Room
by Emma Donoghue
Published by Little, Brown and Company, 2010

About the Book

To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

A Little Detour – Art Imitates Life

I’m fairly certain we are all familiar with the saying:  “Art imitates life”; a principle held by Aristotle, while Oscar Wilde held that: “Life imitates art”.  In this case, I will have to uphold Aristotle’s position.  I believe Room was inspired by the darker side of life.

There are many children in our country who go missing every day.  Sadly, many of them are later found dead; however, there have been cases where the child is found years later, having been kidnapped and held in captivity. Cases like Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard, and Shawn Hornbeck are three cases that were in the news recently enough that we know there is hope of finding a few of these missing children alive.  And just yesterday, three young women, who went missing between 2002 and 2004, have been found alive.

Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were just teenagers when they were abducted in Cleveland, Ohio.  Michelle Knight was 20 when she vanished.  A young 6-year-old girl, who is likely the child of Amanda Berry was also found.  Charles Ramsey, a neighbor of the kidnapper, Ariel Castro, heard screams coming from the house and went to investigate.  Amanda Berry was trying to escape, when Ramsey heard her screams, leading to the rescue of the victims.  Castro and his two brothers were all arrested as suspects in the case.

My Review

When I first started reading Room, I was a little put off by a child narrator.  As I have said before, I will give a book a good 50 to 100 pages before giving up on it.  I am glad I did.

While the story is based on the horrible subject of a teen girl being abducted and held captive for sexual purposes; there is something about it being told from the point of a 5-year-old, who knows nothing about how he came to live in Room that makes the book slightly less dark.  He, Jack, realizes that Room is where he lives and then there is Outside.  He loves Room, because his mother, Ma, shelters him and loves him and makes the best world she can for him.  Then one day, she tells Jack the truth about Room and Outside, and devises an escape plan.  No spoilers here about what happens.

You can see how there are two different perspectives regarding the circumstances that Ma and Jack live in.  She knows the painful truth about their existence, while he knows nothing but the seemingly wonderful world she has created for him.  I eventually warmed up to the idea of a child narrator, and Donoghue creates a believable voice for Jack.

In the end, I would say that I liked this book.  I didn’t love it, but not every book that isn’t great literature, should be overlooked.  If for no other reason, I would say the very thing that annoyed me in the beginning – a very unreliable child narrator – ended up being the thing I appreciated most about the book.  Room is not a flawless story, but it was a good read.

A Final Thought About the World We Live In

I grew up at a time when, at twelve-years-old, my parents let me walk ten miles with my brother and two friends, to a State Park.  Of course, we also had to walk home.  At sixteen, I rode my bicycle about thirty miles with some girlfriends to the Jersey Shore, and home again (we stayed a couple of days).  Both times, I needed my father to come pick me up on the way home, because the distance was so far.  We didn’t have cell phones then.  We had to seek out public phones.  On the way home from the park, it was a country store.  On the way home from the shore, it was a dive bar.

I walked to school from the fifth grade –about a mile walk- through the eleventh grade – a two mile walk.  (I could drive my senior year).  I grew up walking through the woods to my grandparent’s house.  I could stay out all day, roaming the neighborhood, as long as I was home in time to help with dinner.

My point is – that is not the world we live in anymore.  We live in a world where there are people who prey on our children.  If you are the parent of children, please protect them and keep them safe.  Talk to them, teach them, and make them aware of possible dangers (without making them afraid of the world), while letting them know what to do and who to go to for help if they don’t feel safe.

Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
Published by Reagan Arthur Books, 2013

About the Book

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. Sadly, she dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways. Clearly history (and Kate Atkinson) have plans for her: In Ursula rests nothing less than the fate of civilization.

Wildly inventive, darkly comic, startlingly poignant — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best, playing with time and history, telling a story that is breathtaking for both its audacity and its endless satisfactions.

