fiction · YA

Raising the Griffin- Melissa Wyatt

Stephanie3 Comments

I’ve been working my way through my TBR lately (which I *cannot* seem to get below 80 books! I read and read and read, and then you guys post about super interesting books, and it just fills right back up again! It’s the best problem to have, I think), and Raising the Griffin by Melissa Wyatt (Wendy Lamb Books, 2004) is another one that’s been sitting on the list since I first began compiling a TBR, probably around 2004 or 2005 (yikes!). Thank goodness for interlibrary loan!

Alex Varenhoff has always known his family’s story: royalty from the country of Rovenia, his grandfather should have been king, but the country was taken over by the Soviet Union, and his family has lived in exile in England ever since. Alex, born Alexei, hasn’t ever even stepped foot in Rovenia. Tucked away at boarding school, he doesn’t hear the news until his parents send for him and he finds out: post-revolution Rovenia has voted to reinstate the monarchy, and Alex’s father has made the decision to return to his ancestral homeland to rule.

Alex is less than thrilled about this; uprooting his life, leaving his school and friends and horse, and stepping into the spotlight in order to become a prince and future king, wasn’t exactly in his life plans. His handler, a cranky man named Count deBatz, is all over him, all the time, in order to turn him into the kind of young man Rovenia needs at the helm, but Alex is having none of it. Despite forging a friendship with another family employee’s daughter, Sophy, Alex can barely stand to be in the castle or in his role as prince; the first chance he gets, he sneaks off with a fellow royal with a bad-girl rep. After finally understanding the error of his ways, tragedy strikes Alex in a big way, and life may never be the same again, for him, his parents, and maybe even Rovenia.

Long before Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries series, there was A Royal Pain by Ellen Conford, and it was with that book that I developed a love for the ‘Wait, you mean I’m royalty???’ trope- that’s how Raising the Griffin ended up on my TBR list in the first place. Overall, this book was just okay for me, not bad, but not spectacular, either. Alex is a bit on the spoiled side and occasionally acts like a jerk, but his entire life has just been upended (in a way that his parents didn’t handle well at all), so I was able to cut him some slack for his attitude. His parents, who sent him away to boarding school in order to get him out of the way so that they could deal with and make decisions about Rovenia’s asking them to return, aren’t even present when he’s told that his whole life will be changing. They have endless tasks to complete in order to assume the Rovenian throne, and while they tackle their massive to-do list, Alex is tossed aside and expected to adjust solely with the help of his assigned handlers. It’s ultimately Alex who pays the price for their decision to return to Rovenia, and I wish there would have been more remorse shown on his parents’ part for how their choices affected their son. Even after the tragedy, they left him behind, and while I get that they had responsibilities, I was often left feeling cold about them and wondering how realistic their actions really were.

(Something else that stuck out to me: Alex mentions that his family spoke Rovenian at home, but also mentioned that his mother was Danish. He never mentioned where/when/how his mother learned Rovenian- a language from a small country- well enough in order to be able to converse fluidly with her husband and feel comfortable enough with in order to use this language with her child. Why would she speak Rovenian with him and not Danish? As someone who understands her husband’s first language but who knows that, not being a native speaker, I very much run the risk of teaching my daughter all my grammatical errors and unnatural ways of using the language and thus usually speak with her in English, I want to know!!! I do switch to French if I want some conversational privacy; it’s nice being able to privately ask your child if they need to use the bathroom, or if they’re warm enough/had enough to eat/ready to leave, etc, right out in the open, but it’s not something I use with her on a daily basis.)

Some of this felt a little rushed, especially the last quarter, post-tragedy. I would’ve liked to have seen more of how Alex heals and how he mends bridges with Sophy and corrects his former bad attitude; unfortunately, the way it’s set up left me wanting a little more, emotionally. However, it’s not a bad story; it makes a fun addition to the ‘suddenly royal’ trope booklist, and it’s the first I’ve read that’s narrated by a male character, so that’s definitely a plus. The way it ends, the author could have returned with a sequel, but since this was published in 2004, that’s unlikely at this point.

(Content warning for gun violence, discussion of war and revolution and all that entails, and some mild allusions to sexual conduct.)

Do you enjoy stories where characters learn, to their shock, that they’re actually royalty? Got any suggestions?

Visit Melissa Wyatt’s website here.

nonfiction · religion

Stalking the Divine: Contemplating Faith with the Poor Clares- Kristin Ohlson

Stephanie3 Comments

Another one bites the dust!

