Ms. Hen reviews The Grip of It

The Grip of It

Jac Jemc

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

2017

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because it is another haunted house book. She’s into haunted houses these days, for reasons that will remain unspoken. On the cover of THE GRIP OF IT, little faces are etched in that you can barely see, which Ms. Hen thought was adorable and scary when she first saw them. She likes a book with a creative cover.

This novel is about a young couple, Julie and James, who are tired of living in the city, and who want to move to the suburbs. The find the house, and are at first enchanted by the secret passages and large rooms and dark cellar. They move in, and change their jobs closer to their new home, and strange things start to happen. Julie gets weird bruises all over her body, and their neighbor stares at them through their window. The house has hidden rooms they don’t know about, and Julie gets trapped in one of the rooms.

The house makes the couple doubt each other. They don’t believe each other when they say they didn’t do certain things. Peculiar drawings appear on the wall in the bedroom, and each thinks the other did them. James cuts out of work to go to a museum in the city, and faints, and has to explain to Julie what happened. James had a gambling problem in the city, and he struggles with not gambling when they move. Julie has to take over the finances and handles paying for the house, because James lost a lot of his money. She is a take-charge person and practical, and he is a type of drifter.

One aspect of this novel that Ms. Hen likes is the point of view shift. Each chapter is told from the alternating viewpoint of either Julie or James. Ms. Hen didn’t get confused like she usually does when POVs change, because she knew exactly who was talking at the time. The characters have similar voices, but are distinctly different.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a scary book that’s worth it, unlike the previous book she reviewed here. She thinks that it’s psychological without getting boring, and the characters are continuously doubting themselves and each other, which makes the reader to continue to doubt whether what is happening is true or just part of their imaginations. Ms. Hen did not know what was going to happen in the end, and she likes when that happens.

Ms. Hen truly enjoyed this novel. It’s scary enough without getting too scary, and the fact that the characters don’t believe what is happening adds to the frightening aspect of the novel. Ms. Hen believes that the world can be a terrifying place, but reading books like this make it easier because it makes us realize life could be worse than it is right now. Ms. Hen says Happy Halloween!

Side Note:

The author is doing a reading at Harvard Bookstore on Saturday November 2. Ms. Hen does not think she can go, but you can read about it here:

http://www.harvard.com/event/after_hours_at_the_bookstore_with_jac_jemc/

Ms. Hen reviews White is for Witching

White is for Witching

Helen Oyeyemi

Riverhead Books

2009

Ms. Hen didn’t realize it was Halloween season until much later than she usually does. She normally has her scary books planned for October, but this month it sneaked up on her, and said boo, I’m here, you need to start your Halloween reading! She found some books quickly, and WHITE IS FOR WITCHING is one book that popped up that she hadn’t read before.

This novel was difficult for Ms. Hen to get into. It’s languid at first; the story does not go anywhere, and she didn’t know what was happening. It’s about a family and the haunted house where they live. Miranda and Eliot are twins, and their mother, Lily, passes away quickly when they are teenagers. Miranda suffers from pica, a type of disorder in which the patient has a desire to eat things that are not food. Miranda eats chalk and paper and dirt and does not like regular food. Her father, Luc, had worked as a chef and a restaurant critic, and he coaxes her into eating by making interesting dishes, but after her mother dies, her illness gets worse and goes into a psychiatric hospital.

This book is strange in the way that it is written. Different points of view crisscross throughout the novel, and there are line breaks with one word, and then the viewpoint changes. The house is also a character in the novel, which confused Ms. Hen when she read those sections. She had to piece together that the house was talking. She doesn’t like to work too hard when she’s reading a book. She likes to understand the plot, even though she does not like to know what will occur next.

Ms. Hen enjoyed the haunted house aspect of this novel. Luc converts Lily’s mother’s house into a bed and breakfast, and there are doors and secret passageways and a dysfunctional elevator, all that the family is not fully aware of. Miranda can sense the presence of her mother and her grandmother and her great grandmother who all suffered from pica, as she does.

A lot happens in this novel, from ghosts to complex immigrant and race relations, to tension between the twins when one does not get into university. It’s a novel about a family and loss of loved ones and relatives that the characters do not know much about.

This is not Ms. Hen’s favorite Halloween novel, but it’s not quite terrible. It’s just messy and confusing, but a lot of life can be like that. Ms. Hen doesn’t like her entertainment to cause her agita, even though she does like to be scared, but only in a satisfying way.

Ms. Hen reviews Leila

Leila

Prayaag Akbar

Faber & Faber

2018

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she watched the adaptation on Netflix recently, and she was enthralled with the story. However, the ending of the show left her disjointed, and she wanted to know if the book was the same as the show. The two are drastically different. Ms. Hen won’t get into the differences here, but they are both excellent and deserve your attention.

