The Bean Trees

The story line of this book had so much potential. A young woman just barely an adult is given a baby at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant as the woman is passing through a town. The baby has no papers, no birth certificate, no social security number. It's about this womans' life and how she survives since she has no job, no money, no place to live.

The writing in The Bean Trees was flat. There were two main characters/narrators and I kept waiting to connect to them and be able to hear their voices. That never happened. Even the character who was written in 1st person didn't really have a voice. Even though I didn't really love it, I wanted to finish it. Not because it was good, but just because I wanted to see where Kingsolver was going with it. And I do love books where the lives of two people who are so different from one another intersect.

I ended up putting this down because life got busy. Then when I went to pick it back up, I lost the desire to see what happens. So, this is a book fail.

A Land More Kind Than Home

This is Wiley Cash's debut novel. I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I think debut novels are the best. The Help. The Secret Life of Bees. The Light Between Oceans. Wonder. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Rules of Civility. Bastard Out of Carolina. Still Alice. 

That's enough debut novel love.

I love the voices in this novel. I love how the character development is so rich (perhaps because I live in North Carolina?! Would love to test that theory) that even though there are three narrators and they all live in the NC mountains, I still mentally have different voices for them all. I hear them differently. There is a young boy, an older sheriff, and an even older midwife. Of course I hear their voices differently since one is female, one is a boy, and the other an older male. But more than that, I hear their accents differently. Their nuances that make them unique.

I love the story. It's back country goodness. It's snake handling religion goodness. It's manslaughter, poverty, addiction, and a lot of I-hope-they-catch-the-guy. The story is slow and steady, but not to be confused with boring. It's not a mystery since we all know who done it. It's more a question of will he/they get caught and how. Will the church responsible for the atrocity be shut down.

I highly recommend this book. It was well written, interesting plot, great character development, and a unique topic. And of course, super fun since it's set in NC and I live in NC.  

Requiem

This review is mixed. I really enjoyed the first 2 books in this series. And so I had high hopes and expectations for the last book, Requiem. It started out fine. The love triangle angle was working well. I would have said the book was good. A page turner for sure.

Then as the book progressed, the story really didn't. The build up of the resistance wasn't well written. The end of the book was rushed. The love triangle wasn't really resolved. I like the guy Lena ended up with (obviously can't say who here), but how she got there was rushed and not well developed. And there was no resolution between Lena and the other guy she didn't choose.

Overall, the series was good. The 2nd book in the trilogy, Pandemonium, left the last book so much potential. Sadly, Requiem just kind of fizzled out a bit because of the rushed ending and the love angst. I'd still recommend it as a series though.

Calling Me Home

Calling Me Home is a page turner of a book. When I first started the novel, I thought that maybe it wasn't going to be well written because the conversations and voices were a little too cliche, but I was pleasantly surprised as I continued reading. It's actually a great book. The narration is very unique and interesting. But let me back up.

The story is a good one. It is about a 89-year-old white woman, Isabelle who asked her 30-something black hairdresser, Dorrie to drive her across several states to a funeral. The chapters go back and forth from present day on the road trip where Dorrie's life seems to be falling apart as they drive to the 1940s where Isabelle's life is unfolding.

Like I said before, the narration is unique. Dorrie is the narrator, but she only really narrates every other chapter. The chapters she's not narrating are quasi narrated by Isabelle when she was a young woman.The unfolding of Isabelle's story is so well done and compelling.  The book doesn't feel like it's narrated by two different people though. It flows so well that you don't notice. Because Isabelle is telling her tragic story little by little, there is great suspense built as the author cuts back to present day at a pivotal point.

What I love about this book is that while the most compelling story line is Isabelle's (she fell in love with the son of her black maid - all but illegal in the south in the 1940s), Dorrie's story line is also interesting. I enjoyed reading about how the past of one person's can alter the future of someone else.

I highly recommend this book. It's a quick and easy read with surprises along the way. And a sweet story of race relations and reconciliation.