BOOK REVIEW: A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara

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BOOK REVIEW: A Little Life, by Hanya YanagiharaTitle: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Published by Doubleday
Published: March 10th 2015
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 720
Format: Trade Paper
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

When four classmates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.

 Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It’s so sad, and yet we all do it. We all cling to it; we all search for something to give us solace.

This is one of those books that everyone’s been talking about forever, and I finally decided to get it and read it, and oh my god, I cried a lot. It’s a difficult, graphic, and upsetting novel, and it’s one that requires a dedication to read it, because once I reached the halfway point, I made the decision to finish it that night.

This novel follows the lives of four friends who graduate from college and live in New York City. Most of the novel revolves around one character, Jude St. Francis, and the narration switches between past and present, first and third person. It is very much a character novel, and it explores the relationships of these four friends with each other and others throughout Jude’s life.

I initially had a few issues with it. This novel is timeless. The events in the novel take place in a New York that is not cemented in any specific time. There are no references to 9/11, no references to election years, no reference to politics or major news. I also felt that this was a little too long. Don’t get me wrong, I could read endlessly about any and all of these characters and would love to, and I got the impression that we as readers want to feel as if these four specific friends are our four specific friends. But. I felt that with some removal of some scenes, the novel could have been more solidly focused around Jude because, in essence, this is a novel about Jude. And finally, sometimes I couldn’t tell whether or not I was reading about a Jude (or a Willem, or a JB, or a Malcolm) who was twenty-five or a Jude (or a Willem, or a JB, or a Malcolm) who was forty-five. Some people don’t change, sometimes our inner voice stays and sounds the same throughout our entire lives, but I really wanted to hear that growth sometimes. Again, it adds to the timelessness of the novel, that we’re who we are no matter who or what anyone else says or does, so I understand.

Finally, is anyone’s life that consistently miserable? I read a handful of reviews after finishing it that called it “grief porn” or something to that effect, and in some ways I agree, because I can’t see how anyone who considers Jude that much of a friend would let so much of his later-life violence happen to him. All of Jude’s close friends at some point or another seemed to enable Jude’s behavior. How, after such atrocities have been committed against a person, does anyone, including the victim, allow it to continue happening to such a violent degree? Yes, I know, at some point we’ve got to let the person live his life, that he’s allowed to have his own say in what happens. I know there are legalities regarding committing people, to help them. It just seemed so implausible that there was no hope for Jude.  Half the novel was implausible, but the fact that there’s a prevalent trope of gay men always having unhappy endings is disheartening?? There’s a sense of dread surrounding Jude, a sense of wondering when that suffering is going to end and who’s going to end it and when, because there’s no hope for happiness for him and that’s probably the most upsetting part about the entire thing.

The more I thought about the problems I had with the novel, the more I thought about the history and construction of various genres of the novel. And it hit me. There’s a reason for all of this.

It’s so Gothic it hurts.

A Little Life is a modern Gothic novel, with its secrets,  its big empty living spaces, and its explorations of love and death. Jude is our virginal maiden, Brother Luke and Caleb are our villainous tyrants (members the clergy in Gothic literature are often evil, and god is Brother Luke and everyone in that monastery evil), Willem and Andy are our heroes, the spaces in which Jude lives are often characters in themselves, and so much of the violence occurs at night, that psychological overlay of darkness. The Gothic novel is wildly implausible, preys on our emotions, is utterly sensational, and pleases us with its terror.

This is one of the best, most engaging novels I’ve read in a long time. There were times when I didn’t even realize I was turning pages. I’d look at a page number, and some time later, a hundred or more pages had been turned. It’s visceral, it’s violent, it’s emotional, and it’s powerful. Yanagihara has a way with words and development that kept me reading long after I should have been in bed. She makes us care immensely for Jude and his friends before she delivers the hefty, difficult stuff, so that makes us ache and cry even more. She is unflinching in her descriptions of abuse, of love, of friendship, of the ache of life, and I couldn’t put it down.

Read it, laugh and cry a little, and live that little life.

