In writing this book, the author took the facts that were available about this actual incident in our American history and using his imagination created a story as it might have happened. It has been described by others as lyrically beautiful and as a book of astonishing poetic prose. I feel compelled to clearly state in the beginning that I did not find the prose astonishing or the story beautifully written. In fact, it was quite a struggle for me to read it. I guess this book just was not meant for me.

I am indeed grateful, however, that the First Impression program of Bookbrowse.com gave me the opportunity to read Paul Harding's book and thus initially introduced me to a part of the history of our country that I otherwise would have missed.

As a result of being introduced to the existence of such a community, I have since researched the history of Malaga Island and have confirmed for myself that this totally fictionalized story was indeed inspired by an actual historical event.

During my research, I discovered that another author took those same facts and imagined an entirely different sequence of events. I am reading that other book now (The Shadow in Our Bones by Tamara Merrill). In my opinion, this author is a much better storyteller and I feel confident that when I finish reading her book, I will give it a 4 or 5 rating.

The story in Harding's concerns an interracial community that successfully eked out a living in peace and harmony on a small island off the coast of the state of Maine for several generations from the late 1700's until the early 1900's. Then, in the hey day of the eugenics movement, a group of such believers convinced the governor of Maine that the community was a threat to society and all the people living on the island must be removed (using force if necessary). Otherwise, according to the group, the state of Maine would find that the mixing of the races had produced future generations of imbeciles, morons, and degenerates.

The truth is that there were some perverse relationships in the community and some eccentric citizens, but the findings of the eugenicists overlooked the fact that the current young people living on the island also included a mathematical genius, a little girl who was fluent in Latin, and a boy with an amazing artistic talent.

My problem with the book is the writing style of the author, however, I must admit that I probably don't have the credentials to criticize his style of writing when the authorities named him the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his debut novel which, as far as I can determine, was written with the same writing style.

Nevertheless, I found that many of his sentences were a source of confusion. Many of them are a paragraph long and at times during a sentence the author drifts off subject to throw in other extraneous information. Further, it bothered me that the author did not follow the normal pattern of writing such as use of quotation marks when appropriate.

I have decided to give this book a rating of 3 – but this may be an inflated rating.

I debated with myself for a long time about how I was going to describe how this book impressed me.

First, I will tell you that my very favorite kind of book is historical fiction and I enjoy those books which make history come alive for me. So, when I saw that the genre of this book was listed as historical fiction – I was certain that I would enjoy it. The fact that it was about WWI made me even more sure that t I would find it very interesting. I have read lots about the Civil War and WWII but not so many historical fiction books about WWI.

I read the publisher's description saying it was about an upper class British woman who decided to visit the battlefields in France and find out what really happened to her fiancé (who had been listed as missing in action.) In my mind I envisioned her traipsing through cemeteries and battlefields and trying to find individuals who were familiar with the events of the war, and I was not deterred by the references to her coming across barbed wire and rat infested tunnels. After all, I knew that stories set against the background of armed conflict are not necessarily pretty stories.

I was further warned by one review which said: "…she had read the book to read and learn more about WWI, but she had found the book to actually to be more of a thriller than a book for fans of historical fiction."

Now with that background, I have decided to give the author a rating of 5 stars for his skill in making the events in the book come to life. He displayed an amazing talent in conceiving the dark and gruesome plot. I usually feel disappointed if the historical fiction books I read fail to teach me something new about the period of history covered by the book. In this regard, one thing that piqued my interest was the fact that Edward became addicted to cocaine and opium during his military life. After finishing the book, I searched online to see how often this was ignored by those in charge. This led me to discover that use of mind-altering substances was often widely sanctioned and encouraged by our military in both World Wars to increase alertness and suppress appetite. I have been very naïve about this, but it came as a surprise. This and other aspects of the book will prompt many discussion areas for book clubs.

That said, I have also made a firm decision to give the book a rating of 1.5 stars as far as indicating whether I enjoyed reading the book. There are tons of interesting books available. Therefore, I prefer to avoid those that seem go overboard in including gratuitous raw and sickening descriptions. I understand, as General Sherman once said: War is hell. But I do not want to feel that I have been thrown into hell as I read a book. No thanks.

