Big Little Lies 

by Liane Moriarty 

Synopsis:

 

Sometimes it’s the little lies that turn out to be the most lethal. . . . A murder. . . a tragic accident… . . . or just parents behaving badly?  What’s indisputable is that someone is dead.   But who did what?


Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:   Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and his yogi new wife have moved into her beloved beachside community, and their daughter is in the same kindergarten class as Madeline’s youngest (how is this possible?). And to top it all off, Madeline’s teenage daughter seems to be choosing Madeline’s ex-husband over her. (How. Is. This. Possible?). 

Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn’t be, with those rambunctious twin boys? Now that the boys are starting school, Celeste and her husband look set to become the king and queen of the school parent body. But royalty often comes at a price, and Celeste is grappling with how much more she is willing to pay.   New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all. 

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the dangerous little lies we tell ourselves just to survive

 

My Review:

This book was AMAZING. I've always avoided books about domestic violence because they are depressing and make me feel frustrated and helpless. But this book was so funny without downplaying the importance of awareness and impact. It was poignant. The title of the book is so perfect because of the irony. These little lies that people tell to avoid the reality of life. Or, maybe not "avoid" but "deal with". And most of the little lies are everything but little. The lies have a ripple effect that impact everything and everyone around them. Perception being the reason for each and every lie.

The story takes place in a small beachside town of Perriwee in the Perriwee peninsula of Australia. An ideal place for raising a perfect family. The adults all know each other and they are very involved in every aspect of their children's lives. The PTA is a way of life and they are the lifeblood of the school around which the story takes place. On orientation day, there is an incident of bullying and assault on one of the kids Amabella - the daughter of the most obnoxiously self-important parent - Renata. As a result of the incident sides and alligences are made clear. As a result of this grade school incident many "little" lies surface and everyone involved is forced to face the big consequences - a death, serious and on-going incidents of well-hidden domestic violence, bullying, sexual assault, verbal abuse, identity issues, lack of self-respect and absentee parents. The entire book revolves around uncovering these lies, determining whose death results from all of it and who is the guilty murderer.

The author is brilliant making you care about the victims and seeing that sometimes we have to look beyond the seemingly perfect exterior to find the truth people go out of their way to hide. You find yourself reacting kind of indignant and thinking "this would never happen to me" and then you (at least I did) realize that you are not immune. All of us are capable of being the aggressor and/or the victim. It's all about the "little" lies we tell to manipulate perceptions.

This, in my opinion, is a must-read. It will make you re-evaluate your notions about violence and accountability.  

Madame Picasso 

by Anne Girard

Synopsis:

 

When Eva Gouel moves to Paris from the countryside, she is full of ambition and dreams of stardom. Though young and inexperienced, she manages to find work as a costumer at the famous Moulin Rouge, and it is here that she first catches the attention of Pablo Picasso, a rising star in the art world.

A brilliant but eccentric artist, Picasso sets his sights on Eva, and Eva can't help but be drawn into his web. But what starts as a torrid affair soon evolves into what will become the first great love of Picasso's life.

With sparkling insight and passion, Madame Picasso introduces us to a dazzling heroine, taking us from the salon of Gertrude Stein to the glamorous Moulin Rouge and inside the studio and heart of one of the most enigmatic and iconic artists of the twentieth century.

My Review:

Excellent book. Wonderful writing. Beautiful story. Fantastic depiction of a love story that made a man into a legend. Pablo Picasso took many lovers in his life but as I now know, only had one true love - Eva Gouel.  Anne Girard's book Madame Picasso takes us through the 4 year love affair that according to many close to Picasso, changed his life and defined him as a genius amongst his peers and even rivals of the time.

I am very drawn to stories that feature lesser known people in life who have made a significant impact in the life of other, greater known personalities. Many times, we learn that these muses in the lives of such grand eccentrics and brilliant artists are truly the ones with substance and whose lives are most fascinating. Probably the reason why they are so drawn to them. Their lives often end in tragedy and in spite of their impact to the artist their memories become a lesser known sub-plot to the grand life of he/she whom they have inspired.  I think of people like Zelda Sayre and now, Eva Gouel who were so much more than just lovers and spouses and confidants.

I did not know much about Picasso prior to reading this book. I have seen Guernica at the Louvre in more than one occasion and I'm familiar with his cubist works but other than that and the commonly known Spanish, superstitious, hot-head personality he was well-known to being, I feel like this book offered me a perspective about his life and what motivated him and brought him such great fame.  However, this great book is not about Picasso alone, but rather a snippet of time (4 years) of his life that defined his future beyond 1915.

I absolutely LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Ms. Girard's writing style. How can you lose with so many references to the beautiful streets of Paris and the amazing landmarks - The Moulin Rouge, Montparnasse and Montmatre. As well as the fascinating characters of the time - Gertrude Stein, and Guillaume Apollinaire to name a few. This book was so engrossing and enjoyable. It was evident that she wanted to do the memory of Eva Gouel due justice. 

Five Days Left

by Julie Lawson Timmer

Synopsis:

 
A heart-wrenching debut about two people who must decide how much they’re willing to sacrifice for love.
 
