Finished: The Four Winds (Hannah) The story of how a farming family in the panhandle of Texas battles to make it through the Dust Bowl years of the early 1930's. Elsa Wolcott is a 25 year old, well-to-do, oldest daughter of parents who feel that she'll never have a future as a wife and mother. Unmarried at her age, they've given up on her. To finally stand up for herself, Elsa sleeps with the first young man who shows and interest in her and become pregnant. Her family disowns her, drives her to the Martinelli farm, and dumps her on their doorstep to be married. It takes awhile, but the Martinelli matriarch, Rose, finally comes to love and respect Elsa. While the farm is a thriving wheat producer, the family is happy and doing well. Elsa and her husband, Rafe, have two children, Loreda and Anthony. Rafe is never really happy, though, as he had been planning to go to college and see the world before he was forced into marriage and to stay on the farm with this parents and new wife. When the first year of the  Dust Bowl hits and devastates all the farm crops with its lack of rain and winds of dust storms, the destruction is more than Rafe can handle and he leaves his wife and children to head to California. His parents, Elsa and the children are all devastated. They remain on the farm, with Rose and her husband, Tony, refusing to leave the land, and Elsa right there with them, having come to love the land as her own, as much as her new Martinelli parents. They suffer unthinkable hardship in the next couple of years, but when 7 year old Anthony falls very ill and nearly dies from dust pneumonia, the doctor advises Elsa to get him to a climate where he can breathe more easily after he recovers enough to travel. This is when the true heartbreaking adventure begins. Tony and Rose still refuse to leave their land, so Elsa sets off in the old jalopy of a truck with her two children, very little money, very little food and very few belongings to cross the country to find a better life for her children in California. Little does she know she's heading into even worse conditions. People fleeing the Dust Bowl disaster and arriving from Texas, Oklahoma and other states were unwelcome and disdained by most native Californians. They were allowed to live nowhere but in makeshift tent cities. They begged for whatever work they could get, mostly surviving by picking cotton during cotton season. The migrant children, if they attended school, were ostracized by the other children. Medical care was denied. People were starving and dying. Elsa barely squeaked by with Loreda and Anthony, until the straw the broke the camel's back finally descended upon them...a terrible flood in the tent city that washed away all of their belongings and money except for the truck, which they were barely able to save (along with their own lives). By this time they have met "communist" union organizer, Jack, who Elsa has steered them very clear of. She wants no part of organizing against the rich landowners who are paying her barely enough to survive as a cotton picker. As conditions continue to deteriorate, as the cowardly landowners produce less cotton, and therefore pay the migrants even less, Elsa finally falls into step with Jack and realizes the only way to fight the injustice is to speak up and protest. Elsa and Jack realize they are in love, and for the first time in her life, Elsa is told that she's beautiful and strong and desired. The migrants, led by Jack and Elsa, are on the verge of having a successful second day of striking by sitting down in all the cotton fields in the area when Elsa is shot by one of the landowner's security guards. She passes away able to tell her children and Jack how she feels about them and vice versa. It's such a tragic moment. :-( Her last words to Jack are begging him to take her children back to Tony and Rosa in Texas, and he does. The book closes four years later when Loreda, now 18, is about to be the first Martinelli to head off to college. The farm has survived the Dust Bowl years and is a thriving wheat supplier again. Loreda says goodbye to her mom at the family cemetery and turns to follow the dreams her mom always wanted her to follow. A very good book, but wow did it smack me in the face with timeliness as I couldn't help but think about all the children at the borders who have been torn from their parents...people fleeing horrible situations, looking for a better life for this families. 

 Finished: The Survivors (Harper) A literal page-turner...the story of a 30 year old man who takes his wife and baby back to the beach town on Tasmania where he grew up to visit his parents, bringing back the memories of an accidental tragedy that happened 12 years before that has burdened him with guilt. Of course, the day after he's back in town, another tragedy occurs, bringing both the past and the relationships of everyone involved, past and present, right back into the limelight. A book that keeps you guessing who could be the perpetrator, and more importantly, one that smacks you in the face with the male objectification of women, starting at an early age and seemingly condoned unwittingly as "normal teenage boy" behavior. Not going to give away the plot line on this one. This is the third book I've read by Jane Harper and I've really enjoyed them all. :-) 

