LITTLE EARTHQUAKES – Jennifer Weiner

“Little earthquake… They happen all the time.  I hardly feel them anymore.”

“I could have told him that nothing was safe and that no matter how careful you were and how hard you tried, there were still accidents, hidden traps, and snares.  You could get killed on an airplane or crossing the street.  Your marriage could fall apart when you weren’t looking; your husband could lose his job; your baby could get sick or die.  I could have said that nothing is safe, that the surface of the world is pretty and sane, but underneath it’s all fault lines and earthquakes waiting to happen.”
Published in 2004, Jennifer Weiner’s LITTLE EARTHQUAKES was an unexpected delight.  I’m a bit ashamed that I have never read Weiner before, and I know it’s because I tended to avoid the “chick lit” and so-called genre fiction categories.  I was a bit arrogant with my reading and my shelves back then; that was my mistake, and one I’ve learned from. 

LITTLE EARTHQUAKES may be considered “chick lit” but such a label is truly doing it a disservice; let’s stop trying to fit a story in a box and appreciate Weiner for being one helluva storyteller. 

The novel revolves around four very different women who are brought together by the “little earthquakes” that define life.  Weiner does an excellent job of capturing the four different women, their shared experiences, and their relationships.
Lia opens and closes the novel, and her point of view is the only one told in first person.  Her story, which is the heart of the novel, breathes the most life.  She’s fled her reinvented life with her fame, handsome husband, and recently dead baby in LA to return to the childhood home she’d thought she’d long escaped.  Back home, she begins to put her heart and life back together.  She sees a pregnant woman in the park and begins to slip baby trinkets into the woman’s bag or upon her doorstep.  It’s a bit stalkerish, but Weiner cleverly controls her character.  When the woman finally notices Lia watching her, she’s at her wits end with a crying baby.  Unsure of what to do, she invites Lia into her home and cooks her breakfast while Lia gets the baby to stop crying.  A forever bond is formed. 

Becky is the pregnant woman who caught Lia’s eye.  She’s fat and very self-conscious about whether she looks pregnant or not.  (The fact that Lia recognized her as being pregnant quickly cemented the friendship between the pair.)  Not only is Becky fat, she’s Jewish and a chef, and the most interesting character in the book.  I don’t know that I’ve read a book with a fat heroine where her weight wasn’t the plot – it was refreshing.
Becky goes to a yoga class for pregnant women and meets Kelly, a high-energy event planner who places her value on material items and how she is perceived.  Kelly came from nothing, and she’s very worried that the life she’s been building will be snatched from her at any time.  Ayinde, the biracial wife of a pro basketball player, is also in the class.  She was born into a life of privilege with her model mother and actor father.  She never meant to fall in love with an athlete, but she did. It’s an unlikely friendship, but it happens organically when Ayinde goes into labor (on page 22) and Kelly and Becky rush to her aid, even though they’d just met.  By the middle of the novel, the four women are a combined force.
There’s an over-bearing mother-in-law, an affair, a lost job, several breakdowns, delicious food, and a can of mandarin oranges.  There are laughs, tears, blood, sweat, hope, and love.  There’s forgiveness.  There’s a sweetness – like those tinned oranges. 

No, it’s not chick lit – it’s life.

THE GOLDFINCH – Donna Tartt

In the 1980s, a group of kids from Bennington College emerged as the so-called “literary brat pack.” These privileged kids from the East Coast, with their booze and drug-filled delusions, were deemed “cool” and their literary talents highly praised. They were pompous and arrogant, while at the same time intentionally esoteric to create an air of mystery about them. The Bennington College atmosphere, the drugs and alcohol, the privilege and wealth, and the entire coke-laden 1980s molded these writers into who they ultimately became.

 Bret Easton Ellis was a member, and I loathe his writing with a passion. I’ve read AMERICAN PYSCHO and LESS THAN ZERO and I hated them both. I wanted to like them – I really did. And Ellis is good at weaving a story – I just hate his drug-addled characters of privilege and excess.

