2014, the Year in Books, #1

My top book of 2014 snuck up on me. I read it early in the year, and while I loved it, I wasn’t really expecting it to be at the very top of my list this year. But as I reflected back, I realized that it totally deserved that top spot, for it’s imaginative creation of a society that is based on science and nature, for the intricate plotting, for the gorgeous characterization… and all of that done with a hive of bees.

]The Bees#1 – The Bees by Laline Paull

Accept. Obey. Serve.

Laline Paull takes us into the life of a beehive in her extraordinary novel, The Bees where we learn what it means to live that mantra. Flora is a singular hero, born to Laline Paullthe lowest caste in the hive hierarchy, there is something special about her. It’s something that’s valued by some of her sisters, and feared by others.

As Flora moves about the hive, transcending her class, we learn all about how the colony operates, all the while thrilling to the search for food by foragers, the defense of the hive from predators like wasps and other fearsome threats, and navigating the internal politics set in motion to insure the hive’s survival. Suspense, intrigue, romance, heroism, mystery, drama, humor… this one has it all.

2014, the Year in Books: #’s 2 & 3

Whoops! Sorry about that. I got sidetracked by a vacation in Costa Rica and never finished my list of the top books read in 2014.  I’m back with #’s 2 & 3, which come from an international, best-selling author, and a debut, indie novelist respectively. These books couldn’t be more different, really, and I’ve jockeyed back and forth on their positioning, yet while Houck’s novel is more consistently great, Mitchell’s novel has more stumbles, but reaches higher, so it manages to eke out the #2 spot.

Yield#3 – Yield by Lee Houck

Yield really took me by surprise. When I read the jacket copy and found out that the novel revolved around a young hustler in Manhattan, I inwardly groaned. It felt slightly cliched, and oh-so 80’s gay fiction, but I gave it a try. I quickly noticed the quality of the writing, and the care and (yes, I’ll say it) authenticity that permeated this novel. Not a tale of disaffected youth cutting off the world around him, but a coming-of-age story, in the best meaning of that phrase, where a young man slowly opens himself to life and all the joys and pain that comes with it.

Simon does indeed work as a part-time hustler in Manhattan, but he also files medical reports at St. Vincent’s hospital, which is the job that actually leaves physical scars, the endless series of paper cuts along his fingers. The hustling leaves scars as well, although not the type you can see. More like scar tissue, increasingly dulling Simon’s ability to feel and even experience living. When one of his close circle of friends is beaten in a violent gay bashing, Simon is shaken, and when he starts to fall for the hot guy who lives across the street from him, a door deep inside of him that was securely locked, starts to open.

Lee Houck has created a beautiful voice with Simon. He’s emotionally reserved, and frankly, terrified of his own capacity to feel, but there is nothing cliche about Yield, in fact the journey Simon takes is universal and ageless. It’s nice to read a book like this every once in a while, to remind you how rewarding fiction can truly be.

The Bone Clocks#2 – The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

David Mitchell hit the big time with his book, Cloud Atlas, and his latest tome, The Bone Clocks is the follow-up. It’s a big sprawling novel that begins in the early 80’s and unspools all the way to the mid-21st Century and the collapse of modern technology to a dystopian future. The Bone Clocks chronicles the war between two factions of immortals, benevolent psychics who are continually reincarnated, and spiritual vampires who casually take the souls of innocents to extend their lives in perpetuity. Central to this story is Holly Sykes, who starts the tale as a teenage runaway, and ends as hardened matriarch who helps to save humanity… just to see the technological infrastructure collapse. It’s a new age, science fiction epic that’s great fun to read, most notably for the moments in between the crazy stuff. And this is where Mitchell excels. The novel cycles through a handful of narrators, each telling their part of the story, while our central character, Holly Sykes, treads through all of them. I loved the small, individual details of the lives of each of these narrators that Mitchell carefully and lovingly reveals as time marches inexorably on. It’s also fun to start the novel in the past, albeit the recent past of the 1980’s, and jump a decade or so ahead with each narrator, ending up in the middle of the 21st century. For such a sprawling epic, Mitchell does a masterful job keeping things personal. Some of the more fantastical elements come across a little hokey, but all in all it works well. And despite its heft, it moves right along providing hours of entertainment.

2014, the Year in Books: #’s 4 & 5

Top five time… and the authors of the two books represented at #4 and #5 have both appeared on my top lists of the year before. This is Thrity Umrigar’s second visit to the Top 5, with her sublime novel The World We Found coming in at #4 in 2011. Marilynee Robinson came in at #2 in 2008 with Home, the second of the Gilead trilogy, for which this year’s #4 book of the year is the conclusion.

The Story Hour#5 – The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar

Forgiveness is a topic too often left unexplored. In Thrity Umrigar’s beautifully drawn domestic drama, an Indian immigrant, who harbors a life-altering secret rashly attempts suicide and finds herself in the care of an African-American therapist who is harboring a secret of her own. As the two women become unlikely friends their lives become entangled, but when these secrets are revealed/discovered, the limits of their friendship and their capacity for forgiveness will be tested.

Thrity’s work at spinning domestic, cross-cultural drama is elegant and powerful. Characters shift across reader sympathies, and with the exception of one character who is decidedly one-dimensional, they all reveal hidden depths that make them seem all too real.

Chalk up another strong novel from best-selling author Thrity Umrigar!

Lila#4 – Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Lila is the third in Marilynne Robinson’s exquisite Gilead trillogy that began with Gilead and Home. Lila revisits the Reverend John Ames, late in his life, but is centered around Lila, a wandering woman, taken as a child by the mysteriously scarred woman known only as Doll. For as long as she can remember, Lila’s life has been a hard one, although she wouldn’t describe it as such, being the only life she has had. After her life with Doll is ended, she reaches her lowest point before finding herself living in an abandoned shack in the outskirts of Gilead. It is there that she makes the acquaintance of Reverend John Ames.

