Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

A recipe book for disaster, this fable tells of Tita, born and raised in the hot comfort of a kitchen. But Tita’s mother denies her the liberty of marrying Pedro. Only through her cooking can Tita express her passion: a love as dangerous as a hot stove. One meal causes her sister’s clothing to spontaneously combust!

I didn’t connect with any of the characters because they were so exaggerated. I didn’t want to care about them because the author seemed to take their fates so lightly. Magic realism? Not sure I like it. Not sure about the recipes in this book either.

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The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

It’s literally a book of war stories.  But it’s also a book about war stories.

What makes a war story true? The facts? Or the fable? O’Brien says a tall tale can be more true than what actually happened. Maybe because exaggeration better satisfies the need to communicate feelings.

O’Brien blends fiction and truth about the Vietnam war till you learn to hear the stories without caring about specific facts.

This book is about experiencing war.  And telling about that experience through stories.

It’s obscene and poetic, violent and emotional. What did the soldiers carry? More than I have.

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Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

In one thread of this story, Kafka, a mature 15-year-old, runs away from home to escape a dark prophecy. He is intelligent but troubled. So he hides in a library where he meets a woman who lives in her memories.
The other thread is Nakata, an elderly simpleton, who is neither intelligent, nor troubled.  Mr. Nakata can talk to cats. As he searches for a lost cat, he finds himself drawn despite himself into a courageous quest. Can Kafka run from his destiny? Or must he and Nakata act out their destinies to keep the universe from going awry?

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Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Sue Trinder was raised in a warren of thieves. Gentleman recruits her in an ambitious scheme to deceive an heiress, but once she replaces the victim’s maid, Sue is plagued with feelings of compassion. Will cold feet prevail?

The book’s atmosphere is like Oliver Twist meets Jane Eyre–complete with pickpockets, madhouses and murderers.

The cast of villains go about duping each other for selfish reasons, but Waters has a knack for making you root for the most fault-ridden humans.

The storytelling was so engrossing that at two points, I actually reacted out loud: “What?” and “Drama, drama!” The plot is twisted and fully enjoyable!

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Another blogger’s review

And another one for good measure

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

This is a book most people read in high school. I didn’t, but it reminds me of a short story I had to read back then: “The Lottery.”

Atwood’s novel carries the same tones of a heartless society and its desperate victims.

It’s a cautionary tale of a dystopian society where woman are the core–the few fertile ones have become indispensable resources–yet they are without power. Every person is contained in their role and even the captors are enslaved.

Blood red suburbia. People are cloaked and confined. There is no one who trusts in humans.

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Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis

“Hey Baby, what’s the story?” says Victor Ward, It Boy of the moment. “Never mind, spare me.”

It’s so cold that frost is creeping along the walls as Victor brushes confetti off the sleeve of his Comme des garçons tux.  Later in the script, Victor will be recruited by models-slash-terrorists and eased into senseless violence. For now, he’s oblivious.

“It’s what you don’t know that matters the most.”

As Victor flirts inattentively, from somewhere, an ominously relevant song from the 90s begins to play.

I am faux-freaked out by this book.

It’s the same plot as Zoolander but it’s hardly funny.

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The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

My brother gave me number 641 on the list for Christmas.

This is another novel in the detective genre, so I compared it as always to my benchmark: Agatha Christie novels. It was enjoyable but the “whodunnit” revelation was less satisfying than one of Poirot’s mise-en-scènes. Its focus seemed to be on recreating an environment (foggy and ominous) and a culture (wee British parish with a love for bellringing), in which a murder takes place, almost incidentally. What seems more important is a strained relationship between man and nature.

Note: Tailors are not “hemmers of pants,” but bells!

And Bunter rocks.

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Another blogger’s review

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone is the classic detective novel, complete with an invaluable but cursed jewel, a mysterious theft, suspicious strangers from a foreign land, rigid British social classes, quicksand, interrogations, an unassuming detective and cigars in the billiard room. It seems unoriginal. Too much of what we’ve already seen: Sherlock and Watson, Poirot, even board game Clue.

However, The Moonstone was the Apollo 11 of the detective genre. It’s not a stereotype, but the prototype. It was a launching pad for all detective fiction. As a fan of the genre, I can vouch for this stellar novel. It’s out of this world!

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Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Born in a backwards fishing village, Sayuri was sold when her mother died and sent to an okiya in Kyoto. She longs for escape, since the resident geisha mistreats her, but the only path is to become a geisha. A blue-eyed beauty in a city of dark eyes, she soon becomes famous. But love?

Sayuri wonders if she has any control over her destiny. Is she a pebble in a stream, tumbled and pulled by the current of her circumstances? Or is she a fish, using the current to swim toward the destiny she desires?

Loved it. Slightly disappointed by Sayuri’s final choice.

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William of Baskervilles is an English monk visiting a rich Italian abbey on a political mission. Adso, the narrator, plays his Dr. Watson as William is asked to investigate a murder in the abbey. The monastery’s pious veneer is peeled back to reveal the dishonest and greedy motives beneath.

Eco’s slogan: “God is in the details.” He uses long lists to describe. Instead of writing “Adelmo’s illustrations portrayed imaginary creatures such as men with tooth-filled mouths in their bellies,” he tells us exactly what was on the page, in a sentence 207 words long.

Themes: loss of ideals, hypocrisy, possessions, poverty, temporality.

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