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.

Finished: The Fallen (Baldacci) The fourth book in the Memory Man series, The Fallen takes our FBI special task force agents Amos Decker and partner, Alex Jamison, to the small town of Baronville, Ohio to visit her sister and family. Even though they are supposed to be on vacation, Amos and Alex immediately get involved in the investigation of four recently murdered people. The former mill town has been falling apart for years and an opioid crisis has affected many families. With a new mail order processing distribution center (think Amazon) in the town, could it possibly be a good cover up for the massive drug ring that Amos, Alex, the local police, and the DEA stumble upon when two of the murdered people turn out to be undercover DEA agents? When Alex's brother-in-law is also killed, and then two attempts are made on the agents' lives, Amos Decker knows there is a huge conspiracy, and he sets out to figure it all out before anyone else is killed. He's got the help of a few new friends: John Baron, the son of the rich Baron family who founded Baronville and owned all the mills, but whose great-grandfather was a miserly, unethical, unhumanitarian man who let the town fall apart and didn't leave his own children any money; Agent Kemper of the DEA, a strong female who fits right in working along side Amos and all his memory quirks; and Cindy Riley, the bar owner in town, who is in love with John Baron and determined to see the town stop punishing him for his ancestor's deeds. In typical Amos Decker fashion, he is usually a step ahead of everyone else in figuring things out, but is learning to better communicate his discoveries. The drug selling/insurance scam/buried treasure plot is finally resolved, with a few surprise members of the community involved. A good book, but the series is beginning to follow the same formula a bit too much. Would love to see it break off on a tangent and maybe even have Decker fall for one of these female agents one of these days. :-)

Finished: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Shaffer and Barrows) An uplifting, heartwarming story about a lively young book author in 1946 London, Juliet Ashton, who is looking for the subject of her next book. Enter, the Island of Guernsey, an island in the English channel, along with its inhabitants, all left unprotected by England during World War II, and therefore left to fend for themselves as they became occupied by the Germans. The book is presented in the form of letters back and forth between characters. Juliet stays in frequent touch with her publisher and dear friend, Sidney Stark, and he with her while trying to figure out her next project as well as her life. We meet the quirky, but steadfast and honest people of Guernsey: Dawsey Adams, a quiet man, and the first person to write to Juliet when he finds her name and address in a book of poems he owns; Amelia Maugery, a caring woman in her fifties, who hosted the literary society the night it became a "thing"; Isola Pribby, the unusual, but forthright secretary of the society; Eben Ramsey, the grandfather who lost his own daughter in childbirth during the occupation, and had to send away his young grandson with all the other children of Guernsey as they were evacuated to mainland England; and Will Thisbee, the creator of the infamous potato peel pie...so created because they reached a point during the war that all the islanders had to eat were potatoes. As it turns out, all of these amazing people are caring for the four year old daughter of islander, Elizabeth McKenna. Elizabeth was the daughter of the housekeeper of a wealthy Londoner who owned a home on Guernsey. She happened to be on the island with the man to help him open up his house when the Germans landed. She could have returned to London with him, but instead she stayed on Guernsey to help out where she could. This was just the beginning of the magnanimous things she did for the people around her. Most notably, she invented the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society! One night, Elizabeth, Dawsey, Amelia, Isola, and Eben get together to share a roasted pig, which had been hidden by one of the residents, a punishable offence to the Germans, who insisted on having all the animals for food for their men. They also discuss a few books that some of them had read. When the time gets away from them, they realize they have missed curfew, but brave walking home anyway. Confronted by the Germans on watch, Elizabeth coyly tells them that they were just coming from their meeting of the Guernsey Literary Society where they get together to discuss literature and they are so sorry to have lost track of time. They are forgiven that time, and the society is born! The group gets together regularly after that...but with potato peel pie rather than roast pig. Elizabeth proves herself to be selfless and brave in many other situations...and she also falls in love with a very kind German officer. They decide they will marry after the war, and Elizabeth becomes pregnant. Not soon after, he is sent off to another part of the war and killed. Elizabeth has her daughter, Kit, but continues to take risks. When Kit is a toddler, Elizabeth is arrested for helping to hide a Polish slave who had been brought to Guernsey to build bunkers, and she is immediately sent off to Ravensbruck, a horrific, women-only concentration camp in Germany. At the time that Dawsey writes his first letter to Juliet, Dawsey, Amelia, Isola and Eben have been caring for and raising Kit, with no idea of where Elizabeth is or if she is even alive. This is just one of the many stories that captures Juliet's heart as she exchanges correspondence with her new acquaintances. Juliet is also wooed by rich socialite Mark Reynolds in London, as he whisks her around from party to party, before he finally proposes to her. He doesn't understand, though, that the more she has corresponded with the inhabitants of Guernsey, the more she has been drawn to them. She is determined to visit Guernsey and hear about their experiences during the war as they scraped by for food, for warmth, and to survive while trying to get along with the Germans. She tells him she's got to think about the proposal before heading off to Guernsey. Of course, once there, she falls in love with all the people she's been getting to know, and especially with little Kit. It takes her a while to figure it out, but she also falls in love with Dawsey, and he with her. When the overbearing Mark comes to see her and practically demand that she give up this island nonsense and come back and marry him, she finally gives him an unequivocal "no". It doesn't help his timing that they have all just discovered that Elizabeth did, in fact, perish at Ravensbruck right before it was liberated by the Allies...once again trying to help someone else. :-( Juliet is more determined than ever to stay on Guernsey and raise Kit if she'd be allowed to adopt her...and at the very end, she and Dawsey finally admit their love for one another and plan to marry. And...as far as her book goes...in their never-ending correspondence, Sydney has suggested that she make her book, not just about the various stories of the people of Guernsey, but about Elizabeth McKenna, who touched the lives of every person on Guernsey, and who was the very heart and soul of the story in the first place. Though there is no escaping the horror of what the Germans did during World War II in any story about that war, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a rare uplifting story that left me feeling so thankful I read it! I thank my friend Amanda for keeping the bug in my ear about this book! :-)

