Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Let me preface this review by saying this book is not nearly as girly as it sounds from the title.

That being said, I do have to admit that this book is one of the three books that have ever made me cry in my life.

Well, four-- I was about eight years old and was reading this book that was waaaayyyy too old for me and I lost it when the dad murdered the baby sitter. I don't count that one, though, because I never finished it. And because I didn't cry because I was attached to the characters, I cried because I was afraid for my life.

The other two are the 6th and 7th Harry Potters.

This book struck a chord. I'm starting to get a little teary just thinking about it.

The story follows 3 students through boarding school and into their lives after. They grow up with the vague knowledge that they're very special, very lucky, and that they're human clones bred and raised to one day donate their organs to "normal" citizens until they die.

Their life-spans are half to a third as long as normal citizens so we watch as Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy dream of and struggle to have normal lives, make sense of their past, and try to put off their fates for as long as they can.

I think one of the reasons this book got to me so much was the powerlessness of the characters. The idea of being unable to do anything about your destiny, about your life...and knowing you're essentially going to be tortured to death at a young age; what a horrible fate. I feel a little claustrophobic just writing it.

There's no shortage of dramatic tension with this knowledge over your head while you read, but Ishiguro employs a writing technique that does, for me, diffuse the tension of the individual situations a bit-- Kathy, as the narrator, tells you what's going to happen, but then in order for that to make sense she has to explain something that happened weeks or months or years earlier. This makes me crazy, but I admit that I can't think of a better way to do it for this particular story.

Overall, there's something incredibly engaging about the book: I couldn't put it down. Watching Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy unraveling the secrets surrounding them, their love for each other in all its forms, and watching them deal with the heartbreaking truths is addictive.

4 Stars out of 5

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

I really enjoy books about Asian cultural history-- probably because my American education refused to believe there was an Eastern hemisphere, but I digress. The point is, nowadays, I can't get enough of it and Lisa See is one of my favorites.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan gives an in depth look into the secrets of women's lives and relationships in 19th century China-- foot binding, cloistering, women's writing, and the special friendships forged. The story takes Lily and Snow Flower through their early childhood together as a matchmaker-made relationship between young girls called laotong.

We follow the girls through their brutal, painful, dangerous foot bindings and their lives as young girls locked away in the upstairs women's chambers, sewing and painting and doing "womanly" things. Then there's their meetings with the matchmaker, wondering about their husbands, and preparing for their weddings in both the traditional ways and the special ways reserved for laotong. After comes their lives during and after their marriages and children. Throughout everything, as was the intention of the pairing, the girls are there to help each other through anything the other needs.

Secrets are the main theme of the story. The women's secret lives in their cloisters, the secrets of the care and creation of the perfect bound foot, the secret language women developed to communicate with each other, and the secrets shared and forged between best friends. And as the novel progresses, the secrets surrounding Snow Flower's life are uncovered, one heartbreaking discovery after another.

Lisa See is an amazing writer, and this is the kind of book you can become completely engrossed in for every one of your multiple readings.

5 stars

A note about the movie: While I want to keep my movie-related rants confined to Movie Gaga,

I did want to mention that if anyone saw the (very poorly reviewed) movie without having

read the book I can tell you with complete confidence, even though I have never seen the

movie, that the two have very little do with each other. To sum up that point I will say only that there is not a single character in the book that is not Chinese, yet Hugh Jackman was one of the film's stars. No, I'm not kidding.

Blindness by Jose Saramago

I'm not going to beat around the bush: this book was a difficult read for a lot of reasons.

Reason #1: The style is...unique. After an extremely contagious and quickly moving plague of blindness strikes a city the government decides to quarantine the blind in an abandoned mental institution to try to contain the outbreak. For reasons unexplained beyond "names are no longer important" in the quarantine, none of the characters are named. The main characters are "the doctor", "the doctor's wife", "the girl with dark glasses", "the first blind man", and "the boy with the squint." They spend the entire book that way.

Which is awkward enough without Saramago's other stylistic choice: there are no quotation marks around anyone's speech, and he doesn't start a new paragraph when a new character begins speaking. This, naturally, makes it difficult to tell exactly who's speaking- or even if they're speaking at all. It works on the level that it's disorienting, so it's kind of like actual blindness in that way. But that being said, shouldn't sound then be the clearest thing? Or clearer, anyway? We would at least be able to tell the difference between two different speakers is all I'm saying.

Reason #2: It's incredibly violent, and graphically so. There are injuries, illnesses, attacks, fights, murders, and (again, graphic) gang rape in spades. Blood. Pus. Guns. Scissors. Did I mention the gang rape? Or, more specifically, multiple gang rapes. One woman is gang raped to death. We hear all about it.

In detail. Did I mention that part?

Reason #3: There's a lot of...excrement. The plumbing at the facility isn't the best and with society breaking down around them the blind stop caring about where they take care of business, as it were. But then the blind leave the facility because it turned out that just about everybody was blind and there wasn't any real need for the quarantine anymore, so we find out that the blind outside the facility stopped caring about...cleanliness, as well. Between the sights (one character can see), and the...smells...and the...depth...yeah, no, it's not pretty.

