help you see what you missed.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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Post © Dana Huff
A Jane Austen Education, William Deresiewicz
June 8, 2011
School's Out
Click here to view the embedded video.
I am officially finished with the 2010-2011 school year. I have cleaned out my classroom and left it ready for our new English teacher (I will be in an office and will also have a cubicle near the computer lab). So you know what that means? Aside from not grading essays? It means I can work on my own writing.
I have two projects in the hopper. One book is finished but needs to be edited. It's called Quicksand and is about a girl named Imogen Medley living in rural Breathitt County, Kentucky in the 1930′s. Her alcoholic father is booted out of the house, and her mother marries her father's brother. Several years and several baby brothers later, Imogen trudges out to the barn to milk the cow and discovers her stepfather's body. Soon Imogen is reunited with her father and the two become embroiled in the investigation of the murder of her stepfather, which leads both of them to some surprising places.
The other project is an updated version of the legend of Deirdre of the Sorrows with a bit of a time travel and/or reincarnation component. Deirdre is a high school student in Massachusetts. She meets a young musician named Nate and finds herself inexplicably drawn to him, as if she has always known him. Meanwhile, a fellow student named Connor, enamored with Deirdre for years, becomes enraged over the growing connection between Deirdre and Nate. Before long, the three of them find themselves enacting the story of an ancient Irish love triangle. Will the consequences be as tragic this time, or can they manage to escape fate?
The first book is personal to me because I wove details and setting from my own family history into the novel, and I personally feel it is a better book than my first. The second book is a book is interesting in that I didn't worry about audience at all. I just wrote a book I would like to read.
I plan to edit Quicksand and made it available soon, but I'm not yet finished with the as-yet-untitled Deirdre project. I will keep you posted. If A Question of Honor does not sound like your thing, it is my hope that you might like my other writing. At any rate, it will be priced to entice even the tightest budget.
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Post © Dana Huff
School's Out
WWW Wednesdays—June 8, 2011
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you'll read next?
I am currently reading A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz. He has divided the chapters into life lessons he learned from each of the six major novels by novel title and lesson, and I am currently in the chapter about Persuasion, which might be my favorite Jane Austen book. I really love Pride And Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. I'm not sure I like the author all that much. The book is part memoir, part literary criticism, and his descriptions of himself are quite candid.
I recently finished The Secret Diary of a Princess by Melanie Clegg. It is a novel about Marie Antoinette's later childhood leading up to her marriage with the future Louis XVI—an interesting peek into the Viennese court.
I think the next thing I will read will be The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry (my sidebar says I'm already reading it, but I haven't really started it yet) and perhaps The Tempest. I do need to finally read The Dream of Perpetual Motion by Dexter Palmer.
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Post © Dana Huff
WWW Wednesdays—June 8, 2011
June 7, 2011
Teaser Tuesdays—June 7, 2011
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
My teasers:
"Her [Jane Austen's] genius began with the recognition that such lives as hers were very eventful indeed—that every life is eventful, if only you know how to look at it. She did not think that her existence was quiet or trivial or boring; she thought it was delightful and enthralling, and she wanted us to see that our own are, too."
—location 355 on Kindle, A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz.
An answer to those who think Jane Austen writes about trivial matters that appeal only to women.
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Post © Dana Huff
Teaser Tuesdays—June 7, 2011
June 6, 2011
Musing Mondays—June 6, 2011
Where is your favorite place to read?
I mostly read in bed. There isn't really another good place to read in my house. I enjoy reading in the bath, but I won't take my Kindle in the tub, so unless it's a paperback or a magazine, I read it in bed.
I really enjoyed reading outside when I was in college. UGA, where I went to undergrad, has a beautiful campus.
I couldn't find a larger image, but this fountain in particular was a favorite spot. You might be able to just make out the black wrought iron benches. I enjoyed sitting there while the fountain burbled and reading whatever I was reading. In fact, the girl in this picture could have been me about 20 years ago.
Image © Nancy Evelyn
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Post © Dana Huff
Musing Mondays—June 6, 2011
June 4, 2011
The Secret Diary of a Princess, Melanie Clegg
Melanie Clegg's (Madame Guillotine) novel The Secret Diary of a Princess is the story of Maria Antonia, daughter of Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her husband Emperor Francis I. Marie Antoinette is perhaps best known for being executed during the French Revolution, but this story begins around the same time as negotiations for her marriage to the future Louis XVI began and ends as the wedding itself begins. As such, it offers a rare glimpse into a lesser chronicled period of the life of Marie Antoinette. She emerges a sympathetic character—dutiful and kind, but also hopeful and optimistic. One cannot help but feel sorry for her as we know where the road she is marching down will ultimately lead her.
Clegg's decision to write the novel as a secret diary and focus on the years leading up to Marie Antoinette's marriage is an interesting one, and ultimately, I think, a smart one. It is hard to feel pity for a girl brought up in the Hapsburg Court with every luxury, but Clegg manages to create a likeable Marie Antoinette, so happy with her family and so frightened to leave, most likely never to see them again. Clegg's research into the time period results in an authentic read, and the vivid descriptions of everything from clothing and furnishings to food make the period come alive. The groundwork for some of the dislike the French later felt for Marie Antoinette as an Austrian outsider is also laid, and the novel begs for a sequel chronicling Marie Antoinette's years in Versailles. The book was published directly to Kindle. It is a quick, compelling read and especially enjoyable for readers who might want to learn more about France's much maligned queen.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
While this book definitely qualifies for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, I am making a sort of educated leap including it in the YA Historical Fiction Challenge. The author does not necessarily classify it as YA, but given Marie Antoinette's age for much of the book (she is 14 as the book ends), and some of her concerns, I would say it fits squarely in the YA genre, although adults who don't necessarily read YA would also feel completely comfortable reading the book.
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Post © Dana Huff
The Secret Diary of a Princess, Melanie Clegg
