Review 296: I Must Betray You

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A harrowing tale of what a tyrannical government looks like, told through the eyes of a teenage boy in Romania 1989. Everyone is trapped by the “Secu” security that enforces the draconian rules of the leader, which there are many. Everything is owned by the state, including the people. They are starved, brutalized and scared into silence, and nearly everyone could be an informer.

Cristian is put into a position where he must become an informer, despite how much he despises the system. “Paddle Hands” says he will get medicine for his sick grandfather, and really Cristian doesn’t have a choice, they knew he had a US Dollar bill, illegal to own foreign currency. Besides, Cristian would do anything for Bunu, his beloved grandfather.

This is a quick read, written for teenagers, which likely will be horrified as anyone would. Yet this is based on fact, what did happen not that long ago. Perhaps it is something that is happening now in other countries, like North Korea. Isolate the people from the rest of the world, control the media, control everything, then to enforce it have informants, a network of spies by the citizens themselves. They will fear everyone and can trust no one, they will behave. Until they don’t.

When the wall comes down in Germany and Communism collapses, Christian is wondering if the world will forget about Romania, will they be left alone?

Thanks to Philomel Books/Penguin Random House and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 295: The Annual Migration of Clouds

The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short book, novella that took nearly a third for me to feel grounded in this world; a post-climate change at some unknown point in the future, generations later.

We begin with teenage protagonist Reid who receives an acceptance letter to Howse University, a place in a dome. Everyone is elated for her, except her mother who says this is a fantasy, the place doesn’t exist. What is right? She would have to go out alone to get there, perhaps it is a ruse.

Reid, her mother, and many others are sick with a fungus. The semi-sapient fungus, Cad lives inside, sometimes controls the muscles, forces the infected to stay safe when needed, it appears with tree-link branches on your skin, passed on generation to generation.

This group of survivors live in an old university campus, taking classrooms or offices as living quarters. The community must all work together with some projects to make it work. It's a hard life. If Reid leaves it may harm the overall community, but if she went her life, their lives, could be improved. What does Reid choose, she only has two short weeks to get there, to decide.

I can see this being a start for another book extending out this world. The writing is decent, although as mentioned the setting took some time for me to feel settled into this world, a bit long for such a short book, which makes me hope there is more to this story.

Book rating: 3.5 stars

Review 294: The Paris Bookseller

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An historical novel of the founder of Shakespeare & Company, an English bookstore in Paris France. Sylvia Beach is an American living between the wars in Paris and she went after what she desired: running a bookshop, having a relationship with a woman, and having writers as friends. A Lost Generation of American writers in Paris, though seems like a golden era now, circled around this bookstore, with it’s lending library a big part of the bookstore besides selling books.

The bulk of this novel centers on publishing Ulysses the novel by James Joyce, banned in America before it was even finished. Despite the massive difficulties in publishing the book, Sylvia felt it was an important piece of literature that must be published. Later the novel became a way to support the bookshop, and it did give it fame. Sylvia’s friendship with Joyce is also a main aspect of the book, along with her relationship with fellow bookstore owner Adrienne Monnier.

The one thing that somewhat irked me was Sylvia’s smoking. It did harm her health to some degree, but the frequency it was mentioned in the book seemed to signal graver health concerns due to the smoking. It’s not, but it makes me wonder why such significance of smoking was put into the book.

The extensive author’s note at the end helps to identify all that was fictional, with the attempt at more fact than fiction. Of course specific conversations are fiction, and there are other bits, but the main gist of the story are true events.

Thanks to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Listened to the audiobook and found the narration done well, to my ears, with the French and Irish accents.

Review 293: Truly Like Lightning

Truly Like Lightning by David Duchovny
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel’s plot is centered around Bronson Powers, an ex-stuntman from Hollywood that inherited an extremely large plot of land in the desert next to Joshua Tree National Park. The catch was he had to become Mormon. Being an auto-didactic Bronson took the faith back to the original writings and created his polygamous family. It’s more blended than it looks, with several of the children from prior relationships and the women being bisexual.

Twenty years they lived harmoniously until a drugged-up woman on mescaline discovers their homestead. Working for a greedy megalomaniac developer she devises a convoluted plot to get their land. A test of homeschooling versus public school for a year, sending three of the children out into the “real world” along with one of the mothers. There is no way this is going to work out well for anyone involved. The family is doomed from the moment an outsider decided to interfere.

The book reads like an over-the-top farce at many points. It reminds me a bit of Hollywood, but who can blame an actor with an ex-stunt man at the heart of the tale. If you can go with the flow, then it becomes an exciting saga. There are layers contained and the book throws in plenty of social issues, with climate change and politics not being left out

Review 292: The Contemporary American Essay

The Contemporary American Essay by Phillip Lopate
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one volume of three of collected American essays all edited by Philip Lopate, the other two books being: The Glorious American Essay: One Hundred Essays from Colonial Times to the Present and The Golden Age of the American Essay: 1945-1970.

This book includes 49 essays and an introduction by Lopate. All were published in the last two-decades, with the oldest being published in 1999.

While most follow the traditional form of an essay, several do not. It is the exploration of the form as well as subject matter that makes up this volume, being quite diverse. Two of the inclusions were excerpts from larger works, and many, if not most, are pulled from a book of essays (according to the copyright permissions listed in the back.) I did wish that information was included with the title, year and where the work first appeared, instead of relying on flipping back to the end with each entry.

As with most anthologies there are some entries that speak to the reader more than others. The essays were also of varying lengths, with some being just a few pages and others reaching over twenty. Generally the average was closer to fourteen pages, which was long enough to dive deeply into a topic for a moment. Some are striking and will stay with you for a while.

I look forward to reading the other two volumes in the series.