Book Review: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Title The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Author: Rachel Joyce
Enjoyment Rating: ***
This book would be rated: PG
Source: Library Copy
Books I've read this year: 115

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry has had a lot of buzz this summer and fall. When Harold Fry, recently retired from a career in a brewery on England's south coast, learns that his former colleague, Queenie Hennessy, is dying of cancer in a hospice in the far north of England, he writes her a letter and walks to the mailbox to send it. But he doesn't mail the letter; he keeps walking. For 500 miles and 97 days. The book explores both the journey and the events in Harold's life that have led to his quiet war with his wife, as well as their attempts at reconciliation.

I enjoyed the book, but I couldn't help but compare it with The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty, which also deals with an epic journey, a physical transformation, and repairing past sins, but in a more thorough and engaging way. Still, I think that The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry would be a fantastic great book group read-- it's relatively short, devoid of anything too offensive, and there would be plenty of material for good discussion. 

Book Review: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Title: American Gods
Author: Neil Gaiman
Enjoyment Rating: *****
This book would be rated: R for sex, language, and violence
Source: Audible for iTunes
Books I've read this year: 114

This is another book that sat at the bottom of my Audible pile for a long time, and while I know why it took me a long time to get to it (I'm generally not a fan of fantasy/sci fi, my mom started it and said it was nasty, and it's super long), it was like a great big, super tasty, greasy bacon cheeseburger. A book that was a delight to greedily plow through, but one that left me feeling a little bit guilty afterwards.

Shadow is nearing his final days in prison when he learns that he's going to be released early because his wife was killed in a car accident. On the way home for her funeral, he meets a mysterious man called Wednesday. At first, Shadow is repulsed by Wednesday, but within hours, he agrees to work for him-- to do his bidding, whatever it may be. It's apparent to the reader (although perhaps not to Shadow) that Wednesday has him under his spell. And Wednesday is no ordinary boss-- he's both a con artist and the Norse god Odin, and he's hired Shadow to help him prepare for a war between the old gods and the new ones, most of whom have moved to America.

For the next 500 pages, Shadow and Odin traverse the country, gathering the gods on their side, getting themselves into scrapes, and running into Shadow's dead wife. The first 400 pages throw out so many threads of a story that I wasn't sure if Gaiman was going to be able to wrap them up in a satisfying way, but he definitely did. I listened to most of the last seven hours in one furious session, sure to pop the earbuds in my ears whenever the kids were within listening range. The book is one part murder mystery, one part spy thriller, one part romance (although not a great part of the book, since the female lead is rotting), and all parts great writing. It's a dark story that really moves.

Book Review: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Steadman

Title: The Light Between Oceans
Author: M.L. Stedman
Enjoyment Rating: ***
This book would be rated: PG-13 for adult themes
Source: Library Copy
Books I've read this year: 113

Tom and Isabel have been living on Janus Rock, an island off Australia's western coast, where Tom is the lighthouse keeper, for half a decade. Their lives consist of watching the light, tending their goats, growing vegetables, visiting the mainland every two or three years, and losing babies. Just days after suffering a stillbirth, her third pregnancy loss over the course of their marriage, Isabel hears a baby crying. She thinks her mind is playing tricks on her, but eventually she and Tom discover a dinghy with a dead man and a living newborn. They have to make a decision-- do they report the death, or do they raise the child as their own? Isabel, awash in grief, can't imagine doing anything but raising the child.

Several years later, the family returns to the mainland for a visit home, where they hear about a woman who has fallen into madness after losing her husband and infant daughter. The dates match-- the daughter clearly belongs to the woman. And now what do Tom and Isabel do? What is the right choice for their daughter? For the woman? For them?

The Light Between Oceans has been well-reviewed, and I think that my frustration at the book is rooted more in my perspective as an adoptive parent. Like Tom and Isabel, I've had the experience of falling in love with a child who is not of my flesh, and also of watching my child have to readjust her entire worldview to adapt to life with different parents. One of my greatest fears is that we could somehow lose her or that she might not come to regard us as her parents. And Stedman shows that although Isabel may have been misguided in her choice, she was motivated by love and blossomed during the period that she was a mother. About 30 pages from the end it became evident that there was no way that there could be a happy ending for everyone in the book, and the last chapter, while nuanced and realistic, felt like a twist in the gut.

