Spring is here!

I'm so glad it's Spring. I can wear bright colors, short skirts, and cute shoes. No longer do I go to work as am amorphous blob of wool, slacks, and boots.

Yesterday I was walking on our local greenway and saw the greatest thing. This woman was walking her dog while reading a book. I don't know if she actually walks and reads simultaneously, but when I came across her, her little dog was sniffing at the edge of the trail and the woman was standing there READING.

I didn't say anything to her beyond hello, but it felt like meeting a secret friend. A friend who doesn't know you exist. That sounds stalkery. But it made me feel slightly less alone in my own tendency to read at stoplights.

So yay for Spring, bringer of cute outfits, pollen, and crazy readers.

The Boy Who Didn't Die...No, Not Harry Potter

Yesterday I found out that Alex Malarkey (heck of a last name) has issued a statement that his memoir, The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, is completely made up. As a young boy, Alex was in a devastating car crash with his father and is paralyzed to this day. Now, as a sixteen-year-old, he admits that his story about visiting heaven and meeting Jesus during his time in a coma is fictitious. The coma and accident were real, just not the journey.

This does not come as a total shock, but I'm a bit disappointed because I read Alex's book and while I did find it hard to believe, it was certainly spiritually uplifting. If nothing else, I felt it to be the story of a boy whose faith strengthened his family during a horrific time.

But now Alex says guilt has driven him to make this new message heard. He fabricated his lies because he wanted attention and boy did he get it. The book is a bestseller, but the Christian publisher who put it out is pulling it now that the truth is public. The waters are a little murky as to how long they have known about Alex's change of heart. His mother says the family has been trying to tell people for years that the book is not what it seems.

The Malarkey family still has faith and Alex was brave to set the record straight. In his public statement, he urges people to read the Bible and trust in it rather than seeking proof from stories like his. Some will see this new development in his story as evidence that God and Heaven are not real, but neither the book nor its subsequent exposure as fiction should have an effect on anyone who truly has faith.

If I tell everyone I saw an albino deer in my yard and later admit I made it up, that doesn't mean albino deer don't exist.

Upon looking back at my previous review of this book, which you can read here, I was pretty skeptical at the time. I think my original feelings about the book were mostly driven by the fact that Alex was so young and so many people were swallowing his story wholesale. Turns out I have pretty good sense sometimes.

Impossible Odds

Impossible Odds: The Kidnapping of Jessica Buchanan and her Dramatic Rescue by SEAL Team Six is exciting, touching, and nerve-wracking. There are no surprises since the title tells you the entire plot, but I still found myself on the edge of my seat a couple of times as Jessica's story unfolded.

It's not an outstanding book, but it's the first book of its kind I've read since I'm not interested in African politics or terrorism. And usually, when I hear about a journalist or tourist who gets kidnapped in one of these dangerous regions, I want to ask them why they were in such a stupid situation to begin with. I have a preconception that journalists who try to infiltrate groups or areas where they are likely to be harmed are doing it for the glory of getting a remarkable story, not necessarily altruistically attempting to bring injustice to light. And don't even get me started on the tourists. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But Jessica was neither a journalist nor a tourist when she was taken captive. She was in Africa to help children--specifically to educate them about landmine safety. And she knew the dangers she faced. She was happily married and trying to start a family when a fairly routine meeting for her job took her close to a very dangerous region. She was hesitant to attend the meeting, but her security assured her that everything would be fine. Like so many of us, Jessica ignored a gut feeling that something was wrong. Instead of making a fuss and backing out, she went with the flow and didn't speak up about her misgivings. She and a coworker were taken hostage on the way back from the meeting and her nightmare began.

The bulk of the book is an almost day by day account of Jessica's experiences during her captivity. Like I said, there are no surprises in the story. But it's worth reading if you have any interest in what a person goes through during such an ordeal and how they can come out the other side intact. For more information, visit Jessica's website.

Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

So, this is a book I was not particularly looking forward to reading. The title and the cover just scream whacky Southern female humor. You know, the kind of book where people are shocked by 87 year-old Grammy who drinks white wine (I feel a stage whisper coming on) before noon. Or where all the girls have a three letter middle name that must be included every time their first name is said.

All this is to say that I was expecting Jenny Sue, Betty Lou, Bixie Lee, and Grammy Joe to go on a road trip and end up sitting on their front porch after learning valuable life lessons and watch the sun come up while sipping white wine and painting magnolia leaves on each others' toenails. The forlorn menfolk look on and shake their heads saying, "Gee golly, now who's gonna fix us our biscuits?" Or something.

Chimes turned out to be a really good book. And as someone who routinely judges a book by its cover, I can say I was very wrong about this one. It is funny and well written. The characters are indeed whacky and Southern, but they are three-dimensional. I didn't cringe once. Because Susan Reinhardt knows how to let her characters get crazy and over the top without for one second making them unbelievable.

It's good enough that my favorite character was named Aunt Weepie. Is that not the most ridiculous name ever? And I still liked her!

The main character is named Prudy and she is far from being the empty soap bubble of a Southern female character I dreaded so much. She is a victim of domestic violence who realizes that many people blame her for her husband's actions, or at least for being stupid enough to marry him in the first place. Prudy, or Dee, as she wants to be called after her "near-murder" is determined to find a job and some independence. She knows her two young children need her to drag herself out of bed everyday and make things normal for them. Prudy/Dee is left scarred and depressed after her husband hits her with his church van and stabs her with a screwdriver. Her story is horrific and unbelievable, but she is based on a woman Reinhardt once met.

