Family Saga – That Bookish Life

Book Review: A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

*A Great Country* // Shilpi Somaya Gowda

{Thanks to the publisher for providing a complimentary review copy.}

Ashok and Priya Shah emigrated as young newlyweds from India to America escaping rigid caste systems with plans to climb the ladder to the American Dream. Twenty years later they have indeed worked their way from humble beginnings in student housing all the way to a nice home situated in a wealthy enclave of an affluent (fictional) town in Orange County, California. As their teen daughters work to assimilate, or not, into their new neighborhood, the family is suddenly thrown into flux when its youngest member, 12-year-old Ajay, has a run-in with police and the Shah’s dream quickly turns nightmarish.

A Great Country offers a compelling look at important and timely elements of American society: immigration, classism, racism, ableism, and police brutality. A quick read at under 250 pages told with multiple points of view and a plot that really keeps things moving I think this is a book with broad appeal.

This would make an excellent book club selection as the story is very accessible and the deeper themes will make for good discussion. Recommended for fans of Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere.

Pub date: 3/26 – out now!

Book Review: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

*The Covenant of Water* // Abraham Verghese

Three generations of a South Indian family beset by a curse involving water across much of the 20th century.

I didn’t find The Covenant of Water to be a page turner exactly, and at 700+ pages this may be a problem for some readers, though I did find it beautifully written and conceived and as someone who enjoys family sagas I was happy to float along with this family of richly developed characters as their story unfolded.

I also listened to parts of the story on audio, which the author narrates, and enjoyed that format.

Book Review: After Annie by Anna Quindlen

After Annie follows a family the year after the sudden and unexpected death of their 30-something wife and mother. The narrative focuses in on three people: Annie’s husband, Bill, best friend, Annemarie, and oldest of 3 siblings, 13-year-old daughter, Ali.

I’ve seen Anna Quindlen described as a “domestic anthropologist” and it’s so perfectly fitting. After Annie is a quiet story yet rich and brimming with the everyday crumbs of family life, which here take on a touching significance. A well rendered, poignant story of love, life, grief, and hope.

This is not the first Anna Quindlen I’ve read though it’s been a while and I haven’t read much of her backlist. After Annie reminded me quite a bit of what I love about the style of Anne Tyler’s writing.

Complimentary review copy provided by publisher.

Book Review: Family Family by Laurie Frankel

India Allwood is a recognizable actress, the lead in a popular television show and preparing for the release of her first movie, a tragic prestige drama about adoption and addiction. Amid a social media driven squall about whether the movie portrays adoption properly India stirs up a hurricane by admitting she doesn’t like what the movie has to say either.

Suddenly she’s a trending hashtag and at risk of being cancelled, both publicly and in her career. But what isn’t widely known is she’s intimately acquainted with adoption. From here the story unfolds in two timelines, the week of India’s social/media nightmare and beginning 16 years in the past following a teenaged India into adulthood. You might have preconceived notions of what to expect from this book (I know I did), but you’re likely to be surprised as it unfolds (as I was.)

Family Family {#gifted, thanks @henryholtbooks} is a complicated, sprawling family saga, as all are, about India’s FAMILY family, the people connected to her through blood and choice, those who are drawn to India’s side during her very public crisis. Just as Laurie Frankel offered a nuanced, empathetic look at a family navigating a child’s transgender identity with This is How it Always Is, so too does she offer a similar treatment with adoption in Family Family a story that is challenging (in the best way), authentic, quirky, and heartwarming.

Tell me: if you became a trending hashtag what would it likely be for?

Mine would be something related to a trending aspirational reading lifestyle, obvi #CozyBookHermitChic

Book Review: Mercury by Amy Jo Burns

When seventeen-year-old Marley moves to the small rust belt town of Mercury, Pennsylvania in 1990 she soon becomes part of the Joseph family for better or worse.

Marley, an only child of a single mother, is enamored with the Josephs, a roofing family with three sons. She begins joining the family for dinner and eventually ends up dating one brother, marrying the other, and becoming something of a surrogate mother to the third. Years on a discovery in the church attic will test the bonds of this family like never before.

Mercury {#gifted @celadonbooks} is a small town family saga full of complex relationships, secrets, loyalty, perception, roles, and expectations, those prescribed by others and ourselves; a story of the complicated web of family dynamics, dynamics which both shape us and are shaped by us.

I just loved this story and truly fell in love with the characters as the story unfolded. The structure allows the reader to know several of the characters both as others perceive them and then shifts providing a more intimate perspective of how they see themselves. This dichotomy provides so much nuance and depth to the story and its characters. There’s love, mystery, coming-of-age, trauma, and quite a bit of reflection on women’s roles in family. Really a lot to chew on and appreciate.

Recommended for fans of Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful and anyone who appreciates a good family drama.