First They Killed my Father by Loung Ung - BLOG TOUR/BOOK REVIEW

Title:  First They Killed my Father:  A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers 
Author:  Loung Ung
Publisher:   Harper Perennial
Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN 10:     0060856262
ISBN 13:  9780060856267
The Book Depository/Amazon/Goodreads 

Back of the book description:


One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five.  Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee, and eventually, to disperse.  Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps , and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.

My Take: 

In a unique writing voice, Loung Ung tells us her story - at age 5, suddenly transported from a middle-class lifestyle in the Cambodian city of Phnom Penh, where she lived with her family, to a life of starvation, hardship and struggle in the brutal village camps of the Khmer Rouge in 1975.  In their new world, her family of nine must learn to play down their intelligence, suffer through random visits by soldiers to houses where girls are taken from their families and raped, and entire families sometimes disappear, they must also worry about anyone finding out that their father served as a police officer in the former government. 

This is a fascinating account of a new, harsh world as seen through the eyes of a young child, a world that no one should have to live in. 

Flashes of hope and small triumphs (finding a way to get extra food, a visit from one of the siblings), become large in a world where hope and individuality are quashed.

I would totally recommend this title to anyone interested in the history of Cambodia as seen through the eyes of someone who lived through this regime. 

BOOK RATING:   4 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through TLC Book Tours to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Immortal Bird by Doron Weber - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Immortal Bird 
Author:  Doron Weber
Publisher:   Simon and Schuster
Release Date:  February 7, 2012
Hardcover, 351 pages
ISBN 10:    1451618069
ISBN 13:  9781451618068
The Book Depository / Amazon

February, 2012 Indie Next List

Goodreads description:

Damon Weber is a brilliant kid – a skilled actor and a natural leader at school. Born with a congenital heart defect that required surgery when he was a baby, Damon’s spirit and independence have always been a source of pride to his parents, Doron and Sheileagh, who vigilantly look for any signs of danger. As Damon continues to thrive socially and academically, he develops a dangerous heart condition that stunts his growth and saps his energy. Despite having the best doctors, his condition becomes increasingly serious, and the Weber family must make some difficult decisions.

Yet frequent medical check-ups can't keep Damon's spirit down. He proves to be a talent on stage, appears in David Milch’s HBO series Deadwood, and maintains an active social life, whenever he has the energy. Meanwhile, Doron searches relentlessly for answers about his son's condition, examining the latest research and consulting experts in a race against time for a solution.

Immortal Bird is a searing account of a father’s struggle against disease and bureaucracy – a moving story of science, health and love, and the redemptive power of art in the face of tragedy.

My Take: 

The title of this book is taken from Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale", which is appropriate, as this is a father's ode to his talented son which also includes excerpts from his son's blog.

Damon Weber is a smart, creative, funny teen who was born with a malformed heart that was corrected by surgery when he was young.   By the time he is 14, however, he is still only 5' 6" tall and not growing, having been diagnosed with PLE (a disease which causes protein not be kept in the body) at 13, the disease being a possible side effect of the heart surgeries he had as a toddler.  His parents, especially his father, research everything they can about the disease and, having the means to do so, explore as many feasible options outside of heart transplantation as possible in order to keep Damon with them.

As a parent, and knowing from the first pages of the novel how it was going to end, this was a sad read.  I could tell that the author tried his best to communicate the feeling of love he had for his son, and wanted to let the reader in on a child who was unmistakably a bright light in the world.  It was apparent that he tried his best to be fully informed, and also frustratingly obvious were the mistakes and inattention by medical staff as portrayed in these pages.  Having had my own battle with doctors brushing me off before my own son's diagnosis, I know how that feels, and it makes a parent angry.  It makes a parent angrier when the "cure" itself turns out to be worse than the disease, and due diligence is not applied in figuring out what the resulting illness actually IS (in this case, it should have been obvious to the doctors involved, but the initial prescribed treatment was the OPPOSITE of what should have been done).

To THIS reader, however, the telling often felt stiff, forced, and, at times, overly dramatic.  Every now and then, I caught a glimmer of something .. whether it be the dread of foreboding or the happiness at a triumph, but then the writing would go back to a somewhat superficial recounting.

I know that this must have been a difficult story to write, and I commend the author for this tribute to his son's spirit. 

QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):

The world carries on as before.
But underneath my feet, deep cracks and fissures appear.  I shiver and hear someone who sounds suspiciously like myself begin to sob and scream.


I feel my wife's suffering more acutely than my own, because my powerful feelings for Damon have not yet developed - fatherhood remains largely an abstraction to me - and I don't understand that this little pale infant with his reddish tuft of hair will become the center of my life.

From Damon's blog:

Honestly I'll never understand how I got through the last 3 years as well as I did.  And now when I think of what I might have been able to do with those 3 years had it not been for PLE it makes me kinda sad.  I guess I never really accepted it or admitted it before but now it's suddenly sort of hit me; I had a disease and a bad one, one that could and did kill people and one that no one really knew anything definitive about and who could blem them.  About 10,000 people in America have3 had my operation (the original 1) and 10% of those get PLE that's not exactly much of a data base.  And one that could have eventually killed me and was weakening me day by day.

BOOK RATING:   3 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Read an excerpt

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary ARC of this title from the publisher through Shelf Awareness to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Half a Life by Darin Strauss - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Half a Life
Author:  Darin Strauss
Publisher:   Random House
Release Date:  May 31, 2011
Paperback, 224 pages
ISBN 10:     0812982533
ISBN 13:  9780812982534
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award

“Half my life ago, I killed a girl.”

