Last week I finished:
I looked into Rush after seeing it on Modern Mrs. Darcy's website, and after hemming and hawing, I finally bought a copy. I tend to enjoy stories set in the South, and that's what sold me on it. The story focuses on a fictitious sorority at Ole Miss and the struggles of various characters to belong, in one way or another. There are past decisions and hurts to be overcome, racism to address, and a community of 400-some girls to keep together. When Miss Pearl, the housekeeper of the sorority house for the last 25 years wants to move up to the job of House Manager, the snooty, moneyed, House Corp President tells her she isn't qualified (which is literally true). The girls band together to make some changes. I enjoyed this book quite a lot. It's long (about 400 pages), but it's a fast read. Its tone is rather light though it addresses some big issues. The writing is good, nothing superfluous. While the characters are good, they are a little 2-D. The good are too all-around good, and the bad are too evil. This grew more and more annoying, but it never really stopped me from enjoying the reading experience. The setting of Ole Miss almost served as another character, which I loved. Knowing what I know about campus politics, and being attuned to the national discourse on race, I did feel that many of the plot points are much too simplistic and rather idealistic. But all in all, this was a nice, fun read, with a strong sense of community and a message about our next generation moving us forward. If you're sick to death of social justice-themed books, you'll probably still like this one as it isn't too preachy, and pretty much everyone agrees on everything. My rating: 4 stars. 
Speaking of social justice, I happened into buying and immediately reading a Kindle copy of The Other Wes Moore. I'd been interested in the book since it came out in 2010, but it took me these eight years to get around to reading it. This is the nonfiction account of two black boys named Wes Moore who grew up in the same rough neighborhood but ended up living two wildly different lives. One ended up in prison for armed robbery, the other became a military veteran, Rhodes scholar, and White House fellow. Neither really had advantages over the other and both were raised without fathers, but one escaped and one was consumed by violence, drugs, and street life. The book gives the biographies of both boys (the author is one of the Weses), alternating between the two. It often got hard for me to follow or remember which was which, until they got older and their paths diverged. The book was told with warmth and impartiality. Where it failed was in bringing everything together. The question every reader will ask is "what was it that made the difference for one Wes Moore and what was it that doomed the other?" Our author doesn't really want to touch that question, and while that can spur good discussions, having no one to discuss it with, I was left with a "ho hum" feeling. We can all identify the problems, but until we are able to identify the solutions, we're bound to live in a repeating cycle of violence, drugs, gangs, and incarceration. Who better than a veteran of that environment to give us some clues? I know that some inner-city kids prosper and some perish--and that it's not due to luck that some get out--but I wanted to know why from someone who lived it. I do wish the author would write a more in-depth analysis of the issue. I'd welcome that. Perhaps his more recent book, The Work, is what I'm looking for. My rating: 4 stars.
I'm always looking for good books to listen to on audio. I can't remember where I first heard about Dear Mrs. Bird, but I quickly added it to my audio TBR. Emmy wants to be a journalist war correspondent covering World War II, and when she lands a job at a newspaper, she thinks she's on her way. What she's really landed, however, is a job reading letters to old-fashioned Mrs. Bird for a women's advice column. She is told to discard any letter that touches on anything unpleasant--and she's given a long list of what constitutes unpleasant. But Emmy wants to help those women, girls her age who are in difficult situations hoping for some advice, so she takes to secretly answering some of the letters, and even covertly publishing some of her replies under Mrs. Bird's name. This book failed me in a couple of ways. First, although the book is billed as being about the letters and the replies, that's less than half of the plot. The literary world does not need another book about the World War II air raids over London and the mortal consequences of it. I thought I was getting a WWII story of another stripe, but I got the same rehash. It wasn't a bad rehash, but it certainly wasn't anything new, either. Secondly, Emmy's replies to the letters are never shown in the book. Why would I care that she replied unless I knew how she replied? (It is totally possible that a reply was included in the book and it was so bland and unmemorable that I listened right through it.) Lastly, I absolutely detest it when books try to drum up feminist outrage. Real girls and women are being raped, beaten, tortured, sold, and denied human rights all over the world, that's what we need to be getting outraged about. I refuse to get outraged that during World War II women didn't want to respond to other women's letter about getting knocked up by a soldier she barely knew, or whatever. I'll save my outrage for something a little bigger. Frankly, it wasn't a bad book, but following so many stellar WWII books, it wasn't good enough to stand out--and I think it was mis-marketed. My rating: 3 stars.
Last week I abandoned:
I was looking SO forward to reading The Bride Price, but after getting about 50 pages in, I just decided it wasn't for me. Something about the tone, I think. I wanted to learn more, but it felt too negative, not quite personable enough, and poorly paced. It's like the book didn't quite know what it wanted to be.
And I finally settled on:
I'm enjoying this one, which has been on my TBR for months and months.
My nighttime reads:
I'm still enjoying all of these, though it is one too many. The decorating book is getting short shrift.
My audiobook:
You can't walk into a bookstore or thrift shop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin without finding multiple copies of this book. I finally picked up a copy, then decided to listen to it instead. It's wonderful. I'll post a review next week.
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