Finished: The Immortalists (Benjamin) A very good book about the four Gold siblings, ages 13,11,9 & 7, in New York in 1969 who go to visit a seer who tells them all the dates that they will die. The children, spurred on by 11 year old Daniel, thinking it will be something unique, go with that purpose in mind. Of course, she scares them all to death and gives them very specific dates of when they will die. The oldest, Varya, is affected very deeply by the predictions, even though she is told she will live to the age of 88. It affects the rest of her life though, as she feels guilty and responsible since Daniel is given to the age 48, 9 year old Klara is given to the age 31, and 7 year old Simon will only reveal to his siblings that she told him he would be "very young". The book then goes a section at a time with each sibling's story. Klara is the dreamer who has no intention of going to college. She wants to be a magician! When she's 18 she plans to leave home and go somewhere she can start putting together a show. She convinces 16 year old Simon to go with her to San Francisco easily since she has figured out that he is gay in a world where being gay wouldn't work in his New York family. So, in Simon's story, he goes to San Francisco and proceeds to live a very promiscuous life just as the unnamed AIDS has begun to ravage gay men. Does he survive or does he die at the age of 20 (which he finally confesses to Klara was the age the seer told him.) Klara goes on to create a successful, though risky, magic/thrill show after meeting her husband, Raj, and having a baby girl. By the time she's 31, she is haunted by her feelings, her life, her drinking and on the date the seer gave her, she and Raj are just about to have their opening night at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, opening for Siegfried and Roy! Will she survive to accomplish that goal? Daniel goes to medical school and becomes the doctor he always wanted to be. He meets the love of his life and marries, but has no children. He is also haunted by the old predictions from the seer and how it has affected his younger siblings, though he has never believed it will truly affect him. As he approaches the date the seer gave him when he is 48, will he be able to live past that date, or will he implode? I'm not giving the answers here just in case someone reads this, lol. Varya's story is last and is equally as compelling given all that has happened in her family. She does feel guilty and responsible and closed off all of her life. She ends up working in research trying to find answers to longevity in human life. She grows closer to some of the monkeys she works with than she has to any other humans in many years. A surprise visitor to her when she's about 50 turns her life around and helps her to open up and realize she's been missing life! It's not too late for her to start living and enjoying life. This was a very good book, a page-turner, and very well written! A bit depressing, because I sure grew attached to all of the characters!

Finished: Force of Nature (Harper) Another great page-turner featuring Detective Aaron Falk, a federal agent in Australia who was introduced in Harper's first novel, Dry. In this one, five women employed by the same family run company head off onto team-building retreat in the remote bush land, and only four come back alive. The retreat is run by an adventure company, but the participants are sent off for three days on their own with no guides. Aaron Falk is called in, along with his partner, because they have been investigating the company for illegal activities, and their mole in the company, Alice Russell, is on the retreat, along with the owner's grown daughter who helps run the company, Alice's young assistant, the assistant's newly employed and troubled twin sister, and a co-worker of Alice's who went to high school with her and has known all her good qualities and bad qualities for years. With absolutely no reception in the remote area, Alice is the only person to get a brief phone signal and the phone call she makes is to Aaron where only a few fuzzy, but frantic, words can be heard before the message cuts out. Working with local police, Aaron helps interview the women who do make it out alive. The narrative goes back and forth between the current investigation and the days that the women actually spent on the retreat, detailing exactly what went wrong and who was responsible for the death of the very unlikeable Alice. With the threat of a former serial killer's son possibly roaming the same remote location which his father used to kill young women thrown in, we're left until the very twisty, turny end to find out exactly what happened. Meanwhile, during the ordeal, Aaron Falk faces some of his own demons as he remembers time spent with his father who died before Aaron could truly make amends with him about past troubles of their own.

