The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling

Do not read this if you are expecting anything like Harry Potter! I have described this book to a few people as a story about a town full of Dursleys. None of the characters, really, are likable. Some are despicable. I found this book to be very timely during our American election season, as it depicts the battle between the "47 percent" and those that support them, and those who do not wish to help the less fortunate.

When Barry Fairbrother dies suddenly in his 40s, his death opens up a seat on the Pagford Parish Council. (Pagford is apparently a mashup of the towns of Padstow and Chagford.) Soon a war of factions begins in the town, between those who want to keep the idyllic town of Pagford pure (not in my backyard), and those who believe in lending a hand to the poor, addicted, and disadvantaged.

J.K. Rowling is, as always, a great storyteller. This book starts off slowly because it's a great character study of the town's residents as well as those in the council flats in "the Fields," on the edge of Pagford. At first I had a hard time keeping all the characters straight. One of the most vivid and tragic characters is Krystal, who lives in the Fields but attends school in Pagford. Barry Fairbrother had taken an interest in her and coached her on the school rowing team. Krystal's mom is a heroin addict and she adores her neglected, developmentally delayed 3-year-old brother. She's trying to keep her family together at all costs.

It's clear that Rowling has major parent issues. The teenagers are at war with their parents, and many of the parents treat their children with scorn, apathy, or even hatred. Apparently Rowling's mum died when she was a teenager and she has had a highly strained relationship with her father (and did not speak to him for nine years after he sold off several first-edition Harry Potter books). The character of Simon (one of the most hateful in the book) is purported to be based on her father.

It's an intensely political book, based much on the fact that Rowling was living on the dole before she struck it big, and her husband once worked as a doctor in an addiction clinic. She has said, "The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash.To me, it’s heartbreaking. This is a book about responsibility, how responsible we are for the poor, the disadvantaged, other people’s misery.”

The book tackles drug abuse, child abuse, obsessive-compulsive disorder, cutting (self-mutilation), theft, Internet bullying, infidelity, racism, homophobia, cruelty, and marital unhappiness. In fact, none of the couples are happily married. The teenagers take revenge on their horrible parents. It's not an easy book to read. But it has an important message about how we live our lives and our responsibility to help people by giving them a lift out of their miserable lives. Those who refuse to do so do not come across very well in this book.

The Casual Vacancy is not fine literary fiction, but it's a good story. I found the book to be highly British...not just in usage and culture but also in the way people interact with each other. Much is below the surface, never to be expressed aloud.

Some say that Rowling had too much of an agenda for this book, but I think this is an important book for our day and age. Mitt Romney is a much suaver, more handsome and trim Howard Mollison, believing that the hangers-on are to be cut off, as they are sucking on the teats of society. How you feel about that idea will probably indicate how you feel about this novel.

If you're interested, take a look at Jon Stewart's recent interview with J.K Rowling.

!!!!

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All Passion Spent

All Passion Spent,
by Vita Sackville-West

I'd heard of Vita Sackville-West but didn't know much about her before my book group chose this for October's selection. Sackville-West was married to Sir Harold Nicholson and spent most of her life at their estate at Sissinghurst Castle. She and Nicholson had an open marriage, and both of them carried on extensive same-sex relationships. Sackville-West's most famous lover was Virginia Woolf. Some describe this novel as the fictional version of A Room of One's Own.

The story begins with the death of Lady Slane's husband, who had been prime minister and Viceroy of India during his prime. Suddenly, Lady Slane is presented with freedom for the first time in her life...at the ripe age of 88. Her scheming children devise a plan by which she would be passed around from family to family, but she has other ideas. She retires to a modest cottage in Hampstead and directs them that she is to live on her own, and she doesn't want her grandchildren or grandchildren to visit her (no one under 60)...and doesn't much want her children around either.

Vita Sackville-West, later in life

Lady Slane reflects back on her life and her regrets, chief among them the fact that she was never able to pursue her artistic ambitions. She is quite happy with her little circle--her French maid, Genoux; her landlord, Mr. Bucktrout; and Mr. FitzGeorge, a reclusive, wealthy collector who fell in love with her in India, in another time, and saw immediately what she had given up.

My copy from the library was published in 1931

She revels in the precious time she has left, finding pleasure in sitting outside in her back garden, going for brisk winter walks, and quietly reflecting back on her life, mistakes, and relationships. It's a beautiful, feminist story about what women in those days (and still, now) give up to pursue marriage and family. Lady Slane never really enjoyed motherhood, being a wife, or being a grandmother. She just wanted time to reflect and paint, and she never got it. She comes to peace with her realization that she did not really love her husband and she had given up everything to be with him.

It even had a hole-punched watermark
 saying "Library Association of Portland Ore."!

And she realizes that she doesn't, really, want to be completely alone. She just wants to carefully choose her companions and how she will spend the remainder of her time.

I enjoyed this book very much and plan to view the BBC miniseries about Vita Sackville-West's relationship with her husband, "Portrait of a Marriage," based on their son Nigel's book of the same name.

To hear Vita's own voice, listen to this recording of her talking about Virginia Woolf and Orlando.

In One Person

In One Person, by John Irving

As a long-time John Irving fan (one year I even gave my husband tickets to go see/hear him at Portland's Wordstock, and he was great, talking about his novel about tattoo addicts [Until I Find You]!), I have never failed to finish one of his books. But I could not bear to go on.

I read up until about page 95 and put it aside to read my book group book (All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West), hoping that I'd be more interested once I got back to it.

This morning I picked up the book again, read a few pages, and gave up. Life's too short to read a book I'm not enjoying The premise sounded intriguing, but as one reviewer put it, Irving manages to make the life of bisexual Billy seem completely boring and uninspired. He fails to elicit any kind of sympathy for his main character because Billy is so detached. 