Book Review: Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub

Title: Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures
Author: Emma Straub
Enjoyment Rating: ***
This book would be rated: PG-13 for some fairly mild sexual references, possibly some strong language
Source: Library copy
Books I've read this year: 112

It's been a little more than a week since I returned Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures to the library and I already feel like I've forgotten a lot of it. The story starts in Door County, Wisconsin in the 1920s, where Elsa Emerson's family runs a small theater. Tragedy, hard work, and bleak winters characterize her family life, and when she's seventeen she escapes to Hollywood with a zero who's good only for getting her out of Wisconsin, providing her with daughters, and putting her in a place where she can be signed with a studio.

What comes after feels like a pretty typical story-- Hollywood transforms her (literally, changing her name and her appearance) from an innocent young wife to a starlet, with all of the benefits and problems that come with stardom. It's an engaging, readable story that would make a great beach or airplane read, but Laura's story feels, like many Hollywood stars of the studio era, to be not that different from what might be expected from someone whose life is lived in the crucible of wealth and fame.

Book Review: The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje

Title: The Cat's Table: A Novel
Author: Michael Ondaatje
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Audible for iTunes
Books I've read this year: 111

The first two times I tried to listen to The Cat's Table I gave up in frustration. I had forgotten that Michael Ondaatje is not an author whose work I can listen to while the kids are talking to me or I'm multitasking. This ended up being a book that I great to appreciate only when I was listening to it out running by myself. I think part of this is because Ondaatje narrates the book himself. I've been to one of his readings, and while he has a lovely voice, it's also a little bit quiet and mumbly, and I remember wondering during his reading if he read like that because it forced his readers to really give themselves over to listening. When I did give myself over to listening to The Cat's Table, I finally found the experience rewarding.

The bulk of The Cat's Table takes place in 1952 on a journey from Sri Lanka to London. The eleven-year-old protagonist, Michael, his cousin, and several friends are all seated with an assortment of colorful characters at what they call "The Cat's Table," the one furthest, in both physical and psychic distance, from the captain's table on their ship. At first, the book seems to be a collection of spotlights on the characters at the table, interwoven with some travel narration. The boys find themselves in scrapes, the older passengers sleep together, steal, and spy on each other. But eventually, the book seems to turn into a bit of a mystery-- who is the prisoner in chains on the ship? Will he escape? What fallout will result? In the second half Ondaatje turns to the fallout in Michael's life after the journey as well.

One of the most unsettling aspects of The Cat's Table is the faux-memoir nature of the book. Like Ondaatje, the character was 11 in 1952, like Ondaatje the character moved from Colombo to London by ship, like Ondaatje the character was named Michael and grew up to be a writer living in Canada. But the book calls itself "a novel" and other biographical details do not hold. I'm sure it was some kind of artistic experiment, but as a Wikipedia-fingers kind of girl, it also bugged a little bit.

Book Review: Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson

Title: Yes, Chef: A Memoir
Author: Marcus Samuelsson
Enjoyment Rating: ****
This book would be rated: PG or PG-13, Marcus is kind of a straight arrow
Source: Kindle for iPad
Books I've read this year: 110

Yes, Chef is a book in several parts. The first part, where Samuelsson talks about being adopted from Ethiopia, along with his biological sister, and placed with the Samuelssons in Sweden was lovely and moving to read as an adoptive mother. It sounds like the Samuelssons, who didn't have message boards or books for adoptive parents to rely on, really got things right with their three kids. That doesn't mean that everything was always easy for Marcus, but that his parents were there for him and tried their best to honor his heritage and pave the way for him to thrive in Sweden. If I had to rate the book after that section, I would have given it a five.

The next section talks about Samuelsson's training, which took place in kitchens all over Europe and America, as well as stints on cruise ships. It talks about his failure to become a father to the daughter who was born from a one-night-stand. It talks about losing friends and finding his identity, and eventually, coming to America.

The third part of the book, the one where Samuelsson becomes a celebrity chef, was the one that was least engaging for me. It was still startlingly well-written, lyrical and metaphorical, for a book penned by a nonwriter, but the whole "rise to the top of the NY culinary scene" wasn't as interesting. Still, a good book, even for someone who doesn't have aspirations to open a restaurant.

