I picked this book up in an airport to read on the plane.  And I read almost the entire book on just one four-hour flight.

I had never heard of Lauren Groff but she has some full length novels.  This book however is a collection of short stories, all based in Florida or about Floridians.  Having recently spent a lot of time in Florida I found it really interesting, and Groff’s writing style poetic.  In fact since finishing this book I have read reviews of her other works, not all favorable.  But she seems to have a unique quality as a short story writer.  Each story creating engaging characters and sometimes gripping scenarios.  Stories of snakes and boys, abandonment and small girls, adults with issues, families in despair.

Florida is as unique and diverse as the state itself and I enjoyed this easy and beautifully written collection.

Four stars for Florida by Lauren Groff

Read last week’s review of The Murmur of Bees.

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I have read dozens of Holocaust books, many of those just in the last few years as a glut of such stories have blanketed the market (Sarahs Key, Mischling, The Boy in the Stripped Pajamas, The Book Thief etc.).  Although this story is interesting and shows the powerful will to survive during the worst possible circumstances, it falls flat for me.

Perhaps because there have been so many brilliant novels with this theme that have come before, or perhaps because I found the writing clipped and rushed – I didn’t love this book.

Based on a real person Lale Sokolov who spent three years as a prisoner in Auschiwitz during which time his job was the tattooist, tattooing the numbers on each arriving prisoner.  Behind the prison walls he meets and falls in love with Gida and their love for each other keeps them alive.  Lale’s positive personality is tested beyond its limits as he watches innocent men, women and children die all around him, but his one goal in life is to keep Gida alive so they can have a future together.

The author admittedly writes that this story was originally a screenplay.  And it feels that way.  Perhaps I would like it better as a movie.  I don’t know.  Heartbreaking and interesting I can’t write it off completely, and if you love a novel about this time period and how love survives, it may be for you.

⭐️⭐️⭐️Three stars for The Tattoist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris.

Read last week’s review of Asymmetry.

Whoa.  This book.  As the name implies, it’s not equal, it’s not what you think.  And it’s not symmetrical.

Say what?  Yes, it is a bit difficult to pull the pieces of this book together, but I loved it just the same.  Told in three very distinctive parts, Asymmetry, Halliday’s debut novel, sets out to explore the imbalance of human relations and bias of inequities of age, power, wealth, fame, nationality and justice.

How does she explore these questions?  First with a story called Folly about an unexpected romance between Alice and a much older and very famous author.  Just as I am really falling for these characters and this unusual romance something unexpected happens.

The story ends.

Next Halliday offers a story called Madness.  This story by contrast is about Amar, an Iraqi-American who is detained by immigration officers in London.  Again you find the character compelling and you feel helpless for him to find justice.

Still waiting for these two separate stories to connect in some way, Madness also suddenly ends.

You are left wondering what Halliday wants you to think.  Finally she wraps the book up with a somewhat humorous and interesting radio interview of the older author from story number one.

This book is unique of all normal aspects of novel-writing and yet it provides a way to look at the questions of inequity through an inspired and powerful new style of novel-writing.

Although not for everyone, I give Asymmetry five stars.  Because four is too symmetrical.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Read last week’s review of A Thousand Splendid Suns

This is the third book I have read by Hosseini.  His masterpiece The Kite Runner is my favorite and this work A Thousand Splendid Suns comes in a close second.  He writes in a hauntingly beautiful style that brings his characters alive, in a country few of us have or will ever visit.

In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini once again transports his readers to Afghanistan through a very personal story of two women and their struggles to survive.  We are introduced to Mariam in the first page of the book.  A bright and inspired five-year old girl who is still naive to her plight in life as a female, a child born out-of-wedlock and a poverty-stricken child with no prospects.  She is known as a “mugwort”, a weed, something tossed aside.  The trajectory of Mariam’s life is in other people’s hands, unfortunately for Mariam those making the decisions do not have any love for her.

Laila is born nearly a generation after Mariam, on the night that life changed for everyone in Afghanistan in April 1978 when the Soviet communists invaded.  The baby girl named Laila, meaning Night Beauty, arrived to her proud parents Fariba and Hakim.

Laila’s prospects are better than Mariam ever imagined for herself, but Laila’s life will also take a horrific turn when she is only 14 years old and the Taliban invades Afghanistan.  After years of war, Laila has lost her two brothers who were resistance fighter, and then in one terrible moment both her parents are killed when a bomb falls on their house.

Mariam and Laila’s lives collide and their destinies are entwined forever, as each woman realizes they will need each other just to survive.  The war rages on, thousand disappear and die, and in the end Mariam and Laila who are more like sisters or mother and daughter after their years together, find the true meaning of family does not always mean blood relations.  During a truly terrible time of war and death, this book is both heartbreaking and inspiring with a message of love, friendship, sorrow, abuse and perseverance.

A masterful work.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Five Stars for A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Read last week’s review of Inheritance by Dani Shapiro