Mara Nichols, a successful lawyer, and devoted wife and adoptive mother, has recently been diagnosed with a terminal disease. Scott Coffman, a middle school teacher, has been fostering an eight-year-old boy while the boy’s mother serves a jail sentence. Scott and Mara both have five days left until they must say good-bye to the ones they love the most. Through their stories, Julie Lawson Timmer explores the individual limits of human endurance, the power of relationships, and that sometimes loving someone means holding on, and sometimes it means letting go.

My Review:

I am in awe of writers who can so eloquently yet simply convey every emotion in one book without focusing and dwelling on one emotion. How many times have I read books that are happy or sad or both but overall are just concentrated on these two emotions. This book by an amazingly talented new writer every emotion is felt by the reader through the experiences the characters go through in 5 days.

Mara is a high-powered lawyer whose life has always been about challenging herself, taking risks and being successful at just about everything she undertakes. She is in control of everything in her life. Until she is handed a death-sentence and is diagnosed with Huntington's Disease. A slow but aggressive neurological disease that causes the body and brain to shut down over time rendering the person incapable of any muscle control until they reach a vegetative state and die. There is no cure. Mara is devastated at the thought of losing any and all control of herself and her life. Not so much for her but for the burden she will be to everyone she loves. So, her only way to take back control of her life, she decides to control her death and not wait until HD determines her premature death for her. We are introduced to Mara 5 days before her 43rd birthday and we are a witness to her emotional resolve: anger, desperation, sadness, love, happiness, frustration, humiliation, self-loathing, injustice, etc.

The secondary story is that of Scott. A thirty-something married man living in Michigan and teaching in the inner city of Detroit. He has agreed to assume guardianship of 7 year old Curtis. His mother is sent to prison on a drug charge and he has no family to care for him. In the year's time Scott grows to love Curtis as his own. Through difficult and challenging times he earns the boy's respect. His wife is now expecting their first child and does not want to permanently assume responsibility for Curtis. When Curtis' mother is released and takes Curtis back Scott is devastated and torn between the right and wrong and his selfish and selfless reasons for not giving Curtis up. Like with Mara, we are introduced to Scott five days before he is to relinquish custody of Curtis to his mother.

What I loved most about this book is that there were no good and/or bad characters just good and bad circumstances that were indifferent to what is fair in the world. However, what I took from their stories is that life does not come in a neatly wrapped package. There is no such thing as happily ever after. There is just a life - here and now. And, fairness neither plays a part nor determines the outcomes. One would think (and I was reluctant to read this book at first because I don't understand suicide) that a book about a person planning their own death would be sad and depressing; but it wasn't. Not at all. Mara's character is brave and selfless and yes of course unfairly cut short but she was real. Reading her letters to Tom and Laks really made me smile and for me took a normally selfish act and turned it into a happy and just ending.

I would love to meet this author in person and tell her just what a beautiful and emotionally charged book this was for me. This why I love reading so much and I can't wait to read more.

The Stories We Tell

by Patti Callahan Henry  

Synopsis:

 
Eve and Cooper Morrison are Savannah’s power couple. They’re on every artistic board and deeply involved in the community. She owns and operates a letterpress studio specializing in the handmade; he runs a digital magazine featuring all things southern gentlemen. The perfect juxtaposition of the old and the new, Eve and Cooper are the beautiful people. The lucky ones. And they have the wealth and name that comes from being part of an old Georgia family. But things may not be as good as they seem. Eve’s sister, Willa, is staying with the family until she gets "back on her feet." Their daughter, Gwen, is all adolescent rebellion. And Cooper thinks Eve works too much. Still, the Morrison marriage is strong. After twenty-one years together, Eve and Cooper know each other. They count on each other. They know what to expect. But when Cooper and Willa are involved in a car accident, the questions surrounding the event bring the family close to breaking point. Sifting between the stories—what Cooper says, what Willa remembers, what the evidence indicates—Eve has to find out what really happened. And what she’s going to do about it.

My Review:

Loved it. The notion that the stories people tell are not always the truth of things. Just because people say things it doesn't will them to be true. Great read with a lot of guessing as to what Eve the protagonist will do in processing the truth about her marriage, her relationships, her life and future.

Dollbaby

by Laura Lane McNeal  

Synopsis:

When Ibby Bell’s father dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother Fannie and throws in her father’s urn for good measure. Fannie’s New Orleans house is like no place Ibby has ever been—and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum—is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, Fannie’s black cook, Queenie, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secrets.

For Fannie’s own family history is fraught with tragedy, hidden behind the closed rooms in her ornate Uptown mansion. It will take Ibby’s arrival to begin to unlock the mysteries there. And it will take Queenie and Dollbaby’s hard-won wisdom to show Ibby that family can sometimes be found in the least expected places.
 

My Review:

Probably the best southern historical fiction I have read to date. Every year I read a book that just stands out for its beauty in the storytelling, the writing, the story, the characters and above all the emotion it evokes when I have the pleasure of reading it. This is for me the book for 2014 (so far). The story of Ibby (Liberty Alice Bell) and her life with her grandmother Fanny, her housekeeper Queenie, Queenie's daughter Babydoll and the rest of their unconventional but equally delightful family (Tbone, Birdelia, Crow, Graham, Balfour, and Norwood). 

The story begins at the height of the Civil Rights movement in 1964 when Ibby's father dies suddenly while on a bicycle outing with Ibby around their home in Olympia, WA. Ibby's mother (Vidrene) packs Ibby up and takes her to Graham's mother (Fanny Bell)in their hometown of New Orleans, LA with the intention of going away for a while to find herself. Vidrene has spoken very poorly of Fanny to Ibby so she is apprehensive of meeting her grandmother whom she assumes is old, crazy and eccentric. Ibby immediately comes to find that her grandmother is unconventional but fascinating and nothing like her mother had set her up to be. Her mother never comes back for Ibby and Fanny assumes the role of caring for her granddaughter and teaching her about the ways of the South. We meet the house staff at Fanny's house to include Queenie and her daughter Babydoll who love and respect Fanny not just as their employer but as their own kin. The book goes from 1964 to 1972 as we see Ibby mature into a college student at Tulane University. 

Throughout the story we see the impact of historical events (i.e. Civil Rights movement, the Woolworth sit ins, the Vietnam war, drugs, the Black Panthers,the introduction of James Brown and the Funk music movement, to name a few) as seen through the eyes of these wonderful characters. So many things happen to these characters as would have happened to frame their lives. All of the stories are revealed as any one of the characters reminisces to a time and place prior to that day in telling Ibby about her Grandmother and their family's past. This book is warm and inviting and the storytelling is as Southern in flavor and style as Gone With the Wind. 

I loved reading every page and look forward to hopefully more by Laura Lane McNeal. 

The Orchardist

by Amanda Coplin

 

Synopsis:

 

Set in the untamed American West, a highly original and haunting debut novel about a makeshift family whose dramatic lives are shaped by violence, love, and an indelible connection to the land.

You belong to the earth, and the earth is hard.

At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, a solitary orchardist named Talmadge carefully tends the grove of fruit trees he has cultivated for nearly half a century. A gentle, solitary man, he finds solace and purpose in the sweetness of the apples, apricots, and plums he grows, and in the quiet, beating heart of the land--the valley of yellow grass bordering a deep canyon that has been his home since he was nine years old. Everything he is and has known is tied to this patch of earth. It is where his widowed mother is buried, taken by illness when he was just thirteen, and where his only companion, his beloved teenaged sister Elsbeth, mysteriously disappeared. It is where the horse wranglers--native men, mostly Nez Perce--pass through each spring with their wild herds, setting up camp in the flowering meadows between the trees.

One day, while in town to sell his fruit at the market, two girls, barefoot and dirty, steal some apples. Later, they appear on his homestead, cautious yet curious about the man who gave them no chase. Feral, scared, and very pregnant, Jane and her sister Della take up on Talmadage's land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. Yet just as the girls begin to trust him, brutal men with guns arrive in the orchard, and the shattering tragedy that follows sets Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect them, putting himself between the girls and the world, but to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.

Writing with breathtaking precision and empathy, Amanda Coplin has crafted an astonishing debut novel about a man who disrupts the lonely harmony of an ordered life when he opens his heart and lets the world in. Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, she weaves a tapestry of solitary souls who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune, bound by their search to discover the place they belong. At once intimate and epic, evocative and atmospheric, filled with haunting characters both vivid and true to life, and told in a distinctive narrative voice, The Orchardist marks the beginning of a stellar literary career.

My Review:

This story takes place in Wenatchee, WA during a time when the Pacific Northwest was just starting to flourish and other than the big cities of Seattle and Spokane, many lived in a very rural setting. It is turn of the century and life is hard for the middle aged Talmage.  He has lived in his little cabin on his apple and apricot orchard since the death of his mother when he was 12 and the mysterious disappearance of his sister when he was 15. He keeps to himself for the most part except for his occasional visits with his life-long friend Caroline Mitty and his mute friend Clee. He is content with his uneventful life until 2 pregnant runaway sisters show up on his farmland and become what he considers to be his new-found responsibility. The two sisters, Jane and Della, are distrustful but desperate to escape a life of physical and mental abuse by what we believe to be their own father. Talmage protects them and even helps to birth one of the girls babies. These young women have decided and made a pact that they would rather die than return to the life that has robbed them of their innocence. Everything is against them - the laws, the land, circumstance. But Talmage is a good, honest person who simply wants them to have a chance at life. The life he feels his sister never got. 

The story takes us through the death of one sister and the survival of the other. Talmage assumes full parental responsibility of Angeline, Jane's surviving child and raises her there on the orchard as best as he can. Angeline however is not made aware of how her life came to be until Talmage has to confront her with the truths about the life of her mother and aunt. Talmage, goes on a personal mission to make things right for the surviving of the two sisters so that Angeline has a connection to family he feels is very important. 

This story is about love, self-discovery, the damage caused by mental and physical abuse, redemption, truth, and family. Although his blood-relatives are not part of that family, Talmage manages to create a family as a result of the ties created by Jane, Della, Caroline, Clee, and Angeline. 

