Beautiful Boy (migrated from Bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

Beautiful Boy by David Sheff

I put off reading this book for so long because I knew it would be difficult — and rightfully so.  However, I do believe it is worth reading.  It is the harrowing, true story (probably so much more harrowing because it’s true!) of a father whose son is addicted to methamphetamine.  The account is painstaking and painful, recurrent and repetitive, really because the experience is.  He tells of his son, Nic, who is a bright, talented, truly “beautiful” boy who maybe  and maybe not because of his parents’ difficult divorce and their long-distance custody arrangement, begins to use marijuana.  He quickly moves on to alcohol and other drugs and finally finds his true love in meth.  And the drug, as it tends to do, takes over his life.  When Nic is on the drug, he becomes a different person — cold, impervious, resentful and conniving and completely manipulates his friends and family to enable his drug use.

His is a typical story, evidently, and the author peppers the story with actual research statistics and theories and advice for other parents in the same situation.  Mostly, though, it seems to be a catharsis for this father who writes as his way of coping.  He offers frequently that there is no great advice and there is no single answer to what heals an addict.  It seems there are some addicts who cannot be healed.  Even with treatment and rehab there is relapse and it often seems truly hopeless.

Probably most importantly, the author stresses particularly at the end of the book, the importance of the family members to get treatment themselves.  Being that closely tied to an addict can be just as “addictive” and destructive as being the addict.  It can take over your life just as easily.  This is an important message for those close to anyone with such an overwhelming disease.

As painful as this book was to read, I am so glad I did read it.  I learned so much.

The Chaperone (migrated from Bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty

More than the beautiful writing and the wonderful character portraits drawn in this book, I loved the message contained in these pages.  In the telling of this story about Cora, a woman with grown children who volunteers to chaperone a bratty teenager, Louise Brooks, to New York City in her quest for stardom, the author so articulately writes the wisdom that the generations can learn from each other.  Cora begins as a fairly stodgy and righteous old coot who is very concerned about maintaining her charge’s reputation.  Louise, on the other hand, is determined to act out and rebel against all of this and does not care at all what anyone thinks.  As the story progresses, however, they both learn that they need to do what they can to make themselves happy and that staying with the status quo does not always accomplish that.

The reader cannot help loving Cora, who is very human and very wise.  There are dilemmas and difficulties in her life that are not what she ever anticipates, but she finds a way to cope and find happiness.  She, in her own way, becomes something of a rebellious one, and she accepts change more than even she would have ever imagined.

The book is also historical fiction, giving the reader a close-up of the small town perspective on the 1920’s through the second world war and beyond.  The social evolution that Cora is a part of is very reflective of the changes occurring during these radical times.  And while Cora is a victim of some of the early prejudices, she becomes something of an instrument of change in her later years.  Her understanding of the urgency for this change to occur is so beautifully summed up by my favorite quote in the book, “she would owe this understanding to her time in New York, and even more to Louise.  That’s what spending time with the young can do — it’s the big payoff for all the pain.  the young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges.  But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up the the window of the future, and even push you through.”

Beautiful Ruins (migrated from Bookblogger)

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Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

What a beautiful book, written so beautifully!  When a stunning American actress arrives at a tiny pension on a tinier island off the coast of Italy, Pasquale, the owner of the pension, cannot believe his luck.  Not only does he believe his father’s dream of their hotel becoming a hot spot for Americans may actually materialize, but he is also entranced by the beauty of this American.  As it happens, the American actress, Dee, of course has a story as does the naive but sincere Pasquale, but their lives are forever bound by this chance encounter.  The story is told in parts, bouncing back and forth between the time they meet in Italy, in 1962, and today, when Pasquale searches for her in America.  It also bounces from each of their stories to other characters that are woven into their tale, but it all works to keep the story moving and engaging.

The characters in this book are distinctive and each has a unique voice.  Each of them has been affected in some way by the 2nd world war and this shadows over some of their personalities.  In addition, the stories and the language of 1962 in the tiny village contrast so strikingly with those of the fast-paced action of the contemporary parts — and both are written with wit and an almost poetic rhythm.  I loved the writing in this book.

And it is one of the few books that give resolution and don’t leave you hanging at the end.  Thank you, Mr. Walter!

