The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

Finished February 12

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson

This novel was a delightful read. It takes place in the summer of 1919, and follows several young people who are adjusting to life after the war. Many of the women worked during the war, and have now found themselves without those jobs. Some are trying to survive on the small war widows pensions by augmenting it by other work. They aren't the only ones seemingly locked out of the work they had been doing. Men who were injured also find themselves treated as incapable. 

The central character here is Constance Haverhill. Constance's mother grew up with another woman who married into a titled family, while Constance's mother married a farmer. They continued to call each other best friends, but it seems like Lady Mercer treated her friend as an unpaid worker, often calling on her to help with childcare and other household endeavours. During the war, Constance worked as estate manager for the Mercers, but found herself quickly ousted when the war ended. With her mother dead from the influenza epidemic, she found herself called on to nurse Lady Mercer's mother, Mrs. Fog when she was ill. Her 'reward' is to act as companion to Mrs. Fog while she convalesces at a seaside hotel. 

But it is in this town that both Constance and Mrs. Fog encounter second chances. Constance meets another young woman her age, Poppy Wirrall. Poppy is also the daughter in a titled family, and she spent the war, along with other young women, working as motorcycle messengers. Poppy has started a small company offering motorcycle taxi (using sidecars) and delivery services, with a variety of young women employed part-time doing this work. Some have other jobs or widows pensions that they augment by working for her. 

Poppy's brother was a pilot during the war, and lost part of one leg in action. He is back at home, but depressed by the loss of many men he considered friends, and the inability of others to consider him employable. 

Constance is a calming force to Poppy's impulsiveness and exuberance, and as she begins to take chances, and open herself up to other possibilities in her life, I found myself hoping for a more promising future for her than she expected at the book's beginning. 

I also enjoyed Mrs. Fog, watching her go from recovering invalid to putting her own wishes first, despite the pressure of those she'd given into previously. 

I also found the story of the German waiter Klaus Zeiger touching. He is the quintessential waiter, always observant, mindful of propriety, and empathetic to the needs of those he serves. He is also highly aware of his ethnic baggage and how it has affected his life both during the war and now. I really appreciated that Constance saw him as a person, beyond his role. 

This is a novel of a time of great changes and adjustments and not all of them are fair or pleasant. This novel has moments of outrage, sadness, and joy. Well worth reading. 

Double Negative

Finished July 17

Double Negative by Susan Marshall

This teen novel has a lot going on, with some romance and betrayal, friendship issues, school extracurricular activities, and athletic commitments. 

The main character, Reece, has an injury that pauses her competitive swimming activity. She's been swimming at this level for years, and has hopes of a swimming scholarship to help with her university goals. She, along with other swim team members, and high level athletes, go to a school that prioritizes these activities and structures academics around training and competition commitments. Because she's injured, she gets moved to the public high school, where her older brother Jaime also attends. 

Jaime is working on his extracurriculars in hopes of getting a university scholarship as well, and is running for president of the student council. When his vice-presidential running partner is disqualified, he convinces Reece to take their spot. 

Reece is slowly adjusting to life at the high school, which involves more activities that she is used to, and begins to find she enjoys some of them, while still missing her previous environment. But her former friends seem to have quickly moved on without her, and although she does the physiotherapy and other work to bring her body back to prime condition, she feels set apart from them. 

As Reece faces new challenges, from mentoring a younger swimmer, to writing a constitution for the student council, she also finds herself attracted to Zain, one of her brother's strongest critics, and an athlete himself. 

Zain has had his own setbacks, and has some baggage from that that causes complications in how they relate to each other.

This book really immerses you in Reece's situation, so you can feel her frustrations (with her brother, her body, her father, Zain, and others) as well as her determination (to get well, to create a good constitution, to get justice for those she feels deserve it). Good characterization and real teenage decisions bring this book to life. 

The Speed of Falling Objects

Finished July 6

The Speed of Falling Objects by Nancy Richardson Fischer

This teen novel was a real pageturner. Danny Warren is almost seventeen and living with her mom in Oregon. When she was seven, she lost an eye in an accident, and shortly after her parents split up. Her mom is a nurse and Danny has taken on a lot of the knowledge of that job, reading the journals her mom brings home and having conversations about the cases described. She good at, and interested in, science. 

Her dad, Cougar, has a television show where he travels around the world, doing dangerous things, and using knowledge and ingenuity to get out of dangerous situations, usually with a celebrity in tow. Danny has only seen him a few times since he left and she feels that due to the compensations that she's had to learn to deal with her new physical reality, he doesn't feel she measures up to the standards he's set anymore. He tends to call her by her full name Danielle, instead of her preferred nickname.

