It's Monday, 3/23! What Are You Reading?

Best laid plans...

I ended up reading very different books last week than I'd planned on. You know how different kinds of books can fit different moods? Well, by Tuesday morning last week, I realized I was very sick (as were my two sons). Suddenly, the very good memoir I'd started on Sunday, The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper, just wasn't quite right for how I felt. When I don't feel well, I like to read something engaging but not too difficult or thought-provoking, something fast-paced and gripping that will suck me in and help me forget about how terrible I feel and all the stuff I should be doing. Adventure/fantasy books written for kids and teens are perfect for days like that.

So, I set down my memoir and picked up a new prequel just recently released from one of our family's favorite series, Pendragon by DJ McHale. Here's what I ended up reading:

• Pendragon Before the War: Book One of the Travelers, created by DJ McHale and written by Carla Jablonski - the first of three prequels just published for the popular series. That reminded me of how much I enjoyed the original series, so I picked up where I'd left off with...
• Pendragon Book Six: The Rivers of Zadaa by DJ McHale. I finished that book this morning - it was just as good as the first 5 in the series - and took another look at my memoir, but I was still not feeling well and so immersed in the world of Pendragon that I picked up the next book in the series...
• Pendragon Book 7: The Quillan Games by DJ McHale

So, not a lot of variety in my reading last week but a whole lot of fun and great escapism! This week, I'll be posting a review of the Pendragon books on my Great Books for Kids and Teens blog, as well as a review of the new prequel.

What are YOU reading this week?

Fiction Review: Plum Spooky

Nobody will ever confuse Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels with great literature, but if you’re looking for pure escapist fun in a book, you’ve come to the right place.

Plum Spooky is one of Evanovich’s Between-the-Numbers books, featuring bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. The main series is numbered – currently up to fourteen – and new books are usually released in the summer. My mother buys each one, passes them onto me, then I pass them onto my husband. We all find them very entertaining.

Stephanie is not really a very good bounty hunter, but she usually gets her man in the end, leaving behind a trail of destroyed cars and laughing police officers. Her latest escapade begins like this:

Sometimes you get up in the morning and you know it’s going to be one of those days. No toothpaste left in the tube, no toilet paper on the cardboard roll, hot water cuts out halfway through your shower, and someone’s left a monkey on your doorstep.

My name is Stephanie Plum, and I’m a bail bonds enforcement agent for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. I live in a one-bedroom, unremarkable apartment in a three-story brick box of a building on the outskirts of Trenton, New Jersey. Usually, I live alone with my hamster, Rex, but at eight-thirty this morning, my roommate list was enlarged to include Carl the Monkey. I opened my door to go to work, and there he was. Small brown monkey with long, curled tail, creepy little monkey fingers and toes, crazy, bright monkey eyes, and he was on a leash hooked to my doorknob. A note was attached to his collar.

And right away, you know you’re in for a classic Stephanie Plum novel. Besides the appeal of Stephanie’s every-woman character, Evanovich’s books are populated with funny, eccentric characters. The monkey is only the beginning. In this case, Stephanie is joined by gorgeous but spooky Diesel in trying to find missing physics geek Martin Munch, who has to buy his clothes in the kids’ department. As always, Stephanie is assisted by her sidekick, Lula, who works as a clerk in the bonds office:

Lula is a former ‘ho, and she’s only moderately altered her wardrobe to suit her new job. Lula somehow manages to perform the miracle of squeezing her plus-size body into petite-size clothes. Her hair was blond this week, her skin brown as always, her spandex tube dress was poison green, and her shoes were four-inch, spike-heeled, faux leopard Via Spigas. It came as no surprise that the monkey was staring at Lula. Everyone stared at Lula.

Before long, Stephanie and Lula are off and running, chasing after bail skips who shoot at them and pummel them with fruit, while trying to find Munch. Their investigation takes them deep into the New Jersey Pine Barrens where they encounter Sasquatch, the Easter Bunny, and a lot more monkeys.

Stephanie Plum novels are a great cure for a bad day, with exciting mysteries, fast-paced suspense, and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Pure fluffy fun!

NOTE: Finger-Lickin' Fifteen is due for release on June 23.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Another blogger suggested a weekly reading list, and it sounds like a good idea, so here's my first one.

Last week, I finished:

• Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich (review will be posted this week)
• Things That Are by Andrew Clements
• Things Hoped For by Andrew Clements (both sequels to Things Not Seen - reviews to come on my Great Books for Kids and Teens blog)

I just started The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper, a memoir that my husband gave me for Christmas. It's very interesting so far.