Another book that’s had a longtime place on my TBR list, that is. Fitting right in with my fascination with cults and closed groups is a fascination with nuns. I was raised Catholic and attended Catholic grade school. We were taught by regular teachers, but our school librarian was, until she retired after my third grade year, a nun (Sister Grace!), whom I loved- I even wrote her a goodbye letter and cried a little when she left. She was a dear, sweet lady. The only other nun we had at school worked in what I think was the religious education office, and she was…not so sweet. I was never, ever interested in becoming a nun, but as an adult, I’ve definitely been interested in their lives, and thus Stalking the Divine by Kristin Ohlson (Plume Books, 2003) ended up on my TBR list (and, uh, stayed there, for far too long).

One Christmas, when her children were visiting their father, Kristin Ohlson finds herself longing for…something. Something she can’t quite name. A lapsed Catholic, she decides to attend Christmas mass and ends up at St. Paul’s in downtown Cleveland, home of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, an order of cloistered nuns whose mission it is to pray around the clock. She develops a deep fascination with the sisters, and though it takes some time, she’s able to gain access in order to write a newspaper magazine article on them, which becomes the basis of this book,

One by one, Ms. Ohlson interviews the aging sisters, whose order is shrinking. The sisters have faith, though; the Poor Clares have seen tough times before, and they know they’ll bounce back. Alongside her interview and writing, Ms. Ohlson involves herself in the life of St. Paul’s, attending mass, volunteering for different events and happenings in the parish, and contemplating her own faith- or lack thereof- the whole time. Ms. Ohlson isn’t quite a believer: she’s trying, and she hopes that her involvement with the sisters will help. Although she never quite reaches the level of true believer, the message from the sisters rings loud and clear to her: sometimes, you just have to keep showing up, even when the faith isn’t there.

Boy, this was captivating. It’s been a while since I read anything about nuns, and though I was a little nervous at the beginning about this being the right book at the right time (have you ever just not been able to read a book you really wanted to read, and it sent you into a reading slump? My brain’s been a little wonky lately, so I’ve been living in fear of this), but Ms. Ohlson’s light, yet informative style was exactly what I needed. Being able to slip behind the grates and listen to what life is like as a cloistered sister, living communally with vows of poverty and chastity, hearing about their struggles, their crises of faith, their difficulties living with one another, how they spend the majority of their days in silence, all of this had me absolutely riveted, and I blew through the book in less than two days.

Ms. Ohlson is honest about her struggles to believe; as someone who is fascinated by and drawn to religion as a whole without fully believing either, I found this refreshing and honest. She comes to a slightly different conclusion than I have in regards to the practice of faith (so far, that is; who knows what the future will bring?), but I enjoyed reading her journey and how she reached this place. I don’t have to share someone’s faith journey to appreciate and respect what they believe and how they come to believe it; reading about different beliefs never fails to keep me in a state of awe at what a wondrous place the world is. 🙂

If you’re interested in closed-off groups, this is a great read, and along these same lines, I highly recommend Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns by Cheryl L. Reed. This book covers many different orders of nuns, from the ones so service-oriented that they hardly find time to sleep or eat, to those who are so cloistered that they can barely manage to refuse an interview. I read this book back in…somewhere around 2005 and still think of it often.

Are you interested in closed-off, secretive groups? Do nuns fit into that category for you? As a child, I wouldn’t have believed that this would be a subject of interest for me as an adult, but, well, here I am. 🙂

Visit Kristin Ohlson’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

romance

Tikka Chance on Me- Suleikha Snyder

Stephanie5 Comments

Is there any better feeling than the one you get when your phone signals an email, and you check it and it says, “Your library book has automatically been downloaded to your account”??? This is the second time this year that I’ve gasped, loudly, in sheer, unadulterated excitement due to one of those emails. I’d been on the waiting list for Tikka Chance on Me by Suleikha Snyder (published by Suleikha Snyder, 2018) for…probably over a month, although it was on my TBR list for longer than that. I never mind waiting for library books; it makes me happy that other people are reading and enjoying the book as well, but I was reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally looking forward to this. So when it showed up in my email, I had to squee more than a little!

Pinky Grover came home to work in her family’s middle-of-nowhere Indian restaurant when her mother got sick, but now that Mom is better, Pinky is…still there. She bides her time fantasizing bout bad boy Trucker Carrigan, head of the dangerous Eagles motorcycle gang, who comes in constantly to eat with his crew at the restaurant and make eyes at Pinky. On the surface, they’ve got nothing in common and both of them know they should stay away from the other, but the chemistry between them is incendiary. Trucker’s not quite what he seems, and after Pinky figures out his secret, she’s even more all-in, even though she knows the only destination for the two of them is heartbreak in the extreme. Trucker and Pinky ride it out (literally…) as far as their fledgling relationship can go, but when the time comes to say goodbye, how can either of them move on?

