Susan Meissner's Blog

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Was there a time when Young Adult lit was truly only for young adults? I am beginning to think maybe there was but it only lasted five minutes. I've been wowed over the last few years by more YA titles than my chronological age should allow. Ruta Sepetys' page-turner, SALT TO THE SEA, is apparently shelved in YA, though you need to know I read my mother's copy (who is obviously at least two decades older than me!) and she loved this book just as much as I did.

It's a hauntingly evocative, tender, moving, and remarkable story of four young people trying to survive the horrors of WW2. Told in four rotating viewpoints, Sepetys was nevertheless able to create the literary magic that makes the reader very okay with switching from one character's head to another. You know those books with multiple points of view, where you really only care about two of the four and you race to get past the pages of the characters whose stories aren't as compelling? This isn't one of those books.

I am may not be a young adult, but like Ruta Sepetys, I am also drawn to stories of "strength through struggle." Isn't that aptly descriptive of life itself at any age? Some days are easy and a wonderful, some are hard and harrowing -- but all of our days make up our lives and thus make us who we are, at the age we are right now.
Highly recommended.




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The Lake House by Kate Morton

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I adore Kate Morton's voice, style, mood, and flair. When a new book of hers hits the shelves, I pounce on like one starved for food. I wish I could give THE LAKE HOUSE 4.5 stars but alas there's no way to do that. I compare all my favorite authors' new books to my favorites among their previous titles. I will always compare Kate's new books to THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN and THE SECRET KEEPER and THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON. I liked THE LAKE HOUSE very much, but not as much as these others. I was disappointed that I figured out a key reveal before it was revealed. Maybe it's because I write novels, too, and am always threading intrigue and mystery into my books so perhaps I am more clued in to that technique? And yet I was much surprised by the reveal in THE SECRET KEEPER. Perhaps that's why I could only give four stars here instead of five, because I wanted all the experience that I had with THE SECRET KEEPER. I don't recommend reading THE LAKE HOUSE when you're tired. I read at the end of the day, just before bed. There's a lot happening in the pages and many point-of-view character changes to keep track of. It's an exquisite book nonetheless, and I'm still a die-hard fan.



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Awhile back, when the book Unbroken first came out, I told my husband that I wanted to read it because I loved Seabiscuit and I knew what an amazing writer Laura Hillenbrand was. I didn't know much about Louie Zamperini (sad to say) so I had not heard prior to this the depths of his suffering at the hands of cruel men. Bob read the book first, and then said something along the lines of, "So, Sue. This is no Seabiscuit." The graphic details of Louie's torture were all there on the pages of the book and he wanted me to know that. It is one thing to read a work of fiction and imagine the suffering of a certain character (like the mom in Room, for example). It's quite another to read a piece of non-fiction and have to wrestle with the ponderous truth that everything you are reading is real. It happened.

What kept me reading A House in the Sky (other than it was my book club's pick) was knowing that Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout survived the hell she was thrust into when she was kidnapped in Mogadishu and held for ransom for more than a year. I knew she survived because she co-wrote her story. Several times in the reading I found myself turning the book over to its backside to look at her beautiful author photo. You can't write about an experience after the fact if you're dead. When the telling got really hard to read, I'd remind myself, She lives, she lives, she lives.

I honestly don't think I could have coped the way she she did. When I wasn't stunned by the cruelty of her captors, I was stunned by her ability to hang on to hope. Hope is one of those invisible weights that we can only lift if we summon enough strength to do so. The harder the situation, the heavier it is to hold. Despair is easier. Despair is heavy, too. But it just overtakes you. You don't have to do anything but lie there and let it fall.

So how did Amanda Lindhout keep hold of hope when despair was just waiting to devour her? She built a place in her mind to keep it. A place her brutal captors could not see and could not enter.

She built with her mind -- the only thing she had left -- a secret place for hope to hide. And it was this secret place that existed in her imagination that got her through the darkest days; days when I would have long given up.

She built a house in the sky.

This book is powerfully written and unforgettable. But it is no easy read. It is no Seabiscuit.

I still haven't read Unbroken.

There have been and continue to be a lot of World War II novels on bookstore shelves these days. This particular setting has always been a storyteller's sad paradise; there are just so many untold tales of the courageous and cunning and clever and cowardly and compassionate. So many little and big backdrops in which to place a character on a quest. I availed myself of this setting for Secrets of a Charmed Life.

