The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett

Stella and Desiree are twins who grow up in Mallard, Louisiana where the lightness of your skin is prized above all else. When the girls leave as teens, they shock the town who see nothing wrong with the place they live.

The book begins with Desiree returning to town with her dark child in tow. What has become of Stella we don't know but it is eventually teased out over the course of the book. Desiree rebelled against Mallard by going to DC eventually and working for the FBI as a fingerprint examiner. She married a dark man and had a dark child. But when the man ended up being violent and abusive she went back to Mallard. Preferring to live a smaller life of safety even if it meant returning to Mallard. Desiree puts no value on the lightness of her skin. And she guides her daughter through the difficulty of living in that environment.

We then find out that Stella left New Orleans without telling her sister. Passing as white and living under a cloud of shame. She can never fully relax, can never be herself truly as she knows the cost to her life if anyone were to find out her secret. She makes a life for herself and then eventually, through her daughter, finds some way to pursue the studies and qualities of herself that she has suppressed for so long. There is so much narrative tension created through all the Stella chapters. Brit Bennett does a remarkable job stretching that out for the reader.

The book then moves on to Stella and Desiree's daughters. The two could not be more different but as they learn about each other it makes them explore the ways they are similar and what their lives have meant. This book is beautifully written. Even the minor male characters are so well drawn by the pages I can see them in my mind.

The Vanishing Half is a joy to read, even as it tackles some very deep family rifts and personal traumas.

5/5 Stars. 

Red, White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston

I had this book wait-listed for a while at the library but can honestly say it was worth the wait. Red, White and Royal Blue is most shocking in the alternative 2019-2020 it presents. After Ellen Clermont is elected the first female president in 2016 (no one cares about a private e-mail server, says one of the characters, tongue-in-cheek - I could cry but I digress), her family occupies the white house in all their modern splendor. Ellen is divorced from Senator Oscar Diaz, and their two dazzling brilliant and beautiful children, 23 year old June and 21 year old Alex, work together with the daughter of the vice president to create The White House Trio.

What could be more wonderful than these PYTs? Well enter the devestatingly handsome second son of England's Princess and her James Bond movie star husband and voila, you have Henry. And, as it turns out, Henry and Alex get involved in a little enemies to lovers story and this could be trope-y and boring and saccharine. But it's NOT!! It's hilarious, and perfectly paced and just the right amount of schmaltz and edge.

I really fell for Henry and Alex. I liked watching their relationship turn a corner. I thought McQuiston dealt with the sexuality angle perfectly. There was quite a lot of detail regarding US and British politics and it was really all around perfect. I suddenly wanted to be 25 again and have that youthful energy and spirit. And I desperately wanted to live in a 2020 that had a Wimbledon and a DNC and international love scandal between the FSOTUS and a Prince, because the alternative, this current 2020, is just shit in comparison.

4 Stars. 

Committed - Elizabeth Gilbert

I must be the one person who has not read Eat, Pray, Love, but I follow Elizabeth Gilbert on social media and I have found her thoughtful and compassionate. And I really felt her pain when her partner Rayya passed away last year. So when I received Committed I was first confused about the topic of the book being her hesitancy to marry her second husband and her doubts about the institution of marriage.

I have to say, knowing that the marriage she was so hopeful for does not work out was a bit of a downer but Gilbert has such a great narrative voice that I couldn't help but get caught up in her story. And also, the background she provides about marriage and the ways it has evolved throughout history and cultures was very fascinating.

Each marriage is unique and Gilbert readily admits she is no expert. This is essentially a self reflection on whether she should enter an institution she does not trust and has believed herself to be bad at. The level of honesty with which she approaches her analysis shows a lot of maturity that I honestly don't think I could muster - or at least I would not be brave enough to put it out into the world.

I know a lot of people just don't relate to Liz Gilbert. But a memoir can't speak to everyone and she's not trying to be something she's not, which is painfully obvious in this book. While this wasn't my favorite book of 2019, I appreciate Gilbert's writing style and her honesty.

