THINGS YOU SAVE IN A FIRE by Katherine Center

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I absolutely loved How to Walk Away so I was very excited to see that Katherine Center has a new book.  Fans of Center will not be disappointed.

Cassie is a firefighter and is faced with having to relocate from Texas to Massachusetts to help her mother with her medical problems.  She quickly discovers that her new department is not nearly as progressive and female-friendly as Austin’s, which even had a female chief. Cassie finds that she has to prove herself again and again to be accepted as “one of the guys.”

Cassie lives a very predictable and regimented life. She likes it like that. She needs to to be in control of her life at all times after two unpredictable and tragic events traumatized her on her 16th birthday

Because of these traumatic experiences, Cassie has successfully insulated herself from getting close to others, but now she finds herself craving companionship and love. You see, Cassie has a big crush on the rookie firefighter at her new department but she knows that if anything were to happen between them, she would lose her job and career. But sometimes, as hard as one may try, you can’t stop love.

Center has a talent for creating characters with such depth, that you truly feel like you know them.  Cassie is believable, relatable, genuine, and admirable. At the same time, she faces major psychological struggles that you or I might have encountered as well — emotionally blocked and isolated, estranged mother, doesn’t believe in love, etc.

Things You Save in a Fire is about Cassie’s journey to psychological maturity and confronting the issues holding her back from love and enjoying life. Her biggest obstacle and lesson she needs to learn is forgiveness of others and of herself. I was rooting for Cassie and experienced her transformation. 

We feel so many different emotions along with Cassie, such as joy, anger, trust, surprise, etc.  I was particularly moved when she experiences empathy and compassion for her mother.

“For the first time, I understood. In all the times I’d remembered that story, I’d experienced every single part of it from my own perspective, standing in my own sixteen-year-old shoes. Now, for the first time, I saw it unfold from a new angle. Hers. And it changed the story.”

This book has all the elements — drama, love, suspense, heroism, a little humor, and secrets! It is well written with three-dimensional characters. We get to know the inner struggles of these characters and the motivations for their behavior.  

The first line of the novel grabbed me and it never let me go.

“The night I became the youngest person—and the only female ever—to win the Austin Fire Department’s Valor Award, I got propositioned by my partner.”

I really enjoy Katherine Center’s writing (see examples below) and am looking forward to reading her earlier books while I wait for her next one.

“...two ladies pulled out dress after dress, holding them up in front of me, then tossing them in rejection piles on the bed. Too purple, they’d decide. Or: Too bright. Too dark. Too flashy. Too plain. Too stiff. Too floppy. Too many pleats. Too teenagery. Too old-lady. Too much cleavage. Not enough cleavage. And on and on.”

“Down in Texas, everybody had been robust and tan. Here, they looked like ashtrays.”

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens

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Sometimes you finish a book and while feeling good because you really enjoyed it, you also feel sad because you have to say goodbye to the people you’ve come to love. That is how I feel about Where the Crawdads Sing. 

To say that this debut novel from Delia Owens is a magnificent and delightful read is an understatement. Delia Owens has an eye for detail and her expertise and appreciation for nature shines through. This is an amazing novel with lyrical writing and expertly developed characters. As an example of Owen’s skill, these quotes illustrate her gift for stringing together words in a mesmerizing way as she establishes the setting:

Marsh is not swamp.  Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky.  

The marsh was guarded by a torn shoreline, labeled by early explorers as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” because riptides, furious winds, and shallow shoals wrecked ships like paper hats along what would become the North Carolina coast.

Those looking for serious land moved on, and this infamous marsh became a net, scooping up a mishmash of mutinous sailors, castaways, debtors, and fugitives dodging wars, taxes, or laws that they didn’t take to.

At first I wasn’t so sure about this book...girl lives in Marsh? Feral? But it surpassed my highest standards and moved me to such an extent like few books do. The story revolves around Kya, whose entire life we follow, beginning at 6 years old.  In the opening pages, we see Kya’s Mother leave the house and walk away.  I felt emotionally attached to Kya at this early point in the story, while she waits to see her Mother wave but she never does and Kya begins to wonder if she will ever return. 

 It is a tale of survival, courage, love, and a search for self. It is virtually impossible not to feel compassion for Kya as we bear witness to her life. We feel along with her, running the emotional spectrum from anger to joy, with stops along the way at despair, loneliness and contentment to name just a few.  We root for her, cry with her and celebrate with her. 

