Book Review

So someone out there may remember that I recently promised you a book review. I'm finally getting around to doing it.

My book club book this month was Zoia's Gold by Philip Sington. It got five stars on Amazon, but only from two reviewers who clearly do not like the same kind of literature that I do.

It sucked.

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End of review.

Okay not really, you know by now that I can't leave well enough alone.

This book was partially based on letters, private papers, and paintings by the Russian artist Zoia Korvin-Krukovsky. Unfortunately, information about Zoia was interspersed with a fictional modern day character, Marcus Elliott, who researches Zoia in an effort to answer questions about his own life. Zoia is interesting. Marcus is not. He is a whiny, depressed, uninteresting character and his story was a good 60% of the book. I finished this book only because we were going to discuss it at book club. It felt a lot like completing a college reading assignment when I'd rather be out with my friends.

Even worse than the book itself was the book club meeting about it. We have a new member who clearly thought this was her opportunity for soliloquy. Or perhaps she thought we were all required to give a 45 minute oral presentation on the book? It was worse for me because I had to sit beside her and listen to her pontificate even when someone else was talking. Which is unfortunate because I was really interested to hear what my Russian friend Masha had to say about the historical sections of the book within the context of her experience growing up there.

On the other hand, my kids and I loved the book Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant which was recommended to me by Grandison after we lost our dog Brea. It is a sweet look at what happens to dogs when they die and go to heaven. According to the book, God has a sense of humor, making squirrel shaped dog biscuits as treats.

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The only problem I had with this book is that towards the end, there is a statement to the effect of "dogs can stay here as long as they want." To which my children immediately asked, where else would they go? After a few minutes of thinking and only coming up with reincarnation, I finally pulled a reasonable answer out of my ass and told them the dogs can go visit other parts of heaven. Of course. This answer became quite an extended bit of fiction as I tried to describe what heaven is like. In case my kids ever ask, the cats are in a seperate section. And people can visit all the sections.

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Even though I had explained to my children that Brea was in heaven, chasing frisbees and playing in the river, they seemed to find the explanation more reassuring when it came in black and white with pictures. Cynthia Rylant has a book called Cat Heaven too. Can Hamster or Goldfish Heaven be far behind?