My Journey by Olivia Chow

I received this book as a gift and because it is largely set in Toronto, I thought I would review it here even though it is not fiction (hey, my blog, my rules).

Olivia Chow is one of my political heroes, and a strong example of a quintessential Torontonian - an immigrant from a working-class background, very urban, very cosmopolitan, and very invested in community-based problem-solving and action. It was actually very frustrating to read her book now, after her anemic mayoral campaign, and see the kind of person we could have had in charge had she won.

I'm not generally into biographies or autobiographies, but this one was an easy enough read, with lots of intriguing anecdotes that are sure to be of interest to Toronto political junkies. Olivia basically knows everyone, so a lot of her accounts of parties and strategy sessions are a who's who of the Toronto left. I didn't find it to be irritating in a name-dropping way, however; Olivia seems genuinely interested in giving credit to the people around her for her successful campaigns.

The best parts of the book were when she talked about Jack Layton and their relationship. She manages to be emotional without being maudlin, and talks with startling honesty about her grief at his death and how it has affected her, and how she is dealing with it. She is unapologetically frank about their relationship, about both of their flaws and strengths; you can see how writing the book has been part of the healing process for her.

A lot of the issues that she has worked on through her career on city council and as an MP raised interesting discussions in my mind, but Olivia did not really get into them in the book; she talks about what happened but rarely touches on the why of it. This was my main objection to the book; I wanted to know more about why she is a progressive, why she takes the stances she does. I think that people of every political stripe decide to get into politics, so while that's an interesting thing about Olivia's development, what I really wanted was more analysis on her actual political views.

Anyway, it was a lovely book, and I would recommend it to folks as both an interesting insight into Olivia and Jack's lives, and a piece of Toronto's political history. Four CN Towers out of five.

The Perpetual Ending by Kristen den Hartog

I have started to feel that perhaps I shouldn't read books while commuting to work, because crying on public transit tends to attract attention. This is the book that really made me start to consider this.

The story follows Janie, a woman who has moved from the Ottawa Valley to Vancouver to escape from the trauma of her family's past. The book is addressed mostly to Janie's twin, Eugenie, who died in childhood - although we don't find out exactly how until near the end of the novel. Janie is living with a man named Simon whom she loves, and who illustrates the children's stories that she writes. At the start of the book Janie gets a call from her father to tell her that her mother is dying, and to ask her to come home - and as she travels back she unwinds the story of her childhood.

Janie has never told Simon that she had a twin, nor that her parents are alive, so obviously he feels betrayed by this revelation and by her sudden decision to leave. It's so shocking to think that someone you love could have this huge part of themselves that they have never revealed to you; throughout the novel the reader starts to see how the trauma of Janie's life was so overwhelming that she basically repressed it completely. It leaks out through the children's stories, which are delightfully interspersed throughout the book, bursting with allegorical connections and insights into Janie's psyche.

The book is partially set in Toronto, as Janie and Eugenie's mother moves there with them for a key part of their childhood, away from their emotionally abusive and alcoholic father. There isn't a lot of detail about Toronto - this isn't a Toronto book per se - but the sense of coming from a small place to the big city is very clear, and the girls' first experiences on the subway etc. set up the differences in their personalities well. Moving marks the transitions in Janie's life clearly; after Eugenie's death, the family returns to the small town, and her life changes again. Her world becomes smaller.

There is a lot here about wishing in vain, about the paths chosen and how things could have been different. There is a lot, too, about love and its strangeness and unpredictability; how we think it will look a certain way but then it comes as something different. I loved the contrast of the three main partnerships in the novel: Janie/Eugenie, Janie/Simon, and Janie's parents (Lucy/him).

It's a beautiful book, I must say. I enjoyed it very much (but wish I hadn't read it on transit), although my one complaint is I would have liked to know more about Simon and the Simon/Janie relationship, as the conclusion feels (in my opinion) a bit rushed. But overall it was lovely and I would definitely read this author again.

Four CN Towers out of five.

Dead Politician Society by Robin Spano

The premise of this book is deliciously intriguing - the mayor has been killed, and a secret society at U of T has taken credit through an obituary sent to the paper. More politicians start dying, and the cops send an undercover officer to the school to infiltrate the society while the newspaper editor tries to figure out the connection between the victims.

