A Quilt for Christmas by Sandra Dallas ~ book review

I actually finished this book just under the wire for 2015, but with everything happening here with our kitty, the review sort of went by the wayside.  Hence the posting of a Christmas themed book in January.

It is 1864 and the war between the North and the South is raging.   So when Will Spooner joins the Kansas Volunteers to fight the Confederates he hates, he leaves his beloved wife, Elizabeth,  at home managing the family farm and their two children. To pass time and to show Will she loves him and is thinking of him she makes him what she does best, a special quilt for Christmas. But she never knows if Will receives the quilt or not because not soon after he is killed in battle. Her only hope is that he was buried wrapped in the quilt which signifies her love for him. Left alone, she finds comfort in rereading Will's letters to her (though she cannot bring herself to open the last one) and in her quilting group which breaks the monotony of grief and the hard work of running the farm with only her teenage son to help her. When her friend desperately needs a home after also losing her husband, Elizabeth takes her in and has her join the group much to the misgivings of some of the other members because of the girl's past. When the underground comes knocking on her door asking for help to hide an escaped slave accused of murder, Elizabeth must decide what she and Will really stood for and if she has the courage to see it all through. Then out of the blue the quilt shows up at her door in the hands of a soldier and Elizabeth has yet again been brought to a place of searching her heart.

 This story was rich in historical detail and really gave me a sense of the hardship the war brought to the women and families left behind. It was a touching story of love, forgiveness and courage to do what's right in the hardest of situations. A quick read for my Christmas holiday.

Becoming Ellen by Shari Shartuck ~ Book Review

This is the follow up to Ellen's story that began with this book.  I really enjoyed the first book and so when I saw it was on order at my library I put a hold on it right away and was first in line.  So glad I did that because this one was just as enjoyable of a read as the first.  It continues Ellen's story of slowing coming out of her shell and reaching out.  Her deepening friendship with Temerity, who's is perfectly named by the way, and Temerity's brother Justin, continues to be a safe place for her.  Their understanding and unconditional love and acceptance help Ellen to try to step beyond the very high walls and the reclusive invisible life she had built for herself.   But when she is confronted with the dire straights of two young children Ellen must face her own childhood of abuse and neglect and come out of her "invisibleness in order to help these kids.   Of course, watching from the shadows is not Temerity's style and before Ellen knows it she is being once again drawn into Temerity's whirlwind.  And things are once again happening at work which cause Ellen to have to make some decisions about being an onlooker or doing the right thing.

  It's hard to review this book without giving away what happened in the first so that's about all I'm going to tell you plot wise.  It is imperative to the reader, I think, for these two books to be read in order.  The first one laid all the foundations of Ellen's reclusive life and the uphill battle she has to overcome for all the years of working on making herself invisible.    I, once again, really felt for all the main characters of this story.  The reader sees a vulnerable side to Temerity in this one that wasn't yet revealed in the first book and we are given access to where she and her brother have learned their compassion and acceptance for others.  We continue to see how hard it is for Ellen to overcome everything she has been through and move beyond the social awkwardness but cheer her on when she is able to take those small steps to do what to the average person would not think twice about.  The book deals with various kinds of child abuse that just makes me ill to think about but the author, I thought, treated it with as much "gentleness" and care as was possible and still be able tell the story.   There is nothing gratuitous in the telling.  There was one part of the story that deals with Ellen and Temerity and the inured mother of a little girl that just sort of didn't ring quite true with me, the trust factor seemed very rushed to me, but again to say more would reveal the story.

Though I thought the first book had more humorous touching moments this one was just as good but in a different way.  It takes us deeper into the heart as more of Ellen and her childhood is revealed.  It explores an extreme side of the foster care system which I'm sure is not the norm.   I was just as emotionally invested in this story as the first.  


It was a 9 out of 10 for me.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book published this year,  a book by a female author

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman ~ Book Review

Ove is a 59 year old man whom everyone thinks is the grumpiest person you would ever meet.  He likes his order and he lives by principal.  He believes strongly in things in a world where right just had to be right, a very black and white world, according to him.  He lives by the rules and there is not a smidge of bending them.  His beloved father instilled principles in him after all and he has lived his whole life this way, and there is no reason to change now.  And part of that order is setting himself up as the "gatekeeper" of his neighborhood association, looking over the neighborhood and making sure it's safe and no one breaks any "rules".  But Ove gets a huge shakeup to his orderly world when new neighbors move into his neighborhood.  They are chatty, she is foreign and pregnant, he doesn't know how to fix anything and they have noisy kids.  Another thing to grump about in his orderly world.  But they aren't just next door, they are in his face and trying to invade his world with cheerfulness and friendship and all he wants is to be left alone so he can carry out his plans.

This book came highly recommended by the lady at Indigo/Chapters when my daughter and I were on a book buying splurge there this spring.  It was originally written in Swedish but has now been translated into, I think I read somewhere, 25 languages.  It's popularity has basically been word of mouth.  Seeing one of the goals on my 2015 reading challenge was to read a book originally written in another language, this fit the bill.  I'm so glad I got it.  Though when I first started reading it I did wonder.  Ove is introduced as such an unlikeable, angry curmudgeon of a character...and I already had people like that in my life...did I really want to read a story of one?  But there was something so appealing about this story as layer by layer Ove's history is revealed and his exuberant new neighbor looks beyond the grumpy to find the heart of the man.  As Ove tries to bring his plans for his life to fruition something always happens to interrupt him and he faces choices and putting off those plans.  It turned into a wonderful story of looking beyond first impressions, of reaching out to others, of lending a hand and of life just being better when others are allowed in.  I laughed and cried my way through this whole book, sometimes at the same time, which an author has never been able to accomplish with me before.  The writing is quirky, different and charming starting with the chapter titles and carries on throughout the story and I don't think anything was lost in the translation at all.  Ove's story really made me look at my own life and what areas I am so rigid and closed off in (I tend to be a natural rule follower so this really woke me up to that) and how I need to open up to others more and enjoy those God places in front of me.

I gave this book a 10/10 for it's heart-warming look at sharing life with others and exploring how we all have something to offer and for the sheer enjoyment of the read.

Reading Challenge 2015 goals met:  A book originally written in another language, a book a friend recommended (ok the lady at the store is not my friend but it was still a recommendation), a book set in a different country, a book set somewhere I've always wanted to visit (Sweden),  a funny book, a book that made me cry, a book by an author I've never read before,

A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner

In 1911, Clara Wood watched as the man she was falling in love with jumped to his death as the flames from the Triangle Shirwaist Factory roared around him.  Not being able to face returning to Manhattan to a life she was just starting, she finds a semblance of peace in a nursing job on Ellis island.  Here she takes care of the hundreds of immigrants who are kept on the island hospital for health reasons. But when an young immigrant comes in wearing a beautiful woman's scarf with marigolds all over it and in grief for the young bride who succumbed to scarlet fever, Clara feels drawn to help the young man and the colors in the scarf.  But in the helping Clara is caught up in a dilemma of whether to tell the truth or not and in turn must confront the feelings of guilt that is itself keeping her prisoner on the island.

