Title: 31 Hours
Author: Masha Hamilton
ISBN: 9781932961836
Pages: 240
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary:

Carol has always had a special connection to her son, Jonas.  Therefore, when her mother’s intuition tells her that something is wrong with her 21-year-old son, she doesn’t question it.  Deep down, she knows that he’s in trouble.  But she can’t begin to imagine what really is going on with Jonas, who is deeply involved in something horrible, beyond even his mother’s nightmares.  Through the eyes of those close to Jonas, the reader embarks on a 31 hour journey of helplessness, grief, and utter horror.

Review:

31 Hours is a fast-paced thriller that is largely psychological in nature.  Hamilton is an expert at creating suspense for the reader without manipulating them.  She doesn’t resort to foreshadowing clichés in order to keep people reading.  Instead, simply with her prose, she evokes a taut, tense atmosphere.  Carol’s despair is palpable as she races to discover what has happened to her son.  The reader can feel Jonas’ frustration with the world as he turns to the unthinkable in order to make his message heard.  It’s a book that keeps the reader hooked, no question.

But there is also a softer side to 31 Hours.  There is Jonas’ friend Vic’s love for her sister, and her worry over Jonas.  There are also Jonas’ musings and remembrances of happy times past with his family and friends.  In one sense, it is a nostalgic book; however, that only serves to heighten the suspense.  It tells the reader something dire is coming, something that Carol and those looking for Jonas must prevent.

Hamilton’s writing is also beautiful, taking the reader away on this fast-paced journey.  On one hand, it is lush and gorgeous, easy to read and soak in.  But on the other hand, it’s also spare.  Hamilton does not mince words.  She gets her point across quickly with her prose.

I had some high expectations when I picked up 31 Hours – I’d heard a lot about how amazing it was.  While I did enjoy it quite a bit and thought it was definitely worth reading, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  I had trouble understanding why Jonas made the choices he made.  Hamilton made his frustrations and resentments quite clear, but I just didn’t get why he went to the extreme.

Still, 31 Hours was incredibly well-written and a very tense, suspenseful read.  I love the range of wonderful books that Unbridled Books puts out, and simply can’t wait to read more.

This week was a very laid back one for me.  I worked and went to class, but I also chose to read a lot rather than do other things.  As a result, I managed to read 12 books this week!  I was really happy because while I read one YA book and one chick lit novel (fluff), I also read 2 literary fiction novels and 2 non-fiction books!  However, that also means I have 12 outstanding reviews I didn’t bother writing last week. Sigh.

Yesterday, I went to the South Asian Literary Festival here in Washington, DC and got the chance to meet authors Ru Freeman and Tania James and see them speak.  It was a lot of fun and I’ll be blogging about it at some point in the future, so keep an eye out!

This week, I posted my October monthly review.  My Thursday Tunes for the week was the score to the movie Great Expectations. 

Books I’ve read this week:

Ransom My Heart – Meg Cabot	What the Dog Saw – Malcolm Gladwell
Far From Home – Anne deGrace	Commencement – J. Courtney Sullivan
Love in Translation – Wendy Tokunaga	Soon I Will Be Invincible – Austin Grossman
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro	The Diamonds – Ted Michael
Everyone Else’s Girl – Megan Crane	The Fiction Class – Susan Breen
The Music Room – Namita Devidayal	Knit the Season – Kate Jacobs

 

Other reviews posted this week:

The Last Will of Moira Leahy – Therese Walsh	The Tricking of Freya – Christine Sunley
The Girl on Legare Street – Karen White	Child of Fire – Harry Connolly
The Lace Reader – Brunonia Barry	After – Amy Efaw
Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Title: Purple Hibiscus
Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
ISBN: 9781400076949
Pages: 307
Release Date: October 30, 2003
Publisher: Anchor
Genre: Literary Fiction, Multicultural Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Summary:

Kambili is a 15 year old girl growing up in Nigeria with her brother and parents.  Though the country as a whole is relatively poor, Kambili’s father is well off.  He owns factories and also is the publisher of a newspaper that isn’t afraid to publish the truth, even in a country where that can be very dangerous.

