nonfiction

Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married- Abby Ellin

Stephanie10 Comments

A book of nonviolent true crime. That’s #19 on BookRiot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge, and when I saw Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellin on their list of suggestions for that topic, I knew that had to be my pick. Because…reasons.

Abby Ellin fell in love. Known in the book only as the Commander, he was a self-identified doctor, an elite member of the US Navy who worked secret missions at places like Guantanamo and China. His work took him away for long periods of time, and as things began to not add up, Ms. Ellin began to question the Commander’s truths. ‘He had an answer and an excuse for everything,’ she said, a line I understood well. And luckily for her, the entire thing unraveled before they could get married. So much of what the Commander had told her about his life was a life, and he eventually served twenty-one months in prison.

Because of this, Ms. Ellin takes an intense look at people who are duped, and the people who do the conning: the why, the how, the how-can-we-avoid-this. She interviews experts in psychology, in social behavior, social scientists who have published studies about lying, heads of companies that purport to teach people how to identify liars (it’s harder than you would expect), all in an attempt to better understand not just what the Commander did to her, but why she so readily fell for it. Her questions, her shame, her guilt at her own possible complicity in her being duped, I understood well, because I’ve been in her shoes.

I won’t get into details, but years ago, I loved a man who lied to me, A LOT. About who he was, about what he was doing, about the path our life together was taking. His lies sent me and my family on multiple wild goose chases that wasted so much time and money, and for nothing, so that he could participate in self-aggrandizement one day more. It was infuriating, it was heartbreaking, it felt shameful beyond all measure. We so desperately want to believe the people we love, and it’s so difficult to pull ourselves away once we realize this is no longer healthy for us. I glanced at a few Goodreads reviews that seem to chuckle at Ms. Ellin and wonder how she could be so stupid, when the reality is, unless you’ve lived it, you don’t truly understand how easy it is to be duped.

My curiosity was piqued by her coverage of Peter Young, who, along with a friend, liberated mink farms in the Midwest in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, then went on the run for years. One of those mink farms happened to be in my hometown, and while I wasn’t living there at the time, I understand the effects are still felt in the area’s ecosystem to this day, since my father has spotted mink in his backyard from time to time. She also recounts the stories of other famous people known for living double lives, such as Charles Lindbergh, who, in addition to being married to Anne Morrow Lindbergh and fathering six children with her, had a 17-year relationship with a German hatmaker, a relationship with her sister, and a relationship with his secretary, fathering seven additional children between the three women. That’s some serious deceit (and also he was a garbage person for a lot of reasons, including his hatred for the disabled, but I digress).

And the upstart of it all is that it’s really difficult to detect who’s lying, either through training or specialized machinery (there’s a reason why lie detector tests aren’t admissible in court). Ms. Ellin’s conclusion is to go with your gut. If something doesn’t sound right, it’s probably not, and it might not hurt us to be just a little less trustworthy sometimes.

Visit Abby Ellin’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

Christianity · cults · fundamentalism · Lilia Tarawa · memoir · religion · religious extremism

Daughter of Gloriavale: My Life in a Religious Cult- Lilia Tarawa

Stephanie6 Comments

I’m suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper fascinated by cults and insular religious groups. There’s something deeply intriguing to me about people with secretive rituals and beliefs, turning their backs to outsiders. A few months ago, based on a suggestion from someone on Facebook, I put the documentary Gloriavale (available through Amazon Prime) on my watch list, and my husband and I finally got around to watching it a few weeks ago.

Now, when it comes to different beliefs and practices, I’m usually cool as a cucumber. I have zero problem with other people believing in things I don’t, participating in things that don’t resonate with me, etc. Variety is indeed the spice of life, and I enjoy my life pretty darn spicy. But Gloriavale Christian Community is straight-up bananapants in a way that extends far beyond their religious beliefs. If you haven’t watched this documentary, drop everything and watch it YESTERDAY, because they’ve got people named Hopeful and Courage, schooling that ends at 15, arranged marriages for teenagers who touch each other for the first time at the wedding ceremony (those first kisses, GACK! Those VOWS! Holy squirmfest watching that, Batman!), immediate consummation of the marriage offscreen while everyone waits for the teenage couple to get the job done, families with 16+ kids, the list goes on and on. It’s quite possibly one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever watched (and I say that having watched Abducted in Plain Sight this past weekend…), and so of course I was thrilled to find that Lilia Tarawa, who was born at and grew up in Gloriavale, wrote a book after her family had left, titled Daughter of Gloriavale: My Life in a Religious Cult. And lucky for me, my library had an e-copy. It took a few weeks for it to finally be available, but I actually shrieked with joy when I received the email that it was finally MINE. (You’ve done this too, admit it!)

