Monday, March 11, 2024

The Man Who Could Move Clouds

The Man Who Could Move Clouds
Title:
  The Man Who Could Move Clouds
Publication Information:  Doubleday. 2022. 320 pages.
ISBN:  0385546661 / 978-0385546669

Rating:   ★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "They say the accident that left me with temporary amnesia is my inheritance."

Favorite Quote:  "There was a difference between keeping knowledge secret, and living in secret. I could do the former, but I would not do the latter."

Ingrid Rojas Contreras biggest acknowledgment of this book credits her mother. "Thank you, most of all, to my mother, who told me stories, and in telling me stories, taught me how to live." The stories are of family, love, Colombian heritage, and of sight and magic.

The impetus for this book is an accident and a shared dream. An accident leaves Ingrid Rojas Contreras with temporary amensia for a period of weeks. She learns that her mother too suffered an accident as a child that left her with certain abilities that were her heritage. "They say the amnesias were a door to gifts we were supposed to have, which Mami's father, Nono, neglected to pass."

Nono is at the heart of this story. Nono, was a curandero, a traditional healer (like a shaman) gifted with "instructions for talking to the dead, telling the future, healing the ill, and moving the clouds." A dream that both the author and her mother have leads them on a quest back to Colombia to disinter and free Nono from the demands and the wishes people leave at his grave. Those requests keep him tethered.

"This is a memoir of the ghostly - amnesia, hallucination, the historical specter of the past - which celebrates cultural understanding of truth that are, at heart, Colombian. The stories in this memoir are the true lived experience of those who lived it, as told to me."

The cultural history in this book is fascinating. The story weaves back and forth between the present to stories of the past - the author, her mother, Nono, and other relatives. At times, the thread is difficult to follow. After a while, I stop trying to follow the chronology and float along on what is at most times a mythological journey. However, that approach disengages from any emotional impact of the book. It is more like reading a story than a memoir. In fact, I have a hard time remembering this is a memoir.

Perhaps, a more focused approach on one or two main story threads may have been a more emotionally compelling book. Perhaps, some greater explanation of the cultural paradigm underlying the curandero would be beneficial in grounding the book for a reader not familiar with the culture and ritual. With the myriad stories and the lack of a cultural context, I am not sure I completely understand the family story being told.


Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Slow Noodles

Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon
Title:
  Slow Noodles:  A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes
Author:  Chantha Nguon with Kim Green
Publication Information:  Algonquin Books. 2024. 304 pages.
ISBN:  1643753495 / 978-1643753492

Rating:   ★★★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "In 1975, the Khmer Rouge informed the Cambodian people that we had no history, but we knew it was a lie."

Favorite Quote:  "A refugee must learn to be anything  people want her to be at any given moment. But behind the masks, I am only myself - a mosaic of flavors from near and far."

***** BLOG TOUR *****


Review

The book poses a question. "When you must flee and can carry only one thing, what will it be? What single seed from your old life will be the most useful in helping you sow a new one?" That is the unimaginable choice faced by those flee or are forced to leave their home and their very lives. Time and time again, history describes such events. News stories today are full of them. Can anyone who has not lived it even come close to imagining it? I think not. That makes books such as this one so important. They offer a glimpse into a reality hopefully we are fortunate enough never to inhabit. It also offers an understanding of those who are flung into a refugee life. It offers lessons, perhaps, of how history seems to end up here over and over again despite each horror being followed by promises that it must never happen again. These memoirs bear witness.

In the 1970s, almost two million Cambodians died due to the policies and program of the Khmer Rouge regime. A genocide of almost two million!

The author, Chantha Nguon, survived. This is her story. "But the past never goes away. The fear and pain are still there, buried in our brains like mines. It is better to defuse them than to leave them entombed, quietly, waiting for a single misstep. That is why I am telling my story."

The facts of the book - the losses of this one individual, the time span, the history, the desperation, the risks - are moving. They are all the more so for the calm manner in which the narrative is related. Occasionally, I find myself stopping and re-reading a sentence over and over again to let the enormity of it sink in. This history of loss is measured in not days, weeks, months, or even years. It is over a decade! "Of course, I should have had more faith in impossible futures. After all, we'd already endured a series of them, each more unimaginable an unforeseen than the last."

What makes this memoir even more gripping is its anchor in food memories. "The dishes I loved best when I was small were the ones that took the longest to make. My puppy sense told me that time equaled loved, and love equaled deliciousness. On the time continuum, instant noodles tasted careless, like nothing at all; the kuy teav noodle maker's hand-cut mee were far superior. But the slowest and best noodles of all came from my mother's kitchen." Throughout the book, you find recipes. Some are for the dishes of the time and place. Some are conceptual as the "recipe" in the book description. Food memories is something we all share. A smell or a taste brings us to a time and place. The relatable memories bring the story closer to us. Although we may never comprehend the enormity of it, in some small way, we can understand a small piece.

The book ends on a note of hope. "But if there's one thing I learned from my mother, it's that losing everything is not the end of the story. She taught me that lost civilizations can be rebuilt from zero, even if the task will require many generations of work." Perhaps, there is hope yet as conflicts and genocides continue across the world today. Perhaps.

About the Book

A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot's genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother's kitchen.

RECIPE: HOW TO CHANGE CLOTH INTO DIAMOND

Take a well-fed nine-year-old with a big family and a fancy education. Fold in 2 revolutions, 2 civil wars, and 1 wholesale extermination. Subtract a reliable source of food, life savings, and family members, until all are gone. Shave down childhood dreams for approximately two decades, until only subsistence remains.


In Slow Noodles, Chantha Nguon recounts her life as a Cambodian refugee who loses everything and everyone—her home, her family, her country—all but the remembered tastes and aromas of her mother’s kitchen. She summons the quiet rhythms of 1960s Battambang, her provincial hometown, before the dictator Pol Pot tore her country apart and killed more than a million Cambodians, many of them ethnic Vietnamese like Nguon and her family. Then, as an immigrant in Saigon, Nguon loses her mother, brothers, and sister and eventually flees to a refugee camp in Thailand. For two decades in exile, she survives by cooking in a brothel, serving drinks in a nightclub, making and selling street food, becoming a suture nurse, and weaving silk.

