Divergent (Divergent Trilogy, Book One): Veronica Roth

"In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

"During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

"Debut author Veronica Roth bursts onto the YA scene with the first book in the Divergent series—dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance."

*Thank you Amazon.com for the book info - I didn't have any because I happened to listen to this one on an audiobook app.

This book marked my first foray into the world of audiobooks.  (I'm not sure that statement is entirely true...part of me seems to recall listening to Winnie the Pooh audiobooks -- on cassette tape, mind you -- as I went to sleep as a child...but I digress.)  We were teaching this book in the Children's Lit course I'm co-teaching this semester and I had to read this book...and fast...  I wasn't quite sure when I would find the time to read it with all of my other work, but then I had an epiphany:  I spent at least an hour each day, Monday through Friday, on my commutes to and from work.  Why not spend the time listening to books?  I listened to music anyway and I was getting tired of some of the morning talk shows on the radio, so I thought a change might not be so bad.  Luckily for me, there was a Living Social deal (kind of like Groupon, for those of you who are unfamiliar) for two months free subscription to Audible (which I HIGHLY recommend - very user-friendly and worked great when I wanted to listen from my phone through the Bluetooth in my car!).  I jumped on that deal and immediately snagged a copy of Divergent.

I feel like it's only right to talk about my impressions of the format of the book first.  I was unsure about how I would like listening to a book.  I usually go off into my own little world when I read, so distracted driving was a very real possibility -- and something that would have made me stop listening to an audiobook (no distracted driving please!).  I quickly discovered that it was something I really enjoyed!  It made my drives so much more pleasant.  I actually couldn't wait to get in my car and battle traffic!  I will admit that my comprehension and retention of the material were noticeably lessened.  I found myself having to rewind 30-60 seconds every time I started listening to the book again to remind myself where I was in the story.  I'm a visual person and have an extremely good memory for things like where the words were on a page.  I've never really been an auditory learner, so this took some getting used to.  It did not really lessen my enjoyment of the story, but I do think the narration helped a lot.  Emma Galvin was the narrator of the audiobook and (though I don't really have too much experience in this area) I think she did a fairly outstanding job of it.  At first, I was a little uneasy with a single narrator doing all of the character's voices, but I caught on and soon grew to appreciate how easily she maintained her continuity of tone and inflection for each individual character.  Considering how many there were, this could not have been an easy task!  Kudos to her.

As for the story, I wasn't quite sure what to think when I first heard we would be teaching it.  I was such a fan of Hunger Games that it almost fell disloyal to pick up another dystopian teen fiction (silly, I know).  I knew there was a lot of hype going on about the movie, but I'd never even made an attempt to see it. Being from the Chicago area, I think that was what eventually drew me into this book.  I know all of the places Roth describes and it was really disturbing in a thrilling sort of way to "see" the city in such ruin.

(The idea of factions was really interesting from sociological and psychological standpoints, but I won't get too much into that here for fear of putting you to sleep!)

I liked Tris as a character.  She was strong, but not without some weaknesses; she was selfless, yet selfish; and she had just enough "girl" in her to make her relatable to her readers.  Tris walked a fine line between "character" and "realistic," but I think Roth manage to pull it off nicely.  I think she was extremely relatable for female teen readers.  Had Tris had no conscience, then she would have been flat; had she been too strong, then she would have been intimidating to the readers; and had she not had a love interest, then I think the story would have lost an important facet in appealing to a certain teenage demographic.  Who doesn't love a little bit of romance?  I enjoyed the way Roth presented it -- it wasn't too over-the-top or a love-at-first-sight, which I really appreciated.  (Those of you who have read other installments here realize I don't have an issue with these kinds of things in books.  I just don't think they would have fit well with the character of Tris that Roth created.) 

I enjoyed Four as a strong male presence in the book.  He was strong without being uber-masculine.  His character shows readers how men can be both "men" and have depth of emotion and empathy as well.  Even though the story was told from the first-person point of view of Tris, I didn't feel like Four was lost or "less important."  His back story was about as rich as that of Tris, so he was an extremely well-developed character.

(I will say that it bugged me more than a little about how many times characters remarked on the age difference between Four and Tris -- as if two years equated two decades!  This seemed a bit juvenile.)

The book dealt with some pretty powerful issues in ways that teens can comprehend them.  ***Possible spoilers to follow!***  Four's mistreatment at the hands of his father unashamedly confronts child and spousal abuse.  The factions deal with identity, loyalty, cliques, and conformity issues so many teens are confronted with each day.  It openly deals with sex and violence, anxiety and death.  As most dystopian books do, Divergent makes teen readers wonder what will become of their world if solutions aren't found.  I think this book allows for an opportunity for them to see the bigger picture.  Their mental development doesn't always allow them to see outside of their own "bubble," and it's easy to see how a book like this might trigger broader thinking.  Roth is unafraid to hit on a great deal of powerful and emotional situations. ***End of spoilers***

In general, I very much enjoyed the story.  I think the writing style was very enjoyable and the pacing was just right.  It sucked me in and lingered in all the right places.  Keeping in mind that the book is teen literature, I think it was well done.  I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.  The characters were fun, and the plot was interesting and exciting.  I'm definitely going to have to rent the movie now!

Atonement: Ian McEwan

"Ian McEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness combines all the satisfaction of a superb narrative with the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.

"On a summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant.  But Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century."

Even though the start of the semester technically starts tomorrow I wanted to get a head start on the reading for my classes since I know I'm going to be completely swamped.  This particular book happened to be for my Modern Brit Lit course.  I saw the movie version of this book a few years ago.  It was a late-night Netflix pick (which was a bad idea because -- not only is it a long movie -- but holy cow!  I don't think I've ever cried so hard while watching a movie!)  Now, having read the book, I think the casting was done extremely well.  I definitely saw Keira Knightley as Cecilia and could definitely picture James McAvoy as Robbie (not to mention I think he's probably one of the most beautiful brooding men that exists).While there were a few tweaks here and there in the plot, I don't think they necessarily hindered the power of McEwan's story.

The book took me a bit longer to read than I thought it would.  I cruised through the first hundred-or-so pages, but I slowed quite a bit after that.  I don't want to give anything away, but it took about that long for the major development that I knew was coming to happen.  I don't know if the hinderance was because I knew what was going to happen since I'd already seen the film or if the book itself just slowed quite a bit.  Either way, I had a hard time getting through the enormously long first part of the book (which turned out to be about half of the book).  Once I got through there, the already eloquent writing really brought to life the horrors of war and the tragedy experienced by both individuals and entire countries during WWII.  The biggest thing I will take away from this story is the beauty of McEwan's writing style.  It was reminiscent of a hodge-podge of classical British writing-styles.  I sensed a bit of Austen, Woolf, and even a touch of Dickens.  The entire story had some seriously dark undertones and they definitely helped to generate interest in the plot and characters.  As I mentioned earlier, the book slowed a little bit in the middle, but I wonder if it wasn't because I already knew what was going to happen.  I have a feeling -- with its beautiful writing -- that I wouldn't have been able to put this book down if I'd not experienced the story before.

