Book Review: The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship by Lisa Verge Higgins

This is the second book that I’ve read for the College Prepster’s new book club and I enjoyed it even more than I did the first one! I read it as soon as CP announced it as her next choice but that was a while ago and now I’m having to rely on weeks old notes and turned down corners to write this review. I just hope I do the book justice.

When my brother saw the book lying on my couch he picked it up, turned it over and proclaimed that it looked like an “improving” book.

My brother was half right. TPCMOF (as Carly nicknamed it in her own review) is definitely a story, and in places not a terribly realistic one at that (I mean realistic in the way in which it makes you live the plot too, see my sidebar for a better explanation). It does feel a bit like it has a sheen over it, like it’s a little glossy and movie-like. The characters, too, sometimes feel a little contrived. However, the plot also contains some important reminders and messages about how we should go about living our lives. Thus, in some ways I suppose that it is an improving book, just not in the self-help kind of way that my brother was envisioning.

I think that the book had two crucial messages that appealed to me. The first of these is that even things that you love and that you are good at and that you put your whole heart and soul into (for instance, in the case of one of the main characters Kate, being a stay-at-home-mom) can become tiresome and depressing when it starts to feel as though there is nothing more to you than this aspect. We need to live and explore and adventure and force ourselves out of our comfort zone from time to time, even if for no other reason than to more fully appreciate what we already have.

Habits and schedules and routines can be the best tools for an easy life but they can also be dangerous things when it comes to relationships. As the author herself puts it: “even the truest of loves [needs] tending.” (Page 276) I felt it was really important that even on her life-affirming trip AWAY from her husband and kids, a trip designed precisely to escape her life as a stay-at-home-mom; Kate remains faithful to her husband in both her thoughts and her deeds. For all of her dissatisfaction she’s not actually unhappy with her life or her choices, she just needs a little tending to and so does her marriage.

The second message that really resonated with me was this—the past is not the present. The past can be hugely helpful in guiding our choices in the present, it can keep us from making the same mistakes and help us recognize good things when we see them but when our past fully dictates our present choices or distorts what is right in front of us then it is neither helpful nor welcome. We can see the past interfering unhelpfully in the decisions and perceptions of each of the main characters during the course of the book- Colin is not the person he used to be when Sarah first knew him (and perhaps never really was that man), Kate’s fixation with her husband of earlier years is neither fair (for she is not the same person she was when they first met either) nor beneficial to their relationship and Jo’s own unpleasant childhood and experience of motherhood does not mean that she is somehow fundamentally incapable of providing a wonderful childhood to Grace.

If this book were a movie then I imagine its tagline would be something like: “Sometimes you have to do something totally uncharacteristic to find out who you really are.” Yet, one of the truly beautiful things about this book is that not only do the main characters begin to understand themselves just a little bit better but they come to learn more about each other too.  For instance, Jo, who has always mocked Kate for being just a stay-at-home-mom, comes to understand exactly how hard her friend’s daily life can be when she is suddenly and somewhat unwillingly forced into the same position and has to depend upon Kate’s advice to get by, whilst Kate develops a whole new level of respect for the work and life of Sarah.

The characters might seem quite contrived and less than fully realistic in parts of the book (they are, after all, intended to be something of stereotypes to help demonstrate the author’s points) but that does not make this book any less emotional. The reader finds herself, with a certain amount of shock, really rooting for Colin and Sarah to get it together (at least at first) even though this would necessarily mean that Colin would be cheating on his fiancée, something we could not ordinarily abide by.  Our hearts also ache when we realize that Kate has completely misjudged her husband’s feelings and that he is not going to instantly forgive her for essentially running away, even though in his position we probably wouldn’t either. The characters might not be totally, completely, 100% realistic but they do win us- and our emotions- over and we do become fully invested in their lives. As far as I’m concerned, that’s pretty much what a novel should do!

Now, hop on over to CP’s post and read her own and other book club members’ reviews of the book. Next up is ‘Names My Sisters Call Me’ by Megan Crane.

Quote from: Lisa Verge Higgins (2011) The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship (NY, NY: 5 Spot), p. 276

For those of you who have read David Baldacci's 'Hell's Corner'.... this is Hell's Corner aka Lafayette Square!

