“Queen Sugar” by Natalie Baszile

February 28, 2015April 14, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / Leave a comment

Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile may tell a story of familiar themes, but the upfront way that Baszile addresses issues of family, race, social class, faith and more makes for a vital and moving novel that works on levels so much deeper than plot.

Speaking of plot: when we meet Charley Bordelon, the primary narrator of Queen Sugar, we learn that she has recently inherited an 800 acre sugarcane farm that she had no idea even existed until her father’s will named her its owner. Now Charley and her daughter Micah are travelling from the home they’ve always known in Los Angeles to the farmlands of Louisiana to harvest sugarcane. Charley and eleven-year-old Micah getting to Louisiana without strangling each other by way of typical mother-daughter effrontery is only the beginning of a long struggle that both women will endure throughout the course of the novel.

Not only is Charley a city girl trying to take up a farmer’s role, but she is also a woman in a man’s world and perhaps most at the forefront of Charley’s mind and the novel, she is an African American in a still racist state. This is a place where black and white, male and female, poor and rich are major distinctions for the Californian mother and daughter. Hence, recurring themes of incessant and seemingly inherent masochism, racism and social class issues play deep seeded roles in the novel as Charley navigates her way through the very new territory of Louisiana’s Deep South.

Throw into the mix Ralph Angel, Charley’s drug abusing half-brother who seems to be good at only one thing: messing up every opportunity given to him, and you’ve got the perfect fixings for a catastrophe. Ralph Angel though is one of the most intriguing and tragic characters of the novel. His story, that of a struggling African American who never makes it out of the drudgery he’s born into, is one of the most important Baszile intends to tell.

Queen Sugar is a stark and often affronting novel that cuts no corners and leaves no silences when it comes to taking a stand. That’s not to say that ambiguities aren’t recognized in the systems and norms that Bazsile confronts; rather, the issues themselves are brought to light in ways that complicate and force those who stand on either side to think differently about the matters at hand. Baszile challenges issues of race, gender and class that still plague us today with characters so alive and endearing it’s easy to think about what they would do or say in situations outside the pages of the text.

A richly complex novel burgeoning with social import and so beautifully composed you’ll feel you are walking in the Louisiana cane field with Charley, Queen Sugar is both tragic and uplifting in just the same way life itself can often be.

Published by Penguin Books in January 2015, you can find Queen Sugar at your local bookstore.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from NetGalley for a fair and honest review of the text.

“The Dream Lover: A Novel of George Sand” by Elizabeth Berg

February 25, 2015April 14, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / Leave a comment

The Dream Lover by bestselling author Elizabeth Berg is the fictionalized historical account of George Sand: one of the most influential and subversive female writers in France during the 19^th century. Sand, born Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, not only published novels and articles at a time when women were primarily confined to household living, but she did so in plain view of the public, often cross dressing as a man, smoking cigars and engaging in open love affairs with some of the most prominent artists of her time. In her own novel, Berg both draws from historical records and adds some of her own flair as she traces Sand’s life from early childhood until past her own death.

Sand traverses the years of her own life as the book’s narrator offering us only her single perspective. In this way, Berg often leaves conspicuously gaping holes in the thoughts and actions of Sand’s friends, family and lovers. As readers, all we have is Sand’s word that the events she recounts have happened in the way that she claims they have happened, but there are always parts of the story that seem missing. There are always things that we as readers are compelled to fill in, imagine, and understand, things that the character Sand perhaps does not want to fully admit to herself more than anyone else.

In this way, Berg points directly to an issue that she encountered during her research of Sand’s life. In Sand’s own autobiography, as well as in the historical records detailing the writer’s life, Berg notes there are major discrepancies in terms of dates, names and places associated with the famed writer. Berg took these discrepancies and did what she could with them: told them from a point of view. A point of view that Berg explains in the afterward of The Dream Lover, is not rooted in pure fact; rather, it is a mix of the real and imagined truths that she unearthed while steeped in her research. This marriage of fact and fiction as form is echoed in Sand’s narration, as we often wonder how much of what she is telling us in imagined in a certain ways and stretched from the hard facts to suit her wildly imaginative and romantic mindset.

