Everyday I Write the Book

ME BEFORE YOU by Jojo Moyes

April 1, 2013 – 11:34 pm

I got an ARC of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes quite a while ago – December – but it has gotten so much good buzz in the book blogosphere that I bumped it up the endless and slow moving TBR list earlier this month and gave it a try. Me Before You is about an unlikely pair in England – Will, a thirty-five year old Master of the Universe who gets hit by a car, rendering him a paraplegic, and Louisa, the underachieving working-class woman who takes a job out of desperation to be his daytime companion. At first, these two have absolutely nothing in common, and don’t even like each other. But Louisa and Will eventually learn to live with each other, and their relationship grows into something much deeper.

Me Before You is a beautifully paced book. Will and Louisa’s relationship grows so gradually and naturally that it is completely believable. This is no Hollywood rom com – these are two people for whom a future is very unlikely. Yet their interactions are vibrant and convincing, making these two come alive within the pages of Me Before You and establishing Will and Lou as one of the more memorable pairs I have come across in fiction.

It’s also a very thoughtful book that takes on the tough questions surrounding euthanasia. Does someone who desires to end his life owe it to those who love him to keep on living? How is quality of life measured – and should it be? Can expectations be altered so drastically that the unthinkable can become acceptable? Those trying to keep Will focused on a positive future – Lou, Will’s parents – come into deep conflict with Will’s desperation to escape his predicament – and Moyes keeps her readers guessing how it will resolve until the very end.

Me Before You isn’t a perfect book. The book is narrated entirely by Lou, with the exception of three brief chapters that are narrated by other characters, apparently to convey perspective and events that would be impossible in Lou’s voice. This seemed kind of lazy to me – surely there are other plot devices that could have accomplished the same without resorting to a brief – and jarring – narration change. There were also a few places where Moyes was needlessly unsubtle. I wish she had given her readers more credit and trusted that they could connect a few dots without her drawing the line for them.

But those are minor quibbles. Me Before You is a very worthwhile read – it manages to be enjoyable, heartbreaking, and provocative at the same time. I think it will stay with me for a long time.

Tags euthanasia, Jojo Moyes, Me Before You, paralpegic | Permalink | Comments (4)

General

Book Updates

March 30, 2013 – 11:15 pm

I am here! I am still reading, just not blogging as much these days due to not finishing as many books! But here’s a bookish update, even if I don’t have a review to post yet.

Amazon and Goodreads, huh? Makes sense for Amazon, but I can’t be totally happy about it, because 1) I fear that this will further hurt the indies; and 2) I have heard that a lot of people are cancelling their accounts because of 1). I will keep an open mind but also I am worried that Amazon will affect the spirit of Goodreads… I am not totally anti-Amazon, but I am a staunch supporter of the indies. I’m torn.
I am enjoying my current read – Me Before You by JoJo Moyes- quite a bit. And I just started an audiobook – A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash – which is one of the best audio productions I’ve ever listened to. It’s like listening to a play.
I gave The Red House by Mark Haddon a try on audio as well. It’s a book told by eight different perspectives, with one narrator. The perspective changes every few paragraphs, which is very hard to follow on audio. I am switching over to the paper version.
My twin daughters are reading one my all-time favorite books from childhood – The Westing Game. It is so much fun talking about it with them and re-experiencing it.
Jennifer Close has a new book coming out! I loved Girls in White Dresses, so I am looking forward to getting The Smart One too. ARC is on its way…
Only 2 months to BEA!

OK, I am on vacation for a few days so hopefully I will get some reading in. Back soon!

Permalink | Comments (6)

Fiction

THE GRIEF OF OTHERS by Leah Hager Cohen

March 16, 2013 – 11:24 pm

Have I possibly reached my limit of domestic fiction?

I’ve had The Grief of Others by Leah Hager Cohen on my TBR list for a while. It is about short period of time in the life of a family in crisis (surprise!) – The Ryries. Mom Ricky, dad John, and kids Paul and Biscuit (Elizabeth) – have suffered a terrible loss: the death of their baby brother Simon 57 hours after his birth. It is almost a year later, and the family is each dealing with this loss in his or her own private way. Ricky is distant and ignoring her other children, while John is trying to hold things together and simmering with anger at never having been allowed to hold his son. Biscuit is privately studying funeral traditions from other cultures, trying to understand how to remember and honor the brother she never got to know, and Paul is facing bullying at school and not confiding in anyone.

