My Soul to Keep

My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due, 346 pages.

Dawit has been around for a while, born in what is now Ethiopia, he has been alive (more or less) since around 1520. Dawit is sworn to secrecy about how he came to be the way he is but when he falls in love, marries, and settles down, he begins to think about how he can keep his wife and daughter with him throughout eternity. Jessica, his wife, is a journalist who stumbles across a couple of seemingly unrelated stories that link back to the man she knows as David.
Moody, and violent (like its protagonist), Due's novel moves along quickly with twists and turns.

So much blue

So much blue / Percival Everett, 242 pgs.

Kevin is an artist who has been working on a painting for a long time that he won't let anyone see.  He wants to be sure nobody EVER sees it and tries to arrange a system by which it will be destroyed when he dies.  In this "present day" scenario, Kevin lives with his wife Linda and their two kids in what seems like an overall happy family existence.  Another part of the book follows a 1979 visit by Kevin and his friend to El Salvador in search of the friend's brother.  The country is falling into civil war and the trip is engulfed in fear and tragedy.  They help dig a grave for a little girl who has been killed by the military.  The horror of what they witness affects Kevin and the trip also leaves him with another personal secret that makes him question the very basic of his personality.  In a third time, 10 years prior to the "present day," Kevin is in Paris for an art opening and has a brief affair with a much younger woman.  He admits to himself during this fling that he has never loved his wife Linda but instead was looking for a place to exist when they married.  He believes he loves this young French woman and at the same time, Linda is in the States worrying that Kevin has started drinking again.  I've done a mediocre job here of summarizing the book but I enjoyed it very much.  Everett has a way of making us feel we really understand Kevin's inner workings.  I'm inclined to praise Everett's writing and ability to make us want everything to be all right with Kevin while we satisfy our voyeuristic tendencies while watching him veer towards becoming a train wreck.

Alice and Oliver

Alice & Oliver by Charles Bock, 399 pgs.

Alice is a dynamo, one of the most "alive" and present people you will meet.  Thrilled to be a first time mother with her above average husband and their above average life.  One day she just can't shake this tired feeling.  Things only get worse and she is eventually diagnosed with cancer.  The bulk of this book is Alice and Oliver dealing with the cancer.  Alice, of course, in the first person way as the patient, suffering treatments, wondering if she can stand more side effects. Losing hope at times or maybe just being realistic.  Oliver is dealing with the crushing emotional toll, financial toll (hey, they don't have that great of insurance), and the feelings of inadequacy.  This book is pretty hard to read.  Everyone has demons and rightly so.  There are parts that make you want to stop reading immediately but like many wrecks, you can't turn away.

I will say, this is the second book I've read this year by a male author who writes a scene with an incredibly ill woman whose goal for the day is to provide a blow job for their partner. Twice now this has seemed a bit like male wishful thinking.  But who knows, maybe nothing else will fill my death bed dreams?!?

Britt-Marie was Here

Britt-Marie was Here by Fredrik Backman  324 pp.

At the end of the novel My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, Britt-Marie walks out on her unfaithful husband. This book begins with the socially awkward and obsessive compulsive Britt-Marie trying to find a job. She has not worked outside the home since she married and her only skills are obsessively cleaning everything. The employment counselor finds Britt-Marie a temporary job running the community center in a small and nearly dead small town. Soon she is absorbed into the life of the town and finds herself becoming attached to the unusual characters that inhabit it, especially the children. When her errant husband comes to town in an effort to convince her to come home she is forced to decide between her old and new lives. I enjoyed this book more than Backman's previous novels A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me  . . . .

Today Will Be Different

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple  259 pp.

I wanted to like this book but it just didn't happen. I'm sure a good portion of my problem with it was the voice of the reader on the audio book. Something about Kathleen Wilhoite's voice was grating to me. That combined with the main character's whining and angst combined to make this story a rather unpleasant experience. On the surface the story of Eleanor, an artist and one time anime animation director, who is at loose ends in her life, is fine. She has lost control of her life in spite of being married to a well known, successful surgeon and having an adorable young son. To be honest, the woman is just selfish and that plays out in a number of ways. The story opens with her listing the modest changes she plans to make in her life. At the end of the story she once again lists the same things. Meh.