These discrepancies also mirror the ambivalences inherent in Sand’s own persona. Though Sand’s activities and lifestyle were controversial to say the least, there was evidence in her own writing, as well as testaments from her friends, that credited her with having a love for domesticity and for her children. Further, Sand, despite her fun-loving nature and energetic attitude, was known to suffer from depression and a pervasive sense of restlessness, which Berg translates seamlessly into her text. Berg aptly captures all of the contradictory elements of Sand’s nature and portrays her as a woman with ambition, doubt and talent, as a woman of love, hatred and anger.

Through and through, The Dream Lover reads at a fast-paced gallop, leaping through time and space to tell the most apt parts of this heroine’s life, all while mixing love, passion and longing in just the right amounts.

Set to be published by Random House in April 2015, The Dream Lover: A Novel of George Sand is available for pre-order from your local bookstore.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from NetGalley for a fair and honest review of the text.

“The Martian” by Andy Weir

February 12, 2015April 14, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / Leave a comment

The Martian by Andy Weir.

The title, the cover, the very concept of The Martian gives the illusion that its pages will be peopled with green aliens, intergalactic war, and other typical science-fiction paraphernalia. Andy Weir, though, writes The Martian not as some wild and fancifully romantic sci-fi novel, but as an engineer would write a book: entirely precise, absolutely plausible, and with zero fluff tolerated. And so it is that Weir sets the stage for his main character Mark Watney’s abandonment on Mars.

The novel begins in the aftermath of a freak accident that both nearly kills astronaut Watney, and proves to save his life. Watney comes to consciousness, and reflecting on his situation opens the book with the infamous first words: “I’m pretty much fucked.” Now it’s up to Watney to survive what would appear to be a death sentence with only his engineering and botany skills to help. As the novel progresses though, we see that it is also his positivity and perseverance that pull him along. These attributes, coupled with his very base human urges and desires, are what make Watney a character you find yourself rooting for more and more.

Watney is not the only character whose mind we are granted access to though. NASA Mission Director Venkat Kapoor, satellite engineer Mindy Park, and even members of Watney’s crew make their way into the novel to break up the journal entries that lead us into Watney’s character.

Watney’s account, most especially, tends to be pretty dense with technical content allowing for people like me (non-engineering minded readers) to occasionally gloss the text, glass over, or lose a visual of what’s going on. As a technical writer and editor, I’m familiar with reading just this kind of content, and I am equally familiar with employing all of the above techniques to get through it. However, for the average person who hasn’t taken a chemistry class in 10 plus years, Watney’s technicality and specificity can be a bit burdensome. For those like my scientifically minded engineering colleagues, the book is not only a breeze, but an accomplishment among a genre often riddled with improbabilities and unrealistic scenarios.

One of the most engaging aspects about The Martian, is Weir’s deep knowledge and wild imagination that he in turn imparts upon Watney and the book’s other characters. Whether you understand every concept or action, the book refuses to tip to the side of boring or burdensome as it might threaten to for some readers.

It might help that the characters are so endearing and engaging despite their, at times, despicable demeanors. Though raw and unkempt, Weir’s characters are all too human and thereby more relatable than the sometimes contrived characters of genre fiction novels. Weir isn’t trying to do anything with these characters except to make them who they are, and he does a superb job of compelling readers to find sympathy for and relate to even the most obnoxious of characters.

Most importantly, Weir’s cast speaks directly to the themes and intentions underlying his book. As he notes in the afterword, Weir’s goal is to show that humanity is not doomed to complacency or selfishness. When Watney gets trapped on Mars, every person at NASA, in China, and on earth is not only rooting for him, but pooling their collective resources to get him home. Weir invokes a sense of comradery among the human race, which (whether it is true of the humanity outside of his novel or not) invokes the ideal that humans have “a fundamental desire to help one another.” Though Weir may arguably be romanticizing this theme to a certain degree, it is definitely a quality that we busy, bustling, self-absorbed humans could use a reminder about once in a while.

The perfect marriage of technical and narrative writing, The Martian makes a perfect read for say a book club where you have engineers and book nerds in one place.

Though recently acquired by Broadway Books and Crown Publishing, divisions of Random House LLC, Weir is the poster child for self-publishing success. Originally released as an e-book in 2011 and sold for 99 cents, Weir’s novel was not only picked up by a major publisher, but a movie is already in the works. Staring Matt Damon, Jeff Daniels, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the film is slated for release in September 2015. Even though Weir assisted in writing the screenplay, read The Martian before you see the film so that you can experience Weir’s unique writing style, enrapturing characters, and insanely plausible scenarios just as they are meant to be experienced.

