October 11

Growing Up Amish by Ira Wagler
We recently got hooked on a TV show on the National Geographic Channel called Amish Out of Order.  From there we heard about this book, as the author was on an episode.  I, like I suppose a lot of the outside world, am fascinated with the Amish.  I used to think this was unique to me since I grew up in a state that had a lot of them in it, but I think we are all fascinated with them because of how different they are and are able to remain.  Recently though I keep learning all these things about them that don't really fit the picture I used to have.  While I'm still torn on what to think of them as a culture, I continue to want to read and watch everything I see out there about them.  This book is a true story of one man's continued struggle to leave the only community he ever knew.  He first leaves at age 16 and continues to struggle with finding his identity and coming back and forth with his family/religion/community.  He even gets baptized in his church but still struggles to accept that this is his faith.  The book shares his journey with the reader and ends on a happy note with him finding himself after so many sad years of struggle.  It wasn't quite what I expected, I thought the book would be more about after he left the amish what happened, but it was mostly telling of his upbringing and his struggle to decide what he wanted for himself in life.  I appreciated the honesty though and his clearly thought out story.

Hell is Other Parents by Deborah Copaken Kogan
I really like this author, she's a newer find for me and I love her fiction books.  This was an interesting non fiction look at her own life as a mother and sharing stories of interesting things that have happened as a parent.  She's a great writer and I was certainly entertained with her sharing the most unique moments in her families life but collectively I'm just not sure of the audience of this book.  Mothers?  People who like this author?  I don't know maybe I couldn't relate on some level not being a mother but while I found the chapters entertaining, I just wasn't sure of the message the book was trying to convey.

Maine by J Courtney Sullivan
I'm torn on this book.  I liked the style of the writing and the concept of the plot.  A summer house in Maine, four generations of women, told from different views of the women family members.  I liked the strong female characters.  I liked too that it was an Irish Catholic Alcoholic family, this may be a strange thing to say but I enjoy books with addiction themes.  That being said the characters didn't really go anywhere.  They spent the majority of the book in the same place and then at the very end took one or two tiny steps forward.  The ending was also slightly confusing though I think the author strongly suggested what was happening, it wasn't entirely clear or for certain so I could be way wrong.  The first character we meet is the oldest member of the family, the grandmother who's husband won the property in a bet many years ago and has been coming to the house for many many years.  She has 3 adult children, 2 girls and a boy.  One of the girls is another narrator.  She lives in California far away from her family by choice and continues to work on who she is outside of her family.  Her adult daughter is another narrator, in her early 30s living in New York and having recently found out she is pregnant after also recently breaking up with her boyfriend (the baby's father).  The last narrator is the son's wife who married into the family, but never felt good enough for them.  We hear from all 4 and learn about the unique things that make them them.  An interesting part of the book is that with each chapter you get a different narrator and in each chapter you see the positive qualities of that character but then in the next 3 chapters before you get to hear from that character again, you hear all the negatives about them and decide to dislike the character.  This was the part I didn't like.  You weren't really rooting for anyone.  When they were speaking they seemed strong and then when everyone else was you saw all their weaknesses and faults and in ways that you couldn't ignore by the time you got back to their voice.  I've already picked up another book by this author though to give her another chance because her writing style was unique and the book was far from predictable and I did keep turning the pages.
A quote I liked from the book " "It would be a different story if you didn't let them get under your skin like you do, but they seem to make you so stressed," he'd said.  "Around your family, you never act like yourself."  "I know," she replied, though sometimes she feared the opposite was true, that her real self was that dark, angry one she had shoved in a box years ago, the one that emerged only when she was home." "

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson  *sigh* I'm so sad this series is over.  Especially because this isn't the last book in the trilogy because that's what the author wanted but because he died and couldn't continue the characters moving forward.  These books were difficult to get into, each of the three was a struggle to start but then once you get into it there is no putting it down.  I love love love the strong female main character who is so unique.  In this book she finally gets resolution to the atrocities that have been committed against her since her childhood.  We finally get some new characters on her side and that help her with her murder trial.  She finally gets to exact the revenge she has been seeking out for such a long time.  And it's done in such a clever and skillful way by the author.  I liked too that although there were romantic story lines in each of the three books, they weren't the main focus and the conclusion of the series was about the characters not their love lives.  Each character ended in a way unique and good to them and not about having fallen in love with someone who fixed everything.  Each character really stood on their own two feet even if/when they did have others around them.  I wish their were more books to read and I also wish they had been easier to get into because although I stuck with them, I'm certain many people put them down pretty easily and never got to read about such an amazing character and a really cool plot line.

The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner  I really like Weiner for light hearted reads that share unique stories and make me fall for and root for a usually down main character who would not normally be the character you root for.  However, some of her recent work since she got some movie/tv deals has not been as good as her earlier work.  I keep looking each year with her new novels for the same feelings I got curled up with her first books and each year I finish the book without really getting that same feeling anymore.  This one was about an adult orphan physically scarred main character who moved to Hollywood with her grandmother in her early 20s.  She and her grandmother are super close since her parents died when she was very young.  She moves to Hollywood to be a screen writer and we as the reader get to follow her a few years after they've arrived when her dreams are starting to come through. Of course though Hollywood doesn't allow her to do her show her way and she learns lessons along the way about love, beauty, and having your own voice.  I loved the closeness of the main character and her grandma, definitely made me miss my grandmothers.  I like how Weiner never gives you a 5'8'' 100lb blond hair blued eyed female lead, always give you someone you wouldn't quite expect.  I didn't like the predictability of the romance in the book.  I didn't like too that the character didn't grow anywhere you didn't expect her to.  She went exactly where you knew she would right from the beginning.

Up High in Trees by Kiara Brinkman
Hmm I'm not sure where to start on this one.  The story was told all in very very short sections that were to be linked together.  It's the story of a young (autistic?) boy who's mother tragically and suddenly dies and how he and his father struggle to get through the loss.  He has two older siblings that are much more independent but he struggles with their loss in unique ways.  The story was published in 2007 but takes place in the 90s and has lots of conversation of the political times then and election going on.  The reader is never told if main character Sebastian is autistic but we are given signs pointing that way and clues to make us believe that's a part of the story.  I read the book in an afternoon because it did suck you in and make you want to see what happened, but after putting it down I just wasn't all that sure what I had just read.  What was the author trying to share with the reader?

Diary of a Wombat  by Jackie French
Okay I'm not sure if I should count this or not but I'm gonna.  I read this book and a bookstore/bar.  Yes you read that right, my new city has a bookstore that has a bar in the back how awesome is that!  So as we were standing there drinking surrounded by books (a pretty cool combination for me) I saw this picture book on the shelf.  I immediately thought it was a new book by the same author as Diary of a Worm  I quickly realized it was not but still read through it and found it to be a cute story.  I loved Diary of a Worm, first reading it to a little girl I babysat for many years ago.  I loved it so much that whenever we had story time I tried to convince her it was one she wanted to hear.  It was such a cute story.  Wombat was more or less similar in taking you through some funny moments in the Wombat's life.  I also think kids would just get a kick out of continuing to say the word "wombat" it's a fun word to say.  Cute children's book, and since leaving a job at the library a few years ago, I don't get nearly enough chances to read children's books anymore so I was thrilled just to have read one.

Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
Okay so last month I read the book Belong to Me by this same author.  It turned out after I read it that there was a book before that one with some of the same characters.  Belong to Me was about main character Cornelia and her life with her husband in suburbia. Love Walked In was about how Cornelia met Clare and also wound up with her husband.  The story is told alternately from Cornelia and Clare's perspectives.  Cornelia meets and falls for a handsome man that is a look a like for Cary Grant, and as a film buff that seems to be a huge factor of her falling for him.  Clare is 11 years old and sees her mom start to unravel but isn't sure what to do about it.  She calls her father, who is not with her mother or really much a part of their lives, for help but he more or less ignores her call for help.  She then has to take care of herself and try hard not to let anyone know that anything is wrong with her mother.  Then her mother disappears and Clare is unsure what to do.  Meanwhile Cornelia is working on her new relationship and continuing to try to decide what she wants from life in general.  Their paths connect and both lives are changed forever.  I really like this author and was sad this was the last book of hers I haven't read.  I liked this story although there were a few parts of the story that disappointed me, don't want to give away the surprises though.  And even though I was originally upset to be reading this "out of order" there were enough surprises about the characters and how they came to be the people they were in the next book that I got over the fact that I hadn't read this one first pretty quickly.