Nguon’s irrepressible spirit and determination come through in this lyrical memoir that includes more than twenty family recipes such as sour chicken-lime soup, green papaya pickles, and pâté de foie, as well as Khmer curries, stir-fries, and handmade bánh canh noodles. Through it all, re-creating the dishes from her childhood becomes an act of resistance, of reclaiming her place in the world, of upholding the values the Khmer Rouge sought to destroy, and of honoring the memory of her beloved mother, whose “slow noodles” approach to healing and cooking prioritized time and care over expediency.

Slow Noodles is an inspiring testament to the power of food to keep alive a refugee’s connection to her past and spark hope for a beautiful life.

About the Author

Chantha Nguon was born in Cambodia and spent two decades as a refugee, until she was finally able to return to her homeland. She is the co-founder,of the Stung Treng Women’s Development Center, a social enterprise that offers a living wage, education, and social services to women and their families in rural northeastern Cambodia. A frequent public speaker, she has appeared at universities and on radio and TV news programs, including NPR’s Morning Edition. She cooks often for friends, family, and for private events. An excerpt from Slow Noodles in Hippocampus was named a Longreads Best Personal Essay in 2021.

Kim Green is an award-winning writer and public radio producer and contributor based in Nashville. Her work has appeared in Fast Company, the New York Times, and on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Marketplace, and The New Yorker Radio Hour. A licensed pilot, she was formerly a flight instructor.


Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Sunday, February 25, 2024

Seen Heard & Paid

Seen Heard & Paid
Title:
  Seen Heard & Paid:  The New Work Rules for the Marginalized
Author:  Alan Henry
Publication Information:  Rodale Books. 2022. 288 pages.
ISBN:  0593233352 / ‎978-0593233351

Rating:   ★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Seen, heard, and paid."

Favorite Quote:  "To be productive, we need to be seen, heard, and paid fairly for our work. Affording these rights to everyone requires a new look at how work is done and a new set of real-work rules for people who are sidelined and who lack privilege."

This book begins by what it is. "Much of this book is about how to be productive within the system and with the built-in biases of your boss." It also emphasizes what it is not.  "Whether you're being marginalized in particular because of your race, your gender, you religion, your age, your ability level, or anything else, keep this one truism in mind: It's not your job to fix a workplace's systemic discrimination issues... those are battles you should have the right to choose to fight, on your own terms, not battles you're forced to fight just to survive in a workplace."

In other words, this is not a book about the system or about creating systemic change. It is a "self-help" book about tips and techniques - rules - for marginalized persons to survive and thrive in a workplace or determine when it is time to find a new environment.

To begin with, a definition. "Strictly, to be marginalized means you're a member of a social group that has been traditionally kept out of, or away from, power, decision-making, or import and that you are consequently treated as insignificant or somehow less than those who make up the majority or the empowered people. In an office setting, being marginalized can mean being kept from power and decision-making, but it can also mean simply being excluded from the greater culture that permeates the space." Interestingly, the author speaks from his own experiences being marginalized, but the definition in and of itself does not reference race, gender, religion, age, or any myriad of ways in which discrimination can occur. That being said, the examples, situations, and groups references in the book are along those lines. However, I find myself reflected in many of the examples and situations.

The book references research and the work of other authors, especially Ruchika Tulshyan, who is cited many times. She is, in fact, the first person listed and thanked in the acknowledgements. When one body of work is cited so often in a text, I at times wonder if I should read the original cited work instead of this book.

Nevertheless, The book is well organized around 15 chapters, each focused on one of fifteen rules. Within each rule, the subheadings present the key points of that rule. The ideas in the book are not new or at least not new to me. However, seeing them shared through different eyes is validating. The tips and techniques, while not new and relatively common sense, are a good refresher. As with books of this nature, some resonate with me more than others. Some I agree with, and some I don't. Each individual reader's value with differ depending on what they bring to the reading.


Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West

The  Ucharted Flight of Olivia West by Sara Ackerman
Title:
  The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West
Author:  Sara Ackerman
Publication Information:  MIRA. 2024. 368 pages.
ISBN:  0778305341 / 978-0778305347

Rating:   ★★★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Livy had been coming to the airfield for months now but still had yet to go up in an airplane."

Favorite Quote:  "Always assume the best, and the forces of nature will conspire to make it happen ... No, honey, God will make it happen ... Nature and God are one and the same, my dear."

***** BLOG TOUR *****


Review

Like Sara Ackerman's other books, the history of this book is of Hawaii. This is the first I have read that is not centered around World War II. This book builds on 1920s history of the Dole Air Race. In May, 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed his solo flight from New York City to Paris. In August, 1927, the founder of what is now Dole Foods put for a contest. The first plan to fly from California to Hawaii would win a prize of $25,000. The second place finisher would win $10,000. A small number of pilot applied with their own planes and their own navigators. A smaller number qualified. An even small number made it to takeoff. A smaller number yet made it to Hawaii.

This two timeline story is based in this history, but the characters are all fictional. In the story of the 1920s is Olivia West (as in the book title). She is a pilot, but she is young and a woman. With no backing, she realizes that the only way for her to join the contest is as navigator. A primary motivation is the prize money. In the story of the present is Wren, who receives a surprise inheritance of a home on Hawaii. In both time lines are women determined to make their own way. In both time lines there is a little romance, but the strength and independence of the woman is the focal point. As you might expect, the two timelines and stories connect into the conclusion of the book.

As with all two timeline books, one is more compelling than the other. In this case, Olivia's story is the historically relevant one and the more unusual one. It is about a young woman with a dream. It is about courage and survival. Wren's story is of an unexpected gift and the courage to grasp it and create a life.

