The Underground Railroad (5)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad follows Cora, from her days as a field hand on the Randall plantation to her experience escaping on the Underground Railroad. Whitehead imagines the Underground Railroad as a literal railroad built underground. You got to see her grow from someone who is treated like a sub-human, who is hopeless, who is alone to someone who gets to experience freedom and begins to be able to trust others and build relationships and create a life and future for herself.

I had heard about The Underground Railroad when it won the National Book Award last year. And I thought to myself, well I know a fair amount about the Underground Railroad. I learned about it in school. Why is this book important now? And then I read it and realized oh, I may have a broad picture of what life was like under slavery or what sort of dangers someone who worked on the underground railroad may have faced but I did not take into consideration the specific impact being a slave or working on the underground railroad could have had on a person's life. I never thought about which means I never really thought about what the historical impact of slavery really has on today's society.

After reading it i'm left thinking about how much things haven't changed. I don't think it's enough to say "slavery is over" if we haven't really looked at the impact slavery had on everyone - both white and black - in the system. If you grow up being treated like property because of the color of your skin, that affects you. And as generations pass and, let's be honest, white people keep fighting to make sure you are being treated as less than them from legal segregation to the current #BlackLivesMatter vs. #AllLivesMatter debate. I wonder when, and if, and how we can work as a society to actually treat everyone equally.

So much of The Underground Railroad showed how afraid white people were of the black people they were subjugating. This fear lead to more and more atrocities being committed against people who were just trying to be alive.

"True, you couldn't treat an Irishman like an African, white n***** or no. There was the cost of buying slaves and their upkeep on one hand and paying white workers meager but livable wages on the other. The reality of slave violence versus stability in the long term. The Europeans had been farmers before; they would be farmers again. Once the immigrants finished their contracts (having paid back travel, tools, and lodging) and took their place in American society, they would be allies of the southern system that had nurtured them." (Whitehead, p 164) 

5/5 - Changed the way I think about the world while being interesting and entertaining from cover to cover. Heartbreaking and powerful.

The Valley of Amazement (4), Amy Tan

This is another audiobook that I listened to to fall asleep after a long, stressful day of grad school. That being said, I don't know that I have a lot of profound thoughts about this book. This book is a beautiful tapestry of life in Shanghai courtesan houses, a remote Chinese mountain village, and nineteenth-century San Francisco. It is a tale of mothers and daughters, of loss, and ultimately, of love. It's a little sexy, a little tear jerk-y, a little

Yep. Go read it if you're into pretty, expansive historical fiction. It was one of those books I listened to over the course of a couple months, falling asleep pretty easily a half hour at a time...until I got to the end and was like "ugh why does the narrator sound so annoying if I try to speed it up? I need to know what happens!"

But it's definitely one of those books that if you want to throw across the room. Like the time Umbridge locked up Harry Potter's broomstick in Order of the Pheonix.

Oh the feels...

...How did I link Amy Tan with Harry Potter? Because Harry Potter is the most universal way to describe feelings and if you don't know what I'm talking about...

Speaking of which, our landlord came over to sign some paperwork because we're getting another roommate, who also came with a cat, so now my house has TWO CATS. The point of this segue is that my cat is named Hermione, which the landlord thought was cool, he was all, "I could be friends with you guys." Which, if he was not my landlord I would totally be cool with. I then muttered, "her name is actually Princess Hermione Everdeen...so...you can see how seriously I take my life," or something like that. To which he replied, "I love all those movies." And I smiled back, because I am a good person. But inside I was screaming, "THEY ARE BOOKS, SIR! BOOKS!"

Hermione trying to hide.
At 1 year old, Hermione is not taking after her namesake. Maybe by 11?

And at this point I would like to add that I somehow have friends, but I'm aware you probably think this is a lie. In this post I have talked more about Harry Potter and my cat than the actual, beautiful, book I read.

Most of my friends DO like Harry Potter. And cats.

I swear my friends are real, human people. I swear. 

The Bloodletter’s Daughter (4) – Linda Lafferty

Right now I'm doing a weird backwards/forwards thing where I'm currently reading books, which I'll hopefully continue to post about, but I also read a half dozen books that I haven't posted about because I was in grad school and doing plays and didn't have time to think about anything else. So, if you're curious, this is the book I read before Outlander.  

