In An Absent Dream - Seanan McGuire

As I was looking for Own Voices writers to read for Pride month, Seanan McGuire's name came up and I thought I'd never heard of her. But turns out a couple of years ago, I devoured her Feed series (you can read my review for Feed here and Deadline here). A post-apocalyptic zombie series written under a pen name, Mira Grant. I had no idea. But since the writing in that series was so solid, I was willing to bet the same would be true for something written under her true name. And I was right. In an Absent Dream is well written. It's captivating.

While this is technically book #4 in the series, it is supposedly a prequel so I felt reading it first would be fine. I hope that's true. I suppose I'll find out when I read book #1 in the series, because I am definitely going to read more of these.

In IAD, 8 year old Katherine Lundy is friendless and lonely as the eldest daughter of the school principal. While not bullied outright, Katherine is shunned and escapes into a world of books. That is until she is walking home from school and winds up in front of a tree with a door. "Be sure" a sign above the door says. And while Katherine certainly can't be sure when she doesn't know what is behind the door, she steps through anyway into a hallway where the artwork on the walls provides the rules of the world she has just entered.

During this initial trip she is befriended by a girl with odd colored eyes named Moon, and an older woman known only as The Archivist. Since names have power, Katherine is known only as Lundy. She isn't the first Lundy to visit The Goblin Market, she's told. And in this way we learn that her father has had his own encounter there. While the Goblin Market is richly described and utterly fascinating, McGuire hides several action sequences from the reader. Depositing Lundy out of the Goblin Market and back home with just a mention of a battle against the wasp queen during which Mockery, another girl we never meet in real time, has been killed.

Lundy returns to the market at age 10 and the tension builds as she further learns the rules of the market under which she is to live. Lundy has a choice to make at age 18, to choose the market or forever be banished. She incurs debts within The Market, which insists its citizens pay "fair value" for everything they obtain. Those who fail to pay fair value slowly turn into birds unless their debts are paid off. It's a complicated system, but one that is so deftly explained by McGuire that its richness is enhanced by its mystery.

Will Lundy return and stay at the Goblin Market? That's a spoiler I do not want to give up because I did not see the ending coming at all in this one and it was not what I was expecting. I'm hoping some of the details of what happens after IAD is covered in the other books since it was a prequel. Will Lundy appear in any of the future books? I certainly hope so.

4/5 Stars. 

Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate

This was a tough book to get through. I really dislike reading about cruelty to children. And I really dislike real people who are cruel to children. And so here's this book. It made me feel so many things. 

Before We Were Yours starts off in a Baltimore hospital where a Congressman's daughter has just suffered a stillborn birth but doesn't know it yet. Her desperate family want to fix it. Someone makes a call to Memphis. 

In present day, Avery Stafford is altering her life as a prosecutor to come back to South Carolina and hit the campaign trail with her ailing Senator father whose staff is looking for an heir apparent to his Senate seat. Avery is uncomfortable with the whole thing. Hers is a high stakes family, run mostly by her aggressive mother, Honeybee. In the background is a grandmother who's dementia has led to a nursing home placement. On a visit to a different nursing home, Avery meets May Crandall, who mistakes Avery for someone else. See, there's this blond curly hair thing that seems to be passed down from Grandma Judy.

So we whip back to the past, to a stormy night on the Mississippi river, when Queenie, aboard her shantyboat home, the Arcadia, is having a terrible time birthing twins. When all hope is lost and Briny must take Queenie to the hospital, the other five children, Rill, Camellia, Lark, Fern and Gabion, are left on the boat with a family friend to await their parent's return. 

Unfortunately, this is 1939 in Memphis and there is a real life demon, Georgia Tann, walking around, snatching children from poor families and selling them to rich ones to make herself wealthy. She snatches up the children and places into a boarding home for the Tennessee Children's Home Society. And there, well there is where all the bad things happen and I really just don't like thinking about it so you'll have to take my word for it that it's very very bad. 

