BOOK: The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton, 317 pages

Early Reviewer Book from LibraryThing; Orange Longlist 2010

The plot summary sounded great - after a sex scandal at a private school, the nearby acting school decides to put on a play about the incident. The execution was thoroughly disorienting. Until I read in another review that the girls in the high school were in chapters labeled with days of the week, and the acting students were in chapters labeled with months, I was very confused. That helped a bit. I believe that some of the vignettes (the plot is nonlinear and the view is always changing) were the actual play, but I'm still not completely sure.

I continued reading because it was an Early Reviewer book, and somewhere in the middle, the story became a bit more clear for me. When the story stayed with the acting students I liked it much better. Over all, I don't like reading a story that makes me feel stupid because I can't figure out who anyone is or what is happening. Usually by the end I can have a good picture of the book, but this one left me baffled. Other readers who can deal with such a nonstandard novel may enjoy it, but it didn't work for me.

The Rehearsal was on the longlist for the 2010 Orange Prize, and it certainly had the feel of a 'prize winning' book, but not the kind I like, the kind that are more about the writing and the technique than the story. I read an interview with Catton in Belletrista, and it made me appreciate her writing and recognize that she was deliberate in all her decisions about the book.


also reviewed:
clare at paperbackreader
jackie at farmlanebooks
buried at buried in print

BOOK: Rain Song by Alice J Wisler

Title and author of book?
Rain Song by Alice J Wisler (to be published October 2008)

Fiction or non-fiction? Genre?
fiction, southern,
Possibly Christain? it was subtle, but it was published by Bethany House which leads me to believe this.

What led you to pick up this book?
I won it as an Early Reader edition from Librarything

Summarize the plot, but don't give away the ending!
Here's the blurb that made me request this novel:

Nicole Michelin avoids airplanes, motorcycles, and most of all, Japan, where her parents once were missionaries. Something happened in Japan. Something that sent Nicole and her father back to America alone. Something of which Nicole knows only bits and pieces. But she is content with life in little Mount Olive, North Carolina, with her quirky relatives, tank of lively fish, and plenty of homemade pineapple chutney. Through her online column for the Pretty Fishy website, Nicole meets Harrison Michaels, who, much to her dismay, lives in Japan. She attempts to avoid him, but his e-mails tug at her heart.
Then Harrison reveals that he knew her as a child in Japan. In fact, he knows more about her childhood than she does! Will Nicole face her fears in order to discover her past and take a chance on love?


What did you like most about the book?
I liked that Nicole had to face some of her fears; that it used emails and the small world we live in to move the plot.
I liked the strong family portrayed.

What did you like least?
It was a little predictable and I would have liked to see to have seen more at the end, but maybe there's a sequel planned?
There are a lot of peripheral characters that could be fleshed out a bit more. For example, it was a bit of a tease to only see a bit of what happened with her cousin Grable's marriage. I would have liked more Grable, but then, it wasn't her story.

Have you read any other books by this author? What did you think of those books? This is Wisler's first novel.

What did you think of the main character?
I liked Nicole a lot. I liked how she hid a lot of her fears and looked to be functioning normally but was a wreck on the inside in many ways.

Any other particularly interesting characters?
It's a southern book! Lots. Nicole's grandmother, Ducee was a really strong character and acted as Nicole's rock. I liked her teacher friend who keeps Nicole in the present, I liked her crazy aunt who kept calling her, and her niece Monet, the wild child. And there was a donkey, not a mule, but a donkey.

Share a quote from the book:
I read an Advance Reading Copy and quotes are not allowed!

Share a favorite scene from the book.
I liked Nicole's trip to the airport.

What about the ending?
A bit predictable, but at the same time, I wouldn't have wanted another ending.

Which of your readers are most likely to enjoy this book? Why?
Fans of southern novels, readers who like a hopeful, family based story.

BOOK: The Interloper by Antoine Wilson

The Interloper by Antoine Wilson

Early Reader book from LibraryThing

Creepiest narrator since Humbert Humbert. I invoke the Lolita narrator here because this book reminded me of Lolita in some ways. Not in the pedophile topic, but in the way that there are people in our society who exist and live, seemingly normal or maybe just a little off, but who are, in fact, certifiably crazy. That they can live and exist for so long with no one apparently noticing is extremely scary. Wilson did a great job of creating a character who bumbles along but has such a tenuous hold on reality that it just takes one event to send him reeling.

Owen is married to Patty. While on their honeymoon, Patty's brother CJ is murdered. Her family is plunged into grief, and Owen, who barely knew CJ, blames Henry Joseph Raven the convicted murderer for changing Patty. He becomes fixated on exacting revenge for Patty. He decides to create a woman, Lily, to write to Raven in jail, and then break his heart. Creating Lily brings up all kinds of craziness from Owen's own childhood, basing Lily on his dead cousin Eileen with whom he had been in love. (More parallels to Lolita with HH's obsession with a love affair in his teenage years.)

The book drew me in, as it was possible to see Owen's world from the rest of the character's point of view through his own narrative, and to see his spiraling downward as events progress. The clues he drops let the reader realize how disconnected Owen was from reality while at the same time, appearing to function mostly. He became so obsessed with avenging Patty to bring her out of her grief, he doesn't even recognize that she is progressing through the natural stages of grief and getting better, and while he is mad at her for obsessing over her brother, he can't see that she is moving on. He ignores all the signs of getting better and focusing instead on one mention of her brother to confirm that he needs to continue his diabolical plan.

A tight psychological thriller, I really enjoyed. It was a lesser version of Lolita, but I liked it better because it felt much more accessible as a reader, and didn't have so much extra levels. That sounds like a criticism, but it isn't. The Interloper was the parts of Lolita I liked (looking at the mind of a whack job as he reflects and justifies his actions), without the stuff I didn't (extra levels and symbolism). Thanks LibraryThing for the copy. It wasn't an ARC because this book was released in 2007.