Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain



The book back reads, "In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child. CeeCee Wilkes knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she also knows what happened to the missing infant, because two decades ago she made the devastating choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is facing the death penalty, and she has another choice to make. Tell the truth, and destroy her family. Or let an innocent man die in order to protect a lifetime of lies."

I stumbled across this book at Target, picked it up and read the back, shrugged, and thought to myself, "Hmmm. This might be good." Then tossed it in the cart. Forgot about it. Found it last week. Glad I did. While not a literary masterpiece, Diane Chamberlain does an amazing job of pulling you into the story. The main character, CeeCee, is a naive sixteen-year-old when she is manipulated into a 22-year-old man's quest for "justice." Having lost her mother to cancer at the age of 12, then being bounced around a series of foster homes, CeeCee is desperate to be loved and willing to sacrifice anything to keep that love. While the crimes she is involved in are shocking and sensational, I found myself sympathizing with young CeeCee. I felt so connected with the characters I felt their struggles, pain and joy. I could barely put the book down, so eager was I to see how it ended. Then there was the contradictory disappointment that comes with finishing a good book. I'll bring it to the next meeting to pass along.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion

B&N.com says ... "A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil-literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul-it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose."

This book left me uneasy and uncomfortable. That is the only way I know of to describe it. I read it in one day - it's a fairly quick read, seeing that some of the chapters are less than half a page long. But part of the reason I read it so quickly is that I was anxious to finish it and put it away. My father, for some unknown reason, has been urging me to read this book for several years. After finishing it last night, I cannot fathom WHY. I can't see my military-history-and-historical-fiction-loving father even remotely enjoying this book. Note to self - ask him to explain. I am by no means saying this book is not worth the read. It just put me into a place that I prefer not to be.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This book was written in 1987 by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison. From the back cover: Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved."

Wow. This book is incredible. It is like watching a great artist flesh out a breathtaking and horrible painting up close. There is the idea of what the painting will be and slowly each color is added and built-up so that when it is finished and we back up, the effect is truly stunning. Like a Monet, up close we can see the detail, each blob of color and brush-stroke but when we step back - what a masterpiece!

This book's details are grisly, hard, bitter, beautiful, heartwrenching, poetic and devestating. It is a true look at slavery in the United States. It is always horrifying to me how awful human beings can be to one another. Slavery, the Holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the treatment of the American Indians - history is fraught with evidence of the nastiness of men. But also the strength of the human spirit, the beauty in life and how amazing people can be. This book was terribly hard to read and impossible to put down.

It certainly puts my life in perspective, while I am worrying about the economy and the bailout and whether California will ever have a budget , those worries are nothing! I am not worried about whether I will be fed, or beaten, or tied and bridled like a horse, or have my children sold away from me, or my husband shot or hanged or burned. I don't have to care for someone who thinks of me as an animal, less than livestock, locked in a cage. I have a say in who will father my children. I am and always have been truly free. My worries are nothing.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst


From the back cover: "Laura is awakened in the middle of the night by her teenage daughter, who has barely spoken a word to her in months. Following Cassie up to her attic room, Laura discovers her daughter's shocking secret - and moves quickly to try to set things right.
The rift between mother and daughter will soon be played out on a global scale, when - in the hope that time spent together will heal their relationship - Laura and Cassie join a motley group of contestants on a reality TV show. What starts as a lark turns deadly serious when the show's creators scheme to reveal the most intimate details of the players' lives. The question becomes not just who will capture the million-dollar prize, but at what cost."

Some of you may recognize this author's name from her previous work The Dogs of Babel, a serious, dark and disturbing book about suicide, love and bizarre language testing on dogs. This book is nothing like that one, in fact one would almost question if it is really the same author even though it says so right on the cover. I guess as readers we expect our authors to maintain a certain continuity in their work. Janet Fitch did it with White Oleander and Paint it Black, Jean Hegland did it with Into the Forest and Windfalls, there aren't any huge surprises in the writing from Jodi Picoult or Amy Tan. This book, however, was shocking as a follow up to Parkhurst's first work because it was so incredibly different.

The surprise aside, it turned out to be a very good book. Each chapter was from the viewpoint of a different character and she did a good job of keeping each character's voice separate and distinct (although I really did like how Picoult gave each of her characters their own font in My Sister's Keeper). This book is really about the secrets we keep and how, big or little, we all have them. It is an interesting, thought-provoking book in an easy-to-read little package.

On a side note: There is a previously gay couple in the story (this doesn't give anything away) and by that I mean one man and one women who each used to be gay but who turned away from their lifestyle with help from a christian organization and married each other. I don't know, I just feel inundated with gayness lately. It seems everywhere I turn there is a commercial, a TV show, a book, an article that has hopped aboard the gay-train. Not only that but they all seem to christian-bash at the same time. It bothers me because: 1) I can't seem to get away from it and 2) they (the gay community, Hollywood, the media, etc.) are forcing me to think about something that I previously thought little about. While I can be opinionated about myself, my own life, family, and beliefs, I really am mostly a live-and-let-live kind of person. But now I am having this "lifestyle" rammed down my throat everyday and it's kind-of pissing me off. Thoughts?

Thursday, February 5, 2009

your roots are showing by Elise Chidley

"Lizzie Buckley is having doubts about per picture-perfect world. She does love her country estate, precocious three-year-old twins, and handsome husband, James. But nobody warned her about postpartum depression and the toll it would take on her marriage. Or how she'd fantasize about chucking it all for a box of chocolates and an uninterrupted bath.

Lizzie vents these frustrations in an e-mail and her life is shattered: James gets the message by mistake. Lizzie soon finds herself uprooting her children to start over in a ramshackle garden cottage. Now facing life - and the twins - alone, Lizzie struggles to reinvent herself and forget about her soon-to-be ex. But when thoughts of James still haunt her, she begins to wonder if the best part of marriage starts after the fairytale ends..."

This book was a quick read - entertaining and relevant to every marriage in some way. I could tell from the beginning that everything was going to be just fine and knowing that I could enjoy Lizzie's re-invention of herself. Really just a polishing away of the tarnish of postpartum depression and emerging the glowing, confident woman James married. It was truly a modern day fairytale - very sweet but I didn't mind I could use a little sweetness lately. It was a good reminder that good communication is essential to a healthy marriage and how easily things can go awry when it's not there. Some of the English vernacular was a little unfamiliar but easy enough to gain the meaning from the context. Actually, it added to the quirkiness of the story. I liked this book. It is no literary masterpiece but still a fun read.