This review was previously posted on my personal blog on May 27, 2008.

Jennifer Graham is a newly-single mother, trying to cope with her new and unfamiliar situtation. Formerly a Congressional aide, she is having a hard time finding a job on Capitol Hill, since her ex-husband still works there. He has left Jennifer for the nanny, and for the first time Jennifer is responsible for the household finances and full-time care of her two sons. She has one son embarking on teenager-dom, one who’s ready to start school, a mother whose heart is in the right place but more often hinders than helps, and no home or financial prospects.

Into the midst of this mess comes the announcement that Jennifer has inherited Fairlawn Funeral Home in a small town in Florida. Jennifer, her sons, and her mom head to the tiny town of Mt. Dora, intent on fixing Fairlawn up, selling it, and using the money to start over again back in Virginia. But God has other plans.

The characters in this book are well-rounded – they each have their strengths, their flaws, and their blindness to their own weaknesses. The relationship between Jennifer and her mother seem especially real, as they try to navigate the boundaries of their relationship. Jennifer needs her mother’s support and help, but she doesn’t need to be mothered. Jennifer is trying to walk out her divorce in the most godly way possible, while her mom sees a future of hurt if she isn’t realistic. Both of these strong women are memorable characters, and I look forward to more of them in the next book in the series, She Always Wore Red.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: christian fiction, contemporary fiction

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It starts with an itch you just can’t shake. Then comes a fever and a tickle in your throat. A few days later, you’ll be blabbing your secrets and chatting with strangers like they’re old friends. Three more, and the paranoid hallucinations kick in. And then you’re dead.

When a strange virus starts infecting people in her community, sixteen-year-old Kaelyn finds herself facing a situation most adults would find harrowing. Her island is quarantined, leaving the people stranded with dwindling supplies, little or no communication, and no hope of a cure. Kaelyn’s father is a doctor at the hospital, and as he spends all his time caring for patients and searching for a cure, Kaelyn is left at home to care for her sick mother. As her community falls apart, people begin to experience fear and paranoia. Some people will surprise her by becoming their best selves, while others will descend into brutality. Kaelyn writes her experiences down in an ongoing letter to her best friend, Theo, who recently left the island.

The Way We Fall is compelling YA fiction. I was reading it during a time when I had very little time to read, and it was so hard not to just sit down and read until I finished it and discovered how things turned out for Kaelyn, Gav, Tess, and Meredith.

Crewe increases the sense of menace and impending doom by placing Kaelyn in an island community that is virtually cut off from the rest of the world. As some of the townspeople go “Lord of the Flies,” others find the best of their nature. Kaelyn becomes friends with Tessa, a girl who she had previously been jealous of. She finds it in herself to be a mother-slash-sister figure to young Meredith. And when she finds herself in the midst of a romance, she wonders how to go about the normal rituals and stages of teenage life when nothing about life is normal anymore.

The outbreak and its aftermath are believable and realistic, which was one of the scariest things about this book. Kaelyn’s response was an authentic one. Strength, weakness, hope, defeat – Kaelyn’s experiences make for a page-turner of a book.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: contemporary fiction, YA fiction

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Molly Snow has always lived in her sister Robin’s shadow. Robin is the star, the marathon runner who has authored books, inspired young runners, and is a celebrated speaker. Her whole family’s world revolves around Robin and Snow Hill Nursery, the family’s business. When Molly gets a call from the hospital, telling her that Robin has had yet another running accident, Molly is fed up – tired of being at Robin’s beck and call. Assuming that the accident is a sprain or something minor, she takes her time getting to the hospital – only to discover that Robin has had a massive heart attack and is in a coma.

As Molly and her family are faced with making decisions they never could have imagined, Molly reflects on her relationship with Robin, her relationship with her mother, and her place in the family. She also discovers some things about Robin she never suspected – and the family must deal with the fallout of secrets.

