Deadly Waters: The Vietnam Naval War and Its Aftermath - Randy Miller

 Author's note: This review is my work and has appeared in Online Book Club as well. The link for the OBC review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=367989&p=2346851#p2346851

Verdict: Read it if you have experience with the navy, the Vietnam war, or the US health care system’s treatment of veterans. (Rating 3/5)

Overview: This is the first book I’ve ready by Randy Miller.  There weren’t any big discrepancies between the title and what was in the book – so no spoilers to say to watch out for in this review.

Most of us younger folks are vaguely aware of the Vietnam War. I’m not exactly young at 40, but definitely too young to remember the Vietnam Era as I wasn’t born yet when it happened. We all get the requisite history classes in school and perhaps a supplemental movie or two. As they say, to the victor goes the writing of history. I wouldn’t say that the US won the Vietnam war by any stretch of the imagination, but the US certainly loves colouring history in very specific shades.

I Enjoyed: This book is obviously written by someone that has a very similar (but not exact) experience as Zach, the protagonist of the story. I would bet the author had a similar upbringing to the protagonist as well, being from a farm or a very simple, straight forward spoken family. This honesty and candour bring a refreshing, non-politicized viewpoint. We also get to hear about the navy’s roll in the Vietnam war, something that isn’t frequently discussed in history classes. I find it very honest when service men and women are open about their experience in the armed forces. I find it important to have an open discussion about the armed forces rather than just hero worship that gets piped through politicians and the news daily.

Suggestions for Improvement:  I’ll start with the most obvious point for me, which was the accents. Not only did I find it confusing why this mattered to the plot line, trying to read the dialogue was distracting as hell as I found myself sounding out words and wondering how they fit in this or that accent. I also found myself drowning in definitions and explanations about the navy that did not do anything at all for the plot. As a fellow author, I have an unfortunate amount of experience in how this happens, especially in light of the earlier explanation of how I’m pretty sure this is a personal experience for the author. While there was a plot (I wondered for a while in the middle!), I found it too loosely structured and lacking in details that would keep the reader engaged in the plot rather than understanding the author’s experience in the navy. In fact, Vietnam seemed like a subplot to the navy experience and the protagonist’s relationship, which I find to be a shame.  I was disappointed in the lack of character development in the protagonist. Randy Miller has explained his background perhaps a bit too thoroughly, but he remains flat and unreachable on the page. I’m a stickler for plot and character development, as well as consistence. For a book about the Vietnam war, the war itself seemed like an afterthought. The accents/dialect differentiation between characters made it difficult to understand how well proofread the book was. This affected my rating as well.

Summary: Someone has done Randy Miller a disservice in terms of editing and plot development if it’s not self-published. With a little better plot and character development, this novel could be a very good read. That being said, I find his experience important to share even in the current state. The parallels between some of what’s happening in the US today is not an obvious repeat of previous experiences, which I personally find interesting as well as exasperating.  I think it would be more appealing to someone who has first hand experience with the navy.

The Prodigy Slave Book One: Journey to Winter Garden – Londyn Skye

Author's note: This review is my work and has appeared in Online Book Club as well. The link for the OBC review: https://forums.onlinebookclub.org/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=392980&p=2394243#p2394243

Verdict: Approach with caution. (Rating 3/5). I have given this rating due to the subject matter and writing style explained below.

Overview: This is the first book I’ve read by London Skye. It’s a romance novel.

I’m not new to romance novels and can appreciate the formulaic writing, cheap sex scenes, and all the glorious time-pass they entail. This novel turned out to be a bit different than I expected, both good and bad, as I’ll outline later.

The novel brings us through the journey of a female slave, Lily. She is ripped from her mother’s arms as a child, finds a childhood friend who she thinks will betray her again, is given a chance to foster musical talent, and finally becomes successful.

As I mentioned, romance novels are generally written only for entertainment. I found myself hard-pressed in this novel to keep the reading at a surface level. I’ll avoid political commentary in this review, but as a reader, it will be difficult to avoid if the reader is aware and introspective.

I Enjoyed: The author has made a strong attempt at a non-cliched, talented, female main character. She has also tried to tell a different slavery story and highlight that perhaps there were times when white people supported people of color and tried to change the system. There is a clear plot line that isn’t just sex. Many of the cliched, ridiculous romance novel misogynies were also pleasantly absent. I enjoy stories when the timeline jumps around and this novel does that well.

