Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harpermusebooks for the review copy of Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar.

What would you do as a mother if your husband and children were taken away to a concentration camp?  Helen is a nurse of German heritage in Germany in 1943 when the Nazis come for her family. Her husband is a “gypsy” (now known as Romani) therefore her husband and children are taken away.  Helen goes with them to Auschwitz.  She fights to keep her children alive in the camp.  Will Helen and her family survive?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This historical fiction novel showed an impossible choice that was made by a real woman during WWII.  This was a heart wrenching tale that will stay with me long after I turned the last page.

·       I had never thought about Auschwitz being divided into different “groups” such as gypsies (Romani), communists, Jews, and further into ethnicities such as German gypsies (Romani), Russian gypsies (Romani), etc.

·       To control disease, the doctor would kill entire barracks whether everyone was sick or not.  It’s hard to fathom the slaughter of so many people.

·       To me as I’m sure it is to many people, I automatically think about the Jewish people when I thin about the Holocaust, not the gypsies (Romani).  This group was also heavily persecuted by the Nazis.  Approximately 20,000 gypsies (Romani) were killed in Auschwitz.  I was intrigued to read that the gypsies (Romani) fought back when the Nazis showed up in May 1944 to exterminate them and were able to hold off their execution at that time.

·       It’s also strange to me that the Nazis would let Helen run a nursery school for the children of the camp.  They treated them humanely only to experiment on them or kill them.  The depth of depravity is horrifying.

·       Speaking of horrifying, the villain in this novel is Dr. Mengele, who was the real-life doctor in Auschwitz who famously experimented on twins.  He is a complicated and evil individual.  Helen and the reader never can understand what makes this man tick.

·       The novel is Helen’s story and at times is written as first person diary entries that she makes. 

·       The end of the novel has a “historical clarifications” section on the real history of the events in the novel.  There are also thought-provoking discussion questions.

·       This novel seemed so much more important to me knowing that it was the true story of people who were in the Holocaust.  Helen and her five children deserve to be remembered.  It made me ponder all of the other souls whose stories deserve to be told.

Favorite quotes:

“As long as I’ve got an ounce of humanity left in me, I’m going to risk my life for others.”

“I had to love even my enemies.  It was the only way to keep from becoming a monster myself.”

“My family is here.  I can’t leave without them.  I’m a mother, Herr Dokter.  You all wage your wars for grand ideals, you defend your fanatical beliefs about liberty, country, and race, but mothers only have one homeland, one ideal, one race:  our family.  I will go with my children wherever fate takes them.”

Overall, Auschwitz Lullaby by Mario Escobar is a heart wrenching WWII historical fiction novel that will stay with you long after you’ve read the last page.

What is your favorite WWII novel or nonfiction book?

A Measure of Devotion by Nell Joslin (TLC Book Tour)

Susannah Shelburne lives in South Caroline in 1863.  She has a much older husband, Jacob, and one son, Francis.  Their family does not believe in slavery.  Francis left their family to join the Confederate army at the start of the war, much to his parents’ dismay.  As Jacob’s health fails, Susannah must leave him in the care of friends (employees that were former slaves that they freed), to travel to where Francis has been gravely wounded in battle.  Will Francis forgive her for the cruel words that she said before he left for the war?  Will this family survive the war?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This is a very well written, fascinating Civil War story.

·       Things were very complicated when people had anti-slavery sentiment and lived in the South.  I had never thought about people being killed in the south for their beliefs.

·       This novel was told in the first person viewpoint of Susannah. It flipped at first between “current day” of going to help Francis, to back when her and Jacob got together, married, and had Francis. 

·       A mother’s love is everything.  Susannah has many, many trials trying to save Francis, especially after he is captured as a prisoner of war.  Francis never seems grateful, but Susannah never stopped loving him.

·       The story showed the cruelty of war through all manner of what could be thought of as small incidents.  For example, Francis tells his mother the story of how they killed a cow in front of a young mother and her two young children.  This poor family didn’t have enough food to survive.

Overall, A Measure of Devotion by Nell Joslin is a beautifully written compelling story of the Civil War.

Book Source:  A review copy from Regel House Publishing as a part of the TLC Book Tour. 

