Little Fires Everywhere

This book gets 3 little fires out of 5.
[The first photo is of a smouldering rose; the second is of two hands captured from above, lighting a piece of paper on fire; and in the third, a hand holds a slowly burning leaf.]

Still social distance, still trying to take advantage of the blogging and reading time. Also trying to adjust to working from home which is somehow incredibly productive and incredibly lazy all at the same time? I hope everyone is staying safe, trying to manage their anxiety during this crisis, and trying to find moments of creativity and joy.

  • Why did I pick this book up?

I had heard good things about this book. I can’t quite remember from where. In January, to prepare for the New Year, I did some research and wrote down a massive list of books I want to try and read. Some of it came from friends’ social media, some from random lists, and some from award lists. I am good at doing the research, but not so good at remembering the specifics; so I know that somehow this book wound up on my list. I also wanted to push myself to read books by authors I hadn’t read before, and having not read Celeste Ng’s debut novel, she fell into that category. Reese Witherspoon also said it made her cry, and Jodi Picoult loved it. Also a NYT Best Seller and with a jacket that stated “Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster” I was definitely intrigued.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

This book was a solid read. Nothing mind blowing; I didn’t cry like Reese Witherspoon, and I didn’t read it in a single setting like Jodi Picoult. But I did find Ng to be a good writer, perfectly serviceable, and her characters were interesting, if a bit reliant on stereotypes and character foils.

It is also a book that is mostly focused on the theme of motherhood, and seems to say contradictory things about family and what makes someone a parent. So I can’t tell how I feel about it totally. However, if you are someone who has children, and understands what that love truly feels like, this book may be more moving than it was to me.

But I would recommend this book if you like reading about seemingly perfect and normal suburban families. There was some interesting stuff about how people have a hard time accepting difference and diversity in their communities, even if that diversity is of opinion and lifestyle, and even if that community paints itself as being progressive.

I wouldn’t recommend this book if you hate books about artists (that would be a weird sort of category, but I once heard someone tell me they hated anything that wasn’t “masculine urban literature” because they couldn’t relate, which could be unpacked further but you get it, that guy was a douche) or stories told from multiple perspectives.

If you are in the mood for some late 90s early 2000s nostalgia vibes, this book is a good read; although I am a bit younger than the children in these books would be, I could definitely fondly recognize a lot of cultural moments as belonging to that idyllic pre-9/11 and now pre-Trump era.

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

As this story is told through many points of view, there are a lot of narrative arcs – I won’t go over them all. However, the most important part of the story is that this is about the collision of two families: the idyllic, cookie-cutter Richardson family (mom: Elena; dad: unimportant; children: Lexie, the eldest- Trip, the popular jock- Moody, the sensitive youngest son- and Izzy, the hard to manage daughter of fourteen), and the nomadic Warrens (composed of just artist mom Mia and daughter Pearl).

The story opens with the Richardson’s house burning to the ground, and the suspect, it seems, is Izzy. “How did we get here?” is essentially what the first chapter asks. So we then go back in time to earlier in the year, when Mia and Pearl arrive in Shaker Heights and start renting a small house from the Richardsons. Pearl and Moody immediately become fast friends and Pearl wants to spend all her time in the Richardson’s home which represents everything she is not used to: wealth, stability, routine, and parents who have ‘normal’ jobs. While Pearl is becoming more ensconced in the Richardson household, Izzy is drawn to Mia and her artistic spirit, quickly becoming her friend and assistant of sorts. While working at a Chinese restaurant, Mia meets Bebe, a young immigrant woman who eventually explains that she recently abandoned her baby on the steps of a firehouse as a result of poverty and disenfranchisement as a lonely immigrant. At the same time, we see that one of Elena’s friends, Linda McCullough, is in the process of adopting a baby with her husband. A baby that was found on the steps of a firehouse.

What ensues is a bitter custody battle between the McCullough’s and Bebe, a battle that exposes the white privilege and racism that prop up Shaker Heights. And what the custody battle also brings into question is the meaning of motherhood. Who gets to pick who is a parent and why? Is love enough?

Of course this custody battle pits the Richardsons against Mia Warren, as she sides with Bebe and even helps convince her that she deserves to pursue her maternal rights. In an effort to find something to discredit Bebe, Elena decides to dig up dirt on Mia. The justification isn’t actually sound, but it is obvious that Elena resents Mia for representing what she is not, what she maybe didn’t even know she could be of, and this is her reason for getting personal. We find out that no one knows anything about Pearl’s dad or Mia’s past in any great detail. Elena thinks it is hiding some sort of acrimonious past, or unwanted pregnancy.

In the meantime, Lexie gets pregnant by her highschool boyfriend, and gets an abortion with Pearl’s help, under Pearl’s name. Pearl starts having sex with Trip, hiding it from Moody who is obviously in love with her. DRAAAAMAAAA!

We the reader then discover everything about Mia’s past that Elena has been trying to figure out; Mia went to art school, was on track to be a famous photographer, but was broke as a joke. She is approached by some man who asks if she will be a surrogate for him and his wife. She agrees. She is heavily pregnant when her younger brother dies in a car accident. She shows up back home for the funeral without having given her parents any warning. They lose it, think she is essentially a prostitute, and are not reassured in the least when she essentially tells them she is selling her baby to a childless couple. After being disowned by her family, Mia feels so alone that she decides she is going to keep the baby, and run away. This is how Mia’s nomadic lifestyle begins. It is an interesting backstory, but also not quite as interesting or impactful as I expected it to be based on the buildup.

Eventually, Elena decides to see if Bebe has had an abortion, in a way to make her seem like even more of an unfit mother. Instead, she ‘discovers’ that ‘Pearl’ has had an abortion (it’s Lexie, but Elena doesn’t know this) and assumes that Pearl has been having sex with Moody (she guesses the wrong son, lol). She decides to confront Mia and use this information to blackmail Mia into leaving town with Pearl, in the hopes of ending Pearl’s relationship with her son. At the same time, a judge grants custody of the baby to the McCulloughs, siding with upright normative society, instead of with the marginalized mother. Bebe then kidnaps the baby and runs away to China, in a kind of commentary on motherhood and who has a right to a child? The message to me is a bit muddied, or maybe I just disagree with it? I’m not pro taking a woman’s baby – not one like Bebe in particular – but I’m also not of the mind that a biological bond is the most important thing. Adoption is fine and in a lot of circumstances, is the best option.

Mia and Pearl get ready to leave as Mia finally tells Pearl the truth about her past. After they leave, Izzy is heartbroken to discover they have left her, and feels betrayed by her entire family, viewing them as the cause for the Warren’s departure. She sets their house on fire. She literally burns it to the ground. It’s brief, but definitely the most badass moment of the book. She then leaves home, at the age of fifteen, to maybe link up with Mia and Pearl? This is of course her intent, but this is where the book ends, so we don’t know what happens to Izzy.

I decided to take this picture in front of a candle I have that looks like a succulent. Therefore, a little fire, not everywhere, but at least here. [It is a photo of a book in front of a bunch of plants the the aforementioned cute candle. The cover photo of the book shows an idyllic looking street and a few homogeneous houses, all bathed in a soothing yet somehow ominous blue light.]
  • Overall brain gushings :

I really enjoyed the parts of this book that described Mia’s artistic process, and all the ways in which photography can be manipulated. That was really educational, and the writing was always very crisp and vivid when discussing these moments.

I also loved the theme of not-belonging. Although Pearl wants nothing more than to belong, Mia is comfortable not-belonging and in fact seeks it out. I liked the viewpoint that to be conventional is not for everyone, and that not everyone’s lives and desires match up with other’s views of success and happiness. I grew up in a pretty nomadic family, and although there were times I craved stability like Pearl, in the end, I am incredibly grateful for this facet of my life, and there is nothing in me that envies the ‘perfect’ life of Elena Richardson.

I also really enjoyed reading about Izzy not-belonging to her family, and finding her belonging in other non-belongers. It was also nice to read about friendships and mentorships between teenagers and adults, as I find this is something that is not encouraged enough in society.

  • What does it mean?

Little Fires Everywhere is super concerned with the pull of being a mother. In this book, we see many women and the various ways in which they are pulled to motherhood. There isn’t a single character that isn’t pulled to it: even Lexie, who gets an abortion, seriously contemplates keeping it, and is clearly baby-crazy. Which is fine. But again, not a single woman is down to be childless. And also other than Mia’s photography mentor, there isn’t a single character that isn’t heterosexual. So that’s usually something that will bum me out, especially in conversations about parenthood.

The book also strives to expose the ways in which we can lie to ourselves about our own lives; we tell ourselves we are happy with our decisions, that we are powerless to control our lives, that we deserve certain things and not others, and that all these assumptions and lies stop us from living truly full lives.

Celeste Ng wants readers to see that imposing our belief systems and values onto other people’s lives and judging them to be lacking merely reflects our own shortcomings. We become blind to our selves and distort the reality of who and what people are. Elena Richardson has assumed all the wrongs things about Mia, and the lies she tells herself about the Warren family end up destroying her own family. And the saddest part? Elena is too focused on her own idea of success and happiness to realize that she is making some serious mistakes with regard to her family’s and her own happiness. Mia and Pearl, a little battered and bruised, will go on as they always have, and it is the Richardson’s who will be forever changed. And probably not for the better. The children are definitely traumatized, betrayed, and that’s not even counting the whole Izzy running away thing.

  • Favourite passages :

Although I am not a parent, I could really identify with this following passage, as someone who moved far away from her family right our of high school, I feel like I have had to wean myself from certain gestures of affection.

Now, as a teenager, Pearl’s caresses had become rare – a peck on the cheek, a one-armed, half-hearted hug – and all the more precious because of that. It was the way of things, Mia though to herself, but how hard it was. The occasional embrace, a head leaned for just a moment on your shoulder, when what you really wanted more than anything was to press them to you and hold them so tight you fused together and could never be taken apart. It was like training yourself to live on the smell of an apple alone, when what you really wanted was to devour it, to sink your teeth into it and consume it, seeds, core, and all.

Ng, pg 248-249.

