Ada's Rules - Alice Randall

Ada's Rules: A Sexy Skinny Novel by Alice Randall
Ada Howard is the wife of the preacher and has a lot of responsibilities.  She hasn't been making time for herself recently.  After Ada hears that her 25 yr college reunion is coming up she decides to lose weight to impress an old boyfriend.  Ada outlines her journey and new ways of living healthy in each chapter.  This was an excellent read.  The author manages to keep it light and fun as Ada rediscovers herself and her body. 

Author Pearl Cleage's blurb says it best " Ada's Rules might be a diet book disguised as a novel, and it might be a novel disguised as a diet book, but I guarantee it will make you laugh and make you think, while it nudges you oh so gently in the direction of a brand new way to think about and celebrate your body"

Beyond the laughter, Randall has created a very realistic character in Ada Howard with valid concerns that readers will easily cheer for as she tries to for something better at 50.   This would make an excellent Mother's Day gift. 

Read the first three chapters via the publishers site
Starred Publishers Weekly review

The World We Found - Thrity Umrigar

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar
I've heard a lot of great things about Umrigar's writing. When I worked at Borders many customers would come in to buy The Space Between Us by the author. It was a very popular book club read. Having recently finished The World We Found, I understand Umrigar's appeal.

Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita and Nishta grew up together and were once very close. In the 1970's when things were changing in India, the four friends questioned and challenged authority. The novel begins in present day, they have grown apart and leading their own lives. Only Laleh and Kavita the two still living in Bombay are in regular contact. Though when Armaiti's reaches out to tell them she has a fatal from of cancer, Laleh and Kavita promise to find Nishta. Armaiti wishes to see her friends one last time.

The strength and beauty of Umrigar's writing is present from the start.

"The tooth broke three days after she received the awful news. There was no blood. No pain, even. For three days she had believed that it was her heart that had broken into tiny fragments, but turned out it was another part of her body that decided to mourn the news. No pain, no blood. Just a moment of puzzlement as she bit into the soft French toast she made for breakfast this morning and felt something hard and brittle in her mouth. She spat out two small pieces into her cupped hand. She rinsed her mouth with cold water, and only then did she look up into the mirror. Until now, her teeth had been as sturdy and even as piano keys; but then, until now her oldest friend in the world had not been dying. It was right somehow, in this week of reminders of mortality, that she sacrifice something too."

Before Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita and Nishta can be reunited, they must come to terms with and address an event that changed the course of their lives and friendships. Umrigar has crafted a beautifully emotional story. This was one of those novels that I loved falling into completely. I highly recommend The World We Found, and look forward to reading more by the author.

Read the first five chapters via publisher.

A few professional reviews via author's site.

Lost in language & Sound - Ntozake Shange

Lost in Language & Sound by Ntozake Shange
This collection of essays was released earlier this month. Essays are usually hit or miss for me,overall this collection worked very well for me. I especially loved the first half, in which much of it read like a homage to African American dance,dancers Jazz. I only recognized a few of the dancers mentioned, I did a little better with the Jazz artist (though barely). But it did not matter either way, Ntozake Shange wrote in such a way that it made me feel like I knew them, or at the very least I felt their love of movement and that was more then a enough. The author reminisces about the beginning of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered When the Rainbow is Enuf. One of the messages I got from this collection was that you can try to steal or silence the African Americans but we will always new way to speak and be heard, be it through dance, music or any other artistic avenue of our choice.

"We must sing and dance or we shall die an inert, motionless, "sin ritmo" death. "Negros muertos," killed by a culture afraid of who we are and what we have to say with our bodies, our music, and our brains. Black folks do have brains. We even have ideologists, scholars, choreographers, and always the grace of the goods. "

Reading this collection reminded me how much I love Ntozake Shange's work, there's a beautiful rhythm to her words which always have purpose. The author reveals much of herself in each piece. I truly enjoyed this lost in language & sound, though I did question the inclusion of one piece entitled "2 live crew" Black men demoralizing Black women is still an issue but I just felt the exploration of 2 live crews exploits was dated. Its in inclusion always halted a bit of the flow of the collection. However I still highly recommend lost language & sound without missing a beat.

Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
This is the story of a family in a small Mississippi town. Set 12 days before Hurricane Katrina hits. The story is told by Esch the lone female voice. Esch lives with her father and three brothers. The mother died giving birth to the youngest son. Ward's does an excellent job of building this families world. I understood where every character was coming from.

