The Girls by Emma Cline

This book blew me away. For a first novel, the writing is nothing short of amazing. Emma Cline is a rare talent, and I look forward to reading many more of her books.

Like Evie, the main character in this book, I was 14 years old in 1969 and remember the Manson murders well. This book is a fictionalized version of "the girls" who followed Manson and were drawn into his sphere. Evie is a pretty normal 14 year old, wanting attention from boys, hanging out at her friend Connie's house and flirting with her older brother, Peter. This was the era of hippies and flower children and free love, and this was San Francisco, pretty much the hub of hippie-ism at that time. Evie sees a group of girls dumpster-diving in a parking lot and becomes enthralled with Suzanne, an older girl who doesn't seem to have a care in  the world. After a spat with Connie, Evie happens to meet up with Suzanne and the other girls again when her bike breaks, and they give her a ride to their ranch, where she meets Russell (the Manson character in this book). Evie likes the commune lifestyle and starts spending more time at the ranch, while her mom thinks she is with Connie all the time. In the back of her mind, Evie knows something is not right, but in teenage rebellion fashion, she stays with the group at the ranch and is somewhat in love with Suzanne, who has become her idol. Her story is told in alternating times from the present to 1969. Even though you know where the story is going, you have to keep turning the pages, going with Evie into that ever-darker spiral leading to unspeakable horror.

This book is fast-paced and beautifully written, and it sucks you into Evie's journey so completely that you forget everything else going on around you until you finally reach the last page. Emma Cline captures the era and the teen culture of the late 1960s so well that I would swear she was my age. Her writing is a joy to read, so descriptive that you can imagine every detail in your mind. There are parts that are disturbing, but Cline goes lightly on the graphic violence. Some is necessary for the story though. This is a five-star book that I would recommend to anyone who remembers the Manson murders or is interested in learning about them from an insider's point of view.

Portrait of a Girl by Dorthe Binkert

I got this book as a Kindle First selection. It seemed like it would be interesting in the description. I wasn't too enthused when I started reading it, but I kept hoping it would redeem itself. First off, there were glaring errors, such as the use of modern slang ("Whatever") when this is supposedly taking place in the 1890s. There were too many minor characters and subplots that didn't add to the story. The author "telling" rather than "showing" -- repeatedly saying thing like "He felt sad" or "James gave his friend an amused look." What does an "amused look" look like? How about "James cocked an eyebrow and grimaced at his friend"? Give us a visual. The book is written in omniscient third person, so the author knows what's inside everyone's head, which I don't really care for. Maybe something was lost in translation, but the writing style is drab and boring, and nothing really happened in the book that was compelling. It just seemed to drag on forever. I held on until the end, but it was a letdown too.

Life and Other Near-Death Experiences by Camille Pagan

I chose this book as a Kindle First selection, and it took me a while to get to it, but I started reading it on my vacation last week and finished it in a couple days. I literally could not put it down. Based on the description, I was afraid it might be dark and sad, but that was definitely not the case! It is very well written, and interjected with just the right amounts of angst, humor, and despair - just like real life. In fact, the main character Libby, and those around her, are so believable that this could have been a memoir rather than a novel. We come into Libby's life in her mid-30s, when she is diagnosed with a rare and terrible form of cancer. Having lost her mother to cancer when she was just 10 years old, she reacts by running out of the doctor's office and vowing to not receive treatment. Arriving at home in tears, her beloved husband misunderstands her distress and drops another bomb on her, throwing her right over the edge. Suddenly "kittens and rainbows" Libby is Demon Libby. She throws her husband out, puts their condo up for sale, quits her job, and flies to Puerto Rico for a month without even telling her twin brother or her father. No spoilers here, but Libby meets some people there who change her life.

Libby is very real, and her struggles are ones that any one of us might have to go through at some point or another. We never know how we will react to bad news until it happens. Libby's journey is compelling and at times hilarious. I love Camille Pagan's writing style, and look forward to more from her. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Hitwolf by Fred Adams Jr.

This book, based in the Vietnam War era, pulls us into the slimy underworld of the New Jersey mafia and the ongoing war between two of the mob families, run by Michael Monzo and Martin "Mardi Gras" Stubbs, respectively. But that's not all - Stubbs has gotten hold of a werewolf that he uses to kill his enemies. His werewolf bites one of Monzo's men, making him a werewolf too.

