Donna C
Choices Make All The Difference
I was immediately drawn in by the first paragraph in chapter 1 - a young woman making a choice - and the choices she makes continue throughout the whole book, just as they do for all of us during our whole lives.
Though this story revolves around an Iranian woman's choices within the historical time of political and societal upheaval in her country, there are many parallels to others, in other countries, including our own. This particular historical journey takes us through some of the history of nuclear power, weapons and the fight for nuclear disarmament in the 70s-90s, which provides the backdrop to the protagonist's choices within her marriage & mothering, friendships, career goals, wishes and dreams.
I found the book to be a wonderful fusion of love & marriage, family, personal growth, social change, and historical background. I learned more about the Iranian people (and their cooking), the global politics of disarmament, and how both familial and societal expectations are ever present in the choices we make wherever we are in this world.
For me, Half a Cup of Sand and Sky was a magnificent and well-written read!
Anthony Conty
Historical Fiction for Newbies
“The House of Doors” by Tan Twan Eng tells interconnected tales about characters within the same realm. A married couple, Lesley and Robert, allow a famous writer and his assistant to live with them in a time of personal trouble. Secrets about their marriage arise, and drama they did not expect arises. Malaysia serves as the backdrop.
What was going on in China at the time significantly affected the day-to-day life of this young family. Gender politics are the main struggle when Lesley’s closest female friend shockingly murders her alleged attempted rapist, and everyone assumes her guilt prematurely. Out of context, the comments to women would especially shock and anger you.
You will need some knowledge about Chinese revolutionaries in the early 20th century, but nothing that a few fiction books could not provide. This requires the backstories of all present, including writer Willie and his assistant Gerald. They placed a particular interest in revolutionary Dr. Sun Yat Sen, and his story will cure Willie’s writer’s block and search for something new. Adultery shows double standards despite widespread bigamy.
Following along is easy since the storytelling has fewer characters than usual but more plot lines. I wanted to stay in the book, and this only increased as the story progressed. I received a cultural knowledge of “angmoh” (white people) living in Malaysia and China that I would not have known otherwise. Lesley questioned traditions that others would not.
The engaging novel's themes echo throughout each character arc: homosexuality, gender equality in marriages, and the Chinese revolutionaries in the 1920s. All historical fiction worth its salt shares this. These novels exist to remind us how little we know about Chinese history and why so many of these stories exist. My favorites from the past two years have been by Asian authors.
Carmel B
America's Secluded Shame
Meissner’s searing chronicle of the lives of Rosie and Helen is the most enlightening I have read since reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” when I was fifteen years old. I am now seventy-five. I learned three new words within the first few chapters: Eugenics, Salpingectomy and Synesthesia. It is also the first time I have ever read the “Acknowledgements” section at the end of any book and was astonished at its revelations. Fellow readers, this one is hard to put down and the kernels of truth informing its plot and characters harder to dismiss when you finally turn the reading lamp off at bedtime. As Meissner reminds us, "Let us not forget our past, lest we repeat it."
Cloggie Downunder
a cleverly written, interesting and thought-provoking read.
And Then She Fell is the first novel by award-winning, best-selling Canadian Mohawk editor and author, Alicia Elliott. At twenty-six, Haudenosaunee woman Alice Dostator is married to Steve Macdonald, a white man, has a six-week-old daughter, Dawn, is living off reservation in the city of Toronto, and is still grieving the loss of her mother, when she once again begins hearing voices. It’s not the first time, but as a teen, she blocked them out with alcohol and pot.
Now, she’s having difficulty connecting with her baby, is getting very little sleep, and is expected to behave in a manner that makes her an asset to Steve’s attempt to get tenure in the anthropology department. She’s getting nowhere with her writing, a retelling of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story that she now regrets telling Steve about, regrets telling anyone about.
What she’s hearing, and seeing, has her worried: her mom said her grandma was crazy; but her Aunt Rachel assures her that Grandma was a medicine woman, spoke to spirits and saw the future. And this respected elder said that Alice has the gifts to see what others can’t. Her cousin Tanya talks about portals and gatekeepers, and the voices are telling her it’s important to complete her writing, although other voices aren’t so positive.
It's quickly clear from her auditory and visual hallucinations, her out-of-body experiences, her delusions, and her paranoia, that Alice is not a reliable narrator. She second-guesses her own thoughts and reactions, is increasingly unsure whom she can trust, and feels the need to keep her thoughts secret even from those closest to her. Or is what she’s seeing, hearing and feeling, real?
Elliott’s depiction of post-partum mental illness is highly credible and, informed as it is by her own experience, brims with authenticity. The novel explores white attitudes to Natives, the racism that is often unconscious or unintentional, motherhood, and Mohawk myth and legend. While more likely to resonate with Canadian readers, this is a cleverly written, interesting and thought-provoking read.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Allen & Unwin.
