Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place

 

 

I bought Refuge for a nonfiction class at UVU (same class where I read An Elemental Thing), but it ended up not being read in class, and it took me until now to read it. Refuge is Terry Tempest Williams' female family history told alongside the story of The Great Salt Lake and her migratory birds. 

 

It was really hard for me to get into the novel. Chapters opened with different numbers, water level, number of birds, etc. Numbers are hard for me to comprehend, so the significance of the numbers at the beginning of each chapter was missed by me. It also felt like things weren't exactly in order, which was hard for me to understand. It was unclear when things were happening in the timeline. I also felt that Refuge has a very narrow demographic as to who would be most drawn to it. I know it's not something I would pick up off a shelf and take home myself. I give it 3 stars.

Veil of Roses

I really thought I hadn't read Veil of Roses before, but as I started reading it, it felt rather familiar, and by the almost end, I was positive I had read it before.  Regardless, I think Laura Fitzgerald's Veil of Roses is a good, and important read. 

Veil of Roses introduces us to Tamila from Iran. Her parents have sent her to America.  And if she can find a husband, she can stay. No more veil.  No more oppression.  She can finally be free. 

I liked Veil of Roses because Fitzgerald keeps it light, but still obvious that women in Iran are oppressed   It's a good introduction to the subject; it serves as the setting, not the conflict of the novel.  It's made me interested in learning more about the Iranian and Islamic cultures.  I recommend this book to older YA readers and adults, especially women who are interested in a simple introduction to the differences in their lives form the women in Iran. 

Barefoot

There's a quote on this cover about Barefoot making you want to pick up everything and head to the beach. Which it did-- Just to get me away from this book! Elin Hilderbrand writes to show us how smart and well-read she is, trying to make herself sound brilliant and comparable to the great works of literature one might study as an English major, while presenting herself as a beach-read chick-lit author. And Barefoot certainly appears to be a beach read, but it clearly is not.  Hilderbrand, in mixing her demographics and genres, seemingly to obtain more readers, must be losing readers from both sides. She attempted to write an intellectual beach book and failed. I can't say that I recommend this book. 

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty

If I was quoted and it was put on the front of this book, it would say, "If you enjoyed Face on the Milk Carton as a teen, you'll love Jackson's A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty."  It's also reminiscent of  Esme Lennox with the southern feel of Harper Lee in today's world. Okay, it's not Harper Lee good, but I sure did enjoy it. It's almost a 5. Just not quite there yet. 

A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty tells us the story of the three Slocumb women, 45-year-old Big, 30-year-old Liza, and 15-year-old Mosey. Yup, getting pregnant at 15 runs in the family, and even though Mosey is a virgin, she regularly pees on a stick to assure herself she's not pregnant. Big feels that God sends her biggest trials every 15 years, and this year is no exception. All three of these women tell us their part of the story as Jackson takes us down the winding road of Liza's past as we try to unravel her secrets as well as the truth. I liked the twist and the mystery, but I'm not sure that I loved this novel. It got a little blurry at parts, especially at the end, and the logical me things there are some legal ends that will need to be tied up that are not discussed in the novel. Granted, that's not the point of the novel or the moral of the story . . . 

It was weird for me, though, that I related more to Liza's high school years than Mosey's, that I'm closer in age to Liza at 30 than Mosey at 15. Regardless, I really liked this novel, and I think you will too! 

The Handmaid's Tale

In the very same class where Feed was required reading, we were also introduced to The Handmaid's Tale. A post-apocalyptic novel of a newly formed utopia, which only brings misery and pain, serving as a dystopia, to many liberals of the 80s, including Offred, the handmaid in the title.  In a backlash of feminism, the Republic of Gilead is formed and is based on and governed by Old Testament manner and moral. Anyone who cannot conform to the new ways or lived differently in the past is subject to punishment, exile, or death. 


In this reformed government and society, Offred, and women like her, are separated from their families and made to serve as handmaids. They loose their entire person. Even their names are changed. Offred simply means she is of Fred. As in he is her master. She is handmaid to his wife. Handmaids as in the biblical sense. As in Sariah couldn't have a baby, so she offered her handmaiden to Abraham to produce an heir. Many of the women in the new Republic of Gilead are like Sariah and too old too have babies, and many of the babies made, even by the handmaids, are sickly. Offred's job is to make a baby for Fred and his wife. And this is Offred's story.