Daughter of Gloriavale doesn’t disappoint, starting with its foreward from Fleur Beale, whose name I immediately recognized from having read I Am Not Esther years ago (if you can get your hands on a copy of this, I highly recommend it. It was one of the best books I’d read that year), which is a middle grade/early YA novel that deals with a young woman who becomes unwillingly involved in a strict religious cult. Lilia Tarawa, however, was born in Gloriavale, the granddaughter of its founder (a man who changed his name to Hopeful Christian and who was both an obvious narcissist and a sex offender who served time in prison. I’m sure you’re shocked). Lilia was the third eldest of what would eventually be ten children, the last of whom was born after her family had left the group.

Gloriavale (you can see their website here) is an intentional, fundamentalist Christian community. Everyone wears the same things; they all work at church-owned industries (where no one earns a salary) or, in the case of the women, labor away at domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning, or childcare on a massive scale for the community; there’s no access to the outside world and things like books and the internet are highly censored. Parents and children sleep in one big room, as Hopeful Christian preached that it was just fine and dandy for children to see their own parents having sex. There are communal showers with shared bars of soap; women must remain submissive at all times to all men; children’s school reports are read out loud at the communal meals where everyone eats at the same time. Women are discouraged from showing any affection or emotion; men are responsible for everything and will be harshly rebuked in front of the community if a member of their family commits a transgression. Children are punched and beaten with leather straps as discipline. Families change their last names in order to strengthen their Christian walk (Lilia’s family’s last name in Gloriavale was ‘Just’) and give their children names of virtues or qualities they want their children to have; when mixed with their last name, the effect can be…striking. Willing Disciple, Steadfast Joy, Dove Love, Watchful Steadfast, these are all members of Gloriavale. And at age eleven, Lilia assisted in the birth of her cousin, a sweet baby girl named..Submissive. Yikes.

It’s no surprise when Lilia’s siblings start running away, and while Lilia is adamant about not hurting her parents in that way, she’s got questions. And it’s the beginning of the end when her family receives permission to live outside the commune, because Lilia gets a taste of what freedom truly means.

It wasn’t all horror and sack dresses. Music, parties, community shows, and days of fun were part of life at Gloriavale. Families gathered for (highly censored) movie night in the big hall. The community would erect waterslides for the children to go down (the girls still wearing their regular clothing, of course, because nothing says fun like swimming in an ankle-length dress), and the children would gather for soccer games and instrument lessons. But it wasn’t enough. It never is, when you can’t truly be who you really are.

Phew. Reading stories like this make me grateful that I never had to escape from such an insular community. Lilia was luckier than most; she had taught herself website coding and design and had skills that could translate to the outside world (and even then she still struggled. It’s terribly difficult to throw off the yoke of oppression, and Lilia was extremely lucky that she had such a great support system. Others, such as the Lost Boys of the FLDS or people who leave Hasidic sects, aren’t always as fortunate. Far too many succumb to addiction to help them cope with the loss of their families and community). Most people who leave Gloriavale do so with little in the way of life skills and possessions; fortunately, it seems there are people helping those who leave. And people are leaving- one article from 2015 claims that at that point, 65 people had left in the eight years prior. In a community of somewhere over 500 people, that’s not an insubstantial number, and I can only imagine that the numbers have grown since then.

Daughter of Gloriavale is an personal look into a tiny, heavily restricted community that few will ever have the chance to venture. I’m so thrilled that Lilia made it out and has been able to forge the kind of life that feels authentic to her. I watched her TED talk yesterday and you should too, because it’s deeply moving and gives yet another glimpse into what life in Gloriavale is like. Lilia Tarawa is a woman of fire, strength, and conviction. I can’t get enough of stories like these, and I’m so glad Lilia decided to share hers.

Visit Lilia Tarawa’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.



fiction · romance

Every Breath- Nicholas Sparks

Stephanie3 Comments

What do you do when your mother shows up foisting a book on you, then giving you a deadline? Well, if you’re me, you shrug and read the book.

I’ll backtrack a little here. Nicholas Sparks isn’t my usual literary jam (if he’s yours, that’s cool! Just not mine). When I was 21 and married to my first husband, that summer, he went out to sea with the Navy and I came home, which was when I read my mother’s copy of The Notebook (side note: not the best novel to read when the man you love is deployed with the military). Since that time, I’ve divorced, remarried, given birth to two children, moved more times than I can count and undergone ridiculously huge life changes, but apparently in my dear mother’s mind, bless her, my reading tastes have not changed. She came over a few weeks ago after over a month’s absence due to weather and illness, bearing loads of gifts which included this book. “Here!” she said, handing me Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks. “You read this, and when you’re done, I’ll give it to Auntie. She wants to read it next.”

