labmom55

Once again, Paulette Jiles has crafted a story that grabbed me. Her stories aren’t fast paced but they are so character rich and situated in the time and place, you can’t help but get involved.

John Chenneville fought for the Union and suffered a serious head wound in 1863. When he finally recovers, he comes home to Missouri, he discovers his sister, her husband and baby were murdered. He sets off to find the murderer. Chenneville may have revenge and murder on his mind, but I just was so in his corner. As he travels south, he meets a variety of characters, both two and four legged. He meets the love of his life. This is a man with a strong moral compass. Flip side, the man he is chasing has no respect for any life.

Jiles’ writing was so strong and powerful, I was there for every minute of this story. It’s easy to envision every scene and every character. It’ll be interesting to see if this book is also optioned as a movie.

I had no idea how this would play out, but I wanted there to be a resolution that kept Chenneville out of prison and allowed him a future. And, having now finished the book, I know what I need to read next.

This novel also got me researching the French influence of Missouri. We always think of Louisiana as French, but I was shocked that Missouri was equally “creole” through the mid 19th century.

I listened to this and it was just an amazing audio experience. I only know Grover Gardner as Andy Carpenter but he was just wonderful here.

Elizabeth Strout is an acquired taste. She’s the queen of the interconnected, character rich stories. Many of her characters have shown up in multiple books and we, her readers, have gotten to watch them grow and age. Tell Me Everything has a whole slew of characters I’ve come to know and care about. Most of the characters are now in their 60s. Olive Kitteridge is now 90.

This isn’t a book where a lot happens (none of her books are). With age have come regrets, especially about marriages. One of the more interesting concepts is that of living with a ghost in a marriage. Characters tell stories about their pasts, others they have known, connections small and large. Olive and Lucy feel compelled to tell stories from the past - to have someone document these “unrecorded lives”.
Strout’s writing is always spot on, her ability to just describe a scene with just the right turn of phrase. Not lush, just succinct. It was a book where I found myself highlighting a lot of passages because they just made me think.

At times the book felt dark, but there are these flashes of lightness and hope. And love. It’s about folks doing the right thing, especially Bob Burgess. Or owning up when they didn’t do the right thing and asking forgiveness. Oh my, there was just so much meat to this book!

This is not a book that works as a standalone.

I was not a fan of Goodbye, Vitamin, but I appreciated this book much more. It’s a multi-part story that covers three generations of a Chinese American family - mother, son and grandmother. It starts off weak but gets more interesting with each section.
At the start of the book, Lily is a young woman - just graduated from college, eking out a bare existence in NYC when she meets Matthew. Matthew is everything she’s not - blond, rich, with a great job. It’s an opposites attract story with the added factor of race thrown in. I wasn’t enthralled with this section, it had more of a feel of a romance novel, but it sets up the drama. I would have liked more meat about her relationship with her parents, the guilt, the disappointment on both sides.

The second part is about her son, Nick, a young man in search of himself. His parents are long divorced, his mom has moved across the country and he has no interaction with his dad. In defiance of genetic expectations, he looks exactly like his tall, blond, blue eyed father. His only friend convinces him to do a DNA test which sets the ball rolling for him to finally meet his father.

The third part is told by his grandmother and relates her years in China and her life after she comes to America. I appreciated that Khong was able to effortlessly weave the history of China under Mao without slowing the story. This section delves deep into Mai’s research into genetic science but was easy to understand and did a good job probing the ethics. This book has a lot to say about identity, ambition, wealth, the desire to make something of one’s self vs. the desire for a peaceful life. “She had never wanted to be remarkable. Her life was small and rich and entirely hers.” It also has so much to say about the parent-child relationship - the love, the anger, how a parent’s desire to make things better so often goes wrong.

I am not a fan of magic realism and this book did nothing to dissuade my opinion. I felt it added nothing to the story and the reason to include it went right over my head.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a big book in terms of ideas, writing style and plotlines. It combines science, religion, history and literature. It’s the very definition of epic. It’s like a huge tapestry, weaving people and objects across the time periods. And through each story, the power of water.

The story jumps back and forth between the Middle East, specifically the Tigris River in Turkey and Iraq and the River Thames in London, between 660 BC,1840, 2014 and 2018 and between three diverse characters.

In 1840, Arthur lands a job at a publishing house in London thanks to his photographic memory. He develops a fascination with the book, Nineveh and Its Remains, which in turn leads to him translating cuneiform tablets. Arthur is based on the real life George Smith, the first man to translate the Epic of Gilgamesh into English. His story was the most appealing, covering the discoveries of that time period.

In 2014, Narin, a 10 year old Yazidi girl, is slowly going deaf due to a genetic disorder. Her grandmother is determined that she be baptized in the temple in Iraq. This section taught me about the Yazid faith and the persecution of their sect.

And in 2018, Zaleekah is a hydrologist in London studying the effects of climate change on water. She has just left her husband, moved into a houseboat on the Thames and is looking to find meaning in her life. I loved learning about hidden rivers in her section.
All three of these characters and their stories immediately drew me in. And I was entranced by Shafak’s ability to interweave these stories together into a meaningful whole. The ending has literally left me a bit shellshocked.

Each different section taught me something new. It combines the best parts of historical and literary fiction. As much as it taught me, it also sent me down numerous rabbit holes trying to learn more. This may end up being my number one favorite book of 2024.

This is a book that begs to be read by a book club. I will also be amazed if it doesn’t end up on the lists for all the big prizes.