Finished: milk and honey (kaur) I've read many of Rupi Kaur's poems from her milk and honey collection before, but never all in the order they were intended in her book. I was really excited to get this book for Christmas and read it through, section by section: the hurting, the loving, the breaking, the healing; poem by poem. It was as lovely and explicit and truthful as I thought it would be. It was a book I couldn't stop reading, but I really wanted to savor each poem, so I did...reading most of them more than once. I loved the personal journey that Rupi showed of her life, and I'm sure will seek out more of her poetry to read in the future. Until then, here is just a sampling of the poems that touched me.

From the hurting:

how is it so easy for you
to be kind to people he asked

milk and honey dripped
from my lips as I answered

cause people have not 
been kind to me

From the loving:

i know i
should crumble
for better reasons
but have you seen
that boy he brings
the sun to its
knees every
night

From the loving:

you might not have been my first love
but you were the love that made
all the other loves
irrelevant

From the breaking:

you said. if it is meant to be. fate will bring us back
together. for a second i wonder if you are really
that naive. if you really believe fate works like
that. as if it lives in the sky staring down at us. as
if it has five fingers and spends its time placing us
like pieces of chess. as if it is not the choices we
make. who taught you that. tell me. who
convinced you. you've been given a heart and
a mind that isn't yours to use. that your actions
do not define what will become of you. i want to
scream and shout it's us you fool. we're the only
ones that can bring us back together. but
instead, i sit quietly. smiling softly through
quivering lips thinking. isn't it such a tragic thing.
when you can see it so clearly by the other person
doesn't.

From the breaking:

i don't know what living a balanced life feels like
when i am sad
i don't cry i pour
when i am happy
i don't smile i glow
when i am angry
i don't yell i burn

the good thing about feeling in extremes is
when i love i give them wings
but perhaps that isn't
such a good thing cause
they always tend to leave
and you should see me
when my heart is broken
i don't grieve
i shatter

From the healing:

perhaps
i don't deserve
nice things
cause i am paying
for sins i don't
remember

From the healing:

what terrifies me most is how we
foam at the mouth with envy
when others succeed
but sigh in relief
when they are failing

our struggle to
celebrate each other is
what's proven most difficult
in being human

From the healing:

you must
want to spend
the rest of your life
with yourself
first

Finished: Nine Perfect Strangers (Moriarty) A book about nine strangers who meet at a remote Australian health resort for a ten day program of mental and physical rejuvenation, run by a former female corporate bigwig, who suffered a near fatal heart attack ten years earlier, and her right hand man, the paramedic who helped save her life. Unbeknownst to the guests, their methods are going to include a couple of unorthodox and illegal methods which cause friction and tension and make you wonder if one or more of the guests may not make it out of the program alive! The nine guests: A successful, fifty-something female author whose just had her first novel rejection and has been scammed out of a load of money by an online "boyfriend with a sick son" scam; a fifty-something former Aussie rugby player who has lost the purpose of his life, along with his marriage, after retiring from the sport; a forty-something divorce lawyer who is too good-looking and confident for his own good, who has no desire to have children, but with a gay partner left at home who wants to adopt a child; a young twenty-something couple who has won a 22 million dollar lottery which changed them from struggling to make ends meet, to struggling with the wife altering her complete looks with cosmetic surgery, and the husband being more in love with his new expensive car than his wife; a newly divorced, thirty-something, mother of four young daughters who has zero self-confidence since her husband left her for another woman, and who feels just losing weight will solve all her problems; and, a mother and father with their 20 year old daughter who are struggling with the biggest pain of all...the suicide of their son, their daughter's twin, a few days shy of his 18th birthday nearly three years ago. They will spend his (and their daughter's) 21st birthday at the retreat. All of the characters are likable and unlikable at the same time...but for the most part, all are good people. They are deprived of communication for several days, and then finally put together in a cellar room with Masha, the owner of the facility, and Yao, the former paramedic, and given hallucinogenic drugs which cause each of them to certainly open up and be honest about their feelings and truthful about what part they've played in the misery of their own lives. The therapy seems to be going pretty well when the mother of the 20 year old realizes they've all been drugged and begins threatening legal action. She manages to tip the already nearly unbalanced Masha over the edge and Masha proceeds to keep them locked in the cellar until further notice. Masha even drugs Yao to keep him from letting them out, and the guests go for nearly two entire days with water only, and no food. Every so often Masha turns all the lights out on them or comes onto the monitoring screen to talk wildly to them. There is a code needed to open the huge wooden door, but they can never figure it out, even when they calm down and work together. All their truths do come out to each other, however, and they do form a lovely human bond. Everyone rallies round the family who has lost their son, and especially embrace Zoe, the young woman who has lost her brother. This entire family each has a secret that has made them feel the guilt of thinking if only they'd taken another action, that Zach would still be alive. Finally being honest with each other, and the support of the group, helps them to come to terms with Zach's death. Meanwhile, the crazy Masha has started a fire to burn down the facility while they are all locked in! It turns out, however, that she's only just set a fire in a bucket outside the door so they'll smell the smoke and she's put the sound of a loud fire and beams falling on a video that she puts on loop and plays to them over the intercom. It's really cruel! Anyway, they finally try the door in a last ditch effort, and it has been unlocked from the outside by Masha, who never intended to harm them, but who has indeed lost her marbles a bit. They all make it safely home while Masha and Yao are taken to jail. The book wraps up with showing how everyone continues on with their lives a week, a month, a few months, a year and five years later. The author and the retired rugby player end up married five years later, which is really lovely. The young couple end up divorced because they'd really changed so much. The young mother of four regains her confidence and embraces her girls. The lawyer goes home and tells his partner that he'd like to look into adoption. And, Zoe and her parents have started celebrating HER birthday again and are slowly, and steadily getting on with life without Zach. This was a really good book delving into the lives, losses, fears and motivations of these different people and how they grew after their horrifying but enlightening experience!

Finished: Life After Life (Atkinson) A very good book with a fascinating premise that kept me reading, wondering what would happen with each one of Ursula Todd's new lives! Ursula is born in February 1910 in her family home, Fox Corner, in England. She dies before she can even take her first breath, as the cord is wrapped around her neck. There's a blizzard about and the doctor had been unable to get there to help her mother, Sylvia. The next chapter immediately starts on the same day, with the same blizzard, yet somehow the doctor has made it to Fox Corner this time and is able to cut the cord away and save little Ursula. Ursula lives until she is nearly five years old with her mom, her father Hugh, her big brother, Maurice, big sister Pamela, and her baby brother Teddy. When at the beach one day, she follows her seven year old sister into the waves and drowns. We are immediately taken back to the snowy night in February 1910, where Ursula is born again. Each time we revisit Ursula's life, more details about each of the characters, and different events that have led them to where they are in their lives are brilliantly explored. In Ursula's third life, she has a bad premonition of the water and doesn't want to follow Pamela in at the beach. Is the hesitation enough for the nearby artist to look up and see them go in? Maybe so, since he runs in and saves them both. A couple of years later, Ursula falls from a window trying to recover a doll that her mean brother, Maurice (who never changes), has thrown onto the roof. In her next life, she is raped at the age of sixteen by a friend who Maurice brings home from school. Ursula is so sheltered, she doesn't even know what has happened or where babies come from. She is, of course, pregnant, and goes to her Aunt Izzie for help. Izzie takes her for an illegal abortion, and Ursula dies after that. In her next life, when she is confronted on the dark stairwell by he brother's friend, she kicks him and runs away. Ursula does not have memories of her previous life, but moments where she feels deja vu and knows that she must alter her behavior in certain situations for one reason or another. She has the deja vu, along with nightmares of death, so often, that she begins to see a psychiatrist who is an important person in her life, really the only one who understands her, and believes she is being reincarnated over and over. He doesn't share this with his young patient, but he does help her accept her feelings. Eventually, Ursula gets older and becomes very involved in World War II as someone who works in the government, recording information, and is part of a group who helps to dig people out of the various bombings. It's very surreal to her because in a couple of her previous lives, she has actually been killed by the very bombs she is now helping to dig people out of....many of the victims, people that resonate deeply in her soul because she knew them before, but doesn't know that. In one of her lives, her studies take her to Germany and she is actually friends with a girl who turns out to be Hitler's mistress! Ursula meets Hitler, marries a German man, and has a child who grows to be eleven years old before her husband is killed in the war and Ursula and Frieda, her child, are left desperately starving and freezing in Germany. Frieda is on her deathbed and the Russians are rumored to be fast approaching when Ursula gives her daughter a poison capsule and then takes one herself, ending their lives and the only German chapter of Ursula's life. The war still affects her family considerably, though, as both her younger brothers, beloved, kind, Teddy and charming, Jimmy, are both fighting for the British in the war. When Teddy's plane goes down in flames in Germany, and none of his fellow pilots see him eject, then the entire family mourns. Ursula is beyond distraught, but in this life, lives until she's 57 years old, where she is given a retirement party for her many years of service. She's been having blinding headaches, and soon after, dies again. Next thing we know, it's February of 1910 again and we see more snippets of her life, and a few changes in things that happened. This time, when Ursula is a child, her deja vu events turn to true memories and she has somewhat of a breakdown. Sent to a sanatorium, she has a few sessions with her old doctor and then formulates a plan. She patiently lives her life and goes back to Germany when she's older and re-cultivates her friendship with Hitler's mistress. In 1930, a comfortable part of his inner circle, she pulls out a gun at dinner and we are to believe that she assassinates him. We don't know for certain, though, because she goes to black when Hitler's men kill her in turn. It's February 1910 again, we see, again, several different snippets of what has happened in Ursula's life as she's growing up. In this one, the doctor doesn't make it there on the snowy night, but the mother learned (somehow) from watching the doctor cut the cord in the second life, and she takes out a pair of scissors and saves her own daughter! Anyway, we fast forward pretty quickly to 1945 and there was still a war, and Teddy's plane still goes down in flames in enemy territory, but in this life, his radio operators slaps a parachute on him and ejects him from the plane! He survives over a year in a prison camp before the war is over and he waits in a cafe in London to reunite with his girlfriend since childhood and his sister, Ursula! When Teddy sees Ursula across the room, he mouths "Thank You", but we don't ever really know what she did. Did she kill Hitler? If so, did one of Hitler's early minions take his place? Did she know the radio operator and tell him to save Teddy? The next chapter just starts back in February of 1910, so even if we assume that Ursula dies of old age in this one, then what will the next life bring? This was such a good, good book, and very well written! So clever! It bogged down just a bit for me during the bombing portions in England. Those chapters went on and on, but I can't really fault the author for that. It's still amazing to me that World War II isn't really that far back in our past. Anyway, I'm so glad I read this book! I think I'm going to read her book, A Good In Ruins. It is actually the story of Teddy and his war experience!!

