Category: General Fiction/Literature Page 43 of 49

Plus One by Christopher Noxon

Plus OnePlus One

by Christopher Noxon

Hardcover, 303 pg.
Prospect Park Books, 2014
Read: February 10 – 11, 2015
From The Next Best Thing to Landline to Funny Girl to this, I think I might have reached my limit about fictional TV writers. Sadly, this was the wrong one to go out on.

You could, I think, make the case that most of this book reads like the prequel to Landline from the husband’s perspective — and in many ways you’d be right, but still, you shouldn’t do that.* This is the story of Alex Sherman-Zicklin, the husband (and Plus One) of Figgie. Figgie had been wife, mother and struggling TV writer, who is now an Emmy-award show runner of a multi-Emmy-winning cable comedy. Which means all of the sudden, she’s the bread winner (winning far more bread than he ever did), so he quits the job he’s not happy about to be a “domestic first responder.”

He quickly becomes bored, gets a creepy-friend (also a Plus One), falls in lust with a butcher/food blogger, ignores his kids, and does several other deceptive, marriage-damaging things covering the range from pathetic to devious to potentially criminal. Which coincided with Figgy taking up with trust-destroying antics of her own. If this selfish loser had just talked to his wife about what was going on, almost everything that happened could’ve been avoided. Not that self-involved Figgy was much better, really — I don’t see what either of them saw in the other.

Alex, his Plus One pal (whose name I’ve already forgotten), and (to an extent) the butcher are characters — everyone else is pretty much a plot device or place holder. Even Figgy is more of a presence, maybe an obstacle, than a character.

Somewhere in there I was supposed to laugh, I’m sure, but I didn’t manage more than an almost-grin.

The last chapter, maybe two, saved this one for me and turned it from a book I really didn’t like to a book I don’t mind too much. It’s still not a book I’d recommend, just one I have no antipathy for.

—–

* That’s two books in as many months that I’ve compared to Landline — just when did this become the standard by which I judge all fiction?

—–

2 Stars

Us by David Nicholls

Us
Us

by David Nicholls

Hardcover, 398 pg.
Harper, 2014
Read: November 14 – 27, 2014

There’s a saying, cited in popular song, that if you love someone you must set them free. Well, that’s just nonsense. If you love someone, you bind them to you with heavy metal chains.

While not popularly endorsed, I can’t imagine many people who haven’t thought that at one point or another.

Connie Peterson has decided that it’s time for her marriage to end. She and her husband, Douglas, have finished their work — raising their son, Albie — inexplicably nicknamed “Egg” — (you tell me: why would you call your son Egg?). She’s not angry, she’s not been betrayed, she just thinks they’ve run their course — they’ll go on the big tour of the Continent they’ve been planning to celebrate Albie finishing school, then come home and probably wrap things up.

Douglas wasn’t prepared for this, can’t imagine living life without his wife, so he latches on to the probably nature of his wife’s wishes: he’s going to pull out all the stops on this trip, be the best dad, the best husband, the best version of himself and convince her to stick with the “’til death do us part” bit.

There’s a few problems with his plan: he’s not entirely sure what it is that he’s not doing right (the readers will pretty much suss it out from flashbacks); his son is a snot who won’t help his dad out at all with repairing their relationship; Douglas is somewhat klutzy and really can’t express his emotions in any way to his family; and Connie’s just an unpleasant person, seemingly mercurial, and the reader (well, this reader, anyway) can’t see why Douglas would fall for this woman. I can see initial infatuation/attraction — but as far as I can see, the only reason to stick with her is Douglas’ own belief in the meaning of commitment.

So, starting in Paris, the Peterson’s embark on a tour of Europe, and things almost immediately fall apart (with occasional moments where you think Douglas will win Connie back). But Albie clearly doesn’t want to be with either of his parents — although he has no problem spending their money. Connie frequently seems to be toying with Douglas. And Douglas just seems hapless.

Alternating with the narrative of a European tour to make the Griswolds’ look fun and relaxing are a series of flashbacks chronicling the courtship and early marriage of Douglas and Connie. Like I said earlier, it’s sort of the male perspective of Landline without the phone.

