BOOK REVIEW: We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

(Links are affiliate in nature. I may receive a small commission or payment at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase through these links. Thank you in advance!)

Years ago, my mom was in a reading rut and asked me for some book suggestions -- like me, she was a voracious reader. It was rare for my mom to find herself in a lull with reading, so I happily supplied a list of 10 books or so and she started in on it. 

After the first three books on the list, my mom came to me and said that she appreciated the list, but she'd no longer be reading from it and would not take reading suggestions from me again.

Her reason? Most of what I like to read is "depressing and sad", according to my mom. That has not changed over the years. 

Case in point: We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman.

This novel is devastating but beautiful.

We All Want Impossible Things is about love, loss, and grief, as well as motherhood and friendship. It really highlights that we are all human and reminded me a lot of something one of my high school English teachers said (she was quoting the author, Wally Lamb, I believe): "The best fiction is often more true than real life." This book was so true to my experience of grief and loss that it definitely felt more true than real life! I've had a lot of heart break over the last few years, and this novel helped to mend some of it.

This book made me cry a lot, but despite being so sad, it also made me laugh quite a bit!

We All Want Impossible Things is about a woman whose best friend is in hospice and how she navigates that alongside being a single mom to a teen daughter and a college aged daughter, while still being in love with (and also not in love with at the same time) her ex-husband, and while trying to figure out her own life.

If you enjoy the work of Anne Lamott, particularly the novel Rosie, you'll like this one. It's equal parts sad and funny. My mom would still would have found it depressing.

I found We All Want Impossible Things to be deeply satisfying. It is filled with all the ups and downs of relationships in many areas of our lives, includes good food, cozy living rooms, sex without being gratuitous, awe and wonder at the world around us, and so much more. I will definitely read this one again!

Buy it on Bookshop.org HERE.

Buy it on Amazon HERE.

BOOK REVIEW: The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani

Title: The Storyteller's Secret

Author: Sejal Badani

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Year published: 2018

ISBN: 9781542048279

Genre: contemporary fiction; cross-cultural and cross-generational fiction set in India and the United States

Pairs well with strong chai,

the laughter of children,

and a side of devoted friendship.

Wow.

That's the first word that comes to mind after finishing The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani. I just loved this book so much. I read it as an e-book via Amazon Prime Reading, but loved it so much that I'd like to buy a paperback copy. 

The Storyteller's Secret follows the path of a young woman in the United States, daughter of parents from India, who returns to her mother's childhood home in India after a third miscarriage. She is mired in the unfathomable loss and sadness, and with it the sadness and potential loss of her marriage. She escapes to India where she meets Ravi, the confidant and best friend of her grandmother -- a woman of strength and conviction who was trapped in tradition and had to make many hard choices. The story follows the main character, Jaya, as she learns the hard truths about her mother's childhood, her grandmother's sacrifices, and worlds of hurt. But, Jaya also learns the true value and meaning of friendship, love, sacrifice, and forgiveness throughout her journey.

The novel crosses cultures and generations. Although it starts in the United States, the book eventually is set primarily in India -- both modern day and colonial India under British rule. The reader is transported back and forth between the present and two generations past through dual storytelling. Jaya is telling her story and her experience as she flees a potentially broken marriage and three miscarriages, but she also hears the story of her grandmother, Amisha as told by her grandmother's best friend and servant, Ravi. Amisha's story is told in present tense, but because the author has taken great care with her story, it is quite easy to keep the timelines and stories clear. 

Jaya is young but brilliant and an incredible writer. However, her relationship with her mother is strained and she does not really understand why. When she flees her personal tragedies by traveling to India, she learns the tragic truth about her mother's childhood and a secret that led to her mother's own losses and fears. 

Ultimately, this is a story of homecoming for Jaya, Ravi, and Jaya's mother. 

The Storyteller's Secret is absolutely tied for my favorite book of my 2019 reading with Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I hope you will read and love both novels!

