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#CBR13 Review #10: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

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I finished listening to this audiobook (beautifully narrated by Sarita Choudhury) months ago, but couldn’t bring myself to write a review. And I’m not really sure why, because it’s not like I didn’t like this book. In fact, I loved it: it is one of my favourite books that I’ve read/listened to in quite some time. I’m also so sure that I’ve seen Mira Nair’s film adaptation of this novel at some point, and yet I can barely remember anything about it. Time for a revisiting, perhaps? The Namesake follows two generations of the Ganguli family, as they transition from a life in Calcutta to one as Americans. In the early stages of the novel, the focus is on Ashoke and Ashima, who soon after their arranged marriage move to Cambridge, Massachusetts for Ashoke to work. While Ashoke is quick to adapt to this new life, Ashima is resistant to her new home in America and yearns to return back to her life in Calcutta. After their son is born, however, the novel’s focus largely shifts to that of the
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#CBR13 Review #09: Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

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I haven’t been as drawn to the YA genre as of late, but picked up this audiobook on a whim regardless. And as it turns out, it was one of the more compelling listens throughout than a lot of what I’ve been getting into these past few months. That is, until the ending: try as it might to have a big, surprising and meaningful drop, it just didn’t have the impact compared to the rest of the twists, turns, and theorizing within the novel. And I can’t help but notice a lot of YA novels where the cover features faces that are scratched out, purposefully covered up, or otherwise blurred of identity and feature some kind of mystery (and often death) end up leaving me feeling underwhelmed when the resolution hits. Hmmmmm…. Strange coincidence, or maybe this kind of mystery story isn’t for me? Little Monsters focuses on Casey, a new girl who moves to a small town to live with her father and step-family. Although she initially feels like an outsider, she is quickly taken in by an inseparable duo
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#CBR13 Review #08: Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor

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Filthy Animals is a novel composed of a group of short stories and characters that all link together in some form or another. The first story deals with an emotional young man named Lionel as he begins embarking on strange and perilous encounters with a man in an open relationship. From there, we also meet a babysitter who has exploded her life, a group of teenagers that engage in a night of emotional and physical violence against one another, dancers at an academy, and a young woman facing down her family as terminal cancer rages through her. The main throughline of this novel centers on Lionel (and his story is returned to a number of times), while the surrounding tales act more or less to flesh out the greater world. It is as if to say, here is what one person is dealing with, but if you look past them you will see so many other lives being lived. And all of them feel connected by an invisible thread of longing and searching for something (or someone) to connect to. Beyond this the
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#CBR13 Review #07: Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell

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The amount of times while listening to this audiobook where I just thought to myself, “I really don’t care” was astounding. I hate to say that, because it’s sad when things that once interested you suddenly don’t anymore, but to be honest I didn’t even know that this book (the 3rd and final of the Simon Snow series) was out in the series until I noticed it on a library list. The whole thing just fell from my head and I never felt the absence.  And that’s not to say that these books aren’t enjoyable (I really did like the first one! The second was… fine, but sort of went in one ear and out the other), but I guess I’m just having a hard time caring about a lot of things these days. And I for real have noticed that I am not enjoying series (when it comes to books) in the least. Or franchises of movies. Or when a tv series feels like it’s just going to meander with as many seasons as it gets versus having a solid plan and story to be completely told in 1-2 seasons and then calling it done.
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#CBR13 Review #06: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

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I listened to the novel as an audiobook, and while it started out promising I have to admit that as it went on and on and on, I became more and more weary with the whole ordeal. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish it by the end, but I had put so much time in that I had to see how things came together, and what exactly the point of it all would be in the end. And it certainly did come together and have some points to make, but I can’t say that what was presented felt worth it, or that I was inclined to buy it.  T he House of the Spirits spans across multiple generations of the Trueba family in post-colonial Chile (though the country is not specifically named) The main characters are the family patriarch, Esteban, whose family owns a run-down estate and farmland that he wants to return to its former glory, along with his own political ambitions, Clara, Esteban’s wife who is more spiritual in nature and has certain magical abilities of clairvoyance, their daughter, Blanc
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#CBR13 Review #05: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

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Truth be told, I listened to this audiobook on a whim as it came up in the new book recommendations of my library app. Sounded interesting enough! And overall, it was an easy and engaging enough listen, though I can’t say that it grabbed me much beyond a passing enjoyment. The Lost Apothecary flits between two time periods (and 3 protagonists’ points of view therein). The first setting is 1791 London, where a woman named Nella works in a hidden apothecary for women, helping them with various ailments including those that require the elimination of the men in their lives. One night, a young girl named Eliza walks into the shop on behalf of her employer who seeks to poison her husband. Eliza is a curious young woman whose presence soon becomes entrenched in Nella’s world far more than she wishes, and which alters the course of both their lives within a short period of time.  Alongside this setting is present-day London, where a woman named Catherine is supposed to be on a 10-year annive
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#CBR13 Review #04: Block Seventeen by Kimiko Guthrie

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I’ve been having a hard time sitting down to write this review because, well, I just don’t know. Listening to this audio book left me feeling like there was so much there, and also not enough. And I am torn, and really am not sure how I feel about it at the end of the day.  Block Seventeen by Kimiko Guthrie is told mainly from the perspective of Akiko (who goes by Jane), a half-Japanese, half-white woman living in San Francisco during the recession. Out of work and sewing dresses from home for a little income, lives with her fiance, Shiro, who works as a TSA agent and wants to expose the racist behaviors of his employers. As Shiro gets further caught up in his conspiracies and plans, Jane tries more and more to keep the peace, all while also desperately trying to get in physical contact with her mother, who seems to have disappeared from the physical realm only to be found online. In a series of escalating events in her apartment, Jane is confronted with a long-buried secret of her fa
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