Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination, by Helen Fielding (2003)
Olivia Joules may occasionally jump to a conclusion (okay, the French film maker was NOT Osama bin Laden), but she's not always far off, either.
At first we think Olivia is just what her editor says she is: a too small, too cute, too distractable reporter with an imagination that carries her away and makes her unable to concentrate on little details such as the story she's supposed to be working on. We think it's cute that she carries a little "survival kit" with her, but we note with amused condescension that it's only the condom (meant for transporting water) that gets used and replaced regularly.
Soon we realize the error of our ways. Under pressure, Olivia comes through. When there is a huge explosion, she thinks fast and heads for a clever safe space; when the safe space is no longer safe, she realizes it and leaves just in the nick of time; then she helps with rescue efforts. Our respect grows.
Before long, Olivia is dealing with even trickier situations. When she wakes up in an underwater cave in only her underwear, with a bag over her head and her hands tied, scary Arabs in the next cave-area blocking her exit, does she despair? No. If the only way to escape is to gnaw a hole through the bag and get the razor out of her underwire bra with her teeth, so be it. And she does it with a perky enthusiasm I can only admire.
This was a fun book, with a good adventure plot, by a writer whose flexibility continues to surprise me.
The Whore's Child and Other Stories, by Richard Russo (2002)
The title story, in which a nun discovers she's been keeping a secret from herself all her life, and the story "The Farther You Go," in which a man finds out how well his wife knows him when he runs his son-in-law out of town, were my clear favorites, but all the stories are worth reading if a little grim. In "Joy Ride," a pre-teen boy feels like less of a man after a car trip with his mother, but the memory of his father and a washer is one of the highlights of the whole book. "Buoyancy" shows us the quietly awful ways a marriage can fall apart, and the unpleasantness of growing old, and what it feels like to be stuck with something that's going to end badly. "The Mysteries of Linwood Hart" reminds us that it's confusing to be a child and a relief to find you're not the center of the universe.
Ladder of Years, by Anne Tyler (1995)
I started getting panicky at around page 300. When I'm really enjoying a book, really wanting to get back to it each day, it's alarming to see that somehow there are only 26 pages left when I'm not ready, I'm not prepared, it can't be time for this to end already.
I don't know why I ever stopped reading Anne Tyler; I used to read her all the time. I think it's that when I'm remembering an Anne Tyler book, it seems to me that it was a depressing story. I think, "Oh, yes, that was the book about the marriage that didn't work." Or as in this case, "Oh, yes, that was the book about the woman who abruptly walked away from her husband and children." It's hard to remember that the summary of the story isn't the story. I didn't feel depressed reading this book, I felt happy and interested, and, you know, enlightened about the human condition. I felt like I wanted to know more, like I wanted to keep going with these people and see what they'd do next. I felt like Anne Tyler understood people and relationships and the kinds of thoughts that people think but don't write down or even notice themselves thinking.
So I loved the book. But how will I choose the next one at the library? The book jackets always seem so depressing.
Second Glance, by Jodi Picoult (2003)
Man, this author is a storyteller. It's spellbinding. This is the third book of hers I've read, and each time I have that same, "This is such a great plot, I can't believe this is such a great plot, I can't stop reading this book" feeling.
If only we could tone down the creativity in other areas. "...[tofu] slid down one's throat like a rumor." "...letting the smoke curl down his throat like a question mark." "...her mouth tasted of vanilla and misfortune." "...the sunset color of hopelessness." These are not images that resonate with me; they yank me out of the story with a "huh?" Such things are subjective: what makes me roll my eyes might make your heart pound. But do these images actually convey anything more than an author who wanted to be "vivid" but instead got carried away into The Land of Surreal?
Speaking of words, the librarian loving words so much she sees them as "something to be rolled on the tongue, swallowed, and wholly appreciated" is a deeply annoying theme. People in real life who claim to be this way are also deeply annoying, like people who overdo the wine-tasting rituals.
I can tell you the plot, but trust me that it doesn't convey the real grabbing power of the story: when I was reading the book jacket in the library, I thought only, "Oh, all right." Ross is a man who keeps his eye out for ways to kill himself, but each attempt fails. His goal is to join his fiancee, who died in a car accident; failing that, he tries to get in touch with her spirit. He finds another spirit instead.
We dive into a mystery 70 years old: a woman who was suicidal and yet may have been murdered; a baby who was stillborn or maybe wasn't; a maid who disappeared. And the house where they lived, which seems to be at the center of a rash of peculiar happenings: rose petals falling from the sky, clocks stopping at midnight, the ground freezing solid in August, food tasting like sawdust. It's great, great stuff.