The Help

Our January discussion will be on The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

Happy Reading!

The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly - Review

Let me just start my review by saying that this may be the best book I've ever read. Not since 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' has a novel captivated me as 'The Tea Rose' by Jennifer Donnelly has done.

I do not feel I can do this book justice by providing any sort of plot synopsis as this is one of the richest, most plot-heavy, character-developed novels I've seen in a long time. If you're looking for a general summary of the book jacket, you can start here: Synopsis

This is not your typical 'women's lit'. True, the main character is a woman, and despite all the hardship she endures, she still pines over her childhood love. But unlike typical women's lit, this novel sends a message of independence and female empowerment. Our heroine makes it her life's mission to avenge her father's death, and in her quest forsakes marriage in favor of career (which was a big deal in the 1890s) and rises to be the most powerful tea baroness on two continents. It is only after she has fully realized her potential and accomplished her goals that she can return to London to enact her revenge and reclaim the love she lost years ago.

In short, this book made me want to visit London, learn the true story of Jack the Ripper, cherish my loved ones, start my own business, and of course, read the second book in this series - 'The Winter Rose'.  

20 Kids and Still Counting?! Seriously?!

I realize this post is controversial since so many people ADORE this family and all that they stand for. I, however, have a different opinion to which I feel I am entitled. Luckily, my viewership is so low that I'm not going to worry about offending the five people who actually read this blog.

I'm talking about the Duggar family who just announced that Michelle is pregnant with her 20th child! http://tv.yahoo.com/news/michelle-jim-bob-duggar-expecting-20th-child-144832226.html

The top 5 things that annoy me about the Duggar family:

1) The parents are selfish. They are having so many kids that it's forcing the older kids to take on parenting roles of the younger ones at too early of an age, rather than being silly, carefree children themselves. Let kids be kids!

2) They are too conservative. Ok - I get that they are Christian and Christians are taught to be conservative, but as such, the expectation is to "live IN this world, but not be OF this world". I've heard this expression multiple times throughout my life and it basically means you should ADAPT to the social climate to the extent that you are able but keep focus on your spirituality and not fall into the worldly traps of materialism, etc. They, however, are not adapting to the social climate but ostracizing themselves from it. Who wears a crew neck t-shirt underneath a very modest v-neck t-shirt?! People who somehow think the vision of a woman's collar bone drives men wild. Are they living in this world? No. They are living in the 1800s. Get with the times, Duggars!

3) This need to spawn as many children as possible is an ADDICTION. If the show were called "19 Cats and Counting", they'd be investigated as Animal Hoarders. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw that episode on Animal Planet. As I recall, they made the woman give up ALL of her cats because she couldn't control the need to "collect" them.

4) The world is already overpopulated. I guess they didn't get the memo. Talk to an urban family in China - They'll fill you in.

5) They have somehow become FAMOUS for procreating and established a sort of inverted bell-curve for society's acceptance of the number of children any one family has. As the number of children goes up - 6, 7, 8... society begins to turn its nose up: "Look at all those kids... It'll be my tax paying dollars that ends up supporting them!" (Remember how much hatred rained down on the Octo-Mom). BUT, as the number becomes astronomical - 15, 16 ... 20, society changes its tone: "Wow! What a marvel! What an accomplishment! Let's give them their own TV show!" It's a bizarre trend, and I fear many people will try to copy-cat this lifestyle in hopes of establishing their own fame. (See reason #4).

Jim Bob - Please... I BEG you... Stop the madness and GET CABLE!

You mean, the books are free?

Today, I went to my local library and checked out our next book - The Tea Rose. I haven't had a library card since the card catalog was still a thing. Typically when I'm looking for a book, I'll go straight to Barnes & Noble and buy it new, or if I'm trying to save a few bucks, I'll order it used on Amazon.com. Somehow over the years, I forgot that you can actually "rent" books, and when I got to the self-checkout machine (R.I.P. librarian careers), I automatically began searching for the place to put my debit card.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead - Review

Who's Pouring: Wine Diva
What's on Tap: Various red wines (I was too busy shoveling homemade chocolate-chip pumpkin cookies into my mouth to catch what the label said)

Vampire Academy was a little disappointing for me. True, my expectations weren't high -- this was just our "fun" book. But, I guess I was hoping for more excitement throughout the book. The bulk of the story centers around high school drama (girls being jealous/catty, who's popular/who's not, rumors, etc.). There is a smattering of magic stuff - teens and their element specializations (fire, water, earth), and a few vague explanations of who the different vampire groups are and what their function is (Dhampirs, Moroi, Strigoi), but none of that really held my attention. I found myself procrastinating just getting through this so much so that I read the last 175 pages the night before our discussion. Fortunately, this is when the story picks up.

