It's late so I'm off to bed but need to get this post up. I've said it before but having a Jodi Picoult book in my house is like having a bag of candy corn hidden in the closet. No matter how hard I try to ignore it I just can't keep myself from opening it up and devouring it.. and I always feel worse for doing it.
This is yet another of Picoult's 'mom in distress...strong woman, weak husband.. terrible heartwrenching problem... ends in a trial...' stories. This time the main character Delia, a search and rescue worker, finds out that her mom didn't die when she was 4, no her father kidnapped her and took her across the country and lied to her about what really happened. The law catches up with dad, he goes to trial but, guess what, he really did have a good reason for taking her. Yeah, it's what you think it is, mom's boyfriend was abusing her. But he couldn't tell anyone about it back then because that was the 1970s and dad's didn't have rights to their kids. That theory kind of works, except instead of reporting the creep's behavior to the authorities he skips town with his little girl.
Anyway, it kept me interested and reading, but I pinky-swear promise that I'll try my very hardest to stay away from her books for a little while..
Traveling with Pomegranates is marketed as “A Mother-Daughter Story”, an interesting twist on the memoir, with a sort of she said/she said approach to major life themes. It seems every book I read lately has alternating narrators, and this book is no exception. In this case, it was appropriate, and handled very well. Stories did not overlap — if something happened during Sue’s chapter she commented on it and then went on. Ann did not go back and belabor any points or rewrite the story from her point of view. This allowed for a surprisingly balanced telling.
As the story begins, Sue Monk Kidd is a struggling would-be novelist; fearing life after fifty and not at all happy about what lies ahead. Her daughter, Ann, seems to be at the start of this road; about to graduate college with nothing but potential in her future. In fact, while I did enjoy reading this book, it is actually one big pity party. Sue is secretly jealous of the opportunities her daughter will have, and her daughter is cripplingly frightened she will never be as passionate as her Mom about anything. At times you want to tell them to just stop their whining; they’re traveling through Europe on their own and they really have nothing to complain about. (As a general rule, I feel that people who are able to travel on vacation multiple weeks or months at a time have no reason whatsoever to complain – this applies also to Elizabeth Gilbert, though I still enjoy her books.)
Sue and Ann are taking this trip to Greece ostensibly to celebrate Ann’s graduation and Sue’s 50th birthday. But it is really a trip to reclaim their mother-daughter bond, which has become strained over the last couple of years. Though I haven’t read it yet, I was thinking that this book is the Lift (Kelly Corrigan), for women with grown daughters, who never had the time to write them a heartfelt letter.
During most of the time the story takes place (1998-2000), Sue has been working on her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, and she is obsessed with the many forms of the Virgin Mary, especially the black madonnas they are searching for all around Europe. She leads groups of women to ancient chapels and common tourist spots, in search of myths and biblical truths. The writing, at times, is just beautiful. The story of Demeter and Persephone is gracefully woven into the narrative as a recurring theme for their own relationship. I found the spiritual aspects of the story compelling enough to want to read her previous book, Dance of the Dissident Daughter. Sue is a firm believer in signs, and I enjoyed the recounting of the many signs she allowed to guide her journey.
There are mentions of Sue’s son and husband, and Ann’s future husband, but they are mostly backdrop. This is a story about women. By the end of the book, Mother and Daughter are still traveling, even as they plan Ann’s wedding. I especially enjoyed Ann’s descriptions of the many talismans she wore over and under her gown, mementos of these trips they had taken together, in search of their past, their futures, and each other.
Believe it or not, Lucy is not the only one reading; she’s just way better than us at posting!
I will admit that I first picked out this book for its cover. Then, when I saw the author’s name, I remembered that several people recommended her other books, Women of the Silk and The Samurai’s Garden. I haven’t read those yet. The other thing that struck me about this book is that it was written from the point of view of ordinary people living in a Japanese village during World War Two. I realized that I hadn’t really read anything from this perspective since John Hersey’s Hiroshima.
Hiroshi and his brother Kenji live with their grandparents, after their parents are killed in a senseless boating accident. In school Hiroshi is often called upon to defend his younger brother, whose slight build and unwillingness to fight have earned him the nickname “Kenji the Ghost.” As the war begins Hiroshi is poised to fulfill his dreams of one day being a famous Sumo wrestler, by becoming an apprentice in a well-regarded stable. He shares this bond with his grandfather, who has passed on his love for the ancient sport over the course of countless matches they’ve listened to together on the radio. Kenji forms a tentative friendship with a well-regarded artisan, and is immersed in dreams of making masks for the Noh theater. The striking differences in their goals is offset by the similarities of their character; as both seek to keep alive ancient traditions. The details of the increasingly bad news of the war seem even more horrific in contrast. The story continues through the war and beyond, movingly relating the realities of living in a country that has been defeated.
Tsukiyama tells a beautiful story. The characters are lovingly rendered, as if she were writing of her own family. Some of the more peripheral characters seemed a little sketchy; I didn’t feel any particular attachment to either of the boy’s future wives. I loved everything about the grandparents. Despite the many tragedies in the book, my one criticism would be that their lives, surprisingly, were relatively conflict free. I am not saying that terrible things don’t happen to them – it’s a wartime book after all. It just seemed at times that their dreams were fulfilled early on, and the tragedies that occurred later seemed almost inevitable.