Even the early theater and Shakespeare descriptions bored me (and I'm a theater lover!). The sexual proclivities and lust were tiresome and hard to comprehend...perhaps because I've never been drawn (sexually or otherwise) to people who were horrible to me.

I'll quote another Goodreads reviewer (Robyn Roscoe), who described my feelings well:

"I long for the well-crafted story, the characters that made you care, and the experiences that both surprised and satisfied. In this novel, Irving spoils his own story over and over again, essentially telling us what is going to happen well in advance and then dragging out the actual reveal through page after page of tedious description and narrative. I know Irving can write a story with characters I care about, so either he needs to listen to his editors or get some new ones. Since I didn't get through more than about a third of this book, I don't know what actually happens to Billy through his life. Sadly, I don't really care. If this story was meant to develop understanding of the tribulations of the LGBT community, it fails to accomplish that. It also fails to interest or entertain."

So disappointed. I think I'll go back and reread one of his earlier books.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children,
by Ransom Riggs

Monsters. Children with peculiar powers, who are hiding from the monsters. Time travel. World War II and the Holocaust. Haunting black & white photographs (most of them actual vintage photos). A Peregrine falcon.

Sixteen-year-old Jacob travels to Wales to find out what happened to his grandfather, who suddenly and mysteriously died. His grandpa, Abe, had shared strange and unimaginable stories with Jacob when he was a child, and he doubted his sanity. Jacob soon discovers that Abe was not lying, and he becomes irrevocably connected to the children at the home for peculiar children.

In the beginning, this novel reminded me of "Grimm," Portland's own haunting TV series. Apparently this story has similarities to the X-Men. But what was unique about it was the photos. Ransom Riggs wanted to create a book with the photos alone, but he was convinced to write a novel around the photos instead. At times, this is obvious, as is the fact that this is a first novel. Although only ten children live in the home, the photos capture images of many other children...and it's not clear what happened to those children.

Other readers have criticized the fact that the children seem too American when in fact they are supposed to be British or Welsh. Riggs has never traveled to Wales. Others found the narrator (Jacob) to be unlikable and spoiled, and the parents to be too detached (apparently this is a convention in young adult novels, though, for some reason). The writing is geared toward young adults, although at times Jacob seems to talk as if he's much older. His speech seems older but his actions seem younger.

The ending is not wrapped up in a neat and tidy way, and Riggs is reported to be working on a sequel expected for release in 2013. A film is in the making. I thought this story was highly readable, with an intriguing premise and captivating photos. I will read the sequel to find out what happens next!

Ali in Wonderland

Ali in Wonderland and Other Tall Tales, by Ali Wentworth

As I joke in my house, I'm not easily amused. My nine-year-old son rented "The Three Stooges" recently, and I knew that I would not find it funny in the least. Even when watch something I do find funny (like "Downton Abbey" or "Lost in Austen"), Mike is rolling on the floor laughing while I might just smile to myself.

About the only people who regularly make me laugh are Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Ellen Degeneres, and Jane Lynch. When I've read humorous memoirs, I often start out thinking they are light and interesting, and then they grow tiresome.

That's Ali in Wonderland for me. Mike had checked it out of the library for humor research (for his writing). I picked it up because it looked interesting--Wentworth is married to George Stephanopolous. She's exactly my age, so many of her childhood and teenage memories rang true for me (like when her sister who had just had scoliosis surgery and ran away in a full body cast because she was fed up, and Ali had to follow her, but the only thing she cared about was getting home for The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, and Love American Style, and her sister said she would only return home if Ali could make her laugh, so Ali took off her clothes and rubbed mud all over herself and did some weird kind of dance, only to be seen by people driving by). Some of the anecotes were indeed funny.

But midway through I started to get bored. I think the last straw was the chapter talking about how her mother believed that the cure for anything was to go to the Four Seasons. Wentworth was raised in privilege and lives in privilege now. Another chapter was about family-friendly resorts and  how inconvenient it can be to slip on a dirty diaper by the poolside. Although I assume she's a good liberal in the Kennedy style, I just couldn't relate to her problems and complaints. She also jumped around tons in her storytelling, so it was hard to keep track of which part of her life she was describing.

I ended up scanning the second half of the book to the end when she talked about meeting and marrying George. The descriptions of her big fat Greek wedding and family were funny...but I found myself ready to move onto something else.

How It All Began

How It All Began, by Penelope Lively

I've never read Penelope Lively before, even though she is an incredibly prolific British writer.

In fact, this must be one of the most English modern novels I've read in some time! When I started reading, I was struck by how many expressions most Americans wouldn't necessarily understand, but I have the advantage of knowing after cohabitating with a Brit for 25 years. For example--these are from scanning just the first few pages:

• Her hip was giving her stick.
• Shirty enough if anyone looked like taking liberties.
• Lord Peters does not provide puffs for other people's books.
• Occasionally you considered chucking in the job.
• He'll be tetchy.
• Breeding will out.
• You endure, but also observe; you become a beady eye, appreciating the spectacle. (And the constant reference to oneself as third person rather than first person)
• Day's supply of whatever is their particular tipple...
• She'll be coming to us for awhile.
• Rose will fetch her and install her in her room.
• Nice girl? (the tendency to call women girls until they are well into their 40s)

I liked how this book started out: "The pavement rises up and hits her." The book is about "the butterfly effect," how one minor incident (in this case, the main character, Charlotte, getting mugged on a London street) can affect many people seemingly unconnected from the person directly affected.

Because Charlotte breaks her hip as a result of the mugging, she moves in with her daughter Rose, who must find someone else to accompany her pompous and very English employer Lord Peters to Manchester. That someone is his niece Marion, who sends a text to her lover, Jeremy, which is intercepted by his highly anxious and dramatic wife, Stella, putting their marriage into a tailspin. Before breaking her hip, Charlotte tutored English foreign language students, and one of them, an Eastern European named Anton, begins getting private instruction from her. Rose takes a shine to Anton, although neither act on their attraction to each other.