Tilt by Emma Pattee

 

Title:  Tilt

Author:  Emma Pattee

Narrated by:  Ariel Blake

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 6 hours and 54 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank-you!

Do you like to read disaster novels or watch disaster movies?  If so, do you have a favorite?

Annie is nine months pregnant and has just started her maternity leave.  She decides she needs to get everything set for her baby and travels to Ikea to purchase a crib.  While there, a massive earthquake hits Portland.  Unable to reach her husband and with the city in full chaos, Annie starts her journey to find her husband and to return home.

My thoughts on this audiobook:

·       Annie experiences both the best and worst of humanity during her voyage.

·       The novel flashes back through time to give Annie’s backstory as well as her romance and relationship problems with her husband.

·       As the story continued, I became invested in Annie’s story, and I really wanted her to make it home.

·       I am not sure about the ending of this novel.  There were a lot of loose ends not tied up, but I do keep thinking about this story.

·       Ariel Blake, the narrator of this audiobook, had a great performance and the audiobook kept me invested on some long drives.  The only thing I didn’t like was the cringey baby music as the beginning and end of the audiobook.

·       NPR Book of the Day had a great segment on this novel.

·       Emma Pattee is a debut author. With such a great first novel, I’m interested to see what she writes next.

·       Annie’s thoughts were raw and honest.  They were funny at times, but also sad.  She is unlikeable at times, but also very relatable.  She is all of us.

·       This novel was a good depiction of motherhood and survival.

Overall, Tilt by Emma Pattee was an interesting disaster and survival story and a perfect audiobook to keep your attention on long drives. 

Counting Backwards by Jacqueline Friedland (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Title: Counting Backwards

Author:  Jacqueline Friedland

Narrated by:  Amanda Stribling, Carolyn Jania

Publisher: Harper Muse

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 45 minutes

Source: Audiobook review Copy from NetGalley and physical book review copy from @jackiefriedland @harpermusebooks @austenprose.  Thank you!

What's a book that you think has a stunning cover design?  I love the pomegranate on the cover of this novel, and it works so well with the theme of the novel.

Jessa Gidney is a Manhattan lawyer and has recently been passed over for partner.  She miscarried a year before and has been having problems getting pregnant again which has been causing friction with her husband, Vance.  When she meets Isobel Perez as part of her firm’s pro bono work, she realizes that there is much more to the case than just a deportation order.  Why are the women at the deportation center being sterilized?

In 1920s Virginia, Carrie Buch has lived a hard life. She was separated from her mother and raised by a foster family who just wanted free labor.  After she is raped, the system continues to let her down. What is her connection to Jessa?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This novel had a rough start with a couple arguing about fertility as they try to get pregnant, Luckily, the story picked up after that and became a compelling story that I couldn’t put down.

·       The look into our countries history with eugenics was both horrifying and thought provoking.  It’s important and timely now as unfortunately these types of cases persist.  Who gets to decide whether a woman is allowed to bear children?

·       This is a dual timeline novel which spends equal time with Jessa and Carrie.  They are both interesting characters.

·       The author is a lawyer which gives the novel an authentic feel.

·       I couldn’t stop listening to the audiobook.  It was a fascinating story with great narrators.

·       There is a great list of additional reading at the end of the novel.

·       There is also a fascinating author’s note on how the author first read about the real-life Carrie Buck and her case while she was a high school senior.  I am horrified on how Carrie Buck was treated.

Overall, Counting Backwards by Jacqueline Friedland is a compelling dual narrative novel that examines a dark time in our country’s history that also is seeping into current events surrounding women’s rights and immigration.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

A routine immigration case, a shocking legacy. Jessa Gidney's quest for justice draws her into the heart of an abhorrent conspiracy. As she uncovers her personal ties to a heartbreaking past, her life takes a dramatic turn, in this emotionally riveting novel inspired by true events.

New York, 2022. Jessa Gidney is trying to have it all--a high-powered legal career, a meaningful marriage, and hopefully, one day, a child. But when her professional ambitions come up short and Jessa finds herself at a turning point, she leans into her family's history of activism by taking on pro bono work at a nearby ICE detention center. There she meets Isobel Pérez--a young mother fighting to stay with her daughter--but as she gets to know Isobel, an unsettling revelation about Isobel's health leads Jessa to uncover a horrifying pattern of medical malpractice within the detention facility. One that shockingly has ties to her own family.

