A Little Pandemic Reading

by | May 28, 2020 | Author's Blog

The pandemic came as no great surprise to me. It has always lurked as a possibility, like an earthquake that you know is coming but you just don’t know when. What I didn’t expect was the disruption of supplies, the hoarding of things like toilet paper and sanitizing sprays and wipes, the binge eating, and the increased sales (and presumably consumption) of alcohol. And the economic upheaval. That’s been a shock.

Being sequestered during the pandemic, there is plenty of time to read, which provides both escape and intellectual stimulation in our isolation. I’ve read 18 books through the first five months of 2020. All but two were novels. Like most years, I’m not sticking to any one genre. I’ve read thrillers, mysteries, romantic comedies, romances, horror, and adventure stories. A few were mash-ups of different genres, and a few were straight-up literary fiction (i.e. focused on characters’ interior lives).

The most surprising book I read was a medical thriller called The End of October, by Lawrence Wright. Personally surprising because I never thought I’d read a book about a pandemic during a pandemic. Why would anyone choose immersion rather than escape from a killer virus. Yet I learned more about viruses and epidemiology than I ever knew before, and it was a compulsive page-turner. The amazing thing about the book is that it was written in 2019 and only published in April, yet so much of it anticipates current events. I highly recommend it.

Also this year I read the Jojo Moyes trilogy, Me Before You; After You; and Still Me. My first encounter with Moyes was her book Last Letter From Your Lover. Her characters are always nuanced, the relationships real, and the pacing perfect. She reminds me of a modern-day Jane Austen.

Oona Out of Order, by Margarita Montimore, was captivating and original. — Every New Year’s Eve Oona turns a year older, but she doesn’t live her life sequentially. She may be 19 at 11:59 PM, but at the stroke of midnight, finds herself 51, or 37, or whatever. The book follows her only through a handful of years. My only regret was that it wasn’t longer.

Least surprising, but no less satisfying, was a book of four novellas from Stephen King entitled If It Bleeds. It’s terrific. They’re all good, but my favorites were “The Life of Chuck” and “Rat.”

What are you reading?

Sunrise on Half Moon Bay

by | May 18, 2020 | Author's Blog

I’d been looking forward to Robyn Carr’s Sunrise on Half Moon Bay, because I live in the area. Being familiar with the setting colors my review, even though Sunrise on Half Moon Bay is a work of fiction, so artistic-license is accepted and expected. But as a local, some aspects rang jarringly false. For instance, they met at the community pool (there is no community pool), and they go to a movie theater, though there is no local movie theatre. Carr references a snorkel shop, though no one snorkels here because the water is too cold. Beach volleyball is a rarity, etc. In general, it seems like this Half Moon Bay is set at least 50 miles south (around Santa Cruz), or even Santa Barbara.

The publisher might also have stayed truer to the purported setting — the cover illustration shows a woman on a fanciful dock facing the sunrise. Half Moon Bay is on the West Coast. The only east-facing sunrise, due to the odd curve of the coast, occurs in Santa Barbara. Sure, I’m being picky, but when I notice things like this, it takes me out of the story.

That’s okay, I didn’t expect verisimilitude. But nothing in the story depends on, nor is enhanced by, the location. It could have been set anywhere. The book could also have used a better editor. For instance, “Jake was in his midtwenties [sic], Adele still in high school, when he married Mary Ellen.”  Yet earlier it was stated that Jake didn’t fall in love with Mary Ellen until Addie went to college.

Now, putting all of my reservations aside, I have to give Carr her due. The crux of this story revolves around the relationships between two sisters born 20 years apart, and the men in their lives. Carr succeeds in giving us complex and believable characters, natural dialogue, and sincere sentiments, with predictable though satisfying resolutions. She reminds me of a female Nicholas Sparks.