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French Quarter Fiction edited by Joshua Clark

November 19, 2019November 19, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth A Read Definitely
Length 384
Quick Review A love letter to an iconic city created through an anthology of stories by great authors.

20191119_210701-01 — Reading French Quarter Fiction edited by Joshua Clark in Jackson Square in the French Quarter in New Orleans. | Dress | Scarf | Boots | Beret

20191119_210427-01 — Reading French Quarter Fiction edited by Joshua Clark in Jackson Square in the French Quarter.

20191119_210807-01 — Reading French Quarter Fiction edited by Joshua Clark in Jackson Square in the French Quarter in New Orleans. | Dress | Scarf | Boots | Beret

French Quarter Fiction is one of those anthologies: it has something for everyone. (Unless you hate short stories, then it doesn’t have anything for you.) As much as I love reading anthologies, I hate reviewing them because there is too much to say. It’s impossible to focus on style because it changes from story to story with the authors. No one wants to read a detailed literary analysis of every short story in an anthology; most people don’t want to read a literary analysis ever. The messages and themes and character development and everything else shifts just as much. Instead, I like to focus on the fact it’s done well or not.

New Orleans is a vibrant and unique city; I don’t think one story or one author has been able to capture the essence of this iconic place. It means different things to different people. The one thing it does for everyone is evoke feeling; whether they love it or hate it, there are emotions associated with New Orleans. In my opinion, an anthology does a better job at capturing the spirit of the French Quarter because there is a spirit in those streets.

Joshua Clark does an excellent job choosing stories by well known and highly acclaimed authors to lesser known. The stories range from heart breaking to hilarious.

The French Quarter and alcohol are synonymous. You can walk around with a drink in your hand in the Quarter. You should because everyone does. New Orleans wouldn’t be New Orleans without alcohol being a part of the story. The stories begin with a map so you can orient yourself. French Quarter Fiction is divided up into sections. Each section is started with an iconic drink name, the history, and a recipe. I don’t drink, but you should read this with a drink in your hand. It won’t make it better because it’s already good, but it will give you an authentic New Orleans experience from your couch.

I seriously suggest picking up French Quarter Fiction if you love New Orleans or have an interest in the city.

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Title: French Quarter Fiction
Edited By: Joshua Clark
Publisher: Fall River Press (Light of New Orleans Publishing, LLC)
Copyright: 2010
ISBN: 9781435123953

Books, Reading Lists

11 Books to Read This Christmas

November 12, 2019 RaeAnna

Beau agrees, she can’t believe it’s Christmas already!!! | A Christmas Treasury | Christmas Dog Mug

Hi. Halloween has come and gone, which means it’s the best season of all. Christmas. I’ve been listening to Christmas music for eleven days now. Last year, I read a bunch of Christmas books in three weeks. I started earlier this year, but I have more to read. I haven’t posted any seasonal book reviews yet because I know not everyone is as Christmabsessed as I am. Anyways, here are eleven books you can and should read during the happiest time of year.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (classic, duh)
The Nutcracker by Alexandre Dumas (not the ballet)
The Autobiography of Santa Claus by Jeff Guinn
The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
Letter from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien
Hiddensee by Gregory Maguire
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
Christmas Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva
How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas by Jeff Guinn

Some of these I’ve read in previous years. Some I have read this year, and there are a few I haven’t read yet, but they’re waiting for me on my shelf to read in front of the tree!!!

Books, Fiction

The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay

November 7, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth A Read No
Length 383
Quick Review A group of people are magically transported to another realm, which is in the middle of a war.

Reading The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay | Jumpsuit | Earrings | Watch

My best friend loves Guy Gavriel Kay’s writing. He has been bugging me for about a decade to read one of his books, so finally I did. The Summer Tree was an obvious place to start because it’s the beginning of the Fionavar Tapestry series. Much to the dismay of my best friend, I hated it. Genuinely. The story is interesting, but the writing is horrible. I don’t know where the editor was, but they weren’t doing their job with this one.

Five acquaintances are whisked away to Fionavar for a celebration by magical beings. They accidentally find themselves at the center of a war spanning many lands. The plot is inventive but not necessarily original.

The Summer Tree dives right into the action. Often times, this is a great way of making the reader keep reading. Kay made a grave mistake in having the action begin immediately: there was no emotional investment in the characters. All this stuff was happening to them, and I had no interest or connection to them. Why should I care? They were flat and uninteresting. They are underdeveloped, which does not allow readers to connect with them or even for the characters to connect with each other.

I’m all for fantasy. It’s not my usual genre, but I do love Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. From Kay’s writing style in The Summer Tree, it’s evident he also admires Tolkien. He was trying for a Tolkienesque narrative but had problems carrying it out throughout the novel. On top of that, his descriptions are overly flowery but lack any concrete imagery. The dialogues are clunky and do not feel like anything real people would say to other real people. Kay tends to foreshadow often in a give-it-away style. Simultaneously, he does not explain things at all. Maybe, he’s leaving those mysteries to be spelled out in the other books, but it just feels riddled with plot holes. One of the most irritating aspects of the narrative was Kay’s repetition. I love repetition. It’s an amazing literary device, but he just does not do it well. I think he was trying to be poetic, but came across like he was suffering from short term memory loss.