These four souls are careening, spiraling away from each other at the time when they need each other the most. Cohen includes a lot of flashbacks to times when Ricky and John’s marriage was stronger, when Ricky was happier and a more attentive mother. So we know that there is a strong foundation, but it is at risk.

The Ryries’ savior arrives in the form of an unexpected visitor: Jess, John’s daughter from a brief relationship in his 20s, who appears on the Ryries’ doorstep, pregnant. She and John have almost no relationship and haven’t seen each other in a decade, yet it is to the Ryries she flees when she finds herself unexpectedly expecting. Jess’ impact on the family is immediate and dramatic. Ricky accommodates and supports Jess, in part because doing so helps exonerate past transgressions against John, and in part because it allows her to channel her grief into hope for this new baby. The kids have their own unique relationships with Jess (who at least is paying attention to them), and John doesn’t know what to do with his grown, unfamiliar daughter. Yet her presence helps force the four to confront, as a family, what they’ve lost.

The Grief of Others is a good book – well-written and compelling (with the most devastating opening pages I’ve ever read – wow!) – but it left me sort of cold. I was certainly sad for this family, but Cohen’s minute, scorched-earth analysis of Ricky and John’s relationship was too much even for me. Too much detail, too much introspection. Not a lot actually happens in this book; there is a lot of going over old events and dissecting them from multiple angles. In the end, I found it all a little tedious. (I listened to this one on audio and that may have made it worse, because audiobooks are slower.)

The narration of the audio of The Grief of Others is overall pretty good, though the narrator’s voice sounds quite a bit older at times than the character she is voicing, which was jarring. But she is sympathetic and non-judgmental of these flawed characters.

Overall, I enjoyed The Grief of Others, but when I reached the end, I felt overly drained. Am I ready for a break from the tragedies of everyday families? Or was this one particularly difficult to get through? Time will tell.

Tags leah hager cohen, pam ward, the grief of others | Permalink | Comments (2)

Childrens Fiction

THE CANDYMAKERS by Wendy Mass

March 13, 2013 – 10:45 pm

For months now, my 8 year-old daughter has hounded me to read her favorite book – The Candymakers by Wendy Mass. She is a huge fan of Mass, an author of tween and teen books, and has read probably eight of Mass’ books so far. The Candymakers, which she read over the summer, was her favorite, and she has been talking about it ever since.

As a book blogger with a day job and a baby, my reading time is precious and limited. So I resisted her request, always putting another book in front of The Candymakers in the TBR pile. “Why should I read a 450-page kids’ book when I have all these adult books to get to and an adult readership on EDIWTB?”, I thought. Well, about a month ago she started a full court press. Every night before going to bed, she’d leave me a note telling me to read The Candymakers. Here is a selection of her notes:

Well, guilt got the better of me after a week of these notes, and I started The Candymakers. Turns out, it’s a pretty good book! It’s about a candy factory, run by the Candymaker and his wife, and a annual contest for kids under the age of 13 to create the best new candy. Contestants come from different regions and use their local candy factory to concoct their creations. Four kids are competing at the Candymaker’s factory – a snobby boy, a boy who carries a weird backpack and has all sorts of strange superstitions, a girl who seems too nice, talented and perfect to be true, and the Candymaker’s son, who has his own baggage to contend with.

The book is told through the different perspectives of each kid, and over the course of the book, we get to the bottom of the challenges that each kid faces and how they overcome them. There’s a mystery to solve, a lot of secrets to uncover, and a wonderfully imaginative setting that brings to mind a less sinister Willy Wonka factory. There are plenty of adult themes here too – loyalty, accepting physical deformities, parental acceptance, and teamwork. It’s also a freshly current tale, which kids today won’t dismiss as old-fashioned or corny.

So I recommend The Candymakers, for kids especially but for adults too who want to check in with what the tweeners are reading these days. I posted recently on Facebook about my daughter’s challenge to me, and several friends commented that their daughters were big Wendy Mass fans too. Definitely a writer to keep an eye on.

And now, a short interview with my daughter about why she liked the book so much.

Q: You read a lot of books. Why is The Candymakers your favorite book?

A: It’s interesting. I like the different perspectives. It’s fun to read.

Q: Who is your favorite character?

A: Daisy. I like her background.

Q: Would you ever want to be a spy?

A: Probably not. It might be really hard to do missions.

Q: What do you like about Wendy Mass as an author?

