The American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Hmmm.....
I starting reading this book with no preconcieved notions...it wasn't until after I finished that I read the reviews and the connections to Laura Bush. I even missed the disclaimer in the first page. I'm not slow or anything - I realized who the story was about - but I didn't understand that this was REALLY about Laura.

I have never been a fan of George Bush - not his politics or his demeanor. But, I believed that there must be more to him than we saw...because I really like Laura. She seemed to have it all. She was a librarian after all!! So he couldn't be all bad...he just couldn't be.

Then I read this book.

Now - I don't know.

I really liked the first sections. I liked the story. I felt for the difficulties of Alice's life. I appreciated her craving for quiet and peace. I also respected her choice of Charlie. He was what she wasn't. All that was easy and free in him was contained and uncomfortable in her. They were a perfect compliment.

But things changed. It is sort of like the picture on the cover. What a horrible choice for a cover photo. Alice is unpretentious and almost plain - and here is this headless torso in lace and gloves. Her wedding dress was described by her mother-in-law as peasanty. Clearly this isn't that Alice. Instead it's what she morphs into later...

That brings us to the last section - which I did not like at all. It felt like a big sloppy justification. The long monologues about why things were the way they were just annoyed me. It was as if Alice had forgotten things she had said earlier...like her feeling that Charlie explaining that he wanted his life to matter showed that it might not matter. Now Alice was caught in that same cycle.

I wanted to shake Alice and shout...you're his wife - why don't you talk to him??? How can you let him be such a jerk! How can you think that it's endearing??? How can you forget who you are?

This book made me not like Laura as much.

This story annoyed me like so many other "based on facts" stories do...I constantly wondered which details of Laura's life match Alice's and I'm not sure if I really want to know. I would rather watch her from afar. And keep liking her and disliking her husband. After all, my Fellowship in the library program is courtesy of Laura.

So - what's the bottom line? As a novel, I found the first sections interesting and endearing. I found the last section annoying - and I found myself skimming to find the thread of the story again.

Percy Jackson and the Olympiads; Books 4 & 5

I just finished the last two books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympiads series. These are stories filled with battles...as Kronos the father of the gods is reconstituted with the help of Luke the traitor, Percy and Annabeth must battle first in a shifting labyrinth and later in the Empire State Building to save the known w

I liked these - but they were actually a bit more predictable than the earlier books. They were more driven by the action of battle than by the characters inside.

There were some interesting scenes though...
Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the odd mortal girl who can see through the mist.
Nico, the son of Hades, calling up a skeleton army and playing catch with a
hell hound
Annabeth and Percy finding the center of the labyrinth to be a modern day
labratory rather than an ancient dungeon

But, I think my favorite part is when Percy is chatting with Hestia, the goddess of the hearth. She is reminding him of the reasons people fight...to protect hearth and home. It was in that scene the Percy seems to grow up - to realize that this battle is real and he needs to focus on what is at stake.

Anyway - these are fun books filled with monsters, myths and lots of fighting! So - I of course loved them!!

Percy Jackson and the Olympiads; Books 1 - 3

It's time for me to start reading for my next life...Middle school and High school library!

At the last of my classes I asked current librarians for some suggestions to get me started. This is one series they suggested. There are 5 books in the series and I've read the first 3 and really enjoyed them.

The story is about Percy Jackson, a typical ADD kid with dyslexia who seems to have a special talent for getting thrown out of schools. In the Lightening Thief he discovers who he really is. In an odd fight at the Museum of Natural History in NYC he kills his math teacher, who has turned into some kind of a flying bird/woman, with a pen his English teacher gives him. The pen magically turns into a sword that he somehow knows how to use.

After this incident he is whisked away to a summer camp like none other. It is the camp for the children of the gods. Each child has one parent who is Greek god from Mt. Olympiad. Some the kids haven't been claimed, like Percy. But during a to the death capture the flag, Neptune, the god of the sea, claims Percy.


Each of the next books takes Percy on some type of life threatening quest. It seems there is some prophecy that one of the children of the 3 most major gods, Zeus, Neptune and the god of the dead, will make a decision on their 16th birthday which will be the downfall of Mt. Olympus and the gods. Percy is thought to be that child. So the Titans, those who controlled the world before the gods, want to get him on their side and work to overthrow the current rulers.

So, if you are interested in Greek mythology and adventure - this is a great series. I really don't know much about mythology. I've read bits and pieces of the stories, but these books make them come to life. All the stories are interrelated and depend on one another. It sort of reminds me of the dirty laundry that is aired on Desperate Housewives - who is involved with whom and all the damage and the problems that happen because of that.

Even Percy's life. The big 3 gods had taken a vow after WWII not to have anymore children with mortals. But, each of them does. (It was their quarreling and their children's power hungry ways that started WWII.)

I have really enjoyed these and look forward to finishing the series soon!