 “If you like Ellis, you’ll love Donna Tartt. They went to school together. She’s a woman.”

 I remember the way I cocked my head at the speaker of that statement. I hadn’t liked Ellis. And the reason I hadn’t liked Ellis hadn’t been because he was a man. (Years later, I realized the speaker of that statement tried to live his life as if he stepped from the boarding school pages of an Ellis novel, coke included. We all make mistakes.)

Donna Tartt was also a member of the literary brat pack, and one of Ellis’s good friends. They’re still friends. Her rise to fame was a bit more of a slow burn than the others of the “pack.” Her first novel and one that created a cult following for her was THE SECRET HISTORY, published in 1992. The advance for that novel? $450,000. I don’t even know what that would be in today’s money. She was indeed a literary darling from the brat pack. It took her over a decade to finish her second novel, THE LITTLE FRIEND. Over a decade later, THE GOLDFINCH was published, and it won her the coveted Pulitzer. I finally picked it up, determined to give Tartt a fair chance. 

It is 771 pages of drug-addled, booze-soaked poor decisions. Her characters are not likeable and have few, if any, redeeming qualities. A bildungsroman is supposed to show growth of the main character, but Theo Decker doesn’t grow except to become even more of an obsessive, self-absorbed addict. 

This novel heightened my anxiety, and I was so tense when reading it, I thought I needed a Xanax. I didn’t care about Theo. (I felt bad about that because of how the novel opens, but he was a jerk before the bombs went off and his mother died.) I spent over 700 pages in a state over that blasted painting (and quite a few worried about a little Maltese named Popper). Even when Theo conveniently forgot about the painting for pages upon pages despite it being his alleged obsession, it was my focus.

His obsession with the painting gives rise to what I see as one of the many flaws. He talks about how much he knew that painting, especially its weight in his hands. How did he not notice it had been replaced with a schoolbook? The likelihood the schoolbook and The Goldfinch weighed the same is slim to none. Theo even discusses the weight with a “collector,” – pleased that someone else had noted the heft of it. How did he not know it had been switched? Drugs? I suppose it’s possible.

 Making Boris a caricature was also a problem for me, especially his dialogue. And the “boys will be boys” rough housing while drunk and/or high leading to a sexual encounter between the two that is never properly addressed made me shake my head. Boris deserved better. And the reader, who is painfully addressed at the end, also deserved better.

 The idea is great – a young boy has gotten in trouble at school and must go for a parent/teacher meeting. Because they’re running early, they stop at the museum. His mother, beautiful and animated by art, tells him about her favorites, including The Goldfinch – a beautiful songbird tethered to a perch by a short chain. An act of domestic terrorism leaves the museum in rubble and the beautiful mother dead. The boy, suffering from shock and a head injury, has a discussion with a dying old man and he takes the painting. What happens to the boy and the painting and the redheaded girl he’d seen just before the explosion could have been something heartbreaking yet beautiful and full of light. Instead, Tartt made each page more tragic than the one before it.

 It may be pretty writing, pretty like a songbird, but it’s tethered by a short chain to a tragic existence.

CHINA RICH GIRLFRIEND – Kevin Kwan

I recently posted on Facebook for my next reading selection out of these four from my TBR pile.  The first response was for the second installment of Kevin Kwan’s decadent and delicious trilogy.

