Review: "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a writer that really shouldn’t be up my ally, but I thoroughly enjoy here books, and her most recent novel, Americanah, while quite uneven (and sporting a terrible cover), is one of the best and most unique takes on the immigrant lifestyle that I have ever read. Adichie writes without the myopic view that some novels and stories like these tend to suffer from. Not only does she describe different experiences that homegrown Americans are not familiar with, but she does so in a way that expresses the differences in customs, but makes the feelings that come with those differences are quite universal. We have all experienced the kind of embarrassment and dread that accompanies the revelation that we have a different perspective than the majority. It is painful, annoying and heartbreaking at times. And Adichie’s characters experience all of this when they must explain their lives to curious onlookers. So the experience might be different, the overall feeling Adichie conveys here is something that everyone goes through. The novel follows a two Nigerian people, who leave their homeland in search for a better life. Ifemelu, a self-confident woman, goes to America to study, and Obinze, a soft-spoken son of a professor, moves to England illegally when he cannot join Ifemelu in America. Over the next decade, the weight of race, and the hostility and barriers that come with, make their journey back to one another, quite difficult. Ifemelu starts a popular blog (not as good as this oneJ) to record her observations and it becomes both a crutch and safe haven when problems encroach on her. Obinze starts to work under a false name, with predictable consequences. When I say that this book is uneven, I mean that this is really Ifemelu’s story. It is the more interesting one, and is given more pages to develop. Hearing about what she thinks of race and the way America has an unmentioned code of hostility toward different cultures is fascinating, even if I do not really agree with it all the time. What Obinze’s story lacks is made up for near the end, when Ifemelu, now back in Nigeria, must deal with being a returned immigrant, and dealing with a homeland she is confused by. While it is imbalanced, this novel is very much worth your time. Never has hair care been more interesting.

Rating: 4/5           

Review: "To The End of the Land" by David Grossman

I have a strange history with author David Grossman’s books. In high school I took a Holocaust Literature course, and one of the books on that list was his novel See Under: Love. It was a notorious book from what I had heard, and nobody who had taken the class had liked it. This one would be no different, and no one, including myself got past the 20^th page. In retrospect, I thought I didn’t give the book the chance it deserved, so approached his most recent book, To The End of The Land, eager to redeem my former high school self. While I am glad to have completed the task and read a book longer than a famed literary high school whale, my notions that he is a writer who is needlessly difficult were true. This novel has its moments; as all books do, but the way it switches from the past and present, along with its oppressive 576-page length make this a very exhausting book. It tries your patience and makes you want to stop at points, but if you are patient, and have hours to kill, you can complete and still come out the other side with liquid in your veins. It tells the story of Ora, a mother whose son, Ofer, is being shipped to the front lines of a brutal war in Israel, and in a fit of confusion, takes Avram, an estranged friend, out into the desert of Galilee. There she recounts her marriage to Ilan, a government employee, and the events surrounding Avram’s fragile sate of mind, and the raising of Ofer and their other son Adam. First off, this book did not need to be 576 pages long. If it were 300 pages, this book would be much more readable. And the narrative technique of slipping between past and present needs to be less vague. I know Faulkner did that as well, but who really like Faulkner? The moments at the beginning in the hospital and when Ora makes her rash decision are very tense and kept me going, just wish the pieces over the next 500 pages fit better. I didn’t like this as much as Nicole Krauss, but she is married to Jonathan Safran Foer, so what does she know?

Rating: 3/5

Review: "Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever" by Justin Taylor

While I at first gave this book the rare and illustrious one star rating, I had to change it to two stars, cause while it is not very good, really at all, it wasn’t offensive in any kind of way. It simply slipped away from my wet brain soon after I put the book down. For all my coming gripes, it is no way as bad as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close or Noughties, thank God. But having said that, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever by Justin Taylor may be the worst short story collection I have ever read. Nary is there a winner in any of these half-baked flash tales. Although flash is a good word for them, because any strength they have or power to make you think lasts about as long as a muscle spasm. When I say none of these are any good, I really mean none. In fact anytime any story seems like it is going somewhere cool, Taylor literally takes the story in an aggressively wrong direction. For instance, in the story “The New Life”, about a kid’s crush on his friends sister leading to a dangerous brush with witchcraft, has something of a cool premise that could be used as a great jumping off point, if someone as astute as Joe Hill or Wells Tower were writing it. Hell, even Karen Russell, whose short stories I find leaving something to be desired, would do great things with these. Instead, Taylor simply bows down to the Barthelme God, giving us nothing we want and everything he wants. Through every story in this collection, Taylor is simply out to please himself, without any regard if his stories are any good or if the reader gets anything out of it. But this is a mostly harmless little book; unless you don’t have the time I do over summer break.