Nutshell

Nutshell by Ian McEwan  197 pp.

Using what has to be the most unusual narrator in literature, an eight month old fetus, McEwan tells the story of a murder plot and its aftermath. The pregnant Trudy has betrayed her husband, John with John's brother Claude. Trudy and Claude hatch a murder plot to eliminate John from the picture. The unborn child is the unwilling witness to their plotting and struggles to find a way to stop them, or at least insure they don't get away with their crime without punishment. The fetus does not speak as a child, but as a literate and worldly adult which makes the narration all the more intriguing. Beautifully written with a well crafted plot.

Fates and Furies

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff  390 pp.

This novel was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award and winner of multiple other awards. I can understand why. It is beautifully written. It is the story of a marriage between Lancelot, aka Lotto, and Mathilde. Both suffered unpleasant and/or horrific childhoods. They enter into a marriage that is a true partnership with Mathilde doing what she can to support Lotto in his career in the theater, first as a failed actor then as a successful playwright. It is only after Lotto's untimely death that the secrets and the furies emerge. There is horrible and understandable anger in the last half of the story. many characters emerge as unlikable people. In spite of that, the depth and descriptiveness of the writing overshadows any dislike for the characters. Well worth reading.

Bride's Story volume 7

Bride's Story volume 7 by Kaoru Mori  192 pp.

This is a continuation of the stories of the Silk Road. Mr. Smith has become the house guest of a wealthy merchant and his wife Anis. According to custom, Anis is not allowed to be seen by the male visitors. She begins to visit the women's bathhouse and discovers a place where she can be herself. She makes friends with another woman there and they become "avowed sisters", a binding relationship which is formalized by ceremony. When Sherine's husband dies suddenly she is left destitute and Anis finds an unexpected way to help her.  Once again, Mori has crafted a well told story. However, the lush illustrations of textiles is noticeably missing in this volume. The author/illustrator explains this in a note that because much of the story takes place in the baths where the women are unclothed, the textiles are absent. But she reassures readers that they will return in the next installment.

The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, 323 pages.

This incredibly popular book, called in some reviews the next Gone Girl, is a well-written and competently done mystery.
While lacking the last seven or eight extra layers of surprise that GG had, The Girl on the Train is still nimble and surprising.
Rachel's marriage to Tom collapsed under the weight of their inability to have children, their fighting and her drinking. She's lost her job and her home, too. Now she's riding the train all day, making up stories, and messing up everything around her. While on a weekend bender, she witnesses something, she's not exactly sure what, and wakes the next morning bruised and bloody.
While the whole thing works pretty well, there is that one frequently found flaw, not quite enough possible suspects to keep the surprise covered up all the way through to the end.
The characters are fresh, lively, and compelling. A fun read. The audio, read by Clare Corbett, Louise Brealey, and India Fisher, is great.
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The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, 317 pages.

Axl and Beatrice, an elderly couple in the humblest of villages in the post-Arthurian land of the Britons, have almost nothing left. They have their shared love and they have vague memories of their son, but they don't have much status in their village, and they have a vague sense that it is finally time to visit their long lost son.
They and their Saxon neighbors live in a mist that brings on forgetfulness. No one remembers the horrible things that have happened to them personally or to their land. As Axl and Beatrice continue their journey with Wistan, a Saxon warrior, and a wounded boy, Edwin, they come closer and closer to uncovering some of the truth about the mist, the history of their region, and their own pasts. When they encounter Sir Gawain (Arthur's nephew), and Querig the dragon, Axl begins to suspect that some things are best left forgotten.
Ishiguro's worlds often seem odd and off kilter, The Buried Giant is especially so.
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