Finished: The Half-Drowned King (Hartsuyker) An okay book that didn't keep me turning pages too urgently, but one that I wanted to go ahead and finish to see how the main character, Ragnvald, and his sister, Svanhild, made out after all their travails. I'm absolutely going to be lazy and just copy the summary from Amazon here because I don't really feel like recapping, especially with all the crazy Nordic names lol. Oh, I will say that it does NOT have the sweeping narrative power of Game of Thrones or Outlander. I haven't read (or watched?) Vikings. :-)

An exhilarating saga of the Vikings that conjures a brutal, superstitious, and thrilling ninth-century world and the birth of a kingdom—the debut installment in a historical literary trilogy that combines the bold imagination and sweeping narrative power of Game of Thrones, Vikings, and Outlander.

Centuries ago, in a blood-soaked land ruled by legendary gods and warring men, a prophecy foretold of a high king who would come to reign over all of the north. . . .

Ragnvald Eysteinsson, the son and grandson of kings, grew up believing that he would one day take his dead father’s place as chief of his family’s lands. But, sailing home from a raiding trip to Ireland, the young warrior is betrayed and left for dead by men in the pay of his greedy stepfather, Olaf. Rescued by a fisherman, Ragnvald is determined to have revenge for his stepfather’s betrayal, claim his birthright and the woman he loves, and rescue his beloved sister Svanhild. Opportunity may lie with Harald of Vestfold, the strong young Norse warrior rumored to be the prophesied king. Ragnvald pledges his sword to King Harald, a choice that will hold enormous consequence in the years to come.

While Ragnvald’s duty is to fight—and even die—for his honor, Svanhild must make an advantageous marriage, though her adventurous spirit yearns to see the world. Her stepfather, Olaf, has arranged a husband for her—a hard old man she neither loves nor desires. When the chance to escape Olaf’s cruelty comes at the hands of her brother’s arch rival, the shrewd young woman is forced to make a heartbreaking choice: family or freedom.

Set in a mystical and violent world defined by honor, loyalty, deceit, passion, and courage, The Half-Drowned King is an electrifying adventure that breathtakingly illuminates the Viking world and the birth of Scandinavia.

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. :-)