One of the challenges with this book is that the characters are not particularly likable or relatable for me. Most of the characters seem to be just propelling through life without any effort to be happy or fulfilled. Jeremy, I just wanted to slap upside the head. He's having an affair with Marion yet wants to keep his wife as well. He's a complete narcissist. Lord Peters is amusing but would be incredibly annoying in person. Charlotte is the most sympathetic, but the reserve of the writing and the setting keeps "one" from becoming attached.

Ultimately, it's the kind of novel where no one is truly happy at the end, except perhaps Marion (hard to say). I enjoyed this novel more in the beginning than at the end...by then I was ready to move on.

Naoko

Naoko, by Keigo Higashino

Naoko is described as "a black comedy of hidden minds and lives" and a "critique of gender relations."  I'm not sure if I would call it either a comedy or a gender critique, but it was an interesting read.
Higashino is a best-selling, award-winning writer in Japan, but he's not very well known in the U.S.

Naoko is the story of a factory worker, Heisuke, and his  wife, Naoko, and young daughter, Monami. Naoko and Monami head up to Nagano on a ski bus to visit family, but tragically the bus drives off a cliff. Heisuke learns this information from the TV news.

Soon after he reaches the hospital, Naoko dies. When Monami wakes up from a coma, she is no longer Heisuke's daughter..Naoko has inhabited Monami's body. Sharing this information with no others (for fear of being not taken seriously or worse, ostracized or institutionalized), Heisuke and Monami/Naoko prepare to live their lives in this way...as father and daughter rather than husband and wife.

Naoko goes to school and begins to realize that she has been given a true opportunity: to live her adolescence and young adulthood all over again. She realizes that she was never truly fulfilled or happy as a housewife, and she decides to get into a top private junior high and high school to begin pursuing her dream of medical school.

Factory worker Heisuke, who has rarely entered a library much less read a book, is stunned and saddened by this turn of events. When Naoko begins attracting the attention of boys her age, he becomes obsessively jealous, nearly destroying the tenuous and strange father-daughter relationship they had been trying to build.
At the end of the book, it's hard to tell exactly what the truth is...here's the mystery. The comedy, however, was harder to find. I found this book to be sad. The story contains a wide variety of extra characters, many related to Heisuke's job or other accident victims. In the end, I'm not really sure why he included all these plot sidelines. Many of them didn't really add much to the story.

What I found most intriguing about the book was the idea of living your young adulthood all over again. If I could do so, I too would have studied harder, been more ambitious, and wasted less time. As far as the "gender critique," it's very soft. This book was truly Japanese, and I imagine better understood by someone who lived in Japan or understands Japanese culture. As the wife/daughter, Naoko was expected to wait on Heisuke hand and foot. She was not expected to have any aspirations of her own. This change in what is expected is what startled Heisuke.

Of course, it makes me wonder...when Naoko (Monami) gets married and has a family of her own, will she share the food preparation, shopping, cleaning, and other household duties with her husband? Doubtful. But at least showing a Japanese woman who is not happy with her lot as a housewife and has dreams beyond those four walls...that's a start!

This novel has also been made into a movie, Himitsu, but it doesn't seem to be easily available in the U.S.

The Kitchen House

The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom

I am ambivalent about this book. It took me awhile to get into, partly because I have been in the process of recovering from ear surgery, and  partly because at the beginning I had troubles keeping all of the various characters straight. Kathleen Grissom has a narrator form of voice--more telling than showing--and that probably contributed to my initial boredom.

After I became more familiar with the characters, I was gradually drawn into the story of Lavinia, an indentured Irish servant, and her adopted family of African-American slaves on a plantation in Virginia. After finishing the story I was interested to read Grissom's explanation of how she came up with the story and did research to write the novel. 

During the course of the novel, Lavinia grows up from a 7-year-old girl who has lost her whole family and the world she knows to a young woman with a child. She becomes very close to the household staff, and in fact views them all as her family. This book, set in the post-colonial era, clearly demonstrates how few options women of that era had. And African-Americans, obviously, had even fewer. Lavinia benefits from privileges and affection from the master's wife's family, and eventually she is set apart as "Miss Lavinia" instead of the friend, family member, and lowly servant she had previously been.

Unfortunately, this book does resort to stereotypes and one-dimensional characters. The slaves are uniformly  good, while the white men are mostly evil (with the exception of two--Mr. Madden and Will Stevens). Lavinia is so completely obtuse and naive that it's unbelievable. She's the classic perfect white girl heroine in this story, who tries to save everyone in the end (white savior complex, very much like The Help). Another reviewer pointed out the inconsistency of her character. At times she had more guts and gusto, but most of the time she didn't have much energy or independence.

SPOILERS BELOW






One thing that does not make sense to me is this: how could Lavinia marry Marshall after he violently lashed out at his own sweet sister, causing her death? She was incredibly naive and unrealistic. 

The book reads almost like a soap opera at times--crazy woman with an opium addiction, horrible child abuse, constant rape by the white men of the slave women, hangings, wife batterers, evil overseers, alcoholism, gambling, and incest. It might have been a true depiction of the times, but it seemed a bit over the top altogether. The final, fiery ending was predictable and although there was a bit of redemption at the end, the book was mostly a tragedy...and I felt relieved when I was done with it. 

I enjoyed reading about Lavinia's adventures in Williamsburg with the spirited Meg. Beyond that, all of the story takes place on the plantation. I found myself wondering, "Doesn't Lavinia ever go into town?" Why was there nothing about what else was happening in the country at that time? She didn't have contact with anyone outside of the plantation or Meg and her family in Williamsburg. Perhaps this is normal? It was also difficult to tell when the novel took place; I would have been lost without the dates and might have guessed the mid-1800s. 