What all this has to do with Avery and Grandma Judy you can probably guess but it all unravels over time. As Avery learns the truth about Grandma Judy, she discovers some things about herself as well. And while there are some sweet moments in the book, they are mostly bittersweet because although this is a work of fiction, it's based on real stories of things that happened to real children under the charge of Georgia Tann. That Georgia Tann got to grow old and die of cancer is monumentally unfair. That my Tennessee government had a chance to make life better for these children, but failed is also unfair. 

So go out, help a child, volunteer your time and talent to organizations that make life better for orphans and kids in foster care. And also, if you like crying, you can read this book.

4.5/5 Stars. 

The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children - Ross W. Greene

When our first child was a baby, he was impossible to soothe to sleep. We'd walk and rock and shush him and peering over at his face, his eyes would be wide open and alert. So on and on we'd walk, changing hands every 30 minutes when the frustration built and we were sure the lack of sleep was going to ruin our days. 

But as a toddler, he slept better and things were off to a good start. But when we signed him up for his first soccer season, it was evident that his emotional maturity was not quite those of his peers. He would refuse to be on the field, weep at the thought of being late, and lash out in frustration when told he would have to do something he didn't want to do. It didn't start at soccer, but it was the first aha moment that maybe the immovable object we encountered at home (literally he would become stiff and not move) was a sign of a greater issue that just stubborness or shyness. 

We started taking him to an excellent therapist prior to the start of his kindergarten year. And some of the coping techniques she taught him, and us, were extremely helpful. And yet, there remained moments, mostly centered on doing Kumon math worksheets, where his level of rage or frustration was beyond what we would or had expected. It was during a waiting room visit at a therapy session that I saw The Explosive Child sitting in a "lending library" of the therapist's office. "Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible"? Was there a camera in this waiting room to see if I picked this up?

Within the first few pages of reading, I felt something I didn't know I'd tightened in myself start to loosen up. "The reason reward and punishment strategies haven't helped is because they won't teach your child the skills he's lacking or solve the problems that are contributing to challenging episodes." 

There are so many times that we feel like we are failing as parents. If we can't get them to just behave and comply isn't that a reflection on our lack of skills? This entire book gives parents grace in abundance so they can in turn show their children grace. This should be obvious, but yet it's not. And I realized, ashamed, that I had been developing bad habits regarding conflict with my child, and was probably doing more damage to our relationship than missing a few worksheets was worth.

Okay so reset. Move to what Greene calls, Plan B, because clearly our Plan A wasn't working. And you know what, it requires you to have open and considerate communication with your child, to really show them you care about their concerns and their opinions. Are you still the boss? Yes, but your child is trying to learn skills that make them able to handle frustrations and disappointments. And yelling at them and imposing parental will isn't going to assist in that. 

It's harder than it sounds, but that's okay. Because "We can do hard things." And that lovely child of mine is worth it.

5/5 Stars.

The Lonely Hearts Hotel - Heather O'Neill

This book started out okay for me and then just went real downhill. The dialogue, that seemed whimsical and airy when the two main characters, Rose and Pierot, were children gave a really nice distance from the harsh reality of the terrible orphanage life they entered into upon birth. That they had each other and made a bond and a fr.iendship of art and music was really lovely.

But then in The Lonely Hearts Hotel, as children do, the characters got older, and their world got harsher. And Rose, she becomes harsher too. Only Pierot seems somehow outside of the circumstances he has found himself in, except he's not. And neither, even though we've rooted for them since their infanthood, can seem to escape the lives their origins have destined for them. 

Is Rose a model of a strong independent woman, making her way through a traditionally male world? Or is she a vengeful spirit raging against the inequities of her station and sex? Is Pierot a hopelessly romantic artist, or is he a deadbeat addict with no sense of how to be an adult? It doesn't really matter, because in the end, they don't seem to care either. 

At the end of 450 pages I found I did not care about the people I had started rooting for in the beginning of the book. And not even in a literary, "oh I totally understand the tragic transformation that befell these humans that could not shake their demons" way. Which is what I THINK was intended. 

