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.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
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.
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.
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.
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