The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

The End of Your Life Book Club 5 stars

This was a book that an online book club I belong to was reading a few months ago. I had to wait for a copy to become available at the library, so I missed the chance to read it with The Book Addicts on GoodReads. I'm glad though that I did read it, even if I did get an odd comment from one of my managers at work. He thought it was a zombie book.

The author and his family learn that their matriarch has cancer, not just any kind but pancreatic cancer. Basically its a death sentence. Nearly everyone dies of pancreatic cancer, the point is to make the most of the time that you have left. Mary Anne Schwalbe is a brave woman, no matter how many times she tells you the contrary. She has survived many trips to the Middle East and Africa in her efforts to help women and refugees. Her last triumph was to have a library built near Kabul (forgive me if I am incorrect here, but I am sure it was in Afghanistan or Pakistan...). She gave so much of herself that at the end of her life it was hard to allow others to give to her.

It started in a waiting room for chemotherapy. Her son, Will, asks that one question that every reader loves to hear, "What are you reading?" And so began The End of Your Life Book Club. They spent almost two years sharing books, re-reading old favourites and discovering new authors. They used the books to help each other through an incredibly difficult time, they laughed, loved and read their way through the worst thing any one can imagine, the death of a loved one. Through it all Mary Anne and Will maintained their love for reading and each other by diving into a venture that they would never have the chance to do again.

I think what I loved most about this book was that it wasn't a eulogy, not really. Sure, Will misses his mother, loved her deeply, wanted the world to know the amazing woman that had given him life. What Will Schwalbe did was to show us that love doesn't end, it grows stronger. Take the time to show, to tell the people you love that you do care about them. Listen to them. Celebrate the fact that they have been and always will be a part of your life.

My mother has degenerative disc disease and is in constant pain, though she never really shows it. This book made me stop and think of how fortunate I am to be her daughter. She imparted to me the same gift that Mary Anne did to her children, especially Will, she gave me the love of reading, of human thought, of creativity. I am proud to be part of her life, and I hope... no I know she feels the same. She tells me all the time, along with the famous "If I can draw a smiley face in the dust on your dresser, you need to clean!"

I would love to have a chat with Mr Schwalbe, and let him know how much I appreciated a book that made me love my own mother more, that made me cry (which doesn't happen often) and that made me think how grand it is to have a woman we call Mom who shows us the incredible gift of reading.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help 2Stars

I really wanted to like this book. I wanted to enjoy it as much as I had To Kill a Mockingbird because they have similar themes. Being black in the south was (and still is in some places) almost a death sentence, your life is crammed into a box of prejudice and there isn't a way out. I was hoping for a book that would show how a group of women made there way to a brighter future, instead I was handed the one thing I fear about books with female leads... I was given boredom. I rarely have good fortune with woman as protagonists. They always do the insipid pitty party and it annoys me.

Female leads always lean toward depressive episodes, emotional fits of tears, gossip mongering, and salacious deeds of misconduct. As a woman, it ticks me off! In The Help, we have two black women who work for white women, they do everything except wipe their pearly back-sides. The women do what they can to not try and rise above their "station" as servants. Enter the white girl outside town. She wants to make her way out of her role as a female, she doesn't want to marry and have kids. She wants to write, which endeared her to me, but only slightly. I felt she used these women to excel herself, pushing them into saying and doing things they normally wouldn't have.

Maybe its just that I was insanely bored by this little novel, but I didn't care to read it when it came out, fearing the massive amount of estrogen contained therein. I really did want to enjoy this book, but alas, it was literary algae. It looked great, but had no substance.

Lowell/Sheridan Series by Chelsea Cain

Lowell/Sheridan Series --5Stars

This series starts out with a serial killer kidnapping the lead of the task force assigned to catch them, well to catch her. That's right, you heard me, the serial killer is a woman. Statistically, women only account for about 15% of serial killers, its mostly a male thing. Anyway, she kidnaps him and holds him for ten days, torturing him in all the ways that she did her other victims. He's special though, she wants to make it last.

Archie Sheridan is the lead detective of the Beauty Killer Task Force. It has taken him ten years to figure out who she is and that information just may kill him in the end. Gretchen Lowell is the beautiful woman with a psychotic flair. She has no pattern and no similarities, save one. She carve the shape of a heart into all her victims. By the time she is done with Archie, he's completely damaged goods. Somehow he manages to push forward and at least look normal.

