October- 7

And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini  Great book.  Love this author and was thrilled to get another book from him.  The worst part of his books is reading them so quickly and trying to slow down but not being able to and then being sad when they are over and done.  This story takes us through several generations and literally across the globe.  Each section is narrated by a different character and each story weaves into the overall story.  We never hear from the same narrator twice but the story continues with each new story teller.  The novel centers around an Afghan family and the twists and turns of their lives.  As always the author does a great job with taking the reader through the historical aspects of the times the characters are going through.  Even though each character narrates only for a piece of the book, the reader easily falls for each character and is invested in the story right from the start.  I was nervous about how the book would end, and though it saddened me, it was definitely fitting.

The White by Deborah Larsen  A coworker left this book for me to read and I did like it but I'm not sure on the writing style.  The story is about a white woman captured by Indians in 1758 and her story of capture and assimilation into their culture while always being different.  I liked the way the author portrayed the difficulty in being caught between different worlds and the victim aligning with her kidnappers.   I did not like the graphic violence, which may have been why I disliked the writing style.  Overall an interesting quick read.

The Time of My Life by Cecilia Ahern  Did not like this book.  Maybe my expectations for it were too high given how much I liked "P.S. I love you," another of the author's novels.  This novel was about a young woman who gets a letter from "life" and has to start meeting with it regularly to work on all the areas in her life that are going wrong or are stuck.  The problem for me is that I interpreted this as "life" but it really was life.  I kept waiting for the metaphor to turn into something but instead it was too literal and not really explained as to how this can be.  Was it a future world or different world where this sort of thing exists?  Was it a metaphor?  I really have no clue.  I got the overall concept of putting all the pieces back together again and sorting through messes that you make in your 20s, but I was disappointed overall.  And I disliked the fairly tale aspect of the story which led, in my opinion, to an unrealistic ending of the story.  Still like this author in general so I'll try not to hold this book against her.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova  This is the story about a Harvard professor and researcher diagnosed with early on set Alzheimer's at a very early age.  The book is narrated throughout by the woman so as her illness progresses it is told in a first person account.  I loved the style and I loved the concept.  I was furious with the main characters husband who seemed to abandon her in her time of need, but I also took a step back and tried to see things from his point of view as well and see how he was working through his loss.  I learned quite a bit too about a disease I know some about but not a whole lot.  I also liked the first hand account of the difficulty in making medical decisions.  I think the importance of the characters role as a Harvard professor who did research was a key element as well.

Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan  I really love this author and I'm not sure if I knew when I put this book on the list that this was her biography but I definitely forgot by the time I finally got it from the library but was pleasantly surprised to learn so much more about her.  I knew she was both a photographer and a writer, two things I admire greatly.  Even knowing she had been a photo journalist before writing her novels, I guess I never really understand what that meant.  I like too how she shared her personal accounts across the world and related them to her journey of adulthood from relationship to relationship.  I really liked how her identity as a feminist shined throughout the story too.  I related near the end of the book when she discussed woman's choices.  As feminists we feel we have to make certain choices to align with that identity but what she shares is the idea of us making choices based on what is right for us and/or our families.  I found her writing on this extremely helpful right now and appreciated her sharing her deeply personal decisions along the way.

The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes  This was a story split in two time frames with two different narrators.  A married woman wakes with amnesia to start the novel and tries to piece together what her life was like before the accident.  She starts finding love letters hidden in her home from someone she guesses she was having an affair with.  She starts to piece together what happened before the accident and what her life and marriage was like.  She struggles with self identity in an interesting way in being able to discover who she used to be and then decide if that's who she still wants to be.  The character ends her part of the narration with a cliff hanger.  We then flash forward many years to a young woman working at a newspaper who finds one of the letters from the past and starts to trace it's story as she tells her own.  Overall I liked the concept of the novel and I liked the writer's style of creating a story.  For me it fell flat though because it was too predictable and too unrealistic with the love stories.

Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld I have to start by saying this book ended up thrown on the floor when I finished it.  The ending was just so frustrating to me.  I love this author and was so excited to see a new book by her.  I love her writing style and this book was no exception to that.  I also liked the idea of the plot line of the book.  Two twin sisters with "senses" or psychic powers.  One who embraces them and her eccentricity and the other, the narrator, who does not and settles down into a seemingly quiet family life as a mother of two small children who stays at home while her professor husband teaches at a local university.  The story takes place in St Louis where an earthquake occurs early on in the story.  The twin who embraces her psychic abilities then predicts another even bigger earthquake will occur and begins to get national media attention.  The story explores the way this affects the narrator and the active choice she has made to re determine her life.  The story alternates chapters from the twins childhood to adulthood and then the present day with a potential earthquake coming and the media circus that is happening to them because of the prediction.  I had no problem with the book, as in I was liking it enough, even if I wasn't loving it, but then the last 60 pages or so became an absolute soap opera that I was not prepared for.  I had spent so much time trying to figure out if the author was going to have the earth quake happen or not but the ending was much more complicated then that and not in a good way.  Still have respect for this author but really disappointed in this book.

September 6

Suddenly A Knock at the Door by Etgar Keret  This book was a collection of short stories or even essays as some were really short.  I didn't dislike the authors style of writing but I really didn't understand many of the stories.  Maybe they were over my head or I missed the point entirely, I'm not sure.  But now only a month later I barely recall any of them which to me is not the sign of a great book.  Also many of them were too fantastical and not in a believable way. I'm the type that can accept fantasy only when it's really sold to me.  Given how short the stories were it's possible the writer just didn't have a chance to make them believable, at least to me.

The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian  Love this author.  Though I didn't like the ending of this book, I did like it over all.  The story is of a man who is a lawyer and a single parent seeing a homeopathic healer who he falls in love with and then gets involved in a situation where one of her patients dies possibly due to her "medical" advice.  I liked the unbiased way the author explored homeopathy and learned a thing or two (which I'm sure is accurate given this is a reputable author).  Bohjalian always has a way of writing, that at least for me, really gets you involved in the characters lives.  It really adds so much more to the story since you get so involved in hoping things will go certain ways for them.  I liked the overall unique story line but found the ending to be a bit unrealistic for me.  I also acknowledge though that as the book went on, I couldn't figure out how he was going to end it and I myself did not think up any ways that it could end in a way that would work out for all the characters.

Love in the Time of Algorithms by Dan Slater  Loved this book.  Quite timely non fiction story of the evolution of dating especially in it's move to technology.  In this era of Match.com etc, the author takes us from the first computer dating computers created at Harvard (which matched his parents together) to future speculation about what will happen next in the online dating world.  I found it fascinating and scary at the same time.  Scary because of the instant access to anything anyone wants and the realization that online dating isn't just about finding someone to date or marry.  It's not being used for a wide ranger of sexual deviance that can be worrisome too.  While I see the benefit (I did meet my soon to be husband online) I also worry about how this changes peoples social skills and the ease for harm to be done.  In any case the online dating world is not slowing down anytime soon and the author did a great job of writing about how it came to be and where it is now.

Love or Something Like it by Deidre Shaw  This was by no means the best book I've ever read but I found something refreshingly honest in the characters in the book and the way it was written.  It's a book about a young woman who is facing a huge bump in her young marriage.  We look back into the past history of the main characters dysfunctional family and the messages she got as a child from her parents and her runaway brother who she has limited contact with.  What I liked was that rather then waiting around for her husband to decide what he wants she finds a way to start hearing her own voice about what she wants.  What I didn't like was some of the unrealistic too romancy pieces of the book.  Overall though the author painted a realistic picture of the hard times in love and the choices that we make during those times.

Freeing Keiko by Kenneth Brower  Loved this book.  As someone who loved grew up loving "Free Willy" and the real life whale, Keiko, reading his story and hearing about his struggle to truly be free was bittersweet.  I also realized about halfway through that the ending was not going to be joyous as I had remembered a news story some years ago.  From that point it was difficult to keep reading knowing that I was reading more or less to find out how he died rather then a happy fairytale ending that you hope for especially since the main character is real.  I learned so much from this author and the care he took to tell the story of killer whale Keiko was amazing.  I'm quite glad I finally realized this book was out there and picked it up.

Hope a Tragedy by Shalom Auslander  Did not like this book.  I found this author while browsing at the book store and added him to the list.  All his books on the shelf looked so interesting to me but I just didn't get what he was trying to convey and it had such a cool concept that I maybe set the bar too high in my mind.  This was a story about a man who discovers a well known historical figure living in his attic.  Right from the start with such a concept the author needed to sell me on this idea, and he just didn't.  I think overall the book was about the main characters trying to find his place in his family as things changed as he aged.  There was a lot of cultural references to Judaism and while I always find that interesting, overall the author failed to deliver a plot line that went anywhere.

August- 7

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey  It's odd that as a professional I had not seen this movie or read this book.  That being said I finally saw the movie and then wanted to read the book.  I liked the book a lot more (as usual) as it gave more depth to the characters and gave a more accurate portrayal of mental health.  It was difficult both to watch the movie and to read the book given that I know how far we have come with care for the mentally ill but I also know how far we need to go.  It was disheartening to see in the movie and worse to read in the book since  I felt like in the book you fell for the characters and really wanted to see them succeed.  The truth of the matter is that we can't help everyone, it's just not possible, but each of these people deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and the book shows just how often that was not the case.  The sad ending had me close to tears even though I knew what would happen from just seeing the movie.  I'm happy and hopeful that just as the times of this book are in the past, these days too will improve and we will continue to look back in awe at how we treated some people in this society most in need of kindness.

Penelope by Rebecca Harrington  This one has been on my list and had such great reviews.  Maybe because they built it up so much or maybe because I just didn't get it, it didn't live up to the expectations I had in my mind.  The story is about a Freshman at Harvard and her first year there.  The main character, Penelope, is an awkward adolescent and struggled at home and now at college to find her way and place in the world.  Coincidently I started reading the book while on Harvard's campus which was fitting but still didn't make me like it anymore.  I guess for me there just wasn't anything more to it. It was a common coming of age story with some the same trying to find love, friends, self.  Sure there was a little more elitism involved and some odd drama club story lines, but just nothing that really held my interest until the end where I didn't really get any resolution to the story.

The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa  I like reading about the Asian culture and stories about the many significant historical time periods of that culture.  That's why this author is on my list.  This book was about the coming of age of a young girl who was a great player at a man's game called "Go."  I liked the strong feminist attitude that began the book but was disappointed that it turned into the strong female character giving up so much for her first sexual relationship and then turned a bit romance novel.  

Friends Like Us by Lauren Fox  This book really spoke to me.  Every woman can relate to losing a friendship and the things we wish we had done differently, even if the outcome would still be the same.  I liked that this started out in the future and went backwards to share the story.  Sometimes this does not work for the novel but in this case it really helped define the story.  Two very close girl friends who we know from the beginning had a falling out share the story of how a third male friend helped reshape their friendship forever.  I liked to that as readers we got to see where everyone ended up years later and the ways these interweaving friendships affected one another.  

The Elephant Keeper's Children by Peter Hoeg  This book was a bit 100 Years of Solitude in it's writing style and plot line.  I'm not sure I understood half of it, especially at first, but I was drawn in very quickly and wanted to keep turning the pages to find out what would happen next.  It tells the story of 2 young children having to be the adults in their family.  The live on a fictitious island and have parents who are deeply religious and go missing.  The story shares the adventures of the children who go about in search of their parents and does a great job of moving from present to past to share the story and then in merging the two at the end so that we get to the bottom of the mystery.  I really liked the way this author writes, this was the first book of his I read and I'm definitely adding more to my list.

Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos  Really like this author and have had this book on my list for awhile.  Overall I liked it but I found the ending a bit unrealistic.  I guessed the ending at some point too and spent the rest of the time reading it hoping that I was wrong since it would be unrealistic.  This was the story of two woman in very different places in their lives and how they come together in a unique way.  The story redefines "family" and brings together people from various backgrounds who join forces for a unique twist in the story.  One of the main characters is suffering from a fatal diagnosis and looking to make drastic changes to her life and make peace with past mistakes as it comes to a close.  Another is a young woman trying to escape her past by her recent move across the country but she quickly realizes you cannot escape the past.  The two come together in a believable way and the story had me wanting to continue until it went a few steps too far in the direction of "this stuff only happens in books."  Either way I like the author a lot and she does a great job of telling a story.

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama  I like this author, another Asian culture author.  I'm still undecided on this book.  The story was about a young man coming of age during WWII who was sent to stay at his family's summer home due to being ill.  He is staying at the ocean while his family is in the center of the war in a major city, he therefore has little connection to the actual war but is able to share thoughts from a distance and through fears for his family's safety.  There are several stories within the story.  The story of the housekeeper at the beach house and his love life as a young adult and how that affected his adulthood choices.  The story of the boys parents marriage.  The story of the war.  I think this is why I struggled with the book, the writing was good and the main plot line was good, but all the other stories involved just made for too much going on.  Each of them was good in their own way but all of them together was a bit much.

July- 10

My Heart is an Idiot Essays by Davy Rothbart
This book is a collection of essays by the author sharing his true stories of life and love and trying to find someone to get through life with.  I liked the story’s for the most part, some of them seemed a bit hard to believe, especially given that these were all things that were supposed to have happened to the same person.  In thinking about it after reading it though, I do think if you sat down and wrote out all the crazy stories about things you had gotten into for love,  I suppose you really could have a short story book.  I liked that the author kept me laughing and narrated in such a way that as the reader you were really hoping for him to find someone to love already.

"Anyone who's every gotten into photography for a minute knows that when you start taking a lot of pictures, you start seeing the world in a different way. Your awareness of your surroundings shifts and deepens, and even when you don't have your camera in your hands, you become constantly struck by the lyricism of passing visuals."  "...they were also honest about their divided hearts, that weird gnawing ache of living in an adopted home that even with its blessings can never truly feel like home."

The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan   Really like this author and her style of writing.  This book was about, as the title suggests, marriage.  The author's style though is to have several story lines going at once, even at varying decades and then weaving them together by the end of the book.  Readers don't just get a handful of simple, or not so simple, marriage stories, though.  One of the story's followed the advertising campaigning of diamonds and how they become the pick for engagement rings.  Another shares the story of a man who leaves his wife for happiness with another, but through the perspective of his mother who also narrates her own story of her marriage, past and present.