Whew, this is spicy and delicious! (Much like my favorite local Indian restaurant, which I haven’t been too in far too long and where I could eat every single day of my life. Indian food is my favorite of all the cuisines.) This is about as far away from a chaste romance as you can get, so choose something else if you prefer that genre. Pinky as a character is an absolute delight; she’s dutiful to her parents but still determined to be her own person and live her own life. Her goals are, for now, on hold, but she hasn’t abandoned them. Trucker (whose real name is Tyson), is an enigma with a surprisingly enchanting center, a not-*quite*-so-bad boy with a heart of steamy, molten-lava sexiness. They’re two people from two entirely different worlds, but Suleikha Snyder has crafted some scorching chemistry between the two of them, and Pinky and Trucker are instantly believable as a couple.

Ms. Snyder has absolutely gained another fan with Tikka Chance on Me. I’m so looking forward to reading more from her. Not only do I admire her writing, she’s so open and honest on Twitter about suffering from anxiety and depression. There have been a few conversations lately between different writers, talking about their struggles, and, as someone who has dealt with lifelong anxiety as well as bouts of major depression that started when I was thirteen (which went mostly ignored by my family, since it was 1993 and no one really knew what to do about such a problem where I lived at that time), seeing people discuss their issues so openly is still such a balm to my soul. I hate that Ms. Snyder has to deal with this, but I’m so, so grateful that she uses her voice to heighten awareness and make others, including me, feel not so alone. It really does help.

To sum it up, Tikka Chance on Me combines the sweet and the spicy in a way that will warm every last cell in your body, and leave you craving both more from the author as well as a plate or twenty of tikka masala (make mine tofu, please).

Visit Suleikha Snyder’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction

Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age Story- Amani Al-Khatahtbeh

Stephanie3 Comments

During the month of Ramadan, BookRiot came out with a list of memoirs by Muslim women, and, always eager to learn more about the world and my neighbors (we have a good-sized Muslim community in my town and the surrounding towns), I pored over the list, adding several to my Goodreads TBR. Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh (Simon Schuster, 2016) sounded interesting, and I was happy to find that my local library branch had in on the shelves (though not in stock; I had to return several times before it was available. As a reader, you’d think that that would be frustrating, but honestly, I’m not ever frustrated by that- I’m happy that my fellow townsfolk are reading, and they’re reading the same awesome books that I want to read! I live amongst great people, you guys).

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh is the founder of MuslimGirl.com, but before she began to change the internet and make its first real space for young Muslim women, she was a nine-year-old girl whose entire world changed the day the Twin Towers fell. Life for American Muslims altered dramatically that day; while Ms. Al-Khatahtbeh does recount a few positive experiences with kind people offering support, she and the members of her community were collectively assigned blame for horrors perpetrated a group of individuals who shared little more than their label. For a while, she and her family returned to Jordan, but ultimately came home to the United States, where she found she needed a deep sense of courage and self to even leave the house some days (and not without reason; a quick Google search is showing me multiple stories about Muslims, both men and women, pushed onto subway tracks and down subway stairs, while being called terrorists).

Ms. Al-Khatahtbeh recounts the lack of self-confidence she had growing up, and how that began to change as she matured. Founding MuslimGirl.com, first on LiveJournal and then moving it to its own domain, changed her life and launched her as a public personality, able to speak out for young women who work incredibly hard to make places for themselves in a society who, far too often, view them only as a single story.

Muslim Girl is a slim tome, but it speaks volumes, and I’m grateful to Ms. Al-Khatahtbeh for sharing her story. Despite living in such a diverse community, my world is pretty small right now (home, driving kids and husband places, running errands, and that’s pretty much it). Now that my daughter will be going to school soon, I’m hoping to be able to become more involved in my community (although I’m not yet sure how; my terrible back limits my abilities), but until then, it’s important to me to read books written by people who have experienced the world differently than I have, and this book absolutely fits the bill. I’ve known that the Muslim community has suffered terrible treatment since September 11th; I’ve read the news stories and been horrified, but this is the first first-person account I’ve read of the discrimination they’ve endured. I’m saddened, I’m angered, I’m bewildered that so many people, instead of learning and understanding, lash out in ignorance. Why aren’t we better than that?

I always feel a little out of place reviewing books by marginalized authors. My job as a random white woman blogger who has read and enjoyed this book, I feel, is merely to amplify the existence of Muslim Girl. Don’t read my words; read Amani Al-Khatahtbeh’s. Hers are the important one here, hers and those of others that are routinely pushed to the side and ignored or shouted over; listen and work to understand to what she has to say, because it’s the only way we’re going to achieve a more compassionate and accepting society, where everyone can thrive.

Visit MuslimGirl.com here.