Overall, I thought the characters were vivid and rich.  I especially appreciated McEwan's technique of putting a story into a story -- as if we were reading the book that Briony wrote and was waiting to publish.  That, I felt, was a unique and very interesting literary decision.  I was moved by this powerful story and recommend it to anyone interested in classic British literature.  McEwan's writing was extremely enthralling and it was difficult not to become absorbed in the tragedy of her characters.

*I have a feeling I'll add more to this review when we discuss this book sometime during the semester.  Be on the lookout for an update!

The Fault in Our Stars: John Green

"Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis.  But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten."

I think it's pretty hard to find someone who hasn't read (or at least heard of) this story or seen its film adaptation that came out in theaters fairly recently.  It's created quite the buzz!  (Now I can see why "Okay?  Okay." is posted everywhere online!  Insanely sweet.)  Initially, I'd discovered this title on a list of book-to-film adaptations that would be coming out in 2014 (I found the list late in 2013).  Honestly, I skipped right over this one.  Cancer kids?  Someone's going to die.  I don't need to bawl like a baby while reading a book (though there are several times I can name where that has happened before).  The movie came out and I was a bit tempted to pick up the book, but none more so when my boyfriend shocked my by saying -- out of the blue -- that he wanted to see this movie.  I was flabbergasted.  This was probably the one movie that I didn't even attempt to ask him to accompany me to.  (Backstory:  His father passed away from cancer a few years before I met my boyfriend.  I never knew his dad, but the two of them were extremely close.)  I didn't think asking him to see a cancer movie was the kind thing to do.  I will add, however, that the movie only came up because my boyfriend told me he might want to go to the $5 movie night at our local theater alone.  I asked why and what movie.  He responded with this film and that he wanted to go alone because he might cry (because a twenty-something man sitting alone in a theater, crying, is a lot less sad than a guy doing it sitting next to his girlfriend?).  I told him that I would love to go with him and that I'd never thought to ask him because of the subject matter.  We still haven't gone, but I was kind of waiting to read the book before I saw the film.  Now that that has been accomplished, I suppose we're going to the movie soon!

I borrowed this book from a coworker who had to read it for her book club.  I had no idea when I'd get to it.  I'm so swamped with work and school.  It feels like forever since I've read a book for pleasure (looking back on the amount of book reviews I've done since this blog started, there's a very interesting trend of a decrease in the amount of reading as college started and I got more absorbed with my studies).  She said I could have the book as long as it took me to read it, which, I thought, would take months, if I didn't get to read it on my upcoming girls' trip to NOLA.  However, we happened to have NO plans for the 4th of July this year (yesterday), and I was able to sit on the deck and read (thanks to my awesome Walmart find:  Bistro patio set for $25!).  The dogs chilled on the deck with me and I got to soak up some sun while enjoying the first book-for-pleasure I'd enjoyed in a really long time.  Needless to say, the last thing I expected to do was FINISH THE BOOK!  Even with endless interruptions (i.e. I had a sick puppy, preparing our shish kabobs and grilling them for lunch/dinner, etc.) I still managed to finish the book in about 12 hours!  I cannot tell you how awesome it felt to do a reading marathon.  That's not something I've done in years!  I think this book was a perfect one to do that with.  I loved the characters.  They were witty and wry and cynical (not to the point of annoying, though).  It was difficult not to fall for Augustus (Gus) and the literary nerd in me really enjoyed his obsession with metaphors.  Hazel was intelligent and interesting as well.  I thought I might not like her at first -- she's portrayed almost abrasively in the first chapter or so -- but she definitely grew on me.  I have to say that I predicted the plot twist even a few chapters into reading about Gus and Hazel's budding romance.  This, however, didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.  This really is a true love story and I have not read as good a romance as this in a very long time.  (I will say that I didn't bawl like so many other readers have.  The story was beautiful and so lovingly, eloquently written, but I just didn't sob.  I did tear up a bit, but nothing drastic.  Maybe I have become a bit too jaded!)

As far as readability goes, the words flowed extremely well and the dialogue was interesting.  There's quite a bit of vocabulary that I think will be over the heads of most of this book's intended teen audience, but I appreciated it.  I can see why it's appealed to such a broad range of readers.  Now, as far as the maturity level of the audience, I think this book is definitely for a high school audience.  My friend is a middle school teacher and I'm fairly certain this was one of the books she saw her students reading.  Also, my cousin just turned 12 in May and she read this book around that time.  While she loved it (she said she cried at the end of their end-of-year tests while she finished the book) and she is an excellent reader with a broad vocabulary for her age, I think some of this material is just not something she should have been exposed to just yet.  There's sex (implied, but they do mention a condom and getting naked), and a lot of very deep discussion about death and dying.  While I feel like today's kids are a lot more exposed to all of this than even I was in the '90s, a line should be drawn.  Yes, it's a very good book, but there's a reason that so many people sob while reading it -- there's a reason it's so tragically touching.  I'm not yet a parent of a pre-teen so don't think I'm trying to tell you what to do, I'm just trying to be honest when I say, "If you have a pre-teen who wants to read this book, be prepared for one of several things.  Either tell them 'no' and wait a few years until they're in high school (they'll be better able to understand the vocabulary used and they probably would have already had 'the talk' and be a bit more mature and better able to handle such subject matter), or read it with them/before they do (which will help you decide whether or not it's appropriate for your child) and then at least you'll know exactly what they're reading and can prepare some answers for some questions I'm sure they'll have."  I know I fully intend on being the kind of parent who will pre-read books for her kids -- not to censure them, but to prepare myself to answer questions they might have.

I recommend this book for adults and (appropriately prepared and mature) young-adults alike.  Green's writing is vivid and alive.  I've not had to live with cancer (knock on wood), but from having my own serious medical issues, I can say that Green's descriptions of who chronic patients feel are spot on.  I highly recommend this book (for the right readers).  Now I suppose I've got to see the movie -- maybe my boyfriend and I can cry together!

Bastard Out of Carolina: Dorothy Allison

"Greenville County, South Carolina, a wild, lush place, is home to the Boatwright family--rough-hewn men who drink hard and shoot up each other's trucks, and indomitable women who marry young and age all too quickly.  At the heart of this astonishing novel is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a South Carolina bastard with an annotated birth certificate to tell the tale.  Bone finds herself caught in the family triangle that will test the loyalty of her mother, Anney.  Her stepfather, Daddy Glen, calls Bone "cold as death, mean as a snake, and twice as twisty," yet Anney needs Glen.  At first gentle with Bone, Daddy Glen becomes steadily colder and more furious--until their final, harrowing encounter, from which there can be no turning back."

