Fall Reading!

Yesterday marked the first day of fall friends! Welcome to Autumn! In addition to crisp mornings, layered clothing, and the return of my beloved Apple Pie Chai (shout out to Hobbs Coffee Shop in Swarthmore, PA), the change in season also marks time for a new reading list.

You may recall my Summer Reading List, and my Summer Reading List Overhaul. I learned a lot from creating those lists. The first lesson being that I was way too ambitious. My original Summer Reading List was a whopping NINE books long. I don't know what I thought I was doing, but I'll give myself some points for enthusiasm.

This time I have crafted a much more feasible list, and figure, if anything, I can add to it as needed.

Just in case the picture's a little fuzzy, the books are:

Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I'm excited to get started! Stay tuned for reviews and any additions to the list. And just in case you think I forgot, I'll be posting the reviews for the last few books on my Summer Reading List before the week is out.

Happy Reading!!

The Last of the Summer Book Reviews

Ok, so I didn't exactly get these in before October like I planned, but better late than never right? The last three books on the list were:

Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler

The Scribe: Irin Chronicles Book One by Elizabeth Hunter

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

So, without further ado, here are my thoughts...

Unexpected Stories

I should put a disclaimer on this review. Full disclosure, Octavia Butler is my FAVORITE author. Not one of my favorites, not in my top 5 authors of all time, she is THE favorite. In the characters she has created, I have found myself. In the stories she has woven I have felt a deeper connection with the world, and gained new understanding and insights into the human condition. It was while reading her works, and learning about her life, that I began to feel it would never be enough for writing to just be a "hobby." Reading her work has helped me to know myself better, and I am forever grateful for the beautiful body of work she created.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's get down to these amazing and "unexpected" stories. They are incredible. The first story, "A Necessary Being," is a complete tease. You can not help but wonder what that story might have been had Butler had the time to flesh it out into a longer story, or as she was so fond of creating, a series. But in the short glimpse of this alien-world, Butler immediately draws you in to a culture and society that while extraordinarily unique, that also feels vaguely familiar and entirely plausible. She weaves a story of caste systems, and extinction and war and unlikely courtship, that leaves you spinning all kinds of permutations in your mind of what may have happened next. "Childfinder" reads like a spin-off of Butler's earlier "Wild Seed" series. This story is equally as riveting as the first, although, one can take comfort in re-reading the aforementioned series, when you come to the end and are left wanting more.

Unexpected Stories is only available via ebook, much to my dismay, as I own a hardcopy of every book Butler has written. I would suggest downloading to any and every device you own as soon as you are able. You won't regret it.

The Scribe

I am going to do my very best to contain myself as I write this review, but OH MY GOD, this book is amazing. If you have not heard of the amazing self-published author, Elizabeth Hunter, do yourself a favor and go to her website right this minute. Not five minutes from now. Not in a couple days. RIGHT THIS MINUTE. I finished this book about 36 hours after I started it. I immediately recommended it to my sister, and I think she finished it in less than 24 hours. In my defense it was a very busy time for me when I picked up The Scribe: Irin Chronicles Book One, or I likely could have finished it in one sitting.

The world of The Scribe is a world of the children of angels, and ancient cities and hidden societies, and epic love stories… oh, the love story. The love that exists in these pages is the kind of love people spend their whole lives searching for, and just reading about it makes you feel warm inside. Hunter crafts a world that is entirely believable, and you find yourself completely immersed in the journey of the characters she has created, almost as if they were your own dear friends.

I was elated to find out that this book too, like the others she has written, would be part of a series. When I complete all the books on my Fall Reading List, The Singer, which is the second book in this series, will be my reward. Hopefully that will tide me over until the third book, The Secret, comes out in the Winter of 2015. Here's hoping she means early winter, like January...

The Invention of Wings

So, as you may recall, when I set out to finish these last three books from my Summer Reading List, I had 38 days to finish them. The end of that 38 day timeline was marked by the first day of Fall, and time to begin a new reading list. Well, I finished the two books above, in barely over a week. That left me with almost a solid month to finish The Invention of Wings. I figured that was more than enough time. I remember devouring The Secret Life of Bees in a matter of hours. Surely another book by the same author would be equally as quick. Easy, peasy. Right? Wrong.

