Girls Burn Brighter

"What's going on with the sex slaves?

That's a real question my husband asked me as I was about 3/4 of the way through this book. I typically refrain from explaining the plot of every book I read, but I was just overwhelmed with this one and tried to describe it to him halfway.

Girls Burn Brighter is gripping, heart-wrenching, awful - and, good. I don't mean that the subject matter is "good"; I mean that the book was well-written and even hopeful even in its darkest moments.

The story is actually the story of two girls that overlap. They're incredibly close as young girls in very poor India, but horrific circumstances (rape + forced marriage) rip them apart. They spend the next several years enduring absolute horror as they desperately try to find each other. One is sold to someone in Seattle; the other is desperate to track her down. How she tries leads us on a terrible and improbable journey.

The characters are rich and real; the stories are heartbreaking and easily true. The ending... Well... I have a coworker who was in happy tears at the end. I was just frustrated enough to toss my book onto my bed and sigh. But, it was still the best possible ending I could have imagined.

This book is tough to read. The things this young girls endure should almost not be available for our "entertainment". But, it's raw and real and utterly page-turning. Even though I think it would be better if it were about 75 pages shorter.

Fates and Furies

"She made a promise that she would never show him the evil that lived in her, that he would know of her only a great love and light." -fates and furies

How far do we go to hide our true selves? Where do we bury the darkness that lies within? And, how much will we bury to protect the ones we love?

Those are all central questions in this extraordinary work of fiction. So extraordinary, in fact, that I finished it a couple of hours ago and I know it won't do it justice to write about it here. The story itself is compelling, but that's not what makes this book so remarkable. The true feat here is how it's told.

Our story begins with a passionate encounter on the beach between a man and a woman. Their love is clear, their lust for each other even more so. And, immediately, you hear the foreshadowing of a story that will take them to places together and separately that no one expects them to go.

Part one is Fates and is the love story told from the man's perspective. Lotto - Lancelot - is born into money and sent away as a teenager for his own protection. His father is dead, his mother incapable of caring for him. So, he's off to prep school, then Vassar, then NYC. Despite missteps and failures and being cut off from his family's wealth, the sun seems to always shine on Lotto. He meets Mathilde in their last days of college and she's an enigma to Lotto and their friends. She doesn't speak about her past, says she has no family to speak of, and quietly becomes the force that drives Lotto's success. When he becomes a highly-regarded playwright, she's the one waiting in the wings (and more.) How does she stay with him? How is she so patient? And, how does she manage to live a life only for him?

We find out in Part 2.

Part 2, The Furies, is the love story from the other side. Mathilde's story. You see her past reveal itself, wave after dark wave. You see how she came to be the stoic wife that stands by her husband. You see the family that fell away. You see a woman primed for revenge against those who dare try to stand in the way of her husband's happiness. She wants to be for him something that no one has ever given to her. You see Lotto's story through her eyes and its depth is significantly magnified.

You've heard the basics of the story before. The woman behind the man, the complicated world of mothers and daughters-in-law..  There's Greek tragedy here as well. And there are surprises in the final chapters that left my mouth agape.

The Fates half of this book moves slowly at times, with long chapters and a lot of setup. It pays off in The Furies absolutely.

I've read Groff's writing before in her collection of short stories called Florida. It's soaring prose, yet somehow not overwritten. Even the secondary characters here are deep. I can't imagine how it must be to pull off a book like this, but I'm incredibly grateful that she did.

Mem

Did your mother ever tell you that you weren't living up to her expectations? Man, I hope not. That's cold. But, after reading this book, that sentiment makes sense to me.

So. Much. Potential. Alas, a letdown.

This book practically jumped off the shelf at me from the Staff Picks section of my favorite local bookstore (the amazing Aunties Bookstore in Spokane.) The cover itself is striking; the plot, even more so. We're in 1920's Montreal in a world where science has found a way to take away our darkest memories. Essentially, those who can afford it can have that memory extracted. The Mem, as it's called, is basically a clone of the source person and lives underground in a vault until it expires. What would we do to take away that pain? What would we lose of ourselves if we remove the most undesirable? What could possibly go wrong?

So. Much. Potential.

The story focuses on one Mem much different than the rest. She's not the void, vapid shell that the other Mems are. She's able to think and dream and live outside the vault. Until one day, she's recalled - and, about to be reprinted. Then, she finds out more about her Source and finds the one chance she has to save herself from being erased.

I'm frustrated even writing this.

There were so many different ways this story had gone. There were so many possibilities. So many storylines. Instead, the book sort of just meandered. And, when it finally reached its destination, it was with an unemphatic whimper.

I'm such a disappointed mom. I'd like to have the memory of reading this book extracted!

