Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

I recently caught the 2004 movie version of this book (starring Kristen Stewart) on Lifetime. The movie was good enough that I decided it would be worthwhile to read the book. As is usually the case, the book was much better.

This is one of those situations where reading the book and knowing what it's about, you find the book almost too enjoyable for the subject-matter. In a way this book is almost a dark comedy, as much as it is a serious message about what young people really go through.

Freshman year is a hard transition for anyone, but for Melinda it's even harder. She begins her first year of high school without any friends; not because she is new to a school, but because over the summer she called the cops to a party. No one knows why she called the police, and she hasn't told them. She bears this secret right along with the day to day struggle of seeing the people who were once her friends.

Her grades drop as she skips classes. All her parents see is a child who once "perfect" suddenly changing her actions and attitudes and refusing to speak.

The book progresses through the school year, as we watch Melinda fall further and further into herself and away from others. As she struggles with telling someone what happened over the summer, we finally learn what it was. There are moments of dark humor throughout the book, allowing you to feel the emotions that Melinda feels and struggle right along beside her.

The book is listed as "adolescent reading" but I thought it was a great read, and would recommend it for any woman (regardless of age).

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

This book started a little slow for me, but by the end of the first chapter I was totally absorbed. A Reliable Wife is the story of two people, Ralph Truitt & Catherine Land, who are very different and yet so much the same. It is the story of how you so often find what you are looking for when you are looking for something else entirely; of how we rarely really know ourselves, let alone what we are looking for, or what we want.

Catherine Land is a woman who believes she is about beginnings and endings. She is looking for the ending to her story, with a feeling that there is no way that the middle could offer anything worthwhile. It's 1907 and she's in Chicago and answers a personal ad placed by Ralph Truitt, a wealthy businessman from Wisconsin, looking for a reliable wife. She replies that she is a simple and honest woman. Yet, she is anything but.

Ralph is looking for a reliable wife, but that's not really all he's looking for. He has a purpose in wanting a wife; a plan. Then again Catherine has a plan of her own; a plan to end up a wealthy widow. But, there's more to her story too than meets the eye.

Ralph has lost much in his life; the only woman he ever loved cheated on him and left him with a son that wasn't his. Eventually, he drove that son away out of hatred for the mother. Ralph wants a second chance, a second chance with his son, a second chance at life, a second chance at a legacy of his own. He figures if he has a new wife, his son will return. He sends Catherine to find his son and bring him back home.

The story twists and turns and even as I found the story going in the direction my mind wondered if it might go, I was still surprised that it went there, surprised at how it got there, surprised at just how much I felt for these people. Catherine and Ralph become more than just characters in a book, they become real people that you feel for and hope for and want happy endings for. As you read, you can't help but understand how each of them got to this point in their lives, and made the choices they made. You understand why they made these choices, and your heart breaks for them; at least mine did. I yearned for their happiness as much as they wanted it themselves.

Robert Goolrick is a powerful story teller and is amazing at character building. I'll be looking for his other books and hoping that this is something he does in each one.

Smashed: The Story of a Drunken Girlhood

This was a hard book to read, one that I couldn't read more than a chapter at a time in even though I found it constantly interesting. I think it was so hard because I could relate. Koren's story is one that can relate to any female, I think, and really makes you think about your life and the choices you've made.

I didn't start drinking at 14, like Koren, I was 16. I can still remember that first time and how "cool" it felt. That wasn't my very first drink... my first taste of alcohol was at 8 years old. My Grandma let me taste her beer. I hated the taste and still do. I've had my moments of binge drinking and I've had my moments where my drinking approached alcoholic status. Luckily, I've been able to internalize and realize when those moments occur and change my actions before they become a problem.

Koren relates her feelings towards her drinking, towards the reasons why she drinks, the holes she is trying to fill with drinking and her attempted breaks from drinking in such a way that you feel like you are right there with her. Your heart breaks for her and you feel every emotion. I know what it was like to be a teenage girl who didn't feel like she fit in and wanted to do whatever it took to feel comfortable in her own skin. This is the story that Koren relates.

At some point we each have to come to our own and figure out who we are and make a decision to accept that person. Koren was also able to come to that point, which is what allowed her to share her story. I hope that 7 years later she is still as sober as she was when she related her story.

I feel that this book, along with Prozac Nation (Movie Tie-In) and the movie, Thirteen should be required reading/viewing for all adolescent women. These are honest stories that approach what could be in a way that doesn't glamorize it. When I read or see these stories now I realize that "that could have been me" with only a few changes. These are stories that parents should read/ watch as well to help them help their children avoid falling in these same holes.

