Alice's Review: The Chris Farley Show

Summary: No one dominated a stage the way Chris Farley did. For him, comedy was not a routine; it was a way of life. He could not enter a room unnoticed or let a conversation go without making someone laugh. Fans knew Chris as Saturday Night Live’s sweaty, swaggering, motivational speaker; as the irresistible Chippendales stripper; and as Tommy Callahan, the underdog hero of Tommy Boy. His family knew him as sensitive and passionate, deeply religious, and devoted to bringing laughter into others’ lives.  But Chris did not know moderation, either in his boundless generosity toward friends or in the reckless abandon of his drug and alcohol abuse. For ten years, Chris cycled in and out of rehabilitation centers, constantly fighting his insecurities and his fears. Despite three hard-fought years of sobriety, addiction would ultimately take his life at the tragically young age of thirty-three. Fame on SNL and three straight number-one box office hits gave way to a string of embarrassing public appearances, followed by a fatal overdose in December 1997.  Here is Chris Farley as remembered by his family, friends, and colleagues—the true story of a man who lived to make us laugh and died as a result. The Chris Farley Show is an evocative and harrowing portrait of a family trapped by addiction, a father forced to bury a son, and a gifted and kindhearted man ultimately torn apart by the demons inside him. ~amazon.com

Review: This book has been in my TBR pile for quite a while now. In my early twenties, I had such a crush on this lovable, funny guy. I was devastated when he died, especially since he was taken too soon from a drug and alcohol addiction that was much stronger than he was. The Chris Farley Show tells his story from the points of view from those who knew and loved him. Through their memories, I learned a lot about him. His story was presented brilliantly. It was a great concept to learn about him from the people who knew him the best.

I was and still am a big fan of his. I thought he was hilarious. I also believed he had many layers. I know from personal experience that when a person projects such humor to the world, what is in their heart is far from what is on the outside. It’s easy to hide insecurities, hurt and self-doubt behind a jovial façade. Most people won’t take the time to dig further, they are happy just to see you as you are.

I had no idea how severe the heartache and turmoil was that he felt. The Chris Farley Shows goes in depth about his family life, specifically his relationship with his father. In the end, he was just a man who loved to make people laugh. All he wanted was the approval of his father and to be loved himself. This is a great biography for anyone, who wants to know more about this wonderful man.

One of my favorite memories in the book is by writer Ian Maxtone-Graham. He is talking about Chris Farley when he was in Saturday Night Life acting in the sketch The Chris Farley Show with guest Paul McCartney: “And in that moment Chris isn’t acting at all. It’s really Chris, tapping into that quiet, needy part of himself. You see it up there on stage. What you see in the sketch is the actual Chris Farley being happy that the actual Paul McCartney is telling him that there is an infinite amount of love in the world, and that someday that love will come back to him.” 

I hope that he continues to live in our memory as a beautiful man with a big heart and an ever bigger ability to make us laugh.

Final Take: 5/5

Alice's Review: Nefertiti

Summary: Nefertiti and her younger sister, Mutnodjmet, have been raised in a powerful family that has provided wives to the rulers of Egypt for centuries. Ambitious, charismatic, and beautiful, Nefertiti is destined to marry Amunhotep, an unstable young pharaoh. It is hoped that her strong personality will temper the young ruler’s heretical desire to forsake Egypt’s ancient gods. From the moment of her arrival in Thebes, Nefertiti is beloved by the people but fails to see that powerful priests are plotting against her husband’s rule. The only person brave enough to warn the queen is her younger sister, yet remaining loyal to Nefertiti will force Mutnodjmet into a dangerous political game; one that could cost her everything she holds dear. ~amazon.com

Review: Michelle Moran is a masterful storyteller.  That is the first thing you should know.  The second thing is this novel is incredible.  Had it not been for the List Swap Challenge, I would not have picked up this novel on my own.  I would have passed this up when browsing through the bookstore.  I literally rolled my eyes heavenward when Julie suggested it convinced she was trying to torture me with this nonsense.  I was not looking forward to 400 pages of 1351 BCE.  In Egypt.  With odd names I can’t pronounce.

