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.