Book Review: Home Front by Kristin Hannah

Title: Home Front Author: Kristin Hannah (Author Website) Publisher: St. Martin's Press (January 31, 2012) ISBN 10 :0312577206 Pages: 388 pages Format: Library Book

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

In her bestselling novels Kristin Hannah has plumbed the depths of friendship, the loyalty of sisters, and the secrets mothers keep. Now, in her most emotionally powerful story yet, she explores the intimate landscape of a troubled marriage with this provocative and timely portrait of a husband and wife, in love and at war.

All marriages have a breaking point. All families have wounds. All wars have a cost. . . .

Like many couples, Michael and Jolene Zarkades have to face the pressures of everyday life---children, careers, bills, chores---even as their twelve-year marriage is falling apart. Then an unexpected deployment sends Jolene deep into harm’s way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls. As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a solider she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored version of her life on the front lines, shielding her family from the truth. But war will change Jolene in ways that none of them could have foreseen. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his darkest fear and fight a battle of his own---for everything that matters to his family.

At once a profoundly honest look at modern marriage and a dramatic exploration of the toll war takes on an ordinary American family, Home Front is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor, and ultimately, hope

Setting: Poulsbo Washington/Liberty Bay

About the Author: (from Kristin Hannah Amazon Page)

Kristin Hannah was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When she was eight years old, her father drove the family to Western Washington which they called home.

After working in a trendy advertising agency, Kristin decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words she would never forget from her mother. Kristin was in her third-and final-year of law school and her mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. Kristin was shocked to discover that her mother believed she would become a writer. For the next few months, they collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.
After her mom's death, she packed up all those bits and pieces of paper they'd collected and put them in a box in the back of her closet. Kristin got married and continued practicing law.

Then Kristin found out she was pregnant and was on bed rest for five months. By the time she'd read every book in the house and started asking her husband for cereal boxes to read, she knew she was a goner. That's when her husband reminded her of the book she'd started with her mom. Kristin pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time their son was born, she'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.

The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred her to try harder, work more. In 1990, Kristin got "the call," and in that moment, she went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and has never looked back. In all the years between then and now, she have never lost her love of, or her enthusiasm for, telling stories. Kristin feels truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer.

Related Media: (Kristin Hannah speaking about Home Front)

My Review:  We went to the library and Home Front by Kristin Hannah was waiting for me.  I don’t even remember reserving Home Front, but glad I did.    I easily got caught up in  Home Front and found myself reading every spare moment I had or didn’t really have.   Trying to cook a big meal for guests on the 4th of July and sneaking in extra reading time don’t really work well together.  I must say, my hubby is a wonderfully tolerant man.

My favorite character in Home Front is Jolene Zarkades. Jolene is a loving mother, wife, friend and soldier.   She believes to the core of her being in duty, honor and loyalty.  She does her best to keep her career as a pilot in the military separated from her family life, but her deployment brings it to the forefront.   Jolene’s husband, Michael was my least favorite character.  He was very unsupportive of his wife’s career and felt the war in Iraq was unnecessary, without considering the true cost of war.  The Zarkades have 2 children, Betsy (an preteen with a terrible attitude) and LuLu (delightful 3 year old wear a kitty headband to be invisible).

The author does an amazing job of character development.  I started off just hating Michael, but as he grows and develops, I found my self hoping the best for him.  Kristin Hannah’s writing evoke such emotions and is so real.   In Home Front she confronts the truth about the war in Iraq and the effects of the war on the soldiers and the families they leave behind. 

My heart ached for Jolene when she was deployed.  The parts of the book that depict Jolene’s time in Iraq were the most heart breaking to me.  I could not put the book down during that part of the book.  She was an amazing soldier who took her duty, honor and loyalty to her crew very seriously.  All the way through this book, I thought about the amazing sacrifices soldiers and their families make for our country.  As a nation we need to do better about helping the families of the deployed and those returning from war.  They all give so much. 

Home Front is an eye-opening account of the effects of war on modern day soldiers and their families.  Home Front is a very emotional read, which portrays true friendship, love, loyalty, truth and honor. 

