Review of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

First and foremost, Helen Simonson's novel, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, is a story of good manners and breeding. Major Ernest Pettigrew, the protagonist, is a proper British gentleman living in a small English village. He is a widower, a retired military man, and the father of a grown son. We meet him right when he is digesting the news of his older brother's death. And as we meet him during this difficult time, we are also introduced to Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper in the village. Mrs. Ali is a widow and has taken over her husband's shop. She and the Major strike up an unlikely friendship that we can see is careening toward love.

But there are all sorts of obstacles in the way, including the Major's greedy son, Roger; Mrs. Ali's semi-fanatic nephew, Abdul Wahid; the gossiping men and women of the small village; the Major's conniving sister-in-law and niece; and a set of highly valuable guns.

Simonson, who grew up in a small village in England, clearly knows of what she writes. She shows the gossipy side of a small town, with everyone butting in on everyone else's business. And she shows how those who are not white are never really considered English and are forever put on the sidelines.

There are some very funny moments in the novel and it is, in the end, a love story between two very different (on the outside) people.

Just One Pink gives Major Pettigrew's Last Stand an 8.

Review of Father of the Rain by Lily King

I picked up Father of the Rain because I had read a number of glowing reviews. But I was disappointed in Lily King's latest novel.

Father of the Rain follows the life of Daley, who we first meet as a young girl in the 1970s. She and her family live in fictional Ashling, Massachusetts, a ritzy town. Her parents-- a do-gooder mother and an alcoholic, WASP-y father-- are at odds and end up divorcing. Daley moves in with her mother and sees her father on weekends. I thought this portion of the book, which covered her childhood, was the best part of the book and was the reason I kept reading. Her father is a raging drunk, who is mean and inappropriate towards his children. It's hard to see any redeeming quality in him, though Daley tries. She has a fierce attachment to this man, though he is utterly unlikeable.

The second portion of the book details Daley's life when she's in her late 20s, finishing up graduate school and deciding on her next steps. After hearing that her father's second wife has walked out on him, she ups and leaves her home in Michigan and stays with her father-- this derails her plan to start teaching at Berkeley and to move in with the love of her life, Jonathan. Daley tries and tries to make her father better, driving him to AA meetings, teaching him to cook. She is doing everything she can to rescue her father from himself while she re-lives much of her youth in Ashling, connecting with childhood friends.

I won't reveal how the novel ends, but I will reiterate that I was disappointed in this novel. There were a lot of interesting threads in this book, but I found that how they were handled was somewhat cliched. For example, I wasn't surprised when Daley ends up having a black boyfriend-- her father is racist and anti-Semitic and hates Democrats.

All in all, this book was slightly above average, but I wouldn't recommend it. Just One Pink gives Father of the Rain a 7.

Review of More of This World or Maybe Another by Barb Johnson

Barb Johnson's first collection of linked short stories, More of This World or Maybe Another, is good. Very good. In the nine stories, we meet several friends who live in New Orleans. How their lives meet and diverge is a large part of the collection. We see many of them in childhood or adolescence and then follow them over the course of a number of years. What these stories all have in common is a sense of sadness, desperation, and loneliness.

In the title story, we meet Delia, who figures prominently throughout the book. She is in high school, hanging out at a dance, thinking about her future, and feeling the first stirrings of attraction that she will deal with later on in the book. In "Killer Heart," we meet Dooley, Delia's younger brother, and follow him through a turbulent time in his marriage. In "Titty Baby," we meet Pudge, a friend of Delia's, who grapples with being teased for being heavy and who deals with a rough family situation.

I was blown away by this collection. It's well written, touching, and very real. Johnson worked as a carpenter for 20 years before going back to school to get her MFA. I hope she keeps writing.

Just One Pink gives More of This World or Maybe Another a 9.

Review of Open by Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi hates tennis. That's the most important piece of information we get in his autobiography, Open. The book, of course, is the story of his life-- so far. We read about his overbearing and demanding father, his tenure at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy, the beginning and ending of his tennis career, and his personal life.

Open is the story of a champion athlete, who never really aspired to be one. A tennis racket was put in his hand at a very young age, and he displayed amazing talent. Agassi tells us again and again how much he dislikes tennis. He hates being at the Bollettieri Academy. He doesn't like being on the road for matches.