If this book review peaked your interest, pick up a copy of The Martian at your local book store.

“Khirbet Khizeh” by S. Yizhar

February 8, 2015April 14, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / 2 Comments

Khirbet Khizeh is S. Yizhar’s fictionalized account of life as a soldier in the Israeli army during the 1948-49 war, and was published shortly after the war’s end. In this new translation by Nicholas de Lange and Yaacob Dweck, Khirbet Khizeh takes on a renewed poetic significance, instilling the novellas enduring relevance for contemporary culture.

The narrator starts his account by noting that the event he is about to describe “happened a long time ago, but it has haunted [him] ever since.” He talks of the passage of time and his once hopeful idea that such a passage might have healed his sorrow and despair. However, it appears that nothing of the sort has come to pass. He takes readers back to the beginning, back to his own mindset before he was deeply disturbed by his and his cavalry’s actions.

It is a “splendid winter morning” the day that the troop “cheerfully making [its] way” across the countryside. As they are travelling, they come across the village of Khirbet Khizeh which they are told, by radio, that they must attack in order to dispossess the Arab’s who live there of their land. The infantry must, however, wait for the command do so. And so they wait. They grow restless, sleepy, and confrontational with one another as time seems to interminably pass for them. The narrator feels the pressure of wanting to act, for as he notes, in idleness “thoughts would stealthy creep in.” And “when the thoughts came, troubles began;” nobody want thinking soldiers, so “better not to start thinking” he resolves.

The indifference, lack of concern and general passivity of the soldiers continues as they talk and laugh of slaughtering a donkey for the fun of seeing just how long it would keep munching on grass after being shot three times. “What incredible vitality” the wireless operator observes. This scene foreshadows the stance of observance that the soldiers, and most especially Yizhar’s protagonist, takes on as the novella progresses.

Finally the group is “rescued from [their] distress” and given the green light to open fire on Khirbet Khizeh. The attack begins, and the rest of the piece details the narrator’s indecisions, frustrations and doubts concerning the rights of the Jews and the rationality of their actions. He develops a sudden sense of compassion for his enemy: mostly graying men, steadfast women and crying children – none of whom retaliate as they are herded from their homes. The narrator recognizes this change of heart in himself, but notes that at the time he “didn’t want to stand out from the others in anyway,” and so he tries his best to keep quiet.

He is, however, eventually compelled to speak out to his commander Moishe, that “it’s not right” for the Jews to displace the Arabs when they are so defenseless and passive. Moishe though is entirely indifferent and points out that if the Jews were in the Arab’s position right now, the Jews would be dead. He warns Yizhar’s narrator that if they don’t take care of the Arabs now, the group will present bigger issues for the Jews in the future. The narrator continues to argue with himself, but ultimately decides “this is war!” Though he does not by any means fully convince himself that his actions are just, he has at least subsumed his outward expression of guilt and questioning beneath the guise of wartime allowances.

As David Shulman notes in the afterword though, Yizhar’s expression of “all is well in war” gains greater irony in the fact that not much has changed in Israel now that the war is over. People are still being displaced, people are still hating and killing one another, and yet the excuse of war can no longer be used. Though it might appear that the novel bends on a moralistic theme, Shulman notes that Yizhar’s narrative hinges more on choice than on morality. Perhaps these choices are necessarily tethered to morality as they are intimately bound to the notion of peer pressure both in the form of people and ideologies.

The text spans a mere 144 pages, and Yizhar propels readers directly into both the internal and external action of the novella, keeping them there throughout. Usually with translated text, there is a profound sense of loss and sadness surrounding the physical words on the page because they are merely representations of the original words used in the native language. De Lange and Dweck, however, capture with verve the poetic essence of the text beautifully and aptly. Yizhar’s very Dickens-like sentences build into paragraphs that wind around your heart, pulling you forward into the action, the distress, and the ambivalence that characterizes his work.

This new translation by Nicholas de Lange and Yaacob Dweck was re-released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in December of 2014 and can be found at your local bookstore.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from NetGalley for a fair and honest review of the text.

“Etta and Otto and Russell and James” by Emma Hooper

February 7, 2015April 14, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / Leave a comment

Etta and Otto and Russell and James is an adventure into heartache and love, into loss and fulfillment, and into the inevitability of time’s passing. Written by Emma Hooper, the novel spans a wide range of human experience to encapsulate the profound joys and sadness that are found in simply living.

