Book Review: The Girls From Corona Del Mar

 

I enjoyed Margo's Got Money Troubles so much that I decided to read more from Rufi Thorpe. I selected her debut, imagining that it would show the promise of the writer she has become, but not be quite as good. I was wrong though, because it was amazing. 

In this book, as in MGMT, she creates an elaborate lie in order to make the reader confront the truth about different issues. Here, she shows us the way doctors ignore women who are giving birth, and how this has resulted in permanent physical trauma to the women and defects for the children. The friends in The Girls From Corona Del Mar debate issues like the way society provides euthanasia for animals, but demands the infinite suffering of human beings. They argue about abortion, and although they come to an agreement that is different from my own, I found it fascinating. 

The friendship between the two women spans decades and it feels a bit darker than her newest novel, but I still recommend it highly. 

This book is narrated by Rebecca Lowman, who also narrates Heart The Lover, which was another book that I really loved. The voice actor for a book matters so much and has ruined my ability to read other books. I have actually returned books after slogging through a first chapter because it has a narrator I just can't get through.

Book Review: Margo's Got Money Troubles

 

I have a new favorite author: Rufi Thorpe.

I have already purchased her debut and downloaded a free short story and wish listed all of her other books. 

I have been watching the TV show on Apple. It was so good that I wanted to see the source material. It isn’t as though they have simply taken the premise of the author's work, as I imagine is done with a lot of streaming content. The TV show is the book exactly. The only changes are made so it fits the shape of an episodic. The best lines and all the dialogue and the big picture ideas are from the book. 

Rufi Thorpe is a writer's writer. She talks about how you fall in love with a book and whether you're falling for the character versus the author and how much truth fiction reveals. The narrative alternates first person and third person and talks about why an author selects different options for point of view. 

The big idea problems of this novel are real thinkers; it isn't preachy. It is sex positive, but remains slightly self-conscious about whether this is the right way to be. It shines light on the way poverty affects child custody, how social stigma affects treatment options for drug addicts, the way sex work is viewed as so much less noble than other ways you can let others use your body, your time, your mental energy. How do you know if you're a good person? Is anyone ever owed the absolute truth and can you ever really give it?

Here's one of my favorite bits: 

"There is a desperation to a novel that is unsettling: a world so painstakingly recreated in miniature, this tiny diorama made of words. Why go to all this trouble? It's almost easier to believe I'm real than to understand what's actually going on. The desperation that could have caused anyone to invent me in the first place, the urgency and need that would require creating an imaginary space of this size and level of detail. It really makes you wonder: what kind of truth would require this many lies to tell?"

 I feel like I have tried to explain precisely this to the non-writers in my life. 

Also, Elle Fanning does the voice acting for this audio book, which is lovely. 

Book Review: The Correspondent

 

The conceit of thia novel is that it consists of a collection of letters written by and to the main character during the last decade (or so) of her life.  Sybil prefers handwritten letters, something she reveres as a dying art, but some emails are included. The email address for this woman in her seventies ends with "aol.com", which I found very amusing as someone with an aol account. So old fashioned! 

The story end up being quite sprawling since it includes best friends, neighbors, customer service representatives, gentleman suitors, the ex-husband, daughter, stalker, autistic teenage boy, and an unnamed person she writes letters to that remain unsent.

The story was interesting but I didn't find Sybil particularly relatable. Perhaps that's because she's a wealthy, retired, divorced woman who struggles to have close relationships with her adult children or, really, anyone else. She makes progress in this area, but part of my problem might also be with the limitation of the form. Letter writing is more like reportage than a novel. It keeps the reader at arm's length, never giving the immediacy of a scene. 

Book Review: More Than Enough

 

I know I've read books by Anna Quindlen before, but this one was so good it makes me want to add all of her books to my wish list.

This is a first person narration with an imperfect, likable main character. There are several different plot points that are developed, a mystery, a challenge, a friend struggling with illness. All these threads get balanced attention and resolution.

The dialogue is particularly good and contributes to the feeling that you're reading about real people. I was kind of bummed when the book was over. Highly recommend.

Book Review: Life: A Love Story

 

Elizabeth Berg is prolific. I've liked many of her books, some not so much. This one is somewhere in between. It's a good story with an interesting, likable main character- an elderly woman looking back over her life at the end of it. Berg does the voice performance herself and it was a pleasant, enjoyable listen.

Nothing very remarkable happens, but the main character reveals some of the hidden struggles in her otherwise happy marriage. The narrative goes back and forth between first person narration of her goodbye letter to a friend and third person narration of her final days when she makes a new friend who encourages her to do some of the things on her bucket list.

Although it is ultimately a book about dying, Flo is in her nineties and is expressing her deep appreciation for the full life she lived.

 

Book Review:The Cliffs

 

I am generally a fan of J. Courtney Sullivan, but I gave up partway through Friends & Strangers and I may have only made it through this one because it was audio.

I would say it was well-written and held my attention, but the subject matter wasn't that appealing. It's not quite a ghost story, but it does get a little woo-woo. And even as someone who leans left politically, I found it pretty preachy.

The long stretches of historical information were interesting, but it might be more appropriate for parents trying to sneak educational lessons to  younger readers. The characters seemed less like real people and more like vehicles to transmit various bits of nonfiction research the author wanted to pass along.

Book Review: Day

 

Has Michael Cunningham ever written a stinker? I doubt that he would be capable of such a thing. His work reads like poetry: exquisite word choices and vivid descriptions of the environment. This book is lighter on plot than character - which is my preference. We follow a handful of characters, in alternating narrative, as they live through the 2020 pandemic in New York City.

Cunningham's writing is so beautiful and he succeeds in getting the reader to care about the relationships between these imaginary people and the strain            put on them by lockdown and Zoom classes and isolation and fear and loss.

The book is read by Julianne Moore and I can't imagine  anyone doing a better job.