The Girl on the Train

Title:  The Girl on the Train

Author:  Paula Hawkins

Publication Information:  Riverhead Books. 2015. 336 pages.

ISBN:  1594633665 / 978-1594633669

Book Source:  I read this book based on its publicity and the cover.

Opening Sentence:  "She's buried beneath a silver birch tree, down towards the old train tracks, her grave marked with a cairn."

Favorite Quote:  "He never understood that it's possible to miss what you've never had, to mourn for it."

Rachel Watson is the girl on the train. Unable to have children. Recently divorced. Recently unemployed. With a drinking problem. With a tendency for alcoholic blackouts. With a fixation on stalking her ex-husband and his new wife. A somewhat pitiful sight, and a great, unreliable narrator!

Every day, Rachel takes the train into the city, pretending to go to work. Every evening, she takes the train back. Unfortunately, the train path goes by where her ex-husband Tom lives with his new wife Anna and their new baby. That certainly does not help her issues with alcohol or stalking.

In her rides, Rachel also fixates on a house down the street. She sees a house with a young couple, who she views as the golden couple. She gives them names - Jess and Jason - and envisions their fairy tale life. Of course, life is not a fairly tale.

One day, Megan, the woman in this golden couple, disappears. Rachel continues her misguided fairly tale and starts to imagine what might have happened and how devastated her husband might be. She also thinks she might have seen something that relates to Megan and may shed light on her disappearance. However, with her alcohol induced blackouts, she is not sure.

Clearly lacking in good judgement, Rachel gets involved. She reports her thoughts to the police and to Megan's husband. She is obviously not a reliable witness. In fact, the more the police research, the more holes they find in her story. The fact that Tom and Anna live on the street and accuse Rachel of stalking further complicates things.

Confused yet? That's pretty much how Rachel feels. The book twists and turns, showing us the events from Rachel, Anna, and Megan's perspectives. What do these three women have in common? Anything at all? Do their stories share a common link beyond the street they live on? What happened the night Megan disappeared? The first sentence of the book reveal what happened to her, but how and why? All these questions keep you reading.

The book really only has five main characters. Rachel is the drunk fixated on her ex-husband. Anna is the new wife, who "got" her husband through an adulterous affair and then moved right into the house Tom shared with Rachel. Megan has plenty of unpleasant secrets of her own, some of which lead to her disappearance. Tom is Rachel's ex-husband and Anna's husband; he is forever trying to placate both. Justin is Megan's husband, distraught at his wife's disappearance but with a few skeletons of his own in the closet. A supporting cast of stereotypes surrounds these main characters. I don't particularly like any of the them, but keep reading because, at the same time, I want to know what happens.

Many books recently have been compared to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl; this is the first one for me that elicits the same reaction. The characters in both are certainly unlikable. The ending to this book does not have the surprise element of Gone Girl. By process of elimination, I did guess the correct guilty party, but it is a whole lot of fun to see how the book gets there.

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Chess not Checkers: Elevate Your Leadership Game

Title:  Chess not Checkers:  Elevate Your Leadership Game

Author:  Mark Miller

Publication Information:  Berrett-Koehler Publishers. 2015. 144 pages.

ISBN:  1626563942 / 978-1626563940

Book Source:  I received this book through the GoodReads First Reads program free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "Leading has never been easy."

Favorite Quote:  "You're already paying for their hands - and with every pair of hands you hire, you get a free brain. They key to unlock that brain lies in the heart. When you get the head, the heart, and the hands, you've tapped a deep well of passion, creativity, and performance."

Mark Miller, co-author of The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do, uses the metaphor of chess and checkers to demonstrate the shift in leadership style needed to manage as an organization grows in size and complexity.

Chess is defined as a "game of strategic skill for two players, played on a checkered board." Checkers is a "game played by two players on a checkerboard." The players are the same. The board is the same. What differs is the pieces and the strategy. Checkers pieces are all the same with all playing a similar role. Chess pieces are more specialized, with individual strengths and weakness, working together to accomplish a goal.

So, claims Mark Miller, it goes with business. A new business is a little like checkers, quickly changing with every player fulfilling every role as needed. As the organization expands, however, roles specialize as with chess pieces, and a leader must develop the organization and the people with a vision of the future and a way to maximize individual strengths. Leaders who do not take that strategic leap flounder. Playing chess when checkers is called for can lead to failure.

