Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin

     I just finished this one, and I am torn on what to say about it. The main character, Angel, is a baker who runs her own business from her apartment in Kigali, Rwanda. Living in an ex-pat community allows her to interact with people from a variety of countries and cultures as they come to order cakes for their celebrations. Through these encounters she becomes a sympathetic ear and a voice of guidance to others' troubles.
     The concept of this book was very interesting. A lot of serious issues, such as genocide and AIDS, were presented through the lives of her customers. The stories of survival were hopeful, and I felt like I got a taste for what people went through in Rwanda without the graphic intensity of other things that I have read. I really enjoyed Angel. Her reactions to things often had me laughing.
     However, the pace of this book was beyond slow.The conversations contained so much meaningless filler at times. The descriptions of having tea or decorating the cakes began to bore me to tears after a while.  I also had a hard time buying that so many people, often complete strangers to Angel, would easily vent their personal problems in such detail.
     There wasn't really a solid plot to this book. It was more like multiple small stories happening at once, sometimes connecting and sometimes not. Keeping the characters straight wasn't always easy.
So how do I rate this book? Some things about it were very good, and I believe that readers who are comfortable with the slow pace may really enjoy it. It dragged too much for my own taste though. I have to say 3/5-good.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

I admit it, I picked up The Imperfectionists to see what all the hype was about. I can't resist reading something that makes multiple lists for "books of the year". The book was actually broken down into short stories centering on a variety of characters who were connected to a Rome-based international newspaper. Although each character was the focus of only one chapter, they all continued to pop in and out of the others. Therefore the loose ends left in one story were often answered in another. I enjoy this style of writing. It is similar to Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.
I have mixed feelings on the book overall. It definitely grabbed my attention and kept it, and I read through it quickly. Some of the stories were more interesting to me than others. Personally I really liked the chapter on Ornella, an elderly woman who started reading every copy of the newspaper in 1976 and refused to move on or hear any current news beyond where she was in her newspaper reading. Due to falling behind in her reading, she was living her life as if it were 13 years earlier. Isolation, loneliness, and unhappiness are constants throughout the stories. Even so, I liked the reading experience until almost the end. I felt that one pointless incident in the last story took away from my enjoyment of the book. I wish he hadn't chosen to add it. This would have been a strong 4 star book for me, but ended up as more of a 3/5.

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

I expected to be disappointed in this book, probably due to a review that I read at some point, but I wanted to read it regardless because I loved Still Alice. Well, I wasn't disappointed at all. This is a really good story. My only problem with it is that Sarah, the main character who is suffering from a brain injury, comes across as the exact same character as Alice from the first book. Their personalities felt like carbon copies. Fortunately I really liked Alice, but would have preferred a new character in Sarah.
I have to say that Lisa Genova has a great talent for explaining a disability in a way that readers can really understand. She can make sense of how things feel. I am also impressed with the fact that she can take such heavy subjects and create stories that are hopeful rather than depressing. I really feel like I take something away from her books, and I look forward to what she will do next. 4.5/5 

The Many Conditions of Love by Farahad Zama

The Many Conditions of Love is the second book in Farahad Zama's Marriage Bureau for Rich People series. It looks like there is a third book coming out in March.  The series is about Mr Ali, a retired Indian civil servant who opens a matchmaking service on his veranda.  The second book focuses less on Mr. Ali's business and more on Aruna, Mr. Ali's assistant who is newly married and begins to have troubles when her spiteful sister-in-law comes to stay.  Rehman, Mr. and Mrs. Ali's son, is also a large focus of this story.  He begins dating a non-Muslim, and family conflicts develop on both sides.
I enjoyed this one, although not as much as the first simply because I love reading about Mr. Ali's matchmaking clients. These are light and quirky books so I think the more serious themes don't work as well. I hope that the third book returns more to the marriage bureau itself. Either way I am looking forward to reading it. 4/5

Happy New Year...or what I now call Car Crash Monday

I hope that everyone is starting off their new year well. My Toyota got crunched up this morning on my way to dropping my daughter at school so I guess I'm starting off with a bang. My goal for the upcoming year in reading is simply to read what I already have and reduce my book purchases significantly.  I tried that before, and it didn't work out so well. However, I'm going to give it another go. Trading and trade-in credits are acceptable though...oh, and gift cards...and the books that I have to get for book club because really what choice do I have there? Maybe exceptions for Harlan Coben and any Stephanie Plum novels. Those don't really count, right?

Another goal is to read more comforting books once and a while. So on that note I am starting with the second book in the series following The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama. The first book was funny, set in India, and simply an entertaining read. Perfect for me.  Therefore, I am beginning The Many Conditions of Love.