One of my biggest issues with the book is Kay’s inability to write compelling women. I question if he’s ever talked to a woman. He has no idea how to create female characters with interesting emotions and motivations. There are also bits of odd sexual torture; they are abrupt and make absolutely zero sense. As a rape survivor, it was offense and insensitive. More importantly than that, it was unrealistic. Fantasy or not, sexual violence should make sense and be done in a way that mimics reality.

Kay tries for an epic on the same level of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Lewis’ Narnia, or Martin’s Westeros, but it echoes hollow. An idea with a lot of promise but a deficient execution. The Summer Tree does not have the emotional wallop an epic requires.

Memorable Quotes
I found no memorable quotes because the writing was painful to read.

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Title: The Summer Tree
Author: Guy Gavriel Kay
Publisher: Roc
Copyright: 1984
ISBN: 9780451458223

Books, Fiction

Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler

October 3, 2019October 3, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth A Read Yes
Length 400
Quick Review A librarian stumbles across a puzzling part of history in the Berachah Home, where erring girls went for a fresh start.

Reading Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler in downtown Houston. | Dress | Belt | Earrings | Watch | Sunglasses

Home for Erring and Outcast Girls by Julie Kibler is a much better novel than I expected to encounter. There are so many ways Kibler could have gone wrong, but she didn’t. Diving into complex women’s issues and how society dealt with the women in question paralleled by a century of “change.” Based on a real house in rural Texas serving real women, Kibler builds a world full of sorrow and empathy.

In 2017, Cate is a librarian working in a Texas University Library’s archives and becomes fascinated looking through documentation of the Berachah home after stumbling upon a cemetery in 2017. She has a penchant for running and running away; she lives a solitary life aside from making a connection with one of her student workers. Dealing with a mysterious past, flashbacks to 1998 as a highschooler slowly reveal insight into her troubled past. In 1904, Lizzie Bates, Docie, and Mattie Corder are escaping the evils of a patriarchal society by finding refuge in the Berachah Home for Erring and Outcast Girls. They find solace surrounded by religion and other fallen women and their children as they are taught skills to fend for themselves.

Kibler touches on everything from drugs to rape to incest to abuse and more in this raw historical fiction about loss and friendship. Home for Erring and Outcast Girls drives home the fact that women take a backseat to men, always. Their plans. Their dreams. Their reputations. Their futures. This has been a truth for the majority of societies for as long as history can document. As much as things are changing, much remains the same. Including Cate, as a contemporary woman, shows the parallel between the two eras and how little has changed for women. How little choice there is.

The Berachah Home really did exist outside of Arlington, Texas and was founded by James and Maggie Upchurch. They had a revolutionary idea to keep the children with their mothers. At the time, mother’s were separated from their children without a choice, more often than not, when the children were born out of wedlock. There are real excerpt from The Purity Journal, which went out to graduates of the home and donors.

Abuse is a central point in Home for Erring and Outcast Girls. Kibler makes a beautiful statement I and many other survivors of abuse, loss, abandonment, addiction, rape, assault, and more have felt: “Or how I maybe didn’t fight hard enough, or say no the right way, or at the right times.” Guilt and shame are a raw undercurrent in this book about being helpless and reclaiming an identity in the after. Everyone survives their own hell, but so many of the emotions and recovery processes are the similar.

Religion is a character in its own right in this novel. It plays a role of savior but also demon. Kibler is not afraid to show the church in the light of benefactor and evil doer depending on the point of view of the character. Religion is not one size fits all, and everyone has different experiences. Even in the most positive of lights, the church do not do right by women. Women are often depicted as temptresses “because churches, in general, are still bastions of judgement masquerading as refugees of grace and acceptance.”

I was utterly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but Julie Kibler captured my interest and respect with her cutting and insightful novel Home for Erring and Outcast Girls.

Memorable Quotes
“A room filled with people can be lonelier than solitude.”
“Her ma had done what she must to survive, and that was how it was for women.”
“It was always the man who took what he wanted, and the woman who lost everything.”
“Devastation was a pain you thought would never go away, and sometimes it didn’t.”

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Title: Home for Erring and Outcast Girls
Author: Julie Kibler
Publisher: Crown
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780451499332

Books, NonFiction

Motherland by Elissa Altman

September 22, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth A Read Absolutely
Length 272
Quick Review Elissa Altman and her mother have always had a trying relationship. Altman explores their history in order to come to peace with and understand it.

