Kibkabe Araya's Blog, page 38
April 5, 2019
Book Review: “The Idea of You” by Robinne Lee
The Idea of You by Robinne Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“The Idea of You” by Robinne Lee is an unexpected well-conceived story about an older woman falling for a boy band member. It sounds like a fantasy ripped out of the tabloids, but it captures the complexities of such a relationship and how the world reacts to it.
Solene Marchand is dealing with the emotions before a 40th birthday when she gets stuck with taking her daughter, Isabelle, and friends to an August Moon concert with backstage access in Las Vegas. As the teen girls stay enamored on the British boy band, Solene finds herself flirting with the bandleader himself, Hayes Campbell. While living her life as an LA art dealer, Solene meets up with Hayes when he’s in town as he flies her out to where he is until they have a full-blown love affair that surprisingly develops into an authentic relationship. Except Solene feels the relationship threatening her art gallery business with her partner Lulit, her relationship with Isabelle, her relationship with her ex-husband Daniel who’s of course having a baby with a 30-year-old model, and her reputation in general with fans sending threatening messages via social media and postal mail. But Solene and Hayes try to beat the odds amid the craziness.
I’ve been disappointed with some of the recent women’s fiction/romance books because in many cases the issues and characters become stereotypical and the storyline is forced into a happily ever after. This book actually shows the progression of a modern-day fairy tale relationship and the rockiness that comes with it. The ending is refreshingly unexpected yet emotional. The writing is fantastic, which again in other recent works seemed to be either missing or the only upside to the book.
What’s great about this book is the reader travels with August Moon, a fictional mashup of One Direction/The Wanted/and all those other recent boy bands out of the U.K., since Solene gets a first class ticket and hotel suite with Hayes everywhere. It covers Aspen, Miami, Malibu, Paris, Tokyo, the Hamptons and so many other destination cities, so it feels like you’re there admiring the scene though Solene and Hayes spend a lot of time in their suites. Also, the stakes of the romance are high. Not only are Solene’s relationships feeling the heat, but so are Hayes’ with one of his bandmates vengeful of destroying the romance and past hookups continually making appearances around the world.
Overall, there are great elements throughout the story, and the book is a great piece of women’s fiction with serving up the steamy sex scenes and drama on every corner. And Lulit is the best because she’s Ethiopian, and we’re rarely in books, especially books like these, so the whole time I envisioned her as me, and that was fun.
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Book Review: “From Across the Room” by Gina L. Mulligan
From Across the Room by Gina L. Mulligan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The art of letter writing is brought to life as a narrative in the historical romance novel “From Across the Room” by Gina Mulligan. Though poorly titled, the novel has a sweetness to it with Thomas trying to find a way to be with Mary despite his writing career.
Thomas Gadwell is walking the streets of 1880s San Diego when he sees a woman chasing a vagrant running down the road with her purse. Without seeing anyone else assisting in the chase, Thomas joins in to talk to the gun-toting vagrant to return the purse to the woman. After they successfully get the purse back. Thomas finds himself smitten with the woman, who is Mary Harting, the daughter of controversial railway king Charlton Harting. Thomas, a writer working on his second novel, recognizes the Harting name with not revealing the financial fraud rumors he heard about Charlton. While in California, Thomas begins to secretly go out with Mary. Once she introduces him to her father, Mary is taken aback that her father doesn’t approve of Thomas because of his writing career, which is seen as unstable for a man who would have to provide for a family. Charlton’s hate for Thomas throws the writer into a tailspin as he approaches deadlines for his novel while traveling back and forth to his home in Newport, Rhode Island. Amid the budding courtship, Charlton finds a rising star at his company, Lowell Kennard, to occupy Mary, but Thomas fights back with hiring an investigator to dig up dirt on Lowell. While trying to win Mary’s heart with her father’s approval, Thomas is hit with deadlines after his novel doesn’t sell to the publisher and his own father, whom he shares a troubled relationship, falls ill. Thomas purposely befriends his new neighbor in Newport, Abigail Winchester, an older woman who loves to host guests, in order to eventually bring Mary to his home. They court in secret there when Mary reveals Lowell had proposed the night before she boarded the ship. This revelation induces a fight where Mary leaves the next night back to California. In frustration, Thomas chastises the investigator for taking so long to find anything criminal in Lowell’s past. He terminates the contract until he puts the pieces together. Once he figures out who the true Lowell is, Thomas learns Mary has been attacked while on her way to teach English to Polish immigrants. He rushes to her bedside and learns his fate with her.
