Book Review: "Mexico: Stories" by Josh Barkan

Mexico has taken a bit of a bad rap in the last 18 months or so, with Donald Trump using his criticism of Mexican immigrants as a launching pad for his (now-successful) run for the American presidency. Although Mexico has so much more to offer the world—culture, history, beauty, cuisine—all too often people choose instead to dwell on the incidence of crime, drugs, violence, and poverty they see portrayed in the media.

Unfortunately, Josh Barkan's new story collection, aptly titled Mexico, won't really help the country much with its reputation. But like the country itself, these stories are more than you initially think, much more than violence, crime, drugs, and poverty. While not every story works, taken as a whole, this is a powerful collection that makes you think.

The characters in Barkan's stories are, for the most part, ordinary people caught in the midst of extraordinary, and in many cases, unexpected, situations. The choices they choose to make, the decisions they face aren't always the ones we would choose, but they are often shaped by circumstances driven by the country itself.

Some of my favorite stories in this collection were: "The God of Common Names," in which a schoolteacher is caught in the middle of a Romeo-and-Juliet relationship between two of his students, children of rival drug lords, and he finds himself contemplating his own marriage, which caused its own friction; "I Want to Live," which tells of a woman awaiting a doctor's appointment who becomes immersed in the life story of a fellow patient, once a beauty queen and minor celebrity; "The Prison Breakout," about a man working with prison inmates who gets obsessed with the innocence of one prisoner in particular; "The Sharpshooter," which tells of an American soldier and his best friend, involved in a drug sting operation; and "Everything Else is Going to Be Fine," about a driven young man whose involvement in a bizarre incident forces him to confront what he has been hiding.

The stories I liked most tended to be more character-driven than violence-driven, although violence played a role in each. Some stories I felt were more about violence and crime, and didn't seem to ever rise above that. Barkan is a tremendously talented writer who created characters and plots which packed a punch (no pun intended), and made you feel for the situations in which the characters found themselves.

After a while, though, the stories started to feel very similar and very bleak, and the collection became harder to slog through. There were only so many kidnaps and murders and assaults I could read about, and I felt the stories toward the end of the collection became a little more one-note. But then one of the earlier stories would flash through my mind, and I would realize that while this may be an uneven collection, it's a pretty well-written and powerful one, rooted in the reality of today's world.

NetGalley and Crown Publishing provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Book Review: "I Liked My Life" by Abby Fabiaschi

There were times when I was a teenager and in my early 20s (back in the dark ages) that I suffered from depression, and I thought about what it would be like to attend my own funeral, to see who would attend and what people would say about me, whether they would be sorry or sad, or how they would react.

In a strange way, I was reminded of those thoughts when I was reading Abby Fabiaschi's beautifully moving debut novel, I Liked My Life.

From the outside, it appeared Maddy had it all. She was a well-read, tremendously intelligent and generous housewife, with a successful husband, Brady, and a beautiful teenage daughter, Eve. Maddy was witty, sardonic, fun to be around, and fiercely devoted to her family, and determined that Eve grow up understanding the difference between right and wrong, and realize the impact of her actions when treating someone else cruelly. Sure, Brady's workaholic nature, his refusal to relax and spend time with her and Eve, and his taking her for granted more times than she'd care to count enraged and saddened her, but for the most part, she is satisfied with the way her life unfolds, which is why it is a tremendous shock to her family, friends, and the community when out of the blue, Maddy commits suicide one day.

But although her life on Earth is over, Maddy isn't quite finished. She watches over Brady and Eve and tries to help them deal with their grief and, perhaps equally importantly, their relationship with each other. She's determined not to let Eve grow up with bitterness and anger, and she refuses to let Brady distance himself from their daughter, to fall into his usual patterns of anger, neglect, and periodic bouts of attention. From wherever she is, Maddy gently manipulates both of them to draw closer to one another; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but she sees how they are both reeling from her sudden death.

The one thing Maddy wants to do is find her replacement, someone who will provide stability and love for both Brady and Eve. And she thinks she has found that in Rory, a teacher with a sparkling personality, an unexplained warmth, and a sarcastic edge, plus Rory is haunted by a tragedy of her own. Can Maddy help shape her family's future before she disappears for good?

Meanwhile, Brady and Eve try desperately to understand what might have caused Maddy to take her own life, and how they might have been responsible. Each deals with grief and anger in their own way, and although they try to lean on each other, they struggle with that, because Maddy was the bridge between them. But as their relationship changes, they both begin to better understand who Maddy was, what made her tick, and how she really felt about her husband and her daughter. That may hurt, but it also the first step they must take if they will ever be able to move on.