A large part of this story is the relationship Esch's older brother Skeetah has with his pit bull China. With Skeetah, Ward created a character that took part in dog fights that not only did I not dislike but cared very much for. One would have to read the novel to believe me but its obvious how much Skeetah loves China. There are moments when my heart broke watching Esch, wanting someone to love her as much as Skeetah does his dog. The family is preparing for coming hurricane but that is very much in the background. Esch voice captured me from the very beginning, there's such an honest beauty to it that I loved.

Esch is around 15 or 16 before reading Salvage the Bones, I thought it might have some YA crossover appeal. After reading it I know its true. Since it's fiction and not YA there is adult content. However, I truly appreciated how everything was a reflection of reality. The author doesn't feel the need to over do it with language or sex because the strength of the writing will entice and keep readers interest.

A 2011 National Book Award Finalists

Minding Ben by Victoria Brown

Minding Ben by Victoria Brown
At 16 Grace, makes the trip alone from her home in Trinidad to NYC. Grace finds herself alone when her aunt doesn't show at the airport. All of that happens in the prologue. When the story really gets going, its 1991 Grace is 18yrs old, living with Sylvia, a fellow Trinidadian she meet at carnival. Grace is helping take care of Sylvia's three kids. Plus the brother, six people staying in Sylvia's rundown Brooklyn apartment. Grace is trying to find work as a nanny. Not being a U.S citizen, is making the job search very difficult.

Grace finally gets a job with the Bruckner's, a wealthy Manhattan couple. She's hired as a weekly live in for their four year old son Ben. Grace is being paid $200 a week and knows its less then average for the area, but she needs the money. The Bruckner's take advantage. The wife is always finding more tedious work for Grace.

Brown does an excellent job of showing this very unbalanced employee and employer relationship. At one point the Bruckner's even hint at being Grace's sponsor to become citizen. Making it more difficult for Grace to leave a bad situation.

Grace takes Ben out to the park and sits with some of the other Caribbean nannies. The author incorporates many Island dialects, which I absolutely loved. It was easy to visualize these women sitting around a park bench, having causal conversations to pass the time.

One of the great things about this story, every interaction served a purpose. When Grace first talks to the Bruckner's doorman it's obvious he feel above the nannies. Brown paints a full picture of Grace, with the story lines running together smoothly. I loved Grace's best friend Kathy. She is also from Trinidad and has fully embraced Jamaican style.

"Kathy shook her head. She was one of those Trinidadians of indeterminate race, a real callaloo. Her chabine hair came almost to her waist in a ponytail looked just like a real pony's tail. She was red-skinned, short and plump - or as she liked to call herself, slim thick-. Karen had taken to Jamaicans. She left Trinidad exactly three months before I did and dropped her h's as frequently as she remembered to pronounce them. Not only had she picked up the accent but she had picked up the style. Now she sported a purple sweater and tight blue jeans. Simple enough but Kathy had only last Saturday gone to the Empire Boulevard post office to pick up her very own BeDazzler. Brooklyn Jamaicans were crazy about the potential for transformation locked away in every bite of the BeDazzler. Three braclets of rhinestones sparkled on Kath's cuffs and a line of jewels dotted up each arm. From the shoulders the stones ringed the neck of her sweater in three rows to mimic the cuff effect. Kathy had repeated the triple pattern on the hem of her jeans and had studded up its outer side seams to the front pockets. This dazzling effect was completed with purple, spiny stars on both back pockets and one final oversize rinestone centered on her back loop. All in all I estimated about two and a half pounds of gems.

When the author broke out the BeDazzler, couldn't help but like the story just a little more. Minding Ben is firmly set in NYC early 90's more so Brooklyn. It was fun for me to be reminded of past trends, like Karl Kani and being able to picture much of the world Grace was living in.

Brown has created a great character in Grace. I loved her voice. Minding Ben was an easy novel to fall into. I really enjoyed it.

An excerpt

Silver Sparrow - Tayari Jones

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
James Witherspoon is a bigamist. This is the story of two families and one husband, told through the eyes of the two daugthers. The first daughter we get to meet is Dana. She is the secret. I loved the opening paragraph, Jones tells the reader exactly what they're are going to get.

Dana and her mother both know James is a bigamist. Dana grows up knowing James will never love or claim her in public. James, other daughter, Chaurisse and her mother are in the dark. When the sisters paths cross years of secrets are revealed.

The strength of this story lies in the complexity and ease in which the relationships are drawn. Jones has a beautiful way with words. She shows off her skills with a powerful opening paragraph.

