EVERYTHING UNDER by Daisy Johnson

Much like a stream or river meanders through channels, over stones, rocks, sweeping leaves, sticks, vegetation in its flow, this novel with a lot of its setting on the waterways around Oxford, wends and weaves its three main characters back and forth from past to present and back again. It is a most complex structure, a most strange story that is difficult to drag yourself away from. It is mesmerising, gently sucking the reader in under the surface. I found this unsettling and at times uncomfortable, but always intoxicating, taking me along in its stream.

Gretel is the primary narrator, a lexicographer, living alone, her unsettled and at times difficult childhood still haunting in her adulthood. Abandoned by her mother Sarah, she was brought up in the foster system, never seeing her mother again, despite constantly looking for her. One day contact is made and Gretel becomes her mother's carer now that dementia has set in. The intimacy and difficulty of their living together throws the past back in Gretel's face as she is forced to make sense of and come to terms with what happened all those years ago, when she and her mother lived on a barge. There is a third character in this too - a young boy, Marcus, who for a short period of time lived with mother and daughter, until one day he too simply disappeared.

The chapters are narrated in turn by Gretel in the present, Sarah in the past, and Marcus also in the past. There are other minor and shady characters - a boat man with whom Sarah takes up, and who would appear to be Gretel's father;  a mysterious mystical water monster type creature which haunts Gretel through her life, until she finds way to rid herself of it  forever; a woman who could be Marcus' mother; a clairvoyant who haunts another family connected to them all. There is no doubt it is complicated and unnerving. But somehow it all holds together, weaving these lives together, meandering through the years. Beautiful writing and an experience to read. 

NO SWEAT by Rosy Fenwicke

Euphemia Sage is back! Now in full control of her menopause induced superpowers, life has returned pretty much back to as it was prior to the dramatic and surprising events so delightfully chronicled in Hot Flush. Her husband Kenneth is somewhat exhausted by Euphemia's boundless energy, one daughter continues to be the IT guru in their business Sage Consultancy, the other a detective in the local police, and Jane, the cause of so much drama in book one is now safely ensconced as the office manager at Sage.

For Euphemia there is one very annoying downside to having superpowers that are only really known to Jane and Kenneth. And Alison, now in prison. She is being hounded by a journalist, relentlessly, who seems to know a little too much about the mysteries surrounding Euphemia. Is he working with someone or is he really just extra zealous in his work?

At the same time Kenneth and his business partner find themselves in Sydney negotiating with a third party for the sale of their business. There do seem to be some strange goings on with this process, and when Euphemia reluctantly finds herself dragged over to Sydney, she realises that all of this is actually about her. Guess what - more superpowers to the fore! She is also forced to tell her girls about this very strange inherited condition she has, fully knowing that her older girl will be the menopausal superwoman one day.

A great sequel to Hot Flush, a satisfying story with characters continuing to evolve from the first book. Jane is hilarious, really comes into her own now that she is no longer with her awful husband and she runs Sage Consultancy with insane efficiency. I did feel that some of the crazy spark in the first book was not as apparent in this one, just lacking that effervescence and fabulousness that made Hot Flush such a romp. Oh, and let's not forget Petal either - star of the cover of both books!

AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones

Do we ever know what any marriage is like on the inside? Do we ever closely examine our own marriages/long term relationships? And is a marriage in America any different from one elsewhere? Who would know. Marriages are made of people - people in their enormous and amazing and tragic and hopeful and disillusioned diversity. Here we have a study of such a marriage, a beautifully written and deeply felt story of Celestial and Roy, a young black couple who live in Atlanta, Georgia. They both come from families who have 'made it' in American speak. Roy is hard working, ambitious, entrepreneurial, doing all the right things. Celestial is an artist, making bespoke dolls for other rising middle class black families. They are in their early '30s, recently married, living their lives, still growing and developing together, an incredible future in front of them. Until one night they are  caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Roy being the young black man in the wrong place at the wrong time ends up sentenced to prison for 12 years. If this isn't a crisis in a marriage, then what else is.

