Review: Breaking Her Fall

Breaking Her Fall
by Stephen Goodwin

What would you do if you got a phone call in the middle of the night that your 14 year old daughter was drunk and acting inappropriately at a party that you didn't even know she was attending? That is the opening premise of Breaking Her Fall. Action, tension, and inter relational conflict. It fell short of the first two and ran long on the last.

The book was mostly about how Tucker relates, or not, with his daughter, Kat, after she makes a mistake that affects her reputation among her peers, her family and herself. It was interesting to see a man's perspective of fatherhood, especially that of a single father who is the primary guardian. The realization that she is no longer his little girl is as violent emotionally as it ends up being physically. Kat may have made a possibly life changing mistake but Tucker's rash reaction causes more damage and is just as life altering.

I didn't like Tucker or Kat. I didn't care for any of the secondary characters. The only one I did like was Lily, Tucker's closest friend, until she too threw her respectable nature out the window. While the characters that people this book are presented as good, they all lack morals. No wonder the children behave the way they do. I'm so glad my own kiddos don't act even remotely like these ones do.

This was the second to last leg of the Take a Chance Challenge. I won't bother looking up anything else by this author.



I am so disappointed that I will miss completing this challenge by mere days. I am reading the last book now but it is too long for me to finish it by the end of the month, especially since I am driving home from visiting out of town family and I continue to work on The Novel for NaNoWriMo. But this challenge was a hoot. HOOT HOOT! I loved creating the list and working through it. Thank you so very much to Jenners from Find Your Next Book Here. If you have a Part 2 of this challenge, Jenners, I want to be notified of it.

NaNo Sneak Peek

One of the best challenges for the Take a Chance Reading Challenge was #8:

"Lit Riff (inspired by the book Lit Riffs by Matthew Miele.) Choose a song and then write a brief story that is inspired by or further explains the lyrics of the song."

I knew instantly which song I was going to use but the more I thought about it the more elaborate my idea got. It became the inspiration for my NaNoWriMo novel. So here is a sneak peek of my thus far nameless novel followed by Norah Jones singing Wish I Could.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

“And your dog? What's his name?”

Catherine considered lying about that but after having told so many of them she just couldn’t. Besides, this was all part of her self imposed punishment. “James. His name is James.”

She saw the look of anguish that swept across Cissy’s face as it did every time they had this conversation. Cissy’s eyes turned red with tears that she refused to let fall. “My husband was named James, bless his heart. He was the most gentle and kind man I ever met, next to Ben in there.” She indicated with her hand that Ben was inside, manning the cafe. Catherine looked in and saw Ben wiping down the counter top. He knew she was there and he knew why. He had told her many times that she should stop putting herself through this. She had paid for her part in what happened but she felt compelled to keep it up. Her guilt must not be allayed. What she had done to Cissy was unforgivable even if Cissy didn’t know anything about it.

“He died in the war you know? The first war. The Great War. We were so happy but he felt he had to go help the troops to fight for freedom. He would say, ‘Those boys out there are dying Cissy. They need our help and I am able. I’m a good shot. I can’t let boys of 19 and 18 and some younger fight when I could stand next to them and defend them.’ He was always thinking of others like that.” Her expression changed to grief. “I miss him everyday.”

“I understand,” was all the comfort Catherine could offer.

“Did you lose someone close to you too?”

“Yes I did.” She didn’t elaborate and Cissy didn’t push the matter. She never did. She was always sensitive about such things.

“Yes," Cissy continued after a few moments, "they took my husband. He fought along side those young boys and he defended them. It cost him his life but he would have given more if he could have. His act of heroism saved Ben’s life. And Ben has in turn devoted his life to taking care of me. He’s a good man, Ben is. Solid and able bodied. And he understands my grief.”

