Fall Reading List

Once again I've saved up a long list of books so I will only give fairly summary reviews.

The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward

This was an interesting study in family dynamics - and how everything can go horribly wrong.

Charlotte Perkins is a 70 year old widow who has also just lost her best friend. She is estranged from her children and at loose ends. When she sees an essay contest, she decides to write about a torrid summer romance from many years ago. The grand prize is an all expense paid cruise and she hopes to take her 3 adult children to bring the family closer together.

Her children are also all struggling in one way or another. Her eldest daughter Lee lives in LA and has never quite made it as an actress. She has also just broken up with her more famous boyfriend (whose left her for a younger, more successful, co-star) and is financially unstable. Even before she hears about the contest she leaves LA to go live with her mother, without telling her mother about the break up.

Charlotte's middle child is Cord - he's a venture capitalist in Manhattan, and the only one of the children that's truly financially and professionally successful. But his mother is concerned because he can't seem to find a wife - of course, that's because he's never told her he's gay.

Finally, Regan, the youngest is a harried mother of two - the romance of her marriage (to her sister's high school boyfriend) is gone.

Of course, the story wouldn't go anywhere if Charlotte didn't win the essay contest - so the family embarks on the cruise from Athens, through Rome and Florence and on to Barcelona. While on board the family members are faced to interact with each other - and learn about long held family secrets. Old and new romances also make an appearance which complicates everyone's life even further.

I was caught by surprise by the ending - which I liked. All in all it was an entertaining book.

A Boring Wife Settles the Score by Marie-Renée Lavoie

This is a sequel to Autopsy of a Boring Wife and is equally charming and humorous. In the original book we met Diane just after her husband left her for a much younger woman who was pregnant with his child. She also loses her job in that book. Some time has passed and Diane is learning to live on her own, sharing a house with her best friend and her friend's children. She is also deciding what she wants to do for a living and decides to dabble in a new romance.

There's not a lot of action in the book, but Diane's musings as she fumbles through a new job, new love, interactions with her adult children and encounters with her ex-husband are witty and intelligent. The book is short and to the point and very fun to read.

Ties that Tether by Jane Igharo

While on one level this is a romantic comedy, on another it explores the dilemma faced by many immigrant children when they are trying to adapt to their new home.

Azere immigrated to Canada with her mother and younger sister following the death of her father when she was 12 years old. While her father was on his deathbed her made her vow to marry an Edo Nigerian man. And in the 13 intervening years her mother has set her up with countless such men - with no success. After one particularly disastrous blind date she meets, and has what she thinks is a one night stand, with Rafael, a Spanish American man.

Much to her surprise Rafael becomes a co-worker, friend and eventually serious romantic partner. And Azere must decide whether to follow her heart or keep her vow to her deceased father and very disapproving mother.

The story is well written and I thought dealt with Azere's dilemma in a nuanced and realistic manner while still maintaining the light-hearted tone of the book.

Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz

This book was so prescient it is eerie. The book begins with a publisher's note that it was all written prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. In fact, the publication date was advanced when it became clear how timely it was.

In this book a pandemic that starts in China makes its way to North America - leaving illness and death in its wake. Sound familiar? It gets even more eerie as it talks about lock downs, social distancing, overrun hospitals, contact tracing and all sorts of other issues which are now second nature to us, but we just fiction at the time the book was written. There are some differences from COVID - for example, kids are hit harder than adults and there is no vaccine in sight. But still - talk about fiction becoming reality.

The book is written from the perspective of a multitude of characters. Some of the chapters are in the present, others are in the past. And over time we learn how the various characters relate to one another - either through there pasts or through present-day encounters, or both. What is particularly interesting is that one of the characters, Owen, is the author of a plague novel that seems to foretell the pandemic in the book (again, sound familiar?).

When I picked up the book I was worried it would be too depressing to spend all that time on a book set in a COVID-like environment. But, I was so taken in by the characters and trying to piece together their relationships that I did not get hung up on the pandemic aspect. I was just fascinated by how the author seemed to predict the future and was very impressed with her ability to craft a complex story and bring all the pieces together in a believable and interesting way.

Painting the Light by Sally Gunning

Though this historical fiction is set further in the past than I typically like, I was drawn to it because it is set on Martha's Vineyard.

Ida Russell is young girl living in privilege in Boston in 1893. But her privilege can't buy her the respect she wants as an art student at a prestigious school - because she is a girl and art is still seen as man's work. However, she struggles along and does impress some instructors. But her life is turned around when her father and brothers are lost at sea and her mother takes her life when she cannot cope with her grief.

In her vulnerable state she is taken in by the charming Ezra Pease, a sheep farmer on Martha's Vineyard. She marries him and abandons her art to become a farmer's wife. And a very unhappy one. After a big storm Ezra is presumed dead and Ida must figure out how to put her life back together. And she is faced with one surprise after another about the man she married - and his only living relatives who have never much liked her. She learns how to ride a bike (wearing pants which is even more scandalous) and falls in love with a married man. She also makes decisions about the farm which had always been Ezra's domain.

