Katie's Bookcase

Bossypants by Tina Fey

July 24, 2013 by Katie 9 Comments

I like Saturday Night Live.

Ok. That is not really an accurate statement.

I really really love SNL and if you play against me in the SNL Trivial Pursuit, I will hand you your booty on a platter. And I won’t be a good sport about it.

Out of all of the glorious female cast members over the past 35 years, Tina Fey is one of my favorites. I think it’s because she started out as a writer. She was only cast to do the news with Jimmy Fallon. She was head writer. She was brought back after she left to play Sarah Palin. She…well, she is weird and awkward and hilarious and I want her confidence.

I had put off reading Bossypants because…well, I have no idea other than I didn’t want to buy the hard cover version, but I also didn’t want it for my Nook. I wanted to own it. So when I found the tiny paperback version for like $4.99, I was on it.

I love the way Tina Fey writes.

I mean, I love the way she acts too because she just doesn’t care. That is the best actor. The one who will look like a total fool and just go with it.

But I love her writing.

She is funny, yo. Her sketches on SNL are killer, and reading her words about her own life? So awesome.

She writes about her life the way I wish I could. I could hear her voice as I read the book. I pictured her mannerisms as she delivered stories about her dad, about Lorne Michaels, about working for Second City, about having a child.

The book is set up almost as little vignettes. No, not vignettes, but each chapter is a separate story about her life and she usually has a point to it. Some bigger life lesson. I know, that sounds “after school special” to say, but there really are lessons she has learned looking back that she is giving to the reader. She doesn’t choose stories that have not changed her in some way.

She begins, well, at the beginning. She tells the readers a snippet about her family, but not too much. She doesn’t over share stories that are not her stories to tell. She focuses on all the awkward that is the teen years and even into college. About being the smart brunette during a decade that celebrated the flighty blondes.

Her views about feminism and the glass ceiling are serious ones, but she delivers these hugely serious–IMPORTANT–points with hilarious stories and personal anecdotes. I think my favorite chapter on being a woman was “Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That” where she gives the readers lessons and tips for how to survive a photoshoot. She tells about all the uncomfortable things like not fitting into the sample sizes and feeling not really worthy to be there. But she also doesn’t hide that it’s actually fun (free coffee and getting pampered). She talks about loving Photoshop and that feminists to the best Photoshop because “they leave meat on your bones”.

I also love how she loved on the people she worked with over the years, especially her BFF and partner in crime from the days of Second City, Amy Poehler. I admit to loving the name dropping.

I love how she talks about her daughter and her husband. I love that she shares her doubts as to whether she wants another baby…or if she could even do it with how much other responsibility she has in her life.

She is so honest and funny.

And I think I just went all fan girl on her.

Who are your favorite celebrities and would/have you read their book?

Filed Under: Memoir, Nonfiction Tagged With: Bossypants, humor, Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey

Does This Church Make Me Look Fat by Rhoda Janzen

July 17, 2013 by Katie 4 Comments

“The stories we surround ourselves with can either move us forward or hold us back. A word in the mind is like a pebble in the shoe: both can bring our journey to a full stop.”

Because I enjoyed her first memoir, Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, so much, I was eager to read Rhoda Janzen’s follow up, Does This Church Make Me Look Fat.

While her first book took a quirky and funny look at what it was like to go back to her parents’ Mennonite lifestyle after living a scholarly, very NOT Mennonite life for so long, this book had a more serious tone.

Oh Janzen was still amusing and used funny anecdotes to illustrate her points, but this memoir picks up into her next journey in life: meeting a new man, falling in love, getting breast cancer, getting married, fighting breast cancer, and finding her way back to religion.

Many reviews I read were disappointed with this book because it didn’t deliver the laughs the first one did. While I agree the topic isn’t as light, I disagree that it didn’t deliver.

While I have not been dumped by my husband for a guy named Bob on Gay.com, nor do I have Mennonite roots, nor am I married to a man with a teenage son, I do live in the same town Janzen does (she’s local to me! Holland, Michigan…holla!), I’m an English teacher with the degrees and countless hours of interpretation and criticism to back it up, and I tend to share a similar scholarly, liberal view of the world. But mostly I could relate to how she grappled with organized religion.