Here’s where I’m torn: the novel is told with heart, wit and understanding. The Petersons — and others they meet — come across as real people, warts and all (“all” being mostly other warts). There’s tragedy, hope and laughs — here’s a few of my favorite lines:

I found myself sitting between two actors on drugs, a position that, a number of peer-reviewed research papers have since confirmed, is precisely the worst place a biochemist can be.

[Albie] refuses to wear a coat, an absurd affectation, as if coats where somehow ‘square’ or un-cool, as if there were something ‘hip’ about hypothermia. What is he rebelling against? Warmth? Comfort?

( I’m glad to know I’m not the only father who’s had to wonder this.)

The problem with telling people they can do anything they want to do is that it is objectively, factually inaccurate. Otherwise the whole world would just be ballet dancers and pop stars.

On the same page Nicholls can elicit a chuckle or at least a smile, he can turn on a dime and give you something like this:

In short, my son makes me feel like his step-father.
I have had some experience of unrequited love in the past and that was no picnic, I can tell you. But the unrequited love of one’s only living offspring has its own particular slow acid burn.

Really, really, really well-written. I’d give it 4-5 stars just on that. But there’s more to a book than just the writer’s skill — there’s characters and story. And Us just doesn’t pull those off successfully (and I know Nicholls is more than capable of it — see One Day)

I liked Douglas — both in flashback and the present — I was pulling for him, wishing his family would take a minute to understand him. Albie, I could understand. I thought he was an ungrateful twerp, but I could believe it as a stage in life, and see glimpses of the decent adult he’d become — but really, I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time with him. Connie I liked (mostly) in flashback, and could barely tolerate in the present — for all his flaws, she’s throwing away a good, devoted husband for no real reason.

The story was problematic, too. Nicholls really seems to point in one direction, and even seems to resort to a couple of clichés to get to his destination. But then he veers off to the real resolution that he wants — and gets his characters there by sheer force of his will. There’s a missing link or three between where the story is going and where it ends up. In the end, at least one character acts in a manner contrary to everything we’ve seen — and we’re given no real justification for it just to get to the conclusion Nicholls wants.

I just couldn’t buy it.

So there we are — a wonderful depiction of horrid people acting in ways that ultimately don’t make sense. I can’t recommend it, as much as I want to/expected to. Your results may vary, of course. I’d love to hear from people in the comments who disagree with me — what did I fail to appreciate?

—–

3 Stars

In Medias Res: Us by David Nicholls

House of Hades
Us

by David Nicholls Typically, I use an “In Media Res” post to check in on a book I’m really excited about, usually about the halfway point. But, thanks to some poor time management on my part, I’ll check in here, as I had to take this back to the library today. I’m on page 120, just a couple pages into Part 2.

In a thumbnail, this is Rowell’s Landline from the male perspective, but without the magic phone. Similarly to Landline, we examine the beginning of the relationship from the protagonist’s present POV, as well as how things progress from the time that his wife tells him she thinks their marriage might be done. In a few months, their child will be leaving home, so she considers their work done — and maybe they will be, too.

This comes out of nowhere (as far as he’s concerned), and strikes poor Douglas like a load of bricks. He latches on to the probability she’s expressed rather than the certainty. He still has a chance, he just needs to make certain changes. He has no idea what those are, but he’s going to try to make them.

At this point, I can see why 1980’s Douglas would be attracted to 1980’s Connie, and maybe why he’d fall for her. I’m not convinced present-day Connie is worth that much effort (but I’m not married to her, so it’s hard for me to say). As for their work as a couple? On behalf of the people of Earth — you’ve done a lousy job. Albie is a questionable human being and a lousy ingrate of a son.

This is well-told — with heart, with wit (frequently a bumbling wit, but that’s Douglas’ charm). As much as I loved Nicholl’s One Day, I couldn’t finish Starter for Ten, so I was a little worried about dipping my toe into this one. But, I have every intention of plowing through this one, as soon as I climb back on top of the library wait list.

