Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

I started this book right after reading Station Eleven and that was a mistake.  Brooklyn’s prose just didn’t hold up.  Although, to be fair, Station Eleven was a hard act to follow. 

Brooklyn centres around the story of Eilis, a young (early twenties?) Irish girl who leaves her family in the early 50’s to seek out better opportunities in America.  And she did.  It was really straightforward!

I think if you suggested this book as a novel for a Catholic church book club, you’d have a winner on your hands.  The church features prominently and you can tell that the author himself is “of the people” (I can say that because so am I, haha).  He really nails the RC factor.  What I can’t tell is if everyone in the 50’s was really this pious or if that’s just the way Colm writes ‘em.  Like, what 20 year old girl is checking everything with her priest?  I don’t think my own Oma did that and she’s both a big RC fan and of the same era as this character. 

What made this book only ok was that it tells you exactly what’s going on.  There is never any subtext.  Most of the writing was along the lines of “She thought this was what he was thinking.  She was wrong, he thought this.  Then they went to the beach”.  I mean, obviously the author did a better job than me, but you never had to wonder what was going on or what people were thinking.  He really just spelled it out for you.

Overall, this was pleasant and forgettable – the fantastic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or the Namesake does a much better job of bringing the pre-hipster Brooklyn or the immigrant experience to light.  I can actually see how this story would make a better movie than book – the lack of narration would lend it a bit more mystery and gravitas.

It was fine.  I give it three Saturdays at confession out of five.  Now let us all turn to our neighbours and offer a sign of peace.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven is the best book I've read in 2016!  It's also only the second, so we will see how long it holds top spot.

That said, this was truly and excellent book.  Recommended to me by my good friend and Librarian extraordinaire, I also received this one for Christmas.  It tells the story of the collapse of society after an epidemic that kills 99% of the population.  Going back and forth through time to before the outbreak and after through the eyes of about a half dozen different characters, it examines how people survive and thrive.

The book centres around the heart attack and death of a famous actor performing King Lear in Toronto, on outbreak day one.  From there, we are taken to twenty years later and a band of roving artists performing shakespeare across the wasteland and their experience with a village of extreme religious fundamentalists.  Back and forth, it jumps through various points of time through a few perspectives as they all move to pull together a final portrait of a dead man.

This book was both a delight to read but also made me want to tell everyone about it - and let me tell you, I don't do that all the time (I read some embarrassing crap).  I think I have awkwardly promised to pass my copy on to a few different people, which should prove to be awkward as they all come calling over the next few days.

I'd give this book five out of five post-apocalyptic car-corpses.  If the end times come, I am going to not do too well, I like my conveniences I have learned.

The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie

The first book of 2016!  Technically, this was mostly read in 2015 but this is my blog and I make the rules, so it counts I say.

Anyway, coming out of the holidays I was desperate for some relaxation and so I picked the least challenging book from the stack I received at Christmas.  Christmas sets me up for months!

This was a fun, easy read about four sisters who end up over time becoming various mistresses to Louis XV.  It's based in fact but obviously, heavily fictionalized.  I love a good saucy historical novel so I was pretty excited to get into it.  What I liked was that it was well-researched and you could tell that the author did more than a cursory google search.

I also liked that the sisters were all well written without being overly saccharine - they were still products of their time and in some cases, weren't the most likeable of characters.  The book would have been a lot duller if they were all various copies of each other without any sharp points or bad decisions.

Books like this make me think I could do this - write a book or at least a short story that at once appeals to modern audiences but while still being respectful and truthful to the source material.  I am sure it's easier in my head than it is in reality though, haha.

Anyway, The Sisters of Versailles was a great start to 2016 without being too depressing, so I give it three and a half slut-shaming tabloid rags out of five.  On to the next!