Taryn Michaels has built a life for her and her daughter on Manhattan's Upper West Side.  She's working a job she loves researching and finding antique fabrics for her customers and has convinced herself she is finally happy.  But September 2011 is coming up, the tenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centers, and she is once again facing that day as a national magazine publishes a formerly unknown picture of her watching in terror and clutching a beautiful scarf with marigolds as the tower collapses and the debris falls around her.  Now she must answer her daughter's questions about why she has never said that she was there when the towers fell and the guilt that she has tried to bury comes raging full force as she remembers her husband's death in the towers.

Susan Meissner has an incredible way of taking two individuals stories years apart and connecting them through a physical object, in this case the scarf and it's journey from one to the other.  Living decades apart both women witnessed a horrible life altering tragedy (the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is a true event).   Both of these women's stories were paralleled in that they were both prisoners in a sense to the guilt they felt in what had happened to their loved one, and that both were choosing to live life in an "in between place" of grief and guilt, holding back from really living and loving.  Their stories of coping and what led to both tragedies really got me in my heart.   I couldn't put the book down.  It is beautifully written and causes the reader to think on whether they believe that things happen for a reason.  It asks us to wonder if a person can actually fall in love with someone they don't really know, asks us to define what love would be.  As an observer one would scoff at Clara's declarations of "loving" someone she didn't even really know, but the feelings she felt for Edward were hers and I as the reader could choose to call it unbelievable or I could choose to believe that this young, innocent girl actually did have deep feelings for the Edward she knew, even though the knowing was more of a budding aquaintanceship (is that a word?).    The story asks us if we believe in destiny and that God has a plan for each of our lives.  It causes us to think of the choices we make and how that forms where our life will take us.  Once again I loved the immigrant experience parts of the story and learning about the hospital on Ellis island.

There was one thing that prevents me from giving this a 10/10, however, but it is minor.  For me there was a bit of confusion at the end on to whom the scarf was passed along to (who is Elinor??) and had me scratching my head and trying to turn back to former pages to see what I had missed.  I loved this quote from the end of the story and it sort of summarizes the story for me:

"The scarf was given first to a woman named Lily by a mother who loved her.  Life sent Lily to a valley of decision, just as it sends all of us there from time to time.  She made difficult choices based on despair.  If I have learned anything this past year, is that despair is love's fiercest enemy.

Do not chose to abandon love because you are afraid that it will crush you.  Love is the only true constant in a fragile world."

Fall of Marigolds pg. 363

Though in the Christian fiction genre, I think it is a story that anyone would enjoy no matter where they are in faith.  I gave this lovely story a 9.5 out 10

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit (New York city), A book by a female author, A book from an author I love,

Linked to Semicolon Saturday Review of  Books

How to Be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway ~ Book Review

When Shoko fell in love during the war in Japan, she couldn't tell a soul, and she couldn't bring herself to leave and marry her love.  Japanese culture dictated that the person she loved was not in the right caste and it would bring shame upon her family.  So when tragedy strikes,  Shoko decides to marry an American GI not for love but for a better life , her father picks her future husband from a pile of pictures of American suitors.  Leaving Japan, she was able to keep her parents honor and have their blessing but instead she incurred the scorn of her beloved brother.   Her now husband, trying to help her to fit in to American life, gives her a book called "How to be an American Housewife".   Written in both English and Japanese, in it are supposed gems of wisdom in helping the Japanese wife to navigate the differences in customs and attitudes and help to transition her into the Western Culture.

Now fifty years, after raising 2 children in America, Shoko desperately wants to return to Japan and see her family.  Not hearing from any of them during her life in America she wants to try to heal the rift with her brother and bring a treasured item home with her.  But now health problems prevent her from going and so she turns to her daughter to make the trip for her.  The things her grown daughter will learn on this trip will become life changing and will cause her to see her mother in a whole new light.

"For the first years of my marriage, it had been my handbook, 

my guide to doing everything.

Rules for living, American style.

Sometimes it was right, and sometimes it was not.

Sometimes I liked it and sometimes I didn't.

But that was just like life.

You don't always get what you want, do you?"

How to be an American Housewife

page 139

I loved this beautiful story.  There was so much to it.  The war, Japanese culture and attitudes, trying to assimilate into America, facing horrible prejudice, never fitting in, hiding secrets, love and loss.   The story starts in America with an aging Shoko and her husband Charlie, and then seamslessly moves into an account of Shoko's growing up years in Japan, of her young adult self full of beauty and potential, of the hard realities of war, her life in America and then moves into the trip her daughter and granddaughter make in her stead.  It is full of rich historical detail but never seams dry.  The author has woven it into the story very well.  The story starts in the voice of Shoko and then later also picks up the voice of Sue, her grown daughter.

In the author's notes it's interesting to find out that parts of the story are really from her own mother's experiences of coming to America and that the "How to be an American Housewife" book actually was inspired by a book found by the author amongst her mother's cookbooks called "The American way of Housekeeping".    Her father had given it to her mother thinking it was a book for housewives, but it really was a book for maids.  For the writing of the story, the author created her own version "keeping in mind how her own mother might have viewed the world back then, through her cultural lens.  (pg. 335 Author's Notes).

This ultimately is a lovely mother/daughter story but it is also a story of forgiveness and redemption, of prejudice and survival.  It is charming, ultimately uplifting and I loved it.

I rated it 10/10

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book based entirely on it's cover (I thought the cover was lovely)... A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit (Japan)... A book with a love triangle (kinda)... A book that made me cry... A book by an author I've never read... A book by a female author...A book set in a different country ( half of it)

Linked with Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson ~ Book Review

It's 1962 and Kitty Miller is settled and happy in her life as a small book shop owner with her best friend, Frieda.  Though at 38 she is still single she has for the most part come to terms with that and enjoys the control and freedom she has to do what she wants when she wants.  Her and Frieda are close as business partners and best friends and she has a strong relationship with her parents.  Life is good.  But when she starts dreaming of another life, one where she is Katharyn with a perfect husband and adorable children in a lovely home in suburbia she chalks it up to her old life's desires which she thought she let go of .  It is the perfect life she once held out hopes for.  The dreams are so real and she enjoys them at first but when they start to happen consistently and start to reveal layers of imperfections and challenges the lines begin to blur for Kitty and she has to figure out what is reality and what is dream.