I picked this book because I love the author and it is her newest book, little did I know that less then a month later I'd end up engaged myself (nice surprise BB).  The book wasn't all full of happily ever afters, just like real marriage, but it was a sweet story about the choices women make in their marriages and out of them in regards to love.  It was thought provoking, and though I wasn't thinking of myself at the time, I think it was the perfect time for me to read it and so I am grateful for the unexpected timing.


"Ogden Nash Poem "A Word to Husbands"... To keep your marriage brimming,/ With love in the loving cup,/ Whenever you're wrong, admit it;/ Whenever you're right, shut up." "   "They said horrible things to one another, unforgivable things, but they always forgave."  "She tried to tell her mother that it wasn't about divorce.  It was about the fact that marriage was outdated and exclusionary, and worked only 50 percent of the time anyway."

The Fault in our Stars by John Green
 Have heard about this amazing teen novel for some time and I am very glad I finally picked it up.  The story is of a terminally ill young teenage girl who is struggling to live with cancer with a very bad prognosis.  She meets another young man in recovery from cancer at her cancer support group and we get to go on the ride of first love with lots of complications with our two main characters.
What an amazing journey the author takes us on with the two young lovers.  To begin with our teenage characters are wise beyond their years for many reasons and also have so many struggles day in and day out.  First love is also so pure and the fact that for at least one of the characters this is the first adventure of love gives us as readers a glance into that purity.

Though at times the book was a bit unbelievable in storyline, overall this book was an amazing read and I’m glad I finally got around to reading it.

Some Quotes: " "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves.""  "Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.  A write we used to like taught us that.  There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set.  I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got.  But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity.  I wouldn't trade it for the world.  You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful."

Banished A Memoir: Surviving my Years in the Westboro Baptist Church by Lauren Drain with Lisa Pulitzer  What an intriguing memoir.  If you haven’t heard of the Westboro Baptist Church, google them.  These hate mongers are a fascinating group if you ask me and this is the first one of their members to break away and be able to give a first person account of how they operate and what their group is about.  I feel for the author in the loss of her innocence and childhood because of her parents decision to join this organization.  I feel for her that she still several years later is without her immediate family because the church sees her as an evil person and her parents and other siblings are still stuck in the church.

Everything about this organization from my previous impression of them, and now after reading this book, screams “cult.”  Regardless of whether they will be considered as such or not though they are a very hateful and dangerous group.  I am inspired by the authors bravery and courage to stand up against them and her continued strength to move forward in life in spite of all the bad things that have happened to her.

Love Anthony by Lisa Genova  The plotline of this book is interesting.  Two women on Nantucket, one who has 4 daughters and recently learns her husband is having an affair, and one who is hiding in her grief at the loss of her young autistic son.  The story is really three stories in one and narrated as such with alternating chapters.  You have the story of the two women and then the story the first woman, the one who’s husband cheats, is writing as an author.  I liked the alternating chapters and the story lines of both of the women uniquely dealing with their very real losses.  I liked too the suspense of waiting to find out how and when these woman’s lives would intersect.

I was disappointed when they did eventually intersect.  It was a bit too much supernatural to me and even though I started guessing before it was 100% clear of what was happening, I think the plot could have gone in a very different direction and still had a successful book.  To me it took away from the overall book that it got so spiritual at the end, just not my cup of tea.

With or Without You by Domenica Ruta   This memoir of a young woman who grew up with an addicted mother in a loving but highly dysfunctional family was a very interesting read.  We follow the author through her disorganized childhood, her own addiction troubles, and the healthy ways she tries to reestablish boundaries and limits in her family.

The unfortunate stories of her childhood were relatable, at least to me, and as a reader you really are hoping for her success at overcoming all the things life has thrown at her.  I like memoirs like this because good or bad, the outcome is decided by the time it’s written and you can really hope for the main character but ultimately get the answer of what really happened, how it all really turned out.  It’s easy in stories like this sometimes to forget that this is not really a story but more of a journey of one individuals life and where they land, influenced by all the things in the past that have happened to them.

Some Quotes: "You were sick, but now you're well, and there's work to do" Kurt Vonnegut; [in regards to reading] "Hunger like this is pitiful.  It never affords you the luxury of distinguishing between useless and important knowledge, between good and bad words."  "I ignored her perverted impulse to protect me now, bit my tongue before screaming, "Too late for that!" "  about her addiction "Life disappears faster than it actually happens."  "Except, no.  No!  I want this to be true, but it's just not working.  There is no platitude that can get me over this."  "

Man Crazy by Joyce Carol Oates  You have to be in the right mood for a JCO book sometimes.  I love her books for the most part but I also personally think her books are hit or miss for me.  I think this one was better then the last I read but it was still pretty hard to follow for me at first.

It’s a coming of age story about a young girl who’s family falls apart pretty quickly and how that affects her promiscuous adolescence.  She then winds up in a young adult cult and suffers some more horrific events.  The book ends with her in therapy and processing the trauma of her life.
The title fits given Oates’ feminist writing style, but I had to take a pause to really look under the surface of the book to understand why she would title this book with a main female character the way she did.  I think she’s commenting on the idea that this girl came into the world more or less into a decent enough family but to begin with her family is destroyed by her father’s actions.  Then in adolescence during her awkward teenage years she goes through the trauma of her physical awkwardness with her male classmates who use her for sex but thinking very little of her otherwise.  At the hands of the cult it is male cult members who rape and mutilate her.

Overall a very different coming of age story and a good read from an author I like very much.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time by Mark Haddon  So what’s weird about the timing of this novel is that a few books above, Love Anthony, mentioned this book a lot.  Shortly after I finished that book a coworker loaned me this book which I have wanted to read for some time.  This novel’s narrator is a young autistic boy who is trying to solve the mystery of who killed his neighbor’s dog.  The entire book is written from his perspective, even down to the way the chapters are numbered (won’t give it away) which I really liked since the author kept with narration this way throughout in all details.

I found certain parts of the novel to be predictable and guessed some of the plotlines in advance.  I did learn quite a bit about this young fictional character’s illness though which I did like.  I think though, especially professionally speaking, autism is such a wide spectrum illness that it’s hard to say this book speaks for all autistic individuals.  It speaks for autistic kids that would fall near the same place on the spectrum that this character did.

I am glad to have finally read this and it was a quick easy read that held my attention to the end.

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez  This is a novel that I have been suggested to read for some time.  I found it difficult to follow most of the story especially with the confusing characters with often the same or very similar names.  That being said I think the visual imagery the author was able to create in my head was pretty amazing.

I’m not sure I could summarize the plotline because it was so varied, but in general the story is following a family in a fictional land and has a magical component to it.  There are many wars that take place and extreme movement of characters, some die and then return, which is why it was hard to follow, but it worked for this story.  I’m not a big fan of books that get too magical/ sci fi/ etc but if you can make me believe in the make believe world then I often times really like these novels.  This author was definitely able to do that for me.