Virginia, 1927. Carrie Buck is an ordinary young woman in the center of an extraordinary legal battle at the forefront of the American eugenics conversation. From a poor family, she was only six years old when she first became a ward of the state. Uneducated and without any support, she spends her youth dreaming about a different future--one separate from her exploitative foster family--unknowing of the ripples her small, country life will have on an entire nation.

As Jessa works to assemble a case against the prison and the crimes she believes are being committed there, she discovers the landmark Supreme Court case involving Carrie Buck. Her connection to the case, however, is deeper and much more personal than she ever knew--sending her down new paths that will leave her forever changed and determined to fight for these women, no matter the cost.

Alternating between the past and present, and deftly tackling timely-yet-timeless issues such as reproductive rights, incarceration, and society's expectations of women and mothers, Counting Backwards is a compelling reminder that progress is rarely a straight line and always hard-won. A moving story of two remarkable women that you'll remember for years to come.

ADVANCE PRAISE

"Jacqueline Friedland's ripped-from-the-headlines story is an Erin Brockovich for our times."— Jill Santopolo, New York Times bestselling author of The Light We Lost

". . . a riveting, compelling story--but it's also an important one, reminding us that history's darkest aspects can echo forward into our present day and that there is so much work left to do in the fight for freedom and equality."— Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The German Wife

AUTHOR BIO

Jacqueline Friedland is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of historical and contemporary women's fiction. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she earned a law degree from NYU and a Master of Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College. Jackie regularly reviews fiction for trade publications and appears at schools and other locations as a guest lecturer. She lives just outside New York City with her husband, four children, and two dogs. Connect with her online at JacquelineFriedland.com

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

 

Title:  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Author:  Anne Bronte

Narrated by:  Piers Wehner & Katy Carmichael

Publisher: Naxos Audiobooks

Length: Approximately 20 hours and 29 minutes

Source: Checked out with Hoopla through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

 

Have you ever heard of Anne Bronte?  Have you ever read any of her novels?

I read all of the Bronte novels written by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne back in high school and college.  I enjoyed them all, but I was surprised at how well I loved Anne’s novels.  She is the lesser-known Bronte and not nearly talked about as much as Charlotte or Emily.  I think this is a shame as I truthfully enjoy The Tenant of Wildfell Hall more than Wuthering Heights.  I think it’s just as good as her sisters.  Unfortunately, Charlotte held The Tenant of Wildfell Hall back from being published again while she was alive.  It was considered a scandalous book for its time as it dealt with alcoholism, marital strife, and a woman leaving her husband and supporting herself.  In the twentieth century, this book has been reexamined and is considered one of the earliest feminist novels.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was the JASNA Northwoods book club pick for our June meeting that was rescheduled for August.  I finished this book the beginning of June and was ready to discuss it, but I wasn’t finished with the second book so I am glad for the extra time.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a story within a story.  The story starts with a young gentleman farmer named Gilbert Markham writing a series of letters to a friend that describe how a mysterious young widow, Helen Graham, has moved to the neighborhood with her small son.  She supports herself as an artist.  Gilbert finds himself falling in love with her, but she becomes the talk of the neighborhood as various rumors abound.  Helen gives Gilbert her diary to discover her true past.  In it, Gilbert discovers that Helen is still a married woman.  She married Arthur Huntingdon for love, but he soon slips into a life of alcoholism and womanizing.  He uses Helen’s money to fund his lifestyle. Helen tries to make her life work, but when she finds Arthur getting their son drunk and trying to lead him into a dissolute life, she knows it is time to leave.   The book flips back in the final third to Gilbert’s point of view. Will Helen and Gilbert get their happy ending?

I really liked how forward-thinking Helen was with her questioning of why boys were educated on the ways of the world while girls were not. I like her posing the question of why aren’t women better prepared for the world and how to handle it?  Why were they left in a state of naivety? It was also forward thinking to have Helen leave her husband and try to support herself.

