December 2017 Book Review

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@Barrie Summy

I've been writing my reviews a month or two in advance so when I email Barrie my selection for the month, it's usually ready to go.  This month she let me know that in March Sarah Laurence had reviewed the book I'm reviewing this month.  You can read her review here.  She wrote a very lovely review and it's spot on about the book.  My take was a bit different because I had a different expectation going in, based on the title.  I still enjoyed the book enough to make it my pick for this month but if my review doesn't sell you on the book, Sarah's will!  That all said . . .

This month I will be reviewing Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness.  This book was a New York Times bestseller written by an author who was won a number of awards and honors, including a lifetime achievement award from the Humane Society of the United States and the New England Booksellers Association.

I volunteer at a local zoo and we started a book club recently and this was the first book for our group to read and discuss (it was decided that all books would be animal focused, given we're all zoo volunteers).  It was presented as one we could use to learn information about an animal we have at the zoo and therefore share more information with our visitors.  Given the title and how it was presented to the group I thought I would learn tons of information about octopuses (turns out that is the correct plural for an octopus).

While I did learn some new information about octopuses, the book was more of a recounting of the author's experiences with octopuses, primarily at the New England Aquarium in Boston.  It was interesting to hear the personality descriptions of the different octopuses she got to know and be around.  Most are very curious creatures and a lot of the descriptions reminded me of a small child discovering new things and having new experiences.  From that aspect, I did enjoy the book.

From the perspective of I was excited to learn tons of new things about the octopus, it was a bit disappointing.  The author did not have enough information about the octopus to fill an entire book so she filled the book by sharing stories about unrelated adventures she's had, personal information about the people she got to know while visiting the Aquarium and a whole chapter (30+ pages!) on her getting her SCUBA diving certification so she could see octopuses in the wild.  (It's worth noting that I did enjoy this chapter, it just wasn't octopus specific and seemed like filler, given the title of the book.)

The Aquarium doesn't breed its octopuses so there isn't a steady flow of octopuses to fill their octopus exhibit.  This means that every octopus they have has been taken from the wild for this purpose.  The author doesn't address the concerns over this other than to say that there is an abundance of octopuses in the ocean and this use of them does not hurt their status.  But it did make me think.  I have struggled with animals being kept in captivity but feel slightly better that the zoo I volunteer at doesn't remove animals from the wild.  The animals we have were either born in captivity and know no other life, were injured and can no longer survive in the wild, or were captured by others and then later had to be surrendered and placed at our zoo.  Animals that have been injured and can be rehabilitated and returned to the wild are returned to the wild.  The Aquarium this book focuses on, however, takes the octopus from the wild for the soul purpose of drawing a crowd to see it.  The author described a situation where one octopus died suddenly (they only have one at a time) and there was a desperate need for a new one because they HAD to have one on exhibit. That process was disturbing to me and tainted my enjoyment of the rest of the book - but I did finish it!  And there are a lot of sweet stories about the individual octopuses. I can't give it a wholehearted "must have" recommendation for the reasons I mentioned but if you love animals and would like to learn a bit more about the octopus, you might enjoy this book.

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November 2017 Book Review

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@Barrie Summy

This month I will be reviewing Eileen Cook's THE HANGING GIRL.  I've been a fan of Ms. Cook's for years and she's never disappointed.  But I have to say I was not expecting this book. And I mean that in the best way possible.  It is a great book and I highly recommend it.

I'm at a loss for words though because I just finished the book and I was not expecting the final twist the book ended on.  I did not see it coming - at all.

The book has a bit of everything in it.  There's a paranormal element to it (sort of), with some mystery and thriller added into it as well.

As with all her books, Ms. Cook told a great story and tied up all the loose ends nicely.  It was very well written but it is different from other books she's written.  I'm convinced there isn't a genre that she couldn't write and be successful in.  This was yet another good book by Eileen Cook.

The blurb for the book:

Skye Thorn has given tarot card readings for years, and now her psychic visions are helping the police find the town’s missing golden girl. It’s no challenge—her readings have always been faked, but this time she has some insider knowledge. The kidnapping was supposed to be easy—no one would get hurt and she’d get the money she needs to start a new life. But a seemingly harmless prank has turned dark, and Skye realizes the people she’s involved with are willing to kill to get what they want and she must discover their true identity before it’s too late.

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Sleeping with a Night Light

I've had a doggy door for my dogs for more than 15 years now.  I didn't get it so I could be lazy about taking my dogs out but rather so they didn't have to wait for me to go out.  That said, I will admit to enjoying its convenience over the years.