This book had a lot of draws for me.  I totally picked it up for it's cover and title and then the 1960's setting drew me in as did the alternate life story of what might have been.  I really enjoyed it but am having a hard time writing a coherent and articulate review as there is so much to the story and I don't want to give anything away.

 Both of Kitty's worlds were interesting and I couldn't help but be fascinated with her confusion each time as she entered into the dream world.  She had to figure things out on the fly which would be totally disconcerting for her and of course her reactions would be  confusing for the dream family.  I really liked how the writing never left me confused as to what reality Kitty/Katharyn was in and that allowed me to really get into the story of the lives of the character(s).  As Katharyn's story developed there were some aspects to it that involved one of the kids that  for me was of great interest because of my education background.  That was a development I didn't know was in there and I enjoyed reading that part of the story as it 's history is something I 've always been interested in. (I can't say more without giving things away so I'll just have to leave it at that.)

The 60's aspect was well written.  The descriptions of everything from lifestyle, to the decor, the clothing, the political climate to the attitudes and thoughts towards different things such as women's roles in life was all historically correct.  It reminded of why I chose the field I did.  The one thing I didn't like about the story was the one explicit scene in it.  I groaned inwardly when it came up wondering if the novel would be over run with them and if I would end up laying it aside.  To me the explicitness was totally unnecessary and the scene could have been told to give me the idea of the character's feelings at the time without describing the whole act to me.  Thankfully that was the one and only occurrence and it ended up being an interesting and unique story,

I gave it an 8.5/10

Reading Challenge Goals Met: A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit (Denver, Colorado), a book with bad reviews (this one had some mixed reviews), a book by an author I've never read, a book published this year, a book by a female author, a book chosen entirely for it's cover

Linked to Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

Inside the O'Briens - a novel by Lisa Genova ~ Book Review

• Joe O'Brien is a career Boston PD Police Officer hailing from the Irish side of town.  He loves his wife Rosie and his four grown children and his identity is totally wrapped around being a good police officer and a proud husband and father.  In his 40's Joe is working towards his 25th year on the force and eventually the full retirement package in his 50's where he and Rosie can enjoy retirement together.  But when he starts to experience bouts of raging temper, dropping items, some involuntary movements and has difficulty writing out his reports at work Rosie talks the doctor avoiding Joe into getting checked by a doctor.  He finds himself seeing a neurologist and then being handed the horrible diagnosis of Huntington's disease.  As his family grapples with the hereditary significance of the disease Joe also has to face that his mother did not indeed die a drunk in a nursing home as he was told but that she had this horrible disease.  And now all those things that scared him about her he will be going through.  He also must face losing everything that defines, in his eyes, who he is.

After reading Still Alice (reviewed here) and learning so much about Alzheimer's disease, I was eager to read another of this author's novels.  I basically knew nothing about Huntington's disease before reading this book and I knew, again, that I would learn from it because of author's first hand knowledge of neuroscience (she has a degree from Harvard).  Huntington's Disease is a horrible hereditary neurological monster. It is passed on through families and if a parent has the disease, the children have a 50/50 chance of getting it.  Symptoms usually start in the 30's or 40's and progress over the next 10 -20 years until death.  It affects voluntary movements, walking, speech, temper and people not in the know assume the person is drunk.  It eventually makes it so that the victim is bedridden, unable to care for themselves and will affect swallowing and eating.  In the 90's a blood test was developed that reveals whether you have the gene pattern that will have Huntingtons in your future.  If you are tested positive, you will have the disease 100%.  There is no treatment and no cure.

This story really spelled out what the person and family that has Huntington's running in their family line deals with.  It is devastating.  My heart was torn for the O'Brien family as they each come to grips with it and each sibling must decide whether to have the test and know for sure before they start to develop symptoms.  As Joe is stripped of everything that is him...his health, his strength, his badge, his pride and even what him and Rosie have to face to provide for Rosie after his death is shocking and sad.  And then he has to deal with the guilt.  Guilt that he passed this onto his kids unknowingly, guilt of how treated his own mother even though he was mislead in what he was told was wrong with her.   As he fought within himself on how he wanted to deal with the disease and whether he had the courage to live it out before his family, the story really broke my heart.   As each adult child wrestled with whether to take the test and know for sure whether they had the disease, I felt myself  asking what I would do.  Would I be able to dig deep and find the courage to live a life of hope  in the midst of an essentially hopeless diagnosis.  The author really drew me into each and every character within the story as she described what they were battling inwardly.

This author is extremely adept in bringing to light what it is like to be diagnosed and to live with these devastating diseases from both the victim's standpoint and also the family's and to give the reader knowledge and compassion.  Both of the books I have read by her have really done that in my heart.  I recommend her novels for that very reason.  Because they are fiction they teach without the dryness of textbooks and draw out your compassion for what the people with these diseases face in their everyday.  They really knock out a lot of my assumptions.  That being said I must say that this particular story just about didn't get finished by myself.  The proliferation of f-bombs right from the first pages of the book had me wanting to put it aside from about page 5.  They are over the top plentiful as are other swears.  I usually don't bother with a novel that relies on that amount of swearing.  But because I knew I would learn from the story I pressed on.  But in reality by the end of the book I was so done with it because of the language.  It really did make it hard for me to press through.

I give this a 9/10 for writing of the devastation and feelings of facing this disease and the knowledge and compassion it brings out of the reader but took a point away for the crazy amount of f-bombs that I had to struggle through.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book set somewhere I've always wanted to visit (Boston); A book that made me cry; A book published this year; A book by a female author; A book a friend recommended; A book that scares me.

Linked with Saturday Review of Books 

Finding Me by Kathryn Cushman ~ Book Review

  Kelli Huddleston grew up an only child with her father and stepmother. She was very close to her father and so when he and her stepmother died in a car accident she felt the loss deeply. All her growing up years, Kelli's father would never allow her into his home office, it was out of bounds and Kelli knew it. But now that he is gone she has no choice but to go in there and clear it out and wrap up his business files. But what she finds causes her to question who she is and everything she knew about herself and she'll also find she never really knew her beloved father at all. Needing to find the truth about herself and what her dad did and with only a few pictures to go by, she heads back to Tennessee where she'd always been told her mother and 2 siblings had died in a house fire that took everything. What she finds there will further complicate her once seemingly peaceful life and she must make a decision that will affect not only her but the lives of others.

 Well, this was a story that was hard to put down. I, as the reader, got very caught up in what was happening to Kelli. In the midst of opening up a new restaurant with her best friends her father and stepmother die tragically. While dealing with the grief of that and realizing she is alone in the world, she is trying to wrap up his business and files and discovers that she is not who she thought she was and her whole life has been a lie. In shock and drawn by the deep desire to discover who the persons in the hidden photographs are and ultimately who she is and against the advice of her best friend, she goes in search of the unknown persons. But once she finds them, it is hard not to be drawn into their lives and now she is faced with continuing the lie or telling the truth and devastating more lives.

