The Way Life Should be: A Novel

By Christina Baker Kline

On both the inside flap and the back of this book, there is heavy praise from well known writers like Anita Shreve and Jacquelyn Mitchard, as well as rave reviews from publications such as the Boston Globe. I must be a pretty tough critic because I was not overly impressed. Kline starts out with a cute story about a Jersey girl trying to make it big in Manhattan as an event planner. One day at work, Angela finds an ad for an internet dating site that asks, “Do Soulmates Exist?” As she peruses the various listings, she stumbles upon “MaineCatch” who is, not surprisingly, a fisherman in Maine with a quaint seaside cottage, rugged good looks and an adorable dog named Sam. They email, phone and eventually share a romantic one night tryst in Boston. Sounds perfect so far, right?

This is when the story starts to unravel. Unfortunately, Angela’s new love distracts her from an important museum event she’s working on. She makes a fatal mistake that ruins the party and suddenly finds herself jobless, her reputation ruined. She immediately decides to pack up all her belongings and go to Maine to be with MaineCatch, even though she barely knows him. This move also turns out to be a huge mistake, also not surprisingly, when Angela discovers there is no seaside cottage or adorable dog, just a messy, philandering bachelor living alone in a bare, newly built condo. Although I give kudos to Angela for leaving MaineCatch, everything works out a little too perfectly for me when Angela lands on her feet, finding a slightly kooky yet charming group of friends, and a job at a coffee shop that leads her to her dream of teaching the wonders of Italian cooking to all the locals and transplants in her perfect little town. It's all a little too Lifetime movie of the week for me. The only possibly redeeming thing is that Kline included recipes for the dishes that Angela cooks at the end of the novel. I’m kind of scared to try them though; what if they turn out to be as bland as this book?

Good Dog. Stay.

By Anna Quindlen

A short sweet book about Quindlen’s dog, Beau, originally published as an essay in Newsweek. Beau, a beautiful black Labrador Retriever puppy, was a gift to celebrate the author’s fortieth birthday. For fifteen years, Beau lived with the author, one of the few constants in the lives of her and her husband as their bodies aged, the children grew up and left home, and their careers took off. When daily life seems to have grown too painful for Beau, the author and her family must make the painful decision to let him go.
This book is only 83 pages and many of those pages are filled with large black and white photos of dogs of all kinds. Many reviewers on amazon.com complained about the book's short length. However, I think most dog owners and animal lovers will appreciate this loving tribute to a loyal companion, which also serves as a reminder that our time with loved ones, both human and non human, is limited so we shouldn't take anything for granted. I know it made me appreciate the four legged friend at my house even more!

The Department of Lost and Found: A Novel

By Allison Winn Scotch

Natalie Miller is a career woman on her way up the political ladder, with a high powered, exciting job working as a top aide to a NY Senator. Suddenly, at age 30, she is diagnosed with breast cancer despite her healthy lifestyle, and her boyfriend dumps her just a few days later. Suddenly, the things that used to seem so important don’t seem to matter at all anymore and Natalie attempts to create a support network consisting of her parents, a few close girlfriends, and later, her dog Manny and her doctor Zach, as she battles her disease.
This is my second book so far this month about a perky young woman with cancer. I didn’t know the plot of this book when I started reading it, so I guess its just a coincidence. Despite the potentially depressing subject matter, this book is surprisingly upbeat, maybe a little too upbeat for me. It was interesting to see how the cancer diagnosis slowly changes Natalie’s outlook on life for the better. You can’t help but root for her character to overcome her disease and find true love and just be happy. I wish I could believe that this is what cancer is really like. Maybe for some people, it is. This one was just okay for me.

Atonement

By Ian McEwan

For years, I’ve heard nothing but rave reviews of this novel. It seemed a little too literary for me, so I never picked up a copy. However, after watching previews for the upcoming film and reading one glowing review after another (with each one mentioning a big twist ending), my interest was piqued once again. It is undoubtedly one of the best books I’ve ever read. I fell completely for the love story between Cecelia and Robbie and loved Ian McEwan’s beautiful writing style, fascinating characters and unpredictable plot twists. It was just a fantastic book, even though I must admit was hoping for a happier ending.
Can’t wait to see the movie now.

Necessary Arrangements: A Novel

By Tanya Michna

Sisters Asia and Lucy Swenson have always been best friends despite their many differences: Asia is the confident, smart one with a great career while Lucy is the sensitive, nice one with lots of friends. In an unbelievable coincidence, on the same day that Asia is preparing to tell her family that her breast cancer has recurred after a brief remission and metastasized to her bones, Lucy is also planning to announce her engagement to her boyfriend Michael. Lucy is determined to have Asia stand beside her at the ceremony and plans a wedding just a few months away. As the family tries to happily make the wedding arrangements, they must also deal with the sadness of Asia’s medical treatments and deteriorating health. Lucy cheerfully supports Asia anyway she can as her life slowly changes at work (reducing her workload) and in love (reluctantly falling for a charming coworker).
This book was just okay for me. On one hand, it was good to find a book about this serious and important topic that families deal with every day. Michna’s attempt at portraying this bittersweet and challenging situation is appreciated. However, the level of writing never really rises above typical “chick lit” and I couldn’t help thinking that in the hands of a more ambitious writer, this might have been a much better book.

Ivy Briefs: True Tales of a Neurotic Law Student

By Martha Kimes

No one was more surprised about her acceptance into Columbia Law School than Martha Kimes. Stuck in that purgatory-like state between college graduation and a career, Martha wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of her life after she graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She’d always excelled at multiple choice exams and being a lawyer sounded intriguing, so she decided to take the LSAT. She was shocked when she scored in the 98th percentile; hello, Ivy League! She’d always wanted to live in the Big Apple so upon her acceptance into the best law school in NYC, she and her college boyfriend got married and moved to Manhattan.

Martha soon discovers that law school is incredibly difficult, extremely competitive and completely exhausting. “Conventional wisdom holds that during your first year of law school, they scare you to death, during your second year, they work you to death, and during your third year they bore you to death.” In addition to attending classes, completing mountains of assigned reading and passing grueling exams, Martha must also participate in moot court, write for a law journal (preferably the most prestigious one, Columbia Law Review), complete important summer internships AND pass the bar exam. Her first year grades will determine her entire future.
If you've ever considered attending law school or even if you just enjoy a good law-related tv show like LA Law or Law and Order, this is a fascinating look at what it's like to attend one of the best schools in the country. It was both entertaining and informative, and hard to put down. Hopefully, Ms. Kimes will write another great book about her life as a lawyer!

