The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness

The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness by Kyung-Sook Shin is a semi-autobiographical novel about a Korean girl who grows up poor in the countryside and is sent to Seoul when she is 16 to live in a single room with her older brother and cousin and work long hours in a factory. Eventually she continues school and becomes a writer. However, the four years spent working at the factory and living in that single room were so traumatic for her, she blocks them out until she is in her thirties and finally decides to look back on that time and write about it.

We are much the richer for her effort. Beautifully written, this is a look into a world most readers know little about. It's also a reflection on life and art and literature and what it means to be a writer. A worthwhile read.

The Animators

The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker is a novel about two female animators who meet in art school in NYC and set up a studio together to make adult animated films based on their lives. It is partly about their process, and what it means to be an artist, but mostly about their friendship and their raumatic childhoods, one in Florida, the other in Kentucky. Their decade long relationship is the strongest thing in both of their lives, but it can't necessarily save them.

A fast paced, honest, funny, and at times painful debut by a great new writer.

My Brilliant Friend

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is a novel about the lifelong friendship between two girls growing up in a rough neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples in the 50's where poverty and violence is the norm. Ferrante captures the feeling of the neighborhood, the struggles both girls face trying to educate themselves and rise above their circumstances. They each do so in different ways, yet remain bound to each other nonetheless.

Beautifully written, Ferrante is a great storyteller and captures the place wonderfully. However, this is the first in the series of four, so it leaves the reader hanging at the end.

Commonwealth

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett is a novel about two families whose lives are thrown together when a father of four kisses a woman, not his wife, at a christening party and suddenly two families are split up. The six step-siblings form an unexpected bond during Summers spent running free together away from their parents.

There is a tragedy and a mystery at the core of the story which is revealed slowly, in parts, as the reader gets to know each of the characters. Beautifully written, this book drew me in from the beginning. Semi-autobiographical, this is one of Patchett's best books.

The Hundred-Year House

The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai is a novel set at Laurelfield, a historic estate filled with secrets and ghosts, and once the home of a famous artists colony. Told from the end of the 20th century to the beginning, it is one of the most masterfully crafted novels I have ever read. It is like piecing together a puzzle, in reverse.

Well written, funny and also tragic, full of wonderful characters and unexpected revelations at every turn, this is a great read.

Light of Paris

Light of Paris by Eleanor Brown, author of Weird Sisters, is a novel that moves back and forth from Paris 1924 to the States 1999. When Madeleine uncovers her grandmother's letters and journals from her time in Paris when she was young, she forms a whole new opinion of the woman she hardly knew. Dealing with an oppressive marriage, the journals just might be the inspiration she needs to set off on an adventure of her own.

I've read many books in this format lately and there's nothing very original here, however, it is loosely based on the authors own grandmother. A sweet, easy read. It's always enjoyable to get lost in Paris for a while.

Inside the O'Briens

Inside the O'Briens by Lisa Genoa, author of Still Alice, is a look at little known neurological disease called Huntington's. When Boston police officer Joe O'Brien begins dropping things, losing his temper, forgetting things and having involuntary spasms, his wife takes him to the doctor and he is diagnosed with Huntington's disease. There is no cure, just a slow degeneration over a decade or two until death and a fifty percent chance that each of his four kids will get it.

Genoa has a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, so this is a well informed, compassionate look at the human side of this devastating disease. As beautifully written as Still Alice, this is a worthwhile read.