Girl in Translation and Cutting for Stone

Girl in Translation
http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Translation-Jean-Kwok/dp/B005IUH24O/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364096324&sr=1-1&keywords=girl+in+translation+by+jean+kwok

This book truly helped me step outside my own world and into a world of poverty that I haven't seen. I wondered, though, how much of it perpetuates Asian-American stereotypes. The protagonist didn't seem as real to me as the other characters in the novel. I could picture them. I had trouble picturing her. And I also had trouble understanding her decisions at times. E. M. Forster (this is roughly paraphrased from memory) said that a round character is one who we feel like we know thoroughly and will be able to predict his or her behavior or reactions and yet he or she is also capable of surprising us effectively. The protagonist in this novel had some surprising behavior or decisions, but they always seemed somehow removed from all of the rest of her behavior, and it felt "off" to me.

Cutting for Stone
http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Stone-Abraham-Verghese/dp/0375714367/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364096693&sr=1-1&keywords=cutting+for+stone

This is a relatively long book-- somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 pages. I burned through it in 2-3 days. The book took me to another world. At first, the structure seemed sort of different, like it was repeating in circles as the birth story was referred to several times but always explained with new information the next time. I liked that sections were told from different character perspectives. It was also refreshing that the loose ends were tied up by novel's end but not in a way that was rote or predictable or freaking ridiculous or cheesy.

The story is set in a hospital and it involves multiple surgeons. The medical parts were fascinating and clear (which is saying something as I do not usually enjoy medical information).

At least one thing distracted me from the story: the actual physical connection that Shiva and Marion had in the womb. Shiva and Marion are identical twins who were conjoined. Their conjoinment (if that can be a word) consisted of a stalk or tube that connected their scalps/heads. After they were delivered by C-section, this thread was cut and a little stump was left on each boy's head. Marion describes how during the birth, he pulled Shiva back up into the womb (yes, the book goes all Tristram Shandy on us and gives us information about his birth from the grown narrator's perspective because he remembers being in the womb). The first twin is presenting head down and the other twin is up above that. How long is this stalk/tube/thread that connects the boys? How can they be head to head in the womb most of the time and yet one is able to present and crown while still connected to the other one? I know this connection is needed in order to represent the other connection the twins have to one another, but it all seems a little impossible to me.

The other thing...no one knew Sister Mary Joseph Praise was pregnant. She was 8 months pregnant with conjoined twins and she was a petite woman. She assisted during surgeries all that time. Seriously? I don't care if she was wearing a habit, that had to be one large belly and she had to have been tired and need to pee constantly. I know I should just suspend reality here given all that happens in the book, but these two things really got to me (the conjoining at the head and the unknown pregnancy).

On the plus side, the characters were all well-developed. The plot kept moving and complicating in unexpected ways. The really intelligent characters were also capable of true lapses in judgement that were spot on for believability. Little vignettes of the characters' lives were woven into the tale at times to help explain the person each had become.

Reading Wicked

I am trying to use this blog to keep track of some of the books I have read. For a book club, I read this over Winter Break.

http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Life-Times-Witch-Years/dp/0061350966

I usually ramble on and on, but all I am going to say here is: do not read it!
1. It was vulgar. I am not generally what I would call prudish. This book was awful for just how grossly vulgar it got for no reason whatsoever.
2. Lots of red herrings. Tons of things were brought up in ways that seemed important at the time only to lead to nowhere, or at least to nowhere conclusive or cohesive.
3. The characters were not likeable. Parts of the book appear to be about redemption but in the end none of them were redemptive people.