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited

By Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein

“Twins have been seen on sonogram images in the womb kissing, punching and embracing. Clearly, a powerful connection between twins begins even before birth. Nevertheless, having shared the womb together for nine months, when we met at age thirty-five, we were strangers…”

In the fall of 2002, Elyse Schein, an American filmmaker living in Paris, submitted an internet request for information about her birth parents at age thirty-three; it was a decision that changed her life forever. Elyse had always known that she was adopted and although her mother died when she was just 6 years old and her family was not extremely close, she loved her father and brothers very much. Soon, she received some startling information: she has an identical twin sister who was adopted by another family. Elyse was ecstatic; she always felt like she was missing something in her life and suddenly things make sense.
Paula, on the other hand, was happily living in Brooklyn with her husband and baby daughter, not even thinking about searching for her birth parents. When she was contacted by the adoption agency and told that she has a twin sister who is looking for her, she was completely stunned. Paula had lived a mostly happy life, with wealthy adoptive parents, and an Ivy league education. At first, she was overwhelmed and very apprehensive about having a twin.
The sisters nervously made plans to meet each other, each afraid of losing their individuality and seeing a stranger with the same face as theirs. Slowly, they began to get to know and trust each other, discovering many shared characteristics and interests.

Further research into their background made both women wonder why a highly respected adoption agency would separate twins and what happened to their birth parents. The further they dig, the more disturbing the results are. They later learned that their mother was bi-polar and hospitalized in a Staten Island mental hospital for a suicide attempt weeks before they were born, that she did not know who their father was, but realized that she could not care for a baby. Elyse and Paula were unknowingly part of a controversial experiment conducted by the adoption agency for a study about nature v. nurture in children with a history of mental illness in their families. Their adoptive families were never told about their twin or their mother’s schizophrenia.
This is a riveting memoir about the search for identity and family. The chapters leading up to the reunion are exciting, and so is the twins’ search for information about their birth mother. It's almost like watching a real life mystery unravel before your eyes. The sisters aren’t extremely likeable, especially Paula, who isn’t sure if she wants Elyse in her life and is hesitant at times about researching their past. There is a lot of fascinating background information about twins scattered throughout the book; I just skimmed it at times if it was too distracting. Overall though, this was an interesting and informative book.

Still Life with Elephant: A Novel

By Judy Reene Singer

I have very mixed feelings about this book. The plot centers on Neelie Sterling, a happily married horse trainer, who discovers that her veterinarian husband Matt has been cheating on her with another vet in his practice. Neelie is devastated, especially after she learns Matt's new lover is pregnant and that he has emptied their bank accounts and taken a second mortgage on their house. In a last effort to win him back, Neelie decides to tag along with Matt on dangerous trip to Africa to rescue an elephant.
Neelie’s visit to Africa changes her life forever. Suddenly, she could care less about Matt because she has fallen completely in love with the animals and the beauty of Africa. She also finds herself extremely attracted to the leader of their animal rescue group. But Matt eventually comes crawling back to beg her forgiveness and offer her a life with him and his baby girl. Neelie must choose between the life that she always thought she wanted or an adventure that she never imagined was possible.
As a HUGE animal lover, I really enjoyed all the horse and elephant aspects of this book. The author apparently trains horses and rescues elephants in Africa in real life so she brings an interesting and believable perspective to this novel. However, she has given her protagonist an extremely annoying characteristic: sometimes when she’s upset, Neelie mishears what other people say to her. I think its supposed to be humorous but to me, it's just distracting. For example, one day Matt tells her he is getting a new collie and she is happy. But it turns out that he really said a new colleague to help with his busy practice. After almost 300 pages, these misunderstandings get really annoying. Still, this is a decent book with an important message: sometimes you have to lose everything to learn what you really want.

Through Thick and Thin: A Novel

By Alison Pace

A story about two sisters growing apart as life takes them down different paths. Life seems good for Stephanie, a stay at home mother with a handsome husband, an adorable baby girl and a beautiful home in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Meredith on the other hand, is living the glamorous life of a single girl in the city, where she is a highly respected restaurant critic. Yet neither sister’s life is really a bed of roses. Stephanie’s seemingly perfect existence in the suburbs is just a façade; she is desperately trying to lose the baby weight she gained recently and her formerly happy marriage is in serious trouble. Voluptuous Meredith is tired of both her own weight issues and her endless search for a soulmate in NYC. Then one day, the sisters decide to diet together in order to not only look and feel better, but also to bring them closer. But it won't be easy; they can't even agree on a diet to follow.

Although this novel appears to be your typical chick lit story about fat girls losing weight, Alison Pace always serves up something unexpected in her books. Through Thick and Thick isn’t really about dieting; it’s about family, forgiveness, and finding happiness and love where you least expected. A fun, light read that will be especially appreciated by anyone with a sister. I'd rate this novel better than Pace's 2006 book Pug Hill, but still not as great as 2005's If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend.

All the Numbers: A Novel

by Judy Merrill Larsen

Ellen Banks is a divorced single mother raising two sons in Madison, Wisconsin. During their annual summer trip to the lake to visit friends, James, the youngest, is hit by a careless rider on a jet ski. Just hours later, he is declared brain dead and taken off life support. This is the story of how Ellen and her surviving son Daniel cope with their loss.

Although this book received rave reviews on Amazon, I found it flat and boring. There is nothing new in this novel that hasn't already been seen on tv, movies or in better books before. Feels kind of like being stuck in a very long Lifetime movie. Not worthwhile.

Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on the Outside

By Bridget Kinsella

This is the true story of the author’s relationship with a prisoner at the Pelican Bay Correctional Facility in California. As a writer for Publisher’s Weekly magazine, Bridget Kinsella has an exciting, satisfying career working with other writers in the fast paced world of publishing. Unfortunately, Bridget’s personal life is not as rewarding at the moment. Recently recovering from an extremely painful divorce and a move from NYC to the West Coast, Bridget is trying to accept the idea that as a single woman in her mid thirties, she may never have children of her own, which she desperately wants. When a teacher friend mentions an amazing writer in his class at the prison and asks Bridget if she would be interested in looking at his work, she agrees, completely unaware of the profound effect this new writer will have on her life.

No one is more surprised than Bridget when she reluctantly begins to develop romantic feelings for Rory, a thirty year old man with a troubled past serving a life sentence for murder. Rory is sweet and attentive to Bridget, and quickly falls in love with her. It’s sometimes hard to believe that the man that Bridget describes in their visits, letters, and phone calls is a convicted murderer. Due to their unique bond, Bridget develops friendships with many of the prisoners’ wives and girlfriends, and she knows that she doesn’t want that lonely life for herself, a choice that Rory completely supports. He appears content just to have her in his life in any form, wanting only to support her and help her heal from her bad previous relationships, so she can be happy again.
If I didn’t know this book was non-fiction, Rory might seem too good to be true. Unlike the author, I found some of his letters a bit on the creepy side. (Maybe I'm just a skeptic when it comes to love?) Still, this book was hard to put down, I couldn’t wait to see how their relationship would end, and it turned out to be a pretty surprising conclusion. An interesting look at what it’s really like to be in love with someone in prison.

Other recommended books on this topic include: The Prisoner's Wife: A Memoir by Asha Bandele, Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon and The Good Wife by Stuart O'Nan.

