Tag: See what Ann S. Epstein Writer is reading

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of Kiki Finds Friends by Marty and Amie McCracken (Rating 5) – Inventive and Insightful. Kiki Finds Friends, written by Marty McCracken and his mother Amie, is a charming children’s “space odyssey,” the first in a planned series. I read it with my grandsons. Here’s what we each thought about the book:
“It was totally amazing. After you read the first line, it makes you want to read more. I like how many different experiences Kiki has. I think the mean orbs will learn to be nice, eventually. Frank is kind and smart. You can trust him like a good friend. Maybe the next book will be called ‘Kiki Finds Family.’ I hope he visits lots more solar systems.” (Oscar, age 9)
“The geyser was cool. I liked how the drops hit Kiki’s helmet and then fell off. I was scared when his friend got hit on the head and happy when Kiki saved him. I was glad that Kiki found a cat and more friends. I think they will have a good time together once the mean robots learn their lesson.” (Emmett, age 6)
Kiki Finds Friends is a vividly imagined book about an alien child venturing forth from his home spaceship to explore his universe. Kiki confronts the same problems as real children: Will I make friends? What if others kids are mean to me? Will I look weak or stupid if I ask for help? Can I be curious and scared at the same time? What is a real apology? My grandsons nodded in recognition as Kiki faced these common challenges. The authors strike just the right balance between the unknown and the familiar. Children trust that Kiki will emerge from his adventures safe, yet wiser. As both a developmental psychologist and a writer of adult books (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I appreciate how the insights are not delivered with heavy-handed moralizing, but with patience and humor. Because his new acquaintances hail from other planets, Kiki takes it in stride that they won’t be like him, a matter-of-fact approach to accepting human differences too. Finally, Kiki Finds Friends is fun to read aloud. Not only do we learn how each alien looks and moves, but how they sound. This allows the narrator to vary the character’s voices and makes sharing this book entertaining for readers and listeners alike. (Ann, age 75)

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman (Rating 3) – Caricature in Lieu of Character. In The Book of Mother, a French novel by Violaine Huisman, the 30-year-old narrator, who shares the author’s first name, attempts to humanize the larger-than-life mother with whom she and her older sister are obsessed. Alternately smothering them with affection and verbally abusing them, Maman Catherine is a domineering, devouring figure. But as the book meanders to its half tragic, half celebratory end, Catherine never emerges as more than a caricature. Her loves and lovers, her passions and pains, fail to arouse the same devotion in readers that they do in her daughters. As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m not concerned with making my characters likable, but I insist on making them engaging. Catherine is ultimately tiresome. If she remains a mere cutout, even more disappointing is that Violaine and her sister remain ciphers. The opportunity to make Catherine “real” through the personas of the two women forever bound to her is squandered. The Book of Mother has been touted as a bold and courageous novel but I found it tepid and lifeless, traits which the drama addicted Catherine would have abhorred.

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of Italian Bones in the Snow: A Memoir in Shorts by Elaina Battista-Parsons (Rating 5) – You Want to Be Her Friend. The memoir Italian Bones in the Snow by Elaina Battista-Parsons seamlessly interlaces prose and poetry to introduce readers to a free-ranging author who is strong-willed, opinionated, adventurous, and sensitive. She is an unapologetic sensualist who refuses to tone down her lust, a woman neither too afraid to reveal her imperfections nor too shy to brag about her strengths. This honest self-portrait offers penetrating observations but instead of boring down directly, Battista-Parsons approaches her subjects at a slant. Her reflections draw offbeat and intriguing connections between objects, places, events, and character traits. For example, in a piece on color, she identifies herself as a “green” person and brilliantly uses shades of green to elucidate the stages of life. As an author myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I often search for the right metaphor to represent a feeling or thought. Here, instead of treating color as a mere adjective, Battista-Parsons treats it as an entity in itself. Her associative mind operates with the kind of primary thinking we associate with childhood. That playfulness is especially on display in her poetry. What makes Battista-Parsons a disciplined adult, however, is that she then works hard to polish each image to perfection. Readers will find it liberating to meet this bold creature who is equally frank about her reverence for the women who raised her and the admiration she in turn engenders in men. You want to run beside her well-muscled legs along the Jersey shore and inhale her energy. You want to be her friend. It’s easy. Just pick up her book.