The novel is entirely written through letters penned by Thomas to Mary, his mother, his father, his literary agent, his college roommate, the investigator, and others as he tells the story of how he is trying to win Mary’s heart. Some letters are long and others are short, but this creative way to show the story made it move quicker. Once he asks his mother to interpret one of Mary’s letters, so we get a glimpse of letter written to him.
A running element in the novel is the role of the man and what it means to be a suitable husband and father. Thomas had chosen a noveling career back as an undergrad at Harvard, and his father never agreed to the idea. Thomas’ novels depict romances, so his work is seen as unmanly. Throughout the novel, in the letters, he describes his thorny relationship with his father all based on his choice of career. But then he’s also dealing with Mary’s father, who shares the same philosophy and doesn’t want Thomas to court his daughter. Because of the 1888 time frame, Mary feels conflicted about her father not welcoming Thomas and pushing Lowell onto her. While she convinces her father that she wants to be with Thomas, she is being forced on dates with Lowell. With these men pulling her in different directions, she wonders where she stands in a world where her father wants to make the decision of who she loves for her.
The always-timely issue of mmigration becomes a minor theme in the novel with Mary bringing Thomas one day to a Polish family’s home where she taught the family English. There, Thomas sees the Polish girl had her leg brutally cut off due to a frostbite infection and the family living in small quarters on a questionable side of town. He is in awe of Mary’s benevolence but warns her about her surroundings and how she should be escorted in and out of the home every time she comes. Mary gets upset about the warning, but soon she does get attacked. There’s another moment during the fight in Newport where Mrs. Winchester sees Mary is upset, so Mary lies that her tears are for the immigrant children.
“From Across the Room” is a pleasant read that lets a love story unfold through a man’s heartfelt letters.
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Book Review: “A Kind of Freedom” by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
A Kind of Freedom: A Novel by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“A Kind of Freedom” by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is a multigenerational novel that follows a family overcoming and adapting to obstacles specific to their eras. Though the stories of families may be seen as one-dimensional, it still emphasizes how wealth in the African-American community could disappear based on circumstances.
The story starts with Evelyn and her younger sister, Ruby, in 1940s New Orleans as the daughters of one of the only black doctors in the city. Evelyn has her as eye on Renard, who also likes her and has dreams of going to medical school. But her father doesn’t want Evelyn to marry Renard because he doesn’t believe he’ll become a doctor because he lived as an orphan with a friend’s family.
Then the story fast forwards to the early 1980s with Evelyn and Renard’s two daughters Jackie and Sybil. Jackie is unexpectedly raising her son on her own with her husband dealing with a crack cocaine habit working at her parents’ daycare center.
The third part focuses on a post-Katrina New Orleans with Jackie’s son, T.C., all grown up just getting out of jail before his son’s birth.
To most readers, it might seem like a dull tale around a family, but it makes you think about how this black family was on top decades ago only to lose that wealth and status when a white family would’ve more likely stayed on top generations later. It’s a thought-provoking novel.
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Book Review: “Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now” by Dana L. Davis
Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now by Dana L. Davis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“Tiffany Sly Lives Here Now” by Dana L. Davis is a wonderfully complex YA novel about a girl from Chicago dealing with her mother’s death who moves to California to be with her biological father when there’s another man claiming to be her father.
The story starts with Tiffany Sly, a 16-year-old from Chicago, arriving at LAX in Los Angeles to meet the father she never knew. Instead a driver is there to pick her up to whisk her away to Simi Valley where her wealthy doctor father and his family lives. During the ride, Tiffany’s anxiety revs up and has been up since her mother died from cancer. Once she arrives at the home, she meets her new stepmom and four other sisters she didn’t know about. After meeting her father, who’s fair-skinned with blue eyes, she’s doubtful about the genetic connection with her dark brown skin. Then she recalls how another man, whom she believes she looks like including the complexion, had showed up at her apartment in Chicago the day before claiming to be her father, too. He even threatens legal action in a week, so Tiffany has a week to see if her California life will work in that matter of time before coming clean to her new family.
The characters are very likable and realistic. Tiffany’s anxiety feels real as she’s scared to get in cars and get on planes with fear penetrating her thoughts and actions. The family’s religious beliefs as Jehovah’s Witnesses collides with Tiffany’s newfound atheism, and she explores what it means to have faith and compassion with her new neighbor, Marcus McKinney, she’s not allowed to hang out with.
Overall, it’s an intricate portrait of a girl trying to find where she fits in with her new family and new life.
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Book Review: “If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin
If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“If Beale Street Could Talk” by James Baldwin is a soft story about a woman and her family trying to get her wrongly accused fiance out of jail. Though I’ve only read one other Baldwin work — “Just Above My Head,” this one pales in comparison with less passion and pain and thought-provoking moments.
