The Little Village of Book Lovers

Title:  The Little Village of Book Lovers

Author:  Nina George

Publication Information:  Ballantine Books. 2023. 272 pages.

ISBN:  0593157885 / 978-0593157886

Rating:   ★★★

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

Opening Sentence:  "'What do you do when you can't go on, Monsieur Perdu?' Jordan asked wearily."

Favorite Quote:  "It is you who make love visible in everything you think and say, everything you do or choose not to."

This book is in one word - silly. Love is a character. An olive tree is a character. A young woman, Marie-Jeanne, has the power to see and make connections between people. She can do so for everyone but herself. Her foster father dotes on her. Her foster mother is so afraid to show her love that every action reveals itself as anger or disdain.

However, somedays in a world full of anger and sadness, a silly, feel good story is just what is needed. When that story is also a love letter to books and libraries (even a small mobile one), it has its redeeming qualities:

• "... books are precisely where magic, the great wide world, miracles, and good explanation may all converge? Are books not the last remaining place for otherwise inconceivable encounters between different people, different periods, different landscapes, and different emotions?"
• "Books are the poetry of the impossible."
• "Because freedom ... begins where you first overstep your boundaries."
• "And nothing - I repeat, nothing - is a more discreet and incorruptible accomplice than literature."
• "Books at least made you think things over ... Book thinking was, um, flightier. I turned ordinary thoughts into buzzards."
• "Books are the last alchemy of our age. They make anything possible. Anything."

Set against the beautiful backdrop of southern France in a small village, this book has many characters and many repeating refrains. Sometimes, it is challenging to follow the different love stories in the making. Distinguishing between the human and the non-human characters adds another element of challenge. Eventually, I stop following the individual stories but rather follow the main theme of the book. So many people do not find love even when it might be nearby. Perhaps, "it" does not look like what they imagined. Perhaps, they don't feel lovable or deserving of "it." Perhaps, "it" is not what they have been taught they need and should want. 

The One by John Marrs takes a sci-fi look at the topic of identifying soulmates. The Matchmaker's Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman makes it a natural gift in the hands of an individual who then turns it into a career. This book places that power in the hands of an individual because she is touched by "Love", an entity with an existence all its own. Other books have had other variations on this theme. Skimming through, this telling is a light-hearted, fluffy summer read.

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The Full Moon Coffee Shop

Title:  The Full Moon Coffee Shop

Author:  Mai Mochizuki (Author), Jesse Kirkwood (Translator).

Publication Information:  Ballantine Books. 2024. 240 pages.

ISBN:  0593726820 / 978-0593726822

Rating:   ★★★★

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

Opening Sentence:  "It was early April and my apartment windows were wide open."

Favorite Quote:  "Even now, I still wonder what could have been if I'd been more honest with myself. I was determined to teach those kids never to shy away from being themselves."

A maneki-neko or beckoning cat can often be found displayed in Japanese households and shops. It is said to bring good luck. The earliest folklore related to this tradition dates from the 1600s. This and subsequent folktales tell of good fortune coming from following, befriending, or doing good for a cat. The good fortune follows the good deed.

This book carries that idea much further. Cats are the feature of a magical coffee shop. Individuals in need of direction find themselves invited to the cafe. In the process, they find lessons for their own life and the direction they seek. However, the invitation is extended to only a few select people. Why?

In this way, the book reminds me of another translation, What You are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama. The main character in that book is a librarian who seems to place exactly the right book at exactly the right time in the hands of exactly the right person. The tale appears at the beginning as almost a set of short stories about unrelated people. Slowly, connections emerge, linking the dots into a whole. The book becomes lesson on growth, transformation, and inspiration. Each individual who is pointed to a story is transformed. For some, it leads them to new paths and gives them the courage to pursue them.

This book proceeds in a similar fashion. The cafe appears only to certain people, at a different time, and in a different place. This cafe has no menu. Drinks and snacks are specifically chosen for the individual. The ambiance of cafe seems tailored to the individual also. Some trigger memories. Other trigger longings. Each leaves the recipient changed. The cafe purveyors - the cats - use their knowledge of the individual and their study of astrological charts to provide insight that change the life of each person.