 This story was so believable and I really felt Kelli's pain and confusion. It was easy to understand her choices and reasoning for her decisions. Her character was very well written. I had a hard time putting the book down because I just had to find out what was going to happen. I felt for her as she struggled not only with the death of her dad but at understanding and forgiving his deception and what he had done. And then her inner struggles as she finds herself being caught up and befriended by those in the photograph and the choice of whether to tell them who she really is. It's an emotional story, for sure, and engaged me right through out. I must admit, the character of Beth drove me nuts. She was soooo pushy and just wouldn't take no for an answer. It was at times hard not to really dislike her even though her intentions were written as good.  I also really like the exploration into the topic of  turning from biblical truth and believing lies because that is what you want to hear.  (2 Timothy 4:3-5).  A really engrossing read.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book I own but haven't read yet, A book published this year, A book by a female author, a book from author I love


An thoroughly engaging story that I read in a few days I gave it a 9.5/10.

Linked with Saturday Review of Books

Invisible Ellen by Shari Shattuck ~ Book Review

Ellen has spent her whole life trying to be invisible.  Scarred both emotionally and physically since childhood she is now a very overweight, insecure and awkward adult living a very self-secluded life.  Though she tries to keep herself from being noticed she is a great observer of people and records what she observes in those around her in journals.  Having buried her emotions long ago, her writings involve no feelings, emotion or judgement but are simply a recording of what she has observed.  But one day as Ellen catches her usual bus to her night shift job cleaning Costco, Ellen comes across a blind girl named Temerity and her whole life changes.  Temerity boards Ellen's bus and due to her exuberant personality, Ellen feels compelled to get off at her stop and follow her.  But then she finds herself observing Temerity being mugged and before she realizes what she is doing Ellen steps in to help her, which is totally out of character for Ellen.  Temerity and her brother immediately and unconditionally befriend Ellen and step by step Ellen finds herself being swept along in Temerity's whirlwind way of helping others out.  Ellen soon discovers herself not quite so invisible anymore and actually having someone she can call her friend for the first time in her life. And through that acceptance Ellen starts to see that she does have some things to offer if she would dare to step out of her invisibility.  

This story turned out to be an enjoyable surprise!  One of the components on my Reading Challenge 2015 was to read a book written by an author with the same initials as me.  Well, I couldn't think of any off the top of my head and after some extensive searching I found this site that listed a bazillion authors alphabetically.  And after scrolling through and clicking on what seemed like a million books written by authors with the initials SS, I found this one that seemed like something I might possibly get into.   

The story grabbed me right away.  The concept of a friendship between a person who was emotionally handicapped and trying to hide and a person who was physically handicapped with a exuberant personality and how they connected was fun.  I was invested in the main characters and cared what happened to Ellen.  My heart broke for her as her story was revealed and cheered her on as she started to break out of the walls and shells she had placed around heart in order to protect herself.  I cried and I laughed throughout the book.  The way that Temerity seemed to push Ellen out of her comfort zones, always without knowing that that is what she was doing, led to some pretty humorous reactions and situations.  There is a natural humor in the story that I really enjoyed.  While the situations were a little crazy they lent a craziness and silliness that was refreshing in the midst of the issues that the book was reflecting on.  There was a few mentions of marijuana used for recreational purposes as a positive thing but they were for the most part just mentions and not really dwelt upon. 

A couple quotes that really stood out to me:

"She'd spent her whole life living day to day, hoping for nothing more than to get through each one unnoticed and unscathed.

...It was so much easier to expect nothing and be all right than to expect something and be disappointed."  pg 232

That one really got me thinking how many people I come across who are feeling this way and we tend to just walk right by them not even noticing them or thinking they are unfriendly or unapproachable or we judge them.  

and then:

"Besides, I always find that focusing on helping other people makes my problems much more insignificant, don't you?"    pg. 245

Sorta sums up the book in a lovely way as Temerity shows Ellen just that.

I gave this uplifting read a  9.5/10

Reading Challenge 2015 Goals Met:  A book by an author with your same initials, A book by a female author, a funny book, a book by an author I've never read before, a book that made me cry 

Life of Pi by Yann Martel ~ Book Review

Well, I'm certainly late to get on the "must read" bandwagon for this book.  In all honesty it's not a book that ever drew my attention when it first came out in spite of seemingly everyone talking about it and it winning a Canadian award.  I couldn't imagine reading a story about a boy in a lifeboat with a tiger that had a time span of 227 days.   But when the movie came out I went with hubby because he loves the 3D and went for that reason alone.   And while the movie was a visual spectacle, I left scratching my head, totally confused with the story.  So jump ahead to today and here I am reading the book for basically 2 reasons...the first being one of the challenges on my Reading List Challenge 2015 is "A book with non-human characters".   This category is not my norm for choosing a book so it definitely challenged me to find one that I would actually be interested in reading, but my 2nd reason was to maybe have it make sense of the movie for me.

So "Life of Pi" it was.  Now most everyone has by now heard the gist of the storyline.  A 16 yr. old boy from Pondicherry, India finds himself the only survivor of a shipwreck somewhere out of Manilla in the Pacific ocean along with a tiger, a zebra, an orangutan, and a hyena.  He survives 227 days out at sea trying to survive on a lifeboat while watching as 3 of the animals die "survival of the fittest" deaths until it is only him and the Bengal tiger left.  He must learn how to survive not only the elements and the tiger but discouragement and lonliness and lack of hope as time goes on.

The first third of the book tells the background story of Pi (the nickname he adopted because of being relentlessly teased for his full name of Piscine) growing up with his family in India.  His father who owned and ran the Pondicherry zoo was an atheist and raised his children to fear and understand the wild nature of the animals in spite of interacting  with them on a daily basis. Richard Parker, the bengal tiger, came to the zoo as a young cub so Pi grew up along with the tiger.   In spite of his father's beliefs, or non-belief as it were, Pi goes on to openly embrace 3 religions to which he is exposed.  In fact, the story opens with a journalist who is being directed to go find Pi because of his incredible story, a story that will make him believe in God.  There is much time spent in discussing the overall view of the 3 major religions in this third of the book and how Pi rationalizes the acceptance of all three in his young boyhood.  I found myself skimming a lot of this as it just didn't hold my interest and didn't make sense to me.  (There was also lots of endlessly run on sentences in this part of the book.)  The three religions are so far apart from each other in their belief systems that I found it far-fetched that a person can live by all three.  One of these  was Christianity which is clear in the fact that "Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to God but through Him"  (John 14:6).  So asking me accept the young Pi justifying and rationalizing living by 3 (Hindu and Islam were the other 2) was hard to compute for me even though it was through the viewpoint of a young boy.  I could understand his interest in all three, as I had an interest in religions as a young kid, but I was also very clear that in their differences one can really only choose one to take to heart and live by.  Accepting all three even from a kid's viewpoint just was not realistic to me, then or now.

