The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

This book has so many elements: literary analysis, unresolved grief, unfulfilled needs, dreams, familial traits, legacies, romantic tension and mysterious inheritance. The main character, Samantha Whipple, is at once flippant, rash, immature and emotionally lost. She is the last descendant the the literary family of the Brontes. She is overshadowed and manipulated by her unstable father, who now deceased, continues to hold sway over her beyond death.

The cover's synopsis sounded mildly intriguing with the story's tie-in to the Bronte family. A few conversations in the beginning are humorously clever but become tiresome as the book goes on. Samantha repeatedly expresses her dislikes of all kinds of things, from authors to beverages. At first the reader may feel sympathy for this awkward, socially inept, insecure young woman. But after awhile, this reader felt like saying, "Oh, stop it!" to both Samantha and the author.

Discussions between Samantha and her Oxford professor regarding literature, the odd personalities of the Bronte siblings, their behaviors and their writings, are convoluted. I began to wonder if some of these conversations might not be some of the author's master's thesis disguised as part of the novel. The professor comes off to me as also manipulative and unstable. Samantha's attraction to him strikes me as emotional transference from her father to this man.

The Madwoman Upstairs is Catherine Lowell's first novel. It is due out in March 2016. The book left me creeped-out. Dark psychological implications of many elements of the story were burdensome. They left me wishing for a fresh breeze and sunshine. Oddly, that's the way Charlotte and Emily Bronte's books made me feel years ago when I read them. By invoking the same reactions, maybe Lowell is better, after all, than I thought.

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith

The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith is a slightly different story of art theft and forgery. It revolves around 17th C. artist Sara de Vos, her time and her art, 20th C. art history graduate student Eleanor (Ellie) Shipley and 20th C. lawyer Marty de Groot, wealthy American descendant of the original Dutch owner of a painting by Sara.

In 1958 Ellie, who restores and conserves paintings to support herself, is approached and agrees to make a copy of the de Vos painting. It is Ellie's one and only forgery. Exactingly done, except for one slight difference not detectable to the naked eye, the copy is switched with the original. It is not until several months later that de Groot becomes aware that what is now hanging in his apartment is no longer the original. So begins his quest to get it back.

Just as 17th C. paintings have layers of canvas, sizing, ground, paint, varnish and accumulated dirt, Smith builds the multiple layers of his story through the layers of his characters - their personal situations, their personalities, their surroundings and their times. He moves from late 1950s New York City back to mid-1600s Holland, as well as forward to Australia, circa 2000.

Smith does a good job of describing his settings. The reader can clearly picture the old, established wealth of de Groot's apartment, the grunge of Ellie's one-room Brooklyn apartment and the buildings, scenery and details of Sara's Holland. Each character has their own tensions and sadness which the reader is called upon to feel and understand. The complexities of this trio, how they parallel each other and intertwine, make for an enjoyable story.

While some reviewers of advance copies of the book have raved that it is compelling, the best they have ever read, "almost perfect," I cannot use such hyperbole. I felt it was competently done, of mid-level depth of character development and above average in setting the scene, whether on canvas or in the world of the protagonists.

I enjoyed it much more than The Goldfinch. Readers who liked Girl with a Pearl Earring or who like art/theft/forgery plots will likely enjoy this take on true and false art, which also questions what other things of life may also be true or false.: love, value, skill?

The book is due to be published April 5, 2016. This is Dominic Smith's fourth novel.

Written in the Stars by Aisha Saeed

Genres: Contemporary, YA
Release Date: March 24th, 2015

Source: Checked out from GPL

Add on Goodreads

This heart-wrenching novel explores what it is like to be thrust into an unwanted marriage. Has Naila’s fate been written in the stars? Or can she still make her own destiny?

Naila’s conservative immigrant parents have always said the same thing: She may choose what to study, how to wear her hair, and what to be when she grows up—but they will choose her husband. Following their cultural tradition, they will plan an arranged marriage for her. And until then, dating—even friendship with a boy—is forbidden. When Naila breaks their rule by falling in love with Saif, her parents are livid. Convinced she has forgotten who she truly is, they travel to Pakistan to visit relatives and explore their roots. But Naila’s vacation turns into a nightmare when she learns that plans have changed—her parents have found her a husband and they want her to marry him, now! Despite her greatest efforts, Naila is aghast to find herself cut off from everything and everyone she once knew. Her only hope of escape is Saif . . . if he can find her before it’s too late.

Written in the Stars is the kind of book that I should have loved but I didn't. Diversity? Check. Forbidden romance? Check. A female lead you want to root for? Check. So why didn’t I love it? For starters, it is written in a very simplistic middle grade style which is odd given the age of the characters and the things happening.

I also think the book is a lot more rushed than it should be. It takes a lot of time to build to the climax but not enough time is spent providing readers with a detailed resolution. We find out what happens in the epilogue but given the risk and the issues at hand, it would have been a lot nicer if more time were spent actually hashing that bit out.