3/5 Stars.

Just Kids - Patti Smith

I have been sitting far too long on this review. It's not that I haven't wanted to. I've just been really swamped with other stuff. In any case, let me tell you how absolutely delightful Patti Smith is. 

Just Kids details the years Patti Smith spent with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe when they were LITERALLY starving artists in New York City. From rundown apartments in Brooklyn to the fabulous and tragic Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, Patti and Robert, supported and inspired each other to keep reaching and keep creating. 

I have to admit, other than a colleague I worked with over a decade ago who was a bit of an aging hippy, I'd never even really heard of Patti Smith before. "Because the Night" was a Natalie Merchant song from VH1 (I'm so embarrassed). In any case, I saw a reference to this book and decided to listen to the audio. After I started listening, Patti and Robert references were popping up everywhere, like in Little Fires Everywhere which I read earlier this month. 

So I took a deep Wiki dive on these two remarkable people and knew before I got to the end that Robert was going to die of AIDS related complications and that I would be really heartbroken for Patti who always held him in her heart even after they grew apart. What can you say about young love and young lovers who aside from being incredibly cool nerds were creative about life and the universe. Robert Mapplethorpe went on to stretch and challenge the definition of art. His provocative photos tested the boundaries of what could be available to the public. 

Just look at these incredibly cool humans.

And I loved all the ways Patti describes him and their life together. They may have been Just Kids, but they loved and created for a lifetime. It was wonderful to get a glimpse of such a powerful friendship.

4/5 Stars. 

November Road - Lou Berney

November Road started out a little uneven for me. The opening chapter introduces us to Frank Guidry, who runs some of mob boss Carlos Marcello's small time business in New Orleans. We encounter Frank in one of his Bourbon Street bars making deals and turning on a friend. We learn that Seraphine is looking for Mackey and Frank is quick to sell him out after Mackey begs Frank for protection. The first chapters with Frank come out uneven as characters are introduced and discarded without knowing just who will be an important player and who is part of the disposable set up of Frank's character arc. 

Then comes a chapter with Charlotte, a woman dissatisfied with not quite meeting her potential in her marriage to her alcoholic husband Dooley and her misogynistic boss, Mr. Hotchkiss. Charlotte has two daughters, the precocious Rosemary, and the almost silent Joan. After a particularly awkward dinner with Dooley's parents, Dooley runs out to get a drink and Charlotte packs the girls into the car and hits the road.

In the meantime, John F. Kennedy is assassinated. Frank realizes he had been in Dallas setting up a get away car for the assassin. And it turns out that all of the pawns in Carlos' scheme to assassinate the president are turning up dead (most at the hands of Paul Barone - Carlos' heartless and indiscriminate killing machine). So Frank realizes he's likely next and starts to run.

Well you can't have two story lines involving Frank and Charlotte and not expect them to get intertwined, so they do when Frank realizes hiding as part of a family may make more sense than continuing to run on his own. So he gently ingratiates himself to Charlotte and they begin travelling together. 

Now the whole thing might be an annoying story deeply cliched in the story of redemptive love (because Frank needs redeeming) except that there is something ultimately likable about Charlotte. She grows in her own strength and confidence and is smarter than 99% of the other characters give her credit for. And for that, Charlotte brings this up to a 3-star read for me. 

We never really get what made Frank into the person he was at the beginning of the book, although it's hinted at. The stakes never feel very high for any of the likeable characters and the ending felt forced and predictable, but not very realistic. And the epilogue seemed overly contrived. So it was a fine quick read, but not necessarily memorable.

3/5

This is How it Always Is - Laurie Frankel

After reading a couple memoirs in a row that included some exceptionally dangerous parenting, it was kind of a relief to step into This is How it Always Is with Rosie and Penn and their brood of five boys. Rosie and Penn are very different, but their marriage together works somehow. Rosie is a trauma doctor and Penn a struggling writer. Their first four boys, Roo, Ben, Orion and Rigel prepare them for their fifth son, Claude, or so they think. At age three, Claude requests to wear a dress and then clearly begins preferring traditionally girl clothes and accessories. 