My favorite kind of book is historical fiction. Therefore, I have read lots of novels about the Nazi treatment of Jewish people during WWII; however, this is one is quite unique, and I really enjoyed it. In it an old woman sneaks in the Berlin apartment of young Nazi and his wife and steals their 2-year-old child. We are told that the identity of the baby is quite distinguishable due to a dove shaped birthmark and the color of her mismatched eyes -one is blue and the other is green.

The old woman names the child Yona and raises her in the woods teaching her how to survive in the wilderness: how to find food, how to treat illnesses and how to kill if it became necessary. She also teaches her about God, traditional Jewish customs and a variety of languages including Yiddish.

Then some 20 years later, Yona becomes instrumental in helping various Jewish people in their escape from the Nazi soldiers when she finds them in the woods. In this way, Yona is able to help many people survive the horrors of the mass murders of the Jewish people – but, of course, the number of people she is able to save is just miniscule compared to those who are brutally killed by the soldiers.
I enjoy imagining why publishers choose certain phrases to use in the titles of the books I read. There is one a paragraph in this book where the lives of various Jewish people are compared to the bright stars in the galaxy which are blotted out by the dark clouds of universe.

Even though this is a record of a very dark period of history, the author's writing style made the book easy to read and remarkably interesting. Further, in some small ways, this book reminded me of both the Sound of Music and Where the Crawdads Sing.

I certainly would recommend it.

Our author is a very distinguished writer. She is able to describe events and characters so that they become truly seem to come to life right on the pages of the book.

That said - I was very concerned by the fact that she openly and blatantly advocated communism in the book.

I have really debated with myself about what to say in this review. The problem is that, from the description of the book, I should have known in advance that I probably was not really going to enjoy reading it – so it would be hard to be really objective in my critique. And sure enough, I would read several pages and set it aside, pick it up later and reading several more pages and quit again. I am just not a person who enjoys being in contact with nature and the idea of two kids canoeing a river with rapids really turns me off.

Therefore, I did not enjoy reading about the adventure of two boy; however, to be fair to the author I guess he probably made that part of the book come alive for other readers.

On the other hand, I sincerely appreciated the human touches the author added to the story. I was able to emotionally feel the bond of friendship that the two boys had for each other. That bond was made even more realistic because the tension of the problems they faced caused them to strike out at each other at times. Furthermore, I was personally drawn into both Cal's personal battle with himself and his thoughts of the future as well as the love and concern that Fish's mother and grandfather felt for Fish.

So my rating is the average of a 5 for the human touches and a 2 for the adventure story.

This book is basically a story of the social life of two affluent American twin sisters during the 1920s and 1930s as well as also including the social escapades of their acquaintances. Further, depending upon your own personal point of view, the twins either lived exciting lives filled with romantic interludes involving a string of men with or without the benefit of marriage or else lived sordid existences with little value or meaningful contributions to the world at large.

One of the twins was Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, the wife of Reginald Vanderbilt who lived life to the fullest but ended up losing her legal right to raise her only biological child (Little Gloria – the famous fashion designer) due to her early choices to pass that child's nurturing to a nanny. The other twin was Thelma Morgan Furness who became a member of British aristocracy and eventually was the mistress of Edward, the Prince of Wales. Of course, we all are quite familiar with the fact that the Prince eventually abdicated the position of King of England in favor of having a married life with Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, who supposedly had been a friend of Thelma's. I must confess that I was quite familiar with the controversy the Prince faced over the royal family's disapproval of his marriage, I really knew very little about Thelma or relationship to Gloria Vanderbilt. So this part of the story was new to me.

I enjoyed the easy to read style of writing employed by the author – which made the book flow effortlessly; however, I was annoyed by the choice of the author to use the popular technique of alternating time periods skipping ahead to the trial for custody of little Gloria and then back to what was going on in the social world of Thelma and her twin sister. The switch in time periods actually was easy to follow – but I would have preferred a strictly chronological story.

The aspect that really drove down my overall rating of my pleasure in reading the book was that the author had been described as a writer of historical fiction and so I unwittingly was anticipating that the romantic element of the book would have been enveloped by descriptions of worldly political and historical events during the time period covered by the book. In my opinion, the book described their lives as if they took place in a vacuum.

If you enjoy scandal and a riveting social life, I think you will love this book. If you want something with more historical substance, I think you will not be satisfied.

I received this book as part of the First Impression activity of BookBrowse in exchange for my review of the novel.