My Review

I loved this book. The best comparison I might make with its premise is the movie “Ground Hog’s Day”, where Bill Murray’s character keeps reliving the day over and over, changing it a little at each recurrence as he remembers what happened the last time he lived it. So, I don’t think Atkinson’s idea is totally original; however, I enjoyed her writing style, which in this book included bits of poetry, philosophy, and a bit of Latin. This is the first book of hers I have ever read.

The story takes place during WWII England, revolving around Ursula. Ursula lives and dies many ways during this time in history, each time a little differently. She seems to carry memories, and although she isn’t exactly certain that they are real, she lives her current life as if they are true. This causes her to make different choices sometimes, thereby, changing the course of history. It asks the reader to consider the different paths one can take in life – you know when you look back and say: “What if?” Only Ursula does.

The images of the war, as it takes place in England, describe the horror of living through the long nights of bombings and the sometimes graphic descriptions of searching through the rubble for injured survivors or recovering the people who didn’t make it. These scenes are realistic, full of emotion and honesty. They are some of the most compelling parts of the book. But don’t worry, it isn’t all sad. There are parts of the book that will make you laugh.

The characters in this book are so well drawn. There is Ursula’s family, friends, and the people she works side by side with through the crisis of war. I don’t know if it is the way the English approach life or if it is patriotism during wartime, but there wasn’t anything false about the characters. They could stop for tea, they could call upon courage, and they were somewhat uplifting, doing their best in the worst of times.

There was only one little part of the book that I felt could have been edited just a bit, although I think it has a place in the plot. That is when Ursula ends up visiting with Eva Braun. Curious? Aside from that, I enjoyed the book.

I have read other reviews that complained about the ending of the book, and I do not want to spoil that by writing about it here. However, I don’t know how else Atkinson could have more perfectly brought the story to its conclusion.

The Light Between Oceans
By M.L. Stedman
Published by Scribner, 2012

About the Book

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby.

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.

My Review

I absolutely loved this book.  Tom and his wife Isabel are living on an island, literally cut off from the rest of civilization.  They are faced with a very difficult moral decision when they find a little baby floating in a boat with a dead man, who presumably, is the father.  A woman’s sweater is also in the boat, and Isabel wants to believe that the mother might have fallen out of the boat.  So, do they keep the baby as their own or report what really happened in the log book, and send the baby back to the mainland with the next supply boat?

Even though I knew that what Tom and Isabel did was wrong, I felt totally sympathetic toward them.  Poor Isabel wanted a child so badly, and in midst of grieving, she feels God has answered her prayers.  Tom struggles with keeping the baby, named Lucy, but he sees how much it means to Isabel, as he watches her loving and caring for the infant girl.  Lucy even reaches into Tom’s heart and he is a loving father.  Isabel lives in peace with their decision, but Tom’s conscience bothers him.  He quietly wrestles with correcting the wrong.  Eventually, their secret begins to affect their relationship.

M.L. Stedman writes a story that leaves the reader struggling with the same inner conflict as the characters.  Would you, could you, keep a baby that floated up to your door, given the circumstances?  The story is emotionally moving.  The descriptions of the Australian town and the lighthouse island help the reader visualize and understand the times, and they also contribute to the plot.  It is a beautifully written story.

Life As We Knew It – by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Published 2006 by Harcourt Children’s Books

This is a young adult fiction, written in the form of a teen a girl’s diary.  A meteor hits the moon and knocks it out of its orbit, causing worldwide natural disasters – tsunami’s, earthquakes, and volcanos.  The ash blocks out the sun, an arctic winter sets in, and Miranda, her mother, and her two brothers must figure out how to survive.

Fortunately, Miranda’s family has a wood stove and some stock-piled food, but there is no electricity.  Injuries or illness can be fatal.  But, Miranda and her family never give up hope, even though there doesn’t seem to be any reason to believe they will have a future.   I would definitely recommend this for a young adult.  The story keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time.

Old Man’s War – John Scalzi (2005)  Won a Hugo Award for Best Novel 2006
Published in 2007 by Tor Books

Imagine being 75-years-old and you are given the opportunity to be young again.  Would you do it?  Would you want to?  There is a catch.  You must join the army.  Not just any army, but one in outer space.  You are never allowed to return to Earth.  For all intent and purposes, you are considered dead.