Well then. Apparently I had homework. I added it to my current pile of books and finally made my way through it on Friday. And I can’t say I enjoyed this all that much.

Tru Walls is a bush guide in his native Zimbabwe, helping tourists to have that safari experience they’ve always dreamed of. He lives a solitary life, visiting his son (who lives with his ex-wife) whenever he’s out of the bush, and keeping to himself the rest of the time. But things are about to change; Tru is on a journey to meet his biological father, a man with whom he’s never had any contact before now, but who, this being a Nicholas Sparks novel, is dying.

Hope Anderson is limping along through life. Her on-again, off-again boyfriend is currently off-again, this time with his buddies in Vegas; her dreams of having children seem less and less likely; her dad has been newly diagnosed with ALS; and to top off this cat-litter-sundae, she has to attend her best friend’s wedding alone this weekend, in a hideous bridesmaid dress, natch.

But fate steps in, nearly squishing Hope’s dog by a car in the process, and it’s insta-love for Tru and Hope. A love like theirs would never be replicated (an actual line from the book), despite the fact that they’ve only known each other for four days, which is totally why it’s no big deal that they have multiple instances of unprotected sex (don’t worry guys, he’s sterile. Seriously. From the measles. Because that was definitely the only thing to worry about in 1990 when this part of the story was set. F’real, you two. And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts was published in 1987. Hope was a nurse!!!). And thus, after four life-changing days, Hope’s off-again boyfriend proposes. Tru begs her, but Hope wants to be pregnant more than she wants that love that can never be replicated, and Tru just can’t give her that. The two part, and what happens next is a true Sparksian tale of love lost and found again…but for how long?

(It IS Nicholas Sparks, remember. )

Oy. I tend to find Nicholas Sparks’s dialogue…a little stilted, I guess, at times. Unnatural. Tru and Hope were so smooshily, gloppily in insta-love that it weirded me out. They were talking marriage within a day or two, and everything was so over-the-top that I was actually laughing out loud while I was reading this. My mom and I had this brief conversation via text:

At least she agreed with me!

What I did enjoy were the small glances at the Zimbabwean bush, and the literary trip to the beaches of North Carolina. It’s obviously a place Sparks loves, as he writes about it with such reverence, and it’s always pleasant to travel to a place via the words of someone whose soul belongs there. I’m not much of a fan of what seems like Sparks’s sole plot device of striking his characters with terminal illnesses; in that case, for me, at least, he’s like the Lurlene McDaniel of adult romance, and I got enough of that during my tween and teen years, thankyouverymuch.

But Sparks is ridiculously popular (my mom adores him; all four copies of this book are currently checked out from my library), and I can understand why, even if this book wasn’t my jam. Beautiful description, a love story that sweeps both characters off their feet (although, can we get some condoms up in here next time???), catharsis in the heartbreak, recognizing yourself in a character’s poor choices, hope and renewal in finding each other again. There’s no shame in finding joy in any of that, for anyone.

And now my aunt will be able to read this! Mission accomplished.

fiction · horror · indie

Welcome to Halcyon (Dead Mawl #1)- S.G. Tasz

Stephanie4 Comments

This is the year of trying to expand my reading genres, and when I was asked to review Welcome to Halcyon by S.G. Tasz, the first novella in the Dead Mawl series, pitched as a read for fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and Ash vs. Evil Dead, I was in. My husband and I watched Supernatural in its Netflix entirety over a period of four or five months during this fall and winter and I loved it, despite it not being something I’d normally choose to watch. Welcome to Halcyon‘s comparison to that series is dead-on, and this novella had me hooked from the very first page.

Edensgate Shopping Center, located in half-dead Halcyon, Nevada, is on its last legs. The town’s mining industry collapsed years ago, and Edensgate is doing its best to follow suit. Its last anchor department store, Suttermill, is closing for good this afternoon, which means today is sixteen-year-old Cari’s last day at work. She’s only been there for a few months, but this job was the escape she needed from her flaky religious mother and her weirdo pastor/guru boyfriend, and the only place she could see her friend Rex the movie theater employee now that Mom has pulled her out of public school. Cari’s not sure what she’s going to do now that her only relief from home is disappearing, but she’ll do her best to enjoy her last day of freedom.

Not so fast. After watching her boss’s eyes turn disturbing colors, Cari freaks out, then eventually curls up under a desk to sleep off her panic-induced exhaustion. And when Rex finally manages to shake her awake, it’s obvious that something abnormal, something horrible, is happening in the darkened mall where Cari and Rex are now trapped. Does this have something to do with what happened to the mall employee who bled in the fountain last night? Cari and Rex are going to have to think and move quickly if they want to stay alive, because Edensgate is under attack by creatures they’ve never seen before.

