Release date: 2011 / 320 pages

Synopsis(from Amazon): Lula, a twenty-six-year-old Albanian woman living surreptitiously in New York City on an expiring tourist visa, hopes to make a better life for herself in America. When she lands a job as caretaker to Zeke, a rebellious high school senior in suburban New Jersey, it seems that the security, comfort, and happiness of the American dream may finally be within reach. Her new boss, Mister Stanley, an idealistic college professor turned Wall Street executive, assumes that Lula is a destitute refugee of the Balkan wars. He enlists his childhood friend Don Settebello, a hotshot lawyer who prides himself on defending political underdogs, to straighten out Lula’s legal situation. In true American fashion, everyone gets what he wants and feels good about it… [until] things take a more sinister turn when Lula’s Albanian “brothers” show up in a brand-new black Lexus SUV.

Review:  
This is the third book I’ve read in the past month that has addressed immigration — this trend is completely accidental, but also serendipitous since I now live near a Sanctuary City and have become fascinated by the complexities of this topic.

I must admit, this novel was a “slow starter” for me, but I received it just last week so I had no choice but to stick with it right away.  I have little knowledge of Albania — where Lula, the protagonist, was born — and Prose’s writing felt a bit stilted — intentionally, I believe, since Lula’s first language was not English.

However, within 50 or so pages, I found myself drawn to her story and the strange events that were unfolding.  I was in the same position as her employer and his son — who also knew little about Lula’s home — so her stories, albeit outrageous at times, were received in the same spirit by all of the hapless Americans in her orbit — including this reader!  After I finished the novel, I read the “Behind the Book” resource included at the end and learned the author traveled to Albania and even had dinner with Albanian political criminals as research.  So, although the stories seemed extreme at times, I can’t help but wonder if Lula’s stories were not so outlandish after all.

This novel was inspired by a story the author heard about a young woman who was taught to drive by Albanian gangsters who drove her to the George Washington bridge, turned the wheel over to her, and insisted she drive.  This is where this novel ends, with Lula somehow finding the courage and wherewithal to create a new life in her new country.

Prose is masterful at creating atmosphere — the stultifying setting of Mister Stanley and Zeke’s home after Ginger, the woman of the house, abandoned them on Christmas Eve is palpable and the perfect backdrop for Lula’s imaginative stories and strange visitors.  And even though Prose leaves a few loose ends (how did the trio of Albanian thugs find Lula in the first place? Why did Savitra suddenly get married? Most of Dunia’s entire life in the U.S…), her take on American life and ability to create compelling characters is worth the ride.

Here are a few of her observations that I found particularly enjoyable:

“She’d seen the guys on Fox News calling for every immigrant except German supermodels and Japanese baseball players to be deported, no questions asked.”

“Mostly, in her experience, country was like religion, an excuse to hate other people and feel righteous about it.”

Interested in winning a copy?  Simply leave me a comment below and I will choose a winner shortly!

Thursday, May 17th: Bookstack

Monday, May 21st: A Bookish Way of Life

Thursday, May 24th: My Bookshelf

Monday, May 28th: Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books

Tuesday, May 29th: Books and Movies

Wednesday, May 30th: Veronica M.D.

Tuesday, June 5th: Iwriteinbooks’s blog

Wednesday, June 6th: Reviews By Lola

Thursday, June 7th: I Read. Do you?

Tuesday, June 12th: Chocolate & Croissants

Thursday, June 14th: Literate Housewife

Another great post from: BOOK CLUB CLASSICS! Thanks for visiting...

TLC Presents: My New American Life Review and Giveaway

Falling Together: A Novel

Release date: 2011 / 458 pages

Synopsis (from the back cover): What would you do if an old friend needed you, but it meant turning your new life upside down?  Pen, Will, and Cat met during the first week of their first year of college and struck up a remarkable friendship, one that sustained them and shaped them for years — until it ended abruptly, and they went their separate ways…

First Sentence: Pen would not use the word summonded when she told Jamie about the e-mail later that night.

Review:  I must begin by admitting that I loved de los Santos previous two novels (Love Walked In  and Belong to Me ) so much I named my puppy after one of the characters: Teo.  (At the time I did not realize that this would mean that most folks would call her “Tail” or “Tee — oh” or “Dao.”   I adored the mix of poetry and characterization in her previous two efforts and when Falling Together arrived — unexpectedly — I hoped I was about to be reacquainted with some of my favorite characters of all time.

