Tag: literary fiction

Book Reviews, Books

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan // Book Review

by Simone5 Comments on She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan // Book Review
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan // Book Review

Yep, this book was ALL THE THINGS I was expecting it to be and then some. I can’t believe it’s over. While this book is compared to Mulan, I think it’s far from it. If anything, this read more like The Poppy Wars by RF Kuang.

Here’s more about She Who Became the Sun

Mulan meets The Song of Achilles in Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun, a bold, queer, and lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty from an amazing new voice in literary fantasy.

To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything

“I refuse to be nothing…”

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness.

My Thoughts

If you’re a fan of literary fiction, historical fiction, military fantasy, stories with gender identity, queer relationships, or even stories that will flip you on your head, then I invite you to read this book. This is THE book and it was massive and lush and powerful and so damn surprising. I’m going to have some spoilers in here (nothing too wild, but hinting at some bigger events in the story), so proceed with caution.

Honestly, it’s been a while since I’ve read a book of this magnitude and I need to shout it from the rooftops. This is one of the best books I’ve read all year. This is definitely a character-driven story more than it is plot-driven, but the characters were so utterly realized and felt so real and flawed that I couldn’t stop reading. It’s a bit of a slow burn as well, so be prepared to sit down and take your sweet time getting into this story. It’s also not for the feint of heart. There’s no lovely romance between two characters. There’s no designations between “good” and “evil” characters. This is about ambition, drive, and the ability to overcome any obstacle in your way to a greater purpose.

There’s two sides of this story because there’s two different groups of people fighting each other for supreme reign of the kingdom. There’s the Red Turbans and the Mongols. There’s also two main characters; Zhu and Ouyang. Zhu represents the Red Turbans (who first starts off as a monk) and Ouyang is a Mongol. I was a little confused when I started reading because Zhu had such a strong opening, but Ouyang doesn’t come into the picture until a bit later. When Ouyang started having his own perspective in the novel, I was thrown a bit. But once I started realizing that there’s two main characters, then things started to make sense.

Your first main character, Zhu Chongba is a red turban, but she didn’t become a red turban as quickly as you could imagine. No, she first started as a terrified young girl who’s father and brother just died. I absolutely loved reading where Zhu came from. From being a starving peasant to becoming a monk and then finally the commander of one of the red turban factions, Zhu has been fighting all her life to survive; to become something more than the nothing fate she was handed at birth. Zhu was probably one of the most complex characters I’ve read. She was born with no name, no fate, and no reasons to live other than to serve her father and brother. She originally took her brother’s name in order to survive, but the fact that he was fated to be great, she internalized that and ruthlessly fought her way to the very top. What started off as a means to survive drove her to become the leader of her own empire.

And her fight was brutal. Filled with backstabbing and betrayal, Zhu did everything in her power to get what she wanted. She’s constantly fighting herself as well trying to push out the nothing fate she was dealt and living the great fate her brother was handed. It was really interesting to see Zhu’s psychology while she did the things she did.

The other character worth noting is Ouyang. OMG Ouyang and I hope no one sleeps on him because he’s truly such an interesting character. He’s first seen at Zhu’s monastery as the Mongols destroyed and disbanded all the monks living there. Ouyang is described to be an effeminate man who could easily pass as a woman. Ouyang was enslaved to Esen (the Prince of Henan’s) family, but over time he earned his way to becoming his general fighting alongside the Mongols despite his people actually coming from their opponents. Ouyang is also a eunuch not by choice. No, his family was slaughtered and was told by the Mongol Emperor that there would never be another Ouyang produced ever again. His past is brutal and it fueled him for years as he plotted his revenge.

But the most interesting part of his story is that he’s also absolutely in love with Esen (his captor, his best friend, and his commander). The man who has enslaved him and helped slaughter his family is also the love of his life and I can’t even imagine the turmoil that must have gone through Ouyang’s head and heart as he enacted his revenge. OMG, the emotions running through me as he struggled with his own emotions.

There is a relationship between Zhu and Ouyang that does play out. Being on opposite sides of this great fight, there was going to be some derision, but at the same time I felt like they saw a little bit of themselves in each other. It was interesting to see.

