Song Without Words by Ann Packer

I really like Ann Packer, but there are moments that I really hate Ann Packer. She has a way of peeling back the covers we use to hide what we really are and her characters stand exposed in front of the world. It's not a pretty site, and it's absolutely beautiful!

Sarabeth and Liz grow up intertwined: best friends, neighbors, survivors. Sarabeth's mom commits suicide while Sarabeth is in high school. She moves in with Liz and her family when her dad flees the life he is left with.

Then the story speeds up to today...Sarabeth and Liz still live tangled lives. Liz is the responsible stay-at-home mom of two teens and Sarabeth has a series of 1/2 jobs and barely gets by on her bohemian lifestyle.

But - then things change...Lauren (Liz's daughter) attempts suicide...and life falls apart of one and all. Liz, who has always been the one on top, the one with it all together, the one who doesn't stumble has had her life shredded into tiny unfamiliar pieces. And she falls flat on her face.

So, Sarabeth, who's life has been a train wreck should be there to help her best friend...but she can't be. She is frozen in the hell of her own life. Hiding in a living room filled with tiny items scavenged from each relationship she has been a part of.

This isn't one of those books that is easy and fast and a true escape. No way..instead it's hard and uncomfortable and moves in spurts and stutters and is rather ugly for much of the time and then without anyone really noticing, it's better. It's life.

I waited and waited for the title to make sense.. Sarabeth comments a couple of time about the song she hears in her head. Near the end we find out that hearing the song is fine - it's when you start to hear the words that are in the song...that's when you need to be afraid! It was the words that drove Lauren to make four long cuts on one wrist and two on the other.

That gives me something to think about... me who listens to the negative voice in my head way to often...maybe I need to strain to hear the music instead! :)

The Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil

This one was for the future librarian in me. Alexander Short is an eccentric reference librarian at the NYC public library. His life is filled with call slips and odd jottings in his 'girdle' book - a book attached to his coat through a leather tab in the buttonhole. In the book he jots lists of oddities...a major oddity in itself.

Then he meets Henry James Jesson, an even odder old man. His interests lies in antiques, small spaces and a stolen watch.

He 'happens' to befriend Alexander and together they begin researching the missing watch to complete his antique compartment display.

Against Alexander's wife, Nic's, wishes he becomes more and more enmeshed in Jesson's life - to the point of moving into his house. It is there that Alexander discovers that Jesson has created the entire story and research - in his loneliness Jesson has created this elaborate scheme to gain a friend...what a loser!

Anyway - it was a book to be enjoyed by a future librarian for it's library humor - library references and library connections. Otherwise - it was not one of my favorites...a little slow, a little odd, a little too full of references to things and people I really didn't know...


one of my favorite quotes was...
"Remember library work is not science, whatever claims our profession might make. Never forget that luck and error are the handmaidens of all research." Hmmm....

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

This is not one of my favorites...really not one of my favorites.
But, there were parts that lifted it up a bit. It is the story of Helen - a truly twisted tale of a murder. Helen is telling the story of the murder of her mother - and she is the murderess. (Weird word - murderess)

Anyway - Helen's mother is an agrophobe who has slowly smothered her...or so we think. Helen's father committed suicide years earlier. Helen has carried the weight of her mother in her outlook, her relationships and her very being. Murdering her should have lifted that weight - rather she is bound to the house, the body, and the braid that hung down her mother's back.

It's a dark story and very depressing!

But - there was a standout scene - that remains with me...Helen's father cared for her mother in a loving and doting way as he dealt with his own mental illness. She didn't really understand this until he took her to see his old home. It was in a town that had been moved due to a dam and the coming flood. But, the flood didn't really happen, instead it was more of an oozing of mud and muck which kept people out and caused the houses to die a slow death for a dejected place. It was there, in that empty world, her father found solace. There he created the family and the life he really wanted. He shared that with his daughter on a summer afternoon. Her father had created wooden cutouts of family scenes in the deserted rooms of his family house, scenes depicting events from his childhood and Helen's including the siblings that Helen would never have.

That scene seems to me to be the center of this story - a woman caught in an impossible life, a life that should have changed with a whoosh as she was freed from her mother through marriage and moving. Instead she was tied to the decaying life of her mother and the scenes of an imagined world.

So - I followed Helen through the day following the death of her mother. Hoping for some sort of resolution at the end...WRONG. It just ends...it just stops. I really hate that. That in itself made me decide how much I really didn't like the book.

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

The Sleeping Beauty story with more than a couple of twists. I can't say I loved this one - there are too many self-absorbed parts. But, the message is clear once again - LOVE YOURSELF!!! That seems to be Levine's overriding theme through all the redone fairy tales.

