Moral Disorder

I was disappointed with this book. I picked it up because I had read The Handmaid's Tale, also by Margaret Atwood, a few times and really enjoyed it. I don't know why, but I expected this book to be a collection of short stories that might be a little lighter, happier reading compared to what I have been reading. But no, the stories only depressed me.

Atwood tried writing a series of short stories that went from decade to decade, looking at different characters and their points of view, eventually weaving them all together. I could see where she was going with it, but it just seemed like she had chopped up a novel, rearranged it, then called it a collection of short stories. She started to focus too much on one character. I didn't even like the character.

The only story I really enjoyed from this was about a little girl frantically knitting an outfit for her little baby sister or brother who has yet to be born. Other than that, the stories were just depressing.

I'm not going to lie, I'm not sure I would recommend this book.

Looking for Mary or, The Blessed Mother and Me

This was another book loaned to me by my boss, Michele. It was much like the Anne Lamott books, spiritual and filled with a lot of thoughts and ideas about religion that I could easily relate to. This was written by Beverly Donofrio, the same author who wrote Riding In Cars With Boys. Both stories are based off of her real life and the things she has had to endure and overcome, particularly her spirituality.

This book was so much like the 3 Anne Lamott books I have read (one that I have listened to on CD), but I enjoyed Anne's much more. I enjoyed her sense of humor more and it seemed the Beverly still has a lot of issues in her life to work through.

Still, the book was decent and I would recommend it.

Andrew Carnegie

I don't know what I was thinking when I bought this book (for $35...in hardcover...using a giftcard). Andrew Carnegie has always fascinated me when we learned about him in class and I always wanted to know more about him. The fact that he acquired so much wealth in such a short period of time, then decided to give so much of it away almost as quickly as he had earned it just boggles my mind.

However, I found myself 2 months later, not even 1/2 way through this book, and it was almost physically painful to read. Maybe I just didn't like the author's style? Maybe Carnegie isn't as fascinating as I thought (doubt it), or maybe I just wasn't ready for this type of reading, but I couldn't finish it. I felt like I was punishing myself. So I put it down and it's sat on my bookshelf, propping up my paperback books (some of which are so worn and loved, their covers are tearing off) and collecting dust ever since.

At least it looks cool sitting on my shelf. But it does take up a lot of space....

This might be one of the first books I would absolutely refrain from recommending. Ever. Unless you need a sturdy bookend.

The Glass Castle: A memoir

I loved reading this story. Considering the context, you would expect it to be painful and dark. Told through the eyes of a child (though, now she's an adult), it follows a completely disfunctional, yet loving family as they move sporadically throughout the country on the whims of their alcoholic, brilliant father and their aloof and sometimes brash mother. The children are basically forced to raise themselves, their parents' style of child-rearing being under the belief that 'if we help you, we are not teaching you to fend for yourselves'. The children suffer a whole slew of abuses, live in poverty and absolute filth from time to time yet oddly, are able to make it through the hardships of their lives and learn the lessons their parents 'intended' for them to learn. The parents' parenting is virtually non-existant yet the children look up to their parents as any normal child, living a normal life would (...sometimes). It's almost impossible to comprehend and believe this to be a memoir and not complete fiction as you read the story Jeannette Walls is telling. Eventually all 3 Walls children end up in New York and the author is looking back at the path of life that has brought the family down to where they are today (her parents living as homeless people because it's an 'adventure').

This story is as hilarious and bittersweet. It really shows that no matter what life throws at you, somehow, you can find it in yourself to get past it all, good and bad. This story definitely leaves a smile on your face after reading it.

Cage of Stars

This story was on a bunch of best seller lists so I was surprised when I found it at the library last summer. The story was pretty depressing, about a young mormon girl, Ronnie, who witnesses the murder of her 2 younger sisters and has to cope with survivor's guilt. Not to mention, she's a teenager, filled with all the emotional highs and lows that come with that age. Her parents eventually are able to forgive the killer, but Ronnie refuses to forgive and instead insists on seeking revenge. The man who murdered her sisters was not on his medicine for mental illness when he killed the two girls and is now struggling with the guilt of committing a heinous act that he does not remember at all. He is trying to put his own past behind him, now married and with a baby of his own. Ronnie manages to become a nanny to the murderer's child and plans to carry out her big plan of revenge.

This story was suspenseful but after reading it, I felt really sad and down. I would only recommend this book to someone with the warning of feeling really blue every time you set it down.

Maybe I just get too wrapped up in stories. The book is well written, but like I said...the story line is depressing.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

This is another great story. It tells of a doctor who when his young wife is in labor with twins, sees his first child born, a healthy baby boy. His second child is born and instantly he is struck with grief; his child, a daughter, has been born with Down Syndrome. He does not tell his wife, in the drugged state of childbirth and has the baby girl wisked off with the nurse, instructing her to take her to a home for the handicapped. He tells his wife that the 2nd baby has died, and she mourns the loss of her baby. In a shocking twist, as the nurse is driving the baby to deliver it to the home, she instead decides to run away with the baby and raise her as her own.

