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Book Review: Death Valley by Melissa Broder
A woman dealing (or not dealing) with her husband’s and father’s medical conditions arrives in the desert to research her newest novel and has a fantastical experience.
Summary:
A woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow—for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path, thanks to a receptionist who recommends a nearby hike.
Out on the sun-scorched trail, the woman encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it. What awaits her inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious and poignant.
Review:
I didn’t expect this to be a book that kept me up late at night because I needed to know how the plot resolved. I have not personally tended to experience much forward momentum in magical realism. But this was such a perfect mix of adventure plot and emotional magical realism that I simply couldn’t stop reading.
I love a cactus. This is a fact I don’t usually admit to because they’re so popular in design nowadays, and I’d rather support an underdog.
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The main character was easy to bond with initially, which is critical to a plot that relies on the reader believing her experiences in the desert – even when they become fantastical. She’s a bisexual woman in long-term recovery from drugs and alcohol. She’s trying to finish her novel. Her husband has had a mysterious chronic illness for several years, and her father has been in the hospital for a long time after a car accident. The hospital keeps telling them that he’s dying, and then he wakes up and improves (only to have something else go wrong.) It’s a lot for anyone to handle. She has a dry wit that we hear inside her head but that rarely makes it outside. We can see how she’s barely keeping it together, and yet she continues to try because of how much she loves her loved ones.
Since my husband got sick, my words don’t mean what they are supposed to mean.
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It’s interesting what a beautiful depiction of a marriage this book is when so little in it features the spouses together. Yet through the main character we see how her marriage and loving her husband, as she would say, isn’t just a feeling. It’s a choice. Perhaps some people would find it gauche to have a whole book focusing in on the impact of a chronic illness on the spouse who doesn’t have it. But that’s the rub of a marriage. What happens to one person is happening to both.
The setting of the book is also gorgeous. I’m not sure I’d have appreciate it as much as I did if I had never been to the desert. The beauty and danger and overwhelmingness of the desert is all encapsulated so beautifully from the coolness of her room in the Best Western to the magical cactus and everything in between. (Plus there’s both desert bunnies and multiple types of cactus from saguaro to teddy-bear cholla.)
If I was reading a review of this book, my main question would be – ok, ok, but how about the magical realism? Does it work? Yes, it works really well. By the time I finished the book, I couldn’t imagine the main character’s arc happening any other way. It makes sense in the context of that trip and that world, and that’s all that really matters. I wasn’t questioning it. I was on board from the first magical moment partway into the book.
Overall, this is an engaging story of one woman’s trip into the desert intertwined with her inner journey of continuing to choose to love her husband every day. It’s beautiful representation of the complexities of in sickness and in health. Recommended to readers interested in that journey with an open mind to magical realism.
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5 out of 5 stars
Length: 240 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis
When a woman who doesn’t believe in aliens comes to Roswell for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding, she’s shocked to find herself abducted by an alien and driving all over the southwest at his tentacled bidding.
Summary:
When level-headed Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding—complete with a true-believer bridegroom—she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she is abducted by one.
Odder still, her abductor is far from what the popular media have led her to expect, with a body like a tumbleweed and a mass of lightning-fast tentacles. Nor is Francie the only victim of the alien’s abduction spree. Before long, he has acquired a charming con man named Wade, a sweet little old lady with a casino addiction, a retiree with a huge RV and a love for old Westerns, and a UFO-chasing nutjob who is thoroughly convinced the alien intends to probe them and/or take over the planet.
But the more Francie gets to know the alien, the more convinced she becomes that he’s not an invader. That he’s in trouble and she has to help him. Only she doesn’t know how—or even what the trouble is.
Part alien-abduction adventure, part road trip saga, part romantic comedy, The Road to Roswell is packed full of Men in Black, Elvis impersonators, tourist traps, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, and Close Encounters of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth kind. Can Francie, stuck in a neon green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world—and still make it back for the wedding?
Review:
Connie Willis’s To Say Nothing of the Dog is one of my favorite scifi/romance/comedy reads of all time (review). I’m also a huge fan of the American Southwest, so when I heard about this book, it went on my wishlist immediately. (Shout-out to my siblings-in-law for the birthday present). This was definitely a rollicking, feel-good read, which was just what I needed.
Francie is a fun main character. Jumping right into her being at the airport on her way to a wedding she wants to help her old college roommate see is probably a bad idea builds up the identification and empathy right away. Who among us hasn’t had a friend in a questionable relationship? She doesn’t believe the alien stuff of everyone else at Roswell, but she’s kind about it. (She doesn’t go around calling them names in her head).
When she is abducted by an alien who looks like a tumbleweed who can’t speak but can only force her to drive with his tentacles and gesturing seriously in the direction he wants to go, I was hooting. What a fun idea for an alien species Indy is! I also like how the crux of the issue between humans and Indy is the difficulty in communication. Unlike a lot of scifi, he doesn’t just show up with a translator. Communication is a big problem and leads to a lot of comedic situations (including the, ahem, abduction). I was particularly fond of how Indy keeps semi-accidentally adding more people to his collection of abductees due to miscommunication.
The American Southwest is lovingly depicted from the glorious sunsets to the shocking vast emptiness, not to mention the overwhelming situation that is Las Vegas (right on down to an Elvis impersonator). Dusted on top of these depictions are quotes from various westerns (including a lot from one of my favorites, Support Your Local Sheriff). Movie westerns and how they reflect (accurately and inaccurately) the American Southwest are cleverly added via a character who is obsessed with them.
So I loved the setting, the plot, Francie, and Indy. The humor wasn’t quite working for me in the way it has in other books of hers, though. It didn’t ever bother me it just didn’t tickle my funny bone. That didn’t matter, because the book was still feel-good for me. But it did keep it from rocketing up to new favorite territory. There is also one infuriating scene where Francie is trying to get in touch with other people without Indy hearing and she, bafflingly, calls and leaves voicemails rather than texting. I just cannot think of a single person Francie’s age I know who would ever default to calling and not texting in a regular situation, let alone one where you want to not be overheard. (I mean, you can even text 911 these days….) I understand for the point of the plot that calling needed to happen but then we needed a reason for it. Maybe Francie’s texts wouldn’t go through. Maybe she lost her smartphone in the airport and had to borrow her friend’s old flip-phone. Something. This is a minor quibble though in a book that was generally a delight.
Overall, this a feel-good scifi read with a dash of romance and a very lovable alien. Perfect for scifi lovers wanting an escapist read or romance readers wanting a no spice read with a dash of something different.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 405 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Gift
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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