The magic of Ms. Moran is that within 10 pages I was hooked, totally and completely hooked.  Right away, I held onto Mutnodjmet, Nefertiti’s younger sister, and didn’t let go.  Nefertiti is about two sisters, so different in their wants and desires.  Bound together by love and blood, one sister had a sense of entitlement while the other a command to please at the risk of her own happiness.  Their relationship spanned though their joys and tribulations.  Nefertiti’s rule over Egypt is merely the setting while the sisters’ bond is really the star in this novel.

I really enjoyed how different the two sisters are.  I loved how headstrong and manipulative Nefertiti is.  She can fiercely rule a kingdom but her deepest desire is to be loved and exalted, especially by her younger sister.  Mutnodjmet wants her own happiness, her own life.  She knows the only way for that to happen is to break the selfish stronghold Nefertiti has on her.  To be happy, she must hurt Nefertiti.

I love when I start reading a novel, crossing my fingers that I can get through it, and end up gobbling up every single page, loving where the story is leading me.  I learned about a time I knew very little about.  In the end, I really enjoyed it.  Julie was right about Nefertiti.  (And she usually is.)  Give me a book about sisters, even set in Egypt, and I will love it.  And I did.  

Final Take: 4/5

Julie's Wrap Up: List Swap Challenge 2012

Woo hoo! I did it! I finished our List Swap Challenge! Nothing like taking all 12 months to complete it, though. I couldn't be more happy with the books I read this year. Both the ones I chose for myself and the ones that Alice picked for me. Plus, I really enjoyed the one we read together.

Here is what I finished (in no particular order):

The Legacy by Katherine Webb
The Midwife's Confession by Diane Chamberlain
Somewhere Over the Sun by Adi Alsaid
The Kingdom of Childhood by Rebecca Coleman
Girls Poker Night by Jill A. Davis
Dream When You Are Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg
The Lost Hours by Karen White
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalian
Flying Changes by Sara Gruen
The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn
Think of a Number by John Verdon

I am very much looking forward to our List Swap Challenge for 2013!

Julie's Review: Skeletons At the Feast

Summary: A masterful love story set against a backdrop of epic history and unforgettable courage. In the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives. At the center is eighteen-year-old Anna, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats, and her first love, a twenty-year-old Scottish prisoner of war named Callum. With his boyish good looks and his dedication to her family, he has captured Anna’s heart. But he is the enemy, and their love must remain a closely guarded secret. Only Manfred, a twenty-six-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, knows the truth. And Manfred, who is not what he seems to be, is reluctantly taken with Anna, just as she finds herself drawn uncomfortably to him. As these unlikely allies work their way west, their flight will test both Anna’s and Callum’s love, as well as their friendship with Manfred–and will forever bind the young trio together. ~amazon.com

Review: Other than the memoir All But My Life: A Memoir by Gerda Weissman Klein, Skeletons at the Feast has to be the most intense WWII depiction I've read in a long time. By intense I mean brutal, honest and at times grotesque. I'm not surprised because we've all heard and read the accounts coming out of World War II, but sometimes it hits you over the head like a hammer.

Mr. Bohjalian never ceases to amaze me with the life that he breathes into his characters. Skeletons at the Feast is a testament to the people that survived the Holocaust and also the harsh reality that some people truly did bury their heads when it came to the treatment and killing of the Jews. Perhaps for the Emmerich's it was because they were in a rural area of the country and it wasn't until they had to flee that the harsh realities of this war became evident to them.

We are taken on this journey through Anna, Mutti, Theo, Callum and Uri. They are a make shift group that in the end becomes a family. They've been through some of the worst events in their lives and have made it through together. Anna is 18 and a bit naive but for me I expected that given her circumstances and the geography of where she lived. Callum is their Scottish POW who not only becomes Anna's lover but also a god send to the family when their patriarch and brother need to leave to help fight in the German Army.

