The Book: Thirteen Moons, by Charles Frazier

The Story: When he is young, Will Cooper is orphaned and sent to live with his aunt and uncle. They don’t have time money to take care of him so they get him hooked up with a job running a small trading post out in the middle of Indian country.

He has just twelve when they put him on a horse, give him a key to the trading post and send him off. He is initially, of course, terrified and not great at what he does. As he gets to know the Indians and starts to understand their customs, in a lot of ways he becomes part of their tribe.

He is wildly in love with Claire, the daughter of the feared and respected Featherstone. Their love ties all the parts of Will’s life together and spans over the course of his entire life.

Told looking back on his life at an old age, Will is able to connect dots and draw lessons from the unique and powerful things that he experienced.

What I Thought: In short, I thought that this book was amazing.

Charles Frazier is one of those authors that can just write his butt off. He makes gorgeous description and haunting detail seem easy. His writing ebbs and flows in a perfectly lyrical but not too over-the-top way. It’s hard to pull off and he does it like no one else out there today.

I really like books that are written from the perspective of an older person looking back on their life. Sometimes it can feel cheesy, but again- Charles Frazier hit the nail right on the head. I think that this voice of “This was my life and I’m not always proud of it, but this is how it happened” was perfectly, perfectly captured. His relationship with Claire was literally enough to bring tears to my eyes. So, so beautiful.

This book, however, is not super plot heavy. I was totally ok with this because I was enamored with the characters and mostly with the writing, but if you are a person that needs a plot that skips along, you should probably pass this one up.

After I finished reading, I Googled a bit to see what parts of this book were completely fiction and what was drawn from fact. I was really impressed to see actual historians discussing this book and how completely accurate it was. I even saw where someone had said that it was pretty much the perfect historical fiction because it is very accurate but blends in really well written characters as well. I have to agree. This book was totally magical to me.

Conclusion: I don’t think that this is for everyone, but if you love historical fiction and stunning detail, you will devour this.

The Book: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, by Catherine Howe

The Story: Connie is an academic who is challenged a bit by her academic advisor. He asks her to consider the possibility that the people accused in Salem in the 1690’s were actually just witches.

She kind of shoves his question to the back of her mind and goes about her life… which just so happens to include going through/cleaning out her deceased grandmother’s house. She finds a few clues that lead to more clues and pretty soon she is taking her advisor’s questions much, much more seriously.

What I Thought: I really wanted to like this. When I was in middle school, I took a trip to Boston and we visited Salem. I LOVED it. I was totally enamored with the history, the town, the stories, everything. The cover art for this book is what made me pick it up, but when I read that it was about the Salem Witch Trials, I bought it in about 3 seconds.

It had a lot of potential. It really did. But there were some serious, serious flaws. Allow me to make a list.

1. Connie is supposed to be an academic. She is an idiot. She had supposedly been studying the colonial time period for the entirety of her academic career and she couldn’t make simple, simple connections (like “bottel” being an older, phonetic spelling for… well… “bottle”). One or two little slip ups would have been alright, but at a certain point her ignorance became annoying.

2. The whole book was written in a way that a middle schooler could have read it. In fact, had I read this during my middle school trip to Salem, I probably would have loved it. They should take out the crappy love story and just market this to kids.

3. The love story really is crappy. The predictability is off the charts and Sam just fell totally flat for me. Gag.

4. There are maybe 1,000,000 stereotypes represented in this book and each one annoyed me more than the last.

5. The past storyline (about Deliverance Dane) was actually pretty interesting. Unfortunately, these parts were few and far between and most of the time we were stuck with stupid Connie.

I honestly could keep going, but I’ll spare you.

Conclusion: This book is gross and awful. Please don’t read it.

The Book: Cloudsplitter, by Russell Banks

The Story: Cloudsplitter is a novel about the abolitionist John Brown (of Harper’s Ferry/Bloody Kansas fame), as told by his last surviving son, Owen. This book is Owen’s life story and confession.

