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Reviews
America for Beginners by Leah Franqui
Booked for Death by Victoria Gilbert
Careless Whiskers by Miranda James
Catstronauts: Digital Disaster by Drew Brockington
Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty
Dehaunting by J.A. White
Family Tree, Volume 1: Sapling by Jeff Lemire and Phil Hester
For Whom the Book Tolls by Laura Gail Black and Janina Edwards (narrator)
The Forest of Stars by Heather Kassner
Gargantis by Thomas Taylor
Kerry and the Knight of the Forest by Andi Watson
Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge by Paul Krueger and Emily Woo Zeller
Malamander by Thomas Taylor
A Man and His Cat, Volume 1 by Umi Sakurai
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher
The Next Thing on My List by Jill Smolinski
Paola Santiago and the River of Tears by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Parachutes by Kelly Yang
Restaurant to Another World Volume 1 by Junpei Inuzuka and Katsumi Enami
River of Dreams by Jan Nash
Sandhill Cranes by Lynn M. Stone
School-Tripped by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
Shot in the Dark by Cleo Coyle
Some Enchanted Éclair by Bailey Cates and Amy Rubinate
Still Life by Louise Penny
Tempest in a Teapot by Amanda Cooper
Time for Bed, Fred! by Yasmeen Ismail
Valley of the Lost by Vicki Delany

Miscellaneous
August 2020 Sources

August 2020 Summary

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3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish

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America for Beginners: 09/13/20

America for Beginners

I read America for Beginners by Leah Franqui for the road narrative spectrum project but found that it doesn't qualify despite the blurb and the cover art. The description says that a widow travels from India to California to find the truth of how her son died. While that is the basic narrative (plot) it's a misrepresentation of the narration (story telling).

Pival Sengupta, widow, has let her servants go, and spent her savings on a custom package tour from New York to California. She knows her son is dead and that he had been in a relationship with an American man. She has decided to go to where her son died and kill herself.

The reason this book doesn't qualify for the road narrative spectrum project is that Mrs. Sengupta's road trip is really an after thought to the rest of the narration. Her point of view is diluted by numerous other point of view chapters. Time is given to the man who runs the package tour, to her son and his lover, to the woman is serves as her guide. So much time is given to these other minor characters that Mrs. Sengupta's last days on earth are really more of a footnote to this book. Take everything else out of the novel and you're left with a terse and dispassionate novella.

Two stars

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