Category: Fiction

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5
Author: Gail Honeyman
Genres: Fiction
Read: Feb. 2018

I think I have a bit of an unpopular opinion on this one. I appreciate what Gail Honeyman did with this book and I actually do think it’s a really good story, but I was just so bored for a lot of this book.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine reminded me in parts of The Rosie Project (but better) and A Man Called Ove (but not quite as good). Eleanor is seemingly fine; she gets up every day and goes to work, she talks to her mum every Wednesday, and every Friday she purchases a bottle of vodka and spends the weekend alone in her flat. She likes routine, she dislikes emotion, and she believes she is completely fine.

Her routine is disrupted when she meets Raymond, the IT guy from her office, and together they witness an old man, Sammy, have a heart attack in the middle of the street. They take care of him until EMS arrives and check in on him as he recovers in hospital. For the first time in her life, Eleanor finds herself enjoying time with other people – building relationships and miking plans outside of her normal routine.

This is definitely a good book. I don’t want to say any spoilers, so I’ll try and talk in general terms, but I really like Eleanor’s evolution throughout this novel. The changes in her do feel very natural and believable and I didn’t think any of the interactions were forced. The novel climaxes at a very odd spot, about the 70% mark, but I did like watching Eleanor grow and heal throughout the last 30%. I liked that it wasn’t rushed or that she’s not just suddenly better, because that is not believable.

I absolutely loved Raymond. He was so down to earth and accepting. The thing I didn’t like about The Rosie Project was that I didn’t ever really buy into Rose and Don’s relationship, but I had no problem believing Eleanor and Raymond’s. Eleanor is a bit of a social outcast, but she’s also pretty likable and funny and I liked that Raymond was able to laugh with her and accept her little quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Taking the time to write this review and reflect on the book is actually improving my opinion of it (and I still have a book club meeting coming up, which might lower or increase my rating). I do think this is a good story, hence why I’m still giving it 3.5 stars, and it did make me think a lot afterwards. But I just can’t ignore that I was bored for a lot of the reading of the novel.

I know this book is narrated the way Eleanor thinks, which is mostly without emotion, but I am a very emotional person, so I found it really hard to engage in the story and I never felt anything tugging at me to pick this book up again once I put it down. And that’s totally fine. These are still important stories that should be told, it’s just not necessarily for me. It still helped me appreciate the way that some other people experience and move about in the world and I don’t regret reading it. Just not going to be a favourite.

Girl in Translation

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
Author: Jean Kwok
Genres: Fiction, Young Adult
Read: Jan. 2018

YES! Finally, a good read in 2018! I was off to a rough start before this gem!

Girl in Translation has been on my TBR forever and I finally decided to give it a read as part of my January Reading Challenge to read 3 books about immigration. This is a beautiful, beautiful book and I’m so glad I finally took the time to read it.

Girl in Translation tells the semi-autobiographical story of Kimberly Chang and her mother as they try to survive in New York City as new immigrants from Hong Kong. I’m not entirely sure when this book is set, but from a few of the pop culture references it seems to take place in the 1980’s. Kim and her Ma are sponsored into America by her Aunt Paula, who puts them up in an apartment in Brooklyn and gives Ma a job at her husband’s clothing factory. Kim and Ma are dismayed at the state of the apartment, which has broken windows, no heat, and a lot of roaches and rats.

Back in Hong Kong, Kimberly was always top of her class, and knowing hardly any english, she struggles at school. Ma is working as a finisher at the clothing factory along with many other Chinese-Americans. The factory is actually a sweat shop that illegally pays its workers by the garment (as opposed to an hourly wage) and Kim must help Ma every day after school until late in the night to get the clothes ready for each shipment. When Kimberly is teased at school and harassed by her teacher, she wants to skip school, but quickly realizes that she is her and Ma’s only chance at ever getting out of poverty. She’s throws herself wholeheartedly into learning English and works hard to get back to the top of the class again.

This is such a heartbreaking and inspiring story and I really like Kwok’s writing. It reminded me of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which is a huge compliment because it is one of my all time favourite books. It’s not a plot driven book, it’s simply the story of a young girl growing up in very tough circumstances and working incredibly hard to better herself and her family. I loved that Kimberly was tenacious and ambitious, but that she was also very real and had flaws. She takes the weight of the world upon her shoulders and she refuses to ever ask for help. She struggles to make friends, but she is so lucky to have Annette and I wish she’d confided in her and shared herself with Annette. Kim always declined help and was reluctant to let anyone into her life. I feel like may be a symptom of her Chinese culture as Ma was always reluctant to build any relationship that couldn’t be reciprocated and reverently believed in the idea that a debt must always be repaid. Sadly they both seemed to confuse kindness as a debt sometimes.

