Finished: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Smith) A very good book which I took my time reading and savoring, about a young girl named Francie Nolan who lives with her parents and brother, Neely, in the slums of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, NY, in the early 1900's. The family struggles to make enough money to keep food on the table and heat in the house, but they make do. Francie and Neely both have to work at a very young age because every penny counts towards the family income. Their mother, Katie, and father, Johnny, were young and in love once, but as Katie has worked to support the family steadily, Johnny, a song and dance man, doesn't have consistent work and has become an alcoholic. He's got a good heart and loves his family, but he succumbs to the alcoholism at a fairly young age. We also meet Katie's mother and sisters and see a bit of their family life. However, the story is seen mostly from the viewpoint of the sensitive, yet strong, Francie, who is a beautiful writer and longs to grow up to write someday. We watch her age from 11 to 16 as she goes through these important years with very little money, few friends, and the typical yearning of a budding teenage girl who would like to fall in love. She does meet and fall in love with one boy, who it turns out is off to the war and was only interested in her for the weekend, which she thankfully declines. The other boy she meets falls in love with her, but she simply likes him...good old dependable Ben. When the story ends when Francie is 16 and heading to college, Ben who is 21, has promised to marry her in a few years when she's old enough. Francie goes along with it, figuring she has a few years to sort her life out and decide if that's what she truly wants. There's so much detail in the book...about the relationship between Francie and Neely, which is close, and Francie and her father, which is also close, and Francie and her mother, who clearly favors Neely, and Francie and her English teacher, who actually discourages some very good, but sad, stories that Francie writes, causing Francie to burn many of her writings. By the end of the book, Katie is remarrying to a man who can actually afford to give them a better life, who they all like, and it is his generosity that allows Francie to go off to college and chase her dreams. A really good book, which actually has me interested in reading more about the author to see if this is rather autobiographical. :-)

Finished: Her One Mistake (Perks) A page-turner about a young mother who leaves her four-year old daughter in her best friend's care at the school carnival, only to have her best friend lose sight of her child, resulting in her abduction. Harriet has never been separated from her young daughter, Alice, when her best friend, Charlotte, finally convinces her to let her babysit Alice while Harriet takes an accounting course at the college. Harriet is a stay at home mom with a very controlling husband, Brian. Charlotte is a divorced mother of three young children, who is on good terms with her ex-husband. Harriet is meek and shy, while Charlotte is outgoing with lots of friends, yet they form an unlikely friendship, having similar backgrounds where their father's left their lives at a young age. Friends for several years, Harriet is the only person she trusts to keep Alice for her. Charlotte takes her children and Alice to the school carnival, and doesn't keep quite the eye on the kids that she should when she lets them loose on the giant bouncy house slide. When her kids return from the slide but Alice does not, she soon realizes, along with the rest of the people at the carnival that Alice has been abducted. A police investigation ensues with Charlotte questioned relentlessly for focusing more on her cell phone social media than watching the kids. She soon becomes the pariah of the town. The investigation also focuses on Brian, who we find out has been patiently making Harriet think she's been going mad over the last year because he wants to exert complete control over her and have her totally dependent on him. The ending is actually a surprise as it turns out the meek Harriet has actually arranged for her daughter's own kidnapping by her estranged father who had come back into her life only a few months before. Having watched her father and Alice spend alot of time together and form a bond, Harriot feels confident that her plan will work and her father will help her get away from Brian along with her daughter. The ending is suspenseful, as Brian finds out where the grandfather and Alice are and endangers everyone's life. Charlotte, after hearing the awful truth from Harriet, still comes to her rescue in the end and helps save her from the maniacal Brian. The grandfather protects Alice with his own life, and Harriet and Charlotte are never friends again...but Brian is lost at sea and presumed dead. Though...his body is never found. Possible sequel? hmmmm :-)

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!!