For me the most fascinating character was Uri. A Jewish man who becomes a chameleon to survive the war and to perhaps find his way back to his family. He finds himself at first with the Emmerich's because he believes that Callum will be his ticket to freedom once they reach the Allied troops. Uri did what he had to for survival.

I am only sorry that this book sat on my TBR shelf for so long. I have no reason behind it other than "too many books, too little time."  My favorite book is still The Double Bind by Mr. Bohjalian but this is definitely a very, very close second.

I can't not encourage you more to read this book if you have any interest in World War II.

Final Take: 5/5

Julie's Review: Somewhere Over the Sun

Summary: Alan, a spirited young writer with a wandering imagination has discovered that the stories he writes are suddenly coming to life. At the suggestion of his loving father, Alan embarks on a quixotic journey to visit friends and use his new found gift to write them all happier lives. There are a few limitations to his power; he can't cure diseases, he can't summon pots of gold, and headaches accompany each reality-infused story he lives out, but the appreciative and optimistic Alan is not deterred from creating fantastical characters and story lines to give his friends more literary lives. ~amazon.com

Review: I can't say that I loved Somewhere Over the Sun as much as Alice did. I liked it but never was overwhelmed by the book. I thought that it was an intriguing and interesting way to write a  novel. It was like reading a book within a book. For a relatively short novel, I thought it was a bit too wordy.

I also never truly connected with Alan but I still appreciated what he was doing for his friends. At times I felt that he was living life through writing stories and yet he still managed to experience life as well. It is apparent that Alan had a gift for story telling from a very young age and his new gift just enhanced his writing.

I did like that some of the chapters were told from the view of the people he was visiting and how they viewed what was going on instead of just Alan's view point.I loved Alan's dad, Robert's, chapter. This is where I fell that Mr. Alsaid wrote his best chapters. I really admired Robert and how he handled being a single father. It was apparent that everything he did was to make a better life for himself and Alan.

Mr. Alsaid has a gift of storytelling and I will more than likely check out his other novels in the future, when he writes them.


Final Take: 3.5/5

Alice's Review
Alice's Q&A with Mr. Alsaid

Julie's Review: The News Where You Are

Summary: From the bestselling author of What Was Lost comes a spirited literary mystery about a television anchorman's search for the truth about the disappearances that surround him. Frank Allcroft, a television news anchor in his hometown (where he reports on hard-hitting events, like the opening of canine gyms for overweight pets), is on the verge of a mid-life crisis. Beneath his famously corny on-screen persona, Frank is haunted by loss: the mysterious hit-and-run that killed his predecessor and friend, Phil, and the ongoing demolition of his architect father's monumental postwar buildings. And then there are the things he can't seem to lose, no matter how hard he tries: his home, for one, on the market for years; and the nagging sense that he will never quite be the son his mother—newly ensconced in an assisted-living center—wanted. As Frank uncovers the shocking truth behind Phil's death, and comes to terms with his domineering father's legacy, it is his beloved young daughter, Mo, who points him toward the future. Funny and touching, The News Where You Are is a moving exploration of what we do and don't leave behind, proving once more that Catherine O'Flynn's writing "shimmers with dark brilliance" (Chicago Tribune).  The News Where You Are is a 2011 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Paperback Original.
~amazon.com

Review:  While The News Where You Are is definitely not a fast-paced book, it is an interesting character study. The novel centers around Frank, a local anchor on the news, who is trying to come to terms with a host of changes in his life. Not only is he trying to come to terms with his mentors sudden and mysterious death but also putting his mother in an assisted living home is hanging on his mind. '

There is much to understand about the people in this book. I never really thought that Frank was going through a mid-life crisis but more of a retrospect of his life. I felt like he was trying to figure out how he got to his lot in life by trying to figure out his relationship with his mom and the lack of relationship with his locally famous father. You see his dad was an architect who had a hand in redesigning the buildings/landscape that would shape the town for 30 years until they decide that it needs another makeover and demolish his buildings. I was pleased to read that Frank had a solid marriage to Andrea and had a good relationship with his daughter, Mo. It made the dynamic of the book seem more real and I felt better knowing that Ms. O'Flynn wasn't going to go down that road.

