fiction

“Flying Solo” by Linda Holmes

October 22, 2022 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: lightreads

Lovely atmospheric book set in a coastal Maine town with a main character who is a single woman and likes it that way. Mostly cozy and fun, although there was one scene with intense gaslighting where I had to skip a couple of pages to continue reading.

Now that I think back on it, I didn’t notice any LGBT characters at all. The great-aunt should have turned out to be a lesbian the whole time! There was a Black woman minor character who said from off-stage, “You know I don’t go places where my presence increases the Black population by over 10%.”

So, a light, fun read if you’re white and straight, or don’t mind reading a book about white, straight people. I read it as an ebook from the library, and it was well-suited for that.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Tales From Moominvalley” by Tove Jansson

September 27, 2022 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

I found the old familiar paperback edition of this book, the one illustrated with a bored Moominpapa having tea, in a Little Free Library and took it home with me.

The stories are silly and fantastical, and also contain serious themes. Authenticity. Friendship. Attachment to things. Attachment to people. Fear and dread, and surprising resolutions that lighten them, sparks of life and light and love.

The endearing line drawings are also by Tove Jansson.

I read and enjoyed it, and then took it back to the Little Free Library where I found it, for someone else to enjoy.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“The Changeling Sea” by Patricia McKillip

September 4, 2022 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: People mourning McKillip

This book was first published in 1988, and it is one of the books by Patricia McKillip I have carried with me since I was a teenager. I didn’t love it the way I did the Riddle-Master trilogy or Forgotten Beasts of Eld, but I liked it enough to keep it through several purges of my SciFi and Fantasy paperbacks.

Sadly, McKillip died recently, and people mentioned The Changeling Sea as one of their favorites. I pulled it from the shelf and took it with me to spend time at my beloved Berkeley Rose Garden. It was the perfect book to read while sitting on a bench surrounded by roses.

I liked the theme of communication, using words carefully, and repairing ancient grudges and broken relationships. I was less pleased by an innocent 15-year-old village girl being treated as an appropriate romantic target by a traveling magician. The narrative doesn’t give his age, but he seems experienced enough to be at least 25, perhaps 30 years old. I wish young me had had books with better messages about adults protecting teen girls, rather than treating them like grown women.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“North to Freedom” by Anne Holm

January 21, 2022 by Sonia Connolly 2 Comments

This is one of the books I’ve carried from place to place since I was a kid. I took it down from the shelf to see if it was time to pass it along, and ended up reading the whole thing. I didn’t remember much about the plot, but a few fragmentary scenes had stayed with me. It was published in 1963 in Danish, and translated into English in 1965.

A twelve-year-old child named David has been raised in a concentration camp, escapes with the puzzling help of the Commandant, and is now crossing Europe alone to get to Denmark. He is sturdy, quick-witted, and speaks several languages, having learned them from various fellow prisoners.

The writing is emotionally authentic without trying to terrify the reader. David talks about his fear, and also how he has learned to calm himself. He passes through hope and despair. He learns to be more present in his body, and connects passionately to the beauty of the land around him. He also connects tentatively, warily, with other humans.

People see him with compassion and help him on his way, and also see the strangeness in him. With his mix of social ignorance and calm self-possession, it’s obvious he hasn’t had a normal childhood.

In passing, David is noted as a rare name, which was surprising since it has been in the top 35 names since 1880 in the US, and was ranked first in 1960. I have been in a mid-size software engineering organization that literally had more Davids than women. Apparently it was less popular in Denmark in the 1960s.

When I last read the book, I was around David’s age, and simply accepted the plot. Now I see the underlying social and religious messages (added with a light hand), and the overall metaphor for healing from abuse and reconnecting with people.

David values intelligence and devalues people for being “stupid.” I could see a twelve-year-old boy having that attitude, and I wish the author had made it clear that intellectual ability does not correlate with intrinsic moral value. There is also some borderline fat-judgment. David tends to see people as all bad or all good. The plot does engage with the ambiguity of people who are both.

Highly recommended, despite those caveats.

Available at Powell’s Books.

“Witches of Brooklyn: What the Hex?!” by Sophie Escabasse

December 5, 2021 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Soph

A playful graphic novel about witches in Brooklyn with an underlying message about building friendship through patience and conversation. The cast of characters is delightfully multi-racial, as is fitting for New York, and young Effie’s grandmothers are more notable for being witches than for being a couple. In fact their relationship is left a little vague, but they’re probably not just housemates.

The drawings of people are expressive and funny and the backgrounds are full of Brooklyn details.

I was just going to look at the first few pages, and got pulled into reading the whole thing. Recommended!

Available at Amazon.

“The Magic Fish” by Trung Le Nguyen

December 5, 2021 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Recommended to me by: Soph

What a lovely, powerful graphic novel. Tien is growing up in the US with Vietnamese immigrant parents. He speaks mostly English, and they speak mostly Vietnamese. It’s a close, loving family and they read fairy tales together when they have time. The graphic novel interweaves slant-wise takes on three familiar fairy tales with Tien’s adventures in high school and as he struggles to communicate important truths about himself to his parents.

The art is gorgeous. Fairy tale dresses are especially elaborate, and the end of the book contains notes on the time periods the dresses are drawn from. The one thing I found confusing is that something about the proportions of the characters made them look younger to me. Tien looked like a much younger child, and his mom looked like his teen older sister, even though the story communicates that Tien is in high school and his mom is in her 30s.

The love in the book makes me cry, along with the difficult times around immigration and grief, conveyed with kindness. Highly recommended!

Content notes: brief homophobia, not endorsed by the author, and fairy tale violence.

Available at Powell’s Books.