However, there is also a dark side to Kambili’s family.  Her father is very strict – Kambili and her brother Jaja aren’t allowed to associate with their grandfather, who chooses to worship the traditional gods of Nigeria rather than converting to Christianity.  Additionally, when they don’t do as their father expects, Kambili and Jaja are punished physically.  It’s a heartbreaking, yet extremely interesting look at one family living in Nigeria.

Review:

Purple Hibiscus is a fascinating look at Nigeria through the eyes of a fifteen year old girl.  Adichie writes Kambili very well, making her sympathetic and easy to relate to.  Though the world she lives in is foreign to those who don’t know a lot about Africa, her impulses and feelings are very familiar.  Adichie uses Kambili to reach out to the reader, to show them that though the setting and feel of the story might be foreign, we have a common humanity. 

In a lot of ways, Kambili is a sad character.  She is so sheltered and the parameters of her life are so rigidly set by her father.  It’s clear that even if she had free time to have fun, she wouldn’t know how.  It’s wonderfully interesting to see her growing and changing as the novel progresses, developing her own unique personality. 

It’s fascinating to read about Nigeria in Purple Hibiscus.  Adichie shows the reader the good and the bad, writing a deftly layered and textured novel that really exposes the reader to African culture.  She also illustrates the conflicts within everyday society, especially between the traditional religions of the people and Christianity.  It’s an incredibly interesting look at how Africa is changing, and the issues it has been facing for many years.

The issue of abuse runs through Purple Hibiscus.  While the book is never difficult to read, my heart broke for Kambili and her family multiple times.  It was frustrating and horrifying, yet Adichie’s beautiful writing soothes the reader and helps ease the pain.  It’s a difficult issue to tackle, and Adichie does it with grace and dignity.

I highly recommend Purple Hibiscus, especially if you are interested in Africa.  Additionally, if you have been wanting to read more literary fiction but want a book that will move quickly, this is a great one to choose.  It’s a powerful yet beautiful novel that will stay with me for a long time.

Title: Child of Fire
Author: Harry Connolly
ISBN: 9780345508898
Pages: 368
Release Date: September 29, 2009
Publisher: Del Rey
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Source: Amazon Vine
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

From the publisher’s website:

Ray Lilly is living on borrowed time. He’s the driver for Annalise Powliss, a high-ranking member of the Twenty Palace Society, a group of sorcerers devoted to hunting down and executing rogue magicians. But because Ray betrayed her once, Annalise is looking for an excuse to kill him–or let someone else do the job.

Unfortunately for both of them, Annalise’s next mission goes wrong, leaving her critically injured. With the little magic he controls, Ray must complete her assignment alone. Not only does he have to stop a sorcerer who’s sacrificing dozens of innocent lives in exchange for supernatural power, he must find–and destroy–the source of that inhuman magic.

Child of Fire caught my eye when it said that it was recommended for fans of The Dresden Files (review of Small Favor and Turn Coat).  Though I don’t read a lot of urban fantasy, I absolutely love The Dresden Files, so I definitely was willing to give Child of Fire a try.  While I did enjoy it and think it has a lot of potential, it doesn’t quite live up to the promise of the books it has been compared to.

Ray Lilly is a very interesting character, though I’m not sure I actually liked him at the beginning of Child of Fire.  He’s unscrupulous and doesn’t seem to have an innate sense of morality.  Though he is trying to improve himself and stay clean in Annalise’s employ, I didn’t feel like I could trust him as a narrator.  While that made it difficult to identify with him, it also made him a very interesting character that the reader is eager to dissect. 

Luckily, Ray really develops as a character as the novel progresses.  He turns into something much more by the end of Child of Fire – not exactly a “good” guy, but definitely someone the reader wants to know more about.  He’s likely always going to have moral gray areas, but I hope the more appealing parts of his character will be fleshed out more in future novels in the series.

The story of Child of Fire was certainly interesting and unique.  The setup of Ray being sent with Annalise to tackle different missions in different cities really has a lot of potential for future novels.  It’s a way that Harry Connolly can really separate his series from The Dresden Files – there are some key differences right now, but on the whole they are a little too similar.

This series is definitely one to watch – I am curious as to how Connolly will develop these novels further and make them unique.  Though I’m not sure these are the best novels for those who don’t usually read this genre, urban fantasy fans will likely really enjoy this one.

