Finished: American Dirt (Cummins) Heartbreaking story of the grueling journey of a Mexican mother and her young son, Luca, as they flee the imminent danger of the cartel in Acapulco and attempt to migrate to the United States. Lydia works at a bookstore, and her husband is a journalist, who writes an expose about the local, very powerful, and very ruthless leader of the cartel in their area. When the cartel leader orders the execution of her entire family at her niece's Quinceanera, Lydia and Luca miraculously escape harm when they just happen to leave the party and go into the house so Luca can use the restroom. Sixteen of her family members lay slain in the courtyard, including her mother, her husband, her sister, nieces, and nephews. Without the time to grieve them for a single minute, Lydia throws some essentials into a backpack, takes her mother's purse that contains their family money, and runs with Luca. What ensues is their dangerous, horrific journey to the north....learning the ropes from other migrants...riding on tops of trains, putting their lives in the hands of a "coyote" to smuggle them across the border...constantly looking over their shoulders for the cartel to find them. Lydia and Luca meet two teenage sisters on the journey, and they become like family. Most of the other migrants are helpful as well, but there are always a few bad seeds in any good bunch that add to the terror of the journey. This is a beautifully written story, and one that hit very close to home in terms of current events, as Lydia and Luca witness the huge wall with barbwire fence, cameras and border patrol in  the cities along the border which prevent them from crossing over to the U.S. They hear first hand stories from people who have lived in the U.S. for years, but who have just recently been deported, while their children, who are American citizens, are permitted to stay behind. The plight of these people is brought to heart wrenching light in a powerfully written book.

