Book Review | Book Chatter

Await Your Reply
By Dan Chaon
(Ballantine Books, Paperback, 9780345476036, June 2011, 368pp.)

The Short of It:

Identity and self are of importance here, yet it’s an identity other than their own that drives these characters. The inability to accept who they are is the main focus of this tragic tale.

The Rest of It:

In a collection of seemingly, unrelated stories, a group of characters come together in unexpected ways. Miles goes on a quest to find his missing brother, Hayden. Hayden is afflicted with mental illness and although Miles is well aware that anything could have happened to him, he somehow senses that Miles has gotten himself into trouble. Ryan is a young man going nowhere. He receives a call from his birth father Jay, who he originally thought to be his uncle, and decides to join him in his life of crime. Lucy, a recent high school grad, decides to take off with George, her high school history teacher to live in an abandoned mansion in Nebraska.

Interwoven between these stories is an email scam that is all too familiar in this day and age. The old phishing scam where someone emails you to tell you that you’ve been left millions of dollars and that all they need is your personal information. This is where the title of the book comes into play.

As the story plays out, and the relationships between these characters make more sense, you can’t help but feel sorry for these people. None of them are particularly likable and none of them are strong enough to pull themselves out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves. They are a miserable group of people, depressed in different ways, yet depressed just the same. Their desire for a better life tugs at the heartstrings because they are so real. So desperate and so real.

This is one of those quiet books that forces you to consider the human soul and its desperation and utter loneliness. It’s bleak. True. Yet hope exists, it’s just a tad out of reach for these characters and their struggle to find it is what keeps you reading. Dan Chaon knows people and is not afraid to expose all of their insecurities. This is what I appreciated most about this novel. His ability to expose all of their vulnerabilities in a realistic way. Overall, a very satisfying read.

Source: Borrowed from the library.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

The Snowman
Book #7 (Harry Hole Series)
By Jo Nesbø; Don Bartlett (Translator)
(Knopf, Hardcover, 9780307595867, 400pp, May 2011)

*No Spoilers*

The Short of It:

The Snowman is full of twists and turns. It’s the type of book that you cook with, sleep with and eat with. I could not turn the pages fast enough. It was that good.

The Rest of It:

A funny thing happened while reading this book. Jill and I were gushing over The Devil’s Star, which is also part of the Harry Hole series so when an opportunity came up for us to read The Snowman, we jumped at the chance. We jumped so fast that we didn’t realize that we missed the book in between (#6, The Redeemer). Jill informed me of this when I was about three chapters in, but you know what? It didn’t matter! Yes, there were some personal tidbits regarding Harry himself that would have been nice to know, but it didn’t affect the story at all. I mean, I started the series with book #5 anyway so it really didn’t matter.

This book was fantastic! I am loving Scandinavian crime fiction and Nesbø is a master storyteller. There’s just something about the texture and mood of his writing that appeals to me. The story begins in Oslo with a young boy waking up to the first snow of the season. His mother is missing, and in her place is a snowman, wearing her scarf. As Harry is called in to investigate, another woman is reported missing and the pattern is repeated. Each time, the snowman becoming more gruesome than the last.

Harry is an interesting character and constantly evolving. His personal life is always stressed in some way and he’s always teetering on the edge of destruction. Sometimes he’s on the wagon (recovering alcoholic) and other times he caves to his weaknesses, but this is what I love about Harry. Professionally, there is never anyone else more suited to the job, yet you wonder if he will ever pull it together and as a reader, you cheer him on and hope for the best. I can’t think of any other time when I’ve cheered a detective on.

I got my coworker to read it and he’s come in here three times to tell me who the killer is, and each time he’s been wrong! Nesbø is so good at what he does.

If you’ve never read Scandinavian crime fiction, give this series a try. The only challenge is that some of the books are not currently available in the US. That’s why Jill and I had to read them out-of-order, but The Book Depository has a few of them (they ship for free) and you might be able to get some of them from other sources. I am hoping that once the entire series has been released someone will publish them as a complete set. It sounds like a hassle to seek these books out but you won’t be sorry if you do.

Jill is also reviewing it today, so stop by and see what she has to say about it!

Source: Sent to me by the publisher.

Note:

Mr. Nesbø doesn’t know it but I am completely obsessed with ~~him~~ his writing. So much so, that I have a small poster of him hanging in my office. If you’d like to know more about Mr. Nesbø, visit his website.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

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