BOOK REVIEW: The Book of Esther, by Emily Barton

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BOOK REVIEW: The Book of Esther, by Emily BartonTitle: The Book of Esther by Emily Barton
Published by Tim Duggan Books
Published: June 14th 2016
Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism
Pages: 432
Format: Hardcover
Source: Blogging for Books
Goodreads

What if an empire of Jewish warriors that really existed in the Middle Ages had never fallen—and was the only thing standing between Hitler and his conquest of Russia? 
Eastern Europe, August 1942. The Khazar kaganate, an isolated nation of Turkic warrior Jews, lies between the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea) and the Khazar Sea (the Caspian). It also happens to lie between a belligerent nation to the west that the Khazars call Germania—and a city the rest of the world calls Stalingrad.
After years of Jewish refugees streaming across the border from Europa, fleeing the war, Germania launches its siege of Khazaria. Only Esther, the daughter of the nation’s chief policy adviser, sees the ominous implications of Germania's disregard for Jewish lives. Only she realizes that this isn’t just another war but an existential threat. After witnessing the enemy warplanes’ first foray into sovereign Khazar territory, Esther knows she must fight for her country. But as the elder daughter in a traditional home, her urgent question is how.
Before daybreak one fateful morning, she embarks on a perilous journey across the open steppe. She seeks a fabled village of Kabbalists who may hold the key to her destiny: their rumored ability to change her into a man so that she may convince her entire nation to join in the fight for its very existence against an enemy like none Khazaria has ever faced before.The Book of Esther is a profound saga of war, technology, mysticism, power, and faith. This novel—simultaneously a steampunk Joan of Arc and a genre-bending tale of a counterfactual Jewish state by a writer who invents worlds “out of Calvino or Borges” (The New Yorker)—is a stunning achievement. Reminiscent of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, The Book of Esther reaffirms Barton’s place as one of her generation’s most gifted storytellers.

I am Esther, and like my namesake before me, I will save the Jewish people.

Emily Barton’s The Book of Esther is an anomaly. Take Joan of Arc, dieselpunk, magical realism, let it simmer with Judaism, and you’ve got a very distilled essence of what this book contains. It doesn’t fit neatly into a genre, and it’s a little chaotic, but it’s worth reading for so many reasons.

The Book of Esther follows the journey of a young Jewish woman named Esther, who takes it upon herself to follow her calling even though she is initially hesitant, even though she faces opposition from her family and her village, and even though she knows her journey will be a difficult one. This novel explores the roles of women in Jewish society, and it shows the strength it takes to overcome the captivity women sometimes face in traditional roles. Barton also challenges the divide of male and female roles in Jewish/traditional society by having Esther go on a journey to transform herself into a male, because she knows that only in a male form will she be accepted and taken seriously by her society. Esther also meets a scholar who has transitioned from female to male by faith in the Hashem (in effort to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, I won’t name names!), and I loved how Barton weaves this into the story and celebrates his identity, especially his identity in his faith. Barton allows Esther to be naive regarding this scholar, and both characters grow and learn about identity and what it means to be oneself through each other. However, Esther learns along the way that no matter what the mystics have whispered, she cannot be anyone but herself. By the end of the novel, instead of encouraging every woman to follow her radical lead, Esther quietly encourages those she meets to be themselves, whoever and whatever they are and choose to be.

There are some things to keep in mind about the novel that might deter or confuse some readers. This novel requires some sort of knowledge of Judaism and Jewish history to fully appreciate because it explores the magical parts of creation and Jewish and Kabbalist mysticism. Having prior knowledge will help in the beginning of the novel when some ideas and concepts are glossed over because it is presumed the reader has prior knowledge. This novel is religious, but it’s not out to convert the reader to a particular belief or reinforce in readers that a particular belief is “correct.” This novel has a love triangle, but it’s not key or essential to Esther’s story.

All in all, The Book of Esther is a must read if you enjoy magical realism infused with a Jewish Joan of Arc, dieselpunk with mechanical horses, and a feminist journey of identity. I enjoyed it immensely, and I still think about it frequently because Esther has inspired me to keep questioning everything because she questions everything. Through that questioning, Esther learns a lot about herself and her identity. She told throughout the entire novel that she can’t do this or that because she’s a girl. Instead of giving up, she follows her heart and does it anyway. And you know what? People listen.

