Tag: DoubleDay Books

Books

Fruit of the Drunken Tree

RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 304
Quick Review In the midst of Colombia’s struggle, three girls, two from privilege and one from poverty, share experiences.

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Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Roja Contreras has already stirred up quite a lot of good buzz this summer before its release. GoodReads has already called it a must read of the summer. I do not disagree. It is one of my favorite books I have read this year. I know it will stay with me for quite awhile.

Cassandra is older than her younger sister, Chula. Petrona comes into their family’s home as a maid. Their father is away most of the time working, so the house is run by their mother. The rules change when their drunkard father is home, but the girls adore him anyways. Chula is the main protagonist throughout the majority of the novel. She is young and curious with little understanding of the political upheaval going on around her. Her older sister, Cassandra, is a little more aware, but feigns wisdom around her younger sister. They both have a fascination for their new maid Petrona, who is quiet and mysterious.

Contreras pulls the reader in from the very beginning. The novel starts giving clues to what happened before telling the story from the beginning when Chula was a child. Every other chapter tells Petrona’s story, which gives a fuller picture of Colombia’s landscape and culture at the time. There are a lot of Spanish words and phrases incorporated throughout. I speak Spanish, so I understood. I don’t think this would hinder anyone’s understanding, however. There is a lot of talk about politics, elections, guerilla warfare, death, sexual assault, and more.

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The Drunken Tree, from which the novel takes its title, is a real tree. Known scientifically as brumansia arborea alba. It is a tree whose flower is used to create date rape drugs. If the flowers are eaten, people can go into a hysteria. When the drug wears off, they remember nothing from the experience.

I found it to be an absolutely fabulous novel. Colombia has a reputation for drugs, specifically cocaine. About the only other thing the country is known for may be Shakira. The country has so much more culture and history than these two facts. I love the novel focuses on neither. I am hoping it helps bring more attention to this oft forgotten country.

*If you’re interested in reading another Colombian author, take a look at Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel.

Title: Fruit of the Drunken Tree
Author: Ingrid Roja Contreras
Publisher: DoubleDay (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9780385542722

 

Books

Social Creature

RaeAnna

Read: Yes
Length: 320
Quick Review: A psychological thriller delving into friendship, social media, and the power of perception.

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I’m not a huge fan of thrillers, they’re just not my thing. The ones I took a chance on recently were beyond horrendous. (Looking at you Sinner.) DoubleDay Books reached out to me, and I have always enjoyed their books. So I said, “sure.” Fingers crossed this would not be painful.

Social Creature, well… it’s cringe worthy in the best way possible. Like I said, I don’t have tons of experience with thrillers, but this has everything you could possibly want. It’s a thriller for the social media generation.

It’s a thriller meets Gossip Girl meets Great Gatsby. Louise is almost thirty and barely getting by in New York City. Working several jobs and exhausted, she is as far away from the dream as she can get. Lavinia is in her early twenties with the world begging for her attentions. Louise and Lavinia meet and start up a whirlwind friendship. Lavinia introduces Louise to all the right people because “things just happen” for her. The two friends waffle between mania and codependency.

That’s all I’m giving you of the plot because any more and you’ll know too much! Social Creature has you reading and asking so many questions! Will they be answered? Or will you end up in a book hangover?

Not only a thriller, it reads as a social critique of wealth, friendship, mental health, singledom, high society, education, and more. There is an exploration of how integral social media has become in our daily lives, in interacting with people, in receiving validation, and in our identities. There are so many references from classical literature, to opera, to music, and a bit in between; I loved it.

Narrated from an omniscient third party, but there is definitely a leaning towards Louise’s side of the story. The narrator breaks the fourth wall speaking directly to the reader. The reader is let in on the secret learning things that are yet to come long before the characters are aware. The style Burton uses is abrupt and disjointed. It is excellently crafted and fits the story perfectly.

Sometimes, I have a difficulty reading dialogue by contemporary authors because it can feel forced. Burton has some of the best contemporary dialogue I have read in a long while. It is perfectly executed for the audience, characters, age, and location of the novel. It is really well done.

With an impressive resume already, this is Burton’s debut novel, and she writes superbly. It is set to be released on June 5 of this year. I have a feeling it will be one of the summer’s must read novels. Perfect for the beach or wherever your vacation will take you.

Title: Social Creature
Author: Tara Isabella Burton
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9780385543521

Books

The Glitch

RaeAnna

Read: Yes
Difficulty: II
Length: III
Genre: Fiction – Novel
Quick Review: The CEO of a wearable tech company, Shelley Stone, is a workaholic Type A mom, who is unsure if she’s having a mental break or her identity has been stolen.