Holy crap. This was good. And not just good-for-an-indie good, good because it’s GOOD. Ms. Tasz’s writing flows amazingly well and she does a fabulous job at ensuring that the reader is invested in the characters early on, so that when the attacks begin, you’re absolutely on the edge of your seat with your heart racing. I bolted through the pages where a character had a close call, all the time thinking, “NO! Not (character’s name)!!!!”, but to be honest, I was all in from the well-written first line, because there’s nothing in this novella that doesn’t absolutely shine. This is beyond impressive for a debut.

I absolutely loved Welcome to Halcyon. Ms. Tasz’s descriptions of the Edensgate Mall were just enough so that I could picture it perfectly- the columns, the statues, the shuttered storefronts, the blood-filled fountain, the creeping terror that settles over Cari and Rex. Cari’s desperation and Rex’s past serve both characters well to make them extremely empathetic; reading this is like watching an episode of Supernatural with all its trepidation and breathless anticipation (maybe could use a little more Jared Padalecki. Just sayin’). If you’re at all into horror or supernatural phenomena that go bump in the night, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of this. If Ms. Tasz can continue the series with the same prowess with which she began it, she’s got a long, healthy career ahead of her.

Huge thanks to S.G. Tasz for allowing me to read and review her work. This was phenomenal and I look forward to reading more about the horrors that take place in Halcyon in the future.

Visit S.G. Tasz’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

indie

Call Numbers- Syntell Smith

Stephanie1 Comment



When I was asked to review Syntell Smith’s novel Call Numbers, a workplace drama set in a branch of the New York Public Library, I was intrigued. What kind of drama could librarians and their staff possibly have? A LOT, as it turns out!

Robin Walker has just been transferred to the 58th Street Branch of the New York Public Library. What he doesn’t know is that he’s been placed in the open job that was supposed to go to a page, a pregnant teenager who desperately needs the money and benefits. This immediately sets Robin at odds with quite a few of the other employees, who set out to enact their revenge. Robin’s fiery temperament ensures that he won’t make things easy for them, and the drama will touch every part of the library and every member of the staff.

If you only ever pictured librarians and library staff as cardigan-wearing noise-hushers, this will definitely expand your perception. Call Numbers features multiple fistfights (that result in collarbone fractures and shattered kneecaps, cracked ribs, concussions, and head and spinal trauma, among other injuries), a scheming head librarian who’s not afraid to game the system and elbow his way into monetary success for his branch, and the enemy of a library page being dangled off a roof. There’s an employee committing insurance fraud, multiple verbal altercations between staff, backstabbing, scheming, strategizing, and at least three minor characters who are at or close to seven feet tall. You’ve never met library workers like this before!

Mr. Smith has created an elaborate world in the rowdy 58th Street Branch. There’s little character description in the beginning, and at times I had some difficulty keeping the characters straight, especially since quite a bit of the novel is heavy on dialogue. It took until I was over halfway through the book before I could keep everyone straight, which was the point where I could relax while reading and appreciate the over-the-top behavior of Robin and his fellow coworkers. I welcomed the truce and eventual reluctant yet sincere friendship between Robin and Tommy in the weeks after their fight, and the crush Lakeshia, a young page, had on the several-years-older Robin was especially well-handled, both in terms of sensitivity to Lakeshia’s youth and her blossoming emotion. Her constant peeking across the room at Robin, peering around the corners of shelves, and nervousness every time she came near him was true-to-life and treated respectfully, which made her character enjoyable to read and probably my favorite.

Tucked in between the massive power struggle of the employees at 58th Street are literary quotes and bits of history (the story takes place in 1994), both from the past and current day to the story, which added a little extra to my reading. I had to take a quick Internet break when one character, in an attempt to intimidate another, dropped a name I didn’t recognize. While I knew about the 1991 riots in Crown Heights, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen specific names named, so I appreciated the detour this took me on so I could learn more. Call Numbers ends in a cliffhanger, so expect more from Syntell Smith and his boisterous band of library staff in the future!

Call Numbers will be available on June 21, 2019. Huge thanks to Mr. Smith for allowing me to read and review his work!

Follow Syntell Smith on Twitter here.

Check out his Facebook page here.

Visit his writing on Facebook here.

fiction · YA

When Dimple Met Rishi- Sandhya Menon

Stephanie1 Comment

Do you ever feel like you’re the last person on earth to read a certain book? When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon has been on my radar for ages now, but when it first appeared, I was deep into reading down my massive Goodreads TBR list and didn’t want to deviate from it too much in case I lost momentum (so glad I’m getting to the end of that project!). And although I was crazy backed up with books last week, this book still managed to find its way into my library pile, because I have zero self-control at the library these days (I mean, there are worse places to not be able to say no, right?).

