Cynthia Sally Haggard's Blog: Cynthia Sally's Blog, page 45

KEEPING FAITH by Jodi Picoult, narrated by Eliza Foss and Julia Gibson, produced by Recorded Books

Before I review Jodi Picoult’s sixth novel, I want to register a COMPLAINT with RECORDED BOOKS. It simply ISN’T right to cut the tape in such a way that there is NO SPACE between chapters. It ISN’T right to LURCH the reader from one experience to another so that we CANNOT process what we have just heard, and we feel JARRED and SHAKEN UP. It ISN’T right to MUTILATE an author’s work in such a fashion.

PEOPLE PAY GOOD MONEY FOR YOUR PRODUCTS SO I DEMAND THAT YOU TAKE ALL OF THE AUDIO FILES YOU’VE MADE OF JODI PICOULT’S books and REDO by ADDING SPACE between chapters. (Occasionally there is TOO MUCH space. THAT NEEDS TO BE FIXED ALSO.)

Okay, end of rant. Now about Jodi Picoult and her sixth novel KEEPING FAITH. Most readers will find much of this book hard to believe, but if you are able to suspend belief, I think you will enjoy this piece. Jodi Picoult writes with her usual empathy and her descriptions of Mariah White and her interactions with her daughter Faith are moving and compelling.

Like MERCY and THE PACT, this novel also ends up in the courtroom, so you could say that what Jodi Picoult is doing at this phase of her career is writing courtroom dramas. However, if you enjoy that sort of thing, this novel is for you. Five stars.

THE PACT by Jodi Picoult narrated by George Guidall

Like MERCY, Jodi Picoult’s fourth novel, THE PACT, her fifth, is about a vulnerable man who kills the woman he loves at her request. Unlike MERCY, Chris Harte in THE PACT has no clan leader to protect him. Instead, he finds himself dropped into the tank on his eighteenth birthday and forced to endure the hardships of the lockup while his lawyer devises a plan to save him.

THE PACT takes on a different social issue than MERCY. This time, we are experiencing the fallout from teen suicide, rather than the difficulties associated with euthanasia. As usual, Jodi Picoult explores another painful issue with heart, emotion and empathy.

In this fifth novel, the author hits her stride. Gone are the supernatural elements, which some readers found distracting and off-putting. Also gone are competing stories. Unlike MERCY, where the story of the Chief Police’s affair collided with the story of his cousin who euthanized his wife, THE PACT has a laser-sharp focus on 18-year-old Chris Harte, his close-knit extended family which includes the Golds who live next-door, and his best-friend/girlfriend 17-year-old Emily Gold, who wants to die.

Because of the lack of distraction, both supernatural and otherwise, this novel packed a more powerful punch than the first four.

The only problem I had with this novel, which was produced by Recorded Books, was the shoddy editing of the audio version. Far too often the listener experienced no space between one section and another, which was jarring, off-putting and confusing. I really wish Recorded Books would do a quality-control check of the audio files to ensure that the listener has time to process what happened before moving on. (This is not the only Jodi Picoult novel with this problem. I experienced similar unpleasant lurches while listening to MERCY and PICTURE PERFECT.)

However, this is not the author’s fault. Five stars.

MERCY by Jodi Picoult narrated by Alyssa Bresnahan

I agree with most readers that MERCY is not Jodi Picoult at her best. Unlike some, I didn’t mind the Scottish clan stuff as I felt it helped to raise the stakes and explain Police Chief Cameron MacDonald’s (aka Cam) elevated standing in the small town of Wheelock Massachusetts, as he is not only the Police Chief but actually the Laird of a community that decamped from Kirriemuir Scotland.

This also explains the first important plot point: Why did Cam’s cousin Jamie MacDonald kill his wife in Wheelock, and then immediately seek out Police Chief Cam? Many readers said they found this puzzling, but the reason is because Cameron MacDonald is Jamie’s clan leader, and as such, is expected to protect his cousin from the consequences of the law.

And so, in this fourth Jodi Picoult novel (I am reading them ALL in order) we have our social issue, that of mercy killing or euthanasia, in the setting of 1990s New England where most people were generally very uncomfortable about this issue, if not dead set against it.

