Review: Things I Want My Daughters to Know

Title: Things I Want My Daughters to Know
Author: Elizabeth Noble
Category: Fiction
Rating: 2/5
Summary: A mother dying of cancer writes letters to her husband and each of her four daughters, then keeps a diary in her last days. Her daughters receive the letters and the diary after she passes away and have to reconcile their mother's advice with what's going on in their lives.

Review: I had trouble getting into this story. It had so many different "main" characters that I didn't feel a real connection with any of them. The book switches point of view among the 4 daughters and the husband. (Unless you count all the letters and diary entries from the mom—that would make 6 points of view.) Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if you had a little more time to spend with each character before being switched to the next one, but the switches were too frequent for me to settle into a character.

The story itself is fine, but what's a story without a character you can settle into?

I also had a hard time reading some of the dialogue. Sometimes there wouldn't be a paragraph break between text describing the actions of one character and the speech of another character. So I'd misunderstand and think the first character was the one saying it until I got further in the conversation and realized that I was off by a character. Also, when more than two people were talking, the dialogue wasn't always attributed so I had absolutely no idea who was saying what.

All in all, not a horrible book but also nothing to write home about.

2008 Books in Review

This year, I read almost as many books as the previous 2 years combined. 70 was the grand total for the year. (Who knew having a kid would give me more reading time?)

I'm always looking for book recommendations, so tell me: What were your favorite books last year?

Okay, okay. I'll go first. My two favorites of the year also make it to my all-time favorites list, so I would highly recommend them to anyone and everyone:

• Nonfiction: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
• Fiction: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

And there are a few more I'd recommend to specific folks...

For the Kids (or Kids at Heart)

• Feathers
  
• Flush
  
• Olive's Ocean
  
• The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (start with The Penderwicks)
  
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard
  
• Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
  
• The Underneath

For the Teens

• The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
  
• Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing (start with A Great and Terrible Beauty)

And go ahead and read the Twilight series. It's not the best stuff in the world, but it's fun as hell.

For the Aspiring Writers

• How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights
  
• No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days
  
• Writer Mama: How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids

For the Expecting or New Parents
Yes, I know you're tired and/or have a lot to do. But these are all worth it, I promise.

• Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love
  
• Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk
  
• The Diaper-Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative
  
• Good Nights: The Happy Parents' Guide to the Family Bed (and a Peaceful Night's Sleep!)
  
• The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer
  
• Nursing Mother, Working Mother
  
• The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child

For the Other Parents

• Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
  
• Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family

Finally, Some 2008 Stats
I tend to read a novel or two in between every nonfiction book, so these numbers make sense:
Fiction: 66%
Nonfiction: 34%

And here's the breakdown within the fiction category:
Adult fiction: 13%
YA or kids' fiction: 87%

Review: American Wife

Title: American Wife
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Category: Fiction
Rating: 2.5/5
Summary: The fictional life story of a First Lady.

Review: The author doesn't hide the fact that this story is based on the life of Laura Bush—she even has a note at the beginning to get it out in the open. I found it intriguing to read about a person like Mrs. Bush because I've always wondered how someone so obviously smart and thoughtful ended up married to someone not terribly smart or all that thoughtful. (Sorry to be so blunt, George, but I think even you would agree those aren't your strengths.)

I love historical fiction, but in the end this book's intersections with history were a little too recent for me to truly enjoy the story. At first, at each of those intersections, I found myself thinking "Oh, haha! That's just like Bush, how clever!" But I quickly grew weary of those intersections because each time, they put a wall up between me and the story. A wall that reminded me I was reading a novel based loosely on a real person whom I see in the news on a fairly regular basis. I could never really fall completely into the story and the characters. This was especially the case during the sex scenes between the main character and her husband, of which there were more than I'm used to. (I guess that comes from reading so much children's/young adult fiction.) Anyway, during those scenes, I couldn't not think of Bush and his smirking jauntiness. Shudder.

Overall, this was an entertaining read, but I never really connected to the main character in a meaningful way.

Review: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

Title: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
Author: Janelle Brown
Category: Fiction
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: Mom Janice, 20-something daughter Margaret, and 14-year-old daughter Lizzie come together as each of them deals with her own personal crisis—a divorce, crushing debt, the consequences of trying to earn popularity.

Review: I read this book on the recommendation of an employee at BookPeople, my favorite Austin bookstore. And if you think the cover looks yummy, just wait til you get a taste of what's inside!

The book alternates point of view among the three main characters, and I found myself most looking forward to the 20-something daughter's sections. I'm no longer 20-something (sigh) but I identified with her character most of all. She grew up in Quintessential Suburbia (Plano, anyone?) but developed into a feminist, liberal woman with aspirations of success in the publishing world. Hmm.

Even though I was drawn to that one character, I loved all the main characters and could see myself in each of them.

This is one of those books that made me into Bad Mommy because I couldn't resist the temptation to sneak a passage here and there while "playing" with Abby. (It's good for her to see me reading books, right?)

Review: The Host

Title: The Host
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Category: Fiction
Rating: 3/5
Summary: An alien race has infiltrated Earth by using humans as host bodies. One of the last surviving humans is captured, and a "soul" is inserted into her body. But she's not ready to let go of her body, and she's certainly not going to make it easy on the intruder who's taken it over.

Review: This woman tells a great story, that's for sure. This book hooked a finger in my shirt and yanked me in with no mercy—just like the Twilight series. The difference is when I read the Twilight series, Abby was taking 30-45 minutes to eat every two hours, so I had plenty of time to read. Now she's 5 months old and taking only 10 minutes to eat every 3 hours, so that means much less time to read.

But—and I realize I'm self-nominating for the Bad Mother of the Year award here—I couldn't put this book down when Abby finished eating so I would dangle a rattle in one hand and use the other hand to read just.one.more.paragraph. Of course, that always led to another paragraph, and another, and another.

This story has the perfect love triangle—the host body is in love with one man and the alien living in the host body is in love with another.

With all that said though, some things in this book did disappoint me. Sometimes, I felt like there was too much descriptive text—I found myself skipping over descriptions of how the main character was feeling so I could get to the action. I guess I wanted more showing, less telling in some places.

But my bigger problem with the book is that, just as with the Twilight series, the main character's weakness really annoyed the crap out of me at times. I got a little tired of her getting hurt and being carried around by one of her two love interests. And I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending isn't exactly a stellar example of strength.

On a petty and shallow level, I was hoping to get what we haven't gotten in the Twilight series (yet at least—I haven't read Breaking Dawn), if you know what I mean. This is an adult book, for pete's sake.

But even with all that said, the story was intriguing and I'm glad I read it. It was a great ride.

Review: Shelf Monkey

Title: Shelf Monkey
Author: Corey Redekop
Category: Fiction
Rating: 3/5
Summary: A clinically depressed bookworm gets a job at a mega-bookstore.

Review: Witty at every turn. I liked all the book and author references, although I wasn't familiar with a lot of them. (And I thought I was a bookworm!) I didn't really believe the main characters' actions at the climax, but it was still an enjoyable enough read.