The Steep and Thorny Way: Something Was Rotten in the State of Oregon

I liked the last two Cat Winters books, The Cure For Dreaming and The Uninvited.  When I discovered that she had written a new YA novel with a bi-racial protagonist, I was intrigued and wanted to find out if she could pull it off.

 I know that one of the reasons why African Americans object to POC characters as protagonists in novels written by Caucasian writers like Cat Winters is that it leads to books by African American writers being ignored.  The more visible and successful Caucasian writers get to dominate the market with their portrayals of African American life.  Although some African American authors do get contracts from traditional publishers, there aren't as many as there should be.  I really do recognize that as a problem.

I want readers to be aware that I do read and review African American writers.  Maybe not as often as I should.   Yet I can say that in 2015 I read and reviewed Hurricane and Bayou Magic by Jewell Parker Rhodes, Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett and Balm by Dolen Perkins-Valdez on this blog.  I don't feel that I'm privileging books about African Americans written by Caucasians.   In fact, The Steep and Thorny Way is one of the few that  I've read in this category.

                             

So I saw that someone on Goodreads was asking whether this book is racist.   Please note that I saw no one asking if the YA novel Soundless by Richelle Mead is racist or anti-deaf because she writes about a Chinese deaf village when she is neither Chinese nor deaf.   While I can't vouch for the cultural authenticity of either this novel or Richelle Mead's, I can speak about the impact they had on me.  I felt that that Richelle Mead's book strongly condemns prejudice against the deaf, and I felt that Cat Winters was strongly condemning racism.

In fact, it seems to me that framing a narrative about a bi-racial girl trying to get justice for the death of her African American father as a Hamlet re-telling implies that her story is just as significant as the one that Shakespeare was telling in Hamlet.   It's saying that her readers should sit up and take notice because something having been rotten in the state of Oregon is as important as something having been rotten in the state of Denmark.   And the rot in Oregon in 1923 was that prejudice was king. 

Is this a good Hamlet re-telling?  Well, re-tellings come in a variety of flavors.   Some are closer to the original version than others.   Some are very creative in their approach to re-telling.  The Steep and Thorny Way is an example of a creative re-telling.  For one thing, it appeared to me that there were two Hamlets with each fighting for the justice of their separate causes.   Hanalee was one, but  I thought that Joe Adder was also a Hamlet. He too was struggling against prejudice.   So Hanalee doesn't need to fulfill all the aspects of the Hamlet role.  It's divided between her and Joe Adder.   I felt that there was similar doubling or even tripling of other roles in Hamlet among the characters in this novel. For example,  I think there were actually three Ophelias.  They were recognizable by what they did or what happened to them that paralleled the characters and events in Shakespeare's play.   The re-telling aspect is complex.  Most people will conclude that it doesn't work as a re-telling.  I disagree.  I think it's a very good re-telling.

Finally, Hanalee is a strong female protagonist.  She is very independent.  She refuses to be confined by conventional expectations.    She wants to marry anyone she chooses regardless of race which she couldn't do legally in Oregon at that point.  She wants a good education so that she could become a lawyer.  She carries a pistol and is a very good shot.  This is why The Steep and Thorny Way qualifies for this blog.



 



                                 

  


 

@FionaJDavis Delivers Scandal, Secrets, Heartache, and a Strong Feminine Lesson

I've come to a point in my life in which I've read it all and everything is beginning to seem like a retelling of another story I read. So it's not often anymore that I pick up a novel and devour it in a day, find myself just dying to know what happens next, getting completely engrossed in another life and time.

This book did it.

It's fantabulous, a fantabulous, well written blend of scandal, secrets, heartache, and missed opportunities revisited, with a strong feminine lesson. You don't NEED a man. You only need gumption, girl. And courage. If you WANT a man, then by all means, have one, but don't feel you should/must have one.

The story goes back and forth between a modern-day journalist living in the old Barbazon hotel for women turned condos and a small-town girl from the midwest in 1952, also residing in the Barazon. Each woman is facing similar problems in different scenarios, be it their careers or love lives, also family obligations.