Much like her first book, Does This Church Make Me Look Fat, Janzen tells her story through chapters that are themed on a particular aspect of her journey. For instance, when she tells about how attending her boyfriend’s church for the first time, she fills the chapters with personal anecdotes about what going to church was like growing up in the Mennonite church. She contrasts that with how different services seem here, and she does it humorously. From the stringent, quiet rules of Mennonite worship to the joyful, expressive worship she experiences now, the reader is put into those services.

One of her main struggles with religion is the organizedness of it (yes, I made that word up). The rules and the rituals are what first drove her away, but are now what also draw her back in. As an academic, she still battles ideas about the Bible and taking it literally versus figuratively, but she is willing to set aside the arguments for something bigger: spiritual fulfillment.

“Overinvestment in the life of the mind had brought me neither peace nor joy. I was ready to try something else. I decided to sit very still and see what God would do with this new circumstance.”

Like I said, I really identified with this book and I am glad my mom introduced me to Rhoda Janzen’s writing. I would never have imagined that I would enjoy reading about someone’s “spiritual journey,” but her heart vs mind struggles are similar to mine.

Do you struggle with religion vs spirituality?

Filed Under: Memoir, Nonfiction Tagged With: does this church make me look fat?, humor, religion, rhoda janzen

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons

June 26, 2013 by Katie 19 Comments

Oh but I do remember when I was scared. Everything was so wrong like somebody had knocked something loose and my family was shaking itself to death. Some wild ride broke and the one in charge strolled off at let us spin and shake and fly off the rail. And they both died tired of the wild spinning and wore out and sick. Now you tell me if that is not a fine style to die in. She sick and he drunk with the moving. They finally gave in to the motion and let the wind take them from there to there. ~Ellen Foster

The cover of Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons has a quote from Walker Percy claiming, “Ellen Foster is a southern Holden Caulfield…” That is what hooked me. A female, southern Holden? Sold.

Other than the fact that they were both on their own throughout the novel, there really were no similarities.

Holden was a wealthy, prep school kid who was suffering from PTSD and probably depression after the death of his brother Allie. Ellen Foster is dirt poor and lives with an abusive drunk father and a mother who is too sick (probably from the father) to fight back for either of them. Eventually Ellen becomes orphaned.

Holden was a teenager, Ellen was about ten.

Holden chose to runaway for a weekend. Ellen chose to keep fighting for her own destiny which sometimes involved leaving places.

Holden was a victim of the terrible mental health system for everyone, but mostly for kids in the 1940′s. Ellen was a victim of poverty, abuse, and a system that favored family ties over the good of the child in the late 1980′s.

Enough about the differences between the books and on to why Ellen Foster is a great read.

The title character, Ellen Foster, is an upper-elementary school aged child who tells the extraordinary story of how she went from living in fear and poverty to predictability and comfort…the story of how she came to live with her “new momma.”

She doesn’t beat around the bush with how awful her life was as a little child: “When I was little,” the novel begins, “I would think of ways to kill my daddy.” She then goes on to talk about how she wouldn’t feel bad if he died and how nice it would be to have him out of the way. She also tells the reader about her sick mom, her best friend who is black and lives in the “black part of town” (the novel takes place in the South), and how she gets passed around her awful family after she can no longer live with her parents.

Gibbons does a remarkable job at putting this first person narrative into the mouth of a 10-year old, perhaps that is why Ellen Foster has been compared to Holden Caulfield. The way Salinger wrote from Holden’s perspective–the slang, the uncertainty, the bragging–is exactly what Gibbons captured with Ellen. You feel like a 5th grader is telling you a story, but in a good way.

And much like a 5th grader, she doesn’t spend a lot of time on things that wouldn’t concern a 5th grader. There are no long, flowery descriptions or tons of back story. You get the info she gives you to make her story move on.

And much like talking to a child, the reader has questions that don’t get answered. Why was your mom sick? Was it the abuse? Was it mental? What happened to your dad’s family? Why couldn’t you live with them? Why were your parents the way they were? And so on.

She gives us her story and nothing more.

It’s a quick read, but there is a lot there. It’s a novel filled with humor, sadness, sass, and determination.

