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170. The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Heather Bohart

Author:   Jennifer Ryan

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II

371 pages, published February 14, 2017

Reading Format:  E-Book on Overdrive

 

Summary

The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir is set during the early days of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet II in the bucolic village of Chilbury, England.  With many of the village men off to war, the ladies who remain in the village decide to ‘carry on singing’ as part of the “The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir.”  As they do, the war rages around them as Dunkirk is evacuated and the German drop bombs on their village.  The ladies suffer more than their share of loss.  However, they keep hope alive and life goes on with romances, intrigue and a bizarre and hilarious switched at birth story.

 

Quotes 

“Human nature defeats me sometimes, how greed and spite can lurk so divisively around the utmost courage and sacrifice.”

 

“I took a deep breath of the syrupy sweetness of summer, suffused with bees and birds, and I thought to myself how beautiful this world can be. How lucky we are to be here, to be part of it, for however long we have.”

 

“And I realized that this is what it’s like to be an adult, learning to pick from a lot of bad choices and do the best you can with that dreadful compromise. Learning to smile, to put your best foot forward, when the world around you seems to have collapsed in its entirety, become a place of isolation, a sepia photograph of its former illusion.”

 

 

“…we spoke about dying. [Prim] told me how she’d nearly died of malaria. She said that she didn’t mind the thought of death. That realizing you’re going to die actually makes life better as it’s only then that you decide to live the life you really want to live.”

 

Then I looked out onto the horizon myself and realized that loss is the same wherever you go: overwhelming, inexorable, deafening. How resilient human beings are that we can learn slowly to carry on when we are left all alone, left to fill the void as best we can. Or disappear into it.”

 

“If we don’t think about our death until we die, how can we decide how we want to live?”

 

My Take

During my thousand book quest, I have read a lot of books that take place during World War II (The Nightingale, The Girl You Left Behind, Life After Life, Going Solo, A God in Ruins, The End of the Affair, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, The Zookeeper’s Wife ) and for the most part, I have really enjoyed them.  The world at war, with the potential of a complete takeover by the Nazis, automatically raises the stakes in any book.  In a similar fashion to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir gives us the perspective of the British home front when invasion by the Germans felt imminent.  Jennifer Ryan is a skilled writer, creating a world that is easy to inhabit and characters that you want to get to know better.

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93. What Alice Forgot

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Heather Bohart

Author:   Lianne Moriarty

Genre:  Fiction, Romance

476 pages, published 2009

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

As the book opens, Alice Love is twenty-nine, head over heels in love with her husband and pregnant with her first child.  When Alice is admitted to the hospital after hitting her head at the gym, she is shocked to discover that she is actually 39 years old, has three kids, is in the middle of a nasty divorce and does not seem to be the person she thought she was.  As the book unfolds, Alice must discover what happened to her and the idyllic life she thought she had.  

 

Quotes

“Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It’s light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you’ve hurt each other and forgiven each other, bored each other and surprised each other, after you’ve seen the worst and the best– well, that sort of love is ineffable. It deserves its own word.”

 

“He got Alice, the way we did, or maybe even more so than us. He made her more confident, funnier, smarter. He brought out all the things that were there already and let her be fully herself, so she seemed to shine with this inner light.”

 

“They would think she was savoring the taste (blueberries, cinnamon, cream-excellent), but she was actually savoring the whole morning, trying to catch it, pin it down, keep it safe before all those precious moments became yet another memory.”

 

“How strange it all was. Wouldn’t it be a lot less messy if everyone just stayed with the people they married in the first place?”

 

“She was busy thinking about the concept of forgiveness. It was such a lovely, generous idea when it wasn’t linked to something awful that needed forgiving.”

 

“It was good to remember that for every horrible memory from her marriage, there was also a happy one. She wanted to see it clearly, to understand that it wasn’t all black, or all white. It was a million colors. And yes, ultimately it hadn’t worked out, but that was okay. Just because a marriage ended didn’t mean that it hadn’t been happy at times.”

 

“Each memory, good and bad, was another invisible thread that bound them together, even when they were foolishly thinking they could lead separate lives. It was as simple and complicated as that.”