 Finished: What Could Be Saved (Schwarz) This the intricate story of a family who is ripped apart when the eight year old son and brother is kidnapped while the family lives in Bangkok, as the father, Robert, who secretly works for the government, is assigned a project that involves subverting North Vietnamese progress by identifying native boys that may be working as spies. While the wife and children have no idea what the father does for a living, their somewhat idyllic life in Asia moves forward as the wife, Genevieve, hosts and attends the required work parties every weekend, and the children attend school and extracurricular activities. All of the American households have Thai housekeepers, cooks and drivers who do all the manual work. The book goes back and forth in time between 1972, when little Philip Preston is kidnapped to 2019 when his youngest sister, Laura, then seven and now in her fifties, receives a phone call from a woman in Thailand telling her that her brother is alive and has been living there for decades and he now needs to come home. Laura whose father dies a few years after Philip's kidnapping and whose formidable mother is now suffering from dementia, calls her older sister, Beatrice, who was twelve at the time of the kidnapping. Bea, always taking responsibility as the oldest, refuses to believe this person could be Philip so doesn't agree to go with Laura to bring him home. Laura goes on her own, and sure enough, the man she meets is definitely her brother! We flash back to their childhood and the relationships between the siblings, and between each of the children and their parents, and between the parents themselves. All of them have their flaws, but they are, in the end, just a normal family, each taking some guilt for the disappearance of Philip, even though none are to blame. (Well, I do kind of blame the inattentive mother.) The compelling story delves into each character's feelings, their motivations for taking the actions they do, and of course, into the mystery of how and why Philip disappeared, and how far and wide everyone searched for Philip before giving up. As a reader, I was sad for all the years the sisters lost with their brother, and for all the heartache the parents suffered. As Philip ends up telling Laura, though, he went through some horrific times, but came out of them living a meditative life with a group of people led by a teacher who he grew to respect and love. He truly thought his family had been contacted and refused to pay a ransom for him (a lie he was told by an evil woman), and he ended up living an alternative life....not the happy family life Laura had imagined they should have had, but still he had lived his life. A very good read that will stay with me for a bit! 

Here's a bit of a review from Sarah McCraw Crow from BookPage that put into better words what I was feeling: 

As the novel opens, 54-year-old Laura Preston is treading water. Her art plateaued years ago, and she’s in a stagnant relationship with a lawyer named Edward. She doesn’t get along with her disapproving sister, Bea, and their mother, Genevieve, is slipping away to dementia. When Laura gets a call from a stranger who says her long-lost brother, Philip, has been found, she impulsively buys a ticket to Bangkok and sets off to find him.

This sounds like a setup for a suspense novel, and What Could Be Saved does offer suspenseful moments and surprising reversals. But two other elements make this novel uniquely satisfying: the portraits of each Preston family member, and the novel’s depiction of the unintended consequences of late 20th-century Americans abroad.

In Bangkok, Laura connects with the man who might be Philip, and from there, the narrative slips back to 1972, where it rotates through the perspectives of mother Genevieve; father Robert; young Laura and Philip; and Noi, a homesick Thai servant to the Prestons. Through their stories, readers learn what brought the Preston family to Bangkok, how the Vietnam War has spilled into other countries and the truth behind Philip’s disappearance. As the story shifts back and forth in time, the present-day Laura warily tries to make sense of Philip’s new presence, unearthing further truths about her family.

 Finished: Olive Kitteridge (Strout) Pulitzer Prize winning book compiled of several short stories about the people in a coastal community in Maine, with the main character, Olive Kitteridge, either the center of the story, or on the periphery of every one else's story. A retired school teacher, Olive taught most of the young adult people who now populate the town. Her husband, Henry, is a retired pharmacist, and their grown son, Christopher, has married and moved away. Olive doesn't understand, or take responsibility for the strained relationship  between mother and son. With an abrupt and stern nature, most people in the town tolerate Olive, but try to give her a wide berth. It took me a month to read this book because it wasn't one that compelled me to keep turning the pages. Just when I was getting to know the few people in a story, then another story would come along and I'd never read more about the people I'd just become interested in. I think this is why I've never been huge on short story compilations. The prose is lovely, and I could often identify with the emotions of Olive or other characters, but I'd rather read a single, fleshed out story from beginning to end. Still, each short story was a good lesson in human emotions, actions and consequences. 

 Finished: Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Kawaguchi) A lovely book about a coffee shop where you can go back in time to relive a moment with someone for a few minutes. There are very strict rules to be followed, such as: you must sit in a particular chair in the coffee shop and cannot leave the chair during your visit; nothing you say or do will change the future, so don't expect that; and most importantly, you must be done before your cup of coffee gets cold, so your time to say or do what you want to do is very limited. The story focuses on a few main characters as we see their stories, read their histories and see why they choose to go back in time. Most involve regret...regret of not telling someone how much you loved them when they decided to end a relationship; regret of avoiding a sibling for years, only to have that sibling die in an accident; regret of not knowing how your spouse truly felt before Alzheimer's set in; and regret of never seeing the baby you have chosen to give birth to, even though carrying her to full term will mean your certain death. All stories woven together with just a few characters, and done so in both a heart wrenching and uplifting way. Good book! 