The story in this fascinating book is about life in Germany beginning in 1933 which was just prior to Sept 1939 when WW2 officially begins as Germany invades Poland. So it not the typical story of the conflict and the Holocaust. It is also unusual in that it is told from the perspective of the main character who is eleven year old German girl named Hetty Heinrich whose father is editor of a German newspaper while also holding a high-ranking position in the Nazi organization.

Now for those of you who do not want to read another book about the war, it is important to realize that our story begins and ends before Poland is invaded. As we read the book, we are skillfully allowed to see the world through Hetty's eyes and thoughts. And if you have wondered how the German citizenry were lulled into accepting Hitler and his campaign of hate, this story will hopefully answer sine of your questions.

As the story opens, we learn that 11 year old Hetty has been brought up to truly idolize Adolph Hitler and to believe the Nazi party line concerning the wonderful future to be enjoyed by Germans under his leadership. We also learn that she and her brother Karl enjoy a close relationship and she is often invited to join Karl and his good friend Walter in their activities. Walter is described as a tall kid with blue eyes and blond hair and a kind, thoughtful, intelligent, and strong personality.

Whispers of anti-Semitism are introduced in the very first Chapter and build throughout the book. Hetty's idyllic vision of the situation begins to erode as she begins to questions some of the ideology being thrust down her throat at home, at school and in her youth group when Karl puts an end to his friendship with Walter and Hetty finds out that Walter is a Jew – one of those dirty, lying, cheating Jews.

By this time, however, Hetty has fallen in love with Walter and she must then make a choice whether she, too, will end her relationship with him or she will secretly violate the directives of her family and her country.

I read opinions about how similar the situation in German at that time was to the situation in our country today. We are a divided country with one side complaining about how detrimental the influence of the media and mass manipulation can be to the country while the other side is outraged at the apparent lack of compassionate support our nation is offering to people who are being denied basic human rights.

The book could prompt meaningful discussions about the two viewpoints.

This novel takes place from June 1944 to March 1945 during WWII. It concerns a 20 year old Czech girl who, as a result of love at first sight, runs off to marry an English POW who happened to be assigned by the Nazi's to work on her family's farm. It is a novel based upon the true story of this young wife her husband was recaptured and, disguised as a fellow male prisoner she accompanies him to a POW work camp. During the remaining 2/3 of the novel, the readers discover the unimaginable hardships of her daily life as a prisoner at what the author's research discovered was a "hell camp" because of overcrowding, malnourishment and hard work." She personally had to first live as a mute unable to speak a word or even let out any other type of sound in order to maintain her disguise as a male; plus, second, she endures the terror of being discovered during the necessary moments of urinating and taking care of her monthly menses.

I think the author does a wonderful job of telling this dramatic story by switching from first person to third person during alternating chapters of the book so that readers are able to understand not only her strength to undergo daily trials but to also gain the perspective of some other prisoners with whom they have shared her secret. Bearing in mind that this is based on a true story, the fact that those other prisoners were willing to sacrifice even their own lives to protect her makes this novel even more than poignant.

In the Author's Note at the back of the book, we learn that she never was able to discover the names of either the POW or the young Czech girl so, unfortunately, the story ends abruptly and we can only use our own imagination to know what happens following March 1945.

I am happy that I had the chance to read and review this book. I think I need to begin this review by giving a little background. In the era of the McCarthy hearings, I finished high school and began my college education. My life as a college student was vastly different than the life of a college student in today's world. I may have been especially naïve at the time but in 1955 I actually don't think many others my age (at least in West Virginia) followed national news and I don't think anyone I knew even thought of becoming active in politics or in any political organizations or groups. I began living in my sorority house in 1954 and I do not ever remember our new TV set ever being used to watch anything other than entertainment. I remember later hearing a few people talk about the McCarthy hearings and the black listed people but I did not witness those things first hand.

So I really enjoyed reading this book which made what I had missed back then come alive for me. I think the plot was believable and I felt as if I was given the opportunity to relive those years but this time with my eyes open. I also thought the character development was well done.

I would recommend that anyone interested in American History read the book. I believe that book clubs could enjoy discussing the book especially comparing the McCarthy hearings to a modern day hearing such as when Brett Kavanaugh's appointment to the Supreme Court was being challenged.