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

This is a depressing book and one that I really didn't want to read, and couldn't really stop.

The story flows from the everyday life of Ishmael in Sierra Leone. He is a young boy infatuated with rap music and the 'gangsta' world of hip hop. Then his childhood ends as the rebels take over the village where he lives. He is separated from his parents and all he knew ended.

I couldn't help but wonder how the children in my life would react. We live in a world of conveniences and ease. Ishmael lived in a world of story and family and love and hard work. As the story began he and his friends were walking 16 miles to a larger town to take part in a talent show. They never made it back to the home they left.

IC is 16 miles away...as I read I imagined children raoming the countryside between here and IC. Wandering around starved and searching for family and food. And finding only death.

The story is told in Ishmael's 10 year old voice. Through the yearnings to belong and be something. It is a told as a story - moving through a shady timeline. Weaving through the images and the happenings of the next several months. And they are awful...he must constantly kep away from the rebels and slowly make his way to the army. Yet that doesn't solve things either...

So, I kept reading - through the blood shed and the heartache. Knowing there must be a redemption...I found one. Ishmael was rescued. Against his better wishes he was sent away from the army into the arms of aid workers. These workers helped to rehabilitate him and reunite him with his uncle.

So - you breathe a sigh of relief. You relax. But, just like any horror movie, it isn't really over. The war finds them in the capital of Sierra Leone - his uncle dies and Ishmael just escape again.

I finished the book, I am glad I read it. And I understand why the images were necessary. But, that doesn't make me like what I read.

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

Wow! This is one of those books that begs you to not stop reading. I read late into the night and then stopped. I wanted to savor the last couple hundred pages. I was not disappointed!

This is a story of a mother and the decisions that she must make in an impossible time. Anna is the privileged German daughter of a wealthy and horrible man. She falls desperately in love with a Jewish doctor at the start of WWII. When the SS come to get Max she hides him in her home. It is here that she conceives her daughter.

Her father turns Max in and he is taken to Buchenwald, the camp near the town of Weimar where they live. Anna leaves her father's home and end up at the bakery run by a large woman with sympathies toward the Jews.

So, the next phase of Anna's life begins. After the birth of Trudy, she becomes the baker's apprentice. This continues until the baker make a fateful decision and Anna is left alone with Trudy. As she waits for her fate, a tall man with pale eyes and very small feet appears at the door. He is the head of the camp and he wants Anna for his mistress. Her choice...life or death.

The decisions made in the next several years never really leave Anna. The story moves between a modern day Trudy, searching for ways to deal with her silent elderly mother and the lives they lived through the war.

Trudy grows up knowing nothing of her history but for a small picture of her and her mother and a Nazi officer hidden in the depths of her mothers dresser drawers. Her mother refuses to say anything about their lives before being saved by Jack, the tall American.

It is through a research study on the lives of Germans during the war, that Trudy meets a man who knew her mother.

This is one of those stories that is filled with unanswered questions...why... what would I have done... is it ok...is survival worth it...

It reminds me of the Commadant's Girl and the Diplomat's Wife. Yet, it has it's own place. It is not the story of those living through the atrocities, but how those decisions continue to change the lives of the next generation. The war has ended, but the shame and the pain and the secrets continue.

I would strongly recommend this story!!! It would be another good discussion starter!

An Elegant Gathering of White Snows by Kris Radish

I feel like I've very unelegantly slogged through those snows from the title. The premise of this book is wonderful...eight women have been gathering at different houses to connect with one another's lives. Then following a late night session when Sandy, a 40 year old admits that she is pregnant with her lover's baby, the group decides to start walking.

And that they do... they walk out the front door and into the media frenzy that centers on them.

But, because they are in rural Wisconsin, the police and the people respect their need for privacy and keep the media hounds and the curious and the nosy and the deranged away from them and allow them to walk... just to walk. Their identities are never revealed, they are never interviewed or photographed. They simply walk.

Sounds good doesn't it! As they walk they tell their stories, they cry and they laugh and they love and they heal and they gather the strength to change their lives. To face the past and to take a new step.

As the story of the walk unfolds there are the stories of the walkers told in their own voice. It makes you understand why it is they are on the walk. There are also snippets of those sent to watch the walkers, reporters, and police. And there are tales of women who gain the courage to change their lives due to the imagined courage of the walkers.

This is the kind of book I really like. I even wrote down a quote...
"But I have learned in these days to stop lingering on what could have been and to simply to head to what I need now." It totally spoke to me...

BUT I HATE THIS BOOK! The writing is awful. I kept slogging and slogging through needless description, ridiculuos personal preaching, political blahing and cliche after cliche. Radish is a columnist - she must have an amazing editor - because this book was just crying out for a red pen.

I never react this way.. The story was so good - but there is no way I can recommend this because it's just too painful to try to read....

Shucks!!!