Chosen by Chandra Hoffman

Chosen by Chandra Hoffman
Published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins
Review copy received from the publicist

Chosen is a compelling novel that follows several characters who all participate some way in the adoption of a child.  Chloe Pinter is a social worker in Portland, Oregon, in charge of domestic adoptions at the Chosen Child’s adoption agency.  Penny and Jason are the poor and uneducated birth parents of the unborn baby that is scheduled for adoption and Francie and John McAdoo are scheduled to adopt said baby when he/she is born.  This is a novel that attempts to show the hidden side of adoption – how it affects all parties involved.

Chosen, for me, was the kind of book that once I started it I had a very difficult time putting down.  What that means is simply that I enjoyed the novel for the fact that it was fast-paced and was on a topic I know little to nothing about.  It also held my interest throughout, and there were some plot situations that I couldn’t wait to find out the answer to, hence the wanting to just finish the book quickly.  What this doesn’t mean is that I necessarily loved the book.  Because while I liked Chosen, I had some real problems with it, and I need to be honest about that.

The biggest issue I have with this novel is that the characters are extremely stereotypical.  Penny and Jason, the birth parents, are poor, living in an apartment paid for by the adoption agency, there are drugs in the home, Jason threatens Chloe in order to get her to pay for more stuff for them, and they are sort of the exact type of people you would expect to be giving a child up for adoption (or, as in their case, thinking about giving their child up for adoption).  It was just too much stereotyping – there is no depth to these characters whatsoever.

And the other stereotyped characters are the adoptive parents, Francie and John – the rich childless couple, the husband works all the time and can’t be bothered to get to the hospital for the delivery of their child, the wife who stays home and sits in the baby’s room, dreaming of their unborn child, the anxiety and fear they have when they speak with the birth parents and/or Chloe – again, just too much.  More characters with no complexity at all.

The other thing about Chosen for me personally is that I don’t know a lot about adoption.  Because of this, I have no idea whether the book is an accurate portrayal of what real families, on both sides of the adoption, go through.  So I turned to Jennifer of the Literate Housewife Review, as she is an adoptive mother herself so she has personal experience with the issue.  Reading her review, it became clear to me that she had many of the same reservations about the book that I did, which leads me to believe that overall Chosen just isn’t all that accurate.

But I have to say that again, the book held my interest throughout and I did enjoy the experience of reading it.  I also enjoyed the character of Chloe Pinter, I found her to be likeable, interesting, and had more depth than all of the other characters combined.  Therefore, I wouldn’t exactly recommend Chosen, but I wouldn’t encourage anyone to stay away from it, either.  Does that make sense?

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard

The Lying Game by Sara Shepard
Published by HarperTeen, an imprint of HarperCollins
Review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Seventeen-year-old Emma is a foster kid who has always longed for a real family. When she discovers that she may have a twin, she leaves her temporary home in Las Vegas to her twin, Sutton’s, home in Arizona. But when she arrives in Tucson, it appears that Sutton has actually been killed within the last day or two – and nobody in Sutton’s life seems to know this fact yet. So Emma begins to live as Sutton, trying desperately to figure out what happened to the sister she’s never met.

I really enjoy the TV show Pretty Little Liars (based upon the books by Sara Shepard, although I haven’t actually read the books), and I read and enjoyed Shepard’s only adult novel, The Visibles [my review], so when I saw The Lying Game on NetGalley I jumped at the chance to read it. I’m glad I did because this is an incredibly engaging young adult novel with a fun mystery aspect that really kept me guessing.

One thing that took me a little while to get used to was the fact that Sutton, the dead twin, is the narrator in this story. Sutton sort of knows about what happened to her, but her memories are really fuzzy – so with each new piece of information that Emma learns, Sutton has sort of an “ah-ha” moment about her own life. It’s an interesting way to tell the story, and although it threw me off at first, I came to like the way Shepard did things.