The framing device with Gilbert was okay.  It felt like Gilbert’s side of the story could have been edited down.  I liked how the beginning of the story was like a Jane Austen novel.  I didn’t really feel Gilbert and Helen’s love story.    I don’t think Gilbert was Helen’s equal, especially when he mistakenly beat up her brother in a jealous rage. 

I liked how this story was one of what happens if you actually marry the Byronic hero from Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre . . . . or the bad boys from Austen like Willoughby or Wickham.  The man who was so charming in the beginning, is an impossible husband to live with.  It was interesting to think about.  It also makes me wonder, how much of the story was based on Anne’s brother Branwell?  Or was it based on things she saw as a governess?  It made me really think about the lack of options women had at the time and how they could be stuck in a truly terrible situation.

Piers Wehner & Katy Carmichael were both good narrators.  Wehner narrated the Gilbert letters while Carmichael narrated Helen’s letters.  It was a very interesting audiobook.  I liked comparing sections to my book as well.

The Paris Daughter by Kristin Harmel

 

Title: The Paris Daughter

Author:  Kristin Harmel

Narrated by:  Madeleine Maby

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 7 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

 

What is your favorite novel/movie/show that is set during WWII?  I have so many favorites.  I am looking forward to All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doer becoming a series on Netflix later this year.  I loved that book. 

Kristin Harmel is one of my favorite authors and her works that I have read so far have all been set during the WWII time period.  In the Paris Daughter, American ex-pats Elise and Juliette become best friends in Paris right before WWII.  They are both expecting babies.  Elise is married to an artist and Juliette and her husband Paul run a bookstore.  Both women have daughters, but as war marches across Europe, their lives are changed forever.  Elise has to make one of hardest decisions a mother has to make and give her daughter to Juliette to care for as she flees from the Nazis.  After the war ends, Elise returns to find the bookstore bombed out and Juliette and her family missing.  What happened to her daughter in her last moments?  Where is Juliette?

The Paris Daughter was a bit of a slow start for me, but once I got into the story, I couldn’t stop listening to the audiobook.  Madeleine Maby is a good narrator as well and the story was engaging.  I guessed the big reveals in this story, but I still enjoyed it.

This novel really tugged at my heart strings as a mother, and it really made me think about all of the children that disappeared or were killed during World War II (and other conflicts).  Thinking about their parents and wondering what happened to your children.  How many children were never found again?  How many children returned home to find their families gone?

I also enjoyed the story about artwork and how the war impacted it.  Art was worth more from artists that were killed during the war.  Art had disappeared and been rampantly stolen.  I also love the movie Woman in Gold and it makes me wonder how many people never got back their own works of art.

I learned new things in this novel as well and Harmel’s notes at the end are wonderful.  There is a big moment towards the end of the book that I thought was all fiction, but it was a real event.  I was intrigued.  I enjoy learning new to me history.

Overall, The Paris Daughter is an intriguing new WWII historical fiction novel that focuses on motherhood and also the art world during that time period.  I highly recommend it.

Black Girls Must Have it All by Jayne Allen (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harperperennial for the review copy of Black Girls Must Have it All by Jayne Allen.

Do you ever start a series in the middle or end or do you always start with the first book?

Black Girls Must Have it All is the third in a series of books.  I enjoyed this book, but I definitely want to go back and read the entire series.

SYNOPSIS:

In this final installment in the acclaimed Black Girls Must Die Exhausted trilogy, Tabitha is juggling work, relationships, and a newborn baby—but will she find the happy ending she’s always wanted?

After a whirlwind year, Tabitha Walker’s carefully organized plan to achieve the life she wanted—perfect job, dream husband, and stylish home—has gone off the rails. Her checklist now consists of diapers changed (infinite), showers taken (zero), tears cried (buckets), and hours of sleep (what’s that?).

Don't get her wrong, Tabby loves her new bundle of joy and motherhood is perhaps the only thing that's consistent for her these days. When the news station announces that they will be hiring outside competitors for the new anchor position, Tabby throws herself into her work. But it’s not just maintaining her position as the station’s weekend anchor that has her worried. All of her relationships seem to be shifting out of their regular orbits. Best friend Alexis can’t manage to strike the right balance in her “refurbished” marriage with Rob, and Laila’s gone from being a consistent ride-or-die to a newly minted entrepreneur trying to raise capital for her growing business. And when Marc presents her with an ultimatum about their relationship, coupled with an extended “visit” from his mother, Tabby is forced to take stock of her life and make a new plan for the future.

