Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

Fiction/Literature

The Piper family on Cape Breton starts when James meets 13 year old Materia. The two fall in love, despite Materia's family who wants her to marry a good man from Lebanon rather than a local English boy. The family disowns Materia and she's left on her own with James to start their family. She gives birth to a beautiful baby named Kathleen. James and Kathleen instantly connect but Materia can't find love for this child. As father and daughter grow closer, Materia realizes that James' love for his daughter may not be natural fatherly love. Materia takes it upon herself to keep Kathleen safe from her father.

Two more girls are eventually birthed; Mercedes and Frances. Lily also is born, but does not survive. As Kathleen grows older, she shows talent for music and is a beautiful singer. James sends Kathleen to New York for voice lessons but gets an anonymous note stating the child is in danger. James immediately brings home Kathleen, who is pregnant, and eventually gives birth to Lily and Ambrose. Ambrose dies but Lily thrives despite having Polio as a child.

Lily is raised as a sister to Mercedes and Frances. At times, it's as if they have no father. Mercedes being the mom to the other two, Frances being the rebel, and Lily being innocent.

The books starts off very interesting, with a lot of drama. The first half of the book plays out with a common problem and tension on whether James will keep his hands of Kathleen. However once Kathleen is out of the picture, the book starts to fall apart for me. It becomes chaotic with too much going on, many things that I don't understand why they are happening. I had to google a synopsis of the book once I finished to understand why Frances was acting out. Once getting the answer to that, I still didn't understand why. The book ended in a confusing, muddled mess for me, which is too bad since the first part was quite engaging.

First Line: "They're all dead now."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

The Outlander by Gil Adamson

Historical Fiction

We first meet Mary, the widow, while she's just left her house and is on the run. She has killed her husband for reasons so far unknown and has left her home to escape her brothers-in-law. She has nothing to her name and must learn to survive in the wilderness, as this is 1903.

As Mary makes her way through the Canadian wilderness, she meets a few people that knowingly or unknowingly help her out. But her brothers-in-law are on her tail. She winds up in a mining town of mostly men, working with a priest to help him build his church.

For a book with little dialogue, the momentum was maintained quite well. We learn about how Mary came to be in her situation (justified or not, I'm still not certain), but we mostly read about her survival. This part of the book is the most satisfying. Mary's past was far less satisfying as it seems like there should have been a bigger and better reason for her to risk her life.

This book is an impressing debut novel.

First Line: "It was night, and dogs came through the trees, unleashed and howling."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

The Schumann Proof by Peter Schaffter

Mystery

Vikkan Lantry is returning to the music world after taking a leave and mourning the loss of his lover. He doesn't have the desire to be famous, he just wants to play his music. With a famous musician coming to town, a fame-hungry singer asking for his accompaniment, and a friend trying to get Lantry odd music jobs, he is slowly getting sucked back in to the music world. A newly found Schumann is found and competition to sing and play it is so high than two people are murdered. Lantry knows the victims and the music and tries to determine who could do such a thing.

This book takes place in Toronto and for those not local, probably goes in to way too much detail about the city. Detailed descriptions of which streets Lantry is on, which restaurants he goes to, and the area around the University of Toronto music department and Royal Conservatory of Music. Too much detail for anyone not aware of the city, but interesting for those of us that are.

There's an interesting mix between music and murder in this book. The crimes don't actually take place until about 1/3rd the way through the book so there's a lot of story set-up but that back story is quite interesting.

If I had any complaint about this book, it would be about the seemingly unnecessary (and oddly explained) relationship between Lantry and the police officer. It comes out of no where and fades in to nothing very quickly.

First Line: "I released the Steinway's pedal slowly."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Fiction

Somer almost has it all. She's got a great career as a doctor, a nice house, and a fabulous husband. What Somer doesn't have is a child. When she finds out she is not able to have kids, husband Kris suggests adopting from his home of India. The two end up adopting Asha, who was given up by her family because she was a girl, and take her back to America. Somer can't really relate to the Indian culture and has concerns about Asha wanting to find her real mother but tries to suppress these as she raises her daughter.

As Asha grows up, Somer and Kris grow apart. Asha gets a chance to travel to India for a year in university to further her career as a journalist and jumps on the chance to learn about where she's from. The family breaks apart because Kris wants Asha to be a doctor and Somer doesn't want Asha to find her birth parents.