Beautifully written and well-developed story. Although it is heart wrenching at times it does seem to paint a picture of how hard it was to be a woman at the turn of the century and how tough it was to make a life in the desolate Pacific Northwest.

The Kings and Queens of Roam

by Daniel Wallace

Synopsis:

From the celebrated author of Big Fish, an imaginative, moving novel about two sisters and the dark legacy and magical town that entwine them.

Helen and Rachel McCallister, who live in a town called Roam, are as different as sisters can be: Helen older, bitter, and conniving; Rachel beautiful, naïve – and blind. When their parents die an untimely death, Rachel has to rely on Helen for everything, but Helen embraces her role in all the wrong ways, convincing Rachel that the world is a dark and dangerous place she couldn't possibly survive on her own … or so Helen believes, until Rachel makes a surprising choice that turns both their worlds upside down.

In this new novel, Southern literary master Daniel Wallace returns to the tradition of tall-tales and folklore made memorable in his bestselling Big Fish. The Kings and Queens of Roam is a wildly inventive, beautifully written, and big-hearted tale of family and the ties that bind.

My Review:

This book was so incredible. If this is any indication of Daniel Wallace's brilliant story-telling, I will definitely be reading more. This book was a fairytale, a fable, and used a lot of the story-telling beauty in mythology. The story is about 2 sisters - Rachel, who is blind and beautiful and Helen, the ugly, sighted yet envious older sister burdened with having to take care of her younger sister. Don't assume that this is the likely tale of the meek, poor little blind girl who wins her freedom from the abuse of an older meaner sister (like Cinderella and her ugly step sisters). That would be too "Disneyesque". This story is far more complicated it goes back in time to give the reader a complete background on how the girls and their home in Roam came to be. The author focuses on pointing out that good and bad are relative and everything (regardless of good or bad) happens for a reason. It's a ying and yang. In other words, for there to be good, bad must exist as well. And, that "bad" does not always define that person entirely as an individual. People all have the potential for doing "bad" things and we all have at one time or another. However, we all have opportunities for redemption which is the central theme of the book. This book was definitely an experience. It is unlike any book I have read before.

The Widow Waltz

by Sally Koslow  

 

Synopsis:

 

Georgia Waltz has things many people only dream of: a plush Manhattan apartment overlooking Central Park, a Hamptons beach house, valuable jewels and art, two bright daughters, and a husband she adores, even after decades of marriage. It’s only when Ben suddenly drops dead from a massive coronary while training for the New York City Marathon that Georgia discovers her husband—a successful lawyer—has left them nearly penniless. Their wonderland was built on lies.
     
As the family attorney scours emptied bank accounts, Georgia must not only look for a way to support her family, she needs to face the revelation that Ben was not the perfect husband he appeared to be, just as her daughters—now ensconced back at home with secrets of their own—have to accept that they may not be returning to their lives in Paris and at Stanford subsidized by the Bank of Mom and Dad. As she uncovers hidden resilience, Georgia’s sudden midlife shift forces her to consider who she is and what she truly values. That Georgia may also find new love in the land of Spanx and stretch marks surprises everyone—most of all, her.

Sally Koslow’s fourth novel is deftly told through the alternating viewpoints of her remarkable female protagonists as they plumb for the grit required to reinvent their lives. Inspiring, funny, and deeply satisfying, The Widow Waltz explores in a profound way the bonds between mothers and daughters, belligerent siblings, skittish lovers, and bitter rivals as they discover the power of forgiveness, and healing, all while asking, "What is family, really?"

My Review:

I loved this book, the storyline, the writer's style and just absolutely everything about The Widow Waltz. As young women, we never stop to think that our life may not turn out to be just like you imagined it in the naïveté of youth. In the case of Georgia Silver-Waltz the reality of life and her happiness come to a crossroads when her husband of 25 years dies unexpectedly. Accustomed to living the life of a well-to-do Manhattanite she is unpleasantly shocked to find that when Ben died he had exhausted all of their savings and assets. Now, she has to not only reconstruct her life as a widow but solve the mystery of where their savings have gone and worst of all who this man she loved and she felt she knew so well was really the man she thought she knew so well. In the process, she is also playing the supportive mother to her two twenty-something daughters - one smart but scattered and the other not-so-smart but loving and considerate. However; both are lost and grieving the loss of their father and the possibility that the life of financial comfort has come to an end at their young ages. One, even dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.

I felt this book gave me a very intimate view in the lives of the Manhattanite elite with whom I would think I would have nothing in common. Yet, I found Georgia's realizations, disappointments, insecurities to be relatable if not some the same I have myself felt. Excellent read!

A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

Synopsis:

When Vivien Walker left her home in the Mississippi Delta, she swore never to go back, as generations of the women in her family had. But in the spring, nine years to the day since she’d left, that’s exactly what happens—Vivien returns, fleeing from a broken marriage and her lost dreams for children.

What she hopes to find is solace with "Bootsie," her dear grandmother who raised her, a Walker woman with a knack for making everything all right. But instead she finds that her grandmother has died and that her estranged mother is drifting further away from her memories. Now Vivien is forced into the unexpected role of caretaker, challenging her personal quest to find the girl she herself once was.