Suggestions for Improvement: Spelling out accents in dialogue is extremely distracting. I got stuck trying to re-create accents and wondering if I was in the South, North East, or Southern Midwest where I grew up. The phonetic spellings only occasionally appeared for certain characters, increasing my confusion. Informing the audience that the scene takes place in the South, or that a character is from London is sufficient; the reader can imagine the accents as he or she will. I also found there to be too much repetition of ideas and scenes. While the author did make a successful attempt to weave a story with intersecting timelines, I wished I could skip sections because the point they were making was already long-established. I stretched to the outside of my patience for glossing over facts and realities. While I understand that romance novels are meant to be fantasy, this novel tried to take a horrific historical occurrence and gloss over it. I could not enjoy it because I could not get around the re-engineered political and social implications. The author also seemed to tire of the project at the end and told the audience the ending, rather than finish weaving the story. While I can understand this as a writer, it wasn’t ideal.

Summary: This was a hard read for me. While it was well written and the author thought through and put a lot of effort into the work, I’m not certain it’s possible to change the rhetoric on some topics; slavery is one of those topics for me. A clear attempt was made to avoid ethnic and gender-related “savior” cliches, but they ended up coming out in the end anyhow. The imposition of current socially aware thinking (such as asking for permission to have sex with someone in that era, not to mention someone whom you’ve been conditioned to not think of as a human being) struck me as improbable and rang false. The point I’m getting at here is that it’s too much for a romance novel. Expecting a social examination from a historical romance novel doesn’t fit the genre. Read it if you’re curious and able to turn your analytical thinking off.

The Bride in the Rainy Mountains - Kuvempu

Fiction

Verdict: If you're interested in Kannada literature and culture

This was another recommendation from my friendly sales person at Book Worm. I wasn't extremely enthusiastic at first because it was expensive and a very very large book. But I've started to take an interest lately into Kannadiga authors, and Kuvempu is a famous, award winning poet and author. So I conceded.

It's a historical novel about a vague place in Uttara Kannada (the northern part of Karnataka). A few different cultures, languages, and customs converge in this area. The author's language choices were fun and very much unique to that area, which I enjoyed. I also enjoyed digging in to some of the cultural roots in Karnataka. It's not an area I've explored much. 

There's a a vague plot like and a few main characters. The side characters are many. It's mainly just life going by in a few villages and how they interconnect. Its not thrilling, but the author does an exemplary job of highlighting and describing how life is in such a situation in the time period it's set in.

It's definitely a long novel, and to be quite honest I got bored in a few places. Not many, but a few. The author does a good job of pacing and his descriptions keep you engaged. Definitely read it if you are intereted in Karanataka culture, village life and history. 

Read it!

~Becky~

The Fourth Peshwa - Ranjit Desai

Fiction

Meh

Historical Fictions are a guilty pleasure for me. I picked up this book thinking it would be fun. I have not read anything by Ranjit Desai before, so finding new authors is always fun as well.

The author takes us through the life of a Peshwa, one of the leaders of the earstwhile Maratha empire.  The novel does include details about life as a Maratha royal, and definitely includes warfare and strategy. 

Unfortunately, I found this book incredibly hard to follow - and not for good reasons. The author introduces too many characters in too rapid succession with absolutely no explanation about any of them. Most of the characters fell flat for me too. They seemed too 2-D and I couldn't relate to any of them as real people. Desai also missed his chance to develop a strong character for the Peshwa's wife. 

Overall, it was a disappointment. 

~Becky~

The Crows of Agra - Sharath Komarraju

Fiction

Verdict: If you like this sort of thing

There's a certain genre in India where people take historical figures and build fictional stories around them with just enough facts (or many facts) to make them plausible. In fact, I think this happens everywhere. I happen to enjoy them. They make history come more alive for me and make it accessible, not to mention interesting.

The Crows of Agra is a murder mystery. A pretty well done one at that. The novel starts with a very immature Akbar ruling with a regent. As he grows, and court intrigues prevail, it looks as though the regent is gunning for power and the throne. When he gets murdered, a random Brahmin (who isn't actually a Brahmin at all) who saved the king's life is called upon to unravel the mystery. And he does just that. 

There's not too much surprising that happens, though the author does manage to preserve the solution right to the very end. The only nice twist (Spoiler alert) that I found was the culprit's explanation at the end. I won't say more than that because it's no fun if you already know who dun it. 

This is a relatively short book and is an easy read. It drags a little in some places, but is overall well done. If this is your cup of tea, enjoy.

~Becky~

Baumgartner's Bombay - Anita Desai

Fiction
Verdict: Read it

Anita Desai is a favourite of mine, so when Justbooks offered me a selection of her books because they aren't shipping what I want, I picked one I hadn't read yet. 

I have to tell you internet, the forward was intimidating. Pulling together Germany, WW2, an internment camp, and India and it's a mess of confusion. Definitely an angle I've never even remotely thought of. It took me a while to get into, partly because of the reason I just said, and partly because Desai's main character is, so.....bland. He's not wildly loveable, hateable, or even notable. But he's had one hell of a life. 