The Post Birthday World by Lionel Shriver The plot line of this book is very intriguing.  A woman at a cross roads of her life, deciding whether to cheat or not to cheat on her husband, and the decision she makes.  Only the book becomes a “choose your own adventure” in a way and gives you both sides of the path she chose.  The odd chapters follow one way and the even another.  I loved the concept of being able to see how life turned out if either decision was made and find it a very universal question in terms of “what if I had decided that instead of this, how would my life have turned out?”  I also really like this author so had no trouble reading her book.

I think the problem for me was that I sort of predicted from the beginning how it would end.  Not so much specifically but just how the last chapter would look.  The book also took place over several years which worked in the sense that we got to see a bigger portion of how the one decision she made affected her long term, but also then sort of felt hurried through life events.

I also am not sure how to explain the biggest thing I didn’t like in the book but I’ll give it an attempt.  The main character is an illustrator/author and at a certain point in the book in each of the storylines she authors a children’s book.  The books are different for each story but in both of them the overall message is the same as this actual novel, in terms of the decisions we make affect the outcomes of the rest of our lives.  It was almost the same story within the story, which I really didn’t like.

I also didn’t necessary like how either story line ended, this may have been my own expectation in being able to determine at the end which was the right choice from the beginning, but I guess this was the intention of the author.  Showing that either choice then affected the rest of the decisions but that ultimately there is no right or wrong choice, there are just different paths that may or may not lead to similar places.

June 7

Still Life with Husband by Lauren Fox  This was a story about a woman both sure and unsure in her marriage.  Her husband is ready to give up their city life and move to the suburbs and start a family and she is not in the same place.  This leads to an affair with a man she meets through work.  I didn't dislike the book but it turned from what could have been a good novel on the choices we make in life and love to more of a soap opera drama novel.  I like this writer and enjoy reading her stories and I think overall some of the underlying story lines, for ex the relationship between the main character and her sister, were worth reading the book for.

The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes by Tess Uriza-Holthe  This was a collection of short stories that wove together through train rides.  I added it to my list after reading something else by this author and liking her style.  I again really liked her style of writing and telling the story.  I liked too the mental health component to the story, though it had me hoping that the inevitable would somehow change halfway through the book.  I liked how the author added details to each story to connect them to one another, though the stories weren't necessarily told in order so you had to pay attention to connect the dots.

How to be Single by Liz Tuccillo  Loved this book.  It was a cross between "Eat Pray Love" and "Sex and the City" (At least the movie and TV versions)  A single woman living in New York takes all her single friends out after one suffers a breakup in her marriage.  The group of women only had the main character in common at the start of the novel.  The night goes terribly and the woman decides to write a book on being single/marriage/love/etc in other cultures by traveling the world.  The story is narrated through the main character and also chapters by the group of women she took out the first night in the story and how they all end up becoming friends as well.  I loved the book, as I already said.  The strong women characters and watching them learn and grow throughout was great.  If I have one criticism it's that some of the story lines could have had more realistic endings to them.  Overall though as a reader I feel for the characters and wanted them to get their happy endings.

Quotes: "How do we keep going when that's not what life has given to us?  How do we date, having to act as if it's not the be-all and end-all in our lives, while knowing that one great date could change the course of our lives?  How do we keep going in the face of all the disappointment and uncertainty?  How do we be single and not go crazy?"  "But if you consider how truly miraculous it is to meet anyone you want to go on a second date with, maybe they have the right idea.  Maybe wanting to go on a second date with someone is proof that you might as well just get engaged, give it a shot, and nail that shit down."

The Sister's Antipodes A Memoir by Jane Alison  This one had been on my list for quite some time.  I always tried getting it at the library and was never able to find it.  I finally realized why once I broke down and ordered it for pick up at the library.  It's non-fiction and all the time I'd had it on my list I had thought it was fiction, oops!  That being said the story line does seem like it would be something a fiction write would come up with.  Two families, both American, but living in Australia working for the US Government.  Two young daughters in each family and parents who basically swap partners and in turn the girls stay with their mothers but end up as sisters (when they used to be friends) and being raised by the opposite set of sister's father.  What an incredible childhood to have.  Add to that the complications of being raised overseas, then one family moving back to the US, specifically to the DC area, and also one of the couples succeeding in the second marriage and one that did not.  Sure sounds like it could be a great fiction story but the constant reminder that this actually happened to these girls adds another quality to the story.  I really liked the writer and admire her for her strength in all she had to go through.  I liked to the reminder that our childhood and the tragedies of our life do not define us.  We can still rise above all that happens to us or is thrown at us and achieve things we want to achieve in life.

Married Love and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley  This was also a collection of short stories.  The stories didn't necessarily connect to one another, they took place in different times and locations and with different characters.  Although some of them were on love within marriage some of the stories were not.  I think overall though the common theme was of love and how it shapes and changes our lives in ways we can't always see that it will do.  I didn't dislike the book but it just wasn't that memorable for me unfortunately.  And the problem I often have with short stories was definitely in place here, just as your getting to know the characters and becoming attached, boom new chapter.  I imagine it isn't easy to prevent this, but some short story books have been able to get me interested and give me the closure needed to move to the next chapter, unfortunately this book did not do that.

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar  What a great book.  Really loved the story line.  It was one of those books you could not put down but also feared finishing because it was so good.  It is the story of a young Pakistani American boy and a key moment that defined his becoming a man.  The story starts with the young man away at college and falling for a girl but recounting this story from his youth to the young woman.  We then are taken back to his childhood and get to read about his parents dysfunctional marriage and his upbringing.  We as readers get to read about the young boys journey into his religion and what it means to choose to believe what your parents believe, or to choose otherwise.  The family is visited by the mother's closest friend who is like a sister to her, who recently moved from Pakistan to America with her young son who then live with the family for a short time.  The young narrator's life defining moment affects his family and hers forever.

I liked that most of the book was about this moment in his young adulthood, but that we got to see him as an adult at the beginning and end too.  I liked the cultural elements of the book a lot, and could really visualize what the author was portraying.  I loved the end of the book too, it wrapped the story up and gave the reader closure.  So glad this book was on my to read list, and really hope it gets turned into a movie, as I suspect it will be or already is in the process of.

The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal  What an interesting read.  This is a non fiction book that shares a very personal story of Wiesenthal's childhood.  As a young boy living in a concentration camp, Wiesenthal is summoned to a hospital one day and taken to a young German Nazi's room who proceeds to tell him a story of killing a Jewish family.  He then asks Wiesenthal to forgive him of his sin since he is dying and needs to be forgiven.  Young Wiesenthal does not forgive the man but this moment of his teenage years sticks with him and he poses the question of what "you" would do in this same situation.  The novel then has many responses from a variety of people including other Holocaust survivors and other famous prisoners of war and various other responders.

I spent a lot of the time I was reading the book trying to formulate my own answer to the question and the truth is I still don't have a clue how to respond.  A lot of what I read about though in other's responses were things I had thought about and other things that did not cross my mind but really got me thinking.  Some of the interesting points that were brought up: The solider asked forgiveness for this one particular event, what about all the other terrible things he did during the war?  The difference between atonement and forgiveness and which was the soldier asking for and which can a mere mortal provide?  How can one person speak for an entire population?  Does it matter if one person can speak for an entire population, should he/she still do so?  If the soldier is asking forgiveness on his deathbed presumably to make things better before going to God, shouldn't God, the Lord etc do the forgiving?
Other interesting points on the yes side were more related to the fact that if God would forgive what right does Wiesenthal have not to do so as well?

