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The two week update | Weekly Snapshot

Oh yikes, this once-in-two-week blogging routine better not be a habit. I hope it's just an indication of how busy July can get with planning for a birthday and doing different summer things. Life The girl had her birthday party today with friends from school and she had a fun day! It was nice seeing the kids have fun outside of school and take over the bouncy event place like they knew every corner of it. I was grateful for everyone who were brave enough to come to a party despite recent rises in case count. Thankfully most or all of us were vaccinated so that made the decision-making easier. Now that the party is behind me, I have a ton of things to get back to. I am hoping for a quieter week ahead and a chance to catch up on a few things. Reading I honestly haven't read much in the last two weeks. Well, at least not prose. Instead, I've been reading Marvel Comics. Don't ask. So far, I've read Thor: Son of Asgard and Wolverine's Origin stories. Loved all of th

Dance Lessons by Áine Greaney

Dance Lessons
Dutifully, the Boisverts traveled south to Boston for a wedding and a funeral service. But during or after either event, Donna has made no comment, no commiseration to her widowed daughter. In Donna's mind, the drive south to a city said what it needed to say.

The wife of a laid-off paper mill worker, Donna Boisvert believes that keeping busy is the best approach to life's surprises or heartaches.

Ellen's husband, Fintan, had just recently passed away, when she meets an old acquaintance from the past - someone who knew both Ellen and Fintan. In that one meeting, Ellen learns some new facts about her husband - such as the news that his mother is actually alive and kicking, and that Fintan was not an orphan as he had let her to believe. This discovery bothers Ellen enough to make her visit Gowna in Ireland and find out what caused Fintan to lie about his mother.

I have to say - when I first came across Dance Lessons (through the many nominations it received for the Indie Lit Awards, I wasn't intrigued at all. The cover, the title and the synopsis all repelled me, but knowing that it came from an independent press, a part of me thought there must be something else to this book that wasn't standing out at first glance. Once I finished it, I could see the merit in this book - it surprised me a lot (and the panel members, I should add) - in fact, I kept going between this and Silver Sparrow, when trying to decide the book I would rate first.

Here's the story I made up before reading the book (we all do that, right? Pretend we know where a story is going?) Ellen would go to Ireland, meet Fintan's mother, find something shocking, resolve the issues, find a local man, fall in love, and voila! Happy Ending! That isn't what happened. Some of it did, but there were enough non-conventional stuff in the book to allow me to enjoy it.

Ellen and Jo, Fintan's mother, are the main characters of the book, and even Fintan, who is already dead from the beginning, is fleshed out well through flashbacks and back-stories. Initially, I saw Fintan as a controlling man, who didn't much value his wife's opinions. But by the end, I really wanted him to be alive, because by then, a whole new side of him had emerged, one which even Ellen didn't know, and one which puts his character in a different light. Jo was a totally different case. She was an mean, inconsiderate old woman, who did make life difficult for a lot of people. Her relationship with Fintan was interesting and domineering and that set the tone for many things that happen later between them. While it could have been a one-dimensional relationship, I loved how the author took care to introduce Jo's own childhood story into the mix. That certainly put a lot of things into perspective, and left me thinking for a while on Jo's character arc. I won't say I said "A-ha!" because some of the actions confused me, but I guess that's how life is - there is a lot of ambiguity when you start thinking cause-and-effect.

The other characters however didn't feel that vivid, and I guess for me, this is where the book didn't do that well. I wished the narration had moved between a few more characters, rather than just Ellen and Jo, for the most part, because there were some characters who could have brought more to the story (based on their recollections).

This was another fast-paced book. (If there's one thing that all the Indie Lit Awards nominees share, it is their pacing.) There's also a good sense of community in this book, and a very strong feel of Irishness. I love books that evoke the culture of the setting, and I felt that this book definitely succeeded on that point. I also liked that the small-town sentiment wasn't dangled in front of me but rather subtly woven into the plot, so that it was more felt than seen.

I received this book for free from the publisher, to review for the Indie Lit Awards.


bermudaonion (Kathy) said…
I'm with you on that cover, but I do keep reading good things about the book so I should probably give it a try.
Helen Murdoch said…
This sounds like a good one. I really enjoy it when a book surprises us; why don't publishers understand bad covers and titles?
zibilee said…
I like fast paced books that defy preconceived notions, and think I would really enjoy this book. It sounds like there was a lot of really intricate background that was handled well, and that the characters were really well developed. I need to check this one out when I can. It seems very interesting. Great review today!
Anna said…
I really liked this book, so I was glad to see it was a finalist. :)
nomadreader said…
I finally got around to writing my review of this one yesterday (it will post tomorrow). I was so glad to have our conversations to look back on! I hope it can find a wider audience.