The most redeeming aspect of the book was the close relationships Lavinia developed with Mama Mae, Belle, Papa, Uncle Isaac, and the twins. They became family across the color lines, and they retained those bonds and loyalty at the end. Overall, this was a good book, especially for a first novel, but it had its flaws. 

Marcelo in the Real World

Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork

Wow--two five-star books in a row. It's been awhile since I've been able to say that! On the heels of the wonderful 600+-page The Invisible Bridge, I jumped into Marcelo in the Real World, a young adult novel about a young man named Marcelo who has high-functioning Autism (akin to Asperger's).

After attending a nurturing, private school for kids with special needs through his junior year, his father (Arturo) springs two surprises on him. He wants Marcelo to attend the public high school for his senior year. When Marcelo balks at this suggestion, he offers a deal: he can work at his law firm for the summer ("in the real world") and if he "succeeds" (under Arturo's terms), he can continue at his private school.

Marcelo is not happy about this, but he agrees. He begins helping Jasmine in the mailroom. Jasmine is initially grumpy about Marcelo's presence but eventually the two form a wonderful bond. Things seem to be proceeding well until Marcelo is recruited to work with Wendell, another intern who works for his father (the other partner in the law firm). Wendell is a bad egg and tries to manipulate Marcelo into arranging a private meeting with Jasmine where he can pursue her in close quarters.

While working for Wendell (unwillingly), he discovers a photo of a girl who was disfigured by a windshield breakage--the windshield is manufactured by the law firm's largest client. Deeply touched by this photo, Marcelo searches for more information with the help of Jasmine. He is faced with a major ethical decision that can have major repercussions throughout his family, Jasmine's situation, and the future of the law firm.

Stork, inspired to write this book after working with non-neurotypical young people at the Larche Center 30+ years ago, sensitively portrays this young man who hears music in his head. Marcelo is obsessed with religion, and although he is Catholic he has a particularly close relationship with a female rabbi who serves as a sort of spiritual director/counselor. Marcelo has close relationships with his mom and sister, as well. Stork illustrates the difficulties that people on the Autism spectrum can have with disrupted routine, a lack of choices, and the lonely feeling that people do not understand him.

I highly recommend this book. It's wonderful.

The Invisible Bridge

The Invisible Bridge,
by Julie Orringer

The Invisible Bridge is the story of Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, who is studying in Paris in 1937 on the eve of World War II. He falls in love with a mysterious older woman, Klara, who brings her own set of complications. His older brother, Tibor, wants to study medicine in Italy, and his younger brother, Matyas, loves the stage.

Before long, Hungary is at war as part of the Axis powers. As Andras and his friends and family watch in horror, Hitler and the Nazis are overtaking Europe and spreading their horror throughout the continent.

The Invisible Bridge is 600 pages (hardback), crafted in the tradition of great, sprawling Russian novels. Following Andras, his friends, and family from Paris, to Budapest and the small towns of Hungary, to forced labor camps, The Invisible Bridge is about the great bonds of brotherhood and family, true friendship, love, and endurance. It's also about the healing power of art in the darkest times.

Author Julie Orringer got the idea for this book when she discovered that her grandfather had studied architecture in Paris as a young man. As a Hungarian Jew, he wasn't able to study in Hungary but was able to get admission to a French architectural school. After the war started, he lost his visa and had to return to Hungary, where he ended up being conscripted into forced labor.

“I knew he’d been in labor camps during the war, but I knew nothing about what had happened to him there or how he’d managed to survive. As I started to ask questions about that time, a series of amazing and devastating stories emerged, and a novel began to take shape in my mind—the story of a young Hungarian Jewish man who’d envisioned one kind of life but who was forced by the turnings of history to live quite another.”

Andras' story was inspired by her grandfather's experiences. I knew very little about the situation in Hungary during World War II, especially for the Jewish population, so I found this to be a fascinating read. Even now, Hungary has its share of right-wing fascists, just as it did during the war.

“In a sense, the fate of the Hungarian Jews is particularly painful because the deportations occurred long after the Nazis’ defeat was inevitable. For a long time, Hungarian Jews believed they would escape the fate of the Jews of other occupied nations—not only because the Hungarian government considered Jews necessary to the financial welfare of the country, nor only because so many Jews had served heroically in the First World War, nor even just because Hungarian Jews were particularly assimilated, but simply because the Nazis were bound to admit defeat before deportations could occur.”

This book was instructive and beautiful. I cried out loud in one of the final chapters. I loved reading about the friendship among the three brothers, in particular, and Orringer beautifully describes the way people survive terrible traumas and burdens.

The Teahouse Fire

The Teahouse Fire, by Ellis Avery

"A sweeping debut novel drawn from a history shrouded in secrets about two women-one American, one Japanese-whose fates become entwined in the rapidly changing world of late-nineteenth-century Japan."

Sounds promising, doesn't it? In spite of some lukewarm Goodreads reviews, I thought the book was worth a risk. It started off interesting, with French girl Aurelia arriving in New York with her single mother to live with her priest uncle. She ends up going to Japan with her uncle to convert a "heathen" Japan. Ultimately, she becomes adopted by a Japanese family who treats her as a servant girl, but all she's ever knowin in her life is service.

Yukako, the young woman who discovers Aurelia and takes her under her wing, is the daughter of a great tea ceremony master. Much of the book is about the ancient art of tea ceremony and how it evolves, particularly with the passing of the Shogun and the ushering in of the Meiji era modernizations.

Aurelia leads a sad life...she's not only lost her mother--the only person she ever loved--but she also is shunned and misunderstood as a foreigner living in Japan in this time. Yukako comes across as a strong, stubborn woman who uses her limited place in the family to bring reforms and save the tea dynasty. But she's not incredibly likable. It's fascinating to consider how little has changed in Japan since this novel's setting. Although women have more options now than they did then, Japanese culture is still strongly rooted in patriarchy.