Fast forward to a few years ago.  My sweet dog, Harley, got very sick.  He stopped going outside to eliminate and he wasn't eliminating inside either.  I got very concerned and started dragging (literally!) him outside to try to encourage him to do his business.  If he did do anything, I gave him a treat.  Well, that caused a bad learned behavior when he got better to where he didn't (and to this day doesn't) want to go out without me because there was/is food involved if he did/does something.  He only goes out without me if 1) it's a sudden "urgent' need to go out; 2) I'm out cold asleep or not home; or 3) I don't get up to go out with him until it reaches the "urgent" need to go out. 

That said, I will usually go out with him anyway because now I track what he's doing so I know everything is working well and I document it, in case I need it later.  Then, a few days ago, he went out without me.  I decided to follow him out so I could document what he was doing and sat on the little "stoop" at the back door like I usually do.

We have this family of frogs that visits us quite often so I wasn't alarmed when I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye.  I'm not afraid of frogs or anything but I do like knowing where they are so that I'm not startled if they move closer to me.  So I looked over to where the movement had taken place.  Only it wasn't a frog . . . it was a snake!  And not only was it "next" to me, part of it was actually UNDER me!

Unlike frogs, I AM afraid of snakes as in deathly afraid of snakes!  When I saw the snake I screamed and suddenly (although I have no memory of moving) found myself on the other side of the patio.  I stood there a moment trying to figure out what to do.  Did I go in and get a shovel or hoe and try to kill it?  Did I go get my camera to take a picture of it so I could show it to people to identify the kind of snake?  And how did I do either of those things with the snake between me and my house?

I finally decided to chance it and run in the house.  I opted for the camera, I guess because it was closer.  By the time I got back outside it was climbing between my walls.  I snapped the picture and then stupidly decided to try to coax it back out of the path it was taking into my walls by using a long tree limb.  When I touched it instead of coming back out of the wall, it scampered in more quickly.  It probably would've ended up between my walls anyway but I ensured that it did and more quickly at that.

I immediately came in and called my stepfather and emailed him the picture.  He assured me that it's a non-poisonous snake but I really don't care - I want it gone.  Thing is, I haven't seen it since it crawled between my walls.  Logic tells me that it's long gone by now but my irrational fear of snakes tells me it could show up anywhere in my house at any second.  I can't get near cabinets without checking for a snake.  I can't crawl in bed without checking under the pillows and covers first.  And, I can't sleep without a light on so that I'm not getting up in total darkness where I couldn't see the snake slithering by.

So, if you drive by my house and see a light on in the middle of the night, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm still up, it just means I'm still traumatized by my experience with a snake who may or may not still be somewhere in my house.

October 2017 Book Review

It's time for another book review and this month I will be reviewing Kim Gruenenfelder's Love the Wine You're With.

I'm a HUGE fan of Ms. Gruenenfelder's work and preordered this book almost THREE YEARS AGO so was like a child on Christmas morning when it finally got released and I got the email that it was on its way to me.

As with her other books, this is a book about friendships and trials and tribulations you go through in life and with your friends.  It's also told in first person POV for each or the characters, in alternating chapters so you get a good perspective of each of the characters.  Once again she told a story where I had no idea who love interests were supposed to be and even though that's typically a deal breaker for me in a book, it didn't bother me in this book . . . something about the way she tells the story.  It makes me think about how people talk about head hopping in writing and how no one but Nora Roberts can do it without it being distracting.  Kim Gruenenfelder can keep me guessing who the love interests are until the final page and I don't care - I just enjoy the ride.  :)

I was going to tell a bit about the characters and the storyline but found that the amazon blurb did it better than I could have so here is the amazon blurb on this book:

Jessie is finally about to realize her life-long goal of owning her own house, the first step to a wonderful marriage, kids, and life with her boyfriend of three years, Kevin; except after they find the perfect place, Kevin suddenly gets cold feet.

Nat is having a passionate affair with her gorgeous British boss Marc—unfortunately, he’s married. Now what?

Holly is an actress who still waits tables to pay the bills, and who is coping with the recent loss of her father. A particularly bad audition, where she snaps and tells off a big director, leads her to wonder what to do when you stop loving what you do. (And also what to do about her hot neighbor. Because, you know, hot neighbor.)

After each girl finishes a particularly awful workday, the three friends meet at their favorite wine bar, which has been sold by its owner for a huge profit and will close that night. In a moment of tipsy brazenness, Jessie suggests that the three of them open their own wine bar in the gentrifying Echo Park area of Los Angeles. An unapologetically girly place for good wine and good friends—which leads to a challenge for each woman: how do you fix a life that’s not actually broken, but needs an upgrade?

