All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

I discovered All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown at a thrift shop, and bought it for $2.50.  It's an Advance Reading Copy, and the need for proofreading was a bit distracting.  I'm sure the final copy didn't have this feature!

BUT, the story was an enjoyable Silicon Valley family satire, where a long-married couple has just taken their pharmaceutical company public.  The day the company goes public (this is all in Chapter One, so I'm not giving away too much of the story line here), wife Janice plans and prepares for a celebratory dinner with her husband and their younger daughter, who still lives at home.  Janice is instead surprised with a telegram from her husband Paul stating he wants a divorce.  From there, the book takes the reader through the summer months with Janice and her two daughters (the older one returns home, having failed at starting a magazine), each living their own lives and not sharing their burdens with the others, ignoring the impending divorce and what it might mean for their daily lives.

Each character let something get out of control, and each character is determined to fix her life on her own.  The story makes it easy to understand how 'regular' people can get into unacceptable, irresponsible, dangerous situations.  It seems that one bad decision follows another.

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything is a great sandwich book.  Read it, enjoy it, laugh and gasp.

Prairie Evers

Prairie Evers by Ellen Airgood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought this book from Ellen Airgood at an author reading/signing event in De Tour Village, Michigan.  It's a young adult genre book, but it's really a book for all readers.

Prairie Evers has just moved to New Platz, New York, with her parents, from North Carolina.  Until now, she has been home-schooled by her Grammy, who is staying in North Carolina.  Prairie is lonely and struggling with the sudden changes in her life and starts raising chickens to keep her mind occupied, when her parents tell her she has to start going to school.  At school, she meets a girl named Ivy and they become fast friends. Imagine the challenges she faced at school, with a name like Prairie and a Southern accent!  Prairie and Ivy save each other and learn more about the world and themselves in the process. The story even made chickens seem interesting, which I thought was impossible!

This is a book about friendship, family, trust, hard work, perseverance and silver linings.  It's a great book, for all readers from ten to one hundred.


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Testing the Current

Testing the Current by William McPherson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of a year in Tommy McAllister's life, beginning when he's 8, then going back to his 7th year and ending just past where it begins.  It takes place in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, which is called Grand Rivere, in the late 1930s.  Tommy's family is wealthy, so they didn't feel much effect from the Depression, but some of his classmates and neighbors did.  He's careful not to show off in front of those who have less than he has.

Tommy is trying to figure out life, and he learns a lot during this year.  He's very curious, always asking questions, and giving out too much information at inappropriate times.  The book effectively illuminates that time in history, and the class levels and traditions of that time.  I imagine this is what my grandmother's life was like then, as she lived in that town during that time and had small children much like Tommy.

It's a subtle tale, a bit wordy, but very enjoyable.


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The Third Son

The Third Son by Julie  Wu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was not in the mood to read about a Taiwanese immigrant (I've read many immigrant stories lately), but when I started this book, I couldn't put it down.  Saburo, the main character, is the third son of a Taiwanese politician.  He's the least favorite child, and his parents habitually call him stupid and put him down at every opportunity, even to the point of giving him such a meager amount of food, he becomes malnourished.  He meets his dream girl at the age of 8 during an air raid, and when he finds her again years later, she is with his eldest brother and biggest rival.

This is an amazing tale of perseverance, familial sense of duty and loyalty, and learning to depend on yourself rather than others.  Saburo learns he can survive, and succeed, despite his family's continued resistance and the bad luck that seems to follow him.

It's a good one...put it on your reading list, if it isn't there already!  



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The Burgess Boys

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a book about assumptions and perceptions, and how an entire life can be shaped around them.  Three of the characters in this book undergo substantial changes after discovering and/or admitting the assumptions and perceptions they'd lived by were false.

The story is told from several different perspectives, in third person, and it is basically the recounting, by an acquaintance introduced in the prologue, and never mentioned again.  As a way of introducing the narrator, it works, but the reader never learns the narrator's name and the encounter mentioned in the prologue isn't mentioned in the story itself.  It seems Jim Burgess is a well-known, respected lawyer who won a high-profile case watched by everyone on television.  He lives in Manhattan, working for a large law firm, when his nephew gets into some legal hot water for a childish prank involving a pig's head being thrown into a mosque during Ramadan. The nephew still lives in Maine, in the small town where Jim grew up.  Jim is the eldest of three, a few years older than his brother and sister, who are twins.

Enjoy this story.  Sink into it.  Elizabeth Strout has outdone herself this time.


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I Feel Bad About My Neck

I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a great way to pass an afternoon!  Nora Ephrons' signature sarcasm brightened my day.  I listened to the audio version of this book, which the author reads herself, and I now wish I could have a cup of coffee with her in her NYC apartment.  We could lament about our necks, beauty regimens and the price of skin lotion.  We could share stories about the hard-to-believe real-life events we've experienced.  We could wear scarves and comfortable shoes and say pithy things.

If you are a woman with a neck, you will love this book.


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Arcadia by Lauren Groff

Arcadia by Lauren Groff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I bought this book at The Babbling Book in Haines, Alaska (great store, if you're ever in the neighborhood) because I had already read and enjoyd Lauren Groff's other book, The Monsters of Templeton.  This book didn't disappoint.

This is the story of Bit, born in the 1970s in a hippie commune in western New York state.  The commune consists of several old buses and lean-tos on a beautiful piece of land, with a hulking mansion in sorry disrepair.  Soon the hippies get to work restoring the mansion so they can have heat and sturdy shelter.  The commune grows beyond its means, and eventually Bit must learn how to adapt to the outside world as he moves to New York City.

The writing is so good, you are in the commune.  You are there, feeling the damp chill on your bare arms, studying your friends' prominent ribs, growing vegetables and eating a vegan diet, running barefoot in the cold, greasy mud, bathing once per week. Wondering at some of the established practices our society endorses and supports. Hoping you never have to leave Arcadia and venture out into the unknown.

There will always be space on my shelf for a Lauren Groff book.



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