Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Eight: Orphan Train

So about a year ago, a coworker recommended Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train to me, and for some reason the time just didn't feel right to read it, though it looked good.  Then my mother read the book and recommended it to me, so I decided I should finally check it out, and lo and behold, the recommenders were right: it was an enjoyable read!  The story is split between narrators (a teenage Penobscot Indian girl in foster care; a wealthy elderly widow) and settings (contemporary Maine; 1930s Minnesota), and while it's not super hard to figure out how the two stories are intertwined, each story is interesting enough in its own right to keep the momentum of the novel as a whole.  Also, the historical part of the story deals with so-called orphan trains (hence the title), which are a part of American history I knew nothing about, and now at least I know a little about the former practice of sending orphans from urban slums out to the Midwest in the hopes of adoption.  In addition to the interesting settings, Kline's characters are finely drawn, and the narrators in particular elicited my empathy and drew me into their stories.  For readers who enjoy historical and contemporary fiction as well as stories that foster an emotional connection to the characters, I'd definitely suggest reading Orphan Train.

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Seven: The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

This giant book by Emily Croy Barker caught my eye on the library's shelves partly because it's so huge (upward of 500 pages), and partly because of its long title, and partly because the dust jacket is so pretty.  Nora, a struggling grad student who's just been dumped by her longtime boyfriend, accidentally wanders into another, magical world--but this world turns out to be not quite the fantasy it at first seems and in fact is quite dangerous.  Unable to return home, Nora struggles to find her footing in this mysterious new world, and I at least was enthralled by her adventures here.  Full of great world-building, intricate plots and subplots, and plenty of emotional intrigue and complicated relationships, I could hardly put this story down!

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Six: Every Heart a Doorway

So I read this quick little book by Seanan McGuire on the recommendation of two of my coworkers at the library, and I'm so glad I decided to read it.  Ever wondered what life was like for Alice or the Pevensies or anyone else who gets through to a magical world and then has to return home?  Every Heart a Doorway explores what might happen to teens who've had adventures in other worlds and then end up back in the real world.  In this case, they end up at a boarding school run by a mysterious and sympathetic old lady who simultaneously tries to help them move on and find the doorways back to their other world.  When our heroine arrives at school, she's not sure what to expect, and when students at the school start being murdered, she's the number one suspect.  A strange mix of boarding school story, fantasy, and murder mystery, this interesting little book captured me from page with its excellent writing.  If you're willing to suspend your disbelief for a while, give Every Heart a Doorway a try.

Chapter One Hundred Sixty-Five: Lucky Us

So after a crazy spring, I'm finally coming into some free time again and will be updating my blog again, regularly, I hope!  First up: Lucky Us, by Amy Bloom.  This is one of many books my grandmother gave me that I'm finally getting around to reading, so it's not something I would have picked out on my own, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  Lucky Us follows half sisters Iris and Eva and their haphazard family of misfits from Ohio to Hollywood to New York City in the late 1930s and into the 1940s. While Iris is the aspiring actress and Eva seems to be the sidekick wandering aimlessly through Iris's life, Eva is really the heart of this story, even as some chapters consist not of Eva's first person narration but of letters from Iris or other characters.  This story has a sort of emotionally detached feeling that doesn't usually appeal to me, but for some reason the dispassionate distance between me and the characters really worked with this story, and I enjoyed it immensely.