Alas, Falling Together does not focus on Cornelia, Clare, Dev or Teo, but on a trio of college friends who reconnect after the husband of one requests the help of the other two in finding his lost wife.  I wish I could praise this latest group of characters as effusively as in my previous reviews, but I’m afraid I cannot.  The trio were criticized in college for their clique-ish-ness and I, too, felt like an outsider.  In addition, I wasn’t as drawn to any of them individually, either.  I found Pen to be disturbingly judgmental throughout — whether describing her ex-lover’s home or her former best friend’s husband or her college pal’s confessions.  Pen seems naive or ignorant of the fact that most college friendships are intense and powerful, since this is the time that individuals first have the freedom to determine identity.  She seems to believe that their trio is unique — yet it echoes the friendships most college educated readers would have experienced during those years.  And, although the narration alternates between Pen and Will, Pen is the dominant voice of the novel and so her opinions color most of the events.  I may have enjoyed the novel more if Will’s perspective had been more prominent — his journey is by far the most fascinating.  Cat, the third friend, is (intentionally?) left largely undefined – a rough sketch of a character — whose purpose is to bring the other two together and drive the narrative through its arc.  Her husband is initially a bit of  a characture, but does become more dimensional as the novel progresses. As with her earlier novels, the youngest character is the most vividly realized and likeable.  A follow-up novel through Augusta’s perspective would be very welcome, in fact.

However, although I was not as drawn to the characters as in her earlier novels, the writing was still original, quirky, and memorable.  De los Santos has a gift with hyperbole.  Who doesn’t remember the intensity of those college friendships that quickly seem to have always been a part of someone’s identity: “Weeks afterward, when their friendship had become an ageless and immovable fact…” (6).  Her eye for imagery and setting is as finely honed as ever: “…the blue-purple hydrangeas and thick, leaning stands of black-eyed Susans, the blown-glass hummingbird feeders hanging from the trees, and, yards away, the vegetable garden looking like a tiny campground, with its stakes and bean teepees… It had been the setting for some intense family ugliness over the years… but the place had itself had stayed pure, clam and unstained.” (29)  She retains her earlier talent at solidifying emotion: “…Pen had tried to keep hatred alive, but it kept losing its firm shape, kept smudging and blurring until it became an immense, black, impossibly heavy sadness that lived inside her body and make it hard to move, so had given it up. ” (41 ). And, most unusual and X of all, de los Santos frequently begins chapters with the use of unclear pronouns, which compels the reader to investigate.  Chapter Two: “Cat would being it: ‘We met cute.’”  Chapter Three: “‘You’ll go,’ taunted Jamie, leaning back in his chair. ‘You know you’ll go.  You know-know-know you’ll go.’”  (Jamie is not identified until later in this chapter, so “you” is unclear).  Chapter Four opens: “Will could still conjure them up.”  The reader does not learn who “them” are for two more sentences.

So, while Falling Together was not as strong as de los Santos’ earlier works, I will continue to look forward to her future works! Thank you to Shelf Awareness for asking me to read and review this!

Interested in winning a free copy? Drop me a comment below and I will choose a lucky winner by the weekend!

Another great post from: BOOK CLUB CLASSICS! Thanks for visiting...

Falling Together: Review and Free Giveaway

In My Father’s Country

Release date: 2012 / 352 pages

Synopsis(from Amazon): Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, at age three Saima Wahab watched while her father was arrested and taken from their home by the KGB. She would never see him again. When she was fifteen an uncle who lived in Portland, Oregon brought her to America. Having to learn an entire new language, she nonetheless graduated from high school in three years and went on to earn a bachelor’s degree. In 2004 she signed on with a defense contractor to work as an interpreter in Afghanistan, never realizing that she would blaze the trail for a new kind of diplomacy, earning the trust of both high-ranking U.S. army officials and Afghan warlords alike.

Review:  From an early age, Saima Wahab realizes that her situation in life is exceptional and is determined to fulfill her destiny to serve as a bridge for her two countries: the United States and Afghanistan.

Born in a Kabul to a father who proclaimed at her birth “I promise that my daughter will prove that she is better than many Pashtun sons, and will do more for her people than one hundred sons combined,”  and is then tragically killed by the KGB three years later, Saima moves to the U.S. with her siblings in her teens and chooses to realize her father’s proclamation, despite great personal sacrifice.

Wahab first becomes a translator for the U.S. military and becomes the only college-educated female Pashtun-English speaker in the entire country of Afghanistan.  Quickly realizing how fundamental the misunderstandings are between the well-meaning U.S. military forces and the fiercely proud, intensely private Pashtuns, Wahab’s six month contract quickly becomes a long-term mission as she eventually becomes a “human terrain” specialist, facilitating dangerous but crucial dialog between the Afghan people and the U.S. military:

My personal aim became clear: Talk to Afghans and discover the redeeming qualities of Afghans for which my father gave up his life. But there was a parallel objective as well — to use the knowledge gained in the process to smooth out the discord that was growing — and continues to grow — between my native and adoptive nations.

Wahab’s commitment to her mission is incomprehensible to her traditional mother and uncles, so in addition to facing mortal danger on a daily basis, she must reconcile the personal sacrifices she is forced to live with — broken engagements, tension with her traditional mother, being disowned by the uncles who brought her to the U.S.:

“There are moments when my divided self is more fractured than a Cubist painting: half of me believes that a young woman’s desire to cover her face, to uphold a proud, centuries-old tradition, is touching and sweet — while the other half wants to pitch a world-class Pashtun fit over such nonsensical, gender-based limitation on movement and speech.”