My Rating: 4.5/5 – I really liked Home Front and would high recommend this very emotional read.  I lost a nights sleep and burned supper for Home Front!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Other Bloggers Reviews :

Shelia of Book Journey

My Friend Amy

Steph the Book Worm

Melissa’s Eclectic Bookshelf

 

Happy Reading!

Book Review: The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Title: The Snowman
Author: Jo Nesbo  (Author Website)
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (April 17, 2012)
ISBN 10: 0307742997
Pages: 512 pages
Format: Kindle Edition/Audio Book

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)
Internationally acclaimed crime writer Jo Nesbø’s antihero police investigator, Harry Hole, is back: in a bone-chilling thriller that will take Hole to the brink of insanity.

Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf.

Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother—and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised—and constantly revised—by the killer.

Fiercely suspenseful, its characters brilliantly realized, its atmosphere permeated with evil, The Snowman is the electrifying work of one of the best crime writers of our time.

Setting: Oslo, Norway

About the Author: Jo NesbØ is a musician, songwriter, economist, and author. He is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Glass Key, the Riverton Prize, and the Booksellers Prize, and one of his Harry Hole novels was voted best Norwegian crime novel of all time by Norwegian readers. He lives in Oslo.

Related Media:

My Review:  I started listening to The Snowman by Jo Nesbo, but found I was having a hard time keeping the characters straight and really getting into the story in the audio format.   This book was to be discussed by my book group and I really wanted to finish it so I purchased the kindle format as well.   I was able to track the characters and the story better in the written format.   I honestly can’t say if this was the book or my attention.   It helped to see and write the names of the characters down.

Once you think you have it figured out, the plot twists and several people come under suspicion through out the book.  My original thoughts were correct in the end.   There is a bit of the creep factor throughout the book.  I do think it was genius to make such a innocent thing such as a snowman so evil.   Harry Hole was my favorite character, thought he was a bit of the stereotypical macho detective.   I also found Katrine Britt to be an interesting character with many sides to her.   I do wish I knew a bit more about her, but maybe I would have to read more of the series.  

A co-worker of mine has read most of the series and really likes the Harry Hole series.   She mentioned to me that in the series you always meet the killer in the book, so I was a bit preoccupied by trying to figure out which character could be the Snowman.  I must be honest in saying, I am not a huge fan of mysteries.   I don’t know why, but I tend to get very bored and impatient near the mid point of the story.   I just want to know the ending already.   I felt less like this with The Snowman, after a bit of a drag in the middle, the story did grabbed me again and kept me interested to the end.   I have been in such a reading slump lately that to have read this book to the end was a bit of a accomplishment for me. 

I look forward to book group as one of our members has a fear of snowmen….I wonder how she weathered this book.   And am I the only one that doesn’t get the mold in the apartment??  I think I missed something!   

My Rating:  3/5 -  I liked The Snowman by Jo Nesbo and even mentioned it to one friend who I know enjoys mysteries, but I don’t think I will be clamoring to the library to reserve more book from the Harry Hole series.  I am just not a huge lover of mysteries.   That is the truth of it. 

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Other Bloggers Reviews of the Snowman by Jo Nesbo:

Seaside Book Corner

Floor To Ceiling Books

Book Journey

Literate Housewife

 

Happy Reading!

Missing in Action……….

I can’t believe I haven’t posted since October.  Life has been very busy, but I continued to read, but haven’t been posting.  Reading helps me relax and relieve some stress so it was a must during this busy time.   November was busy with the holidays and getting my father in law settled in as he moved in with us.  We were able to bring my mother in law home to spend Thanksgiving with us.  Little did we know that it would be her last holiday outside of the memory care unit. 

Christmas came and went with the normal celebrations.  We tried to have a little Christmas party with my mother in law at the memory care unit, but it proved to be too much for her.   She started receiving hospice services on January 2nd and we tried to spend as much time as we could with her.  She passed away on January 10th.  

We are starting the find the new normal of our life.  I decided that I would go through with a scheduled surgery on February 15th.  I am now home recovering from my surgery, so have time to finally blog as my comfort allows me.  Still requiring a fair amount of rest, which gives me extra time to read. 