Where the Crawdads Sing is ultimately about independence, courage and the will to survive. The book explores themes of trust/betrayal and love/hate plus a murder mystery is added in to the mix. I cherished the reading of this book and it’s unfolding story. As trite as it sounds, I must confess that I did not want it to end. Also, I found myself thinking about the book when I wasn’t reading it and, not just after finishing it like other books, but throughout reading it. I cannot recommend this book highly enough — for the characters, the story and the writing.

NINE PERFECT STRANGERS by Liane Moriarty

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Liane Moriarity features the topical issue of micro-dosing in her latest book Nine Perfect Strangers.  I’ve been hearing about micro-dosing psychedelic drugs for several years and have read a few articles about its benefits. In early 2017, the writer Ayelet Waldman (wife of Michael Charon) wrote a book chronicling her personal journey with micro-dosing. Then a year later, Michael Pollan authored a N.Y. Times Bestseller (13 weeks and counting) How to Change Your Mind, which brought the discussion more mainstream. 

Nine strangers come together at a health resort in search of a transformational experience.  Nine flawed individuals, each with their own emotional baggage and unresolved issues, are desperate to turn their lives around. At first, this setup led me to think that Nine Perfect Strangers would unfold as a murder mystery, but once I read a few more pages, I was quickly proven wrong. 

I began the book concerned that I would have trouble distinguishing one stranger from another and that I wouldn’t get to know any of the nine that well.  It is a testament to Moriarity’s skill as a seasoned novelist that each one is developed sufficiently for the reader to not feel lost and to experience a connection to each of them.

For me, the standout and most fascinating character was Masha, the head of the wellness retreat and the originator of the unconventional protocol for the guests.  I found her to be a multi-dimensional character with heavy emotional baggage and delusions of grandeur.  Although she acted as a therapist for the guests, one wonders how much she would have benefitted from some psychotherapy herself.  

Based on a cursory reading of reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, it seems this book was very polarizing in terms of readers’ reactions. As such, it was kind of amusing that one of the main characters, Frances Welty, a successful writer facing her first rejection, is tormented by a scathing review.  Frances has made it a point of never reading reviews but her publisher alerts her to it when he rejects her latest manuscript, claiming that it had no bearing on their evaluation of her current manuscript.  I couldn’t help but wonder if Ms. Moriarity avoids reading reviews of her own books.

While I enjoyed the story and found myself laughing out loud a few times, I felt that it got a bit far-fetched and over the top. But even so, I kept reading because I wanted to know how it ultimately turned out.  Overall it was a fun read that kept me entertained.

EDUCATED by Tara Westover

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Educated is an absolute page-turner —  it is gripping and shocking. It reads like a novel and has many of the same elements that are found in a work of fiction. The protagonist is on a quest and there is substantial conflict with the story’s antagonists —her father and oldest brother.

At its core, Educated is about Tara’s search for self and her transformation.  Moreover, it speaks to the resilience of the human spirit as well as the power of hope and determination.  It is a remarkable story and I am very glad that Westover had the courage to write it.

As a young child, Tara quickly realizes that her family is different. For starters, they don’t go to school. Her father does not believe in them — he views schools as government-supported brainwashing. 

Dad said public school was a ploy by the Government to lead children away from God. “I may as well surrender my kids to the devil himself,” he said, “as send them down the road to that school.”

While her oldest siblings were homeschooled, being the last of seven children, Tara did not get much in the way of education. By that time, her Mom was busy with midwife duties and growing her small business of oils and tinctures.  

Tara does not “exist” — besides not attending school, she doesn’t have a birth certificate (born at home) or any medical records (has never seen a doctor).  It is not until she is 9 years old that the she becomes “legitimate” and gets a delayed certificate of birth.

I remember the day it came in the mail. It felt oddly dispossessing, being handed this first legal proof of my personhood: until that moment, it had never occurred to me that proof was required.