This is essentially the story about the life of young married couple who live in a small town in Pennsylvania. Harrison Graydon is a Doctor. He loves his wife and, for the most part, life is good except for his emotional trauma over the death of one of his patients during a routine appendectomy. Mia, his wife, is also a happy with her life except she is hugely disappointed that her latest attempt to have a baby ended once more in a miscarriage. It probably does not help that her career as an artist is not going anywhere.

But there is more. The focus of the story at this point turns to analyzing dreams. She has been having a recurring dreams about the same man. This part of the story fascinated me because I believe many of us have dreams which return again and again to the same situation. My recurring dream happens to involve me once again being a student who can no longer remember how to get into my locker or where my classes are. I have always wondered what this dream is trying to tell me.

The strange thing is that suddenly Mia one day sees the man of her dreams come to life in the grocery store. And then lo and behold she finds out that his name is Oliver and that he, too, has been having recurring dreams about her.

The author has done a great job keeping readers interested in finding out what fate has in store for these three people. Further, I think the twist at the end of the story will leave reader's with a sense of satisfaction but wanting more.

This book is an inspiring story of the strength, resilience, and courage of five particular female students out of a total of over five hundred. The five - two black and three white – had quite different backgrounds, talents, and ambitions and were part of the integration of females into the student body at Yale University in 1969. The book also includes informative information about the disparity of females at that time insofar as the Yale's total staff members and instructors. I read that the book followed five years of research and 80 interviews of people involved in this dramatic change and the author's well documented research is obvious in the chapters of the book.
Before I tell you about how I felt about this book, let me tell you something about myself. I am 84 years old and I faced prejudice against women in the work force back when I entered the work force in 1956; but I had to overcome it by working harder than any of the male peers in my field did. I also influenced my daughter (who happened to be born before women were admitted to Yale) to believe that she could do or become anything she wanted to become despite being female even though I do not remember ever specifically having a conversation with her about that subject. On her own, she chose to enter a man's field (becoming a pilot in the US military) and succeeded despite prejudice from the older military officers. By the way, the prejudice she felt was very much a generational thing – the men of her generation accepted her presence.
So now, let me tell you my views on the book.
I think it was a historical masterpiece for anyone who is looking for modern history of a gender free world. Her research shines out from start to finish and I feel much better informed now about the subject.
I enjoyed the writing style of the author. It was very easy to read and not filled with educationese.
On the other hand, I think that the approval and popularity of the book will vary according to where the reader falls in spectrum of the age of all reviewers. Many types of types of prejudices vary in accordance with the generation of the responder.

I had a great deal of uncertainty about how to write my review of this book. I could have begun it by telling about what I liked or instead what I did not like although you can tell by my rating that I felt obliged to give it a rather high rating overall. Actually, I probably felt more intense about one thing that made me uncomfortable about the book. So I will start there.
I really wondered why, with what I considered a unique story line, the author felt obliged to include mention at the beginning and the end of the story something that infers a lack of faith in the ability of humans to solve problems. This bothered me. I have the most unrealistic wish – and that is that my grandchildren will have an opportunity to experience life in a state of innocence and naivety as I did – which I know is entirely impossible due to computers and TV and atom bombs. Of course, they would face medical problems and lack the luxuries that I now take for granted but my parents only had to worry about keeping food on our table and did not worry about me being kidnapped to become a sex slave. It is my deepest wish that 60 years from today (2079) my grandchildren or my great grandchildren (neither of which exist today) will not have to live close to a bomb or missile shelter because we earthlings are at war with somebody. The author wisely did not elaborate on the nature of why the sirens were sounding – were we afraid of our neighbors or of UFO’s? Anyway – as far as I am concerned, I cannot say I really enjoyed the book with that worry in the back of my mind.
To balance that objection, I can say I really did enjoy the author’s writing style. Although the middle of the book sort of dragged a bit – I like what I will describe as her folksy style of writing. Her sentences do not go on and on for a whole paragraph – and her vocabulary matched mine – I am neither a Neanderthal nor a rocket scientist.
The book traces the mother and her 4 children through a lifetime – actually a lifetime plus. The narrator is over 100 and still seemingly active in life when the story ends. In following these individuals through their life we read about almost all the various kinds of love that humans enjoy. The only variety of love that I did not identify was agape love – the love that demands nothing of your partner. There was fraternal love, maternal love, erotic love, and occasionally brotherly love although the brotherly love often had strings attached. It does not, thankfully, become involved in the popular plot lines of homosexuality or transgender issues – or at least if it did I was not astute enough to recognize it.
And while it does involve explicit sex, although there was ample opportunity for the author to gain another audience if she had chosen to do it, nor did the author resort to trash talk. Thank you, MS Conklin for those choices.
Finally, I will admit that I had finished reading the whole book and decided to take time to review the thoughts of another reader before I realized that the Skinner siblings grew up as part of a dysfunctional family. When I realized it – I gave myself a “thunk” on the head and wondered how I had missed it. And one of their problems in life is that they were seemingly afraid to have open communication. That will be a subject I may want to go back and re-visit because I usually have no problems hearing those alarms as I read the book.
The story is told through the voice of Fiona, the youngest of the 4 siblings in the Skinner family from 1981 for the next 90 years, and spans decades as the siblings navigate through their childhood and adulthood and the events that shape them. As we go through the book the story branches out and we delve into the adult life of the each of the narrator’s siblings. They all face problems of some sort – either in forming relationships or becoming addicted to some sort of activity.
I appreciate the opportunity given to me by the publisher to give an honest review of this book.