Book Review: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels by Ree Drummond

This is an absolutely precious book, and it is only made all the more spine-tinglingly wonderful by the fact that it is a memoir and not fiction. It is the stuff of fairy tales (albeit with a decent hunk of trauma and misfortune the likes of which not often featured by Disney); in many ways it is the perfect love story. The fact that the author and her husband are still very much together and in love many years, four children and surely several more traumas later makes the whole thing even better. If there’s one way to describe this book it’s as a great big dab of hope for all the romantically cynical.

At several points Drummond sarcastically jokes that it must have been her eloquence (p. 21 “You know, stuff, and Me, too, all in the same conversation. This guy was sure to be floored by my eloquence.”) that had her Wrangler clad cowboy so smitten and, it has to be said, her writing style does seem to lack a certain eloquence in places. It is written very much in the kind of colloquial conversational style that Drummond blogs in, and though it works very well in the short intimate posts of a blog there are times when it is somewhat less endearing in a full length memoir.  On the other hand, this style does rather mirror her own adorable tongue twistedness in the early stages of her Western romance and as the relationship becomes more established and settles down a little, so too does the writing style.

It certainly doesn’t stop her from making the characters feel ever so real and loveable, to the extent that the reader feels totally invested in the course of their lives. From the get-go we find ourselves rooting for the oh-so-gentlemanly Malboro man versus the distant Californian surfer J and we cringe wholeheartedly along with Ree as she falls over her own feet on her first date. Not to mention the sympathy we feel when she attempts to pick out suitable attire from her L.A. wardrobe for an early morning ranch work party at which she will meet her beau’s parents for the first time. The horror that grips us when she promptly manages to drive her car- containing both herself and her future mother-in-law- into a ditch is all consuming. And please let’s not mention the sweating in the guest bathroom incident….. I’m still recovering from the embarrassment so goodness only knows how Drummond herself found the strength to continue with life without changing her identity and moving to the North Pole!

The whole book is wonderfully charming, from the sweetly family-friendly way she dances around describing the more intimate aspects of her relationship to the way she manages to make making-out in the back of a pickup sound ever so classy and sophisticated! The fact that her crazy, instinctive decision to cancel her planned move to Chicago solely due to a weeks old relationship with a cowboy (normally the kind of decision that, however right, really only makes sense to the person in question) clearly demonstrates the impressive way that Drummond builds up a relationship between herself and the reader.

This might not be the most highbrow read (nor, indeed, is it meant to be) but it is a fun, sweet, loving and most satisfying story. It is the perfect book to read in a quiet, sleepy house before anyone but the dog has woken up…. whilst eating leftover chocolate mousse birthday cake for breakfast. I can personally attest to this. 

Book Review: The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley

The whole way through this book I really wasn’t sure whether it was a novel or a memoir (I downloaded it onto my kindle and clearly just skipped past the cover page without a second glance since I now see that it obviously states it is the latter). What’s more, I really didn’t care either way!

The author does such a good job of making daily life for her family (transported from Maine to Beijing for two years) seem real to the reader that after a while I just stopped wondering whether it was imaginary or factual. It simply did not matter since either way I was vicariously living Beijing life along with the main character Susan (who, yes, also happens to be the author of the book). From her attempts to persuade her kids to take the terrifying school bus, to the bemusing experience of attempting to buy apples, to the bewilderment concerning what, exactly, a sweater party is, the frustrations of trying to get real world news on the Chinese internet and TV and to her wholly endearing terror when she thinks she’s about to get busted for buying pirated, non-government approved DVDs we experience everything along with Susan in HD and full living color! We feel what she feels, see what she sees, laugh, cry, exult and puzzle alongside her.

Even when cancer strikes, the author somehow manages to make the experience of this disease entirely real to the reader. We can still empathise with her. We still live life along with her.

Novel or memoir, it is regardless a remarkable feat of writing ability to create such reality. To bring along your readers in such a convincing way, to suck them into the goings on of your daily life in a way that doesn’t feel fake or contrived. To make them fully experience everything, rather than just passively observe. This is what I really look for in a good book. When I say that a book seems real, I mean that during the course of reading it, it has become real to me. 

Notable and Quotable

"She was a Southern girl, after all, and fainting was a Southern girl's prerogative. It instantly absolved a woman of so very many responsibilities."