There is a slight fantasy element to the story. It was surprising how subtle it was because I imagined people using magic or there being some magical creatures. But the fantasy components were interesting and the way they designated people as “Heaven’s Mandate.” It’s like any monarchy that believes they’re appointed by a higher being and the fantasy elements in this book were that appointment. I thought it was interesting, especially the way it plays out towards the end of the book.

It surprised me utterly to find out that this was based on real people and the real Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. I don’t know much about this point in Chinese history, but digging around the Internet after reading the book, I thought it was fantastic that Shelley Parker-Chan utilized these characters to create a story all their own. It was truly masterful.

I will say that the pacing was a bit slow for me. I wanted there to be a few more battles or conflicts between bouts of strategizing and plotting, but being a character-driven story, the focus was more on the people rather than the events.

Overall, this was quite a story filled with history and culture and some of the most interesting characters I’ve read in a while. I’m really excited for book two and I will probably end up reading this one again in the future.

Thanks Tor Books for the gifted read. My opinions haven’t been influenced by the author or the publisher.

Book Recommendations, Books

Seven Family Sagas Published This Year Ready for Thanksgiving Weekend

by Simone2 Comments on Seven Family Sagas Published This Year Ready for Thanksgiving Weekend
Seven Family Sagas Published This Year Ready for Thanksgiving Weekend

I love Thanksgiving. I love turkey and football and eating so much that you feel like you’ll explode. I also love making turkey sandwiches a la Ross from Friends (the moist maker is the key).

Of course, with the holidays approaching, I wanted to get my holiday reading in order. Sadly, Thanksgiving isn’t covered much and aside from The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, it seems a little barren as a topic of interest.

However, one of the biggest components of Thanksgiving is family and this year was a good publishing year for the sweeping multi-generational family sagas. So I put together a list of some of the family sagas published this year that’ll make for great reading while waiting around for the turkey to cook. Have you read any of these yet? What other family sagas would you recommend for the long weekend?

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that’s to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she’s not sure she wants by a man she’s not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents’.

As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt–given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption fifteen years before–we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons’ past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment, but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg

Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister–feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tightlipped mother, Barbra.

As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drug stores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As each family member grapples with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

When the renowned poet Fiona Skinner is asked about the inspiration behind her iconic work, The Love Poem, she tells her audience a story about her family and a betrayal that reverberates through time.

It begins in a big yellow house with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the Skinner siblings—fierce Renee, sensitive Caroline, golden boy Joe and watchful Fiona—emerge from the Pause staunchly loyal and deeply connected.  Two decades later, the siblings find themselves once again confronted with a family crisis that tests the strength of these bonds and forces them to question the life choices they’ve made and ask what, exactly, they will do for love.

A novel that pierces the heart and lingers in the mind, The Last Romantics is also a beautiful meditation on the power of stories—how they navigate us through difficult times, help us understand the past, and point the way toward our future.

The Guest Book by Sarah Blake

No. It is a simple word, uttered on a summer porch in 1936. And it will haunt Kitty Milton for the rest of her life. Kitty and her husband, Ogden, are both from families considered the backbone of the country. But this refusal will come to be Kitty’s defining moment, and its consequences will ripple through the Milton family for generations. For while they summer on their island in Maine, anchored as they are to the way things have always been, the winds of change are beginning to stir.

In 1959 New York City, two strangers enter the Miltons’ circle. One captures the attention of Kitty’s daughter, while the other makes each of them question what the family stands for. This new generation insists the times are changing. And in one night, everything does.

So much so that in the present day, the third generation of Miltons doesn’t have enough money to keep the island in Maine. Evie Milton’s mother has just died, and as Evie digs into her mother’s and grandparents’ history, what she finds is a story as unsettling as it is inescapable, the story that threatens the foundation of the Milton family myth.

The Dearly Beloved by Cara Wall

Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They meet in Greenwich Village in 1963 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic Third Presbyterian Church through turbulent times. Their personal differences however, threaten to tear them apart.

Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily—fiercely intellectual, elegantly stern—after she tells him with certainty that she will never believe in God? And yet, how can he not?

James, the youngest son in a hardscrabble Chicago family, spent much of his youth angry at his alcoholic father and avoiding his anxious mother. Nan grew up in Mississippi, the devout and beloved daughter of a minister and a debutante. James’s escape from his desperate circumstances leads him to Nan and, despite his skepticism of hope in all its forms, her gentle, constant faith changes the course of his life.

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Moving forward and backward in time, Jacqueline Woodson’s taut and powerful new novel uncovers the role that history and community have played in the experiences, decisions, and relationships of these families, and in the life of the new child.

As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony– a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody’s parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they’ve paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history. As it explores sexual desire and identity, ambition, gentrification, education, class and status, and the life-altering facts of parenthood, Red at the Bone most strikingly looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives–even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.

Book Reviews, Books

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon

by Simone2 Comments on The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon

According to the Internet, an “incendiary” is either someone who starts fires (in a military context) or someone who stirs up conflict. Probably both of these definitions makes sense for this novel.

Before I get into anything, I’m about to tell you now that this post will have spoilers. I just can’t talk about this novel without actually spoiling it, so look away if you haven’t read the book yet!

Continue reading “The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon” →

Blogging, Lifestyle

My Favorite Genres of All Time

by Simone2 Comments on My Favorite Genres of All Time
My Favorite Genres of All Time

I think I might have written a post like this in the past, but I’ve been thinking a lot about books and genres. It’s probably because I’m in the process of moving across the country and that means whittling my book piles down to the ones that I truly want to read.

I rummaged through all my books, made lists, and figured out that the top billings for genres that I love to read. Here’s what I got:

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General Fiction

My general fiction contains everything from literary greats to the beach read. I love fiction in general, but there’s a time and place for all of it. I like to keep a mix of books available so that I can pick and choose depending on my mood. Most times, I’ll read a fun summer read because I’m always in the mood for those. I didn’t think that my general fiction pile would be so big, but I guess that’s because it’s got some literary fiction, womens’ fiction, some romance novels, and my diverse books.

Most literary fiction I read is from an author of color. I just love the stories that they tell and they always make me think a little harder and understand a little deeper.

The sad thing about this list is that there’s not a lot of literary fiction here. Most of these books are fun reads or “womens’ fiction.” I think the reason for that is because I’ve read so many stories about the young woman moving to New York in pursuit of something. Or that couple that’s on the verge of breaking up and they’re doing what they can to stay together. As I get older, I’m noticing that my tastes are changing and I’m moving away from books by the Jonathans (Safran Foer, Franzen, etc) and more into books that let me escape a little from my life.

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Science Fiction/Fantasy

Sci-fi and Fantasy is my next biggest genre. If anything, sci-fi/fantasy is my favorite genre. The list here is small, but I also have all my bigger fantasy reads on my Kindle.

When I was growing up, I was in love with science fiction and fantasy. I even ran the sci-fi/fantasy literary magazine at my high school! However, I didn’t read a lot when I was a kid and therefore don’t have a lot of the classic sci-fi/fantasy novels under my belt. While I don’t have many of those classics in my TBR pile, I do have aspirations to read them all. Hello, I haven’t even read Hitchhiker’s Guide yet…

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Non-fiction

My non-fiction pile is strangely tall. I also included my poetry books in here as well. I think the reason for that is because I haven’t read them. I love reading non-fiction essays and memoirs, but fiction just always happens to take over when I’m reading books. I think I’ll change it this summer and at least read one non-fiction book per month. This way, I’ll get some non-fiction in my life!

Sometimes I like to throw in some thriller, some romance and some YA to mix things up. I always thought I was a YA reader, but I guess most of the YA I’m reading is also Science Fiction and Fantasy. When I think back to my reading life, I think of the Twilight series and Harry Potter and The Hunger Games being big in my life. Isn’t it funny how sometimes your favorite genres are just sitting right in front of your face?

