Little Gods

 

Little Gods by Meng Jin  280 pp.

This is one of those books that I kept expecting to get better but it never did. It's not bad, but it just didn't grab me. The story revolves around the life of Su Lan, a brilliant Chinese physicist whose personal life goes off the rails after the birth of her daughter and the abandonment by the father. Su Lan emigrates to the U.S. but works randomly and moves around a lot. When she suddenly dies her daughter, Liya, takes her ashes back to China and meets the widow who helped care for her when she was an infant. She also discovers the name of her father and begins the search for him. There is nothing wrong with the story, or the writing but I was barely compelled to finish it. YMMV.

So lucky

So lucky/Nicola Griffith, 180 pgs.

A highly competent and independent woman, the head of a social service agency, is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  She is pushed out of her job by her board, and is just ending a relationship. She finds herself alone with something she can't manage.  Mentally and physically, she is having a tough time.  She sees things in the shadows, she imagines things that aren't there.  But then a series of crimes makes her believe other disabled people are being targeted.  Is she paranoid? Brilliant?  Doesn't matter, the authorities see her as a cripple and are not open to listening to her.  This book is full of bad experiences suffered by the disabled every day. She wants to help herself but that is not always possible.  An interesting perspective that sheds light on the perspective of the newly disabled.

Manhattan Beach

Manhattan Beach: a Novel / Jennifer Egan, 438 p.

In 1943 New York, Anna Kerrigan longs to leave her tedious job on the waterfront measuring shipbuilding parts with a micrometer for greater excitement.  She finds it by becoming a diver, a highly trained position involving danger and lots of pushing of gender boundaries.  Meanwhile, she is consumed with the search for her absent father, mysteriously disappeared during her teenage years.  What was her father's connection to the charismatic nightclub owner Dexter Styles?   Is he still alive?  Can she trust Dexter?

A very solid and suspenseful piece of historical fiction, strenuously researched.  I enjoyed the strong sense of place, and was hugely amused by the many underworld conversations which all amounted to the same thing: who's better, an Irish criminal or an Italian one?  The most notable element of the plot was for me the nuanced treatment of Lydia, Anna's developmentally disabled sister.  Nostalgia, suspense, and danger on the high seas add up to an engaging read.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James

Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper  305 pp.

Eighty-three year old Etta leaves a note for her husband, takes some chocolate, a shotgun, and her best boots to set off on a 3000 mile walk from their farm in Saskatchewan to the Atlantic Ocean because she's never seen it. In her note she says she will "try to remember to come back". Otto, the husband, takes this matter-of-factly and sets about learning to cook for himself. Their friend Russell is upset at Etta's disappearance and sets out to find her. Along the way Etta meets James, a talking coyote who travels with her and may or may not be real. There are flashbacks to the human characters' childhoods and young adult days, the years of World War II, and Etta and Otto's marriage. Much of the story leaves you wondering what is real and what is in the heads of the characters. The ending is bewildering and intriguing, leaving it up to the interpretation of the reader. I'm still not sure about this one.

The Keeper of Lost Causes

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen  400 pp.

This is the first of the "Department Q" series by a popular Danish author. Carl MØrck, one time homicide detective has been assigned to a new department handling cold cases. MØrck suffers from PTSD since he was shot in an incident that killed another officer and paralyzed his partner and good friend. Now he is stuck in a basement office with files of cold cases and a Syrian refugee assistant who is efficient at some things, drives insanely, and is quite good at investigation while being a bit of a pest. They settle on investigating the disappearance of a politician five years before while the rest of the police department seeks the murderer of a bicyclist. The politician's disabled brother is the only possible witness to her disappearance but he does not communicate. MØrck's investigation alternates with the story of a woman imprisoned in a hostage situation. There is an ending but it is not a completely happy one. The story has a few confusing spots but I blame that on the translation from Danish. All in all, it's a good mystery/thriller. I listened to the downloaded audio book from Overdrive.

Good Kings Bad Kings

Good Kings Bad Kings: a novel by Susan Nussbaum  298 pp.

In spite of the subject matter and the awful things that happen in this book, I can't help but like it...a lot. A group of kids are residents of the Illinois Life and Learning Center, essentially a for profit nursing home where they are housed because of mental and/or physical disabilities. Each of the main characters speak in their own voices and include residents and staff of the home which is run by indifferent administrators and just a few staff members who really care about the kids. The addition of a disabled staff member to the home introduces the kids to possibilities they had not realized were possible in their lives. It takes multiple tragedies before things come to head and changes appear on the horizon. The characters suck you in and make you cheer for every one of these kids to finally lead happy lives.

The revised fundamentals of caregiving

The revised fundamentals of caregiving / Jonathan Evison 278 pgs.