Consumed by work, motherhood, and love, Tabby finds herself isolated from her friends and family just when she needs them most. But help is always there when you ask for it, and Tabby’s village will once again rally around her as she comes to terms with her new life and faces her biggest challenge yet—choosing herself.

Publication Date:  April 11, 2023.  

My thoughts:  While I am not a black woman, this book was so relatable for working women who are trying to get ahead both at work and struggle with having taking care of a newborn child.  My youngest is 12, but the descriptions of the all-consuming task of keeping your newborn alive and fed brought back a lot of memories.  Add to this the extra layer of being a black woman and this gave me a new perspective.  This is a character driven novel.  I loved getting to know Tabby, Marc and her friends Alexis and Laila.

The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson

 

Title:  The House of Eve

Author:  Sadeqa Johnson

Narrated by:  Ariel Blake and Nicole Lewis

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 27 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you @simonandschuster #BookClubFavorites for the free books!

Do you like book covers that show faces?  I love this book cover, but it goes with the trend of having a headless person.  The other trend I notice is the back of someone walking away.  I think it's so you can imagine yourself as the character.  I like covers that show faces and also those that don’t.  I love the color of the dress on this cover.

The House of Eve is a riveting new historical fiction novel that I couldn’t put down.  I was listening to it on audiobook and I had a hard time stopping the story to do things like work, eat, or talk to my family.  The House of Eve is set in 1948 and is the story of two very women. Ruby is a fifteen year old in Philadelphia.  She is working on getting good grades and a scholarship to be the first person in her family to go to college.  It’s hard work as her single mother doesn’t care to raise her and cares more about her boyfriend of the month.  When Ruby meets Shimmy, sparks fly and she will make a decision that could potentially impact her life forever.

Eleanor is attending Howard University in Washington DC and is the pride her family from Ohio.  She has the dream of becoming an archivist at a library.  When she meets the handsome William Pride, she is instantly smitten.  William is from an elite and rich family in Washington DC.  Eleanor feels that William’s mother Rose will never accept her. Will having a baby bring her into the family more?

I really enjoyed the two different alternating narratives.  Ruby grew up in poverty with a single mother, while Eleanor had a more middle class upbringing with two parents.  They both have ambitions, and they both have to work hard for what they want.  I don’t want to ruin the story for others, but I loved the realistic challenges that the two women faced including pregnancy, racism, social pressures, body image issues, etc.

I also loved learning about the social scene of elite African Americans in Washington DC in the late 1940s.  It was new to me and so interesting.  There was also a section of the book that was disturbing showing what happened to unwed mothers who were sent to religious homes for unwed mothers.  I can’t stop thinking about this and how these mothers were treated.

Author Sadeqa Johnson previously wrote another historical fiction novel that I thought was excellent, Yellow Wife.  I LOVED that there was a connection to Yellow Wife at the end of The House of Eve.  It made me want to clap.  It was perfect.  I also read that this was a personal story for Johnson as her grandmother found herself a 14-year old unwed mother.

Ariel Blake and Nicole Lewis were great and engaging narrators.  The story was told through both Ruby and Eleanor’s point of view.  Each narrator told the story of each character and it made it so it seemed like their own personal story.  I enjoyed it.

 

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

 

Title:  Crying in H Mart

Author: Michelle Zauner

Narrated by:  Michelle Zauner

Publisher: Random House Audio

Length: Approximately 7 hours and 23 minutes

Source: Checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library through Overdrive 

What is your favorite book or movie about the relationship between daughters and mothers?   What is your favorite book that describes food as part of the narrative?

Crying in H Mart is a gripping memoir that I could not stop listening to.  It’s a very personal story of the author Michelle Zauner and her relationship with her mother.  A lot of their connections and happy memories are connected with the tasty Korean food that her mother made.  Michelle narrated the audiobook herself and it made it very personal.   

