Review: THE RENT COLLECTOR, by Camron Wright

THE RENT COLLECTOR
Camron Wright
Shadow Mountain
First edition (August 27, 2012)
HC, 304 pp, 
$22.99,978-1609071226.

 




Sang Ly, a twenty-nine year old young mother, her husband Ki Lim and son, Nisay live on the top of a large mountain in Cambodia.  Rather than pristine rolling landscapes and crystal clean running streams, they are surrounded by piles of noxious and dangerous garbage. They live at the very bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy.  The place is called Stung Meanchey, and this is their home, a shelter that consists of a couple of poles and a canvas roof.  Within are the bare essentials for survival.  Each day is spent with one goal in mind, to make enough money to eat a dinner.  Hopefully, with luck they will earn enough at the end of the month to pay rent to The Rent Collector,  a merciless, stone hearted drunk.  They call her the cow, but her name is Sopeap Sin. Nisay is a very sick child and all attempts to treat his chronic diarrhea fail. His belly is large and Sang Ly fears for his life.  One day when Sopeap arrives for the monthly rent, Sang Ly witnesses her sobbing after she discovers a torn children’s picture book in Nisay’s hands. Later, Sang Ly is sure that Sopeap must know how to read. How is it possible, that this wretched woman, also amid such poverty is able to read?  Sang Ly is determined to save her son and she now knows that there is a way.

This is an amazing  story of challenges, determination, guilt, gratitude and forgiveness. Seriously, a book that is difficult to break away from. Sang Ly and Sopeap Sin discover through their love of storytelling lessons that will surprise everyone.  I will savor this book, the characters, the message and my personal thoughts about life’s perspective. THE RENT COLLECTOR is a passionately rare and memorable gift for all readers.

© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2012].

© [Wisteria Leigh] and [Bookworm's Dinner], [2008-2012]. 
DISCLOSURE:  A free kindle version of this book was made available by Net Galley for review.

Wisteria Leigh
September 29, 2012

Review-Unbroken Sky, by Shandi Mitchell

I want to apologize for not posting this sooner, but somehow it slipped off my radar. It wasn't until Ti at Book Chatter mentioned it on her post Friday Finds, that I realize I had never published this review to my blog. Well, better late than never. This has appeared in other publications and social networking sites, just not here. That's a first for me. I guess that shows you what can happen when your off your game. Last year was such a physical roller coaster for me with illness. Anyway, here is my review for Shandi Mitchell's wonderful book. I was lucky to have received this as part of the Barnes and Noble First Look Book Club.


UNDER THIS UNBROKEN SKY
Shandi Mitchell
Harper Collins, September 2009
978-0-06-177402-7
$25.99
352 pp.

It is the spring of 1938 and Theodore arrives at his home after completing a two year sentence for stealing grain. He and his wife Maria have five children and they live in a small shack with Theodore’s sister Anna and her two children. Theodore still harbors bitterness from his imprisonment and works from dawn to late at night determined to build a new home. He has worked a deal with his sister to buy the land in her name, and pay it off in the next year. Being an ex-con he is unable to hold property in his own right. He and his son Ivan work tirelessly to build their home and farm the land. Unfortunately, Anna’s abusive, carousing and lazy ass husband Stefan returns home after a long sojourn with ideas of his own.

Under This Unbroken Sky is the story of two Ukrainian families who escaped the ruthless rule of Stalin to start over in Canada. The author has created a story of family relationships, greed and hardship. Mitchell’s characters are so memorable they could walk into your life, as if you always knew them. They are more than black on white descriptions on the page as their personalities live.

Theodore is a proud man and intends to protect and provide for his family at all costs. Their new home is spacious and they use the old shack as a grain bin. Anna and Maria both become pregnant, but he is most concerned with how his sister and children will survive having a deadbeat husband as a provider.

Theo is disgusted with his sister’s lack of ambition and when she turns against him her fate is sealed. All he can see is what he sees. He has no vision or capability to imagine what lies beneath the surface. Maria and Anna are women caught in a time when a husband was a person to obey without questions.