Emma is a great character, she has had to rely on herself for most of her life as she bounced around between different foster homes, so when she finds herself in the middle of Sutton’s life she is able to play along and fit right in. She is used to being a chameleon, to going with the flow, and she has the strength and courage to investigate what really happened to her twin while also pretending to be Sutton. I really admired Emma’s resourcefulness in her covert investigations, and I loved how she started to feel close to Sutton’s family and friends so quickly – she wished so badly that she would have been given the opportunity to have a life like Sutton’s for real. Sutton was more of an interesting character for me. It’s clear from what Emma experiences that Sutton was a “mean girl”, but as Sutton doesn’t remember much about her life it’s easy for the reader to forget what she was like when she was alive. Her voice is well-drawn by Shepard and, this is so weird, but I kept wanting her to suddenly be alive. Like, “just kidding Emma, I’m not really dead, we can be the sisters we were always meant to be” – obviously that didn’t happen. But still – it shows how I enjoyed these characters!

The mystery aspect of The Lying Game is crafted well – I was just as intrigued as Emma about what really happened to Sutton. I like that this is a series so not a whole lot was resolved in this first book. Enough was resolved to make me not angry with the author, but also to make me want to pick up the second book. A perfect way to begin a series, if you ask me!

I really enjoyed The Lying Game. It is the ideal book for readers looking for a fun, mysterious young adult read that kicks off what I think will be a fantastic series!

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Published by Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of Penguin
Review copy provided by TLC Book Tours

Sisters Rose (Rosalind), Bean (Bianca), and Cordy (Cordelia) have all found themselves living back at home together for the first time in years.  Rose is there because she is living and working in the small college town they’ve always called home, while her fiance patiently waits for her to move to London to be with him.  Bean comes home after it’s discovered that she’s been embezzling money from her employer; while no legal action is taken she no longer has reason to stay in New York City.  And Cordy, after years of being a drifter with no real place to call home, has discovered she’s pregnant, and craves the safety and security that she hopes her parents will provide during her pregnancy.  While the three sisters care for their mother, recently diagnosed with cancer, and spend time with their Shakespere-quoting father, they force one another to examine their issues both as individuals and as members of this family.

I’m sure that many of you have heard of The Weird Sisters by now, as it’s already been blogged about quite a bit this week and last – and bloggers are absolutely raving about it.  Well, I’m here to tell you that all the good things you’ve heard about this book are true.  I loved The Weird Sisters, for so many reasons, to the point that I’m not sure where to begin!

I’ll start with the characters.  Each one of the sisters felt so authentic to me, I honestly would believe it if you told me they are real people.  I have a sister myself, and my relationship with her is… um, I suppose complicated is the most PC way to say it.  Let’s just say that I am Rosalind to the extreme and she is Bianca to the extreme, at least when it comes to our relationship.  But at the end of the day, we are still sisters, she is the only sister I’ll ever have, and because of that we’ll always be close and love one another.  That’s the exact feeling I got from reading this book – these relationships are complicated, yes, and there are issues and resentments and all this sisterly/family stuff that is just unavoidable, but at the end of the day, Rose, Bean, and Cordy are sisters – and that’s what matters the most.

I ended up loving each of these three women, in different ways, despite the fact that they make decisions I wouldn’t personally support (especially Bean – yikes!).  But I really did love all three of them, flaws and all – to say that these characters were authentic is putting it mildly.

The Weird Sisters is a book about a family of readers, and that fact alone made me so happy.  The women would pick up a book like it was nothing, in whatever situation they were in, it was just a fact of life, and so many of us readers can relate to that.  There is this scene in the book where one of the sisters (I think Cordy but I cannot be sure) is at a party and instead of socializing, is sitting in the corner reading using the light from a window.  When her friends come to get her, she simply puts the book down and joins the party, no biggie.  This scene resonated with me so much – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a social function with a bunch of people I either don’t know well or don’t like much and have desperately wanted to hide in a corner with my book!  The Weird Sisters is truly a book lover’s book.

Another aspect of The Weird Sisters I loved was the narrative style.  The book is written in first-person, but instead of using “I”, Brown uses “We” – as in, the sisters collectively tell their story.  This was such a cool way for the author to show how the sisters’ lives are so intertwined, how although they are three individuals, their identity as sisters is such a huge part of who they are.

I feel as though I’ve said a lot here but I haven’t even scratched the surface of everything I loved about The Weird Sisters.  It is such an original piece of fiction, it is chock-full of smart characters and even smarter writing, and it is unputdownable.  I could go on and on, but instead I’ll just encourage you to go pick up a copy of this book for yourself.  It is really THAT good!