The Teahouse Fire, obviously meticulously researched, gets bogged down in too many details and characters. I found it difficult to get into and was looking forward to its end. So ultimately, disappointing.

Shutter Island

Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane

This is the type of book that totally screws with your mind. If you don't like such books, steer clear.

I didn't know much about it when I started it (except that it was a movie and by the author of Mystic River), so I was not aware that this would be the case.

I like Lehane's writing style and the book drew me in immediately.

When I finished the book, I wasn't absolutely positive what was true in the end. I suppose that's because I don't usually read these noir types of books and am not the sort of reader who tries to figure things out and look for clues along the way.

I'm intrigued enough by Lehane's writing and creativity to try another one of his. If you like psychological thrillers, you will probably like this one. Creepy and haunting!

This Beautiful Life

This Beautiful Life, by Helen Schulman

Not to be confused with Vicki Forman's wonderful memoir, This Lovely Life, This Beautiful Life contains characters who are difficult to like.

Jake Bergamot, 15, goes to an unchaperoned party where a 13-year-old, Daisy, flirts outrageously with him. He ends up becoming entangled with her that alcohol-soaked evening--he's flattered, they're both lonely--until his friends appear and mock him for robbing the cradle. He shrugs her off, telling her that she's too young for him.

Then the next day an ex-rated video Daisy had made arrives in his e-mail. Shocked and a bit flattered, Jake sends the video to his best friend, who forwards it to a few other friends, and then--you guessed it--it goes viral. Jake gets kicked out of school, and his family gets a lawyer.

Jake's parents, the highly educated but unfulfilled stay-at-home mom Liz and his workaholic, detached father Richard react to the situation in different ways. His younger sister, Coco, becomes neglected as their family dynamics spiral out of control.

This book explores the changing technology landscape for teenagers. Nowadays when teenagers make a mistake, if any of it is on the Internet, it never goes away. Adolescence is loaded with pitfalls.

As mom of a teenager, this book freaked me out a bit. Even though my son is not a partier and would not be likely to receive such a video, you just never know. It did give me an opener to share with him the plot of the book. He responded immediately that he would never forward such a video...but you know...teenage boys. They're prone to impulsiveness without thinking through a situation's consequences.

The story is set in an upper-class private school in New York City. The other thing I realized while reading this book is just how out of place and stifled I would feel in such an environment.

Jake's mom, Liz, sees him as the victim and Daisy as the evil girl who wrecked his life. I've heard similar tendencies in other moms of sons. She's annoying, as she is meant to be. She realizes, somehow, that she should be able to respond in a different way to what is going on, but she cannot.

Consequently, her son is left floundering on his own, without a real friend or comfort in the world. I would hope that it would be different if such a thing were to happen in my own family, but teenage boys can certainly be difficult to reach.

Miss New India

Miss New India, by Bharati Mukherjee

I picked this up at the library, intrigued by the premise and undeterred by the lukewarm (and sometimes outright negative) reviews on Goodreads. A novel about Bangalore, call centers, and the new Indian woman? Sure--sounds promising. I've read other Mukherjee novels and liked them, so I thought this was worth a try.

Sadly, this was not a winner. The main character, Anjali, is not likable and she's completely shallow...which I could live with, perhaps, if I cared anything about what happened to these characters. Once she made it to Bangalore, I lost track of some of the characters--they just were not drawn vividly enough--and then when the Bagehot House fell, I began skimming.

Why were all these people helping her? Anjali was ungrateful, not particularly talented, and lackadaisical, but everything seemed to go her way in the end, which seemed too good to be true.

Minnie, Anjali's obnoxiously snobby landlady, reminded me of a woman who ran a hostel in Jaipur, India. I believe she was Anglo-Indian as well. I remember that she "kindly" invited us to stay to dinner. The next morning when we were ready to leave, she presented us with an exorbitant bill for that dinner!

This book could have been so much better. I'm fascinated with the idea of the new India, but this was an uneven, shoddy attempt for a well-known and accomplished author. Disappointing.

The Descendants

The Descendants, by Kaui Hart Hemmings

After seeing the movie before reading the book, I could not get George Clooney as Matt King out of my head. That's not a bad thing. :) I had dragged my dear hubby to see "The Descendants" when we stayed at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in March, and we cried through the movie. I didn't cry during the book...guess that is the difference between a book and a movie (except in the case of Wonder, which had me crying throughout).

This book, expanded from a short story, was beautifully written. Hemmings has a keen understanding of the way teenagers think and act (especially those who do not get enough affection or guidance from their parents!). The book is stronger than the movie in that we get to understand Matt's inner life and motivations. His transformation is a bit deeper and more understandable in the book for that reason.

It clearly is a novel of place. Hawaii is ever present, as is its culture, history, and tensions between native Hawaiians and white people. Hemmings also handles the concepts of death and grief in a sensitive, loving, and realistic way.

Most of the colorful characters are not particularly likable, but I liked this book anyway. Joanie is in a coma, but we get a sense of her (I would probably have liked her even less if she had been conscious). Matt grows from a man who is uncomfortable with affection into one who comes to appreciate his family and what he has...a man who can actually say "I love you" to daughters who are completely unaccustomed to hearing that from anyone.

Just had to throw in a few photos from the movie because. Well, George Clooney.

Wonder

Wonder, by R. J. Palacio

My middle-grade-writer husband read this amazing debut middle-grade novel last week, and he cried and cried and cried. While in the middle of reading the book, he asked me whether people stared at me or made fun of me for the way I looked when I was a child. (I had a cleft lip and palate, in addition to a severe overbite and horribly crooked teeth.) The answer was yes, they did...and sometimes I still find people staring at my cleft lip scar. Sometimes children ask me about it. But what I faced was nothing like what the main character in this book faced.

