French Milk. Finished 7-17-13, rating 3.25, graphic memoir, 193 pages, pub. 2007

Celebrating her mom’s 50th birthday and her own 22nd, Lucy and her mom decided to visit Paris together for a month.  They rented an apartment in the fifth arrondissement and started touring the city in January of 2007 and this book is her travel journal.  Lucy, attending the Center for Cartoon Studies, showed her skills in this graphic novel.

I was drawn in right away by her humor and the way she told her story.  The photographs that were interspersed with the drawings made it feel more personal.  I felt like I was on the streets of Paris stopping in cafes and drinking lots of wine and eating lots of cheese and bread.  Her quirkiness was refreshing and I love the idea of doing something so fantastic with your mother.

She lost me a little bit about halfway through.  She became whiny and it was hard t o feel sympathy for her when she complained of missing home.  One month in Paris is such a wonderful gift!  I know I am saying that as a 40 something and Lucy had not yet turned 22, so maybe that was the problem.  I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it as much at 22 as I would now.  After she recovered from that mood the book became more about what they ate and where when I wanted more story.

Overall, this is a short, easy to read travel journal.  I think it would be a perfect read for anyone planning to travel there.  It’s perfect to get restaurant and shopping ideas., but for me it didn’t deliver enough about her relationship with her mother, and that’s what I was expecting.

This was from my personal library.

Traveling down the Seine. (courtesy of Bookbath)

Blogging from A-Z

Living Out Loud. Finished 4-19-13, rating 3.25/5, essays, 278 pages, pub. 1988

A collection of Quindlen’s columns that she wrote for The New York Times starting in 1986 until the book was published in 1988.  The columns range from her looking back to growing up in the 1960’s to her raising her own children.  I found that I really couldn’t connect with much in these columns.  There was such a focus on being a woman and what that meant for her in relation to feminism, having a career and children that I felt like I was past the birth cut-off date for optimal reading enjoyment.  It was dated, but since I am a woman and mother I was hoping to get more out of it.  I’ve enjoyed her novels but I’m not sure if I’ll read more of her nonfiction. There were a few of the columns that really spoke to me  and I’ll include a bit from them.  This was from my own library.

I work out for a very simple reason, and it is noy because it makes me feel invigorated or refreshed.  The people who say that exercise is important because it makes you feel wonderful are the same people who say a mink coat is nice because it keeps you warm.  Show me a woman who wears a mink coat to keep warm and who exercises because it feels good and I’ll show you Jane Fonda.  I wear a mink coat because it is a mink coat, an I work out so that my husband will not gasp when he runs into me in the bathroom and take off with an eighteen year old who looks as good out of her clothes as in them.   (from Stretch Marks)

It reminded me that too often we take our sweet time dealing with the things we do not like about our children: the marriage we could not accept, the profession we disapproved of, t he sexual orientation we may hate and fear.  Sometimes we vow that we will never, never accept those things.  The stories my friend told me about the illness, the death, the funeral and, especially, about the parents reminded me that sometimes we do not have all the time we think to make our peace with who our children are.  It reminded me that “never” can last a long, long time, perhaps much longer than we intended.  (from Gay)

I accept the fact that mothers and daughters probably always see each other across a chasm of rivalries.  But I forget all those things when one of my friends is down with the flu and her mother arrives with an overnight bag to manage her household and feed her soup (from Mothers)  in honor of my own mother who did this very thing for me this week.  Love you 🙂

Eyes Wide Open. Finished 3-21-13, rating 3/5, fiction, 340 pages, pub. 2011

Jay Erlich’s nephew has been found at the bottom of a cliff at Morrow Bay. It’s all just a tragic suicide, until secrets from the past begin to rear up again. Did a notorious killer, jailed for many decades, have his hand in this?

