Her Last Death: A Memoir

By Susanna Sonnenberg

Sometimes when I’m in a wealthy neighborhood surrounded by beautiful homes or walking down one of those nice Manhattan streets lined with expensive brownstones, I can’t help but imagine what it would be like to be to live like that, to be that rich.

Susanna Sonnenberg grew up in a family with money and her childhood was far from perfect. Although she and her family dined in the best restaurants and often vacationed in places like Barbados, the Cape, Morocco, Greece, and Italy, her life was a complete mess. Her father was cold and distant, and suffered from MS. Daphne, her mother, while beautiful and charming, was also a drug addict, sex addict and worst of all, a compulsive liar. Although she experiments with drugs, they don’t have the same allure for Susannah as they had for Daphne. She does discover the power of sex and seduction at a young age, and in this way, inevitably turns into her mother, the person she despises most.

Eventually though, Susannah realizes that this is not the life she wants for herself and seeks redemption with a new life, and a "normal" relationship with a kind man in a small Montana town, as far away from her mother as she can get. When she gets a call that her mother is in very serious condition after a horrible car accident, Susannah’s initial reaction is not grief or shock, but one of complete disbelief. This is not the first time her mother has used a fake tragedy to manipulate her. What kind of daughter refuses to go to her mother's bedside in her time of need? Susannah struggles with this decision, ultimately choosing to remain in Montana with her family and let her sister deal with Daphne. It's not a choice that she's proud of, but most readers will understand.

I found this memoir shocking and disturbing. Filled with tales of drug use and sex, at times it felt inconceivable that to me that people actually live this way. However, Susannah’s journey from her mother’s daughter into a person she can be proud of is both compelling and hopeful.

Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, the Breast Cancer Gene, and How I Defied My Destiny

By Jessica Queller

“If genes can map our fates and their dark knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the information that could save our lives?”

In this powerful memoir, the author describes her mother’s painful battle with ovarian cancer and her own struggle to accept that she has inherited the breast cancer gene. Jessica Queller was a beautiful 34 year old television writer living a glamorous life in LA and Manhattan when she endured the loss of her mother, and months later learned that she would likely face her own fight against cancer someday, with an 87% chance of developing breast cancer and a 44% chance for ovarian cancer.

Women like Jessica who test positive for the BRCA gene mutation must make an agonizing decision: frequent surveillance to check for cancer while living in a state of constant fear or a preventative double mastectomy and oophorectomy to reduce the risk. Queller writes, “Hard decision? Deciding whether to go to law school or take one’s chances as a writer is a hard decision. Deciding whether to have amniocentesis when you’re your pregnant is a hard decision. Deciding to cut off your breasts when you don’t have cancer and possibly never will? To me, that was insanity. At the same time, passively waiting for cancer to strike, relying on inexact surveillance machines, hoping to catch it before it spread – that didn’t sound reasonable either.”

Once she recovers from the initial shock of testing positive, and after many grueling and emotional months filled with research and soul searching, Jessica shocks her friends and family members by opting for the mastectomy, a decision she never regrets for one moment. While the surgery and reconstruction are both painful and difficult, she realizes that her double mastactomy is not the end of the world, but a cancer diagnosis might have been.

Queller is witty, smart and utterly relatable. Her book is completely absorbing; I couldn’t put it down. She somehow manages to take the most tragic circumstances and transform them into a story of amazing courage. I found her strength heroic and inspirational, and I’m so grateful that she chose to share her very personal story with millions of readers, like myself. This book completely changed my opinion about what I would do in Jessica’s shoes. Before reading Pretty Is What Changes, I was completely against taking the BRCA test and a preventative double mastectomy seemed like an extremely rash decision. It is an extremely personal choice and maybe I can't know for certain how I would feel unless it happened to me, but at least now I understand that this knowledge could save my life. Thanks to this book, I don’t feel so afraid of the future anymore and I hope that I would have the grace and courage that Jessica Queller had. She writes, “We are living in an age in which scientific advances give us new opportunities to live. Seize them.”

Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing, and Hope In My Life as an Animal Surgeon

By Dr. Nick Trout

As a big animal lover, I’ve occasionally wondered if a career as a veterinarian would have been a good choice for me. I can hardly think of a more rewarding way to spend my time than surrounded by animals. The enormous feeling of satisfaction from healing sick and injured pets is very appealing to me. Unfortunately, science was never one of my best subjects and vet school is both extremely expensive and highly competitive. So this elementary education major with a concentration in English ended up in library school instead.

Nick Trout is a surgeon at the Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a veterinarian, you’ll enjoy his book which follows one day in his work there. It’s a well written and absorbing story, and you meet many interesting four legged friends. Dr. Trout is just the person you’d choose to treat your beloved family pet with his calm, intelligent manner, many years of vet experience and kind, understanding demeanor. No matter how stressful the situation, Nick never forgets that his patient is not just an animal or a medical case, it is someone’s beloved companion.

Although Dr. Trout's writing is not overly sentimental, it is clear that he possesses a true understanding of the emotional relationships between people and animals. He writes: “Pets devour the loneliness. They give us purpose, responsibility, a reason for getting up in the morning and a reason to look to the future. They ground us, help us escape the grief, make us laugh, and take full advantage of our weakness by exploiting our furniture, our beds and our refrigerator. We wouldn’t have it any other way. Pets are our seatbelt on the roller coaster of life – they can be trusted, they keep us safe, and they sure do smooth out the ride.”

