What We’re Reading

The Center of Winter | Marya Hornbacher

Rating:

This is not the book to read if you’re looking for a happy story. Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t end well, but it’s not going to leave you feeling uplifted and light.

Set in small town Minnesota, this is the story of a family. A mother who never quite wanted to be, a father who can’t quite get it right, and isn’t happy enough with what he has, a son who gets lost inside himself, and a daughter just trying to keep up. The story is told from ever side, each looking a little different.

Claire speaks to trying to cope first with a drunk, depressed husband, and then to life without him. Esau speaks to his time in the hospital, and to trying to cope with life outside of it. Kate speaks to all of it. Her missing brother, her lost father, her mother, lost in a different way. Trying to fit the pieces together.

The book is beautifully written, and seeing the story unfold through three sets of very separate eyes is…for sudden lack of a better term, eye-opening, to say the least. Fans of Hornbacher’s memoir will likely enjoy her foray into ficiton, as will anyone who appreciates a good book.

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Spilling Clarence | Anne Ursu

Rating:

The residents of Clarence, Minnesota lead your normal sort of American life. Work, play, school, shop. The only thing amiss in Clarence, really, is the smell. The Psychopharmaceutical factory does nothing for the ambience. When the Emergency Alert siren sounds and residents are informed there’s been a fire at said factory, and that a chemical may have been released into the air, it does nothing for the nerves either.

After keeping everyone indoors and sending around some yellow-suited fellows, the Factory declares everything OK, though they do tell people it would be best to stay indoors for a couple of days. In the back of their minds, everyone knows something must be happening. You don’t send out people in yellow suits for nothing. But no one knows just what did/could happen. And so Clarence goes on with its life. Until it can’t.

Suddenly, kids are crying, adults are falling to pieces. Everywhere, people are remembering. Even the scientists and psychology students who feel they should know better feel themselves falling victim to this unknown. Deletrium. Used with drugs to help them act. On its own, no one really knows what its capable of.

We follow along with certain townspeople, as they remember their lives, and struggle not to become completely overwhelmed.

One of the more fascinating books I’ve read in awhile. Ursu is definitely one to watch.

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