The Giver by Lois Lowry

This book was recommended to me a few years ago but I never got around to reading it. It is in constant use in the library as a novel study so it can be hard to get your hands on it. Then it was chosen as a book club selection and returned to the library at the same time so I took it as my lunch break reading.

I don't always love utopian/dystopian books but something about this one grabbed me right from the start. I loved it and have Darcy reading it now.

This is the story of Jonas a young man about to become "a twelve". You quickly learn that in his society, uniqueness is not valued. You don't get to choose your spouse, when you will have children or even how many children you will have. Once your spouse is chosen for you and you spend a few years together then you will have the opportunity to apply for a child. You will eventually apply for two children, one male, one female. These children are born to assigned birth mothers, so very few women have to undergo pregnancy. No one has their own birthday, all children born in a year advance ages at the same time. In fact, there is a ceremony each year where the milestone is marked and some new privilege is granted (such as a coat with pockets, a haircut that allows you to remove your hair ribbons or a bicycle). However, when you turn 12 your life's work is assigned to you. You will have had the opportunity to volunteer in different areas of the community so you will know where your aptitudes lie. Jonas, however, has enjoyed many different types of work so he has no idea what his assignment will be and he is very nervous about the different possibilities. But when he does finally receive his assignment, it is completely different from what he expected and it begins to change him in ways he didn't think possible. He learns that their perfect society may not be so perfect after all. What will that mean for him?

This is a short book, really aimed at younger readers so it is a quick read. I loved the characters, I loved the questions it raised. Yes, having these life decisions made for you can save a lot of pain and sadness in life, but it also removes a lot of joy. How do you balance that? What is more important?

There are more books in the series but not with the same characters. I am hoping to read those too but our library doesn't have them. I'm definitely interested to read more about this society.

All in all, this was a big hit for me. A great read!

Perfect by Rachel Joyce

Someone returned this to the library at the high school a couple of weeks ago and I decided to take a look at it on my lunch break instead of putting it right back on the shelf. I absolutely loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey so I was curious to read more by the same author.

The book has two parallel stories being told, one starting in the summer of 1972 and the other in the present day. In 1972 a young boy named Byron finds out that two seconds are being added to the world's clocks, a prospect that terrifies him. He's afraid of the repercussions of interfering with time in that way. What kind of ripple effects will that cause? He becomes consumed with these two seconds and how that will affect the world. One morning while driving to school his mom takes a different route through a poor neighbourhood and while Byron is convinced he sees his watch go backward for two seconds his mom gets distracted and unknowingly hits a young girl riding her bicycle. This sets off a chain reaction of events in their family that cannot be undone.

Alternating chapters tell the story of a man named Jim, living in the same town in the present day. Jim has no family and struggles with some serious mental health issues. He has been in and out of the local mental health facility but that has now closed so he lives alone in a broken down van. He works in a cafe located inside a store and hides his OCD rituals from the few people in his life. Through his job he meets an exciting woman named Eileen and tries to get to know her better.

Little by little you see how these two stories could be intertwined. Byron's mother also struggles with mental health issues, and it is heartbreaking to see her health deteriorate as their story progresses, while Jim begins making progress. The mental health stories were written with great respect and understanding. I think books like this can go a long way towards continuing to break down mental health stigmas and bringing greater understanding to these issues and to the people who live with these struggles and illnesses each day.

While I didn't love it as much as I loved Harold Fry I still enjoyed it quite a bit and read through it quite quickly. There was a good twist at the end as the two stories came together. All in all, I felt it was an enjoyable read. I'll read more from Rachel Joyce for sure.

The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor by Sally Armstrong

I think it is safe to say I am in a reading slump. It is March 14th and this is only the second book I have managed to finish this year. Both books have been complete misses for me, so it has been hard to get motivated to pick them up.

This one was my book club choice for February. I was fortunate that the meeting got canceled and rescheduled for next week because I just couldn't get into it at all.

