Brave Enough, By Cheryl Strayed

Writing a book of quotes takes courage because the line between inspired and hackneyed is very thin. For the most part, Cheryl Strayed's "Brave Enough" manages not to cross that line. Her quotes are intended to comfort the bereaved and broken-hearted, keep the ambitious focused, and help the lost find their way home. But why write a book about quotes? According to Strayed, quotes "tell us we’re not alone. Their existence is proof that others have questioned, grappled with, and come to know the same truths we question and grapple with, too." They are powerful because "Quotes, at their core, almost always shout 'Yes!'"

Strayed addresses many topics in this book. Fear, is one. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do one thing every day that scares you." Strayed says, "Hello, fear. Thank you for being here. You’re my indication that I’m doing what I need to do." Forgiveness is another. "Forgiveness doesn’t just sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up the hill."

Some of Strayed's prose falls flat, for example: "Don’t own other people’s crap," and "You’re here. So be here." Some is absolutely stunning and it is this prose that makes "Brave Enough" good enough: "I’ll never know and neither will you about the life you didn’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore."

Print Length: 160 pages
Publisher: Knopf (October 27, 2015)
Publication Date: October 27, 2015
Sold by: Random House LLC

Victoria Crossing, by Michael Wallace

"Victoria Crossing" is a well researched, beautifully written, work of historical fiction that transports us to New York City in the decade before the Civil War. Teeming with immigrants crammed into decaying tenements, New York at that time was a place where penniless hard workers could become prosperous.

One of those hard workers was Victoria MacPherson, a young Irish Protestant. After the potato crop failed for the third year, and her father was murdered for evicting families on orders from the local landed gentry, Victoria fled to New York. Sailing the Atlantic as a steerage passenger, she befriends Maeve, an Irish Catholic, whose brother has promised to meet her in New York. On their first day in America, however, Maeve's brother fails to appear and Victoria has her life savings stolen by a well dressed con man. Despite this, Victoria and Maeve find piece-work as seamstresses and begin their climb out of the rat infested tenements. Maeve's brother, Patrick, eventually does find them. Transported to Australia from Ireland at 16 for a crime he did not commit, he has made his way from Australia to the San Francisco gold rush to malaria-soaked Central America and finally to Manhattan.

Wallace skillfully recreates New York and Ireland in the 1840s. His depiction of the hopelessness of famine-ridden Ireland, the injustice and wildness of Australia, and the pestilence, despair and corruption of New York City, is vivid and realistic. As is his depiction of the gutsy Victoria as she builds a clothing business and demolishes any person who tries to cross her. "Victoria Crossing" is a fabulous novel that is on a par with the work of Howard Fast, Caleb Carr and Colleen McCullough.

(In exchange for an honest review, I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Print Length: 320 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1503934136
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (May 17, 2016)
Publication Date: May 17, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC