Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen

In theory Water for Elephants should have been great. It had all the makings of an interesting story: a love component rife with complications, it was based on true events and ended surprisingly; yet this novel was still just “ok.” I could never quite get into it, was never excited about reading it. Surprising more so since it made it into Heather’s group of guaranteed reads.

Sara Gruen gets points for originality, this story is truly unique and her descriptive voice is vivid. She just failed to get me excited about the story and its characters. As always I encourage everybody to be their own judge, but I know I’m not totally alone in this thought as two friends of mine have read this book and had very similar reactions. Regretfully, I have yet to find anyone that raves about this book… 

The Girl who Chased the Moon, Sarah Addison Allen

The Girl Who Chased the Moon was the perfect chaser to the harsh bitterness of Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone.  Allen’s nice blend of real-life depth with just a touch of magic made this book an absolute delight to read.

The Story is set in a small town in North Carolina where the sweet smells of peach trees mingle with the smoky scents of barbeques. In this town, people can visibly see the sweetness of cakes wafting in the air and strange floating lights roaming the town’s forests at night. Although set in a modern context, country civility is still very much a part of life here. The book follows two characters: 30 something Julia and Emily who’s 17. Any reader who finds herself within this age frame will relate to the two characters; though the tone leans a little more to the mature side.  

Sarah Addison Allen has filled her book with town secrets and vivid characters with mysterious pasts. She did a stand-up job of keeping the material grounded while experimenting with whimsical concepts. I’m a total fan. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a nice light read.   

She’s Come Undone, Wally Lamb

She’s Come Undone was suggested to me from a fellow-avid-reader acquaintance of mine. Having just read a few of Lambs’ books, he was high on her recommendation list. I’d looked at this book before but for whatever reason always put it back, even despite it being on Oprah’s Book Club list. 

I struggle to talk about this book tactfully. When I had brought it up with my roommate that I was reading She’s Come Undone, she gave me a look of knowing hesitation and said a number of people had told her to avoid it. Another friend who’d read it said she’d cried a lot during it. I like to read because I like to momentarily dive in to someone else’s life. A quarter of the way through this book made me want to dive into the pavement.  

From witnessing her father beating her mother, to being raped at 13 and going through her teens and early twenties as a woman weighing in at over 200 pounds; Dolores has seen the cruelest life has to offer. Compound that with the loss of her mom to a tragic death before heading off to college and another near sexual assault, you honestly can’t blame Dolores for attempting suicide in the ocean. Heavy D’s failed suicide attempt gets her institutionalized where she (and the reader) is given new life. But the sad story continues to follow Dolores right up to page 400 where the book thankfully takes a new shape.

To Lamb’s credit you really can’t tell how this story is going to end. But for 400 pages I ventured into Dolores’ horrid situation of a life and didn’t enjoy much of it. Now it is not my intention to come here and slam someone else’s work; I can fully appreciate that books are a story of someone’s telling and take a great deal of time, sweat and tears. But if I’m going to look at content only, I cannot call this a page-turner and wouldn’t refer it to a friend.

Having said that, I can say that Lamb did a fantastic job of not only narrating a female voice but of also narrating one through so many obstacles mostly only known to women. For that, I tip my hat to Mr. Lamb.   

Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman

  

What I’ve come to call “Eat, Pray Love goes to Prison,” it is my humble opinion that this book has not received its due recognition. I’m sure at one point in your life you’ve done something completely out of character. Something daring and impulsive. Hopefully you did anyway… At the time you were probably steeled from the false sense of confidence that comes from being young and reckless. But I also bet you got away with it. I find that most people have either done one thing or experienced a short phase of risky behaviour in their life, but it’s usually characterized as just that: a phase or one time thing. Indulge me for just a moment if you will and imagine how your life would have changed if you were caught for that risky little stunt you pulled. What if you were caught years after the fact?   