Tara’s escape from this very dysfunctional world, where she and her siblings are actually maimed while working at their father’s junkyard, is through books.  At the urging of Tyler, one of her older brothers, she undertakes a program of self-study in order to pass the ACT test so that she can attend college. It’s unbelievable in this day and age that she first enters a classroom at the age of 17 at college.  Tara is extremely disadvantaged because of her lack of an education and struggles to “catch up.” But her perseverance is remarkable and she pushes forward. Her father’s opposition to a traditional education is well illustrated by these two quotes about college:

“College is extra school for people too dumb to learn the first time around,” Dad said.

“There’s two kinds of them college professors,” Dad said. “Those who know they’re lying, and those who think they’re telling the truth.” Dad grinned. “Don’t know which is worse, come to think of it, a bona fide agent of the Illuminati, who at least knows he’s on the devil’s payroll, or a high-minded professor who thinks his wisdom is greater than God’s.”

Along her journey, she is plagued with self-doubt, unsure of what exactly is real.  One of her older brothers, Shawn, is abusive and tries to brainwash her into believing in a view of herself and a reality that run counter to her own. Because he is so manipulative and good at it, Tara begins to blame herself for the troubles she has with Shawn.

I begin to reason with myself, to doubt whether I had spoken clearly: what had I whispered and what had I screamed? I decide that if I had asked differently, been more calm, he would have stopped. I write this until I believe it, which doesn’t take long because I want to believe it. It’s comforting to think the defect is mine, because that means it is under my power.

It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you, I had written in my journal. But Shawn had more power over me than I could possibly have imagined. He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that.

Once Tara experiences the outside world, it becomes more and more difficult for her to be silent and accept the dysfunction at home. While growing up, Tara had only one reality and had no choice but to fully accept and embrace it. While the outside world was always considered to hold the wrong or irrational views, now Tara begins to see her family as deviant. Tara struggles with trying to understand the dynamics in her family and tries to make sense of the dysfunction.

As Tara’s world grows and she learns more, she is faced with tremendous cognitive dissonance.  How do you reconcile these two diametrically opposed belief systems — the world view ingrained in her by her parents and  a new reality borne out of learning and new experiences? 

....I felt alienated from myself. I didn’t know who to be.

Once her eyes are opened, she cannot return to the limited perspective she had before.  While reading, I couldn’t help but think that If Tara had never pursued a formal education, she would’ve remained trapped in this world, brainwashed and possibly broken. 

Ultimately Tara’s goal is something that many of us take for granted —  to develop and shape her own mind with her own attitudes and beliefs.  She yearns for the freedom to choose for herself what to believe after being told by her family how to think and what to think. You see, it wasn’t just Shawn manipulating her, it was also her parents who brainwashed her.

Everything they did had always made sense to me, adhering to a logic I understood…But here, so near the university, they seemed so unreal as to be almost mythic.

My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute.

It’s astonishing that I used to believe all this without the slightest suspicion…

Educated is a beautifully written and an extremely well constructed memoir.  There were many times as I read this book that I wanted to reassure Tara and give her a hug.  You cannot help but feel for her and root her on.  Tara Westover has enormous insight and wisdom for her age and she has come to the conclusions she has in order to live a life of her own.  She has outgrown her family, save for two siblings that also pursued an education.  Interestingly enough, all three of them received Ph.D. degrees while the four siblings left behind did not complete high school. In order for Tara to survive, she had to leave her past behind.

The past was a ghost, insubstantial, unaffecting. Only the future had weight.

THE BENEFITS OF BEING AN OCTOPUS by Ann Braden

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All I need is to know something—and I do. And maybe, just maybe, if I do this—and if I can rock it—all the other kids will have their minds blown, and it’ll be completely satisfying to watch. “Who would have guessed,” they’ll say, “that Zoey knew so much cool stuff? I had no idea! I thought I knew who she was, but clearly I didn’t at all.” Maybe Kaylee Vine would even stop holding her nose and switching seats on the bus to get away from me.

The Benefits of Being an Octopus is a treasure of a book —  I absolutely loved it! If I could give it six stars, I would! At its core, it is an inspiring story about finding oneself and empowerment.  It may be intended for teens and YA, but it will definitely resonate with adults. It’s an amazing debut novel and I cannot wait to read what Ann Braden writes next.

Zoey is a seventh grader who is working on her debate prep.  The assigned topic — what is the best animal and why.  For Zoey, the answer is the octopus and she knows many reasons why it surpasses all others.  In fact, she is very knowledgeable about the eight-legged creature and even identifies with them at times. 