Run: A Novel

By Ann Patchett

What can I say about this amazing book? Although I haven’t read Patchett’s best known book, Bel Canto, yet, I have been a huge fan of her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, for a long time. Set in Boston, Run is the story of two seemingly unrelated families and how their lives intersect in many ways.
Tennessee and her 11 year old daughter Kenya Moser live in the Cathedral Housing Project. The much wealthier Doyle family (eldest son Sullivan, adopted sons Tip and Teddy, and family patriarch, widower and former mayor Bernard) live just a few blocks away on one of the nicest streets in Boston. One cold, wintery night, the Mosers and the Doyles attend a political lecture by Jesse Jackson. When they leave the auditorium and walk out into a terrible snowstorm, the two families collide as Tip unknowingly steps into the path of an oncoming SUV and Tennessee saves his life by pushing him out of its path. Tennesse is taken to the hospital for emergency surgery and the Doyles find themselves temporarily caring for feisty Kenya, who soon reveals that this was not exactly a random accident. For years, the Mosers have been watching Tip, Teddy and the rest of the family from afar because Tennessee is the boys’ birth mother.
This is just the beginning of this beautifully written, intriguing story. As Patchett weaves the unpredictable stories of these characters, the reader can’t help but fall in love with them and savor each page of this great novel. Highly recommended, one of the best books of the year.

Altared: Bridezillas, Bewilderment, Big Love, Breakups & What Women Really Think of Contemporary Weddings

Edited by Colleen Curran

Is there anything more romantic and fun to read about than a wedding? Most women have wedding stories, about ones we attended or planned or even participated in somehow. I know that some women hate it, but I found the planning of my wedding to be one of the most enjoyable times of my life. Between April 2001 and September 2002, my two sisters and I were all married. We had so much fun together, choosing dresses and veils, venues, food, favors; it was like an eighteen month long wedding extravaganza. Sometimes we wondered what we would have to talk about after the weddings were all over. Growing up, I was one of those girls who dreamt about the puffy white dress, the enormous cake with a built in fountain and what the best day of my life would be like. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that as a teenager, I often borrowed wedding magazines from the library to plan my imaginary wedding and honeymoon, never mind the fact that I didn’t even have a boyfriend, much less a groom. By the time I did find my groom about 15 years later, most of my wedding ideas were completely different. I did have the outdoor ceremony I’d imagined but it was amid the greenery of late spring, not the foliage of mid October. Instead of a huge bridal party, I chose my two best friends, my sisters, to be my maids of honor, my husband’s twin sister was my fun, sweet bridesmaid and my adorable little nieces made lovely flower girls. My husband and I wanted the day to be one big party with good food and lots of dancing. I think he would’ve let me make all the big decisions on my own but it was so much more fun to make decisions together. The fact that he chose our beautiful wedding song, Bruce Springsteen’s If I Fall Behind, as well as an amazing photographer made our day even better than I’d imagined. Although, the food was a bit disappointing & the DJ slightly annoying, it turned out to be a beautiful day, exactly what we wanted. We danced the entire time and I still have my tattered and torn wedding dress in the closet to prove it. At age 29, I no longer expected my wedding day to be the best day of my life, but hoped instead that it would be the first of many, many happy days as husband and wife. I have not been disappointed.

This book is a collection of 27 thought provoking, wedding related essays written by some of today’s most popular female writers. Some are humorous, others are poignant but each makes a smart, important statement about marriage.

Some of my favorite passages include:

“I recall that All Green lyric, which I previously thought of as inane: “Being in love means feeling good about someone.” The more you like someone, the nicer you treat them, and the nicer they treat you, and then the more you like them. It sounds pretty dumb, but it’s true. Everything is just easy when it’s easy. Not that he doesn’t irritate me, but you know I irritate myself, and I don’t hold it against me. I just forget how infuriating he is as soon as my mood passes, instead of counting and remembering and measuring what this person has done to me and what he owes me…” from Lisa Carver’s “Back in Black”

“Weddings are not marriages, and I wish they were. Weddings are to marriage as a single bamboo shoot is to a jungle, as a seashell is to the ocean floor: nice enough, not unrepresentative, and almost totally irrelevant. Marriage is all about the long road, about terror and disappointment, about recovery and contentment, about passions of all kinds. Weddings are about a party…Marriage requires common sense, self awareness, compatible senses of humor, compatible sex drives and enough, but not too much, perseverance. Weddings on the other hand, offer just a day’s happiness, and require only a willingness to dance – even badly - and embrace the world and big love for a short time.
I admire marriages: I puzzle over them, I analyze them, I long to get it right. But I love weddings.” From Amy Bloom’s “Weddings for Everyone”

“Here is what I know and it may be all I know on the subject of being a bride: the ring, the dress, the proposal, the place cards and flowers, the music, the minister or rabbi or justice of the peace – it will all add up to exactly nothing. There will be a moment when it’s all over. A moment when in a hungover, happy, bleary state you roll over and look at the guy next to you and think, my husband for the first time. My husband. The word will roll over and over in your mouth, in your mind until one day, the concept simply becomes a part of you. You are a wife. You have a husband. The two of you together make a family of two, of three, of four, or even - God help you- more. People may, from time to time, ask how the two of you met. They may ask how long you’ve been married. But here are some questions I’ve never been asked in the nine years since my wedding day: Where was the wedding? Who was the caterer? What flavor was the cake? What kind of flowers?...
The dress hangs in its garment bag in our house in the country. Every once in a while I think of pulling it out and trying to wear it to some black tie event, but after giving birth to our son, I’m afraid – very afraid - of how it will fit. The ring…has broken four times and been sent back to Barney’s to be re-soldered. The wedding bouquet dried and finally crumbled after being subjected to several moves…The timeless black and white photographs are still not yet in an album…And the guests? My mother is dead. My half sister and I no longer speak. Two out of my three invitees – the most important people in my life at the time! - are now people with whom I exchange holiday cards. Ditto for my husband and his friends. But what I do have – after the crumbled bouquet, the fading proofs, the broken ring, the lost friends and family – is a husband. One whom I roll over and look at first thing in the morning – our middle-aged faces creased by our pillows – and think:He’s a keeper.” From Dani Shapiro’s “Happily Ever After”

A great book for brides to be, as well as brides of the past.

Year of the Dog: A Novel

By Shelby Hearon

After her husband dumps her for an old girlfriend, Janey Daniels trades in her simple life in small town South Carolina for a new start in Burlington, Vermont. For one year, she moves into a tiny apartment with her new companion, Beulah, a sweet Labrador puppy that she is training to become a Seeing Eye dog for the blind.
This quiet, unsentimental book that takes on themes of family and love is perfect reading for a peaceful autumn weekend at home. Although some of the characters felt kind of like stereotypical Southern people, Janey’s story is engaging and thoughtful with a satisfying conclusion.

