Review: The Remains of the Day (by Kazuo Ishiguro)

My Rating: 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars

I struggle to write this review because honestly, I'm at a loss for words at the moment.  So perhaps let me backtrack and talk first about why I chose to read this book in the first place.  One of my Goodreads challenges this year is the A to Z Author Challenge where I need to read a book by an author whose (last) name starts with each letter of the alphabet.  The last letter I needed in order to complete this challenge was the letter "I" and after changing my choice a few times, I decided to read a work by an author I had heard plenty about but up to this point hadn’t had the opportunity to experience for myself yet.  Of course, that author is none other than our newly crowned Nobel Laureate, Kazuo Ishiguro.  I’ve known about his masterpiece The Remains of the Day since the 90s and I’m pretty sure I even saw the movie way back when too, but I had never read the book, primarily because it had never been assigned as required reading in any of the literature classes I had taken back then (those were the days where rarely anyone read classics for leisure and so most exposure to classics was through school/classroom setting).  It has been nearly two decades since I’ve been out of the "school" environment and now I can finally say that I’ve read this book – most importantly though, I didn’t just read the book, I actually enjoyed it too!

I’m actually not sure what else I can say about this book that others haven’t already said.  Beautiful, wonderful, brilliant, subtle, multi-layered, philosophical, thought-provoking...these are just some of the words I’ve heard used to describe this book and I absolutely agree with all of them!  Ishiguro is a masterful writer and the way he was able to render the narrative so beautifully, yet subtly, with everything that was not said being equally as important as what was said – very few authors have the ability to utilize language in such a way as to make a story so philosophical and subdued in nature still be so enthralling.  This book definitely left me with much food for thought, so much so in fact that I’m still kind of speechless, hence the rambling nature of this review, as I really don’t know where to start in terms of putting down my thoughts, so I think I will keep it brief and instead just encourage everyone to read this book.  I also think this is a book that needs to be read more than once -- slowly, thoughtfully -- in order to truly understand and appreciate its brilliance.  For me, this was an excellent read with which to end the year (and also complete my challenge) but no doubt I will be coming back to this book again some time in the near future and hopefully at that time, the words won’t escape me again and I will be better able to express the myriad of thoughts going through my mind after finishing this wonderful masterpiece!

Review: Memories Before and After the Sound of Music (by Agathe Von Trapp)

 My rating: 2.5 stars

Coming up against the end of the year with only 2 letters left for my A to Z Author Challenge, I decided to read this memoir by Agathe Von Trapp to fulfill the “V” entry on the list.   As a long-time fan of the The Sound of Music, I had initially approached this book with some amount of excitement – after all, the title of the book draws a distinct connection to one of my favorite movies of all time!  Now that I finished reading the book, I must say that I am quite disappointed, as this book turned out to be nothing like what I expected, and not in a good way.

First, the writing was very drab and overly simplistic to the point of being boring.  Of course, I did cut some slack due to the fact that this was a memoir written by someone who didn’t write for a living, but still, I felt that this was where a good editor could’ve come in and cleaned things up a bit so that the book would’ve been more readable.  To be honest, I’m not too sure if this would appropriately fall into the memoir category because there is actually very little about Agathe herself or about her siblings.  Instead, the book felt more like a rambling account of the history of the Von Trapp family, from the grandparents to the parents and then eventually to the children.  There was a lot of time spent on describing things that the family did/saw/heard, including elaborate descriptions of the various places where the family lived as the children were growing up as well as when they were on tour, plus a lot of stories about things that occurred before Agathe herself even existed.  For example, there were entire chapters dedicated to her father (Captain Von Trapp), her beloved birth mother (also named Agathe), her maternal grandmother Gromi (the family had lived in her home for a few years early on), ordinary events such as birthday and holiday celebrations, her father’s sailing experiences while serving in the navy, the various nannies and governesses they had and what had been taught to them, etc. etc.  It felt like a lot of mundane detail regurgitated in a simplistic, monotone kind of way – I will admit that I found myself nodding off a few times while reading so about a third of the way through the book, I started skimming rather than actually reading word for word as I had been doing previously.

