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.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
October- 7
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini Great book. Love this author and was thrilled to get another book from him. The worst part of his books is reading them so quickly and trying to slow down but not being able to and then being sad when they are over and done. This story takes us through several generations and literally across the globe. Each section is narrated by a different character and each story weaves into the overall story. We never hear from the same narrator twice but the story continues with each new story teller. The novel centers around an Afghan family and the twists and turns of their lives. As always the author does a great job with taking the reader through the historical aspects of the times the characters are going through. Even though each character narrates only for a piece of the book, the reader easily falls for each character and is invested in the story right from the start. I was nervous about how the book would end, and though it saddened me, it was definitely fitting.
The White by Deborah Larsen A coworker left this book for me to read and I did like it but I'm not sure on the writing style. The story is about a white woman captured by Indians in 1758 and her story of capture and assimilation into their culture while always being different. I liked the way the author portrayed the difficulty in being caught between different worlds and the victim aligning with her kidnappers. I did not like the graphic violence, which may have been why I disliked the writing style. Overall an interesting quick read.
The Time of My Life by Cecilia Ahern Did not like this book. Maybe my expectations for it were too high given how much I liked "P.S. I love you," another of the author's novels. This novel was about a young woman who gets a letter from "life" and has to start meeting with it regularly to work on all the areas in her life that are going wrong or are stuck. The problem for me is that I interpreted this as "life" but it really was life. I kept waiting for the metaphor to turn into something but instead it was too literal and not really explained as to how this can be. Was it a future world or different world where this sort of thing exists? Was it a metaphor? I really have no clue. I got the overall concept of putting all the pieces back together again and sorting through messes that you make in your 20s, but I was disappointed overall. And I disliked the fairly tale aspect of the story which led, in my opinion, to an unrealistic ending of the story. Still like this author in general so I'll try not to hold this book against her.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova This is the story about a Harvard professor and researcher diagnosed with early on set Alzheimer's at a very early age. The book is narrated throughout by the woman so as her illness progresses it is told in a first person account. I loved the style and I loved the concept. I was furious with the main characters husband who seemed to abandon her in her time of need, but I also took a step back and tried to see things from his point of view as well and see how he was working through his loss. I learned quite a bit too about a disease I know some about but not a whole lot. I also liked the first hand account of the difficulty in making medical decisions. I think the importance of the characters role as a Harvard professor who did research was a key element as well.
Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan I really love this author and I'm not sure if I knew when I put this book on the list that this was her biography but I definitely forgot by the time I finally got it from the library but was pleasantly surprised to learn so much more about her. I knew she was both a photographer and a writer, two things I admire greatly. Even knowing she had been a photo journalist before writing her novels, I guess I never really understand what that meant. I like too how she shared her personal accounts across the world and related them to her journey of adulthood from relationship to relationship. I really liked how her identity as a feminist shined throughout the story too. I related near the end of the book when she discussed woman's choices. As feminists we feel we have to make certain choices to align with that identity but what she shares is the idea of us making choices based on what is right for us and/or our families. I found her writing on this extremely helpful right now and appreciated her sharing her deeply personal decisions along the way.
The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes This was a story split in two time frames with two different narrators. A married woman wakes with amnesia to start the novel and tries to piece together what her life was like before the accident. She starts finding love letters hidden in her home from someone she guesses she was having an affair with. She starts to piece together what happened before the accident and what her life and marriage was like. She struggles with self identity in an interesting way in being able to discover who she used to be and then decide if that's who she still wants to be. The character ends her part of the narration with a cliff hanger. We then flash forward many years to a young woman working at a newspaper who finds one of the letters from the past and starts to trace it's story as she tells her own. Overall I liked the concept of the novel and I liked the writer's style of creating a story. For me it fell flat though because it was too predictable and too unrealistic with the love stories.
Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld I have to start by saying this book ended up thrown on the floor when I finished it. The ending was just so frustrating to me. I love this author and was so excited to see a new book by her. I love her writing style and this book was no exception to that. I also liked the idea of the plot line of the book. Two twin sisters with "senses" or psychic powers. One who embraces them and her eccentricity and the other, the narrator, who does not and settles down into a seemingly quiet family life as a mother of two small children who stays at home while her professor husband teaches at a local university. The story takes place in St Louis where an earthquake occurs early on in the story. The twin who embraces her psychic abilities then predicts another even bigger earthquake will occur and begins to get national media attention. The story explores the way this affects the narrator and the active choice she has made to re determine her life. The story alternates chapters from the twins childhood to adulthood and then the present day with a potential earthquake coming and the media circus that is happening to them because of the prediction. I had no problem with the book, as in I was liking it enough, even if I wasn't loving it, but then the last 60 pages or so became an absolute soap opera that I was not prepared for. I had spent so much time trying to figure out if the author was going to have the earth quake happen or not but the ending was much more complicated then that and not in a good way. Still have respect for this author but really disappointed in this book.
The White by Deborah Larsen A coworker left this book for me to read and I did like it but I'm not sure on the writing style. The story is about a white woman captured by Indians in 1758 and her story of capture and assimilation into their culture while always being different. I liked the way the author portrayed the difficulty in being caught between different worlds and the victim aligning with her kidnappers. I did not like the graphic violence, which may have been why I disliked the writing style. Overall an interesting quick read.
The Time of My Life by Cecilia Ahern Did not like this book. Maybe my expectations for it were too high given how much I liked "P.S. I love you," another of the author's novels. This novel was about a young woman who gets a letter from "life" and has to start meeting with it regularly to work on all the areas in her life that are going wrong or are stuck. The problem for me is that I interpreted this as "life" but it really was life. I kept waiting for the metaphor to turn into something but instead it was too literal and not really explained as to how this can be. Was it a future world or different world where this sort of thing exists? Was it a metaphor? I really have no clue. I got the overall concept of putting all the pieces back together again and sorting through messes that you make in your 20s, but I was disappointed overall. And I disliked the fairly tale aspect of the story which led, in my opinion, to an unrealistic ending of the story. Still like this author in general so I'll try not to hold this book against her.
Still Alice by Lisa Genova This is the story about a Harvard professor and researcher diagnosed with early on set Alzheimer's at a very early age. The book is narrated throughout by the woman so as her illness progresses it is told in a first person account. I loved the style and I loved the concept. I was furious with the main characters husband who seemed to abandon her in her time of need, but I also took a step back and tried to see things from his point of view as well and see how he was working through his loss. I learned quite a bit too about a disease I know some about but not a whole lot. I also liked the first hand account of the difficulty in making medical decisions. I think the importance of the characters role as a Harvard professor who did research was a key element as well.
Shutterbabe by Deborah Copaken Kogan I really love this author and I'm not sure if I knew when I put this book on the list that this was her biography but I definitely forgot by the time I finally got it from the library but was pleasantly surprised to learn so much more about her. I knew she was both a photographer and a writer, two things I admire greatly. Even knowing she had been a photo journalist before writing her novels, I guess I never really understand what that meant. I like too how she shared her personal accounts across the world and related them to her journey of adulthood from relationship to relationship. I really liked how her identity as a feminist shined throughout the story too. I related near the end of the book when she discussed woman's choices. As feminists we feel we have to make certain choices to align with that identity but what she shares is the idea of us making choices based on what is right for us and/or our families. I found her writing on this extremely helpful right now and appreciated her sharing her deeply personal decisions along the way.
The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes This was a story split in two time frames with two different narrators. A married woman wakes with amnesia to start the novel and tries to piece together what her life was like before the accident. She starts finding love letters hidden in her home from someone she guesses she was having an affair with. She starts to piece together what happened before the accident and what her life and marriage was like. She struggles with self identity in an interesting way in being able to discover who she used to be and then decide if that's who she still wants to be. The character ends her part of the narration with a cliff hanger. We then flash forward many years to a young woman working at a newspaper who finds one of the letters from the past and starts to trace it's story as she tells her own. Overall I liked the concept of the novel and I liked the writer's style of creating a story. For me it fell flat though because it was too predictable and too unrealistic with the love stories.
Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld I have to start by saying this book ended up thrown on the floor when I finished it. The ending was just so frustrating to me. I love this author and was so excited to see a new book by her. I love her writing style and this book was no exception to that. I also liked the idea of the plot line of the book. Two twin sisters with "senses" or psychic powers. One who embraces them and her eccentricity and the other, the narrator, who does not and settles down into a seemingly quiet family life as a mother of two small children who stays at home while her professor husband teaches at a local university. The story takes place in St Louis where an earthquake occurs early on in the story. The twin who embraces her psychic abilities then predicts another even bigger earthquake will occur and begins to get national media attention. The story explores the way this affects the narrator and the active choice she has made to re determine her life. The story alternates chapters from the twins childhood to adulthood and then the present day with a potential earthquake coming and the media circus that is happening to them because of the prediction. I had no problem with the book, as in I was liking it enough, even if I wasn't loving it, but then the last 60 pages or so became an absolute soap opera that I was not prepared for. I had spent so much time trying to figure out if the author was going to have the earth quake happen or not but the ending was much more complicated then that and not in a good way. Still have respect for this author but really disappointed in this book.
Friday, November 1, 2013
September 6
Suddenly A Knock at the Door by Etgar Keret This book was a collection of short stories or even essays as some were really short. I didn't dislike the authors style of writing but I really didn't understand many of the stories. Maybe they were over my head or I missed the point entirely, I'm not sure. But now only a month later I barely recall any of them which to me is not the sign of a great book. Also many of them were too fantastical and not in a believable way. I'm the type that can accept fantasy only when it's really sold to me. Given how short the stories were it's possible the writer just didn't have a chance to make them believable, at least to me.
The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian Love this author. Though I didn't like the ending of this book, I did like it over all. The story is of a man who is a lawyer and a single parent seeing a homeopathic healer who he falls in love with and then gets involved in a situation where one of her patients dies possibly due to her "medical" advice. I liked the unbiased way the author explored homeopathy and learned a thing or two (which I'm sure is accurate given this is a reputable author). Bohjalian always has a way of writing, that at least for me, really gets you involved in the characters lives. It really adds so much more to the story since you get so involved in hoping things will go certain ways for them. I liked the overall unique story line but found the ending to be a bit unrealistic for me. I also acknowledge though that as the book went on, I couldn't figure out how he was going to end it and I myself did not think up any ways that it could end in a way that would work out for all the characters.
Love in the Time of Algorithms by Dan Slater Loved this book. Quite timely non fiction story of the evolution of dating especially in it's move to technology. In this era of Match.com etc, the author takes us from the first computer dating computers created at Harvard (which matched his parents together) to future speculation about what will happen next in the online dating world. I found it fascinating and scary at the same time. Scary because of the instant access to anything anyone wants and the realization that online dating isn't just about finding someone to date or marry. It's not being used for a wide ranger of sexual deviance that can be worrisome too. While I see the benefit (I did meet my soon to be husband online) I also worry about how this changes peoples social skills and the ease for harm to be done. In any case the online dating world is not slowing down anytime soon and the author did a great job of writing about how it came to be and where it is now.
Love or Something Like it by Deidre Shaw This was by no means the best book I've ever read but I found something refreshingly honest in the characters in the book and the way it was written. It's a book about a young woman who is facing a huge bump in her young marriage. We look back into the past history of the main characters dysfunctional family and the messages she got as a child from her parents and her runaway brother who she has limited contact with. What I liked was that rather then waiting around for her husband to decide what he wants she finds a way to start hearing her own voice about what she wants. What I didn't like was some of the unrealistic too romancy pieces of the book. Overall though the author painted a realistic picture of the hard times in love and the choices that we make during those times.
Freeing Keiko by Kenneth Brower Loved this book. As someone who loved grew up loving "Free Willy" and the real life whale, Keiko, reading his story and hearing about his struggle to truly be free was bittersweet. I also realized about halfway through that the ending was not going to be joyous as I had remembered a news story some years ago. From that point it was difficult to keep reading knowing that I was reading more or less to find out how he died rather then a happy fairytale ending that you hope for especially since the main character is real. I learned so much from this author and the care he took to tell the story of killer whale Keiko was amazing. I'm quite glad I finally realized this book was out there and picked it up.
