ALL THE NAMES THEY USED FOR GOD by Anjali Sachdeva

5.5

Random House
Spiegel & Brau
Literary fiction
North American Literature
Short Stories

About
Spanning centuries, continents, and a diverse set of characters, these alluringly strange stories are united by each character’s struggle with fate. In a secret, subterranean world beneath the prairie of the Old West, a homesteader risks her life in search of a safe haven. A workman in Andrew Carnegie’s steel mills is turned into a medical oddity by the brutal power of the furnaces—and is eventually revitalized by his condition. A young woman created through genetic manipulation is destroyed by the same force that gave her life.

Anjali Sachdeva demonstrates a preternatural ability to laser in on our fears, our hopes, and our longings in order to point out intrinsic truths about society and humanity. “Killer of Kings” starts with John Milton writing Paradise Lost and questions the very nature of power—and the ability to see any hero as a tyrant with just a change in perspective. The title story presents a stirring imagining of the aftermath of the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram that leaves us pondering what is lost when we survive the unsurvivable. And in “Pleiades,” genetically modified septuplets are struck by a mysterious illness that tests their parents’ unwavering belief in the power of science.

Like many of us, the characters in this collection are in pursuit of the sublime, and find themselves looking not just to divinity but to science, nature, psychology, and industry, forgetting that their new, logical deities are no more trustworthy than the tempestuous gods of the past. Along the way, they walk the knife-edge between wonder and terror, salvation and destruction. All the Names They Used for God is an entrancing work of speculative fiction that heralds Anjali Sachdeva as an invigorating, incomparable new voice.

My view
"ALL THE NAMES THEY USED FOR GOD" consists of twelve short stories. 
Anjali Sachdeva is an author with a tremendous gift, the gift of story telling.

Short stories are not my preferred read, yet I enjoyed her immense talent, wishing for one more story. I will certainty keep an eye on this author, be it Short Stories or a Novel should she decide this direction.

I have no favoured story, all shine!
"THE WORLD BY NIGHT" 5.5
"GLASS LUNG" 5.5
"LOGGING LAKE" 5.5
"Killer OF KINGS" 5.5
"ALL THE NAMES FOR GOD"
"ROBERT GREENMAN AND THE MERMAID" 5.5
"ANYTHING YOU MIGHT WANT" 5.5
"MANUS" 4.5
"PLAIADS" 5.5

I underlined much throughout every story, however until I have the the final copy I am unable to add to this review as requested by publisher.

Thank you NetGalley and Spiegel & Brau ( Random House) for a chance to read this advance reader copy.

THE GIRL WHO SMILED BEADS by Clemantine Wamariya

5.5 Crown Publishing
Available April 24, 2018
Rwandan Literature
Memoir

Clemantine Wamariya

 ".....other speaking invitations followed and my talks where magic. At the end of each one people were in tears. But they understood nothing-least of all, that I wasn't special. There were so many of me, thousands, millions. I just happen to be the one standing in the room. Don't cry for me, I wanted to say. Cry for them, it will take you a hundred lifetimes to cry for all of them..."

About Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, she and her fifteen-year-old sister, Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety—perpetually hungry, imprisoned and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, witnessing inhuman cruelty. They did not know whether their parents were dead or alive. 
 
When Clemantine was twelve, she and her sister were granted refugee status in the United States; there, in Chicago, their lives diverged. Though their bond remained unbreakable, Claire, who had for so long protected and provided for Clemantine, was a single mother struggling to make ends meet, while Clemantine was taken in by a family who raised her as their own. She seemed to live the American dream: attending private school, taking up cheerleading, and, ultimately, graduating from Yale. Yet the years of being treated as less than human, of going hungry and seeing death, could not be erased. She felt at the same time six years old and one hundred years old. 
 