Follow Amani Al-Khatahbeh on Twitter here.

fiction · middle grade

Mandy- Julie Andrews Edwards

Stephanie3 Comments

One of the best parts of having kids is getting to reread my childhood favorites. I don’t believe in ‘girl books’ or ‘boy books,’ just different books for different kids. That said, Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards (HarperCollins, first published 1971) (and yes, THAT Julie Andrews! The hills are alive with the sound of beautifully written children’s books, y’all!) wasn’t something that would have appealed to my son when he was young, so I was delighted that I was able to share it with my daughter. Hopping back into the world of a favorite childhood book is always a little scary; will it have held up? Will there be cringeworthy moments that have you wincing and thanking the literary gods that we’ve moved on from that? I’m happy to say that Mandy, fortunately, has stood the test of time.

Ten-year-old Mandy has lived almost her entire life in an orphanage, under the care of Matron Bridie and the other staff. Despite the obvious affection of the people tasked to care for her, it’s a comfortable but emotionally barren life, and Mandy often finds herself falling into depression, desperate for something to call her own. An adventure over the orphanage wall and into the woods leads to the discovery of a long-abandoned cottage, and Mandy is elated. Here is the place she can turn into her very own refuge, a place of quiet and solitude amongst her life lived with so many other children.

Mandy immediately sets out to turn the cottage into a home, clearing the garden of weeds, planting flowers using money she earns working Saturdays at a store in town, and cleaning away years of dust and grime. It’s not always easy to get away- although she’s allowed more freedom than most girls, she still has to account for her time and constantly give her best friend the slip. More and more, she’s finding it difficult to live a double life, but it all comes to a head when notes begin appearing at the cottage from AN ADMIRER, and Mandy comes down with a terrible chest cold. Tragedy is barely averted, but the outcome will change Mandy’s life forever.

Mandy has remained a delightful read. After the first few chapters, I turned to ask my daughter what she thought of it. Eyes wide, she whispered, almost reverently, “I love it.” We sat in our giant reading chair in the living room, sometimes reading for nearly an hour at a time, she enjoyed it so much. Mandy is a plucky little girl: she works hard to turn her run-down cottage into a place of calm and comfort, sneaking away, engaging in some petty theft (which she feels terrible about and eventually owns up to), and she’s a fabulous problem-solver. Julie Andrews Edwards doesn’t shy away from going heavy on the emotions in this story; Mandy is described as falling into dark funks from time to time, and though she’s only ten, ultimately the word ‘depression’ is used, which is pretty amazing for a book that was first published in 1971. Mandy is desperate for closeness and a sense of family, and Andrews Edwards masterfully suffuses Mandy’s every action with these desires, making Mandy an incredibly sympathetic character.

I was a little worried my daughter would find Mandy’s orphan status upsetting (there is a mention of her parents dying, but only one; Mandy remembers nothing but the orphanage her whole life, so there are no tragic or distressing death scenes), but she handled it just fine, though she did require an explanation of what an orphanage is. I seem to remember reading a lot of books set at orphanages when I was younger, but I can’t put my finger on any more titles…

If you’re looking for a lovely middle grade book with a determined female character searching for a sense of home, Mandy makes a fabulous choice, and I hope there are still little girls (and boys!) out there who find their way to this book. I’m so happy that it retained the charm I remember it having during my own childhood.

Visit Julie Andrews Edwards’ page at HarperCollins here.

nonfiction

Living More With Less- Doris Janzen Longacre

Stephanie3 Comments

Sometimes reading one book brings another to mind, and that was the case with my last read that featured an Amish woman as a main character. The descriptions of her routine and the simplicity she incorporated into her daily life reminded me of a book on my own shelves, one that I’d started reading a few years ago but hadn’t finished. It was time to pick that book up again. Doris Janzen Longacre is probably better known for her More With Less Cookbook, the iconic cookbook that taught people to use meat more as a flavoring or an ingredient, and that soybeans could be satisfying when cooked well (I own a copy of this too!), but she also wrote Living More With Less (Herald Pr, 1980), an inspirational book that seeks to aid the reader in simplifying their life and feeling the better for it.

Published posthumously after Longacre’s premature death from cancer, Living More With Less is written primarily for a Mennonite audience, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from reading. While religious belief and practice is woven throughout this book, its goal isn’t to convert or proselytize, more to remind its reader of their responsibility to their fellow humans. Why should we have so much when so many have so little? Regardless of your religious belief or lack thereof, it’s an important question that will have you thinking twice about what impact your every decision has upon the earth and your neighbors.

Ms. Janzen begins with chapters on ideals- doing justice, learning from the world community, nurturing people, and so on- then follows up with stories, anecdotes, and suggestions from others who have discovered how to incorporate these principles into their lives in sustainable, caring, and beneficial ways. While Amy Daczyzyn’s The Complete Tightwad Gazette, though partially outdated (yet still invaluable!), will give you a better rundown on thrift for the sake of thrift, Living More With Less is more about adjusting your entire attitude, a kick-in-the-pants, if you will, for your mindset about your relationship to this planet and all the people on it. Why do you need a fancy new car when there are people who have to walk miles in the burning sun in order to procure a day’s clean(ish) water? Why do you need ten pairs of shoes when there are people who struggle to afford one? How is it justice that you have more food than you need when your neighbors are starving?

