REVIEWS: BOOKS THAT DIDN'T QUITE FLOAT MY BOAT

I try to give every book the same consideration, particularly when it's in the review pile.  As a (wannabe) writer myself, I can understand the toil that an author went through.  I respect that.  But there are still some books, that no matter how much I should have liked, and thought I would enjoy, I just can't get excited about it.  It stinks.  It's a disappointment to me as an expectant reader, and I'm sure as an author and publisher.

But with a New Year quickly approaching, I feel it is as good a time as any to slough off some of the titles that have straggled on my nightstand...

ASK ALICE by DJ TAYLOR

I loved Taylor's previous work, Bright Young People, about high society in 1920s in London.  That book was nonfiction.  Ask Alice once again draws on Taylor's encyclopedic knowledge of the era but in novel form.  The heroine, naive but learning, goes from beguiled to ingenue to jaded.  

The opening pages of the book, told from Alice's point-of-view, were completely riveting.  Once Taylor introduces a London character who has a pigpen in his back garden, the whole thing falls apart.  The narrative voice loses its way.  Even when we return to Alice on the London stage, Taylor cannot regain the balance or the verve of the early pages.

To his credit, Taylor is an excellent descriptive writer.  His sentences are well-formed and packed with elegance.  In this case, it is the over-arching story that is weak. 

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Language: English ISBN-10: 1605980862

BRIGHT AND DISTANT SHORES by DOMINIC SMITH

Here again is a book from one of my favorite authors.  The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre left me in tears and The Beautiful Miscellaneous was quite touching.  My penchant for his writing coupled with my downright obsession with the 1893 World's Fair should have been a no-brainer.  

What was lacking here was Smith's usually extraordinary narrating characters.  Rather than feeling their adventuresome spirit in the vivid colors of the South Pacific, it reads more like a monochrome manual for gathering archaeological samples.  I desperately wanted to like this book, but I just can't recommend it.  

Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Language: English ISBN-10: 1439198861

INDIGO

IN SEARCH OF THE COLOR THAT SEDUCED THE WORLD 

by Catherine E. McKinley

Indigo is my favorite color; it always has been.  It was the color of my bridesmaids' dresses and plenty of decor at my wedding.  I'm also always a fan of books that take a small idea or item and uncover vast histories about it.  I thought this is what I would find between the covers here -- a surprising and insightful look at a stunningly beautiful color.

Indigo is less a history and more a personal diary.  The author embarks on a journey to Africa in order to discover more about indigo, but she is sparing in her details about the history that brings her there.  Rather than intertwining the old and the new, the old becomes abandoned for her own adventures.  There were also glaring historical errors like her mention of "the invention of the cotton gin in 1974," (page 4) that made it hard to enjoy.


Hardcover: 256 pp


Size: 5.5 x 8.25 in

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1608195058

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In all cases, I sincerely wish to thank the publicists for providing the review copies.  I hope they will not find me unfair in my assessments.

REVIEW: THE SCRAPBOOK OF FRANKIE PRATT by Caroline Preston

I adore this book.  It's a completely individual way to tell a story.  It's a novel masquerading as a scrapbook -- or perhaps it's the other way around.  Author Caroline Preston says of taking on this project, "I spent an unhealthy portion of my childhood rooting around in the boiling-or-freezing attic of my parent's house in Lake Forest, Illinois.  My mother could be called a tidy pack rat —keeping many generations worth of diaries, letters, clippings, dresses and weird souvenirs in neatly labeled trunks and boxes."  


She could be talking about me.  With family in rural Illinois and a grandmother who has been a wonderful archivist, I have spent untold hours staring at pictures of ancestor's I never knew.  My cousin Rachael and I also frequent the many antique shops in small towns -- not to mention the treasure troves we find in old barns and sheds.  I've got piles and stacks and boxes of my own now.  Postcards and driver's licenses from people I don't know.  

One of my prized finds.

Preston takes actual pieces of vintage ephemera and constructs a story about a young girl who's growing up during the fabulous Roaring 20s.  Frankie Pratt lands a scholarship at Vassar, rubs elbows with wealthy socialites, gets a broken heart, dances the Charleston, and lives it up in Art Deco Manhattan and expatriate Paris.

Page 116

Preston's narrator is sweet, naive but not useless.  She is reminiscent of Cassandra from Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle.  She chooses experience over caution, but she's not spoiled or reckless.  Simply a smart girl who wants to get the most out of life.  And her scrapbook makes her even more endearing to the reader.  

Page 180

Preston's collection is even more impressive when you learn that it's all real. She created an actual scrapbook of actual items that she found.  Preston recalls, "In all I collected over 600 pieces of original 1920's ephemera.  Some I found in my own stash of vintage paper, the rest I tracked down and bought from dozens of antique stores and hundreds of eBay sellers."  And she did a beautiful job. 


The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt reads, in parts, a bit like a young adult book but not enough to be only read as such.  It's completely enjoyable for any age.  The items found on the pages enlighten the reader about a past era.  Frankie Pratt is a lively voice from the past.  




Many thanks to Heather at HarperCollins for the review copy.


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ISBN: 9780061966903
Imprint: Ecco 
10/25/2011
Format: Hardcover
Trimsize: 6 x 9
Pages: 240; $25.99

REVIEW: THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN JOHN EMMETT by Elizabeth Speller

I am unhappy to report that the strongest element about this book is the cover art.  It hearkens back to the wonderful Great Western Rail (and other) posters of the 1920s and 30s in England -- the Golden Age of Travel.  The contents, I'm afraid, do not. 

The story is set in 1920, just as England sputters into a recovery after the First World War.  The main protagonist, Laurence Bartram survived his days in France but returns to an empty home.  His wife and son died while he was away.  With little to anchor him, he receives a letter from the sister of an old friend.  She asks him to help discover the cause of her brother's sudden suicide -- or perhaps uncover something more sinister.  

Trafalgar Square, London, 1920.

Unfortunately, the plot drags on for far too long.  It has none of the suspense that can sustain a drawn out storyline.  The reader simply has to plod along with Bartram, looking over his shoulder  while he traces various threads.  It's one gloomy parlor interview after another.  

Bartram himself is not a terribly compelling character.  Sad and sympathetic, but not engaging.  The only brightly drawn character is his friend Charles.  Clearly modeled after one of London's Bright Young People, he actually brings to life a sliver of the times.  And it's not just the fact that Charles' outlook is more positive.  He is the only one with a palpable personality.

The "villain" is silly and the discovery of the villain even more so.  It seems as if Speller wrote herself into a corner and had to create loopholes and surprise characters to make her shifty plot work.  As it is, it makes little sense, and by the end the reader really couldn't care any less.  Even if I wanted to read a melodrama, this was hardly an engrossing example of it.  

But don't just take my word for it.  You can read an excerpt here.  You can also view the trailer here.

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A sincere thanks to the folks at HMH Books for the review copy. 

ISBN-13/EAN: 9780547511696 ; $26.00

ISBN-10: 0547511698

Hardcover ; 448 pages

Publication Date: 07/04/2011

Trim Size: 5.50 x 8.25 

It's rare for me to not like a book, but when I do find something that's not to my liking, I normally set it aside.  I did not do that here.  I read it cover to cover in order to give it a fair shake.