This book was fun and funny and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finishing it because I couldn't put it down.  It took almost three years to get to me but it was definitely worth the wait!  I highly recommend this book.

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September 2017 Book Review

This month I have a 2-fer book review.  Both are about the same topic - Chris McCandless - a young man who ventured out on his own at age 22, only to die 27 months later.

I first heard of the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer through Jessica Brody's Free Book Friday website.  While I entered the contest to win a copy, I had a copy from the library before the results were announced (I didn't win).  After I finished reading the book I immediately borrowed an eBook from my library of The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless.  I read both books within a three day period.

The blurb that caught my attention (there is a much longer "blurb" on amazon) was this:

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter.  How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Before I get into the specifics of my review, I would like to point out that I enjoyed Into the Wild enough that I purchased a copy and had it sent to my stepfather.  The only reason I didn't do that with The Wild Truth too is that I didn't feel it would appeal to my stepfather but I would definitely still recommend it to others.

Okay, that all said, Jon Krakauer is a journalist.  When Chris' body was discovered in Alaska he was tasked with writing an article for the magazine he worked for.  He had a hard deadline so it wasn't as in depth as he would've liked. The article garnered international attention and received more mail than any other article every had in the history of the magazine (I believe that record still holds to this day).  That, combined with his own interest in nature outings, caused him to want to dig deeper into the story.  He sought (and got) the permission and cooperation from Chris' family to write the story of Chris' journey.  To do so, he used journals that Chris had kept about his adventures, as well as pictures he had taken along the way. Because of this, he was able to meet with and interview many of the people that Chris had encountered along the way.  In this way he was able to piece together the events that made up most of the last 27 months of Chris' life.

As for the writing of the book, Krakauer is a good writer.  However, there wasn't enough material to fill an entire book.  Because of this there are several chapters dedicated to other "adventurers" with some small comparisons to Chris' adventures.  Two whole chapters are dedicated to Krakauer's own adventure in the wild.  From that perspective, I found the book to be a bit self serving.  There are times in the book where he is setting the scene with much description and atmospheric language.  None of this relates to Chris' story other than it sets up the environment of an interview he had with someone who met Chris along the way.  It was a bit distracting and unnecessary, in my opinion. But, as I said, I liked the book enough that I had a copy sent to my stepfather.

The Wild Truth is written by Chris' sister, Carine McCandless, and was published eighteen years after Krakauer's book.  It doesn't speak much to Chris' travels but rather gives some insight into what made him abandon his life and go out on his own.  According to Carine, she and Chris were brought up in a very abusive household.  She goes into great detail about the abuse and why she had asked Krakauer not to disclose the abuse.  At about the halfway mark in the book is when she learns about Chris' death. The rest of the book details events that brought her to the point of telling of the abuse and how it impacted Chris and his life decisions as well as her own.  Like Krakauer, Carine is a good writer.  That said, as with Krakauer's book, I felt this one was a bit self serving but I also understand why she may have felt the need to tell this side of the story.

Regarding the abuse Carine details in the book, I believed everything she wrote about it.  Any doubt I had about it was removed when I saw the pictures that were included in the book (Into the Wild did not have pictures).  Chris looks unhappy in all the pictures from his childhood up until the last picture taken on the night he graduated from college - just before he left and broke ties with his family.  Chris had taken a camera with him and there were many photos of himself as well as pictures of himself with others.  He looks happy in all of those pictures.  The last picture taken of him was believed to be taken within days of his death.  He was holding up a sign in the picture that reads: I have had a happy life.  Goodbye.  God Bless All - and he was smiling and looked happy in the picture.  By that point he knew he wasn't making it out alive but he was at peace and genuinely looked happy.  So, I believe Carine's claims of abuse.

I did want to touch on one topic that was rather interesting to me.  The blurb for Into the Wild mentions that Chris abandoned his car, which is a bit misleading.  He had driven his car into a governmental area marked with NO TRESPASSING signs so when it wouldn't start for him, he wasn't in a position to seek help.  He left a sign on it saying that whoever could get it out could have it.  He'd removed the license plates and the VIN took authorities to the rental car establishment Chris had bought it from and since they didn't want it back, the car was used in undercover operations for many years after Chris left it behind.  :)

Reading both books gave a more clear picture as to what happened to Chris McCandless than either did on their own but I could recommend either without hesitation.

For more reviews, go to barriesummy.blogspot.com.