Lissa is a Moroi, a royal vampire princess, and the Strigoi are trying to kill all the Moroi. Rose is her guardian-in-training who's learning how to protect her in the event of an attack. Lissa's actual guardian is 24 year old Dimitri. Despite the 7 year age difference (and general creepiness of grown man and teen girl), they are into each other, but he is too responsible to risk his job by acting on his feelings... UNTIL a magically enchanted object holding a lust spell appears in their lives and they can't resist indulging their passion. Well, as much as a Young Adult book will allow. Then, Lissa is kidnapped for her unique abilities and Rose is the only one who can track her because they share a bond which allows her to step inside Lissa's mind. The ending is somewhat exciting, but I still think the author could have done more with it...

Overall, the book was just ok. It severely lacked in character development and plot, so I doubt I'll be reading any more in this series.

I'm very excited about our next book - The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly. It's set in the 1880s in London, and while I don't read a lot of historical fiction, the prologue has already got me hooked. Right-o, Guv'nah!

Bring on Halloween

I had hoped to blog about the wines from one of my favorite wine bars, but I was only able to get one glass due to slower than expected service. It was a Chilean Chardonnay called Los Vascos with guava, apricot, stone fruit, and hints of sage. The waitress said it was "an unusual wine" but I really liked it. The last few times I've been to that wine bar I've always ordered Charles Chimicky Trumps Shiraz, which has been one of my all-time favorite reds. Wine Diva bought me a bottle of it recently, which I may crack open this weekend and enjoy on my patio while I dive into our Halloween-themed October book - Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead.

This Young Adult novel is not meant to be a thought-provoking work of literary genius but is supposed to give us a much needed break from all these books about suicide and death... Hmm - I wonder if a story about the living dead is the best choice...

Little Bee by Chris Cleave - Review

I'm writing up my thoughts before our discussion tomorrow, because we're meeting at one of my favorite wine bars, and I'm thinking I may want to do a second blog just about the wines... mmm...  Now on to my thoughts:

Little Bee was VERY different than I was expecting. After the first few chapters, I sensed that there was a gruesome story to be told, involving some horrible thing that happened on a beach in Nigeria. My mind went to the darkest place it could go... the Rwandan Genocide... so when the story was finally told, I couldn't help but think "is that it?"

But, let's back up. The story opens in a detention center where 16 year old Little Bee, the Nigerian girl who has learned the Queen's English, is being released after 2 years. She's been locked up for attempting to escape from her country and is only getting out due to (let's call it) a technicality, and she's trying to get to Sarah & Andrew. Who's Andrew? Well, he's the guy hanging from the ceiling... Did I mention there's quite a bit of suicide in this book? Anyway, the author circles back and tells both Little Bee's and Sarah's story intermittently, showing how they got to the place where they are when the book began, then moving forward in the present.

Sarah earned my respect when she tells the story of how she met Little Bee and what she sacrificed for her on that Nigerian beach. Oh, and Sarah's little boy is the shining star of this book! He wears his batman suit all the time to keep the "baddies" away and says the cutest things, sometimes heartbreaking...

Little Bee has had a hard life, and even though her story wasn't quite of  Rwandan Genocide proportions, it's still alot for one person to bear, and I found myself musing on the comedic words of Louie C.K. when he talks about 'White People Problems'. Here's Little Bee - crouching under an upside-down boat, thirsty and tired and listening to these horrible things happening to her sister and wondering when the men will come for her. Her life is so bad that the first thought she has upon entering a room is "if the men come for me while I'm here, how can I kill myself?" Now, here's one of my own Louie-inspired "White People Problems" - "OMG! I went to Starbucks today to get my Grande Half-Caf, Extra Hot, Soy Latte with Caramel drizzle and my iPhone was frozen so I couldn't use my gift card off the App!" Seriously? Oh, we're so entitled, aren't we? Meanwhile, people around the world are struggling just to live another day...

