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Title: Wild Beauty
Author: Anna-Marie McLemore
Published: Feiwel & Friends, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 236,860
Text Number: 755
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Nomeolvides women of La Pradera are cursed: they grow flowers from nothing, confining them to one property and driving away their lovers. In this generation, all five of the Nomeolvides cousins are in love with the same young woman. This is reminiscent of Practical Magic, but made more diverse and aware re: gender, race, and class. The premise and atmosphere is in line with what I expect from McLemore, magical and evocative, mournful and cursed; the feminine Nomeolvides household is especially well-rendered. Yet I confess that I had a hard time growing invested—the voice and styling is repetitive; the cousins slowly emerge as recognizable characters but I still wish the cast were smaller and more distinct. But if I have just one complaint, it's that the romantic privation of the premise is the best part of the book: the isolation and mourning creates a great intimacy but also a resonant sense of loss—so, while a plot needs progressions and resolution, I wish there were less, and much preferred the tensions and atmosphere in the book's first half to the plotting in the second half. But I still enjoyed it, and think it would benefit from a reread in the height of summer, as benefits the gardens of La Pradera.
Title: From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
Author: Caitlin Doughty
Illustrator: Landis Blair
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 237,130
Text Number: 756
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A funeral director/death advocate and enthusiast travels the globe to view worldwide funerary and mourning practices, the industrialized and traditional, the widespread and niche. This doesn't aim to be exhaustive (although one wishes it were a bit longer); it's not a death dictionary or resource text; thankfully, it's also not "white women responds to cultural diversity"—the personal element is emphasized, but doesn't revolve around Doughty and instead prefers to focus on community members (the section about Día de Muertos is especially good).
What this is is a limited survey of death rituals that raises overarching observations: these practices vary, and need to be viewed within social and historical context; everyone thinks everyone else's practices are weird, but the forces which motivate them overlap; the industrialization and depersonalization of the death industry looks and acts differently within each society, but, in general, isn't healthy for the bereaved. Much of this will be familiar to fans of Doughty's work elsewhere, but the arguments are convincing. While not a robust book, it's engaging and passionate and thoughtful; exactly what I expected from Doughty, and if you think you might like it then you're probably right. Blair's illustrations are a welcome touch, both to visualize the cultural details and to add to the morbidly whimsical aesthetic.
(Here's my favorite illustration.)
Title: Sister of My Heart
Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Narrator Julia Whelan
Published: Tantor Audio, 2012 (1997)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 237,465
Text Number: 757
Read Because: reading PoC, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In 1980s Calcutta, a pair of cousins as close as sisters find their bonds tested by their diverging backgrounds and futures. This is in equal parts richly textured and evocative, and saccharine and mundane—the voices are strong but the plotting verges on tedious (the commentary on gender and culture is purposeful but not especially robust); much hinges on the fairytale metaphors, which have the potential to offset the mundanity but too often just render the plot arcs obvious. More subtle elements, like the tensions within the relationships at the end of the book, are left relatively unexplored. Honestly, the combination honestly works more often than not; it's hypnotic comfort reading, especially in audio, and I don't regret it. But Divakaruni's style isn't for me.
Author: Anna-Marie McLemore
Published: Feiwel & Friends, 2017
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 350
Total Page Count: 236,860
Text Number: 755
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The Nomeolvides women of La Pradera are cursed: they grow flowers from nothing, confining them to one property and driving away their lovers. In this generation, all five of the Nomeolvides cousins are in love with the same young woman. This is reminiscent of Practical Magic, but made more diverse and aware re: gender, race, and class. The premise and atmosphere is in line with what I expect from McLemore, magical and evocative, mournful and cursed; the feminine Nomeolvides household is especially well-rendered. Yet I confess that I had a hard time growing invested—the voice and styling is repetitive; the cousins slowly emerge as recognizable characters but I still wish the cast were smaller and more distinct. But if I have just one complaint, it's that the romantic privation of the premise is the best part of the book: the isolation and mourning creates a great intimacy but also a resonant sense of loss—so, while a plot needs progressions and resolution, I wish there were less, and much preferred the tensions and atmosphere in the book's first half to the plotting in the second half. But I still enjoyed it, and think it would benefit from a reread in the height of summer, as benefits the gardens of La Pradera.
Title: From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
Author: Caitlin Doughty
Illustrator: Landis Blair
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 237,130
Text Number: 756
Read Because: fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A funeral director/death advocate and enthusiast travels the globe to view worldwide funerary and mourning practices, the industrialized and traditional, the widespread and niche. This doesn't aim to be exhaustive (although one wishes it were a bit longer); it's not a death dictionary or resource text; thankfully, it's also not "white women responds to cultural diversity"—the personal element is emphasized, but doesn't revolve around Doughty and instead prefers to focus on community members (the section about Día de Muertos is especially good).
What this is is a limited survey of death rituals that raises overarching observations: these practices vary, and need to be viewed within social and historical context; everyone thinks everyone else's practices are weird, but the forces which motivate them overlap; the industrialization and depersonalization of the death industry looks and acts differently within each society, but, in general, isn't healthy for the bereaved. Much of this will be familiar to fans of Doughty's work elsewhere, but the arguments are convincing. While not a robust book, it's engaging and passionate and thoughtful; exactly what I expected from Doughty, and if you think you might like it then you're probably right. Blair's illustrations are a welcome touch, both to visualize the cultural details and to add to the morbidly whimsical aesthetic.
(Here's my favorite illustration.)
Title: Sister of My Heart
Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Narrator Julia Whelan
Published: Tantor Audio, 2012 (1997)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 335
Total Page Count: 237,465
Text Number: 757
Read Because: reading PoC, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In 1980s Calcutta, a pair of cousins as close as sisters find their bonds tested by their diverging backgrounds and futures. This is in equal parts richly textured and evocative, and saccharine and mundane—the voices are strong but the plotting verges on tedious (the commentary on gender and culture is purposeful but not especially robust); much hinges on the fairytale metaphors, which have the potential to offset the mundanity but too often just render the plot arcs obvious. More subtle elements, like the tensions within the relationships at the end of the book, are left relatively unexplored. Honestly, the combination honestly works more often than not; it's hypnotic comfort reading, especially in audio, and I don't regret it. But Divakaruni's style isn't for me.