Like a Charm - by Candace Havens

I decided it was time for some brain candy reading and while I rarely go for standard chick lit or romance novels, I do like something with a little supernatural to it. Little did I know, when I found this one in the clearance bin that I may have found a new favorite author. The supernatural books are everywhere, vampires, zombies, witches, etc. However, rarely do you find one that is fun to read while at the same time actually written well and that pays homage to so many literary greats.

Kira Smythe left her home town, of Sweet, Texas, the second she got a chance. She never felt like she fit in there. It is a town protected by a coven of witches and it seems like everyone there is "special" in some way, not Kira. Kira loved books and research and grew up to become a high-powered corporate lawyer at a big firm in Atlanta. That is until one day when she found herself on a roof, after a friend had jumped and Kira couldn't remember what had happened. Sick from the shock and from being over-worked she went back home to rest, and discovered many things had changed.

When she first starts to hear voices, she thinks it's all part of her illness, and/or that she's going crazy. Then things get even crazier when her mentor and the town librarian dies just before Thanksgiving and Kira discovers that she's been left the library (the building, and all the books). Now she has to choose whether she wants to stay in Sweet and take over the library or return to her high-powered life. Of course, this library is more than just an average library, it's full of spirits and before long Kira isn't just hearing them, she's seeing them too.

This book ends too soon, and I really hope to see more stories about Kira. I know there are more stories of Sweet, featuring other characters that were also in this book. But, this idea, to me, is unique. It pays homage to Jasper Fforde and his Tuesday Next series a bit (Kira even mentions him as one of her favorite authors - mine too!). I could definitely see a lot of directions Kira's story could go as her powers develop and she gains access to the Library of Universal Knowledge.

Kite Runner - by Khaled Hosseini

Perhaps it was because I listened to it instead of actually reading it, and the audio version had been abridged, but I was somewhat disappointed in this book. Having just recently read the author's first book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, I'd found it to be a wonderful book. I had looked forward to The Kite Runner being just as good.

The Kite Runner is another story of Afghanistan, this time of a boy who grows up in the wealth of Afghanistan. His father is a businessman with a large house and servants. The servants, a man and his son, are also close friends of Amir and his father. The servant had grown up with Ali's father, raised as a brother, just as Amir grew up with Hassan, the servants son. Amir always felt that his father didn't love him because Amir did not play sports or do the things his father wanted him to do, choosing instead to read books and write. Both Amir and Hassan lost their mothers shortly after birth, and grew up as best friends, until tragedy struck one day when they were 11.

Trying to win his father's love, Amir entered the annual Kite Fighting contest with Hassan's help. They were set to win with Hassan chasing down the final kite. When Amir went to find him, he saw something that changed both of their lives forever. His own guilt caused him to push his best friend away, to the point of lying about it and having them thrown out of his father's house.

Over the next 27 years, Amir and his father are forced to take exile to America, and as their lives changed in ways they never imagined, Amir never saw Hassan again. Twenty-seven years later, Amir found himself back in Afghanistan, forced to face his past and the guilt he'd been running from and finally given a chance to atone for what he had done.

Overall, the story is great, well-written and gripping. Yet, it falls apart in the end and left me feeling disappointed.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

A friend gave me this book, like a year ago, and I just finally got around to reading it. I wasn't sure what to expect but I really liked it.

A seaside town full of depressed people, a lazy psychologist who gets stuck by a bout of conscious, a suicide and an ancient sea monster all lead to a really funny story.

After one of her patients commits suicide, Val, the local psychologist, decides to take all of her depressed patients (about 1/3 of the town) off of anti-depressants and start talking to them instead. About the same time she does this an ancient Sea Monster is awakened by sludge from a nearby power plant.

Is it withdrawal or the call of the monster that seems to have the whole town gone horny?

Add to this a crazy has-been actress who thinks she's a warrior princess and things get more interesting.

This book keeps your attention and makes you want to keep reading, while at the same time making you laugh and keeping you entertained the whole way through.

A Thousand Splendid Suns - by Khaled Hosseini

I was drawn into this story of two girls who become women in Afghanistan. The story begins with Miriam, a girl who grows up with only her mother in a small hut, in the 1960s. Her father is a rich man with several other wives, and her mother was one of his servants. When she got pregnant she was removed from the town. He visits weekly and tells Miriam stories that differ from the stories her Mother tells. He brings gifts and smiles and she soon believes that he is the "good" parent. When he fails to appear one day, as promised, Miriam walks into town to find him. Turned away at his door she returns home to find that her mother has committed suicide.

