Fiction Review: Firefly Lane

I just finished Firefly Lane, a novel by Kristin Hannah, and I couldn’t wait to write about it. This was one of those books that I carried everywhere with me, sneaking in a few paragraphs whenever I could. The story pulled me in so thoroughly that I felt like I knew the characters personally.

Firefly Lane is the story of a lifelong friendship between two women, Kate and Tully, who meet when they are both lonely fourteen-year old girls:

Kate stood outside the drugstore looking up and down the street for someone who might know her mom. “Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely.”

The answer was slim comfort, actually. In the day they’d officially been friends, Kate had learned one thing about Tully: she was a girl who made Plans.

And today’s plan was to make Kate beautiful.

“Don’t you trust me?”

There it was, the big question. It was like rolling a Yahtzee: once Tully said it, Kate lost the game. She had to trust her new friend. “Of course I do. It’s just that I’m not allowed to wear make-up.”

“Believe me, I’m such an expert your mom will never know. Come on.”

Tully walked boldly though the drugstore, choosing eye shadow and blush colors that were “right” for Kate, and then – amazingly – she paid for everything. When Kate said something, Tully said airily, “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

From then on, Kate and Tully are inseparable, and the novel follows their friendship and their lives for decades, through school, college, careers, and relationships. I especially enjoyed all of the details of the times (fashions, haircuts, music, etc.) as the girls grew up in the 70's and became women in the 80's.

Someone had told me that this book was too sad for her, but I loved every minute of it. Yes, I did actually cry – not once but three different times! – while reading it, but I love a novel that can make me cry. To me, the best fiction is the kind that mirrors real life, populated with characters who act like real people, and real life is full of both sorrow and joy, good times and bad. I did cry while reading certain parts of this book, but I also smiled and laughed at other parts. That’s life. Besides, it’s so cleansing to have a good cry over a great piece of fiction (either book or movie) – much better than crying over your own life!

Besides the events in the book mirroring real life, I loved that the characters were real, flawed people. They made mistakes, they didn’t always treat each other well, they did stupid things – there were times when I wanted to shake each of them – but they also had triumphs and good times, too. I’ve read novels about idealized female friendships before that just left me feeling inadequate, like what’s wrong with me that I’ve never had a fairy-tale friendship like this? But no relationship is perfect in real life, which is why this novel and these characters grabbed me so completely.

Despite the fact that the book is almost 500 pages long, I never wanted it to end. When I finished it last night, I immediately began to read the extra stuff at the end – author interview, discussion questions, etc. One thing I learned is that this novel was somewhat autobiographical for the author – not the complete storyline, but the time and place and some of the events. I think that explains why the book elicits such genuine emotions. Maybe I’ll get in touch with some old friends today...

St. Martin’s Griffin, 479 pages.

It's Monday, 7/20! What Are You Reading?

I had a great reading week...

• I read Everlost by Neal Shusterman, a wonderful teen/YA book about kids who are killed in a car crash and end up in Everlost, a sort of way station between life and death. My 14-year old son has been telling me how great this book is for awhile now - I'm glad I finally had a chance to read it!
• I started Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah, lent to me by my neighbor last week. It's a novel that follows the friendship of two women, starting when they meet at 14. It's one of those books that pulls you in so much that you think about the characters all the time! I've been carrying it around with me and reading it every chance I get.

What are YOU reading this week?

Fiction Review: Breakfast with Buddha

There’s nothing better for a 3-week long road trip than a book about a road trip! So, on our recent vacation out to Colorado, I brought along Roland Merullo’s novel, Breakfast with Buddha, about a man who takes a cross-country road trip from NYC to North Dakota (many summers we’ve driven from the East Coast to South Dakota). The catch? His companion on this trip is a red-robed monk-type guru.

The road trip details in this novel are so accurate (Merullo says they’re based on an actual trip) that I mistakenly thought this was a memoir at first. At some point (I’m not saying how far in!), I figured out that the main character’s name was different than the author’s and it was a novel. Once I had that figured out, I absolutely loved this book! Its combination of travelogue, humor, and philosophy were perfect.