I liked both stories. My favorite part about the past story was experiencing life at the Barbazon during that time, the fashion shows on the 18th floor, the girls sneaking their fellows in the stairways, etc. And the clothing descriptions, as I'm a vintage clothing fan. The modern story, I appreciated how the heroine very slowly learned that being without a man was okay, that there was no need to destroy herself and bypass what she wanted in order to have one.  I loved watching this heroine evolve with each new revelation she discovered about the past heroine.

I also appreciated that I couldn't and didn't figure everything out by page ten. Far from it. I was just as surprised by the conclusion as the heroine herself.

And this book has it all: troublesome family, questionable friends, romance, scary moments, drugs, jazz singing, mean girls, fashion....

I highly recommend it.

I received an ARC via Amazon Vine.

Clear to Lift: A Novel

I would normally roll my eyes at a review that states, "Heart-pounding, edge-of-seat adventure."  But I'm going to say that. I am aware that is sounds cheesy and cliched, but in this case, it's true. As I read the final rescue scene in this novel, my heart was pounding and I was on the edge of my seat, literally. When I closed the final page and looked at my coworker (I finished reading this on a work break), I actually said, "A woman who saves the day! Exactly my kind of read!" (I was actually more specific in my quote, but to reveal more would be spoilers.)

It's Fallon Navy Base, a woman helicopter pilot doing SARS and bomb clean up and checking into F-18 crashes. It's amazing stuff. I wasn't aware until recently that there was a Navy base in the desert. I was intrigued by life on this base, wish there was more of it, such as the heroine's F-18 ride. More, more, more! I didn't like the casual reveal of that in the middle of the story. I wanted the details.

This woman has more going on than helicopter flying though as she navigates not only the peaks of the Sierra Nevada but the emotions of her heart as she questions her romantic choices and what makes her happy and comes to terms with past abandonment.

The writing is top notch, the story smooth, the action intense. My only quibble is that I felt as though I was thrown into this woman's life all of a sudden. There were lots of things in her past relevant to the tale or that I wanted more of, such as the F18 ride. Basically, I wanted more of this story, this heroine. I would have liked it to have gone a bit more, instead of starting with her at Fallon.

Terrific tale. I cannot wait to see what this author writes next.

Girl power!

I received this from the author, no strings attached.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

I love books that focus on artists, and have always been fascinated with the 17th century Dutch Masters.  Their work always seemed to be telling me stories about people's lives.  When I lived in New York, I felt privileged to be able to look at the Vermeer painting, "Girl Asleep" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I mention this because Dominic Smith, the author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, placed a condition on winning a copy of this book on Authorbuzz.  He wanted readers to e-mail him about a 17th century Dutch painting. So I won my copy  by posting him a message regarding "Girl Asleep" and my experience of the painting.   This means that I must mention that I got the book for free from the author, yet this is still an honest review.

                               

At the time when I was a teen obsessing about the Vermeer work mentioned above, I didn't know that there were woman painters in 17th century Holland.  Sara de Vos in Smith's novel is a fictional character, but there were real female 17th century Dutch Masters.  The best known is probably Judith Leyster. The Wikipedia article about her that I've linked contained a self portrait of Leyster that I can reproduce below because it's public domain.

                               

I don't imagine that Leyster normally wore a ruff when she was painting because it would have gotten spattered with paint.  The fictional 17th century painter, Sara de Vos,  wouldn't have dressed that way either when she was working.    This self portrait represents how Judith Leyster wanted to be viewed. She dressed formally in order to gain respect.

 The Last Painting of Sara de Vos deals with women in the art world needing to be respected.  There were two female protagonists.   In addition to Sara de Vos, there was the contemporary art historian and curator, Ellie Shipley.   Ellie was hiding a crime that she committed when she was a poor struggling art history student during the 1950's.  Sara de Vos was also impoverished, and violated the regulations of her art guild.   Poor individuals may be forced to earn money in ways that society condemns.   If they become more prosperous, they have the luxury of becoming more circumspect,  but the past still haunts them.

