Monday, July 30, 2012

Gone (Cathi Hanauer)


      
  Hmmm what would I do if my husband just went to drop off the babysitter after a routine night out to dinner and just never came back? Our protagonist, Eve kind of went with it. She didn't panic. She didn't try to get a hold of him and she was completely calm with their two kids about it. "Daddy must need a break," she says. Turns out Eric did need a break. He took the babysitter across the country so she could be with her mother and his own happened to live near by so what the hell? 
Eve is coping with it as sanely as possible. She thinks her husband had an affair with the girl and has chosen to leave his family so when he does try to call eventually she ignores him. He texts with his 14 year old daughter, Magnolia so at least Eve knows he's okay.
Eric is not okay though. Eric is a sculptor and hasn't been producing in a long time and the pressure of providing for his family and not being able to do so has gotten to him and so the only thing reasonable to him is to just get away from it all. 
Eve has a job as a nutritional advisor to people who want to eat right without "dieting". She has clients and after selling a statue Eric made for $10,000 she's able to keep things afloat for the time Eric stayed away (about 6 weeks).
The book was well written and a quick read. I like Hanauer's style and her pacing. She alternated between Eve's and Eric's viewpoints so we could see what each of the main character's were thinking. The way she wrote it the situation seemed plausible. The ending was just okay as I thought it was kind of abrupt but was content for the two evenings I stayed up late reading this modern marriage tale. 

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Tiny Beautiful Things -Dear Sugar (Cheryl Strayed)


      
  Oh this book this book this book. How is one person able to read an email and sift through it to the core and then respond in such a way that is so honest and breathtaking and raw and vital and real? How?  I do not know, nor is it important.
Also not important is how I came across the book. I don't even know. It was like it was like non-existent one second and in my hands the next. I am so grateful for it. 
In a nutshell, Dear Sugar, is a collection of columns. That's it. Many people would probably just go, hmm okay, and move on. But if you see the bright orange cover at your bookstore, library or on your e-reader DO NOT PASS THIS BY!
Dear Sugar is a slice of all that is human. It is a chronicle of different people and their different issues and they all need help in some way and there seems to have never been one to help them out until Sugar came along. Seriously. All Dear Abby's and Agony Aunts combined do not measure up to this woman who isn't even "qualified" to do the writing. I don't think you need credentials that are on some certificate to be able to offer your opinion but you do need a brain and heart and experience and the courage to open up and expose all the little vulnerable bits of yourself to say, see? look here, i'm the same as you and here's what happened.  That's what Sugar does. She will hear the person out and feel their pain and somehow be able to weave in her experience in a way that doesn't even feel like you're listening about her life. You are her life and for the time being she is yours. She tells it like it is but not in a way that is over done with vulgarity or tritely coated with blanket statements. Nope this woman puts thought into every word and each response is it's own true short story. She is eloquent and sassy and sweet and flawed and fearless. I can go on and on. I won't. But I will say there is a little something in each letter that's a little heartbreaking but so necessary. People are all wanting to be heard and told what to do and mostly they do know what they have to do but are looking for it to be encouraged. This book, to me, is like a bible of sorts, but not about the God in the actual Bible, but about the psalms of how to live with mistakes or lost love ones or awful parents and betrayals and the deep dark things that you think about or have done or want to do that you swear is the most horrible thing ever. And then you find out that it's not as bad as you think it is. And someone out there can relate to you and all this comes across through the words experienced by a woman named Sugar...who is actually the woman who wrote Wild, a book I haven't read yet but now have to read. It is huge now and Cheryl Strayed is a woman to look out for, both on the rumpus.net where she writes as Sugar and in her fiction (she has a book called Torch) and in her memoir where she hikes 1100 miles by herself when she was in her early 20's. I hear it's also incredible but I'm glad to have read Tiny Beautiful Things first. It's truly an amazing read. 

Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Forever Marriage (Ann Bauer)


      
  I have to be honest. I hated this book. It was like a car accident. The subject matter was awful but awful is part of life and I was intrigued by this awful so I read. And the first third or so wasn't too bad. It was pretty much what I expected but it just got more and more where I was just skimming parts in disbelief that the protagonist and the author had teamed up and thought well we gave it our best shot so lets try to get over 300 pages and call it a day.

Carmen is a woman who didn't want to be married but she got married. She had a kind of life where she drifted and didn't want to go home and took the better of two shitty choices all the time. She ends up going abroad and meeting a guy that she spills coffee on and he's this brainiac guy and she's not attracted to him but she sort of forces it as he's loaded and his mother is nice enough and she'll be set if she marries him so she does. And then regrets it. In fact she wishes the guy dead for the entire time they're married. The book opens up with Jobe, her husband on his deathbed riddled with cancer. He dies. She should rejoice and get on with her life that includes their three children and her lover on the side who is also married, but she doesn't.