Fortunately, Wahab’s ability to spin a narrative is as captivating as her life story.  A true heroine’s journey, Wahab’s life jumps off the page and inspires as it entertains.  Anyone who is even slightly curious about the complexities of U.S.-Afghanistan relations would find In My Father’s Country fascinating and impossible to put down.  Beyond her desire to facilitate international relations between the two countries, Wahab inspires her readers to consider how they, too, can put their lives to use.

My Father’s Country would be an excellent choice for book clubs and would spark compelling conversation without the aid of discussion questions.  Interested in winning a copy?  Please leave me a comment below!  Feel free to check out the other stops on the tour, too:

Tuesday, April 24th:  Book Addict Katie

Another great post from: BOOK CLUB CLASSICS! Thanks for visiting...

In My Father’s Country: Review and Free Giveaway

On the Origin of Tepees: The Evolution of Ideas (and Ourselves) by Jonnie Hughes

Release date: 2011 / 285 pages

Synopsis (from the back cover): Following Darwin’s lead, he ventures out to observe, first hand, the natural history of ideas — the laws of variation, inheritance, and selection operating within the cultural landscape. the choice of sandwiches in a mall, the shape of cowboy hats, the evolution of barn roofs, the wording of jokes, and, of course, the way the tepee evolved in different tribes, all provide insights into the ways in which cultural evoution takes place.

First Sentence: We all look at the world through goggles.

Review: A few months ago, I applied to become a reviewer with Shelf Awareness – a daily newsletter that shares news and insights, as well as reviews, about the world of literature.  Happily, they were actually willing to pay me for my reviews, so at long last I would be paid money for reading!  So, about once or twice a month, I receive a stack of galleys (advance uncorrected proofs, often without cover art).  I then  choose two that I think I will find interesting.  When I first looked through a recent stack, I will admit that the title “On the Origins of Tepees” did not grab me.  But happily I was not too deterred by the title.  The sub-title of this work — How Human Culture Evolves — is a more accurate representation of this fascinating study of ecology, geography, psychology, anthropology, and linguistics.

The author, Jonnie Hughes, is insatiably curious and embarks on a journey to discover how cultures – and culture — are created, shaped, and changed over time.  The history of the tepee is his overt goal, and is surprisingly interesting, but he explores many other ideas along the way, including the Mall of America.

Hughes believes “…if culture is evolving, then something must be driving it, because otherwise it wouldn’t go anywhere in Life and, in fact, would not even have started the journey it’s on” (18). Hughes’s tone is warm and engaging, and the reader feels privileged to join him and his brother on this journey of ideas as they drive from the Midwest to the Rockies.  Ultimately, Hughes concludes: “And that’s the story of the whole of American: an accidental discovery, an automatic human invasion, a mindless scramble for resources, and a subsequent, predestined regime change in the world of Ideas.” (146)

Fans of Bill Bryson will especially enjoy this. Thank you to Shelf Awareness for asking me to read and review this!

Interested in winning a free copy? Drop me a comment below and I will choose a lucky winner by the weekend!

Another great post from: BOOK CLUB CLASSICS! Thanks for visiting...

On the Origin of Tepees: Review and Free Giveaway

The Science of Yoga by William J. Broad

Release date: 2012 / 336 pages

Synopsis(from Amazon):  William Broad, a lifelong practitioner, shows us that uncommon states are integral to a hidden world of risk and reward that lies beneath clouds of myth, superstition, and hype.Five years in the making, The Science of Yoga draws on more than a century of painstaking research to present the first impartial evaluation of a practice thousands of years old. It celebrates what’s real and shows what’s illusory, describes what’s uplifting and beneficial and what’s flaky and dangerous—and why.

Review:   The Science of Yoga exemplifies why William J. Broad has won every major award, including two Pulitzer prizes, throughout his thirty years as a science journalist.  He examines the discipline of yoga from every imaginable angle — history, health, science, spirituality, sexuality, medicine, business, trend — and offers “an impartial evaluation of an important social phenomenon that began five thousand years ago…” (8-9).  The Science of Yoga is loosely chronological, beginning with a brief description of yoga’s most influential figures, a list of styles of yoga, and a timeline beginning in 2500 BCE that continues to the present.

Broad has practiced yoga since 1970 and believes it “could become a force in addressing the global crisis in health care” because “yoga… can turn our bodies into customized pharmaceutical plants that churn out tailored hormones and nerve impulses that heal, cure, raise moods, lower cholesterol, induce sleep, and do a million other things” (216).  Science is currently investigating yoga’s ability to treat depression, arthritis, insomnia, diabetes, fatigue, depressed libido and chronic pain.

However, in the meantime yoga must recognize the inherent dangers in remaining an unregulated industry.  Broad hopes to establish a Yoga Education Society that would facilitate the above and this book is a step toward that goal.  His writing is accessible and engaging and he does not shy away from the more controversial aspects of yoga, as well as the tremendous health benefits.  The Science of Yoga is a fascinating study of yoga’s past popularity and future potential.

Thank you to Shelf Awareness for allowing me to review this work!

Interested in winning a free copy?  Just leave me a comment below!

Another great post from: BOOK CLUB CLASSICS! Thanks for visiting...

The Science of Yoga: Review and Free Giveaway