I knew when this book was due to be released that I would grab it up. The Nightingale was one of those books that I could not wait to get back to. I read for pleasure at the end of the day, and I know I've got a great book when I can't wait for night to fall, for the clock to strike ten o'clock, so to speak, so that I can crawl into bed with the pages.

Like All the Light We Cannot See, Life After Life, Those Who Save Us (all five-star WW2 novels in my opinion), The Nightingale is not an easy read. War is a cruel canvas for any story to be told and yet this tale is inspired by true events. This story of two French sisters named Vianne and Isabelle did not really happen but you know without a shadow of a doubt that it could have.

Just a few days ago (as of this writing) America quietly noted that it had been 70 years since VE Day -Victory in Europe. Seven decades had passed since the Allies - against incredible odds and a formidable enemy - accepted the unconditional surrender of Germany's Nazi forces. I was stunned by how noiselessly May 8, 2015 came and went. I think the older we get and the more generations there are removed from WW2, the more out of touch we become with how it changed the landscape of who we are. I am glad for books like this one that will resonate into the future (it's a runaway bestseller right now) so that we won't lose sight of how this season of history shaped humanity.

Highly recommended.

The Making of Gone with the Wind by Steve Wilson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One of the things I enjoy most about writing historical fiction is the research I simply must do up front. My upcoming 2016 novel is about two studio secretaries who meet in 1939 during the filming of Gone With The Wind, so I've been devouring everything I can about the making of this epic film for about a year.

This beautifully designed book, pretty enough for your coffee table, was well worth the wait. It was just released this autumn in conjunction with a GWTW exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, where a stellar collection of costumes and such has been on display since September. Steve Wilson’s intriguing look back on the drama of making what would be the most popular movie to date is both informational and insightful and the photos and sketches take you right to the sets at Selznick International.

Gone With the Wind, the book and its movie, has endured for a host of reasons; perhaps every person that loves it, loves it for a different reason. And it might be that it’s hated by others for just as many varied reasons. But as Steve Wilson says in his book, “In the seventy-five years since Gone With the Wind premiered, Selznick’s masterpiece has continued to elicit emotional responses from viewers. It is both adored and reviled. The controversies that attended the production of Gone With the Wind remain, and the film continues to be a powerful touchstone for questions of race, gender, violence, and regionalism in America.” Any backdrop that historically is a powerful touchstone is the perfect place to set a story. I am learning so much about human nature – the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, by writing this novel.

And may I just say you don’t have to be a Windie to be impacted by Wilson’s The Making of Gone With the Wind. I wouldn't call myself a long-suffering devotee. I just know I never tire of watching Gone With the Wind; the soundtrack alone gets me every time I hear it. Gone With the Wind is as complex a story as any novelist could hope to deliver centered on the ages-old themes of love, home, and survival. Which is why it is such a powerful film. And always will be.



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The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Some years back, when I first read The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, I remember thinking I wanted to be able to do with words what this author had done, and that is construct a compelling story with the perfect mix of simplicity and complexity such that people who read what I wrote would not soon forget it. It wasn't so much the plot that wowed me as much as it was the way in which it was delivered to me.

A few years after that, when The Mermaid Chair came out also by Sue Monk Kidd several people whose opinions matter greatly to me said it was a different kind of book not one that they loved and that I probably wouldn't find the magic in it that I did with Bees. I actually chose NOT to read Mermaid for that very reason because I didn't want to mess with the echoes of Bees still swirling in my head. So naturally when The Invention of Wings released, I was eager, anxious, and hopeful. Would it take me away to literary wonderland as Bees did?

The answer to that is a resounding yes.

When a book hits my sweet spot, it's usually hard to describe in concrete details how. That kind of book somehow beautifully assaults my senses, viciously yanks on the virtues I hold most dear - like justice and fidelity and sacrificial love - and plants me as firmly in its setting and culture as if I had time-travelled there. It haunts me when I am not reading it and woos me when I am. The characters' voices linger in my mind and their sorrows and joys feel like my own. A book that hits my sweet spot doesn't spoon-feed the ending; it suggests the denouement in a way that lets me feel like there are more pages in the book; I just don't have access to them. The story is not over, and I am not expected to feel like it is.

The story is told in two points of view, that of a Southern slave owner's daughter and the other, the slave she grows up with. The time of the tale is well before the Civil War. Here are some of my favorite lines:


“History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own.”