In The Girl Who Smiled Beads, Clemantine provokes us to look beyond the label of “victim” and recognize the power of the imagination to transcend even the most profound injuries and aftershocks. Devastating yet beautiful, and bracingly original, it is a powerful testament to her commitment to constructing a life on her own terms.

My view

Clemantine and her sister Claire

Oh, I have such a difficult time reviewing Clemantine Wamariya's memoir, should one be much older than 28 to write a memoir? Clemantine at 28 lived a life time, yet as she tells her readers "what is next". The title THE GIRL WHO SMILED BEADS has it's origins from a fairytale without ending, urging a child to ask what is next... Next arrived when Clemantine age 4 and her sister Claire age 15 escaped into a sweet potato field, away from family and friends, away from Rwanda and the most horrific genocide in modern times...traveling on foot from refugee camps to refugee camps, places of hunger, diseases, death. Death of body, death of spirit, death of self. Many years passed before Clemantine and Claire found refuge in the United States. Clemantine expresses with deep clarity the stigma attached to the status 'refugee' which affected her in years to come. 

".....other speaking invitations followed and my talks where magic. At the end of each one people were in tears. But they understood nothing-least of all, that I wasn't special. There were so many of me, thousands, millions. I just happen to be the one standing in the room. Don't cry for me, I wanted to say. Cry for them, it will take you a hundred lifetimes to cry for all of them..."

Clemantine and her sister Claire's resilience is beyond human understanding...as is the resilience of so many human beings who's life is up turned by war..... I have read novels regarding the Rwandan genocide, well researched books. THE GIRL WHO SMILED BEADS Is a first hand account which should be part of every school curriculum. 

Thank you NetGalley for this advance copy

AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones

5.5


Algonquin Books
Available now
North American Literature

About
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.
 
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.

MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2018 "longlist"

Hmmm...none of these tempting titles/authors have found their way to my TBR this year. I will remedy this soon.

April 4, 2018 Short list announcement

May 22 2018 Winner

The 2018 longlist:

• Laurent Binet (France), Sam Taylor, The 7th Function of Language (Harvill Secker)

• Javier Cercas (Spain), Frank Wynne, The Impostor (MacLehose Press)

• Virginie Despentes (France), Frank Wynne, Vernon Subutex 1 (MacLehose Press)

• Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany), Susan Bernofsky, Go, Went, Gone (Portobello Books)

• Han Kang (South Korea), Deborah Smith, The White Book (Portobello Books)

• Ariana Harwicz (Argentina), Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff, Die, My Love (Charco Press)

• László Krasznahorkai (Hungary), John Batki, Ottilie Mulzet & George Szirtes, The World Goes On (Tuskar Rock Press)

• Antonio Muñoz Molina (Spain), Camilo A. Ramirez, Like a Fading Shadow (Tuskar Rock Press)

• Christoph Ransmayr (Austria), Simon Pare, The Flying Mountain (Seagull Books)

• Ahmed Saadawi (Iraq), Jonathan Wright, Frankenstein in Baghdad (Oneworld)

• Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Jennifer Croft, Flights (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

• Wu Ming-Yi (Taiwan), Darryl Sterk, The Stolen Bicycle (Text Publishing)

• Gabriela Ybarra (Spain), Natasha Wimmer, The Dinner Guest (Harvill Secker)

TIGER PELT by Annabelle Kim

5.5

Available now
South Korean Literature

Named to Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2015.

ABOUT

The Korean War and the time before and after that is an era that is often overlooked by people. The simple fact that this book takes place in that particular era was attractive to me. Beyond that, Annabelle Kim has crafted a truly beautiful book here with compelling characters and a fantastic story. Some stories make you feel emotional when you read them; they draw you in and refuse to let you go, and for me this was one of them. It is a little hard for me to write this review simply because I don't feel any of my words can truly compare to the feeling this book gives me. Life has a way of bringing people together, but it can also pull them in directions they never thought they would go. If you want to be swept up in a book full of emotion and events that feel so real you can touch them, this is one book you should read.