Monday, March 31, 2014

Longbourn; Growing Up Duggar; Man in the High Castle; Dominion

Seriously, someone needs to stage an intervention and take my phone away from me. My reading output has gone way down since I got the thing. This is pathetic.

"Longbourn" by Jo Baker was a clever mix of "Pride and Prejudice" and "Downton Abbey". We get a look at Jane Austen's timeless characters from the servants point of view. It was neat, I enjoyed it.

"Growing Up Duggar" by Jana, Jill, Jessa, and Jinger Duggar was a sweet but a bit too preachy (of course, what do you expect with them, right?) book of advice from the four oldest Duggar girls. I like the Duggars. It's nice to see a family that genuinely loves and respects each other. And if you are a Christian, this book had some good advice, I think.

"Man in the High Castle" by Philip K. Dick is one of those books that definitely benefits from multiple readings, I think. I don't think I quite got everything. I enjoyed it, but I have a feeling I missed a lot. It's an alternate reality history in which Japan and Germany win WW2 and split up the U.S.--Japan takes the west coast, Germany the east, and the middle is sort of neutral territory. Most of the book takes place on the west coast and looks at how different various sorts of people's lives are.

A lot of alternative history lately: "Dominion" by C. J. Sansom was a recommendation from Stephen King. It's about England a decade after surrendering to Germany in WW2. The resistance fighters are eager to keep a scientist out of Germany's hands because he knows America's secret to how they made an atomic bomb. It was really interesting and well written, and very scary to think how different life would be if only a few things in history had gone differently.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Philomena; Twisted Sisters

"Philomena" by Martin Sixsmith was a heartbreaking true story of young Philomena Lee, who is forced to give up her child for adoption in Ireland in the 1950s. It was a huge scandal, how the Catholic church was keeping these girls as slaves, making them work for years, and then selling their babies to America for adoption. Philomena's son, Anthony, is adopted by an American family, who change his name to Michael. Michael grew up desperate to know something about his mother, even traveling to Ireland in 1977 to see if he could find out some information. The nuns at the orphanage kept quiet, though, and didn't even tell him about his mother's brother, who lived very close by. Nor did they tell Philomena a few weeks later when she came, looking for him, that he had been by. Years later, Michael was dying of AIDS and made one final trip to Ireland to search for answers, to no avail. His last wish was that he be buried at the orphanage, so if his mother ever did come looking for him, she could visit his grave. Sadly, Michael died in 1995 and was buried there. Philomena kept her secret from her family until 2003, but by then it was too late. The long hoped for mother-son reunion took place in a cemetery, where Philomena was able to say goodbye to the son she didn't get the chance to know. The only bad thing I can say about this book was that it was very one sided, all Michael's story. It would have been lovely to have a bit more of Philomena's story, but it was still good.

I  needed a laugh, it's been a tough week (I got braces again--for the third time, ugh) so I read Jen Lancaster's latest, "Twisted Sisters". I had the pleasure of meeting Jen at a book signing last month, and she was so lovely and gracious and took the time to talk to everyone and took pictures with us. She read a chapter from the book and had us all rocking with laughter. She's just as hilarious in person as you would imagine. My sister, Jen went with me and she enjoyed meeting her as well. Anyway, "Twisted Sisters" was very funny. Reagan Bishop is an overachiever, and has always criticized her sisters for their lack of ambition. Reagan is a psychologist for a small cable network TV show called "Push". When her show is sold to a major network, there are big changes. Now Reagan only has one afternoon to work with her patient, and she's terrified of failing on national TV and earning the scorn of her family. So she turns to new Age healer Deva, who comes up with a way for Reagan to switch bodies with her patients during the crucial moment, film the breakthrough for the camera, and then switch back. Reagan hates doing this, because she genuinely does want to help these people, but she wants to succeed even more, so she goes along with it. All is going well until her boss (who she has a secret crush on) hires her sister Geri to replace the hair stylist. Everyone immediately takes to Geri, and Reagan is jealous. She takes advantage of Deva's switching abilities to inhabit her sister's body, so she can figure out why everyone likes her better. Poor Reagan. I really felt bad for her. She didn't seem like such a horrible person. A bit tightly wound, perhaps, but not as bad as all that. And her family really did seem awfully mean to her for no reason. But while inhabiting Geri's body she learns a lot of truths about herself and vows to make changes. Good for her! I enjoyed this one a lot, and it gave me the laughs I  needed.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Walking Dead Vol. 19; Last of the Blue and the Gray; Deadly

Robert Kirkman continues the survivors painful journey in "Walking Dead Vol. 19: March to War". I honestly don't know why I keep reading them. More of the same: the survivors are gearing up to go against the current big bad, Negan. More people die. There's a guy with a tiger who is sweet on Michonne. Yeah, I don't even know anymore...

"Last of the Blue and the Gray" by Richard A. Serrano was very interesting, about the last survivors from the Civil War on both the Confederate and Union sides. A lot of veterans lived past 100, but many of them faked their service during the Great Depression in order to get a pension. Records of who served were spotty, especially in the South, and a lot of them ended up getting a pension even though Census records later proved some of them were born just before the war and were much too young to serve. Sorting out the real vets from the fake ones is quite a daunting challenge. No one wants to call a dying old man a liar, after all.

"Deadly" by Sara Shepard was really good. Maybe the last one for now? It's so hard to tell. It looks like the girls are being extradited to Jamaica for killing Tabitha Clark after Ali sends the news a video she faked of them beating Tabitha to death. The girls trust Agent Fuji and turn everything over to her, which Fuji then uses against them. I thought maybe Fuji was in on it, but maybe not. Shepard is so good at the red herring thing. In the end, Ali lures the girls to the basement of a house near Hanna's dad's campaign headquarters, and pumps cyanide in the room, with the help of Nick, who was in the Preserve with her and is "helper A", as the girls have been referring to him. When things go bad and Emily gets Nick's gun and turns on Ali, she creates a distraction and is able to slip away again. The girls are exonerated when Nick is arrested, but Ali vows revenge...someday.