V's Pick #50: Cleo by Helen Brown

I've noticed as I've gotten older that I cry more than I used to. Perhaps that's the first tick of the maternal clock or perhaps I've just seen more of life and thus appreciate both beauty and sadness in strident, deeper waves. My watering eyes know no bounds - TV commercials for underwear, a spectacular moment of growth in a student paper, an especially sweet gesture from John. And for the last week, pretty much every time I'd read a section of Cleo.
In Helen Brown's words, I found a little more of myself. On the surface it's a story about a cat, but I will tell you without hesitation that it is really a story about life. It's a story with many lessons, but one of astounding clarity which I have learned this year: life is not really living unless there's a cat involved.

Despite having and losing many cats growing up, including the cat who was in the family before I was (Creampuff was 21 when my boyfriend and I buried her in the garden) I have never really considered myself a "cat person." Oliver was mine because my dad found him by the mailbox and he just sort of never left my lap. Foxy was mine because I was walking our family dog (our Cleo) and this (what I thought...) little boy kitten waited for and followed me for three days straight. Many others I had and lost before those two were both heartwarming and sad. I actually wrote my first poem because our cat Tigger, hadn't come home during a thunderstorm. However, I still could never admit to myself that I needed a cat.

2010 opened with Oliver's death. Gruesome and sad, he drug himself across the floor on the night we knew he was expiring as I attempted to leave. He hadn't made a sound in three days as we sat in vigil but before I could escape to John's place for the night, he flung himself toward my feet, olive-green eyes locked on mine and let out the most truly animalistic sound I've ever heard. I said goodbye in my own noises and came home promptly the next morning to bury him with my mom. Losing him was hard; I'd nursed him back from the dead as a kitten and he'd been one of the shortest living cats in our brood - 10 years. But Foxy was thriving living with John and I knew I'd soon join her so the healing was a softer process.

In August, coming home from Wisconsin, I felt war-wounded. Having kissed Foxy's head a week earlier and knowing she had a clean bill of health from her vet visit a few months prior, I had nothing to equip me to deal with the silence her absence left in our lives. The phone calls from John mid-week had quickly gone from "Foxy's missing" to "Foxy's not missing" to "Foxy's dead." I couldn't really cry - I'd buried all of our family pets and that was my grieving process...but with this one, the one cat who throughout the years I'd really felt was so eternally mine, I would have to let go without digging. Our neighborhood was extremely helpful, and John's parents stood next to him as he buried Foxy two days before my plane was to touch down. Her final resting place is idyllic for a cat who was wild for seven years before spending her last seven with me: under a willow tree next to a pond, with a handmade stone marker, as much carved out of the earth as the tears John spilled while making it. I wish I could say I did the right thing when I came home, but I didn't. I panicked. Foxy had been with me through everything in college. She'd been my only reason for sleep during the waiting period FSU put me on to decide MFA criterion. She'd been my solace when I'd come home with a broken heel, a broken bank account or a broken heart. Her purr could fix anything and selfishly, I was kind of mad at her for leaving me before she could help me figure out how to fix this.

A bizarre week passed; looking back it seems it flew, but inside of it, time seemed to stand still. I kept her litter box and bowls a few days too long. I refused to vacuum her fur off the furniture. I tried to cry, but it was like something inside me had rusted. Her 7 pound absence in our apartment weighed at least a ton. We didn't eat much, we didn't talk much, we didn't do much. And then, laying in bed one night, John asked if I wanted to get another one... Positive I could never find a cat that would make me feel anything ever again, I declined his offer, but reminded him that I had been wanting a dog since before Foxy's time.

Writing this now, with Sadie on her back at my feet, rolling around with her stuffed chicken in her mouth, and Jude sneezing in the living room from under the TV stand, I feel like I'm on a different planet in just over a month's time. Love is an amazing elastic thing. Meeting Sadie allowed me to grieve for Foxy and while the tears I've cried in no way equal the love she brought my life, they're a start. A small offering to the animal gods that I can do it again. And meeting Jude two weeks ago, well, that's just how cats work. John and I had discussed getting a kitten at some point; dead set on making sure Sadie grows up to be one of those cool and socialized dogs who can live with anything, we knew a cat was in the future somewhere down the line. However, while the right thing to do, picking one out at a shelter, just isn't my style. Cats, unlike dogs, just happen. And it was way too soon for me to consider alternatives.