Otto Ringling is an ordinary kind of guy – a middle-aged husband, father of two teens, and editor of food-related books who lives in New Jersey and commutes into NYC. He has lots of friends, a nice house, and is happy with his life. Recently, though, his parents were both killed in a car accident, and Otto has to go back to North Dakota, where he grew up, to settle their estate and sell the family farm. He thinks he’s making the trip with his sweet but wacky sister, but she has other plans, as he finds out when he goes to pick her up and she somehow convinces him to instead travel with her guru, Volyo Rinpoche, to whom she wants to give her part of the estate:

Which is basically the story of how, after another half hour of pleading, on my sister’s part, and attempting to resist, on mine, I ended up agreeing to drive Volvo Rinpoche from NJ to ND. When we went outside to give him the news, the Rinpoche seemed interested, mildly curious, amused, but not in any discernable way grateful. His luggage consisted of one cloth bag that looked like an oversized, well-worn pocketbook with leather handles. He accepted a minute-long embrace from my sister, bowed to her in a tender way, and settled himself into the front seat as calmly as if he’d been making the insurance payments for the past six months. My sister hugged me double-long, a double-long spinal massage included.

I was behind the wheel, seatbelt on, without knowing quite how it had happened. I lowered the window. “You said you had a dream about Rinpoche and me,” I said to Cecilia. “What were we doing?”

A gorgeous smile lit my sister’s face. She leaned toward me, happy as a child, and said, “Bowling!”

The rest of the novel chronicles their trip across the U.S. Otto tries to show Rinpoche the essence of America, with stops at Hershey, a baseball game, various restaurants (he is a foodie, after all), and, yes, a bowling alley. Rinpoche, in a quiet, no-pressure sort of way, engages Otto in some very thought-provoking discussions about nothing less than the meaning of life.

I loved everything about this book. Of course, the details of the road trip entranced me, since we make similar journeys every summer; I even tried to find a restaurant they stopped at in Pennsylvania (no luck – we ended up at a Long John Silver’s – as the author correctly states in the book, there are few good dining options off the Pennsylvania Turnpike). I also very much enjoyed the author’s sense of humor and found myself frequently reading amusing passages out loud to my husband.

But besides the fact that this is just a fun novel to read, it is also very thought provoking. I loved the philosophical discussions about everything from religion to anger to sex. The author successfully introduces all sorts of sometimes controversial topics as simply food for thought in a gentle, non-intrusive way. The novel is never contentious or preachy, just fun and thoughtful. I came home dying to lend it to my friends and my mom. While I can’t think of a better accompaniment for a summer trip, this would also make an excellent book club pick.

It's Monday 7/13! What Are You Reading?

Wow, is it really July 13 already? Where's the summer going? We have piles of books taking over our house, so this morning my sons and I did a quick bookcase clean-out in their rooms. We now have a big box of books to donate, a big bag to give to younger cousins, and a lot more room on the bookcases!

Mostly this week, I (and our family) finished books I described in last week's post:

• Pendragon, Book 8: The Pilgrims of Rayne by DJ MacHale - I LOVE this series! As soon as I finished it, I said to my son, "We have to get Book 9!"
• Ordinary Boy Book 2: The Return of Meteor Boy? by William Boniface - very funny - see a review at my kids' book blog.
• Audio book Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow by James Rollins - we all loved it!

And I started a new memoir that is absolutely amazing so far:

• Jantsen's Gift by Pam Cope - an incredible story of a woman who devoted herself to helping poor, orphaned kids around the world after her son died. I'll post a review when I finish it.
  

So, what are YOU reading this week?

Places I've Visited in Books

Thanks to Kim at Page After Page for this very cool idea (that she heard through Weekly Geeks)!

The map below shows places I've visited through reading - settings of various books I've read (at least those I could remember!). I've read about a lot of different places in the past few years especially and learned so much about the world, but making this map made me realize how many more places are out there. For instance, I've read lots of wonderful books about India - so many that I even have a Category Label for it! - but there are so many other countries in Asia I haven't read about. Since I don't have the means to travel the world in person, I'm glad I can go to these places in books!



create your own visited country map

Visit World66 to make your own reading map!

It's Monday, 7/6! What Are You Reading?