It seems to me that Ellie felt a kinship with Sara de Vos, and that this was why she included Sara in her doctoral dissertation on Dutch woman painters of the 17th century even though this artist had only one authenticated surviving work at the time.  Ellie wanted to be Sara de Vos.  Ellie's advisor  thought Ellie should scrap her chapter on Sara de Vos saying "If Dickens had written a single book none of us would know his name."   I disagree and I'm pretty sure that Ellie did too.  There are some writers who are only known for one work that has echoed down the ages.  For example,  Miguel de Cervantes is only known for Don Quixote.  More recently,  Harper Lee may have written two books, but her reputation was built on only one.  I think that if Dickens had only written A Tale of Two Cities, we would still have remembered him.  The work by Sara de Vos is portrayed memorably in Smith's novel.  When I wish I could see a painting by a fictional artist, I know the author has done an excellent job of ushering the reader into the world of the character's creation.

Marty de Groot, the contemporary owner of the Sara de Vos painting that is the main focus of the narrative, was unsympathetic for a large portion of the novel. Another author would have allowed him to become a caricature, but Dominic Smith develops him so that he has dimension.  I didn't identify with Marty de Groot as I did with Ellie Shipley, but ultimately I felt that he was trying to be a decent human being.

I read a review of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos on Goodreads which said that "nothing happened in the end".   That reviewer meant that there wasn't a big dramatic blow up over Ellie Shipley's crime.  Yet I felt that there was satisfying karmic balance even though it wasn't conventional justice.  

   

  

Gone To Soldiers: A Novelistic Journey Through World War II With Some Amazing Guides

I have loved Marge Piercy's poetry and her science fiction novel, Woman on the Edge of Time.  For me, she is a feminist icon.  When I received a request from the publisher to review the new e-book version of her 1987 novel Gone To Soldiers, I decided that it was time that I read it.   When I agreed to review this book, I had no idea of its length.  I remember marking it as currently reading on Goodreads, navigating to the book's page on the database and seeing 800 pages for the first time.  Those who are daunted by carrying around a print tome, may prefer to access Piercy's saga on their e-readers or tablets.  I know that I did.  Yet next time I will check the page count beforehand, so that I can give the publisher or author a more realistic time frame for when they can expect a review.  I received a free copy from the publisher via Net Galley in return for this honest review.

                                 

The title comes from the Pete Seeger protest song, Where Have All The Flowers Gone? .  The Wikipedia article that I've linked reveals that Seeger wrote it in 1955,  but it's inextricably linked with the 1960's anti-war movement.   So I expected that Piercy wouldn't have idealized WWII.  I imagined that her depiction of the war would be more ambivalent, and I wasn't wrong.   Readers can expect to find suffering, death and horror in Gone To Soldiers, but also compassion, bravery and triumph.

For Book Babe's readers, it's important to note that much of the narrative is a story about women, and some were extraordinary.   My personal favorites were Jacqueline, Bernice and Louise.

I'll start with Louise because Gone To Soldiers opens with her perspective. Originally, I wasn't impressed with her.  The multiplicity of her talents, her fortitude and resilience are gradually revealed over the course of the narrative.
As a journalist, Louise's travels bound the characters together.  Although Jacqueline and Bernice never met each other, Louise had the opportunity to interview both of them.

 Louise encountered Bernice first.   Bernice was a pilot, and eventually joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). Her entire life was focused on flying--getting an opportunity to fly, and then trying to find a way to keep flying.  Readers may be astonished by how far she was willing to go to continue being a pilot after the war was over.  Her refusal to ever give up on her dreams was what I admired most about her.  Longtime readers of this blog will know that the WASP has been a special focus of Book Babe, but there may be some of you who know little or nothing about them.  To learn more about the WASP,  I recommend The WASP Official Archive at Texas Women's University.