The second part of the book deals with Pi's actual survival on the lifeboat.  This is where the story really picked up for me and was hard to put down.  The writing seemed to get much more focused and better.  Gone were the endless sentences.  There are some gruesome detail about the animals and their lack of survival that was hard for me to read, but for the most part the descriptions of Pi's feelings during this part of the story were gripping and real.  His beliefs and zoo background come into play to help him and the choices he has to make to survive did make me think.  His having to face surviving on a daily basis after hope for rescue dwindled was heartbreaking and his ingenuity had me amazed at times and crying at times as he had to face doing what he had to do in order to survive.  I couldn't put this part of the story down.

That is until he comes to the odd floating algae island.  Then this took a hard to make sense of it turn in the story for me.  I'm not good with allegory, I'm more of a face value story kind of person, so trying to figure out what it all meant was exhausting for me and I slugged along through this part.

Though I think most everyone has heard of the story and knows what happens if you haven't then this last part of the review is cautioned with a SPOILER ALERT and you may want to skip the next paragraph.

 The last half of the book deals with Pi finally, after 227 days at sea with a tiger, reaching land.   It's heartbreaking as Pi deals with the loss of the only living, breathing thing that has kept him sane and with some company for seven months.  Then he has to deal with two officials from the Japanese shipping offices who come to ask what he knows of the ship's sinking.  As he tells them the story they are very disbelieving that all this could happen and since there is no Richard Parker around to confirm it they have a hard time.   So he gives them another story, one much more "realistic" though gruesome.  They are then asked, as is the reader, which is the better story.  We are  left to ponder which lens and perspective we view the world through  This third of the book found me skimming a lot too, because of the way it is written.  It is written as an actual transcript of the discussion between Pi and the officials so to me it came off a bit dry.

So this book really had it's highs and it's blah portions for me.  I'm glad I read it, the story is always so much better than the movie for the most part for me.  The time at sea surely was the best portion, but trying to figure out all the allegory was not my cup of tea nor was trying to figure out Pi's closing statement about God after the officials chose which story they thought to be better.  It is definitely a work of story telling.    And it leaves one thinking long after the cover is closed on the book.  It is more than a fantastical story of survival, it is a story that asks to examine one's faith and the lense through which  we view things and whether we are able to believe the amazing things that take faith or whether you look at the world through the absolutes and practicals of what makes sense to your mind.  I think this book would make excellent discussions as a reading group choice.

I gave it a 7.5 out 10

Reading Challenge 2015 goals met:  A book with non-human characters, A book that made me cry, A book that became a movie, A book by an author I've never read before, A book set in a different country,

The Beautiful Daughters by Nicole Baart ~ A Review

Is what we remember and believe to be the truth in a tragic occurrence really truth or how we perceived it and want to believe?

 This is a story of 5 college friends, Adri who is a conservative young woman and her brother, Will, who were raised by their Christian father, Harper who is the wild child of the group, David who is son of very well to do parents who live in a castle-like mansion in town and for whom there is lots of expectations, and Jackson who is rarely mentioned. Adri has become a nurse and has moved to Africa to work with a charity but is called home after the death of the mansion's matriarch has made her an heir. We soon find out that Adri had been engaged to David and had actually fled to Africa following the death of her fiance and the story then starts to backtrack through Adri and Harper's viewpoints to the time of their college days where they met until the present where they both come back to the place they both swore they would never return to. Adri has not seen or talked to Harper since David's death even though they had been the best of friends in college so there is an air of mystery about that and what had actually happened to David. As the story unfolds there are sad and shocking revelations that play on the reader's emotions as and build up to why Adri and Harper no longer have contact. As they are forced to face their past they are also forced to face their guilt in the tragedy that caused them to go their separate ways.

 I usually love Nicole Baart's stories. Her writing is really good but I have to say this is definitely not my favourite of her books. I found I was just making myself finish the book because I usually do like this author's writing and I wanted to see what she would do with the characters not because I was loving the story or the characters involved. There were moments my attention was totally grabbed and then it would back off and I'd chug along until the next moment that it grabbed me. I didn't really engage or connect with either of the main characters unfortunately and I can't really state why. I found the ending did not reward me like I thought it would which is what I was hoping for in my determination not to put the book down. All that said, just because this particular story was not my cup of tea, I would still read the next book by this author.

I gave this book a 7.5/10

 Reading Challenge Goals Met: A book set somewhere I've always wanted to visit (Georgia), A book published this year, a book by a favourite author I haven't read yet, a book by a female author

Linked with Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

A House Divided by Robert Whitlow ~ Book Tour and Review

Publisher's Description:
A father's mistakes nearly cost his children everything. Now his children must unite to take on the most important case of their respective careers.

Corbin Gage is slowly drinking himself into the grave while running a small law practice in a small Georgia town. The assistant DA in the same community is his son Ray, poised for a professional breakthrough based on a job offer to work for the best law firm in the area. Roxy is Corbin's daughter, a rising star associate in Atlanta for an international law firm that specializes in high stakes, multi-million-dollar litigation. Against the advice of everyone in his life, Corbin Gage takes on a toxic tort case on behalf of two boys who have contracted non-Hodgkin's lymphoma due to an alleged chemical exposure. The defendant, a herbicide/pesticide/fertilizer company, is the largest employer in the area. Because of the lawsuit, Ray's job offer evaporates, forcing him to go to work with his father. Roxy's expertise in complex litigation draws her into the drama. As their investigation uncovers an audacious conspiracy to conceal dangers to their community, Corbin, Ray, and Roxy come to a personal treaty in their pursuit of justice. But they soon discover that burying a problem can have explosive results.

My Thoughts:  For the most part I really enjoyed this legal story that also delves into the issue of alcoholism and it's devastating effects on family.  Corbin is a crusty old lawyer who's law practice is barely treading water.  His relationship with his grown children is tenuous at best and pretty much non-existant at worst.  His son is a little more open to him than his daughter, who really resents his un-involvement in their growing up years due the alcohol and has written him out of her life.  Living in Atlanta she is pursuing partnership in a huge international high stakes litigation firm.  His son, who is also a lawyer, allows Corbin into his life due to the special relationship that Corbin has with his own son, but when Corbin cannot control his drinking even around his grandson, he might lose even that.  As Corbin's decisions start to spin out of control, and once again start to devastate all whom he cares about, he is forced to take a hard look at where his love of alcohol has taken him.  In the midst of all this he has taken on one of the toughest cases of his career and he needs the help of those he is alienating.