The main character is supposedly Clare, the undercover cop who enrolls in the political science class where the society is rumoured to have started. But in reality each chapter follows a different character, so we don't get to see a lot of Clare - which is for the best in my opinion, as I found her story arc to be somewhat anemic.

In fact, there are perhaps two too many POV characters in the story, leaving each arc overcrowded and rushed. It also eliminated too many likely suspects, I think, making the killer so obvious that when I guessed them about a third of the way through the book, I thought I must be wrong and had identified a red herring. But no, I guessed correctly, and even got the motive too. So I think if the author wants to continue writing mysteries, that's something to work on - a fair play whodunnit is tricky because you do want the reader to have all the clues they need to figure it out, but you don't want it to be boring.

This book was a bit boring. Not getting enough time to immerse myself in a character before it jumped to the next one made it hard to invest in them. The professor character was especially difficult for me: I knew I didn't sympathize with his politics or the way he treated women, but then I felt like there was a shift at some point and the reader was supposed to sympathize with him? And there was no exploration of anyone's relationship, any reason why anyone was attracted to anyone else.

The worst was the way the society was handled. I read the whole damn book and I'm still not clear on what the society's mandate was or what they even did. They are called "Society for Political Utopia" but as far as I could tell, the characters in it had widely varied political stances, and the society never actually did anything except meet (once, in the novel) and churn out killers, apparently. It definitely could have been developed a bit more. I also think that the police would probably immediately question the professor about it (since it was perfectly obvious to everyone that he had started it) and subpoena his records - but they never did that, because they are the most useless cops I've maybe ever read about. They also apparently never put the pieces together in terms of connecting the victims, something the newspaper editor and the mayor's ex-wife did in one night of looking through the archives.

I think maybe the worst, most contrived scene in the story though was without a doubt the scene where the killer is finally arrested, in the middle of class, and asks to stand in front of the class and explain why they did it. It was so awkwardly bad and unrealistic, and made doubly so because I had figured out both about 100 pages earlier.

The one good thing about the book was how much of Toronto they used - I really enjoyed that. It felt like it was actually happening here, in a very smooth and seamless way.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend the book on the strength of being set successfully in Toronto. I give this one two CN Towers out of five.

The Year She Left by Kerry Kelly

One challenge I have found in reading more recently published books (like in the last 10-15 years or so) is that a lot of the ones that feature young-ish characters and deal with relationships can be kind of...fluffy, for lack of a better term. They tend to fall under the unfortunate label of "chick lit". So it is always a lovely surprise when that doesn't happen.

Another issue - and this is a #champagneproblem - is for someone who has been in a happy relationship for over a decade, it is sometimes a struggle to relate to characters who are absorbed by dating drama and the woes of single life.

This novel is good. It avoids these pitfalls nicely with well-drawn, flawed but likable characters and a realistic but not too dull plot. The author manages to artfully capture the challenge of modern adulthood without becoming maudlin or falling into romcom traps. It is, above all, believable and real.

The story follows two people in their early 30s who have just left long-term relationships: Kate, who asks her boyfriend to leave after coming to the slow realization that things aren't working; and Stuart, whose fiancee writes him a Dear John letter and then hides in the shadows to watch him read it. At the start, these two characters don't know each other, and the book is divided between them as they both struggle to cope with the consequences of the break ups - Kate tries to find something to occupy her time, and Stuart basically becomes a hot mess.

Eventually the two do meet, but that is not what the book is about. Honestly I'm not sure I could tell you what this book is about. I will say I was pleasantly surprised by how the author twice sidesteps our expectations based on the title and the trajectory of the narrative. It is clear that she has nothing but contempt for familiar romantic tropes, and I love it. The characters are buoyed by a ragtag support network of interesting but not too silly friends and relatives.

The city does not play a huge part in the story but there are some Toronto spots that are name-checked, most notably the Local. There is also an air of Canadian-ness to it; it's a Manhattan story but softer somehow.

I found a couple parts to be a bit on the nose: any long monologue where a character explains what happiness is or what life is about is hard to handle, and I believe there are three in this book. But otherwise it is a quick, pleasant, and surprisingly emotional read from a very promising author.

Four CN Towers out of five.