On the positive side, I would not have guessed that the rituals of Sumo could be so absorbing to read. I have a whole new respect for the sport; especially since my prior knowledge of it was based on SNL skits. The same can be said for the art of mask making for the theater, an entire profession I did not know even existed. I enjoyed reading this, despite some despite the very silver-lining-ness of some of the themes. The storytelling is compelling, and you will be happy that in the end, not every detail is as neatly wrapped up as you might have expected.
Little Bee is the story of a young woman who escapes the horrors and tragedies of her home country, Nigeria, only to end up in a detention center in England. She escaped a world where her sister and their fellow villagers were attacked, beaten, savaged and killed, all for the rights to the oil that lay below their feet. Little Bee eventually makes her way to a woman in the suburbs of London with whom she shares a terrible secret. What happened on the day they met on the beach in Nigeria two years prior, brings them together and tears them apart. The way that Little Bee struggles to survive after everything she has been through and the amazing writing makes this one of those books you have to frequently stop reading and put down just to 'digest' what you have just read.
a simple little word horror. It means something different to the people from my village. In your country if you are not scared enough already, you can go watch a horror film. Afterward you can go out of the cinema into the night and for a little while there is horror in everything. Perhaps there are murderers lying in wait for you at home. You think this because there is a light on in your house that you are certain you did not leave on... For one hour you are haunted.. and then the feeling fades away. Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it. For me and the girls from my village. horror is a disease and we are sick with it. It is not a illness you can cure yourself of by standing up and letting the big red cinema seat fold itself up behind you."
It is ultimately the story of the struggle for survival and the hope that comes with act of simple human kindness. Little Bee is one of those books you'll read again and recommend to everyone.
PLEASE don't tell my dad I've read this book. He's a crazy Abe Lincoln fan and would be appalled if he knew I was reading a book (albiet fiction) where Mr. Lincoln hunts down and slaughters Vampires. He does it for good reasons though. His beloved mother was killed by one, as was his grandfather and his first true love. Lincoln then becomes an expert on how to hunt down and kill these creatures (stake through the heart... chop off their heads...). He eventually runs for President because he becomes aware that vampires from Europe are infiltrating our country and 'feeding off' of slaves,using them purely for their blood, so if history books report that he opposed slavery on moral grounds that isn't entirely true, his mission was to save them from slaughter as well as the rest of the country (after all guess who they'll go after when all of the slaves have been wiped out?)
Silliness but an interesting twist on a truely iconic figure in our history. In the end he is finally felled by John Wilkes Booth, of course a vampire himself, set on getting rid of the country's (vampire hunter) president and bringing back power to the South. I'm sorry dad!!..
This book came highly recommended by a few friends and became my 2 day 'beach read' in Palm Beach this vacation. It's one of those books that, although not memorable in it's writing, is a compelling story. It starts out in 1942 Paris where a Jewish family is awoken one night by French soldiers at the door, telling them to gather a few things and come with them. Young Sarah makes the decision to lock her young brother Michel in a closet with the promise that she would be back soon to get him out. She and her parents were taken to a stadium in Paris, along with thousands of other French Jews and locked up for several days, then taken to an emcampment and eventually split up, parents going to one death camp and children to another. Sarah escapes with a friend, desperate to get back to her little brother.
One of the many horrors of this book is that French soldiers (not Nazis) were the ones who gathered up their own people and sent them to their death, innocent children and their parents. Mixed in with each chapter is Paris in present day where Julia, a magazine journalist, is working on a story of the anniversary of this tragic event. She is American but married to a Frenchman and soon finds out that her husband's family (unknowingly) moved into the apartment of Sarah's family soon after they were taken away. The guilt of Julia over not knowing about this dark period in French history, along with putting the pieces together of young Sarah's journey back to try to find her brother, leads her to rethink her life and marriage. She becomes obsessed with finding Sarah and finding out the heartbraking fate of her little brother. It's a tragedy all around but definitly kept me up and reading under my umbrella in Fla.
Yes, it's too short at 82 pages, but she writes so well and gets to the heart of motherhood on every single darn page that it was worth the $16.99. One of my favorite passages: "I am your mother, the first mile of your road. Me and all my obvious and hidden limitations. That means that in addition to possibly wrecking you, I have the chance to give to you what was given to me: a decent childhood, more good memories than bad, some values, a sense of a tribe, a run at happiness. You can't imagine how seriously I take that - even as I fail you. Mothering you is the first thing of consequence that I have ever done." Dang, I would have paid the $16.99 just for that one jewel...
When she described witnessing her daughter's spinal tap it hit particularly close to home.. having been through the same thing with Jimmy once I can attest that there is nothing like watching your child being put through the most excruciating pain.. as Kelly describes it "It's one thing to know your child is in pain, it's another to attend it." Then, when it was over. "He stood up and handed you to me. You were hot and whimpering. I held you, heart to heart, your hands around my neck. Although I'd betrayed you, although I'd stood by while people spread and bent and stabbed you, you still wanted me most of all." Being a mother... wow
