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.

Book Review: Heart the Lover

 

Finally. I really enjoyed this book. I read Lily King’s last book, Writers and Lovers, and I really enjoyed that one too. There were some biographical similarities between the main characters and I really thought it  might be a prequel for about the first half of the book. (It's not.)

Even though it begins with a love triangle as the foundation for he plot, it doesn’t seem to be focused on romance so much as it is on the coming-of-age aspect.

The book jumps ahead several years and I became very invested in whether the characters are able to have a particular conversation. (No spoilers.)

 

King is especially good with dialogue. She manages to do that thing which is very difficult for writers, which is to make dialogue that is both interesting and believable. It is so easy to do one or the other and so hard to do both. She creates characters that are very original and specific and they talk about fascinating things passionately.

 

When I find myself stuck writing-wise, I try to read something good. This is the first book I've read in awhile that makes me want to write. 

Book Review: Some Bright Nowhere

 

Ann Packer's The Children's Crusade was one of my all time favorites so I had high hopes for this one.  Unfortunately, itrwas a disappointment. 

The plot was a long time married couple in the last months of the wife's life. The wife makes an unconventional request and the husband's attempt to honor it leads to a bizarre dynamic between her friends and family fighting over her last days.

Mostly, the story is dull, full of long-winded dialogue and errands that don't go anywhere. 

Also, the narrator is male and his attempt to voice dialogue for a primarily female cast comes off mocking, as if they are drag queens. 

Book Review: Summer Sisters

 

Well, it definitely was the right genre this time. Family tension? Check. Complicated friendship? Check. Romantic element not the focus? Identity? Grief? Check. Check. Check.

My complaint with this one is that there are so many characters that it’s hard to keep track – dozens – and there are multiple actors voicing them, which does not make any sense because it is written in third person. 

 

I found the developing adolescent sexuality issues kind of . . . creepy. The story itself is sprawling. It spans decades and is circuitous. The main character was not compelling enough for me to root for.

Begging for book recommendations

 

No offense to readers/writers of women's fiction with a romance focus, but that's not me and I keep accidentally reading it. The blurb for this sounded right up my alley- an independent heroine revisiting old family drama and figuring out how to create an unconventional path forward. Unfortunately it was more Scooby-Doo mystery peppered with rekindled romance with high school boyfriend.

To be fair, this is a good book for the intended audience. And I really don't mean to insult that audience. I have nothing against a story with a love interest- love is a big part of life- but when it is the main point of the story, I'm bored.

I want stories about family tension, complicated friendships, identity, grief. I love Celeste Ng, Elizabeth Strout, Claire Lombardo. Recommendations welcome.