What She Left Behind

So I am still down a computer, and therefore my posts are all out of whack. However, since I have been without my computer I have read 3 books and am beginning my forth so I will, no excuses, be back on track after today.
Since it is October (when did that happen?) I decided to get into the Halloween mood. A combination of history and mystery, What She Left Behind  by Ellen Marie Wiseman was the perfect book to ease myself into the eerie, spooky, spirit.

When Isabelle Stone was 7 years old, her mother fatally shot her father while he slept. Ten years later, Izzy is haunted by her memories and her mother's apparent insanity, particularly while exploring the remains of Willard State Asylum. Amongst the ruins, Izzy and her foster mom discover the luggage of patients who apparently arrived and never left, and Izzy becomes attached the the belongings of a young woman named Clara Cartwright.

In 1929, eighteen year old Clara is sent away by her parents when she rebels against their plans. Struggling to prove her sanity and regain her freedom, Clara is subjected to horrendous treatment, from ice baths to insulin induced comas.

The story rotates between Clara's past and Izzy's present, as Izzy struggles to come to terms with what happened to her mother and find the answers to what happened to Clara. It was horrifying and heartbreaking. The treatment of patients at Willard State was disgusting and barbaric, and it was terrifying to think that the mentally ill were once treated in such a way.

What She Left Behind was dark and unpredictable, eerie and haunting. It leaves you feeling sad, thinking of what could have been.

American Blonde

"Being there was like stepping back into another time, one of glamour and hard work, of camaraderie and competition, of fame and beauty and heartbreak and…magic" -Jennifer Niven, American Blonde


I faced a couple of dilemmas with this post. Halfway through the book, I forgot it at a friends house and was without it for a few days (which was torture). When I got it back, I read like hell to finish it in time for Wednesday's post and was still unable to finish it until Thursday. I reached the second dilemma when my computer crashed. But 3 days and my moms computer later, I can finally write about Jennifer Niven's American Blonde. 

American Blonde is about Velva Jean Hart, World War II hero and aspiring Nashville star. On the tail of her heroic experience as a war pilot, Velva Jean is offered a contract at MGM, Hollywoods biggest studio. Aiming to capitalize on her war hero fame, she is cast as Betsy Ross in the studio's Revolutionary War saga, Home of the Brave. Leaving behind her country home, Velva Jean travels to California and is welcomed by her friend and fellow pilot, movie star Barbara Fanning. As MGM's biggest female star, Fanning teaches Velva Jean the ins and outs of Hollywood. Amidst gossip, scandals, infidelity, and prescription pills, Velva Jean discovers that everything is not as it appears.

Following the release of Home of the Brave, Velva Jean and her fellow cast mates visit the home of the movies producer and his retired movie star wife for a view days of celebration. The celebrating soon turns to tragedy when Barbara Fanning is found dead. As the studio execs work hard to cover up the murder and frame it as an accident, Velva Jean works to honor her friends memory by uncovering the truth.

I really enjoyed this book. I love old Hollywood as much as I love reading so American Blonde combined my two favorite things. Though fictional, the story is based on real life MGM employees such as Howard Strickling, Eddie Manixx, and Whitey Hendry, who worked hard to cover up things that threatened to destroy the squeaky clean image of their studio and it's stars. With the addition of real photographs and events, such as the Black Dahlia and The Lipstick Murders, Niven brings the story to life.

I also found aspects of the story and the character of Barbara Fanning to be very Marilyn Monroe-esque. For instance, her failed marriages, her unreliable mother, her intense desire to start a family, and her dependence on Benzedrine and Seconal, in addition to the mystery surrounding her death.

American Blonde was unpredictable, dimensional, and often, sexy. It references my favorite stars, like Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, and Gene Kelly, and takes you back to a more glamorous time.