Penn and Rosie, being progressive parents, indulge their child and then realize that it's possible their child is more than just interested in dressing like a girl. This leads to a probably diagnosis of gender dysphoria. And Claude officially transitions to Poppy in his kindergarten class to some general confusion but otherwise everything is going okay until Rosie treats a transgender woman who has been badly beaten at the University of Wisconsin campus. Rosie decides Wisconsin is just not the place to raise a transgender child.

The whole family moves to Seattle to try to create a better life for Poppy, but they get some things wrong, as parents are apt to do. And the whole family begins to suffer under the strain of keeping Poppy's secret. Even though they know this is a bad way to go, the secret seems to grow until there is no good way out from under it. Then some other stuff happens but I don't want to ruin all that, although Frankel's style of writing often gives you facts from the future when explaining a certain situation.

Each one of the boys in this story could probably support his own book, along with their sister, but since this story is about their sister, they take somewhat of a back seat. There's only so much one author can do within the confines of a novel.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book and the hope it provides even amidst its thornier parts. I liked that the parents are flawed and doing their best, but inside the context of unconditional love and acceptance. That so many transgender children and adults choose to take their own lives (40%) means we have a long way to go as a society.

4/5 Stars. 

Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams

You have to admit this amazing cover art catches your eye and makes you wonder what might be inside. And the inside is just as beautiful. Queenie Jenkins is on the cusp of something good. She has a steady boyfriend, Tom, who has suggested marriage, and she's landed a job at a magazine. So what if Tom's family is racist and he doesn't seem to care. So what if the job is managing listings and not writing about issues that really matter to Queenie. She's ALMOST there.

And then. She isn't. Tom wants a break. A clean break. And this begins a spiral for Queenie who must confront some of the things that have made her adult life difficult. Painful, heartbreaking episodes from her childhood are hinted, and then drawn out fully as we grieve and learn with Queenie.

At times completely hilarious and then equally heartbreaking, this book really does do it all. Queenie's friends are dismayed and helpless to halt her downward spiral and I felt these same feelings along with them. I felt like Queenie's friend. I was rooting for her. I wanted her to figure out these things she was doing to herself and allowing to happen to herself. The book brings up uncomfortable questions of self acceptance and worth and race. And it does it all in the most excellent writing. 

I was so thrilled to find this book in my mail box courtesy of Scout Press Books. I can't wait to share this book with everyone.

5/5 Stars. 

Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality - Debbie Cenziper, Jim Obergefell

There's a few things that I love the come together in Love Wins. 

1) The Law - it's not perfect but it's ours and in some respects it gives people who would otherwise be disenfranchised, power to make real and lasting change (but also see Dred Scott v. Sandford ugh). 

2) Narrative nonfiction - I love journalism that is told like a story. And this is done so well in podcasts but sometimes gets very very dry in book form. Not this one. This one was intriguing and moving and very well put together. 

3) Cincinnati - my hometown with all its warts and problems still feels special to me now that I am far away with no reason to return. 

4) LOVE - In 2004, I angrily stared at my absentee ballot from Ohio. Wondering how it was possible that a constitutional amendment proposing targeted discrimination was even considered. But it was. And it passed. The idea, the simple idea that you meet someone, you fall in love, and you decide you want to spend the rest of your life with someone - make a symbolic commitment - is really not that hard to understand. The fact that two people of the same sex want to do this is irrelevant to the inquiry. Or it should be. 

I didn't know John Arthur and James Obergefell's story. How they met, fell in love, and committed to each other over and over, until after the Windsor case, decided to get married, even in the midst of John's battle with ALS. Having read Every Note Played by Lisa Genova this year (read that review here), ALS is something I feel I'm more familiar with than ever before. Understanding the creeping devastation and loss it requires of its afflicted day after day. 

Most of all, the Obergefell v. Hodges is a love letter, a legacy, from James to John every day and into the annals of history. And that is beautiful.

