Wonder Valley audiobook

remember when Visitation Street came out and the world was abuzz with ivy pochoda fever? it was during a particularly robust strain of brooklynophilia in the book biz, and my otherborough self was skeptical about the need for yet another paean to brooklyn, but it was such a phenomenal achievement, i ended up giving it a four star review on here.*and then not a peep out of her for four years. but if it takes four years to produce something this good, i’m willing to be patient. since Visitation Street, pochoda switched coasts and now lives in L.A., and this book does for the skid row section of L.A. exactly what Visitation Street did for red hook - it’s a close look at a community; its inhabitants, its flavor, its practices and values, the unwritten laws operating within but also distinct from the larger city in which they live. but the novel’s branches stretch further outward and backwards, covering the lives of several characters whose fates will intersect (including one character from Visitation Street!!), and the choices and experiences that led them to this place, “now,” living on the streets on the outskirts of society. and it’s just gorgeous, thoughtful, brilliant, sublime. even better than Visitation Street. the commune parts reminded me of Arcadia, the overall sprawl and character intensity and overlap of A Visit from the Goon Squad and the “close look at an underserved community” of The Wire. i was thrilled to see that this was the book in my pagehabit box (although truth be told, i’d already gotten my hands on an arc, which i gave to greg. READ THIS, GREG!), because it’s so enriching to have her notes throughout** - it is like getting an inside look at what is already a very insider-feeling novel. and truth be told 2 (truths in paradise), this arrived about the same time as my debilitating illness (koff koff), and when i was lolling in my bed all feverish, considering my reading options, i pushed this one back a couple of times, because i knew i would want to have my wits about me if i was going to read anything even remotely literary, and could only handle medium-grade YA and breezy adult thrillers. but i wanted to want to read it, so eventually i decided to see if i could handle reading something i’d actually have to think about, and i ended up devouring about 3/4 of it in one sitting (lolling), staying up until dawn fueled by nothing but canned peaches and the need to stay immersed in this world and her words. it is easily one of my favorite reads of the year, and while i would wait another four years to read more from her, i really hope i don’t have to. * i gave the book four stars - the review was probably a three. although the link to the ramones song might bring it up to a three-and-a-half.** including this note that explains why she chose Book of Longing as one of the companion books in this month's box: I was lucky enough to have had dinner with Leonard Cohen while writing this book. He inspired me.which does not make me jealous AT ALL. except for a lot, even though i had my own encounter with the much-missed troubadour. but still. we did not feast together. hhmph.**********************************************review to come, but DAMN. damn.**********************************************my new quarterly literary fiction box from pagehabit has arrived!!so many treasures! i am going to dive into this super-soon. there's no explanation about why pochoda chose her book's buddies, and i'm kind of hoping that the leonard cohen book has nothing to do with her own and is just there because this month marks the one-year anniversary of his death, and she's mourning along with me.come to my blog!

It’s morning rush hour on LA’s Highway 110 and there’s a naked runner dashing between traffic, making his way to who knows where. As car radios feed updates to commuters and helicopter spotters fly overhead some, sat in their cars, see the runner. One even decides to abandon his car and give chase. In this way we are introduced to a number of people who are to feature later in the book. This is a story of Los Angeles people but it’s also a story of others – mainly poor, damaged people - who rove around the surrounding area, the desert and the beach.In a complex non-linear narrative, events continually switch between 2006 and 2010. In addition, we follow a decent sized cast of characters, each with their own storyline playing out. The stories will eventually converge but in the meantime you certainly need your wits about you to stay on top of it all. Some of the characters we meet include:- Britt: a college tennis player who seems to be running from someone or something- Blake and Sam: a drug dealer and a murderer travelling on foot across the desert - James and Owen: twin brothers who live with their parents as part of a strange cult- Tony: a lawyer who is disenchanted with his career and with life in general- Ren: a young man recently released from an eight-year spell in juvenile lock-up Everyone is unhappy, stressed and looking for something else. Guilty consciences abound. The dialogue is excellent and as I became familiar with the various players I also became invested in their outcome – though some more than others. It’s a very atmospheric piece too and I’d have to say that the writing is first rate throughout. If I have a quibble at all about the book it’s that it’s a complicated story told in a complicated way. Also, the final outcome does stretch the imagination in terms of the number of coincidences needed to allow it all to come together so neatly. But these are really relatively minor complaints as in reality I absolutely gobbled this book up in the course of a few days. Four and a half stars, rounded up to five. Ivy Pochada is certainly a talent and I’ll be seeking out more of her work.My sincere thanks to Alex at The Indigo Press for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a while to get into this story but when I did I enjoyed it immensely. I will certainly be on the lookout for more books by this author in the future.