This passage demonstrates Elena’s black and white thinking, and shows how this thinking can be dangerous and counterproductive to happiness and fulfilment. Here, Elena’s husband ponders the situation between Bebe and the McCullough’s:

For her [Elena] it was simple: Bebe Chow had been a poor mother; Linda McCullough had been a good one. One had followed the rules, and one had not. But the problem with rules, he reflected, was that they implied a right way and wrong way to do things. When, in fact, most of the time there were simply ways, none of them quite wrong or quite right, and nothing to tell you for sure which side of the line you stood on. He had always admired his wife’s idealism, her belief that the world could be made better, could be made orderly, could perhaps even be made perfect. For the first time, he wondered if the same held true for him.

pg 269.
  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

Before I get to my book recommendations, I wanted to mention as a random aside (and couldn’t find anywhere else to mention it, aka I forgot until now) that this book is being turned into a TV show? Has been turned into a TV show? And get this Reese Witherspoon (who if you forgot, said this book ‘made her cry’) is playing Elena Richardson! Which is pretty good and obvious type-casting, but also funny to me the Reese would read this book, and then want to be Elena! Anyways, I may actually consider watching it, because I am intrigued to see how they adapt this novel.

The most obvious recommendation would be a book I reviewed a few months ago, Harmony, which is a great story about raising difficult children and family dynamics in crisis.

Another amazing book about motherhood is Louise Erdrich’s The Bluejay’s Dance which is her non-fiction recounting of being pregnant and the beginnings of motherhood.

If you want to read a really thoughtful and critical book about motherhood and the ways in which society pressures women to fit into the role of mother, read Motherhood by Sheila Heti. It is an excellent book that is essentially a collection of essays that charts Heti’s changing thoughts on motherhood and femininity and she really articulates a lot of problems that I have navigating society’s expectations of me as a woman who likes kids, but doesn’t really want any.

Stay tuned for my next review; we are back to some great Can Lit with Megan Gail Coles’ amazing, heart-wrenching Newfoundland Gothic novel Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club. It’s a long title, but if a book’s worth was determined by length of title, I wouldn’t take away a single word.

Catch and Kill Review

Huge trigger warning concerning this book, as it deals with Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults, and the widespread misogyny and sexual assaults found in the entertainment and news media industry.

This book gets 4.5 freaky surveillance cameras out of 5. This photo technically only has 4 cameras in it, but the implication being that they are everywhere, I’m going to say there is half a camera hiding in this photo somewhere.
[This photo is stylized with bisexual lighting (that means pink, purple and blue woo I’m cool I know things) and just shows 4 cameras on a variety of walls, watching your every move.]

This crazy COVID19 pandemic means that most of Ontario, Canada is shut down right now. If you can stay at home, please do. Perks of staying at home: lots of time to blog and lots of time to read which in turn leads to more blogging. So I’m going to be grateful for this pandemic-imposed isolation and let my creative and critical juices flow. I have no time-frame for posting now, but hopefully can crank out another post before going back to work!

  • Why did I pick this book up?

I picked this book up because a lot of people I know have been buzzing about this book. After months of hearing about this book, and being steeped in the reality of the events from the book unfolding in almost real-time in our newsfeeds, I decided, enough was enough. The Harvey Weinstein trial was just beginning, and even though I already believed him to be guilty based on a myriad of factors I won’t even begin to unpack here, I wanted to see the proof for myself. I expected Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators to be a fact-filled book that laid out Farrow’s investigative research into Weinstein and the accusations around him. I definitely did not expect Catch and Kill to be this and a thrilling and sometimes scary spy novel! There were many times reading this book that I kept thinking “no one could make this shit up, because no one would think this is realistic.” And that is what is wild about this book! Because it is real! He has so much proof!

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

It’s a resounding hell yeah I would recommend this book! Farrow’s writing is riveting, insightful, and the pace of the book is wound tight, keeping you on edge. Even when he has to go into some context, explain the makeup of some organization, detail some executive’s past, it all serves to show the insidious ways in which these predators infiltrate communities and prey on vulnerable people. And they all help each other in some way. Covertly or overtly, all these predators know on some level what the other predators are doing, and they know that they all have each others’ backs. They all value the same thing in life, and that is power and how that power makes them feel.

I would not recommend this book if you are an incel I guess, because this will not jive with your overall worldview, but also why are you reading my blog then? *Casts a banishing spell*

Ok, that’s better. Anyways, even though non-fiction can sometimes be dry and boring, that is definitely not the case! Even knowing in an overall sense ‘what happens next’ in the book did not take away from how exciting and suspenseful it was. If you only know the Weinstein sexual assault aspect of this case, and not the surveillance and overall societal/industry cover-up of these and other similar crimes, then you don’t know half the story! I thought I knew a lot, and turns out I was only seeing the tip of the iceberg!

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

The book covers so much ground that I can’t even begin to hope to summarize it fully and properly. But basically we get a bit of Farrow’s backstory, how he is working for NBC and wants to be a tv journalist. He is doing a series of stories on Hollywood, and gets a lead on sexual assaults in the business. In the meantime, we also see the parallel investigation into the investigation into these sexual assaults that is being done by some scary, vaguely Russian men. This is all stuff that Farrow has obviously uncovered after his initial investigations, and seeing how Farrow goes from slightly paranoid to full on believing he is being followed, to actually having proof that he was being followed on a scale much crazier than he could have imagined, make this book feel like a spy novel. That’s basically what it is at its core, with sexual assault as the underpinning motive, and the fact that this is not a novel, it’s real life. Which makes it crazier than spy novel out there.

Essentially, Farrow’s leads grow from one, to two, to four, and exponentially from there, and all the victims have something, or rather someone, in common: Harvey Weinstein. While reporting, Farrow also comes up against a lot of resistance, and in some cases outright hostility and manipulation, from most of his superiors. People who are supposed to have journalistic integrity.

Eventually, Farrow’s investigation comes to have the significance and potential danger of a bomb, and he is fired from NBC. He takes his reporting to the New Yorker, and also discovers Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s own investigation into Weinstein. Along the way, we discover that basically 90% of Hollywood has heard or witnessed some crazy gross behaviour from this man, but no one really ever does anything. Except for the amazing and courageous women who come forward to denounce his actions.

The great thing about reading this book when I did was that I happened to read this just as the trial was unfolding, and got to see the tangible results of these journalists’ work. More on that below.

On a typical weekday, the parking lot behind the book in this photo would be totally full. We are on lockdown. Stay healthy people!
[There are only a few cars in the parking lot. The book cover has a drawing of a hand zipping a mouth shut. The title is spread across the black cover in huge, intimidating white font.]
  • Overall brain gushings :

This book proves that not only is Ronan Farrow a brave and excellent researcher and interviewer, he is a great writer.

One of the most terrifying aspects of this book was the ways in which so many people who seemed to be allies, or seemed to believe victims, proved to be abusers and their various actors. I’d like to give Lisa Bloom a special garbage human shout-out for being the fucking most despicable example of someone who purported to be a victim advocate using their own privilege to undermine and benefit from victims’ abuse. Fuck that lady. Also all the NBC executives who tried – and failed I’d like to point out snarkily – to make it impossible for Farrow to do his job.

The second scariest thing about Catch and Kill was to see the ways in which the dystopian surveillance state apparatus we imagine in worlds like 1984 and Neuromancer are actually being deployed by wealthy and influential individuals. Spy agencies and PR agencies work in tandem to protect the powerful, and to help abusers find and suppress victims. Jesus it is scary. I could go on for a million years about this book, but basically, read it because it is interesting and covers way more than what any media surrounding the trials has covered. Also, if you know me in real life, we can talk about this for as long as you like.

  • What does it mean?

It means Harvey Weinstein is fucking guilty. In a beautiful fashion, I finished reading Catch and Kill, vindicated in my opinion of his guilt, reeling at the sheer volume of proof against him, knowing that no argument would lessen his guilt in my mind. Farrow brought receipts! Stacks of em! And then, just a few days later, a jury of his peers found him guilty! For once! Then, to further emphasize the real concrete impact this book has had, Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

Catch and Kill means that maybe, for some men who have been abusing their power for so long, thinking that they would get away with their behaviour forever, because they had been getting away with it forever, well… Time’s up, baby.

  • Favourite passages :

O. M. G. I almost died the first time Matt Lauer made an appearance in this book. Firstly because it is one of the first examples we have of how far-reaching and insidious this behaviour is, but secondly, because of how it ends:

As I reached the door, he said wryly, ‘Don’t let us down. I’ll be watching.’

‘You want this closed?’ I asked.

‘I’ve got it,’ he said. He pushed a button on his desk. The door swung shut.

Farrow, pg 23.

This is some spy communication that Farrow gets access to when one of the Russian spies decides to become a double agent and give him a bunch of files; I could not make this up if I tried. Also, this passage is where we see the beginning of Lisa Bloom’s fucking shady game, making me say “I don’t buy your shitty apology, bitch”.

It observed that I was ‘a fan’ of Lisa Bloom, appearing to assess her level of access to me. And it described my attempts to get in touch with Judd, Sciorra, and Arquette. The email analyzed the likelihood that each of them would talk. It flagged any public statements the women had made about sexual violence as a warning sign.

pg 85.

Here we see just how little we all really know about Weinstein. I’m telling you, this guy is the new Cosby, but without the drugs to incapacitate women. Instead, Weinstein used professional power and credibility to silence and manipulate these women. I ain’t even going to get started on anything his lawyer said during his trial, because that lady is the shittiest of all the shitty ladies.

She took out an iPhone and navigated to a sentence she’d jotted down in her Notes app a few years earlier. It was something Weinstein whispered – to himself, as far as she could tell – after one of his many shouting sprees. It so unnerved her that she pulled our her phone and tapped it into a memo, word for word: ‘There are things I’ve done that nobody knows.’

pg 110.

Here is a passage that really drove home that we as a society are missing out on the most important aspect of this whole situation; the victims’ emotional pain and trauma.

The renderings of these stories that were ultimately published in The New Yorker were precise and legalistic. They made no attempt at communicating the true, bleak ugliness of listening to a recollection of violent rape like Sciorra’s. Her voice caught. The memory erupted in ragged sobs. You heard Annabella Sciora struggle to tell her story once, and it stayed inside you forever.

pg 303.
  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

I haven’t read it yet, but I’m sure She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey is also incredibly excellent and informative on this topic, as they are the two female journalists who broke the story for the NYT mentioned by Farrow many times in this book.

If you want to read another big-deal non-fiction book about women facing sexual harassment in the workplace, then Anita Hills 1997 Speaking Truth to Power is a good read.