That being said, the pacing of the two timelines especially in the first half of the book pulls me more towards Wren's story. Olivia's story is a lot about flying and navigating - the planes, the equipment, the weather, and the skills. It is also  lot of characters - the pilots and others involved in the race. At times, it seems very long and drawn out. At times, it is challenging to follow because as a reader, I am unsure of the characters to pay attention to and remember because they will come up in the present storyline. On the contrary, Wren's story is very limited in place and in the number of characters. As such, the characters - including the dogs - develop an identity and, for me, a connection.

In the middle of the book, Olivia's story also narrows down in focus and establishes the emotional connections. The past connects to the presents, and the story comes together. As expected, the conclusion of the book brings together all the threads of the story into a neat package with a bow on it. It leaves the memory of a sweet story and a knowledge of a unique little snippet of history.

About the Book

This extraordinary novel, inspired by real events, tells the story of a female aviator who defies the odds to embark on a daring air race across the Pacific.

1927. Olivia "Livy" West is a fearless young pilot with a love of adventure. She yearns to cross oceans and travel the skies. When she learns of the Dole Air Race—a high-stakes contest to be the first to make the 2,400 mile Pacific crossing from the West Coast to Hawai'i—she sets her sights on qualifying. But it soon becomes clear that only men will make the cut. In a last-ditch effort to take part, Livy manages to be picked as a navigator for one of the pilots, before setting out on a harrowing journey that some will not survive.

1987. Wren Summers is down to her last dime when she learns she has inherited a remote piece of land on the Big Island with nothing on it but a dilapidated barn and an overgrown mac nut grove. She plans on selling it and using the money to live on, but she is drawn in by the mysterious objects kept in the barn by her late great-uncle—clues to a tragic piece of aviation history lost to time. Determined to find out what really happened all those years ago, Wren enlists the help of residents at a nearby retirement home to uncover Olivia’s story piece by piece. What she discovers is more earth-shattering, and closer to home, than she could have ever imagined.

About the Author

Sara Ackerman is the Hawai'i born, bestselling author of The Codebreaker's Secret, Radar Girls, Red Sky Over Hawaii, The Lieutenant’s Nurse, andIsland of Sweet Pies and Soldiers.

Sara's books have been labeled “unforgettable” by Apple Books, “empowering & deliciously visceral” by Book Riot, and New York Times bestselling authors Kate Quinn and Madeline Martin have praised Sara’s novels as “fresh and delightful” and “brilliantly written.” Amazon chose Radar Girls as a best book of the month, and ALA Booklist gave The Codebreaker’s Secret a starred review.

Find out more about Sara and her books at www.ackermanbooks.com and follow her on Instagram @saraackermanbooks and on FB @ackermanbooks.

Excerpt

Excerpted from The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West by Sara Ackerman. Copyright © 2024 by Sara Ackerman. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A., a division of HarperCollins

Olivia San Diego, 1920

Livy had been coming to the airfield for months now but still had yet to go up in an airplane. On weekends, when Pa was out fishing, she would offer to wash the planes or do whatever odd jobs she could for a penny, while watching planes go up. Always hoping to get a ride, but so far out of luck. Though not for a lack of trying. She had been pestering Mr. Ryan for months now. “Paying customers only,” was his standard response. “Or students.” But so far, all students were men. A sixteen-year-old girl had no business in a cockpit.

Ryan Flying Company and School of Aviation was on the edge of the Dutch Flats alongside the San Diego Bay and the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, a long Spanish-style building with a tall bell tower in the middle. Palm trees neatly lined up in front like green soldiers at attention. When the tide pulled out, you could smell salty brine and decaying sea life. The hangar was modern and clean, but it was plopped on a brown expanse of hard-packed mud that kicked up dust when dry. Of late, the place had become a magnet for all things aviation.

Mr. Ryan had begun letting other people park their planes here free of charge, and customers flocked for the sightseeing tours.

On a warm Sunday in March, after surviving a long sermon at church with her mother, Livy beelined it to the airfield. A new pilot had been hired for the tours and she was hoping he might be a softy, and maybe, just maybe, she could persuade him to take her up. Such a gloomy and gusty day, with dark clouds threatening rain, meant less people taking a tour. It also happened that Mr. Ryan was in Los Angeles for the week, and what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

Livy was hunched over, wiping down the wheels of Mr. Hall’s biplane, when she heard the incoming engine. She stood up to watch the wobbly machine approach. A storm was brewing to the south, you could taste it in the air, and that always made the pilots nervous. She watched the plane make a precarious drop before leveling off, and then come in for a hard landing. As soon as he came to a stop, the new pilot hopped out of the plane, waiting for his customer and holding a hand out when she finally disembarked. A red-haired woman in heels, face white as chalk.

Livy walked over, wiping her hands on her overalls. “How was it up there today?”

The woman staggered past Livy without even a glance. “Never again.”

The pilot trailed behind his passenger and shrugged. “What can I say? Usually, they’re begging for more.”

Once the woman left, zooming off in a shiny Model T, Livy moseyed over to the hangar and stood in the doorway. The pilot was at the counter drinking a Coke and studying a clipboard. With his goggles pulled up on his head, his thick blond hair stood out in all directions, as though he’d stuck his hand in an electric socket.

Livy cleared her throat.

He looked up. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m Olivia West. I work here.”

More like volunteer and hope that people would pay her, but she could dream.

“Oh, right. Mr. Ryan said you might be here. I’m Heath Hazeltine, new pilot.” He was staring oddly at her, and for a second she wondered if she might have grease on her face, like she often did while working here, but then he said with a shake of his head, “I was expecting something different.”

“I come in on the weekends, wipe down planes and other odd jobs,” she said, for some reason feeling like she had to explain, then added, “I’m learning to fly.”

That was a stretch, too, but she did always listen to the pilots talk, watch how they got the propellers spinning and closely observe the takeoffs and landings. She knew which part of the runway was more rutted with potholes, and which angle was best for approach.

He cocked his head slightly. “That so?”

“It is.”

One side of his mouth turned up, just a hint. “I didn’t know women could fly airplanes, let alone teenage girls.”

Livy felt her whole face go red. “I’ll be seventeen in four months. And I’ll bet I know more about airplanes and weather than you do, especially down here in San Diego.”

