Book Review- Diana Abu-Jaber's Birds of Paradise

Diana Abu-Jaber's novel Birds of Paradise is a gut-wrenching family drama set against the backdrop of the tropical suburbs that surround Miami. 

The Muir family is living a seemingly picture-perfect middle-class life. They have a lovely home, great jobs and beautiful children. Look closer and they're a mess.. Each member of the family lives in isolation. They hold in their pain and they fear expressing both their problems and their desires.

The parents, Avis and Brian have long stopped communicating and their marriage is on the brink of collapse. Their adult son, Stanley, has quit college to pursue his dream of owning a community grocery store. He worries that his parents disapprove of choices. The youngest child, Felice, ran away from home in high school and has been living on the streets for years. All four people want to repair their wounds, but a sense of pride and the struggle to communicate keeps forcing them to stay apart, only compounding the situation.

The story is told through all four characters, alternating the focus with each chapter. I found Felice's story to be by far the most compelling. It was kind of like an episode of Dateline with all of the details of the teenagers living on the streets. It was horrible to read, yet I kept wanting more. I felt like the author must have had experience or was very well researched, because the details just rang true. At times, I forgot that I was reading fiction. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. Abu-Jaber has a beautiful, lyrical quality to her writing and she really made the city of Miami come alive through her descriptions. In the story, Avis has a baking business and I loved Abu-Jabers flowing paragraphs describing the amazing pastries and cakes. Don't read this story on an empty stomach or while dieting!

My only fault is maybe it tried to accomplish too much. There was a lot going on with all of the characters and it overreached. I was unevenly interested in the various story lines and it led to an uneven pacing. I wish that Felice had been the primary focus of the story, as there was plenty of information with her character to warrant an entire novel. The twist as to why she ran away from home is loaded and could have been explored more deeply. It's a shock.

I look forward to reading more stories by Abu-Jaber. She is a talented storyteller and has a wonderful writer's voice. 

Book Review- Jen Lancaster's Twisted Sisters

I love Jen Lancaster... when she is writing non-fiction. She writes true stories that are quick-witted, filled with pop-culture references and ones that feel like they are being told over a bottle of wine with a best friend. 

I'm not so enamored with Lancaster's fiction efforts, in particular, her latest novel, Twisted Sisters. It's a clunker. It wasn't bad enough to stop reading, but it came close. The real problem is the lack of connection to the main character, Reagan Bishop. 

If there is something more extreme than a type-A personality, that would describe Reagan Bishop. She is extremely driven and cannot understand anyone else who does not hold themselves to her set of standards. She is exceedingly condescending and judgmental to practically everyone in her life, but she reserves a special dose of it for her two sisters, Geri and  Mary Mac. 

The primary problem with the story is the flat, one-dimensional character that is the protagonist. I just didn't like her at all. I've really come to like Lancaster's narrative voice in non-fiction and I could often see glimpses of it in Reagan, although it was none of the self-deprecating humor, just nasty, mean-spirited jabs. 

Reagan Bishop may be my least favorite character in literature. Blah. Naturally, she does go through a series of events that lead her to change her ways, but it's too little/ too late to root for her. Additionally, the events that lead to the change are supernatural. Admittedly, the book did go places that I didn't anticipate or find predictable, but that doesn't mean that it was good. The supernatural parts of the story were a snooze-fest and they were a distraction from the heart of the story, the sisterly bond.

I highly recommend Lancaster's non-fiction books, which there are several, but I can't recommend Twisted Sisters. 

Book Review- Tom Perrotta's Nine Inches Stories

I discovered Tom Perrotta back in 2008, when my mom was dying of cancer. I raced through all of his book as I sat with her through chemotherapy appointments and long nights in hospital rooms. Perrotta's keen mix of humor and heart, even amid awkward and morally tenuous situations, grabbed my attention. He is among a handful of authors of which I most eagerly anticipate their new releases and that I will purchase their books without a care towards reviews or subject matter. If he publishes, I'm buying.

Nine Inches Stories is Perrotta's second collection of shorts. Perrotta really excels at writing both novels and short stories, but as I have a huge affinity for shorts, making me extra excited for this collection.

It's strong and I enjoyed every story. However, the big stand-out was The Chosen Girl about a lonely senior citizen who reaches out to a young girl in a religious cult. It has a completely different feel from the other stories, yet it still keeps with Perrotta's usual theme of adult/teenager connections. Perrotta has a unique spin on what it means to grow up and often plays with ideas of how we are shaped by our childhood. The lines between adults and children are often blurred. 

Another great piece was Senior Season, about a boy whose football injuries prevent him from playing in his senior year and the impact that it has both on his social life and the way that he views his life trajectory. As an adult reading this story, we know that high school is only a blip on the radar, but Perrotta so deftly writes the character's pain and frustration, that you can't help but have sympathy for him, even through his dramatic teenage gestures and complaints. Perrota writes teenage angst and awkwardness so well that I hope these are stories from a very active imagination and not ones that are developed out of experiences. His characters often do things that are very uncomfortable to read.

I was a little disappointed Senior Season was included in this collection, as over the summer, I purchased the story by itself on Amazon. I felt a bit cheated by this. It would have been nice to have been allowed the story for free as a teaser for preordering the book. Instead, I basically bought the story twice.

This however, was not enough to make me grumpy over the book. As with all of Perrotta's previous efforts, I throughly enjoyed Nine Inches Stories. I can't wait for Perrotta's next book and I'm also very much looking forward to the HBO Series adaptation of his novel The Leftovers .Damon Lindelof is involved, so that's another reason to get excited! If you've not done so already, make sure to read the book before the series starts airing.