Literary Fiction

★★★☆☆ | Literary Fiction| Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I enjoyed the setting of the fictional small town on Puget Sound. I liked the premise of the story. I loved the octopus. But, in the end, the author was too young/naive to be inside the head of a grief-stricken 70-year-old woman. It would have been better had she let us imagine what she felt by her actions and words alone. Some big themes were drawn in magic marker when they deserved an artist’s paintbrush.

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

Sure, the plot was predictable. Yes, the genre here might be closer to chick-lit than I’m comfortable with. But, I still liked it. I liked the irritable, opinionated AJ Fikry, I liked his policeman friend, I kind of liked Amelia and Maya. Mostly, I liked the idea of an island bookstore owned by a cranky, book nerd. Oh, and all the literary references.

Spoilers follow …

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The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle ZevinRead More »

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

This was a good book. I liked the characters and the storyline. The reasons Sam and Sadie found to be mad at the other were a little frustrating, but I think that’s ultimately the lesson they each needed to learn. The portrayal of grief and loss was really well done.

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Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle ZevinRead More »

★★★☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

A strange, strange book.  So many Russian named-characters with small bit parts. So many references to Russian literature and culture that I failed to grasp. The story of the devil coming to Moscow to … what? Save the master who wrote a true story about Pontius Pilate? I am utterly confused.  I’m giving this book three stars, but only because at times the story turned interesting.  I still have no idea what this allegory represented.

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads 

My 75th book of 2023, which is a new personal record for the most books I’ve read in a single year. Many of the stories in this collection touch on the hard to articulate grief of losing a child, which hit home for me.

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Wednesday’s Child by Yiyun LiRead More »

★★★☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

What a strange little book. The narrator is slowly driven insane by all the commercial sounds encroaching on his family home: an auto repair shop next door, a nightclub across the street, an idling bus outside his bedroom window, all told in disjointed Kafka-like stream of consciousness. Made me appreciate the relative quiet I enjoy here at home.

I’ll give this three stars for the benefit of the doubt that a deeper meaning existed but eluded me.

★★★☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

A good premise perhaps weakened by too many characters and side stories. The depression era setting, poor living conditions, and the horrors of racism and cruel treatment of people with disabilities felt Dickensian. McBride held my attention by the end, but a good editor might have helped maintain it all the way through.

★★☆☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

What to make of this confusing, author-indulgent, stream-of-continual-banter-and-bullshit book? Not much.

There are two stories that intersect in the most obscure ways: grief, longing for loved ones, perhaps a connection to the conspiracy beliefs of our modern day unreliable narrator? And what in the hell were we supposed to make of Lily, our bizarre and self-absorbed ghost?

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I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie MooreRead More »

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

A painful book for me to read — the story of a father losing his 17-year-old son. Mr. Ives – a religious and kind family man – spends the remainder of his life grieving.  He relationship with the love of his life withers, he takes no more joy is in existence, he loses faith in God.  Some 35 years after his son is murdered, he regains some of his faith through dreams, travel and forgiveness of his son’s killer.  It’s a dark, melancholy book. I worried for myself as I watched Mr. Ives grieve over the decades following the loss of his son.

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

My third book by Amor Towles who is an inspiration to me.  He published his first  novel, The Rules of Civility, at 47 after spending a career in investment banking in New York. Imagine that!

This one has some dear characters: Emmett, Duchess, Billy, Wooley, Sally, and a few other incidentals thrown in.  Duchess is a borderline psychopath that I came to adore by looking at his situation through his own perspective.

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The Lincoln Highway by Amor TowlesRead More »

★★☆☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

A quirky book of short stories all centered around a young girl and her grandmother on a remote island in Finland.  I chose this book to see if reading another’s take on island life might help me find my own voice on my experiences on Vashon.  Mostly the stories seemed to center on the author’s childhood memories of her deceased grandmother. There were moments, but this one didn’t click with me.

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The Summer Book by Tove JanssonRead More »

★★★☆☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

What a depressing, sad, miserable book.  I read this for the literary reviews and the focus on boxing, but wow. I had a hard time getting through this short book.  The pointless dialogue that would go on for pages between Tully and his girlfriend was grating (I suppose it was meant to be). The whole book was a misery.

Highlights

Pigeons the color of the street pecked in the gutters, flew between buildings, marched along ledges and cooed on Tully’s sill. His room was high and narrow. Smudges from oily heads darkened the wallpaper between the metal rods of his bed. His shade was tattered, his light bulb dim, and his neighbors all seemed to have lung trouble. 

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Fat City by Leonard GardnerRead More »

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads

An interesting way to write about the atrocities of war and the holocaust — from the perspective of Death.

We follow the story of little Liesel whose five-year-old brother dies on a train in the opening pages, only to be dumped off herself at a foster home by her poor, sick mother.  We expect mistreatment, but her foster parents are kind hearted saints who hide a Jew in their basement and suffer through the consequences of doing that.  Lots of side stories that support a message that humans in power are mostly awful, and bravery is rare and endearing, and usually punished harshly.

Death as narrator provided an omniscient narrator with an attitude and a heart.  The book ends with this haunting quote:

“I am haunted by humans.”

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The Book Thief by Markus ZusakRead More »

★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads

I didn’t expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. This one touched me. Ove felt very real to me. Backman has a gift.

Highlights

People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had. 

She loved only abstract things like music and books and strange words. Ove was a man entirely filled with tangible things. He liked screwdrivers and oil filters. He went through life with his hands firmly shoved into his pockets. She danced. 

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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik BackmanRead More »