Jacqueline began as a sheltered Paris teenager who I found immensely irritating because of her complete lack of empathy.  The German occupation of France shattered her life and reshaped her personality.  The crucible of war and oppression accomplished the most marvelous metamorphosis for this character.  It also fundamentally changed her priorities and her loyalties.  I respected Bernice and Louise a great deal, but I came to love Jacqueline.  Her struggle to survive truly moved me.

My favorite male characters were Daniel and Bernice's brother, Jeff.   Daniel had a tremendous facility for languages and a preference for Asian cultures.  I found him unusual, and I learned a great deal from his experiences.  Jeff was an artist, but he desperately wanted to do something heroic so that his life would mean something.  I think that his life did mean something because he lived and loved with intensity, authenticity and a sense of commitment to everything he did.

The viewpoint characters in Gone To Soldiers illuminated a number of aspects of  the world they inhabited.  Even when I didn't particularly identify with a character, I felt that I understood more about each slice of the realities of WWII that these characters represented. It is often said that a novel is more than the sum of its parts, but I believe that it was the segments of individual perceptions that gave this book significance.  










                             

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

I've been busy trying to finish my final project for library school so I can get my degree.  This is why I haven't posted for a long while.  I will soon have an MLIS degree.  Please be patient with me.

The publisher of The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi contacted me about reviewing this book for Book Babe.  I was disinclined to read a book about a beauty queen, but the author is Israeli so I looked beyond the title.  I discovered that it's a family saga that partly deals with the period before Israel was a state.   My grandmother, who was born in what was then the Ottoman Empire in 1905, spent her childhood in Jerusalem.  So I'm always interested in learning more about the history of Jews in what would later be known as Israel. I agreed to review it and received an ARC via Net Galley in return for this honest review.

                                     

I have to admit that Luna, the title character, was unsympathetic. I found her self-absorbed and superficial.  She  always wanted to be the center of attention.  Her sister Rachelika thought that love redeemed Luna.  I disagree since she spent so much of her life acting like a spoiled brat.   I thought that Luna's mother, Rosa, was the strongest woman in this book.  This is by no means a feminist narrative.  Rosa was married into the Hermosa family without her consent as was typical during that period.  Marriages were usually arranged then. The reason why I call Rosa strong is because she survived the loss of her parents at a young age and always did what needed to be done under challenging circumstances.  Luna didn't respect her mother because she cleaned the homes of British occupiers for a living before she married.  Luna's attitude toward her mother definitely didn't endear her to me.   I thought Rosa was doing the best she could to keep herself and her younger brother alive without assistance from anyone else.

The Hermosa family, which is at the center of the narrative, originally came to Palestine from Spain when the Jews were expelled by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.  This community of Jews are known as Sephardim because they came from Sepharad which is the Hebrew word for Spain.  They spoke Ladino which is a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew.  They were proud of their roots in the land and their ability to co-exist with Arabs.  Later settlers in Palestine came from Eastern Europe and were known as Ashkenazis.  I am descended from Ashkenazi Jews.

I was interested in reading about the customs of the Sephardic Jews as described in this novel. There were some that seemed alien to me.  This is especially true of  the idea of selling your infant children to a neighbor and even calling them "slaves" in order to fool the demon Lilith who was supposed to kidnap children.  Lilith was imported from Zoroastrianism during the Jewish exile to Babylon.  The ancient Persians believed in a type of demon called the Lilitu.   Feminist Jews have a different version of Lilith as a truly admirable figure. The feminist  version is derived from a Jewish folkloric tale in which Lilith was Adam's first wife who refused to be dominated by him.  I would think that the feminist version of Lilith would want to free children who'd been sold as slaves.   Although the children were bought back by their families of origin a few weeks later, I find this practice extremely repulsive.

The theme of conflict between Sephardi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews was important to this book.   I thought that if there was a curse on the Hermosa family as Luna thought, then the curse was prejudice against Ashkenazim.  Yet as Ashkenazim became more powerful, they began to discriminate against Sephardim.  This pattern of Ashkenazi discrimination against Sephardi Jews continued in modern Israel. 

