Set in 1962 Ireland, this is a marginally interesting period piece that recounts the bleak existence of a small town second-generation doctor and his adult spinster daughter who "keeps house for him."  Living under the rigidity of the Catholic Church and a cloud of grief since the death of the doctor's wife and the daughter's mother, the first three parts of the story drag on with detailed descriptions of mundane events that I suspect "real" lovers of literature find beautiful and enthralling.  I got all the way to part four and realized that only about two or three weeks of time had passed in the storyline. 
 
By Part Four, a few things happen.  We meet another character, whose life is also dismal.  A young teen, his father is an alcoholic and his mother the kind of run down and sad that comes from a lifetime of being dependent on alcoholics. The poverty and pain of the story continues on until the Time of The Child.  At this point, well into the last part of the book, the plot seemed to begin.
 
Now, I am not saying the book isn't well crafted or that it wasn't at times informative of an historical period in a place that is often ignored, but I am saying that it was boring and those things weren't enough to pull me along.
 
Not recommended.

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This is a sequel to My Name is Lucy Burton, which I read as part of my 2017 reading challenge. That was a year when I had categories of books that I was reading from and I can't remember which category this fulfilled.  I had trouble finding books to fill those lists the few years that I did that and started asking for recommendations, which is how I ended up ditching that list and just taking recommendations for my yearly booklist. 
In any event, I did not write reviews back then, so I decided to reread My Name Is Lucy Barton after reading the first chapter of this book in order to remember the backstory.  In retrospect, this wasn't necessary to appreciate this story, but it did help connect many of the relationships in the book.
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And there are a lot of relationships in this book.  There are a ton of characters and the history between them is complicated. I often felt like I do when I visit friends in a close-knit community or try to join a new group of people who have been tight for a long time.  There are all these backstories that touch on each other and it is hard to keep up with how they all touch on each other.  This makes the details of the book hard to keep track of and sometimes I would be well into a new storyline before I realized these were the same people from another storyline. In many ways, this is the magic of this series. It really makes you feel what Lucy Barton's small town life with judgy, hurtful people was like--and not just for her.  Those who bullied her, those who were indifferent to her, and those who saw and helped her in big and small ways are all portrayed sometimes in sympathetic ways, sometimes not, and most often in both ways at the same time. 

There is so much depth here, so much hurt. Child sex abuse and sexual assault play prominent roles as they play out in families and relationships in ways that fill in the backstory for many characters. It is the story of kids who were bullied and kids who did the bullying and kids who were both bullied and did the bullying and how this plays out in their adult lives.  The emotion of childhood trauma, indeed sometimes of torture, is on painful display here--told with a perspective that conveys deep empathy for the damage done and the damage done to the people caused the damage.  It is heart-wrenching the whole way.

Recommend.

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​By the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, this is a captivating read about Venice, particularly in the context of the fire that destroyed La Fenice Opera House in the late 1990s.  While to a large extent focused on who started the fire and why, this book branches out from the main storyline in interesting ways, painting a detailed portrait of a unique city. Filled with politics, culture, history, and, of course, an unsolved mystery, I loved not only the exquisite writing, but the interviews and depicts of people.  Instead of being a distraction, the side stories were just as interesting as the main fire plot.

Highly recommend.

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I have to say that I just love a good time travel book and this is a spectacularly good time travel book.  With a complicated plot, rich characters with depth, and a fairly believable world, the story is captivating and I did not want to take a break from it.  I particularly loved how much time I invested in trying to keep track of the loose ends and the satisfaction I had as they all came together as the story enfolded in an interconnected and unexpected way.

​The foreshadowing was there, so that the ending came together smoothly, but not so much so that it was predictable or trite.  I also love a book in which friendship is the at the center of the story and this book developed many storylines around friendships, some of them particularly sweet, though perhaps unconventional.  The relationship between the protagonist Cass and her grandfather is melancholic and haunting, but so endearing.  You'll need space in your life to really pay attention to the details, because there is a lot going on that you will want to keep track of as the story unfolds. 