"Louis B. Mayer, and the studio which he ran, belonged to a different era, a different world. A world where men were gentlemen, where women were virtuous, where families were loyal and loving, where pictures hung straighter, grass grew greener, picket fences shone whiter, people danced down streets and sang songs, endings were happy, and everything was sprinkled with magic dust. It was was an idealized America where dreams came true, especially when there were men to protect those dreams and ensure nothing spoiled them"- American Blonde

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

It's official: I am a Junot Diaz fan.

After This is How You Lose Her, I decided it was time to read my original Diaz book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Well more precisely, I tried to read another book but couldn't get out of the Diaz fog long enough to get past the first four pages. THEN I decided to start Oscar Wao, and it did not disappoint.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is, you guessed it, the story of Oscar de Leon: a.k.a Oscar Wilde a.k.a. Oscar Wao. As a kid, Oscar is handsome, charming, and good with the ladies. But when puberty hits, his looks, charm and ladies disappear. Now covered in acne and 200 lbs of fat, Oscar spends his life in his comic books and video games. Desperate to not die a virgin, he remains a hopeless romantic, falling in love with beautiful girl after beautiful girl only to remain unnoticed. Finally, after years of struggling with his weight, his heartaches, and endless bullying, Oscar discovers his true destiny.

I thought that this book was great. In addition to the life of Oscar, we learn the lives and histories of generations of de Leons. They are brilliant stories of strength, bravery, and survival all tied in with Dominican history. There is a wonderful relationship between Oscar and his sister, as well as a complicated one between mother and child. It is a heartbreaking story of bullying and redemption, told with the same vulgar wit of This is How You Lose Her.

The wondrous thing about Oscar Wao is that in spite of the teasing, in spite of the heart break, he is unapologetically himself. In spite of everyone telling him to change, he remains true to who he is, and in my mind that makes him incredibly admirable and brave.

I recommend The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to anyone that has ever felt that they don't fit in. I recommend it to anyone that has ever been bullied, been a bully, or witnessed bullying. And I recommend it to anyone that has always dreamt of living a life that is worthwhile.

This Is How You Lose Her

A few months ago, I picked up The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I had gotten it off of a list on Pinterest, but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. During my most recent trip to the bookstore, I notice another book by Diaz. I was initially drawn by the title and figured if Oscar Wao came so acclaimed, Diaz must be doing something right, so I added This Is How You Lose Her to my basket and finished it in one day.
This is the story of Yunior, a man who looks back on the relationships of his life and faces his mistakes. He tells us of his great loves and his short lived flings, and the ways that he destroyed them. The ways that he took relationships for granted, and fought to get them back.
I absolutely loved this book. It was heartbreakingly real. You relate to these women, and you know men like Yunior, and you feel for them all. It was full of passion and regret, but also humor. It was easy to read, as if you were talking with a friend. It was vulgar, but beautiful, and challenges the way that you live your life and love your loves.
I recommend This Is How You Lose Her to anyone who has ever known love and loss. Diaz lays it out for you in a way that shows you how to overcome your heartbreak and learn from your mistakes.

The Story Sisters

I really loved Alice Hoffman's The Red Garden, so I was very excited to begin another Hoffman novel, The Story Sisters. It is the story of three sisters whose bond is challenged and torn as each faces her own fate.
Elv, Claire, and Meg were once inseparable. When their parents divorce upturns everything in their lives, the sisters lean on each other in their own fantasy world. Created by Elv to escape her own secret horror, the world of Arnelle is a special place in which the sisters are safe and brave.
As the sisters grow, Elv struggles with her past and races recklessly towards a dangerous future. Sensible Meg seeks to separate herself from the make believe world of Arnelle, and Claire is torn between the sisters that she loves. The girls face anger, revenge, and tragedy as they discover themselves and create their lives in the real world.
I enjoyed this book, though not as much as The Red Garden. I found Elv to be extremely ingracious and irritating for early part of the book. However, you also feel for her when you learn the secret burden that she is carrying and the lengths she would go to protect her sisters. It was wonderfully written, and I was brought to tears. You want these girls to remain close so badly, and it is heartbreaking to see their lives change.
I do recommend The Story Sisters. It was dark and bewitching, but at the same time heartfelt and promising. It is a story about pain, and coming-of-age, but above all it is a story of the bond between sisters, daughters, and mothers.