Dimple Shah has never felt like she fit in. Not at school where she gravitates toward tech stuff, not with her family, where her mother is fixated solely on finding her the Ideal Indian Husband (and not at all on Dimple’s potential for a fabulous career as a programmer). It’s a surprise to her when her parents allow her to attend Insomnia Con, a computer coding camp held at a university during the summer between the end of her senior year of high school and the beginning of her college life at Stanford. Dimple’s ready to take on the coding world, creating an app that will change lives and that will get her some attention from her coding inspiration, Jenny Lindt.

Rishi Patel is a traditional rule-following eldest son, bound and determined to live out his parents’ dreams for him even if it costs him his own dreams. Family means something, right? Not that his younger brother Ashish gets that. But Rishi, whose talents are better suited to art, is off to Insomnia Con. He’s on a mission…one that Dimple isn’t at all aware of, and that will begin with her throwing iced coffee in his face. After a rough start, Dimple and Rishi set a few ground rules that allow them to develop at least the start of a friendship, one that slowly blossoms into something else. But Dimple has plans, plans that don’t involve marriage (maybe not ever!), and she’s not entirely sure if Rishi is the kind of guy who can let her be herself…or even fully be himself.

When Dimple Met Rishi is about identity, the one we’re born with, the one our family assigns us, and all the different identities we wear and develop through life. I was surprised to see the negative reviews of this on Goodreads. While Dimple could be abrasive at times, I have yet to meet a person who can’t (I, ahem, kind of have an enormous sarcastic streak that catches some people off-guard, because I appear so nice and sweet!). And other reviewers are constantly mentioning Dimple bemoaning how she’s not like other girls. I didn’t read that at all. What I saw in Dimple was a girl who struggles with what she feels her mother and her community expects from her, someone who feels pressured and trapped into a role that she knows doesn’t fit who she is- and when we feel trapped, sometimes we lash out. I saw a girl who felt alienated because there weren’t many other girls into tech where she was (I’m sure that varies wildly by where you live), and whose family background made her different from the majority of kids around her at school (there’s a scene with Rishi where Dimple is so pleased that they can talk about their mothers and how he just gets it, without needing an explanation, and I found her relief at that charming). I understood Rishi’s sense of duty to his parents, even at the cost of his own dreams, whereas some of the reviews called him weak. It may be that I’m older; as an adult, as a parent, our lives are so often about sacrifice (sacrificing sleep, sacrificing your own health, sacrificing your own sanity to watch ANOTHER episode of LoudScreamyCartoonShow) that Rishi didn’t seem unrealistic to me. And the Aberzombies, well… I remember those kids well from high school. They existed. They were loud, obnoxious, acted as though the money their parents had earned made them better than everyone else… Yeah. I didn’t find them off the mark whatsoever.

Maybe this is just a case of readers bringing different things to the story. Maybe I would’ve read this different when I was younger; maybe the readers who dislike it on Goodreads would understand Dimple differently as they grow older. Each story is really a million different stories, isn’t it? A million different stories, and all of them valid.

While I would’ve liked to have seen was Dimple and Rishi working a little more on their app, although I just figured that took place off-screen. A few more scenes of them hard at work would’ve fit well with Dimple’s drive to improve her coding skills. But overall, I enjoyed this. I always enjoy reading stories with Indian characters (whether living in India or Indian by heritage); it’s a beautiful culture and learning more about it never fails to move me in some way. So this worked for me, and I’m honestly a little surprised at the vitriol I’m reading in so many Goodreads reviews.

Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts, because I’m feeling like I seriously missed something, in regards to those other reviews (although a friend of mine read and rated it four stars, so that makes me feel better!).

Check out Sandhya Menon’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

cookbook · Massimo Bottura · nonfiction

Bread is Gold- Massimo Bottura and Friends

Stephanie1 Comment

Everyone has a few subjects they love reading about and will devour every single book that comes out about that subject. One of those subjects for me is food waste, and so when I heard about Bread is Gold by Massimo Bottura, the Italian chef and restaurateur behind Osteria Francescana, I slapped it on my TBR list.

The book wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Bottura (who was featured in the documentary Wasted! The Story of Food Waste, which I saw last year and highly recommend) tells the story of how his nonprofit organization Food for Soul, along with David Hertz’s Gastromotiva, opened the Refettorio Gastromotiva, a community kitchen that combined feeding the local needy population (along with others who weren’t needy) and combatting food waste. Another Refettorio was later opened in Milan, and then one in London.

