Review: When Ghosts Come Home (by Wiley Cash)

My Rating: 5 stars 

This was such a fantastic read! Wiley Cash is another one of those authors whose works I've had on my TBR for a while but never got around to reading. Despite this being my first book of his, I still went into this one with high expectations, mostly because I've heard so much about his works and how great of a storyteller he is — I wanted to see / experience it for myself. Well, I can say with certainty now that I'm so glad I did, as I now have another author to add to my favorites list!

Set in Oak Island, North Carolina, the story follows Sheriff Winston Barnes over the course of 4 days in the fall of 1984, as he investigates a mysterious murder. On the night before Halloween, Winston is jolted awake by what sounded like the crash of an airplane — when he goes out to the airport in the middle of the night to investigate, finds more than he bargained for: next to a huge airplane lying with its tail broken on the runaway, Winston finds the body of a black man who had been shot to death. As the investigation in the subsequent days slowly brings to light the truth of what happened that night, the small island town is forced to reckon with the community's deeply rooted racial prejudices that get repeatedly stirred up by a Confederate flag-toting local man hellbent on ousting Winston from his job. There were technically three different threads to the narrative — the main one told involving the investigation into the mysterious abandoned plane and an equally mysterious murder, a secondary thread from the perspective of Winston's daughter Colleen, who returns to her parents' home bearing insurmountable grief over a devastating loss, and a third thread from the perspective of Jay, a teenaged black boy who is also he brother-in-law of Rodney Bellamy (the man found murdered on the airport runway). Through these three intertwining perspectives, the full picture of what happened eventually emerges.

In addition to the fabulous storytelling, the other thing I loved about this book was the realistic depiction of the characters, to the point that I felt like I was reading about real people dealing with real issues. There was also an incredible sense of time and place, which, combined with the well-developed characters and he beautiful, descriptive writing, made this a truly immersive reading experience. This book also hit the mark on an emotional level, as various parts of the story made me simultaneously sad, angry, heartbroken, yet also hopeful, especially during those moments when certain characters stood up to the hatred and bigotry that permeated particular sections of the community. The ending was gut wrenching and unexpected— it actually took me by surprise and made me shed real tears (which doesn't happen often).

As I mentioned earlier, Wiley Cash is now on my list of favorite authors and I am definitely looking forward to exploring his backlist! If you're looking for a powerful, timely story that has a elements of historical fiction, family saga, murder mystery, exploration of various community and social justice issues, etc., this is a perfect read — one I absolutely recommend!

Received ARc from William a Morrow via NetGalley

Review: Harlem Shuffle (by Colson Whitehead)

My Rating: 4 stars

The last couple of years, Fall has been a particularly busy reading season for me due to the fact that a lot of my favorite authors (or famed authors whose works I've been wanting to read but hadn't gotten around to yet) release new books around this time and I end up scrambling in a harried attempt to get to each and every single one of those books — a feat that is 10 times more difficult with a full-time job and family obligations that oftentimes leave me with little time for myself.  Yes, I know this is a self-inflicted bookworm problem (sorry / not sorry?) and I am by no means trying to elicit sympathy, it's just that when I opened up my book tracking app today and saw that I this was only the fourth book I've finished out of a (wildly unrealistic) goal of 13 for this month (yes, you read that right — 13 books for the month of September), I felt the need to vent, if merely to just get it off my chest.  Whew!  Ok, back to the matter at hand…

