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.