A beautifully written novel where the writer has carefully crafted nuanced ...
594407
A beautifully written novel where the writer has carefully crafted nuanced characters that actually have changed my perspective and given me insight into an experience that I didn't think that could be put into words. Don't want to spoil with my review. A definite MUST read...
2784807
Strangers in Budapest  is a beautifully written novel, that is both suspenseful, poignant, and so vividly drawn that I felt as if I had been transported to Budapest. I adored the complex, nuanced characters, the unfolding mystery, and the beautiful descriptions. I highly recommend it!
3057750
A beautifully written novel set in the era of the early twentieth century and written in a style evocative of that time and yet lifting a veil to show the shocking reality and brutality behind a period that it often romanticised.  What it means to be an educated, creative woman of no means, at the mercy of biology and cultural resistance to change is brought vividly to life, the grinding poverty and struggle to stay within the bounds of respectability.  Dorothy Richardson is squeezed in the vice-like grip which brings her to the brink and it is only through her courageous use of her talent that she is able to free herself even while accepting the loss of love.  Louisa Treger has very successfully breathed life into a forgotten writer.
4893551
With Eudora Welty as its author, it's no surprise that this book is written  beautifully and that the story gradually reveals itself in a fascinating and skillful and unusual way. Welty immerses the reader in the atmosphere of a small southern town in the early sixties and through the skillful use of flashbacks creates a tremendously nostalgic view of a way of life that is largely gone.
3802690
This is a beautifully crafted novel of exceptional descriptive prose. It's a story within a story of interwoven generations where the lives and deaths of those long gone profoundly affect those who follow. The novel is atmospheric, metaphysical and located in beautiful, haunting and sometimes bleak nature. The tales within a tale evolve slowly keeping the reader transfixed until all is revealed in the final pages.
387444
It is a "page turner!"  Beautiful nuanced writing that offers an exquisite reframe to a serious social problem, too often seen through a "blame the victim" frame. The characters were authentic people who all pulled care and sadness from me.
555697
This is such a beautifully written, powerful novel.  Barbara's struggle to make peace with the past and pave a new road for her future is one to which we can all relate.  Through the rich and honest portrayal of friendships and relationships, she takes the reader on an amazing journey through shameful secrets and devastating pain to forgiveness of self and others.  The author deftly captures nuanced subject matter with great care and detail.  This wonderful novel will stay with me for a long, long time.
8828
My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh is a book that doesnt neatly fit into any genre, but one in which the writing is so beautiful I think anyone interested should read it. The story is about a girl named Lindy Simpson, who was raped at the age of fifteen in her Baton Rouge neighborhood, and is told from the point of view of one of the suspects, who just happens to be in love with her. Yet while this is a mystery novel to discover who the culprit is, its much more than that. My Sunshine Away gives readers an inside look to a southern neighborhood that is replete with fascinating characters and somewhat unbelievable events.

I first want to discuss the age group for which this book is appropriate. Ive seen My Sunshine Away listed in both the young adult and adult sections of bookstores. While the story does follow the protagonists teenage life, for the most part, I personally consider this an adult novel. There are many graphic scenes, and I think the content is more appropriate for an older audience. That being said, I would recommend the book for the ages of 16 and up, but, as always, thats a choice every individual reader has to make.

In terms of the story itself, I have to say Ive never read anything quite like this before. The writing is very well done. I felt as if the protagonist was speaking directly to me, but in a way that is more poetic than colloquial. There are many quotable passages, and there is a depth to the writing as well. I don't read literary fiction often, so I did struggle to find some of the metaphors and how they connected to the story. My paperback edition contains a discussion section, and I found that really helpful. It added to my understanding of the book, and also increased the storys rereadability.

My Sunshine Away did have a slow pace, especially at the beginning, despite being a short book of about 300 pages. I think this is mainly due to the way time is used in the book. Instead of following a linear format, the protagonist jumps forward and backward in time. This does help to create a vivid picture of his childhood, but also made me slow down to ensure I got all of the details in order.