And I hope to start an audio book this week, too: The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg, a classic kid's author.

So, what are YOU reading this week?

Fiction Review: Magic Street

Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite authors. I didn’t think I liked science fiction much until I read his fabulous series that begins with the renowned Ender’s Game, which is also a favorite of my 14-year old son.

Card’s young adult novel Magic Street is very different from the Ender books but is still a worthwhile read for fantasy-lovers of any age. The central character of this unique urban fantasy is Mack Street, a boy who lives in an affluent African-American suburb of Los Angeles. Mack began his life in a very unusual way: he was found as a newborn in a plastic shopping bag, left in an empty field in the neighborhood where he would eventually grow up.

Another boy in the neighborhood, Ceese (short for Cecil), finds the baby and brings him to his next-door neighbor who is a nurse:

“What is it?” she said. “I got no time right now for – “
Seeing the baby changed her whole attitude. “Please God, let that not be yours.”
“Found it,” said Ceese. “Covered with ants up in that little valley on Cloverdale. Mama said take it to you.”
“Why? Does she think it’s mine?” said Miz Smitcher.
“No, ma’am,” said Ceese.
Miz Smitcher sighed. “Let’s get that baby to the hospital.”
Ceese made as if to hand the baby to her.
She recoiled. “I got to drive, boy! You got a baby seat in your pocket? No? Then you coming along to hold that child.”
Ceese didn’t argue. Seemed like once he picked that baby up, he couldn’t get nobody else to take it no matter what he said or did.

That’s the beginning of a unique bond between Ceese and Mack, who is adopted by Miz Smitcher and babysat each day by Ceese. They grow up like brothers, but when Mack starts to notice that his dreams have a strange sort of magical power, he keeps that to himself. As a young teen, Mack discovers an entryway to a magical world that only he can see, and his explorations lead him to discover things about himself. Ultimately, Mack finds himself at the center of an epic battle between good and evil.

Magic Street, like other Card books, is a suspenseful novel populated by memorable characters, but its urban setting in LA and Shakespeare-inspired fantasy set it apart. Card explains in his acknowledgments that he created this book especially for a friend who complained that there were too few African-American heroes in novels. While Card does create likeable and heroic characters in both Mack and Ceese, his black street-talk dialogue often seems artificial and silly, especially in the setting of a prosperous African-American community filled with professionals and middle to upper-class citizens. Despite this flaw, the book is a clever and compelling fantasy tale; both my teen son and I enjoyed it very much.

Fiction Review: The Reader

Most people know of The Reader as the movie for which Kate Winslet recently won a Best Actress Academy Award, but The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink, was a best-selling and award-winning novel in both Germany and the United States before it was made into a movie.

The novel opens with fifteen-year old Michael Berg, who gets sick on the way home from school and is helped by a 36-year old woman. Months later, when Michael goes back to thank the woman for her help, he finds he is attracted to her and can’t stop thinking of her. The woman, Hanna, notices his attraction to her, and the two begin to have a love affair that continues as Michael recovers his health and goes back to school.

They settle into a routine of meeting at her apartment, where they make love and he reads aloud to her. Despite their physical closeness and seeming love for each other, they remain emotionally distant in some ways, and Hanna’s words and actions are often mystifying to Michael.

Many years later, Michael sees Hanna again in a court, where he is an observing law student, and she is standing trial, accused of horrible crimes. Michael is fascinated by the ongoing trial, and once again mystified by Hanna’s behavior, as she seems unwilling to defend herself.

While the action of the novel is engrossing, the real meat of it lies in its exploration of emotional and moral complexities. Schlink explores issues of crime and punishment, of love and forgiveness, of guilt and absolution. The novel compares and contrasts Michael and Hanna’s past and present, with frequent foreshadowing and Michael’s ongoing emotional battles within himself, as indicated here in a passage that takes place during their affair:

Why does it make me so sad when I think back to that time? Is it yearning for past happiness – for I was happy in the weeks that followed, in which I really did work like a lunatic and passed the class, and we made love as if nothing else in the world mattered. Is it the knowledge of what came later, and that what came out afterwards had been there all along?
Why? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths?

I enjoyed this book very much – both the interesting and suspenseful story as well as the intriguing moral questions posed. As with all moral issues, there are no easy answers – for either Michael or the reader – but shades of gray that are thought provoking. I wish that I had read this book with one of my book groups because it would be a very interesting one to discuss. And, yes, I do plan to see the movie now.

