Thursday, December 29, 2016

I'll Take You There by Wally Lamb

Reading Wally Lamb's work makes me nervous. Some of his books are on my lists of all time favourite reads (I Know This Much is True and Wishin' and Hopin'), some have been kind of mediocre for me (She's Come Undone and The Hour I First Believed) and I absolutely hated one (We Are Water).  After my disturbing experience with We Are Water, I was hesitant about reading any more of his work. However, when the synopsis showed that this book revived the characters from Wishin' and Hopin', I bought the book, hoping I'd love it as much as I loved Wishin' and Hopin'.

I didn't. But it wasn't as bad as We Are Water. So I put this one in his mediocre category for me.

Felix Funicello, who was a young boy in the first book, is now in his 60's and is a professor of film studies. He is divorced, and the father of a grown daughter, who is a writer in New York City. While preparing for his Monday night film club at a local theatre (restored to it's original beauty from its beginnings in the 1920's), he encounters the ghosts of Lois Weber, a pioneering film director and Billie Dove, an actress from the 20's. They present Felix with film reels, which hold the contents of his life. He is to watch these films, relive some painful parts of his past, and learn from them.

The book is a look at the struggles women have faced over time, what we have learned from our past, and how far we still need to go. At times it read like a feminism textbook. Some of the conversations seemed forced and unnatural. But it is important to consider how women at different levels of society have been treated over the years, and what our daughters will still be facing in the years to come. Aside from that, I was disappointed in the lack of the humour I experienced the first time I met these characters. But on the whole it is a good read, and I recommend it.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

I am a big fan of classic literature, but have somehow made it to this point in my life without having read anything by Jules Verne. The kids and I have been wanting to read this book for years, after hearing Doc and Marty talk about Jules Verne in Back to the Future 3. So we started it as our before bed read a couple of months back. One chapter at a time and we finished it earlier this week. We all loved it!

This is the story of Phileas Fogg and his servant, Passepartout, who embark on a journey around the world to settle a bet between Fogg and some of his friends. The book was published in 1873, so the idea of travelling around the world in so short a time was absurd. But Fogg was convinced he could do it, so he and Passepartout set off, leaving London behind them. Their adventure took them all around the world, using all kinds of means of travel, from elephant to ocean liner. They encounter lots of interesting characters in their journey, who add a lot of excitement to the trip. There is also a case of mistaken identity, which makes you wonder if Fogg truly is who you think he is. The ending was very exciting and had us on the edge of our seats. We couldn't wait to hear how it ended.

The language is a bit old fashioned, as you would expect from a book published in 1873. I had to paraphrase a few times, but on the whole we just loved it. Up next, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

There seems to be a lot of buzz about this book right now so I picked it up a while back with a gift card. It was on every list of the best books of 2016, and was recommended to me by the reading sites I use as something that would interest me.  So, I decided to read it.

Ugh. I did not enjoy this book. Granted, I was reading it during a very busy time for me (getting married and moving and trying to fit two houses into one) so maybe I wasn't in the best frame of mind to read right now. But I'm not sure there would ever be a time in my life when I would enjoy this book.

It is the story of the Plumb family, mainly focused on the eldest child, Leo, but including the stories of his siblings Beatrice, Jack and Melody as well. Their father had set up a trust fund (which they nicknamed "The Nest") for them that ended up growing beyond any of their expectations. There were each due to receive their share when the youngest child, Melody, turned 40. But a few months short of her 40th birthday, Leo was involved in a serious accident and "The Nest" was used as a legal settlement to avoid a big scandal. The rest of the family had been counting on receiving their share of the money soon, and had each gotten themselves into some financial trouble, counting on this money to come to their rescue.

The result of this is a bunch of entitled, unlikable characters. There are very few redeeming qualities in any of them. Beatrice is probably the most likable of them all, but none of them seemed to be all that interested in working for what they needed, everyone was hoping for a huge sum of money to mysteriously fall into their laps. It made it very hard for me to be interested in reading it at all, so it took me months to get through the book. The final third of the book moved along quickly, and I got through that quickly, but it took me months to get through the first two-thirds.

I'm still not sure where all they hype surrounding this book came from, but a lot of people seemed to like it. I am not one of those people!