And I have a soft spot for books that take place in bookstores and libraries and this has the added benefit of having both of those.

And extra bonus points for the unexpected Oregon connection.
 
Highly recommend.
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This has been an eclectic year of recommendations, with more horror than I have ever read, but also more really sweet novels that are just heart warming, lovely, light reads.  This is one of the latter. Even the book cover reflect the soft care that I felt when reading it.

A group of intertwining stories set in Japan in which people unhappy with their lives find themselves at the library getting lists of books from the quirk, eccentric librarian, who also felts small knickknacks that she gives away.  The book lists always include a recommendation that seems unrelated to the inquiry, but ends up being part of the recipe people need to transform their lives. 

It is a fun and delightful concept book. I found it to be slightly longer than was necessary to make and develop the project, such that I finished the book a little bit bored in a way that I wasn't through most of it. Like binge watching a good show that has a simplistic formula, if I had read it more slowly, I might have found this to be an endearing and comforting quality.

Not not recommended.

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Louise Erdrich does not disappoint in this sweet novel about a book lover with complex relationships, searching for family, while being haunted by her past and the past of others. It is complex, but I was easily drawn into the layers of stories.

And what booklover does love a book that talks about books and drops the names of titles like they are celebrities? Set in a bookstore to a large extend, I particularly loved that this was perhaps the first novel to incorporate the pandemic into its storyline and it was done exquisitely, with such emotional detail. 
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I just really loved this story.

Highly recommend.

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Set mostly in Edinburgh, this is a layered book with a multi-generational story that unfolds when the mental health facility where Esme has been living for decades is being closed.  Her great-niece, who was oblivious to her existence, is the next-of-kin contacted and the story to understand Esme's -- and by extension the whole family's--life history unfolds.  With themes addressing intergenerational family dysfunction and the control of rebellious women, I found the book engaging and charming.

Recommend.
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I have to say that I love a good story about friendship and this is a good story about friendships.  Two women at a point in life where they are each struggling with academic careers and family, grief and loneliness, their unlikely meeting becomes the backdrop for this sweet novel.  For me, the added bonus of being set in Oregon and Seattle adds a fun local flavor to the story. There are several subplots, including addiction and recovery and parenting a child with autism in the 1990's. 

The entire book is told in the context of bird facts. One of the women is an ornithologist, so her love of and connection to birds provide metaphors for human relationships, which I initially found gimmicky, but it grew on me as the plot of the story unfolded to be more complex than it initially seemed. Ultimately, I think it worked, particularly as birds were generally woven into the storyline in multiple ways.  It reminded me a bit of The Overstory in this way, but unlike that book where I felt like I just didn't like and appreciate trees enough to love the book, I didn't feel like my lack of love and appreciation for birds mattered.

I thought the writing here was well done and the story was well plotted, with lots of backstory overfolding in ways that did not distract from the current timeline.  I particularly loved how the flawed characters were presented with so much compassion, particularly around the topic of alcoholism.  

Recommend.

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Yet another story about Americans traveling to Scotland for a vacation read in Virtual Voice.  I need a setting that excludes these from view, although having now read three of these, I have definitely learned my lesson.  The Voice here isn't as horrendous as Valentine's Day In Venice, but it still takes away from the story, which is saying a lot since the story was nothing compelling to start with.  Retired, disgruntled cop and his wife housesit in Scotland for a change of scene and get asked to help solve a blackmailing mystery for a neighbor.  Predictable and bland.
Not recommended

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Mindless romance between American ex-lovers traveling to Scotland.  Nothing offensive.  Not not cute.  But, the point of reading stories about a place I am going to visit is to learn something about the people or place and although these two journalists purport to be there to write a story about locals, that part of the story was never developed and really could have taken place in any one of hundreds of places around the world.  Overall a disappointment.
Do not recommend.

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