A blend of fiction and history, this book tells to story of Charlotte Taylor, the actual great-great-grandmother of the author. Charlotte was one of the first women to settle on the east coast of Canada (in what eventually became New Brunswick) and was a tough cookie. She fled a fairly affluent life in England to be with the man she loved, her family's black butler. They dreamed of a new life together in the West Indies, but that wasn't meant to be.  She ended up in what was then known as Nova Scotia, a woman alone.

That was not an easy time or place to be a woman, especially a woman without the protection of a husband or father. But Charlotte wasn't going to let that stand in her way. She is bold, unconventional and fierce. She befriends the settles and the People (how our First Nations were known at that time) which makes it hard for her to be accepted by either group properly.

Yet Charlotte manages to build a life for herself, overcoming many huge obstacles.

As I write this, it sounds super interesting to me. The summary seems good. However, for me, the book itself was just a complete dud. I found the writing style to be very boring (I wonder if it was self-published because I found a couple of spelling and grammatical errors). This is a very timely book, bringing greater understanding to the difficulties faced by our First Nations in the early days of Canada's history, with an incredibly strong female lead character. I just wish I was enjoyed it more.

Maybe it's just my slump talking. I'm taking a break from book club reading to read a book I picked up on my lunch break at work last week. It's by an author I've loved in the past so I'm hoping that will get me excited about reading again.

Marilla of Green Gables by Sarah McCoy

I should have known better than to read this book. I know myself well enough to know that I don't like other authors taking on my favourite characters and I should have left this one alone. But I had read some good reviews and curiosity got the best of me so I read it. It took me a month to get through and I just didn't enjoy it.

Sarah McCoy was intrigued by a paragraph towards the end of Anne of Green Gables where Marilla reveals to Anne that Gilbert's father, John Blythe, had once been her good friend, even her beau. Sarah wondered what had happened and wrote this book to answer that question. She begins the story when Marilla Cuthbert is 13 years old living in a newly built house (the Gables) with her parents and brother Matthew. Their mother is expecting a new baby and her twin sister comes from Ontario to visit in preparation for the new arrival.

The story goes on to tell what Marilla's life might have been like in Avonlea in the mid-1800's. She develops a friendship with Rachel White (Lynde) and John Blythe. She becomes involved with the political uprisings in Canada before Confederation and also in the Underground Railroad. There are deaths in the family and she learns how to deal with those and carry on.

Sarah McCoy isn't Lucy Maud Montgomery and doesn't claim to be. Sometimes I felt her take on Marilla was right on the money but most of the time I just wasn't feeling it. Aside from that, I just found the story to be incredibly boring. It didn't draw me in at all, which is mostly why it took me so long to read it.

I felt the characters to be fairly true to the originals with some small things that didn't sit right with me. I didn't feel like she got Rachel Lynde's character right at all, and there were a few things about Matthew that I didn't agree with either (in Anne he says he had never done any courting, so why is he courting in this book???) . In the original books we can see that Marilla has some political leanings so I feel like her exploring these areas was pretty realistic for her. I liked how the author wove some of the old Avonlea families into this story, it was good to see some familiar names.

If it wasn't for the Green Gables connection I wouldn't have read this book. That was barely enough to keep me going to the end. Maybe if you haven't read Anne of Green Gables 7,000 times you might like this more than I did. I think my expectations were just too high.

Educated by Tara Westover

I have had this book recommended to me by several different people but never got around to reading it. Then it was chosen as our January book for book club so I was excited to get reading.

I'm not always a lover of non-fiction but there have been some recent exceptions to that (Unbroken, The Glass Castle and Thunderdog immediately come to mind). If you liked any of those books, you will probably enjoy this one as well.

This is the story of Tara Westover who grew up in rural Idaho. Her father, a devout Mormon, doesn't believe in government, medicine, or education. As a girl, Tara is being raised to be a wife and mother. Her father owns a junkyard and often puts all his children to work there, frequently in unsafe conditions. Tara is the youngest of seven children and by the time she comes along, homeschooling has been mostly forgotten and she is put to work in the junkyard, or occasionally helping her mother as the local midwife.