If instead, you are looking for fiction that deals with the topic of sexual assault and the twisted ways in which our loyalties can be pulled, then I would recommend Zoe Whittall’s The Best Kind of People. Although not set in Canada explicitly, it does feel like it could be happening in the suburbs of Toronto, and Whittall is Canadian! Always managing to squeeze in a shoutout for my compatriots! Another great recommendation in terms of books that deal with sexual assault (what a weird category to be commenting on, seriously) also happens to be my favourite book, which is the controversial Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I could and am usually expected to defend this choice, but if you can’t understand the subtleties of the book and the fact that me saying I think it is one of the best books every does not mean I am endorsing paedophilia or even agree that Lolita is a love story, then what even is the point of wasting my time. But seriously, you should real it because it is good and uncomfortable in a way that courageous art should be.

Stay tuned for my next review, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. This book was part of Reese Witherspoon’s book club, and she raved that it ‘made her cry’. Will it make me cry? I can be a big crybaby, so read on to find out!

The Testaments Review

This book gets 2 brown sack dresses that the Aunts wear in Gilead out of 5. I thought this stack of sacks of coffee was a pretty accurate visual representation of what they look like without subjecting me to copyright infringement.
[As the caption suggests, this is a picture of a pile of brown coffee sacks. They look worn and would make itchy dresses.]
  • Why did I pick this book up?

You guys, I picked this book up because The Handmaid’s Tale has been having a moment for like three years now. I read the OG book when I was a young teen and loved it, am a somewhat fan of the show, and kept seeing posters for this damn book everywhere!

My partner also very thoughtfully gifted me this book for Christmas, so I was just so excited and ready to dive into this book. I am typically a fan of Atwood’s work: I don’t love it all, and to be frank I have a tendency to like her older work. But, since this was a sequel to her old work, and something I loved, I was super excited.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

Although I didn’t enjoy this book a ton, I would recommend it as like an entertaining read that isn’t going to require a lot of work. It’s a good book if you’re on a train or something like that.

I would recommend this book to you if you are a fan of the show the Handmaid’s Tale, but not a big fan of the book. I personally liked the ambiguity of the original book – I liked that we didn’t know if June actually escaped or not, if she had been betrayed or not. I also liked the ambiguity of whether the Colonies actually existed, or were merely a piece of propaganda to control people in Gilead.

Now, the show totally obliterated this ambiguity, and honestly that is probably my biggest issue with the show (that and its tendency to get a little torture-pornish). So, since The Testaments takes the events of the show to be true and what happens in this universe, the ambiguity of The Handmaid’s Tale (the novel) is not to be found. So again, this could be either a selling point to you, or a detriment.

Part of my dislike of this book also lies with the fact that there are so many Atwood books that I have enjoyed more, as demonstrated in my Alias Grace review, and the knowledge and expectation that I could have enjoyed this book so much more definitely hurt its overall score, and made my criticisms a tad more vitriolic than they would have been with a different author. I had expectations Margaret!

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

Now, this story is told from the point of view of three women; we quickly discover one of them is the famed Aunt Lydia, and the other two are some sort of peripheral girls (who eventually become aunts), only identified by their “witness testimony” number. Now, this led me to believe that maybe these women had conspired against Gilead and been caught, and that they were being persecuted and held up as an example to the women of Gilead of what not to do. However, it quickly becomes clear that instead, these women make it OUT of Gilead, and these testimonies are their record of what happened in Gilead. This was interesting, but quickly lowered the stakes for me, as I knew these women had to be successful for their testimonies to be collected and preserved.

Anonymous woman 1 (known as Agnes) is revealed to be the ‘daughter’ of a high-ranking Commander and his wife. We quickly discover that she is not their biological daughter, and that her biological mother is hunted by Gilead. It is pretty easy to connect the dots and realize that Agnes is June’s first daughter, the one she was separated from before the events of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Anonymous woman 2 (known as Daisy) is a young girl living in Canada. Her parents run a secondhand clothing store. She doesn’t have a lot in common with them. It becomes really easy to deduce that she is the escaped Baby Nicole, or June’s second baby that is spirited out of Gilead by June and Serena Joy in the TV show. I felt like Atwood was putting clues about Daisy’s lineage way too much, because I figured it out as soon as we saw we had a character in Canada, and after Baby Nicole got mentioned a few times just felt like, “ok I get it, just actually give me the reveal because I’ve figured it out”.

This is one of those weird books where a lot of stuff happens, but also not a lot happens? It’s very plot driven, as opposed to character driven, and apart from Lydia, the characters are mostly responding to events around them, or having things done to them, rather than being active participants. This means I’m going to gloss over a lot of stuff.

But basically, Baby Nicole/Daisy’s fake parents get killed in a bomb, obviously placed by Gilead. This is when Daisy learns that she is actually Baby Nicole, and that Mayday (the resistance group, remember them?) has an operative in Gilead sending them a ton of insider information and documents. Aparently, their way of transmitting information is compromised or something, because the source demand that Baby Nicole be delivered to Gilead, given a ton of documents on a microdot implanted in her arm, and then extracted. We easily realize that this mystery source is Aunt Lydia! Surprise, this whole time Aunt Lydia has just been trying to get powerful to dismantle Gilead from within!

Baby Nicole makes in into Gilead as a ‘Pearl Girl’ who are like Gilead’s missionaries and Aunts in training. There she meets Agnes (who if you are not keeping track, is her half sister, DUN DUN DUN!) who is training to be an Aunt. As soon as this happens, Lydia reveals herself to Agnes and Nicole as conspiring against Gilead, and explains Nicole’s identity to Agnes. Then she tells them that they must escape with these documents and hopefully bring about the downfall of Gilead.

Then there is a bit of a thrilling ish escape (where we basically get to see what is only hinted at in The Handmaid’s Tale – escaping Gilead and the routes that mimic the Underground Railroad) and then Agnes and Nicole make it to Canada, where they see June, their mom. Then the book ends, and we get an epilogue that mimics the epilogue of The Handmaid’s Tale; it is an academic conference on the topic of Gilead, this one held a year after the one we read about in the first book. There is the usual commentary that society has not changed much, the idea that fascism and regimes can be dismantled from within, and the notion that we must learn from history. The end. Praise be, under his eye, it is over. Blessed be the fruit that is moving on to a better dystopian series.

Because I have been swamped at work, instead of a cool thematic background to the book you just get me holding it in my cubicle because the time has come to update this damn blog.
[This is a picture of The Testaments: the cover is mostly black, with a graphic of a woman in a white wimple and green cloak. Over this woman is the silhouette of a woman with arms upraised, perhaps in rebellion?]
  • Overall brain gushings :

Here are my overall thoughts about why this book pales in comparison to the OG tale, starting with my least favourite thing; like the show, this book kills all the ambiguity I loved in The Handmaid’s Tale. I loved not knowing if June lived past the first text, I loved not knowing if the colonies were real or propaganda, and I especially loved not knowing Aunt Lydia and other nefarious characters’ motivations or true allegiances! I was seriously bummed at the way in which this book killed Aunt Lydia’s complexity. Sometimes, people are evil. Sometimes, people want power. Sometimes, people will betray the very communities they belong to to achieve their means. And sometimes, those people are women. I also thought that Aunt Lydia’s idea of dismantling Gilead from within was sort of dumb, and obscured the reality that even Lydia wasn’t willing to admit to herself: she did everything out of the selfish need for survival. Then, she probably felt guilty and decided she needed to change her ways. To me, this is more interesting, and less naive. So why the hell did Atwood make the character choices she did?

Also, while The Handmaid’s Tale is a story about bearing witness to survival, about what people will go through to survive, and the ones who decide survival is not enough, The Testaments is a just an action tale about resisting an oppressive regime. There isn’t even much ideological depth or exploration, and instead of a poignant narrative about humanity and the desire to live, we get a somewhat exciting escape narrative. Which is fine if that is what you came for. That is not what I came to the narrative world of Gilead for.

  • What does it mean?

Ok. Well, obviously this book means that being a theocratic dystopia is bad. There’s a lot of interesting stuff about the ties that bind people: are we bound by experience, by gender, by familial ties, by belief?

This book also means that even in the face of desperation, of what seems like a totally dystopian reality, there is room for hope. Dictatorships and horrible regimes have been overthrown, and can be again. So to those of us who have been incredibly depressed by the cheeto known as Trump, it’s not over until the results of the 2020 election! And if he wins, I guess we have to pray that a high-ranking woman will pull an Aunt Lydia and try and burn it all to the ground?

And not to state the ridiculously evident, but the book wants us to realize the dangers of viewing women as property, drawing comparisons between the infringements on women’s reproductive rights and the all-too-scary-because-it-could-be-the-future Republic of Gilead.

  • Favourite passages :

Oddly enough for a Atwood book, I had very few passages flagged as interesting or impactful; again, see my rating for this book.

I was at the age at which parents suddenly transform from people who know everything into people who know nothing.

Atwood, pg 44.

To my parents, I apologize for being like Baby Nicole as a teenager and thinking you knew nothing.

Every woman wanted a baby, said Aunt Estee. Every woman who wasn’t an Aunt or a Martha, said Aunt Vidala, what earthly use were you if you didn’t have a baby?

pg 81.

The Testaments obviously follows a lot of interesting themes that The Handmaid’s Tale is interested in, and this is probably the clearest indication we have of Gilead’s core beliefs about women and how they subjugate them.

“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”

pg 294.

I found this passage really moving and interesting with regard to the different reactions that people will have in the face of crisis and oppression. Will we live? Will we join the bad guys to try and dismantle it from within? Is just living enough? What is more brave? What has a better chance of affecting real change?

  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

I mean, if you haven’t read it yet, go read The Handmaid’s Tale! All the things I dislike about The Testaments lies largely in how great Handmaid is and it never needed a sequel! I hate sequel and remake culture, argh, make it stop!

If you want an excellent read about the sexual subjugation of women, and the lessons we can take from history, read Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Another great feminist-dystopia that I’m pretty sure I’ve recommended before is Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower.

I haven’t read this book yet, but it is going on my to-read list right now; Naomi Alderman’s, The Power, which is apparently about a world where women can harm people just by touching them, and the ways in which women begin to enjoy this dangerous new-found dominance.

Stay tuned for my next review, Ronan Farrow’s explosive Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators. A little bit of a trigger warning as this is Farrow’s account of his various investigations into sexual assaults in media and politics.

Moving Review

This book gets 1 old house out of 5. This house should look more ominous, but all the photos of ominous houses were small houses, and I decided that a big rich person house was more important. The point being that luxurious, beautiful facades can actually be the most false and misleading ones.
[There is a beautiful, light yellowish Gothic-inspired house sitting amidst some green trees.]
  • Why did I pick this book up?