Marketa is a young woman living in a remote corner of Bohemia. Much of her time is spent with her mother working in their family’s bathhouse, where her mother is preparing Marketa to become a full-fledged bathmaid, preparing her to auction her virginity to the highest bidder. But what Marketa wants is to apprentice with her father the bloodletter. She often is brought along to help with his bloodlettings, and loves to study medicine and how to best balance the humors. If you think that’s juicy – just wait. The emporer decides to cloister away his insane bastard son, Don Julius in Marketa’s village. Where, you guessed it, he needs a bloodletter. He can see Marketa from his window and swears that he will not let anyone but her draw blood from his veins. As the prince’s obsession with Marketa grows, so does his ability to hide his insanity from her, and she finds herself drawn to him.

Bathhouse, circa sometime in history

Based on a true story, but one I’d never heard of, which is my favorite kind of historical fiction. This book really got interesting once Don Julius showed up in town. Before that I was a little confused about where it was going. But Lafferty hit the trifecta when she introduced a like-minded scientist love interest, dangled the threat of the bathhouse, and brought in a creepy obsessive lover who Marketa’s mother wants to sell her too because FAME AND FORTUNE. Obviously. All Marketa wants is to be a doctor/bloodletter, but even that throws her into her mother’s crazy schemes.

This book snuck up on me. I don’t know how I found this book exactly, I think Amazon told me I could buy it for a dollar so I did. And then Audible was like, “but wait! For just $2.99 you could have the audiobook as well!” so I bought it too. Oh impulse buys…sometimes actually the best buys? There’s nothing better than browsing a book store or library and just picking up the prettiest most you-est looking book. That’s how I found The Creation of Eve which is also great historical fiction but less creepy and I loved it just as much.

I Am Livia by Phyllis T. Smith (4)

Ok, first off: I liked this book way more than I thought I would. I mean, the cover? First glance: it’s kind of mosaic-y with leaves falling on her face, kinda making her look all disheveled and lying there with her mouth slightly open. It SAYS it’s about one of the most powerful women in the history of Rome but….it looks like a romance novel. On closer inspection, she's standing there defiantly, wind whipping her hair, with her mouth parted in a provocative way...still looks like a romance novel, but one with a likable character. First glance at the cover was on my phone while I was getting ready to spend 30 minutes crimping my hair for a play. And it was the perfect book to read while crimping my stupid hair, except the one night I got too into the book and almost missed my entrance because I was super slow at getting my hair did.

What I Did For Love, indeed
photo cred: Jeff Carpenter Photography

It’s written as though Livia is writing her own memoir in her old age, and she starts by talking about how infamous she became, which is weird because I have no idea who she is. I don’t even recognize the guy that ends up being in charge of Rome, probably because he’s Julius Caesar’s heir – also called Caesar – which means I probably lumped their histories together into one story. This is why history is confusing: everyone has the same names.

Julius Caesar

Caesar, the adopted heir

The story begins with Livia, age 14, overhearing her beloved father discussing Julius Caesar’s assassination. Which we all know is going to happen. (I mean, even I remember that much of history class.) As part of the plot, her father marries Livia to one of this fellow senators. And blah, blah, blah…history. A lot of things happen. Read the book. Or be familiar with history. Eventually she meets Octavianus (Julius Caesar's heir, also called Caesar) and more things happen. And she meets him again, while pregnant with her husband's second child, and more things happen. Intrigue. Scandal. (Spoilers?)

I LOVE historical fiction when I can trust that it is remotely historically accurate. It helps me keep all the facts and players straight when I have a linear story with a hero I find relateable. It makes me feel smart and like I learned something. Plus, it helps to keep history in perspective, that all humans that live now and have lived in the past have possessed human emotions. And the #1 reason to read fiction is to cultivate your sense of empathy. (I’m not kidding, people study this: Scientific American, The Guardian, Science, The NewYorker.) And, as I’ve mentioned before, if there’s a good love story I am 95% more likely to like the book. We all have our weaknesses. This love story was very "aww" worthy.

Stick through it to the end, I know it gets a little lost, but I promise the end is worth the journey. I wasn’t wholly convinced that Rome found Livia as conniving and infamous as she started the book saying she was, BUT a book has to have a hook, so I’ll let that go. 

Livia

A Mad, Wicked Folly (3.5)

1909, an art class in France, a young, wealthy English finishing student named Vicky decides that to be a real artist, to be taken seriously by her peers, it is absolutely necessary for her to pose nude in front of her classmates. (You can skip the next paragraph if you just want to hear my opinions.)

