Review: Songbirds (by Christy Lefteri)

My Rating: 4 stars

Even though it's been nearly two years since I read Christy Lefteri's award-winning second novel The Beekeeper of Aleppo, one of the things that has continued to stay with me whenever I think of that book is the affecting, haunting nature of the story.  While I might not remember every detail of the plot, I do remember the gut-wrenching emotions that the story evoked.  I was moved by Nuri's and Afra's heartrending story detailing their harrowing journey from war-torn Syria to Great Britain, trying their best to survive as refugees in a foreign and not necessarily welcoming country. Lefteri's newest work, Songbirds, is written in a similar vein — a poignant, heartbreaking story that centers on foreign domestic workers on the Greek island of Cyprus.  

Nisha Jayakody is a young Sri Lankan widow who, forced by the circumstances of dire poverty and desperation as well as a desire to provide a better life for her beloved daughter Kumari, signs up with an agency that places her as a maid and nanny for Petra, a pregnant businesswoman living on Cyprus whose husband had also just died.  In addition to taking care of Petra's household, Nisha also helps raise Petra's daughter Aliki.  Yiannis is a poacher who secretly traps songbirds, a protected species, and sells them on the black market.  After meeting and falling in love with Nisha, Yiannis longs to get out of the dangerous, illegal trade he is in and marry the woman he loves.  But it is not that easy — due to Nisha's status as a foreign maid, her life actually doesn't belong to her, but rather to her employer, who has the right to fire Nisha if her relationship with Yiannis were discovered.  Like so many of her fellow domestic worker friends, Nisha has few options and while she is treated well by Petra, their relationship is a perfunctory one in that Petra knows nearly nothing about this woman who had taken such good care of her and raised as well as loved her daughter as her own. It is not until one night, when Nisha goes out and doesn't return, effectively vanishing into thin air, that Petra and Yiannis understand not just the profound impact Nisha had on their lives, but also the reality of who she was as a person.

Though the story here is about Nisha, the narrative is actually told from the alternating perspectives of Petra and Yiannis.  Lefteri writes in her author's note that this way of telling Nisha's story — the piecing "together of her existence through the memories of others" — was deliberate, and after understanding what Lefteri was trying to do, it made me appreciate the story more (I highly recommend reading the Author's Note after finishing the book, as Lefteri discusses the inspiration behind the story — it's definitely not to be missed!).  One of the things I love about this story is the fact that it gives a chance for the voices of the most vulnerable to be heard as well as understood — in this way, I found Nisha and her story to be tremendously powerful.

Having said all that, while I did find this story to be both moving and heart wrenching, I felt it didn't quite reach the level of emotional depth that The Beekeeper of Aleppo did.  Of course, that's not to say that Songbirds wasn't an emotional experience because it definitely was —but it didn't leave me speechless like Lefteri's previous work did.  Nevertheless, it's still a beautifully written, absolutely worthy read, one that I highly recommend.  A word of caution though: there are some scenes that describe cruelties done to the songbirds that are troubling and difficult to read — for those who might be bothered by these types of depictions, might be a good idea to gloss over them (luckily those scenes are few and far between).

Received ARC from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

Review: Sparks Like Stars (by Nadia Hashimi)

My Rating:  5 stars

 

Whenever I feel compelled to finish a really long book in around 2-3 days, especially during a particularly busy work week where I already don't have much time to read in the first place, that's usually a pretty good sign that the book will probably turn out to be one I really like.  This was certainly the case with Nadia Hashimi's newest release Sparks Like Stars, her third book set in her parents' home country of Afghanistan.  Given its page count (464 pages) and difficult subject matter, this would not have been an easy or quick read by any means — yet as soon as I started reading, from the very first page, this beautifully written story captivated me to the point that I didn't want to put the book down (and whenever I was forced to put it down in order to tend to personal matters, I wanted to get back to it as soon as possible).  The characters in here were all realistically rendered, even those appearing briefly, but it is the main protagonist Sitara (later renamed Aryana), whose journey we follow starting when she is 10 years old and then later in adulthood, who truly captured my heart. As the narrative was told from Sitara's first person point of view, this perspective made her experiences and everything she went through so much more heartfelt, which in turn, made this a powerful, emotional read from beginning to end. Sitara is an unforgettable character – one whom I was able to connect easily with and also root for. 

