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Review: I Found You by Lisa Jewell

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She wants to keep the key to the door of this life she has had such a small taste of…

On a rainy afternoon Alice comes across a man on her beach. The man, named “Frank” by the youngest of Alice’s three children, has lost himself—his name, his place, his past. Against her better judgment and the judgment of her neighbors, Alice takes him in, slowly coming to love the man before her, even as they both strive to find out who that is exactly. Simultaneously, Ukranian Lily Monrose, the twenty-one year old newly-arrived bride of Carl, is reporting her husband missing. Put off by the police, Lily takes matters into her own hands, looking for her husband while simultaneously navigating her new world of London with its unusual inhabitants.

Interspersed with the modern story is the tale of Gray and Kirsty, a teenage brother and sister on summer holiday who meet and fall into the web of Mark, a boy more complicated than anyone realizes.

Structure and Characters

I Found You has an interesting structure in that while it is a mystery/thriller, the twist is revealed well before the end of the book, leaving over an hour of the recording (I listened to this one on audiobook) to wrap up. This structure could be listless and dragging if Jewell hadn’t developed her characters with such depth that I felt compelled to find out what happened to them. It is one of the main strengths of this book that Jewell develops her characters so compellingly that even outside of the mystery and the twist, the reader is hooked by the relationships. Will Lily find her husband and, if so, what will happen to her? Will Alice wind up with Frank? In fact, Jewell does such an excellent job putting her characters forefront that the twist was all the more shocking for its darkness—I had almost forgotten I was reading a book that had been compared to The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl. (Both books, by the way, that I absolutely hated. Can we retire comparing books to those two yet? Take heart, you too can love this book if you hated those.)

Strangers and Being Found

In I Found You, everyone is a stranger. Alice is a refugee to Ridinghouse Bay, seeking quiet and solitude after a tumultuous life (both generally and romantically). Frank, by virtue of having no idea of who he is, is quiet literally a stranger to everyone, including himself. Lily as the recent immigrant is strange to everyone around her. Gray is the quintessential teenage boy, finding himself, but lonely and adrift in the way only teenagers can be. Carl and Mark are both strangers even, or especially, to those who know them.

In some ways this is a relief. Strange does not have to mean bad or even that one will always be lonely. Some strangers are dangerous, but not everyone is and some strangers are worth taking risks to welcome. Which leads to the title—if everyone is a stranger, then everyone is waiting to be found. Indeed, there are at least seven combinations of characters finding each other in an overlapping scheme that could each give impetus to the title here. I love that Jewell leaves who found whom ambiguous.

Alice

One of the things I appreciated most about I Found You was Jewell’s ability to make me identify with and care about someone who is nothing like me. Alice makes bad choices. Alice watches the telly rather than reading books. Alice lives somewhat messily. Alice is almost nothing like me and yet I loved her and rooted for her. It’s rare I can be made to care deeply about someone that I cannot find a single thing in common with and it speaks to Jewell as a writer to be able to develop her so gently and so well. Additionally, if you had asked me before I read this book, I would not have believed that you could convince me that a likeable, mostly rational character would invite a total stranger to live in her house and yet, Jewell made that choice fit into who Alice is. Of course Alice would invite Frank in and, of course, the reader will love her for it.

Voice…Literally

I admit that I particularly enjoy getting audiobooks when the reader is foreign, even where the original language is still English. There’s something fun about listening to a British accent telling the story, describing people in their jumpers eating scones (ok…I’ll stop). The audio for I Found You is voiced by Helen Duff, who does an excellent job. Because so much of the story is told (particularly at the beginning) around Alice’s point of view, I came to hear her voice as Alice’s, drawing me closer to her as a character. Since Alice is nothing like me and makes choices I wouldn’t make (hello bringing in strange amnesiac living on the beach), this extra level of connection to Alice was valuable to me as a reader/listener. She also does an excellent job with Lily’s Ukranian-accented English. Duff’s voice is melodic and soothing for an audiobook without being so soothing that one loses what’s going on. (We’ve all been there right? The voice is so soothing you stop paying attention to the actual words and have no idea what is happening.) The cadence and rise and fall of Duff’s voice were a perfect selection for I Found You and make this book particularly fun as an audiobook.

Problems

I will start by saying that I am particularly sensitive to people using mental illness as a plot device and it is almost never something I think is done well. With that out of the way, it irked me to no end that the villain in this case was described at one point as mentally ill. While it is true that sociopathy and psychopathy are in the DSM V, these are personality disorders which should be distinguished from things like bipolar disorder and even schizophrenia. We’ve come to believe and accept that sociopaths and psychopaths are dangerous (a gross generalization as well) and when those groups are lumped in with general mental illness, we’ve created a culture that believes having any mental illness automatically means you’re dangerous. In fact only 3-5% of violent crimes are committed by people with mental illness. On the contrary, having a mental illness makes you more likely to be the victim of a crime than a perpetrator.

