The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This non-fiction book is the story of Henrietta Lacks, made immortal by her cervical cancer cells that were essentially stolen from her and used for medical research without her consent or knowledge.  Known only as HeLa cells for many years, the cancer cells divided at such a steady, rapid pace that they were essentially the earliest and most successful cells to be grown in a lab.  Since they were so hardy, they were able to be cultivated and shipped around the world and used by researchers to conduct studies and develop medical breakthroughs never before even imagined.

Unfortunately, though, the fact that they were taken from a real person with a life and a family was pretty much ignored.  The uncovering of this story by the author became a revelation to both her and to the family and she reveals the impact of this as the story unfolds.  There is, in the telling of this injustice, a chronology of sorts of many other injustices and the resultant development of informed consent for medical research.  (One horrifying fact this book reveals is that our country had developed laws regulating the treatment of animals in research even before we had laws protecting humans!  Imagine that!)

It’s a very personal story, particularly as it relates to Deborah, Henrietta’s daughter, and a very public story as it relates to the history of medical research.  It does jump a bit from topic to topic and the writing is a bit choppy, but it is a fascinating and honest story nonetheless.

A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

For a long time I put off reading this book…  The topic here, sex trafficking of minors, is not for the feint of heart.  Or for anyone with a heart, really.  On the other hand, it’s probably one of the most important topics we could be reading about.  It is a billion-dollar, world-wide nightmare for millions of underaged, vulnerable children and women and we need to understand the problem fully.

This also happens to be an incredible book.  The story is about 2 Indian sisters, Ahalya and Sita, who, after a tsunami has drowned their whole immediate family, are kidnapped and sold into slavery.  Meanwhile, Thomas, an American lawyer who is going through his own emotional crisis, is sucked into the sisters’ plight and plunges through a fight to save them.

There is utter suspense, there are twists and turns, and there is an emotional roller coaster the reader rides on that makes it absolutely impossible to put this book down.  Furthermore, I have to admit that a book has not made me sob like this one did in quite a long time.

It’s an important book for all of us to read and I’m glad I finally did.  Now we have to see what we can do to end this hideous crime!

The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This gorgeously written novel is the story of Alma Whittaker, the physically and intellectually imposing daughter of a self-made botanist/pharmacist, who has a forceful need to understand their world.   Circumstances of her childhood, such as the adoption of a second daughter by her parents, and the development of her only friendship as a child, prove to have an enormous impact on the course of Alma’s life and shape the woman and scientist she grows to be.  Her life experiences take Alma and the reader to fascinating places with unusual characters and lead to some extraordinary ideas on Alma’s part.

It’s the elegant use of language that really makes this book stand out.  The imagery is stark and beautiful.  The characters are colorful and the settings often exotic. Alma is an extremely sympathetic character, in spite of all her awkwardness, and I felt myself rooting for her almost out loud at certain moments.  There is also some very interesting historical fiction and quite a bit of science to the plot and I never felt bogged down by it.

This book is smart and interesting and altogether unique. Try it!

The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This book is absolutely intriguing.  It begins as a story about a few vastly different characters in different situations in even different time periods who, over time, come together in a cleverly knitted plot.  One beloved character is an African-American man who because of poor luck and lack of resources ends up in jail in spite of truly being innocent, and after he comes out, all he wants to do is make good so that he can find the daughter he hasn’t seen since she was 2.  Another character is a the son of a Jewish lawyer who was very involved in the civil rights movement who is himself trying to revive his failing career as a history professor at Columbia.  A third main character is an elderly Jewish man who is a Holocaust survivor who is a patient at Sloan Kettering.  Each story gradually winds its way around the other to come together in a beautiful denouement.

The writing is interesting as well.  There is a lot of repetition of an almost musical style.  In going back and forth between the characters and the story line, this is not only helpful but it also feels also like a refrain in a song or a poem.  It is almost as if each character cannot believe s/he is who or where s/he is and needs reminding of what is happening.  Occasionally the repetition is more than is necessary, bit it is certainly unique.

I will say that as many books as I’ve read about the Holocaust, this has some of the most graphic descriptions of the death camps that I’ve encountered.  There are vivid details of the gas chambers and the crematoria such that this book is not for the feint of heart.  That said, it is also inspiring and uplifting in its own way as well.

I highly recommend this book both for its literary and historical beauty!

 

Family Pictures by Jane Green (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

After Silvie has lost the love of her life, in the death of her first husband, Mark comes along and pretty much sweeps her off her feet.  Handsome and charming, he is the ideal husband and step-father to her daughter, Eve.  Until he’s not…

This book is a sort of Pilot’s Wife of the Facebook era.  And unfortunately, it is so much more contrived that it’s less plausible.  The characters are vague and stereotypical and undergo miraculous changes that are just too hard to believe.  And the voice changes from first person to third person, depending on whom it is referring to and the choice of voice is particularly strange because the main character is the one who does not get her own voice.

It is a quick read and it has some suspense, but all in all, it’s so implausible that it is a little absurd.

Her Father’s House by Belva Plain (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

My favorite books are those with multiple plots that intertwine and bring characters and stories together in a clever twist; unfortunately, this was not one of those kinds of books.  While it was somewhat engaging and had a little suspense, it was a straight line story that was only fairly well told.  The story is about Donald Wolfe, a young lawyer new to New York City, who falls in love with Lillian, a captivating young woman, who he learns fairly quickly is a social climber who has just used him as a stepping stone.  When she discovers she’s pregnant, he insists she keep his child and what happens with the child is at the heart of this story.