My favorite part of the novel is definitely getting to see inside a neighborhood in the south. Im from the northeast, and am so interested with the southern culture that is in some ways quite different from my own. The characters in the novel are so richly written, and they are beyond unique. The author does an amazing job at mixing in shocking and disturbing moments with the normalcy of everyday events. It balanced out the story well to have a rape on page one, and then childhood games between the neighborhood children for the following chapters.

Similarly, I loved how real life events, such as the Challenger explosion, are included in the book. This makes everything seem so real and vivid. I had an easier time picturing our characters as real people, and that made my emotional connection to them grow strong.

Finally, the ending was a bit hot and cold for me. I do really love how the book wrapped up, but I was let down by the mysterys resolve. I recognize that Lindys rape is not the sole focus of My Sunshine Away, but I almost feel like she wasn't given the respect she deserved when the rapists identity was just glossed over in the end. Its definitely something to think about after completing the book.

Overall, I did really enjoy My Sunshine Away, and I highly recommend it. I think this is a good book for those who want to break into the mystery genre, and those who love family dramas. You will get all of that and more in this novel. I look forward to reading more form M.O. Walsh in the future, and giving this one another read at some point, too.

*This review originally posted on Adventures in Polishland
2280009
When an author can create a completely absorbing novel, peopled with finely tuned characters that stir us with tension and competition and longing, a novel that uses as its base a sport that few readers know enough about to connect, then that author has displayed credentials of an impressive talent.  ON THE WATER spends alomst every page in the preparation, practice and execution of a two man crew boat.  He gradually pulls us into that boat with an understanding of the rules of the game and the rigors of the men who row. Then, subtly and with great tenderness he unveils his two young men of polar diferences and weaves a story of the power of sporting competion and the greater power of finding a soulmate.  This bonding between lower class gentile Anton and upper class Jew David is engineered by a German Doctor in 1939.  This beautiful story of an exploration of place and love is set in the last summer before Hitler destroys Europe.  We are left to guess the fate of David while we discover the solitary wandering Anton who tells the story five years later along the banks of the river where they spent the most beautiful time of their lives.  This novel gleams with magical poetry and introduces an author  (and translator) who seems destined to find an important role in the 21st Century of literature.  Read this book!
2105145
Fred Misurella is a very readable author. We feel with his characters and live inside his books because of the careful details he provides with his accessible and well-crafted prose. His prose is richly vivid. From the very first pages of his book, the reader is absorbed by the story of Margy, the main protagonist. We feel her emotions, her fears, her longing,  and are pulled into her story. Misurella is a fine writer who captures the conflicts that an interracial marriage must endure due to political and social forces. When Margy grows beyond the neglect of her father and the abuse of her insane mother, she faces a new predicament. How can one have a career as artist and be the wife of a prominent civil rights lawyer, how can a woman balance a career while being committed to family?  How can she forgive the father who neglected her at last? These are the issues raised and the story grips us into wanting to discover the answers.
3331968
This is one of those novels where one improbable thing happens after another...but strangely, it doesn't detract from the writing. Tucker writes with absolute confidence and there is a gothic, Jane Eyre-esque overlay that makes the book moody and beautiful.

This is the story of two children who were raised in the middle of nowhere by their overprotective father, and never allowed out of the house. Eventually, the son rebels, and the daughter ventures out into the "real world" to find him. She is befriended by a doctor-turned-cabbie who is hiding a tragedy of his own. As the book unfolds, the reader finds out that nothing is what it seems, and every character has a secret.

Despite the crazy roller-coaster of a plot (which I won't give away here), Tucker's writing is delicate, mesmerizing and absorbing, and her characters are expertly drawn, particularly Dorothea, Stephen and Lucy. It is one of those books that is impossible to put down, and I stayed up till 2 am one night reading it. I never really got into her books before but I think this will be her breakout novel. There is also a lot of fodder here for discussion at book clubs, since she tackles a lot of meaty issues: morality, corruption, innocence, tragedy, responsiblity toward one's family, mental illness, violence and recovery.
4923680
This is a wonderful novel; the writing is beautiful, the story is gripping. At first I was a bit put off by the way the author jumps back and forth between characters from chapter to chapter, but as I read on I came to appreciate her masterful work in drawing the reader in to the central mystery and yet making us care about all of the characters (and there are quite a few characters). Her writing borders on the poetic: her descriptions of people,  places and things makes the reader feel like s/he is there observing, too. The novel combines what is essentially a "character study" of a whole community with a mystery, whose answer is not revealed until the final chapters. What a lovely book... a must-read.
2671172
This beautifully written novel, which tells the struggles of a Christian missionary family in rural China in 1910, is an unqualified triumph.