The Pillars of the Earth (migrated from Bookblogger)

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The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

The words “saga” and “epic” cannot even come close to describing this almost exhausting tale of Phillip, the monk/prior and Tom the Builder and the lives touched by these 2 good people.  They are characters that live in the 1100’s in England, during a time when the Church and the king were always in a constant struggle for power and wealth, as were their underlings.  Phillip and Tom, shared a dream of building a large, beautiful cathedral in their priory of Kingsbridge.  Unfortunately, their efforts were constantly being thwarted by their rivals for power, the evil men, William (a knight battling for earldom and Waleran, Phillip’s devious senior in the church.  The many, many vicious and violent efforts to thwart the building of the cathedral were overcome by sheer power of will and political maneuvering that keep the story very suspenseful.  There are some very gritty scenes of violence, but there are also many scenes of love and valour and honor which may bring more than a tear to your eye.

This is a very long book and some parts stall a bit.  There is a lot of detail about the architecture and the construction of the buildings that might be a little drawn out.  At one point, I was ready to give up on either side even while the characters were not!  The near-misses and the almost fatal blows and the coincidences were just a bit contrived, but were very suspenseful nonetheless.

Best of all, this book really gives the reader the flavor of the hardships of life in the Middle Ages, when there was so much strife between the King and the Church and so much of the everyday life was influenced by the whims of either one.  Whether you were a peasant or a lord at this time, your life was changeable at a moment’s notice, depending on your alliances and how they shifted.  Power changed frequently and those in power were often ruthless.  The harsh conditions and gritty existence of their lives was highlighted as was the potential for abject poverty and hunger that many experienced.  But there was also good and kindness and even forgiveness and some of the goodness of the Prior Phillip was very heartening.

While I was exhausted from this book, I also didn’t want it to end.  It is an excellent book and I heartily recommend it.  I would just also recommend finding a light, fun book to read afterwards — that is just what I need right now!

The Art of Fielding (migrated from Bookblogger)

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The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Here’s a novel for all you sportspeople out there, for anyone who understands the pressure of the game and the importance of concentration/confidence.  It is the story of a boy, Henry, who is recruited to a college baseball team because he’s a shortstop who has broken a record of sorts of games in a row with no errors.  His captain, known as Schwartz, drives him hard and builds him up to achieve a degree of notoriety and he begins to attract scouts from the majors.  Meanwhile, the daughter of the president of the college, whose life has fallen apart forcing her to return to her father and the college campus, develops a relationship with Schwartz.  At the same time, her father has an affair with Henry’s roommate and good friend, Owen.  This sounds convoluted and it is to a degree, but it actually works for this story.

The writing is crisp and fresh and the characters become people you want to know.  You really care when Henry’s confidence wilts and throws his game.  You are really happy for Pella (the daughter) when she falls for Schwartz, giving her a second chance at love.  And you really want Owen and the President to get together, although the ethics there are both questionable and questioned.

As a prior softball player and a mom of a baseball player, I also understood the analogy of the baseball game to life and how hard work and perseverance pays off  but confidence is essential.

Good book!

The Lost Wife (migrated from bookblogger)

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The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

This is the beautifully written saga of Lenka and Josef who fall in love in the late 1930’s in the romantic city of Prague, just prior to the onset of WWII.  The war separates them tragically and the story tells the tale of their lives during and after the war.  Lenka is caught in the Nazi web of ghetto, deportation, and concentration camps.  The reader feels her hunger and filth and cold along with her, it is made so real.  Josef manages to escape to America, but the loss of his family is a silent ache that he secretly bears his whole life.  Eventually, life brings them together but only after they have lived thinking the other had died during the war.

This book is a love story but it is filled with well-researched historical fiction, with more history than fiction.  Some of the characters that the author has woven into the story were real people that the author learned about in her research of the Holocaust.  The author highlights, in particular, the artwork that was done by both the children and the adults in Theresin, the showcase camp set up by the Germans.  These brave souls depicted, in their art, the hideous conditions in which they were living and some of their paintings and drawings were able to be leaked out to the world for publication.  Many more were uncovered after the inmates were liberated.  This book celebrated the many brave souls, both Jewish and non-Jewish, who fought their own artistic battle with their Nazi captors.

What was also unique about this book was how the author highlighted the tragedy not only of those who lived through the concentration camps but also those who escaped but lost family, homes and all that was familiar to them.  While those who lived through the camps suffered unimaginable horrors, those who were forced to leave their homes, their possessions, their birthplaces, were also displaced and    traumatized in their own ways.  Those who came to America had to learn a new language, become familiar with an entirely different culture and learn to cope with the losses they inevitably endured.  In addition, the “survivors guilt” must have been overwhelming.  I love that this book brought this to light,  showing further how the Holocaust caused such far-reaching suffering and tragedy.

