Julie's Review: The Song Remains the Same

Summary: One of only two survivors of a plane crash, Nell Slattery wakes in the hospital with no memory of the horrific experience-or who she is, or was. Now she must piece together both body and mind, with the help of family and friends, who have their own agendas. She filters through photos, art, music, and stories, hoping something will jog her memory, and soon, in tiny bits and pieces, Nell starts remembering. . . .

It isn't long before she learns to question the stories presented by her mother, her sister and business partner, and her husband. In the end, she will discover that forgiving betrayals small and large will be the only true path to healing herself-and to finding happiness. ~amazon.com

Review: You know how when you love a book, you struggle for the words to describe why you loved it so much? Yes, that's me with The Song Remains the Same. This book makes you think about what it is you would want to remember about your previous life and what you would want to leave out. Who would you trust to give you the truth? Would you want to change who you were in the past?

I loved Nell. I felt for her. I wanted her to learn about herself. Not the rose colored glass version but the real version of who she was before the plane crash. She wants to be someone else before she even knows who she was. As her mother, her sister and her husband recount to her who she was, what she did; something doesn't sit right with her. She enlists a journalist to help her "Free Nell Slattery" and find out the truth of who she is by digging into her past.

Of course, it isn't exactly what Nell expects and sends her into a search to find her father.  She latches onto the fact that he is the key to finding out who she is. She gets so caught up in that fact that she forgets to live in the moment and to look elsewhere for her answers. Nell uses music to try to reach the memories that are in the recesses of her brain. As she starts to remember, she begins to realize that everyone has their own agenda in her recovery. Perhaps the only one who doesn't have an agenda is Anderson, the Hollywood hunk who survived the crash with her. Although, Anderson is fighting his own demons that he can't quite shake.

The book could have definitely gone in a couple different directions that would have ended up in cliches but it didn't. The focus was on Nell finding out who she was and who she wants to become. The revelations are not what I expected and some of them are heart-wrenching. There is also a lot of humor dispersed throughout the novel, so that it's not so serious and heavy all of the time.

It is on this journey to her past where Nell figures out what she wants out of her future. It is true that in order to know yourself, you need to know where you come from but you can't let that affect who want to become. Maybe that is a lesson for all of us: we can't let our past define us.

I'm going a little fan girl here but I adore Allison. I've read all four of her books and this one is her best.  Nell was the easiest heroine from her books to like. I can't wait to read whatever she has in store in the future for her readers.

If you want a book that moves you, ties in some great music and pop culture then go get yourself a copy of The Song Remains the Same. I think anyone can get something out of this book.

Final Take: 5/5

Julie's Review: Afterwards

Summary: The school is on fire. Her children are inside. Grace runs toward the burning building, desperate to reach them. In the aftermath of the devastating fire which tears her family apart, Grace embarks on a mission to find the person responsible and protect her children from further harm.  This fire was not an accident, and her daughter Jenny may still be in grave danger. Grace is the only one who can discover the culprit, and she will do whatever it takes to save her family and find out who committed the crime that rocked their lives.  While unearthing truths about her life that may help her find answers, Grace learns more about everyone around her -- and finds she has courage she never knew she possessed. Powerful and beautiful, with a riveting story and Lupton’s trademark elegant style that made Sister such a sweeping success, Afterwards explores the depths of a mother’s unswerving love. ~amazon.com

Review: Immediately after reading Sister, I knew I wanted to read Afterwards. I even contacted the publisher to see when they would be releasing it in the US. That is how much Ms. Lupton's writing and storytelling affected me. When I read the description for Afterwards it reminded me a bit of Lisa Scottoline's Save Me but after a few pages I knew the only thing they had in common was a mother trying to rescue her child.

There is so much to say about this book but yet so much I can't say because it will truly ruin the experience for you. It is unlike any other book I have ever read because of the manner in which Ms. Lupton unfolds the story. We are quickly introduce to Grace Covey as she's attending the Sports Day at her 8 year old son, Adam's private school. Not only does Adam go there but her daughter Jenny is acting as school nurse for the day. It is the picture of serenity until Grace sees smoke billowing into the sky coming from the direction of the school. Grace doesn't even think to hesitate as she runs into the burning building looking for Jenny.