For me personally, this was not a lovely read – although someone else might think it rates 5 stars. My problem was not the author's writing style. If she been writing another type of book, I might have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. My thoughts during the entire time I spent reading it was that this was a sick story – I am not interested in reading about searching for a suitable person to torture and kill.

I appreciated the opportunity to receive and read the book but I could hardly wait for the moment when I could finally tell myself - that I should not feel guilty about putting it aside and reading something more stimulating in a wholesome way. I only have one question – do you suppose that books like this are why there are so many youth and adults who do not hesitate to engage in violence?

I have some positive things to say about Sold on a Monday but I also want to talk about certain things about the book that bothered me.

First it is an interesting story although I think that no one is really going to be surprised by the "living happily ever after" ending. I would also call it an easy read where I could relate to the life experiences of the two main characters and I never lost interest as I read.

Ellis is a young man trying to get ahead on his job as a reporter at a newspaper. He seems to be driven by a desire to make good in order to prove his worth to his father. He has a personal hobby of taking pictures and one day as he was passing through a rural area he took a picture of two boys on the porch of a weathered farmhouse. Later he discovers that there was a sign leaning against the porch of that house advertising that the boys are for sale. Then, through a series of circumstances, Ellis makes an unfortunate decision and the deception created by that decision haunts him as time goes by. It is a good illustration of the old adage: Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when once we practice to deceive.

Lily is employed as a secretary at the same newspaper as Ellis. She has been living a lie in an effort to hide the existence of her young son who was conceived on the night of a dream date with a handsome young man. Lilly planned to give her baby up for adoption but she could not go through with that plan. Now she dreams of better paying job so that she can finally afford to live together as a family with her young son. Then, Lily unwittingly becomes a force in the deception that Ellis has created.

I think the author does a good job developing those two characters. I think the issues of deception, the love of a mother for her child, and the impacts that choices have on our life give the story some depth and the budding romance between Ellis and Lily gives it warmth. As another positive, I think the author succeeds in describing the stressful deadline driven life of reporters in the newspaper business.

The rest of the story is wrapped around those two people and that photograph and, as far as I am concerned, therein lies the problem that I had with the book. I think the author should have told us more about the two children and their mother that are involved in the story. The story of Ellis and Lily could have been told in an easy reading summer read – but the issues of what is treated as a side story could have made this a best seller. As written, we have very little opportunity to really experience the emotional wounds and despairs of those three individuals as it happens.
And if that side story has been brought front and center, the historical aspect of Great Depression would have come to life with the reader being able to sense the real difficulties of life during that period. After all it was that setting that made me want to read this book. I was not expecting another love story – I was expecting this to primarily be a historical novel about how hard times force tough decisions.

In summary, I think it was a good book and I enjoyed reading it and feel fortunate to have been given the opportunity to tell others about it. But I think the opportunity was there for the author to create a better book maybe even reaching up and making it one of the best.

