Book Reviews

Since I last posted about American Wife, I have read two more books. Both of them were nice, quick reads without being trashy beach reads. I can't believe I've had a streak of three good books (including Am. Wife). Here are the other two...

1) Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan. This book is on a lot of "summer reading list" shelves at Borders/Barnes & Noble, and is a good weekend read. My sister Ann's friend from college was actually the person who reviewed Mudbound's manuscript before it was published. After the big wigs said they wouldn't publish it, her friend took it to Algonquin books in Chapel Hill, NC (where they both went to school), and Algonquin took it! A few years later, and it's a bestseller! 

Mudbound takes place in the post-WWII era in the rural South. It's about a woman who left her urban Memphis upbringing after falling in love and getting married to move to a rural farm. The farm itself is separated from a nearby town by a bridge, which is flooded over every time there is a big storm. In any case, it's a great story about race relations, family, and is just a good novel. Southern folklore kind of stuff. If you like reading about the South, you'll like this, but even if you don't you'll enjoy it, too. From reading the acknowledgments in the book, it looks like Barbara Kingsolver was Hillary Jordan's mentor...and I can tell. If you like Babs Kingsolver, you'll like this book. 

2) The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. Another book about the South...can you see a trend? Actually, I stumbled across this book in Barnes & Nobles, while looking in the "New Authors" section. This book takes place a little later that Mudbound - it's set in 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi. It's the story of a progressive aspiring writer (who is the only single 23-year old woman with no children in her social circle - crazy!) who decides to write a book from the point of view of "the help", as a way to impress a publisher in New York who she wants to work for. 

Once again, this is a great story first and foremost, but also a great look into race relations, for better or for worse, in the 1960s South. However, as someone who has read many books, both fiction and nonfiction, about the South in the 60s, I found this book refreshing. It's not another cliched book that only deals with basic race issues (as I found Mudbound sometimes was). It has a lot of endearing stories, as well as frustrating ones. Like American Wife, The Help is a longer book (450 pages or so), but I blew through it (started it last Sunday and finished it today, with the help of two 5 hour plane rides!). 

I still haven't read any more of The Art of Racing in the Rain, which I started a few weeks ago. I think I was in the mood for more of a novel than a short story (which this book seems to be). I'm going to continue this book soon, but first I think I'm going to give another book I bought at B&N a shot, called America, America, by Ethan Canin. We'll see how that goes. 

If any of you have any suggestions for good books that are fast reads (meaning, they don't drag on in the beginning, since starting books is the hardest challenge for me), please let me know!