Children are often much more imaginative than adults. This can lead to horrible things like nightmares, but in books their inventiveness often keeps them alive where adults have failed; especially in coming-of-age novels. The Book of Lost Things manages this idea exceptionally well.

In this story, David has recently lost his mother and longs to have her back. He’s also gained a younger sibling and a step-mother whom he in uninterested in. He copes by escaping into books, a medium his late mother had often praised. As he delves deeper into this story-world the lines between reality and fiction blur and David believe himself to be entering a new world. Here he encounters new dangers that threaten the family he resents.

As David becomes more involved in trying to survive as well as protect his friends in this world and his family in the next, he begins to grow up. With astounding rapidity he must face his own fears, learn to solve problems and finally is left to fend for himself. His ingenuity often saves him while he learns the rules of things. It’s sad that as we learn the rules we often forget to be inventive, which is why I believe coming-of-age novels are so popular. They allow us to experience the best of both worlds.

This novel follows the normal template without being overly trite or entirely predictable. The author’s own inventiveness and word choice bring the story to life in a way that most books fall short of. Connolly does not pull any punches in telling his story, death and depravity are not hidden from the young boy yet nothing is obscene, just realistic. This book receives my whole hearted recommendation.

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A Simple Plan

This book has disaster written all over it. From the way that the characters keep slowly talking themselves into things and revising their thought processes, you can always feel the slow drift away from their originally good intentions. A Simple Plan remind us that rarely are things so simple.

In Scott Smith’s novel, a group of men find a bag of abandoned money. They argue over what to do with it, trying to determine what’s right. The beauty of this book is how many ways it finds to present the concept of what is “right”. Without giving away details, I’ll give an example from an ethics class I took that also illustrates this point. One classmate said it was wrong to pollute because it could hurt people. Another argued that it was a company’s duty to pollute so that legislation could be enacted that would protect the people from any company polluting. So which is truly “right”? One company protecting the people near it, or a company which forces a government to protect all its people?

In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to ask these questions. However, this world is full of humans and therefore can’t be perfect. As the story progresses it is fraught with tension. Each person is afraid of getting caught or getting turned in. Each person has their own sense of how to handle the situation correctly. Each person has a different opinion of what is morally right.

Each person does not make it out alive.

Smith’s book is an in-depth look at how horribly people can behave whether or not they think what they are doing is right. It’s an engaging read and one that I recommend wholly.

- Kristin Diverxtrme

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David Sedaris’ latest book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is a must read. For those unfamiliar with Sedaris’ previous work, the author specializes in hilarious stories of his family and anecdotes about every day life. Each story brings with it a familiarity; these characters are just like the characters you know in your own life. Well, maybe not JUST like them, but Sedaris brings out the humanity in each of the people he writes about so that you can love them or spite them right along with him.

His most recent novel includes anecdotes about a crotchety neighbor, vacationers in France and Sedaris’ own battle with quitting smoking. These stories are told with such brilliant wit that there is no way to stop reading. I’d go into more detail, but I’d hate to ruin a punchline by trying to prove myself right.

I started this book waiting in an airport for our plane to begin boarding. My husband, listening to his iPod, repeatedly admonished me for laughing so hard I was shaking his seat. I’m sure others around me may have wondered what was wrong with me, but I didn’t care. The joy of this book is entering a world where you don’t care what others think, you just get to sit back and observe the idioscynchracies of life.

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

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Each of our lives is bound to spiral and turn to a certain degree. We do not know where we’ll eventually wind up, which is what makes choosing a path so hard – we do not know where it ends. As such, Linnet Gow, makes some remarkably brave decisions in The Linnet Bird.

As a woman in her era, Linny seems to have few life paths before her. She has few opportunities for independence. She begins life in one of the poorest neighborhoods in England with a bleak future ahead of her. Yet, with every choice she has, she inches closer to being her own woman. This journey through several countries leads her through an amazingly complex series of events that seem to be set in motion with the first page of the story.

Linny’s reactions at the beginning of the book are very reactive and survival based. She obediently obeys her step-father no matter what she is asked to do, for fear of ending up alone on the street. But compared to what he asks of her, being on the street would not be such a terrible fate. She is truly as caged as the bird after which she is named. Slowly, she begins to make more proactive decisions and ultimately takes control of her own destiny.

This glimpse into the life of a strong woman in a time when women were supposed to faint at the first glimmer of inequity is completely moving. Linda Holeman pulls no punches while telling us this tale, and we are all pushed to examine our own choices. Is there a moment when we would decide it is easier to be taken care of than to fend for ourselves? This book is an excellent examination of what truly makes a person captive or free and where your choices can lead you. It also serves as a reminder that evil is around any corner and that you can only control your own choices and thus your own destiny. A great read, highly recommended.