Ellen Foster is definitely a novel you will read through quickly, but you will be glad you picked it up. It’s lovely.

Tell me, do you enjoy books with kid/teen narrators that are not considered Young Adult Lit? What are your favorites?

Filed Under: Bildungsroman, Contemporary Fiction, Fiction Tagged With: Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen

June 19, 2013 by Katie 19 Comments

It’s my mom’s fault I am such an avid reader. In the 35 years that I have known my mother, I have never known her to have fewer than five books checked out of the library at a time. There is a spot near their fireplace that is a bottomless piles of books–the titles change each time I am there, but the pile is constant.

Mysteries are my mom’s brain candy of choice and I would not be surprised if she has read every mystery in our local library. Twice. From time to time she will read a non-mystery book that someone recommends to her. (In fact, she picked up The Great Gatsby after my review of the movie.) A couple weeks ago she asked me if I had ever read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. It was autobiographical and pretty “cute” my mom said.

Oh, I should also mention that my mom also reads Christian stuff from time to time. She’s a pretty conservative Christian.

I love funny memoirs. Jen Lancaster and Laurie Notaro are just two of my favorites, and while I recommend books to my mom from time to time, their brand of humor is not exactly what I picture my conservative Christian mother loving.

So when my mom recommended Janzen’s memoir to me, I figured I would give it a try. Why not. The title sounded familiar to me, and when I peeked at the book jacket, I realized that Rhoda Janzen is a local author who teaches at the local Christian College where my mom went. I figure I probably heard of her in the local paper or something.

Then I started reading and in the first chapter she talks about having a pee bag due to a botch up in a surgery. I just couldn’t see my mother thinking that a whole section about a pee bag was funny. Of course I was giggling fiercely.

And then the author’s husband leaves her for a guy named Bob from Gay.com. And then she uses the “f” word. And then talks about pubic hair. The book was funny. But it was somehow even funnier that my mom thought it was “cute”.

The book is a memoir about the author’s mental and emotional journey after her divorce with her husband who left her for a guy named Bob from Gay.com. Janzen has a PhD, teaches English at Hope College, and has a Mennonite background. After her husband leaves her, Janzen heads back west to her Mennonite parents…and past.

Janzen spends a good deal of the book talking about her mother, a nurse. I related so much to their relationship. No, my mother is not a Mennonite, nor did she dress me in homemade dresses when I was younger, nor did she forbid dancing or blue jeans or TV. But my mom and dad were pretty conservative and I didn’t exactly follow the same religious path they did.

My mom, like Janzen’s, cooks for people when then have babies or deaths. My mom can support her life choices with scripture. My mom didn’t get super BFF with me when I was a kid and have secret “girl talks” about my body or sex or anything. But at the same time, my mom supports me even though I am just like her and not like her at all. At the same time.

She offers me unconditional love and grounding…even if she doesn’t approve of my damn swearing or of how I bring up the subject of poop frequently.

That’s probably why, even though I laughed at the fact that my mother’s recommended a book where the author was “crass” (as my mother would say) and talked about “smutty” topics (as my mother would say), I was not totally surprised.

I loved how Janzen weaved the traditions of the Mennonites with her own thoughts on religion and spirituality as well as with her own personal narrative of growing up in and then leaving the community. She is intelligent (her vocabulary makes me swoon…English Majors unite!) and witty. Things don’t always come up roses for her (um, Bob? Gay.com? Not really awesome), but she has a great attitude and it’s clear she attributes it to the community she was raised in, even if she doesn’t share some of their same hardcore beliefs.

I think I also connected with Janzen’s story because her spiritual journey is a lot like mine. I have been attempting from time to time to hammer out some of my thoughts on the blog, but she is much more eloquent about it…even when she uses the word “shit”.

I really enjoyed the book. It got mixed reviews both on GoodReads.com (where you can “friend” me) and from the people to whom I mentioned I was reading it. I read it in five days, (which is fast when you are running a house and have two demanding small boys–one who has all but dropped napping), so I would classify it as a great summer read.

Tell me, have you read this book and what did you think? Do you enjoy funny memoirs or do you stick to fiction? Talk to me, Goose.