Catherine looked in the window again to see Ben watching them. Catherine waved but he only nodded his head once in acknowledgement. Catherine knew that Ben had suffered too; and suffered more now than ever since Cissy had come down with dementia. Cissy rarely remembered Catherine and sometimes she mistook Ben for James who had been Ben’s closest companion. It wasn’t Cissy’s fault. It was no one’s fault that Cissy’s brain just went back to the time when she was the happiest and then the most anguished. It was Catherine’s fault though that James had joined the Army in the first place. Catherine had been in love with James and he returned her affection but it was wrong. He felt guilty. He was trying to gain some distance from Catherine as well as wanting to help with the war. He had hoped that distance would bring an end to their relationship but that was never the way it worked. The distance only made her long for him more.

Cissy had never known about the affair. James' death had almost crushed the very life out of her as it was. Catherine had suffered her own pain in silence. Cissy's need for support and Catherine's guilt had demanded it. She couldn’t fall apart and she could never ever tell Cissy what had happened.

Now she had spent the rest of her life trying to atone for her sin and never feeling the relief of forgiveness.

Note that all content published on this blog is the property of the blog owner. Please don't steal my work. But feel free to link to it.

Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
by Jean-Dominique Bauby

What an incredible accomplishment! For a man in this state to have written such an eloquent book is astonishing.

At the age of 42, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor-in-chief for the French Elle magazine, suffered a stroke leaving him in the almost completely paralyzed state known as locked-in syndrome. With the use of only his left eye, Jean-Do was able to blink his way through the French language frequency-ordered alphabet, an alphabet set in the order of letters most commonly used to the least, in order to write his memoir. It took him 10 months working 4 hours a day with an assistant to write this 131 page book.

Within its pages there is some truly lovely prose. There is poetry in his descriptions when he writes about his struggles after the stroke and some of his life before. It's not always cohesive but that is more than forgivable. And Bauby has a sense of humor too. I felt that it was okay to laugh at this passage because he was laughing along with me:

"Having turned down the hideous jogging suit provided by the hospital, I am now attired as I was in my student days. Like the bath, my old clothes could easily bring back poignant, painful memories. But I see in the clothing a symbol of continuing life. And proof that I still want to be myself. If I must drool, I may as well drool on cashmere."

This book is not exactly life altering but the story behind it is inspirational.

But I have to back up a little bit here. Before I read the book, I watched the movie; and before the movie was glowing review of the book that I read at Bending Bookshelf. When the movie arrived in my mailbox I was surprised to find that it was a French film but some of my favorite movies have been foreign films so I hunkered down to read my way through the movie.

It started off really disorienting. The beginning depicts Jean-Do waking in the hospital and realizing what condition he is in. It is viewed from his perspective so it is foggy with flashing scenes that don't make much sense. There is a really gross scene of one of his eyes being sewn shut but it gets better as it goes. Throughout the movie it moves back and forth between being inside his head and what happened the little while leading up to the stroke.

The movie was moving and very effective in showing what life must have been like for Bauby. However, upon further investigation it seems that the movie took some liberties. The mother of Bauby's children (I'm not sure if she is in fact an ex-wife) is made to be the "butterfly" that keeps his spirits up with her loving devotion but according to his friends she had little to do with him during his last year of life. This was disappointing but it doesn't change my adulation for the film. It was beautifully done.

I would recommend the book and the movie to anyone. They compliment each other and should be viewed and read as companions. This is a case where watching the movie first enhanced my experience with the book.

This review of both a movie and the book it was based on is another challenge completed for the Take a Chance Challenge, the Movie/Book Comparison. I am so grateful to have been exposed to such a life affirming duo. Thank you Jenners for the challenge and Charley for the recommendation.

Review: The Persian Pickle Club

The Persian Pickle Club
by Sandra Dallas

I was having a hard time putting my impressions down about this book. I thought Payers for Sale by Dallas was beautifully told and entertaining. This one was more conventional, nothing extraordinary. The characters were still good, if too many to keep track of. I've heard complaints about the names (Queenie Bean, Ella Crook, Cheed Root, Prosper, Skillet) but I think they are fun, especially when the subject matter is serious or dull. They add humor and character.

