Sandra Cisneros

Fiction 1984/ 110 pages

The House on Mango Street is set in a working-class, urban Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois.  We are here for about one year.

The protagonist Esperanza, who turns 13 during the narrative, lives with her impoverished family in a dilapidated, small red brick house on Mango Street. This environment shapes Esperanza's identity and her desire to escape the limited opportunities and cultural insularity it represents, fueling her yearning for a better life and self-expression.

The vignettes are inspired by the author's real life, growing up in a similar working-class neighborhood in Chicago.  The short vignettes range from happy to sad, joyous to grieving.

The book is sweet, endearing, enjoyable, interesting, and kind of a waste of time.

August 2025

James Baldwin

Fiction 1956 | 159 pages

(still technical challenges, so I re-titled this book!)  Giovanni's Room is the real name!

So, truly, is becoming an adult so difficult?  For David, who loves Giovanni and simultaneously loves his ex-girlfriend, Hella. it is that difficult.  There is so much shame, so much secrecy, so much dirt and rot and filth, and at times, so much love ...  how does someone live with that?  *SPOILER ALERT* Giovanni doesn't live with it.  He dies.  Hells doesn't live with it.  She goes home to her parents in the Midwest.  David ... does he stay in Paris, or return to America?  America, I think.

This is a sad, gripping novel, magnified by the times.  We don't know exactly when the story occurs, but since it was copyrighted in 1956, we know it takes place 70 years ago or so.  David cannot face his attraction to men or his bisexuality.  And his difficult introverted struggle is what Giovanni’s Room is about.  Giovanni's room, where David discovers his sexuality.  Giovanni’s room, filthy and small and decrepit.  Giovanni's room, where shame, secrecy, love, discovery, wonder and fear lived so excruciatingly large.

And then there is Baldwin’s writing.

James Baldwin, if this book is any indication among his 17 published works, is astounding, exquisite, nearly unparalleled as a writer.  What a beautiful writer he is!  Spectacular use of the language.  A flow and a beat that draws you in.  A plot that keeps you right here, turning the page.

Two of my favorite lines from Giovanni's Room:

"Life in that room seemed to be occurring underwater, as I say, and it is certain I underwent a sea change there."  Pg 85. A gorgeous, subtle metaphor.  And ...

"Behind the counter sat one of those absolutely inimitable and indomitable ladies, produced only in the city of Paris ... " (pg 50).  I had to look up both of the "big" words in this sentence, but once I did, I had such a strong visual and visceral reaction to these women ... I can picture them most certainly, sitting at their cash registers, even today, a few days later.

Oh yes, read this classic from the Goodreads Book of the Year list for 1956.  Certainly!

August 2025

Carson McCullers

Fiction 2046/ 161 pages

The Member of the Wedding tells the story of Frankie Addams, a lonely twelve-year-old girl in a small Southern town, who becomes obsessed with her older brother's upcoming wedding as a way to escape her loneliness and isolation. The novel explores themes of adolescence, identity, and belonging through Frankie's interactions with her family's cook, Berenice, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry.

It is a story about moving from childhood and into adolescence through a summer of being afraid, when she was twelve, and a long weekend (the wedding weekend) of being fixated on the wedding.  Frankie, who by this point in the book has renamed herself F. Jasmine, creates a dream,  a desire to move away, to travel and be on her own.  She is attempting not only to curb her isolation but also is beginning to think about creating purpose and meaning in her life.   She wants to become part of something bigger than herself. She imagines herself as part of the wedding party and even contemplates joining the honeymoon. A confusing time for any young person.

The book also addresses race through the strong relationship she has with their Black cook, Berenice.

This book is one of the GoodReads books of the year, 1946.  I would call it a sweet read, but nothing you should feel compelled to pick up.  My criticism would be that the author is clearly an adult, and writes like an adult woman, and though the character of Frankie/ F. Jasmine is interesting and complex, I don't have a sense the author was actually able to represent and portray being twelve.

August 2025

Justin Torres

Fiction 2011| 126 pages

This is a stark, dark, painful, and disturbing book.  The Puerto Rican father is violent, mean, irrational, emotionally unhealthy.  The mother is emotionally unhealthy and allows herself to be victimized,  but is otherwise a sort of empty figure.

