Wild

Wild is a bestselling memoir by Cheryl Strayed. Strayed, now in her forties writes of the time in her mid twenties, just after her mother had died suddenly of cancer at the young age of 45. Strayed was lost and her life was spiraling downwards, resulting in divorce, one night stands, and drugs.

In order to pull her life together, Strayed decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. This is a bold move for an inexperienced backpacker and a woman alone. Wild tells this story. It moves from the back story of Strayed's life, to the daily beauty and agony of hiking the trail.

This is a courageous journey, and she writes about it with honesty and bravery. This book is not for everyone, but I enjoyed it, and it made me want to hit the trail.

The Mercy of Thin Air

The Mercy of Thin Air is a novel by Ronlyn Domingue that follows Raziela Nolan as she travels in the in between space for decades after her death, searching for her one true love. She dies young in an accident in New Orleans in the 1920's, and the novel moves back and forth in time from her real life to her afterlife.

Raziela and her mother were both activists for women's rights in the early 1900's. Its an interesting portrait of life for women at that time, up through the present day, as well as an exploration of what it might be like to continue living as spirit, once our body is gone.

I didn't find this book particularly remarkable, but I enjoyed it.

Cutting for Stone

After reading so many average novels, it is wonderful to read a truly extraordinary novel, and that is just what Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is.

Cutting for Stone takes the reader on a journey from India to Ethiopia, to NYC and back to Africa. It is an epic tale of twin brothers born on a fateful night when their mother died in childbirth and their surgeon father fled the country in distress.

What follows is a richly detailed tale of medicine and how it is practiced in different environments. It is a story of the history and politics of Ethiopia, a story of twins, seperated by thousands of miles, yet still deeply connected. It is a deeply engaging family saga.

Verhese, an accomplished doctor and writer, thoroughly researched this novel. Cutting for Stone is a poetic, spiritual, majestic, truly extraordinary novel. One that you won't soon forget.

Violets of March

A commonly used device in novels is for someone to find a diary from the past written by their grandmother,  uncovering all sorts of juicy secrets about their family history. I can't tell you how many books I've read like this recently. I suspended my disbelief the first several times I read novels with this same theme, but found it harder this time in Sarah Jio's novel The Violets of March.

Most of the time this device works, and it did here too for the most part, keeping the reader engaged in the story and waiting to find out what happens next. However, I never really cared deeply about any of the characters. Emily, a recently divorced, successful writer from NYC, goes to spend a month with her elderly Aunt on Bainbridge Island in Washington State. There she finds her grandmothers diary and her journey begins. A decent read.

A Different Kind of Normal

A Different Kind of Normal by Cathy Lamb is a novel I have mixed feelings about. I can't in all honesty say it's a great book, because I found many faults in the writing, the one dimensional characters, the story, etc.

Jaden Bruxelle, known as Boss Mom by her 17 year old son Tate, is struggling with mothering a brilliant boy born with a too big head, uneven eyes and a great sense of humor. He was left at birth by her drug addict sister who is his birth mother. Jaden's mother is a soap opera star in Hollywood, and they are descended from a long line of witches. There are more characters, but I will leave it to the reader to discover them

For all the faults I found with this book, I really liked it and it even at times made me cry. It is truly about a mother's fierce and protective love of her child, especially a child who tends to get bullied a lot. I was rooting for Tate from the beginning, and he didn't let me down.

Waiting

Waiting by Ha Jin is a novel set in the New China of the Cultural Revolution, following one man for two decades while he tries to divorce his wife in his home village each year so he can marry his girlfriend in the city.

Not much happens in this novel, except a lot of waiting as the title suggests. Jin has the rare ability to capture the details of everyday life and the emotions hidden under the surface. He taps into the truth that we are all always waiting for something better to improve our lives, yet when we get it, it rarely makes us happier.

Although I liked Jin's writing, I found this book rather depressing. The climax was very anti-climactic and everyone remained as miserable and unhappy as ever; I just couldn't find myself caring about these characters.

Keeping the House

Keeping the House by Ellen Barker is a novel spanning the first half of the twentieth century and three generations of a family settled in Pine Rapids, Wisconsin.

Barker explores what it means to be the perfect wife, at the turn of the twentieth century, through two World Wars, and into the 1950's. My favorite parts of the novel are the quotes from Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping at the beginning of each chapter.

The novel jumps back in forth in time a lot, telling the story of the Mickelson family in bits and pieces, and I found this distracting and sometimes hard to follow.

However, Barker achieves her overall goal of creating a picture of the daily challenges a woman faces trying to be the perfect wife while suppressing her own inner desires. A worthwhile read.