Years ago, Jay Erlich’s older brother, Charlie, a wayward child of the sixties, set out for California, where he fell under the sway of a charismatic but deeply disturbed cultlike figure. Tragedy ensued and lives were destroyed, but as the decades passed, Charlie married and raised a family and lived a quiet, secluded life under the radar. Yet the demons that nearly destroyed him never completely disappeared.

When Jay heads out west to help his grieving brother, he is pulled back into Charlie’s past–and begins to suspect that his nephew’s suicide may not have been that at all. With eyes wide open, Jay puts his own life at risk to uncover the truth, a quest that goes beyond the edge of madness and a family haunted by a secret past . . . and into the depths of evil.

from Goodreads

There was non-stop action and creepy characters, complicated sibling relationships and inequality in the way society deals with mental illness.  One of the main characters was even suffering with organ transplant issues.  I loved the exploration of Jay and Charlie’s relationship.  I thought it was spot on.  I was heartbroken, along with Charlie and his wife about the way that the cops and hospitals dealt with their troubled son.  This was a big storyline in the beginning and I wish Gross had followed up with it.

The story itself deals with a crime decades old and it was a little hard for me to get into even though it provided a Charles Manson like villain.  I thought the book was average.  It had high points and low points, but it was good enough for me to give this author another try someday.

I bought this book for my Nook.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette, rating 2.75/5, fiction, 336 pages, pub, 2012

I accepted this for review because I enjoyed Semple’s first book and she was gracious enough to let me ask her a few questions a few years ago here on the blog.  I read nothing but positive things about it from other bloggers and it’s even up for a best book award at Goodreads.  So, it was bound to be a disappointment, right? Unfortunately, it was.

Bernadette, a reknowned architect, has been stuck in suburban Seattle hell for almost 20 years and her husband mentally checked out of her wacky ways way back as he focused on his very important job at Microsoft.  Bee, their daughter, never felt neglected or unloved so the parents were successful in raising a daughter with a bright future.  The story focuses on where Bernadette had disappeared to, but this doesn’t really happen until the last third of the book.

It was an epistolary novel, mostly.  There were chunks thrown in from Bee, especially at the end, that broke up that narrative in a less than positive way.  I liked the emails, police reports, newspaper articles, FBI reports, text messages that made up the story of Bernadette’s disappearance, but until the very last few pages I never cared about Bernadette or her husband Elgin. At the very end I appreciated Bernadette’s journey, but getting there was a journey I wouldn’t take again. Bee, was a sympathetic character but not one I connected with.

There were exotic locales, Antarctica playing a big role in most of the book, and plenty of laughable/hateful characters depicting the wealthy suburbanites I am all too familiar with so I think this could be a great movie.  The characters often felt like caricatures that could definitely work on the big screen, but for me I found them a bit too whiny on the page.

I was hoping to be entertained, but I grew bored early on and didn’t care at all until the crazy end.  What happened to Bernadette?  It’s a doozy.  I know I’m in the minority for not really liking this one and I’m okay with that.

I want to thank Anna at Little Brown for sending me a copy of the book 🙂

Finished audio 10-23-12, rating 3/5, thriller, pub. 2011

Unabridged audio 12 hours 20 minutes.  Read by Peter Berkrot

Glen’s wife dies in a horrific traffic accident that kills a father and son in another car, leaving him with their 10 year-old daughter and anger that she was drunk and caused the accident. As he tries to normalize life for his daughter, there’s another death in their small Connecticut town.  And then another.  When Glen starts putting the pieces together he discovers layers of secrets and murderers to spare.

I liked Glen.  He had a great relationship with his daughter, was a stand-up boss and neighbor, and a good friend.  The problem was the number of coincidences in the book.  Ever heard of these underground purse parties where you can buy knock-off designer bags?  What about prescription drugs that come from China sold under the (prescription) table?  And electrical parts that aren’t up to code also from China?  Well, not one, not two, but all three make significant appearances in the many storylines of this book.

