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Tag: Bestseller Code 100 (Page 14 of 15)

#BestsellerCode100: Reader’s Review The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan

01/19/2017 / / 2 Comments

Let’s take a look at The Mill River Recluse: A Novel by Darcie Chan from a Reader’s Perspective.

This post contains spoilers.

Darcie Chan’s The Mill River Recluse: A Novel*

(*Amazon Affiliate link)

The Mill River Recluse, by Darcie Chan, is next up on our 100 Bestsellers List reading challenge.

Mary McAllister has lived alone for sixty years, rarely leaving her house or meeting with anyone other than her only friend, the parish priest.  From her house overlooking the sleepy Vermont town of Mill River, she pretends to herself that she is a member of the community.  But she’s not, and most of the residents of Mill River think of her as rather peculiar, if they think of her at all.  Everyone in this story has a secret to keep, some benign, some not so benign.  In the end, a feeling of real community is kindled once all the secrets are revealed.

So far, all the books we’ve read have been intense, evoking strong emotions from the reader – either you really liked or really disliked the book. The Mill River Recluse is the first book in this challenge that left me feeling rather disappointed.  Don’t get me wrong!  It is a nice read and leaves you feeling a little warm and fuzzy inside.  The small amount of violence is really rather subdued if you compare it to our previous book, The Last Child by John Hart.  I was left feeling like it could have been much more, though, than just a nice read.

Amazon lists The Mill River Recluse as a psychological thriller.  As such, it leaves a lot to be desired.  It seemed more like your run-of-the-mill episode of a seventies detective series, not much in the way of character development for the bad guy (so much for “psychological”) and certainly not much of a “thriller” in his actions.  He comes across more a bumbling fool than a terror.

By now you might be asking yourself why this book is on the 100 Books List.  I know I was.  So I pulled out my notes from The Bestseller Code and checked what the computer algorithm looks for when choosing a likely bestseller.

  • 3 or 4 central themes, with the most frequently occurring and important theme involving human closeness, followed by home, work, kids in school, and modern technologies.  The Mill River Recluse is 100% about human closeness, both at home and at work, and also include interaction with kids.  Checkmark on this one!
  • Plot lines with a regular beating rhythm.  The chapters in The Mill River Recluse alternate between the 1940s and present day, building the backstory of Mary while at the same time introducing us to those who live in present day Mill River.  Checkmark this one!
  • Style. The author should have an understanding of everyday language, i.e. working experience in journalism or similar field.  Darcie Chan worked in the legal field before becoming a successful author. Checkmark this one!

So maybe the computer did pick a winner.  The fact that this book was on the New York Times bestseller list for several months backs up the computer’s choice.  Just because I think this book doesn’t have the literary or emotional “heft” it should have to belong on the 100 Books List is the fault of my own expectations.  Obviously, a heart-warming, feel-good book can be a bestseller if it is well written.  After all, bestsellers aren’t all thriller / mysteries or literary adventures.

What did you think of The Mill River Recluse Child? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

  1. The Mill River Recluse landing page
  2. Book-beginnings, a discussion of the first line of the novel
  3. Roberta’s review from a writer’s perspective

After you finish the book, you might want to drop by to take our survey.

 

You can also join us on social media:

Do you have suggestions for ways to improve this reading challenge? We’d love to hear them.

_________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 94 on the list, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest by Stieg Larsson (Originally published in 2007) – Discussion begins January 30, 2017.

#BestsellerCode100: The Last Child Wrap-Up Poll

01/13/2017 / / 0 Comments

Time to wrap up the discussion of our latest novel from The Bestseller Code 100 list,  The Last Child by John Hart. The conversation started here.

Note: Post does not contain spoilers.

The Last Child* by John Hart

(*Amazon Affiliate link)

We are reading these books because they were picked by the computer algorithm in The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers as the best of the bestsellers.  Do you agree with the computer that this book should be on the list?  Why or why not?

 What was your final opinion of The Last Child?

