Under a Pole Star, by Stef Penney

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Stef Penney

I received this book thanks to Netgalley

What do you do when your hometown is beaten by a dreadful heatwave? You read one of Stef Penney’s stories to find yourself transported to the most northern, snowy and chilly places of the earth.

 

Under a Pole Star is a fictional recreation of the first expeditions who went to the North Pole in the late 1800s, journeys that were equally thrilling and dangerous. The main character is Flora Mackie, a motherless girl who, from the age of twelve, is taken by his father to Ellesmere Island on his whaler, spending most of her younger years living with the Eskimos. However, as she grows up into a young woman, his father no longer thinks a ship full of men is suitable for her, so she is left in Britain to get a formal education. But, for Flora, the North is her home and, despite women don’t travel to such places, she sets up an unprecedented expedition, leaded by herself.

I have enjoyed so much reading about these expeditions. First of all, they had to find sponsors to cover all the costs, to whom they would later named newly discovered peaks and lakes after. The men spent the winter in the Eskimos’ villages trading, packing and planning for their trips, which started in springtime and must inevitably include Eskimo hunters with their dog sleds, because the British and American men were unable to provide food or transportation for themselves under such conditions.

And then, from a humanly approach, the explorers were under the pressure of discovering something to bring back home, to have a successful adventure that claimed new land to their countries, to discover new species, new islands, new whatever; and such pressure may lead some of them to embellish their notes up to the point of deceiving the general public in order to get new funds for further journeys. All in an atmosphere of competition among the different expeditions in a land where the best you can do to survive is work together.

I could be talking about the expeditions forever, but coming back to the main storyline, I loved to see a female character leading groups of men into the Arctic. Everyone was really surprised to see a woman there – except for the Eskimos, who knew Flora since she was a child and could speak with her in their own language – so she had to look and act severe to be respected. The story also includes a romance between Flora and Jakob de Beyn, an American geologist who meets in Greenland, and goes back and forth between the two, one in America and the other in Britain. They share a deep fascination for those remote lands and the lack of attachment to the rest of the world, and this understanding leads to a unique love story.

I can’t help but recommend this book that, for me, has everything: historical notes about the golden age of explorers in the Arctic, a woman assuming what at the time was a man’s role, beautiful but indomitable lands, and a delightful romance.

PS: I chose this book because I have already read Penney’s The tenderness of wolves (review), which I also enjoyed.

Under a Pole Star
Stef Penney
Quercus Books
610 pages

The ballroom, by Anna Hope

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Anna Hope

I received this book from Netgalley

In 1911, a young woman called Ella is confined in a mental asylum against her will. In her first moments there she tries to escape and catches the attention of John, another inmate who is working in the fields around the institution. But Ella’s attempt to flee doesn’t succeed and soon she finds herself getting used to the routines and the people of the asylum.

Charles, one of the doctors of the institution, is a frustrated musician who, in an attempt to bring his job and his calling together, is studying the effect that music has on the mentally ill people under his care, gathering the women in a music room during some hours of the day, and assembling a dance for the men and the women together every Friday evening in a magnificent ballroom inside the building – the only moment men and women are allowed to interact with each other. Charles’ revolutionary method seems to go very well, supplying the doctor with enough evidence to support that mental illness can be cured – the doctor wants to present his conclusions against the Eugenics movement, whose supporters think of castrating men with these mental conditions as the solution to the spreading of illness and poverty.

The asylum where the book is set really existed.
Source.

As the previous novel of Anna Hope, I was hooked on the atmosphere of the book. Ella’s point of view is of a weak woman, scared of this new place where people are “crazy”, but secretly brave enough to try to find her way out. John’s chapters are more masculine and apathetic; he is always working outside in the fields whereas the women are always doing chores inside the building. But from his first meeting with Ella, the seed of freedom begins to grow, so he tries to bring little treasures from the outside world for Ella, taking risks to write and send her letters, and feeling like his old self again. On the other hand, Charles’ chapters talk about the way other people see the institution and how dangerous was to be considered “different” in that time, taking into account the healing methods in mental asylums.

