Choices

Insurgent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I still can't quite figure out why I like this series. Not a great way to start a book review is it?

Tris, our heroine, struggles in this second book of the Divergent series. As we left her in Divergent, she had lost her mother, her father, her good friend Will. She feels responsible. She can't shake these feelings, and it causes some strain in her relationship with Tobias. As a matter of fact, they were having so many misunderstandings that it was becoming a little old to me, I was ready for them to move on or give up on each other.

I do think that part of the reason I like the book is because Tris does struggle with her choices. Like many of us, she can't let these feelings go, but at the same time, she doesn't seem to quite grow up. We make choices. Our choices affect others. This is a huge part of the story line. Evil exists. How do we respond?

I continue to think that this series, read with your teen, would make for great discussions.

I'm not quite sure what I think of the ending, and look forward to reading the next book in the series. Since I am 205 out of 205 on the waiting list, it may be a while!


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Bless the Women Who've Gone Before Us!

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What an interesting book!

First I'll tell you the shockers for me. Ladies, we are so lucky! We can do just about anything we want. We can complain about women's rights, but baby, we've come a long way. So, here are some of the facts:

"Beware the bookish woman" was an adage of the age"

. . . at George Brownell's school . . . those few girls who enrolled were allowed to attend only after the boys had finished for the day, and what they learned was different: boys learned to write; girls learned English and French Quilting, Imbroidery, Florishing, Plain Work, marking in several sorts of stitches"

In 1771, Massachusett's poor laws had, for the first time, required that girls be taught to write.

Jane was the sister of the famous Ben Franklin. She and Ben were close while young, and he is the one who taught her how to write. Jane was ashamed of her writing, as she knew she was a poor speller, and was always apologizing it in her letters to Ben.

Many of Ben and Jane's letters did not survive, but of those that did you were able to get a sense of her personality. She truly loved and admired her brother. She loved to read and scoured bookstores to find and read Ben's books. She loved her family. In short, she was a well rounded person who cared for herself and her family despite a fairly worthless husband and the restrictions of her day.

Although Ben was often away doing his thing for the fledgling states, he did stay in touch with Jane, and tried to see to her comfort monetarily. She really needed the help too. According to the author,

"In 1748, Jane turned thirty-six. She had been pregnant or nursing, almost without pause, since she was sixteen."

This book will not only give you a picture of Jane, but a picture of the times, and of Ben. This is what I thought of Benjamin Franklin. He was smart, he was an inventor, he was a philanderer. This book changed my opinion of him. He is really a rags to riches story--for someone of his class to become such a learner and have success is a really big thing.

So once again. I am so lucky. With never a thought I pick up a book, I read, I write. I work and enjoy every opportunity that I seek out. I really need to pay much more attention to Woman's History Month (March) and celebrate the women who paved the way for me!


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What Kind of Messenger are You?

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm giving this 4 stars because once again Zusak has given me something to think about.

A friend lent me this book (Thanks Lara!). I have to be honest, if I didn't respect her opinion about books so much, I would not have kept going. Like many of the other goodreads reviewers I find some of the beginning offensive. It's hard to talk about here without giving up some of the story, so I'll just leave it at that. But I encourage you to stick with it, if only for the pondering that will occur once you've finished the book. This is pretty much the same reaction I had after finishing The Book Thief. I didn't think I liked it, but it stuck with me, and I found I needed to talk about

I Am The Messenger revolves around Ed, and the messages he receives that are written on playing cards. Ed's job is to figure out what the message is, and then to do something about it. In essence, he has a mission to complete based on the clues on the cards. Sometimes the missions are scary, sometimes sweet, almost always they are hard. Ed is taken out of his passive life, and into an engaged life. He is forced out of selfish thinking, into unselfish thinking. He becomes a better person.

One of my favorite chapters is when Ed and his friends put in play a creative marketing plan to get people to Father O'Reilly's church. (I loved Father O'Reilly!) When Ed found the Father, he couldn't believe what an awful neighborhood he lived in. As Ed gets to know the father he thinks:

"...I now realize why he's chosen to live here. The church is too far away for him to really help anyone, so this is the best place for him. It's everywhere, on all sides and angles. This is where the Father needs to be. Not in some church gathering dust."

There is a great quote from Henri Nouwen that captures the essence of this book:

"We need to be Angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation because only when we fully realize the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow, but also a cup of joy, will we be able to drink it."

Ed became a sort of angel on his journey, and also realized that life is both parts sorrow and joy, and that he needs to be a part of it.

If your teen wants to read this book, I would recommend that you read it first, or read it together. You will be able to have some great discussions when you finish!



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Guilty Pleasure - Read While You Work!

In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I actually listened to this book - and, not only that, but I listened to it while I was at work! This was such a guilty pleasure to me, that I could enjoy a good story while I toiled away at a tedious task (reformatting and printing pacing guides--like 200 of them).

There are so many things to like about this story. We have Russ VanAlstyne, the married, agnostic police officer, and Clare Ferguson, the helicopter pilot turned priest. There are some illicit sparks between them, and they are aware of this undercurrent in their relationship. Together Russ and Clare begin investigating the mystery of the baby left on the church door steps, and the murder of a young girl. This is how they begin to know each other and form a friendship. They respect each other, but, they also have some misunderstandings and get mad at each other--just like real life!