Fiction Review: A Dirty Job

Christopher Moore is known for writing funny and irreverent novels about strange topics, and A Dirty Job is no exception.

Charlie Asher is an average guy who loves his wife, Rachel, and is looking forward to the birth of his first child. Moore describes Charlie as a Beta Male: the sort of average, slightly neurotic, careful and steady guy who is always coming in second to the Alpha Males. Charlie owns and runs a second-hand store in San Francisco that his father left him. The story begins with the birth of his daughter, Sophie, and Charlie’s typical terrified Beta Male reaction as he drives the nurses crazy with his suspicion that Sophie was born with a tail because he’s sure he saw one on the sonogram:

“”You could have removed her tail in the delivery room, and we’d never know.” He didn’t know. He’d been asked to leave the delivery room, first by the ob-gyn and finally by Rachel. (“Him or me,” Rachel said. “One of us has to go.”)
In Rachel’s room, Charlie said: “If they removed her tail, I want it. She’ll want it when she gets older.”
“Sophie, your Papa isn’t really insane. He just hasn’t slept for a couple of days.”
“She’s looking at me,” Charlie said. “She’s looking at me like I blew her college money at the track and now she’s going to have to turn tricks to get her MBA.””

Soon, Charlie begins to notice strange things happening around him – giant ravens perched on buildings, eerie voices calling to him from the sewers, a strange man dressed in green that no one can see except Charlie, and people dying everywhere Charlie goes.

Charlie has been recruited for a new job he never wanted but can’t turn down: Death. Adventure and mayhem follow as Charlie tries to figure out exactly what his role is in this new job, while also bringing up and trying to protect Sophie.

Moore’s wacky sense of humor pervades the entire book, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that compel you to read sections out loud to whoever happens to be sitting near you. Best of all, A Dirty Job is populated with an unusual and very amusing cast of supporting characters, including the young Goth girl, Lily, who works in Charlie’s store; Charlie’s lesbian sister who is constantly borrowing his suits; and two older women – one from China and one from Russia – who help to take care of Sophie.

If sexual references and the “f” word offend you, you might want to steer clear of Moore’s book, but otherwise, A Dirty Job is a hilarious, silly, and oddly heart-warming book about the age-old battle of good versus evil, as fought by a Beta Male. I read this book for one of my book groups, and everyone enjoyed its light-hearted humor and original story (the people who listened to it said the audio version was great). After I finished it, my husband immediately started to read it because he had to find out what all my laughing was about!

Book Giveaway at J. Kaye's Blog

Another book blogger, J. Kaye, has recently posted a review of the book Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans. She is also giving away a copy of the book to one winner. Just leave a comment on her review to be entered in the give-away.

I used to live in New Orleans, and the city holds a special place in my heart (as it seems to for everyone who has ever lived there). The book sounds wonderful to me, and I definitely want to read it - even if I don't win the give-away. What a perfect book to read for this last week of Mardi Gras season!

P.S. Check out NOLA.com for full coverage of Mardi Gras and live web cams of the Mardi Gras parades this weekend through Tuesday!

Memoir Review: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

Anytime I have happened to come across Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s writing (often in her past columns in Parenting magazine while waiting in a doctor’s office), I have always ended up laughing out loud, so when I heard that she’d written a memoir, I knew I’d enjoy it.

“I was not abused, abandoned, or locked up as a child. My parents were not alcoholics, nor were they ever divorced or dead. We did not live in poverty, or in misery, or in an exotic country. I am not a misunderstood genius, a former child celebrity, or the child of a celebrity. I am not a drug addict, sex addict, food addict, or recovered anything. If I indeed had a past life, I have no recollection of who I was.

I have not survived against all odds.
I have not lived to tell.
I have not witnessed the extraordinary.

This is my story.”

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life is not an ordinary memoir; in fact, it’s quite unique. By her own admission at the start of her memoir, Amy writes in a “choppy, random, segue-free” style. Her memoir, as the title suggests, is written in the format of an encyclopedia, with alphabetical entries about…well, everything. From Anxious, Things That Make Me to Crossing Guard to Wordplays, Amy includes a bunch of random musings that add up to a fairly complete picture of who she is and what her life is like.