The Beach House by Jane Green
I like this author because you can count on a good story with characters the reader easily falls for and gets invested in.  That being said this particular book of hers was not one of my favorites.  I did get invested in the characters but a lot of what happened was pretty predictable and then the stuff that wasn't, was very unrealistic.   This is the story of a beach house in Nantucket that becomes one of the main characters year round house.  She starts to run out of money and rents out rooms in her home for the summer.  We meet the characters who will end up in the rooms much before the summer they arrive and get invested in their stories as well.  Nan, the main character who owns the house, lost her husband when her son was only a small child and raised him as a single parent.  She is a quirky 65 year old woman who lives on the island year round.  Her son Michael is in his early 40s and has yet to settle down, never able to find the right woman.  He ends up in an affair with his married boss and quits his job and returns to Nantucket for the summer.  There is also a married couple with two small girls who have a major struggle going on in their marriage as each of them works on figuring out who they are individually and where they come from.  Lastly there is a family of a recently divorced couple with a troubled teenage daughter who is struggling with her parents divorce.  The father cheated on the mother but the daughter does not know this.  She wants to move in with her father to get away from her mother, who she blames for the divorce, and so her mother takes off for the island for the month of August to rediscover herself.  This book has a good enough plot and had some good potential but it just never really went anywhere that interesting.  Still this author is good for light hearted reads.

Madapple by Christina Meldrum  I really like this author, I hope she writes more.  This book was marketed as young adult but I'm not entirely certain why, it read more or less like an adult novel.  It had similar themes to the first book of her's I read, Amaryllis in Blueberry, religion, non traditional beliefs, family secrets, legal systems, etc.  It took a minute to get into the novel as she has such a unique writing style but she does instantly grab your attention you just have to wait a few chapters to keep your attention.  This one was written also in future/past tense as each chapter was from the past events that occurred but between the chapters, and at the very start of the book, readers got to read a transcript of the court trial taking place.  The story is of a young girl who's mother dies and leaves behind many secrets for her to discover after having been sheltered all her life.  She turns to the only family she knows and thinks she can trust but very quickly learns her situation has gotten much worse and not better.  As a reader reading the court transcripts in between chapters it is very easy to side immediately with the young main character.  Since we aren't actually in the courtroom and just given court room scenes it's much harder to not have an opinion very quickly on her innocence in everything she is charged with and to hope that everything will get resolved as it should.  The thing this book made me think about too was that in a court case there is a lot of objecting going on and then the jury is supposed to "strike" from memory questions or answers or whatever.  I started getting confused and in the early parts of the story went back and forth a little on what had happened, even though I had just read in a narrative about what had happened and knew what the truth was unlike the jury.  Meldrum seems to be very educated on various religions and seems to struggle to connect truths and also involve spirituality.  As a reader she takes us on a fun journey of discovery and education that makes it hard to put the book down.  Really wish she had more novels for me to devour as quickly as I did these two.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller  Perhaps I should be waiting a few more days to write this as I just finished this one last night, and it might need some time to be digested.  I don't know though, this write is well liked by many and now she has some films and what not.  I just don't always get her I guess.  Maybe she and I just don't click but for some reason I keep feeling this need to read her books...  This book was about the main character, Pippa Lee.  Pippa is in her 50s and recently moved into a retirement village with her octogenarian husband.  The book is divided into four parts, the first part explains the move and what is currently happening.  The second part goes back into her childhood and shows themes of mother daughter relationships, addictions, etc.  The third part goes back to the present day but as a reader you now have new info on the character.  The last part concludes the book.  I really liked the very very ending but the chapters leading to the end I did not like.  And maybe that's not the right way to say it, I might more so mean I just didn't understand the choices the author made.  I will say that to the authors credit what you expect to get from her books you usually do not, but in a good way.  You get surprise story changes and themes you did not expect perhaps.  I think this book was about the aging process and life choices we make, about being true to yourself (though that constantly changes throughout the life process), and about family relationships (especially mother daughter)  A quote I really liked:
"Poor girl, she didn't know what sickness had been passed to her through the women in her family.  Mother to daughter in a line as long as Pippa had lived, and maybe farther, maybe past Grandma Sally, to Sally's mother, and her mother before her; the chain of misunderstandings and adjustments, each daughter trying to make up for her mother's lacks and getting it wrong the opposite way.  Some families were cursed like that."