 

After the Falls by Catherine Gildiner

After the Falls: Coming of Age in the Sixties by Catherine Gildiner
Published by Viking Adult, an imprint of Penguin
Review copy provided by the publicist

We meet Catherine Gildiner when she is twelve years old, after she and her family have moved from Niagara Falls to a suburb of Buffalo, having sold the family business, a pharmacy.  Gildiner struggles to assimilate at her new school, but quickly becomes popular and well-liked, and finds herself a part-time job.  We follow her throughout middle school, high school, and into college where she attends Ohio State University.  This memoir is alternately funny and touching as Catherine Gildiner tells her story.

I received After the Falls as a surprise from the publicist, and one evening when I was in the mood for a memoir, I decided to pick it up.  I read the book fairly quickly, although I was mildly disappointed to discover that this is a continuation of her earlier memoir (which I hadn’t heard of, let alone read), but was entertained all the same.  Gildiner’s style is brutally honest, but in a funny way, and she definitely knows how to tell her story in a way that will make the reader not only laugh along with her, but also relate to many of her stories.  Heck, I didn’t grow up in the sixties, but I certainly felt like I could relate to some of the events in the book myself.

I have to admit, though, that the specifics of what exactly I liked about this book are a little fuzzy.  I think because it’s the type of book that, while interesting and funny, does not challenge the reader to think much at all.  Because I was just along for the ride, reading almost passively, I didn’t find myself engaging much with the story.  Therefore, the details of this memoir sort of all blend together in my mind.

That being said, reading After the Falls was definitely an enjoyable experience for me.  The author is extremely likeable and fun, and her story is one that will resonate with a lot of readers.  I might suggest reading her first memoir, Too Close to the Falls, first (although I didn’t) as I imagine it might be easier to get into this book if you already “know” the author.  All in all, this is an interesting memoir that is sure to entertain.

In the Wake of the Boatman by Jonathan Scott Fuqua

In the Wake of the Boatman by Jonathan Scott Fuqua
Published by Bancroft Press
Review copy received by the publisher via NetGalley

In the Wake of the Boatman takes the reader on a journey through the life of Puttnam Steward.  Born during the Second World War, Puttnam comes into an unsteady world, one in which his own father doesn’t appreciate him or even like him a bit.  In high school he gets into some trouble but ends up going to college on an ROTC scholarship, getting involved in the military and fighting in the Vietnam War.  Throughout his entire life, two things plague Putt more than anything else:  his father’s intense dislike for him and Putt’s questioning of his own sexuality.

This is a highly focused character study if there ever was one, and Fuqua does it quite well.  Puttnam is not an easy character to like – he is damaged by his father’s hatred and cruel words, he is unable to admit to even himself the true nature of his desires, and he has a tendency to push away the few people who really care for him.  That being said, I really felt for Putt and rooted for him throughout the novel.  I found myself waiting (and waiting… and waiting…) for him to come to terms with himself, accept himself for who he truly was, and stop caring so much about his father’s antiquated notions of what it means to be a man.

Now, whether or not that ever happens is something that can only be revealed if you read the book.  But I will tell you that regardless of how the book ends, of what Putt realizes (or doesn’t realize) about himself, this is a darn good novel.  The writing is exceptional, the story is told with tons of heart and as I’ve already stated, I really fell in love with Putt.

I have to admit that parts of the novel frustrated me to no end – most specifically, the fact that Putt absolutely refused to believe that he was anything other than a heterosexual guy.  But then again, if I look at the time period the novel is set in (1940′s through the ’70′s) it is easy to see how that would have been difficult for Putt to come to terms with.  And also, the fact that his father was so angry all the time and had so much hatred for Putt as it was – imagine if Putt was willing to confess his true self to his father.  It helped me realize that in the historical context, these attitudes were completely normal (sad, yes, but also the norm) and Putt was trying to act as was expected of him.  The fact that the book was set in this time period, with these characters, made the attitudes within it very real to me – and all the better, truly.

I truly enjoyed In the Wake of the Boatman and if you appreciate good writing, a strong main character, and an intensely interesting character study I believe you will too.

 

The 2011 Faith and Fiction Round Table (TSS)

I am super excited to share with all of you the exciting project I get to be a part of this year.  Maybe you’ve heard of it (I participated a few times last year), it’s the Faith and Fiction Round Table, founded by none other than Amy of My Friend Amy.  This year we will be reading six faith-inspired books and discussing them.  Here’s the info for the books we’ll be reading, in case you’re interested in reading with us!