August (Auggie) had a series of birth defects that resulted in a face that is mashed up and unlike any other. The book starts with Auggie saying "I know I'm not an ordinary ten-year-old kid...I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse."

Auggie has been homeschooled for the first ten years of his life because of all the surgeries he had to endure. (Like Auggie, I also had to have jaw surgery and an implant in my chin.) Finally, as he is entering fifth grade, his parents decide to send him to school. And so begins the story. We hear the story from Auggie's perspective, as well as from his older sister Via and a few of his friends.

My husband, in his own review, writes about why this book is different and has value as a middle-grade novel. I'll leave that to the expert to describe.

The first part that had me crying was on page 7. When Auggie was born, he was immediately rushed out of the room, and his mom got very upset. Finally, "She says that when she looked down into my tiny mushed-up face for the first time, all she could see was how pretty my eyes were." A similar thing happened at my birth: the nurse would not show me to my mom until she had braced herself...because of my cleft lip and palate. But my mom, too, thought I was beautiful and was just relieved that I was there and my defects could be repaired. I could live a normal life. Auggie's mom, too, only saw the beauty in him, and not the ugliness like the rest of the world did.

Auggie makes friends at school, eventually, and he also makes some enemies. People are horribly mean to him everywhere he goes...especially when they see him for the first time. He's a bright, funny, and sensitive kid, as people discover once they get past his face.

I loved this story of a boy who finds his place in the world, helped along by people who show him kindness.
"Shall we make a new rule of life...always to try to be a little kinder than necessary?" --J.M. Barrie

My Monastery Is a Minivan

My Monastery Is a Minivan: Where the Daily Is Divine and the Routine Becomes Prayer, by Denise Roy

I discovered this book when I read a review for one of Denise Roy's more recent books (Momfulness)...and being a chronological-type reader, I decided to start with this one. Plus as a new (initially reluctant) minivan parent, I liked the title, which comes from Roy's childhood desire to become a nun.

As you might guess, she didn't become a nun--instead she became a mom to three sons and one daughter. She also has an M.Div. and is a psychotherapist and spiritual director. This book is all about finding the divine in our everyday lives.

Roy begins her series of essays with a quote from Frederick Buechner, "There is no telling where God may turn up next--around what sudden bend of the path if you happen to have your eyes and ears open, your wits about you, in what odd, small moments almost too foolish to tell."

Each short essay in this collection is a gem and makes me think more mindfully about my own life and family. She uses wonderful quotes and poems to enhance her points, such as this one by Margaret L. Mitchell:

"Sometimes

When it is all, finally,

Too much,

I climb into my car,

Roll the windows up,

And somewhere between backing out the driveway

And rounding the first corner

I let out a yell

That would topple Manhattan

How do you pray?"

Or this one, another by Frederick Buechner:

"The sacred moments, the moments of miracle,
are often the everyday moments."

And this one by Bapuji:

"Those who do not know how to sing and dance
will never reach God."

In one of my favorite essays, "Potato Stories," Roy shares four stories about potatoes...one was about the Korean custom for washing potatoes. When they want to wash a lot of dirty potatoes, they don't wash them one by one...instead they put them all in a tub of water, put a stick in the water, and move it up and down, and the potatoes bump into each other, helping to clean them. She compares this potato bumping/cleaning exercise to being in a community of faith, "When we join hands, our prayers and our lives bump up against one another, and something holy is made in the process."

One of the other potato stories can be found all over the Internet:

One of my teachers had each one of us bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes.  For every person we’d refuse to forgive in our life, we were told to choose a potato, write on it the name and date, and put it in the plastic bag.  Some of our bags, as you can imagine, were quite heavy.

We were then told to carry this bag with us everywhere for one week, putting it beside our bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to our desk at work.

The hassle of lugging this around with us made it clear what a weight we were carrying spiritually, and how we had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, and keep leaving it in embarrassing places.

Naturally, the condition of the potatoes deteriorated to a nasty slime.  This was a great metaphor for the price we pay for keeping our pain and heavy negativity!

Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person, and while that’s true, it clearly is also a gift for ourselves!

So the next time you decide you can’t forgive someone, ask yourself… Isn’t MY bag heavy enough?



In "Night," she writes about her neighbor Debbie, whose aging mother has become very ill. She asked her neighbor about the hardest part, and she said, "The middle of the night. Getting up at three in the morning to change Mom's diapers and having her look me in the eyes and ask "Where's Debbie?'" This resonated for me, as I was thinking about my cousin who has been caring for her ill mother (my aunt, who recently died of cancer) and father with Alzheimer's. I remember those night times when my sons would wake me up to nurse, and we were the only ones awake in the house. Roy shares this passage from Jane Ellen Mauldin, which I love:

"As I trudged alone through the night hallways, I staggered to a call as old as humankind. That night and every night, mothers and fathers around the world awaken to reassure restless children. That night and every night, grown children arise to calm fitful, aging parents. Those night hours are long and lonely. Our burdens and tired bones are ours alone to bear. There are, however, other people out there who are waking even as we are. There are other people who bear similar burdens--whether it is simply to reassure a child for one night, or to help a dying loved one be at peace, week after week, until the end.

We who rise do so because we choose to do it. It is an intense, physical demand; it is also an honor as ancient as human love. We are part of the circle of families and friends who nurture Life from its earthly beginning until its earthly conclusion."

In "Blessing One Another," she shares a story about shopping with her daughter and observing a horrible interaction between an assistant manager and a delightful young child, who had been twirling around and dancing with a butterfly on a stick, much to the assistant manager's horror. Roy is able to intervene on the mother's behalf (the mother is Hispanic, didn't see what happened, and is cowed by the situation) and share the story with the manager, since she observed the interaction. She starts out this chapter with this poem by Galway Kinnell:

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don't flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within,

of self-blessing.