A few months back, I got some books at the bookstore on their infamous 3/$10 table. This was the last book from that pile. Honestly, I was pretty excited for it, but had left it til last because it was the longest, and I had read a ton of long books in the past few months.

It was also right before Christmas, and I knew that I would be able to go get some new books soon, so I figured that again, should read what I already own.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

As evidenced by my rating, I did not like this book. Typically, I would not recommend books I did not enjoy. So that goes for this book as well.

I would not recommend this book because it was asinine as hell, the big reveal and payoff was so not worth it, and the characters were dumb and annoying. Also the metaphors this writer used at times were actually goddamn insane and left me laughing in confusion. So I guess that could be a reason to read the book; have a laugh!

Actually, I recommend this book if you are wondering how NOT to write a book. If you have a kind of cool story percolating in your head, read this book first and ask yourself “is my story more interesting than this one?”

If the answer is “no,” then DO NOT WRITE A BOOK WITH THAT STORY. If it’s more interesting than Moving, it may not necessarily be a good book, but it will definitely be better and more interesting than Moving so that could be a great argument to convince a publisher to give it a go?

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

So this story is told in a non-linear manner, and from three different point of views. I will give a brief overview.

The book starts with Edwina, an old lady who lives by herself in a big house that is quickly falling into disrepair. We learn that Edwina was widowed young, with two twins, Rowena and James. She remarries a man who has a son around the same age as her twins, Lucas. Her step-son hates her and his dad’s new family, which like, fair. He’s a damn child, he’s supposed to be childish. I’m trying to think of what details are relevant, because honestly there is a lot of tedium. I’d say Edwina’s section is the most interesting because she is an unreliable narrator by virtue of her impending dementia and also has some commentary on how shitty and hard it was to be an independent career woman in the “good old days”.

We realize that Edwina is essentially totally alone: her second husband has been dead for years, her daughter Rowena is estranged, and James is dead. We go through their sordid and twisted pasts; James was always a troubled and troubling child who goes to a boarding school and blows the whistle on a teacher who molests his students. This is not portrayed with nearly enough seriousness in my opinion. There is an “incident” that is alluded to the whole time, but we don’t know what it is, and other than knowing that James dies young, we do not find out any details at this point.

The next point of view is from a girl named Fern. She sucks and is my least favourite. She is some rich girl who goes to acting school and befriends/starts fucking James even though she is engaged to some boring military dude. She has a cousin who is also a rich girl and loves to party and do drugs. James goes to some posh party with this cousin, gives her drugs, and she dies from an accidental overdose. This, we discover, is the dreaded incident the book has been hinting at this whole time. James goes to jail for negligence or manslaughter or some shit, just as Fern discovers that she is pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is.

The last section is in Lucas’ point of view. Here, we discover that he is the reason James went to jail: he saw James give the rich girl drugs, and reported it to the police when she died. So, he was a good Samaritan realistically. Like, not a villain in my opinion. We also learn that his parents’ divorce affected him so terribly because his mother tried to commit suicide as a result, and this is the root cause for his hatred of Edwina and her children. We learn that James remained a drug addict after he left prison, eventually dying in Thailand from a drug overdose before he is thirty.

Lucas is now a grown-up and wants to atone/is tormented by guilt for his actions. So eventually he goes to Edwina and apologizes. We learn that Rowena is a lesbian (apparently that was what made her so ‘weird’ which as a queer person just gtfo also how is this Rowena’s only character trait other than being studious I’m over this book’s character development) and living in Australia, estranged from Edwina because she blames Rowena for James’ death. Edwina decides that she wants to reconnect with her daughter. The book thankfully ends.

  • Overall brain gushings :

Readers, this book is actually insane. Also we don’t get any insight into the more interesting characters; the narration is told from the point of view of the three worst and most annoying characters in the book, which is saying something. Why don’t we get any actual insight into James? Or Rowena? So lame.

Also, the climatic betrayal/secret reveal is so underwhelming! I get it, blaming your step-brother for a tragic death and testifying in court for his criminal case is shitty, but it isn’t actually even that shitty. Particularly when James is sort of to blame for the socialite’s death! Why shouldn’t he experience some form of punishment? Just because he is a rich, handsome, white boy? NO! It’s not like Lucas then made James relapse and die of a drug overdose. If anything, Moving seems to make it seem like this outcome may have been inevitable and had nothing to do with Lucas. I get it family dynamics are complicated, and this was a messed up one, but by giving us so much of Lucas’ backstory and motivations, his actions as a boy are quasi-justified, and he comes off as a sympathetic character worthy of pity! So there isn’t even a good antagonist! And the whole “no one is totally evil” thing is a good concept, but to me did not read as interesting or rewarding. Get rid of the two tragic deaths at the hand of drugs and this story is not special or intriguing at all. And in fact, with the opioid crisis what it is today in North America, two deaths at the hands of drugs is sadly not very out of the norm, and I feel no sympathy reading about two rich kids accidentally overdosing when there is a much more real and unjust drug crisis happening in our very backyards. I’d rather read an interesting commentary on that!

This book was so over the top and at the same time boring and bad, that I took a photo of it in my sad work cubicle, in front of phones that never get used because that is how this book made me feel.
[A hand holds the book Moving in front of a grey carpet and some old office supplies. The most interesting part of the cover is the tagline “A family home, filled with secrets. For Sale.”]
  • What does it mean?

So apparently Jenny Eclair is like a celebrity author type lady that does the rounds on talkshows and has a really loyal following, and this book received a ton of reviews gushing about “the realistic characters” and the “layered” plot and the depth of the themes of family and betrayal that it discussed… So it could mean a lot of great things.

I really did not like this book, but I can still acknowledge that it is a book that highlights the sad fact that our relationships with people are largely based on our own perceptions, and that we get in the way of truly connecting with people because of resentment and a bitterness we are too afraid to face.

There were also some interesting meditations on what it means to have our identities constructed around memories and experiences when our memory and recollections start to fade. And even before our memories fade and warp, can they really be trusted? Are they ever unbiased? The answer is a clear no.

I would like to point up that I was, not to be too dramatic, shocked and appalled by the raving reviews online by readers for this book. I get that opinions vary, but I kept thinking, did we read the same book?!

  • Favourite passages :

There are no such thing as favourite passages in this book, but what I present to you dear reader, is much more enjoyable; instead we have the most bat-shit metaphors and turns of phrases in this book! Seriously, some of these straight up made me uncomfortable!

This passage is actually the epitome of jaw-droppingly bizarre and terrifying and I actually had to put the book down, wondering what human, especially what human woman could write this:

She doesn’t know how Jill does it. She’s obviously besotted with Rob but she can still eat, whereas Fern can barely choke down three grains of rice at a time. Under the table, her vagina beats as if she has a spare heart tucked away down there.

Eclair, pg 175

EEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!! What in tarnation is that paragraph?! A spare heart down there?! Also why are we moving from talking about her appetite to talking about her PULSATING VAGINA?! I know this was supposed to be sexy or like erotic or something, but I nearly died. As someone who has a vagina, and actually likes vaginas that are not my own, I found this description to make my skin crawl! Ew ew ew.

Sandra, who play the oldest Prozorova sister, doesn’t believe in using deodorant or shaving her underarms.

It’s a good job her dress has sleeves, thinks Fern. My mother might pass out at the sight of a lady exposing her underarm hair! She wouldn’t believe it; she’d think she was keeping a gerbil under each armpit.

Fern’s hands are shaking so much she can barely pin her hair into a bun, a bun which she has been practicing putting into place on a much more regular basis than her diaphragm.

pg 154

A gerbil?! I get it, this is meant to show that Fern’s mom is super judgemental and conservative, but could this scene have been written any more horrifically? There are just literally a million better ways to show this, or even to comment on a woman’s body hair, but I am so over Fern and her weird fucking narrative voice that is also judgemental but thinks she’s not, and is grossly horny in the most innapropriate moments. I’m no prude, but I’m tired of reading about her mean mom one second, and then how she can’t stop thinking about sucking cock! A literal quote!

Also, you should be practicing putting a bun in more often than a diaphragm! I get that this is supposed to be foreshadowing that Fern is bad with birth control, but Jesus, what a bad comparison and what a stupid way to foreshadow what turns out to be pretty important to the plot!

Also I’m done picking crazy passages because it would basically be me quoting most of the things Fern thinks or does, as well as some pretty choice passages from Lucas and Edwina.

  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

If you liked my review and want to read an actually engaging tale about family secrets and family stories, read Michael Ondaatje’s semi-autobiographical text Running in the Family. A book about memories, and how stories are changed by their teller, this is Ondaatje’s tour de force in my opinion. It also blends prose with poetry and photographs, making it a multi-layered text that changes every time you engage with it.

Another good read about family dynamics, the ties between siblings, and how trauma can affect a whole family structure, I cannot recommend On the Shores of Darkness, There is Light by Cordelia Strube enough. This book is one of the most beautiful books I’ve read, and is also Canadian literature, so that’s great!

Stay tuned for my next review, the much-anticipated new book by Margaret Atwood, The Testaments. Will I like this book? Will I hate it? Will it live up to The Handmaid’s Tale? The answer to all of these questions is NO! Read on to see why!

Good Omens Review

This book gets 4 bitching classic cars out of 5. I’d like to think Crowley would gladly drive any of these.
[This gallery is a collection of four images of classic cars: one red convertible, a gold car, a green convertible, and a beautiful dark blue Cadillac.]
  • Why did I pick this book up?

This is yet another book I have wanted to read for a long time. I am a very big fan of Neil Gaiman’s work, from his novels to his graphic novels, and I also love Terry Pratchett (I played Magrat in a community theatre production of his Wyrd Sisters in highschool). After reading some pretty depressing and frankly not great books, I decided that I would give the funny book by two writers who have proven themselves to me a chance.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

Hell yeah I would recommend this book! If you like funny, irreverent books that will make you laugh on literally every page, this is the book for you! This is not the book for you if you have a genuine fear and belief in the Apocalypse in its Biblical sense, as I guess this could be considered offensive?

I would also recommend it if you want something quasi-fantasy, quasi-sci fi, and completely nutty. If you are a fan of either Gaiman or Pratchett, what are you waiting for?! Read this damn book!

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

Basically, this books takes place in the 90s in England. We meet Aziraphale, an angel, and Crowley, a demon. Although they are literally polar opposites, destined to be eternal enemies, we quickly see that they are totally buddies and secret BFFs.