What adds further interest as a reader is discovering what connects these middle aged individuals - a scriptwriter, a TV producer, an actress, a hairdresser and a tech and security engineer. What determines who gets an invitation to the cafe? The connection goes back to their childhood and a kindness done.

This book requires the suspension of disbelief - magical cafes, astral charts, cats who speak and do other things. However, for the kind lessons it teaches, I willingly go along. In a world with much negativity, it is wonderful to see a reminder of the vast impacts a seemingly small act of kindness can have.

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The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern

Title:  The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern

Author:  Lynda Cohen Loigman

Publication Information:  St. Martin's Press. 2024. 320 pages.

ISBN:  1250278104 / 978-1250278104

Rating:   ★★★

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

Opening Sentence:  "Augusta Stern did not want to retire."

Favorite Quote:  "Words can do anything... A kind word can fix a person't spirit. A cruel one can break a person's heart. Wicked words have caused wards, and hones words have me peace. Why should't they be able to heal."

This book is a geriatric love story. This book is also about first love. This book is also about women and the challenges they face to create change and be enabled to use their talents to the fully capacity.

Augusta Stern is turning eighty, newly retired, and moved from New York City to Florida. She grew up in Brooklyn. Her mother died when Augusta was young. She was raised by her father and her aunt who moved in to help on her mother's death. Her father was a trained pharmacist, wielding knowledge and credentials similar to what a doctor might. Her aunt was a healer, taught by the generations before and what she is able to learn herself. "If a person is denied is denied a formal education ... she must be inventive in her quest for knowledge. She must study the folktales and the stories. She must learn however she can. She must use every tool at her disposal."

As a teenager, Augusta is at the crossroads of her father's and her aunt's approach. Is that possible? Her father thinks not.  Her aunt lets Augusta find her own way with the understanding that "others accused me of being a witch, a Baba Yaga of the forest." (book where I first read about Baba Yaga)

The story of Augusta's childhood is also a story of Prohibition, the mafia, and of a first love. The fact that Augusta moves to Florida at age eighty, never having married tells us that the first love story did not end well. The fact that Augusta  has spent her life as a pharmacist with no mention of her aunt's knowledge tells us that something drove Augusta away from that craft. The fact that the book title mentions a "love elixir" may hint at a possible connection between the two facts of Augusta's life. Not surprisingly, the move brings Augusta face to face with that first love. So begins the book.

The story moves back and forth across the period of Augusta's life between her mother's death and a turning point in her young life and the short period of time after Augusta's relocation to Florida. The sixty years in between are left untold - a life lived. The story of the past is one of healing in different forms and of heartbreak. The story of the present is a sweet feel-good love story.

This book does not have the strength of The Matchmaker's Secret or The Two Family House, but a sweet story nevertheless.

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The Golden Doves

Title:  The Golden Doves

Author:  Martha Hall Kelly

Publication Information:  Ballantine Books. 2023. 528 pages.

ISBN:  0593354885 / 978-0593354889

Rating:   ★★★

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

Opening Sentence:  "I wake at dawn, facedown on the sofa, thinking I'm back in Block Ten."

Favorite Quote:  "Just a pigeon... That's a dove... Same thing. You even think the best of pigeons.. She beautiful and strong and whatever we call her, she's free now."

Ravensbruk was a Nazi concentration camp for women. Estimates state that over 132,000 women were in the camp over the course of war. Forced labor, death chambers, and medical experiments on the women were the reality of this camp.

Many books have been written about World War II history, about the concentration camp, and about Ravensbruk. Martha Hall Kelly has written about the camp and the medical experimentation in Lilac Girls, which tell the story of the Ravensbruk "rabbits." That debut novel by Martha Hall Kelly was a compelling and emotional tale that will stay with me for a long time.

