The Paternity Test by Michael Lowenthal This book was not on my to read list but I saw it in the new books section at the library and to be honest the cover got my attention. This was the story about two men who are pursuing parenting through surrogacy. The men move from their city living style to more isolated suburban living but the book tells of their trial to change their lifestyle and decide ultimately what they want from their relationship and their lives. I liked the honest start to this book and the way the fathers fears of parenthood and giving up bachelorhood to be parents and to be monogamous with one another was portrayed. The book lost me a little somewhere in the middle where it started to get a little soap opera like and took a whole new direction. That being said the ending was as truthful as the beginning and though I don't feel like I got the story I was expecting, I think it's possible the characters went where they were supposed to go.
Big Brother by Lionel Shriver Hmm this is a hard one for me. I really like this author and the way she challenges me as a reader. I was very upset when I finished this book. Very upset with the ending (that I do not want to ruin in anyway as it was a shocker) but after thinking on it for even just a few hours that day I actually think the author is a genius. This is the story of a woman and her family. Her older brother comes to visit and has gained a lot of weight, morbidly obese kind of weight. The story then shares how this woman's life is affected by balancing work, attempting to help her brother, her marriage, and being a step parent. The overall message in the story is about the choices we make as we balance all our roles in life. We never know when we make the choices we make what the outcome will be. The lesson I took is that sometimes you have to make a choice and you can't always know what that outcome will be so you make the best choice you can and then later in life sometimes you can see maybe the other option would have been better but then again you can't rewrite the story at that point and things could still turn out exactly the same with just a different path getting you there.
News From Heaven by Jennifer Haigh I really liked this collection of short stories. They all took place in a coal mining fictional town in Pennsylvania over the course of many decades. There were some overlaps in characters from one story to the next but mostly with background characters which just made it a nice transition from one story to the next. There were certainly some stories that were better then others but overall this was a relatable book and I got invested quickly with the characters. The stories were often nothing spectacular, just short stories about everyday people but the authors way of getting the reader to see these characters as more was what made me like this book.
I am No One You Know by Joyce Carol Oates Not my favorite JCO book but a nice collection of short stories. It also wasn't very memorable. I think the common theme in all the stories was relationships within a family. The thing for me always with a book of short stories is that the author both gets me quickly invested in the characters but also wraps them up at the end of the story so I'm not wanting more. I think with the good stories that I liked in this book I just kept wanting more and with the ones I didn't like I just never got invested in the plot.