At Sadie's first vet appointment, this oddly familiar woman approached me with a black and white kitten. She works at Aloha (my vet clinic) and runs a kitten fostering program with the Humane Society on the side. I later learned that she came over to me because she said there was just something about Sadie and I sitting there that told her I could give a kitten a good home. While the black and white kitten wasn't ours, I was happy to pet a tiny morsel of furry life and really felt connected to Linda and her cause. Half an hour later, waiting for my bill, she returned with a gray kitten who promptly walked past me and curled up next to Sadie on the bench. Frail and so tiny, I was almost afraid to touch him. He didn't care...he looked up at me with unmistakeable Siamese eyes and mewed his way into my heart upon contact. Like all the great cats in my past, Guston, now Jude had found me. Named for a tropical storm and a song that speaks of loving again, Jude's purr has began to stitch my heart back into fullness. And beautifully, one of his favorite places in the world is to be perched on me or John's shoulder...something I *never* thought I'd find in another cat after Foxy.

Cleo found me too - on the day we ended up bringing Jude home, I was walking around Barnes and Nobel with a stack of books in my hands. I saw this one and knew it was the only thing I wanted to read that day. I didn't even make it home, stopping for lunch as an excuse to tear into it, I was three chapters deep on my way to vet to pick up our sick little dude. So, that's part of my story. If you love cats, or just even like cats, you need this book. Brown is a modern-day philosopher and most amazingly, she shares my thoughts:

"Cats aren't something to be "got." They turn up in people's lives when they're needed, and with a purpose that probably won't be understood to begin with... Life is contrary business. Sometimes what you think you don't want and what you need are the same thing" (285).

V's Pick #49: Be The Pack Leader by Cesar Milan

Sadie's foster recommended reading Milan and while I was skeptical at first because of his TV fame, I figured as the owner of a puppy who still doesn't get why pooping our closet isn't okay, I didn't have a lot to lose beyond maybe another pair of shoes.

While this book isn't about dogs like Sadie, who just have mild little manner issues and general puppy learning curves, it is an incredible read about humans' roles in dogs lives. And very unexpectedly, it's also about a lot of the problems we have as humans in our own lives.

Here are some highlights:

"Without being in touch with our instinctual side, we are dangerously unbalanced" (4).

"Dogs live in the moment. Dogs are happiest being dogs; they should not be replacement children, spouses, etc. Discipline and punishment are different; discipline is order" (45).

"The way I see it, most animal abuse comes from unbalanced human emotions and our own repressed negative emotions" (70).

"In many ways, dogs are neotenized wolves" (183).

"Humans often seek extra drama in their lives to complicate things. A balanced animal knows that life provides enough drama already" (186).

"I like to explain dog submission and open-mindedness" (223).

Urging dog owners to get their own houses in order (no pun intended) before they write off their "bad" pets, Milan writes a Zen approach to god companionship. While I still don't think his word is final, I totally agree that "calm-assertive" energy is what one needs to connect with a dog...and college students, if you want the truth. I feel like I possibly learned as much about teaching humans from this book as I did dogs and the major take-home was that in all the lessons, the big picture was to relax and be firm.

In just a few days since reading this book, I've almost taught her "down," she's had only one accident, went from TOTALLY freaking out during her baths to being only barely displeased and perhaps the coolest...is a whole new being in my eyes. As she snoozes next to my feet, I now see her not only as our loving little puppy with an knack for agility and maybe someday, locksmithing... but as this incredible machine of an animal, capable of so much more than even I.

I'm not going to go out and buy his collars, but I will say, Milan's place in my pack has risen greatly too.

Erin's Book #31: The Toynbee Convector & Other Stories by Ray Bradbury

I'd only read two things by Bradbury - Fahrenheit and Something Wicked This Way Comes - and thought both were fantastic, so I was excited to snatch up this compilation at a book sale for $1.