Owen describes what it was like being John Brown’s son, kind of revealing him as a deeply religious father with high moral standards and expectations for his children, as well as for himself. John Brown is a strong, compassionate, but demanding and commanding figure. When John Brown decided to really “go big” he took his sons along with him. Owen went, though reluctantly and became his father’s right hand man. Although he was admittedly reluctant at first, once he decided he was in, he was all the way in.

From the little cabin that he has lived in for years, Owen writes his long-winded tale about not only his upbringing, but his adulthood and the effect his family is still (in the early 1900’s when he is writing) having on politics and race relations.

What I Thought: Whew. It is always so hard to try to boil down an 800 page book into a few sentences.

I had this book on my TBR pile forever but kept putting it off. I even started it once and was totally turned off by the prose itself. In an attempt to really capture Owen’s voice, Russell Banks developed this old, long winded, preachy way of writing and at first it seemed awful. After I got into the flow and started to really identify who Owen was, the writing seemed perfect and I just sunk right into it. There are areas where it’s just way too wordy and was almost frustrating to read, but it just worked somehow. John Brown himself was a talker and a schemer and it just seemed like Owen picked up part of that. If nothing else, I applaud Russell Banks for picking a voice and sticking with it in a big way. It made Owen come to life.

I didn’t know a huge amount about John Brown before I read this and was pleased to find out that a good part of his life took place really near where I live! I even found out that there is a little memorial set up near here and I plan to go and see it once it gets warmer. It’s always fun to hear references to familiar places.

I knew very little about John Brown going into this- I knew that he was a white guy that wanted to end slavery and raided Harper’s Ferry which, in a lot of ways knocked over the dominoes that started the Civil War. Yes, dominos started the Civil War. You heard it here first, folks. Anyway, I loved learning more about his upbringing and family life. The father-son relationship here, the dynamic between Owen and John Brown is pretty much what made the book for me. Owen’s need/desire to rise to John Brown’s expectations despite his own inner voice was fascinating to me and just so well written. You could just feel this tension that was taking place in the young man’s mind- this cognitive dissonance. He knew what was right (not killing people, also not slavery) but also wanted to please his father (who thought that bloodshed was the only way to fix this problem) so badly. That back and forth in his mind was intense.

That’s all I’ve got. This is one of those books I could talk about for a long time- the race relations, how we change as we grow, childhood’s effect on our adulthood, the need for comfort and people, the Civil War… all fascinating things. I went into this book honestly expecting little but came away knowing a bit more not only about John Brown but about that time period and, really, about human nature. Pretty big deal.

Conclusion: Not a light, easy book by any stretch but one that I would say is worth the effort.

The Book: The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson

The Story: One chilly morning a hugely-pregnant girl named Lillie is found floating in the town’s reservoir. Initially, it is assumed to be a suicide and kind of swept under the rug. A detective notices some clues that say otherwise and a group of men start investigating and conclude that this was not a suicide, but a homicide. Eek.

When fingers start to point, most of them point right at her cousin Tommie. As their past comes to the surface, it really does seem plausible that he could have murdered her, but he his adamantly denying any charges.

By the time the case makes it to the courtroom it has gained national attention and most people want to see Tommie hang. The book ends with a courtroom climax that will leave your head spinning.

What I Thought: I found out after I was about halfway through this book that it was based on a true story. The author put tons of time researching a case that was a national phenomenon and then decided to put flesh on it. This added so, so much to the book for me. I loved looking on Wikipedia and finding out that most of what I was reading had actually happened. Totally wild.

I thought that the book as a whole was just all right. The writing didn’t blow me away or annoy me. It was interesting but not captivating. It was gripping but not heart wrenching or anything. It was just a book.

I liked the time period. I really enjoy reading about the Civil War and this took place right after the Civil War in Virginia, so there was a lot going on there and I enjoyed that aspect.

I’m also a sucker for a good sibling story and the heart of this book is not as much a murder mystery but a family drama, mainly revolving around these two brothers, Tommy and Willie. Tommie’s innocence or guilt, Willie’s belief and disbelief and both of their love and involvement with Lillie are really what gave this book its legs. While I enjoyed reading about the relationships, I still thought that the author could have given them more depth. They were all pretty surface-level, and that’s too bad because I think that he was onto something good here.