Finished: The Perfect Mother (Molloy) A nice page-turner about a group of mothers whose babies are all born in the month of May, so they establish the May Mother's Club. They are all from different backgrounds and don't really know each other all that well, or the one "daytime dad" who is part of the group. The group insists that single mom, Winnie, leave her child with a baby sitter one evening to go and have a night out with the girls. They think she's too serious and clingy to her baby, Midas. So, of course, while they're all out, baby Midas is kidnapped!! After clearing the babysitter of any wrongdoing, soon Winnie herself is arrested for the disappearance of her own child. Some secret relationships come to light, and the narrator of the story, who we don't know, but we know is the wrong-doer, is a surprise reveal! Baby Midas is found safe in the end. :-) Just a nice, light read, but suspenseful read!

Finished: The Shipping News (Proulx) Pulitzer Prize winner filled with beautiful imagery and prose and with a few characters to care about, but this little slice of life in Newfoundland was just a bit too boring for me to read more than a bit a day, and that's not how I like to read. The story centers on a man named Quoyle. He's a father of two young girls who has lost his wife, who was a cheating witch who belittled him at every turn. She finally, one day, accidentally drove over a cliff with her latest lover and died. Quoyle's aunt from his father's side of the family shows up and talks him into moving himself and the girls to Newfoundland to where their family "came from". Quoyle is a large, unattractive, self-conscious, introverted man, who was emotionally and physically abused as a child by both his father and his brother. With no family left, he decides to go with his aunt to the frozen tundra and extremely small-town fishing life of Newfoundland. Quoyle goes to work for the small town newspaper, put in charge of writing the comings and goings of the ships that sail into their harbor, i.e., the shipping news. He's also put in charge of writing about any and all car accidents that happen in the town. His little daughters are still pretty traumatized by their mother's death, but they begin to feel at home there and make good friends with the children of Quoyle's boss's son's family. Quoyle also meets a young woman named Wavey who is a fishing widow, having lost her husband to the merciless northern waters as many wives of the town did. She's the mother of a young boy with Downs Syndrome and they all grow very close. By the end of the story, Quoyle and Wavey have finally come together in a nice kind of love and decided it's time to put their deceased spouses behind them and start a life together. Quoyle, Wavey, the aunt, and the other characters are quirky, but there for each other through northern winter storms, hard times and even death. This wasn't my favorite book in the world, but I'm glad I finally finished it and glad I read it.

Finished: Vox (Dalcher) Vox, which means the voice in Latin, is a very eye-opening book,written in our current times, that is scary to envision our country heading towards. Dr. Jean McClellan is a wife and mother of four, and also a doctor who has just discovered the cure to one particular kind of aphasia, a devastating side-effect of some strokes where the stroke victim can only speak in nonsensical phrases that make sense only to that person. The discovery of the cure remains a secret, however, as the very day after the discovery, Jean, like all other women and girls in the country is outfitted with a "counter" bracelet that will deliver her a violent electrical shock if she speaks more than 100 words a day! Like all other women, she is stripped of her job, and no longer allowed to read or write. She is to be the wife and mother at home, and that is all...not allowed to open mail or even read a cookbook. The little girls are sent to separate schools from the little boys. The girls are not allowed to learn to read or write, but can learn math to balance checkbooks, and learn home-economics skills. The bracelets are put on the girls when they are babies, so they are never even allowed to develop the language skills that most babies develop in their early years. It's a terrible existence! :-( In Jean's family, she's got a teenage son, twin 11 year old sons, and a six year old daughter. It's heartbreaking to see their family dinners where the boys get to talk as much as they want about what they did in school, homework, friends, projects...but 6 year old Sonia must sit basically silent so as not to go over her 100 words. She sadly grows used to being silent. The country is being run by the hideous idiot president that came after the first African American president...and his main advisor, a right-wing preacher who sees himself as the second coming. The preacher basically runs most everything in the country, often coming on the government run television to show what happens to people who don't mind the rules or try to rebel against how things are. They are either executed or sent to prison camps where they are fitted with electronic counter bracelets where they are allowed ZERO words or they will be shocked. So, one day, the preacher and several higher-ups in the government pay a visit to Jean and tell her that the president's brother, who he relies on, has had a stroke and is suffering from aphasia! They need her to resume her research. (They don't know she had already completed it.) She refuses until they tell her that they will take off both her bracelet and her daughter's for the duration of her research and "fix" to the problem. Her husband, also a doctor, works for the government, but does not at all agree with what is going on, however he's a passive man who goes along with things to keep their family safe and keep his job so they can live. When Jean arrives at the lab they have designed for her and two of her former partners to work at, she realizes that this lab had been outfitted far earlier than just a week before when the president's brother supposedly had his stroke. She is to report directly to another man who used to be on her team, but was full of himself and worthless when it came to contributing to the project. There are a few people who have secretly started what they can of a resistance, but it's very dangerous. With the help of her two former colleagues, Lorenzo and Lin, Jean quickly has the cure ready, since she'd already finished it before, but she doesn't want to let them know, because as soon as they know, then she and Sonia will be back in their bracelets. There's a bigger problem, though. Jean realizes that there are actually three different teams working on the solution, and that they are just one of the teams. When she sees the names of the other two teams, she realizes that one is working on developing, not the anti-dote to the aphasia, but something that will CAUSE it in healthy people...and the other group is working to make that agent water soluble. Something much more sinister is at bay. The president and the preacher and the other men in charge are planning to inject as much of the population as possible with the aphasia serum to turn everyone into babbling sheep. Jean and her husband, Patrick, concoct a dangerous plan. The president, all his top aides and the preacher are having a huge meeting in a few days, which Patrick will also be at. With the help of Lorenzo and one guard who is on their side, Patrick plans to sneak in a vile of the serum and put it in the water and coffee of the men and turn THEM into the babbling sheep before they can do it to the rest of the country. The plan works, at the expense of Patrick, who is killed in the effort. However, since the top 10 men in succession to the presidency are also affected, a new president is elected by the people who swears that our country will never again disintegrate to such a horrific state. This was a very interesting and scary book. Much like The Handmaid's Tale, it truly makes you think and wonder how close our county could come to this if we keep voting in leaders like we did two years ago and keep affirming misogynists to the Supreme Court.

