Adult Book Club Pick: This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!
by Jonathan Evison
Algonquin Books
2015
304 pages
ISBN: 9781616202613

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! is about 78 year old Harriet Chance and the small and big things she has faced in her life. Harriet, daughter of a prominent attorney, has all the trappings of a successful childhood. She lives a cultured life of country club tennis and debutante balls. Her father pushes her to study law--to follow in his footsteps. Perhaps if Harriet were born a few decades later, this may have happened. Poor Harriet, born too soon! Women still earning less than half a man's salary and certainly not able to complete law school, men chuckling behind their backs. Harriet finds herself trapped in the traditional role of wife and mother.

The novel is told by a sometimes annoying omniscient narrator. Through his or her(?) insight, Harriet's life is examined under a glaring microscope. Human beings are complicated and all humans have secrets. Maybe the truth becomes clouded over the years. Memories fade. Lies are told. If enough lies are told enough times, lies become the truth. Hopping around over seven decades of a woman's life is sometimes a jarring experience. Jonathan Evison must have planned it that way. However off-putting it is, it works. As Harriet's world comes undone, the decades change. Suddenly we are back with seven year old Harriet or teen Harriet waiting for her date.

Full of heart and compassion, full of woe and sorrow, full of unfinished business and untold secrets, this is one novel that will make you think. This story will resonate with many baby boomers. It is the story of America and past eras where hope was high, expectations soared, the economy was booming and America was still number one.

The story is told as a series of scenes--think back to television's "This Is Your Life." Evison's writing is incomparable but Harriet's story, although probably the story of many 78 year old widows, is weighty. This is life under scrutiny.

Recommended for book clubs. This is not necessarily a "feel good" book. Looking back at someone's past with all its broken promises and scattered dreams is taxing at times.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Summer Pick: The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls
by Anton Disclafani
Riverhead Books (Penguin)
2013
388 pages

Back in the woods of the Blue Ridge Mountains lies a beautifully serene riding camp and school for girls of means. The girls come to Yonahlossee for a variety of reasons--their wealthy families are too busy to raise a teenage girl, their family is caught up in the Depression and trying to hold onto what little they still have, their  family is at a crossroads, or their family is burying their guilt and a shameful secret. Thea Atwell is sent to Yonahlossee for the latter--she is beginning to realize her rash actions and powerful passions have torn her family apart.

Thea has grown up with her rtwin brother and their parents on their rural farm, far from other kids and pressures. Thea has lived a sheltered life among the Florida orange groves and riding the fields on her pony. When Thea steps outside these boundaries, her mother insists that she be sent far away. Thea is mortified and afraid, alone for the first time at age fifteen. How will she cope among girls her age when she's never been around others? How will she be able to survive without the constant companionship and love of her own twin?

Thea loves the riding lessons with stern taskmaster Mr. Albrecht and even finds a group of girls she fits in with. When she realizes that the riding camp is a year-round facility, she understands the depth of her mother's anger.

As Thea learns more about life and love, she comes dangerously close to hurting everyone around her once again.

Highly recommended for book clubs and readers grade 9-up. Mature subject matter. Sexual misconduct.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Book Club Pick: Heading Out To Wonderful (now in paperback)

Heading Out to Wonderful
by Robert Goolrick
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
2013 (hardcover edition 2012)
292 pages

now in paperback

Poignant, passionate, and perfect, Heading Out to Wonderful weaves a cautionary tale for young men who dare to dream and young women who reach for the blazing stars.

Charlie Beale arrives in sleepy Brownsburg, Virginia, with a dream, a past, and a ton of money. He is a stranger to the people here, and they don't trust strangers. He buys land down near the river and keeps to himself. Charlie takes a job at the local butcher shop and becomes friendly with the butcher, his wife and young son. A single, good looking young man in a small town becomes fodder for the town's gossip mills; there are whispers about what Charlie does and what he really  wants.

Charlie just wants to buy land...a lot of it. He has a yearning to own property--a need so deep that even when he owns more land than anyone, he is not sated. Charlie doesn't have a name for what bothers him...until he sees...her. Sylvan Glass, the wife of the town's richest and most powerful man.

Sylvan is a country girl; she is a hillbilly with no education, but she has dreams. She always wanted to be a movie star or live like one. She is infatuated with movie star glamour and hires the best seamstress in town to sew her Hollywood style outfits. Sylvan dreams of money, glamour and romance. Through her rose colored glasses, anything is possible.  Charlie becomes her movie star and she becomes his muse.

It is only natural for masculine speciman Charlie and beautiful, dreamy Sylvan  to fall hopelessly in love. They share a bond so deep, so tangible, that it can only result in trouble. The duo is destined for tragedy from their first encounter.

Goolrick builds a great story layer upon layer, deftly telling the story of Charlie and Sylvan's star-crossed romance while he builds the back story of a young boy's coming of age story--where the boy has to accept that his hero is not perfect.

Heading Out to Wonderful will resonate with  readers. The setting of small town post-war Virginia harkens back to Mayberry RFD, and you expect Gomer or Andy to wave hello to you. This is Anywhere, USA--1948--and it couldn't be more nostalgic.

The novel has a tragic ending, of course, but one I wasn't prepared for. I loved the storytelling and I loved the love story, but it took me two weeks to digest this story. It is a beautiful story and it is a terrible story. There is much to discover here for book club members.

Highly, highly recommended for mature readers and book clubs. Grade 9-adult. Sex and mature situations.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.