This sort of haphazard style might not appeal to everyone, but I really enjoyed her book. As I expected, Amy’s writing often made me laugh, and I enjoyed getting to know her. It probably helps that she and I have had similar lives – both born in 1965, both grew up in the suburbs in the 70’s with a younger sister named Beth, both now writers and mothers.

The memoir begins with an overview of American life in the early twenty-first century, including facts like the top CNN stories from 2000 – 2005, highest-rated TV shows, childhood rhymes, common slang, colors of the rainbow, and colors of the J. Crew catalog. You know right away that Amy has a unique and humorous way of looking at life.

As for her encyclopedia entries, they range from observations of the world around her to facts about herself and thoughts and feelings on a wide variety of subjects. I especially enjoyed her fascination with coincidences and wordplay. Some entries are a single line and some go on for pages. Many are accompanied by illustrations. A few of my favorites among the shorter entries:

“Amy Rosenthal:
My father-in-law informed me that my married name could produce these two anagrams: Hearty Salmon. Nasty Armhole. I cannot tell you how much I love that.

Bowling:
It would be difficult to convince me that leaning has no effect whatsoever on the outcome of my bowling.

Butterscotch:
I love butterscotch but rarely think to seek it out.”

As with the Butterscotch entry, I often found myself thinking, “Yes! Me, too!” as I read. As a bonus, this was the perfect book to read on a sick day, requiring little sustained concentration and producing plenty of laughs. I felt like I had made a new friend by the end of the book.

If you want to know more about Amy and her books (she has also written many children's books), visit her website. There are some wonderful videos there, as well, including her award-winning Kindness Thought Bubble.



 240 pages, Broadway Books

     

Great Books for Kids and Teens

I'm pleased to announce that I have just launched my new book review blog, especially for kids and teens: Great Books for Kids and Teens.

From now on, I'll post reviews of all kinds of books for kids, teens, and young adults (mostly for middle grades and up, but I'll include some for younger kids as well) at the new blog, and will use this blog for grown-up book reviews, though I may occasionally include a teen/YA book here if I think adults will like it, too.

So, take a look and let me know what you think! I plan to add new reviews at least once or twice a week, so check back often.

Memoir Review: Waiting for Snow in Havana

“The world changed while I slept, and much to my surprise, no one had consulted me. That’s how it would always be from that day forward. Of course, that’s the way it had been all along. I just didn’t know it until that morning. Surprise upon surprise: some good, some evil, most somewhere in between. And always without my consent.”

That’s the beginning of Carlos Eire’s remarkable memoir, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy, a National Book Award winner. His story begins on January 1, 1959, when President Batista fled from Cuba and a new leader, Fidel Castro, was suddenly in charge. With plenty of flash-backs and flash-forwards, Eire writes of his childhood in Cuba, both before and after the revolution.

Although the historical context is critical to the story, the first part of the book focuses on Carlos’ childhood before the revolution: the memories of a little boy (he was eight in 1959) running around the neighborhood with his brother and friends. He shares stories of their adventures – stories much like those of any young boy – against the backdrop of a tropical paradise. There are tales of ultra-rich friends who live in mansions; stories of flying kites, swimming at the beach, and setting off firecrackers with his friends; and admissions of a terrible fear and loathing of the ever-present lizards.

In some ways, though, Carlos’ childhood was unusual. His father, a judge, firmly believed that he had been Louis XVI in a past life and that his wife was Marie Antionette. He is sometimes full of fun, taking the boys on exciting outings around Havana, and other times absent and uncaring, obsessed with his collection of arts and antiques.

While I enjoyed the tales of childhood joys and struggles, the book becomes much more fascinating as the revolution unfolds. Eire describes the changes that occur in his neighborhood, his school, and his country from a child’s perspective, sometimes flashing forward to relate to what happened from his adult point of view. Eventually, when it becomes apparent that Cuba is changing in dramatic and dangerous ways, Carlos’ mother makes arrangements for he and his brother to flee to the United States (it was easier for children to leave than adults). So, in 1962, eleven-year old Carlos sees Cuba for the last time from his airplane seat, leaving behind everything and everyone he knows, except for his brother.

We also learn, in bits and pieces, about what happened to Carlos and his brother after they arrived in the United States and how the author grew up to be the man he is today, but the focus of the book is on those first eleven years in Cuba, how they helped form his view of the world and of himself.