So much for Story One. As most have pointed out, there is another story, which I’ll call Story Two, as it is the more traditional story of the Unfaithful Jerk of a Husband carrying on with wife’s BFF (in this case, a stunning assistant called Mia, whom Cam’s wife Allie helps.) Many readers disliked this story, on the grounds of unbelievability, but I rather enjoyed it. I could empathize with Allie’s infatuation with husband Cam (the Police Chief/Laird,) and her subsequent bitterness as the facts of his betrayal became clear to her. I enjoyed the way that she doled out his comeuppance. But I also agree that Jodi Picoult missed an opportunity to ratchet up the tension by neglecting to tell us more about Mia, who mysteriously appears and vanishes. I was dying to know who she really was, and how she acquired her magical powers. It would have been so neat to have her not only take over Allie’s place at the flower shop, but also as her mother-in-law’s confidant and mixer-of-potions. Four stars.

Reading Sundays: THE NON-AFFAIR (Part 9) a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

“Caroline, please don’t exaggerate. There must be plenty of others who could perform this service for you.”

“I don’t understand.” My throat shut, so I had to swallow to open it. “I thought—”

“No.” He looked directly at me, his light-brown eyes as opaque as shiny coins in a too-bright sun.

I sat there, crumbling.

He rose to his feet, edged around that huge desk, walked past me as if I were another plastic chair, and opened the door.

“I must ask you to leave, Caroline. I’m very busy at present.”

I gazed around his room one last time. His desk gleamed smugly in the sunlight.

“Please leave. Now.” His face was immobile as he held the door open.

Somehow, I got to my feet and left, my arms wrapped around my brown leather bag. As I stepped into that antiseptic corridor with its white walls, white ceiling tiles, cheap white linoleum floor, I heard his door click shut behind me. I stumbled outside into a painfully sunny courtyard and slumped down onto my favorite bench. What was I going to do? He was the only person who knew my work well enough to be able to write a convincing letter of reference for the prestigious law schools I wanted to go to. I sat there for many moments, a cool wind wafting loss all around me.

***

“Caroline.” Father stood in the doorway of his study holding The Baltimore Sun, as I arrived home.

“I was right all along, not letting you stay at university. It is no place for respectable young women.”

I stared up into his unreadable face as he placed the paper into my hands.

“I believe this concerns one of your professors.”

The study door clicked shut behind him.

Alone in the sitting room, I leaned over the pages of The Sun. [To be continued.]

THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING by Bill Bryson narrated by Nathan Osgood

Perhaps we should get the meaning of the title over with first. For the bewildered reader who is wondering where Little Dribbling is, especially as it is not actually mentioned in this volume, it is, of course, a joke. It could refer to any number of things: the British propensity to live in villages with silly names, such as Little Snoring in Norfolk where Bryson lived for a while. (BTW, there is also a Great Snoring.) Or it could be a parody of T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding, an allusion to George Orwell’s THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER,  dribbling in Soccer, or something less salubrious. In any event, the title is a JOKE.

Having cleared that up, I (like other readers) found this book to be a bit of a disappointment. Bryson’s writing is wonderful, as always, but this volume lacks the energy and curiosity of his earlier work NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, about a trip around the UK that he took in 1995. To be fair to the author, this trip, taken twenty years later, is NOT just a re-run of his previous trip. He finds new places to go and new observations to make. So why does he sound so grumpy?

I was really struck by this, by his rather frequent use of the term “idiot” as well as his propensity to drop the F-bomb a bit too often for my taste. As an expatriate Brit living in the US, it occurred to me that perhaps Bryson had imbibed too much of the British tendency to be too negative, a quality thankfully lacking in the US of A. Or perhaps it was because the “perfect” country he encountered in the 1970s when he first moved there is long gone.

Whatever the reason, it IS true (to be fair to him again) that Britain has lost much of its charm in the past 40-50 years. People are not nearly as polite as they used to be. They don’t have that ingrained sense of duty that was dinned into me as a young person growing up in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. The country is a LOT more crowded, particularly London, which on an average day feels more like New York City. Politics have become way more polarized (the Brexit disaster.) And so on. Maybe the author does have a reason to feel grumpy, and to express his dismay about a country with such natural richnesses as its wonderful, varied countryside, which sadly, too many people don’t seem to care about as they dump their crisp packets and cigarettes here and there, in a typically thoughtless fashion.

I know this is going to make me sound like an old fogey (I turn 60 this year) but when I was a child growing up in Britain, if I dropped a sweet wrapper in the street, an older woman (who always seemed to be attired in a hat and coat) would accost me. Not only did I have to pick up my rubbish while she looked on, I was expected to apologize to her for my thoughtlessness.