The writing was very reminiscent of the style of Jeffrey Archer in the Clifton Chronicles which I did not enjoy. So if you liked that writing style, you will likely enjoy this book. It just wasn't for me.

2.5/5 Stars. 

Lucky Boy - Shanthi Sekaran

My fingers landed on this intriguing book at my library's last used book sale. And I'm so glad this book found me. I had never heard of it before, had never heard of the author either. So I went into the book with a completely open mind and neutral expectations. It completely exceeded anything I could have hoped for in an unknown pick.

Lucky Boy tells the story of two women: Solimar Valdez leaves her tiny Mexican town for a better life in America. In order to get there she has to find a bit of her own way. And it's pretty terrible the things she endures for this opportunity. Immigration and undocumented immigrants seems to be a bit of a hot topic right now (to say the least) and while this book doesn't really take a stance on the politics or legalities of the situation, it does put a very human face on a very vivid picture of suffering and indifference. 

But I digress, because also happening in this novel is a wonderful woman named Kavya who has rebelled against her traditional Indian-American immigrant mother and has struck out on her own. She's married Rishi, an environmental scientist who focuses on clean air projects at the headquarters of Weebies (re: Amazon for babies). Kavya has always gotten her way, no matter how much it displeases her mother and now she wants a baby but is having no luck. Like many, she's forced to empty her savings in order to chase this desire only to come up short time and again. 

So when Solimar (Soli) arrives in the US, her cousin helps find her a position as a house cleaner to a white Berkeley family. And Soli finds out that she has carried something else across the border, a baby, to be born in American, to be American. With only her cousin's support (sometimes begrudging), Soli works as a cleaner and then nanny to the white family after her son, Ignacio, is born. Through a series of bad breaks shortly after Ignacio turns one, Soli is arrested and the boy is put into foster care as her case winds through immigration. Except, well our system for housing, detaining and deporting immigrants is woefully bereft of accountability and efficiency. 

Enter Kavya and Rishi, recently determined to be foster parents as an alternative to continued IVF cycles. When they meet Ignacio, Kavya is instantly bonded to him. He eventually comes to live with them and Kavya puts her whole heart into loving and becoming Ignacio's mother. When she finds out his birth mother, Soli, very much wants her son back, Kavya decides she can fight through the courts, for custody of Ignacio. 

There are bad guys in this story, but it's not Soli or Kavya. They both love Ignacio fiercely and the crux of the book is what is to be done for Ignacio. The story line reminded me somewhat of Light Between Oceans where two mothers yearn for one child. I've never struggled with infertility and I've never had the opportunity to love someone else's child like Kavya, but I found her relatable and sympathetic, despite not agreeing with her position regarding Ignacio. 

The two women in the story are so well written. I'll have to look for more works by Shanthi Sekaran. This book was very well done.

4/5 Stars. 

The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey

I've never wanted to travel to Alaska as badly as I did after reading this book. The Snow Child is set in 1920s Alaska - before statehood and oil booms, when the government wanted desperately for people to go and settle the seemingly untameable land. And so people did. They went, and they failed, and they returned to the lower 48. But this story is about Jack and Mabel, who ran a farm in Pennsylvania until the weight of their grief over losing and then not being able to bear children became too great. Seeking solitude and a fresh start, Jack and Mabel choose to start a homestead in Alaska.

But, well, it's not going very well. Mabel is very depressed, and Jack isn't quite prepared for the ruggedness and the work required to tame the land. So one night, after a fresh snowfall, they are filled with a whimsy and a memory of their early days together and build a snowgirl. They dress her in red mittens and hat and paint her lips with cranberry juice. The next morning, the snowgirl is knocked over and they begin to glimpse a girl in the woods.

They eventually befriend the girl, Faina, a wild child who is one with the woods. She disappears in the spring and returns in the winter. Based on a old Russian folktale, the story rides the edge of fantasy and reality. The writing is absolutely fantastic and honestly if it were straightforward it would have been just as good. But it's not entirely straightforward and I appreciate the latitude the author gives the reader in deciding the ultimate fate of the characters. 