Find The Storyteller's Secret on Amazon HERE.

Find Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine on Amazon HERE.

I found The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani as a free e-book via Prime Reading, a membership perk of Amazon Prime. If you aren't a Prime member, you can get a free 30 day trial HERE. With Prime Reading (not to be confused with Kindle Unlimited), you may borrow up to 10 free e-books (the selection changes periodically) from the current selection. There are NO due dates as there would be with e-books from your library. Instead, you get to keep them until you return them (but if you have borrowed 10, you can't get another until you return one). As long as you haven't returned a book, you will also keep your access to the book even if it is no longer a Prime Reading offering!

***Links may be affiliate in nature. Purchases through these links may result in a small commission for me at no extra cost to you. Thank you in advance!

BOOK REVIEW: The Year She Left Us by Kathryn Ma

Title: The Year She Left Us

Author: Kathryn Ma

Publisher: Harper Collins Publishers

Year published: 2014

ISBN: 978-0-06-227334-5

Genre: contemporary fiction

My Rating: 5/5 -- must read!

Pairs well with a comfortable couch,

long and rainy afternoon, 

and your favorite tea and blanket.

Once again, I fully judged a book by its cover and was not disappointed.

Kathryn Ma’s novel, The Year She Left Us, is a stunning, multi-generational, multi-cultural masterpiece, following a Ari – Ariadne Bettina Yun-li Rose Kong; her mother, Charlie; aunt, Les; and her grandmother. It is a story of a family of women, lost amongst themselves and to themselves, finding each other, finding themselves, and finding what really matters.

Each family member has experience loss in their own ways – some more deeply than others, but all losses. Ari, however, is at the center of the story, pulling the others both apart and together, as she navigates childhood and adolescence until a breakdown drives her away from everything and everyone that matter most in her life. I think she would agree that she disappears, even from herself.

Early in the novel, Ari takes an action that is unbelievably shocking and graphic – you are warned – but that also sets up the entire rest of the novel. The action is so disturbing that I became nauseous reading it. You’ll have to read the book for yourself to find out what she did and about the resulting fallout.

If you’ve read The Joy Luck Club or any other work by Amy Tan, I think you will appreciate The Year She Left Us. Ma masterfully weaves the divide between being both Chinese and American and the pull to both cling to and abandon traditions of both sides. She also carefully treads the pains and joys that come with adoption – the joy that a parent feels at becoming a mother and how it spreads to others in the family, but also the pull of feeling abandoned or thrown away that some adopted children may feel. Through it all, it is clear that the three generations of women need each other and love each other, even if they aren’t always aware of it – sometimes they flat out reject one another.

The terrain of the book physically traverses San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area in Northern California, including Clement Street (where one of my best friends comes from), up to Alaska and across to Pennsylvania. And, it spreads to the other side of the world to metropolises in China and the countryside. In Ma’s description of Lushan Mountain, I could practically smell the air, feel the breeze, feel the paths around the lake and into the mountains. It felt so close. I wanted to go there.

The Year She Left Us is also unique in that chapters alternate between all four women, but the story is told in the first person by only two – Ari and her grandmother. It did take me a few chapters to get into the rhythm, but by the midpoint of the novel, the structure made perfect sense and even felt necessary. By the last chapter, it was obvious that this was the only format for the story of these four women ranging from 18 years old to 80. At some point, the novel references an assisted living facility called Four Winds. The characters themselves are like the four winds all blowing against and away from each other, only to finally come together in a cohesive manner.

I loved this novel and know I will read it again. I hope you’ll give it a try and won’t be turned off by the grotesque scene I mentioned – that’s really the best word for it, but it is only truly described in detail once.

I’ll leave you to make up your own mind about which of the women the “she” in the title refers to.

I found The Year She Left Us by Kathryn Ma at the library, but you can find it on Amazon HERE.

***Links may be affiliate in nature. Purchases made through these links may result in a small commission to me at no extra cost to you. Thank you in advance!