The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

Richard and I were walking around the mall the other day and he says, "I wish I were 16 again."

Me too.  I could sleep 'til noon, my bones wouldn't ache and I could eat as much ice cream as I wanted without any side effects. And I could hang out with cool kids like Prenna and Ethan.
These two teenagers stole my heart.  No wonder Prenna fell in love with Ethan even though the rules in her community forbade it.  He is just too darn cute.

Prenna and her mother are part of a group of time travelers who have escaped to the past to try to avert the disease and social unrest of the future.  They work hard to remain undetected.  When Prenna shows up in Ethan's class, he knows she's keeping a secret. 

I love to read a good YA novel every now and then.  The Here and Now is well crafted in blending the creation of the future with the reality of the present.  The story is fast moving, tension filled, and includes a touch of romance.  Falling in love for the first time is a feeling none of us will ever forget no matter how old.  Ann Brashares does a wonderful job of involving the reader into the life of teenager and fueling the fire with the supernatural. 

Even though I am not the target audience for this book, the pages kept turning.  The characters are adorable.  The setting is intriguing and believable.  And oh do I wish I was 16 again.

City of the Sun by Juliana Maio

City of the Sun by Juliana Maio

World War II is raging throughout Europe, but for Detroit Free Press journalist, Mickey Connelly, the story is in Egypt.  Maya is a Jewish refugee who ends up in Cairo as a stop on the way to freedom for her and her family.  Their chance meeting sets this novel in motion.

Lately, I've been reading alot of historical novels.  I'm enthralled by stories of the World Wars. The setting in Africa is a fresh approach and it's a part of history I was not familiar with.  All good things. 

City of the Sun has the everything, romance, intrigue, murder all in an exotic setting.  The novel is well paced and I never became bored but some parts I enjoyed more than others.  The ending left me unsatisfied.  When I thought about why I felt this way, I realized the author never decided if this was to be a historical novel, a romance or a spy thriller.  Although the novel has merit, it never found its true focus.  As a reader I never found that warm and fuzzy feeling I long to have inside a good book.

Crossing The Moon by Paulette Alden

Crossing The Moon by Paulette Alden

Paulette's story was one I could relate to at many different points.  She was raised in the prim and proper south.  I was not, however the same moral values were drummed into my head beginning at a very young age.  When Paulette set off to a fellowship at Stanford, she drove across country not knowing anything of the rest of the world.  Her innocence and naivete may have been her greatest strength. I made a similar choice to move to a strange city where I knew no one after I graduated from college.  It was struggle, but today I am better off because of it.

I also admired Paulette's desire to be a writer.  I related completely to the struggle of time and distraction that is every writer's enemy.  And I felt her joy at receiving an acceptance letter from a publisher.  A writer's life is full of ups and downs and as a writer myself, I found comfort knowing I am not alone.

The bulk of this story is Paulette's path through infertility treatments.  In my thirties, I made a conscious decision not to have children.  No woman comes to that choice lightly and I remember that phase of my life well.  Paulette took a step further through years of fertility treatment but in the end came to the same resolution that children were not going to be a part of her life.  She found peace.  I completely understood her choice and her thought process.

Crossing The Moon is a lovely memoir of a woman's choices in life.  As women we have a habit of second guessing ourselves but we need to remember that each step we take is part of a journey called life. The voyage belongs to you and only you no matter where it might lead.

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao a few years ago.  It had won the Pulitzer Prize after all and I loved its fresh, edgy voice.  I like to mix my reading list up so I felt it was time to read another Junot Diaz novel, spice things up a bit.

The first page of This is How You Lose Her sucked me right in.  Diaz's writing is fast, snappy, sexy and neurotic.  Yunior is a young, Dominican trying to find his way even though the whole world seems to be against him.  He constantly chases the girls searching for something lasting and is never able to find it.  He's a smart kid with a good brain but thinking with the wrong brain overrules everything else in his life. Circling in the background is his over protective mother and a dying brother. 

Yunior's fast and furious antics kept me on the edge of my seat. For awhile.  After the read 'o meter on my Kindle passed 50%, I prayed for Yunior to find a girl so the story could be over with.  Too much of the same thing over and over began to bore me.  The heart racing pace of the writing got to be too much for me to take.  I wanted a break.