Conclusion: The back-and-forth, did-he-do-it will thrill true-crime readers and historical fiction lovers alike, but the chances of you finding something here that you haven’t read before are pretty slim.

The Book: City of Thieves, by David Benioff

The Story: So, this is going to sound wild, but this is the story: a guy goes and visits his Grandpa and starts asking him questions about his experience in WWII. So the Grandpa, Lev, tells him what happened to him.

Which is this: He was living in Leningrad and kind of doing his thing.  He was this quiet, small Jewish kid who is too young for the army so he’s still just kind of trying to survive.  One day, a German paratrooper just kind of falls through the sky near his group of friends. They start looting the body, but when soldiers show up his friends jet and he’s too slow and gets caught.

He’s thrown into prison with this charismatic, wild guy named Kolya.  He’s been booted from the army for taking an extra day (or 10) of leave to get cozy with a girl he just met.  They both kind of figure that they’re toast.

In a twist of fate, they are given one chance to survive:  a powerful colonel is throwing a wedding party for his daughter in a week and needs a dozen eggs.  In this point in history, it would probably be easier for them to find an elephant wondering the streets, but they set off through the cold streets to get their hands on some eggs.

What I Thought: Beware: There’s some serious gushing ahead.

I frigging loved this.

I cannot even say enough.  The writing was fresh and crisp and perfect.  The characters we well developed and believable.  The story was creative and well executed.  The pacing kept me on the edge of my seat.  I am in love.

There are two things that really sold this book for me:

1.  The voice.  This is told by an old man looking back on his life.  He is so sincere and real… he is also hilarious.  How can a book about these hard times be funny?  I really have no idea, but it was.  It was clever and witty and wonderful.

2.  Rarely have I read a book with so much heart. It is just a skinny little thing- maybe 250 or 300 pages, but oh my word. It is kind of just this coming-of-age story for Lev.  Over the course of their quest for eggs, he grows into a man and rarely have I read anything so perfect.

I cannot say enough. This book is stellar. Stellar, I say.

Conclusion: Read this. Today.

The Book: Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith

The Story: Here’s the thing: obviously communism did not work in the Soviet Union.  They were shooting for this pretty perfect society and lots and lots of things went wrong.  They were shooting for a society where murder was not committed, so when one was… well, they just covered it up.  Pretty much they were just fixing the numbers.  Who knows how many times this happened, but I’d guess that it was a lot.

Tom Rob Smith takes this idea and creates and entire novel around it.

Leo is a war hero and is living pretty much in luxury.  When he says something against the state, he gets in huge trouble… and the only way to get out is to uncover the identity of a murderer.  This guy has killed (at least) 44 children and is showing no sign of slowing down.  The murders are grisly and stretch back years and years.  With few details to go on, no one but his wife at his side, and his life at stake, Leo is in a hurry to find this murderer and save his life as well as the lives of many children.

What I Thought: This is another one of those books that I’d been eyeballing for a long time, and squealed a little when I saw it at a book sale for a buck.  This just sounds right up my alley: post-WWII, political thriller, intrigue, you know, the whole bit.  So I went in with a little bit of expectation for this really great book.

And for once, I wasn’t let down in any way.

I loved this.

I loved the perspective, I loved the flawed characters, I loved the writing, I loved the story. I loved it.

I thought that the pacing was great and I was seriously carving time out of my busy day to read… like, say, in the line at the grocery or while the shower water got hot.  I had to know what was going to happen… I think that that is a marker of a great book.

Even the main characters were really kind of messed up, but in this way that made them identifiable and I sort of fell in love with Leo from the get-go.

This really just captured the time period with a real grace.  He didn’t cover up the bad stuff, but he was also quick to point out these little joys that Leo and his wife were allowed.  I felt like I was right there beside them, racing to figure this thing out.

I don’t know what else to say without gushing.  This is a good one.  If you are into this time period or just mystery/thriller books in general, keep your eyes out for this one.  Good stuff.