Eventually, at the urging of one of her brothers, Tara takes the ACT and earns a scholarship to university. Once there she realizes how unprepared she is for life in the real world and how little knowledge she has of anything that wasn't on the ACT. She learns how to learn and becomes a dedicated student.

At the same time her family is in turmoil, their unsafe working/living conditions cause several family members to be injured in accidents. The family doesn't believe in modern medicine (Tara never even took Tylenol until she was at a friend's house as a teenager) so many of them don't receive the proper care for their injuries. She suffers horrible abuse at the hands of one of her brothers and her parents turn a blind eye to it.

In spite of all this, Tara rises above her circumstances to move on to a life outside of Idaho. Her strength and resilience are inspiring.

Some members of her family are speaking out against the book so it can be hard to know where the truth lies. However I still found this to be a compelling read (I read most of it on a 2-hour flight yesterday). I highly recommend it and would love to talk it over with anyone who has read it.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

I heard about this book several years ago and picked it up a good while back but for some reason I just never got around to reading it. So when I needed to pick a book for my book club for this year I decided to choose this one so I would finally get it read. I'm so glad I did.

A.J. Fikry lives on Alice Island, on the Northeast Coast of the United States, not far from Providence, Rhode Island. Although still a young man, he has been recently widowed after his wife dies in a car accident. A.J. is still running their independent book store but his heart is no longer in it. He's drinking heavily, not taking care of himself and hating his life. The one item of value he had in his life was a rare copy of Tamerlane by Edgar Allan Poe and it gets stolen from his house one night after he has had too much to drink. This book was his retirement savings plan and now his financial future is uncertain because the book store isn't making a lot of money.

Then one day there is an unexpected delivery at the store and A.J.'s life changes in an instant.

This is a delightful read, filled with talk about other books. Because A.J. runs a book store he is always talking about books with other characters. Book lovers will love that aspect of the story. I love A.J.'s opinionated ways and his strong feelings about literature (many of which I share). The book is filled with fun characters and an engaging story. Maybe it all comes together a little too easily, but it is still a sweet little book. It won't take you long to read it, but almost everyone in our book club enjoyed it. One member said she wasn't really getting into it, but everyone else really enjoyed it.

I really don't think you can go wrong with this one, especially if you are the type of person who could spend hours browsing in an independent or used book store. This one was a big hit for me.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Only four people were able to attend our book club meeting last weekend and none of us had finished the book. It was expensive with long waits at the library so some of us had a hard time getting our hands on a copy. I actually bought a digital copy (which I really don't like doing, I love turning actual pages) so I could read it. I'm so glad I did. This one was a big win for me.

This is the story of Count Alexander Rostov who, in 1922, was tried and convicted of being an "unrepentant aristocrat" and sentenced to life under house arrest in the Hotel Metropol in Moscow. He is given a tiny room in the attics of the hotel and eventually given a job as the head waiter in their high end restaurant. The Count is forced to watch as the Russia he loves crumbles and is replaced by new leaders and new ideology. From his place within the hotel he watches the  country change over the course of several decades. He creates a family made up of the employees of the hotel, along with some other notable guests. As he ages he is given the responsibility of raising his friend's daughter, Sophia. Not knowing anything about children he is a bit overwhelmed at first but can't imagine how big a role Sophia would go on to play in his life.

Admittedly, I don't know a lot about Russia's history but I found this to be a fascinating read as you see how the ideologies shifted and how that affected the people. I was intrigued by stories of propaganda (rural peasants not being allowed in the cities, city residents not being allowed in the country, train windows being blacked out) so no one could truly see how others were being affected by all the changes.

In addition to being a great story it was also beautifully written. Some parts were quite funny, some heartbreaking, but it was all beautifully done. This guy definitely has a way with words.

If you are looking for a book with a lot of action, this isn't the book for you. It's certainly not a page-turner in the traditional sense. Because it is all set in the hotel, there's not a lot happening. But the wonderful writing, fascinating history and interesting characters combine to make a fantastic, quiet read.