I didn't fall off face of the earth or give up on blogging - I've just been on a 3-week cross-country road trip. We had a wonderful time (you can check out our trip blog for pictures). I didn't do a whole lot of reading, mainly because I can't read books in the car. We listened to some great kids'/teens' audio books, though, and I read a few books during the trip. Here's what I read over the past three weeks:

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - an absolutely amazing teen/YA book that I'd recommend to anyone of any age (teens and older) - see review at my kids' book blog.
• Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo. I bought this one before the trip in part because it's a novel about a cross-country road trip! I really loved it and will post a review later this week (first I need to get through 423 e-mails).
• I'm currently reading Pendragon Book 8: The Pilgrims of Rayne by D.J. MacHale. I've raved here before about the Pendragon series for kids and teens, and this one is no exception.
• With our kids, we've been taking turns reading aloud from Ordinary Boy 2: The Return of Meteor Boy by William Boniface, a very fun and funny sequel to one of our favorites about a city called Superopolis where every citizen (except the title character, Ordinary Boy) has superpowers. Lots of laughs.
  

We also listened to the following kids'/teens' audio books during our trip:

• Simon Bloom and the Gravity Keeper and Simon Bloom and the Octopus Effect by Michael Reisman, a great series that combines science and magic in fast-paced, suspenseful stories.
• Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow by James Rollins is the first entry into the children's market by a best-selling adult author (though I haven't read any of his grown-up books before). We're most of the way through this one and enjoying its exciting suspense and, like the Simon Bloom books, combination of science and magic plus history.

So, what have YOU been reading so far this summer?

Fiction Review: Gone Tomorrow by P.F. Kluge

We're on vacation on a road trip and enjoying lots of good books along the way! I stopped off in a Panera with internet access to post some new reviews. You might also want to check out my review of The Hunger Games at Great Books for Kids and Teens. It's a YA book that readers of any age will love! Now, onto this review...

Let me get this out of the way first: I loved this book. I spotted Gone Tomorrow by P.F. Kluge on my library’s shelf of new arrivals and picked it up because I remembered hearing some good things about it. I’m so glad I did.

Oddly enough, the likeable main character has already died in the first sentence:

George Canaris is the first faculty member of this college in half a century whose death merited an obituary in the New York Times. He was our best-known professor, one of those outsized characters who arrives in an obscure place and makes it his own. “A writer, a critic, a professor, a campus legend and a national figure, the very embodiment of the liberal arts,” the Times obituary said. And a mystery. He was the author of two well-received novels and a book of essays, all published more than thirty years ago. Taken together, they were the beginnings of an impressive shelf to which, in all his years here in Ohio, he added nothing. “Compared to Faulker and Dos Passos at the start of his career,” the Times observed, “in the end he resembled Harper Lee.”

To some of us on campus, that last remark seemed harsh and condescending: the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately school of criticism, unfair to George Canaris and to Harper Lee. They were both authors – add J.D. Salinger to the list – who left readers wanting more and whose accomplishments, even as they recede, remain fresh and new and magic. Of how many writers can this be said? Also, there was always a chance that something more would be coming from a small town in Alabama, a remote New England farm, a small college on a hill in central Ohio. There was that hope, tantalizing, like a phone call from an unlisted number. In Canaris’ case, there were specific grounds for hope, his references to a novel underway, something major, years in the writing. He called it “The Beast.” But, as time went by, inevitably, there was speculation that the book was a myth, a lie, a joke. Every passing year made skeptics more confident. But never certain.

And that’s the main set-up of this book within a book, told in part in Canaris’ own words: how he progressed from a famous and sought-after author to an aging professor at a small rural college. Much of the novel goes back and forth between his past and the present, gradually filling in the blanks. The central question, both in Canaris’ life and in Gone Tomorrow, is whether The Beast really exists and whether it will ever be published.

To make the book even more captivating, the author, P.F. Kluge, happens to be a writer-in-residence at – guess what? – a small college in central Ohio. I couldn’t help wondering how much of the novel was autobiographical (though, obviously, not the part about not publishing in 30 years). Perhaps his own experience is the reason why the setting and descriptions in this book are so vivid.

Gone Tomorrow is clever and engaging, and I grew to really like George Canaris. I was rooting for him and hoping that The Beast was real and that he would conquer it and show those naysayers. I also became fond of the college and its little rural town and enjoyed Canaris’ tales of teaching there. All in all, this was a very enjoyable novel.

