Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

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Book Review: My Boring Life

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Many of the books I’ve read recently have been well-known and best sellers. This week, I explore the work of emerging author Kerry Chaput and her recent release, My Boring Life.

Set in 1969, the novel centers around Gavenia, a young woman whose first year at Barnard has not gone well, and she’s on the verge of flunking out. She must complete several assignments during the summer to try to earn her place back.

As she returns home to lick her wounds and ponder her future, she faces her brother who has been wounded in Vietnam, a sister who lives at home and spends her days protesting the war, and two parents who are both hilarious and clueless. The family emigrated from Great Britain, with Gavenia being the only child born in the U.S., and there’s a parade of British food and customs, whether Gavenia likes them or not.

Simon, a crush from Gavenia’s younger days, reappears and sparks fly. But will he distract her from her schoolwork?

With humor and heart, My Boring Life explores a turbulent time in history that brought back many memories for me. Chaput uses music, television shows, and other imagery to anchor readers to that time period. Though the tone is light, she does not gloss over the seriousness of the issues she explores, including PTSD, the anger over the war, and Gavenia’s own dilemmas. After all, when someone is coming of age, their problems loom as large to them as any on the national stage.

I found myself wondering what the characters would be like today, decades later. Gavenia would be a few years older than I am, and I wanted to know how she ended up. That’s not a usual response for me.

This is a small press book, and there are a few editorial/proofreading glitches in the book (though I can usually find some in nearly everything I read these days). But the story is wonderful, and I hope we see a lot more of Ms. Chaput’s work.

Book Review: The Henna Artist

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Lakshmi ran away from her abusive husband and used her artistic talents to become a henna artist to wealthy women. Clever and quick-minded, she built a successful business over the years, earning enough money to build a house of her own. Her life is about to be upended, though, with the appearance of a younger sister Radha, who she didn’t know she had, and her estranged husband. In The Henna Artist, author Alka Joshi transports us to 1950s India, where old cultural traditions make life difficult for women.

The Henna Artist has been a hugely successful book that has justifiably earned praise from Reese Witherspoon’s book club, so it doesn’t need the endorsement of a little book blogger like me. However, if I love a book I’m going to recommend it, so here we are.

Lakshmi’s emotional journey is absorbing. After all, how does an already successful businesswoman, making her way in a society that is suspicious of unmarried and childless women, grow? Yet Rahda, as an emotional and precocious teenager, becomes a catalyst for the big changes in Lakshmi’s life.

The details of Indian culture, from food to the societal rules, held my interest. And though the story is set in what for us is an exotic locale, there is much for women to relate to in terms of the challenges we face and how we survive.

There is a level of predictability in the story, and some of the resolution seemed a bit too pat for me. It builds beautifully but seems to wrap up too quickly. Also, there were a number of editorial and proofreading errors that I found disappointing. However, the story of the two sisters is brilliant overall, and it’s a wonderful, enjoyable read.

TRIGGER WARNING (NOTE: CONTAINS SPOILER)

If you have an aversion to abortion, you may not want to read this book.

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog below. I review books on Wednesday and starting in May will have a second post during the week on other topics.

If you enjoyed this review, please consider purchasing one of my books. Details can be found here.

Book Review: The Vanishing Half

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When I was a little girl I announced to my family that the best way to achieve racial harmony and to eliminate bigotry was to have all races intermarry so we would all end up the same color.

This did not go over well.

So decades later, when I started reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, I was astounded to read a story about a town of light-skinned black people who wanted to stay that way. Here was my childhood theory! Naturally, however, the reality turned out to be much more complicated.

The Vanishing Half focuses on a pair of twins, Desiree and Stella. Both witnessed the lynching death of their father (as his light skin did not create the protection hoped for), and this trauma naturally stays with them. They run away together, but Stella soon disappears from Desiree’s life. And Desiree, arguably the wilder one who was most determined to leave their small town of Mallard, Louisiana, returns with a daughter in tow…who happens to be a deep blue-black.

Little by little we see the lives of both sisters play out in ways that are sometimes surprising, even jarring. Stella passes as white and creates a life to escape her past. Desiree makes a live in Mallard. Both must live with the consequences of their choices, and the author handles their divergent paths with both honesty and compassion.

What does color mean? In The Vanishing Half, Desiree’s daughter Jude has to face bullying from black locals because she’s too dark. And let’s not forget that in the Deep South of that time period (the book starts in the 50s), it took very little black blood for someone, such as the twins’ father, to be lynched and murdered by white men.

There’s an LGBTQ element to this novel as well. Some reviewers have complained about this because it seemed like too much to tackle in one story. However, I think the story does a good job of intertwining the issues and struggles of gender and race.

My favorite character was Jude, Desiree’s daughter, who struggles in a community where she is bullied for her dark color but also develops a deep determination that she’ll need for the many challenges in her life. Her key role in the unfolding of this story is, in my opinion, what makes it great.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t point out that The Vanishing Half is also about family, relationships, and how our pasts inform our future choices.

Beautifully written, The Vanishing Half is a must-read for anyone wishing to broaden their understanding of the impact of race and gender, and/or anyone who loves a good family drama

IN OTHER NEWS:

Starting in May (or thereabouts) I will be adding a second blog post per week that will be unrelated to book reviews. As always, I respectfully decline to review books as a favor to authors. I feel too much pressure to give a good review when one isn’t always warranted. Thanks for understanding.