The aforementioned 4th book (out of 13) that I just finished is Colson Whitehead's newest release Harlem Shuffle.  Whitehead is one of those famous authors whose works I've had on my TBR like forever, but for some reason or another, I haven't been able to get around to reading those works.  So when I was offered an ARC of Whitehead's latest work, I of course jumped at the opportunity (even knowing his newest book would be markedly different from his previous ones).  Going into this, I was excited to finally get the chance to "see what the hype was about" when it comes to this award-winning author.  With that said though, while I did enjoy this one quite a bit and found it to be an excellent read in many aspects — the vivid, lyrical writing, the realistic and fleshed out characters, the wonderfully rendered atmosphere of 1950s / 1960s Harlem, witty and fun dialogue, the timeliness of the social commentary, etc. — what made this a 4 star read instead of 5 star is the fact that I wasn't able to engage with the story as much as I thought I would, despite my best efforts.  This is more a reflection of my own tastes rather than any issue with the book itself — namely that I'm not much of a reader of heist and gangster stories and while this wasn't the entire focus of the story, I found it more difficult to connect with the story and therefore it was a much slower read for me.  Regardless though, this was still a worthwhile read and one that I learned a lot from, especially with the historical fiction aspect and the masterful, atmospheric way that Whitehead captured the various nuances of Harlem and New York during that particular time period.

Though I wasn't much engaged with the story, I did like most of the characters — even the main character Ray Carney with his sardonic wit as he struggles to keep the two sides of his life separate from each other.  Overall, this was a solid 4 star read, a book that I highly recommend!  I read an interview with the author last week where he mentioned that he is working on a sequel to this book that would follow Ray Carney into the 1970s era, which I definitely look forward to reading.  In the meantime, I need to get with the program and go pickup Underground Railroad as well as The Nickel Boys and other books from Whitehead's backlist.  So many books, so little time!!

Received ARC from DoubleDay Books via NetGalley.

Review: Rock Paper Scissors (by Alice Feeney) **Blog Tour**

My Rating : 4.5 stars

I've been a fan of Alice Feeney's work since I read her debut Sometimes I Lie, a suspense thriller I still remember to this day, even though I read it 4 years ago. That book absolutely blew me out of the water with its plot twist so well-done, that I still ponder over it even now.  I read both of Feeney's follow up novels (her sophomore novel I Know Who You Are as well as her third novel His & Hers), and while I liked both well enough, neither was able to live up to the magnificence of her debut (in my opinion at least).  Going into Feeney's fourth book Rock Paper Scissors (which publishes this month), I wasn't really sure what to expect — would this one be closer to the "blow me out of the water" experience of her debut or the "good but not too memorable" experience of her two subsequent works? (Hint: definitely the former!).  In fact, I actually feel that Rock Paper Scissors is Feeney's best work to date (and that's saying something considering how much I loved her debut). 

As is the case whenever I review thrillers, I try to be as vague as possible so as not to give anything away (which is why this review will be short and sweet without saying much).  With this book especially though, you definitely want to go in knowing next to nothing and let the story take you along for the (wild) ride.  Feeney is known for her shocking plot twists that absolutely no one sees coming — of course this book is no exception (it's actually more "twisty" than Sometimes I Lie, which I didn't think was possible, yet all the twists are done in a way that feels natural rather than forced).  I've read so many thriller and suspense novels over the years that very few of them are able to surprise or shock me (and even fewer have plots that I'm not able to figure out by the time I get the end of the story) — well, count this book as one of those "few" (it shocked me and took me completely by surprise).  

Fans of Alice Feeney absolutely need to read this one, but even if you're not a fan, I still recommend picking this one up, especially if you love thrillers. (and if you haven't read Sometimes I Lie, definitely read that one next).  I do suggest blocking out enough time to read this one all in one shot though, as most likely you are not going to want to put it down once you start it.  Similar to my reaction after reading Feeney's debut several years ago, I now absolutely cannot wait for her next book to come out — please let it be sooner rather than later!

Received ARC from Flatiron Books via NetGalley.