Barb60125
An Internal Perspective
I graduated from a midwestern high school in 1977. The events that are discussed in this book were familiar to me, but as an American getting my information from local and national new stations. Ms Bjursten took me inside Iran and through a time of turmoil as it happened inside a conflicted and war torn society. I appreciate the nods to every day life and comforts, the display of love through food cooked in the home that is so different from the food cooked my home, and the overriding nuances of self-worth and worthiness. This story shows us our differences as a culture, but also shows us our very personal similarities. It is a story of family, political unrest and the cost of activism.
Elizabeth@Silver's Reviews
Heartwrenching, fabulous, tissues-needed book
It’s the 1960s.
What became of girls who found themselves pregnant and with no support?
We meet Lorraine Delford, an only child, a girl who was going to be valedictorian of her senior class, a girl who wanted to be an astronaut, a girl who did not want to be the typical mother, teacher, or secretary.
All her dreams were slashed when her boyfriend told her “if you want to keep it, you’re on your own.”
THE GIRLS WE SENT AWAY has a main character that you will love from the minute you meet her.
You will cheer for her and for her dreams, but your heart will break when she has to deal with her pregnancy and a mother that has always been critical and unsupportive especially when she needed her the most.
Lorraine gets sent to a home for wayward girls not really knowing her fate.
Ms. Church has written another heartwarming, but heartbreaking book that you won’t want to put down.
Ms. Church’s writing is pull you in and makes you feel the emotions of each character as well as the sentiments and feelings of this time in the 1960s.
Don’t miss this well-researched, poignant heartwrenching, fabulous, tissues-needed book. 5/5
Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own
Cathryn Conroy
Powerful and Profound! An Ingeniously Plotted Novel That Creatively Combines Fiction and Theology
Wow! This is a profound and powerful novel that is an extraordinary hybrid between fiction and theology that left me stunned (in a good way).
Deftly written by Richard Beard, this is the story of the biblical Lazarus—before, during, and after his death. The raising of Lazarus from the dead only appears in the Gospel of John where it is the seventh of Jesus's miracles, the first of which is turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana.
As Beard tells this tale, Jesus and Lazarus were born weeks apart in Bethlehem, escaped to Egypt with their families, and grew up together in Nazareth as best friends—inseparable friends. Then something happens that tears them apart and each goes his own way, Lazarus to Jerusalem and Bethany while Jesus at first remains in Nazareth and eventually begins his itinerant ministry. Lazarus lives in Bethany with his unmarried sisters, Martha and Mary. One day, just after they hear that Jesus has turned water into wine at a wedding reception, Lazarus gets sick. He brushes it off as nothing much. As Jesus performs each subsequent miracle, including walking on water and feeding the 5,000, Lazarus becomes sicker…and sicker. He eventually develops many illnesses, including scabies, dysentery, malaria, and smallpox. He stinks. Oh, does he smell of sickness and impending death! As his body disintegrates, so does his life because he cannot work or do anything without severe pain. Martha and Mary despair that Jesus, who is only a few miles away, doesn't come and heal their brother.
You probably know what happens next. Lazarus dies. Jesus does come to Bethany, but only after Lazarus has been dead for four days. And then Jesus performs his greatest miracle of all: raising Lazarus from the dead, which occurs one week and a day before he himself rises from the dead on Easter morning. Lazarus is a foreshadowing of Jesus's Resurrection.
But the novel doesn't end here. That's the middle. Beard richly imagines Lazarus's life after he was given the ultimate of second chances. Roman officials, who are threatened by Jesus's ministry, want Lazarus dead—and soon. But Lazarus manages to escape their wily plots and goes on to become one of the greatest disciples of Jesus. Some scholars think he is the mysterious and unnamed "Beloved Disciple" in the Gospel of John.
What makes the novel so special is that this fictionalized account of what Lazarus and his sisters saw, heard, discussed, and felt is interspersed with theological, historical, and biblical accounts of what was happening then. These are not set off with italics or spaced breaks; they are interspersed with the fiction. At first this was a bit disconcerting, but I quickly caught on and think this is the secret sauce that makes this novel so profound and powerful.
This is a deeply researched book. Dozens of theologians are quoted or mentioned from ancient times to modern day, including the Jewish historian Josephus and Khalil Gibran, as well as references to Lazarus by some of the world's literary giants, including Czech writer Karel ?apek, Greek writer Nikos Kazantakis, British authors Robert Graves and Thomas Hardy, Irish poet W. B. Yeats, and Americans Norman Mailer and Eugene O'Neill, among many others.
Another fun literary device is the chapter numbers. The chapters begin at No. 7 and countdown to zero when Lazarus dies. We are now in the middle of the book. Then the chapter numbers begin with zero when he is raised from the dead and continue escalating to No. 7 when the book ends.
This is an ingeniously plotted novel that tells the biblical story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead in a unique, creative, and compelling way.