May 2017 Book Review

With my reading of Liane Moriarty's What Alice Forgot I believe I've read all of her books now.  And because I LOVED What Alice Forgot, it is the book I will be reviewing this month.

It starts out with Alice dreaming about being in a pool and her toenails are all painted a different color, as are the person who is next to her in the pool.  It's a peaceful dream but suddenly someone from the real world is calling out to her and won't let up.  This is when she finds herself surrounded by people as she lays next to a stationery bicycle in a gym.  She's being told that she fell off the bike and hit her head but it doesn't make sense to her because she doesn't go to the gym, much less work out!

As she's being wheeled out of the gym, people she doesn't know are making comments that make no sense to her.  And her big concern is for the baby she is carrying.

She calls her sister who seems standoffish to her and the secretary at her husband's office is downright rude to her and she doesn't understand why.  When her sister arrives at the hospital she notices that her sister looks . . . old.  This is when she is told that it is ten years later than she thinks it is.  Not only is she not pregnant, she has three children - that she doesn't remember.  And she's going through a very contentious divorce.

Last month I reviewed a time travel book and this was kind of like that, but in a different way.  Alice hadn't really traveled through time but her mind was stuck ten years in the past.  "Watching" her go through this was fun because she was so sweet and innocent.  But, through the interactions with the people she loved, you discover that maybe in the present time, Alice isn't this sweet and innocent person anymore.

At one point I found myself comparing What Alice Forgot to the movie Regarding Henry, starring Harrison Ford (I love this movie!).  In that movie Henry (Harrison Ford) is a corrupt, heartless attorney until he is shot in the head and loses his memory.  He becomes this endearing, gentle man that you just want to hug and take care of.  With Alice you don't know what caused her to be the way she is because she doesn't remember and no one is telling her but I felt the same way about her as I did Henry.

Then, I started thinking about the changes that I've been through in the last ten years.  A lot has changed.  I've lost two of the three dogs I had ten years ago.  Instead of going into an office daily, I volunteer once or twice a week.  There have been major physical changes to my body.  Relationship changes.  Things that would be difficult to process.  But, like Alice, if I woke up next to a stationery bike at a gym and told I'd fallen off of it, I too would wonder, when did I start going to the gym?  :)

In any event, I very much enjoyed this book and reading about Alice's journey over the past ten years as she slowly gets her memory back.  I highly recommend this book.

For more book reviews go to barriesummy.blogspot.com.

April 2017 Book Review

This month I will be reviewing Prada & Prejudice by Mandy Hubbard.

The amazon blurb says:

To impress the popular girls on a high school trip to London, klutzy Callie buys real Prada heels. But trying them on, she trips, conks her head, and wakes up in the year 1815!

There Callie meets Emily, who takes her in, mistaking her for a long-lost friend. As she spends time with Emily's family, Callie warms to them, particularly to Emily's cousin Alex, a hottie and a duke, if a tad arrogant.

But can Callie save Emily from a dire engagement, and win Alex's heart, before her time in the past is up?

More Cabot than Ibbotson, Prada and Prejudice is a high-concept romantic comedy about finding friendship and love in the past in order to have happiness in the present.

I've always enjoyed time travel books because it's fun to see how and what the characters respond to in the time they've been transported to.  In Callie's case, when she wakes up in 1815 her first thought is that someone must have moved her to a wooded area because she's no longer in front of the Prada shop where she'd purchased her shoes.  She starts walking until she comes to a house - a castle really - and finds herself in a "home" that doesn't have phones, electricity or indoor plumbing.  She doesn't immediately understand that she's been transported to another time, instead she believes that the occupants of the home are eccentric and are "play acting" that they live in the past.  And she thinks they've taken it a bit too far!  :)

Once she realizes that she's the one that's out of place, she tries to figure out what her "mission" is that will enable her to return home to the twenty first century.  In the process she crosses the line of proper etiquette and jumps to the wrong conclusion in several instances, in a fun and loveable way though.  :)

This was a quick fun read for me.  The only issue I had was the chapter breaks.  In a lot of instances they seemed misplaced.  There's a season finale of How I Met Your Mother where Barney says "It's gonna be Legen . . . wait for it" and the next season opened with him saying "dary".  That's what the chapter breaks reminded me of because it felt like it should've been all done at the end of the one chapter and started fresh on the next one.  And at least once there was an instance where I thought it was a perfect spot for a chapter break but there wasn't even a paragraph break.  But other than that, it was very fluid and easy to read.  I'd definitely recommend it!

For more book reviews go to barriesummy.blogspot.com.