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

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The beginning of this novel is much like starting a new job. You think: Who are these people? Why are they so paranoid? Why are they so neurotic? But slowly, slowly you get sucked into the insanity. For really, what is work without the insanity? Then We Came to the End is engrossing the same way that workplace gossip is an addiction.

This novel focuses on a Chicago advertising firm that is consistently laying people off in an attempt to keep itself afloat. The timeline jumps back and forth which may be confusing to some, but is reminiscent of how you learn about your co-workers: one story about what they’ll do this weekend, one story about a project from a year ago. This keeps the book populated despite the layoffs that are occurring, but also brings us into the fold. We are learning about these people, these teammates the same way that we would if we were working with them. They are interesting and once we’ve become part of it we can’t help but want to know more.

There is a heart breaking middle section to the book that is extremely well written, but seems to come out of nowhere. It is a completely different pace than the rest of the book and focuses on one particular person’s issues rather than the groups. At the end of the book this section is tied back in, but it still does not seem to entirely fit with the rest of the writing.

In the end, both section of this book are engaging and touching, although in vastly different ways. This book is worth reading for anyone who has ever worked in an office and thought they knew everything about those around them, until they find out they know everything but what matters.

Add Then We Came to the End to your rental pool!

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

This book has a lot of potential. It filled my mind with questions, and urged me to read on. However, those answers finally came, they seemed ill-thought out and rushed. It was as though the authors of House has chosen the first clichéd ending that came to mind and rolled with it.

The book centers on the story of a married couple who are facing issues in their marriage, as well as their own personal demons. They become stranded and venture to a nearby house to use a phone. There the meet another couple in the same situation. Their brief attempts to find rescue go nowhere, and soon they find themselves in a confusing world with a man intent on killing them stalking them through the house.

Needless to say, this is no ordinary house. If it were the book would probably have gotten a different title. The house becomes an entity in and of itself, changing to represent each person’s individual nightmares. This is intriguing. You think you’ll find out more of their character by what they see, you’ll get more back story, more depth. Sadly, I never really felt that I did. Again, facts are thrown out but they never truly seem to explain the characters’ motivation or history.

I was strangely hopeful that this book would continue to be as compelling as it started out to be, but I was disappointed in the final forty pages. This would make for a good plane read if you like the supernatural.

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- Kristin
Diverxtrme

Everyone has a story. That’s the premise of The Knitting Circle. Which is true. We all have a story and have all overcome our own personal tragedies. It’s how they are told that makes them worth reading or not.

Our lead character, Mary, lost her daughter. It was an accident, truly no one’s fault. When one loses a child though, fault doesn’t seem to truly matter because that child is still gone. Mary’s mother convinces her to learn to knit as a sort of therapy. Something to keep her mind off things; something that is not overly strenuous that will occupy her mind. Her mother encourages her to knit to save her life. An admirable goal.

Through a knitting circle she joins, Mary meets a group of people who are not all that they appear to be at first. But then, who is? Slowly, she learns their stories. While knitting they explain to her why they began to knit. The phrase “I knit to save my life” is uttered over and over. Don’t any of these people simply enjoy knitting? No, they all have various heart wrenching tragedies that pushed them to knitting.

I have no doubt that this activity has been helpful to some in getting over their grief; that it can take one’s mind of their problems. It just seemed contrived that no one in the group had the types of issues you hear about every day. Those issues can sometimes need relief as well. However, that would not be conducive to the story. The pieces all fit together a little too neatly, a little too forced. They are not knitted into the beautiful tapestry they could have been.

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

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Alice Sebold has written some daring books in the past. This one meets that standard as well, although it does not meet its mark as easily as some of her other works. Sebold’s third novel, The Almost Moon, takes on the complications of family life, its beauties and its horrors.

The first sentence of the book is obviously meant to shock; frankly the book as a whole is shocking. The main character, Helen, seems to be both amazed by and resigned to her actions, as though she knew she always had this in her but is surprised to finally let it out. Perhaps she always thought that this is where she would end up.

The problem I found with this novel, was that as a reader, I was never shocked. I was vaguely interested in what would happen next, but after chapter after chapter of shocking events nothing seems all that radical anymore. Helen’s lack of foresight became tiresome as well. If a character is going to take such extreme measures, it would be appreciated if they would think about them, or at least seem to care about their fate.

The book also jumps from distant past to present to near past in a matter of sentences. This can be difficult to keep up with at times, but provides an interesting aspect to the story, as though all the events therein are woven together into the fabric of the characters life. Her family’s pain, and hers, and her daughters’ are all meshed together to become one. This style reinforces the concept that Helen was always going to wind up at this end, with no escape from her own actions.

