The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

I was utterly swept away by this story of a couple trying to eke out an existence in the beautifully described wilds of 1920s Alaska. Their homesteaders’ life is intricately drawn and touchingly real. Jack spends his days trying to clear stumps from their meager fields while Mabel bakes pies to sell and tries to keep house. They have passed the age of being able to have children, and that childlessness haunts Mabel. As a crushing winter descends, the reality of their life forces them even further apart. And then one evening they are caught by the beauty of a new snowfall. In a moment of whimsy, they make a snow girl and dress her in a scarf and gloves. The next morning the scarf and gloves are gone, but a child’s footprints are left in the snow. This begins the thread of an old Russian fairy tale that Mabel remembers from childhood. She knows the ending of the tale isn't happy, but she decides that maybe this time things will turn out differently. Jack knows that the child is real, not a fairy. As the seasons march on, the snow child, Faina, brings them closer to each other, their neighbors, and nature itself.
This is a lovely book that I couldn't put down. It perfectly dances between a real, grounded story of homesteaders and an ethereal, almost-fairy tale. It would make a great book club discussion book.

City of Veils by Zoe Ferraris

It is rare that a follow-up book is better than the first, but as much as I really enjoyed Ferraris’ first Saudi Arabia mystery, Finding Nouf, the second one is even better. The main characters are Nayir, a devout Muslim desert guide, and Katya, a forensic analyst caught in the dilemma that is Saudi’s policing system - there is strong disapproval of women who have jobs; men are not allowed to interview female suspects or touch female corpses; there must, therefore, be female police officers and analysts, but women shouldn’t have jobs… You get the picture.
In City of Veils, a young woman’s body has been discovered and Katya would like to be part of the team that solves the murder. She is lucky to have an ally in a convention-breaking senior detective, Osama, who allows her to participate in the investigation. As they go about solving the girl’s murder, Nayir is drawn into helping Katya again and their uneasy connection is tested and made stronger.
I was surprised, in both books, at Ferraris’ ability to allow me to relate to characters whose lives would seem to be so very different from my own. I was on the edge of my seat from the story, while at the same time thinking about the lives of men and women in Saudi Arabia in a way I hadn’t before.

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

At its base, Finding Nouf is a murder mystery. A young girl has run away from home and her wealthy family calls in a friend to help look for her. The family friend becomes intrigued by the girl and begins to track down the details of her life. If that was all there was to this novel, I would still recommend it. I liked the twisting (but not falsely complicated) nature of the story. I liked the main characters, their flaws, their interesting lives.
But, there's more to the story - it is set in a coastal city in contemporary Saudi Arabia. Nouf lead the life of a very sheltered, rich Muslim girl. She runs away from home shortly before her wedding to a man who has never seen her face. Nayir, the family friend, is a devout Muslim who faints at the sight of too much female flesh exposed. The forensic investigation is carried out by a woman with a PhD  who has shamed her family by wanting to work.
All the little details add a fascinating other level to Finding Nouf. One of the strengths of this book is that they give insight into what life would be like for the characters, but never feel like they've been brought up to say, "look how strange they are, look how different they are from us." Instead, I found myself understanding a little better why a woman might choose to wear a headscarf.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

(Any reviews on this blog from before summer of 2012 are reposts from when I worked at Queen Anne Books. I've back-dated them to when they ran in the in-store flyer. I had a good laugh when I found my review of Twilight from February of 2007. I considered not reposting it because of  what a thing it became, but (obviously) I changed my mind. I never really got into the later books in the series and I haven't seen the movies, but I stand by my enthusiasm for the first book.)

This book is the definition of a guilty pleasure. It is a Teen-Vampire-Romance. It doesn’t try to be much more than that. The writing isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. It is not what I normally read. Teens have known about this book for over a year, but it wasn’t until an adult customer came in gushing about it that I considered picking it up. I read it in 2 days, my breath catching in my throat at times, constantly thinking of the first time I saw Sixteen Candles or Valley Girl, and the first time I thought I might actually just die if I didn’t go out with Him. I’m renaming this book Pretty in Black.

The main character is, of course, very cool and pretty but not one of the in-crowd. She has just moved to Forks, WA from Phoenix and she hates it. The other main character is the Vampire, the bad boy (who wants to be good), the tortured soul, the brooding musician, the most beautiful boy in school. Oh, he works on so many levels. And they are destined to fall hopelessly, painfully, endlessly in love. His being a Vampire is no match for their destiny together.

It’s safe to guess that very few men will like this book. It’s also safe to guess that most women (who are craving that perfect guilty/light read/beach read/romance) will like it. If you think too hard about this book, it won’t work. It’s not about thinking. It’s about that flood of emotion, that tingle from your toes to your scalp, that sick but pleasant twist in the stomach, that happens when He walks in the room. It’s best to get a copy now, dedicate a good part of the weekend to it, and then try – just attempt – to hold off buying the 2nd book in hardcover.
Yes, a movie is in the works.