Rating: 2/5

Top Five Audiobooks

While I am not sure how some literary purist feel about this, but I find audiobooks just as fun, and on occasion more fun than actual reading. It is a more passive experience, but one that is at point s more engaging than reading a book. It isn’t a substitute for reading, which I think is essential to every human being, but it is a rather nice edition to a person’s literary repertoire. Also, as you will see by my list, it is a great way to revisit books you liked. I am a firm believer in not rereading books; since there are so many good books you should be reading and spending that much time on one book is depriving yourself of entire undiscovered worlds. Since last August, when life got quite difficult, I began to listen to audiobook when music became something that brought out too many negative emotions. They brought a strong a sense of calm with them, and since then I have devoured quite a few while a drive, and some really good ones in my home. Enough reminiscing, here are my five favorite audiobooks:

5. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga: Read by John Lee: One of my favorite books is made even more eerie by a great narrator in Lee. His faux-Indian accent adds a disturbing quality to the actions and thoughts of Balram Halwai. What was a disquieting book on the nature of amorality becomes downright scary with a skilled voice actor.

4. Thinner by Stephen King: Read by Joe Mantegna: The only book on this list that have not read but only listened to, the impact of this story is conveyed with astounding precision with Mantegna’s vocals. The story is creepy, and knowing who Mantegna is, the story itself becomes oddly bizarre, but in the best possible way. All these good qualities, the dread throughout the running time and the devastating ending, make for the scariest King tale outside of It, at least for this listener.

3. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane: Read by Tom Stechshculte: My favorite American author read by my new favorite voice actor, who also has recordings of both Frank Bill books and Philipp Meyer’s American Rust. Stechschulte brings great pain and sadness, as well as anger to his reading Teddy Daniels and his investigation of Shutter Island. A great recording that is easy to get lost in, even when you are on your way to your destination.

2. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami: Read by Patrick Lawlor and Ellen Archer: This, along with the recording of my Number one pick, changed my view on the book itself. I always liked Murakami’s novels over his stories, but Lawlor’s understated readings of “New York Mining Disaster”, “The Mirror” and “Chance Traveller” gave me new insight into these nuggets of strange happenings, and I listen to them on a regular basis.

1. Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell: Read by Robert Petkoff: A recording that immediately elevated the book’s standing from something I enjoyed to absolutely loved, Petkoff’s vitriolic, ironic and downright annoyed reading of this propulsive novel is as addicting as any kind of page turner. The violence, the twists and turns, not to mention the medical advice, comes to colorful life over the course of six hours I wouldn’t be surprised you memorize over time.

Review: "NOS4A2" by Joe Hill

Simply put: NOS4A2 is Joe Hill’s masterpiece, but not in the sense that it is the best thing he is going to do in his writing career. While I hate to compare him to his world famous father (even though this book does make references to Shawshank Penitentiary and Derry, Maine), this book is going to do for Hill’s career what the novel It did for his dad. It acts as a culmination of all of the themes he has become famous for. It’s a grand statement in a grand 700-page book that makes all of his previous novels look minor in comparison. Hill has carved out quite a place for himself in the horror genre, one completely separate from his famous namesake. His stories are like classic fairy tales with very adult themes and extremely real and graphic violence, whether that be a crowbar in Horns, or a giant autopsy mallet like in this one. He blends these two distinct themes and uses that narrative concoction to tell a story with great humane depth and insight into normal and damaged people confronted with a harrowing situation. They approach the situation much like we would, with a sense of hesitation and doubt as to whether or not we are strong enough to defeat what is in front of us. And while a lot of his books and stories have a giant mean streak (look no further than his story “The Cape” or his comic series Locke and Key), he never sacrifices the heart of a story, or its emotional impact for cheap shocks. This novel begins when we meet Vic McQueen, a young girl from a tenuous home, who discovers that the bike her dad got her for her birthday is actually a talisman that is able to bridge the gap between the real world and her imagination in the form of a covered bridge that acts as a pathway between lost and found. When her mother loses a bracelet at their vacation spot, Vic simply rides her bike over the bridge, and comes upon the restaurant where she left it. We then meet Charles Talent Manx, a truly terrifying villain, who drives around in a 1938 Rolls Royce Wraith that, for a lack of a better word, runs on human souls, but not just any souls; the souls of innocent children. Manx drives around the country, “saving” children from broken homes, and taking them to a place called Christmasland, with truly horrifying results. Eventually there two fates collide, which leads to Manx being arrested and the world thinking Vic is a lunatic, despite being married to Lou, a nice, albeit unappealing guy, and authoring a successful children’s book series. After ten years, the Wraith gets restored, and Manx wakes up from his coma looking for revenge, in the form of Vic’s son Wayne. This book is never boring, and many people will get through its girth faster than I did. It really is a mammoth achievement on par with the novel It. You’d be hard pressed not to see similarities between Manx and Pennywise and Christmasland and the Deadlights. But all comparisons aside, this book is a truly original trip into the fantastical, with one of the most perfect and endearing endings to a genre book I have ever read. It all adds up to the best novel by one of our finest writers, and the good thing is that he is just getting started.

Rating: 5/5