Well-Read: Best Books of 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Ah…the year-end reviews! It was a tough job to choose favorites from a year filled with so many wonderful books, but here they are, the best of 2011!
The Leftovers Tom Perrotta
Perrotta’s idea was to write a comic novel about the apocalypse, as he didn’t think anyone had ever done that before. "The mechanism I chose (the Rapture-like event) turned out not to be funny.” But there is much that is funny in his newest work that centers around one of Tom's signature suburban families, The Garveys. The family is particulary torn apart when Kevin Garvey's wife leaves him to join the Guilty Remnant, a home grown cult, and Garvey's son, Tom, leaves for college and a whole lot of trouble. The only one to remain with Garvey is his teenaged daughter, Jill, who is no longer the sweet and good student she used to be... . Perrotta says that it turned out to be “a pretty difficult book to write. Maybe it would have been easier if I’d taken up smoking.” Tom is referring to a cult in the book and smoking cigarettes is required of all its "members". Hey, it’s his world!
Close Your Eyes Amanda Eyre Ward
I have been a fan of Amanda’s ever since reading How To Be Lost many years ago and then Forgive Me as well as her collection of short stories - Love Stories in This Town. Ward is such a gifted storyteller I was immediately drawn into her latest novel, which is based on a true story. On the night their mother is murdered, Alex and Lauren are asleep in their backyard tree house. Their father is sentenced to life for the murder although Alex has always maintained his father’s innocence. We meet up with the siblings years later as they are trying to make sense of their lives and what really happened on that fateful night.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe Art of Forgetting Camille Noe Pagan
At its center the book is about the friendship of two women who meet as teens at boarding school. Marissa Rogers and Julia Ferrar find themselves coping with the effects of a sudden traumatic brain injury after Julia is hit by a car while crossing the street. Through the years we see these women following their dreams and rooting for each other, though there is always an elephant in the room. Humor, sensitivity and attention to detail will likely bring to mind an old friend and you might just feel like picking up the phone-or digging around on Facebook!
Maine Courtney Sullivan
I am drawn to books where a summer home is one of the story’s central characters. A functioning dysfunctional
I love family drama and Up From The Blue is packed with lots of it! This coming of age story centers on Tillie who has a vivid imagination. At times the book is heart-breaking, as books that center on a manic-depressive character tend to be, especially when it’s the mother. Mara mysteriously disappears after the family’s move out of state and Tillie has questions and isn’t getting any answers. She thinks she has discovered her mother’s whereabouts and winds up with more secrets than she bargained for!
What would you do if you had the ability to go back and forth between lives? Where would you ultimately choose to stay? Quinn Braverman is happily living in a Long Island suburb with her loving family – husband, Lewis, and their son, Isaac. In the basement of their home there is a portal to another life in which Quinn didn’t choose Lewis over her then shock-jock boyfriend, Eugene. She is able to go back and forth between lives but as she does, the trips leave her more and more exhausted and even a bit frantic with each return. She has questions and she needs answers if she is to move on with life. Either one.
With a close-knit and loving if not traditional family at its core, this book made me want to both savor and yet keep turning pages so I’d know more and more of the story. At times both heartwarming and heartbreaking – I laughed out loud and felt the need to read passages to those around me. When adult siblings come home upon learning the news of their mother’s heart attack, everyone needs to put old hurts aside to live together and support their dad and each other. Secrets and agendas are dragged home and are strewn all over the place like laundry left for someone else to pick up.
I have been a fan of Leavitt's writing for many years and as I follow Caroline on Facebook felt like I was along for the ride as she typed away at this latest book. Totally unpredictable, this book is a literary joy of a read! An engrossing mystery is woven around the lives of two women who meet by chance as they are each running away from something or someone. I dare anyone to figure it out as they read along. Suspenseful and thought-provoking - how well do really know the people we love. Life is complicated and so are the characters that we come to understand. Oh, the drama!!
One of the many things I so enjoyed about The Weird Sisters is that it’s a real book-lover’s book. Three sisters who speak as one entity narrate the story. It’s yet another interesting layer to this book about the Andreas sister who are the daughters of an English professor whose specialty is Shakespeare. Loosely based on the three witches of Macbeth and includes many fascinating passages about the way these family members interact with both each other and their books. We see the sibling rivalry at its best when the three sisters return to their family home to help take care of their ill mother.
Who says you can’t go home? Not the three adult characters in this compulsively readable debut novel.The summer is just beginning for Ginny and William, empty nesters in Vermont, when one by one their three adult children return. The relationships between the siblings are notable as the perceptions they have of each other play out in entertaining dialog. Secrets are revealed as the elders attempt to determine what exactly is going on with their kids and how much help they should offer them. Observing how the “children” revert to their younger selves and how much of this their parents are willing to put up with makes The Arrivals an emotion-filled journey back home.
With stacks of new books just waiting to be read, 2012 promises to be another great year!
Reading enthusiast and all around "book-pusher" Robin Kall can be heard live Saturday mornings from 7-8am on Reading With Robin WHJJ 920AM. Also streaming live at www.920whjj.com. Follow on Twitter @robinkall, and Facebook - Reading With Robin. All new Web site! www.readingwithrobin.com
Up From the Blue Susan Henderson
The Other Life Ellen Meister
Drinking Closer To Home Jessica Anya Blau
Pictures of You Caroline Leavitt
The Weird Sisters Eleanor Brown
The Arrivals Meg Mitchell Moore