How the Refettorio works is this: a well-known chef, often one that runs a Michelin-starred restaurant, is invited to come cook for a day or two, using only the ingredients on hand and anything specialized they bring with from their home country. And as the Refettorio receives shipments of about-to-expire food from different sources every day, the pantry contents can vary widely. If you’ve ever seen the show Chopped! on the Food Network, it’s like that. Chefs have to work with shipments of fish and dairy that need to be used that day; ridiculous quantities of brown bananas and wilting produce; tropical fruit and other luxury items that supermarkets couldn’t sell; varying amounts of meat, from an overabundance to none at all; and 4372899473284732984832 tons of stale bread. What comes out of the Refettorio is miraculous, meals that are fit for any upscale restaurant, made strictly out of ingredients that had been destined for the trashbin.

Each text-filled page is a story of a chef who came to cook at the Refettorio, their life story, what they cooked during their time there, and the challenges they faced (sometimes the daily shipment was less than abundant). If you enjoy food writing, you’ll probably enjoy their stories. The photographs that follow each text section are lovely, showcasing the ingredients they received and the stunning culinary masterpieces they became, and each section contains recipes for everything the chefs prepared.

This book is part story, part cookbook, and part inspiration. Food waste is an enormous social, political, and ecological issue, and anything that can challenge people to think creatively about the food in their refrigerators and pantries is a good thing, I think. For me, this book serves mostly as inspiration, as I’m usually pretty careful with our food and we waste almost nothing. I do, however, need the occasional kick in the pants to get me thinking in creative ways about how to use what we have. I’m becoming a little more comfortable cooking without a recipe these days (although I’m nowhere near the level of the chefs featured in this book!), and I’ve got plans for a few different meals thanks to reading about the ingenuity that takes place on a daily basis at the Refettorio. (I did, however, write down the recipe for Stale Bread Gnocchi. The vast majority of my bread ends go in the freezer, where I wait until I have enough, and then I toss them in the oven until they’re crunchy and pulverize them in the food processor to make bread crumbs. I’m pretty backed up on bread ends right now, though, and I have an excess of bread crumbs, so this recipe looks like just what I need!)

While there are better books out there for tackling the immediate issue of food waste (and I have plans for a future post about those books!), this is a good book to keep around as a reminder of the importance of using what you have before it goes bad, and an excellent example of the people who are working every day on a massive scale to do just that.

Do you have an interest in food waste? What are the subjects that make you immediately drop whatever it is you were reading before and pick up the new book that covers that topic?

Follow Massimo Bottura on Twitter here.

Follow him on Instagram here.

fiction

Ghosted- Rosie Walsh

Stephanie4 Comments

When I first heard about Ghosted by Rosie Walsh from another blogger, I did something a little out of character for me: I ran off to the library website, found an e-copy, and put it on hold.

Years ago, I used to check out e-library books all the time when I had a nook. And then I got a kindle, and then I got away from reading e-books in general when I was reading down the mostly nonfiction on my Goodreads list (I prefer to read paper copies of nonfiction so I can easily turn back and forth and re-read certain bits), and I developed this anxiety over figuring out how to check out these e-library books. (I mean, you’re here on the blog of someone who once won an iPod in a contest and was so freaked out about screwing it up that she left it in the box for six months, sooooooooo.) But this book intrigued me so much that I moved past that fear and put it on hold, and you know what? It was so easy! (Although my elderly Kindle Keyboard is having issues these days, so I’m probably going to have to replace it soon, sniff!)

Sarah Harrington has met the love of her life. She’s only known Eddie David for a week, but those seven days were magical, filled with the kind of blissful love-at-first-sight that every romance reader dreams of. And when they part, it’s full of exchanged promises, phone numbers, and Facebook friend requests. Sarah’s sure that Eddie will return from his vacation and they’ll pick up right where they left off…except that’s not what happens.

No phone calls.

No texts.

No Facebook activity.

Nothing.

Eddie’s ghosted her. But how could that be possible? Sarah knows they had something special. What she felt for Eddie, she didn’t even feel for the husband she recently divorced, and being with him helped her to feel something other than pain over the sister she lost so long ago. Despite her better judgment, Sarah begins trying to find out what happened to Eddie, leading her down a path that will further open wounds from the past when she discovers who Eddie truly is.

This story is twisty as a country back road. I understood Sarah’s need to know that Eddie was at least alive (hello, anxiety!), which made her feel very real and immediate to me, and the twist that appears halfway through the book actually made my mouth drop open- I’m not the greatest at figuring out mysteries, but I didn’t see that one coming at all, and it entirely changed my view of the whole story. I enjoyed the contrast of Sarah’s life before and after the incident with her sister, the contrast between her life in England and her life in California. I did feel like there were a few things left up in the air at the end, though, including what Sarah’s involvement in her own charity would be now that her situation had changed. That was never covered, possibly because it was beside the point, but I’m still curious! I do feel very satisfied knowing how this story turned out, as the review I read on another book blog seriously piqued my curiosity!