This is a tremendously thought-provoking and moving book, but despite the subject matter, it's not overly maudlin. Fabiaschi is a talented storyteller whose finesse belies the fact that this is her debut novel, because the book shifts and changes into something a little different than I expected, something even richer, while in a lesser author's hands this book could have turned into an all-out sob fest.

The characters are much more complex than they first appear, although they're not always sympathetic, and you wonder at times just how much of a martyr Maddy was to put up with Brady and Eve's behavior. But as you see Maddy's side of the story, you begin to understand that, just like life, things aren't always what they appear, and you never really understand the relationship of two people by looking in from the outside.

Sure, this story isn't perfect, and at times things happen a little too conveniently or seem a little too pat. But it was compelling from start to finish, and I really wanted to know and spend time with these characters, and understand their emotions. And I, too, wanted to understand what drove Maddy to her final moments. There are both the elements of the familiar and the unique in this book, and I liked it very much.

NetGalley and St. Martin's Press provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

2016 Oscar Nominations: What happened

This morning, in a rather convoluted and lackluster online announcement, the nominations for the 89th Academy Awards were announced. Yesterday, I posted my predictions of what I thought would get nominated in the major categories; now it's time to see how I did compared to the real nominations.

As usual, the Oscar nominations continue to befuddle and aggravate me, although there were a few pleasant surprises.

Best Picture
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Analysis: I wasn't sure how many movies would be nominated for Best Picture this year since it's never a consistent number. I picked all nine of these and then added a tenth, so I'd say I got 9/9. Of course, I was hoping the Academy would throw in a nomination for Deadpool to add some cool factor, but then I remembered: it's the Oscars.


Best Actor
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Analysis: I went 5/5 here. No surprises whatsoever, although I wondered whether Joel Edgerton could slide in for his performance in Loving, but the Oscar nominees in this category are identical to those nominated for the SAG award.


Best Actress
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Analysis: I went 4/5 here, but this is category #1 of aggravation. I don't know what the hell Annette Bening needs to do to win an Oscar, but it appears she and Glenn Close are destined to remain also-rans while younger actresses win one or two awards (not always because they deserve it). And wherefore art thou, Amy Adams? I get that Huppert has never been nominated before, and Negga gave a fantastic performance as one half of the couple whose love broke down the barriers to interracial marriage, but come on already. Look, I love Meryl Streep, but sometimes she doesn't deserve to be nominated. She was perfectly pleasant in Florence Foster Jenkins, but this was a nomination for Meryl Streep, icon, not Meryl Streep, actress. Oh, and the other person missing in this category? Viola Davis. Supporting actress, she is not. Ugh.


Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Analysis: I went 4/5 here, but not where I expected. I honestly am surprised that Hugh Grant didn't finally land his first nomination (after being passed over for Four Weddings and a Funeral 22 years ago) for Florence Foster Jenkins, although I'm pleased to see Hedges included among the nominees. And I told you about Michael Shannon...I just should have taken my own advice in the next category.


Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Analysis: I went 4/5 here, although I should have known better. I said yesterday that the only thing that would make me as happy as Annette Bening landing a nomination was if Janelle Monáe was nominated for Hidden Figures, not to mention her superlative work in Moonlight. Clearly the Academy didn't care about making me happy. I thought Octavia Spencer would get in over Monáe because, like Michael Shannon, the Academy went with the established former winner (or nominee, in Shannon's part) instead of the younger actor. And of course, then there's Viola Davis. (Lead, cough cough, not supporting.)


Best Director
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Denis Villenueve, Arrival

Analysis: I went 3/5 here, but I'm not surprised by what happened. I thought the Academy might not yet be ready to welcome Gibson back with open arms, and I thought Villenueve wasn't well-known enough. I thought Garth Davis might get nominated for his film debut in Lion and thought the directors' branch might opt for perennial favorite Martin Scorsese instead, but his movie Silence languished at the Oscars. I'm not overly disappointed or surprised, though.


With a record-tying 14 nominations, certainly La La Land seems like the film to beat, and despite nearly everyone else I know, I loved it. But it will be interesting to see what the next month brings before a few lucky people can use the words "Oscar winner" before their names...

Book Review: "The Strays" by Emily Bitto

"Trying to describe my friendship with Eva is like showing the slides from a life-changing journey. The images can never break their borders and make their way into the body, into the nose, the ears, the entrails; they can never convey the feeling of profound change, brought about simply by altering one's place in the world."