The Handmaid's Tale is a very interesting book to read. It's crazy to see how a society can take things too far while trying to to do good. I highly recommend this book to those of ya'll who like post-apocalyptic and utopia/dystopian-style. 

3 Lives

I'm being a bit of procrastinator with the packing, and Cassidy is still in bed, so I thought I'd do a little book post. It's a little book-report-y, 

but I hope you enjoy it! 

"Three Lives, more radically than any other work of the time [1909] in English, brought the language back to life. . . . life as it was lived by everybody living in the century, the average or normal life as the naturalists had seen it" -- Donald Sutherland, in Gertrude Stein: A Biography of Her Work

Madame Cezanne portrait that inspired Stein's Three Lives

Three Lives was the first published work of Stein, and consists of the stories, or studies, of three women: "The Good Anna" is a kind but authoritative German servingwoman; "Melanctha" is an uneducated but sensitive black (or mulatto) girl; and "The Gentle Lena" is a pathetically feebleminded young German maid. Overall, the writing style, straightforward and sometimes repetitive, really reminded me of Joyce, which is inline with critics who call Three Lives an American Ulysses. 

"Melanctha", the longest of the three, has given me much more to talk about than the other three. It was a little racist and Stein used many antiquated terms, but was it racist for the early 1900s when Three Lives was published? I don't know. But it does include many stereotypes. It's also interesting to note that she has no adjective to her name as the other women do. Not only about race, "Melantha" is also about depression and the role of women. She considers suicide multiple times throughout. It really was the most memorable for me. 

Overall, I liked Three Lives. it took some time to get used to the writing style, both of Stein and the vernacular of the early 1900s, and to adjust to the higher literary level of the novel versus the majority of today's. Once I got used to it though, I really did enjoy the story. It  was interesting to see how their lives were so different from ours today, but women problems are still women problems. The characters were fairly relate-able and memorable. It was a very literary endeavor, but well worth the undertaking. 

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

A few weeks ago, Cass and I were redboxing and I saw that Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was made into a movie, so I absolutely had to get it.  It's one of my favorite books and I thought Cass would like it, since it has to do with China (he did!). 

Well, so the movie inspired me to re-read the book, so that I could remember everything as well as compare it to the movie. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan  is about two little girls, Snow Flower and Lily, preparing for their footbinding.  Instead of being sworn into a sisterhood with girls from their village, they form a laotong relationship, or an eternal bonding of two as kindred sisters. They are soul mates. Snow Flower tells the story of Snow Flower and Lily as they grow up and lead their separate lives. 

As I said, this is one of my favorite books. It is so relate-able. It is timeless. All women form intimate friendships. We all have heartaches. All of our friendships wax and wane. We all have misunderstandings. But when it comes down to it, your true friends are always there when you need them, as with Lily and Snow Flower.

The Help

I may be the absolutely last person in the universe to have read The Help, but if, by some chance, I'm wrong and you haven't read it yet, you really should. 


It was amazing and touching. 


What gets me most is that it's the sixties. The sixties. And in the south, they still have their colored help. This is Bewitched. And it's civil rights. It's like my momma could be Mae Mobley, and "the help" has to use a seperate bathroom! They're good enough to raise kids, but not much else. They know how to keep house, but they're "too stupid" to take care of themselves? I'm confused. Which, I suppose, is part of the point of the book. I also liked how it tied in feminism. Everything, all these changes, were just starting. People thought things were fixed. They thought things were fine. Women could vote. Blacks could vote. Everyone got to go to school. Separate but equal. Activists knew better. And because of these people, life is different today. 


Last thought? I don't know why, but I had to check if stockett was white or black. She's white. However, she had a history quite like Miss Skeeter, so that's the connection :) 

Sing You Home

Jodi Picoult's latest, Sing You Home, is controversial, same as any other Jodi book.

It deals with miscarriage, IFV, stillbirth.

Divorce.

Embryos as property or people. 

Lesbians.

Religion.

