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.
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.
I'm choosing lately to go back to authors I trust and I know Lisa Genova is going to lay it all out for me on these terrible heartbreaking diseases in a way that makes me really understand not just the science but the humanity.In Inside the O'Briens, Boston police officer Joe O'Brien begins having irrational outbursts of anger in his late 30s. Pop forward to his early forties and Joe is having a few issues with involuntary movements. A toe that is tapping too much and without Joe really wanting it to. Joe is doing his best to ignore it, but his four kids, all in their early twenties, and his wife, Rosie, are having trouble ignoring it. Finally, Joe's best friend and fellow police officer, and his wife intervene to have him checked out. He's then confronted with the diagnosis. Huntington's Disease. A cruel chromosomal extension of a particular gene that causes symptoms that are an unfair mix of Parkinsons, Alzheimers, and ALS. And with four kids, each child has a 50/50 chance of inheriting this gene. So now the mom inside me is reeling as I think about Rosie and having to look at her four children, J.J., Megan, Katie, and Patrick and wonder what awaits them. There is no cure for HD. And a diagnosis means debilitating symptoms leading ultimately to death. J.J., whose wife is newly pregnant, is the first to get tested. Then Megan, then Katie. Patrick prefers not to know. And we all wait with them as they find out their fate. But the great and truly wonderful thing about Genova's writing, is that she lets these characters be themselves. She lets them be so flawed. Not everything in a Genova book is tied up at the end. Not everyone gets to be their own hero. Some of the characters are going to let you down. They're going to disappoint you. And that's very very real.But also, these diseases don't define the characters. The results, ultimately don't matter. Because they are all still people living with the disease, not an embodiment of the disease itself. Genova lets her characters show the human struggle of maintaining our humanity while a disease strips us of our identities. It's a remarkable thing. So I was ready for all of the above, and it still really hit hard. But then, then, Genova switched up the narration and some of the chapters come not from J0e, but from Katie. And there it was. The point of view that I hadn't considered and wasn't ready for. Because I have one sister. And if she had something like this, I'm not sure what that would do to me, to us. And when Katie and Megan have to explore this issue... well I wasn't ready. And there was a lot of ugly crying in my car in my work parking lot as I tried to put myself back together. Sister stuff. It gets me every time.
4/5 Stars.
The Year of Magical Thinking has embarrassingly been on my TBR list since it came out in 2005. So it's only fitting that my review was also so long in being finalized. It finally made it on my TBR shelf thanks to my local library used book sale and I picked it up for a solid $1. As soon as I started reading I remembered why I had been so interested in reading in the first place. To say that Joan Didion is an exceptional writer should really not have to be said, but for the uninitiated, Joan Didion and her husband John Dunne are basically literary royalty. That a personal tragedy would occur and the best way Joan could process it was to write it all out as a touching memoir is the least surprising thing that could happen. And it's fortunate for us that she decided to do this. Because there is something so poignant in the way she has shared her sorrow. She's able to put words to experiences that others can only feel. And she has access, in her brain, from all this writing to the writing of others that can succinctly say what she needs said, and there's only honor in turning to these sources when they're required. I read: "'one has only learnt to get the better of words / For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which / One is no longer disposed to say it'". YES!! My heart sang as I LITERALLY leapt out of my seat. Yes! I've felt so many things in my life that I was unable, at the time, to explain or comprehend, only later to find I could put words to the thoughts when they were no longer relevant, or no longer urgent and the time had past for saying them.Joan is able to spell out the pain and confusion and just plain heartache that comes when losing a spouse. The fog she wandered in for months afterwards feels so real and so damn relate-able, even if I can't imagine myself in a NY apartment, having the connections she had. That she was also dealing with her daughter's serious illness just compounds my deep sympathy and admiration of her courage in sharing it all on the page.
5/5 Stars.
