Book reviews

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      Editor’s Note: When a Friends volunteer recently found out that I wrote a mini-book review for myself on every book I read--mainly so that I could remember that I already read it--she suggested that I share my thoughts with an unsuspecting public. 

      Well, reviewing a book is a perilous adventure since we all have our own notions of what makes a book endearing, powerful and memorable. For me, character development is essential. Are they relatable? Do I really care about what happens to them. Am I sorry to say goodbye at the end of the story?      

      Another key theme for me is personal redemption...when a flawed or confused character finds his or her way to a better life by virtue of a special relationship or by overcoming the odds. 

      Against my better judgement, I have acceded to her suggestion and will share my thoughts in this and future newsletters on books I have enjoyed over the years. Some are best sellers. Others are fairly obscure. Chances are you will have a distinctly different take on them than I do. But then, that’s what makes book discussions so much fun. So, if you have insights or opinions on the books, please feel free to share them with me at cascadefriends47@gmail.com. (I have a thick skin.)

        --Joe David

‘The Bookshop of Yesterdays’ by Amy Meyerson

      “The Bookshop of Yesterdays” is an excellent tale of self-discovery, where a woman, Miranda Brooks, inherits a bookstore from her Uncle Billy and then sets off on a quest to discover family truths by way of a scavenger hunt he had arranged for her before his death. 

      While her amazing ability to decipher some of his clues stretches credibility, he leads her and us on an interesting voyage through some of the classics to bring Miranda face-to-face with the fact that her mother and father weren’t really her biological parents while “Uncle” Billy and his deceased wife were. 

      Her biological mother, Evelyn, died of carbon monoxide poisoning on the day Miranda was born. Billy was ill-equipped to take on single parenting, so he makes the difficult decision to recruit his more-than-willing sister, Susan, and brother-in-law, David, to raise baby Miranda. 

      On the journey to the truth, Miranda meets many charming characters who had known and loved her real parents. The author’s ability to bring all these people to life in a manner that makes you never want to let them go is the greatest of many strengths about this book. 

      In the end, as if straight out of a Hallmark movie, Miranda quits her teaching job back on the east coast, breaks up with her underwhelming boyfriend, falls in love with the mysterious Malcom (manager of Prospero Books), finds her way back to an even stronger version of the relationship she had with her parents, and girds herself for the daunting task of restoring her bookstore to solid footing. 

      It’s a lovely story...well written and lovingly shared. 

‘Orphan Train’ by Christina Baker Kline

      “Orphan Train” is a historical novel that tells the story of about a quarter million orphans who boarded trains on the east coast and traveled into the heartland of the country from 1854 to 1929 to find families that would take them in...not always for noble reasons. 

      This story takes place on two timelines. One starts in 1929 with the ordeals of a young Irish girl—she ends up with a series of names, but Vivian is the one that sticks—who comes to the USA with her family but soon encounters tragedy that leaves her alone. 

      After her train ride to Minnesota, she bounces around between families, including one that considers her an employee, one that is abusive and, finally, one that embraces her as a surrogate for their deceased daughter. 

      Meanwhile, the other storyline centers around a 17-year-old girl named Molly who is half Penobscot Indian and who is desperately trying to avoid going to juvenile court for stealing a book. She is also an orphan of sorts. 

      Molly winds up volunteering to spend 50 hours helping the now 91-year-old Vivian clean out her attic. In the course of their mutual attic adventure, the two share intimate details of their lives and find significant common ground that helps bring them close together. 

      For example, Molly learns that Vivian had given up a baby (sound familiar?) when she was widowed at the age of 20 and offers to help Vivian reconnect with the now 68-year-old “child.”

      In the process, both find self-redemption and the confidence to, not only accept all the twists and turns of their lives, but to almost embrace the vagaries that have brought them to this moment of self-realization and joy. 

      The story ends a bit abruptly--as is sometimes the case when an author starts running out of plot--with Vivian’s daughter, Sarah, and great granddaughter coming to visit her in Maine. But, although abrupt, it ends on the kind of high that gives the eternal optimists among us hope of overcoming all the forces that sometimes conspire to put one obstacle after another on our path to happiness.

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