Ah, yes, the joy of being a college student -- summer classes...  This was one of the books assigned for my American Souths (yes, that "s" is supposed to be there) class.  We read a novel each week (no exaggeration) that is supposed to help us gain some sort of appreciation for the history and literature surrounding different parts of the oft-difficult-to-concretely-define American South.  This book happened to be the one for which I signed up to lead the discussion and write a context essay (i.e. I have to find some major theme, locate articles on said topic, and relate everything back to how an understanding of those outside sources will better our understanding/appreciation of that part of the South).  You might be wondering why -- if we read a novel each week -- we're already into July and I haven't reviewed another book yet.  To be completely honest (don't tell my professor!) I haven't read any of the other books and have made it through with flying colors thus far!  My professor even sent out an email naming me as one of the best and most thorough contributors this semester!  How do I do it?  I've developed an excellent talent:  I'm a brilliant skimmer.  I absorb a lot of information in a short space of time and am able to apply it in a cohesive and eloquent manner.  I promise I'm not a student who normally does this, but I was very put-off by the fact that the professor expected us to have a novel read by the third day of the semester and hadn't even sent out an email telling us that we should be sure to order it early, let alone that it should be done by almost the first day of class!  I wouldn't be complaining if she'd just sent out an email like every other professor I've had, giving the students fair warning.  I don't think it's ethical to expect students to be able to do such a thing in three days -- we all take online classes for a reason!  Her response when I told her that I'd not yet received my book and (politely!) asked if there was an email I'd missed telling us that we needed to have this book read by the third day of class?  "I'm not going to change the syllabus because you didn't order your books early enough."  Nice.  Needless to say -- as someone who wants to become a college professor -- two things happened.  1) I learned how NOT to treat my students.  It's fine if you want your students to have a book read by even the first day of class, just let them know!  2) Being a jerk only discourages normally enthusiastic students to find ways around your system -- they know they're smart and they're only going to try to find ways to outsmart you.

Moving onto the actual review!  This was the first book I received when I ordered my books for this semester.  I figured I would try to be proactive and just pick up each book and read as it arrived.  Having lived in an area of the South very near to the one that Allison writes about, I took an interest in the setting.  A lot of the characters were lively and fun to read -- others were dark and made me rather uncomfortable.  I enjoyed a lot of the uncles -- especially Earl.  Daddy Glen, on the other hand, was disturbingly complex.  I still cannot quite put my finger on why he does what he does to Bone.  Does it get him off?  Does he hate Bone?  What did she ever do to him?  Why does he do it when he does?  Why does he seem to do it out of love for Anney?  What started it all?  What made him focus on Bone?  I think the disturbing thing is that, even after finishing this book, I can't answer a lot of these questions.

I had a difficult time getting through the chunk of the book where Bone becomes obsessed with religion and gospel music.  Whether that was simply because I'm not that religious, myself, or because it took up too large a chunk of the story to keep the flow, it's difficult to tell.

A couple of things bothered me about the last few chapters of the book:  1)  What happened to Reese, Bone's younger half-sister?  She seemed to disappear from the last part altogether.  I don't want to give away what happens, but part of me can see how people are so absorbed in what happened to Bone that they don't have time to ponder Reese, but Bone was close with Reese.  I'd wonder what happened to my sister after a few days.  I'd expect my aunts to know where she'd gone and for her location to at least be mentioned somewhere.  She's under twelve-years-old for crying out loud!  2) Bone's grandmother also seems to disappear from the last few chapters.  For a woman who played such a huge role in Bone's early life, I would have expected that she would have at least been there for Bone.  Looking back, I think Allison was trying to hint at the fact that Bone's grandmother was getting older and wasn't quite "all there" anymore, but it's one thing to explain the absence, it's another thing to ignore it -- it makes it all the more obvious.

I went through phases of loving (I loved the beginning with Anney's quest to amend Bone's birth certificate -- it's what really drew me into the book in the first place), feeling sympathy for, hating, and loathing Anney Boatwright, Bone's mother.  As someone who has never had such a life (as I'm sure a lot of the readers of this book have not) it was difficult to appreciate her tough choices and some of her actions.  I think one of the most important things to remember is that Anney is still only in her early-to-mid-twenties!  She's a mother of two girls, has had two husbands -- one of whom died tragically young while she was pregnant -- and has worked extremely hard to provide for her little family.  Taking a step back helped me to realize that she's grasping onto Daddy Glen because he's been there.  He might not have been reliable or stable or kind, but he hadn't up and left her.  Her age absolutely has to be taken into account.  She's not some stable-minded adult -- she was a baby who had babies.  This all adds depth and complexity to her character.  I'm not going to say that I liked her at the end of the book, but understanding all of this helped me to see what might have made her make such a decision.

This is probably minor (and I hope I'm not the only one), but I had a hard time pinpointing when in time this story happened.  There were a few hints, but not many until much later in the story.  It would have been really easy for this to just be backwoods, outdated lost-to-time and have taken place even recently.  A simple way to give the readers a sense of time would have been to talk about the model of car Anney drove.  One word would have solved this.  Instead, I spent most of the book flipflopping back and forth between believing this poor (in more ways than one) family was stuck without modern conveniences, and that this book took place in the '50s and '60s.

Overall, the book was deep, dark, and parts of it were difficult to get through.  I liked bits and parts of it and appreciated the depth of Bone's character.  Would I read it again?  Nope.  Would I recommend it?  Not to many -- unless I think they can take the weight of the story.  Allison's writing was interesting and she took this subject to a different place than I'd read before.

I Want to Show You More: Jamie Quatro

"Sharp-edged and fearless, mixing white-hot yearning with daring humor, Jamie Quatro's publishing debut is a stunning and subversive portrait of modern infidelity, faith, and family.

"Set around Lookout Mountain on the border of Georgia and Tennessee, Quatro's seamless weave of hypnotic stories range from the traditional to the fabulist as they reveal lives torn between spirituality and sexuality in the new American South.  These fifteen linked tales present readers with dark theological complexities, fractured marriages, and mercurial temptations.  Throughout the collection, a mother in her late thirties relates the various stages of her extramarital affair while she and others lay bare their notions of God, sex, raising children, and running:  a wife comes home with her husband to find her lover's corpse in their bed; a girl's embarrassment over attending a pool party with her quadriplegic mother turns to fierce devotion under the gaze of other guests; and a husband asks his wife to show him how she would make love to another man.

"Sultry, acute, startlingly intimate, and enticingly cool, I Want to Show You More marks the thrilling debut of an exhilarating new voice in American fiction."