While My Sister Sleeps was my second experience with Barbara Delinsky’s work; the first was Not My Daughter, which I also enjoyed. She reminds me a bit of Jodi Picoult – at least the Jodi Picoult novels that I’ve enjoyed, as she’s a bit hit or miss with me. Delinsky takes authentic characters, throws them into challenging situations, and then reveals how things play out. I really enjoy reading well-written family dramas, like this one.

I had a bit of trouble with the first third of the book, as Katherine, Molly’s mother, seemed like such a horrible person. My kids would wonder who I was snarking at while doing dishes, when I kept saying things like, “What is wrong with you?” and “Horrible woman!” while I did the dishes. The character grew on me, though, as she started to take a hard look at her relationship with each of her daughters.

The interactions between Molly’s brother Chris, his wife, and his father, Charlie, were interesting, too. Charlie is a quiet man, and so, growing up, Chris had assumed that his father was not a communicator. When he incorporated that into his own marriage, he couldn’t understand his wife’s frustration. There were some great scenes between father and son as he realizes how wrong he was about his dad.

The end of this book is not a surprise, as the reader is clear from the beginning what will happen. That doesn’t matter, as the meat of the book is in watching the characters rub against each other, learn from each other, get angry at each other, forgive each other – and ultimately come to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a family.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, contemporary fiction

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Justin Hitchcock, a divorced American art and architecture professor, is talked into donating blood in spite of his fear of needles. In Dublin, Joyce Conway undergoes a blood transfusion after a horrible accident that almost takes her life. After she leaves the hospital and tries to put together the pieces of her life, she starts to undergo some very strange experiences: knowing things she doesn’t remember learning, having dreams of people that she’s never seen before – dreams that seem to be memories. Could the new blood that is running through her veins be imparting the donor’s thoughts and past?

Thanks for the Memories was my first experience with Cecilia Ahern, and, honestly, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. I figured it would be some light and fluffy chick lit, but I wanted to listen to it because it is read by Sile Bermingham, the amazing Irish actress who reads most of Maeve Binchy’s books.

I was wrong to prejudge this book. Yes, it is definitely women’s fiction, but it was only light in the best sense of the word – that it was easy to get drawn into. First of all, there was a ton of humor in the story, most of which was provided by Joyce’s aging father, who was my favorite character in the book. I loved the relationship that father and daughter shared, the way he supported her as she tried to reinvent herself after the accident.

The writing was terrific, too, with some great descriptions of the people and places, and some fun metaphors – not so funny they drew me out of the story, but just enough to give me a chuckle. There wasn’t anything surprising in the book, but I didn’t mind that I knew how things would turn out – I thoroughly enjoyed watching things unfold. I will definitely look forward to more of Ahern’s books – and if they’re read by Sile Bermingham, then that’s all the better!

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, contemporary fiction, irish fiction, speculative fiction

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I am re-posting this review as today is the book’s release date. When I originally reviewed it, I didn’t realize it was still several months until it would be available.

Joy is a child of privilege. She has a gorgeous boyfriend, a father with a high-paying job, and a family who loves her. But instead of being happy, Joy is being suffocated – by her scarily controlling boyfriend, her asthma, her over-protective parents who are afraid she’ll stop breathing the minute they turn their backs. When her boyfriend, Asher, crosses a line, Joy sees no way out – except to leave. She runs away to the streets of Seattle, where she is taught how to survive as a homeless person by Creed, Santos, and May. But how long can she keep hidden, keep running, keep healthy on the streets? What secrets are her new friends keeping from her? And will she ever have the courage to face her own?

Last year, I was privileged to interview Holly Cupala and to review her first novel Tell Me a Secret, which I loved. With Don’t Breathe a Word, Holly has again written a beautiful work of contemporary YA fiction.

This book deals with issues like over-protective parenting, psychological abuse by a partner, and homelessness – all while telling the story of a breath-taking young woman. Joy takes the name Triste (“sadness” in French) as her street name, and it epitomizes what this young woman is going through. She is haunted by fear, shame, and despair – so much so that she is willing to give up her family and the comforts of a home rather than face her demons.

