CommanderStrikeher’s #CBR4 Review #44: The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon’s Court by Michelle Moran

*Audiobook Review*

 Ahh, Historical Fiction.  The genre with which I have the strongest love/hate relationship.  Difficult to do properly, and incredibly easy to dissolve into a bodice-ripping romance novel.  However, the ones that are good tend to be worth the effort of seeking them out.

 This book has three narrators and each chapter alternates between the three: Marie-Louise, Napoleon’s second wife,  Pauline Borghese, Napoleon’s Sister, and Paul, Pauline’s half-black Haitian servant.

Napoleon was a total dick.  He was completely obsessed with being seen as the rightful Emperor of France, so for his second marriage, he demanded the hand of the nineteen-year-old Austrian Archduchess, Marie-Louise.  He figured that a princess of the incredibly prolific Hapsburg line would give him the son and heir that his first wife, Josephine, could not.  Of course, she is already in love with someone else, so there can be the obligatory “tortured lovers” angle.

Pauline is nuts.  She is completely obsessed with Egypt, and wants to marry her brother, Napoleon, just like the Pharaohs did.  She hated Josephine, because she was jealous of her, and she hates Marie-Louise, because she could possibly give Napoleon a son.  She has had dozens of lovers, and uses old ladies as footstools.

 Paul is boring.  His chapters contribute little to the story, other than to show what crazy crap Pauline was up to.  I really didn’t care about anything that happened to him.

 This novel was OK.  Not something I would really recommend, but it kept me entertained while driving to work and doing the dishes.  Michelle Moran’s Madame Tussaud was a much better novel.

2/5 Stars.

lyndamk #cbr4 review #25: Creation by Gore Vidal

Buddha, and Confucius, and Sophocles! Oh, my! Read more at my blog … 

ElCicco #CBR4 Review #50: Never Fall Down – A Novel, by Patricia McCormick

You think you never can get used to a thing this sad, kid dying, but you do. You think maybe you want to die also. But you don’t. You not living. And you not dead. You living dead.

This YA novel, nominated for a National Book Award this year, is a fictionalized account of the life of Arn Chorn-Pond, a real person who survived the killing fields of Cambodia. Arn was 11 when the Khmer Rouge came to power. His family, like all the others in his town, was forced out of its home, separated and put to work in rice fields under brutal,  inhuman, often deadly conditions. Some 2 million Cambodians died under Khmer Rouge oppression. Arn’s story is both painful and powerful. The author worked with him in telling it and uses his voice (including grammar and syntax) to bring it to life. Despite the fact that this is youth lit, McCormick does not flinch from vividly depicting the horrors of the labor camps. Yet she also captures Arn’s compassion, intelligence and the strength that helped him to survive and then learn how to live again.

Arn was the sort of kid who just seemed lucky or perhaps had always been street savvy or world-wise. As a child before the war, he managed to get extra money for himself and his family by selling ice cream and gambling. He kept himself alive in the camps by learning to play an instrument and mastering songs that the band played to entertain the Khmer Rouge elite as well to cover up the sounds of death at the work camps. He marvels at his own unusual luck while he sees others dying horrible deaths, and like the other children, he learns not to show any emotion about it because to do so meant certain death for yourself. But Arn never lost his compassion. He tried hard to protect other kids and some of the adults around him.

The years of the Khmer Rouge regime brought death every day. Arn saw children fall down in the fields and never get up again. He saw prisoners brutally put to death by an axe blow to the skull and then he had to help push the bodies into burial pits. He saw Khmer Rouge slice the livers out of prisoners and eat them. He learns that even members of the Khmer Rouge live in fear because they could be denounced at any moment. Arn also learns that he is capable of killing. By the time the Khmer Rouge have fallen, Arn is about 15. He has found his way to Thailand and a hospital/orphanage for Cambodian children, and there he meets an American who takes him and others back to the US. But Arn still must come to grips with the killing fields and the horrors he endured, the horrible things he had to do to survive. The description of his first experience in the US as a high school student, taunted both by the white American students and by other Cambodians, is absolutely heartbreaking. But the story of how Arn uses his story to educate others and learn to live again is simply beautiful and brought me to tears.

