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by Celeste Ng, 2017

Interesting and well-written novel, although I didn’t like the setting, the characters, or the plot. Set in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an affluent community, where they planned everything down to the last detail (grassy areas, trees, schools, parks, where trash cans are kept, where rental homes are built, etc.) This is an actual community and the author grew up there. There are two families involved. One is the affluent Richardson’s with 4 children: Trip, Moody, Lexy, and Izzy. The other is the Warren’s; Mom, Mia, is an artist/photographer and single-parent to Pearl, a high-school aged daughter who has moved around the country continually with her artist mom. Mia’s photography is more than just photography; she manipulates the photos by painstakingly cutting out certain parts and arranging certain things. Mia decides she and Pearl will stay in Shaker Heights and Pearl becomes involved with the Richardson’s. Izzy, the youngest, is a troubled child who finds the hope and love she needs from Mia, since her own mother, Elena, is continually disappointed in her. There are lots of secrets in Mia’s life and Elena Richardson, a reporter for the local paper, eventually finds them all out and kicks Mia and Pearl out of her rental home. The little fires everywhere comes from parting advice Mia gives to Izzy, who then starts a fire on the bed of each of her siblings and burns the Richardson’s home down. The book is full of high-school angst: he/she loves me, he/she loves me not, teenagers deciding to have sex (Lexie and her boyfriend, Trip and Pearl), getting pregnant (Lexie), having an abortion (Lexie), etc. There is also a couple who want to adopt a baby girl who was left at a fire station. Mia finds out the baby is her Chinese friend’s (Bebe,) and Bebe wants her back. There is a trial and a verdict and an eventual kidnapping.

by Paul Torday, 2007

Entertaining and educational novel about a Sheikh from the Yemen who loves fly fishing for salmon and decides to try and introduce salmon fishing in the Yemen. Money is no object. He hires a British fisheries scientist, Dr. Alfred Jones, who is at first completely against the idea. (Of course!) Harriet, a property-management agent who works for the Sheikh, meets with Dr. Jones and he begins to believe that this crazy idea might possibly work, and if it doesn’t, at least they’d learn a lot along the way. He agrees to try and we get to come along for the ride. Along the way, we travel to Scotland and fly fish for salmon at the Sheikh’s estate in Scotland. Then, we travel to the Sheikh’s estate in the highlands of the Yemen. Beautiful places, delicious food, and a fascinating project–will it work? The Sheikh is kind, calm, peaceful, devout. There are side stories: Dr. Jones’s marriage to unkind, unloving, and cold Mary; Harriet’s fiance, a British Marine serving in Iraq; Al Qaeda attempting to assassinate the Sheikh; and the politics of Britain through the British Prime Minister (Jay Vent) and his press secretary (Peter Maxwell).

Loved the characters of Dr. Jones, Harriet, and the Sheikh. There is a movie made of this book. I would like to see the beautiful settings described in this book.

by Brit Bennett, 2020

Interesting novel, interesting premise: twin light-skinned black girls (Desiree and Stella) go their separate ways, one to live as a white woman (Stella), the other remains a black woman (Desiree). Desiree is definitely the more likable character. She ends up with a daughter (Jude) black as coal and returns with her to her mother and home in Mallard after leaving her abusive husband. She is loving and loyal and misses her twin. She has a very loving second relationship with Early, a kind man who helps her try and locate Stella, unsuccessfully.

Jude moves to Los Angeles and goes to college on a track scholarship. She meet and falls in love with Reese (who used to be Therese). He is a girl trying to become a boy and the love between them is very sweet and tender but, of course, secretive. Jude cannot tell her Mom (Desiree). While working for a caterer at a party in Beverly Hills, Jude sees Stella, her Mom’s long-lost twin, and meets Stella’s daughter, Kennedy. The secret comes out eventually that Stella is black, but only between Stella and Kennedy. Stella keeps this secret from her white husband and everyone else except for Kennedy, Jude, Desiree, and Early. She lives a life full of lies.

I guess we all have secrets and secrets really keep us from living life to the full. Thank you, Jesus, that you came that we may have life and have it to the full. Without you, life is dark, messed up, secretive, full of lies, scary. With You, we have nothing to fear. You are with us even if the world rejects us. But what are we if we gain the whole world but lose our soul. You give us hope and life and light and truth.

There is no God in this book. No real hope. There is human love but if that’s all we have, that’s a sorry existence.

by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, 2018 (English translation from the Swedish by Alice Menzies, 2020)

This was one of the books Fredrik Backman, the author of Anxious People, recommended. The whole time I was reading it, I thought the title was ‘The Father Clause,’ but now see that it is called, ‘The Family Clause.’ It’s about a very dysfunctional family in Sweden. I believe they were immigrants from a Mideastern country, although that is never fully revealed. I did learn that Sweden brought in immigrants to work in the Volvo factory. The father who is a grandfather loves his family but doesn’t show it very well. He lives in the foreign country and comes back to Sweden every 5 months and 28 days in order to keep his Swedish citizenship. He was a philandering father and was thrown out because he was so undependable. He only came back sporadically to visit the children. The children are now adults: a son who is a father with a girlfriend who is a mother, and his sister who is a daughter who is a mother and is pregnant with a man who isn’t her boyfriend but who loves her dearly and is so excited to have a baby with her. The brother who is a father who is a son and his girlfriend who is a mother have a 4 year-old daughter and a one-year old son. The father who is a son is on paternity leave and is taking care of them. Taking care of these children stresses him to the max. It’s painful to read how difficult it is for him to take care of these two children.