Finished: A Prayer For Owen Meany (Irving) I finally finished the book, and I'm glad I stuck it out! It was a book I had to read in small doses, due to Irving going off on a few political and religious tangents at times...but they did relate to the story and all come tied together at the end. This is a story about two best friends, Johnny Wheelwright and Owen Meany, who grow up together in a small New Hampshire town. Johnny comes from a wealthy, town-founding family, while Owen comes from working class, granite quarry-owning parents. Owen is unique in that he is very small and light in stature, and has some sort of larynx damage that causes him to talk only in a high-pitched voice. Even as a young man, he never grows above five feet tall, and he always has the same voice. As children, Johnny and the other Sunday school children make a game of lifting Owen above their heads and passing him around...not bullying him, but just having fun and including him in the fun. Johnny has his own unique upbringing. His mother, Tabby, is a single mother with a beautiful voice who, as a young woman, would take the train into Boston one night a week to secretly sing in a nightclub. When she became pregnant and gave birth to Johnny as a single mom, she would never reveal who the father was, even at her wealthy mother's insistence. Tabby was a positive light and loved Johnny fiercely. She also treated Owen like a second son since he spent so much time at their house and away from his own mentally ill mother, and constantly working father. Tabby meets a loving man, Dan Needham, when Johnny is just six or seven, and Dan and Tabby fall in love. They wait a few years to get married, but when they finally do, Dan treats Johnny just as if he was his own son. He's a very loving and kind man, and adores Tabby. When the boys are eleven years old, they are playing in a baseball game when Owen goes up to bat. Normally the coach makes Owen stand there and take a walk, but on this day, because they're already losing so badly, he tells Owen to swing away. When Owen hits a line drive foul ball, it hits Johnny's mother right in the head as she's walking up to the game, killing her instantly. Naturally, this event has a profound affect on both Johnny and Owen, but they remain best friends. Owen just comes to believe that he is an instrument of God. It doesn't help (Johnny finds out later) that Owen's parents are a bit loony and that his mother insists that Owen is the product of a virgin birth, like Jesus. Owen's father swears they never consummated their marriage and that it's true. They tell Owen this when he's just eleven, so that, coupled with his hitting the first ball he's ever hit, only to kill his best friend's mother, makes Owen believe God is working through him. When Owen is performing in the annual Christmas play, A Christmas Carol, as the ghost of things to come, he has a vision as he's pointing to the prop gravestone and he sees his own date of death! He also has a vivid dream over and over where he sees himself dying as a 1st Lt. in the Army, saving a group of Asian children. As the boys grow older and attend the town private school together, where Dan teaches, it becomes clear how intelligent Owen is. He helps Johnny overcome a learning disability and learn how to read and study. Owen also helps Johnny search for who his father may be, even traveling to Boston with him to search it out. We know (as the readers) that whoever his father is was at the fateful baseball game and took the ball that killed Tabby while no one was looking, but we don't know who the father is. The police and Johnny assume that Owen took the ball and hid it. Only years later does Johnny find out that Owen never took it. The book is very long and full of details, but the main gist is that Owen does become rather Christlike in the eyes of many of the town folks, and even to Johnny's cousin, Hester, who falls in love with him. Owen spends many long hours discussing his faith and  beliefs with the two pastors in town, one of whom, Lewis Merrill, ends up giving "a prayer for Owen Meany" at the student assembly when Owen is kicked out of the academy his senior year in high school for forging draft cards for various students so they can buy alcohol. All the students and parents and most of the town are furious at the new academy dean for kicking out their valedictorian right before graduation. Lewis Merrill is a pastor who has actually lost his own faith, but hides it, and instead of actually saying a prayer, he just asks all the students to bow their heads and say their own prayers for Owen. One of the things that Owen and Johnny like to do in their free time is practice "the shot". The shot is a basketball shot where Owen runs towards Johnny, Johnny throws him the ball and instantly hoists him into the air towards the net, and Owen shoots the ball through the hoop. They practice this shot over and over and over until they can do it in under three seconds. When college comes, Owen has basically lost his love for making good grades, while Johnny goes on to major in English. Owen signs up for the ROTC. He feels strongly that he is supposed to go to war in Vietnam and that is where he will die saving children. Johnny, Hester, Dan and even Johnny's grandmother, who now adores Owen, try to talk him out of willingly going to Vietnam, but Owen insists. However, Owen fails the physical requirements when he can't get over the obstacle course wall. He's assigned to be a casualty officer in Phoenix where he makes the most of being that person who escorts the bodies of soldiers who are killed in action to their families, and comforting those families however he can. Meanwhile, on one of his leaves, he insists that Johnny come to the quarry workshop where they make grave markers with a diamond drill. He wants Johnny NOT to go to Vietnam and get killed, so he talks Johnny into letting him cut off his index finger with the drill so HE will fail his physical. This is all good with Johnny, who despises the war. As a matter of fact, Johnny is narrating the story from Canada, where he has lived  for the past twenty years, not as a deserter (because the finger amputation worked) but as a disgruntled American expatriate...albeit one who finally found his believe in God thanks to Owen. So, we finally approach the date of what Owen believes to be his death, even though he's a bit confused because he's not over in Vietnam or around any small Asian children. He insists that Johnny fly out to Phoenix, though, and spend the day before with him. It is 1968 and the are both now 26 years old. Johnny accompanies Owen while he escorts a body back to a family who is seething mad at the military. The teenage son at home has some definite mental problems, lots of anger and a hatred of the Vietnamese. He's also got all kinds of guns, ammunition and grenades at his home. Johnny and Owen get through that experience ok, and then actually have a really nice time at the hotel pool just hanging out, drinking beer, remembering all about their childhood, and then later staying up late watching television. In his spare time, Owen writes feverishly in  his diary, something he's done from childhood, but never let Johnny see. The next morning, it's time for Johnny to go back home so Owen takes him to the airport. As they wait for Johnny's plane to come in, another plane lands and off disembarks some nuns with a group of tiny Vietnamese children! They are orphans of the war and have been brought to the United States to be placed in homes. The nuns see Owen's uniform and ask him if he and Johnny will take the little boys to the men's room while they take the girls to the ladies. They say of course, and fail to see the angry teenage boy from the day before lurking in the hallways. When they are in the bathroom with the children, everything seems to come to Owen at once as he realizes he is with a bunch of small Asian children and at that moment, the angry teenager comes into the bathroom, cursing at them all. In his high-pitched, child-like voice, Owen says the only two Vietnamese phrases he was compelled to learn. He tells the children to get down and take cover. Because of his small stature and because his voice sounds high like theirs, they calm down and do as he says. The angry teenager takes the pin from the grenade and tosses it into the bathroom. Owen immediately tosses the grenade to Johnny and says, "you know what to do...we have under four seconds". As Owen runs towards Johnny, Johnny tosses the grenade back to him and hoists Owen up to the small, very high, brick window. Owen places the grenade on the ledge, but instead of coming back down, he holds it there with both hands to make sure it doesn't roll back down. Both of Owen's arms are blown off, but Johnny and all the children are ok. As Owen bleeds to death, he tells Johnny now he knows why his voice never changed all those years. It was meant to be this way for the children. And...now he knows why he had to insist that Johnny come and be there that day. They had to do the shot! He dies a hero, just not in the way he had thought it would be. Naturally, Johnny is devastated. As he narrates the book, he even flashes back on some things that happened after Owen died. One time, when he almost fell backwards down some stairs, he swears Owen's hand reached out and held him up. And, the biggest thing....when Johnny goes to see Pastor Lewis Merrill to plan Owen's service, he realizes that the Pastor has no faith left at all...that he's just been faking it for years. Suddenly, Owen's voice comes out through Pastor Merrill's and tells the pastor to open the third drawer of his desk. He yanks it so hard, that the drawer comes out and out rolls the baseball that killed Johnny's mother! Pastor Merrill is Johnny's fatherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I didn't see that one coming! Johnny is stunned, upset, and underwhelmed. He realizes that Pastor Merrill (who was married with children when he had the affair with his mother) has been a coward all these years. He also realizes that in all his talks with Pastor Merrill, Owen must have one time seen the baseball and led Johnny to this point now, knowing how much he wanted to know who his father was. All these things, coupled with Owen knowing exactly when he would die, have turned Johnny, who pretty much lost his faith when his mother died, into a believer of God. At the end of the book, we learn that Johnny says a prayer for Owen Meany every day...a prayer to God that he will bring his best friend back to him. ok, so this was a good book, just long. But the message at the end and how it all came together was worth the slow slow read! Really glad I finally read this one! :-)

Finished: Passing (Larsen) Set in 1927, Passing is the story about two African American women, Irene and Clare, who have known each other all their lives. They are both light enough to pass for white. Clare leaves their Harlem neighborhood when she is seventeen, after her verbally abusive father dies. For many years no one hears a word from her. Irene marries an African American doctor and has two sons, settling in New York even though her husband would rather move to South America. One day, while Irene is visiting Chicago and shopping in the unbearable heat, she feels as if she may pass out. Nicely dressed, and light-skinned, she uses this moment, as she does many others, to pass for white and be admitted into a nice hotel rooftop restaurant. When a beautiful white woman walks in, sits near her, and then can't take her eyes off of her, Irene eventually realizes she's looking at her old childhood friend, Clare. Clare, whose lightness and blond hair actually comes from having one white parent, recognizes Irene immediately and strikes up a conversation, insisting that Irene remember her. As it turns out, Clare has been passing for white all these years. What's more, she has married an extremely bigoted white man, never telling him of her African American blood. She's also got a daughter who has no idea she has African American blood. When Irene relents and agrees to meet with Clare again the next week, she also meets Clare's husband Jack. Jack has no idea that Irene is African American, and during the conversation starts belittling African Americans, using the "n" word, saying he'd never touch a filthy "n" or eat near one or even want to be in the same room with their murdering, conniving type. It's truly awful, the things he says. Irene stands there with her mouth hanging open, but says nothing to defend her race. She is furious at Clare for putting her in the position of even having to meet her racist husband. Irene leaves Chicago and goes home. Two years later, she receives a letter from Clare who says she longs to be back among "her people", and that she wants to come to visit the old Harlem neighborhood while Jack is out of town on business. Irene refuses to answer the letter, but Clare comes anyway, barging into Irene's life...charming her friends, as well as her husband! Clare spends more and more time there as Irene becomes more and more disconcerted with the entire situation. One part of her actually worries about what would happen to Clare and her daughter if her husband found out. The other part of her comes to the slow realization that her husband is looking at Clare with passionate looks, long absent from their marriage, and that they must be having an affair! One day as Irene is out shopping with an African American friend, she rounds a windy corner arm in arm with her friend and runs right into Jack who has returned from a business trip and is readying to leave the country soon with Clare. Jack starts to be friendly, but as he looks from Irene to her friend, it dawns on him what he completely missed at their first meeting...that Irene is African American. Irene rushes on, but then starts to worry what will happen if Jack starts really putting things together. Sure enough, at one of the last parties with friends before Clare is set to leave town...a party where Irene can see from across the room that her husband and Clare have grown to care for each other, Jack bursts through the door in a fury. He goes right for Clare and starts calling her the "n" word...berating her. The hostess stops him short by exclaiming to him that he's the only white person in a room full of black people, that he'd better mind himself. Irene takes this opportunity to dash over to Clare, who is standing by an open window. Irene "can't remember" exactly what happens, but the author implies that Irene puts her hand on Clare and pushes her towards the window. Everyone else in the room just sees Clare go through the window in the blink of an eye and fall to her death below! The story ends with Irene at least comfortable in the knowledge that Clare won't be breaking up her family. hmmm...it's an interesting story, and a tragic one all the way around!!

