Book Review: The Red Parts

The Red Parts

Maggie Nelson

Free Press

201 pages

Maggie Nelson was not even born on the spring day long ago in 1969 when her aunt, Jane Mixer, a student at University of Michigan, was found murdered in a rural cemetery. Jane had posted the day previously on a bulletin board on campus looking for a ride home to tell her parents about her engagement. What happened next remained a mystery for almost 35 years.

Back in 2004, Maggie had just finished writing a poetry book about Jane when she received a call from her mother that a man had been arrested under suspicion of Jane’s murder. Gary Leiterman was arrested after a cold hit on his DNA matched the DNA found on Jane’s pantyhose at the crime scene. The Red Parts chronicles Maggie’s life as she sits through Leiterman’s trial.

Because of Nelson’s background as a poet, this is not your typical true crime fare. There is much more fluidity to the prose and much more emotion conveyed. Instead of a retelling and recounting of the trial itself, it is a snapshot into Nelson’s entire life for the brief time during the trial.

I read this for the #24in48 readathon and it was perfect. It grabbed my attention from the beginning, was a shorter length, and kept me riveted throughout. I have heard the poetry piece is not difficult, so although I typically avoid poetry like the plague, I may pick that up.

An interesting aside, Jane Mixer was originally believed to be part of the Michigan Murders, committed by serial killer John Collins. I also plan on reading The Michigan Murders, by Edward Keyes, which was just republished in June of this year.

Book Review: Missing, Presumed

Missing, Presumed

Susie Stein

The Borough Press

400 pages

Manon Bradshaw is a police detective who responds to a call regarding a missing woman. Edie Hind is a 24 year old college grad who has disappeared from the home she shares with her boyfriend, Will. The door is left wide open and her cell phone and keys are left behind. The home is in disarray and it is immediately apparent that something is wrong. An investigation is launched, and tensions run high, especially considering that Edie’s father is Sir Ian Hind, surgeon to the royal family.

As the investigation continues, and hours turn into days, detectives are no closer to discovering Edie’s whereabouts. In fact, new questions continue to arise. Throw a budding romance into the mix and you have quite a story.

As far as mysteries/thrillers go, this one was more subdued. I wouldn’t say it had me on the edge of my seat, at least not for the majority of the time. I was curious about where the story was going, but not in the fast paced, can’t put down way that I would expect from this type of book. I wouldn’t necessarily consider that a bad thing, however I wish I had known that in advance. Instead, I was constantly wondering when the action would start.

The ending, while unexpected, came about at a slower pace as well. While normally that would be exasperating to me, I really enjoyed the introspection of the characters as they came to terms with themselves and each other. I loved the questions they posed and what it meant to me as the reader. I really started thinking about relationships, especially between that of parent and child and that between spouses. What could you discover about your spouse that would make you stop loving them? Or parent? Or child? I especially admired Miriam Hind and she stood by her own choices, shocked as I was by those choices.

I liked that this was a little different from your typical thriller. Just make sure you go into it knowing that it is more meant to be savored and not rushed through, at least once you get to the end.

 

Book Review: Circling the Sun

Circling the Sun

Paula McLain

Ballantine Books

366 pages

Ok, so I’ve found my niche. Paula McLain’s fiction based on historical characters. She just does it so right.

Beryl Markham grew up in the wilds of Kenya. She was a ruthless, spirited tomboy born at the turn of the 20th century. Her mother abandoned her at a young age, which greatly shaped the woman Beryl became. As she got older, she was able to cast off the expectations of society more so than most women to become a horse trainer and eventually a pilot.

If you’ve hear od Beryl Markham, it is probably because she was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. However, Circling the Sun focuses very little on her life in aviation and instead is more of a coming of age story. Beryl was married numerous times, but her one true love (at least as far as the book goes) is Denys Finch Hatton. Denys is a man that cannot be tamed, yet he and Beryl have an undeniable chemistry.

I realize that this review is all over the place, but it is difficult to succinctly put forth the type of woman Beryl was and how she lived. I will just say that I read this book for two reasons. 1. I loved The Paris Wife. 2. I had the opportunity to see Paula McLain speak earlier in the month. I wanted to read the book before I saw her, which incidentally, didn’t happen because my kids were assholes that day. Anyway, I personally hadn’t heard of Beryl Markham and I wasn’t sure that growing up in Kenya was that interesting to me. It turns out, it was.

This was a gripping account and I loved the way McLain went about fictionalizing Beryl’s early life.

Book Review: The Girls

The Girls

Emma Cline

Random House

355 pages

It’s 1969, the Summer of Love. Evie is a restless 14 year old girl. She is on the outs with her only close friend and dealing with her parent’s recent split. Times are changing and she struggles to find herself in all of it. And then she meets Suzanne. Suzanne’s ethereal beauty and personality immediately catches Evie’s attention and she becomes enraptured by her in the way only a teenage girl can.