When I do, I’m sure I’ll learn to like present-day Connie a bit more, and find out what happened between 1980’s Douglas and present-day Douglas to turn him into someone Connie’s not sure she wants to stick with. I fully expect it to be understandable and may even result in my not liking Douglas too much for a bit. Will he figure out what needs to change and do so? Maybe. I’m not sure Nicholls is going for a happy ending. Who knows? I might even find a redeeming quality in Albie. That will come as a surprise, but I’m open to the possibility.

Good start — I can imagine this book getting 5-stars from me. Also can imagine it getting 3. Who knows?

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

LandlineLandline

by Rainbow Rowell

Hardcover, 310 pg.
St. Martin’s Press, 2014
Read: August 13, 2014

If the last few years have taught us readers anything, it’s that if you want quirky, honest, heart-felt romance with real (and usually moderately overweight) people and solid laughs, Rainbow Rowell will consistently deliver for you. And if you don’t think you want that, after you read her, you’ll realize that’s just what you wanted after all. She has two YA books and now two Adult books to her credit. Her latest, Landline delivers the typical Rowell magic in her story, but this time she included something else: actual magic. Sort of.

Georgie McCool is half of a pretty successful TV writing team who are thiiiiis close to being much more successful, all they have to do is crank out a handful of scripts in the next couple of weeks and they’re in a great position to sell their first series. The catch is, this involves working over Christmas — despite Georgie’s plans to go to her mother-in-law’s in Omaha with her husband, Neal and their two daughters. Georgie says that she can’t pass up this opportunity, so Neal and the girls go off without her.

Georgie sees this as a regrettable occurrence, but one of the sacrifices she has to make to get her dream show made. Her mother, step-father and sister see it as her husband leaving her, and Georgie ends up staying with them. Which gets Georgie to worrying — especially when she can never seem to reach Neal on the phone during the day. At night, however, when her iPhone battery is dead, she has to resort to the landline in her old room and she ends up talking to Neal back before they got engaged.

Don’t ask. It makes no sense. She never bothers to explain. And it doesn’t matter. Georgie eventually figures out that’s what’s going on and she rolls with it, and the reader does, too.

These conversations, as well as the absence of her family, lead Georgie on a path down memory lane, reflecting on the beginning of their relationship and how it changed as they did. Maybe Neal had made a mistake choosing her. Maybe she’d ruined her life (and his) by choosing him. Would they have both been better off going their separate ways? Or was there something worth fighting for now? Would that matter? The clock is ticking — for Georgie’s marriage (both now and then) and her career. Is she up for it?

The tension is real, the apprehension, fear, and self-doubt (for starters) that Georgie is wrestling with is very obvious and palpable. Yet while focusing on this, Rowell’s able to create a believable world filled with a lot of interesting people. There’s Georgie’s partner/best friend, Seth and another writer on their current (and hopefully future) show — and Georgie failing to hold up her end of things there, as much as she tries.

Then there’s her sister, mother and step-father. They’re much better developed (probably only because we spend more time with them). Her mother’s a pretty implausible character, yet not a cartoon, she’s a pug fanatic, married someone much younger than her, and generally seems really happy. Her sister’s about done with high school and is figuring herself out (and mostly has) — she’s a hoot, and my biggest problem with the book is that we don’t get more of Heather. Not that there wasn’t plenty of her — and it’d require the book to take a far different shape. We get whole storylines about all the non-Neal people in her life, little vignettes showing us their character, giving us smiles in the midst of Georgie’s crisis, like:

“Kids are perceptive, Georgie. They’re like dogs”–she offered a meatball from her own fork to the pug heaped in her lap–“they know when their people are unhappy.”
“I think you may have just reverse-anthropomorphized your own grandchildren.”
Her mom waved her empty fork dismissively. “You know what I mean.”
Heather leaned into Georgie and sighed. “Sometimes I feel like her daughter. And sometimes I feel like the dog with the least ribbons.”

Not only do the supporting stories, or even the little moments like this fill out Georgie’s world and make it more interesting, they provide a breather for the reader from having to deal with the disintegrating marriage.