 

[yop_poll id=”5″]

Join us on social media:

__________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 95. The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan (2011) – Discussion begins January 16, 2017

#BestsellerCode100: Reader’s Review The Last Child by John Hunt

01/09/2017 / / 1 Comment

Let’s take a look at The Last Child by John Hunt from a Reader’s Perspective.

This post contains spoilers.

John Hunt’s The Last Child*

(*Amazon Affiliate link)

The Last Child, by John Hunt, is the fifth book we have read for the 100 Bestsellers List reading challenge.  Like Shutter Island, the first book we read, The Last Child is a Mystery / Thriller, but that’s where the similarity ends.   In the first book, U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels, is sent to Shutter Island, a hospital for the criminally insane, to locate a lost inmate.  By the end of the book, though, we come away uncertain about who Teddy really is – the strong, capable law enforcement agent or an inmate himself who created his own reality as a way to deflect dealing with a tragedy in his life.

In The Last Child, Johnny Merrimon is a thirteen-year-old boy who has endured unimaginable losses and pain over the past year – his twin sister, Alyssa, was kidnapped and never found; his father, unable to handle the grief, ran off; his mother, Katherine, has withdrawn into a haze of drugs and alcohol; and his mother’s boyfriend physically and emotionally abuses both Katherine and Johnny.  And yet, through it all, Johnny exhibits perseverance, dogged determination, and an inner strength that seems to elude most of the adults in his life.  Johnny believes that his twin is still alive, and when a second girl is kidnapped, Johnny redoubles his search for her.  This search unearths dark secrets in this small North Carolinian town, secrets others are willing to kill to keep.

Author John Hunt covers a number of adult topics through the character of young Johnny – grief, abuse, sex predators, family love, hope, faith, friendship, sin, courage – topics we don’t want to think that a thirteen-year-old should have to deal with, and yet I found Johnny,  both his thoughts and actions, very believable.  I felt his pain, understood his determination, marveled at his unfailing belief that his sister was still alive, and hoped beyond hope that he would be able to find her.

I won’t reveal the outcome, but I did appreciate the fact that all the loose ends were neatly tied up at the end of the book.  Likely that is one reason I thought The Last Child was the best of the five bestsellers we have read so far – no open-ended, “what to you think happened?” ending.

I also really appreciated Hunt’s ability to write about his native state of North Carolina with such great intimacy.  Many scenes in the book take place in the countryside – riverbeds, forests, abandoned homesteads, swamps, old cemeteries – and his writing took me back to childhood hikes through woods, wading in the stream behind our house, and finding refuge in a nearby cemetery.  He evoked the smell of a decaying forest bed, the slippery danger of moss along the rocky stream, the sudden warning silences of birds in the trees.  The only other author I’ve read recently that really made me “feel” the setting was Pat Conroy with his Prince of Tides.

The Last Child most certainly belongs on this list of 100 Bestsellers, and it will most certainly NOT be the last book I read by John Hunt.  I’ve added all of his books to my Goodreads “want to read” list and intend to find the time to read them soon.

What did you think of The Last Child? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Related posts:

  1. The Last Child landing page
  2. Book-beginnings, a discussion of the first line of the novel
  3. Roberta’s review from a writer’s perspective

After you finish the book, you might want to drop by to take our survey.

 

You can also join us on social media:

Do you have suggestions for ways to improve this reading challenge? We’d love to hear them.

_________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 95 on the list, The Mill River Recluse by Darcie Chan (2011) – Discussion begins January 16, 2017.

#BestsellerCode100: Little Bee Wrap-Up Poll

12/31/2016 / / 0 Comments

Time to wrap up the discussion of our latest novel from The Bestseller Code 100 list,  Little Bee by Chris Cleave. The conversation started here.

Chris Cleave’s Little Bee: A Novel*

(*Amazon Affiliate link)

We are reading these books because they were picked by the computer algorithm in The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers as the best of the bestsellers.  Do you agree with the computer that this book should be on the list?  Why or why not?

 What was your final opinion of Little Bee?

