CBR V Review #1 - Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

"But isn't it funny, that in some ways the price one pays for freedom of speech is ... a kind of indifference." 

I'm a big fan of learning about history via historical fiction.  I took more history classes in high school than anything else, mostly because of a brilliant teacher, and it left me with a desire to know more things about what preceded me.  However, I tend to sleep through drier, more accurate, non-fiction accounts of events, even of things that were incredibly interesting.  Give me some characters to care about, even if they never existed, and I'll absorb way more about the period than I would have otherwise.  As such, Russian Winter was a great way for me to learn more about Stalin's Russia.

The book centers around an upcoming jewelry auction.  Former prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, Nina Revskaya has decided to auction off her collection, with the proceeds to go to the Boston Ballet.  She decides to do this as a way to finally close the door on her past for good, but in doing so, end ups opening it wider, as memories come flooding back.  Memories of her rise through the Bolshoi Ballet, her marriage to poet Viktor Elsin, her friendship with fellow ballerina Vera and composer Gersh, and the way Stalin's aggressive policies changed them all forever.  While the world at large knows of her defection, no one knows the details of Nina's past, and she's worked hard to keep it that way.  However, Drew, the young woman handling her auction, and a mysterious professor name Grigori, who may be connected to Nina's past, both dig deeper into her secrets and won't let her alone.

The book bounces between Nina's memories and the present very well.  As a huge fan of Kate Morton, I'm hyper critical of people who don't execute time jumping well - thankfully Kalotay manages just fine.  I was never lost for which time period I was in, or which narrator I was following (Nina, Drew and Grigori all narrate different segments of the story).  It weaves together well, with a nice build to the big secrets and even bigger truths that always will out at the end of a novel like this one.  Kalotay does a nice job with misdirects.  If you are like me, and you like trying to figure out the big reveal ahead of time to be clever, you'll spend the book questioning which of several possible outcomes is the correct one.  The ambiguity is consistent to the end, making the conclusion at once both plausible and surprising, and on all counts satisfying.

While I like Grigori and Drew well enough (with the exception of their shoehorned romance - it's not a spoiler to mention because it doesn't matter and doesn't really work), my favorite character to spend time with was Nina.  Her grumpy old lady taciturnity in the present, combined with her slowly growing warmer towards her nurse, contrasts wonderfully with the quiet but hopeful young woman in her memories.  It's fascinating to watch her grow, and adapt to the awful world around her.

As to that world, I feel that I learned a lot about Stalinist Russia.  The gatherings, the way that people disappeared, the paranoia of who might be listening and what they might tell someone higher up.  The concerns you had simply being Jewish, or artistic, or free thinking in any way.  And as an artist myself, presenting it through the eyes of a ballerina (and one who is married to a poet and friends with a composer) gave me a perspective I could relate to more readily.

Kalotay has created a really lovely read here, and one I'd recommend.

CBR V

WOO!  Another year means another Cannonball Read!  This year, for CBR V, I'm doing something I've yet to do - committing to a FULL cannon!  Let's be real, I read more than 52 books this year.  I only reviewed them up to the point that got me my half cannon, but I *did* read them.  It seems silly, knowing that, not to go for the full cannon this time, really challenge myself to write.  That's the hard part for me - the reviews.  I get paranoid about what people will think about what I say, or if what I'm writing is any good.  And that's missing the point.  The point is to read and to share.  I don't have to be a NY Times reviewer here, just post my thoughts on the things I read, so hopefully I can guide people towards or away from literature that I consume.  That is a great thing, and I'm going to do better at it this year.  So there.

Expect to see my first review up as soon as the group blog is ready to take it.  I just recently finished a book, and I've decided it will be my first entry into the CBR V, since I won't have time to put the review down on paper till after this is all started up.  Can't wait to see how much easier this is with the tracking I do on GoodReads, too!  Looking forward to another great year of sharing and reading!

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

 “Children don’t require of their parents a past and they find something faintly unbelievable, almost embarrassing, in parental claims to a prior existence."

This is a hard book to review, since I can't really talk about the plot at all without spoiling it. But I'll try.

