Review: In Between Days

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Ti

In Between Days

In Between Days
By Andrew Porter
(Knopf, Hardcover, 9780307273512, September 2012, 336pp.)

The Short of It:

Nothing is easy when a man’s family falls apart.

The Rest of It:

I love dysfunction. Love it. I’d eat it up if it was on a plate in front of me. There is something fascinating about watching a family disintegrate before your eyes. Especially when you are doing it from the comfort of your home with happy “family” sounds in the background.  The family portrayed in this book could be friends of mine, or the neighbors across the street. There is a realness to them that could not be ignored and that’s why I think I liked the book so much.

The story centers around the Harding family, Elson, a struggling architect, his ex-wife Cadence, his gay poet son Richard and his wayward daughter, Chloe. The fallout of their divorce is still lingering in the air, but both Elson and Cadence try their best to move on by starting relationships with other people. But it’s awkward for both of them. Cadence, having known nothing else but the role of mother and wife is now trying to understand who she is. And Elson, struggling both at work and at home, drowns his pain in drink. In the mean time, Richard doesn’t seem to be comfortable in his own skin and Chloe has been suspended from college for something that remains a mystery throughout most of the story.

As with most families, they come together in crisis and the crisis here is Chloe and her suspension from school. Ultimately, Elson is a good father. He loves his kids and realizes the mistakes he’s made, but his movements going forward are complicated by his current love interest and the fact that in the back of his mind, he still loves Cadence. There is a little piece of Cadence that still loves him too, but it’s buried beneath years of resentment and frankly, there’s little time to explore it because Chloe’s situation proves to be a lot more serious than they originally thought. So serious in fact that Chloe disappears.

The mystery surrounding Chloe and her disappearance is strung out through most of the novel. The reader is given clues along the way. Enough to keep you reading and Elson’s frustration and concern over the matter is palpable. Chloe frustrated the hell out of me. She comes across as an immature, privileged little college girl. She’s oblivious to the fact that her entire family is worried sick about her and yet she continues to make bad decisions. I realized at some point, that although Chloe’s situation seems to go on for most of the novel, it’s really not at all what the novel is about. What happens with Chloe is secondary to what happens to the family that is left behind. The collapse of a family is what this novel is about and Porter captures that well.

My one complaint is the setting. The story is set in Houston but that doesn’t come across at all in the telling. In fact, there are a couple of references that made me think the story was set in Los Angeles. The mention of one fast food restaurant and a very popular (quaint) neighborhood made me go back in the book to see if I had been mistaken about the setting. This was a bit of a letdown. Only because I so often look for a sense of place in a story and here, especially when it comes to Chloe’s disappearance, I didn’t get that.

Even with my little quibble above, I must say that I enjoyed this book quite a bit. The writing is genuine and effortless. It’s Porter’s first novel but I’ll be on the lookout for future books.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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Review: Survival Skills (Stories)

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Ti

Survival Skills

Survival Skills (Stories)
By Jean Ryan
(Ashland Creek Press, Paperback, 9781618220219, April 1, 2013, 212pp)

The Short of It:

This collection touches on the insecurities that exist within all of us and manages to capture the moment when happiness intersects with longing. Ryan handles both with dignity and grace.

The Rest of It:

I’ve been incredibly lucky lately when it comes to the books that end up in my hands and this collection is no exception.

First, I’ll tell you a little about the collection itself. These stories center around love and loss but particularly the moment when a person first realizes that love is waning. That moment where you know it’s over, yet you’re not willing to admit it.

What makes this collection unique, is that nearly all of this loss is the result of an accident or nature intervening in some way.

In Looks for Life, a young woman is given a new face after a car accident and the new face is so different from the one she had, that she becomes a different person.

In the Double Take, a young woman becomes infatuated with a child who resembles her own sister.

In Waiting for Annie, a woman waits for her lover to come out of a coma and while waiting, worries about how it will affect their relationship once she does.

My favorite story is Paradise, which happens to be the last story in the book. In Paradise, the relationship of two women is challenged by a parrot! One of them ends up in Palm Springs and that is probably why I loved it so much. With two sets of in-laws that own property in Palm Desert, I’ve spent many weeks observing the people in town and Ryan captured the desert lifestyle so perfectly. In fact, I am going there this week so I found it incredibly amusing to read this story right before my trip.

Years ago, I read short stories for two reasons:

  1. I was strapped for time.
  2. My attention span was all over the place.

I have changed over the years. I’ve come to appreciate the short story form and it’s because of wonderful writers like Jean Ryan. Writers that can capture a moment in time so vividly that it pains me when the story comes to an end.

This collection surprised me in a lot of ways. For one, I coud not tell right away if a story’s narrator was male or female. There are same-sex relationships in the book and so often I was surprised to find myself thinking that the story was told by a man, when in fact it’s told by a woman. The collection kept me guessing and I welcomed it.