Agassi also writes about his relationships, both personal or professional. Agassi's first wife, Brooke Shields , comes off looking like an insensitive princess. His second wife, Steffi Graf, comes across as an angel. How he goes from Shields to Graf is an interesting story in and of itself. Agassi also writes about his difficult relationship with his father, his fraught relationship with Bollettieri, and his close relationships with one of his brothers, a friend, a trainer, and a coach. And he writes about his matches. A lot of matches.

After reading Open, I got the sense that Agassi is human, something that didn't necessarily come across during his playing days. He has family issues, relationship problems, and insecurities just like the rest of us. They just happen to come in the guise of a professional athlete.

Just One Pink gives Open a 7.5.

Review of One Day by David Nicholls

One Day, the latest novel by David Nicholls, follows the friendship of Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley, who have met on the day of their college graduation in Edinburgh. After a semi-romantic interlude, the two go their separate ways, but promise to stay in touch. The novel checks in on them on July 15 of almost every year, beginning in 1988, when they have just graduated, and ends in 2007.

Dexter, who can come across as a bit of a cad, becomes a fairly well-known television presenter. Emma, on the other hand, toils away in a Mexican restaurant and ends up getting her teaching certificate. She's insecure and a little preachy. Each has romantic interests, but they always come back to each other. It's clear that no matter what is going on in their lives, they care deeply about each other, even if they're not entirely ready to admit it. There are many awkward moments between them, and there is an undercurrent that neither one will fully recognize.

I was a bit taken aback by the turn of the events at the end of the novel and am still not quite sure how I feel about Nicholls's choices.

I did think, though, that this was a fairly honest representation of a friendship between a man and a woman that stands up to the test of time, to lovers and spouses, to friends, to career changes, to rough patches.

Just One Pink gives One Day an 8.

Review of I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

We've all heard about Nigerian email scams. In Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's novel, I Do Not Come to You by Chance, she tackles the issue-- but from the side of the scammer.

Kingsley Ibe, the narrator, is an engineering graduate, but is having trouble finding a decent job. When things take a turn for the worse in his family, he decides to work for his rich uncle, Boniface, known as "Cash Daddy." Cash Daddy has made lots of money through 419 schemes, those Nigerian email scams most everyone is familiar with.

Kingsley is a sensitive guy who pines for his ex-girlfriend, Ola, worries about his aging mother, and struggles to take care of her and his brothers and sister. Education has always been important in the Ibe family, so working for his shady, uneducated uncle is not what was expected of Kingsley. But he gets used to it-- and the money, women, status, and luxuries that come along with scamming "mugus" (suckers).

Nwaubani's novel is incredibly entertaining and gives us a glimpse into the life of a struggling young Nigerian man who does what he has to in order to survive. There are some very poignant moments in here, but there are also some very funny ones. I found myself rooting for Kingsley even though I shouldn't have, given his line of work.

Just One Pink gives I Do Not Come to You by Chance an 8.

Review of The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott's memoir, The Adderall Diaries, isn't just a memoir. It's also the story of a murder.

Elliott weaves his own personal story of family problems, group homes, drug addiction, sado-masochism, and mental illess with the story of a murder that happened in northern California. He knows some of the individuals involved in the murder, so has a different perspective, I'm guessing, than other observers.

The murder story gets some attention, but I think Elliott would have done better writing two separate books. His life story merits its own book. His mother died when he was a child, leaving him with an abusive father. Elliott ended up in group homes in Chicago and made his way to college. He floated around afterwards and ended up in San Francisco, where he took Adderall, was dominated by numerous women, wrote, and drifted in and out of depression. It's clear that Elliott has had a tough life, but I also found him a bit self-indulgent on occasion, a hazard of memoirs. I think if his life story had been fleshed out more, that wouldn't have happened.

As for the murder story, we don't get all the details here, either. I would have liked to get more background on all the characters involved in it. There's a love triangle, an off-kilter computer scientist, a mail-order bride, all the makings of a great true crime story. But again, Elliott doesn't give us enough information.

I also found the jumping back and forth from his life story to the murder story to be jarring at times. Sometimes, one paragraph in a chapter would be about him and the next would be about the murder with no transition at all. This book could have used better editing in my opinion.

All in all, I felt like I got a brief glimpse of both Elliott's life and the murder story, but didn't get anything in-depth. I would have liked to.

Just One Pink gives The Adderall Diaries a 7.