Silver Sparrow is firmly grounded in its setting, Atlanta in the 80's. Anyone familiar with the city then or now will recognize many of the landmarks. Living in Atlanta, I've been meaning to read one of Jones novels for a long time. This was a beautiful place to begin. It could've been set any where and I still would've loved it. This is one of my favorite books of 2011.

Read the first chapter

Miss New India - Bharati Mukerjee

Miss New India by Bharati Mukherjee
19 yr old Anjali Bose lives is Gauripaur. Her future is already preset. Anjali father is searching for her future husband. Anjali doesn't want to get married early or have her husband selected. She's also very smart, though living in a small town and being a woman she can't be too smart. Angjali is too big for Gauripaur but she doesn't know how to get out.

Peter Champion a former teacher encourages Anjali to leave and make a life for herself in Bangalore. After an awful encounter with the chosen husband to be, she sets off for Bangalore and a new life. I really enjoyed this story and was quickly drawn in by the writing.

"Angie Bose had lived nineteen years in Gauripur and was a year and a half from graduating with a degree from the best school in town, and no one had ever spoken to her about the nature of truth or art, or assumed she cared or knew anything about it. She knew there were plenty of pretty shots of the Taj Mahal- hard to mess that one up and the Himalayas and animals and famous faces but she'd never thought of them as plotted. Truth? Context? Composition? She'd never had a serious discussion about anything. She was the second daughter of a railway clerk; she was supposed to go to school, obey teachers and parents, graduate and get married, obey her husband, and have children. Truth was what the community, teachers, parents, and eventual husband said it was."

Mukherjee created a realistic and likable character in Anjali, a young woman who simply wants to find her place in the world. Miss New India is a great coming of age story.

Hello Kitty Must Die - Angela S. Choi

Hello Kitty Must Die by Angela S. Choi

28 yr old Fiona Yu is a corporate lawyer, living with her parents in San Fransisco. Fiona hates the hello kitty stereotype, a well mannered Asian American woman. The story begins with Fiona having made the decision to take her own virginity. Yes, it sounds strange because it is. This is actually mentioned in the book summary. I didn't know how this scene was going to materilize but my continuing to read would depend it.

Fiona was still a virgin at 28 in an effort to respect her parents wishes. Finally tired of the importance placed on a woman's virginity, Fiona decides to make a statement.

"I had conquered myself. I wanted to carve a notch on my own headboard. I had picked my own cherry. I had been deflowered by my own hand. I would forever own myself, my honor, my all. My virginity will always be mine.

I grabbed a piece of square cotton gauze quickly and readied myself to soak up my family's honor. I wanted to capture every drop like that man did in Memoirs of a Geisha. The collector with his glass vials of Asian virginity in his black bag. I would be my own collector. A collection of one.

When Fiona discovers she doesn't have a hymen, she feels cheated. Fiona makes an appointment with a Dr. Sean Killroy, who specializes in hymen restorations.

Fiona realizes she once knew the doctor, as Sean Deacon in middle school. The two were friends until Sean sent away for setting a girl on fire. Sean tells Fiona not to waste her time with the surgery. Fiona and Sean fall into an easy friendship. Soon Fiona figures out that Sean is also a serial killer. They never talk about this part of his life. As a criminal lawyer Fiona knows never to asks questions she doesn't want the answers to. Fiona learns a few things from her old new friend. Fiona's father sets her up on blind dates with Chinese man she has no interest in. The dates never go well.

There are probably several reasons why I should'n't like Fiona but there's something about her. As much as I enjoyed this story I know its not for everyone. Looking at other reviews, I noticed some readers didn't care for Fiona's negative stereotypical view of Asian men. I can see where they are coming from but I am still pro Fiona. Since the whole novel is a bit over the top and should not be taken seriously. The one non Asian male was a serial killer with issues.

Hello Kitty Must Die was a lot of fun and very entertaining. A great choice for anyone who enjoys dark humor.

One Amazing Thing - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Uma was stopping by the Indian visa and passport office to get her visa updated so she could visit her parents. When an earthquake hits, Uma and eight other people are trapped in the basement office.

The nine people have nothing in common, yet they find themselves in a situations with little choices. After hours goes by with no rescue in sight everyone agrees to pass the time by sharing one amazing story from their life.

I didn't put this book down until I finished it. A little over 200 pages, Divakaruni created three dimensional characters, each with their own regrets, secrets and hopes. Everyone story is what it was instructed to be. One Amazing Thing is deceptively complex. There's a smoothness to Divakaruni writing that should not be taken for granted. This would make a great book club selection.