Gold Star Because You Tried

Pull up a chair, maybe grab a notebook. I’ve found a book worth dissecting. I need to do this more often – think about books from their bones and sinews, rather than just how much I enjoy them. But alas, I am a devourer of books first (and one on a tight reading deadline), so I don’t always take the time to think about how a book worked.

Or in this case, how it didn’t.

It’s not that this book was particularly bad or unenjoyable. I suspect that, if you’re someone who can throw themselves into a story without thinking about any of the mechanics, you would like this book a lot more than I did. But I know a little too much about writing, and I read a little too much not to feel like I saw behind the curtain the whole time. With that said, let’s dive in.

Italian Moon is about a family in Italy primarily in the space between the world wars, but touching on a little of both at the bookends of the story. There are a couple of things to note from the tag line on the cover: one, that it’s inspired by a true story, and two, it covers the rise of fascism. The author, as it turns out, is the direct descendant of the family, which makes me both a little more sympathetic and also helps me understand why this book doesn’t work for me.
Let me be up front about this – I completely understand why the author would want to write this story. The bones of it are fascinating, and if it were my family, I would want to write it too. But I believe she’s a little too close to the story to do it well, and it should have been more heavily edited or left to a ghost writer.

I’ve read quite a bit of historical fiction inspired by true events, and it can be done very well. In particular, I’d recommend Lauren Willig’s Band of Sisters – while I’m partial to Willig, she does a phenomenal job of taking a mostly true story and making it sparkle. But Italian Moon suffers from leaning too heavily on what I believe to be the facts of the story. When writing about her great grandparents falling in love, the story feels very stiff, as though the author either felt awkward writing about her family, or didn’t feel like she could take liberties. If I were writing about my family, I would tension in trying to embellish – afraid that an aunt would chase me down to scold me about how my grandmother never would have said or did such a thing. The result is that early on in the book, when we should be connecting with our characters and preparing to ride out their plight with them, we’re left at arm’s length.

That brings me to the cardinal sin of this book: it does a lot of telling, and not nearly enough showing. If you’ve ever written a novel, or taken writing classes, you know exactly what I mean. There’s a huge difference between “Vizzi walked to the top of the stairs, afraid that he would be caught.” and “Vizzi tip toed up the wooden stairs, the pounding of his heart threatening to give him away.” Your language doesn’t have to be overly flowery, and certainly there is a time to get to the point, but you need to have enough description to make your reader feel connected to your plot and characters. If they might as well be reading a history textbook, you’ve done it wrong.

In comparison to the above, my other quibbles with the book feel minor, but I’m still going to note some of them. For a book that is labeled as being about the rise of fascism, something that would set it apart from most other WWII books, it feels like a minor footnote to the story. I would have liked to see a lot more of it woven into the plot, more so than “so and so had a bad feeling about that Mussolini guy”. While there is some tension in the family as some of the members support Mussolini and others do not, there’s no real consequences for it, and doesn’t do much for the overall story.
Meanwhile, in one particularly dramatic section, our heroine’s husband is gravely injured, and since he is an ocean away, we’re left wondering if he will survive. A letter arrives in the hometown, but is intercepted by our heroine’s sister, who is not a very nice person. She tosses the letter aside, and our main character is left to wonder about her husband’s fate for the next ten years. However, there is no real closure on this issue. The treachery is never dealt with – I’m not entirely sure the sister is even really mentioned again in the story. Even if this is historically accurate, in a fictional story, loose threads like this don’t make for a satisfying story.

So all that to say, while I understand why the author would want to write this story, I wish she’d sacrificed more of the accuracy in order to make a satisfying novel. While it’s a quick read, I can’t really recommend this book, sadly, though as of this posting, it is still free with Kindle Unlimited if you want to check it out. Despite my criticism, I hope the author continues to write and evolve. I think she is capable of telling some interesting stories – they just need a little more finesse in order to really shine.

Top 10 Books of 2020: Number 9

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel

As I told you in my last post, I am a sucker for historical fiction. This book is that, and it does not disappoint.

Set primarily in World War II era France, Eva Traube’s life is upended when the Nazis start ripping Jews from their homes. She ends up at a small town on the border of Switzerland, and falls in with a network of people working to usher vulnerable individuals across the border.

I don’t know if it’s just the book clubs I’m in, or whether there is actually a lot of books about World War II lately, but I feel like I’ve read more than my share of World War II fiction over the last few years. That said, Lost Names was very good. It managed to be both at times gut-wrenching and uplifting. While the “Jew in hiding” story is not an uncommon theme, watching a character become empowered and sure in her skin while helping others is not super common, and it was a delight to read. Plus there was romance. It was well done, and that’s always a bonus in my book.

Now, let me tell you about the one thing I really didn’t care for about the book. It’s a trope I’m really not fond of in writing, and in this case, it involves heavy spoilers for the novel. So, if you haven’t read the novel, but you’re interested, please avert your eyes.

***SPOILERS START HERE***

So, throughout the story, Eva falls in love with Remy, but things are far too treacherous for them to do anything about it. Well, they end up doing that whole “we’ll meet when this is over” thing in secret code, and then Eva waits for him…and waits. Finally, she meets someone else, moves away and has a decently happy life with this fella. In 2005, (where the story has been periodically popping in and out of) she goes back to Paris where – surprise! She finds Remy.

Here’s what I, personally, loathe: Why not just let her be happy with Remy without a 60 year interlude? After all she goes through, and this is fiction, why not just give her that?
But also, what about this poor chap she married? While the book says that she was happy, it does so in such a way that feels very clear that he was no Remy, and that she never spoke of Remy until the events in 2005. I thoroughly dislike this trope of, “she married this guy and he was good enough!”

***SPOILERS END HERE***

On the whole, I was really engrossed in the story. There were characters I loved and felt for, and there were characters I vehemently disliked, and all felt very well-written. I’m not sure I’ll go back and read the book again – heaven knows I barely have time for unread books, let alone to go back – but I liked it enough that, for now, it’s sitting on my keeper shelf. If I do decide to part with it, I’m going to try and pass it on to a friend rather than tossing it in the donation box. That’s how I know that I really adored it.

So because I really couldn’t put the book down and couldn’t help but feel connected to the character despite being nothing alike, The Book of Lost Names snags the number nine spot on my top ten list for 2020.