It's compiled of many, many short stories, generally just a few pages long. The stories sort of run the gamut - most have a sci fi/supernatural angle (a lot of ghosts and a little time travel) but then some are just about people being people.

A few I enjoyed quite a bit, some others I wasn't too fond of, and some I didn't totally get. To be honest, I was a little disappointed in the collection. Some of the stories just weren't that great. And almost all of them were too short to really flesh out any idea or character. I don't regret reading them, but I probably won't buy another short story collection from him.

V's Pick #48: The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

Confession: I've never read Nicholas Sparks. Yes, I saw The Notebook and yes, I totally cried...but something about his novels just never appealed to me. After going into my second semester learning that nearly every female student I have taught or currently teach has either read him or is reading him, I thought I better at least give him a try. 

I chose The Last Song because it's his most recent novel and the library had a nice, newish paperback copy. I threw myself into it over Labor Day weekend and while it's taken me a while to finish because I only read a few minutes before bed every night, it's been worth sticking with. In fact, I find it a benefit that I don't feel guilty not reading more of it during the day, or fighting myself to chose work over play. It's my bedtime book and when I pick it up, I go right back to where I was the night before without absolutely zero confusion. Score one for Sparks. 

Along those lines, while I'm tallying points, I might also add that I'm a big fan of his storytelling based on this novel. As with most popular fiction, I find his plots kind of expected (first love, dying dad, teenage angst) but his plot twists are totally rewarding (turtles? fireballs? church burning?) - the last thing I expected to find in a novel like this was anything that surprised me...so that, surprised me! 

At times it got a little too preachy for me. I'm not sure if religion is always included in his novels, but there were definite moments when this one was pushing the Chicken Soup for the....envelope. I was entertained, and Sparks has earned his "Bestselling" title because he is a fantastic storyteller. However, it's still very mass-market and as such, meets various conventions of airport fiction. Read: this book will not change your life. But, it was a worthy read to me in the sense that I've come to be able to appreciate an author I never had intention of liking who my students (and most of America it seem) really connect with. And, because one book isn't enough to really grasp an author, I'm going to try to read Dear John next. See you in one month when my two-pages a night schedule will get me through my next put-downable and pick-upable Sparks' novel. 

P.S. I will NOT see the movie version of TLS because Miley Cyrus makes me want to kill bunnies. 

V's Pick #47: Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman

"Marriage is only a boat...a wooden boat...their beauty justifies your efforts." Red Hook Road is a novel about my worst fear, something I never like to think about, much less read about. However, when I heard Waldman reading a section on NPR I knew that if anyone could pull the wool from my eyes, it would be her. After all, facing your fears is the best way to make sure they're not fears anymore...or to ensure you're borderline obsessed with whatever it was you feared in the first place. Lucky for me, the latter outcome was not a side effect from reading this novel. Instead, I lost myself and my fears in the lush and sensual prose, in Waldman's poetic and lively storytelling, in her strong and complicated (i.e. real) female characters.

Set in Red Hook, Maine and told over five summers, this is not a story for the light of heart...but it is a story that left my heart lighter. Centered around the death of a bride and groom on their wedding day, Red Hook Road tells of the aftermath of memories and the challenges of love and life in the face of unthinkable grief. My biggest fear in the world has long been to find my partner, my other half (which I've accomplished) and for him to die suddenly while in the early years of our relationship, much less anywhere near our wedding. I heard a news story years and years ago as a little girl about a couple who were on their honeymoon in Hawaii. The husband wanted a picture of his wife at the edge of a cliff. She protested because it was stormy and the sea was high, but he told her it would only take a second and it would be a great picture. He adjusted his camera for the perfect shot, snapped...and when he looked up from his viewfinder, she was gone. A rouge wave had come up and swept her out into the rolling sea in the seconds his shutter flashed. They'd been married for less than a day and that was the last picture anyone would ever take of her. 

