Keeping Faith, while it is over ten years old, is my latest Jodi Picoult read. I recently discovered a slew of Picoult and Nicholas Sparks titles that I did not yet have under my belt. Thank goodness!

Keeping Faith

Plot: In Keeping Faith, Picoult tackles the topic of religion. In the midst of a emotionally devastating divorce, Mariah White’s seven year old daughter Faith begins to speak to G-d. And all though they are non-practicing Jews in a broken interfaith family, Faith begins to have the stigmata. Famous atheist Ian Fletcher, the anti-Billy Graham, sets out to prove that Faith is a fraud, and sets off a gripping custody case.

I think that “Keeping Faith” has some of my favorite Picoult characters. Each character is complex and damaged in ways that are very easy to relate to. And while the stage Picoult sets them on is surreal, their personalities and reactions are very realistic.

Mariah is the needy house wife and stay at home mommy who must learn to survive on her own. Mariah does not become ridiculously strong over night; Picoult develops her slowly. While I felt she still ended a little weak, I found it a very sincere portrayal. Ian is damaged goods with situational atheism. Picoult loves to write these cynical cranky male characters who just want to be loved, and Ian Fletcher is one of my favorites, right next to Jordan McAfee from The Pact, 19 Minutes and Salem Falls. Colin, Mariah’s ex-husband, makes a deliberate mistake that may cost him the love of his daughter. You hate Colin for what he did, but completely understand his broken heart. Millie, Mariah’s mother, is the loving and sassy mother who provides perfectly times comic relief and emotional support.

The crux of the book is religion, and here the author plays it safe. She does not attack religion, nor does she make any blatant arguments. She offers no alternative or conclusions. In fact, her approach may be too subtle, but she does not make the book untouchable by tackling the topic. She writes a perspective that is very palatable, even if it does get a little lost in a series of miracles and a little romance.

Keeping Faith is one of my new favorite Picoult novels.

Grade: B

Rating: 16+ for adult situations

“Now he belongs to the ages.”
Epitaph from Abraham Lincoln’s tombstone

Death has always been a fascination of mine. When I was a child I was labeled: odd, macabre, morbid even. Think Vada Sultenfuss in the movie My Girl. It seems being preoccupied with death works well with my Victorian fascination. But somehow I managed to grow up normal, but my interest in death didn’t subside. Death is a deeply symbolic act in literature, and specific character deaths always serve some great purpose on the part of the author. Sometimes I would cry, sometimes I would be heartbroken, and sometimes I would just ask “Why?” The following list is made up of the most profound literary deaths I have experienced in my reading career.

They aren’t the most famous ones, nor are they the most obvious ones (did no one see Dumbledore’s death coming?), but to me, they were the most meaningful.

While I was researching this, I found this great page on Wikipedia about of famous epitaphs:

Spoilers: If you have not read the following books and would still like to, don’t read the rest of my post:  Tuck Everlasting, The House of Mirth, Lord of the Rings, Animal Farm, Tess of the D’Ubervilles, The Stand, Interview with the Vampire, or Cold Mountain

(more…)

Oprah’s Picks:

Tales of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Quickening by Michelle Hoover is a tale of the frontier, set in the early 20th century, and it revolves around two very different pioneer women. Enidina is a hard worn woman meant for life on a farm, and her neighbor Mary is a softer, feminine woman who desires something greater than the simple farm life that has been thrust upon her by a trauma in her childhood. Enidina is desperate for children, while Mary is burdened with three boys that make her even more desperate for escape. The two woman form an uneasy friendship and the story follows them through twenty years of trials and triumphs on the Iowa plains.

It is rare indeed that an author captures the essence of a setting so well that the reader feels it in their physical presence. If Michelle Hoover fails to do anything else in her novel, she has succeeded in that aspect, and succeeded superbly.

Hoover creates a setting so real, the reader can feel the heaviness of the rain, the cold dry winds of the winter, and the dry heat that kills the summer crops. The desolation of Iowa helps the reader to feel the desperation of Mary’s life and the spartan simpleness of Enidina’s. The story is told from the perspective of Enidina and Mary late in their lives as they review the past. This offers the reader a chance to see the same scene from two different perspectives, and the scene changes depending on the teller.

The drawback of the tale is unfortunately the stark realism Hoover creates. This usually compels an author to create sympathetic characters or emotional buy in. But Hoover does not take the story in that direction. So the plot drags at times and has the unfortunate attribute of being a story with no real conclusion, despite its vague interesting points. There isn’t any passion or zing to sink your teeth into as a reader. The stark realism leaves that reader with the empty feeling of having examined two flawed lives.

Grade: B-

If you’ve read through this blog, or you know me, then you know that I have a habit of picking up books because I saw the movie trailer: Atonement, Twilight, The Road, just to name a few. I probably won’t ever see the movie, but if it is a decent trailer, I will go get the book. Trailer editors must make a lot of money.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuro Ishiguro seemed to be about a proper British boarding school with a sinister secret, and a love triangle. The latter did not interest me so much as the former. Who doesn’t love a good boarding-with-a-secret story? The reader is presented with several questions:

• Why are the Students of Hailsham Special?
• Where are their parents?
• Why are they at Hailsham?
• Why must they stay healthy?
  
