Recently I Read... Spring 2016 (Part 3)

Here's what I've been reading through Spring 2016...

Dumplin' - Julie Murphy
I'd been so excited for this YA book about Willowdean, a fat girl grieving her Dolly Parton fanatic aunt.  However, whilst it was refreshing to read a book about someone overweight that is comfortable in their skin, I found it so far removed from my own experience of being a fat teen that I struggled to relate.  There were some memorable scenes, as Willowdean and her friend visited her aunt's old haunts and fought to fight societies rigid expectations of beauty, but it fell just short of my high expectations.

Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
This was my book group choice as I'd heard fabulous things about it from the book blogging community. The other adults in the group were not as enamoured by it as I was, but I was charmed by Simon as he learns to understand himself and become more at ease with his sexuality.  I was with Simon every step of the way as he sought out the mysterious Blue, who he'd been exchanging emails with.  A heartfelt read.

If You Could Be Mine - Sara Farizan
Sahar loves her best friend Nasrin, but they can never be together.  Iran is not a place accepting of same sex relationships and their forbidden kisses have to stop before someone gets hurt.  This was a fresh idea in YA literature but it lacked depth, possibly because it's a fairly short book and I found it hard to care much about the characters involved. 

More Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin
Back in San Francisco for the second book of the series, and it was wackier and wilder than the first instalment but still with the same quirky and likable characters.  I loved the sleuthing as they try to uncover Mary Ann's boyfriend's past and although it seemed a bit far fetched in places I was gripped to the end.  It's hard to believe this book is as old as it is - it reads as so contemporary.  Funny and touching, Maupin's books are unique and fantastic.

Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin

The Blurb

San Francisco, 1976. A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests. The saga that ensues is manic, romantic, tawdry, touching, and outrageous - unmistakably the handiwork of Armistead Maupin.

The Review

A few months ago I put out a request for books set in San Francisco, and one book (or series of books) got mentioned over and over again.  Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City had somehow passed me by - I'm really not sure how.  But as soon as I started reading this first instalment, I knew I was going to be hooked.

The 'tales' belong to a wide and diverse cast.  Mary Ann is new to San Francisco, moving into lodgings at 28 Barbary Lane.  She's quiet and uncontroversial, very different to the other tennants living in the house.  Mona seems unsure of what she wants from life and relies on sedatives to get through the day, Michael is gay, skint and looking for a good man (I loved him, especially in the scene with the jockey shorts in the bar), Brian sleeps with any woman he can find and landlady Anna Madrigal grows marijuana in the garden... plus there's an array of supporting characters each with their own secrets.  Their lives are carefully and cleverly interwoven to create one world from what is essentially a series of short stories.

I liked how the scenes were snappy - most just a few pages long - and there was a lot of dialogue which added to the already fast pace.  The dry humour and cutting remarks reminded me of a soap opera and have retained relevance 37 years after they were first written.  Maupin lived in the San Francisco he was writing about and it shows, there's a realism in even the most outlandish of situations and that made me care about the characters and their plight.

This book is older than I am, and I imagine it was shocking when originally published (and probably still would be now to some readers!)  Race, sexuality, drugs and infidelity are key to the plot and talked about openly, nothing is off limits.  It was refreshing to read a book where every character is going through their own problems yet isn't overwhelmingly depressing.  Somehow there's an uplifting air to Tales of the City despite the unfulfilled lives of the majority of the cast and to me that's conveyed through the genuinely touching where the characters reach out to each other.

The only negatives for me were that it took a while to get my head around so many different stories and I had to google some of the seventies American references to fully understand the story.  But despite that I found myself so drawn to this wonderful world that I went straight onto the next book in the series.  I need to know what happens next! 

I've not read anything quite like this before.  And I loved it.

Tales of the City is out now, published by Transworld.