So begins Darin Strauss’ Half a Life, the true story of how one outing in his father’s Oldsmobile resulted in the death of a classmate and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author. We follow Strauss as he explores his startling past—collision, funeral, the queasy drama of a high-stakes court case—and what starts as a personal tale of a tragic event opens into the story of how to live with a very hard fact: we can try our human best in the crucial moment, and it might not be good enough. Half a Life is a nakedly honest, ultimately hopeful examination of guilt, responsibility, and living with the past.

My Take: 

In 1988, the author was 18 years old, riding in his car with friends, when a bicyclist turned in front of him.  That bicyclist turned out to be Celine Zilke, a 16-year-old schoolmate, who died from her injuries.

In this astonishingly frank memoir, Mr. Straus captures, at first in flash bursts of memory (the accident and its immediate aftermath) that bring the reader straight into the shock he experienced, and then in more fleshed-out form, how an accident at such a young age shapes his life and his thoughts about himself - why does it feel wrong to take pleasure in anything? SHOULD he take pleasure in anything?  What does it say about him when he actually FORGETS about what happened for a day or two?  As he goes on with his life, sometimes he gets hit with tears at random moments - commercials, etc., but mainly, as the years go by and the accident becomes a faded memory, he finds himself scarcely affected by it at all.  Then he remembers, and he feels as though he SHOULD feel more .. more guilt, more sadness for a girl he barely knew.

I was caught up in this one; it smacks of hard truths.  Not a guilt-ridden account, it felt REAL ... the way many of us would feel after an accident that wasn't our own fault.  Someone else died, but YOU still lived, and how do you cope with that and have a meaningful life?  How do you life a life that makes up for the life you took?   Or do you only deserve to live half a life?

QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):

I've come to see our central nervous system as a kind of vintage switchboard, all thick foam wires and old-fashioned plugs.  The circuitry isn't properly equipped; after a surplus of emotional information the system overloads, the circuit breaks, the board runs dark.  That's what shock is.

I didn't understand that everyone's tepid emotions were reasonable.  The panicky little drum that kept me going required that this event, this death, be epochal.  Of course, it was that:  this was an incomprehensibly sad occurrence for our school, our town.  But I didn't yet know that there are some truths - that even young people die occasionally; that there's only so much gnashing of teeth and weeping over another person's tragedy - there are some truths that only come to us softened by beautiful stratagems of self-deception.

I thought what it might mean not to have a life.  (I didn't get very far on that one.  What could it mean?  It was absence:  what was Celine not experiencing, not thinking about, not planning?)  I thought I would powerfully if gradually rise above despair.  I thought maybe I still didn't feel the right amount of despair.  I thought how do you calculate a sum like that?

BOOK RATING:  4 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 

This book is one of my listed titles for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Your Voice in My Head
Author:  Emma Forrest
Publisher:   Other Press
Release Date:  May 3, 2011
Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN 10:    1590514467
ISBN 13:  9781590514467
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

Emma Forrest, a British journalist, was just twenty-two and living the fast life in New York City when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity. In a cycle of loneliness, damaging relationships, and destructive behavior, she found herself in the chair of a slim, balding, and effortlessly optimistic psychiatrist—a man whose wisdom and humanity would wrench her from the dangerous tide after she tried to end her life. She was on the brink of drowning, but she was still working, still exploring, still writing, and she had also fallen deeply in love. One day, when Emma called to make an appointment with her psychiatrist, she found no one there. He had died, shockingly, at the age of fifty-three, leaving behind a young family. Reeling from the premature death of a man who had become her anchor after she turned up on his doorstep, she was adrift. And when her all-consuming romantic relationship also fell apart, Emma was forced to cling to the page for survival and regain her footing on her own terms.

A modern-day fairy tale, Your Voice in My Head is a stunning memoir, clear-eyed and shot through with wit. In her unique voice, Emma Forrest explores the highs and lows of love and the heartbreak of loss.

My Take: 

At 22, Emma Forrest was a a journalist on the fringes of fame, with a life that occasionally brushed that of well-known celebrities and other writers.  She was also a cutter, and a bulimic.  On a recommendation, she started seeing Dr. R.  Three weeks later, she was in the hospital for a suicide attempt.

Her family took her home to England to recover (like many of us, she had no insurance, and treatment here would have been prohibitively expensive), where she and Dr. R. still kept in touch.  She was diagnosed as a rapid cycle manic/depressive, with wild mood swings from one hour to the next. When she returned, she continued to see Dr. R., even after she moved to the West Coast from New York.  Many of their discussions were now by telephone, but one day she calls, and the office is no longer open.  She finds out that Dr. R. is dead of lung cancer at the rather young age of 53.    This book was begun as a loving tribute to the man who saved her from drowning herself, but on the way, it turned into something more.

In turns hilarious, heartwarming, heartbreaking and inspirational, and interspersed with letters of tribute from former patients and friends, this is a unique look inside a manic-depressive personality.  We meet Emma's wonderful, quirky family, and see her fall in "big" love after losing Dr. R.  When that romance fails, it is only the strength she has been given by Dr. R. that keeps her grounded enough to keep going, and that is the biggest tribute of all.

What a lovely read this is.  I know, you're probably thinking, "How can a memoir about someone with a mental illness coming off a suicide attempt, her trusted psychiatrist dying with no warning, then losing her boyfriend be lovely and funny?".  But it is; trust me.  Ms. Forrest's writing style is better than that of the average bear, and without being at all clinical, gives the reader a deeper understanding of a well-known, but little-understood, bipolar disorder.  Click on the link below to read the first chapter; if you don't smile at least once, you may need to call in a repairman to fine-tune your sense of humor.