March 2017 Book Review

This month I will be reviewing Trevor Noah's Born a Crime.  That I came to know about this book is a pure fluke.  It's another situation where I had recorded a talk show and watched an interview of someone I had never heard of before and they talked about their book.  Normally I would fast forward through the interviews of the individuals I didn't know (or had no interest in) but for some reason I didn't do that in this instance.

I'll be honest, what drew me in was the fact that he's from Africa.  For the last couple of years I've been fascinated by all things Africa and have been reading books, watching movies and documentaries and doing whatever else I could to get information about Africa.  So, when I heard he was from Africa and that because of the laws and traditions in South Africa, his birth was a crime, I immediately put the eBook on hold at my local library.

I waited months for it to become available and almost didn't check it out when I was told it was available because I was back to feeling that I had no idea who this person was and wasn't sure I wanted to invest my time into reading his story.  My fascination with Africa won out though and I'm glad it did.

This is a story about a young man who had the odds stacked against him.  His mother wanted a child but didn't - at the time - want to be burdened with a husband so she made an arrangement with a friend for him to father a child with her.  The problem was, he was white and she was black and the act of sex between the races was illegal.  As a result, special care was taken when they were in public to hide the truth of who his parents were because otherwise his parents were subject to criminal charges.

The book is written in an interesting way in that he starts each chapter off giving information about what was going on in South Africa at a particular time and then follows it up with an applicable story from his life.  In reading this book I discovered that Trevor Noah is an incredibly intelligent and funny person who grew up with an amazing mother.  His mother is someone who refused to be held back by her gender or her race and she taught Trevor to push his boundaries and not limit himself to what others might put on him.  And the love between the two is evident in this book.  I very much enjoyed reading it and would highly recommend it.

For more book reviews, go to barriesummy.blogspot.com.

February Book Review

This month I will be reviewing Suzanne Finstad's Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood.

This is the story of Natalie Wood's life, starting before she was born when her mother immigrated to the US.  She was already married and had one child, Olga.  Her husband had come before her and informed her he had a mistress when she arrived.  After some time her mother, Maria, divorced her first husband and took up with two other men, eventually marrying Natalie's father while also keeping her affair going with the other man.

Natalie's mother had seen a fortune teller who had told her that her second child would be known around the world and would be beautiful.  When Natalie was born, she did everything in her power to make sure the fortune she had been told came true.  She was the driving force behind Natalie's career, at least when she was younger.  She would lie and manipulate whoever she had to - including Natalie - to get Natalie parts in film.  The fortune teller had also said that she - Maria - would die by drowning in dark waters.  Maria imparted that information in such a way that Natalie grew up believing that is how she would die and was deathly afraid of the water for her entire life.  Yet, when parts came up that required Natalie to get into water, her mother would force her because otherwise "she would lose the part".  Her mother had also told her that she was too small to have children and if she ever sat on a man's lap she would become pregnant.  She did this in an effort to make Natalie afraid of men so that she'd always be with Maria.  She would use traumatizing events and acts to manipulate Natalie so that Natalie grew up very superstitious and fearful of so many things.  It was heartbreaking to read a lot of what her mother did to her.  And her focus was so much on Natalie that the rest of her family suffered.  For much of Natalie's life, she was the sole support for her entire family and she felt the responsibility for that at a very young age.

The author wrote this book after doing interviews with "more than 400 people" who knew Natalie - her friends and even her family.  With very rare exception, everyone who met Natalie adored her.  The few that didn't necessarily feel that way had more of a feeling that she was standoffish on a particular set but those close to her would say that it was a difficult time for her or that she was insecure about the role.  Like I said, most people thought the world of Natalie.

Robert Wagner was noted as having not participated, despite several attempts on the author's part to interview him.  It's worth noting that Mr. Wagner has said that there are things in the book that are "fabricated" and that on two separate occasions in the book the author states that "through his reps" Mr. Wagner denies specific things included in the book.

That's one of the things that made the book ring more true to me.  Anytime there were conflicting "recollections" of events or periods in Natalie's life, the author included all sides of the argument, so to speak.  It wasn't a one-sided "this is what I believe" kind of book. 

She goes in great detail about the events leading up to Natalie's death.  She points out that one witness came forward when there was the possibility of monetary gain but also that Robert Wagner hasn't ever publicly disputed the accusations made by this witness.  Ultimately she let's the reader draw their own conclusion, not just about her death but about her life.  It was a very interesting read for me.  It was by no means a fast read but it was one that had my interest from the beginning to the end.  I would definitely recommend it.

For more book reviews, go to barriesummy.blogspot.com