Also, hat tip to narrator George Newbern who is an excellent audio book reader. 

4/5 Stars. 

Still Alice - Lisa Genova

Excuse me while my eyeballs adjust from all the crying. 

Still Alice is another page-turning and devastating look at neurological disease from the queen of this genre that I didn't know I needed, Lisa Genova. 

I read, and cried, all the way through Every Note Played (you can read that review here), last month so I decided I should return to see the book that "started it all" more or less for Genova. Interestingly, I preferred Every Note Played to Still Alice. The writing was more precise and polished. The dialogue more honest and well-timed. Every Note Played is the result of an artist at the top of her game. Still Alice is a younger, earlier work, of no less emotional power, but slightly rickety craftsmanship, which can only be seen in the comparison. 

Still Alice is the story of Alice Howland, a Harvard psychology professor who is in the apex of her career. She has raise three successful children who are now adults and forging careers of their own. She is well respected and sought out for speaking engagements and presentations. She's married to a biologist, John, and together they are an academic power couple. Alice has everything. A rewarding career, the respect of her peers, admiration from her students, and accolades for her work. The only slightly dark spot is a strained relationship with her youngest daughter, Lydia, who at 22 is living out in LA trying to make a career as an actress. Alice, being a Harvard professor, wants Lydia to go to school and give up on acting. 

But then subtle cracks in Alice's memory begin to show, including a particularly disturbing event where she gets lost blocks from home in an area of Cambridge she'd known well for more than 20 years. Alice decides to seek the advice of her doctor leading to a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's disease. 

Alice is able to trace her diagnosis to the strange behavior of her alcoholic father before his death. Her children then decide if they want to know if they too carry the gene for inherited EOAD. The thing I like so much about Genova's writing is that the characters aren't perfect. Even the minor characters can be well drawn. The child we spend the least amount of time with in the book is Tom. Alice's middle child, a busy doctor, so his treatment is the most superficial. But the daughters Anna and Lydia are well done. And seeing Alice's relationship with Lydia repair is the most satisfying part of an otherwise sad and tragic story. 

A while ago I read, We are Not Ourselves (you can read that review here). Which was told from the perspective of the wife of someone going through EOAD. Still Alice, written from Alice's perspective, was much more satisfying and personal. But having read that earlier book I did understand more where Alice's husband, John, was coming from. However, at the end, I was most dissatisfied with John, who seemed to have his own view of how to treat Alice's disease, and therefore, Alice. But just because I didn't like how the end of the book was left with John, does not mean that plot or story-wise, it was the wrong decision for Genova to make. 

As a lover of audio books, I will say that not all books are meant to be read by the author. This makes sense when a memoir connects the content to the speaker. But in a work of fiction, with dialogue between many characters, the work of a real professional narrator really does make a difference. This book was read by the author so it missed a little of the inflection and warmth a good narrator can bring to a story. 

But since I sometimes couldn't hear the words for sobbing, it's probably just a minor issue.

4/5 Stars. 

Love and Ruin - Paula McLain

When I read The Paris Wife, I was living in Evanston, IL and had been obsessed with Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises for some time. It was the first book I examined critically. My junior year term paper was all Lady Brett all the time. My husband and I both listened to Farewell to Arms while training for the 2010 Toronto Marathon. I have read or re-read basically everything else Hemmingway. So I was ready for The Paris Wife and I really liked McLain's voice in telling Hadley Hemmingway's story. I may have actually named by own Chicago-born daughter after Hadley. 

So I was nervous that maybe lightening wouldn't strike the Hemmingway brides twice in Love and Ruin. But thankfully, I was wrong. I really enjoyed McLain's portrayal of Marty Gellhorn. She reminded me a lot of Beryl Markham in McLain's Circling the Sun (you can read my review of CTS here). Marty, like Beryl, chafed at conventional expectations of womanhood. They both excelled in male-dominated fields. They both wanted adventure and career and to felt seen. These are all very modern aspects of my own life as a woman, but fortunately I live in a decade where having all these things and being a mother are not entirely out of the question (but also not a given). 

