Wednesday, May 27, 2009

My Sister's Keeper - by Jodi Picoult



This is the first book I've ready by Jodi Picoult and I couldn't put it down. The story is about a 13 year old girl who was conceived to be a genetic match to her older sister who suffers from a rare form of Leukemia. In her few short years she's already given several donations to her sister, from blood to bone marrow and now she is being asked to give her kidney. She is asking for the right to have a say in this decision.

The book alternates first person POV from Anna who is struggling to obtain her own identity for the first time in her life. To Kate, the sick sister who has fought hard and would like her own chance at a normal life. To Jesse, the brother who has become invisible to the family so wrapped up in his sister's illness. To Sara, the mother so wrapped up in trying to save her daughter she doesn't realize what she is doing to the rest of the family. Brian, the father is a fire-fighter, who has dedicated his life to saving people yet he can't do anything to save his daughter. Campbell, the lawyer that Anna hires, has his own issues. He initially takes the case seeing an opportunity for glory but realizes that he has a much larger opportunity. Julia, who is appointed as the Guardian Ad Litem to help make the decision as to whether or not Anna or her parents should have final say in Anna's choice to help her sister.

The book goes back and forth in time and shares the history of this family as well as the current state of affairs. It is a book about family and how we take them for granted. It is a book about how easy it is to slip through the cracks and become or, at least, feel invisible even amongst those who love you the most. It is a book about the masks we wear and how we try to hide our weaknesses to be strong for those around us. The book addresses some hard choices, from the current situation with stem cell research and the idea of creating a "designer baby" to the choices many of us have to make at some point in our life when it comes to health/medical issues of those we love.

The ending was not at all what I expected, but it really did end the only way that the book could end. Throughout the book you will smile and you will shed tears, sometimes for happy moments and sometimes for those moments in life that are sad not because of what happens but because of the circumstances that can't be avoided.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I intend to. However, from the previews I have seen it is apparent that they do take some license with the book, I just hope they don't take too much.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Review: The Soloist by Steve Lopez



The Soloist by Steve Lopez

This book was recently made into a movie, which I have not yet seen, but I can't imagine that it comes close to telling as much of the story, as honestly, as this book does.

Mr. Lopez initially meets the homeless Cello / Violin player on the streets of Southern California. Mr Lopez is a newspaper columnist and in Nathanial Ayers he sees a column (or three). Out of his own selfish need he takes the time to get to know this man and learn why he is on the street. How can a man who is so obviously talented be living on the streets? Would could have happened to him to bring him there? These are the questions that Mr Lopez sets out to discover. In doing so, he decides to take on the mission of trying to help Mr Ayers, a mission he admittedly wishes would be done soon. Mr Lopez is brutally honest in telling this story of what he does in his attempts to help this man. Through his own selfish need to have something to write about and his both selfish and unselfish attempts to help Mr Ayers, he ends up helping many more by bringing the plight of the homeless in LA to the forefront of everyone's mind, including that of the local government.

The book starts off wonderfully as he tells this story, in addition to Mr Ayers story, we learn about the stories of others who are also homeless, and the state of homelessness, in general. How did it get to the point that so many are living on the streets, and why can't we do more about it. Unfortunately, about 2/3 of the way through the book, it seems that the book becomes much like Mr Lopez initial need to fix Mr Ayers, a project he wishes would be over soon. The book changes tone and seems to become repetitive. Information we've already learned about Mr Ayers is repeated and sometimes the story becomes jumbled and I wasn't sure if bits of the story he was telling were happening at the same time. By the time the book ended, I too was ready for this project to be over. But, I was left wondering about a few things. What did become of Mr Ayers? Granted this story has not truly ended yet, so we won't know the overall outcome until after he dies. Did Mr Lopez feel that he had really helped or fixed Mr Ayers? And did he continue the friendship after the project was over? Because although Mr Lopez called Mr Ayers his friend, I never really got the feeling that he was ever more to him than a project that he would do whatever needed to be done in order to see through to the end.


Next Book: My Sister's Keeper: A Novel by Jodi Picoult

Monday, May 11, 2009

Fear Itself - by Jonathan Nasaw



I will admit, Jonathan Nasaw is quickly climbing the ranks as one of my favorite fiction writers. I've always enjoyed a good thriller and he writes them well.

