Book Notes: Short Girls, Undressing the Moon, Husband and Wife, and My First V.I. Warshawski Novel

I've been reading some fantastic books lately, so if you're looking for reading matter, here's some I recommend. Let me start by saying the first three of these books were sent me by my awesome boss (who's so often referred to as such I'm hereby christening her AB). She has sent me some really interesting books (including Mockingbird), which I might not have come across otherwise.

Short Girls is about two sisters and the differences between them, as well as what binds them together. Van and Linny were born to first-generation immigrants from Vietnam, and therefore felt a little less normal than other American kids. The book works best because the characters feel very real. The chapters alternate between Van's viewpoint and Linny's, but I liked Linny--the rebel who tries to carve out her own life--so much more than Van, who's always tried to do what's been expected of her rather than figure out what she really wants. Linny just seems so much more interesting than Van, who always gets straight As and never rebels, even in teenage. (Also, as someone who did well in school but was still a rebel and a loudmouth at home, I somewhat resent the author's setting up these two archetypes. But well.)

Husband and Wife starts with the wife of the title, Sarah, discovering that her husband has been unfaithful. Not only that, he, a fiction writer, had used his experiences for his new book, titled Infidelity. A hard truth for someone to swallow, especially someone with two small children, someone who sacrificed her own artistic ambitions and took a steady job and supporter her husband in his artistic career.

It's somewhat of a cliche, this book, not just the situation the narrator finds herself in, but also how it resolves. The reason it's still so readable is because of the author's deft characterization. It's the same old story told in a modern way. The only reason I liked this book a little less than I could have was the ending, which I found disappointing (though I know not everyone will agree with me.)

But the book I liked best of the three is Undressing the Moon. 

It's a haunting, tragic story of a little girl whose mother goes away. The book is what I'd call emotionally manipulative--the author throws tragedy after tragedy at you and you can't stop crying (or is that just me?). The little girl, now grown up, is the narrator, and maybe I just like books with little-girl narrators, but I found the childhood parts very compelling. The adult parts (chapters oscillate between the past and the present) are as tragic--because Piper, now thirty, is dying of cancer.

The language is beautifully poetic and full of metaphors. Another similarity with Mockingbird is the wonderful brother: fortunately, Quinn, unlike Devon, is present. But what is best about this book is that it is at the core--apart from a book about dying, and about abandonment, and about rape--is a book about female friendship. Piper is dying, and her best friend Becca is by her side. They go through a lot, the two of them, that might have severed a less strong friendship, but they stick together, and that is a wonderful thing to see, in fiction or in real life.

Hardball was my first V. I. Warshawski novel, but I'd heard so many good things about the fictional detective (a woman and a feminist!) that I picked it up with both anticipation and trepidation (that it might not be as good as I hoped). It was an awesome, fun read and I liked that it didn't skirt around major issues, diving headlong into racism in Chicago in the 1960s and corruption, then and now. Add in some family dynamics and a missing young cousin, and a man missing for forty years. My only complaint is that some of the big reveals were kind of obvious, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book nonetheless.

Other books I enjoyed recently were the Legatus Mystery by Rosemary Rowe, of which series I will be looking for more, and the Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough, kindly lent me by G.