Review number -.23
Oct. 28th, 2009 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainbowunicorn_readsThe Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
Dr. Henry delivered his own twins one night, and, discovering his daughter has Down's syndrome, sends her away to an institution. His nurse, Caroline, secretly raises the child, Phoebe as her own. His wife, Norah, doesn't know about this, and so does their son, Paul.
I really struggled with this one. The style is easy and it seems like a very quick read, but I guess it wasn't as fast-paced as I would have wanted. I bought this book from Booksale a year ago (for only Php40), since I thought it would be interesting, expecting something Anne Tylerish or even Sue Miller-like. I was right. It's a family drama, plain and simple, but it basically bored me. The characters kept exclaiming "Oh," and it got to the point where I wanted to count the number of "Oh's", it was so annoying and distracting.
Case in point:
Norah and David are talking after Norah gives birth:
"Oh," she said. "A little girl too? Phoebe and Paul. But where is she?"
"Oh, my love," he said. "I am so sorry."
However, after all that ranting, the plot was meaty enough for this book to warrant being finished, which was what I did, painstakingly over a year or so, going through a page a month sometimes, sometimes not at all. I wanted to know how everybody would fare and secretly I was wishing they'd kill each other. Maybe while shouting "Oh!".
Maybe this would be better if it were translated to a movie. Dr. Henry takes up photography as his hobby, taking pictures of things in an effort to freeze time through his images, and this book is rife with descriptions. I could almost imagine something Hallmarky, with lots of hugging and wistful staring off into space and "Oh" exclaimings.
No, seriously.
There are some good reflections, though, found in the Penguin readers guide at the back:
Life is a moving image, unfolding and changing beyond our control.
What I think: 3 unicorns
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
I read this a year ago, and the images here still haunt me. The first page already talks about the focal point of the book, with Helen killing her mother Claire in an instant. Helen justifies this to being "too tired" of shouldering the burden of her "crazy mother". The events that follow describe the aftermath, trigerred by that instant. It was shocking, and different, and kept me turning the pages all night. I still like the Lovely Bones more, but props to Alice Sebold for another haunting and disturbing book. While I was reading this, I noticed that Sebold wrote this with an eerie, almost deafeningly silent setting and tone, if you consider that possible. It was like reading the Bell Jar and reaching that part where Sylvia Plath buried her hotdog in the sand, and things are normal one minute, and weirdly insane the next. Maybe craziness was hereditary for Helen's family.
What I think: 6 unicorns
No One Belongs here more than you, stories by Miranda July
Miranda July is my hero. So I might have read her book with fanmode glasses on. Haha. This book is wonderful. A girl gives swimming lessons in her kitchen. A lesbian pseudo-couple provides their services to women so they can pay the rent. A secretary falls in love with the wife of her boss and stalks her. A woman contemplates about her lover while confronting an intruder. Events seem so ordinary and realistic in some stories, and fantastical and dream-like in others. What does transpire through all her stories is her unwavering eye for the delicateness of human emotion. Know that game kiss, slap, kill? It would be fun to apply this game to her characters, to kiss those wretched souls who live in fantasyland, slap off the apathy from some, and kill-- well, I don't want to kill anyone here, 'cept maybe for that scary intruder. If you like her movie, Me and You and Everyone We Know, or have been to her site- Learningtoloveyoumore.com, this book might be perfect for you, cause it's really not for everyone. It might be a bit too strange for others, and don't let that hot pink cover fool you into thinking these stories have happy endings, because most of them don't. All her stories do end unpredictably, sometimes realistically, sometimes too abruptly, and you end up feeling like you've just eavesdropped into someone's private affairs, only to learn that they know you've been listening all along.
What I think: 8.5 unicorns
Dr. Henry delivered his own twins one night, and, discovering his daughter has Down's syndrome, sends her away to an institution. His nurse, Caroline, secretly raises the child, Phoebe as her own. His wife, Norah, doesn't know about this, and so does their son, Paul.
I really struggled with this one. The style is easy and it seems like a very quick read, but I guess it wasn't as fast-paced as I would have wanted. I bought this book from Booksale a year ago (for only Php40), since I thought it would be interesting, expecting something Anne Tylerish or even Sue Miller-like. I was right. It's a family drama, plain and simple, but it basically bored me. The characters kept exclaiming "Oh," and it got to the point where I wanted to count the number of "Oh's", it was so annoying and distracting.
Case in point:
Norah and David are talking after Norah gives birth:
"Oh," she said. "A little girl too? Phoebe and Paul. But where is she?"
"Oh, my love," he said. "I am so sorry."
However, after all that ranting, the plot was meaty enough for this book to warrant being finished, which was what I did, painstakingly over a year or so, going through a page a month sometimes, sometimes not at all. I wanted to know how everybody would fare and secretly I was wishing they'd kill each other. Maybe while shouting "Oh!".
Maybe this would be better if it were translated to a movie. Dr. Henry takes up photography as his hobby, taking pictures of things in an effort to freeze time through his images, and this book is rife with descriptions. I could almost imagine something Hallmarky, with lots of hugging and wistful staring off into space and "Oh" exclaimings.
No, seriously.
There are some good reflections, though, found in the Penguin readers guide at the back:
Life is a moving image, unfolding and changing beyond our control.
What I think: 3 unicorns
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
I read this a year ago, and the images here still haunt me. The first page already talks about the focal point of the book, with Helen killing her mother Claire in an instant. Helen justifies this to being "too tired" of shouldering the burden of her "crazy mother". The events that follow describe the aftermath, trigerred by that instant. It was shocking, and different, and kept me turning the pages all night. I still like the Lovely Bones more, but props to Alice Sebold for another haunting and disturbing book. While I was reading this, I noticed that Sebold wrote this with an eerie, almost deafeningly silent setting and tone, if you consider that possible. It was like reading the Bell Jar and reaching that part where Sylvia Plath buried her hotdog in the sand, and things are normal one minute, and weirdly insane the next. Maybe craziness was hereditary for Helen's family.
What I think: 6 unicorns
No One Belongs here more than you, stories by Miranda July
Miranda July is my hero. So I might have read her book with fanmode glasses on. Haha. This book is wonderful. A girl gives swimming lessons in her kitchen. A lesbian pseudo-couple provides their services to women so they can pay the rent. A secretary falls in love with the wife of her boss and stalks her. A woman contemplates about her lover while confronting an intruder. Events seem so ordinary and realistic in some stories, and fantastical and dream-like in others. What does transpire through all her stories is her unwavering eye for the delicateness of human emotion. Know that game kiss, slap, kill? It would be fun to apply this game to her characters, to kiss those wretched souls who live in fantasyland, slap off the apathy from some, and kill-- well, I don't want to kill anyone here, 'cept maybe for that scary intruder. If you like her movie, Me and You and Everyone We Know, or have been to her site- Learningtoloveyoumore.com, this book might be perfect for you, cause it's really not for everyone. It might be a bit too strange for others, and don't let that hot pink cover fool you into thinking these stories have happy endings, because most of them don't. All her stories do end unpredictably, sometimes realistically, sometimes too abruptly, and you end up feeling like you've just eavesdropped into someone's private affairs, only to learn that they know you've been listening all along.
What I think: 8.5 unicorns