But I decided that rather than write a boring old review about a book that was nice but nothing special, instead I'd use this opportunity to fulfill a leg of the Take a Chance Challenge and write my review in poetic form. Enjoy.

Haiku
Small town quilting bee
New girl solves a mystery
Happy endings abound

Limerick
There was a young lady named Bean
Who at a quilting bee was seen
She made a new friend
With a mystery to attend
In the end everyone did come clean

Free Form
Tough times
Heat and drought
Everyone struggles

Pressure mounts
Innocence doubted
Comfort not to be found
Keeping secrets kept
Loyalty is sacred
Everlasting support

Review: Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
by J.K. Rowlings

I warn you up front that I blow off some steam about certain religious types. As I am a religious type I think that what I have to say is important for both sides of the controversy but I understand if you don't feel like going there with me.

So I know that I am not the last person on the planet to read Harry Potter but it sure feels that way sometimes. Maybe it's just because when people like it they love it and when people don't care for it they claim it is a sneaky way that Satan is using to turn their children into witches and warlocks. Interesting how that works.

Since everybody actually knows the story I will skip the summary and move into the opinionating.

I liked it. As everyone says, it is not stunning literature. It's not that original. The character development is fairly 2 dimensional. It is 100% plot driven and in this case it works. It is a story written for kids, more for boys but girl are not excluded from the pleasure. Hermione is an intelligent and loyal character that will attract many girls. Snape isn't so convincing to me but it was still a fun story.

I was really dreading reading it. I've avoided the book for so long. I ranked it up there was an Oprah Pick telling myself that it was way too overblown to actually be good. I can admit when I'm wrong. Occasionally Oprah picks a winner and occasionally the public rallies around a worthy book. Harry Potter will go down in the annuls of time as a book that attracted the attention of millions by first, getting children, specifically boys, reading, and second, because Christians everywhere left their common sense in the closet and took it way too seriously.

I have touched on the effect of HP in the christian community for a reason. See, I am a christian. There was a time when I was ostracized for having the dreadful books in my house. People avoided me because I didn't think it was that big of a deal. After all, Christians everywhere had no problem with the Narnia books or Lord of the Rings, both of which contain witches and wizards. My family had decided that as long as good overcame evil in the stories then we were OK with our 10 year old son reading them. We used our reasoning minds instead of fear to direct our decision. But it didn't matter. Some of our closest friends claimed we were exposing and enticing children to witchcraft.

Guess what? I won't go to hell because I read a book, whether it contains witches, golden compasses, different religions or is about Satan himself. I won't go to hell for anything wrong I have done if the God of heaven and earth claims me for his own and forgives my sins. Period. I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. What a relief to know that I am secure in Christ!

Clearly this is still a sore subject with me. It hurt to be judged harshly over something so stupid(now that I've read it myself it seems even more ludicrous). But I try to release the hurt and forgive because they also are not perfect. They are trying to do what is right in their eyes and that is to be commended. Not many live by convictions anymore. I do my best to live by my convictions, one of them being the freedom to read what I like without guilt.

So I liked it. I'm told they get better as they go. I will read the rest of the series when I get a round tuit. Does anyone happen to have a spare round tuit?

I'm reposting this picture because it is magical. I wanna attend a boarding school that looks like that.

The Sunday Salon

Literature
Books-I just finished reading Harry Potter. I'm surprised at how much I liked it. Review will be up this week. I'm not sure of what to pick up next. Something fun and perhaps romantic. Something happy to match my mood.

Challenges-Harry Potter counts for two of my three challenges for sure (Take a Chance & Clear Off Your Shelves) but I'm wondering if it would count for RIP IV. It's got the supernatural and mystery. What do you think?

Life
Not much to share. Not much is happening besides this. FlyLady was a flop this week. I did make a French meal but...well, you'll read about that tomorrow. My computer has been behaving for the last few days. Yay! And school was kinda boring. I'm not really sure where my time went this week. (That's a big fat lie! Facebook is an evil time suck. And now I'm on Twitter too. Somebody stop me, please!)