I found both the legal case and the personal story very interesting in the book.  This family must face real problems in their lives brought on by the alcoholism of their father and I thought their reactions and behavior rang quite true.  Corbin's journey to facing what his life and decisions had wrought upon his family drew me right in.  The influence of the mother, who was a Christian, on the family was also written well into the story.  Even though her death was a catalyst in the beginning of the story to set Corbin on his journey, her legacy of faith was woven into the lives of her family beautifully.  The only thing I didn't like about this story was the very beginning where there seemed to be quite a bit of  lawyer "language".  Not being exposed to much legal jargon I found it a bit tedious wading through that, but that slowed down as the story went on and then the book really picked up for me and drew me right in.

The book was provided free of charge by Thomas Nelson and the BookLook Bloggers program.  All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.

The Sweet By & By by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck ~ Book Review

With having hand surgery and not being able to type and be on the computer for any length of time, unfortunately I got behind on my book reviews so there are going to be a few in the next couple of days.

The first book in a 3 book series, it was the last one I read. As I really enjoyed book 2 (reviewed here) and book 3 (reviewed here) I figured I would like to know the beginning of Jade's story. Jade is marrying into a well to do family. The furthest thing from her background. With a father who abandoned her when she was 8, and then having a hippie mom who constantly remarried and followed whatever fancy took her at the time, the only stable thing in Jade's life was her Christian grandmother. So when after college, Jade moved to a new town and became the owner of a antique and retro type store, she left the past in the past. But now with the fancy wedding her future mother in law is forcing upon her, she is confronted with having to invite her mother to the wedding. Which is the last thing Jade wants. Too much hurt and water has passed under that bridge and she will have too much explaining to do to her new family as she has hidden it all from them including her husband to be, granted them both agreeing to keep the past in the past. But when her mother shows up three weeks early with her own news, Jade has to come face to face with her past and hope when it all shakes out and settles she still has a marriage to look forward to.

 I liked this series and it was finally good to read the beginnings of Jade's story. The story is raw and honest in it's feelings. Jade faces many issues from her past that are now resurfacing after she tried so hard to bury them. As each one rears it's ugly head she is forced to resolve them. But her grandmother's Christian roots which she placed in her as a young girl, also come back to the surface and in doing so Jade must also face the hardest questions of why God would let all those things happen to her. Some of the reactions Jade had seemed a little immature for her age but then when one faced as much hurt as she did and then tried to bury it so deep I guess the emotions would also be immature as they were never dealt with. But it was a good story of pain, and redemption.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  a trilogy (does finally finishing a trilogy count?), a book by a female author (bonus points for me:  it had 2 female authors!), a book out of the bottom of my TBR list

Linked at Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

Her Brother's Keeper by Beth Wiseman ~ Book Tour and Review

Publisher's Description:  

Charlotte came to Amish country to find answers. What she never expected to find was peace.

 Charlotte Dolinsky is not above playing dress-up and telling a few lies to find out what happened to her only brother. In fact, that is exactly what she’s come to Lancaster County to do. Now, calling herself Mary and slipping on a kapp, Charlotte will lie her way into the confidence of anyone who knows why Ethan had to die. Unless she gets found out first. But when Charlotte befriends a quiet Amish man named Isaac Miller, she begins to rethink her motives. And with a little help from a friend back home, Charlotte might find out that love comes packaged in ways she couldn’t have foreseen.

 Isaac’s been caring for his cancer-stricken father and sympathizing with his frustrated mother for three difficult years. And that means he hasn’t been dating. He believes Hannah King is the woman for him, but Hannah is still grieving the loss of her fiancé, and Isaac has all he can handle on the farm. When Hannah’s family plays host to a woman named Mary, their new cousin shakes things up for all of them. As Charlotte digs deeper into the mystery of Ethan’s death, she finds more than she’d bargained for in the community he once called home. But will she ever learn the truth? And what will the community—and her new family—do if they learn the truth about her?

My Thoughts:

I really enjoyed this story by Beth Wiseman.  I love her contemporary stories and this was the first Amish based story I've read by her though she has written quite a few.  The story was so much more than the description implies.  The whole premise of a worldly "Englisher" trying to pose as an Amish person was interesting.  As Charlotte lies her way into the Amish community that her brother chose to adopt and then died in, her determination to find what really happened to him to make him take his own life supercedes sometimes even her common sense.  She operates from a standpoint of deep hurt and is looking for someone to blame.  Her brother was her only family and now he is gone and she is alone.   In her sights first is her brother's fiance.  But as Charlotte gets to know her and her family whom she's staying with she sees there is more to the story and as her lies compound she realizes that she has put herself into a precarious position.  The love and acceptance the family has given her, though they innocently believe she is someone else, has shown her what real family is about.  As her and her brother have never really had a family life, this starts to play on her guilt.   And the more she finds out about what happened the more people she realizes are going to be hurt with the truth.   Her dilemma becomes not why her brother had to die but when and if she should even really tell the truth. And will they just cast her away like her mother did when she was little.

There was a bit of mystery to the story but it really was a book about family and faith and what love really is and what forgiveness looks like.  I felt for all the characters, which is something I love in a book.  The author also tackles the subject of suicide and if the person goes to heaven, which I thought she did with grace.  There was moments that made me laugh as Charlotte tries to fit in with the community  but her language and lack of domesticity raises eyebrows and questions.   This was a perfect summer read for me.

Thanks to BookLook Bloggers for providing me with a copy free of charge for my honest opinion.  I was not required to post a positive review.

Her Brother's Keeper is available for purchase here

Linked to Semicolon Saturday Review of Books

Still Alice by Lisa Genova ~ Book Review

Alice Howland is a brilliant professor of cognitive psychology at Harvard and is world renowned for her research into linguistics.  Being a sought after lecturer she has a very busy schedule teaching her classes, lecturing at conferences all over the world and conducting research.  It is a life she loves.  Her husband is also a busy Harvard professor of science conducting cancer research.  Study and learning are very important to them and they have tried to pass that on to their adult children.  Their oldest has become a lawyer, the middle child a doctor but it is their youngest whom Alice locks horns with constantly as she has no interest in academia and has chosen instead to pursue a career in acting.  While her husband is supportive of this, she just cannot help constantly questioning her daughter's decisions. As Alice prepares for a new semester at work, small incidences of forgetfulness and disorientation start to show up in her days.  When she becomes lost in a part of town that she knows like the back of her hand it truly frightens her, she makes an appointment at her doctor's thinking she is experiencing a bad case of menopause.  It is then that she is handed the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimers at the age of 49.