So she gets kicked out of finishing school and sent home to parents that are way-less-than thrilled and give her two choices: marry a man of their choosing, or go live in a desolate countryside with her Aunt Spinster the Cat Lady. She decides it would be super fun to marry a rich man and then be able to do whatever she wants because she will no longer be under her parents thumb....but THEN she meets a super hot (but poor) cop after she gets kind of arrested while drawing some suffragettes. What follows is a story about love and a young woman learning how to be her own person.

I don't have much to say about this except that it's cute. If you have any passing knowledge about feminism or suffragettes, want to learn more, and are already a feminist this book certainly won't open your eyes to any new information. If you want a love story and a woman who is more feminist-friendly than Bella, you're probably good to go. If this book BLOWS YOUR FREAKING MIND that things used to be that way, you should go read/see A Doll's House IMMEDIATELY.

My shiny new rating system:

Entertainment value: 5

Love Story: 4

Value as Feminist Literature: 2

More Feminist than Cosmo? probably

Better than Twilight? yes

More aww-inspiring than the end of Pride and Prejudice? nope

The Hangman's Daughter (4)

Jakob Kuisl is the Hangman of Schongau, a small village in Germany.  When the local midwife is accused of witchcraft after an orphan is found murdered with a mysterious mark on his shoulder, Kuisl teams up with the local doctor's son to find out who is really out to kill a pack of orphans.

I mean...I expected the book to center a little more around The Hangman's Daughter for some reason...but once I got used to the fact that Magdelena (Kuisl's Daughter) wasn't going to be the main narrator, I got pretty into it. It has everything you need in a book: possible witchcraft, serial killer, the killer possibly being an actual demon, young star-crossed lovers, buried treasure...

While it can be a little slow at places, especially the beginning, once things get going at the end you can't put it down.

Probably the most fun thing about this book is that Oliver Potzsch, the other, is actually a decedent of the Kuisls, who are apparently a very famous clan of executioners in Germany. I don't know how historically accurate this story actually is, but its pretty cute that he basically wrote fanfiction about his ancestors. 

The Golem and the Jinni (4.5)

I started listening to this way way back in October, and it was the perfect after-rehearsal book to listen to. I'd been working hard for hours, now it was time for someone to entertain me! I had a whole system, I would listen to the news in the morning on my way to work, I would sing in the afternoon on my way to rehearsal, and then I would listen to a story at night on my way home.

This worked for the first third of the audiobook. It started slow, because it's long and there's a lot to cover. Halfway through part two my show ended so I had one less commute to listen to things. Which meant I stopped doing my wonderfully productive and necessary singing and instead listened to this story. By Part Three, the only thing I listened to in the car was this book. I wanted to fall asleep listening to it but I was loathe to miss anything. I listened to it at the gym or on runs, I listened to it while cleaning, anything where I was alone. It still took me what felt like forever to finish because it was so long, but I loved it.

New York City

The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker, moves between a few different narrators far flung through the world, and sometimes through time, and during the course of the story these strands are knit together into a seamless story. We start with The Golem, a being made of clay with the strength of a dozen men, usually meant to protect its master above all else. This golem, however, was built to be the wife of a lonely, wealthy man moving to America. He wakes her during the journey, then dies and she is left alone, masterless, purposeless and completely brand new set adrift in a world she doesn’t understand. In America, she is taken in by Rabbi Avram Meyer, who names her Chava, and knows what she is, and teaches her how to become part of the world.

Then there is the Jinni, a powerful creature made of fire who comes out of a flask that a tinsmith was trying to fix. We see his story in the present as well as the distant past, before he was put in the flask he has been trapped in for hundreds of years. Now he is trapped in human form with an iron band about his wrist. Boutros Arbeely, the tinsmith, takes him in as an apprentice, but the jinni, who Arbeely names Ahmad, doesn’t need as much help as the Golem, and runs about New York creating mischief as he always has.

kinda like this guy...

Until one day, the golem and the jinni meet. Their unlikely friendship, the woman made of earth created to be obedient and the man made of fire who could fly about the world in an instant and enter the dreams of men and toy with them, is necessary for both as they are each the only creature of their kind, who never need to eat or sleep as humans do, but are forced to live among them and hide their true natures.

And one day, Yehudah Schaalman, the golem’s creator, decides that he is getting too old and must find a way to live forever. He’s known since he was a young man that God was angry with him, and he would find nothing but eternal suffering on the other side of this life, so he needed to find the key to eternal life. He creates a spell which leads him to New York City, the golem, and the jinni.

It is a beautiful story that weaves in themes of god, creators, natures, predestination, and free will. 