If you enjoyed this content, please consider purchasing one of my books. Details can be found here. Thanks!

Book Review: Anxious People

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This is the first book I’ve read by Swedish author Fredrik Backman, though some years ago I saw the movie version of A Man Called Ove. My trip through this novel was quite a journey!

Anxious People tells the story of a would-be bank robber, a hostage situation, a bridge, and much more. We twist and turn through the story as if on a roller coaster. Backman alternately makes us laugh and then pulls the rug out from under us, revealing some new detail that is so shocking we are stunned to tears.

The bank robber, you see, is not a real criminal, but someone desperate to get enough money to handle a short-term cash flow problem. The hostages taken turn out to be a group of people with their own issues, and while the would-be bank robber/hostage taker tries to figure out what to do (having zero experience in hostage-taking), somehow start to bond.

Often as I was reading asked myself, how can such a frightening situation be so…funny? It’s not easy to pull that off.

The tightrope walk between comedy and intense drama is one Backman handles brilliantly. There are interesting parallels and connections among some of the characters that I found believable, especially given that they were in a small town. Details are revealed just when they need to be and in a way that keeps the jaw dropping to the floor. I can’t wait to read all his other books!

I hope you’re enjoying my book reviews. Starting soon, I’ll be adding a non-book review post each week. Please subscribe to my blog (see below) and invite others to do so as well! Also, if you’re interested, please consider purchasing one of my novels. More information can be found here.

Book Review: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

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I wasn’t sure I wanted to read The Four Winds. The Great Alone was such an incredible novel, and I thought, how can she top it? That might be impossible, after all. Still, I couldn’t resist. The subject matter was compelling: the struggles of a family during the Dust Bowl.

The story centers around Elsa Wolcott, whose early life was defined by an illness and, in her family’s opinion, a lack of attractiveness. Expected to live at home and tend to her parents in their later years, Elsa had different ideas. Readers will find a young woman defined by both a deep sense of inadequacy and an innate wildness that will give her strength to endure tremendous hardship, though she won’t recognize the latter in herself for some time.

As in The Grapes of Wrath, Elsa will find herself migrating to California with her children to escape the Dust Bowl, where instead of finding milk and honey, she finds more hardship and bigotry. Californians weren’t impressed with the increasing numbers of migrants seeking work, so not only is work limited, but the pay continues to drop.

Hannah describes the conditions in excruciating detail. As someone who just finished writing a historical novel, I was impressed with her ability to take us there, not just as observers, but to help us truly feel the suffering and hardship of these difficult times.

In this painful reality, Elsa finds her inner strength, and that is the real beauty of this story. She is a reminder of the lengths most women will go to for their families, especially their children. I think I cried more during the small happy moments and the occasional humanity than the most difficult times.

I found the beginning a bit slow, and it felt as if the parents and future husband could have been more nuanced. Elsa seemed a bit like Cinderella, and the family a bit too much like the wicked stepmother and stepsisters. However, this part of the story was necessary to set up Elsa’s worldview, so I can forgive it. Elsa, Lareda, and Elsa’s in-laws are far more developed and interesting, and the story really picks up when Elsa leaves home.

The Four Winds is, sadly, too relevant for our times. The treatment of migrants, the inequality, the sense of endlessness of the Depression…all of these are visible now. In addition, the environmental crisis of the time, the Dust Bowl, is a sad reminder of what happens when we don’t care for our planet, and we see that in our current climate crisis. What is astounding to me is how long these travails went on…we are a year into a pandemic and going bonkers, while the main part of this story spans six years. How our fellow Americans endured this is beyond me.

Some reviewers have complained about the “political agenda” of the book, particularly the role of Communists in trying to organize the workforce. Yet what was she supposed to do, write them out of history? They were there, and they were trying to help. I did not see Hannah as “advocating for Communism,” as some reviewers believe. In fact, she uses Elsa to voice deep concerns and reservations about the philosophy. At the same time, by respecting their role in seeking better working conditions for the migrants, she reminds us that people are far more complex than Twitter would have us believe.

I highly recommend The Four Winds, and hell, anything else Kristin Hannah writes.

A Truly “Delicious!” Book

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The reading gods are continuing to smile upon me as I work through a trove of novels that are absolutely wonderful! I don’t often get a streak like this, and many times so-called must reads don’t flip my button at all.

This week’s selection is Delicious! A Novel by Ruth Reichl. This is her first novel, but she’s written a lot about food in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and more. She’s published non-fiction books as well, and I’m now eager to read all of them! So it makes sense that her first novel would be about, well, food.

Billie Breslin is a young woman with a perfect palette who doesn’t cook. We don’t know why, though I promise, all will be revealed. She has dropped out of college to take a job at Delicious!, a food magazine.

As Billie struggles to create a life for herself far from family, she builds a friendship with Sal and his wife Rosalie, making his cheese shop her second home. Then there’s Sammy, the eccentric and fabulous travel writer, and Jake, the owner of the magazine. Oh, and let’s not forget Mr. Complainer, a regular customer of Sal’s!

It’s hard to write more without adding a lot of spoilers, so I’ll just add that there’s a whole subplot devoted to certain letters addressed to James Beard, who in this novel once ran Delicious!. These letters, and the story that is revealed from them, are in my opinion the meat of the book.

Billie’s past will break your heart. But along the way, there is a lot of joy, friendship, and community, plus the smells and tastes of food that will make you hungry while you read. Yes, there are recipes at the end.