This is probably the best novel I have read this year; from the story of impossible love between these two characters whose destiny are in others’ hands, to how easily one might confuse madness and sanity and who has the right to decide if you must be freed or locked in; I felt the author has created a wonderful story on the basis of mental health.

The ballroom
Anna Hope
Published by Random House
320 pages

Memoirs, tales and short stories: mini-reviews from October’16 Readathon

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Anna Gavalda, Marga Minco, Sjón

As I told you, I chose short books for the Readathon, and that was the best idea I ever had: I read five books during the event! And, this is remarkable, all of them were interesting and enjoyable reads. This was a surprise because I just browsed the library and borrowed books based entirely on their number of pages, without any further information about them but the synopsis on the back cover.

I read almost all of them in Spanish, but I have seen they have also been translated into English, so I am free to recommend them here on my blog  🙂

Bitter Herbs: The Vivid Memories of a Fugitive Jewish Girl in Nazi Occupied Holland (Marga Minco)

This is a memoir of the author, and I think it is considered a classic in some Northern European countries, like The diary of Anne Frank.

The story starts when the German soldiers enter Marga’s town and, when she asks her father if they are going to deport the Jews, like they were doing in Germany, he says that ‘Something like that could never happen here‘. Her family didn’t want to leave the country and none of them survived except Marga.

It is a terrible story, of course, but the author doesn’t put any sentimentalism on the text; she just gives us her memories as facts for us to cover the passages with the fear and pain Marga must have felt in her youth.

Book on Goodreads.

The blue fox (Sjón)

This is a short tale set in the middle of the Nineteenth Century in Iceland. I thought I was going to read a story of men against nature, but I was very wrong.

The story starts with a priest chasing a fox for its fur but, as they move towards the mountains through the snow, the narration is interrupted to tell us what has happened those days in the village. There has been a death, and thanks to the preparations for her funeral, we are going to know the story of a girl who was “different”.

This is that kind of book you don’t want to talk about so much, for the prospective readers to discover the story by themselves. It is thought-provoking, sad and beautiful.

Book on Goodreads.

I wish someone were waiting for me somewhere (Anna Gavalda)

This is a collection of short stories and, even though it is not a genre of my liking, I have to recommend it, because most of the stories are shocking, affecting the reader in one way or another.

What they have in common is the impact of one single event that, in less than a minute, changes everything. Apart from this, there are different genres, characters, situations, etc.

I specially liked three of them: a humorous story about two rich boys who take their father’s car without permission; one about a female veterinarian who has trouble making herself a place in a small village; and one about a salesman whose life has been destroyed by himself alone.

Book on Goodreads.

The lost diaries of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by Sarah Bates

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Sarah Bates

I received this book thanks to Virtual Authors Book Tours

The lost diaries of Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a work of fiction based on the early life of this historical figure, Elizabeth Cady Stanton: her family background, her education, and her willingness of being equal as any men from an early age; all of which is presented in small chapters narrating some events, followed by the possible entry that could have been written in this girl’s diary.

Elizabeth was born in a wealthy family and was exposed to the law, and the inequality of it regarding men and women rights, thanks to her father, the judge Daniel Cady. She liked, from an early age, to take part in the lessons and discussions that her father assembled at home with his students and, being Mr. Cady an abolitionist, she took some of his ideas as her own.

She fought hard to get an education further than what was expected for a girl like her, and she always presented herself like an equal to the men she encountered on parties and other social gatherings, trying to make points in conversations that were not supposed to be suitable for women. This behaviour, perhaps, didn’t make her a good match at the eyes of the prospective husbands of her time, but it certainly gave her the opportunity to choose a husband whose ideals match her own, as finally happened.

