The Girl from Guernica by Karen Robards
So late last month, I had finished reading all the items I had around to review for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, so I checked some books on my wish lists in Libby to see which had the highest average rating, and this was it.
Although the premise and some of the events in the book stretch credibility, it is based on a real incident - the bombing by the German Luftwaffe of Guernica, Spain, in April 1937, at the request of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.
The Briar Club by Kate Quinn
I love Kate Quinn's historical fiction, so when I saw that my local public library had this e-book, I placed a hold and got it about the time I finished The Girl from Guernica. Much to my surprise, it was actually a murder mystery, albeit set in the early 1950s.
Christina the Astonishing by Marianne Leone
In an author statement that accompanied the advance reading copy I received of this novel, Marianne Leone said, "After three memoirs, this is my first deep dive into fiction." It felt a bit like a memoir, though, because of the similarities between the narrator, Christina, and Marianne herself (acknowledged by the author in the same statement).
This growing-up-Catholic novel starts (Part 1) in 1960 with Christina in fourth grade at a Catholic school in a Boston suburb. It then jumps to 1964 and eighth grade (Part 2) followed by eleventh and twelfth grades (Part 3), all still at the same Catholic school (which is coed grades 1-12). Part 4 is set in Christina's post-high school, early adult years.
My favorite chapter was in Part 3 - "Quando Mai," which is an expression often used by Christina's Italian immigrant mother Rita that means "when ever?" or "since when?" It starts out with Christina writing a (literal) litany about the nuns she's had as teachers in first through eleventh grades, when she's supposed to be researching the saint she is named for. There is more than one named Christina, and the one she chooses is Christina the Astonishing - which at first I thought Leone just made up. But no, although never canonized, Christina the Astonishing is venerated in the Catholic Church.
Leone is five years older than me, and, like one of her friends in the book, I have an aunt who was a nun (for 75 years). I never experienced any mean nuns, nor was I ever awed by (nor afraid of) them, thanks to my aunt. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Leone's take on her growing-up years. This book has a lot in common with Leone's Ma Speaks Up, a memoir about her mother, which I also received from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program and read eight years ago.
