Review: The Flight Attendant

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a pretty good, quick read. It's about an alcoholic flight attendant who wakes up in a hotel room in Dubai next to a man who is dead, covered in blood. She creeps out of the room, and begins lying - to her crewmates, to the police, and to everyone - and hopes to evade being connected to the murder. Naturally, that doesn't happen, and she finds herself swept up into the investigation. She was a sympathetic character and the plot moved quickly, but it wasn't a book I think I'll remember.

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Review: The Motherhood Affidavits: A Memoir

The Motherhood Affidavits: A Memoir by Laura Jean Baker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was a tough one to review. I have all the respect in the world for the author's writing style and honesty in her memoir. That aside, her life choices were difficult to stomach.

Baker and her husband live in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She is a professor and he is a lawyer. She suffers from depression, but discovers that the oxytocin that comes from being pregnant and breastfeeding seems to treat her mental illness. She decides (her husband more reluctantly) to continue having children far past what the couple can handle economically and mentally.

Interwoven with their story of economic distress, marital difficulties, and children - lots of children - are stories of the law firm that her husband runs. Patronized mostly by people living on the fringe and involved in the ever-worsening drug problems that plague the Midwest, his firm struggles to break even, let alone to support their growing family.

This story was frustrating, but as a memoir, it stands strong.

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Review: Fruit of the Drunken Tree

Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was spectacular. It takes place in Bogota, Colombia. The daughter of an affluent family strikes up an unlikely (but predictable) friendship with a young maid who comes to work in her home. The story alternates between their two points of view during the great political unrest of Bogota in the 1990's. It's devastating at times, as the girls don't understand the significance of many of the choices they make, and because there is a sense of determinism based on their classes that pervades the book. That said, it is a beautifully written book.

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Review: Priestdaddy: A Memoir

Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I kept seeing this one reviewed and finally picked it up. It is about a woman who grows up with a father who is a Catholic priest - I'll let you learn how that happened, but it was not nearly as scandalous as it could have been. If her childhood was unusual (which it was), her adulthood allows her to relive it, as she and her husband move back in with her parents after an economic setback. Told very humorously, and like all good memoirists, honestly, this book kept my attention.

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Review: An Ocean of Minutes

An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really inventive book. It is about a couple who is separated after a major flu epidemic, when the husband contracts the flu and the wife agrees to time travel forward to fund his getting the antidote. Naturally, her travel goes awry, and she lands in a dystopic future, unable to contact him. Reminiscent of The Heart Goes Last and Station Eleven, ultimately this was a love story of sorts.

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Review: Pachinko

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book on the recommendation of a synagogue friend. It was fascinating, with great characters and plotting. It was about several generations of Koreans during the Japanese annexation of Korea. The Koreans are left desolate and are ostracized; this family turns to several different avenues to survive.

I enjoyed getting to know more about that period of history. But most of all, I enjoyed getting to know the characters - and the family secrets that followed them.

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