Finished: Reconstructing Amelia (McCreight). Page-turner that makes a sad statement about current times for teenage kids....especially concerning peer pressure and cyber bullying. I'm on vacation right now, but will probably give a more detailed update later!

Finished: The House at Riverton (Morton). A good, page-turning book...my gift from our book club's Christmas book exchange! :-) The story of Grace, a ladies maid in a manor house in England before and after World War I. Of course, the book is full of secrets, but none that aren't pretty easy to figure out. When Grace first goes to work for the Hartford family, and their three children, David (17), Hannah (15) and Emmeline (11), she feels an instant connection with the children, who are very close siblings. She watches with envy as they interact and play their imaginary games that no on else can be a part of.... and mourns deeply with the girls after David is killed in WWI. It doesn't take long to figure out that Grace herself is the product of an affair between the children's father and her own mother, who was also a servant at the manor years ago. However, even though other servants, and even Frederick Hartford himself look at her intensely at times, it never comes out openly. Even Grace eventually figures it out, but by that time she is the personal ladies maid for Hannah, who is then married and unhappy. Grace would never jeopardize her relationship of trust with Hannah, and so never dares to mention what she knows. She just remains Hannah's maid for the rest of Hannah's life...which isn't too long in the grand scheme of things. All three Hartford children, plus Robbie, the young man who tears the sisters apart, are dead before they turn 22. Grace, however, lives into her nineties and tells the story as a flashback to her own grandson. Before she dies, she wants to admit to him who her father truly was, so she does so on tape. Along the way, we get to live her life with her vicariously through her telling of the story...and it's a really good one. :-)

Finished: The Idiot (Dostoevsky). A good but intense, typically long-winded story about a Russian "prince". The prince in this story is Mishkin, who is a 25ish year old Russian orphan who has spent many years at a private Swiss sanatorium for his "illness". Other than epilepsy, I'm not sure what his illness really is except that he's very innocent, naive, trusting, truthful and all around believes the best in people. Not even knowing that he's inherited money, he leaves Switzerland to go and rediscover Russia, where he meets up with all sorts of characters who have a huge impact on his young life. He falls in love with two different women who end up being his undoing emotionally, as well as physically. He thinks he's made friends in society, but most of the people think of him as a simpleton or idiot. In actuality, he's a very deep-thinking person who expresses his thoughts with no filter whatsoever...hence, he is really more of a social idiot, than an intellectual one. He is instantly smitten with the beautiful, yet tragic, "fallen woman" Nastasya Filoppovna, who in turn, is instantly smitten with Mishkin due to his outright honesty and kind regard for her with no ulterior motives. However, Nastasya Filoppovna is fiercely loved by Rogozhin, a rich young Russian heir who happens to be the first person Mishkin meets on the train back to Russia, and ironically ends up being the last person who Mishkin has any intelligible conversation with before he goes back to the sanatorium at the end of the story pretty much out of his wits. The relationship between Mishkin and Rogozhin is one of love/hate, respect/jealousy and absolute need for the other's approval, it seems. After Nastasya Filoppovna runs off with Rogozhin, thinking she's not good enough for Mishkin, Mishkin then falls in love with the youngest daughter of his next acquaintances, the Epanchin family. The beautiful Aglaia is also smitten with Mishkin, but is spoiled and willful, and wants to string him along in typical female games of which he knows nothing. The genuine Mishkin falls prey to her machinations, as well as those of Nastasya Filoppovna; Lebedev, a dishonest character who latches himself to the rich nobles; Ippolit, a consumptive, manipulative teenage boy who plays with people's emotions; Gavril, an angry "middle" class young man who will do almost anything to crack into the upper classes, including nearly marrying both Nastasya AND Aglaia; and several others. There are so many characters in this book, all with complicated names...and most of them concerned primarily with their own personal motives. I was sad to see poor Mishkin at the end regress even further than he apparently ever had been to begin with, not even recognizing people who came to visit him in the end. Sigh. I might be done with Russian literature for awhile, though. Both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy go off on tangents, creating looonnnnggg conversations between characters that allow them to spout their political and religious views, and I tend to glaze over during those parts. I'd much rather just keep reading the dialogue between the characters that moves the story along or that develops the relationships between the characters. However, I can't deny that Dostoevsky is one of the great writers and I was only frustrated with the tangents because his story kept me wanting more! :-)

Finished: For Whom The Bell Tolls (Hemingway) I'm ashamed to say I never really thought about that line from Donne's poem, and what it means, until I read this Hemingway classic! What a good book. Not exactly my cup of tea...reading about war and all that it entails, but such a good book in that you get to know, achingly well, each character of this story. That always makes me invest more when I grow to care about what happens to the characters! Many say that For Whom The Bell Tolls is Hemingway's greatest work, but I think I still give the slight edge to A Farewell to Arms. This story is about an American, Robert Jordan, who is fighting for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930's. He's simply a university Spanish teacher who decides to go to Spain to immerse himself in the language and the culture, and his ideals lead him to become a bridge bomber for the fight against the Fascists. The entire story is built around Robert Jordan journeying behind enemy lines to the remote location of the bridge he is supposed to blow up with his wise, invaluable old guide, Anselmo. While up in the hills among the independent guerrillas who are fighting the war their own way, he becomes involved with Pablo's "band" of misfits....among them Pablo's wife, and the true backbone leader of the band, Pilar. Among the misfits are Agustin, Andres, Fernando, and the beautiful, but emotionally damaged Maria. Maria is a young woman who the band rescued from a town attacked by the Fascists. She had watched her family killed before her eyes, and then had her hair cut off, her head shaved, and then survived the repeated rapes by several men before she was rescued. When Robert first lays eyes on her, and she on him, there is an instant connection. Though they only have three days and nights together before the bridge is blown, those days and nights become a lifetime to Robert and he finally realizes what there is to live for with someone to love. The true tragedy of war is on full display as the mountain guerrillas who Robert leaves to be lookouts don't realize the magnitude of all the artillery coming into play. The bridge is to be blown as a surprise attack, but it becomes clear to Robert that the enemy knows about the "surprise" and is ready to turn its own ambush on the fighters for the Republic. Sticking to his orders to blow the bridge, though, Robert and the band perform their duty. Sadly, Anselmo is lost in the explosion, as well as a few others. Pablo, Pilar and Maria make it to safety, out of range of the retaliating tank after the bridge explosion, but Robert's horse is cut down with him on it. Robert's leg is severely broken and he realizes he must stay behind. He forces Maria to go with Pablo and Pilar, declaring that as long as she lives, wherever she goes, he will be with her...that she will be keeping him alive. Then, though going in and out of consciousness, he readies himself to get at least an enemy officer or two as they come up the hill after them, thus giving Maria and the others more time to get away. It is so sad to read the realizations of Robert, and his commanding officers (when the narrative goes over to them), that the entire surprise attack will most likely be for naught and most of the men will be killed. There is such brilliant description in Hemingway's words that you even get to know a minor character who is just as scared and fighting his battle, but on the other side. In all, a very good book. Gosh, I wish I could write like that! I wouldn't be writing about war, but to be able to convey such images and feelings...that would be so nice. :-) Needless to say, this one was yet another book with a sad ending...though we never do see the actual ending of Robert Jordan. The book ends just as Robert has his gun sites on an approaching officer. Sigh.