This book was very moving and chilling in it's story.  It is taken from the viewpoint of Alice which is an approach that I've never read before.  I've read other stories that deal with this horrendous disease but always from the spouse, caretaker's or family members points of view.  I cried through out the book as Alice's frustration and fear of what was happening was tangible through the words.  Her having to slowly let go of life as she knows it and loves it as the disease quickly progresses is truly heart breaking.   It is so well written in it's attempt to show the reader what a person going through this disease might go through and feel.  It describes the disease, it's consequences and progression so well yet never gets bogged down in super scientific terminology so even someone like myself easy was able to understand what Alice was experiencing.  The author herself has a Ph.D in neuroscience from Harvard and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association so the story rang very true in it's descriptions.  She also mentions several areas of drug testing within the scope of the story that was interesting.

I don't think I'm giving anything away when I say I especially liked the progression of Alice and Lydia's (the actress daughter) relationship in the story.  It was moving to have privy to the change even though they are fictional characters.  The story ended in a way I was not expecting at all.    

I saw this book mentioned on Faith's website, she highly recommended it, and I was also interested when I saw that Julianne Moore had won the academy award for her portrayal of Alice in the film.  I determined to read the book first so that I could get the author's original intents and story rather than Hollywood's version and I'm so glad I did.  It was heart breaking, beautifully written, sensitive, intelligent, compassionate and informative.  I, also,  highly recommend this book to everyone.  It will change how you view and relate to someone going through Alzheimers and/or Dementia.

Rating:  10/10


Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book a friend recommended, A book that scares me, A book that made me cry, A book by an author I've never read before, A book that became a movie

Refining Fire by Tracie Peterson ~ Book Tour and Review

Publisher's Description:  
Twenty two year old Militine Scott is in training at the Madison Bridal School in Seattle, yet she has no intention of pursuing marriage.  What respectable man would have her?  But she has found the school provides the perfect opportunity to keep her unsavory past hidden.

Thane Patton, though fun-loving and fiercely loyal to his friends, hides a dark secret, as well.  He finds himself drawn to Militine, sensing that she harbors a haunting pain similar to his own.

Will they allow God to make something new and beautiful from the debris of their past?

My Thoughts:
Abrianna Cunningham and Militine Scott both attend the Madison Bridal School in Seattle.  Having met there they have become best friends.  Abrianna was adopted by the 3 single sisters who own the school when her parents died and Militine basically attends the school so that she can hide from her past.   The school is a training ground for young women to prepare them for marriage but Militine has no intention of ever marrying.   Abrianna is very strong in her Christian faith and very purposefully pushes onto what she feels is her calling and will do anything to accomplish that purpose,  There is nothing that will stand in her way of helping the poor including a new pastor whom she doesn't trust.  Militine is very hesitant about God because of her past.  She can't reconcile what has happened to her with a loving God.

Thane Patton also has trouble believing because of his own past but he is drawn to Militine.  Though she attends a bridal school she has no intention of ever marrying.  In spite of her resolve she agrees to court Thane being totally honest with where she stands on the issue.  Thane's heart however is also being drawn by God and his best friend, Wade, is a strong Christian who shares his faith in a real and authentic way with him.

 From the publisher's description on the back, this story was supposed to be about Militine and Thane.  While Militine and Thane's story did play out in the book I wish there would have been more focus on how they worked through their painful pasts while coming together as a couple and confronting their beliefs. I really thought that their stories only scratched the surface.  I found that the character of Abrianna who was not even mentioned on the back of the book,  totally usurped the lead role in the story.  She was a very strong personality in the story and I found all others took a back seat to her and her escapades.  The story, for me, was very conversation driven, again mostly because of Abrianna, and I found I kept wondering when and if  anything was really going to happen.  That being said, it was an interesting setting being Seattle 1889 and a time period when strong women were not really tolerated.  The attitudes of the times were written into the story well and I really got a sense of what it might have been like.  Abrianna's total commitment to doing the Lord's work was to be admired and desired though some of her decisions to accomplish the work were not wise at best.  There is a bit of a twist concerning Abrianna that played in nicely to the story that I didn't see coming at all.   The Great Seattle Fire was included and that was really interesting and provided the tension the story needed.

Thanks to Bethany House Publishers for providing the book free of charge for an honest review.  I was not required to give a positive review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.

A Matter of Trust by Lis Wiehl ~ Book Review

Mia Quinn's husband passed away 3 months before in a car accident and she has been forced to go back to work as a King County prosecutor to provide for her teenage son and preschool daughter.  Already trying to juggle everything on her plate that being a new single parent requires, she is totally unprepared for what is coming her way and struggles to find a balance.  While on the phone discussing a case with an office colleague and friend, she hears a gunshot on the other end of the phone and her friend goes silent.  In the stress and panic of the moment Mia makes a parenting decision that she will regret as it really effects her son.  As a result of the murder of her friend, her boss asks her to take on the case which will require top priority and more hours in the day than Mia has but she feels she must put her friend's killer behind bars.  Unfortunately, Charlie Carlson is the detective assigned to the case and Mia has not had a good experience working with him.  Add to that, her teenage son is giving her attitude and her young daughter is having screaming episodes at night and Mia's world seems to be one big complication.

This is the first book in the Mia Quinn Mystery series.  I must confess I have already read #2 and #3, reviewed here and here.  I received those for review and really liked them so when I saw number 1 on clearance at the book store I nabbed it and picked up the beginning of Mia's story.  It was a fast paced murder mystery that kept me guessing as it delved into bullying, accepting others for who they are,  and appearances not always being what they seem.   Having been a stay at home parent, Mia was struggling with her husband's unexpected death just a few months before and was forced back to work quickly because of unknown to her debts that her husband had accumulated.  And then one thing after another just continues to pile onto her plate.  I really was pulled into her story, sympathizing with her and the family issues she was having to deal with.  Single parenthood, debt, and all that comes with returning to work unexpectedly while her and her family were still trying to deal with their grief, the struggle of a young teen pulling away and not knowing how to help him.  The character of the teenage son was also well written and I really felt for him in his grief and trying to fit in at school and all of a sudden having to grow up so fast and help around the house so much.   His struggles as he deals with death and school were tough.  There were two mysteries woven into the story and I thought they played out well and the author was able to interweave them  into the story without confusion.  A good mystery earning 9/10 from me.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A trilogy (bit of a cheat because I'd already read the other 2  but at least I completed a trilogy), book by a female author, A mystery or thriller, A book from an author you love but haven't read yet