Finished: A Man Called Ove (Backman) A very good book; a tugger of the heartstrings. A Man Called Ove is the story of a Swedish man, Ove, who is grumpy, set in his ways, matter of fact, unfriendly, and at 59, has just been unwillingly retired from his job not too long after his beloved wife, Sonja, has passed away. Ove is a stickler for the homeowner association rules when it comes to the neighborhood, and polices the street willing to confront anyone, including the neighborhood stray cat. He's tired, though, and heartbroken, and simply wants to go and be with his wife, rather than talking to her at her grave every day. He gets his affairs in order, cancels his phone and all his subscriptions and decides he will end his life. He doesn't count on the new neighbors literally barging in, accidentally running over his mailbox, breaking the association rules, and making themselves right at home in his life. He has to teach the young father, Patrick, how to back up a trailer, and he has to drive Patrick's very pregnant Iranian wife, Parvenah, and six & three year old precocious daughters to the hospital when an ambulance comes to collect Patrick when, trying to pry open a stuck two-story window, he falls from the ladder he borrowed from Ove. As the story unfolds, Parvenah comes to depend on Ove, and he on her. He teaches her to drive. She basically interrupts several of his carefully planned suicide attempts because she needs him for some reason or another, until he finally realizes that he IS needed and better stay on this side of things for a bit longer. He takes in the cat when it's attacked by a dog. He takes in a local teenage boy, whose father owns the local cafe, when he comes out as gay and is kicked out of the home. He teaches another teenage boy how to repair a bike, and then helps him pick out a car. And, most importantly, he gets back in touch with the other crotchety guy on the street, Rune, who used to be his best friend and comrade in all things in the association until they had a huge fight over something Ove can't remember anymore. Rune's wife, Anita, had been Sonja's best friend, which had thrown Rune and Ove together...but they never really minded it, and became friends themselves. It has been years since they've spoken, though, and Anita has come to Ove for help with her heater because Rune is suffering from Alzheimer's. What's more, the government wants to take him away and put him in a home. Ove begrudgingly, or maybe not, helps Anita and when he realizes that she's been battling the bureaucracy for two years and they are coming any day to get Rune, he mobilizes his new friends and neighbors and calls a local reporter who he always denied giving a story to when he saved a man off a railroad track one day. So, the new found friends rally around and get Rune kept in his house and promise that they will all be involved in helping Anita care for him. Ove gets more and more attached to Parvenah and her kids. They begin to even refer to him as Grandad. One night, after the oldest girl's eighth birthday, Ove confronts some hoodlums trying to burglarize a neighbor's house and falls to the ground with a heart attack. Parvenah is frantic, but gets him to the hospital where the doctor explains he's got an enlarged heart, but with medication, should be ok for another few years. Not long after, Parvenah gives birth to a little boy, who the author never names, but I can't imagine it's not Ove! Anyway, the book delves into Ove's past, and how honorable and hard-working he was because his single father raised him that way. It explores the day that Sonja bursts into Ove's black and white world with her colorful personality and infectious laugh, and he knows then and there he will marry her. It quietly develops all these new relationships that are thrust upon Ove until by the time he is actually going to die, he's made sure that the gay boy and his father have been reunited and that Patrick and Parvenah's children will all be taken care of with the money he never spent. It's a very good, very heartwarming story which brought tears to my eyes more than once! I really like this author. He's the same buy who wrote Bear Town and it's sequel. I will definitely be seeking out more of his books.

Finished: The Innocent (Baldacci) I've enjoyed a few Baldacci books now, and they're always suspenseful page-turners and great for airplane reading! This one introduces Will Robie, an assassin for a secret department of the United States government who kills extremely bad people who are planning harm to our country. He always follows orders, no questions asked.....until one night he is ordered to assassinate an American mother of two who also works for the government. When he hesitates and decides not to kill her, especially since her two year old son is in her arms, the "back up team" shoots straight through the little boy's head and into the mother's and kills them both. Will Robie goes immediately on the run, knowing that he will now be marked for elimination. He implements his self-survival escape plan and hops on a bus under an assumed name just in time to see what appears to be another assassin sit down behind a fourteen year old girl and move to murder her! Of course, Will intervenes and saves the girl, taking her with him off the bus just seconds before it explodes! The girl, Julie, has just witnessed the murder of her parents and gone on the run herself. A very unlikely friendship evolves between Julie and the forty year old Will as they work frantically together to figure out how their situations, and the victims of their situations, are not coincidental at all, but very intertwined. With the help of FBI agent, Nicole Vance, Will and Julie get to the bottom of who is killing the people around them and why. I may just read the other Will Robie books from Baldacci! We'll see. :-)

Finished: Ghosted (Walsh) This was a pretty good page-turning book! Unlike I usually do, I'm not going to give away the huge plot twist, just in case someone reads this. I don't want to ruin the surprise. :-) This is the story of a 38 year old British woman named Sarah who has lived in the states for the last 19 years since a tragic accident ripped apart her family, which at the time included her parents and her 12 year old sister, when she was only 19. Back in town to see her parents, Sarah makes it a point to visit the sight of the life-altering accident on its anniversary and happens to meet a local man named Eddie. The have an instant connection, with equal interests and easy conversation and spend the next seven days together in his converted barn home falling in love. They both have painful situations, Sarah, her past and Eddie, dealing with his mentally ill mother. They think it's crazy that it happened so fast, but they both can't deny their feelings. Eddie has already got a holiday planned with a buddy to Spain, but he promises to call Sarah, even from the airport. Sarah promises to extend her stay in the UK and meet him at the airport when he lands back in town, where they will then figure out the next step of their future together. Only....Eddie never calls, and he never shows up at the airport. Despite messages from Sarah that get more and more frantic, Sarah doesn't hear a word from Eddie. She tries to convince her friends that something must be wrong, but they just think she's been "ghosted" and that she'll never hear from this guy again. Sarah knows the feelings were real, and she is heartbroken, and determined to get to the bottom of things. What follows are a few revelations that show neither of them had been completely truthful with the other in those 7 days. I'm not going to give any more of a recap than this, because I really don't want to spoil it. :-) A nice, suspenseful, summer read.

Finished: Beowulf (translated by Hieatt) I decided to go ahead and read Beowulf, the narrative story, not the poem. I glanced at the poem in both Old English and translated to modern English and I'm not ready to tackle that yet, lol. Anyway, it was interesting to read the narrative first to get a handle on the characters and the action. In the book I just read, The Mere Wife, that is based on Beowulf, the boy, Gren, is no monster at all, and far more sympathetic than Beowulf's evil monster, the Grendel, who was supposedly an ancestor of Cain's, who had been banished to hell along with all his descendants for killing his brother. And, in The Mere Wife, it never even dawned on me that Ben Wolfe was supposed to be Beowulf, duh. I guess because I assumed Beowulf was a hero with a true heart. Ben Wolfe was a hero after his own purposes. He'd actually been cowardly and shied away from the battle when he fought in the military, hiding in alleyways, and now he was basically just going after the "monsters" to elevate himself in the eyes of Willa and the town. Beowulf in Beowulf is much more courageous and pure of heart. He apparently fights with God on his side. Beowulf does go to the rescue of the Danes who are being mercilessly attacked by Grendel. He takes Grendel down with his bare hands, and then has to deal with Grendel's monster mother who rises from the murky, fiery mere to avenge her son. Beowful also disposes of the mother. It's not until fifty years later, after he has fought many valiant battles and patiently waited to be king of the Geats rather than taking a thrown from his kinsmen, that he is felled by the fiery dragon that plagues the countryside. Once again, though, he goes in valiantly to brave the dragon, and with the help of only one of his men who doesn't run away, he manages to slay the dragon before perishing of his burns. So, now that I know the story and characters, I may tackle the translated poem at some point. :-)

Finished: The Mere Wife (Headley) A very good book about two very different mothers, with two very different sons, who just want to be the best of friends. Apparently a modern take on Beowulf, which I now need to read, the story is about Gren, who is the son of Dana Mills, an American vet who was fighting in a war, was captured, and beheaded on television...or so it was assumed. In reality, she is not actually sure what happened to her, but she woke up six months later in the desert, hugely pregnant. She doesn't know who the father of her child is, but now in an Army hospital in the U.S., she has all sorts of visions of her dead comrades. She flees the hospital and goes to the one safe place she can think of, the underground mountain tunnels where her family lived after being run from their own land. She gives birth to her child, but he's got a full set of teeth and head of hair. He's not like a "normal" baby, so she decides to stay in their underground cocoon, an actual ancient, closed-down railway station, and keep him from the "monsters" out there that would harm him. Their haven is bordered by a mere, an icy lake with a warm hot spring in the middle of it, which seems to have the spirits of past souls making it come alive as well. Gren is smart and devoted to his mother, but by the time he's seven years old, he's lonely and curious about the town that is just within his reach at the bottom of the mountain...the town that forced his family off their land and was even built on some of their burial grounds. Nearest him is a huge mansion called Herot Hall. Herot Hall is occupied by Willa,  her husband Roger, and their little son, Dylan. They are a picture perfect family on the outside, and socially the cream of the small town crop. Dylan is a sensitive boy who takes piano lessons, but whose father also wants him to play sports. Willa spends her time throwing parties and wondering how much of a maternal connection she really has with this little being that came out of her. When Gren's curiousity gets the best of him after he watches Dylan from afar, he actually steals into the house and befriends Dylan. Dylan is captivated by Gren, and together they play on the piano. By the time Willa hears the unusual music and makes it to the room, Gren is gone in a flash, but has left behind what look like claw marks deeply embedded in the piano keys! Dylan cries for his new friend Gren, and Willa thinks a wild animal has made it's way into their house somehow. The police are called, which introduces us to police chief, Ben Wolfe, who will become the nemesis for Dana and Gren. Neither the chief or her husband believe that any wild animal was really in the house, but Willa knows something was there. As Christmas comes and goes and the Herot's prepare for their huge annual New Year's Eve party, Gren watches with  longing from the mountain, through the huge windows of Herot Hall...and Dylan watches every day for Gren from his own bedroom window. At the party, when Dylan begins to choke on a lego and no one at the party knows what to do, Gren is there in an instant, and swoops Dylan up and runs off with him up the mountain. Of course, Dana, who by now has figured out that Gren has come too dangerously close to all the town people, follows him there to protect him. The party is filled with commotion and the sight of the bedraggled Dana and her son puts fear in everyone. They figure out that Dana is the soldier who was supposedly beheaded years ago on television, and the story becomes all about Dana swooping in and kidnapping Dylan! Ben Wolfe leads the charge to go and get Dylan back, but in the hunt, Roger Herot is killed. After a couple of weeks, and the funeral of Roger, Willa and the town assume that little Dylan is most likely dead. In reality, he's in the tunnel with Gren and Dana and is truly happy for the first time in his young life. He has no desire to go back home. However, Ben Wolfe, who we find out is really more about getting the accolades he will achieve and being a hero if he finds Dylan, finally figures out where their underground home is. In a tragic confrontation where Ben severely injures Dana, Gren must make the choice to grab his mother and take her deeper into the tunnel for her own safety, thus leaving Dylan there to be found by Ben before Gren can return and take him with them as well. So, Dylan is returned home, Ben is the hero, Ben tells Dylan and everyone else that he killed both Dana and Gren, the "monster",  Ben marries Willa and they have twin boys, and both Dylan and Gren are miserable. Years pass until both the boys are fifteen and realize that the other is still alive. They come together for a brief, joyous reunion before Ben Wolfe decides to finish the job he knows he never completed. :-( We end with the death of Dylan first, by the hands of his own mother who hallucinated that she was actually killing Gren, and then the death of Gren as he fights to the death with Ben to avenge Dylan, and then finally with the death of Ben, who is killed by Dana who drives a newly refurbished tunnel train right into him, and then off the bridge it was driving on, thus killing Dana in the process as well. In the end, the only one left standing is Willa, who is last seen being carted off in handcuffs for killing her own son. It's a tragic story, which apparently Beowulf is as well. The writing is beautiful, though, with so much description and lyrical prose. And, the story is really so simple...why can't the boys who are so different be friends? Why can't Gren be out in the real world and accepted for his differences? Sigh. A really good book that I'm glad I read!

