Stitches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair

Title: Stitches:  A Handbook on Meaning, Hope, and Repair

Author:  Anne Lamott

Publication Information:  Riverhead Hardcover. 2013. 112 pages.

Book Source:  I read this book because of an interest in the author's work.

Favorite Quote:  "The search is the meaning, the search for beauty, love, kindness and restoration in this difficult, wired and often alien modern world. The miracle is that we are here, that no matter how undone we've been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be."

Stitches is a discussion on a search for meaning in life - the different ways in which we search, what can bring us meaning, and what we can to do to see a deeper meaning even in the most ordinary things.

Throughout, the book uses the metaphor of stitches - of sewing a life together with pieces from all around us, of darning the holes, and of picking up stitches that fall. The author weaves in examples from her own life and from conversations with others.

Earlier this year I read another of Anne Lamott's books Help Thanks Wow. I thought that book would have been better as an article or essay.

This book I enjoy much more. It feels like a conversation with a friend. I also really appreciate the "stitches" metaphor. I knit, and I sew a little. So, those words and concepts speak to me. So, the ideas and are not new, but the presentation is one that appeals to me.

This book is very short and a very quick read. Well worth a look if the genre appeals to you.

The Weight of Blood: A Novel

Title:  The Weight of Blood:  A Novel

Author:  Laura McHugh

Publication Information:  Spiegel & Grau. 2014. 320 pages.

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

Favorite Quote:  "You grow up feeling the weight of blood, of family. There's no forsaking kin. But you can't help when kin forsakes you or when strangers come to be family."

Lucy Dane is growing up in a small town. The townspeople still speak of how her mother disappeared when Lucy was very young. It was a mystery that was never solved.

Now, Lucy's friend Cheri has disappeared and is found murdered. Are the two events related? Is it a coincidence? Is there more going on in this sleepy little town than meets the eye? Lucy sets out to discover the truth. What she finds about herself, her family, and her community is beyond what she could have imagined.

Without giving a spoiler, I did not expect this book to end up where it did or take on the issues that it did. Henbane is described as a small town in the middle of the Ozark Mountains. The plot line is very unexpected given the small-town, rural setting.

The book goes back and forth between two perspectives - Lila as she arrives alone in the town on Henbane and Lucy as she seeks to determine what happened to her mother and to Cheri. Since so many of the characters are the same in both time periods, I found myself sometimes getting a little lost in the story. I had to make sure I read the chapter heading and focused on the names to remember whose story I was in.

A serious and sad book about family and violence. A well-written debut novel. I do look forward to see what Laura McHugh writes next.

The Visionist

Title: The Visionist:  A Novel

Author:  Rachel Urquhart

Publication Information:  Little, Brown and Company. 2014. 352 pages.

Book Source:  I received this book through the GoodReads First Reads program free of cost in exchange for an honest review. The book arrived as a paperback advance reader copy.

Favorite Quote:  "No tale stands along, for just as one cannot speak of the future without paying due reverence to the past, one cannot sing the ballad of a single life."

Polly Kimball is a fifteen year old growing up in the 1800s in Massachusetts. She lives on a farm with her mother, her younger brother, and her abusive father. They barely scrape by, and Polly lives in constant fear of and constant anger against her father. One day, things come to a head, and Polly sets fire to the family farm, killing her father. She escapes with her mother and brother.

It is then that the mother May seems to awaken from years of abuse. She brings Polly and her brother to a Shaker community and leaves them there for she thinks that they will be cared for in way that she is unable to. The community is one of strict rules and very certain ways.

This, however, is also a time in which certain Shaker communities have received mystical visions. Polly seems to be blessed with these visions at the City of Hope, and as such, gains prominence in the community. She has told no one of her past and struggles with that secret. Sister Charity, an orphan raised in the community since infancy, becomes Polly's friend. Polly's story becomes one you read often - abuse and its terrible consequences.

Around Polly's story are other stories. Charity faces her own struggles to surrender to the rules of the community and to not let emotions get in the way of her service and her obedience to the rules. Simon Pryor is the man investigating the fire at the Kimball farm, but has his own history. I don't see how the details of his story truly contribute to the book. I would rather have known more about the other characters.

The one story that I feel is missing from the book is May's story. She is perhaps the most interesting character in the book, but not developed at all. Here is a young woman who falls into a bad marriage. She puts up with abuse for years and allows her children to be abused. Once she escapes, she also becomes the force to attempt to save her children. I wish the author had explored her story more.

An interesting tale, but one that explores certain story lines too much and leaves other more interesting ones undeveloped.

Fakebook

Title:  Fakebook

Author:  Dave Cicirelli

Publication Information:  Sourcebooks. 2013. 320 pages.

Book Source:  I read this book because of an interest in social media and the interesting premise of this experiment.

Favorite Quote:  "It struck me that 'having to ask' was soon going to join ranks of the mix tapes and 'Be kind, rewind' - a relic of another time. How rare is it now that we have to ask? Facebook in its simple grayed-out text, does the asking for us every time we log in: 'What's on your mind?'

Such a simple question and so effective. With no other prompting or incentive, we answer volumes. We're a billion voices, speaking at once, contributing to a thorough autobiography of our times and writing it in the moment. We're constantly report in on ourselves and others - what we like, where we are, who we are with, how we feel. In shot, we answer Facebook's question.

And Facebook catalogs every answer. Each post and every photo is stamped with a time, a place, and an ID. I mean ... we 'tag' each other in our photos, for Christ's sake. We make sure no detail goes unrecorded.

The scale of this gave me pause and frightened me a little. It still does."

