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MISS BURMA

Name: MISS BURMA
Author: Charmaine Craig
ISBN: 978-0-8021-3645-0

by Charmaine Craig ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2017

Mesmerizing and haunting.

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A couple’s love for each other and their children is tested through World War II and then through Burma’s long civil war.

When Benny, a young Jewish Burmese man, meets a woman named Khin, he is instantly drawn to her though she's part of a persecuted ethnic minority group, the Karen. WWII has just begun, and Burma’s future as part of the British empire is uncertain. Benny and Khin marry, but their relationship is strained by their inability to speak the same language and by the religious and ethnic persecution they each face as Burma is drawn into years of war. Benny takes an increasingly active role in the military through WWII and into the Karen attempt at revolution, and Khin is forced to provide for their four children when he is tortured and imprisoned. Their eldest daughter, Louisa, comes of age during the constant upheaval and becomes the surprise winner of the Miss Burma pageant, unintentionally subverting her family’s war efforts by becoming a national symbol of unity. Based on her own family’s history, Craig’s (The Good Men, 2002) novel is rich and layered, a complex weaving of national and personal trauma. Even as Benny and Khin navigate love and betrayal, pulled between obligation to their family and to their ethnic groups, Louisa also finds she must make her own choices about whether to be loyal to Burma or the Karens. Craig has written a captivating second novel that skillfully moves from moments of quiet intimacy and introspection to passages portraying the swift evolution of political events as multiple groups and nations vie for control of Burma’s future.

Mesmerizing and haunting.

Pub Date: May 2, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-8021-3645-0

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
MY NEMESIS
by Charmaine Craig

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GOOD MEN
by Charmaine Craig

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.