It just so happens that I wrote a book review for this collection of short stories for my "Writing Fiction:  Unlikable Characters" class:

Will Gladly Accept “More” from Quatro

            Jamie Quatro’s collection of short stories in “I Want to Show You More” have the noteworthy ability to draw readers in with their personal, intimate tones; their often dark and extremely human characters and situations; and her enthralling sense of place.  Most unique, perhaps, is Quatro’s ability to subtly weave together her characters and individual stories in the collection.  One can read each story individually and lose no enjoyment, but a new level is achieved when reading it as a collection.  The reader recognize names and places from previous stories and makes fascinating connections that only add a new layer to the book as a whole.  A great deal of the stories deal with death—often as a result of cancer, questioning one’s religion, issues with fidelity, running (rather, the themes of dedication, perseverance, and struggle associated with the activity) and life in and around Lookout Mountain, Georgia/Tennessee—a place that seems to personify the tumultuous state of its residence, who, as portrayed in the story, are in constant states of flux and identity struggles.

            Refreshingly, Quatro is unafraid to discuss often taboo subjects like adultery, which she did in “Decomposition:  A Primer for Promiscuous Housewives,” where the main character’s affair with another man produces a metaphorical corpse—a grotesquely descriptive manifestation of the emotions resulting from the relationship—around which she and her husband must learn to live their lives.  As the body decays, she has to learn to cope with life after the affair—the decomposition cleverly mirrors the “stages of grief” taught in every Introduction to Psychology course.  This story itself is uniquely structured.  Quatro creates a clinical tone to the story through her use of medical terms for the actual physical decomposition of the corpse (i.e. the section titled, “Algor Mortis:  early postmortem stage in which the body gradually loses heat to the ambient environment,” is used to personify the initial break off of the affair (Quatro 5)), which balances out the often stomach-churning descriptions and prevents them from trending toward gratuitous.  Most readers can only take so many descriptions of “viscous black fluid ooz[ing] from the corner of the [corpse’s] mouth” (13). 

Similarly taboo, “Georgia the Whole Time” deals with the issue of living with a cancer diagnosis in another clever parallel.  The main character and her family move to Lookout Mountain, Georgia for her husband’s job, but the location quickly becomes a benefit for her cancer treatments.  As she is forced to get used to the oddities of the town—how people reorganize the rooms in their homes to have cheaper taxes thanks to the state line that runs through the town, the leash laws, the way there seems to be a constant undercurrent of battle (the resonating echoes from the Civil War)—Quatro uses these as an interesting medium to convey the character’s struggle to cope and regain her footing after her diagnosis in a very non-cliché and unexpected manner.

“Here” is the sequel to “Georgia the Whole Time”—told from the husband’s point of view—even though it is located first in the book.  It deals similarly with cancer, but with the wake it leaves in the aftermath of death.  Quatro bluntly—yet rather eloquently—approaches the grief and struggles of a man who lost his wife and watched her waste away.  He has to rediscover his role now that he is left alone to care for their children.  When he finally realizes that his children need him (because he is a self-professed “needy one” (51)) Neil allows himself to realize how he should have been cherishing his time with them and fully realized his place in their lives—his identity.

A similar rediscovery of one’s self takes place in “Better to Lose an Eye,” where a young girl tries to cope with her warring emotions concerning her quadriplegic mother.  Quatro’s way of handling complex, confusing inner conflict is moving and relatable.  It brings her characters to life in a short span of writing.  It takes Lindsey most of the story to realize that she does, indeed, love her helpless mother, but when she does, the scene is supremely touching.  Quatro writes, “She loved her, loved her desperately; she would sit with her, facing her, her back to the party, to the world.  She would hold Mama’s crumpled hands, she would kiss them, she didn’t care who saw.  They would sit together, the two of them, with only the blue sky and clouds drifting overhead.  They would sit there until God had mercy and turned them both to stone” (118).

Quatro’s approach to these stories—these characters who live in this unique town straddling the Tennessee-Georgia line—is captivating.  Personally, I have never read any other author to whom I can compare her writing.  Several of the stories were told in a similar tone and perspective to Lorrie Moore’s “How to Be the Other Woman” in the sense that they really draw the reader in through use of a particular perspective—the use of “you” helps the reader to put him- or herself into the life of the main character.  “Decomposition” contains this perspective as well as the issue of adultery, while “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Pavement” sucks the reader into a twisted world where running—struggling through life with unfair burdens—takes on a whole new meaning.

However, a couple of the stories seemed lumped in simply because they take place in the Lookout Mountain, Georgia/Tennessee area.  Even though I found “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Pavement” to be extremely complex and interesting, its oddities did not quite seem to fit with the rest of the collection.  The only strings tying it with the other stories were the theme of running and the setting.  Something similar happened with “1.7 to Tennessee.”  The story—about a determined elderly woman on a mission—was only really connected to the others by (again) the setting, and a very brief mention of some characters that are in a few of the other passages.  The tenuous connections here mess with the flow of the work as a whole, though they make interesting individual works.

Overall, Quatro’s collection was captivating.  The tales were beautifully tragic in their oft-sad plots, and the settings were rich and enhanced every aspect of her stories.

I suppose I cheated on this review by having one already prepared...  I would like to add (in my own "normal" review voice as opposed to my "scholarly" one) that I did enjoy the collection for the most part.  Some of the stories seemed a bit too "out there" and contrasted too sharply to the harsh, unadulterated reality of the rest of the stories.  My favorite aspect was probably the fact that the stories worked both as a whole and as individual pieces -- a mark of, I feel, brilliant talent.  Quatro's characters were rich and fascinating.  I loved how unafraid she was to address things that many authors stay away from.  She wasn't afraid to write about adulterous women and needy men and people who find themselves in periods of questioning their beliefs.  She had many characters that could be deemed "unlikable," but what makes them so fascinating is the fact that, even though they are supremely flawed by things like moral standards, we readers cannot help but find things in them that are captivating.  It's difficult to not want to read more.

I recommend this collection of short stories to those readers who are not afraid to test boundaries, think outside of the box, and look for a meaning deeper than the words they are reading.

Yes, Chef: A Memoir: Marcus Samuelsson

"It begins with a simple ritual:  Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother's house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner.  The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic.  The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson.  The book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations.

"Marcus Samuelsson was only three years old when he, his mother, and his sister--all battling tuberculosis--walked seventy-five miles to a hospital in the Ethiopian capital city of Addis Adaba.  Tragically, his mother succumbed to the disease shortly after she arrived, but Marcus and his sister recovered, and one year later they were welcomed into a loving middle-class white family in Goteborg, Sweden.  It was there that Marcus's new grandmother, Helga, sparked in him a lifelong passion for food and cooking with her pan-fried Herring, her freshly baked bread, and her signature roast chicken.  from a very early age, there was little question what Marcus was going to be when he grew up.