The three boys, three brothers, Manny (the eldest), Joel (in the middle) and the never-named youngest (the narrator), lead lives that are at best confusing and at worst unsalvageable.  I often thought while reading We the Animals, that "boys will be boys".  They steal tomatoes.  They throw a rock through the window of an apparently abandoned vehicle. They buy milk for a cat who just just gave birth to a litter of kittens in a dumpster.  But then they also take quite mean and anti-social actions as well (mostly taught to them by their father.)  Frequently you can read literally or between-the-lines that the boys are also crying out to love, be loved, and have normalcy in their lives.

I can't find the redeeming message, except to lay blame at the foot of an uninformed, uneducated couple who did not know how to raise children.  I also find I am quite angry at the author at the ending ... again blaming the parents for behavior they don't like and allegedly created.

All the boys really want is love.

I can't come up with a really good reason to read; it is simply depressing.

I will be FASCINATED to hear what you liked about this book, Rene, enough to recommend it to your book club!  Clearly, we have seen different attributes.

August 2025

James Baldwin

Fiction 1956 | 169 pages

So, truly, is becoming an adult so difficult?  For David, who loves Giovanni and simultaneously loves his ex-girlfriend, Hella. it is this difficult.  There is so much shame, so much secrecy, so much dirt and rot and filth, and at times, so much love ...  how does someone live with that?  (SPOILER ALERT!) Giovanni doesn't live with it.  He dies.  Hellsa doesn't live with it.  She goes home to her parents in the Midwest.  David ... does he stay in Paris, or return to America?  America, I think.

This is a sad, gripping novel, magnified by the times.  We don't know exactly when the story occurs, but since it was copyrighted in 1956, we know it takes place 70 years ago or so.  David cannot face his attraction to men or his bisexuality.  And his difficult introverted struggle is what Giovanni’s Room is about.  Giovanni's room, where David discovers his sexuality.  Giovanni’s room, filthy and small and decrepit.  Giovanni's room, where shame, secrecy, love, discovery, wonder and fear lived so excruciatingly large.

And then there is Baldwin’s writing.

James Baldwin, if this book is any indication among his 17 published works, is astounding, exquisite, nearly unparalleled as a writer.  What a beautiful writer he is!  Spectacular use of the language.  A flow and a beat that draws you in.  A plot that keeps you right here, turning the page.

Two of my favorite lines from Giovanni's Room:

"Life in that room seemed to be occurring underwater, as I say, and it is certain I underwent a sea change there."  Pg 85. A gorgeous, subtle metaphor.  And ...

"Behind the counter sat one of those absolutely inimitable and indomitable ladies, produced only in the city of Paris ... " (pg 50).  I had to look up both of the "big" words in this sentence, but once I did, I had such a strong visual and visceral reaction to these women ... I can picture them most certainly, sitting at their cash registers, even today, a few days later.

Oh yes, read this classic from the Goodreads Book of the Year list for 1956.  Certainly!

Sarah Marquis

Nonfiction 2014| 219 pages

Read this book now!  I loved it.  Yes, you know I have a particular fondness for true wilderness stories.  Our author is Sarah Marquis and this is the tale of her walking alone and her amazing adventures in parts of Mongolia, the Gobi Desert (which was once on my own bucket list!), China, Siberia, Laos, Thailand, and Australia (still on my list!) for three years, 2010 -2014.  While this is not her first major adventure (she walked 8700 miles across Australia earlier) but that in no way diminishes the power and the enthralling, fascinating unusual nature of her storytelling.

I highly recommend Wild by Nature.  It took me less than two days to read it.

Thank you René for this perfect loan at the perfect time!  (I have a copy if anyone wants it).

August 2025

Stephanie Meyer  |  Fiction

2008, 619 pages

Lois thought I might like The Host and I began with mixed reviews   I am not a big science fiction fan ... not since I read a bit in college, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell. The premise of The Host, “souls" or "aliens" take over the bodies of humans, allegedly for the good of the planet, perhaps the universe, is not without its redeeming qualities.  I expected more of a story .... not 100% science fiction.  I expected a bit of relief from the interactions.

I liked the format and the writing style much less than the story.  For almost 200 full pages, our soul, Wanderer, and our human, Melanie, talked with each other.  Melanie had a considerable recollection of memories and a facility with emotions. These memories, which came and went in greater strength, impacted every single conversation.  Something happens in the present and Wanderer has a thought or comment about it, and Melanie comes back with her perspective.  This happened on nearly every left-hand page near the bottom.  These conversations, dialogues, and monologues gave me a headache.  I keep waiting for the venue, context, and especially the format to change.