So, back to the book. I wasn't sure what I would feel, but as I know my fear, like all solid long-held fears, is totally irrational and out of my control, I figured reading Waldman might make me realize that life goes on. Even if my worst fear came true, I would have to find a way to survive it. So I guess I read this because Waldman's voice seduced me and I hoped for hope. I was also intrigued because I'd learned she'd spent ten years writing this book, the idea for which came to her after reading an obit in a NJ newspaper about a wedding party that died in a car accident on the NJ Turnpike. She'd let the story marinate in her head mostly, writing it fully in less than a year after nearly nine years of mental plotting. I was also wholly impressed that her goal for the novel was to tell a story not about death, but about life. This thought helped me through the tough parts and I kept going and going until I too, loved Becca and John as if I'd been there on their wedding day. 

What's left after the champagne glasses are packed away and the stale reception food is put into trash bags are two families, the Tetherlys and the Copakens, who became one family just minutes before they each lost their oldest children. The Tetherlys are true Mainers - suffering through the harshest winters on the coast and subsisting on little income, few year-round natural resources and a lot of firewood. They're hearty, straightforward, hardworking and serious, none more so than mother, Jane. The Copakens are "from aways" who visit the home they own (which Jane cleans) in Red Hook every summer, coming over from NYC. They dine on lobster, throw an infamous 4th of July party on their manicured lawn, go sailing and mother Iris, a noted Holocaust scholar with a prestigious professorship, renovates and sculpts her home into a magazine worthy specimen. However, as perfect as Iris can get her flower vases, when death rattles her controlled world, it isn't she who spins out of control, rather, the husband she has subverted for years. Jane and Iris struggle to understand their separate yet forever connected worlds as their other two children (Matt and Ruthie, respectively) struggle to live a life without their older sibling as role models. In the end, I won't say a word about what happens, except that it's worth knowing. 

Waldman weaves an uncommonly beautiful story full of classical music, ship yards, Cambodian orphans, fireworks, lobsters, tears, wet bathing suits, sex and banana pudding. The culmination of everything is a Microburst and a violin piece played for a dying man. In a story shrouded in death, I did indeed learn a lot about life. Most importantly, that there's nothing a strong woman can't endure. 

V's Pick #46: Local Girls by Alice Hoffman

The picture I found says "Stories" on the cover, but the copy I read did not. I'll add that to the list of mysteries about this book I've still yet to figure out.

Part Intervention-esque drug tale, part cancer chronicle and part coming-of-age story, this book is at once incredibly exciting and extremely boring. Told in summers, expect for one chapter of Winter, there is a constant balance between life and death; of spirit, of self, of family, of dreams. Despite the lurid subject matter covered in the telling of Gretel's life, Hoffman's writing is slow and dreamy, lending a weird - and I'm not sure if purposeful - juxtapostion that sort of wore me out and made me crazy at the same time.
 
I started this book while in Wisconsin at the end of summer. The town Gretel grows up in during Local Girls is oddly like Fond du Lac, WI where my mom grew up; the connections made me keep reading even when boredom kicked in. From the descriptions of the streets to the way the locals passed their time, the small town fever and the dashed dreams of brilliance by way of teenage pregnancy felt like an extension of the trip down my mom's memory lane. However, set in a time period that could have easily been the 50s or the 10s, it was hard to locate a TRUE sense of place in this novel, which might have partly lead to my transfer of my own setting into the story. Despite Hoffman's vivid details and clean storytelling, I also found it difficult to connect to the characters, especially Gretel, who seemed at once a blank slate and the oldest soul in the novel.

Maybe that was the point - a story to tell for telling sake - about a girl who could be anyone, in a town that could be any small town, in a time that could be any time? I don't know. It's a short novel, otherwise I'm honestly not sure I'd have made it through. I'd only packed two books and had blown through the first before we'd landed so it was either read this or pick up my mom's latest Debbie Macomber. This was indeed the better choice; finishing it off back home, I found the good things outweighed the bad: friendship, roses, death, drugs, small towns, hot summers, brothers, catnip, avacado and swimming in wool dresses. And, I must admit that in hindsight, it's entirely possible that the slowness of this book was wholly stylistic, after all...it's a story about life, fettered.

