All Manner of Things by Susie Finkbeiner
Revell/Baker Publishing June 2019
450 pages Christian Fiction
review copy via publisher, thank you
Best of 2019

When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know.

In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts. In the tumult of this time, Annie and her family grapple with the tension of holding both hope and grief in the same hand, even as they learn to turn to the One who binds the wounds of the brokenhearted.

Author Susie Finkbeiner invites you into the Jacobson family's home and hearts during a time in which the chaos of the outside world touched their small community in ways they never imagined.

I absolutely loved this book and it is not an easy book to describe other than it being a powerful story that is both easy and hard to read at the same time. I found the setting especially intriguing, about a family who is forced to say goodbye to Mike Jacobson as he heads off to enlist in the Vietnam War. I almost said 'sent' to the war, but he volunteered; it's important to note the sacrifice he knew he was making as his own dad had come home broken from the Korean War years earlier. Mike was the rock of the family - being the oldest son after his dad moved out when the three siblings were young. This is a novel told in first person by Annie, who is the sister out of school and just working at the local diner as she holds the family together once Mike enlists. At eighteen she could just be thinking about boys and her life's goals but once Mike is gone the current events of 1967 take on a whole new perspective.


I, for one, am very grateful for that perspective. The novel realistically shows racism, family divides, sorrow and hope. And my heart was ripped out a few times through this voice of Annie's and my emotions got the better of me where I said I have to write this review but of course I cannot fathom the words to specifically say how much this book touched my soul. It is a journey from beginning to end and I am so blessed to have read this tender message of the Lord's mercy. Even with the ugly cry. Thankful no one was in the room through the ugly cry part two.



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Dragonfly by Leila Meacham
July 9 2019 Grand Central publishing
864 pages hardcover/577 pages kindle
eGalley via publisher, thank you!

Read my previous reviews of Leila Meacham's works
Roses
Tumbleweeds
Somersest

At the height of WWII, five idealistic young Americans receive a mysterious letter from the OSS, asking them if they are willing to fight for their country. The men and women from very different backgrounds--a Texan athlete with German roots, an upper-crust son of a French mother and a wealthy businessman, a dirt-poor Midwestern fly fisherman, an orphaned fashion designer, and a ravishingly beautiful female fencer -- all answer the call of duty, but each for a secret reason of his or her own. They bond immediately, in a group code-named Dragonfly.
Soon after their training, they are dropped behind enemy lines and take up their false identities, isolated from one another except for a secret drop-box, but in close contact with the powerful Nazi elite who have Paris under siege.

Thus begins a dramatic and riveting cat-and-mouse game, as the young Americans seek to stay under the radar until a fatal misstep leads to the capture and the firing-squad execution of one of their team. But...is everything as it seems, or is this one more elaborate act of spycraft?

Spies, Nazis, murals, France, nuns, fly fishing -this was great story and of grand epic proportions! Dragonfly was such a page turner that it kept me up way past my bedtime. I have always loved the writing of Leila Meacham and I am so pleased to report that Dragonfly did not disappoint. Please don't let the 864 page number dissuade you, this number is for their large print hardcover edition, but yes it is still a chunky book at 577 glorious kindle pages.

This story is another WWII novel which seem to be flooding the market recently- not that it is a bad thing. Dragonfly is the code name of the group of five young Americans going to offer their services as part of a spy network planted in Germany-occupied Paris. There is a larger cast of characters from the spies themselves to all those that cross the main characters' path, so it does take a bit of concentration to keep everything on track. The fact that we never really could tell if/when someone was going to drop the noose on one of the Dragonfly members made for some edge of my seat reading that I just could not put the book down for long at all.

I appreciated the fact that the author did not feel the need to rush through events and instead creates plausible situations that keep us rooting for the group. We really had a chance to engage with each of the characters and understand the undercurrents with nervous adrenaline while the rookies attempted to impede the Nazis right under their noses. I especially enjoyed how actual spying tasks were not made so easy and there were several hiccups along the way, making for a much more realistic novel throughout their adventures.

Splendid writing, fantastic storytelling and such a treat for Leila Meacham fans of which there are many. Another well-deserved five stars for Leila Meacham!