QUOTES (asterisks replace some letters in deference to my sensitive readers):

Karen is a friend of Bad Boyfriend's from childhood and he doesn't want her anymore so I take her because she's smart and kind and funny and deeply, profoundly needy and nobody wants her, not even her own family and it breaks my f**king heart.

Have you ever eating something appalling for breakfast, something really bad for you, a chocolate cake, and just thought, "F**k it, this is bad, I'd better keep going?  Christ, this is making me feel horrible, I'd better have more?"

Reading that letter, I move the loss of GH and the death of Dr. R from being a picture in my wallet I see all through the day to going in a photo album to be looked at on special occasions.

BOOK RATING:  4.5 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

If your browser doesn't support embedded video you can view the trailer here.

Read the first chapter

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 

This book is included in my list for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

 

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through Shelf Awareness to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

The Medium Next Door by Maureen Hancock - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  The Medium Next Door: Adventures of a Real-Life Ghost Whisperer
Author:  Maureen Hancock
Publisher:   Health Communications
Release Date:  May 2, 2011
Paperback, 264 pages
ISBN 10:    075731564X
ISBN 13:  9780757315640
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

The Medium Next Door is the amazing life story of spirit medium Maureen Hancock, who discovered her psychic abilities to see, hear, and speak with the dead when she was just five years old. Descended from a long line of legendary Irish mystics, Maureen was no stranger to the spiritual realm, but she still kept the messages from the departed to herself all throughout her childhood and teen years, eventually suppressing them almost completely.

Maureen wouldn't open herself up to communicating with spirits again until she was in a near-fatal car crash. Soon after, she had hundreds of voices in her head, many of them helping her crack cases and expose fraud in her role as a litigation paralegal at a large Boston law firm. Accepting her gift but still keeping it to herself, she married and had two children.

It wasn't until tragedy struck on 9/11 and Maureen was bombarded with messages from the spirits that she realized she had to stop hiding her ability and put it to good use. She left her job at the law firm and opened the holistic healing center Pathways to Healing and launched the cancer foundation Manifest a Miracle. Today, she goes by the title Medium Mom and strives to balance raising children, raising the dead, assisting the dying, searching for missing children, and teaching about life after death.


My Take: 

Author Maureen Hancock comes from a long line of Irish healers and grew up with Southern, church-going women.  Raised outside of Boston, she was born with a veil (or caul, as my Southern roots call it), which, according to some beliefs, indicate special gifts (ESP, etc.)

This book contains anecdotes telling the story of how she realized her gifts of healing and of hearing spirits, her family, her foundations,  her work with law enforcement and holistic healing.   She includes entries from her family and client journals as well as affirmations at the end of each chapter.

Many of the stories are both heartwarming and heartbreaking, and Maureen's narrative voice is like having a conversation with an earthy next-door-neighbor.  As a former comedienne turned medium, with a large family and a husband and sons of her own, she takes the reader on a unique sort of journey, illustrating how a belief in holistic healing and her gift of clairaudience (hearing spirits) doesn't negate a belief in God and a higher power.

I found the book interesting, if a bit meandering and disconnected here and there.  It IS a genuine accounting, and Maureen gives back to the community with Seeds of Hope (offers holistic healing, grief counseling, and other services), as well as Mission for the Missing.  She offers many services at no cost.

Author Bio:

Maureen Hancock possesses the ability to connect with loved-ones beyond the grave.  Her style is unlike any other medium in that she uses humor to deliver messages and soften even the hardest skeptic. Even more astonishing, she takes on the personality of the deceased providing detailed information—names, dates, and exactly how the person passed. She brings up specific life memories that leave participants laughing and crying.

Hancock has appeared on the front page of several newspapers for both her performances and her charitable work with the ‘Chernobyl Childrens Project’ as well as other foundations. While she has been interviewed nationally on

radio, she’s a regular morning guest on popular New England FM stations, WROR and Fun107. Hancock has been featured on two New England news stations, WHDH Channel 7 and FOX25 News. In the past, she hosted her

own Comcast Cable talk show called, “Postcards from Heaven.’ Hancock also appears in the documentary, “41”, distributed by Nehst Productions (award-winning film maker, Larry Meistrich).

Maureen has also appeared in four episodes of the 20th Century Fox Television daily strip show, Wedlock or Deadlock.

Hancock’s giving heart shines on those in need. She spends numerous hours each week giving back and on-call for emergencies such as the loss of a child, those about to pass from cancer, and searching for missing children. Through her own charitable foundations, Seeds of Hope and Mission for the Missing, Hancock provides these services pro-bono. She is also an inspirational speaker providing lectures for

several organizations including, Compassionate Friends, as well as various medical groups such as, The S.A.N.E. Program, several hospice groups throughout New England, and Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society. 

Maureen’s path as a medium began on an icy night in 1992, when Hancock fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree, breaking several facial bones and fracturing her skull. The extreme trauma caused her to start to hear and see dead people throughout the day and night. Hancock believes this accident caused a ‘reawakening’. As a child, she spent three years in and out of Boston’s Children’s Hospital with lead paint poisoning.

After coming out of her coma and returning home, Hancock reported to family members that dead people were walking through walls and closed doors. She thought everyone could see and hear these spirits.

Ian Sander and Kim Moses (aka Sander/ Moses) are signed by Disney ABC to be the executive producers of psychic medium Maureen Hancock's life in her 2011 reality TV pilot for her upcoming reality TV series.