This particular novel takes us into the mind of a serial killer (don't they all?) who happens to be have an issue with phobias. His greatest fear is boredom (or the "blind rat" as his grandfather called it) and the best way he'd found to stave off his boredom is to prey on other people's fears. Find out what their greatest fear is and then taunt them with it and watch them squirm. The problem is that "flooding" someone with a phobia with the thing of their fears is often the fastest way to cure them. Once he's flooded them and they are no longer afraid, he's bored again so the only thing left to do is kill them.

On the other end of the scale is E.L Pender, a retiring FBI agent who was introduced in Nasaw's first book (The Girls He Adored). You can't help but like Pender when you read Nasaw's books. At this point in his life, he's ready to retire. He's all but handed in his gun and has headed to the West coast for a week of gold before he does just that. The lady chosen to take over for him has opened a letter (and a can of worms) on his last day that describes how one woman believes that her friends with phobias are being killed off one by one. Pender, being the helpful soul that he is, decides to look up the woman while he's on the West Coast. One thing leads to another and he finds himself up to his armpits in trouble and fear.

As the body count goes up, you keep turning pages to see what will happen next.

Nasaw typically writes his stories in a way that the reader knows who the bad guy is and is seeing the story as much from his (or her) point of view as from the good guy or the victim. It's at times frightening, disgusting and even humorous, but always an enjoyable read.

New Review: The Soloist by Steve Lopez

Nickel & Dimed: On Not Getting By In America - by Barbara Ehrenreich




This book got to me, but probably not in the way that it got to most people. It annoyed me! I grew up poor, I've worked many of the jobs that she sampled and survived. My family has worked and still works many of those jobs and yet we got by. Yes, there were difficulties but the attitude I was taught was that if you want to get somewhere you work your way there. Sometimes you suffer for various reasons, but you work to get what you need.

I felt like Barbara set herself up for failure going into this experiment. She set such rigid criteria for what she would allow herself or not allow herself that she precluded failure before she ever began. She also gave herself enough advantages that she never really saw the truth of the experience.

There were jobs she would not do, yet she said she would take the highest paying job offered to her. When you are struggling, there are not jobs that you will not do. There are no jobs that are beneath you or that you avoid because they are too boring or too intensive. You take the highest paying job you can get and you are willing to do anything.

She made sure that she always had a car. A car is a luxury to many poor people, who rely on rides from friends or public transportation. Cars add expenses. You have to pay for gas, insurance and to fix the damn thing when it breaks (and it will break). As I child I remember going through a pretty fair number of cars and thinking back I realize that that had a lot to do with my mother not having enough money to do regular maintenance on a car. So, cars didn't last and had to be replaced with another cheap car that also wouldn't last long because it was already old and probably would not be maintained very well.

She goes into each situation with enough money for a down-payment on an place to live (if she can find one she can afford). As she quickly learns a place of your own is a luxury for the poor, especially someone who is single. We lived with my grandparents for several years. At one point it was the three of us (myself, my mother and my brother), my grandparents, my aunt, and my mom's brother along with his 4 sons all in the same house. We lived there while we waited for an opening in government assisted housing. Because she was only in each situation for one month, she never saw what can be accomplished. You can't accomplish much in one month. You win through perseverance and patience, not by changing your circumstances every 30 days. Starting over takes a lot and the more you have to do it, the harder it is.

She does admit in her final chapter that she made many mistakes, including her choice to work at Wal-mart over taking another (possibly higher paying job). She passed on the other job because basically she didn't want to get up and go to work 2 days in a row (after working late the night before). That's part of life.

Yes, it's hard and yes she went from being a physically and mentally healthy woman to being tired and hurt. The difference? She came from a background where she was not used to having to do those types of jobs. She was used to doing what I am doing right now - sitting behind a desk and writing. If I had to go out right now and do the work I did for many years, standing on my feet all day. I, too, would hurt at the end of the day; and I'm much younger than she is/was. But, in time you do get used to it, and when it's all you've done you don't even notice it.

I worked my way up from the lowest wage jobs and taught myself new skills that I was able to use to make money. My husband went the harder route. He also grew up in a poor household with a single mother. He worked his way through college. He never took out a student loan. He worked restaurants and retail and sometimes two jobs at once while he went to school full time. Eventually, he graduated with a degree in Accounting, but he didn't stop there. He continued to work full time at his Accounting jobs while continuing his education to obtain his CPA and his Master's Degree.

Do I feel sorry for the people she describes in her book? To some degree. But, mostly I don't think that she ever really got it. They don't want us to feel sorry for them. They don't need it. That is their life and they are used to it. If they want more they can make it happen, but it is up to them. It does no good to hand it to someone, which seems to be what she wants to do.