After the Flood by Kassandra Montag

"I keep thinking grief feels like climbing a staircase while looking down," she said. "You won't forget where you've been, but you've got to keep rising. It all gets farther away, but it's all still there. And you've only got one way to go and you don't really want to go on rising, but you've got to. And that tightness in your chest doesn't go away, but you somehow go on breathing that thinner, higher air. It's like you grow a third lung. Like you've somehow gotten bigger when you thought you were only broken." 

~ fr. p. 282 of Advance Reader Copy, After the Flood (Some changes may have been made to the finished copy)

100 years in the future, after climate change has led to such widespread flooding that cities and mountains are buried, Myra and her daughter Pearl struggle to survive. Myra was abandoned by her husband — who took their daughter, Row, with him — during the early days of the Earth-drowning flood. She was pregnant at the time and has been traveling the world on a boat her grandfather built, Bird. Myra and Pearl fish and trade in the few small port towns at what used to be mountain peaks but now are the last remnants of land.

When Myra finds out Row (short for Rowena) is still alive but in danger of a new horror, she decides she must rescue her eldest daughter. But, that means traveling across the North Atlantic, which is prone to rough waters and deadly storms. Her boat isn't strong enough. Then, she and Pearl find another way. I won't spoil the plot point that lands them on a separate boat.

At first, it seems like they've found a fairly harmonious little group of people to sail with, but all is not as it seems. Myra lies about wanting to look for Row, instead saying she's heard The Valley, the place Row is located, is a great place for settlers. But, she knows it's been overrun by a group known as the Lost Abbotts and that she has little time to rescue her daughter. There are also the Lily Black to deal with, basically pirates who murder and plunder. It's a vicious new world. Pearl is going through a stubborn adolescent phase and has an odd affinity for snakes. Myra knows she could be kicked off the ship for lying. Daniel, a man Myra rescues, and the ship's captain, Abran, have dark secrets of their own. And, absolutely everyone has one or more losses they're grieving.


Recommended - I found After the Flood a slow-paced read, apart from the occasional heart-pounding action scene, and one of my biggest problems with it was that I didn't particularly like Myra. She was strong, resourceful, and had a lot of interesting survival skills, though, so what I did like was reading about how she and Pearl survived and thinking about that world and the what-ifs. What would I do if I was in this situation? Would I say or do the same things? Would I choose to live on land or go from port to port, like Myra? How would I survive?

In spite of the fact that I thought the book could have been tightened up a little, I enjoyed it. In general, I found the world-building fascinating and if a dystopian novel is readable enough (while slow of pace, the writing was solid enough to keep me going and I did want to know whether or not Myra and Pearl would find Row), I will finish a dystopian for the experience of imagining myself in that world. So, I most enjoyed After the Flood for the way it made me think and for some adventurous, heart-pounding scenes. It can be brutal but I love the way a dystopian novel makes me ponder.

I received an ARC of After the Flood from HarperCollins for review. Many thanks!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Oh, no, not again. I keep looking at this empty post and thinking, "Where do I start?" Sigh. Time for another self-interview. Today, I'm going to be interviewed by the little green dragon on my desk. Normally, he just stands around looking like he's going to incinerate my pink fairy but I keep her in a jar to protect her and she can use a day off from being stared at by a dragon, so . . . off we go.

Green Dragon (GD): Please let me eat the fairy.

Bookfool (BF): Nope, sorry, not happening.

GD: Bummer. So, tell us about The Heart's Invisible Furies.

BF:  The Heart's Invisible Furies is the story of an Irishman's life that spans many decades. Cyril Avery's story begins with his mother, who is thrown out of her hometown at the age of 16 when she falls pregnant. She moves to Dublin and there she gives birth. The story then leaps ahead to when Cyril is 7 years old and living with his adoptive parents and follows him throughout his life, from the point of his realization that he's attracted to other boys to when he's a man in his 70s. The Heart's Invisible Furies gives you a good overview of life as a gay man across the many years of Cyril's life, from his birth in the 1940s, through the AIDS crisis, and into the present.

GD: So, what did you love most about the story?

