The setting, for the most part, is Arizona in 1893.  Nora is the wife of Emmett who runs a newspaper that is going bust.  She also lives with two grown sons, her husband’s niece, and a young son who has suffered a head injury that has affected his vision and possibly his thinking process.  Nora’s husband and older sons have not returned home for several days, and her water supply is gone and there is very little to eat.  Lurie is on the lam for killing a young man.  He becomes part of a group of men riding The Arizona Territory on camels.  Inland alternates between Nora and Lurie’s life that year:  each dangerous and brutal.

Inland is not an easy read, but I felt it was worthwhile.  Sometimes it takes a few chapters to realize what is actually happening.  For instance, it took me at least 75 pages to realize that Lurie is narrating his tale to his camel named Burke.  For those who need to be drawn into a novel immediately,  don’t read Inland. For others who can wait it out and enjoy the language and originality of Obreht’s second novel, give it a try.

Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey became friends in the early 70’s when they attended college and had a meal job at the Theta House.  While working at the sorority, they all met and fell in love with Jacy.  After graduation, with the Viet Nam war making for an uncertain future, the four plan a last weekend of fun on Martha’s Vineyard.  On their final morning together, Jacy has disappeared and Mickey has taken off to Canada.  Forty years later, the three men meet again at the same home on the Vineyard.  Lincoln and Teddy spend much of the weekend trying to figure out what happened to Jacy and why Mickey went to Canada.

If you usually enjoy Richard Russo, you will not be disappointed in Chances Are . . .Lincoln, Teddy and Mickey are likeable characters, and just like them, the reader wants to discover what happened to Jacy.

I was so fond of Henry, Himself that I wanted to read O’Nan’s other two books about the Maxwell family.  Wish You Were Here describes the family’s visit to their house in Chautauqua the year after Henry’s death.  Emily, Henry’s wife, wants to sell the home which has been a summer haven for the Maxwell’s for three generations.  We see the same characters and learn what has happened to them several years after Henry, Himself.  Emily, Alone occurs about eight years after Wish You Were Here.  O’Nan presents us with the same family members, but Emily is the focal point of the plot..

I thoroughly enjoyed all three novels. Although I missed Henry in these last two books(he is a lovable, genuine, realistic character), it was a joy to read more about this family and discover how each member was getting on.

Nickel Academy is a reform school for boys in Florida.  It is segregated-white boys on the west side of the institution, black boys on the east side.  While Nickel calls itself an academy, it really is a house of torture.  The Nickel Boys focuses on the life of Elwood Curtis.  Elwood is a black youngster raised by his grandmother.  He is bright, motivated and takes the inspirational words of Martin Luther King, Jr. to heart.  Unfortunately, he is in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was not enthralled with Whitehead’s, The Underground Railroad, although the rest of the world found it superb.  For me, The Nickel Boys is a much finer novel.  The characters, the plot, its presentation, and its historical significance make for an exceptional, thought-provoking work with a terrific ending.

Ella is a young woman living in Minneapolis who has delayed graduate school to become a caregiver.  Her most recent job involves helping  Jill, a woman in her 60’s who was in an accident that left her brain damaged.  Jill cannot take care of herself and although she can speak, what comes out of her mouth makes no sense.  Jill’s husband, Bryn, is wonderful-patient and loving, but he needs a break sometimes and that is why he hires Ella.  Say Say Say is Ella’s perception of her life with Jill and Bryn with many digressions into her own life and loves.

Say Say Say is the kind of book I will forgot I had read a year from now.  It’s not a bad novel, it just didn’t have enough depth or character development to grab me.

 

Every summer I pick a classic to read, and this year it’s Madame Bovary.  Emma’s hand in marriage has been given to Charles Bovary, a doctor, a widower and a naive man who is madly in love with her.  For her, each year her marriage to Charles becomes more intolerable.  Two affairs and living way above her means doesn’t alleviate her unhappiness.

When Madame Bovary was published in France in 1857, it was scandalous and Emma Bovary was considered a fiend.  However, judging her today one might think about how awful it was for her to be forced into a marriage with a man she hardly knew.  Several times I have been disappointed in a well-known, much lauded classic.  Not this time-Madame Bovary is a good read with well defined characters and interesting topics to think about.

 

On April 14, 2014, 276 adolescent schoolgirls were abducted from their school in Nigeria.  After watching their school buildings burn to the ground, they were forced to walk or ride in airless convoys to a very remote area of Nigeria.  The kidnappers were a part of a militant Islamic group who called themselves Boko Haram.  One of the group’s tenets is a firm belief that women should not be educated, rather they should marry young, bear children and carry out household duties.  Some of the girls converted to Islam and married their captors hoping to receive better treatment.  The majority of the girls refused.  A few were able to escape and return to their families.  Here is their story with special attention given to four of the kidnapped girls.

Beneath the Tamarind Tree is a heart-breaking read.  Throughout one can see how the author identifies with these girls and finds their behavior heroic.

Kate Atkinson is back with another Jackson Brodie book.  This time Jackson, one time policeman, now part-time private investigator, has semi-retired to small seaside village in England.  He is hired to follow a cheating husband by the man’s wife.  While working on the case and taking care of his adolescent son and his ex girlfriend’s dog, he comes across far nastier crimes than a case of infidelity.  In pursuit of justice, Brodie encounters a cast of quirky characters and gets involved in a plot that has many twists and turns.

I thoroughly enjoyed Case Histories, Atkinson’s first Jackson Brodie novel.  In Big Sky she once again writes a clever mystery with some endearing, humorous characters, and on top of the list is Brodie.  However, if you’re looking for a realistic, violent who-done-it with a shocking ending,  Big Sky is not for you

Claire Lombardo’s debut novel is a family saga centering on the Sorensons.    Marilyn and David marry in their early 20’s, and while David begins medical school at The University of Iowa, Marilyn gives birth to the first of their four daughters.  They are loving, doting parents, yet somehow each of the daughters experience their own set of problems.  Wendy, the oldest, lost a husband and an unborn daughter, and seeks comfort drinking and picking up younger men.  Violet strives to be the perfect mother and wife, and the reader eventually discovers why.  Liza discovers she is pregnant while living with a man who is clinically depressed and Grace lies to her family, feels terrible about it, but can’t bring herself to tell them the truth.

If The Most Fun We Ever Had sounds like a soap opera, it’s because it is.  However, for me it was the right book to begin the summer with-easy to get into, good character development, a fast moving plot, and a lot of Chicago streets and landmarks that I recognized.

This beautifully written book is difficult to describe.  The text is a letter that the main character, who we know only by his nickname, Little Dog, writes to his mother, Rose, who will never be able to read it.  Little Dog, his mother, and his grandmother Lan move from Viet Nam to Hartford, Connecticut.  In both locations they experience violence, evil and bigotry.  Through Little Dog’s retelling of his life in bits and pieces, we learn much about him and the people he cares about.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is not an easy read.  It goes back and forth in time often.  Some of the novel is written as stream of conscious, and some of the scenes Vuong describes are horrifically graphic.  However, there are many sentences throughout this debut novel that are “gorgeously” quotable and thought-provoking.