Of course Grace's actions have repercussions as both her and Jenny are sent to the hospital fighting for their lives. What happens next during the investigation into the fire is a roller coaster ride until the very end. I had so many theories all of which turned out to be very wrong. I wanted to them to look at the family for some reason. I felt that Jenny was hiding something by trying to prove she is capable of being an adult. Was she hiding something, yes but it wasn't anything like I assumed.

What this novel makes you acutely aware of is that things aren't always as they appear. Sometimes you think you know someone, then you find out something that hits you over the head and then you wonder if you ever even knew them. Not only that but at times we all make assumptions and when our assumptions turn out to be wrong, either good or bad, how do we deal with that? How do we process it and move on from it?

At the end of the book, I felt that all of the characters had grown, particularly Grace who discovered somethings about herself that might not have been easy but they were truthful. Her husband Mike also grew. He grew into the father he needed to be to Adam and the father Adam needed. I am hopeful that this experience also changed Jenny. That maybe she'll be o.k. in the end.

The only thing that kept this from being a 5 for me was the ending. I felt that all in all it was a little too neat for me. A bit too bow tied on nicely especially given the ordeal. I'm not saying I didn't appreciate the ending because I most certainly did since it had me up late and bawling like a baby, but it didn't seem like something that might happen in real life.

I really hope that one of you reads this book quickly because I'm dying to discuss it with someone who has read it. It is a book that will spawn plenty of discussion in a book club or amongst friends.

I can't say enough about Ms. Lupton's writing. She is an author that I highly recommend to anyone and I look forward to any novel she writes in the future. For more about Ms. Lupton, you can check out her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter and of course her website.

Final Take: 4.75/5


Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the ARC of Afterwards.

Rosamund Lupton’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:
Monday, April 23rd:  Unabridged Chick
Tuesday, April 24th: Colloquium
Wednesday, April 25th:  Take Me Away
Thursday, April 26th:  A Bookworm’s World
Monday, April 30th:  Nomad Reader
Tuesday, May 1st:  Great Imaginations
Wednesday, May 2nd:  The Picky Girl
Thursday, May 3rd:  Indie Reader Houston
Friday, May 4th:  Amused by Books
Monday, May 7th:  Books Distilled
Tuesday, May 8th:  Me, My Book, and the Couch
Wednesday, May 9th:  Girls Just Reading
Thursday, May 10th:  Boarding in my Forties
Friday, May 11th:  Coffee and a Book Chick
Monday, May 14th:  Peeking Between the Pages
Tuesday, May 15th:  Into the Hall of Books
Wednesday, May 16th:  Melody & Words
Thursday, May 17th:  Lit Endeavors

TLC Book Tours has an opportunity for you to win 10 copies of Afterwards for your book club. Just click a here to enter.

Julie's Review: Wife 22

Summary: For fans of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself . . . and finding herself again . . . in the middle of her life.  Maybe it was those extra five pounds I’d gained. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other. But when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101). And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.
7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.
61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.
67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have.
32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.
Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions. But these days, I’m also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I’ll have to make a decision—one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m too busy answering questions.
As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac. ~amazon.com

Review: There had been some buzz about this book on twitter, so when Amazon Vine had it up for grabs, I snagged it. I'm glad I did. Wife 22 is a fresh observation of married life and the pitfalls that can become it. Alice and her husband William are stuck in a rut. They've been married 20+ years and 2 kids, they don't really communicate other than what is needed to get through their daily routine. Alice struggles to find happiness in her marriage and her daily life. She teaches drama at a local elementary school and finds that there is more drama off the stage with the parents then on the stage with the kids.

One day Alice gets a email asking her to be in a survey about marriage. She thinks, "what the heck?" and fills out the initial acceptance survey. What happens is that the questions are pointed and cause Alice to think back to the the courtship between her and William. What it took for them to get to where they currently are in life. Alice is so focused on the fact that the current state of their marriage is William's fault that when people point out otherwise, she's quick to shut them out.