I found the book interesting – a great portrait of the time and personal background of this woman, addressing all the important events in her life, such as her academic awards, the death of her older brother, her approach about the abolition of slavery, a setback caused by the influence of the Revival meetings when she was a student, her forbidden love for her brother-in-law, etc. However, I have to say that sometimes the narration appeared as a mere description of events, lacking the emotional display needed in some scenes (to my liking, at least). Besides, the opening of the book introduces Elizabeth in her sixties, about to give a lecture, and then goes back to her childhood until the last chapter, when I had forgotten all about the lecture and the characters involved in the first chapter, which was kind of a shock because I didn’t remember what was happening and why now one of the characters was upset.

But, in summary, I have to say that I really enjoyed knowing about this historical figure. The book fulfills its role as an introduction of the early years of Elizabeth and how she became the strong-minded woman who fought for women rights and the abolitionist movement later in life.

The lost diaries of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, by Sarah Bates
420 pages
Book on Amazon
Book on Goodreads
Follow the tour
Sarah Bates’ website

Buxton Spice, by Oonya Kempadoo (a #diverseathon book)

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Oonya Kempadoo

When I signed in on Twitter after the exams I saw everybody talking about a discussion generated on BookTube that crystallized in a “diverse-a-thon”, meaning a week for reading “diverse” books and learn intentionally about other cultures, religions, races, sexual orientations, etc., through your reads. I didn’t have to look so far, for I had already a book from the library set in Guyana that fitted perfectly for the purpose of the event.

Buxton Spice is a coming-of-age story narrated by a pre-teen girl in a fictional village of this Caribbean country, surrounded by an atmosphere of political change and ethnical disturbances that makes the discovery of her new sexual nature even more disturbing.

I think that the main goal of the book is to describe how girls’ sexuality is developed within this community, with Lula and her friends as guides. At the beginning of the narration the girls’ approach towards sex is an amusing one; it’s something they witness on a daily basis so, even though they don’t understand it completely, they joke and play games about it. However, Lula’s encounter with one of the village’s boys, make her actually feel it, and that changes her.

The discovery of sexuality is the theme of the book, and I have to say that sometimes it is overwhelmingly so; it’s an environment in which sex is everywhere and young girls want to be part of it too because they are somehow exposed and expected to be so, but they are still so misinformed and naïve, trying to make sense of their new sensations. So if you, as a reader, have any prejudice towards this subject on books, this may not be of your liking.

Anyway, I am glad I have read the book because the author makes you take part in this community, which is so different from what I have experienced; and I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t even know where Guyana was in the map – such is the size of my ignorance, which was sorted out thanks to this story. However, there were aspects of the novel that didn’t like that much. For example, the narration sometimes is focused on describing certain characters and, therefore, lacking action and making the read slow and, when there are actually events happening, you don’t feel them connected. Besides, and that is my own handicap to blame, the language used in the book is that of the dialect or the accent of the people of this country, and I really had trouble in understanding some of the conversations.

Nevertheless, Buxton Spice is an interesting read with a subject not wide spread through literature in a country where most of us haven’t read books set in, and those are points to take into account when looking for diverse reads, aren’t they?

Did you participate in the diverseathon? Do you have any recommendations?

Buxton Spice
Oonya Kempadoo
Published by Phoenix (UK and Canada)
Paperback, 184 pages

The tenderest scenes in “Orphan Train”

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Christina Baker Kline

One of the books this year for my book club was Orphan train and, thanks to Allison, who sent me a copy two years ago, I have read the original version.

The book was very popular when it was published and I have very little to add to the wonderful reviews I’ve read (here you can read Allison’s), so I have decided to write about the scenes I liked the most in this story and the feelings arisen while reading:

1) The comfort Vivian found in the school she attended to when living with a poor and miserable family in the country. I liked the character of the teacher, a young woman who represents all those teachers in rural areas who knew that the children were expected to little more than learning to read and write, so then they can help in the farms, escaping from the very thing that could made them live a better life: education. Despite the circumstances, they welcomed the children every day with a smile, trying to make the school a place for them to enjoy, a refuge to act as the children they still were.