BF: The depth of story and characterization. The Heart's Invisible Furies has almost a saga feel, even though it spans a single lifetime. It's just beautifully expansive. I immediately was drawn in by John Boyne's immense descriptive power as he began the story with young Catherine's removal from the church, which was both serious and light-hearted at the same time. The description of Catherine's brothers is a good example of the light-hearted side:

My six uncles, their dark hair glistening with rose-scented lacquer, sat next to her in ascending order of age and stupidity. Each was an inch shorter than the next and the disparity showed from behind. The boys did their best to stay awake that morning; there had been a dance the night before in Skull and they'd come home moldy with the drink, sleeping only a few hours before being roused by their father for mass.

~from p. 1 of Advance Reader's Edition, The Heart's Invisible Furies (some changes may have been made to the final print version)

GD: And, what did you dislike about the story?

BF: Only one thing and it was never enough to make me even remotely consider putting the book down. Wading through the years of promiscuity was rough. In Ireland, it was illegal to be gay and not unusual for someone to get the crap beat out of him, get arrested, or worse. So, for many years, Cyril ends up furtively seeking out sex in places where other gay men are known to hang out: bathrooms, parks. There are no relationships; it's just quick fixes to satisfy their libido. That was rough reading, not just because you know that Cyril (who is a really nice guy, in general, but perhaps too shy for his own good) could be arrested or brutalized but also because it's just so very, very sad that it wasn't possible for Cyril to just be himself. He always felt like he had to keep his true self in the shadows.

GD: There's another thing you want to mention that you loved.

BF: What a mind reader you are, little green dragon! Yes, I loved the way the story is brought full circle. It's not a spoiler to mention this, by the way -- it's mentioned in the first chapter -- but the story begins with Catherine getting kicked out of her hometown and ends shortly after her return to the graveyard where most of the family she left behind is now buried. There's another scene beyond that but it's a spoiler, so I can't share, but it ends on an uplifting note and I loved it.

GD: How did you feel about the main character, Cyril?

BF: I liked Cyril and thought he was a good person, at heart, but there were times I wanted him to speak up, especially when he was with those closest to him. While the author makes it clear how dangerous it was for a homosexual to share his truth in Ireland, till recently, even with family or close friends, I still yearned for Cyril to find the strength to tell the people most important to him -- especially when he knew that not sharing could be hurtful to others. Incidentally, the relationship between Cyril and his best friend Julian is also at the heart of the story.

GD: Anything else worth mentioning?

BF: Oh, yes, my favorite interactions and characters. There's a very strong-willed but kind woman who keeps reappearing, over the years. You can't help but love everything about her and the scenes with her and Cyril are all great. Cyril's best friend, Julian, also has a sister who makes a brief appearance early in the book and then Cyril gets to know her years later. I always loved their conversations. They were among the most entertaining in the book. I also found Maude Avery, Cyril's adoptive mother, a fascinating character. I have a feeling she was among the most fun to create, from an author's viewpoint: a published writer who thought recognition was tawdry but who became posthumously famous. The relationship between Cyril and his adoptive parents (and their insistence that he call them by their names because he was not "a real Avery") never lost the gloss of its silliness.

GD: So, what's the bottom line?

BF: Highly recommended, especially to those who love a novel that you can really sink your teeth into. The Heart's Invisible Furies is almost 600 pages long, brilliantly constructed, clever, and deeply meaningful. I'm leaving out certain details that I'd love to talk about because I personally enjoyed the unfolding of the story, the struggles, and the surprises so much, but the bottom line is that I absolutely loved this book and want to read everything John Boyne has written, now. I appreciated his stunning descriptive powers, the balance of serious storyline and quirky characters, the fact that the book made me think, broke my heart, and mended it. I closed The Heart's Invisible Furies with happy tears in my eyes. I've read a lot of wonderful books, this year, but The Heart's Invisible Furies is really something special.

GD: I have to go incinerate someone, now. Thanks for asking me to interview you. It was not as fun as breathing fire, but it was nice and all.

BF: Uh, you're welcome?

Cover thoughts: While I like the looks of the cover shown above, I don't understand its purpose and I like a book cover that speaks to me in some way or really relates to the storyline. There are several other covers (not all English printings) that I found more fitting:

The one at left (apparently, the Brazilian cover) speaks to me of Cyril's loneliness during a good portion of his life, when he had friends but not the love and companionship that he desired. The other two images relate to the friendship between Cyril and Julian, which dominates a good portion of the book.

End note: This is my first read by John Boyne. Surprising, considering how much I love WWII fiction. I don't have the foggiest idea why I haven't read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, the author's best-known title, but it is definitely going on my wish list.