Title: The Lace Reader
Author: Brunonia Barry
ISBN: 9780061624773
Pages: 416
Release Date: July 31, 2008
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Mystery
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Summary:

Towner Whitney has been running from her past for a long time.  She’s from a family of lace readers, which means she can read the future in a piece of lace, though she has turned her back on her talent.  But when her beloved great-aunt mysteriously dies, Towner can’t stay away anymore.  She returns to Salem, Massachusetts in order to face all that she left behind.

Review:

I’ve been hearing a lot about The Lace Reader since its release, most of it very good.  Because of that, I put off reading it.  I didn’t want it to be ruined by the hype and thus my high expectations.  But with the paperback release a couple of months ago, I decided I needed to go ahead and read this book.  And I’m so glad I did – The Lace Reader exceeded my expectations and I thoroughly enjoyed every second I spent with it.

The best part of The Lace Reader was the fact that Towner was an unreliable narrator – the reader learns that on the very first page of the book.  We see much of the novel through her eyes and aren’t quite sure how to interpret her memories and experiences.  Can she be trusted?  Is she remembering events correctly?  It really makes the entire book an amazing experience.

The mystery in The Lace Reader is completely gripping.  This is one of those books you can’t put down once you start it.  The setting simply enhances the puzzling nature of the book.  Salem has its own peculiar history, which makes for an eccentric cast of characters.  Additionally, the lace reading is very unique – apparently it’s something that Brunonia Barry dreamed about one night!  Though I’ve been told that the lace making in the novel isn’t accurate, I still enjoyed the descriptions and thought it added an entirely different twist to the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Lace Reader, despite the hype and my (still admittedly high) expectations.  Brunonia Barry has a talent at building suspense slowly and carefully, which made it very enjoyable.  It’s also incredibly unique!  I can’t wait for Barry’s next book.

For some reason, I feel like October was a bad reading month, but looking at my stats, it was a lot better than most months!  I think the 24 Hour Read-a-Thon had a lot to do with that.

Number of book reviews posted: 30
Number of books read: 49
Number of pages read: 16,213

5 Star Review:

Posts:

Complete Booker Prize Challenge

FTC and Disclosure

National Book Festival 2009

Read-A-Thon Posts

Review: Lap Blanket from Reading Comfort

Wordless Wednesdays – 10/7/2009

Wordless Wednesdays – 10/14/2009

Wordless Wednesdays – 10/21/2009

Thursday Tunes:

Anna Nalick

Penn Masala

Shakira

List of book reviews: (in alphabetical order by author’s last name)

Haunting Bombay – Shilpa Agarwal

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much – Allison Hoover Bartlett

Tell Me Something True – Leila Cobo

Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

Casting Off – Nicole Dickson

Swan for the Money – Donna Edwards

Rumors – Anna Godbersen

The Queen’s Mistake – Diane Haeger

Mistress of the Vatican – Eleanor Herman

Pendragon’s Banner – Helen Hollick

The Glass Painter’s Daughter – Rachel Hore

Juliet, Naked – Nick Hornby

Lies My Mother Never Told Me – Kaylie Jones

The Cupid Effect – Dorothy Koomson

Hold Still – Nina LaCour

Every Last Cuckoo – Kate Maloy

Cleopatra’s Daughter – Michelle Moran

Ruined – Paula Morris

The Cloister Walk – Kathleen Norris

Jane Austen Ruined My Life – Beth Pattillo

Whistlin’ Dixie in a Nor’easter – Lisa Patton

The Last Dickens – Matthew Pearl

Goldengrove – Francine Prose

A Map of the Known World – Lisa Ann Sandell

The Department of Lost and Found – Allison Winn Scotch

The Girl from Foreign – Sadia Shepard

A Change in Altitude – Anita Shreve

Snap – Carol Snow

The Wordy Shipmates – Sarah Vowell

Learning to Breathe – Karen White

Books I’ve read this month: (in alphabetical order by author’s last name)

Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Lace Reader – Brunonia Barry