Fiction Review: A Map of the World

Ten pages into reading Jane Hamilton’s novel, A Map of the World, for my book group, I realized I had read it before. That was probably about five years ago, though, and I didn’t remember how it ended, so I re-read it. I’m glad I did, and, oddly, I think I liked it better the second time. I remembered it was a somewhat dark book, filled with despair – something I don’t normally enjoy – but I had forgotten how well-written it is. The story, characters, and writing make it a very compelling book that’s hard to put down.

Right from the very first paragraphs, you know that something terrible is going to happen and you get some insight into how the main character, Alice, thinks and feels:

I used to think if you fell from grace it was more likely than not the result of one stupendous error, or else an unfortunate accident. I hadn’t learned that it can happen so gradually you don’t lose your stomach or hurt yourself in the landing. You don’t necessarily sense the motion. I’ve found it takes at least two and generally three things to alter the course of a life: You slip around the truth once, and then again, and one more time, and there you are, feeling, for a moment, that it was sudden, your arrival at the bottom of the heap.

I opened my eyes on a Monday morning in June last summer and I heard, somewhere far off, a siren belting out calamity. It was the last time I would listen so simply to a sound that could mean both disaster and pursuit. Emma and Claire were asleep and safe in their beds, and my own heart seemed to be beating regularly. If the barn was out the window, clean, white, the grass cropped as close as a golf course, then my husband Howard was all right. I raised up to take a look. It was still standing, as I suspected it would be. I had never said out loud a little joke I used to say to myself now and again: Everywhere that barn goes, Howard, you are sure to be close behind. He was a philosophical and poetical farmer who bought Golden Guernseys because he both liked their color and the way “Golden Guernsey” floated off his tongue. It was secondary that the breed was famous for their butterfat. I worried about his choice when we bought the farm because I was certain that poetry is almost never rewarded. Now, in my more charitable moods, I wonder if our hardworking, God-fearing community members punished us for something as intangible as whimsy. We would not have felt eccentric in a northern city, but in Prairie Center we were perhaps outside the bounds of the collective imagination.

Those first two paragraphs provide a huge amount of information about Alice and her family and give a good example of how Alice thinks – in a sort of rambling, thoughtful way. I sometimes found her lack of focus irritating, but some in my book group really related to her.

You know right away that something bad is going to happen, and you don’t have to wait long to find out what it is. In the first chapter, Alice’s best friend’s toddler daughter drowns in the pond at the farm while Alice is babysitting. The accident is, of course, absolutely devastating to every character, but it’s only the start of Alice’s problems in this community where she has never felt accepted and in her role as mother in which she has never felt completely adequate.

Does this sound depressing? Well, it is, but it’s also fascinating and suspenseful, culminating in a courtroom drama. Interestingly, as a friend pointed out at book group, customer reviews of A Map of the World on amazon.com are evenly distributed among all five ratings, from 1 to 5. We did an informal poll at book group, and almost everyone rated the book a 3 or a 4 and agreed it was well-written and compelling.

However, we were about evenly split on how we felt about Alice. About half of the group really related to her struggles with motherhood, depression, and her feelings of isolation. The other half – myself included – were vaguely annoyed by Alice’s behavior and wanted her to pull herself together (her response to the child’s drowning was understandable but her behavior in other aspects of the novel was sometimes hard for me to relate to). Some of the group found the book uplifting in the end and some still found it depressing. One thing we all agreed on – it was a gripping, very thought-provoking novel, and we had plenty to talk about!

Doubleday, 390 pages

Top Ten Books I Want To Read This Summer

TEN FOR TUESDAY!
It's Tuesday and time for another Top Ten list. We spent Sunday evening at Barnes & Noble armed with long-held gift cards, and we're getting ready for our vacation, so today's list is ten books that I plan to read this summer. It's a strange sort of list, including some new releases, some classics I've never read before, and a mix of middle-grade, teen, and grown-up books. I'm sure more will come along as the summer progresses, but these 10 are on my bookshelf, waiting...