All she really knew about him was that he’d come from Los Angeles and had flown in Hollywood some, doing stunts. No one had mentioned anything about him being so young. She had been picturing some old guy with a sun-beaten face and graying hair.

“Feisty. I like it,” he said.

She stood on her tippy toes and straightened up, all five feet three inches. Though her thick curls tucked under the hat added some extra height. “Take me up, and I’ll teach you a thing or two.”

He laughed. “What can you teach me?”

When he smiled, his whole face changed, making him seem even younger and a little less arrogant—and painfully handsome. Livy felt a swoosh in her stomach and her cheeks tingled. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty, and yet there was a certain worldliness about him. She found herself wanting to impress him.

“Like I said, I know everything there is to know about this area. What have you got to lose?” she said.

He looked at his watch. “My new job, for one. And I have another tour in twenty minutes, so even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Want to help me patch that big pothole in the runway?”

None of the other pilots ever offered to fill the potholes, they always figured someone else would do it. The mud stuck to everything and gave off a rank odor, and a lot of them saw it as beneath them.

“How about I go fill those holes for you, and you take me up after your tour,” she said.

She thought he was going to refuse her, like Mr. Ryan always did, but instead he nodded and said, “You’re on.”

Disbelief flooded through her. “Really?”

“Really. Now get out there before my next customer arrives.”

But the passengers never showed up, most likely on account of the weather, and the books were empty after that. Heath helped Livy up onto the wing with a big, rough hand and a rock-solid arm. He moved like a man who was extremely comfortable in his own skin, as though the world rotated on his time. Livy decided that he was the perfect man for the job. You wanted your first time up to be memorable, but also to be survivable. Confidence was an asset.

“Sure you want to do this? Those clouds look formidable,” he said.

Livy had noticed the band of charcoal clouds at sea, heralding the foul weather moving up from Mexico. A sudden chill came over her, and she tried to blot out the memory that always accompanied storms blowing in. The dark thing that would always be with her, always haunt the recesses of her mind. Blinding salt spray, cold waves smashing over the bow and washing everything from the deck, the sound of her name being stolen by the whipping wind. Olivia! The last moments of his chafed hand holding on to hers. Her heart began to squeeze in on itself, but she willed the thoughts away.

This storm was likely to be a bad one, but hell if she was going to blow her only chance to fly. Timed right, they’d be able to outrun it.

“Positive. From the looks of it, we have about thirty-seven minutes before that front hits here. Just head north along the coast and we should be back in time.”

She climbed into her seat, and he leaned in and tightened the belt on her waist. “Thirty-seven, huh? Not thirty-six?” he said, close enough that she caught a whiff of mint and salt water.

When he pulled away, their eyes met. Chocolate brown with flecks of fire. Her first instinct was to look away, but instead, she held his gaze.

“Nope, thirty-seven. Let’s go, we’re wasting time,” she said. “Oh, and you’ll probably want to come in from the east on your approach. The wind will swing around coming in off the ocean when it moves in.”

When he stepped back, he almost fell off the wing, catching himself on the wire. They both laughed, breaking whatever strange thing it was that had just passed between them. Without another word, he hopped in and started up the engine. After a few sputters, it chugged to life. Livy slid her goggles on, and made sure her cap was strapped tight. The whole plane buzzed, sending vibrations from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head. As they bounced down the runway, gathering speed, she could hardly believe her luck.

One, two, three. Liftoff.

The shift from clunky and earthbound to weightlessness was unmistakable. Everything went light and buoyant and yet Livy was pinned to her seat as the plane went up. It was a steep climb and all she could see was sky in front of her. She let her head fall back and closed her eyes, imagining herself as an albatross soaring. The hum from the wires that held the wings together grew louder the faster they went. Heath let out a holler and Livy found herself half laughing, half crying. It was even more wonderful than she’d imagined.

When they banked to the right and leveled out some, she saw that she had a bird’s eye view of San Diego Bay, Coronado Island and the city itself—white buildings, red roofs and palm trees. The wind from earlier had died down, leaving an eerie stillness in its wake. They flew toward the cliffs of Point Loma and beyond that, the blue Pacific. There were none of the usual bumps and drops that everyone talked about. It was smooth sailing and she was in awe.

About six minutes out, the nose of the plane suddenly pointed skyward and they began climbing sharply. Pretty soon, they were nearly vertical. Livy knew all her specs of the Curtiss JN 4 “Jenny”—top speed was about eighty miles an hour, she dove well, but when climbing fast, she had a tendency to stall. So, what the heck was Heath doing?

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Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Friday, February 9, 2024

A Quantum Love Story

A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen
Title:
  A Quantum Love Story
Author:  Mike Chen
Publication Information:  MIRA. 2024. 352 pages.
ISBN:  ‎ 0778310345 / 978-0778310341

Rating:   ★★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Carter Cho wasn’t really into science experiments."

Favorite Quote:  "Stop always looking for patterns, embrace the weirdo sh@t."

***** BLOG TOUR *****


Review

Time travel. A time loop. A love story. An impossible choice. This book is science fiction meets Groundhog Day, which makes February an appropriate release date.

The science fiction first. Mariana Pineda is a neuroscientist for ReLive, a company with a treatment to freeze selective memories in individuals such that they do not fade or get lost. The idea of memories - the ones we make, the ones we keep, the ones we lose, the ones we hope we never lose, the grief of watching someone we love not remember - is a powerful motif in this book and one that resonates with me.

Carter Cho is a technician. They meet when Mariana and a team from her company come to tour Carter's workplace, the home of a particle accelerator, that is in its testing phase. The issue is that the accelerator explodes. Carter knows this is coming because he has lived through it many times before, and he remembers each loop. He knows he is stuck. Mariana does not know any of this until, in one iteration, Carter pulls her into the loop.

Now, the Groundhog Day scenario. There are two people - and only two people - who are aware that they are living the same four days over and over again. The goal is to come out of the loop and resume their lives. But is it? Some loops are about finding a way out. Some are about experimenting and trying new things and indulging for life - health, finances, etc. - will all reset in four days. As Carter and Mariana come together again and again, a connection, a friendship, and perhaps something more.