I received a free review copy from Blogging for Books. All opinions are my own.

BOOK REVIEW: Everyone Brave is Forgiven, by Chris Cleave

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BOOK REVIEW: Everyone Brave is Forgiven, by Chris CleaveTitle: Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
Published by Simon & Schuster
Published: May 3rd 2016
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 418
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Little Bee, a spellbinding novel about three unforgettable individuals thrown together by war, love, and their search for belonging in the ever-changing landscape of WWII London.
It’s 1939 and Mary, a young socialite, is determined to shock her blueblood political family by volunteering for the war effort. She is assigned as a teacher to children who were evacuated from London and have been rejected by the countryside because they are infirm, mentally disabled, or—like Mary’s favorite student, Zachary—have colored skin.
Tom, an education administrator, is distraught when his best friend, Alastair, enlists. Alastair, an art restorer, has always seemed far removed from the violent life to which he has now condemned himself. But Tom finds distraction in Mary, first as her employer and then as their relationship quickly develops in the emotionally charged times. When Mary meets Alastair, the three are drawn into a tragic love triangle and—while war escalates and bombs begin falling around them—further into a new world unlike any they’ve ever known.
A sweeping epic with the kind of unforgettable characters, cultural insights, and indelible scenes that made Little Bee so incredible, Chris Cleave’s latest novel explores the disenfranchised, the bereaved, the elite, the embattled. Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is a heartbreakingly beautiful story of love, loss, and incredible courage.

War was declared at 11:15, and Mary North signed up at noon.

Chris Cleave’s Everyone Brave is Forgiven is a wonderful, heartbreaking novel about the people who find themselves at the beginning of and in the midst of a brutal world war. This novel brings the reader to the front and center of the lives of Londoners at the beginning of WWII, and the reader is able to experience how the war affected people both on the home front and at the war front.

Mary North, a young London socialite, is determined to make a difference in her life and in the lives of others, and she volunteers her services to the war effort. She is assigned to be a teacher to children who have been evacuated from London. There she meets Tom, her employer and future lover, and learns about Alastair, Tom’s friend who has enlisted and about whom Tom is distraught.

There’s bravery on the war front, with men and women facing dangers not seen before, but there is also bravery on the home front, fighting class and racial prejudices. It’s a deft combination of all sorts of bravery and how it affects each of the characters while each are dealing with feelings of longing, belonging, loyalty, and love.

If you’ve read Doerr’s All the Light You Cannot See and Hannah’s The Nightingale and want more to read in a similar vein, this one comes highly recommended.

Thank you to Netgalley for a review copy!

BOOK REVIEW: The Trees, by Ali Shaw

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BOOK REVIEW: The Trees, by Ali ShawTitle: The Trees by Ali Shaw
Published by Bloomsbury USA
Published: August 2nd 2016
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 496
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

The Trees. They arrived in the night: wrenching through the ground, thundering up into the air, and turning Adrien's suburban street into a shadowy forest. Shocked by the sight but determined to get some answers, he ventures out, passing destroyed buildings, felled power lines, and broken bodies still wrapped in tattered bed linens hanging from branches.
It is soon apparent that no help is coming and that these trees, which seem the work of centuries rather than hours, span far beyond the town. As far, perhaps, as the coast, where across the sea in Ireland, Adrien's wife is away on a business trip and there is no way of knowing whether she is alive or dead.
When Adrien meets Hannah, a woman who, unlike him, believes that the coming of the trees may signal renewal rather than destruction and Seb, her technology-obsessed son, they persuade him to join them. Together, they pack up what remains of the lives they once had and set out on a quest to find Hannah's forester brother and Adrien's wife--and to discover just how deep the forest goes.
Their journey through the trees will take them into unimaginable territory: to a place of terrible beauty and violence, of deadly enemies and unexpected allies, to the dark heart of nature and the darkness--and also the power--inside themselves.