Lily met Eva Trentham, the daughter of an infamous Australian painter, when they were young girls, on Lily's first day in a new school. An only child, raised modestly by parents who seemed perfectly happy with their quiet, ordinary lives, Lily is quickly besotted with Eva and her two sisters, Bea and Heloise. And when Lily is invited to visit the Trenthams' home, she immediately falls in love with the bohemian lifestyle Eva's parents, Evan and Helena, have created, letting the children fend for themselves, surrounded by art, nature, and raucous parties.

Little by little, Lily becomes a part of the Trentham household, and she and Eva become inseparable. Evan and Helena create a sort-of artists' colony in their own home, inviting three young artists to come and live with them, and together they will challenge the mores and stuffiness of the conservative Australian art scene. Even though she feels fully immersed in the magical atmosphere the Trenthams have created, and her parents are all too happy to let her live with Eva's family, Lily knows that she will be always be just an outsider.

But as the girls get older, Lily starts to realize that all is not as idyllic as it seems. Evan's work seems to be eclipsed by that of one of his protegés, the government is cracking down on what they view to be "indecent" art, and each of the girls, even young Heloise, has their own obsession with the handsome young artists who live with them. And then Lily realizes she has been the one left in the dark, and the secrets that have ramifications which will irreparably change a number of lives.

The Strays shifts back and forth between Lily's somewhat magical life among the Trenthams and her fellow strays, to the present day, when she attends a retrospective of Evan's work. This is a story of the intense friendships of youth, the feeling of belonging in a place far different than you were raised, and the jealousy and heartbreak which comes from actually finding yourself on the outside.

"What I feel is the sense of futility that emerges when the past is laid side by side with the present, like two photographs taken many years apart, when it becomes clear that there is no more time."

The themes of the haves and the have-nots, of the outsider being brought into a life they had heretofore only imagined and/or wished for, are both tremendously familiar in literature. Emily Bitto tweaks them a bit, so there is a freshness to the plot you've seen many times before. The characters are flawed yet interesting, and while you have your suspicions about how the story will unfold, there still are a few surprises.

While the book tried to capture the battle between art and government-mandated decency, I don't think it focused on that topic enough, so it seemed a bit nebulous. One troubling thread of the story didn't get focused on enough, and I'm not sure if that was because the family tried not to deal with it, or if it just got lost. But all in all, this is a captivating story of friendship, love, creativity, betrayal, and finally finding one's place in the world. It's both heartwarming and tragic, tempestuous and grounded.

NetGalley and Twelve Books provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

2016 Oscar Nominations: What I think

It's one of my most favorite times of the year: the Oscar nominations will be announced tomorrow morning. I've been reasonably (ha) obsessed with the Oscars since the 1980s, and so we make an effort to see every movie and performance nominated for the major awards before the Oscar telecast. (If what happens tomorrow is what I think, we won't have much more to see, thanks to a very movie-heavy holiday season.)

For a while now, I've been making my predictions for which movies and performances I think will get nominated, then after the nominations are announced I come back and analyze how well I did. (Note: this isn't necessary who I think deserves to get nominated; often there's a pretty gap between what I want and what actually happens, because the Oscars are as much about paying back old slights, trying to take advantage of popularity, and other crazy politics as they are about who gave the best performances. But I digress.)

So, here's what I think will happen tomorrow around 8:35 a.m. ET. I know there's bound to be a surprise and/or disappointment (for me) or two, so...

Best Picture
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Silence

Analysis: Over the last few years the Academy has played coy with the number of films which will get nominated for Best Picture. Some years it's eight, some years it's nine, sometimes it's ten. I went with 10 this year although I have a feeling it will be either Fences or Silence, not both. And then, if the Academy feels adventurous, they could nominate Deadpool, which would be awesome.


Best Actor
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

Analysis: I feel fairly secure about these five, but Joel Edgerton could sneak in for Loving. If he does, I think he'd displace Mortensen, whose movie was the least seen in theaters.


Best Actress
Amy Adams, Arrival
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

Analysis: It breaks my heart not to add Annette Bening to this list for her fantastic performance in 20th Century Women. She should have won an Oscar already, and she absolutely should be nominated this year, but I worry that her multi-layered yet ultimately more comedic performance will get overlooked. Huppert has never been nominated, so I think that plus the Golden Globe win give her momentum. But then again, Ruth Negga (for Loving), Emily Blunt (Girl on the Train), or Jessica Chastain (for Miss Sloane) could surprise, and there's a v-e-r-y o-u-t-s-i-d-e chance that Meryl Streep's Golden Globes speech could actually hurt her chances for a nod. But I doubt it.


Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

Analysis: I'm going out on a little bit of a limb here. I believe Ali, Bridges, Grant, and Patel are locks. That fifth spot is in flux. Aaron Taylor-Johnson won the Golden Globe for Nocturnal Animals but I think the Academy may pick previous nominee Shannon (who has a slightly showier and more sympathetic role) over his co-star. The other possibility is Lucas Hedges, who was really good in Manchester by the Sea. And of course, there's probably someone I'm not thinking of...


Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Janelle Monáe, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

Analysis: Other than Annette Bening getting a nomination tomorrow morning, the one thing which will excite me more than anything is if Janelle Monáe gets nominated. She had a great year and proved she has a real future in acting, not to mention she's an amazing musician and drop-dead gorgeous, to boot. I have a feeling the Academy will hedge its bets and go with 2011 winner Octavia Spencer for the same movie, despite the fact that Monáe's role is a little showier. Oh, and don't get me started on Davis, who should be a Best Actress nominee, since she's in 95 percent of Fences (and won a Best Leading Actress Tony Award for the same performance). But this is the Oscars...and the same thing happened with last year's winner, Alicia Vikander.


Best Director
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Garth Davis, Lion
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Martin Scorsese, Silence

Analysis: Another crapshoot. The Directors Guild of America nominated Chazelle, Davis, Jenkins, Lonergan, and Denis Villenueve for Arrival. The Golden Globes nominated Chazelle, Jenkins, Lonergan, Mel Gibson for Hacksaw Ridge and Tom Ford for Nocturnal Animals. I have a feeling Gibson may get in, but I never count out Scorsese, since the last time he really had a pet project (1988's The Last Temptation of Christ), he got nominated although the film did not.


And there you have it! Check back tomorrow to see which noms excited me, which enraged me, and which shocked me.

Book Review: "History Is All You Left Me" by Adam Silvera

Oh, man, this book...

Theo was Griffin's first love. They were best friends first, and then one day, Theo surprised Griffin by expressing his feelings for him, especially since they had never discussed either of them being gay. (This was Theo's secret; Griffin's was revealing to Theo that he knew he was suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder and he wasn't quite sure what to do about it.)

"It's going to sound stupid, and I wouldn't ever say this out loud, but the way Theo and I came out to each other was sort of like getting caught in a thunderstorm. Storms can suck when they're knocking out power and ripping apart houses, no doubt. But other times the thunder is a soundtrack to something unpredictable, something that gets our hearts racing and wakes us up. If someone had warned me about the weather, I might have freaked out and stayed inside."

Griffin and Theo's relationship was truly special—they shared many inside jokes, romantic and goofy moments, and Theo tried to help Griffin deal with his OCD. When Theo gets the opportunity to attend college in California on early admission, Griffin has a feeling that being out of sight might mean out of mind with Theo, so he breaks up with him. But Griffin knows Theo is his endgame, and that they'll eventually find their way back to each other and their love.

As Theo's first year of college unfolds, it's no surprise that he begins dating Jackson. Griffin does his best to be happy for his best friend, but he is hurting, and his pain is making his compulsions more intense. He knows that Jackson wants Theo to stop being friends with Griffin as well as their other best friend Wade. Griffin starts to wonder whether he should try and move on to, if the endgame he had always dreamed of has changed. And then, without warning, Theo drowns.

Theo's death throws Griffin into a tailspin. He doesn't want to do anything—go to school, leave the house, anything except mourn for his true love and his best friend. To make matters worse, Jackson comes to New York for Theo's funeral and then stays for a little while, to escape from where the tragedy happened. Yet despite their mutual jealousy of the other, Jackson and Griffin start to open up to one another, since they're the only ones who truly knew Theo this way, and they're the only ones who feel this kind of grief.

But no matter how much they confide in each other, the pain of Theo's loving someone else, coupled with Griffin's grief, is dragging him down. He wants nothing more than to shut the world out—Wade, his family, everyone and everything. He can't ignore the fact that his OCD is getting more out of control, though, and he's starting to hurt everyone else in the process. The only way he can attempt to move on is to try and come to terms with his and Theo's history, from start to finish—without varnishing over anything or avoiding the pain.

This is an intense book, but it's not all as sad as you'd expect. I might have teared up a time or two, but I was surprised I didn't become more emotional given the subject matter. I think that's because Adam Silvera tried not to make the book too heavy, even as Griffin and the other characters dealt with some serious grief, as well as unresolved anger.