Pretty Little Mistakes: A Do-Over Novel

By Heather McElhatton

Remember “Choose Your Own Adventure” books? I LOVED those when I was eight or nine years old. This book is kind of like that but for adults. I know it’s for adults because it is not fun at all. Most of the choices involve drugs, violence and kinky sex, with endings that are slightly depressing. The book starts out interestingly enough, posing a choice between going off to college or traveling to Europe after your high school graduation. However, it’s all downhill from there: I chose attending college with my boyfriend and somehow just a few pages later, I was enrolled in medical school and addicted to crystal meth. I thought I would enjoy going back to the beginning and making different choices but most of the other endings were just as depressing. I was tired of this book after about 15 minutes, mainly because the choices I was offered were completely ridiculous. I didn’t have very high expectations for this one, but it was still a disappointment. Not recommended.

The Other Woman

Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love and Betrayal

Edited by Victoria Zackheim

I picked this collection of essays because several of my favorite authors are featured in it: Pam Houston, Caroline Leavitt, Dani Shapiro. Their writings, as usual, did not disappoint, except that Shapiro’s piece was a reprint from a book that I’d already read. I enjoyed Mary Jo Eustace’s piece about her devastating discovery that her husband had fallen in love with Tori Spelling (yuck!) and Binnie Kirshenbaum’s essay about Princess Diana. While the end of the book felt a little boring, I found the first half to be insightful and well written. Reading about the relationship experiences of these women really makes you think about love, lust, and committment in a different light.

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

By Peggy Orenstein

Once upon a time, Peggy Orenstein was a successful writer with a happy marriage living in California. She felt ambivalent about having children, but always thought there would be time later, when it would be more convenient. Like many women, she put it off, often refusing to even discuss it with her husband, but one day at age thirty-five, she and her husband finally agree its time to try. Six weeks later, after the results of a baseline mammogram reveal an abnormality, Peg is diagnosed with breast cancer and the baby plans are put on hold again for six months. This is just the beginning of her inspiring and heartbreaking journey to becoming a mother, transforming her entire life, questioning her past decisions and jeopardizing her marriage. The more treatments Peg endures, including oral medication, injectibles, IUI, IVF, acupuncture, and surrogacy, the more obsessed she becomes with becoming pregnant. The best part is that Peg’s story has a very happy ending; six years, three miscarriages and thousands of dollars later, just as she and her husband begin the adoption process, Peg becomes pregnant against all odds at age 41 and delivers a perfect baby girl that they name Daisy.
Waiting for Daisy is very well written, and while it is painful to read at times, it is ultimately extremely hopeful. My heart goes out to anyone experiencing fertility problems after reading about her ordeal. Orenstein cautions readers experiencing infertility to remember that in many ways, they are consumers and must be alert to false promises and to the “allure of perpetual hope.” She also questions the definition of infertility as failure to conceive after just one year when a recent large scale study found that 90% of women in their late 30’s will get pregnant within two years of trying.
Orenstein walks a fine line, never allowing her story to become depressing or sappy, and I think that is mostly due to her talent as a writer and her honesty. I found many passages in this book to be both eloquently written and extremely moving.
“At one time, I would have told a woman like me that childlessness was not her problem; it was her inability to recognize the value in all that she had, in all that she’d built for herself. But I had become the woman I once pitied, the one who was too easily swayed by the gross oversimplifications that collapsed all of life’s complexities into the convenient box of ‘waited too long.’”

And near the end of the book:
“If life gave do-overs, I wouldn’t change my course, but I would choose to traverse it differently – with less craziness, more equanimity, more courage. I would tell myself, ‘This is your life, no matter what happens,’ rather than, ‘This is your life, only if you can make this one thing happen’…If you didn’t try it, you’d always have to wonder whether it would have worked. That’s how you lose sight of your real choices, because the ones you’re offered make you feel as if you have none.”

Finally, after a friend comments that, “Everything happens for a reason,” after Daisy’s birth:
“That’s not something I believe, not when women I love die, not when children are starving, when adults are tortured. Nor do I like its corollary: ’God only gives you what you can handle.’ If so, God is a sadist. I refuse to view life through such a simplistic, superstitious lens. I did not get cancer because I held in anger. My infertility was not a result of my ambivalence about motherhood…Adversity is a random, arbitrary thing, though one can still glean meaning from it, use its crucible to become a better, more compassionate person. My story, I’ve found, is not so unusual. Many women experience at least one of its twists- miscarriage, infertility, breast cancer – and fear at dark moments, that they caused their affliction. Most women ask themselves at one time or another what it means to mother- what the cost might be to their careers or marriages, how it reshapes the self. And all of us, male and female, encounter pain and loss; all of us reckon with dreams unfulfilled, with the limits our younger choices have placed on our lives. All of us have to figure out how to move beyond that regret… My pettiness is dwarfed by a sense of reverent, radiant gratitude that’s sweeter for having experienced its opposite, as love is sweeter for one’s scars. Mine is the luck of realizing that happiness may only be the respite between bouts of pain and so is to be savored, not taken as an entitlement…And although in many ways I’d give a lot not to have learned it, I’m grateful for the lesson.”
A beautifully written, and worthwhile book. My only real criticism (besides the fact that I felt the chapter on Peg's visit to an old friend with fifteen children was a bit long) was that I wish she had written a more about her life with Daisy. Maybe she will write a sequel! Recommended.

Still Summer: A Novel

By Jacquelyn Mitchard

After a bit of a slow start, this story of four women lost at sea is suspenseful and exciting. Tracy, Olivia, Holly and Janis have been life long friends, going way back to their days of Catholic school. Even back then, they were daring, fun loving girls. Twenty-five years after graduation, they are reuniting for the trip of a lifetime: sailing on a small yacht to various islands in the Caribbean. When Janis is forced to drop out at the last minute due to her husband’s emergency surgery, Tracy’s college student daughter Cammie takes her place.
At first, the trip is wonderful, the ladies are all enjoying each other’s company and Cammie is flirting with Michel, one of the two crewmen on board. Then, things start to go terribly wrong and the women end up alone in the boat with no power and little food or water as they endure bad weather, serious injuries, hungry sharks, and even drug smugglers. The difficult conditions bring out the worst and the best in each woman.
Although this isn’t exactly literary fiction, I still found it to be well written with interesting characters. I really enjoyed the adventurous aspects of the novel even though it might stretch the imagination a bit. There is one plot twist that is totally obvious but plays out in an interesting way. For Mitchard’s more serious side, I’d recommend The Breakdown Lane or Christmas, Present. An entertaining book that’s hard to put down, Still Summer would make a great movie!