Throughout the story the doctor's wife continues to mourn for her lost baby girl, never fully recovering from her loss. The book follows both children as they grow up, both strong and happy, unaware of their missing family. In his effort to keep his secret in order to keep his family together and 'normal', the doctor ends up pushing his family further from him and breaking them apart.

This story was amazing to see how the doctor's intentions ended up so completely far from what he wanted. This story has a happy ending, though and this quickly became another book that I could not put down.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone!

Blue Shoe

I finished this book over Memorial weekend. It was a perfect book to be able to sit outside in the sun with and just breeze through.

I read this after finishing another Anne Lamott book (though, this one was fiction and the first one I read was more biographical/reflective). After reading her first book, Ilearned a lot about her personal life and this book, Blue Shoe, seemed very similar. There were a lot of parts of this book that really tugged at my heartstrings, in particular the part where she had to put her dog to sleep. I was reading it at work and actually had tears welling up in my eyes while I sat in my desk.

The story follows the main character, Mattie through her journey dealing with her own divorce, her mother's failing health (I think she has Alzheimers), raising her 2 children as a single mother, the search for answers to mysteries involving keepsakes found in the glovebox of her deceased father's car and her search for love and stronger faith. I noticed that it mirrored a lot of things Anne was dealing with in her own personal life (I think Mattie's son, Harry was a lot like Anne's son, Sam). As the mystery unravels, I thought Anne through in a disturbing detail about Mattie's father's past. I think the story line could have done without it completely and it sort of through off the balance of the book, swinging it into something much darker and much more deep than it had been or needed to be. Then, as quickly as the reader is shocked with it, it's gone and not really touched on again. Maybe I was just looking for a breezy read and this seemed too harsh, maybe I'm being to critical. But still.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, despite that shocking part towards the end, I thought the book had a strong emotional appeal, and I like that.

The Wasp Eater

I finished this book in one day at work. I picked up this and a book by Anne Lamott to read on the 5 hour car ride to PA this weekend. Since I already finished this and am about 1/5 of the way done with the Lamott book....I better slow my pace.

The Wasp Eater was pretty decent. It's a story of a young boy, Daniel watching his parents' marriage finally crumble. Daniel's father is unfaithful to his mother and his mother is slowly breaking down. This is all seen through Daniel's eyes, a 10 year old boy. While you might expect the story to be depressing and dark, it's actually sweet and told with refreshingly clear honesty, through the eyes of a child. We see his mother's moments of temporary panic/insanity and his father's drunken, goofy, fun-loving yet destructive nature. You can relate to the misery of each of the characters and can understand the turmoil they feel in the situation. The story is so realistic that even in the climax, an event happens that you never would have been able to forsee, yet it still fits in appropriately.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. Even though I read through this in an entire day at work (actually, about 4 hours total), it wasn't just because I was bored and the office was empty, but it actually kept my attention the entire way through. A nice, short read. :)

Winkie

This book was one that I bought mainly because of the so-ugly-he's-cute bear on the cover. I'm not going to lie, that's how I pick most of the books I read. If the picture on the cover doesn't interest me or grab my attention, I don't give the book a second glance. Unless the book's been recommended to me, of course. This time, I was in Borders with Mel and Marissa and we all oogled over cute Winkie on the cover. I wasn't planning on buying anything but Mel opened it up and began to read a random page and we were all laughing out loud. I was sold. Cute bear, funny story? Where do we pay?

The story could probably be explained as a modern-day, grown up version of the Velveteen Rabbit. Winkie is a goofy looking teddybear who was passed down to the author and his siblings by their mother. Winkie is able to will himself to life and finds himself being captured and put on trial for terrorism. The list read by the prosecutors is 9678 charges long (including witchcraft, resisting arrest, treason, etc.) and we see the trial, as well as Winkie's memories of his past, told through his eyes. The story had some laugh out loud moments as well as moments where I wanted to reach through the book and squeeze Winkie to death (so cute!) However, toward the end of Winkie's trial and the end of the book, things got very VERY bizarre (even for my standards!) It just didn't seem like the end of the story meshed well with the first part of it. But that's just my opinion.

Would I recommed this book? Sure. If it wasn't for the first part of the book where I absolutely fell in love with Winkie, then I might consider this $12 wasted. But like I said, the story was cute, witty and I enjoyed the different pictures throughout the book of Winkie and his world.

Traveling Mercies

My manager, Michele loaned me this book by Anne Lamott. Just reading the title, I was a little leary of it, expecting it to be some 'let me try to cram Jesus down your throat' type of book. But since Michele recommended it (and I can't see her reading something like that) I gave it a try.