One of the things I love and appreciate about historical fiction is its ability to help us learn about people, places, and events that we may not have been familiar with previously.  This was certainly the case here with the portrayal of Afghanistan as a place as well as a character in the story.  Like many Americans, I only know of Afghanistan because of 9/11, when the country was thrust tragically and unwillingly into the spotlight, but its trajectory prior to that — the history of imperialism and colonialism that defined much of its existence, the historical events such as the Communist coup in 1978 that killed the country's President as well as his entire family — much of this was completely unknown to me prior to this point.  I appreciated the way Hashimi divided the story into two timelines — with the first half taking place in 1978 and the second half in 2008 — and how things evolve over the span of 30 years.  In her Author's Note, Hashimi explains that, while Sitara is a purely fictional character and the story is not based on her own life nor that of her family's, she did incorporate some of her personal experiences into shaping the character — for example, Hashimi's own experience as an Afghan American doctor who lived and worked in New York when 9/11 happened — which perhaps is why she was able to bring the emotional nuances of Sitara as a character to life.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not an easy read by any means — it is a sad and heartbreaking story of an innocent life torn apart by tragedy and senseless violence, of the guilt felt by those left behind, and the long-lasting impact it has on their lives.  At the same time though, it is also a story of survival, resilience, and ultimately, hope.  This is definitely a story worth reading — one that I know will stay with me for a long time to come.   And as the best works of historical fiction usually do, after I finished reading, I felt compelled to follow up and research the real life events that were a source of inspiration for the story. 

This is the first book of Hashimi's that I've read and immediately after I finished, I put both of her backlist books on my TBR to hopefully get to soon.  If you get the chance to pick this one up first though, I definitely recommend it!

Last One Out Shut Off the Lights (by Stephanie Soileau)

My Rating:  3.5 stars

Last One Out Shut Off the Lights is an interesting collection of short stories, all set in Louisiana, and featuring ordinary people going about their everyday lives.  The various protagonists in these stories range from teenagers to senior citizens, and through their voices, we get a glimpse of what life is like living in the type of last-chance town where things always feel as though they are in a constant state of flux.  The setting looms large in these stories, and in many ways, can be considered a character in and of itself, lending a hugely atmospheric nature that serves as a backdrop to each story.  

Of course, as is usually the case with short story collections, some were hits and some were misses, though all shared the common feelings of incompleteness and lack of closure to them.  With that said, I did like how all the stories explored issues of identity and belonging in ways both subtle and obvious — but most significantly, each story felt realistic and relatable in some manner. One of the things that struck me after I finished reading was how "ambivalence" could manifest itself in such varied ways — a sentiment that the author, Stephanie Soileau, demonstrated in a masterful way through the very different characters in each of the stories.  

Overall, I enjoyed this collection, even though I wasn't necessarily able to resonate with each character or with each story.  The many blurbs for this collection describe the stories as striking, fierce, evocative, empathetic, engaging — I agree with all of these, though I would also add "cleverly and thoughtfully" written, as each story gave me pause and made me ponder, in a way that I wasn't expecting.  I also learned a lot about Louisiana  — a state that I knew little to nothing about outside of the city of New Orleans being located there and also what had been in the news about Hurricane Katrina.  This is a collection I definitely recommend, a worthwhile read that I'm glad to have discovered (this was Jesmyn Ward's July pick for her book club on Literati).  It's also a relatively short read, but one that doesn't skimp on details in its depiction of Louisiana life and culture.

Review: Great Circle (by Maggie Shipstead)

My Rating:  4.5 stars

Wow, what a story!  

Before I go into how much I enjoyed this book, let me start things off by honestly admitting that, actually, I "almost" didn't end up reading this one, for various reasons. 