2) The feeling of finding someone who knows the real “you”; someone with whom you don’t have to pretend. Vivian has lived in different places, with different families, her name changed a couple of times… But after some time she reunites with a boy from her childhood, and the bond they have makes her feel like she has finally found a place to call home. It’s very romantic!

3) These peculiar beliefs we experience regarding objects: we rely on objects that make us feel safe, when in fact we are the ones responsible for our own safety and happiness. In the book, Vivian and Molly, in the past and the present, have amulets they don’t want to get rid of because they think that otherwise they will forget their roots. It’s not possible to forget certain people or memories, but still, we hang on things which represent them.

This is a book written to be loved by the readers – a story based on true but not well known events of the past, and a lovely child as main character to touch our hearts. Highly recommended.

Orphan train
Cristina Baker Kline
Published by William Morrow Papaerbacks
276 pages

And after the fire, by Lauren Belfer

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Lauren Belfer

I received this book from the publisher for review.

“And after the fire” tells the story of a lost cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, stolen from a house in Germany after World War II and now in the hands of a young woman, Susanna, who, in order to find if the manuscript has any value, asks music scholar Dan Erhardt for help. Not only does Dan confirm that the manuscript has Bach’s own handwriting on it, which could lead to an astonishing breakthrough, but he also notices the extremely controversial verses accompanying the music – anti-Semitic verses written in German to perform in church services, no less.

Alternating chapters, the story of such manuscript is revealed from the moment Bach’s eldest son gives it to his most talented music student, a Jew young woman called Sara Itzig, in the belief that she will comprehend its value and keep it from anti-Semitic Christian hands, who are gaining power in Prussia in the late eighteenth century. This – the decay of the Jewish prominence in the European elite – is the main topic of this half of the book, in which Sara’s family endure, devoting themselves to music.

The historical part of the story, based on real characters of the past, was as interesting as the main plot set in the present, where Susanna and Dan try to discover the whereabouts of a cantata that has been hidden for so many years, and the implications of revealing its existence to the public – music and verses written by the master which claim the convenience of burning the Jews don’t seem very appropriate, right? Besides, these contemporary characters are interesting by themselves; their backgrounds make the reader feel sympathy for them.

There are minor parts of the book I didn’t found that good, like the kind-of love triangle that includes Susanna, Dan and a friend of his, unnecessary in this story, but there is one scene that I particularly disliked and I need to tell you: Susanna and Dan travel to Germany and, at the hotel, people stare at her in disgust because she is a Jew and they end up making a scene there. In 2010! I’m not talking about the fact that they are in a hotel and the other guests might not even be Germans, but I find it utterly implausible the author’s affirmation that Germans nowadays are anti-Semitic and are keen to show this in public, not to mention the fact that I don’t really think people can tell someone is a Jew just by their appearance. That said, I have never been in Germany myself.

So I’ll pretend I haven’t read such a scene because, overall, this was a good book; I enjoyed reading about real musicians of the past, as well as wondering if we’ll ever find out about the mysteries that have been kept secret.

And after the fire
Lauren Belfer
Published by Harper
464 pages

Wake, by Anna Hope

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Anna Hope

This is a beautifully written story set just after World War, I in which the protagonists, three women, endure in a world that has change everyone forever.

Ada was once a mother, but her son died in the war and she wakes up everyday just to chase his ghost; she didn’t received that second letter the others seemed to get from the army, and she thinks it means her Michael is still alive. Evelyn lost her boyfriend in the war, and she now works in an office processing the government pensions for the injured, not letting herself get over her loss. Besides, her brother Ed, which whom she was very close in the past, has changed and seems like another man after the war; just the same as Hettie’s brother, who lives in his own mind since he came from France, and now she acts like the head of a broken family, working as a dancing instructor in a famous club in London and giving half of the money she earns to an ungrateful mother.