I enjoyed this book very much and passed it along to my husband, who’s reading it now. Not everyone in my book group liked it as much as I did, but we all agreed that we learned a lot, and we certainly had plenty to talk about during our discussion of the book. Some felt that the first part of the book was too much like any childhood memoir, but I happen to like childhood memoirs, so I enjoyed that, as well as the second half of the book. I learned a lot about Cuba and Castro’s revolution – I had no idea that 14,000 Cuban children had been airlifted out of Cuba to the United States at that time – but I also enjoyed the author’s reflections on how his boyhood shaped the adult he is now.

If you’re interested in learning more about Cuba’s revolution after reading this book, you might also enjoy the movie, The Lost City, set during the same time period.

Young Adult Review: Go Ask Alice

I must be the only the person on earth who was a teen in the 70's and never read Go Ask Alice, the anonymous account of a teen girl who becomes addicted to drugs, but it's true. I recently picked up the audio version of the famous book at the library and listened to it for the first time during several car trips.

I was stunned by the power and emotional impact of this story, as I suppose many people have responded to it since it was first published in 1971. So, I was equally stunned and sorely disappointed to discover that it is now widely assumed to be a work of fiction. I just finished reading a summary of Go Ask Alice on scopes.com, the go-to place on the web for debunking urban legends. I was crushed to find out that the book is not the real-life diary of a teen, as it is presented.

I do tend to be gullible in these sorts of things, mainly because I'm an optimist and idealist; I just want to believe that people are incapable of deception, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary! I tend to take things at face value.

However, while this particular deception is disappointing to me, it doesn't change my opinion of the book overall. I found much of the "diary" to be quite realistic, even reminiscent of my own high school journals, especially in the way that the narrator vacillated between cheerful optimism and dark despondency. Isn't that the essence of being a teen?

Perhaps the format I chose impacted my experience as well. Maybe the diary entries would have seemed less real if I were reading them rather than listening. The young narrator of the audio book did a great job expressing the highs and lows of the teen's high school life and her shame at her descent into drug addiction. When she talked, in a low monotone, about the horrible things that happened to her while she was high and living on the streets, my heart broke for her, and when she was back with her family and happily trying to put her life together, I cheered for her.

Despite its controversies and deception, Go Ask Alice remains a touching and disturbing portrait of how drug addiction can destroy the life of a smart, sweet young girl. Certainly, even if this account is fiction, the things that happen in the book do indeed happen to real people. I think all teens (and all parents) should read this book. It affected me deeply.

AUDIO:

Favorite Books of 2008

Several years ago, I began keeping a book journal so that I could keep track of what I read. At this time of year, I like to look back at what I enjoyed in the past year. By my count, I read or listened to 59 books in 2008. Here are some of my favorites (in addition to those I reviewed in this blog previously):

One Mississippi by Mark Childress – This book made it onto my list of favorite books of all-time. I laughed, I cried…no, I really did! It’s a hilarious, spot-on portrayal of high school life and of the early 70’s. When his father suddenly moves the family from Indiana to rural Mississippi, sixteen-year old Daniel feels like an outsider, until he meets Tim, another outsider who finds humor in everything. The boys’ friendship is tested by a terrible accident on prom night. The author successfully weaves together laugh-out-loud moments, serious themes, and a heart-breaking climax.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult – It wouldn’t be a “best of” list without at least one book by Jodi Picoult, who writes riveting novels that explore the gray areas of life. This one centered on a school shooting, something that’s been in the media a little too often lately. But, as usual, Picoult takes a unique look at the subject: the novel is written from many different perspectives, so you see not only the viewpoint of the victims’ families but also the shooter himself, as a sweet but bullied child; his parents; and his childhood friend. As with all of Picoult’s books, it was compelling and thought-provoking. I finished the hefty volume in 3 days, then lent it to a friend who also finished it in 3 days!

Too Close to the Falls by Catherine Glidner – I love memoirs, and this one was my favorite of the year, plus a huge hit with my neighborhood book group. Cathy had an unusual childhood, growing up in the 50’s as the precocious daughter of the town’s pharmacist in Niagara Falls, NY. At the tender age of three, her pediatrician suggested she work for her father to harness some of her unlimited energy and imagination. She has a talent for remembering the tiniest details and relating them from the perspective of her young self.