Finished: Winter Garden (Hannah) Another page-turning historical novel by the author of The Nightingale. Winter Garden is the story of two grown sisters, Meredith and Nina, who have been shunned by their cold mother all their lives. They've never felt any love from her, but their beloved father has held the family together and loved them all their lives. The only thing their mother has ever done that was at all mother-like was tell them the fairy tale of the Russian peasant girl who fell in love with the prince, and vice versa, in the magical white wonderland of Russia. When their father dies, first eliciting the promise that they will listen to their mother's entire fairy tale to the end, Meredith, whose marriage is on rocky ground, and Nina, the photojournalist who can barely stay in one place for long, are forced to spend time with their mother to try and get to know her before the three of them are shattered irrevocably. Unreceptive at first, their mother finally agrees to tell them the fairy tale at her own pace, a bit at a time every night. In the mean time, the trio finally starts to get knowing each other slowly over shared dinners. As the nightly fairy tale unfolds, it becomes clear that their mother, Vera, was actually the Russian peasant girl who fell in love and married her prince, Sasha, at the age of seventeen. She's lost her poet father through Stalin's Russian purges, and has only her mother, her grandmother and her sister left. After a few happy years of marriage, Vera and Sasha have five year old Anya and four year old Leo. The happiness is short lived, however, as they begin to live through that time in history when the Germans are invading Russia in WWII. Soon, Sasha must join the Red Army and go to fight the Germans. Vera, her children, and her family are left to fend for themselves in Leningrad. They go through horrific nightmares, bombings, starvation, separation from children, frigid temperatures, people dying in the street, and then it gets even worse as Leningrad is surrounded by the Germans and cut off from any outside food supplies. Vera's beloved sister, Olga, dies, as well as her grandmother, and her mother. Finally, Sasha manages to arrange for Vera and his children to escape Leningrad, but wee Leo is dying. :-( Vera must make the heart wrenching decision to send Anya alone on the train to her father while she spends Leo's last two days with him in the hospital. After his tragic ending, she then gets on the train and when she steps off at the end of her journey, there are Sasha and Anya waiting for her....for a split second, until a German bomb drops on them right before her eyes and blows them sideways. Vera is knocked unconscious and wakes up in the hospital, and told that there were no other survivors. No longer caring if she lives or dies, she walks through the snow and gives herself up to the Germans, spending the rest of the war in one of their prison camps until she is finally liberated by an American soldier who ends ups falling in love with her, marrying her, moving her to the United States and becoming the father of Meredith and Nina! It becomes clear to Meredith and Nina, after all these years, that their mother couldn't open herself up to loving other children, only to possibly lose them, so their father tried to supply love enough for both parents. They have extreme empathy for their mother and what she bravely went through and come to understand her, finally. And Vera finally tells her daughters that she IS proud of them and that she loves them both. They decide to take their mother on a cruise to Alaska to meet a Russian historian who had, years before, written to Vera to hear her story for his book on the Leningrad millions who lost their lives during the horrific war conditions. When they arrive in the small, predominantly Russian, Alaskan coastal town, they meet a cafe owner, Stacy, who is happy to meet the elderly, Russian Vera. When Vera sees the old, frayed wedding picture of herself and Sasha among Stacy's belongings, they all come to the realization that Stacy aka Anastasia aka Anya, is really Vera's long lost daughter!! It turns out that both she and her father, Sasha, had survived the bombing and searched for Vera for years, not knowing she was in a prison camp, and later in America. It's a basically happy ending, as the sisters all meet one another, and Vera is reunited with her beloved Anya, but there is so much tragedy throughout the book. I enjoy reading the historical novels like this, but there is so much sadness in history.