Sadly, those days are long gone. However, if you are a homesick Brit stuck thousands of miles away, or an American (Australian, Canadian, South African, New Zealander) who has always wanted to visit the UK, this book is for you. Four stars.

THE BODY: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson, narrated by the author

Despite its jokey title and a few quips, this is NOT a funny book. So if you are looking for Brysonian humor, you will be disappointed. It is, however, very interesting.  Bill Bryson takes us on a tour of our own bodies, using his wonderful prose style with its clever analogies, to make the machinery of our bodies come alive.

Some people will find the avalanche of facts off-putting. Others will be grateful that Bryson doesn’t repeat clichés and medical myths mindlessly, but does his own research.

The result is a tour de force of our bodies, that is so much more entertaining (as well as cheaper) than the average medical textbook. Five stars.

Reading Sundays: THE NON-AFFAIR (Part 8) a short story by Cynthia Sally Haggard

“That was quite something.” He grinned.

I searched his face, looking for—a morsel of kindness?

“Want my job?”

I stared at the brown leather shoes Mother had got at a Church sale.

“No, no.” My words were sticking to the back of my throat. I coughed. “I wouldn’t be good enough.”

“Hmmm.” He made to pass, and wrong-footed, I fell into an awkward dance with him in the doorway. Just as his hand inadvertently brushed my breasts, I stepped back sharply, banging the back of my head against the door jamb. I ground my teeth so I wouldn’t cry out.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He shot me a knowing look, and smirked.

“Be my guest,” he said, his baritone rich and inviting, “I’m happy to walk into you. Anytime.”

I fled.

***

“I came about my law-school application.” I had to rise in my seat to lean far enough across his desk to hand him another copy of the form.

“Ah, yes.” He glanced at it briefly, then looked up. “I can’t do it.”

“But—” This didn’t seem real. “I thought—”

His long fingers gently traced a pattern on that desk. “I can’t do it.” A dullish red hue broke out across his cheeks.

“But if you don’t, I won’t get into law school.”

“Caroline, please don’t exaggerate. There must be plenty of others who could perform this service for you.”

“I don’t understand.” My throat shut, so I had to swallow to open it. “I thought—”

“No.” He looked directly at me, his light-brown eyes as opaque as shiny coins in a too-bright sun. [To be continued.]

Happy Holiday Season for 2020…may next year be better than this…

PRINCESS OF THE SILVER WOODS (TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES #3) by Jessica Day George

This is the final volume of the TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES series. Like Volume 2, which was a blend of the 12 dancing princesses fairy tale with Cinderella, this is a blend of the 12 dancing princesses fairy tale with Little Red Riding Hood. This novel revolves around the youngest sister, Princess Petunia, who briefly plays the role of Little Red Riding Hood.

As in Volume 2, where the Cinderella story was not given center stage, the Little Red Riding Hood story in this volume was also not given center stage. Instead, the emotional heart of this novel was how the growing number of young men in this story (husbands and suitors of the various princesses) banded together to set their wives (& sweethearts) free from King Under-Stone, the wraith-King who forced his 12 nearly-dead sons onto the princesses as dancing partners in Volume 1.

This story is perfect for those of us who love fairy tales, and appreciate clever new versions with well-drawn characters. Four stars.

Jessica Day George’s PRINCESS OF GLASS (not exactly the Cinderella Story)

To say that Jessica Day George’s PRINCESS OF GLASS is yet another retelling of the Cinderella fairytale would be to mislead the reader, as neither Cinderella (named Eleanora/Ellen in this volume) nor that story is the focus here. Eleanora (who hides behind the plainer name of Ellen) is not the protagonist of this story, and the Cinderella plot-line is incidental to other considerations.

Instead, we have a story about Princess Poppy, the sixth sister of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, who has been sent abroad as part of an exchange program to find friends (and possibly a husband) for herself and her country. Three years have passed since PRINCESS OF THE MIDNIGHT BALL ended happily, with the eldest (Princess Rose) marrying Galen the gallant gardener, and her No. 2 sister (Princess Lily) marrying his cousin Heinrich.

Sixteen-year-old Princess Poppy is the sort of heroine everyone will love, as she is far from ladylike, smart as a whip, opinionated, bold, a whiz at cards and a crack shot.

If you loved the first volume in this series, you really should read this one. But as I said, it is really NOT about Cinderella. Five Stars.