Tag: Book Review

The Caretaker: Book Review

The Caretaker is A.X. Ahmad’s debut novel, though I read it more than a decade after its release. Ranjit Singh, a disgraced ex-military officer from India, is living in Martha’s Vineyard during a cold winter, struggling to make ends meet while taking care of his wife and daughter. He works as the caretaker for a senator’s house. When the heater in his own home breaks down, he moves his family into the senator’s empty house, without his permission. They are attacked in the middle of the night, and so begins the adventure.

I love how the author intersperses Ranjit’s past on the Siachen Glacier with his present circumstances. Ranjit’s Sikh faith keeps him grounded as his life falls apart. The African American senator and his wife are written well; you can almost imagine reading about their lives in the newspaper.

The disabled veteran is another wonderfully fleshed-out character. My only nitpick with the story is regarding Ranjit’s wife, Preetham. I wish we saw more of her to better understand her depression and loneliness.

All in all, it’s a great debut thriller.

Where Waters Meet

This is the author’s first book in English, and I believe she has added richness to the language through her writing: “Auntie Mei dispensed the truth sparingly, as if it were a tube of toothpaste.” What a great way to describe someone who is used to a life of hardship when even toothpaste was a luxury.

This is the story of a mother and daughter, spanning China and Canada, and moving between the present and the past. We learn about the daughter’s sacrifices early in the book. The mother’s sacrifices, however, are revealed as the story unfolds, with the biggest revelation saved for the end.

The bottle the daughter finds in her mother’s memory box—what a shocking story lies behind it. And the photo of Meng Long… I loved how the author reveals this story piece by piece.

“For himself, the last bullet”—this quote appears early in the book, and only later do we discover the circumstances under which it occurred.

We have to wait until the very end to get to the bottom of the toothpaste. Recommend for fans of historical fiction who enjoy a slowly unfolding drama.

Dark and twisted

This book reminded me of the Lord of the Flies, another novel filled with unsympathetic characters. This is a dark book, and our protagonist Alys is selfish and cruel, a hard person to root for.

Alys is only sixteen for most of the story, and some of her sense of survival is understandable. I turned the pages like I was reading a horror novel, afraid of what mad scheme Aly would embark on next to save her skin.

The novel, set in the Henry VIII Tudor period, highlights how little power women had in those times, pitting them against one another to win the favor of the lord of the castle. It was a difficult time to be a Wise Woman.

Can I tell you a Funny story?

I love reading Emily Henry novels, and I liked Funny Story a tad better than Happy Place, my last Emily Henry read.

Emily Henry created two wonderful, flawed characters in Daphne and Miles. Her writing makes us fall in love, along with her protagonists. Michigan comes to life in this book, and I want to visit the lakefront beach on a beautiful summer day and dip my toes in the cold water.

Recommend it for contemporary romance readers.

Favorite quotes

It’s a library, Daphne. If you can’t be a human here, where can you?

So many decisions I made were based on the fear of what could go wrong, instead of my hopes for what might go right.

My Happy Place

My happy place is when I am reading a book. I love Emily Henry’s ability to make us feel her character’s joy and pain. Her language is pure poetry.

The best second-chance romance novel, in my opinion, is Persuasion. Written two centuries ago, we still connect with Anne Elliot and Captain. Wentworth. Their motivations make sense, and their love for each other seeps through the pages.

In Happy Place, while Harriet and Wyn’s love for each other is apparent, their reason for breaking up does not quite make sense. I also did not understand Harriet’s reason for abandoning her dreams after all these years of hard work. So, for the last part of the novel, I was yelling at Harriet (in my head) for making the wrong decision.

In a historical romance, the kind I write, it is easy to come up with reasons why the couple cannot be together. Society and culture put up many barriers. In the modern day, the reasons depend on the individuals themselves, so I wish we got more of why Harriet let Wyn go after eight years of being together.

Still, a wonderful and warm novel for a cold winter day. 

Book Review: Atonement

We live in an age of impatience. We want our news in fifteen-second chunks, at the moment it happens. We make up our minds instantaneously without being able to reflect on things.

But nature takes time: to grow, to heal, to fruit. An avocado tree you plant today will take ten years to flower and fruit. This book reminded me of a time when we could stare at the sky for hours, instead of at our phones, and observe the sun making its way across the horizon.