Zoey is responsible for looking after her three younger siblings (ranging in age from infant to four years old) and it takes up a lot of her free time. She is not a great student and doesn’t really care about school. She never participates in class and as she explains, she isn’t the kind of kid that does homework. 

Besides being unsuccessful at school, Zoey is bullied by her classmates. She doesn’t fit in and doesn’t seem to care. She also feels unappreciated by her mother, who she sees as having markedly changed since they moved in with her boyfriend Lenny. The reader cannot help but feel for Zoey and the challenging circumstances of her life. But one day her life, as well as those around her, will change when her social studies teacher becomes involved.

Likening herself to an octopus is a psychological coping mechanism for Zoey. She clearly suffers from an inferiority complex, among other things, and feeling that she shares some characteristics of an octopus helps guide her and gives her a perceived edge over her classmates. An added bonus for the reader is that we learn some interesting facts about the octopus.

The chromatophores right under my octopus skin switch to camouflage. When I slide into the seat, I might as well be made of the same colors as the desk and the metal chair legs.

It’s like my octopus body has gotten trapped in a net. But there has to be an opening somewhere. If I can just stay calm and avoid getting tangled up …

In fact, identifying with the eight-legged mollusk gives Zoey a sense of confidence, hope and courage when she most needs it. She is able to deal with stressful situations by imagining the advantages she has as an octopus.

I can camouflage myself well enough to blend in with a desk. I just need to camouflage myself enough to blend in with them. I take a deep breath and extend my tentacles. 

I can still blend in with the eager beavers. I can still pretend I’m like them. Maybe after long enough, that magic wand of confidence will mistake me for them, and give me a bop on the head, too.

Could I really be like them? I mean, an octopus can change colors ten times in a matter of seconds, so all sorts of ridiculous things are possible.

Ann Braden does a remarkable job capturing the voice and temperament of a seventh grader.

I hate waking them up. It’s like you’ve finally won the lottery of peace and quiet and then you rip that winning ticket to shreds and dump a bucket of angry, screaming monkeys on your head.

Silas has the kind of freckles that make you want to connect the dots to form constellations and dragons and things.

I slip into the stall that has you’re a slut carved on the side. I used to like to look at it sideways and pretend that it says you’re a slug and that it was carved by a cockroach who was just trying to help his slug friend who was having some identity issues.

The Benefits of Being an Octopus explores many important and relevant topics - bullying, living day-to-day with poverty, emotional abuse, the gun debate and finding one’s voice (both literally and figuratively). Importantly, it shows how one person can make such a significant difference in a child’s life and its direction, in this case a teacher who cares. 

MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh

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My Year of Rest and Relaxation — sounds like a great idea, right? Who wouldn’t love to take off a year to chill out and relax (assuming one is able to do so financially).  It is certainly a unique premise for a book, which I was eager to devour.  After reading it, I must confess that the story is not exactly what I expected. 

The narrator of A Year of Rest and Relaxation wants to sleep away the year by using all sorts of prescription drugs she is too readily able to get from a psychiatrist she selected from the yellow pages because she was the only one that answered her phone at 11pm. As bizarre as the premise of this book sounds, I have to admit, I loved it. Perhaps my background in psychology biased my reading experience — I don’t know.

Our narrator is obsessive-compulsive about sleep — she absolutely loves it!

Oh, sleep. Nothing else could ever bring me such pleasure, such freedom, the power to feel and move and think and imagine, safe from the miseries of my waking consciousness.

I’d always loved sleeping. It was one thing my mother and I had enjoyed doing together when I was a child. She was not the type to sit and watch me draw or read me books or play games or go for walks in the park or bake brownies. We got along best when we were asleep.

She truly believes that if she sleeps continuously for a year, her neuroses and troublesome memories will vanish and life will begin anew for her.

I knew in my heart—this was, perhaps, the only thing my heart knew back then—that when I’d slept enough, I’d be okay. I’d be renewed, reborn. I would be a whole new person, every one of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories. My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relaxation.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is more of an in-depth character study than a story per se. We get to know the narrator, who interestingly enough is nameless, very well.  To say she is self-alienated is the understatement of the year. She is very self-absorbed and has a destructive relationship with her boyfriend Trevor that is on again and off again and on again, etc. We get glimpses inside her head and follow her thoughts, free associations and self-analysis. She is actually a tragic figure that doesn’t seem to want to work out her psychological issues but rather prefers to be in denial and deludes herself into thinking that sleep is a panacea.