This story is told from each character's perspective, including the birth parents Kavita and Jasu. This is part of what makes this book so compelling. You're let in to each character's head to learn why they are doing what they are doing and, for the most part, you can understand their motivations. I felt bad for Somer and could understand her concerns with Asha going to India. The weird thing is that I felt guilty for feeling bad for Somer. She should have been accepting of her daughter searching for her roots. Perhaps the problem was in how Asha treated her mom before she left and trampled all over her feelings.

The ending of this book was well done. It wrapped up some items nicely, both other events you wanted to happen for the characters didn't. It felt real in that some things worked out and some things did not. I breezed through this book and quite enjoyed it.

First Line: "He clutches the worn slip of paper in his hands, trying to compare the letters written there to the red sign hanging on the door in front of him."

Rating:
(4/5)

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
Political Satire

Daniel Addison leaves Parliament Hill after having been a speech writer for the Leader of the Opposition to pursue a career in academia. He feels a bit jaded from his time in the Canadian political system and is looking forward to a somewhat more normal existence. The only thing he needs to do before he completely transition is find a Liberal candidate for one of the biggest Tory strongholds in the country, his new home, Cumberland. The incumbent of Cumberland is the current Finance Minister and very popular. It takes Addison a very long time to find a candidate before he happens on his new landlord, Angus McLintock. Angus is a Scot who teaches Engineering at the university and despises teaching English to Engineers because they don't get it. In exchange for not teaching English to Engineers, Angus agrees to become a for-sure loser of the Liberal party in his riding. Hilarity ensues!

It's not typical that you get to read a comedic book about Canadian politics. Usually most Canadian books are sub-par. This one, however, was very enjoyable. The characters were entertaining and the story line more so. Some things didn't make a whole lot of sense, such as why the Liberals would ask Addison to find them a candidate and then do nothing but ridicule his decision when they wouldn't have been able to find better themselves. But putting aside the small issues, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

First Line: "I am Daniel Addison"

Rating:
(4.5/5)

Mobile 9 by Bill Haugland

Mobile 9 by Bill Haugland
Mystery

It's 1969 in Montreal, Quebec and Flash News is a popular English-language news television show of which Ty Davis is a crime reporter and Greg Peterson is a young up-and-coming cameraman. When a woman is beaten and a news truck is reported at the scene, all of the guys that have access to the trucks are brought in for a line up. Peterson is ID'd as the perp but he didn't do it. The news team starts to investigate what is going on. Soon they dig up connections to the mob and all the fun stuff that comes from mob-related activities; drug smuggling, murders, etc.

This book is a bit of a different perspective than what I'm used to, which is almost always the cop hunting for the killer. This time, it's the journalists that are piecing together the puzzle and hunting down the killer.

Written by a Canadian author, this book has a lot of Montreal and general Canadiana included, which is great to read. The general story was good but I feel that Haugland tried to cram too much in to this book. The Grey Cup, multiple mob stories, boxing matches, characters opening their own businesses, it just got to be too much to handle in one book. Perhaps as Haughland's first novel he just tried to take on too much at once.

First Line: "TV cameraman Greg Peterson was exhausted."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

One Red Paperclip by Kyle MacDonald

One Red Paperclip by Kyle MacDonald
Non-Fiction

Kyle MacDonald was having trouble making ends meet and felt like he was continuously sponging off his girlfriend Dominique. He looks around his desk and sees one red paperclip, then decides that he's going to trade that paperclip for bigger and better things until he eventually has a house. It starts small, trading the paperclip for a pen, the pen for a doorknob. He meets many different people along the way and eventually the media starts to catch on, interviewing him and following his journey.

This definitely is not the best written book in the world (in fact I think I could have written it just as well), but the journey from each trade is captivating. It's such a simple idea and yet it amazes me how much effort was required to make some of the trades. At the end of each chapter, which is the story of moving from one trade to the next, there were "lessons" that MacDonald learned from that trade (or didn't, because some of them honestly had nothing to do with the chapter before it), which were very out of place in the book. I stopped reading them after a few chapters because it felt insulting that a guy trading from nothing to something was going to try and teach me life lessons.

This is a fun book and should be treated as such, if you're interested in how a Canadian boy traded a paperclip for a house.

First Line: "Dom and I round the corner."

