Review - The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

Series: Standalone

Published by Penguin Books on June 24 2014

Genres: Historical Fiction, Contemporary, Adult Fiction

Pages: 464

Rating: 3/5 stars

Another New York Times bestseller by the author of Me Before You—a spellbinding story of two women united in their fight for what they love most 

Jojo Moyes’s word-of-mouth bestseller, Me Before You, catapulted her to wide critical acclaim and struck a chord with a wide range of readers everywhere. Now, with The Girl You Left Behind, Moyes returns with another irresistible heartbreaker—a breathtaking story of love, loss, and sacrifice told with her signature ability to capture our hearts. 

Paris, 1916. Sophie Lefèvre must keep her family safe while her adored husband, Édouard, fights at the front. When their town falls to the Germans in the midst of World War I, Sophie is forced to serve them every evening at her hotel. From the moment the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie’s portrait—painted by her artist husband—a dangerous obsession is born, one that will lead Sophie to make a dark and terrible decision. Almost a century later, Sophie’s portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston, a wedding gift from her young husband before his sudden death. After a chance encounter reveals the portrait’s true worth, a battle begins over its troubled history and Liv’s world is turned upside all over again.

The Girl You Left Behind is a book I normally wouldn’t gravitate towards. I picked it up because it was the only book in the ferry gift shop that looked decent, and I was desperate for a book (I’d finished the book I brought in the car & my e-reader was dead!). I’ve heard a lot of praise for Jojo Moyes’ books and thought I’d give this one a shot.

I must say right off the bat that I just didn’t love this book. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t realise when I started that the majority of the book was devoted to the contemporary story line. I just didn’t connect with Liv and I wish the entire book had just been Sophie’s story. I loved the glimpse into life in a small French village under German occupation during WWI. It was fascinating. How could I possibly not love Sophie after that pig scene at the very beginning of the book? She was clever and stubborn and independent.

I found Liv rather unsympathetic. I understood that she was in a poor state of mind following her husband’s death, but I just thought she was whiny and irritating. She has come to be the owner of a very special painting (the connection between her story and Sophie’s) bought by her and her late husband on their honeymoon. This painting becomes part of a restitution case, as descendants of Edouard LeFevre (Sophie’s husband) claim that it was stolen during the war and demand its return to its rightful owners. Liv doesn’t want to return the painting because of the emotional attachment that she has to it, and she also suspects that the family is pursuing the painting for all the wrong reasons. I agree that the LeFevres were assholes, but I don’t think that what Liv did was much better. She was holding onto the painting the same way that she was holding on to every little thing that reminded her of David – it was holding her back from any kind of future she could imagine.

The main issue I had with the modern day storyline was that there was so much emphasis on the romance between Liv and Paul. I just didn’t see the chemistry at all. I didn’t care about them. I didn’t really care about what happened to in the restitution case. The only person who I felt actually deserved that painting was Sophie, but she was long dead by that point. I think that this book would have been much more successful if Sophie’s story took up the majority of the bulk, while Liv’s romance and legal case took a backseat. 

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

Series: Standalone

Published by Random House on August 20 2013

Genres: Mystery, Adult Fiction,

Pages: 602

Rating: 5/5 stars

WILDLY IMAGINATIVE, ADDICTIVELY IMMERSIVE, BREATHTAKINGLY SUSPENSEFUL. 

Everybody has a Cordova story. Cult horror director Stanislas Cordova hasn't been seen in public since 1977. To his fans he is an engima. To journalist Scott McGrath he is the enemy. To Ashley he was a father. 

On a damp October night the body of young, beautiful Ashley Cordova is found in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Her suicide appears to be the latest tragedy to hit a severely cursed dynasty. 

For McGrath, another death connected to the legendary director seems more than a coincidence. Driven by revenge, curiosity and a need for the truth, he finds himself pulled into a hypnotic, disorientating world, where almost everyone seems afraid. 

The last time McGrath got close to exposing Cordova, he lost his marriage and his career. This time he could lost his grip on reality. 

ONCE WE FACE OUR DEEPEST FEARS, WHAT LIES ON THE OTHER SIDE?

