The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette’s, Faith, Strength and the Power of Family by Josh Hanagarne *Review*

When I first saw this book advertised on Shelf Awareness I knew I had to read it.    Leaving nothing to chance, I emailed the author and expressed my desire to read his memoir.  He kindly emailed back and a copy was soon on my doorstep.   I have a son that has Tourette’s so I knew I would be able to relate to what the author had went through.  And relate I did.  From Josh’s first wink/blink as a young boy to his tics becoming worse as he got older I could see my son in a lot of Josh’s moves.  Thankfully, my son’s syndrome isn’t nearly as bad or debilitating as Josh’s was.

I appreciated Josh’s candor and humor not only when he talked about his Tourette’s, but also when he talked about his faith (and lack of.)  His empty feeling is understandable, especially with all he has went through with his Tourette Syndrome.

But Josh does not only discuss his Tourette’s and his Mormon religion, but his love of strength training and books as well.  It was the love of books that really pulled me in.  He starts off by talking about the first books he remembers reading and the bookmobile that he used to visit all the time.  When he talks about reading this book or that, I get chills, as I realize those were some of my favorite reads as well.  It almost feels like he’s a male starlet name dropping about all the celebrities he’s just seen during lunch at The Power Bar on Sunset.  Book giddiness could easily have set in.

The downside of this book is that, while I liked each of the topics the author talks about in his memoir, I never felt like I got enough of any one of them.  I really wanted him to dig deeper into each subject.  Into the nitty-gritty, the meat, the heart of each one and truly give me the thought-provoking experience I wanted.      3 stars

Today Josh is a librarian at the Salt Lake City Library, founder of a popular blog about books and weight lifting-and the proud father of four-year-old Max, who has already started to show symptoms of Tourette’s.

*Thank you Gotham Books and Josh Hanagarne for sending me a copy to review.

The Cooked Seed: A Memoir by Anchee Min *Review*

A memoir?  It felt more like an adventure novel to me!  Anchee Min, the author, comes to America on a student visa with $500 borrowed from an aunt and no English speaking skills whatsoever.  Memorizing a “speech”,  she convinces the Chinese government to give her a student visa to go to art school in the US.  She is so terrified that they will interrupt her and ask her a question in English that she hurries through her prepared recitation and miraculously gets her visa.  That’s when the adventure begins.

Ms. Min is 27 years old, in a foreign country and watching Sesame Street to learn English.  Without a command of the English language she finds it hard to get a job, make friends, and keep up in her classes.  She carries a dictionary with her wherever she goes and tries to look up every word the teacher writes on the blackboard.

She works very hard to make a life for herself in America with the ultimate goal of earning a green card.  She pushes herself and lives on very little, even living in a storage closet to save money!

I was in awe of Ms. Min’s determination.  As she becomes Americanized she still finds it hard to let go of the Chinese culture that is so deeply a part of who she is. At times I wanted to shake her and say “loosen up a little and enjoy life instead of working from sun up until sun down!”  But all the hard work has payed off for Ms. Min as she is now the author of several best selling books.  I really enjoyed this memoir that didn’t always read like a memoir.    4 stars

*Thank you Bloomsbury Press for sending me a copy to review

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading January 7th

No ambitious plans for me this week.  Nope…just sliding in slowly…hoping to get out of my reading slump.  I have been so busy as of late to spend very much time reading and it’s hard to really get into a book when you’re only reading 15 minutes here and 10 minutes there.  My goal last year was to read 100 books, and for some of you that is easy to do.  With my schedule…not so much!  I think I had the worst year on record and I fell far short of my goal.  So this year, I’m setting the same goal and will work a little harder to attain it.  Some things are changing in my life soon that will make this easier to do so I’m optimistic I will hit my goal this year.

With that being said, here’s what’s on my plate this week:

Finish my book club book In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan (what am I doing blogging when I should be reading?  This baby is due for review Tuesday and I’m only 48 pages in!)

In the Belly of Jonah is a fast-paced mystery with a likable protagonist and an intricately woven narrative brimming with bizarre yet believable twists. The first in a series, the book expertly lays the groundwork for Liv Bergen, amateur sleuth, and her love interest, FBI Agent Streeter Pierce.

Liv becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of Jill Brannigan, a summer intern at the limestone mine Liv manages near Fort Collins, Colorado (a breathtaking setting that unwittingly becomes an accessory to crime). In doing so, she inadvertently puts her friends, her family, and herself at risk of being swallowed in the belly of a madman bloated with perverse appetites for women, surrealistic art, and renown.

Perhaps a bit too daring (and at times irreverent) for her own good, ”Boots,” as Liv’s eight siblings call her, soon realizes she has a knack for outsmarting and tracking down the Venus de Milo murderer–and she enjoys it! As the gripping plot of In the Belly of Jonah unfolds, Liv Bergen takes her place alongside the best female crime-solvers as a woman with smarts, self-confidence, and intuitive savvy.

