Life After Life.

In the opening pages of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life there’s an index listing out different, non-linear time periods for the chapters. In typical fashion I skipped right past it and forty pages deep wondered if I’d ruined the experience for myself: the plot was jumping around so much I considered starting over again. Stubbornness prevailed and now having finished the book I think the dislocation is intentional, you’re meant to grab on to the narrative and ride out the threads of the story.

Set in between World War I and II, Ursula is born in rural England to a large family. From an early age other people observe that there’s something off about her. She can anticipate things that are going to happen and play with their outcomes. Her sixth sense and frequent bouts of déjà vu pull the story in several different directions as she matures and World War II kicks into gear. The plot will curl one direction and then reset, with Ursula taking the reins to try and set the course differently this time. 

It took me halfway through to get my bearings and feel comfortable with the style, and only then did I realize the depth and brilliance of the book. The last third was some of the best writing and story-telling I’ve ever experienced. The repetition of passages throughout the different lives Ursula lives gives the reader their own sense of déjà vu and shows that the things that mean most to people stick with them regardless of personal choices. There are paths taken, some are completely catastrophic but most are simply average in their eventual heartbreak. But sometimes, if you get things perfectly right after lifetimes of practice, you can rearrange even the most absolute futures.

BRB, reading everything else Kate Atkinson has ever written.

This Is How You Lose Her.

Junot Diaz’s short story collection This Is How You Lose Her was part apologia, part cautionary tale to the female sex about just how deceptive and careless men can be. This was a quick read, but it was enjoyable luxuriating in his spanglish sentences and conversational prose. Having heard him read a handful of times his speaking voice and written voice are one and the same in my mind, that to me is the true genius of his writing; being able to keep a consistent voice on the page and in person. Authors being brilliant both in person and on the page is a rarity. I wasn’t sure I was going to like TIHYLH as much as his previous work because the profiles leading up to the book’s release tipped the scales toward obnoxious territory. Maybe the profile writers were determined to paint him as Yunior, his written alter ego, and that was disenchanting for people like me expecting pages on Junot Diaz the accomplished author, not the womanizer.

The last story in the collection, The Cheater’s Guide To Love, is a step by step breakdown of the ways and means Yunior utilizes over the span of the years it takes him to try to get over his ex-fiancee. Given the overlap in autobiographical material between Diaz and Yunior, I thought the story was brave because it’s easy for readers to digest this as the actual sequence of events. I couldn’t help but think that the story was one final bullet point on the guide’s checklist, that it was written for her.

A Bay Area State of Mind.

In 2012 I read very few books written by men. This was unintentional, for some reason my to-read list just happened to be dominated by writers of the fairer sex. This month I’ve read two books in a row by men, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan and A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins and the parallels between the two novels are eerie. They both deal with male protagonists in their early 30’s living in San Francisco who feel lost and disconnected surrounded by the booming tech industry. An odd coincidence to choose such similar books back to back.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore has had a lot of buzz surrounding it, and rightfully so. If you’re into secret societies, bookish people, and how emerging technology fits with literature you will love this book. The writing is sharp and fresh and I liked the exploration of legacies and how each person weighs their own worldly contributions. A Working Theory of Love had me conflicted; at times I enjoyed it, particularly the father-son dialogue bits, but through most of the book I wanted to reach through the pages and shake the tedious, brooding, self-pitying narrator out of his funk. 

Final verdict: read Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, skip A Working Theory of Love.

Bring Up the Bodies

Bring Up the Bodies is the second book in Hilary Mantel’s historical fiction series on Thomas Cromwell’s rise to the top during King Henry VIII’s reign. Contemporary culture has been inundated with re-tellings of this time period such as The Tudors and The Other Boleyn Sister, but Mantel’s work is the first time we’ve seen things through the eyes of King Henry VIII’s right-hand man: Cromwell.

Bring Up the Bodies picks up right where Wolf Hall left off: Cromwell is squarely on top of his game after successfully angling to get Henry’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon nullified and cementing his new marriage to Anne Boleyn. The focus is now on offspring. Henry is on a mission to produce a male heir with Anne Boleyn while figuring out what to do with Mary now that he has de-legitimized his marriage to her mother. On the other side of the coin, Cromwell has a son, Gregory, who he views as simple, sweet and likely to amount to very little. Between these familial issues and the posturing at court, the politics surrounding Anne Boleyn’s marriage to Henry VIII truly come to life.

Do you need to start with Wolf Hall, the first book, to fully appreciate Bring Up the Bodies? No, you can get away with skipping it, but you should read it anyway because it will deepen and enrich your reading of Bring Up the Bodies. And you will want to get as much out of it as you can—last night after reading the last sentences all I could do was say “holy shit” out loud to myself. I thought Wolf Hall was an impressive book for the writing and the amount of historical detail provided, but it was a little on the dense side. Bring Up the Bodies is flawless in every sense of the word, right down to the last pages which account for quite possibly the best closing sentences of a book I’ve ever read.

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling.

1. I didn’t love it or hate it, but if you’re like me, you will want to read anything J.K. Rowling writes no matter what the reviews say.
2. I didn’t realize how much I missed the Harry Potter font, my old friend, until seeing it back in action in The Casual Vacancy. 
3. Petty local government issues are petty. Characters mired in petty local government issues aren’t necessarily sympathetic or compelling.
4. Are fathers really this vicious? Re: Simon Price and Colin Wall.
5. Interesting that Rowling fell back on children’s world vs. adult world structure again.
6. The government website message board as a plot device did not work for me. At all. It felt super clumsy.
7. Shirley Mollison = Dolores Umbridge and you can’t tell me otherwise.