This book was very disturbing because I can visualize it actually happening. I hated the story but I could not put the book down.
The premise of the book is that a radical arm of the religious right has taken control of our country and the laws of the land greatly restrict what females (regardless of age) are allowed to do. As a result, women are not allowed to travel or be employed. They also cannot have any access to books (even cook books) or any kind of written communication and they cannot watch TV or listen to the radio. School age females attend separate schools where they are taught to cook and keep house while being given zero academic training. Worst of all, all females are only allowed to speak 100 words a day with their speech monitored by an electronic bracelet capable of counting the number of words they utter and of administering a painful electric shock when the speech limit is exceeded. Females who violate these laws or who engage in appropriate behavior are imprisoned and forced to endure brutal living conditions.
The story line focuses on one wife and mother who had been an accomplished PhD scientist and her frustration and pain in living under such conditions. She suffers as she watches the life of her family become shattered. She also realizes that eventually for females the part of the brains which control language will most likely cease to function due to non-use.
The author did an awesome job of making the story line so authentic that I had to keep assuring myself that this was a tale of fiction.
The author explains two things in a foreword. First, she wrote this book as a cautionary tale about what could happen if we allow our Government to take away personal liberty bit by bit. Secondly, she hoped to make her readers aware of how blessed we are to have the gift of language.
Well, for me, she succeeded on both counts. I am glad I read this book and I recommend that everyone read it. I think you will be as disturbed by it as I was but it will make you aware of what could happen if our freedoms are not protected.

I was literally blown away by the experience of reading A PLACE FOR US by Fatima Farheed Mirza.

The book was quite different from what I expected. First, I need to explain that I am a senior adult who is looking as you say "in my rear view mirror" at my life and the life of my family. I am a Christian and my faith is quite important to me. Second, I knew the book was going to be about an American Muslim family and I had anticipated that it would primarily center on the prejudices they would face since our country is so judgmentally divided and full of hate today. So I anticipated I would need to be understanding as I read about a culture that was quite different from mine.

The book does have a few elements of prejudice but this is not front and center.

The thing that impressed me most about the book is that it is the story about a family facing the problems that many of us have faced as our children form beliefs of their own which sometimes are at odds with the values and traditions that we, their parents, hold very close to our hearts. The author wrote this book about a Muslim family, but the truth is the book could have been a Christian, Jew, Buddhist or Mormon family. The hurt would be the same – the guilt would be the same- the yearning of the parents for them to be "family" again would be the same.

I found the book to be a deeply moving account of those times when mistakes are made and for me the story rang with an authenticity that reached the core of my being.

I received this book as part of the First Impressions program at Book Browse.com and this is my honest review of the book.

This book was not what I expected. I saw in BookBrowse that it was categorized as a "biography/memoir" and I somehow expected something different than what this book turned out to be. I thought it would be more of the typical type of memoir about some part of the author's life with a little informative data about Indian cows. It turned out to mostly about milk and cows interwoven into a little bit of the typical memoir type stuff.

I did enjoy reading the assortment of experiences that the author had as she befriended the lady from whom she bought milk every day and I learned a whole lot about cows and their by-products, e.g. urine and "poop".

By the time I reached the end of the book, however, I was suffering from an overload of information about such things as which type of cow provides the best milk and other previously unknown facts and figures about cows in general and Indian cows in particular.

So now comes the question: Would I recommend this book? It may be sort of a cop-out, but I will put it this way: If you are interested in learning some interesting facts about the life of a cow in India, then I think this is surely the book for you. Or, if you are the type of person who just enjoys reading non-fiction books that can add to your overall knowledge on different subjects, then I think you might want to add this to your list. If, however, you have no reason to want to learn more about customs and mores of the cow culture of India, I am not sure this is the book for you.

I need to explain up front that I am a happy and healthy 83 year old woman living in a retirement community. Unfortunately, I have witnessed friends and family members reach a point in life where they, too, have become victims of dementia or Alzheimer's disease. Some of those people have struggled to find the way "home" and some have continued to live without seemingly being aware of the fact that they are "lost".

So, wow! How should I describe my feelings about this book? I usually can find the words to express my feelings about the books I have read, but this one really stumped me. The first word that comes to my mind is: "weird". I read another review that called the book heartwarming and fascinating. Not! The book left me feeling very uneasy.

The author made me feel as if I had been inside the brain of a 31 year old woman (Clara) who is facing the problem of how to deal with her fifty one year old mother (Tamar) who is suffering from early onset Alzheimer's disease. As I read the book, I identified with Clara and it was not a comfortable feeling. I should have identified with Tamar and I wish the author would have let me do that through flashbacks. So, how do you rate a book that left you feeling disturbed?