However I did get into it. And had a hard time putting it down. Desai gets into being a long term foreigner who tries to fit in, mixed families, people without a solid direction in life, and what it means when you no longer belong somewhere you thought was home. Right up my alley if I do say so myself.

Underneath it all, Baumgartner is a good man. It unfortunately costs him in the end, but he's a harmless character. He has a spate of run ins with decent people also, making his life nothing fancy, but comfortable and not traumatic.  I guess what's so striking about him is how ordinary and uninteresting him. He's truly the ordinary man. If you didn't know his history and his life, you'd just assume he was a plain doughnut.

Not that I'm an expert or anything like that, but there are very few things that take me by surprise about India anymore. The internment camp, however, really threw me sideways. It was such a logical but surprising occurrence.  No one ever talks about India in relation to WW2 so I assumed it was a typical isolationist country, totally neglecting that Britain's rule in India would have had consequences for Germans, Jewish or not. I definitely will read up on this more.

It's rare to find an Indian author who incorporates anything but mildly British references, and Anita Desai does a masterful job of it. I truly believe she understands the cultural references she includes. It's an amazing thing to watch.

My only complaint is the German poetry - in German - that persists through the book. As a non-German speaker, I wish I could have understood these snipets. Languages leave clues that help us understand context and I definitely felt it when I couldn't appreciate those as well.

Do read it for a different perspective on Indian literature.

~Becky~ 

Rani - Jaishree Misra

Fiction
Verdict: Read it

When I added this book to my reading list, I don't think I realized it was about Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. As with many of the books I read, I can't quite remember how I picked this one. Anyhow, it was a fun surprise.

For those who aren't aware, Lakshmibai was the queen of a small state called Jhansi during the times of the British colonialization of India. She fought against British forces and was Martyred. 

I have a soft spot for historical epochs that bring characters to life and give us a peek into what they may have been like as people. This book does a nice job of that, even considering that it was fiction and much may have been the author's creative license. The story follows the Rani from her simple but privileged childhood, through her teenaged marriage to a king, to her ultimate demise at the hands of the British army. Even before reading this novel, I found her to be an inspiring figure. 

In the interest of honesty, the novel drags in some places, and it's a lengthy sized book. I also was very curious about the quasi romance that the Rani had with a British officer. I'm curious about how much that was embellished simply to have a romantic angle in the novel. 

Overall a good time pass and a pleasant way for someone like me to get a better understanding of a historical figure. Read it!

~Becky~

Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh

Fiction
Verdict: Read it

Amitav Ghosh is another author that I am become extremely fond of reading. Sea of Poppies has taken two very different characters and placed them next to each other and you can't help but contrast them. 

One character, an orphaned white woman, leaves her adoptive home due to unreasonable restrictions. She comes from a place of privilege, sanitation, and servants. 

The other is a woman from the central plains of India. One that still covers her head, but had the courage to run away with a man after he foiled plans for her to be burned on her husband's pyre and is hunted there forward.

Both women find themselves on a ship headed to Sri Lanka in the hope that working on a plantation will bring them safety and a comfortable life - more comfortable than the one they are running from. 

Set in a time when Britain was present in India, the language is stunningly confusing to understand at first. It's a bastardized mix of English and Hindi that apparently was common and popular among the English when they colonized India. As someone who understands both languages, it's a confusing ride for a while. Once one catches on, it's very amusing as well as horrifying to watch both languages being butchered so badly with so much arrogance. 

Read it.

Becky

Cuckhold - Kiran Nagarkar

Fiction
Verdict: Read it


To be perfectly honest, with a name like Cuckhold I was expecting something much.....smuttier than I discovered. I am so glad I did, not that I don't like smut - I do - but because this was so much richer and deeper and more satisfying to wade through.

A long novel, Cuckhold is a historical fiction. In a land of arranged marriage and an almost comical obsession with finding love in spite of arranged marriages, Cuckhold addresses when married couples don't necessarily gel well. Not in a violent, argumentative fashion, but simply because priorities are different. In this case, royalty and a devotion to god get in the way of developing a relationship that is meaningful and satisfying for both of the partners. As in most cases, there is no option of divorce and obligation reigns supreme, creating a huge sense of resentment as well as desperate need to connect with the other person. 

Not at all a sentimental or romantic work, Nagarkar fills the novel with feudal mindsets and war of kings of old. This doesn't detract at all, and helps avoid the usual cliches of romantic novels. The battles, schemes, and royal angles to the book are well done and a very much appreciated break from the futility of pining for someone that is so in love with God.

Do read it.

Becky