"Yes, Chef chronicles Marcus Samuelsson's remarkable journey from Helga's humble kitchen to some of the most demanding and cutthroat restaurants in Switzerland and France, from his grueling stints on cruise ships to his arrival in New York City, where his outsize talent and ambition finally came together at Aquavit, earning him a coveted New York Times three-star rating at the age of twenty-four.  But Samuelsson's career of 'chasing flavors,' as he calls it, had only just begun--in the intervening years, there have been White House state dinners, career crises, reality show triumphs and, most important, the opening of the beloved Red Rooster in Harlem.  At Red Rooster, Samuelsson has fulfilled his dream of creating a truly diverse, multiracial dining room--a place where presidents and prime ministers rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, bus drivers, and nurses.  It is a place where an orphan from Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, living in America, can feel at home.

"With disarming honesty and intimacy, Samuelsson also opens up about his failures--the price of ambition, in human terms--and recounts his emotional journey, as a grown man, to meet the father he never knew.  Yes, Chef is a tale of personal discovery, unshakable determination, and the passionate, playful pursuit of flavors--one man's struggle to find a place for himself in the kitchen, and in the world."

Here's another one we read for my "Topics in Literature:  Food" course this past semester; however, this was one that I really enjoyed.  I cannot say enough about how Marcus Samuelsson's love for food absolutely permeated every letter in this book.  His passion was exciting and his story was supremely interesting.  We spent a few weeks discussing this story and I think I touched on some really good points so -- in lieu of a simple review -- I'd like to share some of my comments with you.

It seems like -- even when he did not realize it when he was younger -- food was at the heart of pretty much everything he did.  Even from very early on one of his favorite places to be was in the kitchen with Mormor, his mother's mother.  He demonstrated a drive and passion for it even when he was a boy.  On a fishing trip with his father, Marcus took great pride in being handed the task of preparing the meal:  "'Marcus, if you don't cook, we don't eat,' my father joked.  It was a joke, of course, because my father knew I needed no prompting to cook, which is probably why he let me take over the meal.  This was my first time cooking on my own, as opposed to helping my grandmother or mother.  Just as I had with the boats, I was eager to show I was a big man, that I didn't need anyone's help" (Samuelsson 33).  This was when Marcus was only twelve-years-old; he was already showing the desire to prove himself that would carry him throughout his career.  A few years after this fishing trip, he enrolled in cooking school.  He grew bored with the classes, but, instead of giving up, he found ways to challenge himself.  "To keep myself sharp," writes Samuelsson, "I turned each exercise into a little contest.  Could I fill the pastry shell faster than any of my classmates?  Could I wash and chop that dill faster than the teacher?  Could I finish each squirt of whipped cream with the exact same curl?" (59).  His whole world turned into this sort of competition revolving around food, which, I feel, is the biggest reason that he has had so much success in his career.  He never gave up, never got discourage, approached every task with everything he had, and did not settle for simply being talented -- he strove to be innovative and unique.

I feel like Marcus would not have made it to where he is today without such dedication to the kitchen.  It seems that most of the good things (outside of his family) happen to him in relation to the kitchen or food.  The kitchen is and always has been his realm.  Even when he thought soccer would be his life, he had been there in the kitchen with his grandmother, learning from her and carrying that gift with him always.  The women in his life vary quite a bit in their roles in his life, but each, in her own way, helps support his determination and goals.  His mother never told him he could not do something.  His sisters, Anna and Linda, got him something very special for his seventeenth birthday.  "It was a brand-new cook's knife with an eight-inch-long carbon steel blade.  This was the multipurpose knife every chef needs, with a blade thin enough to chop herbs, but a wide flat surface for crushing or picking up food.  Better still, it was the Rolls-Royce of knives, brand-wise, made by the French company Sabatier" (64).  ***Slight spoiler alert***  Even Brigitta, the woman Marcus sleeps with while on an outting with friends, helps him by telling him she expected nothing even though she was pregnant with his child.  Marcus, under the guidance of his parents, ended up sending money to Brigitta and their child, but she never pressured him into marriage or claiming the child as his own, thus allowing him to pursue his career.  ***End spoiler***

The women in his life played a huge role on his path to becoming a master chef.  They each provided him with unwaivering support in their own ways.  I believe the person who did this the most was his grandmother.  This is clearly evidenced in chapter three, titled "Swedish Fish."  Samuelsson writes, "My love for food did not come from my mother," which begs the question of where, exactly, he got his passion (15).  Shortly after this, Samuelsson describes Saturday dinners at his grandmother's home, and the answer is clear.  "I loved Saturdays as a kid...Saturdays meant the best meal we would have all week because dinner was almost always at my grandparents' house...[Grandmother] would pull out a stool and set me to string rhubarb or shell peas or pluck a chicken.  I'm not sure why mu sisters never joined us in our Saturday cooking sessions; and, at the time, I didn't care.  I was only too happy to have Mormor to myself" (23).  This close bond was what helped spark and nurture the love for food and cooking that brought Marcus his later success.  Who knows how different his career might have been -- where he might have ended up -- if Mormor had not been there to do so.

In addition, how actively Samuelsson sought out inspiration was a pleasant surprise.  He made sure to go ashore every chance he got during his stint on the cruise ship.  He writes, "New flavors were what I was after, and in almost every port of call, I smelled or tasted something I'd never tasted before.  I'd have four hours to go ashore, and I'd go by myself unless Paul or Susan wanted to taf along...Under the protective layer of my skin, I went unnoticed, which allowed me to observe and relish the most beautiful aspect of port culture:  the street food" (158). 

There was a very interesting correlation between the military and a kitchen in my reading of this book and my experiences with "chef shows" that have become so popular, but I was still struck by the hierarchy of the kitchens in which Marcus Samuelsson worked in throughout Yes, Chef.  The strict schedule, precision, and respect for superiors was remarkable.  To me, it was also like life on a ship, with the head chef as the captain and various tiers below him each doing his own assigned task.  The common thread is the enforcement of a strict hierarchy in one way or another.  Another extreme in the kitchen is the passion.  Samuelsson never waivers in his dedication to his cooking.  He is always trying to experiment and better himself through his cooking.  He devotes his life to it.  "I was interested in chasing flavors," writes Samuelsson, "I wanted to shake things up and see what happened.  What if I took this piece of turbot, put Parmesan on top, put it in the salamander to speed-melt the cheese, then finished it with an orange chutney?  I didn't know if mixing French fish, Italian cheese, and Indian Caribbean flavors would be food, but I wanted to try it" (157).  And try he did.  These were the experiments he kept in his journal and helped him to become the chef he did.  It was all about his passion to try new things, and his dedication to the craft.