I think the author was able to describe the mish-mash of Clara's feelings of loving concern and yet deep seated resentment about why she and her mother have never been able to really know and understand each other. Yet, now that I have completed reading it, I am not sure I understand what has happened.

I am not good at figuring out the abstract – and, to me, the resolution of Clara's search is not clearly stated. I think Clara finally was able to find relief and an ability to look forward to the rest of her own life but I still feel somewhat confused. I don't think that was how the author wanted me to feel. I guess I am just not smart enough to grasp the message.

So I am going to give the book a high rating for artistry but just between you and me I cannot really say I enjoyed it.

When I read the description of this book on First Impressions in Book Browse.com, I thought it sounded interesting. Then when I received the book and skimmed through it I again thought I am going to enjoy reading this book; but then I started reading it.

The first 18 pages were not really part of the book. Instead I found out as I waded through those 18 pages (which I thought were depressing) these pages were portions of a book that Joan Ashby supposedly had written. Finally, I got to Page 1 of Chapter 1 of The Resurrection of Joan Ashby. I really feel quite confident that if I could have mustered the tenacity to continue, I might have gotten to the point of enjoying this book. I found out, however, that my 80 plus year old self decided that there were better ways for me to spend the next few days than going on with this struggle. So I did not finish the book.

I feel guilty about that. Let me tell you what my problem was. I discovered that I was having to read quite a few sentences a second time to make sure I understood them. The portion of the book that I read contained gigantic sentences. The champion in the length category (after I decided this was my problem) consisted of 280 words – in one sentence and it was quite easy to discover many runners up with 100 or more words. Heavens, surely the author could have achieved her purpose without making her reader’s struggle so much.

I read another review and discovered that this reader thought that possibly our author was the writer of a new classic. Trying to analyze why we had such divergent opinions, I concluded that the long sentences were the author’s method of making her readers actually experience how difficult and complex Joan Ashby’s own life was.

Anyway, this is my review. One day, when I am full of stamina I may attempt reading this book again. It really may be a classic. But right now, I am going to do something more exciting and liberating for me – like cleaning toilets or making my bed. Sorry.

I am puzzled about how I want to rate this book – I have very mixed feelings. So let me just list those feelings and then see what I liked and what I did not like:
1 – I liked Lauren Grodstein's style of writing – it seemed very informal. I felt like she and I were having a conversation instead of and it being the case of me reading a book she wrote. I may seek out of her other books to see if they are similar in style.
2 – I did not like the cover – to me, it was a complete turn off. It surely did not draw me in and I don't think I would have been inclined to pick it up to see what it was about. I guess the blue blobs are supposed to be clouds but I am not sure. I don't' think it is attractive nor is it inviting.
3 – I also did not like Karen Neulander. I realize that I have never been in her position – facing pain, death, and the knowledge that she would never be able to watch her son grow up and become a man. However, until the very end of the book she concentrates entirely on satisfying herself. Even her purpose in writing this memoir for her son is self- centered – it is not her purpose to give him morals to live by or citizenship tips. Instead it is her purpose to tell him about herself – supposedly, so he would know how much she loved him. I think her angst about her son becoming close to his father was based on her jealousy over that relationship extending into the future while her life with her son was near over. I got rather tired of her pity parties.
4 – I know I am going to sound like a prude, and I guess I am, but her constant profanity throughout the book bothered me. Especially – the "f" word and using the name of God and Jesus as expletives. She is writing the book for her son, for goodness sakes. What a horrible example to set for your son. Then I came to Page 234 – and she explains there that she is a Jew who does not believe in God. That explained a lot of things to me – about her love of self and her priorities in life; but it did not make me dislike her any less.
5 –I think this would be a good book for a book club. There are a whole lot of issues to discuss: e.g. should a political candidate's personal life be important in election decisions or should those decisions be based upon who will do the best job in office and is claiming to be a "Jew and an atheist" an oxymoron? I did some surfing after I finished the book and I found this quotation: "60 percent of American Jews believe that Judaism is mainly a matter of ancestry, culture, and values, rather than of religious observance. Hmmm? If there is eventually a Discussion Guide for Book Clubs published, this conundrum might be included in the guide.