Phil was a guy who was about outward appearances. He could have cared less about his soul or being a good person. Although, he was a good person but he had no idea how to age. He felt he had to stay young to be relevant. He was beginning to feel his age and the pressure of not being able always remember what he was supposed to. Through Phil and Frank we meet, Michael. Phil and Michael grew up together and grew apart but then found each other again later in life. Frank stumbles upon Michael through his death and as he tries to piece his life together to find next of kin.

Maureen, Frank's mother, is an interesting person. You sense that she was never a happy person or if she was at some point there was something that triggered her to become depressed. Frank never seemed to be able to make her happy and it was worse when he tried. Not even his daughter could make her grandmother happy.

Along with Frank's journey there are intersecting mysteries that need to be solved: Phil's mysterious death and Michael's past. If you are looking for a solid novel with interesting characters, then The News Where You Are is for you.

 I have Ms. O'Flynn's first novel What Was Lost: A Novel in my TBR pile and I will be reading it in 2013. She is an author I will keep an eye out for.

Final Take: 3.75/5

Thank you to Henry Holt for my copy of the book.

Alice's Review: Truly, Madly

Summary: Lucy Valentine is as smart as can be, as single as you can get, and so not qualified to run a matchmaking service. But when her parents temporarily step down from the family business, Valentine, Inc., it’s Lucy’s turn to step up and help out—in the name of love.  Plus, her rent is due.  Here’s the problem: Lucy doesn’t have the knack for matchmaking. According to family legend, every Valentine has been blessed by Cupid with the ability to read “auras” and pair up perfect couples. But not Lucy. Her skills were zapped away years ago in an electrical surge, and now all she can do is find lost objects. What good is that in the matchmaking world? You’d be surprised. In a city like Boston, everyone’s looking forsomething. So when Lucy locates a missing wedding ring—on a dead body—she asks the sexy private eye who lives upstairs to help her solve the perfect crime. And who knows? Maybe she’ll find the perfect love while she’s at it… ~amazon.com

Review: When Julie suggested I read Truly, Madly by Heather Webber I was a bit skeptical. Even thought she raves about Heather Webber and the Lucy Valentine series, I was still unconvinced. From what I know about Julie, this is so not the kind of novel she reads. This novel is part romance, part chick lit, part paranormal. Lucy is a psychic for Pete’s sake. Now that I read the first book in the series, I totally get it. I’m sure I love Lucy and her cast of misfits nearly as much as Julie does.

Lucy Valentine has a gift very different from that of her aura-seeing matchmaking family. When she touches someone’s palm, she can see where he or she misplaced a lost item. This gift can make shaking hands with someone a nightmare. Lucy thinks this gift is not really a gift at all, it’s more of a curse.

I really loved this novel. It was funny, fast paced and kept me guessing all the way to the end. The premise was refreshing, unique and original. Heather Webber created some truly unique characters. They are all so likeable. I really enjoyed our protagonist Lucy. I took such pleasure watching her blossom before my eyes into a woman who finally comes to terms with what she considered a curse for so long.

I think what I enjoyed most in this novel is that there are so many adventures left for Lucy, not to mention the supporting characters. Will Detective Aiden and Emerson get together? What’s in store for Butch the butcher and vegetarian Marisol? Is love on the horizon for them as well?

I enjoyed this one so much, I will definitely continue reading the series. Heather Webber made a fan out me, in spite of her being a Red Sox fan.