Mitchell’s writing is edgy and disturbing as the tension of the two families heads toward a collision of unconscionable results. The suspense is dramatic and Mitchell ensures your heart will resonate with compassion with this rare unforgettable ending. Under This Unbroken Sky is a significant sensitive novel that you will not want to miss.

Disclosure:I received this review copy from Barnes and Noble as part of their First Look Book Club.

Review-The Indifferent Stars Above, The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride

The Indifferent Stars Above
The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
by Daniel James Brown
William Morrow
June 2009
$24.99, HC, 320pp,
320pp, 978-0-06-13410-5








You think you have heard it all before, until you read the account of Sarah Graves and her bold decision to face the uncertain future with her new husband, Jay Fosdick. Imagine yourself at twenty one ready with hope and promise for a better life. In 1846, to pack up and prepare to travel overland, mostly walking takes tremendous stamina and backbone.

Sarah’s voice narrates this historically rich account as she begins with naive eyes. She and her husband have loaded a covered wagon filled with everything they believe they will need. It’s not as easy as you think as she conveys preparations required for the trip. Housewares, furniture, clothes and all the food necessary, force an incredible burden of weight for the ox to pull. They will have to walk most of the way to conserve the strength of the beast.

They are emigrants filled with enthusiasm and a purpose to buy land, build a home and settle the west. They believe their destiny is hopeful, but destiny will fail them. Star-crossed from the beginning they set out and then join up with a group of travelers, known by the leader as the Donner Party. The famous story of the Donner Party is an event famous in American History.

Sarah’s story details the horrific and terrifying journey of physical survival with that ill fated group. The journey that pushed everyone to their limits of personal endurance. A journey that conjured up ethical actions too sinister to even comprehend.

Unfortunately, a guide by the name of Lansford Hastings posed a shortcut that proved to be anything but. It was virtually impassable and only benefited the greed and the potential profit for Hastings and a business associate. This decision ended up being only one of the many bad luck choices the Donner Party attempted.

The history of the Donner Party experiences in the vicious winter of 1846 that dumped record snowfalls in the Sierra Nevada mountains has been told in numerous historical accounts. The author has done extensive research evident from his prodigious rich bibliography. He credits the first serious account of the Donner Party was written by C. F. McGlashan in 1879 from first person correspondence, called The History of the Donner Party. The published work will include an eight page black and white insert.

Brown’s account of the event is not just a history of a timeline of events, but a compassionate oral history and deeply moving story of the human element. He explains and backs up medical conditions such as hypothermia and hyperthermia with scientific data and references. His analysis and explanations of why and how specific behavioral and physical changes occur adds keen insight.

In his epilogue he writes an account of his personal journey that he mapped and followed to get a feel from a first hand exploration of the difficulty they faced. He cautions his eyes are from the 21st century perspective with no comparison to the suffering of the Donner Party. Steep climbs and difficult terrain cause him to become breathless. He says, “My God, I thought, those people were tough.”

Another time he is mesmerized by the untouchable beauty of a breathtaking panoramic scene. It is a mirror of what caught Mary Ann Graves attention as she stopped to gaze on this same distant landscape, an etherial visual experience that surpassed any suffering for that moment. On some level the spiritual heals the physical, or perhaps suffering becomes a supplicant to the blinding beauty.

Daniel James Brown’s history The Indifferent Stars Above is a story of hope and faith. It is the story of chance and risk taking and submission to temptation. It is a story of perseverance and surrender. The Donner Party has come to be synonymous with a group of cannibal survivalists who resorted to despicable atrocities and murder. Details in this account prove otherwise. Brown has humanized a history of the Donner Party unseen before in the voice and compassionate retelling through one of its ordinary survivors who proved to be extraordinary. Brown’s writing is novelistic history, accurate historical non-fiction with readable storytelling.