Evie quickly ingratiates herself into Suzanne’s fold, which means she becomes familiar with “The Family”, a cultish group of young adults and teenagers that Suzanne lives with, and she moves on to the abandoned ranch where they all live in one big commune. She spends the summer fawning over Suzanne and taking drugs with the head of The Family, Russell, and the rest of the family members. It all ends after The Family is implicated in a couple of murders.

First of all, if you haven’t heard of this book, you’ve been living under a rock. It has to have the most hype of any book this year. Emma Cline is a new author, and was offered an unheard of $2 million dollar contract for this book (which also includes two books to be published in the future I believe) after an all out bidding war. So it is one of those books that felt almost too gargantuan before I even read it. At the same time, seeing it everywhere only made me want to read it more.

I should start out by saying I am an avid reader of anything having to do with Charles Manson and his Family. Up until this point, that has been strictly non fiction. So suffice it to say, I know a lot about his followers and the murders they committed. I was afraid that this would majorly color my perspective and lessen my enjoyment of this book. And in a way, it did. I didn’t quite buy Russell’s character and there were little things that Cline changed that niggled at me. Obviously she took creative license with the story, but I had a hard time reconciling that in my head. However, this wasn’t a story that focused on Russell or the murders, but instead a story that focused on the trials that adolescent girls go through. Evie’s “coming-of-age” was the central focus, with the cult and murders being only a backdrop. Looking at it that way made it easier for me to let go of my hangups and enjoy the story on its own merits.

If you’ve been following the reviews for , you’ll probably notice that they’re pretty mixed. I can see why. I found the prose to be overwritten much of the time, in a way that didn’t appeal to me. I am not sure I would have enjoyed this book in a different setting (isn’t that funny? The Manson aspect truly hurt and helped this book for me), so I’ll be interested to see what Cline comes up with next.

Book Review: My Best Friend’s Exorcism

My Best Friend’s Exorcism

Grady Hendrix

Quirk Books

336 pages

Abby and Gretchen became best friends in the fifth grade over a failed ET birthday party at the roller rink. They are now in high school and part of a foursome of girls that all consider each other to be BFF (think Mean Girls meets Heathers). Until one night when Gretchen disappears during their middle of the night shenanigans. When they find her a few hours later, she seems different.

The other two girls blow it off, but Abby can tell right away that something has happened to Gretchen. As the weeks go by, her behavior becomes stranger and stranger. She can’t sleep, she stops caring about her appearance, and she even spews vomit exorcism style all over the front lawn of the school. It’s clear she is possessed by the devil, but no one believes Abby, so she is left on her own to help Gretchen.

This is not my typical fare, but I saw it on Litsy (another new obsession) and thought it seemed fun. I promptly reserved a copy at the library, and I’m so glad I did. This is definitely one of those books where the physical book is far superior to the ebook. It’s hard cover and modeled in the fashion of a yearbook. The endpaper even looks like that of a yearbook, with all the signatures, notes, and doodles teenagers often leave for one another. At the end of the book, there are even a few pages of yearbook ads with personalized messages. This, along with the abundance of 80s references, really made this book stand out.

As for the actual story, it was fun and different. I would consider this to be a good palate cleanser for when you’re in between heavier books.

Book Review: Enchanted Islands

Enchanted Islands

Allison Amend

Nan A. Talese (publisher)

306 pages

Frances Frankowski was born to a poor immigrant family at the turn of the 20th century. She develops a friendship with a peer named Rosalie at a young age, and the two eventually run off together to start a new life away from their families. Enchanted Islands is interesting because it follows their friendship for decades, even though they grow apart and lead separate lives. Frances eventually marries a man named Ainslie Conway, an intelligence officer who needs a wife as part of his undercover assignment in the Galapagos Islands. It’s now WWII and tensions are high, but Frances is ready for a new adventure and hastily agrees to marry Ainslie.

The actual time in the Galapagos Islands only comprises about 1/3 of the book, but it was a nice change of pace from Frances’s city life and friendship with Rosalie. I still don’t completely understand why in the hell Ainslie would have been sent to a remote island to conduct war intelligence, but it was part of the mystery surrounding Frances’s life, because the truth is she dedicated years of her life to a mission she wasn’t really allowed to know much about. She risked her life for her country without knowing why.

I absolutely loved this book. It was a selection for Book of the Month (my new obsession) and I chose it pretty much for the gorgeous cover. Obviously the story sounded intriguing, but it is rare for me to choose a book with so few reviews and by an author I don’t know. I am so glad I chose this book though because it was a five star book for me, easily. I loved every facet and I thought the author did a good job as far as the proportions of Frances’s story. I read a few reviews that lamented the short length devoted to Frances’s time on the islands, but personally I enjoyed reading about her city life as well, so the juxtaposition of the two was perfect for me.

I also really enjoyed the love story between Ainslie and Frances and how imperfect it was. Fiction tends to provide the reader with a neat little romance, perfectly packaged, and I admired that Amend didn’t do that. I truly can’t imagine moving to a nearly deserted island with someone I barely know. Frances was brave in that regard, and perhaps a bit naïve as well.

Enchanted Islands is a phenomenal story about relationships and how humans interact, and how we hurt the ones we love even though we don’t mean to.