Final Take: 4/5

Check out Jenn's Review: Truly, Madly
Check out  Julie's Review: Truly, Madly

Julie's Review: Girls' Poker Night

Summary: Dissatisfied both with writing a “Single Girl on the Edge/ Ledge/Verge” lifestyle column and with her boyfriend (who has a name for his car and compulsively collects plastic bread ties), Ruby Capote sends her best columns and a six-pack of beer to the editor of The New York News and lands herself a new job in a new city. In New York, Ruby undertakes the venerable tradition of Poker Night—a way (as men have always known) to eat, drink, smoke, analyze, interrupt one another, share stories, and, most of all, raise the stakes. There’s Skorka, model by profession, homewrecker by vocation; Jenn, willing to cross county lines for true love; Danielle, recently divorced, seducer of at least one father/son combo in her quest to make up for perceived “missed opportunities.” When Ruby falls for her boss, Michael, all bets are off. He’s a challenge. He’s her editor. And he wants her to stop being quippy and clever and become the writer—and the woman—he knows she can be. Adding to Ruby’s uncertainty is his amazing yet ambiguous kiss in the elevator, and the enjoyably torturous impasse of he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not. What happens when you realize that Mr. Right has his own unresolved past? Where does that leave the future you envisioned? Ruby knows that happy endings aren’t for cowards, and she hasn’t lost hope that there are risks worth taking. As smart as it is laugh-out-loud funny, Girls’ Poker Night is a twenty-first-century His Girl Friday and a re-freshingly upbeat look at friendship, work, and love. ~amazon.com

Review: You know how you want to like a book and you have high hopes for it but then it lets you down? That was my experience with Girls' Poker Night: A Novel of High Stakes. It just didn't do anything for me in the end. There were a couple of parts where I laughed and I did like Ruby. Although I wouldn't want to be Ruby's friend because she's the kind of friend who tries to make everything better by making a joke out of it. Sure, I like a friend who cracks jokes and makes me laugh but I also want a friend who I know will really listen to me. I'm not sure Rudy knows how to listen. She is a good hearer but listener is questionable. The " tell jokes to cover up my pain" got old for me quickly.

I get that her dad leaving and then dying scared her but I just felt that she kept people at arms length because she didn't want to have to open up. She settled for being less than her true self. When Michael pushed her to be better than she was, she fled by finding something that wasn't perfect about him. I will say that Michael's past was certainly not what I was expecting and happy it wasn't the typical chick-lit paths.

I liked her group of friends and I liked how they eventually went at her about opening herself up. You can't be in friendships and have your friends always confessing without giving up some of your own secrets.

I also didn't like the flow of the writing style. It seemed to choppy and jumped around a lot. I don't mind feeling like I'm in a character's head but it didn't suit this book.

This is the 2nd book I've read by Jill A. Davis and I can't say that I'd be real anxious to read another one.

Final Take: 3/5

Julie's Review: Flying Changes

Summary: Anxiety rules Annemarie Zimmer's days—the fear that her relationship with the man she loves is growing stagnant; the fear that equestrian daughter Eva's dreams of Olympic glory will carry her far away from her mother . . . and into harm's way. For five months, Annemarie has struggled to make peace with her past. But if she cannot let go, the personal battles she has won and the heights she has achieved will have all been for naught. It is a time of change at Maple Brook horse farm, when loves must be confronted head-on and fears must be saddled and broken. But it is an unanticipated tragedy that will most drastically alter the fragile world of one remarkable family—even as it flings open gates that have long confined them, enabling them all to finally ride headlong and free. ~amazon.com

Review: It's been 4 years since I read Riding Lessons and I remember really enjoying it. I almost always enjoy horse novels and the first one was no different. As for Flying Changes, it moved along at a snail pace. I can't imagine what Annemarie went through when she almost died 20 years before from being thrown from a horse. Unfortunately, her fears are starting to affect her relationship with her troubled daughter, Eva.

Now Eva isn't the worst kind of kid, she's acting out but this acting out has caused her to be expelled from school. How nice that at the same time she gets an audition to go to Olympic winner Nathalie's training farm to see if she's got the right stuff. As Eva falls in love with a rare Nokota horse, it causes Annemarie to face her own fears.

I admit it, Annemarie got on my nerves. I just wanted her to deal with her tragedy and move on. She wasn't going to do that until she saw a therapist and she was being stubborn about that as well. I also knew she was going to mess up things with Dan. I also got that Eva was a typical teenager but part of me wondered if Annemarie was jealous because Eva had the possibility to live out her dreams, where as Annemarie's were literally crushed.

