Quick Takes

The Night House by Jo Nesbo

In part one of this three-part novel, 14-year-old Richard, after the deaths of his parents, goes to live with his aunt and uncle where he is a social outcast. Richard comes under suspicion when two of his friends go missing within days of each other and Richard claims the first one was eaten by a phone and the second one turned into a bug and flew out the window. This part of the story reads like a YA novel, and in part two, we find out that is just what it is. Part two begins 15 years later and Richard is a celebrated writer. However, when he returns to the town where he spent his teen years, things start to get weird. Again. Part three of the book brings all the threads together. The Night House is a distinct departure for Nesbo, but the novel is tense, thrilling, and a lot of fun.

Trust by Hernan Diaz

This Pulitzer winner is in four parts: The fictitious novel, “Bonds,” about a Wall St. mogul and his wife in the 1920s and 30s; the unfinished autobiography of the man (who proudly claims he bends the truth to fit his desires) the novel was based on; the memoir of the woman who ghost-wrote the autobiography; and an excerpt from the journal of the mogul’s wife. Each part reveals the supposed truth and the actual falsehoods of the previous parts. Together, they will give readers a great deal to think about. What is truth? Can we ever really know what is true and what is illusion?

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon

In this alternative history, Israel fails as a state in 1948 and Jews flee to southeast Alaska, where the US government designates a federal District of Sitka as their refuge. Now 60 years later, the district is set to revert back to Alaska in two months time, leaving Sitka's Jews homeless and desperate once again. Homicide detective Meyer Landsman investigates the murder of a junkie that lives in the same flea-bag hotel as the divorced, alcoholic, and depressed Landsman. Landsman and his partner, who is also his cousin and half Native, learn quickly that things are not as they seem, including the identity of the dead junkie. I loved both the complex, compelling plot, and the author's brilliant and exact metaphor. Fans of Dashiell Hammett will enjoy this hard-boiled detective novel.

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

In this sixth installment of the Cormoran Strike series, cartoon creator Edie Ledwell tries to hire Strike and ka partner Robin Ellacott to unmask an internet troll who has already driven Ledwell to one suicide attempt and continues to harass her. Robin listens to Ledwell and is sympathetic but explains that they simply do not have the manpower to take the case and even have a client waiting list. Disappointed, Ledwell leaves. Days later, she is brutally murdered. The police fail to make any progress in the case, so the film company who wants to adapt Ledwell's cartoon to the big screen hires the detectives to find the troll, whom many believe to also be the killer. Series fans should not be intimidated by the book's 1012-page length. You will love it. It meticulously recreates the hours and hours of surveillance and research as well as the careful reasoning and deduction that go into a successful investigation. Readers will love the hours they get to spend with the detectives sorting clues and eliminating suspects. 

 

Last Dance on the Starlight Pier by Sarah Bird

Evie Grace escapes Depression-ravaged Houston when she earns a scholarship to nursing school in Galveston where she works hard for three years, earning top grades. However, on the day she is set to graduate, the school's cruel director uses the abuse Evie suffered as a child as an excuse to kick her out. Utterly alone, she returns to Houston, where she finds an old friend and becomes the "nurse" for a dance marathon that has been running for weeks. Evie's new career takes her to Chicago and eventually back to Galveston for the most spectacular dance marathon ever with a prize that will change her life. However, not everyone wants the marathon to continue. Author Sarah Bird has created another fast-paced historical novel with endearing characters and true-to-life dialog. The story is suspenseful, funny, and unputdownable.

 

The Harbor by Katrine Engberg

When 15-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff goes missing, his wealthy, prominent family claim that he’s been kidnapped. But the note left behind is cryptic at best and makes no demand for ransom. As Copenhagen police detectives Anette Werner and Jeppe Korner investigate, the mystery only deepens. A body is found at the city’s waste incineration plant, and Oscar’s backpack is discovered at a dock near the family’s home by the odd caretaker at a fortress island in Copenhagen Harbor. Although not as dark as most Nordic Noir novels, a number of plot twists and no shortage of suspects make the book an interesting and enjoyable read.