First and foremost, I was intimidated by the page length — when I initially accepted an ARC of this book from the publisher in NetGalley, I had no idea that this would be a 600–page tome.  With a TBR a mile high and so many books already lined up to read for the month of July, I definitely felt like I didn't have the time to spend on a long book (this is exacerbated by the fact that I'm a "one-book-at-a-time" kind of reader who also has problems DNFing books once I start them, no matter how bad the book gets).  Second, I was torn by the book's premise. While I love reading about strong women protagonists, and epic historical stories are usually right up my alley, the part that made me wary was the overarching subject matter.  Going into this, I knew that it would be about a female pilot circumnavigating the globe and undoubtedly, there would be a lot of technical language and details involving the mechanics of flying a plane and getting from one point to another (on the first 2 pages, before the story even starts, there is a detailed map charting the main character Marian Graves' journey - which, being someone who has no sense of direction and is incapable of reading maps, I was completely lost even after staring at the map for several minutes) — given my lack of interest in aviation and airplanes / flying, as well as my general aversion to books that go a bit too much into the "science-y" side of things because much of it usually goes over my head and therefore impacts my ability to enjoy the story, this of course added to my anxiety about reading this book.  Third, I had never read this author before and as such, didn't have the benefit of a positive or negative reaction to previous works to sway me either way.  In the end though, I decided to go for it — start the book and hope for the best. And now, after finishing this epic story, I can say for sure that it was absolutely worth the time and effort!

This book actually turned out to be completely different from what I expected (in a good way, of course).  Surprisingly, none of the fears that I initially had about the book ended up materializing.  Yes, there was a lot of technical detail about aviation and airplanes and flying, but it was done in a way that was accessible and didn't detract from the story itself.  Most importantly though, the story wasn't just about that — in fact, it's actually one of those stories that truly has something for everyone in terms of the themes and topics that it explores (i.e.: history, adventure, romance, relationships, complex family dynamics, war and sacrifice, love, heartbreak, contemporary societal and gender conflicts, etc.).  So far, this is the only book I've read that can truly be classified as having a multitude of settings that span the depths of time and space — from modern day Los Angeles in 2014 to a doomed cruise ship in the North Atlantic in 1914, to Prohibition-era Montana, to London and Europe where female pilots helped ferry warplanes for the ATA during WWII, to the wilds of Alaska, to Vancouver (Canada) to Seattle and New York, to the icy depths of Antarctica, to the unknown expanse of the skies above and beyond the clouds — from land to air to sea, this is a story that traverses the globe in a "great circle" worthy of its title.  

This magnificent, epic tale is beautifully written in prose that is lyrical, poetic, lively, descriptive, and as mentioned previously, also incredibly accessible, given its content.  Normally, a big book such as this one would take me more than a week to finish, but I found myself so absorbed and invested in the story and its characters that I felt compelled to keep turning the pages, which resulted in me being able to finish this massive tome over the course of a 3-day holiday weekend. Maggie Shipstead is indeed a gifted writer — I admire so much of what she tried to do with this story, from the impeccable research to the near flawless execution of the story, to the well-developed, realistic rendering of the characters (especially remarkable given the fact that many of the characters in the story were actually unlikable) — all of it came together in fantastic, epic fashion.

With all that said, the one complaint that I did have — and the main reason for why I gave this book 4.5 stars rather than 5 stars — is that I didn't really like the present day story arc involving Hadley Baxter.  While I understand the critical role that Hadley played in terms of helping Marian's story unfold as well as the parallels we are supposed to infer with their personalities and the paths their lives ultimately take, etc., I honestly could not bring myself to like Hadley.  She came across as annoying to me and I actually had no interest at all in her background or her "struggles" in Hollywood where she is seemingly "misunderstood" by everyone. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why, but I just couldn't stand her — thankfully, the chapters about her were extremely short, so I was able to skim majority of the pages about her until I got to the passages actually related to Marian's life.

With such an epic story, it's pretty much impossible to relay its scope and magnificence through a brief review.  This is a story that is guaranteed to be an immersive experience — a rewarding journey that is absolutely worth the time it takes to get to the end.  I am definitely glad I got the chance to read this one and of course there is no doubt that I will be exploring Shipstead's backlist now while looking forward to what she might have in store for us next!

Received ARC from Alfred A. Knopf publishers via NetGalley.