Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville 🔖🔖

First published December 1, 1853 

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In the story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copies or do any other task required of him, refusing with the words "I would prefer not to." (Source: wikipedia)

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The first time I read this one, I gave it one star. This time it gets two as I could more clearly see the symbolism and deeper meaning. However, Bartleby frustrated me and reminded me of my obstinate pre-teen. I appreciate the meaning this time around, though I really did not enjoy the story as a whole. 

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan 🔖🔖

First published January 1, 2005

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Awards: Honorable mention from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature

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San Francisco art patron Bibi Chen has planned a journey of the senses along the famed Burma Road for eleven lucky friends. But after her mysterious death, Bibi watches aghast from her ghostly perch as the travelers veer off her itinerary and embark on a trail paved with cultural gaffes and tribal curses, Buddhist illusions and romantic desires. On Christmas morning, the tourists cruise across a misty lake and disappear ... Bibi is the observant eye of human nature–the witness of good intentions and bad outcomes, of desperate souls and those who wish to save them ... (Source: goodreads)

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I very much wanted to love this book and kept reading to find the meaning and depth I was hoping would be in the pages. That's not what happened, and the flow was sluggish and mostly uninteresting. I trudged along and was quite happy when I finished, not because it leaves me thinking or pondering any message or any character, but because finally I could move on. 

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams 🔖🔖

First published January 1, 1945 

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Awards: New York Drama Critics' Circle Award 1945

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• The Glass Menagerie is a memory play, and its action is drawn from the memories of the narrator, Tom Wingfield. Tom is a character in the play, which is set in St. Louis in 1937. He is an aspiring poet who toils in a shoe warehouse to support his mother, Amanda, and sister, Laura. (Source: sparknotes)

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Even my second reading could not get me any more invested in these characters. I found the mother annoying and grating, Tom was too interested in escape to be much use to his family, Laura was hard to relate to, and Jim ... what an ass.

I didn't miss the symbolism of Laura's glass collection and the unicorn, the damage, and who the instigator of that damage was. I think that symbolism is the only redeeming thing for me about the play.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden 🔖🔖🔖

First published January 1, 2022 

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The Housemaid is a mystery novel that follows Millie Calloway, a young woman with a criminal past, who is employed as a housekeeper by a rich woman, Nina Winchester, with a seeming mental health condition. McFadden explores themes of discipline and power, victimhood and abuse. 

Trigger warning: This book describes violence, domestic abuse, and attempted death by suicide. (Source: suppersummary.com) 

In this mysterious and suspenseful story, we follow the life of Millie, a woman with a dark past who lands a job as a housekeeper for the wealthy and enigmatic Nina Winchester. As Millie navigates the treacherous waters of the Winchester household, she soon realizes that there's more to Nina's erratic behavior than meets the eye. (Source: booksthatslay.com) 

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This was recommended by a friend and I read it in one sitting, staying up until midnight to do so. That's how I do thrillers, apparently. At least the ones that keep me interested and invested. 

This one did that, even though the character development was overall fairly non-existent. I had a huge piece of it figured out about a third of the way through, the rest of it 3/4 of the way. Still, I had to finish and see how it played out. 

I found great disbelief in the behavior of Millie at times, sometimes saying out loud, "Come on! Don't be so stupid!" She seemed to be a contradiction between smart, determined, stable ... and teen-sex-hormones-make-me-an-idiot. 

I am mixed about the ending. I am not sure I like how the victims freed themselves, yet I may be sadly on a moral high horse. I did, however, like the very very end where we get a glimpse of how this continues to play out for the main character. 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker 🔖🔖🔖🔖🔖

This book has a Resume! 

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First published in 1982.