Michelle was in her twenties in a band and working as a waitress out east when she received a call that her mother was seriously ill with cancer.  She puts her life on hold and returns to Eugene Oregon to help her mother through her illness and ultimately through her end of life.    This memoir focused on their mother-daughter relationship as Michelle grew up and at the end of her mother’s life.  She was able to really understand her mother after she was gone.  It also focused on the difficulties of growing up as an Asian American with a Korean mother and a white father.  It also discussed the wonderful Korean food that Michelle’s mother made and how they connected as a family through food.  They would also explore different restaurants in both American and Korea.  It sounded delightful.

I highly recommend this memoir and can’t say enough good things about it.  I laughed, and I cried reading this book. 

The Bookstore on the Beach by Brenda Novak

 

Do you have any favorite books featuring mothers?

 The Bookstore on the Beach is a multi-generational story set in a charming beachside town of Sable Beach.

 Mary owns a bookstore half and half with her best friend Laurie.  She lives a private life and is excited that her daughter Autumn is coming to visit with her two grandkids, Caden and Taylor.  As Autumn starts to ask questions about her father, Mary worries that the past she has kept secret will come out.  Autumn’s husband went missing 18 months ago.  When she runs into an old high school flame, she feels like perhaps she can move on.  Should she try to start afresh or continue to search for her husband?  Taylor misses her father, but at the beach, she makes a new friend and realizes that she may want to take a different path in life. 

 I loved the multi-generational story of The Bookstore on the Beach.  Mary, Autumn, and Taylor’s story line were all equally strong and very engaging.  The story was very dramatic. I loved the family relationships, but I also loved the look into how secrets can change your life and impact your family.  The big reveals in the story pulled on my emotions and kept me looped into the story.  I liked the mystery of a couple of the storylines as well as the contemporary issues.  I also loved the great romance that was in the story as well.  I’m being a little vague here as I LOVED the surprises, and I don’t want to ruin them for anyone else.  There is a great epilogue you also get if you sign up for Brenda Novak’s newsletter.

 I read this in April for the Brenda Novak Book Group.  We had the book club meeting last month and it was fun as always.  You can still access it on Brenda Novak’s Facebook page.   There will be a deeper discussion on Brenda Novak’s Birthday on May 15^th.

 Favorite Quote:

“She’d never forget wandering down the aisles, touching the spines of the books she’d already enjoyed.  As an only child, the fictional characters they contained were her first friends, and even though she had plenty of real friends as she grew older, she was always eager to retreat into the imaginary world created by a good storyteller.”    - I love this description of the bookstore and reading!

 Overall, The Bookstore on the Beach is a great multi-generational family drama that makes the perfect beach read.

 Book Source:  Purchased from Amazon.com

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

 Kristin Hannah’s historical fiction novels have become a “must read” for me as they come out.  I was very excited to read The Four Winds as part of the Brenda Novak Book Club – 2021 Reading Challenge.  She had a wonderful interview with Kristin Hannah last Thursday the 25^th that is available on Facebook.  It provides great insight into Hannah’s writing process and how she came up with the Four Winds.  I loved it!

 Elsa is a plain, unhappy, unloved, and unmarried daughter of a prosperous family in Texas in the 1920s.  One day she makes herself a red flapper dress, bobs her hair, and meets her husband.  Handsome Rafe has many dreams but settles down to raise a family with Elsa.   As the depression and then the Dust Bowl hit, the Martinelli family is hit with many difficult choices.  What will they do to survive?

 I loved the vivid portrait that Hannah painted of the Dust Bowl and the depression.  The very hard choices that people had to make for their family survival were devastating.  The ecological destruction wrought by the Dust Bowl helped to bring in new conservation practices that are still used to this day.  The travel from the shattered plains to California to then be treated like dirt was also heartbreaking.  People that proudly had their own farms or owned their own businesses were treated like trash and forced to live in tent cities.  The novel really humanized the situation.

 I LOVED the characters in this novel.  Elsa is a woman who had difficulty in self-confidence, but through the love of her children, she was able to work her hardest to survive.  I in particular loved her relationship with her in-laws and how they became her real parents.  I also loved the often-angry relationship she had with her 13-year-old daughter Loreda.  It rang as a true mother daughter relationship.  I loved that Elsa was doing her best, even when Loreda didn’t see it.