The writing aside, I think my biggest problem with this book was the fact that it seemed to be written for the sole purpose of “setting the record straight” – basically to relay the message that the creators/producers behind the stage and movie versions of The Sound of Music got it “all wrong” in terms of their portrayal of the Von Trapp family.   Throughout the book (it felt like every couple pages to be honest), we, as the readers, were constantly reminded that this detail was wrong or that detail didn’t match or they didn’t actually do this thing or that thing – basically, it seemed that the author’s point was to reiterate that like 99% of what was in the movie/musical was false.  As if that weren’t enough, there was also an entire chapter dedicated essentially to “criticizing” the movie/musical where the author makes her resentment toward the inaccurate portrayal of the family (and the fact that her family never benefited financially from the musical or the movie due to a contract that had been signed when the rights were sold that prevented them from receiving royalties initially) quite known.  I’m not against the author venting her grievances about the family being taken advantage of in terms of the unfair contract piece, but I felt like the book went a bit overboard in its negative tone toward the musical/movie.  To be honest, as a fan of The Sound of Music, I felt a bit insulted after reading this book – no, not by the author’s negativity / bitterness toward a movie I adored, as everyone is subject to their opinions, plus the author certainly has the right to feel anger and resentment about not being portrayed accurately – where I feel insulted is that the author went to such pains to point out how “different” the portrayal was from real life.  I’m sorry, but I think most movie-going audiences nowadays are smart enough to know that producers almost always take certain amounts of creative liberty when adapting a real-life story to the big screen – it’s pretty much a given with all movies that any portrayals, whether of real-life events / people or stories from books, won’t be 100% accurate.  Also, there’s no doubt that those of us who are already fans of the movie/musical have that extra layer of familiarity where we already knew the portrayal in there was only “loosely based” (or “inspired by” if that fits better) the story of the Von Trapp family, so in a sense, we weren’t really expecting to see a “100% accurate portrayal”.    In trying too hard to state the obvious, this book ended up turning me off quite a bit to it.

Also, in reading this book, there were 2 things that surprised me, mostly because I didn’t expect them.  The first was the heavy religious undertone in the book, which I guess shouldn’t really be surprising given the background of the family and the time period, but I was honestly a bit put off by the constant references to “being guided by God’s hand” or “God was watching over the family” or everything that happened being attributed to “God’s intervention and will”.   Don’t get me wrong – it’s not that I’m not religious or anything like that, it’s just that 1) I don’t like being preached at, especially in books, and 2) I prefer to know ahead of time if the book is going to be heavily slanted towards a particular religious perspective so I can decide whether I want to read or not.  The other thing that surprised me was what came across as the author’s ambivalent attitude toward her stepmother Maria.  When talking about her birth mother in the first half of the book, the author seemed a lot more enthusiastic and I could sense the fondness and admiration she had for her mother, but after her mother died and Maria joined the family, the author’s tone came across more detached and “matter-of-fact,” almost as though she was talking about an outsider rather than a member of her family.  I haven’t read Maria Von Trapp’s biographies, but I do know a bit of background about Maria from other things I’ve read so I do know she was a difficult person with a larger-than-life personality that set her apart drastically from the author’s mother.  I’m not necessarily trying to judge their relationship but I just thought it was interesting that the author painted such a peachy sweet, saccharine portrait of the entire family (honestly it seemed that everyone in the family was flawless and perfect, even the extended family consisting of all the aunts and uncles), but when it came to Maria, the tone was obviously different (not necessarily negative per se, but detached and less emotive).

While I was obviously disappointed with this book, it wasn’t an entirely bad experience, as some parts truly were interesting – such as the last chapter for example where the author gave a brief update on each of her siblings and what happened to them after the Trapp Family Singers disbanded.  Also a few tidbits here and there that were interesting “fun facts” about the family, though I honestly didn’t feel that the information warranted an entire book to be written.

Review: All the Flowers in Shanghai (by Duncan Jepson)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

As I was looking for a book to fill the "J" entry for my A to Z Challenge, I came across Duncan Jepson's debut novel  All the Flowers in Shanghai and in reading the summary, I decided to add this one to my list for this challenge.  Perhaps it is due to my Chinese background and growing up surrounded by family stories about my culture and its rich history, but over the years, I've developed a certain fondness for historical fiction set in China and since this book fell into that category based on the summary, I went into it with pretty high expectations.  While overall I would say that I enjoyed reading this book well enough, the overall story didn't really grab me as much as I thought it would, for reasons that I will talk more about below.

Set in the 1930s in Shanghai, a naïve young Chinese girl named Xiao Feng is thrust into the world of the wealthy and powerful Sang family through a marriage arranged by her parents.  This one action -- her parents' selfish, stubborn adherence to age-old superstition and tradition – upends Feng's life and eventually turns her into an extremely bitter, resentful woman who becomes obsessed with seeking revenge against not just the people who put her in that position but also the customs and traditions, her heritage, that drove those people to take the actions they did.  Spanning several decades into the 1960s, this story chronicling Feng's coming of age and survival in a world she views as largely foreign and cruel is set against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent time periods in China's modern history.

