The Canterbury Sisters

The Canterbury Sisters, by Kim Wright

A nice, light read...that was the order after being immersed in all the coronavirus news and also having read a lot of heavy nonfiction lately. I went downstairs into our cluttered study and found The Canterbury Sisters.

Given the fact that we are two English majors, avid readers, and professional writers, some of our friends might be puzzled at the lack of books in our main living space. That's because they are all hidden away downstairs on packed bookshelves and piles on the floor! One advantage of being confined at home and having our libraries closed is that I will finally make a dent in our own library. Last year Mike and I gave away 2/3 of the books we owned in a fit of Kon Mari decluttering. But we still have loads!

The Canterbury Sisters fit the bill for a distraction. I started the book while taking a highly unusual bath, prompted by a rainbow bath bomb sent by my beloved friend Catherine. I was informed by my 13-year-old that I was in the bath for well over an hour, possibly for an hour and a half...reading. Good for the soul.

Che de Milan is the daughter of a narcissist who has died. When her mother's ashes arrived, they came with a plea to take her to Canterbury Cathedral. On that same day, Che received a "Dear Juanita" letter from her long-time lover, dumping her. She booked a ticket to England.

Although she originally wanted to take a solo walking tour to Canterbury from London, things didn't turn out the way she'd planned. She ends up with a group of American women, Broads Abroad, and from the very beginning she's not too happy about that. She loses her phone, her fifth limb, on that very first night, but it turns out to be just the ticket to distract her from her usual life and focus on the present.

A wine critic and a critic of everything else, Che is not a particularly likable character. But because the book is told in the first person, we only see things from her perspective. She looks down on all the other women in the beginning of the story.

Akin to The Canterbury Tales (which I read once upon a time in college), their tour guide, young English professor Tess, informs them that each of them should tell a story about love on their walking trip. And it was the stories that I actually enjoyed most about this book. They were not all directly about love, but each story shed more light on that particular character's life.

By the end of the novel, Che (named for the revolutionary by her hippie parents) is more likable...but I'm not sure she's someone I would want to befriend. She told a great story though, and in times like these, that was enough for me!

The Girl on the Train

By Paula Hawkins

I've had this book on my "to read" list for awhile...people have compared it to Gone Girl. But although less gruesome than Gone Girl, this novel was less compelling and gripping. I knew Rachel was an unreliable narrator, but this is because she blacked out and can't remember. Gradually, she pieces the truth together in her mind.

Consequently, Hawkins gradually unravels the story rather than diving right in. I thought she did a good job of depicting the harsh reality of alcoholism. But ultimately, I expected more out of this novel than I got. It is very British, and I appreciated that! And a decent read...but not as fantastic as I expected!

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

Perhaps I expected too much. I've read Ishiguro before, although it was many years ago. We even saw/heard him speak at Powell's in the early 1990s.

I read Never Let Me Go for my book group, and I had a difficult time getting into the novel. It didn't help that (1) a book group friend highly endorsed it, and in fact loved it, raising my expectations, and (2) I was listening to it on audio before getting hold of a hard copy. I am a visual learner and processor, so audio books are not the best choice for me. It does speed up the reading if you can listen and read at the same time (I listened to the book while driving).

Without spoiling this dystopian novel for other readers, I will just say that it was not my favorite. The protagonist, Kathy, tells the story in first person, about her childhood years at Hailsham, a private school in England. The narrative style was dry and distant, typical of Ishiguro.

I actively disliked Kathy's friend Ruth. I've known people like her before, and this story brought back unpleasant memories! I had a difficult time understanding Kathy's affection for Ruth, but the bottom line is that Kathy was powerless and naive in all aspects. I also found the dystopian plot (the purpose for Kathy and the others' lives) to be implausible and full of holes. I was expecting more out of this book...I didn't feel it was very compelling.

I wonder what Kazuo Ishiguro is like as a person, as the characters in his novel seem to live their lives as unfulfilled, unhappy people...it's almost as if he doesn't want his characters to be happy and he has a cynical, depressing view of life.

After reading Margaret Atwood's Oryx & Crake in 2014 and The Hunger Games trilogy in the previous years, I can't help but draw comparisons. I felt more sympathy for the characters in those books, and both plots seemed more believable to me.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce

Such a wonderful quiet surprise of a book! Harold Fry, an Englishman in his early 60s, is feeling driftless in his retired years. One day he learns that his old coworker and friend, Queenie Hennessy, is dying of cancer all the way at the farthest north point of England. He's inspired to walk all the way up England--a 600-mile journey--to see her, with the hopes that she will stay alive until he can get to her. He thinks this will save her.