The book is just a chronicle of the aftermath of his death and how she feels about and the past, how they met and the early years of their marriage, and also how she is diagnosed with breast cancer and now she thinks it is some sort of karmic thing. Then the oldest son who has down's syndrome talks to his dead father but that part never goes anywhere and we just witness Carmen's thoughts about life without her husband and then coming across some papers that Jobe was working on (he was a mathematician working on some unsolvable problem) and basically...... It all doesn't make me want to care one bit. I wanted to like Carmen at least a little bit. I mean there are people out there who question why they married the person they did and they meditate on it and maybe they've done some crappy things in their life that they think would warrant some sort of karmic kick in the arse but this book just took a nose dive from I'm-sure-it-could-have-been-handled-differently-if-written-differently but it just went phhhhhhht right back to the library where it came from. I was very happy to wrap it back up with the nifty tag and rubber bands and shoved into the tub so it can make its merry way back to the the library whence it came from. I returned that book with as much attitude as anyone could without looking like a lunatic. 

I do not recommend this book. At. All. 

But the one I'm reading now- 4 thumbs up!!!! 

Monday, July 16, 2012

The Age of Miracles (Karen Thompson Walker)


      
  I don't read speculative fiction often but I do enjoy it the times I've allowed my mind to open and wonder and take in a whole new society and a whole new set of rules and of course the big question of fiction in general, What if???

Julia is our young protagonist who at 12 years old is facing a world where everything as she knows it is changing. The big questions is what if the Earth's rotation slowed so much that the days stretched into weeks? It doesn't happen overnight but over the course of the book the reader is immersed in a world where this is happening and what will become of our life if it did. Karen Thompson Walker has researched and found out what could actually  happen if the worlds revolutions slowed. And it ain't pretty. 

Animals die, crops die, the grass dies. People are thrown off by the lack of darkness and can't sleep. They are sunburned when the days stretch on end and the ozone changes and radiation seeps through. People are broken into two groups in the story; the people who follow "clock time" and the people who go with "real time" meaning that they follow their days by sunlight. They are basically ostracized and go and live off in their own communities and meanwhile Julia is nursing a huge crush on one Seth Moreno. 

Okay so the story's strengths rely on the interest of the premise. It was well written and I think it was equal parts "earth/chaos-related" and also the coming of age of our Julia. She loses her best friend for typical reasons and we feel her pain as she navigates her world basically on her own as her mother suffers from a syndrome assumed related to "the slowing" and her dad is busy doing other things that you find out as you read. 

I recommend reading this book as much as you can in one or two sittings. It reads quickly and isn't that long and very good if not quite disturbing. Just imagining this whole thing happening makes my stomach ache in fear.  

Friday, July 13, 2012

The Chaperone (Laura Moriarty)


Cora Carlisle is a 30 something Witchita woman who decides to take it upon herself to accompany a young Louise Brooks to New York City for the summer in 1922. Cora is married and has twin sons away for the summer so she thinks why not? 

That is the premise for the first part of the novel. Laura Moriarty (The Center of Everything- a wicked good coming of age story if there ever was one) weaves a historical tale of the early 1900's and what it means to be a woman who has a past to figure out and a present to take advantage of. 

Cora chaperones a saucy little Louise Brooks who attends a special dancing school and gets picked to move forward with it. Cora is a woman who we find out was adopted and her ulterior motive for going to New York is to find out about her birth parents.

The two stories are told throughout the novel and although it was interesting to hear about Louise and what Moriarty imagines a young starlet to be like (drinking, staying out late, multiple marriage etc) it was way more intriguing to hear about Cora. How she met her husband in the aftermath of losing her foster parents and how she found a secret of her husbands and why she chose to stay with him anyway. 

I loved Moriarty's Center of Everything and expected to like this one as well. I wasn't let down but I do have to say the last 50 pages or so were someone anticlimactic but I wouldn't hesitate recommending this as a good beach read. It's not light and it's always fun to take an adventure though the past with a heroin with an agenda of her own. Cora has some secrets and it's not all prim and proper lady etiquette of an upstanding woman of the 20's and 30's. 

As for Louise...well she's not all that likable but she shows what unsolved issues and a desire to be promiscuous will

Monday, July 9, 2012

Living Your Yoga (Judith Lasater, Ph.D)


To all the yogi's out there (or people looking for a little wisdom) this is a very digestible book to have on hand. Judith Lasater is a well known teacher and writer and has offered great advice on how to be the best person you can be. I of all people know how flawed people can be and although I don't embrace my "less thans" I acknowlege that I am human and am capable of having bad days.

Judith has broken down the book into basic parts reflecting on the sage Patanjali and also the great yoga text, The Bhagavad Gita to illustrate how we can have compassion, release the need to control, have patience, understand suffering, have faith and courage, be of service and several more life venues.

It's called Living your yoga but there isn't much "yoga" in it. Maybe a few references but mostly it's about the philosophy of living a full life and realizing limitations as well as our full potential. The chapters are short and are perfect little reads to set the tone for the day or maybe read before bed to reflect.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Wife 22 (Melanie Gideon)


Oh I just loved this one. Seriously. And I was totally surprised by the end (I'll obviously keep it to myself) but I have to be honest and was like, What???? But despite the slight skepticism this was one of the few books that I couldn't put down, until I made myself because I wanted to try to savor it instead of reading it in one day- which would have been irresponsible of me and also because I like to have something lined up for the next one and I didn't have anything and wanted to avoid the post-good-book-void. And I'm a mom and do have things to do so I coudln't just while away the day with this awesome piece of chick lit. Even if I really wanted to.