These are three women very different from each other with only one thing in common: their unhappiness. Britain won the war, yes, but that didn’t prepare them for all the broken families, the amputees begging in the streets or the general sentiment of failure that was the opposite of what a victory was expected to bring them. The three storylines run from the previous days of the Unknown Warrior parade in November 1920 to the event itself; they are not properly intertwined, they just have some characters who appear throughout the story of the three protagonists and let the reader understand the horrors the men now have to live with.

I really enjoyed this book, this unspoken reality of the months after the war, of those women longing for their men to come back, only to find that the closeness they once shared was forever lost in the battlefields.

Wake, by Anna Hope
305 pages
Published by Random House.

The picture book (The undertow), by Jo Baker

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Jo Baker

I was really excited about this book due to my love for family sagas, but it didn’t turn out as I expected.

The story follows the family history of the Hastings since the Great War, when Will joins the army and leaves Amelia pregnant and living with her in-laws. They have a correspondence during the war and Will sends postcards of the places where he is stationed, postcards that will be kept in an album for the generations of Hastings to discover.

All the descendents of the generations to come are, somehow, miserable: Amelia will have a hard time raising her child alone, and her son, Will, is going to be a great athlete, but never to the point of winning important competitions due to his poor upbringing. Will’s son (also called Will) is born with a physical disability, which is more shameful taking into account his father’s love for physical activities; the boy is good at studying and will become a professor in Oxford, but he will never get rid of the feeling that he isn’t good enough. And finally my favourite part: set in the present age and about Billie, a young woman who doesn’t know if she should continue pursuing her dream of becoming a painter.

My copy of the book

The album appears in the story here and there, but it’s not the guide along the narration. We get to know certain scenes of the life of the Hastings, and I felt like some parts needed further development: in one chapter a scene is described in detail and, in the next, several years have passed and we are talking about different things (or people!), so I would like to have explanations in between in order to truly understand the characters.

In summary, I liked the book – the story of several generations of a British family, their differences and the weight they carry from the past – but I couldn’t help feeling something important was missing.

The picture book
Jo Baker
450 pages, Portobello Books (British edition)
Read My Own Damn Books: 7th book

The storyteller, by Jodi Picoult

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Jodi Picoult

What a thought-provoking book! It’s about evil, goodness, and the fact that the two of them can converge into the same person.

Sage Singer is a solitary girl who works at night in a bakery, hidden from the world by her own choice because she thinks she is not worthy of love, friendship, or being happy. One day, she makes friends with Josef, a respected old man from the community where she lives and, shockingly, he confesses to her that he was an SS Nazi guard at Auschwitz and asks her to help him die.

Of course, Sage’s first reaction (after denial, that is, because such a confession seemed more likely to be a made up story by an old man) is disgust for all the crimes committed by Josef in the past, but then again, that was long time ago, and the man he is now is completely different: a nice teacher who has been helping others for years. Might the new Josef redeem the old one? Who is to judge?

Intertwined in this story, there is also Minka’s; she is Sage’s grandmother and a Holocaust survivor who has kept the horror she lived to herself, becoming a new person with a new life once she moved to America. But now Sage needs to know, and Minka finally releases her story, in which Josef plays also a part. Therefore, if the reader was feeling pity for a ninety-year-old man who took part in the world’s worst crimes but voluntarily decided to become a new person, now is willing to change her mind after knowing Minka’s story in Auschwitz.

As far as I know, Picoult’s books are always this controversial. The characters play the two points of view of the story, both of them explained in detail for the reader to sympathize and one has to decide for herself, which is not an easy task. And then again, we are not the ones to judge, but we can’t avoid judging either.

So, if you are looking for a book (or an author, for that matter) to challenge your values and morality, this is a great option. Besides, I never get tired of stories set in World War II, and this particular one is well written: raw and bitter when necessary, but well balanced with kindness and humour thanks to secondary characters in both storylines.

PS: This book was not on my list for the Read my own damn books Challenge, but I have other four books by this author waiting on my shelves 😉

The storyteller
Jodi Picoult
Atria Books, 460 pages
Book on Goodreads