It's all over the place, but so very much together. Jodi was asked why she mixed the topics together, and she said she couldn't see doing them apart. They belonged together.

And in Sing You Home, they most certainly do. 

As always, I feel a little hesitant in recommending Jodi; she's a little risque for the conservative type. I, however, found this one to be not too extreme or explicit.

And, of course, I loved it to death.

Read on!  

Queen's Own Fool

As ya'll know, I'm a fool for historical fiction, and I'm kind of on a YA FIC kick.

Also, I love Jane Yolen. 

The Devil's Arithmetic? My favorite Passover book.

Briar Rose? So creative! I love the mix of fairy tale with the Holocaust.

I used to read a lot of Holocaust novels.

Turns out, I've actually read this book before. I still enjoyed it though.

I wouldn't really recommend it to a kid who struggles with reading, but it's a great  book for a nerd like me. Mary Queen of Scots? She's a total powerhouse. I've read non-fiction about her! So yeah, Queen's Own Fool was great. Not my favorite Yolen, but still a good read!

The Virgin Blue

I really didn't like this book!

Okay, that's out of the way. So The Virgin Blue is about this girl, Ella, who moves to France with her husband. Turns out, she's of French descent, but her folks emigrated during the Catholic/Huguenot problems. In stereotypical novel fashion, she starts researching her ancestors, and librarians are more than happy to help her, going out of their way and spending their own time to research her family. The French must be a very helpful people.

Then the novel will flash back to Ella's ancestors. I enjoyed these parts much more, which I have found is generally a problem with this sort of novel. I am always more interested in one of the two stories, usually the historical.  Maybe if it was used more sparingly, as a frame, or a bookend, I would be able to stand it better. 

With these history books, especially Catholic/Huguenot ones, an element of magic is generally present in the women. I'm kind of fascinated by this idea; that men have religion and women have magic. Rephrase: There is a certain mysticism to these women and their rituals, but it isn't like they're casting spells. Just that they believe in a spiritual goddess or female power to help them. This, of course, becomes a major problem for Isabelle, the ancestor, in this book. 

Spoiler: Ella cheats and it bothers me. I don't like her character at all.

And to finish my unclear and scattered review of this book, I feel like Isabelle's story ended quickly and unclearly (whereas she could have an entire novel to herself) and Ella's was unnecessarily drawn out. It was just weird. It got really staccato-y at the end, especially Isabelle's story. I just didn't like it at all. Don't read it.  

Fried Green Tomatoes

 

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

by Fannie Flagg

"the catfish was so big, we took a picture of it, and the picture
alone weighed forty pounds!" 

I have read Fried Green Tomatoes many times, and it is one of the few books that I see as an entirely separate entity from the movie. This is because, to me, the movie is about the relationship between Idgie and Ruth, as framed by the Evelyn and Ninny (who I actually thought was Idgie when I first saw the movie . . . this makes me believe it's a common misconception) where as the book is about Evelyn, her life, her relationship with Ninny, and how Ninny encourages and empowers Evelyn through stories about Whistle Stop. 

For a fictional novel,  Fried Green Tomatoes deals with a lot of important women's issues.  It is the 80s and women's roles are changing (again). Evelyn is going through menopause and feels like her life is a waste.  Ninny is in a nursing home waiting for her best friend to die, waiting to die herself. Idgie and Ruth love each other, but Ruth is engaged, and they have a hard time admitting that they love each other.  It is presumed that they are in a lesbian relationship, and though it is never said so explicitly, there are many allusions and it is a cause for tension in their lives as they discover themselves and form their relationship. The issue of race is also present throughout the novel, but it is secondary to the story of Evelyn and Ninny. Despite the serious themes, many of the individual stories are hilarious, and Idgie is quite the character, as is Ninny.  Throughout the novel, one becomes very well acquainted with these women.

I really enjoy this book, but I am hesitant to recommend it to others because I am often accused of liking "weird books."  This is not in the same category of other "weird books" I like, but it is more of a "life journey" plot than an "action oriented" plot.  It almost reads like a connected collection of short stories, and I do think that anyone who enjoys the movie should read this, just for the knowledge, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys hearing stories from their grandmother!