I will try to get to some book reviews up, but thought I would share what I have been reading the last few months and my ratings. 

October

The Stormchasers - Jenna Blum - 3/5

Empire Falls - Richard Russo - 4/5

Grave Sight - Charlaine Harris 3/5

November

Night Strangers - Chris Bajahlain - 3/5

Never Knowing - Chevy Stevens 4/5

A Redbird Christmas - Fannie Flagg - 3/5

December

Secret Daughter - Shilpi Somaya Gowda - 4/5

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

In 2011, I read 35 books, a bit below my goal, but more books than the previous year.  You can check out the entire list of books I have read in 2011 on my website. (which sure needs a overhaul!)

Jen's Top 10 Books of 2011

Saving Max - Antoinette van Heugten - 4/5
Days of Grace - Catherine Hall - 4/5
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson - 4/5
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt - Beth Hoffman - 4/5
Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom - 4/5
Sing you Home - Jodi Picoult - 4/5
Night Road - Kristin Hannah - 4/5
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter - Tom Franklin - 4/5
Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot - 4/5
Never Knowing - Chevy Stevens 4/5
Secret Daughter - Shilpi Somaya Gowda - 4/5

I had a hard time getting this list down to the to top 10 Books of 2011. I had many more books that I also rated 4/5 - Recommend/Good.  I was surprised that I didn’t have one 5 rated book in 2011.  I rarely give a 5 rating, but usually have at least one each year. 

BookPage, recently posted their Reader’s Choice: Best Books of 2011 and Bookpages’s Best Books on 2011 , so I have added many to my reading list for 2012. Also, I love to pick up copies of BookMarks Magazine at the library.   They also have their Best of 2011 list!   Publisher’s Weekly also has a list of Best Book of 2011.  What was your favorite book of 2011???

Looking for some great book blogs to add to your Blogroll??   I found a site with the Top 50 book blogs.  I plan to look through and add some I don’t have already!   Never enough book blogs in my life or enough books on my TBR list!

Happy Reading!

Library Loot: November 26th, 2011

The Adventures of a Intrepid Reader and Claire from The Captive Reader. This weekly event encourages bloggers to share the books they have checked out from the library. I always find many new books to add to my reserve list!

If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

  Library Loot:  November 23rd to 29th

 

My Library Loot for this week:

	Children and Fire – Ursula Hegi Set in Burgdorf, Germany, Hegi’s Children and Fire tells the story of a single day that will forever transform the lives of the townspeople. At the core of this remarkable novel is the question of how one teacher—gifted and joyful, passionate and inventive—can become seduced by propaganda during the early months of Hitler’s regime and encourage her ten-year-old students to join the “Hitler-Jugend” with its hikes and songs and bonfires. Membership, she believes, will be a step toward better schools, better apprenticeships. How can a woman we admire choose a direction we don’t admire? So much has changed for the teacher, Thekla Jansen, and the people of Burgdorf in the year since the parliament building burned. Thekla’s lover, Emil Hesping, is sure the Nazis did it to frame the communists. But Thekla believes what she hears on the radio, that the communists set the fire, and she’s willing to relinquish some of her freedoms to keep her teaching position. She has always taken her moral courage for granted, but when each silent agreement chips away at that courage, she knows she must reclaim it. Hegi funnels pivotal moments in history through the experiences of individual characters: Thekla’s mother, who works as a housekeeper for a Jewish family; her employers, Michel and Ilse Abramowitz; Thekla’s mentally ill father; Trudi Montag and her father, Leo Montag; Fräulein Siderova, midwife to the dying; and the students who adore their young teacher. As Ursula Hegi writes along that edge where sorrow and bliss meet, she shows us how one society—educated, cultural, compassionate—can slip into a reality that’s fabricated by propaganda and controlled by fear, how a surge of national unity can be manipulated into the dehumanization of a perceived enemy and the justification of torture and murder.
	Deadly Stillwater by Roger Stelljes Deadly Stillwater, where Mac McRyan is confronted with the kidnapping of Shannon Hisle, taken in a brazen daylight attack outside a restaurant on one of St. Paul's busiest streets. And Shannon Hisle isn't just anyone. She's the only daughter of St. Paul's most prominent, successful and politically connected lawyer. Mac knows that every political lever will be pulled, that the FBI will be coming in, that the St. Paul Mayor, not his biggest fan, will be scrutinizing his every move and that the media storm will be every bit as intense as the heat wave blazing the Twin Cities. What's more, while all of the signs point to a straightforward kidnapping for ransom, Mac's instincts tell him otherwise, especially after the kidnappers call just hours after the abduction and skip the ransom demand. "Why not ask for the ransom?" he wonders. While everyone assumes the ransom demand will come soon enough, the failure to make the demand gives Mac pause, and for good reason. For the Hisle abduction is just the beginning in a case of betrayal and revenge sixteen years in the making that will ultimately strike at the heart and soul of the St. Paul Police Department.
	Growing Up Amish – Ira Wagler Ira Wagler was born in 1961, the ninth of a Canadian Amish couple's eleven children. At seventeen, in the dark of night, he left the religious settlement, but it was only nine years later that he finally left the church for good. His favorite Bible verse is from Psalm 34: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." In this new memoir, he tells what it was like growing up Old World Amish and what it felt like leaving it for a strange new world. Far more than picturesque; Growing Up Amish conveys one man's heartfelt experience
	Jane Austen Ruined My Life – Beth Pattillo English professor Emma Grant has always done everything just the way her minister father told her she should -- a respectable marriage, a teaching job at a good college, and plans for the requisite two children. Life was prodigiously good, as her favorite author Jane Austen might say, until the day Emma finds her husband in bed with another woman. Suddenly, all her romantic notions a la Austen are exposed for the foolish dreams they are. Denied tenure in the wake of the scandal and left penniless by the ensuing divorce, Emma packs up what few worldly possessions she has left and heads to England on a quest to find the missing letters of Jane Austen. Locating the elusive letters, however, isn't as straightforward as Emma hoped. The owner of the letters proves coy about her prize possessions, sending Emma on a series of Austen-related tasks that bring her closer and closer to the truth, but the sudden reappearance of Emma's first love makes everything more complicated. In the end, Emma learns that doing the right thing has very little to do with other people's expectations and everything to do with her own beliefs. Laced with fictional excerpts from the missing letters, Jane Austen Ruined My Life is the story of a woman betrayed who uncovers the deeper meaning of loyalty.
	Never Knowing – Chevy Stevens From the acclaimed author of STILL MISSING comes a psychological thriller about one woman’s search into her past and the deadly truth she uncovers. All her life, Sara Gallagher has wondered about her birth parents. As an adopted child with two sisters who were born naturally to her parents, Sara’s home life was not ideal. The question of why she was given up for adoption has always haunted her. Finally, she is ready to take steps and find closure. But some questions are better left unanswered. After months of research, Sara locates her birth mother—only to be met with horror and rejection. Then she discovers the devastating truth: her mother was the only victim ever to escape a killer who has been hunting women every summer for decades. But Sara soon realizes the only thing worse than finding out about her father is him finding out about her. What if murder is in your blood? Never Knowing is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand herself, her origins, and her family. That is, if she can survive… I am really looking forward to starting this book today!
	One Summer – David Baldacci It's almost Christmas, but there is no joy in the house of terminally ill Jack and his family. With only a short time left to live, he spends his last days preparing to say goodbye to his devoted wife, Lizzie, and their three children. Then, unthinkably, tragedy strikes again: Lizzie is killed in a car accident. With no one able to care for them, the children are separated from each other and sent to live with family members around the country. Just when all seems lost, Jack begins to recover in a miraculous turn of events. He rises from what should have been his deathbed, determined to bring his fractured family back together. Struggling to rebuild their lives after Lizzie's death, he reunites everyone at Lizzie's childhood home on the oceanfront in South Carolina. And there, over one unforgettable summer, Jack will begin to learn to love again, and he and his children will learn how to become a family once more.
	The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst In the late summer of 1913 the aristocratic young poet Cecil Valance comes to stay at ‘Two Acres’, the home of his close Cambridge friend George Sawle. The weekend will be one of excitements and confusions for all the Sawles, but it is on George’s sixteen-year-old sister Daphne that it will have the most lasting impact, when Cecil writes her a poem which will become a touchstone for a generation, an evocation of an England about to change for ever. Linking the Sawle and Valance families irrevocably, the shared intimacies of this weekend become legendary events in a larger story, told and interpreted in different ways over the coming century, and subjected to the scrutiny of critics and biographers with their own agendas and anxieties. In a sequence of widely separated episodes we follow the two families through startling changes in fortune and circumstance.