Along the way, Harold reflects on his life and his marriage, and gradually we learn what has made Harold be the way he is. He attracts followers and meets interesting people who help him along the way. Even though all he possesses in the beginning is a pair of yachting shoes and a simple set of clothing (no rain gear, map, or cell phone), he is determined to keep things simple along the way and refuses to invest in hiking boots or better attire or equipment.

I thought this was a sweet, sensitive book, and extremely English. It's also very sad--both about Harold and his wife Maureen's life and own son--and about Queenie herself. But in the end, he finds redemption...always a good ending in my book!

The Midwife

The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times, by Jennifer Worth

I'm completely hooked on the BBC show "Call the Midwife"--in fact, I like it even better than "Downton Abbey." The Midwife is the first in the trilogy that inspired the series. It's much grittier and full of hard details than the show. In reality, the conditions were much starker and poorer than what is shown onscreen. For those unfamiliar with the show, The Midwife is about a young nurse-midwife working in Poplar (the East End of London) during the 1950s in Nonnatus House with Anglican nuns (who are also nurse-midwives). Before watching the show, I was not aware there were Anglican nuns!

"Call the Midwife" main cast

The characters I've come to love--the posh and clumsy Chummy (my favorite), sharp-tongued and beautiful Trixie, kind Cynthia, amazing Sister Julienne, aging and memory-lapsing Sister Monica Joan, ever-enterprising Fred, humble Jane, kind and compassionate doctor, and salty, down-to-earth Sister Evangelina--are all in the book in full color. Similar to another of my favorite shows inspired by a book (Orange Is the New Black), the best part about these stories is not the protagonist--it's all the fascinating people around her.

Two stories in particular make me especially grateful for the many advancements in medical care since the 1950s:

• In her initial training, Worth saw a young woman and baby die from eclampsia, and later at the Nonnatus Houe, she assists a woman suffering from pre-eclampsia. Even in this day and age, women die from full-blown eclampsia and toxemia. If pre-eclampsia is not halted before progressing into eclampsia, the mom dies and nothing can be done about it.
  
• Conchita Warren is the Spanish wife and mother of 25 children. Her 25th is born at around 24 weeks (the same gestation as my oldest son), and against all advice, Conchita insists on keeping the baby with her instead of allowing him to go to the hospital, even if he dies. She cradles him between her breasts for the first several months and feeds him expressed milk every 1/2 hour. Later Worth ponders whether a mother's instinct and ability to care for own child might have been even more effective than high-tech hospital care, in which the baby would have been left alone all day and night in an isolette. She also is convinced that if the baby had died, Conchita wouldn't have been far behind. Her desire to protect her baby made her fight for her own life. Of course now, keeping a baby that tiny at home would never be allowed. In my son's case, he definitely would have died if he was not in the NICU--he was very sick and needed that medical care.

Worth tells three stories of mixed-race babies...one in which the mom is terrified that her baby will be born black, another in which the baby is born black and the husband pitches a fit, and finally the one we saw in the show, in which the husband embraces the baby as his own and seems completely color blind.

Jennifer Worth as a young nurse-midwife

We learn about Irish Mary, who fled sexual abuse in Dublin to arrive in London penniless and end up working as a prostitute in filthy, horrible Cable Street. (Her tale is far grittier and more tragic than portrayed in the show. Cable Street was notorious for its horrific living conditions, opium dens, sex trafficking, and prostitution, and Mary was an easy victim.) She becomes pregnant and has to flee the brothel, and she ends up meeting Jenny, who tries to help her. Her story finishes tragically.

Think that children were separated from their parents only in concentration camps ala "Sophie's Choice" or when Native American children were sent away from their parents off to boarding schools? It also happened in London through the 1940s, as destitute people were sent to live in workhouses with horrible living and working conditions. We learn the story of Mrs. Jenkins, who entered the workhouse with several young children. They were immediately separated, and she never saw her children again...they all died in the workhouse. She was never the same. When Worth first encounters Mrs. Jenkins, who always stands outside the building where a baby is born and pesters the midwives for news of the baby's and mother's health, she is disgusted by her. When she begins taking care of her and learns her story, her compassion and understanding increase.

