Review: The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle

The Devil in Silver is one of the best books I've read this year. The brilliant novel takes place in a New York mental institution, and is a mix of Gothic horror, social commentary, and satire. It's laugh-out-loud funny and terrifying on more than one level, but in its heart the Devil in Silver is about compassion and commitment to loved ones. Here's my favorite quote: "'That's the funny thing,' she said, 'Men always want to die for something. For someone. I can see the appeal. You do it once and it's done. No more worrying, not knowing, about tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I know you all think it sounds brave, but I'll tell you something even braver. To struggle and fight for the ones you love today. And then to do it all over again the next day. Every day. For your whole life. It's not romantic, I admit. But it takes a lot of courage to live for someone, too.'"

Rating: five celery sticks

Review: With or Without You, by Domencia Ruta

With or Without You is a fractured family fairy tale. Like Grimm's witches, giants, or evil queens, Ruta's cast of characters fairly crackle off the page. I can imagine them weaving down highways in rusty cars, stealing my watch, perhaps burning down a house.

Ruta's parents were young when she was conceived, and throughout this memoir practically everyone who is an "adult" seems permanently stuck in adolescence. Kathi, Ruta's mom, is an addict, and Ruta's childhood was peppered with incidents ranging from mildly dysfunctional to downright abusive. Ruta's backwards gaze is unflinching, her memory is strong, and the characters are described with great detail, so it's a compelling read.

I received this memoir as an advance reading copy from LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program. If you're interested in reading With or Without You, the book will be released in March 2013.

Rating: four celery sticks

Review: All Gone, by Alex Witchel

All Gone is a poignant and heartfelt memoir about a parent's decline into dementia. The descriptions of Witchel's mother's increasing forgetfulness and depression are described with wonderful depth and emotion.


Alex Witchel is an accomplished writer (despite what her horrorshow of a father thought), but this book could have used stronger editing and a greater author commitment.


The refreshments mentioned in the subtitle are recipes at the end of each chapter, and are nostalgic but sometimes nasty -- frankfurter golash (shudder)? The book would have been better without them, as most are only tangentially mentioned in the memoir.

Witchel occasionally prattles on about her professional life rather than focusing on the painful reality of her mother's decline, and that feels like filler. In the end I wanted more, but it felt like Witchel was too exhausted to give it.

Rating: three and one half celery sticks

Review: A Walk Across America, by Peter Jenkins

I am a sucker for books about long distance walking, but this is one I could not finish. Written in 1979, it is dated and poorly written. Some sections were compelling (Homer's Mountain) but I would not recommend it to anyone.

Rating: one celery stick

Review: My Hollywood, by Mona Simpson

In this novel absent husbands try to make it in Hollywood, anxious wives balance guilt with professional desires, and Philippino nannies quietly raise their children. One of the narrators, Claire, is a composer, and the book faintly thrums with a musical feel. It's full of pithy insights about marriage, motherhood, and friendship, a book that mothers will likely nod their heads to frequently.

Rating: four celery sticks

Review: Following Ezra, by Tom Fields-Meyer

I've read many memoirs about autism; Following Ezra is one of the best. What a nice change to read about parents who intuitively know their son and help him successfully.

"It wasn't about finding the right expert for my child; it was about learning to be the right parent."
"Ezra has a different kind of mind. The rules that make sense with other children simply don't work for him."

Fields-Meyer's creativity and compassion make this book a must-read for parents facing the challenges of autism.

Rating: four and one half celery sticks

Review: Blue Genes, by Christopher Lukas

Lukas tackles a high-charged, emotional issue, but the book comes across like a firecracker with a really long detonation cord, that eventually just fizzles rather than explodes. It's a strangely flat memoir with which I could not connect.

Rating: two celery sticks

Review: I'm Sorry You Feel That Way, by Diana Joseph

This collection of essays really raised my mom hackles. It made me uncomfortable to read the author describe how she sat her son in front of a television all day, every day, when he was a toddler. She later wonders why he grows up to prefer a sedentary life playing video games. She complains about him eating junk food, but who buys that food? Perhaps the irony is assumed, but I just never felt it.

There are passages in this book that are very reflective and profound. In a chapter about an ex-husband she writes, "He wants to know did I really love him or did I just hate myself." So it's a mixed bag kind of book, readable enough that I finished it, but not good enough to recommend.

Rating: two and one half celery sticks

Review: Dinner, a Love Story, by Jenny Rosenstrach

This charming book would make a great baby shower gift -- it's full of tasty-sounding recipes and friendly advice about feeding a family. There's nothing new or earth-shattering here, but it was a fun read.

Rating: three celery sticks

Review: The Devil all the Time, by Donald Ray Pollock

The Devil all the Time is terribly dark but fantastically written and completely unforgettable. The dichotomy caused some trouble for me; how could I enjoy a book that has so much pain and blood? When I thought about reviewing it, I actually felt guilty, like it was something I could only read in secret and not acknowledge.

Pollock's gritty story is set in the rural semi-south (West Virginia and southern Ohio) and it has a Jim Thompson-noir feel to it. It's not tough to imagine the book as a film, as the imagery is vivid and the characters are quirky.

All in all, it's a read it if you dare kind of book.

Rating: three celery sticks

Review: Confections of a Closet Master Baker, by Gesine Bullock-Prado

I adore baking and reading about it, so I started this book with considerable enthusiasm.  Bullock-Prado left a job with her sister's production company and moved to Vermont, where she started a bakery, Gesine's. Most of the book is a description of life in the bakery, mixed with memories of Bullock-Prado's late mother. A recipe completes each chapter. When I realized Bullock-Prado is Sandra Bullock's sister, my heart sunk a bit, but I continued.