Etta has decided to leave the farm where she lives with her husband Otto in order to see the ocean, an element of nature that in all of her 83 years she has never experienced. She leaves Otto a letter detailing where she has gone, and asks him not to worry, as she will do her best to remember to return.

Within pages, the reader experiences the gyration between past and present that serves as the textual framework for Hooper’s novel. The author develops her characters in a backward, inside twisted arch that allows for greater understanding and empathy on the part of the reader. Hooper guides us through the intricacies of each character’s past, so that we can become acquainted with the patterns and traumas that have shaped the elderly trio we meet in the novel’s beginning. This trio is completed by Russell, the Vogel’s neighbor and childhood friend.

Though the novel at first seems straightforward and thoroughly candid, we soon find that there is a magical realism that permeates the pages of Etta and Otto and Russell and James. This magic presents itself at different points in the novel as talking coyotes and flying children among other things. These elements perfectly capture the arch of aging as they are transformed from childhood imaginings to the beginning stages of dementia. At times these magical elements can become confusing or distracting, especially when it’s not entirely clear what purpose they are serving. However, as mentioned above, the allusions that these fantastical elements make lie perfectly with the novels themes and threads. To thoroughly enjoy the novel, readers must recognize that not every moment will be methodically fleshed out or explained.

After all, the fissures that Hooper creates in the narrative are what give the text its richness and depth. Her minimalistic style mirrors the letters Etta received from Otto during the war: full of holes. Holes that characters attempt to fill ceaselessly, holes that Etta feels she must go to the ocean to fill, literal holes in memory, and metaphorical holes in hearts. The book is littered with these voids that call to be filled, some of which can never be filled, and some of which characters are too afraid to even attempt filling.

Etta and Otto and Russell and James is a story about letting go; a story about cutting ties with all of the things that don’t serve you (including feelings of guilt), about living each moment fully, and about embracing everything around you with love. Though at times heart wrenching, the novel encourages readers to treasure and recognize the meaningful experiences that make up a life, even if those memories and experiences might be slightly, or profoundly, tragic.

Published by Simon and Schuster, Etta and Otto and Russell and James was released January 2015 and can be found at your local bookstore.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from NetGalley for a fair and honest review of the text.

‘Jillian’ by Halle Butler

January 31, 2015March 16, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / Leave a comment

Teacher and author William Haywood Henderson once said that if writers avoid uncomfortable situations and issues in their writing, their work “will suffer from a lack of intensity and edge…The deeper [the author goes], the more distinct, striking, and moving [the] novel will become.”

In her debut novel, Jillian, author Halle Butler charges into the territory of the perverse, the grotesque, and the downright ugly side of human nature that Henderson claims is essential to the verve and passion of great literary artworks. Butler’s characters are awful, hate-able, and sometimes sickeningly relatable, and this relatability is the true mark of intrigue for the novel.

Jillian is told from the perspectives of Megan, Jillian, and once and while an oddball character like Crispy the dog. Megan and Jillian work together in a colonoscopy office – which is about the only thing they think they have in common. Megan is a 24-year-old sulking, borderline alcoholic who finds – not joy, but perhaps meaning (?), fulfillment, (?) necessity (?) in criticizing and belittling others in her own mind. Jillian is her arch nemesis for no other reason than Jillian’s ignorance, annoyance to Megan, and her vastly different worldview. Jillian is a 35-year-old single mother who is the poster woman for self-help, mantra repeating, positivity in the most obnoxious way imaginable.

At first the characters seem harmlessly broken, maybe slightly macabre; but, within a few pages, the true grotesqueness of their respective personalities is revealed. You gain insight into Megan’s intense jealousy – which is relatable in and of itself, but Megan’s approach to dealing with that jealousy is cringe worthy. She not only hates everyone who has anything that she doesn’t, but she goes out of her way to confirm her hatred by making fun of them and picking them apart to her boyfriend Randy. Unsurprisingly, Megan is also so terrified of herself and her own potential for failure, that she makes no attempt to better herself in anyway. Wallowing in the drudges of her own sea of self-pity, Megan’s stagnancy is poignant and if nothing else, motivating for readers to actively seek to be otherwise.