At times, Worth's youth, impatience, and British snobbery are on full display, even though she is giving of herself to work in one of the poorest parts of London. One thing she wrote really aggravated me, but it's a reflection of her generation and upbringing, I suppose. In a chapter about how some women have affairs (discovered when they bear babies of a different color), she writes:

"I have often felt that the situation is loaded against men. Until recently, when genetic blood tests became possible, how could any man know that his wife was carrying his child? The poor man had no other assurance of paternity than his wife's word. Unless she is virtually locked up, he can have no control over her activities during the day while he is at work."

Jennifer Worth before her death in 2011

"Loaded against men"???? For a nurse who saw exactly what 1950s-era poor women had to bear (no way to maintain a family unless they get married or resort to prostitution, no birth control resulting in way too many births, no help in the house from their husbands who often ruled with an iron hand, no laws against domestic violence, etc., etc.), this is incomprehensible. "Unless she is virtually locked up?" It sounds like she is recommending such a recourse! As another reviewer wrote, "It wasn't just life circumstances keeping women down in this time; it was powerful social control, such as happens when women of higher, more influential classes, make casual comments about locking wives up." The Guardian's obituary of Jennifer Worth (who died of cancer in 2011) describes her as "A strong personality, Jennifer was dynamic and determined, and her lively imagination is apparent in the books."

For that sexist commentary, I'm giving the book four stars. Otherwise, I loved it and will continue reading the rest of the series (and of course, waiting for Season 3 of "Call the Midwife"!).

Notes from a Small Island

Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson

This is only the second Bill Bryon book I've read, the first being A Walk in the Woods, which I read three years ago. Bill Bryson lived in England for 20 years after marrying a British woman, and before moving to the United States, he took a 6-week trip traveling around Britain and chronicling his trip. I read this for my book group, and we had a great evening discussing the book, especially as we have a British woman in our book group. It's a love story to Britain--even though it was published in the mid-1990s, so much still applies. Here are some memorable thoughts from the book:

• The charming way the British react to tea and a plate of biscuits: "ooh lovely!"
  
• Bryson writes about how unfortunate it is that communism was left to the Russians instead of the British, who "clearly would have managed it so much better." He talks about their ability to go without, how they are great at pulling together in the face of adversity for a perceived common good...how they "queue patiently for indefinite periods and accept with rare fortitude the imposition of rationing, bland diets, and sudden inconvenient shortages." He goes on about how they are "comfortable with faceless bureaucracies, tolerant of dictatorships (as Margaret Thatcher proved), will wait uncomplainingly for years for an operation or delivery of a household appliance." They have a "natural gift for making excellent, muttered jokes about authority without ever actually challenging it...they derive universal satisfaction from the sight of the rich and powerful brought low...most of those above the age of 28 already dress like East Germans. Britain would have done it properly, taken it in stride, with good heart, and without excessive cheating."
  
• He says that the British are easy to please: "They have so little idea of their own virtues, and nowhere is this more true than with their own happiness. Easy to please...like their pleasures small...so many of their treats are cautiously flavorful...they are the only people in the world who think of jam and currants as thrilling constituents of a pudding or cake...offer them something genuinely tempting (a slice of gateau or a choice of chocolates), and they will nearly always hesitate and begin to worry that it's unwarranted and excessive, as if any pleasure beyond a very modest throshold is vaguely unseemly. 'Oh, I shouldn't really...'"
  
• In the late 1980s the European Union issued a directive about standards of ocean-borne sewage on beaches, and nearly every British seaside town failed to come anywhere near the minimum compliance levels. So instead of cleaning them up, the Thatcher government decided that Britain would not have any "beaches." Nowadays, they are labeled beaches, but they still have a serious sewage problem. I'll remember this next time we go to a British seaside!
  
• One of my favorite anecdotes was when he visited a pub in Glasgow and couldn't understand a thing the bartender was saying...such as "D'ye hae a hoo and a poo?" "D'ye nae hae in May? If ye dinna dock ma donny." "Doon in Troon they croon in June, wi' a spoon."

I actually enjoyed the anecdotes and thoughts about Britain and the British more than the traveling bits. Bryson gets a bit grumpy at times, but it's clear that he really loves Great Britain. He ends the book with this:

“Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - Marmite, village fetes, country lanes, people saying 'mustn't grumble' and 'I'm terribly sorry but,' people apologizing to me when I conk them with a nameless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, stinging nettles, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, crumpets, hot-water bottles as a necessity, drizzly Sundays - every bit of it.