Reading Motherland by Elissa Altman in downtown Houston. | Skirt | Watch | Top | Shoes |

Mother daughter relationships are hard under even the best of circumstances. When someone puts pen to paper about it, you know it is even more fraught. And usually the mom is dead, but Elissa Altman writes while her mother is still living. Motherland is, at its essence, an exploration of addiction and recovery and living with it.

Moms are hard. I probably have a skewed perception because I have struggled with the mom relationship since I became a cognizant person. Motherland resonated with me on a very visceral level. I finished it in a few hours without getting up to even refill my teacup.

Elissa Altman is a lesbian woman raised by starlet mother in New York City. (Her father was supportive and present and seems like a really good dad and person, but this story isn’t about him.) Her mother had a career in entertainment before meeting her first husband and having a child, Altman. For the rest of her life, she would remind everyone of who she used to be, all while reminding her daughter what she had given up for her.

From the start, it is wildly apparent the relationship between Altman and her mother is unhealthy under the best of circumstances. Her mother never made the shift in her mind that her days on TV were no longer. She lives as if the idea of her past self is all she was, is, and ever will be to the point Altman states, “She was a myth I searched for and never found.” Oh my god that sentence cuts me to the quick.

“It was not the alcohol to which I was addicted; it was she…” About going to AA without an alcohol addiction.
A lot of I loved you the most did everything for you what has anyone else done that I didn’t and couldn’t do for you
It feels like my mother
“The belief that whatever she was dishing out. I somehow deserved.”

Memorable Quotes
“Like the Centralia Mine fire, my mother and I have been burning for half a century.”
“It had been a choice: my mother’s life, or my own.”
“No family likes having a writer in their midst, says a close friend. … No family ever says Yay. A writer.”

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Title: Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing
Author: Elissa Altman
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780399181580

Books, Fiction

The Travelers by Regina Porter

August 30, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth A Read Definitely
Length 320
Quick Review Starting with a bang, Porter dives into America’s past and complex issues with racism, classism, feminism, and all the other -isms as two families intermingle from the 1950’s to the last years of Obama’s presidency.

Reading *The Travelers* by Regina Porter in Old Town Spring, Texas. | Dress | Watch |

Regina Porter knows how to write. Her skill is on full display from the very beginning of The Travelers. This is an impressive piece of literature in and of itself, but the fact it is her debut makes it even more momentous. Simultaneously concise and epic, Porter packs a punch with every character and plot line. A story that is sure to leave an impression on anyone who picks it up.

With a huge cast of characters, The Travelers does its readers a favor by including a cast and familial context before the intricately woven plot begins. Convenient for reminding myself who’s who in the milieu without having to backtrack, I appreciated it..

Porter dives into the plot and complexities of relationships and humans search for answers with “When the boy was four, he asked his father why people needed sleep. His father said, “So God could unfuck all the things people fuck up.”” Two sentences. A striking way to start a novel that lives up to and surpasses the promise of its first impression. Spanning seven decades, The Travelers explores the realities of living in the United States through a variety of lenses and eras as two families come together.

This is not an easy book to read. It challenges readers to follow along a journey mired by stark realities. As chapters change so does the perspective, characters, era, setting, style, and tone. It’s a chameleon of a novel; changing drastically to fit the characters, situations, and times. There are no good characters or bad. Although, there are a few who fall much further on the wrong side of bad. Flaws and brilliance are present in each character. Instead of relying on tropes, The Travelers snapshots people’s lives to depict the greater faults in American society not just historically but currently.

People are not one thing. They are not just black. Just white. Just gay. Just rich. Just a father. Just an anything. Being human means being many things all at the same time and experiencing events in very unique and personal ways. We walk through life as a culmination of all our identities and experiences commingling simultaneously. Porter does not dilute her characters. They are not just white, mentally ill, black, veteran, sister, mixed, lover, poor, victim, straight, abuser, rich, gay, etc. She allows them to be many things concurrently.

The real triumph in The Travelers is Porter’s resistance to explain. She does not water down her stories or characters or layers by telling the reader how to perceive it. She lets it play out and leaves it. She has a straightforward yet nuanced way of writing. As in life; she allows the reader to infer and interpret what happens outside the line of sight. Readers are used to having a degree of omniscience, but Porter doesn’t allow this.

As a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence, Porter delivers one of the most believable literary sexual abuse encounters I’ve encountered. I admire her dedication to tackling often misunderstood and misrepresented atrocities with sincerity and tact. It’s a hard line to walk, and she does it well.

This is good Literature. With a capital L. The Iowa Writers’ Workshop has a reputation for excellence. It has earned this reputation because Regina Porter and writers of this caliber called it home for a time. It is an incredible program, and I’m not just saying so because I grew up in Iowa.

The Travelers is one of the most affecting contemporary novels I have encountered.

Memorable Quotes
“You can’t see the end in the beginning. So play it safe and get the beginning right.”
“But we inherit it. Don’t you want to know what makes them tick?”

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Title: The Travelers
Author: Regina Porter
Publisher: Hogarth
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780525576198