My favorite character in these 2 books by far is Mutti/Oma/Ursula, Annemarie's mom. She is the rock of the family. She is solid. You just know she doesn't put up with much and yet gives much love to her family.

I have to say this after reading 3 of 4 Sara Gruen novels, there is a huge jump in her style and ability between this one and Water for Elephants. I can't exactly pinpoint it but her storytelling dramatically got better, as did her characterization. I haven't read and probably won't read Ape House since I'm not a big fan of the primate family. I do look forward to whatever she writes after that one though.

Unless you've read Riding Lessons or just love horse stories, I can't say that you need to run out and read this one. If you haven't read Water For Elephants, that you must read. It is still a book I am always recommending.

Final Take: 3.25/5

Alice's Review: The Distant Hours

Summary: It starts with a letter, lost for half a century and unexpectedly delivered to Edie’s mother on a Sunday afternoon. The letter leads Edie to Milderhurst Castle, where the eccentric Blythe spinsters live and where, she discovers, her mother was billeted during World War II. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives caring for their younger sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiancé jilted her in 1941. Inside the decaying castle, Edie searches for her mother’s past but soon learns there are other secrets hidden in its walls. The truth of what happened in “the distant hours” has been waiting a long time for someone to find it. In this enthralling romantic thriller, Morton pays homage to the classics of gothic fiction, spinning a rich and intricate web of mystery, suspense, and lost love. ~ amazon.com


Review:  It’s no secret that I have been reading The Distant Hours for a month.   The slowness was definitely contributed to the novel been nearly 600 pages, or a brick as I liked to refer to it.  It was formidable, intimidating.  I would read and not feel like I was putting a dent in it.  It was discouraging.  I think I would have given up on it weeks ago had it not been for the List Swap Challenge Julie and I are participating in.  I’m glad I didn’t give up on it because this has been one of the best reads of the year for me.

This novel incorporates many of my favorite reading loves.  I love novels about sisters, I love romance, I love heartbreak, I love novels set in the 40s.  I love reading about women and how they interact with each other.  I love the secrets, the vulnerability in revealing truths.  The Distant Hours is all those things and more.

Ms. Morton’s writing style is poetry.  The mere size of the novel is testament that she did not leave any stones unturned.  This novel was well researched, thought-out.   She bounced back and forth between 1941 and 1992 with ease.  I was never confused or confounded. 

She writes such strong, beautiful women.  Each of the sisters, as well as Edie, Meredith, Lucy, and Rita, were multidimensional characters.  I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each one.  One of the stunning truths of this novel is that although each woman had strength of her own, they were more or less control by one man and his secrets, Raymond Blythe.  He was the catalyst in The Distant Hours.

Shroud in mystery, Ms. Morton’s gift is revealing these in an unexpected way.  Just like Edie, I would begin to think one thing, convinced I had it figured out and then Wham! – Here comes the truth and it would leave my head spinning and feeling awed, impressed how easily I was fooled and how the truth was there all along.

This novel was such a pleasure to read.  It reminds me of the kind of novel you curl up to on a cold, rainy or snowy night.  It’s comfortable, it makes you think, it keeps you guessing.  Maybe it’s the castle setting, maybe it’s the relationship between the women.  Maybe it’s the women individually.  There is just something so wonderful about this novel that each minute spend reading it is like getting to know a new friend.

And just how it was highly recommended to me, I highly recommend The Distant Hours to you.

