Review: The Middlesteins

The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a really, really weird book. Meredith recommended it to me.

The story is about a woman who is obese. When her husband leaves her right as she's facing a medical emergency, there are ramifications for the entire family. The story jumps around in time, tracking her weight gain from when she is a child, through her career as a successful lawyer, through becoming a mother, and then as a grandmother. The story is told through many different perspectives, including her daughter-in-law, her children, her boyfriend, and even a unique chapter representing a group of couples that she and her husband knew socially for years through the synagogue. Some people try to help her lose weight, others enable her to continue gaining weight, and others just find her disgusting.

I thought the writing was really good in this book - simple and direct, but created moods and characters quickly and eloquently. All the characters were very well-developed, and the setting was too. Glad I read it.





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Review: Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital

Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I don't remember what list I originally found this on, but I thought it would be like reading the New York Times' "Well" column - clever and interesting anecdotes about a doctor at a large city hospital with quirky characters.

Not even close.

Manheimer is the Medical Director at Bellevue hospital, which is the oldest public hospital in the country, and yes, the one that has the psych ward featured on Law and Order. The stories he tells are much more complex politically and socially than I expected; they are less than about the medicine. There are illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, families with generations of obesity, convicts in Rikers Island, and even the author himself. (Manheimer suffered from throat cancer.) He and his wife have a house in Mexico and an affinity to Central America - and he uses that expertise with many of the patients who are Latino.

The book was significantly longer and more complex than I expected, but I really liked it.



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Review: Once We Were Brothers

Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I had very mixed feelings about this book that Jo recommended.

It was billed as a "legal thriller", and opens in the present time when a senior citizens accuses a prominent civic leader and philanthropist of being a Nazi war criminal. The story is told in the present time, but large sections of it are flashbacks to Poland in the 1940's, as the senior citizen is telling his lawyer the story. It is, like many stories about the Holocaust, both a very individual story as well as that of a whole nation. Jews in Poland begin the war optimistic, then end up in some of the worst conditions known to humankind.

This book read as if it were a YA book. If it is designed to be a pedantic piece of historical fiction, then it did a good job. But as a modern novel, or even a thriller, its characters were not well-developed and the plot was pretty transparent. Something like [b:The Book Thief|19063|The Book Thief|Markus Zusak|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1390053681s/19063.jpg|878368] was a YA book but so uniquely written that it had wide appeal. This book was not that - I was caught up in the story (at least the story of the war) but not the writing or the book itself.

As an aside, it was a good reminder of the importance of continuing to remember what happened during the Holocaust.



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Review: February

February by Lisa Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Found this book in the "Globe and Mail" list a few years ago and finally got around to requesting it from the library. It was very sad but I'm glad I read it.

The story is about a woman who loses her husband when an industrial rig sinks. She has several young children, who she raises on her own. The book toggled between current day, where one of her sons finds out he is about to become a father, and the months around when she lost her husband. The characters were very well-developed, and while the story was tragic (and the description of the drowning devastating), I enjoyed reading it. The main character was in particular was incredibly complex - she does a lot of reflection on what her life could have been or what may have happened, and accepting that she did the best she could.

I'd definitely read something else by Lisa Moore in the future.



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Review: Ordinary Grace

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Jo recommended this book to me. I am not sure - I think maybe the first chapter had been excerpted somewhere because it was eerily familiar. Either way, I liked it.

The story is about a minister's family, told from the point of view of 13-year-old Frank. He has an older sister and a younger brother, and the story unrolls over a summer. At the beginning of the summer, a young boy is killed and Frank goes with his father to learn more of the details. Throughout the summer, there are more people killed and the small community struggles with grief, racism, and accusation.

What I liked most about this book was that it was a coming-of-age story more than it was a mystery. Both Frank and his younger brother are shocked by the events of this summer and grown into young men. The story was really well-written, the characters sympathetic, and the story interesting.




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