Book Reviews: October 2015

This book has been on my TBR list for over a year and I’m so glad I finally picked it up. It’s a collection of essays that Gay wrote about pop culture, politics, race, gender, and feminism, among other topics. The first few essays are more personal, so that you can get to know the author a little bit, and the rest are divided by subject matter.

I love Roxane Gay’s writing style. She’s open, honest, and not afraid to be vulnerable. She shines a spotlight on things that are problematic in ways that I hadn’t really considered before. Gay has labeled herself as a “bad feminist,” meaning that she doesn’t fall into the stereotype of what a feminist is and she isn’t a perfect feminist all the time (and really, who is?).

Similarly to how I felt about We Should All Be Feminists, I don’t think there’s anything revolutionary here, but I think she makes her points in a manner that’s easy to understand and that may cause you to rethink your position on certain topics. In a few cases, I thought that some of the essays felt a bit short, and I wanted her to keep exploring the topic she was discussing.

Some of my favorites were “Not Here to Make Friends,” about likability, “The Careless Language of Sexual Violence,” about how people talk about rape, and “Beyond the Measures of Men,” about the importance of women in publishing. I’d definitely recommend this book. I really dig Roxane Gay’s particular style of real talk and I want to read all of her work.

Kezia, Nathaniel and Victor were really good friends in college, but then they graduated, moved to different cities and started to drift apart. Many years later, they’re reunited at the wedding of another college friend. At this wedding, Victor accidentally falls asleep in the groom’s mother’s bedroom. When he comes to, the groom’s mother has discovered him; the two of them start conversing and she reveals a family secret, telling him a story about a long-lost necklace. Victor decides to try and find this necklace and the story takes off from there.

There’s another interesting layer to this novel, and that’s the author’s inclusion of the short story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. This story served as inspiration for this book and is also incorporated into the plot. I really enjoyed this blend of history with the present and it made me want to sit down and read the short story (which I still need to do!).

I liked Crosley’s writing- it’s clever in a subtle and cheeky way. I also think she did a great job developing the characters. They felt like fully-formed people to me. Crosley explores the theme of friendship in a set of characters that are still on the path to “adulthood.” With older friends, it’s interesting to consider if you would befriend the person they are today (if you weren’t already friends with them). Naturally, people change, for better or worse, and the person you first became friends with may not really exist years later.

Although the plot did become rather outlandish, I enjoyed this novel and the questions it raised. I’m curious if I’d enjoy her nonfiction works (I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number?) more or less than her first novel.

It was my first time reading this classic gothic novel. What I loved about the book versus the pop culture portrayal of Frankenstein were the various layers. The creature recounts his story to Victor Frankenstein, who’s telling it to the captain of the ship, who’s relaying it all to his sister via letter. There’s just so much more depth in the book. It raises interesting questions about man vs. other and how man is automatically distrustful of anything that is different. It’s a struggle between two deeply flawed characters: Victor Frankenstein (who thinks he’s done nothing wrong, ha!) and the creature (who is so desperate for human connection that he commits terrible crimes). The writing is excellent, particularly with the descriptions of the setting. I felt like I was truly in Switzerland. It was deliciously dark and the perfect book to read around Halloween.

This novel explores how a split-second decision can impact the rest of your life. It’s set in Italy during World War II. The year is 1943 and the main character, Chiara, decides to flee Rome for safer territory. On the morning that she plans to leave, she’s passing through the Jewish ghetto and sees some people being rounded up. She makes eye contact with one of the women in line, who has a young son. In an instant, the woman pushes her son towards Chiara and Chiara pretends that the boy is her nephew. In doing so, she saves the boy from being taken to a camp with the rest of his family.

The story takes place in both the present and the past, in the moments following Chiara’s decision to save the boy, and years later when she’s much older. The first two chapters are clearly labeled to let you know what year it is, but the remaining chapters aren’t. I don’t mind a nonlinear plot, but I found this one a bit confusing at points.

Another element I wanted was more of Daniele, the little boy in the story. The book is written from Chiara’s perspective, and also Maria’s perspective, a young woman we’re introduced to a little ways into the story. Daniele plays such a huge role in Chiara’s life, but I felt that I didn’t really know much about him as a person. As a young boy, he’s quiet, stubborn, and understandably devastated by the loss of his family. As he grows up, he continues to have problems, but all the details we know about him are one-sided. I think it would have been great to have even a couple chapters from Daniele’s perspective, or allow the reader to get to know him better in some other way.

I would have also liked further insight into why Chiara decided to take the boy in the that moment. Chiara has a younger sister with epilepsy that she’s taken care of since she was diagnosed, so perhaps the reason is that Chiara likes to take care of people? I don’t know. It wasn’t clear to me and it kept pestering my thoughts as I was reading.

I loved the setting and thought the author did a great job evoking daily life in Rome. It made me want to hop on a plane to Italy ASAP. When I visited Rome briefly several years ago, I remember thinking there’s so much history and a rich culture, and I had a similar feeling while reading this book. There were some points that I’d like to change about the novel, but in the end I did like it and was interested enough to keep reading.

Disclaimer: Early One Morning was sent to me by the publisher for review purposes, but these are my honest thoughts and opinions.