She knows with certainty that the same incident would not have occurred with her own daughter because of the color of her skin. She discusses the effect of prejudice on a small child's ego, and how the mother was "saying words of kindness in the hopes of restoring to the child a sense of her goodness. But I also thought of how different it would be if she had help. What if she had all of us doing this with her, reminding her daughter of her beauty? How different this girl's life would be." She concludes the story by saying that this is how we help God out: "by telling one another in words and in touch that we are lovely and whole and worthy of blessing."

In "Hiding Places," Roy writes about the pain of miscarriage, and her own experiences of having three miscarriages...of which the cause was never determined. Then after letting go of their dream of having another child, suddenly she became pregnant again. In our case, my four miscarriages occurred between our oldest and middle child, and as much as we wanted another child, it was so heart-achingly painful to keep trying. Then finally, it worked--and I had Kieran, my middle son. Roy talks about people's tendency to hide away their pain and grief, deepening their sense of isolation, but "It is only when we have the courage to open the door to the hidden parts of our lives that our suffering can be transformed into wisdom and compassion." This I know is true. Without grieving for each baby I had lost, I never would have been able to be happy in the world.

Another gem I found in this book is a ritual that Denise Roy has in her family. When a boy reaches the age of 13, he goes on a camping trip with other men in the family as a rite of passage. In her appendix, Roy shares some of the questions they discuss:

"Who are my heroes?

What is my philosophy of life?

What do I feel about work?

What gives meaning to my life?

What are the qualities of my mother I admire? Of my father?

What qualities do I value in a relationship?

What does intimacy mean?

What are my dreams for myself?

What does success mean for me?

What brings me joy?

For what, or whom, would I sacrifice my time, energy, health, or life?

What is my idea of power? What is the source of my power?

What are my gifts?

What do I fear?

What is sacred?

Who are my people?

How do I most enjoy life?"

This is the best thing I got out of this book: in a family full of male children, I want to start this ritual. My oldest son (and the oldest grandson) turns 16 this summer, and I've asked my husband, dad, and brother-in-law if they would be willing to take him on such a trip. I love the idea of rites of passage, and this could be a truly meaningful one. They might even take some drums! :)

I really enjoyed this book and it gave me a lot to think about...good reminders of finding the sacred in everyday life, not taking things for granted, and remembering that prayer and meditation comes in many forms.

The Family Fang, by Kevin Wilson 

I found this book to be very sad...it was described as similar to "Little Miss Sunshine" (which I loved) or "The Royal Tenenbaums," which is why I read it. Now I realize it's several days I will never get back.

It's the story of performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang, who spent their adult lives creating performance pieces that they called art. When they had children (Annie and Buster), they engaged the kids in their offbeat, wild performances.

As Annie (Child A) and Buster (Child B) grow up, they are completely screwed up, incapable of forming meaningful, trusting relationships or appreciating anything they have in their lives. When their careers go south and Buster gets shot in the face with a potato gun, they return home to Tennessee to their crazy mom and dad.

Soon Caleb and Camille go missing, and Annie and Buster have the sneaking suspicion that this is all an act and part of their parents' "art." The saddest part about this story is that these dysfunctional parents believe that art trumps everything else, even family and even love. 

It was a clever debut novel (Wilson was mentored by Ann Patchett), but just not my cup of tea.  

Cinderella Ate My Daughter

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, by Peggy Orenstein

I loved Peggy Orenstein's Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother, so as soon as I heard about this book, I knew I would read it. Even though I do not have daughters, I am greatly concerned about the heightened stereotypes both genders face while they are growing up.

I must admit that I enjoyed playing dress-up with my sister and friends when I was a child. We had a dress-up trunk with cast-off long dresses with full skirts, and we made up a game where we imagined we were princesses with the power to do magic when we waved our antique hankerchiefs. But nowadays girls do not need to improvise: with the accessibility of inexpensive toys, most young girls have far more pink princess items than anyone would have dreamed of when I was a girl. In fact, anyone with a girl must feel like pink princesses are exploding all over. I actually have an active dislike of the color pink for this reason.

Orenstein, whose writing style reminds me a bit of Anne Lamott, begins by telling us how she really did not expect or want a daughter...she wanted a son. I could relate in a way, because in my case, I always thought I would have a daughter. Of course, Mike often teased me that if I were to have a daughter, I'd be force-feeding her copies of Ms. while she hid her Seventeen and Glamour mags under her mattress. He's probably right. I'd probably have had a prissy princess and would have been dumbstruck.

Orenstein decided to write this book when, to her horror, her own daughter became princess obsessed. What harm does a little pink princess love do? Well, "according to the American Psychological Association, the girlie-girl culture's emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness can increase girls' vulnerability to the pitfalls that most concern parents: depression, eating disorders, distorted body image, risky sexual behavior." We've all read the studies showing how many young girls are overly concerned with their weight and their appearance and how that affects their self-esteem. Orenstein struggled to see these risks in her own capable, self-confident daughter, but study after study show that "girls can be derailed by stereotypes."

I learned why it seemed that Disney princesses began popping up everywhere I looked: they were created by a Disney executive who attended a "Disney on Ice" show and saw all the little girls in their cheap, handmade Disney princess costume. Eureka: a marketing extravaganza is born!

She looks at the transformation of Barbie, who in the beginning not only had unrealistic proportions but also was a career woman, into the cute, princess Barbie she has become today.

"The astronauts, surgeons, and presidents of her glory days have been largely replaced by fairies, butterflies, ballerinas, mermaids, and princesses whose wardrobes are almost exclusively pink and lavender...Original Barbie would have been appalled: her palette was never so narrow--even her tutu was silver lame."