This book is a good, junk food for the brain kind of read. Definitely an interesting read, if not one that will change your life. The topic is dark, so I would not recommend for the squeamish.

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

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God Bless Jenny McCarthy. Never thought you’d hear those words in a book review, huh? Autism rates around the country have risen at a dramatic rate in recent years. I use the word dramatic because I can’t think of one more severe. Perhaps enormous or shocking may do the trick. Many people hear this and figure that it’s someone else’s problem, but as a woman planning to have a child someday, this is a problem that may someday be my own. Louder Than Words, McCarthy’s latest book, is raw and true. There’s nothing more vital to an epidemic than truth. What McCarthy does by opening up her journey to the public is incredibly brave and extremely worthwhile.

I noticed my queue has been giving me a lot of memoirs lately. Memoirs generally indicate that you will be reading an in-depth story about someone else’s pain. A real person’s pain, not some fictional character whose tragedies you can shuffle away quite as easily. I both loved and dreaded receiving this book after the past few I’ve read. I desperately wanted to know more about autism and why 1 out of 150 children born today are diagnosed with this disease. Yet I wasn’t sure I wanted another person living in my head, reminding me of what they’d been through. So, hesitantly, I picked up the book to immerse myself in another person’s pain.

But it didn’t happen. Not fully. McCarthy’s direct look at this disease is rough to take, sure. But she’s honest about her joys, her anger, her pain in a way that makes this feel like you’ve joined Team Jenny. You want her to win, you want to know how she can help her son Evan, you want her to punch that doctor in the neck.

I sped through this book, wanting to find answers along with our protagonist. It is written in very a human way, like a long conversation in which you are completely engrossed. As painful and scary as the tale is, it is a marvelous book. I couldn’t put it down and I spent the last several pages thinking to myself “I’m buying this book. And every other one she’s written.” I can’t wait to read McCarthy’s other works now that I’ve read this. I’m tempted to buy it for everyone I’ve ever met so they can know how much attention this disease deserves, but I’m pretty sure most people will think it’s someone else’s problem.

- Kristin
Diverxtrme

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I’ve wondered for a long time if I have what it takes to kill a man. Part of me has always believed that it is innate in our nature to kill for our own survival, but I’ve always been fascinated by stories of Quakers who were so anti-violence that they would let themselves be murdered rather than strike back. This does not seem natural; in fact it seems downright ludicrous. A Long Way Gone tells Ishmael Beah’s own story of his life in a war torn country, and he seems to answer this question for me. It would seem that depending on what horrors you have seen, what lies you have been told and what hope for escape you have, just about anyone can become apathetically ruthless. Except Quakers, of course.

This book hit home for me in many ways. It enforced my belief that the scariest thing in the world is a teenage boy with a gun in his hands and a belief that he is entitled to something. What that something is differs among countries and cultures, but that sense of entitlement allows them to justify the means for the ends. As this terrifying mentality seems to be popping up in more and more countries through out the world, including our own, I think this book is crucial to read. It illustrates the struggle to maintain one’s humanity in the worst of circumstances and how easy it is to let it slip away. However, it also demonstrates that one man can make a difference and that aid organizations can help to solve the problem one child at a time. We risk our humanity if we do not at least consider our own reaction in these situations and how we can work to ease the problem now. As a result, I think the book is a must read.

That said the book was not the easiest thing for me to read. I often felt that while the country was war torn that the story lagged. Of course, at points it had to in order to tell the more introspective side of things. The author seemed hesitant to delve into the acts which he had committed as a boy soldier. While this is understandable, I felt it made the book somewhat less effective without more of a first-person look at the psychology of how you bring yourself to committing those deeds. Do you steel yourself every time? Does it ever register that something might be wrong now that you are so comfortable taking lives? It reads as though the author felt that his body was on auto-pilot, committing acts that his brain would not allow him to think about, and that definitely shows in the writing. The entire section of the book where Beah is actively involved in the war feels as though it is told on auto-pilot, which was difficult for me to reconcile with what I imagine had occurred. I wished thoroughly through out the book that I felt like things were moving more. Things were always happening, and yet they did not seem real or like a development. I can see how some could make an argument for the book being written in this manner, but it was extremely difficult for me to continue listening to such atrocities in such a passive voice.

Additionally, there are characters who are with us for a large portion of the book, yet we are constantly being reminded of who they are: the oldest, the quiet one, etc. This began to grate on my nerves. Being introduced to them once or twice would have been fine since we meet several at once. Being reminded nearly every time they are brought up again becomes tedious.

Ultimately, I do think this book is a necessary read and sheds some light on issues that many of us have not previously considered. However, one should be very aware of what they’re renting when they take this book out. It is not action-packed; it is merely heart-breaking.

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