They are told by their respective bosses (God and Satan) that the Apocalypse is near, and that they must begin their efforts to bring it about, as the Antichrist is about to be born.

Crowley and Aziraphale really like their lives on Earth, and don’t really want this to end. They decide to keep an eye on the Antichrist, baby Warlock, in the hopes that they will be able to sabotage the Apocalypse. However, it turns out that due to a comedy of errors, Warlock is not the Antichrist; there was a switch at the hospital, and the baby named Warlock is just a regular baby, while the Antichrist is ironically named Adam and sent to live with a super boring super normal British family, instead of with the American Ambassador (also funny!).

Eleven years pass, and it is now time for the Apocalypse and for the Four Horsemen to ride. Cue hardcore Queen playing.

Basically there is a bunch of silly stuff that goes on with the attempt to locate the Antichrist by Arizaphale and Crowley, as well as a subplot involving a witch hunter and a psychic granddaughter of the psychic that properly predicted the End of Times, Agnes Nutter.

The world descends into chaos as the Four Horsemen, Death, Famine, War, and Pollution (who, in an interesting commentary, replaces Pestilence) meet up and seek out Adam.

In the meantime, Adam wants to rule the world, as any 11 year old boy would. However, he realizes that if the world ends, if he brings it about by accepting his absolute power, he will not be able to hang out with his friends and live his boy life. So he decides to end the Apocalypse. He gets grounded by his dad, Aziraphale and Crowley are happy the world still exists so they can enjoy food and fancy cars, and the psychic feels liberated by no longer living her life according to a set of wacky and hard to decipher prophecies.

Also maybe there will be a second Apocalypse in the future but who knows.

I didn’t have time to take a picture of my book, but this is the copy that I own and I find the tagline to be perfect: “Heaven to read, and you’ll laugh like hell”.
[This is a picture of a black book with three ‘men’ drawn on the front. One is obviously Crowley, and the other Aziraphale, and maybe the third man is the witch hunter? He seems to old to be Adam. “Good Omens” sprawls across the page, and the letter ‘M’ ends in a devil’s tail.]
  • Overall brain gushings :

This book was so funny. On every page I found something that made me actually LOL. There was a lot of hilarious and snide commentary on human beings and what makes them tick, as well as a lot of poking fun at the contradictions in religion.

I especially liked all the parts that dealt with Famine and the hilarious commentary on people’s obsession with weight and food.

Also I found it really intriguing to consider that this book was written as a collaboration, and found myself wondering who had written what, how the writing process had unfolded, and just exactly how the book all came together. The work was very seamless and I found it incredibly entertaining and impressive to see the product of this partnership.

Also there were a lot of hilarious passages that show the fallacies of humans, and also the funny ways that kids think.

  • What does it mean?

Good Omens has a lot of interesting observations on religion and humanity, and one of my favourites is that humans actually create much more pain and suffering for themselves and each other than demons or angels could ever dream up. Crowley is constantly fascinated at the horrors humans manage to invent.

Good Omens is evidently concerned with ideas of free will and predestination, but it can be hard to say exactly what the book is trying to say about it, as it seems mostly concerned with undermining typical attitudes and perceptions of free will and religion, while infusing everything in the text with an amazing aura of total ridiculousness.

Simultaneously, the book deals with how humans are afraid of the unknown, and yet the character of Anathema Device shows that knowing things can be a burden. In fact, the unknown is the beauty of being alive.

You know what else this book means? I think it means that sometimes reading should just be good entertainment! Here is a book that is well-written and funny, pokes fun at an institution and belief system that has a hold over most people, and maybe that is sort of enough! I don’t have to get a deep insight from this book, because if anything this book demonstrates that some of the deep insight we credit certain texts with (cough Bible cough) are unwarranted, and that stories are exactly that; narratives for entertainment and that allow humans to relate to one another.

  • Favourite passages :

Eventually I stopped flagging my favourite passages because I was seriously flagging something on every page. However, I obviously have to include some excerpts, as I think Gaiman and Pratchett’s humour is the most convincing way to get you to read this book!

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.”

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn’t have any alternative. But he hoped it was a long way off. Because he rather liked people. It was major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do to themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination.

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

“If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying ‘THIS IS IT!’? … I mean, why do that if you really don’t want them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it’s all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you’ve built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can’t be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire.”

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

Read anything by Christopher Moore, especially Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal which, as the title gives away, is the untold story of Jesus’ ‘lost’ years. Irreverent towards the Bible and funny af, it has a lot in common with Good Omens.

If you liked this book or my review, also consider reading anyh of Terry Pratchett’s work, particularly his Discworld series.

Stay tuned for my next review Moving, by Jenny Eclair, a tale about a home and the secrets it can hold. Spoiler, I thought this book was dumb and asinine so that’s a fun review to look forward to!

Bel Canto Review

This book gets 1.5 grand pianos out of 5. I cannot cut the piano in half, so you just get one photo (this novel does not deserve to have its score rounded up for the sake of a pretty diptych).
[There is a black and white photo of a grand piano: it looks sad and comforting at the same time. You can see inside the piano, which could be a metaphor for how this book shows you the inside of the characters, only the piano is more beautiful and meaningful than the characters. #bitter)

Now, I know it has been a long time since I have posted a review. In fact, I finished reading Bel Canto sometime at the end of November, but have got caught up in working full time in a government job that sucks my will to look at a computer more than necessary, and the holidays really destroyed my free-time and my ability to nurture my hobbies. So, I am now again at a point where I have a couple books I have read which can be reviewed, so I am hoping to return to a more regular pace. However, since I am reading a bit more slowly, what with less free time than in the Fall, I am hoping to be able to publish reviews on a biweekly schedule, as opposed to a weekly one. Thank you readers for your patience.

  • Why did I pick this book up?

I originally bought this book at a yard sale many years ago, and got around to reading it a few weeks ago because it is one of the only books on my shelf that I haven’t read, other than some Dickens. I also ask my Instagram followers to pick between 2 books I suggest, and this is what was picked. So that’s what I chose to read. Also, I thought it would be interesting to read a book that tackles the subject of terrorism, but in a pre-9/11 time (this book came out mere months before 9/11).

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

I personally found this book to be not good. I am trying to be polite, as it is an award-winning book, and I felt that this book was trying to accomplish a lot, but failed. So, I personally would not recommend this book as I found the ending to be so dumb and trite (in fact, I found the ending so bad that it ruined any positive feelings I had had for the book up until that point).

I also would not recommend this book as there was a lot of sort of weird quasi-racist statements peppered throughout the book. It was hard to tell if these statements were merely meant to reflect the imperfect characters, or if these statements reflected the pervasive racism the author feels, (I know, I know, we are supposed to separate the author from the book/protagonist) but there was simply so many weird statements about the ‘savagery’ of Latin Americans and their nations that I couldn’t simply swallow them without questioning what their inclusion meant and reflected.

I suppose I would recommend this book if you really, really like opera, and if you like reading interesting descriptions of music and its effect on people and their mood/memories. That’s about the only positive thing I have to say about the book.

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

The book opens at a fancy opera show in the Vice President of some unnamed Latin American country’s home. The main characters we are introduced to are: a lady opera singer, a middle-aged Japanese man who is her biggest fan, and his translator, who is a younger Japanese man. Terrorists (who we learn are really just trying to fight political and economic injustice in their country) break into the home, intending to hold the President hostage. The president is not there, so they decide to take the whole house and its dozens of guests hostage. Ok. Sounds like a genius plan.

They release all the women except for the opera singer because they decide she must increase their bargaining power (am I a jackass for thinking being an opera singer doesn’t make you a valuable hostage?) so the rest of the text is basically this woman and a bunch of men (and the 2 terrorists who happen to be young girls) living in this fancy house and waiting for negotiations to go through. Apparently this country really doesn’t have its shit together, because hostages and captors live together in relative peace for MONTHS.

Lalala time passes, pretty much every man is in love with the opera singer because of her voice/the fact that she is basically the only woman in sight. The translator falls in love with one of the terrorist women. His employer is super in love with the annoying opera singer (again, her only perceivable quality is her voice) and they all conspire to get them to bone in secret. The translator and the terrorist also bone in secret. It seems like things will continue like this forever.

But no! Right at the end the government busts in, killing literally all the terrorists (including the young sexy lady the translator loves), and they manage to kill the old Japanese guy (who was shielding the sexy terrorist) as well.

If this had been the end I would’ve been somewhat satisfied.

However, the horrifying epilogue shows us that the opera singer has married the younger Japanese guy (what?! why?! creepy!!!) in some weird attempt to bond and preserve their memory of being held hostage and having both their loved ones murdered in front of them? Again, WHAT?!

Anyways, made the book feel like a waste of time imo, and also just talk about a weird and stupid ending that is supposed to wrap things up neatly, but honestly at no point did the book establish that these characters were compatible, so I would’ve been way happier if they had remained sad forever. Ugh. Also, a lot of weird racist and kinda weirdly sexist shit appears in this novel.

It took me so long to get this blog post together that I couldn’t be bothered to take a fancy picture.
[A book sits on a planner. The book has a blueish photo of fancy people at a fancy party. There is a gold music note on the cover as well.]
  • Overall brain gushings :

Ugh. This book. Patchett seems to have really weird preconceptions about men and women based on their gender: the men seem to be really sexist, and the women seem to be very frivolous and superficial. Also, there are only heterosexual people (or so it would seem) and any passages that deal with Carla (a young girl who gets mistaken for a boy) are incredibly creepy/sexist and highlight the weird biases that Patchett and her characters seem to share.

Seriously, the characters are INSANE.

Also, music is amazing, but I felt like Patchett was being snobby about opera throughout the novel, placing it above all art forms.

Again, the ending is actually terrible: I was ready to give the novel a pass, was even thinking the ending was sort of poignant, and then she had to ruin it with a super bizarre epilogue that undercut all the emotion and work the novel had put into making me care about or even slightly like the characters.

  • What does it mean?

I think that there are a few things the novel is trying to say: that music connects people in ways nothing else can, that it crosses all boundaries of culture, gender, and language. That’s pretty nice. However, I think it also means that in the end, while music can connect people on a personal level (and change them in a similar manner) it cannot affect geopolitical and large-scale change. It cannot end a revolution; it cannot address the root causes of unhappiness and marginalization, and this is the failure of art.