Jumper by Steven Gould - This is an older book, targeted at teens, but I’d never read it before, and I loved it! I’m not a huge science fiction fan, but I love books about time travel. This one was actually about teleportation, but it had the same appeal for me. Seventeen-year old David is being beaten by his abusive father when he suddenly finds himself miles away in one of his favorite places, the public library. He discovers he can “jump” from one place to another under certain circumstances but has no idea how or why. David tries to learn to live with his new talent in this fast-paced coming-of-age novel with in-depth characters and plenty of exciting plot twists and thought-provoking ethical questions. I didn’t like the sequel, Reflex, nearly as much, nor the movie-version book, which was an entirely different story, but the original novel was excellent.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson – I’ve been dying to read this book for a couple of years, and I finally borrowed it from my neighbor last month. It was just as compelling as I’d expected. Greg Mortenson tells the amazing story of how he came to devote his life to building schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. After almost dying on the way down from an unsuccessful ascent of K2, Greg was nursed back to health by the compassionate villagers of Korphe. When he saw the village’s children studying by squatting on the cold ground and drawing with sticks in the dirt, Greg promised to return to build the village a school. He was incredibly naïve and had no idea of the kinds of barriers he’d encounter, but he kept his promise, and building schools became his life’s work. It’s an inspiring story that kept me riveted.

Rules by Cynthia Lord – This is a book for middle-grade readers that will also appeal to teens (and adults, too!). Twelve-year old Catherine tries to navigate her pre-teen life while also living with her 8-year old autistic brother. She sets rules for him to follow, to help him seem more normal to the outside world. When Catherine befriends a 14-year old paraplegic boy who can’t speak, she is forced to reassess her ideas about what is normal. Catherine is a funny, warm narrator, and this book is a must-read for anyone who knows someone with autism. I listened to the audio version, with a wonderful reader who perfectly captured Catherine (my review of Rules will appear in a spring issue of Family Fun magazine).

I hope to post reviews here more regularly this year, so check back soon! I’m also planning to create a separate blog for my reviews of kids’ books, since I read and review far more books than I’m able to publish in Family Fun magazine. Let me know what you think.

Fiction Review: The State of Me

I loved this first novel by Nasim Marie Jafry, but I suppose I should begin with a bit of disclosure. Jafry, like me, has a chronic illness, an immune system disorder known in the U.S. by the embarrassing name Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and in Jafry’s Scotland and other countries as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). She and I both write blogs about living with CFS/ME, and I have followed her blog for several years. So, it is as if an old friend (a virtual friend) has published her first novel.

The main character, Helen, is in college as the novel opens. She is smart and vibrant, living a typical college life, filled with classes, friends, parties, and boyfriends. Helen and her roommate, Jana, head off to France for a semester abroad, leaving Helen’s boyfriend Ivan behind. While in France, Helen suddenly becomes ill – so severely ill that she has to return home to her parents’ house in Scotland. As you might have guessed from my introduction, Helen is eventually diagnosed with ME. The novel follows the next fifteen years of Helen’s life, as she struggles with learning to live with her illness and find romance.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from The State of Me. After all, I live with the challenges of this illness myself every day. Why would I want to read about it in my fiction as well? I wondered whether the book would be depressing – 500 pages of living with ME.

I was pleasantly surprised, though. For starters, the novel is very well written, with realistic dialogue, characters that you come to care about, and an engaging and fast-paced plot. A fast-paced book about being bed-ridden? Yes! Jafry is a wonderful writer, and she brings her characters alive so that you can’t wait to turn the page and see what happens next. In fact, I read this hefty novel in only a few days because once I started, I had trouble putting it down. And it wasn’t at all depressing. Funny, sexy, uplifting, sometimes a bit sad, but never depressing.

Although Jafry does address issues related to ME/CFS in the novel, she does it in a way that doesn’t detract from the fact that this book is, first and foremost, a novel. It’s about so much more than living with chronic illness. It’s a book about friendship, family, love, and life. I came to care about Helen and wanted things to turn out well for her. I laughed out loud, cheered her on, and yelled at her. After all, isn’t that what fiction is supposed to do – make us feel something? By the time I finished The State of Me, I felt as if its characters were a part of my own life, and I was sorry to say good-bye.

(P.S. Besides enjoying the characters and plot, I had fun with the language of this novel, since it was written by a Scot. I enjoyed trying to figure out what the Scottish words and phrases meant from context and was mostly successful. I had no trouble translating brolly to umbrella by the way it was used, for instance, although I am still wondering what kind of holiday Hogmanay is?)

You can visit the author's blog here.
 