The world ends not with a bang but with a whisper.

Ali Shaw’s The Trees begins when overnight trees shoot up from the ground, destroying life as everyone knew it. I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of post-apocalyptic books lately, but this is the most natural. No one knows where the trees come from. Are they from Mother Nature? Alien? This isn’t a novel about where a destructive force comes from; it’s a novel about how certain people react and survive in the aftermath of something so unexplainable. And the people who survive are not your typical “heroes.”

This is a novel about nature’s cruelty, but also a novel about nature’s grace. The real survivors are the apt ones as they’re the ones fit to adapt. Our “hero” of the story is someone who’s introverted, unsure of himself and his place in the world, and overthinks everything. And who/what he becomes in the end was incredibly magical to me. It’s a reminder that everyone has a place and a purpose, and it doesn’t have to be overt, extroverted, and loud.

It’s a long book, but it’s well-paced and never seems to drag. I almost wish there was more. It’s a blend of post-apocalyptic horror, fairy tales, and magical realism. It’s brutal in a natural way, and if you’re disturbed by descriptions of violence toward people and animals, this book isn’t for you. But if you’re intrigued by a different sort of post-apocalypse in which nature takes back the Earth from its parasitic human population, read this. It’ll give you chills.

Thanks to Netgalley for a review copy!

BOOK REVIEW: Love for Lydia, by H.E. Bates

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BOOK REVIEW: Love for Lydia, by H.E. BatesTitle: Love for Lydia by H.E. Bates
Published by Bloomsbury Reader
Published: May 12th 2016
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 300
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

Lydia - shy, sheltered, beautiful and just 19 - glides into Evensford one wintry day, stirring up feeling amongst the town's young men. But it is the young Mr Richardson that she befriends. As winter turns to drowsy summer, his world becomes a wondrous place, full only of Lydia; but a change comes over the once retiring girl as she discovers the effect she has on other men. As his closest friends fall under her spell, the love Richardson feels for Lydia becomes tangled with jealousy and resentment, a rift that may never be repaired.
First published in 1952, Love for Lydia is a poignant look at love through the eyes of a boy growing up. Set amidst the hazy beauty of the English countryside and the crumbling splendour of the British upper classes, Bates demonstrates his ability to capture the complexities of human character, his remarkable talent for contrasting romance against stark reality, and the innocence, joy and sadness of young love.

In a shorter review, I wrote that H.E. Bates’s Love for Lydia is like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s writing of neon lights and champagne jazz. Bates’s writing is similar, transposed to the English countryside with pops of flowers against the countryside rather than fireworks against a city skyline.

In Love for Lydia, we follow Richardson (our narrator) throughout his meeting of orphaned Lydia, his falling in love with Lydia, his letting go of Lydia, and everything that transpires between. Richardson is not part of “society,” but he is invited to spend time with Lydia so that she might expand her horizons. During the course of the novel and during the course of Richardson’s and Lydia’s attachment to one another, others are introduced into Lydia’s life and some vie for her attention, which in turn creates resentment and jealousy among everyone in their little friend group.

Nature plays a prominent role in the book. It starts out in winter, thaws out in spring, overheats in summer, and culminates at the brink of autumn. The cycle of seasons is fitting to Richardson’s  behavior and reactions, and serves as an outward representation of his internal dialogue. Richardson’s constant stopping to smell the roses also shows us that he’s aware of the details, of the implications, and the significance of beautiful things. His descriptions of flowers against the drab landscape show us how he feels particularly about Lydia; she’s his flower in the hardship of life.

Lydia, a vixen in her newfound freedom and confidence, becomes aware of her sexuality and uses it to her advantage, but not without destroying the hearts of her beaux. It troubles her; it troubles Richardson who watches it unfold before his eyes.

It’s a love story; it’s a story about parties and obsessive, destructive love in the Twenties; and it’s a very British one at that. Read it if you enjoyed Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Smith’s I Capture the Castle. Apparently it’s a little Hardy-ish, but I’ve never read Hardy, so I can’t make the comparison yet!

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for a review copy!