Finish Looking for Alaska by John Green.  I started this right after Christmas on the recommendation of my seventeen-year-old son Zach who read this for school.  He loved it and even asked for it for Christmas- the first book he has ever requested for  gift!

A deeply affecting coming-of-age story, Looking for Alaska traces the journey of Miles Halter, a misfit Florida teenager who leaves the safety of home for a boarding school in Alabama and a chance to explore the “Great Perhaps.” Debut novelist and NPR commentator Green perfectly captures the intensity of feeling and despair that defines adolescence in this hip, shocking, and emotionally charged work of fiction.

Miles has a quirky interest in famous people’s last words, especially François Rabelais’s final statement, “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” Determined not to wait for death to begin a similar quest, Miles convinces his parents to let him leave home. Once settled at Culver Creek Preparatory School, he befriends a couple of equally gifted outcasts: his roommate Chip — commonly known as the Colonel — who has a predilection for memorizing long, alphabetical lists for fun; and the beautiful and unpredictable Alaska, whom Miles comes to adore.

The kids grow closer as they make their way through a school year filled with contraband, tests, pranks, breakups, and revelations about family and life. But as the story hurtles toward its shattering climax, chapter headings like “forty-six days before” and “the last day” portend a tragic event — one that will change Miles forever and lead him to new conclusions about the value of his cherished “Great Perhaps.”

Keep plugging away at Love & Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.  This one I am absorbing slowly to make sure the message really gets in my head.  This one came highly recommended by a young priest in our diocese.

Discover the single greatest secret to a successful marriage!  Psychological studies affirm it, and the Bible has been saying it for ages. Cracking the communication code between husband and wife involves understanding one thing: that unconditional respect is as powerful for him as unconditionallove is for her. It’s the secret to marriage that every couple seeks, and yet few couples ever find. Today, you and your mate can start fresh with the ground-breaking guidance that Dr. Emerson Eggerichs provides in this audio book. His revolutionary message, featured on Focus on the Family,is for anyone: those in marital crisis… wanting to stay happily married… who feel lonely. It’s for engaged couples… victims of affairs… pastors and counselors seeking material that can save a marriage.

If you would like to link up at Book Journey and share your reading plans for the week, please do!  Sheila would love to have ya!

Sister by Rosamund Lupton *Review*

When her mom calls to tell her that Tess, her younger sister, is missing, Bee returns home to London on the first flight. She expects to find Tess and give her the usual lecture, the bossy big sister scolding her flighty baby sister for taking off without letting anyone know her plans. Tess has always been a free spirit, an artist who takes risks, while conservative Bee couldn’t be more different. Bee is used to watching out for her wayward sibling and is fiercely protective of Tess (and has always been a little stern about her antics). But then Tess is found dead, apparently by her own hand.

Bee is certain that Tess didn’t commit suicide. Their family and the police accept the sad reality, but Bee feels sure that Tess has been murdered.  Single-minded in her search for a killer, Bee moves into Tess’s apartment and throws herself headlong into her sister’s life–and all its secrets. 

Though her family and the police see a grieving sister in denial, unwilling to accept the facts, Bee uncovers the affair Tess was having with a married man and the pregnancy that resulted, and her difficultly with a stalker who may have crossed the line when Tess refused his advances. Tess was also participating in an experimental medical trial that might have gone very wrong.  As a determined Bee gives her statement to the lead investigator, her story reveals a predator who got away with murder–and an obsession that may cost Bee her own life.

Bee and Tess are as different as two sisters can be.  Bee is a sensitive, standoffish, cultured career woman who is engaged to be married.  Tess is flighty, artistic, poor and alone.  But even though more than an ocean separate these two women they are very close.  In letters and text messages they tell each other everything.

That is why Bee knows her sister would never take her own life, especially after watching her brother Leo die after struggling so valiantly for his own.   But with no more than a gut feeling that her sister was murdered, the police will do nothing more to investigate her sister’s death.  Instead they believe Bee to be grasping at straws and maybe going a little mad herself.

I admired Bee’s determination to keep unraveling the threads of her sister’s life,  to keep searching for clues at the expense of her own sanity.  And even though her sister was dead at the beginning of the book, I felt the author totally fleshed her out so I could relate to her personality and heart as well.

Sister is described as a domestic thriller and it is.  The twists and turns in this book kept my eyes glued to the page despite  the pressing chores and errands waiting to get done.