To a lesser extent, I had trouble believing some of Lily’s actions. She is supposed to be a brand new immigrant, only twenty-one and married to someone almost twice her age. While I did not think she had to be a shrinking violet (and was glad she wasn’t), her choices and decisions made me forget how young and new-to-the-country she was supposed to be. While Jewell has points of her character development that remind you of her age—her grocery store run for what is ultimately 90% junk food—overall, she was a bit too capable and old-sounding to be the almost child-bride she was supposed to be. This may also have been as a contrast to Alice, whose character was developed so well that it highlighted ways in which Lily wasn’t as much.

Resolution

For a book with as many twists and turns as this one—no one’s real life is actually like this, right?—Jewell does well to conclude the story in a way that is satisfactory without being too neat and tidy. At some point in a book like this, everyone’s hands have gotten too dirty for everything to end happily ever after, something Jewell seems to recognize. In that way, it would be easy to end this book earlier, to leave the reader hanging. The story itself is messy enough (in terms of action, not in terms of Jewell’s writing or story development) that it would be plausible for no one to have a happy ending. It is a credit to Jewell that in addition to hooking the reader with her characters, she then cares enough about them and us to allow us some resolution without completely losing the plot. There may be some who think the story ends implausibly; however, I didn’t find it any more implausible than the rest of the book. (I need to think things like this are implausible. I need to think that people like Amy in Gone Girl and certain characters in I Found You are not actually running around out there.)

Recommended

I Found You is great for the beach or a dark and stormy summer night on the veranda. It’s never going to be read for a literature class, but it’s not trying to be high literature. I love books like this for a palate cleanser when I’ve been reading things that are heavier. I Found You is an excellent contribution to its genre.

Notes
Published: April 25, 2017 by Atria Books (@atriabooks)
Author: Lisa Jewell (@jewellwrites)
Date Read: June 26, 2017 (by Hoopla audiobook)
Rating: 3 ¾ stars

Review: The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal

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One day, she must find out what direction time flows in—whether it is linear or the quick circle of a hula hoop, whether it curls and loops or is coiled like the spiral of a snail’s shell, whether it can take the form of a tube wave, sucking up the sea, the entire universe in its flip side. Yes, she needs to understand what it is that makes up the passing of time.
 
One hour later, death clears its throat, knocks politely on the door, a moving stain, irregularly shaped, opacifying a clearer, larger shape: yes, there it is, that’s death.
-description of a CT scan
 

As Bill Gates noted, The Heart is “poetry disguised as a novel.” It is a 242-page love letter to words and language. De Kerangal’s sentences roll in your mouth like chocolates, melt as the eyes caress the sentences. I was enraptured with this book; however, it will not be everyone’s—or most people’s—cup of tea.

The entirety of the “action” in the book occurs in a twenty-four hour span of time as nineteen year-old Simon Limbres rises early to surf and unexpectedly meets his end returning from the waves with his two friends who survive the accident. His parents rage, whimper, and rage again until, quietly, they agree to donate his organs. To donate his heart. The book concludes as the heart is restarted in the chest of Claire, a translator with three children. This barebones action serves as the scaffolding around which de Kerangal wraps her words, conjuring the depths of grief juxtaposed with the clinical efficiency of a hospital preparing for an organ transplant. The book is driven primarily by language and character rather than plot/action.

Indeed, if The Heart is a story of something in particular, it is less the story of Simon, and more the story of the landscape of Grief. We do a disservice to Grief today. We look over it, feeling that to call attention to it would be ruder than to pretend nothing is wrong and to move on. We brush it under the rug, out of sight out of mind, but not out of feeling, out of pain. The Heart forces the reader to confront the raw grief of Simon’s parents and later, that of his first love, yet the cadence of the words soothe the jagged edges. The language is the balm on the wound. The first half of the book is best in this regard—it is most clearly the study of Grief as the reader follows Simon’s parents as they discover the new hole in their world and attempt to adjust to this new reality, despite Simon looking so very alive in the bed, still warm though no longer present. The second half of the book, while also gorgeously written, serves in some ways as an extended conclusion. If the first half is the removal of Simon’s heart, the removal of his parents’ core, then second half is the tying off and cauterizing of each vein, the preparing of the body now that life is gone. I do not say this to say that the book drags at the end, only to say that with Grief no longer center stage, the remainder of the action feels like a quiet resolution, the lone nurse preparing the body now emptied of its vital organs for burial.