Rating:
(3.5/5)

The Time In Between by David Bergen

The Time In Between by David Bergen
Fiction/Literature

Charles Boatman has carried around a secret with him about his time fighting in the Vietnam War his entire life and it has weighed heavily. During one of his missions, he shot and killed a Vietnamese boy. After reading a novel of a Vietnamese soldier, Charles decides to return to Vietnam, searching for closure. He soon goes missing and two of his children come to Vietnam to retrace his footsteps and try to find him.

Ada and Jon Boatman meet some of Charles friends. Ada grows close to Charles friends as she chases his shadow. Jon copes by delving into the gay urban nightlife. The authorities provide no help and both Ada and Jon feel like this is going to be a fruitless search.

This book won the Giller Prize and is follows the same formula that any prize winning book follows; authors trying to make themselves look smarter by using longer words, lots of similes, and being incredibly descriptive. This isn't my favourite kind of writing (if you couldn't tell). Unfortunately the past couple of Canadian books I've read I've found slow and hard to connect with the main characters. Is this a trend in Canadian literature of have I just picked up a series of wrong books?

I did enjoy the first half of the book. I felt like there was purpose and I could see where the book was going. However once the kids found their father, I didn't know how Bergen was going to make a story of the remaining 100 pages or so. That's where he lost me. Ada and Jon started behaving worse and worse and I started caring less and less. Then the book just ended. Not very fulfilling.

First Line: "The typhoon arrived that night."

Rating:
(3/5)

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Historical Fiction

It's 1915 and hydroelectric power is starting to take a grip on Niagara, Ontario. When Bess Heath's mom comes to pick her up from private school, Bess immediately notices things are different. Her father and sister aren't there like they usually are, and they have to take the trolley home rather than being driven. Bess learns that her father was fired from his job and her sister Isabel was dumped by her fiance. The Heath family goes from a prominent in society to Bess' mom being a dressmaker; a skill that Bess picks up quickly.

Meanwhile, Bess is enamored with Tom Cole, a "riverman" that can predict the movement of the water through the whirlpool, fish dead bodies out of the river, or save people from being swept away. Bess' parents don't approve of Tom and instead try to push her towards the son of an old family friend, which tears Bess apart.

Along with all the character development and drama, the geography adds another layer to the story, acting like a character on its own. Whenever something happens to a character, the river and falls are usually somehow involved. I very much enjoyed the depth this added and having lived less than an hour away from Niagara Falls my entire life I could easily picture where the characters were and the awe they saw in the river.

I also enjoyed reading of the Canadian perspective of what was happening at home during World War One. The book describes how everyone has to save, when they allow themselves treats, and how women were asked to convince their husbands to go overseas to fight.

The entire book has a sense of foreboding and the entire time I felt like something bad was going to happen. I just couldn't put down the book because I had to know what was going to happen to the characters. Interestingly, the novel was based off a real Niagara Riverman who saved many during his life.

Buy this book from Chapters

First Line: "The stone walls of Loretto Academy are so thick I can sit curled up on a windowsill, arms around the knees tucked beneath my chin."

Rating:

(4.5/5)

In Fond Remembrance of Me: A Memoir of Myth and Uncommon Friendship in the Arctic by Howard Norman

In Fond Remembrance of Me: A Memoir of Myth and Uncommon Friendship in the Arctic by Howard Norman
Non-Fiction

Howard Norman is employed by a museum to travel to Churchill, Winnipeg, Canada to transcribe Inuit folktales into English. There he meets Helen, who is essentially doing the same thing, except translating into Japanese. Helen has a better command for the language and gets along much better with Mark, the person who they are hearing the folktales from. From the beginning we learn that Helen has stomach cancer and Norman uses the book to explain the impact Helen, Mark, and the folktales have made on his life.

Throughout the book are about 10 Inuit folktales that Norman has translated. Each of them have to do with Noah's ark and what happened when Noah sailed into Hudson's Bay. While I found the first one very interesting, all of them were very similar, making me feel like I was reading the same thing over and over again. Perhaps for the sake of not boring the reader, Norman could have cut down the number of tales he wrote in.

I have no doubt that some people may love this book, but it just didn't do it for me. I was having troubles following Norman because he was delving too deep and getting too philosophical for me. Furthermore, I found some of the exchanges between him and Helen just plain weird.

First Line: "On November 8, 1977, in the Halifax train station a few minutes before boarding a train for Montreal, Helen Tanizaki handed me a letter from the afterlife."

Rating:

(3/5)