Book review: Whistler

 

I don't have that much to say about this book, other than that it was so good. I started to read Bel Canto years ago and gave up for some reason I don't remember. I enjoyed this so much, it makes me think I should give it an other try.

 The audiobook is read by the author and  she nails it. I am so often turned off when they pick the wrong narrator and I wonder why more authors don't make this choice. (Which is funny to say because I have created audiobooks and would never use my own voice.)

What I loved most about this book was the characters, who feel like real people and stick with you. The story itself is pretty simple: an adult revisiting events from her past and understanding how her parents are just humans who did their best. 

Book Review: Commonwealth

 

This one started out slow, and I had trouble focusing on it at the beginning: a chicken-or-the-egg problem I seem to have with a lot of audiobooks. Another problem I had is that there are so many potential main characters: six children and two sets of parents the book follows for about fifty years. It's hard to decide which one to connect to or root for.

But once I figured out what the story was about, I was hooked. As someone who is normally drawn to character-driven novels, this was somewhat new to me. Writers of autobiographical fiction will likely find this especially fascinating and I will probably go back and read it from the beginning to see what I missed.

The inciting incident of the novel is relayed from varied perspectives and through hazy memories. It is the order of the narrative that makes it feel like a slow burn, and makes the revelations so satisfying. The moral questions it raises about who has the right to tell a story and whether it belongs to anyone are never fully answered. It is up to the reader to decide, or at least, to consider.

Book Review: Tom Lake

 

I think this may be my favorite book of the year. Ann Patchett's Tom Lake is read by Meryl Streep and I can't be sure that's not at least part of why this book edges out all others.

The story takes place in spring 2020 when Lara's adult daughters have come home to help pick cherries at the family orchard. She alludes to the pandemic without getting political. It just describes the experience of uncertainty and isolation, the way their lives are on hold and they don't know what it will look like when things start back up.

The shape of the narrative is the daughters pushing their mother to tell a story about dating a famous actor before they were born. Reluctantly, she tells it, but she gives her daughters a slightly different version than she gives the reader. She ruminates on the different person she was, how her younger self navigated the power dynamics of the time. She's cognizant of the fact that her daughters are close  in age to the women she was and it makes her wonder if they've had similar experiences.

Ultimately, it's the rich characters and the way they relate as a family that draws me in, as always.