Today, Arn is known not just for his story but for the great works he has done on behalf of children in war-torn nations, especially in Cambodia. While the details of the killing fields may be hard for teens to hear (they were hard for me and I’m 48 and have a background in Soviet history), imagine how hard it must have been for a child to live them. This is an outstanding book that educates the reader about a shocking and brutal episode in 20th century history, but also demonstrates the amazing resilience and indomitable spirit of one person who came through it. McCormick, whose previous works have likewise been nominated for National Book Awards and other prizes, does a masterful job of presenting this story in a way that is suitable for a younger reader without pandering or watering down the material. It is a great novel period. Read it.

ElCicco #CBR4 Review #49: The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

The Lifeboat is a work of historical fiction set in 1914, two years after the sinking of The Titanic. The Empress Alexandra, a luxury liner en route from England to the US, has sunk at sea for reasons unknown. After several weeks in a lifeboat, a few survivors are found, and after being saved, some are put on trial for murder.

Told from point of view of newlywed Grace Winter, whose banker husband has perished, the story recounts Grace’s troubled family history, the unusual circumstances of her courtship and marriage, and a mystery surrounding her presence in the lifeboat. Grace is one of the people on trial.

Is our narrator reliable? I always enjoy a story where I’m not sure. It keeps me on edge and makes me read closely. The pretense for the story is that Grace’s lawyer asks her to write a diary of her time at sea so that he can help defend her, perhaps present an insanity plea. Each chapter covers a day on the lifeboat, interspersed with Grace’s trial preparation. It’s easy to feel sympathy for Grace. Her father’s suicide and her mother’s rapid mental deterioration afterward led Grace and her sister to make quick important decisions about their own futures. But does Grace make an admirable decision? Given that it’s 1914 and women’s opportunities are limited, are we right to judge her? Grace seems to have gaps in her memories about the weeks on the lifeboat. It was a harrowing experience following a tragedy, and the survivors make difficult decisions to ensure their survival. Would we make the same? Is it fair to judge them? And again, is Grace telling the truth? She comes across to some as fragile and needing protection, but it requires great strength to survive, and Grace has demonstrated her own strong survival instincts prior to embarking on The Empress Alexandra. Is forgetting what is too difficult to process a sign of that survivor’s strength? Or is Grace dissembling?

Three pivotal characters who help drive the drama are Mr. Hardie, the only seaman in the lifeboat and a man who takes charge but seems to be hiding things from his fellow survivors; Mrs. Grant, a woman who emanates understanding and compassion as well as leadership, but also then becomes a rival to Mr. Hardie; and Hannah, Mrs. Grant’s right hand woman. Some of the decisions made in the lifeboat involve distribution of food and water and whether to link up with other lifeboats or assist those in the water. Ultimately, the passengers are forced to decide who should lead with deadly consequences for the loser.

The Lifeboat, in addition to being a riveting story, provides commentary on the lot of women in 1914. Viewed as the weaker sex and in need of male guidance, they must obey laws made by men and are judged by juries of men. Does the system work to Grace’s advantage because she can present an image of a traditional woman who needs protection and was easily led by stronger personalities? Did the system lead to justice in the end?

To the author’s credit, at the end of the story, readers might draw very different conclusions about the actions of the people in the lifeboat and of Grace in particular. The author doesn’t leave the reader with a strong feeling of one character’s guilt or another’s innocence. Instead, we are left with an unsettling feeling about what we might have done in similar circumstances. A good book.

llp’s #CBR IV Review 22: The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik

So, I read the first four novels of this series in a rush this summer: His Majesty’s Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, and Empire of Ivory. I started to read the fifth, but I needed a break, and thenI waited so long to write the reviews that I have had to just blend it all into one. But who would have guessed a book about the Napoleonic wars, but with dragons, would be so fun?

Funkyfacecat’s #CBR4 Review 21: Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann

I first found out about this book in ElCicco’s review, and as well as the plot summary, I was struck by both the title and the cover – it evoked F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath’s Journals  and all sorts of vague images of post-war Americana. The UK cover is a bit different , but still nice enough for me to succumb to buying the book brand new in hardcover, which I am usually far too broke to do.