Danny's best friend is adopted and is part of a large family, but still longs to know about her birth parents. The two are close, have each other's backs, and both feel outside the normal social groups at school. 

When Cougar suddenly invites Danny to come on one of his shows with a hot teen idol as the guest, she both longs to go to get closer to her dad, and is afraid that once again she won't measure up. She also has to deal with her mother's reluctance to let her go/

On the trip, into the Peruvian rainforest, the small plane the group is in crashes, and Danny discovers many things about her dad and the others on the trip, and about her own resources to deal with the dangerous situation.

I liked Danny, and her reactions to the situations and attitudes that she dealt with. This experience had her coming out of her shell as she had to do things and be part of a team in a way that she wasn't used to. 

Two White Queens and The One-Eyed Jack

Finished May 12 

Two White Queens and The One-Eyed Jack by Heidi Von Palleske

This book is a winner. It takes you into the world of four young people, following their lives from the age of six to their early twenties. Gareth and Johnny are best friends, up for any adventure. When Gareth climbs a tree successfully, Johnny is urged to tackle it after him, climbing higher and higher, but he falls, and is hurt. The fall results in the loss of one of Johnny's eyes. Gareth struggles with the guilt he feels of urging Johnny on. The boys remain friends, but for a long while, there is distance between them that wasn't there before. Interestingly, the incident results in another revelation, the fact that Gareth's older brother Tristan is blind in one eye. As Gareth's family deals with this, and numerous doctor visits are kept, Gareth has a random encounter with two young girls in a waiting room.

These two girls are twin sister, Blanca and Clara, albinos who live with their grandfather in a very dysfunctional family. Their mother, Faye, is living in a mental institution and they go to see her from time to time. The also spend time at the home of their uncle and his family. They are bullied at school, and subjected to strict rules at home, but they find refuge in the home of their downstairs neighbour, Esther Perlman, a refugee from World War II, who was the only one in her family to escape the Nazis. Esther teaches them art and manners, and they begin to plan a way out of their situation, by taking advantage of their uniqueness instead of feeling lesser because of it. These are strong-willed girls and their intense connection with each other is their strength.

Johnny's mother Hilda, is another European immigrant, in her case running from a life that she didn't want to face. But she remembers a figure from her childhood and thinks about how he may be able to help her son. As she reconnects with Siegfried, she also finds that her relationship with her husband, already unravelling, grows even more frayed. 

As Johnny grows up, he grows tired of being the "junior" of his father and reclaims his name as Jack, and finds himself using photography as a type of replacement for his partial loss of vision. It is not until they are teenagers that the young people encounter each other again. But this time, they spend more time with each other and are influenced by each other's experiences. 

This book takes us into the past, dealing with loss and shame and the impulse to forget. But it also looks into the future, with the hope these young people have of starting anew, reinventing themselves and finding new purpose. The book's final scene is a fabulous metaphor for new beginnings. 

The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin

Finished August 7
The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin by Stephanie Knipper

This novel begins with Rose Martin watching her young daughter Antoinette sleeping. She loves her deeply, but worries over her. We get the sense that something isn't right with the child. We next see ten-year-old Antoinette on her own, leaving the farmhouse to go out to the field of flowers beyond. We see that she responds to nature, but has difficulty moving, and is unable to talk. They live at the home that Rose and her sister Lily grew up on, at a farm near a small town called Redbud, in central Kentucky, near Lexington. The farm is a commercial flower farm.
Rose's sister Lily lives a couple of hours away in Covington, Kentucky, the north end of the state. She works for an insurance company there. Not far, but she hasn't talked to her sister in years, Not since shortly after their parents died, and Rose asked Lily to stay at the farm and help. Lily felt then that staying was a challenge that she wasn't up to, and Rose resented her for that decision. Both women have wanted to reach out many times since then, but neither has the courage.
So when Lily gets a call from Rose, once again asking her to come home, and tells her of her own failing health, Lily goes. She is still wary, afraid of the way she begins to act when she is around her young niece. She is very surprised to find that their neighbor, Seth, a man that Lily once thought she had a future with, is back in Redbud and working at the farm. Lily never really got over Seth, and thus the homecoming is even more emotional that she guessed. As she gets to know Antoinette, she finds that she can relate to the young girl, but when she discovers that Antoinette has healing powers of some sort, she is upset that neither her sister nor Seth has told her. As she learns more, she understands the situation better, and begins to find her place again there.
Lily's neighbor from Covington, Will, a young doctor who is a good friend, has followed Lily south, and shows up unexpectedly. Will has strong feelings for Lily, but also is a sensitive and observant man, and he begins to notice Antoinette's abilities fairly quickly. He also notices something else about them that no one else has, something that makes a big difference.
This is a story of love, of families, of how it feels to be "different," of the sacrifices that people will make for love. It is a story of a woman who comes to accept herself as she is, rather than fighting against her impulses. A story of two sisters who care deeply for each other.

