Philomena; Twisted Sisters

"Philomena" by Martin Sixsmith was a heartbreaking true story of young Philomena Lee, who is forced to give up her child for adoption in Ireland in the 1950s. It was a huge scandal, how the Catholic church was keeping these girls as slaves, making them work for years, and then selling their babies to America for adoption. Philomena's son, Anthony, is adopted by an American family, who change his name to Michael. Michael grew up desperate to know something about his mother, even traveling to Ireland in 1977 to see if he could find out some information. The nuns at the orphanage kept quiet, though, and didn't even tell him about his mother's brother, who lived very close by. Nor did they tell Philomena a few weeks later when she came, looking for him, that he had been by. Years later, Michael was dying of AIDS and made one final trip to Ireland to search for answers, to no avail. His last wish was that he be buried at the orphanage, so if his mother ever did come looking for him, she could visit his grave. Sadly, Michael died in 1995 and was buried there. Philomena kept her secret from her family until 2003, but by then it was too late. The long hoped for mother-son reunion took place in a cemetery, where Philomena was able to say goodbye to the son she didn't get the chance to know. The only bad thing I can say about this book was that it was very one sided, all Michael's story. It would have been lovely to have a bit more of Philomena's story, but it was still good.

I  needed a laugh, it's been a tough week (I got braces again--for the third time, ugh) so I read Jen Lancaster's latest, "Twisted Sisters". I had the pleasure of meeting Jen at a book signing last month, and she was so lovely and gracious and took the time to talk to everyone and took pictures with us. She read a chapter from the book and had us all rocking with laughter. She's just as hilarious in person as you would imagine. My sister, Jen went with me and she enjoyed meeting her as well. Anyway, "Twisted Sisters" was very funny. Reagan Bishop is an overachiever, and has always criticized her sisters for their lack of ambition. Reagan is a psychologist for a small cable network TV show called "Push". When her show is sold to a major network, there are big changes. Now Reagan only has one afternoon to work with her patient, and she's terrified of failing on national TV and earning the scorn of her family. So she turns to new Age healer Deva, who comes up with a way for Reagan to switch bodies with her patients during the crucial moment, film the breakthrough for the camera, and then switch back. Reagan hates doing this, because she genuinely does want to help these people, but she wants to succeed even more, so she goes along with it. All is going well until her boss (who she has a secret crush on) hires her sister Geri to replace the hair stylist. Everyone immediately takes to Geri, and Reagan is jealous. She takes advantage of Deva's switching abilities to inhabit her sister's body, so she can figure out why everyone likes her better. Poor Reagan. I really felt bad for her. She didn't seem like such a horrible person. A bit tightly wound, perhaps, but not as bad as all that. And her family really did seem awfully mean to her for no reason. But while inhabiting Geri's body she learns a lot of truths about herself and vows to make changes. Good for her! I enjoyed this one a lot, and it gave me the laughs I  needed.

Walking Dead Vol. 19; Last of the Blue and the Gray; Deadly

Robert Kirkman continues the survivors painful journey in "Walking Dead Vol. 19: March to War". I honestly don't know why I keep reading them. More of the same: the survivors are gearing up to go against the current big bad, Negan. More people die. There's a guy with a tiger who is sweet on Michonne. Yeah, I don't even know anymore...

"Last of the Blue and the Gray" by Richard A. Serrano was very interesting, about the last survivors from the Civil War on both the Confederate and Union sides. A lot of veterans lived past 100, but many of them faked their service during the Great Depression in order to get a pension. Records of who served were spotty, especially in the South, and a lot of them ended up getting a pension even though Census records later proved some of them were born just before the war and were much too young to serve. Sorting out the real vets from the fake ones is quite a daunting challenge. No one wants to call a dying old man a liar, after all.

"Deadly" by Sara Shepard was really good. Maybe the last one for now? It's so hard to tell. It looks like the girls are being extradited to Jamaica for killing Tabitha Clark after Ali sends the news a video she faked of them beating Tabitha to death. The girls trust Agent Fuji and turn everything over to her, which Fuji then uses against them. I thought maybe Fuji was in on it, but maybe not. Shepard is so good at the red herring thing. In the end, Ali lures the girls to the basement of a house near Hanna's dad's campaign headquarters, and pumps cyanide in the room, with the help of Nick, who was in the Preserve with her and is "helper A", as the girls have been referring to him. When things go bad and Emily gets Nick's gun and turns on Ali, she creates a distraction and is able to slip away again. The girls are exonerated when Nick is arrested, but Ali vows revenge...someday.