Hope a Tragedy by Shalom Auslander Did not like this book. I found this author while browsing at the book store and added him to the list. All his books on the shelf looked so interesting to me but I just didn't get what he was trying to convey and it had such a cool concept that I maybe set the bar too high in my mind. This was a story about a man who discovers a well known historical figure living in his attic. Right from the start with such a concept the author needed to sell me on this idea, and he just didn't. I think overall the book was about the main characters trying to find his place in his family as things changed as he aged. There was a lot of cultural references to Judaism and while I always find that interesting, overall the author failed to deliver a plot line that went anywhere.
The Law of Similars by Chris Bohjalian Love this author. Though I didn't like the ending of this book, I did like it over all. The story is of a man who is a lawyer and a single parent seeing a homeopathic healer who he falls in love with and then gets involved in a situation where one of her patients dies possibly due to her "medical" advice. I liked the unbiased way the author explored homeopathy and learned a thing or two (which I'm sure is accurate given this is a reputable author). Bohjalian always has a way of writing, that at least for me, really gets you involved in the characters lives. It really adds so much more to the story since you get so involved in hoping things will go certain ways for them. I liked the overall unique story line but found the ending to be a bit unrealistic for me. I also acknowledge though that as the book went on, I couldn't figure out how he was going to end it and I myself did not think up any ways that it could end in a way that would work out for all the characters.
Love in the Time of Algorithms by Dan Slater Loved this book. Quite timely non fiction story of the evolution of dating especially in it's move to technology. In this era of Match.com etc, the author takes us from the first computer dating computers created at Harvard (which matched his parents together) to future speculation about what will happen next in the online dating world. I found it fascinating and scary at the same time. Scary because of the instant access to anything anyone wants and the realization that online dating isn't just about finding someone to date or marry. It's not being used for a wide ranger of sexual deviance that can be worrisome too. While I see the benefit (I did meet my soon to be husband online) I also worry about how this changes peoples social skills and the ease for harm to be done. In any case the online dating world is not slowing down anytime soon and the author did a great job of writing about how it came to be and where it is now.
Love or Something Like it by Deidre Shaw This was by no means the best book I've ever read but I found something refreshingly honest in the characters in the book and the way it was written. It's a book about a young woman who is facing a huge bump in her young marriage. We look back into the past history of the main characters dysfunctional family and the messages she got as a child from her parents and her runaway brother who she has limited contact with. What I liked was that rather then waiting around for her husband to decide what he wants she finds a way to start hearing her own voice about what she wants. What I didn't like was some of the unrealistic too romancy pieces of the book. Overall though the author painted a realistic picture of the hard times in love and the choices that we make during those times.
Freeing Keiko by Kenneth Brower Loved this book. As someone who loved grew up loving "Free Willy" and the real life whale, Keiko, reading his story and hearing about his struggle to truly be free was bittersweet. I also realized about halfway through that the ending was not going to be joyous as I had remembered a news story some years ago. From that point it was difficult to keep reading knowing that I was reading more or less to find out how he died rather then a happy fairytale ending that you hope for especially since the main character is real. I learned so much from this author and the care he took to tell the story of killer whale Keiko was amazing. I'm quite glad I finally realized this book was out there and picked it up.
Hope a Tragedy by Shalom Auslander Did not like this book. I found this author while browsing at the book store and added him to the list. All his books on the shelf looked so interesting to me but I just didn't get what he was trying to convey and it had such a cool concept that I maybe set the bar too high in my mind. This was a story about a man who discovers a well known historical figure living in his attic. Right from the start with such a concept the author needed to sell me on this idea, and he just didn't. I think overall the book was about the main characters trying to find his place in his family as things changed as he aged. There was a lot of cultural references to Judaism and while I always find that interesting, overall the author failed to deliver a plot line that went anywhere.