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

In 1973, Civil Townsend, fresh out of nursing school, goes to work in an Alabama family planning clinic. Two of her first clients are sisters, Erica and India, whom Civil is supposed to give birth control shots to. Civil is stunned to learn that the girls are just eleven and thirteen years old. When the clinic's director finds out that Civil has not been giving them their shots, she takes the girls to the hospital and has them sterilized. The story is framed by Civil’s narrative in 2016 as she recalls the guilt she felt about what happened to the girls and how she unwittingly contributed to their tragedy. “Take My Hand” examines the emotional toll on the women and girls who were coerced or tricked into sterilization and their families. The story is rich in ideas of freedom, justice, and autonomy. The book is a quick read, and the accessible prose makes this a good novel for both adult and young adult audiences.

 

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta Del Valle is born in 1920, the same year that the Spanish flu arrives in Chile, her home. In the 100 years of her life, she recalls the changes, disasters, and upheavals of the 20^th century as well as the births, deaths, marriages, and love affairs that punctuate her own story. Allende has created another masterpiece in “Violeta” that whisks the reader through the last century, offering readers fascinating and endearing characters. The world events in Violeta’s life may be familiar, but Allende presents them in a way that demonstrates the cyclical nature of history and offers a subtle warning about the present.

Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Li Lan is a young woman of Chinese descent in late 19th Century Malaya. Her nearly broke, opium-smoking father mentions that a rich family has asked for her hand in marriage to their dead son, Lim Tian Ching. Li Lan and her nanny are both horrified by the offer, but out of curiosity, Li Lan accepts an invitation to the Lim house. Soon after, Lim Tian Ching begins haunting her dreams, insisting that she become his Ghost Bride. In the real world, Li Lan meets and falls in love with Lim Tian Ching's cousin and now heir to the Lim fortune, Tian Bai. Li Lan embarks on a quest to learn what crimes Lim Tian Ching is up to and how to end his invasion of her dreams. The mysterious Er Lang advises and helps her as she travels to the afterworld to gather evidence against Lim Tian Ching. Li Lan is a brave and audacious heroine who grabs control of her destiny in a culture that considers girls and women merely the means to gain business advantage. Choo creates enchanting worlds on both sides of the momentous portal between life and death. Sheltered and innocent in life, she travels to the hotly lit and dangerous afterworld with its corrupt officials and subterfuge. And she prevails.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

Iron-age Britons Axl and Beatrice leave their village to visit their grown son in another village, a three-day walk from them. On the way they encounter ogres, pixies, King Arthur’s knight Sir Gawain, and other strange and mysterious creatures and people. They lament that they cannot really remember their son because of a “dense mist which hung over the marshes” that clouds everyone’s mind so that they cannot recall things that happened even a few days or hours ago. This strange and entrancing story offers interesting characters, plot twists, and an exploration of importance and purpose of memory and of forgetting.

We Heard It When We Were Young by Chuy Renteria

Renteria recounts growing up in West Liberty, the first town in Iowa to be majority Hispanic. He and his group of friends play sports, "hoodlumize" deserving targets, fiercely support each other, and eventually drift apart. At the age of 14, Renteria begins break dancing, or "b-boying," as he prefers to call it, which leads to a career in dance. Finally, as an adult, Renteria deals with the demons of his childhood and adolescence: racism, violence, alcoholism, and an eating disorder. This compelling memoir will ring true with anyone that has faced racism or bullying or grown up in a small town, which can be both charming and terrifying.

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Tookie, after being sentenced to 60 years for a stupid crime, is released after just 10. However, the trauma of her incarceration, as well as her childhood with a drug-addicted mother, remains. Tookie goes to work at a bookstore, but when her most annoying customer dies, the woman’s ghost begins haunting her. Add to this the start of the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd (in Tookie’s hometown of Minneapolis), and Tookie’s world and coping skills begin to crash. I immediately fell in love with every character in this book, especially Tookie’s husband, Pollux. Moreover, nearly all of them are book lovers, and at the end of the novel, Erdrich includes “A Totally Biased List of Tookie’s Favorite Books.” I pored over the list, looking for titles I’d read and titles that I want to read. I even made a copy of the list to keep.

Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez

High school senior Naomi and her young twin half-siblings move from her abuelitos' house in San Antonio to the oil fields of 1936 New London, Texas, to live with her stepfather. There Naomi endures racism at school and sexual abuse at home. She meets and falls in love with Wash, the son of the principal of the Black school. They make plans to run away, but the horrific New London school explosion and racial violence interrupt their plans. This beautiful and heartbreaking story is part Cinderella and part Romeo and Juliet. This books tells a moving story that offers hope even after the darkest events.

 The Eagles of Heart Mountain by Bradford Pearson

When President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, over 100,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast were sent to prison camps, including young people, whose educations were interrupted, some just before their senior year in high school. A group of these young men who were sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming, turned to their love of sports to alleviate boredom and the sting of racism and discrimination. This book traces the paths that lead to their incarceration and their triumph on the football field despite a lack of proper equipment and training field. The first half of this excellent book details about 150 years of Japanese migration to the US and the blatant racism--of individuals as well as government policy--that lead to the undeserved imprisonment of innocent Americans. The second half focuses on the resilience of the Japanese American community and how, even under terrible conditions, they never wavered from their love of their country, the US.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Konstance, 14 years old, lives aboard The Argos, a spacecraft launched 65 years earlier headed to a distant planet that is to be man's new home. Zeno is 80 years old and leading a group of fifth-graders in a production of Cloud Cuckoo Land, a Diogenean comedy, at the public library. Seymour is a young man who is intent on placing a bomb in that library. Anna is a young girl that works in an embroidery shop with her sister in 15th century Constantinople. Omeir, a Bulgarian boy born with a cleft lip, gets drafted by Sultan's army in their attack on Constantinople. What links all these characters? A story. A story that was once lost and has been found. A story that saves each of their lives. This love-letter to stories and books is beautiful and enthralling, a masterpiece, and has been predicted to be in the running for next year's Pulitzer. If you love books, you will love this book.

Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The story opens when Kathy is ending her unusually long career as a "carer" after attending her childhood friends, Tommy and Ruth, through "completion." She recalls their childhoods in Hailsham, and later at the Cottages. Their "guardians" at Hailsham teach them that they are special, but outsiders shun them, even seem afraid of them. This gripping masterpiece of social commentary is an examination of human nature and how people can transcend their fate. I chose it because I loved Klara and the Sun so much, and I was not disappointed.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishigura

Klara is an AF (artificial friend) waiting to be chosen when 14-year-old Josie sees her in a store window. Klara waits expectantly for Josie to return and take her home. When she does, Klara believes that things will be wonderful for the two of them. However, Josie has bouts of a mysterious illness that keep her bedridden for weeks at a time. Klara concludes that if she asks in just the right way, the Sun will use his special nourishment to cure Josie and save her life. Although often described as a young adult/teen novel, "Klara and the Sun" is a masterpiece that will enthrall adult audiences. The main themes of this novel have to do with love and mortality, but the secondary issues--pollution, consumerism, gene editing, economic displacement, and distrust of others--left me hoping for sequels in the coming years.

When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishigura

Famous London detective Christopher Banks recalls his childhood in Shanghai and the disappearances of his parents when he was nine years old. He spends 20 years researching his most pressing case and finally returns to Shanghai to solve the mystery and rescue his parents. I read this book because I loved Ishigura's most recent novel, "Klara and the Sun." Although this novel is much different from Klara, it is no less a compelling masterpiece. The narrator's voice is objective, sometimes detached, as you would expect from a detective. However, the mystery of his parents is secondary. This novel is really an examination of the fallibility of memory and how people delude themselves.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Gifty is the American-born daughter of Ghanian parents. Her family struggles with finances and the racial bias one might expect in their Alabama town. When Gifty is just three, her father returns to Ghana having never felt at home in the US. When Gifty is a teenager, her older brother, whom she idolized, dies of a drug overdose. Her mother plunges into a deep depression. The story opens when Gifty is in graduate school studying how mice respond to addiction and treatment. Her mother has fallen into another deep depression and their pastor sends her to live with Gifty. This follow-up (not sequel) to Gysasi's award-winning "Homegoing" is just as much a masterpiece. Beautifully written, bittersweet, heart-breaking, and triumphant. Gyasi manages to artfully blend religion, science, and the pain and joy of loving other people in a narrative that blends two chronologies. 