512 pages, The Friday Project Limited

I couldn't find The State of ME on Bookshop or Book Depository, but you can buy the e-book on Kindle or the paperback through Amazon.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Young Adult Fiction: The Book Thief

Although The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was published as a Young Adult book, one of my grown-up book groups recently read it for our September selection. The response was unanimous - everyone loved it! As soon as I finished it, I lent it to my neighbor, who was similarly impressed and then recommended it to her friends. That's the way it goes with a unique and well-written book.

And The Book Thief is certainly unique. The story is narrated by Death. Yes, you read that correctly, and Death is a surprisingly sympathetic and endearing character who tells this story from a unique perspective. While this choice of narrator seems strange at first, it works quite well.

The book thief of the title is a young girl named Liesel who lives in Nazi Germany at the time of World War II. Death first encounters Liesel when she is just 9 years old and her brother dies. He sees Liesel take her first book, The Grave Digger's Handbook, even though she can not yet read. Liesel goes to live with foster parents in a very poor section of a small town and encounters all sorts of characters, some friendly and some more sinister. While going to school, taking part in Junior Nazi activities, and helping her family harbor a hidden Jew, she continues to encounter both Death and stolen books, and both have a significant impact on her life.

Anyone who loves to read will appreciate the positive role of books in Liesel's life and in the lives of those she cares about. In fact, it is a book - her own hand-written life story - that ultimately saves her life. This is one of those books that takes you through every emotion imaginable. And after all, isn't that the point of a really good book: to make you feel something? The Book Thief does that and more.

Due to its subject matter and setting during the Holocaust, The Book Thief is most appropriate for older teens or adults.

Author Interviews Online

My new favorite website is Titlepage which features author interviews on an hour-long show, posted once a week. The show is very well done. Each week, the host interviews a group of four authors whose recent books are somehow linked. For instance, one week the four guests had all recently published nonfiction books; another week, the show featured four first-time published novelists.

It's a great show if you love books, and the best part is that you can watch it whenever it is convenient for you. I look forward each week to spending a lunch hour with my laptop next to me.

Take a look, and tell me what you think!

Funny Column About Book Tours

Just had to share this hilarious column from the Philadelphia Inquirer, written by Lisa Scottoline about her experiences on book tours.

Having experienced empty chairs at a book signing myself (well, except for my immediate family and a couple of close friends), I found this especially funny. I loved her column, so I guess I'll have to try one of her books. From what I read on her website, it seems that she writes "sexy legal thrillers" and her books have won awards and been very popular.

Memoir: Three Little Words

Ashley Rhodes-Courter lived in fourteen different foster homes in nine years. Her memoir chronicles her childhood spent as a victim of a badly broken foster care system, yet she sees herself as more of a survivor and advocate rather than a victim.

Ashley’s story begins with her earliest memories (based in part on stories told to her by her family). Her mother was only seventeen when Ashley was born. They lived for awhile with her mother’s sister, then with a boyfriend and a new baby brother. When Ashley was just three years old, and her brother Luke still a baby, police removed them from their house, and the progression of foster parents began.

Ashley and Luke were bounced from one foster home to another, sometimes together, sometimes apart. She stayed in some homes for years and in others for just a day or two. For years, no one explained to her why this had happened, where her mother was, or what she could expect in the future. Some of her foster parents were caring, kind people; others were indifferent, crowding too many children into small homes. One foster mother was as evil as any fairytale stepmother, mentally and physically abusing Ashley and the other fourteen children in her care.

Fortunately, Ashley was an intelligent and resilient child and eventually escaped the foster care system that was responsible for so much pain in her life. She is now a college-educated twenty-two year old who is a vocal advocate for adoption and foster care reform. Simon & Schuster published Three Little Words within their teen division, but the memoir is fascinating and compelling for readers of any age. From the adorable picture of Ashley dressed as an angel on the cover to the acknowledgements, notes, and photos at the end of the book, I could scarcely put it down.

P.S. The three little words aren't the ones you're thinking of!

Young Adult Fiction: Click

I just read the recently released young adult novel, Click, by David Almond, Eoin Colfer, Roddy Doyle, Deborah Ellis, Nick Hornby, Margo Lanagan, Gregory Maguire, Ruth Ozeki, Linda Sue Park, and Tim Wynne-Jones. Yes, you read that correctly; this novel has 10 authors!

The concept behind Click was to start with ten bestselling, award-winning writers. Each one wrote a single chapter in the novel. As you can imagine, each chapter has its own unique style, but it works. The end result is a novel that tells a story, but with many surprising twists and turns. It’s part character-study, part mystery, part teen angst, part comedy, with a bit of science fiction thrown in.