Reason #4: It's scarily realistic. Everything that happens, given the circumstances, is completely believable. Through the whole book you know- you know- that it's all plausible. And that's terrifying. But it's part of what makes this such a good book.

But that being said, it is a good book if you're the type that reads dramatic, depressing, intense things-- which I am but, for example, my mother is not. I wouldn't recommend this to her if Saramago paid me, she'd hate it. But if this is your thing, it's a can't miss read.

4 stars out of 5.

The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory

I've been fascinated by the Tudors for most of my life. I could recite Henry VIII's wives, children, and their fates in elementary school because that's just the kind of kid I was.

Yes, I got as many strange looks as you think.

So it's only natural that as I grew up I came across Gregory's books and fell in love, just like I fell in love with Showtime's The Tudors. It was destiny.

But all these years of research and entertainment did little to endear Katherine of Aragon to me. Of course I admired her strength and fortitude, remaining silent and faithful while her husband flaunted his affairs then divorced her, claiming they were never really married in the first place. I can't even begin to imagine the pain...I'm not going to lie, I'm a jealous girlfriend. Had I been Katherine I'd have had that Boleyn woman trampled by horses at the very least, so the fact that she didn't even do that speaks to incredible self-control.

But self-control, especially in that decadent court and the sumptuous entertainments its inspired, is really kind of boring. Honor? Piety? Integrity? Snore.

So I put off reading The Constant Princess. Katherine was boring in stories about other people, so why would I want to read a whole book about her?

To my great surprise I regretted not having read it sooner. It's excellent.

Don't get me wrong. The Other Boleyn Girl is still the jewel in Philippa Gregory's crown, but The Constant Princess without a doubt claims a very respectable 2nd place in Gregory's stunning career.

One thing I didn't like, though, was that she wrote 3/4 of it in third person EXTREMELY limited

point of view and a quarter of it in first person, with long stretches of third person broken up with the first person bits, Katherine herself giving us further insight into her actions. Which was strange because the narrator gave almost no "inside" information on any of the characters. Had Gregory written this with a more traditional third person limited it would have completely eliminated the need for Katherine's explanations and would have made the flow of the novel far smoother.

But that's really my only complaint. In The Constant Princess you get to see the beginnings of Katherine's incredible strength: her mother, Isabella of Spain. Gregory also gives an explanation for how it came to be that Katherine married first Henry's older brother Arthur- an explanation that also explains why she fought so hard to save her marriage to Henry.

It's also interesting to see Henry as a young boy as Gregory's interpretation of what he might have been (probably was) like so perfectly explains the man, the king, he became. Reading it, it can be hard to remember that this novel or, really, any and all of Gregory's novels, are merely conjectures on what might have been based on her thorough research. Gregory's gift is how real she makes her characters out to be. How human. And how well she lines up actual historical events to their perpetrators.

4 stars out of 5

Also by Philippa Gregory:

The Queen's Fool

The Lost Life of Eva Braun by Angela Lambert

I found this on The Onion last night:

New Documentary Focuses On Life Of Eva Braun's Late Husband

NEW YORK—The History Channel announced Thursday it will air a new documentary this fall examining the life of the late husband of prewar German model and amateur photographer Eva Braun. "This film is a fascinating, in-depth look at a central figure in Eva Braun's life," said History Channel spokesman Charles Lansing, adding that the broadcast will feature more than 300 archival images of Braun with her husband, a German civil servant and vegetarian noted for his charisma and interest in art. "Braun's longtime lover had a significant impact on her views regarding politics and aesthetics, and the footage of him we've unearthed highlights the persuasive power of the man she often wrote about." Lansing added that the new documentary, entitled The Man Behind Eva Braun, will cover the very active life of Braun's spouse right up to his sudden passing in 1945 in the basement of the couple's Berlin apartment.


Thought it was fitting.


I can't tell you how much I loved The Lost Life of Eva Braun. I'm kind of sad to give it back to the library now...anybody wants to get me a present I'd gladly take a copy of this book.


I did my thesis on Lee Miller's photojournalism during WWII so I spent 4 months completely immersed in the war and at the end of it all I sat back and said, "Wait a second. Hitler had a girlfriend through the whole thing. WHO WOULD EVER-?! WHAT?! WHY!!??? HHHHOOWW?! WWWWHOOOO????????!" So I decided to find out. Like I said above, I found this book at my library and it's in nearly pristine condition, I doubt it's been taken out more than 4 times. It's pretty new, too, published in 2006. Come to think of it, the librarian that checked it out for me didn't even know we had it.


On to the review:


It's been the intention of history to remove all humanity from Hitler & co., to portray them strictly as monsters and not human beings. Documents like personal letters were destroyed in order to keep evidence of their humanity from the public. I take issue with that, as holding them up as symbols of evil, caricatures even, removes the elements that we all have in common with them which makes it so easy for us to say "That will never be me" or "I'll never fall in love with a fascist dictator" but...it's possible. It's possible, is all I'm saying.