While every suggestion compiled by Longacre isn’t going to fit your needs (you probably aren’t in the market to build a geodesic dome house, for example, although I’ve seen a few of these and they’re pretty cool), it’s enough to read and consider how to implement the theory behind these suggestions into your own life. Could you walk more? Carpool? Implement a brown-bag lunch day with friends instead of spending money on restaurant food? Make your clothing last or trade with friends instead of buying new? There are hundreds upon hundreds of ideas and recommendations in this book that something is sure to strike a chord in you, that will make you sit up and think, “You know, I could be doing that a little better…” One suggestion even talked about making ice outside when the weather is below freezing in order to not force the inside freezer to work so hard, and I sat back in my chair, wondering why I’d never managed to consider that before. Cripes. What else am I missing???

Doris Janzen Longacre was a visionary before her time. So much of what she includes in this book could come straight out of any hot-off-the-presses new release on simplicity and sustainable living. While some of the statistics in Living More With Less are surely outdated, the odds are that things have only become more dire, with more need to cut out, reuse, repurpose, and cut back so that the resources can go where they’re needed. Much like the recent, heartbreaking death of Rachel Held Evans, the world lost something special when Ms. Longacre passed away far too early.

This is a book that will have a permanent place of honor on my shelf, and I feel like I’ll turn to it when I need an attitude adjustment, to remember why I do the things I do. We have a Mennonite church in my town (right across the street from the community garden, as luck would have it! They’re Mennonite USA, as opposed to the groups who are one step up from the Amish, and are indistinguishable in dress from anyone else in town), and it warms my heart that there’s a group of people nearby who are so committed to the ideals and principles in this book, which I live by as well. Always nice to better understand your neighbors. 🙂

I can’t recommend this book strongly enough. Goodreads claims it’s out of print, but you can purchase a used copy on Amazon. I bought mine for a dollar from a used book store several years ago (the previous owner left the receipt in the book; they paid $10.95), and it’s still available at several branches of my local libraries. If you’re looking for a mental wake-up call as to the whys of simpler living, this is the book you’ve been looking for.

Two quotes I found significant in the book:

‘That way of living makes other people poor.’

‘The hard facts are that in order to raise significantly the standard of living of the many poor in the world it is necessary to lower the living standards of the rich. This means giving up some of the advantages the rich and powerful have in favor of the poor. It means a kind of political action and courage that has not yet been shown among nations.’ -Gordon Hunsberger

And I’ll leave you with a story which has vastly made me consider and reconsider what resources I’m using, why I’m using them, if I could use less, and how I could use everything more wisely:

‘In 1952 I was studying the Hindi language with my teacher Panditji. From his philosophic mind, which probed the meaning of events and circumstances, I learned more than Hindi.
I especially remember one lesson. It was Christmastime and as I awaited the arrival of Panditji, I quickly opened stacks of delightful cards, discarding the envelopes in the wastebasket. When Panditji entered the room, he sat down soberly and studied the situation. Then he solemnly scolded me in perfect English with these words, “The reverberation of this wasteful act will be felt around the world.”
Stunned, I asked, “What do you mean, Panditji?”
“Those envelopes,” he said, pointing to the wastebasket. “You could write on the inside of them.”
Chagrined, I apologized and began taking them out of the basket. He carefully helped me, almost caressing each one. For every Hindi lesson he taught thereafter, I took notes on the back of an envelope. Our class also began sharing envelopes with his growing family, for he could not afford [paper] tablets for his children. Today I still carefully save paper in my home and office.’

WWW Wednesday

WWW Wednesday June 12, 2019

StephanieLeave a comment

Here we are again, another Wednesday! Halfway through the week. I’m feeling mostly alive and still struggling to catch up with everything, but that’s what happens when you’re down for the count for so stinkin’ long. But everyone loves WWW Wednesday, right???

WWW Wednesday is a superfun bookish meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words. Hi, Sam! Thanks for hosting! It’s all about answering three very important questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Are you ready? Let’s do this!

What are you currently reading?

Based on a suggestion from a Book Riot article, I added Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age Story by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh to my TBR and grabbed it from the library yesterday. It’s a slim tome, but it’s giving me a different perspective on the aftermath of September 11th, one that I’d thought about but had never read any firsthand accounts of, so I appreciate that. I’ll most likely finish this tonight.

What did you recently finish reading?