Marty, though madly in love with Ernest, does not want to be tied down by motherhood in a way that would limit her opportunities. It's not as if Ernest Hemmingway was going to be home with a toddler while Marty was a war correspondent. Above all else, Marty seemed to be committed to being her own true self, and there is so much to admire about that.

Ernest and Marty

The strong Marty chapters are interspersed with, what I thought were, unnecessary chapters from Ernest's third person voice. I thought this detracted from the overall story. Perhaps McLain felt Ernest was not coming along so well in the book. I was hardly ready to feel sympathy for him after his bizarre behavior with Hadley and Pauline Pfeiffer in The Paris Wife. 

I also have a bit of a weird feeling about the book because I've read a lot about Marty Gellhorn and I know that she was adamant that she not be treated as just Ernest Hemmingway's third wife. I think her phrase was about being a "footnote" in someone else's life. She was an amazing war correspondent, a novelist, and an interesting person in her own right. And, probably to Marty Gellhorn's consternation, this book ends, abruptly I'd say, right after her relationship with Ernest ends. It's a disservice to the bulk of work she performed and wrote after her divorce from Hemmingway, and the name she made for herself independently through the later decades. I would have loved to stay on the journey with her through her years in Korea and Vietnam. So I found the timeline of the book to be a bit of a betrayal to the heroine. 

Love Warrior - Glennon Doyle

Once upon a 2012, I had a baby and was overjoyed and terrified and tired and emotional and in the midst of a fog of sleep deprivation stumbled across Momastery, a blog started by Glennon Doyle Melton where everyone was encouraged to tell the truth. Life was hard. Being a new mom was hard. And on Momastery, it was okay to say all these things.

After 12 weeks of maternity leave I headed back to work as a lawyer and my Momastery friends were there when I checked back in from time to time. In 2014, we became thick as thieves again as I endured and cherished and outlasted and relished another 12 week maternity leave. But then I went back to work, and we moved and I stopped checking in with my friends. 

Last year though, when I broke off my toxic relationship with Facebook (it was bad for me honey) I was happy to find Glennon there on Instagram being Glennon. And her kind words, her fierce determination, her all encompassing love was a reminder of those spaces on Momastery where I'd once found refuge in my post-partum malaise.

Well you know what? That beautiful human, Glennon Doyle wrote a big book about herself and her messy past and her constant work and love and Love Warrior was everything I'd always hoped I could wrap up into a beautiful gift of Glennon. So it was a lovely book to read, full of those things that I really enjoyed from Matthew Kelly's Perfectly Yourself (you can read that review here). I'm wondering now, did Glennon inspire MK to write "Do the next right thing" or "You can never get enough of what you don't need"? Was I listening to G all along?

Yes it's a memoir about Glennon's life but Glennon doesn't ever just tell you about her life, she tells you the lessons she's learned, and if you're lucky enough, you can learn those lessons too, without all the pain. 

So rather than detailing Glennon's story (she really tells it the best), I'll leave you with some of my favorite Glennon nuggets from the book. 

Grief is nothing but a painful waiting, a horrible patience. Grief cannot be torn down or scaled or overcome or outsmarted. It can only be outlasted.

We need a church that will teach us about loving ourselves without shame, loving others without agenda, and loving God without fear.

Faith is not a club to belong to but a current to surrender to.

Happy reading Warriors!

5/5 Stars. 

A Man Called Ove - Fredrick Backman

A Man Called Ove is a thoroughly entertaining of a lonely curmudgeon who is really actually a good person. The writing is humorous and swift. There is a lot of detail but it doesn't bog the story down unnecessarily. This is a story of big sweeping themes about love and loss, friendship and family, told through small details about one individual person. 

The story starts with Ove attempting to buy an iPad and slowly through the story in various back flashes and limited description from other characters, we get to see what has brought Ove to be the person he is, and why he is so desperately unhappy. 