Overall, I feel that this book was pretty well written.  While the writing didn't blow me away, it was definitely above average for a debut novel -- descriptive where it needed to be, but not overwhelming, with language appropriate to its time period (for the most part).  I started reading this book without knowing anything about the author at first and have to admit that I was surprised at the author's extensive knowledge of Chinese culture – much of what was described in terms of Chinese customs and traditions, cultural attitudes, philosophy, superstition, relationships, etc. was spot on and it made me wonder about his background.  It wasn't until I read the Author's note at the end of the book that the familiarity with the culture made sense to me, as the author is Eurasian – his mother is Chinese and his father is British.  This book, while written for his mother in a way (he explains in the author's note), was not actually her story, though the inspiration for some of the themes in the story (i.e. mother/daughter relationships, concept of family, etc.) as well as certain elements pertaining to the cultural background were based on his mother's life. 

One of the things I found most interesting about this story is that the author chose to frame the narrative from the main character Xiao Feng's first person point of view.  Up until this point, I hadn't read any books written this way (male author telling the story from the female character's first person perspective), so for me this was a new experience.  I will admit that there were certain points during the story where I actually forgot that this was written by a male, as Feng's voice sounded so authentic at certain moments, but then later on there were parts where I totally could not understand why her character would act that way.  Perhaps this is why I found it difficult to completely connect with the character of Feng, despite sympathizing with her plight (to a certain degree) and the way she was treated.  Feng, while a believable character, was not likable, as her overwhelming bitterness toward the life forced upon her permeated the entire story and basically blinded her to everything going on around her. While I definitely understand why Feng turned out the way she did, it was hard for me to wrap my head around her rationale and the justification she tried to give for some of her actions, some of which were "mistakes" that she made knowingly and deliberately.  I'm all for stories about women who rise up against social convention and survive against the odds, but with Feng, I felt like something was lacking that made me feel differently about her – perhaps it was the fact that the way she went about defying convention was so irrational, I wasn't really convinced what type of person she wanted to be.

In terms of this book being marketed as historical fiction, I actually feel that it doesn't completely fit the category.  Majority of the book is about Feng isolated in the microcosm of her home (first her family home with her parents, grandfather, and sister and later in the Sang family mansion), completely oblivious to everything going on in the world outside.  As I said above, the backdrop of the story was the time period between the 1930s and early 1960s – a time period in which, for those familiar with Chinese history, so many historical events occurred that it was nearly impossible to write a story set during this time / place without having those events impact the story's characters in some way.  With this book, it wasn't until the last quarter of the story or so that the history piece actually came into play in a significant way.   To me, the best works of historical fiction are able to achieve a good balance between incorporating (accurate) historical detail and telling a compelling, captivating story and doing so in a way that weaves both into each other seamlessly.  This book didn't deliver in that aspect (as historical fiction) but as a well-written coming of age story that explores cultural and societal conventions, relationships, family, love and betrayal, etc., this book definitely worked.  I would still recommend this book, as it was a good read overall, it's just that I prefer more depth from a historical perspective.

**BLOG TOUR** Review: The Wife Between Us (by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen)

My Rating: 4 stars

Don’t expect this review to be very long, as there really isn’t a whole lot I can say about this book without spoiling the story!  The Wife Between Us is one of those books that you really need to experience for yourself, but you need to go into it knowing as little as possible. 

Whenever I read a thriller / suspense novel, I usually expect the opening scene to be explosive, a scene that grabs me from the start and hurls me into the depths of the story, not letting go until the very end.  While the Prologue did start out with a relatively “explosive” scene, the opening chapters did not maintain the momentum I expected.  The first half or so of the book was actually quite slow-going, with a lot of time devoted to establishing the main characters and setting up their background story.  It made me worry that perhaps this would be another run-of-the-mill thriller, similar to so many other books from the same genre that had emerged in recent years.  It turns out I had nothing to worry about, as this book absolutely ended up delivering in the psychological thriller department with a roller coaster ride of twists and turns starting at the halfway mark all the way up through the Epilogue.  At that point, I was definitely hanging on for the ride as this roller coaster slammed into one twist after another, with most of the revelations taking me completely by surprise (there were a few I did figure out, but that’s insignificant compared to everything I didn’t figure out).   

This book was written by two different authors, but you would never know from reading it, as the narrative flowed seamlessly and the writing was consistent throughout.  With thrillers, attention to detail is so important, especially after a major plot twist, as there is oftentimes the urge to go back and re-read certain passages to see if the “clues” make sense – with this book, the writing was very meticulous and even though some parts felt slow and a bit draggy at times, the story was still compelling enough to keep reading and guessing along the way.  The authors did a good job taking what could’ve been the “same old, same old” in terms of subject matter and turn it into a unique, cleverly written story with complicated yet interesting characters.  Though I can’t say that I was “wowed” by this book as I have been with other thrillers, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable read, one that I was able to breeze through pretty quickly after the first major plot twist was revealed.  Definitely recommended!

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley