Beyond Belief by Jenna Miscavige Hill What a story. This book is the true story of the niece of the current head of scientology. She has left the group as an adult but grew up in the church and shares her personal story of a childhood stolen from her and of her transition to the outside world. I haven't been a fan of scientology and have felt it was borderline cult for some time. After reading this book I am more then ever convinced of what a terrible group this is. It is worrisome to think that people get sucked in to this belief system and made me sad to think about what the believers had to gain from joining this group. I truly am impressed at the courage this woman had to speak out and share her story and her family's story. She has survived quite an ordeal and I hope she can now lead a more peaceful adult life.
The Pretty One by Lucinda Rosenfeld It's possible my expectations for this book were too high. I felt disappointed as it has been on my list for some time and I really thought based on what I had heard about it and read in the reviews that it would be great. The story is about 3 sisters and their roles in their family system. We follow them as adults struggling to help their aging parents and manage their own lives. I liked the writers style but I just felt the story was a little flat. It seemed to have potential but never really went anywhere for me. I got invested in the characters because the author gave so much to them, but took much time explaining them and suddenly the book had ended. Overall not a bad read but I think I just missed the point and for me the book wasn't that memorable.
Wish You Were Here by Stewart O'Nan I like this author and hadn't read a book of his in awhile. This one has also been on my list for some time. It's the story of a family returning to their summer cottage for one last time. The family matriarch, Emily, has decided to sell now that her children are grown up, her grandkids are getting older, and she has been widowed. With her two grown children and four grandchildren and sister in law she heads to the cottage one last time to say goodbye. The book is narrated by each member of the family at different points and is broken into sections by days of the week that they are at the cottage. I liked the different narrators especially given that their were 3 generations of the family at the house. The sister in law also had her own memories of her childhood coming to the cottage with her brother and parents as it was their family cottage which gave the environment more dimension as well. The cottage was located on a lake in a small town that was going through it's own changes with developments and closings of pastime favorites such as the local mini golf course. The family is going through it's own growing pains with each member of the family reliving their memories in the cottage at different stages in their lives. We also see each member of the family evaluating their futures and what their family will look like without the patriarch and what that means for each family member.
Something else interesting to me is that we first meet Emily, the matriarch, as narrator and the author aligns the reader with the character but from that point forward you get a negative representation of this character from each other member of the family. It's clear they love her as their sister in law, mother, grandmother but it's also clear they all have issues with her personality. I found myself wondering throughout the book about this deliberate choice by the author. Overall I really liked the story and the growth of each character. I think the decision to only follow the family for one week was a good one but also left me as the reader wanting to know more but on the last hand just made so much sense in terms of what the author was trying to convey to us as readers.
Jeneration X by Jen Lancaster This author has been on my list for some time, not sure how she got on it. I liked the book enough, it's her own take on becoming an adult after already being one in age for some years. I liked her personal stories and I loved the sarcasm and the humor. I guess my problem is that it's about a month later that I'm writing this and I can't quite remember the book that well. It was basically a rant on things in life that bother the author and it was cute but it just had no real substance to it. I'm willing to give her another shot though and try another of her books because while I may not remember exactly what I read, I do remember smiling and laughing throughout the book which is telling in a different way.
The Week Before the Wedding by Beth Kendrick Again not my best pick. I must stop getting sucked in just because the word "wedding" is on a book. This was the story of a woman about to marry for the second time but running into her first husband during her wedding week. It was way too romance novel and unbelievable and over the top for me. The twist and turns didn't really make sense and I didn't really like the direction the author was steering us in as readers. The book was very predictable and just really didn't hold my attention throughout. It takes a lot for me to stop reading a book once I've started and while I didn't do that here, I was glad when I was done reading the book.
Left Neglected by Lisa Genova Really liking this author lately and her writing style. This book was about a high powered career woman balancing family and work until a tragic accident leaves her no choice but to focus on herself. She is in a bad car accident and while she survives she has a traumatic brain injury that literally leaves her neglected the left, hence the title. I had no idea this condition existed, while this book was fiction this condition is very real and was so interesting to read about. When the narrator wakes from the accident she can't see or feel or understand the existence of left. It was such a hard concept to grasp at first and I found myself throughout the book really trying to think about what this would mean for an individual and how it would feel to have this condition. While I liked the way the story was told and the forced reevaluation of life and having to go with the changes this accident made happen for the narrator, I disliked the eventual end of the book. It got a little too predictable and I wish it had gone in a different direction. The other thing I liked was the underlying story of the narrators own family history and the way the accident helped her to repair her relationship with her own mother.
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian This book was scary. I don't usually do scary. You will not find me at a scary movie. You will not even find me at home watching a scary movie. I really like this author so even though this book was a ghost story I still added it to my list. It also seemed to me from reading what it was about that it would be more suspenseful and borderline witch crafty then as ghost story as it was. It's the story of an airplane captain who's plan crashes into a lake when birds fly into the engines and he attempts to land the plan like Sully Sullenberger did on the Hudson river. His attempt however is not successful and 39 of the 40 something passengers die. The captain and his family move from their suburban home to a small town in the mountains to give him a peaceful place to recover from the trauma. He has a wife and twin young daughters who move with him. The house they find is an old house that needs work and that used to be the home of a set of twin boys, one of whom is thought to have killed himself in his teens. The basement has a locked door with 39 carriage bolt locks. The town also has "herbalists" who the reader soon finds out are thought to be witches.
It was a complex story and it took awhile to merge the two stories together. The story of the airplane captain dealing with his trauma and the story of the family moving to a new town and the potential influence of witchcraft. I really liked each story separately but felt that even once they merged together it turned in a direction I was not expecting, nor wanting the story to go. I also hated the ending. I had predicted a different ending and perhaps got caught in that and then when the story took a different route I was significantly disappointed. I do think though the author did a great job telling a ghost story and keeping the reader guessing and in suspense the entire way through the book.
Friday, January 10, 2014
November- 9
The Concubine's Children by Denise Chong I like this author and reading about the Asian culture. I did not realize however when picking up this book that this was a non fiction work of her's telling her family's story. Her mother was the child of a her grandfather and his concubine, her grandmother. She shares the story of their marriage and her mother's childhood and then her own eventual birth and relationship with her parents and grandparents. I liked how the story wove it's way through several generations and countries with both a wife in China and a wife in Vancouver Canada. It was interesting to see the effects of multiple wives on a family and to face the reality of how it led to consequences across several generations. Though this book wasn't quite what I expected to be getting, I like this author and appreciated her willingness to share her family's deeply personal story.
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn Love this author. Love the ability she has to keep you guessing as a reader. Just as you think, here's what will happen next, it goes in a totally different direction. This author's ability to keep me turning the pages almost literally from start to finish is just amazing. The plot of this story was about a young woman who's family was murdered when she was a young child. She and her brother are the only survivors, her mother and sisters were found dead. Her father was in and out of the picture but was somehow cleared and her brother is charged with the murders and has been in jail since he was a teen and she was a small child. She testified against him as a small child. Now years later the money she collected as a child from generous people who felt bad for what happened to her is running out and she isn't sure what she will do as she has never been able to be a productive member of society.
She get's an offer from a club that investigates high profile cases and is able to make money by helping them to reinvestigate the murder case of her family since the public opinion seems to be that her brother was innocent. As she continues to stir up her past and unbury memories she had kept away for years she has to confront her past and what it will mean for her future. I loved the book but really did not like the ending. Although I was kept guessing the whole time and liked that it was unpredictable it just didn't seem realistic for me.
Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani I'm not sure if I realized when I put this book on my list that it was non fiction. I don't know how I could have missed that part of it but I either did or I forgot. It's the story of Identical twins, both creative and one who struggles with addiction. The author's sister, Cara, is raped and sinks back into her drug addiction until she unfortunately loses the battle to death. This is the story of both the sisters and also of the author trying to continue living her life when her twin's life has stopped. I found the family relationships, addiction, and trauma pieces extremely fascinating. I found myself asking questions I never would have thought of as I was reading through the book about the relationships we form with others. Losses are not measurable, but I cannot imagine the pain and suffering the author has gone through with living without her twin, and I so appreciated the author's brutal honesty in sharing her unique story.
A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama I'm still torn on this book. I liked the various stories within the story but also found it hard to follow and feel like if the author had focused in more on a central plot it would have been easier to follow. The book changes narrators frequently which added to the several stories happening at once and confusion of following. The story takes place in the late 1950s in China during the Mao years. The country is asked to provide new ideas and thought but then punished for doing so. One man who is punished is the father in the story who is imprisoned far from the family. His young son, a year into his imprisonment, climbs a tree in the front of the house and falls out badly injuring himself. The story then shares what each family member and a close family friend is experiencing and remembering during this changing time in their country. We hear the story of the grandfather of the story and his guilt for what is the climax of the story. We hear the story of the family friend and how she came to be involved with the family and her past story which has allowed her to later in life understand the meaning of family. We hear from the mother who has the burden of worrying about her son's injury and also about the whereabouts of her husband and what his imprisonment means for their family as a whole. We also hear hear from the son himself and see the confusion of a young child missing his father and having his whole world turned upside down. Overall I always like this author's way of writing, I'm just not sure this is or will be my most favorite of her books.
Smart Girls Like Me by Diane Vadino I can see why I added this book to my list but I think it must have been added years ago when I was in a very different place in my life. The plot is about a woman fearing disaster at the end of 1999 as we cross into 2000. The woman's best friend is getting married and she is not even in a relationship at the time. They are living in New York in their mid 20s and working on figuring out who they are and what they want out of life. I felt for the character's anxiety of losing friendships to marriages and being left out. I liked the literal "world is ending" timing. And I found the book and it's characters funny and easy to sympathize with. For me though, this is a book I should have read years ago when it was easier to relate. Now, having been through several friends weddings and in the middle of planning my own, I just couldn't relate on the same level anymore.
Carry The One by Carol Anshaw What an amazing concept for a story. This story follows the lives of a group of family and friends united in one tragic event. One of the sisters in the family gets married and as her sister and brother and 3 friends leave the wedding in their car to return to the city they collide with a child who unfortunately dies. The story then follows all of their lives, the sister who was not in the car and the siblings that were over the next several decades and shows how this one moment in their young lives changes the course of the future. The story moved fast, packing 30ish years into some 250ish pages. With very minor confusion the story flowed pretty well in spite of how much time was going by. Through births, deaths, love, life they are all carrying this incident with them no matter what happens. I really liked the concept and the story lines could have gone in so many directions but for the most part I found the ways they did go to be successful and realistic for the characters. Definitely adding more books from this author to my list.
Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella So I'm in the midst of planning my own wedding and while I'm trying not to get so caught up in that that I lose sight of, well, everything else, I seem to recently have an eye drawn to anything wedding related, books of course included. I also have read this author in the past and while I haven't thought her works to be great pieces of fiction they do serve a simple purpose. The story is about two sisters, the younger one who thought she was being proposed to but was asked on a trip abroad. She then runs into an old boyfriend with whom she had a pact to marry at age 30 if neither had married by then. They decide to marry, quickly, and her older sister spends the book trying to prevent this from happening. The story was just too cutesy for me and over the top. It needed to be reined it but just kept more and more silly.
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min What a story. The author did a fantastic job of really painting such a picture for the reader using her words. The story is about a young girl who goes from being any young girl to the last empress of China. We are taken on the ride as she goes through the process of becoming one of hundreds of concubines to empress. The forbidden city details from her entering the city to it's total destruction are incredible. I also enjoyed reading about the good and bad of the relationships the concubines had with one another. The one part of the book that got a little confusing was that it took place over so much time. This made it a little difficult to follow at different points but it was easy enough to catch up as the author guided the reader through. I'm fairly certain this is a two book series and am looking forward to reading the next book.
Ninety Days by Bill Clegg I really liked this book. It's the true story of the author after getting clean and sober and struggling to stay that way. It shares his efforts to stay clean and sober for 90 days. We follow the author as he struggles to find a place to live, meet new social supports, and fight the hardest battle, to stay away from alcohol and drugs. What I liked was the honesty the author was willing to share with the reader. We don't get a rosy version of his first 90 days and the happy life he leads after he is clean. We get the gritty details of the struggle and the slip ups that occur that lead to having to restart the count to 90 days. We also get to know other "characters" that the author meets at his NA meetings who are going through similar struggles and see from the author's perspective their storeis as well.
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn Love this author. Love the ability she has to keep you guessing as a reader. Just as you think, here's what will happen next, it goes in a totally different direction. This author's ability to keep me turning the pages almost literally from start to finish is just amazing. The plot of this story was about a young woman who's family was murdered when she was a young child. She and her brother are the only survivors, her mother and sisters were found dead. Her father was in and out of the picture but was somehow cleared and her brother is charged with the murders and has been in jail since he was a teen and she was a small child. She testified against him as a small child. Now years later the money she collected as a child from generous people who felt bad for what happened to her is running out and she isn't sure what she will do as she has never been able to be a productive member of society.
She get's an offer from a club that investigates high profile cases and is able to make money by helping them to reinvestigate the murder case of her family since the public opinion seems to be that her brother was innocent. As she continues to stir up her past and unbury memories she had kept away for years she has to confront her past and what it will mean for her future. I loved the book but really did not like the ending. Although I was kept guessing the whole time and liked that it was unpredictable it just didn't seem realistic for me.
Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani I'm not sure if I realized when I put this book on my list that it was non fiction. I don't know how I could have missed that part of it but I either did or I forgot. It's the story of Identical twins, both creative and one who struggles with addiction. The author's sister, Cara, is raped and sinks back into her drug addiction until she unfortunately loses the battle to death. This is the story of both the sisters and also of the author trying to continue living her life when her twin's life has stopped. I found the family relationships, addiction, and trauma pieces extremely fascinating. I found myself asking questions I never would have thought of as I was reading through the book about the relationships we form with others. Losses are not measurable, but I cannot imagine the pain and suffering the author has gone through with living without her twin, and I so appreciated the author's brutal honesty in sharing her unique story.