Fortunately, the next book I read took me on a fulfilling journey instead...

The Nickel Boys

"An infinite brotherhood of broken boys..."

How else could you describe it, this network of young men. Young men, grown into old men - if they're lucky - carrying the weight of racism and the heartbreak of their own past.

As our story opens, a secret graveyard is discovered on the site of an old reform school for boys in Florida. When the ground gives up its secrets, the men are forced to do the same. They look back on a nightmare of torture, abuse and terror in the Jim Crow south and the beatings they suffered at the hands of the white men who could get away with it.

The Nickel Boys is a tale that somehow manages to explain this torture with language that, at times, feels all too normal. Based on the story of a real-life torturous school, it bravely and quietly shouts the sins of generations. Young men locked up for nearly nothing, young men made wards of the state, young men forced to bend at the whims of the men in power. Some broke, some disappeared, some asked too many questions and were never seen again.

Colson Whitehead is a master, you guys. His book Underground Railroad won a Pulitzer and this book is another 'meat on the bones' tale that forces us to look back at this country's past without allowing decades to brush it away.

Our protagonist has a bright future, despite the poverty and the fact his parents abandoned him. A mixup - a slight misstep - and, he's thrust into The Nickel home for boys. Inspired by Dr. King, he is determined to right the wrongs through his own resistance, consequences be damned. You root for him, your heart breaks for him. And, Whitehead carries you through his story until a twist that changes everything.

This book feels complicated and simple and exquisite all at once. These broken boys...

The Testaments

"The world was infested with men who were certain to be tempted by girls who strayed out of bounds; such girls would be viewed as loose with their morals."

And thus is the reason behind the coup that led to Gilead. But, The Testaments is so much more than that.

The Testaments, if you've been living under a literary rock this year, is the long-awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. How long? Like, 35 years. I can't imagine the torture for those who read the book all those years ago and wondered what becomes of our handmaid and the world from which she appears to escape. It probably moved beyond torture to resolution; I mean, after 30+ years or so, you stop waiting for the sequel and come to your own conclusions. I feel like I cheated that I just read The Handmaid's Tale a few weeks ago and got to dive right in to see what happened next.

The Testaments is set 15 years after Offred appears to escape the clutches of her commander. She's not the protagonist here, though. Instead, Atwood (brilliantly) tells a story through three narrators. Two are young girls when their story begins, the other is the esteemed Aunt Lydia. They're telling the same story, but each through their own eyes. Each story is rich, compelling and haunting; each became more so when they came together.

The Handmaid's Tale (the book) gives hints about Gilead and the revolution that led to this patriarchy where women are categorized and treated by their ability to bear children. The Testaments brings that story out even more and we get a better understanding of what led to the overthrowing of the U.S. government and the rise of this religiously-couched new order. It shows how women were categorized into wives, Aunts, handmaids and Marthas. The power, the violence, the control... It all comes to life in this haunting sequel.

You'll be shocked (not shocked) to know that the dystopia was formed because men feared their ability to control themselves around women. And, you watch what happens as the women taught to be obedient come to discover that the world laid out for them is based on control and lies.

"Once a story you've regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories."

What's most remarkable here is the way Atwood tells the story. Her three women tell parallel stories, but each is an unreliable. Their tales weave neatly together and I left completely satisfied.

I'm not sure how much of this story is told in the Hulu series. I'm not sure if it's based entirely on the first book or if it takes liberties with the story. But, if the series needs an ending, the tale contained in The Testaments is a fantastic place to find it.

All The President's Men

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The Handmaid's Tale

I believe I may have been the last person on the planet to familiarize myself with The Handmaid's Tale. I didn't know anything about the book and I haven't watched a second of the insanely popular Hulu series. But, I was always intrigued and it takes a lot less time to read a book than it does to binge watch a TV series.

So, there I was, wondering, WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG?

I actually don't think a lot of people are aware that the show is based on a book; maybe that's because the book came out in the early 1980s. I actually only heard about it when the sequel was released last month. It was time to dive in.

You probably know the basic gist: we're in the future and the world has drastically changed. Fertility rates have dropped, women are now property, and some exist with the sole purpose of procreating. We never even hear the main character's first name as she narrates this unthinkable world. Slowly, she reveals details about her life but also the slow progress of how society ended up this way. She talks about walking through the city she had lived in, trying to remember what was there before. How when things change in that way, the past world slowly melts away.

It's about power, control, sexism, fear... And, it's absolutely riveting. The simple way its written makes the horror of the story feel even more real. 

In the introduction to the book, Margaret Atwood explains that she won't write about anything that hasn't already happened somewhere in the world. Reading that, then reading the book make the reality more chilling.

I'm working on the sequel now...