I am 36 weeks pregnant today, so this book naturally resonated with me. I found it moving – sad at times, but ultimately hopeful and affirming as Hampton learns to find the  joy in her daughter’s life. It must be incredibly difficult to imagine your child inside you being one way, and then having her turn out to be as beautiful and special as you’d hoped, but still different from what you’d imagined.

Some readers may find Bloom a little over-the top. Hampton spends a lot of time talking about her friends, and all that her friends did for her in the days and months after Nella’s delivery, from parties and sleepovers to long, indulgent crying sessions. She certainly has a remarkable support network that clearly helped her through those times. But the end result is that the book is pretty self-centered, focusing almost entirely on Hampton’s own sadness and how she coped. I’d have liked to have learned more about how her husband and older daughter fared during those 12 months, and less about the girlfriends who came to her rescue. I’d also have liked to have learned more about Nella and what it’s really like to have Down Syndrome – as an infant, at least. I am assuming that the book is an adaptation from her blog, which explains its self-centered nature. After all, that’s what blogging is. I write two blogs myself – I get it.

At one point, Hampton even acknowledges her selfishness. She says, “We’re all in some way selfish beings, and the good of the world depends on that fact – that someone, somewhere will wonder what it might feel like to be in someone else’s shoes, to feel their pain and, in doing so, attempt to do something about it. Our selfishness is ultimately what transforms us to be altruistic. And so, in the end, I accepted that that my need to change how the world perceives my child is what fueled me to take the next step – to want to change the outcome of how the world perceives every child.”

I’ve actually found Hampton’s more recent blog posts more rewarding than Bloom, probably because Hampton is now fully accepting of the diagnosis, and Nella is older and doing more things. Hampton’s photography is beautiful, which shines through in both Bloom and her blog. And, I have to say, Hampton makes living in Florida sound really amazing.

I am not sure that I’d have picked up Bloom if I weren’t pregnant or perhaps a new mom, but it was definitely a compelling read that I enjoyed over the last week of sleepless, third-trimester nights. I recommend it with the caveats noted above.

Thank you to William Morrow for the review copy.

Yet I often try new story collections anyway. I get sucked in by the descriptions of the stories, and I think that the latest collection will be the one that converts me to short stories. And with my short attention span of late (almost 36 weeks pregnant), a collection of stories seemed like just the thing for me to read right now. So I picked up Spoiled, by Caitlin Macy, which I bought on my trip to The Strand last March.

Spoiled‘s characters are mostly well-heeled New Yorkers in their thirties dealing with issues around class, affluence, and feeling secure with themselves. In one, a young mother lends money to someone else’s nanny in a show of altruism, only to hire her later and experience jealousy when the nanny stays friends with her previous employer. In another story, a young actress and her wealthy boyfriend muddle through a dinner near her old boarding school, only to break up before the check comes (and the boyfriend has a chance to present her with the ring he’s been carrying). In another, a wife on her honeymoon in Morocco, resentful of her husband, traipses off into a Moroccan market on her own and endangers herself in the process.

I liked the premise of these stories, and Macy’s writing is breathtaking. Her use of detail to set a scene, convey the intricacies among relationships, and describe urban pressures is extremely skilled. I was consistently impressed with her writing throughout the book.

But ultimately the collection left me a little cold. As I noted above, just when I started to care about what was going on in a story, it ended. I never really got any momentum with it, and as a result it took me a long time to get through it. I wasn’t hooked. And in retrospect, the stories bled into each other. The women are all sort of the same – yes, spoiled, and pretty unappreciative of all that they have.

I’m glad I gave Spoiled a chance, but I think I’d be more interested in reading novels by Macy than other short stories. And this is a good reminder to me: stick to long-form.

Meanwhile, if my last review didn’t scare everyone off, I am giving away my copy of the audiobook of A Good American, by Alex George. If you’d like a chance to win it, just leave me a comment here. I will pick a winner on Saturday, May 12. Good luck!