Of course, Mariana and Carter both have back stories. The opportunity for time travel and a reset button provides a way for both of them to reconcile with or resolve their pasts. Carter and his family discord. Mariana and the loss of her best friend and sister.

Some of the loop descriptions are similar. There is a lot of food and cooking. Perhaps, the joy of a sublime bite of food is about remaining present in the moment, no matter how fleeting the moment. Nevertheless, it is a bit too much and slows down the pace of the story at times. In some loops, creatures emerge and come to life, somewhat Night of the Museum style. A connection is drawn, but the entire episode does not develop into much. It is just there.

It is an interesting question to consider what might break the loop and as the book description states, the sacrifice that may have to be made. "The only thing harder than finding someone in a time loop is losing them."

The answer as to how the book addresses that question would, of course, be a spoiler. The ending seems rather quick and less developed given the premise about time and space and as compared to the development of the story in 4 day increments with each loop. Nevertheless, the emotion in it rings true and leaves a lasting image of love and love remembered. That makes the book work for me.

About the Book

Mike Chen brings us an epic love story—in a time loop. When strangers Mariana Pineda and Carter Cho get stuck together repeating the same four days, finally reaching Friday might mean having to give up the connection growing between them.

On Thursday at 12:42pm, Carter Cho is working as a technician at a particle accelerator when it explodes, striking him with a green energy—and sending him back in time to Monday morning. And this happens over and over again. Which at first is interesting, but quickly becomes lonely as the world moves through the same motions and only he changes. If he ever wants to get out of the time loop, he needs help.

On one of the loops, he finally manages to bring Mariana Pineda in with him by getting her struck by the same energy at the same moment. Now they have to find out how to get the accelerator to finish its current test so that they can finally reach Friday.

Along the way, Carter and Mariana help each other through grief, decisions about unfulfilling jobs, and confronting difficult pasts—all the while eating lots of great food since their bank accounts and cholesterol reset with every loop. But the longer they stay in the loop, the more they realize that getting out of it, might mean they’ll have to give up the connection growing between them that’s slowly leading to love.

About the Author

Mike Chen is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood, Here and Now and Then, Light Years from Home and other novels. He has covered geek culture for sites such as Nerdist, Tor.com and StarTrek.com, and in a different life, he’s covered the NHL. A member of SFWA, Mike lives in the Bay Area with his wife, daughter and many rescue animals. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram: @mikechenwriter.

Excerpt

Excerpted from A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen. Copyright © 2024 by Mike Chen. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

1
Carter Cho wasn’t really into science experiments.

Otherwise, he might have completed his degree in quantum mechanics. Cooking experiments, though? Totally different, because there was a real joy to that process. But setting a hypothesis, identifying controls, and looking for…stuff?

Seriously, that seemed like such a slog.

Except for this particular Thursday morning, on the corner of a crosswalk and standing across from the world’s biggest, most advanced particle accelerator, a science experiment felt necessary.

He didn’t really have a choice. It seemed to be the only way to possibly understand or even escape his very strange predicament.

Carter checked the time on his phone, waiting for it to tick specifically to twenty-three seconds past 8:22 a.m.

At that moment, the crosswalk light would switch, signaling for pedestrians to go.

Then everything would cascade, a waterfall of specific actions by the world around him:

The person on Carter’s right would step out first.

The person behind him would wait an extra four seconds, eyes stuck on his phone.

Annoyed, the woman next to that person would let out an exaggerated sigh, move around, then rush forward six steps into the street before catching her shoe.

Then she would stumble forward, her coffee spilling. The first time he went through this, he’d noticed the spill just in time to sidestep it before continuing on.

All of these actions sat line by line on the old-fashioned paper notebook in his hands, a checklist of what was to come with the precision delivered by his photographic memory.

Science experiments all led to a result. As for this, he wasn’t quite sure what the result, or even the purpose, might be. He already knew he was in a loop of some sort, something that started the instant he woke up on Monday mornings.

And it always ended up with the huge facility across the street exploding.

The Hawke Accelerator, both a modern marvel of technology circa 2094 and also some sort of weird top-secret project that no one really understood—now also the place that would simply go boom.

Carter should know. The first time he experienced this, he was in the accelerator chamber’s observation room, right in the heart of where the go boom happened at precisely 12:42 p.m. on Thursday. Which was today, again. Just a few hours from now.

He’d been through this six times before, each time expanding his acute understanding of the details surrounding him. Usually he wrote things down at the end of the day, a memory trick he’d learned about himself very early on that helped cement the details into place, so even when he started the loop over without any scribbled notes to organize his thoughts, his photographic memory recalled it.

But this morning, he went in reverse, writing out the exact steps as they were meant to be.

And then he’d make sure it played out that way, bit by bit.

After that, he wasn’t sure. Carter thought of his parents, their usual voices chastising him for his lack of planning and forethought, how his teenage foray into coding and hacking was more about fun than applying himself, and now look at him, simply a technician running tests and tightening screws. Even now that he’d been through this loop several times, he hadn’t bothered to call them back from their birthday messages. Part of him used the excuse that he should stay as close to the original path as possible, but he knew better.

Even if this weird loop existence meant a complete lack of consequences, calling his parents was the last thing he wanted to do.

Carter checked his phone one more time, five seconds remaining until the crosswalk kicked off the sequence. He gripped the notebook, staring at the list of things to come.

A chime came from the crosswalk. And Carter began to move.

The person on the right moved.

The man behind Carter stayed.

An exasperated sigh came from behind him. Carter kept his eyes on his notebook, counting steps in his head. “Ack,” the woman said, right when Carter sidestepped. His focus moved down to the next item on the list, then the next, then the next, not once looking up. Instead, he executed through a combination of memory and instinct, sliding sideways when a cyclist rolled by on the sidewalk and slowing down just enough to follow in a group waiting at the front entrance of Hawke.

