What I'm reading this week (6/17/19)

Last week I finished:

Anything I say about Barbara Kingsolver's Unsheltered might veer into the "inflammatory" realm, so I will try to be very succinct. I love Kingsolver's writing, and The Poisonwood Bible (my review here) is one of my favorite books. It's obvious through her books that I've read that she is politically liberal. Fine. But there was no indication on the jacket copy or Amazon synopsis that this book is a liberal screed against capitalism, the free market, and President Trump, whom she refers to in the book as "the bullhorn" and does a tidy covering of her derrière in the acknowledgements with the statement: "Among the novel's twenty-first-century characters, any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental." I found this unforgivably cheap. Communist Cuba is touted in the book as an ideal society in which to live. One character in the book is given what the author apparently believes is a reasonable representation of someone from the right. (He's hateful and reprehensible in every way--you know, just like everyone who voted for President Trump.) Those with religious convictions are made out to look like buffoons. I spent some time reading reviews on Amazon to see how others reacted to the political nature of the book, and many people said that although they agree with Kingsolver's political views, they hated being preached to, and they didn't care for the book. One reviewer said it best when he wrote that the book was full of "sharp sticks." Indeed. This is one of the few books I've ever been tempted to return to the author with the request that she, personally, take my copy back. All of this said, the writing is SO good and the characters are real. The audio, narrated by the author, is very good. I just could not take the hateful tone and comments. If the President Trump bashing were removed from the book, I would have rated this at least four stars. One I thing I know about politics: if a person cannot say one good thing about their political opponent whom they tout as being racist, stupid, and hateful, they show their own prejudices in more than equal measure. My rating: 2 stars.

Earlier this year, I read Balli Kaur Jaswal's Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, and while I didn't love it, I found it enjoyable (my review here). So I was more than willing to listen to her new book The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters that came out in April. I'd have to say, I liked this book better, due mainly to the plot. In this book, three Indian sisters residing in England set out on a pilgrimage to India to fulfil their mother's dying wish. The sisters, of course, are very different, and none of them particularly wants to be a part of the trip. They all have cataclysmic things happening in their own lives, and their prickly relationships with each other made the trip difficult. Will they get over their issues and come together as their mother hoped? You can probably guess the answer to that question. I enjoyed the book and the characters. This is on the edge of my comfort zone with modern fiction. I tend to like a little more depth in my plots, a little less drama, and less feminists-must-save-women-in-other-cultures subplots, but it was especially good on audio. A good summer read. My rating: 3 stars.

Last summer, I read the first novel in the Perveen Mistry series, The Widows of Malabar Hill (my review here) and I loved it. I loved it so much, in fact, I put it on my Best Books of 2018 list. The second book in the series, The Satapur Moonstone, came out in May, and I put it on my June reading list for another hit of 1920s India. In this book, Perveen Mistry, India's first female solicitor, is asked to serve as a liaison between the British and the royalty of Satapur palace, secluded in woods and accessed only via palanquin. It would seem the widowed mother and the dowager grandmother of the young maharaja are concerned for his safety after the recent deaths of both his father and older brother, but they disagree as to what is best for the young prince. Perveen is asked to intervene and offer the decision needed. But tense situations grow worse when members of the palace are poisoned and the maharaja is abducted. Will Perveen be able to save the prince or will she give her life trying? These books are very well done. The writing is top notch, the characters are interesting, and the reader learns a lot about the various cultures that comprise India in the 1920s. I found this one a little slow to start, but when the plot picked up, it was as good as the first book. I highly recommend this series for anyone looking for enjoyable literary fiction with a bit of thrill and mystery in the mix. My rating: 4.5 stars.

This week I'll be reading:

This is even better than I expected.

My Kindle re-read:

 

I'm making S-L-O-W progress on this one. I'm having a hard time picking it up.

My evening reads:

 

I made slow progress with these this week, too. I'm enjoying them so much, but nighttime reading has been difficult lately for a number of reasons.

My next audiobook:

 

This hold finally came in, so I think I'll listen to it next.