Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Sara in my book club suggested this title and it was a great choice.

The story is about a group of slave women who accompany their plantation masters annually to a vacation resort in Ohio.  The premise is unusual and I was glad to find out it was based on a true story, because it would have required a significant suspension of disbelief otherwise.

Lizzie, the main character, is a likable woman.  She has several children with her master and is very focused on ensuring that her kids have access to education and other benefits.  She describes being in love with her master, and feeling like he loves her back, but the reader can easily see that his special treatment of her is far from a healthy love. The first part of the book talks about her first summer at the resort with him.  In later parts of the book, Lizzie relates how her relationship with her master started, and what the (strange) logistics were around their interactions on the plantation.

It was hard to read the descriptions of how cruelly the slaves were treated.  One minute they are sitting in a dining room with their masters, "playing house" and the next minute they are shackled to a tree as punishment for something.  Equally hard to read was the differences they could see between their own lives and the glimpses of freedom afforded to blacks in the North.  I had a hard time remembering that this occurred reasonably recently.

This book was an easy read, written in a style that reminded me of YA books used in a classroom setting.  That didn't take away from my fascination and sadness in the story.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

The title of this book caught my attention as a clever idea - I like when authors play around with the meta-components of a story.  In this case, the story is about a boy whose father builds time machines.  As he grows up and goes into the business of repairing time machines, he comes to terms with the complex relationships that define his family.

Yu makes many obvious nods to the pantheon of classic science fiction.  Readers are expected to be familiar with ideas like the paradox of meeting one's self while time-traveling and the alternate realities that spring up every time you make a decision.  The main character has a relationship with his custom computer and his "nonexistent but ontologically valid dog."  All of that was clever and fun to read. 

But what I really liked about the book was that all of this was really a mechanism for writing the story of how someone can grow up and learn about their parents as people.  Certainly science fiction fans would enjoy the setting and innovations, but the story was sweet too.