Erin's Book #30: The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

The History of Love is an interesting story. We first met Leo Gursky, an elderly immigrant who lives alone, his only friend his upstairs neighbor Bruno. Then there's Alma, a 15 year old girl named for a character (well, every female character, as they all have the same name) in a book called The History of Love. I especially enjoyed Alma's chapters, broke up with fun headings as she remembers her dead father, tries to set her mother up with someone new, tries to encourage her little brother Bird to stop thinking he's the Messiah and act normal, writes books about surviving in the wild, and begins a romance with a Russian boy.

Alma decides to try to find the Alma of the book and sets of on a journey that is tied to Leo, though neither of them knows it yet. The History of Love was written by Zvi Litvinoff and his connection to the other characters is eventually revealed.

The narrators are engaging, but the best part is trying to connect the pieces of how all the characters are connected. I didn't feel a really strong emotional connection to it, but I was happy with the ending.

Blythe's Books 37-39: Uglies, Pretties, and Specials

Scott Westerfeld's Pretties sat on my bookshelf for a good year or two before I finally got around to reading it. I'd had several students recommend the book, but just hadn't gotten around to reading it. The cutesy terminology in the novel annoyed me early on, but the plotline was interesting enough to keep me going in spite of it. All three books are about the residents of a futuristic city who are turned "Pretty" at age 16. Being turned "pretty" means having massive cosmetic surgery and moving across the river from Uglyville (see what I mean?) to New Pretty City (ugh!) where you get to party, party, party for a few years before you turn Middle Pretty and enter the workforce. Obviously, none of the Uglies (adolescents) are bucking the system because, hello, they're about to get turned into beautiful, desirable party animals. This is all in response to a time long ago where everyone was unequal in looks and abilities, which caused a lot of hurt feelings and ultimately, wars (and there are lots of little "Harris Bergeron"esque observations like this). However, there are a few people who have rebelled, forming a secret, hidden colony called The Smoke. Occasionally, a few Uglies run away before their surgery, hoping to find this mythical place where they can live by their own standards. The main character of the novels, Tally, is a relatively independent-minded teenager who gets pulled back and forth (through all three novels) between her desire to be Pretty and her desire for autonomy. As she interacts with residents of The Smoke, and with dissatsified Pretties, she has to figure out what it is she really wants out of life, and how we are truly meant to live.

This series is definitely young adult fiction-- and while I love a lot of books written for this age group, these were not my favorite. I enjoyed reading about Tally's relationships with her friends and boyfriends, which I thought seemed pretty realistic, but the social commentary was a little too obvious, the lingo was cheesy, and I found myself skimming through the action scenes to get back to the main story line. I rushed through the first one, realized there was a second and thought, "Damn. I want this to be over but want to find out what happens..." My feelings were the same when I finished the second and discovered there's a third. After the third, the story takes a new and only loosely related twist, and so I excused myself from reading Extras, the fourth and final novel. Phew. Reading this series was a good way to pass a weekend, and I definitely wanted to find out what happened to Tally and her friends, but if you haven't started the series already, just don't.

Erin's Book #29: Peony in Love by Lisa See

I love Lisa See's fascinating stories about China. Based on the lighthearted title, I thought Peony would be a departure from the seriousness of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Shanghai Girls. Wrong.

Peony is about a fifteen year old girl, soon to be married off to a boy she doesn't know. In fact, she doesn't know any boys. She's never left the family compound and has never met a man that wasn't part of her family. One night, right before her sixteenth birthday, her father hosts a staging of the opera The Peony Pavilion, which has great significance throughout the book. According to Chinese culture at the time, women could not be seen by men, so all the women watch the opera from behind a screen. Peony is obsessed with the opera, which is about a young woman who finally finds love in death and is brought back to life to be with her love. She's not the first; many young women have grown obsessed with the opera and its ideas of love, grown lovesick, and died as a result.

