A recurring theme in my life lately has been this quote by Joan Didion. It came up at a training I attended as a teacher. I used it to explain something to one of my children. And most often, I remind myself of it as my jumble of thoughts chase each other and step on each others' toes and drown each other out in their clamor to be important in my mind. I need to write down my thoughts to know what they are. My to-do lists, my novel outlines, my lesson plans, my prayer lists, and here, Un-book Club friends, my thoughts about life and reading--they are best laid out on paper and screen. As I write, the web of thoughts I had about a book straightens out and comes back together in a way that makes more sense to me than it did while I was reading. Thank you for joining me as I make sense of my world, both inner and outer, real and imaginary.
Be Light Like a Bird
I found this delightful book via a my school's wonderful art teacher, who also taught with the writer at an international school. I am always eager to support other authors I know or might know or first time authors, in the hopes I will one day be one of them. Monika is not a first time author, and her experience with writing, and travel and young people and artists, is obvious here. This is truly a beautiful book. The cover and title suggest a motif that carries throughout, with a character named Wren who watches birds, but also studies human nature. Wren wrestles with her father's death and her mother's way of grieving and with the ever-difficult middle school friendships. What strikes me as a write is the precarious balance of dark and light that is present in the book's characters and themes. Perhaps that's why I so enjoyed reading this with my daughter and talking with her about it. We are at a precarious balance ourselves, as she enters adolescence and tries on new personas and ways of relating to me. It's also hard to find reading material that is challenging for her emotionally and intellectually, yet age-appropriate. This is a good balance.
Young Adult Fiction by Heidi Heilig
Apparently if you want to write a bestseller these days, you call it "The Girl" something. It used to be "The So and So's Wife." Now it's girls. I don't know if that's moving backward in feminism or not, but at least this one is about an actual girl. Nix is 15 and she lives on her father's magical time travelling ship. His mission, though, is to find a map that will take them to the year her mother died so he can stop it from happening, which may stop Nix from being born. She's a bit torn. This is a fun fantasy, historical fiction blend with a healthy dose of romance. I read late into the night and immediately requested the sequel. It was frustrating, though, to end on as much of a cliff hanger as this does. I have noticed that many of the young adult or middle grade series do this and I now as I write, I wonder if this is a new phenomenon. My Nancy Drew books never had this problem. I also did not know that this was going to be a series or have a sequel, so I feel a little cheated when there isn't a more satisfying ending. I guess that's what I get for reading young adult fiction. I should act my age, or get used to it.
The Japanese Lover
Speaking of acting my age, this is probably the definition of it. Reading Allende always makes me feel smart and is so satisfying. I've also loved that her last few books peek into a different time and place than her usual Chilean magical realism. This is set in San Francisco in a retirement home as a young assistant sets out to uncover the past of one of the residents, at the request of the resident's grandson who is writing her memoir. It spans the century and the globe, focusing on World War II, the Japanese internment, and its aftermath. This book made me long to visit San Francisco, to keep working on my own writing, and to read something other than about World War II! Honestly, the war seems to have been the focus of most of the historical fiction books I have ever read. I have on order The Nightingale, after it has been recommended by so many people, even though I don't really like other books by its author. The book The Zookeeper's Wife (see? wife titles!) is being made into a movie and it's about WWII). And these are just top of the heap examples. It does make great books, but it's also just so common.
Book club friends, what do you find spinning in your brain as you read? How do you make sense of it? Notes in the margins, Post-it notes on the back, texts to your friends reading the same book? Whatever it is, get it out there!
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