Books I read in October 2013

Adam going out of town boosts my reading capacity so I read quite a bit this month.

World and Town by Gish Jen **


There were parts of this book that were interesting to me.  It was about a woman who was raised in China by her Chinese father and American mother.  As a young woman she moved to America and the main action of the book takes place when she is in her late sixties.  She lives in a small town in New England and has Cambodian neighbors that she befriends and tries to help.  It was written in her voice and then sometimes in the voice of the Cambodian teenage girl and sometimes in the voice of other townspeople.  I thought all of that was interesting.

What bothered me: the small town didn't seem genuine at all.  The author lives in Cambridge, MA so I'm guessing maybe she just made up what she thought small towns are like and missed the mark.  Or maybe there really are small towns like that in the world.  I don't know.  It bugged me.

My main problem with the book--and I did keep reading it which I usually don't so it was a pretty good book--was that the motivations for the characters' actions weren't always clear.  And that matters.  Also, I didn't really like the way it ended, sort of predictable but unsatisfying.

A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg ***

I finally did it!  I found a memoir type book that I enjoyed.  I always really want to like them.  This book is half memoir/half cookbook.  I loved reading the stories that surrounded the recipes and there are several recipes I want to try.  The author is a blogger and she met her husband through her blog which delighted me.  The only thing better than that is already having a husband before you ever started blogging.  (Well, that's been my experience at least.)

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsako ***

I read this book for book club.  It was interesting.  It was about "picture brides," young girls who came from Japan to marry husbands in America based on pictures they'd been sent of the men.

The pictures weren't always accurate nor were the actual circumstances they found on arrival true to what was written in the letters.   The entire book was written in a collective style, "some of us... and some of us..." as it followed the brides through their lives.  That was sort of interesting and a little dissatisfying because I would have liked to get the specific stories.  It was effective to show the broad and varied experiences they encountered though.  They all started the same on the boat and ended similarly too as they were sent off to interment camps during World War II.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton ****

I loved this book.  Set in England during World War II and then in the sixties and then in contemporary times, it was compelling all along and then the end took my breath away.  I did not see that coming!  It is the type of book that should come with a warning because it is long and will tempt you to put everything else on hold in favor of reading the book.  Dangerous, but my favorite kind of book.

You Are One of Them by Elliott Holt ***

I liked this book and almost loved it but the end was kind of a miss.  I don't know why, it just didn't leave me 100% satisfied with things.  It is set in Washington, D.C. and in Moscow, Russia and is about a girl growing up during the Cold War era.  There was a certain amount of intrigue and mystery that I enjoyed.  Sometimes I read a book about a place I've never been and I want to go there.  This was not that kind of book.  Moscow should not hire this author to help boost their tourism.  After reading this book I want to give Moscow a wide berth.  One thing that delighted me about this book was that while she was in Russia, the main character learned how to play Russian Fool.  It's a card game Adam learned when he spent a summer in the USSR as a teenager.  He taught my sisters and me how to play in college so it was fun to read about the game.  Still, I don't want to go to Moscow.