On the street, she meets a makeshift family, led by the talented Creed, whose ultimate dream is to become a musician. I love the way that music plays such an important part in both of Holly’s books. The relationship between Triste and Creed is so tentative, so fragile and complicated, but beautiful all the same. As I read, I was completely invested in their story, and couldn’t stop reading until I found out how things ended for them.

One of the things I most appreciate about both of Holly’s books is the authentic way she deals with the Christian faith. There are characters of faith in both books. Some have the kind of faith that is stifling and judgmental and, ultimately, hateful. Others show what it truly means to follow the teachings of Christ – to reach out to the poor, the needy, the hungry simply because they are valuable people worthy of love, not because they can be one more conversion to add to the list. In the real world, we see people of both of those kinds of faith all the time – but it seems that the former kind are the ones who get the most press. Kudos to Holly for showing that there are religious people who are also trying to be genuine people.

Thanks again to Pam for sending me this book. I highly recommend both of Holly’s books to those of you looking for YA fiction that deals with contemporary issues with beautifully written stories and characters.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2012. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: contemporary fiction, YA fiction

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Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk
From my review: “Beautifully written, lushly sensual with details of taste, touch, smell – and an intriguing mystery as well.”

Starter for Ten by David Nicholls
From my review: “Have you ever had this kind of experience: you’re reading a book, and you read a sentence-paragraph-half-a-page-chapter that is so tautly written and absolutely hysterical that you must read it aloud to someone immediately – only there isn’t anyone around?!? I had this experience while reading Starter for Ten over and over (and over and over) again.”

Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister
From my review: “Joy for Beginners is an achingly beautiful story of the way friendship and love can help one step outside of the box of her own life and experience joy.”

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
From my review: “As I read, I had so many times I thought, “Oh, I’ll mention this in my review!” or “So-and-so (insert name of book blogger here) will LOVE this book!” or, simply, “I ADORE this book.” – followed by a happy sigh. The Shakespeare quotes. The love of books. The beautiful depiction of the choppy relationship that is sisterhood. The books! The gorgeous way Eleanor Brown puts words together. Shakespeare and Shakespeare and more Shakespeare. The descriptions of Cordy baking bread. The way the library is revered as an almost hallowed place. Did I mention the books?”

The Beach Trees by Karen White
From my review: “In many of her books, Karen White writes lovingly of the South, and in The Beach Trees, she has written a moving tribute to the strength of spirit of the people who choose not to let disasters like Katrina and the Gulf Oil Spill rob them of their homes.”

A Watershed Year by Susan Schoenberger
From my review: “Bottom line: the quality of writing and the character Lucy take what could have been fairly standard women’s fiction and elevate it to something very special. I devoured this book in three days – and will be waiting expectantly to see what other characters and stories Susan Schoenberger will bring the book world in the future.”

Cross Currents by John Shors
From my review: “One of the things that John Shors does best is write setting – he puts you right smack in the middle of the story. As I read, I could hear Lek and Sarai’s children laughing, feel the sand between my toes, see the tree house Patch built, taste the banana crepes. And while I was turning the pages, vicariously living in Thailand, I was falling in love with the characters in this story.”

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 23 comments | Add to del.icio.us
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The suburban neighborhood of Fuller Court is a quiet place. People keep to themselves, living their own lives – while secretly judging all the neighbors. Secrets have a way of coming out, however, and the arrival of Diana Jones, pregnant teenage daughter of Joe Montana, sets up a chain reaction of revelations and dysfunction. When the neighbors are required to evacuate during a wildfire, everyone returns home safely – everyone, that is, except Diana. The neighbors are left wondering what happened to the young mother. Was the prospect of single motherhood simply too much, causing her to run and leave her baby behind? Or is there a more sinister reason?

I struggled while writing the above plot synopsis. There isn’t a way to write it without making this book sound like a thriller – and it’s not. Yes, there is a mystery involving Diana’s disappearance, but this is more a book of suburban fiction, dealing with personal and relationship issues. When I first realized that, I was a bit disappointed, but I soon settled in to read about the terrible messes the inhabitants of Fuller Court had made of their lives.