My favorite patient in the book is Sage, a ten year old German Shepherd admitted to the clinic with a GDV, a condition which occurs when a dog’s stomach somehow twists around and expands within the chest. A GDV is considered an extreme emergency and the dog can die within hours. When Nick meets sweet Sage and his elderly, widowed owner who considers Sage not just his pet but his most faithful friend, he knows he must do everything in his power to save Sage’s life. Recommended for animal lovers.

The Ties That Bind: Two Books About the Power of Sisters

Your sibling is your closest living relative, sharing not only genes, but personal history as well. While the word "sister" has many positive connotations, sometimes relationships between sisters can be also be complicated.

"After all, don't we all fear our sisters to a certain extent- for whatever reason? Fear their harsh words, fear their kind words, fear their beauty, fear their ugliness, fear their age, fear their youth? Fear that we are too much or not enough like them?"
- Josephine Miller, Sisters Project participant (from My Sister, My Self)

Here are two recent books that explore this fascinating topic:




The Sister Knot: Why We Fight, Why We’re Jealous, and Why We’ll Love Each Other No Matter What

By Terri Apter

British psychologist Apter uses interviews with sisters at various ages in both her native country and the US to analyze the sister bond. I was expecting something informative and practical with a few interesting insights, but this was a bit too academic for me. The interviews were kind of dull and Apter’s writing and analysis put me to sleep. This would probably be okay for a psychology term paper, but not great for recreational reading.




My Sister, My Self: Understanding the Sibling Relationship That Shapes Our Lives, Our Loves, and Ourselves

By Vicki Stark

Vicki Stark is a social worker and therapist, with appearances on tv shows like the Today Show and articles in the NYT. She believes that sister relationships play a major role in the development of a woman’s identity, like what career she chooses and what qualities she looks for in a mate.
She called her research The Sister Project and used email questionnaires (included in the book) and interviews to explore sister relationships in both childhood and as adults. There are chapters focusing on oldest, youngest and middle sister roles, as well as one for twin sisters. The interviews feel somewhat tedious to me, but some of Stark’s theories are quite interesting.

Although I don’t agree with all her generalizations, the author’s research reveals some surprising trends and this book did give me some new insight into my own personality, which as the oldest sister seems to be mostly bossy, protective, controlling, responsible, guilty, serious, nurturing, and independent. (Youngest sisters are cute, powerless, protected, dependent, sweet, & affectionate and middle ones are funny, rebellious, wild, sociable, creative, resourceful, practical, & balanced.)

So, if you’ve ever wondered why you are the way you are, you might be able to blame everything on your sisters! Seriously though, this book does offer some interesting ideas about how your familial role and sister relationships impact your life in many unexpected ways.

I think this beautiful quote from the beginning of Stark's book really sums up the relationship between sisters:
"Awake, the girls were always squabbling, their natures at once as fluid as air and as fixed as concrete and above all, eternally opposed to one other. But asleep in their singlets and knickers, beneath a tartan blanket, their small, pale arms overlapping, they seemed to share their dreams and to be content."
-When the World Was Steady by Claire Messud

A Version of the Truth: A Novel

by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack

Nature lover Cassie Shaw is desperate for a decent job. Recently widowed and left virtually penniless by her loser husband Frank, she and her parrot have moved back home with her hippie mother. During her interview for a office position in the psychology department of the local college, Cassie lies about her education to get the job, claiming to have a psych degree from Michigan State. The truth is that she has dyslexia and never finished high school, much less college.

Of course, all of Cassie's lies eventually catch up with her, but not before she has developed close friendships with her fellow staff members and fallen in love with the best looking and most popular professor on campus, Dr. William Conner. For me, the story's low point has to be the demise of the most likeable character in the book: Sam, Cassie's beloved parrot, whose needless death feels like a cheap ploy to advance the plot and make Cassie sympathetic again, leading to the inevitable deliriously happy ending everyone saw coming a mile away.
I had high hopes for this book about an animal lover like myself. However, there is nothing very surprising or interesting about this mediocre "chick lit" novel. Sam, you deserved better; may you rest in peace.

Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave

Edited by Ellen Sussman

I’ve always considered myself a “good girl”. My mother used to tell me, “Amy, stop being such a Pollyanna!” Not that I’ve never done anything bad. The first bad thing that I can remember is at around age five, I told my younger sister that she was adopted. She bit me.
Bad Girls is a collection of essays about being bad. Many of my favorite authors are featured, including Caroline Leavitt, Katharine Weber, Pam Houston and Lolly Winston. Their acts of rebellion range from small transgressions such as lying and skipping school to bigger ones, like experimenting with sex and drugs. Most of the writers seem to remember their bad girl sides fondly, almost like an old friend they’d forgotten. My favorites were the ones about girls who were mostly good people, but occasionally did something wild and daring, because as we all know, bad girls have much more fun. I also enjoyed the essays in which the writer confesses not to committing some huge sin, but to something that that made them "bad" in someone else’s eyes. Joyce Maynard writes, “And what is a bad girl really, but a girl who doesn’t always do the things other people tell her she is supposed to. Sometimes its true, a bad girl may be someone who cheats or steals or hurts people or lies. And sometimes a bad girl is just someone who tells the truth.”

I enjoyed reading the true stories of these women's darkest secrets and sometimes shocking confessions. You realize that bad girls can be single or married, old or young, embarrassed or proud of their transgressions. This book also reminded me that sometimes being bad can be something very simple, like playing music too loud or driving too fast or putting off the housework for one more day. Sometimes being bad can actually be very liberating.