Book Reviews, Diverse Reads

Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala

by Simone3 Comments on Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala
Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala

I haven’t read a book that made me mad in a really long time. I’m glad that this book was the break from that. When I get mad at a book that’s really good, it’s because of how it all played out and what the outcome of everyone’s actions led to. It’s been a really long time since I felt this way and honestly, I appreciate the anger.

Continue reading “Speak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala” →

Book Reviews, Books

Sourdough by Robin Sloan

by Simone1 Comment on Sourdough by Robin Sloan

 

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I’ve only tried to make bread once in my life and while I did have a tasty loaf, I can’t say if it was the best bread in the world. However, I have an inkling that Lois can.

SOURDOUGH by Robin Sloan is the story about a woman named Lois Clary who arrives in San Francisco with a computer science degree. She begins to work at a small tech company building mechanical robot arms to help people do ordinary things.

As a newcomer to the city, she didn’t have many friends so she spent many of her nights at home ordering food from the local restaurant called Clement Street Soup and Sourdough. Every night, she would order the same delicious spicy soup with their famous sourdough bread. And as she ordered, she became friendlier with the two brothers who owned the restaurant.

That was until one day the boys had the move back home due to immigration reasons. Before the two boys left, they gifted Lois with their starter for sourdough bread. It’s an ancient starter that has been passed along generation to generation. The boys left the starter with Lois to keep providing that she takes care of it everyday and makes sure to feed it.

As the skeptic that she is, she goes ahead and does what the boys say, but little did she know that this starter is about to take her on an interesting journey.

San Francisco tech and sourdough go together like peanut butter and jelly. These two things are so synonymous with the city that it makes sense to put together a whole book about it. It was an easy read with an interesting story, but it wasn’t a wow for me. It was good and I liked it, but I wasn’t thinking this could be the best book he’s ever written. What I liked in reading a story about carbs also lacked in some other technical things.

The story is kind of set up like little pockets of time. Each chapter represents one story and the entire book is a culmination of all those stories. It didn’t have the same beat that your average book would have, but each story spoke along the same lines. It’s about bread.

You see Lois get the starter and try to bake her first loaf of sourdough bread. She’s never baked or cooked anything in her life, but she was somehow magically able to bake a loaf of sourdough bread. I know that bread isn’t easy and from the people I know who have tried to make it, no one has done it perfectly.

Yet, you see her bake a loaf and her reaction seemed like this was easy and doesn’t really require much. I understand if Robin Sloan was trying to use the starter as the reason for all the great baking, but I don’t know if you can bake great bread right from the get-go without considering that maybe it’s the starter?

Lois immediately catches the baking bug and start not only making bread for herself, for her friends, for her office, for everyone. One person suggests that she try and sell it and thus begins her story to really make something from the bread. Throughout this, you get little hints and clues as to what might be the cause for her success and you see the magic of the starter. It’s like reading someone’s diary on how they got started with baking bread and all the different things they did to get the bread they wanted. It was more telling than it was showing which made it kind of dull for me.

Then all of a sudden, the sourdough changes on her and about three quarters of the way into the novel, the story really picks up. I was kind of confused by why this didn’t happen much earlier in the novel to help really push the reader along. I really wanted to see what happened with the dough, but even the ending was wrapped up into a neat little bow. I just wanted a little bit more, just another taste of that delicious bread rather than being told.

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However, the book did keep me interested because I did end up finishing it. I think it had something to do with the starter, finding its origins, learning how to hone it, figuring out where all of this leads. You get to read about all these things through the email correspondences Lois has with Beoreg, the guy who gave her the starter. It almost feels magical and alive and that was more intriguing to me than listening to her figure out how to make more bread. Like well kneaded dough, these pieces were sprinkled in like bench flour to keep you from getting stuck.

My favorite part is really the descriptions of the bread. The fluffy and doughy centers where people slabbed butter on top and I wish that this story was more about that than learning how to double the bread output Lois was making everyday.

