Book Review

I finished Keeping Faith, by Jodi Picoult. The author holds my interest in that she does write out-of-the-box story lines. At the end of this book there is a Q&A with the author, and she mentions having an extremely uneventful childhood. She has balanced that with an active imagination!

The book is about a seven-year-old child named Faith who sees God after her parents get divorced. God comes to her as a female, motherly protector. When her grandmother dies, God tells Faith what to do to heal her. This begins a national fury that results in hundreds of media, religious zealots, and sick people congregating in their yard to get a piece of her.

The story begins with the divorce. Mariah finds her husband Colin in their bedroom with another woman. Unfortunately, Faith is with her, and sees this also. He leaves, and within days files for divorce.

Colin and Mariah met in college, where he is the handsome, popular jock, and she is the studious, loner who is hired to tutor him. She is so consumed by a sense of inadequacy when he decides to go out with her, that she totally excuses his indiscretions early in their relationship. She has no friends other than her mother, and is completely needy. She worships the ground he walks on even now, despite the fact that he had her committed to a mental institution the first time she discovered he was having an affair and tries to kill herself. She's a complete pushover who determines her own worth by how this man treats her.

Mariah tries to keep it together after the divorce for the sake of her daughter. Then her daughter starts talking to God. This makes Mariah nervous, so she takes her daughter to a psychiatrist. To her credit, however, she never once thinks her daughter is lying.

After a long drawn out media circus, performing several healings, experiencing stigmata, which brings on the attention of the Catholic church and her own Jewish leadership, and a lengthy custody battle, God leaves as quickly as she appeared.

The story is well told, if convoluted. I do appreciate the author's imagination when considering realistic, yet uncommon, experiences. If nothing else, her books make you think.

Book Review

This post is about the books I've read recently.  I've taken a break from the business-related books (lifestyle entrepreneur, self-help, how to find your dream job books) and am just reading for the fun of it.

The last book I finished was by Jodi Picoult, entitled My Sister's Keeper.   This was an intriguing book from the very beginning.  The story is about a girl who was basically engineered and implanted (through IVF) to be a perfect donor match for her older sister who has a rare form of leukemia.  The parents mean well, thinking they would only need to use the umbilical blood to put their daughter into remission, but eventually the older sister has a relapse and this daughter is required to give more and more of her body, culminating in the need for a kidney transplant.

The book begins from her point of view, but each chapter is written from the viewpoint of a different family member.  Every family member speaks with the exception of the leukemia patient.  It's obvious that everything that happens in this family's life revolves around her, so it's really about how this fact affects everyone else in the family.  Instead of sympathizing solely with the character you are reading about, you get a balanced look at how this trauma is affecting each member.

Ultimately, the ending is still surprising.  Altogether, this was a great read, and rooted (although it is fiction) in very real issues we are facing today.

I'm moving on to another book written by this author, but I'll have to tell you about that one later, as I've just started it.

I started and discarded a book called Money, A Memoir by Liz Perle.  It is a book about how women view and deal with money, and how this is different from how men feel about money.  I was really hoping it wasn't another book about a woman who let her husband take care of all of the finances until she suddenly finds herself divorced and in charge of her own future.  However, in this I was disappointed.  Hence, the discard.  

I don't know why this is true of a lot of women (which is what the book was trying to tell me, had I really wanted to know) but I'm tired of hearing the same sob story.  Just because you're not interested in paying bills does not mean you have to be clueless about finances and how much money your family does or doesn't have.  Wake up and quit whining.

Before that I read a whimsical story called World of Pies by Karen Stolz.  This was a book I found while cleaning out my son's bookshelves.  I have a bad habit of stopping at garage sales when I see books being sold, and then buying every children's book they have.  Usually this consists of a box or paper bag full of god-knows what.  I then deposit the entire collection on my son's bookshelves, waiting for the time when he's reading well enough to be interested.  So far, it's slow going.  So in the interest of giving him a little more space, I cleaned out his bookshelves of anything he would probably never be interested in reading.

This was clearly a book intended for a young woman.  It is the story of a small town girl living in Texas.  It begins when she is about 11 years old, learning to make pies from her mother.  It ends with her teaching her daughter this skill when her daughter is about seven.  The best part about the story is that it ended with a list of recipes for all of the food items mentioned in the story.  Some of them look good enough that I'm going to give them a try before passing the book on!

These kinds of books make me wonder how people get published.  I mean, the story isn't amazing, there is no real meat or moral.  It is purely the chronicling of an everyday life story.  The author is a decent storyteller, but not exceptional.  What part of this would get a publisher interested?  Is it really not that hard?