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein

In 1935, Cameron Richards is falling in love in New York while young Billy Reynolds snaps photos of everyday life on the other side of the world, in Japan. Neither is aware of the horrors that will unfold in the coming years.  

During WWII, Cam goes off to war as a pilot, Billy's family must leave their beloved Japan and the daughter of a woman Billy photographed before the war will stay in war-torn Asia.  As the war progresses and then ends, the lives of the people in these three families intersect in surprising ways, offering a glimpse of the way love and war refuse to take sides.

I have such mixed feelings about The Gods of Heavenly Punishment that I'm not quite sure where to begin so I'm going to fall back upon the handy self-interview. A nice, refreshing cup of ice water will serve as interviewer, since one is handy.

Cup of Water (CW):  I hope you're not extremely thirsty because this may take a few minutes.

Bookfool (BF):  I'll try to refrain from drinking you out of existence, for now.

CW: What possessed you to read The Gods of Heavenly Punishment?

BF:  I have a serious weakness for books set during WWII, both fiction and non-fiction.

CW: What did you think when you began reading the book?

BF:  I was impatient, initially. At the beginning of The Gods of Heavenly Punishment there are hints that war is on the horizon but the early scenes take place in 1935 and there's quite a bit of set-up.  Also, for a solid 2/3 of the book, I honestly had no idea what the author was trying to say or where she was taking me.

CW: What happened to change that?

BF:  Time, I suppose. The understanding of why the book was set up the way it was didn't really dawn on me till the individual threads were firmly woven together near the end of the book. Then, I set it down and had to let it roll around and around in my head. It's such a visceral book that I came away from it feeling like I could smell a smoldering Tokyo (even though the final scenes take place many years and thousands of miles away) and was still grieving for some of the characters.

CW: That sounds like pretty high praise.

BF:  From the standpoint of vividness and characterization, absolutely.

CW: What did you dislike about the book?

BF: A part of me feels like the author tried to carve too many facets into the storyline. That left me feeling a little disconnected most of the way through the book.  There were also scenes I still don't feel were entirely necessary and an occasionally a jump in time or place that skipped right over some chunk of resolution I was specifically expecting to read as a follow-up scene. Yet, the big picture worked. On the picky-picky side, there were a few minor editing errors and two little phrases that I thought sounded modern.

CW:  What did you like best about The Gods of Heavenly Punishment?

BF:   The Gods of Heavenly Punishment is a deeply emotional read and a learning experience. To both engage and inform the reader are two very important aspects to a successful novel, in my humble opinion. Also, the characterization is excellent and the fact that when I set the book down I had that "engine is off but the wheels are still rolling" sensation speaks highly of the book.

CW: What did you think of the ending?

BF:  I loved it.  I thought the separate threads of the story were pulled together in a satisfying way and I was relieved that the all-important "ray of hope" was present. Because everything revolves around war, there are tragedies on both sides. The Gods of Heavenly Punishment is deeply affecting -- very, very sad in many ways. The book needed an uplifting note to provide balance and I was relieved when it appeared.

CW: Your labels include a sex and violence warning. Any particular reason you felt obligated to add that?

BF: I don't like graphic sex or violence but sometimes I don't feel like they're disquieting or graphic enough to merit a warning. In this case, there were some words I find particularly offensive in the sex scenes and the violence is intense and disturbing. To be honest, I think the violent parts need to be upsetting in order to get across the point that war is equally painful to both the victor and the vanquished.

CW:  What did you learn from the reading of The Gods of Heavenly Punishment?

BF:  I knew about the Doolittle raid on Tokyo because I've read 30 Seconds Over Tokyo and, of course, knew about the atomic bombs that were dropped in Japan but I was not aware of the fact that 100,000 people were killed in the final raid on Tokyo. Nor did I know that the incendiary bombs that were dropped on Tokyo in 1945 contained an early version of napalm, a horrifying but very important fact. I doubt I'll ever forget the on-the-ground scenes that take place during and immediately after the 1945 firebombing.

CW:  Recommended?

BF:  Yes, but be aware that The Gods of Heavenly Punishment is not for the faint of heart. There are some very disturbing scenes.  It is not a light and fluffy book.  But, it's also not a story that lacks hope.

CW:  Anything else you can think of that's worth mentioning?