I could not for the life of me get into this story. I think it was because I didn't believe her. And when I say I didn't believe her, I mean, her character's voice, in particular one of her narrator's voices (a female slave named Handful), did not feel real to me. In the books above, part of why I was able to dive so deeply into those stories is because despite the whole other worlds they created, they still felt  entirely plausible. I could have been reading an autobiography… but something about Handful's voice felt contrived, and a little forced…

It's entirely possible that this is my own hang-up. I am always a little turned off when white women write in the voices of slaves, or maids for that matter (I could never get into The Help). So, I fully acknowledge that that is part of the lens through which I read this book. There are a great many people who loved it… Oprah Winfrey included. So much so that she included it in her infamous book club. But, for me, it fell short. I still love The Secret Life of Bees though :)

Summer Reading List Overhaul

So, I had lofty ambitions when I first made out my Summer Reading List. I charged myself with finishing a whopping nine books over the course of three months. Now, if I could have eaten, slept, and dreamed books, this might have been possible, but such is not my life. Also, my interests changed. I found myself stumbling across other books that I really wanted to read, and ended up feeling resentful of my book list. At first I thought about just omitting a title or two, but then I found myself wanting to add new titles and before I knew it, a complete overhaul had happened. 

Rather than going in and just editing the original list, I thought I would explain the changes I've made here.

From the original book list I have read (and reviewed):

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

I have also read:

Cinder: Lunar Chronicles Book One by Marissa Meyer (and am just about done with Scarlet: Lunar Chronicles Book Two)

These are the books I will not be reading this summer (but plan to revisit at a later date) along with a brief explanation of why they are being removed from the list:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz  I deeply admire Junot Diaz and would like to take my time really absorbing this book. GIven the time constraints I am under to finish my Summer Reading List, I just don't think I could do it justice at this time. 

Silver Shadows (Bloodlines Book 5) by Richelle Mead Enter my YA obsession. I read all of Mead's Vampire Academy books, and was delighted when the spin-off series Bloodlines was created. However, when going back through my reading list, this one didn't feel as pressing as the others, and I also thought it would be a bit odd to write a review 5 books into the series. 

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I removed this book for the same reason I removed the book by Junot Diaz, just not enough time to really enjoy it. I also decided I would like to read Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah before reading this one. 

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell I felt this would be a great book to help me take on the fall. I'm going to be taking on a lot of new projects in the coming months, and felt this book could help provide motivation. So, I suppose it's more like I bumped it to fall than removed it from summer. 

And this is the book I have added to the list, along with why:

The Scribe: Irin Chronicles Book One by Elizabeth Hunter If you've been reading my blog, you've seen that I recently finished my first novella, and as such have begun thinking about how to go about publishing said novella. A friend showed me this amazing article about self-publishing, by Elizabeth Hunter, and I was immediately intrigued.  I am incredibly grateful to Elizabeth Hunter for writing that piece, and after exploring her site further, thought this book would be a great place to begin reading her work. 

Soooo, just to recap the new Summer Reading List is as follows:

White Oleander by Janet Fitch

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Cinder: Lunar Chronicles Book One by Marissa Meyer 

Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler

The Scribe: Irin Chronicles Book One by Elizabeth Hunter

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Sooo, the first day of Fall is Monday, September 22nd. That means I have 38 days (just a touch over 5 weeks) to finish those last 3 books. Should be plenty of time, right? Wish me luck!

And stay tuned for my Fall Reading List! Coming soon!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

I have quickly become a Neil Gaiman fan, with books such as American Gods and Neverwhere swiftly joining the ranks of my favorite books of all time. I even read my kids his children's book Instructions. I thought I was used to the cadence of Gaiman's modern-day fairy tales. I happily added The Ocean at the End of the Lane to my Summer Reading List, fully expecting to blow through it in a weekend, maybe even a day.

It took me weeks to finish this book, which is saying something because it is a mere 178 pages. Nothing near the biblical proportions of American Gods, and still half the size of Neverwhere, but I felt like I spent whole lifetimes trudging through those first fifty pages.

I am used to the beginning of Gaiman's stories being a little slow. His are not stories that grip me from page one, word one, but rather they slowly creep up on you, growing on you until you have physical difficulty separating yourself from the story. On average, it takes me about 20-25 pages to really get into his stories, but once they take off, oh boy do they take off. With Ocean I would take days off between chapters, hopeful that when I returned I would finally have entered the meat of the story. It took 50 long pages for me to finally feel invested in what was happening in this book. The entrance of Ursula Monkton, the demon temptress in nanny's clothing was a godsend. This is where the story came alive.

