The Spymistress by Jennifier Chiaverini

Book:  The Spymistress 

Author:   Jennifer Chiaverini 

Grade:  A 

Recommended to:  Civil War Fans, CIA Agents, Mistresses 

The Spymistress is the account of Elizabeth Van Lew, a  southern lady who spied for the North during the Civil War.  This book is historical fiction and excellent.  I cannot say enough good things about this book.   I haven't read a Civil War book in a long time, probably since The Last Silk Dress which I read when I was about 10 and then read over the over again because it was so good.  Speaking of, I really should find it at my parent's house and read it a 50th time at the ripe old age of 28.  I digress.

Elizabeth Van Lew first defies the Confederacy by taking meals and gifts to the Union prisoners of war in Richmond.  She befriends several of them and then smuggles out information and notes to send North.  She then creates a vast spy network of Union loyalists and uses the network to smuggle out escaped prisoners, information about the Confederacy and her own advice on where the Union should strike first.

Initially, I thought this book was about a fictional character in a historical setting.  Much like some historical fiction novels that create a character and then place that character in a historical setting. That is not the case with The Spymistress.  About half way through the book, I read the epilogue and discovered the Elizabeth Van Lew was a real person!  She lived in Richmond during the Civil War and Jennifer Chaiverini painstakingly went through her letters, journals and notes to discover her actions as a spy for the Union during the Civil War.  It was a magnificent find and it made me respect the author and Elizabeth Van Lew much more.

I also really enjoyed this book because it gave a lot of detail about how poorly the Union prisoners were treated during their imprisonment.  I haven't read a book about Civil War prisoners before and I liked learning about it.

I absolutely recommend this book as an excellent mostly historical account of the lives of Miss. Van Lew and her family and friends.

Happy Reading!!

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Book:  Life After Life 

Author:  Kate Atkinson

Grade:  B - 

Recommended To:  Philosophers. 

I got this book at the library and I am continually amazed at the selection of new books that are available at the library.  In Chicago, I was on the waiting list for popular books for months and Downers Grove has lots of new and popular books available all the time.

It is hard to describe Life After Life, which is probably why the dustcover did such a poor job.  This is a book about Ursula, a girl who is reincarnated over and over again.  In each life, she gets flashes of deja vu, although she cannot remember specific events from a past life, and these flashes occasionally encourage her to take a different course.

This book was a lot like Groundhog Day without Bill Murray, unfortunately.  Ursula is born over and over again and then lives her life in approximately the same way with minor changes.  For example, in the first story, she is raped by a friend of her brothers, this results in some of the most violent scenes of the book, which I believe were well done.  After one of those violent scenes, she dies, and then in the next life, she has deja vu and fights off the brother's friend, thus changing the course of her life for good.

This book is conceptually interesting and is a fantastic pick for a book club that actually reads and discusses books.  My book club does not do this, but sometimes we try.  This month is The Tiger's Wife; if I finish it, I will let you know if we discussed it.

This book is thought provoking.  What would happen if certain things in my life had gone differently.  Or, what would happen if I had a chance to do things over again.  I do not typically read books that require a lot of thought, but this book was compelling.  The one complaint I have about this book was the length.  It took Ursula a long time to get to her ultimate goal, which is revealed in the first chapter, but does not come full circle until the very end.

Happy Reading!

The Boy Who Said No by Patti Sheehy

Book:  The Boy Who Said No

Author:  Patti Sheehy 

Grade:  B -

Recommended To:  Cuban Refugees 

This book is about young man who attempts to escape Communist Cuba shortly after Fidel's rise to power.  This book also documented how boys over the age of fifteen were conscripted into military service and forced to support the Literary Campaign and Harvest Campaigns put forth by the Castro regime.  And, get this!  The book is a true story!

I have never read about book about life in Cuba before Castro's rise to power and the impact that Castro's revolution had.  Most of the books I've read about Cuba are about escape from deplorable conditions by people who only lived under the Castro regime.

The main character in this book falls in love with a gorgeous girl and when she and her family escape to the United States, Frankie also attempts to leave.  To do this, he must leave the army, hide for weeks and brave the open sea in a small fishing boat to get to freedom.

There were two peeves I had with this book.  The first is the dialogue.  The author clearly took liberties with the dialogue of characters and scenarios that Frankie was not a part of.  Those parts may be close renderings of what happened, but we will never know for sure because the author only interviewed Frankie.  