I adore Kate Morton. I've devoured each of her books in turn, and when I won a copy of The Secret Keeper, I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait to see what new mysteries and histories Morton had created for me to enjoy, and I was not at all disappointed. If anything, I was often more impressed than before, especially when it came to the discoveries I made as I went along.

The Secret Keeper is, like most of Morton's work, set in multiple time periods. The framework is the present (well, 2011, but close enough), where actress Laurel Nicolson is trying to unravel a mystery from her childhood during the last days of her mother, Dorothy's, life. At 16, Laurel witnessed something that she's never been able to forget, but she's never understood why it happened. The only way to find the answers she seeks is to delve into her mother's past, which we get to witness firsthand in pre-WWII through to the Blitz, through a variety of narrators, as Laurel tries to figure things out in the present.

There's not a lot more I can outline of the plot without ruining the journey. Morton has set up a novel filled with twists and red herrings, and while I thought I was a step ahead, I was totally wrong. And I LOVE that. She created a rich historically based world, and a series of characters that are well developed and interesting, from the wonderful Laurel, to the imaginative Dorothy "Dolly" Smitham, to the compassionate Jimmy Metcalfe, and finally the mysterious Vivien. I was equally excited to read as Laurel discovered things as I was to read what actually happened in jumps to the past.

The Secret Keeper is a rich, full story that fits right in with the rest of my Morton collection. A must read for Morton fans, and a fantastic read for anyone who enjoys a mystery, historical fiction, or just a really good book.

A follow up before next year's CBR kicks off

Apparently I read 24 books after completing my half cannon.  And I'm almost done with another.  And have a short one lined up for right after this.  So odds are, by the end of this CBR, I will have actually READ the required 52 books for a full Cannon.  Now, they don't all count, since I didn't review them, and that's the name of the game here.  Read AND review.  But still.  Looking over my Goodreads and thinking about what I've read or listened to on my commute, I'm pretty stoked to have consumed that much literature!  The only book I feel was a total waste of time was The Marriage Plot, which really isn't a bad ratio of success to failure.  I didn't LOVE everything else, but Marriage Plot is the only one I gave up after the qualifying halfway point, but before the end.  I got about 75% of the way through it and was interrupted by Hurricane Sandy...and stayed interrupted.  I just don't give a rat's ass how it ends.  So that's that.

I may go so far as to actually do the full cannon next year, looking at this.  Bonus is that I can re-read anything from my current list of 52 that I didn't review and have it count next go (like with the Kingkiller Chronicles, which I plan to re-read before the new volume comes out in March).  I really do love this whole endeavor.  It's done a lovely job of encouraging me to get back into the habit of reading regularly, and that pleases me greatly.

Post Cannon Commentary or Where I Muse on The Boys of Summer

So, remember how I said I'd keep up with the CBR after I met my goal?  Obviously I lied.  I've read a bunch of stuff, but haven't reviewed it (always the catch about this for me!).  However.  I was given a copy of a book by its author, through CBR, and it seems wrong not to write up that review immediately upon finishing the book, which I have.  So, while there are several other things that should have reviews before this, I want this to get written, and thusly, here it is.

The Boys of Summer by Ciaran West will destroy you and make you tremedously uncomfortable, and I mean that as high praise.  It's rare that a book will get so under your skin that you think about it when it's not in front of you, and this one will do that.  Set in Limerick in the 80s, this is the story of 11 year old (nearly 12) Richie South and his friends, in a very...eventful...summer of their youth.  Tragedy strikes the neighborhood when a child is found raped and murdered - this isn't a spoiler, but rather a point upon which most of the novel revolves, even though it's often indirect.  Richie and his friends want to figure out who did it and bring them to justice, in a way many a small or teenaged boy has wanted in fiction for, well, pretty much ever.  If you are thinking of Stand By Me right now, don't, other than to appreciate the fact that both involve coming of age stories of boys during summers with some darkness surrounding them.

Richie is our narrator, and it's a wonderful challenge to read from his perspective.  The whole of the book is written in Limerick dialect, slang and all, but I found this a help rather than a hindrance.  It brought me more fully into the world of these boys when I could use their vocabulary, even if I had to look some of it up.  I will say that most of my discomfort came from seeing through his eyes and into his head - as an adult, and a woman at that, seeing into the mind of an 11 year old boy was...I don't know a good word for it. Unsettling?  There's a lot more adult in there mixed with all the kid stuff that I wasn't prepared for.  Reading about his first romance with the new neighbor girl, Marian, made me acutely uncomfortable, both because they were so young, and because I could remember BEING that young (and at his age, that was soo not where my mind was yet).