I do tend to disagree with this, as I can think of a lot of examples of really influential art that affected large scale change (though I suppose nothing in the vein of stopping a revolution/freeing hostages) and moved beyond the realm of the personal, and into the public. Books like The Well of Loneliness or Lady Chatterley’s Lover are a few examples of books that helped spur on sexual revolutions and change mainstream attitudes about sexuality and LGBT awareness. Other books like Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (confession: I have only ever read this book’s Wikipedia page, so take my analysis with a large grain of salt) have managed to influence a bunch of douchey dude-bro libertarians so that’s another example.

Also, it weirded me out that she chose to constantly emphasize the non-specificity of which country this was. Like it could be any Latin American country, because Patchett views them as all the same. Ugh. To pile on my “alsos”, this book is loosely based on something that happened in Peru in 1996 and to quote a Goodreads review “It upset me to realize that Patchett was using a piece of Peruvian history with no intention of telling a story of Peru or its political unrest or even including a proper description of the country”. She could have had a lot to say about the shady way in which the militants were killed, or what caused this situation in the first place, but instead Patchett seems more concerned with what opera can do, and telling a romantic story full of purple prose.

Patchett seems to view opera as a panacea for all the worlds tension and fear, and yet her ending (again, something that is based in history and could therefore be rendered extremely poignant) shows that this is deluded, and the chance to make a commentary on real-world situations and contexts is lost.

  • Favourite passages :

Honestly, I didn’t really have that many favourite passages… There were a few sentences here and there that were poignant (usually about music and memory) but nothing too notable/quotable. I am going to cite some of the batshit things too because that amused me to no end.

A French ambassador muses on how he has fallen in love with his wife anew upon his arrival to “this godforsaken country” (that is also a direct quote!) :

In this country with its dirt roads and yellow rice he discovered he loved her, he was her. Perhaps this would not have been true if he had been the ambassador to Spain. Without these particular circumstances, this specific and horrible place, he might never have realized that the only true love of his life was his wife.

Ann Patchett, pg 36

Again, WHAT IS THIS PASSAGE? Prejudice on prejudice! And to those who think that maybe it is just the ambassador’s point of view, and not Patchett’s, literally every character is super prejudiced, so if the point that she is making is that everyone is prejudice, then it makes perfect that sense that she is prejudiced AF.

There are a few moments where Patchett actually has some semi-insightful things to say about the “terrorists” but these moments are not mined to their full potential:

‘We all should have gone home a week ago,’ General Benjamin sighed. ‘But we have to see our brothers released.’ For General Benjamin, of course, this meant both his philosophical comrades and his literal brother, Luis. Luis, who had committed the crime of distributing flyers for a political protest and was now buried alive in a high-altitude prison. Before his brother’s arrest, Benjamin had not been a general at all. He had taught grade school. He had lived in the south of the country near the ocean.

pg 136

  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

Although I did not like this book, it made me think about interesting texts that discuss the importance of art and creativity in the face of crisis. The texts I would recommend that deal with this theme would be Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower and Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (pretty sure I have recommended that book before, but since it is my favourite, can’t hurt to recommend it often).

I’ve also realized that writing reviews on books I didn’t enjoy is more fun than writing about books I liked. Clearly, I like to bitch about books I didn’t have the talent or dedication to write. Ha!

Stay tuned for my next review of the oh-so-fun read that is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Seriously, this book was such a silly and enjoyable romp through the Apocalypse.

Purple Hibiscus Review

This book gets 4.5 purple hibiscuses out of 5. Again, don’t know how to do a half hibiscus, so settle for 4 in the photo.
[It is a diptych: the photo is quite dark, the only brightness two purple hibiscuses with a pale and graceful hand reaching from outside the frame towards the blooms.]
  • Why did I pick this book up?

I was gifted this book for Christmas in 2012. I tried to read it when it was given to me, but I happened to be battling severe depression at the time, and reading was really not at the top of my list of hobbies or things I could focus on. I remembered loving the first 20 pages that I had managed to read, so when the time came for me to pick something from my shelf to review, I was drawn to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus.

Although it has taken me seven years to pick it up, it wound up only taking me three days to read, as I found myself deeply engrossed as soon as I finished the first chapter.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

If the incredibly high score I gave this book did not tip you off, let me be explicit: I fucking loved this book. It was almost perfect. It didn’t make me cry, but it almost did, and could definitely make someone cry, which I find a good sign of a book!

The prose is beautiful, lush, and poetic, and Adichie writes her text without making excuses or accommodations for her white, Western readers: Purple Hibiscus is full of Igbo words for food, greetings, and curses, and they are very rarely explained. Instead, Adichie writes for people who know what fufu is, or trusts that your interest in the book will spur an interest in finding out what these things are. I loved this! I felt very privileged to read a narrative that was so estranging, and yet warm and comforting to me. The unknown was not scary in Purple Hibiscus, and it was amazing to learn more about the politics and history of Nigeria.

So, read this book if you want to read, or like reading, African literature. Also read this book if you like coming of age stories, or women’s literature. *Trigger warning:* there is a dominant theme of an abusive father/spouse in the text.

I currently don’t have any pretty flowers in my apartment, and winter is coming swiftly to Ontario, so I took a photo of Purple Hibiscus in front of my favourite plant: a “dancing” plant.
[There is a book in front of a cool plant with spotted leaves. The book is a black and white photo of the bottom half of a girl’s face and a hibiscus flower.]
  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

The text jumps a bit in time, so I will just give some broad strokes. Kambili, our protagonist, is a teenage girl who lives with her brother Jaja and their parents in Nigeria. Their father is incredibly religious, incredibly wealthy, insanely abusive to his family, and insanely generous to his community and country.

Kambili lives in fear of her father, but also craves his approval and love – as any daughter would. Purple Hibiscus takes place when the carefully controlled lives that the family leads begin to unravel; Kambili and Jaja go spend some time with their Aunty Ifeoma and her children. There, they are faced with a world totally alien to theirs; it is a world where they are free to be themselves, where they must face the realities of economic uncertainty, and where they must finally admit that their family life is not only not perfect, it is oppressive, dangerous, and potentially fatal.

Of course, when they return home, their new experiences and perspectives send shock waves through their entire family, and rebellion fractures their family in a parallel to the fracturing of Nigeria through a military coup.

  • Overall brain gushings :

I’ve actually done a rather short synopsis of the book, because there are a lot of really amazing twists and turns that I don’t want to ruin! The brutality with which Kambili’s father treats his wife is heart-wrenching and terrifying, and too numerous to highlight, but eventually she finds the courage to stand up for herself in an equally terrifying way! Seriously, this book was amazing until the last page, and proved me wrong for being upset that no one was actually standing up to such a violent and abusive man.

This book was also so beautifully written: even the way in which Adichie writes about violence is full of poetry and emotion, and I found myself actively carving out time to read in my daily schedule to savour this book.

It was amazing to read a story about a girl struggling to find her identity in a world dominated by religion and cataclysmic geo-political events.

  • What does it mean?

Adichie uses the purple hibiscus as a symbol throughout the novel for growth and the freedom to just be: as Kambili becomes more sure of herself and her desires, these experimental and beautiful flowers reach for the sun and bloom.

This journey towards personal freedom is paralleled by Nigeria’s own journey towards freedom, marred by dictatorships and violence, much like Kambili’s life, yet moving steadily forward, with hope, towards potential self-actualization.

Purple Hibiscus is also concerned with the clash between traditional, “pagan” religion, and Christianity, highlighting the ways in which religion was used to subjugate and divide people while furthering the colonial agenda. Unlike the gay agenda, this agenda is marked by colourlessness, and is boring and sad.

The novel shows us the complexity of people – there is no black or white, good or evil. Purple Hibiscus allows for everyone to embody contradictions, to be many things at once. Adichie wants readers to see how religion and wealth do not seal against hypocrisy.

I could go on for a long time about everything in this book, but I don’t get paid to do this/am no longer paying to write essays on literature for academic credit, so this will do. Plus I still want you to go read this book yourself! If you have read it and want to discuss more, comment away and I’d be so pumped to discuss any aspect of this text!

  • Favourite passages :

This passage is one of the first times we encounter how difficult and confusing it is to be hurt by someone you love, and how abusers manage to have such a hold on their victims. It also showcases Adichie’s incredible writing.

Papa sat down at the table and poured his tea from the china tea set with pink flowers on the edges. I waited for him to ask Jaja and me to take a sip, as he always did. A love sip, he called it, because you shared the little things you loved with the people you loved. Have a love sip, he would say, and Jaja would go first. Then I would hold the cup with both hands and raise it to my lips. One sip. The tea was always too hot, always burned my tongue, and if lunch was something peppery, my raw tongue suffered. But it didn’t matter, because I knew that when the tea burned my tongue, it burned Papa’s love into me.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, pg 8

The first time I heard Aunty Ifeoma call Mama ‘nwunye m,‘ years ago, I was aghast that a woman called another woman ‘my wife.’ When I asked, Papa said it was the remnants of ungodly traditions, the idea that it was the family and not the man alone that married a wife, and later Mama whispered, although we were alone in my room, ‘I am her wife, too, because I am your father’s wife. It shows that she accepts me.’

Adichie, pg 73

This is the first time readers “see” the image of the purple hibiscus, which comes to symbolize Kambili’s coming of age.

Jaja’s defiance seemed to me now like Aunty Ifeoma’s experimental purple hibiscus: rare, fragrant with the undertones of freedom, a different kind of freedom from the one the crowds waving green leaves chanted at Government Square after the coup. A freedom to be, to do.

Adichie, pg 16
  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

If you have read Purple Hibiscus and want something similar to it – or if you just want other similar recommendations – I cannot sing the praises of Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of the Four Wives which sometimes is found under the title The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives. Similarly to Adichie’s text, this novel is written by a Nigerian woman, is a story of intense family dynamics, examines a totally different religious aspect of Nigeria than Christianity, and has an amazing plot twist!

Another amazing book – this one a memoir – that highlights the difficulties of growing up with an abusive parent is Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes.

Stay tuned for my next review, Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto, which is described as a dramatic, operatic tale of hostage-taking and the complex dynamics between prisoner and jailor. I need to catch up on my reading, so hoping to speed-read, but also this review may take a couple extra days.

The Road Review

This book gets 2 creepy human skulls out of 5.
[The caption speaks for itself: there is a dyptich of a skull, old and brown, reminding us of our mortality and why it’s so weird to be obsessed with post-apocalyptic narratives.]
  • Why did I pick this book up?