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Literary Awards: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1983, National Book Award for Fiction 1983 

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The Color Purple is a A feminist work about an abused and uneducated African American woman’s struggle for empowerment, The Color Purple was praised for the depth of its female characters and for its eloquent use of Black English Vernacular.  The Color Purple movingly depicts the growing up and self-realization of Celie, who overcomes oppression and abuse to find fulfillment and independence. (Source: Britannica)

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I loved this book when I first read it ten years ago and I just might love it even more now. 

I enjoy the "Dear God" format of story-telling. I love the character development. I love the characters who feel real to me, genuine, so human.  This is a story of empowerment, change, finding your voice, and finding peace. 

"I'm poor, I'm black, I may be ugly and I can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here.

Amen, say Shug. Amen, amen." 

I love Alice Walker's note at the end - "I thank everybody in this book for coming. A.W., author and medium" 

This whole thing stays with me. 

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Why was this banned? 

The American Library Association placed it on the list of top hundred banned and challenged books in the United States from 1990 to 1999 (17), 2000 to 2009 (17), and 2010 to 2019 (50), as well as the top ten list for 2007 (6) and 2009 (9). Commonly cited justifications for banning the book include sexual explicitness, explicit language, violence, and homosexuality. (Source: wikipedia).  

My thoughts: 

Sexual explicitness - Yes, including child molestation. The main character is raped by "Pa" as a teenager and later by her new husband. The females in to book speak frequently of not being safe sexually form men. There are frequent references to body parts in ways that some may find offensive. 

Explicit language - Yes, including the F word and the N word. Also the S word occurs about 8 times.

Violence - Yes. Women are beaten. 

Homosexuality - Yes. Two women have a sexual and loving relationship. The sexual nature is mostly implied, the fact that they love each other and share a bed is not hidden. 

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For further discussion from Teaching Books for Schools website: 

• Teacher's Guide from Penguin Random House
• Reading Group Guide from Cheltenham Festivals 

Unleashed by Emily Kimelman 🔖🔖🔖

 

First published April 19, 2011 

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The book follows the life of Joy Humbolt, who has just ended it up with her boyfriend, fired from work, and bought a dog (Blue). She then gets a gig to take over someone's dog-walking route after which a series of mysteries unfold once she discovered a dead body while walking one of her dogs. She'll risk everything to bring the killer to justice. (Source: wikipedia)

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I got this one as it was promised to be LGBTQ inclusive. I don't consider, however, a side character who is the gay brother of the main character to fall under this "inclusive" umbrella. Maybe "LGBTQ included"?  The main character being LGBTQ would be inclusive ... this one was a raging heterosexual. ;) 

That being said, I did stay up two hours past my bed time to finish the story. I had it figured out before it was presented, yet that was okay as it was fun to see how she was going to figure it out and then "resolve" it. There wasn't a ton of meaningful character development from beginning to end, but she was a fun main character. 

Bottom line - not one I'd highly recommend, especially if we're looking for LGBTQ inclusive. 

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque 🔖🔖🔖🔖🔖

First published January 1, 1929

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All Quiet on the Western Front is a novel which describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental trauma during WWI as well as the detachment from civilian life felt by many returning home from the war. It is an antiwar novel that relies on the author's personal experience in war to depict the era's broader disillusionment. (Source: Bing)

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This is both beautiful and heartbreaking. So real and poignant, which makes it devastating. Important read. Likely the best war novel ever written. It felt like I could not only see what the character was seeing, but also feeling some of his emotions. I also appreciated the commentary on war. 

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Resources from TeachingBooks: 

Lesson Plan from Random House High School

Lesson Plan from Read Write Think 

Evil Eye by Etaf Rum 🔖🔖

 

First published September 5, 2023

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Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she would finally feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. She’s gotten to follow her dreams, completing an undergraduate degree in Art and landing a good job at the local college. As a traditional wife, she also raises their two school-aged daughters, takes care of the house, and has dinner ready when her husband gets home. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough?

After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. Her mother blames a family curse for the trouble she’s facing, and while Yara doesn’t really believe in old superstitions, she still finds herself growing increasingly uneasy with her mother’s warning and the possibility of falling victim to the same mistakes.

