October Books

 I read a bunch of books this month, so let's dive in:

The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski

This book takes place over one weekend where a wealthy family is gathering for a birthday party.  Twin brother and sister, younger brother, and their spouses.  Their mother has recently died so this is the first time they are back in the family home, a winery in upstate New York, to celebrate the twins' birthday. There are secrets, threats of violence, deception, misunderstandings, and the like, and the reader is given clues to try and figure it out.   

This book was pretty meh. I felt like it was trying to be like the Roys in Succession, but was a pale comparison.  I also felt like it should have been set in some manor in England but wasn't.  I sort of had some things figured out but I didn't feel very challenged by the twists and turns.  I'm not even sure why I picked this one up, perhaps as a library last resort.  Anyway, I'd say don't bother.

The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham

In the late 1800s and into the 1900s, England began a practice of sending poor children and teenagers over to Canada (and Australia) to not be adopted, but to become hired help for Canadian families until they reached the age of 18.  They would then receive money that had been set aside, and could go out and start their life.  Although they weren't slaves, many of the children were not treated very well.  They were worked very hard, had scant lodgings and food, were straight up abused, and may not have actually received the funds promised to them at the end of their tenure.  Although I knew people had come over to work on the farms, including my own great grandparents, I didn't realize it was a structured program stemming from orphanages and other poor houses in the UK.

This book tells the story of one such girl and her friends that she had met on the streets of London before they were picked up to live at one of these children's homes. She came over in the 1930s so we hear about that time and then her as an older lady telling her story to her granddaughter and great-grandson.

I've read couple of books by this author and although they seem a bit like reading for a Canadian history high school student, I do really enjoy them. As part of it is set in Toronto and other parts of Southern Ontario, there is even mention a gravestone at the cemetery by our house, however when we were there the other day on our bikes, I couldn't really find it so I need to go back another day.   Good reading, would recommend. 

Denison Avenue by Christina Wong, with illustrations by Daniel Innes

I love books that are set in Toronto, not only do I like being familiar with the references, they always open my eyes to different parts of the city and consider how life is different for others. This book is about a Chinese woman who lives on Denison Avenue, in the Kensington Market/Chinatown area. It's mostly just like a regular novel, but there are poetic elements to the books where the type is all over the page, or in columns where we get contrasting views.  Then if you flip the book over there are beautiful ink sketches of Kensington Market, Chinatown, and the Annex, present and past.  

I actually do not like going to Kensington Market and Chinatown, and this book didn't really change my mind about that, I'm still not attracted to those areas, but I did stop to consider the residents of those areas, particularly like the main character of this book, someone who had been there for many years, saw the neighbourhood grow, change, deteriorate in some respects.

The woman in the book ends up collecting bottles and cans, and I've seen her before (not really her since she is fictional, but you know what I mean), the Chinese woman with her cart going from recycling bin to recycling bin. I'll admit that I haven't had the most charitable of thoughts towards her, but this story reminded me that there is a life behind that person, hopes, dreams, a past, family, friends, traditions, etc.  Like when I read Scarborough and From the Ashes and started looking at people on the street and on the subway differently, I will look at those bottle collectors and other people from that part of town differently.  I hope this doesn't make me sound like I'm a terrible person, but rather show that everyone can always be learning and growing as a person. We all only have one perspective, and it's difficult to expand that perspective unless you look around, and that reading does that for me. 

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan

And now for something completely different, a book by the author of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy.  We meet the family of  Augusta, Rufus, and Beatrice, the young adult children of a British Earl and his Chinese wife. They of course run in the most prestigious of circles and we meet people with so much privilege and wealth, just like in Crazy Rich Asians.  They all flit around the world to various weddings and events in their private jets, each more ostentatious than the last.  

This book is so much fun to read.  You know these people are out there and it's mindboggling, even the rich people aren't as rich as the people in this book.

And I squeezed in one last book before the month was over, The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine.

This tells the story of a young woman with a goal of seducing her friend's husband as a way to get ahead and be the rich wife she wants to be. Of course things are not as they seem.  

This was a pretty good story, I thought it started out as similar to something I had read before, but I stayed with it and was into it by the end. Not bad, entertaining enough.