Review: Beautiful Country (by Qian Julie Wang)

My Rating:  5 stars

I'm quite picky when it comes to memoirs and tend to gravitate towards those where I am able to either relate to the experiences of the author or connect with them in some way.  While there are a plethora of memoirs out there, the reality is that very few of those memoirs are actually written from the perspective of someone who shares a similar background as myself — namely, a Chinese-American woman from an immigrant family who has struggled with identity and belonging her entire life. This is why, when I found out about Qian Julie Wang's memoir Beautiful Country, I knew I absolutely had to pick this one up. This powerful memoir is exactly one of those rare gems that most closely encapsulates the immigrant experience that I grew up with.  Though there are obvious differences between our circumstances in terms of how are families came to America (the titular "beautiful country" as directly translated from Chinese) — for example, my family immigrated here legally while Wang's family ended up here illegally due to an expired visa — many of the struggles that Wang recounts from her childhood are ones that I've also experienced.  

Wang tells her story starting from the perspective of her seven-year-old self, when she is told to put her most prized possessions into her grandparents' storage unit in China so she could accompany her mother on a "flying machine" (literal translation of 飛機 or "airplane") that eventually lands in a place called "beautiful country" (literal translation of 美國 or "America"). From the moment Wang and her mother step off the plane at JFK airport (New York) and are reunited with her father (who had gone to America two years earlier), her life is forever changed in ways that eventually shape who she becomes in adulthood.  Though she didn't know it at the time, leaving China for America meant that Wang would go from an environment where she was surrounded by extended family, unconditional love, and every comfort possible, to one where loneliness was a constant companion, familial love came with strings attached, and every day was a fight for survival at all levels (physically, mentally, emotionally).  We witness Wang's coming of age through the wide-eyed lens of a child forced to navigate a world she does not understand and where she was taught to put her head down, do as she was told, and endure whatever was thrown her way without complaint because that was the expectation of someone in her situation.  

While in China, Wang's parents were highly educated professionals, in America they were reduced to working in sweatshops and other low-paying jobs that allowed them to remain in the shadows, with the constant fear of their illegal status being discovered hanging over them. The stress of their new life in a foreign country where, despite their efforts to remain invisible, they are still largely unwelcomed, takes a toll on Wang's parents and eventually leads to the fracturing of their family.  Illegal status aside though, Wang's struggles growing up as an immigrant child resonated deeply with me — from the humiliation of a tenuous living situation where there was little to no privacy, to not being able to afford the most basic of comforts that seemed to come easily to everyone else (ie: enough food for the table, a roof over our heads, clean clothes to wear to school); to being constantly told that, no matter how hard you work to fit in or how much you contribute to your community, you will never truly belong; to the bullying and racism, both subtle and direct, that becomes an inevitable part of the immigrant experience.  For me, this book was difficult to read — not because of challenging subject matter or anything like that — but because of the familiarity of Wang's experiences and the memories they brought back of my own childhood.  One experience in particular had me near tears when I read it:  the scene where, in fifth grade, Wang is summoned to her (white male) teacher's desk one day and, shown an essay she had written and submitted, is essentially accused of plagiarism because the essay was "too well written" and the English was "too good" to have been written by her.  Even though she told her teacher that she truly did write the essay and didn't plagiarize, her status meant that she was not to be believed, so after that incident, Wang would deliberately include spelling and grammatical errors in all her essays to avoid having to endure a similar confrontation with her teacher in the future.  This scene resonated with me in particular because this was a common experience for me throughout my entire elementary and middle school education: being told that something I wrote couldn't possibly have been written by me because the English was "too good" and that I must have copied it from elsewhere.  As a result, I also started deliberately including "errors" in my writing to avoid confrontation. Luckily, I later attended a high school and college that embraced diversity and eventually recognized my efforts (though the shaken confidence in how I view my writing is something that I still carry with me to this day).

This was truly a profound and emotional read for me, one that I know will stay with me for a long time to come.  Even though reading this memoir brought back some unhappy memories for me, I appreciate the fact that a book like this one exists. While I am buoyed by the knowledge that our country has come a long way in terms of racial diversity and acceptance, at the same time, I am saddened by the obvious steps backwards that we as a society have also taken in this area, over the past few years especially. Now more than ever, we need books like this one that can hopefully help open people's eyes to the plight that so many in our society experience — a timely read that I absolutely recommend!

Received ARC from Doubleday Books via Edelweiss.