 

[yop_poll id=”4″]

Join us on social media:

__________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 96 on the list,The Last Child by John Hart (2009) – Discussion begins Monday January 2, 2017

#BestsellerCode100: Reader’s Review of Little Bee by Chris Cleave

12/30/2016 / / 2 Comments

Let’s take a look at Little Bee by Chris Cleave from a Reader’s Perspective.

This post contains spoilers.

 

Chris Cleave’s Little Bee


(*Amazon affiliate link)

Little Bee by Chris Cleave is the fourth book we’ve read from The Bestseller Code’s 100 Bestsellers List and yet again, we are presented with a novel that is quite unlike the previous books we’ve read.  Little Bee is a 16-year-old female refugee whom we first meet in an Immigration Detention Centre in England, although we don’t learn her exact age until quite late in the book. Little Bee’s story is a difficult one to read – you know something horrific happened in her Nigerian homeland, and while she can hardly bear to relate the events, facing those horrific memories, along with the resulting pain and emotional turmoil, is integral to her story.  She must face it all, and so, thus, must we.

The second main character is Sarah Summers, a thirtyish magazine editor living in a London suburb, whose life became intertwined with Little Bee’s when Sarah and her husband were “on holiday” in Nigeria.  She, too, has her own memories to face and life decisions to make.  Can Little Bee & Sarah deal with their past?  And, if so, how will their decisions impact their futures?

I cannot remember when I last felt this emotional while reading a novel.  I found myself reading Little Bee in small chugs, sometimes only a few paragraphs, and then setting it aside for hours or a day before picking it back up again.  I needed that time to deal with the swirl of emotions – dread, anxiety, fear, confusion, horror, anger – before I could pick the story back up and read some more.

The blurb on the back cover of the book tells very little about the story:

  We don’t want to tell you too much about this book.  It is a truly special story, and we don’t want to spoil it.  Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:

It is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific.  The story starts there, but the book doesn’t.  And it’s what happens afterward that is most important.  Once you have read it, you will want to tell everyone about it.  Please don’t tell them what happens.  The magic is in how it unfolds.

To be honest, I don’t remember anywhere in the book that was “extremely funny.”  The only levity I remember is from Sarah Summer’s four-year-old son, Charlie, who clings to the belief that, as Batman, he can overcome the “baddies” of the world.  Without Charlie, Little Bee would be impossible to read.

Little Bee is the story of any refugee from any land at any time.  It is certainly a story for our time.  And while the story is painful and difficult to read, the author leaves us with hope – if not for Little Bee herself, then for all the Little Bees and all the Charlies yet to come.

What did you think of Little Bee? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Related posts:

  1. Little Bee Landing Page
  2. Book-beginnings, a discussion of the first line of the novel
  3. Roberta’s review from a writer’s perspective

After you finish the book, you might want to drop by to take our survey.

 

You can also join us on social media:

Do you have suggestions for ways to improve this reading challenge? We’d love to hear them.

__________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 96 on the list, The Last Child by John Hart (2009) – Discussion begins January 2, 2017.

 

#BestsellerCode100: Joe Klein’s Primary Colors Wrap-Up Poll

12/17/2016 / / 0 Comments

Time to wrap up the discussion of our latest novel from The Bestseller Code 100 list,  Primary Colors by Joe Klein. The conversation started here.

Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics* by Joe Klein

(*Amazon affiliate link)

We are reading these books because they were picked by the computer algorithm in The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers as the best of the bestsellers.  Do you agree with the computer that this book should be on the list?  Why or why not?

 What did you think of Primary Colors?

 

[yop_poll id=”3″]

Join us on social media:

__________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 97 on the list, Little Bee by Chris Cleave (2008) – Discussion begins Monday December 19, 2016

#Bestseller Code100: Primary Colors by Joe Klein From A Reader’s Perspective

12/16/2016 / / 2 Comments

As part of our ongoing challenge to read through the 100 best of the bestsellers as listed in The Bestseller Code by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers, let’s take a look at Primary Colors, by Joe Klein, from a Reader’s Perspective.  (Discussion is rounded-up here.)

This post contains spoilers.