Only a few pages into it, I knew I would like it. The way Anne wrote was so lighthearted and funny, I flew through this book in no time. It's pretty much a collection of chapters she writes on different experiences she has and she writes each of them with a witty, dark sense of humor. She rarely mentions her faith and when she does, it's casually, not forceful at all. She was a former alcoholic/pill user/eating disorder sufferer who is a Born Again Christian. Usually those people can be a little scary but she is completely down to Earth and with a sense of humor that I can relate to. After reading this, I decided I wanted Anne Lamott to be my friend. I just can't collect enough funny people in my life ;)

Two things hit me pretty hard (in a good way) in this book. The first was when she was talking about people experiencing one bad thing after another, after another. She explained it as someone once told her; all these bad things are happening in order to distract you from a bigger, better thing that is trying to be 'born' in your life...if you weren't distracted, you might interfere with the process of the good thing ever happening to you. I read this part, literally, only minutes after drying my eyes after an emotional outburst at Tim, crying that I would never find a teaching job and that I need to move but I won't move and I won't leave every one I love here and blah blah blah. I don't know how true that statement is, but it gave me another glimmer of hope just as I snuffed out what I thought was my last glimmer out there.

The second was at the end of a chapter where she finally came to terms with the death of her father. She said, "My father had long legs, too. I tried very hard to keep up with him when I was a child. That's why I naturally walk so fast, and why I sometimes feel I can walk forever."

I do the same thing and while this wasn't a deep "Ah ha!" moment, I definitely related to this statement. It made me smile that someone else had a similar bond with their father, something that impacted them for the rest of their lives some how (even if it may be something as stupid as being a fast walker) I've never met anyone who for the first time walking with me somewhere, hasn't commented on that.

My favorite chapter was where she was describing her 'feta cheese thighs' which she affectionately refers to as the "Aunties." If you read nothing else in this book, you have to read that chapter!

Would I recommend this book? Yes! This was an easy, light read but it was not shallow in depth.

The Secret Life of Bees

This is one of my FAVORITE books that I did not stop reading until I was finished. It was one of those books that I wished was one foot thick after I finished it! My mom suggested I read this book which I now find a little ironic because the book touches on the topic of the mother-daughter relationship, whether it's traditional or not.

The book's main character, Lily, is a girl who you can't help but love. Her mother's mysterious death when she was still a little girl haunts her as she lives with her abusive father and their housekeeper on a peach farm. Lily's father blames her for her mother's death and takes his anger out on Lily, and after a string of events, she and the maid end up running away from the farm. She ends up seeking refuge at a house with a family of black women who call themselves the "Sisters of Mary" and take the two in. Here, for what may be the first time in her life, Lily is shown "family love" from a group that is about as far from a traditional family as they come. Away from her haunting past and angry father, Lily learns the truth about her past and is able to find herself and grow stronger as a person.

This was one of those stories that just made you feel good inside after you read it.

Would I recommend this? Yes, and I have, many times! This one is definitely towards the top of my Favorites list!

Suite Francaise

While I wouldn't consider this one of my favorite books, it was definitely a good one. Irene Nemirovsky wrote about France's occupation by German troops in the 1940s in what she intended to be a 5 part book (she completed the 2 that are now published before being arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where she died). What's interesting is that she wrote about the occupation while she was experiencing it herself, firsthand.

The first story, Storm in June, is pretty much chapter-by-chapter, back and forth account from various points of veiw of people fleeing France. Instead of telling you what is going on, she shows you through the thoughts and actions of her characters which also vary greatly. You get the perspective from the rich and poor, old and young and single people and families. It gives you a very clear picture of what was going on at the time and shows you that while we're all different, we're also all very the same, deep down. Feelings and emotions are the same for every human

The second story, Dolce, I liked best. It focused mainly on 2 families, each with a German soldier living with them (military orders). Again, Nemirovsky shows you what is going on instead of telling. It's so hard to imagine what it must be like to be forced to welcome the enemy into your home against your will and that some people ended up befriending them. Nemirovsky explored this idea by having her characters become torn between their own emotions. They weren't sure whether to be cordial to the enemies they were forced to live, eat and sleep with or to remain cold and distant to the enemy who quite possibly could have tortured, imprisoned or taken the life of someone they loved. While the book is fiction, you can't help but think that as crazy as the story and the circumstances sound, this was complete truth only decades ago.

The only thing I felt was lacking in this book was that I didn't feel any sort of emotional connection to any of the characters (which could be because it was left 3/5 of the way unfinished).

My favorite books hae been the ones where I have that feeling that I can't wait to get home and curl up and read as much as I possibly can before exhausting myself. Those are the books where I find myself daydreaming throughout the day about the characters and what they're going through. It reminds me of that saying "books can take you anywhere" and maybe it's cliche, but now I realize how true this is. In these books, I feel the characters' grief, their happiness, their love and yearning and I completely submerge myself in their world. I've been known to cry at books before which I think says something for the writer. To be able to move someone so strongly that they react with their own real emotions, from a story that is FICTIONAL is amazing. Those are the books that when I finish them, I tell my mom, "Now that I'm done with it, I wish that it never ended! I wish that the book was THIS THICK [holding my hands about a foot apart] so that I can keep reading."

I remember the first books that I said that about were the Mrs. PiggleWiggle series. :)

Would I recommend this? Yes. However, if you are looking for something more 'light' to read or something that is not historical fiction, then I would stray away from this book. Otherwise, I would be happy to loan this out :)