I know some people think we spend too much time in flashbacks, where Georgie’s remembering how she and Neal met, got to know each other, and started seeing each other, etc. But we need that. If all we get is Neal in the present, or past-Neal on the phone, we’re not going to care enough. Especially in the first couple of scenes we get with Neal, it’d be real easy to see him as unsympathetic — the guy holding Georgie and her career back. We need these flashbacks so the reader can sync their feelings about Neal with Georgie’s, so that when we read something like:

Georgie hadn’t known back then how much she was going to come to need Neal, how he was going to become like air to her.
Was that codependence? Or was it just marriage?”

or

She needed him.
Neal was home. Neal was base.
Neal was where Georgie plugged in, and synced up, and started fresh every day. He was the only one who knew her exactly as she was.

find ourselves agreeing with her, or at least seeing why she says it.

At the end of the book, there’s a lot of plot lines dangling — some very important ones, actually. Enough so, that normally, I’d devote a paragraph to complaining about it. But I won’t this time — it works for Landline. There’s a lot for Georgie to work out herself, she’s really only settled on the one most important thing, leaving the rest to be resolved another day. And that’s got to be good enough for the reader.

Not her best, but Rowell on an off day is still really, really good.

—–

4 1/2 Stars

In Medias Res: Landline by Rainbow Rowell

as the title implies, I’m in the middle of this book, so this is not a review, just some thoughts mid-way through

—–

Landline
Landline

by Rainbow Rowell

I’m on page 153 of 308 — as close as you can get to half-way (at least if you stop at the end of a chapter), and I’m all in on this book. It’s told with Rowell’s trademark warmth and charm. It’s funny, but not hilariously so; tragic, but not heartbreaking (yet); romantic, without being sappy; and real, without being . . . non-fiction?

Yeah, okay, that sentence got away from me.

This is a story about a marriage on the rocks, about the beginning of this romance, maybe about its end, friendship, priorities, and a magic telephone. Most of these are themes not new to Rowell, but that are in constant demand as fodder for stories. Rowell’s doing a bang-up job so far, I’m really pulling for this couple (in both the beginning and at the later part of the relationship). As always, Rowell gives us real people — people we could know, people we would befriend, people we could be.

At this point, I can see a few ways this could end — all of which are entirely justified by what’s come so far, and the vast majority of them end with me risking alcohol poisoning. I’m really liking Georgie McCool that much (and yes, that is her real name).

The Rise & Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman

The Rise & Fall of Great PowersThe Rise & Fall of Great Powers

by Tom Rachman

Hardcover, 384 pg.
The Dial Press, 2014
Read: July 15 – 19, 2014

He raised his menu.
She consulted hers. “You don’t like sweet-and-sour, do you.”
“No,” he confirmed. “I want food that can make up its mind.”

I had a real difficult time connecting to the people, the story, this book — but early on, I came upon this exchange between a man and a young girl — Tooly, the protagonist. That was enough to keep me going — that, and Rachman’s previous work, The Imperfectionists.

There are three storylines running through most of this book — Tooly in 1988, Tooly in 1999, and Tooly in 2011. We see her as a child, still growing up; we see her all grown, but still figuring out her place in the world; and then as an established adult who’s made a place in the world — but she’s still expecting/looking for the same one she tried to find in ’99.

I spent most of the novel not really sure where any of these stories were going — maybe 2/3 of it. It didn’t take me too terribly long to come to the conclusion I wouldn’t be sure for awhile, so I decided to just enjoy the ride. Which was so easy to do — Tooly spent her life surrounded by a great menagerie of people — Paul, a traveling computer technician working for various U.S. embassies in the 80s; Venn, a very charming con man; Humphrey, a Russian ex-pat and armchair intellectual; Fogg, a small-town bookseller; Sarah, a — I don’t know how to describe her, a histrionic woman with a short attention span (I guess, you eventually learn a lot more); a lout of a lawyer (whose name escapes me at the moment), who really isn’t that much of a lout; and others. It doesn’t matter what they’re talking about, you want to hear them talk, you want to see the interactions between these people and each other, or these people and Tooly. The actual plot seems secondary as long as you get bits of conversation like this (like the above quotation, this is from 1988’s story):

“I know exactly what you’re like,” Sarah affirmed.
After a long pause, Tooly responded, “What are you like?”
“Me? Well, I like bread with strawberry jam and believe raspberry jam ruins everything. I think those who joke around with such matters are barbarians. And I’m right about everything. Except in the morning, when I’m wrong.”