Living More With Less by Doris Janzen Longacre has been sitting on my shelf for a few years. I finally got around to finishing it this weekend, and I’m SO glad I did. It’s thrift, frugality, and sustainability with the express purpose of better caring for our neighbors, and it was exactly what I needed to read to reset my brain. My review will be up tomorrow. And also…

I don’t always review the books I read out loud to my daughter, but I’ll probably do a write-up of Mandy by Julie Andrews Edwards (yes, THAT Julie Andrews, she of The Sound of Music and The Princess Diaries fame). This was a childhood favorite of mine and I was beyond thrilled to be able to read it out loud to my daughter, who loved it as much as I did. 🙂

What do you think you’ll read next?

No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court by Edward Humes has been on my TBR list for…let’s not discuss how long. I picked up a copy from a local library branch and will start reading this next. My one reservation is that it was published in 1997, which means it’s pretty dated- the kids who were teenagers at the writing of this book are now in or nearing their forties, so… I may skip it and move onto the next thing if it’s not working for me. I have a few books on their way via interlibrary loan, and if they’re not here yet, I may dive into the book that got me into reading romance, which I’m sure will be all sorts of hideous and hilarious. I’m looking forward to seeing just how terrible it is!

And that’s it for this week! What are you reading???

historical fiction

The Solace of Water-Elizabeth Byler Younts

Stephanie4 Comments

After finishing (and loving!) a novel about an older woman having a relationship with a mega-famous boy bander, I turned around and fell into a multiple narrative historical fiction about grief and an unlikely friendship between three hurting women, two black (one a teenager), one Amish, in the 1950’s.

Is literary whiplash a thing? It should be. But it’s not a bad thing. I’m a big fan of reading widely, reading weirdly, reading all sorts of stories, fiction and non, and there’s nothing I like more than reading stories by people who are different from me, or who live differently than I do. The world is such a fascinating place. The Solace of Water by Elizabeth Byler Younts (Thomas Nelson, 2018) ended up on my TBR list thanks to another blogger’s review, and I’m glad it did, because it’s a lovely read.

Dee Evans is grieving hard after the accidental drowning of her four year old son Carver. Her older daughter, Sparrow, was tasked with watching him that day and got distracted by a boy; now Carver’s gone, Dee is nearly paralyzed with grief and barely able to tolerate being near Sparrow, and the whole family is moving to Pennsylvania, where Dee’s husband will take over preaching at his childhood church. Things are different in Sinking Creek: not necessarily better, but different, and Dee isn’t sure how to relate to the white townsfolk when there are no signs telling her what she can and can’t do.

Her Amish neighbor Emma is another mystery. While Emma’s church’s stance is to not get involved in the racial tension amongst the English, Emma can’t help but find herself drawn first to Sparrow, then Dee. Emma carries multiple heavy burdens of her own and recognizes the pain that her new neighbors carry. Sparrow, however, is carrying more pain and stress than she lets on. While she strikes up an innocent but secret romance with Emma’s son Johnny, she also copes with other, more unhealthy measures, ones that will almost cost her everything when her pain, Dee’s grief, Emma’s desperation, and the town’s racial tension come to a head.

First off, major content warnings for this book. Child death via drowning, stillbirth, alcoholism, self harm, and racial tension and violence are all front and center in this book. If now is not a good time for you to read about these subjects, be gentle with yourself and choose something easier on your soul.

Dee’s grief is a terrible burden, and her anger at Sparrow is perhaps even worse. Because Carver’s death happened on Sparrow’s watch, Dee’s inability to forgive her daughter and Sparrow’s guilt combine to make an absolutely gut-wrenching maelstrom of emotion. At times, each woman’s anguish and desperation are tough to read, but Ms. Younts handles it with aplomb. Also carefully treated is the tension between blacks and whites that simmers in the town; it hadn’t occurred to me that black people who moved from the overtly racist, pre-civil-rights-era south, might be confused and apprehensive about the rules of the not-as-overtly-racist-but-still-very-racist north, and I appreciate the perspective on that that this gave me. I still have so, so much to learn.

Emma’s burden, while different, is no less. Her pain over the loss of her infant daughter, combined with so many years of keeping both her husband’s and her own secret, alienated her from her family, her community, and what she truly wanted in life, and it was easy to both sympathize with her pain and feel her joy at the connection she made with Sparrow and so desperately wanted to make with Dee. While I have no desire to be Amish, reading the descriptions of Emma’s simple ways resonated with me and ended up affecting my next book choice! I love when that happens.

With Emma being Amish and Dee being a preacher’s wife, The Solace of Water is heavy on Christianity and Christian themes like forgiveness, but without being heavy-handed. Thomas Nelson is a Christian publisher, yet I didn’t find this to be overly preachy or even overly religious; the religion and beliefs of the characters are merely part of their lives and not something the author is trying to sell to her readers, which was something I very much appreciated.

The Solace of Water is a cathartic novel, full of pain, desolation, secrecy, and the capacity for suffering and loneliness, but ultimately, it’s a novel of friendship, forged connections, redemption, and forgiveness of self and others. I’m so happy that it ended up on my TBR list, because despite its heavy subject matter, it made for a thoroughly enjoyable weekend read.