“We 're all yearning for a wedge of sky, aren't we? I suspect God plants these yearnings in us so we'll at least try and change the course of things. We must try, that's all."


“The sorry truth is you can walk your feet to blisters, walk till kingdom-come, and you never will outpace your grief.”


“Sarah was up in her room with her heart broke so bad, Binah said you could hear it jangle when she walked.”

Your heart will bleed reading this book, but it will heal in a way that allows you remember why you loved it. You'll be reminded why slavery is one of the ugliest ideas ever, and you'll be glad there were brave souls who stood up in protest.

Highly recommended.




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Songs of Willow Frost by Jamie Ford

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I love talking about the books I've loved but I hate to give too much away in the telling. Reviews matter to me, not just the writing of them but reading them and sharing them and I am always grateful when a reviewer manages to tell me why she or he loved (or didn't love) a book without spoiling anything for me. I can tell you that just as Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet yanked on my heartstrings, so did Songs of Willow Frost. I can tell you that the prose is wonderfully unpretentious and yet deep and luminous, and that there are great lines that you just have to read twice or three times they are so meaningful. I can tell you there are surprises along the way to keep you turning pages and needing to know what is to become of the Chinese-American boy whose mother relinquished him to an orphanage years before and who suddenly sees her on a movie screen in a Seattle theater with a different name.

I can't say I loved it more than Hotel, or even as much, though I did love it. Perhaps it was Hotel's premise that resonated within me to a deeper degree. I admit I have a hard time summoning empathy for women who allow and then stay with men who abuse them. My deepest apologies if I offend anyone by saying that. I am not saying I can't summon the empathy, I am saying it is difficult for me. But this story, which moves back and forth between William's story and his mother's, is moving and compelling, even in those moments when I, had I been Willow, would have done something very different.

Songs of Willow Frost will tug and tear and tenderize. It's the kind of story that reminds you why stories exist.



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The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Parts of this book were so stunningly vivid and compelling I could barely breathe, other parts seemed superfluous, too detailed, and rambling, and yet perhaps it was these secondary parts that made the parts I loved so intense. This book is the slowest-paced novel I've ever read that I found impossible to put down. The last few chapters had me in tears and I re-read several paragraphs over and over, they were so amazingly constructed. In fair warning, I must say the language took away some of the literary brilliance of the prose. I cannot handle multiple uses of the f-word, even if it fits the character's persona -- it seems lazy to me. But it didn't ruin the book for me, it just got old. That probably says more about me than it does this amazingly talented writer. Best line is probably this one: “Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?”



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On Tuesday, my first book with Penguin NAL, A Fall of Marigolds, will be released out into the world -- always a wonderful, terrifying day. I love the characters in this book and I almost feel badly for what I put them through. Almost. I am anxious about its debut, of course, and since I aim to please, I really want you all to like it. It's a dual time-periods story, like my last five have been, with the majority of the tale centering around a grieving nurse named Clara living at Ellis Island's hospital in 1911. Her story is paired with that of a 9/11 widow named Taryn one hundred years later. The two never meet, but a scarf patterned in marigolds will bring them together in a way that I hope you find compelling.

To celebrate the release of A FALL OF MARIGOLDS, on Monday a blog tour will begin and which will continue throughout the month of February. The book and me will be featured on more than 50 blogs, more than half of which will participate in a drawing for some really cool stuff!

One winner from among all those who post a comment on the blogs will win the grand prize, which includes a beautiful up-cycled infinity scarf (made from a real vintage Indian sari), a signed copy of A FALL OF MARIGOLDS, a DVD copy of the PBS documentary Forgotten Ellis Island, and a $100 Visa gift card. In addition, one winner from each individual blogger’s commenters will win a signed copy of the book. The grand prize winner from among all the participating blogs as well as the individual book winners will be chosen by random drawing. Comments must be posted by midnight Eastern on Feb 28. (The contest is limited to those residing in the United States.)

On Monday I will post the complete list of participating blogs on my website, susanmeissner.com so that you can begin the tour. Just hop over to the blogs each day and drop a comment in the comment section (just one comment per blog) and you're in the running. The content of the blog tour (the question and and answer part) will likely be the same from blog to blog, but the blogs themselves are all different, and hosted by gifted people whom I hope you will get to know and want to revisit in the future. Plus you will want to check back with them to see if you are the individual winner of a signed copy of A FALL OF MARIGOLDS -- there will be a winner of a book on every blog!