But for Vivien things change in ways she cannot imagine when a violent storm reveals the remains of a long-dead woman buried near the Walker home, not far from the cypress swamp that is soon to give up its ghosts. Vivien knows there is now only one way to rediscover herself—by uncovering the secrets of her family and breaking the cycle of loss that has haunted her them for generations. 

My Review:

Five stars is not enough. This book is SO GOOD and so well-written. The story of "chasing ghosts" from the past to find answers about ourselves. A testament to why we need to know our past, our history in order to understand where we are going or what our place in life is all about. This story spans from 1920s to modern day and 4 generations of Walker women (Adelaide, Bootsie, Carolyn and Vivien) lost to their purpose and place in life all because of the events that took place in 1927 at the Walker home in Indian Mound, MS. It takes a divorce and the loss of a pregnancy in 2013 for Vivie to go back home to MS to find herself. This story is so full of twists and turns - tragic, mysterious, full of secrets but full of love and nurturing. It is too easy to giveaway the story if I give more of the storyline and I feel that it would truly ruin the reading experience; and it was an experience - delightful, engaging and satisfying. I will definitely be reading more books by Karen White. EXCELLENT!!!!!

The Vacationers

by Emma Straub

 

Synopsis:

For the Posts, a two-week trip to the Balearic island of Mallorca with their extended family and friends is a celebration: Franny and Jim are observing their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary, and their daughter, Sylvia, has graduated from high school. The sunlit island, its mountains and beaches, its tapas and tennis courts, also promise an escape from the tensions simmering at home in Manhattan. But all does not go according to plan: over the course of the vacation, secrets come to light, old and new humiliations are experienced, childhood rivalries resurface, and ancient wounds are exacerbated.

This is a story of the sides of ourselves that we choose to show and those we try to conceal, of the ways we tear each other down and build each other up again, and the bonds that ultimately hold us together. With wry humor and tremendous heart, Emma Straub delivers a richly satisfying story of a family in the midst of a maelstrom of change, emerging irrevocably altered yet whole.

My Review: 

 
I really enjoyed this book. It was the perfect summer read. The post family is at the crossroads of a major life-change. Sylvia Post, their 18 year old daughter just finished high-school and is off to college in the Fall. Jim Post, the father, just retired from a job he loved and which he had held since he was 25 years old. Bobby Post, is the 26 year-old son who seems to live a dream life in Miami as a real-estate investor with his much older girlfriend - Carmen, a Cuban-American personal fitness instructor. Franny Post, is Jim's wife and Bobby and Sylvia's mother. She's a 50-something wife and food writer for whom middle-age has unexpectedly sneaked-up on and threatened her comfortable Manhattan life. In an effort to bring some normalcy to the soon-to-change and quickly crumbling life of the Posts they embark on a 2-week family vacation in Palma, Mallorca. There, they find they have to deal with all of the disappointments, mistakes, bad decisions, unwise choices they have each made that has brought chaos to the otherwise seemingly-perfect Post family. In Mallorca, they are joined by Franny's best friend Charles and his husband Lawrence. Charles and Lawrence are coping with natural insecurities of any wedded couple on top of the fact that all of their friends have already adopted babies and they have been trying unsuccessfully for several years. The toll of the desire to be parents and the disappointment of not being selected for a baby yet is weighing heavy but their relationship is the healthiest of everyone in the group.

The book was enjoyable because I felt like a fly on the wall in the life of the Posts. Knowing all of their secrets before everyone was aware. Each character is neurotic in their own way but surprisingly normal. Kind of like when you think your own life is neurotic but soon you find that your friends and even strangers that seem otherwise "normal" are just as neurotic as you. Not to mention the beautiful descriptions of Mallorca and the amazing foods they eat while they are there. There are many funny parts in the book and the dialogue is witty. It reminded me of that same wit that Maria Semple delivers in Where'd You Go Bernadette (one of my favorite books by the way). I was surprised to see that this book had ratings in the low 3.3's as I definitely found it to be entertaining and a truly satisfying read. Perhaps because sometimes we like to see that others who seem to lead perfect lives are just as crazy as you. It makes what we used to refer to as dysfunctional a much more functional kind of life that you don't have to feel has to be seen by others as "perfectly and enviably" normal.

The Summer Guest

by Justin Cronin

Synopsis:

On an evening in late summer, the great financier Harry Wainwright, nearing the end of his life, arrives at a rustic fishing camp in a remote area of Maine. He comes bearing two things: his wish for a day of fishing in a place that has brought him solace for thirty years, and an astonishing bequest that will forever change the lives of those around him.

From the battlefields of Italy to the turbulence of the Vietnam era, to the private battles of love and family, The Summer Guest reveals the full history of this final pilgrimage and its meaning for four people: Jordan Patterson, the haunted young man who will guide Harry on his last voyage out; the camp’s owner Joe Crosby, a Vietnam draft evader who has spent a lifetime “trying to learn what it means to be brave”; Joe’s wife, Lucy, the woman Harry has loved for three decades; and Joe and Lucy’s daughter Kate—the spirited young woman who holds the key to the last unopened door to the past.