The War That Saved My Life

Finished March 8
The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

This children's novel tells the story of Ada Smith and her younger brother Jamie. Ada lives in the East End in London with her mother and younger brother. Her mother does not let her out of the apartment, threatening her with the loss of looking out the window for every small infraction. Ada has always looked after Jamie that she can remember, but now he has started school and she resents him getting to go out. She decides to teach herself how to walk, despite her malformed foot, and practices when no one is home, but nothing she can do will please her mother.
When the war starts and Jamie comes home announcing that they are evacuating children to the country, Ada is determined to go. Using all her physical strength, she hobbles and drags herself to the school, and manages to get on a train with Jamie.
They end up living with a sad woman, who at first resents being asked to take them. But Ada is used to looking after herself and Jamie and gradually everyone adjusts to their new environment.
The way that Ada was treated made me angry, and fueled my reading. Ada's story is one of luck and determination, and despite her traumas, she proved a resilient young girl. She is opinionated and observant, and every success increased her confidence.
This is a book that would be good to read with a parent, to promote discussion of some of the difficult situations that arise in the plot.

The Golden Egg

Finished June 22
The Golden Egg by Donna Leon

This novel features the wonderful Commissario Guido Brunetti of Venice. Brunetti is asked to look into a minor retail licensing violation, so he begins to wonder the real purpose of his being asked to do this, and discovers ties to the mayor. Brunetti's wife Paola tells him of the death of a developmentally handicapped man who had worked at their local dry cleaner and, though initially reluctant, Brunetti finds the man's death hides more than he imagined. Brunetti's initial inquires make him more and more curious, and though dismayed, he keeps at it until he finds the history that led to this.
This is a story of jealousy, of neglect, of how easy it is to look the other way when we note an injustice. Like many of the novels in this series, the crimes that take place are part of a larger story of social injustice. It is interesting to see Brunetti's personal life as his children grow up, and the emotions that the stories evoke in the detective as well as the reader.

The Story of Beautiful Girl

Finished January 25
The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon

This book was written to highlight the sad history of state homes for developmentally delayed adults and those with disabilities. The author's sister Beth had an intellectual disability and that made Simon interested in the history of society's treatment of these individuals.
This novel begins in 1968 when retired schoolteacher Martha has a knock on the door of her remote farmhouse on a rainy night. She opens the door to Lynnie and Homan who have escaped from the Pennsylvania State School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, as it was known at that time. They also have with them Lynnie's newborn baby. Martha takes them in, clothes and feeds them, but unfortunately the authorities aren't far behind and are soon also knocking on Martha's door. They take Lynnie back to the School, but Homan makes a successful run for it, and the authorities seem to have no knowledge of the baby's existence. Lynnie's please to Martha to "hide her" rings of desperation and Martha struggles with the right thing to do.
Martha was an inspiring teacher and she has a number of former students to come back to visit her. Now, she is the one going to them, for advice, for assistance, and for shelter as she follows Lynnie's instruction, and raises the child she has quickly grown to love.
Lynnie resumes her old life back at the school, and one of the staff Kate, that has been close to her, discovers her situation regarding the baby and struggles with whether to inform others or not. With Lynnie's confiding pictures, Kate follows the trail to Martha's house and finds support to keep the secret for both Lynnie and the baby's sake.
Homan, meanwhile is on the run once again. Misunderstood and prejudiced against the young deaf man struggles to understand the world he lives in and find a place in it.
Neither Homan nor Lynnie forget the other and both hope to one day find a way back to each other.
Of course over the course of time, society's role in the lives of these marginalized people changes as well as the maltreatment of them becomes more widely known and changes are made to help them rather than just hide them from view.
A moving tale of love, societal change, and perseverance.

