Review: Blessings

Blessings by Anna Quindlen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves." This is my favorite quote and it's by Anna Quindlen. I finally took the time to find books by Quindlen and decided to read Blessings first.

I liked it. Lydia Blessings and Skip/Charles are outwardly opposites but seem to have the same need for orderliness and tradition. When Skip finds a baby on the estate, he decides to keep her. Lydia discovers this and they form a bond over Faith. Honestly, it was the baby finding that kept the book at 3 stars. I simply can't accept Skip finding, keeping and hiding a baby. Throughout the rest of the book my mind kept thinking, "But he wouldn't do this!" and I'd lose track of the story again.



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Review: Left Neglected

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Once I started this book, I was addicted.

Sarah, a high-level executive with a demanding job, two mortgages, three children and a husband, is in a car accident. Eight days later she wakes up and realizes that she has lost her left. Her brain, as a result of the traumatic injury, is no longer able to able to even comprehend the idea of left. Not only does her body not have a left half, but neither does anything else. This "left neglect" is the focus of the story and we are able to travel the path of recovery with her. She learns a new life and faces challenges that are incomprehensible to me.

Early in the story she is explaining to a frustrated husband that it isn't as easy as looking around. She asks him to list everything in the room and he complies. When he's finished the list, she tells him to imagine being told that there is actually twice as much there and that he just needs to look harder to find it. Imagine trying to figure out a way to see something when you have no idea how there is another way to look. At that point, I was hooked.

I can hardly wait to listen to Still Alice!



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Review: Home Safe

Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



Wow. I had no idea that Elizabeth Berg could write a book I would dislike this much. I forced myself to read a third of the book, convincing myself it would get better. It did not. Helen is so needy and self-absorbed that I wouldn't be able to tolerate her as a real person. Everything was so drawn out and tedious that it was all I could do to not flip the book, skimming paragraphs here and there.

I'm an Elizabeth Berg fan and I hated this book.



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Review: Dream When You're Feeling Blue

Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I love reading Elizabeth Berg. She has a way with words that make me feel as if I'm in the story. This book was excellent - the timeline, the story of the women left behind during the war, the life of the soldiers, the letters from the war, the slang. Had the book ended one chapter earlier, it would have been a 5 star book. I am so confused by the end, however, as it makes no sense that the story would have (or even could have) ended that way. A 5 star book with a 2 star ending.



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Review: Range of Motion

Range of Motion by Elizabeth Berg

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is my first Elizabeth Berg book and I'll definitely be reading more! It wasn't the plot that kept me reading, it was the language. There were so many places in the book that I wanted to read aloud or write down. There were passages I read multiple times simply because the words expressed some feeling that I would have considered unexpressable. I want to read more simply because her words were so moving.





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Review: Testimony

Testimony by Anita Shreve

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This wasn't what I expected of Anita Shreve. The different voices, the constant shifting in time, the minimal story line...it felt like a great idea for a book had been written in this context to allow the characters to show themselves instead of having to write the descriptions of them. I like the behind-the-scenes feel and it was a fun approach. Unfortunately, there were just too many characters I didn't want to learn more about. Everything tied together nicely at the end and we are left with a different view of the incident but it was still so unsatisfactory to me. The behavior, the excuses, the lack of punishment - it all seemed to gloss over the fact that three adults were involved in a sexual situation with a 14 year old girl. Mike, in particular, annoyed me. I skimmed through most of his dialogue and found that the voices I would have enjoyed reading more from were rather limited in appearance. For instance, Sienna's roommate or Owen. I think that a more developed novel would have given me the details I wanted to know.



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