Visit Elizabeth Byler Younts’s website here.

fiction · romance

The Idea of You- Robinne Lee

Stephanie4 Comments

Would you believe I’m actually feeling better??? It’s amazing!!!! Of course, that means I entirely overdid it on Sunday, trying to get caught up, and spent a good part of yesterday struggling to walk, but let’s not talk about that.

Let’s talk about this book.

I have a tough time falling asleep at night, and I wake up a lot, so I keep a podcast going in my earbud all night. The sound helps me drift off to sleep, and when I wake up, it gives me something to focus on besides my anxiety-based thoughts (like, “OMG, I’ll never get enough sleep and then I’ll be a mess in the morning and I’ll drive off the road and kill everyone!” Zero to a hundred in no time flat, my brain). My current listen is Smart Bitches, Trashy Podcast, and I love it. Last month, I woke up one morning for no good reason at 4 am and Episode #296 with author Julia Whelan was chugging along in my earbud. Sarah Wendell, the host, was asking Ms. Whelan if there were any books she’d been reading lately that she’d like to recommend, and Ms. Whelan immediately said, “Robinne Lee’s The Idea of You” (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017). As she launched into the description, I’m pretty sure I gasped in the early morning darkness, and I immediately rolled over, grabbed my phone, and added it to my Goodreads TBR. As someone who usually just tries to stay still and fall back to sleep as quickly as possible, moving around when I wake up is serious business. THAT is how much I wanted to read this book. I was beyond thrilled when I checked during more awake, more daylight hours to find that a local library had a copy of this.

Solène Marchand is almost forty, a successful art gallery owner and single mother of a young teenage daughter. She’s fought hard to be where and who she is, leaving her unhappy marriage after her husband had different ideas of who she should have been, and while she may be lonely, she’s still content. Everything changes when her ex bails on taking her daughter and friends to an August Moon concert, August Moon being THE hot British boy band. Solène steps in, and a backstage meet and greet with the band puts her on the radar of Hayes Campbell, adorable, sexy band member who is twenty years her junior. What Solène thinks is just flirting turns into something else when Hayes begins to pursue her despite his crazy and hectic schedule.

Hiding everything from almost everyone she knows, including her daughter, Solène and Hayes begin a deeply emotional, incredibly sexy tryst, meeting up in cities along his tour route, tucked away in the back of darkened restaurants, spending their time backstage at concert arenas and Hayes’s hotel rooms. Solène hadn’t expect to actually fall for a twenty year old boy bander, but he’s in just as deep as she is. And when the real world- Hayes’s fame, Solène’s daughter, their age difference- creeps into the fortress they’ve carefully constructed around themselves, Solène needs to make a lot of difficult decisions.

My synopsis of this does NOT do this book justice. This book is complex, studying society’s attitude towards age and aging (and the difference between male and female aging), feminism, parenting (and the different roles men and women are expected to play and expect each other to play), relationships, friendship, and fame- what it’s like, how we react to it, the positives and negatives and dangers of it. It’s romance, but- potential spoiler alert here- its ending kind of kicks it out of traditional romance territory. (It’s not a true spoiler, as almost immediately Solène begins to question the longevity of her relationship with Hayes. With a twenty-year age difference, how could one NOT?)

In the past, when I’ve read books with characters who are involved in the art world, they often seem humorless, dry, and detached, but Solène felt more immediate, more present and real. Her complicated feelings about her relationship with Hayes, especially in relation to her young daughter, made her extremely sympathetic and relatable- obviously, I’ve never been in her shoes before, but as a parent, you’re constantly forced to pit your child’s needs with your own needs and desires, and it’s a never-ending battle of how much or how little you have to sacrifice, and what you can still keep in your life while still giving your kids everything they need. So while the inclusion of Isabelle, Solène’s daughter, as a character gave the story more of an edge of anxiety that I’m usually comfortable with, it also kept the story emotionally real. Solène has to make a lot of hard decisions throughout the course of this book, and I think most of them show her as selfless, or eventually selfless (which…isn’t always a great quality, you know? While putting others first is usually a great thing, at some point, if you’re always selfless, you start to lose…yourself. And if you don’t have yourself, what DO you have?).

And Hayes. *SWOON* I’ve got a special place in my heart for boy bands, British or not, and Hayes and his fellow bandmates are so well-written. They’re young, but not immature; lively without being annoying; sharp, witty, sarcastic, intelligent, and sexy as all hell. Hayes is mature without seeming over-written or artificial; his feelings for Solène are deep and authentic. The chemistry he and Solène have is off-the-charts hot, and if you’re more into chaste romances, this isn’t your kind of book. By necessity, Solène and Hayes spend the vast majority of their relationship tucked away somewhere private, and so there’s a lot of hot monkey sex, some of it somewhat graphic, in these pages. It’s all so well and beautifully, reverentially written, though; this isn’t smut for the sake of smut.