Manhood for Amateurs – Michael Chabon

The Maze Runner – James Dashner

After – Amy Efaw

I Feel Bad About My Neck – Nora Ephron

America’s Prophet – Bruce Feiler

Valeria’s Last Stand – Marc Fitten

Hummingbirds – Joshua Gaylord

The Telling – Jo Graham

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies – Seth Grahame-Smith & Jane Austen

Queen Takes King – Gigi Levangie Grazer

The Magicians – Lev Grossman

Firefly Lane – Kristin Hannah

The Demon King and I – Candace Havens

The Laws of Harmony – Judith Ryan Hendricks

Mistress of the Vatican – Eleanor Herman

Pendragon’s Banner – Helen Hollick

By the Time You Read This – Lola Jaye

Dial H for Hitchcock – Susan Kandel

Fallen – Lauren Kate

Apologize, Apologize! – Elizabeth Kelly

The Blue Manuscript – Sabiha Al Khemir

French Milk – Lucy Knisley

The Cupid Effect – Dorothy Koomson

Ash – Malinda Lo

The Season – Sarah Maclean

I’ll Scream Later – Marlee Matlin

The Widow Clicquot – Tilar J. Mazzeo

Cleopatra’s Daughter – Michelle Moran

The Girl Next Door – Elizabeth Noble

The Lost Recipe for Happiness – Barbara O’Neal

Bed of Roses – Nora Roberts

Angel Lane – Sheila Roberts

Tales of Beedle the Bard – J.K. Rowling

A Map of the Known World – Lisa Ann Sandell

The Teashop Girls – Laura Schaefer

Late Night Talking – Leslie Schnur

At a Loss for Words – Diana Schoemperlen

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See

The Secret of Joy – Melissa Senate

The Weight of Water – Anita Shreve

The Tricking of Freya – Christine Sunley

The Wordy Shipmates – Sarah Vowell

Lovestruck Summer – Melissa Walker

The Last Will of Moira Leahy – Therese Walsh

The Girl on Legare Street – Karen White

Learning to Breathe – Karen White

Title: After
Author: Amy Efaw
ISBN: 9780670011834
Pages: 350
Release Date: August 11, 2009
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Genre: Teen, Contemporary Fiction
Source: Publisher
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Summary:

Who could do such a thing?  How could a mother be so heartless, so cruel as to leave her baby to die?

When a baby is found in the trash, the police begin doing a routine sweep of the apartments around the dumpster in order to see if any of the residents know anything about the abandoned child.  There they find Devon Davenport, a straight A student and soccer star, bleeding because she’s just had a baby.  All of a sudden, Devon’s life changes irrevocably, with one decision she isn’t even sure she made.

Review:

After was a difficult book in a lot of ways.  The subject matter, abandoned babies, is simply horrifying.  Whenever people see these stories on the news, they often think, “How could someone abandon a helpless infant to die?”  In her YA novel, Amy Efaw takes us into the mind of a pregnant girl deeply in denial, and helps us see the thought processes that can lead to such a horrible decision.

Devon was a difficult character to like.  For much of the book, she doesn’t seem to care about what happens to her.  Devon is in serious trouble, and her lawyer is trying to help her, to put forward the best defense she can, yet Devon doesn’t even seem to have the will to help herself.  It’s incredibly frustrating.  However, as the reader gets deeper and deeper into the book, it becomes clear what Amy Efaw is doing with her main character.  Devon is in denial about what has happened.  She can’t face the ramifications of abandoning her child because she hasn’t acknowledged the fact that she did it.  It’s a difficult thing to do, write a character with a psychological issue, yet Amy Efaw does it incredibly well.

What’s even more impressive, though, is that Amy Efaw makes Devon a sympathetic character.  She isn’t a monster or a person with no conscience or ethics.  She has the same desires and needs as any other teenager.  While it would be difficult to fully understand the psychology behind the decision to abandon your baby, Efaw does a very good job in making the reader think about the issue without making her main character a horrible person.

After is a novel you simply can’t put down.  It hooks you from the very first sentence, taking the reader on an incredible yet horrifying psychological and emotional journey.  The book is a difficult one to read; from the graphic descriptions to the consequences of badly made decisions, it’s a serious and weighty book that will make the reader think.

Welcome to the Thursday Tunes! Each week, I will showcase music, whether new or old. Hopefully you will find something that interests you here!