Hopefully that didn't come off too wordy (or disjointed, since I mashed together several of my responses here).  Overall, the story was wonderful and it really made me appreciate the life of a chef and admire Samuelsson for his own, individual struggles.  His life is certainly unique and interesting!

I knew I'd seen Samuelsson's face somewhere before, but it wasn't until I read the story (and subsequently mentioned his name to my mother) that I realized we'd seen him on Top Chef.  My mother was adamant that Samuelsson was a "know-it-all jerk," but I don't remember having that impression years ago when he'd competed.  I'm kind of glad that I don't have such a vivid memory of his time on the show because I was completely able to enjoy his story without any preconceived notions about who he was as a person.  I will admit that I feel like he gave up some things he should not have for his career, but I am not one to judge--I'm not someone who believes in criticizing when I have no idea what the situation was really like to live through.  A couple of the passages geared toward pretentious, but not to the point where I didn't enjoy the read.  As a huge Gordon Ramsay fan, I had a difficult time stomaching Samuelsson's comments about his fellow chef (though I am not disillusioned enough to think Ramsay is a teddy bear).  Samuelsson tried to claim he wasn't bashing Ramsay, but I felt like it was a weak attempt not to do so (and I say that from the most objective way possible).

Overall, I highly recommend this story for anyone who wants an interesting memoir to read; anyone who loves cooking or wants an insight into life inside a kitchen; or someone who's simply interesting in reading about the background of a celebrity chef.  This book has a bit of something for so many readers out there and I feel like so many people will enjoy it just as I did.

Samuelsson, Marcus. Yes, Chef: A Memoir. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.

Like Water for Chocolate: Laura Esquivel

"To the table or to bed
"You must come when you are bid

"The number-one bestseller in Mexico in 1990, Like Water for Chocolate is a romantic, poignant tale, touched with bittersweet moments of magic and sensuality.  Evocative of How to Make an American Quilt in structure, Tampopo in its celebration of food, and Heartburn in its irony and wit, it is a lively and funny tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico.

"The narrator's great-aunt Tita is the youngest of three daughters born to Mama Elena, the tyrannical owner of the De la Garza ranch.  While still in her mother's womb, she wept so violently -- as her mother chopped onions -- that she caused Mama Elena to begin early labor; and Tita slipped out in the middle of the kitchen table, amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup.  This early encounter with food soon became a way of life, and Tita grew up to be a master chef.  Each chapter of the novel begins with one of Tita's recipes and her careful instructions for preparation.

"In well-born Mexican families, tradition dictates that the youngest daughter not marry, but remain at home to care for her mother.  Even though Tita has fallen in love, Mama Elena chooses not to make an exception, and instead, arranges for Tita's older sister to marry Tita's young man.

"In order to punish Tita for her willfulness, Mama Elena forces her to bake the wedding cake.  The bitter tears Tita weeps while stirring the batter provoke a remarkable reaction among the guests who eat the cake.  It is then that it first becomes apparent that her culinary talents are unique.

"Laura Esquivel's voice is direct, simple, and compelling.  She has written a fresh and innovative novel, bringing her own inimitable strengths to a classic love story."

I have no explanation for why I started a draft of this review months ago and never posted it.  In fact, I have several reviews that I still need to post and (rather unfortunately) never got around to them...  Now that I only have a few days left of "summer break" before my summer semester starts I've got to find a way to cram them all in and make a valiant effort to do them justice.  Finishing this post seems like as good a place as any to do so!

This book was assigned for my "Topics in Literature:  Food" course.  First, let me say that this was a brilliant course that really opened my eyes to a lot of issues in the way we, as a nation and as individual consumers, view food.  I'm pretty sure I touched on a couple of these in a previous post or two, so I won't rehash them here.  This particular book was one of the few that were intended to expose us to food as a form of self-expression, personal culture, as well as a broader culture.  The premise behind this story was touching--I'm a sucker for unrequited love and anything to do with food--but (and I know I'm going to have some disagreement on this) the way everything was presented was not very appealing to me.  If memory serves, this was a translated text originally written in Spanish, which makes me wonder if some of the beauty of the work was literally lost-in-translation.  My 5 years of Spanish urged me to sit down and try to mentally translate the text back into Spanish to see if it was anymore eloquent, but my efforts proved fruitless in this endeavor:  I didn't care anymore for the writing.  So many parts were too simplistic for a book I know has garnered much popularity and has been touted as a brilliant piece of literature.  Honestly, I think a great deal of my inability to enjoy the story has to do with the fact that some of the situations were just way too "out there" for me.  Chickens creating a whirlwind and Tita's sister stripping naked from a reaction to the emotion Tita had poured into the food were simply too "folktale-esque" for me to really enjoy.  They're not what I expected to encounter in the book and they are not something that, personally, I like to read.

I did, however, like the structure of the story (for the most part).  Breaking everything down by recipe was a clever way to bring readers back to the common undercurrent of food as a constant vessel through which the poor, oppressed Tita is able to communicate her emotions.  I understand the metaphor if coupling the chapters of the story with periods in Tita's life, but their typically-accepted parallels did not quite match up with the stages of Tita's growth--something else that bothered me.  I think leaving the recipes as the sole "labels" for the chapters would have been more than unique enough.

While I liked Tita's character (probably more for my sympathy for her than the fact that she had the potential to be a very strong character), I had a difficult time coming to terms with some of her decisions and actions.  For all her purity, Tita made some poor decisions--some too flawed for me to respect her.  I wonder how much of this story was pulled from reality and how much was contrived because there are some things (like Tita's choice in lover/spouse) that were obviously poor (no matter her emotions) and would have been weak authorial choices and could probably have only been explained away as "reality" (i.e. they were decisions influenced by real ones made by the person on whom this story is based--people are flawed, therefore, their decisions are sometimes flawed).

We were supposed to watch the film version of this story for our course, but I never got around to it.  I know--had I enjoyed the story more--I probably would have gone out of my way to procure a copy and carve out time from my busy schedule to watch it.  While a great deal of the descriptions of the food (the actual dishes, not the descriptions or instructions, because I felt like those sometimes disrupted the flow of the story) were wonderfully vivid and enticing, I had a hard time losing myself in the story because of the level of writing and some of the unbelievably fantastical elements of the tale.  I realize this story has some very passionate fans, but it was not my cup of tea.  I recommend it as a good example of how food can be such an incredibly emotional aspect of our lives and culture, but I have a hard time recommending it on literary merits.  It was a fairly quick read though and I am sure there are those out there who would love such a story.