I liked this book so much that I went home after finishing it and stayed up way too late watching the Swedish language version of the film (apparently a Tom Hanks version is in the works but no real facts on that yet) and I cried even though I knew EXACTLY what was going to happen. The movie doesn't have some of the lightness of the book, but it's extremely well done. Highly recommend.

4.5/5 Stars. 

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

Wow. What a painful and powerful story. Their Eyes Were Watching God is about a naive but strong willed teenager, Janie Crawford who bows to her grandmother's influence and marries a man decades her senior. A former slave, her grandmother had visions and hopes for Janie that were different from Janie's own. And a loveless marriage makes Janie ache for those things she wants for herself. 

In order to find happiness she runs off with another man who promises her more freedom, only to find out that this man's definition of freedom is not her own. It is only as a wealthy but still young and beautiful widow that Janie meets Tea Cake, a young gambler who gives her a taste of the life she really wants. Their love story is simple and complicated at the same time. With great love comes great tragedy, and Hurston hits the notes perfectly.

Years ahead of its time in themes of feminism, self-discovery, and self-determination for women, Janie is a force, an unforgettable heroine in the midst of lesser models.

4.5/5 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

Dark Matter - Blake Crouch

With Dark Matter I did something I haven't done in a while with a book - finished it in four days.

An incredibly fast read, Dark Matter takes a familiar "It's a Wonderful Life" trope and jazzes it up for the modern age. 

Jason Dessen, a community college physics professor has always wondered how his life would turn out if he had walked away from his pregnant girlfriend in his 20s and pursued his planned scientific research. As he watches his college roommate receive a prestigious scientific award, his feelings of regret become acute. But Jason is happy with his wife and teenage son. 

On the way home from celebrating his friend's award, Jason is abducted and drugged. When he awakens, he finds himself in a world where he is a renowned scientist on the verge of a breakthrough. Missing for 14 months, this Jason Dessen is welcomed back as a triumphant hero. Turns out he's been working on this box that collapses time and space, allowing you to move through multiple realities in which reality forks off whenever a choice is made. Jason knows this is not his world, but since he's not the brilliant scientist who invented the box, he's not quite sure how it works, or how he is supposed to get home to his family. 

Jason doesn't spend long in his new world - it's instantly apparent he doesn't belong or want to be there. I don't want to give any more plot points away since mega spoilers folks, but you get the drill. He opens a lot of wrong doors to other worlds in his attempts to find the right ones. Sometimes the descriptions come off as a bit too manufactured, but since the book moves so lightening fast, so do the descriptions.

There's no time to rest in this book. The short declarative sentences keep you moving from one scene to the next. It kept my attention and kept me moving through the whole story. I was thoroughly entertained. It's gonna make a great movie.

4/5 Stars. 

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats - Jan Philipp-Sendker

I can't remember when I first learned of this book, but it's been on my to-read shelf for quite a while. All in all it was fine, but kind of a let down because it could have been much better, and I'm not sure if the disconnect is in the original language or the translation, but I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt. In The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, Julia's father abandons his New York family - Julia, an overly one-dimensional mother, and an almost comically absent brother - to return to "Burma," the country of his birth. (Okay so I know the whole Burma/Myanmar naming thing has been an issue since it happened in 1989, with may adherents to the old name refusing to recognize the new one, but even a passing reference to this would have made the book more realistic, instead it reads more of a westernized fantasy about an exotic locale - one of my first issues with the book).

In order to figure out what has happened to her father, Julia travels to Burma (I'm just going to go with it). While there, she meets Uh Ba (apologies for not knowing how to spell any names, I listened to the audio version). Uh Ba proceeds to tell Julia an elaborate tale about the life of her father, Tin Win, his abandonment at a young age, his early affliction of blindness, his reliance on the kindness of a neighbor, and finally, his falling desperately in love with Mimi - a young crippled girl in the village. The dramatic language attributed to Uh Sa stretched the line of credulity for me. I would have preferred a more streamlined straight-forward rendering of the Tin Win/Mimi backstory. I didn't need the added element of it being told by a third party to Julia. 

