R is for Reading
Most of my reading lately has been Blogs, because NaBloPoMo. I have managed to read 3 books, mostly thanks to my Audible and Libby apps.
Jo Becker has every reason to be content. She has three dynamic daughters, a loving marriage, and a rewarding career. But she feels a sense of unease. Then an old housemate reappears, sending Jo back to a distant past when she lived in a communal house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Drawn deeper into her memories of that fateful summer in 1968, Jo begins to obsess about the person she once was. As she is pulled farther from her present life, her husband, and her world, Jo struggles against becoming enveloped by her past and its dark secret.
https://www.suemillernovelist.com/while-i-was-gone
While I Was Gone was a physical copy that I picked up in a Little Free Library. It’s not new, written in the late 1900s. (Well, 1999 to be exact, but it’s kind of fun to say ‘the late 1900s’, which is inaccurate, because that would be 1909. Oh well. It’s not a new book.)
This book was disturbing, but very good. The main character, Jo, seems pretty happy at the beginning of the book, but then we learn about her past, and someone from that time appears in her life, and we see a different side of her. Sometimes I want to stop characters from making mistakes, or I want to keep bad things from happening to them, and then I wonder what kind of book that would be. “J went to work, then she cooked dinner and watched TV. On the weekend she went out with her friends and had a good time. The end.” OK for a blog post or a conversation, but not much of a story.
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. The family is part of a Christian community that traces itself to the time of the apostles, but times are shifting, and the matriarch of this family, known as Big Ammachi—literally “Big Mother”—will witness unthinkable changes at home and at large over the span of her extraordinary life. All of Verghese’s great gifts are on display in this new work: there are astonishing scenes of medical ingenuity, fantastic moments of humor, a surprising and deeply moving story, and characters imbued with the essence of life.
A shimmering evocation of a lost India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.
https://www.abrahamverghese.org/the-covenant-of-water/
A neighbor and my MIL both LOVED Cutting for Stone, so when I heard a glowing review of The Covenant of Water on the radio, I told them about it. They both read it and LOVED it. My neighbor brought her copy over to loan me. It is a really thick book, almost 800 pages, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it. So I listened to it instead. It is narrated by the author, which I thought was going to suck, but he did a great job, and I enjoyed it a lot more than Cutting for Stone. It’s a long, multi-generational saga of a family in South-Western India, and I really liked the character development. Some of the stories seemed to go on too long, but I expect that is not a shock with such a long book. Verghese was a doctor before writing, so there are some medical situations that did not sit well with me, but if that kind of thing doesn’t bother you, and you want to become immersed, go for it.
Thirty-three-year-old Abby Stern has made it to a happy place. True, she still has gig jobs instead of a career, and the apartment where she’s lived since college still looks like she’s just moved in. But she’s got good friends, her bike, and her bicycling club in Philadelphia. She’s at peace with her plus-size body—at least, most of the time—and she’s on track to marry Mark Medoff, her childhood sweetheart, a man she met at the weight-loss camp that her perpetually dieting mother forced her to attend. Fifteen years after her final summer at Camp Golden Hills, when Abby reconnects with a half-his-size Mark, it feels like the happy ending she’s always wanted.
Yet Abby can’t escape the feeling that something isn’t right…or the memories of one thrilling night she spent with a man named Sebastian two years previously. When Abby gets a last-minute invitation to lead a cycling trip from NYC to Niagara Falls, she’s happy to have time away from Mark, a chance to reflect and make up her mind.
But things get complicated fast. First, Abby spots a familiar face in the group—Sebastian, the one-night stand she thought she’d never see again. Sebastian is a serial dater who lives a hundred miles away. In spite of their undeniable chemistry, Abby is determined to keep her distance. Then there’s a surprise last-minute addition to the trip: her mother, Eileen, the woman Abby blames for a lifetime of body shaming and insecurities she’s still trying to undo.
Over two weeks and more than seven hundred miles, strangers become friends, hidden truths come to light, a teenage girl with a secret unites the riders in unexpected ways…and Abby is forced to reconsider everything she believes about herself, her mother, and the nature of love.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Breakaway/Jennifer-Weiner/9781668033425
I like Jennifer Weiner books, so when I heard she had a new one out, I ordered it on my Audible app. When I FINALLY finished The Covenant of Water, I started listening to it, and the narrator has such an odd way of speaking, I almost had to quit. I actually considered returning it, but it was too late, so I persevered. I found it helpful to listen to Abby’s section on 1.2x speed, so the weird pauses didn’t bug me so much. “Abby thought…about eating lunch…” That kind of thing. I looked up the narrator and she’s a big deal actor, but I haven’t seen her in anything, so I don’t know if that’s the direction she got, or if that’s just how she talks. The narrator for Sebastian’s parts was also annoying, he sounded kind of pissed off and sarcastic the whole time.