- Lisa Verge Higgins (2011), The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship (NY, NY: 5Spot), p. 41

Book Review: The Covenant by Naomi Ragen

The Covenant is at once deep, rich, dark, traumatising and hopeful. It brings the reader to tears of distress and then to tears of joy. It is emotive and powerful and it is really an extraordinary little book. This is the type of book that makes you think. The type of book throughout which you feel your views, opinions and beliefs evolving and adapting.

I first came across it when it popped up on that oh-so-dangerous ‘More Items to Consider’ list on Amazon. I was intrigued and so I went about trying to find it in several bookstores. Unfortunately it seems that Ragen’s books are not widely sold in the UK, nor are they available on kindle so eventually I caved and bought a second hand copy from Amazon. I started reading it the evening the package arrived and basically didn’t put it down again until I was finished.

I am quite sure that in some circles this book could prove to be rather controversial but it really needn’t be. Yes, the author is an Israeli woman. Yes, it contains clear views on the legitimacy of Israel and the entire notion of a Jewish state (both of which I fully support though this is neither here nor there) but this is really not the central purpose of the book. This is not necessarily a story about an Israeli mother but about the horror of terrorism and the evils that we are all capable of. It is also about the will to live and the beauty of life. Its central message is really that life is a gift that we should all, regardless of creed or color, grasp with both hands, cling to and fight for.

The main character Elise is a Jewish mother but she could be a Catholic mother or a Muslim mother or a Hindu mother……

One of the crucial aspects of the book is that no character emerges from the calamitous events without suffering immeasurable grief. Not Elise, not her grandmother, not her grandmothers’ friends and family, not the terrorists, not the IDF, not the uncomfortably over ambitious journalist (it is a testament to Ragen’s abilities that it is impossible not to like this character a little bit, even though you so want to hate her). Even the brave woman who ends up rescuing Elise’s daughter, Ilana, does not get away free and happy. The message is quite clear—this is what apathy towards the gift of human life brings. I think the whole story is most succinctly summed up in the following quote:

“The two women, their souls seared and dissolved by shock waves of grief and loss, rocked together in a desperate embrace. The Arab woman’s ululation of mourning mingled with the Jewish woman’s heartrending cries of grief.

Arab and Jew, the tears were the same tears. The broken heart, the grief, the mourning, both the same….”

Excerpt from: Naomi Ragen (2004) The Covenant (NY, NY: St Martin’s Press) p. 271

Book Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

I read this book for the College Prepster’s brand spanking new book club (http://www.thecollegeprepster.com/2011/05/college-prepster-book-club-review-next.html).

 Given that she and her book club were the stimuli I finally needed to get started on this blog, it seems only right and proper that my first review be of this book.

I think the best word to describe the book would be: sweet. It is an incredibly sweet story, with incredibly sweet characters and an incredibly sweet ending. Deep, meaningful and evocative it is not but it is precious and charming. It is, in essence, a feel-good book, perfect for the beach or a plane journey. It won’t take your full attention and it won’t change your views about the meaning of life and the universe but it will make you smile.

It did, however, take a little while for me to get into the story. I felt that in the first few chapters Hoffman didn’t quite have the right tone for CeeCee’s voice and I spent some time puzzling over quite how old CeeCee-the-narrator was supposed to be when recounting her story. At times she seemed to sound just like the little girl that she was supposed to be but on other occasions the narrator would use turns of phrase and vocabulary that simply came across as too adult. It was a little off-putting and unsettling and is something that just a little further editing might have remedied quite quickly. Nevertheless, after the first few chapters, CeeCee’s narration settled down became more believable and I began to fall in love with the character.

One of the things that I appreciated most about the book was that it was a good story written in a mature way but that didn't include gratuitous sex scenes! My little sister is 13 but reads at a much more advanced level. She devours books and it is always a struggle to find grown up novels that she can really get her teeth into and enjoy but that don't have at least one extremely graphic (usually totally unnecessary) sex scene. It's not that she doesn't know about "all that stuff" but she certainly doesn't need to be reading vivid descriptions. There's a real dearth of age appropriate, yet mature and serious, novels for kids her age and so I'm always thrilled to find a great book that I (aged 21) can enjoy and that she can too.

All in all this was a most enjoyable book and one that I would recommend for anyone who wants a simple, straightforward and endearing summer read.