 Finished: The Glass Hotel (St. John Mandel) Another page-turning book, and totally not what I thought it was going to be. The story begins with Vincent, a young woman working hard in the world to get by, who accepts the proposition of the uber rich investment planner, Jonathan Alkaitis, to pretend to be his wife. I really don't know how to describe the book, so I'm going to be lazy and use the recap from Amazon. :-) It was a gripping story, not only about Vincent and Jonathan, but also about her relationship with her step-brother and Jonathan's relationships with a few of his clients who he considers friends, but has no problem betraying. Amazon recap below. 

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors. When his scheme collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.

 
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.

 Finished: The Push (Audrain) This book was so intense that I finished it in a day. The terrifying story of a young woman who gives birth to her first child, a daughter, and doesn't bond with her right away...or ever. Blythe has a history of her own horrific mother and grandmother and feels certain she is also most likely not cut out to be a mother, but her husband, Fox, convinces her she'll be a wonderful mother. When baby Violet is born, there is no connection, but as it turns out, it's not due to Blythe. Very early on in her life, Violet shows sociopathic tendencies, but only Blythe sees it. Fox is blind to anything that Violet may do wrong. As the years continue on, it becomes clear that Violet is definitely a little sociopath, as she becomes responsible for two horrific tragedies involving younger children, one her own one-year old brother when she is just six. Fox and his family think that Blythe is the crazy one when she tries to convince them that Violet pushed Sam's stroller into oncoming traffic. Blythe even comes to doubt herself...did she really see the push? But, she knows that when she gave birth to Sam, she bonded instantly with him, so she knows for certain she's capable of  having the maternal bond that a mother has with a child. Eventually, Blythe and Fox's marriage crumbles after the tragedy, and he has an affair with his assistant and begins a life with her. Violet splits her time between Blythe and Fox, but she always detests having to go to her mother's. She adores her father and wants to spend all her time there. By the time Violet is 13, she's got a new little brother from her father and Gemma (the assistant), and they've become a seemingly happy family. Blythe seeks out Gemma to actually warn her about her own daughter, to watch her around Jet (the new brother). Gemma takes her husband's word that Blythe was the crazy one and that Violet wasn't responsible for the previous accidents. Blythe goes so far as to watch their family through the front window one night, and Violet sees her. As Violet stands with her hand on Jet's shoulder, she looks at Blythe with her cold, blank stare and makes a pushing motion to Blythe, indicating that she did in fact push Sam into the traffic. Blythe again tries to warn Gemma, but she hangs up on her. Eventually she learns to let go of the responsibility and get on with her life. A year and a half later, she gets a hysterical call from Gemma...something has happened to Jet. THAT'S THE END OF THE BOOK! omg, this was such a page-turner, even if the material is so disturbing. We get to read a bit about Blythe's mother's history and her grandmother's history, and finally about how Blythe's mother left her when she was only 11, never to come back. Thankfully, an amazing neighbor lady named Mrs. Ellington becomes a surrogate mother for Blythe, cultivating a relationship that lasts a lifetime. Unfortunately, Mrs. Ellington isn't around when Blythe is going through the worst time of her life and has not a single person to believe her or support her. Heartbreaking, but very good book! 

 Finished: The Last Kingdom (Cornwell) The first book in a series of thirteen about a ten year old Saxon boy, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, who goes with his father to face the Vikings attacking their land, and watches as the ferocious leader of the Danes, Ragnar, kills his father in the great battle loss. When the young boy runs to try and kill Ragnar with his wooden sword, Ragnar is so impressed with his bravery that he takes him and raises him as his own son, as a Viking and a Paegan. Uhtred lives with Ragnar and his family for years and loves them as his own. Not until he's in his late teens, and Ragnar and most of his family is killed by a rival Dane leader does Uhtred find his only choice to be to make his way to Wessex, the last remaining English stronghold that has not been defeated by the Danes. This is where Uhtred begins his love/hate relationship of service to King Alfred (as in the Great). Torn between his Sussex birthright and roots, and his deep love for his Danish family and his Paegan beliefs, Uhtred spends years as a warrior meant to fight against the Danes for King Alfred, all the while staying in touch with his "brother", Ragnar the Younger, Ragnar's oldest son. The book is very good and goes into so much more detail than the television show on which it's based. This first book ends long before the ending of the last season of the show I watched, so I don't know if I'll continue reading the series, but I think I probably will. :-)