I am so looking forward to hearing from you in the weeks and months ahead. I love hearing back from you, even if you DON'T like a book I've written. It actually helps to hear why, for I very much want to make your reading time memorable. Hope to see you along for the ride this month!

Whenever a year ends and I look back at its days to see which books were my favorite of all those I read, I always get a teensy bit melancholy. Part of me finds it a bid sad that the books that were my favorite have been read. I can't read them again for the first time. And sadder still? I probably won't be able to read them again -- ever -- because of the other thing that makes me a bit blue on the look-back, and that is that the number of books is always less than what I had hoped for. The mantra that there are too many books and too little time has never been more true than this stage of my life. The To-Be-Read pile at my bedside (which could double nicely as a ladder to the stars) is now becoming eclipsed by the invisible tower inside my Kindle. I find it funny and pathetic that earlier this year I bought Orphan Train (yes, one of my faves for 2013) read it, and then found the dang thing buried on my Kindle - from an earlier purchase in 2013. Sheesh.

All that aside, 2013 was a great year for books. Here are my five favorites, in no order at all. It wasn't easy to pick just five, by the way. I had to look at their covers -- in color -- and gauge how just the mere visual nudge made me feel inside. Here are the five that made me feel the pull of a magnet at just another glance at their covers...

CUTTING FOR STONE
Abraham Verghese Here was a book that had been sleeping on the TBR shelf all 2012. I finally pulled it out when it became my local book club’s pick. I remember thinking that I didn't have time to read a nearly-700-page novel, especially in a squished time frame, and I nearly took that month off from my beloved book club. But Abraham Verghese's masterpiece had me from the very first page. I simply had to know would become of the likeable and utterly compelling narrator, Marion Stone. The prose was delicious and there were many lines that cut me to the core. Like this one: “Wasn’t that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted." And this one: “The key to your happiness is to…own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t. [Otherwise] you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

THE BOOK THIEF
Markus Zusak Here was another that had been on the AYEGTRI pile (Aren't You Ever Going To Read It!?) I finally did just that after months and months and months of hearing how wonderful a book it was. What finally got me going was I began doing research for a World War II book I was writing. This is quite likely one of the most cleverly constructed novels I've read in a long time (as was "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?") and I was completely taken by the devastating charm of the narrator. That's all I will say. If you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? And please, do yourself a favor and read the book before you go see the movie.

LIFE AFTER LIFE
Kate Atkinson Speaking of research for World War II, this gem by Kate Atkinson had me spellbound from the first line. And interestingly enough, this was the only book in 2013 that I had read to me, in that I listened to this book on CD on a long car trip to the Sierras. Perhaps having a plethora of British voices speaking the story to me was what fully captivated me, but I am thinking even if I'd read the print version, I'd still be talking this book's praises. The premise alone is brilliant, and the execution of that premise is stellar. Can you imagine what it would be like to keep living your life over and over and over again, and being only barely aware that you are doing so? What would you change? What would you run from or run to or run over? This was Time magazine's number one choice for Book of the Year, and GoodReads Best of 2013 historical fiction award-winner. I would have to concur.

THE SECRET KEEPER
Kate Morton is one of my tippy-top favorite novelists ever. I love her style, her voice, her care with words, her attention to detail, the skill of her story weave, and her appreciation for her readers. If you've read nothing by her before, can I just gently say, where the Dickens have you been? I loved this book, as I have loved everything she has written. It is also a World War II book, but it's much more than that. If you like stories with overlapping time periods and special attention given to each of the main characters, you are in for a treat. After you read this one, get your hands on The Forgotten Garden, The House at Riverton and The Distant Hours.

AND THE MOUNTAINS ECHOED
I've been a fan of Khaled Hosseini's story-telling since he whisked me away with The Kite Runner. What I liked best about And The Mountains Echoed might be the very thing that others who've read him before didn't like. And that was the lack of a singular main protagonist on an obvious chronological pursuit of happiness. This story is different, it is more episodic, far less linear than his other two books, and because it was so masterfully done, I loved this aspect of this book. And quotable quotes? They abound in the pages. Like this one: “It's a funny thing... but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.” And this one: “For courage, there must be something at stake." And this one: “They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”

So there you have it. My top 5! Were any of these in your top reads for 2013? What were your top 5? I'd love to know!