Songs Without Words: A Novel

By Ann Packer

A story about friendship and motherhood from the author of The Dive From Clausen’s Pier, set in California's Bay area. Liz and Sarabeth have been as close as sisters ever since high school, when Sarabeth moved in with Liz’s family after her mother commit suicide. Now many years later, Liz has a family of her own. Her son Joe is cute and athletic, and while her daughter Lauren appears to be a normal teenager, she is deeply depressed and later slits her wrists and ingests all the pills in her medicine cabinet in a desperate cry for help.
Lauren’s suicide attempt crushes her family and makes Liz doubt her ability as a mother. For Sarabeth, it brings back much of pain surrounding her mother’s death. Instead of helping each other, Liz and Sarabeth quickly grow apart. Sarabeth feels abandoned by her only real friend and Liz realizes that she’s tired of Sarabeth’s neediness, although these women ultimately reconcile and Lauren’s mental condition slowly improves by the end of the book.
I found this book to be just okay. I found the story’s premise about friendship interesting, but Liz and Sarabeth both seemed a little boring to me. All the characters were slightly dull and for some reason, this book didn’t really make me feel anything, although I felt like it should. I think Lauren's depression was handled in a realistic way. In my opinion, this book is adequate, but not as engaging as Packer’s previous work.

The Rest of Her Life: A Novel

By Laura Moriarty

Despite a difficult childhood and adolescence, Leigh Churchill grew up to have a good life. She works at the local school as an English teacher, she has great husband, Gary who is a professor, and she has two good kids: Kara, a popular 18 year old about to graduate high school, and Justin, a sensitive, artistic boy with no friends.
Then, in an instant, everything changes, as often happens in novels and in life. The story begins a few days before Kara’s graduation when she accidentally runs a stop sign and her car hits her classmate, killing her. Kara is completely devastated and the accident affects the entire family, as well as their small town Kansas community. Leigh and Kara have always had a strained relationship despite Leigh’s best intentions, maybe a result of problems with her own mother, who moved to California for a new life, leaving Leigh to fend for herself at age fifteen.
I expected this book to focus on the legal ramifications of Kara’s action with an investigation and criminal or civil trial, like a Jodi Piccoult novel. However, Moriarty seems more interested in the moral issues. Kara’s heavy guilt makes her reluctant to accept the plea bargain offered by the prosecutors; she wants her punishment to be severe because of the horrible thing she has done. Readers will also sympathize with Leigh and her efforts to mend her distant relationship with Kara at this crucial and difficult moment. Although Leigh and Kara are not always likeable characters, I liked how this book focused on the complex relationships between mothers and daughters and families. An accident like Kara’s could happen to anyone and hurting an innocent bystander is any driver’s greatest fear, which makes this story easy to relate to. A worthwhile and absorbing book.

Summer Reading: A Novel

By Hilma Wolitzer

A book about three women in the Hamptons leading very different lives. Lissy is a shallow, rich snob who joins a book club to “change her life”, even though she is dyslexic and really only cares about gossip, shopping and parties. Michelle is Lissy’s maid and Angela is a retired English Lit professor hired to lead the group’s book discussions.
I kept waiting and waiting for this book to improve but it never really picks up. The Lissy character is utterly unlikable and I couldn’t really relate to Angela either. If the book had centered on Michelle more, it might have been okay but I found her life kind of depressing. The ending is horrible, especially for an animal lover like me, and it feels a bit rushed. Just not a good book for me. I have to agree with the reviewer on amazon.com who said, “Readable, if you have nothing else in the house.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The Life You Longed For: A Novel

By Maribeth Fischer

Grace Connelly has always longed to be the perfect mother to her three children, especially her youngest son Jack, who suffers from a mitochrondrial disease that is both extremely rare and always fatal. But someone in Grace’s life doesn’t think she’s so perfect after all. In fact, someone believes that Grace’s unending devotion to and advocacy for her sick child in combination with her extensive medical knowledge make her a potential criminal. The crime: Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy (MSBP).
Grace is outraged that anyone could accuse her of harming sweet little Jack. Soon, an investigation reveals that Grace lied about her recent affair with her first love. Her deception combined with the accusations against her could ultimately cost her both her marriage and her children.
Some reviews compared Ms. Fischer to Anita Shreve but to me, that seems like a real stretch. While the plot is slightly interesting, it almost feels as if the author randomly picked a controversial topic and then threw in a little drama from 9/11/01 to create a big ending; the whole thing just felt forced, and in a way, like a big cop out. The author’s frequent comparisons between MSBP and the Salem Witch Trials felt ridiculous and seemed to imply that MSBP is just a witch hunt dreamt up to punish loving mothers everywhere. While I do not doubt that some mothers have been falsely accused, there have been substantiated, well known cases of MSBP.

I also found Grace’s statement about parents vs. non-parents to be both ridiculous and offensive:
“…she understood then that the world really was divided into two kinds of people, and it wasn’t rich and poor or educated versus uneducated or black against white, but something so much simpler, so much more important: those who were parents and those who weren’t.”
As if this realization could solve all the problems of the world. Seriously? Certainly, not all non-parents like myself are evil, unsympathetic monsters. I can hardly think of a more untrue or unfair statement.
This was an extremely disappointing book, a total waste of both paper and time. Maybe I should try reading a real book instead of trash like this.

The Mistress's Daughter: A Memoir

By A. M. Homes

Novelist A.M. Homes lived the first thirty-one years of her life with the knowledge that she was adopted. Though many of the details remained sketchy, one fact that she did know for sure was that her birth parents were not married to each other; her birth father was married to another woman and having an affair with A.M.’s birth mother, making A.M. the mistress’s daughter.
When she finds out that her birth mother is looking for her, A.M. feels an incredible range of emotions. She has always dreamt that her birth parents would be wonderful, loving, smart, and attractive, and that their reunion would finally give her the sense of identity and belonging that she had always missed. However, the real life reunion turns out to be much more complicated and her birth parents are not at all what she expected or hoped for. Ellen is a sad, sickly, extremely needy woman who acts like A.M. is still a young child while Norman is cold, distant and arrogant, treating her more like a secret mistress than a daughter. A.M. writes about her experience as an adoptee balancing two families while searching for her own identity with both style and raw emotion.
The second part of the book, titled Book Two, abruptly changes gears to focus on the author’s genealogical search for her family history and then devotes 15 pages to questions she imagines asking Norman in a courtroom or a deposition, like on Law and Order. Since she never reveals the answers to any of these questions or the outcome of the possible legal dispute, it feels kind of pointless to the reader.
So, I really have to give this book a mixed review: a thumbs up to the first half and a thumbs down to the second part.

The Late Bloomer's Revolution: A Memoir

By Amy Cohen

Life is not turning out the way New Yorker Amy Cohen expected. She never imagined that she’d be single, childless and motherless at thirty-five years old. Fortunately, Amy is not ready to throw in the towel just yet. Instead, she is clinging to the hope that she is just a late bloomer in life and she sets out to make her life better. She learns to cook. She overcomes her fear of riding a bicycle (which I can totally relate to). She continues her search for a soul mate despite many bad dates and failed relationships. Cohen’s misadventures are easy to relate to and alternate between touching and sad to light and humorous. Her observations on life and love are dead on. Many times I’d be reading along and find myself thinking “I’m just like that!” or “That is so true!”