Silvera is such an excellent writer. His book More Happy Than Not made my list of the best books I read in 2015.

The book shifts back and forth from when Theo and Griffin's relationship first began to the present, and you wonder how everything is going to occur. I'll admit I struggled with Griffin's character a bit, because his grief made him a little too difficult to dealt with, and his selfcenteredness, while understandable, made him less than sympathetic at times. But as Silvera lets the whole story unfold, you can understand why he acts the way he does.

I read about 90 percent of this book in a day. It's not an easy read emotionally, but Silvera immerses you in the story and makes you feel the emotions his characters do. The fact that the boys' sexuality was just presented in a matter-of-fact way, without experiencing any homophobia or people's difficulty accepting them, once again leads me to wish this type of YA fiction existed when I was a YA.

Book Review: "The Perfect Stranger" by Megan Miranda

Sometimes I think we put unfair pressure on authors. Let's say an author writes a book that blows you away. You eagerly anticipate their next book, sometimes you get impatient if it takes them too long to write another one, and then when you get the chance to read it, you expect this one to blow you away, too, right? (I know I'm not alone here.) But if it doesn't come close to the last book, at least in your mind, whose fault is that, yours or theirs?

I pondered this as I got ready to read Megan Miranda's The Perfect Stranger. Her last book, All the Missing Girls, was fantastic, both for the mystery itself and the unique way Miranda let the story unfold. The book even made my list of the best books I read in 2016. So needless to say, I tried very hard to ratchet back my expectations of her new book, because I didn't want to be disappointed just because I loved her last book so much.

Did she deliver? While The Perfect Stranger isn't perfect, it's a good, suspenseful read. And I think I might have liked it even more if I didn't read Miranda's last book and expect to be dazzled. If you go in knowing that, you'll hopefully enjoy it.

"I can only explain it this way: that I knew her deeply, if not thoroughly; that a four-month relationship can supersede all the boyfriends, all the friendships, that came after and lasted longer, that our friendship was born from the one time I'd stepped off track, done something unexpected that did not follow the predicted steps of my life. And for that reason, it shone brighter, and so did she."

Leah Stevens was a journalist in Boston who got a little too emotionally invested in an exposé she wrote. When she refused to reveal her source, and things related to her story unraveled, a restraining order was taken out against her and the newspaper she worked for was threatened with a lawsuit. Without a job and feeling utterly betrayed, she needed to get out of town—fast. She ran into an old friend, Emmy Grey, with whom she lived just after college.

On the run from a bad relationship, Emmy is desperate to leave Boston as well, so she involves Leah in her plan. The two head to a small town in Western Pennsylvania, where Leah gets a teaching job, and they can both keep off the grid. Leah and Emmy live on parallel schedules, and the two rarely if ever see each other for more than a few minutes, especially when Emmy starts dating someone new. But Leah keeps getting the sense that Emmy is still on her guard, that she's waiting for something to happen.

One night, a woman with a strong resemblance to Leah is assaulted and left for dead. A teacher who has shown a little too much interest in Leah is the suspect, which puts Leah a little more in the spotlight than she'd like, since her previous life has been kept a secret. But when Emmy disappears a few days later, Leah has no choice but to put herself out there and try to find out what happened to her friend.

Leah cooperates with the handsome young police officer who is assigned to the assault case, and tries to get him to help find Emmy. As the police investigate, she realizes that despite feeling tremendously close to Emmy, she never really knew her, which leads the police to suspect that Leah may be making the whole story up, that Emmy may not really exist, especially once they learn of Leah's past. But she knows the truth, and she is determined to find out just who Emmy was, and what happened to her, even if it means returning to the scene of her past transgressions, and possibly putting her own life and her own future at risk.

How well do we really know someone? How far would you go for a friend who has done a lot for you? Does one questionable action in our past doom us forever? The Perfect Stranger strives to answer all of those questions. It definitely keeps you guessing, because you aren't sure how reliable of a narrator Leah really is. The book's setting helps add to the tension, adding an almost moody feel to the whole thing.

As I mentioned earlier, there are things I didn't like about the book. There were a lot of things happening at once, and some of the storylines seemed unfinished, even unnecessary to the core of the plot. But Miranda really is an excellent writer, and knows how to slowly let details unfold so you stay hooked. So of course, what this means is, I'll eagerly await her next book, and remind myself to dial back my expectations again. (I never learn...)

NetGalley and Simon & Schuster provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!