 Finished: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (Schwab) In July of 1714, Addie LaRue is a 23 year old young woman who lives in the small French village of Villon with her parents, who are insisting that she finally get married to a young man from the town. Addie has never wanted to live the "standard" life of get married, have children and never set eyes on anything past her village. She longs to be free to do as she pleases, and not belong to anyone...to live life to the fullest. On the evening of the wedding, she runs away to the forest and prays to the gods to please intervene so that she will not have to get married. She forgets a cardinal rule about praying to the gods, though...never pray to the gods after dark, for you'll get a dark god. Sure enough, the devil himself answers her calling and materializes in the form of a handsome young man. Addie can feel his dark presence, though. She begs him to help her be free to live how she wants to, free of belonging to a man. The devil, who she calls Luc, grants her wish...but it will cost her her soul. When she's tired of living her life, she will owe the devil her soul. The deal is struck, but little does Addie know that everything is about to change dramatically. When Addie runs home to her parents, neither of them recognizes her. It's as if she was never their child. She also goes to see her best friend, who also doesn't recognize her. And it gets worse....anyone who she DOES meet, forgets her the minute they leave her company, even if just for a moment. It's as if she doesn't exist. She can live in the moment, but no one remembers her. And, she can't say her name...it won't come from her mouth, so she must always use a different name. She can't write or even draw in the sand. She can also not be hurt without healing instantly, or die. This life of Addie's goes on for 300 years. She makes her way to Paris and nearly freezes to death and starves to death, and she feels all the symptoms of those realities, but her body is just fine. Once a year on the anniversary of their deal, Luc appears and asks if she's ready to surrender and give him her soul. Stubborn Addie never agrees! The story goes back and forth between the 1700's, 1800's and 1900's, as we see Addie "meet" the same people over and over again. She finds a way to leave an impression of herself by having one night stands with artists who paint her portrait. Of course, they fall for her in that one night, and then all over again the next night, and on and on, until she finally moves on, and they've created a piece of art about a woman they think was only in their dreams. Addie manages to travel the world and survives through several wars in her 300 years. She also develops a strangely co-dependent relationship with Luc, and comes to look forward to his visits, since he's the only being who actually knows who she is and that she exists. Sometimes he tortures her and goes years, maybe decades, without visiting her, only to then come and say "surrender?" In 2014, she is living in New York in her usual style. She can't hold a job, so she steals the food she needs. She stays in people's cottages or apartments while they're gone. She can sneak into a building and a doorman will forget he saw her the next instant. One day, Addie goes into a book store and steals a book to read. All she has to do is make it around the corner running and the book store owner who is chasing her will forget why he's running. The young book seller, Henry, is exasperated when he actually catches up to her, and seeing her desperation, just tells her to keep the book and he heads back to the store. The next day Addie takes the book back to the book store, as she usually does, and she expects Henry to look at her as if he's never met her, but instead he says "You! What are you doing here? You've got some nerve returning here after stealing that book." Addie is stunned, shocked, elated, all at once. Someone actually remembers her! She can't believe it and is certain that any moment the bubble will burst, but it doesn't! Addie and Henry begin seeing each other and develop feelings for each other. He finally wants Addie to meet his friends, but she knows what will happen if one of them leaves the table and then comes back. Sure enough, it happens and the friend who leaves the table and comes back says "well, who have we got here Henry?" even though he'd just met Addie in front of the other friend. Addie flees the table and Henry chases after her. She finally has to tell Henry the whole truth, but she doesn't think Henry will believe a word. However, what Addie doesn't know is that Henry had made his own deal with the devil a few month before. He'd been experiencing severe depression on and off for years, and had been rejected in his recent marriage proposal to his girlfriend when he found himself on the rooftop of the building about to jump off and end his life. However, the long hand of the devil reached out his hand and saved him. He gave Henry what he wanted most of all. In exchange for his soul, he'd give Henry one year of being loved and cherished by everyone, instead of ridiculed and rejected. Everyone Henry meets gets foggy-eyed and sees only good in him....they see him as they want him to be. Even his disapproving family is suddenly very loving. His friends already loved him, so they aren't any different, but strangers are. When he meets Addie, though, her eyes don't cloud over either. When she tells him her story about her deal with the devil, he tells Addie about his deal as well. They can't believe they each have a deal, but now realize this is why Henry can remember Addie. Henry fails to tell Addie about the time limit on his life though. As the year anniversary of Henry's deal approaches, he finally tells Addie and she can't accept it. She calls Luc to come and begs him to cancel Henry's deal. As we've known for a long time now, Luc doesn't really want Addie's soul, because then she'll be dead. What he really wants is for Addie to be with him and only him all the time. Addie makes a deal with Luc that she'll stay with him as long as he wants her by his side if he releases Henry from his deal. When Henry's last minute ticks down, Addie tells him what she's done and she begins to fade away. He begs her not to go, but it's too late. She tells him to remember her always and she's gone. Henry goes on to write a book based on all the stories of her life that Addie told him in their months together. He'd written them all in journals for her since she couldn't write anything. A  year after they're parted, Addie sees Henry's book in the book store "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue", and it's her story. He's told her story. In the dedication line he says simply. "I remember you." As Luc comes upon Addie as she's reading, she goes with him as usual, but thinks to herself.....she learned from the master and used very careful wording in her deal. She knows there will come a time that Luc gets tired of her, even if it's just a fight in anger, and then she'll be free of their deal. Until then, she'll have all the patience she needs because she's got all the time in the world. This was a very good book, but took me awhile to read because it was pretty long and went back to the past quite a bit to show us Addie's trials and her relationship dealing with Luc. I preferred the story more when it was just Addie and Henry. A good book though! :-) 