Aside from these 2 narrators of the book, I really enjoyed it. It’s a Rom Com, so there are misunderstandings, but I did feel like there was a decent amount of character development. Also, the last bit takes place in 2024. I take that as a good sign that we haven’t blown each other up yet, even though it is fiction. If you’re a fan of Weiner’s work, I think you will like this one.
22 Comments
Ernie
I don’t think I could manage an 800 page book. Yikes. I don’t think I’ve read a Jennifer Weiner book but this one sounds like it might be something I would enjoy. Thanks for sharing your reviews. I always enjoy learning about what other people are reading.
J
Ernie, I get a lot of my recommendations through other people’s blogs, so I agree, it’s fun!
Suzanne
I just listened to The Breakaway and HATED the narration!!! I even wrote about it for an upcoming post about pet peeves. So stilted!!!!! But the book was pretty cute.
J
Thanks Suzanne, I appreciate that it was not just me!
Margaret
I tried a couple rom-com books but couldn’t finish them; I got impatient with the misunderstandings and reader manipulation. I loved “Cutting for Stone” and am enjoying “The Covenant of Water” although not as much for some reason.
J
Margaret, interesting! I’m glad you’re enjoying The Covenant of Water. I liked it, but didn’t love it.
Beckett @ Birchwood Pie
While I Was Gone sounds like a winner – and the odds are good that the hold list isn’t long;-)
Happiness Falls ended up being a hard DNF for me at 30%. I wasn’t bonding with the characters and I’d lost interest in what happened to the dad…on to the next book.
J
Oh, interesting! I’m half way through at this point and LOVING it!
Jenny
Wow. I’m impressed that you’ve read THREE books during NaBloPoMo- I’m struggling to get through one. I guess it would help if I listened to audio books. The Sue Miller sounds interesting! And so does the Jennifer Weiner, but thanks for the heads-up- I”ll definitely skip the audio version.
J
Audio books makes ALL the difference. I listened for about 3 hours yesterday while walking, driving, running errands. I couldn’t do that with a physical book or even ebook.
Nicole MacPherson
I loved Cutting for Stone, so maybe I should look up the Covenant of Water! I have a lot of books on the go right now so maybe it will have to wait.
I am very hit or miss on Weiner. I have really enjoyed some of them and absolutely loathed others. But I’m a curious person so I might give this a go!
J
Nicole, maybe put it on hold at the library and see how you like it when you get it.
Allison McCaskill
I loved Cutting for Stone also. I watched a show that took place in Kerala and was embarrassingly surprised that part of India was surrounded by water. I usually tackle at least one very long book a year, and I’m not sure I’ve done it this year, but I’m eyeing The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk.
I’ve read a couple of books by Jennifer Weiner and liked them. Was Nikki Blonsky the narrator? She was Tracy in Hairspray, which we loved, and Santino Fontana was in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which I also loved. I don’t really do audio books, though, my mind wanders too much.
I just read my first culinary cozy and it may be my last.
J
Yes, Nikki Blonsky was the narrator. I haven’t seen Hairspray or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Maybe this would work for you!
Daria
Cutting for Stone! I remember that… It was a loooooong audio book that I expired before I could finish it. I want to read the Covenant of Water. Added to my forever growing list!
J
I don’t even know whether I finished Cutting for Stone, just that the medical stuff was too much for me.
Tierney
Thank you! I just put The Breakaway on hold via my Libby cue. I saw Abraham Verghese at a local bookstore (Keppler’s in Menlo Park) and he said he had to try out as narrator for his own book. He put in the effort on how to read in a stylized way, i.e. different voices, good inflection, etc. It’s interesting to me what people like to do, since I hate reading aloud. I recorded academic articles as part of an on-campus job and I found it so boring, I stopped and switched to another job. It was awful!
J
I think it would be a very difficult, perhaps really boring job. I think Verghese did an amazing job narrating his book, though, I was really impressed!
Tobia | craftaliciousme
I hate it when the narrators irrtiate me. I have quite audiobooks of that. I could manage. And sometimes the whole book is riuned because i will forever link it to the narrator.
I am actaually enjoying lober books and alwayys feel drawn to them. My logest one so far (besides the bible) was 1200 something I think. Which was amazing.
J
I’ve been pretty lucky, not too many narrators really bug me. This one was (fortunately) rare.
coco
when do you listen to audiobooks? i find myself distracted. I just downloaded an audiobook for the first time about history and I really want to listen to it. any tip?
J
I listen while I take my morning walk, and sometimes while I cook. My mind does wander…sometimes I go back and listen a second time. But it gives me so much more time with a book than I get with a physical book, and the narrators are often amazing.