The case study in this book is Blake Brown, who gets the opportunity to step in as the CEO of a company with about fifty employees. The company has sales of several million dollars, but the sales are stagnant. He finds an organizational dynamic that is not working, but he cannot quite determine the changes necessary. He finds a mentor in a retired CEO, who, through several meetings, leads him through the idea of identifying when the "game" has changed, identifying and developing organizational leaders, ensuring that organizational roles match individual strengths, ensuring a common understanding of values and goals, engaging the entire organization in the plans and strategies, and focusing on effective execution.

These ideas are reinforced several times even in the short span of the book. Each meeting between Blake and his mentor focuses on one main idea. After each meeting, Blake takes the idea back to his organization. The management team discusses the idea, allowing the key points to be reiterated. Blake brings results back to his mentor, again allowing the key ideas to be reinforced again. The printing of the book, through font sizes and text boxes, clearly sets apart the main themes. Thus, a reader can easily skim through and find the lessons of the book or read the story that goes with it.

The case study in the book is perhaps a simplified view of what is no doubt a very complex situation. John, the staff member who is not ready for change, is vehement in his opinions to the point of getting himself fired. Suzy, the staff member who emerges as a leader, does so almost instantly and completely. The buy in from the existing management team comes quickly as well. However, the simplification of the example does not mitigate the strength of the idea. As with The Secret, the ideas of this book are not new, but the book packages them into a clear vision. It can be read in one sitting and easily understood. The metaphor itself is simple and powerful.

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The Rosie Effect

Title:  The Rosie Effect

Author:  Graeme Simsion

Publication Information:  Simon & Schuster. 2014. 352 pages.

ISBN:  1476767319 / 978-1476767314

Book Source:  I read this book as it is the sequel to The Rosie Project.

Opening Sentence:  "Orange juice was not scheduled for Fridays."

Favorite Quote:  "... I had concluded that being myself, with all my intrinsic flaws, was more important than having the thing I wanted most."

The Rosie Effect is a sequel to The Rosie Project. The book really should be read as a sequel for it assumes knowledge and understanding of the characters and events of the first book. The first book introduced Don Tillman, a professor of genetics, whose need for order and whose logic and routine based approach to life display many of the characteristics of someone with Aspergers. Yet, he does not see it in himself.

The first book was all about Don's quest to find a mate. He starts with his methodical approach. Then enters Rosie, who is nothing like his list of characteristics. However, Rosie reaches beyond his logic, and the two get married.

At the beginning of this second book, Don and Rosie have moved to New York City. Rosie is studying at Columbia University, and Don continues his teaching and research. As the stork on the cover of the book may imply, a baby enters into the picture. Rosie is pregnant, and Don feels unready and unprepared.

So, he undertakes research on how to be a father - research that allows him to approach this new life change in his own organized, logic-based manner. As has happened many times in Don's life, people misinterpret his "research." Unfortunately, this time, it lands him in trouble with the law and dealing with a social worker, who seems set against him.

This book does not have all the joy and humor that the first book did. It deals with a more serious side of life. In The Rosie Project, I find myself laughing at some of the situations and cheering for both Don and Rosie. In this book, I still cheer for Don, but, more than that, I feel a sadness for Don. For a lot of reasons.

First, it's the little things like his description of having to get used to living with another person. He creates himself an office in the spare bathroom, for he can be there alone and undisturbed. Perhaps, that is meant to conjure a humorous image, but I would hope that a life partner would be more understanding.

Second, in the first book, Rosie is a main character and a likable one. In this one, she seems somewhat absent for a lot of the time, and somewhat unlikable for the rest. She gets pregnant, without really having agreement from Don about having a child. Then, she fails to understand his concerns. She is so caught up in the pregnancy and her own work that she seems to forget about Don and about compromise in a relationship.

Third, Don is ill prepared for his role as a father. Yet, when he sets out to educate himself, he is faced with people who further want to sabotage his efforts. It seems especially odd that a trained social worker does not recognize Don's needs and hinders rather than helps his efforts.

I am still puzzled by the turn the story took. Warranted, this book is a first person narrative in Don's voice. Perhaps, that might explain his view of the lack of understanding displayed by other people. However, The Rosie Project has the same narrative voice and felt so joyful. Perhaps, that is the nature of the relationship. The first book was about the first rush of romance with its rose-colored glasses; this book is about life in a relationship, with its ups and downs and with its dose of reality. Either way, this one's a little disappointing after the first.

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Until You're Mine

Title:  Until You're Mine

Author:  Samantha Hayes

Publication Information:  Crown. 2014. 368 pages.

