Book Review: "The History of Sound" by Ben Shattuck

When short stories are done well, they can have as much power as a full-length novel. And sometimes, they make you long for more time with their characters but don’t leave you hanging. The History of Sound hits both of those targets.

What’s unique about this collection, however, is that elements of one story appear in another, so they’re essentially paired. Sometimes the pairing is more obvious and other times it’s more subtle, but this technique gives you a different perspective from a different timeframe.

There are absolutely beautiful stories in this collection. My favorite is the title story, where a music student meets a man in a bar just as WWI is heating up. The two fall in love, and spend a summer walking through the woods of Maine, collecting folk songs from various people. Their relationship is brief but has an immense effect on the musician, even years later. (This is being made into a movie with Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor.)

Some other stories that I know will stick with me include: “The Auk,” which follows a man dealing with his wife’s dementia in a very unique way; “August in the Forest,” about relationships and secrets we keep from those we love; and “Edwin Chase of Nantucket,” in which a young man’s life in 1796 is upended when his mother’s old boyfriend arrives with his new wife.

All of the stories take place in New England, and are set anywhere from the 1700s to the present. Ben Shattuck is definitely an immense talent, one whose career I’ll eagerly be following.

Book Review: "Things We Lost to the Water" by Eric Nguyen

Eric Nguyen's debut novel, Things We Lost to the Water, is a beautifully written look at an immigrant Vietnamese family, and how their lives are shaped or reshaped by America.

Huong and her two young sons leave Vietnam in 1979 and move to New Orleans. Huong’s husband, Cong, stays in Vietnam, although she looks forward to the day they will be reunited. She sends letters and audiotapes home to Vietnam in the hopes that her words will motivate him to come to America, so her boys can know their father.

As she starts to settle in to their new home, Huong starts to lose hope that she’ll ever see her husband again. But she’s determined to create a better life for her sons, even though it’s hard to understand what it’s like for them growing up when you’re different to those around you.

“If her sons asked about their father, she told herself, she would tell them some kind of truth, what she knew of it: their father would not be joining them in New Orleans; this was all beyond their control and they had to try their best, she would say, to move forward.”

The book moves forward as snapshots in time, from 1979 to 2005, narrated by Huong and her sons. Huong becomes more acclimated to life in America and becomes involved with a Vietnamese car salesman. Her older son, Tuan, tries to keep his Vietnamese identity by joining a gang and trying to prove himself, while her younger son Binh, who calls himself Ben, struggles with his sexuality and his desire to escape the life his mother has built.

Ultimately they are all changed when New Orleans faces its greatest challenge ever. Will it bring them together or push them further apart?

I was so taken in by Eric Nguyen’s storytelling ability. It’s so hard to believe that Things We Lost to the Water was a debut novel. This story is thought-provoking and moving, although the challenge of the narrative structure is I didn’t feel like I got to know the characters as well as I would have liked, because we saw them in short bursts rather than consistently.

I definitely believe this will be a highly talked-about book, and I look forward to seeing what’s next in Nguyen’s career!

Book Review: "The Invisible Life of Addie Larue" by V.E. Schwab

Believe the hype. V.E. Schwab's The Invisible Life of Addie Larue is really THAT good.

Adeline was always a dreamer, wishing for more than what was expected of young women in 18th-century France. When her parents plan to marry her off to a local widower, the thought of her life essentially ending is appalling to her, so she flees.

In that moment of panic, she meets a handsome, mysterious stranger, whose face she had envisioned many times in dreams. He offers her what she wants. “I want a chance to live. I want to be free.” He grants her wish, but it comes with a price—no one will remember her through the course of her life.

The stranger hopes that a year of this torturous life will be enough, that she will despair and surrender her soul to him. But he underestimates her, and through 300 years she makes her way through the world, making connections that fade, surviving tough times, and they will continue to circle each other, simultaneously drawn to and repelled by one another.

And then in New York City in 2014, she walks into a bookstore and her life changes. She finally meets someone who can remember her. This turns everything upside down. But what of her arrangement?

OMG, this book. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue is such a beautiful story—emotional, fantastical, gorgeous, and thought-provoking. What does a life consist of? Does a successful life mean being remembered? What is the price for happiness?

V.E. Schwab has created a masterpiece. This will easily be one of my favorites this year, if not the favorite. And I will definitely remember Addie long after.

Book Review: "Love and Other Consolation Prizes" by Jamie Ford

"'My theory,' Maisie said, 'is that the best, worst, happiest, saddest, scariest, and most memorable moments are all connected. Those are the important times, good and bad. The rest is just filler.'"

For Ernest Young, born Yung Kun-ai in China just before the start of the 20th century, some of the worst and saddest moments in his life came at a very young age. At five years old, the illegitimate son of a white missionary and a Chinese woman, he and his mother know abject poverty, which causes his mother to make two heartbreaking decisions, one of which is sending him away to America, ostensibly so he can find a better life.

While he is lucky to survive the overseas journey, his life when he arrives in America isn't much better, as he is bounced from place to place, with no true companionship and no one to give him affection, and he is ridiculed by his appearance because of his mixed cultural background. At 12 years old, Ernest Young (as he is now called) is a charity student at a boarding school in Seattle, treated with general disregard by a wealthy patron who pays for his education. He longs for more opportunities, to get more out of life.

His patron brings him to the 1909 World's Fair, and tells him the next step in his life: he will be the prize in a raffle at the fair, and the winner will take him "to a good home." To the surprise of everyone, including Ernest's moral-crusading patron, the winner of the raffle is Madam Flora, the savvy, flamboyant madam of a high-class brothel. Madam Flora is known for making sure her "girls" are not only beautiful but well-educated and sophisticated; she calls them her "Gibson girls." Flora has had her heart set on a houseboy, and she knows Ernest will fit the bill.

Ernest becomes friends with Fahn, an outspoken housemaid with whom he has a previous connection, and Maisie, Flora's headstrong daughter, and little by little, finds himself smitten with both young women. As strange as it may seem given the setting, for the first time, Ernest feels at home, feels part of a family. But when Madam Flora's job-related illness becomes too much to bear, it threatens to ruin the lives of all who live in the brothel, and sets Ernest, Fahn, and Maisie on different courses which might separate them.

Fifty years later, as the World's Fair returns to Seattle, Ernest is caught up in the memories of his childhood when his daughter hears the story of him being offered as a raffle prize. For Ernest, these memories are bittersweet, particularly as he tries to help his ailing wife deal with her own memories, and ensure his children are protected from the ultimate truths of their parents' lives.

It's funny, but when I'm trying to think of a book to read, I always forget Jamie Ford, yet every time I read one of his books, like the exceptional Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, I wonder why he slips my mind. Perhaps it's because his writing seems so effortless, and he so easily is able to pull me into his stories and fascinate me with his characters.

While I wasn't as emotionally wrecked by Love and Other Consolation Prizes, I still enjoyed it a great deal. Even though you as a reader know more about the plot than the characters do, there were still a few surprises Ford threw in. I did wish the plot was a little more linear, because I found the shift between past and present a little jarring occasionally, and I felt things moved at a slower pace than I would have liked. But these characters and their story is a beautiful, heartfelt one (made all the more emotional when you learn it is based on a true story), and there are some emotional moments worth savoring.

This is a book about overcoming struggles, the difficulties in following your heart, and what it feels like to finally belong somewhere, with people you care about who care about you, after never believing that could be true. If you enjoy historical fiction that doesn't feel historical, or you just like well-written stories, pick up Love and Other Consolation Prizes. It's a story you'll keep thinking about.