Ben Benjamin is a complete mess.  He is unemployed, fighting a divorce, and terminally sad about an accident that precipitated his fall from grace.  He takes a job as a caregiver to Trevor, a wheelchair bound teen who probably won't live to see 25.  It is a low paying job but all he's got.  He is fighting almost everything that is happening in his life, but unsuccessfully.  Conditions make it difficult for him to get to work on time, he gets fired.  But then he embarks on a epic road trip with Trevor, not as an employee but as a friend.  Not surprisingly, the road trip turns into kind of a mess...just like most of the things that Ben touches.  The plot here is not surprising but the personality of the characters, the pacing, and the dialog is fabulous.  I admit, I could not stop reading.  This is sentimental but but not in a cloying, heart breaking way...Ben confronts a lot of his issues as he should, blaming no one but himself.  The supporting characters are made up of several other men doing their best to be father's even though they have a long history of messing up.  Will they have a second chance?  Will things work out to a nicely tied up conclusion?  Author Evison seems to know how to make it real without making it sappy.

The War That Saved My Life

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley  316 pp.

In England just before the war against Hitler began, nine year old Ada lives in forced confinement by an abusive mother who is embarrassed by Ada's  crippled foot. When Ada's young brother, Jamie, is  to be sent to live in the country to protect them from the bombing, Ada sneaks out and crawls to the railway station to go with him. They end up with a woman who, though she did not want to take them in, ends up changing their lives and giving Ada hope that her foot can be improved via surgery. This is a touching story with many themes worthy of discussion. I hope to use it in my kids' book club. 

Rules

Rules by Cynthia Lord  200 pp.

This was a re-read in preparation for the March Treehouse Book Club. Twelve year old Catherine keeps a list of rules of behavior she tries to teach her autistic brother, David. She is frequently embarrassed by his failure to understand how social interaction "should" be handled. When she befriends a wheelchair bound boy who speaks by pointing at pictures in a book, Catherine begins to understand that "normal" isn't a fixed standard and that different is not necessarily wrong.

Out of My Mind

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper  295 pp.

I read this book when it came out a couple years ago and knew I wanted to use it with my 4th-6th grade book club. I re-read it in preparation for our discussion and it was just as good the second time around. The story is told by Melody, an eleven year old with cerebral palsy. Melody is wheelchair bound, cannot speak and must be assisted with the basics of life. She also has a nearly photographic memory and is highly intelligent. In the beginning nobody knows how bright she is because she is unable to tell anyone what she knows. Professionals advise her parents to institutionalize her which, fortunately, they ignore. She is stuck in a special education class where teachers treat the students like preschoolers. With the help of a caring neighbor she learns to communicate, first with a letter and word board and eventually a computerized device that allows her to "speak" through it. Some teachers are still skeptical about her abilities and she is not accepted by the "normal" students in the school because of her differences. These problems come to head when she wins a place on her school's team for a national quiz program. No spoilers here. Draper, who is the mother of a child with developmental difficulties has written an understanding and touching portrait of what it is like to be looked down upon because of perceived differences.

The Lives of the Apostates

The Lives of the Apostates by Eric O. Scott  88 pp.

Lou, a Pagan college student at Truman University, faces crises in his education, his job, and his friendships in this brief novella. He is forced to take a course on the History of Christian Thought for his major and butts heads with the professor. His job is in danger after one of the disabled men he cares for is abducted by a deranged family member. Lou's attraction for an old friend is unrequited. And his roommate is having problems with his mother after Lou encourages him to tell the devout Baptist woman that he is Pagan. There's a lot of well written story packed in this small book. Of course, I'm a little bit prejudiced since the author is a friend of mine.

Me before You / Jojo Moyes 369 p.

I picked this up based on Linda's favorable recommendation, and Ms. Ballard is still batting 1000 for me.  What should have been a sticky-icky story - handsome powerful man becomes quadriplegic, down-on-her-luck small town girl becomes his nurse, predictable emotions ensue - wasn't, and I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out why not.  Instead, it was moving, sweet, funny, and true.  And I didn't even find Moyes' writing particularly graceful, but she created a couple of three-dimensional human beings in a believable and poignant situation, which was enough to keep me reading frantically right until the end, and to feel glad that I had.

Translation of the Bones / Francesca Kay 227 p.

While cleaning a statue of Jesus in a London church, Mary-Margaret has an accident. Her head is bleeding, or is the blood coming from another source? The upheaval caused by this dubious miracle has strange and terrible consequences for the pastor and parishoners of this urban parish.

Kay's writing is fluid and persuasive, and this novel reads quickly. I was especially impressed by her portrait of Mary-Margaret's mother, desperately obese and homebound, flawed and deeply human. Still, the ultimate point of the story seems to be to answer the fundamental question: how are we to believe in a God that allows terrible things to happen? As one of her characters points out, humans have been asking this question for millenia and still haven't come up with an answer. Kay doesn't either, but her character's efforts to understand are moving.