SOMETHING IN THE WATER by Catherine Steadman

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Something in the Water focuses on an engaged couple, Mark and Erin. In the midst of planning their wedding, Mark loses his investment banker job. Erin is working on a documentary detailing the release of three prisoners. During their wedding dinner tasting, Mark feels the financial pressures and admits he doesn’t have the money for the wedding.  In fact, he is even talking about selling the house! The reality of their situation is now hitting Erin and she is angry that Mark shortened their honeymoon, without even consulting her. 

During their honeymoon in Bora Bora, Mark and Erin go out in a boat to go diving. On their way back, they spot lots of white paper sheets swirling in the water. Then they hear a “thunk, thunk” against the boat and they rescue the source of the noise, which is a duffle bag. How Mark and Erin deal with the bag and its contents becomes the focus of the story.  

There is a modicum of suspense in Something in the Water.  The book begins with Erin digging a grave and she reveals to the reader who will be buried there.  After this short chapter, the storyline retreats to three months earlier and most of the book details what has led up to Erin digging the grave.  I must confess that I was disappointed that we are told, in the first few pages who is dead and will be buried there.  I would’ve enjoyed the book more if the identity of the body was not revealed until towards the end of the story.

The writing is solid and after a slow start, the story picks up and the pace improves.  We get to know Erin very well — she makes a series of bad decisions that puts her life in jeopardy.  The “B” story, Erin conducting her interviews with the three prisoners, did not hold as much appeal to me until much later in the story when there is some intersection with the main narrative. Something in the Water is a fun beach read and may just tempt you to take a trip to Bora Bora.

HOW TO WALK AWAY by Katherine Center

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Sometimes you just have to feel a book and not over analyze it. Sure it’s not perfect and parts may be predictable or contrived, but there is so much more that makes How to Walk Away a great read. It is such an inspirational read with messages of hope, perseverance and love.  

The first sentence had me hooked and I couldn’t put the book down after that:

The biggest irony about that night is that I was always scared to fly.

What followed confirmed that I was engaged and intrigued:

Always.  Ever since I was old enough to think about it.  It seemed counterintuitive.  Even a little arrogant. Why go up when gravity clearly wanted us to stay down?

Margaret has a great life going for her — she almost has her dream job and strongly suspects her boyfriend Chip is going to propose tonight. He wants to take her for a ride in a Cessna plane - he’s very close to being certified and has already completed twice the amount of required hours of training.  Margaret has a severe fear of flying but she finally relents:

We were beginning our lives. Things were falling into place. And here, at the airfield, I didn’t want to be the only thing that didn’t.

What happens next is that her whole world changes in the “blink of an eye” and it may never be the same. 

They say your life flashes before your eyes, but it wasn’t my life as I’d lived it that I saw. It was the life I’d been waiting for.

...in a dystopic world, one so different that even all the colors were in a minor key, more like a sour, washed-out old photograph than anything real.  It looked that way, and it felt that way, too. I couldn’t imagine the future, and I couldn’t—wouldn’t—even think about the past.

How would you cope? I know I would be shocked and angry.  Who wouldn’t be if their perfect future was snatched away in a second?

I felt suddenly coated with anger like I’d been dunked in it.

We spend a lot of time in Margaret’s inner world as she tries to make her way through a minefield of emotions.  At first, she has trouble feeling anything at all and then realizes how conflicted she is about wanting to understand what has happened to her. Center does a remarkable job in allowing us to witness Margaret’s thought process and feelings throughout the story. In her denial, she experiences depersonalization and self-alienation:

... that’s how everything I said or did or thought felt now. Flat, and colorless, and altered.

It was like my emotions had gone offline. It was like I wasn’t fully there. Things were happening around and to me... but it was like I was witnessing it rather than experiencing it. I was across the room, watching somebody else’s life unfold, and not even fully paying attention.

Actually I think Margaret’s feelings follow the Kubler-Ross stages of grief — Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Of course it isn’t always so neatly linear and standardized but this model has withstood the test of time (first introduced in 1969).  

How to Walk Away is a brilliant testament to courage and determination. For the first two weeks, Margaret is at a crossroads — does she curl up in a ball and withdraw from life or does she fight the devastating emotions she feels and do all she can to overcome her situation?