Top Ten Books I Want To Read This Summer

• Emma by Jane Austen
• The Pilgrims of Rayne by D.J. MacHale –middle-grade/teen (Book 8 in the Pendragon series)
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - teen (author of The Underland Chronicles, a family favorite for middle-grade readers)
• The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac
• The Soloist by Steve Lopez
• Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
• Building a Home with My Husband by Rachel Simon (author of Riding the Bus with My Sister)
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
  

I can't wait to get started! So, what do you want to read this summer?

It's Monday, 6/8! What Are You Reading?

Well, it's actually still Sunday night, but I'll be out of town tomorrow, so I thought I'd post early. Nothing new this week - just finishing what I started. Getting very busy preparing for our upcoming vacation. We had a blast at Barnes & Noble tonight spending a few long-held gift cards for summer reading.

Last week:

• I finished A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton for one of my book groups. This is the one I'd forgotten I already read! I re-read it and was still surprised by the ending. One of the benefits of getting older. Everyone in the book group agreed it was very well-written and compelling.
  
• Then I was able to return to Gone Tomorrow by P.F. Kluge, a novel within a novel about a famous writer who takes a teaching job at a small mid-western college and never leaves (and also never publishes again). I'm enjoying this book very much so far.

So, what are YOU reading this week?

Fiction Review: The Girl She Used To Be

Like most people, I am completely fascinated by the Witness Protection Program. Who wouldn’t be? Families whisked away in the middle of the night, given new names, new identities, new lives. It’s all so mysterious and thrilling. So, I was intrigued when I heard about David Cristofano’s first novel, The Girl She Used To Be, about a woman who grew up in witness protection. My mom recently lent me the book, and it lived up to my expectations.

She’s been known as Karen Smith, Anne Johnson, Shelly Jones, and five other 3-syllable nondescript names, but what Melody Grace McCartney wants more than anything in the world is simply to be free to be herself. She and her parents have been in the Federal Witness Protection Program since Melody was six years old, when the three of them witnessed a horrible murder at the hands of a notorious mafia leader.

Twenty years have passed, and Melody is still on the run, unable to set down roots, retain any hint of her former life, or even get close to anyone for fear they might find out who she really is. She lives a numbingly routine life, devoid of any real connections, so desperate for intimacy that she listens to the family in the next apartment over a baby monitor. This solitary life takes its toll:

I’m getting that feeling again – a sort of wanderlust fueled by the assumption that the grass has got to be greener somewhere. Anywhere. I’ve seen a lot of grass, mind you, having moved with the frequency of an army brat and having acquired all of the inevitable angst and rebellion. It is one thing to deal with the lousy decisions in your life and suffer from the relative regret and misery, to play the hand you’ve been dealt; it is quite another to be dealt hand after hand, with some federal employee leering over your shoulder, whispering, “Fold.”

Anyway, I’m getting that feeling again.

Randall Farquar, whose name I intentionally mispronounce toward the more phonetic, will not be happy when I call, but it’s his job to talk to me, to protect me, to keep me safe and secure and toasty warm at night.

These are your tax dollars hard at work.

Melody seems stuck in this never-ending cycle, until Jonathan Bovaro comes along. For the first time in 20 years, someone calls Melody by her real name and seems to know everything about her – the real her – but Jonathan is part of the mafia family that is responsible for Melody’s lost life. The feds are sure Jonathan is using her as a pawn in their war against the Bovaro family, but Melody is drawn to him because he’s the first person she’s been able to be herself with in twenty years.

The Girl She Used to Be is full of suspense, with surprising plot twists at every turn of the page, as well as mystery and romance. The characters are fully formed, and you find yourself wanting to protect Melody but not knowing whom to trust. I devoured this exciting novel in one big gulp, during a sick day. It’s one of those books that you can’t wait to turn the next page and then find yourself sorry when it ends.

It's Monday, 6/1! What Are You Reading?

Can it really be June already? Wow. My kids finish school this week and next. Then, we have no more early mornings or rushed evenings...but I'll also have less quiet time to write! Things are very busy around here now, with all the end-of-the school year stuff, end-of-soccer stuff, plus getting ready for our annual summer road trip.

My reading week was similarly hectic:

• I got about a third of the way through Gone Tomorrow by P.F. Kluge and was enjoying it when I got a notice from the library that my next book group selection was in. I'm a linear reader and like to read one book at a time, straight through, but with less than a week before book group, I had to put this novel down and pick up...
• A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton. I got about 10 pages into this book when I realized I'd read it before! Unfortunately, I don't remember how it ends, so I'm reading it again. That's one of the benefits of getting older and losing your mind - everything old is new again! Anyone else ever do this? My husband and I do the same thing with movies - we're not sure whether we've seen something before until we get to the end. Then we say, "oh, yeah, we DID see it before!" The strange thing is that I didn't think I liked the book that much the first time through, but I'm having trouble putting it down. It is quite dark and pessimistic (which is probably what I didn't like), but it's also a very compelling story.

What are YOU reading this week?

Nonfiction Review: The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

My book group met last week to discuss The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin and just about everyone expressed the same opinion. We were all worried it would be dry and difficult to read and were all pleasantly surprised by how fascinating the book turned out to be. I knew the book was going to be interesting when - shortly into the first chapters – I found myself reading passages out loud to my husband. Most people also agreed it was well written, though a few felt there was some repetition. One thing is certain: we all learned a great deal and the book gave us plenty to talk about.

After an introductory prologue, Toobin begins in 1980 with President Reagan’s election and writes in great detail about each of the Justices, their backgrounds and personalities and how they were nominated and confirmed (something that has become much more difficult in recent years). As he moves through the years chronologically, he also describes some of the most significant and controversial cases tried by the Supreme Court, with an inside view into how the cases were decided.

It’s this inside view that makes Toobin’s book so fascinating. He strips away the awe of the Court and shows readers what the justices are like, as real people, not just judges. Although later chapters go into much greater detail, here’s a small glimpse into this insider’s view from the prologue, as Toobin describes each Justice standing on the steps of the Court during Chief Justice Rehnquist’s funeral in 2005:

The casket first passed Stephen G. Breyer, appointed in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. Such ceremonial duty ill suited Breyer, who still had the gregarious good nature of a Capitol Hill insider rather than the grim circumspection of a stereotypical judge. He had just turned sixty-seven but looked a decade younger, with his bald head nicely tanned by long bike rides and bird-watching expeditions. Few justices had ever taken to the job with more enthusiasm or enjoyed it more.

Breyer’s twitchy exuberance posed a contrast to the demeanor of his fellow Clinton nominee, from 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, standing three steps above him. At seventy-two, she was tiny and frail – she clasped Breyer’s arm on the way down. Elegantly and expensively turned out as usual, on this day in widow’s weeds, she was genuinely bereft to see Rehnquist go. Their backgrounds and politics could scarcely have differed more – the Lutheran conservative from the Milwaukee suburbs and the Jewish liberal from Brooklyn – but they shared a love of legal procedure. Always a shy outsider, Ginsburg knew that the chief’s death would send her even farther from the Court’s mainstream.

While I was at least vaguely familiar with some of the critical events and cases discussed in the book, I was fascinated to learn what went on behind the scenes. Of particular interest were the groundbreaking cases on issues like civil rights, abortion, and separation of church and state. Toobin also covers the inside view of the contested 2000 election in great detail, as well as recent selections of justices and their often controversial confirmation processes. All of this was particularly relevant to read right now, in the midst of the selection of a new justice to replace Souter. It’s enlightening to learn what goes on behind the scenes.

It’s Tuesday, 5/26! What Are You Reading?

I’m a day late today because of the holiday weekend. Last week was a great reading week:

• I finished The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. Everyone in my book group agreed it was fascinating. Review coming in the next couple of days…
• I was sick toward the end of the week but a great novel saved the day! I read The Girl She Used To Be by David Cristofano all in a single day and loved it. It’s the story of a woman who’s been in the Witness Protection Program since she was 6 years old and is still running from the mob boss who forced her family into exile. Great book – review to come soon.
• I read a teen novel, 20 Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. I was put off by the title at first, thinking it was a typical shallow teen romance, but it turned out to be an excellent novel exploring the aftermath of a tragic teen death. I’m glad I read it and will be reviewing it on my other blog, Great Books for Kids and Teens.
• Now I’m onto a novel I got from the library, Gone Tomorrow by P.F. Kluge. It’s good so far, but I’m still in the first chapter!

I wasn't able to write much last week after I got sick, so I have a great backlog of reviews coming up this week...stay tuned!

What are YOU reading this week?

Top Ten Authors I've Never Read

TEN FOR TUESDAY!

This week's Top 10 list is a little unusual. Instead of listing some of the top ten books I've read, today I'm focusing on books I haven't read. This list is a little embarrassing, but here are:

The Top 10 Famous (in many cases, classic) Authors I Can't Believe I've Never Read:

• Jane Austen
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Toni Morrison
• Philip Roth
• Norman Mailer
• John Updike
• Virginia Woolf
• Leo Tolstoy
• H.G. Wells
• Ernest Hemingway

Are there famous authors you've never read?

And can you recommend any favorite books by the above authors that I should read?

It's Monday, 5/18! What Are You Reading?

Last week, I finished:

• Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies), an excellent teen novel by Justina Chen Headley (see my review at Great Books for Kids and Teens)
• Audio version of The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg, which was also very good.

This week, I'm reading:

• The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. I was worried this book would be dry, but it's very well-written and fascinating. I still have 130 pages to go before my book group meets on Wednesday night! This one should spark some great discussions.
  
• I'm listening to the audiobook Flipped, a middle-grade novel by Wendelin Van Draanen. I'm not too far into it yet, but it's good so far.
• We're also reading another middle-grade novel aloud with our two sons: Double Eagle by Sneed B. Collard III (I'm not making that up!) - an exciting story of two boys who find a rare Confederate coin in Alabama.

As always, I'll post reviews here and at Great Books for Kids and Teens for the books I liked (all of the above!).

I also started a new feature at my blog - Ten for Tuesday - and kicked it off last week with a list of my favorite 10 novels read in the recent past. My list sparked some fun discussion - what are your favorite novels?

What are YOU reading this week?

Memoir Review: Who Do You Think You Are?

Alyse Myers’ memoir, Who Do You Think You Are?, is in part a coming-of-age tale, but its main focus is on Myers’ relationship with her mother during her childhood and beyond. Although I couldn’t relate much to her difficult childhood, I was riveted by her well-written story. Her insights into mother-daughter relationships have some universal truths, whether you had an easy or difficult childhood.

The book opens with a prologue that begins like this:

I didn’t like my mother, and I certainly didn’t love her. The only time we ever had anything in common was when I had my own daughter – but by then it was too late, since my mother was to die before we really could compare notes.

I know she didn’t like me either. I can’t say whether she loved me, as I don’t remember her ever telling me so. But her dislike was more about not understanding the monster she created, as she would say, the person who wanted so much more than she expected – or was able – to give. Or wanted to give. To me. To my sisters. And to herself.

Myers grew up in the projects in Queens in the 1960’s with her two sisters. Her difficulties with her mother intensified after her father’s death, when her mother was left alone to raise the three girls. Some of the things her mother said and did were shocking to me (even that admission in the prologue that her mother never said she loved her), having grown up with a very loving, protective mother myself.

This book could easily have become a raging diatribe against her mother, but Myers’ tone is even- handed. She has spent her life trying to understand her mother, and she shares her journey and insights with the reader. She writes honestly but not in melodramatic way, recounting her childhood in detail but often only hinting at the worst of her mother’s abuses.

It would have been perfectly understandable if Myers had left home at eighteen and cut off all contact with her mother, but she didn’t take the easy way out. As an adult, Myers worked hard to build some sort of a healthy relationship with her mother, especially after her own daughter was born. She tried to understand who her parents were before they had kids, before they felt trapped by their lives, and what circumstances led to her mother’s bitterness and sense of futility.

Who Do You Think You Are? is an engaging story of a mother and daughter and the bonds and barriers between them. While some of its revelations are difficult to read, it is ultimately a moving depiction of a daughter who refuses to give up on her mother.

Ten Favorite Novels

TEN FOR TUESDAY!

Today I'm starting a new feature on my book blog, Ten for Tuesday. On select Tuesdays, I'll feature my own personal top 10 list - a different topic each time. I'm kicking this off with my Top 10 Favorite Novels. This was a hard list to whittle down, so I stuck with books I've read in the last 4 years (since I started a book journal to keep track) and only grown-up novels - I'll cover my favorite kid and YA novels another time.