But I am happy. Very very happy. That's always news worth sharing. Oh! And I found this picture (I stole it from a new blog full of beautiful things) which also makes me happy. I'm wondering how I can print it so I can hang it on my wall. It matches me so perfectly.

Review: Against the Odds

Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement
by L.M. Montgomery

I didn't even know this collection of short stories existed by the beloved author of Anne of Green Gables. All of these stories were published in various magazines and papers starting as far back as 1896. As noted int he title these are tales of achievement, specifically the achievement of dreams of young adults by means of honesty, hard work and ingenuity. My favorite of the stories were Dorinda's Desperate Deed and A Case of Trespass. Dorinda believes the way to get help is to ask for it, even if asking from a stubborn uncle who hasn't spoken with his family in years. And Dan in Trespass believes the honest confession is the best path when he finds he's been trespassing illegally. In all cases the stories end with rewards for those willing to do what it takes without compromising their integrity.

Yes the stories can be a bit repetitive and fantastical but they are infused with Montgomery's knack for quirky characters. They encourage principles and virtuous living.

One Word Review:
Successful

I am so glad that I was introduced to this collection through the Take a Chance Challenge. This was from the Random Word leg of the challenge. My word had been Achievement. That's 4 books down, two to go. I need to decide if I am ready to begin my adventures with Harry Potter just yet or if I can put it off for one more month. :)

Review: Tethered

Tethered
by Amy MacKinnon

Clara is a reclusive undertaker who knows the pain the world has to offer. She rarely speaks and she never lets anyone touch her. She is deeply scarred but working in the mortuary brings her peace. But then she finds Trecie, the young girl that wanders the funeral home grounds. Trecie is a girl who understands as much about pain and survival as Clara does, and she has some kind of connection to Precious Doe, a little girl found dead in the woods, a mystery never solved.

Isn't that cover just stunning? I love the colors and the grace of the woman floating in the water. I had to know about Clara and Trecie. But the book was not what I expected. I thought it would be a quiet, contemplative story. That's how it starts but it soon becomes anxious and then menacing. When the action kicks in it doesn't stop. It becomes a crescendo of danger and fear. This was definitely not contemplative. It was suspenseful. And I enjoyed every minute of it.

There were several mysteries to discover throughout. MacKinnon gave several possibilities for each one to keep the reader guessing. You're never sure who can be trusted and what will happen next. It was a little predictable but it wasn't always the storyline that kept me reading. I really liked Clara and I had to know what happened to her that made her so withdrawn and what she would do with the circumstances she found herself in. I also wanted to follow along as the mystery surrounding Trecie was brought to light. A book with great characters and a gripping story always make for a great book.

By way of warning: there are many gross issues laid out in the book. Clara is an undertaker so there is some little details about what that entails. There is also a connection with kiddie p*rn so if you are sensitive to that you may want to avoid reading this one. It's not detailed but enough information to give the reader some discomfort. I felt it was not out of line for the character of the book.

One word review:
Worthy

I chose this book as my Judge a Book By Its Cover choice for the Take a Chance Challenge. I have been led astray by cover art in the past but I am so glad that this one was not in that category. If you want to get in on this fun challenge go to Find Your Next Book Here for all the details.

Review: Tuck Everlasting

Tuck Everlasting
by Natalie Babbitt

Winnie Foster is a young girl wanting to burst out into the world and have an adventure doing something her mother and grandmother would consider dangerous. It is this urge that puts her in a place to meet the Tucks. The Tuck family has been successfully hiding the secret of it's family curse and the curse's source for many decades now. Until Winnie. Now they have someone they can talk to about all the heartache that comes with living forever. But there is a dark figure who wants to know the secret to their eternal youth for the sake of profit.