From page 50 to 150 the story is riveting. You are completely immersed in the story of this little boy who has somehow let in a bit of evil from another world, or perhaps the same world, but a different dimension. You watch as the creature shifts between demon and Ursula Monkton, and you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for a resolution, waiting for the other-worldy women (the maiden, the mother and the crone) living at the farm with the ocean at the end of the lane to swoop in and save this boy. And then, the book creeps toward its end, much like it crept toward its actual beginning.

Now, please do not misunderstand, I did not hate the book. Knowing the fan base that this man carries, I am not eager to bring on the wrath of an angry mob of Gaiman zealots. The book is beautifully written. Gaiman is masterful at interweaving fantasy into reality until the extraordinary and the magical seem entirely probable in waking life. I did not hate the book by any measure. I just didn't love it, and I really wanted to love it.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success Reviews

I don't often read non-fiction. I love a good story, and gravitate toward books that will allow me to get swept away in the lives of the characters. However, I do try to step outside of my bubble from time to time, and am incredibly appreciative when someone, in this case my husband, recommends a book I might not have chosen for myself.

I have been struggling a bit lately (if I'm being 100% honest, maybe "a bit" is an understatement). Long story short, I have been feeling lost, and unsure as to the direction of my life. I have been grappling with the course my life seems to be taking, the course I would like it to take, and where those two things intersect, or if they intersect at all. I have been simultaneously trying to ascertain how to get from here to there, while still muddling through defining where "there" is. If this all sounds confusing, don't worry, you're not alone. I was/am not entirely 100% clear on all of that, but to aid me in my journey, my husband suggested and supplied me with Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, and I happily added it to my Summer Reading List.

The better portion of this book, for me, was like sitting with a therapist. Often times it is not one, particular, profound statement your therapist makes that changes your life, but rather, their ability to listen and help you come into the wisdom you've carried with you all along. This is to say, a lot of what Chopra talked about in this book, were things that I already knew, but reading his words provided me with reinforcement of my own ideas. One of the most important messages I took away from this book is the power of silence. In our own stillness and quiet (and not just auditory quiet, but a quieting of the mind) we can learn a great deal. When we experience silence we are able to learn things about ourselves and our place in the world, that we would otherwise have been distracted from.

I did have a little bit of trouble with 2 concepts (in Chopra's terms, laws) that were presented in the book. The first was that before every choice/decision you make, you should take a moment to think about whether it will bring happiness to you, and happiness to those around you. If it will not, it is not the right decision. The second was you should only say "yes" to something if you are able to give of yourself from a pure place without resentment or guilt. So, my first issue was that it is not always possible to make a decision that will bring happiness to you, and those around you... what happens when you have a decision to make where you feel as though only one of those parties can be happy, what to you do then? My other issue was similar, if saying "yes" to something will create happiness for those around me, but I'm only doing it because I feel like I have to (thereby not from that pure place of giving) how do I reconcile that?

I marinated on those conflicts with myself for a bit, and then brought my husband and father-in-law into the discussion, which proved extremely helpful. Here is where I am currently with these ideas...

I am a people pleaser... saying "no," is incredibly difficult for me, but part of that is selfish. A lot of times when I say yes, it is because I want the other person to be happy, but sometimes it is because I don't want there to be conflict if I say no. I don't want them to be angry or irritated with me, and I don't want the nature of our relationship to change because I said "no." When I do this, neither party truly benefits. My father-in-law likened it to a meal. Two meals can be prepared in exactly the same way, but if one is prepared with love, while the other is prepared while you are rushing and agitated, those two meals will, intrinsically, be different. The better meal will be the one prepared with love.

Applying this analogy offers the opportunity to think about the concepts of "benefit" and happiness in a broader context. We live in a fast food/social media/hi-speed world where instant gratification is expected, but such short-sighted perspective can lead to long-term problems. When I say "yes" to something, but I do it begrudgingly, the person on the receiving end of my "yes" is happy that I have agreed to their request, but whatever I am doing for them is infused with negative energy, and that negative energy will manifest itself at some point in our relationship (karmic balance and all that jazz). I have created immediate happiness, but long term strife. Likewise, if I say no to something, it may alleviate some immediate inconvenience, but is there a bigger picture I'm missing? Would there have been a greater benefit to me saying "yes?" After I completed the task, might I have felt happiness?

All of that being said, I will not, as my father-in-law so eloquently put it, try to carry 150lbs when I am only capable of carrying 100, but I am able to see Chopra's "laws" in a new light. When making decisions I will now make an effort to think about the greater picture, and greater benefit to all parties beyond the immediate, and I will try to become more comfortable saying "no," when it is warranted.