Too say too much else would give away the ending and maybe determine too much that is best left to the imagination.

4/5 Stars. 

The Senator's Wife - Sue Miller

Listen, Sue Miller is a master craftsman when it comes to character development and setting the stage for how her characters got to be the way they are. The Senator's Wife is no exception. But there was something that didn't click throughout the story for me that culminated in an ending that made me abruptly squeamish and awkward. I didn't want to keep reading, but there were only 10 pages left.

The Senator's Wife is about a newly married 30-something Meri, who moves into a duplex next to Delia, the wife of former Senator Tom Naughton. Senator Naughton was apparently a big deal in the 60s and 70s. A bootstrap kind of politician who was liberal in the mold of John Kennedy - in more ways than one. Turns out the esteemed gentleman from Connecticut has a problem with keeping his hands off women.

Delia attempts to navigate an unconventional relationship with Tom, whom she still loves and Meri attempts to navigate an pregnancy which leaves her body feeling alien and unknown to her. Are these women supposed to be friends? Will they be able to develop a good relationship? It's all very hard to do across a generational divide. Meri is looking to be mothered, and Delia has already done all that. So she's nice, but very cold too. I just didn't really get this part. Their stories alone were interesting and eventually intertwined to give us the story's climax, but otherwise these two women together just did not work for me. Ultimately earning this tale a 3-star rating.

3 Stars.

Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life - Laura Markham

Every time I read a Laura Markham book I vacillate between thinking I'm a terrible parent, and then that maybe I'm doing okay. As my children are getting older and conflict seems to be inevitable, Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings was a good resource to find some ways to foster their relationship.

Markham begins the book with some of the foundational precepts that made me appreciate Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids (you can read that review here), and served as good reminders of those things I have casually forgotten in the two years since I read the earlier book. 

I'm thankful to have the reminder and have been trying to put the ideas into practice, even as our post-Christmas euphoria has devolved into the same petty squabbles of finding and equipping ourselves with shoes and coats which make up the most stressful 20 minutes of my morning.

4/5 Stars. 

The Aviator's Wife - Melanie Benjamin

Being an Air Force veteran, it's virtually impossible to be unfamiliar with Charles Lindbergh and his non-stop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. I was also aware that his child was kidnapped at some point thereafter. But the details of these things had become fuzzy if they had ever been present at all.

The Aviator's Wife tells the story of Anne Lindbergh, Charles wife and eventual widow. I was really impressed with Melanie Benjamin's detail and handling of Anne's life story. The novel did a good job of expressing Anne's desire for Charles and their complicated relationship. It also felt very honest about her grief at losing her oldest child to kidnap and murder, a horror I can't even imagine going through as a mother.

While at times I became exasperated at the repetitive nature of some of Anne's statements, it provides a a baseline for where Anne was at during her marriage to Charles. Equally satisfying was the fact that Charles motivations were murky and never really cleared up even to the end of the novel. I'm interested in reading more about this fascinating family. I wonder what Charles and Anne's children think of this book being out there in the world.




3.5/5 Stars

Be Frank With Me - Julia Claiborne Johnson

There were a lot of things that just didn't work for me in Be Frank With Me. While the overall premise has promise, the pieces of the story didn't come together to make a pleasing narrative. 

Alice Whitley, an assistant at a publishing company, is sent to live in LA with eccentric novelist Mimi Gillespie. Mimi, writing under the pen name of M.M. Banning, wrote one critically acclaimed novel, married a movie star, divorced a movie star, had a son - Frank, and became a recluse in Los Angeles, talking to few people and never publishing another word. Sort of like a, if J.D. Salinger had only ever written Catcher in the Rye, and was a woman kind of vibe. 

Alice is called upon to help Mimi while she completes another book. Turns out that Mimi is now broke and needs the money so has promised to write another book for her publisher. Alice is sent to help with the transcription of the novel into type and to provide Mimi with whatever other assistance she needs in order to write the novel. 