We cannot help but sympathize with and root for Margaret. Her parents are supportive though her mother is a little too blunt at times:

My mom had a remarkable talent for making things worse. She could always find the downside. And she had no filter, so once she found it, everybody else had to find it, too.

Her sister Kit, estranged from the family for three years, comes to help Margaret deal with the challenges and obstacles she now faces.

This is a very special book that will make you feel a range of emotions. The writing is great and clever without any “filler.”

They say everybody loses time in the ICU. It’s basically Vegas in there, minus the showgirls and slot machines. No windows.

It was just like a long, strange dream. With vomiting.

Some of the lines are so inspirational that it is tempting to write down these nuggets of wisdom to remember them: 

Our struggles lead us to our strengths.

When you don’t know what to do for yourself, do something for someone else.

You can’t fix everything. Not even close. But you can look for reasons to be grateful.

THE DEATH OF MRS. WESTAWAY by Ruth Ware

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Never believe it, Hal. Never believe your own patter. The actor who loses his grip on reality, the writer who believes her own lies—they’re lost. This is a fantasy—never lose sight of that, however much you want to believe.

Hal (short for Harriet) has a big problem.  She is barely making ends meet and Mr. Smith’s goons are after her for the money she owes them. Then comes a letter in the mail from a lawyer telling her that her grandmother has died and she is a beneficiary.  Could Hal’s money problems be over?

Hal knows it can’t be true because her grandmother has been dead for twenty years.  But if she plays her cards right (unintentional pun — she reads tarot cards), maybe she could pretend to be the grand daughter and receive a small sum of money to pay off the loan shark that knows where she lives and where she works. 

The main character Hal is very well developed— we really get to know her and her hopes, fears and struggles. She reads Tarot Cards and the cards are a theme and a metsphor throughout the book.  Mainly Hal is conflicted between deceiving her newly found three uncles and telling the truth.  She struggles with morality but at the same time fears for her life.  

Along with her, we meet her three uncles, Harding, Abel and Ezra, as well as the very creepy housekeeper Mrs. Warren.  They all stay at Mrs. Westaway’s home — Trepassen House, a Gothic, run down, creepy house with a lake and a boathouse. Hal is assigned to the only room vacant, a tiny attic room with bars on the windows and bolts on the outside of the door. Scary!

This is the best one yet of Ruth Ware’s novels — they just keep getting better and better. The story is well paced and kept me turning the pages — I was surprised by the twists and enjoyed the ending. The writing is good and I particularly liked the metaphors she sprinkled throughout the book:

Gently, Hal picked it up and began to leaf through the pages. Great chunks had been ripped out—frayed stubs of paper all that was left of their existence—and the pages that were left were hanging by a thread, unanchored by the loss of their neighbors.

I wanted to write in my diary—to do as I always do when things get too much—let it out onto the page, like a kind of bloodletting, letting the ink and paper soak up all the grief and anger and fear until I can cope again.

The explanation of Tarot cards throughout the story is an added bonus.  Although I consider The Death of Mrs. Westaway to be more of a mystery than a thriller, the ride was still entertaining and engaging.  I can’t wait for the next one from Ruth Ware, a great story-teller.

THE MYTH OF PERPETUAL SUMMER by Susan Crandall

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Tallulah knows that there is something not right about her family.  Her Father (Drayton) has episodes of “hurricanes” and “shadows.” He is bipolar but not much is known about the illness and how to treat it in1958. 

Hurricanes describe his manic phases, when he is very energized, doesn’t sleep for days and his brain races with ideas.  He also can be, paranoid, obsessive and impulsively buys things they can’t afford and don’t need.

In contrast, Shadows are the depressive phases when Drayton is feeling tormented, in agony, despondent and hopeless.  Tallulah describes the shadow phase as “...the worst mood of them all” and also concedes that “he isn’t just moody, but broken.”

“His behavior. Hummingbird or slug. So full of energy you can’t scrape him off the ceiling, or buried in anguish so deep he won’t get out of bed.”