ISBN:  0804136890 / 978-0804136891

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through Edelweiss free of cost in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Blogging for Books.

Opening Sentence:  "I've always wanted a baby, even when I was little and didn't know where they came from."

Favorite Quote:  "She ... found herself thinking of everything else she loved about him .... Ridiculous, tiny things that, when added together, were bigger than life itself."

The premise of this book is described as how far would someone go to have a baby. Claudia is expecting to bring her first baby home any day now. Zoe is her new nanny, and she has a pregnancy kit in her bag. Someone is out killing pregnant women, in a particularly vicious way that looks like an at home Cesarean section! The women and the babies die. Lorraine is one of the detectives investigating the murders.

These are the three women on whom this book centers. We alternately see the story from their perspectives. Claudia's increasing discomfort with Zoe. Zoe's secrets. Lorraine's investigation which leads back to Claudia and Zoe.

The first two chapters introduce the Morgan family. They are apparently independently wealthy; they live in a large house in an affluent neighborhood and are looking to hire a live in nanny for twin boys and a new baby on the way. James is a Navy man, gone for months at a time. He puts his children to bed "drunkenly singing Aerosmith's Janie's Got a Gun" but putting the names of his four year old boys' into the lyrics. Claudia is a social worker, who wants it all - family, baby, yoga classes, and a demanding career as a social worker. She is mothering her new husband's twins, but is looking forward to being "a complete family" and "a real mother" when her baby arrives. Zoe comes in to interview for the nanny position. She tries way too hard to make a good impression, not even reacting to the twins throwing things at her. Neither James nor Claudia make any real effort to discipline the boys.

So, unfortunately, within the first few pages, the book is filled with entitled, self-indulgent, unlikable characters (that's the adults, not the four year old boys!). That impression really does not improve as the book progresses. After that, the book just drags for me, because I don't really care what happens to them.

Not caring is just as well perhaps, because part of the story line ends up in a surprise twist. Surprise twists can be the making of a suspense novel; some make you go through the entire book again to see if a reader could see it coming. This one is completely out of left field with no real tie in to the rest of the book. It's so far out as to the point of being somewhat irrelevant to the rest of the story. It is also unrealistic in that the character involved reveals nothing throughout the book, even though parts of the story are told in her first person voice. Do even her internal thoughts keep secrets?

Also irrelevant to the book is the entire plot line about Lorraine and her family issues. She is the police officer investigating the murders. Her husband Adam is the lead on the case. They are having marital issues and issues with their children. Other than the fact that the two are working on the investigations, their story has no real tie in to the rest of the book. It seems to add pages but no substance to the main plot. I find myself skipping the sections related to her problems.

The main plot line of a woman's need to be a mother and the extreme measures she will take to achieve that end was a promising premise. The book would have been much stronger sticking to that main story and exploring the psychology of that character. That would have been a totally different book. This one unfortunately is just not the book for me.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Sisters of Heart and Snow

Title:  Sisters of Heart and Snow

Author:  Margaret Dilloway

Publication Information:  G.P. Putnam's Sons. 2015. 400 pages.

ISBN:  0399170804 / 978-0399170805

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Shelf Awareness.

Opening Sentence:  "Tomoe held the round bronze mirror with steady hands, fighting her nervous pulse."

Favorite Quote:  "We all need someone with whom we can be our most core selves. Unhidden and honest. When you hide parts of yourself from other people, they can't fully know and love you, nor you them. You construct a false version of yourself. Then your true self remains unknown. Isolated. You become a stranger."

Present day San Diego - recognizable and familiar. Twelfth century Japan - the world of the samurai. What, might you ask, do these times and places have in common? Nothing at all in so many ways. Yet, human nature and people are the same, with our need for love, understanding, and acceptance. The complexity of human relationships is what this book explores in this unique twist on a story about sisters.

Rachel is middle aged, with a loving husband and two children. She holds the power of attorney for her mother, Hiraki, who suffers from dementia and is in a nursing home. Rachel has been estranged from her father, Killian, since he threw her out of the house when she was sixteen. The two are locked in battle over control of her mother's care. Due to the circumstances, Rachel is also estranged from Drew, her younger sister.

In a lucid moment, Hiraki asks Rachel to get a book from her sewing room at Killian's home. Rachel calls on Drew to help. The book turns out to be the story of the legendary onna bugeisha or female samurai, Tomoe Gozen. For Rachel and Drew, the story of Tomoe and her "sister of heart" Yamabuki becomes a fable showing them the way back to each other and the strength to move forward in their lives. Tomoe Gozen and Yamabuki's story is a book within this book about Rachel and Drew.