As Alice gets deeper into the survey and the questions, she finds herself bonding with Researcher 101. She finds herself creating a false Facebook profile to communicate with him. She finds herself anxious for communication with a man she's never met and the connection she thinks she has with him. One thing that I really enjoyed was how we didn't know the questions that Alice was asked in the survey but had to surmise what they were from her answers. It made the book more focused on the things that really mattered to her instead of how she answered the more general questions.

Some of the best characters are those who play an important role in her life: her son Peter, her daughter Zoe, her best friend Nedra and her old mentor Bunny. My favorite parts of the book are after Bunny arrives to visit for 3 weeks. She pushes Alice to confront her issues and to deal with the things that she doesn't want to deal with.

Ms. Gideon writes a wonderful novel about how we get lost in the daily ins and outs of our lives that we lose sight of what really matters. Have you really grown that far apart from each other that you can't find your way back? What will it take to find your way back?

If you are looking for a fresh view of marriage in the 21st century, then Wife 22 is definitely for you.

Final Take: 4/5

Jenn's Review: Charmfall

Summary:  High school can be a battlefield, but for Lily Parker, surviving at St. Sophia’s School for Girls is a matter of life and death…

Protecting Chicago from the dark side can be an exhausting job, especially when you’re a junior. So when the girls of St. Sophia’s start gearing up for Sneak, their fall formal, Lily decides to join in on some good, old-fashioned party prep—even if it means not giving demons, vampires and the twisted magic users known as Reapers her undivided attention.

But when a Reaper infiltrates the school, Lily doesn’t forget what she’s sworn to protect. She reaches deep into herself to draw out her magic—and finds that it’s gone. And it turns out she’s not alone. A magical blackout has slammed through paranormal Chicago, and no one knows what—or who—caused it. But Lily knows getting back her magic is worth the risk of going behind enemy lines…

Review:  Lily is frantic upon getting into a battle with a Reaper and discovering her magic is gone. But it's not just her, magic is disappearing all over, and she may be the only one willing to cooperate with the Reapers in order to find the answers to save it. Lily is bringing change to the battle between the Adepts and the Reapers. Perhaps because she grew up outside of it all, she doesn't see things as black and white... And she's teaching everyone to see some shades of grey.

The Adepts get their first taste of what life will be like without magic, and they aren't handling it all that well. I was kind of surprised by this. It is, after all, what they're fighting for, to let go of the magic gracefully when it is time. So the reaction of each of the characters is interesting.

I like Sebastian more and more, the more we learn about him as the series progresses, the more of a mystery he becomes. He's definitely not all bad, which lends credibility to Lily's shades of grey... There are fanatics on both sides of the battle... Maybe they are both wrong?!? Or is it just Sebastian's interest in Lily that makes him seem like he's not such a bad guy?

As, usual, I got to the end and found myself craving more. Honestly, if Chloe Neill had combined all three of these books into one, it would have suited me fine. Instead they are nice quick read-in-a-sitting books ...and they always have me looking forward to the next installment.

Final Take:  4/5

 

Children's Corner: My Friend Is Sad

Mo Willems makes both my husband and I tear up constantly, so it was with trepidation we picked up the Elephant and Piggie series.  We still have tears, but this time it's from laughing.

Elephant is sad and so Piggie attempts to cheer him up by dressing in different costumes... but nothing can lift Elephants ennui... Finally, Piggie asks Elephant why he is so sad.  It turns out, Elephant is overjoyed to see Piggie and that he was completely distraught that Piggie missed seeing all the cool things that attempted to cheer him up...

This is told through dialogue bubbles in simple but effective pictures.  It's perfect for beginning readers and pre-readers.  My kidlet loves melodrama, so she thinks Elephant's overreaction to the misunderstood situation is a hoot.  Especially when Piggie suggests Elephant might be in need of some new glasses.  This one is a good giggle, and we will certainly be investigating more Elephant and Piggie books.