Brown’s unique style has rich depth as he wraps the context in history like a cocoon of importance around the main event. His contrast between the advances in technology and society in the eastern United States versus the hardship, suffering and pain in the West is an ironic juxtaposition. Brown’s history is as gripping as a suspenseful thriller. A special star above the competition. Highly recommended.







For another perspective please see Hoyden's Look at Literature

Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun

Miles from Nowhere, by Nami Mun

Memorable and moving with remarkable sensitivity, this writer has a distinct talent that has made her book one of my top ten for 2008. Spectacular imagery can be expected when you read Mun’s work. Your vision of setting and character requires little effort to conjure up what she vividly depicts in poetic prose.

I received Miles from Nowhere, about a week ago, and decided to glance over the first few pages as I do with all ARC’s I receive. I began thumbing through the book and reading a little. Within a few pages it became apparent that I wasn’t going to put this book down. I spent the rest of a dreary drizzly day buried in this amazing book.

The book takes place in the 1980s in New York City. As the story begins, Joon a Korean girl lives with her parents. Their marriage is a rocky relationship always on the brink of failure. One day her father finally has enough and decides to leave home. This sends her mentally ill mother, unable to contend with difficulties with his desertion, on a tragic trajectory of wacky behavior.

When Joon takes to the streets she fights for survival wearing the scars of pain. Joon is the main character, and will always be my favorite person in the novel. Who can forget her? She is confused, vulnerable, sweet, gullible, trusting, and generous. You are a part of her as a twin the entire book, difficult to leave her, hard to not feel her pain.

Her battles become narcotic addiction, failed friendships, and lost loves. She tries to climb out of the streets by working in a variety of jobs from dance girl hostess to an Avon door to door sales representative.

The story is written episodically with Joon as the narrator. We learn about all the friends, parents and the people Joon meets through her point of view. You can’t help but love Joon and want to protect and embrace her and tell her it’s just a bad dream. Time passes in Joon’s mind, sometimes rational, sometimes fragmented. You feel her confusion, her sense of loss and despair all through her cognition. Mun makes it look easy the way she has manages to create the passage of time over five years as Joon ages to eighteen.

This is a sensitive, heart-wrenching story, sometimes amusing, sometimes dispiriting yet carrying a message of hope. Nami Mun’s novel is a tale that will leave you deep in thought. With a late December release it just might make the perfect holiday gift for some. This debut work of Nami Mun portrays a veteran of her craft, a talented and compelling author. I hope we see more from her soon. Highly recommended.

Woman of a Thousand Secrets by Barbara Wood

Woman of a Thousand Secrets is a well researched historical epic revolved around Tonina, who is found floating down a river in a basket as an infant. She is raised by a childless couple until she comes of age and the couple knows they must send her off the island to find her real people. On a ruse that her grandfather is gravely ill, Tonina is sent away to find a red flower that will cure him. She always assume she will return to the island. Little does she know that in her search for the red flower she will discover her past and the beginning of an exciting future. There will be an island in her future, but where will it be?
Tonina’s journey will teach her many things but learning about the many ways to love will emerge. She learns about the love of friendship from Brave Eagle who will be there when she most needs him. She learns about passion and deep sexual desirous love from her husband Kaan. Lastly, she learns the special bond of a sons' love from Tenoch.

I felt there are two key themes in the story. One is the connectivity of the universe, and the cause and effect of what we do. Tonina and Kaan are always seeking to balance the world to appease the gods. The Aztec people was also a story of many cultures living together as one. This is also true in the story as Kaan succeeds in securing peace among the various fighting people and their chiefs. The second theme is the classic good versus evil throughout the story evident in the characters of Balam and Kaan, our modern day super heroes.

The success of this book will be partly in the obvious research the author needed to do. She has taken this background material and has created vivid images and lush scenery of the ancient Aztec culture interwoven throughout. As you read you envision every building, symbol, geographic location, and other cultural representations because of the author’s careful attention to detail. Each scene is a 3D visual treat in color and texture.

Woman of a Thousand Secrets is a wondrously entertaining story with global depth. I can’t wait to read another book by Barbara Wood, I thoroughly devoured this one!