Review: Circle of Cranes

Cover Summary:

A lyrical fantasy blending fairy tale elements with contemporary issues 

Thirteen-year-old Suyin is a poor orphan who has a strange gift with languages and a mysterious connection to the cranes in her small Chinese village. When a shady human trafficker arrives promising luxury and riches beyond belief in America, the villagers elect Suyin - whom they consider lucky - to go as their benefactress. But instead of luxury, Suyin is forced to work in a sweatshop in New York City's Chinatown. Suyin's future seems hopeless, until her beloved cranes arrive and reveal that she is no ordinary girl - instead, she is the daughter of the Crane Queen. Now her mother's life is in danger, and Suyin must prove herself worthy of her position as the Crane Princess, in order to save her mother and the entire clan of cranes. 

For fans of Grace Lin and Laurence Yep, this is a beautiful story of the meaning of family and finding one's true path in life.

An ancient Chinese myth. Labour politics in 21^st-century New York. You wouldn’t expect these things to fit together, but Annette LeBox combines them with enviable grace.

It’s the details that sell it. The writing is as lovely and precise as her heroine’s embroidery. When Suyin transforms into a crane, LeBox names her bones as they transform. When she remembers her beloved mother, it’s with the exact clothes and jewelry that represent the traditions of her culture.

Besides that, LeBox never hesitates to challenge her heroine. Being the princess of a flock of magical bird-women in no way excuses Suyin from having to learn things the hard way. As an undocumented immigrant, eating rats to survive the boat ride and working in a sweatshop to pay off her travel fees, her challenges are the sort most white North American readers like me can barely imagine. She doesn’t always respond heroically, either; she snaps under pressure, stays quiet when her co-workers are bullied, and generally acts like a 13-year-old human being.

This only makes it all the more satisfying when she does evolve into someone who can control her impulses and protect her friends. Every success, financial and emotional, feels earned.

This may be a fantasy novel, but the most beautiful things in it are true, and so are the most frightening.

Chinese women really did develop a secret form of writing centuries ago after being forbidden to learn men’s writing. 

The villagers near Cao Hai Lake really do protect endangered birds.

Factory owners really do exploit immigrants in North America to this day. 

Shape-shifting and parallel universes are just the icing on the cake.

Playlist: The Look of Love

This is a fan tribute to The Look of Love by Sarah Jio, which I recently reviewed.

I coloured the different songs according to John Lee's Six Love Styles, the theory which inspired the novel.

All song lyrics quoted belong to their respective artists and recording companies. Any translations of German lyrics are mine.

All images were found on Google and labeled for reuse.

Caution: Lyrics may imply spoilers about the novel's plot.

Josh/Katie

(Eros: Lust)

"When my legs don't work like they used to before

and I can't sweep you off of your feet,

will my mouth still remember the taste of your love?

Will your eyes still smile from your cheeks?"

- Ed Sheeran, "Thinking Out Loud"

Mary/Luca

(Agape: Unconditional Love)

 "I don't mind spending every day

out in your corner in the pouring rain.

Look for the girl with the broken smile.

Ask her if she wants to stay a while.

- Maroon 5, "She Will Be Loved"

Mel/Vivian

(Storge: Friendship)

"I've been spending the last eight months

thinking all love ever does

is break and burn and end - 

but on a Wednesday, in a cafe,

I watched it begin again."

- Taylor Swift, "Begin Again"

Charles/Elaine/Matthew

(Pragma: Rational Love)

"How can you just up and walk away

and look me in the eye and say

you did it all for love?"

"What was I supposed to do?

Falling out can be so cruel,

but I just can't ignore the truth."

- Lady Antebellum, "All For Love"

Lo/Grant/Jennifer

(Ludus: The Game of Love)

"Objection! I don't wanna be the exception

to get a bit of your attention.

I love you for free and I'm not your mother

but you don't even bother.

Objection! I'm tired of this triangle,

got dizzy dancing tango.

I'm falling apart in your hands again.

No way - I've got to get away."

- Shakira, "Objection"

Flynn/Celeste

(Mania: Obsession)

“When you can't sleep at night, you turn towards me
and I cool your forehead without knowing about your fever
and the same yellow carnations wilt on the walls
and you cry as if from another country … ”         - City, “Wand an Wand” (“Wall to Wall”)

Jane/Cam

"Whatever you think, wherever this is going,

whatever we feel (maybe it's just an illusion),

you've been a gift since I first met you.

Since I first met you, I wear joy in my eyes."

- Herbert Groenemeyer, "Glueck im Blick" ("Joy In My Eyes")

Review: The Look of Love

Cover Summary:

Born during a Christmas blizzard, Jane Williams receives a rare gift: the ability to see true love. Jane has emerged from an ailing childhood a lonely, hopeless romantic when, on her twenty-ninth birthday, a mysterious greeting card arrives, specifying that Jane must identify the six types of love before the full moon following her thirtieth birthday, or face grave consequences. When Jane falls for a science writer who doesn’t believe in love, she fears that her fate is sealed. Inspired by the classic song, The Look of Love is utterly enchanting.

The explanation for Jane’s ability to see love, and the challenge she receives, may seem a bit arbitrary - why six types of love, and why the punishment if she fails? But it is this very rigid structure that allows the author to explore love in all its diverse and unpredictable beauty.