Neither narrative delves into the "why" behind what many characters do. Why is Killian so cruel? Why did Hiraki spend her whole life catering to Killian but find the strength to go against his wishes and reconnect with her daughter? Why is Yamabuki, a wife, so accepting of Tomoe Gozen, who is the concubine of her husband? Why was Tomoe Gozen's father so willing to train her in the skills of the samurai? Why does Tomoe Gozen, so strong in so many ways, continue to follow a man who she knows is heading down a path of destruction?

These answers are not forthcoming in the book. More than the individual characters, this book becomes about the relationships. It is the relationships not the individual characters that give this book its depth. The common focal point becomes love. Hiraki's love for her daughters pierces her dementia for one lucid moment to bring the courage of Tomoe Gozen to Rachel and Drew.  Rachel's love for her daughter Quincy helps steer her through difficult choices. Although rivals, Tomoe Gozen and Yamabuki find a sisterly love that helps them survive a desolate life and immeasurable losses. Although estranged for years, Rachel and Drew rediscover their need and their love for each other. "Perhaps that was the mark of a sister ... You could be angry, but still be there for one another when needed."

The book leaves an interesting idea to contemplate. Tomoe is the warrior; she leads men into battle and weilds a weapon with strength and agility. Yamabuki is initially depicted as fragile, docile and incapable of dealing with the harsh life she is to live. Tomoe is the fighter, and Yamabuki, the poet. Tomoe sees the danger, and Yamabuki, the beauty. Rachel and Drew draw the comparison to themselves, each thinking the other the strong one. Yet, ultimately, the book shows that the apparently strong have weaknesses, and the seemingly weak can display immense strength. As they discover, "there are times when being strong means you must accept your weakness."

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

The Mapmaker's Children

Title:  The Mapmaker's Children

Author:  Sarah McCoy

Publication Information:  Crown. 2015. 320 pages.

ISBN:  0385348908 / 978-0385348904

Book Source:  I received this book through a publisher's giveaway free of cost in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Shelf Awareness.

Opening Sentence:  "The old House on Apple Hill Lane shuddered against the weighty snow that burdened its pitch."

Favorite Quote:  "We can't force life to do what we want when we want it. We can't change yesterday or control tomorrow. We can only live today as best as we can. And it just might turn out better than expected."

The Mapmaker's Children follows two women - Sarah Brown in the 1850s and Eden Anderson in 2014. Sarah's story is personal and global - the story of slavery, abolition and the time leading up to the Civil War in the United States. Eden's story is about personal sorrow, a house, and a doll.

The "mapmaker" is historical figure Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown. John Brown not only believed in abolition of slavery, but also that armed insurrection was the way to accomplish his goal. His unsuccessful raid on Harper's Ferry is said to be a main trigger that led to the Civil War. Unfortunately, that raid also led to his capture and the death of several family members. Prior to that fateful raid, John Brown was an active participant in the Underground Railroad. Sarah Brown became involved because of her artistic skills. She was able to draw maps in pictures - on scraps of paper and on objects hidden in plain sight - for the runaways slaves to follow. Even after the Harper's Ferry raid, Sarah vowed to continue the work.

Eden Anderson and her husband Jack move into an old house in New Charlestown, in 2010. Eden in drowning in the sorrow that they are unable to conceive a child. The house is a large one bought in anticipation of a growing family; it now seems to mock her. One day, she discovers the head of doll in a cellar. At first, it seems an additional jab at her lack of children. However, gradually, she is befriended by a neighbor's child, and drawn out of her sorrow and self-pity into a world of new friendships and of new mysteries as to the history of the doll and of her house.

The two main characters - Sarah and Eden - seem associated by only a thread. In some ways, their stories are similar; their inability to bear children impacts the course of their lives entirely. Many of their relationships become hinged on that fact. In other ways, their stories could not be more different. Sarah loses so much in her early life; she lives in a violent, turbulent times. Her battle is one of ideals and of changing the world. Eden, however, is leading a comfortable, white collar life. She and her husband are able to afford a lovely home; she is able to leave a career and settle into an an affluent neighborhood. Her activities consist of puppies, bookstores, neighbors, and the project to research the history of her home. The stories do not compare.