Stealing Buddah's Dinner: Bich Minh Nguyen

"Beginning with her family's harrowing migration out of Saigon in 1975, Stealing Buddah's Dinner follows Bich Nguyen as she comes of age in the pre-PC-era Midwest.  Filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity, Nguyen's desire to belong transmutes into a passion for American food--Pringles, Kit Kats, and Toll House cookies.  More exotic-seeming than her Buddhist grandmother's traditional specialities, the campy, preservative-filled 'delacacies' of mainstream American become an ingenious metaphor for her struggle to become a 'real' American.  Stealing Buddah's Dinner is also a portrayal of a diverse family:  Nguyen's hardworking, hard-partying father; pretty sister' wise and nurturing grandmother; and Rosa, her Latina stepmother.  And there is the mystery of Nguyen's birth mother, unveiled movingly over the course of the book.  Nostalgic and candid, Stealing Buddah's Dinner is a unique vision of the immigrant experience and a lyrical ode to how identity is often shaped by the things we long for."

This was another book that was assigned for my Story of Food course.  It's a thin little book that I was not especially enthusiastic about starting; but once I did, I couldn't put it down.  Perhaps it's because I come from a family where our immigrant roots are still very powerful (my mother is only first-generation American) or a personal struggle with food that I can relate to.  Either way, this book was extremely poignant and powerful.

Bich's, along with her older sister, father, grandmother, and uncles flee Vietnam at the end of the war -- managing to escape on one of the last boats available.  Once arriving in the United States, they are relegated to a refugee camp, where they can do nothing but hope, wait, and eat the unattractive food until they gain a sponsor and move to Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Her first taste of "outside" life in the U.S. is spent in an unsafe neighborhood, but it filled with American candy, treats, and snacks brought home by her father.  Their Vietnamese roots were kept alive (throughout the entire story) by her grandmother, Noi.  She would prepare classic Vietnamese dishes, meditate, and leave food for Buddah and their ancestors.  Noi, Bich, and Bich's older sister, Anh, would practice their daily routine of leaving food for Boddah on the altar where the girls would have to wait to enjoy the treat.  Only when Noi determined it was ready would she divide the fruit between her granddaughters and the girls would savor each morsel.  The simplicity of these days is changed when Bich's father meets a Latina woman named Rosa, marries her (when she is well along in her pregnancy with their son, Vinh), and she and her daughter from a previous marriage, Crissy, come to love with Bich's family in their already full little home.  The blend of another culture (Rosa's Latin heritage) seems to only further Bich's confusion, and makes her struggle to fit in with the Americans even more complex.

The little girl sees food as her "in" with the rest of the American children.  Throughout the book, she desperately tries to get her hands on anything and everything she sees her schoolmates eating.  She longs for the same candy and chips; the homemade cookies and lovingly prepared lunches carried to school in fancy tupperware containers; the beef stroganoff and stuffed peppers.  Bich's attempt to be "American" is attacked from the inside-out.  She cannot make her appearance over into the blond hair and blue eyes of her classmates, so her attempts to eat like they do are her way of trying to assimilate.  These attempts, however, are thwarted by Rosa's thriftiness (or cheapness, depending on one's perception) and the strength of her ties to her Vietnamese roots.  Bich is trapped between two worlds and this book provides a powerful account of what it is like to grow up as an immigrant in our country.

This story is beautifully written and, oftentimes, hauntingly sad.  It is the tale of a little girl who feels like an outsider -- an outcast -- because of where she comes from.  Bich Nguyen is an eloquent author with quite the childhood and I completely recommend this book to everyone either interested in the way food shapes culture, an autobiographical account of the childhood of Vietnamese immigrant, or learning acceptance for those who come from a different place than we do.

(Side note:  I'm a huge fan of Vietnamese food (and I'm really sad that I cannot get it anywhere near where I currently live...) and this book presents a beautiful account of what makes this cuisine so unique and wonderful.)

An Edible History of Humanity: Tom Standage

"More than simply sustenance, food historically has been a kind of technology, changing the course of human progress by helping to build empires, promote industrialization, and decide the outcomes of wars.  Tom Standage draws on archaeology, anthropology, and economics to reveal how food has helped shape and transform societies around the world, from the emergence of farming in China by 7500 B.C. to the use of sugar cane and corn to make ethanol today.  An Edible History of Humanity is a fully satisfying account of human history."

This book was assigned for one of the most interesting courses I've ever taken:  The Story of Food.  It's an English class where I get to read about food, and even cook!  I recently did a project on the history of the Cornish Pasty -- which was pretty darn delicious, by the way.  HERE is the recipe I used -- thank you to Susan of Farmgirl Fare for her article, and Jamie Oliver for the yummy recipe!

Standage's book was the first that we were assigned to read.  I was instantly drawn in by the novelty of what Standage had to say.  There is no such thing as food that has not been genetically modified?  Humans and their food evolved and changed one another?  Entire wars and the development of empires hinged on food?  The claims were at once astonishing and entirely plausible.  Standage pulls from a wealth of human history and substantial evidence to support his claims.  There were numerous times where I paused to think, "That makes complete sense!  I wonder why I'd never seen that before."  This, I believe, is the mark of a brilliant author.  Standage kept me fascinated, he kept me thinking, and he enlightened me to a great many things.

The book covers how farming came about from out hunter-gatherer roots, then how civilizations were formed around this new way of life.  Standage explains how some people came into power because of this new system (and how their methods were so different form what we perceive a ruler to be in our modern world), just how much of an influence the food trade had on shaping empires, how food drove expansion and the discovery of new worlds, how it played a surprisingly vital role in industrialization and warfare, defined the "Green Revolution," and detailed some of the issues that we might someday soon encounter, and what steps are being taken to avoid disaster of catastrophic proportions.

I simply cannot say enough about Standage's work.  It was informative and interesting.  Though I realize I have made it sound as if it reads like a dry history of humanity, it is far from it.  I have been recommending this book to everyone who will listen.  It is a remarkable lens through which to view the history of mankind.  I believe it poses one of the most important questions that anyone can asks, "Where does my food come from."  I genuinely feel that this is something everyone should ask.  You might be shocked!

A Week to Be Wicked (Spindle Cove, Book Two): Tessa Dare

"Unexpected lovers find themselves together in Spindle Cove with A Week to be Wicked--the second book in Tessa Dare's utterly delectable historical romance series.  This Regency Era delight finds a restless British lord desperate to escape the quaint and too quiet small seaside resort he's trapped in...and he gets much more than he expected when he eagerly agrees to escort a beautiful, brilliant, socially awkward lady scientist to Scotland...."

In preparation for posting a few other book reviews (mainly ones I'd read for school) I flipped through a few older reviews on here and noticed that I hadn't reviewed this book yet!  I finished it weeks and weeks ago and cannot believe I never got around to posting a review.  I have a feeling that the reason this happened was because I think I began a review, but left it on my computer at work...  I'll probably end up finding that review later this week and amending this.  For now, the review!

I am afraid that this review will be a bit shorter than previous ones because of the silly delay in my reading it and finally sitting down to review it.