I also struggled a lot with the cruelty of her parents because even though this is SUCH AN important issue and it happens a LOT, I also feel like the way the community was represented as a whole could have been done better? Not all south-east asian parents are trying to marry their kids off at the youngest age possible and are super conservative. If we got more positive depictions, I think it would have helped highlight the issue even more without stereotyping an entire community.

That said, I do think the author did a good job with exploring the issue of forced arranged marriages and how horrible they can be. In the second half of the book, Nalia’s emotions become so real and her pain  and it hurts. 

So overall, I would recommend this book to readers because the right people will fall in love and every story needs to be told & read.

Beside Myself by Ann Morgan

This is a very well-written novel about identical twin sisters who are about 6 years old. One is named Helen and she is popular, smart and their mother's favorite. The other one is named Ellie, and she has behavioral problems, trouble in school and absolutely no friends. Helen spends a lot of time making fun of her sister, and getting her friends to do the same. Helen makes up games to play with Ellie that showcase her "simple" personality, and they really are quite cruel. Even in school the teachers treat Ellie as if she isn't as smart as everyone else, which further alienates Ellie from everyone. One day Helen decides to play a game by switching places with Ellie. Ellie agrees, and they change clothes and Helen fixes her own hair to look like Ellie's trademark messy braid, and she braids Ellie's hair properly, as Helen, and they manage to fool the first person they see. What a hoot! Helen wants to take it a step further and try to trick their Mother. When they get home, their Mother is completely distracted because her new gentlemen friend has come a calling, so she introduces the girls by their switched names. The next morning Ellie refuses to switch back. Helen keeps insisting that she isn't Ellie, but her Mother, who is not the greatest mother in the world, doesn't believe her. Helen becomes frustrated, and starts to act out, so everyone really does think she is Ellie, both at home and at school. This is where things start to go downhill for Helen, and this is where the story begins. If you like books that are somewhat dark and creepy, that deal with mental illness, behavioral problems and someone's waking nightmare, then this book is for you! Read On!

Arcadia by Iain Pears

Publisher description: In 1960s Oxford, Professor Henry Lytten is attempting to write a fantasy novel that forgoes the magic of his predecessors, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He finds an unlikely confidante in his quick-witted, inquisitive young neighbor Rosie. One day, while chasing Lytten’s cat, Rosie encounters a doorway in his cellar. She steps through and finds herself in an idyllic, pastoral land where Storytellers are revered above all others. There she meets a young man who is about to embark on a quest of his own—and may be the one chance Rosie has of returning home. These breathtaking adventures ultimately intertwine with the story of an eccentric psychomathematician whose breakthrough discovery will affect all of these different lives and worlds. Dazzlingly inventive and deeply satisfying, Arcadia tests the boundaries of storytelling and asks: If the past can change the future, then might the future also indelibly alter the past?

I really enjoyed reading Arcadia by Iain Pears. So many things to love! An Oxford don, a cat named Professor Jenkins, a psychomathematician, time travel, the Isle of Mull, intelligent and resourceful strong female  characters (including one who is middle-aged) that did not diminish the intelligent and resourceful strong male characters. All wrapped up in a fantasy wrapper.

There are three settings. A pastoral society of harvesters and students who follow the Story, an ancient narrative that guides their lives. Oxford, England, early 1960. And a grim dystopian future of rigid rules and classes, focused mostly on the Isle of Mull. There are main characters in each reality, and as the novel moves along the connections between them spool out.

I did find it odd that one character’s story, only one, is told in first person. I’d have to say my favorite setting in the book was the Oxford timeline, but as the story went on the lines between all three settings blurred considerably and they could no longer be definitively separated.

I’ve never read any Pears and I enjoyed his writing style. Here is a lovely passage told from the viewpoint of a character from the grim dystopian future who finds himself in 1960s suburban England: “After a while he came to a street. House with little gardens and trees, extraordinary flowers growing everywhere. More birds. Black ones, ones with red patches on their breasts, big fat grey ones. Once he jumped in fright. There was another wild animal on a wall, furry and looking decidedly dangerous. It examined him with pale green eyes and he stopped uncertainly until he noticed that everyone else ignored it as though it was the most normal thing in the world. …And the noise! People talking, different sorts of vehicle in chaotic movement. The wind in the trees, the birding singing. The smells too, floating everywhere, some sweet, most foul, alarming. There was no control to anything, no order, just random movements.” (pp. 35-36 of the ARC.) This really made me appreciate the ordinary sights and sounds of my own environment.

