Audio book review: Juliet by Anne Fortier

I actually borrowed this audio book from my mother, for whom I had bought it about a year ago when I saw it on the bargain table at my bookstore.  When I was visiting her over the Christmas hols I noticed that she hadn't listened to it yet, so I helped myself to it. Much as I love David Sedaris and Bill Bryson, I was growing a mite weary of re-listening to their audios on my daily commute, week in and week out.

The story turned out to be surprisingly satisfying, not least because Cassandra Campbell is a very good reader for this story.  I did think that it was a touch over-long, and if I had been reading the physical book I definitely would have skimmed over a good bit of it, but despite that, I give it a solid recommendation.

There are two storylines that eventually come together; one is a modern day young woman named Julie Jacobs, an American who travels to Siena to track down a mysterious inheritance that her mother may have died trying to protect, and the other is the story of Giulietta Tolomei, whose doomed love for Romeo Mariscotti haunted 14th-century Siena and was the inspiration for Shakespeare's famous play. I far more enjoyed the earlier storyline, with its intrigues and betrayals, than the modern one, where Julie seems a little whiny and ineffective.

Medieval curses, hidden statues, lying scoundrels, mystical rites, horse races, precious heirlooms, family feuds, the Mafia, and yes, two pairs of star-cross'd lovers, all have their roles to play, and while most readers (or listeners) won't have much trouble guessing the various plot twists, there's no denying that this is a frolicsome book.

Now, of course, I have to plan a trip to Siena to visit all of the fabulous places described in such loving detail and I've got an unanswerable hankering to delve into more books with an Italian setting.  It's been years since my one and only visit to that country and this book makes me yearn to return.


~Emily

Book Review: The Language of Flowers (audio)

Looking back over the list I've kept of the books I read each month, September has been surprisingly busy, topping every month except the summer vacation month of June with a whopping 18 books read (about which more anon).  Four nights ago on my way home from work I finished the unabridged audio book of The Language of Flowers, written by Vanessa Diffenbaugh and read by Tara Sands.  Even though it has been on the IndieBound Bestseller list for the last several weeks, I knew next to nothing about this book, and I certainly wouldn't have guessed based on the cover or the title that its characters would be distinguished by their misfortunes.  So when a freebie copy arrived in the "White Box" from the ABA, I jumped at the chance to listen to it. 

Summary, courtesy of the publisher: "The Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in communicating feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them."

Yes, Victoria is a victim of the world, exposed to its caprices and cruelties both large and small.  For one year in her life, she had a fleeting chance at happiness with her foster mother Elizabeth, but her inability to trust and love, combined with her finely-honed survival skills of hostility and a ten-year-old's reduced world view lead to disaster and heartbreak.  While I never could quite identify outright with Victoria (happily--I've never had to doubt my family's love for me) or her choices, it was certainly easy to sympathize with her.  


The novel mostly alternates the timeline every other chapter, starting the day Victoria turns 18 and "emancipates" from foster care with the narrative continuing onward from that day, and going back to Victoria's childhood, particularly the year she lives with Elizabeth, her last best hope to be adopted before being relegated to group homes for incorrigible foster children. About halfway through the audio it became pretty clear to me just how the earlier narrative would inexorably and heartbreakingly resolve into the later one. Neither narrative is particularly easy to listen to--it's hard to believe that the foster care system in this country fails to protect and care for so many children like Victoria, and her "adult" self is so misanthropic that frankly it's amazing that she makes it.  

And yet there are points of beauty in this novel.  The flowers themselves, certainly.  Elizabeth is a devoted gardener who teaches Victoria the language of flowers, and after she emancipates Victoria gets a job working for floral designer, Renata (who, despite her Russian background, reminded me of nobody so much as Minerva McGonagall).  But the small kindnesses Victoria encounters are also small points of beauty.  Meeting Renata's mother and being drawn into that gregarious family for Christmas mark the first time Victoria can recall feeling wanted at any family holiday.  She meets a young man of few words at the flower market who is the first person since Elizabeth left her life ten years ago who can read her flower messages. 

To say more of the plot would give too much away, I'm afraid, but it must be said that this is a novel about giving and taking chances, it's about abandonment and love, forgiveness and making amends.  In all, it was extremely satisfying.  I also liked the sly social justice interwoven into this story, with its tales of the foster care system, both woeful ( plentiful) and redemptive (not as many as one might like for a happier ending, but probably realistic). Tara Sands did a very good job reading this audio book, pulling off the sullen adolescent tones of young Victoria and the eastern European inflections of Renata & her family with equal aplomb.  I don't recall a single moment where I listened to the audio and wanted to rewind to enjoy a particular turn of phrase again, so I can't speak to the exquisite prose style very much on this one, but I can say that its strength lies in the fullness of the story.   

~Emily

Summer Audio Book

Sometimes I find that when I listen to a book I tend to phase out or go through tollbooths and miss something vital.  However, I’ve always been fond of rereading books, and will often listen to books I’ve enjoyed reading.  I recently picked up an audio copy of my favorite summer book, Beauty Queens.  The author, Libba Bray, narrates the audio and does an incredible job at differentiating dialogue with accents, tone, and pitch. 