As such, the book is sometimes frustrating to read. Sarah's story should be the more compelling of the two; it is certainly the more interesting of the two, all the more so for being a fictionalized account of an actual historical figure. Yet, it sometimes reads like a detached description of the time and place. A considerable part of Sarah's story is told through letters; as such, events and people are talked about in a somewhat dispassionate way. The emotions, perhaps due to the time and due to the relationships, seem a distant second and often missing from the letters. Eden's story is told with a focus on the emotions - the way Cricket and Cleo find their way into Eden's heart, Eden's love for her brother, and Eden's relationship with Jack. Her story seems more "alive" than Sarah's, but I am left with the feeling that it should be the other way around. I am left wanting to know more about Sarah and what she felt.

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.

Orhan's Inheritance

Title:  Orhan's Inheritance

Author:  Aline Ohanesian

Publication Information:  Algonquin Books. 2015. 352 pages.

ISBN:  1616203749 / 978-1616203740

Book Source:  I received this book as a publisher's galley through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "They found him inside one of the seventeen cauldrons in the courtyard, steeping in an indigo dye two shades darker than the summer sky."

Favorite Quote:  "We are not what is done to us."

Orhan is Turkish. He returns home to his small ancestral village upon his grandfather's death. His grandfather, going against tradition, passes over his own son in his will. He leaves his son only an apartment, bequeathing his business to Orhan and their ancestral village home to a woman Seda, who lives in the United States and who Orhan has never heard of. Orhan is tasked with figuring out who the woman is, why his grandfather might have left her the house, and if he can get it back for his family.

His journey leads him to the United States and to his own family's past. Seda is an elderly Armenian woman living in a nursing home in San Francisco. The book weaves between the 1990s and the World War I era as Seda recalls her story. Her story completely change Orhan and who he thought he was and who he believes his grandfather was. His inheritance turns out to be much more than the family home and business.

Several things are clear in this book. War claims victims on all sides. The history we learn depends on who is relating the history. An appeal to and a questioning of God comes in times of distress no matter what your religion.

War claims victims on all sides. Lucine and Kemal are young during the War. They are friends, perhaps more. Yet, they are on opposite sides of the war. During World War I, the Turkish government turns against its own Armenian citizens, decimating the Armenian community. Lucine is from an established Armenian family.  She cannot comprehend how the place that is her home and the people who are her neighbors now seek to destroy her family. The brutality that she and her family experience is beyond words. Kemal, on the other hand, is Turkish and has been taught about the "inferiority" of the Armenians and the need for protecting Turkey from "outsiders". He follows his upbringing into service as a Turkish soldier, but does not really understand the war he fights. Is he a guilty aggressor, blindly going into battle and not questioning or is he a young victim of the decision makers? "Nothing about this war makes sense."

The history we learn depends on who is relating the history. Decades after the war, Orhan and Ani meet. He is Turkish, and she is Armenian. Their different views of history reflect what they have been taught. One believes the government's version; the other lives through the memories of genocide. Orhan's views start to change only when he learns Seda's reality. "All of life ... is a story within a story; how we choose to listen and which words we choose to speak makes all the difference."

An appeal to and a questioning of God comes in times of distress no matter what your religion. Throughout the book, almost every character calls upon God. Some reject Him for how could a God allow such atrocities to happen. Some still believe but also believe that God has deserted them. Some don't believe, but recognize His blessings. Again and again, even in denying God's existence, they all call upon God.

The parts of this book that are set during the war in Turkey show the story in all its sadness and devastation. The author's masterful descriptions place the reader in the horrific destruction Seda survived. At the same time, the author manages to capture war from both sides, showing the different perspectives in how neighbor turned against neighbor and how sometimes help came in the most unexpected places. The characters - Kemal, Lucine, Aunt Fatma, and others - come alive as does a vivid, horrifying picture of what was done to the Armenians.

The parts of the book, especially some of the conversations, set in the 1990s tell the story of the war. Seda lives through the horror; her niece Ani needs to retell it to ensure that it is remembered. The descriptions of what Seda - indeed all of the them - endure touch the heart and boggle the mind. She survives through it and needs no reminders. Seda's desire is to remain in the present and keep the memories at bay, while Ani needs to create a constant reminder for the world. Understandable, but in reading the book, Ani's statements seem almost superfluous. Seda's story does not need the embellishment of an explicit explanation. The images alone are enough. Yes, we need the next generations and all those who come after to remember. However, we do not need their explanations to give credence or weight to what happened. "All the words in every human language on earth would not be enough to describe what happened."

Please share your thoughts and leave a comment. I would love to "talk" to you.