First up is Certain Women by Madeline L’Engle.  The discussion will be posted February 26th.

Next is What Good is God by Phillip Yancey, with discussion scheduled for April 30th.

After that, we’ll be discussing A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr, with discussion scheduled for June 11.

Next, Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker, which we’ll be discussing August 13th.

After that we will move onto A Passage to India by E.M. Forster, with the discussion scheduled for September 24th.

And last, we’ll be reading Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee and discussing it on November 12th.  (The cover/amazon link for this one are not out yet.)

I’m really excited to be a part of this, I think we have a great mix of books to read and discuss and with the great group of people we have we will surely be having some great discussions.  Oh, the people – hop on over to My Friend Amy’s blog right now to meet the other members of the Faith and Fiction Round Table, please!

 

Eighteen Acres by Nicolle Wallace

Eighteen Acres by Nicole Wallace
Published by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
Review copy provided by the publicist

Eighteen Acres is the story of three very important women:  Charlotte Kramer, the forty-fifth President of the United States, Melanie Kingston, Charlotte’s best friend and chief of staff, and Dale Smith, a White House reporter having an affair with President Kramer’s husband.

I purposely didn’t reveal many details about Eighteen Acres in that extremely short “summary” because there is a lot happening in this novel.  There’s political turmoil, friendships in distress, women struggling with juggling career and family, affairs, and more.  And all of this in the unlikely setting of the first woman President of the United States!

Admittedly, I did not love this novel.  It has a lot of promise (first woman President? YES PLEASE!) but for me, it didn’t quite deliver.  I think my issue with the book is how light it is in tone.  I knew it was billed as “chick lit” but honestly, being President is serious business and I assumed the novel would handle it as such.  Yes, there were some poignant and serious moments, but overall there just wasn’t enough depth for my tastes.

There was a reason I kept reading this story, though, and that reason is the characters.  While I found them to be a bit shallow for the subject matter, the three women were written well.  I did feel that I got a complete understanding of where each of them were coming from, and the issues and personal struggles they were facing as the book went on.  I was particularly impressed with the character of Dale, one wouldn’t expect to like a person sleeping with the president’s husband, but I really did like her.  She was intriguing and I truly felt that I understood her motivations – she ended up falling in love with this man, regardless of who he was, that’s all there was to it.  And she was very genuine.

I think that Eighteen Acres will appeal more to readers looking for a light read about women dealing with personal issues.  I was expecting the book to be a bit deeper than it was, and although it disappointed me a bit, it’s not a bad novel by any means.  The characters are well-written and the story moves along at a decent pace.  Don’t expect much in the way of politics from this book, though – it’s more about these three women as individuals than it is about their careers or what it means to be a woman President.

Tell Me Something True by Leila Cobo

Tell Me Something True by Leila Cobo
Published by Hachette

Gabriella is twenty-one years old and has lived with her father in Los Angles ever since her mother died when she was four.  Twice a year, she visits her maternal grandmother in Cali, Columbia, and during one of these visits she meets Angel, who is from the same circle of friends as Gabriella’s but also has a drug lord for a father, which is why Gabriella’s grandmother cautions her against falling for him.  During this same visit, Gabriella finds an old diary of her mother’s, written in letters to Gabriella herself, which concludes just before her mother’s death.  Tell Me Something True is told in alternating chapters between Gabriella’s current life and her mother’s diary, giving the reader a complete picture of these two women’s lives.

This is such a beautiful novel, I must start by saying that.  The prose is lyrical and gorgeous, the alternating chapters between mother and daughter create the perfect atmosphere, and there is something about novels set in other countries that gets me every time.  The setting of Colombia was done quite well in this case, and although I have never traveled there myself, I now feel that I have a good idea of what Cali is like.

Gabriella is such an intriguing character and I really enjoyed getting to know her throughout the novel.  She is a girl without a mother, but luckily she has wonderful role models in her father and grandmother, and her character is truly that of a strong and smart young woman.  It is almost exhilarating to read as she falls in love with Angel, because the reader can clearly see that this guy is dangerous, but he is so sweet and loving to Gabriella that one can’t help rooting for the relationship.