Friday, October 25, 2013
August- 7
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey It's odd that as a professional I had not seen this movie or read this book. That being said I finally saw the movie and then wanted to read the book. I liked the book a lot more (as usual) as it gave more depth to the characters and gave a more accurate portrayal of mental health. It was difficult both to watch the movie and to read the book given that I know how far we have come with care for the mentally ill but I also know how far we need to go. It was disheartening to see in the movie and worse to read in the book since I felt like in the book you fell for the characters and really wanted to see them succeed. The truth of the matter is that we can't help everyone, it's just not possible, but each of these people deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and the book shows just how often that was not the case. The sad ending had me close to tears even though I knew what would happen from just seeing the movie. I'm happy and hopeful that just as the times of this book are in the past, these days too will improve and we will continue to look back in awe at how we treated some people in this society most in need of kindness.
Penelope by Rebecca Harrington This one has been on my list and had such great reviews. Maybe because they built it up so much or maybe because I just didn't get it, it didn't live up to the expectations I had in my mind. The story is about a Freshman at Harvard and her first year there. The main character, Penelope, is an awkward adolescent and struggled at home and now at college to find her way and place in the world. Coincidently I started reading the book while on Harvard's campus which was fitting but still didn't make me like it anymore. I guess for me there just wasn't anything more to it. It was a common coming of age story with some the same trying to find love, friends, self. Sure there was a little more elitism involved and some odd drama club story lines, but just nothing that really held my interest until the end where I didn't really get any resolution to the story.
The Girl Who Played Go by Shan Sa I like reading about the Asian culture and stories about the many significant historical time periods of that culture. That's why this author is on my list. This book was about the coming of age of a young girl who was a great player at a man's game called "Go." I liked the strong feminist attitude that began the book but was disappointed that it turned into the strong female character giving up so much for her first sexual relationship and then turned a bit romance novel.
Friends Like Us by Lauren Fox This book really spoke to me. Every woman can relate to losing a friendship and the things we wish we had done differently, even if the outcome would still be the same. I liked that this started out in the future and went backwards to share the story. Sometimes this does not work for the novel but in this case it really helped define the story. Two very close girl friends who we know from the beginning had a falling out share the story of how a third male friend helped reshape their friendship forever. I liked to that as readers we got to see where everyone ended up years later and the ways these interweaving friendships affected one another.
The Elephant Keeper's Children by Peter Hoeg This book was a bit 100 Years of Solitude in it's writing style and plot line. I'm not sure I understood half of it, especially at first, but I was drawn in very quickly and wanted to keep turning the pages to find out what would happen next. It tells the story of 2 young children having to be the adults in their family. The live on a fictitious island and have parents who are deeply religious and go missing. The story shares the adventures of the children who go about in search of their parents and does a great job of moving from present to past to share the story and then in merging the two at the end so that we get to the bottom of the mystery. I really liked the way this author writes, this was the first book of his I read and I'm definitely adding more to my list.
Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos Really like this author and have had this book on my list for awhile. Overall I liked it but I found the ending a bit unrealistic. I guessed the ending at some point too and spent the rest of the time reading it hoping that I was wrong since it would be unrealistic. This was the story of two woman in very different places in their lives and how they come together in a unique way. The story redefines "family" and brings together people from various backgrounds who join forces for a unique twist in the story. One of the main characters is suffering from a fatal diagnosis and looking to make drastic changes to her life and make peace with past mistakes as it comes to a close. Another is a young woman trying to escape her past by her recent move across the country but she quickly realizes you cannot escape the past. The two come together in a believable way and the story had me wanting to continue until it went a few steps too far in the direction of "this stuff only happens in books." Either way I like the author a lot and she does a great job of telling a story.
The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama I like this author, another Asian culture author. I'm still undecided on this book. The story was about a young man coming of age during WWII who was sent to stay at his family's summer home due to being ill. He is staying at the ocean while his family is in the center of the war in a major city, he therefore has little connection to the actual war but is able to share thoughts from a distance and through fears for his family's safety. There are several stories within the story. The story of the housekeeper at the beach house and his love life as a young adult and how that affected his adulthood choices. The story of the boys parents marriage. The story of the war. I think this is why I struggled with the book, the writing was good and the main plot line was good, but all the other stories involved just made for too much going on. Each of them was good in their own way but all of them together was a bit much.
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.
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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