The title of Tigers in Red Weather, taken from a Wallace Stevens poem (randomly alluded to in the text), is oddly fitting for this tale of the teeth behind affectionate family smiles. Nick is a strong and strangely beautiful woman, married to Hughes who she barely knew before the war – both are deeply in love but tempted elsewhere. Helena is her cousin, also married to a man she hardly knows, who promises to take care of her and does it by encouraging her to take “mother’s little helper” tranquillizers and amphetamines. Nick’s daughter Daisy (Gatsby reference?) is golden and unhappy in love, Helena’s son Ed is an aloof observer, warped by his father. Their holiday paradise on Martha’s Vineyard is disturbed by a murder, and suggestions that one of the family may have been involved on some level.

Most of the book I really enjoyed – Nick is a charming and well-drawn character, even if she isn’t particularly original – she’s basically Daisy from The Great Gatsby grown up, after a war that’s scarred her but lightly. Her fraught, fragile moments, however, are evocative, and as is her struggle to love the man she’s with. Her daughter is also naive, fond, foolish – her agonies of first love are very relatable. The other side of the family doesn’t fare as well; Helena is quite uninteresting and often exasperating, and her son seems like he crept in from another novel entirely.

Nick, her husband Hughes, Daisy, Helena and Ed each have their own chapter. Ed’s chapter is the most jarring; he doesn’t fit in with the rest of the chapters. I suspect his chapter is supposed to show the others up in sharp relief, causing us to re-evaluate everything else, and it probably symbolises all sorts of things, but to me it just felt…cheap and unnecessary. It kind of dampened my enjoyment of the whole book, which is generally well-written, particularly with regard to atmosphere – the clinking of ice and cigarette smoke form a constant low-tempo background to the plot. It will be interesting to see what Klaussmann writes next.

Jen K’s #CBR4 Review #28: Live by Night

Another great read by Dennis Lehane.  Follows the youngest brother of The Given Day’s protagonist.  This one is faster paced though I think overall The Given Day was the better novel.  Still, definitely worth the read.

lyndamk #cbr4 review #22: The Second Empress: A Novel of Napoleon’s Court by Michelle Moran

Napoleon gets a new wife. Read more at my blog …

Katie’s #CBR4 Review #47: Beautiful Lies by Clare Clark

Title: Beautiful Lies
Author: Clare Clark
Source: from publisher for a TLC Book Tour
Rating: ★★★★★
Review Summary: I loved this book: the mystery, the beautiful descriptions, the protagonist’s insightful thoughts about art, and  most of all the writing style which made me feel like this book could have been written in the early 1900′s.

In Victorian London, scandal can so easily ruin your life. And Mirabel and her husband have a very big secret to hide! Dealing with a creepy newpaper reporter’s sudden interest in Mirabel and her abandoned family’s sudden reappearance in her life, Mirabel is an awesome, independent, heroine who refuses to conform to societal norms. She’s also an artist, with an artist’s fascinating observations on life and the meaning of art.

Read more on Doing Dewey.

pyrajane’s #42 Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by by Kenzaburō Ōe, translated by Paul St. John Mackintosh and Maki Sugiyama

Have you ever read a book or watched a movie that you knew wasn’t going to end well, but for some reason you stuck with it? You had a sinking feeling in your stomach that slowly hardened into a rock and just sat there, pressing down, letting you know that things were not going to be OK at the end. Bad things were coming. You know it, but you’re going to stand here and watch.

That’s this entire book.

As soon as I started reading I kept asking myself “Are you sure you want to do this?” For some reason I decided that yes, I did want to keep reading. I prepared myself to be shocked, sad and depressed. I knew before I even finished the introduction to the author and his writings that this was going to be one of those books that you can’t shrug off and walk away from and it was going to leave me physically affected. I was going to be twitching off the sensation of not wanting to remember. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien did this to me. I kept wondering why I was reading the book and I had a sick feeling in my stomach, but the book felt important and I felt like I should know what happened, and that’s why I kept reading Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids.

I haven’t even gotten to the part where I talk about the book and my face is already twisted into a grimace of not wanting to think about this anymore.

Read the rest over on my blog and why I’m glad I read it, even though I want to forget it.