This was a fun read and I’m looking forward to reading many more e-library books on my kindle…as long as my poor kindle keeps trucking. *crosses fingers*

Book Riot 2019 Read Harder Challenge · mmd challenge 2019 · Monthly roundup

Monthly roundup: February 2019

Stephanie13 Comments

I swear, the last time I looked up, it was January. And now February’s gone. Whaaaaaaaaat???

Actually, I know what happened. I spent the entire month with my face shoved in various books.

Which isn’t a bad thing, lemme tell you.

It’s been another great month of reading around these parts, and a good month for all things bookish in general. I finished listening to all the back episodes of the What Should I Read Next podcast, and in my search for what I should listen to next, I stumbled upon All the Books, a weekly podcast from BookRiot about new book releases, hosted by the always funny Liberty and Rebecca. I’m super in love with this podcast and have been listening when I try to fall asleep, and when I’m in the kitchen getting dinner together. Be warned, though, your TBR list will explode like a fire hydrant that’s been knocked over by a Mack truck. (And for more TBR-ruining fun, BookRiot has a TON of podcasts with hours upon hours of back episodes. Enjoy!)

And with that, here’s a recap of all the amazing books I plowed through during the bitter cold of February 2019.

1. Humming Whispers- Angela Johnson

2. Assimilate or Go Home: Notes from a Failed Missionary- D.L. Mayfield

3. My Favorite Half-Night Stand- Christina Lauren

4. Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating- Christina Lauren

5. Heretics Anonymous- Katie Henry

6. The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story- Hyeonseo Lee with David John

7. Bear Town- Fredrik Backman

8. Hamartia- Raquel Rich

9. Ration Book Cookery- Gill Corbishley

10. Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks- Annie Spence

11. Called to Be Amish: My Journey from Head Majorette to the Old Order- Marlene C. Miller

12. Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of ’80s and ’90s Teen Fiction- Gabrielle Moss

13. All We Ever Wanted- Emily Giffin

14. Lucy and Linh- Alice Pung

15. Destiny’s Embrace- Beverly Jenkins

16. Hidden Figures: The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation Into Space- Margot Lee Shetterly

17. Time Zero- Carolyn Cohagan

18. We’ll Fly Away- Bryan Bliss

19. The Woman in Cabin 10- Ruth Ware

We also had a discussion on all the strange and interesting places we’ve read!

I may be a tad bit obsessive about reading lately, eh? But hey, it’s been cold out. All the better to huddle under my heated throw and turn page after page after page.

My February reading felt amazing. Compared with last month, I have a more diverse group of authors, which is definitely something I’m aiming for. And I’ve got a good mix of fiction and nonfiction, which is awesome. Only three of these books came from my Goodreads TBR list, which is fine by me; one was a review copy; several were books I’d been meaning to read for a while; quite a few were new-to-me authors.

I also attended my first library book discussion group meeting! I was a nervous wreck (my anxiety knows no bounds and absolutely extends to social situations. Part of going to this group is my attempt to get more social interaction outside of the people I’ve married and/or have given birth to, which has seriously been like 99.99999999% of my social interaction for, oh, about the last twenty years or so. Not exactly healthy, even for an introvert), but it was AWESOME. I engaged in so much book banter and impressed them with the binder in which I take copious notes on everything I read (which prompted the librarian to jokingly offer me a job!). I’m so happy that I pushed my boundaries and joined the group; I already can’t wait for next month and am lamenting the fact that I’ll miss May’s meeting, since my son has a choir concert that night.

So how’d I do for challenges?

As far as the Modern Mrs. Darcy 2019 Reading Challenge, I’m two-thirds of the way through ‘Three books by the same author;’ one more Christina Lauren and I’ll be able to cross that one off fully. And I managed to tackle ‘A book in translation,’ which I expected to be a lot more difficult (having had some weird experiences with books in translation in the past); Bear Town was amazing. So here’s where I’m at with this list:

I’ve already managed to cross five items off the list of Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge, which is pretty huge for me! #12, a book in which an animal or inanimate object is a point-of-view character, has been covered by reading The Adventures of a South Pole Pig by Chris Kurtz last month, and #9, a book published prior to January 1, 2019 with fewer than 100 reviews on Goodreads, was covered by reading Hamartia by Raquel Rich. #6, a book by an author of color set in or about space, was fulfilled by finally reading Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, and #16, an historical romance by an author of color, was fulfilled by reading Destiny’s Embrace by Beverly Jenkins. We’ll Fly Away by Bryan Bliss, which absolutely gutted me, counts as #1, an epistolary novel or collection of letters. Not bad for a challenge I only decided to take up on February 21st. And here’s my Book Riot list:

Onward to great reading in March!

