Review - The Last Pope by Luis Miguel Rocha

This was a book which I read after reading a hilarious synopsis on Reactions to Reading. I thought it was brilliant!!! Please go check. He did give it a very low rating though and on that part we disagree.

Anyway to get back to this review. I have always been intrigued by the Catholic Church and its doings - mainly due to a convent education I think by Irish and Sri Lankan nuns. The book is quite a tome - 302 pages of heavy reading but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

A complicated story of a secret group known as P2 (somewhat similar to Freemasons and the Illuminati) controlling the governments of several countries and part of the hierarchy of the Vatican. Totally responsible for the death of the Pope John Paul I who was Pope for only 33 days. According to the author other than three characters of the story who form the main mystery/thriller part everything else in the story is true and that is what makes it rather frightening to know to what extent the Church and really the hierarchy within the church will go to protect what they think is "theirs" personally. What they wanted to protect was the reputation and standing of the church, not dogma or doctrine and that is rather sad as well.

The actions of the CIA and the Mafia are rather troubling. The author assures us that it is not so today but that it was so during a period of 1971 to 1981 in the financial sphere only and not the religious side. Nevertheless it strikes a jarring note. The author very specifically states that there are other organizations in the Vatican who are even more powerful today.

John Paul I did not want to be pope and prayed that he will not be elected. On his election he mentioned the fateful words "May God forgive you for what you have done to me". Who or what he meant remains a mystery todate.

John Paul I's death still remains a mystery. His body was embalmed within 24 hours so an autopsy was not possible. All those connected and those who worked with him were told to take a vow of silence on his death. The mystery remains.

I would give this book a 4 out of 5 but it is strictly for those who will enjoy reading about the Catholic church, the Vatican and the ramifications of the Papacy.

Review - Anita Shreve's TESTIMONY

A video surfaces in a conservative school of a sexual orgy of a kind involving an underage girl and three boys with one other boy videotaping the whole scene. How it evolves from that point is the whole story of Testimony.

Told by all parties to the story - even those on the periphery - it brings the cause and effect theory very close to the entire community. How one action like the ripples on a pond just keep spreading and spreading till the entire pond is affected. Told from the first person angle it is very upclose and personal - each person outlines and gives his story and the part he played or what he saw overall during the entire time the story and the case was enacted.

Who is to blame for the fiasco. As the boys were all of age were they responsible for their actions. The fourteen year old girl described as a "vixen" and who on tape looked a very willing participant was she to blame on account of her age. Did her cries of rape and being drugged or made drunk sound true after four days. Her interviews seemed also to indicate that for her it seemed a fairy story where she was the main character and she spun it to her advantage when it suited her. How the lives of so many people were destroyed - one commits suicide, two very clever boys destined for very high things all lost in an instant. Parents marriages broke up as they could not take the stress of the case, friendships lost not just amongst the youngsters but even amongst the older folk.

The story was fascinating. The subject is of course commonplace and to take this subject and make it into this intriguing story is the cleverness of Shreve. You couldnt put this down once you started reading this book.

A book of just 305 pages a 4 out of 5 for this one.

Review - A family daughter by Maile Meloy

I chose this book mainly because of its cover and the title! I also hadn't read about it on the blogs and this interested me. I sometimes like to go off and pick books up which I have never heard about.

Again a family story - and how it evolves from Yvette and Teddy to Margot, Clarissa, and Jamie and subsequently to their children and the characters revolving in everyone's lives.

The attachment of children to a particular parent - where the other parent feels totally alienated is also seen in this book very visibly. Its a common enough occurence but one which I have not found so obviously written about before. It makes one think very specifically that as a parent you shouldn't favor one child in particular. The damage it could do to the other people is immense.

Meloy keeps introducing characters into the story - though they are on the periphery of it as it were, they are key elements to the story as well so that finally they are not minor characters but form the crux of the story. This was an unusual feature of this book.

An interesting, light read of just 325 pages. 3 out of 5 for me.

Review - Anita Shreve's Strange Fits of Passion

Anita Shreve takes a very commonplace story - an abusive violent husband and a submissive wife and turns it on its head! The story is compiled of a reporter's writings and letters from prison from Maureen who is convicted of killing her husband.

We go back in this story 20 years and it is being told in the present to Maureen's daughter Caroline who is a young college student - and the familiar story becomes somehow different in Shreve's hands.

Maureen decides to run away as she realizes there is no choice facing her - taking baby Caroline with her. For a period of six weeks she is able to live an idyllic life in a rural town, enjoying very quietly domestic life with her baby till Harrold turns up and her life is turned upside down once again.

The spectre of domestic violence in the 1970's was not a subject much discussed and rape within a marriage was not even an offence so this was a difficult subject to handle at the time. In the present context we would realize that Maureen could have done much more but at the time there were no options for her other than to run away.

