My review of The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard

 

What a lovely novel! In Joyce Maynard’s The Bird Hotel, American Irene suffers multiple tragic losses from childhood into young adulthood. Numb with grief and believing happiness will never find her, wanting only to disappear, she makes a series of questionable but colorful transportation choices and ends up in Central America. Arriving with no money, she is welcomed at a lakeside hotel that has seen better days. 

 

The hotel owner senses this lost soul’s sorrowful despair and does not press her for details. Instead, she tells Irene her own stories. She has led a fascinating life. Soon her stories morph into Irene’s own stories of her new life in this hotel near a small village. Many of the stories are human interest in nature, but many more are personal to Irene. She learns to ride new waves of love and loss with equanimity. Irene’s situation is cross-cultural. She and the villagers speak different languages, but she always finds common ground in their humanity.

 

Maynard presents villagers and hotel staff and guests with such warmth, I grew to care about some. And oh, did I love Irene’s simple, generous heart. This novel is not just a relaxing tea in the lush gardens of the hotel, however; plenty of high drama happens. And Irene never fails to inspire. The Bird Hotel is a true beauty from ashes story, the best novel I've read in a long time.

The Page Turner by Viola Shipman ~ my review

In The Page Turner, a novel by Viola Shipman, literary family, Phillip and Piper Page and young-adult daughters Jess and Emma, whip wits against each other—until they realize family loyalty is the only thing that will save them from ruin at the hands of a predatory villain. In the meantime, they argue with each other about the value of romance novels versus serious literature, the value of high society versus life’s simple pleasures, and their trust versus mistrust of various literary agents. Emma, especially, takes on her family over how women are portrayed in fiction, and the importance of protecting her grandmother’s literary legacy. Emma is repelled early-on by the oily contempt of eventually revealed villain, but it takes the rest of this novel for her to figure out why this slithering snake has the power to destroy her family.

 

Because the Page family are all in the publishing business, their arguments take readers inside today’s publishing practices and trends. I liked this aspect! Publishing details are sufficient to bore, however, if this is not an interest of yours. Another enjoyment for me was the setting. In the beginning of this novel, beach, bluffs, and lighthouse descriptions transported me to one of my all-time favorite places, South Haven, Michigan. Then on Page 60, I read: “These are sounds of a South Haven summer.” The Pages split their time between New York and Michigan, but whenever they were in Michigan, I felt right at home. Dialogue in The Page Turner is unrealistically clever, but being a word nerd, I decided to let the intelligentsia have their repartee while I simply relaxed and enjoyed the word play.

 

Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld ~ my review

What an entertaining romp! Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld’s modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was mostly a delight to read. Yes, the Bennet family, Mr. and Mrs. and daughters, are alive and well and living mostly in Cincinnati. Mrs. B still fusses and cluelessly concocts superficial schemes to marry off her daughters. Mr. B continues to use dry wit to douse her schemes: “My dear,” said Mr. Bennet, “if a sock puppet with a trust fund and a Harvard medical degree moved here, you’d think he was meant to marry one of our girls.”

 

All five daughters with their romantic escapades and career challenges appear in the Eligible novel as well. As in Pride and Prejudice, however, the majority of the drama revolves around the oldest two: Liz and Jane.

 

Jane’s beau appears on a bachelor TV show called Eligible, and Liz’s Fitzwilliam Darcy is a neurosurgeon in Cincinnati. As in the Austen novel, Liz’s first impression of Darcy is arrogance, and the rest of the novel is the tension between them as she discovers her prejudice is due to her own pride.

 

Sittenfeld’s retelling of this classic is playful, sexy, fast-paced, and ultra-modern. Dialogue is crisp and loving, even when blunt. Toward the end of the novel, a few prolonged scenes, including out-of-control drunkenness, felt boring and unseemly for the character. But other than those scenes, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I found it hilarious. Its plot twists and humor surprised me at every turn.