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The Virgin's
Guide to Mexico |
The Year of Fog |
Let the Northern
Lights Erase Your Name |
Alma Price is a 17-year-old, straight-A, Harvard-bound student. In fact, she's only ever received exceptional grades (except for that one B). Thanks to her privileged upbringing, Alma doesn't know what it’s like to struggle to survive and succeed. Looking for experience and a temporary reprieve from college, Alma picks up clues from her mother's painful childhood in Mexico and runs away to the family, culture and legacy she believes the country will bring to her sheltered life. Through frequent Spanish exchanges and "gawky-girl" teenage jargon, we follow her into Mexico, learn to speak Alma's language and witness a transformation that leaves her nearly unrecognizable. Meanwhile, Alma’s overprotective parents trail her through vibrant, peasant-filled landscapes, meeting various ominous characters, and ultimately realizing their daughter's unstoppable metamorphosis has also been occurring in their own lives; readers may wonder whose account truly guides the narrative. The Virgin's Guide to Mexico is one of those works that urges you to read its passages again and again; it forces you into Alma's thought process as you piece together her steps towards a destination she already knows will leave a bruise. – Rene Wilson |
In her newest novel, Michelle Richmond intertwines the
mystical beauty of San Francisco's notorious fog with the story of a
photographer, Abby
Mason, adrift in her own mental fogginess when her fiance’s daughter
vanishes while in her care. Using her photographer's eye for detail, Abby
combs her way through San Francisco's distinctive neighborhoods in search
for Emma. Happier times are recounted while she scours popular settings
from Ocean Beach to the Mission District, likely to evoke compassionate
personal memories from any Bay Area native or transplant. As she faces
her role in the disappearance, it's soon evident that Abby is on a parallel
path with the lost girl inside herself, and the key to finding Emma is
within: Abby's journey truly begins when she realizes the need to trust
her own memory instead of habitually depending on photography as the medium
to provide proof of life. As I followed Abby's navigation through city
and fog, I could visualize myself in the character's dilemma with startling
ease. Richmond masterfully pieces together the helplessness of losing someone
you love with a journey of redemption and self-actualization. – Rene Wilson |
Vendela Vida’s Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name moves with the fast pace of a mystery novel. The story centers on 28-year-old Clarissa Iverton, who discovers on the day of her father’s funeral that he is not her biological father. This leaves Clarissa questioning everything she thought she knew about her life. In a quest to find her real father, Clarissa travels to the Lapland, an area in Scandinavia north of the Arctic Circle. Her journey to understand her past takes on an almost feverish pace as she gathers clues and travels from town to town in search of her true identity. Vida successfully places this fast-paced story against the cold and gloomy terrain of the Lapland during the winter. She cleverly and artfully evokes the beauty and the darkness of a place that holds the keys to both Clarissa’s past and future. But while the novel excels at telling a fast-paced story, it lacks the ability to inspire sympathy for its characters. Several passages in the novel show Clarissa suffering deep emotional hardship, yet reading those parts feels clinical. In recollections of her mother, who left the family suddenly fourteen years earlier, Clarissa recalls a character that also endured adversity, but it was difficult to feel anything but dislike and distaste for her. The story’s mystery-like quality does entertain, but ultimately Clarissa and the other characters feel flimsy and easily forgettable. – Kalpana Ettenson |
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