It's the tale of Alice Buckle and Alice's family : William the husband, Zoe the 15 year old daughter and Peter the 12 year old son. Alice is a part time drama teacher who stumbles into her own bit of drama when after thinking her marriage was lacking something (after 20 years) and she found herself in that gray area of "what now?". So imagine the convenience of finding an email inviting her to be a part of a survey regarding marriage. It pays $1,000 and is by a credible company so Alice becomes (for confidentiality reasons) Wife 22. Which resonated way more than me thinking it was about a polygamous marriage. And I think I got my fill of polygamy in The Lonely Polygamist (a pretty good, if not long-winded book).

So Alice is a worrier. Aren't most moms? She's sweet and a little self deprecating but totally loveable even though she entertains the idea of having a relationship with Researcher 101 - who is the person she's in communication with for the survey. The researcher emails her questions and she answers them. But since she's confessing all these things about her marriage (mostly good thoughts and memories) but some confessions are more private and the reader can see how easy it would be to think you're interested in this anonymous person listening and being all interested in what you have to say. Basically the grass is greener and all that.

Other than the survey we have William who gets let go from his job and then an old friend of Alice's daughter comes to stay. And then there is the undercurrent of Alice worrying about her daughter having an eating disorder and her son being in the closet.

The story is told through prose as well as many Facebook status updates and parts of the survey so the reader has this three dimensional instantaneous view of what's going on with the Buckle family. I'm usually not a fan of books told through letters or email or in Jennifer Egans, Welcome to the Goon Squad when an entire chapter was done in powerpont- I skipped it. But for this book it worked. It all worked and I'm exctied about any of Gideons new books that I hope hope hope she comes out with.

Wife 22 is at the Windsor Locks library and I will be so excited to check it out to you!!

Sunday, July 1, 2012

We Only Know So Much (Elizabeth Crane)


What would we do without the ill functioning family as we know it today? We'd certainly have much less material to draw from to create fanstastically entertaining stories that might just make you feel better about your own, or at least not feel like you are the only one.

Meet the Copelands. We have four generations of characters here ranging from matriarch, Vivian and her son, Theodore to his son, Gordon, and his wife Jean, and then their kids, Priscilla and youngest Otis.
 
Elizabeth Crane takes us on an insight trip via short chapters through the minds of each character and their inner musings of their life and what is going on with it. It also seems that although they are the expert of their own life, they don't much know about the other family members. It is like they are all strangers living in the same house but oblivious to anything or anyone but themselves. 

There is a complete breakdown of communication between all the members of the house. Immediately I understood, despite it being seemingly strange to have this happening. because don't I know the dynamics of a household where small talk is is king and separate kitchen times a necessity. I could go on, but this is not a review of my  life, but the glowing review of a fantastic work of fiction (maybe based on some reality??) 

So we have Gordon, who does make up the bulk of the story and he is a guy who isn't so much likable but not unlikable either. He talks a lot and likes to impress on the other person who may or may not be listening, on how much he knows; he's a regular wikipedia sort of fellow. So  he thinks he may be losing his mind when at his work (he's a manager of a grocery story) a woman comes up to him who knows him and and asks how has he been? Gordon is confused because he doesn't know her name and then she says eludes to them having dated in college. He later does a search via "social network" that a pic reveals that they did date. He has no recollection and now thinks he's losing his mind!. It doesn't help that his father, Theodore also has issues with his mind (alzheimers). SO Gordon is quite distracted with Gordon and although he's a provider for his family he's really not paying much attention to them, least of all his wife. 

Now his wife, Jean, due to said negligence begins and sustains an affair with a man named James who ends up (quite near the beginning of the story) killing himself. Jean has to endure the grieving process in secret. We don't feel bad for her but perhaps we can empathize. 

Then there is Priscilla who, is named aptly in the first page of the book, a bitch. She's graduated high school and not doing much with her life (junior college, first year) and has been approached and passed on, for a reality show that is now her life's goal. Her friend gets a few call backs and as you can imagine this doesn't go down well for Priscilla. 

Then there is Otis who at 9 years old is in love with a girl in his class (Caterina) who eats jelly beans each one in three separate bites. They do become boyfriend and girlfriend for a short period of time and we get to see the thoughts of an enamored boy and how he goes about handling a budding relationship.
 
Last but not least the matriarch, Vivian. Vivian is a woman who is all about Vivian. She directs conversations (there aren't many as the family hardly interacts) to herself and we get to see how a 98 year old woman who is mostly functioning on her own handles life and the younger people in it.

I love Elizabeth Cranes voice and enjoyed this book immensely. It was funny and had no lulls in it where I almost want to skip parts (as has happened in the last few books I've read).  She has been noted to be more of a short story writer so I'm going to check out her three other books to see if they're as good as this one.  I love a good family centered book and if you do too this is one to get! It almost reminded me of Freedom by Jonathan Franzan but less pretentious (thus, entirely more enjoyable.)