Fall on Your Knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald (1996)
I don't like cryptic beginnings, so I nearly missed this excellent book. The prologue is spacy, and I had to re-read parts of the first chapter several times before I felt like I understood well enough to continue reading. Once I caught the rhythm, there was no stopping: this book is full of misery and drama, and there's no more bewitching combination when the writing is good.
The problem with a good book about misery is describing it so other people will want to read it. So how about this: just read it. It's good. It's about some siblings and how their lives unfold.
Quarantine, by Greg Egan (1992)
Greg Egan is a science-y science fiction author. I am not a science-oriented person. Science and I do not walk hand in hand. And yet I could still enjoy this book, especially when I asked a science-minded friend for a few clarifications on quantum mechanics. I didn't understand the ending, but that did not frustrate me. I found that in thinking about the book over the next day or two, I enjoyed reflecting on the topics presented.
For another view, I asked my science-minded friend his opinion of the book and its author. He said that he felt that Greg Egan might take a scientific concept in an unlikely creative direction, but that he (Greg Egan) doesn't misunderstand or misrepresent the original concept--very important to science-y people, who do not like it, I've found, if non-science-y people go around acting like they know about wormholes. My science-y friend said that for the record, he didn't understand the ending either.
The hardest part of any science fiction book for me is getting past the set-up, where the narrator has to explain to us about what the future is like, while acting as if we know it already. Some authors can't handle this at all, and you get things like, "As everyone knows, the aliens attacked in 2053 and....". Greg Egan does a better job than most; just plow through it and you'll be caught up in the story soon.
The story is that one day a huge shell appeared around our solar system, cutting us off from everything else. No one knows why, but theories abound. A private investigator stumbles upon the answer while searching for a missing girl. The "many worlds" theory is involved, for those of you who like science.
The Wedding Bargain, by Agnes Sligh Turnbull (1966)
It's so condescending of me to refer to this story as "quaint" or "old-fashioned." Nevertheless, those words came to mind again and again.
When Dan Morgan, successful businessman, finds he is plagued by the advances of every eligible female in the city, he decides the only way to protect himself is to marry. He proposes to his secretary Eliza in a businesslike way, explaining that he respects her but that it would be a practical marriage and not a love match. She accepts. Of course she has been in love with him for years without him knowing it.
They settle in together, and Eliza works hard to make him a happy peaceful home, as per her part of the bargain. Of course she has to quit her job, because she is married now. She begins to have a problem with a woman named Paula: Paula feels she, Paula, should have married Dan, and she is determined to make a conquest no matter the cost. Meanwhile, Eliza is finding it harder and harder to pretend that she has only businesslike feelings for Dan, and she wonders if it was wise to accept his terms. Do you suppose that in the end Dan will realize he truly loves her?
Despite my cynical tone, I thought it was a good book. A little silly now, maybe, and funny to realize that when he says he still wants his freedom he would never mean he wanted to see other women (he just doesn't want to be nagged when he stays late at work), but well-written and engaging.
Morning, by Nancy Thayer (1987)
Theoretically there are other plot lines, but the dominant one is "woman struggles with infertility." You may expect the usual "Why me?" whining, the usual "I hate smug pregnant women" jealousy, and the usual "How could other women be so thoughtless as to get pregnant when I can't?" self-pity. There is a mix of accurate and inaccurate fertility information, but pleasingly weighted on the side of accuracy for a change.
Sara, our "I thought I could get pregnant until I was 42, why am I having trouble conceiving?" heroine, is also a book editor. While editing a romance novel, she finds pages of another book of a much higher caliber. Or rather, she feels it's of a much higher caliber: I could barely get myself to read the provided samples. She tries to persuade the author to submit this other book for publication, but the author is strangely reluctant--and at times, strangely elusive.
The book is tepidly good at best. I did finish reading it, but I got sick of Sara and I didn't care how the plots worked out.
Cassandra French's Finishing School for Boys, by Eric Garcia (2004)
The narrator of the book is female. The author is male. I hate this.
If I read a book with a female narrator and female author, and for some reason I find the female narrator objectionable, I can assume that the author is that sort of woman, or that she has written a character who is that sort of woman. If I read a book with a female narrator and a male author, and for some reason I find the female narrator objectionable, I am continually yanked out of the book to wonder indignantly if this man thinks women seriously go around thinking this way.