Enter John Slate, former mercenary and current construction worker, who happens to be in the same dive bar with Monzo and Pegg, the wizard who controls werewolves with an amulet. A biker gang comes in and starts a fight, and Monzo is so impressed with Slate's fighting skills that he kidnaps him and turns him into a werewolf to add to his arsenal.

The mob  wars escalate with the addition of werewolves, needless to say. Slate is a little too smart to be held captive for long though.

Although this is not the type of book I would normally pick up, I can truly say that I read it from cover to cover in practically one sitting. There is a lot of gory violence, but since it is fantasy it didn't really bother me as it might in another genre. The characters are interesting and well-developed, and the story moves along at a rapid pace with a cool ending. This book will not disappoint!

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

This book is fine for beginning writers, but I do have a couple of problems with it:

One, not everyone is a good writer. Yes, many people have inherent talent for writing, but Goldberg‘s collection of essays seems to suggest that every student in her writing classes had enormous talent that they were unaware of. I am sure lots of people who are told to “just write” will still write badly, so don’t sugar-coat it.

Two, I understand the book was first published in 1986. But when it was republished in 2005, it would have been good to update it a little. For instance, how many writers are sitting in coffee shops all day with notebooks and pens? At least put them in Panera with a laptop, for Christ’s sake. These kinds of references made the book seem horribly outdated.

In all, it is an easy book to read, although I didn’t find it earth-shattering or really learn anything I didn’t already know about writing. It’s more of a rah-rah type of book to give encouragement to those who need it.

Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum

This is a book I received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I rated this book a 3 because I struggle with what to say about it. It is a dark book, following the life of central character Anna Benz, who is a very troubled young woman. A transplant from the States who married a Swiss man, moved to Zurich and had three children in nine years, she still has no friends and cannot speak the language. Upon her husband’s encouragement, she enrolls in a Swiss German class. Anna is also in psychoanalysis, but never seems to tell her doctor anything about herself – she only asks insipid questions. In fact, Anna is an insipid woman. She does not live her life, but lets life happen to her in a passive way. If a man smiles at her, she jumps into bed with him and spends her days having sex with several different men while her mother-in-law watches her children and her husband is at work. She does fall in love with one of her affairs, but he moves back to the States and left her behind to pick up the pieces. The other men are used to fill a void that will never be filled.

I found the book hard to get into, because it jumps around incessantly from Anna’s escapades, to her analysis sessions, to her German classes, also jumping around in time from past to present and back again. It was a little disconcerting. The story was compelling enough to keep me reading until the end, but I wouldn’t say it was a page-turner. I just wanted to find out what happens. A book has to be really bad for me to put it down before finishing it.

Essbaum uses German words and their meanings from the German class as reflections of Anna’s state of mind in a clever way, and it obvious she did a lot of research for the book. The writing is good, although not my cup of tea. The sessions with Doktor Messerli became somewhat tiresome and repetitive. There is a lot of sex, which is well written and I did not find offensive in any way. I just found Anna to be like an empty doll, just rolling along wherever the tide carries her. The story is believable and could very well happen in real life; I just couldn’t identify with Anna or have sympathy for her. As expected, Anna’s dalliances come to a head and she goes into a tailspin, but no spoilers here.

The Witch of Napoli by Michael Schmicker

This is a book I received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book caught my eye because I’ve always been interested in witchcraft and the occult, ever since high school. Loosely based on the real-life story of Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918), a controversial and famous Italian medium, it blends fact and fiction to tell the story of Allesandra Poverelli through the eyes of her friend and believer, Tomaso Labella. Just 16 when he photographs one of her table levitations for the newspaper, Tomaso becomes enthralled with Allesandra, who is in her 40s. I won’t go into great detail on the story synopsis, as plenty of other reviewers have done so, but the gist is that Allesandra’s powers are challenged publicly, and she and Tomaso embark on a tour of Europe with Camillo Lombardi, a psychiatrist/professor who was a skeptic but became a believer after his own mother appeared to him in a séance. Lombardi arranges the tour so Allesandra can prove herself to the doubters, who do their best to make it impossible for Allesandra to play tricks. Meanwhile, her abusive husband Pigotti is after her, the Vatican is trying to discredit her, and Allesandra is sick. The stress of the tour and her illness make it increasingly difficult for her to perform.

The book is well-written and kept me turning the pages. It made me want to look up Eusapia Palladino and learn more about her, and I found that Allesandra’s story pretty much parallels Eusapia’s. It is an interesting read and would make a cool film.