Jane finds six couples in her circle of friends, charting the course of their love stories in third person narration as well as her own in first person. Some of them surprised me with their endings, but yes, some of them are cliché. Not all of the couples are neatly paired off, either, at the end. I’ll let you guess which ones:

• ·      Flynn, Jane’s brother, is fascinated by a beautiful artist he never speaks to, and only sees through glass.
• ·      Lo, Jane’s co-worker, is an expert at casual dating. But when the best match she’s ever had turns out to be married, all her expertise may not keep her from getting hurt.
• ·      Elaine, married with children, is torn between her kind but predictable husband and the impulsive neighbour who wants to fly with her in a hot air balloon.
• ·      Mary, pregnant and divorced, is falling for the Italian contractor she hired to remodel her kitchen. But is it fair to ask him to take her on, with all the responsibilities involved?
• ·      Mel, a 73-year-old newsstand owner, was heartbroken for years when his wife died. Now he’s finally interested in someone new – an English aristocrat who wouldn’t look at him twice.
• ·      Josh and Katie are engaged and couldn’t be happier – until one of them disappears.

The story shines most during those scenes where Jane is going about her daily life, and her gift surprises her. For example, she looks at a handsome young man offering a diamond ring to his girlfriend, and the telltale haze in her vision isn’t there. She looks at a middle-aged woman nagging her husband not to eat cheese when he’s lactose intolerant, and their aura almost blinds her.

Jane’s own love story, unfortunately, is a weak point in the book. Cameron Collins, her love interest, is too arrogant for such a gentle, lonely woman. The first time they meet, being drunk at a New Year’s Eve party and upset by his cynicism, she tells him about her gift and how it proves the existence of love. He mocks her for it, then several days later, practically orders her to have dinner with him. Why she accepts is a mystery, unless it’s because he looks good in tweed.

He does turn out to have some human vulnerability later on, but she doesn’t know that in the beginning. As for the classic “third act misunderstanding” that almost drives them apart, I saw that coming a mile away.

Still, the two of them share some interesting, Star Trek-style debates about logic versus emotion.

“The brain isn’t made to sustain that feeling of intoxication,” he tells her (p. 77). “Even the greatest love stories turn to pots and pans.”

“But (…) there is still love in the pots and pans. Deep love,” she retorts several weeks later (p. 177).

Or, in the words of my mother, who has been happily married to my father for 27 years: “Love is what you get to keep when the romance is over.”

A rare sentiment, but true, and it sums up this book better than anything else I could write.

Review: A Desperate Fortune

Cover Summary:

For nearly 300 years, the mysterious journal of Jacobite exile Mary Dundas has lain unread — its secrets safe from prying eyes. Now, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas has been hired by a once-famous historian to crack the journal's cipher. But when she arrives in Paris, Sara finds herself besieged by complications from all sides: the journal's reclusive owner, her charming Parisian neighbor, and Mary, whose journal doesn't hold the secrets Sara expects. 

It turns out that Mary Dundas wasn’t keeping a record of everyday life, but a first-hand account of her part in a dangerous intrigue. In the first wintry months of 1732, with a scandal gaining steam in London, driving many into bankruptcy and ruin, the man accused of being at its center is concealed among the Jacobites in Paris, with Mary posing as his sister to aid his disguise. 

When their location is betrayed, they’re forced to put a desperate plan in action, heading south along the road to Rome, protected by the enigmatic Highlander Hugh MacPherson.
As Mary's tale grows more and more dire, Sara, too, must carefully choose which turning to take... to find the road that will lead her safely home.

A Desperate Fortune by Susanna Kearsley satisfies in three genres at once.

As a historical novel, it is meticulously detailed without losing any of its suspense. Take this description of a rifle: “These do place a whirling action upon the bullet so it spins upon its axis in its flight … I have heard tell of these, but never seen one” (ch. 23, p. 45). If Samuel Pepys was ever involved in a political intrigue, isn’t this exactly what he’d sound like?

As a romance, the story might surprise readers who are not too familiar with the genre, and maybe even some who are. Sara Thomas’ romance in the modern sections is easy to predict (although no less charming), but the identity of Mary’s love interest is up in the air at least until halfway through the book. For a story about code breaking, it’s only fitting that the characters learn to look beneath each other’s surface for qualities that inspire love.

Finally, this is a story about autism. Sara, the code breaker who deciphers Mary’s diary, has been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. 

Although there are a few heavy-handed moments – “I’d always been puzzled by books about people with Asperger’s that claimed we didn’t have empathy (…) My problem wasn’t that I didn’t understand their feelings, but that I didn’t have a clue of how to respond to them” (ch. 18, p. 12) – mostly, Sara’s condition is portrayed with both accuracy and compassion. 

She has her limits (crowds, strangers, jazz music, and even one minute’s lateness make her panic) but also her strengths (cracking her employer’s test cipher in 17 minutes; asking the blunt and necessary questions no one else dares to ask). 

She believes that she is “not capable” of a long-term relationship, but her love interest talks her out of that quite logically:

“I can’t change.”

“You don’t have to. Simple maths. You only have to change the value of one variable to affect the outcome of the whole equation.

“Are you saying you’re that one variable?”

“Well, of all the men who left you, were any of them me? (…) You never need to change.” (ch. 28 p. 32-33)

Not only autistic people need to hear that.

In short, for anyone who is looking for three great books to read, A Desperate Fortune is highly recommended.

A Note To My Readers

It's been two years now since I started this blog. I know my posts haven't been very regular - real life got in the way - and I want to apologize.

I also want to thank those readers who keep coming back. I appreciate it very much.

Please send me comments any time you like. Tell me what you think of the stories I write about. If you have a request - a book, movie or song you'd like me to review - please let me know.

I hope you have a happy 2017.