These are novels that stuck with me long after I closed them, where I came to care about the characters and lived in their world for awhile. So, here they are, in no particular order:

• The Time Travelers’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
• Replay by Ken Grimwood
• She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• March by Geraldine Brooks
• Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• One Mississippi by Mark Childress

Is your top 10 list different than mine? Do you agree with some of my choices? Tell me which novels are your personal favorites!

It’s Monday, 5/11! What Are You Reading?

My book for this coming week is a hefty 500-page non-fiction book for my book group called The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. Knowing that was coming up next, last week I stuck to some light kids’ and teens’ fiction:

• I finished Lucky Breaks by Susan Patron (sequel to the award-winning The Higher Power of Lucky). Both books were warm, sweet reads for middle-grade readers, and I'm looking forward to the third and final Lucky book.
  
• I also read Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen Headley, a novel about Patty, a self-described “mixed-race, mixed-up teen.” The author was recommended by Miss Erin, a fellow book blogger, and I enjoyed the novel very much.
• On audio, I'm listening to another middle-grade book, The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World by E.L. Konigsburg (author of the award-winning From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). I'm almost finished with it, and it's been a complex but engaging story.
  

I’ll post reviews to all of these books at Great Books for Kids and Teens in the coming weeks. Time to go pick up The Nine at the library.

What are YOU reading this week?

Young Adult Fiction Review: Wake and Fade

These two books are intended for a young adult audience, but my husband and I both enjoyed them very much. Anyone who enjoys suspense or a touch of the supernatural should like this new series.

The first two books of a planned trilogy, Wake and Fade (Simon Pulse) by Lisa McMann are two of my favorite teen books from the past year. I lent the books to a 17-year old friend of mine who agreed that these two quick reads were exciting and suspenseful.

The main character, seventeen-year old Janie Hannagan, has an unusual problem: she gets pulled into other people’s dreams. Her knowledge of her classmates’ worst fears and weirdest fantasies, plus her inability to control this strange gift, has forced her to remain a loner. Wake opens with one of these bizarre episodes:

Janie Hannagan’s math book slips from her fingers. She grips the edge of the table in the school library. Everything goes black and silent. She sighs and rests her head on the table. Tries to pull herself out of it, but fails miserably. She’s too tired today. Too hungry. She really doesn’t have time for this.

And then.

She’s sitting in the bleachers in the football stadium, blinking under the lights, silent among the roars of the crowd.

She glances at the people sitting in the bleachers around her – fellow classmates, parents – trying to spot the dreamer. She can tell this dreamer is afraid, but where is he? Then she looks to the football field. Finds him. Rolls her eyes.

It’s Luke Drake. No question about it. He is, after all, the only naked player on the field for the homecoming game.

Nobody seems to notice or care. Except him. The ball is snapped and the lines collide, but Luke is covering himself with his hands, hopping from one foot to the other. She can feel his panic increasing. Janie’s fingers tingle and go numb.

Luke looks over at Janie, eyes pleading, as the football moves toward him, a bullet in slow motion. “Help,” he says….

Janie lives a solitary life, never knowing when she’ll be pulled into someone else’s dream and temporarily paralyzed. She learns how to get by and what kinds of situations to avoid (like study hall after lunch), but then she gets pulled into a recurring nightmare where she is not just watching but is a participant. Janie tries to make sense of the frightening dream and figure out what to do about it.

Meanwhile, Janie finally finds a friend who she can trust and confide in. She also learns that she can control certain aspects of her strange ability, though it’s a long and difficult process, as she struggles to gain critical information from the nightmare and help its dreamer.

In Fade, Janie uses her unique talent to help the police find a sexual predator at her high school. I don’t want to say anything else about the plot because it would give away too much of the first book. Both books are filled with fast-paced suspense, mystery, a little romance, and no small amount of creepiness. I really enjoyed them, as did my husband and our 17-year old friend, and I’m looking forward to the third book, Gone.

Wake 210 pages
Fade 247 pages
Simon Pulse (an imprint of Simon & Schuster)
Best for ages 15 and up, due to sexual content and some violence