The end, which, as I said boots this book out of traditional romance territory, is a bit gutting, but not surprising, at least not to me. I thought it fit the story and the characters perfectly, and it was the only honest ending that Ms. Lee could have written. Anything else would have been even more heartbreaking and soul-crushing, and while it’s not the ending I wished for the characters, it’s the only realistic one, the only one that I would have believed.

The famous person/normal person relationship trope is my absolute favorite, so this book ticked a lot of boxes for me and I’m so happy I just happened to wake up at the right moment to hear about it! Talk about serendipity. I’m looking forward to seeing what Robinne Lee writes next, because I enjoyed this so very much. She’s hooked me as a fan with her writing style, her way of seeing the world, and her understanding of the complexity of human emotions.

Have you read this? Are you a fan of the famous person/normal person relationship trope? What about the older woman/younger man trope? (That one usually weirds me out a little more. My son is just about three years younger than Hayes, so…nope. Not quite for me, but it worked well in this book.)

Visit Robinne Lee’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

romance

Second Chances- Lauren Dane

Stephanie3 Comments

Hey, remember when I got sick a few weeks ago? Would you believe I’m STILL sick???

I had to go back to the doctor this week to get stronger antibiotics because the Amoxicillan wasn’t cutting and had left me with some serious ear/jaw/face pain, and I’m *still* not feeling great (coughing, runny/stuffy nose, ear/jaw pain and lack of hearing in my left ear, which is weird). I’ve got a message into my doctor this morning; she wanted me to call if I still wasn’t feeling great by Friday, so…we’ll see.

All that is to say that the other night, I was feeling like hot boiled crap and could barely move. I desperately needed something to read that I could just get lost in, something that I could enjoy but not have to work for. I’ve been wanting to read Lauren Dane for ages (seriously, she’s straight fire on Twitter), and her Second Chances (Carina Press, 2010) was available as an ebook at my library. Onto my kindle it went, and I crawled into bed and started reading.

After ten years of living in Paris and traveling the world, Rori Simon has returned to her small hometown of Oakley, TN for good. Her ex’s cheating was more than she could take, and she’s glad to be back near her family, especially her sister, even if their mother is more than a little judgmental and overbearing. It doesn’t take long before Rori, a late bloomer who definitely blossomed during her time away, begins attracting all the hot hometown hunks, including Jude, local libidinous Lothario and the half-brother of Rori’s sister’s husband. Jude is spicy hot and everything Rori’s ever wanted, but when Jude’s immaturity rears its ugly head, Rori finds comfort and long-term happiness in the arms of Zach, an old friend’s younger brother.

But remember the title: Second Chances has a lot of twists and turns, situations that you might not see coming, and impressive character growth. It’s romance at a fairly high heat level, including quite a bit of BDSM and D/s (I’m not opposed to reading that, but I hadn’t noticed the allusion to it in the Goodreads blurb and so it surprised me a little when it showed up), so if that’s not your bag, baby, there are plenty of other great books in the sea!

Rori was a little too perfect for me to really enjoy her as a character. I did like that she was a writer, and apparently a successful one at that, making a living off of her novels. Characters who are involved in any aspect of writing and publishing always make my reader heart happy. And Zach…he was a giant teddy bear of a character who was beyond sweet and sexy. I had his character arc pegged from the start, but Jude… Jude was a serious prick of a character in the beginning. I really liked his redemption arc and how much he changed by the end. It’s rare for my feelings to shift so dramatically about a character, so Lauren Dane really worked some magic here.

While I do have to suspend my disbelief a little for novels like these- small hometowns that are *that* overrun with searingly hot, single men who are instantly drawn to the heroine like cat hair to black pants? I mean, I’ve seen the dudes from my hometown and yikes– this book was exactly what I needed when I needed it: something light, fluffy, easy to read, a book that I didn’t need to think about but could just fall into and enjoy. There’s not a huge, overarching plot, no novel-length goal that Rori’s aiming for; Second Chances is more the story of trying to build- and rebuild- a life upon one’s return home, and it’s been interesting to look back on the novel and see exactly how many second chances really were in this book. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing more of what Lauren Dane can do in the future.

A side effect of reading this book was making the song Second Chance by .38 Special, one of the WORST APOLOGY SONGS EVER, run through my head constantly. The song is about a dude who cheated on his girlfriend and is trying to woo her back, with such horrifying lines as,

I never loved her
I never needed her
She was willing and that’s all there is to say

Like…bro…you’re not helping your case one bit by framing it like that. Maybe don’t do that?

Are you a Lauren Dane fan? Care to recommend any of her other books to me? My TBR list awaits!

Visit Lauren Dane’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.