A Good American, by Alex George, is a sweeping story about four generations in the Meisenheimer family. The book opens with Frederick and Jette, immigrants from Hamburg, Germany who arrive in the US in 1903. They take a boat to New Orleans (because the New York boat is full), and end up settling down in a small town in Missouri when Jette goes into labor shortly after their arrival. This is the part of the book I loved – the immigrant experience, the charting of a new path in a new, foreign land.  The first few chapters were really good – poignant and heartbreaking in some ways, yet full of promise in others.

Unfortunately, the book took a turn for the disappointing about 1/4 of the way in. Here’s why:

• There were lots of cliches and shallow character development. Too many of the characters fell in love at first sight – total, unconditional love that lasted a lifetime. Others were predictably noble and dignified (the dying giant; the black trumpeter) with little about them that made them particularly interesting. Still others were defined by only one thing – they had a lot of kids, or they worked hard.
• Sometimes I felt like I was reading Forrest Gump (not that I’ve read Forrest Gump), because every American historical tentpole/tragedy found its way into this book and affected the family: the stock market crash, Prohibition, the Great Depression, World Wars 1 and 2, the Kennedy assassination, etc. At one point, one of the characters unwittingly comes in contact with future president Harry Truman. (Was that really necessary?)
• The story was unrealistic at times. Would all of these people really have stayed in this little town for decades on end? There were also other coincidences/”secrets” that seemed implausible to me.
• The book has “quirky, unforgettable characters,” like a dwarf lawyer and a boy whose pituitary gland didn’t work, allowing him to grow to 8 feet tall.
• George included annoying foreshadowing at the end of chapters, like “Joseph kept his promise to Riva Bloomberg that she would be the guest of honor – although not in the way that either of them would have liked” or “His world was complete. Or so he thought.” or “When Jette looked at Cora, all she could see was the person who was going to break her son’s heart. Which she duly did, although not in the way that Jette had imagined.” (Again, really?)
• The theme of music throughout felt a little corny to me. I get that it was a musical family, but the ability of music, time and again, to cause people to fall in love, lift people out of grief, or mend broken relationships all felt a little forced by the end.

George is a good writer, for sure – his use of language was beautiful at times, and I liked the pace. It was an easy, smooth book – but it sort of felt like gliding across the surface of a pond – no depth. I wanted more emotion, more complex emotion, and subplots that didn’t tie up neatly with a marriage or a funeral.

I mostly listened to A Good American on audio, and the audio is terrific. Great narrator. In fact, I think it was the audio version that kept me interested – I am not sure I would have stuck with this book if I hadn’t been listening to it. Unfortunately, the great narration couldn’t save the deficiencies of the plot.

A Good American has gotten a lot of great reviews; I think I am definitely in the minority in terms of my disappointment. And I will say that it cemented my desire to read more historical fiction about the immigration experience to the U.S in the late 19th century. I just wish I had liked it as much at the end as I did in the beginning.

FTC disclosure: I received the audiobook from Penguin as a review copy, and read a library copy of the hardcover.

The first of her trilogy – First They Killed My Father – is about her experience during wartime. The second (the one that I read) is Lucky Child, which tells the alternating stories of Loung’s experience immigrating to America and her beloved older sister Chou’s life back in Cambodia. Her third book, Lulu in the Sky, came out this month, and focuses on her experience at college and her marriage, as well as her life of activism on behalf of victims of land mine injuries and human rights violations in Cambodia, a country to which she has returned 30 times since she left.

Lucky Child is a deeply affecting story about parallel lives made even more poignant by the stark opposition of Loung and Chou’s life. Loung faces the challenges of being a refugee in Vermont – not fitting in, not speaking the language, being constrained by her older brother’s overprotectiveness. But Loung’s life is the lap of luxury compared to what Chou is experiencing at home in Cambodia – hard labor deprivation, and the constant threat of violence by the Khmer Rouge.  Loung is an angry girl who carries her history with her at all times and bears the deep scars of someone who has seen unspeakable horrors; Chou is gentle and modest, despite her ongoing struggles living in her troubled native land. The bond between the two survives 15 years of absence and the wide chasm that separates their lives, and the memories of their parents both haunt and comfort the two women as they mature.