Now girls can choose from pink ouija boards, pink cell phones, pink laptops, Monopoly Pink Boutique edition, Pink Yahtzee, and ad nauseum. When Orenstein visits a toy fair, she is told that pink is the way to sell toys. How many girls do you know who do not profess to have pink as their favorite color (and are brave enough to admit it)?

Orenstein shares many of her internal battles, such as how to handle her daughter Daisy's request for a blue Fairytopia Barbie or a pink gun. She is noncommittal about the gun (leaning toward purchasing it) until discussing it with her husband, who reminds her, "No war toys." She visits the American Girl palace, but sans Daisy, trying to postpone her daughter's immersion in the need for expensive, unnecessary doll toys that are completely inaccessible to anyone without scads of money.

She explores the history of fairy tales (actually reading the original ones unedited to her daughter) and decides she doesn't like the modern version of some of those fairy tales much better. For example, she doesn't like The Paper Bag Princess (a story I rather like) because the prince rejects the princess for wearing a paper bag. She doesn't like the end (in fact compares it to "Thelma & Louise"), in which the princess dumps the prince and skips off into the sunset. Is that such a bad thing, teaching our daughters that they don't have to have a man to be happy? Sometimes I think she's being a bit too picky. She realizes, when she shares some stories from Free to Be You and Me that she's actually introducing some stereotypes to her daughter rather than teaching her lessons (for example, her daughter asks her what the word "sissy" means). I think it's good for children to be aware of how people do have the tendency to stereotype, but I understand her concern.

Then she takes on Twilight, and you all know what I think about Twilight (if you don't, read all about my opinions here). "Compared with Stephenie Meyer, the Grimms come off like Andrea Dworkin." Good line. "It is Bella, not the supernaturals she falls in love with, who is the true horror show here, at least as a female role model. She lives solely for her man; when he leaves her in New Moon...she is willing to die for him as well...Oh yeah, I want my daughter to be that girl." And that, my friends, is also why you will not find this voracious reader diving into 50 Shades of Grey, which started out as Twilight fan fiction! No thank you.

Orenstein also explores the trajectories of various girl celebrities--Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, etc.--and their bizarre virgin/whore dances. Later she discusses the Scholastic Publishers' tendency to publish books full of sexist stereotypes, which I recently wrote about in my other blog.

Similar to The Mama Boy's Myth, this is an important book about what we are exposing our girls to and the risks they face by being pressured to be princesses instead of heroes. Yes, they all grow out of the princess phase, but what fallout remains as they move into adolescence?

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand

Louis Zamperini with his brother Pete

My sister and husband both read Unbroken for their respective book groups and loved it. I was looking forward to diving in, and it did not disappoint.

Unbroken is the true story of Louis Zamperini, destined to be the world's fastest miler. He spent his childhood getting into one scrape after another and seemed destined to be a failure until he discovered running. He participated in the 1936 Olympics (presided over by Hitler) but would be in his prime at the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. Sadly, the 1940 Games were cancelled, and he was otherwise occupied in 1944.

The photo that made me cry!
Zamperini greeting his mother
after returning from the war



When World War II broke out, Zamperini enlisted in the Army Air Forces and was stationed in Hawaii. While flying in a plane over the Pacific to rescue another plane that had not returned from a mission, Zamperini and his crewmates crash-landed in the ocean. Amazingly, he and the two other survivors floated on a life raft for 47 days--drinking rain water, eating raw fish and birds they caught with their hands, and telling stories to keep themselves sanee--before drifting to one of the Marshall islands, where they were captured by the Japanese.

This is nonfiction at its best: I learned about running, life in the army during World War II (and how many planes went down when they were not in combat), and survival in a brutal Japanese POW camp. Heavy on narrative and light on dialogue, the book drags for some readers (especially during the descriptions of the airplanes and combat flights), but I found the book to be completely gripping.

When Zamperini returns to the U.S., he suffers from alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder, which in those days was not talked about much less treated.

Of course, the most fascinating thing about the book is knowing that it's a true story and Louis Zamperini survived what seemed humanly impossible to endure...first while being lost at sea without food or water, somehow missing the circling and lunging sharks, and then while enduring brutal, horrific treatment at the hands of the Japanese guards, who believed it was shameful to be a POW and so took out their scorn in violent, inhumane ways.

After living in Japan and being welcomed by the Japanese people, it's hard to read about the brutality during the war. But Zamperini was able to forgive his Japanese captors and eventually returned to Japan, once to see his guards and extend an olive branch, and again to carry the torch at the Nagano Olympics.

Zamperini is in fact still alive and kicking, at age 95. Here is a short video about Zamperini:

Go read this book!! It will make you look at your life in new ways and stop you from taking things for granted.

The 100 Thing Challenge

The 100 Thing Challenge, by Dave Bruno

I picked this up at the Garden Home Library because it looked appealing, but it was a huge let down. I knew the book would be disappointing when I got to the page where he began talking about the "doll plan" he and his wife had for both of their daughters. I literally laughed out loud. A "doll plan" for someone who espouses simple living? He then went on ad nauseum about how fabulous American Girl dolls are...before then asking his young daughters to downsize their doll collection, and then realizing that this project was about him and not about his family.

Bruno developed this book based on his blog, and he really did not have enough content for a book. In a word: BORING. I also found it truly bizarre that he got rid of so many things only to replace them with more expensive things (e.g., jackets). He had bizarre rules such as counting all of his books as one item (library) yet counting separately three bibles. What is with that? And why would you keep three bibles if you could only have 100 things?

Technically, he didn't really have 100 things, because he didn't count everything he shared with his wife or family.

In short, what might have been an interesting experiment was just a really boring book with not very good writing and a lot of brand names thrown in. The man has a huge love of brand names, such as Patagonia. I finally gave up before finishing the book.