What a wondrous place this was - crazy as fuck, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree. What other country, after all, could possibly have come up with place names like Tooting Bec and Farleigh Wallop, or a game like cricket that goes on for three days and never seems to start? Who else would think it not the least odd to make their judges wear little mops on their heads, compel the Speaker of the House of Commons to sit on something called the Woolsack, or take pride in a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy? ('Please Hardy, full on the lips, with just a bit of tongue.') What other nation in the world could possibly have given us William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardners' Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None, of course.

How easily we lose sight of all this. What an enigma Britain will seem to historians when they look back on the second half of the twentieth century. Here is a country that fought and won a noble war, dismantled a mighty empire in a generally benign and enlightened way, created a far-seeing welfare state - in short, did nearly everything right - and then spent the rest of the century looking on itself as a chronic failure. The fact is that this is still the best place in the world for most things - to post a letter, go for a walk, watch television, buy a book, venture out for a drink, go to a museum, use the bank, get lost, seek help, or stand on a hillside and take in a view.

All of this came to me in the space of a lingering moment. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like it here. I like it more than I can tell you.” 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson

This book was my book group's selection for August. Major Pettigrew is an old-school English military man, of the type we wouldn't typically find in the United States. He insists on being called "major," even by civilians. As a widower and father of a shallow, materialistic son, he doesn't seem to have much purpose in his life until he finds late-blooming love.

The object of his affection is a Pakistani shop keeper in his small village, Mrs. Ali, also a widow. Of course, the narrow-minded villagers, along with Major Pettigrew's and Mrs. Ali's own family members, do not think very highly of their blossoming relationship.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand has been described as Austenesque, and I would agree with that. Two unlikely lovers, humorous (and horrifyingly obtuse) situations and people in the midst of serious issues, and exquisite storytelling. We had an interesting discussion at my book group meeting about how English this story was...the English woman in my book group didn't necessarily agree, but I think many things about the story are quintessentially English. Perhaps it's just a matter of a small English village--even our American small towns are not quite the same way--or the class structure so firmly entrenched in English culture and history.

Although Major Pettigrew starts out as an uptight English snob, he evolves during the novel.

The ending seemed a bit far-fetched, but I still enjoyed this book and would recommend it!

The Very Thought of You

The Very Thought of You,
by Rosie Alison

Last year Mike and I watched a short British made-for-TV movie called "Good Night, Mister Tom," and I became interested in the history of English children evacuated to the country during World War II...so this book intrigued me.

It's the story, in part, of Anna, an eight-year-old girl who is evacuated from London and sent to a stately home in Yorkshire in 1939. Wise beyond her years, she soon becomes aware of the adult secrets around her. Thomas and Elizabeth Ashton, who have opened up their home, are deeply unhappy with each other. Soon they each start affairs. In the meantime, Anna's mother (whose husband is fighting in Africa) starts up her own affairs in London, for no particular reason except that the war is on. Every adult in this book is unhappy and unfaithful....even Anna herself when she grows up.

Unfortunately, none of the characters are sympathetic with perhaps the exception of Thomas. Anna was more likable as a child, but when she grew up I found myself getting irritated with her choices and the way she let her life fall to ruin. This book, unfortunately, does a great deal of telling rather than showing. In fact there's little dialogue. The writer is a documentary film maker, and in many ways that shows.

I felt this book had promise--the setting in Yorkshire, the time it happened, the idea of children being sent away from home, the war--but I feel let down. I think I will have to read Good Night, Mister Tom (also a book) instead.

All Passion Spent

All Passion Spent,
by Vita Sackville-West

I'd heard of Vita Sackville-West but didn't know much about her before my book group chose this for October's selection. Sackville-West was married to Sir Harold Nicholson and spent most of her life at their estate at Sissinghurst Castle. She and Nicholson had an open marriage, and both of them carried on extensive same-sex relationships. Sackville-West's most famous lover was Virginia Woolf. Some describe this novel as the fictional version of A Room of One's Own.

The story begins with the death of Lady Slane's husband, who had been prime minister and Viceroy of India during his prime. Suddenly, Lady Slane is presented with freedom for the first time in her life...at the ripe age of 88. Her scheming children devise a plan by which she would be passed around from family to family, but she has other ideas. She retires to a modest cottage in Hampstead and directs them that she is to live on her own, and she doesn't want her grandchildren or grandchildren to visit her (no one under 60)...and doesn't much want her children around either.