This book also picks up on the atrocities of Ravensbruk but come forward in time to the controversial United States Operation Paperclip, a secret United States program that ran from the end of World War II to the end of the 1950s. The goal was two-fold - to add to the knowledge that could be used for US defense development and to keep that knowledge from being incorporated into the (then) Soviet Union as the Cold War era emerged. The operation involved bringing about 1,600 German professionals to the United States with resettlement, housing, and jobs with the government. Several of those brought over were former Nazis.

This book is the story of two survivors of Ravensbruk, who have taken different paths since the war. Yet, the pull of the past brings them together in a united mission albeit with very different goals. The story begins in the United States, traverses Europe, and goes all the way to French Guiana. 

Josie Anderson is American. Arlette LaRue is French. I bring this up because this characterization is a key feature of these two women and their motivations and actions are attributed to this national background. Josie is an US intelligence officer tasked with acquiring an "asset" for Operation Paperclip. Arlette is living on the hope that her son - wrested away from her at Ravensbruk - may be found. 

Given the history, the book should be moving and emotional. Unfortunately, this book does not compel or draw in the way that Lilac Girls did. Given that it is the same author and the same historical context, the comparison is unescapable throughout the book.

The story travels through a lot of time and place. Unfortunately, the characters and the choices made in the "spy" portion of the story are at times hard to fathom and hard to empathize with. That breaks the emotional tie of this book, rendering it a much less engaging read than Lilac Girls.

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Commitment

Title:  Commitment

Author:  Mona Simpson

Publication Information:  Knopf. 2023. 416 pages.

ISBN:  0593319273 / 978-0593319277

Rating:   ★★★

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

Opening Sentence:  "Walter arranged for a ride up to Berkeley with a girl he barely knew."

Favorite Quote:  "You may not have become what you wanted, but what you are gave me life."

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary states that the word commitment has many meanings:

• an agreement or pledge to do something in the future
• state or an instance of being obligated or emotionally impelled
• an act of committing to a charge or trust: such as a consignment to a penal or mental institution.

The title of this book applies all these meanings. It is the story of a parent with mental health challenges who is committed. It is the friend who is compelled to care for the children left behind. It the children whose emotional ties keep them tethered to their childhood and the trauma of an ill parent and their obligations as adult children. It is the father who is not in picture with no commitment whatsoever to his wife or his children.

Walter. Lina. Donny. Oldest to youngest. Each takes their own path, navigating their mother's illness. Each hides some aspect of their reality and their mother's reality. "I don't know if you guys find this, but... i don't like having Mom around other people who didn't know her before... They ask questions." 

The scars of childhood leave lasting impact.

• "Sometimes you outgrow even a cherished dream."
• "For years, what felt like Lina's whole life, vigilance had structured her days, no news was good news, until the piercing call would come, signaling crisis."
• "Forgiving her father would have been like forgiving the world for her mother's illness. It had made them who they were. her father's crime had taken decades to complete. "

For its premise, for the tragedy of a family navigating a serious illness, for children who leave childhood too early because of trauma, and for adults shouldering the responsibilities of caretaking, this book should have been an emotional, compelling story.

However, the slow pace of the book creates an emotional distance. The changing timelines create a distance from the characters and from watching them develop. As such, because the reader does not see them develop, it appears as if they do not develop. This presents a challenge for what is essentially a character driven book.

I want to like this book. I want to be moved but am not. I applaud the attempt at addressing the challenges of mental health and a family navigating life with a loved one with mental health concerns. I am glad for the attention to the issue. I just wish for more from the story as a reader.

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The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone

Title:  The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone

Author:  Audrey Burges

Publication Information:  Berkley. 2023. 352 pages.

ISBN:  0593546474 / 978-0593546475

Rating:   ★★★

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

Opening Sentence:  "Once upon a time, there was a house."

Favorite Quote:  "We can't always choose the details of our burden. But we bear it just the same."

Myra Malone lives in Parkhurst, Arizona. She is famous - viral, even. Yet, she never leaves her house. She is known to millions. Yet, she rarely ever actually interacts with anyone. She is a recluse, tied to her real and miniature, imaginary life by demons and traumas of the past. "You can be surrounded by people and still be lonely. And some people ... some people make lonely seems like the best way to be."

