Ms. Hen reviews Our Little World

 

Our Little World

Karen Winn

Dutton

2022

Ms. Hen decided to read the novel because she won it as a prize! She went to a Zoom meeting that was the annual book party for the National Writers Union of Boston, and she won the trivia contest. She got to pick one book that an author read, and she picked this because it was the only novel. Ms. Hen prefers novels most of the time.

This book is about two sisters, Borka and Audrina, growing up in 1985 suburban New Jersey. Borka, or Bee, as she prefers to be called, is the narrator, and she is jealous of her younger sister, because she is beautiful and popular. A family moves in across the street, with a boy Bee's age, Max Baker, and a four year old girl, Sally. They become friends.

The children and Mrs. Baker go to the lake, and Sally disappears. They police scour the lake and the woods, and she isn't found. Both Bee and Audrina are devastated, they don't know how to handle it. They both adored Sally. Max and his family are crushed. When Bee goes back to school she becomes popular because she is associated with Sally. Bee enjoys her life for a short time, albiet for a price. The next school year, things are different for Bee.

Ms. Hen thinks this novel is a wonderful example of writing through the eyes of children, which is something as a writer she does not do often. In order to write like a child, an author has to get into their mind, and think like one, with their fears and anxieties and childlike obsessions. Bee is a great character because she is realistic, she has a small view of the world, like a child should. She thinks mostly of herself and her problems, and doesn't understand life yet.

Even though Ms. Hen was interested in the story and the relationship between the sisters, she found some inconsistencies in the research. Ms. Hen was the exact age that Bee was in 1985, so she remembers that era. The term "playdate" was not used in the Eighties, but it is used in this novel. Two boys meeting Bee were both wearing North Face jackets, and nobody wore those in the Eighties. Also, Mrs. Baker smokes cigarettes, and the girls think that is strange, but most women smoked in the Eighties, so it wouldn't have been unusual. Ms. Hen thinks the author might not have been old enough to remember these facts, but Ms. Hen does, because she is a hen who remembers.

Ms. Hen liked this novel. It is not the kind of book she has been reading lately, but it's nice, a heartwarming story, one that's about family, and the complexities of love within a family. Life happens, and we have to keep going on.

Ms. Hen reviews A Book of Days

 

A Book of Days 

Patti Smith

Random House 

2022

Ms. Hen bought this book as a Christmas present for herself, but did not get around to reading it until her birthday, which was yesterday. She read the entire book in one day: it's a photography book, with a picture for every day of the year, including leap day, for people whose birthdays are on that day. Every picture is something that Patti Smith loves or is interested in, birthdays of artists/ activists/ intellectuals she admires, some are random pictures from things around her house, or travel photos. Ms. Hen thinks this books is like walking through someone else's dreams, or subconscious, it's lovely, some pictures are in color, and some are in black and white, but all are ones that Smith cares deeply about. She used to travel the world with a Polaroid camera, but the company stopped making the film, so now she uses her phone or another camera. Ms. Hen has read a few of Ms. Smith's books, and they always leave her feeling better about the world. On Ms. Hen's birthday in A BOOK OF DAYS, Patti Smith is with Werner Herzog working on German and English interpretations PEYOTE DANCE by Antonin Artaud. Ms. Hen admires Herzog, and has seen some of his films. Ms. Hen is another year older today.

Ms. Hen became a person with glasses for her birthday

Ms. Hen reviews Chance

 

Chance

Matthew Fitzsimmons

Thomas & Mercer

2023

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel, because she read the first one in this series, CONSTANCE, and she loved it. She does not usually read a lot of books that are series, but she decided to read the second book, since the first one was so fabulous.

Ms. Hen came to the conclusion that a reader would not have to read the first book to understand this one. In CHANCE, the protagonist is Chance Harker, a young man who has been cloned several times. In the opening scene, he is about to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, and possibly die, because he can be cloned as many times as possible. He has been cloned four times up to that point.

In this world, only the very wealthy can afford to have clones. Chance's father worked for Palingenesis, the company that clones people, and Chance has options to become a clone, so he takes advantage of it to the full extent.

Chance and his brother, Marley, were kidnapped and murdered five years before, but came back as clones. Chance never found out who the kidnappers were, and it still haunts him. He awakens, and discovered he has murdered someone named Lee Conway, but he doesn't remember, because he had died, and came back a clone before he could have his memory refreshed. 

This phenomenon is called "lag," when a clone has no memory of what happened right before they die. People who have clones go into a lab to have their memories downloaded, called a "refresh," so their clone can be the same person up to a point. Chance has to solve the mystery of why he murdered Lee Conway.

Ms. Hen thinks this book is a lot of fun, but the writing style takes acclimation. The metaphors and similes are high camp, some were lost on Ms. Hen, but they were charming. This book is full of celebrity references.

This novel takes place in Los Angeles, and it's a very L.A. book. The talk of climate change and how it devastated California will probably be accurate in the future. Celebrities still dominate, even though California is a wasteland.

Ms. Hen thinks she might have like CONSTANCE better, because she thinks Chance is an unlikeable character, a cool jerk. Constance appears in this book, but her future is not bright. Clones fascinate Ms. Hen, so much, that she would read the next book to find out what happens. Ms. Hen doesn't think she would like to be cloned, but it she were given the chance, she would consider it.