Part murder mystery, part medical ethics treatise, part a love story of family bonds, Sister is one debut book you shouldn’t pass up!   4/5 stars

Saturday Snapshot May 5th, 2012

About 4 1/2 years ago a darling little girl came into our life.  Grace-Lin was 6 months old when our son started dating her mommy.  They are now engaged to be married and whenever Gracie calls me grandma my heart swells with love.  I couldn’t be happier.  She also has her “Papa Jeff” wrapped around her finger.  For no one else would he allow a dandelion to be stuck behind his ear!  I love this photo of him at a recent bonfire picnic with Gracie and I, but manly-man that he is, he would die if he knew someone else had seen it.  But you won’t tell him…will you?  Shhhh!

If you would like to link up to this meme hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books, please visit her place.  I love looking at a little bit of others’ lives through the lens of a camera.

Hidden Wives by Claire Avery *Review*

Fifteen-year-old Sara and her beautiful sister, Rachel, are too young to legally drive a car—but are approaching spinsterhood in Utah’s secret polygamist Blood of the Lamb community. Having long since reached the “age of preparedness,” they will soon be married off to much older men chosen by the hidden sect’s revered Prophet.

As Sara, chosen to become her uncle’s fifth wife, grows more distraught over her impending incestuous marriage, she begins to scrutinize the faith she has followed blindly her entire life. But for Rachel, who will be married to one of the many powerful community leaders vying for her hand, disobeying the Prophet means eternal damnation. Her friendship with the newest member of the community, the young and handsome Luke, starts as an attempt to save his agnostic soul, but ends with the pair falling helplessly in love. When Rachel is forbidden to see him, her absolute faith in the Prophet is severely tested. 

When Rachel’s future husband is finally announced, violence erupts, and the girls must find the strength to escape the only life they have ever know…before it’s too late. 

Sara and Rachel have been allowed to remain unmarried for far too long.  Most girls in the polygamous sect in which they live have been married by the age of 13.  The religion in which they have grown up requires men to be married more than once in what is called “celestial marriage” in order to get to heaven.  Most men do not stop at two wives, they marry and marry to attain a higher status within the community.  Where do they find all the women to marry?  They start looking at the young girls who are just hitting puberty.  They look within their own families to cousins, nieces and even daughters and stepdaughters.  The older men in a higher position of power within the church get their “pick of the litter” so to speak.

Sara has questioned her religion for a long time.  She does not agree that her pending marriage to her uncle is what God is calling her to do.  Her sister Rachel is mortified that Sara would voice her doubts.  Rachel has always blindly followed whatever the Prophet has told her and her family to do.  If it is the will of God, so be it.  But then something happens that starts to sway her.  She falls in love.  Believing the Prophet will sanction a marriage between her and Luke since they are obviously made for each other, she is horrified by what she is starting to find out about the Prophet, her father and the Church she so dearly loves that will make it impossible for her and Luke to be together.

Her father, believing her to be a whore since so many of the elders in the community have set their sights on her, hands down her punishment.  Sara cannot live with what is happening to her sister and vows, with the help of Luke and a friend, to save her and to leave behind the only home and the only life she has ever known.  Riveting, emotional and heartbreaking, Hidden Wives is an excellently written book with very real characters who will leave you cheering for them.  4/5 stars

The Odds by Stewart O’Nan *Review*

Valentine’s weekend, Art and Marion Fowler flee their Cleveland suburb for Niagara Falls, desperate to recoup their losses. Jobless, with their home approaching foreclosure and their marriage on the brink of collapse, Art and Marion liquidate their savings account and book a bridal suite at the Falls’ ritziest casino for a second honeymoon. While they sightsee like tourists during the day, at night they risk it all at the roulette wheel to fix their finances-and save their marriage.

 

Would you risk it all on love?  That is one of the questions that will come to your mind as you read this slightly humorous tale about a couple that don’t quite seem to fit together anymore.  Not only is their marriage dangerously on the rocks, but everything they own is about to be lost as well.  In a crazy scheme, they decide to withdraw all the money they own, everything in their name, to see if they can win big at the very same casino they honeymooned at.  If they win, they can pay off the house and be free and clear of all debt.  If they lose, not only do they lose all their worldly possessions, but it will be a sign to them that their marriage is truly over and they will divorce.

Stewart, however, though willing to gamble away his fortune, is not so willing to give up Marion.  He still loves her and he wants to prove to her that he is in it for better or worse, for richer for poorer…

Marion is indifferent.  Bored with married life and disenchanted with love, Marion is almost eager to move on.  She’s already figuring out ways to tell their grown children and in her head she’s dividing up the furniture.

This book bugged me and I’m glad it was a short one.  Marion was so unmoved by everything Stewart did to show his love that I could clearly see she had no heart.  Stewart, needed to man up and come right out and tell her how he felt rather than tiptoeing around her.  And the ending!  Amazon’s reviewers gave this book a 4 star rating and on Goodreads it was close to a 4 star novel so I am clearly one of the few who finds fault with this book, so definitely read it and see for yourself.  I am sticking with my rating of 2/5 stars.