Normally complaining in memoirs doesn't put me off , but something about Bullock-Prado's tone is incredibly irritating. She whines about Hollywood, the habits of dishwashers, and folks who order a cake and then expect it to (gasp) be ready. Americans are too fat because they eat excessive amounts of crappy sweets, but bakeries like hers don't encourage gluttony. Everyone wants a piece of her to be close to her sister. Her world is bittersweet, but more bitter than sweet.

The sections where Bullock-Prado writes about her family are by far the best.  Confections of a Closet Master Baker would have been more successful (and less annoying) as a straight-up family memoir with recipes.

Rating: two celery stalks

Review: There but for the, by Ali Smith

This unusual and creative novel is whip smart. If the book had been mine rather than a library copy I would have highlighted several passages to enjoy later.

The plot loosely revolves around a man who locks himself in a room near the end of a dinner party. He had just met the hosts, no one knows why he's done it, and he will only communicate through notes. The following meandering multi-narrative is unexpected and fantastic, with strong hints of satire. If you like Martin Amis's London Fields, I believe you'll enjoy There but for the.

What you get out of There but for the depends on who you are and what you know. Since I am handicapped by a deficit in things British, so some of the book went right over my American head. I did greatly enjoy Smith's use of language and dialogue -- particularly the memorable dinner party populated by characters and behavior quite true to life. I felt like I was reading a movie script combining Woody Allen's snappy dialogue and Luis Bunuel's dreamy surrealism. Exterminating Angel meets Manhattan, directed by Mike Leigh for the British touch.

Rating: four celery sticks

Review: In Zanesville, by Jo Ann Beard

This is a beautifully written, nostalgic book. I can't think of another novel that brought me so totally back to my young teenage years. Beard is about 10 years older than I and her novel takes place in the midwest while I grew up on the east coast, but in testament to small town life, it makes no difference. Other than a different soundtrack to the narrative, her characters' struggles and torments were the same as mine -- bad babysitting gigs, the torture of sanitary napkins with belts, an alcoholic father, a mother in despair, the capriciousness of teenage girls, and of course, what to do with boys. But In Zanesville is not a depressing book at all; I found it sweet and kind of innocent. Totally appropriate for 12 year olds and up, although it is classified adult fiction.

Rating: four celery sticks

Review: Where We Belong, by Emily Giffin

I'm a repeat forgetter. This is the second time I confused Emily Giffin with Suzanne Finnamore. I adored Finnamore's novel Otherwise Engaged, then I read Giffin's Something Borrowed (which I was tepid about) and somehow (maybe because both books were about weddings) I merged the two writers into one. That's how I ended up reading Giffin's Baby Proof as well as Finnamore's Zygote Chronicles -- and how weird is it that a baby book follows a wedding book for each author! Unfortunately for Finnamore, her third book was Split: a Memoir of Divorce (poor thing). Giffin's wrote a few post-baby books that I missed, and when I heard she had a new novel I did it again and thought she was Finnamore. I wish she was Finnamore, since Where We Belong is nothing special, unless you really enjoy chick lit -- it's pretty good for that.

The whole kerfuffle is a reminder to check LibraryThing before I submit my library requests.

Rating: two and one half celery sticks

Review: the Savages, by Don Winslow

Too much for me. Made me feel like a scared little kitten. Actually, more like a scared little kitten who didn't fall off the cat food truck yesterday and can see her way through the plot twists so was not surprised by the ending. But a scared little kitten nonetheless.

rating: two celery sticks

Review: True Believers, by Kurt Andersen/Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn


My two favorite books of the summer had something in common besides their awesomeness. True Believers features a male author writing as a woman and in Gone Girl Gillian Flynn writes from a male perspective. As a woman I can't judge them both objectively, but I think Flynn comes out on top here -- her point of view narration is impeccable (I would bet she is the mother of a son, but perhaps she is merely an astute male observer). Kurt Anderson's attempt does not succeed as well -- more than once I found myself quibbling about Karen Hollander's behavior -- that a man would think a woman would do that, but a woman would not.

Point of view narration aside, I found both books to be real page turners and perfect summer reads. I liked how True Believers tackled the subject of youthful idealism and its consequences. As we mature some of us grown into the realization that there is no one truth, but not everyone gets there. For me in real life this does help explain the existence and popularity of Fox News.

Gone Girl is a wicked, wicked book. I feel compelled to tiptoe around the plot because I don't want to spoil it. Do you know how sometimes you have very dark thoughts about a person who irritates you? Could be a sibling, parent, spouse, best friend.... and when you're super tired or crabby or premenstrual you might hold onto those thoughts a little longer than you should, put them in a pretty little jar decorated with ribbons and admire them when you should just let them go. Gillian Flynn gets this. I'll say nothing else, but ladies, this book's for you.

rating: Gone Girl four and one half celery sticks/True Believers four celery sticks

Review: When in Doubt, add Butter by Beth Harbison

This book popped up in my LibraryThing "Connection News," where an algorithm displays titles related to my favorite subjects. I was swayed with the title and the brief description of the narrator, who is a personal chef. It turns out to be "chick lit," and I didn't like it.

About 5 years ago I had a spell where I sought light books that proposed little challenge. I found Jennifer Crusie and her books were just right for the moment, but after the third one I was done with all that. Maybe I'm just done with this genre, with all the pulsing and entering and convoluted plot twists.   And to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, Beth Harbison you are no Jennifer Crusie. Harbison's characters are caricatures of humans and not believable in the least. I plodded through for a bit, hoping for some descriptions of delicious food, but it was few and far between. I did not finish this book.

Rating: one celery stick