Finished: The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Morris) The true story of a young Slovakian Jewish man, Lale, who is taken to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942, where he spends three years doing whatever he can to survive. Since he speaks several languages, he is put to work by the SS as the person who tattoos the incoming prisoners.They call him Tatowierer. He gets a few special privileges, such as a bit of extra food, and much less harassment from the guards. He uses whatever he can to share  his extra food with his fellow prisoners. One day he looks up at the arm that is shoved in his face to tattoo, and it's a frightened young girl. Lale falls in love with her on the spot, and from that day on is determined to meet her. Her name is Gita, and she falls in love with Lale as well. They do everything they can to survive the tortures of the camp, including frightening encounters with the evil doctor, Mengele. The story goes on to detail the atrocities of the camps and explores how Lale and Gita survive, with the help of many of their fellow prisoners and friends, most of whom do not make it out alive. In 1945, as the Russian army gets closer and closer to the camps, the Germans begin rounding up prisoners and shooting them or marching them out to other camps. Gita is marched out with the other women and she and Lale are devastatingly separated. Lale makes his way out of the camp on a train as the camp basically falls apart. Gita manages to escape from the march with four other women and makes her way back to Slovakia. Lale is taken by the Russian army to once again use his language proficiency to help them procure women for their parties at night. He's given all the food and showers he needs, and a bedroom to stay in, however, he's always under armed guard when he's taken into town to talk to the women and give them money and jewels to come back to the Russian headquarters. When the Russians finally trust him and send him on his own, Lale takes more money and jewels than he needs and makes his escape. He also makes his way back to Slovakia. He searches and searches for Gita with no luck until one day a towns person suggests he triy the Red Cross lists where many former prisoners returning home are registering to find loved ones. Then, one day in the streets (it's not really explained if it's because of the Red Cross lists) Lale and Gita finally cross each other and fall into each other's arms. They are married and finally have the child they always wanted. It's with the help of this son that the author has written this true story of two survivors of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Finished: The Testaments (Atwood) The much awaited sequel to The Handmaid's Tale was excellent, and a satisfying read if you've been wondering what happened after the end of the first book. You might have to brush up on that book before reading this one to remember the different characters. If you watched the series on TV, then you will be pretty much in tune with all the characters! This recap will have major spoilers, so I really suggest you not read past this point if you're going to read the book. The book was hard to put down and so well written. It's told from the viewpoints of three main characters, whose identities you figure out rather quickly. However, the different time periods that the story is told in may throw you at first, as you think they're all being told at the same time. I never thought I'd enjoy a book where one of the main narrators was Aunt Lydia! However, her back story was tragic, as are all of the women's back stories in the Gilead world. She survived and made herself into what she was, which rather seemed like a monster both in the first book and in the series. She did that to ensure her own safety. What is stunning in The Testaments is that she's actually working from deep inside, from her position of power, to bring down Gilead! Her machinations are deft and always ten steps ahead of the man in charge, Commander Judd. The other two narrators are girls when we meet them, and one is about 16 and the other about 23 as their identities are revealed. They are giving testaments to their own life stories, again, both tragic in the Gilead world and the Gilead-influenced Canadian world. They end up being the two daughters of June, otherwise known as Offred. Her oldest daughter, whose name is now Agnes, loves the mother who has raised her, and believes her story that she "rescued" Agnes from terrible people, chose her from all the other children, and ran with her to safety from the forest. Agnes has no memory of her real parents, but comes to know her story as she gains access to the genealogy trees of all the handmaids in Gilead. Agnes refuses to get married when she's 14, threatens to take her own life, and begs the Aunts to take her into their charge where she will become an Aunt herself. Aunt Lydia agrees. Meanwhile, baby Nicole, who had been rescued from Gilead by her mother, has also grown up with parents who are not really hers. She is now known as Daisy. They have loved her and protected her, but they have also been deeply working for the Mayday organization which helps women and children escape from Gilead. When they are murdered on what Daisy thinks is her 16th birthday, Daisy is spirited away by a good friend of her mother's, Ada. Ada moves her around and finally explains to her that she's the baby Nicole that all the children of Canada have learned about in school...the famous baby who was rescued from Gilead that Gilead has been searching for for years. Her real mother gave her up as an infant to protect her, but has kept her eye on her all these years. As it turns out, the only place to keep Daisy safe is Gilead itself! Ada and the Mayday organization have been in touch with their deep cover mole (who we all know is Aunt Lydia) and Aunt Lydia says she will be able to blow the entire Gilead operation apart if they can send her baby Nicole to help with the cause. So, Daisy is smuggled back IN to Gilead, and put under Aunt Lydia's charge. When Aunt Lydia finally explains to Daisy and Agnes that they are actually sisters, both daughters of a handmaid who'd been quite a rebel, they agree to transport all Aunt Lydia's knowledge of the evil doings of Gilead back over the border to Canada with a microchip implanted in Daisy's arm. Of course, the trip back is very suspenseful, but the sisters finally make it, and are embraced by their real mother at the hospital. Gilead is brought down by these brave women (and a handful of men). The last we see of Aunt Lydia, there is loud knocking on her door and we assume she is arrested. We don't witness her demise, but she had been ready to give her life for the cause. This was such a good book and a great wrap up of the stories of these characters. It might also be nice, though, to see another book that explores exactly what June was doing all that time.....though we may see more of that in the TV series!

Finished: There There (Orange) Eye-opening and heart-breaking book about a group of current day Native Americans, some related, some not, who all end up converging at the Big Oakland Powwow, after we spend the book reading about their lives, their back stories, their heartbreak, and their hopes for the future. Most of them live in Oakland, have had very tough lives, and are still barely hanging on, which causes some of them to do desperate things. Others of them find out they are actually related to one another in one form or another. Hearing the modern characters telling the stories of their ancestors, usually when relating the horror and oppression to a younger generation, was deeply moving. Great book! Thank you to my son for picking it out for me for Christmas. :-)

Finished: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Mackesy) I read this book in early December, when I saw it advertised and thought I might want to get it for my daughter, Jenny Cate, seeing as how she's a horse person, and had lost her beloved horse, Sara, recently. I loved the book, so got one for me too. The illustrations are as powerful as the prose. The message...friendship, family, being yourself, loving others. I was pretty much hooked from the beginning, when I read this exchange between the boy and the mole:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the mole.