Jillian, on the other hand, is constantly trailing off into fantasies of new dream jobs and illusory relationships, aptly able to irrationalize herself out of every serious situation in which she is put. Ignorance doesn’t even come close to summing up Jillian’s complete removal from, and disregard, for the real world. Her idiocy, lack of perspective, and overall hideously optimistic unrealism is enough to want to make the reader puke; and yet, there are moments of relatability with Jillian too. We’ve all tried to talk ourselves into feeling one way when we really feel another, we’ve all had experiences that we wish we could change, and we all know what it is to ignore the signs of catastrophe; though hopefully, we more tactfully deal with these issues.

As we engage with these two women, we begin to see the similarities among their apparently vast differences. We see the common elements of human struggle, of human selfishness, of removal from and lack of acceptance of reality, of complacency and the different methods of dealing with the sometimes static condition of life.

Raw, cutting, primeval and engaging in a terrifying way, Butler’s 150 page book will take you a few flicks of your wrist to get through. For however powerful it is though, thank god it’s so short, because it makes you feel like you’re locked in a damp cage, naked and caked with dirt, while everyone is looking at you as you struggle to breathe.

Yes, exactly like that: a little bit the way life feels sometimes.

Slated for release in February of 2015, you can pre-order Jillian at Curbside Splendor.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Curbside Splendor for a fair and honest review of the text.

‘Principles of Navigation’ by Lynn Sloan

January 25, 2015March 16, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / 2 Comments

A story of love, hatred, selfishness, faith and most importantly, the dualities bound up in being human, Lynn Sloan’s captivating first novel Principles of Navigation is a psychologically tormenting exploration of the human condition. Alice Becotte wants a child more than, and at the cost of, anything else in her life or anyone else’s. Her husband, Rolly, an artist and university professor at a local Indiana college, is much more concerned with creating art and living by the ways of passion than he is with having children or settling into a traditional idea of family life.

At first, the novel focuses primarily on the struggles of Alice and Rolly’s marriage as well as the difficulties bound up in their seemingly incompatible relationship and tumultuous love for one another. However, as it progresses, Sloan veers readers off their perceived course toward plot bumps of infidelity, loss and more internal struggles.

At fundamental odds with one another, Alice and Rolly vacillate between affection, annoyance, and adoration for one another – as will you, the reader. Throughout the book, you will both love and hate each character a hundred times over and more. Sloan threatens to break readers to pity, to disdain and to compassion as each character showcases the spectrum of his or her duality. Nobody is a reliable narrator, and (or perhaps because) nobody is a static character. This is what makes Sloan’s novel so fascinating and gripping. Just as in life, no one person is the protagonist or antagonist – each character becomes another’s antagonist, or their own, as they navigate the waters of life’s imperfections and unfairness, as well as the consequences of their own actions.

There is nothing about Principles of Navigation that segregates it to one particular genre, nor does it target one group of readers. The book raises questions that are essential to every reader’s life: questions of humanity, love and growing older. Questions that will propel you from page one to the end of the novel without a backward glance as you are ripped through the pages of Alice and Rolly’s tumultuous lives.

Sloan, already a success in the field of short story writing and photography has broken into the novel industry with a strength and vivacity that will be sure to propel her into the ranks of great American novelists. Published by Fomite Press, Principles of Navigation is scheduled to be released February 15, 2015.

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book for a fair and honest review of the text.

‘Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen’ by Mary Norris

January 17, 2015March 16, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / Leave a comment

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen is copy editor Mary Norris’ autobiographical style manual of sorts detailing her own voyage to The New Yorker’s copy desk and her encounters with the god- awful grammar she’s had to face at her job and in her everyday life. Not in any way diminutive or overbearing, Norris’ stern but open-minded perspective offers rules more as suggestions based on context rather than mandates required by grammatical law. Constantly throwing out expletives (not to mention an entire chapter on the inclusion of obscenities in print) and always roping in an air of comedy, Norris’ book is much more than just a style guide or grammar book: it’s a fun and inspirational glimpse into the success of a hardworking, resilient, language-loving woman.

Between You & Me features lessons on who vs whom, the correct usage of colons and dashes, as well as issues concerning apostrophes in our contemporary, digital, sales-driven age. Aside from these, though, are chapters delving into the history of the pencil, Norris’ relationship with her transgender sister (which she uses to illustrate the issues surrounding pronouns), and snippets of linguistic history. The author never fails to tie her personal life back to the didactic center of the book in a way that both enhances the lesson being taught and provides a tether of empathy to Norris so that the reader cares about her as the book’s author and not just the narrative voice.

