Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro was my on-line book club book for July.
The author was a Nobel Prize winner in literature for a previous book, and this one was given high marks by many. Touted as a soft-science fiction novel it was not my genre. It generated the most discussion of any book we have read in a while, but not always in a good way.
The book is set in what I would say is the not-to-distant future in the US. You don’t know for sure, since you get no actual details about where they are, what year it is, or what has happened to the country—you have to make it up as you go. I decided it was either Chicago or NY City. I was halfway through the book and still waiting for answers and never got any. I guess I am a much more concrete person and want to know the facts.
The book is narrated by an AF – (artificial friend—think robot). When the book starts, the AF, Klara, is sitting in a store waiting to be bought. She eventually is purchased by a woman for her daughter who is sick with something that we don’t know about. She goes to live with Josie and her mother. We see the world through the AF’s eyes and knowledge.
There is no character development, no background on anything—it basically left me with a lot of questions that I suppose I was supposed to formulate answers to. I did not like the book. Paula really liked it and thought it was exciting to figure out what you thought the author meant. She was fairly alone in that assessment. She liked the book the best, and Karen liked it the least, with the rest of us falling in between. Overall, it got a 2 star-rating from us. If you like science fiction, you may want to read it, but otherwise, I would let it slide! One of the saving graces is that it was an easy read and not overly long.
I did read some other books this month--some I liked, some not so much. Many friends have been raving about Tana French, so I started with her first book and read In the Woods.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first half and the last 1/4 but the angst and paranoia of the narrator in the first part of the second half had me ready for the book to end. It also made me not care for him at all. I did enjoy the story line and liked his partner. I also figured out who did it before they told me. I will read the next one in the series.
One I did not care for too much was Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam.
It is the story of a family vacation that goes terribly wrong--because of some worldwide apocalyptic disaster (which much like Klara and the Sun, never gets explained). The people who own the Airbnb that Amanda and Clay's family has rented show up one night saying there has been a power outage in NY City where they were, and they escaped to their summer rental to ride it out. The two families enter into mutual survival mode. Horrible weird noises are heard, animals are running scared--thousands of deer in one giant herd, flamingoes that mysteriously appear in the swimming pool. Their son gets sick with a high fever and vomiting, and then his teeth start falling out, but there is no explanation. There is a lot of speculation on what could be happening, but there is no way to communicate with others outside, so they just end up staying put. I kept reading to find out what had happened, but the book ended with no explanation. Frustrating! Again, I wanted more specific answers, so I would not recommend reading this one.
Since I am supposed to be going to Maine in September, a friend recommended a mystery writer about a game warden in Maine. I have now read two of Paul Dorion's books and am halfway through a third. I like his writing and for the most part like the characters. I am also learning a lot about Maine. I have read The Poacher's Son,
The Bone Orchard (out of order), and now am on Trespasser. They are easy and good reads.
A book I thoroughly enjoyed was The Problem with Murmur Lee by Connie May Fowler.
The story is a quirky tale of a small community of friends in Iris Haven, Florida. They come together over the death of one of their friends. There are interesting turns and twists, and you really like a great deal of the characters. I would recommend it.