The 19th Wife (4)

       So, here’s the thing. I am randomly picky about books and I have no idea why I like the ones I like. And this one, I liked. Not read in one sitting like The Hunger Games like, but I liked it nonetheless. I came back to it, even though I was busy and would kind of forget about it. But I actually had a conversation with someone about it that went like this.

            “What are you reading?”

            “The 19^th Wife.”

            “Is it any good?”

            “I don’t know?”

            He laughs, “how far are you?”

            “Almost done.”

            He looks confused.

            “I mean, I’m enjoying it, I just don’t know if it’s any good, you know?”

            Like, I really needed to have someone tell me that this is an acceptable book to be reading. Everyone else likes it too or critics are just raving about it. I mean, I gave a bad review to a Pulitzer-prize winning author, clearly I have no idea what I’m talking about, right? I think I feel especially uncomfortable with historical fiction because I’m not enough of a history buff to know how historically accurate it is. Like when I was in 8^th grade and I loved Gone with the Wind, but then found out it was racist and according to the battles Scarlett was pregnant for 18 months or something (ask a history buff, I don’t remember). It took me years and a couple re-reads to realize that I was just desperately in love with Rhett Butler and was skimming the book until he showed up again. So, why am I even writing this blog? Because I have a lot of opinions and I like to share them.

 

"It's cool Scarlett, I want to be your slave" - every line of Mammy's

            The 19^th Wife, by David Ebershoff tells two stories, one set in present day Utah, where Jordan Scott returns to his hometown after his mom, (his dad's nineteenth wife) has allegedly shot her husband. The evidence is stacked against her, yet when his mom says she didn’t do it, Jordan begins to delve into the mystery behind who shot his father.

Ann Eliza

            The other tale is of the most famous 19^th Wife, Ann Eliza, 19^th wife to Brigham Young in the 1800s. I loved her story. Which kind of makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me, because what happens to her is awful. Ann Eliza’s story shows in full detail what life would truly be like for a plural wife. There is no romanticizing it like Big Love and Sister Wives does. She sees it as an institution that enslaves women and abuses children because what father can love 19 wives and 200 children equally? What made Ann Eliza famous, though, is that she wrote a tell-all memoir about polygamy and went on a crusade to make it illegal in the US. And who doesn’t love a story of someone taking something horrible that happened to her and using it as a crusade to save the world? (Ok. Good, I’m not a bad person. I did not enjoy seeing her abused, I just wanted to see her break the shackles of the institution).

            I totally didn’t figure out who the murderer was. I’m not sure I totally cared, because I didn’t really love Jordan or his mom and I definitely wasn’t upset that his dad was dead. And, like I've said before, I rarely figure out who it was.  

Read this book if you like historical fiction, are comfortable with a gay protagonist (Jordan) with a love interest, and if you're ok with reading an entire book filled with characters that are pretty anti-Mormon, although I would argue that the novel is not anti-Mormon, just anti polygamy. 

*shivers*

A note on historical accuracy:

According to Wikipedia (which is totally 100% accurate), Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young was totally a real person. She was a wife of Brigham Young, though her rank varies (which the novel touches upon, including a potential reason why the number may change). She did, in fact, write an autiobiography titled Wife No. 19 and after divorcing Brigham Young, became extremely opposed to Mormonism due to their practice of polygamy. 

In doing this very minimal research, I found out that there is a Lifetime movie based on this book. So, take that as you will. 

OH MY GOD IS THAT LOGAN? Yes it is. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I wonder if I could make every book review come back to Gilmore Girls? Did I mention Lauren Graham wrote a book? You should totally read that one because it's the best! 

War Brides (4)

Alice Osbourne, Evangeline Fountaine, Elsie Pigeon, Tanni Zaymen, and Frances Falconleigh are five women from very different backgrounds who end up in the small town of Crowmarsh Priors and become life long friends.

            I enjoyed the story, but I felt that the beginning and the end were unnecessary. The novel starts with Tanni Zaymen carting her two grandchildren back to England. Or something? It’s weird and gives this very strange oh no what is she hiding feeling that then got really confusing when it switched to the past.

            “The past” happens in the 1930s, at the beginning of World War II and through most of the war. We are introduced to each of the women one by one. My favorite is Tanni Zaymen, a young Jewish woman living in Germany with her mother, father, and two little twin sisters. Tanni’s parents have realized that Germany is getting to be very unsafe for Jews, and without telling Tanni, constructs a plan to get her out of the country. The twins will follow on the Kindertransport, and hopefully they would follow later. As a mob comes down on their street, Tanni’s family throws her a wedding to a family friend so that she can get out of the country safely.

