Carol Edgarian

I didn't think the book lived up to the hype. It was extremely well-written with great promise, but in the end, the perfection proved to be its flaw.

I've read better books about the Great Recession, broken marriages, and overachievers underachieving in life. Books that were somehow better because of their imperfections.

If you want an imperfect novel about an imperfect world full of imperfect people with great ambitions who have lost who they truly are, read THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE by Janelle show more Brown. She is the Great Dickens of our times. show less

Fifteen-year-old Vera Johnson has two mothers, not just one, but neither will truly own her, and the word “love” doesn’t exist. “Arrangement,” yes; “pawn” in a power game, yes. But not love. The inconvenient child to Rose, a flamboyant, wildly successful brothel madam, Vera is farmed out as part of a business deal to Morie, a Swedish immigrant who lives in an aquavit bottle. Though not destitute, by any means—Rose, from a distance, sees to that--the Johnson household is show more impoverished in other, more important ways.

One is that Morie’s older daughter, Piper, called Pie, is everything Vera’s not: pretty, pliable, too weak to stand up for herself or anyone else, and retreats from tough decisions. Both girls suffer Morie’s whims, self-pity, and attacks with a hairbrush, but these injuries hurt Vera more. And with Pie around, who’ll pay any attention to mousy, cranky Vera?

However, circumstances are about to change—oh, are they ever—for this is San Francisco, and the year is 1906. One night, Enrico Caruso is in town to sing Carmen, and Rose springs for tickets for the Johnsons, though she stipulates that her guests aren’t allowed anywhere near her. That allows Vera the chance to roam, which she enjoys. Not only does she wander backstage (improbably) and catches sight of the great tenor before he goes on stage, she runs into Mayor Eugene Schmitz, an old acquaintance, who rightfully fears he’ll be indicted for graft the following day. San Francisco, corrupt to the core, is the sewer in which he swims.

But later that night, an earthquake devastates the city, and the world literally turns upside-down. Vera and Pie must flee their home and take refuge in Rose’s former brothel, which has largely escaped the disaster, though the madam herself is nowhere to be found. That the very idea of living there revolts Pie on moral grounds, despite the absence of any choice, tells you what you need to know about her. Vera, more adept and flexible, takes charge, with Tan, Rose’s Chinese cook, and his unpleasant, scheming daughter, Lifang, as occasional allies, more often enemies. Within weeks, Vera becomes someone well worth watching, indeed.

The transformation, realistically halting and well earned, makes Vera such a pleasure, and our heroine’s road is steeper than Nob Hill. Her relationship to Rose, as fraught and entrapping as any mother-daughter duo, takes front and center, appropriately so. But San Francisco is a significant character too, and how the city reacts to its tragedy—and who hopes to profit—forms an essential part of the narrative and Vera’s education. Of necessity, she grows up quickly on the outside, but within, retains her teenage longings, and, as such, represents the city’s coming of age as well, an impressive literary feat.

As Vera observes early on about her hometown, “To know her was to hold in your heart the up-downness of things. Her curves and hollows, her extremes. Her windy peaks and mini-climates. Her beauty, her trembling. Her greed.” That passage might apply to Rose as well, though Vera doesn’t know that yet.

So it is that Edgarian establishes Vera’s extraordinary, compelling voice, another pleasure of the novel. With a clear-sightedness that asks no pity yet takes up residence in your heart, this young girl freely acknowledges who she is, an unloved “special bastard,” belonging nowhere.

If Vera is about anything, it’s about women and power, but Edgarian doesn’t stop there. As her protagonist learns, aches, and explores the boundaries of a world that suddenly poses fewer restraints on her, the narrative repeatedly returns to what a woman can hope for. Love? Maybe, but not for sale—Vera, though no prude, has firm objections to prostitution as a reflection of unequal power. Security? Maybe that too, but again, the price the woman pays matters, and Vera’s uncompromising, sometimes to her cost, as she realizes only in retrospect.

The novel seems so sure-footed, it’s hard to signal missteps, and none strike me as serious. The narrative glides over a couple difficulties, giving you the impression that they simply faded away. But these rare instances of unearned progression in no way mar a brilliant, evocative portrayal of a young woman looking for a place to stand she can call her own. show less

Charlie Pepper and Lena Rusch grew up thinking that they could have the ideal American life - sex, love, marriage, children, career, and brilliance - without overstepping their means. In their too-expensive bungalow in San Francisco, however, they have discovered that real life doesn't work out quite the same as in dreams. While Charlie works on the creation of a revolutionary drug, Lena tries to take care of her two children after one of a pair of twins is stillborn while handling the show more secrets and betrayals of her family's past as her rich estranged relatives begin to cause problems. show less

When I first noticed this book, I added to my shelves but every time I checked it again and read the description I wasn’t sure if I’d like it or not. I kept thinking about reading it though and when it was my turn in the queue at my library for the e-copy, audiobook, and paper book I decided it would be my next book.

I’m so glad that I’ve read it. I was immediately sucked in. I love the writing style and the characters, particularly Vera, and I also love books with San Francisco show more settings and this is a great San Francisco book.

This story packed an emotional punch for me. I was sucked in. I rooted so hard from the start for Vera. There were many other fascinating characters too and some surprised me and some didn’t but all of them were interesting and all of them and their relationships made sense.

A quote I particularly liked: “For I was indeed a student of human nature, as every orphan and hooker and unwanted kid must be.”

I appreciated the Acknowledgments section at the end. It showed the considerable amount of research that went into writing this book.

4-1/2 stars show less