I'll say this, the Tin Win/Mimi parts were spectacular. Their relationship, the honesty of their love was very well done. Their disabilities don't impact the love they have for one another, even if others consider it a burden. Julia learns some valuable lessons in the meantime and learns to see her father in a new light. 

One of the themes of the book is reliance on free will versus predictions of fate. Tin Win is abandoned by his mother based on the predictions of an astrologer. As a young adult, his life is shattered by a self-interested Uncle who acts according to the predictions of an astrologer. Only Suu Kyi, his adopted mother, Tin Win and Mimi (and Mimi's mother) live outside the bounds of astrology and in the realm of free will. And their lives are richer for it.

3/5 Stars.

The Rosie Effect - Graeme Simsion

Thank goodness for business travel. A six hour round-trip drive to Southern Illinois where the only successful outcome was my finishing The Rosie Effect. I absolutely loved the first book of this "series", the Rosie Project (you can read that review here). While I wasn't quite as tickled with this sequel, the writing, the humor and the beloved characters are all still there. This time the stakes are a bit higher.

Don and Rosie are living in New York City. Don is a professor at Columbia University and Rosie is finishing her PhD thesis in psychology while also beginning an MD program. When Rosie gets pregnant, hilarity and misunderstanding ensue. However, as Don and Rosie have now been married for ten months, I would have expected the characters to have gotten a bit better in the communication department. However, they let self-doubt get in the way of their relationship and I did actually feel a bit of stress about the characters and what they were going through. 

In the meantime, we meet a few new friends, George, an aging rocker with a string of bad marriages and one really messed up kid; Lydia, a terribly judgmental social worker and some other new minor friends. The biggest disappointment was Rosie herself. In the first book she's likeable and moves Don in new directions. She's not perfect, but you can relate to her. In this book, she's a shell character, a plot point. She's compelling action from Don without any reciprocal understanding. 

I was outraged on Don's behalf that she would become pregnant without telling him, and then judging him on how he reacted, how he prepared, whether he felt "connected" to the baby, and then somehow deciding he wasn't going to be a good father, even though ALL evidence in the book pointed to the contrary. Don is a loyal friend, and a reasoned sensible mentor. He helps Gene's children through issues and into eventual reconciliation with their father. He's constantly doing nice things for people because he is good as solving problems logically. Rosie misses all of this, despite being the only one to see it in the first book. Cheapening out Rosie's character to somehow create dramatic tension wasn't fitting with the characters. 

Definitely not as good as the first, but then, Don is still a great character. Try not to be disappointed.

3/5 Stars

At the Water's Edge - Sarah Gruen

Thank goodness for clear-headed Scots, or this book would have been a real mess. Maddie, her husband Ellis, and their friend Hank decide to travel to Drumnadrochit, a small town on the shores of Loch Ness, during the middle of WWII to capture evidence of "The Monster." See, both Hank and Ellis are 4F, unfit for service in the war due to flat footedness and color blindness, respectively. Two otherwise able bodied men about town, Ellis and Hank are increasingly uncomfortable with the judgments they get from others. 

This all comes to a head on New Year's Eve, when Ellis, Hank and Maddie get so drunk at a party that they misbehave and Ellis claims his father's spotting of the Loch Ness Monster many years before was a sham. This is apparently a family sore spot, as his father claims to have photographic evidence of his sighting, but later journalists claimed the photos were a hoax. Word about this gets back to Ellis' parents, with whom he and Maddie live, and his father decides to cut Ellis off and kick him and his wife out of the house. 

I should mention at this point that Ellis has nowhere to go with his wife because HE'S A HORRIBLE PERSON. Seriously, the guy is THE WORST. It's obvious from very early on in the book. So Hank and Ellis book passage for the three of them across the ocean amid u-boat sinkings and all so Ellis can prove there is a monster and redeem his father and family's honor. The arrive at an Inn and act like completely spoiled brats because during a war there isn't anything better to eat for breakfast than porridge. 