The Thirteenth Tale

"I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must me said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when they were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearn for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one every expects to be fulfilled. And during this time, these days when I read all day and half the night, when I slept under a counterpane strewn with books, when my sleep was black and dreamless and passed in a flash and I woke to read again-the lost joys of reading returned to me. Miss Winter restored to me the virginal qualities of the novice reader, and then with her stories she ravished me"- The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, is the story of a world famous author known for her mystery as much as her writing. Aging and sick, Vida Winter decides to finally open up about the mystery of her life and share the truth of her past, and choses to do so with biographer Margaret Lea. Driven by the ghosts of her own past, Lea reluctantly agrees to work with Miss Winter, and together the women confront their secrets.
It was phenomenal. It was magical and beautifully poetic. Twenty pages in, I knew that I loved it. I had hardly any idea what the story was going to be, but the writing in itself already had me hooked. I wanted to read it during every spare minute that I had and when I had less than 100 pages left, I was sorry it was going to end.
As a reader, I love language. I love words that roll beautifully off the tongue. In The Thirteenth Tale, Setterfield creates music with her word choice, and I found myself rereading sentences out loud just because I loved the sound of them. Both the writing and the story were captivating, and very Jane Eyre-esque. It filled you with questions and remained steadily unpredictable. When I got my answers, I wanted to start over from the beginning to piece it all together.
I fell in love with The Thirteenth Tale. It is one of those books that you need to mourn the end of. One where you cannot begin a new book, because you are still lost in its world. It is a story that will stay with you for a very long time.

The Girl Who Came Home

After reading On The Road, I was eager to step away from the renowned award winners and pick up something I found on my own. I was drawn to The Girl Who Came Home for two reasons: the cover photo of the Titanic and it's strategical placement on the sale rack.
Due to my love of history, I have always been fascinated by the Titanic. When I was a little girl, I took out book after book about the ship from the library. Children's picture books that depicted the inside of the ship, history books filled with archival photos, and of course, every Dear America book I could find. I am fascinated by the mystery and romance of such a horrible tragedy.
My interest in Titanic has not faded since I was that little girl in the library, so when I saw it's picture on the front cover of The Girl Who Came Home, I didn't even need to think about it. It was already in my basket.
As you can assume, The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor is about a seventeen year old Irish girl named Maggie Murphy who boards the Titanic for New York along with 13 others from her village. Devastated and traumatized by her experience, she doesn't speak of it for 70 years. The story then flashes forward to 1982, when an 87 year old Maggie decides to share her story with her journalist great-granddaughter.
I love this book. Loved it. It was full of mystery, and full of emotion. From the very beginning you wonder who survives and why Maggie's story is shrouded in such secrecy. No surprise, but I cried. Hard. I read it in a waiting room and was happy I was alone so no one could see me sobbing into the pages like a lunatic. What makes it so powerfully moving is that it really happened. Wives really were torn from their husbands, children separated from their mothers, sisters from their brothers. I could not for a second imagine having to walk away from my loved ones like that. It is heartwrenching and devastating.
I was also fascinated to learn that The Girl Who Came Home was inspired by a real group of people on the Titanic. The Addergoole Fourteen was a group of Irish emmigrants that traveled from County Mayo in Ireland. Eleven of the fourteen died aboard the ship, amounting to the largest loss of life from one region. Although names have been changed, Maggie Murphy and her companions are based on these fourteen.
I absolutely recommend The Girl Who Came Home. It was a beautiful depiction of a tragic event. The characters are relatable and likable, and for a nearly 400 page book, it was a quick and easy read.
It is often easy to remember the tragedy of the Titanic as an event in time or an epic movie, but The Girl Who Came Home reminds you of all the 1,517 real people that lost their lives. Those real men, women, and children that had families, personalities, and dreams. Hazel Gaynor did a great job in bringing them back to life, and keeping their memory alive.