Book Reviews

Three thought-provoking books about love

by Misha Stone / Readers’ advisory librarian & Booklist Magazine blogger

For Acme Care – jbruce@acmecare.com

The World We Found by Thrity Umrigar

Armaiti, Laleh, Kavita and Nishta met in the 1970s while in college in Bombay. Thirty years later, they have largely lost contact, until they learn that Armaiti, who moved to the United States, has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The past comes flooding back as they all reflect on their idealistic young selves and the people they have become. Laleh still harbors a fierce attachment to her idealism, while she and her husband enjoy a prosperous, charmed life. Kavita, who has hidden her lesbian relationship from those closest to her, and Nishta, whose fundamentalist husband has slowly limited her freedoms, discover challenges in the possibility of reunion. Umrigar’s compulsively readable presents fully dimensional characters that resonate with life and hope.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

When Harold Fry opens a letter from Queenie Hennessy, he finds himself doing something entirely out of cWhen Harold Fry opens a letter from Queenie Hennessy, he writes a reply, but instead of simply posting it from his English village, he elects to walk 600 miles to hand-deliver his letter. The tension and distance in his marriage is put into sharp relief when Harold sets off without telling Maureen, his wife of 45 years. Why does Harold feel he must walk to Queenie? Can a weak man find strength in an impossible quest, and will it cost him any more than he has already lost? Joyce’s debut tells a story of deep empathy and emotion without teetering into sentimentality.

Cures for Hunger A Memoir by Deni Y. Béchard

“It seemed to me then, hearing his words, that a father’s life is a boy’s first story.” But what if that father is a mystery, even a dangerously exciting one? Béchard grew up poor in Canada with a father whose wild ways force his mother to escape with his two siblings to Virginia. Later he discovers that his father is all that Deni thought and more — his father, it turns out, was a bank robber. His father’s crimes and fistfight-with-the-world approach to life mark Deni as he struggles in his own coming-of-age and discovering what makes him a man, even as he pursues a world of literature that his father disdains. Béchard illustrates the pain, loneliness and satisfaction in discovering your own path.