It was too much, all the murders, the counterfeit sales, the characters that come and go with no purpose.  It was a fast and easy read and I wanted to stick it out to the end to find out how it all came together.  It was an enjoyable, if unbelievable thriller.

A word about the narrator, I didn’t like Berkot’s voices for women.  Every one sounded just plain annoying.  Other than that he was fine 🙂

I checked this audio out of the library.

America, You Sexy Bitch. Finished 8-14-12, rating 2.75/5, political travelogue, 309 pages, pub. 2012

Michael Ian Black, 40-something happily married father of two, liberal atheist, former Power Ranger

Meghan McCain, 27-year-old MSBNC contributor who likes her guns and alcohol, Christian Republican, current daughter of Senator John McCain

How’d they meet? Twitter!  Late one night over a few tweets they decided to take a cross country trip to talk to real Americans.

Where’d they go? California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Washington DC, Connecticut

Who did they talk to? Strippers, Mormons, Katrina survivors, military, congressmen, Muslims, random folks

What did they talk about? Guns, religion, health care, government, war, military, drugs, gay marriage

Who drank the most? Meghan

Who did I agree with more (but not always)?  Michael.  His opinions actually came with explanation and nuance.  It may have been Meghan’s age, but her opinions came with attitude and there were many inconsistencies.

What were the good parts? I don’t know.  I learned a little about the Mormons and some of the drug testing the government is working on.

Coolest parts?  Because of the McCain name they had access to Fort Campbell and it’s training programs and access to Congressmen.

Bad parts?  They had a hard time explaining the book to people and that’s no surprise.  I read it and am still unsure about the point.

Their conclusion?  Stereotypes are bad and opposites in the voting booth can still be friends.

My conclusion? Although I enjoyed the idea and Michael’s take on their travels I can’t really see much reason for recommending it.  I didn’t like the first half but the second half was better.  The less drinking, the better the writing.

I received this book from Mandy at The Well-Read Wife for her first ever book club.  I posted two earlier discussion posts (1 & 2) and if you want to find out what the rest of the 49 people in the book club are saying about it click here.

Thank you so much Mandy for inviting me to be a part of it!

The Diary, Finished audio 6-14-12, rating 3/5, pub. 2009

Unabridged audio 6 hours 30 minutes. Read by Susan Ericksen

Elizabeth Marshall lies in a nursing home after a stroke has left her unresponsive.  Her two grown daughters discover her old diary as they prepare for the worst and pack up their childhood home.  As they read the diary together they discover a mother they never knew, one with hopes, heartbreak, passion, and strength.  The diary describes the two loves of Elizabeth’s life and the ultimate moment when she had to choose between the two.

First, let me quibble with the description provided by the publisher.  The last line is, It’s also the story of the unshakable bond between a mother and her daughters.  Um, no, it’s really not.  The daughters, obviously, knew very little about their mother as a person and there was really no chance for them to recover that lost time except through a series of diary entries that covered only a small portion of their mother’s youth.

This book had three viewpoints, the daughters in current day, their mother’s written entries, and then the detailed story behind each entry which was not in the first person.  I found the jump between the three off-putting.  I liked Elizabeth’s story, but the jumping in and out of it left me less than fully engaged.  I actually started to resent the daughters for intruding on their mother’s story with their boring and clueless observations.  Yes, that seems harsh, but it’s true.  If they had been more compelling characters it may have worked  better for me since Elizabeth was a great character and I’d have rather heard the story straight from her.

Elizabeth’s story was a good one, even if there wasn’t anything terrible original.  The only thing that set it apart is how it was told and while I disliked the jumping between viewpoints it did allow for some much needed suspense at the end. The end was not a complete surprise to me (as it was to those silly daughters) but there were enough questions to want me to keep listening.  Why did Elizabeth end up with stable Bob and not passionate AJ?  Inquiring minds want to know.

I thought it was a solid and enjoyable audio book, but I wasn’t totally into it.  I borrowed the audio book from the library.