Book Review | Book Chatter

Kindred
By Octavia Butler
Beacon Press, 9780807083697, 2004, 264pp.

The Short of It:

Not your typical science fiction read.

The Rest of It:

Dana and her husband Kevin find themselves in a unique situation. While celebrating her 26th birthday at their home in California, Dana becomes dizzy and then disappears before Kevin’s eyes. In an instant, Dana is transported to a Southern plantation. Her mission is apparently to save the white child who is drowning in front of her but this simple act of kindness earns her a shotgun pointed at her face when the plantation owner believes her to be the cause of his boy’s condition, not the other way around. As a black woman, Dana quickly realizes that if she doesn’t watch herself, she could end up enslaved along with the other slaves on the plantation.

This novel uses time travel to tell its story. Each time Dana goes back, Rufus, the young boy she saved is a little bit older and more like his father every day. Although Rufus makes disappointing choices which often result in a beating for Dana, she somehow feels a connection to him. And then when Dana’s husband Kevin enters this strange world along with Dana, things become much more complicated as Kevin is white, and the people of this time period don’t believe in a marriage between a white man and a black woman.

This is a strange story. I was immediately pulled in by the premise but it continually felt wrong to me and no explanation is given regarding the events in this story. We never learn why Dana has been called to return to this time. There is a short mention of ancestors and it is implied that Rufus is family. I suppose you don’t really need an explanation for the story to work but I was looking for one.

Butler does a good job of depicting plantation life and expressing the horrors through Dana’s eyes. If you’ve maxed out on slavery books this one might be one for you to try because it’s very different and hey, it’s science fiction.

Source: Borrowed
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What Alice Forgot
By Liane Moriarty
Berkley, 9780425247440, 2012, 496pp.

The Short of It:

Took some time for me to get into this one but once I was in, I was IN. Moriarty is a storytelling queen.

The Rest of It:

Alice faints during a spin class and upon waking, realizes that she’s lost ten years of memories. She doesn’t remember having children, or that she’s in the process of divorcing her husband Nick. She has no idea why she’s at the gym at all having shunned exercise for most of her life and how can she be 39 years old when she was 29 just a little while ago? One other thing that she can’t remember is the death of her best friend Gina, who played such a large role in Alice’s life.

The first quarter of the book was bordering on silly but was also humorous and entertaining. Alice’s realizations about life as those around her continue to fill in the gaps, got some giggles out of me but can you imagine not remembering your kids or your husband?

Memory-challenged Alice finds that she’s not all that likable. She’s lost friends, alienated her husband and grown apart from her sister. She was this driven, busy person who did all the things class moms do but in total excess. Now, as she looks around at things she can’t make sense of, she wonders why? Why is she getting a divorce? What went wrong?

This turned out to be a very touching story about a woman who is given a chance to turn things around. Plus, it’s not just about Alice, it’s about her sister Elisabeth and her family and how the past few years have created a lot of tension, but perhaps the damage can be repaired.

I really ended up liking What Alice Forgot. It’s not as dishy as Big Little Lies and it didn’t center around a suburb like Truly Madly Guilty, but it was sweetly sentimental and I was satisfied when I turned the last page. It’s been optioned for a movie, actually has been for some time but I don’t see any mention of it actually being in production.

Have you read it? It does give you some food for thought and the questions in the back of my copy confirmed for me that it would make a good discussion book too.

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

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