• Why can’t they have children?

While the book did not turn out to be a mystery or thriller, it was a decent story. In the end, the story turned out to be nothing more than an allegory for the meaning of life, asking the age old question: What is our purpose?

Never Let Me Go centers around 3 characters, Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth. They all grew up at what seems to be an exclusive boarding school, with no parents in sight. The students of Hailsham are very “special”, but why? They all know they have a purpose, and the purpose and secret behind the Hailsham School is slowly revealed through the course of the story, as the reader travels through the trials of adolescence and adulthood with the trio.

The restrained emotion in the story is a detriment, and while I won’t reveal the secrets of the novel, the lack of emotion does not help the author’s final premise. The main character, Kathy, through whom we see the story, seems to lack any real desires or emotions. If this is intentional, it is not well done and a mistake in my estimation. My conclusion was that the lack of feeling and depth was due to one of two things, a man was writing a woman’s point of view, and that man was British. I don’t mean to feed into generalizations, but the British “stiff upper lip” was very present in the emotional depth of the characters.

The plot is steady, and the story is interesting, if only for the revelations of the purpose of Hailsham’s students. It dabbles in some very serious topics such as spirituality, love, the soul, the meaning of life, but never takes a goof bit out of any of them. Some of the scenes feel very grey and dull, but it is a sign of talent that one could feel the mists of England and the greyness bleeding through the pages. I would have liked to have seen more spark, more zing, but it was interesting enough to keep me reading.

Final Grade: B-

I like vampire stories. So sue me. And no, I’m not one of those bandwagoners who jumped into the fold with Twilight & True Blood. I am an old school Bram Stoker-Ann Rice- Vampires are supposed to be scary vampire fan. I have written serious papers on Nosferatu. And I just brought that to a whole new level of nerdy.
So when I heard that Justin Cronin was redeeming the quickly devolving monster known as “Vampire” with his debut novel The Passage, I was more excited that you can possibly imagine. I mean Red Sox winning the World Series excited. Ok, maybe not that much.
I bought The Passage at the height of the summer. And it delivered, for the most part. I had nightmares, I couldn’t sleep, I was afraid to go into a dark room. I mean that is pretty much a successful scary story. But, as is my trademark, I noticed the flaws. And there were only a few, tiny, minor issues:
1) He clearly had Margaret Atwood’s novel A Handmaid’s Tale right by his side when he wrote it. The whole second half of the novel was ripped off right from her style and set up.
2) It was too long. It didn’t need to be that long. This wasn’t The Stand. You are not Stephen King. Even Stephen King isn’t Stephen King anymore.

3) Speaking of Stephen King, if A Handmaid’s Tale was on the left side of his desk, The Stand was on the right side. There were many echoes and allusions to King’s epic apocalypse novel. Maybe that’s why King is Cronin’s #1 fan.
4) The main character, Peter, was a little boring. But his name was Peter, I find that all “Peter”s in literature and cinema are boring.
5) The most glaring problem of all: it is the first part of a trilogy. Big mistake, big. Huge.

Here is where he succeeded:
1) Strong and interesting female characters.
2) Seriously, gloriously scary vampires. Not a redeeming one in the lot of them.
3) Great plotline.

Grade: All in all, I am going to give him a B. Just a B. But I’ll be honest, when I found out it was a trilogy, it took a nose dive to C. But, when I finished the book, it was B. I’ll leave it at B.

I do NOT recommend this book for sensitive readers, young readers, and people with a faint heart.

Thanks to chasidar, I discovered a beautiful book on the essence of Southern culture: the race issue. Now I know some of you are going to say, “hello The Help has been on the NY Times bestseller list for 66 weeks”, but let’s just say the bestseller list is not how I gage what is actually good…if it was, then why is James Patterson on there? No offense to you Patterson-philes…just to Patterson himself.

The Help by Katheryn Stockett is set in the deep South as the Civil Rights movement is finding its wings. Our main characters are Skeeter Phelan, a young white debutante, Aibileen, a middle aged black maid/nanny who is good at her job, and Minny, a younger black maid who has a temper that sometimes lands her unemployed. Skeeter, a naïve fledging writer, stumbles upon the idea of writing a book about the “Help” of the South. Enlisting the help of a reluctant Aibileen and Minny, the three women embark on a journey to discover themselves in a time when a culture unwilling to change is being turned upside down.

All of the characters, with the exception of Skeeter, are fascinating. From the racist dictator like Junior League president, to the silly white trash Cinderella, to the perfect maid willing to commit a crime for her family, Stockett creates a full portrait of the complicated world that made up the female side of the pre-Civil Rights South. In addition to wonderful characters, Stockett, in the great tradition of Mark Twain, recreates with stunning clarity the vernacular of both the black and white characters of the novel.

My least favorite aspect of the book was the character of Skeeter, who unfortunately a narrator for a third of the novel. She is just a weak character, with very little gumption and a whole lot of naivety. She is used by Stockett as a tool to show the perspective from the white world, but her confusion and her sympathies make her waver between a two dimensional and three dimensional character, which makes her weak and wan in the novel.

Overall, despite one flaw, the book is a gem. It is an engaging and engrossing portrait of a by-gone era.

Grade: A-