Life seems to finally be getting back to normal.  We are finally back on schedule and getting to the library each Saturday.   Hopefully I will get back on track with reading and getting my book reviews written as well.   I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  Our family has much to be thankful about this year.  

Happy Reading!

Library Loot: November 26th, 2011

The Adventures of a Intrepid Reader and Claire from The Captive Reader. This weekly event encourages bloggers to share the books they have checked out from the library. I always find many new books to add to my reserve list!
If you’d like to participate, just write up your post and link up. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

  Library Loot:  November 23rd to 29th

My Library Loot for this week:

	Children and Fire – Ursula Hegi Set in Burgdorf, Germany, Hegi’s Children and Fire tells the story of a single day that will forever transform the lives of the townspeople. At the core of this remarkable novel is the question of how one teacher—gifted and joyful, passionate and inventive—can become seduced by propaganda during the early months of Hitler’s regime and encourage her ten-year-old students to join the “Hitler-Jugend” with its hikes and songs and bonfires. Membership, she believes, will be a step toward better schools, better apprenticeships. How can a woman we admire choose a direction we don’t admire? So much has changed for the teacher, Thekla Jansen, and the people of Burgdorf in the year since the parliament building burned. Thekla’s lover, Emil Hesping, is sure the Nazis did it to frame the communists. But Thekla believes what she hears on the radio, that the communists set the fire, and she’s willing to relinquish some of her freedoms to keep her teaching position. She has always taken her moral courage for granted, but when each silent agreement chips away at that courage, she knows she must reclaim it. Hegi funnels pivotal moments in history through the experiences of individual characters: Thekla’s mother, who works as a housekeeper for a Jewish family; her employers, Michel and Ilse Abramowitz; Thekla’s mentally ill father; Trudi Montag and her father, Leo Montag; Fräulein Siderova, midwife to the dying; and the students who adore their young teacher. As Ursula Hegi writes along that edge where sorrow and bliss meet, she shows us how one society—educated, cultural, compassionate—can slip into a reality that’s fabricated by propaganda and controlled by fear, how a surge of national unity can be manipulated into the dehumanization of a perceived enemy and the justification of torture and murder.
	Deadly Stillwater by Roger Stelljes Deadly Stillwater, where Mac McRyan is confronted with the kidnapping of Shannon Hisle, taken in a brazen daylight attack outside a restaurant on one of St. Paul's busiest streets. And Shannon Hisle isn't just anyone. She's the only daughter of St. Paul's most prominent, successful and politically connected lawyer. Mac knows that every political lever will be pulled, that the FBI will be coming in, that the St. Paul Mayor, not his biggest fan, will be scrutinizing his every move and that the media storm will be every bit as intense as the heat wave blazing the Twin Cities. What's more, while all of the signs point to a straightforward kidnapping for ransom, Mac's instincts tell him otherwise, especially after the kidnappers call just hours after the abduction and skip the ransom demand. "Why not ask for the ransom?" he wonders. While everyone assumes the ransom demand will come soon enough, the failure to make the demand gives Mac pause, and for good reason. For the Hisle abduction is just the beginning in a case of betrayal and revenge sixteen years in the making that will ultimately strike at the heart and soul of the St. Paul Police Department.
	Growing Up Amish – Ira Wagler Ira Wagler was born in 1961, the ninth of a Canadian Amish couple's eleven children. At seventeen, in the dark of night, he left the religious settlement, but it was only nine years later that he finally left the church for good. His favorite Bible verse is from Psalm 34: "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." In this new memoir, he tells what it was like growing up Old World Amish and what it felt like leaving it for a strange new world. Far more than picturesque; Growing Up Amish conveys one man's heartfelt experience