CHINA RICH GIRLFRIEND is just as delightful and outrageous as CRAZY RICH ASIANS.  Like any good soap opera, there are twists, turns, bastard children, and a murder plot.  Rachel and Nick are back together and he’s not speaking with his mother.  Through a bizarre twist, she manages to work her way back into their lives just in time for the wedding.  It’s the bizarre twist, not the wedding, that is one of the plot bunnies of this snark-tastic little read.
Eleanor Young has found Rachel’s father, and Rachel has a half-brother, Carlton.  After the wedding, the newlyweds head to Shanghai to spend time with Rachel’s newly found family.  Things aren’t so peaceful at the Bao residence, and Rachel isn’t exactly welcomed into the home.  Her brother, however, does welcome her.  He’s a spoiled little rich boy whose poor judgment have left one girl paralyzed and another dead, and both families paid off so his father would never know.  Her brother’s “not my girlfriend” filthy rich fashionista friend Colette plays a big part in the blossoming relationship between Rachel and her little brother.
Another plot twist will take you into the life of Kitty Pong, who will tell you no amount of money can buy class.  But what of Bernard?  What’s happened to him?  The most delightful of unexpected moments that will have you chuckling out loud.
The beautiful Astrid is just as beautiful, but her hard-working husband has become quite the disappointment.  Thank goodness for old boyfriends who remind you of who you are.
And Ah Ma?  She’s still kicking.  She’s pushed her beloved Nicky out, but she’s still very much in control of her family.
Kwan’s writing is sharp and hilarious, even when at its most outrageous.  And now I really want a good xiao long bao.

Fredrik Backman – A Man Called Ove

I picked up Fredrik Backman’s A MAN CALLED OVE while in the used bookstore. I didn’t need to add to my stack of books, but I’ve never been able to turn down a book.

 Originally published in Swedish in 2012, A MAN CALL OVE is positively brilliant. It is so beautifully translated. Translations can be bulky and bit iffy – I do feel like the lose some of the magic – but this is one very cleverly crafted tale.

 Ove is, quite possibly, the grumpiest man in the world. The opening scene where he is arguing about iPads (that he calls O-Pads)? Who has been in a computer store and not witnessed a similar exchange with someone who is a little bit older and not excellent technologically savvy? That said, he also, quite possibly, has the biggest heart.

 It’s a beautiful and hilarious novel centered around a cantankerous older man who is just trying to commit suicide. Widowed and forced into retirement, Ove doesn’t think he has anything to live for anymore. He certainly isn’t needed and he has nothing left to take care. But his attempts to take his life and join his beloved wife and thwarted when young family of four come steamrolling into his life (and over his mailbox.) And somehow the “Pregnant Foreign Woman” and family force themselves into his life and into his heart. They make him feel needed, along with other residents of the small community. And the “cat annoyance” that kept showing up, that kept needed him.

 It’s a story of community. More so, it’s the story of the family we choose for ourselves. You will fall in love with Ove. He will infuriate you, and you will curse him as a bitter old coot. But Backman does such a beautiful job of holding back just enough so that the reader falls naturally in love with Ove. You will laugh. You will cry. And your heart will break, mend, and break again.

 And that is a damn fine book.

 (Tom Hanks has been tapped to play Ove in the English production. I’m not sure what stage it’s currently in, but that casting is perfect.)

Kwame Mbalia – TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY

The books that have written themselves on my skin and in my heart are far too many to name in this space. The point is books matter. Stories matter.


When I read about Kwame Mbalia’s TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY, my pulse quickened because I was excited. When I read the book’s dedication “For the stories untold and the children who will tell them,” I knew I was holding magic in its purest form in that royal purple hardback.

All across this planet is a tradition of storytelling. There are shared experiences and similar characters, and the stories create a unique tapestry of vibrancy and life that define us. But we all carry a Story Box, a way to honor our ancestors and remember. And this is one hell of a required reading of a story box. These are the stories we have to remember. These are the stories we tried to destroy.


I knew about Anansi, the Weaver. But I didn’t know about High John or John Henry. I wasn’t familiar with Br’er Fox or Br’er Rabbit (even though Disney attempted to destroy them). I’d heard of Gum Baby and Mwatiya, but I didn’t know that the People could fly.


Mbalia’s young adult novel about a “nerdy black boy from Chicago” is a masterpiece of storytelling, tradition, and history. Oral traditions kept the stories alive when the people were enslaved. The African gods blended and merged as history (and men) took the people who could fly, put them in chains, and made it a crime to teach them to read and write. Mbalia breathes life into these characters as any good storyteller would. And Tristan Strong, the most unlikely of heroes, a 7th grader who carries the guilt of the death of his best friend like sap on his chucks holding him back, he’s the hero we need and may have my favorite origin story.


TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY, packed full of adventure with a fast pacing that holds you close, is also a book about the importance of storytelling, the importance of history, the importance of our ancestors. There are so many passages in the book that resonated with me but the one I found the most powerful was when Tristan was talking to High John.


“His voice was crashing ocean waves and shaking earth. Old trees and Mississippi suns. Auction houses and Congo Landings. I didn’t recognize any of the images and yet I knew them all.”


We can’t erase history. And we shouldn’t – not if we’re to learn, to grow, to live. I encourage you to read outside your Story Box.


The stories matter. Long live the storytellers. All of them.

CRAZY RICH ASIANS

Kevin Kwan’s CRAZY RICH ASIANS is one hell of a delicious romp, and I’m kicking myself for not going on this ride sooner.  I simply could not put it down.  (Rainy weekend + fuzzy socks!)
The novel opens in London, 1986.  Our hero, Nicholas Young is 8 and behaving himself beautifully at the Calthorpe where the general manager is but a few hours away from having to eat his racist ignorance for dinner.  (Felicity Leong’s husband buys her the hotel and Ormsby finds himself without a job.) And that is the dear reader’s introduction to this filthy rich extended family.
The novel is centered around Nicholas and Rachel Chu (who is not quite an American Born Chinese, but close enough).  They’ve been dating for two years, and Nicholas has invited her to join him at the wedding of his oldest and dearest friend.  Nick leaves out a few minor details.  Like how it’s the most talked about wedding in Asia.  That it’s going to be a media circus.  That everyone who is anyone will be there.  Oh, and our hero just happens to be from one of the wealthiest families in Singapore and with Colin wed, the most eligible bachelor.   The Youngs are Rich with the big “R.” So wealthy no one talks about it.  So wealthy that Rachel’s rich friend who lives in Singapore doesn’t even know him.  So wealthy that his family will never approve of a modest economics professor from California.
The novel flits in and out of the social circle Rachel has been thrust into.  As expected, she’s a fish out of water and seen as nothing more than a gold digger.  Nick’s mother hires a private investigator to find out exactly who this woman is while at the same time orchestrating multiple attempts to sabotage her son’s love interest.  I cut my teeth on soap operas and Erica Kane has NOTHING on Eleanor Young.  
CRAZY RICH ASIANS is delicious and decadent, and if you’re like me and haven’t taken the ride yet, forget Netflix & Chill for a weekend and pick up Kwan’s first novel.  (It’s the first of a trilogy.  I can’t speak for CHINA RICH GIRLFRIEND and RICH PEOPLE PROBLEMS, but this first attempt is a pure joy of book fun.)

CALEB’S CROSSING – Geraldine Brooks

I don’t know who Juliette is, but she left her autographed copy of CALEB’S CROSSING by Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks to be purchased at a used book sale.  ($5 a box – any sized box!!)  I’ve heard of Geraldine Brooks, but only through her husband, Tony Horwitz, who wrote CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC.  (He won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for those wondering.) Until I picked up CALEB’S CROSSING, I’d never so much as glanced twice at any of her works.  
Published in 2011, CALEB’S CROSSING was inspired by the true story of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a Wampanoag who converted to Christianity and was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard.
The title concerns the “crossing” between cultures – from Wampanoag to White – a full assimilation, while also referencing the crossing between life and death.  Make no mistake, this is Bethia’s story.  As such, the title is a bit misleading; BETHIA IS SORRY would have been a better a choice because this novel is a very lengthy apology for her involvement in the life and death of Caleb. 