DTC

Dear Eli,

We got new pictures of you this morning. It's been such a blessing to have so many families picking up their babies from Xuzhou in the last few weeks, because we've gotten to see your smiling face three times-- which is enough time for you to recycle your outfit. You look happy and chubby, and oh so stinking cute.

And you know what makes today even better? We are DTC! That doesn't mean much to anyone who doesn't know their adoption lingo. So I'll fill you in. There are about a million little milestones in the adoption process, but there are three big milestones-- the day your dossier is sent to China (known as DTC), the day you get your Letter Seeking Confirmation, which is an official approval to adopt (known as LOA), and the day you get your travel approval (known as TA).

So now our official application is on its way to China. Within a week or two it should be logged in with the Chinese government, and then the very worst part of the process, the wait for the LOA, begins. The wait is somewhere between 10-150 days, which is what makes it hard. The average wait is about 65 days (it took 63 days with Rose), so I'll start getting antsy around the first of the year. Or, if the wait is like last time, around the first of December. Or, let's get real here, right now. I want you home right now. Seeing your smiling face doesn't make the waiting any easier.

Love,

Mommy

Title: This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Title: This is How You Lose Her
Author: Junot Diaz
Enjoyment Rating: *****
This book would be rated: R (sex and language)
Source: Library Copy
Books I've read this year: 109

There are some books that deserve to be reviewed while they're fresh in the reader's mind, and while I would definitely say that This is How You Lose Her falls into that category, I'm also pleased to discover that more that three weeks after I sent it back to the library, I still remember the individual stories well. It's a book with staying power.

Readers who loved Junot Diaz's Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao might be surprised, although not disappointed, by his return to short stories. In This is How You Lose Her Diaz writes mainly in the gritty voice of Yunior, who is in some stories a teenager watching how his brother (dying of cancer) treats women, and in others is a man mistreating women himself. The stories aren't chronological, and there is at least one told from a women's perspective, but there's a richness that comes from reading the entire collection and seeing Yunior's collection of failed relationships all laid out side by side. I also had to resist the urge to see the stories as Yunior = Junot-- the names are similar enough and the choice of professions are identical. I really wanted to get my hands on Wikipedia to see how parallel the stories were. But I resisted the urge.

I remember reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth a few years ago and being blown away by how interconnected short stories sometimes presented a better picture of an individual than a novel does. I got the same sense with This is How You Lose Her. What stays with me is Yunior's voice-- a voice that sounds like it hasn't moved beyond the barrio until it slips in a word like prestidigitation, a voice that is at turns, both pained and capable of inflicting great pain.

Book Review: Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick

Title: Ghost in the Wires
Authors: Kevin Mitnick and William Simon
Enjoyment Rating: **
Source: Audible for iTunes
Books I've read this year: 108

When we decided to adopt and redo the backyard simultaneously, we knew we had to economize. In addition to firing up my library card again, I also decided that I would downgrade my Audible account to the "Gold" plan (one book a month), and listen to everything that I'd never quite gotten around. It's a really bad habit, but Audible has these great $4.95 book sales and these "buy three credits for $20 sales" and I am a sucker for them. Once I stopped driving to Provo regularly, I stopped listening to as many audiobooks, but I didn't stop buying them at the same rate, so I always listened to the ones I thought I'd like best, while books like Ghost in the Wires sunk to the bottom of the pile.

Anyway, I've found some gems while listening to the books in this pile, but Ghost in the Wires was not among them. Honestly, I think a lot of that is because a girl like me has no business spending 14 hours listening to a computer hacker and phone phreaker talk about how he manipulated every system he could get his hands on (just for the fun of it) and then whining about how he ended up in jail when he got caught. It might be a great book for the right kind of reader, because Mitnick's voice is engaging (if a little whiny and self-important-- this is a guy with an agenda, for sure) and his story, once I realized that the whole book would be about how he logged into systems and created back doors and then came back and downloaded secret information (not to do anything bad with it), wasn't all that boring. Okay, a little boring. I kept saying I was going to give it up, and I actually started this book last spring, but when I started it again, I kept waiting and waiting for it to get interesting, and then, about 2/3 of the way through, I felt too married to it to quit.

