Review: Happily Ever After (by Debbie Tung)

My Rating: 3 stars

 

I read Debbie Tung’s Book Love last year and absolutely loved it!   As a fellow bookworm, I was able to relate to practically everything that was in that book and would be nodding my head with a smile on my face as I turned each page.  

It was precisely because of my affinity for Tung’s previous book that I decided to pick up her newest work Happily Ever After.   Just like with Book Love, this is another comic collection drawn by Tung herself , with inspiration from her own life’s experiences, except that this time around, instead of being about books, it is about marriage and relationships – specifically her own married life with her husband.   While I did like reading this one for the most part and thought it was definitely a cute read overall, I unfortunately wasn’t able to relate to most of the “sweet and mundane moments” depicted in here.  Some of the comics did make me smile, but the enjoyment level, of course, wasn’t on par with what I had felt with Tung’s previous collection of comics about books and being a book lover. 

Basically, this was an instance of me picking up this book purely because of the author / illustrator, which I’m ok with doing for graphic novels and comics, since these are usually short and don’t take up too much of my time to read.  I will likely still pick up Tung’s next collection of comics even if it’s a subject matter that doesn’t appeal much to me, as I do like her illustrations quit a bit and definitely don’t mind seeing more of it!

Received ARC from Andrews McMeel Publishing via Edelweiss.

Review: I'd Give Anything (by Marisa de los Santos)

My Rating: 5 stars

 

From the beginning of the year until now, I’ve read 21 books and so far, not a single one of them had reached 5 star level for me.  Don’t get me wrong — there were plenty of excellent books in that mix and quite a few that, regardless of whether I rated them 4 or 4.5 stars, I still enjoyed greatly and even loved, but instinctually, somehow, they just didn’t feel like 5 star reads.  Well, with I’d Give Anything, the newest novel by renowned author Marisa de los Santos, it looks like I have finally found my first 5 star read of the year!  

In this beautifully written, heartfelt story, the close friendship between 4 high school seniors — Ginny, Kirsten, Gray, and CJ — is forever changed one night when a fire breaks out during a football game at their school.  Gray’s father, a fire fighter, perishes in the fire and immediately, Gray’s 3 best friends are there for him, ready to support him through the tragedy.  But then Ginny makes a devastating discovery about the fire, which she decides to keep from her 3 friends — this secret not only shatters Ginny’s world, it also ends up destroying their friendship.  Over the next twenty years, Ginny gradually puts the past behind her, and after moving back to her hometown upon graduating from college, she builds a quiet life with her husband Harris and their teenage daughter Avery.  When her husband becomes embroiled in a scandal at work, Ginny experiences turbulence in her carefully constructed life once again and as she tries to deal with the fallout from that scandal, she ends up coming face-to-face with the 20-year-old secret that she thought had been buried long ago.  

For me, the best character-driven stories are the ones where nearly all of the characters (whether main or supporting) are realistically drawn in ways that make them relatable and easy to connect with — pretty much to the point that the characters feel like old friends whom I don’t want to part with even when the story is over.  Ginny and Avery were characters I adored from the getgo and rooted for throughout the story — both were written in a way that felt so raw and real.  It’s refreshing to read about characters whose experiences hew so closely to what many of us may encounter at different points in our lives — as I watched Ginny work through the various challenges she faced, not only with her family, but also with her friends, I recognized some of her struggles and was able to resonate on an emotional level.   All the other characters, regardless of whether they only appeared for a few pages or were a constant throughout the entire story, were also well-developed and memorable.  I also loved the way the various relationships were depicted in this story.  We all know that, in real life, the complexities when it comes to relationships are endless – whether it’s family relationships, friendships, work relationships, or mere acquaintances -- there are so many nuances that are difficult to capture accurately in a fictional story.  Yet this book does it -- and does it well!   

This was a profound read that left me with much food-for-thought, not just as it pertains to relationships, but also life and its intricacies.  It covers a lot of ground in its exploration of themes such as family, love, friendship, truth, regret, forgiveness, and so much more.  One of the insights that stood out the most to me pertained to love and forgiveness, that both are not mutually exclusive of each other insofar as the inability to forgive someone for their actions does not preclude the ability to still love them and care deeply about them.   The ending brought me close to tears, as did several other parts of the story.

I like the way Marisa de los Santos writes as well as the way she is able to tell such an emotionally nuanced story so effortlessly.  I read this book in 2 sittings over the weekend, putting it down only once to tend to the necessities of life and then when I picked it up again, I didn’t want it to end.  If there is anything to complain about with this book, it’s that I wish it had been longer (the ARC was less than 300 pages) so that I could spend more time with these characters.  I’ve actually had several of this author’s works on my TBR for quite some time, but didn’t have a chance to get to any of them previously — well, now I will definitely be exploring her backlist while I wait patiently for her next book, whenever that may be.

