The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

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I want to start out by saying this is one of my favorite books!  I LOVED it!

Now - you can decide if you want to continue to read this to see why, or if you just want to go out and find the book to experience it on your own.  Your choice - but I would recommend one or the other!!

This is the story of a journey by a rumpled, stoic, retired, non-starter named Harold Fry.  In the first pages he receives a letter from a woman - Queenie Hennessy to thank him for his friendship and to tell him she is dying.

Harold rushes to write a reply and tells his wife he is going to the mailbox to send it.  But, he isn't ready to stop walking at the mailbox - so he continues across town passing postbox after postbox and at each one he feels the need to continue moving.  And that is how his 500+ mile journey to deliver his letter to Queenie in person begins.

His pilgrimage begins in a flurry of self-righteous stupidity - sounds like too many of my self-help journeys! :)  He relishes the simplicity and the ease and all the new truths surrounding him.  Then it gets hard and he must depend on the help of strangers.  Then the help of strangers becomes his new focus - he is saving them by allowing them to help him.  Then things become a bit commercialized and he looses himself in the process.  Then everything falls apart and he is left bare and old and withered and the journey is still in front of him.

And when he arrives at the end of his journey...then what...

This is a story of a man and his marriage and his son and his mother and father and the life that he has so carefully created in a very English way.  This is the story of what happens when you dare to step aside and really feel what is around you.

I dearly loved Harold - but honestly I loved Maureen, his wife, every bit as much.  Maureen must watch and wait and remember and choose to live.  Her pilgrimage takes place in her small cottage while she cleans and disinfects and eventually takes down the net curtains and lets the sun into the 'best room.'

Please read this!!!

Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler

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I haven't read an Anne Tyler for a while, so I anticipated this vacation read and it didn't let me down!

When I read Tyler I am struck by the ordinariness of the world she creates.  It makes me want to open my eyes wider and look around at my own life and see what is happening!

The irony is that Liam, the main character in this story, is utterly unable to notice the world around him. He has recently been let go at the school where he was teaching 5th grade, he should have complained that he had seniority, but why bother.  Because of his shrinking salary he moved to a much smaller and less desirable apartment, and the first night he spends in this new apartment he is attacked by a thief and wakes in the hospital.

When he awakes, he remembers nothing of the attack.  Because he can't remember the events that brought him to the hospital he is utterly fixated on his memory loss.  Fixated in a way that he has not experienced before.  The reader finds that out as his ex-wife and three daughters enter his hospital room and his apartment and his life.  Liam was clearly not a part of their lives - at least not on purpose!

And so this story follows Liam as he 'wakes' up to mess he has created by not being present even when he was.

I loved this book.

I love the way Tyler creates her characters. I have a feeling I would not really like Liam if I were to meet him in my work.  But on the pages, it is completely different!

Instead,  I loved the way Liam relished in his aloneness until he was really alone and in that moment he understood what he had missed. I loved the relationship that he created with Eunice Dunstead, a professional rememberer.  And I loved his relationships with his daughters - each one completely different and yet quite the same.

This is a quiet book about a huge event.  And I loved it!!

Sweetest Hallelujah by Elaine Hussey

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Racism in the south is like another character in this story of love and two women- one white and the other black.  But calling it a story of love makes it sound sappy and predictable - and that is to short change it.  This is a story of worlds crashing and reshaping in the midst of deep heart break!  A story of strength and frailty.

Betty Jewel is a washed up jazz singer who burned brightly with Saint a famous trumpeter. But drugs and fame soured everything and Betty Jewel fled from her marriage to Shakerag, Mississippi to be with her mama and raise her daughter. In a last ditch effort to save that daughter, she takes out an ad in the local paper looking for someone to adopt her girl after she passes from cancer.

Cassie is the lily white widow of a much beloved local coach. Since his death she has floundered her way through life barely living and depending on her job at the local newspaper to keep her going. She notices the ad and decides it would make a wonderful human interest story.

And thus the worlds crash.

But - this is not a touchy feely feel good story.

At the heart of this story is a 10 year old girl who will soon be without a mama.  Billie, who sneaks around listening at keyholes, can not imagine a life without her mama - unless she is able to find her papa - Saint - and life with him.

Laid across the top of this story is the busted history of Jim Crow laws and lynchings in the south.

There were times this felt like a different version of The Help.  But, Betty Jewel and Cassie are not merely telling a story  - they are living it.  Their lives are interwoven in a way that the south can not rip apart.

I really liked this book.  I especially liked Billie. After teaching 10 year olds all those years - I felt like I knew her innocent and bare face.  Her bravado and her depth of pain were real to me!  The fantasies that she creates and believes in even while she knowing they can't be real - rang true!

I would recommend this!!

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

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This story wheels us back to the 1950s and the East End of London.  Through a memoir of her time as a midwife, Worth introduces us to the perils and joys of life in a nunnery helping deliver babies in the poor parts of London - a London still rebuilding after WWII.  The homes are teaming with children and laundry and mothers and the docks are swarming with hard working men. Worth is not a nun - but rather a nurse focusing on midwifery. And Nonnus house is the perfect place to learn.

The chapters tell the stories of a wide variety of families  - including one where mom only speaks Spanish and dad English. They have clearly figured out how to make it work - they have 25 children.  The youngest is a baby born so premature he only weighed 1 and 1/2 pounds - at home - and he survived!

I am not always a fan of memoirs - they sometimes meander across the years backward and forward more like a conversation than a story. This one behaved itself!  I felt like I had a front row seat at a time of life that I am rather happy not to have lived through!

I want to be sure to watch the PBS adaptation!