These novels are not for the feint of heart. Gretchen is one heck of a crazy bitch and will not stop unless there is a bullet in her brain. They are gruesome and  terrifying in nearly every way. Even through the page, Gretchen has the ability to mess with your head. Chelsea Cain wrote a fantastic character, and I fear to be in the same room with that author without Mase.

Honestly, I love the fact that I can be carried so quickly into that world of fear and lust, blood and passion and still come begging for more.

Oh my... people are going to start to think that I forgot about my blog. Wait... Does anyone even read this in the first place? I'm not sure, I don't know. Either way, I've been neglecting my reading and focusing on my writing for a little bit. Nothing much has come of it, but I suppose that isn't the point is it?

I did read a couple of books but I have read them once before. The first three books in the Lowell/Sheridan series by Chelsea Cain. I wanted to read them again in preparation for the fourth book. Maybe I'll review them any way.

Either way, just wanted to tell anyone who cares that I'm sorry for not posting any new reviews. Thanks for reading.

The Keepsake by Tess Gerritsen

The Keepsake  -4Stars

I admit it, I have a... problem, an addiction, for which there is no cure. I am attracted to novels of murder and serial killers the way a Frat boy is attracted to large breasts and beer. I love the science of it, the mystery of it. The dialog of catching a criminal in a lie. I can't help but be entertained. My attention is held from opening word to last punctuation and few do it better then Tess Gerritsen.

The story starts innocently enough with the CT scan of a mummy found in the basement of a run down museum. Madame X is perfectly preserved and the exam is gather information from under the wrappings without disturbing the mummy itself. Imagine the surprise of every one present when a modern bullet fragment is found in her femur! And thus starts a whirlwind hunt to find the killer before he strikes again.

There are so many delicious twists and turns in this book! I love when I'm not quite sure what will happen next, but my guesses are correct anyway. Is he who he says he is? Was he really where everyone says he was at the time? Its great, like a mini adrenalin rush! My only problem with the whole story is Maura Isles. A brilliant woman is hopelessly infatuated with a man she can never truly have. The fact that she continues to pine after him annoys me to the end of my patience! Blessedly, she has a minor role in this episode from the series.

Nothing ticks me off more then a woman who longs for a man and does everything to prove that she is his best match. If it wasn't for that junk, I would have given it Five stars. 

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading 0 Stars

I was terribly disappointed in this. I expected it to be a book about a woman and her love of reading. Instead, I was given this load of crap that featured nothing but lengthy monolog on the Second Feminist Movement. Of course, I was unaware of there being more then just the one. You know, 1960's, people burning bras and draft cards. I'm not a feminist, just a girl who reads and works (preferably in that order). Being told that a woman enduring years of torment from a man is classified as an "extreme-adventure" really ticks me off! I swear, it was like reading the commentary of a Lifetime Special.

Sure there are many strong female rolls in fiction, I've featured many here in my blog. What I don't like is seeing a woman in an emotionally taxing roll in which she has to survive beating after beating, affair after affair and just accept it as the way the world works that she has to simply accept it. I've read countless books in which the female lead is strong, emotionally and physically. She takes care of herself and others, while maintaining her dignity.

Honestly, I'm surprised that I managed to read it at all without throwing it against the wall. I felt incredibly let down. She promised so much and delivered next to nothing.

The Muse Asylum by David Czuchlewski

The Muse Asylum --5 stars

I managed to receive this novel for free, hence why I read it. Who can pass up a free book? I wasn't disappointed and am eagerly awaiting the author's new novel.

We start with the lead character, Jake Burnett, a jaded reporter living in New York City. He gets this idea to hunt down his favourite author, Horace Jacob Little, who has never given an interview and is famous for being a recluse. No one have ever seen him, no one has ever taken his photograph. He has no identification of any kind, no DMV record, not even a traffic ticket. By all accounts, Horace Jacob Little does not exist. Yet his writing proves otherwise.

Jake is curious, as many scholars are, why in the middle of his career, Horace Jacob Little takes his writing onto a completely different plane. Our reporter wants to find out what happened and who his author really is. Enter an old class mate from college. Andrew Wallace had a break down trying to find that same answer by analyzing the story that marked the change in Little's work. Is the story just that, a story? Or maybe it is the truth behind everything...

For a first time author, David Czuchlewski has created a set of circumstances that pulls the reader into his world and isn't about to let them go. His narrative is haunting and amazing. A splendid mix of sanity and schizophrenia, we are pulled into a world where nothing is what it seems and everything is a dream. I'm sure that this story will be carried with me for some time. And I'm glad of it. Everyone needs a story that makes them question reality, makes them question everything simply because the book forces you to look at things in a way that you never thought possible.