Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. Change is good though. I thought it would be similar to The Hunger Games, Divergent, Legend, The Maze Runner, etc. - but it wasn't. This was actually scarier to me, because I feel like it could happen to us one day. A fast-acting, airborne virus could indeed wipe out the earth - and it would take out our medical personal first, which would be difficult for the survivors! Fortunately, Jeevan had some training before the Georgia Flu. His limited skills came in handy in his new life.  His ability to adapt to new situations also saved his life. His impulsive shopping was a very smart thing to do!

I really liked how all the characters were connected, even when they didn't know it. I certainly didn't guess who the prophet was until it was spelled out for me! He took "everything happens for a reason" to the next level. Everyone was connected through Arthur. Arthur was a main character, and yet he was dead.  Everyone was also connected through "Station Eleven", but most people didn't even know who wrote it! 

It was interesting to start a story at the world's demise, and then develop the characters by having those characters think about their past lives, switching between the pre Georgia flu times and the post Georgia flu times to tell their stories. Then to have Jeevan, Kirsten, Miranda, Elizabeth and Clark tell Arthur's story. I wish we found out what happened to Elizabeth, but I guess there wasn't a character to tell her story after she left the airport, except Tyler, and he obviously wasn't into sharing about what happened to his mother. "Everything happens for a reason".

I have to hope that if something like the Georgia flu occurs, and I happen to be one of the few survivors, a traveling musical/acting group would indeed exist, but that it won't be performing Shakespeare plays!! Not a big fan of Shakespeare myself. I thought it was interesting that the traveling performers were the only ones really moving around, other than the prophet. I kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting for someone to start "rebuilding" society. At the very end, there is hope of that when Clark shows Kirsten the community of lights, but generally, the main characters really don't do much about rebuilding. After 20 years you would think they would have been farming, building, planning, organizing, something MORE than just surviving. I thought that was odd.  The book ends on that note too. Survival is insufficient. Agreed. Then DO something!

I kept wondering if it was the author's intent to continue this story, but when I did some research, it doesn't say the author is planning a sequel or anything. I'm not used to books having such a non-ending. I liked the book though!

Wendy's Rating: ****

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

This was a charming tale set in England in the 1930's told by a 17 year old narrator. I liked Cassandra Mortmain. I loved how she forced herself to journal because she wanted to learn to write, which makes sense since her dad was a famous author, if only of one book. We learn a lot about Cassandra and her family through her journal. It's been quite awhile since I read Pride and Prejudice, but this book reminded me of that one. I thought both books were "quaint", but I didn't love them. This was certainly not a difficult book to read - it was "written" by a young girl - but it took too long to read it because I was always setting it down to do something else. This clearly means that I wasn't overly invested in it!

The "class system" was very important in England, and the Mortmains were of a certain class because James Mortmain' book sold well, especially in America. But then he threatens his wife with a cake knife (temper of a true artist/genius), spends three months in prison, buys a rundown castle, Mrs. Mortmain dies young "of perfectly natural causes" (Really??  What young woman in her 20's (?) dies of natural causes??) and they plunge into poverty. So, it's the 1930's and they are of a certain class, so this in turn means that no one makes an effort to go out and work!! They simply live in poverty, until the son of their former, deceased, servant finds a job to support them. Honestly!! But, different times, different country, right? Hmmmm....I understand why beautiful older sister Rose decides the only way out of poverty for them is for her to marry a rich man. When she finds her rich man, she succeeds in having him fall in love with her - and I do believe that she wanted to help her family live a better life, along with herself.  I was thrilled, though, that in the end she chose love over money! That was certainly her redeeming quality!

I loved Stephen!! He was kind and devoted and handsome to boot! Why, why, why couldn't Cassandra have loved him??  Cassandra was quite in tune to her feelings as a young girl. She could have basked in Stephen's "worship" of her, but she cared enough about him to be honest with him - despite one weak moment when she kissed him in the woods. I liked both Simon and Neil too - and in the end, things happened the only way they should. Cassandra showed her maturity by letting Simon go - temporarily. ;) I believed that he would, in fact, be back.

We are so "jaded" now. Or maybe it's just the way books are written now versus the way they were written in the 1940s. This was such a "sweet" book, despite the poverty, the mental health issues of James Mortmain, the death of a young mother (Mrs. Mortmain), unrequited love, falling in love with a sister's fiancee, the sister falling in love with the fiancee's brother - and yet everyone forgives from the heart, loves each other and moves on with their life. Authors just don't write books like this anymore! I am actually surprised that I didn't like the book more than I did. I love character studies. This book just didn't hold my attention - and the chapters were very, very long!

Wendy's Rating: ***1/2

Family Life by Akhil Sharma

As I was reading this book I was wondering why it was labeled "fiction" when it so obviously read like an autobiography. I couldn't believe it wasn't an autobiography. So, I was not surprised when reading the author's comments in the interview at the back of the book to hear that almost everything in the book was true. I also understand why Akhil Sharma labeled it "fiction". It gives an author room for flexibility in conversations and timing of events.

