Marti's May Picks

Fly Away by Kristin Hannah

Fly Away by Kristin Hannah was heart - wrenchingly beautiful. To have two best friends forever and to have one die ... that is what happened to Tullie, her best friend Kate died. Kate wanted Tullie to help her family and her children both remember her but also move on from her death. Tullie is an imperfect character and constantly is trying to balance her way through life and Kate's death. She does not choose well and things become more out of control.

I love the way the book is told as in a conversation with friends. Tullie and Kate speaking while, Tullie is close to death. It helps the story be more poignant, as a touching conversation between long time friends. The other characters appear as the story unfolds both as how they were and how they are. It is an interesting look at people in critical times.

People change and step up to help care for Tullie. New hope is born and life continues. The story is a complex look at friendships and relationships after a death, after a mistake, after a life time of not forgetting or forgiving.

Enjoy the read - have tissues available

The Dinner by Herman Koch

The Dinner is a very disturbing book. The premise is that of two couples sitting down to dinner in a very high-end establishment in Amsterdam to 'discuss' their children. You are given the information that the discussion could be quite difficult and negative, as the children have done something wrong. The book is divided up into sections like the courses of a meal. Each section brings you further down the road of understanding what they needed to discuss. However, while all the action takes place at this dinner, the book does go back within the narrator’s story to fill in the background. The couples are Paul & Clair and Serge & Babette. Paul and Serge are brothers. Paul is also the narrator. He was a teacher who seemed to leave the profession under a cloud of confusion. Serge is running to be the next prime minister.

The book is not a happily ever after. What the parents discover is a horrific hate crime. What the readers discover are the views of the parents and how they wish to handle the discovery. The background as it is slowly revealed just muddies the water even more. The characters and the information are drawn out in such a way that you feel compelled to keep reading. After each new nugget of information, the reader has to stop reading and readjust their thinking about what is happening. Each time, I did that, I found myself wondering about what was going to happen next. The moral dilemma of the story does hook into your mores, forcing you to bring them out into the open.

This book is very well written. However, it is a very dark and dismal book. It is hard to find any positive points about the solution, sequence of events and characters. This is not a book I would choose to read again. I will not read any books by this author again, either.

However after stating my dislike so strongly, I would suggest you decide based on your expectations for a novel. To me, Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery has a similar feel to the story line.

**** (Four out of five stars)

Because of what I wrote above, I need to add a postscript.
I realized today after speaking with friends and sharing about the book that I mis – starred the book. I gave it one star because of the characters and their decisions and their choices. I didn’t like what choices they made and what they allowed. I didn’t like how the book ended – so I gave it one star.

My friends helped me refocus and shift my thinking; I should give the book four stars out of five. (1) I finished the book in a short time period. (2) I couldn’t wait to tell them about it. (3) The plot and characters have continued to sit in the back of my brain about the book (4) I finished the book (5) I looked up some genetic information that was alluded to in the book. I cannot give this book five stars because of all the above!!