The other part of the responses that were interesting to me was all the cultural/religious significance to the answers.  Even within a variety of cultures and religions represented the answers were more or less the same sort of responses.  Overall very thought provoking and a great read if your in the mood to think.  Heavy information, not a light read by any means.

May- 6

Dreaming Water by Gail Tsukiyama  What an interesting story.  Hana is the main character and has Werner's syndrome which makes her age two times as fast as normal, so she is in her 30s but in the body of an 80 year old.  Her mother Cate is in her senior days and her own health is failing but she spends her days taking care of her daughter.  Add to that a long lost friend, Laura, the same age as Hana and a recently deceased father/husband who both Hana and Cate are grieving.  The story is told from the perspective of both Hana and Cate and then at some points through the narration of the friend's daughter, Josephine.  I really liked the plot line and think there was a very unique story being told.  The lines of mother daughter relationships, aging parents, sick children, distant friendships, etc.  The one thing I am finding about this author though that I do not like is that she often makes choices that I don't always understand.  Authors make very deliberate choices of what is and is not included in their stories, and usually I appreciate the choices being made.  With this author I just feel a bit confused at times at the random introductions of characters or at the conclusions of story lines.

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares  I really did not like this book.  It had such promise but I think it fell short on delivery.  The concept was a little more supernatural then I go for but I like the author, still do, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  The main character, Daniel, has spent centuries falling in love with the same woman.  The story works on the assumption that souls are reincarnated after death but that most souls don't remember or aren't aware this is happening.  In Daniel's case he is of a select few that do remember and he continues to seek out the soul of his love.  I liked the historical aspects and the plot line was definitely unique.  That being said, my problem with this book was that it just wasn't believable.  In general I'm not a fan of science fiction/fantasy, but I'm willing to attempt it but the writer has to paint the story in such a way that I can believe what I'm being sold even if it's in the realm of the unbelievable.  I need the author to provide me the setting and the story in such a way that it becomes believable in spite of all other evidence.  Sadly this just didn't happen with this book.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz  I really did not like this book.  It started out grabbing my attention but it never really went anywhere.  It tells the story of a Dominican American family, mostly through the perspective or story line of the main character Oscar Wao.  Wao is an obese teenager living in New Jersey as a first generation American and caught between his mothers Dominican culture and his American culture as a teen going through adolescence.  We follow Wao through his tumultuous adolescence along with his older sister and their mother and various family members and friends along the way.  The writing was actually very good but for me the story never went anywhere.  Overall I was disappointed and still am not sure of what the author was trying to convey, a message that should be very clear to the reader.

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton  Love this author and her ability to guide you through her works exactly at the pace she wants you to go at.  This story is of a mother with two children who is at a field day with her children when the school they go to is caught on fire.  She finds her young son quickly is safe but realizes her older daughter helping in the nursing office is still in the building.  Both she and the daughter are badly burned and taken to the hospital.  Her husband is a TV media star and therefor very much in the public eye.  As both the mother and daughter attempt to recover an investigation into the reasons for why the fire, deemed an arson, was started.  The cool part though is that the entire story is told through the perspective of the mother as a narrator as she is in a coma in the hospital.  Both she and the daughter's spirits? souls? whatever are able to communicate and move about and hear conversations about the investigation as their bodies lie in the hospital beds.  Normally this is not the type of book I would have loved and enjoyed reading, but the author made this supernatural idea believable and as a reader I was immediately involved in the suspense and how the book would turn out for each of the characters.  Have yet to be disappointed with anything I read by this author.

Quotes:  "What must it be like to hold someone's life in your hands?  How heavy Jenny's must be for him, weighted with our love for her."  "When I was twenty weeks pregnant with Jenny, I found out that her ovaries were already formed.  Inside our unborn baby daughter were our potential grandchildren (or at least the part of us that would be a part of them).  I felt the future curled up inside me, my body a Russian doll of time."

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister  So far all the books I've read by this author flow in the same style.  Some main central storyline and then lots of stories radiating out from it.  In this one there is a chef in a restaurant who hosts a cooking school once a month.  Each new chapter tells the story of one of the students in the cooking school.  I liked the book enough but the trouble for me is that the story just isn't memorable enough.  Just as soon as you start to like a character and want to see what happens with them, their story wraps up quickly and on to the next.  Overall though these books are good for lighthearted quick easy reads which I will continue to use them as.

Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min  This is a historical fiction piece about the life of China's Madame Mao.  The book is divided in three parts telling the reader of the childhood, early adulthood, and finally years as Madame Mao.  I hadn't really known much about this piece of Chinese history before reading this book and was fascinated by the Madame Mao character.  I had to keep reminding myself that even though this was a fictionalized account, the main character was in fact a real woman in history.  It was a little easier for me as a reader who didn't have as much knowledge into this piece of history, to follow the story as I think the author wanted the reader to.  We are given a glimpse into the future and the ultimate end of Madame Mao before being taken all the way back to her childhood.  It's easy to sympathize with the character as well as continue to wonder how she will end up with her future husband and at her ultimate end.  The one gripe I had with this book was that it was divided into small chunks with breaks in between and at each break the tense would change.  At first this was an interesting way of adding history in with the first person account but after awhile it became a bit too much to follow when the main character was speaking and when we as readers were hearing from an unknown narrator.

April- 5

History of a Suicide My Sister's Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky   This book has been on my list for awhile.  Unfortunately I couldn't find it at my local library (grrrrr) so I finally bought it.  I had forgotten, or perhaps didn't realize to begin with, that it took place in the same city I grew up in.  It is the true account told from the perspective of a woman who's sister completed suicide.  The youngest sister in a family of four sisters and single mother took her own life and years later the author is trying to convey how this has shaped her adulthood, and made her rethink her childhood.  It was very fitting to my profession, particularly my current job, and also struck a personal note in the familiarity of the childhood memories at least as far as setting.  The sisters in the book are decades older then me but it was so easy to picture everything that took place on streets in the same neighborhoods I grew up in.  I learned a lot and though I am a mental health professional, it was very educational to hear from the perspective of a stable family member who had suffered this loss.  The book is well written but also pretty sad, possibly not for the average reader looking for something light.  

Some great information I learned and some favorite quotes:   "in patients who had committed suicide, they had 30 percent more of the specific serotonin receptor called the 5 HT 2 A receptor" "How are we to know why at one moment someone's anguish is so overwhelming she can't get out of bed?  Why on the next day that same person seems to have found the spark of life again?"  "Time doesn't really heal, it only makes living more bearable."  "Fear that if we do not locate the time and place, the exact moment along the way where our loved one became unhinged, someone else we love will end his or her life and once again we'll be blindsided?"