Filed Under: Memoir, Nonfiction Tagged With: funny, it's funny cause it's true, mom recommended, rhoda janzen

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

June 12, 2013 by Katie 30 Comments

There is nothing more frustrating to me as a reader than when characters fail to communicate with each other and get angry and make life-changing choices based on that miscommunication.

It’s also what propels me through a book the fastest because I have to know how messed up they are going to make their life by doing instead of talking things over.

This was my love/hate relationship with The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards.

The novel begins on a blizzardy night in 1964 when Dr. David Henry is forced to delivery his own twins–a boy and a girl–with only his nurse by his side. While his wife, Norah, is still under from the anesthesia, David discovers that his daughter has Down Syndrome. Before Norah wakes up, David convinces his nurse, Caroline to take the baby away to an institution while he tells Norah the baby died. Instead, Caroline takes the baby, Phoebe, and raises her as her own.

The book shows the parallel lives of David and Norah and their son, Paul and that of Caroline and her “daughter” Phoebe. It moves forward in time and shows Paul and Phoebe and how different their lives are. It also shows how secrets–even if created for what seemed like a good reason at the time–will eventually ruin things.

I read this book really quickly, although I will admit I liked it, but I didn’t really love it.

For one, I was mad at all the characters all the time. Mostly my problem was with the female characters. Norah seemed self-absorbed and whiny while Caroline seemed like a dish rag even when I think she was supposed to be strong and brave. Bree was far too under-developed and Phoebe’s personality felt flat. The male characters also had their annoying traits, but those seemed more purposeful to the story.

The story is also fascinating to me, but another fault is that I am not sure who the story is about…who the protagonist is. Is it a tragic story about the “hero” David Henry? That is what I am tempted to claim, however if that is true, there is too much “after story” to the novel after David Henry is gone. Many of the characters go through drastic changes and it seems that Edwards tried to make them all dynamic in some way, which actually makes it feel like they are all competing for “main character” status (some better than others).

Like I said, the story itself is astounding and Edwards has a real talent for description. Even though the characters bothered me, the word choice, language, and plot propelled me through the book.

I would definitely recommend this as an easy, interesting summer read. I know lots of people really loved it, and I was hoping to also. I think maybe I haven’t been on summer break long enough, and I’m still looking at books through the eyes of an English teacher and not just a reader reading for entertainment.

Have your read this book? What did you think? Have you ever run into the problem of hating the characters, but loving the story idea?

Filed Under: Contemporary Fiction, Fiction Tagged With: Down Syndrome, Family Issues, family secrets, Kim Edwards, Twins

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

June 4, 2013 by Katie 3 Comments

For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. There are not many such books. ~Vladimir Nabokov, 1956

I like to use summer as a time to catch up on the classics…or at least to read a couple I have never picked up, but have always been interested in. I have been intrigued by Lolita ever since I was old enough to understand the lyrics to “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” by Sting.

It’s no use, he sees her
He starts to shake and cough
Just like the old man in
That book by Nabakov

Part of me was so very disturbed by the thought of the premise of the book being about an old dude obsessed with a pre-teenage girl, but the literature teacher in me knew that there had to be more to the book. Nabakov is a brilliant writer and the book is a classic, so I knew it wasn’t just pedophilia porn. There had to be something else.

The novel is loosely this: Humbert Humbert is a thirty-something attractive man who meets and becomes obsessed with the young “nymphet” Dolores Haze. But knowing that Lolita is a postmodern work, I know it’s more about the style, the language, and the aesthetic appeal rather than the plot.

If you’re a yucky person and are looking for nasty sex scenes between a thirty-five-year old man and a fourteen-year old girl? You are not going to find it. The novel is a fictional memoir written from Humbert Humbert’s first person perspective while he is in jail.

The thing about postmodern lit is that it’s all about the writing. So Humbert is a European who is highly educated. He uses puns and word tricks and even admits his short-comings to a certain degree, all to make him more of a person and less of a pedophile in the mind of the reader. He gives his upbringing, his failed marriage, and finally how he comes to meet and “woo” Lolita by marrying her mother.

It is clear from the start that Humbert doesn’t have a very good grasp on reality. He is incredibly self-centered (which most postmodern unreliable narrators are) and believes that Lolita seduced him. He has hallucinations of being watched and followed because he knows what he is doing is wrong.