Debra Ginsberg is a gifted author; I thoroughly enjoyed her novel The Grift a couple years ago, and her memoir About My Sisters is excellent. She gets people, knows how to get inside her characters’ heads and give the reader an accurate picture of who they are and why they do the things they do. She did this with all of the people in The Neighbors Are Watching, and did it well. Unfortunately, none of the characters rose to the forefront as someone I could care about. There was something missing emotionally that kept me from connecting to any of the characters. So, while I wanted to keep reading to discover what had happened to Diana, I didn’t particularly care about the outcome of any of the other characters.

I can’t help wondering, too, if my lukewarm reaction is related to the fact that I expected a page-turner of a thriller, and got a character study instead. It doesn’t matter, though, because I still enjoy Ginsberg’s writing style, and will definitely be reading more of her work.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: contemporary fiction

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Lek and Sarai own a small resort on Thailand’s Ko Phi Phi island. Their restaurant and bungalows stay busy enough for them to just get by. Lek is happy to welcome Patch, and the help he brings to the resort, even though it’s obvious that Patch is running from something. Patch’s brother, Ryan, shows up on Ko Phi Phi with his girlfriend, Brooke, hoping to convince Patch to turn himself in to the authorities. As the brothers and Brooke spend time together, it becomes obvious that Ryan’s and Brooke’s relationship is shattering, while Patch and Brooke are drawn to each other. As the cracks begin to appear between the brothers, and Lek and Sarai struggle to keep their resort profitable, none of them are aware of the devastation headed their way.

This is the fourth book by John Shors that I have read and reviewed – and loved. (You can find my reviews of his other books on my Reviews by Author page.) In fact, I think his books keep getting better and better, as Cross Currents is my favorite by far. (I haven’t read Beneath a Marble Sky yet.) This author has such a huge passion for Asia and its people, and each page of this book is soaked in that passion. I can honestly say I had no desire to visit Asia until I read The Wishing Trees, and after this latest book, I find myself wanting to go to Thailand, to experience the beauty and the kindness of the people.

One of the things that John Shors does best is write setting – he puts you right smack in the middle of the story. As I read, I could hear Lek and Sarai’s children laughing, feel the sand between my toes, see the tree house Patch built, taste the banana crepes. And while I was turning the pages, vicariously living in Thailand, I was falling in love with the characters in this story. Lek, with his injured hip, who works so hard to make his wife laugh. Sarai, who is so driven and busy, all of her movements quick and efficient. Yai, Sarai’s mother, literally fat and happy, taking such good care of baby Achara. Niran, and his love of the ocean and its creatures. Suchin, so feisty and full of laughter and jokes. And Ryan and Patch, two brothers who couldn’t be more different, who each struggle to understand the other, but whose bond couldn’t be stronger or more permanent. Brooke, a young woman who has had something precious stolen from her, and who finds a measure of healing on the beaches of Ko Phi Phi.

Of course, reading this book is a lot like waiting for the last shoe to drop. Because of the setting and the time period, I knew what was coming, and the deeper I got into the story and the more attached to the characters I became, the more I was scared for how things would end. The last twenty pages or so were accompanied by sadness and many tears, but ultimately, Cross Currents is a story of family devotion, love, and redemption. It is a story not to be missed.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: contemporary fiction, john shors, multi-cultural fiction

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When Sicily Coyne was thirteen years old, she watched her firefighter father die attempting to rescue a boy from a fire. The same fire took Sicily’s face, leaving her scarred and disfigured. Shortly afterward, her mother died, and Sicily was adopted by Marie, her aunt – a fiercely loyal and amazingly strong woman. At age twenty-five, Sicily has made a life for herself. Raised to live as much of a normal life as she can, Sicily has a career that she excels at and is engaged to a man she loves. But when a horrific revelation destroys her relationship with her fiance, Sicily is left to reevaluate her life. She decides to pursue a total face transplant, a new procedure that will give her back not only her face, but her ability to eat, to taste, to smell, to kiss.