A: She’s really creative and her books are really fun to read.

Q: Any other Wendy Mass books you’d especially recommend?

A: A Mango Shaped Space, Every Soul a Star

Q: If The Candymakers were made into a movie, would you see it?

A: Yes! I’d like to see Emma Watson as Daisy.

Tags The Candymakers, Wendy Mass | Permalink | Comments (7)

Guest Posts Memoir Non-Fiction

Guest Review: SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED by Anne Lamott

February 21, 2013 – 10:10 pm

You know how when some bloggers go on vacation or maternity leave, they line up guest posts so that their blog won’t go dark during that whole time? Well, I’m neither on leave nor on vacation, but this blog has been darker than I’d like these last few weeks. Thank you to Nancy Shohet West for sending me a guest review for EDIWTB to help brighten things up!

Here is Nancy’s review of Some Assembly Required by Anne Lamott:

Back when my friends and I were in that typical early-30′s phase of either trying to conceive, going through pregnancy, or at the very least contemplating our proximity to one of the aforementioned categories, Anne Lamott’s newly published memoir of single parenting, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, was all the rage. Many of us were already big fans of her novels and essays, and we devoured her poignant, brutally honest, sometimes painful and often humorous account of deciding to become a first-time mother at the age of 36.

So I imagine I’m not the only reader who did a double take last year when I glimpsed the headline of the book review stating that Anne Lamott had just published a memoir of grandparenting. Sure, Baby Sam Lamott has made recurring appearances in his mother’s published essays throughout the years as he progressed through the adventures and phases of boyhood and adolescence. But fatherhood? Has time really passed so quickly that the infant from Operating Instructions is old enough to be a father?

Well, yes…. and no. And therein lies the hook of Lamott’s newest memoir, Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son (the title itself deserves a prize for cleverness, in my opinion). Indeed, not so very many years have gone by at all since the first book: Sam became a father at age 19; his sort-of girlfriend Amy was 20 at the time. He was an art student living on his mother’s dime in a San Francisco studio apartment; she was a cosmetologist receiving support from her own parents; their relationship pre-baby was mercurial. And as just about everyone likely to pick up this memoir knows, new babies are not known for making tempestuous relationships get easier.

But the elder Lamott tells the story of her grandson’s infancy and first year with the same admirable candor that marked her own memoir of parenthood. Back then, those who liked the book — not everyone did — celebrated her rough-edged honesty about both the magical and the abhorrent aspects of coping under difficult circumstances with a new life; the good news is that Lamott hasn’t changed much. She still worries about the health, well-being, and financial viability of a new infant — while also adoring him for his beauty, innocence, and perfection; and she still draws heavily upon a network of friends and faith community to help her through the hard times, only this time it’s with her grandson rather than her son.

Yes, she’s still the same funny, anxiety-prone, insecure, mystical Anne Lamott that she was twenty years ago, and this is both the good news and the bad news. Those of us who savor her blend of casual, profane and profound insights into life will find her unchanged… and yet once in a while I was tempted to implore, “You’re a 56-year-old best-selling internationally renowned author! Can’t you shed just a little of the insecurity and self-doubt?”

But she can’t, because that’s who she is and who she has always been. She’s been willing to share that with us for the past three decades, and now, with the new challenge of being a good grandmother, mother-to-an-adult-child, and pseudo-mother-in-law (the status of Amy and Sam’s relationship remains tenuous throughout the book; for the curious, Google makes it easy enough to find out what has happened with them in the two years since the book ended), she’s still sharing. She dotes; she frets; she loves; she questions; she prays. Yes, Anne Lamott is a flawed, imperfect work-in-progress… as we all are, and as she would be the first to tell us about herself.

Tags anne lamott, guest post, Nancy Shohet West, operating instructions, some assembly required | Permalink | Comment (1)

Fiction

SATURDAY by Ian McEwan

February 18, 2013 – 11:14 pm

Saturday by Ian McEwan is one of those books that I’ve seen around forever and thought I should read, but just hadn’t gotten to. I loved Atonement – it’s one of my top 5 favorite books of all time – and I thought On Chesil Beach was kind of odd (reviewed here in 2007), but that was the extent of my McEwan library. So when I found Saturday on audio at the library, I thought I’d give it a try.