 Finished: Where The Crawdads Sing (Owens) Beautifully written book about a young girl growing up alone in the marshland of North Carolina in the 1960's, deserted by her entire family by the time she is ten, left to fend for herself, living off the land, her only friends the birds and other animals of the marsh, and a nearby town who considers her to be dirty and feral and calls her the Marsh Girl. Kya is only six when her mother walks out on her abusive father, leaving her and her older siblings, never to return. As the siblings leave the abusive shack one by one, no one takes Kya with them, leaving her to deal with their father and eek out a living as best she can. When her father finally leaves for good as well, Kya starts driving his small boat, knowing all the ins and outs of the marshes leading to the town, figures out how to dig for mussels, and then sell them to the man who owns the gas store, Jumpin'. Jumpin' and his wife, Mabel, live in the "colored" section of town and are the only town people who are kind to Kya...until she meets Tate. Tate is a boy who is 3 or 4 years older, who had been a friend of Jodie's, the brother she was closest to. Tate is a friendly, compassionate young boy who ends up teaching Kya to read and write. They are both in sync with the marshes and as they grow older, their deep friendship blossoms into first love. Before Tate goes off to college, her promises Kya that he will be back, but then he breaks that promise. In her heartbreak, Kya ends up having a relationship with the richest boy in town, the popular quarterback, Chase. Chase pursues her and charms her and eventually tells her that he wants to build her a house and marry her someday. He basically gets her to trust him before he plans a trip for them to a motel where she loses her virginity to him. Though he keeps seeing her, Kya doesn't realize that he brags about his sex with the Marsh Girl to his buddies in town, and that he has a pretty blonde girlfriend. When she eventually sees an engagement announcement for Chase and his girlfriend in the town paper, she realizes that she's been made a fool of, and worse, left once again. When he's done with college, Tate comes back to be a wildlife biologist in the area and goes to see Kya to beg her forgiveness and explain why he never came back. She won't have anything to do with him, but when he sees her detailed drawings and descriptions of the intricate marsh wildlife, he convinces her to at least let him submit some of her work to a publisher since no books exist about the coastal wildlife like what she could create. Kya agrees, and though she won't see Tate, she goes on to have more than one successful book! The money from the books allows her to update the inside of the cabin and put some money aside. As the story opens, it has advanced to the year 1969 and the body of Chase has been found disfigured on the ground near the marsh fire tower. He has seemingly been pushed from the tower floor and the small town sheriff has a murder on his hands. Eventually, Kya is put on trial for his murder, but I won't give away what happens. She does end up with Tate and her brother Jodie, who has come back, rooting for her, as well as Jumpin', Mabel and her lawyer, who comes out of retirement just to defend her. There is so much beautiful prose in the book, and such detailed descriptions of the wildlife, and poetry is smattered throughout. I could feel Kya's pain every time she was shunned and every time she was deserted by someone she loved, but I can't begin to imagine the isolation and loneliness of being left at such a young age. The ending was a very nice surprise as the murderer of Chase was revealed. :-)