Finished: Bring Me Back (Paris) Psychological thriller that I finished in a day because it was such a page-turner. :-) A young man, Finn, who has been dating his girlfriend, Layla, for a year, pulls over at a rest stop one night on their long drive back from a vacation. He gets out to use the restroom and leaves her sleeping in the car with the doors locked. When he comes back out, she's gone, nowhere to be found. Of course, he doesn't tell the police everything, like how she had just told him she had slept with someone else so he'd dragged her out of the car and raised his fist to her. He doesn't remember if he hit her, though, because the next thing he remembers is coming back out of the restroom. He has dealt with anger issues in the past and his father had told him to walk away from situations, so he doesn't know if that's what he did, or something worse. An intense search never turns up any sign of Layla. Twelve years later, Finn, though he grieved for months, leading into years, has moved on with his life. He's living with another woman and has just proposed to her. The woman is Layla's sister, Ellen! It turns out that five years after Layla's disappearance, Ellen travels to town for the ceremony to declare Layla officially dead, and meets Finn. It takes some time, but they begin to grow close, etc. etc. So, right after they announce their engagement in the paper, mysterious things start happening. Little Russian nesting dolls, something that Ellen and Layla had as children, begin showing up at odd times. Then, Finn starts getting emails that finally result in the person on the other end saying she is, in fact, Layla! Finn is beside himself and doesn't tell Ellen. Could it possibly be his beloved Layla is still alive? Ellen knows about the Russian Dolls and begins to think herself that Layla could be alive. She's both thrilled that her sister is possibly alive, and worried at the same time. Does that mean Finn would want to go back to the lively Layla instead of the dependable Ellen? I figured out very early in the book the big twist, so it was kind of interesting seeing the story unfold with that knowledge. It's along the lines of finding out that Bruce Willis is really dead in The Sixth Sense. There's not a ghost in this story, but there's just one of those "do your head" twists that makes you go back and reread things. :-) I guess I"ll just say ***SPOILER ALERT*** from this point on. If you'd like to read this book but don't want to know the big twist, then  you should stop reading immediately! okie doke? So, probably most people will also figure this out pretty early on, but Ellen is really Layla with a split personality. It ends up that her sister Ellen had been killed by their horribly abusive father as a teenager and her body buried. When Finn had raised his hand to Layla twelve years before, the abusive childhood reared its talons and grabbed hold of Layla. Even though it ends up Finn did not hit her, Layla didn't know what he might do when he returned from the restroom, so she caught a ride with a stranger and ran. She went back to her father, who by that time was nearly blind with diabetes, and assumed the identity of her sister Ellen, because believe it or not, the father actually tolerated Ellen more than he did Layla! After her father's death, Layla went to school to become a book illustrator and more and more kept Ellen's personality. When she went to the death declaration ceremony for Layla and Finn didn't even recognize her, she, Layla, made a promise to Ellen that she'd go away for good if Ellen could make Finn happy. However, Layla couldn't keep her promise when Finn actually proposed to Ellen. That's why Layla wanted back out to play and to claim Finn. As Finn becomes more and more frantic because rather than agreeing to meet with him, Layla's behavior and emails are escalating, demanding that Finn get rid of Ellen, Finn still doesn't let Ellen know what's going on. Of course, since Ellen and Layla are sharing the same body, Ellen already knows everything that Finn is not telling her. Neither of them seem to be able to control when the other comes out. When Layla kidnaps Ellen and their dog (or so Finn thinks), with the help of his friends, he finally figures out that she's taken Ellen to their old family home. When he gets there, and he only finds one person, who he thinks is Ellen, they struggle as he's trying to figure out what's going on and Ellen falls and hits her head. It's a fatal wound, but before she dies, she keeps muttering, "not Ellen but Layla". Once Finn is informed by his friends, who stayed behind to delve into more emails, that what he was dealing with was a split personality all along, Finn can't forgive himself for not recognizing Layla at the ceremony, and more so, for his fit of anger that began the whole nightmare. He doesn't fight the law when he's accused of manslaughter and prepares to go to jail and live in his own prison. The books is much more suspenseful than my mediocre recap!

Finished: Less (Greer) This year's Pulitzer Prize winner about a 49 year old gay man, Arthur Less, a fair to middlin' author who, heartbroken that his former lover of nine years is marrying someone else, decides to travel the world by accepting all kinds of invitations he's been offered...all but the one he can't bear to attend...his ex-lover, Freddy's wedding! I kept putting off reading this book, but am so glad I finally read it. We travel with Arthur as he goes on all these adventures, where, because it's Arthur Less, something almost always goes wrong! He's running from  his feelings, and from his publisher's rejection of his latest book, and in the process, he reminisces about his first love, Robert, all the loves in between, and his last love, the man he's still in love with, Freddy. There are so many passages in this book that I actually laughed out loud at that I was shocked. It's been a long time since a book has made me do that. And, so many passages I related to as well. Arthur is going to turn fifty while he's away on his trip, and his focus on that also brings out all kinds of self-examination. So, almost anything that could go wrong, does go wrong. Arthur is headed from San Francisco to New York to moderate a panel discussion on popular SciFi author H.H.H Mandern's recent book for his first stop. He comes to realize that they had to go pretty far down on a list of people they would want to moderate before he said yes. He never gets to moderate the panel, because H.H.H. Mandern comes down with food poisoning. Arthur next heads off to Mexico where he was invited to be part of an author's symposium, but it turns out that only he and the ex-wife of his first love, Robert, are to be on that panel. This being the wife who was scorned when Robert left her for Arthur!! As it turns out, she can't show up because she's broken her hip, so Arthur is left there on his own, battling the English/Spanish language barrier. Arthur's travels continue on in this manner, from Berlin, where he thinks he's speaking perfect German when he's up for an award, but where the reader sees what he's actually saying. It is pretty funny! And, then he goes on to Paris where he almost falls in love after his plane out of Paris is delayed and he attends a party of an old friend who never shows up. From Paris he goes to Morocco, where after riding a camel through the desert and nearly being smothered by a sandstorm, he winds up a ski chalet. On to Japan where he has agreed to offer his critique on authentic Japanese food to a magazine, even though he has never eaten Japanese food. And finally, to his last destination, a retreat in India where he is determined to rewrite his rejected book. All his travel experiences, his longing thoughts about Freddy, and his reminiscing about Robert do lend him a new insight on how the protagonist of his book should be changed. He has the entire book written at the retreat but the last chapter when he gets a call from home that Robert, who is now 70 years old to Arthur's 50 (he had his birthday on the Sahara), has had a stroke. Arthur decides to head home the next day since he remains good friends with Robert. Luckily, nothing goes wrong with his flights home, and as he wearily climbs the steps to his home, he sees that a light is on and someone is waiting for him. It's Freddy!!! It turns out, Freddy was married for one day and as he sobbed on the first day of his honeymoon in Tahiti, his husband told him that he needed to do what made him happy. It was clear that Freddy truly still loved Arthur. And, it turns out that Freddy was the narrator of the book all along. This is where the book ends, and for once, there seems to be a happy ending for Arthur Less! An uplifting ending, and a good book along the way. :-) Here are a couple of passages that I either related to or that made me laugh.

On Arthur playing baseball as a youngster, which he really had no interest in, but he played anyway. I just loved this:

His father had to remind his son's coach (who had recommended Less's removal) that it was a public athletic league and, like a public library, was open to all. Even the fumbling oafs among us. And his mother, a softball champ in her day, has had to pretend none of this matters to her at all and drives Less to games with a speech about sportsmanship that is more a dismantling of her own believes than a relief to the boy. Picture Less with his leather glove weighing down his left hand, sweating in the spring heat,  his mind lost in the reverie of his childhood lunacies--when an object appears in the sky. Acting almost on a species memory, he runs forward, the glove before him. The bright sun spangles his vision. And--thwack!! The crowd is screaming. He looks into the glove and sees, gloriously grass-bruised and double-stitched in red, the single catch of his life span.