Enter the story of Piper Kerman, a woman convicted of a crime almost 10 years after she committed it. The crime: international drug trafficking. Kerman’s upper-middle class background didn’t quell her urge to rebel at the age of 24 when she became mixed up in a crowd of international drug dealers. For about a year Kerman lived the high life – no pun intended – but gave up turning her life around completely. After years of living like a normal, working member of society, her past catches up to her and Kerman is sentenced to 15 months in a woman’s federal prison.

Kerman craftily recounts the events leading up to her incarceration and her experiences on the inside. Kerman’s insights about her time in prison and the surprising other women she meets are sharp and hilarious. Kerman’s writing is as remarkable as the situation she finds herself.   

Lost Girls and Love Hotels, Catherine Hanrahan

Having just graduated from a yearlong program and a month away from my two-month unpaid internship, I was on the lookout to borrow some books. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t frequent the library as often as someone like me should (I read a lot). In fact I can’t remember the last time I’ve been… Lucky for me, my roommate has an entire wall of books she’s read and just won’t make the conversion to e-reading. (I on the other hand am a HUGE fan of it – less clutter).  

I found Lost Girls and Love Hotels among the living room stacks. With a melancholy tone this book reads like a memoir. In an attempt to run from her home-life situation in, main character and U.S. native Margaret flees to Tokyo in hopes for some sort of improvement. But as many travellers find, Margaret can’t put kilometers between her and her thoughts. Brief hope and distraction comes in the form of Kazu, an attractive Japanese gangster that takes her to hotels designed to encourage secret affairs. This book gives you a glimpse into the shady and lonely sides of expat life and what it would be like to be able to disappear if you were so inclined. Catherine Hanrahan's style of writing flows well making this an easy read.  

My Horizontal Life, Chelsea Handler

Now here’s a book I have been pushing on all my friends since the day I was half way through it. My Horizontal Life will quite literally have you doubled over laughing it’s so funny. An unabashed account of Miss Handler’s one-night-stands, she is the friend every single girl in her 20s either already has or wants. This book is total entertainment.  

Suggested mood for reading:

•       This book can be read anywhere anytime. Just know- you will laugh out loud        when reading it.  

Prisoner of Tehran, Marina Nemat

I really didn’t want to read this book. I scored it for seven bucks on a discount table but it sat in my closet for over a year before I RELUCTANTLY picked it up. I feared reading this book for being brought to the lowest of the low. I mean a true-life story about a girl imprisoned in her teens as a political prisoner during the Islamic Revolution? How could this book take me anywhere but down?

I stand surprisingly corrected.

At age 16 Marina Nemat is arrested as a political prisoner and subject to torture in the notorious prison Evin. Downer. But although Nemat’s experience starts off raw and cruel, it later morphs into a story about but her time inside and an unlikely relationship with a prison guard. The story goes to such an unexpected place you’ll conclude that Nemat may just be the luckiest unlucky person that ever lived. Other surprises: Nemat’s a Christian. Her struggle with the enforcement of Islamic customs in Evin and on the streets of Iran is relatable. This book is a great read full of unexpected turns that will keep you reading until the wee hours of the night.   

Suggested mood for reading:

•            Feeling pitiful or sorry for yourself? This book will set you straight.
•           Don’t read this on vacation; this book just does not go with sandy beaches and      an umbrella in your drink. 

My Bio

As a kid I used to pick my books based solely on their cover. I liked books with pretty coloured jackets and something that indicated the main character would be a girl, preferably a girl about my given age at the time. I would check my pretty book out of the school library, take it to my desk during reading hour and open to page one. Instead of actually reading the book though, I would half close it every few minutes and be pleased all over again with my choice just from looking at the cover.  Content was overrated.

My grade three teacher was the first to catch on. I could read just fine for my age I just failed to see the joy in it. Upon finding out my mom bought me a book from the Babysitter’s Club: Little Sister series and insisted I read the whole thing. I read it cover-to-cover. I was hooked. Reading quickly became one of my favoured pass times and now well into my 20s, it hasn’t waned. Books provide me with that sense of escape that others get from watching movies.

I’m partial to memoirs because I usually find I’m most inspired by them. But I don’t hate, I love fiction too. Thanks for stopping by, my name’s Laura by the way.