Monthly Archives: January 2012

The Thorn and the Blossom: A Two-Sided Love Story by Theodora Goss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a beautiful little novella. The Thorn and the Blossom is the story of Evelyn and Brendan, who meet in a bookstore in a small town in Cornwall and feel an instant connection. They spend several days together, then part and don't see each other for years. Inevitably, though, their paths cross again, leaving the reader to contemplate the true nature of their mysterious, haunting love story.

The book is accordion-bound, making it two-sided -- Evelyn's story on one side, Brendan's on the other. The reader can choose which to read first; the two sides of the story run parallel, with repeated dialogue and such, but after reading the second perspective we come away with a different understanding of the first as well. I read Evelyn's story first; I wonder how different the book would have seemed if I'd read Brendan's first. It's a really interesting way to present a story; as a librarian, though, I wonder how well the book would hold up, physically, to library use. The paper is good-quality and quite heavy, and there is a sturdy slipcover, so I suppose it all comes down to how careful patrons are with it!

The book itself, in addition to being bound quite uniquely, is really lovely. The artwork on the slipcase reminds me of beautiful old botanical prints, and the story is illustrated with several block prints. The artistic style lends the book a very strong sense of timelessness and permanence.

The writing is gentle and lyrical, and reminded me very much of the epic romances I read so many of during college. I was a medieval literature major (both Brendan and Evelyn are medievalists) and spent a semester in England, as Evelyn did, so that section in particular made me feel nostalgic. Then after finishing the book, I read the Q&A with the author that Quirk sent along as well, and was struck by this sentence: "But in the end, a book is never created entirely by its writer. Readers will imagine these things for themselves, each in a different way. The forest will be the forests they've walked through; the love story will be relationships they've experienced. And that's as it should be. That's what reading's all about -- participating in the story." How very true.

Expected publication date: January 17, 2012

Copy received for review from Quirk Books

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Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alice Bliss broke my heart.

(I've been trying, but I can't separate my review of the book from my personal response to it, which necessitates a spoiler. Be forewarned.)

I could write at length about the floodgates of emotions that the book brought to the surface, but it would be rather more than I am comfortable sharing in a public review. Suffice to say, the book hit very close to home for me.

Matt Bliss, an Army reservist, gets called up and deployed to Iraq, leaving his wife Angie and daughters Alice and Ellie behind. The family struggles to deal with Matt's deployment and their feelings of loss in his absence. Matt is obviously the glue that holds the family together, as Angie retreats into herself, leaving Alice, at age fifteen, to take over many of the responsibilities of the household, caring for her sister, and navigating adolescence on her own. Alice, who is particularly close to her father, struggles to keep him as close to her as she can, wearing his clothes, planting the garden they'd planned together, and trying to fix up his workshop before his return.

There wouldn't be a book here without bad news. Matt's letters and phone calls grow more infrequent, and then the Bliss family gets the bad news that he is missing in action.

Alice grows increasingly worried about her beloved father's well-being, and starts imagining the worst even as she hopes against hope and tries to keep up a brave facade for her younger sister's benefit. But the hope is in vain, as one day a soldier and an army chaplain show up at the Bliss house bringing the worst news imaginable.

I lost my own father when I was fifteen. The circumstances were very different -- my father died after a long illness -- but regardless, the book took my breath away. Change a few little details, and it was like looking into a window at my own family and what we went through, right down to my uncle teaching me how to drive because my dad couldn't.

Harrington's portrayal of Alice's emotions is absolutely, to my experience, spot-on. Being a teenager is enough of an emotional rollercoaster even without the absence, nevermind the total loss, of a parent. I remember all too well the conflict I felt during the time surrounding my father's death, wanting desperately to hold on to my childhood, wishing that nothing needed to change, while at the same time looking anxiously forward to the future and all the promise it held.

I was especially touched, in the book, by Alice's relationship with her childhood best friend, Henry, as they tentatively explore their new feelings for each other, Henry acting as Alice's rock as her world shatters around her. The conflicting emotions, the euphoria of first love contrasting with -- and providing a welcome respite from -- the seemingly soul-crushing grief: it rang very true to me. Other reviews I have read question Alice's reactions and behavior; I think that these reviewers are looking at the situation from adult eyes. It's confusing, being old enough to understand completely what's going on, but having neither the experience nor the emotional maturity to really be able to deal with it. Everyone's experiences are different, of course, but Harrington's portrayal of Alice was very real and very raw to me. It's clear, too, that despite it all, Alice will be okay. She is a strong, determined young woman, and part of me wants to revisit her in ten years, in fifteen years, to check in on her. She will be remarkable.

Laura Harrington is a playwright and librettist, and this is her first novel. I'm glad she made the jump -- her writing is lovely and lyrical and there were passages I read over and over again just to savor the language.

All in all, this was a wonderful, if painful, book: your reaction to it may not be as strong as mine was, but still, I recommend tissues.

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