On Arthur describing the tent he was set up in in the Sahara and the sounds surrounding him in the desert:

From the north: a camel bellowing to spite the dusk.
From the south: Lewis screaming that there is a scorpion in his bed.
From the west: the tinkle of flatware as the Bedouin set their dinner table.
From the south again: Lewis shouting not to worry, it was just a paper clip.
From the east: The British technology-whiz-cum-nightclub-owner saying: "Guys? I don't feel so great." 

omg, I just laughed out loud at Lewis, a friend of Arthur's who met him in Morocco for this part of the trip, lol.

And, on the description of a restaurant that Arthur goes to in Japan:

The restaurant sits on a rock above the river and is very old and water stained in way that would delight a painter and trouble a contractor....

Finished: The Wasp Factory (Banks) Probably the most disturbing book I've read to date, and I found Lord of the Flies very disturbing! I read reviews that Wasp Factory was very dark, yet it was also among the top 100 books to read on a British book list. Anywayyyyyy....it was very, very disturbing, and thankfully not too long. Frank is a 17 year old living on a remote Scottish island with just his eccentric father. He spends his time killing small animals, constantly building small pipe bombs, supplying his leftover WWII bunker on the island, or putting wasps through his "wasp factory". Frank narrates the story and lets us know that when he was 5, he killed his cousin, 10 year old Blythe, because his cousin set fire to his and older brother Eric's rabbit hutches, killing their pets. When Frank was 8, he killed his 5 year old brother, Paul, because even though he loved him and played with him all the time, he could see Paul becoming someone who would eventually crowd him out. Then, when he was 9 he killed his 4 or 5 year old cousin, Esmerelda, because he needed to even out the killing between boys and girls. He built a huge kite made of tarp, and had her put her hands through the nylon loops of the string, and let go of her off the windy Scottish coast. She was never seen again. His old brother Eric is gifted smart, but while in medical school, takes care of a baby who is basically a vegetable and Eric goes absolutely crazy one day when he lifts up the babies head to feed it and day old maggots have been eating the baby's brain. Eric goes back home where he, formerly so gentle, begins setting dogs on fire and shoving maggots at the local town children. He is committed to an asylum, but has just escaped at the time of the book. Frank has only one friend in town because he is so weird and because of his "disability". It ends up, when Frank was 3, his genitals were bitten off by the family bulldog, Saul, on the same day his little brother was born. His mother left the family, only coming back to give birth to Paul, who wasn't even his father's child. Then, she left Paul with Frank's father! One of the reasons Frank ended up killing Paul was he couldn't believe his father named him Paul, after going out and killing Saul for mauling Frank. Saul's old creepy skull is one of the things that Frank keeps in his bunker. He puts candles in it and consults it when he's got a problem and needs to figure out what to do. Frank's wasp factory is a huge old clock face that used to be on the outside of the Bank of Scotland. Frank has rigged up little tunnels that go from the round circle in the center to each of the twelve Roman numerals that indicate time. At the end of each tunnel, he's rigged a little door that will trap the wasp and each number has a different manner of death for the was, from fire, which he has to help with using a lighter, to being eaten by ants, to being drowned in urine, to being caught by a spider, to being shot with an air gun, etc. Frank also captures wasps to put in the wasp factory when he needs answers to things. The main thing he needs answered right now is what is Eric going to do? Is he coming back to the island? Should he embrace his brother or be very afraid? Frank has spent his life as a eunuch, never able to achieve puberty, and he knows every inch of the island. He would love to have his older brother back, but knows he's lost him to his mental illness. At the climax of the book, Eric does come back and try to blow up his old house, first setting fire to all the sheep on his way. Needless to say, the latest wasp had "chosen" death by fire, so it's just creepy. Meanwhile, Frank has finally been able to get into his father's study, which has remained locked his whole life. In the study, he finds a specimen jar with a tiny set of male genitalia floating in it. :-( He also finds a box of tampons and vials of male hormones!! Frank freaks out and confronts his father and discovers that he's not a boy at all, but a girl. He was, in fact, bitten by the bulldog, but it just left a little bit of scaring. His father has been feeding him male hormones all his life, keeping him home for homeschooling, etc. because he didn't want the influence of another rotten female in his life! He even constructed a fake set of tiny male genitalia to put in the jar in case Frank ever began to question things. And the tampons were in case Frank's body ever rejected the male hormones.  omg, it's awful! The next morning, Frank goes for one of his long walks out to the dunes. He contemplates his life and how part of him always thought he took those three young lives because he knew they would grow up and have things he'd never have. They'd grow up to be normal. If he'd not been tampered with, perhaps he never would have killed them. He also grew up thinking women were worthless, and now he is one. He comes across Eric, laying in the dunes sleeping. He sits down by him and Eric wakes up briefly, put his head in Frank's lap, and goes back to sleep. Franks sit with his brother and wonders what Eric will think when he wakes up and realizes he has a sister instead of a brother. The End. Uggggg, as I said, one of the most disturbing books I've read! I definitely need a palate cleanser!

Finished: The Great Believers (Makkai) This was a very good book, and an extremely emotional one for me. The two main characters were Fiona, a 21 year old who has lost her brother, Nico, to AIDS, and one of his circle of friends, Yale, a 25 year old gay man who becomes her best friend. The book flip flops back and forth between 1985 and 2015. In 1985 we meet all the young gay guys living in Chicago and just becoming aware of and scared to death of this virus that is afflicting so many of them. I can't really do a massive recap because nearly every feeling that Fiona has about the death of her brother...from how she wailed and collapsed after she'd found out about his diagnosis, to how she carried him with her after his death, always wondering how he would react to any given scenario or new movie, etc....is a feeling that I have had, and still have about my own brother who died of AIDS. Unlike my brother, many of the guys have been completely outcast by their parents, as Nico has. Fiona is the one who has stuck by Nico's side since  he left home at 15, kicked out by his father because he was gay, and she only 11 years old. It's a beautifully written book that gets into the nitty gritty of the relationships, loves, friendships, families of all these young men, and at the same time, Fiona's relationship to all the guys...how she loved them all, and how that affected her relationship with her own daughter as she grew up. The guys: Nico and Terrence, lovers in love and both tragically dead within a few months of each other in 1985. Yale and his lover of 3 years, Charlie, are a focus for awhile. Charlie is always certain that Yale will cheat on him with someone better looking. They've both been tested for HIV and are negative. Teddy and Julian, the two hot looking guys who never want for relationships and play a dangerous game with their lives. It's a time when they're all just hearing about the disease and think the government is just trying to trick them into getting tested so it can keep their information. And, Richard, an older gentleman, but the photographer of the group who will go on to become famous for his artistic work. Yale works at the Briggs Museum at Northwestern University and loves his job! Fiona's grandmother has just insisted that he come and look at some personal pieces she has which were drawn and given to her by a few moderately famous artists when she was a model in Paris before WWI. He's skeptical, but when he realizes that they are truly worth alot of money, he arranges for the museum to make a show out of them. They are worth a couple of million dollars it turns out. On the night of Nico's memorial service for just his friends, since they weren't allowed at his funeral, Charlie mistakenly thinks that Yale has gone upstairs with Teddy and had sex. When Yale comes down after just laying upstairs for awhile because he's overwhelmed, Charlie has gone and doesn't come home all night. They manage to patch things up, but when the tragic news comes the next month that Julian has tested positive for HIV, Charlie flips out. Turns out HE cheated on Yale with Julian when he thought Yale was with Teddy. So, yes, Charlie ends up HIV positive. He never really apologizes to Yale for making him have to go through the agony of waiting three months to know for sure if he's HIV positive as well. They break up and don't really speak again until Charlie is on his deathbed. Yale tests negative, but like an IDIOT sleeps with his intern who he assumes is a virgin just realizing he's gay. Of course, he's not a virgin. He's actually been around quite a bit and ends up having infected Yale. It's so, so very sad three quarters of the way through the book when Yale, who you just love and who has been there for Fiona through thick and think, becomes infected. It's only 1987, so it's pretty much still a death sentence at this point. Julian, decides not to stay around there and have people watch him die, so he goes to Puerto Rico. By the time it's 2015, and Fiona is 51 and in Paris searching for her estranged daughter, Claire, all of these young men have died years ago...Nico, Terrence, Teddy, Julian, Charlie and then Yale, her dear Yale. What was worse, Yale died alone in the hospital. Fiona had been by his side day and night, but suddenly went into labor and was rushed upstairs to a difficult labor and emergency C-section. Two days later, Yale died all alone even as Fiona made the nurses go back and forth keeping her updated. She never forgave herself for not being there, and all this loss somehow made it's way into her daughter's life and made her feel as if her mother loved "the boys" far more than she ever loved her. During her first year of college, Claire runs off and joins a cult, and by 2015, she's out of the cult, but has a three year old daughter with the boy she dragged with her into the cult. She's been spotted in Paris, but refuses to have contact with Fiona or her father, who is divorced from Fiona. Enter Richard, who has become that famous photographer, who is about to do a show in Paris, and he invites Fiona to come there to stay as long as she likes to find Claire. Fiona does this and finally tracks down Claire, who doesn't want much to do with her, but does start to warm up to her. She finally tells her mother how she knows the day of her birth was the worst day of Fiona's life because it was the day that Yale died and she always loved Yale more than she loved her. Fiona is able to tell her that she was born before Yale died, and that she loves her very much. It's a very tentative reunion, but a few strides are made. Suddenly, though, Richard has a huge surprise for Fiona....in walks a 55 year old Julian!!! He had never perished from AIDS. One of those lucky few who sometimes it didn't devastate, he had made it until 1996 when the triple cocktail of drugs came out which was moderately successful for many victims. He was there, living and breathing. Fiona can't believe she's got Julian there to share the memories and the burden of those memories with. When he praises Fiona to her daughter, Claire feels the old familiar feelings of her mother, "St. Fiona" again, and withdraws a bit. As they all go to Richard's show opening, they see how many of the pictures are from the 1980's and are of all those friends they lost. There is even  video footage of Nico with Yale and Charlie that Fiona has never seen. As the book ends, Fiona decides to stay in Paris awhile to repair her relationship with Claire, and Claire wanders the show looking at all the pictures. So, a very good book, very draining for me. So very real some of the things that were said and done. For instance, as each of the sick guys went to the hospital AIDS floor when he got too sick to be at home, the nurses there on that floor were so compassionate. There was hair cutting day, and they would get their scalps and heads massaged by the nurses before getting their trims. I sat in the hospital room with my brother while he got his hair so lovingly washed and his scalp massaged by an angel of a nurse two days before he died. So many moments like that throughout the book that mirrored moments that I carry with me. I'm just emotionally drained after reading this book, but I'm so, so glad I did. And I will end is with this quote from the book that is so profound to me, so true.