For example, her thoughts on casual sex:
“…I knew casual sex wasn’t for me. It never had been. I got hurt if someone didn’t call if we’d just kissed. When things didn’t work out with someone I liked, the only comfort was in saying, ‘At least we didn’t have sex.’ People accused me of having high moral values, but the truth was I had a low threshold for pain.”

On one of her exes:
“And while he felt trapped, I felt that I was too much, that the events of my life were more than he could handle, and so I decided not to need anything. I felt as if I started out as an origami bird, one of those simple swans, but I just kept folding myself smaller and smaller, until I was this unrecognizable crumpled wad of paper. But as hard as I tried to make myself tiny, it was still too much for Josh…”

And finally on self acceptance:
“…I’d started to feel that even though I’d lost my ice climber, I was now scaling the snowy mountain myself…In the same way that I never would have imagined that at 35, I’d learn to ride a bike, or that I’d ever be able to roast a chicken, or not completely fall apart after the devastating end to my only engagement, now I knew that anything was possible. I knew this in a way I never had. So much in fact, that I could now answer the question ‘Do you think you’ll be okay?’ with a confident ‘I do.’

I think many women will find pieces of themselves in this well written, hopeful memoir.

Looking Forward to Fall 2007

Some of my favorite writers have new books coming out soon!

September:

Songs Without Words by Ann Packer

October:

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

Run by Ann Patchett










January:

The Senator's Wife by Sue Miller

Although this one is not book related, I have to mention Magic, the new album by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band coming out on October 2!!

Free Food for Millionaires: A Novel

by Min Jin Lee

At first glance, Casey Han would seem to have it all: an Ivy League education, a great boyfriend, a nice, close-knit family. But Casey's world is about to unravel. Just days after graduating from Princeton where she lived among its wealthy and priviledged student body, Casey is back living with her parents in their tiny Queens apartment. Her parents are religious and hardworking, with very traditional Korean beliefs, tirelessly running a busy dry cleaning business to support their family. They do not know about Casey's American boyfriend Jay and favor the more quiet and agreeable demeanor of her younger sister. One night at dinner, Casey and her father have a horrible fight about her future plans; he wants her to attend law school at Columbia but she wants to defer for a year. When Casey cannot apologize to her father and agree to his wishes, she is hit and thrown out of the house. She turns to Jay for help but finds him in a compromising position with two sorority girls. Heartbroken, alone and completely broke, Casey seems to have hit rock bottom. However, Casey does have two things that many people in that situation might not have: a "fairy godmother" of sorts named Sabine and the beginning of a friendship with her classmate Ella. Free Food for Millionaires is the story of how Casey turns her life around despite problems of race, class and romance. At over 550 pages, this is a pretty heavy book to carry around but I found myself wishing that it was even longer so I could read more about Casey and the lives of her friends and family. Well written with interesting observations about life and flawed yet realistic characters, this is a great coming of age story.

Forgive Me

by Amanda Eyre Ward

Nadine Morgan is one of the most unlikeable protagonists ever. She is stubborn, driven, selfish and fiercely independent. Few writers could succeed in making her sympathetic to readers. Luckilly, Ward is one writer with the ability to create complex and realistic characters with both good and bad qualities. Nadine may be all of those adjectives listed above, but she is also strong, intelligent, and fearless. This novel centers on Nadine, a 35 year old journalist who left a normal life on idyllic Cape Cod to travel the globe, writing about the injustices and atrocities she witnesses. Nadine's assignments take her to the places most of us would never go because they scare us. Places like South Africa, where she lost the love of her life, and Mexico City, where she is attacked by a group of men and left in a ditch to die.

After the beating, Nadine returns to the quiet of the Cape to recover, but soon she is yearning for the next big story like a drug addict in search of her next fix. She is desperate to escape her hometown, where her memories are filled with loss and sadness. Nadine's attractive doctor convinces her to rest at his Nantucket home for a few days and just as they are becoming more than friends, she leaves unexpectedly. Nadine has been chasing a story back in South Africa about an American student named Jason Irving who was murdered during the height of the apartheid era a few years ago. Now his killers are seeking amnesty and his parents are torn between closure and revenge. Nadine also finds herself torn between continuing her dangerous lifestyle and giving it all up for something more. A compelling and clever story about the power of forgiving others and also in forgiving yourself. Also recommend Ward's previous book How to Be Lost.

Dedication: A Novel

by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus

What if your high school boyfriend grew up to be a famous rock star?

What if his most famous song was written all about YOU?

Back in the 1980's and junior high, Katie Hollis loved classmate Jake Sharpe from afar. During high school, her crush turned into much more when she and Jake began dating and later fell in love. Althoug he could be sensitive and adorable at times, Jake wasn't always the best boyfriend and everything fell apart when Katie went away to college and Jake went to LA to start his music career.

Fast forward to thirteen years later. Katie is thirty and she goes by the name Kate now. She has a successful career and life in Charleston. Jake, now famous for his music and engaged to a glamorous actress, has never returned to his hometown in suburban Maine. His most famous songs are all about Kate, their sex life and her mother's infidelity, and have left her feeling exploited and embarrassed, not to mention heartbroken, all these years. When Kate hears that Jake is coming home for Christmas, she races there as well, hoping for closure and revenge on the guy who broke her heart. However, she is not prepared for their attraction to be so intense after all these years and when Jake breaks up with his fiance, Kate must make some hard decisions about what is forgivable and what kind of life she wantes to lead.

An entertaining premise and a decent story about getting over the past and on with your life.

Tabloid Love

Looking for Mr. Right in All the Wrong Places: A Memoir

by Bridget Harrison

Bridget Harrison is a 29 year old British newspaper reporter with a great boyfriend, a nice house and plenty of friends. She also has a yearning for adventure, so when she is offered a temporary position at the New York Post through a work exchange program, she leaps at the chance to live in the US, even though it means leaving all the great things about her life behind in London. Readers follow Bridget as she suddenly finds herself single and alone in a new city. Soon she is learning the ropes of her new job and settling into life in Manhattan. She even starts dating again and accepts a permanent postion at the paper, eventually writing her own column about dating in New York and falling head over heels in love with her boss.

Bridget is likeable and down to earth, her problems are very easy to relate to. Fans of Sex and the City will enjoy reading about her exciting Carrie Bradshaw-ish adventures with dating. This book does drag a bit in spots but all in all, it is a fun, light read.

If I Am Missing or Dead

A Sister's Story of Love, Murder and Liberation

by Janine Latus

The true story of two sisters who grow up in a dysfunctional family and later fall in love with abusive men. Janine and Amy Latus both led very difficult lives, surviving childhood with their creepy father who was insulting, embarrassing and sexually inappropriate. Janine flees their home before she even graduates high school, only to be attacked and raped by a stranger in her apartment and later badly beaten by her own boyfriend. She and her husband Kurt endure a rocky, abusive, love-hate relationship for many years. Amy survives financial ruin, an abusive and alcoholic husband, weight problems and cancer before she falls completely in love with a man that she met online, allowing him to move into her home and loaning him thousands and thousands of dollars. A few days after Janine finally finds the strength to break up with her husband, Amy is reported missing and Janine is sure the boyfriend is responsible.