Final Take: 5/5

 

Julie's Review: The Lost Hours

Summary: When Piper Mills was twelve, she helped her grandfather bury a box that belonged to her grandmother in the backyard. For twelve years, it remained untouched. Now a near fatal riding accident has shattered Piper’s dreams of Olympic glory. After her grandfather’s death, she inherits the house and all its secrets, including a key to a room that doesn’t exist—or does it? And after her grandmother is sent away to a nursing home, she remembers the box buried in the backyard. In it are torn pages from a scrapbook, a charm necklace—and a newspaper article from 1939 about the body of an infant found floating in the Savannah River. The necklace’s charms tell the story of three friends during the 1930s— each charm added during the three months each friend had the necklace and recorded her life in the scrapbook. Piper always dismissed her grandmother as not having had a story to tell. And now, too late, Piper finds she might have been wrong. ~amazon.com

Review: The Lost Hours is an intense, taut, heartbreaking novel that touches on subject matters that are uncomfortable.  The past is a tricky thing. It pulls us in with the need to know what happened and by the time you figure out that maybe things are left better hidden, you are too deep. This is what happens to Piper. She wants to know what made her grandmother the quiet, sad person she was during her lifetime. Was she always like this or was there a significant event in her life that altered who she was?

A letter written by her grandmother, Annabelle, to a Lillian sets Piper on the quest for unearthing the past of her grandmother. They mystery surrounding these two women is slowly revealed through the pages of a journal, newspaper clippings and through the eyes of Lillian. We experience the story from Piper, Lillian and Helen's point of views.

All of these women have had to endure disappointments and tragedies, this is what bonds them in the end. It is their resilience in life that makes them strong. They all make extremely interesting narrators. You get to know them from the others perspectives and their own inner thoughts. It brings a depth to the novel that wouldn't have been achieved through a single narrator.

I read this book so fast because I wanted to find out what happened. Just as I thought the mystery was resolved and could read the rest of the book in peace, Ms. White threw another curve ball at me. It literally took my breath away. It also caused me to sob during the last 20 pages.

It's taken me all day to write this review because it's not an easy novel to review. I'm also trying my damnedest not to judge Lillian and Annabelle. Things were different in the 1930s for women. There were some things that were just expected and to try to wrap our current mindset around that is hard. I can't imagine the decisions and consequences the women of that generation lived with. Yet, these were some of the strongest women I've read about. They paved the way for us to be able to have the things we did. They thought outside of what society expected and broke down barriers.

The past always affects the present but not always in extremes. I think it helped Piper figure out who she was and who she didn't want to be by figuring out who her grandmother was during her youth. It also gave Piper the "family" she had always wanted.

My only disappointment is that we didn't find out more about Piper's grandfather during this process. Throughout the book he was portrayed as a man who was deeply disappointed in his granddaughter. She didn't live up to his hopes and dreams, so he wrote her off. I wanted to know more about him and why his expectations were so high for her. What drove him to drive her?

Karen White is now an author who I will want to seek out in the future. I'm only sorry that I waited so long to read this novel.

Final Take: 4.75/5

Lisa also reviewed it.

 

Julie's Review: Dream While You're Feeling Blue

Summary: New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Berg takes us to Chicago at the time of World War II in this wonderful story about three sisters, their lively Irish family, and the men they love. As the novel opens, Kitty and Louise Heaney say good-bye to their boyfriends Julian and Michael, who are going to fight overseas. On the domestic front, meat is rationed, children participate in metal drives, and Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller play songs that offer hope and lift spirits. And now the Heaney sisters sit at their kitchen table every evening to write letters–Louise to her fiancé, Kitty to the man she wishes fervently would propose, and Tish to an ever-changing group of men she meets at USO dances. In the letters the sisters send and receive are intimate glimpses of life both on the battlefront and at home. For Kitty, a confident, headstrong young woman, the departure of her boyfriend and the lessons she learns about love, resilience, and war will bring a surprise and a secret, and will lead her to a radical action for those she loves. The lifelong consequences of the choices the Heaney sisters make are at the heart of this superb novel about the power of love and the enduring strength of family. ~amazon.com

Review: Alice is a huge Elizabeth Berg fan and after reading Dream When You're Feeling Blue, I can definitely see why. She definitely has a gift for transporting her readers to a different era. For this novel it was the era of World War II. The Heaney's are a big Irish Catholic family living in Chicago in the midst of World War II. Pearl Harbor has been bombed and young men are enlisting like crazy. This includes Louise and Kitty's boyfriends who are off to boot camp and then off to fight the evil Axis.