You know you have discovered a truly talented author when they can instantly transport you to a place you have never encountered before, and that is exactly what happened to me here. The setting of Los Angeles is one that may be immediately recognisable thanks in part to various television programmes, however, Ms Pochoda's tale is about the side of LA that is rarely seen and certainly not advertised on TV. The city setting has been made one of the major characters in this wonderful novel. The sights, smells and sounds are vivid, so much so that I felt as though I was there.Besides the setting, the author does a sterling job of creating well-rounded characters that are interesting, very different from one another and whose stories intertwining threads come together seamlessly towards the back end of the book. Despite it being from the genre I tend to read most, it was unlike anything I have ever read before, and I was an emotional wreck throughout this compelling, immersive, complex and intense contemporary thriller. Although classified as literary fiction, it remains gritty and true to the crime genre, albeit with added intelligence and an imaginative multi-layered mystery.Pochoda is a master storyteller, with exquisite prose, exploration of our dark desires and memorable characters, this is a thoroughly unputdownable treat which at its core, is a study of the fallibility of humanity and our trials and tribulations, ruminations and regrets. I look forward to what Pochoda produces in the future!Many thanks to Alex at The Indigo Press for an ARC. I was not required to post a review, and all thought and opinions expressed are my own.

This tale starts the pace with a retrospective look on one morning in suburbia stuck in traffic whilst man running in a kind suit or lack of suit.Some fine writing within, in the thick of that first scene and has you hooked in the need to know, the undoing of the scene how did the tale get to that timeline in all the wonder.Over the timeline of 24 hours there are many journeyings in Los Angeles starting with the bizarre one of a man running to or from something, then the chapter shifts to another time line 4 years past in a middle of nowhere desert with all sort of rituals and possible tomfoolery with a motley crew of eager interns with father mother and two sons as lead.Journeys, findings, doings and undoings and mystery in the mix of it all with crafted showing and revealing, keeping the reader on in tow, and like a magician the author careful unravels and let’s some things out some names, connecting dots, connect things visible and invisible connect.Memorable reading of a retrospective observations of downtown/suburbia/desert/wonder valley sometime present sometime nowhere in the vastness of the desert something propelled.review with excerpts @ https://more2read.com/review/wonder-valley-ivy-pochoda/

As a gift from the library universe, my library hold for Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda became available during the December holidays, and I had downtime to spend reading. The book opens with a man running naked through rush hour traffic in downtown Los Angeles, drawing police and television reporters in hot pursuit. I thought, this book has potential to show what we're living with here in LA.Multiple characters whose lives are interwoven represent different parts of Southern California society: the seekers in the desert, the destitute on Skid Row, and the self-absorbed from the Westside. Just as when Angelinos discover that the subject of a newspaper story is a co-worker's cousin, or the middle school music teacher who used to play with a famous pop band, Wonder Valley's characters come to learn of the connections that bind them together, even as those connections might be deadly.Pochoda further segments the narrative into two time streams: 2006 in the high desert community of Wonder Valley and 2010 in the City of Los Angeles. In 2006, a self-awareness commune explores truth and spiritual enlightenment, only to come into conflict when the commune is compromised by both inside rebellion and vile trespassers. In 2010, the loose ends remaining from the demise of the Wonder Valley community knit back together on Los Angeles' Skid Row and other downtown neighborhoods.It takes some effort on behalf of the reader, which is richly rewarded, to follow the many characters’ stories across the two time settings, but transformation is the common theme. Characters organize around spiritual beliefs, criminal pursuits, family love, and none of the circumstances endures, nor are they meant to. Settlements in Wonder Valley or on Skid Row are not permanent. Relationships in the high desert and westward prove to be conditional and transactional, even when lives are at stake.When I first heard of the book, Wonder Valley, I thought, ok, another book about Southern California by an East Coast writer. It will have the usual cliches of dreams pursued then dashed, an ugly duckling blooms into an elegant swan, a teenage outcast is transformed into the creator of the next tech unicorn. Class, ethnic and race differences will be explored, contrasted, and in some small closing scene, reconciled in a manner that eases the general social discomfort that arose as the differences were exposed. Wonder Valley is satisfyingly fresh even as the LA neighborhood settings are familiar. After finishing the book, I wanted to learn how Pochoda could so clearly portray our Los Angeles people without reaching for cliches. I read that she had spent some years here in the city, and the final answer came by turning back to the book’s dedication page: To the writers and artists in the LAMP Arts Program, a Skid Row “housing first” community.Reviewed by Linda Rudell-Betts, Senior Librarian, Social Science, Philosophy and Religion Department

Didn't have high hopes for this book but it ended up surprising me! Weaves together a cast of characters around LA after opening with a naked man running down the freeway in rush hour. Like how this showed the gritty, skid-row side of LA, not the mansions and boutiques of the 1%.