Water From My Heart by Charles Martin ~ Book Review

Charlie Finn has been on his own since he was 16. Without much effort on his part he does well in school and earned himself a scholarship to Harvard.  Taking math and business he is then able to insert himself into the fast-paced world of finance.  Because of his hard growing up years Charlie has no problem with the indifference to people's hardships his business dealings creates.  But when working for a power hungry business executive comes to a unexpected end, Charlie ends up meeting and partnering with a high society drug dealer.  Once again his ability to keep his personal and work life separated and his wall of indifference high, he convinces himself he is just offering a service that the elite of society would find someone else to do for them if it wasn't him.  And meanwhile he can make himself a very rich man.   But when tragedy strikes it causes Charlie to head to an area of Costa Rica and Nicaragua where his former business dealings had left a group of innocent and devastated family coffee farmers.  By chance he meets a young woman whom he must rely on to help find his partner's family member.  And in the processCharlie comes face to face with who he is and what he has allowed his heart to become and whether he wants to pursue the real riches in life

Love, love, loved this latest story from Charles Martin.  My short description above definitely lacks the amount of details and nuances this wonderful story holds.  It was hard to write a description without giving away details but every twist and turn added up to make a story that I thought about for days, even weeks,  afterwards.  I couldn't pick up another book because this one kept mulling over in my heart.  The author takes a bit of a departure from his usual strong, moral male character and instead gives us a main male character who is very flawed.  Indifferent and heartless in his business life, the character of Charlie is quite a selfish individual and thinks he can separate his personal life from his business self  but will have to come to realize that the two intertwine.  It will take a woman and child who survived through horrible pain and loss and yet exude a joy and beauty and love that Charlie has never before experienced.  As usual, Charles Martin took my heart on a roller coaster ride of emotions.  Several times my husband looked over at me and asked what I was crying about.  He takes the high society lives of London and Miami and sets it against the poverty and simplicity of life in Nicaragua.  He takes the entitlement, the skewed values of most of North America and shines a light on it comparing it with the riches of what the Nicaraguan mountain people hold dear.  Woven into Charles Martin's story is a piece of himself that he experienced when he himself went and met Nicaraguan people who had been devastated when Hurricane Mitch, in 1998, hung over a volcanic lake until it overfilled causing a horrific mudslide that travelled at 100 mph down the mountain cutting a deadly path killing 3000 people.   This a beautiful story of fruit in the midst of horror, of true love and redemption that made me take a good hard look at my own indifferences in my own heart.  You cannot read this and not be moved.  Have I made you curious enough to run out and read it?  I hope so.  Not to be missed is the author's notes in the end where you are allowed a glimpse of where the story came from.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book that made me cry, A book published this year, A book set in a different country, A book from an author I love but haven't read yet

GI Brides - The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love by Duncan Barrett & Nual Calvi

During WWII American GI's were stationed all throughout the UK.  Over 70,000 of these GI's met and fell in love with the British girls, married them and brought them home to America after the war was over.   GI Brides is the true account of 4 of these young British women who met and married American GI's and bravely crossed the ocean leaving everything behind to be with the soldiers they loved.

I found this story quite fascinating.  One of the authors is actually the grand-daughter of one of the women featured and the other three were picked from interviewing about 60 other GI brides.  These stories are not always happy ones.  These four women did not have the fairy tale lives that they thought they would when they left all behind to follow the men that they loved.  I thought the authors did a great job in describing England during the time of war and the fear and oppression they lived under.  The hardships that came during wartime: the hard rationing, the danger, the trauma of being constantly bombed are set against the backdrop of meeting the handsome GI's, falling in love and the lure of a better life in golden America.  It was interesting to read of the women's trip across the ocean and how they were treated on the boats and how they were treated in America.  In Britain the GI's were disliked and resented because they were taking the British girls from the British guys but in America the brides were resented because they had taken the available men.  The language barrier was at times funny.  Even though they spoke English, it was not the English of America and what meant something overseas certainly did not translate across in America bringing embarrassment.  The lives the women dreamed of did not necessarily translate into reality, either.  Three of the four did not end up having happy lives and the other suffered through polio and in-law interference.

The book was written in such a way that each chapter was dedicated to a different woman and rotated and followed the order through out the book.  This at times, especially in the beginning when I was just starting to know the characters, was a bit confusing.  I kept having to refer back to the characters pictures in the middle of the book and sometimes even scanning back into the chapters to remind myself of whose story was whose.  It made each chapter sort of like a mini cliff hanger that you didn't come back to until you finished another chapter of each of the other 3 women's stories.  It definitely made it suspenseful so that I didn't want to put the book down but at the same time I can't help but think I would have slowed the reading a bit and would have been able to be more invested into each of their stories if I could have just read them in order.  But then the suspense wouldn't have been there in quite the same way, I guess.   All in all I love reading people's stories and how they deal with what is dealt them in life and this book didn't disappoint.  I really enjoyed the read.

Reading Challenge Goals Met:  A book set in a different country; a non-fiction; a book based on a true story;

"Wonders Never Cease" by Phil Callaway ~ Book Review

This is the sequel to "The Edge of the World" (Chronicles of Grace series) and continues Terry Anderson's story.  Terry is now 18 and in his senior year of high school.  He is struggling with his parent's faith and has pretty much decided to leave it behind though he hasn't told them that.  He can hardly wait to get out of church going small town Grace and start "living".   But as graduation nears his boring life is once again thrown into turmoil.  Just when he's deciding he doesn't believe his atheist friend is starting to ask all sorts of questions about faith which he is compelled to come up with answers to.  His mother's illness from Huntington's disease has caused her to have to take to her bed 24/7 for all intents and purposes stealing her from her family.  His brother Ben has secretly returned and now someone is looking for him.  And now to top it all off it would have to be him that comes across a dead body and once again he is faced with what to keep secret.

Although I did like the first installment of  this series (reviewed here in 2014, #21) a bit better I thought this a good read.  Terry is struggling with his faith and is in full fledged rebellion.  But the amusing part of it is that his friend (from the previous book) who's father is the town atheist and has raised him that way, is all of a sudden asking all sorts of questions which is forcing Terry to answer and revisit the faith of his own upbringing.   I found that part of the story quite appealing and realistic as a lot of teenagers face rebellion and questioning and finding their way in making faith their own and not just their parent's.  Secrets are coming to light in the town of Grace and once again Terry is faced with doing the right thing or keep more secrets.  With what happened to him when a youngster you'd think the decision would be automatic but it gets more complicated. And once again, Terry finds himself choosing to keep something that isn't his and seeing his whole life turning upside down for it.  I found Terry's 18 year old character a bit immature in his thinking and actions. I had to remind myself that his character was actually 18 and about to graduate quite a few times throughout the story. I literally wanted to tell him to grow up at times.   I did enjoy the narration of the story through his perspective, though. His mother's story was heartbreaking and you could see the confusion such an illness brings into the family.  It was a good exploration of both young and mature faith, legalism, facing illness, and broken trusts and finding grace in unexpected places.

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