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of Violeta by Isabel Allende (Rating 3) – Mechanical Realism. Violeta by Isabel Allende is an epistolary novel written by a 100-year-old woman to someone we learn midway through the book is her grandson. (This revelation is not a spoiler; Allende creates neither mystery nor curiosity about the correspondent’s identity.) Spanning a century from the Spanish flu to COVID, the book promises to explore a woman’s evolution from spoiled rich girl to women’s rights activist. Alas, this opportunity is squandered. Instead, readers slog through a dispassionate chronology of marriages and affairs, motherhood, business acumen, national horrors, and global tragedies. Violeta is emotionally flat. She has no lasting regrets, no festering wounds. Her joys are evanescent, her victories vicarious. Allende, known for writing mesmerizing novels of magic realism, has instead written an expository account of the abuses of an unnamed right-wing Latin American regime. Readers meet a multiplying cast of characters, but only a few are memorable. As a writer of historical fiction myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I know that to entice readers to imagine themselves in another time and place, an author must immerse them in the lives of fully imagined people. Allende’s Violeta keeps both characters and readers at a distance.

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of MFA Thesis Novel by Ian Rogers (Rating 5) – Meta-Lit Hit Job. Midway through MFA Thesis Novel by Ian Rogers, a graduate student says, “If you want original shit you’ve got to hit up small presses, the guys outside the mainstream who put out stuff that’s really good.” Reading this sentence, I instantly understood why this hilarious and irreverent book found a home with exactly the right indie venue. In literary grad speak, the book is a “meta novel,” that is, a novel about writing a novel which the protagonist, Flip, must do in order to earn his MFA in creative writing. The narrative is replete with winking allusions to literary books, journals, and organizations, some real, others snarky inventions of the author’s fertile imagination. It’s a double hoot when you’re not sure whether a reference belongs in the real or fictive category. Lest those who are not MFA candidates or English majors fear the book may he too erudite or esoteric for them, rest assured that the humor is broad — and shallow — enough for anyone to get in on the jokes. Beyond the wit, however, Rogers also grapples with a serious question: How do you produce creative work that pays the bills while also fulfilling your worthy ideals? As a writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m fortunate that I’ve never faced that quandary but, like other creative people, I must still resist pressure to churn out what’s “sellable” if it’s not authentic to my vision. I won’t spoil the book’s ending by revealing Flip’s answer to the earnings vs. art dilemma, but I will say that Ian Rogers has created a commercially viable novel that is also an entertaining and satisfying work of literature.

My Goodreads and Amazon reviews of The Ones Who Remember: Second Generation Voices of the Holocaust edited by Rita Benn, Julie Goldstein Ellis, Joy Wolfe Ensor, & Ruth Finkel Wade (Rating 5) – Inescapable and Unforgettable. We are all admonished to “Never Forget” the Holocaust, but for the children of survivors, remembering has a special significance. It requires bearing witness to the horrors their parents suffered. It pits a burning desire to know against a paralyzing dread of the anguish that probing for details will unleash. Remembering also means confronting the multi-generational trauma that children of survivors carry within themselves. The heartbreakingly honest collection of essays in The Ones Who Remember delves deeply into the scars carved into survivors and, in a unique contribution to Holocaust literature, the emotional and physical stamp left on the next generation. It is an inheritance these sixteen writers bear with pain and pride: the pain born of anxiety, depression, and the fear that one can never live up to their parents’ expectations or replace their inconceivable losses; the pride that swells for ancestors with the strength, wits, and determination to survive and begin anew. As a fiction and memoir writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m in awe of the complex portraits these authors paint of their parents, whose behavior ranges from smothering love to emotional numbness to fits of rage, and of themselves, whose reactions range from childhood puzzlement and resentment to adult empathy and forgiveness. This richly populated book is a tribute to the past and a testament to the future. The Holocaust’s casualties exceed the 6 million Jews and 5 million others murdered by the Nazis. A full count also includes the offspring who carry the memory in their DNA, marked as indelibly as their parents’ tattooed forearms.