This book was not at all what I expected and reading it was kind of like driving past an automobile accident that you don't want to look at; I hated reading it yet I wanted to know what happened. It starts very slowly with early childhood and just took forever to get to the main plot of the book. Its a depressing book to read in that just when you think things can't get much worse, they do, over and over and over. On the bright side, this book will make you feel like your life is a bowl of cherries compared to the Latus sisters. A sad tale about the tremendous lengths that some women will go to in search of love.

The Bright Side of Disaster: A Novel

by Katherine Center

Nine months pregnant and ready to give birth at any moment, Jenny Harris gets the surprise of her life when her wannabe rocker boyfriend Dean goes out for a pack of cigarettes and doesn't come back for seven months. Not exactly a candidate for father of the year. Lonesome, shocked and scared out of her mind, Jenny is forced to give birth and raise her baby daughter alone, soon realizing that nothing in life turns out the way you expect. Luckily, she has her parents and a few good friends to help her out sometimes, including a kind, handsome neighbor remodeling a house down the street, who always seems to show up at the perfect moment. Just as Jenny starts to fall for Gardner, low life Dean shows up just in time to ruin everything. Will Jenny take back this loser and be doomed to become his nagging wife for all eternity or will she take a chance with a good looking stranger?
This book should come with a warning that states, "This book will completely shatter all your romantic illusions about having a baby." Jenny's labor sounds more painful than I ever imagined and once that's over, the excrutiating breast feeding passages will send chills up your spine. Yet this novel is never depressing or bleak, it just feels realistic. The scary parts are balanced by Jenny's immense awe and love for little Maxie. Her attraction to Gardner as well as her fears about falling in love again are also believable. Center has written an insightful novel that is appealing and hard to put down. Recommended.

Cat Women: Female Writers on Their Feline Friends

Edited by Megan McMorris

A collection of writing about women and their cats, ranging from cute & witty to sad or thought-provoking. Also looks into that tired stereotype of the "crazy cat lady". As in its companion book for dog lovers titled Woman's Best Friend, most entries include a small black and white photo of the kitty in the story which really brings the writing alive for me.

I love animals and as a huge cat person, I especially love reading about cats. The writers in this collection provide many interesting insights into the female - cat relationship. I was a tiny bit disappointed that no single essay really captures what its like to love a cat and in this way, this book doesn't quite measure up to Woman's Best Friend, in which many of the essays caused me to break out the Kleenex box. Maybe my expectations were a bit too high or these stories just aren't quite as emotional. Cat Women does contain many rewarding stories and my favorites were:

• "Life with an Indian Street Cat" about a cat lover living in a country where cats are objects of fear and hatred


• a funny story about a cat rescuer who bravely admits to things like buying bunk beds for her kitties and creating flannel sheets and fleece pillowcases for them


• "Lessons Learned from a Blind Cat," the tale of a courageous cat who refuses gives up until cancer ultimately takes her life. Rudy teaches her owner that "...we're all only as handicapped as we act. We set our own limitations. If we want to climb a hill whose boundaries we don't know - for a view we can't even see - all we need to do is try."

I didn't really care for "Hanging with Scrappy T", a look at the world of cat shows that attempts to be humorous but slightly misses its mark. Over all, a satisfying read for cat lovers.

Austenland

by Shannon Hale

Jane Hayes is a 32 year old single woman living in New York. Notorious for her terrible luck with men, she has basically given up all hope of finding love, partly because no real person could ever measure up to her ideal man: Mr. Fitzpatrick Darcy as played by Colin Firth in the BBC production of Jane Austen's Pride and Predjudice. Then, Jane receives an all expenses paid three week vacation to a place called Pembroke Park, a resort in England where everyone lives exactly (almost!) like they would have during one of Austen's novels, complete with ball gowns and corsets and of course, the rules of social etiquette. Jane vows to give up her Darcy obsession once and for all, including dvds, books, etc., after indulging all her romantic fantasies on this trip. After arriving at Pembroke Park, she is given a new name (Miss Jane Erstwhile), a new wardrobe of appropriate clothing, and a room at a cottage where she meets several eligible men. At first, Jane is uncomfortable and all the pretending feels silly to her. Then the line between fantasy and reality becomes a bit confusing as Jane tries to figure out who is acting and who is not.

All in all, this was a very interesting book. I love Jane Austen, although I prefer the Mr. Darcy of the more recently released theatrical version of P & P (see Matthew MacFayden below), and I think any Austen fan would find the idea of Austenland appealing. I wish the actual novel had been as great as the idea, but this is still a really fun read. Recommended.

Without a Map: A Memoir

by Meredith Hall

In 1965, Meredith Hall found herself scared, pregnant and completely alone. Shunned by her family, friends and entire community, she hides at her father's house for months until she gives birth to a baby boy and immediately gives him away. Hall writes vividly of the pain, loneliness and guilt caused by the shunning and of the complete emptiness she felt after giving up her baby, the one person who had not deserted her. Meredith's life was never the same; she was always an outcast and loner after that, never quite fitting in with other young people, even if they didn't know her secret. Many years later, she reunites with her son, now an adult, who was adopted by a nearby family and abused. Despite their painful past, they attempt to form a strained and tentative bond. Meredith also spends years trying to repair her relationships with her family, especially her mother who needs help 24/7 as her body and mind are ravaged by MS.

I really wanted to like this book and I understand that the author went through a terrible ordeal. However, this entire book is just incredibly bleak and sad; I cannot remember a single moment of happiness or hope. The shunning is mentioned so many times that it begins to feel very repetitious. I don't know if I could forgive people who treated me the way Hall's family and friends treated her. I honestly don't think I could have spent years caring for a mother who had completely abandoned me but maybe Hall is a better person than I am. You almost wouldn't believe it if this wasn't a memoir.

The Sweet Edge

by Alison Pick

It's a bad sign when a book has no reader reviews on amazon.com even though it was published almost a year ago. Was it so unappealing that no one read it or so mediocre that no one cared enough to post a review? Either way, its usually a bad omen. The Sweet Edge has a promising plot about a young couple separating for a summer to decide whether they should continue their relationship. Ellen spends her time working at her art gallery and Adam leaves town for a canoe trip in the Arctic. The way the story goes back and forth between past and present was confusing, and while the dialog was sparse, the descriptive passages felt meandering and strangely long. Just did not like this one.

The Honeymoon's Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage and Divorce

Original Essays by Terry McMillan, Joyce Maynard, Laura Fraser, Ann Hood, Martha McPhee and Many More

Edited by Andrea Chapin and Sally Wofford-Girand

I think my husband panicked for a minute when he saw this book on the dining room table and read the "D-word" in its title. This is not a self help book or one about relationship problems (so he has nothing to worry about!) It is a collection of essays written by women that tries to answer the question, "What makes or breaks a marriage?"