A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama I'm still torn on this book. I liked the various stories within the story but also found it hard to follow and feel like if the author had focused in more on a central plot it would have been easier to follow. The book changes narrators frequently which added to the several stories happening at once and confusion of following. The story takes place in the late 1950s in China during the Mao years. The country is asked to provide new ideas and thought but then punished for doing so. One man who is punished is the father in the story who is imprisoned far from the family. His young son, a year into his imprisonment, climbs a tree in the front of the house and falls out badly injuring himself. The story then shares what each family member and a close family friend is experiencing and remembering during this changing time in their country. We hear the story of the grandfather of the story and his guilt for what is the climax of the story. We hear the story of the family friend and how she came to be involved with the family and her past story which has allowed her to later in life understand the meaning of family. We hear from the mother who has the burden of worrying about her son's injury and also about the whereabouts of her husband and what his imprisonment means for their family as a whole. We also hear hear from the son himself and see the confusion of a young child missing his father and having his whole world turned upside down. Overall I always like this author's way of writing, I'm just not sure this is or will be my most favorite of her books.
Smart Girls Like Me by Diane Vadino I can see why I added this book to my list but I think it must have been added years ago when I was in a very different place in my life. The plot is about a woman fearing disaster at the end of 1999 as we cross into 2000. The woman's best friend is getting married and she is not even in a relationship at the time. They are living in New York in their mid 20s and working on figuring out who they are and what they want out of life. I felt for the character's anxiety of losing friendships to marriages and being left out. I liked the literal "world is ending" timing. And I found the book and it's characters funny and easy to sympathize with. For me though, this is a book I should have read years ago when it was easier to relate. Now, having been through several friends weddings and in the middle of planning my own, I just couldn't relate on the same level anymore.
Carry The One by Carol Anshaw What an amazing concept for a story. This story follows the lives of a group of family and friends united in one tragic event. One of the sisters in the family gets married and as her sister and brother and 3 friends leave the wedding in their car to return to the city they collide with a child who unfortunately dies. The story then follows all of their lives, the sister who was not in the car and the siblings that were over the next several decades and shows how this one moment in their young lives changes the course of the future. The story moved fast, packing 30ish years into some 250ish pages. With very minor confusion the story flowed pretty well in spite of how much time was going by. Through births, deaths, love, life they are all carrying this incident with them no matter what happens. I really liked the concept and the story lines could have gone in so many directions but for the most part I found the ways they did go to be successful and realistic for the characters. Definitely adding more books from this author to my list.
Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella So I'm in the midst of planning my own wedding and while I'm trying not to get so caught up in that that I lose sight of, well, everything else, I seem to recently have an eye drawn to anything wedding related, books of course included. I also have read this author in the past and while I haven't thought her works to be great pieces of fiction they do serve a simple purpose. The story is about two sisters, the younger one who thought she was being proposed to but was asked on a trip abroad. She then runs into an old boyfriend with whom she had a pact to marry at age 30 if neither had married by then. They decide to marry, quickly, and her older sister spends the book trying to prevent this from happening. The story was just too cutesy for me and over the top. It needed to be reined it but just kept more and more silly.
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min What a story. The author did a fantastic job of really painting such a picture for the reader using her words. The story is about a young girl who goes from being any young girl to the last empress of China. We are taken on the ride as she goes through the process of becoming one of hundreds of concubines to empress. The forbidden city details from her entering the city to it's total destruction are incredible. I also enjoyed reading about the good and bad of the relationships the concubines had with one another. The one part of the book that got a little confusing was that it took place over so much time. This made it a little difficult to follow at different points but it was easy enough to catch up as the author guided the reader through. I'm fairly certain this is a two book series and am looking forward to reading the next book.
Ninety Days by Bill Clegg I really liked this book. It's the true story of the author after getting clean and sober and struggling to stay that way. It shares his efforts to stay clean and sober for 90 days. We follow the author as he struggles to find a place to live, meet new social supports, and fight the hardest battle, to stay away from alcohol and drugs. What I liked was the honesty the author was willing to share with the reader. We don't get a rosy version of his first 90 days and the happy life he leads after he is clean. We get the gritty details of the struggle and the slip ups that occur that lead to having to restart the count to 90 days. We also get to know other "characters" that the author meets at his NA meetings who are going through similar struggles and see from the author's perspective their storeis as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)