Talullah’s Mother has her children call her Margo.  She hardly acts like a mother — instead, Margo is devoted to supporting causes like freedom for Algeria.  Sometimes she abandons her family for months, which sends Drayton into shadow time. Tallulah can’t understand why Algeria is more important to Margo than her children.

“Griff says you can get used to a sharp stick in the eye if it’s there long enough. But I can’t get used to Margo not being around at all. I know it’s stupid to miss her, because she wasn’t home much and didn’t hardly do anything for us anyway.”

As a young child, Tallulah engages in wishful thinking, preferring to think that Margo’s devotion to these causes is a temporary phase which will pass. She is in denial of who her Mother is and has a fantasized vision of her transforming into the ideal mother. Tallulah dreams of Margo loving her, seeing her and genuinely caring about her.

“Someday the French will get out of Algeria and Margo can stop protesting and just be our Momma again.”

“I keep looking at the doorway, hoping Margo will come back, give me a big hug, tell me how much she missed me and promise never to leave for so long again.  But the doorway stays empty.”

 “If I can show Margo how much I need her, maybe she’ll not only stay home but she’ll also actually start seeing me.”

On the rare occasions when Margo is home and Drayton is “normal” (not in a hurricane or shadow time), they argue, fight and sometimes throw things. It is far from a peaceful household. In describing her chaotic household, Tallulah says “...there is no hand on the rudder of our family.”

“Truth be, Daddy and Margo can have some real window rattlers.”

She relies on two characters for support, her grandmother and her older brother Griff. Gran seems to be the glue that holds this family together. Her brother comforts her and guides her through the land mines that are her family.  Tallulah and Griff both worry that they will become like their mother or father.

Tallulah dreams of escaping her dysfunctional family and being in control of her own life. She lives her life in the hope of experiencing that freedom. In a sense she lives in the future but her past haunts her.  

She questions the role of family and wonders if it’s to choke or to bind.  As a child, Tallulah just wants to escape from her family and never look back. But she wonders if family can be a positive influence and play an important role in her life.

I greatly enjoyed reading “The Myth of Perpetual Summer” and highly recommend it. It’s a coming-of-age story as well as a search for self. Tallulah, both as a child and an adult, is a strong and compelling character. I found her to be very likable and felt I really got to know her through these pages. Her inner dialogue is extremely revealing as she tries to cope with her family and the world.  She contemplates issues of abandonment and isolation. As a child, Tallulah engages in wishful, magical thinking as a coping mechanism.

The story alternates between Tallulah’s childhood (1958-1960s) and present day (1972-1974) in a seamless way. The writing is excellent and the story pulls you in, not letting go until the last page. I particularly appreciated Susan Crandall’s style of writing and her colorful, descriptive language:

“Granny told her to get down off her high horse before she got a nosebleed. In a polite voice, of course.”

“Dharma never hid when our parents fought, she made her own closet inside her head.”

“I feel better already, just being out of our house. Sometimes it feels so heavy I’m surprised it doesn’t collapse on us while we’re sleeping.”

NATURAL CAUSES by Barbara Ehrenreich

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Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed as well as other books, is in her mid-70s and has abandoned preventive medical care. She proclaims that she will not have annual exams, mammograms, Pap smears, etc. because she does not want to extend her life with agonizing testing and treatments.  Ehrenreich explains that she has reached an age that she is “old enough to die,” but will seek help if she experiences an urgent problem. I wonder if she has considered that there are some treatments that are not tortuous and/or the actual condition may be more painful.

The central tenet of this book, in my opinion, is about the quest for control and who or what will be victorious. Control seems to be the lens through which Ehrenreich sees everything, including her own health and well-being.

We are able to control many things about our bodies - weight, fitness, shape, and emotions.  We can even exert some control of our bodies through our minds. But there are some things that are beyond our control.

In the Introduction to the book, Ehrenreich proclaims that she does not prescribe to the theory of the body as a well-running machine.  Rather she believes in a dystopian view of the body in which there is cellular conflict, which we cannot control.

