Keeping Time

It is hard not to fall in love with Daisy, the protaganist of Stacey McGlynn's new novel Keeping Time.

Daisy is 77 years old, living alone in her own home in Liverpool, England. Her husband has passed away a couple of years ago and she is resisting selling her house and moving into a retirement community, as she is being urged to do by her son. Determined to do things on her own, a series of mishaps ensues, involving a badly mowed lawn and a flooded basement. About to give in to her son, Daisy discovers new strength and determination when she comes across a watch given to her by an American soldier she was in love with long before she ever met her husband.

Determined to find him after all these decades, she decides to travel alone to NYC and stay with cousins she's never met and search for her long lost love. During the search, she discovers more than she could have ever hoped for.

I love a good story with good characters, and McGlynn has given us one here. Based on her own cousin Dot and her visit from England, Daisy is full of spunk and strength, and it makes us all hope to age so gracefully.

A wonderful, easy read. The perfect thing to go along with a good strong cup of English tea!

Ursula, Under

Ursula, Under is the amazing debut novel by Ingrid Hill.  How a single mother of 11 children had time to research and write this book, I will never know.

The story starts with 2 1/2 year old Ursula Wong falling down an abandoned mine shaft in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is the story of Ursula's parents, Justin and Annie and all their ancestors, both Chinese and Finnish, dating back over 2000 years, whose genes have travelled across continents and through the centuries, culminating in this one unique little girl, Ursula.

The message here is that we are each special and unlike any other, yet not one of us is alone in the universe. We are standing on the shoulders of our ancestors so to speak.

I loved this message and the concept of the book and I think Hill is a terrific writer. However, sometimes I found myself hurrying through some of the stories of the ancestors to get back to the present and find out what was happening with Ursula and her parents and even her grandparents, as these were the characters I really cared about.

Overall, I really liked this book and think it is well worth reading.

Girl in Translation

Finally a book I really liked! After so many bad novels, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, is a welcome delight.

This is the story of Kimberly, an 11 year old Chinese girl who comes to Brooklyn from Hong Kong with her mother, only to live in the projects and spend her days working in a sweatshop beside her mother. She doesn't speak a word of English or understand anything about American culture when she arrives. However, Kimberly is extremely bright, hard working and determined to make a better life for herself and her mother, and after many long hard years of struggle, she finally does.

The book is so believable due to the fact that it is in large part based on Kwok's own life. Truly wonderful and inspiring. Highly recommended.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

I so much enjoyed the beginning of this book, that I had high hopes for finally sinking my teeth into a good story. Aimee Benders novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake tells the story of eight year old Rose Edelstein who discovers she has a very unusual gift. She can feel the emotions in food when she eats it- how the cook was feeling when they made it, where all the ingredients come from, if a person is sad, rushed, angry etc.; and to her dismay she feels the huge emptiness and sadness inside her mother who has baked her a lemon cake.

This is a unique and interesting coming of age story of a girl with a very unusual gift. I liked the premise and found the story very interesting, until it vereed off into the story of Rose's older brother and his unusual "gift?"

It became so strange that I'm not even sure where Bender was going or what we were meant to believe by the end when her brother finally disappears. I wish it had stayed more focused on Rose. It could have been a really good book. As it was, it left me confused and unsatisfied by the end.

Adam & Eve

I am happy to suspend my disbelief when reading a story, and I even try really hard to believe in  all the characters. I come in giving the author the benefit of the doubt. But Sena Jeter Naslund's new novel Adam & Eve stretched beyond my capacity to forgive it's weaknesses.

The story is about Lucy, wife of a scientist 10 years in the future who is murdered for his discovery of extra-terrestial life (she wears his much sought after flash drive around her neck throughout the novel.) When she takes on the task of smuggling documents out of Egypt, that happen to be another version of Genesis (yes that's right) in a plane she conveniently knows how to fly herself, she crashes in Mesopotamia where she finds fellow naked traveller Adam (gorgeous traumatized soldier who believes her to be Eve) and thus begins their healing stint in the garden of Eden. The plot becomes much stranger from here with many more even less believable characters to fill in the gaps.

Although it was mildly interesting, it was just too unbelievable and sloppily written to take seriously. There has been such praise for Naslund's earlier book Ahab's Wife, maybe I will give her another chance and try reading that book instead-and if you are also new to this author, I would recommend doing the same.

Swamplandia!

Swamplandia! is the amazing new novel by Karen Russell. It's been a long time since I've come across such an original book with such compelling characters and great writing.

I was immediatley pulled into the story of 12 year old Ava Bigtree and the Bigtree family of alligator wrestlers in Florida. Ava is wise and strong beyond her years, but she is still just a girl. I felt as if I travelled deep into the swamp with Ava on her journey to find her missing sister, the descriptions were so mesmerizing. This novel is full of eccentric characters, each of them memorable.

I will say that is is darker and more disturbing than I had imagined it to be. Otherwise, I loved it.

Russell is an incredible new voice in fiction, and I look forward to reading more from her. I have no idea what to expect from her next.

Lyrics Alley

Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela is a wonderful novel set in northern Sudan and Egypt during the 1950's, when Sudan was gaining it's independence from Britain.

This is a deeply moving story of the Abuzeid family led by Mahmoud Abuzeid, the patriarch, with his 2 very different wives (one very traditional and one modern) and their children and extended families. It highlights the cultural differences between Muslims in Sudan and Cairo at the time.

The novel is inspired by the life of Aboulela's uncle, the poet Hassan Awad Aboulela. Although it is in many ways a tragedy, there is such life force and hope and beauty coming from these characters, that I liked almost all of them. I would haved liked more of a glimpse of life outside of the wealthy households of the Abuzeid family so that I could have been transported more deeply into the place at that time.

However, I really liked this book, especially Aboulela's message- that even though the poet seemed to be the tragic character, in the end it is his words alone that will live on eternally to inspire generations.

Saving Fish from Drowning

I love Amy Tan, so I was excited to read one of her more recent novels, Saving Fish From Drowning. Although this was a departure from her usual subject matter, I really liked this novel.

It is  narrated by a very fiesty ghost named Bibi Chen, and follows the journey of 12 travellers into China and Burma on what ends up being a very unexpected experience deep in the Burmese jungle. The book brings to light the plight of the Karen hilltribe people and other little known truths in present day Myanmar.

I loved the setting and the journey and I was fully fooled by Tan regarding the authenticity of some facts around the novel, so it kept me interested. That is all I will say. There were some problems with the novel, but overall I really enjoyed it.