There's a bunch of whining on the part of Maddie as she has no idea how she'll survive if Ellis leaves her at the Inn on her own. But eventually, she becomes more likeable by whining less and the two women, Anna and Meg, that work at the Inn befriend her. They teach Maddie how to do her own hair, and basically be a decent human being, all the while HORRIBLE Ellis and slightly less horrible Hank run around completely oblivious. 

But you know what's not oblivious, Ellis has a real thing for Hank. And when it turns out that Ellis got to marry Maddie due to the result of a coin toss, it's not all that surprising that the arrangement suited Ellis, who barely shows interest in his wife, and would rather spend time with Hank. No one else seems to say this, but at some point it becomes clear that everyone finally gets it. And at that point, I had a Dixie Chicks moment and knew that "Ellis had to die." I mean, it gets to the point that the only solution is for Ellis to die. 

The rest of the story leading up to will he or won't he die is a bit predictable. But the stakes are raised for our Maddie and the owner of the Inn, a war hero named Angus who broods in the background smolderingly. 

I think I'd say this book was 3.5 stars, but it gets 4 because Maddie finally became a likeable character about 40% of the way through the book.

4/5 Stars. 

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

This book was soooooo fun!! Don Tillman is a genetics professor in Melbourne, Australia. And well, he's a bit odd. He's probably on the autism spectrum, likely Aspergers, but he doesn't know it. So he has a very calculated way of speaking and evaluating people. 

He has two friends in the whole world, Gene and Claudia, a husband and wife who have an "open" marriage as Gene attempts to sleep with women from all nationalities. And somewhere in the beginning of the story, Don decides to solve his problem of being alone with "the wife project." Don creates a questionnaire to find himself the perfect wife. And in true Don fashion, as his life is ruled by a strict adherence to reason and rationality (to say nothing of the best use of time) he cannot deviate from the results his questionnaire is giving him.

Sitting in his office one day, he is approached by a woman, Rosie, who has come to see him at Gene's insistence. Thinking she is a candidate for the wife project, Don asks her out on a date. But it's quickly apparent that Rosie has completely and utterly failed the questionnaire and is therefore, not a candidate for the wife project. Despite his adherence to rules, Don begins to seek out reasons to be with Rosie.

I really enjoyed rooting for Don in this book. Although he was completely clueless and obtuse at times, I really wanted a good life for him. He was a good guy. Feel good and funny... this book was a real treat.

4.5/5 Stars.

Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín

I'd give this book a solid 3.75 stars. I liked Eilis (pronounced Eye-lish). I liked watching her "come of age" through the process of the book. I like how she makes decisions and isn't overly dramatic or needlessly whiny. She accepts her choices like an adult and makes the next step.

In this story, Eilis is the younger daughter to a widowed mother in Ireland. Smart, but slightly less beautiful than her older sister Rose, Eilis works hard at her studies trying to advance herself and her family's fortunes. When it becomes apparent that there is no work for Eilis in Ireland, her sister and mother make arrangements for Eilis to go to Brooklyn to work in a shop and hopefully take classes to become a book keeper. 

Eilis suffers through a rough crossing, but once in America, gets on well at her job and eventually makes friends. She begins a relationship with an Italian plumber named Tony and corresponds with her sister Rose in secret because she's not quite ready to tell her mother that she's moved on from Ireland. Part of the time Eilis seems like she's inhabiting someone else's life in America, as if she's going through the motions of her day without thinking of who she is becoming. But eventually she starts to make decisions of her own and use her intellect to excel at school. 

Following Rose's death, Eilis must decide if she will go back to Ireland to stay, or if she'll claim the new life she's made for herself in Brooklyn. In a very real question of whether you can go home again, Eilis is presented with what her alternative life would have been had she stayed in Ireland. And she has regrets on both sides of the decision. 

Understated, yet understandable, the story of Eilis is the story of us all, growing up, making decisions, living with the consequences and deciding our own futures. The only complaints were some fairly plodding points in the story that got a little boring, and the fact that nothing ever seems to really happen to Eilis. The lack of drama makes it realistic, but sometimes a bit tedious.

3.75/5 Stars.