Maile MeloyRecensioni

A while ago I said I was I taking a break from reading books about middle-class, middle-aged marriages and their discontents, but with this collection of short stories I'm back.

Meloy's perfectly written stories are about yearning and frustration (which, we all know, are the essential themes of middle-class, middle-age life, even if you're not married--or middle-aged). Sad as the stories were, I admired the writing and insight tremendously.

My favorite story, and probably the most lighthearted, was "Lilliana," wherein a rich old grandma comes back from the dead, but not really.

Finally, the title of the book, taken from a poem by A.R. Ammons, really does sum it up well. To quote one of the stories, "The force with which he wanted it both ways made him grit his teeth. What kind of fool wanted it only one way?"

The narration was a little jumpy at times, which makes sense, but was difficult to follow sometimes when listening to on audiobook.

This YA book was an adventure set initially in the USA during the 1950's era of anti-communist McCarthyism. The story quickly moves to London, UK where the Scott family travels to escape persecution as alleged communists. The 2 main protagonists (Benjamin and Janie) embark on a mission to outwit Soviet agents and free Ben's kidnapped father.

While the plot's plausibility is questionable, the story is intriguing and the adventure is definitely engaging with a fair amount of quirky and suspenseful episodes. The rules of alchemy are observed, albeit a bit deceptively, in the process of using medicinal plants in the London from the physic garden to make 'magic' elixirs.
The middle-grade students can enjoy a story here with lots of imagination and learn some history which is presented very unobtrusively.

Maile Meloy's prose is tight and functional, and can hit like a fist. The first story in this collection, about a lonesome ranch hand who meets and tries to kindle a relationship with a woman from a town 9 hours away, struck me with its emotional realism. Infidelity is a motif in many of these stories, and it grew harder to sympathize with the cheating, selfish husbands that populate Meloy's pages.

The octopus is happy in his undersea cave until one day, a diver captures him and takes him to live in an aquarium. The humans give him food and tests that look like toys. But every day is the same, and the octopus soon tires of captive life. And so, under the cover of darkness, he makes his daring escape...

Beautifully written short stories mostly about unrequited love in many forms.

YA. 1952. The Scott’s are forced to leave Hollywood because of the Red Scare. Janie meets Benjamin after his father is kidnapped and they are plunged into the Cold War. They are trying to control an atomic bomb test. It is a true test of an Apothecary’s powers. Good characters, good premise, good pacing.

Lovely, informative, beautiful with a good message to let wild animals remain wild. My favorite illustrative spread is when the octopus is hanging part-way off the dock with a ferris wheel lit up in the night.

Very good, quick solid read. I especially loved Pip and the fact that he seemed willing to change for Sarah and not the other way around.

A really wonderfully vivid collection of short stories - mostly slice of life perspectives with a common thread of having one's cake and eating it too. Does having it both ways really make us happy?

This is a difficult book to review. I gave it 4 stars as it kept me up, listening, until 5 am. Then I had to take a break to sleep but immediately picked it back up to finish. I had to know about the children. This sounds like an easy peasy 5 star, right? No. Wrong.
The story does ensnare you in its trap. I didn't find myself really liking nearly everyone, including most of the children. Some parts were difficult to read/hear. Some parts didn't make a lot of sense, (behaviors of some adults and even the children). At one point I rooted for the kidnappers! (I can handle whiny kids but at this particular point, I felt it would have been justified. If you choose to read this book, you will immediately recognize that point). It left a bad taste in my mouth after the ending settled and I sat down to write this.
Would I recommend this book? Yes, but to carefully selected individuals. It is a gripping story. It is interesting. It is one where you could find plenty to discuss. But it is not for everyone. I suspect this book might end up being placed on a lot of DNF shelves.
There is a rape scene, involving one of the older children. It was very difficult to get through. If you want to read the book but not this part, when two of the kidnappers are drinking and playing cards, jump a few pages or fast forward a couple minutes. This book is definitely intended for a mature audience.

Maybe 3.5 stars--solid, straightforward realist stories.

Just did not like this book as much as the first in the series. The plot didn't flow as well or make sense and the story jumped around far too much. :/

Finished in one day, couldn't put it down! Thankfully it was my day off :)

I received this book free from the publisher via netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

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Unfortunately I had to DNF this novel. While the concept is interesting I couldn't relate to any of the characters which completely lost me.

because of hearing Ann Patchett reading Proxy Marriage where in William and Bridey are finally brought together 8.5.21

This was a fast read which I was excited to get into--unfortunately, I'm afraid my praise stops there, and I don't see myself picking up another one of Meloy's works.