“Kind,” said the boy."

Just a lovely, lovely book full of lessons we could all learn from, especially in this crazy world today.

Finished: The Dutch House (Patchett) The story of the bond between two siblings, Danny and Maeve, who grow up in a huge, ornate house called The Dutch House...that is until their father remarries and the brother and sister are asked to move out of the house after their father dies, when Danny has just started college. Deserted by their mother when they are very young, Maeve and Danny are raised by their rather distant father and their nurturing housekeeper and cook until the remarriage. They are very supportive of, and protective of each other. Their step-mother marries the father more so because she's in love with the house rather than their father. She's got two young daughters of her own and they are shown favoritism as Danny and Maeve get older. As the years go by, Maeve and Danny will get together in her car, parked across the street from the house and wonder what their step-mother is up to, and if the house still looks the same inside. When their father dies, he leaves the entire house and all it's contents to his wife...but he does set up an educational fund for all the children to go however far they want in college and beyond. The book is very compelling and develops each character so deeply that you really come to care for Danny and Maeve. It's one of those books that stays with you even after you finish reading it. As they go on with their lives, Danny and Maeve always put each other first, much to the dismay of Danny's wife and children. And, when Maeve is in her early 50's and is debilitated by a heart attack due to her lifelong battle with diabetes, their mother comes back into the picture to spend time with Maeve, who was eight years older than Danny when she left, and longs to have the relationship back. Danny can't forgive his mother for leaving them and going off to help less fortunate people. She'd always hated the ostentatious house, was uncomfortable living in it, and just wanted to help the poor. Sadly, she did that at the expense of her own children. Maeve and Danny are finally able to put the Dutch House in the past when they go with their own mother to visit their step-mother and find her deteriorating from Alzheimer's. As is typical of their mother, she decides to move into the house and care for their step-mother. Maeve succumbs to her heart condition, and her namesake, May, Danny's daughter, eventually become a successful actress and buys the Dutch House after both her step-grandmother and grandmother have passed away. I really like this book and all the relationships that were developed in the telling of the story! Last book read of 2019!

Finished: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Vuong) An excellent book of the life story of a Vietnamese family, mother, son and grandmother, told in a letter from the son, now in his twenties, to his mother. Not a story in the traditional sense, but a compilation of beautiful prose, of thoughts and life experiences and revelations as Little Dog, as he's known, remembers in vivid detail the horrors both his mother and grandmother shared with him about living in Vietnam during the war; about coming to America and struggling to fit in and live; and opens up to his mother about the homosexual relationship he had as a young teen, his first love, who meant so much to him. Vuong paints such a vivid picture with every word that I could actually feel the pain, the sorrow and the love from each character. Here are a couple of snippets I liked:

"You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty. Opening the front door to the first snowfall of my life, you whispered, "Look." "

And this one wrecked my heart as Little Dog was watching his mother and aunt cater to their dying mother's body and wishes. It is so true.

"We try to preserve life--even when we know it has no chance of enduring its body. We feed it, keep it comfortable, bathe it, medicate it, caress it, even sing to it. We tend to these basic functions not because we are brave or selfless but because, like breath, it is the most fundamental act of our species: to sustain the body until time leaves it behind."

This book will stay in my thoughts for quite awhile.