I had the great privilege of hearing Loung Ung speak tonight at a bookstore right by my house (perfect timing!). She read from Lulu in the Sky and talked about writing the three books. Here are some of the things she said:

• When Ung wrote First They Killed My Father, she expected 10 people to read it. Instead, it has been read by many, many more, and she found that readers wanted to know more about her and how she was, which spurred her to write the sequels.
• She basically “vomited out” her first book. It wasn’t her dream to write a book about herself (not to mention three). She didn’t know anything about writing – she studied political science in college – but she was passionate about wanting the story of the Cambodian genocide to be heard.
• First They Killed My Father is about what it’s like to survive a war; to work to live through it. Lucky Child is about surviving peace, what it took to live when people stopped writing and caring about what had happened.
• She thought her story was over after Lucky Child – she got married and wrote fiction.
• Two years ago, while living her “nice balanced life”, Ung suffered a period of depression. She realized that she had been suppressing the trauma that she had outlived the age when her mother had died. Ung had become the wise, older, strong woman that she envisioned her mother to be. She didn’t want to lose her mother again – not just her story, but her energy and spirit.
• Lulu in the Sky also focuses on love – something Ung was afraid of, was always afraid she would lose.

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity both to meet Ung and to have read Lucky Girl. Her story is one I won’t forget for a long time.

I am also listening on audio to A Good American by Alex George, which I am enjoying so far. I am realizing that I really like historical fiction about immigration to America in the early 1900s – does anyone know of other books I should explore that cover this time period?

In other book-related news….

• I am participating in World Book Night next Monday. I will be passing out copies of Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto to “light readers” to try to get more people reading. Picking up the books tonight from my favorite bookstore in DC, Politics & Prose.
• If you’re a GoodReads member, would you mind voting for EDIWTB in the Independent Book Blogger Awards? It’s listed there as one of the Adult Fiction blogs. Thank you! The deadline is Monday.

That’s the update from here – will be back with reviews when I get through these books!

If you’ve ever read the Vows column of the NYT’s Style section, you’ll probably enjoy the references to the paper, how they pick who to feature, and the challenges of covering the wedding beat. (Sipher is an actual Vows columnist.) And I enjoyed the depiction of Gavin’s single, late-thirties existence and his longing to find a partner to share his life. Sipher’s writing is smooth and observant and The Wedding Beat was definitely an easy read.

Ultimately, it fell a little short for me. Some of the characters, including Gavin’s parents, bordered on caricatures, which always turns me off. And I am never a big fan of physical violence (fistfights) even when it is intended to be humorous. (This seems to be a guy novelist thing.) And I was bothered by the inconsistency I noted above – that the failure of Gavin’s most important relationship to date was due to his emotional unavailability, yet he is actually very sensitive and open throughout the novel. Finally, Sipher kept Greene and his dream woman apart for too much of the book – I wanted to see more of what they were like together.

The Wedding Beat is one of those books that reads like a screenplay. I can already see the rom-com – in fact, Sipher has already cast his leading man (James Marsden) – and I can imagine exactly how it will play out on screen.  That’s probably a sign that it’s a bit formulaic; despite some twists that I didn’t see coming, this was a pretty predictable tale.

Thanks to Penguin for the review copy of The Wedding Beat and for inviting me to participate in the blog tour for the book.

I liked The Arrivals. It’s about family relationships and the changing dynamics that are introduced when children become adults and grandchildren and spouses enter the picture. It’s also about unconditional love from parents to children, and how that love can be tested and reaffirmed over time. Again, this isn’t a dramatic book; I read some complaints on Goodreads that not much actually happens. That’s true, but it didn’t bother me. The book was more about the smaller moments – almost vignettes – that make up a summer shared by too many people in the same small space. It was very realistic.

