One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

After her mother dies, Katy goes on a trip to Positano to grieve. She has tickets for two because originally Katy and her mother planned on taking the trip together. Positano had always been a place Carole treasured.

In Positano, Katy unexpectedly comes across the woman her mother used to be–the woman Carol was before she married her Dad and had a baby. That Carol was wild and carefree, utterly different from the woman she became–the perfect wife and mother.

In Positano, Katy runs into a version of Carol who was single and unencumbered–when all her dreams lay before her. At first Katy does not think much about this unusual occurrence. She is in Italy, after all, which is well-known for being timeless and magical.

Soon though Katy meets a man which makes her rethink her own marriage and life as well as Carol’s.

This is a playful novel that also makes readers ponder about free will and fate.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow.

Bi-racial January has always felt out-of-place and ignored by her beloved father, Julian, who is a field agent for Mr. Locke, head of the New England Archaeological Society. Julian travels the world looking for rare objects for his benefactor and boss yet he rarely spend time with his daughter.

Lacking a father’s love and support, January turns to Mr. Locke. Though she tries to be Mr. Locke’s “good” girl, she has a taste for adventure that is abhorrent to him. While staying in Kentucky, January walks through a timber frame painted blue. Briefly, against all logic, she experiences a sea-swept world.

Though she does not know it yet, the world is rich with these “doors” that leak revolutionary ideas, people and objects. Mr. Locke and his society know about these doors, which they call aberrations, yet they are determined to close them. When January tries to revisit the world she encountered in Kentucky, she finds that the portal has mysteriously closed.

Harrow describes two warring factions–one open to new ideas and possibilities–and the other adamantly opposed to them. The novel is also a coming-of-age story, a love story and a thriller. January must escape from a number of her adopted father’s goons. Her courage and tenacity are tested to the limits after she is placed in one confining place after another, including an asylum. In the end, she must renounce her surrogate father who thinks of her as merely a “perfect specimen.”

She must find her own power that is separate from Julian’s. Julian, her true father, gives her the book, The Ten Thousand Doors which opens her eyes. He, however, believes once a door is closed, its closed forever. January must find a way to re-open the closed doors, find her real father, and sail her own ship. What a delightful and empowering read!

Alix E. Harrow’s most recent book is Starling House.

Hugo: A Look Back

Hugo was released in 2011. Since then its lost none of its charm.

Hugo is a well-shot and well-acted movie that also happens to have a beautiful message.

I first became aware of the book which I always meant to read. The book is a marvelously illustrated and written by Brian Selznick.

Wonderful moments abound in this film, like Hugo hanging on to the arms of enormous clock. The scene looks like something out of the silent film Safety Last. The film honors silent films and silent film makers so this scene is so fitting.

One of the best aspects of the movie, however, is the theme.

Standing near the clear dial of the clock, which is an enormous window, Hugo realizes that the world is like an enormous machine.

If someone has lost their purpose, they are broken, just like the automaton Hugo’s father found. Yet, that doesn’t mean they can’t be “fixed” or redeemed.

“Are you a fixer?” Isabelle asks Hugo. Humbly, he says, “I think so.”

The villain of the movie has a prosthetic leg, which he needs because of a war injury.

The war has left him embittered; plus, he has had a terrible childhood. Consequently, he delights in locking up and terrorizing orphaned children.

Even this character though is “fixed,” in the end, as he returns with a working leg, presumably fixed by Hugo and Papa Georges.