"This disease has magnified all our mistakes. Some stupid thing you did when you were nineteen, the one time you weren't careful. and it turns out that was the most important day of your life."  💔

Finished: The Book of Life (Harkness) The final book in the All Souls Trilogy, The Book of Life picks up where the second book left off, with vampire husband, Matthew de Clairmont, and witch wife, Diana Bishop, returning to the present day from their trip to the past, with Diana pregnant with their twins. Diana and Matthew had traveled back to the 1600's in search of how to get their hands on the Ashmole 782, or what becomes known as the book of life...the sacred book which they think contains the origins of not only vampires and witches, but daemons as well. All three groups are trying to get their hands on this book and keep it out of the hands of the others. Meanwhile, the Covenant, the governing committee consisting of three witches, three vampires and three daemons, adheres to the strictest of rules about vampires and witches mating, much less having children. While in the past, Diana actually gets to meet Matthew's father, Phillippe de Clairmont, the powerful, unwavering, head of the vampire clan. Phillippe accepts and declares Diana to be his daughter, thus assuring her protection down through the ages. Once back in their own time, Diana and Matthew are welcomed home with loving, open arms by friends and family, the irascible and highly dangerous Ysabeau, Matthew's vampire mother, Diana's beloved Aunt Sarah, a very canny witch, Marcus, Matthew's vampire son, and his new love, Phoebe, a human, Matthew's best friend, Hammish, a daemon, and household help and loyal friends, vampires Fernando and Marthe. And, meeting them back in current times, after meeting Diana for the first time in the second book, is the beloved, loyal, Scottish vampire, Gallowglass protector of both Diana and Matthew. Soon, Diana's best friend, Chris, just a plain old human, but a genius one, and Matthew's lab mate and good friend, Miriam, a vampire, also get into the mix as several evil forces come for the de Clairmonts. First, though, we have the joy of the de Clairmont babies being born...first out little Rebecca, the spitting image of her father, and named after her mother's deceased mother. And second, little Philip, with his mother's coloring, and named after his grandfather. Of course, once the babies are born, the danger to the family becomes more intense, especially when Benjamin, an evil vampire son of Matthew's, rears his head and makes it known that he will not rest until Matthew is dead and he has Diana for himself. He wants to make his own combo babies! Meanwhile, throughout the book, Diana's power gets stronger and stronger, as she has the powers of a weaver, which is a very strong, rare witch. Once she finds the three missing pages of the Ashmole 782 and reunites them with the book, she gains even more power, literally becoming the book of life. It takes all of them together to finally overcome Benjamin, who has done indescribably evil things in the name of getting back at his father who created him and then abandoned him hundreds of years before. The book does come to a happy ending, with the de Clairmonts back together, the Covenant disbanded, and Benjamin done in once and for all. And...the two babies are showing their "personalities". Looks like little Rebecca is going to be more vampire than witch...and little Philip is already causing things to float around, so will be powerful like his mama. That's the end of the book series, so far, but they are making a TV series based on the books and I can't wait to see that. :-)

Finished: Warlight (Ondaatje) A pretty good book about two British siblings left on their own with questionable "guardians" as their parents go off to a mysterious job assignment in the year following the end of World War II. Fourteen year old Nathaniel and sixteen year old Rachel are told by their parents that their father is accepting a new job in Singapore and they will be gone for a year before they have the children join them. They expect them to stay at their private schools and live with a mysterious family friend named Walter, who the kids secretly call The Moth. The father leaves first and the mother spends the next few weeks meticulously packing her trunk, involving the kids in all the decisions, and spending as much quality time as she can with them. They are, of course, devastated when she leaves, but they get used to their life with The Moth. The Moth has many friends, just as mysterious, who come in and out of the house and this extended group of friends essentially becomes a family for Nathaniel and Rachel. After a few months, Rachel stumbles upon her mother's neatly packed trunk, hidden in the basement! Did she not really leave? Was she even alive? The kids have all kinds of questions for The Moth, but he can only tell them that their mother is safe. Rachel comes to resent and even hate her mother as she grows into a young woman much in need of her mom. She becomes close to The Moth though, as a father figure. Nathaniel goes to work at one of the hotels that The Moth has an interest in and meets a girl, Agnes, that he begins a relationship with. He also becomes very close to Darter one of the strange friends of The Moth's, who is at the house night and day. Darter convinces The Moth to let Nathaniel run barges with him in the middle of the night transporting illegal racing dogs into London. Nathaniel and Agnes end up living quite the life, sneaking into empty houses for sale to spend alone time, and then traveling up and down the river with Darter late at night. After more than a year, and after the kids realize that their parents are probably not really coming back, Nathaniel notices a strange man following him. The man appears again, and then the third time, tries to kidnap both Nathaniel and Rachel. The Moth and Darter, along with another strange man that Nathaniel recognizes, defend and protect the kids...The Moth paying with his life. :-( When Nathaniel wakes up from the chloroform that the kidnapper used, there is his mother! She appears to be very acquainted with all the protective men, whose job it has been all along to keep the kids safe. We find out then that their mother has been working as an agent in the British intelligence since war time, and is still working for them, tying up loose ends, searching out enemy groups that may try to reassemble, etc. When she sees that her children are in danger from these groups, she cold turkey gives it all up and moves back to the tiny home village where she grew up with Nathaniel. Rachel wants nothing to do with her and never sees her again. Nathaniel finds out a bit more about his mother as they share time together, but they are never as carefree and close again as they were before she left. She enlists her next door neighbor, a farmer, to take Nathaniel under his wing....essentially, she's arranged another protector for him. She never knows when someone from her past may come to exact revenge. By the way, at this point in the story, the dad is just never heard from again and the mother is apparently fine with that because he was a loose canon and not a nice man. Anyway, during this time, we learn all about the sixteen year old boy, Marsh Felon, who first met the mother when she was eight, and how as they stayed in touch over the years, he became the person who recruited her fresh out of college, married and with a baby, to work for the British intelligence. We see how much they grow to mean to each other, and how intertwined they stay their whole lives. When eighteen year old Nathaniel goes off to college in America, he is notified that first semester that his mother has been killed. A relation of one of her former enemies has finally sought her out and killed her. Many people come to her funeral, but it isn't until many years later, after much research, himself working in British intelligence records, that Nathaniel realizes that Marsh Felon was the tall man who came to his mother's funeral and tried to console him. Nathaniel also seeks out some of the people from his past. He can't find Agnes, because he never knew her real name. He does find Darter though, but Darter isn't happy to see him. He is married with a child now and is anxious for Nathaniel to make his visit a quick one. As Nathaniel uses Darter's restroom, he sees a cross stitch on the wall that is an obscure quote that Agnes once said to him. He realizes as he leaves that when he was taken away by his mother, he was never even given a chance to say goodbye to Agnes or Darter, and that with all their empty house shenanigans, Agnes must have been pregnant with his child. Darter, then, even though much older, must have married Agnes to give her and the child a home. The books ends as Nathaniel makes this realization. Warlight is a pretty good book, well written, with good character development and lovely details and descriptions. It just wasn't quite what I expected it was going to be, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. :-)

Finished: Us Against You (Backman) This sequel to the much loved book Beartown was another brilliant look into the lives of the Beartown people, picking up right after the events of the first book, and continuing on like a page-turning freight train around and through each character's hopes, dreams, hardships, failures, realities, etc. Beartown left me needing a sequel, and now Us Against You leaves me hoping the author will write another one! This is the beginning of the Amazon description, and I think it's better than anything I could write, so here goes: "A small community tucked deep in the forest, Beatown is home to tough, hardworking people who don't expect life to be easy or fair. No matter how difficult times get, they've always been able to take pride in their local ice hockey team. So it's a cruel blow when they hear that Beartown ice hockey might soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for the rival team in the neighboring town of Hed, take in that fact. As the tension mounts between the two adversaries, a newcomer arrives who gives Beartown hockey a surprising new coach and a chance at a comeback." So, Peter Andersson is still there, and still the general manager of the hockey team in Beartown, but only because this newcomer to town, a manipulative politician named Richard Theo, has supplied an unknown investor who hopes to bring back not only the hockey team, but the factory in Beartown as well. Pete's daughter, Maya, is the teenager who was raped by the star hockey player, Kevin, in the first book. She is still reeling and dealing with the rape. At the end of Beartown, she had found Kevin alone, pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. She wanted him to feel helpless, and he did. The gun wasn't loaded, but he didn't know that, and the experience terrified him and humbled him. At the beginning of Us Against You, even though he originally deserted to Hed to play for that team like most of the other players, he's been unable to function, so his mother takes him and they move away. Our favorite and most loyal hockey players, Benji, Amat and  Bobo, have all stayed to play for Beartown. The new coach, Zeckell, is a no-nonsense person who plans to build a team around them, and around Vidar Rinnius, the teenager brother  of Teemu, the leader of the "pack" in Beartown...the band of "hooligan" brothers who most people in the town fear. Life intervenes, of course, as a lifestyle secret about our beloved Benji comes to light and the entire town implodes. Also, Vidar decides as much as he loves hockey, he wants to stand  in the stands with his brothers in the pack at the much anticipated Hed versus Beartown first game of the season. Beartown is down 4-0 after the first two quarters, when both Vidar and Benji decide they will jump in and play. This isn't arrogance on either of their parts. They are both troubled young men who are not sure if they even fit on the team, much less in this life, but they realize they are needed, so they decide to play. As the author says, though, hockey's a sport, not a fairy tale, and they still lose, 4-3. However, Benji and Vidar stay committed to the team and Beartown wins all their reamaining games, as does Hed. There are so many intricacies to the rivalry and escalating "pranks" that get out of hand, that right before their next meeting, which once again will decide the champ and have lasting implications for whichever team wins, a tragedy occurs involving the death of one of the players on Beartown's team. Lives are once again shattered and when the two teams meet, hockey seems so unimportant at the time that the author doesn't ever even tell us who wins and who loses. It's another amazing book that still leaves Benji as one of my favorite characters in all the books I've read. I so hope there is another sequel so I can see how all these people have moved on!