Through a crack in the screen, Peony spots a handsome man. Later, while on a walk through the gardens, she encounters him. They have a passionate talk about the opera and agree to meet the following night. And the night after that. By the end of their three nights, Peony is completely lovesick, devastated she is betrothed to another.

I won't reveal too much, but I adored this book. It's beautiful and heartbreaking; a tremendous love story. As with Shanghai Girls, it gets much better after the inciting incident - Peony's privileged, sheltered life is not of much interest. Fortunately, this doesn't last long. If you've read Snow Flower, there is not much new here in terms of Chinese culture (aside from a few notable things that I can't reveal), but the world is fascinating, as are the characters. I couldn't put it down and when I finally did, I was both satisfied and devastated.

Erin's Book #28: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

I found this book at a library sale for $1 and, intrigued by the beautiful cover, title, and story about India, took a chance on it. The story is about Sai, a teenage orphan living with her retired judge grandfather and his cook. Their home is a remnant of better times - the formerly glorious estate is crumbling, leaking, and bug-infested, yet they are still considered wealthy. Their neighbors are Father Booty and Uncle Potty and two sisters who act as tutors for Sai. The cook (as he's referred to through the entire book) is a very poor and lonely man, kept alive only because of his son, Biju, living in the US. Inheritance jumps around, telling the stories of all.

I have mixed feelings about it. The writing is beautiful but not always easy to follow. Desai sometimes jumps time periods and locations within chapters, but doesn't always draw attention to the shift. She's also very fond of using pronouns instead of names, so I wasn't always sure who she was even writing about it. I was shocked to find that I was halfway through the book, as I felt that very little had actually happened. Yet the last third I couldn't put down.

The first 2/3 are very descriptive, almost an a-day-in-the-life of kind of thing. Sai starts a romance with her new tutor, Gyan, a college student. The book opens with a robbery at the judge's home, a terrifying act that isn't returned to until the last third of the book. As the political climate of India changes and the GNLF (Gorkha National Liberation Front) takes control, the book becomes much more exciting as the lives of all the characters are forever changed.

I found it not entirely fulfilling but was intrigued by the political unrest of India (and the powerlessness of the police), as well as the difficulty of Biju, trying to make it as an immigrant in India. I don't require perfect endings where everything is neatly tied in a bow, but I felt the end came very abruptly and felt very unfinal.

Blythe's Book 36: Mockingjay

The third book in Suzanne Collins' Hunger Game series, Mockingjay, didn't let me down. I was so excited about the last installment in the series, and that excitement carried me through 'til the end. I don't want to write very much (at all) about this book, because referring to the events in it would involve giving away parts of the first and second books, but I will sat it was satisfying in the extreme. Collins is a master at creating characters who are believable; it felt like I'd known Katniss, Gale, Haymitch and Peeta forever by the time I'd finished the series. I knew what each of them was motivated by and how they would react in given situations-- and I think that's, in large part, what made this series such a popular one with readers.

Pam's Books 41-41: The Hunger Games and Catching Fire

It's been a long time since I've stayed up through the wee hours of the morning to finish reading a book that is entirely too absorbing to put down. I haven't bothered to post a picture of these books on here because Blythe just did. Blythe, in fact, is the reason I read these books. She's been urging me for weeks to take a look at them, and I finally got around to it last Monday night. And into Tuesday morning. I enjoyed them so much, in fact, that I bribed a student with (a minuscule amount of) extra credit to let me borrow the second book, which he had in his backpack.

I can see what Blythe was saying when she remarked how similar the two books are, while realizing that the subtle differences in the interaction really make the book. When I started the first book, I realized that Katniss had to survive, since The Hunger Games is the first book in a trilogy, but I wasn't entirely sure how that would happen. Peeta I never felt completely invested in until the second book. Now I can't wait to see what happens to everybody in the third book.

I love how these books are absorbing and adventurous, yet, if you care too look further into them, have something deeper to say about our society and its current and possible future state. That they are written for teenagers is immaterial. Or maybe it says something about how we should really view our teens... Here's hoping Holly finished Blythe's copy of Mockingjay this weekend so I can read it tomorrow!