Finished: A Visit From the Goon Squad (Egan) Pulitzer Prize winning novel that jumps about in time and is about several people who weave in and out of the lives of record producer Bennie Salazar and his assistant Sasha. Most of the characters could be called tragic, but many of them rise above that and come to a future they are happy with. Told in vignettes focusing on the different characters, the book is mostly centered in the music scene. We first meet Sasha, Bennie's kleptomaniac assistant. She's with him for over ten years, and he finally has to let her go for her "problem". When we meet her, she's still his assistant and she's taking a man she meets off the street, Alex, up to her apartment. They have a one night stand and while he's not looking, Sasha takes an old fortune cookie message out of Alex's wallet that he keeps to encourage himself. He's an up and coming sound engineer, or so he hopes. After their one night stand, they never see each other again. We learn, though, that Sasha is independent and quirky and smart and good at her job, as well as being a kleptomaniac. Next the book focuses on Bennie, who is now divorced from his wife Stephanie, but has a nine year old son, Christopher. On his visitation day, Bennie takes Christopher with him, along with Sasha, to the house of one of the bands he's managing. Christopher doesn't think his dad is very cool until they get to do that...and until his dad let's him experiment with his gold flakes that he has purchased for a pretty penny that he dusts in his own coffee every morning. For some reason he thinks it will make him find his sexual mojo again. Next we go back in time to when Bennie is a senior in high school and he's got his own band with his best friend, Scotty, called the Flaming Dildos. They are pretty bad, but they do get a gig at a punk rock bar. They have a friendship with Jocelyn and Rhea, but Scotty loves Jocelyn, and Bennie loves Rhea, but Rhea loves Scotty. Scotty ends up with Rhea because the teenage Jocelyn ends up dating millionaire, thrice married, thrice divorced, six time father, Lou. Jocelyn convinces Lou to come and see the band where he discovers that while they are terrible, he sees great potential in Bennie as a record producer, and becomes his mentor. The next chapter goes back to when Lou's oldest children are young teens, and he takes them on an African safari with his third wife-to-be, Mindy. The lead singer of one of the bands he represents is also there, and disregards the safety measures when they are near the lions, and is nearly mauled until the tour guide jumps in and saves the day. Mindy likes this and so Mindy and the tour guide have a one night fling which Lou finds out about. He's been planning to dump Mindy when he got home, but this just makes him propose to her instead. He is a screwed up person, but he does have some touching moments with his kids and truly seems to love them, so that is nice. In the next chapter, it has been over twenty years since Jocelyn and Rhea have seen Lou when they were younger and they go to visit him after he's incapacitated by a stroke. They wheel him out in his bed to the pool so he can be in the sun and they basically say their goodbyes to each other. I could go on and on, but there are just so many characters, and they all lead back somehow to Sasha or Bennie. We find out that Sasha runs away from home when she's seventeen because her father and mother have divorced due to her father's violent temper. She goes to Asia and Italy and scrapes by with her stealing. She had also spent time as a young teen in Florida where the thrill of stealing hooked her up with an older man who paid kids money for the things they stole off tourists...a modern day Fagin! The older man also has sex with thirteen year old Sasha for quite a while. Sasha finally goes to college and meets her boyfriend, Drew, and her best friend, Rob. Rob is in love with Sasha, but missed his chance of telling her so and now she's with Drew. Rob knows every sordid detail about Sasha, though. Rob has recently tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists, so all his friends are on eggshells around him. It's possible that he's gay, but they never come right out and say it. He seems just as envious of Sasha being with Drew though as Drew being with Sasha. One night, they all go out to party and Sasha doesn't agree when they pull out some pills to do, so she goes back home. Drew and Rob get very high and Rob kind of indicates that he'd like to be with Drew. This freaks Drew out somewhat and he pulls away from Rob emotionally. Rob is stung so he blurts out to Drew all the sordid details about Sasha just to hurt him...about the man in Florida, about the stealing, everything. Drew gets really mad and goes and strips down and jumps in the East River (I think) in New York. He's a strong swimmer. Rob, of course, follows, and Rob is not a strong swimmer. Rob is pulled by the currents and drowns. We leave that chapter without seeing how anyone else reacts to all of that. Meanwhile, Bennie has been married, had his son, and created a very successful record company of his own until his own board fires him for actually feeding them bowls of shit at one meeting as he complains to them that all they are bringing him is shit talent, or something like that. One of the coolest chapters, and I think my favorite, is when we flash to the future and Sasha, after many years apart, has found her college boyfriend, Drew, married him, and has two children, 12 year old Alison and 13 year old, slightly autistic, Linc. This chapter is told completely in power point slides by Alison! It's how she writes her diary. It's very unique and focuses on how they all really love each other as a family, and how they love Linc and go along with his obsession with the breaks or pauses in famous songs. This is just how Linc relates to everyone, even though he plays sports and does things with his family, this is his "thing". I think the reason this is my favorite chapter is because right in the middle of it, on one of her slides, Alsion has written "mine and Linc's rooms are right next to each other, with just a wall dividing us. At night Linc knocks twice on the wall to say good night, and then I knock twice to say good night back". This actually brought tears to my eyes because it's exactly what my little brother (who is no longer living) and I used to do as kids!! Only we would knock back and forth until the knocks got lighter and lighter and one of us was clearly falling asleep. We even did this through college when we were both home for the weekend at the same time. sigh.  I had no idea anyone else ever did that. Anyway, I loved this part of the book. That wraps up Sasha's story. Then, to wrap up Bennie's story, he's got to climb his way back up after making a mess of his own, huge company. By now it's the age where everything is texted back and forth and word of mouth on social media goes a long way. He goes back to his old band mate, Scotty, who has just scraped by all these years, and asks him if he wants to do a comeback concert. He's heard some of Scotty's recent music and thinks this could be huge. He hires a young father named Alex (see sound engineer wannabe from first chapter) and gets him to create buzz on the internet by paying people to drum up business for Scotty's concert. Thankfully, when the huge outdoor concert in NY comes to fruition, it's a huge success and the people love Scotty's new music. We leave the book there as both Bennie and Scotty have made their comebacks. :-) I really avoided reading this book for awhile, because it just did not sound appealing...but I'm glad I read it! It goes into so much more depth, and cleverly so, on the life adventures of the characters, many of whom I haven't named. It's tragic, but a bit uplifting at the same time, at least for the people who manage to survive their young adults lives and head into maturity!