The Author's Note says, "The premise of the novel arose from an incident in which a woman was mowed down by a church van driven by her crazed preacher husband...near my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina." Reinhardt doesn't remember the woman's name. Is it odd that she didn't track her down or at least research her story for the novel? Or did she avoid learning any more about the real story behind her character's life so that she could focus on fashioning her own fiction? If I knew where I wanted my story to go and thought the real life events would take me off my chosen path, I'd probably avoid them too.

A couple more fun facts about this book: Reinhardt admits that the photo on the front cover may, in fact, be of her; and the novel opens with a quote from Julia Sugarbaker from Designing Women. What more can you ask for?

The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, is a remarkable story which follows young Theo Decker across the country and through drugged-out hazes and terrifying incidents. The settings are large, significant places: New York City, Las Vegas, swaths of Europe. But it wasn't always this way for Theo. The only thing that has derailed his relatively normal life is the day he and his mother pay an impromptu visit to the art museum. His beautiful, charming mother loses her life there in a multi-bomb terrorist attack and Theo stumbles away almost without realizing he's done something that will change his life forever. As his shell shock subsides and his precarious position in the world becomes obvious, he also finds himself burdened with a terrible secret.

The scope is Dickensian (there, I said it, although it's already been said by so many other reviewers) and the plot is twisty and expansive at the same time. But this is a story largely made up of the minutiae of life. Meals are eaten, cigarettes are smoked, and people discuss their fears, families, and foibles. Tartt has that Stieg Larsson talent of making it genuinely interesting to read about someone fixing their lunch.

All this is to say that The Goldfinch is a large, serious work that somehow is a huge pleasure to read. Those small, seemingly insignificant details are what make Tartt's book so unexpectedly pleasing. Theo is an intelligent, likable kid. And it's painful to watch him deal with his mother's death. It's disappointing when he becomes a juvenile delinquent in response to the loss of the life he's known. The reader is made to feel all the lost emotions someone in his circumstances are bound to experience. Time and time again he makes bad decisions or narrowly escapes the fallout from a foolish choice. But during my reading I never brought myself to hate Theo or be angry or frustrated with him when he's made such a mess of his life. He's such a realistic character that you feel as if you know what it is like to be him, not just know him. In this way, Tartt makes him sympathetic rather than annoying.

Theo isn't the lone standout character among a sea of colorless personalities. I would like to list for you the characters in this book that I don't believe I will ever forget, but the list would probably get a bit tiresome. Some are delightful, some are selfish, and others are so bizarre yet well drawn that you can easily imagine having met them once or twice.

The book has received some scathing reviews. Critics have called it childish and accused Tartt of helping dumb down adult readers. But her writing is beautiful. And for all the flaws reviewers have pointed out in the story and its too-neatly-tied-up ending, I would rather read 100 pages of Donna Tartt describing an excellent meal and a walk in Central Park that read 10 pages of John Steinbeck. Guess that makes me dumb.

New Page!

Top righthand side of the page, you will now see a list of my blog's pages. As of today, there a 2 whole pages. "Home" will take you to the main page and "About me me me!" gives you more information about who I am and what I'm about. Please read it if you don't know me or if you do and have forgotten who I am. I won't hold it against you as long as I never find out. One day, in the fullness of time, I will add some pictures of me, my dog, my books, but most importantly: me with Jenna Marbles-esque eye makeup, reading books in vintage-style dresses. What can I say? I know what I like.

George Washington's Secret Six: Spies!

Cool: a book about the spy ring that helped George Washington win us the Revolution. Intrigue, history, cool stuff you wish you'd learned in school; where could it go wrong? Starting on page one, is where.

This book was good. But it wasn't as good as I thought it would be and so I was pretty disappointed. The story is thrilling and the facts are fantastic. The problem is that Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger gave us a book that handles this treasure poorly. It's not strictly nonfiction because they invent conversations between the spies. And it's not a historical novel. Instead it tries to be both. Yes, the phrases used in conversation are culled from the figures' own letters, but that doesn't make for exciting or believable dialogue.

And stop telling us HOW the characters talk. A wise, wise man named Elmore Leonard once said, "Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue." The dialogue in Secret Six just so wooden and rife with "gruff" or "nervous" men and dialogue that ends up sounding like:

"Consarn it, this goes against mah backwoodsmanlike instincts but ah do so love to ruffle the feathers of them Red Coats that ahl take the risk!" he said gruffly, banging his tankard of Sam Adams Octoberfest on the table.

Ok, I made that up, but I'm only exaggerating slightly.

There are only so many times we need to be told that Mr. Woodhull grumbles and has no social graces, blah blah. We get it, guys. You established a vibrant character, but you don't trust us to remember his most important traits from one page to the next. I would much rather read made up conversations that are actually good or just read it as straight nonfiction. My other issue is that there is no mystery, no slow reveal of who the spies are and what role they play. We get too much information up front and then the dry details are filled in as we go.

I'm not really sure what type of reader would enjoy this book the most. Anyone not fascinated by the American Revolution will be bored. But anyone who has already studied much about the war, and especially the spies, will probably already know these stories of espionage and near misses.