Out of My Mind

Finished April 12
Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This children's novel has a main character Melody, who is eleven years old and suffers from severe cerebral palsy. She can't walk, can't feed herself, and can't talk. But inside, she is extremely bright with an almost photographic memory. Her parents have fought for her to have access to education and recently her school has started integrated their special needs students with the regular classes.
With the help of her school-supplied aid and a family friend, Melody researches and finds out about a device that will allow her to communicate with those around her in a way that reflects her real voice.
This is a novel about not judging others by how they appear, about recognizing that we are all unique and bring different skills to the table. This is about challenging those preconceived notions about others' capabilities. A great book for young people that will expand their minds with new ideas.
I really got a sense of Melody's frustrations. The author makes her a real girl, not a perfect one. She makes mistakes and takes out her anger on others who don't deserve it like we all sometimes do. She learns that she too has made judgements that aren't always accurate.

A Christmas Home

Finished October 21
A Christmas Home by Greg Kincaid

This short novel is set in the small town of Crossing Trails, Kansas, where, like many parts of the United States, finances are getting tight. A large employer has closed, resulting in lost jobs, and lost tax revenue for the town. At the center of this story is Todd McCray, twenty-four years old and working at the local animal shelter. Todd has a developmental disability, but has wonderful skills with animals, particularly dogs, that serve him well in his work. He has recently moved out of his parent's home to a nearby cabin, and is beginning to live a more independent life. With the town's financial issues comes a threat to Todd's job and the shelter itself. As Todd, his friends, family and coworkers fight to save the shelter, Todd must also examine his life to see what it is he truly wants. A particular help is Todd's best friend Laura, a young woman with physical disabilities, whom Todd has assisted by training a service dog for her needs. Laura believes in Todd, and encourages him to find the path that is meant for him.
With romance, urgency, and wonderful dog characters, this novel is a feel-good one for the season.

The Next Best Thing

Finished August 10
The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner, read by Olivia Thirlby

This novel has been on beach read lists this summer, and I would say that would be appropriate. It's a novel with twists and turns and a feel-good ending. It has romance, career development, and emotional development. The main character, Ruth Saunders, was injured in a car accident as a young child, an accident in which her parents were killed. The accident left her with damage on her face and neck and she underwent several surgeries as a child. Since the accident, she has been cared for by her grandmother Rachel, a feisty woman with a great sense of fashion.
Ruth has always dreamed of writing for television and a couple years back decided to move to LA to give it a shot. Her grandmother, naturally, moved as well, and the two of them have been making a life for themselves. Ruth has had some TV writing jobs, and is now writing her first series. When her series gets picked up by a network, she becomes a show-runner. We see Ruth struggle with confidence, assertion, and control as she works on the series. We see the complexity of this type of work and learn some of the jargon. We see her love life develop along with her personal confidence and feel for her missteps.
To me the emphasis on her overcoming her physical disfigurement was interesting, but I am not sure that I liked how physical beauty and strength were portrayed here. Maybe I am reading too much into things though. As a light entertaining romance, it is great.

Carrying Mason

Finished May 28
Carrying Mason by Joyce Magnin

This children's novel is set in the late 1950s in a small town in Pennsylvania. Luna is 13, the second oldest in her family of five children, and mourning the death of her best friend Mason. Mason was an only child, who lived with his mentally disabled mother Ruby May. At first Luna is struck by her own loss, but she soon feels for Ruby May, who having previously lost her husband, has now lost her only child. Ruby May is grieving and is missing the support she had from Mason. Luna approaches her parents, proposing that she move in with Ruby May and play the role in Ruby May's life that Mason had been taking on.
Along the way, Luna discovers her own strength and even teaches some others a few things. Luna isn't perfect, but she has a good heart and faith, and those will go a long ways. Luna truly cares about Ruby May and sees her as a person. A feel-good novel that allows children to think about those who a developmentally delayed in new ways.

Where We Going, Daddy

Finished November 5
Where We Going, Daddy? Life with Two Sons Unlike Any Others by Jean-Louis Fournier, translated by Adriana Hunter
From the introduction, by Fern Kupfer, right through to the end of this short book I was captivated. Fournier has two severely disabled sons, Mathieu and Thomas. Both have both physical and mental disabilities that severely impact their lives. Fournier is a humour writer and this certainly comes through, but everything he says in these short vignettes is heartfelt and evokes his real feelings: love, frustration, guilt, anger, sadness. Not having been there, I can't really imagine the difficulties of having a disabled child, but Fournier illustrates his experience with his short impressions of situations in his life.
Highly recommended