As their stories unfold, secrets are revealed, courage is tested, and the bonds of love are strengthened. And always center stage is the place itself—a magical, forgotten corner of New England where the longings of the human heart are mirrored in the wild beauty of the landscape.

My Review:

 
This is one of the best books I have EVER read. Cronin's writing is simply beautiful. There is so much in this book that it is a bit challenging to condense everything into this short review. This is the story of life and how life and death is a different journey for everyone because of our individual circumstances: tragedy (war), loss (death of a loved one), love (of a child, of a parent of people for how they impact our lives), sacrifice (the unconventional and practical decisions we make for the benefit of others), and death (everyone's different journey through the same path). Harry Wainwright is a self-made millionaire whose life links him to Joe and Lucy (owners of a fishing camp in Maine), Kate (Joe and Lucy's daughter), Jordan (the guide at the camp), Joe's father, Hal (Harry's son), Meredith (Harry's wife)and others who at some point are directly and indirectly linked to Harry throughout his life. Harry is dying of lung cancer after a full life. However, before dying, Harry wants to connect all of the loose ends that tie all of the characters together. He returns to the fish camp in coastal Maine where he has visited regularly for the last 30 years. This place has become over his lifetime the place where he is not Harry Wainwright the millionaire but Harry, the kind friend and summer guest who is as much part of the camp as all of the residents. 

I find myself lately reading a lot about the journey of life and death. I recently lost my mother and have been plagued with many questions about death and the why and how people undertake that journey. Always the same inevitable outcome but the journey unique to each. Justin Cronin takes us through what goes on in this dying man's mind - his thoughts, his wishes and regrets. Even through the confusion of a heavily medicated (morphine) last weeks, Harry manages to relive his entire life through the beautifully written pages. At the end, I felt like I was a witness to not only Harry's life but Joe, Lucy, Kate and Jordan. When Harry dies, I felt all of the same emotions I experienced when my own mom and dad passed away. The confusion of why and the anti-climactic moment when a person you have known to have been so alive and present in your life takes that last breath. Although it sounds like this book would be sad to read, it really wasn't. Somehow, it made me feel better to know Harry's experience in comparison to my own parents. What I took from this amazing book is so obvious and yet so eye-opening to me. The fact that death is inevitable but how you choose to live the life between your birth and right before your death is what it is all about. 

I will definitely be reading Mary and O'Neil (also by Justin Cronin) which I have read many reviews about and seems equally as impacting.

The Snow Child

by Eowyn Ivey  

Synopsis:

 

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

My Review:

Beautiful and haunting. I loved this book. One review described it as "a brutally realistic fairy tale," and I couldn't agree more. This book was more than just a fairy tale though. I think I will find myself thinking about the many topics in this book that provoke questions about love, mortality, parenthood, sacrifice and just the mysteries of life in general. Definitely on the top of my favorite reads list!!

What We Keep

by Elizabeth Berg

Synopsis:

Do you ever really know your mother, your daughter, the people in your family? In this rich and rewarding new novel a reunion between two sisters and their mother reveals how the secrets and complexities of the past have shaped the lives of the women in a family.
 
Ginny Young is on a plane, en route to see her mother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for thirty-five years. She thinks back to the summer of 1958, when she and her sister, Sharla, were young girls. At that time, a series of dramatic events--beginning with the arrival of a mysterious and sensual next-door neighbor--divided the family, separating the sisters from their mother. Moving back and forth in time between the girl she once was and the woman she's become, Ginny at last confronts painful choices that occur in almost any woman's life, and learns surprising truths about the people she thought she knew best.

My  Review:

I enjoyed this book very much. It wasn't "GREAT" however. It dragged a bit at the beginning but well worth for the ending. I would rate it closer to 3.5 stars only because I think that the mother's character could have been further explored. I really felt for the mom. I felt that she was greatly misunderstood and judged much too harshly. This book is about daughters, sisters, mothers and friends and how complex those relationships can be. What one person perceives in any combination of those relationships is more often than not not the same thing the others also see. Relationships are so much about how we interpret people's actions and behaviors. The whole time, I thought about how when I was a kid, I saw my own mother as solely a mom - not as a woman, a person, a human being with her own thoughts, regrets, feelings, emotions. It was not until I became a mom myself that I realized that she wasn't perfect and above all that she was human. She made mistakes and have her very own feelings, desires in life and opinions that did not necessarily coincide with mine and that is okay. I feel that in my mom's last few years (as she recently passed away)I tried to view her as a person first and she appreciated that. I didn't judge her actions (well, I tried not to) as to what I expected her (as a mother to me) to do or say. It made me understand her better and really appreciate her more. It's tough to stay on a pedestal, specially the one we hold our parents on for most of our lives. I think it even makes us better parents when we accept that our own parents made mistakes. My mom, as the Ginny's and Marla's mom in the book, loved her daughters. She just didn't love her life and she needed to find herself and her place in life in order to be happy or it would have consumed her and made her bitter. What I did love, very much as a matter of fact, about Elizabeth Berg's book was that at the end you see life does not come in a nicely tied package with a big ribbon on it. It isn't so much a present that always brings us joy but it is a journey that is unique to every person and people's choices (wrong or right) are part of that journey.