Each chapter moves the various stories along, bit by bit — and you get one or two strange encounters between Tooly and the other characters, you hear some strange theory about the way the world works, or how someone decides to do something, or some scheme to make sense of it all — and I can’t describe it for you better than that — just give it a read.

Eventually, Rachman decides to let you see the pattern he’s stitching — and then it all comes together, each piece falling into place and while there was no way to see all of it coming, it all feels like it fits. Not a “ohh, sure, I should’ve guessed that;” but “well, naturally — there was really no other way for that to work, was there?”

For Fogg, Humphrey, and Tooly (and most of the other characters to some extent) books are a vital part of their existence — or at least their way of thinking. They’re how they connect to the world, to people, to their experience. The various ways the characters interact with, describe, and use books are just fascinating and are right up my alley. Just for exposure to the various things this novel says about books, it’s worth slogging through all the “what’s going on?” of this read.

For example — shortly after young Tooly first meets Humphrey, she asks to see his books (he always has stacks by him, but they keep changing, so she knows he has a stash somewhere). He takes her to a closet bursting with books.

“Books,” he said, “are like mushrooms. They grow when you are not looking. Books increase by rule of compound interest: one interest leads to another interest, and this compounds into third. Next, you have so much interest there is no space in closet.”
“At my house, we put clothes in the closets.”
He sneered at this misapplication of furniture. “But where you keep literature?”

That compound interest line is a great one, isn’t it?

The Rise & Fall of Great Power is a lovely little book I can’t really talk about without over explaining. Filled with great characters; plausible, yet implausible events: an embarrassment of riches when it comes to quotable lines; interesting philosophies; stacks of books; and a dash of hope mixed a hint of existential despair. More than worth your time.

—–

4 1/2 Stars

All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner

All Fall DownAll Fall Down

by Jennifer Weiner

Hardcover, 400 pg.
Atria Books, 2014
Read: July 10 – 12, 2014

Out for the day with her daughter, our protagonist encounters a homeless woman about her own age. A few minutes later, on their way to suburbia, she thinks:

I was a world away from the woman we’d seen. That woman — she was what addiction looked like. Not me. Not me.

And that, my friends, is what heavy-handed irony looks like. When Chapter 1 ends this way, you know it’s going to be a rough ride.

I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this one — from the description alone, it was clear that Weiner was going for something out of the norm for her — this wasn’t going to be comedic, not that romantic. Instead it’d be dark, dealing with a very serious subject matter. The prose wouldn’t be as breezy, the character probably wouldn’t be that likeable. Sounded good to me — I wanted to see how she could pull it off. It’d be different, but I figured she could (and I welcomed that). Would this be the thing that got her that literary cred she seems to be looking for?

It was a valiant effort. But it just didn’t work for me.

She was close though. Really close. Which just served to underline how she didn’t reach her goal.

Allison Weiss (who I couldn’t help but seeing as an out-of-shape version of Orphan Black‘s Alison Hendrix) is a mom (of an impossible child), a successful blogger (possibly too successful to believe), wife, daughter of a man in early stages of Alzheimer’s, and a pill-popper in deep denial.

Part 1 sets the scene for us — introduces us to the major characters, Allison’s friends, family, and boss — and her pills. Part 2 shows how the wheels start to come off for her — in terms of work, her marriage, her family and her addiction. Part 3 gets her into rehab and coming to terms with her problem. Part 4 picks up following that in a rushed wrap-up.

Part 1 was okay enough — it got the job done. Part 2 was rough — it’s hard enough watching a character you like, that you’re invested in run into trouble — but an unsympathetic character surrounded by characters she hasn’t let us get to know well enough to like? It’s just so rough. I had to force myself through this part, knowing that rehab was on the horizon. That part was worse — the rehab facility, clients, workers, counselors — all of that jibed with what I know about rehab facilities and 12-step programs; and even Allison’s reaction seemed textbook. But something about that part bothered me. Maybe because it was all so textbook. Weiner’d done her homework and she let it be shown. But it’s more than that — here was her chance to make us like Allison, see her doing the work she needed to do. For the reader to start to like her. But it didn’t happen.

