The Light Between Oceans: A Novel by M. L. Stedman

When I read the description of The Light Between Oceans, I sensed that it was going to be an emotional journey, and I was right. Tom and Isabel Sherbourne are a young couple caretaking a lighthouse on an isolated outcropping of rock off the southwest coast of Australia. Tom has recently returned from a horrific experience in World War I, his character sharpened and quieted as a result. Isabel, born into a family of means, fell in love with Tom and chose him over all else. But soon they yearn to expand their love into a family.

Fate intercedes denying Tom and Isabel with two stillborn births, and then again when it sends a rowboat containing a dead man and a live baby floating onto Tom and Isabel’s shore. You sense before the book matures that Tom and Isabel will make a dramatic decision about that baby, and that as with most decisions made in the heat of emotion, it will not go well. And then you anticipate the unfolding of the drama with curiosity and dread.

What makes the story of Tom and Isabel, the lighthouse at Janus Rock, and the history and fate of the cast away child so enjoyable, in spite of the anticipated heartache, is the strength of author M. L. Stedman’s (pictured) writing, which renders deep, vivid characters and brilliant visions of the beauty of the southwest Australian ocean and coast.

The Light Between Oceans is a lovely, well-written book that will leave you feeling warm, enriched, and emotionally challenged.

I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai

Sixteen-year-old Pakistani, Malala Yousafzai, became the Western world’s poster girl for the “evils of radical Islamics” when she was shot in the face by a young Taliban zealot because she was an outspoken advocate for educating girls and women. Don’t you just love it when someone else takes the bullet to justify your values?

I am Malala is the fairly well written and stirring back-story of Malala Yousafzai, an extraordinarily mature, intelligent and articulate child whose scholar-father groomed her to be the face of education for girls and women in Pakistan. At the age of 11, Malala penned a blog for BBC about life under the Taliban. Unfortunately that made Malala and her father targets for the Taliban’s ruthless “weeding out” of anyone who spoke against them. Fortunately, Malala survived the attempt on her life, catapulting her into a huge limelight and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination (she didn’t win).

While reading Malala’s book, I floated along in my safe self-righteousness, revering and cheering her on for so bravely standing up to tyranny. But what I found most revealing and provocative, not from the book, but rather in my research for this review, was the reaction of Malala’s country-people and peers to her fame and notoriety. Apparently many of her Pakistani fellow advocates of equal education were incensed that Malala gained such notoriety, implying that Western media handpicked her story, out of many stories of Pakistanis’ sacrifice and heroism, to attract audiences and to reinforce the Western world’s political and religious agendas.

I also saw claims that the whole “Taliban terrorism of Pakistan” was sensationalized. Numerous commentators pointed out that a vast majority of Pakistanis live peaceful lives, and girls and women are routinely educated and assume many leadership rolls as adults. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

I also found of interest that since recovering from her gunshot wounds, writing this book (with the support of British journalist, Christina Lamp), and an extensive speaking tour, Malala has steadfastly claimed, and even told President Obama to his face, that she thinks the deployment of American drone attacks in Pakistan are as big a threat to the Pakistani people as armed Taliban raids.

I am Malala is an interesting story about a very interesting child in a interesting setting, and I encourage you to read it, keeping in mind that it is one perspective.

The Circle by Dave Eggers

If you flinch at the mere mention of social networking, you’ll probably embrace The Circle as an “I told you so!” cautionary tale of what happens when one voluntarily chooses to live their life in a fishbowl.

The Circle is the story of underachiever Mae, who through a college friendship connection lands a low-level position at The Circle, a fictionalized mega-amalgamation of social network.coms so radical that the company’s tagline is “Privacy is Theft.” Working at The Circle is considered the opportunity of a lifetime so Mae is thrilled, especially when she steps onto the lush company “campus” that looks and acts more like a luxury resort than a job site. But when, at her job orientation, a company rep offers to take her old laptop off her hands, assuring her that she won’t need any of the information stored on it, we’re pretty sure The Circle is sinister.

Sure enough, Mae soon learns that this idealized company is an insidious web of social pressures that strangely resembles high school: popularity is everything and you’re in or you’re out. Unfortunately this dystopian satire that could have generated a nice mystery, psychological thriller, or character study, caves in on itself because author Dave Eggers (pictured) forgot to make us care about the characters in the book, he didn’t bother to understand technology, and he banked too much on readers’ tech phobias. So we slog through frenetic, juvenile popularity contests, ankle-deep characters, meaningless relationships, and a tech-based storyline that doesn’t make sense technologically, and doesn’t pose a believable threat, until we are willing to just throw everyone under the bus to get it over with.

In her review of The Circle, Margaret Atwood called it a "Menippean"satire, distinct from social satire in viewing moral defects less as flaws of character than as intellectual perversions." She further described this fifth book of Eggers as "the mirror of art to show us ourselves and the perils that surround us," and says that The Circle's insistence that we share everything is a "form of solitary confinement." Atwood's musings always feel a little over intellectualized, but she is distinctly insightful, and I always learn new words when I read her. 

Eggers has written better books, Zeitoun, my personal favorite, is a subtle look at how a natural disaster (hurricane Katrina in this case) brings out the worst and best in people. So if you're interested in reading him, and I recommend you do, read Zeitoun, not The Circle.