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I hope everyone is having a good week!
I loved Election - both the book and the movie (starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick) - and Tom Perrotta in general. Tracy Flick is such a great character - so when I saw that there was a new book - a sequel - about Tracy, I was all over it!
This novel takes place approximately 20 years after the events of Election and Tracy is dealing with a life that she never anticipated having. After high school, Tracy went to Georgetown as an undergrad and was just beginning law school, also at Georgetown, when her mother gets very ill, causing Tracy to have to return to care for her. She's now the Assistant Principal at Green Meadow HS in NJ, and she doesn't care for it. She's still very ambitious, but the job isn't what she wants. Tracy's hopes are raised when the current principal, Jack Weede, announces his retirement (finally!) in order to travel the country with his wife, a cancer survivor. Tracy has to interact with members of the school board, including Kyle Dorfman, a parent and computer person who has made his fame by creating a popular application. She also has to support a hall of fame related to the school, even though it may mean she has to support a former professional football player - and a sport that she abhors.
I really enjoyed this book and the characters. They are still very well developed and credible in their narration. The chapters themselves are short and told in chronological order, with flashbacks, making the story easy to follow and quick - I read the book in about 2 days. Even though there were a lot of voices, everything was done precisely and I had no issues following what was going on. I don't want to say much more because the end has a bit of a twist, but let's just say that I wish that I had purchased this book instead of merely taking it out of the library.
Clara Johnson is a Black Woman living in DC during the time of Langston Hughes. She is something else - she was born with a caul and screaming and her ability to commune with spirits is attributed to her caul. In this novel, Penelope tells the story of Clara and her team as they attempt to save the Black community from spirits stealing their destinies. When we meet Clara, she has been brokering deals between people for six years already and is working as a typist at a local journal. She is offered a deal by a spirit that she calls the Empress - if she can get a hold of a special ring, and provide it to the empress, Clara will be released from her deal with the Empress. The same deal will be extended to anyone else helping her. She enlists the help of her roommate, Zelda, Jesi Lee (a porter), musician Israel Lee and Aristotle.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The period - 1920's DC Black community - was amazing rich, as were the characters and Clara's story. The characters remained warm and empathetic, even where they could easily become cold and cynical. The story was fun and not just a run of the mill treasure hunt - more noir combined with historical fiction (Clara Johnson was an actual person!) - so it was fun. The pacing was good too - it moved quickly. It also kept me on my toes - the "bad guy" and the plot kept changing, so I was constantly reading, hoping to learn more.
The theme of freedom is important here - there is a group of people that are seemingly held captive and forced to work, much like the sharecroppers were forced to work in the wake of slavery. The debts held by the spirits also reflect that. The book begs the question of what can actually be done with freedom. If freedom is so hard won, then what can and should be done by those who have actually won that freedom?
Really enjoyed this book.
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I hope that everyone had a good week, including St. Patrick's!!
I was intrigued by the title, so I picked this up, not having known about Reid's previous book, which was long listed for various awards. This is a campus novel about the University of Arkansas, featuring Millie, a 24 year old Senior and RA. Millie is black and becomes particularly fond of a visiting (much older) white professor named Agatha, who has come to campus to interview students about weddings and getting married. When we meet everyone, Millie has arranged for the initial interviews and the story moves from there.
I found that this novel was more of a fly on the wall novel - we are observing from somewhat of a distance while the day to day life of a college unfolds around us. We observe the interaction of race, gender and class and the interpersonal conflicts that arise with living in dorms - the ultimate cramped place. It is pretty fast paced, but don't rush through it otherwise you'll miss the things that Reid is trying to teach you about the power dynamics inherent with the intersection of race class and gender. I enjoyed that I could hear the voices of the characters in my head as I was actually reading the dialogue, which doesn't often happen for me. I appreciated Reid's questioning of how we view the lives of people for our consumption and her questioning of the entitlement that surrounds that.
Enjoyable and quick, definitely recommended.
I got this book as one of my birthday presents. It looked intriguing, but it was somewhat deceptive in its title. This book, as the title not so subtly suggests, is supposed to be about Edda Mussolini - the eldest child and eldest daughter of Benito Mussolini. She was, theoretically, one of the most powerful woman in Europe in the 1930's and early 40's.
