Book Review | Book Chatter

The Future Home of the Living God
By Louise Erdrich
Harper, 9780062694058, November 2017, 288pp.

The Short of It:

This book is the perfect example of why you sometimes need to give a book a little more than fifty pages to work its magic.

The Rest of It:

The story opens with the world going to hell in a handbasket but it’s ever so subtle. Parts of the world are okay but some parts have discovered a problem with how babies are developing in the womb. Although the markets still have food available and many seem to notice little in the way of change, there is an uncomfortable need to grab what you can and go.

Cedar, watching all of this unfold on the news is in a delicate situation. She’s pregnant and she’s beginning to realize that pregnant woman are being taken in for “examination” and it’s during this point in the story that I suddenly realized that some of the babies in question have reverted to their original state of primate. Erdrich never once comes out and says it but in between the lines, you know what’s going on.

The story revolves around Cedar, her birth mother and her adopted mother and how all three of them play a role in her survival. As the government closes in, they are forced to hide in order to protect the baby and in doing so, become part of a larger movement to save these women and their babies.

This was a suspenseful read with some interesting supporting characters. Once the story got going, I had a really hard time putting the book down. I HAD to know how it all turned out and anytime someone steps in to control a woman’s body, you can bet that there’s plenty of content to discuss.

If you’ve read Erdrich before you’ll recognize her style right away but this book will also remind you of The Handmaid’s Tale and Brave New World.

This would make an excellent book club read.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Rainbirds
By Clarissa Goenawan
Soho Press, 9781616958558, March 2018, 336pp.

The Short of It:

Readers of Haruki Murakami will absolutely love Rainbirds. It has all the elements that I enjoy in Japanese literature yet still presents its own unique voice.

The Rest of It:

Ren Ishida’s sister has been murdered. The situation surrounding her death is rather mysterious. Not a lot is known and since Ren and his sister haven’t seen each other recently, he’s not able to contribute any valuable information towards the investigation. Nonetheless, he feels compelled to visit the place of her death and to perhaps retrieve her belongings with the hope of finding some key piece of evidence.

In the process, he finds himself living in her old room and teaching in her previous teaching position. He meets a woman who does not speak, a young student who has a mysterious way of showing up every time he thinks of her, a childhood friend he hasn’t seen in years and he is continually visited in his dreams by a young girl in pigtails. Who is she? What is she trying to tell him? Does she know something about his sister’s death?

As a Murakami fan, I noted mentions of ears, music, food and cats. Yep, they are all here.

I LOVED Rainbirds. It’s one of those quiet, introspective reads that I adore. It’s thoughtful, very much a page-turner and the story is fluid and seamless. I highly recommend it.

Clarissa Goenawan