Humanity has made it into space, where they must fight alien races for planets that are habitable.  The old people who have signed up for the army really are made young again, and they have super human strength, endurance and speed.  The first thing they all do is go crazy having as much sex as they possibly can with one another.  Then boot camp started.  That’s where I stopped reading.

In spite of the praise for this book, and its Hugo Award, I gave up about half way through it.  I don’t believe in wasting my time with a book if I don’t like it by the time I get that far.

Finch – Jeff VanderMeer
Published in 2009 by Underland Press
First Published by Tor Books in 2006

This book is a science fiction, detective story, mystery, and fantasy.  In a world known as Ambergris, gray caps have risen from the earth and now control the human race.  At the beginning of the story, Finch is called upon as a detective to solve two murders.

The world in this book is a strange one, covered in fungus and it is very wet and gross.  People are drugged, kept in camps, and live under martial law; subject to being terrorized by the gray caps at any moment.  While Finch is trying to solve the murders, he must contact the rebels, who seem to be led by the mysterious Blue Lady.

I liked the character of Finch and his neighbor Rathven, who I am sure, plays a big part in the story, but I did not finish the book.  I borrowed it from the library, so I might check it out again.  But, Barnes and Noble had a big sale this past weekend – 50% off – and I bought six books, which I wanted to start reading right away.

P.S.  I have read two non-Science Fiction books, that I loved, and I will write reviews of them soon:  The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, and The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved books. And while I enjoy non-fiction , biographies, and other types of books; here I am speaking about fiction, which by definition is something invented by the imagination – an invented story.

When I was younger, I carried a book everywhere. I would read while I walked. I hid books in my school desk and read. I would hide a book under the dinner table. I would take a flashlight to bed. Often, I read more than one book at a time. I still do. And I still carry a book with me almost everywhere I go – only now it is usually my e-reader (it has a backlight – no flashlight needed).

Before I could read, I would memorize the words to the children’s stories my parents read to me. Then I could sit with the book and pretend to read it. The first book I remember memorizing was “Little Red Riding Hood.” I could picture myself as the little girl in the red cloak, taking a basket through the woods to her grandmother and the dangerous wolf that threatened their lives.

That is the way of books. Books bring you into a life that is not your own. You get to live out experiences that are not your own. You can identify with the characters, or maybe despise them, but they become real, even though they only live within the pages of the book. You can travel to exotic places you might never see, and imagine what it must be like You might even learn to think differently because books can broaden your horizons, when you truly immerse yourself in them.

When reading a book, I am not looking for a page-turner that is a fast-paced thriller, although I have read my share of those. I am looking for a book that broaches themes; that makes me contemplate what I might do if faced with the same moral or ethical conundrum as the character.

A truly good book is well-written. Every word, every sentence, every paragraph – each gesture and all of the dialogue, is carefully chosen and constructed. It has meaning. It makes me reflect about what the author is saying; what the author is trying to convey – whether it is about love and loss, about good and evil, or about life and death. It can take you into the past or forward into the future; to worlds that don’t even exist. A book has no boundaries to where it might take you. All you have to do is open the cover to begin the art of reading.
————————————–
© Robin Tjernagel
Real Life and Life Imagined
————————————–

Have you ever been in a dating relationship that is very new and you want to make a good impression, so you pretend a little?  You might not even realize you are pretending, but you are an improved version of yourself around that person.  Supposedly – in the real world as opposed to the literary one – you can keep up that pretense for approximately two years, but eventually the real you surfaces.

Have you ever been in a long-term relationship that is very familiar and you start to take things for granted; start to take the other person for granted?  Have you ever heard the expression:  Familiarity breeds contempt?  Sometimes, when the pretense of the new relationship falls away, people find they don’t really like the person who has emerged – whether it is who they have become in the relationship or whether it is who the other person has revealed him or herself to be.