QUOTES

My brother Jim, the psychologist/skeptic, will probably never wrap his brain around what I do.  I can tell he's curious but not yet convinced.  And what a challenge it was to tell my devout Catholic mother that I was a ghost whisperer.  Today, she is my biggest fan and promoter.  Dad just sits back and smiles when he hears my stories.  When I tell him an old Navy buddy wants to say hi, he just giggles and says, "Oh yeah?  Is he still drinking Aqua Velva?"  Apparently, any form of alcohol would do when out to sea for months.

While I specialize in helping people connect to their departed loved ones, people seem to think I have a full handle on the unseen. They ask me to find their missing loved ones, locate lost jewelry, diagnose medical problems, talk to sensitive children, and discover if their partner is cheating.  They think they've found Dr. Phil, the Supernanny, and the Ghost Whisperer, all rolled into one.

Make a conscious effort to become aware of fear and decide not to let it weave its toxic web around you. This is the first step in awakening to the possibilities of abundant joy and laughter.

BOOK RATING:   3 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Author website

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publicist to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Snowflake Obsidian by The Hippie with Anger Issues - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Snowflake Obsidian
Author:  The Hippie with Anger Issues
Publisher:   iUniverse.com
Release Date:  April 5, 2011
Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN 10:    144240339X
ISBN 13:  9781442403390
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

Willow is nineteen, naive, and Mormon. She genuinely sucks at having relationships with the opposite sex, thanks to her daddy issues-as in she has a dad and wishes she didn't. Her only perfect relationship is with her best friend, Jo. But when Willow and Jo fall for the same guy, Willow finds herself friendless and falling in love with a drug addict. Feeling confused, guilty, and alone, she turns to cutting herself as a way to cope. 

Snowflake Obsidian presents the memoir of one girl's transformation and gradual shift from the cocoon of a protected religious culture to the wider world and a deeper understanding the many faces of love. As Willow steps into the world outside her religious ideals, she finds herself in situations she'd never imagined: getting a body piercing at a parlor full of sex toys; purchasing the morning-after pill for a friend who had been raped; and attending a support group for co-dependents. She puts all her faith in a snowflake obsidian stone when she can't cope with her depression. She lives with her boyfriend while trying to remain abstinent. 

Willow's journey into the world illuminates her dark side-which in turn fully allows her to know the light. Her intelligent and humorous voice shares her story with a straightforward blend of nostalgic observance and cynical optimism in this witty memoir of life, love, and learning.

My Take: 

Written in the first-person voice of Willow, a painter with a love of "vintage" thrift store finds, this is a chatty type of memoir, filled with all of the dizzy high drama of adolescence and young adulthood, with a lot of talk about nothing, really, and some cornerstone events (the faithlessness of a bestie, the rape of another, conflicting feelings about parents, and love affair[s] among a group of friends).  It captures all of the restlessness of first loves (Do I like him?  Do I love him?  Today I do, but tomorrow I might like someone else.), and touches on the emotions that might cause someone to cut.

I had a bit of a time keeping up with the various friends and relationships, especially initially, as the intros to various friends felt rushed.  I also felt that the book could have used some creative editing, for grammar and fleshing-out, especially since the actual "premise" of the book (cutting) is only mentioned a couple of times in passing. 

It was refreshing to read about a young adult determined to hold her moral higher than average (no sex, no drugs, no smoking), even when some of her friends indulged in self-destructive behavior.  The style of writing would likely best appeal to YA readers (high school through college); it is sort of like having your friend tell you about the things that have happened to her.

QUOTES

My friends were gorgeous, and I always considered myself plain in comparison to their stunning beauty.  Although my utterly beautiful friends received most of the attention from the opposite sex, I received some flattering attention, but I always assumed it was only by status default.  It came in the form of a shoulder-rub by a creepy social climbing sophomore, or someone reminiscing about how they used to date one of my friends.

It's because I say things like "good energy" and "bad vibes," and I wear tie-dye skirts with no shoes, while simultaneously crying over caged puppies and the destruction of mother earth, and conservative Mormon's know no other word for what I am, except for hippie.  The word is sometimes spoken with adoration, and other times in damnation.

I was just waiting for the divorce to come now that I was nineteen.  I wondered what was holding them together still.  Their beliefs had completely polarized.  When your father works in a hospital and your mother is against conventional medicine, it makes for an interesting marriage.  And by interesting, I mean dysfunctional, and dysfunctional, I mean f__ked up.  And I know f__k isn't a word that Mormons say, but I don't say this word I only think it, so it doesn't really count.

Writing:  3 out of 5 stars

Plot:   3 out of 5 stars

Characters: 3 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   3 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:   3 out of 5 stars

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from Pump Up Your Book to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  The Long Goodbye
Author:  Meghan O'Rourke
Publisher:   Riverhead Books, a division of the Penguin Group
Release Date:  April 14, 2011
Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN 10:  1594487987
ISBN 13:  9781594487989
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

"The Long Goodbye" is O'Rourke's anguished, beautifully written chronicle of that passage, from the innocence of a relatively privileged life to the wider and more desolate country that great loss imposes. So there are two main characters in this story, a wisely determined balance that allows us to care for the mother as well as the narrator, rendered helpless in the wake of death's dominion.
. . . Grief doesn't necessarily make you noble. Sometimes it just makes you crazy, or primitive with fear, and O'Rourke captures that emotional violence with elegant candor. "The Long Goodbye" also traces the second crossing that death mandates: the architecture of mourning that enables survivors to go on.

"The Long Goodbye" is an elegiac depiction of a drama as old as life, wherein the mother's first job is to raise a daughter strong enough to outlast her.

My Take: 

The Long Goodbye is Ms. O'Rourke's chronicle of her mother's battle with cancer and of her own journey through grief.