Someone coughed, marking a time to pause and wait thirteen seconds, enough time to review the next items on the notebook still in front of him:

Front desk hands out mobile device for the David AI digital assistant.

Security guard says something about visiting group from ReLive project.

Passing scientist asks what time Dr. Beckett’s flight gets in.


He moved through the security gate designated for employees, taking him past the lobby threshold and over to the main hallway that split in three directions. He stopped, leaned against the wall and waited for the final item to come to pass. Nothing special or unique, just the sound of heels walking in a hurried cadence from his right to his left. Carter checked the notebook, waiting for the visitor’s David AI to speak exactly what he wrote.

“Your next meeting starts in two minutes,” the AI said from the small mobile unit in his familiar London accent. “Oops! Looks like you might be late. Should I give the meeting notice of that?”

Carter mouthed the words as the visitor spoke, his voice fading down the hallway. “No, thanks. I’ll just hurry.”

David’s simulated voice could still be heard as Carter put the notebook down, holding it at his side while considering what just happened. He wasn’t particularly religious, though part of him wondered if he’d been condemned to some sort of purgatory. The predictability of it all, the strange exactness of everything he saw playing out as written on the notebook in his hands.

The first few times, he’d felt disbelief. Then curiosity. Then amusement.

This time, well, he guessed that was the purpose of this experiment: to figure out how he felt knowing he could predict every exact movement of every person he encountered.

Disbelief, curiosity, amusement, and now the whole thing was just unnerving.

Nothing out of turn. Nothing different. Nothing unexpected.

He blew out a sigh, hands pushing back his wavy black hair. Something tugged at him, a wish for things to be different. A person walking from his left instead of his right. Or the plant behind him coming to life and biting his arm. Or a piano dropping out of the sky and smashing his foot.

Anything at all to end this.

Ten minutes passed with Carter lost in his own thoughts, but that in itself turned out to be a change. Normally, he’d take a walk to clear his head, but the list’s finality wound up freezing him. All the previous loops, he’d tried to follow his original path as closely as possible, always ending back in the observation room where the accelerator started to deteriorate and a massive blast of energy struck him. Perhaps that was the only real difference, as he’d changed spots in those final moments to see exactly where the bolt landed on the floor, even using his photographic memory to draw a precise grid of the floor panels.

What he could do with that information, he wasn’t sure. But it had to mean something.

This time, though, a weight paused him, an all-encompassing blanket that left him pondering far longer than he’d ever done.

And then it hit him: he’d deviated farther from his path than before, and nothing bad had happened.

Heck, if he wanted something bad to happen simply so it could, maybe it’d be best if he pushed farther. Or even went in the complete other direction.

At this point, he’d normally turn right, check in with the technician’s desk, grab his cart of tools and begin going through his assignments for the day. But a sharp, almost foreign defiance grabbed him.

He would turn left. He would not check in with his supervisor. Instead he’d go…

Carter’s eyes scanned, looking for the most opposite thing he could possibly do.

Of course.

His steps echoed as he pressed ahead, a strange jubilance to his feet. He moved around people milling about or talking about actual work things, practically skipping with joy until he turned to the entrance of the Hawke cafeteria and straight to the bakery station and its waft of morning pastries.

Ten minutes passed with Carter lost in his own thoughts, but that in itself turned out to be a change. Normally, he’d take a walk to clear his head, but the list’s finality wound up freezing him. All the previous loops, he’d tried to follow his original path as closely as possible, always ending back in the observation room where the accelerator started to deteriorate and a massive blast of energy struck him. Perhaps that was the only real difference, as he’d changed spots in those final moments to see exactly where the bolt landed on the floor, even using his photographic memory to draw a precise grid of the floor panels.

What he could do with that information, he wasn’t sure. But it had to mean something.

This time, though, a weight paused him, an all-encompassing blanket that left him pondering far longer than he’d ever done.

And then it hit him: he’d deviated farther from his path than before, and nothing bad had happened.

Heck, if he wanted something bad to happen simply so it could, maybe it’d be best if he pushed farther. Or even went in the complete other direction.

At this point, he’d normally turn right, check in with the technician’s desk, grab his cart of tools and begin going through his assignments for the day. But a sharp, almost foreign defiance grabbed him.

He would turn left. He would not check in with his supervisor. Instead he’d go…

Carter’s eyes scanned, looking for the most opposite thing he could possibly do.

Of course.

His steps echoed as he pressed ahead, a strange jubilance to his feet. He moved around people milling about or talking about actual work things, practically skipping with joy until he turned to the entrance of the Hawke cafeteria and straight to the bakery station and its waft of morning pastries.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s totally fine. I, uh,” he said. She bit down on her lip, brow scrunched, though eventually they locked gazes. “I should have watched where I was going.” He gestured at the growing coffee stain on his outfit.

“You sure?”

“Absolutely. It’s work clothes. It gets dirty. No big deal.”

The woman’s expression broke, relief lifting her cheeks into a toothy grin, one of those unexpected sights that made everything a little bit better. She looked back at the group, then the coffee cup in her hands. “Damn it, I spilled a bunch. Is there a place to get a refill?”

“You’re going to the main conference room?”

“Yeah. Spent all week there.”

All week. All the times Carter had been through the loop before, even seen the names of various guest groups on schedules, and yet they’d never crossed paths—not until he did the exact opposite of his routine.

Funny how that worked.

“We finally get to see the observation room, though. In a little bit.” She held up her coffee cup. “Just need a refill somewhere along the way.”

“Café is back there,” he said, thumb pointing behind him. “Way back there.”

“Ah,” she said with furrowed brow, a conflicted look that seemed about much more than a coffee refill. “Probably should meet with the team. Not enough time.”

Not enough time. The concept almost made Carter laugh. “Well,” he said, pulling out a bag, “a donut for making you late?”

She took the bag and peaked inside, cheeks rising with a sudden smile. “I don’t usually like donuts. But these glazed ones. Simple, you know?” She shuffled the bottom of the bag to nudge the donut out the opening. “Are you sure? I spilled coffee on you.”