I think what really drew me to the story was the idea that Lois was going into a vocation that she was good at, but not passionate about. Then, you see her start to make bread and become obsessed with creating a beautiful loaf that pleases a lot of people. She questions her job, she questions her motivation, and then she finally figures out what she wants. I think that’s a story that a lot of people can relate to especially when you work in a field that you’re not a fan of. You just want to see Lois succeed because you want to succeed and that’s a resonance I know far too well.

Book Reviews, Books

Little Fires Everywhere to Celeste Ng

by Simone2 Comments on Little Fires Everywhere to Celeste Ng

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I know this review is a long time coming. I’ve been mulling over this book for the past couple of weeks. I don’t know how to describe my feelings for this book, but I know they are good. I just don’t know how to explain it the best way possible. I’m going to at least try.

I don’t know where to start with this book. There were stories within stories and some of them I wanted to know more about and there were others that I could have done without. There were stories that randomly popped up and ones you followed throughout the book.

Have you ever been the new person in town? I’ve never been new and when I’m new, I’m already assimilated to the town the best that I can. However, some towns are just too small and too friendly that if you’re slightly different you may be facing some serious backlash.

In Little Fires Everywhere, you follow Mia and Pearl as they arrive in Shaker Heights, Ohio. It’s considered one of the most idyllic towns in the suburbs of Ohio and we all know that with idyllic towns there’s always something hiding under the surface.

This was my official first book by Celeste Ng. I’ve tried reading books by her in the past, but I had some trouble with them. Mostly because of the I’m really bad when it comes to death and dying and her first book was all about that.

Little Fires Everywhere feels like a combination of stories. It’s almost like watching a play where all the characters are important and all of them have a background that needs to be discussed and discovered to help with outlining the bigger theme of the book; the sacrifices mothers go through.

I’m not sure if it was Celeste Ng’s intention to make a book about being a mother, but it happens to be that way. And for some reason I’ve been reading a lot of books about mothers and what they do for their children. Perhaps it’s a sign that I should call mine?

But the story is a culmination of different stories. Themes covered from sex as a teenager, pregnancy, abortion, adoption, surrogacy, sacrifice, suffering, struggle, all the words that start with the letter S. Honestly, I thought the book could be longer since there was so much covered.

So Mia and Pearl arrive in this town and you’re curious as to where they came from. What made them move here? Why did they decide on Shaker Heights? All these questions kind of rise up while you read the book. The further you read, the more you find out.

However, I think the most important part of the book and probably the catalyst for everyone’s secrets revealed is when a young couple tries to adopt an abandoned Asian baby. Without giving too much away, the birth mother realizes too late that she didn’t want to give the baby away and the couple who wanted to adopt her was already in love with the baby. You can imagine the tension between the two families and what will happen next.

What’s interesting is that Celeste Ng takes on every major character in this book and starts to unpack their lives. It’s expertly laid out throughout the novel so that with every chapter that goes by, you learn a little bit more. Perhaps it’s more like watching a serial TV show than a play where each episode shares with you more about the people involved.

But the amazing part is how everything is sort of attached to the lives they chose, the decisions they made, and the actions that took their lives and changed who they are and why they did what they did.

It’s really hard to talk about this book without giving it away. I will say that if you’re a mom and you know the struggles and sacrifices you’ve made for yourself and for your children, then this will be a good book for you. And if you’re a person without kids, you might wonder what your mom went through in order to let you grow up in a good and loving home.

I received this copy of the book at BookCon. You can find Little Fires Everywhere on Amazon.

Book Reviews

The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas

by Simone4 Comments on The Resurrection of Joan Ashby by Cherise Wolas

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I picked up Joan from the bookstore the day before it was supposed to appear on the shelves of every bookstore in the country. I searched through Strand because it wasn’t something displayed just yet on the mounds of book tables in front of the store. No, Joan was a little secret left to those who already knew the book was about to publish.

Throughout the weeks beforehand, I had heard rumblings across the bookish universe about how amazing this book was. How insightful and surprising it is for a first novel from an unknown author. I felt intrigued by that alone and as the stubborn mule that I am, I had to check it out for myself before I can make a discerning comment.

What I found to be a compelling novel about a writer and obviously a book written for writers. I’ve always believed that I would one day become a published author.