Katherine Pond
Bonobos United
Having thought the caste system has been outlawed in India, it was surprising to find this tale set in current time. Still, the system is so very confusing, not the basis necessarily, but the strange differences in economic situations that can exist in the various levels--a Brahmin, the highest caste can grow up with no money, starving, dependent upon others, while a Dalit, an untouchable can be quite affluent.
Besides the caste system there are differences in the culture of Muslim Indians and Hindu Indians that are very significant. A Hindu widow for example cannot remarry, is excluded from all celebrations etc while a Muslim woman has great freedom as a widow.
Both of these conditions are significant in the story but of greater importance is the position of women in society. Although they are eligible for loans that men are not, their husbands can steal those funds or the monies the women earn from any small business they might set up with the loans.
The men are not to be punished for women and their funds are the possessions of the husbands. Wives can be sexually molested or beaten--if by their husbands there is no punishment and not a great deal of punishment of men not their husbands. Needless to say many women are not content living this way. And sometimes these women take matters into their own hands..
One such woman is Geeta, whose husband disappeared five years before the book begins. His body has never been found but the villagers assume Geeta killed him. In general, she is a loner and is friendless. She does have some leadership qualities and so she has been allowed into one of the loan groups which meets once a month to pay the loan man. It is this group of women who are the focus of the story. As with any group, especially of women, there is jealousy, gossip, cliquish behavior, and in time murder and blackmail.
At times, convoluted and dangerous, at others hilariously inept, these women struggle to have a voice and self-determination that the culture and traditions of thousands of years has denied them. In the end, old resentments and past degradations and cruelty are sorted. The village is changed in most cases for the better and the women become a wonderful group of bonobos!
Anthony Conty
I Really Wanted to Love It, But...
“Let Us Descend” by Jezmyn Ward requires a strong stomach, like most novels about slavery. The reader wants realism, then reads about rape and technical incest and wishes for less. The protagonist, Annis, takes us on a journey inspired by Dante’s Inferno when her Sire (father) cruelly sends her mother away.
“Magical Realism,” one of the suspicious genres assigned to this intense book by Goodreads, is my kryptonite. I get lost if I struggle to transition from the real to the fantastical. When Annis meets spirits, however, she thoroughly introduces us to them. Having a caring spiritual being with whom you could consult while going through the humiliating process of a slave market provides promise in an otherwise hopeless situation.
I watched a Jezmyn Ward interview on the Seth Meyers show in which he described this as an “easy read.” I needed several double-takes to comprehend everything. I simultaneously thought the action was a horrifying representation of slavery and that I did not know what was going on. I had a professor to help with “Inferno,” thankfully.
Still, you will enjoy Annis as she struggles to find creative ways to have freedom. Annis finds solutions despite her struggles, some of which are too late in the book to mention here. The author based this story on the journey process instead of a sequential plot or specific destination. Dante’s classic “Inferno” qualifies as the same quirky classification.
I read for the same reason I teach: I like “A-Ha” moments. This book had them, but you had to go a long time between them. It was a grueling experience. I wanted to like it more than I did, but my comprehension started to slip, which had a detrimental effect on my interest in the characters and the storyline.
Janine S
Captivating read
I was given this book in order to participate in a March 2024 on-line book discussion. And, I am so honored to have received it because this is a beautiful, captivating and well written book that deals with themes of love, purpose, and self-discovery set during the period of political upheaval in Iran as well as tackling the subject of nuclear proliferation. This is pretty heavy stuff, but the author handles it beautifully and, in the process, we are treated to an extraordinary story of one woman's coming of age in these turbulent times.
Spanning the years between 1977-2009, the book follows Amineh, a young Iranian woman who has come to Tehran to pursue a literature degree with the end goal of writing a book about her parents, meeting Farzah, an older man involved in the Iranian government's nuclear energy department and who leads a group of international men and women seeking to stop nuclear weapons production and expansion. Amineh and Farzah's journey as a couple is portrayed realistically. Their friends and family (Jalalod-Din (he was a wonderful character), Ava, Dariush, Patrik and Ariav) give the story great depth and enrich the story of these two characters. As the story is woven, I was drawn into the lives of these people, experiencing their "real" joys, pains, uneasy choices they had to make but believing in the hope of a better future.
I also especially loved the description of the food Amineh made - you could almost smell the aromas that must have wafted off the delicious food. Then there are the descriptions of the garden in Amineh's home, the forest around Patrik's home in Sweden, which for me at least were some additional enjoyable moments. But even the times when there were intense discussions about nuclear proliferation were captivating. You become engrossed in this story to the point you cannot put the book down. In the author's Postscript, she shares that when she worked in Washington D.C. during the Bush (43) administration, she could find no literature on Iran that painted a positive view of this country or its culture, writing "A single story cements our perception of the others." Hence this book can be seen as an attempt to create a different perception - which I believe she admirably achieved. This is a stellar book about love, hope, forgiveness, and healing. Highly recommend.