Tish and Fonny plan to get married and have already found a place to live after so many rejections due to racism in 1970s New York City. But Fonny is unexpectedly jailed for a rape he says he didn’t commit. His religious mother refuses to help him get out of jail while his alcoholic father can’t seem to get his life in order to help his son. So that leaves Tish and her family to stand up for Fonny, especially when Tish learns she’s pregnant.
The urgency of the time is missing. The story is told from Tish’s point of view, but what you expect to happen does happen. The racism is unsurprising when it comes to Tish and Fonny’s previous encounters with police to where they are with their legal troubles. But the story unfortunately has become timely. It’s similar to “American Marriage” by Tayari Jones, though that story too did not reach its full potential. With “Just Above My Head” — a totally different story, I still think of those characters and what they were enduring in that story. It was that powerful, so I expected an encore reaction with another well-known Baldwin work, but I didn’t get that. I won’t be thinking of Tish and Fonny like Roy and Celestial failed to make an impression.
Overall, it’s a love story of a young black couple in a time of racism yet what they experience doesn’t deter their love nor do they advance from that experience.
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Book Review: “The Belles” by Dhonielle Clayton
The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“The Belles” by Dhonielle Clayton revolves around a fantasy world built on beauty with a species of women responsible in making the entire kingdom beautiful as looks fade into greatness and they inject the color. Though a unique way to take on society’s obsession with what constitutes as beauty, this typical fantasy YA novel designed for a series has so much great descriptions that they may have slowed the story down.
Camellia is a Belle in the kingdom of Orleans, which means she has the power, her arcana, to bring color and vitality into people’s appearances since they lose both after some time. Like their hair dries out and their complexion drains out of color or even their heights can shrivel. Through beauty appointments mostly the rich can afford, Camellia works her magic to restore the look desired by the individual. For now, she and the other five Belles she calls her sisters, have this great duty as they are scattered to different posts on the main island. Camellia becomes the kingdom’s favorite where she works in the palace with Princess Sophia, the sole heir as her mother, the queen, ails and her sister is still in a yearslong coma. While Camellia hears disturbing news from previous Belles and her sisters about what’s happening in the kingdom and in the palace, she realizes the princess is evil and is trying to reproduce her own Belle power, which could destroy the kingdom.
The story doesn’t get exciting until page 300 or so. I started this book months ago and had the hardest time picking it back up and finishing. The only reason I did finish because I felt like it would pick up. There’s so much description about colors a Crayola lover like myself appreciated, but the story may have suffered because of it. As in the story fails to move forward as the reader has to hear more about how colorful and wonderful the kingdom is or welcome another character that might not add much later on.
It’s also written from Camellia’s point of view, but the writing is too rigid to really get a sense of who she is, so it sounds more like third person. The wrong voice hurts this story with the also rigid dialogue.
Overall, I enjoyed the last half or maybe quarter of the book but most likely will skip the rest of the series unless it loses pages for a shorter and tighter read.
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April 4, 2019
Book Review: “Swimming for Sunlight” by Allie Larkin
Swimming for Sunlight by Allie Larkin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Received from publisher via Netgalley
“Swimming for Sunlight” by Allie Larkin is about a young divorcee trying to overcome trauma as she returns home to live with her grandmother. She begins helping her grandmother and friends become the entertainment mermaids they used to be decades before. It’s heartwarming yet slow without the pizzazz in telling everyday situations and depicting everyday characters.
Katie returns home to Florida after a tumultuous divorce that ended with her ex-husband shacking up with the younger woman he had an affair with. So Katie is out of sorts bringing her dog Bark, also suffering from anxiety, along with her as she’s still reeling from the effects of a marriage that resulted in two post-IVF miscarriages. And she never got over her father’s unexpected death on the water when she was a kid and her mother’s subsequent abandonment.
When she gets to her grandmother Nan’s home, she’s welcomed back into the senior community she was raised in. Nan has changed with adapting a vegan diet while some of her friends have passed who had a hand in raising Katie like her aunt Bitsie’s wife Bunny who had taught Katie to sew. The ladies talk one night about their days performing as mermaids in circus shows. They want to replicate those days, so to get her mind off things, Katie takes up the cause with searching on Facebook for their old friends who were also mermaids and volunteering to sew the mermaid costumes. While searching on Facebook, Katie sees the other guy she had fallen in love with in college before her ex-husband and sends a message. Eventually, Luca arrives in Florida to shoot a documentary on the mermaid project. Katie’s best friend Mo tries to get her out of the house more and spark another romance with Luca. In the end, Katie overcomes her fear and anxiety as if she is a mermaid.
