The Clover House by Henriette Lazaridis Power

Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: April 2013
Categories: Contemporary Women, Literary, Greece
Description:
Boston, 2000: Calliope Notaris Brown receives a shocking phone call. Her beloved uncle Nestor has passed away, and now Callie must fly to Patras, Greece, to claim her inheritance. Callie’s mother, Clio—with whom Callie has always had a difficult relationship—tries to convince her not to make the trip. Unsettled by her mother’s strange behavior, and uneasy about her own recent engagement, Callie decides to escape Boston for the city of her childhood summers. After arriving at the heady peak of Carnival, Callie begins to piece together what her mother has been trying to hide. Among Nestor’s belongings, she uncovers clues to a long-kept secret that will alter everything she knows about her mother’s past and about her own future.
 
Greece, 1940: Growing up in Patras in a prosperous family, Clio Notaris and her siblings feel immune to the oncoming effects of World War II, yet the Italian occupation throws their privileged lives into turmoil. Summers in the country once spent idling in the clover fields are marked by air-raid drills; the celebration of Carnival, with its elaborate masquerade parties, is observed at home with costumes made from soldiers’ leftover silk parachutes. And as the war escalates, the events of one fateful evening will upend Clio’s future forever.
 
A moving novel of the search for identity, the challenges of love, and the shared history that defines a family, The Clover House is a powerful debut from a distinctive and talented new writer.
My Thoughts:
There were things about The Clover House that I liked a lot. There were also things that didn’t work for me. Let’s talk about the positives first shall we? 

The setting in this book was superb. I enjoyed learning about the culture and history of Greece. I finished this book with a much better understanding of what happened there during WWII. 

I especially enjoyed learning about the Carnival that takes place in Greece. What a party! It seems like anything can (and does) happen during this festival. The characters in The Clover House spend a lot of time celebrating, and making poor choices, during Carnival.

Unfortunately, some of the characters in The Clover House were simply unlikable. You are meant to understand that something happened in Clio’s past to make her the way she is. Yet when that something is revealed it doesn’t seem to be a good enough reason for her to treat her family members the way she does. 

I found The Clover House to be a enjoyable, plot-driven read. But as a reader I happen to enjoy character driven novels more. 

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for inviting me to be a part of this tour. To visit the other tour stops please click here.

About The Author

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

Publication Date: April 2013
Categories: Contemporary Women, Literary
Description:

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.


The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken. 

My Thoughts:

Here’s the deal: I loved this book. I want to hug, kiss, marry this book.

I can’t love an inanimate object? Ohhh yes I can.

This group of kids meet up at a fancy pants art camp every summer. They dub themselves “The Interestings” because they are pretty damn full of themselves. You would think that this would be a turn off. But it’s NOT. Guess what? They are interesting.

I adored every character in this book. Some are easy to love. A few are easy to hate.  There are famous mothers, abusive pasts, shameful backgrounds, a possible crime, unrequited love…I could go on.

I’ve got money to burn. How you like me now?

The bonds that these kids form in their youth will stay with them throughout their lives. Two of them find success beyond their wildest dreams. One character loses himself. A few are forced to give up on their aspirations because of forces beyond their control.

The way these friendships form, stretch, and break is marvelous. The Interestings is an engaging character study and a truly unputdownable story.
Read this book. Seriously!