Finished: Wunderland (Epstein) Heartwrenching story about Isle and Renate, best friends from the time they are little girls, growing up in Germany as Hitler is rising in power. Isle and Renate are inseparable until Isle talks Renate into disobeying her parents and secretly applying to be part of the Hitler Youth Movement. The standard investigation into Renate's records reveals the truth that her father is Jewish and married to her Christian mother. Renate is half Jewish and she never knew it. Her older brother, Franz, knew and he and her parents had kept the secret. Once it's out, though, Renate's life changes. Her boyfriend cruelly breaks up with her and Isle quits hanging out with her, breaking Renate's heart. As the persecution of the Jewish people kicks into high gear, Renate and her family suffer immeasurably. They apply to leave the country, but it takes three long years, lots of red tape, and lots of money, for Renate's parents to finally buy passage for just Renate and Franz. As Renate goes through her teenage years, she learns that she won't be able to attend the school she always has, and that it's unlikely she'll be allowed to attend college, her longtime dream. Meanwhile, Isle believes wholeheartedly in Hitler's ideals about her Germany. She is a budding writer and writes whatever propaganda she is asked to. One night she accompanies some of the male Hitler youth as they head out to tear up the Jewish shops of Berlin and round up Jewish men to be sent off to be interrogated. She actually watches in horror as the boys completely destroy some shops she used to frequent with Renate, as well as the local synagogue. She's not horrified enough to leave the movement, though. When she realizes that the next man on the list they are going to terrorize is Renate's father, Isle steps in between the youth and Mr. Baur. She insists to the youth that the Baurs aren't Jewish, putting her own life in jeopardy. They move on to the next victim, but within the week, Isle is interrogated herself and told at some point, they will want her to get information on Franz for them to prove he is involved in activities that are illegal for Jewish folks. Occasionally the book fast forwards to the future where we have been introduced to Ava, Isle's daughter. Ava has never been close to her mother who had been very cold as she raised her, even leaving her for a few years in an orphanage during the war while she disappeared. Ava never knew what her mother did during the war or who her own father was. When her mother finally came back to get her, she would never tell Ava anything about her past. Ava, now with her own teenage daughter, Sophie, has just been informed that her estranged mother has died and wanted her to have all of the letters she wrote to Renate over the years, but never mailed. As Ava reads through the letters, she discovers so much about Isle and her friendship with Renate....as well as her crush on Renate's brother, Franz. The book is very well written and the experiences that both Renate and Isle go through are so vividly presented. As we go back in time again, it is only two days until Renate, now 19, and Franz are to finally take the ship to America and escape the persecution in Germany. It is at this time that Isle, frightened for her own life by the people who questioned her, does a despicable deed. Pretending that she misses Renate, she goes to their house and spends the evening there reminiscing. She also takes the time to snoop as much as she can in Franz's room for anything incriminating. She doesn't find anything, and leaves the home empty handed. When the higher-ups come down on her even harder and insist that she find something within the week, she goes back the next evening when she knows Renate will be at work and visits with Franz. Franz had also been enamored with Isle, and he completely falls for her act that she's changed, and shows her where he's got illegal books hidden AND tells her the time and date of the next of the illegal anti-Hitler meetings he's been attending. Then, they both give into their old feelings and sleep together. Isle walks out of the house with one of the clandestine books and the time and place of the upcoming meeting. She decides she won't turn this information over until Franz and Renate have gone in two days. She doesn't get that choice, though, when she arrives home and the same men who interrogated her before are waiting at her home. Isle tells them that the meeting is the next week, and she thinks she has spared Franz, but the men go to the house that night, take him out and beat him, and take him away. Franz dies in captivity. :-( Isle, is then thrust into the war effort and never realizes that Franz didn't make it to New York safely. As Ava reads all these letters, she realizes that Renate lives in New York and hopefully not too far away from her. When Ava tracks her down, Renate is very upset when she finds out Ava is Isle's daughter and asks her to leave. Ava doesn't realize either that Franz never made it to New York. Ava tells Renate that Isle is responsible for her brother's death. Ava begs Renate to hear her out. She tells her that Isle's letters reveal that Franz was Ava's father! Renate can almost instantly recognize the resemblance. It's a very touching moment when Renate realizes she's got a niece, a piece of her beloved brother. The book ends with them planning to get together and get to know each other as family.

Finished: Run Away (Coben) Another page-turner by my favorite thriller, who-done-it author. Father of three, Simon, is devastated that his oldest, daughter Paige, gets heavily involved in drugs her first year of college, spiraling downward until she flunks out of school, steals from her parents for drug money, and lives with, Aaron, the man who got her hooked on drugs. She is now missing and Aaron is dead. Simon and his wife's quest to find Paige leads them to a run down housing project where their lives are put in danger. Simon's wife, Ingrid, is shot and lies in a coma. Simon continues his mission to find Paige, even while police are questioning whether Simon and/or Ingrid could have killed Aaron...or was it Paige herself? Meanwhile, there's a couple who grew up together in foster care, Ash and Dee Dee, who are traveling around the same area contract killing men who have been put on a hit list. Dee Dee is a member of a controlling cult, and as it turns out, the men are all the sons of the charismatic cult leader, who had been put up for adoption as infants. Now that the cult leader is on his death bed, someone in the cult is wanting any remaining sons with claims to his fortune to be eliminated. When Simon finds out that Aaron was actually one of the boys who was adopted long ago, then all the connections start falling into place. There are a few surprise twists towards the end which keep you on your toes. :-) All in all, a good Harlan Coben book. I didn't enjoy it, though, as much as I do his Myron Bolitar series.

Finished: Educated: A Memoir (Westover) A memoir about the life of Tara Westover, who lives on a mountain with her survivalist family. She is kept out of school by her domineering father and submissive mother, who don't believe in hospitals, public schools, or the government. She is raised helping her father scrap sheet metal for his business and is constantly put in dangerous situations. She is also raised with her father lecturing from the Mormon scriptures. One of her big brothers is physically and emotionally abusive to the point of nearly killing her a few times. When one of her older brothers goes to college and encourages Tara to defy her father and go to school, Tara dares to begin dreaming of getting an education at the age of 17. She passes a college entrance exam and heads to BYU where she finally learns that the world is far different than she'd been taught. For instance, she alienates herself and people think she's being a racist when she asks out loud in History class what the Holocaust was. She truly had never heard of it! More than just getting a formal education, Tara is educated in social behavior. She can't always handle trying to be like everyone else because she has been so beat down at home. She has very little self-worth, and when she finally confronts her parents about her brother's abusive behavior, which he often did right in front of them, they deny it and insist that she either deny it too and be "cleansed of the devil inside her" or not be welcome in the family. Tara goes on to get her college degree at BYU, and with the help of one kind professor who sees her potential, she gets into Cambridge in England and gets her Masters there, as well as her PhD. She also spends a year as a fellow at Harvard. Those years are not easy for her, though. She had immense trouble opening up to friends and letting them know of her past. And, she is so affected by her family's actions that she nearly fails out of her PhD program until she can finally face herself and realize she is not the problem. She does this with the help of both a therapist and the same brother who insisted she get away and get into college. He believes her about the abusive brother, and he lets the family knows he's on her side as well. It's honestly a very distressing tale of how she got where she is. She needed years of therapy (and maybe still does?) It is so very inspiring, though, that she was able to persevere against the worst odds, pull herself out of the survivalist mentality that had been beaten into her and become an educated, functioning, productive adult. A good book, but it took me a long time to read because it was so hard to read about all her hardships and her lack of self-worth.

Finished: The Last Tycoon (Fitzgerald) The last novel by Fitzgerald, which was incomplete at the time of his death, is the story of Monroe Stahr, a Hollywood producer, and is supposedly based on the real life "wonder boy" producer Irving Thalberg. Fitzgerald's writing is always very powerful, but you can tell he was not done with the story or with possibly rearranging parts of it. His notes are included at the back of the book and it's very interesting to read those and see what he was intending for the major characters, especially Stahr. The story is narrated by his business partner's college-aged daughter, Cecelia, who fancies herself in love with Stahr. She tells about how powerful he is, how he changed movies, how successful he made them after the depression, how he interacts with people, and at the same time, how vulnerable he can be when he falls for a woman who is the spitting image of his late, dead wife. We see a bit of him pursuing that woman, and her falling for him, but warning him he doesn't know everything. Then, it turns out she's got a fiance and is getting married the day after they are intimate! Cecelia then decides it's time for her to swoop in and make her move. The book ends there rather abruptly, but the notes suggest that they do have an affair, but only for a few weeks before he breaks her heart. They also indicate that he takes a trip to the northeast, and falls ill and dies due to a heart that he has overworked because he won't ever take a break. I imagine the story would have been much clearer (obviously) if Fitzgerald had been able to actually complete it. What he did write, though, is his typical, excellent prose. :-)