I have to say that I loved all of the characters in the Heaney family. They each had their own personalities. I will say that Tish annoyed me the most. She was a moon-y 17 year old girl who had a major crush on her sister's boyfriend.

Ms. Berg did an excellent job of describing how the war was affecting families. Everything from cooking to having a simple cup of strong coffee wasn't easy to do. The sacrifices every family made to help the war effort was astounding. I wonder if our country could rally like that again?

Kitty is the main character or voice of the novel. She is the oldest sibling in the family. She is a bit lost in the beginning of the novel. She is really unsure of her relationship with Julian. So much that she struggles to write him long letters. Kitty really changes and grows throughout the novel. She gets a job in a factory making airplanes and it gives her purpose. She is an easy character to like and cheer for.

My issue with the novel was the ending. I felt that it came out of nowhere and with no explanation. It seemed to me that it was a sacrifice that really wasn't needed. I did like that we got a glimpse into their futures, that might be the only thing that saved the ending for me.

I can say this, I will be reading Ms. Berg again in the future.

Final Take: 3.75/5

Alice's Review: The Murderer's Daughters

Summary:  Lulu and Merry's childhood was never ideal, but on the day before Lulu's tenth birthday their father drives them into a nightmare. He's always hungered for the love of the girls’ self-obsessed mother; after she throws him out, their troubles turn deadly.  Lulu had been warned to never to let her father in, but when he shows up drunk, he's impossible to ignore. He bullies his way past Lulu, who then listens in horror as her parents struggle. She runs for help, but discovers upon her return that he's murdered her mother, stabbed her five-year-old sister, and tried, unsuccessfully, to kill himself.  Lulu and Merry are effectively orphaned by their mother’s death and father’s imprisonment, but the girls’ relatives refuse to care for them and abandon them to a terrifying group home. Even as they plot to be taken in by a well-to-do family, they come to learn they’ll never really belong anywhere or to anyone—that all they have to hold onto is each other.  For thirty years, the sisters try to make sense of what happened. Their imprisoned father is a specter in both their lives, shadowing every choice they make. One spends her life pretending he's dead, while the other feels compelled, by fear, by duty, to keep him close. Both dread the day his attempts to win parole may meet success.  A beautifully written, compulsively readable debut, The Murderer's Daughters is a testament to the power of family and the ties that bind us together and tear us apart. ~amazon.com


Review:  I could probably sum up this review in five words or less:

The Murderer’s Daughters is marvelous!!

Go buy it and read it immediately.  Seriously.  I remember when Julie told me about this novel (Julie's review), the plot intrigued me because it was about sisters and a subject matter I couldn’t fathom.  When she included it in our challenge, I looked forward to reading it.   

There are many great things in this novel.  Ms. Meyers gave us two strong female characters.  I liked each sister equally, appreciated what they went through and how they developed into the woman they become.  I loved how Ms. Meyers took us through their lives, from the traumatic incident through adulthood.  I was enthralled by the great detail she employed in describing the emotional journey the sisters took. 

I loved that The Murderer’s Daughters is written through both Lulu and Merry’s points of view.  It was fascinating hearing in their own words how their mother’s death affected them.  I especially enjoyed when they spoke to each other, knowing they were at times holding something back.  I loved that Ms. Meyers held true to the characters throughout the novel.  She didn’t alter their core to fit the story. They moved through the novel as we do through life, taking what is handed to us and making something of it.

One of the greatest surprises for me was how I felt about their father.  I flat out hated him in the beginning and I was surprised by how my view of him changed throughout the novel.  I’m far from cheering for him, but I did gain a reverence for him with the actions he took in his rehabilitation.

I will leave you with this.  This isn’t a brand new saying, I’m sure we have all heard it before in many different way.  However, this resonated deeply with me this time around and like The Murderer’s Daughters, it will stay with me for seasons to come. 

“Then I’d calm down and remind myself for everything there is a season.  This was my healing season.  Eventually the leaves would all fall and new leaves would grow back.”  ~Merry

Final Take: 5/5