Review: American Gods

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to like this book - I really did. Gaiman can be a magical writer, and I have enjoyed some of his other short works of fantasy. But this book was a slog for me! It is about a man who is released from prison, aimless as his wife has been killed in a car accident just a few days before his release, who encounters a mysterious guy who claims to be a "god." The book follows these characters, along with a rich cast of other gods and mortals, as they criss-cross the United States, seemingly living normal lives, but engaged in parallel in a war across new gods and old, as magnificent as what you'd see in classic Greek mythology.

Sounds compelling, right? But it wasn't - it was hard to follow, with twists that didn't all pay off. The social commentary was good, but not enough to carry as wide a set of characters as this had, and not good enough to make up for the convoluted plot. I know I'm in the minority here: this was optioned as a tv series, and has pretty universal great ratings. Didn't do it for me, though.

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Review: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that sounds like it is going to be a dry historical tome, and turns out to have as much excitement and intrigue as a Tom Clancy novel. Written in a similar tone and with similar depth as a Laura Hillenbrand book, this is about an underdog rowing team from University of Washington who make it to the 1936 Olympics. Sorry for the spoiler, but it doesn't ruin a thing to know this. I had no idea how much I could get into understanding the sport and strategy of rowing, but I did. Equally compelling were the individual characters profiled in this book. Great read.

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Review: Tell Me More: Stories about the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say

Tell Me More: Stories about the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am spoiled. I've read Anne Lamott, so any memoirist/spiritual writer/self-help guru is going to pale in comparison. That said, Corrigan is undeniably likable and compelling. In this book, she devotes a chapter to each of 12 things that help her through difficult situations, like "Tell Me More" and "I Was Wrong." She intermixes personal anecdotes with introspection, staying away from the common traps in these sorts of books: being too preachy, or too repetitive. She comes across as delightfully likable, human, honest, brave, and flawed. I'll be following her in the future.

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Review: Idaho

Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book well enough - it was an engaging read and the plot had a mystery-like theme to it, which I liked. A woman finds clues that lead her to question violent acts in her husband's first marriage. However, I wasn't drawn enough to the characters; in their own ways, they were each unlikeable, and it was hard to connect to a book when I couldn't identify a hero-protagolist. I also found the author's way of suggesting events rather than being explicit about them frustrating. Overall, not as good as many other books I've read lately.

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Review: The Great Alone

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a chilling, excellent book. The Nightingale, by the same author, has been recommended to me numerous times. While I haven't yet read that, I immediately appreciated Hannah's writing style and mastery of writing a complex book.

This story is about a girl whose father is a drifter. At loose ends after a traumatic experience in combat during the Vietman War, he moves their family of three every few years. This time, he learns that his best friend from the War has left him some land in rural Alaska, so the family moves there. At first, they struggle with basic survival, completely unprepared for how rugged and cold and remote their new home is.

Then the father falls in with a group of survivalists, and begins to alienate the family from the small number of townspeople in the village. While his wife and daughter retain a working relationship with certain members of the village (and the daughter enters adolescence, with all its complications), the father becomes increasingly erratic, violent, and separatist.

As the book reaches its climax, I could not stop reading. The characters were so well-written, the obstacles so seemingly immovable, and the resolution just heartbreaking. And at hundreds of pages, Hannah reserved an appropriate amount for a proper denouement, which not all authors do. Just lovely, all around.

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Review: The Heart's Invisible Furies

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a great, juicy, thick, fun read, chosen as the book of the year a few years back by the Book of the Month Club. The book begins with a young woman being expelled from her church and village upon her priest and family learning that she is pregnant out of wedlock. Through a little luck and a lot of perseverance, she makes her way to Dublin and finds both housing and work within a few weeks.

Next, we meet her son, who she has given up for adoption. He is adopted by a truly dysfunctional and loveless couple, who choose to adopt because they think they ought to, and who remind him ceaselessly that he is not "a real Avery." The book follows this boy as he grows into a young man and an adult, always curious about his origins, and (surprisingly) never bitter about his childhood.

At the same time that the book is a specific story about a specific man, it is also a meditation on Ireland, and all its prejudices and societal changes over several decades. I really enjoyed reading it, and it stuck with me for a long time.

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Review: The Immortalists

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I saw this book in the library, and the premise was intriguing: a set of siblings have their fortunes read, and each one learns the date of their death. With this information, they each make vastly different decisions about their lives, sometimes together, and sometimes in isolation. As the first few siblings die, the book raises some tricky questions about fate and free will, while remaining a compelling narrative with complex characters.

really liked the writing and the story, and appreciated that the storytelling itself let the questions about fate work themselves out.

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