Second, you never find out what happens between Frankie and the hot girl!  I read this book for two days hoping that he gets to America and is reunited with his love, only to read in the Epilogue that this is a "story for another time."  What!  That's the only reason why I was reading this!  It was like the book just ended without a resolution.  I was very disappointed and that bumped the grade of this book down from a B to a B-.

Even with the irritating bits, I recommend this book.  It was a fresh perspective on life in Cuba, the programs imposed by Fidel and the risks of escape.  I generally enjoyed it.

Happy Reading!!

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

Book:  Five Days at Memorial 

Author:  Sheri Fink 

Grade:  B

Recommended To:  Everyone who likes non-fiction 

I found this book in the "Hot Reads" section of my library which just means that it is brand new and you can only check it out for two weeks instead of three weeks. Five Days at Memorial is not light-hearted.  It is a well-researched behemoth that chronicles Memorial Hospital's experience during Hurricane Katrina.

The first half of the book is about the experiences of the nurses, doctors, patients and family members at Memorial during Katrina and after.  The second half is about the grand jury indictment of Dr. Pou and two nurses who injected their patients with morphine and Versed to hasten their deaths.

This book was upsetting in a variety of ways.  Memorial was unprepared for a disaster of Katrina's size, but it wasn't that unprepared.  After the investigation started and all of the people at Memorial were evacuated, crews found days worth of food and water supplies and bottles of oxygen that were not used to assist patients.   The most poignant part of this book was when the author explained that although many patients died during Katrina, some of the other hospitals only lost a few patients compared the the 40+ patients who died at Memorial.

In general, Memorial is a very fair book.  No one party is painted as good or evil and the book is very multifaceted.  Some may even say that this book is exhaustively researched, even down to the support letters that Dr. Pou received after she was indicted.  I skipped some of those parts.

In all, this was a good, thorough read that painted a devastating picture of the choices faced by medical personnel during Katrina.

Happy Reading!

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Book:  Insurgent 

Author:  Veronica Roth 

Grade:  C- 

Recommended To:  I have no idea, teenagers?

Insurgent is the second book in the Divergent Series penned by Veronica Roth and loosely based in Chicago.  I reviewed the first book Divergent on this blog and am writing the second review so quickly because these books take about 10 minutes to read.

There are SPOILERS in this review.  So, approach with caution.

I have no idea what happened in this book. The relationships were bad, the motives were all wrong, and the twists and turns were seriously contrived.  That said, I liked this book slightly more than Divergent, although my grades don't reflect that distinction.  It is hard to remember why something was a C or a C-, days and weeks after finishing the book, which is why the grading on this blog is subjective.

In retrospect then, I liked Insurgent a bit better because my expectations were much lower.  I already knew that the writing was bad and that the characters were flat.  My expectations were met in that regard.

This opinion is going to be unpopular:  Why don't Tris and this fool Four just break up?  As far as I can tell, they have been dating for approximately 10 minutes.  Much too soon to be having deep conversations and arguments about trust.  And, if you don't trust someone after dating for 10 minutes, then it seems unlikely that you ever will, so just break up, and find someone else.  The parts of the book about Tris and Four were not romantic, it is a relationship of convenience and cuddling and crap.  I don't buy it.

Can I get some hands up from the people that hate the name Tobias?  This guy has a friggin awesome nickname, Four, and is all emo-whiney "but I wanna be called Tobiaaaaasssss."  Relax.

SPOILER:

The plot is still thin in Insurgent and many of the plot twists are ridiculous.  It makes zero, none, nada, zippo sense that Peter would save Tris by giving her some serum that makes her appear dead.  Allegedly he does it so that he isn't indebted to her anymore, but her dying would also make that debt moot and not put a gigantic target on his back.  This doesn't make sense with the character development so far.  I think Roth backed herself into a corner with this Tris-going-to-Erudite plot line and then didn't know how to get her out.  Plus, why the hell is Peter in the upper echelon of Erudite if he defected to the Divergent?  I am expected to believe that the most boring smartest faction would put a defector on the security team?  No.

So, despite these fallicies, I found myself enjoying Insurgent more because  I rolled my eyes fewer times while I read the book.  That's the new standard of reading.  The number of eye-rolls.

I am currently reading Five Days at Memorial and I have high hopes that a good non-fiction will put my reading agenda back on the right path.

Happy Reading!!