Customer Reviews

Maine (Hardcover)

By J. Courtney Sullivan
$25.95
ISBN-13: 9780307595126
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Published: Knopf, 6/2011
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I loved this book. At the beginning, I admit that I got a little confused by all of the characters introduced in quick succession at the outset, but it's certainly possible that I wasn't focused enough and missed something, so I don't blame the author for this, especially because once I realized that I was a little lost and started paying closer attention, I was completely engaged in the story. Usually an author needs to make her characters likeable, but in this book that rule is definitely NOT adhered to. I think that this may be the first book that I've read (and really liked) that I disliked the main character and never really warmed up to her at all, although by the end of the book I had compassion for her. It's also unusual for me to give a book 5 stars if I am not thrilled with the ending that the author chose, but hey, rules are meant to be broken, right? Predictably, I got a little thrill out of the landscape of this book: set largely in southern Maine, many of the locations were very familiar to me (I'm a total sucker for that!). There was also some quiet humor in the book; it sort of sneaks up on you when you aren't expecting it. One great quote from the book: "Timing was the thing when it came to being a woman--the moment you entered the world could seal your fate," p. 145.
This is a great book, and (in my opinion) would make a great book club pick. -Karen Creamer

Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses (Hardcover)

By Claire Dederer
$26.00
ISBN-13: 9780374236441
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Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 12/2010
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I loved this book. I wasn’t drawn to the cover at all, but the topic she was writing about did draw me (yoga, as well as the subtitle: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga poses), so I jumped in with both feet. An endorsement from Elizabeth Gilbert didn’t hurt either. What kept me reading though was the writing. I love the way Claire writes, the way she morphs words into something new; the way she uses language. . . her, um, languaging. Some examples: effortful, forking, efforting, jollity, constellated…
Also her descriptions: “He poured himself the grimmest bowl of cereal ever poured.” (pg. 127). I loved her description of Rodney Yee (pg 123): “…a very buff, eternally youthful Chinese American man with a long ponytail and a serene gaze…”…Yep, that’s Rod the Bod.
I also, for the first time in quite a while, came across words in my novel reading that were not immediately familiar to me, that I had to stop and ponder. This is good! Exciting! It’s been a while since that happened. Claire’s previous experience as a book editor and critic and free-lance writer prior to her writing this book come through loud and clear.
Her book is part memoir with some history of yoga mashed in. The way she talks about her 20’s as being “spent exploring” reminded me of how Amy Wood talks about modern young adult hood in her book Life Your Way (previously reviewed book #60).
Claire hides from her family by going to yoga. She hides from her emotions by going to yoga, as well, but when she gets into a pose…bam! There they are, just waiting for her to face and embrace them (sometimes this results in tears falling). She escapes through yoga as a young wife and mother the way she escaped through books as a young girl in a complicated family-of-origin situation. “A book was a terrific place for me. I went there as often as I could.” (pg.144). This was me.
Oh, and she vomits. A lot.
Sometimes you need to back away from something to gain a little perspective on it, whether it’s your kids, your marriage, your career, your yoga…or yourself. Finally, probably the best message I got from this book is this (and I’m paraphrasing her quote from pg. 297): Act like the person you want to be, when and if you can.  -Karen Creamer, http://raisingmaine.mainetoday.com//blog.html?id=163522

Left Neglected (Paperback)

By Lisa Genova
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9781439164655
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Published: Gallery Books, 7/2011
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This book is by the author of Still Alice, Lisa Conover. It is the story of a family, living their full, very busy, over-scheduled, professional and personal lives. A married couple, Bob and Sarah are professionals, working full time, with three young children, close in age (and sporting very cool names!). In addition to the children, they have a large mortgage, a vacation home in Vermont, a part-time nanny, large school loans to repay, and barely any free time. Their forty hour workweeks are more like eighty. The reader gets to peek into their harried but loving daily lives for the first several chapters of the book, right up until there is an accident that happens in a split second, changing all of their lives just like that. The book follows them as they deal with what’s happened and tells you how it all turns out. Sprinkled throughout the book are italicized passages that seem to be dream sequences, the best of which (in my opinion) comes at the end. This book hits home, because it shows you how, in real time, when someone is just living their life the way they do every day, everything can change without any warning, and you realize that it could happen to any of us, at any time. It also explores the relationship between Bob and Sarah, not only as a married couple, but also as working professionals and as parents. The relationship between Sarah and her mother is also important part of the story, and it is told with honesty and empathy. Did I say that I loved this book?  -Karen Creamer

Don't Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from My Grandmothers (Hardcover)

By Adriana Trigiani
$22.99
ISBN-13: 9780061958946
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Published: Harper, 11/2010
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Don’t Sing at the Table: Life Lessons from my Grandmothers is by Adriana Trigiani. It reminds me of Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, who chose to call her book a novel, since (she said) she couldn’t be sure of the total accuracy of all of the details of her grandmother’s life. I think the title is a little awkward; it refers to an old Italian saying, but I think just the tagline could have stood alone as the title. “Don’t sing” is written as biographies: one for each grandmother, interwoven with one for herself, in terms of how she applied the lessons that she learned from them to her own life. It also includes the author’s gentle suggestion that if you apply these same lessons to your own life, then you could only prosper. While this is certainly worth considering, what might be even more useful is if you reviewed the lives of your own ancestors for any applicable ‘life lessons’ that might hit a little closer to home. I’m glad that I enjoyed this book, since it turned out to be the last one I finished in 2010... :)  -Karen Creamer

The Three Weissmanns of Westport (Paperback)

By Cathleen Schine
$14.00
ISBN-13: 9780312680527
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Published: Picador, 2/2011
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A couple that has been happily married for years and years (and years) suddenly hits a bump in the road in the form of (you guessed it) a younger woman. In a familiar story, she is a secretary who sets out to lure her boss from his wife. They have two grown daughters who are not married who are also involved: their lives are dramatically changed by the separation of their parents as well as other events happening in their personal lives. The wife, Betty, adopts the story that her she is a widow and "mourns" her "dead" husband, finding this easier to deal with than the thought that he is divorcing her after almost fifty years of marriage for his secretary. Even as he is assuring her that he is a very generous man, he is stripping her of as much of the money and property as possible, beginning with persuading her to move out of their (expensive) home, something that both daughters vehemently opposed. The three female Weissmans move into a cottage that a generous, well-off cousin offers them while the divorce details are sorted out.

 

-Karen Creamer

See http://raisingmaine.mainetoday.com//member.html?id=163522 for Karen’s book reviews!)