I found the experience of reading Saturday to be frustratingly inconsistent. I was alternately blown away by McEwan’s brilliant writing, and bored by too much detail, and frustrated with the self-satisfaction of Saturday‘s main character, neurosurgeon Henry Perowne – sometimes circling through these reactions within a single page. I loved this book at times, and other times I rolled my eyes at it.

Saturday takes place over one day in Perowne’s post-9/11 London life. It’s a Saturday, and he wakes up in the middle of the night, looks out the window, and sees a plane on fire coming in for a landing at Heathrow. That flight immediately conjures fears of the worst-case scenario in Perowne, who has become conditioned to a life accepting the inevitability of terrorism. Eventually, the truth behind the burning plane is revealed (not terrorism), and Perowne sets about his day – playing squash with a colleague, visiting his mother, who has dementia, preparing for the arrival of his daughter and father-in-law from out of town, and attending his son’s band practice. The one thing that doesn’t go according to plan is the minor car accident he gets into en route to the gym. The ensuing interchange with the driver of the other car is unsettling, and proves to have consequences for Henry and his family later in the day.

Henry’s life is a good one. He is an accomplished surgeon who saves lives through intricate handiwork. His marriage is strong and fulfilling. His children are gifted and attractive, and he is blessed with material wealth. Yadda yadda yadda. I got sort of tired of this – his faux humility edged with smugness and constant reminders about how wonderful his children and wife were. Even the curveball he is thrown at the end of the day – a scary one, to be sure – gives Henry a chance to shine and show what a magnanimous guy he is.

Yawn.

My other complaint is that there were times when McEwan just went overboard on the detail. The squash game, his son’s blues band’s rehearsal – I really didn’t care about the minutiae. Then again, I enjoyed the description of the neurosurgery, so maybe it’s a matter of personal interests. So some passages made me want to skip ahead, while others were deliciously meaty and rich.

And my god McEwan is insightful. There’s a passage at the end when Henry projects into the future, how his life will slide from middle age into years of progressive inactivity and distance from his current routine, which was incredibly poignant. And his descriptions of post-9/11 life – seeing our lives through the prism of Islamic militants – swiftly conjured up the early 200s for me.

So Saturday was a mixed bag for me. High highs and low lows. I am certainly glad I read it, and will pursue McEwan again, I’m sure. But this one wasn’t a home run for me.

I listened to Saturday almost entirely on audio. The audio was very good – decent narrator, good British accent. I wish he’d talked a little faster – lots of needlessly long pauses between sentences. But it was a good audiobook.

Tags 9/11, atonement, Ian McEwan, saturday | Permalink | Comments (8)

Fiction Short Stories

NEWS FROM HEAVEN by Jennifer Haigh

February 16, 2013 – 5:15 pm

A new book out from Jennifer Haigh is always cause for celebration here at EDIWTB. I think she has become my favorite contemporary author. Her books are rich, layered stories, usually about families, told in a distinctive gentle, quiet tone that immediately sucks me in and keeps me reading to the last page. There is always sadness and loss in her books, but they aren’t depressing. Instead, they are realistic portrayals of the ups and downs of life, and the myriad disappointments, secrets, thrills and dreams that make up our individual histories.

News From Heaven: The Bakerton Stories, which just came out two weeks ago, is a collection of stories that extend the post-war Pennsylvania mining town world Haigh created in Baker Towers (reviewed here). There are a number of characters here that overap with those in Baker Towers; in some cases, Haigh has filled out lives that were skeletal in Baker Towers, and in others she has added new chapters to lives she left at the end of her previous work.

Not all of these stories take place in Bakerton, but the claustrophobic, past-its-prime town plays a role in each of them. Everyone returns home to their once high-flying but now dying town, it seems, whether to visit, or in a casket, or in shame, or for a sense of belonging and history. Haigh’s stories span half a century, and there are many stages here – not only of her characters’ lives, but of the town’s history.

I enjoyed that most of these stories had a catch at the end – a little twist that cast the rest of the story in a new light. I found myself speeding up at the end of the chapters, eager to reach that “Eureka!” moment that Haigh had quietly dropped in. An infidelity discovered many years later, or the discovery that a revered hometown hero was keeping a secret, or simply the question of whether a younger man in an unexpected relationship had honorable intentions or not – these are the little mysteries that Haigh solves throughout the collection.

My only complaint is my typical one about short stories – they just aren’t as satisfying as novels. Each of these chapters could have been its own novel, and I was sad to see it end every time. But I won’t complain – a new Haigh book is a new Haigh book, and it’s simply a treasure.