The story again moves slow without much excitement; the events are ordinary, the characters are ordinary. The mermaid project itself is the steps of putting it together, which doesn’t seem exciting like they’re cruising Facebook, going to each other’s homes, sewing, etc. and the tension isn’t strong enough to come off as interesting. In simpler terms, it gets boring, but the reader can empathize with Katie, who struggles with coming to terms with her past like getting over her father’s death and walking away from Luca. Character development is fine. The backstories are there with Katie’s father dying and mother leaving her with Nan; Mo also being raised by her grandparents; and Luca, whose mother was deported, or maybe these are all coincidental. Overall, the story and characters have potential but need more energy so the reader’s eyes won’t glaze over.
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Book Review: “The Seas” by Samantha Hunt
The Seas by Samantha Hunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Jude is in love with something watery
My father told me I am a mermaid.
Therefore Jude must be in love with me.
But the above logic is faulty. Lots of things besides me are watery. Alcohol is watery. Water is watery.”
The unnamed narrator believes she’s a mermaid, and her fantasies increase as she tries to capture the love of an Iraq War veteran while finding signs within the wet footprints she believes belongs to her father who disappeared at sea years before. “The Seas” by Samantha Hunt paints a portrait of a 19-year-old woman who’s not quite the same after losing her father but lives in a town always in mourning mode due to its proximity to the ocean.
Her father would tell her she was a mermaid, so her reasoning strengthens as she falls for Jude, a veteran dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder in his 30s. Their connection is strong but faulty as in she feels like Jude should be in love with her though Jude is in his own world. The woman’s mother is also in a depression because of the yearslong disappearance of her husband coupled with miscarriages from the past. The woman’s grandfather focuses on breaking down words in the dictionary since he used to be in the printing industry with his long-lost wife. The heartbreaks while living in a sleepy seaside town affected by people being lost at sea enhances the story more.
The poetic rhythm reminds me of Francesca Lia Block’s style in a way. I first heard about this book in one of Block’s writing groups, where I started my own mermaid novel. The mermaid mythology can be taken to so many different levels, and I enjoyed this rendition that didn’t quite go into detail with the stereotypical features such as the siren voice and scaly fin but showed how the myth can affect a woman’s mind and change how she perceives her problems. The novel does the first-person voice well as in you get to know the character, sense the character’s personality without knowing her name.
Overall, it’s an engaging story with writing that matches its essence, but the melancholy doesn’t overpower.
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Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine picks ‘The Night Tiger’ for April book
Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine book club selected The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo for its April monthly pick.
A fourth-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent, Choo lives in California like the two previous authors whose books were chosen by Hello Sunshine, Taylor Jenkins Reid of Daisy Jones & The Six in March and Jasmine Guillory of The Proposal in February.
The Night Tiger is described by its publisher MacMillan as:
Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for.
Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.
As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths racks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.
The publisher adds the book would greatly appeal to fans of Isabel Allende and Min Jin Lee, author of recent best-seller Pachinko.
March 27, 2019
‘Empire’ actor completes mandated community service at Rainbow PUSH bookstore
Jussie Smollett, the star of “Empire” and – for the ’90s kids – also “Mighty Ducks,” had dominated the news with his claim of being the victim of a racially motivated attack in Chicago in January. But the twists and turns of this crime fit for a legal thriller novel has led to Smollett’s 16 felony counts related to allegedly fabricating the attack being dropped Tuesday. With the charges dropped, his 16 hours of community service has been scrutinized and looks like some of it occurred at a bookstore.
Smollett volunteered at the bookstore of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a longtime civil rights organization formed in 1996 by Rev. Jesse Jackson. While snapping photos with adoring fans, Smollett managed the register with helping customers find and purchase products and offered advice to the organization on how to market its products better to younger customers, according to the letter from Rainbow PUSH.
For lit women, volunteering at a bookstore seems like a fabulous opportunity, and of course, even better when it’s done on her own rather than for serving time for a crime. Also to be a part of the sales and marketing machine for a few hours seems wonderful, especially when she could promote the books she loves to customers unaware of those books’ magic. Smollett’s community service will be scrutinized further, but it did put a spotlight on volunteering at small bookstores, especially ones associated with nonprofits, religious groups, and small private groups, that may need extra unpaid help.
If you took the bookstore volunteerism aspect out of this news story and are now searching for opportunities, check out Volunteer Match, which has plenty of local bookstores looking for help (at least under the Los Angeles search) with virtual opportunities available as well.
