#15 – The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is a talented writer, and his prose is always a joy to read, but in his latest novel, The Snow Queen, I felt the story wasn’t quite fully realized. There are some intriguing ideas — around life, death, love, siblings, success, songwriting, caring — but it’s unclear what it all amounts to. In fact, re-reading some reviews of The Snow Queen I find it difficult to recall the book being described; it just didn’t stick with me.
Still, despite a slow start, Cunningham’s latest novel builds nicely and the threads do start to come together nicely in the last quarter of the book. Sadly, a Michael Cunningham novel only comes along once every few years, so it’s disappointing when they don’t all reach the heights that his previous work does. Definitely worth a read.
#14 – This Dark Road to Mercy by Wiley Cash
This Dark Road to Mercy is a good book. I enjoyed reading it. It moves along nicely and tells a good story about two young girls in North Carolina, Easter and Ruby, whose mother has died years after their father has abandoned them. They end up in a foster home awaiting word from grandparents they have never met living in Alaska, when their father, Wade, a former, promising baseball player, shows up with an idea to get them back. Trouble is, someone is after Wade, and his intentions are not good. Wiley Case does a nice job building some suspense, Easter’s voice is particularly strong. But I am not really sure what he was trying to say about fatherhood, and the parent/child relationship, and the ending left me vaguely unsatisfied. Overall, I enjoyed it, but it was a little shy of being a great read.