Goodnight June

by Sarah Jio

Synopsis:

June Andersen is professionally successful, but her personal life is marred by unhappiness. Unexpectedly, she is called to settle her great-aunt Ruby’s estate and determine the fate of Bluebird Books, the children’s bookstore Ruby founded in the 1940s. Amidst the store’s papers, June stumbles upon letters between her great-aunt and the late Margaret Wise Brown—and steps into the pages of American literature.

My Review:

I loved this book. A beautiful story about saving the magic of bookstores (and I don't mean the Barnes and Noble of the world). You can tell that this book was written from a very personal place for Ms. Jio. The book did not follow the usual plot pattern of Jio's books and that was a pleasant surprise. I love Jio's stories but was looking forward to her expanding her writing to stories that develop differently. From the moment I picked up this book I couldn't put it down. It is a story that will appeal to those who love books and like me who admire the craft of writing stories and the crafters, even those who dedicate their life and talents to the simple children's stories that shape our love of books from the time we are little. This was a feel-good story that I will treasure.

Sarah's Key

by Tatiana de Rosnay

Synopsis:

 
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

My Review:

A horrible chapter in France's history during the second World War. The round-up of Jews (some even French born) in a neighborhood of Paris by their very own French police (under the influence of the German Nazi regime) and then sent to Poland to their deaths. One girl, Sarah, is brave and manages to escape. She had helped her little brother hide in the cupboard in their apartment in Paris when the round up began, both unknowing of what was going on and thinking she would come right back to get him. Her escape from the camp is prompted when she realizes that her little brother will die if she doesn't go back. She holds the key that unlocks the cupboard. She manages to make it to Paris to find that her brother is dead. In 2002, an American journalist living in France works diligently on a story about the round-up when she realizes that Sarah's story takes place in the very apartment her husband's family has occupied since the very round-up that turned Sarah's life upside down. In her research she finds many facts that bind her to Sarah and her fateful story. The book is sad but there is hope in the journalist's findings. And, these findings which changed Sarah's life so many years ago also change hers.

I loved this book. Another example of fabulous historical fiction. 

The Hurricane Sisters: A Novel

by Dorothea Benton Frank

Synopsis:

Best friends since the first day of classes at The College of Charleston, Ashley Anne Waters and Mary Beth Smythe, now 23 years old, live in Ashley's parents' beach house rent-free. Ashley is a gallery assistant who aspires to become an artist. Mary Beth, a gifted cook from Tennessee, works for a caterer while searching for a good teaching job. Though they both know what they want out of life, their parents barely support their dreams and worry for their precarious finances.

While they don't make much money, the girls do have a million-dollar view that comes with living in that fabulous house on Sullivans Island. Sipping wine on the porch and watching a blood-red sunset, Ashley and Mary Beth hit on a brilliant and lucrative idea. With a new coat of paint, the first floor would be a perfect place for soirees for paying guests. Knowing her parents would be horrified at the idea of common strangers trampling through their home, Ashley won't tell them. Besides, Clayton and Liz Waters have enough problems of their own.


A successful investment banker, Clayton is too often found in his pied-a-terre in Manhattan--which Liz is sure he uses to have an affair. And when will Ashley and her brother, Ivy, a gay man with a very wealthy and very Asian life partner--ever grow up? Then there is Maisie, Liz's mother, the family matriarch who has just turned eighty, who never lets Liz forget that she's not her perfect dead sister, Juliet.

For these Lowcountry women, an emotional hurricane is about to blow through their lives, wreaking havoc that will test them in unexpected ways, ultimately transforming the bonds they share.

My Review:

I love Dorothea Benton Frank. She has a way of bringing to life these wonderful characters straight from the South. This book was fun. I found that I couldn't wait to listen each day. This is one that I experienced as an audiobook because I wanted to hear it read with that wonderfully charming South Carolina accent that I absolutely love. 

The book revolves around the matriarch of the family 80+ year-old Maisie Pringle, her daughter Liz and her husband Clayton as well as Liz and Clayton's kids Ashley and Ivy and their life as life-long residents of the South Carolina low country. Liz and Clayton have a marriage that has become so dull that Clayton has an affair with an old friend of Liz's. Liz, however, is trying to cope with life as a woman in her 50s who is no longer a mother needed by her children or her husband for that matter. She starts as a career she loves working with a battered women's shelter. Ivy has a minor role in the story but he is the great brother and son anyone would love to have. Always offering support and great advise. However, the story is primarily about Ashley. Maisie's granddaughter and Liz's daughter in her early twenties. She makes some very naive choices about a particular man that she has put on a pedestal he did not deserve. But with the love of her family and her mother, grandmother, best friend and brother's support, she is able to learn from the experience and do the right thing. Ultimately, the story of the hurricane sisters is about empowering women regardless of poor choices made in the past. It's about forgiveness and loving your family above all. It was a wholesome book but tackled some important topics (infidelity, verbal and physical abuse, date rape, and the victimization of women by men with power) with sensitivity, tact and grace. Overall, it was a fun read with some great messages.

When We Were Strangers

by Pamela Schoenewaldt 

 

Synopsis:

"If you leave Opi, you'll die with strangers," Irma Vitale's mother always warned.