The novel opens with two siblings, Maggie, middle school-age, and Jason, a high school senior, struggling in their own ways with the recent death of their Grandpa “Gee”. Gee was a famous photographer who traveled all over the world, and he left each of his grandchildren with a puzzling gift: an old camera and a box of photos for Jason and a handmade box of seashells for Maggie.

The story unfolds as Maggie and Jason each come to terms with Gee’s death and their own changing lives, while they try to make sense of what Gee has left them. Within the format of the book’s changing authors, some chapters deal with one child or the other, some address Gee’s past, and some are actually about the subjects of certain photos that Gee left to Jason. The threads are all gradually woven together, as Maggie and Jason each find their own path to the adults they will become.

More character driven than action-oriented, this book will probably appeal to teens and young adults (and grown-ups, too!). Though the changing authors and various story threads might be distracting to some readers, I thought the editing process was effective, producing a book that tells a full story from different perspectives.

Click was a quick and pleasant read for me, and I enjoyed sampling the writings of ten different authors (I had only read one of them before). In fact, the book has inspired me to check out other offerings from some of these writers. As an added bonus, all proceeds from Click are being donated to Amnesty International.

Fiction: China Run

I just finished reading my book group’s latest selection, China Run by David Ball, and my initial reaction is, “What an amazing book.” With its unique plot, likeable characters, and intense suspense, this book gripped me in a way that I haven’t experienced in a long time. I struggled to put the book down each night at bedtime and often ended up dreaming of it during the night!

Six American families are in China for the final stage of their adoption of Chinese baby girls. As they await their babies’ visas, each family has bonded with its baby for several days when they receive word from the orphanage director that a mistake has been made. They are told they received the wrong babies and must return them immediately. Distressed and confused, three of the families comply with the request, but the other three parents feel they can’t give up their new family members and instead take off on their own for the nearest American embassy, hoping to resolve the mix-up.

That hasty decision turns into a nightmare as the three families flee from Chinese authorities and end up in a dangerous and complicated journey across the cities and countryside of China. The main character, Allison, is one of the parents who chose to run, along with her new Chinese baby and her nine-year old stepson. A massive manhunt ensues, with the whole world watching, as Allison tries desperately to keep her children safe and ensure that her baby won’t be taken away.

Along the way, they meet many Chinese citizens – some helpful and some sinister – as they try to thwart the enormous web of authorities that are after them. Meanwhile, one of the police investigators begins to uncover a terrible secret behind the orphanage and the error that initiated this situation.

Ball describes the sights, sounds, and smells of China so that you feel you are right there with Allison, on the run in an unfamiliar land and surrounded by a language and culture you don’t understand. We see the beauty of China’s landscapes and the qualities of its people and feel the terror of being alone in a foreign place.

At turns thought-provoking, terrifying, and touching, this intriguing and suspenseful novel will keep you reading late into the night.

Fiction: Orbit

I bought a signed copy of Orbit by John J. Nance from Chinaberry for my husband for Christmas. Of course, the best thing about buying a loved one a good book is that you get to read it, too!

Orbit is a gripping suspense novel, the kind that is easily devoured in a couple of days. The plot is unique and intriguing, pulling you in immediately. Kip Dawson is a typical American husband and father who wins a contest with a prize that will fulfill his lifetime dream: to travel in a spacecraft. It's 2009, and private space travel has become a reality. Kip's prize includes two weeks of ground school, followed by a flight in a small spacecraft that will orbit Earth several times. Of course, some problems crop up, and Kip eventually finds himself alone in the tiny ship, miles above the Earth. It's a classic Gilligan's Island "3-hour tour" set-up.

After that, though, Orbit takes off on its own path. While Kip is trying to figure out how to get back on the ground safely, he discovers an onboard laptop computer and begins typing a personal journal. He knows there's a good chance he won't survive, and typing his thoughts and the story of his life provides an outlet for him and perhaps, he thinks, a record of what happened for some future generation. Since the ship no longer has radio contact with the ground, Kip is unaware that everything he types is being instantly downloaded through an internet connection and read by millions of people all over the world.

Kip's physical situation provides plenty of suspense to the story, while his journal and its effects on his family and the rest of the world give the book an emotional depth that's often missing from suspense novels. It's fascinating to listen in on the thoughts of a man who believes he'll be dead in a few days.

This is the first book of John Nance's that I've read (he's published seventeen prior novels). Both my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the fast-paced, thoughtful Orbit.