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Nora Seed's life is full of regrets: she regrets quitting competitive swimming when she was an Olympic hopeful; she regrets quitting her band when they were offered a record deal; she regrets breaking up with her boyfriend two days before their wedding. One Tuesday, her cat dies, her boss fires her, she runs into an old bandmate and he hates her. That night, Nora decides to end it all. But between life and death is the midnight library where she can try out any life that she didn't live: one where she marries her boyfriend; one where she stays in the band; one where she is an Olympic champion; and many others. While trying to decide which life to choose forever, she learns about herself and what she really wants. This fast-paced, quick read is moving and entertaining. I stayed up way too late finishing it.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morganstern

Morganstern combines fantasy, fable, magic, and realism in this paean to books and stories. Grad student Zachary Rawlins discovers a book that contains a story from his own childhood--not just a story he was told--a story about him. Bewildered and intrigued, he sets out to learn more about this strange book, with no author or publishing details. What he finds is a lost world of books and those who live for them. Although the book is a bit long, I was delighted by all the references to the stories I've loved and by the sweet, earnest characters.

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

Set in Odessa in the 70s, this nightmarish tale of sexual assault, poverty, depression, and suicide, also shows resilient women who look out for each other. The story begins with the rape and battery of 14 year-old Gloria Ramirez. The story is told through the eyes of the woman who saves her (but in doing so loses her own marriage), witnesses, and other women touched by the crime. This is Wetmore's first novel. And although the subject is disturbing, the characters are complex and sympathetic in this powerful  and beautiful story.

I am not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L Sanchez

Fifteen-year-old Julia is not the perfect Mexican daughter as her sister Olga is. At least, that is what she thought until she makes some perplexing discoveries in Olga's room after her tragic death. As Julia struggles with depression, survivor's guilt, sexual awakening, and a suicide attempt, she also tries to solve the mystery of who Olga truly was. This YA novel presents a strong female protagonist that refuses to be put down, either because of her sex or her heritage, and rewards the reader with compelling prose and sympathetic characters.

 

The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

Ji Lin is a dressmaker’s apprentice in colonial Malaya who comes to possess a mysterious object that is said to bring good luck. Ren is a ten-year-old house boy on a mission to recover the item and return it to its owner, his recently deceased employer. An example of magical realism, this novel has multiple complex plotlines, ghosts, mythical man-eating beasts, and mysterious deaths. Ji Lin’s intelligence and bravery will inspire readers while Ren’s loyalty and resilience will melt reader’s hearts.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer who opens a practice, the Equal Justice Initiative, in Alabama to exonerate people wrongly convicted or sentenced in Alabama. This heart-breaking and compelling non-fiction account relates how Stevenson and his colleagues work to free Walter McMillan, who was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Also presented are the tragic stories of other men and women and how entire communities are harmed by a flawed system that sends the innocent and mentally ill to death row and condemns traumatized children to death in prison.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the story of a boy’s difficult and chaotic youth and his life among luminaries such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Leon Trotsky. Its critique of McCarthyism and xenophobia is sadly relevant in 2020. This one and “The Poisonwood Bible” are, I think, Kingsolver’s best novels.

Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

The band The Six and singer Daisy Jones started their careers in 70s California. Both had moderate success, but when Daisy Jones joins the band, they become the biggest rock band of the decade, with platinum records, sold out stadiums, and hold-over shows. The story is told through interviews of the characters, much like an episode of “Behind the Music.” What I most enjoyed was the juxtaposition of conflicting accounts of the same events and the voices of the different characters.