On my TBR list.

I need to pick up the pace!!

The Tell by Hester Kaplan

Since my reading is incredibly slow these days I figured I would go back and review a few of my favorite books. Hester Kaplan's, The Tell. is my first pick.

The Tell is one of those books you feel yourself sinking into while the sun is streaming in through the  window as you sit in an easy chair, enjoying the story page by page.  Until you are A. interrupted (which is always the case in my house) or B. you are finished. However, with my loving family's interruptions, I did finish it rather quickly as I enjoyed it so much.

Mira and Owen are a married couple with the usual characteristics of a tired relationship,. They live in a lovely home in Rhode Island, trying to sort themselves out.  Owen is a teacher at a local school that will be closing at the end of the year, Mira owns a struggling art school. Their lives become intertwined with their new neighbor, Wilton Deere, who moves into the beautiful home next door. Wilton is struggling with his own demons as he used to be a TV personality. no longer in the limelight nor wanted. He now directs most of his energies on the couple next door.

As the story unfolds, jealousy, omissions and secrets surround this couple and Wilton, who compounds their struggles  After a time, Mira joins Wilton on a trip to the casino which turns into an addiction for her. On the outskirts of the story, Wilton tries to resuscitate a relationship with his estranged daughter, Anya. 

Each character defines humans and their desperate struggle to cope and deal with the vast changes life hands out. Clashing most often, they try to function together as well as alone while hurtling down dark paths unable to find redemption.

Hester Kaplan is a fine writer, her story isn't flash and thrill. It's a subtle unfolding down a long dark road. A book road trip that the reader will embrace. Subtleties and all.

Buy it for sure. 

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

This book has a lot of hype swirling around it and that makes me default to the first Batman movie. I call it "The Batman Theory" which I apply to many things. If something gets a phenomenal degree of hype, I tend to avoid it until everyone shuts up about it and they are pretty much finishing up the movie.  I then have this crazy urgency to get the book read and over with. Batman was such a disappointment to me, it took me years to get over the hype lie. Years. So I tend to apply this theory to hyped up books.

I jumped on this one rather quickly, one more time, just one more time to kill off my Batman theory.

I wasn't disappointed, well, okay maybe I was a bit. Only because I EXPECTED incredible paced thrills, action, murder and mayhem. 

Not entirely so.

Think Hitchcock and all will be fine.

The book is about a woman named Rachel. She takes the train to London every day. During her daily stops at a station she observes a couple living in one of the homes along the tracks and gives them fake names. "Jake and Jess." Here, Rachel indulges herself with some happiness with a blissful marital  fantasy world that "Jake and Jess" live in. It helps her cope with her own less than perfect life.

One day, during a stop, Rachel observes something especially upsetting. After that she ends up going to the police weaving herself into the story while barely holding on due to her drinking but knowing that in all this confusion, she knows something. 

She just can't remember. 

And I can't tell you another damn thing in the description department.

What I liked about this book was the maddening descent into a very troubled world of marriage. Of alcoholism and what we lose, what we hope for and how we search for answers. I know that's vague but I don't want to give the story away. It took me a while to find Rachel endearing but I did about half way in. She was a complicated character and the author did a remarkable job in concealing Rachel but exposing her at the same time. I love it when an author can do that. 

What I didn't like was the slow pace at first, but that was totally on me. I was too busy to enjoy the Hitchcock type thriller I have always loved. I also noticed that the book is following a new trend in films and books, no extraneous characters. It's disturbing at first, it's like watching Castaway, you are completely ruffled over the isolated situation but so infatuated with it by the end of the movie. I think I do like this whole new effect. It somehow makes the story "clean" in all its messiness.

Buy it, Borrow it but don't skip it.

PS They really need to STOP this whole "if you loved Gone Girl you will love this book"craze. It's not Gone Girl it's not even remotely CLOSE to Gone Girl. No comparisons, they are two different books.

Decision has been made after batting a wary eye

This is my daughter, Christa. When she is trying to decide something she tunes out but keeps a wary eye on me. After her own quiet deliberation she will choose. Then go back to ignoring me completely. 

This one decision of mine cannot be ignored. But you can bet my eye is wary. The kid got it honest.

There is a lot of pressure out there, or so I have read, that reviewing books should be this way or that. Either be nice with your reviews or be honest. Or be nice and honest, or be one big blistering ninja, oh the variances in the arguments! 

Personally, I hate to pan a book. Someone took the time to pen it, peddle it and pray for the book to be successful. Since I know a small group of authors I understand the pain and frustration that goes into a book and it's total aftermath.