This is the story of Aza, an adopted daughter of an innkeeper in the singing land of Ayorthera. Aza longs for beauty - instead she is trapped in a large body with pale skin, too dark hair and bright red lips.

She travels to the court to see the wedding of the king with a crochety old woman who stays at her parents' inn. It it there that Ivi, the new queen, befriends her and takes her over. She also meets Ijori the prince who she is in love with. They become fast friends.

There is a mirror that talks, beauty potions, an injured king, odd songs in front of all the kingdom and lots of betrayal. Also gnomes, poisoned apples and weddings.

So - the old fairy tale turned on it's head and remade. Better? Hmmm.... read it and see.

Brother and Sister by Joanna Trollope

This was a little slow for me...actually it was quite slow. The story revolves around Nathalie and David - adopted siblings. Nathalie has reveled in her adopted state, proudly proclaiming that she had no need to find her birth mom. Actually, she had some major connection issues and hid behind her difference - keeping others at arms length. Others including her husband. All were deemed different except David - he could really understand her problems, she thought. So, when she was ready to find her mother she assumed David, her puppy dog brother would do the same. Against David's judgement he did...

That's the premise. The story weaves between this brother and sister pair, their spouses, their adoptive parents and their birth mothers. None of the group seems really happy with the search process, much less the result. There are many disappointments - many sadnesses and many bad decisions....

Sounds like just the book for me - but for some reason I couldn't really care about these two. They both annoyed me with Nathalie's certainities and David's inability to make a decision. And their spouses were no better.

So - I slogged through this and finally can put it back on the shelf at school!!

Patty Jane's House of Curls by Lorna Landvik

Yes, this is my vacation and the way I unwind is to speed read. So, at the start of vacation I made a stack of books I hadn't got to - and I'm working down through the stack.

Lorna Landvik is another of my favorite authors - a good mid-western voice - lots of quirky characters, some heart ache, some tears both of joy and sorrow and a happy rather expected ending. Just what I need on a cold Sunday afternoon! Patty Jane didn't disappoint.

Patty Jane and her sister Harriet are the children of alcoholics - the connections between them deeper than some sisters due to this shared burden. Patty Jane falls deeply and soundly in love with Thor - gets pregnant immediately after their marriage and then Thor promptly disappears a few days before his daughter's birth. Meanwhile Harriet is swept off her tall and shapely legs by little portly Avel. Their love is deep and passionate. Avel, an older rich man leaves on a business trip in the months before their wedding and dies in a plane crash. Sound like a love story?? Or just a tale to compare your life to and come out on the winning side?

The book goes on from there. That's one of my favorite parts of Landvik's writing. Many books end as the heroine is left alone and empty -yet somehow triumphant. Landvik's story, like life, continues.

Patty Jane, Ione (Thor's mom), Nora (the daughter) and Harriet create a life for themselves in the beauty parlor attached to their house - the House of Curls. But, it's more than only a beauty parlor, they begin to offer classes on everything from the NASDAQ to art appreciation. And the women of the town respond.

Then Landvik really offers a punch - a mysterious stranger, a long lost and completely changed love and a nasty cancer death.

Again, the story continues...

Anyway, I loved it in the same way I love my ratty old sweatshirt and warm fuzzy socks. It warmed me up both on the inside and the outside - and yes I shed a couple of tears... :)

City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

This is one of those fast and furious young adult books. It's a bit predictable, but still fun.

The premise is a city that was set up underground due to some upcoming catastrophe on the topside. The city has been happily churning along for 200 years - and now things are running out and being used up and falling apart.

When the Builders created the city they left escape instructions for the mayor of the city to be passed down from generation to generation - unfortunately, that didn't quite happen. Now noone in the city is aware there was a before, an above ground, another way of life.

Enter two kids - 12 year olds just graduating from school. On their final day of school each school child draws a job which they will do for the next 3 years. These important jobs keep the city running. Lina is made messenger and Doon begins his work with the pipeworks.

Lina loves running but dreams of another city - one of light and color and tall buildings. Doon has a sense that he is supposed to do something important to help the city - which he sees falling apart in front of his eyes. Then Lina discovers a secret - the secret of escaping Ember. No one will believe her or Doon when he discovers the Mayor is stealing from the underground stores. The two are labeled as problems.

Together they take off to try to find the way out.

From the pictures included in this movie edition of the book - Hollywood has done it again. The story thousands will see on the screen is not the same as the one I read on the pages of the book. Are we surprised???

I would recommend this to any kiddo or adult ready for a quick and easy adventure.