I think I really read this book because of a nostalgia for the oh-so-popular Evergreen (from many moons ago!) and thought I’d be carried back to that time.  This had my attention but it was no Evergreen…

An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is the most well-written book that I didn’t like very much.  The writing is witty and clever, even making me chuckle throughout.  The vocabulary is great and you can hear the accents of the characters in the wording.

The story is about Charles, who is a wealthy young man who has left college and is doing nothing but laying around his mansion, when he learns that he is actually is no longer as wealthy as he thought. Suddenly, he’s thrust into the world and has to survive and get – say it isn’t so! — a job.  His sister is an aspiring actress who is the only person in the world he actually cares about and the story develops around their relationship.

Unfortunately, this main character, Charles, is a loser for whom at least I felt no attachment.  I am still trying to figure out if he is utterly snobby and self-absorbed or if he just has Asperger’s, because he is completely unaware of the feelings of anyone around him and it is so extreme that it makes him not credible as a character.  I think that this is part of the point of the story, but I only learned that so late in the book that it was just too much work to be worth it.  So it is hard to continue to read this story about someone you don’t care about.  (His sister is really not much better either.  On the other hand, his sister’s boyfriend, Frank, who at first Charles dislikes or rather, disdains, is the only character I really did like.  He’s actually the only endearing character in the story.)

It seems the writer has great potential but needs a better story and better characters to work with.  Too bad…

 

Jerusalem Maiden by Talia Carner (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This book was one of those little finds where your (at least my) expectations were low and you’re pleasantly surprised.  This is the story of Esther, a 12 year old Haredi Jewish girl growing up in Jerusalem in the early 1900’s, who has a gift for drawing and painting which she’s forbidden, according to her strict religious dicta, to indulge.  When she sneaks out to paint with her French, non-Jewish teacher, and creates images that can be construed, in her mind, as idols, she finds that bad things happen to her family and she perceives these things as punishments for her sins.  She struggles to quell this urge in herself as she grows older, all the while also experiencing the other ways in which this restrictive sect  forces her to be who she is not.

This book gives the reader an interesting lens through which to view the life of the Haredi Jew.  This sect, even more restrictive than the Chassidic sects with which we’re more familiar, sees its own strict adherence to the Torah as the only possible means of redemption of the Jewish people via the coming of the Messiah.  The State of Israel does not exist in their eyes, as it will only exist when the Messiah actually arrives.  It is an insular community and is cut off from most of the rest of the world.  Women’s rights and really anyone’s rights besides those of the white, Jewish, Haredi male, are non-existent.

The story moves the reader also through some of the early history of the Jews in the land of Israel, from the rule of the Turks to the British Mandate to the establishment of the State of Israel.  We are privy to the poverty and deprivation the Jews experienced during the Ottoman Empire as the Turks were losing their war.  We also learn of the advances brought by the British as they came into power over the land.  And the struggles between the varying factions, whether religious, philosophical and/or political are just beginning to fester.

The story is intriguing and the history and the perspective this book offers make it that much deeper a reading experience.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is a surprisingly moving story about a young girl, June, whose uncle Finn is dying of AIDS in the mid-1980s.  June and Finn have an unusually close relationship for an uncle and niece and so it hits hard that Finn is so fatally ill.  During his last weeks, he spends each Sunday afternoon painting a portrait of June and her sister Greta, who does everything in her power to avoid posing for these sessions.  June’s relationship with Finn seems to have cut a wedge between her and her sister, Greta, and so the story develops around Finn’s death and its complicated aftermath.

From the first page, the book had me loving Finn just as June did, feeling everything June felt in the fantasy world of the adolescent girl.  The relationships that develop and the love and the hate that stems from them are all so extreme and so normal that it pulls at your heart.  While some of it is a little far-fetched (a teenager’s absence from school does not go so unnoticed in schools in Westchester, for example, even with parents working as long hours as hers did), it is romantic and emotional and sweet nonetheless.

I can see this appealing to a wide range of ages, from teens to older adults.  The teens can relate to the teens in the story while the older adults (I guess I have to include myself in this less-than-desirable category!) can appreciate the historical perspective on the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.  But it is a far-reaching story that also appeals to anyone with a family and a heart.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (migrated from bookblogger)

Posted on by marjorieseidenfeld

This is a tale of how evil begets evil; the tale of how a set of “two-egg twins” become the victims and then the pawns and ultimately, again, the victims of a series of evil-doing and of hatred.  The story is set in India, where a caste system still remains because of entrenched history that is difficult to relinquish.  It is this perpetuated hatred that leads to the damning of love the twins have for a man their mother is in love with as well (a man who is not their father but who acts as a father might to them).  In a circular way, the accidental death of a visiting cousin of the twins becomes twisted into a death sentence for an innocent man who is guilty of only loving.

The story is told in a very roundabout way, in a fragmented, twisting of the events.  It is also told with imagery in almost every sentence, which is sometimes beautiful and sometimes more than borders on irritating.  It does a great deal to build the suspense, but it also becomes frustrating to the point where the reader feels like yelling at the author, “Get to the story, already!”  There is a lot of repetition, which again, serves both to heighten the suspense and frustrate the reader.

So, do I like this book?  Do I like the writing in this book?  I felt both sides of that “reader’s” opinion:  I loved some of the imagery and I hated how drawn-out the book felt.  But I am glad that I’ve read it.  It’s a terrible, tragic story and in the end, very powerfully told.  I just recommend a bit of patience through its pages.