Received ARC from William Morrow (HarperCollins) via Edelweiss.

Review: A Hundred Suns (by Karin Tanabe)

My Rating:  3.5 stars

In 1933, Jessie Lesage accompanies her husband Victor to Indochine (Vietnam)— a colony under French rule at the time — where he has taken up a post overseeing his famous Michelin family's rubber plantations.  Not long after they arrive, the Lesages meet Marcelle de Fabry and her husband Arnaud, an expatriate French couple who, like themselves, are rich and well-connected. The two women quickly become friends, and with Marcelle showing her the way, Jessie starts to dive more deeply into the glamorous, exotic world of colonial Indochine.  When she meets Marcelle's Indochinese lover, the rich silk tycoon Khoi Nguyen, and becomes more immersed in their world, Jessie begins to realize that there is more to Marcelle than meets the eye.  It is also around this time that dark secrets from Jessie's past start to catch up with her — secrets that threaten to upend the family and lifestyle that she worked so painstakingly to build.  Against a backdrop rife with political tension due to colonialism — where the divide between the "haves" and the "have-nots" runs in line with oppression of the native Indochinese by their Western conquerors — a complex story emerges, with characters often required to toe the ambiguous line between self-preservation and "doing the right thing."  

This is a book that I found difficult to rate, as there were things that I liked (mostly the setting and the writing) but also things that didn't work as well for me.  Going into this one initially, when I saw that the story would take place in 1930s Indochine, I was actually looking forward to reading it, as that particular setting isn’t often covered in historical fiction, plus it was a welcome departure from all the WWII-focused historical fiction that I had been reading in recent months.  As is usually the case when I read this genre, I was hoping to learn something new about a country and time period that I was only vaguely familiar with.  While I can't say that I didn't learn anything at all (because I did), I do have to say that this book fell a bit short of expectations for me from a genre perspective.  When I read historical fiction, I expect to be transported to the story's time and place and feel as though I inhabit the same world as the characters – unfortunately, that didn't happen in this case.  Instead, the Indochine setting felt kind of superficial to me, to the point that the main characters could've been transplanted to any other foreign Asian territory (not necessarily Indochine) and the story would've played out largely the same way.  Don't get me wrong -- the author did incorporate some cultural elements into the story that gave us some insight into the historical setting, but the references were few and far between, as the focus of the story on the glamorous lifestyle of the wealthy elite as well as the "mystery" piece of figuring out Marcelle's connection with Jessie, both ended up overwhelming the historical aspects of the story.  To me, this book felt like it should actually belong more in the thriller / suspense category than historical fiction – I think if it had been marketed as such, my reaction would've probably been quite different, as I did like the writing as well as the flow of the story overall, and the plot was intriguing enough to hold my attention from start to finish.

If I had to describe this story in one word, the first word that would come to mind is "lush" — whether it's the descriptions of the characters' decadent mansions, or their vibrant lifestyles steeped in lavish opulence, or even the surrounding landscape (both in Indochine where majority of the story takes place and also in Paris, where critical events involving several of the characters occur), it's hard not to see this story under the light of luxury and privilege.  The narration of the story alternated between Jessie and Marcelle, which made sense given the direction of the story (especially if we look at the story from a "thriller" perspective), but from a historical and cultural perspective, I feel that this format didn't work too well.  To strengthen the historical context, I feel like the other alternating perspective should've been from that of one of the Indochinese characters in the story, such as Trieu (Jessie's servant) or Lanh (the Lesage family's chauffeur) for example – I think this would have provided some much-needed balance to the story, though I guess it can also be argued that this would be an entirely different story then, perhaps not the same one that the author was trying to tell.

With all that said, I feel that overall, this was technically a good read – well-written and well-plotted for the most part (except for the ending, which I wasn't tremendously fond of) – but it could have been so much better.  I would still recommend this book, just with the caveat not to go in with specific expectations in terms of genre.

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press directly as well as via NetGalley.

Review: Yo-Kai Watch, Volume 14 (by Noriyuki Konishi)

My Rating: 4 stars

Continuing on with our tradition of reading the Yo-Kai Watch manga series together, my nephew and I just finished volume 14, which is the latest version released in English and I was able to get an ARC for.  Just like the previous volumes before it, this one continues the adventures of Nate and his various Yo-Kai friends.  Once again, our favorite feline friend, the mischievous Jibanyan, is the focus of majority of the stories and as usual, he gets himself into a pickle each time he is either summoned to help Nate or encounters a fellow Yo-Kai that he of course never wants to fight.  My nephew and I love Jibanyan, so of course having him in every story works for us — with that said though, we also love Jibanyan's camaraderie with Nate and his Yo-Kai butler Whisper as well as the special, irreplaceable chemistry that the 3 of them always have together (the way that Jibanyan constantly annoys Whisper on purpose never fails to make us laugh, lol).  So of course, we were quite disappointed that Nate and Whisper only featured in less than half the stories this time around.  While it's fun to meet new Yo-Kai characters in each volume, it's equally a joy to be able to read about old Yo-kai friends and see what type of new adventures they get to go on — the earlier volumes had a better balance of both, in my opinion.