 

“There just wasn’t enough time in 2008. It had become a limited resource. Back in 1998, the days were so much more spacious. When she woke up in the morning, the day rolled out in front of her like a long hallway for her to meander down, free to linger over the best parts. Days were so stingy now. Mean slivers of time. They flew by like speeding cars. Whoosh! When she was pulling back the blankets to hop into bed each night, it felt as if only seconds ago.”

 

“But maybe every life looked wonderful if all you saw was the photo albums.”

 

“I’d be at work where poeple respected my opinions, said Nick. And then, I’d come home and it was like I was the village idiot.”

 

“We’d traveled, we’d been to lots of parties, lots of movies and concerts, we’d slept in. We’d done all those things that people with children seem to miss so passionately. We didn’t want those things anymore. We wanted a baby.”

 

“I remember how it crept up so slowly on me, like that agonizingly slow old electric blanket which used to almost imperceptibly heat up my frosty sheets, second by second, until I’d think, “Hey, I haven’t shivered in a while. Actually, I’m warm. I’m blissfully warm.” That’s how it was with Ben. I moved on from “I really shouldn’t be leading this guy on when I have no interest” to “He’s not that bad-looking really” to “I sort of enjoy being with him” to “Actually, I’m crazy about him.”

 

My Take

What Alice Forgot is the third book by Liane Moriarity that I have read since starting my thousand book quest (the first two are Big Little Lies and The Husband’s Secret) and it does not disappoint.  Moriarity has a formula that typifies her books and it works well for her.  Her books are set in Australia with several female protagonists and one or, usually more than one, of them has a conflict to be resolved.  There is also typically some sort of twist.  By the end of the book, all has been settled and the characters are ready to move on with their newly improved lives. While What Alice Forgot hews closely to the Moriarity formula, it’s insights into long-term marriages and how we change in them does offer some novelty and interest.  Easy read.  Perfect vacation book.

 

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73. The Husband’s Secret

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Heather Bohart

Author:   Liane Moriarty

Genre:  Fiction

396 pages, published July 30, 2013

Reading Format:  Book

 

Summary

The Husband’s Secret is a suspenseful novel that, as with many Liane Moriarity books, tells the intersecting stories of several Australian women.  The central character is Cecilia Fitzpatrick who, for all intents and purposes, seems to have it all.  She’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother.  Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home.  However, when rummaging through the attic she discovers a letter that is only meant to be read upon her husband’s death.  She can’t help herself and reads it and discovers her husband’s secret.  Once she does, not only Cecelia and her family but many of others in her community, experience life changing repercussions.

 

Quotes

“This was how it could be done. This was how you lived with a terrible secret. You just did it. You pretended everything was fine. You ignored the deep, cramplike pain in your stomach. You somehow anesthetized yourself so that nothing felt that bad, but nothing felt that good either.”

 

“Her goodness had limits. She could have easily gone her whole life without knowing those limits, but now she knew exactly where they lay.”

 

“Falling in love was easy.  Anyone could fall.  It was holding on that was tricky.”

 

“All these years there had been a Tupperware container of bad language in her head, and now she opened it and all those crisp, crunchy words were fresh and lovely, ready to be used.”

 

“None of us ever know all the possible courses our lives could have, and maybe should have taken.”

 

“It’s all about our egos. She felt she was on the edge of understanding something important. They could fall in love with fresh, new people, or they could have the courage and humility to tear off some essential layer of themselves and reveal to each other a whole new level of otherness, a level far beyond what sort of music they liked. It seemed to her everyone had too much self-protective pride to truly strip down to their souls in front of their long-term partners. It was easier to pretend there was nothing more to know, to fall into an easygoing companionship. It was almost embarrassing to be truly intimate with your spouse; how could you watch someone floss one minute, and the next minute share your deepest passion or most ridiculous, trite little fears? It was almost easier to talk about that sort of thing before you’d shared a bathroom and a bank account and argued over the packing of the dishwasher.”

 

“Marriage was a form of insanity; love hovering permanently on the edge of aggravation.”

 

“Polly had arrived in the world outraged to discover that her sisters had gotten there before her.”