Now, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road has been on my radar for quite some time. I have taken a few dystopian/post-apocalyptic literature courses in my academic career, and this novel comes up a lot in discussion and theory.

I thought I would really like it. It’s a ‘seminal’ text. Alas, as with a lot of canonical literature, I was disappointed. It’s prize winning. Pulitzer Prize winning, and my copy has praise that says “it might very well be the best book of the year”. So some people really fucking loved this book. I will not be counted amongst them.

But I picked it up because I am starting to run out of books that I have not read in my collection, and am finding myself too cheap to go buy books, and too lazy to go to the library (also I owe them money, which factors into the too cheap category as well, ha). Also, again, did not know I would be disappointed in this book.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

Although I personally did not really find this book to be amazing, some people who have either read no post-apocalyptic literature, or who are super fans of the genre (two opposing categories, I know) may really enjoy this novel.

If you like really sad stories about people that you are pretty sure from the start are doomed, you should read this text. I found it to be a bit too depressing, and I also knew what the stakes were: these people are not going to have very many good moments in this book.

It does have some good descriptions of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and this could also be a reason to read this book. However, I found these descriptions to eventually get overly repetitive, and by the end I was just ready for the book to end, for the misery and monotony to come to a close, and for me to see if there would be any kind of climactic or super significant ending that could perhaps change my opinion of the book.

Alas, it did not do this for me. More on that further down.

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

The book begins some years after a world-ending environmental catastrophe of some sort. Everything is grey and ashy, there are no living plants or animals to be found, and most people are dead. The ones who are still living are probably the unlucky ones; we follow a man and his unnamed son (very Birdbox haha), two of the ‘good guys’ (the ‘bad guys’ being depraved people who are resorting to cannibalism and insanely gruesome murders to survive) as they try and get further South (for a not-totally clear reason) and literally not get eaten by crazies.

We find out that the boy has lived his whole life in this post-apocalypse and that his mother committed suicide at some point before, tasking the husband with protecting the boy but also maybe killing him should it come down to it? Like she doesn’t want the boy to be left alone, so if the dad is in danger he should kill the boy so they both die? Both of those requests are super fucked up for someone to ask of their partner. Like, jesus.

Anyways, they basically just go through miserable day after miserable day of travelling by foot through a wasteland, starving and searching for food, getting sicker with every day, and being set upon/followed by cannibals and other even more desperate and less scrupulous survivors?

  • Overall brain gushings :

Ok. Here are the reasons why I don’t like this book, even though it’s a best-seller, a classic, and apparently something I shouldn’t like.

It’s basically torture porn. You are reading about a father and his son who are starving and running away from cannibals, vaguely going South. And they do this day after day. With no actual hope. And they have been doing this for years. Literally that little boy’s whole life. And the dad has a bloody cough from the beginning of the novel.

So we know he is going to die. And leave this little boy alone, or have to kill him too. So that’s nice. I understand that a lot of the novel is about ‘the miracle of goodness’ but there isn’t that much goodness in this book. To me this book says that our obsession with post-apocalyptic narratives is foolish, because the stories that exist after the end of the world are fucking terrifying, and again, literally just waiting for these characters to die. There is no hope that the world will come back or improve in McCarthy’s apocalypse.

As mentioned, I literally wanted the book to end. I wanted the dad to die, because I knew it had to happen at some point, and unlike this man and little boy, didn’t want to keep being tortured by this story. My favourite post-apocalyptic text – Station Eleven – uses a quote from Star Trek as its guiding motto, and I need my post-apocalyptic texts to hold to it in some way; “Survival is insufficient”. There has to be some hope. Although The Road does have some love, even the love is so full of fear and pain, that nothing in this book really made me feel good.

Here is a picture of The Road in front of a road. Unlike the roads in The Road, this road is pretty and welcoming, and also flaunts the great fall colours happening in Ottawa right now.
[A hand holds a book in front of a road. There is a massive tree behind it, full of vibrant yellow, orange, and green leaves. The Road is just a black book with its title splashed across the center in all caps, white font.]
  • What does it mean?

I have touched on what this book means and is about a decent amount in my synopsis of the book, and also I will touch on its themes a bit in the ‘favourite passages’ section below. The book’s Wikipedia page (which when too lazy to do research on a text and its meaning is a great source) basically says that people loved this book because it was ‘heartbreaking’ and ‘stark’ and it was those things, but I still don’t think it was a ‘good’ book. It was ok. Honestly, I was tempted to give it a 1 or 1.5 rating, but then thought that based on its critical response and importance to the genre bumped it up a bit.

Other things the book is concerned with (but in my opinion does not offer a ton of insight or concrete opinions on): the meaning of life, whether mankind is fundamentally good or evil, and the inexplicably strong yet painful bonds between parents and their children.

  • Favourite passages :

Alright, so there weren’t a ton of dog-eared pages in this book, which reflects me not feeling it. Also, all the passages mimic McCarthy’s punctuation and spelling, such as his misspelling of “don’t” to “dont”. There are some interesting statements on trauma and memory:

A corpse in a doorway dried to leather. Grimacing at the day. He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, dont you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

Cormac McCarthy, pg 12

After they leave a man to starve, against the boy’s wishes:

He was just hungry, Papa. He’s going to die.

He’s going to die anyways.

He’s so scared, Papa.

The man squatted and looked at him. I’m scared, he said. Do you understand? I’m scared… You’re not the one who has to worry about everything…

Yes I am, he said. I am the one.

pg 259

Then, a passage on stories and living in the post-apocalypse:

Real life is pretty bad? [the man asks]

What do you think?

Well, I think we’re still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we’re still here.

Yeah.

You dont think that’s so great.

It’s okay.

pg 269

Also, I agree with the little boy! At what point is life worth it? This is an existential question that I do not have the answer for, but goddamn!!

  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

If you want to read what I think is better post-apocalyptic/dystopian literature check out Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower. It has a lot in common with The Road; both are very graphic and sad in their portrayal of humanity gone depraved, but Parable has a more exciting narrative. It also has more interesting themes of afro-futurism and is more explicitly sci-fi, so that may either be a bonus or a deterrent to you.

For another tale of familial love and the ties that bind us (and a definite tear-jerker of a read) check out Cordelia Strube’s On the Shores of Darkness, There Is Light which is one of the best books I’ve ever read, about a girl and her younger brother.

Stay tuned for my next review, Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a book about living in Nigeria and the gender dynamics of a family affected by wealth and religion.

Heart Berries: A Memoir Review

This book gets 4 out of 5 deliciously juicy and somehow painfully tart berries. Like when you bite into a raspberry and your taste buds sing but also you want to cry.
[The photo is a grid of pints of assorted beautiful berries: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and something that looks a little like salmon berries?]
  • Why did I pick this book up?

This book has been on my radar for quite some time. In fact, in January, I made a list of books I wanted to read, and Heart Berries was pretty high on that list from the get go. It’s a critically acclaimed memoir by a woman who grew up in British Columbia – something I did as well (the living in BC, not the writing a critically acclaimed memoir) – on an isolated reservation. It was also praised by another amazing indigenous writer – Eden Robinson, writer of Monkey Beach – that I love, so I was honestly so pumped to start.

However, a bit of a *trigger warning* is necessary, as Mailhot is writing about some pretty traumatic events, mental illness, and the deep effects of colonialism in Canada.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

I would definitely recommend this book! If you live in Canada, or the United States, then you live in a settler colonial state. If you live in a culture of settler colonialism and are white, you may not even realize the impact it has on the whole fabric and day to day life of your society. Heart Berries will help show you why behind every “drunk Indian” story is a legacy of cultural genocide and continued forced poverty and marginalization.

I would also recommend this book if you like reading about people who are incredibly talented and creative, but also in a lot of pain and distress. This may not sound appealing to some, but there is nothing like a good writer describing difficult emotions and situations.

I guess do not read this book if you are too triggered by reading about alcoholism, sexual assault, and manipulative relationships.

This is also a pretty slim book, so even if it isn’t something you would normally read, you should give it a go, because it ends quickly – too soon, if I may say.

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

Heart Berries is the result of Terese Marie Mailhot being hospitalized for her suicidal ideation and bipolar disorder in the wake of her relationship with a man named Casey breaking down. Put a pin in that.

She is encouraged to write about her feelings while in the hospital; most of the writing we read are ‘letters’ to Casey, explaining herself and her life. Nothing is revealed to us linearly, but eventually we discover that Mailhot was raised on a reservation by her wonderful and contradictory mother. Her mother is an activist, an addictions counsellor, and a woman who loves problematic and dangerous men. She is a woman who fights for marginalized people, loves her children fiercely, but has a tendency to neglect them and put them at risk. Mailhot writes about how her mother’s death led to one of her biggest breakdowns, around the birth of her first son.

We learn that Mailhot – at the beginning of writing Heart Berries – has two sons, one of which she does not have custody of. We see into the trauma that Mailhot has experienced, and how her academic pursuits seemed like a lifeline for her in a time of crisis. We also see how the academic world treats Mailhot as a second-class citizen, and how men treat her like shit, not only because she is a woman, but because she is an indigenous woman.

She then writes about her relationship with Casey, before and after winding up in the hospital. We see how her bipolar disorder and trauma affect her relationships and mood. She gets pregnant with Casey’s child and they get married. Mailhot keeps writing, and the memoir ends with a letter to her mother, explaining her grief for her death, as well as her grief and anger over the abuse she experienced at the hands of her father, also a complex figure: he is an artist, an alcoholic, and an abuser who died tragically.

I wanted to showcase the cool metallic owl art we have in our apartment. I have two other ones like that!
[A hand holds a small black book in front of a groovy piece of art of an owl sitting on a tree. The cover of the book is black, except for a outline of red strawberries on the bottom right corner. At the top ‘heart berries’ is written in a small white scrawl that is obviously meant to look like notebook scribbles.]
  • Overall brain gushings :

Guys, this book is good. Like very good. It is a very heavy book for something so thin. There were certain things I didn’t like about it, but that’s because it’s a memoir and real people are not perfect. One example of this is Casey. I find him to be very manipulative, and sometimes pretty much a garbage man. This is pretty judgemental of me, because I don’t know the guy, and he and Mailhot are still married, so what do I know. But I do find him act shady at times, and to be emotionally manipulative of Mailhot, which I find particularly saddening to read considering her personal and intergenerational trauma.

