The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh is a deeply moving novel whose protagonist is Victoria, a damaged eighteen year old who has just been released from the foster-care system and left to navigate the world alone with no friends, family, home or job prospects. All she has is her knowledge of the Language of Flowers, taught to her by a former foster mother a decade ago. This novel was so heartbreaking, at times it was hard to read, yet…
Pack Up the Moon, by Irish writer Anna McPartlin is a deeply honest, funny, tender novel, full of friendship, grief and one too many drinks. The story centers around Emma, in her late 20’s dealing with a terrible tragedy, and her close knit friends who circle around her, while dealing with their own struggles. McPartlin was a stand-up comic before becoming a writer, and it shows in her writing. She’s funny and doesn’t hold anything back. Although somewhat predictable, I…
Breadfruit by Celestine Vaite is the first novel I’ve read by a Tahitian writer. It is the first in a trilogy where we meet Materena Mahi, a Tahitian woman who brings to mind Precious Ramotswe of The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Through Vaite’s deceptively simple writing, her characters come alive, and we are given a peek into true Tahitian culture. I found this book funny and thoroughly enjoyable.
Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a novel by Carol Rifka Brunt set in the 80’s when AIDS was just being named and feared by all. It is a coming of age story about 14 year old June Elbus and her sister Greta. June is an awkward teenager who is more comfortable pretending she is living in the middle ages, than hanging out with kids her own age. Her best friend is her Uncle and Godfather, Finn, who is a…
Love and Other Games of Chance by Lee Siegel started out really good, but soon got tiresome. We meet Issac Schlossberg, son of a famed sideshow performer. His life is that of an entertainer, magician, circus performer, conjurer; he is in love with an Angel. His travels take him across America, to India, England and beyond, in a giant game of snakes and ladders. At first I found the story very funny and very interesting. But the sustained frenetic pace…
The Lake of Dreams is the recent novel by Kim Edwards, author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. In the novel, Lucy Jarrett has been living abroad in Indonesia, and Japan, as far away as she can get from the town she grew up in, Lake of Dreams, where her father died in an accident ten years earlier. When she returns home to spend time with her mother, after she has been in a minor accident, Lucy is dragged back into…