He is almost beautiful--running with the San Gabriels over one shoulder, the rise of the Hollywood Freeway as it arcs above the Pasadena Freeway over the other. He is shirtless, the hint of swimmer's muscle rippling below his tanned skin, his arms pumping in a one-two rhythm in sync with the beat of his feet. There is a chance you envy him. * * *His expression is midmarathon serene, focused on the goal and not yet overwhelmed by the distance. He shows no strain. But the woman in the battered soft-top convertible will say he looked drugged. The man in a souped-up hatchback claims he was crazy-high, totally loco, you know what I mean. A couple of teenage girls driving an SUV way beyond their pay grade insist that, although they barely noticed him, he looked like a superhero, but not one of the cool ones.This is a book about running away. We won't figure out until later in the book who the naked runner is or what he's running from, but we quickly meet a cast of other runners.Tony, who gets out of his car and follows the naked runner, is running from his high-pressure life as a lawyer, father, and husband, who never quite measures up to anyone's standards. Britt, who we meet four years earlier, is running from a past that she won't reveal until later, and finds herself in the midst of a bizarre cult/chicken farm commune.Blake and Sam, characters who would fit into any grit lit novel, are running from the long arm of the law, while Blake tries to outrun the violence that always follows them. Owen, son of cult leader/chicken farmer Patrick, is running away from the chaos that his life has become since moving to the desert. His twin brother, James, would like to run back to L.A. with his mom.Ren has traveled across the country in search of his mother, Laila, who ran away to California while he was in juvie in New York. As the story jumps back and forth between 2010 stories of Tony and Ren and the 2006 stories of Britt at the Howling Tree Ranch and Blake and Sam traversing the desert, the connections between all of these disparate runners are slowly revealed in a symphony of the desperate and downtrodden. Some of these characters do despicable things in their attempts at flight, but Ms. Pochoda manages to stir at least a tiny bit of sympathy even for the worst of them. And the more innocent among them will break your heart.Read by book group, August 2019.

Written with raw energy and palpable emotion, this gritty novel covers the disappearance of a teenage boy twin who runs away from his father's "spiritual" commune like structure, leading to exposing the stories of several other characters who are enterwined with one another.The story begins with a naked runner running down the California freeway with and against the traffic. A terrific hook to get the reader wanting to explore the mystery of his mission. Is he mentally disturbed? Does anyone know him? From here ,other parallel stories are told which end up intersecting with his. The author had an uncanny ability to describe life on the streets, including memorable dialects and character portrayals that made me thoroughly enjoy her easy writing style. Its simplicity belies the difficulty of writing this prose. A moving story that illustrates the desperation and uncovering of the need to follow what you think is your course in life only to find that perhaps it has been in a different direction all along.

I received this book as an ARC from Book of the Month, but in no way was my opinion influenced. This book was so wonderful. Set in current L.A it sort of gives you that Lalaland feel ( except gritty and less music). The setting is gritty and completely believable. The story weaves through our main characters lives past and present, and leaves use with a journey that helps you debate what it means to be a good person, how events can grip your life and run your head-space, and also leaves you just contemplating your own self.Definitely worth reading, if you aren't into the sadness and absurdity of the story at least you'll be pulled into the vivid character experiences. (Also side note, lately I feel like all my good books/tv shows deal with twins, what is up with that?)

This was a random choice from my local library and i was completely mesmerized. It's dense, dark, layered, sad, hearfelt.....the adjectives could go on and on. It was full of people I don't know. Homeless people; cult people; violent people. I was having a conversation with someone yesterday about the USA and we both concluded Arthur Miller was right all those decades ago with "Death of Salesman". The country feels as if its collapsing and this is a story about that collapse. There are still some wonderfully redeeming characters and moments - but not many of them. A great book.

This book really surprised me - for some reason I was expecting some straight-up literary fiction about the slightly-wealthy/young & beautiful in LA, and that is NOT what I got. Which turned out to be awesome! I was surprised to check my list to see I read her previous book, but then I remembered it - same kind of characters but a better story. However, I experienced the same kind of surprise last time - it was on the Dennis Lehane imprint but it was not a mystery by any stretch of the imagination. All that said, this book pushed every one of my "loved this book" buttons: down and out characters, with various issues/addictions? Check. Shitty circumstances with sometimes ambiguous yet always satisfactory endings? Check. More than one "holy shit!" moments? Check. Lots of plot lines coming together in surprising but fitting ways? Check. This had me thinking a lot about communes/cults in the desert and also about Skid Row, and how different both are from my own home in suburban NJ, with more people per square inch than any other state in the country. Just thinking about all that land in the desert kind of creeps me out. Parts were a little too much for squeamish me, but that's my own problem.

From the first page of this wonderful new novel, Ivy Pochoda draws the reader into her world of contemporary Los Angeles and the area of the Mojave Desert known as Wonder Valley. While the characters are first introduced in a series of seemingly unrelated vignettes, as the book progresses, the author skillfully merges their stories to intersect and intertwine. This group is from the seamier side of life--living each day under the radar and just trying to survive. I came away with a sense of wonder at the skill it takes to exist on the streets or entirely off the grid and how people with no real home or emotional support find the strength to connect with others where they can and keep going. The author has created such vivid characters that I became immersed in their lives and hoped for better days to come for each of them. Some of their stories are poignant, some heartbreaking, and others uplifting. Each is memorable. I think the best novelists bring us into the world of their story and keep us there so that we don't want the book to end but, when it does, the characters stay with us long after the last page is read. Wonder Valley had that effect on me.