Malagash - Review

Malagash   🌟🌟🌟🌟
by Joey Comeau
Publishing October 3, 2017, by ECW Press
Finished September 25, 2017

Look at that cover!  It was the sole attraction for me, the only reason I requested this book, I will now admit.  I chose it even though the description made me a bit reluctant and I had no idea what a Malagash was.  Turns out, Malagash is a small town in Nova Scotia to where one man has moved his family so he can finish out his life in the place he grew up.   He's  dying of cancer in a hospital.  His wife and son and daughter visit him daily, as does his mother.  The dad tells his silly jokes, sings songs, and tells them all that he loves them.  His brother comes to make peace. 

 

The setting of Malagash is important, but the family is moreso, because his daughter Sunday is recording all of his conversations with family on her phone.  This way her father's voice  and his unique personality will live on forever.  So that not only will she and her family have access to these recordings, she plans to let them loose into the world as a computer virus, a good virus, she says, where her father's ghost will dwell.    

It's a wonder of a book that just gets better the farther you progress. A sweet story of familial love, with a young adult feel to it since Sunday is the narrator.  A thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a lovely experience.  

Love and Other Consolation Prizes - Review

Love and Other Consolation  Prizes   🌟🌟🌟
by Jamie Ford
Published September 12, 2017, by Ballantine Books
Finished 9/19/2017

The story starts with Ernest Young as a small boy after his Chinese   mother has sent him sailing for a better life in America, where he is auctioned off at the 1909 Seattle Exposition.*  That piece of history, that such a thing really happened, is a troubling one to be sure and was one of the more interesting aspects.  But this is one of those times when I felt that the concept of a story was lost in the execution of it.  The pace was uneven, slow to start, better in the middle, and an ending that seemed to  drag out over several chapters.  

 

Ernest as a boy falls in love with two girls, and is as an adult  recounting their adventures growing up in a brothel, while anticipating the 1962 Seattle World's  Fair with his wife, Gracie.  Early on we know that one of those young girls is Gracie, although that's not either of their names.   So you keep reading to figure out this odd puzzle.  

I really had high hopes for this one.  Ford's first book is one of my favorites, but the next and this one were lacking that certain something that puts you on edge and makes you excited to pick it back up again where you left off.  Ernest was such a sweet character but I think he deserved a better story with more interesting players on his team.  I saw many similarities with On the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, but this one didn't match up.  I do appreciate receiving an advanced copy from NetGalley and the publisher.

*(I just had to go to Wikipedia to learn more about the auction, and maybe the finished book includes this in the author's note, I don't  know:

"A month-old orphaned boy named Ernest was raffled away as a prize. Although a winning ticket was drawn, nobody claimed the prize. The ultimate destiny of the child was still being investigated in 2009."  I do hope that little Ernest had a great life, and not in a brothel.)