As I was writing the above synopsis, I realized that I can’t go any farther in the story than that without giving away too much of the plot. This is not a book you want spoiled for you. I will simply say that this book is stuffed full of discussion points about medical ethics, relationships, the nature of family, love, loss. And, for fans of Mitchard’s work, members of the Cappadora family (The Deep End of the Ocean, No Time to Wave Goodbye) have supporting, but important, roles in Sicily’s story.

While the last quarter of the book seemed to come apart at the seams a bit, Mitchard continues to impress me with the beauty of her writing. She writes plot- and character-driven fiction, but still has a poetic way of putting the words on the page. For the most part, I loved Sicily’s character. There were a few times when I thought she wallowed a bit in self-pity (and, yes, I know this is a woman who has lost almost everything, and has a right to self-pity) and that wallowing sometimes kept her from seeing how her actions and choices were causing others to suffer.

The subject matter and beautiful writing, though, still make this a book I would recommend. I will give you a slight warning, though, that the ending is quite ambiguous, and so if you need an ending that wraps everything up neatly, you will be disappointed. I know what I think happened after those final words, but I have no idea if what I pictured is the same thing the author imagined.

Audio notes: I believe this was my first experience with Rebecca Lowman’s narration, but she is clearly an accomplished voice artist. She gave life to the portions told in first person by Sicily. During the third-person sections of the story, she did the nearly impossible task of making several American voices all sound different. I never had to wonder who was speaking, and that is something I appreciate in an audiobook.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: audiobooks, contemporary fiction

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watershed: a crucial dividing point, line, or factor

Two months after his death, Lucy is grieving from the loss of her best friend, Harlan, and also mourning the lost opportunity to tell him she was in love with him. She has spent the past year nursing him through his treatment, and is now wondering what’s next for her. An e-mail arrives from Harlan, and thus begins her watershed year. Harlan has arranged for e-mails to be delivered to her once a month, and buoyed by this contact with her dead friend, Lucy begins to take steps to move forward with her life. A comment from Harlan prompts her to look into adoption, and Lucy embarks on a journey toward motherhood.

I have a confession to make. When I received my review copy of A Watershed Year and saw that it was published by Guideposts, I heaved a sigh. I made some broad assumptions about the book based on the publisher, even though I don’t think I’ve ever read a book published by Guideposts in my life! My preconceptions were based on the Guideposts magazine, which my mother used to receive. I assumed that this book would be overly sentimental and schmaltzy, a self-help, positive-thinking book wrapped in a fiction storyline.

With my tour date looming in only ten days, however, I knew I had no choice but to dive right in. I quickly discovered that my assumptions were way off base. A Watershed Year is sentimental, in the sense that any book dealing with grief, loss, adoption, and motherhood would be – but the sentiment is authentic and nuanced, not broad and simplistic.

Lucy is a college professor; her specialty is studying the lives of the saints. In her own words, she is a “scholar of useless information, unmarried thirty-something, failed vegetarian, pseudo-Catholic.” I loved her way of looking at the world, the little snippets of saintly anecdotes that pepper the pages, her relationship with her parents. She begins the adoption process in a way no responsible, thinking person would pursue, and, in spite of many warning signs from the adoption agent, Yulia, continues to move forward to adopt a little boy from Russia. The result is in turns heartbreaking and hilarious, as Lucy learns what it means to be a mother.

This wasn’t a particularly unpredictable novel – I wasn’t surprised by the way it ended – but that doesn’t bother me in a book in which the writing is wonderful and I love the characters. It ended just the way it should have, and in one particular element of the story (don’t want to give anything away), I was pleasantly surprised that the author made the choice she did.

Bottom line: the quality of writing and the character Lucy take what could have been fairly standard women’s fiction and elevate it to something very special. I devoured this book in three days – and will be waiting expectantly to see what other characters and stories Susan Schoenberger will bring the book world in the future.

© CarrieK for BOOKS AND MOVIES, 2011. | Permalink | 26 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: contemporary fiction

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