Switching between 1967 and 1997 we are given glimpses into the disappearance of Mandy. It is told through the eyes of multiple characters and covers many issues around family, addiction, marriage, authority, memory and the Stolen Generation. Normally it would have annoyed me to have so many characters that had issues to deal with, but not here – it added layers to the story and made you feel for the characters.
I love George Saunders, no doubt about it. Pastoralia is a short collection of short stories. They are dark, but not depressing; a look at the bleaker side of life in America, of lives that fail to live up to expectation. Sometimes dystopian, darkly funny, strange and very compelling. The author reads the audio version himself, which is a treat.
Frances and Bobbi, Irish university students, perform spoken word poetry together. They are invited to a journalist’s house, and become caught up in her and her husbands life. Is about relationships in a modern world, how extraordinarily complicated and messy they can be, and how transformative. There’s a meaninglessness that I am thankful not to live with myself, but it is very clever, thought provoking, modern (I am getting so old), philosophical, and piercing.
Gifty grew up in Alabama with Ghanaian parents, though her father returned to Ghana when she was very young, her beloved brother died of a heroin overdose, and her mother was overtaken by depression. Now Gifty is a scientist, studying reward-seeking behaviour, depression, and addiction, trying to make sense of what happened to her family. It is a deeply emotional book about a woman trying to reconcile the faith of her youth with the unfulfilled promises of science, and has themes of loss, mental illness, family, identity, coming of age, and the search for meaning and hope.
After a family tragedy Lucie and her mother have to return to Paris to live with her uncle at the beginning of Nazi occupation of the city. It covers the remaining war years through Lucie’s eyes as we see Paris change under occupation, the courage of the resistance, the horror of the Nazis anti-Jewish measures, the survival of the citizens. The war changed everyone. I enjoyed the second half of the book so much more as Lucie understood so much more about the situation, the first half seemed rushed, but a solid read from this debut author.
Wealthy families summering on an island off the New England coast and the permanent residents of the island are at the centre of this story. The story is told in multiple timelines and sometimes I lost where I was in the story. Other than that the story was enjoyable with interesting characters – there was love, secrets, privilege and an escaped prisoner, all with the sense that money cannot get you everything you want.
At the end of The Dressmaker, Tilly Dunnage walks away from Dungatar, having exacted a fiery revenge on the town. The Dressmaker’s Secret finds her in Melbourne, working for a second rate dress salon, trying to get her life back on track. She has plenty of obstacles to overcome in Melbourne, and the scorned people of Dungatar aren’t finished with her, either. I found the plot a little convoluted, and would have liked it more if there had been less of it, but there was plenty of black humour, gorgeous costuming, and over the top characters to enjoy.
A confronting but important book about domestic abuse in Australia. It looks at the many different types of abuse, the people who perpetrate it, and the truly complex reasons why this is a national crisis. I found it gave a much fuller picture about why domestic abuse occurs, and how society as a whole contributes to an environment where it occurs so frequently, and is so difficult to deal with.
The Glass Hotel is an atmospheric, haunting story about searching for meaning, and a sense of self. It is non-linear, and follows many different characters on their journeys with greed, loss, love, guilt, beauty, and purpose. The plot is almost beside the point – there is a Ponzi scheme, a beautiful hotel, music, art, wealth and poverty – it’s all about the characters and how they play the cards they have been dealt, and cope with the consequences. Moody, dreamlike, mysterious, compelling.
A solid mystery with a good twist at the end. The story is set just after World War I, when Inspector Lincoln from Scotland Yard is sent out to investigate a series of murders. How the war, its death and injuries, has affected people is a big focus of the story, and one which I found interesting.
rrlreads 