It is without exaggeration that I say this is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I read, re-read, and re-re-read again, marveling both at de Kerangal’s skill as well as that of her translator, Sam Taylor. The Heart was originally written in French, yet even in English the cadence, the rise and fall of de Kerangal’s words is a marvel. The words flow so smoothly as to become almost hypnotic.

The Heart is for those who revel in poetry, who read and re-read sentences, deconstruct and diagram. For those who enjoy reading with a dictionary close by. The Heart is not a book to be read quickly or lightly. It is not a book for the beach or a pool. It is a book that lingers, the beat of the words slowly fading. This is not a book I recommend for everyone or, indeed, many. If you have never re-read a finely tuned sentence solely to appreciate the cadence, the way the words are chosen just so, this is not the book for you. This also isn’t your book if you are not in a place to bear a very raw representation of parental grief for a child lost far too young.

After reading (and disliking) My Name is Lucy Barton earlier this year, I assumed I was one of those people who has to have action. The Heart showed me this isn’t true—if there isn’t action I need language. The Heart has what I missed in Lucy Barton and is another book I will be purchasing for my own library.

Notes
Published February 14, 2017 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux (@fsgbooks)
Author: Maylis de Kerangal, Translator: Sam Taylor
Date read: June 26, 2017
Rating: 4 ½ Stars

Review: Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham

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It was probably quieter a hundred years ago, but that doesn’t necessarily mean better. I understand now that history only moves forward in a straight line when we learn from it. Otherwise it loops past the same mistakes over and over again.
– Rowan, “Dreamland Burning”

Awakening on the first day of summer—and her only day off before her boring internship starts—Rowan Chase quickly finds herself plunged into a mystery—whose body is buried in her backyard and how did it get there? As Rowan and her best friend James investigate, real life intervenes and Rowan’s internship plans fall through. Rowan finds herself working at a medical clinic in a rougher part of town, having to face prejudice she’s largely been sheltered from and that (white) Tulsa has largely tried to forget and pretend isn’t there.

Alternating with Rowan’s story is that of Will Tillman, a half-white, half-Osage (First Nation) teenager in racially segregated Tulsa in the days before and during the 1921 Tulsa Race Riots where whites brutally and without provocation destroyed the prosperous African American community of Greenwood, terrorized an entire community, and killed hundreds of innocent African Americans. Will gets to know an African American brother and sister named Joseph and Ruby Goodhope and, on the night of the riots, has to make choices about what he really believes about their worth as people

Told in alternating chapters, “Dreamland Burning” explores how choices can separate “good” people into both the best and worst of humanity

Expectations and Reality

I came to Dreamland Burning with some trepidation. From reading the summary I really wanted this book to be good. I know embarrassingly little (ok—pretty much nothing) about the Tulsa Race Riots besides vaguely that something happened where white Tulsa destroyed the black part of Tulsa in the 1920s.* In the last few years I have learned more about my own privileges and prejudices and have tried to make an effort to read more diversely—both non-fiction and fiction. Dreamland Burning provided another opportunity to grow and learn more while getting to enjoy a young adult fiction book that came highly recommended by Anne Bogel in her Modern Mrs. Darcy (“MMD”) book club.

Latham did not disappoint. Dreamland Burning raises questions of race relations both in 1921 as well as now. Interestingly, in a recent discussion with the MMD book club, she indicated that she originally envisioned the book as being solely set in 1921 with Will but the more she wrote, the more she saw history repeating itself. Just as white Tulsa saw African Americans die in 1921 and do nothing, so do white citizens today see innocent African Americans being killed in the streets and, largely, do nothing.

With that in mind, she added Rowan into her narrative. While Rowan herself is mixed race, her family’s relative wealth has insulated her from quite a bit until she finds herself unexpectedly working at a medical clinic in a poor part of town and comes dramatically face-to-face with a situation that sets off debates recently seen around Mike Brown, Philando Castile, and Sandra Brown. In her story Rowan is beautifully human—she makes mistakes, she avoids the spotlight when the reader might want her to just say something already. Latham treats her gently, makes her relatable, and the story is better for it.