Edda was born in 1910 to Rachele and Benito and, initially, had to deal with poverty, beatings and instability. Perhaps not surprisingly, her father was absent - he was often in hospitals or in jail for his fascist activities. Edda would often visit him in prison where she was taught to hug her father, not to show love, but to enable him to conceal items on Edda for her mother. Edda was never allowed to show emotion, instead being taught that stoicism was valued. She was mercurial and enigmatic, according to Moorehead, and was a very distant mother herself as a result. In her teens, Mussolini became "Il Duce" and rose to power, thrusting Edda into the spotlight. Mussolini treasured her more than her other siblings, but she never was the only woman to have his attention given his not so secrete womanizing. She became the "first lady" of the regime because her mother was very reclusive and private. Edda ended up marrying a man named Gian Ciano, who also was known for his womanizing.
Shortly after their marriage, they travelled to Shanghai for a posting and this is where Edda seems to have been the happiest. She loved being in Shanghai. Even though there was still womanizing, Edda seems to have thrived in society there. Edda's happiness seems to shine when she's farthest from Rome - not only was she happy in Shanghai but she was very happy in the islands of Italy, off the mainland (think Capri). She had bouts of depression, listlessness and abused alcohol at best. Unlike other women, she travelled widely as an emissary of her father, including engaging in meetings with Hitler and his regime as her father's representative. Eventually, Ciano votes against his father in law, who is arrested, imprisoned and ultimately freed from jail. As a result, Ciano himself is arrested and summarily executed. As a result, she flees to Switzerland and, eventually, is "safe" when her father himself is executed in 1945.
I guess I understand that a book like this cannot be written without providing historical context - particularly with details about Benito Mussolini's life - because Edda's life and her power seem to be in relation to him. However, I felt that most of the book was about her father and not really about her, even though it's supposed to be about her. It left me feeling like I wanted more. There were maybe 15 pages about her lift after World War II ended, which was disappointing because I wanted to know what happened to her after her escape. I did really appreciate Moorehead's prose and her research, which was prodigious. She obviously thoroughly researched this book. The book itself is almost like a movie and moves fairly quickly.
Definitely worth the read, but I would get it out of the library instead of purchasing.
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It was my birthday last weekend, so it was pretty low key for me, thankfully. Here are some links! Enjoy.
I have always been a fan of mystery and crime drama, let's be real. But I picked up the first in the Bosch series after watching a few episodes on Amazon Prime. And I honestly am glad that I found these books. The book's main character is Harry Bosch, a Vietnam vet and a detective at the LAPD who has had his share of employment woes. When we meet him, he's been sent to the Hollywood Homicide Division, which is a Siberia for detectives, after being demoted from an elite unit after an officer involved shooting. Bosch is called to the scene of a suspected homicide, where he learns that a fellow vet and acquaintance, Billy Meadows, has died under suspicious circumstances. Bosch suspects that the death may be linked to a robbery that the FBI is investigating, and so he teams up with Agent Eleanor Wish to investigate and hopefully prevent another bank robbery.
After reading this, I can see why it won awards when it was written (although, in the nature of full disclosure, it is somewhat dated - for instance, the characters have pagers and must use payphones. Bosch seems like the type of character that would be really grouchy about updates in technology, like cell phones). I enjoyed the character of harry Bosch - he's not infallible and comes with his own baggage. He likes jazz, coffee and cigarettes. He makes decisions that don't always align with the rules. He has a tough exterior, but a wicked soft spot for victims and the vulnerable.
I also really enjoyed the book and the pacing. It moved very well. Even though the chapters/sections are long-ish, they are often split out into 2-5 page chunks that make for easy and quick consumption. The pacing itself was very good, even for such a deceptively long book. And the plot twists! Hang with it and you won't be disappointed.
I look forward to reading more of these novels.
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We are back and back to reality. :( The weather has been quite mild for us though, which makes a difficult transition back a bit easier. I hope all are well! Here we go:
Two weekends ago, the weekend before Halloween, we were at Head of the Fish and that picture was taken from the launch site. This weeken...
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