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Model Home
By Eric Puchner
(Scribner, Paperback, 9780743270496, September 2010, 384pp.)

The Short of It:

Puchner creates one of the most heartbreaking stories of our time. Sad and beautiful, its message resonates.

The Rest of It:

Dreaming of untold riches in the real estate market, Warren Ziller moves his family to a gated community in (Rancho) Palos Verdes, California. There, they live the American dream. Nice house, nice neighborhood. But Warren has a secret. The real estate development that he’s invested in has tanked, and his family has no idea what looms ahead.

Once in a while a book comes up out of nowhere and just slaps you in the face. I first heard about Model Home when it was featured in this year’s Tournament of Books. Simply put, it sounded like my kind of book. It was set in Southern California, it had all the family dynamics that I seem to crave, and dysfunction… lots of it. I expected to enjoy it, but I did not expect to love it as much as I did.

This book will break your heart.

You will re-read passages over and over again because Puchner’s writing is so exquisite. His writing is both beautiful and raw, which doesn’t even sound right when put together in one sentence.

You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, people liked to say. In truth. there was not much time, a blip, and most of what you did was a mistake. You were lucky to find a safe and proper home. In the end, even the world cast you out, withdrawing its welcome.

The characters are so well-developed, that I cried for them. Their predicament is so dire at one point, so delicate and precarious that I had to pace my reading or be overwhelmed by grief.

If you search for reviews on this book, you’ll see that many found this book to be depressing. I didn’t. It’s an honest account of a family falling apart, but in many ways it’s hopeful too.

I want everyone to read this book. It’s my fave of the year (so far) and if you happen upon the interview with Eric Puchner, discussing the book, hold off on it until you’ve read it because it gives a huge plot point away!

Source: Purchased.

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Kafka on the Shore
Haruki Murakami
(Vintage, Paperback, 9781400079278, January 2006, 480pp.)

The Short of It:

An odd, quirky little novel full of unforgettable characters.

The Rest of It:

Kafka Tamura is a young, 15-year-old boy who runs away from home. Nakata, is an older gentleman who became “simple” after falling into a coma along with sixteen other school children when he was younger. He also runs away from his home, but for entirely different reasons. Both encounter interesting characters along the way.

There is no easy way to summarize this novel. After just a few pages, I began to wonder what Murakami was smoking when he wrote it. This book is WAY out there. There are talking cats, a pimp who dresses up like Colonel Sanders, a gay transgendered librarian, and a cat killer named Johnnie Walker.

What first seemed like a disaster to me, turned into one of the most memorable reads of the year! This is my first experience with Murakami but I enjoyed his writing so much, that I am now in the process of reading all of his work.

I have to caution you. This is not a book for everyone, but anyone in a reading rut will be jolted right out of it after reading it. Kafka on the Shore is thought-provoking and different, very different. It reminded me a lot of The Wizard of Oz because of all the people these two characters meet along the way. I absolutely loved it.

Source: Borrowed.