The marriage unravels. Celestial takes up with Andre, her childhood friend, who is Roy's best friend, and introduced them to each other. Then after 5 years, Roy's wrongful conviction is overturned, and Roy goes home to pick up the pieces with Celestial. You can guess that it is not going to go well. How does a writer deal with such a situation where the reader knows someone is going to lose? But who will it be, and how will it happen. Celestial, Roy and Andre are such real characters, so finely drawn as is the relationships between them. The chapters are told in turn mostly by Celestial and Roy, and in the second half also by Andre as they negotiate their relationships with each other and find a way around all this. Emotions are close to the surface, so mistakes are made, tempers frayed. But at all times, for me, it is so human, so real. This injustice and prison scenario may be unusual, but I expect the love triangle scenario is not, and could happen to any couple. It could happen this way to any couple, but in this story it is happening to a black American couple, which gives the random injustice of it all even greater poignancy and truth,

KARMA GONE BAD by Jenny Feldon

2004 young newly married all loved up, Jenny and her husband go to Hyderabad, India for a 2 year posting. The contrast from their well heeled, very comfortable and professional New York lives to the chaos, poverty, disorganisation, frustration and third world mismanagement of urban India could not be greater. The two extremes of 21st living in our world. For our intrepid travellers it becomes a disaster. And Jenny gleefully documents what is a classic culture shock experience; her husband would have been doing it just as bad, but really does not get much of a look in, other than being unsympathetic, unhelpful to her, although going through it all himself. Eventually she, and he, and their marriage comes through the other side, which of course accounts for her light hearted and what I have come to think of as arrogant attitude to her Indian experience.

I am scathing of her because only a couple of years later in 2007, my family of husband, 10 and 12 year old daughters and myself, 20 years older than Jenny, went to Bangalore for 12 months. Jenny and hubby were probably heading back to NY as we were arriving, but not much would have changed in the life of an expat white family in that two years. There is nothing about living in India as an expat which is easy, especially for women. Like Jenny we had to find our own housing, organise our own transport, bank accounts, relying on the kindness other expats than anyone from the employer. Our employer was of no use at all in the settling in process, unlike families who had been moved to India through their employment with big banks, computer companies, multi national retailers etc for whom all that settling in stuff was taken of. So I relate to how Jenny felt. It is a very challenging place to live in. To do it successfully requires some very deep digging into the personal psyche.

But it would appear she could have done a much better job of getting knowledge before she went. Her ignorance and complete lack of preparation for this adventure is really quite shameful and to a certain extent I feel she was the author of her own tough time. The energy and curiosity of a young person for the big wide world just did not seem to be there, almost as if NY is the center of the universe, and no other place is important. Her ignorance is shameful. She only had herself and her husband, and a dog - no children to worry about, to find school for and settle in, to feed a completely different diet because home food is not in India. Nowhere does she say that she talked to people about living in India, nowhere did she say she did research about anything about the place. Did she even read Lonely Planet India? And there were many books out there on culture shock, and various expat experiences. Her knowledge of basic health precautions was nil, they didn't even have a basic first aid kit. What she had in her head about even going to India, let alone living there, I really don't know. For someone with her education and apparent intelligence, it was well and truly hidden. India is not a place you go to lightly, even on holiday.

I could relate so much to what she experienced which is why I picked up the book to read in the first place. But she was such a princess, such a diva I got to the point, meanly, where I hoped she would give up. Good on her for not, and then having the courage and intelligence to start finding all the amazing things India has to offer. But there are way better books to read than this one on the corporate expat's experience of living in a place such as India.

THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ by Heather Morris

I resolved not to read any books this year about the Holocaust, or anything book about the suffering of people during and after WWII. Or any war for that matter. But this was a Xmas present, and is still a popular read in the bookshop I work at, so decided to read it. The author has written a novel, but she spent a fair amount of time interviewing and talking with the subject of the novel, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian born Jew, who ended up in Auchswitz and against every possible odd, survived. As did the young girl Gita, a fellow Slovakian Jew he fell in love with.

