Isabel Allende's Latest Book

I finally read a book by Isabel Allende, Island Beneath the Sea.  It had marvelous reviews in all the sources I saw, so I thought I would give her a try.  The book was quite long and at times seemed to drag, but I would still recommend this story about Zarité, a slave woman on the island of Saint-Domingue.  Zarité is bought by a sugar cane plantation owner, Valmorain, to care for his house and family. 

The story follows Zarité as she becomes further intertwined in the lives of the Valmorain family.  Following the major slave rebellion on the island (and the subsequent renaming of the island to Haiti,) the family relocates to French owned New Orleans.  It is there that Zarité wins her freedom, but conditions continue to throw the fates of her family and the Valmorain's together. 

The conditions on the plantation are brutal and ugly; the mix of voodoo and Christian religion in the lives of the slaves fascinating.  Since I am not doing justice to the scope of this book, I can only ask you to please consider adding this book to your "to read" pile.

Girl in Translation

Jean Kwok's Girl in Translation is the story of eleven-year-old Kim Chang and her mother, who emigrate from Hong Kong to the United States hoping for a better life.  When they arrive, they find themselves indebted to Aunt Paula who is charging them for their air fare and controlling where they live by putting them in an unheated, broken windowed, unfurnished apartment and collecting their rent money besides.  The only work they can get is also controlled by Aunt Paula - backbreaking labor in her sweatshop in Chinatown.  Kim attends the local school and works to excel but finds it difficult, since she, too, must work in the factory. 

The sweatshop scenes are heartbreaking as Kim is not the youngest worker; many other children must work there to help their parents.  Despite her age, Kim assumes adult responsibilities - even filling out her mother's tax forms.  This is an interesting and worthwhile read about the tensions of being between two worlds.  The story rings true.  I recommend it highly.

"I need you to understand how ordinary it all was."

The year is 1963 and the place is small town Mississippi.  Eleven-year-old Florence Irene Forrest has an anything but ordinary life as the daughter of a mentally unstable mother and a father with dark secrets.  The first we realize that her father's night meetings are anything but benign occurs when immediately after he leaves, Florence's mother takes her on a trip to the bootlegger - not the white bootlegger, but the black bootlegger - and gives this man a warning to "get everybody inside, and the boys in the woods."

As Florence becomes more aware of the conditions of her life, the story grows ever darker.  The book is a look back at her life from the viewpoint of her adult life, and her dawning recognition of what she witnessed that year.  The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin reminded me of The Help but with a much harsher view of race relations in that violent time. 

The Very Last Gambado by Jonathan Gash

Antiques and women, being passion, are the only living things you can depend on.  Trouble is, they come with this other stuff called crime.    --Lovejoy

Thus begins the latest read in my quest to re-read all the Lovejoy books until I reach the ones I have not yet read. 

In this novel, a movie crew has come to town to film a story about the robbing of the British Museum and hired Lovejoy to be its antiques expert.  What's the problem?  Well, the museum has never been robbed and all possible plots can be foiled.  Can Lovejoy come up with a plan?  And why do they need him anyway?  Could this be the first successful robbery of the beloved institution, the "very last gambado?"  Join Lovejoy on his first adventure with Hollywood.

Rereading Laurie R. King

I have decided to reread Laurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell books - but I am cheating!  I am listening to the books.  I just finished her first Holmes/Russell book - The Beekeeper's Apprentice. I recommend it highly.  Mary Russell is a teenager when she first meets her neighbor Sherlock Holmes.  When the two of them match wits, Holmes finds that this young woman is his intellectual match.  He soon begins teaching her the tricks of his trade and the two work together to solve their first case: who is trying to kill them and why?  I never read any of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books, yet I find this series to be a wonderful read.  You might also like to read The God of the Hive reviewed previously.

Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros

Caramelo is the story of three generations of a family told in truths, half-truths, and outright lies and seen through the eyes and ears of young Celaya or "Lala."  The book is Cisnero's first novel since The House on Mango Street, a book I found to be much more fun to read than this one.  The book has a lot of Spanish in it and I grew tired of looking up the words.  I do recommend the book, but not as highly as I recommended Mango Street.  If you are interested, I also read and reviewed Cisneros' Woman Hollering Creek in an earlier post.

Zozi contest

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