A very straightforward characterization of both Maureen and Harrold make this book an exceptional read.

Just 336 pages long I would give it a 4 out of 5.

Review - Romancing Miss Bronte by Juliet Gael

Reading this book makes you aware of how much one (in this case me) did not know about the Bronte family including their autocratic father. The story starts long before the sisters were published and depicts their daily rather mundane life as the three of them, extremely close to each other, realize that nothing is going to change in their life with Bramwell the dissolute and drunk brother on the one hand and their father ingrained in autocratic behavior on the other.

One feels a great deal of sympathy for the three girls - all almost reverential to their father and his feelings on every subject under the sun, even if they do not agree with him. Everything in their life upto this point has been done in order not to upset him in any way in case "he suffers a rise in blood pressure".

Writing is a means of escape into their own worlds - their human feelings of love, passion and the world outside are brought into this bleak, humdrum life from which they dont seem to be able to escape. Add to that the threat of tubercolosis constantly hanging over them - Mama and two siblings at this stage have already succumbed. The tragedy of an only son who has been the apple of his father's eye and who is selfish and concerned only about his own feelings adds to their troubles.
Bramwell dies of consumption and this is a blow to the entire family.

Publishing of their works under men's names as they feel they would be held up to both criticism and ridicule if they publish under their own names the three sisters handle their poetry and books in different ways. Emily in her own world of doing her own thing and quite oblivious to others, Anne prim and rather conservative and Charlotte conservative and determined.

The book follows their lives with Charlotte leading the way - Emily and Anne succumb within six months of each other to tubercolosis and die leaving Charlotte all alone
and totally responsible for her father. Her love life and her marriage follow and Gael handles this subject specially Charlotte's awakening to her sexuality and her increasing awareness of her love for her husband very very beautifully. The story is tragic of course ending with Charlotte's death. The book is sad in that it encompasses an entire family doomed to tragedy almost from the onset. The story however is so beautifully handled that one has to read to the end and see what is going to happen.

A absolutely well written book 5 out of 5 for this one for me. Now I must go and hunt the other books which I haven't read by the Bronte sisters.

Review - Missing you Already by Pauline McLynn

Doing two reviews today as things are piling up around here! Unlike The Island which I have read so much about before I actually got my hands on the book, Missing you Already was just a book I picked up at the library.

For me, this book was a really good read. Kitty from a nondescript little town in Norfolk is someone who almost melts into the background and that is how she likes to be. She is in charge of the Lost and Found in a small railway station where there is not much of traffic, just a few trains stopping here and there, but she does take her job seriously.

Add to this her involvement with Dan from the time she was a teenager, the affair still going on despite Dan's marriage to Donna. Kitty sounds like the last person who would allow herself to get involved with someone who is married but this is something bigger than herself and she just cannot get out of the situation.

A further complication and this is the highlight of the story is Kitty's efforts to deal with her mother's increasing mental disability of Alzheimers. May has been an articulate, attractive, involved woman who now deteriorates to the point of being unrecognisable. Kitty's determination to handle this difficult situation single handedly almost is the crux of the story - her taking her mother to Egypt on a holiday of a lifetime shows Kitty's sheer grit in the face of so much adversity and braving people who have no inkling of May's condition and who put her down as being a mental case is admirable.

The book was not a light read - it dealt with a painful subject and one which is becoming increasingly common. May's idiosyncracies whilst being funny, are not funny in the manner in which it is portrayed in this book.

A really good book and a new author for me. McLynn has written several other novels and I will be definitely looking out for them. A 4 out of 5 for this one.

Review - The Island by Elin Hilderbrand

It starts off in an idyllic manner - Birdie arranges a weekend on Tuckernuck Island an island retreat of the Cousins's family used for decades as a summer holiday camp.
Her daughter Chess is getting married and Birdie thinks this will be a good one on one time for her daughter and herself to bond before her upcoming marriage.

Fast forward a bit, Chess has called off the wedding - no reason being given - and worse a couple of days later her ex-fiancee Michael is killed in a climbing accident. Chess feels directly responsible for his death and is distraught. The weekend arranged by Birdie turns into a month and Birdie also manages to rope in Tate the younger daughter and India - the bohemian rebel sister of Birdie.

Well a nice mix so far. Two generations - lots of hidden family history and lots of unresolved issues. A saga of hidden insecurities and passions all being unveiled almost like a drama - Birdie herself ignored and finding love with Hank after so long, Tate falling in love with someone she was always in love with and who did not even know of her existence, Chess having to come to terms with loss, life and a new love which is disastrous and India coming to terms with the loss of her husband who committed suicide.

I am only touching on the book so these are still teasers. There is a great deal more in the book - a light paced read about women bonding against several odds. A 3 out of 5 for me.