Lolita is not a light summer beach read. It’s one that I think anyone who calls themselves a fan of literature should read though. English was not Nabokov’s first language which makes the intricate language choices even more fascinating. The 300+ pages are filled with gorgeous prose that almost…ALMOST…make you forget that you are reading a diary of a pedophile.

Filed Under: Classic, Fiction, postmodernism

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

April 15, 2013 by Katie 6 Comments

I think I’ve mentioned I like a story set in America that reveals a bit of history, yes? Well I was talking to a colleague the other day about other novels we may have hanging around the high school that I could use in my American Lit class.

He pulled Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns out of his cupboard and recommended it. After polling the lunch room, I may be the only person who has never read this book…or heard of it.

At first I didn’t know. It was an old, ugly copy that I was given and the title was dumb. But it was set at the turn of the 20th century in the South, and it was about a family and well, that is the combo I needed to sell me on reading it.

Like I said, the novel begins in 1906 in the small Southern town of Cold Sassy. The narrator, a young Will Tweedy who is 14 at the start of the story, tells about his family–specifically his grandfather, E. Rucker Blakeslee the owner of Cold Sassy’s general store who marries a Miss Love Simpson just three weeks after his first wife passes. This causes a ruckus not just in the family (Will’s mom and aunt are appalled that their father would marry before their dear mother’s body is even cold), but the town is in an uproar about how improper it all is.

Will Tweedylearns a lot about life and death and religion and society from his Grandpa Blakeslee.

At the very beginning of the book, Grandma Blakeslee dies and Will Tweedy compares his feelings to when his friend Bluflord Jackson died less than a year prior. As a fourteen-year old who narrowly escapes being run over by a train, he is confused about God and why he chooses some people and not others to die. About why God would will bad things to happen to good people, since his father–a very strictly religious man–tells him that everything happens due to God’s will.

Grandpa licked some meringue off his fork while he pondered. Finally he said, “Life bullies us, son, but God don’t. He had good reasons for fixin’ it where if’n you git too sick or too hurt to live, why, you can die, same as a sick chicken. I’ve knowed a few really sick chickens to git well, and lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin [...]

[...] When it comes to prayin’, we got it all over the other animals, but we ain’t no different when it comes to livin’ and dyin’. If’n you give God the credit when somebody don’t die, you go’n blame Him when they do die? Call it His will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don’t die but once’t? Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if’n we can. Hit ain’t never His will for us to die–cept in the big sense.”

Will Tweedy’s big question beside this is about prayer: Why does Jesus tell us in the Bible to just “ask” and we will “receive” when that is not so.

He spends much of the novel coming back to this question. Until the end, that is.

Grandpa Blakeslee was by far my favorite character. I loved his way of explaining the Bible and what he believed God meant for us, his followers. I found myself underlining and starring because they were also ways I felt too.

I also loved how he really didn’t care what the community thought about him. He does what he wants according to his own morals and beliefs.

I read some reviews of people who got lost in the dialect that Burns uses, but I thought it was much easier to get through than say, Huckleberry Finn. In fact, I had no idea what they were talking about. It was not murky or hard to understand and I am a Yankee!

I liked that the story was told from a 22-year old Will Tweedy’s perspective looking back at his teen years. I think Burns did an excellent job of capturing the voice of a young, somewhat innocent teen boy’s voice.

Even though the story takes place in 1906, clearly the themes of questioning life and death and bucking societal norms are universal. I won’t have time to teach the book anymore this year, but hopefully next year I can work it in because I think my students would enjoy reading it.

Filed Under: Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Realistic Fiction Tagged With: cold sassy tree, olive ann burns

Changing Gears by Nancy Sathre-Vogel

April 9, 2013 by Katie 7 Comments

I hate riding my bicycle.

In fact, I don’t even have a bicycle.

Thinking about riding a bicycle makes me tired. I can remember the jello-feeling I used to feel in my thighs after going around the block. The way I could pedal and pedal, but if I was going into the wind I could walk faster.

Ugh. I’m reliving it all over again and shuddering.

You would think the very last book in the world to capture me would be a book about riding bikes. You would be wrong.