Even after her beloved mother's passing, 20-year-old Irma longs to stay in her Abruzzo mountain village, plying her needle. But too poor and plain to marry and subject to growing danger in her own home, she risks rough passage to America and workhouse servitude to achieve her dream of making dresses for gentlewomen.


In the raw immigrant quarters and with the help of an entrepreneurial Irish serving girl, ribbon-decked Polish ragman and austere Alsatian dressmaker, Irma begins to stitch together a new life . . . until her peace and self are shattered in the charred remains of the Great Chicago Fire. Enduring a painful recovery, Irma reaches deep within to find that she has even more to offer the world than her remarkable ability with a needle and thread.

My Review:

Beautifully written. I felt like I knew Irma personally. Her journey was met with tragedy but many small triumphs that defined her future as I imagine it did for many immigrants in the late 1880's. This book is a great example of why I enjoy reading historical fiction so much. I am a modern day immigrant to the U.S. so I'm fascinated about the journey others have undertaken. My family's journey was one of fortune and comfort so I feel a great deal of appreciation and respect for the struggles of those that immigrated under much more challenging circumstances.

The Paris Wife

by Paula McLain

Synopsis:  

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. 

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill-prepared for the hard-drinking and fast-living life of Jazz Age Paris, which hardly values traditional notions of family and monogamy. Surrounded by beautiful women and competing egos, Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history, pouring all the richness and intensity of his life with Hadley and their circle of friends into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises. Hadley, meanwhile, strives to hold on to her sense of self as the demands of life with Ernest grow costly and her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Despite their extraordinary bond, they eventually find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

A heartbreaking portrayal of love and torn loyalty, The Paris Wife is all the more poignant because we know that, in the end, Hemingway wrote that he would rather have died than fallen in love with anyone but Hadley.

My Review:

In one word AMAZING. This book is why I love to read. McClain is such an eloquent writer. I felt the whole time as though I was a "fly on the wall" in the Hemingway's Paris apartment and in Chicago, and Pamplona and Schrun and the Riviera... I will be in Paris in November, and I have a list of places that I will visit, Hemingway's frequented landmarks in Montparnasse and 74 Cardinal Lemoine. I can't rave more about this book other than to say I LOVED IT. Just on a side note, Woody Allen has a wonderful movie called Midnight in Paris which I pictured in my head the whole time I read this book.

The Daughter's Walk

by Jane Kirkpatrick

Synopsis:

A mother's tragedy, a daughter's desire and the 7000 mile journey that changed their lives. 

In 1896 Norwegian American Helga Estby accepted a wager from the fashion industry to walk from Spokane, Washington to New York City within seven months in an effort to earn $10,000. Bringing along her nineteen year-old daughter Clara, the two made their way on the 3500-mile trek by following the railroad tracks and motivated by the money they needed to save the family farm.  After returning home to the Estby farm more than a year later, Clara chose to walk on alone by leaving the family and changing her name. Her decisions initiated a more than 20-year separation from the only life she had known.

Historical fiction writer Jane Kirkpatrick picks up where the fact of the Estbys’ walk leaves off to explore Clara's continued journey. What motivated Clara to take such a risk in an era when many women struggled with the issues of rights and independence? And what personal revelations brought Clara to the end of her lonely road? The Daughter's Walk weaves personal history and fiction together to invite readers to consider their own journeys and family separations, to help determine what exile and forgiveness are truly about.

My Review:

I enjoyed reading this book but found that at times it dragged a bit. However, the story of Clara and her mother's journey was truly inspirational. On the other hand, I found Clara's personal life journey after her "exile" was a little depressing. I found myself thinking what I would have done. I guess the times and society's expectations of how women should behave dictated much of her decision-making. At the beginning, I truly related to Helga. Her strength of character and unrelenting will really resonated with me. I've always felt that you make good and bad decisions in life, but they are yours and only yours to answer to. You assume the consequences and no one has a right to pass judgment. I can't help but think that Helga would have agreed with me. Family is important in the journey of life, but only you assume and can answer to where you go on that journey and why... 

Orphan Train

by Christina Baker Kline 

Synopsis:

A captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.


Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.


Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

My Review:

Fantastic book. Tragic and sad but not predictable nor wrapped up nicely with a an unrealistic happy ending. Pure historical fiction at its best. I cried through many sections of Niahm's (Dorothy/Vivian) story. Her account of what she had gone through in life after coming to America from Ireland as an innocent little girl of 6 up until she was 10 was truly heart wrenching. Her realization at such an early age that she was nothing more than an indentured servant without the love of a family is sobering. Yet she is a little girl at heart like any girl in any place at any time who simply yearns for the love of a family and the safety of a home. I couldn't put this book down once I started reading. I'm not sure, if like The Book Thief, this is a book targeted at YA readers, but I would definitely place it in the same category as The Book Thief. 

I would highly encourage YA readers curious about a very interesting part of our American history and the short-lived (approx. 75 year) social experiment that came to be known as the Orphan Train to read it. However, I don't mean to imply that only YA readers would enjoy this book. It is beautifully written and is an honestly told story that any reader who appreciates historical fiction would thoroughly enjoy.