I did myself a huge disservice by trying to read this book too quickly. I was trying to be as quick about reading this because I had so many others waiting for me to read them, so I panicked. However, Joan is not the type of person to be rushed. I think that can be clearly expected from her, but I rushed her and the following points I bring up which brought my review to a 4/5 are probably because I didn’t give her the full, calm, and extended attention she deserved.

The Resurrection of Joan Ashby is the story about a woman who already had a promising writing career ahead of her. The book begins with article clippings of praise for Joan’s already published short story collections. Then all of a sudden, she disappears from public eye and this is where her story begins.

This is an extremely detailed story of a woman who struggles to find balance between the dreams she made for herself prior to having a family and the reality of raising two kids with an almost absent husband. Suffice it to say, this wasn’t Joan’s plans for herself.

I know a lot of women who would argue that you’re able to have a fulfilling and lasting career even with having kids. I’m pretty sure Beyonce is one of those women. However, if you’ve ever written anything and aspired to be a writer there’s a certain amount of sacrifice you make in order to write that book. The few years I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo I don’t remember going out with friends or having conversations online. I would just sit at my desk and type words that would fall out of my head in hopes of making heads or tails of it in the future.

And it’s completely possible to be a writer and be a mother. I think this is just one truth Joan Ashby refused to see and it was clear she never saw that throughout the story. It really is the novel for writers about writers and writing. It’s about the sacrifices you need to make in order to let your art shine. What I found to be a really interesting style I’ve never seen before is how Cherise Wolas spent so much of her time writing several different stories into one giant behemoth of a novel.

First, she’s writing the story of Joan Ashby’s life, then she has long excerpts from the books Joan Ashby has written. She also has pieces of writing from Joan Ashby’s books while she was living her life. Finally, she also has the stories Joan’s children carried with them as they uncover the truth of their mother. Like how do you get yourself into the mindset of not only your own voice, but Joan Ashby’s voice, and then the voices of her kids. It’s an incredible dissection of a writer and what goes into writing and it’s almost the inception of books. A writer writing about writing and writing a novel while living her life. Anyone who writes can understand it and can resonate powerfully with it.

I think my favorite part of this book is when she finally takes her trip to India. She pulls an “Eat, Pray, Love” to escape from the ongoing life she’d been living at the most pivotal point in the story. Her time in India was inspiring; almost like hitting the reset button on your life and starting anew in a different world with different people other than the ones you’ve felt were damaging your spirit.

However, I will say that the passages including excerpts of Joan Ashby’s work were quite long. They’re all so expertly written and the story can’t really move forward without them but it almost felt like I was reading five books at once and I found it a little bit exhausting at times. For example, there’s an entire section of this novel read from the point of view of Joan’s son Daniel. He reads his mother’s work for the first time and not only do you read the perspective he gains from her work, but how that plays into some of the decisions he makes for himself. It’s really powerful, but something I could have done with less of or truncated. Why did Joan need to be such a verbose writer?

While I wish I can give this story a full five stars, there were a couple of flaws that I didn’t really like. One of which is the constant reminder to the reader that this life Joan Ashby was currently living was not the one she chose. She repeats throughout the novel how she didn’t want to get married, how she didn’t want to have kids, and how she was basically stymied the great career she could have had because of them. Yes yes, we understand that this isn’t the life Joan Ashby wanted for herself and I believe she tried to do her best as a disconnected mother, but I don’t think it needs to be repeated over and over again.

I think this book can resonate not only with writers but with women who may have sacrificed a little bit too much in order to take care of their children and raise their families. They’re all noble decisions to make, I assure you, but what happens when the kids are all grown up? What happens to the Beyonce lurking behind the 5AM wake up calls and the trips to soccer practice or violin lessons? That’s what I think this book is about.

I placed Joan up on the shelf prominently displaying amongst my other books, and one day I’ll have the time to sequester myself with her and her story. Don’t take the last two points I brought up as hugely disparaging of you reading this novel. I think you should and I think you’ll understand why everyone believes in Joan.

You can pick up a copy of The Resurrection of Joan Ashby: A Novel on Amazon.com