Category: Good Reads

I wanted to read Her Fearful Symmetry because I loved The Time Traveler’s Wife so much, both novels written by Audrey Niffenegger.

While I agree with some of the critics that said the plot and plausability was a bit thin in areas, and I wanted to know some of the characters more, I did find Niffenegger’s signature style – which I can only describe as a wall, and behind that wall a constant ache in the corner of your heart no matter your mood – still in tact. And that is what I craved from Nieffenegger and her second novel, so I was ultimately satisfied.

The story is about ghosts and has quite a bit of the supernatural, which I was expecting to find trite, if not downright tasteless, but I think Nieffengger’s treatment of these ideas was well done. It is so difficult to follow such a triumph and commercial success such as The Time Traveler’s Wife so I am really looking forward to Nieffenger’s next novel, which I expect won’t feel the pressure that Her Fearful Symmetry has. Have you read either book? What’d you think?

When tragedies occur, when things are too big to bear, I shut myself off and then down.

I read The Handmaid’s Tale on the way to California last weekend and finished it on the way back. Originally, it was my friend Ellen’s book club selection. I never made it to book club, but am glad I read it anyway.

The book is the memoir of a young woman set sometime in the future when the United States no longer exists, and the Republic of Gilead has taken over and “far-right Schlafly/Falwell-type ideals have been carried to extremes in the monotheocratic government.” In other words, a feminist’s nightmare.

But I delved into the politics bit after I was finished reading. While I was turning the pages, it was more about the main character, known as Offred, and the relationships this new Republic kept hidden – her husband, her daughter, her best friend. The way in which Offred compartmentalizes these struggles reminded me of myself.

Offred’s painful storage of the loss of her husband and daughter only gives us glimpses into the memories of these relationships.  If the words were visual, I can imagine much of Offred’s mind resembling the cinematography of the French film Bleu. It was easier for Offred to speak about Moira, her best friend, and I especially liked learning about their relationship and how Moria was Offred’s strength, since I’ve often felt the same way about my best friend.

There is humor – it’s not all drab clouds in The Handmaid’s Tale, but also the story is gripping and not to be missed.

When a book is really good, you don’t want to give it back. You want to hold onto it’s characters and the story like it is your own life. That is the way, unlike Almost Moon, that I felt about My Sister’s Keeper. Another borrowed novel from my best friend Belle, I was going to hold onto it and sneak it away into my collection, but alas, she came over last night and I went ahead and returned it to her. Darn morals and values.

Anywho, give My Sister’s Keeper a read if you want a novel that reads like a big comfortable couch with clean lines next to your favorite girlfriend.  The plot is tragic, but in a way that you want to cozy into it.

One day I went out with my best friend and when I came home, she had given me an armful of books to read. This is the first of them, and I have been letting it sit a while before talking about it.

The book received mixed reviews, with many people saying things like, “This entire book is just way too bizarre and weird for my taste,” or “The characters were wholly unsympathetic, their decisions and actions incomprehensible, and the plot implausible.”

But despite what might be an extremely uncomfortable reading, The Almost Moon deserves your attention. While the main character Helen does little to engender compassion, it is precisely her dysfunction that I spiraled down along with throughout the book.

Yes, it’s not a book for optimists. You’ve been forewarned.

The Almost Moon, $6.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a modern love story with impossible terms. A man that can time-travel time and a woman who waits.  Their intense relationship is gripping from the beginning and the bubble of their unusual lifestyle and the impracticality of their love is never trite, but rather stripped down to all that is honest and sweet. One of my favorite novels.

$9 at Amazon.

I recently finished Glimmer by Warren Berger, which is about how design can change the world, business, society, and even your career and life. Design thinking is a hot topic lately, and this book is full of innovative design examples and explores how designers think. It will also surely expand your definition of design, and help you more creatively approach different situations for greater success.

Glimmer also follows celebrated designer Bruce Mau throughout the book, and I’ve decided I’m going to be him when I grow up.

$19 at Amazon.

White Teeth became one of my favorite books the second time around. It was then that I appreciated the beautiful wit and imagery living in Zadie Smith’s language. God knows what I was thinking the first time around.

The story covers a cadre of characters that are all peculiarly connected in a story that spans race, class, sex, politics… name a hot-button and Smith has pressed it. But pressed it in such a way as if you were walking down the street and you overheard these amusing families and smiled to yourself. And in those brief moments, you want everything for them.

Via Amazon, $10.

This was a bestseller in France originally and is now a bestseller here as well. It’s not the type of book that you sit on the edge of your seat with, but rather that you pick up and savor slowly.

Renee is a cultured concierge who mulls over great philosophers and acts like she doesn’t, while Paloma is a bourgeois teenager who has decided to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday. The two characters are living in the same building, but never interact until mid-way through the book when an event pulls them together. And when that happens, of course, you do start to sit on the edge of your seat, ever so slightly.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, $9.