I liked this quote from the almost-end of the book:

[Lillian] recognized that they were all battling – all of them, everyone in the family – to have their needs met. Ginny, William, Rachel, Stephen, Jane, all of them. Even little Philip. Clashing, every day, primal forces pitted against one another.

In a lot of ways, that’s what big family gatherings can be – battles to get individual needs met, and the corresponding disappointments and resentments when they are not.

I am impressed that The Arrivals is Meg Mitchell Moore’s first novel. Her writing is assured and smooth, and the book flowed nicely. I recommend this one to fans of domestic fiction – it’s an easy but satisfying read.

FTC disclaimer: this was one of my purchases from The Strand, bought with my own cash.

Here are all the reasons why this book didn’t live up to expectations:

• As I’ve mentioned many times, I really don’t like when books take place over the course of a single day, or a weekend. They’re exhausting and unrealistic. How could all of those things have happened in such a compressed time? The Divorce Party opens early one morning and concludes late in that same day – and a LOT happens in between. I’ve complained about this before and it really bothers me.
• There were too many plot implausibilities in The Divorce Party. Given the circumstances around Gwyn and Tom’s impending separation, Gwyn should have acted a lot angrier at Tom than she did. She is angry at him, and wants to try to hold on to her marriage, but her treatment of him belied that anger and took away from the plausibility of the story. I also wasn’t convinced that Maggie could have known so little about Nate’s past, given their 18-month courtship. These were the pillars on which Dave built the parallel (yet opposite) paths of the two relationships, and they rang false for me. I also have a hard time believing that divorce parties as a phenomenon are really as therapeutic as people say they are.
• Dave’s writing style is very repetitive, which drove me a bit crazy since I listened to the book on audio. Examples: “She looks at him, right into his eyes. They are endless. And she can see that he believes it. She can see that he believes the impossible, which can be a recipe for disappointment…” and “Somehow that feels like too big a question. Somehow that feels like everything.” and “But she has to think that it isn’t always going to be like this. As he moves closer to her, she knows she doesn’t want it to be like this, and he doesn’t want that.” These examples are all from the same page. I think that this book needed much better editing.
• I listened to The Divorce Party on audio, and it was just OK. The narration of certain voices (Georgia, Maggie) was very shrill and unpleasant. And the whole tone felt angry and aggressive. I wonder how much that affected my enjoyment of the book.
• Finally, I just kept thinking, “Are these characters’ lives really that bad? Why are they so unhappy? They are very rich, and yes, one marriage is falling apart. But why is everyone so angry and defensive and dissatisfied? If you found out your fiance was really, really rich, wouldn’t you maybe see a silver lining there?” I wanted to shake them and say, “Get some perspective!”

Goodreads reviews of The Divorce Party are pretty positive. I feel like I missed something here – this book just didn’t do it for me. Anyone out there with a different take on it?

FTC disclaimer: I bought this one at the Strand.

Grant has an explanation for why some of these books become bestsellers:

They mirror back to us the fears we have as parents, especially the fears for our teenagers. Intellectually, we know they will probably be okay. We’ve given them the advantages of good schools, carpools, extracurricular activities. We know their friends, their friends’ parents. Our kids are good kids, we say. Part affirmation. Part furtive prayer.

But then something like Columbine or Trayvon happens, and we feel — perhaps irrationally but no less honestly — that our perfectly constructed lives teeter on a razor’s edge.

…

We don’t want to look, but we can’t help ourselves.

She makes a great point. It’s the voyeur in us, the one who whispers, “Thank god that’s not happening to me”, who devours these books. There’s even a name for this genre: “domestic thrillers”.

I haven’t read any of the books she mentions, but they seem to cover some of the same topics as the ones I linked to in my post.