I also appreciated the unique nature of the stories themselves. Fresh, likable characters yet ones that you could easily relate to. All of them in unique situations, questioning their place.

This collection is a treat for anyone who reads but if you’ve been in a reading rut and need a book to shake things up a little, this collection is what the doctor ordered. It will wake you up and get you thinking again. I find that I need that every once in a while.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post may contain Indiebound affiliate links.

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Review: This Cake is For the Party

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Ti

This Cake is For the Party

This Cake is For the Party
By Sarah Selecky
(St. Martin’s Griffin, Paperback, 9781250011428, November 2012, 240pp.)

The Short of It:

Never has such an unassuming collection of stories held my attention from beginning to end.

The Rest of It:

I love quiet stories and if they center around relationships, even better. From the very first page, I found myself falling right into this book. You know that feeling? That feeling where everything around you stands still and all you can focus on is the book in front of you? That is the feeling I had while reading these stories. When this book was in my hands, nothing else seemed to matter.

There are ten stories in this collection, all ranging in tone but clearly the party in question is nowhere to be found. In Throwing Cotton, we meet Anna and Sanderson and their friends Flip and Shona as they meet-up at a lake cottage for a little holiday. As Anna and Sanderson head into the next phase of their marriage, that of children, it becomes apparent that Anna has doubts. What should be a glorious time, now suddenly becomes something else. In Standing Up for Janey, Bonnie throws a dinner party to celebrate the engagement of her best friend Janey. Shortly before the party, Janey admits to Bonnie that she’s recently cheated on Milt. With this knowledge, Bonnie is forced to host as if nothing is amiss. What should be tragic tale, somehow ends up being funny in Selecky’s hands.

What these stories have in common is that these people are normal, functioning adults dealing with everyday problems. Selecky’s ability to take everyday objects or situations and make them unique is inspiring to say the least. She writes, like my brain thinks. Quiet observations not always spoken or shared out loud.

I savored each and every story in the collection and when I reached the end, I felt compelled to go right back and read them again.

An interesting little tidbit for you. The story that gives this collection its name was not included in the collection itself! This Cake is for the Party was a story that Selecky had written before this collection even came to be. It was short, only five pages long. It was actually the basis for another story which happens to be in the book. However, when this collection was put together, including it would have meant that it was the only linked story in the collection and Selecky felt that it put too much pressure on one of the characters so it was left out. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the story and although I loved it, I see why it was not included. Interesting, huh?

Because I was so impressed with the writing as a whole and totally fell head over heels for the collection, I went to Selecky’s website and signed up for her Little Bird writing prompts. These prompts are offered in conjunction with her Little Bird Writing Contest. Each day, a writing prompt arrives in my inbox and I take ten minutes of every morning to write a response. I’m not sure I will ever submit anything to the contest, but for now I am enjoying the prompts. If you find yourself struggling to write creatively and just don’t have the time, you might want to try these prompts. Ten minutes a day. That’s it. Even I can do that and who knows? Maybe one day I will have a story as good as one of the ones in the book!

As you can probably guess, I am still thinking about these stories and can’t seem to stop talking about them. If you get the opportunity to pick up a copy, you won’t be sorry.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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Review: The Adults

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Ti

The Adults

The Adults
By Alison Espach
(Scribner, Paperback, 9781439191866, September 2011, 336pp.)

The Short of It:

Sharp. Witty. Acerbic.

The Rest of It:

Fourteen-year-old Emily Vidal and her family host a cocktail party to celebrate her father’s 50th birthday. Everyone in the neighborhood is there despite the oppressive heat and as the guests float in and out of the house, it’s clear to Emily that being an adult is as droll as say… watching paint dry. That is, until she sees her father in a passionate embrace with their next door neighbor, Mrs. Resnick. That night, her parents tell her that they are getting a divorce. It’s said in a very straight-forward manner; a one-two punch to the gut delivered without hesitation. Emily is not surprised after what she’s seen.

Weeks later, Emily invites a group of insipid girls over for a sleepover and in the early morning hours, while getting a glass of water and gazing out her kitchen window, Emily witnesses the suicide of Mr. Resnick as he hangs himself from a tree next door. Her inability to react, to prevent what is about to happen is both alarming and expected. In shock, she drops a glass which shatters across the floor and screams for her father.

The title of this book alone is worthy of discussion. Who are the adults Espach is referring to? Is she talking about Emily’s parents? Her bitter mother, Gloria or her philandering father, Victor? Could she be referring to the Resnicks next door? Another broken family that finds its way into Emily’s immediate circle? Early in the story, I’d say yes. That as we get to know Emily and what makes her tick, we are also given unpleasant glimpses of the adults that form who she is.

