The Life Impossible

 

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig, 324 pages.

Grace Winters has been living her life with a sense of numb detachment since her husband died, and if she's being honest she's been living that way for decades since she lost her son. Then an acquaintance she shared one meaningful Christmas with long ago leaves Grace her home in Ibiza, and Grace thinks this might finally be her chance to start over. But when she gets to Spain she finds things are not only stranger than her life as a retired math teacher ever prepared her for, but more wonderful as well.

The way this starts reminded me a startling amount of The Correspondent, which I read earlier this year. Both are written as correspondence by old women who have spent decades of their lives not really getting over the death of their son by tragic accident, an accident they feel responsible for due to negligence. However, The Life Impossible takes a sharp turn into science fiction with alien superpowers. That being said, the novel never really feels like it is about the powers, it always instead stays fairly focused on the question of what it means to live a good life. I really enjoyed this book. I found it meaningful and cohesive, and I believe I will think about it often. 

More Than Enough

More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen, 256 pages

Polly's book group has been with her through thick and thin, including her harrowing (and so far, unsuccessful) attempts to get pregnant. But when they jokingly give her a DNA test kit for a genealogy website, a pile of strangers show up as relatives, and she's not sure how much to share with them. Before long, a teenager who's convinced she and Polly are related turns up, so Polly and her closest friend from book club travel to learn the secrets of Polly's past. 

I read this book a while ago and I've been putting off blogging about it, not because I disliked it, but because I can barely remember it. I remember the vague info above, plus a couple other spoiler-y things, but really, other than having a vague "yeah, this was good" feeling, there's not a lot that sticks out to me. If you like Quindlen's other books, you'll enjoy this one. (I guess that's helpful?)

Women of a Promiscuous Nature

Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna Everhart, 368 pages

In 1940s North Carolina, Ruth was walking to work at a local diner when the local deputy picked her up, accused her of "promiscuity" and drove her to the health clinic. And from there, he took her to the State Industrial Farm Community for Women, which is full of dozens of other young women who are unmarried and living alone, or have the audacity to argue with their husbands, or were impregnated by an abusive family member. All of them institutionalized, drugged, and forced to work against their will and with no way out. Based on a very real group of such institutions, this book follows Ruth, 15-year-old Stella, entrepreneur Josephine, hard-living Maude, and the possibly-not-as-crazy-as-she-pretends-to-be Frances as they deal with the harsh realities forced upon them by superintendent Dorothy Baker.

It's sometimes horrifying to read this book, especially when you stop to think that this is what was happening to young women while "the boys" were off at war. There were a few times in the book where the writing got a bit clunky, but all in all, this was an interesting, if at times hard, book to read.

August Totals

This month we say hello to new blogger Margaret!

Annie: 8 books, 1840 pages

Byron: 1 book, 532 pages

Jan: 4 books, 1261 pages

John: 1 book, 352 pages

Kara: 12 books, 4569 pages

Kevin: 3 books, 1488 pages

Margaret: 2 books, 727 pages

Regan: 7 books, 2391 pages

Sarah: 4 books, 1355 pages

Tracey: 9 books, 3213 pages 

Total: 51 books and 17,728 pages 

The Secret Dinner

The Secret Dinner by Raphael Montes, translated by Zoe Perry, 352 pages 

Four friends find themselves struggling to cover their rent in Copacabana, Rio, Brazil. They are young, broke and really don't want to go back to the rural countryside they fled. A solution presents itself. That solution? Secret "seagull" meat dinner parties. And by seagull, I don't mean seagull. Montes does an excellent job of capturing the protagonists’ desperation and their moral (and immoral) quandary as they try to make it in the big city. 

I enjoyed this book. Parts of it were certainly uncomfortable to visualize, but the characters were well done and I did like the final twist. I will say that I am very glad that I am a vegetarian and do not have to ever worry about being unknowingly fed "seagull" meat. 

Country People by Daniel Mason

Country People by Daniel Mason, 320 pages.

A married couple of English professors and their children move to rural Vermont, where they encounter local semi-supernatural phenomena that mirror the folklore that our main character studies. Along the way, we enjoy the quirks of the titular country people, as well as the academic people and the married and parenting people.

I don’t want to say much more lest I spoil it, but I really liked this one! It was funny and sweet and celebrated weirdness in a way that I really dug. If you liked Welcome to Nightvale, the Netflix series The Chair, or the novels of Taffy Brodesser-Akner (though this is considerably lighter) you’d probably like County People.

The Maidenheads

 

 The Maidenheads by Benny B. Peterson, 336 pages

 A story about music, finding yourself in queerness, and rekindling a first love. 

This book will probably not be for everyone, it is messy, the protagonist is largely unlikable and the relationship that the novel follows is disheartening. However, I loved this book as it felt like a very accurate and honest depiction of being queer and navigating relationships. I thought the writing was beautiful and I felt like I was inside the main characters head, for better or for worse. 

Keeper of Lost Children

 Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson (2026), 464 pages

I loved this book. You should go read it now. 

The historical novel follows three stories revolving around the left behind multi-racial children in post-war Germany. This is a topic I had never really thought about and was surprised on how big an issue it was. Many African American service members had relations with white German women. Due to various issues, a lot of their children ended up in orphanages in Germany. It is loosely based on the real-life story of an African American woman, Mabel Treadwell Grammer, whose husband was stationed in Mannheim and how she (almost) single-handedly adopted and found homes in the US and Germany for hundreds of orphans. It is a fascinating part of history and Johnson does an excellent job of telling the story from various points of view, helping you to grasp the full consequences of these relations and adoptions. 

No Matter What

No Matter What by Cara Bastone (2026) 312 pages

Roz, her husband Vin, and Vin's brother were all in a terrible accident about a year ago. They all lived together after the accident because Roz and Vin felt that Vin's brother shouldn't be alone while recovering. Ultimately, the brother‒who is Roz's best friend, by the way‒moved out on his own, but Roz and Vin no longer connect. Roz gets hints that Vin wants to leave her and she's desperately sad, but she can't tell him, and she won't tell his brother, either. She ends up taking up figure drawing, which brings her new friends, new confidence, and a great distraction from her worries and her PTSD.

As often happens, I can't figure out why no one is really communicating what they've thinking, even to the people they love the most. Maybe that's why the book worked for me: far too often that's what happens in real life. I wanted to see what was going to happen.

Lollapalooza

 

Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour, 432 pages 

The last music book of the summer for the Rhythm n' Books reading club before we move on to our round of books for the fall. We haven't read anything quite like this, an oral history. Some folks liked it for it's candid anecdotes, some did not feel it was "journalistic" enough to merit an entire book. The problem with trying to dive into the past and document the concert in it's earliest days is that there probably is little documentation to go on. All of this was the brainchild of Perry Ferrell, the charismatic front man for the band Jane's Addiction, who were a more popular band at the time than I ever realized. In Perry's mind, this was something akin to Woodstock, but a little more organized--something to bring together the alternative counter culture that was starting to coalesce after the radio death of hair metal. In it's earliest heyday, Lolla included a second stage which consisted of a group of California circus performers who were more sideshow than side acts. Perry accidently tapped into a huge market and the festival grew into a concert that spanned cities and genres. Though it kind of reads like the script for a VH1 Storytellers episode, if you're looking to relive some of the early 90s, this is a good start.