This assistance is being a playmate to Mimi's ten year old son - Frank. Frank is eccentric. We know this because we are told over and over that he is eccentric, by the characters, by Alice. What we are shown is that Frank talks in a flat monotone, favors old movies, has a good memory for facts from old movies, and dresses in the fashion of said old movies. He is endlessly bullied at school by both the kids, and eventually by an overbearing principal. 

All the while, Mimi is presented as basically a horrible person. She loves Frank at least, but she's horrible to Alice. I can deal with an unlikeable character if it does something for the story, but here it doesn't. Mimi herself never talks much with Alice, and the only other two characters who know her, Xander, the handyman, and Mr. Vargus, the publisher, don't give much information about why they remain friends with Mimi aside from the fact that it appears Xander kind of feels sorry for her, and he has his own heap of issues as well.

Alice flits naively from person to person in the story, and I didn't mind her that much until she becomes romantically involved with Xander, a vaguely described and poorly executed romance wherein both the characters' dialogue is eye-roll inducing. 

In the end, the story had no punch, and Frank, who while interesting and ultimately loveable, wasn't enough to carry the story over the rough patches.

2/5 Stars. 

The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah

This poor book was one that I received from the library in the middle of listening to something else, then tried to rush through in a few days, then realized it wouldn't happen, then waited three weeks for it to come back around so I could finish it. But I'm so glad I finished it - so very glad.

This is a story of two French sisters during World War 2 who make their own contributions to the resistance effort. Vienne is the older sister, with a daughter of her own and a husband at the front. Isobelle is the younger, more impulsive and impetuous sister. After the death of their mother at a young age, the two girls are estranged from each other and their alcoholic father. Isobelle grows up angry and desperate for love and notoriety. At the start of the war she is impatient to make her mark. She becomes "The Nightingale" ushering downed Allied pilots across the Pyrenees and into Spain to freedom.

Vienne is fearful for her child and her home. A German officer is billeted at her home during the occupation and Vienne must be careful of everything she says and does. Through the heartbreaking moments - and there are many many heartbreaking moments - the sisters' courage, shown in two decidedly different manners, is what carries the story. The ending was a bit too predictable and saccharine in comparison with the rest of the novel, but it didn't take away too much enjoyment from the reading.

I cried. Yeah yeah, I'm a softy. But the emotional moments were bought and paid for by the characters so they earned it. I really enjoyed this book and how it highlights the efforts of women during WWII. I can't wait to visit Paris again.

4/5 Stars.

Loving Our Kids on Purpose - Danny Silk

This book made my heart happy. I read Peaceful Parent Happy Kids earlier this year (you can read that review here) and this book was a good follow up to that one. I first heard the book mentioned on a blog I follow (tinygreenelephants.com) and was interested because the blog author always seems to have a sweet understanding of her children's needs and I was interested in where she found inspiration. Plus, my momma heart needed a refresher after a rather difficult week with the kids. Nothing special or unique had happened, but the daily battle for moving kids from one task to the next had really started to wear on me. 

The book is short, and I should add, written from a very Christian perspective. There is reference to quite a bit of scripture in there and perhaps this would make the book unappealing to some. But the core message is heartening. 

You cannot control your kids. If you try, you will damage your relationship with them.

It really is that simple. I thought about all the relationships I have in my life and tried to pick out one, just one that was based in control. None of them are. None. So what am I trying to do with my kids? Why do I feel the need to control all their actions and behaviors? I can't do that. What I can do is offer them choices, and if needed, consequences - those will help to shape who they are and the choices they will make later on when their world becomes larger. 

Danny Silk makes a point to say, that while your children are young, yes you can control them with your anger, with the threat of violence, but what do you do when they get older, and actually have some power to defy you? Would you rather rely on your relationship, and their love for you to guide their decisions. I think this is a pretty easy question. I had wished the book was a bit longer with more examples and probably some kind of quick visual guide to remember all the salient points - I probably just should have taken notes.