When it comes to picking an author for Women's History Month, it just makes sense to spend some time with Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison. She's phenomenal. Her prose is smooth and if you're not careful will lull you into an odd sense of peace to only be broken by the truths she brings from the characters she brings to life. This short Novella follows brother and sister Frank and Cee Money. Frank has returned from the Korean War with wounds unseen. Having lost his two best friends, one who died right in his arms, Frank is haunted by the things he saw and the things he did during the war. What we would now call PTSD has led him to drink himself into oblivion. He seems to have found sanctuary and peace with Lily out in the Pacific Northwest. But when he receives a letter that his sister Cee "be dead" he knows he has to hurry to save her. Crossing the country has a black man in the 1950s is not easy and Frank is quickly waylaid into a mental institution. His escape and eventual arrival in Atlanta, Georgia is a master class as only Toni Morrison can present in the large and small cruelties of living in Jim Crow, segregated and overtly racist America. In the meantime, we're told that Cee left home as soon as she could, accompanied by a young man who professed love, but really had his eye on her father's car. Abandoned in Atlanta, Cee is determined to make her own life rather than return to the abusive taunts of her step-grandmother. Cee knows she needs a better job to make ends meet, so she applied to be a doctors assistant at a suburban home-office of Dr. Beau. Only, well Dr. Beau shows a little to much interest in his new assistant's anatomy and too little interest in her status as a human being. So this is how Cee becomes ill, only it's never really detailed, it doesn't need to be. One can google medical experiments of black women and find enough historical details to choke the joy from you for the day. This book is as much about Cee as it is about Frank, and their mutual healing after trauma. It's a shame that the brief descriptions offered mention Cee not at all, since her journey is just as moving. In such a short time, Toni Morrison paints a vivid and dense picture of redemptive sibling and self loves.
4/5 Stars.
There's nothing like a good airplane ride to get some pages logged. I finished American Fire shortly after touchdown in Florida. I love a good narrative non-fiction book. This one felt a little less smooth than my favorites, but I really enjoyed the subject matter.Essentially, abandoned structures start burning on the East Shore of Virginia. Accomack County has seen better days and the countryside is littered with buildings left behind when the County was. Brave crews of volunteer firefighters begin to battle the blazes and are shocked when three burn in one night. Something nefarious is going on. Hesse does not structure this like a mystery, so we know right away who the culprit is. The details of why are teased out over the course of the story. Charlie Smith, a one time volunteer firefighter and convicted felon has had a rough go of life. Seemingly below normal in IQ and decision making skills, Charlie has a recurring drug problem that leads him into trouble, but he is occasionally able to set that aside for the sake of love and a new woman. He does so about a year before the fires begin. His new flame (haha I'm punning) is Tonya Budnick, a bit of a party girl. The two of them fall in love and annoyingly have a joint facebook account. But there's a problem. Charlie suffers from crippling insecurity and he can never believe he is deserving of this woman. So he is unable to "perform" sexually. Which, combined with the couple's dwindling finances and problems with one of Tanya's children, lead to a whim one night to burn something down. So they begin.And for 66 fires, they baffle the investigative teams sent to solve the crimes. Until they are caught. While Charlie confesses right away, Tanya remains steadfast that not only was she not involved in the setting of the fires, she also was not aware Charlie set any of them. If you find that far fetched, you're not alone, so did the jury that convicted her. I liked the woven themes of an aging and declining County and the arson. It was a good read.
3 1/2 Stars.
This short book was terrifying and enlightening and in the end, somehow comforting. We are all gifted with an inherent ability to sense and react to real threats. Not the uneasy feeling we get in a little airline turbulence, but the visceral (gut) reaction we feel when we are in the presence of real danger. The Gift of Fear tells us to listen to that voice. Whether or not we listen to this feeling can be the difference between life and death. de Becker introduces many scenarios of people who have listened or not listened to this voice. And most of these scenarios are terrifying. Ask yourself, he says, what is the worst thing you can ever imagine one human could do to another? And then, he says, rest assured that that thing, that thing that you can only imagine has been done to someone somewhere in the world. And that thought sends chills through my body. Man's capacity for cruelty is only limited by the imagination. And most often the target of those limits are children. Which, is the most horrifying and unpardonable fact I have ever encountered.So, I'm glad I read this book, because keeping myself and my children safe may (hopefully not) be necessary sometime. May I never let politeness, social norms, or societal expectations override my natural instincts to react to fear.
4/5 Stars.
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.