waiting and landscaping

Dear Eli,

Having kids, whether they're abandoned toddlers with special needs living in a Chinese orphanage or babies grown in our own bellies, always requires a leap of faith and a little confidence. I think that Daddy and I gained some confidence that we would be able to be your parents (and your sister's parents) because we were familiar, not just with this parenting thing, but also with raising kids with special needs. When we learned that you might need surgery on your hands and your feet, I even knew a great orthopedic surgeon, a woman who has successfully gotten Isaac back up on his feet (literally). So there are some skills you learn as a parent that have direct applications to other aspects of parenting. And then there are some skills you learn as an adoptive parent that have other real-world applications.

I'm not a very assertive person. I get a lot of work done and set my own personal goals high, but that's different from being assertive. When I was a kid, my best friend was always the mom when we played house, always the teacher when we played school. I desperately wanted to be the mom or the teacher sometimes, but I didn't want to upset the balance of our friendship, so I kept quiet. I'm a great person to have around when someone needs work done, but not such a great person when someone needs me to have a hard conversation with someone. I hate conflict and want people to think I'm nice and pleasant.

But when we were adopting Rose, I learned to be a little bit assertive. About halfway through our wait, I found a great website that laid out exactly how to navigate the adoption process as quickly as possible. That required emailing people and asking them to send PDFs in addition to paper copies, which shaved off several days in the process each time. It required me to follow up with people, to make sure things hadn't fallen through the cracks, to ask hard questions, and to push a little bit. It was hard, but it brought results-- I think we probably traveled at least a week earlier than we would have if I hadn't learned to be assertive.

This time around, I was pushy from the start. Last time I let our social worker do her thing and only emailed her when she contacted me first. Last time I got in touch with our adoption agency only as a last resort. Last time it took us seven months from our initial application to getting our dossier to China.

This time, I followed up regularly with the social worker. I emailed the adoption agency whenever I had a question. We walked in early for our fingerprints with USCIS, which I wouldn't have dreamed of doing last time (it's a government agency! they gave us an appointment on a paper with an official seal!). We only had to do about 80% of the work this time that we did last time to get our dossier to China (we were able to reuse some of the state background clearances and some of the official documents, like birth certificates), we're hoping to have our dossier on its way in less than a week, about two and a half months after we decided to add you to our family.


A week after we started on our paperwork for you, we started another big project around here-- redoing our backyard. It started out innocently enough (just like you-- I was just "maybe thinking about" adopting again "sometime in the future" when we found you). We needed to have the trees in our front yard pruned. But we asked the tree guys if they could take out the forest of trees in our back yard, and they said yes. They said they could also demolish the old fish pond, a falling down shed, and the old stone fireplace, remove about ten tons of rock, level the yard, put in new sprinklers, build us a mulched area for the playhouse and the swing set, and put in new grass to make the whole yard beautiful. And while we were doing that, we decided to finish our fence, but in order to do that, we needed to have a retaining wall built. And then we discovered that the ancient pool heater didn't work, so we replaced it. And then we decided we needed a new pool shed to go with the new pool heater. But the new pool shed needed a vent, which required an HVAC person. And since our old nasty pool cover was destroyed in the process, we needed a new pool cover.

It was a lot of work-- you get the picture? In fact, it reminded me a lot of adoption paperwork

I found that I was a lot more assertive with the men who worked so hard on our yard than I might have been if I'd never had the experience of wading through mountains of adoption paperwork. When they didn't show up when I thought they would-- I called and asked rather than waiting for them to show. There were times when things when slower than I'd hoped (one step that should have taken a few days held the whole project up for several weeks), and since I knew there was nothing to be done about it, we just kind of rolled with it (another skill you and Rose have taught me). When I was unhappy with how things were done (which only happened once), I let the person know and requested that they fix it. When I felt we were being overcharged, I let Daddy deal with it.

With any luck, the yard should be finished just about the same time your paperwork is logged in in China and the real wait, the hard, unpredictable LOA wait, begins. But at least we know what we're getting ourselves into this time, and we know that at the end, we'll have you. We've gotten a couple dozen pictures of you over the last few days and you are chubby and adorable and we can't wait to get to be your parents.

Love,

Mommy