Alex Rake lives across the country from Myra Malone. Somewhat accidentally, he discovers that the miniature Myra Malone curates is none other than his own family home. The book descriptions tells us that Alex's grandmother disappeared out of that very home years ago. Given that, stories about Alex's grandmother abound. "People tell stories about things they don't understand. And when that thing is a lady, the stories take a lot of different forms. Some become miracles... Or they can become myths... Ot they can become even darker or scarier... And the ladies who turn into that kind of story? Well... Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

What is the connection? How can both Alex and Myra both discover and explore that connection? Do they even want to?

I love the premise of The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone - the magic, the idea of a house as an anchor, the idea of a full size and a miniature mirroring each other, the idea of a caretaker through the ages, and, most of all, the idea of a refuge. The issue I have is that with this wonderful premise, I keep waiting for the unusual and the unexpected. The storyline and the connections between the characters seem obvious to me early on in the book. I keep waiting to be surprised. Unfortunately, the surprise never does come.

In addition, the entire build up of the book - in fact, the majority of the book - focuses on Myra and her inability to do certain things and the constraints she puts on her life given the events of the past. Yet, the ending comes, almost matter of fact and suddenly. The words state the time it takes. However, in the telling of the story, it is a short read compared to the rest of the book. As a result, the ending feels lacking and somewhat contrived. Odd as it might be to say about a book based in magic, the ending which is real life feels the least real.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the premise of the book and do wish I could see the minuscule mansion.

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

Rootless

Title:  Rootless

Author:  Krystle Zara Appiah

Publication Information:  Ballantine Books. 2023. 368 pages.

ISBN:  0593500458 / 978-0593500453

Rating:   ★★★

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

Opening Sentence:  "Sam knows he is too late even as he sprints back from the station."

Favorite Quote:  "I can love her and still want something more for my life. Love and regret aren't mutually exclusive."

Efe walks out on her husband and her toddler. Why? To everyone who saw them, Efe and Sam are the perfect couple with a happy marriage and a beautiful child. Eve travels from London back to her roots in Accra, Ghana.

The story is of about 5 months before the present, about 19 years earlier, of the present, and of six months after. Where and when the present is does not become clear until almost the end of the book. The timelines lies at the heart of the book's conclusion, but that does not become clear until the conclusion itself.

The "why" of the book covers a lot of ground - the immigrant experience, discrimination and prejudice, cultural expectations from both the individual's point of origin and their adopted home, parental expectations, gender expectations, parenthood, and the mental health challenges any and all of these can lead to.

The shifting timeless prove a challenge to follow and prove an impediment to developing an understanding of the characters - particularly Efe. There are several "aha' moments in which some aspect of Efe's life is revealed that explains what transpires in her life. However, because that part of the story may have been told earlier in the book, I find myself needing to flip back with each revelation and reread to better understand the context. Each revelation adds depth to the story but the shifting timelines puts that depth at a distance somewhat removed understanding the character. 

An overarching theme of the book becomes Efe's relationship with her parents and the scars that it leaves on Efe's life:

• "When it comes to her parents, Eve is prone to giving in, shrinking back, conforming. All her life she's let them tell her who to be friends with and dictate all her wants...  Efe has spent a lifetime biting back words, feeling like she's holding her breath."
• "the sirens wailing, the hospital stay, and the hurried move back to Ghana that same week"
• "Pack my bags and ship me off like you did? Do you know how hard that was? Do you not remember what those kids did to me?"
• "I sent you to London for your own good. You were older. You were safe."
• "People - even the ones who love you - can be a weight around your neck. You just have to choose which weights you want to carry. And I'm strong. This. This I can live with."

That aspect of the story is tragic, leaving me so sad for Efe. Despite the shifting timelines, the empathy that develops for Efe could have resulted in an emotional story.

Then comes the ending. It seems to come out of nowhere. I read the pages multiple times. My reaction... Really? Really? After all that, this is how it ends? If the ending is to make some philosophical point, I miss it. I am left wondering... Did I really read that entire book and begin to invest in it for this?

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