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult  The best part about March for me is that it means a new Picoult book is out.  Didn't get my copy until this month instead but it was worth the wait.  I must say though she is one of my favorites, I had been a little disappointed with the last few novels of hers that I read.  I am very glad I didn't give up on her though.  This one was incredible.  It tells the story of a young woman who has suffered a personal tragedy and has since taken to being a loner.  She finds a friend in a much older gentleman who then confides in her the reason he became friends with her was so that he could ask her to assist in killing him.  He also confesses he was a Nazi in WWII.  To complicate this matter the girl's grandmother is a concentration camp survivor.  The book is divided up, as most of Picoult's are, and we hear from many narrators.  The middle section of the story is told from the grandmother's point of view and goes into harrowing detail of the terrible events that she endured.  I'm still, almost a full moth later, uncertain on the ending of the story but I also see why the author left it the way she did.  Overall a very powerful and emotional story and well worth reading.

Quotes:" 'It's a great city,' I say automatically, although I do not entirely believe this.  The traffic is insane, and there's a protest every other day about some cause, which quickly stops being idealistic and starts being a pain in the neck when you need to get somewhere in a timely fashion and all the roads are blocked off."  "How dare you tell me this, when I lived it?  How dare you erase my life just like that?"  "When you are too young to think for yourself, you are baptized and taken to church and droned at by a priest and told that Jesus died for your sins, and since your parents nod and say this is true, why should you not believe them?" "You can struggle against the isolation, or you can give yourself up to it."  "I do not believe in God.  But sitting there, in a room full of those who feel otherwise, I realize that I do believe in people.  In their strength to help each other, and to thrive in spite of the odds.  I believe the extraordinary trumps the ordinary, any day.  I believe that having something to hope for- even if it's just a better tomorrow- is the most powerful drug on the planet."  "You do not understand... You are asking me to poke a hole in a dam, because you are thirsty, even though I will end up drowning in the process."  "It's as if, now that they have something good in their lives, they cannot bear to see it go."  "...even when she became collateral damage, she believed in the power of the human spirit. She gave when she had nothing; she fought when she could barely stand; she clung to tomorrow when she couldn't find footing on the rock ledge of yesterday... She became whomever she needed to be to survive, but she never let anyone else define her."  "But forgiving isn't something you do for someone else.  It's something you do for yourself.  It's saying, You're not important enough to have  stranglehold on me.  It's saying, You don't get to trap me in the past.  I am worthy of a future."  "If you end your story, it's a static work of art, a finite circle.  But if you don't, it belongs to anyones imagination.  It stays alive forever."

When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe  What a book.  This story takes place in the Philippines at the end of WWII with the Americans and Japanese still fighting on the land.  The story begins with a family and community members taking shelter in the family's basement and trying to survive with little to no food.  Several family members leave the shelter and risk their lives to find food. In between pages of absolute horror and violence during the war, there are chapters woven in of folklore legends told through narrators in the basement and sharing lessons of courage and hope to keep everyone going through such a terrible time.  I loved the graphic details the author wrote about the outside world, and the tender magical story telling that took place in between.  They provided such a unique contrast that kept me turning the pages.  Though the story has many tragedies along the way, you root for the family and the community in hiding throughout and even knowing there will be tragedy I was still saddened by the losses they endured.  

Night of Many Dreams by Gail Tsukiyama  This is the story of two young sisters living in Hong Kong as WWII breaks out.  The story follows the lives of the girls from young adolescence during the war to 

young adulthood.  We as readers get to follow the girls through a variety of cultures as the move, first for safety and then later on along the paths their lives take them.  We follow the family as the parents and close aunt grow older as well and how their lives change based on what happens with the girls.  I liked the book enough though I didn't feel like it matched with what the jacket said.  I also didn't like that in parts of the book a new piece of the plot would be opened up but then closed up immediately and not really explored which made it seem then that it wasn't really necessary to the story.  

Water Witches by Chris Bohjalian  Very interesting story.  One of this authors shorter novels but I enjoyed it as I usually enjoy his writing.  The narrator is a father with a young daughter who inherited the ability to find water sources underground.  Though his wife/her mother is also able to do this his sister in law is talented with additional abilities in tune with nature.  The story takes place in a small Vermont town which thrives on it's ski industry.  The narrator is an attorney working for the ski industry to be able to expand and continue to grow but caught between his job and his family since this expansion would cause environmental concern in the area.  Since his wife, daughter, and most of the wife's family are so in tune with nature/environment this causes conflict.  I learned a lot about the practice of water divining that I did not know even existed.  I also really liked that throughout the book you got a strong sense of the characters love and affection for his young daughter.  This father's love is what gives the story direction.

March 5

Wild Ginger by Anchee Min  I've always enjoyed reading book about other cultures.  I read all of Lisa See's books not too long ago and have since been missing that cultural aspect.  So I searched a bit for similar authors and was able to find this author and this book at my local library.  I did like that the book took place in the late 60s early 70s in China during the cultural revolution.  I liked learning about the cultural and historical aspects of this time period.  Overall I wish I had started with another of Min's books because while I liked the writing I didn't particularly enjoy the plot line.  A young girl coming of age during this tumultuous time and her only friend at school meet a young man that attempts to help them in this difficult time.  Of course a sort of love triangle develops in a culture that does not value love at that time in history.  The story was interesting enough and kept me turning the pages but perhaps I had too high expectations since I still found it to be lacking.

The Lolita Effect by M. Gigi Durham  This non fiction book has been on my list for some time.  The author provides her perspective on the media and it's sexualization of, especially young, girls.  The author takes us through reasons why girls are sexualized and various cultural differences around the world.  I liked the informative research provided, what I didn't like was that it felt like the whole book was telling us as readers we shouldn't be allowing this instead of accepting the reality we do live in.  It seemed to me that she was advocating for radical change rather then education.  Then at the end of the book she stated the opposite that she realized the culture and times we lived in but that by being informed users we could make choices as parents and consumers through education.  It was a bit of a confusing message at least to me.

Eight Girls Taking Pictures by Whitney Otto-  This book was not on my list but I saw the picture of the old camera on the front of the novel and the title and got sucked in to putting it in my bag.  I really liked the book but it is advertised as a novel, says it on the front cover, but more so seemed like a collection of short stories to me.  In any case each section is narrated by a different character but all have a love of photography in common.  The stories are told throughout the 20th century with each woman having to make choices about the sacrifices she will or will not make to further herself in life.  I loved reading the different stories from different years and across the globe.  I loved the vivid way the author captured each characters story.

"Nothing was fixed.  Nothing is any one thing really, and isn't that the beauty of it all?"

Book Four will not be blogged about.

Dupont Circle by Paul Kafka-Gibbons  I picked this book up at the library simply based on the title and my recent move.  Little did I know when I picked it up how timely it would be for last month.  The story is told through many characters voices but all center around a DC family and several of it's members.  The oldest member of the family is a judge and his wife has died and he is in need of new company and continuing to advance his career.  Another set of characters is his son and his son's partner who want to marry but are not allowed to legally at the time.  The judge is hearing a case about gay marriage and has to pass a decision on the case.  His son and his son's partner are also the parents to two young children born to his daughter who is unable to care for them due to her prevalent mental illness.  While I liked reading the book and hearing about now familiar places to me, since the book was published in 2002 thankfully the gay marriage issue has moved much further forward and hopefully will continue to do so.  Because of this though, the book seemed to be timely but is really too far in the past already to be as timely today given how much this issue has changed recently.  I liked the book though and do not regret reading it and it served it's purpose as far as why I took it off the shelf to begin with.