Conclusion: A great story, great characters and pretty good writing.  Just keep in mind that it gets pretty grisly at times and is not for the weak of heart.

Stones From the River, by Ursula Hegi

Wow. I feel like I have been reading this forever!  I am only about 300 pages in but oh my word!

Here’s the thing: I kind of love it.  It is beautifully written and it takes place during WWII, which I love… but I cannot sit down and read more than 10 or 15 pages at a time. It’s unreal.

My mom let me borrow this book and she just went on and on and on about it, and I feel like when I’m done, I’ll probably do the same thing… just right now, nothing is happening.  It’s been 300 straight pages of introduction and I’m creeeeeeping.

That’s all. I feel a book rut coming on. I just wanted to let you know.

The Book: Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks

The Story: Anna lives with her two children in a remote town in England. An infected bolt of cloth brings the plague from London and things start to get pretty crazy.  The rector of the village calls everyone together and basically begs them not to leave.  They have the plague germs on them anyway and they should just stick it out as a town instead of spreading it all through the mountainside.

Because Anna is trained as a healer, she just goes right to work.  She literally starts going from house to house just nursing people through, even after horrible deaths in her own house.

What follows is pretty much a witch hunt.  Healers, people that didn’t get sick, and people who got sick later than everyone else were suspected of being witches and, in a couple cases, tossed off cliffs and stuff. Totally crazy.

Also mixed in: illicit love, battles with faith, a whole community disintegrating, and other goodies

What I Thought: I think I would probably read Geraldine Brooks’ grocery list.  She can just WRITE.  I have read a few of her other books and every time, I walk away just plain old impressed.  There is just something a little magical about her words that blows me away.

The women in Year of Wonders are these great, strong characters.  Many of the men are just kind of crappy and weak.  When this town is faced with this horrible situation, the women step up, take control, and do what they can to save their town.  While they live in a society that is largely ruled by men they stay in “their place” and just do what they can do as well as they can.  It’s kind of inspiring and sad.

All the characters are just so human.  Their decisions are hard and their relationships are gritty.  They are scared.  They just seemed real and I could really put myself in their place.

The amount of research that must have gone into this is a little staggering to me.   While there were a few little anachronisms in the  characters’ speech, the overall work was well researched and really interesting.

So this book was pretty amazing.  It had this intriguing story, these great characters, an amazing premise (and it was based on a true story!), and had a great author to bring it to life.  Good stuff.

Then…. in the last 50 pages, it bit the dust.  Seriously.  I don’t wait to spoil it for you because it truly is worth the read but it was moving along great… it even kind of ended… then it is like Geraldine Brooks got annoyed that her book was only 250 pages so she decided to add another 50 and… wow. It got weird.  Honestly the ending doesn’t even seem to connect to the rest of the book.  It’s just wild. It doesn’t even seem like it’s written by the same person. I don’t know.

Conclusion: If I were rating the first 250 pages: 5 stars. Last 50 pages: 2 stars.  So I guess I end up with a 3.5 star book here, but for a 5 star book, just quit reading when you start scratching your head.

The Book: The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant

The Story: In the Bible, Dinah’s story is sort of overshadowed by her dad and her brothers.  She was the daughter of Jacob and had 12 pretty wild brothers.  All we know was that she was raped and her brothers took revenge into their own hands.  The Bible doesn’t tell how she felt or what happened to her after that or… well, anything.  The Red Tent kind of takes Dinah’s story from the beginning and just fleshes it out.  We get to see her mothers, her dad, and her brothers through her eyes and really get a pretty unique perspective on history and this pretty infrequently  mentioned Bible story.

What I Thought: It was pretty interesting to read this book when I did.  My church was doing a series on Joseph and his story and doing something similar- just imagining what life was like for him outside of the details that the Bible gives us.  I remembered that I had this book in my pile, so I decided to read it at the same time.  Way, way interesting.