How was your February???

fiction · psychological thriller

The Woman in Cabin 10- Ruth Ware

Stephanie5 Comments

When I saw that March’s selection for my library’s book discussion group would be The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware, I was a little nervous. Not my usual kind of book- I don’t normally read thrillers as I experience enough anxiety in my everyday life (thank you SO much, brain)- but I was willing to give it a shot. And I’m glad I did.

Lo Blacklock has lucked into the work gig of a lifetime, a Nordic cruise on a small but stately ship so she can schmooze with the other high class passengers for her employer, a travel magazine. But before she leaves, her apartment is broken into and the burglar traps Lo in her bedroom, setting her emotions on the fritz and exhausting her, because who can sleep when you wake up to a stranger in your apartment? It doesn’t help that Lo already suffers from massive anxiety, which at times can be all-consuming, nor does the way she leaves things with her boyfriend Judah aid in any kind of inner peace.

Despite her fatigue and with the help of copious amounts of alcohol, Lo makes it through the first dinner (displeased, of course, to find her former co-worker and ex-boyfriend Ben Howard on the trip), but it’s that evening, just when she’s managed to fall asleep, that she hears the scream from the next cabin. A scream…and then a splash, as though a body has been thrown overboard. And when Lo alerts security, the man in charge makes it clear that he doesn’t believe her: not about the splash, not about the blood Lo saw smeared on the window next door, and not about the woman in Cabin 10, from whom Lo borrowed mascara earlier that evening. Cabin 10, you see, is unoccupied.

What follows is a harrowing nightmare, with Lo desperate to find someone to believe her, and to figure out exactly what she heard and saw that night. Or did she really hear and see anything at all? Who can she trust on board this ship? And will Lo be the next person thrown overboard?

This kept me guessing. I don’t read a lot from this genre, so trying to pinpoint exactly who could have been thrown overboard, and by whom, was kind of fun. The reviews on Lo as a character seem mixed; I see a lot of people calling her whiny and finding her annoying, but…

The thing is, I understood her. I understood where she was coming from, and I thought Ms. Ware did an outstanding job accurately portraying Lo’s anxiety. I’ve dealt with anxiety my entire life, exactly the kind that Lo has- not stemming from any particular incident, just something that my brain has cooked up all on its own. Lo’s constant chest tightening, her mind racing, feeling like the walls are closing in, feeling stressed (often for no good reason at all), all of these are symptoms I feel on a daily basis. And when you add lack of sleep…

Bit of a detour here. Boy, do I understand what lack of sleep does to someone with anxiety. My daughter was born in April of 2014, and for the next 18 months, I survived on 3-4 broken-up hours of sleep per day. I’d fall into bed around 11, she’d be up at 12:30, 1:30, 3:30, 5:00, and we’d be up for the day at 6 am. And each time I was awake, I’d be awake nursing her for around twenty minutes, and then it would take me another ten or twenty minutes to be relaxed enough to fall asleep. It was a NIGHTMARE of the worst degree. I drove through stoplights. I forgot what I was going to go do the moment I stood up. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I had a hard time finding words when I spoke. I cried constantly. At one point, I had to ask my son where we were going as I was driving down the road. (I was driving him to school. I truly had no idea when I asked him.) My anxiety was ramped up at all times to eleven on a scale of ten. My daughter’s about to turn five in April and I still don’t feel like my brain has fully recovered (I’m still only able to get about 5-6 hours of sleep per night. It’s not ideal). There’s a reason why sleep deprivation is used as a torture technique; it’s utter hell.

All of that was to say that between Lo’s anxiety, her growing PTSD from the burglary, and her lack of sleep combine in a very plausible manner to keep both Lo and the reader off-kilter, never quite knowing what’s real, what’s not, and whom to trust. Perhaps for people who have more experience with thrillers, or for people whose realities don’t match more closely with Lo’s, this wasn’t the book they wanted it to be, but for me, a lot of it hit home and I thought it was done quite well.

I caught a grin near the end when Lo spoke with a Norwegian man who showed her a photograph.

“Min kone,’ he said, enunciating slowly. And then, pointing to the children, something that sounded like ‘vorry bon-bon.’

Every once in a while, I actually get to use the Norwegian I’ve learned and it always thrills me when I do. ‘My wife,’ he said, and then vÃ¥re barnebarn, our grandchildren. Take THAT, people who said I’d never use Norwegian! (It actually pops up more often than you’d think.)

Check out Ruth Ware’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.