Russ is a bit of curmudgeon, and swears quite a bit. I did have a hard time with this - I never like swearing in a book (yeah, I know, it's supposed to depict real life), and he is always taking the Lord's name in vain. This was especially jarring since it was the spoken word, not me reading the words on the page. In my perfect world, there is no swearing (I know, I'm a dreamer). I appreciate though how the author doesn't have Clare react. Clare doesn't proselytize, she just listens, and shares her heart. She doesn't get mad or upbraid Russ, she still respects and listens to him. Russ respects Clare as well, and does begin to at least notice that he's swearing in her presence.

In the Bleak Midwinter also depicts hard circumstances--unwed mothers, poverty, incest. Russ's reactions and Clare's to these circumstances are naturally different, and both seem appropriate to the characters.

In the end, the mystery is solved. But what will happen with Russ and Clare? Even though I would never want anyone to cheat in their marriage, somehow you just want Clare and Russ to connect.

I will definitely be listening to more stories during tedious tasks, and look forward to reading the next Russ Van Alstyne and Clare Ferguson mystery!

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Surprised by "Divergent"!

Divergent by Veronica Roth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't know how I learned about this book and why I added it as a "to read" selection. I was somehow ignorant of the fact that it was a story with some violence, similar to Hunger Games. But here's the thing - I have surprised myself because I really liked this book.

There are some similarities to Hunger Games, although I didn't think it was as grim. A young friend of mine, who likes this series, told me she felt there is more hope in the Divergent series than what we find in Hunger Games. I am inclined to agree with her. There are parts of the story that also made me think of The Giver.

What I think was valuable in this book, and what made the story palatable for me, was the way Tris, the main character, thought things through. Tris was bothered by some of the actions she had to take when she was going through her training program and when she was protecting the people in her care. I like that the author let us see Tris's thoughts, and I think those thoughts lend themselves to good discussion points with young adult readers.

All good books bring us to ask the question--what would I do in this situation? I know that I hate violence in the world, but here it is with us. How do we fight that? As a Christian, it seems like love and gentleness would lead the way, doesn't it? But love doesn't mean doing nothing--so what is the right way to react when evil disrupts our universe? Do we just sit by, do we fight? Divergence does a good job of bringing these questions to light.

I'm looking forward to reading the next book, Insurgent, and seeing what the author does with Tris, Four, and the society they live in.

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Lunch in Paris? Oui! Oui!

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was fun. First, I once again got to learn about Paris. Second, it was about food, and Three, it was about family. Well, it was more about Elizabeth herself, but family was tied into it.

I think I'm fascinated by cooking with fresh food. While I am not adventurous when it comes to different foods, I am more and more liking being able to eat fresh food. I don't like to cook out of a can (well, that's not entirely true, there are some foods, like canned tomatoes, that do make for an easy recipe), and do like cooking with foods fresh from market. I'm not quite sure how I'd do in a meat market, but I do love going to the Butcher. To me, that's the beauty of the book, cooking with fresh food every day, and just in the amounts you need.

Elizabeth weaves in her recipes with stories about herself, her husband, family and friends. I also really appreciated how she compared the stress driven American lifestyle with the slower paced French culture. I'm attracted to slowing down in life and not letting myself be stressed by things I can't control. I have so much to learn in this area, and somehow, chopping (with a knife, not a blender), slicing and dicing does help me get in a slower mode.

To clarify, although the book was a fun read, there are some serious issues addressed--cancer, sense of self-worth, taking risks toward making dreams come true, making friends in a foreign country and more. For me though, the crowning touch of this particular book was the recipes. I mean to try more than a few.


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A Boy, A Disaster and a Goldfinch

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the premise of the story behind The Goldfinch, but I think it was a little too long. I ended up skimming much of the last 2/3 of the book, before slowing down again for the last chapter. Do you know how sometimes you just want to know the ending? It was like that for me, but instead of feeling like each chapter was leading up to the anticipation of the ending, I was just feeling like, let's get this part over with already. Additionally, there was a point in the story that I could predict what was going to happen next.

Theo's story is a sad one, losing his mother in a catastrophic accident when he is 12 years old. It is in this moment that his life becomes uncertain, and he carries that uncertainty with him in every circumstance of his life. Along the way he befriends an adult, Hobie, whom he admires, and whom he also disappoints. I love the character of Hobie for the unconditional love that he shows Theo throughout his life. Everyone of us needs a Hobie in our life!

At the center of the story is the painting, The Goldfinch. This is an acutal painting by a Dutch artist, that I at least, had never heard of, Carel Fabritius. Theo's mom loved this painting and her thoughts about the painting are one of the last memories that Theo has of her. I always do enjoy when an author uses pieces of non-fiction in their novels.

The author describes Theo's anxieties throughout the book in a very realistic manner. For me, it sometimes felt like he (Theo) was spending a little too much time feeling sorry for himself. His friendship with another young boy, Boris also takes up a lot of the book. To be frank, this also got a little wearing on me and I ended up skimming a lot of these areas.

I did however, like the way the book ended. I do agree, that art, whether it be novel, poetry, music, artwork, whatever, does speak to each of us individually and in different ways. I like how the author described it:

"That's not the reason anyone loves a piece of art. It's a secret whisper from an alleyway. Psst, you. Hey kid. Yes you.. . . yours, yours, yours, I was painted for you."

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