This novel is set in 2040s India, and it’s about a woman, Shalini, who is trying to find her daughter Leila. The caste system is still in place, and time has made it worse. Lower caste people in India do not have access to water, and some have to pick through trash to survive, while the upper classes have lawns and air conditioned houses and safe neighborhoods and decent food. Leila is taken from her parents because they are mixed religions; Shalini’s husband Riz is Muslim. Leila is snatched during her lavish birthday party where the family filled the swimming pool, and have an excess of food, and a bartender and ice sculptures. Shalini suspects Riz’s brother of informing the authorities on their activities.

After the party, Shalini is sent to a “Purity Camp” where women who have not behaved according to the leaders’ demands are sent. They are made to work, and are insulted and degraded. The women are brainwashed and are given sedatives. Shalini only wants to find her daughter. She spends years looking for her, doing drastic things, and she doesn’t know if she is dead or alive.

Many people have said that LEILA is similar to THE HANDMAID’S TALE, and Ms. Hen noticed this right away. It’s a dystopian novel that has to do with women’s issues, but this is more of a mother’s tale than the struggle of women against men. Shalini is typical in her plight to find her daughter, who was taken away under dire circumstances. It made Ms. Hen wonders if there is a chance that this is what the world will come to in a few years.

The writing style in this novel is very easy to read and enjoyable. Ms. Hen thinks the author does a fantastic job of telling the story through the point of view of the unreliable narrator, Shalini. She doesn’t know what is happening, and at times the reader does not know either. Also, in the writing of this novel, there is an odor to the descriptions. Ms. Hen could imagine how putrid some of these places smelled. The contrast of how lovely some of the areas were, and the scents there, such as underneath the dome; Ms. Hen could easily grasp those as well.

Ms. Hen loves dystopian fiction, especially that has to do with women’s issues. This is a scary novel about a time in the future that might come to fruition. It’s Halloween season, and even though this is not a typical Halloween book, Ms. Hen thinks it’s frightening and unsettling enough to fall under this category. Ms. Hen thinks that we have to prepare for how messed up the future will be, and she thinks by reading books like LEILA, it will help us to get ready for a transformed world.

Ms. Hen reviews The Librarian of Auschwitz

The Librarian of Auschwitz

Antonio Iturbe

Henry Holt and Company

2012

Translated from the Spanish by Lilit Zekulin Thwaites 2017

Ms. Hen found this book at a Little Free Library near where she lives. She almost didn’t pick it up because she thought it was a young adult novel, and she doesn’t always like to read books like that. But she was intrigued by the title, and wanted to learn what it was about.

This is a novel based on the true life story of Dita Kraus, a prisoner at Auschwitz who helped in the family camp and the school. Her job was to protect the books in the school and keep them safe because they were not allowed to have books, since the Nazis thought they were dangerous. People who wanted to control other people did not let them have books because they can contain revolutionary ideas, and prisoners could develop dangerous thoughts if they read them. She doesn’t know if people believe that in today’s world, at least not in the United States.

Dita lived in Prague with her mother and her father before they were sent to Terezin, a ghetto on the outskirts of Prague. Life was bad in the ghetto, but they didn’t know how much worse it could get. They were sent to Auschwitz and suffered without much food, and were put to work. Dita’s father died of natural causes there. Dita worked in the school and she helped with the children. She had a pocket made in her smock so she could hide the books. She couldn’t read all the books because some were in different languages, but she still loved and protected them. She learned that the Nazis started the family camp as a showcase to try to prove to the world that they were not terrible, to be used as a display in anyone came to visit. Nobody ever did.

Dita became interested in the teacher at the school Freddy Hirsch and why he killed himself. She could never understand why someone in his position would do such a thing. Her whole life she struggled trying to comprehend this.

When Ms. Hen read this, she found it scary. She couldn’t read that much at the same time. She thought this was a young adult novel, and it’s written like one, but some scenes are so graphic, she doesn’t think children should read this. This might be appropriate for teenagers, but not teenagers today who are delicate snowflakes. Ms. Hen would have read this when she was young. She read a lot of dark things during her childhood, and she can handle unsettling stories, because that’s the way the world is.

A Passover dinner was described that was eaten in the camp. They had what passed for matzah, and some food, “Laid out on it in precise order was a bone of something that could be chicken, an egg, a slice of radish, and a pot full of water with what looked like herbs floating it in.” Ms. Hen was glad that there might have been chicken, but along with other aspects of this book, it made her sad that a celebratory meal was so meager.

Ms. Hen got emotional reading this novel. She has read other books about the Holocaust, but none as intimate and graphic as this. The author met the woman the character is based on, and he was impressed by how intelligent and sensitive she still was at the age of eighty. Anyone who had endured ordeals such as this would be a courageous person indeed. Ms. Hen admires people who have survived terrible things, and have come out on the other side. She recommends this novel to anyone who wants to learn about the appreciation of beauty amidst horror.