Her mother died of metastatic colorectal cancer on Christmas Day, 2008, at 55 years old.  Through Ms. O'Rourke's words, she brings memories of her mother, who put her in the habit of journalling when she was 5 years old, as well as her childhood and the losing battle the family waged with her mother's illness.  Even if your own childhood was different, you will find parallels here to make you recollect your own childhood moments.  Some stages of her mother's battle will bring tears to your eyes, and she also makes us realize that Western society really offers us no rituals to guide us through our loss.  We are expected to go to the funeral or memorial, and then bounce right back into living as though nothing as happened, with no real consideration for the loss we've just suffered.

An interesting thing I learned while reading this memoir is that the oft-quoted five stages of grief as defined by Elisabet Kulder-Ross - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - were actually used to describe the grief of the dying, not those of us left behind.  For me, this better explains how the grief-stricken rarely move through those stages:  Grief takes us on a circuitous route, somewhat like a maze, often doubling back on itself, and we are never really the same afterward.

This well-written chronicle of Ms. O'Rourke's personal journey should be shared not just with people suffering a loss themselves, but with those who haven't yet experienced the loss of a close loved one, if only for the deeper understanding it may give them.

Another useful point is that Ms. O'Rourke cites and lists many of the works she read in her attempts to better understand what she was feeling throughout her grief process.

QUOTES (from an ARC; may be different in final copy):

When a friend talked about a minor problem at work, I wanted to shake her:  You're healthy, your loved ones are healthy, this problem is small.

I was struck, too, by how much of Hamlet is about the precise kind of slippage the mourner experiences:  the difference between being and seeming, the uncertainty about how the inner translates into the outer, the sense that one is expe3cted to perform grief palatably.  (If  you don't seem sad, people worry; but if you are grief-stricken, they often don't know how to deal with it.)

I thought I was prepared for my mother's death.
I knew it would happen.
Yet the reality of her being dead was so different than her death.

BOOK RATING:   3.5 out of 5 stars

Sensitive Reader:  Some profanity used as adjectives and adverbs

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Author website

Read an excerpt

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 

This title is included in my 2011 ARC Reading Challenge list

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Barry Fixler, Author of "Semper Cool" Q & A

Barry Fixler, the author of Semper Cool (see my review), graciously allowed me to ask some questions.

Quick synopsis of book:  Semper Cool is the wrenching, sometimes hilarious and always thought-provoking true story of a mischievous teenager who enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps seeking adventure and his father's approval and finds both, plus more danger than he ever could have imagined.

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1.  At the end of the book, you state that you don't believe in PTSD.  Do you think that your experience may have been different if you'd come back wounded, or had to encounter the hatred that some Vietnam soldiers encountered when they returned?  Or if when you came back, you came back to poverty and struggle rather than being able to come back to a relatively well-appointed life?

That's a great question about PTSD. I suspect that if veterans from my era were offered mandatory counseling instead of financial compensation for PTSD the number of claims would drop to almost zero. Or if it became illegal for PTSD sufferers to own firearms, which has been proposed because it is considered a mental illness, we would probably see a lot of "miraculous" recoveries. So, to answer your question, I do not believe different circumstances for me after the war would have changed my experience. However, even though I don't believe in PTSD for me, there are situations that might have changed my experience and haunted me after the war. If I had accidentally killed civilians, or if I had killed Marines in a friendly fire accident, I don't think I would be so fond of my memories. Unfortunately the Marines and soldiers fighting today are facing a cowardly enemy that uses women and children as human shields. I'm grateful I never had to fight under those conditions in Vietnam. Here’s a link to research on PTSD by Dr. B. Christopher Frueh that offers some perspective on issue:

1.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2089098/pdf/0972143.pdf
   

2.  I love the fact that you are donating your profits to wounded vets and families of those killed in action!  I think that's wonderful.

a.  Approximately how much have you been able to donate thus far?

b.  How have you determined where and who to donate to?

My foundation, The Barry Fixler Foundation, has donated a total of $8,000 from my Semper Cool royalties.

I donated $1,000 to an Army veteran who returned home to find that his wife left him with no job and two children to support. At that point in his life he felt overwhelmed and I was told that the young soldier was suicidal. He needed a little breathing room and the $1,000 from Semper Cool helped him out.

I donated $5,000 to the family of Brendon Marrocco. Brendon lost all four limbs when an IED blew up his vehicle. His parents used the money to make his home accessible for him. Here’s a link to Brendon’s story in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/nyregion/04soldier.html 

I donated $2,000 to the family of Sgt. Eddie Ryan. Eddie was shot twice in the head in a friendly fire incident. Eddie’s parents, Chris and Angie, used the money to pay for his trip to the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C. Here’s a link to a story about Eddie’s Marathon: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101031/NEWS/101039981

3.  On a similar note, have your efforts been able to continue to draw significant attention to the plight of our returning wounded and the state of VA hospitals?

I'm just getting started. I have raised more than $39,000, counting the royalties and advance from my publisher, and direct donations from readers. Some readers are so moved by Semper Cool that they send large donations to my foundation. Vietnam veteran, donated $5,000 after reading Semper Cool. Another reader, who has no connection to the military, donated $1,000 anonymously. And there are a lot of stories like that. It was never my goal to raise money from direct donations, but it's humbling when someone is so touched by my story that they feel compelled to give more.

Semper Cool is receiving great reviews but I need a lot of help getting the word out. I think when people hear that it's a great book and that I'm also donating 100% of my royalties to wounded veterans that Semper Cool will really take off.

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Thank you so much, Barry!  For your service, for your book, and for your efforts at helping our wounded veterans and their families!

