The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (Review by AmberBug)

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry Gabrielle Zevin 4.5/5	Published 2014 First Sentence "On the ferry from Hyannis to Alice Island, Amelia Loman paints her nails yellow and, while waiting for them to dry, skims her predecessor's notes."
Publisher's Description: On the faded Island Books sign hanging over the porch of the Victorian cottage is the motto "No Man Is an Island; Every Book Is a World." A. J. Fikry, the irascible owner, is about to discover just what that truly means. A. J. Fikry's life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island-from Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who's always felt kindly toward Fikry; from Ismay, his sister-in-law who is hell-bent on saving him from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who keeps on taking the ferry over to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.'s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly. And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It's a small package, but large in weight. It's that unexpected arrival that gives A. J. Fikry the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn't take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J.; or for that determined sales rep, Amelia, to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light; or for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.'s world; or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn't see coming. As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.
Dear Reader, How adorable is this book? I want to pick it up and snuggle it to death! This is the perfect book to read in a cozy chair in the library or by a nice warm fire in the winter, absolutely PERFECT book for that. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (TSLOAJF?) has all those romantic touches for a book lover, such a great lovable/snuggable book. Every literary reference has you petting the spine, each quirky character has you inhaling the dusty/glue filled scent wafting from the book... each chapter you fall deeper into the pages and into love. Ah shucks, you get the point. Anybody who loves books MUST read this... let me repeat... MUST read this. I think the perfect word for TSLOAJF is cozy. Should I even go into what the book is about? I guess I'll give you some keywords; bookstore, piles of books, orphan, remote island, small community, love, vintage clothes, wait... did I mention piles of books? A.J. Fikry is a cantankerous book snob with an underlying soft heart, he owns the local bookstore on a remote touristy island. He meets a new sales rep for one of the publishers, Amelia, who represents everything A.J. is not... tolerant, lovable, and sociable. Next, enter baby Maya, left on the doorstep of the bookstore/home of A.J. Fikry with a note. The plot is a little wacky, but the love is in all the little details. I'm not the romance type, but this passage made me swoon a little: “All I can say is . . . All I can say is we’ll figure it out, I swear. When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart, Amy.”  Ahhhhh, I would probably lose my breath if a man said that to me. Enough will all my blah, blah, blah... I've said my peace. Meh, once more with feeling! READ this book if going into a bookstore will rob your wallet, READ this book if you think libraries are heaven on earth, READ this book if you can't get enough cheesy biblio jokes, READ this book if you like to smell books (why do we do this??), READ this if you have a "to-read" list that gives you panic attacks, and finally READ this if you think books have a heartbeat. Yeah, I do too. Happy Reading, AmberBug

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All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 5 / 5	Published 2105 First Sentence "At dusk they pour from the sky."
Publisher's Description: Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is 12, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Dear Reader, If there ever was something close to the perfectly crafted novel for me, this was it. What an amazing reading experience. Doerr writes beautiful, tender, empathetic prose which unwinds the story with the ideal blend of detail and pacing. I won't soon forget this gem of a book, most particularly for the way it humanized the German side of the war experience as much as the more sympathetic one. I adored the way the two stories unfolded towards one another, like the flattening of Max's paper planes, until their edges just touched. The rich descriptions of wartime Europe struck me on every page, and I was impressed with how well Doerr wrote the entire experience of Marie-Laure's world from the blind girl's four remaining senses. Every experience of the characters was felt by the reader. The little touches were what really got to me: Werner's childhood interest in radios (told in truly believable detail), Marie-Laure's passion for sea creatures (based upon reading Jules Verne at an impressionable age),  Frederik's obession with birds (to the exclusion of almost all else). The miniature cities which Monsieur Le Blanc builds for his daughter, incorporating clever locking mechanisms from his own talents. The hermit, the orphan sister, the housekeeper, the baker's wife, the giant: all carried so vividly through the page, with their own foibles and cares. I wondered often why Doerr chose 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as his parallel text, as it were. Is it because the Le Blancs ultimately ended up living on the edge of Atlantic? Is it because echoes of the maniacal Captain Nemo perhaps could be spotted in Hitler? Was it because there was adventure in exploration, and Marie-Laure needed to learn to embrace it rather than fear it? I am still trying to figure that out, but I think the choice was a great one. The snippets of the Verne work scattered throughout the Doerr novel were well-placed and sometimes surprisingly appropriate. I feel like I can't say it more succinctly or more poetically than this paragraph I stumbled across from Booklist: "A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr's magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed. . . . Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably re-creates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers." —Brad Hooper,Booklist, April 15, 2014 You may have already heard a lot about this novel; it is certainly getting talked about. And deservedly so. I plan to press this into the hands of everyone I know. Or maybe even those I don't know. Yours, Arianna