Sometimes music can make an otherwise mediocre movie worth watching, and the movie Great Expectations is the perfect example.  Though the Gwyneth Paltrow/Ethan Hawke movie wasn’t exactly scintillating, the film score, composed in part by John Williams, is moving, haunting, and utterly beautiful.  The score is infinitely superior to the actual film, bringing the entire movie to a much higher level.

This soundtrack showcases such a range of emotions, it’s incredible to listen to.  While the entire soundtrack is really amazing, my favorite song is “Kissing in the Rain” – this is a track so beautiful it will move you to tears.  While I unfortunately can’t provide you with a song sample here because Amazon doesn’t have the Great Expectations score available from their MP3 Store, you can go to their website and listen to it.  You can purchase the Great Expectations score from Amazon.com for $12.99.

If you’re in the DC area or know people who are, the South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival is happening this Saturday, November 7, from 10:00 AM – 5:30 PM.  Authors Kamila Shamsie, Ru Freeman, Kunal Basu, and Tania James will be there.  For more information, here is the link to the website.  I’ll be there, and I hope you’ll stop by as well!

Title: The Girl on Legare Street
Author: Karen White
ISBN: 9780451227997
Pages: 352
Release Date: November 3, 2009
Publisher: NAL Trade
Genre: Mystery, Contemporary Fiction
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary:

Karen White returns to the characters introduced in The House on Tradd Street for another spine tingling mystery.  This time, Melanie’s mother (who abandoned her when she was seven years old) has returned to Charleston, and though Melanie wants nothing to do with her, it doesn’t look like she’s going to get her way.  After all, Melanie inherited her ability to see and communicate with ghosts from her mother, and it seems that the ghosts are acting up again.  This time, it’s a malevolent force that seems to be fixed on Melaine.  Together, along with the deliciously irritating Jack Trenholm, Melanie and her mother must figure out who the ghost is and why it wants to hurt Melanie.

Review:

The House on Tradd Street was one of my favorite reads in 2008, so my expectations for The Girl on Legare Street were incredibly high.  I didn’t know how Karen White (who is one of my favorite authors – see my reviews of The Lost Hours, The Memory of Water and The Color of Light) could even come close to what I wanted this book to be – yet somehow she beat my expectations.  I can’t say enough amazing things about her and the amazingness that is The Girl on Legare Street.

The best part of The Girl on Legare Street is the mystery, along with the ghost story aspect.  While this is by no means a scary book, it is definitely haunting.  It’s not a book to read by yourself on a dark and stormy night (or maybe it is, if you enjoy that sort of thing).  White is very careful not to turn the ghosts into something cliché or cheesy.  They make the novel deliciously creepy.

The mystery is incredibly intriguing.  Like the best mysteries, it was carefully constructed and well-written.  White clearly thought it through before putting pen to paper; when Melanie and Jack are trying to figure out what is happening, they peel back each carefully crafted layer of the mystery, only to find something even more puzzling underneath.  The suspense in this novel is absolutely wonderful and really keeps the reader hooked.

Melanie and Jack were as wonderful as ever in The Girl on Legare Street.  Part of the reason I have enjoyed these novels so much is because I adore the character of Melanie.  She can be difficult and frustrating, but she is real.  When I opened this novel, it felt like I was revisiting with an old friend.  I loved learning more about her and her history.  Additionally, the chemistry between Melanie and Jack was absolutely delicious – part of me wanted them to get it over with and just admit that they’re in love, but I also enjoy the teasing and tension that comes from not.  It says something when characters are so well written that you genuinely care about them and think about them after the novel has ended.

You don’t have to read The House on Tradd Street to enjoy and appreciate The Girl on Legare Street.  Karen White does a marvelous job of both informing new readers and reminding returning readers of what happened in that book.  However, I still highly recommend that readers pick up The House on Tradd Street first.  The fact is, it’s an amazing book that you shouldn’t miss, and you will also miss out on some great character development if you don’t read it.

I can’t praise Karen White or The Girl on Legare Street enough.  I’ve read a lot of her books, and I highly recommend each and every one of them.  She consistently delivers entertaining and well-written reads that are completely addicting.  I already cannot wait to read her next novel.