For more on the book and on Barry's foundation, please visit the website.

Semper Cool by Barry Fixler - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Semper Cool
Author:  Barry Fixler
Publisher:  Exalt Press
Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN 10:    0982518404
ISBN 13:  9780982518403
The Book Depository / Amazon

Goodreads description:

Semper Cool is the wrenching, sometimes hilarious and always thought-provoking true story of a mischievous teenager who enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps seeking adventure and his father's approval and finds both, plus more danger than he ever could have imagined. With its vivid imagery, Semper Cool thrusts readers into a grunt's-eye view of the blood, guts, tears and laughter of war, as told by a Marine who returned home a man and a patriot. Be prepared to laugh and cry and ultimately thank God for the men and women willing to risk their lives for the freedoms that so many Americans enjoy

My Take: 

About the Cover Photograph

Author Barry Fixler holds the skull of an North Vietnamese soldier at an outpost near the DMZ. The Marine to his right was killed shortly after this photo was taken. The Marine to his left lost both legs in battle.

When reading this book, there were times when I FELT the jungle and it's heat around me and the weight of the gear the soldiers had to carry.  Mr. Fixler's unapologetic look at the time he spent in Vietnam has moments of machismo, but after all, he IS a Marine.  I don't know ANY Marines who don't rightfully puff out their chests a bit when speaking of their military experience.  Heck, even getting through boot camp is a lesson in discipline.  As part of Echo 2/26, fighting in the Siege of Khe Sanh, one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, Mr. Fixler has good reason to be proud of his service.

This memoir is about a skinny Jewish kid from Long Island, who, rather than heading straight to college after high school, enlists in the Marines and goes off to fight in the Vietnam War.  He tells the story of Vietnam with the cockiness of a fighting man, with little fanfare, just the bones and guts.  He was fortunate to come back in one piece, without physical or emotional scars, and his fighting experience came in handy during an attempted robbery at his jewelry store many years later.

While many Vietnam vets were traumatized by their experience, both during the war itself, and by the unwelcoming reception they received when they returned, Mr. Fixler was fortunate enough to come back stronger, and ultimately pshaws PTSD (a position I personally don't agree with, but I can understand how someone who hasn't experienced it might feel that way.  I felt that way about depression until I went through my own bout for a few years after my little brother was murdered in a random act of violence.  Some things you just have to experience yourself to know that they're real).

After hearing about a particularly heartrending case of a returning Iraq veteran who was severely wounded and languishing in a V.A. hospital, Mr. Fixler took up his cause, and was able to get him transferred to a private hospital.  Through a prolonged fundraising effort, he was also able to donate $100,000 to his family for the ongoing care that our government would not provide.

As a result of this effort, he is committed to the cause of veterans, both those returning and those who won't return, and 100% of the profits from this title will go to wounded combat veterans and their families, as well as to children of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Interspersed with photos from the war, this title is a must-read for those of us who grew up in the generations after the Vietnam war.  I have heard many accounts of the war from Vietnam vets that I personally know, but none were delivered in such a matter-of-fact, realistic fashion.

QUOTES

But for all of his bravado, Mitch was never a tough guy.  He never went looking for fights, and he had no business ending up in Vietnam.

Upon arriving in Vietnam, when getting orders for assigned units:

If you were alive, that meant your unit was in one of the less dangerous places in Vietnam.  If you were a basket case, your unit was in a pretty bad place.  If you were dead, that meant you were headed straight into the deep sh_t.  Your unit was in the middle of the worst of the worst combat.

The infant knew how to beg before it knew how to walk.
Someone could have shot at me and  wouldn't even have been able to react, I was so engrossed in that thought:  The child couldn't even walk yet, but already knew how to beg.

Writing:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Reading Immersion:   4 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING:  3.75 out of 5 stars

Sensitive reader:  It's a book by a Marine .. a Marine who fought in Vietnam ... there's cursing and the violence of war.

BLOGGERS:  Have you reviewed this book? If so, please feel free to leave a link to your review in the comments section; I will also add your link to the body of my review.

Visit the website

BUY IT:  At Amazon, The Book Depository, and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publicist to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  A Widow's Story
Author:  Joyce Carol Oates
Publisher:  Ecco, a division of Harper Collins
Publish Date:  February 15, 2011
Hardcover, 432 pages
ISBN 10:    006201553
ISBN 13:  9780062015532

Goodreads description:

In a work unlike anything she's written before, National Book Award winner Joyce Carol Oates unveils a poignant, intimate memoir about the unexpected death of her husband of forty-six years and its wrenching, surprising aftermath.

"My husband died, my life collapsed."

On a February morning in 2008, Joyce Carol Oates drove her ailing husband, Raymond Smith, to the emergency room of the Princeton Medical Center where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Both Joyce and Ray expected him to be released in a day or two. But in less than a week, even as Joyce was preparing for his discharge, Ray died from a virulent hospital-acquired infection, and Joyce was suddenly faced—totally unprepared—with the stunning reality of widowhood.

A Widow's Story illuminates one woman's struggle to comprehend a life without the partnership that had sustained and defined her for nearly half a century. As never before, Joyce Carol Oates shares the derangement of denial, the anguish of loss, the disorientation of the survivor amid a nightmare of "death-duties," and the solace of friendship. She writes unflinchingly of the experience of grief—the almost unbearable suspense of the hospital vigil, the treacherous "pools" of memory that surround us, the vocabulary of illness, the absurdities of commercialized forms of mourning. Here is a frank acknowledgment of the widow's desperation—only gradually yielding to the recognition that "this is my life now." 

