Real Americans - Rachel Khong

I can't remember the last book I read that left me feeling so up in the air. I enjoyed this story of family, destiny and science, but there were so many loose ends that I wanted answers to. The story of three generations of a Chinese family in America who marry into a wealthy white family is compelling, however, how things come apart for them is never totally clear. Rachel Khong is an interesting writer, and there were sentences and analogies that stopped me in my tracks. In the end, I was happy I read the book, but frustrated.

My Beloved Monster - Caleb Carr

An interesting man with an extraordinary love for cats, especially his Siberian Forest Cat, Masha. Author Caleb Carr (The Alienist), had a difficult childhood and now lives a fairly cloistered life in upstate New York. One constant in his world has been his love of cats. When he adopts Masha, an amazing cat who was abandoned in an apartment, his  love of felines truly takes on magical proportions. Masha is a smart, beautiful, adventurous cat...Caleb is an erudite, solitary, good story teller. If you are a cat lover, give it a whirl. Purr....

Loved and Missed - Susie Boyt

I expected this to be a wrenching story, but it is much more poignant then painful. Although the facts of the characters lives point to pain...Ruth a single mother to a daughter Eleanor, who becomes a drug addict, and Lily, Eleanor's daughter who is raised by Ruth because of Eleanor's addiction...in Boyt's telling there remains a flicker of light if you try for goodness. A quick, moving, and thoughtful journey into the love of mothers and daughters, the value of friends, and ties that bind and unbind. 

Leaving - Roxanne Robinson

Intense and fraught, Leaving by Roxanna Robinson is a magnetic dive into the essence of love, family, responsibility and desire. When Warren and Sarah, two college sweethearts, reconnect years later and have an affair, they must question the meanings and repercussions of their choices and motivations. Having married others, raised families, and made commitments, they imagine different lives. One is divorced and one is still married. But it is not only this couple that propels the story...where and how their children and current spouse express their needs brings on a deep questioning of personal values. Robinson asks not only how much can you live with, but how much can you live without. At times Leaving is a tale of desperation. I had to catch my breath at the end. 

Erasure - Percival Everett

Erasure is quite the ride. This is the second Percival Everett book I've read and they have both left me feeling king of discombobulated when I'm done. When I finished Telephone, I said I was confounded, but happily so, and I feel the same way today. Erasure raises all sorts of questions about race, the art of writing, art in general, families, aging, honesty, pretension, love, and more. Dive in and get shaken up.

Bad Animals - Sarah Braunstein

 

A good travel book, but overall a mediocre story. I was attracted to this by the library theme, and some of the author blurbs. A library worker who calls herself a librarian is the main character. Maeve is afloat for a variety of reasons…the choices she makes both before and after her time at the library are questionable. Although I was not a believer in the events, it did keep my interest. That’s about all I can say in recommendation. 

Until August - Gabriel García Márquez

 

A lovely, short, sweet story that I am glad was published posthumously. It has the feeling of some of Marquez older work, but it is really a wisp of a story about desire and aging. If you have an hour or so, jump in and go on a brief journey of love and remembering. 

Anita de Monte Laughs Last - Xóchitl González

 

An imaginative, inventive and interesting novel that was somewhat frustrating. Imaginative in putting together a historic event with present day significance, inventive in it's use of magical realism, and interesting in its views on women in the arts, and privileged and unprivileged students in academia; but on the whole the characters aggravated me by the end. Anita, Rachel, Jack, and Nick are all flawed in some way, and some were extremely unlikable. I'm glad I read this novel, but I was happy when it was over. 

American Spirits - Russell Banks

Three interesting short stories that depict life in a small town in upstate New York. Banks describes quiet desperation with elegance. Bank's wife said he would go to to the local bar in the town where they have a home and these stories came from people he talked to there. The characters made me sad in their reality (poor, misinformed, Trumpian), and the stories made me hurt for the state of the world today.

One Hour of Fervor - Muriel Barbery

Such an interesting book...cerebral, beautiful, poetic, precise, odd, and intense. Haru, a wealthy Japanese art dealer, has an affair with a French woman, who bears his child. She tells him if he ever tries to see her she will kill herself. Not the cheeriest set-up for a novel. Barbery, however, weaves an intricate story of friendship, family, Japanese customs, art and love that is fascinating. With an array of wonderfully imagined characters, she leads you on a haunting journey of self-awareness and restraint. I shed a few tears. 

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An aside: This novel was translated from Barbery's native French to English. One Hour of Fervor is a prequel to her prior novel, A Single Rose. This was  not mentioned in the promo material provided by Europa, the publisher. I found that odd. It wasn't greatly received, and I am on the fence whether I will read it. I was interested in Barbery's understanding of Japan, which is deep. You can read more about that here: https://lithub.com/how-i-learned-to-let-form-do-the-work/.