I don’t really like mystery novels. I’m not drawn to them the way I am to fantasy or contemporary. This may be partially because I’m dreadful at figuring out what is going on before it is all explained to me, which makes me feel kind of dumb. A regular Sherlock Holmes I am not. So I was surprised to discover that I really, really wanted to read Night Film. So much so that when I saw it on my cart at the library whilst shelving books, I knew that I had to check it out and start reading it right away, despite the five or six other library books awaiting me at home. I started reading it that night, and finished it the next afternoon.

This book was a lot of things, but it was never boring. I thought that Pessl did a marvellous job of keeping the pacing up through such a hefty book – this thing is just over six hundred pages long! I had no idea what to expect, but I was not ready for it to get so freaking creepy – I read the scenes at The Peak at two in the morning when I was home alone, and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when my mum got home and knocked on my door. I couldn’t bear to put it down until I knew that everyone was safe (at least for the time being).

Some of the reviews I’ve read mentioned being disappointed by the ending, which I completely understand. The ending of Night Film isn’t for everyone, but it worked for me. I liked the ambiguity, the way that everything wasn’t wrapped up nicely with a shiny red bow. I liked that there was room for interpretation, that like the characters we can choose to believe whichever story works best for us as readers. It actually reminds me a little bit of the ending of Yan Martel’s Life of Pi in that sense.

The only thing I didn’t care for about Night Film was the protagonist. I never really gave a damn about Scott McGrath. I never felt more than lukewarm about him as a character, whereas the rest of the cast were excellent – I loved Hopper and Nora and most of all Ashley. I think the problem I had with Scott was that he thought very highly of himself and was judgemental of everyone else. He was also a pretty crappy father. He viewed Sam as an afterthought, as an inconvenience. I completely understand why Cynthia made the decision she made and I don’t think that Scott deserved her forgiveness. I wish there would have been more character development on Scott’s part. He was just as obsessed with Cordova, to the detriment of every other aspect of his life, at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. Also, I don’t understand how he had so much money to throw around. He’s a disgraced journalist, so it’s not like he’s had steady work over the last few years…

Finally, it’s impossible to write a review of Night Film without mentioning Pessl’s use of multi-media. Throughout the book there are news articles and blog posts and photographs and web pages all created (or doctored) just for this book. Some of the images are truly haunting, and it really added to the experience. It’s hard to believe that Stanislas Cordova is not a real person and that his films and fanbase are entirely fictitious. I really commend what Pessl has created with this book, and am interested to see what she does next (also I need to check out her first book, as I hear it caused quite a stir and received many accolades when it was released).

Review - Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey

Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey

Series: Agent of Hel #1

Published by Roc Hardcover on October 2 2012

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Adult Fiction

Pages: 356

Rating: 4/5 stars

The Midwestern resort town of Pemkowet boasts a diverse population: eccentric locals, wealthy summer people, and tourists by the busload—not to mention fairies, sprites, vampires, naiads, ogres, and a whole host of eldritch folk, presided over by Hel, a reclusive Norse goddess.    

To Daisy Johanssen, fathered by an incubus and raised by a single mother, it’s home. And as Hel’s enforcer and the designated liaison to the Pemkowet Police Department, it’s up to her to ensure relations between the mundane and eldritch communities run smoothly.  

But when a young man from a nearby college drowns—and signs point to eldritch involvement—the town’s booming paranormal tourism trade is at stake. Teamed up with her childhood crush, Officer Cody Fairfax, a sexy werewolf on the down-low, Daisy must solve the crime—and keep a tight rein on the darker side of her nature. For if she’s ever tempted to invoke her demonic birthright, it could accidentally unleash nothing less than Armageddon. 

Even though Jacqueline Carey is one of my all-time favourite authors, I was fully prepared not to like Dark Currents. It isn’t a genre I venture into often nowadays – I find urban fantasy can be heavy on the romance and sex and light on the character development and concise plotting. It has a tendency to prop up the female protagonists with weapons and fighting rather than actual intelligence and decent decision making skills, and that offends my feminist sensibilities. I don’t believe that “strong female characters” can be reduced to female characters who are good at fighting. From my experience, it also tends to be a bit repetitive, but I didn’t find that to be the case with this book. Dark Currents is possibly the best urban fantasy novel I’ve ever read. It was a refreshing read, something of a palate cleanser.