BF:  The settings are exceptionally well-drawn. I dived in knowing the novel was a WWII book and nothing else since I avoid reading cover blurbs, reviews and author bios immediately before I open a book (in case of spoilers). So I was unaware that the author had lived in Japan. But I thought it was clear early on that Jennifer Epstein had not just studied Japan but experienced it.

On another note, I though the book could have used a tiny glossary because there is such a large quantity of Japanese words (although plenty of them are clear from context or explained in dialogue).

Third and final note: There are some wonderful black-and-white period photographs interspersed throughout the book.

CW: I have to go now because--

BF:  Glug, glug. Down the hatch.  Goodbye, Cup of Water, and thanks for interviewing me.  Thanks, also, to TLC Tours and W. W. Norton for the opportunity to read The Gods of Heavenly Punishment.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Book of Someday by Dianne Dixon

The Book of Someday by Dianne Dixon
Copyright 2013
Sourcebooks Landmark - Fiction
340 pp., incl. Reading Group Guide

First sentence Paragraph:

Her father. Shouting her name.  "Olivia!" His footsteps falling loud and heavy on the wood of the floor.

Summarize the plot without giving away the ending:

Livvi is having an affair with the first man who has ever made her feel truly special.  In her twenties but a deeply wounded by childhood abuse and naive due to her homebound education, she finds it difficult to break away when she discovers her lover's secrets and develops an attachment to someone who reminds her of herself as a child.

AnnaLee's husband is both a doctor and a lawyer but he can't seem to find his place in the working world and limits his hours. Frustrated by her husband's inability to provide for the family, AnnaLee is slowly selling off valuables from the home she inherited. Then, summer arrives and brings with it a refugee from distant and wealthy parents. As AnnaLee tries to break through to the girl who calls herself Persephone, will Persephone's desperate attempts at friendship end in disaster?

Micah has cancer.  To determine whether or not it's even possible to atone for the sins of her past, she goes on a journey, seeking out the individuals she's hurt and hoping they can help her decide whether to live or die.

Capsule Description:

The Book of Someday is the story of three women with interconnecting lives.  The key to their interconnection is a painting/photograph/nightmare of the same thing -- a woman in a silver dress and pearl-button shoes.  One of the stories is told from the 1980s, the other two in 2012.  

What did you like best about The Book of Someday?

Could. Not. Put. Down.

It takes a very long time to get to the point that the connection is explained and I figured it out before the author got to the point of the big reveal, even as she was still hiding little bits of the tragedy that connected their lives.  I didn't mind that I figured out the mystery portion because I was enjoying the book so much.  I loved the fact that I found the book so gripping I actually fell asleep reading (the book falling, fwop, onto my chest woke me up) and turned the light out with deep regret then awoke at 5AM dying to keep reading.  I adore that kind of read.

What did you dislike about The Book of Someday?

There were only 2 things that kept The Book of Someday from being a 5-star read.  One was the constant use of sentence fragments.  I understand using them for impact but they were used All. The. Time. For no good reason.  Sometimes I had to visualize lower-case and correct punctuation to figure out the meaning of a paragraph that genuinely should have been written as a single sentence.

The other problem was the ambiguous ending. I couldn't discern whether the author was telling me Livvi was planning to end up with one guy or the other and I wanted that clearly spelled out.  I don't mind an open ending but this one was just confusing to me.  I reread it several times and then dashed off to read other reviews.  Most readers were not bothered by the ending.  I just found it perplexing and decided to create my own ending, mentally. Still, very solid storytelling with just enough held back to keep the suspense going.

Other notes:  

There is a lot of lightly graphic sex in the book (Livvi and her lover), which probably accounts for the comments other reviewers have made about the book reading "like a Harlequin".  I didn't get that "Harlequin" sensation at all, in spite of all of those scenes. I was too busy being swept away by the storyline and trying to puzzle out the interconnection to be bothered, although I'm not a fan of graphic sex scenes.

Highly recommended - One of the most unputdownable books I've read in a while.  Although I gave it a 4/5 rating at Goodreads, The Book of Someday really deserves a 4.5/5 for the mere fact that I couldn't put it down till it literally fell out of my hands . . . and then I was so anxious to start reading that I woke up early and didn't put the book down till I finished.  In spite of the fact that there's some graphic sex and that's something I don't enjoy, I thought the sexual relationship was crucial to explaining Livvi as a character so it just fell into the background for me.

I received an ARC of The Book of Someday from Sourcebooks in return for an unbiased review.

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.