[MINI REVIEWS] Literary/Historical Fiction Edition #1

title: Lost in the Beehive
author: Michele Young-Stone
genre: literary fiction, historical
published: April 10, 2018 by Simon & Schuster
format: paperback, 320 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

From the author of Above Us Only Sky and The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, a touching new novel set in the 1960s about the power of friendship, love, and accepting your past in order to find a future. 

For nearly her entire life, Gloria Ricci has been followed by bees.  

They’re there when her mother loses twin children; when she first meets a neighborhood girl named Isabel, who brings out feelings in her that she knows she shouldn’t have; and when her parents, desperate to “help” her, bring her to the Belmont Institute, whose glossy brochures promise healing and peace. She tells no one, but their hum follows her as she struggles to survive against the Institute’s cold and damaging methods, as she meets an outspoken and unapologetic fellow patient named Sheffield Schoeffler, and as they run away, toward the freewheeling and accepting glow of 1960s Greenwich Village, where they create their own kind of family among the artists and wanderers who frequent the jazz bars and side streets.  

As Gloria tries to outrun her past, experiencing profound love—and loss—and encountering a host of unlikely characters, including her Uncle Eddie, a hard-drinking former boyfriend of her mother’s, to Madame Zelda, a Coney Island fortune teller, and Jacob, the man she eventually marries but whose dark side threatens to bring disaster, the bees remain. It’s only when she needs them most that Gloria discovers why they’re there.  

Moving from the suburbs of New Jersey to the streets of New York to the swamps of North Carolina and back again, Lost in the Beehive is a poignant novel about the moments that teach us, the places that shape us, and the people who change us.

Lost in the Beehive is a beautifully written novel about finding and sticking to your true self. It follows Gloria Ricci who was brought into an Institution to "treat" her condition of being a lesbian. It's seems absurd but it was a thing then, I guess. (It was quite horrifying to read, to be honest.) Since leaving the facility and after her adventure with her friend from the Institute, she wanted to live a "normal life"--one that is expected from her. She took a regular job and married a man she met while working. It's quite a predictable novel but still wonderfully executed. Gloria is a heroine that's very human--she has her faults and you will always see where she's coming from. The relationships she built with the people she met along the way shaped her as a character and forming what she finally decided on in the end. She's a protagonist I'll never get tired of rooting for. The ending was very expected yet very well written. It's one of those ending you know will happen but still want to read on and see how it goes. Also, did I mention that I teared up a bit?

A bit predictable but beautifully written. Heartbreaking at times and carries a heroine worth rooting for! A recommended read if you're looking for a quick literary fiction.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

title: Lincoln in the Bardo
author: George Saunders
genre: literary fiction, historical fiction
published: March 9, 2017 by Bloomsbury Publishing
format: hardcover, 343 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Fully Booked
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

The extraordinary first novel by the bestselling, Folio Prize-winning, National Book Award-shortlisted George Saunders, about Abraham Lincoln and the death of his eleven year old son, Willie, at the dawn of the Civil War  

February 1862. The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.  

From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of realism, entering a thrilling, supernatural domain both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself trapped in a strange purgatory – called, in Tibetan tradition, the bardo – invisible to his father, bowed at the tomb. Within this transitional realm, where ghosts mingle, squabble, gripe and commiserate, and stony tendrils creep towards the boy, a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.  

Unfolding over a single night, Lincoln in the Bardo is written with George Saunders’ inimitable humour, pathos and grace. Here he invents an exhilarating new form, and is confirmed as one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Deploying a theatrical, kaleidoscopic panoply of voices – living and dead, historical and fictional – Lincoln in the Bardo poses a timeless question: how do we live and love when we know that everything we hold dear must end?

This was quite a slow read for me. It was also a very odd read (thus a Man Booker Prize winner, I guess). It has over 100+ narrators and reading A LOT of narrators is a bit disorienting at times. Imagine getting used to this two narrators alternating in a single chapter then a myriad of them suddenly chimes in. There were also times when you won't see certain points-of-view then after 10 or so chapters, they'll be back. And I usually think: who the heck is this again? This kind of writing literally just puts me off now (but I doubt I'll encounter something like this again though).

Story-wise it was pretty good yet not something that will stick to me in the long run. Lincoln in the Bardo follows Willie Lincoln and his acceptance of the afterlife--the Bardo. It's about the night he was buried and he was out there as a spirit as he sees his father stay in his grave and hold his body. There were also several other stories about the spirits in the Bardo with Willie thus the 100+ narrators.

A slow and disorienting read, Lincoln in the Bardo is a extraordinarily written novel novel that's very unique in format and storytelling. Not my cup of tea but could be for some with its interesting story and a conclusion that left me sighing and smiling in the end.

title: The Silk Weaver's Wife
author: Debbie Rix
genre: historical fiction
published: July 19, 2017 by Bookouture
format: kindle, 374 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

‘On the way back down the grand staircase to the hall, her eye was caught by a portrait, hanging in a particularly dark corner of a landing. It was of a young woman, seated at an easel; she was painting a silk moth, its eggs nestling on a mulberry leaf.’  

1704: Anastasia is desperate to escape her controlling and volatile father and plans to marry in secret. But instead of the life she has dreamed of, she finds herself trapped in Venice, the unwilling wife of a silk weaver.  

Despite her circumstances, Anastasia is determined to change her fate… 

2017: Millie wants more from her relationship and more from her life. So when her boss Max abruptly ends their affair, she takes the opportunity to write a feature in Italy.
Staying in a gorgeous villa, Millie unexpectedly falls in love with the owner, Lorenzo. Together they begin to unravel an incredible story, threaded through generations of silk weavers.  

And Millie finds herself compelled to discover the identity of a mysterious woman in a portrait… 

A gorgeously written, richly evocative story, The Silk Weaver’s Wife is perfect for readers who love Kate Morton and Gill Paul. 

The Silk Weaver's Wife feels like a very well researched novel. Debbie Rix is an author that gives attention to details and makes you feel like you are there on Venice. It has its ups and downs for me and as a whole, it was pretty much okay thing for me.

The story follows the alternating points of view of Millie who went to Italy to write a story and later on falling in love with its owner and Anastasia who wanted to get away from her father and went through many things in her life which really made the story for me. I LOVE reading Anastasia's story and see her interest in her art develop. The connection between the two characters also had me thinking quite a bit while reading this which was a great motivation.

Not my type of historical read, The Silk Weaver's Wife, however, is strongly recommended for people who enjoy reading intricately described novels. It's one of those reads who'll give you things about silk weaving and really put you in the places the characters are in. The story was also wonderfully written and quite enjoyable to read although it's not something that kept me wanting to read it non-stop.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

let's connect!