The protagonist, Daisy Johanssen, is delightful. She is a very feminine character, with her preference for dresses (due to short though sometimes annoying tail), but that never defined her. She is a figure of power in her community, which is something I love to see. She is independent but knows when to ask for help, she values her friends and family highly, and she has incredible self-control (considering strong emotions tend to make things explode).

Daisy’s (platonic) relationships with women are one of the numerous bright spots in this novel. Daisy’s friendship with Jen is lovely, as is her relationship with her mother. As the daughter of a human and a lesser demon (and sometimes incubus), it would be easy for Carey to write a version of Daisy with an uneasy relationship with her mother. That is not the case. Daisy’s mom is an incredibly nice person, a good person, who happened to get caught up in something beyond her means of understanding at a young age. She and Daisy have an incredibly strong relationship, living in the same town and talking on the phone often. Daisy actually visits her mother a handful of times throughout the novel. I also loved the way that the majority of the other women in the book were written, from the beautiful lamia Lurine to Mrs. Browne, the brownie who owns the bakery beneath Daisy’s apartment.

The plot itself was a strong aspect of the book. It’s very plot heavy, and I found the mystery to be quite fascinating. Just as a warning: I’m really really bad at figuring out mysteries before they’re explained to me. I mean, REALLY BAD. So I had no clue where this one was going, but I loved the journey. I really enjoyed the integration of different types of mythologies from different countries and continents, and though the strain between the eldritch community and the humans outside of Pemkowet was difficult to read at times (just a personal issue), it was very realistic and well developed. I loved the world-building in this book. I think that Carey has more than proven her ability to create a vast and fascinating world (just look at her wonderful, marvellous Kushiel books if you need another example).

I also appreciated the lack of romance in this book – though I shouldn’t necessarily say lack. It was more that romance just wasn’t a priority. Daisy had more important things on her mind than who she wanted to sleep with. I mean, it did come up a number of times, but it was never something that was pushed in our faces. Daisy is attracted to three different men throughout the book, and does not so much as kiss any of them. Go Daisy! Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with kissing, but it’s uncommon to read about people who are willing/amiable to taking it slow in urban fantasy. I find that, in the books I’ve read, the characters tend to jump into bed ten minutes after meeting each other. Which is completely okay, but it’s nice to see something different. Also, I love that you get to see different sides of these characters because they haven’t complicated things with romance (at this point). You could definitely feel the sexual tension sometimes, though! I loved the measure of respect that was shown to Daisy throughout (most of) the novel by her love interests.

My only complaint is that there was a bit of not-so-nice treatment of some women, particularly those who were under thrall by supernatural creatures like vampires and ghouls. This is apparent in Daisy’s judgement of Jen’s sister, who believes that her vampire boyfriend will eventually grant her eternal life. The problem I had with this is that it so closely reflects attitudes I’ve seen towards women in abusive relationships – Daisy and Jen get Beverly away from the vampires temporarily, but seem to give up on her the moment she returns to her boyfriend. They proceed to act as though she is weak for not standing up to him, when it’s by no means her fault that this creature is taking advantage of her. Do you see the parallels that I see?

Review - Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Series: Standalone

Published by Little, Brown and Company on August 14 2012

Genres: Adult Fiction, Humour, Contemporary

Pages: 330

Rating: 4/5 stars

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. 

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic. 

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

I have absolutely nothing negative to say about Where'd You Go, Bernadette. This is a very rare occasion, indeed!

The characters are wonderfully nuanced and even those I couldn't stand (Audrey & Soo-Lin, for the most part) were well-crafted and realistic, though reality was clearly heightened for the sake of hijinks. Audrey was the perfect depiction of an over-involved suburban PTA mom. She was so caught up in making sure everything went perfectly that she was completely unaware that she was acting like a madwoman and, more importantly, that her son had major problems that needed to be sorted out.

My favourite character, by far, was Bernadette herself. She was very clearly the star of the book, and rightly so. She may be slightly mad, with her tirades against Seattle in general and her intense agoraphobia, but she's incredibly entertaining. It actually kind of concerns me how well I identified with her. I had to laugh at the fact that she repeatedly redirected herself when she came to the topic of Canadians.

The pacing here was amazing. There was only one slow spot, around the 90% mark, but for the most part it just flew by. It was well-written, and the humour was spot-on. I'm really glad that I picked this book up when I did. I went into it without a clue of the plot or even what it was about at all, and I'm happy to say that it just made it all the more exciting.