Hollow City; June Bug; I'll Take Care of You

"Hollow City" is the sequel to "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs. I really enjoyed the first one, and this one was great, too. It amazes me how he's able to incorporate these old, bizarre photos seamlessly into the story. The children have rescued Miss Peregrine, who is stuck in bird form, from the wights and are searching for another ymbryne to help her return to her human state. All the other ymbrynes have been kidnapped, though, until the kids get a lead on Miss Wren, who is hiding out in London. They finally do find Miss Wren, but when she changes the bird back to human it's not Miss Peregrine but her evil brother, Caul. He and the other wights take the children and Miss Wren captive, but they manage to escape and end up in Jacob's present day. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out!

"June Bug" by Chris Fabry was a little too sentimental for my taste. June Bug lives with her dad on the road: they criss cross the nation in an old, broken down RV. They meet a lot of super nice (read: unrealistic) people who help them out, perfectly willing to take complete strangers into their home, feed them, clothe them, offer to adopt June Bug, etc. Anyway, at a Walmart in Colorado June Bug sees a missing child poster for Natalie Edwards, and realizes it's her. She starts pestering her "dad", Johnson, and we eventually learn that Johnson saved Natalie when her real mother tried to have her killed. He held onto her because she gave *him* a reason to live. I think I'm too cynical to be charmed by books like these.

"I'll Take Care of You" is another amazing true crime read from Caitlin Rother. A wealthy Newport Beach inventor, Bill McLaughlin, throws over his wife for a hot young piece he meets in a singles column, who then proceeds to steal from him and cheat on him with a hot young guy. So when Bill is murdered, the police immediately suspect his decades younger girlfriend, Nanette, and her boyfriend Eric. It took the police and the DA's office 17 years to prosecute, but in the end they were both found guilty. Good. Men, let this be a lesson to you. Poor Bill learned the hard way.

Carthage; Hollywood Hellraisers; Fangirl; Lookaway, Lookaway

"Carthage" by Joyce Carol Oates was as usual deeply disturbing. Cressida Mayfield has always been odd, the "smart one" to older sister Juliet, the "pretty one". Juliet gets engaged to Brett Kincaid, who enlists after 9/11 and comes back injured from Afghanistan. He breaks off his engagement to Juliet and becomes strange, different. Cressida has always had a secret crush on Brett, and when he comes back changed, she thinks this is her chance, since now they are both different. But when she doesn't come home after sneaking out to meet Brett at a bar, all eyes of the town turn to him with suspicion. Brett at first denies having hurt Cressida, but later confesses to murdering her and burying her body. Seven years later in Florida, we meet Sabbath McSwain, who is really Cressida Mayfield. After Brett rejected her, she ran away from home and ended up working for a professor. When he takes her to a prison and she goes inside a death chamber, Cressida realizes she needs to go back home to make things right. Very twisted, but good.

"Hollywood Hellraisers" by Robert Sellers was great fun. Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, and Warren Beatty all raised hell and had a great time doing it. It's honestly a miracle any of them survived for as long as they did.

"Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell was so charming and awesome. Cath and Wren are twins, and off to college. Cath wants to room with Wren while Wren is eager to break away from her twin and pursue her own identity. For years the girls have collaborated on a fanfiction based on a popular bestselling book series very similar to Harry Potter. Cath continues the fanfiction, which takes up a lot of her life and almost makes her miss out on a chance to fall in love with Levi. It was really great.

I have mixed feelings about "Lookaway, Lookaway" by Wilton Barnhardt. I liked parts of it, but some of it wasn't so good. It was very similar to "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner (and he mentions Faulkner many times) in looking at a decaying Southern family told from varying points of view from different family members, and ending with the point of view of a friend of the family who is African American. Not a single character was completely likeable, but that's pretty realistic: everyone has faults. Still, I don't know. I just didn't care for how hard and mean everyone ended up being.

Speaking of Faulkner--I visited Rowan Oak this weekend. It was incredible, and I'm still in shock I think :)

The System; Born Round; Sourland; Last Night at the Viper Room

I haven't been reading at all lately because I got a new phone and now I spend all my free time playing with it.
I know, I know, I'm ashamed of myself, too.

Jeff Benedict's "The System" was an interesting look at college football. He spent two years observing and interviewing everyone he could get his hands on in some of college football's most prominent systems, from coaches, to athletic directors, to boosters, big donors, and hostesses. He detailed all the faults as well as what works, and how it's so corrupt no one even knows how to really regulate it. Powerful stuff. I'm not a huge college football fan, but I do watch some, so it's amazing to me how it works from the inside.

"Born Round" by Frank Bruni hit home. He was overweight as a kid, always hungry, always eating. He has spent his whole adult life yo-yo dieting (not familiar *at all*). He's in his forties now, and is (at least when this book was written a few years ago) at a good, healthy place despite being a prominent food critic for the New York Times. It was a great read that gives me hope: if Frank can do it, I can too.