Finally 1/3rd of the way in, something may be changing.  There are about 60 fascinating pages where Wanda (she has a real name now!) shares stories with the 35 or so people who also live in the giant underground community.  She never gets very comfortable … telling stories about the origins of the aliens, the many planets in which she has lived, the many experiences and lifetimes she encountered.  But the humans she is living with are, for the most part, extremely curious.

Okay, I made it half way and am bored, bored.  Closing the book now with an unfortunate single heart

July 2025

Yael van der Wouden

Fiction 2022| 462 pages

Sorry, my friend Mary, I simply did not like this book, which takes place in Holland in 1961.  I found it overly sensual and overly sexual.  I am not prudish, there was just such suddenness and surprise in the critical relationship, it did not resonate as true.

Our main character Isabel is cruel and biting.  But she is also eccentric, which I find attractive and appealing in a way.  Her foil, Eva, is milquetoast.  She was blank, with no real personality, no history or background, no context.  I would have liked a better explanation, a better understanding about the sudden bold passion that seems to come from nowhere and compellingly encompasses Isa and Eva.

The men, with exception of Hendrik, whom I love, are mostly non-existent and shallow. I adore Sebastian, too, Hendrik's partner!

Of course, the house is a character in itself, and how Isabel's mom obsessively decorated it with hares when she was still alive.  Isa loves this house and takes exceedingly good care if it, including protecting it from thieves and keeping it very clean. The house is the pure heart of The Safekeep.

July 2025

Ariel Lawton

Fiction 2025/ 427 pages

For as excited as my book club members have seemed to be about our July book, I was somewhat disappointed.  The hype, the description, the marketing on this book all begins with words like:

"Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice."

The man in the ice has been murdered.  I expected more of a detective story.  But our main character is Martha Ballard, a healer.  She is also our chief investigator in the 1790's in Hallowell Maine, a small town on the Kennebec.  Martha's character is inspired by a real midwife who keeps a daily journal of her experiences, in historical fact.

Martha testifies a lot in this book, to men I mostly can't remember from scene to scene.  She also midwife's baby after baby and after baby.  We also get to explore the sexual and emotional relationships of her teenage and older children. And Martha and her husband Ephraim's continual touching and affection is at first pleasing, then distracting, and finally insipid.

i found the book a little boring and a bit overwritten.  But then again, it was an enjoyable read.  It is a lot about character development, both within and amongst characters.  I don't "not recommend it", but don't get your hopes up too high.  It is also, relaxing, fun, and a very interesting and revealing story of the times.

July 2025

David Wroblewski

Fiction 2008| 562 pages

First, to begin, I wouldn't call this a novel ... but a saga or an epic.  It is very long, very detailed, with much depth.  Yes, our main character Edgar is born mute, and it IS his story as our primary point of view throughout, but yet, I don't see his perspective, ability, and disability, as the focus of the book.  The tragic story about the family plays out against the backdrop of the breeding of Sawtelle dogs.  If you don't love dogs, I cannot see how you would love this book.

Edgar's grandfather began the breeding program for a fictional dog breed many years ago.  Our current date in the telling of this story is various years in the early 1970's.  The kennels are on a farm in Northern rural Wisconsin.   It gives a very visual picture of the rural Midwest at this time, small town happenings and all.

Of course, it isn't only about breeding and training a new dog breed.  Edgar's father is Gar, and Gar's brother is Claude.  Claude has been away from the farm for 20 years when the novel begins, but he returns, with much of his kenneling knowledge intact.  And thus begins the mystery, the tragedy, the deep sorrow in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

I believe the writing is extraordinary.  The characters, the essence of the story, the depth.  There is some minor and delightful magical realism that augments the tale.  Some reviewers argue that Wroblewski doesn't explain adequately why characters do things.  Why did Edgar run away ... really?  Why does he show the dogs to the man from Austin in the manner he does?  I am wondering if patience is the needed trait as a reader?  Your imagination must fill in the gaps, and yet the story line runs true and clear.

My one criticism is it could be better edited.  There are sentences and sections that repeat pretty close to verbatim, and a good editor should have caught these.

I must recommend this saga.  It may not fit everyone's taste, but it is worth a try.  Just know that you will be reading for a long time.  It is a compelling saga ... almost a compulsive read.  I never for a moment thought about not completing yet.  And yet, it is quite a challenging read.  I would love to hear from anyone who has read it or chooses to read it now.

July 2025