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Blood Up North by Fredrick Soukup (Rating 5) – Hope Among the Hapless. Some people are bad; others are stupid. Some folks try to be good or smart but keep messing up. That sums up the hapless characters in Fredrick Soukup’s gritty, lowdown, yet often hilariously over-the-top novel Blood Up North, whose body count threatens to rival Hamlet. Don’t trust anything anyone says because they’ll change their story by the next page, if not the next paragraph. Cassie, the plucky protagonist, seems to have learned this, but out of her inherent kindness and/or search for love, she occasionally appears gullible. Whether she actually is, or merely joins every other character in taking the rest for a ride, readers will have fun following the plot’s convoluted twists and turns, even if, like me, you lose track of where they’ve been or might be going. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Soukup’s ingenuity and ability to sustain the story’s momentum. What ultimately steers this book and makes readers care about the outcome is Cassie. She’s tough yet surprisingly vulnerable, competent with lapses of helplessness, a veritable venison stew of unresolvable parts. The girl has been dealt a lousy hand and deserves to outwit her tormentors, who are motivated by greed, revenge, and male ego. Root for her. You’ll be rewarded in the end.

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Joan is Okay by Weike Wang (Rating 5) – Joan is Thriving. Joan is Okay by Weike Wang is a case study of human connection and cultural heritage. The protagonist, Joan, is a physician and the daughter of Chinese immigrants. Coworkers, neighbors, and family members, notably her brother and sister-in-law, cannot understand why she has no desire to get married or have children. Even Human Resources at the hospital where she works forces her to take a six-week leave for the sake of her mental health, a requirement which is itself a source of stress. Some readers may find Joan odd or lamentable, but I identified with her self-contained contentment. While I can’t attribute this trait to my cultural background, the peculiarities of my own family taught me to depend on myself. Many readers can claim the same. Rather than being a defense mechanism, finding pleasure in one’s work or solitary pursuits can be a source of genuine satisfaction. Oddly, so-called loners are often more understanding of others’ needs for intimacy than vice versa. They can empathize with the socially connected and yet, like Joan, look at themselves and decide they are more than okay. They are thriving. As a novelist myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Wang’s ability to render a seemingly distant person like Joan as a fully developed and wholly sympathetic character. Readers will also admire this sensitive and well-told portrait.

My Goodreads and Amazon review of The Sentence by Louse Erdrich (Rating 3) – Too Much, Too Soon. What is The Sentence by Louise Erdrich about? The novel meanders through crime and punishment, love, a large Native American cast, the pandemic, George Floyd’s murder, a bookstore ghost, and a line of rugaroos. By the end, you’ve consumed a whole sheet of half-baked cookies and wish you’d eaten only two fully baked ones. The current events, still raw, were even more so when Erdrich wrote about them. Writers, myself included (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), choose different genres to serve different ends. Journalism is a contemporaneous report; memoir recaptures thoughts and feelings experienced in another moment. Fiction imagines and reflects, processes enhanced by time and distance. In her haste to comment, Erdrich feeds readers a lump of indigestible dough. She should have stuck to writing about that ghost, whose sections alone bring the book to life.

My Goodreads and Amazon review of Small Forgotten Moments by Annalisa Crawford (Rating 5) – Relentless, Intense, Vivid. Annalisa Crawford’s novel Small Forgotten Moments is the story of Jo, a young artist plagued by an elusive character named Zenna whose image unconsciously dominates her work. Who is this mysterious child-woman, endearing one day, menacing the next? Jo, an amnesiac whose memory goes back no farther than three years, is desperate to find out. So is the reader. In describing Jo’s frustrating and frightening journey to unravel this knot, Crawford’s writing is as fearless as a gothic horror tale. She vividly evokes the hole of amnesia, a demon’s relentless drive, death by drowning, and the omnipotence of a child’s magical thinking. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I admire Crawford’s courage and willingness to make readers squirm. Withholding spoilers, I can say that Zenna’s identity is at once surprising and, given the deftly placed clues, inevitable. Though Jo’s case is freakish, Small Forgotten Moments is ultimately about the universal need to break free of whatever haunts us.