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

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June is the youngest of two sisters. Her older sister, Greta, is the high school sweetheart, the beauty, the actress, the poised one...and then there is June Elbus. At least that is the way June sees herself - as the 'other' Elbus sister.

But, June has a couple of secret passions - imagining that she can roll back time to the dark ages and her uncle Finn.  Unfortunately, both of these passions are rather impossible.  Finn has Aids and well, time travel is frowned on.

Brunt guides the reader onto a back and forth Playland ride between June's current reality and moments with Finn in and around New York.  Some of her moments were shared with Greta as Finn, a famous artist, painted their portrait on the last of his Sundays.  Other moments were precious memories of time alone with Finn - at the Cloisters, listening to Requiem, wandering around Finn's New York.

And then Finn dies.

In the weeks that follow June's life changes as she meets and becomes friends with Finn's 'murderer', Toby - his partner.  June's mom had threatened to cut off all ties between Finn and the girls if he whispered a hint of his partner to them - Toby is a complete stranger.  So, when Toby delivers an odd package with a cryptic note to June it is the first she knows anything of this other half of Finn's life.  As June figures out what to do with this growing friendship her relationship with Greta becomes more and more fractured - until it all comes to a head one stormy night.

This is a story of growing up - of learning hard truths about the ones you love and making the decision to accept that imperfection or reject it.  It is a story of the cords that bind families together and sometimes smother them. It is a story of the hard reality of Aids and one young girl's fight to keep fear and pain at bay.  It is a story of moving from the passions of our imagination to the realities of our own lives.

I loved this book!  I cried and laughed and hurt and remembered.  I remembered those last few moments of childhood before I understood that the world may not be the one that I dreamed it would be.

Read it!!

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

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This is book three in the Divergent Series.  As with most series - I forgot stuff...it has been a while since I read the first two books and this one picks up moments after #2 ends. I have said it before - but my pet peeve with series is that they don't give you a reminder appendix for those of us who have some time between books!! It is fine when you are reading them one after another -but when you are reading them as they are written it is a bit of an issue.

Anyway - that is not the point of this post.
The point is that this is an interesting ending for this series.  This is a future view of Chicago - a city that has been created with 4 divergent factions. Each faction focuses on a different aspect of life - truth telling, fearlessness, selflessness, and growing things.  Children choose which faction they will belong to at the age of 16 and all ties with their family are broken if they choose a different faction.

Tris and Four are the main characters. They have both left their families and joined the Dauntless faction - the fearless one. In the first two books they slowly grow toward one another when the factions begin to fray. You see if you fail at faction activities in the one you have chosen you become 'factionless.'  Book two - Insurgent - is all about the revolt of the factionless to over throw the factions.

Allegiant begins after the overthrow. I can't say a lot about what happens - because it will take away from the book.

But I can say that the relationship between Tris and Four continues to grow.  There is an interesting passage that I actually read out loud to my husband on our 30th anniversary. Yes - you read that correctly - I quoted from a young adult book for our anniversary!

Here is the situation...
Tris has been betrayed by Four - at least that is how she feels. They have a major disagreement and both feel very strongly about the decisions they made.  It is at that point that Tris realizes...

     "I used to think that when people fell in love, they landed where they landed, and they had no choice in the matter afterward.  And maybe that's true of beginnings, but it's not true of this, now.
     I fell in love with him.  But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me.  I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other.  I choose him over and over and over again, and he chooses me." (372)

That is what our young people need to hear...love is a daily choice - it's not easy, but it is the most important thing each and every day! And it is that understanding that builds a 30 year marriage...we choose each other every single day!

Thanks Veronica Roth for a great series!  I would recommend them to anyone!!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

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I have certain holes in my reading background. That may seem a bit odd - since I have been a pretty active reader for most of my life, and a teacher librarian in a past life.  But - I grew up in an elementary without a library.  I visited the public library often - but I didn't have anyone suggesting books for me - so I fell into a pretty shallow rut.  By the time I got to Jr. High I was more interested in romances.  My high school reading career consisted of all basal readers. I never read a novel in a class until college.

All of that is a sort of excuse for the fact that I have never read Ender's Game  - until now.  I have heard about this book for years and I knew I would get around to reading it sometime. I have always enjoyed science fiction - so that wasn't the reason I haven't read it.

Then about a month ago I walked out of the HS library talking to a student. I asked about his favorite book and he said that Ender's Game was the best book ever written. Pretty high praise!  I went home and ordered it from Amazon immediately.  When I heard it would become a movie that spurred me to read it before allowing myself to see it!

And what did I think?

I liked Ender.  I used to teach elementary kids and I could see them in Ender.  I felt sorry for his isolation and his destiny and his understanding of his fate.  I felt sorry for the way he was manipulated and cheered as he attempted to break the rules to fit his desire.  But, even in that he was a pawn.

That was what I didn't like. Maybe it is because I've read too many YA books - but I am a bit tired of the 'stupid adult' syndrome.  This syndrome takes a twist in this book because the adults are more than just stupid - their seeming omnipotent knowledge just proved them even more impotent.  I got tired of that. They were always the bad guys - from Ender's parents to all the 'teachers'.  I am not a fan of that philosophy.

And then there was the game.  But which game is really Ender's?  He is involved in numerous games. And Card drew those out in minute details.  Until near the end and suddenly time sped up and the final scenes of the game were over in a flash of description though they took many years to actually play out.  I am not a fan of that technique either.

So - I am glad I read this.  But, I would not be able to agree with that high school student's praise.  It was enjoyable and thought provoking and an important book to have in your reading knowledge bin.  But, not one of my favorites.