Gabriella’s mother, Helena, is also an interesting character, especially because the reader only gets to know her through her diary.  What I loved about these letters is that although they were written to four-year-old Gabriella, Helena is strikingly candid in them.  See, she’d been having an affair at the time of her death, and Gabriella has to struggle with the understanding that her mother may have chosen to leave her and her father for her lover had she lived long enough to make that decision.  The circumstances of her death are revealed in the beginning of the book, but through the letters Gabriella comes to the understanding that there was more to it than she originally thought.

Ultimately Gabriella sees the parallels between her mother’s story and her own relationship with Angel, and she is forced to decide between the possibilities of a life with Angel and her “real life” back in Los Angeles.  Tell Me Something True is a coming of age story of the highest order, with absolutely gorgeous writing and a central character one can’t help but love.  I absolutely adored this novel.

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin

Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin
Published by St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of Macmillan

Tessa Russo is the wife of a pediatric surgeon, and a stay-at-home mom to their two young children.  Despite her trepidation at giving up her career to raise her children, she is happy with her decision and leads a satisfying life.  Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to her six-year-old son.  She loves her son and her job and isn’t looking for romance, having been disappointed too many times in the past.  One fateful night, Tessa and Valerie’s lives intersect, and neither of them will ever be the same.

This will be a short review because I really, really enjoyed Heart of the Matter but if you are going to read the book yourself I’d prefer not to reveal too much about it.  I didn’t know anything about the plot going in, and that worked just perfectly for me.

Giffin so expertly created these sympathetic characters in Tessa and Valerie, I loved them both.  Neither of them are perfect women – in fact, one of them does a pretty horrible thing – but I couldn’t help connecting to them anyway.  They just felt so real, so authentic.  I continue to be amazed at Giffin’s ability to create realistic characters and put them in realistic situations, causing me to question how I would react if I were faced with the same circumstances.

I loved the alternating points of view in the novel, too.  Tessa and Valerie had different, distinct voices and I loved that it was so easy for me to tell the difference between the two of them.

I listened to Heart of the Matter on audio.  It was narrated by Cynthia Nixon (of Sex and the City fame) and she did an excellent job.  If you are an audiobook fan, I can’t more highly recommend choosing to consume this book in that format.

If you are even a slight Emily Giffin fan, Heart of the Matter is a must-read.  This is a smart women’s fiction novel about women that could be real people, in a real situation, which is what makes the book so excellent.

Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton

Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton
Published by Harper Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins
Review copy courtesy of TLC Book Tours

Martin Owenby left his small North Carolina hometown thirty years ago for New York City and never looked back.  When his older brother, Leon, goes missing, he is summoned back to assist in the search.  But coming back to Solace Fork means facing all the people Martin left behind – his brothers and sisters who never understood him, his best friend who has always remained loyal, and an ex-girlfriend who found herself brokenhearted when Martin left.  As the mystery of Leon’s disappearance grows more tangled, so do the deep-seated issues Martin has with all these people in his life.  What Martin expected to be a short trip home turns into something much more complicated as decades-kept secrets begin to come to the surface.

I don’t read a lot of Southern fiction, but every time I do I’m reminded of why I should be reading more. Under the Mercy Trees gave me that feeling for sure – I really enjoyed getting to know this family and their secrets, all the while enjoying the homey yet mysterious feel that Southern novels always deliver.

This novel deals with several characters in depth, but fortunately it never gets overwhelming.  Newton devotes different chapters to different characters, and somehow I truly felt that I got to know them all pretty well.  Martin of course is the central character, but everyone else – his sister-in-law Bertie, sister Ivy, ex-girlfriend Liza, brother James, and nephew Bobby, as well as several others – got plenty of attention by the author.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I fell in step with these characters, given how many there are and how complicated their lives intersect.

Under the Mercy Trees isn’t the type of book where I’d like to speak about the plot much, because there are so many aspects to the book that are better left secrets until the reader discovers them.  Even the central issues between these characters aren’t fully explained until the conclusion of the novel, although there are hints and signs along the way.  One of the biggest reasons I had a difficult time putting this book down is that I was so intrigued by these family secrets that I had to keep reading until I discovered them.  And trust me when I say that it is much more fun to discover them yourself than for me to hint at what they might be.

What I will say is this:  Under the Mercy Trees is an intricate, interesting novel that held my attention from start to finish.  The characters are well-thought out, and the pacing of the mystery aspects of the novel are perfect.  I truly enjoyed the novel.