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The Guest Book by Sarah Blake
published May 2019 Flatiron Books
borrowed from the library

An unforgettable love story, a novel about past mistakes and betrayals that ripple throughout generations, The Guest Book examines not just a privileged American family, but a privileged America. It is a literary triumph.

The Guest Book follows three generations of a powerful American family, a family that “used to run the world”.

And when the novel begins in 1935, they still do. Kitty and Ogden Milton appear to have everything—perfect children, good looks, a love everyone envies. But after a tragedy befalls them, Ogden tries to bring Kitty back to life by purchasing an island in Maine. That island, and its house, come to define and burnish the Milton family, year after year after year. And it is there that Kitty issues a refusal that will haunt her till the day she dies.

In 1959 a young Jewish man, Len Levy, will get a job in Ogden’s bank and earn the admiration of Ogden and one of his daughters, but the scorn of everyone else. Len’s best friend Reg Pauling has always been the only black man in the room—at Harvard, at work, and finally at the Miltons’ island in Maine.
An island that, at the dawn of the 21st century, this last generation doesn’t have the money to keep. When Kitty’s granddaughter hears that she and her cousins might be forced to sell it, and when her husband brings back disturbing evidence about her grandfather’s past, she realizes she is on the verge of finally understanding the silences that seemed to hover just below the surface of her family all her life.

An ambitious novel that weaves the American past with its present, The Guest Book looks at the racism and power that has been systemically embedded in the US for generations. Brimming with gorgeous writing and bitterly accurate social criticism, it is a literary tour de force.

I picked up this title from the library as I had seen it marketed around the internet and it seemed to really be well received. And I love sagas, this is definitely one. But I have a strong dislike for "literary masterpiece" type of reads as those seem to be a total bore and a letdown and pretty much a political tirade or something similar. Or so I thought. I struggled getting into this novel, I really did. The very first sentence was a signal of things to come and I was not pleased. I was completely turned off and quite frankly, confused. At a long 5% later I was reading reviews of the book and totally trying to determine if I should keep going. Some readers were as confused and bored as I was and just stopped. Somehow it seemed you either loved or hated this one, so I wanted to keep going.

Looking back at my reading progress it seems somewhere between 5% and 20% I was able to dig in and start caring about these characters and that for me is the key to my enjoyment of a novel. It is definitely a wordy novel hence the term 'literary' but I was able to get on board with the tones and nuances of the passionate voice of this novel as a whole. This is a story of an upper class family the Miltons and is told through the eyes of different generations of the family which causes a bit of confusion as the narration changes. The women are all strong members of the Milton clan and they actually own a little island in New England. What to do with that island as the last generation is forced to come to terms with it and their place in today's America is the question. Is it a status symbol? Is it a part of them? How important is it to own an island? Why the hell should we care?

17 highlights on the kindle version means that were so many points getting a rise out of me that I was like, 'YES! THIS!'. There are things that define a family, which could be a stigma or a gift. The island could be either. Perception is a key theme to this novel: perceptions and prejudice of both race and wealth. This saga demonstrates how easily misperception can ruin a family and cloud a stranger's judgement. One of the main characters is Reg Paulding who is a black man on the outside of the Milton family, yet Moss Milton really wants to include Reg:
"Most people in the rest of the country would walk in here and see one black man sitting where he shouldn’t.” Moss shook his head stubbornly. “We are sitting together, and that’s the fact. Anything can happen from here on out. Anything is possible. Big ears, man. You gotta have big ears.”

The inclusion of an angry young man at one party has such debilitating repercussions and shows that those are too self-absorbed in their own hurt can never realize the good out of life. "No one knew what to do with him sitting there. Classmate? Roommate? Checkmate."  Reg's role is pivotal in the Milton saga whether he wants to be or not. He can treat it as a chess game but in the end it is life and then death. 

The shifting narration that was so hard to get used to in the beginning actually is a symbol in itself, as it is indicative that history repeats itself and generation upon generation we seem to make the same mistakes over and over, but under the guise of some new freedom that we feel is being trampled upon. What is real? What is imagined?




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