Other Women's Stories: What I'm reading this week (3/25/19)

I'm home the first part of this week on my first "Readcation" of the year. I saved book seven of the Flavia de Luce mystery series for my days off. I can't imagine a better way to spend my reading time. I also have a lot of catching up to do on several other books. Wish me luck!

What I finished last week:

I love a good middle-grade reader, so I decided to listen to the newest Newbery Medal winner, Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina. This is the story of sixth-grader Cuban-American Merci who is in a new school. But in addition to navigating the changes at school, home is changing too. Her grandfather, whom she calls Lolo, is showing troubling signs of forgetfulness and aggression, and her big brother, Roli, is heading off to college in the fall. Add to all this the pill of a classmate, Edna Santos, and you have a pretty real look at a young girl's life. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The audio is very good, as the narrator gives certain characters true Spanish accents, which really brings the story to life. I kind of hope this becomes a series, because I could use more Merci. This is a good book for girls and boys in that tween stage. My rating: 4 stars.

Last year I listened to Daisy Goodwin's Victoria, which was a companion book to the PBS miniseries. It was one of my favorite listening experiences of the year. So I was excited to see if The American Heiress lives up to Victoria, and I'm happy to say it did. This is the story of American heiress Cora Cash who goes to England to (marry and) get a title. It's the only thing her family's enormous wealth can't buy. In short time she meets and marries a duke, but becoming a duchess in a society as inhospitable to Americans as the English one at the turn of the last century is not nearly as easy as she'd hoped it would be. There's not necessarily a lot of plot here (which I almost prefer in books), and the fun of the book is in the details. There's all the societal judgement, pettiness, intrigue, and scandal we come to love from stories of the Downton Abbey era. The characters were interesting and believable, if a bit exaggerated (though I think that exaggeration is what I liked about them). A word on the audio: This was more of a performance than most audiobooks I listen to. You're either going to love it or hate it. The high-society voices are just what you'd expect to hear, but they can grate on your nerves. The (American) Southern high-society voice of Cora's mother was especially good. I really liked this one, and I think Daisy Goodwin will become an auto-buy for me. Her stories are fun and interesting and break up the monotony of too much fiction. My rating: 4 stars.

Each year I re-read a Jane Austen novel in the order I originally read them. This year, it was Northanger Abbey's turn. This is likely Austen's least preferred novel, but there's something about it I like quite a bit. Our main character is Catherine Morland, an unassuming, simple, young lady who travels to Bath with some older acquaintances and meets some young people her own age. She falls for Mr. Tilney and becomes fast friends with his sister, but she has to ward off the unappreciated advances of the insufferable Mr. Thorpe. There's the usual issues with love and engagements, with positions and money. But this book is a little different from the others in that it has a lot to say about books, especially novels--that scandalous material they young folk are getting into. And I like the main character's naivety more than I like some of the other, better-known and more poised Austen girls. I even enjoyed the reading of this book more than some other Austen re-reads I've done lately. I didn't have the usual problems with getting to the end of a page of text and realizing I hadn't picked up anything. All in all, it was an enjoyable re-read. My rating: 4 stars.

Another of my recent re-reads was Stephanie Nielson's Heaven Is Here. Nielson is a blogger who writes (week)daily updates about her five children, her Mormon faith, and her life as a wife and mother. She also has a strong sense of style in clothing and décor, which I find interesting to follow. I started reading her blog after reading her book the first time, so I thought it would be nice to revisit the book for details I may have forgotten. In 2009, Nielson and her husband, Christian, were involved in a fiery plane crash (her husband was at the controls) that left them with burns over 80% of their body (if I remember correctly). Nielson was in an induced coma for several months before awaking to the long, hard road to physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. Most of the book chronicles her time in the burn unit and university hospital enduring untold pain and relearning simple tasks made much harder by the inflexibility of her too-tight skin. She recalls the difficulty of seeing her facial deformity for the first time and the heartbreaking ordeal of her small children's first visit to see her after the accident in which one child took one look and left the room and was unwilling to look at her for months afterward. This is an honest book, simply told, and it's guaranteed to put all of your daily gripes in perspective. It was also a good reminder to me to be gentle with those who are dealing with difficult things. There is a lot of talk of faith and the Father's love, which is a great reminder to all. My rating: 3.5 stars.

Years ago I read a poem by Polish poet Anna Swir (you can read it here), that I found so endearing, I added her to my list of poets to explore in depth. I finally checked out her Talking to My Body, translated by Czeslaw Milosz. For the most part, her poems are short and contain a sting, usually at the end. While I enjoyed the book, I didn't find any poems that equaled my love for "The Greatest Love" which has a lightness many of the other poems do not. Of course, Poland as not a great place to live in the last century, so you can expect dark poetry coming out of the country. I'm glad I read this one. My rating: 3 stars.

This week I'll be reading: