Review: A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri

Have you ever finished a book and afterward had your heart pounding, tears running down your cheeks because of how amazingly emotional and intense the last few chapters were? 

Yeah, this was one of those books. 

I wasn't into it right away, but it definitely didn't take me long to actually want to sit down and read it rather than doing something else. The premise was interesting and kept me in suspense, the writing was good, and the characters were fun to spend time with because their personalities were written so well.

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea follows a portion of the life of a young girl, Saba, living in Iran during the 1980s. The prologue starts with a hazy memory that Saba has of her mom and twin sister getting on an airplane to go to America, but then after that her and her father don't hear from them again.I love how it's never obvious what happened to them, and even members of her family and people in her circle of caregivers in her village aren't really sure, even after she asks. It makes it so that the entire story doesn't just rest on the main character suddenly remembering. 

However, while the suspense of what happened is what moves the story forward, it really becomes a background piece to the real heart of the story, which is Saba's character. The book follows Saba from when she's fourteen to when she's in her late twenties, and her growth over that time while she struggles with her own choices and fears. Above all it is a story about the transformation of Saba's views of herself, others and the world around her that come as a result of her own life experiences. Saba's character is inspiring to me, not because of any determination or strength she has - in fact for a lot of the book, she spends time taking the easy way out - but because she learns and grows. Really, what more do you need to make a good character?

There is so much that is good about this book. Not only are all of the characters fleshed out and present within in the story, but the writing itself is exquisitely clever. I love when authors can write one sentence that reveals everything in a way that strikes you right in the heart. I don't know how some authors do it, draw out such emotion from me with just a handful of words. (Yes, it made me cry). 

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is a well-written, beautiful book about a young woman’s life in Iran, and her finally coming to have the courage to stand up to herself, and I definitely think everyone should read it. 

You can find it on Goodreads here.  

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Across Canada Reading Challenge Part 2: The Territories

If you weren't already aware, I finished my Across Canada Reading Challenge, which is a mini-challenge I gave myself as part of the Around the World Reading Challenge. I talked about the books I read set in each of the 10 Canadian provinces yesterday, and today I'm going to talk about the books I read that were set in each of the three territories. The three territories are the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. I didn't know this until now, but apparently the difference between provinces and territories is that provinces receive their power from the Constitution Act, and and the territorial governments get power from the federal government. 



YUKON

For the Yukon I read The Slow Fix by Ivan E. Coyote, which is a collection of short stories about the life of the author. A lot of the stories were about what gender is or should be, and different people and society's interpretation of it. There were also a few stories that were focused on the author's upbringing in the Yukon. I loved this book, it was such a fun and entertaining read. I think I was smiling the entire time I was reading it. It was so nice to read something light and funny, but also intelligent, after reading many brain-stretching books. The author had such a perfect quirky voice that brought life to the everyday stories she told, but also had good things to say. I think even if you aren't into reading it'd be a good book to read, since the stories are short and entertaining.

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

For this territory I read Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay. This was a book set in the 1960s or 1970s, about the community at a radio station in Yellowknife. At the same time as it was about this northern radio station, there was also the issue of a pipeline and native land rights in the background. That was interesting to read about, especially since the same kind of thing is happening now. However, it was mostly a simple, very slow moving story about the lives of the staff at this radio station. Although it was slow, I found myself getting attached to the characters and their relationships with each other anyway. The best part, though, were the descriptions of the land in the north that make you feel as if you were a part of this epic landscape, just as much as the characters in the book.


NUNAVUT

I read Consumption by Kevin Patterson, which is set in a bunch of different places in Nunavut, and some characters also spend some time in Manitoba. (The author himself is from Winnipeg). This was a really interesting book. It followed the life of a handful characters, centering around the life one Inuit girl, Victoria, and her life after she contracts tuberculosis. She's then sent to Winnipeg for an operation, and when she comes back she feels removed from her original culture, and she goes on to marry a white man. The book goes on to follow the lives of various characters who live in the north, from Victoria's kids and parents, to a couple of teachers at one of the schools, to a few other characters who live in the same community. It covers quite a few years, from when Victoria is a young girl to when she has grandkids, I think. One of the major themes is definitely how the culture changes in this northern community over those years, and how each of the characters are affected by that. 

I loved reading about the North of Canada, just because it's so very different and removed from the rest of Canada. (I do regret that I didn't read any books set in the territories by Aboriginal authors, though). There are two similarities that are prominent in each of these Northern stories. One is the theme of land. It's amazing how much the place itself defines the people that live there. Life in the north, the characters and authors of these books tell me, is something beautiful and special and something that you don't understand if you haven't experienced it for yourself. In each of the three books, the descriptions of the land and the natural atmosphere completely take you in and transport you to that place and time. The other theme, in contrast with the theme of the natural, harsh landscape, is that of the loss of culture (indigenous culture in particular) to Western cultural values and consumerism. In one of the stories in The Slow Fix, Ivan E. Coyote talks about how one of the cities in the Yukon has been taken over by Walmarts and McDonalds. The entire story in Consumption is about how many of the indigenous characters have been taken away from or have no choice but to turn away from the only way of life they knew previously, that is living off the land. 

I think the last line of Consumption brings these two themes together beautifully: 

“The narwhals surface in the bay, waving their tusks in the air; only a few miles out of town, the last of North America’s great herding land mammals, the tuktu, caribou, paw the grass and the moss by the many thousands and shiver collectively when they smell predators approaching. Contained within this beauty, and perhaps its necessary consequence, are the people here—who huddle similarly close and watch for one another’s peril.”

 

Across Canada Reading Challenge Part 1: The Provinces

This year I decided to take part in the Around the World Reading Challenge (which you probably know since I've mentioned it in like every blog post this year.) As a part of that challenge, there are a bunch of mini-challenges that you can take part in, like read a book from a certain number of countries. One of the suggested mini-challenges was read a book set in every state, but I decided to switch it to read a book set in every Canadian province and territory, since I'm Canadian. (Also I'm sure I've already read a book set in almost every US state, which just shows you how much influence American media has).

It was really fun reading a whole bunch of Canadian books and learning more about my country and the varying cultures within it. If you're American, you have no idea how much American media often swamps other countries' local media. Most people I know watch a lot of American TV and movies, and probably 90% of the YA I read growing up was set in the US and written by American authors. It's probably the worst in Canada, since we share the same language, similar culture, and a border. 

The thing is I probably know more about what makes an American novel than a Canadian one. It's really fun to see how even though a lot of the time I think of Americans and Canadians as being essentially the same, Canadians really do think differently than Americans do. That difference comes across in the books that I read for this challenge. The stories that Canadians choose to tell are very different from the ones Americans tell. Of course, this is only the beginning of my adventures in CanLit, so I can't make too many sweeping generalizations.

For now, I'll just talk about the books I have read so far. I thought I'd split this post into two since otherwise it would be way too long, so in this post I'll talk about the books I read from each province, and then in Part 2 tomorrow I'll talk about the books I read from each territory.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

We'll start on the West Coast with BC! I actually ended up reading three books set in BC. The first was Beauty Plus Pity by Kevin Chong, which I did a review of so you can see what I thought here. It's an easy to read but also very interesting family story about a second-gen immigrant from Hong Kong. Another book I read set in Vancouver was Everything Was Goodbye by Gurijinder Basran, about a girl who struggles with the culture and wishes of her Indian family by falling in love with a white man. The story follows how the MC experiences the culture clash her entire life. I also read The Beckoners by Carrie Mac which is set in Abbotsford. That was a very intense YA book about extremely violent bullying. I think I liked the other Carrie Mac book I read, The Opposite of Tidy, better.


ALBERTA

Onto the land of black gold. The book I read for this province was Truth and Bright Water by Thomas King, about the life of a young Aboriginal boy and two towns on either side of the US/Canada border. While doing this challenge I also read a lot about and the stories of Aboriginal people. I always find it interesting reading Aboriginal stories, because the way Aboriginal people think is very different from the way I think. Truth and Bright Water was an easy read, and fairly humorous despite one of the characters constantly saying that what's wrong with Indians is they have no sense of humor.

SASKATCHEWAN

I had so much trouble finding books set in SK. The province has such a tiny population, so there's only a small percentage of published books about it written by Canadian authors and whose books I actually have access to. I ended up reading Dust by Arthur Slade, which was a younger YA about a weird magician-like person who puts a spell on a town in Saskatchewan during the Dust Bowl. I think this book was just a bit too young for me to enjoy. It was weird thinking of Saskatchewan during the Dust Bowl as a place for magic to happen, though.







MANITOBA

My home province! I read Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography by Chester Brown. If you don't know the name Louis Riel, well you should learn it. He's thought of as one of the founding fathers of Manitoba, although the actual history is a little bit less straightforward. That was the fun thing about reading this biography, is you realize just how not straightforward history is. Louis Riel was one weird dude, that's for sure. I also read A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews, who is a prominent Manitoban and Canadian writer. A Complicated Kindness is a story about a young girl growing up as a Mennonite and her struggle with her culture. Mennonite stories are a huge part of Manitoba, so it was interesting learning more about that culture.




ONTARIO

It is not hard at all to find books set in Ontario, considering that's where most of the population of Canada lives. I read The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten, which focuses on a young boy with OCD and his affection for a young girl in his group; Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, a short graphic novel about a Korean girl and her trials at school in Toronto, and Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown, a book about murderous mermaids who live in Lake Superior. It's an interesting concept, mermaids who live somewhere considerably less tropical and oceanic.







QUEBEC

For Québec, I read Cockroach by Rawi Hage which is about an immigrant making his way in the diverse community of Montreal. It was very much about the difficulties of being a Canadian immigrant. It's interesting because a lot of the time in the news and stuff you read about all these happy ending Canadian immigrant stories, that Canada has rescued these people and Canada's so great and welcoming and multicultural and all that. But this book, as well as Drive-by Saviours, shows a very, very different experience of Canadian immigration, one that people don't hear about as often, but is nonetheless still true to the experience.









NEW BRUNSWICK
 

I read a short book called Summer Point by Linda Mcnutt, which was about the longstanding effect of staying at a cottage for one summer in New Brunswick on one woman's life. The writing was very subtle, which I liked, but I felt like it could have gone into a lot more depth with the characters. It was just too short of a book to really flesh out the character's and their stories. I did enjoy the short story that I did get to read, though, it was well-written and the story flowed quite well.







NOVA SCOTIA

One thing I noticed when trying to find books set in the Maritimes is how many books set there are historical fiction. The Birth House by Ami Mckay was a historical fiction novel about a midwife set in the early twentieth century. It was mainly a novel about women's rights, especially in regards to giving birth. It also touched on the theme of white men coming in and taking over and ignoring the voices who know better in order to give something that they think is better but really isn't, which is a common theme in a lot of the books I've read. But I felt like it was too obvious what the author was trying to say, and it came off kind of preachy. I think truths in fiction need to be more subtle.




PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

I read an adult romance book called The Catch by Louisa Mccormack, about a middle-aged business
woman finding herself by spending a summer in a small town on PEI. It wasn't a bad read, but I didn't feel like the main character really learned anything by the end which was disappointing. My favourite part was definitely the small town PEI atmosphere of it. I loved how the story of family and friends and neighbours who all know each other was at the heart of the book.







NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

I read February by Lisa Moore for this province, about a woman dealing with her husband's death. It was also tied in with the story of her son getting some girl he met in Iceland pregnant and trying to avoid doing what his mother thinks he should do. It was okay, but it was just too slow for me. There were too many details that felt unnecessary to me, and that didn't really give any greater insight into the characters or story.

Well, that's it for the provinces, stay tuned for tomorrow, when I'll go over the books I read set in the North: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut!


 
 

2 CanLit Reviews: Cockroach and Beauty Plus Pity

Happy April! If you didn't already know, this year I've pledged to do the Around the World Reading Challenge. It's been really fun so far, trying to find books set all over the world, and written by people who aren't American. It's interesting, reading books that are often outside my comfort zone or focused on a topic that isn't as easy to read about. One of the mini-challenges in the Around the World challenge is to read a book from every state, although I decided to tweak it and make it a book from every Canadian province and territory instead. As a result I've been reading a lot more Canadian books. Here's two that I just finished!

The first book I just finished is the book Cockroach by Rawi Hage, which is about a man trying to survive in Montreal's immigrant community, among dealing with other problems. Although one of the interesting things is he doesn't really deal with his problems. There's his issues of thievery, stalking, suicide, and his consistent hallucinations of cockroaches. It's definitely a decision on the part of the author not to have the MC to struggle to overcome any of these issues, in order to try to say something, although I'm not quite sure what. There's so much going on this book, different things that the author does with various images, that I don't even know where to start unraveling it. It's not that it's bad, it's just that it requires a lot of thinking and I think a second read-through in order to really begin to understand what the author is trying to say. 

The most interesting image is of course based off the title, the image of the cockroach, which the MC constantly imagines himself as. This is obviously the central focus of the book, the connection between this poor immigrant and how he thinks of himself as a cockroach. It's a very different, intriguing way of learning about immigrant's experiences in Canada, one that I'd never considered. It's definitely on the darker side, though, that's for sure. I wouldn't recommend this book for someone looking for something fun and light, but for someone who wants to be made to think, definitely. 

The other book I just finished was Beauty Plus Pity by Kevin Chong. This was another book where I was uncertain what the author was trying to do, although it was a lot more obvious than in Cockroach, that's for sure. Beauty Plus Pity is about Malcolm, who lives in Vancouver and is a second-gen Canadian immigrant from Hong Kong. The book mostly focuses on his relationship with his half-sister, Hadley, who was born through an affair his father had. This book was definitely a lot easier to read than Cockroach, as it mostly just went through the drama in about a year of Malcolm's life. 

Malcolm was a really easy narrator to read, too. His voice was always very calm and reasonable, and I felt comfortable in it. Just like the voice, the book also moved at a calm pace, yet it didn't feel dragged out but natural. Everything was very natural, all the character and relationship development. The subtle changes in the characters were definitely the strength of this book, because that is how people change in real life, I think. There were no giant epiphanies, but subtle ones that the reader kind of has to dig under the surface to find, which I love. I would definitely recommend this book, for someone looking for an easier read filled with good, bright and often humorous characters. Malcolm was just one of many characters in this book that was interesting to read about.

If you have any recommendations for books set outside of the U.S. or by non-American authors, comment below or tweet me @asherlockwrites!

Around the World Reading Challenge

Hello! I found this reading challenge while browsing Twitter one day, the Around the World Reading Challenge 2015. It's a challenge where you keep track of the places where the books you read are set, and then you mark those places on a Google map throughout the year. Part of the challenge is also to encourage people to read more diversely, so that their dots are all over the world rather than mostly just in North America or the U.S. I have to admit that most of the books I read are set in the U.S., just because when you pick up YA books, that's usually where they are set. It's a lot of work to find lots and lots of books that are set in unique places all around the world. 

But, this year I have decided to commit to doing the work of seeking out books with non-U.S. settings. I think I am even going to try to read more books set outside of the U.S. this year than books with U.S. settings. Why not? I think it'd be fun, and a way to encourage me to read more diversely which I'm always trying to do. 

One of the mini challenges in the challenge is to read a book set in each U.S. state, but since I've read lots of books set in the U.S. already, and since I'm Canadian, I thought I'd try to read a book set in every Canadian province and territory instead. I know there are only 13 provinces and territories compared to 50 states, but it is significantly harder to find books set in Canada that I actually find interesting enough to want to read. (Like there are lots of books set in the Yukon but most that I've found so far are historical fiction about the gold rush, which I'm not really interested in).

Anyone interested in joining this challenge with me? Also, do you have any book recommendations for books set in Canada, or just anywhere outside of the U.S.? 

Oh and you can check out my map here, if you want to see where I've journeyed in my reading so far this year! :)