Review 537: The Barbarians are Coming

The Barbarians are Coming by David Wong Louie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't care for this book very much. I put it down and stopped reading for a nearly a week and easily forgot about it, but decided to go ahead and finish. The main character does have a transformation in the end, but amid much sadness. Nearly all of the characters in this book are not likeable.

Sterling Lung, the main character, is Chinese but dislikes his culture, only dating white women and become a chef in the French way, refusing to cook Chinese food.

Things come to a head when his parents have brought over the Chinese girl he is to marry. Sterling has always told them he is not interested, but when he meets her, he becomes conflicted, something about her arouses him. Then his girlfriend, Bliss, who he has been putting off as they now live in different states has become pregnant and refuses to do anything but have the baby. Sterling must decide if he wants to be a father or not.

The book has some well crafted sentences and good writing. The book is about culture identity and connection, family connection. Sterling has always felt disconnected with his father. In later chapters we get the father’s point of view and see his life when he first came to the United States before bringing over his wife and first born daughter. I like his character better than most the others.

I’m happy I stuck with it and finished the book as there was character growth, but overall I found the book meh. This book has been sitting on my bookshelves for over twenty years, so there's that.

Review 536: The Forger's Requiem

The Forger's Requiem by Bradford Morrow
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This was a decent book, but not as good I had hoped. Earlier this year I read a previous book by Morrow and thoroughly enjoyed it and anticipated this one would be at the same caliber but it fell a little short.

Perhaps one reason for me was this is the last book in a trilogy. Yet I did not know this until I finished reading the book. If I started from book one my experience may have been somewhat different.

I did find a few hiccups in the beginning, as there are not clear chapter breaks in the copy I was reading. There were sudden changes in locations and who was speaking in the alternating first person POV. It was jarring until realizing this was the format after a few times of encountering this. Not only are there changes in location, but also the timeline switches around a little. It didn’t make for easy reading. After a while I got it figured out and that settled and the book made more sense while reading.

The book felt like it attempted to be a mystery, but it is not. There was a murder (maybe a major plot point in a previous book?) but the culprit really is known. The main content of the book is also about forgeries. Will and Nicole Diehl are father and daughter and have done forgeries in the past. Will has sworn that off as a way to make a living and has found a legal way to earn a living. Nicole is more of a painter anyway, and only dabbled in forgery as an imitation of her father. Yet their nemesis Henry Slader is blackmailing and forcing more forgeries. Slader is a prominent POV.

I did find it interesting that in the beginning of reading this book I found both sides sympathetic Slader and the Diehl’s, although as the book continues it is clear who is the true villain.

If I didn’t have an already way too long list of books to read I might be tempted to go and read the first too books in this trilogy.

Thanks to the Atlantic Monthly Press/Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy prior to publication.

Review 535: The Stolen Crown

The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England by Susan Higginbotham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This historical fiction takes place in the mid to late 15th century in England, during the time known as the War of the Roses, with the Houses of York and Lancaster trying to gain the throne.

The main character viewpoints are from Katherine (Kate) Woodville and her husband Harry Stafford. Kate and Harry married while being children, Kate being quite young and Harry being three years older, still young himself. These two are also the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham.

The beginning of the book stars with young Kate waking up in the middle of the night to discover a secret marriage taking place in the family church. Her eldest sister Elizabeth, known as Bessie, marrying King Edward IV. After a brief time, the king announced the marriage and brought the entire Woodville family to court. Then marriages were arranged, and this was how young Kate became the Duchess and in a very important position.

The Woodville family and King Edward IV were the House of York, while Harry, Duke of Buckingham came from a family on his mother’s side that sided with the House of Lancaster. This occasionally made him conflicted.

Much of what was described in the book was about who was trying to usurp the throne. There were relations killed as they were seen as a threat, or possibly were plotting against the sitting king. And the kings did change, briefly as Edward IV was sent into exile, then gained back the throne as King Henry VI was briefly back on the throne.

After the death of King Edward IV, his eldest boy would become King Edward V at 12 years of age. His uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, being the named the Lord Protector until the king would reach the age of maturity. Richard ended up having a different idea and became King Richard III.

This part of the stolen crown came late in the book. It seemed odd to me that main event the book was titled after took so long to get to. The subtitle refers to the marriage that came in the beginning. I don’t feel like any of this is a spoiler since it is based on the facts of history.

Since I don’t know British history very well, particularly of hundreds of years ago, this book helped to expand some of my knowledge. There are many areas of fiction in this book: conversations, of course, motives, and describing something that happened, when in history it is unknown.

I enjoyed the book, although the beginning was a little rough for me with all the characters and names, nicknames, titles and such, trying to keep this all straight. I’ve had the eBook for many years (ten), which I referred to particularly the list of the characters which helped. However, I listened to an audiobook which had two narrators, one for each point of view of Harry and Kate and was well done.

Review 534: The Glorious American Essay

The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present by Phillip Lopate
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This collection of essays exceeded my expectations. They were in fact glorious. There were only a small few that I did not enjoy, and some were just amazing, absolutely amazing.

One of my favorite essays is a long one by Wallace Stegner (1980): The Twilight on Self-Reliance: Frontier Values and Contemporary America. In this essay he covers with the early start of the Americas, with conquest and plundering of resources; then came the colonists, values and the “new” cheap land. The history of the United States is here comprehensively in this one essay that explains nearly everything. I was absolutely astonished by this essay.

Only one essay per writer, the essays are of varying lengths, a few very short just a couple of pages and several that are over twenty. Included are many, many familiar names, and many that are not. Even with the familiar the essays chosen are not the typical ones found in anthologies.

The book is dense, tiny print hardly any spaces and shrank the book to 900 pages, what a normal printing book might reach 1,500. When I started I quickly realized it would take some months. It did, just over three months for me with fairly consistent reading, but I had expected it to take longer. This book takes some considerable time to get through, but it was worth it.

Review 533: The Street

The Street by Ann Petry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a powerful book! According to the summary this was Ann Petry’s first book, which was published in 1946 and “hailed by critics as a masterwork”. Wikipedia says she was the first African-American woman author to sell over one-million books. So why does it seem like this author is forgotten?

This book takes place in Harlem in the 1940s. A young woman, now a single parent, is trying to make a better life for herself and her child. She's been working too hard, lost her husband to another woman for working too much. Her dad tried to help her but without working and selling home-made whisky wasn't a good environment to raise a boy.

The descriptions are quite detailed. The book opens up with Lutie Johnson walking down The Street looking for an apartment. The wind is bitterly cold and howling. She finds an apartment building, which has dark hallways and dark rooms, but the descriptions are so well written you can see it clearly. She takes it, as this is as good as any she will find, but resolves to move as soon as she can.

Without giving away everything that happens (I've hardly mentioned anything), Lutie is a smart woman, still young and attracts unwanted attention of men. She is focused on improving her situation, but is thwarted at every turn. She blames The Street, she blames the system, she blames whites. And the way the book is written you can’t blame her, nor what she ends up doing. The climax of the book a surprise, but not entirely.

I will definitely look for another book by this author.