Trouble the Water
Nicole Seitz
March 2008
296 pages

Meh. The best thing about this book is that it was a quick read. Of course, it was quick because I didn’t linger on any of the words or passages. And I’m going to give away a bit of the plot, so don’t read this review if you ever plan to read the book.

Set on St. Anne Island, a fictional South Carolina coastal island, the story centers around Honor Maddox. Honor has arrived on St. Anne’s, depressed and broke. After her rescue by a bunch of Gullah nannies, she is turned over to the Duchess, an eccentric widow with plenty of room in her big house. She takes in Honor and the two opposites proceed to become BFF.

Then suddenly, jump forward a few months. Honor is in the hospital and her sister Alice is reading a letter Honor wrote to her, recalling her past mistakes and the happiness she found on St. Anne’s. Of course, Honor dies and Alice follows in her footsteps to find happiness on St. Anne’s. Big surprise.

I found the characters shallow. They didn’t seem fully developed and I would have liked more information on their background. The story skipped back and forth between time and narrators. I was able to follow it initially, but the switch to Alice reading Honor’s letter was jarring. I also thought the Gullah nannies were there just to add some local culture…why did they all have to be nannies? And why did they have to speak with such thick accents, when the other (white) characters had none? This bothered me. I also saw the childhood sexual trauma from a mile away, so there were no surprises there. And the ending was way too trite. And wow, I’m being pretty harsh. But the book was a disappointment…good thing it was a library book.

However…Amy loved it. So if you’d like to read the total opposite of my review, go read Amy’s.

Have you ever noticed how Salman Rushdie appears to be smirking in his photos? Sorry you have to click on the linky, but I can’t bring myself to post a picture of his face on my blog.

The other day I decided to read some reviews of The Enchantress of Florence, just to see what others had to say. Because I still wasn’t convinced he was all that and a bag of chips. So there I was, clicking around the internet, and I kept running into Mr Rushdie with that same damn smirk on his face. To be fair, it could be his version of a smile, but my mind is convinced it’s a smirk. As in, I’m a great writer and you’re not, nee-neer, nee-neer, smirk.

By the way, as I was gallivanting around the internet, I found this comment by David Gates, in the NY Times Sunday Book Review…

“The Enchantress of Florence” is so pious — especially in its impiety — so pleased with itself and so besotted with the sound of its own voice that even the tritest fancies get a free pass.

Also by the way, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever read a Sunday Book Review review.

So…now that I have that smirky face in my head, and I have the have the weight of the New York Times Sunday Book Review behind me (besotted with the sound of its own voice…hee, hee, hee), I’m feeling even more anti-Enchantress. Totally illogical, I know, but that’s me.

Sunday night I decided to give it one final chance. I read a page and realized I had no memory of what I had just read. And I didn’t care what was happening to the characters, and although I was on page 139, I had only a glimmer of the story. So I closed the book. For good.

Oh. Wait. One more thing. How do you feel about the chapter titles being the first five (or six or seven or eight, because remember, Rushdie writes damn long sentences) words of the first sentence? Because I don’t like it. Especially when the chapter title is it’s own page. Then you turn the page and those same five (or six or seven or eight) words are staring you in the face again. And you didn’t like them the first time.

I don’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted with myself for sticking it out for 139 pages.

Three Cups of Tea

This was our choice for this month’s Slow Travel Concentric Reading Circle, and we discussed the book today. Not my normal choice of reading, and I struggled with the book. In fact, I skimmed quite a bit of the first half. Consensus at today’s chat was that the book needed a good editor.

In 1993, Greg Mortenson attempted to climb K2. He was unable to make it to the summit, and on his descent he got lost. Rescued by local villagers, he pledged to return and build a school for the girls of the village. Mortenson returned home, and living out of his car, struggled to save every penny in order to return and fulfill his promise. He sent hundreds of letters in an attempt to raise money, but didn’t get very far. Finally, a former climber pledged $12,000, what Mortenson estimated it would cost to build one school. He finally built the school and went on to found the Central Asian Institute, whose goal is to promote peace and provide better opportunities for the children of remote villages by building schools. Today, due to Mortenson’s perseverance and the generosity of thousands, the CAI is going strong.

Three Cups of Tea chronicles Mortenson’s struggles and unwavering determination to make his dream a reality. It’s a fantastic story and an even more fantastic achievement, but gawd, is the book ever boring. Okay, there were a few interesting parts, especially the post 9/11 segments. But overall? Boring.

I did it. I finally finished Too Much Tuscan Sun. And since I’ve already wasted too much time on him, all I’m going to say is the author is an ethnocentric pompous ass.