Book Reviews December 2019

Eileen by Ottesa Moshfegh.  At first I strongly disliked this novel.  Everything was so ugly!  By the end, however, I felt a slightly grudging admiration for what Moshfegh had achieved.  The narrator, Eileen, is writing about a time in her early adulthood when she was stuck in a horrible home with a horrible job and a horrible mindset.  Things come to a head and she escapes, but oh!  The ugliness!

Abandon Me by Melissa Febos.  This was an interesting nonfiction book about an intense love affair. Febos is a good writer and the book reminded me of a modern day version of Marguerite Duras's The Lover.  I do recommend.

Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips.  I loved this novel.  It takes place way in the north of Russia and each chapter focuses on a different woman in the city.  All have links in various ways and in each chapter there is a reference to the events of the first chapter in which two sisters are kidnapped.  Phillips's writing is really impressive and it was a fascinating read.

The Problem With Everything by Meghan Daum.  I generally really enjoy Meghan Daum's writing.  She's two years younger than I am and always seemed to me to be a smart voice of generation X.  I thought she was a little "off" in this book, however -- a little grumpy and a little wrong.  She's writing about the #metoo movement and thinks that people need to buck up.  I think she willfully misconstrues the point and that we perhaps need to temporarily pass though an extreme to reach an equilibrium.  I don't quite agree with her slant, and found it an odd topic on which to base an entire book of essays.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Windgate.  This was a fun read although not hugely nuanced.  It goes back and forth between a family in the 30's who lived on a houseboat and whose kids were kidnapped by a state agency and adopted out to wealthy couples (a true story), and a modern day southern political family who discovers the truth about these origins.

The Bird Boys by Lisa Sandlin.  I read this on the recommendation of the New York Times's Marilyn Stasio, but I didn't like it.  It's about a detective, Phelan, and receptionist, Delpha, who have an agency in Texas in the sixties.  They get hired to find a missing brother and solve a few crimes in the process.  The writing is good and the story interesting enough; it just wasn't my style.

Too Much and Not The Mood by Durga Chew-Bose.  People love this book of essays, but I did not.  Her style is very stream of consciousness and veers from subject to subject in a way that I found frustrating.  It was simultaneously too personal and too random, and to me an unenjoyable read.

The Second Sister by Claire Kendal.  My response to this was similar to the Wingate novel above:  a good read if a bit improbable and a bit under-developed.  Ella's sister disappeared ten years ago leaving an infant behind.  Ella has spent the last ten years raising her nephew with her parents and searching for her sister.  The story involves two serial killers and a sudden confluence of events.