I fell in love HARD for Changing Gears: A Family Odyssey to the End of the World by Nancy Sathre-Vogel in the prologue where she describes and encounter with a 400-pound black bear that begins chasing her 10-year old son while he pedals his bike for his life.

My eyes bulged and I realized this book was not going to be “just” about biking.

This paragraph in the first chapter of the book becomes Nancy’s driving force throughout her journey. And the theme of the book:

“What would you do if you were not afraid?” I asked myself as I lay in bed that night. “If you weren’t afraid of what people would say about you, or of the unknown, or of failure, what would you do?”

The Vogel Family: Nancy, John, and their twin 10-year old sons Davy and Daryl, decide to go for it. They are going to bike from the most northern possible point of North America, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska all the way to the tip of South America, Ushuaia, Argentina.

It took them three years (1018 days). They went 17,285 miles through 15 countries.

On bikes.

I can’t even imagine doing that by car. But on a bike? In the weather? I read the whole book–some parts twice–and I still can’t wrap my mind around it.

I got so into the story of their journey that I didn’t even notice what chapter I was on; I noticed what country I was in with the Vogel family.

I felt like I was camping in Canadian woods with them. I shared Nancy’s worry about where their next food and/or water source would be. As a mother her concerns about keeping her family safe and doing right by her boys resonated with me.

She admits to being the biggest worrier on the trip, and as a mother, I can empathize.

She didn’t spend a lot of time using technical, biker-only lingo. Nor did she overdo the descriptions of the landscapes or villages they stopped in.

Nancy is a mother telling a story. Her family’s story. Their story just happens to be on bikes.

What caught my attention and got me to read the book was the adventure, the hardships, the difference between their life choices and mine.

How applicable the lessons of the journey were to “real” life.

We could plan and plan, but sometimes we simply hadn’t hit upon the perfect solution–yet. We needed to use our failure as a learning opportunity to add knowledge to our bank.

Nancy and John had to try to plan for every possible thing that could go wrong on the trip: broken bike parts, all kinds of weather, food shortages, getting clean water, etc. And things did go wrong. Their were injuries and dehydration. There was sickness and broken bikes. There was theft.

But they dealt with it, learned from it, and moved on to finally achieve their dream.

It wasn’t always fun, as she tells some children in Alabama via Skype.

Living your dream won’t always be easy or fun, [...] but it will always be wonderful. When you truly make the decision to live your dream and do your big thing, you’ll forge ahead even in the hard times.

I thought about the dreams my husband and I have decided to live out. He finished his degree in December. Something that he had always wanted to do. It was a major struggle a lot of the time, but, as Nancy said, he “forged ahead even in the hard times.” Even when he wanted to quit, as Nancy also did many times.

And in a month, he will not only walk across a stage and get recognized at commencement, but he will do so from a small group of medal-wearing students–the top students in the class.

It was hard work. That degree was his Ushuaia.

And he made it.

Nancy and her family didn’t conquer their dream because they decided not to be afraid. Nancy was terrified. But she did it despite being afraid.

And that is what Cort did too. He was full of fear about going back to school as an adult…of not making it…of what people would think.

But he did it anyway.

So. What would you do? What would your dream be if you weren’t afraid?

What WILL you do despite being afraid?

*************

If you would like a copy of the book, go here.

I was not compensated in any way for this review. Nancy sent me the book, but the thoughts and opinions are all mine.

Filed Under: Nonfiction Tagged With: changing gears, Nancy Sathre-Vogel

Nurturing the Soul of Your Family

March 14, 2013 by Katie 5 Comments

I believe everything happens for a greater purpose.

About six months ago I started doing devotionals with an online group of women. I started to find some inner peace. My finding inner peace led to a more peaceful family life.

But there were still parts that needed working on. We had a technology issue in our house. As in, we were ALWAYS CONNECTED. Cort, me, even Eddie. We needed to actually use our family time on being a family.

So I wrote a post about that being my New Year’s Resolution as a mom. And we worked on it.

In the middle of working on it, I was sent the book, Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life by Renee Peterson Trudeau.

This was it.

This book–which I recommend every. single. family read–has everything I have been wanting for our family.