Part 4 was the worst. In her rush for a conclusion, Weiner left a lot of things hanging. Which isn’t the same as unresolved — I’m not talking about a need to tie everything up in a pretty little bow. Weiner simply abandoned so many things in that it took away from the closure she gave (or at least strongly suggested).

I actually had a laundry list of complaints and problems with this, but I’m going to forgo it. It’d be hard to avoid spoilers and I just don’t think it’d be that interesting to read. Let me just leave it as — I was disappointed in this one and would advise passing on it.

—–

2 Stars

Dusted Off: The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings

The DescendantsThe Descendants

by Kaui Hart Hemmings

ebook, 247 pg.
Random House, 2007
July 14-15, 2012

I really should’ve read this before the movie…for the first 100 pages or so, I heard Clooney’s voice in my head narrating this. I did eventually get over it, and even before that, it stopped distracting me.

This is a tragic tale of a man losing his comatose wife while realizing he’d lost her months (at least) before the accident that left her in that state. About him finally becoming the father he should be to two very messed up daughters (tho’ one’s far worse off than the other, and it’s not the one he thought was worse).

It’s a story told with warmth, sadness (not moroseness–thankfully), touches of humor, and humanity. I laughed, I got misty, I got warm fuzzies. Really, really great book.

—–

4 Stars

Dusted Off: The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner

The Next Best ThingThe Next Best Thing

by Jennifer Weiner

Hardcover, 389 pg.
Atria Books, 2012
Read: Jul. 9-10, 2012

A sort of uninspired rom-com from Weiner about a TV writer finding a measure of success, love and stepping out on her own from the cocoon she was raised in. The saving grace is that with a writer as entertaining and skilled as Weiner, even the uninspired can be fun to read.

On the whole, it reads like a dramatization of Ben Blacker’s podcast about TV writing (Nerdist Writer’s Panel) with a couple of personal plotlines thrown in to the mix. So the non-family, non-romance stuff reads like a pretty authentic behind the scenes–nice for those of us who are into that kind of thing.

The sexual content was a bit more explicit than I’m used to from Weiner (as limited as my experience might be–my wife’s is more extensive and she agrees)–it’s not terrible, but just not what I expected from this writer, using this character to tell this story–seems out of place.

Not Weiner at her best, but a good way to kill a few hours.

—–

3 Stars

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Oy vey. After this, I’m forty-five books away from being caught up. 45.

—–

Outlander (Outlander, #1)Outlander

by Diana Gabaldon

Mass-Market Paperback, 870 pg.
Dell Publishing Company, 2005
Read: March 7 – 19, 2014

So when the announcement was made that this was going to be a TV series, the descriptions offered sounded intriguing — a mix of historical fiction and time travel. I figured the series was at least worth a look. I mean with that many sequels, it had to have something going for it. 50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong, you know?

Well, they’re probably not wrong, but they sure aren’t talking for me. What an exercise in futility. I literally knew nothing more about the key plot point on page 870 than I did on page 100. While I don’t demand to understand everything fully (even if there weren’t a half-dozen sequels to explain things), but I want to learn something, not just watch hundreds of pages of plot go by to get us nowhere.

So, in the days after the end WWII, an English nurse and her husband — both back from the War and reunited — go off on a second honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands. While her husband, the historian, is off talking about local history, Claire goes off for stroll and (skipping details here) finds herself face-to-face with her husband’s great-great-something-grandfather. Who turns out to be not-a-nice-man. So Claire ends up running away from this British officer with a group of Scots. Eventually, she finds herself married to one of them, falling in love with her second husband and having loads of sex. And there’s some running from the Brits, dealing with local politics, merging 18th century medicine with 20th century medicine, and getting some sort of religious instruction.

Outlander is big, sweeping, well-written, maddeningly dependent on coincidence, with one-dimensional villains and wayyyyy too much sexy-time — and, worst of all, it’s ultimately pointless. There is literally no point to this all. getting to the expected point is really what kept me going for the last 600+ pages. There are people who will love this (obviously, just do a quick Google search), but I won’t be joining that number.

—–

2 Stars

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