 

“The words “I´m sorry” felt like an insult. You said “I´m sorry” when you bumped against someone´s supermarket trolley. There need to be bigger words.”

 

“When you didn’t let a woman help, it was a way of keeping her at a distance, of letting her know that she wasn’t family, of saying I don’t like you enough to let you into my kitchen.”

 

“She was a far better mother when she had an audience.”

 

“Life would go back to being unendurable, except – and this was the worst part – she would in fact endure it, it wouldn’t kill her, she’d keep on living day after day after day, an endless loop of glorious sunrises and sunsets that Janie never got to see.”

 

My Take

The Husband’s Secret is the second book by Liane Moriarity that I read this year (the first was Big Little Lies).  Moriarity has a formula to her books.  She sets up several women with intersecting lives as her characters, spends the first part of the book alluding to an event while keeping some mystery about the details of the event, and then shows how the characters lives change in reaction to the event.  It’s a formula that works pretty well.  Moriarity creates interesting and well developed characters and locations and the element of mystery keeps you turning the pages.  I recommend The Husband’s Secret.  A great read while on vacation.

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15. The Girl on the Train

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Heather Bohart

Author:  Paula Hawkins

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Suspense

Info:  395 pages, published January 13, 2015

Format:  Audio Book

Summary 

The Girl on the Train is psychological thriller told from the point of view of three women: Rachel, Anna, and Megan.  Rachel Watson is a 32-year-old alcoholic who frequently binges and has blackouts.  Rachel’s life has been in a downward tailspin since her divorce from Tom, who left her for another woman, Anna Watson. Tom and Anna are now married and have a baby daughter which exacerbates Rachel’s self-destructive tendencies, as it was her inability to conceive a child that began her spiral into alcoholism.  

Rachel’s drinking has caused her to lose her job, a fact which she hides from her roommate by taking the train into the city every day.  While the train slowly passes her old house, which is now occupied by Tom, Anna, and their daughter, Rachel begins watching an unknown, attractive couple who live a few houses away from Tom, and fantasizes about the couple’s perfect life together until Rachel sees the wife kissing another man.  

When the wife goes missing after Rachel experiences a drunken blackout, Rachel begins to question whether she bears any responsibility.  As Rachel inserts herself into Scott Hipwell’s life and the investigation into Megan’s disappearance, the story unfolds in unpredictable ways.

 

Quotes

“But I did become sadder, and sadness gets boring after a while, for the sad person and for everyone around them.”

“I’d never realized, not until the last year or two of my life, how shaming it is to be pitied.”

”let’s be honest: women are still only really valued for two things—their looks and their role as mothers.”

“She must be very secure in herself, I suppose, in them, for it not to bother her, to walk where another woman has walked before.  She obviously doesn’t think of me as a threat. I think about Ted Hughes, moving Assia Wevill into the home he’d shared with Plath, of her wearing Sylvia’s clothes, brushing her hair with the same brush. I want to ring Anna up and remind her that Assia ended up with her head in the oven, just like Sylvia did.”

“I have never understood how people can blithely disregard the damage they do by following their hearts.  Who was it said that following your heart is a good thing? It is pure egotism, a selfishness to conquer all.”

“How much better life must have been for jealous drunks before emails and texts and mobile phones, before all this electronica and the traces it leaves.”

“it’s possible to miss what you’ve never had, to mourn for it.”

“Hollowness:  that I understand. I’m starting to believe that there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’s what I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holes in your life are permanent. You have to grow around them, like tree roots around concrete; you mold yourself through the gaps.”

“The thing about being barren is that you’re not allowed to get away from it. Not when you’re in your thirties. My friends were having children, friends of friends were having children, pregnancy and birth and first birthday parties were everywhere. I was asked about it all the time. My mother, our friends, colleagues at work. When was it going to be my turn? At some point our childlessness became an acceptable topic of Sunday-lunch conversation, not just between Tom and me, but more generally. What we were trying, what we should be doing, do you really think you should be having a second glass of wine? I was still young, there was still plenty of time, but failure cloaked me like a mantle, it overwhelmed me, dragged me under, and I gave up hope.”

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