Finished: So Big (Ferber) Pulitzer Price winning novel from 1925 which I had put off reading, but am oh so glad I did! It was a really great story of Selina Peake, a vivacious young woman raised by her gambling father in Chicago in the late 1800's. They go through rich times and poor times, and all throughout, he teaches Selina to explore and enjoy all walks of life...to make every life experience an adventure. When Selina is nineteen, her father is killed, and she must now make it on her own. She decides she'll be a teacher, but must make her start as a farm teacher, miles from Chicago proper into the Dutch farming community. Selina lives with, and becomes close to, the Poole family at first. She's particularly close to their twelve year old son, Roelf, who must now fore go schooling to work on the farm...but who is artistically gifted and who devours all the books Selina brings to the house. The farm life is brutal, especially in the cold months, and especially for the woman of the house who never seems to quit working. Selina is determined that this will just be a phase in her adventurous life, but she doesn't count on falling for the young, handsome gentle giant, Dutch farmer, Pervus DeJong. They fall in love and are married two months after they meet. Unfortunately, Pervus' farm is one of the poorest in the county, and Pervus doesn't want to listen to any of Selina's improvement ideas. Soon, Pervus and Selina are parents to a son, Dirk DeJong. However, Dirk's nickname for most of his life is Sobig...due to the baby game that Selina constantly plays with him, whether working in the run down farmhouse, or out in the fields putting calluses on her once refined hands. Selina never misses a moment to hold her arms out wide and ask the baby "how big is baby?" and answer with "sooooooobig". By the time Dirk is eleven, the farm is barely scraping by and much as he loves his wife, Pervus will still not listen to what a woman has to say about improving farming techniques, laughing at her ordering and reading of various farming books to educate herself. When Pervus dies of a sudden illness, Selina is left to drive their vegetables to market day in Chicago by herself, with only her young son along. Never really accepted by the rest of the farming wives, Selina is now truly shunned, because no woman has ever taken the vegetables to market! It's a man's place. While in town, very few people buy from Selina and she's at her wit's end. She decides to take her produce to the rich side of town and go door to door. In doing so, she runs into an old schoolmate and best friend she'd lost touch with. Her best friend insists that Selina talk with her own father, a successful pig butcher turned richest packer in the country. In turn, the father insists on investing in Selina's farming ideas, as she shows a plan for turning her farm around within two years. She will accept only a loan, and in the two years time, is not only making a comfortable living for herself and her son, but she's able to pay back her loan...AND...her "nonstandard" vegetables like asparagus, become the much desired vegetables of many Chicago restaurants and upper crust families. So, as time goes on, Selina's only desire is to provide for Dirk so that he will never have to be a farmer if he doesn't want to (which he doesn't) and so that he can go to college to become what he wants to. She's disappointed in him, though, when he doesn't really show a passion for anything but picking a profession that will make him rich. We then follow Dirk as he becomes an architect, but one with a low paying salary. After several years of not being able to make the money he wants, he gives up architecture to become a bonds salesman. Selina is dismayed, but Dirk is finally rich. When Dirk meets an eclectic, vivacious artist, Dallas O'Mara, he realizes that her viewpoint on life is far more like his mother's...find the beauty in the world and the various people in the world...not money. As it turns out, Dallas knows the now famous sculpture Roelf Poole! Yes, that Roelf. He'd finally left his parents' farm when he turned seventeen, his mother, the hardworking Mrs. Poole, died in childbirth, and his father remarried a rich widow. Roelf has finally realized his dream of becoming an artist and his work is coveted to boot. When he comes to visit Dallas, who Dirk can see is crazy about Roelf, Roelf realizes that Dirk is Selina's baby boy grown up. Roelf insists they drive out to Selina's farm so she can meet Dallas and so Roelf and Selina can be reunited. Dirk is a bit disgruntled, but goes along. There is a glorious reunion, and Selina adores Dallas. The books ends with Dirk pondering his life and wondering if chasing money was truly the right decision for him after all. So Big is such a good book. Ferber delves deep into the characters, the land, the farming life, the century, etc. Now, to figure out where to put this book in my top 100! :-)

Finished: The Outsider (King) Another page-turner by Stephen King! I'm going to be really lazy and use the Amazon recap for this one, because it's so impossible to recap a Stephen King book!

An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

So, as it says, Terry Maitland is this near saint in this small town...a loving father and husband and beloved little league coach for many years. When his fingerprints AND DNA are found all over the raped and murdered victim, Detective Anderson arrests him in front of the huge crowd at the Little League game that will decide if this year's team goes to the state championships. The town immediately turns against Terry and his family because there are at least two eyewitnesses who saw Coach Maitland with the little boy, Frank Peterson, the day he was murdered, and two who saw him all bloodied up from head to toe right afterwards. The thing is....Terry Maitland was at a conference with three other English teachers for the weekend, in a completely different town, too far away to make it back and forth. AND, he's even shown on video tape asking the author they went to see (Harlan Coben, by the way!!) a question. His fingerprints are also at the convention...so which one is it? Was Terry Maitland in his home town heinously raping and murdering a young boy, or did someone or something somehow mimic his face, his DNA and his fingerprints?? The book is good and suspenseful, with a couple of shocking and tragic deaths of main characters. And, King also brings back Holly Gibney, a main character from his Finders Keepers trilogy, to help solve the big mystery. It's lovely to have her back!! The ending of the book, and frankly the middle, is bittersweet, but Holly and Ralph, with the help of some great new characters, do end up getting their "man"! :-) 

Finished: Song of Solomon (Morrison) Toni Morrison just has a way of writing so beautifully that she takes you completely into whatever world or characters she has created and you pretty much live the story with them. In Song of Solomon, Macon "Milkman" Dead III is born on the same day that his mother, Ruth, and two sisters, Corinthians and Magdalena called Lena, watch as a neighborhood insurance man tries to unsuccessfully "fly" from the window at the top of a building across from the "whites only" hospital in their Michigan town. Milkman is born into a family full of a rich array of characters. His father, Macon Dead II, is the richest black man in town, but rather than take that self-made wealth gracefully, he lords it over the town both literally and figuratively. All he cares about are appearances and making more money to maintain his status. Milkman's mother, Ruth, the only daughter of the now-deceased doctor for the community, is trapped in a loveless marriage, also both literally and figuratively. She takes solace in her last child, and out of loneliness, breastfeeds him until he is four years old. When a nosy handyman and town gossip spies Ruth breastfeeding her son, he instantly saddles him with the moniker Milkman, which stays with him the rest of his life. The book follows Milkman from his boyhood years to his adult life, as he struggles to be more than just a follower in his father's footsteps, and works to fit in with his best friend, Guitar, who grew up in the poorer side of town, one of the many renters of his father's low-rent housing. He is enamored with his father's estranged sister, Pilate, and her granddaughter, Hagar. Pilate was named when her illiterate father pointed to a word in the bible and asked the midwife what name he pointed to. She told him Pilate, but that he couldn't name his sweet baby daughter after Pontias Pilate...that he was literally the man who condemned Jesus to death. The stubborn father named her Pilate anyway. Pilate and Macon Dead II's father is killed in front of them when they are young teenagers, and they survive together for awhile, but soon go their separate ways because of a fight...their two very different senses of morality already showing at this early age and driving a wedge between them. It is the eccentric Pilate who has sparked in the now thirty year old Milkman the desire to find his family roots....but initially for selfish reasons. He believes that Pilate has hidden bags of gold she found in a cave in Virginia as a child. As he goes on this journey, what he finds along the way instead of gold is his actual heritage. He discovers who his grandfather, Macon Dead I, really was and finally the name of his grandmother who had died giving birth to Pilate. Her name was Sing, and not black like Macon, she was Native American, and together they'd traveled in a wagon full of former slaves north to make a life for themselves. Milkman feels more of a connection with the people he meets along the way than he ever did with his overbearing father or his mother and sisters. In a side story, we find out that Guitar is part of a clandestine group of black men who takes revenge when black people are killed and no justice is served. This group takes an eye for an eye. If a young black boy is killed, they will take the life of a random young white boy, and so on. When Guitar finds out that Milkman has gone in search of gold and will split the gold with him, he becomes irrational and distrusting when Milkman takes so long on his journey and believes he's been double-crossed. He actually goes to find Milkman and tries to kill him by uttering the group's secret murder phrase "Your day has come". While trying to kill Milkman, Guitar accidentally shoots Pilate, who Milkman has taken back to Virginia to bury the newly discovered bones of her long dead father in the land where they've finally discovered they are from. In the ending scene, Milkman "flies" from one rock across to the other where Guitar is standing and prepares to die or die trying to stop Guitar. Apparently who succeeds doesn't matter, but the journey and Milkman's ability to finally fly do.