The compelling story line involves the missionary parents' search for their kidnapped child and moves along with all the drama and pacing of a mystery novel. The characters, both American and Chinese, are skillfully brought to life, and the plot -- surreal twists and all -- feels completely believable.

At the same time, River of Dust also succeeds admirably as a subtle allegory for the entire "civilizing mission" of Westerners in Asia.

Through powerful imagery and masterful storytelling, author Virginia Pye evokes the truth of this quote from a just-published historical study called Arc of Empire: America's Wars in Asia from the Philippines to Vietnam, which was recently reviewed in The New York Review of Books:

"those Americans [in Vietnam] suffered from one fatal flaw. They manifested colonial attitudes rooted in the previous century - a missionary confidence in the United States as a transformative force in the world and a conviction of cultural superiority over Asians seen as alternately barbaric and childlike..."

The author does a remarkable job of portraying these underlying attitudes through her characters' words and actions. The reader understands the conflicted motives of both the missionaries and the Chinese, yet the narration is never heavy-handed or obvious.

Perhaps because Pye relied in part on the writings of her grandfather, who was a missionary in China around the turn of the 20th century, the slightly old-fashioned narrative voice confidently evokes both time and place and assuages doubts about the truth and realism of the story.

Speaking of old-fashioned, River of Dust is a handsome, hard-back book, with high-quality paper and cut pages. In these days of cheap mass-production and books that fall apart after one reading, it's great to own a novel -- especially one as well-written as this - that's made to last.

Congratulations to Virginia Pye on a remarkable literary achievement.
4972445
It's hard to believe that this book is a first novel; it's so aesthetically sophisticated that one can hardly believe it's the work of such a young author. An insightful, evocative window into the uncomfortable truths of love and hardship, written with superb style and a master's sense of restraint. A very fine showing from a novelist we are sure to hear much more from.
3960372
Andre Aciman has written a stunning novel.  The protagonists are a 17 year old Italian boy (Elio) and a 24 year old American professor putting final touches on a masterpiece.  For his age Elio demonstrates intellectual yearning along with sophisticated classical music musicology. The setting is a six week period in an unidentified town near Venice where the Piave River empties into the Adriatic Sea.  Both primary characters are complex persons with often internally warring emotions and attractions.  Aciman's writing is beautiful and cultured.  His depiction of the scenery and other characters is wonderfully detailed. As I read the initial portion of the novel, I saw the plot unfolding quite slowly.  Aciman's writing portrays in considerable detail the developing emotions of the two.  Is there going to be a real connection?  As you read further, the draw of the plot pulls you "in" more and more strongly -- and I found myself reading more slowly and savoring each phrase.  With the days spent in Rome and through the end of the novel, the reader is pulled into the lives of both Elio and the professor.  I would be surprised if almost all readers weren't similarly moved.
1755737
I would like to say that this novel is breathtaking in its simplicity, however, it is the complexity and depth of the characters that draws you in.  The relationship between the two main characters (and their families and culture) is arresting and beautifully drawn.  I especially appreciated how the story provided a glimpse into the world of women whose lives are often bound by traditions that our modern culture often dismisses.  With its solid writing and emotional depth, this book makes you feel what these women experience.  I left this book feeling as though I had known these women and through them, learned something about a culture that I previously knew little about.
3652095
From the very first story, the reader knows she's in the hands of a masterful writer. Caitlin Hamilton Summie describes both geography and people with clarity and fullness. Her choices of perfect words are spot-on but seemingly effortless. In a few short pages, she creates strong relationships, allowing the reader to make meaningful emotional connections. Her sense of place is powerful. Truly a beautiful book!