For any English major who has doubted her choices in education, Norris’s story is divinely motivating as she details her early years working in a cheese factory and her journey to The New Yorker offices. For any writer, editor, or human being who has ever felt an ounce of doubt concerning the work that she creates, Norris stands as an archetypal model for making mistakes and moving past them. She constantly refers to grammatical blunders she’s made herself or missed in editing, and she often questions her own grammatical judgment. But wait, she’s a copy editor at The New Yorker! Shouldn’t she know everything? Shouldn’t she be perfect? Norris makes very clear that she’s human, just like every other person in the world who experiences self-doubt. She not only admits her mistakes, but she embraces them and explains to the reader what she’s learned from them.

Aside from purely grammatical insights, Norris also breaks into the philosophy and ethics of grammar with the advent of feminism and other cultural shifts related to gender, technology, social media and more. She brings to light issues and conversations that are very much alive in the cannon today, and offers insight, perspective and opinion, though she often admits that there is no easy answer to the grammatical wonders of our world. As she states, particularly in relation to the comma, but as a metaphor for grammar and the book as a whole: “…follow some rules, sure, but in the end what you’re after is clarity of meaning.”

Norris may be adamant about certain grammatical rules, like pronouns matching their antecedents, but there are others that, as she points out, are subject to the particular style manual of the publication a person is writing for – and then of course there is the issue of personal preference, and then there’s also the necessity for clarity. She drives home that making yourself crazy over a single misplaced apostrophe is not worth extreme anxiety: recognize it, pick up, and move on.

Overall, Norris provides goddess-like insight into common yet difficult grammatical issues with clarity and ease of understanding while keeping readers engaged with humor, history and a sense of humanity.

Scheduled for release from W.W Norton & Company in April 2015, Between You & Me Adventures of a Comma Queen is the perfect book for any literary lover and a superb choice for any reader interested in language. Pre-order the book from your local bookstore today!

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book for a fair and honest review of the text.

‘The Vineyard’ by Michael Hurley

January 2, 2015March 16, 2015 / Jaclyn Bauer / 2 Comments

Michael Hurley’s The Vineyard stakes its plot in three friends, Dory, Charlotte and Turner, coming together for a summer at Martha’s Vineyard. Each woman is plagued by a weight of despair hanging from her past which independently drives her to seek out the comfort of companionship and escape.

Charlotte has recently lost a daughter to cancer and a husband to the indifference caused by their daughter’s death. Dory is fending off the unwanted attention of longtime admirer Tripp Wallace, her mother, and her waning health. Turner is battling the internal demons of self-doubt and fundamental discontent with her failed relationships and lackluster career. Throw Enoch, the mysteriously ephemeral fisherman who illegally sells the most delectable shrimp in town during off-shrimp season, into the mix, and you’ve got a narrative full of comedy, mystery, shock, and scandal.

Each woman struggles to the edges of physical death and moral doubting in order to come to terms with her own sense of self and to divine her purpose in the world at large. Hurley spins his novel from a somewhat dismal chicklet tale into a reeling mystery and crime novel as he aptly navigates questions regarding faith, the meaning of love, and the power of friendship.

The novel is propelled forward by a constant shift in plot as numerous threads are picked up and woven together throughout the progression of the story. At times this constant shifting, though, can be distracting and can halt the momentum of the novel. The shock value of each turn of events, however, picks up the often frenetic storyline, putting it back on track and providing a rather rousing impetus to keep trekking through.

Despite being a plot driven book, The Vineyard does justice to its underlying themes through Hurley’s strength in character development. The characters, if nothing else, are worth the entire journey. Each is so fully flushed out, so entirely herself, that you could blot out the names from the page and still comprehend each moment in the novel. Hurley does a fantastic job of creating characters that readers will fall in love with, despise and identify with on levels both desirable and unattractive.

Published by Ragbagger Press in November 2014, you can find this book at your local bookstore.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley for a fair and honest review of the text.

Centered on Books

Book Reviews, Literary Discussion, and Author Interviews

book review

“Queen Sugar” by Natalie Baszile

“The Dream Lover: A Novel of George Sand” by Elizabeth Berg

“The Martian” by Andy Weir

“Khirbet Khizeh” by S. Yizhar

“Etta and Otto and Russell and James” by Emma Hooper

‘Jillian’ by Halle Butler

‘Principles of Navigation’ by Lynn Sloan

‘Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen’ by Mary Norris

‘The Vineyard’ by Michael Hurley