On the other hand... If a book is badly written it is badly written. I mean, I know it may appeal to the masses but so does cotton candy. Doesn't necessarily mean it's "good" (for you.) I will be the first person to say I disliked (hate is a toxic word) Fifty Shades of Grey and stand in a long line of people that disliked this series as well. I simply could not get past the plot. Seriously, it was so faulty and untrue that even the suspension of belief had a nervous breakdown. I won't pick on the writing, because, well... I am not a snob in grammar and such as I tend to need fifty shades of editors to get my sentences straight. (I do. I am a nurse, speak in acronyms and live in New Jersey where the slang is completely incomprehensible.)  I cannot pick on the writing. Though I will say this. It could have been BETTER. 

And really, we have so many varying opinions with this argument that I am going to go with my heart, my guts, my new kidney and pancreas (okay they are fifteen years old but who is counting?) If I don't like a book I will say why I do not like the book without being mean or irrational.

If it is really really woeful. It never happened. Okay?

This argument has been going around my conflicted brain for months now. I do not want to be cruel but I am not going to lie. 

And I deeply apologize for picking the most cliched book to dislike and use as an example.

The Jersey Bookhamlet on Pinterest

 https://www.pinterest.com/chezzaleigh/

I should be reading. And I am. But slowly as life seems to be against this great pleasure. Needless to say, I fill my precious sane seconds with Word Chums and my own Pinterest account. It's free therapy as my friend Robin calls it and a wonderful time filler. Especially, when you want to get on Facebook, Twitter or read a long article and you can't. Worse yet, you are separated, for whatever reason, from your book.

Which is a HORROR.

One day I was busy but had a minute (it was an hour) to waste and thought, well, I can't read, I can't think so I will make up a Pinterest account for the book blog. I was glad I did as I have been able to categorize many book subjects to contribute to my book group and this blog. One example was stumbling upon a heap of books on the gilded age. Pinterest is a great source to find all kinds of books things, not just books, but literary jewelry, art, quotes, and home libraries. So take a visit over there and maybe it will inspire you to start your own book account. 

Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch

I will warn you. Do not read reviews on this book. Most reviewers spill the entire story. And I hate that. 

When I buy a book, after skimming a description, I refuse to read another bit about the book. I dive in sometimes forgetting the description and it has brought a new edge to reading. I know nothing, I am surprised, shocked, thrilled, pissed off, quite pleased, and/or haunted. It lends to a better reading experience. No spoilers from a review. Just diving into the pool on a cold day.

 

I wasn't kidding a few blogs back when I said this book will bring certain feels as The Dinner had, and I was right. I was angrier this round, though still holding Koch in high regard for his ability to make you hate the characters yet understand what they think say or do as it is real life, they are scary, real feelings  and behaviors you may have had at one time in your life. But you never once breathe these things to another person ever..

I call it the Id gone mad.

Okay so Dr. Marc Schlosser, a misanthropist, who has his own practice sees patients for forty five minutes per visit. They love this time spent with the doctor. He listens to them talk, rather, he listens half hearted meandering into an inner dialogue of what he can't stand about the human body, particularly that patient's body or lifestyle who sits before him. 

If you love your doctor, you may hate him of her after reading this. You may even refuse to take off your clothes ever again. That's my only warning.

Even as a nurse, I cringed. 

One patient, in particular, a very hefty loud mouth man named Ralph Meier, a famous actor, invites him to another much hated function in which Marc begrudgingly drags his wife.  Ralph leers at Marc's wife, with pure animal fervor while Marc intellectually lusts and leers after Ralph's wife.

Enter the invite to the summer house with swimming pool on the Mediterranean with Ralph, his wife,  and boys. Along with a famous director and his very young girlfriend.

Things do NOT go along swimmingly. During a beach celebration one night, Marc's daughter is raped. Not knowing who this rapist is, the reader is left to explore the rest of the book with Marc, during and post vacation, while his life and family slowly descends into vortex of disaster. 

Koch leaves you guessing. A+ for that right there.

Koch makes you cluck your tongue in disgust at every turn. A+ He's not writing Anne of Green Gables people.

I closed the book and sighed. Koch did it again. 

I had to re-read the last part of the book one more time, to understand.  Maybe I had to read it again to confirm what I had just read was what it was.  A++++++ even though this makes me crazy, I love to think long and hard about a book weeks/months/years later.

It has been written that The Dinner was better. They are equal.

It's not an icky read if you are someone like me who can read Chuck Palahniuk  with a keen sense of humor or A.M. Homes  with a keen sense of self, and a good firm footing on the ails of humanity. 

Summer House with Swimming Pool is about selfish people, selfish motives and selfish happenings, but it's the proverbial train wreck, you can't help but look.

Borrow it if you feel you may slam it shut, throw it at your friend or family member that let you borrow it. At least they get their book returned even if it is in violence.

Buy it if you are a true Herman Koch fan like me.