The Lost Life takes an amazing perspective on the war because it's not in the concentration camps or Anne Frank's attic or any of the many many armies involved, it's civilian life in Europe, particularly Germany, at the time. Angela Lambert's mother was actually born within a few weeks of Eva Braun, so Lambert uses stories from her mother's life to supplement the little information available about Eva's childhood, and also to give her back that bit of human-ness: Eva's practically a ghost, floating through modern history as we know her name and little else.


That's about as much as most people knew at the time, as well. Hitler refused to make their relationship public, and Eva didn't end up even moving in with him until the late thirties even though Eva was essentially promoted to Hitler's #1 lady after his niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide. And even after they began living together only the very, very top of the Nazi hierarchy and the personal maids of Hitler and Eva even knew who she was- on the phone directory for the Berghof (Hitler's main house in the German countryside) she was listed as a secretary. The few times they attended the same public event she was forced to sit far from Hitler with the other, actual, secretaries. At the Berghof she was confined to her room.


And while it's easy to view her as an anti-Semite and racist Nazi, Eva and most of her family never joined the Nazi party (except for her father, but he only did it to please Hitler). In fact, Hitler even presented her with an award he had made for non-Nazis that provided him with great services. And given her strict Catholic upbringing and patronage of Jewish clothing and shoe designers throughout the war (even after the ban on Jewish merchants was placed) it's unlikely that she was anti-Semitic. And given Hitler's strict orders that no one ever discuss anything war or politic related with Eva it's possible she never even knew about the camps, and even attempted to intercede with Hitler on behalf of a few friends (of course he ignored her, but she tried and reacted to the few incidents she did hear about.)


Lambert's book is impeccably researched (did anybody know that we, the United States, actually hold Eva's personal diary in our archives? We confiscated it during the war and it now resides in the National Archives in Maryland, along with Eva's own personal photo albums and home movies she took while living at the Berghof) and richly detailed. Her chapters on the last few weeks of Eva and Hitler's life in the underground bunker are vivid and emotional. The paragraphs on how Eva and the maids pitched in to make the last few days of the six Goebbels children as comfortable as possible knowing that their parents had already decided to murder them when the time came are particularly heartbreaking.


It's an incredible book with a unique angle on history and human nature. It also gives an in-depth look to German childhood in the early 20th century, showing how the stars aligned to make Hitler and Eva perfect for each other (Fathers, love your daughters for who they are so they don't fall in love with the first older man that shows them the slightest bit of positive attention). An absolute must-read for anyone that...no. An absolute must read for anyone, period.


5 stars

The False Friend by Myla Goldberg

"Myla Goldberg sets a steady hand upon her brow

Myla Goldberg hangs a crooked foot all upside down

...

Pretty hands do pretty things when pretty times arise

Seraphim and seaweed swim where stick-limbed Myla lies"

-- from Song for Myla Goldberg by The Decemberists

Myla Goldberg has officially made my list of favorite authors. She's written 5 books, but as my library only has her three novels that's all I've been able to read-- the 4th book is a non-fiction "walk in Prague" called Time's Magpie and the 5th is a children's book called Catching the Moon.

Goldberg's first novel, Bee Season, was brilliant. Eliza, the daughter of a Jewish scholar, was an average student until her talent for spelling was found. The talent takes her to the National Spelling Bee twice (unlike the movie) and she begins to study a word-related arm of Jewish Mysticism with her father, while her mother's mental health slowly breaks down and her brother explores Hinduism.

Her second novel, Wickett's Remedy, was excellent-- and managed to have a unique format, and when was the last time you saw a novel with a unique format? Exactly. Lydia Wickett and her husband begin a mail-order business in the late 19-teens, and after her husband's sudden death the 1918 influenza epidemic hits and, compelled to act, Lydia joins a (historically accurate) medical study of the deadly flu using convicts on a remote island facility. Running through the novel is fan club literature and information on QD Soda, whose secret recipe is suspiciously close to that of Wickett's Remedy. Throughout the story is also a running commentary in the margins provided by the souls of the dead, correcting or expounding on the thoughts, actions, and memories of the living characters in the story.

This newest novel, published in 2010, tells the story of Celia Durst-- a woman in her early 30s struck one day with the memory of a childhood friend, Djuna, she is convinced she saw fall down a well in the middle of the forest, not getting into a stranger's car like she told everyone after it happened. Celia returns home to tell everyone the truth, but no one believes her. As Celia goes through reconnecting with people she hasn't spoken to in 20 years, details of the moments leading up to Djuna's disappearance are brought back to light for Celia, including (and especially) their bullying of a classmate, leading to the fight between Celia and Djuna before she disappeared.

This book is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to better understand women and their relationships to each other, and just what the hell was going on between the girls on the playground.

Parts were extremely emotional, remembering...just remembering what it was like. Goldberg so perfectly captures the delicacy and brutality of the world of young girls you have to wonder what Goldberg herself went through.

Goldberg even deftly handles what it's like watching your hometown and parents age-- it's difficult enough to live through, let alone write about.

The writing is sharp and witty, the pacing is tight, and the characters and their relationships are realistic. It packs a lot of punch in its 250 pages and I couldn't put it down.

5 stars