Finished: Intuitive Eating (Tribole & Resch) A book about giving up the yo-yo-ing of dieting and relearning what you knew instinctively as a baby...how to eat when you're hungry and to stop when you're full; how to enjoy foods in moderate proportions and not get so stuck on depriving yourself of food that you love that you binge that food compulsively. A pretty interesting book! Much of what was said makes sense. There are some basic principals to the program, some of which I think I can really try to work on. 1) Reject the diet mentality. "Restricting food triggers primal hunger which leads to binge eating." 2) Honor your hunger. "Eating regularly will help you get in touch with gentle hunger, rather than the extremes that often occur with chaotic eating. Ultimately, you will trust your own hunger signals." 3) Make peace with food. "Take risks, try "fear" foods when ready and not vulnerable." i.e., eat what you've always considered to be "bad" food and find out it's ok in moderation. 4) Challenge the food police. "Take the morality and judgment out of eating." Especially your judgment of yourself. 5) Feel your fullness. "Transition away from experiencing the extreme fullness that is associated with binge eating. Once regular eating is established, gentle fullness will begin to resonate." 6) Discover the satisfaction factor. "If satisfying foods and eating experiences are included regularly, there will be less impetus to binge." 7) Cope with emotions without using food. "Take a time-out from compulsive eating to start experiencing and dealing with feelings." 8) Respect your body. "Respect the here and now body." i.e., don't lament about the past body you had or the future body you want. 9) Exercise. "Moderate exercise can help manage stress and anxiety." Don't associate exercising with losing weight, but with getting and feeling healthy. 10) Honor your health. "Learn to remove the rigidity of nutrition." Recognize that the body needs essential fat, carbohydrates, protein and a variety of foods. There is definitely alot I can implement from this book, but as all changes, this will take time. I've got my exercise program going to smoothly that it would be nice to finally "make my peace" with food. :-)

Finished: Empire Falls (Russo) Pulitzer Prize winner about the inhabitants of a once prospering, now defunct industrial town in Maine. Going back three generations in the Whiting clan, the wealthy founders of the town and owners of the textile companies that keep the town afloat, the tale of their influence, power trips and selfishness is told directly through the people they have affected most. We see most of the story through the eyes and experiences of Miles Roby, now forty-two and manager of the Empire Falls Grill. His life is intricately woven with Francine Whiting, the widow of the last Whiting male heir. She now owns and runs most everything in the town, including the Empire Grill. She had also been the employer of Miles' mother, Grace Roby, when Miles was in high school and college. Grace had worked her fingers to the bone, and despite her worthless husband, Max's non-efforts, had seen to it that Miles got out of Empire Falls and off to college. When Grace was diagnosed with terminal cancer with Miles one year shy of getting his college degree, Miles came home to care for his mother in her final days and never went back for his degree. Twenty years later, he's divorced from his wife, Janine, and has a daughter, Tick, who is a sophomore in high school. The books is very, very good and shares chapters from the viewpoints of the different characters, telling in humorous and compelling prose the thoughts, fears, hopes, disappointments, feelings, etc. of each of the characters. We get to know Max, Miles' self-centered, codger of a father; Tick, his sensitive, independent daughter; Janine, his weight-losing, sexually hungry, engaged to the town blowhard ex-wife; Francine Whiting, the hard-nosed, cold, shrewd, but not feelingless town matriarch; Jimmy Minty, the deceitful deputy sheriff and childhood nemesis of Miles; his son Zack Minty, Tick's ex-boyfriend and class A jerk; David Roby, Miles' younger brother who helps him run the grill; Charlene Gardiner, Empire Falls waitress who Miles has had a crush on since high school; John Voss, the emotionally stunted, abused in childhood, bullied in high school, ticking time bomb schoolmate of Tick's; Cindy Whiting, Francine's daughter, crippled, physically and emotionally, who has always loved Miles Roby; and, in flashback, Charley Maine, the rich, charismatic man who nearly swept Grace Roby off her feet and away from Max when Miles was little...who turns out to be none other than C.B. Whiting, husband of Francine. As Miles struggles to make ends meet by keeping the Empire Grill going, he tries to juggle keeping up with Tick, volunteering at his church by painting the steeple, keeping tabs on his father, and bowing down to Francine Whiting as she has promised to eventually leave the Empire Grill to him. The book itself was not a page turner. I could only read a few chapters at a time, and then I had to put it down and process all that I was reading about each of the characters. I'm going to keep with my promise to myself to keep my recaps shorter, so will not recap the entire book. I will just say that I was lulled into the sense of this just being a book about these people's interactions and lives when a dramatic incident occurs involving a school shooting that thrusts the main characters into chaos and within months, resolution to many of their lives as they make decisions to move forward after realizing life is so fleeting. I'm very glad to have read this book, but glad I'm finally done as well. :-)