Dave Cicirelli was on Facebook, as our million of other people. He got tired of seeing two things -  how wonderful other people's lives sounded or how much minutia people chose to share. On almost a whim, he decided to start an experiment - creating a fictitious life for himself - and see what happened. What happened and where it led went beyond what he could ever have imagined.

The basis of his fictitious life begins as he announces that he is quitting his job and walking cross country. He is tech savvy and able to create pictures and tell stories about where he is walking. Soon, it gets more complicated than he imagined.

Soon, he has two lives - the fictitious one and the real one. Soon after, his "real" life becomes about giving validity to the fictitious one. Who knows it's a hoax? Who can, therefore, provide comments to add validity? Where can't he go and who can't he see to avoid discovery? How much of his real life is spending keeping up this fiction?

In addition, his fictitious life begins to have a very real effect on people. He gets messages of admiration for having the courage to take off in that manner. He gets messages of criticisms from those who wonder how he can be so irresponsible to just walk away.

He keeps this up for six month. On April's Fools Day, he announces that it was all experiment. Again, he gets messages of both admiration and criticism, and he finds himself a changed person.

This book is a fascinating look at the far-reaching impact of social media. How much of what you read is real? How much do you believe? Do any of us truly understand how far our own impact reaches when we put something on a social media site? Do any of us know how we sound or come across and how different that is from our original intent? All questions all of us would do well to think about.

I do know that for me, my blog would not exist without the existence of cyberspace and social media. I write for me, but I love when I know that what I write reaches people. Just so you know, my reviews are my honest opinion, and not a hoax.

Divergent

Title:  Divergent

Author:  Veronica Roth

Publication Information:  HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 2011. 496 pages.

Book Source:  I read this book based on the publicity for the entire series.

Favorite Quote:  "I believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another."

Beatrice Prior lives in Chicago - a dystopian Chicago of the future. The society has been divided into factions based on certain personality characteristics and the development of that characteristic.

Abnegation focuses on being selfless. Amity focuses on remaining peaceful. Candor focuses on valuing honesty. Erudite focuses on learning. The Dauntless are the brave.

At age 16, all children of all factions are tested to determine the appropriate faction choice. Then, they are allowed to choose.

Beatrice is born into Abnegation, but on her sixteenth birthday, makes a surprising choice to leave her family. What follows is her trial period and training for her new faction. Along the way comes rumblings of dissatisfaction among the factions, and ideas that perhaps things should be different. Choices made impact Beatrice's future, her family, and perhaps the future of the society as a whole.

The target audience for this book is the young adult market. This story is engaging and entertaining. It certainly pulls you in and is action packed. The plot line for this book is very brief, occurring at the beginning when Beatrice makes her choice and towards the end - which I won't say to avoid a spoiler. The remainder of the book is focused on the often violent, competitive training for Beatrice and her group of initiates.

The action, and the sometimes violent descriptions of the action, take over the story. These sequences become the center point of the book rather than the plot line. That, for me, was the difficult part of the book. I am interested enough to read book 2 to see if and how the story develops further, but I hope that the following books focus more on a plot.

Winners

Title:  Winners

Author:  Danielle Steel

Publication Information:  Delacorte Press, Random House Publishing Group, Random House LLC, Penguin Random House Company. 2013. 239 pages.

Book Source:  I read this book just because.

Favorite Quote:  "We can't protect them, or even ourselves. Life happens. We make the best of it .... That's all you can do."

Lily Thomas is a young woman training for the US Olympic ski team. She is that good, and has dedicated that much of her life to the sport. Bill Thomas is her fathers - a widower, a successful business man, and a man whose world revolves around his daughter.

One day, a tragic accident alters Lily and Bill's life forever. This book is about what comes after - about rebuilding a life when all that you dream of and live for can no longer be. Surrounding Lily and Bill are the doctors, co-workers, and friends - each with their own story and their own need for starting over.

This book offers a lot of what Danielle Steel fans expect. The people are beautiful. Some, if not many, are "that kind of rich." Things have a way of working out.

What I enjoy about this book is that it has a consistent theme running across the different characters in different situations. The theme of starting over - after death of a loved one, after illness, after catastrophic injury, after hardships in life. This theme gives the book a bit more substance and brings the book closer to real life.

Winter in Full Bloom

Title:  Winter in Full Bloom

Author:  Anita Higman

Publication Information:  River North Fiction, Moody Publishers. 2013. 304 pages.

Book Source:  I received this book through the GoodReads First Reads program free of cost in exchange for an honest review. The book arrived as a paperback advance uncorrected proof.

Favorite Quote:  "Some kids seem like they belong to their parents, and then there are kids like me. A little offbeat."

Lily is alone. Her only child is off to college, leaving Lily's nest empty. Lily has been estranged from her own mother for over ten years. As empty nest syndrome effects Lily, she attempts a reconciliation with her mother.

Not surprisingly, she is unsuccessful. What is surprising and shocking is that her mother reveals that Lily is an identical twin. Lily has always thought she was an only child - no sibling, much less a twin. The other twin, Camille, is now living in Australia. That is all her mother will tell her, providing no information as to how or why Camille ended up in Australia.

Shocked and hurt but also amazed at the possibility of having a sister, Lily travels to Melbourne Australia with limited information. There, she meets Marcus, another US transplant who is escaping events in his own life. Together, they form a bond and search for Lily's sister. In this search, Lily learns a lot about herself, and perhaps finds herself.

Some of the "why's" of the book are difficult to believe, but if you are willing to suspend disbelief, the book is an easy and quick to read story that moves quickly and resolves sweetly. A feel good book.