	Jane Austen Ruined My Life – Beth Pattillo English professor Emma Grant has always done everything just the way her minister father told her she should -- a respectable marriage, a teaching job at a good college, and plans for the requisite two children. Life was prodigiously good, as her favorite author Jane Austen might say, until the day Emma finds her husband in bed with another woman. Suddenly, all her romantic notions a la Austen are exposed for the foolish dreams they are. Denied tenure in the wake of the scandal and left penniless by the ensuing divorce, Emma packs up what few worldly possessions she has left and heads to England on a quest to find the missing letters of Jane Austen. Locating the elusive letters, however, isn't as straightforward as Emma hoped. The owner of the letters proves coy about her prize possessions, sending Emma on a series of Austen-related tasks that bring her closer and closer to the truth, but the sudden reappearance of Emma's first love makes everything more complicated. In the end, Emma learns that doing the right thing has very little to do with other people's expectations and everything to do with her own beliefs. Laced with fictional excerpts from the missing letters, Jane Austen Ruined My Life is the story of a woman betrayed who uncovers the deeper meaning of loyalty.
	Never Knowing – Chevy Stevens From the acclaimed author of STILL MISSING comes a psychological thriller about one woman’s search into her past and the deadly truth she uncovers. All her life, Sara Gallagher has wondered about her birth parents. As an adopted child with two sisters who were born naturally to her parents, Sara’s home life was not ideal. The question of why she was given up for adoption has always haunted her. Finally, she is ready to take steps and find closure. But some questions are better left unanswered. After months of research, Sara locates her birth mother—only to be met with horror and rejection. Then she discovers the devastating truth: her mother was the only victim ever to escape a killer who has been hunting women every summer for decades. But Sara soon realizes the only thing worse than finding out about her father is him finding out about her. What if murder is in your blood? Never Knowing is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand herself, her origins, and her family. That is, if she can survive… I am really looking forward to starting this book today!
	One Summer – David Baldacci It's almost Christmas, but there is no joy in the house of terminally ill Jack and his family. With only a short time left to live, he spends his last days preparing to say goodbye to his devoted wife, Lizzie, and their three children. Then, unthinkably, tragedy strikes again: Lizzie is killed in a car accident. With no one able to care for them, the children are separated from each other and sent to live with family members around the country. Just when all seems lost, Jack begins to recover in a miraculous turn of events. He rises from what should have been his deathbed, determined to bring his fractured family back together. Struggling to rebuild their lives after Lizzie's death, he reunites everyone at Lizzie's childhood home on the oceanfront in South Carolina. And there, over one unforgettable summer, Jack will begin to learn to love again, and he and his children will learn how to become a family once more.
	The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst In the late summer of 1913 the aristocratic young poet Cecil Valance comes to stay at ‘Two Acres’, the home of his close Cambridge friend George Sawle. The weekend will be one of excitements and confusions for all the Sawles, but it is on George’s sixteen-year-old sister Daphne that it will have the most lasting impact, when Cecil writes her a poem which will become a touchstone for a generation, an evocation of an England about to change for ever. Linking the Sawle and Valance families irrevocably, the shared intimacies of this weekend become legendary events in a larger story, told and interpreted in different ways over the coming century, and subjected to the scrutiny of critics and biographers with their own agendas and anxieties. In a sequence of widely separated episodes we follow the two families through startling changes in fortune and circumstance.

Life seems to finally be getting back to normal.  We are finally back on schedule and getting to the library each Saturday.   Hopefully I will get back on track with reading and getting my book reviews written as well.   I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.  Our family has much to be thankful about this year.  
Happy Reading!

Book Review: Empire Falls by Richard Russo

 

Title: Empire Falls
Author:  Richard Russo
Publisher: Vintage (April 12, 2002)
ISBN 10: 0375726403 
Pages: 496 pages
Format: Audio Book

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com) 

Richard Russo—from his first novel, Mohawk—has demonstrated a peerless affinity for the human tragicomedy, and with this stunning new novel he extends even further his claims on the small-town, blue-collar heart of the country.

Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up.

Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his daily and future life. Called back from college and set to work by family obligations—his mother ailing, his father a loose cannon—Miles never left home again. Even so, his own obligations are manifold: a pending divorce; a troubled younger brother; and, not least, a peculiar partnership in the failing grill with none other than Mrs. Whiting. All of these, though, are offset by his daughter, Tick, whom he guides gently and proudly through the tribulations of adolescence.

A decent man encircled by history and dreams, by echoing churches and abandoned mills, by the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors, Miles is also a patient, knowing guide to the rich, hardscrabble nature of Empire Falls: fathers and sons and daughters, living and dead, rich and poor alike. Shot through with the mysteries of generations and the shattering visitations of the nation at large, it is a social novel of panoramic ambition, yet at the same time achingly personal. In the end, Empire Falls reveals our worst and best instincts, both our most appalling nightmares and our simplest hopes, with all the vision, grace and humanity of truly epic storytelling.

Setting:  Empire Falls, Maine  (small town)

About the Author:  Richard Russo lives in coastal Maine with his wife and their two daughters. He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for Empire Falls. His novels Empire Falls, Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobody's Fool and Straight Man as well as his short story collection, The Whore's Child, are available in Vintage paperback.

Related Media:  (trailer for the movie adaptation of the book)

My Review:   Books like Empire Falls make me question my ability to review books. Empire Falls won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2002. While I loved many things about Empire Falls, I also found some things I did not care for. Russo is a wonderful story teller and made me feel like I was right there in Empire Falls. The characters were strong and well developed, though I would have liked to have more insight into the inner workings of Tick and Mrs. Whiting. Tick and Mrs. Whiting were my favorite characters. I understand that not providing that insight about their thoughts assists in making them more mysterious characters, but I personally wanted to know more about their thoughts.

Honestly, I nearly gave up on this book as the beginning as it seemed to plod along. But that was simply good storytelling. Empire Fall does eventually come to a boil, after much anticipation. It did feel like I was watching in anticipation for a pot to boil. For me personally, everything came to the climax and too quickly the loose ends were all tied up and the story was over. The ending was just too quick for me. The ending was a surprise to me in some regards. I thought I had it all figured out midway through the book, exasperated with such an obvious plot twist, but I was WRONG.

The last comment I have to make about Empire Falls, which is possibly related to the fact that I listened to the audio of this book, is that I found the flash backs in Empire Falls to be clumsy and confusing. I assume that in the written text the flashbacks may have been denoted in a better fashion, but in the audio it was clumsy and confusing.

My Rating: 4/5 – really liked Empire Falls by Richard Russo. I grew to really care about the characters in Empire Falls and found myself wanting to do tasks that would allow me to listen to the audio book a bit longer. If you have read my blog for any period of time, you will find I rarely rate anything 5. A book has to really keep me up at night to be rated 5- it was amazing! A rating of a 4 is certainly a book I would recommend to other readers.

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Literary Corner Café

Book Awards Reading Challenge

Life with Books

Savidge Read – Book Addict

 

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing

Book Review: The Stormchasers by Jenna Blum

 

Title:  The Stormchasers
Author:  Jenna Blum
Publisher:  Dutton Adult (May 27, 2010)
Web: http://www.jennablum.com/
ISBN-10: 0525951555
Pages: 384 pages
Format: Audio

About the Book: (from Goodreads.com)

As a teenager, Karena Jorge had always been the one to look out for her twin brother Charles, who suffers from bipolar disorder. But as Charles begins to refuse medication and his manic tendencies worsen, Karena finds herself caught between her loyalty to her brother and her fear for his life. Always obsessed with the weather-enraptured by its magical unpredictability that seemed to mirror his own impulses- Charles starts chasing storms, and his behavior grows increasingly erratic . . . until a terrifying storm chase with Karena ends with deadly consequences, tearing the twins apart and changing both of their lives forever.
Two decades later, Karena gets a call from a psychiatric ward in Wichita, Kansas, to come pick up her brother, whom she hasn't seen or spoken to for twenty years. She soon discovers that Charles has lied to the doctors, taken medication that could make him dangerously manic, and disappeared again. Having exhausted every resource to try and track him down, Karena realizes she has only one last chance of finding him: the storms. Wherever the tornadoes are, that's where he'll be. Karena joins a team of professional stormchasers-passionate adventurers who will transform her life and give her a chance at love and redemption- and embarks on an odyssey to find her brother before he reveals the violent secret from their past and does more damage to himself . . . or to someone else.

Setting:  Midwest – Minnesota, South Dakota, Nebraska – growing up in South Dakota and living in Minnesota the the setting was very familiar.

About the Author:  When Jenna is not on the road speaking and storm chasing, she divides her time between Boston, where she teaches master novel workshops for Grub Street Writers, and Minnesota, where she writes in the rural town in which her mom and grandmother were born. Jenna is also the author of Writer On The Road, her travel/writing column for Grub Daily, and a contributor to Grub Daily's weekly advice column. Jenna attended Kenyon College and Boston University, where she taught creative and communications writing for five years and was the editor of AGNI literary Magazine. She has been writing since she was four and to aspiring writers often quotes Winston Churchill's advice: "Never give in, never give in, never give in."   (from http://www.jennablum.com/blum-bio.htm)

Interview with the Author:

Related Media:

My Review:
The Stormchasers was the October selection for my bookgroup, Books & Babble. I am totally bummed that I ended up getting ill and was unable to go to group. I heard it was a great discussion. Originally, we had hope the author would be joining us for the discussion, but she was detained a day longer in Duluth. We were all very disappointed.

Having also read, Those Who Save Us, I can say that Jenna Blum is a skillful storyteller that can really capture human emotions. I started reading The Stormhasers on my Kindle. I have to be honest in saying that the story didn’t really grab me at first. Currently in my life I struggle to find the time to read, so I need a book to really grab me. This is more a commentary on my life than the book. Since The Stormchasers wasn’t reaching out and grabbing me like I needed, I switched to the audio version to ensure I would be done for book group. I am very happy I did. The audio added a lot to the story and my experience, such as the rapid, forced speech of Charles during his manic stage. The caution and fear wrapped around Karena’s words at times when talking to Charles was evident in the audio version. This ended up pulling me into the story.

While a predominant theme in The Stormchasers is being a twin and “twindar”, it is overshadowed by the skewed family dynamics of a family dealing with bi-polar disorder. The disorder and the families reaction to it overshadows every event, relationship and decision. Karena is extremely loyal to her twin, Charles. She feels a lot of guilt that she did not share the disorder with her twin, reminded me of survivor guilt.

Karena makes decisions throughout her life regarding Charles and how to help him. I did not agree with her decision to protect Charles’s secret. I think a lot would have been avoided had the problem been dealt with at the time. I loved the whole stormchaser aspect of the story, having grown up in the Midwest I have a realistic fear of tornadoes. I think Blum did an amazing amount of research on the subject including chasing herself. This is very impressive to me.

I really thought the parallel between stormchasing and bi-polar was nicely done.  Stormchasing is a perfect analogy for having bi-polar disorder. The calm and then the electrically charged manic episode. In the audio, I could actually feel the energy of the storm as well as the energy of Charles when going into a manic phase.

Having grown up in South Dakota and currently living in Minnesota, I really enjoyed the references to places that were familiar to me. I actually was thinking to myself that I have to look for the arch in Dakota County the next time I head down Hwy 52. I knew the other places that were mentioned, but don’t recall seeing this arch. The flow of the story was good. I was a bit disappointed with the ending. I would have liked to have a bit of a snapshot of how Karena and Charles’s lives were after everything. The ending was just too short for me after the major build up of the story.

My Rating: 3/ 5 - like it! I enjoyed the audio more! Loved, Loved..the characters.  Great character development. 

Other Bloggers Reviews:

Brain Candy Book Reviews

Reflections of a Bookaholic

Girls in The Stacks

Lauren’s Crammed Bookshelf

Happy Reading!

My Rating Scale: 1 – didn’t like it; 2 – it was ok; 3 – liked it; 4 – really liked it; 5 – it was amazing