I liked Lord Payne just as much as I thought I would!  His backstory was very rich and his imagination was boundless.  I was very pleased with these characteristics and his outgoing personality.  If you've read my review of the first book in the series, you know that I had an issue with Bram because he lacked a lot of what Colin, Lord Payne, has.  Colin was deep and rich and well-formed, whereas Bram was a bit unbelievable and too undamaged from his time on the battlefield -- especially for a wounded soldier.

Minerva was enthusiastic, intelligent, and socially inept.  Her passion for her work was well-written and remarkable.  I thoroughly appreciate the effort that Dare puts into the inclusion of historical events (and findings) into her works.  So many romance authors use juxtaposition of their characters -- "opposites attract," if you will -- to create simultaneous friction and chemistry.  Dare truly did this in the most amusing and interesting of ways.  Minerva's seriousness and Colin's mischievous nature created some very interesting reading and kindled passion that was so powerful and believable, it was difficult to put the book down.

These two characters were genuinely a few of my favorite that I have ever had the chance to read.  I'm really enjoying Dare's Spindle Cove series and cannot wait to get my hands on the next one.  This is probably a silly excuse to not have begun reading the next in the series, but it's the most expensive one on Kindle for the series...  The cheapskate in me won't let me pay that much for a book I'm going to read only once (not because I don't think I'll like it, but because I really do not ever re-read material).  I'll get around to it someday soon, I'm sure.  I have already recommended Dare's works to a close friend of mine and I'm happy to do so for everyone looking for a good Regency Era historical romance series filled with wit, amusement, and creativity.

A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove, Book One): Tessa Dare

“Welcome to Spindle Cove, where ladies with delicate constitutions come for the sea air, and med in their prime are…nowhere to be found.

“Or are they?

“Spindle Cove is the destination of choice for certain types of well-bred young ladies: the painfully shy, young wives disenchanted with matrimony, and young girls too enchanted with the wrong men. It is a haven for those who live there.

“Victor Bramwell, the new Earl of Rycliff, knows he doesn’t belong here. So far as he can tell, there’s nothing in this place but spinsters…and sheep. But he has no choice, he has orders to gather a militia. It’s a simple mission, made complicated by the spirited, exquisite Susanna Finch--a woman who is determined to save her personal utopia from the invasion of Bram’s makeshift army.

“Susana has no use for aggravating men; Bram has sworn off interfering women. The scene is set for an epic battle…but who can be named the winner when both have so much to lose?”

After enjoying the fourth book in this series so much I was really excited to read this installment (and get my proper introduction to Tessa Dare’s enchanting series). I am already about eight chapters into the book. I enjoy the characters already. I find Susanna very endearing. She is easy to relate to and I have a personal connection to her unwavering efforts to protect and care for her father. The setting--such a stark contrast to the rigid, disciplined Bram--provides for some comedy and lightheartedness which make the book enjoyable to read. Thus far, I feel like Susana is a much more developed character than Bram. I really hope that Bram is fleshed out more because, in the past, I have really enjoyed Dare’s ability to create extremely rich male leads.

…

I finished this book a couple of days ago (and have already begun reading the second in the series - forgive my delay), and I ended up enjoying it a great deal. This was perhaps why I finished reading it without doing anymore RAIR updates to this review. Let me begin by saying that, while I liked the book, I still liked the fourth one in this series (see the review HERE - I accidentally read it out of order). As I mentioned above, Bram began his life as a less developed character than Susanna; and it continued much along that same vein. This is not to say there was no empathy for him (which sometimes happens in less-developed characters). He was not underdeveloped, just slightly less-so than Susanna. I far prefer books where the male leads are very well-developed (no pun intended). I still enjoyed his character, but I wanted to see more depth from his point of view. He was a very in-the-moment character. Other than his injury in battle, his past was kept fairly superficial. I also felt like he would have had more scars (mental and physical) from having spent so much time in the military. He was an extremely devoted, honorable man--a born-and-bred soldier--but not once did he really describe the horrors of war or seem to be really bothered by them. It’s difficult to tell of the was a conscious decision on the part of the author (like she was trying to make him über-macho by making it seem like war and death and gore didn’t bother him nearly as much as his inability to jump right back into it all), but it was definitely something I noticed. I did enjoy his relationship with his cousin, Colin, Lord Payne. The name choice here is amusing, if a little bit obvious for a thorn in Bram’s side. (As I wrote that, I realized that I don’t think Susanna once calls Bram by his first name, Victor. He’s always “Bram.”) Simply from reading Colin’s parts in this book I can already tell that I’m really going to enjoy his story (contained in the second book of the series, of which I’m already a few chapters into).

As I mentioned, Susanna was a much more developed character. She was strong, intelligent, and brave. The beginning of the book seemed to emphasize her talents with herbs and natural remedies, but I felt like this died away about halfway through. I kind of wish it had been a bit more consistent since I was given the impression that it was such a large part of her life. Her back-story was well written and interesting.

The situations in the story remained fairly lighthearted (until the end, where there were a few twists and turns thrown in, but I won’t give those away!). It was a book that didn’t take itself too seriously and its characters were conscious enough of some of the oddities of the situation (like a town run by and filled with women) that it was made all the more believable. Had everything simply been accepted then I would have had a more difficult time losing myself in it.

As I mentioned earlier, there were a few twists near the end of the story. I realize these types of things are pretty widely accepted in this type of literature as a part of the structure. In order for the lead characters to truly be bonded together and their love made solid, there has to be some sort of tragedy, near-death experience, falling-out, or battle (or thereabouts). Some authors do this much better than others. Personally, I really liked how Dare downplayed this type of scene in her fourth book of this series. It was so much more believable than some of the other scenarios I’ve read and it was really refreshing. I was kind of hoping she’d do that in this book too, but that was not to be. Dare had a few of (not going to say which!) these types of scenes near the conclusion of this story and I felt like she could have done with just one or the other. It was a bit of overkill. This did not, however, detract too much from my enjoyment of the story.

Dare’s writing style is consistently eloquent and she provides readers with some of the best escapist reading I’ve ever enjoyed. She definitely ranks up there with some of my most-loved authors. As an English major, I can really relish her style, vocabulary, witty internal and external dialogues, brilliant use of repetition, and her unique characters. Having read two books by this author (and begun a third) I can say with certainty that Dare is talented for the fact that--not only are her characters diverse--she even makes them “sound” different. Their thought-processes all read differently and it’s like she jumped into each of their heads for their respective books. This is charming and endearing in characters in books such as these. It makes them seem so much more alive than a stereotype.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I’ve obviously decided to read more of Dare’s writing since I’m already onto the third one in this series! I highly recommend this book (and author) because of the eloquent writing and captivating characters.