Alice's Review: Once Upon a Time, There Was You

Summary:  This is a novel about the vagaries of love and the cost of love and the worth of love and the utter confusion of love.On her wedding day, Irene Marsh sits in the bride's room asking her best friend Valerie to go and get the car and help her escape. And if Valerie doesn't want to help, Irene understands; she says can take a bus home.  On the night before his wedding, John Marsh sits in a bar with his best friend who asks a nervous John to recall why he's marrying Irene, in an effort to calm him down. John says: "Because she doesn't wear make-up?"  Perhaps not surprisingly, this marriage ends in divorce. But many years later, the couple is brought together again because of something terrible that happens to the one thing they still have in common: their beloved daughter.  I write novels for lots of different reasons. This time, I wanted to look at what if. What if a couple long divorced were suddenly thrust into living in the same house together again, seeing each other--and themselves-- in new ways. What might happen? As is typical of my books, there's a mix of humor and pathos here, and illumination of some difficult truths. In one of my favorite scenes, Irene and Valerie show each other their aging bodies, in an effort for Irene to determine if she's "normal." And for all of you who are going to ask if I ever did that, the answer is no. But I kind of wish I could. Irene is an eccentric character and a bit difficult at times, but she is so full of love. All she has to do is figure out is a way to let it out. ~elizabeth-berg.net

Review:  I’m a sucker for relationship novels.  I love romance, I love the idea of love.  I love all aspects of it, the good and the bad.  As you all know, I read with my heart and Once Upon a Time, There Was You had a lot that made my heart very happy.

The novel focuses on three separate relationships:  Eighteen year old Sadie discovering love for the first time, her mom, Irene mending a broken heart (sort of) after a recently ended relationship, and John, Sadie’s father, cautiously stepping back into the dating game.  Not only does Ms. Berg deal with romances for each character but with their relationships with each other.

Once Upon a Time, There Was You is pretty much a coming of age stories with Sadie, Irene and John each coming into their own.  Sadie’s growth was sweet but forgettable, and John’s was a matter of timing.  Irene is the story that I related to the most.  Hers took the most courage.  It has to be hard to be in your mid 50s starting over again.  And she does it with style.  By style, I mean she is the classic case of F.I.N.E.: Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.  I loved Irene.  I think I fell in love with her when while placing a personal ad, she wrote this:

"I believe in defacing books.  I think one’s personal library should be full of books with broken spines and meaningful passages underlined, with pages marked by chocolate or coffee or grease stains.  If there are comments or questions in the margins, even better."

I loved this, and this alone is one of the major reasons I will never abandon tree books for ebooks.  Irene was kooky, a bit odd, funny, passionate.  Her neurosis brought great humor to this novel that probably wasn’t meant to be funny.  I guess I saw a bit of myself in her.  Kind of trying her best, hoping for a good outcome, but scared to death of actually receiving that good outcome.

The other passage I had to underline was about marriage.  As a single person, I think I’ll take this piece of advice to heart.  It was the one thing that failed me in the past, and the one thing I am changing in my current relationship.

“You know, sometimes marriage is iron.  Sometimes it’s tissue paper.  And I think the times it’s tissue paper are when you need to keep things to yourself.  Or you can end up making a mistake that you’ll regret forever.” Valerie to Irene.

Once Upon a Time, There Was You focused mainly on how well do you know someone, what to keep to/for yourself, and when you start to lose yourself (your authentic self) in a relationship.  I really enjoyed how each character found a peace in their situation.  They had to grow apart in order to be together.  I was beautiful to read, and to experience along with the characters. 

 As much as I enjoyed this novel, the one major flaw was the abduction of Sadie.  It served no purpose other than to reunite John and Irene to deal with the aftermath.  I felt it was unnecessary.  I kept waiting for more to come from that plot that never arrived.  It left me feeling wanting.

Overall, Once Upon a Time, There Was You is another good Elizabeth Berg novel and a solid example of why she is one of my favorites.

Final Take:  4/5