The Art of Racing in the Rain (migrated from bookblogger)

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The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

I am still reeling from the emotional effects of this book.  So beautifully told from the perspective of a dog, this story is about a race car driver named Denney, who is married and has a little girl.  His wife develops a brain tumor and her parents sort of take over her care and the care of their daughter.  On the very day that the wife dies, the parents propose that they gain custody of the daughter, and so begins a Denney’s heroic battle to gain custody of his daughter.  The battle becomes unbelievably ugly and the reader is sucked in and kept breathless over the course of the fight.

The beauty of this book is in the voice of the dog.  I am sure I am not the only one who has seen dogs appear to understand everything that is going on and wonder if they really do.  The voice of Enzo, this particular dog, gives a warmth and a humor to the story that really engages the reader.  He is extremely philosophical and wise and has awareness of things beyond what people are able to sense — and it feels entirely plausible when you are reading it!

This is another book that after finishing, I could not rush into the next book because I really just wanted to sit with the characters in my mind for a day or two.  I love when a book does that!

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (migrated from bookblogger)

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The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Phillip Sendker

The Art of Heating Heartbeats is an absolutely beautiful story about a young lawyer, Julia, who takes a leave from her job to investigate her father’s disappearance.  Her father, Tin Win, had mysteriously left for a business trip and never returned and the only hint of his whereabouts was a love letter that had been found from him to a woman in Burma, in his home town.  When Julia arrives in this tiny town, she is met by a stranger who begins to tell her the story of her father and his upbringing and about the heart-wrenching love story he had been embroiled in during his youth.

The story is poetically woven, capturing the reader’s attention at the first page and never letting go.  The characters are as unique as the story itself and the reader cannot help but be drawn in to their story.  Tin Win’s teacher when he was a young boy, for example, became a tender father figure to him and was patient and kind and shared with Tin Win (and the reader) much wisdom.  Even Julia, who starts out as a daughter who feels hurt and angry and abandoned, develops a compassion for her father that she did not know she was capable of.

This is a powerful “love conquers all” story that wins your heart with every beat.

Sea Glass (migrated from bookblogger)

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Sea Glass, by Anita Shreve

Sea Glass is a quietly powerful novel that is centered around the crash of the stock market in 1929 and the growth of unions in its aftermath.  It is also a story of honesty and trust and how the absence of both can unravel a relationship.  The tale is told from the point of view of different characters who really are the strength of this novel.  They are endearing (or not, in some cases) and it is hard not to come to love them for the quirks that make each of them so real.   There is Honora, the main character and who is as her name suggests, tragically honorable and who just gets on with whatever it is she is dealt.  There is her neighbor and friend, the loyal Vivian, who is rich but generous and kind almost in spite of herself.  There is the young Alphonse, who stole my heart just as he’d stolen McDermott’s heart and made me want to take care of him as the tender McDermott had.  As these characters are eventually brought together by circumstance, the story becomes woven more and more tightly and the suspense of what is to come rises.   Beyond the story itself, the characters’ individual situations also enable the reader to appreciate the extremes of wealth and abject poverty that people experienced during that era (which unfortunately, sound all too familiar after our more recent stock market debacle).  The reader is very subtly pulled into the story and held there with such force that you actually want to continue to hold onto the characters after it’s over.

This is a beautiful, albeit sad, story that is beautifully written.  Read it!

The Invisible Bridge

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The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer

I have a love-hate relationship with Holocaust-related books.  I hate them because they are painful and tear at my heart and I often can’t sleep at night because of them.  I love them, because they are essential to keeping the memory of what happened burning in our minds and they are often poignant and dramatic stories in and of themselves.  I have read many, although each time I am leery about starting them.  This one I put off for a long time, but it was recommended by so many people that I had to give in and take the plunge.

This one, though, was worth the heartache.  It is a brilliantly written story of a young, Jewish man named Andras who goes from Hungary to Paris in 1937 to study architecture.  While there, he falls in love and gets swept up in the politics of war.

This great literary saga truly captures the day-to-day miseries of the Second World War.  The characters are loved and lost just as they were during the war.  The separations and sacrifices are dramatic, just as they were in real life at that time.  This book is also unique both in how it goes into detail about the earlier antisemitic forces both in France and in Hungary (prior to the war) and in its description of the war in Hungary specifically, which is often omitted in Holocaust books.

In short,  The Invisible Bridge is worth every tear you will shed.