Guilty pleasure - Outlander

Qualifies as Fair Use

Claire is enjoying a lovely, quiet vacation with her husband, Frank, in Scotland.  This is certainly well-deserved, after their prolonged separation through WWII, during which Claire served as an Army nurse.  Their vacation (or at least Claire's?) is abruptly ended when she traverses 200 years backwards in time as the result of some magic hanging about the standing stones near where they were staying.  When Claire regains consciousness, it is in the exact same place she left, but the century has changed.

She is held captive briefly by the British (a predecessor of her husband Frank in fact!), and then captured by the Scottish clansmen that inhabited the area.

Through more and more complicated politics, intrigue, and plot twists, Claire must ultimately decide whether she will try to return to Frank, or leave her "past" behind her once more to build a life with her new husband Jaimie, a Scottish clansmen.

This book was recommended to me, and that surprised me!  There are an awful lot of explicit sex scenes in this book.  I'm all for a historical fiction romance, and even a straight romance novel now and again, but I was blindsided by this book.  It has an epic sweep (and an epic length!) and I wasn't expecting it to fall into some very common romance novel patterns. I feel like I ultimately learned more about the recommender than anything else!

The central plot device is always fascinating to me, so I dove in with both feet to wade through this novel.  If we were to travel time, what would be the consequences?  Is it possible to change the course of history?  Are there others out there doing the same?  How do I get home?  Do I want to get home?  What is home? The length of the book works to the advantage of these questions, because there was a good amount of time for Claire (and the reader) to ponder these things as the book went along. I felt, given the book's obvious romantic bent, this part of the book helps to add interest to what could have been a straight historical fiction romance novel. And, intentionally or not, I've been reading a lot of time traveling books lately!

There were, however, a lot of unanswered questions (not nearly so philosophical) that compel me to read the sequel.  The great thing about reading something published in 1991 is that I don't have to sit around waiting for sequels to come to me! They'll be there, waiting for me to finish my currently unmanageable library book pile. George RR Martin, you could learn a thing or two from that model...

I enjoyed Claire as a "strong female character" (I hate that term!!!), and actually enjoyed that, really, Claire's strength of will and opinion was anachronistic in both of the times that she occupies.  The writing was, at times, clever for a romance novel as well, which is what I am a sucker for in romances.  The dialogue between Claire and Jaimie is way better than the sex scenes in my opinion.

I just might try to watch the Starz show in its second season based off the book!  Wish me luck.  I'll recommend this one to anyone who's looking for a meatier romance novel. Leave a note in the comments if you'd like to hear what I think about the show compared to the book!

Audiobook - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

"MissPeregrineCover"
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Regaled through his childhood by his grandfather's fairy tales about time spent growing up in the U.K. during WWII, Jacob of course understands that they cannot possibly be real ... right?  But when a panicked phone call leads Jacob to his grandfather's Florida retirement home just in time to witness his grandfather's death, Jacob must now sort through his own life and that of his grandfather to determine what "real" even means.  It's true that Abe's troubled WWII-era upbringing caused him a certain level of emotional close-mouthedness, but when Jacob goes the the small island where Abe grew up to seek closure, he discovers that he - and his grandfather's past - may be in more trouble than he imagined.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs was my very first audiobook ever in my life!  I borrowed it from my library's eBook partner and it downloaded to an app right on my phone.  It was wonderful to be able to do things like clean, wash dishes, drive, and walk to the library while still "reading."  I am still holding out because I heard World War Z's audiobook is amazing, but this was such a great first experience with the medium!

The book itself was a lot of fun.  It took on hints of the macabre in a refreshing way, and I went in excited about the parts of the plot that I knew.  I think this book will be good for YA fantasy lovers as well as Dr. Who fans.

I will start out by saying that it did include one of my pet peeves, which is a book that ends in an obvious emotional cliffhanger in order to get you to read the sequel.  A first book should be able to stand alone!  Unless it is part of The Lord of the Rings, which was supposed to be one book anyway.

That being said, I am a real sucker for anything that has WWII tie-ins.  German/East European magical realism that sprung from WWII is my jam, as are nonfiction books about WWII (just checked out The Monuments Men), so I got into the aspects of the book affected by its placement, at least part of the time, in September of 1940.

The book's writing was not as strong as I would have wanted it to be.  It was written in the voice of a 16-year-old kid, so I suppose you could make the argument that it's well-written for this kind of narrator.  Some of the slang and reactionary moments were a little hokey for me, though, as a result of this minor shortcoming.

I would recommend reading this one despite the caveats made above, and I bet it would be faster if you're not listening to it - a good weekend or getaway read.  I will be picking up the second in the series for sure! (Drat, Riggs, you win this one!)

Takes place in Asia - The Lowland

(I am looking at the cover now - I read it as an ebook - and realizing that I could have read this for the "Pulizer Prize in the last decade" book also!)

I am so excited to write about this book.  I listed it as taking place in Asia, but really it takes place a lot in India and a lot in Rhode Island.  The juxtaposition is one of the many beautiful things about this book.  Let me explain.

This book starts as a book about two brothers growing up inseparable during a rough period in Indian history in Calcutta (60s and 70s).  One brother gets into revolutionary politics, and the other goes to America to study.  As their lives separate, then come together in the most tragic of ways, the story includes more and more characters that we meet, become familiar with, and fall in love with even as we wrestle with their flaws.  The narrative is woven together by the divergence and convergence of paths, and this is achingly lovely and sad.  The tone of the entire book is that of melancholy. I can think of no better backdrop than Rhode Island when you want your tone to be melancholy - though some of the books happiest and/or most triumphant moments happen there.

The writing in this book reawakened me to the art of the writer in a way that I haven't felt for a really long time.  A small example:

Time flowed for Bela in the opposite direction. The day after yesterday, she sometimes said. Pronounced slightly differently, Bela’s name, the name of a flower, was itself the word for a span of time, a portion of the day. Shakal bela meant morning; bikel bela, afternoon. Ratrir bela was night. Bela’s yesterday was a receptacle for anything her mind stored. Any experience or impression that had come before. Her memory was brief, its contents limited. Lacking chronology, randomly rearranged.

This beautiful, musing flow of writing matched so perfectly with themes that showed themselves over and over - the sun as a symbol; rain, the lowlands, the idea of flooding; the topics of loneliness and legacy and memory.

I highly recommend this read, and I'm looking forward to Interpreter of Maladies when I'm done with my current ambitious stack of library books!