“Yeah. I’m, uh,” he started, pausing as their gazes lingered. “My fault for running into you.”

The wrapper crinkled as she examined it up close before taking a small bite. “I should get back to my team. Maybe they’ll hand out free coffee by the time we get to the observation room. Thanks for this.”

Carter dipped his chin, a quick farewell as he considered the inevitability of the next few hours, a march toward a chaotic and violent reset. He matched her smile, though as she turned, he pondered saying something.

Normally, he wouldn’t. But with the world exploding soon? He went with the opposite of normal.

“My name’s Carter, by the way,” he said. “Carter, the guy who gives people donuts.”

Her gaze shifted, first looking at the floor, then up at the ceiling, even at the bag on her shoulder before finally locking eyes again. “Mariana,” she said, holding up the donut bag, “the woman always looking for coffee.” She bit down on her lip before glancing around. “I’m going to tell you something completely random.”

“Okay?” Carter said slowly. “About donuts?”

She laughed, an easy, bright laugh, though her eyes carried something far heavier. “No. The group I’m with. We’re touring the facility. But I’m quitting. They don’t know yet. Today’ll be my last day. Science is great until it’s not.” Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Probably because we’ll never see each other again.” She spun on her heel, an abrupt move followed by determined steps forward.

“Not unless you need another glazed donut.”

She turned, slowing as she walked away backward, this mystery scientist who spilled coffee on him and then caught his attention. Because the idea that someone didn’t like most donuts, well, that was as opposite as anything he’d ever encountered in his life. “Maybe that,” she said with a small grin.

“I’ll remember your name in case we do,” he said. “Mariana.”

Her fingers fluttered in a quick wave, then she turned, and Carter leaned against the wall, ignoring the people who came and went.

Mariana. Maybe he should write that down, just in case she became important. He pulled the notebook out from under his arm, only to find the pages soaked with coffee.

A pen would rip through those pages. He’d have to trust his memory to recall her name, her voice, her face. On the off chance that they ever met again.

None of it mattered anyway, but as experiments went, this morning did at least prove helpful.

Now Carter knew that he could do anything, even the opposite of normal. And that might just lead to him escaping this thing. Or, at the very least, a lot more pastries.

Mariana disappeared into the sea of people, and as she did, her words echoed in his mind. First her group went to the conference room, then the observation room above the accelerator core. He knew that space well; after all, he’d been in that same room when everything began to explode and—

Wait.

That was it. A possible connection that he’d somehow missed before. He’d been there, of all places, summoned to check some of the power conduits lining the walls as the whole thing fell apart. Could that exact space be important?

Carter’s head tilted up. Maybe the observation room held the key to everything.

And if it did, what would happen if others were caught in it too? 
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Saturday, January 20, 2024

Every Rising Sun

Every Rising Sun
Title:
  Every Rising Sun
Author:  Jamila Ahmed
Publication Information:  Henry Holt and Co. 2023. 432 pages.
ISBN:  1250887070 / 978-1250887078

Rating:   ★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Shaherazade turned to Shahryar and said, 'May I have your permission to tell a story."

Favorite Quote:  "Men and women before you have been betrayed. Men and women after you will be betrayed. But to be betrayed is not to be broken. And to be broken is not be become a killer."

Alif Lailah. One thousand and one nights. Arabian nights. Most of us have heard of this collection of folk tales. Many more have heard some stories that come from this collection without perhaps realizing that they are part of a bigger collection. Aladdin. Sinbad the Sailor. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. 

The stories date back centuries and have been gathered in different forms by different authors and narrators. What is universal in all the collections is the framework in which these individual tales exist. The story is of a ruler who would marry and the next morning execute the young woman he married because he was once betrayed by the one he loved. One of the brides, Shaherazade sets out to save herself and those who may come after. On the night of the wedding, she asks to tell a story. The story hangs in the balance when morning comes. The ruler gives her a one day reprieve for the story to be concluded that night. Each night and each morning, the pattern repeats for 1,000 nights. And on the 1,001st night, what becomes of Shaherazade? There is a commonly held belief as to what happens then.

This debut novel decides to envision this paradigm through the eyes of Shaherazade. It provides a love story, a family, a "history" of what happens in "real life" between the nights of Shaherazade's stories. Some of the tales are still there, but this is Shaherazade's story. The "real life" has palace intrigue, wars, politics, a marriage, a love triangle, deaths, and more. "The world has ended before. Each time it has arisen anew."

I love seeing these stories of my childhood brought to a new envisioning and perhaps to an audience that may not be as familiar with these tales. Perhaps, this book will send a reader in search of other renditions more classically told. 

The one concern I have is the inconsistencies in the characters. As this is Shaherazade's story and told through her eyes, the other characters including the Malik and the other women of this story do not materialize fully. The reader sees them only through Shaherazade's eyes even though significant calamities befall these characters, and they are responsible for significant turning points in this story.

Narrowing the focus, there are inconsistencies in Shaherazade's character itself. On the one hand is a strong young woman who makes a daring choice, who bets on herself to save not only herself but those around her, who gives sage counsel to warriors, and who is a warrior herself. So many of her decisions are based on the greater good. Yet, a main story point is Shaherazade's allowing herself to be pulled into a relationship that runs counter to all those choices. This ultimately leads to the ending of the book itself, which is considerable different than the ending I have heard in these tales in any prior version. 

The contradiction is not fully explained to the satisfaction of this reader. I can appreciate a good retelling, but enough of the original must remain for it to be a retelling. The ending, to me, is a key part. Perhaps, there is a sequel to come. Perhaps not. Nevertheless, the ending for me undermines the characterizations throughout the book for I do not see why or how.


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Saturday, January 13, 2024

The Museum of Failures

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar
Title:
  The Museum of Failures
Author:  Thrity Umrigar
Publication Information:  Algonquin Books. 2023. 368 pages.
ISBN:  164375355X / 978-1643753553

Rating:   ★★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "All night long, the crows fought as a jet-lagged Remy Wadia struggled to sleep in an unfamiliar bed."