Joe Klein’s Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics*

(*Amazon affiliate link)

 

We have now read 3 of the 100 potential bestsellers listed in The Bestseller Code:

#100 – Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane

#99 – State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett

#98 – Primary Colors, by Joe Klein

Even though the algorithm discussed in The Bestseller Code considered the same parameters, these three books illustrated just how diverse a result can come out of those parameters.  Shutter Island is a mystery/thriller, where the weather and the sea (water) are a main theme and everything looks gray and feels damp and dreary.  State of Wonder is a literary adventure where the Amazon (both the river and the jungle) is a main theme, providing color with plants, animals, and the indigenous tribes.

Primary Colors, a political novel, is infused with its own distinctive color – colorful language, colorful descriptions of rooms, and colorful descriptions of the character’s clothing.  The story is told mainly through dialogue – so much dialogue!  As an introvert, I was almost overwhelmed with the onslaught of dialogue.   And then there’s the number of characters introduced – so many that the book really should come with a list of them.

In Primary Colors, Henry Burton becomes an integral member of Jack Stanton’s presidential campaign.   Jack Stanton is the Democratic governor of a small southern state, the penultimate politician, who has aspired to be President all his life.  His wife Susan, whom he met in law school, helps direct his campaign.   Is this sounding familiar?  If not, consider that the book was written in the mid-90s, a couple of years after William Jefferson Clinton’s first successful run for the Oval Office.  Joe Klein was a political journalist for 25 years when he wrote Primary Colors, and it is evident that he had the inside scoop on the world of politics and how politicians think and operate.

Reading Primary Colors right after this year’s Presidential Election was almost surreal – then again, this year’s election WAS surreal.  Maybe it was the timing, but I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would.  I gained some insight into the synergistic relationship between politicians and the media.  And it also gave me pause to consider how we American’s love to build up our political candidates and then just as quickly turn on them, finding all the faults and flaws, and then magnifying them to the extreme.  I don’t know how politicians handle the scrutiny.  And does that scrutiny really gain us anything – do the very best candidates withstand the scrutiny?  Or only those that have the toughest skins?

The version of Primary Colors that I read had an afterword by the author.  The last few paragraphs of the afterword were most noteworthy:

People often ask me what the Clintons thought of the book.  I’m not sure.  The president did ask me once, after one of the end-of-administration-interviews he’d granted me, why I’d written it.  “Well, I saw it as a tribute to larger-than-life politicians,” I said, which was the truth.

The first lady snorted derisively.  “Well, First Lady,” I said to her, “would you rather have a larger-than-life president or a smaller-than-life president?”

She shrugged in agreement, and I pressed the case: “And larger-than-life politicians have larger-than-life strengths and larger-than-life weaknesses.”

Mrs. Clinton nodded at me with a twinkle, then looked over at her husband, and said, “That’s for sure.”

 Like I said, given this past year’s presidential election, surreal.

Related posts:

  1. Book-beginnings, a discussion of the first line of the novel
  2. Roberta’s review from a writer’s perspective

 

You can also join us on social media:

Do you have suggestions for ways to improve this reading challenge? We’d love to hear them.
__________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 97 on the list, Little Bee by Chris Cleave (2008) – Discussion begins December 19, 2016.

#BestsellerCode100: Primary Colors by Joe Klein From A Writer’s Perspective

12/12/2016 / / 2 Comments

As part of our ongoing challenge to read through The Bestseller Code 100, let’s take a look at  Primary Colors by Joe Klein from a writer’s perspective. (Discussion is rounded-up here.)

This post contains spoilers.

Joe Klein’s Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics*

(*Amazon affiliate link)

Primary Colors is a roman à clef, a book about real people who have been fictionalized and disguised. Drawing on his background as a journalist for twenty-five years, Joe Klein reveals the inner workings of a political campaign during the early 1990s when television predominated and the Internet hadn’t taken off yet. It is loosely based on former President Bill Clinton’s first campaign. As a political novel, Primary Colors falls in the genre fiction category.