Shaken to the core by these indictments of her life, Yara finds her carefully constructed world beginning to implode. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real—and damaging—implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters. (Source: Goodreads)

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The thing I enjoyed most about this book were the journal entries. So well-written and drew me in, so descriptive and flowed so easily. Beautiful, really.

Describing a transition out of an intensely limiting life is done in so many layers; family, marriage, culture, religion, society - so many expectations to break through, each almost separately, each process very similar to the others. This would be a lot to write a novel about. That being said ... this was a slow, redundant, and repetitive read.

Ultimately, I kept waiting for resolution or moving into another level to no avail until the very end.

Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman 🔖🔖🔖

I - First published August 12, 1986

Literary awards: Pulitzer Prize for Letters 1992

II - First published January 1, 1991

Literary awards: Los Angeles Book Prize for Fiction 1992

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Maus, often published as Maus: A Survivor's Tale, is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor.                                                                   

In the frame-tale timeline in the narrative present that begins in 1978 in New York City, Spiegelman talks with his father Vladek about his Holocaust experiences, gathering material and information for the Maus project he is preparing. In the narrative past, Spiegelman depicts these experiences, from the years leading up to World War II to his parents' liberation from the Nazi concentration camps. Much of the story revolves around Spiegelman's troubled relationship with his father and the absence of his mother, who died by suicide when Spiegelman was 20.  (Source: wikipedia.com)

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This is a review for both part I and part II, which really need to be read together for the best flow and impact. 

I am not generally a reader of graphic novels, yet have heard so much about this one, I had to make an exception. Also, it's banned *and* had a pulitzer prize win. 

Now I almost feel bad to give it only 3 stars. Part of me wonders if I've missed something important - I mean more important than the amazing story of surviving the holocaust. It is well done, kept me interested, I needed to finish. It was real, it was devastating. Yet it lacked something for me, and I'm not sure what. 

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Why was this banned?

In 2022, the board of trustees for McMinn County Schools in east Tennessee voted unanimously to remove Maus from the curriculum over concerns including profanity, violence, and nudity. The decision led to a backlash and attracted attention the day before Holocaust Remembrance Day, and was covered by media in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Spiegelman called the decision baffling, "Orwellian", and "daffily myopic". (Source: wikipedia.com)

My thoughts: 

Profanity - barely. There are several racial slurs. 

Violence - it's the Holocaust. There is violence depicted, including a German officer smashing a child's head against a brick wall while holding the child's legs, showing black and white blood spatter on the wall. Horrible violence against Jews and others is also described in some detail. Quite necessary to be realistic. There is also a black and white pool of blood in the bathroom where his mother killed herself. 

Nudity - barely. There is a drawing of his mother in the bathtub after killing herself and you can see the tops of her bare breasts, including the nipples. There are a few depictions of bare butts. 

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Further exploration found on Teaching Books website: 

• Teacher's Notes written by Blair Mahoney of Penguin Random House Australia 
• Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Discussion Guide 
• Teacher's Guide from Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre

The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk 🔖🔖🔖🔖

First published March 19, 1951.

Literary Awards: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1952, National Book Award Finalist for Fiction 1952.

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The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard two destroyer-minesweepers in the Pacific Theater in World War II. Among its themes, it deals with the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by ship captains and other officers. The mutiny of the title is legalistic, not violent, and takes place during Typhoon Cobra, in December 1944. The court-martial that results provides the dramatic climax to the plot. (Source: wikipedia.com)

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I read this as part of a plan to read Pulitzer prize winners. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Character development was great, subtle, and believable. The descriptions of the ship were well done and I could picture the settings. I even got a bit attached to the Caine myself. I liked that the ending isn't tied up in a nice little bow like so many novels. Loved that things were not as black and white as one may have been buying into all along. Worth the read.