The organization of the book makes total sense: it starts with self, moves to reconnecting with your family, then to celebrating each other, goes into how to be more present, and ends with building up a support network.

I have to say the beginning chapters about self are what my therapy sessions are generally focused on. Having suffered depression, anxiety, PPD, PTSD, OCD and more, I have to do a lot of work on myself…on loving myself…on remembering to put my oxygen mask on before I help others.

Much of the first section was like I was doing extended reading homework for my therapy. It was wonderful. I marked up the pages, was reminded of some important lessons, and felt good about what I was doing “right”.

Then I hit the second section–specifically chapter three–about disconnecting in order to reconnect.

It was hard for me to read because this is our exact problem in our house.

While I certainly do not agree that a mom on a cell phone in a park is necessarily neglecting her family, I do know that this family has been guilty of having three faces stuck in screens at the same time while a baby napped.

And I know it’s wrong…because it feels wrong.

I finished the book a while ago, but I came back to this chapter because this is where we are. I can’t really get past this part until we work on it as a family.

My other favorite part comes a few chapters later when it talks about finding your spirituality. It doesn’t have to be Christianity (in our case it is), it could be a traditional religion or not. The idea is to become more at peace with yourself through spirituality and eventually have that permeate the family life through service to others, accepting each other, living in the present, and choosing happiness when possible.

I could really go on and on about this book.

It’s a MUST READ, in my opinion.

While I sat down and read it cover to cover for this review, I think if I was diving into it, I would take it much more slowly so I could really absorb and digest each section and really work on the tips and lessons. Have some communication with my husband about it all.

In fact, I plan to start the book over and do just that.

If you want more information about Nurturing the Soul of your Family, head over to Renee Trudeau’s site.

Legal Stuff: I was sent a copy of the book for review, but no further compensation was exchanged. All opinions are my own.

Filed Under: Nonfiction Tagged With: Nurturing the Soul of Your Family, Renee Trudeau

A Fine Balance

March 3, 2013 by Katie Leave a Comment

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry is a thick historical novel. Both heavy in the literal sense and the figurative sense.

Historical Fiction is my favorite, and although I am usually drawn to US History, A Fine Balance lured me in because I don’t know much about Indian History, but I do remember loving A Passage to India by E.M. Forster when I read it in 12th grade.

The plot of A Fine Balance is mostly set in 1975 India, but it flashes back to 1947 when the country went from Independence to the Emergency which was called by Prime Minister Gandhi. It is clear by the tone of the book that the author is not a fan of Gandhi’s politics, but he never mentions him by name or outright says that Gandhi is to blame.

There are three separate stories at the beginning that blend into one after the first section: Ishvar & Om, Dina, and Maneck. Ishvar and Om come from a small village in a low caste. They learn to the tailoring business and escape to the big city. While on a train to Dina’s apartment, they meet Maneck who is also headed to Dina’s.

Dina grew up in the city in an upper-caste family. Due to a series of unfortunate events, Dina ends up living alone in an apartment. She takes up tailoring to make some money, but needs to hire a couple more tailors–Ishvar and Om–to help make the large orders she takes in. Another effort to make rent is to take in a paying house guest, Maneck.

Maneck grew up in a mountain village north of the city. His parents made a huge living by owning a general store and making and selling their own cola. His parents send him away to college in the city so he has something to fall back on in case the store falls through.

The three stories are all very different, yet they all weave their way into each other seamlessly and with much loss and tragedy. There is just enough good fortune to keep life–and the reader–going. Just enough to give hope to the characters to go on, and for the reader to keep turning pages.

The book took me about six months to read because it is very, VERY depressing. I kept having to put it down and read something lighter and funny. Then I could sit back down for another chunk of the depressing life of India in 1975. So much poverty. So much human tragedy. So much inhumanity.

It’s an important book.

It’s an eye-opening, thought-provoking book.

It’s an excellent book.

But it’s big and deep and heavy.

So what is the “fine balance” in the title? I believe it’s the balance between light and dark, the balance between hope and giving up. It’s the sad reality of the characters entwined with the small joys that help push them through each day.

And it is a reminder that although we are all separate, we are simultaneously one. One humanity. One life.

One balancing act.