Bethia met the young man when she was 12.  She gave him the name Caleb, a strong Biblical name.  He named her Storm Eyes, but no one knew but the two of them.  The world, however, knew him as Caleb.  (It reminded me of a scene in CHILDREN OF THE DUST, when Rachel “renames” the “savage boy” Corby White.  A scene, mind you, that played out in history time and time again.)
Caleb eventually converts and leaves his people to study under Bethia’s father.  He is a quick study and he, along with Joel, are the prized jewels to showcase how the “heathens can be saved.”  Joel is murdered just before graduation from Harvard, but Caleb graduates.  By this time, he is but the shell of Cheeshahteaumauk.  He is thin, pale, and his once glorious hair is dull.  His eyes are lifeless.
He’s crossed, but the crossing has killed him.
In desperation, Bethia goes to his uncle, Tequamuck, a powerful pawaaw, for help.
“My nephew is sick?  You think this comes as news to me? My nephew has been sick – indeed, he has been marked for death – from the day he commenced to walk with you, Storm Eyes.”
Tequamuck helps Bethia, and she takes his words to Caleb, the words of his death song.
“All that is true and certain.  But what I do not know is this: which home welcomed him, at the end.”
The novel left me unsettled, as well it should.  It is well-written (though rushed and breathless at times), historically accurate, and engaging.  But it is Bethia’s story – one of privilege and guilt.

MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN – Ransom Riggs

I’ve gone on a bit of a YA kick when it comes to reading, but I’m not mad about it.  There are a lot of great things happening in YA lit land these days, and I’m here for it.

I was gifted the book that is the subject of today’s review because the gifter thought I’d enjoy how the book was setup.  He was right. 

Plot-wise, Ransom Riggs’s MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN isn’t something that new or shiny (ordinary boy finds out he isn’t so ordinary after all and is whisked off to a land of magic, intrigue, a pretty woman and the monsters he has to save them from); however, the use of vintage photographs to weave the story together made it  both new and shiny.  These vintage photographs are the heart of this tale so it’s no wonder even Tim Burton couldn’t make the movie a success.  (Some books aren’t made for the screen.  They just aren’t.)

Jacob is moody and annoying teenager.  He’s an outcast with a questionable choice in friends, and parents he neither respects or admires.  His ship’s course has already been mapped as he is heir to a chain of pharmacies in Florida.  His mother comes from money; his father comes from peculiar.

He’s outgrown the myths and legends his paternal grandfather had filled his head with as a child.  The island  where everyone is safe and the sun is always shining, the children with magical abilities, the monsters with tentacles in their mouths…  they were all tall tales exaggerated by an old man who had been sent to a remote island  as  a  Jewish child during the war, an old man who had fought the Nazi monsters.  (I thought the story might take a LIFE OF PI, “May’s Lion” slant and I almost wish it had.)

But when tragedy strikes, Jacob is plunged into a reality that his grandfather wasn’t filling his head with lies and fairy tales.  His grandfather was a peculiar – one with a unique gift.  Jacob has that gift as well.

 MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN is a little Series of Unfortunate Events meets American Horror Story: Freak Show meets X-Men First Class.  It’s quirky, odd, creepy, and a bit fantastical.  Will I finish the series?  Probably not.  Much like some books shouldn’t be movies, some books shouldn’t be forced into a series.  If you’re writing a series, that first book better grab me and hold on tight with characters I can commit to – otherwise, my TBR pile to too big for me to bother.

THE KEY TO EXTRAORDINARY – Natalie Lloyd

 Before I get into the review of another Battle of the Books selections, I want to ask you to please donate to my niece’s elementary school. It’s a rural public school in North Carolina and many students have little support at home and are not encouraged to read. This Battle of the Books competition excites these children and nourishes a love of reading that will, hopefully, last a lifetime. If you’d like to donate, please click here. 

THE KEY TO EXTRAORDINARY by Natalie Lloyd is something quite magical and special and so is its heroine, Emma Pearl Casey.  This story grabbed my hand and my heart like a friend you never want to say goodbye to.

Emma and her older brother Topher have been touched by heartbreak and loss, and how Lloyd handles the darkness of their sadness is nothing short of magic.  She gives it a name, the Big Empty, and it breaks my heart.  She never knew her father and her mother has died by the start of the story.  She lives with Granny Blue and gives tours to the famously haunted cemetery.  Her family owns Boneyard Cafe and much like the rest of Blackbird Hollow, they are struggling.