Vita Sackville-West, later in life

Lady Slane reflects back on her life and her regrets, chief among them the fact that she was never able to pursue her artistic ambitions. She is quite happy with her little circle--her French maid, Genoux; her landlord, Mr. Bucktrout; and Mr. FitzGeorge, a reclusive, wealthy collector who fell in love with her in India, in another time, and saw immediately what she had given up.

My copy from the library was published in 1931

She revels in the precious time she has left, finding pleasure in sitting outside in her back garden, going for brisk winter walks, and quietly reflecting back on her life, mistakes, and relationships. It's a beautiful, feminist story about what women in those days (and still, now) give up to pursue marriage and family. Lady Slane never really enjoyed motherhood, being a wife, or being a grandmother. She just wanted time to reflect and paint, and she never got it. She comes to peace with her realization that she did not really love her husband and she had given up everything to be with him.

It even had a hole-punched watermark
 saying "Library Association of Portland Ore."!

And she realizes that she doesn't, really, want to be completely alone. She just wants to carefully choose her companions and how she will spend the remainder of her time.

I enjoyed this book very much and plan to view the BBC miniseries about Vita Sackville-West's relationship with her husband, "Portrait of a Marriage," based on their son Nigel's book of the same name.

To hear Vita's own voice, listen to this recording of her talking about Virginia Woolf and Orlando.

How It All Began

How It All Began, by Penelope Lively

I've never read Penelope Lively before, even though she is an incredibly prolific British writer.

In fact, this must be one of the most English modern novels I've read in some time! When I started reading, I was struck by how many expressions most Americans wouldn't necessarily understand, but I have the advantage of knowing after cohabitating with a Brit for 25 years. For example--these are from scanning just the first few pages:

• Her hip was giving her stick.
• Shirty enough if anyone looked like taking liberties.
• Lord Peters does not provide puffs for other people's books.
• Occasionally you considered chucking in the job.
• He'll be tetchy.
• Breeding will out.
• You endure, but also observe; you become a beady eye, appreciating the spectacle. (And the constant reference to oneself as third person rather than first person)
• Day's supply of whatever is their particular tipple...
• She'll be coming to us for awhile.
• Rose will fetch her and install her in her room.
• Nice girl? (the tendency to call women girls until they are well into their 40s)

I liked how this book started out: "The pavement rises up and hits her." The book is about "the butterfly effect," how one minor incident (in this case, the main character, Charlotte, getting mugged on a London street) can affect many people seemingly unconnected from the person directly affected.

Because Charlotte breaks her hip as a result of the mugging, she moves in with her daughter Rose, who must find someone else to accompany her pompous and very English employer Lord Peters to Manchester. That someone is his niece Marion, who sends a text to her lover, Jeremy, which is intercepted by his highly anxious and dramatic wife, Stella, putting their marriage into a tailspin. Before breaking her hip, Charlotte tutored English foreign language students, and one of them, an Eastern European named Anton, begins getting private instruction from her. Rose takes a shine to Anton, although neither act on their attraction to each other.

One of the challenges with this book is that the characters are not particularly likable or relatable for me. Most of the characters seem to be just propelling through life without any effort to be happy or fulfilled. Jeremy, I just wanted to slap upside the head. He's having an affair with Marion yet wants to keep his wife as well. He's a complete narcissist. Lord Peters is amusing but would be incredibly annoying in person. Charlotte is the most sympathetic, but the reserve of the writing and the setting keeps "one" from becoming attached.

Ultimately, it's the kind of novel where no one is truly happy at the end, except perhaps Marion (hard to say). I enjoyed this novel more in the beginning than at the end...by then I was ready to move on.

The Missing

The Missing, by Jane Casey

I discovered this book by reading a review of one of British author Jane Casey's other novels, The Burning. Because I like to read authors (especially mystery authors) in chronological order, I sought out her first book. It needn't have mattered in this case, as it does not have the same protagonist.

Unfortunately, this book did not live up to my expectations. I found it to be very readable, but much of what happened seemed unrealistic and unlikely to happen. I also guessed who the murderer is long before it was revealed, which I rarely do. (I'm one of those rare mystery readers who does not try to guess the perpetrator, but in this case it could not be ignored.)