February 5

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn  I have to start by saying I threw this book on the ground when I finished reading it, that's how into I got and how frustrated I was with it.  This was the first book I read by this author after repeatedly hearing from others that I must read it.  It was very good.  I love the author now and really respect her way of writing and leading you as a reader exactly where she wants you to go and think.  This story was of a married couple who recently moved back to the husband's hometown leaving behind their former Manhattan lives.  It is clear the marriage has become an unhappy one and we begin with the book being narrated by the wife and then start alternating in various sections back and forth between the wife and the husband.  The wife goes missing by the end of the first section of the book and the rest of the book takes us back and forth from former days in the relationships to the present day potential murder case.  Warning for this book, just as soon as you have it all figured out, guess what, you don't.  Flynn is remarkable at moving you along with the book and getting you to think you've solved the mystery and then throwing huge surprising curveballs.

"And it's so far beyond fine that you know you can never go back to fine.  That fast.  You think: Oh, here is the rest of my life.  It's finally arrived."

"Maybe that is what I like best about him, the way he makes me.  Not makes me feel, just makes me."
difficult era to be a real perosn, how to be real again

Promises to Keep by Jane Green  I'm not certain I understood the plot here.  I get it that one of the main characters had cancer and we earn this early on and then continue on with what is happening for her and her family and friends as a result of this.  That being said, I didn't feel like the book went anywhere.    I understood as a reader that I was following the life of two sisters and some of their women friends.  We learned about different choices woman make as far as career and children and family.  But I'm still not sure what the author's message was.  I like Jane Green and her novels are usually good for a quick light hearted story, but I'm starting to feel like there are a lot of repetitive story lines and not a good clear story being produced in some of the books.  May need to take a break from her books.

The Bright Side of Disaster by Katherine Center  Really didn't like this book.  The writing wasn't bad, or I wouldn't have finished it, but the concept was cool but then went romance novel very quickly.  A young woman is pregnant and right before she is due to have the baby the baby's father, her fiance, leaves her.  For awhile we watch her pick herself up and enter single motherhood with courage but then the book becomes about her next relationship rather then continuing on with her independence.  Not the overall message I was looking for.

Rape A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates  Loved this story.  It wasn't an easy read even though it was a quick one.  As someone who has heard numerous women's rape stories this fictional woman's story was hard to read through.  A woman and her daughter are walking home through a park after a July 4th celebration and she is gang raped by a group of men in her neighborhood.  The story tells the aftermath for both the victim and her daughter.  Though justice is not served through typical court justice, the story also follows the cop who was a first responder to the scene and how he connects to the victim and her family.  I love JCO and her work and this one did not disappoint.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn  Really growing to like this author.  This novel followed a young woman returning home as a journalist after many years of being away.  The young woman is a former cutter who used to carve words into her skin.  She does not have a good relationship with her mother or her half sibling or step father.  Her mother and her have not been able to get along well since her younger sister died many years ago.  The main character has to come of age all over again in returning to her childhood roots and having to confront all that she left behind.  This story was a little easier to predict then the other novel by the same author that I read, but possibly only because of my own career choices.  I really like how Flynn paints the story for us as readers and how difficult it is to put down her books because of that.

January-6

The Group by Mary McCarthy  This book was referred to in another book I was reading and I got curious about it.  It tells the story of 8 women who recently graduated from college in the 1930s and shows the paths their lives begin to take.  I found it to be an excellent piece of feminist literature and quite shocking for it's intended audience as it was published in the early 60s.  I really related to the women each trying to find their own path and see where their lives would take them.  Each of them in their own way had their own hopes and dreams and they were living in a time where it wasn't an easy task to get those wants met.  It was odd to read about women in a much different era but facing many of the same issues today's women face.  It was easy to relate to the idea of wanting to keep your college friends but getting lost in your career, marriage, and family choices.  It was also sad to read about the challenges they faced and the loses that they endured.  Overall I'm certain it didn't have the impact on me that it would have had if I had been around to read it when it was first released, but I still found it to be a great read.  I also see the influence it has had on other writers who write about women's friendships throughout the life course and how they grow and change.

This is how You Lose Her by Junot Diaz This is a collection of short stories all following the main character, Yunior.  There are 9 short stories all telling of/about love.  The author shares stories of family love, love for one's country of origin, romantic love, and the mistakes sometimes made in romantic love and the consequences those mistakes can have.  The book was a little too vulgar for my taste at times but I appreciated that it wasn't vulgar for the sake of being vulgar but as a way to explore the main character in a real way.  There were stories I liked better than others but throughout I liked the authors writing style.  I also think the book started strong and ended strong but I got lost a little in the middle stories.  I also think since 8 of the 9 stories included the main character and the other one hinted at his involvement in the story, the book may have been better as a sequential novel rather than a fragmented short story book.  The stories jumped around a bit and made it a little confusing.  That being said I liked the authors style and added his other two books to my to read list.

"Okay, we didn't work, and all memories to tell you the truth aren't good.  But sometimes there were good times.  Love was good.  I loved your crooked sleep beside me and never dreamed afraid.  There should be stars for great wars like ours."  Sandra Cisneros opening quote
"Ana Iris once asked me if I loved him and I told her about the lights in my old home in the capital, how they flickered and you never knew if they would go out or not.  You put down your things and you waited and couldn't do anything really until the lights decided.  This, I told her, is how I feel."

No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel  This was an excellent book.  I've gotten quite behind on my blog writing but even 3 months later I still vividly remember this book.  The author narrates in such a detailed way it would be difficult to forget.  The story is of an isolated Jewish town in Romania starting during WWII.  The town reinvents itself in order to keep the bigger world out and is successful at doing so for some time.  Eventually the two worlds collide though and the main characters face many hardships and challenges.  The writing in this book was excellent and I am sad this was the author's first novel as I don't have other books of hers yet to add to my "to read" list.

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick  I only added this book to my never ending "to read" list after seeing the movie.  I happened upon the movie by chance and I absolutely loved it and saw how it would make a great book.  I think this is the first time in a long time that I liked a movie more than the book it was based on!  The book is more or less the same storyline of the movie but with some key differences that really change the tone of the novel.  The story still revolves around a 30 something year old man with Bipolar disorder that is getting out of a mental institution.  There is still a love story in the middle of it all and also the story of the man reintegrating into society after his life has had such a dramatic change.  The title is made more clear in the book and the family dynamics are explored much more as well.  Overall the book wasn't bad and if I hadn't had such a great experience with the movie it may have met my expectations but since I was really counting on it being great it just didn't satisfy me as much as the trumped up Hollywood version did.

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy  This book confused me.  I guess it was passed on a story from some years ago and may have had more meaning if I had known what it was based on.  The story follows a family visiting France and is told through several of the main characters voices.  There is a young girl who is the daughter of a couple and then several neighbors and friends staying with the family.  There is also a young woman who is involved in each of their lives.  It was a short read but a bit confusing to follow and I'm not entirely sure what message the author was trying to convey was.

Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman  This book is a collection of short stories with human characters as narrators but each story has animal characters as well which are important to each story in a unique way.  The human characters are struggling and sharing their stories of the struggle they are facing.  The animal characters are important to each story and for some stories bring in some happiness where there is only sadness.  The reader learns unique facts about the animals as we are learning about the human characters and making connections of similarities.  As both a book lover and animal lover this book was such a great read for me.  It was also the first time in awhile that I read a book of short stories where I felt the author did a good job of closing the stories individually.  For the most part each story had the right amount of writing to get you interested but also to give you closure where you weren't constantly looking elsewhere in the book for the character's chapter to return to be closed in a better way.

"I want to fix everything.  I want him to know nothing but gentle landings.  I don't want him to know that people like Louis's mom exist, that people fall into land mines of pain and can't crawl back out."

"Mother's, I believe, intoxicate us.  We idolize them and take them for granted.  We hate them and blame them and exalt them more thoroughly than anyone else in our lives.  We sift through the evidence of their love, reassure ourselves of their affection and its biological genesis.  We can steal and lie and leave and they will love us."

2012- 77

Well year end update:  November/December were very disappointing numbers but I must say I started a new job and I'm not that surprised I had so little time to read.  Hopefully 2013 will start off on a better reading note.  This year has been full of so much change.  Change that has also affected all my reading.  I have fallen in love with my new city, but have yet to fall in love with any of the libraries it has to offer *sigh*  But I'm making do with what I have and I'm thankful for where I am now after all this adjusting and changing.

In looking back over the list of all the books I read this year I read a lot of series: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Hunger Games, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.  I also read a lot of "Jewish" stories, Unorthodox, The Outside World, The Ladies Auxiliary, The Jew Store.  I always love looking back over the list and seeing the stories that really stuck with me, The Submission (a 9/11 memorial story), The Night Circus (such a visual story, and one I hope to see made into a movie), The Language of Flowers (a unique story), I Know this Much is True (a family dealing with mental health issues novel), Amaryllis in Blueberry (A great new author I had never read before), Between Shades of Gray (A Lithuanian novel that took me back to my roots).  I seem to have repeated authors a lot too, Lisa See, Deborah Copaken Kogan, Joyce Carol Oates, Lionel Shriver, Tova Mirvis, Christina Meldrum, Jane Green, Marisa de los Santos, J Courtney Sullivan, Rebecca Miller.

Overall I'll take the 77, it's a way better number then last year and although there are some I might trade out for better books I think overall I read a good combination of light hearted books and heavier novels.    2013 may see me as more of a book buyer then borrower but no matter where I get the books from, I'll continue to always have a book on me no matter where I am...

-L

December 2

The Jew Store by Stella Suberman  Great true story of the only Jews in a small southern community in the 1920s.  This story shared by the youngest daughter of the family shares her parents background and how they came to own a "Jew Store" in the community she was raised in.  The story had many interesting stories from the authors childhood but was not quite what I expected to be reading about.  Also throughout the story the author references an incident she will get to later as though there is a major plot twist to be expected.  This turn did not end up happening until very close to the end and was given only a few paragraphs of space which seemed odd given the build up.  Overall not a bad read but I'm still a little confused on what the overall message of the book was meant to be.

So Much for That by Lionel Shriver This is the story of a man who has always dreamed of retiring early in life and moving away to an amazing place with his wife.  Through circumstance his big dream has never come to be.  The day he decides to make it happen no matter what, and buys plane tickets for himself, his wife, and his high school age son, he shares his plan with his wife only to find out that she needs him to stay because she needs his insurance due to being diagnosed with a rare cancer.  For whatever reason it always takes me a minute to get into this authors books but I always end up really liking what I find when I stick with it.  This story shared what happens in families when things don't always go the way you want/think/hope they will.  There was also an interesting political background in how the health care system fails and how employers really hold such a key to our family members care.  This was also compared to other cultures and what they value and how things can be different in other parts of the world.  Overall a great book with some odd twists and turns but with an amazing ending that did a good job closing the characters story lines.

November 3

My Husband's Sweethearts by Bridget Asher
This was an interesting plot line.  A woman who's husband cheated on her returns home to take care of him as he is suffering from a terminal illness.  The first night she returns home she drinks too much and decides she shouldn't have to do this alone and calls all his ex girlfriends to let them know he is dying and they need to come help too.  It's a really funny first few chapters as the mess gets sorted out but some of the exes do show up to say their goodbyes and get their closure.  Which leads to lots of stories along the way of both ways that the husband helped and hindered their lives.  The woman also realizes her husband has a grown son whom she and he have never met but that he has been sending money to all his life.  He now as part of his dying wish wants to meet this son.  I liked the unique story line which is what originally draw me to this light hearted book, but I didn't like the romance novel turn it took very quickly and predictably.  Overall though it was an easy quick read with lots of laughs.

Some quotes I liked from the book:  "There is a blurry line between love and hate."  "Sometimes it's hard to figure out what happens when your eyes are wide open."  "...because women know how to survive.  It's what we do.  We have more inner strength, and all those years that men thought they were superior, it wasn't true.  It was something we allowed them to believe, because they're weak.  And then women's lib came along- and don't get me wrong, I love women's lib- but they messed up the whole charade."  "Well, they say I tried to fix them or change them and that I made a promise to them, and the promise is what would make their lives better.  The promises made them feel, well, safe, for example.  And when I failed them or betrayed them, they ended up with two problems instead of one or I made the one problem worse.  It's always complicated." "We are the stories we tell and stories we don't tell."  "The difference between breaking down and breaking open is sometimes so slight it's imperceptible."  "And sometimes you can be brought back to yourself, whole"

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

This is a story of four women who met in college and what happens after graduation as they move forward into the "real world."  It was an interesting story, with each chapter switching between one of the four main characters as narrators.  The women are all very different and I'm not certain if they would have become friends anywhere other then in a fictional world.  But perhaps just having a small all female college in common is enough to form a bond even among unlike characters.  Throughout the book even as the characters have less and less in common as they mature into adults, they still stick by their original friendships.  Through weddings and pregnancies and major life events we get to go back in the past and see how the friendships formed and we also see in the present how "bonded for life" the women are.

Some quotes I liked from the book: "With the Smithies, it was different.  There was sometimes no telling where one of them began and the others left off."
"Sometimes April worried that she'd been built without some fundamental piece that everyone else had that just let them deal... But the evil in the world, everywhere you looked, was always on April's mind"
"They recognized that they were the first generation of women whose struggle with choice had nothing to do with getting it and everything to do with having too much of it- there were so many options that it felt impossible and exhausting to pick the right ones."
"It amazed her how chemical a feeling love could be, how it could take hold of you even when you had come to despise its object."

Where We Belong by Emily Giffin

This is the story of a woman in her mid 30s with a great career but still working on her love life.  And the story of an almost 18 year old woman trying to figure out where she came from.  The older woman has kept a secret from everyone in her life, except her mother, about having a child and giving that child away in her teens.  Needless to say the 18 year old turns out to be her daughter and the story goes back and forth between the two women as narrators sharing their unique coming of age stories.  I liked the mostly realistic story line of the this novel and the focus on the two main female characters.  I didn't like some of the romance novelish stuff that got thrown in towards the end.  Overall though I think the author did a good job sharing a storyline that hasn't been explored that much.  I've read a lot of non-fiction on adoption stories and seen a bit on finding birth parents later in life, but this fictionalized story brought out real emotion in a fictional setting.