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Happy publication day to Elisabeth Cohen and her debut novel, The Glitch! It is a witty and provocative look into the pressures of being a mom who’s broken the glass ceiling. Literally the pinkest book I have ever seen, it is going to be the perfect beach read this summer.

Shelley Stone is the CEO of Conch, a wearable tech company, in Silicon Valley. After a tragic accident in her teens, Shelley decided to climb the corporate ladder as high as she could by working longer, harder, and more than anyone else. Married with two kids, she’s almost forty and totally unsure if she has lost her mind. A young woman comes into her life with the same name and the same memories.

Shelley takes her “me time” at 3:30 in the morning. An extreme multi tasker, she never does one thing at a time. She checks emails waiting for the hot water to warm, spends time with her daughter while working, and schedules sex at a convenient and efficient hour. She is in a constant battle for a place in a male dominated field. Traveling constantly, people are always asking her how she balances it all. As much as I would love to believe this is a satire, I have a feeling it is all too accurate for some women.

It’s hard to relate to the lavish lifestyle a tech CEO lives, Cohen makes the trials and tribulations completely relatable because they are issues women face every day on varying levels: mommy guilt, busy lives, work, relationships, sex, and more. Shelley is an intensely strong character, although not necessarily likeable. As a mom, she is trying to be strong and loving and supportive while also fostering an environment of gender equality and tearing down gender walls.

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Cohen creates a world vastly different from my own. A tech world. Shelley is a believable tech CEO because everything from snack time to peeing to sex is quantifiable. Every moment she is awake she is working even when she doesn’t own up to it.

Cohen’s writing style is odd and engaging. Told from Shelley’s perspective it reads as an uncensored inner dialogue spotlighting her type A personality, flaws, and attributes without being apologetic. The first person narrative is fascinating in this book. She can go on tangents or monologues starting out with purpose and drive as her statement begins to unravel as she explains herself over and over. It’s a really good look into the thought process of many women, or at least, I saw a lot of my thought process in hers.

I would love to say the mystery is super mysterious, but it’s pretty guessable – or it was for me. This book is wickedly funny and pointed. I really enjoyed reading it, and finished it in a weekend. I highly suggest it for your summer vacation reads.

Title: The Glitch
Author: Elisabeth Cohen
Publisher: DoubleDay (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9780385542784

Books

Red Famine

RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 384
Quick Review A heartbreaking and in depth look into the Holodomor: pervasive famine during 1932-1934 in Ukraine killing over 13% of the population. Applebaum argues it wasn’t mother nature but Stalin.

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I have a Bachelor’s in Russian, among other things. When I heard news of Red Famine being published, I knew it was something I wanted to read as soon as possible. Anne Applebaum is a renowned journalist having written incredible books on Eastern and Central Europe with an emphasis on communist eras. She has garnered popular and critical acclaim even winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2003 book, Gulag.

In Ukraine there was a famine killing over 13% of the population between 1932-1934. Famines are viewed as the result of mother nature. Applebaum argues there was more at play than a cold winter and lack of food. She argues the famine was a strategic weeding of Ukrainian citizens by the Russian government: Stalin. The famine may have started in 1932, but the events leading to the deadly epidemic started well over a decade before.

I could include a whole bunch of “fun” facts, but you should go read the book for yourself. I will include an important factoid about the famine. It is known as Holodomor. This term comes from морити голодом, which is translated as “to kill by starvation.” As a Russian speaker, I think this title is incredibly powerful; much of the power being lost in translation, of course.

This is an era of history often looked over pertaining to a country often lumped in as a side note to Russia, Poland, and other dominating countries. It would be easy to lose people’s attentions or bog them down in the history necessary to explaining the famine; however, Applebaum does neither. She captivates the reader with anecdotes, dates, and arguments far from the voice of a stodgy history professor one would expect to tell the tale of communist Ukraine. I’m not just saying this because I love Eastern European history; I get bored with the droning too.

Applebaum successfully brings the oft forgotten yet not that long ago Holodomor into the modern consciousness.

Memorable Quotes
“The absence of natural borders helps explain why Ukrainians failed, until the late twentieth century, to establish a sovereign Ukrainian state.”
“Ukraine – the word means “borderland” in both Russian and Polish”
“Many refuses to recognize the name “Ukraine” at all.”
“The authorities … later altered death registries scrum across Ukraine to hide the numbers of deaths from starvation, and in 1937 scrapped an entire census because of what it revealed.”
“In the years that followed the famine, Ukrainians were forbidden to speak about what had happened.”
“The archival record backs up the testimony of the survivors. Neither crop failure nor bad weather causes the famine in Ukraine.”

Title: Red Famine; Stalin’s War on Ukraine
Author: Anne Applebaum
Publisher: Doubleday Books (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2017
ISBN: 9780385538855