The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms
Librarian Amy Byler, a single mom of two teens, gets a chance to have a “momspringa” when her estranged husband suddenly returns and convinces her to take a vacation to New York City.
This book is charming, fun, laugh-out-loud funny, and also touching. I enjoyed it from start to finish — reading it was kind of like attending a fantasy camp for moms. Perfect summer read! Highly recommend!
Normal People follows the relationship of high school classmates Connell and Marianne, as they move from high school to college and their relationship evolves along with their changing personalities and circumstances.
I’m really torn about this book. It drew me in right away, and I finished it quickly because I wanted to know how it ended. Having said that, I’m not sure I liked what I read. It struck me as a bit of a dressed up YA book – with so many misunderstandings, so much teen angst, and so many things unsaid (over and over) that it was incredibly frustrating. I found the ending similarly frustrating. To be completely honest, the ended actually made me angry, and that’s pretty unusual.
I was also troubled by the graphic sex and later, masochistic sex and sexual violence, given that these characters were supposed to be in their teens. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom of teen girls, or maybe I just don’t read enough YA books, but whatever it is, I found it disturbing.
This book is has received a lot of acclaim and glowing reviews, but overall, it just didn’t work for me.
I’m so excited today to bring you this guest review, from my friend and law school classmate Jonathan Zasloff. Jonathan is a professor at UCLA Law School, and a recently-ordained rabbi. As you’ll see, he is a wonderful writer and thoughtful reviewer. I hope I can feature his reviews often!
Earth Abides, by George Stewart
Post-apocalyptic literature seems to take on more relevance every day, and since 2016, I have become more and more of a connoisseur of the genre. Earth Abides, originally published in 1949, is something of the Ur-text of the genre.
Isherwood Williams, a geography grad student, discovers that virtually all of the world’s human population has been wiped out by a strange disease, and Earth Abides chronicles the rest of his life, the people he meets, and the community he helps form. What struck me the most about this book is its quietness — even with some awful problems, there are no other great disasters, just a gradual decay. Thus the title, from Ecclesiastes (1:4): “Generations come and go, but earth abides.”
I couldn’t help seeing the Jewish — or at least the Biblical — angle. Isherwood goes by his nickname, “Ish” — which just so happens to be the Hebrew word for “man.” His wife is “Emme,” which just so happens to be awfully close to the Hebrew word for “mother.” His best friend is named Ezra, which just happens to be the Hebrew word for “helper.” In the Bible, Ezra is a scribe, who through force of will recreates the Israelites’ religious civilization. This Ezra does not.
And is that bad? Is it a problem? Suppose civilization peters out. Should we mourn that?
It’s a question that, between the rise of fascism and the warming of the earth, we need to ask more urgently. If the answer is yes, what do we do? I got a little weepy seeing Ish board up the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, knowing that very soon no one will be able to read the precious volumes inside, yet doing it anyway. Later, the rust slowly corrodes the Bay Bridge.
Earth Abides has been in print continuously now for 70 years. It has, well, abided. I wonder whether, in seven more decades, it will lie in an abandoned library, with no one around to read it.
Gave this one 100 pages and had to give up. Hated the characters, did not find much of anything to be plausible. I skipped to the end — and when I realized how the plot wrapped up I was grateful that I stopped reading when I did. Just didn’t work for me at all. Disappointing, because Alafair Burke is a good writer. Your mileage may vary!
I found this book profoundly frustrating. The parts of it that interested me — like the Maxwell murders — weren’t explored enough, and the parts that seemed extraneous — like Tom Radney’s life story, or the history of insurance — were explored too much. As a result, some of it held my interest and much of it did not.
I’m glad I read it, and I learned a lot about Harper Lee and Truman Capote that I didn’t know before, but overall I didn’t feel like this lived up to the hype.
This was our book club pick for this month. It had been on my to-read list for awhile but I’m so glad I was finally required to bump it to the top of the list!
The Great Believers is an emotional, powerful novel that goes back and forth between the mid 1980’s, as a group of Chicago friends is devastated by the AIDS crisis, and the present day, as those who remain continue to deal with the fallout. I found this book profoundly moving and I think it will stay with me for a long time. It was searing and painful – not at all easy to read.
I really liked this book and highly recommend it. I thought the present-day Paris timeline was less compelling than the 1980s timeline, and that sometimes dragged the narrative down, as did the earlier Paris story. I think both of those storylines could have been streamlined a bit and the novel would’ve been even better. Overall, a wonderful novel and quite an achievement for the author.