The author does a great job of developing Ida's character, bringing back the spunk of her youth so she can move on from her life as an unhappy farmer's wife.

Fight Night by Miriam Toews

I've always enjoyed Toews' work, but I think this was one of my favourites. The grandmother, Elvira, was an amazing character.

The novel centres on the lives of three generations of women living together: Elvira, who is physically frail but completely "with it" and full of personality; Elvira's daughter, Mooshie, who is a pregnant actress who struggles with mental health issues; and Mooshie's daughter, nine year old Swiv.

The book is written from Swiv's perspective. When she is suspended from school for fighting, her grandmother takes on the job of home schooling her. Her assignment is to write a letter to her absent father about her life. So the book is actually that letter. At the same time Swiv instructs her grandmother to write a letter to her unborn sibling, who they refer to as Gord. So we also get to read Elvira's letter to Gord.

For me, the best part of the book was Elvira's spirit - she was always trying to do things others felt were a danger to her health - including dragging Swiv on a trip to California to visit two of her nephews. The scenes in California were funny, but also sad at times. Although this book is "just" a story about a family, it is so well written I couldn't wait to see how everything turned out for the characters that I couldn't help falling in love with.

The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall

Interestingly, this is another book about three generations of women - though in most other respects it's quite different than Fight Night. 

The main character in this one is also the granddaughter, Missy, but she's older. In 1997, when Missy is 22, her band hits it big and books a North American tour. Missy tries to get a doctor to tie her tubes so she can enjoy herself on the road, but no doctor is willing to let such a young woman make this life altering decision.

So, Missy nonetheless embarks on the tour with her all male band - and meets a man in every port. She parties hard with her band mates, but one unlucky day she forgets about some cocaine in her possession and is not allowed to cross the border from Canada to the US. So the band has to go on without her.

Meanwhile, Missy's mother, Carola, who abandoned her family when Missy was very young is living on the yoga retreat she ran to at the time. She is dealing with the fallout of a sex scandal at the retreat when she sees Missy's picture in a magazine and wants to reach out to her.

Finally, Missy's grandmother Ruth, who is 83, wants to return to the Turkish seaside that she fled from. When Missy is turned away at the border she goes to live with Ruth who tries to bring about a reconciliation with Carola.

I don't want to give it away by getting into the details but the book covers several years in the lives of the three women - how they live their separate lives, and how they periodically get together. We also gain insight into the various relationships each of the women embark on and, at its heart, what it means to be a mother.

I liked this book, but I wouldn't say I loved it the way I did Fight Night.

The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes

This was an interesting story about the role of women and marriage immediately before the sexual revolution. Jennifer Starling wakes up from an accident without any memory of her life. Despite the memory loss, it becomes obvious to her that she really doesn't like her husband. She then finds a love letter signed only "B" which tells her she clearly had a lover, but she has no recollection of it. She then embarks upon trying to figure out who that lover is.

In 2003, Ellie, a journalist, finds the same letter in the archives of the newspaper that employs her. She also sets out to find out what happened in an effort to salvage her career which is floundering. It also gives her some insight into her lacklustre relationship with a married man.

Eventually, both women manage to weave together what happened and Ellie, in particular, strives to find a happy ending for both Jennifer and herself.

The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristin Harmel

I will confess I almost gave up on this one at the start, but I stuck with it. It wasn't the best book of all time, but I wasn't sorry I finished it.

In the early chapters, a two year old girl in Berlin is abducted by an old woman named Jerusza and taken to live in the forests in Poland. Jerusza changes the girls name to Yona and teaches her how to survive in the forest - even providing lessons on how to kill. She also keeps Yona away from towns and other people, warning her of how dangerous they can be.

Jerusza dies at the beginning of World War II and Yona is left to fend for herself. While in the forest she meets many Jews fleeing the Nazis and uses her forest survival skills to help them. Most of the book deals with her relationship with the people she helps (remember she has many survival skills, but few people skills) and their struggle to evade capture and survive the harsh conditions of living in the forest.

Other than Yona, most of the characters are not terribly well developed, but are nonetheless interesting. This book was reasonably entertaining but there are better Holocaust books out there.

Holding Still for As Long as Possible by Zoey Whittall

This book is more a character study than a novel. It delves into the lives of three marginalized 20 somethings living in Toronto. There is Josh, a transgendered paramedic; Amy, his ex-girlfriend who grew up more privileged than the other characters and is an amateur filmmaker; and Billy, a child pop star who now suffers from severe anxiety attacks.

The book explores their relationships with each other and with others, as well as giving us insight into their daily struggles just to keep going. Again, not much happens but the people are fairly interesting - and it's a short read. The interspersing of EMS terminology (and the glossary of EMS terms at the end) added a twist that I found interesting.