Briony’s atonement for her deeds as a child takes an entire lifetime. I am not even sure you can hold a thirteen-year-old accountable for her actions, but in her mind, she is guilty. Her penance takes all her life.

I was a child living in my mind, making up stories to interpret the real world, and I understood Briony very well. Through her immature worldview, she deciphers what happens and arrives at the wrong conclusion. Her actions harm an innocent’s man life.

In Atonement, there are no happily ever afters in the real world. But in her imagination, Briony can conjure a better place. Isn’t that what is magnificent about stories? They lessen our pain when everything becomes unbearable.

When you have time to watch a snail crawl across the sidewalk, pick up this book and savor it.

Review of Last Summer Boys

I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of brotherhood set in 1968. Jack’s thirteen-year-old cousin, Frankie, is visiting them because his parents want to keep him safe from the riots burning his city. Jack’s brother Pete is almost 18 and might be drafted for the Vietnam War. Jack and his cousin concoct an idea to make Pete famous because famous boys seem to avoid the draft. Amidst all the chaos, Will, Jack’s sixteen-year-old brother, tastes his first love.

This tale transported me to rural Pennsylvania. I enjoyed how the family’s love for each other is portrayed through tiny details, even when they disagree on things. I was happy to see our thirteen-year-old protagonist, Jack, cry a few times in this novel. A hopeful tale that felt like a warm blanket on a cold night.

A great debut novel by the author. I am looking forward to reading more of his stories.

Favorite Quotes

If you go long enough thinking you don’t have a say in your life, you reach a point where you’ll do anything to show others that you do. If it’s lighting fires, you light fires.

I don’t believe there’s a boy on earth can see his mother cry and not do the same.

Would that make me love you any less? Would you love me any less?

This is a must read

All the Light We Cannot See – I don’t know how Anthony Doerr can move us so profoundly with mere words on a page. A soulful book that transported me to France and Germany during WW2.

Marie Laure and Werner, the two protagonists, are depicted so beautifully that you cannot help but fall in love with them, flaws and all. A radio transmitting lectures on science forms a thread between the girl and the boy.

The story hops between three timelines, revealing the threads so skillfully while squeezing our hearts. The senselessness of wars displayed through haunting imagery broke my heart.

Even in dire circumstances, we can choose to do the right thing. Doerr places his characters in life-threatening situations to depict this moral choice. All the characters are so well drawn. In a book that features a blind girl, color plays a key role in setting up the scenes.

Favorite quotes: There are so many to choose from, but I liked these two in particular.

That something so small could be so beautiful. Worth so much. Only the strongest people can turn away from feelings like that.

Anthony Doerr

I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads.

It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.

All the Light We Cannot See

This is one of the novels that should be a must-read for all of us. I am now ready to watch the movie.

Satisfying conclusion

The author managed to pull off a miracle and gave us a fabulous conclusion to this epic fantasy series. Tyentso is amazing in this novel with her no b.s attitude. Thurvishar and Senera’s footnotes are really cute. Those two have come a long way.

If you love epic fantasy, immersive world-building, multiple POVs, grey characters, dragons, gods, and queens, this series is for you.

There is so much material in here for another series or two, so I am hoping the author visits this universe again.

Minor nitpick: the main trio achieving this brilliant equilibrium in their relationship happens through their past lives or off pages. Wish some time was devoted to this complex relationship dynamic and how they are going to avoid jealousy and other very human emotions. Especially given how the antagonist was driven by jealousy over several millennia.

That was a crazy ride

The author mentions writing this book during the COVID pandemic. While it is an apt metaphor for most of us being stuck within our four walls, as the fourth installment in the series, I found this book to be the weakest.

Several people (some we have not seen since book one) are gathered at the lighthouse to rescue Kihrin, and the entire story is told through flashbacks/visions.

In a book with a dozen or so characters, it is hard for me to care equally about all of them. In this book, all the side characters are given prominence, and in the fourth book of a five-book series, I just don’t have the energy to invest in all these romantic entanglements of side characters. And the fact that most of these people assembled in that lighthouse have had relationships with one or more of the others makes it messy.

I hope book five is less focused on all the love stories and more on the plot.