Favorite Quote:  "Because, ultimately everybody's story was written in scars."

***** BLOG TOUR *****


Review

The story of the museum of failures is ultimately about a family. In particular it is about how parents, even with the best of intentions, can sometimes fail their children. It is about the far-reaching impact of those failures for the children carry those scars into adulthood and into their own journey of parenthood. At the heart of the story is Remy Wadia, an adult who had made a life in America but returns to Bombay, India in the hopes of an adoption. Unexpected events lead him on a journey to questions what he has always believed about his life, his family relationships in India, and his own ability and willingness to be a father.

The book, however, defines itself in different ways at different points. "He had often thought of Bombay as the museum of failures, an exhibit hall filled with thwarted dreams and broken promises." Towards the beginning of the book, the book offers Remy's commentary on India, life in India, and of the reasons he left is all behind. Correspondingly, there is commentary about immigrant life in general and specifically in the Unites States under recent regimes. I almost want to stop as political commentary is not what I expect or want in this book. That commentary does not add to and is completely unnecessary for the story. However, this story is firmly set in Bombay. The US side of Remy's life never really developed. Thus, the political commentary does not permeate the story enough to distract from the focal point. 

Within the global commentary are the individual stories. "Of course, there were unhappy people everywhere on earth, and if you catalogued all their griefs and disappointments, every place could be considered a museum of failures. One could argue that this was the universal human condition." The sadness in this story belongs to Remy, his father Cyrus who is deceased but very much a character in this story, and his mother Shirin. Other supporting characters like Monaz and Dina have their own tragic stories that overlap Remy's.

The progression of the story can be measured in the next time the title appears. "There is no room for hope in the museum of failures. Even if it hangs on the walls for a moment, it usually comes crashing down." Cyrus dies without resolving the failures of their family's life. Shirin goes mute, harboring those failures. Remy holds on to the perceived failures of his parents and bears the scars of the choices. Even as an adult who has gone through therapy to resolve the hurts of his childhood, Remy has yet to reckon with that past. The story of what can only be termed abuse is tragic and horrifying. It seems unbelievable because I would like to think that it could not be possible. Yet, we all know that it is.

The next mention of the title highlights where the story ends up. "Because the only way to destroy the museum of failures is to burn every shameful secret that it has ever held." More than failures, this book is all about secrets. The ending of this book packages this family's entire history from before Remy's birth until his now-middle-age neatly with almost a bow. Every loose end is tied up. Every relationship and every concern is resolved. This, to me, lessons the impact of this story. Life is not neat, and a lifetime of issues are not so neatly resolved. Nevertheless, an emotional family story and a depiction of the immigrant experience that will stay with me.

About the Book

(from the author's website)
An immersive story about family secrets and the power of forgiveness from the bestselling author of Reese’s Book Club pick Honor.

When Remy Wadia left India for the United States, he carried his resentment of his cold and inscrutable mother with him and has kept his distance from her. Years later, he returns to Bombay, planning to adopt a baby from a young pregnant girl—and to see his elderly mother again before it is too late. She is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life.

Struck with guilt for not realizing just how ill she had become, Remy devotes himself to helping her recover and return home. But one day in her apartment he comes upon an old photograph that demands explanation. As shocking family secrets surface, Remy finds himself reevaluating his entire childhood and his relationship to his parents, just as he is on the cusp of becoming a parent himself. Can Remy learn to forgive others for their human frailties, or is he too wedded to his sorrow and anger over his parents’ long-ago decisions?

Surprising, devastating, and ultimately a story of redemption and healing still possible between a mother and son, The Museum of Failures is a tour de force from one of our most elegant storytellers about the mixed bag of love and regret. It is also, above all, a much-needed reminder that forgiveness comes from empathy for others.

About the Author

(from the author's website)
Thrity Umrigar is the best-selling author of the novels Bombay Time, The Space Between Us, If Today Be Sweet, The Weight of Heaven, The World We Found, The Story Hour, Everybody’s Son and The Secrets Between Us. Her new novel, Honor, is an Indie Next List Pick for January 2022. Umrigar is also the author of the memoir, First Darling of the Morning and three children's picture books, When I Carried You in My Belly, Sugar in Milk and Binny's Diwali. Her books have been translated into several languages and published in over fifteen countries. She is a Distinguished University Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

The Space Between Us was a finalist for the PEN/Beyond Margins award, while her memoir was a finalist for the Society of Midland Authors award. If Today Be Sweet was a Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle selection, while her other books have been Community Reads selections. Thrity is the winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, a Lambda Literary award and the Seth Rosenberg prize. She is also the recipient of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard.

Thrity was born in Bombay, India and came to the U.S. when she was 21. As a Parsi child attending a Catholic school in a predominantly Hindu country, she had the kind of schizophrenic and cosmopolitan childhood that has served her well in her life as a writer. Accused by teachers and parents alike of being a daydreaming, head-in-the-clouds child, she grew up lost in the fictional worlds created by Steinbeck, Hemingway, Woolf and Faulkner. She would emerge long enough from these books to create her own fictional and poetic worlds. Encouraged by her practical-minded parents to get an undergraduate degree in business, Thrity survived business school by creating a drama club and writing, directing and acting in plays. Her first short stories, essays and poems were published in national magazines and newspapers in India at age fifteen.

After earning a M.A. in journalism in the U.S., Thrity worked for several years as an award-winning reporter, columnist and magazine writer. She also earned a Ph.D. in English. In 1999, Thrity won a one-year Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University, which is given to mid-career journalists.

While at Harvard, Thrity wrote her first novel, Bombay Time. In 2002 she accepted a teaching position at Case Western Reserve University, where she was recently named a Distinguished University Professor of English. Her articles have been published in national publications such as The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe.

Thrity is active on the national lecture circuit and has spoken at book festivals such as the L.A. Festival of Books, the Tuscon Book Festival and the Miami Book Fair International; at universities such as MIT, Harvard University, and Spelman College; and at literary societies, civic and business organizations and public libraries all across the country.


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