“Troubling Love”

 

Ugh! Strike two for foreign novels (originally written in Italian). Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s the storyline that confused me. I’m sure that the blurb about the book must have enticed me, or else I wouldn’t have purchased it. Maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough. Ummmm…I’m so confused. Shadows of the past. Reliving childhood memories associated with her mother. Searching pieces of her mother’s life to find the truth in her death. Trying to sort out what actually happened and what she created in her imagination. Ending where it all began…the beach. 

“Washington Black”

“I understood there were many ways of being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something.” (209)

People have a way of turning a blind eye on history if they feel it will leave a stain on the present. But unless we open our eyes to all the pieces of our history, how will we be able to move forward unimpeded? This book felt like a lesson in Critical Race Theory. Examining the intersections of race, society, and law. Characters struggling with their race. Characters tied to their place in society. Characters bound by the law. Characters shattering the intersection…blindly moving forward.

Barbados. Sugar cane plantation. Slavery. Friendship. Knowledge. Betrayal. Abolitionists. Science. Nova Scotia. England. Netherlands. Africa. Art. Chemistry. Opportunities. Experimentation. Loyalty. Respect. Love. Misery. Loss.

“Noir”

Not a huge sci-fi/fantasy reader…so, in all truthfulness, I read this book to fill a spot in my Kindle reading challenge. That said, I was mildly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book. I’m sure that a lot of that had to do with the fact that the story was set in 1947 San Francisco. Moore even mentions my hometown, Napa. I could easily put myself into the setting; enjoying all the historical references.

Ok. Two-Toes. Eddie Moo Shoes. The Cheese. Lone. Milo. THE SNAKE. The policeman. The General. The Bohemian Club. The kidnapping. The opium den.  The Moonman. The ‘ray-gun.” The secret agents. And of course…razzamatazz.

I scratched my head a few times while reading - where is this going? Where is the sci-fi part? But, in the end I was still scratching my head, but smiling all the while.

“Evil Woman”

 

Two things jumped out at me as I read Mulhern’s latest Country Club Murder:

“Mothers saw their daughters as reflections of themselves. Daughters looked for criticism in compliments.” (21)

So, if you stand up to a strong, perhaps overbearing mother, does that mean you are a strong woman? A reflection of her? How do you balance being a dutiful daughter and the independent woman you are? How do you take the criticism in stride? How does this “reflection” affect your relationship with your siblings? How do you keep from screaming?

“Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. But studying history doesn’t work…the same mistakes are made. Over and over and over again. (139)

Families are strange this way. History tells us our origin story. Where we came from, where we’ve been. But history doesn’t tell us where we will land. History can only educate if we are open to learning its lessons. Oftentimes, we throw our past out, hoping to reshape our future. But, is our past linked to our DNA? Doomed to create the same mistakes as our ancestors? How can we change our path? What do we need to learn from history to make an impact on the future?

Ellison. Anarchy. Grace. Aggie. Francis. Mr. Coffee. Murder. Twists. Resolution…

“Stiff - The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers”

 

Ok, I’ll admit it - I only picked up this book to fulfill the non-fiction slot in my Kindle reading challenge. I never gave much thought to cadavers, much less their lives, as it were. Roach approaches the subject with an insatiable curiosity, a ton of science, and a bit of humor…

Anatomists. Grave Robbers. Anatomy Labs. Practice. Impartial. Respectful. Crash test dummies. Mortuary. Decay. Bits and pieces. Airplane crashes. Bullet wounds. Plastic surgeons. Crucifiction. Brain dead. Decapitation. Mummies. Fertilizer, compost. Freeze dried bodies. Plasticized bodies. Learning tool. Historically searching for medical answers. Forward thinking experimentation. How do we deal with all the dead bodies? 

My conundrum: burial, cremation, donate, compost? In the end will it be me who ultimately makes the decision, or someone else? How do I see my body moving through space and time without my life force, my spirit, my soul? And since I am an organ donor, without my innards intact? Not sure, but this book has given me a lot to think about - and more than my husband wanted to hear about cadavers, for sure.

The Dying Day”

 

The DaVinci Code, meets Indian Jones, meets India’s first female detective. 1950 Bombay. A missing manuscript. A missing scholar. RIDDLES. A dead prostitute. A CIPHER. A place where everyone SWEATS and everyone SMELLS.( When was air conditioning invented?) An old love interest. NAZI soldiers. Inspector Wadia as a role model for other women. 

There is so much going on in this novel, it’s hard to believe that much of the Khan’s storyline was drawn from history. I never thought about how the world readjusted to a new reality after WWII ended. Where did all those escaped Nazis go? How did their lives continue to affect the lives of others following the end of the war? Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” is a fitting text…how do we answer for our sins? What is the ultimate punishment?

“…the Nazis…they were thugs. Schoolyard bullies whose only answer to every problem was to exterminate it. Tell me, what kind of world is it where men can think like that?” (263)