 I don’t want to ruin this book experience for others so I will not get further into the plot.  Like Hannah’s past few novels, I flew through this one and couldn’t put it down.  Tears were shed and emotions were felt.  I loved this novel.

 Favorite Quotes:

“Hope is a coin I carry:  an American penny, given to me by a man I came to love.”

 “Passion is a thunderstorm, there and gone.”

 “Elsa hadn’t known until right then how much difference a friend could make.  How one person could lift your spirit just enough to keep you upright.”

 “Poverty was a soul-crushing thing.  A cave that tightened around you, its pinprick of light closing a little more at the end of each desperate, unchanged day.”

 “Life went on, even in the hardest of times.”

 Overall, The Four Winds is a gripping story that vividly paints the devastation caused by the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

Book Source:  Purchased from Amazon.com

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson

 I kept seeing The Kindest Lie on Instagram and saw that it was about an African American female engineer.  Readers of this blog know that I am always looking for books about engineers.  It’s hard enough to find engineers as the protagonist, let alone a female African American engineer!

 Once I started reading this book, I couldn’t put it down.  The story was very engaging.  Ruth Tuttle is at a high in life.  She has graduated from Yale and is a successful chemical engineer working in downtown Chicago.  She has married Xavier, a man that she loves and who is successful in his own right.  It is 2008 and Barack Obama has just won the presidency.  It seems that anything is possible for them.  Xavier wants to start a family, but all Ruth can think about is the secret she has been keeping from him.  She had a baby when she was 17 and gave it up for adoption.  She decides now is the time to finally return to the Indiana industrial town, Ganton, to confront her past.  What happened to the baby she gave up for adoption?  What will happen to Ruth and Xavier’s relationship?

 The story is told is alternating chapters.  The other main point of view is an eleven-year-old boy nick named “Midnight.”  Midnight is an eleven-year-old boy that is growing up in Ganton.  His mother died giving birth to his sister and his father is struggling after the main factory that employed most of the town has closed down.  Midnight is shuffled between his grandma and father and feels wanted nowhere.  He hangs out with kids of color and gets his nickname from those saying he wants to be black – and because he is pasty white.  Will Midnight be sent away by his Grandma?  Will he find his place in the world?

 This story was riveting.  I really liked how both Ruth and Midnight were searching for their own identities and their place in the world.  I enjoyed that Ruth was a professional woman engineer and the exploration of the pitfalls that come with it.  Ruth’s voyage and her struggle to make it out of Ganton and to a professional career were heart rending.  The setting, a midwestern town struggling with unemployment and racial identity was both familiar and intriguing.  I grew up in a small Michigan town that also struggled with unemployment but was more rather a whitewashed town. I know what’s it’s like to struggle and be the first person in your family to go to college.  I don’t know what it’s like to be an African American in America trying to make that same struggle.  There are many more hurdles in the way.    This novel was thought provoking and covered so many hard topics such as race, poverty and social class, losing your sense of self when you lose your job, motherhood, being a woman in a male dominated field, grandparents raising grandchildren, etc.  I greatly enjoyed it.

 Favorite Quotes:

“No one talked about what happened in the summer of 1997 in the house where Ruth Tuttle had grown up.”  - What a great first line!

 “If the titles of doctor and lawyer had signaled success back in the day, then engineer had to be the 2.0 symbol that you made it.”  - I might be biased as an engineer, but I like this.

 “Still, all that old school planning had served Ruth well in chemical engineering, where being a woman was almost as much an anomaly as her Blackness.”

 “No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forgive her.  To him death was just another way people broke their promises.  A way for them to leave and have the last word.”

 “One thing I learned a long time ago is that you can’t live your life looking back.”

 “There was no fairness scale that could right the wrongs from childhood.”

 “Sometimes leaving is the best way.  The only way.”

 Overall, The Kindest Lie is one of the best books I’ve read for a while.  I look forward to continuing to read new works from debut author Nancy Johnson.  Johnson has the gift to put together a riveting story with real characters that cover a lot of truths of life.

 Book Source:  Borrowed from the Kewaunee Public Library. Thank-you!