 Enlivened by the piercing vision, acute perception, and mordant humor that are the hallmarks of the work of Joyce Carol Oates, this moving tale of life and death, love and grief, offers a candid, never-before-glimpsed view of the acclaimed author and fiercely private woman.

My Take: 

Ms. Oates is a tremendously gifted writer, and in this book she takes us through the pain and confusion of the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband of 47 years.  In a visit to the hospital, Ray is found to have pneumonia.  A couple of days before he was to be released, Ms. Oates receives a call in the middle of the night - please come, he is still alive.  By the time she reaches the hospital, he is no longer alive, and thus begins her journey into the numbness and bewildering sadness that comprises a deep grief.

As we journey with the author through her memories and through the aftermath of losing her life partner of almost 50 years, those of us familiar with grief may recognize the numbness and disorientation of loss so aptly chronicled in this memoir.  Those who haven't gone through a sudden loss would do well to read this account, as it may help give a deeper understanding of the wandering, disconnected thoughts which accompany the effort to cope with such a deep sense of grief.  Of particular interest to me was her description of suicidal thoughts - not that she wants to commit suicide, but that the idea that it is available as an option helps power her through the times when she falls into "sinkholes" of memory and loss.

There are transcripts of some of the mails she received included in various places throughout the novel, and I feel that she is indeed a fortunate woman to have such supportive friends and acquaintances.  From the note that says so truthfully, "...you are going to be so unhappy" to the note that states, "one breath at a time", it is obvious that these friends know the true depth that a loss like this entails - that it won't "get better" for a long time, and that even when the numbness eases, it will never be the same.

If you've ever gone through your own loss, these words will comfort you as you realize that you are not and were not alone in your inability to inwardly cope.

I thank the author for sharing her experience with us; it had to be extremely difficult to put these feelings into words that could so accurately convey it.

QUOTES

....sometimes, I call our home number from my cell phone, to hear Ray's recorded voice that is so comforting, and which, when they call this number, our friends will hear for a very long time.

It is strange to be so assailed by rushing thoughts when I am moving so slowly - speaking so slowly - like one who has been slammed over the head with a sledgehammer.

For this is the great discovery of my posthumous life - I am not strong enough to continue a life to no purpose except getting through the day followed by getting through the night.  I am not strong enough to believe that so minimal a life is worth the effort to protract it.


BOOK RATING: 4.5 out of 5 stars

About the Author

BUY IT:  At Amazon, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

This book is included in my list for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through Shelf Awareness to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.

Angela's Ashes - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  Angela's Ashes
Author:  Frank McCourt
Publisher:  Various (my version - Scribner)
Hardcover, 368 pages
ISBN 10:   0684874350
ISBN 13:  9780684874357

Goodreads description:

THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND AUDIE AWARD WINNER

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."

So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. 

Perhaps it is a story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner, and searching the pubs for his father, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness. 

Imbued with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, Angela's Ashes is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.

Awards:

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1997) 

National Book Critics' Circle Award (1996) 

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography (1996) 

Exclusive Books Boeke Prize (1997)

My Take: 

How do you tell a tale of a poverty-stricken upbringing with humor and grace?  Frank McCourt does it in his memoir in a way that will keep you turning pages long after the last time you said to yourself, "I really must put this book down and get ... done."

After the tragic loss of his 7-week-old sister Margaret, Frank's family (dad, mom, 3-year-old brother Malachy and 1-year-old twins Oliver and Eugene) moves back to Ireland when Frank is four.  They are promptly turned away from their paternal grandparents' house and sent to Dublin, where they are told that Frank's father should be able to get some compensation for having fought for Ireland's cause.  This turns out to be untrue, and, penniless, they end up at the police station, where only the kindness of the officers gives them the money they need to continue to their maternal grandmother's home.

Frank's father is a drunkard from Northern Ireland who can't keep a job longer than the third paycheck, and even the dole money he is given when out of work winds up going to drink rather than to feeding his family.  They live with fleas, in a unit that floods on the lower level, forcing them to spend much of their time upstairs.

The reader finds out about the peculiar prejudice of the southern Irish against those of the North, easily distinguishable by their accents, and also about the injustice bred by poverty.  We see Frank and his family going hungry while other families eat, and Frank wishing that someone else could be his mother simply because then he could always have mashed potatoes or soup.  Siblings sicken and die, and his mother is shamefully reduced to begging for scraps to feed her children.  Other fathers go to England to work, as does Frank's father, but, unlike the other fathers, no money is sent to his family.  In spite of Frank's intelligence and the recommendation of his schoolmaster, Frank is turned away as an altar boy due to his poverty, and other doors are closed to him as well.

In spite of it all, there is hope and laughter in this novel.  There are people we want to punch, and people we want to hug.  There is the small joy of having enough to buy a piece of candy or go to the movie, and the larger joy of sometimes having a full meal or a couple of coins in your pocket.

This is a tug-at-your-heart, in your face look at a hardscrabble life that many of us couldn't imagine, written by someone who falls in love with the words of Shakespeare and with Wodehouse novels while recovering from typhoid fever in the hospital.  It is a tale that all readers will love, and I highly recommend it for anyone's shelves.

QUOTES

She says that if Dad's job lasts we'll get proper cups and maybe saucers and some day, with the help of God and His Blessed Mother, we'll have sheets on the bed and if we save a long time a blanket or two instead of those old coats which people must have left behind during the Great Famine.

That dog is a right Hindu, so she is, and that's where I found her mother wandering around Bangalore.  If ever you're getting a dog, Francis, make sure it's a Buddhist.  Good-natured dogs, the Buddhists.  Never, never get a Mahommedan.  They'll eat you sleeping.  Never a Catholic dog.  They'll eat you every day including Fridays. 