What Latham did best

Latham’s choice to not make Rowan and her BFF’s James’s relationship into a romantic one was smart and welcome. The seriousness of the book wasn’t distracted by tension of will-he-won’t-he-kiss-me-please-oh-please (which, frankly, would have been off-tone in a book this serious and there’s enough tension in this book without it). It also enabled Latham to add another note of diversity. As you would expect from a book exploring the Tulsa Race Riots, the characters are racially diverse, but with the inclusion of James, an almost-adult who identifies as asexual, Latham was able to reflect sexual diversity in a way that felt authentic, eliminated very early any question of whether there would be romantic tension between Rowan and James, and mirrors the sexual diversity of most of us these days (whether we realize it or not). Latham didn’t set off fireworks with the announcement of James’s asexuality, but folded it neatly in an early description of him that also served to explain some of James’s own background and semi-estrangement from his father. This choice was skillfully made and even more skillfully executed.

Latham’s choices in Will’s story had similar nuance. Without spoiling the end of the book, Latham places “good” characters into situations where they have to choose who they’ll be and what they believe. She lulls the reader into thinking that she/he knows who is “good” and who is “bad”…until they aren’t. In telling this story, Latham shows the harm in being just a “little” prejudiced and how “good” people can very swiftly make choices that set them far on the other side of that line. Though set in 1921, these themes still resonate.

I also greatly appreciated Latham’s attention to detail. While the story is told in alternating chapters, there is more that connects Rowan’s and Will’s stories than just the body in Rowan’s backyard. Latham sprinkles her book with little gems that tie Rowan’s half even more tightly to Will’s. If you miss the little connections, you don’t miss the story but where the reader can catch them, they sparkle and highlight Latham’s skill as a storyteller. In addition, while I did not pick up on this, native Tulsans will apparently recognize many of the places she mentions—her effort at a little inside “nod” to her local readers.

But wait? A white author is writing about race?

Because her picture is not in the jacket of the book, I didn’t see a picture of Latham until I was about halfway through. I assumed that anyone who would be writing such an on-point book about race was herself a person of color—I was wrong. I am not myself a person of color so my judgment on this comes from my own limited perspective; however, the book did not seem to suffer from many of the cringe-worthy pitfalls found when other white writers attempt to bring to life the voices and experiences of people of color. With that said, no book is perfect. The main character is herself part white and wealthy, having grown up somewhat sheltered until she takes the job at the medical clinic. Similarly, Will is part white—while he suffers some prejudice for being part Osage (First Nation), it is nothing compared to how the black community suffers. From the interview, I was impressed with how aware she was of this tension and how seriously she took the duty she had to make Rowan and Will accurate as mixed-race White/Black and White/Osage. She indicated she had both African American and First Nation beta readers as well as having an outside consultant read a final draft from her publisher.

I was still left with a lingering question of whether people of color who read this book would see Will’s part of the story as another white savior story. It wasn’t as neatly wrapped up as other White Savior endings and I have not found criticism for Latham in this but I do not know how widely this book has been read since it is only recently published. Joseph and Ruby (the main characters of color in Will’s story) are presented with strength, dignity, and agency even in the midst of the riots and, because of this, the book did not read to me as problematic in that regard.

Who should read this book?

While this book addresses serious and weighty themes, Latham presents the material in a way that feels age appropriate for young adult readers. She strikes a balance in the violence of the Riots—they are not sugarcoated nor is it vague what is happening—however, her descriptions are never gory. For authenticity, she does use the N-word in dialogue. In a recent interview, she indicated that she had her eleven year-old read the draft and, as a parent, felt comfortable with eleven and twelve year-olds reading the book as long as they have parents who read with them and can process the serious themes in this book.

Rating and Recommendations

I gave this one four stars though a bigger YA fan would likely rate higher. The side-story of Will’s mother as an Osage who had to have a guardian to “manage” her wealth inspired me to go ahead and start Killers of the Flower Moon next from my TBR pile. That review should be up next Tuesday. For readers interested in “book flights,” I recently finished Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson and would recommend that book (another YA) with this one. While I am just starting it, Latham herself recommended The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas as well as American Street as other excellent (older) YA books to pair with books on these themes if you want to read more.

*A note about language—while the incidents of the nights in 1921 are called the “Race Riots,” that language is accurate only so far as it describes what white Tulsa did. The African American community of Greenwood did not riot and largely fled or hid in terror from the rampaging and rioting white community bent on destruction. I refer to the events as the Race Riots, only because that’s the most common name, though it does not fully reflect reality. Latham explains this in more detail in her Author’s Note in Dreamland Burning. To put faces on the youths who lived this story, the yearbook of the 1921 Senior Class from Booker T. Washington High School–the school that should have been having their prom the night of the massacre–is available online.

Notes
Published February 21, 2017 by Little, Brown (Instagram @littlebrown)
Author: Jennifer Latham (Instagram & Twitter @jenandapen)
Date read: June 16, 2017
Rating: 4 Stars