This was a cute children's book that makes one think of what it might really be like to live forever knowing that nothing you do would ever age you or kill you; how this could be more of a curse than a blessing. It's simple and playful. Not much to chew on for adults but then it wasn't written for adults. It was entertaining for an hour or so.

I read this for the Take a Chance Challenge as my Birth Year Book. To find out more about this challenge (it's never too late to start) you can visit Find Your Next Book Here or you can peek at my personal challenge books here.

Review:Serpent in the Garden of Dreams

Serpent in the Garden of Dreams
by Robin Messing

Tildy Glick was a girl obsessed with her love for her mother. Everyone else had to be excluded or was seen as a threat. But Tildy learns the limits of her mother's love the summer she turns 13, the summer her parents split up and her mother starts a fling with a married man. Fast forward to Tildy as an adult. Her obsession with love is now directed toward her boyfriend. His breaking up with her is a trauma that she cannot get over. Over the course of a year she learns to be okay with herself without someone to love obsessively.

If that summary seems uninspired it is because I was left uninspired by this book. I feel that I have given it enough of my time already(one whole week to read a 166 page book!) and it wasn't worth it. I did not connect with Tildy's pain. The reason for her obsession with her mother was unaccountable. I felt bad for the way the younger Tildy was treated by her family but I didn't care a wit for the grown Tildy. Grown Tildy was whiny and childish. She considers her boyfriend dumping her to be a trauma for which she cannot recover for a whole year even though he didn't seem to care much for her in the first place.

The narrative voice was different from younger Tildy, in the third person, to older Tildy, in the first person. Then there was the part that was supposed to be Tildy making an audio tape of her memories about her and her boyfriend. These were supposed to be lyrical(the author is also a poet) but they felt forced and didn't match the personality of either Tildy. The imagery in this last part was confusing when it was meant to be expressive.

While I didn't find much to like inside or outside of this book, like that awful cover design, I did really like the title and the quote that it was extracted from; a quote not written by Ms. Messing. But I still can't figure out what the serpent is in the garden of Tildy's memory. Tildy never realises, at least not in so many words, that her mother is a self-centered attention whore. Grown Tildy never sees that she is really the same as her mother. I never saw where Tildy recognises any betrayal. There is no betrayal since Tildy has set herself up for disappointment by setting her mother on a pedestal. Her mother never promised to be her everything.

I didn't hate this book; I just didn't care for anything in it.

This was my first challenge book for the Take a Chance Reading Challenge, the random book selection. I picked this book from the library using an arbitrary set of instructions that I devised for myself (the centermost book from the centermost shelf in the fiction section). I wish it was more successful but you can't win them all. Next up is either Tuck Everlasting or Tethered.

Take a Chance Reading Challenge

I was hoping to pick up some more challenges to guide my reading in place of ARCs and this challenge sounds totally different and cool. Basically there are 10 challenges within to help you choose random books to read between June 1st to Nov. 30th. They are odd challenges like Random Word Book, were you get a random word and find a book to read that has that word in its title, Birth Year Book, were you read a book published in your birth year, Judge a Book by Its Cover, which is self explanatory. Go here to read more about it and sign up. Here is my list:

Random Book Selection
Serpent in the Garden of Dreams by Robin Messing was the center book on the center shelf in the middle of the row in the middle of the fiction section. (my review here)

Random Word
My random word was achievement. Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement by L.M. Montgomery (my review here)

Birth Year Book
Tuck Everlasting byNatalie Babbitt (my review here)

Judge a Book By Its Cover
Tethered by Amy MacKinnon (my review here)

Phoning an Author
Breaking Her Fall by Stephen Goodwin

Public Spying
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowlings (can you believe I've never read HP before?) (my review here)

Random Best Seller
Lake Wobegone Days by Garrison Keillor

Lit Riff
This is not a book but a challenge to write a story based on the lyrics of a song. I can't wait to get started with this one. (my story here)

Poetic Review
I'm to write a review of three different forms of poetry: haiku, limerick and free verse. (my review here)

Movie/Book Comparison
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby (my review here)