1. Characters

Although this is a roman à clef, it is still possible to define a few archetypes. Henry Burton, former congressional aide, is the first person narrator and sidekick to protagonist Jack Stanton, a governor of a small Southern state who is running for president. Daisy Green, a media consultant, becomes Henry’s love interest. There isn’t a clear antagonist.

From the first page, Klein feeds the reader a steady stream of characters:  Howard Ferguson III, Arlen Sporken, Orlando Ozio, Luther Charles, Uncle Charlie, Susan Stanton, Mitch the driver…  It was a gush of names. In fact, it was so hard to keep everyone straight that I started keeping a running list. Even though I only counted names that reoccurred and gave up about two thirds the way through the book, I still had forty-two names.

A number of the characters made only a single appearance and only a few are developed into more than cardboard silhouettes. In most novels this would be a flaw, yet in Primary Colors this flood of names works. Politicians and journalists meet an awful lot of people, and Klein gives us a sense of what that might be like to be constantly bombarded with names.

If you would like to start a list of your own, Shan (one of our fellow reader/writers) found a shorter list of the “primary” characters and their potential real-life counterparts on Wikipedia.

Dialogue

Obviously, the computer algorithm that chose these novels is not offended by profanity. When reading, I tend to skip right over expletives. It wasn’t until I started looking for a snippet of dialogue as an example did I begin to realize how often the f-word appears in this text.

Overall, the dialogue sounds authentic. It is sprinkled with contractions and sentence fragments.

“Great, huh?” I said.
“You forget what I’m doing here, Henri?”
“We’re on the cover of Time, man.”
“Does he know yet?”
“No, he’s in mega-explain mode. Doing shoe imports. Can’t shut him up.”

Klein does a good job of interspersing long stretches of dialogue with shorter pieces.

new-hampshire-joe-klein

Public Domain Photo of New Hampshire via Dustytoes via VisualHunt

2. Setting (Scene Execution)

The setting in this novel takes the back seat to the characters. Much of the action takes place in New Hampshire in the months leading up to the primary. At one point the candidate travels to Los Angeles. Paradoxically he finds a chilly reception in warm, sunny LA and a warm reception when he returns to cold New Hampshire.

The Stantons come from Mammoth Falls, which I assume is fictional since the “Southern state” is never named. There is Mammoth Springs  in Arkansas.

3. Themes

Because this is genre fiction, we would expect the themes would not be as strong as in literary fiction (like State of Wonder), and that is the case.  The main theme seems to be that politicians have flaws just like everyone else. As Klein says in the Afterward:

…larger-than-life politicians have larger-than-life strengths and larger-than-life weaknesses.

Discussions of race also pop up throughout.

4. The Afterward

If you are interested in writing, you should find a later edition copy of the novel with the Afterward included. In it Klein gives a glimpse into his writing process. He discusses what it was like to write a novel after having worked as a journalist, saying journalism was hard and fiction was fun. As other novelists have found,  he revealed characters would simply show up on the page and refuse to do what he expected. He also talks about why he chose to publish anonymously and some of the consequences of having done that.

One paragraph on page 375 in the Afterward is curiously prophetic.

And now it is — suddenly, ridiculously — ten years later. I miss the characters I created in Primary Colors and, from time to time, I think about taking another run at them… although I’m pretty sure that a Susan Stanton campaign for the presidency wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as Jack’s.

Conclusion:

This is only the third novel from The Bestseller Code list, but it is already apparent each is unique. Primary Colors could not be more different from State of Wonder.  Why did the computer algorithm pick these books? Do you see any patterns yet?

Join us on social media:

__________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 97 on the list, Little Bee by Chris Cleave (2008) – Discussion begins December 19, 2016

#BestsellerCode100: Number 98 Primary Colors

12/05/2016 / / 1 Comment

Time to start the discussion of our next novel from The Bestseller Code 100 list,  Primary Colors by Joe Klein. It was first published anonymously in 1996.

This post does not contain spoilers.  (Note:  Out of consideration to those who haven’t read the book yet, please indicate right up front if your comment or review contains spoilers.)

Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics* by Joe Klein

(*Amazon affiliate link)

Summary:   Henry Burton was disillusioned by congressional politics and resigned from his post as an aide to Congressman William Larkin. Jack Stanton, the governor of a “small Southern state,” convinces Henry to help him with a run for the presidency. Jack is charismatic and seems to be truly interested in people’s problems. Can Henry navigate the minefields of presidential primary politics and help him succeed?

Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; 10th Anniversary ed. edition (October 17, 2006)
ISBN-10: 0812976479
ISBN-13: 978-0812976472

bestseller-code-100-98

What did you think of Primary Colors? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Related posts:

  1. Book-beginnings, a discussion of the first line of the novel
  2. Karen’s review from a reader’s perspective
  3. Roberta’s review/analysis from a writer’s perspective
  4.  Evaluate the book in the wrap-up poll

Join us on social media:

Do you have suggestions for ways to improve this reading challenge? We’d love to hear them.

Have you written about Primary Colors? Feel free to add a link to your review here.


__________________

What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 97 on the list, Little Bee by Chris Cleave (2008) – Discussion begins December 19, 2016

#Bestseller Code100: Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder from a Writer’s Perspective

11/30/2016 / / 2 Comments

As part of our ongoing challenge to read through The Bestseller Code 100, let’s take a look at State of Wonder by Ann Patchett from the writer’s perspective.

Note:  This post contains spoilers.

State of Wonder: A Novel*

*Affiliate link

Ann Patchett’s novel falls into the literary fiction category (If you aren’t familiar with the difference between literary and genre fiction, for a short discussion try this article, or Jennifer Ellis for a more in depth version).  Literary novels are more likely to be theme driven than plot driven, they focus on the interior life of the main character, and they often have a gentler final climax. They also may have a more convoluted narrative with flashbacks and other devices, rather than progressing in straight chronological order. How does State of Wonder fit these guidelines?

1. Characters

Like with genre fiction, we can find certain character archetypes. The protagonist or main character in the novel is Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist working for a drug company in Minnesota. She is sent to the Amazon to find her mentor, Dr. Annick Swenson after her co-worker, impact character Anders Eckman, died looking for her. Mr. Fox is Marina’s boss and love interest, at least at first.

Not all the archetypes, however, are clearly defined. There is no antagonist, at least in the form a person. One could say the role of the antagonist was played by the Amazon jungle. At times Dr. Swenson seems like an antagonist, but she’s really a mentor.

In true literary tradition we spend a lot of time getting to know Marina’s innermost thoughts and feelings. Readers who prefer genre fiction might be puzzled by Marina as a protagonist because she is passive/submissive until the very end of the novel. She doesn’t want to go to the Amazon, but she doesn’t protest when her lover — whom one would think she could reason with — sends her. She is supposed to locate Dr. Swenson, but stumbles on her by accident when she ends up seated in front of her mentor at an opera. Dr. Swenson solves the most significant mysteries in the story, including the one critical mystery Marina could have easily solved. At that point in the story Marina was poised to grow. Why didn’t Patchett let her solve the mystery of what happened to Anders?

What did you think of Marina as a protagonist?

Patchett disregards some writer’s conventions. Beginning writing instructors teach their students to avoid naming their characters with similar sounding or appearing names because they can confuse readers. In fact, they recommend not even starting the names of characters with the same letter. In this novel Patchett has characters named Annick and Anders, perhaps particularly significant because her own name is Ann. Readers may also have to concentrate to keep Dr. Swenson and Dr. Singh straight. Fortunately when the two characters are together Patchett often uses “Marina” and “Dr. Swenson,” which emphasizes the difference in their positions.

Did you have any trouble with the similar look of some of the characters names? Did it make reading the book more difficult for you?

Dialogue

“I lost you,” Marina said finally.
“Clearly you didn’t,” Dr. Swenson said. “Easter knew where we were going.”
“I didn’t know that Easter had been informed.”

Patchett is an expert at using dialogue to advance the plot. She bucks the trend to replace every “said” with action, but that is acceptable because research shows that the word “said” tends to disappear from the page when read (see this article from Writer’s Digest.)