Ehrenreich did her graduate work on macrophages, which are cells that are the body’s defense against bacteria invaders that can cause disease.  However, as we get much older, the macrophages commit “treason” and actually help the enemy. Not only do they help cancer cells move to other parts of the body, they facilitate the creation of blood vessels that feed the tumor. Thus, our immune system eventually turns on us and becomes the enemy.

“... the immune system actually abets the growth and spread of tumors, which is like saying that the fire department is indeed staffed by arsonists.”

The fight for control extends beyond our own self. The doctor exerts control over the patient and this is perhaps most extreme in the case of the gynecologist and the female patient.  Ehrenreich lost me here when she claims that gynecological exams are an assault on women’s bodies because they “...so closely mimic actual sexual encounters.”  She claims that these exams (or as she puts it “...regularly scheduled invasions of privacy”) are essentially worthless and run the risk of false positives and potentially unnecessary surgeries. Ehrenreich goes further citing support for her view:

“In 2014, the American College of Physicians announced that standard gyn exams were of no value for asymptomatic adult women and were certainly not worth the ‘discomfort, anxiety, pain and additional medical costs’ they entailed.”

These views really disturbed me because I believe that Ehrenreich’s pronouncement is very misleading and dangerous. I went and looked at this report and discovered that they are only referencing the pelvic exam. First let me say that there is more to a gynecological exam than just that. For instance, an important and essential part of the visit is the Pap smear — it is extremely effective at detecting ovarian cancer in women who don’t have symptoms.  In addition, Ehrenreich and this report do not mention that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continues to recommend that the pelvic exam be conducted annually on all women 21 years of age and older even though admitting that the evidence of its usefulness is inconclusive. Clearly more research is needed to determine its efficacy and that is what’s recommended in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Next, Ehrenreich takes on the fitness culture, the benefits of mindfulness and the usefulness of wellness programs. This is really all about the mind and it’s control the body. All of these discussions are interesting and worthy of more thought and consideration. But when she talks about cellular treason in Chapter 8, the level of biological detail can make some readers’ eyes glaze over.  While the research for Natural Causes book is extensive, we are unable to determine how thorough it is. As I read this book, I found myself repeatedly wondering about the research that is not presented because it does not support Ehrenreich’s thesis.  It was clear she has her own point of view and that this is not an objective presentation.

Thank you to Twelve Books and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

THE LIBRARY BOOK by Susan Orlean

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The worst thing about experiencing a fire (assuming all living things are safe and outside) is the waiting, not knowing what survived, if anything. Then there are the worries about smoke and water damage.  People don’t really think about water damage but that can be even worse than the smoke. Because of my own fire experience, my love of libraries and books and the fact that I live in Los Angeles,  I was interested to read Susan Orlean’s The Library Book. This non-fiction work deals with the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Public Library. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t need to have experienced a fire firsthand or live in Los Angeles to find The Library Book a fascinating read.

The fire took place on April 29, 1986 and burned for 7 hours.  Four hundred thousand books were destroyed and another seven hundred thousand were damaged. Most people didn’t hear about the fire because the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster happened a couple days later and that was the focus of the news. To this day, over thirty years later, who started the fire at the Los Angeles Public Library and why continues to be a mystery.

Susan Orlean masterfully weaves the investigation of the L.A. Public Library fire with history and facts about libraries. Both aspects, as told here, are compelling partly due to the skilled writing and storytelling of Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief. The book is also peppered with her own library experiences and also explores the role of libraries in their communities and how they achieve their objectives.  Ms. Orlean’s love and appreciation of books and libraries shines through the words on these pages.

It wasn’t that time stopped in the library. It was as if it were captured here, collected here, and in all libraries—and not only my time, my life, but all human time as well. In the library, time is dammed up—not just stopped but saved.

The book recounts, in an extremely engaging manner, the five year long investigation into the fire. It details one suspect’s varying explanations of where he was and what he was doing on that fateful day, which is captivating in itself.  What I found especially intriguing was the history of the L.A. Public Library and the various personalities that were at the helm during its early years. Also of interest was the discussion of libraries across the world and how books get to people in remote places. 

The Library Book is an engaging read that will astound you with all sorts of facts and figures interspersed through excellent storytelling that will deepen your appreciation of books and the role of libraries in the human experience.

In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes made of our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.