But Blackbird Hollow is magic.  And so are the women in Emma’s family.  Their lives are documented in a the Book of Days.

“Since before the Revolutionary War, every woman in our family has dreamed of a field of blue flowers.  We’ve kept a record of it since Ingrid Noble.  And in that field, they always see… a clue.  A clue to their extraordinary destiny.”

“We call the women in our family the Wildflowers.  Because no matter the circumstance, and no matter where the wind carried them, they bloomed, bold and bright.”

But what is Emma’s destiny?  She feels the dream is coming just as sure as she feels the ghosts on the breeze.  When the dream finally comes, Emma is confused.  What could the key mean?

And then she realizes her destiny – she is to find the Conductor’s treasure and save her family and cafe.

The Conductor’s treasure is a legend dating back to before the Civil War, and many people within Blackbird Hollow have sought it out.  But only Emma had the dream.  She knows it is her destiny.

What happens next is the most magical and beautiful of treasure hunts as Emma and her BFF Cody Belle and new friend Earl Chance set out to find the key that will unlock the treasure that will save the town.  Emma does find the key and she does unlock a past full of treasures and love, and it the most unexpected and perfect of endings.

And the flowers… oh how I wish these flowers were real.  Keeping Susans.  Telling Vines.  Healing Blues.

I’ve been removed from children’s books for a bit, but this did have some HOLES vibes.  There is so much in this short children’s book to unpack, so I will leave you with Emma’s entry in the Book of Days.

She believed in magical things: buried treasure, skeleton keys, and Telling Vines.  She loved.

SMELLS LIKE DOG – Suzanne Selfors

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you are “too old” for a book. We can’t outgrow books. It’s impossible. I’m a bookdragon; you can trust me.

 My sister recently sent me the list books for the 2019-2020 Elementary Battle of the Books competition. As my niece will be reading the books, my sister was hoping maybe I could snag some of the books at my favorite used book stores. My first trip out scored four. And of course I’m going to read them before I deliver them to her. Why? Because they’re books!

 Before I get into the review of the first one, I want to ask you to please donate to my niece’s elementary school. It’s a rural public school in North Carolina and many students have little support at home and are not encouraged to read. This Battle of the Books competition excites these children and nourishes a love of reading that will, hopefully, last a lifetime. If you’d like to donate, please click here.  

I’ve never read Suzanne Selfors before, so I had no idea what I was missing.  What an absolute treat SMELLS LIKE DOG was.  It is witty, endearing, sharply written.  It was giving me serious FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER vibes with a hint of Carl Hiaasen (HOOT, FLUSH, SCAT, CHOMP – you get the idea.)  It was a splendid combination that left me smiling.

Selfors opens her book with a letter to her readers that makes it very clear that the story is about a dog and that dog does NOT die.  I(‘m of the opinion that every book with a dog should start in a similar fashion!)

Homer Pudding lives on a goat farm with his older sister, Gwendolyn, who wants to be a taxidermist when she grows up and practices on road kill, a young brother Pip that everyone calls Squeak, a mother who loves him to bits, and a father who doesn’t quite understand him.  Homer’s hero is his father’s brother, Uncle Drake the treasure hunter.  Homer wants to be just like his beloved uncle and his head  (and bookcase!) is full of dreams of treasures and maps and lore.

Then they read in the Sunday paper that Uncle Drake has been eaten by a tortoise.  A representative from a law firm in The City brings the family a letter.  There is also a letter just for Homer.  A letter and an old smelly hound.  Uncle Drake left his most treasured possession to Homer.  But what to make of the smelly basset hound with no sense of smell?  What purpose can he possibly serve?

But there is a gold coin on the dog’s collar and Homer has a clear taste for adventure that will take him far beyond his family’s goat farm and border collies.  With Dog at his side, Homer sets out on his first grand adventure with more questions than answers.  One thing becomes clear, however; Dog is perhaps the greatest treasure in the world.  Dog and family are forever.

And do not ever let any one tell you that you are too old for a children’s book. Pish-Posh, I say.  The problem with “adults” is that they’ve stopped reading.