Your mind is your house and if you fill it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head.  You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.

BOOK RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

BUY IT:  At Amazon, and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 This title is included in my list for the 2011 Off The Shelf Challenge

Disclosure:  This is a review of my personal copy.

The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok - BOOK REVIEW

Title:  The Memory Palace
Author:  Mira Bartok
Publisher:  Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster
Publish Date:  January 11, 2011
Hardcover, 336 pages
ISBN 10:   1439183317
ISBN 13:  9781439183311

Goodreads description:

“ People have abandoned their loved ones for much less than you’ve been through,” Mira Bartók is told at her mother’s memorial service. It is a poignant observation about the relationship between Mira, her sister, and their mentally ill mother. Before she was struck with schizophrenia at the age of nineteen, beautiful piano protégé Norma Herr had been the most vibrant personality in the room. She loved her daughters and did her best to raise them well, but as her mental state deteriorated, Norma spoke less about Chopin and more about Nazis and her fear that her daughters would be kidnapped, murdered, or raped.

When the girls left for college, the harassment escalated—Norma called them obsessively, appeared at their apartments or jobs, threatened to kill herself if they did not return home. After a traumatic encounter, Mira and her sister were left with no choice but to change their names and sever all contact with Norma in order to stay safe. But while Mira pursued her career as an artist—exploring the ancient romance of Florence, the eerie mysticism of northern Norway, and the raw desert of Israel—the haunting memories of her mother were never far away.

Then one day, Mira’s life changed forever after a debilitating car accident. As she struggled to recover from a traumatic brain injury, she was confronted with a need to recontextualize her life—she had to relearn how to paint, read, and interact with the outside world. In her search for a way back to her lost self, Mira reached out to the homeless shelter where she believed her mother was living and discovered that Norma was dying.

Mira and her sister traveled to Cleveland, where they shared an extraordinary reconciliation with their mother that none of them had thought possible. At the hospital, Mira discovered a set of keys that opened a storage unit Norma had been keeping for seventeen years. Filled with family photos, childhood toys, and ephemera from Norma’s life, the storage unit brought back a flood of previous memories that Mira had thought were lost to her forever.

The Memory Palace is a breathtaking literary memoir about the complex meaning of love, truth, and the capacity for forgiveness among family. Through stunning prose and original art created by the author in tandem with the text, The Memory Palace explores the connections between mother and daughter that cannot be broken no matter how much exists—or is lost—between them.

My Take: 

Although I didn't grow up here, I live in Cleveland now, and this book was set here.  I also had a mother who suffered through a nervous breakdown, and what was likely undiagnosed chemical depression, so I was very interested in this book from the beginning.

This is not an easy read.  It is a tale of a daughter whose mother's mental illness caused her to only communicate with her mother through a social worker and a post office box.  It is a story of her growing up, her worries and her guilt.  If, like most of us, you can't imagine children leaving their mother to live homeless in the street while they continue on with their lives, reading this book will bring you a greater understanding of why it may sometimes be necessary to do so.  For me, it also highlights the need for some type of reform of our broken mental health care system.  When a mentally-ill mother holds a knife to her daughter's throat and is let out of the hospital and sent home on her own the same day, there's a problem.  I don't pretend to know how to fix it (if I did, maybe I could run for office), but it definitely needs to be fixed somehow.

The writing ... well, the writing is luminous.  The Memory Palace is a house of memories in one's mind where you place pictures of things that will stir your memories, and as she takes us through her own memory palace, Ms. Bartok's words embed themselves in your heart. You feel her quiet sorrow and the embarrassment that she is caused by her mother's illness; her fears when her mother leaves her alone when they're out, saying that she'll be right back, and she never comes back.  As she goes through her own battle with a brain injury, it helps her understand a bit more about what her mother must feel with the voices inside of her head battling for dominance.

This is not an "I must finish this all in one sitting" type of book.  It's a book that you read in parts and give yourself time to digest before going on to the next.  There are excerpts from her mother's journals that give a deeper insight into the brilliant mind that was ruined by schizophrenia.  I think that it's the type of book that could win literary awards, and I applaud the author for her strength in putting this story on paper.

QUOTES

Then, outside, beneath the marquee, I see a woman with dark curly hair, pacing, smoking in the thrumming rain.  She is alone and muttering to herself.  Something about her reminds me of the old lady downtown who wears three coats and asks people on the street for a dime.  I run to my mother, even though she could be that lady with the coats, the lady who has no teeth and who talks to her hands.  When my mother sees me, she hugs me close.

This will be my purgatory:  the knock at the door at midnight, my mother, hair wild as snakes, the sound of sirens and doors slamming shut, the violent rush or arms and hands, my mother placed in restraints and handed over to strangers.  And me, sitting in a green room beneath cold fluorescent lights, tapping my foot to a song I played long ago.

As my grandma's Alzheimer's worsened, my mother's surprise visits to my sister and me increased, as did her disappearances to shelters and cheap motels.  It was as if she were in training to be homeless.

BOOK RATING: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Read an excerpt

Book Clubs:  This would make a good discussion book, especially for a more literary type of club.

BUY IT:  At Amazon, through the publisher's website,  and through other on-and-off-line booksellers.

 This book is part of my list for the 2011 ARC Reading Challenge

Disclosure:  I  received a  complimentary copy of this title from the publisher through both Shelf Awareness and through the publisher's Galley Grab program to facilitate my review.  No other compensation was received and I was not required to post a positive review.