It is there that Lila’s life makes a turn. While she struggles with her thoughts, and her beliefs as she reads the bible, she also slowly learns the trust Reverend Ames, who grows to love her.The two eventually marry and start a family, but it is Lila’s journey from harrowing pragmatism to joy and hope that makes LILA beautiful. Marilynne Robinson is a master storyteller, and her words carry with them a spirituality that transcends the religious.

2014, The Year in Books, #’s 6 & 7

Other than being written by women, there’s not a whole lot in common with the sixth and seventh books on my list. One is from a well-known author that I’d never read, but she so charmed me at a Random House author breakfast, that I thought I’d give her work a try. The other was from an author whose previous novel was #5 on my list of best reads in 2012!  Interesting side note: my #6 novel could be considered similar to Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life which I found tedious and couldn’t even finish. Obviously, I would disagree.

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Lucky Us

#7 – Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

Lucky Us is a new coming-of-age novel set in the 40s and 50s by best-selling novelist Amy Bloom. Eva is a young woman left by her mother at the home of her estranged husband, Edgar, on the day of his new wife’s funeral. There Eva meets her new big sister, Iris, with whom she runs away with as Iris seeks stardom in Hollywood. There they befriend Franciso, a gay hair and make-up man who helps Iris on her way up and subsequently down the Hollywood ladder before a surprise reunion with Edgar leads all three of them to Brooklyn where Eva settles into her life.

For the first half of the book, Eva is mainly a spectator in her the life of her family. Too young to work, unable to attend school, Eva helps her sister try to achieve her goals while carefully observing the vagaries of life. A series of sudden tragedies push Eva into a more active role in her own life, as she finds herself without a support system and people who are dependent upon her.

Through it all, Bloom keeps things light, even when dealing with difficult situations. She’s a great writer, using language that is clear yet beautifully composed, and creating voices that are unique and sympathetic. I had the privilege of seeing Ms. Bloom talk about her at the time forthcoming novel at Book Expo America last May and found to be utterly charming, strong-willed, and hilarious.


myreal

#6 – My Real Children by Jo Walton

Patricia is feeling confused today. At least that’s what the note by her bed tells her. In fact, at her advanced age, in the nursing home where she lives, she often feels confused and forgetful, but what’s she remembers distinctly are the two lives that crowd her memory. One where she married Mark and raised four children in a world that is at peace and has a colony on the moon; and another where she spent her life with her beloved Bee and their three children, on a beleaguered planet suffering from nuclear detonations and fatal fallout.

Jo Walton, whose last novel, Among Others is my afore-mentioned #5 read of 2012, spins a straight-forward, subtle tale of a woman’s life, or rather, two lives, and how a single decision can propel that life into two very different paths. And could that one person’s quiet, unassuming life also have major repercussions across the globe? Just like the theory that the flap of a butterfly’s wing can cause a hurricane halfway around the world, Walton wonders if a single decision could make the difference between peace and violence. Which life would you choose if given the choice?

2014, the Year in Books, #’s 9 & 8

A local author creates a complex, character study masquerading as a thriller, and a inventive fantasy riff on a classic tale come in this year at #’s 9 & 8. These two books couldn’t be more different (except for their dark tone and intense female protagonists… okay, maybe there are more similarities than I first thought) and they appear on this list for different reasons. Elo’s book features strong, complex writing, and a deep exploration into character, while Paige’s book features an adventurous, inventive plot, filled with rich, vividly drawn characters. Just a peak into the variances of what makes a strong read for me.

North of Boston#9 – North of Boston by Elisabeth Elo

Boston-area author Elisabeth Brink has reinvented herself as Elisabeth Elo after an initial debut that focused on the interior life of a quirky heroine named Gillian Cormier-Brandenberg, in order to launch a dramatic series of suspense novels following the life of another woman with a somewhat complex name, Pirio Kasparov. That’s really where the similarities end. North of Boston certainly delivers on the suspense, but it is so much more than that weaving alcoholism, questionable parenting, the fishing industry, perfumery, complicated family relations, the questionable line between hunting and slaughter, and even the exploitation of indigenous cultures. It may seem like an everything but the kitchen sink approach, but in the skillful hands of Elo, it is in fact, a powerful, coherent story that resonates long after the final page is read.

I’m not a huge fan of the genre, but as I mentioned, this intricate story transcends simple characterization. What holds it together most effortlessly, is the character and voice of a bold new heroine. Pirio can be a little impulsive, and experience has taught her to withhold emotion, but she’s smart, tough and likable, and more than capable of carrying a novel, and as time will surely tell, a series.

Dorothy Must Die#8 – Dorothy Must Die by D. M. Paige

First in a series, Dorothy Must Die tells the story of Amy Gumm, another Kansas resident who finds herself dropped in Oz because of a tornado. Sadly, the Oz Amy finds herself in is a horrific reflection of the one we all grew to know through the wonder of the movies. This is Oz is ruled by a despotic hand, one that thinks nothing of torturing and killing anyone who displeases her. It is the hand of Dorothy, and the Order of the Wicked has decreed that she must die and that Amy must be the instrument that does it.

Expanding yet again on the universe of L. Frank Baum, Dorothy Must Die is imaginative, compelling, and yes, horrific. Billed as a young adult novel, I was surprised at the brutality faced by the characters in this book. Still it makes for a really strong read, and fans of fantasy, or the Oz books should give it a try.