Finished: Redemption (Baldacci) The latest book in the Memory Man series which features FBI consultant, Amos Decker, the man with the injured brain that remembers every single detail of everything he reads and experiences. This unexpected, and often unwanted, talent helps Amos solve cases with his FBI partner, former journalist, Alex. In this story, Amos goes back to his hometown of Burlington where he tragically lost his wife and daughter in a bloody murder at their home a few years before...unfortunately a scene that will never leave Amos' mind since he is the one who walked in and found them dead. While there visiting, as he does yearly on his daughter's birthday, he is approached by the man who he sent to prison for murder on the very first case he was assigned years before. The man is out of prison for mercy because he is dying soon of cancer. He insists to Amos that he didn't commit the murders all those years ago, and he'd like Amos to prove it and clear his name before he dies. What ensues is the typical Amos Decker investigation where he figures things out by remembering obscure clues, and sure enough, he figures out that the man is innocent. What's more, he was set up for the murders in a elaborate scheme that was a cover up for an even more sinister operation of Russian operatives being brought into the country, re-educated in American ways, and then integrated into America to spy for Russia. I was more interested in the relationships that Amos is continuing to work on with old friends, new friends and workmates. The actual murder mystery was just kind of ok. Still, Baldacci always gives a pretty good read. :-)

Finished: The Need (Phillips) This was a literal page-turner which I don't think I would recommend. I kept reading until the very end because it was suspenseful, and the chapters were short and to the point, and I really wanted to see what it all meant at the end....but the ending didn't give any answers! The book is about a young, working mother who seems to either be in a the throes of developing a split personality, or to be in the middle of a nightmare where another version of herself really exists! Molly is home alone with Viv, almost four, and Ben, oneish. Her husband is out of town on business for a week and Molly hears footsteps in the house while she's alone with the children. She has no option but to face the intruder when Viv runs out into the room where the masked intruder is holding Viv's favorite book, which has been missing. The intruder leaves the house, but also leaves a note for Molly requesting a meeting the next day. If she doesn't show up, the children will be in danger. Molly goes to the meeting the next day and comes face to face with herself! Only, it's herself from an alternate reality where both Viv and Ben have been killed in a bombing. :-( Moll, as she calls herself, is grieving terribly and tells Molly that she will have to share Viv and Ben with her from now on...that they'll take turns mothering them. Molly is stunned, scared, and in total disbelief. Molly works at an archaeological pit where she has been digging and retrieving artifacts for the past 8 years. Only recently some very strange items have turned up....a Coke bottle with the cursive writing backwards...a little green army man with the tail of a monkey....and an ancient bible where every reference to God is "She" instead of "He". Moll appears to have come from this alternate place, from a crack in the pit, where in another life she lost her/their children. Molly goes along with Moll's plan during the week that David is gone. She doesn't tell him what's going on when he calls because she doesn't want him to think she's crazy. As things escalate and it even looks like Moll might take the kids and run, Molly, Viv and Ben all get a terrible stomach virus, and Moll takes care of them all. Throughout this entire story, it's just ambiguous enough that I thought certainly this was going to end up being a case of split personality. However, one day when Molly is driving home to take her turn in the basement while Moll has the kids, Moll is out in the yard with the kids. The neighbor across the street sees Molly speed up and drive by, and later asks her how she could have been in both places! Anyway, at the end, either Molly or Moll, I'm not sure which, packs up the kids and takes them out in the fresh air and walks away with them. That's where it ends! I have no idea if it was truly an alternate reality or a split personality or just plain insanity. It was a fast read, and not a bad book, but with no resolution, I was left very unfulfilled.

Finished: Disappearing Earth (Phillips) This was a very good, page-turning book about the people on the periphery, yet very entangled in, the disappearance of two little girls, sisters, in a remote area of Russia. I was truly surprised by the ending and glad some of the characters tied together the way they did. There were a couple of characters whose stories I would have liked to see more of, or a bit more resolved, but the author is a very talented writer who I would like to read more from! I'm just going to be lazy and put the Amazon recap here because it describes the book better than I could. :-)

"One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls--sisters, eight and eleven--go missing. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women.

Taking us through a year in Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth enters with astonishing emotional acuity the worlds of a cast of richly drawn characters, all connected by the crime: a witness, a neighbor, a detective, a mother. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty--densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes, and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska--and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused.

In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel brings us to a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before."