Another aspect of The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem that interested me was the theme of terrorism and how it's portrayed.  It's often said that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.  I tend to draw the line at the victimizing of innocent civilians.  So did Gabriel, Luna's father.  He had no interest in supporting terrorists even if the terrorists were Jews.  There is a character in this book who joined a terrorist organization engaged in actions against the British occupiers.  There were other characters who were sympathetic to such actions.   Terrorists and their supporters tend to believe that the ends justify the means.   Even if I am sympathetic toward the goals of terrorists, I believe that innocent blood on their hands will taint their cause, and that Gandhi's non-violent approach is a better model for freedom fighters.  Yet I am glad that the author of this novel portrayed a spectrum of viewpoints on this issue.

I have to say that the characters I really loved in this novel were Gabriel and Luna's husband, David.  They weren't saints, but they were men who were committed to doing the best they could for their families.  I appreciated their sense of responsibility, just as I respected Rosa's endurance.  Rosa, Gabriel and David gave The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem stature and pathos.    

Daughter of Destiny-- The Evolution of Guinevere From Mean Girl To Queen

Some would say that we don't need another Arthurian novel.  I'm not one of those people.  I believe that the Matter of Britain, which is what the Arthurian myths are called by those who are centrally concerned with them, needs to get retold in every generation.   I'm also still holding out for my ideal Arthurian novel.  The Mists of Avalon wasn't it.  I was more interested in Marion Zimmer Bradley's portrayal of the relationship between Arthur and Lancelot than any of the women.  More recently there was Gwenhwyfar  by Mercedes Lackey.   That version of Guinevere as a warrior was a good deal closer to my ideal than anything else I'd seen.   She was almost what I was looking for.   I could see why Arthur (who was a warrior king) would feel a common bond with that Guinevere and would be impressed with her.   She was strong and capable. She also despised courtly intrigue as much as I do.  Yet I wanted a Guinevere who could be a convincing and authentic priestess as well as a warrior.   I thought that Daughter of Destiny by Nicole Evalina would give me the Guinevere that I was looking for.  I received a free copy from the author in return for this honest review.

                                       

I was delighted that Guinevere was sent to Avalon to be trained as a priestess in this version.   Yet at eleven years old, she was clearly too young to appreciate the lessons she was learning or the importance of her psychic gift.  I can understand that she couldn't be an inspiring figure at that age, but I didn't expect her to manifest as the most hideous female adolescent trope in YA fiction.  This was a character limned with acid.  She was the Mean Girl incarnate-- obsessed with minor slights and plots of petty vengeance.   Instead of befriending the other priestesses in training, she was boiling over with envy of any girl who seemed to be powerful or favored by the senior priestesses.  Ugh!  I found her completely despicable.   She was the opposite of sympathetic for me.

Then tragedy struck and Guinevere seemed to be on the road toward maturation.  At a couple of points, I thought she was in danger of a Mean Girl relapse but that didn't seem to be happening.  It helped that she was faced with an adult version of the Mean Girl on a daily basis.  Guinevere definitely didn't aspire to be just like her. That's a good thing because the Queen of Britain should be building alliances rather than making new enemies.   Unfortunately, royal courts tend to be a seething cauldron of rivalries.   Can this Guinevere rise above all the spitefulness when she wears a crown?  I hope she can.   But the truth is that I didn't sign on for this sort of Guinevere.   I wanted her to be so much better than MZB's Guinevere in The Mists of Avalon, and so far I'm not certain she can measure up to my expectations.

I have to confess that I'm more interested in the future of  Isolde than I am in Guinevere.   She's no saint, but she's adventurous, resourceful and is generous towards those she considers friends.  I'm wondering about how someone as resilient and pragmatic as Isolde gets caught up in such a tragic story as the one she's credited with in Arthurian myth.  Well, since Evalina starts with the premise that Arthurian myth got it wrong, I'll be rooting for Isolde to overcome future adversity.