Richie is exactly as mixed up as you'd expect from a young boy on the verge of puberty, experiencing love, loss, and the complications of friendship for the first time.  This last is, perhaps, the best facet of the book for me.  I loved reading the dynamics of these boys, especially as I watched them see what any adult would about one of their friends.  There is a scene between Richie and his father near the end of the novel that is one of the most brilliant parent/child conversations I've ever read.  The parent/child relationships in this book are great overall.  Richie and his Mam are wonderful, and such a contrast to Marian and hers, or Joe and his Pa.  There's so much going on here, and it's explored with a light hand that lets you really see it the way the kids do, but be able to read beyond it with the eyes of an adult.

Really, this is a great novel and incredibly well written.  If you are weak stomached or don't like reading books that challenge your comfort level, you might want to leave off.  It is dark, and gets much darker than you expect as it goes along.  The end is, for me, incredibly unsatisfying, but I'm fairly certain that is the point - most real endings are.

CBR IV Review #26 - The Enraged Accompanist's Guide to the Perfect Audition by Andrew Gerle

This a review everyone who isn't a performer can probably skip.  I've studied theater and music most of my life, but every now and then, a guide to something in my profession will strike me as particularly useful or valuable to wherever I am in that moment.  This was one of those finds.  I was a few days out from an audition, and several months out from getting back into the NY scene, when I stumbled across this in the Drama Bookshop in NYC.  Gerle's clever, honest writing really captured me.  I'm not sure I can honestly say he says anything I haven't heard, but he approaches it all in a different way that made it new and interesting for me.

In addition to general advice on demeanor and dress, he gives you solid tips on how to address your accompanist, what kind of music to have in your book, and how to have it all laid out.  He also has suggestions for headshots and resumes, so he hits all the basics for auditioning regularly.  I just really enjoyed the way he approaches everything, and the examples he gives that make the advice more real and urgent than if it were just a list of items to remember.

A great read for anyone regularly auditioning for musicals.

THAT IS MY HALF CANNON, Y'ALL!  Here I was, certain to fail because of the wedding and the move, and I got it down with almost half the year left over.  That is magnificent.  Maybe next year I'll aim for the full cannon.  I'm going to keep posting reviews here beyond the 26 I required of myself, cause why not.  We'll see how far I get... ;-)

CBR IV Review #25 - Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

The three rules of the Librarians of Time and Space are: 1) Silence; 2) Books must be returned no later than the date last shown; and 3) Do not interfere with the nature of causality.

Guards! Guards! is one of the many novels in the series known as Discworld.  My husband recommended this one, as he was a fan.  Since I make him read things all the time (Game of Thrones and Hunger Games spring immediately to mind), I thought I would oblige him.

This volume of Discworld is set in Ankh-Morpork, and tells the story of a secret plot to overthrow the current ruler, the Patrician, and install a puppet king.  This is meant to be accomplished by the Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night, run by a Supreme Grand Master, who has the idea to use a dragon to terrify the populace and inspire change.  Not surprisingly, this does not go as planned.  One of the biggest hitches in this plan is a group called the Night's Watch (I am the sword in the darkness...no wait, wrong book).  The Night's Watch is run by Captain Vimes, an alcoholic who starts to take his job and his life more seriously when a new volunteer, Carrot, joins the ranks.  Carrot was raised by dwarves, even though he is obviously not one, with his enormous stature and strength.  He enjoys following the exact letter of the law, which is troubling for the Watch since they stopped having laws in Ankh-Morpork long ago.  The arrival of the dragon spurs the men to reluctant action, with the assistance of a dragon expert, Lady Ramkin.  They are also aided by The Librarian, who happens to be an orangutan. 

The book is rather ridiculous, and mostly in the best ways.  It took a long time for me to get into it, and it doesn't really resolve a great deal by the end (series and all that jazz).  However, the characters are great fun.  It's not a book I expect to really stay with me, and not a series I'm sure I'm dying to pursue, but it was a fun way to spend some time.