Lost and Found

I love the premise of this book: teams of two compete against each other as they travel around the world solving puzzles and collecting objects to win a million dollars. It sounds like the only reality show I've followed almost faithfully from the beginning (The Amazing Race! which is truly amazing and which I would love to join. The only season I wasn't into it was when they had families of 4 competing).

The twist is that the book isn't about the game as much as it is about the people who join: There's Laura and her daughter Cassie, who are going through what seems to be more strained-than-average mother-daughter tension; Jeff & Carl, divorced, good-natured brothers; Dallas & Juliet, former child stars trying to crack the world of grownup showbiz, and Justin & Abby, former homosexuals who have renounced their ways and married each other. There were 8 other teams, but when the book opens it's down to 6, and you don't really learn too much about the other 2.

I only picked this book up today and just fell in love with the whole bundle. I couldn't put it down--not just so I could find out who won but also to find whether everyone gets a happy ending. (Almost everyone does, to some degree.) I loved how well-fleshed-out the characters were. Considering how short this book is (less than 300 pages) the author does justice to all her characters--each one feels like someone you might know. Each person's actions and decisions make sense.

I love this book so much I just may buy a copy for myself and try to find Carolyn Parkhurst (she lives in DC!!) so I can get her autograph.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

There's been a lot of buzz about this book lately--particularly about how in hardcover it didn't sell so well but now that it's in paperback it's getting picked up for book clubs and people are really talking about it.

Having read it, I must say the buzz is well-deserved. You should go and read this!

Not only because the story touches two things close to my consciousness at almost every moment of the day: special needs and giving a child away. The story is wonderfully written. I became attached to each character--even to the "bad guy", David Henry, who ultimately proves to be just human.

David Henry delivers his own twins and finds that while the first, Paul, is perfectly healthy, his sister Phoebe has Down's Syndrome. Dr. Henry decides to spare his family what he believes to be inevitable grief and despair (believing that almost all DS babies don't live very long) and asks his nurse to take Phoebe to an institution. His nurse, Caroline, decides to keep Phoebe for herself.

The story follows the Henrys and Caroline and Phoebe over the next 20+ years. Most of the story is about how secrets destroy families, but there is also a lot about love and grace.

We Are All Welcome Here

I'm very sure I've read at least half of Elizabeth Berg's novels. I've enjoyed her writing a lot--she is a gifted writer whose every day language hides many of humanity's truths. I don't remember any of her books very clearly, though--as much as I like her I've never been inclined to re-read her stuff. But I believe this one will stick to me long after I've returned it to the library--and I won't need to re-read it to remember it for a long time.

It's set in the mid-1960s, when polio and open racial discrimination were still very common. Diana, the 12-year old daughter of a polio victim (who's been paralyzed since she contracted the illness, in her 9th month of pregnancy, and dependent on a cumbersome respirator to boot), tells the story of an extraordinary summer in her and her mother's life.

Good things happen to both of them. Sad things too. But what made my tears fall was how their relationship changed--how Diana grew up, and understood the choices her mother made, and matured in her love for her mother. I knew for sure that Diana had grown up when she finally saw Peacie not as her tormentor but as someone who had loved her from the moment she was born.

I'm intrigued by the fact that this book is inspired by a true story--one of Ms. Berg's fans wrote and suggested that she write about her mother, who did fall victim to polio and had to live in an iron lung for a while but managed to raise 3 children and go on to have a career.

24 Karat Kids

I've been reading this on my visits to the bookstore, and finally finished it on Monday while feeding Teo and holding him as he slept. (He wouldn't sleep without my breast and wouldn't let go of it either in his sleep. Perhaps I should be reading a sleep training book!)

I had been enjoying this book immensely in spite of the cheesy title. The fictional foibles of Manhattan's wealthy families are amusing and since one of the authors IS an Upper East Side pediatrician they sound authentic, too. And I liked this book all the way till I hit the last 3 chapters or so.

I feel like the authors had to keep this book to a certain number of pages--they ended the story abruptly, in my view. And they seemed forced to give the story the requisite chicklit happy ending. Only the ending did not feel right to me. A better happy ending would've been the heroine choosing to be alone and happy in her aloneness. It didn't feel right that she ended up with who she ended up, given all her kvetching about him and that he was pretty much a rebound.

Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan

I was sufficiently entertained by Jane Austen in Scarsdale to want to pick up Paula Marantz Cohen's other books. After reading this book (the first of two to be filled by my library) I may just cancel my hold on Jane Austen in Boca.

I suppose this, like JA in Scarsdale, is a comic novel of manners. But something didn't quite click for me. The separate elements of the story line--the septuagenarian mother's sudden flashbacks into a previous life as Shakespeare's paramour, the teenage daughter's bat mitzvah, the sexy sister's unlikely romance with the middle school teacher--seemed interesting enough, but they never quite gelled together for me to make one nice, interesting, cohesive read.

The best part of the story for me was the old lady's "past life" awakening. Jessie Kaplan remembers details of her life as the Dark Lady who inspired William Shakespeare's later sonnets and his Merchant of Venice. Her complete absorption in this realization worries her daughters but intrigues her granddaugher's English teacher, who believes her so much he takes her on a trip to Venice to see if they can find the sonnets she had hidden away in her old life. But even this storyline didn't end on a satisfactory enough note for me.

I truly hated the "BatMitzvah-zilla" aspect of the story. While I'm sure Bat Mitzvahs have become another competitive sport among well-to-do parents, I wasn't entertained by the accounts of Carla and Mark fighting with stationers, caterers, entertainers, florists, and their daughter over this event. Maybe you'd have to have experienced the craziness of a Bat Mitzvah to appreciate them. Or maybe over-the-top parenting has just become such a cliche that it no longer inspires laughter?