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Small as an Elephant

Small as an Elephant Jennifer Richard Jacobson 3.5 / 5	Published 2011 First Paragraph "Elephants can sense danger. They're able to detect an approaching tsunami or earthquake before it hits. Unfortunately, Jack did not have this talent. The day his life was turned upside down, he was caught unaware."
Publisher's Description: Jack’s mom is gone, leaving him all alone on a campsite in Maine. Can he find his way back to Boston before the authorities realize what happened? Ever since Jack can remember, his mom has been unpredictable, sometimes loving and fun, other times caught in a whirlwind of energy and "spinning" wildly until it’s over. But Jack never thought his mom would take off during the night and leave him at a campground in Acadia National Park, with no way to reach her and barely enough money for food. Any other kid would report his mom gone, but Jack knows by now that he needs to figure things out for himself - starting with how to get from the backwoods of Maine to his home in Boston before DSS catches on. With nothing but a small toy elephant to keep him company, Jack begins the long journey south, a journey that will test his wits and his loyalties - and his trust that he may be part of a larger herd after all.
Dear Reader, This was an adorable and uplifting little book. It's a middle-grade book, which means it's aimed toward pre-teens. Which also meant that it was a quick read, but I quite enjoyed it. It follows the adventures of Jack, who wakes up on the first day of his camping trip to find that his mother has abandoned him - not an unusual occurrence with this woman, apparently. So Jack decides (after waiting for a bit for her to return) that it's up to him to get himself home. He refuses to ask for help because he is concerned that he will get taken from his mother. Which, yes, we all believe that he should be taken away from this woman who won't even care for her own son! But Jack is afraid because his mom is the only caretaker he's ever known, and she's effectively isolated him from the rest of their family. So if he gets caught and they realize he isn't being properly taken care of, he worries about being sent to live with his grandmother or to a foster home. So his fears make sense (he is only eleven, after all!), so he sets out on a journey from an island off the coast of Maine to his home in Boston. The characters Jack encounters in his travels are great: the gruff farm woman, the sweetheart Big Jack, the reckless teenager he rides with for a bit (to name only a few). They all stood out well and really made the story have great variety and depth. And Jack really does seem like a smart and upstanding kid: he cleverly gets his way out of scrapes and is very resourceful in his avoidance of stealing from others as much as possible. My favorite part of the book, though, was its focus on elephants: every chapter started with a little factoid about elephants, and I learned so many neat things! (Just ask my fiance, who had to listen to me read him something almost every chapter!) I don't particularly love elephants more than other animals, but I do think they are pretty darned cool creatures - and even more so now! Yours, Arianna

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The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 4.5/5	Published 2013 First Sentence "While I was still in Amsterdam, I dreamed about my mother for the first time in years."
Publisher's Description: A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and determined to avoid being taken in by the city as an orphan, Theo scrambles between nights in friends’ apartments and on the city streets. He becomes entranced by the one thing that reminds him of his mother, a small, mysteriously captivating painting that soon draws Theo into the art underworld.
Dear Reader, I finally got around to reading one of the most talked about books of 2013, The Goldfinch. This story follows Theo Decker, a boy who survives a horrible accident at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which then follow him throughout the years as he grows older. Theo becomes the sad orphan with loss surrounding him. During his teen years, he meets Boris, who he becomes best friends with.  The book doesn't actually have much plot, it does have some big turning point events that bring us many philosophical questions. For Example, would Theo be different if he didn't become an orphan so young? This book brings up many "what if" questions, mostly about the choices made and events that play out. I don't want to delve to deep because as River Song always says, "Spoilers!" I can skim over some of the themes Tartt forces us to think about while reading this book.  Theo and Boris give off this yin/yang personality types. Theo is the grounded, depressed and brooding type, while Boris just wants to have fun and follows whatever path benefits him the most. Boris views Theo's brooding as strange and doesn't understand why he can't just enjoy and let go. I loved the dynamic between the two. It was fun watching Boris pull Theo down the path of trouble, which undeniably gave Theo a more exciting life. So what is more important? Living a safe life that will include the stupid all american dreams of white picket fence. Maybe this isn't YOUR dream and I always hate how the typical American believes this is what we should strive for. Maybe this isn't for everyone! I think Boris knows this about life and he accepts that sometimes doing the "wrong" thing might be the "right" thing for him, later in life karma catches up and maybe not in the bad way you'd expect it to. This book made me think, quiet a bit... about things that I haven't thought about in quite some time. I really understood the point the Author was making about grey morals and those borders you sometimes have to cross. Nothing is black and white, I know... such a cliche but so very true. You can't point a finger at someone and say they've never done something against the rules. Everyone has and everyone will, whether you repent for it in church or just sit and brood over it yourself... there's that moment when you ask yourself, "Why? Why is this wrong? Who made this rule? Who is the one who decides right from wrong?" My opinion is that it should be YOURSELF. You should decide if the consequences of your actions are morally wrong by how they'll make you feel. This is obviously easier done after you've been around long enough to learn from past mistakes but I do believe that the majority of people are inherently good people, and if given the choice (without a rule stapled to it), they'd chose the option that will be the best for everyone in the long wrong. Nobody wants to feel guilt, remorse or feel that stabbing pain from doing something you consider wrong. What if we took that out of the equation? That would be interesting, wouldn't it? But I digress, I believe Boris felt this way and this was one of those debates that popped back into my head like a long lost friend. I imagined myself running to meet this bundle of philosophy and wrapping my arms around it, attempting to untangle the mess it worked itself into. Getting back to the book, as you can see The Goldfinch wasn't what was expected, it wasn't the literary mystery I thought it would be. The mystery was more within the personality of the characters and how they'd turn out in the end. Maybe more of a "coming of age" story than a "mystery". Do I think this surprise stopped many people from enjoying the book for what it ACTUALLY was? Yes, I do... and that's a shame. But for those going into a book that throws you a curve ball in a different but welcoming direction, just embrace it... you'll thank yourself in the end.  Happy Reading, AmberBug

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