Mailhot writes about the isolated reservation of Seabird Island was also heart-wrenching, and key to read for people who are uninformed about the crisis happening in reservations, or for those who think indigenous people are “just so lucky and get so much free stuff from the government”. The statistics for how many First Nations are under water advisory warnings is staggering, and as the article I’ve linked to concludes; “the water crisis was created by Canada and has been maintained by Canada for decades, with devastating but predictable outcomes”.

  • What does it mean?

This book is a meditation on the impact of trauma on mental health. It is a meditation on the violent and lasting impact of colonialism on indigenous people, and in particular indigenous women. There is a really interesting link to Paul Simon and this musical he ‘wrote’ that demonstrates how much women and racialized people get exploited by white men, and how this erasure is a violence, an aggression.

Heart Berries also shows the ways in which love is insanely complicated, particularly when the people in the relationship are dealing with mental illness and intense trauma. It’s a memoir, so Mailhot has to work with her version of the truth to make a narrative, and so unlike a fictional one, it may be lacking in plot or resolution or things that ‘make sense’, and that is ok. It is part of the journey of reading about someone’s life, and I honestly can’t express how brave Mailhot has been for publishing something so raw and uncompromising.

  • Favourite passages :

Honestly on any given page I could have picked a sentence that I wanted to showcase, but in the end I settled for transcribing the passages on pages I had purposefully dog-eared.

A lot of these passages support my decision to not like Casey, which is maybe a jackass judgement on my part, but I am admitting to it freely, so there.

When you loved me it was degrading. Using me for love degraded me worse. You should have just fucked me. It was degenerative. You inside me, outside, then I leave, then I come back, get fucked, you look down at me and say, ‘I love you. I love you.’ I go home and degenerate alone.

Terese Marie Mailhot, pg 46-47

Mailhot has an excellent no-bullshit therapist in this passage:

‘I’m worried that he’s using you.’

‘It’s much deeper than sex. He tells me that he loves me and explains carefully why he can’t be with me. He considers me.’

‘You’re in a vulnerable position. Months ago, you were in the hospital with suicidal ideation. He should consider how telling you that he loves you could make you feel. He should consider how having sex with you, and then explaining why he can’t be with you, is manipulative.’

pg 58

This passage does prove my judgement of Mailhot and Casey’s relationship to be somewhat self-righteous, and by the end of the novel, I put my judgement aside somewhat.

For you, and our child, and my sons, I said what happened up and down on the page. Because, if my sons want to see how terrible our love was, and why we chose it, they can see us closest here.

pg 68

My mother didn’t feel like mine as much as I wanted to belong to her – to be inseparable from her.

She taught me that I didn’t own things. I really liked the idea of possession. We don’t own our mothers. We don’t own our bodies or our land – maybe I’m unsure. We become the land when we are buried in it. Our grand-mothers have been uprooted and shelved in boxes, placed on slabs of plastic, or packed neatly in rooms, or turned into artifact – all after proper burials. Indians aren’t always allowed to rest in peace. I want to be be buried in a bone garden with my ancestors someday. I’d like to belong to that.

pg 73
  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

If you liked this book, consider reading a book that has been mentioned in this book before: Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach! It is full of amazing descriptions of coastal British Columbia, ghosts, and is just an all around excellent book.

If you want to read another excellent and slim book about the effects of abuse and living in isolation (but it’s about so much more than that too), is Richard Van Camp’s The Lesser Blessed.

Another excellent memoir about a completely different side of poverty in Vancouver is Amber Dawn’s How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir. This book also has interesting parallels to Heart Berries in relation to the impact of literature on life and coping with trauma. Yay books and writing!

Also I’m proud that all these suggestions are Canadian, and excellent. Canadiana is not all Susanna Moodie!

Stay tuned for my next review, Cormac McCarthy’s critically acclaimed and often discussed novel, The Road. Post-apocalypse, oh my!

Decorum Review

This book gets three gorgeous gowns out of 5. I couldn’t find anything that fit the 1890s style, but these dresses are all so pretty I don’t even care.
[There is a triptych of gowns: a purple ruffly dress, a pale orange gown, and a white long-sleeved wedding dress with buttons all up the back. I would wear all these dresses if I had the money/reason to.]

Apologies for running a little late with this weekend’s review… my work schedule has been insane and all over the place which has delayed me. I have also fallen behind on my reading and am finally at the point where my blogging has caught up to my reading so I need to set aside some real reading time this week to get back on track. For you readers, I’ll do it!

  • Why did I pick this book up?

I started reading Kaaren Christopherson’s Decorum because it was another one of the 3/$10 books I bought recently. Also, I was in the mood for some historical fiction, and seeing how I’ve blown through Sarah Waters’ catalogue this spring, this was my most handy option. The protagonist is also a woman named Francesca Lund, and I grew up in a village called Lund, so this happy coincidence didn’t hurt.

I have a lot of love for novels set in the Victorian era, because I am one of those rare English scholars that HATES Victorian lit, but loves historical fiction set in that time. I hate Jane Austen, and I think part of it is because I am too dense to pick up on all the subtleties that happen in high society, so I’d rather read a contemporary take on the era and its behaviours. I need that shit spelled out to me, and also want to read a ton of descriptions of masked balls and corsets. This book does a decent delivery of those things.

  • Would I recommend why/why not?

I would recommend this book if you are into romantic intrigue and mysterious marriage schemes, but also like reading about fancy parties and 1890s America. That is very specific, I know. I would not recommend this book if you have no interest in love or romance, or marriage or whatever, because this book is pretty full of all that. I myself found myself getting bored for the last hundred pages of the book: the big scheming and intrigue had reached its climax, and I found the romantic subplot that took over to be a bit tedious. The book could’ve ended with the big reveal, and left the reader (that is me) to imagine that the romantic subplot would resolve itself in some fashion that would push the two characters who are ‘obviously’ supposed to wind up together into their proper places. Instead, I had to read another hundred pages of feelings and to me the only redeeming factor was that this was occurring in Banff, Canada, so that was neat.

  • Quick Synopsis  **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:

Broadstrokes here. Francesca Lund’s parents die in a tragic accident. We really start the novel five years later, when Francesca is finally back to living in her family home after being taken in by family friends. She is set to be engaged to a man named Edmund Tracey who has been pursuing her for years. It is quickly implied that Tracey is a cad who is maybe just after Francesca because she is loaded. I ain’t saying he a gold-digger… except that he totally is. So there is a ton of investigating into his past that goes on, and it’s pretty fun and enticing.

At the same time, the novel follows a man named Connor O’Casey, who I don’t think I really like, even by the end of the novel. Anyways, he is trying to be a self-made man, nouveau-riche in a world of old money. His ‘companion’ is a widow named Blanche, and she has a pretty cool backstory. I think she is my favourite character in the novel. Anyways, he is trying to build a fancy hotel in New York with some rich men, and he comes into Francesca’s orbit. He totally has the hots for her, and drama ensues in a crazy love… pentagon? It’s definitely more complicated than a love triangle.

Anyways, as mentioned, drama, big reveals, and even crime ensue. Eventually, the drama is resolved, a bunch of the characters go vacation in Banff, Canada (which is pretty neat and all about how fucking cold it is there, ha) and resolve their differences so they all end up happy and/or in love in some shape or form.

I apologize for the subpar photo… I snapped this in the early morning before running to work. A bad photo is better than no photo? Also I chose to feature our cute flower pot by Wildtreeceramics who is a local Ottawa artist.
[A hand holds a book that has a drawing of a woman in a pink dress. Behind the book is a succulent in a ceramic pot that says “zen as fuck” on it.]
  • Overall brain gushings :

My favourite aspects were the descriptions of clothes and society rules: the book’s chapters actually all begin with excerpts from an etiquette book and I found this framing device to be interesting and enlightening to the manners of the time. I definitely never would have made in far in that society; would have been so easy for me to put my foot in my mouth.

There were also some pretty funny tongue-in-cheek moments that pointed fun at gendered double standards, but also at times the book fell into its own traps. Just felt a tad sappy at times, and no character (except my main chick Blanche) seemed particularly exciting or progressive.

  • What does it mean?

The book is concerned with double standards and their affect on men and women’s abilities to pursue their desires, both in the Victorian era and the 21st century. It assesses how wealth and its pursuit transform people, but does not judge them, instead critiquing the fabric of society that has a tendency to make people miserable and insecure more than happy.

Buried in the novel are some interesting comments on “propriety”, and Decorum shows that manners do not make the man, or woman.

Here are some things I think the novel said to me, even if that wasnt Christopherson’s intent:

– You never really know someone! People change and are insanely good at hiding their true selves!

– Prenups are a good thing!

– And never trust a man who has a bunch of mysterious “friends” that he spends all his free time with, but that you never get to meet.

  • Favourite passages :

A lot of my favourite passages wound up being the excerpts from the etiquette book, because they were interesting commentaries on the novel and its plot, and also very enlightening for a ‘modern’ reader such as myself.

A man does himself no service with another when he obliges him to know people whom he would rather avoid.

Kaaren Christopherson, pg 65

This quote really spoke to the grouchy person that lives inside me, and my attempt to refuse fake and superficial interactions. It may make me seem like a jerk, but I’d rather seem like an honest bitch than a fake one.

There are two things that make people crazy — having money and not having money. If they haven’t any money of their own to control, they want to control somebody else’s.

Christopherson, pg 76

I feel like the following passage is something a lot of men could stand to learn properly.

If you are a gentleman, never lower the intellectual standard of your conversation in addressing ladies… When you ‘come down’ to commonplace or small-talk with an intelligent lady, one of the two things is the consequence, she either recognizes the condescension and despises you, or else she accepts it as the highest intellectual effort of which you are capable, and rates you accordingly.

Christopherson, pg 345
  • If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :

If you want to read some more historical fiction, I recommend anything by Sarah Waters! She is easily one of my top ten writers, and probably my favourite writer of historical fiction. If you want to stay in a similar time period as Decorum, read Waters’ Affinity.

Otherwise, The Wonder by Emma Donoghue (author of Room) is an interesting tale about 1860s Ireland and the tensions between science and faith. Stephen King reviewed it and liked it so there’s another reason to read The Wonder!

You could also read Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty and its sequels; these were my favourite books as a young teenager, and I remember it being my first great introduction to historical fiction.

Stay tuned for my next review, Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. Mailhot is a woman who grew up on a reservation in British Columbia and her memoir has received a ton of accolades in Canada; it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and is easily the book I’ve been the most excited to read all year.