The Heretic's Daughter - Kathleen Kent

In 1752 Sarah Carrier Chapman, confined to her home and weak with infirmity, writes a letter to her granddaughter, revealing the secret she has guarded closely for six decades. It is a haunting account of the horrors that enveloped a New England town called Salem, and compelled Sarah, then just a young girl, to make a decision that would change her life forever.

A little more than a year before the witch trials will begin, Sarah and her family arrive in nearby Andover to face a community gripped by superstition and fear. With the increase in Indian raids and the spread of the plague, the Puritans come to believe that heretics in their midst are responsible for their misfortune. Based on the accusations of a dozen young girls, neighbor is pitted against neighbor, friend against friend, and the hysteria escalates, sweeping more than two hundred men, women, and children into prison on charges of witchcraft--Sarah's mother, Martha Carrier, among them. Often at odds with each other, mother and daughter must now stand defiantly together in the face of imprisonment, torture, and even death. Out of love for her children, Martha asks Sarah to commit an act of heresy--a lie that will most surely condemn Martha even as it will save her daughter.

The Heretic's Daughter was a very captivating read. To think that a small number of teenage girls pointing their fingers at others and proclaiming them to be "witches" started the mass hysteria that came to be known as the Salem Witch Trials. Dozens of men and women were hanged, and hundreds more imprisoned based on the lies told by these girls. I hope the girls got what they deserved on the other side!

The events in Salem are a sad part of our history, but a fascinating part all the same. The author of The Heretic's Daughter, Kathleen Kent, is a tenth generation descendant of Martha Carrier, one of the women condemned as a witch and hanged. I read that she spent five years researching this time in her family's history before writing the novel. And she did a wonderful job. Martha Carrier was ofttimes described as a cold, hard woman, and the author did an amazing job of portraying not only that cold side of Martha, but the warm, loving side of her as well. I loved the way the relationship between Martha and Sarah grew to be what it was in the end. I felt so bad for Martha's husband and children, and can't imagine what they all must have gone through--especially Martha and the kids when they were in jail. Kathleen Kent wrote such vivid descriptions of everything, though, that I could somewhat imagine what it would have been like.

This is a lovely novel, and one I'd recommend if you want to read one family's account of what really happened in Salem during the witch trials.

4.25/5

Life of Pi - Yann Martel

Life of Pi is the book for my church book group this month, and listening to some of the other women talk about it made me a bit hesitant to pick it up and read it. Once I got into the story, though, I really liked it. Not only is it a fascinating read, it's also very well written.

Pi (short for Piscine, as in the French word for 'swimming pool') Patel is 16 years old when his father sells the family zoo in Pondicherry India to start a new life in Canada. The family boards a ship, the Tsimtsum, with some of their zoo animals, eager to begin their journey. A couple of days later, the ship sinks, taking with it every living thing that was onboard -- with the exception of Pi, Richard Parker the Bengal tiger, a hyena, an orangutan, and a zebra. This motley crew float away on a lifeboat with rations enough to last Pi about three months. Pi is understandably worried about being eaten by the hyena or Richard Parker, and doesn't know how he'll survive with the animals aboard. The hyena eats the zebra and the orangutan, and then Richard Parker eats the hyena, leaving himself and Pi as the sole occupants of the lifeboat. Pi says:

I was alone and orphaned, in the middle of the Pacific, hanging on to an oar, an adult tiger in front of me, sharks beneath me, a storm raging about me. Had I considered my prospects in the light of reason, I surely would have given up and let go of the oar, hoping that I might drown before being eaten. But I don't recall that I had a single thought during those first minutes of relative safety. I didn't even notice daybreak. I held on to the oar, I just held on, God only knows why. [p. 107]

Pi survives (I'm not giving anything away; the reader discovers this right away), with one whopper of a story to tell.

I survived 227 days. That's how long my trial lasted, over seven months. . . . I survived because I made a point of forgetting. My story started on a calendar day--July 2nd, 1977--and ended on a calendar day--February 14th, 1978--but in between there was no calendar. I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time. [p. 191-192]

The ending really surprised me, in a good way. Pi tells his story to two members of the Maritime Department in the Japanese Ministry of Transport. The men have been sent to question Pi, hoping to discover what happened to make the Tsimtsum sink. They never forget the story they heard.

I can't say much more without giving something away, but I can say that I really liked this book. That Pi survived is incredible. And his story is pretty incredible, too.

4/5

The Lucky One - Nicholas Sparks

When U.S. Marine Logan Thibault finds a photograph of a smiling young woman half-buried in the sand during his third tour of duty in Iraq, his first instinct is to toss it aside. Instead, he brings it back to the base for someone to claim, but when no one does, he finds himself always carrying the photo in his pocket. Soon Thibault experiences a sudden streak of luck, winning poker games and even surviving deadly combat that kills two of his closest buddies. Only his best friend, Victor, seems to have an explanation for his good fortune: the photograph--his lucky charm.

Back home in Colorado, Thibault can't seem to get the photo--and the woman in it--out of his mind. Believing that she somehow holds the key to his destiny, he sets out on a journey across the country to find her, never expecting the strong but vulnerable woman he encounters in Hampton, North Carolina--Elizabeth, a divorced mother with a young son, Ben--to be the girl he's been waiting his whole life to meet.

I really liked this story. It's one of Sparks' better novels in recent memory, besides the one he published last year, The Choice, which I also really enjoyed. Thibault and Elizabeth were good people, and I liked how their relationship evolved into what it became. Elizabeth's ex-husband, Keith, was a total scumbag moron, but he made up for it in the end. The ending was good--just how I wanted things to end--but it was kind of abrupt. That's really my only complaint. Sure, there were a couple of slow parts in the book, and I really hated when Keith would call Thibault "Thigh-bolt" (Thibault is actually a French name and is pronounced "Tee-bow"), but I just tried to block it out. Actually, I disliked everything about Keith, but that's another story.

The Lucky One is a really good read, one I had a difficult time putting down.

4.25/5