Regardless of how the book was structured and the lack of usual favorites in terms of characters, getting to spend quality time reading with my nephew is an experience I always cherish.  This is one of those times where the book's content matters much less than the shared experience of being able to read the book with a loved one. These are always a joy to read and definitely, both my nephew and I continue to look forward to reading the next volumes in this much beloved series!

Received ARC from VIZ Media via Edelweiss.

Review: Redhead by the Side of the Road (by Anne Tyler)

My Rating:  4 stars

Anne Tyler has the unique ability to take the most mundane, ordinary of events and combine them with well-developed, relatable characters to create wonderfully nuanced stories that are both heartfelt and earnest.  I love Tyler’s low-key style and the way she presents her characters always as they are — no fan fare, no big attention-grabbing event, no major earth-shattering revelation — just an ordinary character going about their every day tasks. 

This time around, our protagonist is Micah Mortimer, a 44-year-old self-employed tech expert who lives a life of carefully planned routine — from his morning runs that start and end at the same designated times and follow the same exact path each day to the household chores that are meticulously scheduled and performed:  floor-mopping on Mondays, kitchen-cleaning on Thursdays, vacuuming on Fridays, etc.  To say that Micah is a creature of habit is an understatement — run, shower, breakfast, tidy-up, then get ready to start his first call of the day, his mornings consisted of a system rarely deviated from and fastidious to a fault.  But then one day, two things happen that threaten to shatter Micah’s carefully guarded routine:  his “woman friend” Cass tells him that she is on the verge of losing her apartment, and later, the teenage son of an ex-lover shows up at his door claiming to be his son.  How will Micah handle these unexpected disruptions and the aftermath that results? 

I read this book in one sitting this past Sunday morning and let me tell you, it definitely made my day!  I enjoy stories that are witty yet poignant, where the humor is subtle and occurs so naturally that you find yourself chuckling without realizing it (that was me during the “Traffic God” moments).  This was a simple story, but one that had substance and also a lot of heart — a perfect choice during this challenging time.  Every time I pick up one of Tyler’s newest novels to read, I remind myself that I have yet to work my way through her prolific backlist, which I intend to do at one point or another — while still anticipating her next book of course!

Review: Simon the Fiddler (by Paulette Jiles)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

To say that I struggled with rating this book is an understatement.  On the one hand, I absolutely loved the writing!  Paulette Jiles is a masterful writer who has the ability to transport the reader to a completely different time and place — in this case, Texas in 1865, right after the Civil War — through her atmospheric prose.  With the realistic descriptions of the desolate landscape that Simon and his ragtag band travel through, areas mostly devastated by war but yet still contained glimpses of hope for the future, I truly felt like I was inhabiting their world and experiencing the events as they did — which of course is what great historical fiction does.

Despite how much I liked the writing though, I found it difficult to get into the story for some reason.  Perhaps because the story was really really slow-moving, with not much plot to speak of for majority of the book, plus I got tired of Simon’s adventures after a while.  I was actually more interested in each of the characters’ background stories, which sounded much more fascinating, but unfortunately, only tidbits of their stories were shared here and there — instead, most of the narrative was too focused on Simon’s various encounters as he and his friends traveled around trying to find work. It wasn’t until the last third or so of the book that the story picked up enough to keep my interest.

Aside from the story, I also didn’t connect much with the characters, whether main ones or supporting.  I liked Simon as a character and Doris too, but I never really felt invested in their relationship.  It seemed kind of farcical to me the way their relationship progressed, starting with Simon falling in love with Doris (a complete stranger to him at the time) almost instantaneously, then doing everything in his power to make himself worthy enough to pursue her — later when they finally meet, their interaction the entire time felt predictable, clumsy, and largely emotionless.  I basically wasn’t convinced of their relationship, which made those sections where Simon and Doris profess their affinity for each other a bit awkward to read.

My overall sentiment is that I wanted very much to love this book, but ended up merely “liking” it instead.  As I mentioned earlier, the setting was beautifully rendered and the writing was absolutely exquisite, but the story and the characters didn’t quite work for me.  With that said, I seem to be in the minority with this one so I would say please don’t let my review deter you if you were already planning on reading it – if anything, the writing itself makes this a worthwhile read even if the story isn’t great.  Personally, even though, I wasn’t too keen on her newest novel, I am still quite excited to explore Paulette Jiles’s backlist of works, especially her acclaimed News of the World, which has been on my TBR for quite some time.

Received ARC from William Morrow (HarperCollins) via NetGalley.