There are a lot of issues with this novel, although I thought the concept was great. The first big issue is the characters--aside from being privileged and selfish (especially the adults), it's almost as if they've been created with the intention of making them as unlikeable and similar as possible. Aside from having different distractions, they talk/sound/think in the same way, which makes reading their perspectives and worries all the more tedious. The children, similarly, all pretty much sound the same, to the extent that I think Meloy would have been better off if she'd just focused on giving us a few perspectives rather than so many, as the sheer number of voices only make it all the more obvious that all of these characters are basically the same person cast in slightly different situations. The children are also, for the most part, pretty unbelievable, although there are moments that shine through as being something only a child would do/think. Unfortunately, those moments are rare, and although the children are more sympathetic than the adults, that's not saying much.

Besides taking some unbelievable turns, the big problem with the plot is how predictable it is. Simply, I thought there'd be more to it, and there wasn't. In fact, everything played out exactly as I would have expected it to, as of a few chapters into the book, so while an engaging, surprising plot might have overcome the flaws instigated by unlikeable, unsympathetic, self-involved, and spoiled characters, we just didn't have that.

It's possible that part of the point of this book is to put forward a privileged bunch of characters who get in the way of their own survival and happiness, and I suppose the author succeeded if that's the case, but I simply didn't enjoy this book, and as fast a read as it was, I'm afraid I can't really imagine recommending it to anyone. The primary emotion it drew from me was annoyance with the characters, and that's never a good thing to have to report.

Kind of a weak effort for Maile Meloy, whose Apothecary series is much better. Two families go on a cruise, and while the husbands are off playing golf, the wives' and childrens' excursion goes horribly wrong when there is a car accident, followed by a kidnapping. Kind of predictable, and it was hard to feel sympathy for the privileged Americans and Argentinians, even at the hands of the ruthless criminals. Maybe 2.5 stars...

Conclusion to the Apothecary trilogy. Benjamin Burrows is living with the Scott family, but is wracked with guilt over his role in his father's death and seeks a way to contact his father in the after-room. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, a grieving father has stolen nuclear material and intends to get even with China for his son's death by detonating a bomb there. Jin Lo joins an American spy to stop the madness. Meloy's strong anti-nuke message is clear.

Book #2. It is 1954, and now 16-year old Janie Scott attends a private school in New Hampshire. Her roommate Opal's father, Mr. Magnusson, kidnaps her and flies her to his private island in Malaysia supposedly for her scientific work on desalinization. In reality, he is trying to lure the Apothecary (Magnus Burrows) and his son, Benjamin to help with a much more nefarious project Janie's friends Benjamin, Pip and Jin Lo come to save her from three different parts of the world. A series of near-death experiences for the apprentices, but all does not work out in the end this time. Good illustrations!

Good young adult fantasy read, with an anti-nuclear war theme. Janie Scott moves to London so her parents can escape persecution as alleged communists. At a new school, she meets the son of the apothecary and together they become involved in a plan to thwart/contain a Russian nuclear detonation. While briefly in jail, they befriend a young East End ruffian and pickpocket, who assists.

I actually gave up on this half way through. I thought that it was a sequel to Meloy’s previous novel, Liars and Saints, which I enjoyed. But I was disappointed to discover that, rather than a normal sequel, A Family Daughter takes some of the same characters, adds some new ones, some of whom have the same names as characters from the earlier novel, shuffles them, keeping some details and relations, completely changing others, and retells the story. I will grant that Meloy is clever and a good writer, but this manœuvre does not pass the « what for? » test and actually ruined the first book for me. It had the effect of invalidating the earlier story and my attachment to the first-version characters. As another reviewer wrote, the second story is very « meta » (I think it may be that one character turns out to have written the first book about her family), but I lost the will to follow this convoluted path. Neither the writing nor the story seem hefty enough or deep enough to support the authorial shenanigans.

AMAZING BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I started it on the 8th and finished it today!! i couldn't put it down.

A wonderful book. The book is set in 1952 London in which two teenagers help the boy's apothecary father save the world from the nuclear bomb. They do this through magic and chutzpah. A fantastic adventure story. The illustrations are beautiful.