There are many stories of Auchswitz and the other camps, the horrors, brutality, the ghastliness of it all, the people who somehow managed to survive. And this is no different really, except that Lale makes a commitment to himself that he will survive, he will retain his self worth, his dignity, and do everything he can to help others. By chance he becomes the tattooist to the thousands and thousands of new arrivals that teem through the gates of Auchswitz. This affords him a slightly better standard of living than his fellows, giving some freedoms too that he audaciously takes advantage of to smuggle food, medicines, messages.

No spoilers in both Lale and Gita surviving, eventually going to Australia as refugees and making themselves a successful and happy life. These books, although prolific in number, are important testaments to a terrible time, and are constant reminders of the power of the human spirit, the bravery and courage of people in the most dreadful conditions. You can't imagine anyone surviving, but somehow luck is there, holding the power of life and death. This may not be the best literature around on the subject, but it is certainly a great page turner that will leave the reader breathless and grateful. 

THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2016 edited by Jonathan Franzen and Robert Atwan

I started reading a book about how to write a memoir or a short story. Won't be writing one soon... The author, whose name I now forget, suggested reading a book from this series of The Best American Essays. I randomly chose 2016, no rationale at all behind it. Each year has a different editor, and there is quite a strict criteria on essays which are eligible within any one year for selection. Editor Jonathan Franzen in his Forward picks the idea of risk as the theme of the essays that he chooses. He has a broad definition of risk: encompassing any decision or process that could be threatening to the writer or someone in the story. The stories that stick in my mind come from a university professor who may or may not be sabotaging her career through relationships with students, a man doing US/Mexico border patrol work, a journalist reporting on PTS following a stint in Afghanistan, writer Joyce Carol Oates on her younger autistic sister. Some stories I didn't finish, one or two I just did not get at all. But they were all written from the heart, the writers taking moments from their lives and crafting intriguing and revealing reading.

The quality of writing as one would expect is outstanding, at times words so beautifully put together, I just did not want the essays to end. I read on line  that this 2016 edition is not the best; this first timer certainly enjoyed it, and I  have now got the 2015 edition, which apparently is better than 2016. Looking forward to that. 

NEVER ANYONE BUT YOU by Rupert Thomson

A beautiful and true love story of life long devotion, beginning when Suzette and Lucie meet as children, feeling an instant attraction to each other. Suzette the writer, the photographer, the observer, the memory keeper drawn to the mercurial and volatile Lucie, overflowing with artistic talent. These two meet during the wonderful hedonistic years between the two wars. In a bizarre twist they become step sisters through the marriage of their parents, further bonding them for life. 

They take it upon themselves to challenge the norms of the time by changing their names to  Claude Chahun and Marcel Moore, cutting their hair, dressing in trousers. They live and breathe the bohemian lifestyle of Paris at this time, their artistic expression finding its perfect place in the surrealism art movement of the day. 

They had moved to the island of Jersey by the time the war started, and almost immediately continued to push the boundaries with their own form of resistance. The war years were hard on the people of the Channel Islands, Suzette and Lucie certainly suffering their share. But their bravery, their strength and their devotion to each other is inspiring, beautiful, and sees them through. 

It's a novel, but is also a true story. At times it reads more like a biography  than a novel, becoming a little ponderous and slow page turner. Then at other times the magic of the love takes over, and the writing takes on a lyrical quality worthy of the two artists the story is about. There is certainly a lot more action once the pair decamp to Jersey, outwitting the Germans, the full power and strength of their love shining through. I loved  the love story, the life long commitment to each other, through thick and thin. A marriage in everything but name. 

EDUCATED by Tara Westover

The author is now 31 years old, having written this book in her late twenties. The  level of maturity, of self-reflection and analysis is remarkable in one so young. And made more extraordinary by where this young woman came from. Not just her physical environment but the emotional and intellectual deprivation that dominated her early years, leaving her completely isolated from mainstream society. Her father was convinced the world was going to end sometime very soon, so had the whole family geared to survival after the apocalypse. His manic distrust of the authorities meant that his children never saw a doctor, never went to school and were actively discouraged from mixing with other children. It would seem there was little chance for young Tara to ever break out of this life.