To me, these stories are an honest look at both the romance of falling in love and what happens after the fairy tale wedding. Some stories are about leaving but some are about sticking it out. All the essays reveal that marriage is complicated and often involves making some agonizing and difficult choices. Although its never a simple decision, some of the relationships in this book do end in divorce but many grow stronger as a result of adversity. The women in this book endured all kinds of challenges, including infidelity, abuse, mental illness, and financial problems, just to name a few. I especially enjoyed Stories We Tell by Joyce Maynard, A Real Catch by Isabel Rose, Love Me Do by Ann Hood, In Sickness by Pamela Bol Riess and My Fair Student by Kim Barnes. I could have done without Terry McMillan's bitter, monotonous, 13 page rant about her unfaithful husband and Zelda Lockhart's long, tedious tale about deciding she was a lesbian. All in all, this is a nice collection that would appeal to all women whether they are single, married or divorced, and remind them that no honeymoon lasts forever.

Ask Again Later

by Jill A. Davis

Couldn't wait to read this one, especially after I saw the cute red cover and read some decent reviews on Amazon.com and in Publishers Weekly. Emily is a lawyer in NYC, but she decides that her job is taking over her life so she works as a receptionist in her father's office instead. She's in love with perfect Sam, a recently divorced lawyer who works in her old office but she's always pushing him away. She fears commitment since her dad ran off with another woman when she was young but he recently reappeared at her doorstep after her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.


The first two pages of the book were good and I liked Emily's observation that "Home is a place you can never leave behind." Sadly, it was all downhill from there. The next chapter is all about how her desk is behind a plexiglass wall and she wants to test it to see if it will really protect her so she contacts both the manufacturer and a local shooting range. This seemed strange. She also says things like, "Jesus is coming and I haven't a thing to wear." Also strange. Maybe an attempt to be quirky or hip or something?


For me, the final straw was the way Emily's mother's cancer diagnosis was handled. Despite the fact that it is stage I with a lump the size of a pea, and that her prognosis is extremely optimistic according to her physician, the mother starts calling every phone number in her roladex to announce that she is dying. Then she demands that Emily go on health drink fasts with her and move back home, even though her apartment is only a few blocks away. I know a scary diagnosis can make people do crazy things but this woman is the most unsympathetic cancer patient in history. For me, it felt almost like an offensive and failed attempt at humor. Cancer is not funny. Anyway, Emily immediately quits her job as a lawyer and starts working for her recently returned father. She spends alot of time talking to her therapist. I felt like I needed to see one too after reading this book. It was that annoying.

The Year of Fog: A Novel

by Michelle Richmond

In one instant, your life can change forever. One foggy morning, professional photographer Abby Mason is walking along the beach in San Francisco, taking a few pictures. Emma, Abby's fiance Jake's six year old daughter, runs ahead to look for sand dollars and then a moment later, she is gone. Abby and Jake are completely devastated, consumed by their tireless search for Emma. Police aren't sure if she drowned in the unpredictable water or if she was kidnapped. Feeling enormous guilt, Abby becomes obsessed with finding the little girl, continuing her desperate search even after detectives close the case and Jake holds a memorial service in order to get some kind of closure. Abby is haunted by the idea that there are important clues buried deep in her memory of that fateful morning.

This novel is suspenseful and well written, with an unexpected and satisfying conclusion. Richmond includes lots of interesting facts and observations about both memory and photography, including this passage:

"We take pictures because we can't accept that everything passes, we can't accept that the repetition of a moment is an impossibility... We take pictures because we know we will forget. We will forget the week, the day, the hour. We will forget when we were happiest. We take pictures out of pride, a desire to have the best of ourselves preserved. We fear that we will die and others will not know that we lived."

An interesting book about a family coming together and then being ripped apart, about losing the ones you love most and about not giving up no matter what. Recommended.

The Last Summer (of You & Me)

by Ann Brashares

I was a bit hesitant to pick this book up since Brashares is so well known for her cute YA series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. However, her first novel for adults turned out to be a pretty good book. The story centers on the lives of two sisters, Riley and Alice, who despite their vastly different personalities, have an extremely close relationship. Riley, the older sister, is an adventurous, confident tomboy who loves the outdoors while Alice is beautiful, quiet and smart. Their family spends every summer on the idyllic beaches of a small town called Waterbury on Fire Island where they also meet up with Paul, the girls' best friend. This summer, they are all finished with college, their threesome finally reunited after a couple of years without Paul, who'd moved out to California.

While Paul's friendship with Riley is stronger than ever, he and Alice discover that they can no longer deny their strong attraction to each other and find themselves falling in love, a secret they keep from Riley in order to protect her. One night while Alice and Paul meet in secret, Riley is rushed to the hospital and soon discovers that she has a very bad heart condition. She demands that Alice keep her illness a secret from Paul until she is ready to tell him herself. The secrets and guilt weigh heavily on gentle Alice and she is forced to make a choice between her beloved Riley and her soul mate Paul.

Brashares paints a vivid backdrop of innocent summers at the beach and her characters are well drawn and likeable. The complexities of the relationship between sisters can be hard to capture but this one feels true and completely believable. Despite my inital reservations, Brashares has written a great story about loyalty, friendship and love, a perfect book for the beach or vacation.

The Double Bind: A Novel

by Chris Bohjalian

Six years ago, Laurel Estabrook was brutally attacked as she rode her bicycle on a deserted dirt road near her college campus in Vermont. Now, she works at a Burlington homeless shelter, assisting people with finding food and low rent housing. After Bobbie Crocker, one of her elderly clients, dies of a stroke, Laurel becomes obsessed with a box of old photographs found in his possession. Could this homeless man have been a talented photographer once upon a time? A beginning photographer herself, Laurel is soon devoting every minute to researching Bobbie and his photos, his family and his friends, trying to prove that Bobbie was the son of Daisy Buchanan from Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsy. I was enjoying the fast paced plot and the twists and turns of the story as Laurel comes closer and closer to solving this puzzle but the twist ending left me very disappointed. It did answer many of the story's questions but I still felt slightly cheated.

The Goldfish Went on Vacation: A Memoir of Loss (and Learning to Tell the Truth About It)

by Patty Dann

A very short and mostly sad account of the author's life with her son Jake and her husband Willem after learning that Willem has an uncurable form of brain cancer. As Patty watches her husband slowly lose his ability to speak and to think, she remembers happier times and tries to figure out how she and Jake will ever recover from this loss. This memoir consists of a series of mostly one or two page vignettes, ranging from joyful to bittersweet to heartbreakingly sad. It tackles some important topics, like why Americans have such a difficult time dealing with death and how to help children deal with grief and loss. Painfully honest and realistic, not a light read for the beach.