Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue

Summary from Goodreads:
A daring, kaleidoscopic novel about the clash of empires and ideas in the sixteenth century that continue to reverberate throughout modernity—a story unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

Sudden Death begins with a brutal tennis match that could decide the fate of the world. The bawdy Italian painter Caravaggio and the loutish Spanish poet Quevedo battle it out before a crowd that includes Galileo, Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw Europe into the flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII behead Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into the most sought-after tennis balls of the time. Across the ocean in Mexico, the last Aztec emperors play their own games, as conquistador Hernán Cortés and his Mayan translator and lover, La Malinche, scheme and conquer, fight and f**k, not knowing that their domestic comedy will change the world. And in a remote Mexican colony a bishop reads Thomas More’s Utopia and thinks that instead of a parody, it’s a manual.

In this mind-bending, prismatic novel, worlds collide, time coils, traditions break down. There are assassinations and executions, hallucinogenic mushrooms, utopias, carnal liaisons and papal dramas, artistic and religious revolutions, love stories and war stories. A dazzlingly original voice and a postmodern visionary, Álvaro Enrigue tells a grand adventure of the dawn of the modern era in this short, powerful punch of a novel. Game, set, match.

Are you looking for a meta-fictional fever dream that includes a Renaissance game of tennis, Anne Boleyn's hair, painting, and the devastation wreaked upon Mexico by Hernán Cortés?

You want Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue.

There is so much packed into this short novel.  There are emails between the author and his editor about the book, historical notes about tennis, Catholic church history, art patronage, genocide perpetrated against the native cultures of Central America, and descriptions of beautiful jewel-like feather-craft.  All this takes place between the games of a tennis match between a painter (Caravaggio) and a poet (Quevedo) which serves as a duel.  It's mind-boggling.

The writing - and here I have to shout-out Natasha Wimmer - is so vivid.  The tennis scenes where the spectators are described and the descriptions of the art of the period are breathtaking.  An absolute pleasure to read.

Dear FTC: I started reading a DRC of this book then I bought a copy.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald

Summary from Goodreads:
Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen...

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist—even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory.

All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. Reminiscent of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, this is a warm, witty book about friendship, stories, and love.

1. Book about loving books...yes!
2. Books help people overcome problems...yes!
3. Book set in Iowa...YES!

Ok, I was so down for this book when The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend was pitched to me.  A book about books! Set in Iowa!  Yes, yes, yes.

And it is a very sweet, feel-good read with hits of 84 Charing Cross Road, Chocolat, and the movie Green Card (which gets an oblique reference). Directionless outsider brings books to a small town and finds love.  It's a basic plot that works.

However, being an Iowan (Cedar County, where the book is set, is directly east of where I live), I have to say that none of the Iowa characters in the book particularly sound like they're from Iowa.  At all.  And Sara sounds exactly like them - she shouldn't, given that she's from Sweden. Maybe that's an artifact of translation but Broken Wheel felt just...generic.  It's like any old one-dimensional small town if you've read about small towns in a book.  There's a town stoic-doesn't-talk-much-love-interest, a town drunk, a town busybody, a town gossip, and a town hard-bitten-straight-talking-lady-who-runs-the-diner.  In addition, a few B-plots got crammed in there without much breathing room.

If you're looking for a book set in "Iowa" - this really isn't it.  The Bridges of Madison County, for all it's faults, feels nailed into its setting.  It feels Iowan.  So does Shoeless Joe.  But Broken Wheel?  Not so much.

But if you're just looking for a nice spring/beach read with a lot of fuzzy, warm feelings about books and reading with a happy ending?  This is your book.

Super side note: Iowa legalized gay marriage in April 2009, before the action of the book begins (there was a throw-away line that bothered me).

Dear FTC: I bought my copy of this book.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Summary from Goodreads:
Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.

A disturbing, yet beautifully composed narrative told in three parts, The Vegetarian is an allegorical novel about modern day South Korea, but also a story of obsession, choice, and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another.

I don't know if I can distill into words the experience of reading this book. This was a vivid, intense one-sitting read.  The line between reality and distortion kept shifting.  Is mental illness at the root of Yeong-hye's behavior?  What about the brother-in-law?  Does it spread?  Three linked novella-like chapters constantly re-framed why Yeong-hye has stopped eating meat and also commented on societal expectations (I think I missed a few deeper points because I'm not familiar with Korean cultural norms as Korean readers certainly would, but it definitely didn't detract). We are never given a portion of the narrative that is explicitly from Yeong-hye's perspective.  We get snippets of dreams or visions, but no complete perspective so she is always presented through other characters.

The translation is excellent - shout-out to the translator Deborah Smith.

Dear FTC: I started with a DRC of this novel via Edelweiss and switched to a library copy.