Nothing seemed really real. Sleeping, waking, it all collided into one gray, monotonous plane ride through the clouds. I didn’t talk to myself in my head. There wasn’t much to say. This was how I knew the sleep was having an effect: I was growing less and less attached to life. If I kept going, I thought, I’d disappear completely, then reappear in some new form. This was my hope. This was the dream.

At times, the story is just so outlandish that it is amusing and/or outright laugh out loud funny.  

Dr. Tuttle,” I began, “I was wondering if you could prescribe something a little stronger for bedtime. When I’m tossing and turning at night, I get so frustrated. It’s like I’m in hell.”

“Hell? I can give you something for that,” she said, reaching for her prescription pad.

Having a trash chute was one of my favorite things about my building. It made me feel important, like I was participating in the world. My trash mixed with the trash of others. The things I touched touched things other people had touched. I was contributing. I was connecting.

The writing is very descriptive and smart.  The metaphors are clever and seamlessly integrated into the narrative. 

Caffeine was my exercise. It catalyzed my anxiety so that I could crash and sleep again.

I could picture my selfhood, my past, my psyche like a dump truck filled with trash. Sleep was the hydraulic piston that lifted the bed of the truck up, ready to dump everything out somewhere….

While the premise sounds like the book could become boring at times, I didn’t find that to be true at all.  My Year of Rest and Relaxation is well-written and captivating with a very unusual storyline. I am very interested to read more by Ottessa Moshfegh.

           

NIGHT OF MIRACLES by Elizabeth Berg

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Night of Miracles is a charming story about the inhabitants of a small town. While it is billed as a sequel to The Story of Arthur Truluv, it is a completely standalone book.  But reading them in order will give you a little bit more enjoyment when reading the second one, because of the additional backstory knowledge of a couple of characters. 

There are a lot more characters in Night of Miracles compared to The Story of Arthur Truluv which centered on three people. In fact, the beginning of Night of Miracles requires some patience on the reader’s part — the first 5 chapters, although they are short, revolve around different characters (Lucille, Iris, Abby/Jason, Tiny/Iris, and Monica) with a few tertiary character names as well. So don’t be surprised if you are a bit confused and have trouble keeping the characters straight — it will become clearer as you read more. 

The book is about how these individuals become interconnected as their stories unfold. Are these people extraordinary? Not really. But they are good-natured and kind — people you would like to get to know. They are coping with everyday issues and problems while dealing with others in a compassionate way. Their different circumstances include illness, a small business, losing weight, starting over after a divorce, dating, unrequited love and so on. By the time their story ends, each one will get their own small miracle.

The different characters come to realize different truths through their experiences with each other and the situations in their lives. There are bits of wisdom sprinkled through the pages on various topics including love, life, and kindness.

That is the gift of love, not only that you have somebody but that you are changed by somebody.

One good thing about someone really liking something you have is that you appreciate it yourself all over again.

But you can’t custom-order people’s kindnesses. People do what they can, they give what they have.

There are some amusing moments as well as clever writing. 

He takes the recommended small bites! which means that he cuts the sprouts in quarters. Looks like he’s going to have to add a microscope to his table setting.

They didn’t even eat together anymore, not breakfast, not lunch, not dinner. Oftentimes, they ate separate things, and Iris thought this was worse than separate beds. They were more than over. They were rotted.

Ms. Berg is a skilled writer who gives the reader worthy ideas to ponder:

Lately, she draws comfort from watching the second hand go smoothly around and around. Isn’t it funny that she, so enamored of the past, is now consoled by seeing time move relentlessly forward?

Funny how important those birds have become to her. But people need something to depend on. They need a qsomething to love.

And everybody’s job was to love life while you had it and never to take anything for granted. It was hard to remember to do that, but it was worth it to try.

Although I enjoyed Night of Miracles, I didn’t love it as much as The Story of Arthur Truluv.  Maybe the abundance of characters has something to do with it. The character of Arthur Truluv is unrivaled in Night of Miracles — he is truly unique.  Overall I think The Story of Arthur Truluv set a very high bar which would be extremely difficult to surpass.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.