At the end of the story, I breathed a sigh of relief. Yunior's tales had come to an end and I could move on to something more calming and relaxing.  Since I do most of my reading in bed, I also needed a good night's sleep.  Spicing things up is not always exciting as it may seem.

Wake by Anna Hope

Wake by Anna Hope

Wake: 1) Emerge or cause to emerge from sleep. 2) Ritual for the dead. 3) Consequence or aftermath.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I downloaded this title from Netgalley.  The cover drew me in by its simplicity and beauty.  Anyone who knows me, knows I'm drawn into the spell of a book by its cover more often than not. 

Set in London two years after the end of World War I in a few days leading up to Armistice Day and the burying of the unknown soldier.  The lives of three women, unknown to each other, are magically woven together.  All are searching for something, love, understanding, closure in the aftermath of war. 

Hettie is a dance instructor at the local dance hall.  Her mother controls her every move while allowing her shell shocked brother to wander aimlessly through life.  Evelyn lost her one true love in the war and now works in the war pensioner's office trying to block the hopeless stories she hears day after day from her thoughts.  Ada grieves for her son, so much so that she has pushed the love of her husband out of her life. 

Wake is poetic, emotional, heartfelt.  I adored it.  Honestly I thought I would be reading another tragic story of war, or another story of three people who meet due to one small event.  Wake was none of that.  Many parts of the story are tragic, however each woman's struggle is carefully and seamlessly woven into the others.  Wake is a gorgeous piece of historical fiction. Don't let Wake pass you by.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

I am a huge fan of The Secret Life of Bees.  I didn't like The Mermaid Chair quite so much an I couldn't make it past the first chapter of The Dance of the Dissident Daughter.  When I read about The Invention of Wings in O Magazine, I wanted to read it but I approached it with some trepidation.  Books recommended by Oprah can be great while others can be tedious and boring.  I wanted to love it and didn't want to be disappointed. 

Sarah Grimke is given Handful as her handmaiden on her eleventh birthday.  Handful has been given that slave name for a reason.  Rarely is she called by her given name, Hettie.  Sarah breaks every rule by teaching Handful how to read.  They form a bond as girls, women, friends, but the fact that Sarah is the master and Handful, the slave, sits heavy as an iron anvil between them. 

This story spans several decades until the women are well into their forties and find themselves on the brink of the Civil War.  They have both suffered in their lives. Sarah is bound by being a woman in an era when only men went to school and had careers and the opinions of women thought to be meaningless.  Handful, on the other hand is trapped solely by the color of her skin. 

The Invention of Wings took my breath away page after page.  I didn't realize until I'd finished the book that Sarah Grimke and her sister, Angelina were real women.  Although this is a fictional account, Kidd used their story as a basis for hers.  The imagery is spectacular, the writing, poetic.  Here's how I know The Invention of Wings is destined to be a classic. When I hit the page button on my Kindle and it said, "The End", I gasped.  I wanted more.  There had to be more.  Sarah and Handful had become my friends along the way and I didn't want to see them go.

The Battle of the Thermostat

I know I'm a wimp.  My northern friends remind me of that on a regular basis these days.  I understand that here in Florida we don't have 10 feet of snow to shovel out of the driveway and it's not -50 below even without the windchill factored in, but we've had a miserable winter too.  I am desperate for the cool, sunshiney days with flowers blooming and birds singing. 

Get out your violin.

I have all tile floors in my house.  A good idea when it's 90 degrees outside in the summer.  But when the temperature dips to 30 degrees outside, the inside turns into a meat locker.  An air conditioner turned furnace is hardly up to the challenge.  The poor little heating element runs and runs and runs, while I have put on every sweater in my closet and every pair of socks in my drawer.  I can't get warm.

And then Mother Nature pulls another cruel trick.  The next day we are breaking all kinds of records when the temps climb to 85 degrees.  I've turned off the heat and turned on the air again.  I'm sweating buckets around here!  The piece of machinery we depend on for our year round comfort is just as confused as we are. It was just getting the hang of the heat when we asked for it to make us cool instead.

Today we are back down to 50 degrees outside.  My nose is running, my lips are chapped and my toes are turning blue.  Misery loves company and I want you to know, I'm pretty miserable too. The sky is grey and gloomy.  Even here in the Sunshine State.