"Sourland" by Joyce Carol Oates was an good collection of short stories. I'm not normally a big short story fan, but these were good. The pain from losing her husband shines through in many of them.

And finally, "Last Night at the Viper Room" by Gavin Edwards looks at the all too short life and tragic loss of River Phoenix, dead twenty years ago of a drug overdose at the age of 23. In light of Philip Seymour Hoffman's untimely overdose, it really makes me sad how Hollywood seems to ruin so many bright and promising talents. Some people can survive and even thrive, but others just can't take it. Poor River. What a talent. It would have been amazing to see him mature.

Wedding Gift; History Decoded; Baby Boom

"The Wedding Gift" by Marlen Suyapa Bodden was a moving story of Sarah, a slave who dreams of being free, and her white half-sister, Clarissa. They grow up together, first Sarah is Clarissa's playmate, and then her maid. Sarah's mother teaches them both to read and write, even though it's against the law for slaves to have that knowledge. Sarah marries Isaac, her mulatto cousin, while Clarissa puts off her marriage to wealthy Julius Cromwell for as long as she can, until she discovers she is pregnant. A scant five months after marriage, she gives birth. Sarah recognizes the child as Isaac's, and the Cromwell's throw Clarissa out because it's obvious the baby is partially black. Clarissa, Sarah, and the baby go back to Clarissa's family but her father is having none of it and send the child to an orphanage and lets Clarissa die of childbed fever. I really liked the ending, it was a good story.

"History Decoded" by Brad Meltzer was fun. I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist type of person, like Area 51 for example, I don't particularly care what's being hidden (if anything) out there. But it's still interesting to read about the different mysteries that have never been solved, like D. B. Cooper and the Confederate gold.

P. J. O'Rourke always makes me laugh, and his latest "Baby Boom", was very funny. He turns his wit on himself and his generation. It made me nostalgic for a life I never even lived.

Poe; Tudor; Twilight of Lake Woebegotten; The Influence

J. Lincoln Fenn's thriller "Poe" started out very good, but then it got very long and felt unnecessary. Dimitri discovers he has the ability to summon spirits because he is the grandson of Rasputin. Poe is what he calls the somewhat friendly spirit who is trying to warn him about a demonic spirit who has inhabited the body of his girlfriend Lisa's brother and is now killing people. If the spirit kills one more person, he'll be unstoppable.

"Tudor" by Leanda de Lisle was very good. It was an interesting look at the Tudor dynasty in terms of familial relationships: how they were all related, who married who and what the consequences were in terms of the succession, etc. I enjoyed it, and actually learned some new things.

"Twilight of Lake Woebegotten" by Harrison Geillor was a hilarious parody not only of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" but also Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon books. Bonnie Grayduck moves to Lake Woebegotten in Minnesota to live with her dad. She meets Edwin Scullen and falls for him, but it turns out Edwin and his family are vampires. What made this book so funny is that Bonnie is a cold hearted, calculated killer. She wants to be a vampire so she has powers, and manipulates Edwin and everyone else in Lake Woebegotten into thinking she's a harmless, helpless, somewhat klutzy girl when really she's ruthless and vindictive. Edwin comes across as a real pansy, especially after he turns Bonnie into a vampire.

I haven't read any Bentley Little in a long time. His latest, "The Influence", was gross and creepy good. Ross lost his engineering job a year earlier. He's living off his savings, afraid of losing his condo in Phoenix while he hunts for a job, and resentful that despite the fact that he's helped everyone in his family, no one steps up to help him. Until his cousin Lita offers him her guest house at her and her husband Dave's farm in Magdalena. Ross gratefully takes her up on it, even though he's not a fan of living in the middle of nowhere. Ross finds Magdalena isn't so bad. He helps Dave with some simple chores and sends out resumes and job hunts online. Everything is fine until New Year's Eve. At a raucous party at wealthy rancher and local bully Cameron Holt's place, a group of rowdy citizens fire off their pistols into the air at midnight and shoot something out of the sky. Everyone is convinced it's an angel because that's what it *wants* everyone to think. It must be protected. Even though Ross, Lita, and Dave weren't at the party, they do eventually find out what happens when things in town start going wonky. Luck changes: formally unlucky people suddenly find themselves rich, and the rich are losing all their money. Animals are dying, or changing into unrecognizable monsters. Ross, his girlfriend Jill, and Dave and Lita flee Magdalena but find that they can't escape the influence of the angel and so they make plans to go back and destroy it. Sure, good luck with that.