The Might Queens of Freeville: A Mother, A Daughter & The Town that Raised Thme , by Amy Dickinson

The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town That Raised Them is the memoir of Amy Dickinson, the writer selected to replace Ann Landers.  This book is her story to some degree.  It's by no means a biography but more of stories of her life.  Each chapter is written around a theme and usually shares multiple small stories and one major one along the theme that ties them all together.

While the subtitle declares the book to be about "A Mother, A Daughter, and the Town that Raised them", I really wanted more of "the town that raised them".  I could see the stories as they were being woven together into a great movie, and I could also see someone coming along and fleshing out the stories of the smaller characters to make for a great little television series.

Amy comes from a long line of strong women in a small town.  Women, who for many generations have been used to going it alone. To the extent that the one aunt she has who got married and stayed married to her death was seen as an anomaly.  After years of marriage, Amy found herself returning back home to Freeville, a single mother.  By what seems like happenstance, but is closer to reality than what the movies want us to believe, Amy stumbles from one job to another and simply by knowing the right person gets her foot in the door to apply for the job as the countries most read advice columnist.  If knowing the right person was what got her foot in the door, giving the right answers was what got her the right job.  Amy shares the ups and downs of her life and what we learn through it is that she's just a normal woman from a small town, with lots of common sense that she inherited from all the other women in her life.

Faith: A Novel by Jennifer Haigh

I was sent an advanced reader copy of this book, for review purposes, by the Amazon Vine program.

I read early reviews of this book comparing it to the books of Jodi Piccoult, since I really enjoy her books, I thought I might also enjoy this one and I was right.  Although, it was a little slow going in the second and third chapter, once she started getting to the meat of the story, it all came together and really kept me intrigued and wanting to read more.

"Faith: A Novel" delves into the story behind the priest molestation scandal of the early 2000's.  This is the story of Father Arthur, one of the many priests who found himself ousted from his post after an accusation that he molested a child.  The story is told by his sister, Sheila, the one member of his family who opted out of their Catholic faith and is considered somewhat of the black sheep.  Despite this, her older brother, the priest, never turned his back on her and they stayed close.  Through the course of the book, Sheila shares what she learned about her own family, a family she really knew little of, in the months following the accusation.  While she chooses to stand by Arthur faithfully, her brother Mike instantly chooses to believe the allegations.  The truth is much deeper than any could know and Sheila finally uncovers it as she learns more and more about her own family.

There is always more to any story than meets the eye, and much like the books by Jodi Piccoult, that's what Haigh is getting at in this book.  While the press focused on the top layer of the story, this book examines the "what if" behind the stories.  While this book is fiction, it does make me wonder more about the stories of those affected by this scandal, on both sides of the story.  This is the story of a family changed forever, and of a faith changed forever.
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