But break out she did. Even after reading this book, it still seems hard to believe that she actually did make it - ending up with a PhD from Cambridge. A young woman with no formal education, very few role models to help her along, massive obstacles and traumas in her way from her family.   So many odds against her. The magical thing though about Tara is that because she had not grown up in a mainstream way she was a complete open book, a sponge almost when she got into her learn groove. Like a flower she blossomed. Hugely. But to get to where she is now was by no means an easy process. Obstacles galore, numerous derailments, but she gets there.

One does wonder what, if any, permanent damage has been done to this young woman with her upbringing, her estrangement from her family, the accuracy or otherwise of her stories - she is very open throughout the story about the differing versions of events that took place. It makes me wonder if her memory has deliberately blocked traumas out. Nevertheless this story is so special, so full of courage, strength, determination, and sheer grit.

BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD by Roald Dahl

Delightful, delightful and more delightful. The beginnings of the genius that gave us the BFG, Matilda, Willy Wonka and so many other wonderful characters and stories. The added plus of Quentin Blake's quirky, funny, and brilliant illustrations. Roald tells his story from the meeting of his parents up till his early years working for Shell. Largely brought up by his mother he and his siblings had a secure and it would appear uneventful childhood, with odd events happening that you can see form the background to his marvellous stories. If you love Dahl's books, you will love this, written in the same imaginative and enchanting manner. 

HOT FLUSH by Rosy Fenwicke

Along with death and taxes, menopause is a guarantee in life if you are female. Although many women would also agree that men go through a manopause, but that is an entirely different subject all together. So really this is a book that has the potential to be a compulsory read for every woman. And so it should be!!! Not because of the big M and the many negatives that word and state of being evoke,  but because it is a delightful, funny, slightly silly, uplifting, and very absorbing novel. The cover - how totally delish is that - who can resist a pug and a designer handbag?

The pug, going by the adorable name of Petal, belongs to Euphemia Sage, a 53 year old woman, happily married to Kenneth with whom she owns and manages a business consultancy - Sage Consulting. Both born and brought up in Wellington, they live close to the CBD, have two adult daughters and life is pretty peachy. Euphemia however knows that she has a predetermined destiny - she is genetically programmed, as the oldest daughter of an oldest daughter and so on back through time, that she will develop superhuman powers all in the name of doing good in the world. She has no idea what form all this will take but is very excited about the prospect of amazing things happening to her.

And suddenly they do! An old school friend, Jane, is in some serious trouble, and it appears that Sage Consulting's frumpy, grumpy, bedraggled receptionist Alison is somehow involved. Kenneth isn't much help as he has disappeared with Jane's husband and a few others to a weekend long golf tournament, leaving Euphemia, Jane and Petal to face up to the baddies.

You could quite easily see how this could descend into farce, complete silliness, stereotyped characters, and general mayhem. Well, let me tell you, it does not. This is as much a story of menopausal empowerment as it is a story of friendship, family, and simply getting on with it. Euphemia is such a great character - down to earth, hard working, determined, ever curious. She  has her intolerances with people she knows as we all do, her husband is not perfect as most husbands aren't, but she still loves him as most of us do too. This all makes her so relatable that her superpowers when they do show themselves, are exciting and amazing, and not weird or creepy as one may think. She knows how to kick butt, and she does. The other characters - Jane, Alison, Malcolm, Grant, daughters Kezia and Nicky, are all very real people. There is some cliche attached to each, but they are also very human in their goodness/badness, the reader glimpsing into their makeup and motivations.

I loved this, just loved it, reading it one Friday night when I had the house to myself, a glass of wine in hand, well, more than one actually, music playing and the cat stretched out on my legs. Totally perfect. I cannot wait to read the sequel to this 'No Sweat'. Don't you love those titles - Rosy Fenwicke - you are fabulous.