Finished: The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls (Gray) This was a very good book! It's the story of three sisters and a brother who are raised by a physically and emotionally absent father after their mother dies when the oldest is twelve years old. Althea, the oldest, literally becomes the mother figure for six year old Viola, four year old Joe and one year old Lillian. Althea remembers alot about her mother, and how kind she was, and how much time she spent with the children. Flash forward over 40 years later and Althea, plus her husband Proctor, are in jail awaiting the judgment that will either set them free or send them on to a more permanent prison home. Althea and Proctor had become respectable members of their small town, but when businesses started closing down due to the economy and a closed factory, they struggled mightily to keep their restaurant open. Their restaurant became a beacon of hope for other town members, as Althea and Proctor held continuous fundraisers for the victims of a huge flood that also devastated the town. As people just handed over their life-savings to the couple, they were deceiving everyone, taking the money and spending it on themselves as fast as it hit their hands. So, needless to say, the betrayed town is furious and wants them to go to prison for years. Althea and Proctor have twin teenage daughters at home, though, Baby Vi and Kim. They are as opposite as can be, and are not handling the treatment they are receiving at school and in town very well. To make it worse, Kim, who feels as if her mother always favored Baby Vi more, is the one who called the police to turn her parents in when she found out what they were doing! She didn't do it out of right versus wrong. She did it because she was mad at her mother. So, Kim is living with the guilt of that action sending her parents to prison without realizing it was their own actions that did that. Kim and Baby Vi have been living with their Aunt Lillian for the past two years while their parents sit in jail awaiting the decision. As decision time comes, Althea's other sister, Viola, comes to town as well...missing the actual sentencing because she's got major issues of her own. Althea and Proctor are found guilty and sentenced to multiple years, and the tension and stress rises even higher. We see snippets of Althea's life in prison, her communication with Proctor, and her relationship with a few of her fellow prisoners. We also see that Althea is still very angry with her own daughter and with some self-reflection she realizes she has become liker her distant father. We also learn that Lillian was abused by Joe when they were the only two left at home with their father. Always craving his father's attention, Joe lashed out in anger when he didn't get it. He didn't sexually abuse Lillian, but locked her in a dark closet for hours, sometimes days, at a time. So, there are lots of family issues to deal with in this book once Althea's siblings are all there trying to figure out what to do with the girls permanently. In crisis, Kim runs away and they all fear for her life because she sends a few texts that are pretty despondent to her twin, but Baby Vi doesn't share them right away. They end up finding Kim in time before she can harm herself. It is decided that Kim and Baby Vi, will go and live with Viola and her wife in Chicago. Althea, realizing she didn't want to be like her father, makes tentative steps to make amends with Kim with weekly phone calls to her and Baby Vi. Lillian confronts her brother, tells him to stay out of her life (he's a preacher now who just wants to let it all be in the past), and finally sells the home she grew up in and moves to New York to pursue a career. Told in the voices of the this is a very well written, powerful story about the struggles each of these sisters went through and how they overcame to the best of their ability. Well, minus the felony scheme of Althea and Proctor. No excuse for that!

Finished: The Silent Patient (Michaelides) A great book about an artist, Alicia Berensen, who shoots her husband to death (or does she?) and then is committed to a psychiatric hospital where she never utters another word. The police simply find her standing over her husband with the murder weapon, and she never says a single word to anyone. Six years later, Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who followed her case and became intrigued by the one painting she did after the murder, seeks a job at the same psychiatric hospital and becomes her therapist. This was such a good book with a huge twist. I'm not even going to write any more about it because anyone who might read this, I really don't want to spoil it. :-) I loved the twist, though, and I usually figure twists out, so this was a nice surprise. Great book! 

Finished: Liar Liar (Jackson) This was a pretty good semi-page-turner, whodunit by an author who I've read quite a bit of. I actually finished this book a week ago, but then traveled, so never wrote the blog entry. I'm going to be really lazy and just cut and paste the blurb about the book from Amazon in my blog. :-) I will say that I kept getting the feeling that I'd read this book before, but it wasn't on my list anywhere, so maybe I had only read about it. Anyway, it was good but not mind blowing. Here's the Amazon blurb:

"In death, Didi Storm is finally getting the kind of publicity that eluded her in life. Twenty years ago, the ex-beauty queen worked the Vegas strip as a celebrity impersonator, too busy to spare much time for her daughter, Remmi. Shortly before she leaped from a San Francisco building, Didi’s profile was rising again, thanks to a tell-all book. To Detective Dani Settler, it looks like a straightforward suicide, or perhaps a promotional stunt gone wrong. But Remmi knows the truth isn’t so simple. Because though the broken body on the sidewalk is dressed in Didi’s clothes and wig, it isn’t Didi.

Remmi was fifteen when she last saw her mother. They parted in the aftermath of a terrible night in the Mojave desert when Remmi—who’d hidden in Didi’s car en route to meet her crush, Noah Scott—instead witnessed Didi handing over one of her newborn twins to a strange man. Then Didi disappeared, as did Remmi’s other half-sibling. The authorities have found no clues. Yet Remmi has always sensed that someone is watching her . . .

Remmi is shocked when Noah resurfaces. He was also in the desert that night, and now runs his own PI firm. He too believes it’s time to find out what happened. As they and Detective Settler dig deeper, the truth about Remmi’s missing family begins to emerge—a story of ruthless ambition and lies that someone will kill again and again to keep hidden . . ."

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