Gone Girl explores the relationship of Nick and Amy from newly dating to their five-year wedding anniversary.  That is when Amy disappears and Nick is the number one suspect in what looks like murder.

About the Book

Marriage can be a real killer. One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn, takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. As The Washington Post proclaimed, her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit with deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick Dunne’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick Dunne isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but hearing from Amy through flashbacks in her diary reveal the perky perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer? As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister Margo at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was left in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

Employing her trademark razor-sharp writing and assured psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.

My Review

The book is a psychological thriller.  The plot is riveting and when it seems like you have figured it out, it takes an unexpected turn.  Gillian Flynn takes a seemingly ordinary couple in an ordinary marriage and turns normal on its head.

• From the newness of a dating relationship to the familiarity of a marital relationship, nothing is as it seems.
• There is deception at every turn.
• Sociopathic (or is that psychopathic?) manipulation is taken to unimaginable extremes.
• Dark suspense.
• Chilling.
• TWISTED!

I couldn’t put the book down, even when I was appalled by the characters – by both their behavior and by who they are as people.  The characters aren’t likeable.  I was annoyed with the book a good bit of the time, especially the first half of the story.  And yet, I couldn’t walk away.   I kept coming back for more until I came to the very last page, which left me laughing and pulling my hair out.  The ending is a bit outrageous.  Let me repeat the last point of my bullet list – TWISTED!  If this couple was real, I wouldn’t want them for neighbors.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, even though I have mixed feelings about it because it is so dark.  I wanted to love it and I had high expectations.  The book is wildly popular, with rave reviews, and the wait list at the library is months long, so I bought the e-book.  I have to admit that the plot is clever and the characters are smartly written.  Overall, it is an imaginative story.  Flynn manipulates the reader pretty brilliantly as she takes you on a journey to find out the truth about Nick and Amy.  If you like a good suspense thriller, this might be the book for you.

————————————–
© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
————————————–

Author’s Website:  http://gillian-flynn.com/

This book is the reason I love to read.  It is the kind of book that you can’t put down, but you must or it will come to an end too soon – and you don’t want it to end.  You want to remain in its pages forever.

The Story

The story is a riveting saga of twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone, born of a tragic union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, and bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.But it’s love, not politics — their passion for the same woman — that will tear them apart and force Marion to flee his homeland and make his way to America, finding refuge in his work at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him, wreaking havoc and destruction, Marion has to entrust his life to the two men he has trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.

My Review

Cutting for Stone is an epic story about family, love, betrayal, exile and loss.  The story spans two continents, Africa and North America, from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to New York City, and it is written brilliantly.  Riveting, magnificent, thrilling, and masterful!

Verghese tells the story from one character’s perspective, switching the narrative from first person to third person point-of-view.  It is one of the things I loved about the book.  Storytelling is more than just being able to tell a good story.  It is how the story is crafted that takes it from a good story to a great story, and Verghese is a skilled writer.  His descriptions are vivid and the story is absolutely gripping.

When you want to know something about a character or the next part of the story, Verghese makes you wait.  He leaves you anticipating the answers you are looking for.  But, while you wait, he gives you so much more than you could imagine or hope for.  He makes the wait worthwhile.

Verghese writing touched every emotion.  I laughed, I cried, I cringed, I was happy, I was sad, I got a bit miffed, and sometimes I felt a bit of outrage.  I was swept away with every word, with the rise and fall of each moment.

I know it seems that I like most books I read; but, this book is worthy of my bookshelf.  It is that good!

P.S.  I usually borrow books from the library, and then I purchase the ones that are worth lugging around every time I move.  The last book I bought after I borrowed it from the library was Life of Pi (also a very good read).  The drawback is that I rarely read a book the minute it hits the bookstore, but good books are timeless.

————————————–
© Robin Tjernagel
Crime and Literature
Real Life and Life Imagined
————————————–

Abraham Verghese’s website:  http://www.abrahamverghese.com/default.asp