Reading

Against my better judgement I started reading a novel last night while I took a bath.  I am in the middle of another "how to" book, and that didn't fit the bill for this occasion.  There's just something about reading a self-help book that does not lend to a relaxing bath.

This novel is the second of a trilogy that I bought from a local author at an art fair.  It is obvious that the author has limited skills in storytelling and writing, however, I've read my share of books by less-than-stellar authors.  My problem with this series is the main character.

The story takes place in early 20th century England.  What I know of this period of English history (which isn't much) is that it wasn't a great time to be in the lower, working classes, and it especially wasn't a great time for working women.  

So, the main character in this book is a working class woman, which isn't so bad, but she's a MEEK working class woman.  She routinely lets the men in her life railroad her into doing and being something she doesn't want.  She looks with envy at every woman around her, including her sister.  Now this may be an accurate portrayal of what women were like during this time, but there is a reason why the best stories from that period were about strong women who bucked the system, against all odds.  There's a reason Little Women was about Jo, and not one of her younger sisters.  No one wants to hear about the daily life of an ordinary person.  How is that interesting?  We all live that every day!

Characters should be someone who we can relate to, yet that can still leave us inspired to be more, or do more, or accomplish more.  Characters should have character!  Am I wrong here?

The Last Lecture

I just finished the book  by that title.  I know, I'm way behind the curve, and everyone has heard, seen, or read about the last lecture.  And yes, although I had heard about the book and the lecture via Oprah, I hadn't gotten around to reading the book or seeing the lecture.

One of my clients was nice enough to get me the book as a Christmas gift.  I have to say, if you haven't read the book, you should.  The chapters are really, really short.  It's perfect for a bathroom book, if that's the only time you get to yourself!

The reason I love the book is the reason why so many people were drawn to it, I guess.  It is so full of optimism.  There are many great points he makes in the book.  I've listed some of my favorites here.

It's a good thing when someone is willing to tell you how you're screwing up.  It means they haven't given up on you.

People are more important than things.

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

A bad apology is worse than no apology.

Tell the truth.  All the time.

With rights come responsibility.  Be a communitarian.

Make a decision: Tigger or Eeyore.

On a side note, he makes mention of a line in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium that only reinforced my idea that it's a great movie.  Probably not in the way most people think of great movies, but rather a movie that makes you think.

I think the point of the book, and why it struck so many, was that he lived his whole life as if every day mattered.  Then when he was told he was going to die, it wasn't a stretch for him to finish with a bang.  There are some great lessons to be learned.  Like me, some might be something you already subscribe to, and some of it might be new.  All of it is worth reminding yourself.

Speaking of Conserving...

Conserving has been on my mind lately.  My business is finally feeling the effects of the "downturn" and I've lost two clients in the last month due to job troubles.  In this I have been lucky, as other areas of Sacramento are much harder hit.

But this blog isn't about that...

For those of you who know me well, you know that I am an avid reader.  It is the one thing I can say I'm truly passionate about.  In the past, my most pressing problem would be scrounging up a new book to read.  Buying new books can be expensive, and leave you with a pile of books you may never read again.  Getting to the library requires planning, both in timing the acquisition of a new book with the ending of the old one, and in returning the book in a timely manner.  (This is last issue is what prompted us to switch from renting movies to Netflix.  Returning things is just not my strong suit!)

So, a while back, I discovered www.PaperbackSwap.com.  I've been a member for at least a year, and I still can't help talking about it.  For the price of postage, I've cleaned out my bookshelves of all but my favorite authors, and accumulated a "to be read" pile that will take me months to plow through.  I'll never be without a book to read again!

Here's how it works:  I list on the website all the books I'd like to get rid of, for this I am "gifted" 3 credits.  For every book that is requested from my list, and mailed, I receive an additional credit.  Each credit is good for one book from the millions listed by other users.  I can browse the list by genre, or author, or simply search for titles, and when I find a book that I want to read, I request it, and it is mailed to me.

Unlike the name suggests, the book list is not restricted to paperbacks.  In fact, they have any kind of book, including hardback, audio CD, and audio cassette, in addition to paperbacks.

The media mail price for postage for most paperbacks is about $2.23.  So for between $2-3 I get a new book to read, and get to pass mine on to someone who wants to read it.  This is even cheaper than buying from a used book store.

For someone who likes to read, this is a great conservation tool, in my book.