There is another sister from a different mother who is dead. She was a heroin addict who died of an overdose.

He is an excellent writer, but I don’t like what happens in this book. There is only one good thing that happens in this book-the son forgives his father. There are some terrible things in this book:

1. The dead sister is still around. She wasn’t given the choice to leave the earth that most dead people are given. So, she hangs out with her father and kind of talks to him and keeps him from committing suicide by getting him off the train tracks. This whole section was icky, icky, icky.
2. The son who is a father tries stand-up, fails miserably, decides to do the “big shop” and leaves his wallet on top of the car and drives off afraid of a couple of guys in the parking lot. They are following him and trying to get him to realize that he lost his wallet – trying to give it back. But, the son who is a father is so afraid, he drives as fast as he can to get away from them, never looks over, and ends up away from his family with no phone (which was part of the wallet) and no money. I wish he would have just looked over and seen these two guys were trying to help him, not hurt him.
3. The very worst part of the book, though, is when the pregnant sister who is a mother decides to have an abortion that destroys the boyfriend who is not a boyfriend, who really loved her and wanted this baby and her forever.

Very well-written but disappointing book. There is only one Perfect Son and one Perfect Father. He loves us and cares for us – we don’t have to be perfect. Cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7.) Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28.)

by Adalbert Stifter, translation copy 1945, originally published 1845

Novella about two children, brother (Conrad) and sister (Sanna), from the village of Gschaid, who walk through the Alps to their Grandparent’s home in a neighboring village (Millsford) on Christmas Eve. Grandmother sends them home early and they get caught in a snowstorm on the way back. They get lost and find their way to a snow cave. They are saved by drinking the black coffee extract their Grandmother gave them to bring to their mother as a gift. It keeps them awake so they don’t freeze to death. The northern lights also keep them awake. When day comes they wander over ice and rock, hopelessly lost. But then they hear the alpenhorn and see a red flag flying in the distance. They are found. The whole village was out looking for them. Sweet, little book. The children and their mother were considered outsiders since the mother was from the neighboring village, Millsford. But after this event, the children and their mother belonged to the village.

by Leif Enger, 2018

Very disappointing book. It’s set in small-town Minnesota along Lake Superior. The main character drives off a cliff into Lake Superior and is rescued by Marcus Jetty, an old junk collector. Virgil’s life changes drastically after the accident. He meets a Norwegian kite flyer, Rune, who is the long lost father of the long lost baseball player, Alec. There’s a spooky bad guy named Adam. This is one of the reasons I disliked the book. My beloved son’s name is Adam so it’s hard to like a book with a bad guy named Adam. There’s a precious ten-year old boy named Galen who loves to fish. His dad, Shad Pea, is drowned by a sturgeon. Galen is determined to kill this sturgeon. He finally does near the end of the book. After that, good things start to happen in this “hard-luck” town. Rune is a very disappointing character. I expected him to kind of save the day with the bad guy but instead the kite-flying scene with Adam and Rune ends up almost killing Rune. He gets electrocuted and has injuries much like those of Christ although no one in Book Club picked up on that. But nothing is every redeemed through Rune. He seems to become less of a man after that. I was hoping he’d change the bad guy into a good guy – resolve something in Adam’s past, but no, nothing like that.

Virgil several times in the book, sees a man standing in Lake Superior. Realizes towards the end of the book that this man was the Attendant with him when he drove off the cliff. There’s a young man, Bjorn, who is the troubled son of the baseball player who disappeared, Alec. Bjorn likes to surf in the frigid Lake Superior. Virgil hires him to help in his dilapidated movie theater, the Empress, and with Bjorn’s help, it starts to turn around. Then, there’s a troubled man, Jerry, who is helping Adam Leer clean up his mansion but then builds a bomb. Oh my – too many loose ends that never come together and the characters, especially Rune, are either a major disappointment, or seem pointless. Also, he fills his writing with so many details that feel like he is just trying to show off.

This was the 2nd book selection of the year for the Old Town Library Book Club. We met last night to discuss the book, via Zoom. Some people really liked the book – the small town details in it. Some people really disliked the book. I fell in the group that disliked the book. He has been a disappointment since Peace Like a River. I don’t recommend this book. It was a waste of time.

by Andrea Rothman, 2019

Our neighbor, Kim (of Kim and Richard), gave me this book to read because it was recommended for people who liked Lab Girl. It was a very quick read, a novel, a love-story, about scientists investigating the DNA of the sense of smell. The author was a research scientist who studied the sense of smell. Most of the science-y details were impossible for me to follow – like “knocked out” genes of mice, axon guidance genes, etc. The love story between the main character, Emily, and fellow scientist, Aeden, is wrought with difficulties and misunderstanding. Aeden smokes but Emily, who is really into smells, loves him. She’s a loner and always has been. Aeden and she work together and fall in love, but it doesn’t work out due to her insecurities and his trying to manipulate her into coming with him to another lab. He does this by switching the mice and making her think her theory is a failure. She finds out and can’t forgive him until it’s too late (10 years later). She’s famous, still alone, and now he’s married and has a son. They both still love each other, though, and lament what could have been if only Emily had forgiven him.

I love how the book ends: Emily goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at a painting of a man that looks like Aeden that she found years ago (a real painting of Garshin). When she was there years ago, an employee explains to her that it is not a self-portrait because that would have required a mirror. That gives her the clue to her theory that she needed that makes her famous. Ten years later, after finding out Aeden is married and has a son, she goes back to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and cries her heart out looking at that painting that started it all. That same employee is there and he lets her cry and then gives her a tour of his part of the museum and you can tell, they will be friends.

Good book, fast read.