I found the book quite depressing, to be honest. I really didn't like Ajay that much. He definitely had a lot of good qualities. He took care of his brother tirelessly. He helped his mother endlessly. He was an obedient son. He seemed to love Birju and both of his parents, despite their faults (his mother constantly berating him and his father's drunkenness). Ajay had a lot going against him and he continued to help out at home, study hard and be successful. But....I just didn't get him! He was just so odd. I understand that we were "hearing" his private thoughts, and most of us think things at times that we wouldn't want "voiced", but he was too odd for me to relate to on most levels. 

I don't know what it's like to be an immigrant, and I don't know what it's like to be Indian. Their culture is certainly different than mine. I didn't have a difficult time accepting the differences in cultures and beliefs about religion or family. I just didn't understand what Ajay's personal motives were when he constantly bragged about how smart Birju was before his accident; his reporting of the intimate details of his brother's care to his classmates; his telling girls he barely knew that he loved them (isn't that considered harassment?!); his bragging about his own achievements as he got older. He just came across as an unlikeable person to me. He really needs to work on his approach to others! The synopsis about the author on the back of the book doesn't mention that he is married. That would not surprise me. He almost used the same approach towards classmates and girls as someone on the autism spectrum would - lacking in social graces.

There was very little in this book to feel good about: Ajay's parents constantly screaming at each other; his dad's alcoholism; Birju's accident. To me, it just came across as a depressing novel portraying unhappy people dealing with tragic circumstances in an unhealthy manner. Yikes! When is the sequel coming? ;)

Wendy's Rating: ***1/2

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

This is a book with a lot of questions but not a lot of concrete answers. I think there are some really solid reasons why that is though. First of all, the book was based on a real person and a real case and Grace Marks drops out of the limelight completely (and changes her name) once she is finally pardoned. That alone made it impossible to have any "follow-up" on her mental health status.  Secondly, doctors did not have good understanding of mental illness in the 1800s. Early on in the book, Dr. Joseph Workman from the Provincial Lunatic Asylum tells Dr. Simon Jordan in a letter that he is "inclined to believe that neither religion nor intemperance will induce insanity in a truly sound mind - I think there is always a predisposing cause which renders the individual liable to the malady, when exposed to any disturbing agency, whether mental of physical." This is incredibly "forward thinking" since that is what doctors believe now, meaning that some people are predisposed to mental illness through genetics, but that doesn't always mean they will be mentally ill. If there is a incident in their environment - a one-time traumatic event, or a longer experience where someone doesn't feel "safe", that person with a predisposition can develop a mental illness.

I don't think there is a clear-cut answer of Grace being innocent or guilty. I know in the book they talked about spirits entering people if the window is not open for the spirit to escape at a death. I don't think Mary Whitney's spirit entered Grace because the window wasn't open at her death, but that is they way people thought back then. I see it more as a split personality (like Sybil). Grace certainly had several traumatic events happen in her life: leaving her homeland; her mother's death on the ship; her father's abuse; leaving home to work at the age of 12 - and leaving her younger siblings with their abusive father. The final straw to break Grace mentally was the death of her very best friend, Mary Whitney. I think at that moment, her personality split. Mary took on the difficult things that Grace couldn't process. Grace was the "innocent, sweet, loving" personality and Mary Whitney was the "cold-hearted, manipulative, seductress of men" who is capable of either committing the physical act of murder itself, or using men to commit the act on her behalf. So if Grace doesn't know what Mary is doing, does that make her guilty of murder? Most psychiatrists today would say no. But, if Grace had a split personality, what happened to Mary after she was pardoned? I would love to know what happened to Grace Marks in real life!

I really didn't know what to make of Simon Jordan! He seemed like this solid, upstanding man who was dedicating his life to understanding mental illness, while sacrificing his own chance at marriage & children sometimes. At other times, he seemed creepy and self-serving, always thinking about women in inappropriate ways and having sex with them and even thinking about using violent behavior with and/or against them. Talk about having and outer good persona and an inner bad persona! Yikes! Maybe that's why Simon and Grace developed a bond. They both had two personalities. It's interesting that he ended up brain-damaged.

This is not my favorite writing style. I really like it when authors use proper sentence structure, quotation marks and punctuation for the main character as she narrates her story, rather then a stream-of-consciousness. I found it really distracting at first, but I found myself "going with the flow" after awhile. I also had trouble with the timeline, mostly at the end. I couldn't keep track of the passing years since the end of story was told through dated letters. I did like the use of the letters though, and I really liked the snippets of past musings/records/journals regarding Grace Marks at the beginning of each chapter, especially since they came from actual documents written at the time.

I was pondering why the title of the book is "Alias Grace". Is it the Mary Whitney/Grace connection? Mary Whitney, alias Grace, committed a crime.... Or Grace's split personality, Mary Whitney, uses her own name (Mary Whitney) when she flees to the United States after the murders.... Or that Grace uses an alias after she is pardoned.... Maybe it is because Grace is never allowed to just be "Grace" because she is forced to be someone other than who she really is because of her circumstances in life.

I really like Margaret Atwood as an author. Her books are incredibly different from each other (at least the books I have read by her).  I wouldn't say this is my favorite by her, but I thought is was very intriguing and well-researched.

Wendy's Rating: ****