So, I charge on in this parenting thing, trying to keep in mind that I don't control these two tiny, perfect humans I have made, but instead, when I ask them for the 90th time in the morning to put their shoes on, this time I may just be able to offer them a choice, put your shoes on now, or take them in the care and put them on at school? Both options, it turns out, I can live with.

4/5 Stars.

The Lake House - Kate Morton

On a recommendation from my sister - who almost never steers me wrong - I picked up The Lake House, as I was in need of a new audio book for training for this 1/2 marathon (two more weeks folks).  I was a bit astonished to see a run time of 21 hours though! To put this in perspective, my average book for running is about 10-11 hours. This meant I'd be "reading" this for about three weeks. (Actually it took me more than a month - ouch).

So I settled in for a long story. And it was long. But also good. I liked the writing, even when Morton did get a little long winded. The story is framed by Sadie Sparrow, a London detective who is on administrative leave following a press leak regarding an investigations she was assigned to looking into the disappearance of Maggie Bailey.

As a concession to her partner, Sadie goes to Cornwall to stay with her grandfather, Bertie on holiday. She can't get the Bailey case out of her mind and wonders if it has anything to do with a recent letter she received from the baby she gave up for adoption as a teenager. Layers of several mysteries that are woven together.

To distract herself from all of this, Sadie takes up a keen interest in the Lake House she discovers while running. Turns out that the family that lived there moved shortly after a tragedy in 1933. The tragedy? The disappearance of an 11 month old boy, Theo.

The story then vacillates between Sadie's story in 2003, to 1933 and before told through the eyes of Alice and Elinor Edyvane (yeah sorry, I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right, I only listened to the book). It turns out Theo's disappearance hinges on the family secrets of several of the Edyvane family's individual members. The story gives away just enough to keep you guessing throughout, until the end, when it all starts to fall together and the reader has quite the jump start on Sparrow. I started to lament that she might not be a very good detective after all.

While Morton is certainly long on supposition and story-telling to the point where you don't really care to hear all the details of the moth eaten area rug that serves no purpose in plot - what she does end up giving you is very full character development. Sadie, Alice and Elinor are complete characters, with back story, motivation, failures, character flaws and all the rest. So the completion of the novel - a rounding up of both the Edyvane and Bailey cases, while maybe a bit eye-rollingly coincidental and predictable, is none-the-less very satisfying.

4/5 Stars.

The Light Between Oceans - M.L. Stedman

I should have prepared myself. I should have known about 20% into this book, when two people, tending a lighthouse on a desolate island, far off the coast of Australia, find a baby in a boat. A tiny, helpless, perfect baby.

And decide to keep it.

I should have prepared myself then. I should have known I would cry. But instead, I drove 5 1/2 hours to Cincinnati to run a 1/2 marathon and the entire way, listened to this book on audio. And cried. Cried so much my sunglasses remained on in the gas station where I stopped in Kentucky and was worried people would think I was crazy. Cried so much I ran out of Kleenex somewhere in Northern Kentucky and then had to go into the exhibit hall to pick up my race packet with my eyes feeling puffy and raw.

It's hard now, to read stories about loving and losing children that don't get to me. The way my own two have planted themselves firmly in my soul, in my heart, in my mind and everything in between. Imprinted.

So in this story, Tom and his wife Isabelle man the light station on Janus rock. A lonely island out to sea that sits between to oceans. After three heart-breaking miscarriages, a boat washes ashore with a dead man and a baby. And from the second it does, I knew Isabelle would want to keep the baby. Keep it and pass it off as her own. And she does. Even after learning that the baby is really the child of a local woman who has mourned and longed for her child, just as Isabelle has done for her own dead children. Because by then, how could Isabelle let go? There are no real winners in this scenario and the book is all the more heartbreaking because you cannot cheer for any of the characters. There is so much loss to pass out.

So if anything, the book gets 4 stars because when I cry this much, I'd like to be happy at the end, and really, I never was lifted from this state. The book could not have ended or gone any other way, I see that, but all the same, it's a sad read, even if it is wonderfully written.

4/5 Stars.