The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

From the Paperback:
At the turn of the nineteenth century on a tobacco plantation in Virginia, young, white Lavinia, who was orphaned  on her passage from Ireland, arrives on the steps of the kitchen house and is placed under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate, black daughter. Lavinia learns to cook, clean, serve food, and cherish the quiet strength and love of her new family.
   In time, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, caring for the master's opium-addicted wife and befriending his dangerous yet protective son. She attempts to straddle the worlds of the kitchen and big house, but her skin color will forever set her apart from Belle and the other slaves.
   Through the unique eyes of Lavinia and Belle, Kathleen Grissom's debut novel unfolds in a heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful story of class, race, dignity, deep-buried secrets, and familial bonds.

"What the color is, who the daddy be, who the mama is don't mean nothin'. We a family, carin' for each other. Family make us strong in times of trouble. We all stick together, help each other out. That the real meanin' of family."

A friend at work has been telling me about this book for years. When she finally brought her copy I wasn't convinced that it would be as great as she claimed, I was wrong. Once again, I have felt more for a fictional character than is reasonable. I read this book in a day. Lavinia just crawls right into your heart with her naive mind, open heart, and unfailing loyalty. How could you not love this freckled girl with fire-red hair?
  This book is exactly what the back claims, "heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful." I've been reading an abundance of sad books recently, and while this had some sadness in it, the story was ultimately about family and loyalty. The author skirts around most of the more violent scenes (thank goodness) but you still know exactly what happened.
   If you like The Help by Kathryn Stockett you need to read this book. It grabbed my attention faster than The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin, I had no trouble getting into this book.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

From the Hardcover:
Love makes us such fools.
   Generations of the Roux family have learned this lesson the hard way. Foolish love appears to be the family birthright, in fact, which casts an ominous fate for its most recent progeny: twins Ava and Henry Lavender. Henry is mute for much of his young life, and Ava-in all other ways a normal girl-is born with the wings of a bird.
   In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year-old Ava delves into her family's past and ventures into the wider world, ill prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for and angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and both Ava's quest and her family's saga build to a dark and heartbreaking crescendo.
   First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and haunting mythology of what it means to be born with a heart that is tragically, exquisitely human.

"To many, I was myth incarnate, the embodiment of a most superb legend, a fairy tale. Some considered me a monster, a mutation. To my great misfortune, I was once mistaken for an angel. To my mother, I was everything. To my father, nothing at all. To my grandmother, I was a daily reminder of loves long lost. But I knew the truth-deep down, I always did.

I was just a girl." 

 Sometimes when you read a book, you just know, from the first sentence, "this is going to be fantastic." That was how I felt about The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. There was an element of the magical from the very beginning, not Harry Potter magic, but something much more subtle. I love stories with just a hint of the extraordinary.

   The first half of the book goes into the history of the Roux family (just two generations back,) so you get a good sense of their peculiar traits. A mother who actually fades away, a girl who turns herself into a bird, and the grandmother of Ava, who has a very strong intuition. Love has always plagued the Roux family, often ending in disaster. While there is a love story involved, I wouldn't consider this book as a whole a "love story." It's more about what it means to be human, to be a family, to be loved for who you are.
   I can't say enough about this lovely work.There are so many different layers in this book it's impossible to sum up the depth involved. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys YA. It was a quicker read, it took me a day, but I really didn't want to put it down, it captivated me from the start.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

From Goodreads.com:
"Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out-with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes-to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There's Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limps and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan...Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins...albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious-and dangerous-asset.
   As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same."

"There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behavior and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores, in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity."

I discovered Geek Love while wandering the library, the word "geek" caught my eye immediately. I like geeks, little did I know that a geek is a member of a carnival who bites the heads off live chickens. I learned this a few pages in and the strangeness didn't stop there. As you read above the mom consumes amphetamines and arsenic while pregnant to try to create freaks to add to the carnival. They also have an exhibit of failed attempts.
The characters in this book are memorable; Chick's need to be loved, Arty's lust for power, Iphy and Elly just trying to exist, and Oly, always on the outside, watching. To the kids, their special skills, what made them "freaks," was their measure of good to the family.
I was, in turns, fascinated and repulsed by the world contained in Geek Love. I've never read another book that compares to what you encounter when you pick this up.

Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer

From the back of the book:
"What does it mean to be normal? This is the story of two odd children who grew up and fell in love, the way they fit and the way they fell apart, how he became an astronaut lost in space, and she became the perfect wife whose 'perfect' wasn't real.
      A debut of singular power and intelligence, Shine Shine Shine is an adventure between worlds, and a stunning novel of love, death, and what it means to be human."

"Sometimes it comes that that desperate state, when you have to cling to each other and be alone. When no one else can truly matter. She thought, Ours is one of the epic loves of our generation. Possibly of all time. Who cares if no one sees it, walking by? This story is a love song. Who cares if history won't remember?"

I've read this book twice and I love it. I'm not sure why it isn't more popular. I felt for the characters almost immediately. Told mostly from Sunny's viewpoint with the occasional snippet from Maxon in space, it did take a few chapters to get used to the writing but after that the story flowed well. It fills you in on the present, then jumps back to Sunny's birth. From there it's back in forth in time. As time progresses in the present I came to care more for Sunny and Maxon through their past.
     The story itself is captivating, add to it the ultimate lessons, a mother's love, being who you are vs. who you think you should be, friendship, and more, this book is magnificent.

You might like this book if you enjoyed The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky or Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

Shine Shine Shine on Amazon