The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

 

Yes, I am slowly dipping my toes back into WWII fiction.  I just could not resist the Library setting in this one!!!

What I loved about this story:

-It is based on real people, real events, and a real library!

-I learned several historical facts about Paris during WWII. 

-The Dewey Decimal System!!!!!

-So many books and authors are mentioned throughout, and quoted pertinent to the events in the book, that I kept a list.  Very interesting to consider the books that were popular in the '30's and '40's.

-There is a love story or two, but friendship and relationships with colleagues is more forefront.

- The relationship between Odile and Lily.

-The relationship between Lily and Eleanor. There is a lot to unpack here about teenagers and blended families, and standing up for yourself, from Lily, Eleanor and Odile!

-The author does a good job of presenting how people were so torn during wartime - to do their jobs sometimes they had to betray their friends, or vice versa.  Wartimes lead to impossible decisions and actions that would never have happened during peace.  Walking in other's shoes and skin indeed......

- Even though it is a split timeline, we spend the majority of the novel in the further past (I still have a hard time thinking 1987 qualifies for historical fiction, but that is just me showing my age!).

- The author nailed being a 1980's teenager with angst, grief, and parents that don't understand.

-Did I mention it is a book about books?????  Well, sort of, they are an important secondary character at least!

What I did not really like:

-Young Odile.  UGH!  So immature, even after college.  Maybe that is a statement on the mindset of society about young unmarried girls who during that time still live with their parents until they got married.  But it grated on my nerves that her mother still told her to turn out her light at bedtime, and how she threw temper tantrums and could not keep her mouth shut.  She meant well, and I guess no one is perfect especially when young, but it just took her a long time to learn not to stick her nose in and tattle.  And to face her jealousies - the whole thing with Bitsi was another tantrum.

-Even Odile skirted around her duplicity with Margaret.  That plot was heartbreaking all around.

-Lots of loose ends at the end, esp re: Odile and her past relationships.  I did like how the author really waited til the last minute to reveal all, but I wanted a bit more wrap up, even if the wrap up wasn't happy.  Many of her actions, especially when she moved to Montana and how that happened, just did not add up.  I could not reconcile the woman who turned her light off at midnight bc Maman yelled at her with the woman who eloped.

-  I know it is literary license, but I did not appreciate the timing of when she met Buck.  Way too easy.

Overall, a nice read, good historical fiction, I liked more than I didn't, and it definitely kept me reading to figure out what the book flap meant by betrayal.  And I think there is so much to discuss here, it would make a solid book club book.  The Author's note at the end explains how so much of this is a true story and which of the characters were real people, and that she learned of these people and stories and how they risked themselves to send books to soldiers and Jews while she was working at the American Library of Paris herself!  Cool!!!

PS If you are interested in other WWII books that aren't necessarily about the WAR (as in battles), check out Those Who Save Us by Jenna Bloom; The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck; or The Riviera House by Natasha Lester (very similar to The Paris Library in that they are both split timelines and focus on books and art during the war).

Two books! The Library of the Dead and Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by TL Huchu

      

Book One:

Three Stars - Which means I liked it!! Enough that I already checked out book 2!

Cadence is different here - lots of slang and casual prose. Ghostalking is a profession in futuristic Edinburgh and Ropa is a teenage Ghostalker responsible for her family. She is hard shelled, poor, a hard worker and sees dead people, and she owes rent. She makes money delivering messages from the other side, until one client has a missing son and asks Ropa for help. She immediately is over her head but is determined to discover what happened to the missing boy, and finds several of Edinburgh’s other kids are missing too. What is going on???? Well constructed and definitely different. It took a while to really get into the plot, lots of backstory here. The style took some getting used to but I enjoyed it once I got the hang of it. Is this indicative of modern British/Scottish literature?? Cool.

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Book Two:

Four Stars!  Ok, I jumped right into this one after reading The Library of the Dead. This second book was unputdownable which is now a word. I love Ropa's voice, her slang, her family, and her loyalty. I love her friends and her talents and how she handles her imperfect but well meaning self in her new role as intern in a magical library. (She used to be a "ghostalker", carrying messages from the other side back to loved ones left behind - for a fee of course). She is a hustler and quite mature for a 15 year old!!! The setting of a not so distant future Edinburgh and the many references to the Catastrophe and how much of a slum the city is now is done only in passing. I am hopeful some of that will come to light in a future installment, as the author has said there should be a total of five books (yea!).

