We Are Called To Rise

I don't know about you, but I love reading books about places and cultures and ideas that I have a frame of reference for.  I recently loaned a friend a book for a trip.  She is a doctor and a few of the books I picked had a medical theme.  She flat out refused anything even a little medical.  This shocked me because surely everyone has the same reading tastes as me.  Apparently not.  

We are Called to Rise by Laura McBride appealed to me because it is about Las Vegas and McBride is from Vegas.  My husband lived in Vegas for most of his youth and his parents still live there.  We go to Vegas once or twice a year, so over the course of our 14 year marriage I have spent a bit of time there.  

My husband read The Goldfinch this year but didn't recommend it.  He felt the portrayal of Las Vegas was something you might see in a movie, not nuanced, and certainly not something a local could relate to.  He hasn't read this yet, but I feel confident that he will love the way the city is portrayed.

Las Vegas is complex, with many different parts and a diverse population.  The landscape is unique and can be both beautiful and problematic.  It's a city driven by tourism, but it's also where people live and raise their families a few miles from the buzzing strip.  This book captures the real lives of Las Vegas residents well.  

The plot is complicated and I don't want to give away too much, but basically, four different lives come together randomly.  They become intertwined in very real and meaningful ways because of a series of events that pulls them together. The way they are all pulled together accentuates the small town nature of Las Vegas and the initial differences in the characters and the places they come from highlight the town's big city feel and varied people groups.  

The theme of the random nature of life, of little choices culminating in earthquakes, is repeated often in the novel.  Some characters even outright identify it.  One character in particular, Avis, laments it so frequently it gets a bit annoying.  She even thinks through lists of sudden tragedies ("the harried mother who forgets her baby in a hot car, the exuberant teenager who leaps into a too-shallow lake, the young driver who doesn't see the child chasing a ball.") a few times in the book and it loses some of it's meaning after her first list.  The author didn't need to point to it so directly.  But it is true, "that so little matters so much, and so much matters so little."  

Also, there were some awkward sentence structures..."And it still all mattered."  It seems nitpicky but this was the last sentence of the chapter and I had to read it twice to be sure I got it.  There were a few times when I caught myself rereading and reworking the sentences.  

Aside from the minor problems I had with it, I really loved the characterization (I was weeping at the end because I loved the characters so much) and the way McBride really drew on the setting to add a deeper dimension and make her story really come alive.  The way she describes emotional things is empathetic and resonated with experience.  It was a sad book, but not depressing.  It made me think and gave me a greater appreciation for the things in my life.  I would say it was a successful book, worth the read.  

I'm currently reading The Other Typist and The House We Grew Up In.  Both are eerie.  I'm not sure I love either one, but I'll let you know soon!

Kitchens of the Great Midwest

I picked this book for book club.  Barnes and Noble had a table of new releases to check out.  I liked the cover, and, after reading the dust jacket, figured this would be a light, fun read.

Lars has a passion for food that he passes onto his daughter, Eva.  Through various difficult circumstances, Eva grows into a chef extraordinaire.  Along the way, she meets a cast of characters who help shape her experience.  The story is told in a series of vignettes about Eva and the people she meets, even peripherally.  The culmination of the book is a meaningful dinner hosted by Eva for some of the people who have impacted her.

I wouldn't call this light or fun looking back, but it was a solid novel that made me think.  The beginning was tricky to get into.  I felt like the dialogue was off and even the experience of new parenthood seemed like it was written for a movie or sitcom, not really true to life.  The author finds his rhythm later, though, so it wasn't a deal breaker.

The author weaves a complicated web of people.  In one chapter, a character is mentioned as a roommate's sister and later that character resurfaces again in another capacity.  It had the small town feel that is very mid-west.  This technique kept me engaged and paying attention to all of the characters, not just the most prominent.

I wasn't a fan of the ending.  It felt inauthentic and unfinished.  I didn't need a pretty bow to tie it up but there were many loose threads that were just left hanging.

Throughout  Kitchens of the Great Midwest  Stradal pokes fun at the foodie culture.  I was really struck by the idea that everyone has their own idea of what elevated cuisine looks like.  For one character, buying corn that was only hours old made dinner miraculous, and for another character mixing a cheap margarita was divine.  It had me thinking about what foods I love and how food shapes us and brings us together or separates.

There are a few recipes in the book, some more complex than others.  For our book club I made Pat's bars and they were a big hit (I even used fancy butter).  It's such a cool feeling when something from a book becomes tangible.

Definitely worth checking out, though I wouldn't rush to read it.