Unlike Lehane who used dialogue to develop character in Shutter Island, much of Patchett’s character development comes through clever descriptions.

Marina had had many friends in her life who could recite the periodic table from memory but not since high school had she had a friend with a particular talent for hair.

2. Setting (Scene Execution)

Setting has a huge impact in this novel. The story starts in Minnesota, where it is snowing.

Outside the snow had been falling in wet clumps long enough to bury every blade of new spring grass. The crocuses she had seen only that morning, their yellow and purple heads straight up from the dirt, were now frozen as hard as carp in the lake.

Writers should not only describe the setting, but also convey how the character feels about it. Although the above description sounds a bit negative, the readers soon learns Marina loves Minnesota and took her current job so that she could live there.

Opposed in every way to snowy Minnesota is the steamy heat of the Amazon jungle where Marina goes to find her mentor. Before writing this book, Ann Patchett took a boat trip down a river in the Amazon rainforest. Her experience allowed her describe the settings with spine-tingling detail.

There was too much coiling and uncoiling  for an accurate measurement but the snake appeared to be fifteen feet long, eighteen when stretched…Marina wanted to jump in the water and to run across the lettuce with the long toed birds, but who would say the snake didn’t have a family down there?

tropics-river-amazon-rainforest-ann-patchett

Photo via nile via VisualHunt

3. Themes

Literary fiction tends to be theme driven and State of Wonder does have several strong themes. One of the central ones is the dual nature of drugs, which have the potential to save lives or destroy them. Marina works for a pharmaceutical company that is developing new drugs. At the same time, she takes the anti-malarial medication Lariam which has the side effect of giving her terrific nightmares and may have interfered with her ability to spend time with her father (As an aside, I assumed the author made up this drug for legal reasons, but it’s an actual anti-malarial product.)

This theme continues when Marina finds out Dr. Swenson is working on a medicine rife with ethical complications because it could allow women to remain fertile into old age. Towards the middle of the book the contrast is evident when Marina drinks a concoction that makes her deathly ill for a short period of time but cures a chronic fever she had been suffering from.

Another theme is more subtle, and is best illuminated by an understanding of the author’s personal life. Ann Patchett says she chose not to have children (Guardian article.) Throughout the book Marina wrestles with how being pregnant and having children effects women.

It was true that she knew Karen, but only as well as a forty-two-year-old woman with no children knows a forty-three-year-old woman with three…

Numerous times Marina mentions that she went to the Amazon to find out what happened to her co-worker Anders Eckman because  she could, whereas his wife Karen couldn’t go look because she was encumbered by their children. Later, Marina must perform a C-section on a woman because Dr. Swenson is physically incapable due to her advanced pregnancy. It seems women who reproduce have to pay a cost.

What did you think of this theme?

4. Writer’s Voice

The author’s voice (word choice/language) is the dressing on the novel salad.  Ann Patchett has a one-of-a-kind voice. Her sentences are sometimes like thick vines, twisty and dense as the jungle she describes.

Personal note:

Although I’m not sure why, her writing also transports me back to an earlier era. So much that it was jarring when she wrote about the opera house:

… or so a tourist had told Marina one morning when she stopped to take a picture of it with her phone.

I actually paused. A phone that take photographs? Wait, this novel is supposed to be set in modern day? Somehow it seemed incongruous. Of course the protagonist flies to Brazil on a plane, so it must be modern day. Maybe I was channeling Green Mansions, which also had vibrant descriptions of the jungle. In any case, I had been taken to another time as well as another place.

Conclusions:

Overall, State of Wonder is a literary work and as such may be less “accessible” than genre fiction. It can be instructive to compare the two writing categories to see how the themes, the pacing, and the characters are all handled differently, especially since a number of the books on The Bestseller Code 100 list seem to bridge between literary and genre fiction.

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What are we reading next?

If you ever have questions about what we are reading next or when we’re starting the next discussion, check the 100 Book List tab in the navigation bar at the top of the blog.

The next book is number 98 on the list, Primary Colors by Joe Klein (1996) – Discussion began December 5, 2016.

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