As the protagonist, Sarah Finch is not entirely likeable and a bit too overcome with problems. She is a lost soul, lacking anyone she can confide in or trust, and in the end things just spiral downward in her life. Soon she is left with no one. She also makes some bizarre choices, and a few plot elements seem unlikely (such as the policeman on the case falling in love with her, and the highly convenient coincidences that keep occurring, to name a few). Life seems to just happen to her, and because of this she is not very sympathethic. For example, after she truly hates school and appears to have no motivation to succeed because of what happened to her brother, she somehow becomes a teacher herself, and does not seem to enjoy her job.

I also found it unlikely that a character who is completely obsessed with her would attack her and harm her outside of her home. And why on earth did she stick with her mother when she treated her so horribly? Of course, Casey ties it all up with a happy ending, also implausible.

I have The Burning checked out of the library, and I will give Casey one more try...I'm hoping her second novel is an improvement over the first.

In the World of Downton Abbey

The World of Downton Abbey, by Jessica Fellowes

Mike picked this up at the library, as we are both Downton Abbey fans. Jessica Fellowes is the niece of the series' creator, Julian Fellowes.

Although this book is ripe with rich photos of the beautiful costumes and characters, what I valued most about it was reading the history behind the series. In particular, my favorite part was reading about American heiresses like Cora, or "Buccaneers," who saved many of the British aristocrats with their fortunes...while having to adjust to the uptight society and cultural mores of their new home. I'm always interested in the British-American matches, for obvious personal reasons!

It didn't take me long to get through this photo-rich book, but I greatly enjoyed it!

The Girl Next Door: An NYC apartment building full of drama

The Girl Next Door, by Elizabeth Noble

The Girl Next Door takes place in a Manhattan apartment building. The book starts with Eve, who has been transplanted from England because of her husband's job. Soon Noble begins adding a large cast of characters, most of whom live in that same apartment building. Fortunately, she includes a list of characters in the beginning, which is helpful.

I do struggle at times with books that have too many characters. For the most part, this device works here, but some characters are thrown in for unknown reasons and we hardly hear about them at all (the Stewarts, the Piscatellas, Dr. Hunter Stern, Arthur Alexander, the Gonzales, and the token gay couple Todd and Gregory). I'm not sure why she felt it necessary to include all of these people--they do not really serve much of a purpose. Other characters felt one dimensional, shallow, or unlikable.

It didn't help my reading of the book that I found an error in the List of Characters before I even began! Cath Thompson is listed as "Emily's sister," when in fact she is Eve's sister.

Another thing that really bugged me was that Noble clearly didn't do her research about Oregon. One of her characters, Emily, is supposedly from Wilsonville, Oregon, which she refers to as "small-town America." Anyone from Oregon knows that Wilsonville is in fact an affluent suburb of Portland, with a median family income of $65,172. It's full of retail shops and corporate headquarters and it's on the I-5 corridor. It's definitively NOT "small-town America."

The character Eve has a premature baby, born at 27 weeks and weighing one pound, two ounces. This is extremely small for a 27-weeker. (My son was born at 24 weeks and weighed one pound, six ounces, around the typical weight for that gestation. A 27-weeker would have been bigger unless she had been suffering from intra-uterine growth retardation.) For the most part, Noble did a fine job describing the extreme stress and trauma associated with having a child in the NICU, although she talked about how parents didn't talk to others in the NICU, saying that "everyone was on their own in the NICU." This might have been true for some, and especially for shy and reserved Brits, but for us meeting and commiserating with other parents was a lifeline. Most NICU parents feel that way.

I did enjoy reading about the blossoming women's friendships, and in particular about the friendship between Eve and Violet. The book had me in tears during the NICU chapters. (Spoiler warning: A baby dies in this book. I want to warn people about this, because many people do not like to read about childhood death.) Noble also deftly and sensitively handled the issue of grief and the comfort in shared experience.

Years ago I read one of Elizabeth Noble's earlier books, The Reading Group, and I didn't like most of the characters. I liked The Girl Next Door much better.