This installment has Ropa, her cradle bff Jomo and their new friend and healer Priya tasked with figuring out why local boys from magical schools are showing up comatose with high fevers, and end up chasing a dark demon, lots of money, better jobs, and for Ropa, a better future for her little sister Izwi. We get more characters in this story, with a more confusing mystery to solve, and some serious old magic. I felt like this novel flowed a little better even with a few "bridges" that sort of jumped time. But I really got into the cadence here of Ropa's narration, her slang, her life, and her intentions. I also hope we get more from her Zimbabwean grandmother in the next installment - of her powers and her history - like we did in the first novel.

A fun new character and series for me - I can see this as YA, but there is some language and some weird demonic violence. No romance though, which I appreciated, but some solid friendships that take a licking and keep on ticking.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

 

Writing is like a puzzle.  Authors have to find the right fit for each word, sentence, chapter.  EACH. WORD.  This is why I am not an author, only a writer.  I am too lazy/impatient/intimidated. (couldn't even decide which of those words to use!!)

By works like this.  

Doerr is a Pulitzer Prize winner for a novel I didn't love.  Yes, it was beautiful and a bit redeeming yada yada but come on y'all, it was SOOOO SAD!!  My book club loved All the Light We Cannot See, but I was like, meh.  I may not have loved ATLWCS, but there is no doubt this man has a seriously good command of language.  

Good thing Sally* tells me to give authors a second chance, and too bad he didn't win the Pulitzer again.  This book was abso-fricking-lutely amazing.  I can see how it might not be for everyone.  It is very...imaginative.   And the structure took some getting used to. And it is looooooong.  And I thought it was amazingly brilliant.

Briefly, you should know that we have three different time periods going on that cover several centuries and three locations, and five different characters whose stories we follow.  It seemed like it would be impossible to follow but somehow, the transitions back and forth were smooth and truly did help narrow the story down, even when we have two characters with two time periods each. Don't let that intimidate you though.  I don't think I am astute enough to catch all the parallelisms that are deep in this book, but I sure tried, and I sure enjoyed the journey.  The common thread, and title, is an ancient "lost" Greek fairytale about a man on the search for paradise.  I am also sure that the title is a wink, a double entendre, and more than just a title. For more plot than that, go read the book flap, which is so well written in its own right that it could win an award, were there awards for that sort of thing.

As a reader and lover of books and stories, I appreciated how this one ancient text stood the test of time and helped frame each of these stories, giving at the end some sort of freedom to each of our main characters, albeit in different ways.  A young girl learns to read in Constantinople; an old man finally finds happiness and purpose at his local library in Idaho; a troubled teenager takes righteous action which goes horribly wrong; an isolated young woman puts together a life-altering puzzle of clues. None of these people know each other, but their lives are woven together like a tapestry.  This is a book about a book (there is a book on the cover!), about a library or two or three (I literally sat up when Konstance's Library was introduced), about how words are immortal.  It is also about war and environmental conservation and owls and dreams for the future and misunderstood youths and Love - romantic and familial. It truly is about finding one's way in this life.  And how the threads of one life can be revealed in the most unusual ways in another.

I took so many notes on this book. I just cannot put them all in a review.  Doerr must have had a string wall to keep all the connections straight. My book club doesn't know it yet, but we are going to read this one.  We will have differing opinions I am sure - this is not a beach read.  And yet, I felt very light reading it. I actually felt like a scholar.  Even with some bad things and a few loose ends, this book made me happy as a reader.  So very much to talk about, and yes I still have some questions especially about the end(s).  This is the sort of book I have a hangover after reading.  Took me a few days to pick up my next book.  I just wanted to enjoy the aura of it, to think about it.

And, yes, to go thank a librarian, as Doerr does in his dedication: to all the librarians, then, now and in the years to come.  Fingers crossed.

*If you are new to this blog, and you don't know who Sally is, she is my local independent bookstore owner and Bookseller.  She recognizes me (or sometimes just my voice!) when she hears me come into her store (Park Road Books) and always has a perfect recommendation.  And I love her.

PPS - to see my review of ATLWCS on Goodreads, here it is:  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr | Goodreads