The ending is pretty abrupt, which caught me off guard. I actually think this story could have used another 50 pages to do the ending justice, but I still really liked it. It’s a heartbreaking ending, but I really appreciated it because it was real. When I saw where things were going at the end, I immediately knew how Kim was going to react because Kwok has breathed such life into this character that she took on a life of her own and acting any other way would have been contrary to her character. Kwok is very perceptive and I loved all of her characters because they were so real and so flawed. I was worried she might take the easy way out to create a happier ending, but I’m glad she stayed true to her characters and gave us this very bittersweet ending.

Beartown

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Fredrik Backman
Genres: Fiction
Read: May 2017

 

I really liked A Man Called Ove and Britt-Marie was Here, but Beartown was definitely my favourite Fredrik Backman novel to date! This was quite different then his other work, but it was excellent!

This is how you do large casts. I just read Paula Hawkins’ new book, Into the Water, which had a huge cast of characters, but she did justice for none of them. Beartown has a huge number of characters as well, but it really worked in this book. The characters are slowly introduced throughout the course of the novel and their relationships to one another are clearly indicated, so it wasn’t hard to follow and I was thrilled to see a lot of who I thought would be minor characters have some really interesting stories. Every character was well realized and well developed considering how little focus some of the characters got.

The characters reminded me a little of Melina Marchetta‘s work in that they grew in ways you did not anticipate and that you grew to like characters that you didn’t like initially. This shouldn’t have been a surprise though as Backman does an excellent job at making you love slightly unlikeable characters in all his novels. I loved the way Backman would present characters in different ways depending on whose point of view you were reading and that perspective could totally change your opinion of any character. For example I loved how characters like Bobo flip-flopped throughout the entire novel – you wanted to love him and then he would disappoint you and then you would love him again.

“It doesn’t take long to persuade each other to stop seeing a person as a person. And when enough people are quiet for long enough, a handful of voices can give the impression that everyone is screaming.”

I was totally impressed with the writing in Beartown. I highlighted so many passages throughout reading the book and I was really impressed with how Backman handled the serious topics in the novel as a male writer. I don’t want to give anything away because I think it’s best to go into this book blind, but it was definitely culturally relevant and very moving.  

I found the entire novel to be very insightful into sports culture and rape culture, both of which are often largely entwined, as well as the emotions that cause us to perceive things the way we do. It was a great novel about family, friends, sportsmanship, winning, and community (among many other things). There was so much going on in this book and so many different themes explored alongside the main theme.

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes much easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.”

Definitely recommend this one for everyone! There was no part of this novel that I disliked and I think anyone can relate to the story.

Little Fires Everywhere

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Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Celeste Ng
Genres: Fiction
Read: Oct. 2017

 

Celeste Ng is at it again!! I loved her debut novel, Everything I Never Told You, and she totally blew me away again with Little Fires Everywhere. In fact, I liked this one even better than her debut novel!

Like Everything I Never Told You, this is a slow-paced, character driven novel. Ng spends time on every single one of her characters, showing us their dreams and fears, their strengths and flaws. At times the characters are so frustrating, but they are always fascinating.

There’s a lot going on in this book. The Richardson family, with their four children, have lived their entire lives in the Shaker Heights community just outside of Cleveland. Shaker Heights prides itself on being a planned city and regulates everything about the city, from the colour you can paint your house, to the time you’re allowed to go trick-or-treating, to when and how often teens receive sex-ed classes in school.

Struggling artist Mia and her daughter Pearl have just moved to Shaker Heights and are renting from the Richardson’s. Without meaning to, their lives become incredibly intertwined with the Richardson’s and as the story unravels, we learn that everyone has their secrets and that with so many secrets, it’s hard to stop all the little fires from spreading.

Ng weaves questions of class and race throughout the novel that really bring her characters and her setting to life. Shaker Heights has always maintained their mantra that they “don’t see colour”, but when a court case arises around the custody of a young Asian child, the community is polarized and it becomes harder to deny that despite what everyone says, race and class still matter.

This novel felt almost like a Shakespearean tragedy. Everyone is so consumed with their own lives and secrets – trying to contain their personal fires – that the plot felt like an out of control train barrelling towards a broken bridge. The people inside the train are so caught up in their own drama that they don’t even realize they’re careening towards their impending doom.

But I loved every second of it. Ng’s writing is what makes this such a huge win. Not only has she written a fascinating drama and character study, but she has penned some truly beautiful prose. There is a lot of depth to this story and I would definitely recommend this book!