The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook: Not-so-Chick Lit

The Ex-Boyfriend's Handbook, by Matt Dunn
My rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I don't know why I did it...read this book, that is. It caught my eye at the library, and I was interested in the British setting (Brighton) and a supposedly "chick lit" type of story written by a man. As I've said before, I don't like the term "chick lit," because I find that title denigrating to novels written by and for women. However, it is a certain type of genre, and this novel fits into that category. My husband says I should call it "dick lit." I like it. :)

Here's the plot in a nutshell:

• Nice, overweight-and-out-of-shape, and somewhat clueless doormat Edward's girlfriend of 10 years, Jane, moves out and leaves behind a note saying she's off to Tibet for 3 months.
• Edward determines to reinvent himself during the time Jane is away. He's assisted by his ethics-lacking, philandering, and shallow friend Dan...who is really not very nice to Edward (or other people). 
• In addition to makeovers to his wardrobe, flat, car, and lifestyle, he starts working out with a cute, peppy trainer named Sam (female).
• Edward works for an IT recruiting firm, and his boss sleeps with her clients to get new business and treats him like crap. Really? Talk about a stereotype of a successful businesswoman. We're not all like Anna Wintour.
• Of course, we don't ever really understand why in fact Edward wants Jane back or why he is friends with Dan.

You can guess where this story goes. It wasn't horrific, but when I dove into my next book (Faith by Jennifer Haigh, which I'm almost finished with), I realized how much I wasted my time on this one.

After You: Grief times two

After You by Julie Buxbaum
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Ellie Lerner's best friend, Lucy, is murdered in broad daylight--in front of her 8-year-old daughter--in an upscale Notting Hill neighborhood. Ellie flies to London to be with her goddaughter Sophie and help Lucy's husband pick up the pieces of their lives.

While she's grieving the loss of her close childhood friend, she's still mourning her son Oliver, who died in utero at eight months gestation. Ellie's difficulty in moving past her deep-seated grief has put her marriage at risk. While she's escaping her own commitments back in Boston, her husband wants her to return home, but she just can't.

To comfort themselves, Ellie and Lucy escape into Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Sophie is an unusually bright, too-blunt-for-her-peer-group child, and she has endured more than any child should. I had to chuckle while reading her father's response to Ellie's suggestion that Sophie go to a therapist (because of bed wetting and nightmares)...reflecting the prevailing opinion that therapy is too American and completely unnecessary for the stiff-upper-lip British. Sophie returns to school a scant few days after watching her mother be murdered, because the headmistress convinces her father that "she should get right back into the swing of things. Routine, structure, and all that. Good for kids. She said that breaking from that will shake Sophie up even more."

Through the process of mourning Lucy (and discovering that Lucy was keeping at least a few deep dark secrets from her and she didn't know her as well as she thought), Ellie realizes that she hasn't fully mourned for Oliver. Instead she's been trying to escape her own feelings of loss.

Buxbaum effectively and sensitively handled the issues of grief, including the different ways people grieve (and not to assume that someone is not grieving just because they grieve in a different way from you). One thing I realized about the characters, though: I would not have liked Lucy. She came across as shallow, unfeeling, and snobby. The most egregious thing she did was after Ellie lost her baby: her first response was to tell Ellie she could always have another one. Perhaps she was stunned and didn't know how to react. But after the losses I have experienced in my own pregnancies, I cannot imagine being able to move beyond that kind of completely insensitive comment. Although Ellie was upset about the comment, she didn't seem to think it was quite as horrible as I did.

I'm always attracted to stories about Americans in England or vice versa, so I enjoyed this book overall. Buxbaum lives in London and has done an excellent job representing the British culture through American eyes.

The More You Ignore Me: Sensitive glimpse into growing up with a mentally ill mother

The More You Ignore Me... by Jo Brand

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Author Jo Brand is a former psychiatric nurse-turned comedian-turned writer. Her first novel is about Alice, whose mum Gina suffers from schizophrenia. She's in and out of the mental hospital, and when she's heavily medicated, she's a shadow of her former self.

Alice and her dad Keith do their best to care for her and love her--but she's not terribly unlovable. Finally, Alice conspires to give Gina a break from her medication, and all hell breaks loose. Gina's form of mental illness is to fixate and obsess on a particular man, convinced that they are meant for each other. This time, Gina's target of affection is Alice's own obsession, Morrissey from the rock band, The Smiths.

In the Herefordshire countryside, Alice and her family are surrounded by Alice's school mates, a horrible bully, Gina's crazy family (aptly named the Wildgooses), Keith's social-climbing parents, and the family doctor (named Marie!), who is in love with Alice's dad.