I love, love, loved the first half of this book.  It covered Dinah growing up with Rachel and Leah and Jacob and all those brothers.  I have always been a little bit obsessed with Joseph’s story, thanks mostly to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and I thought it was way interesting to think about Dinah and how all of her family’s antics would have effected her.  The dynamic between Jacob and his wives was, honestly, not one that I had ever considered to carefully.  Their jealousies and love for each other and dependence on each other and on Jacob was a pretty fascinating thing to think about.

I was shocked at the way that women were treated and I think that a lot of that was probably well researched and true.  I know that The Red Tent got a lot of flack for being brutal and sad and mean towards women.  I think that things for women probably were brutal and sad and mean a lot of the time during these times.  I thought that it was interesting to read about how women were treated and how Leah and Rachel and Dinah kind of rebelled against that in quiet ways.

Had the book gone on like that until the end, this would have been one of my favorite books I’ve read in a long time.  After she gets “raped” (according to this story, Dinah fell in love, got married but her brothers didn’t approve so they kind of fabricated the rape story), the book kind of fell apart for me. Dinah ends up kind of traveling and manipulating and trying to just make her way in the world because she can’t live with her family anymore.  While it was still well written, it just seemed aimless and kind of boring.  I found myself skimming and wanting to be done reading.  Meh.

Even with that, I thought that the book as a whole was pretty amazing.  I thought that it was written well and that even someone who had no background with the Jacob/Leah/Rachel/Joseph story could have figured it out pretty quickly.  I though that the characters were real and vibrant and that the whole time period kind of came alive.

So. Overall?  Great in the first half, mediocre through the second half, but overall well worth the read.

Conclusion: Especially if you have a passing interest in the Old Testament or Joseph’s story, read this right away.  If not, I think that it is still worth the read, but I can see where you may not enjoy it as much.

The Book: The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason

The Story: Edgar Drake is one of the top piano tuners in all of London.  One day, he is pulled aside by officials and asked to go on a special mission.  There seems to be a higher-up in the military that needs his piano tuned… trick is, he’s in Burma in the middle of nowhere.  He seems to have developed a way of keeping the villages there at peace and it’s quite different than the normal “military posted all over the place” technique.  He has, instead, brought them music.

Totally intrigued by all of this, Edgar agrees immediately.  He has lived in the same place all his life and made all the “right” moves.  He is excited at the prospect of this adventure, even if it means leaving his wife who he truly loves.

After a long and exciting journey to reach Burma, Edgar is met by a man who is quite different than what he had imagined.  The village itself is different too.  He is totally drawn into their life and culture.  He meets the villagers and learns their stories.

Before long, he is wrapped up in a situation that is quite a bit bigger than himself and is looking for a way out… but the journey to get there was tough and the journey to get out is looking much, much tougher.

What I Thought: I was super intrigued by the idea of this book.  The setting was the mid-1800’s in England and Burma.  I am pretty sure that I’ve never read historical fiction about this time and place so I was excited.

The part of me that wanted to learn about a new time was fulfilled.  I’m sure that the author had to do some serious research to get all of this down.  There were tons of great details and bits and pieces that I really grabbed onto.  The journey to Burma, by train and boat was the best part of the book.  The first 50 or 60 pages, while slow, were chock full of great detail and seemed very historically accurate.

Other than that?  This book totally fell flat for me.  I thought that it was overwritten in a way that was almost comical.  Sometimes I can deal with crazy-writing if the plot is solid, but I thought that there was quite a bit lacking there too.  Until the last 50 pages, nothing at all happened… then in the last 50 pages the whole book blew up. It seemed like the last 50 pages were written in a burst by a different author because someone (thankfully) realized that this book would have to reach a conclusion at some point. Even the “twist ending” kind of fell flat and then just fizzled…

I think this was probably a case of a great idea with horrible pacing.  I am not one of those people that want a book to just move along at a clip.  I enjoy a slow burn every once in awhile, but this was all so inconsistent. It was slow, slow, slow and then all of a sudden it jumped into overdrive. Just poor writing.

Conclusion: I really do think that if you had a real interest in Burma, pianos, or this particular time period that you could probably enjoy this.  I’m not particularly  interested in any of this, so I wasn’t blown away.