Jan. 18: Book reviews

I read four books this week and heartily recommend three of them.

I stepped outside of my preferred genre to read two young adult novels: I Heart You, You Haunt Me and Far From You, both by Lisa Schroeder. I met Lisa about 12 years ago when she was a Pampered Chef consultant and I was a frequent hostess/customer. We’ve stayed in touch over the years since she quit Pampered Chef and picked up writing, and I subscribe to her blog, which I enjoy immensely.

I Heart You, You Haunt Me is the story of a teenaged girl whose boyfriend’s ghost hangs around for a while after he dies. I’m not a fan of the supernatural so I didn’t expect the story to grab me, but Lisa’s writing style is so unique (opening the book, it looks like a bunch of poems; it is actually a story written in verse), and she develops her characters well. I was sucked in quickly. It was a quick read, but thick with emotion.

Far From You, Lisa’s second young adult novel, is also written in verse. This story has more adventure, which I enjoyed. I could relate to Alice, the main character, because her dad has remarried and she feels ignored and unimportant. She ends up trapped in the snow with her stepmother and half-sister for days, and through hallucinations brought on by fear, hunger, and desperation, her mother appears as an angel to remind her of what’s important in life. Again, the characters are realistic and Lisa manages to capture the mood of the situations well.

Yesterday afternoon I got to meet up with The Lovely Lori and her daughter Taylor to attend Lisa’s book signing at Powells. She talked a bit about her writing process and some of the responses she’s heard from readers, and she read a little bit from Far From You. One of the things I like best about attending readings/signings is to hear the author read their own work, to hear it read in exactly the way they had in mind when they wrote it. I read both of Lisa’s books as books, not as poems; she read them more like poetry. It was interesting, and made me appreciate the stories for their poetic style more than I had before.

Although I didn’t read it this week, I can’t leave out a quick mention of Lisa’s first published book, for baby-preschool age. It’s called Baby Can’t Sleep and is beautifully illustrated. Very sweet little story.

The third book I read this week was Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. I tried to describe it to Lori and Taylor yesterday and did a pretty bad job, so let’s see if I can do any better in writing. It reminded me of Water for Elephants in that it was a very different story from what usually interests me, and also that it completely captivated me. There were a couple parts that dragged, but most of the book was hard to put down. And now that I’m done with it I see that the parts that dragged were fairly significant and I simply didn’t “get it” at the time. The story is of a man remembering key experiences from his childhood, primarily one in which he is the sole human survivor of the sinking of a cargo ship. He ends up on a lifeboat with a hyena, orangutan, zebra, and Bengal tiger. He survives 227 days with the tiger as his shipmate, using surprisingly effective methods of training to keep the tiger from attacking him. It was somewhat similar to the Cast Away story, especially in the ways Pi learned how and what to eat to keep himself and the tiger alive. There were scary, suspenseful moments in storms and encounters with other animal life. The story itself was shocking and unbelievable, and that’s exactly what his rescuers said; they accused him of making up the whole thing. Comparisons to faith and religion are made that tie in with Pi’s childhood discovery and commitment to three different religions. Readers that are more familiar with world religions will probably see the correlations earlier than I did. I thought this book was excellent; it was well-written and the story was unique. I loved it.

The book I do not recommend? The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd. Although I thought the writing was interesting and the overall story was somewhat appealing, I had a hard time relating to Jessie, the main character. She felt unsettled at home and took an opportunity to leave her husband when her mother needed help. Not being able to put your finger on exactly what makes you feel unsettled is something with which I can certainly identify; leaving your husband because of it—in this case, anyway—seemed like a pointless solution and for me, that quickly turned Jessie into an unsympathetic character. An interesting aside: I was telling my mom—who loved the book—about my disappointment in Jessie’s choices and she said that for her, that part of the story was secondary to the relationship between Jessie and her mom. It’s all in what we as individual readers connect to, isn’t it?

Next up: Atonement or The Cider House Rules. I haven’t yet decided.

This is a good time for me to mention again the fabulous book trading site Bookins, which is where I get most of my books nowadays.