Beauty Queens begins with the Miss Team Dream pageant, a beauty competition run by the Corporation.   The breaking news: A plane full of Teen Dream contestants crash-lands on a deserted island.  Gowns, make-up, and bodies litter the ground.  The surviving contestants may be beautiful and talented, but can their collective abilities help them to survive? 

From frank discussions of racism to the issues faced by a transsexual candidate, from girls who want to bring down the competition from the inside to ones suffering under pressures from parents and repressed feelings of sexuality, Beauty Queens covers quite the spectrum of topics facing teens today. But what really sets Beauty Queens apart from any other book trying to explore these issues is the humor and social critique Libba expertly employs. Any mention of the Corporation is hysterical, yet also terrifyingly realistic.  Exploring social, economic, cultural, and political issues with humor, Libba creates a book that transcends its targeted teen audience.  Teens and adults, women and men, will find a variety of discussion topics in the social satire and blunt look at stereotypes, making Beauty Queens a strong choice for book clubs.  Issues, tempered by humor, combine with action-paced sequences and a dollop of all varieties of romance to create a summer blockbuster of a book. 

During the summer, I often put off things like cleaning the house in favor of reading.  But the truly great thing about audio books?  Multi-tasking.  This is an audio book that will have me finding more things to clean as an excuse to continue listening. 

What audio books have you sitting in the driveway or refusing to remove your headphones?  

-Marika

June is Audio Book Month, part deux

Most of the audio books that I listen to on my daily commute (and longer drives, too, when I take them) are fiction.  I need a strong narrative to pull me in and keep me interested, but as with so many other things in my life, Bill Bryson is an exception to that rule.  Bill Bryson is my hero.  I adore his books, to be sure, but I adore his audio books even more.  (If you'd like to read about the wonderful day that I got to meet Mr. Bryson himself, check out this blog post from last fall.)  My first encounter with his books was the audio version of A Walk in the Woods, his wondrously engaging tale of hiking the Appalachian Trail, and after that I was smitten enough to seek out the rest of his published works. 

Bryson happens to read his own audiobooks.  I do not usually condone the author's reading of his or her own work, as I find it more often than not disastrous (cue: Toni Morrison reading anything).  But he is simply wonderful--he hits all the right notes ranging from wry humor to righteous outrage and everything in between.  Moreover, he is as enlightening as he is entertaining.  I'm constantly amazed at the random factual tidbits that I am able to work into conversation, of which his books are the source of my knowledge.

For longer trips, I tend to prefer Bryson's material that has a stronger internal narrative, which would be all of his travel books, but his most recent work, At Home, is great for shorter drives like my daily commute.  I'm hard-pressed to choose between the aforementioned Walk and his book about Australia called In a Sunburned Country, as my favorite.  I've listened to both of them multiple times and am, in fact, currently listening to Sunburned again this week. 

I think if there were one writer whose style I'd most like to emulate, it would be Bryson's.  It's the perfect blend of humor, information, and personal anecdote, with both understatement and overstatement used to great effect.  His audio books are even better.  You come away smarter and more thoughtful about the world than you were before, and you feel as if you've somehow made a friend along the way.  

~Emily

June is Audio Book Month!

Unusually for me, I did not do a single post in May for National Short Story Month, but now that my coworker, Marika McCoola, has alerted me to this month's national book affiliation, I will blog my little heart out.  Like Marika, I am another Odyssey staffer who lives for audio books, and I've got some great recommendations for you.  

Unlike a conventional book, with an audio book, it's the performer who makes or breaks the book.  I don't care how wonderful a novel is when you curl up in bed to read it, if it has bad or even just a mediocre audio performance, it's difficult for the story to rise above the performance.  Conversely, a great audio performance will enhance poor or mediocre book, disguising its flaws and keeping you on the edge of your car seat (or wherever you happen to be listening). 

Here is my first of a few solid recommendations for GREAT audio performances that you can take to the bank.  Check 'em out of your local library or pop in to your nearest brick & mortar bookstore to pick 'em up.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett, read by Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Jenna Lemia, with one "journalistic" chapter read by Cassandra Campbell. These women represent Aibileen, Minnie, and Skeeter, respectively.  Aibileen and Minnie are two black maids working in Jackson, MS, in the early 1960s and Skeeter is the young white woman who wants to tell their story.  Much of the narration and dialogue is written in quasi-dialect, which might challenge some readers of the conventional book, but with these three outstanding performances, you'll soon melt into their voices and picture yourself in the Deep South.  I grew up in Mississippi and spent much of my adult life living in Jackson in particular, and I have to say that these folks do an outstanding job with the Southern accent.  You'll laugh and cry along with these unforgettable women and the stories they have to tell, some shocking, some painful, and even a few that are heartwarming, but you won't easily forget them.  I listened to this audio book three times over the last two years.  Unabridged, this audio runs just over 18 hours.  (Incidentally, I think this might be one of those instances where the audio version eclipses the written one!)

~Emily