One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

 

Reviewed by Kristin

Mab, Monday, and Mirabel are sixteen-year-old triplets. They have so much in common, but they each are also very much their own person. Mab is the one who most people think of as normal: smart and active, with an obsessive habit of using SAT vocabulary words with her friend Petra as part of their college-bound journey out of small town Bourne. Monday is a little quirky, preferring to wear all yellow clothes and eat all yellow food, (unless of course it’s raining and then her preferred color switches to green.) Mirabel is the smartest person they all know but her body doesn’t work so well, with the exception of her right arm and hand. Together, with their mother Nora, they are a whole family.

Two decades ago the town of Bourne was booming. Belsum Chemical built a large plant which employed much of the town as well as supported the local businesses which employed most of the rest of the population. Then, the river turned green. Belsum owner Duke Templeton disavowed all responsibility, shuttered the plant, and skipped town. As the years passed, Bourne residents ended up with cancer, birth defects, and shattered hopes and dreams. Nobody comes to Bourne anymore, and only a few remain hopeful to escape. The adults are frustrated with the lack of opportunity and are looking for any occupation other than sitting in a recliner at home or on a barstool at the one and only bar. Nora has been fighting for justice all these years, and still hopes to make the Templetons pay for how their chemicals damaged the people of Bourne.

Mab, Monday, and Mirabel tell their story in alternating chapters. Each has a distinct voice and unique perspective. I listened to the audiobook and the chapters are voiced by three different narrators who blend the story together beautifully. I loved each of the girls for their own personality. While the story was told from the points of view of Mab, Monday, and Mirabel, I was rooting for the well-being of the entire town.

Mab is the one who always tries to help. She tutors at school, volunteers to help Pooh—a senior citizen—and always looks out for her sisters. She is giving and generous with her own time even as she meets the new boy, River, and starts to imagine a world of her own.

Monday has taken over as town librarian since the library closed. The books are crammed in various places around their house, and she knows exactly where to find each book, whether that is in the microwave or in the closet under the stairs. (The ones she really doesn’t like go behind the toilet.)

Mirabel is brilliant and those who know her (and in Bourne everyone does) are willing to wait while she taps out her words and her adaptive speech processor speaks them aloud. Mirabel’s Voice is almost a character itself, as a vital part of how Mirabel expresses herself.

Laurie Frankel is a luminous author and I have enjoyed (and reviewed!)  her previous books:  The Atlas of Love, Goodbye for Now and This Is How It Always Is.  Frankel tends to take a few years between publishing her novels, so I anxiously await the next.

A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones

Reviewed by Kristin

Sunshine Vicram is about to have a very bad day. It’s her first day as sheriff of her hometown of Del Sol, New Mexico, a post she didn’t even know she was running for until she won. Fifteen years away is a long time, but Sunshine’s criminal justice degree and fancy big city law enforcement career more than prepared her for the small town crime she’ll be facing now. Or did it? At least she got to pick the color of her uniform, and black pants are very slimming.

Neighbors accusing each other of stealing a chicken—(excuse me, a rooster, and his name is Puff Daddy)—is one thing, but when a teenage girl goes missing, Sunshine and her deputies rush into action. Deputy Quincy Cooper has been her best friend since elementary school, and while he can be a bit annoying, he always has her back. Sunshine’s teenage daughter Auri knows the missing girl too, and is ready and overly willing to jump into the investigation.

Sunshine has quite a back story that threatens to spill out at every turn, and while reading this I started to question whether I had missed an earlier book or two. Fortunately for me and my habit of at least trying to read things in order, A Bad Day for Sunshine is the first in the series. As I continued through the book, all the hints and foreshadowing became clearer, and most of the loose threads were tied up by the end. A few are left dangling, but that’s good because A Good Day for Chardonnay is expected to be published early next year.

One such thread is Sunshine’s bad boy/romantic interest Levi Ravinder. Their long-simmering and potentially steamy relationship makes her tingle in all the right places. Not to mention, she has a couple of other guys in her sights. Sunshine seems to be one of those women who can balance a career, a teenage daughter, aging parents in her backyard, and a man or three. This might be a recipe for disaster, but I bet the journey will be laugh out loud funny. I also hope that Sunshine’s mother’s book club continues their interfering ways as the women of a certain age who know everything in town, and who have their ways of making things happen.

Darynda Jones is also the New York Times bestselling author of the Charley Davidson series, another humorous foray into a world of private investigation with a supernatural twist.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Reviewed by Jeanne

 Beartown is a small community whose ice hockey A-team was second in the nation about twenty years ago, but still carries the pride of those days. One member of that team even went to play in Canada in the NHL for a while.  Now, with jobs dwindling and no tourism or industry—or as one character puts it all they have is “darkness, cold, and unemployment”-- Beartown once again has pinned its hopes on ice hockey.  They have a great team, a team that might just make it into the championship round and bring a new rink, new training facilities, and new life to Beartown.

Then there is an incident which tears the town and the team apart.  Can Beartown survive?

I may have mentioned a time or twelve that I love Book Bingo because it encourages me to read books I might not pick up otherwise.  That was the case with the first Backman book I read, A Man Called Ove (and which I loved) and so it was with the second when the square told me to read a book about sports.  I don’t hate sports, I just don’t know that I like to read about them all that much.  And then I remembered that Backman’s Beartown was about ice hockey.

Well, it is.  And it isn’t.

Backman has a deep understanding of his characters and is an artist at revealing them to the reader, giving each one multiple layers and facets.  There’s a full cast here indeed:  Peter, the former champion, who has returned home to help the town win again, bringing with him his attorney wife and two children, bright Maya and her younger brother, Leo; Kevin, the new golden boy who may bring glory to the town; Sune, the old man who has coached the A-team for decades but who knows that he’s going to be pushed out; and Amat, whose mother immigrated to Beartown and works as a cleaner so that her son can have a better life and play this game that he loves with all his heart and soul.  There are numerous other supporting characters who can seem overwhelming at first, but they all have important roles to play in the drama. 

What I love about Backman’s writing is that his characters aren’t often predictable.  Some who seem unlikable at first may emerge as heroes while the seemingly sympathetic person turns out to care more for his own agenda than for the greater good.

More than anything, this is an examination of human character and society and made a much greater impression on me than I would have imagined.  There are some things that I may quibble with—Backman likes to leap forward to the future and occasionally tantalize his audience with hints of what happened to a character—but I also have to admit those make for memorable impressions.

If you like tough stories well told, peopled by fully developed characters, moments when you will cringe and cheer, and an exploration of both the light and dark in human beings, then by all means pick up Beartown.  You may even want to try the sequel, Us Against You, which continues the story of some of the characters.  A third book is in the works.

And I don’t know beans about hockey.