At 15 she is given as a wife to a man 30 years her senior. He wants children, and when her attempts to provide children fail, he punishes her.

Laila is born in the early 70's to progressive parents, in an era when Afghanistan is open and allows freedom to women. She grows up believing she can do and be anything. But, times change and wars come. Her best friend and the love her life leaves with his family to try to find a safer place. Weeks later, her own parents are killed.

This is where the lives of Miriam and Laila collide in an emotional heart-wrenching story that gives the reader a look into the lives of women in Afghanistan over the course of 4 decades.

The Lost Hours, by Karen White

This is a good story, if not a little predictable. Piper Mills thought nothing could touch her. She'd already survived what she thought was the one tragedy in a person's life, losing her parents. Then years later she suffered her second tragedy in a riding accident that took away her greatest dreams.

In the home where she grew up, after the death of her grandfather, she discovers secrets about her family. After the funeral, the lawyer drops off an envelope that contains a key. The key, she discovers, is to a secret room. The search to understand this room and the life of a grandmother she barely knew, lead her to discover more than she bargained for.

The story is told through the journal entries of Piper's grandmother, a journal Piper realizes she actually helped bury as a child. Through the journal and other notes left behind she is able to piece together a story that allows her to realize there is much more to her grandmother, and to life, than she ever thought possible. She learns that through pain there is hope, and where there is pain there is life; and she finally learns to appreciate what she has right in front of her.

The backstory is a bit predictable at times. While the story is dispersed throughout the book in the journal entries. It is a little too easy to figure out what the secrets really are that are being hid.

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

This is the kind of book I love, full of mystery and a little air of fairy tale and hope. The kind of book that leaves you with a smile on your face at the end and just makes you feel good, even while the story itself was dark and sometimes dangerous.

The heroine, if you can call her that, is a dark and brooding woman who believes herself responsible for the death of her mother; the result of a wish come true. When she was only eight years old, in a spiteful moment, she wished her mother would disappear, only to wake up the next morning to find out she'd died. She spends the rest of her life blaming herself, cutting herself off from life as punishment for this one deed. She buries herself in books and in attempts to make amends takes care of her dying grandmother. As proof that her wishes do come true, she finally wished her grandmother's pain would end, only to have her pass in the night.

Returning home for their grandmother's funeral, her brother, Ned, finds her morose and depressed and decides that the best thing for her is a change of scenery. He moves her to Florida, where he now lives. On the drive down, she voices one more wish - that she be struck by lightening. Little does she know at the time that the town in Florida, where she is moving to, is the lightening strike capitol of the world. A few months later, yet another wish comes true. She lives and finds that the strike has changed her, taking away things she'd previously taken for granted and introducing her to people she never would have thought possible.

In a therapy group for lightening strike survivors, tales are told of other survivors who won't attend the meetings, people who hide out because of the powers or changes that have occurred within their bodies and minds. She seeks out one such man, known as Lazarus Jones. The friendship she strikes with him is like a fairy tale, removed from logic, yet true nonetheless. As she finds out his secrets she learns those of others around her, and learns about herself. In opening herself up, she finally finds herself.

This is a story about wishes, death, change and endless possibilities of hope.

The Pact: Jodi Piccoult

If you've read other Jodi Piccoult books, this one might not measure up. It started a bit slow for me, so slow that I almost laid it down completely but I decided to keep going.

The book begins with a young couple being rushed to the hospital after the girl has been shot. It appears to be a double suicide pact gone wrong. The boy claims that they both intended to commit suicide but after she shot herself he passed out before he got his turn.

In the usual Jodi Piccoult style the book alternates between the past and the present, going back in time to tell the story of these two young lovers who have known each other since they were born. Their families lived next door to each other since before they were born and their mother's were best friends. It was everything the parents hoped for when the children went from friends to dating.

Soon after the girl dies the police begin looking at the boy and wondering if this was really a suicide at all or if he had reason to shoot her. Startling facts in the autopsy give them more reason to wonder if he had a motive to kill. Once he is arrested an 18 year long friendship between these two families comes to a startling halt.

The book does pick up in the second section as they go into the love story of the kids and how they went from friends to more. As well as giving more insight into both of their stories and adding details to explain why things might have gone as they did.

All in all it's pretty standard Piccoult, and fairly predictable. Despite the twists I had a good idea of what had really happened pretty early on. It's still worth the read, but I'd only give it 3 out of 5 stars.