Things We Set on Fire - Deborah Reed

I really want to give this book 4 Stars, but there's just something a little missing to get it over that hump.

Things We Set on Fire starts off really strong. Vivie commits a terrible act. She shoots her husband as he's out illegally hunting, which in turn makes it look like a hunting accident. This event is the gravitas around which all other events in the book get their weighty meaning. And for whatever reason, it just doesn't work.

Fast forward about twenty-five years and we are again shown Vivie getting a call from the police that her two granddaughters who she hasn't seen in six years, are in need of shelter after their mother has been admitted to the hospital.

Drugs? That's Vivie's thought, although later on in the book it's not really clear why this would have been her guess. In any case, Vivie takes in Kate's two daughters and calls Kate's sister Elin who lives in Oregon. Vivie and the girls are in Florida, but Elin agrees to come and drives all the way to see them.

Elin has lived in Oregon for about 8 years, having unceremoniously packed up and left Florida behind. She was trying to escape the heaviness of her life there and created a new life for herself in Oregon. When she arrived in Oregon she found that her longtime boyfriend had moved on... to her sister. This man is the father of the two girls who Elin becomes the caretaker of.

This all happens in the very first chapters of the book and the momentum builds as it is apparent that the Elin is aware of her mother's action from long ago and no one has spoken of it. But then something happens with the book, where the characters, and their background stories don't really match up with their current actions. The reason for Kate's hospitalization is laid bare, but there isn't really any time dedicated to getting the characters through their processing of events. Instead they have these wholesale realizations and understandings that don't really ring true.

The book meandered toward the end and the ending was overall not very satisfactory. So while the writing was great and the story line good, the book just missed some element to push it over into a four-star rating.

Three stars.

For Love of Country: What Our Veterans Can Teach us About Citizenship, Heroism and Sacrifice - Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran

A good read that will not reach much of its intended audience. I was lent this book from a co-worker who also served in the Air Force. This is one of the great things about physical books over Kindle books. You can rave about them. You can cajole people into reading them, but unless you can physically hand them the books, your recommendation may not go anywhere.

That's probably what would have happened with this one. If my co-worker had only recommended it and not handed it to me, then I likely never would have read it. It's not that I don't like reading about American heroes, I do. But I already have a to-read book shelf that is slightly bowed in the middle, and a Kindle to-read shelf that is currently taking up quite a few swipes to get to the next book. Sometimes reading becomes an exercise in getting to the next book rather than actually enjoying the book I'm reading.

In the first line, I mention that the book will likely not reach much of its intended audience. So let me explain. My co-worker, the Air Force vet, and me, another Air Force vet are not the intended audience of this book. Howard Schultz is the CEO of Starbucks. He's got a lot of money and therefore a bit of influence and he had almost no exposure to veterans and their issues/causes. He talks in the introduction about how he finally woke up to the reality that men and women in uniform make every day sacrifices and he, as an "average" American citizen has no exposure to that.

The figures he quotes are sobering. Only 1% of Americans have served or are serving in the military. And only 5% of American have an immediate family member who has served or is serving. To say our modern day citizen is disconnected from the military and its volunteer members is an understatement. What this book sets out to do is provide a series of vignettes that tell the tales of unparalleled bravery in wartime and then of unparalleled commitment to those veterans after they return home.

But here's the reality. I'm an Air Force vet, I get it. I know what went on overseas during my deployment, and I've been lucky to serve with some truly great and selfless heroes. And I was given the book to read by a retired Air Force Master Sergeant who also served his share of deployments. So the two of us - we're not the target audience of the book. Schultz isn't speaking to us. Yet, the stories told in the book, the still meant something to me.

The stories told by Schultz are recent. They recount bravery and heroism during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are startlingly recent. I served in Baghdad in 2006-2007 and for some reason, my brain has shut off after that time. I've moved on to law school and a law career. And here we are, eight years later, and it still feels, in many respects, like I just got home. And then I read these stories, of veterans coming home in 2012, 2013 and its like I never left, but I'm so far removed from them too.

The part of the book I found really enlightening were in the second half. The stories of veterans working on Team Rubicon and TAPS who are helping veterans, their families and disaster victims here in the United States. And it sort of woke me up to all the good people do every day. Veterans do have so much to give, and so much training and experience to share. It reminded me of the very first job I got during law school, fresh out of the Air Force, where the hiring manager at the law firm told me that if I was scheduled to work from 10-2 on a certain day, I should be there from 10-2. This didn't make sense to me. Of course if I was scheduled to work 10-2 I would show up. Of course I would work those hours. But this was not the Air Force, and people don't always treat their job like a service.

There are so many great lessons and stories in these vignettes. But I just don't know beyond the war buffs and the deeply patriotic, who might be picking this book up besides me and my fellow veterans. No need to tell us how great some of the people who served were. We already know.

Perhaps if you haven't served, make it your goal to read this for Veterans Day, Memorial Day or Fourth of July. Make it the one patriotic thing you do this year.

3.5/5 Stars.

All the Light we Cannot See - Anthony Doerr

Lovely from beginning to end. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The narrative follows two teenagers during World War II, blind Marie-Laure of Paris, France and Werner Pfennig of Germany. Both characters overcome obstacles and deal with their own limitations (Marie's physical, Werner's one of character) where time and the machinery of war eventually lead them to meet. 

The chapters dealing with Werner's schooling at an elite political school and the brutal treatment of the students by the instructors were exceptionally well written and devastating at the same time. In particular, the school sections of Werner's narrative focus on his friendship with Frederick, a boy who "sees things that others do not." Ultimately Frederick's ability to stand outside of the events and refuse to be a part of the cruel system make him a target. I won't get into specifics of what Werner does or does not do, but I will say that at this point in the story, he's not a hero. 

I held out hope for the ultimate happy ending but was not disappointed when it did not happen. 

The chapters are incredibly short, giving this book a fast reading feel despite the 500+ page length. Intricately woven, the short chapters bounce through time and location but surprisingly it was not difficult to follow and was well laid out developing the characters even as we knew how their worlds would ultimately collide. 

I don't want to give away too much of the plot but both the main two characters and the minor characters are so well written and developed that it's an astounding feat. I can't wait to read more from this author.

5/5 Stars.