Global Awareness

I haven't finished reading Little Bee yet, but I'm wondering if some message in that book has slipped into my sub-conscious. I just read a story on Yahoo! that 43  people - mostly ice hockey players/coaches died in a plane crash in Russia. At first I gasped - because for some reason my mind filled in "Americans" into the headline. Then I realized they were mostly Russians, and I SIGHED. But why? I am no more impacted by the deaths of Americans I don't know as I am by the deaths of Russians I don't know... yet somehow, that distinction mattered. In acknowledging this, I felt guilty. So, I did something I typically don't do when I learn that someone has died -- I humanized them. I thought about the hard winter and (perceived) joyless life in Russia and how happy they must have been to find a sport they could excel at and see the world through, and I wondered how many of them had Olympic dreams... Then I cried.

Somehow I feel Little Bee is responsible for my new global awareness.

Confessions

Well, here it is... I've never read The Catcher in the Rye. In fact, I have no idea what it's about - only that it was required reading for most high school English classes in America, yet somehow, I missed out. My freshman year I decided to ease into honors classes, so I started with just honors history. About 3 days into English, I knew I'd made a mistake. My class was taught by a coach and his teaching techniques consisted of showing us sports-related movies for two days, then discussing the theme on the third day. After a discussion of Hoosiers that left much to be desired, I dropped the coach's class and added honors English.

I walked in to find that Ms. Polk ran a tight ship. I had to learn a whole page of Latin roots, define the unknown terms from a sheet of words that were all completely foreign to me, and read The Scarlet Letter for a test on Monday. Did I mention this was only 3 days in? As I sat at my house that weekend reading The Red Badge of Courage for history, I knew I was in way over my head. So, Monday morning, I tossed my unread copy of The Scarlet Letter to the side, returned to the coach's class and took my place in front of a TV showing Field of Dreams (hangs head in shame).

So, while I wait for Little Bee to arrive in the mail, I'll also be reading The Catcher in the Rye. Better late than never!   

Night Road by Kristin Hannah - Review

Who's Pouring: Love and Wings
What's on Tap: 337 Cabernet and Cupcake Chardonnay

Well -  the verdict is in, and Night Road by Kristin Hannah is AMAZING! It is LITERALLY the greatest book ever written. Sorry - had to channel a little Rob Lowe there. Ok, so this book was good... Will I remember it in a year? Probably not, but it was certainly emotional. At times, our readers threw the book across the room, sobbed hysterically on top of it, or even set it aside to write a heartfelt letter to a family member!

I'm not sure it's possible to comment on the book without completely divulging everything that happened, but it's pretty much everything you would expect from a Lifetime movie. The author has divided the book into two parts, which she cleverly calls "Part 1" and "Part 2". Personally, I think "Grief" and "Anger" fit better as dividing concepts... The first half of Part 1 is an angst-filled, coming of age teen drama, which Lady Jenevieve compared to Twilight. The second half of Part 1 is where everything goes to hell in a handbasket, and to avoid having to use the phrase "Spoiler Alert", I won't state what all that entails. Part 2 trudges through depression and sorrow as the events of Part 1 continue to affect the characters' lives, and then in just a few pages, everyone has their own epiphany, forgives each other and lives happily ever after. It was all wrapped up too neatly and WAY too fast.

Technically speaking, it wasn't the greatest writing. There were quite a few typos, painfully obvious foreshadowing (I can hear my writing prof now - "Show! Don't tell!"), and what appears to be an unintentional shift between Protagonists. Nevertheless, reading it took me on an emotional journey and resulted in a lively discussion, and for our first book, that's enough for me. 

Join us next month as we jump into Little Bee by Chris Cleave!

Welcome to Book Club!

Once a month, the young, fun ladies of Reading Between the Wines - DFW will gather to discuss their chosen work of fiction while sipping delicious wines. This month's book, Night Road by Kristin Hannah, was every bit the tearjerker I was expecting, but I'll save my review and commentary for after our first meeting.

To the women of Book Club -  Thank you for joining me in my new hobby and sharing in my goals to read more, drink more, make new friends, and restore my love of literature and writing. Can't wait!

To the blog-stalkers -  I welcome your commentary and book suggestions!

Happy Reading!