Cassandra French goes around thinking about clothing brands, shoes, and make-up, pretty much all the time. It is unsurprising to me that the author says his research for this narrator involved reading neon-pink-covered novels. It annoys me to think that "chick lit" should be considered the doorway to a woman's mind.
The plot has great potential. When Cassandra French meets a man who seems wonderful at first but then, for example, slobbers on her and throws up in the parking lot, she takes him home and locks him in her basement for months on end to teach him how to be a better man. This teaching involves classes in style, fashion, foreplay, manners, etc. This teaching also involves handcuffs, chains, and morphine. Cassandra French has a class of three when we meet her, but she is always open to new students.
The plot seems designed to be funny, light, twisted in an amusing way--and yet, it's not. It's too serious: one man turns out to have a pregnant girlfriend; another man actually DIES in Cassandra's care. This puts a damper on the bwah-ha-ha-women's-revenge theme. I kept trying to enjoy it but getting caught up short by another jarring occurrence---or irritating reference to shoes.
Snowed In, by Christina Bartolomeo (2004)
Uncompelling novel about a married woman attracted to a man who has a girlfriend. Isn't it fortunate for them that their respective partners both ditch them so they can be together? *yawn*
The Problem With Murmur Lee, by Connie May Fowler (2005)
I felt like I should love this quirky book. It has chapter headings such as "A Grocery List, Written in Murmur Lee Harp's Excessive Cursive Script, Unread, Lost Amid the Cobwebs Behind Her Rusting Refrigerator." But here's the thing: it IS just a grocery list, and it's not interesting to read, so then the book starts to seem deliberate and forced, and before I knew it I wasn't really interested. Murmur Lee has the same problem as the book: she's supposed to be appealingly quirky, but instead she's forced and boring. I didn't feel like she was a real person, just a sort of consolidation of things people might want to admire.
Editing problems kept distracting me. Murmur Lee refers to herself as "halfway through my third decade on this planet" when in fact she is thirty-five. (Math not your thing either? Think of it this way: how old are you when you are halfway through your FIRST decade on this planet? Five years old.) Someone is "wailing on" someone else, when they're actually whaling on them.
The descriptions of Murmur's life after death get lacy and free-association: "My soul blinks open (it smells of salt and gardenia)..." The high interest level of hearing about an after-death experience is squelched by the author's crush on the beauty of her own words.
Liberating Paris, by Linda Bloodworth Thomason (2004)
Boy, am I ever tired of towns with names that make good TV/movie/book titles.
This book is like two interwoven books, one good book and one sucky one, and we go back and forth between them. Sometimes the plot is excellent and the characters are excellent and the dialogue is excellent--and sometimes they all suck. This makes it tricky to write a review.
The bad parts are, for the most part, rants. The rants are, for the most part, about how big stores have ruined small-town Main Streets where people Really Care. I don't mind this for a page or two, but it goes on and on and ON, and we revisit the subject repeatedly. We also get to hear a great deal about how wonderful things USED to be, compared to how things are NOW. And the gaggingly high tone the rants take! Get this: "Afterward, there was cake and punch, enjoyed by all, because these little ones were still too young to have caught on to the idea that old people have no value. ...It reminded some of the more clear-thinking old folks of how things used to be--children sitting and listening to their grandparents' wisdom...." For the love of pete.
But the good parts compensate. There were many times I paused in delight at a well-turned sentence or description. You can skim the rants.
Callgirl, by Jeannette Angell (2004)
My god, I have been blind! Until it was pointed out to me that I was closed-minded and judgmental and "conditioned by society," I hadn't understood that being a prostitute is exactly like being an architect: exchanging professional expertise for money! It's a legitimate career, and it's not at all degrading because women do it voluntarily and are in control the whole time! In fact, it's empowering! Plus, it makes a ton of cash, which is good for self-esteem! And anyone who thinks it's a bad idea is just a big hypocrite who does far worse things! Killing children is bad, and by comparison prostitution is hardly bad at all! Besides, women who "give it away" are stupid and manipulative and self-delusional! Whereas prostitutes are intelligent women with doctorate degrees who righteously work for their money rather than going on welfare! Prostitutes keep guys with weird fantasies from hurting innocent women! We should all join together to sing the praises of prostitutes! Prostitutes are people too!