Pears won points from me with a couple of references, the first to Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. (I had gerbils named after characters in Arcadia at one time.) Pears notes that Sidney compensated for not being given a role in the government by Elizabeth I “by writing (or at least starting – he never quite finished anything) the greatest romance in the English language. Almost no one has even heard of it now, which is a pity, because if modern sensibilities are suspended – if you do not care about plot, action, events, morality, structure, or pace, if you are not bothered by absurd coincidence or unlikely motivations, if irrelevant digressions of immense length do not weary you – then his Arcadia has many fine qualities.” (p. 49 of the ARC.) Ha, love it!

The author wins even more points from me with this reference to C.S. Lewis’s Aslan: “The trouble was, of course, that Lewis operated in a simple world where, oddly, the supernatural was banished except for that bloody bore of a lion of his, perhaps the most humorless creation in all of literature. … Lewis tried to invent an entire world, and created only a middle-class English suburb with a few swords.” (pp. 46-47 of the ARC.) I actually said “YES!” out loud when I read that about the bloody bore of a lion.

This is a long book, and you have to become invested in the characters to keep reading.  The characters were interesting, and I enjoyed watching the multiple narratives converge. I liked the language and the literary references. I thought early on that I would probably not understand the ending, and that turned out to be the case. I need someone to explain it to me! But I thoroughly enjoyed the journey.

I read an advance reader copy of Arcadia. I understand there is some sort of app that lets you read the book’s chapters in different order, but I have no experience with that. I don’t care for the American cover; I think the U.K. cover captures the book much better.

Arcadia will be available at the Galesburg Public Library in mid-February.

The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender

From the publisher: Delia's new house isn't just a house. Long ago, it was the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females -- an insane asylum nicknamed "Hysteria Hall." However, many of the inmates were not insane, just defiant and strong willed. Kind of like Delia herself. But the house still wants to keep "troubled" girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia becomes trapped. And that's when she learns that the house is also haunted. Ghost girls wander the hallways in their old-fashioned nightgowns. A handsome ghost boy named Theo roams the grounds. Delia learns that all the spirits are unsettled and full of dark secrets. The house, too, harbors shocking truths within its walls -- truths that only Delia can uncover, and that may set her free. And she'll need to act quickly -- before the house's power overtakes everything she loves. Katie Alender brings heart-pounding suspense, gorgeous writing, and a feminist twist to this tale of memories and madness.

This month, the GPL Chapter Chompers Teen Lit Book Club read The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender.  Book club members gave this one mixed reviews, primarily because of dissent over the aforementioned "horrifying way" that the heroine, Delia, becomes trapped in Hysteria Hall. It is nearly impossible to discuss this without including spoilers, but let's just say: some of us felt reeeaaalllly strongly that the book would have benefited from Delia remaining, um, untrapped, while others felt that Delia's trapped state added an additional layer of emotion to the story. Members also felt that perhaps the book could have been scarier, less rushed in the end, and would have been just fine without the addition of the obligatory semi-romance thrown in for good measure. That all being said, though, the group enjoyed that the book was a quick and fun "popcorn" read, and that there were so many interesting female characters (both dead and alive!) to choose from.

The Chapter Chompers 5-point book rating system is as follows:
1 (lowest ranking) = 1 pizza
2 = 2 pizzas
3 = 3 pizzas
4 = breadsticks
5 = legit unitado

The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall received a rating of 2.75 pizzas. It is available now in libraries and bookstores.

Half-Earth by Edward O. Wilson

Publisher description: Half-Earth proposes an achievable plan to save our imperiled biosphere: devote half the surface of the Earth to nature. In order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet, says Edward O. Wilson in his most impassioned book to date. Half-Earth argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. If we are to undertake such an ambitious endeavor, we first must understand just what the biosphere is, why it's essential to our survival, and the manifold threats now facing it. 

***

Edward O. Wilson knows his subject backwards and forwards, and his passion is admirable. This short work covers a lot of ground, meandering about on a large variety of topics. 

Although I agree wholeheartedly with the author’s suggestion to set aside half the planet for nature and am also passionate about the biosphere, I found the book a bit preachy and dull in parts. It was kind of like reading a really long sermon. The text was also a bit repetitive, in the way of people trying to convince others to understand their passion. I found some of the chapter transitions very abrupt. Much of the information in Half-Earth was not new to me; I'd heard or read a lot of it before. As so many environmental works are, it was also downright depressing to read.

On the plus side, Wilson quoted Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorites, who noticed man’s movement away from the natural world over a hundred years ago. Occasional sentences jumped out at me and made me think, like “Keep in mind that every surviving species (including us) is therefore a champion in a club of champions. We are all best of the best, descendants of species that have never turned wrong in the maze, never lost. Not yet.” (p. 117 of the digital advance reader copy) 

Depressing as they are, I feel it is important to read books like this one if we are ever to change the way humans treat the rest of the biosphere. Half-Earth proposes a bold idea and would be a good book for discussion. Short as it is, it would also be a good starter book for someone not already well-read on the subject.

Half-Earth is scheduled to be published March 7. I read a digital advance reader copy.