            I have to say, I have this weird fascination with WWII. Jewish internment camps and all the creepy scientific experiments they did just feel like something straight out of a horror movie, it amazes and disgusts me that that is a real part of world history.

And the end rips you out of the story just when everything is finally really interesting and gives all the reveals a less-exciting tone.

            How can I say it without spoiling the book? Let’s use Harry Potter! What if, at the end of book 7 we think Harry’s dead and then we go straight to the epilogue? And in the epilogue Harry, Hermione, and Ron get together and explain to each other why Harry didn’t actually die and we find out Fred and Tonks and Lupin and everyone died and oh yeah Voldemort has Horcruxes and once we find the last one we can FINALLY kill him! Why would that take you 50 years to figure out?

            So is it my new favorite book? Probably not. Was it bad? Not really. I’d read Atonement instead, but if you already read that then War Brides is ok I guess. 

The Creation of Eve (4)

I was just in Moon Over Buffalo, which was delightful, but I had 30 pages offstage in Act 2, so I desperately needed a book, but I haven’t been having any luck. Basically, I’ve been going through this phase where I don’t want to read on my Kindle. I know! Quel horreur. I seriously wish there was a way that I could have a physical copy and a Kindle copy of every book. The world would be a better place if books could be ripped like CDs.

the only time Eileen smiled in the entire show

 Anywho, it was Friday, I was about to go to my show, and I had enough time to go to the library, but not enough time to actually think through what I was going to get from the library. I put several things on hold, but none that were physically at the library and I needed something, so I just started walking down the aisles. All I knew was that I wanted a satisfying love story. Like Pride and Prejudice level satisfying but without all the work of reading a classic novel.

I picked up many books before The Creation of Eve. Mostly they were the one’s on display. Nothing sounded good. The Creation of Eve looked pretty. Maybe a little like Girl with a Pearl Earring, which I liked. And printed across bottom-right on the cover were two words: “enormously satisfying” – Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants. Sold.

Sofonisba "Sofi" Anguissola is a student of Michelangelo when she falls in love with Tibero, her fellow student. After they are caught alone together, Sofi runs home, hoping that he will send for her. Instead, the King of Spain invites Sofi to be lady-in-waiting and painting teacher to his third wife, 15-year-old Catherine de Medici. Sofi quickly becomes Catherine's closest friend and sole confidant, and Sofi helps the young queen to learn how to make Felipe happy. Meanwhile, Felipe's sole child Carlos begins to fall in love with the queen. And the queen has her eye on a courtier...

I am a sucker for good historical fiction and what I will call "tasteful romance novels" and this satisfied my need for a love story with real heart. I loved Sofi, I loved the impetuous queen, and I wanted desperately for them to each get everything they wanted.

Lynn Cullen crafted this book well, weaving dramas and flushing out the facts of history into a beautiful story. I wished that the novel had lasted to a more satisfactory ending, as Cullen unfortunately had to stick to the facts, but only the best books leave you wishing that there were more pages to come.

If you like Philippa Gregory, you will LOVE this book. I would compare it most to The Virgin's Lover, because that one felt the most well balanced. I think I have to contain myself from reading everything Lynn Cullen has ever written and burning myself out and never wanting to read her again. 

And if you haven’t read Girlwith a Pearl Earring, go read that too. And The Lady and the Unicorn. Both by Tracy Chevalier. Maybe I just really like books based on paintings. I wonder if there’s one about the Mona Lisa? Oooh, I loved Da Vinci Code.

Has anyone read the new Dan Brown? Should I bother? Or is it as bad as The Lost Symbol (#3)? Anyone?

The White Queen - Philippa Gregory (5)

Ok, I have to admit this, I love Philippa Gregory. I love history for its stories, but I have a hard time keeping them straight. So I like being able to follow the story all the way through, even if I don't know how much is completely true and how much is questioned. But really, history is written by the victorious, so we always have an interesting side of the story, don't we?

I also have to admit that I like the part when people are falling in love and happy more than when they are plotting over the thrown. Politics don't interest me as much as love...which is probably why I'm really bad at history in general because I space out about who's fighting who and why and would prefer a good battle at Troy over the lovely Helen with goddesses arguing over whose best.

This book has the good fortune to be as historically accurate as possible, has some love scandals, war, magic, curses, politics, everything you could ask for in a well-rounded novel. So if you're into that kinda thing, definitely read it.

Now, dear reader of mine, tell me: what time period of history interests you most? I've always taken to books about Ancient Greece (mostly mythology), Cleopatra, Elizabeth I, and the Holocaust.