The book veers into slapstick and tries to accomplish way too much at times (with bunches of side storylines), but Brand handles the subject matter sensitively and wisely. She gives insight into what it would be like to live with a mentally ill mother (or wife), and she manages to make Gina into a sympathetic figure, even as she is difficult and unlikable.
View all my reviews

The Palace Tiger: Joe Sandilands in India, but not at his best

The Palace Tiger by Barbara Cleverly

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Barbara Cleverly's Joe Sandilands series is about a British detective and former army man working in India during the time of the Raj. I found the first three of the series to be unique and colorful, portraying the evocative, fragrant era of 1920s India. As I've found with other series (such as those by Patricia Cornwell and Sue Grafton), though, this one is struggling to maintain its originality and verve. My interest is waning a bit.

The book opens up with an exciting scene: a person-eating tiger attacks a small Indian village girl. Soon we move onto the lives of the British ruling class in India and Joe Sandilands is sent by his supervisor down to a Northern territory where the ruling maharaja is dying.

I enjoyed the scenes of Joe engaging with Lizzie and Madeline, as well as the scene when Bahadur catches him by surprise while he was sleeping. But much of the story got bogged down in detail, especially the scenes involving just the British. At times I found myself ready for the book to be over so I could move onto something else, which is not a particularly good sign.

So I've been vacillating between 2 and 3 stars but ultimately decided on 3 because it was good...but not great. I'll read more of Cleverly--the Sandilands series has a unique premise and setting, and all of the characters--Indian, British, and American in this book--are equally considered as possible perpetrators.

I find also that Cleverly writes interesting, strong women characters, and it's clear to me that this series (although masculine in many ways because of the era) was written by a woman.
View all my reviews

Do Try to Speak As We Do: the English Nanny Diaries

Do Try to Speak As We Do: The Diary of an American Au Pair: A Novel by Marjorie Leet Ford


My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Nanny Diaries" in the UK, Do Try to Speak As We Do is about a milktoast of a young woman, Melissa, who takes on a job as an au pair in Britain, sight unseen.


It's generally known that au pairs are abused and less regulated than nannies. They also tend to be less experienced.


Melissa expected England and Scotland to be right off the screen of a Merchant Ivory film and was gravely disappointed to meet her snobby and verbally abusive employer, Mrs. Haig-Ereildoun. She has three charges: Pru, Trevor, and 3-year-old Claire, who happens to be deaf.


A few things about this book bothered me:


1. I had a hard time getting past the completely dorky name of her boyfriend, Tedward. I also couldn't understand what she saw in him (or Simon, for that matter!) and also why she called off the wedding.


2. The time sequencing seemed off. Ford was an au pair in the UK herself when she was much younger, but this book seemed to have a more modern setting but also seemed outdated in other ways.


3. I found the character development to be lacking--specifically "Tedward," Simon, and the Haig-Ereildouns. This might be because the novel was written in first person. Mrs. Haig-Ereildoun was entirely one-dimensional: she didn't have any redeeming qualities at all.


4. It bothered me that no one seemed to feel it was important for Claire to learn sign language--on the contrary in fact. In fact, they seemed to treat Claire as if she were less of a person because she was deaf. This seems like very outdated thinking to me...and an attitude leading to a lifetime of isolation. Is this what Ford really believes about the deaf? That they shouldn't be taught sign language?


As an American married to an Englishman, some of the bits I found amusing...like the inane rules of British banking, believed importance of sending one's children to private (public) schools, snobbiness about anything American, fondness for cold toast and runny eggs, and fact that doctors don't earn much money in the UK, among other things.


On the other hand, the British do not come out of this book very well. Doormat Melissa's employers and others walked all over her. Just about the only British people who were at all appealing were hired help or children.


I got tired of Melissa's lack of drive or motivation to stand up for herself. I'm vacillating between 2 and 3 stars (such a momentous decision!!), but I think I'd give it 2-1/2 stars if I could, because I was ready for the book to be over when I was 3/4 of the way through, and that's not a good sign. It also might be why I've never seen this book in the press.


View all my reviews >>

Marrying the Mistress: Waste of time

Marrying the Mistress by Joanna Trollope

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Why do I keep reading J. Trollope? It's very difficult for me to relate to the characters! They just don't seem very smart...



View all my reviews

One Hit Wonder: Surprisingly good story about woman mourning dead sister

One-Hit Wonder by Lisa Jewell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Surprisingly good book about a woman whose sister was a one-time pop star and suddenly dies--a mystery and story about friendship and family relationships, with a bit of romance thrown in.



View all my reviews