With that, let’s talk about Emily. At fourteen, she is wise beyond her years but every now and then her naivety is displayed for all to see. She’s witty, smart and beautiful but at the same time childish and demanding but not in an obnoxious way. Not at all like the friends she hangs out with. They are living caricatures with big heads and a lot of unnecessary banter spewing forth from their mouths. They talk about sex and having sex with various members of the male population, including a teacher by the name of Jonathan.

Emily’s affair with Jonathan is both disturbing and logical. The fact that I just wrote that surprises me, but it’s true. Jonathan’s decision to hook-up with Emily is cringe-worthy but he’s also pretty good to her (if you can forget that he is molesting a child) and although she holds it together fairly well, she is devastated by her parent’s divorce and the distraction of a forbidden romance is what holds her together. But their time together is awkward. There is a lot of fumbling and a lot of sex and although it’s clear that Emily is young and inexperienced, Jonathan doesn’t really pick up on these clues so there are many pages of Emily questioning why he’s so hairy or why he sometimes loses his erection. Her best friend Janice claims to have also slept with Jonathan so it’s not like Emily can just go and ask her about things so she thinks out loud and figures stuff out along the way.

As Emily’s high school years come to a close, I expected the story to end but instead, Espach launches into Emily’s adult life. In college and living in Prague with her father and her half-sister Laura, Emily has once again hooked up with Jonathan and it’s weird. Very weird, because now she is of age, but Jonathan is much older and not nearly as attractive as he used to be. To me, I didn’t need to see Emily as an adult to understand her. Espach’s decision to take us into adulthood was a bold one, but it didn’t work. For one, Emily hasn’t grown all that much. She is essentially the same person and because of this, the relationship between her and Jonathan is even more awkward and forced.

The difference between me loving this one and not loving it, is that jaunt into Emily’s adulthood. I don’t know. I guess I wanted to keep her young in my mind. Isn’t that how it is with high school anyway? You want to hold on to what’s dear and even though her relationship with a teacher was scandalous and perverted, to Emily… it was dear and because of that, I was okay with it. What could have been a great book, was in the end, just good.

Cover note: Don’t let the cover fool you. This paperback cover makes you think it’s for the Young Adult crowd but I’d argue against that. It really does not fall into that category at all.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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Review: Sweet Tooth

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Ti

Sweet Tooth

Sweet Tooth
By Ian McEwan
(Nan A. Talese, Hardcover, 9780385536820, November 2012, 320pp.)

The Short of It:

Romance and espionage and McEwan’s gorgeous, lush prose.

The Rest of It:

Serena Frome is an intellectual sort. A true lover of contemporary fiction as well as the classics, yet when she attends Cambridge she studies math at the insistence of her mother. This is a fail in many ways as it’s definitely not her subject and because of it, she seems to find herself drawn to writer types which is how she ends up in an affair with a veteran of the British spy agency, MI5. Tony Canning is older and a skilled lover, which is an improvement over her orgasmically challenged ex-lover.

The days and nights spent with Tony are blissful as well as stimulating, but when he breaks it off abruptly, she chooses to focus on her career and ends up working for the MI5 as an entry-level spy assigned to a project called Sweet Tooth. The project involves secretly funding left-wing anticommunist writers and the first writer that she is assigned to work with, is Tom Haley. Haley, known primarily for his short stories is working on a novel. Serena, quite taken with his work agrees to meet with him and shortly thereafter, the two become lovers.

At first, Serena doesn’t see the harm in the relationship. They enjoy each other’s company and the weekends she spends with him mean quite a bit to her, but she doesn’t see it as a permanent thing. However, as he begins to work on his novel, she finds herself more involved with the writing itself and in turn, begins to see a side to Tom that she has not seen before, that of a permanent figure within her life and this of course causes her great stress because if he were to find out that she actually worked for MI5 and has been secretly funding his project, there’s no telling how he’d take the news.

I adored this book. It’s a romance for sure, but McEwan’s handling of these characters makes it so much more sophisticated than a traditional romance and then there is the added detail of espionage and the secrets that Serena must keep from Tom. The tension runs high for much of the book and I found myself flipping the pages eagerly to find out the outcome. But what I did not expect, was such a surprising, well-orchestrated ending! I can’t say that it took me totally by surprise, but the way in which it was written sure did. Once I saw where McEwan was going with the ending, I put the book down and saved it for when I could read the ending straight through, uninterrupted. It’s THAT kind of ending. You have to read it straight through to feel the impact of it.

If I were to compare this one to his other books, I’d say it was very similar in feel to On Chesil Beach. It’s a very intimate look at a couple in love and all of their imperfections and insecurities are laid out for the reader. I really enjoyed it and now want to buy a hard copy to add to my McEwan collection. Readers who like to read about the writing process will also enjoy this book because there is a lot of writing and re-working of the novel that Tom is working on.

Source: Sent to me by the publisher via  Net Galley.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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