The Longings of Wayward Girls - 2013

The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown
My rating: 3/5

THE Low Down

Sadie is your typical New England stay-at-home mom – a nice house in her quiet hometown, successful and loving husband, young and adorable children. But when Ray moves back to town shortly after she suffers an emotionally crippling late-term miscarriage, “that summer” comes flooding back. From the childhood prank that may or may not have led to the unsolved disappearance of a neighborhood girl to her conflicting feelings for her mother, Ray and the relationship she suspected they once shared, the once long lost memories of her 12th summer reek havoc on her already weakened emotional state. As she struggles to deal with the reemergence of details in her past she may have rather left forgotten, she questions how those memories really have guided her present...and whether she likes where it is going.

“Morality and its victim, the mother - what a terrible picture! Is there indeed anything more terrible, more criminal, than our glorified sacred function of motherhood?”
Emma Goldman

MY Low Down

For some reason this particular review is drawing out a bit of writer's block in me – it's essentially a conundrum. On one hand, the knee jerk reaction to finishing this story was an easy 4 stars, but due to some life circumstances it has taken me over a week to get my review down. In that time, I was surprised by how quickly a seemingly 4 star read left my psyche – I honestly had to reference the book to remember a couple of characters names. Unfortunate.

Despite various story lines being driven in from many different directions, this story to me was essentially about motherhood – how our mothers affect who we are, and in turn how we mother our own children. As you move through the novel, the perspective alternates between 12 year old Sadie and 36 year old Sadie, highlighting the stark difference between the two but also the aspects of her young life that have followed her into her adult life.

At it's core, the insights did their job and drew you deep into many of the psychological aspects that even the smallest life events can have an impact on, but in many places they got mired down by the story line going in more directions that necessary. How did the disappearance of the first young girl factor into the lives of the girls several years later? Not really. Sure, the jacket tells you that it made the parents more diligent, but in reality the concept never came to fruitioon and the lack of resolution just made it frustrating and annoying. And why exactly was it necessary for Sadie to be suspicious of a past relationship between Ray and her mother? Not at all. He could have simply been girlhood crush of her past who returned to help turn things upside down and it would have had the same impact. None of the details such as Beth's strange behavior, Sadie's mother acting strangely (that seemed to be her norm, after all) ultimately seemed to me like they mattered to the overall theme of the story, but were basically just there to make everyone seem just one notch more screwed up.

Overall the writing was wonderful, particularly the alternation between the time periods that provided a great contrast to Sadie's life, but story itself just didn't do it for me quite as much as I'd originally felt like it would.

*NetGalley ARC*

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The Aviator's Wife - Mesmerizing, Intriguing and Making Me Add Too Many New Books to my TBR List!

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5*

Loved it! I very much enjoy the fictional bio/autobio style and Melanie Benjamindoes it so well! A pretty significant number of people are already familiar with many aspects of the life of Charles and Anne Lindbergh, but so much of it just the most basic details, since they tried so hard to shield the details of their lives from the world. In this novel, Benjamin helps us to imagine what the intimate details behind the events might have been. And I ADORE the fact that she doesn't let little details like facts get in the way. Sure, she does diligent research and gives you the accurate essentials, but she also lets her imagination run amok in the name of a good story. She puts it out in the open that she does not mean for her works to be taken as non-fiction, so she doesn't let her stories be weighted down if it is going to take away from the interest and intrigue. I read a quote from Benjamin at http://www.biographile.com/good-prose... where she says "My biggest reward as an author is when I hear, "Now I have to go buy more books about this person!" and she certainly succeeded with this one...I have spent several hours both while reading and since finishing this asking the Google machine more questions about the Lindbergh's, as well as looking up her novel (Gift from the Sea), his memoir (The Spirit of St. Louis and several of his biographies to add to my reading list. For facts and figures, I will read those...for good, intriguing storytelling I'll stick with Benjamin. I am excited to see who her next subject is!

My only boo on this one, and what kept it from 5*, is that I felt a bit drawn down by how severely Anne was portrayed as the martyr at times. Yes, this is the point and I get that the story would have gone a completely different direction had it not been for these details, but I definitely had to stop the my internal dialogue from falling into a case of the "blah, blah, blah's" on a few occasions. I think all of the events and descriptions involved with these times were important and worthy, but just that they could have been summarized a bit and not drawn out quite so much, quite so many times.


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Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I loved this book for the writing, as it was skillful, beautiful and intriguing. I didn't, however, love the book itself. I did enjoy it, but don't share the sentiments of it's "ironic beauty" and "straightforward poignancy" quoted by critics and friends alike.

I imagine the subject matter was quite controversial considering the time of it's publication, and can potentially see myself having a different take were I from a different time, or in a different time. Now though, I can respect it, but don't feel an attachment to it. The most difficult part for me was it's anti-thesis of much of what I believe in. We are in charge of our own happiness. Life isn't about what you do, it's how you do it. The Golden Rule(my vision of this: give what you take, take only what you give, don't owe or allow yourself to be owed). The Wheeler's were against all of the above. They wallowed and only half-heartedly did anything remotely realistic to make their own happiness. They worried more about what they did than living a good life and doing it well and happily. They looked as others as though they were beneath them, and put their children anything but first.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike them. They were human, and a beautiful part of this book is that the writing and presentation is exactly that: beautiful, human, flawed. The problem for me is actually that I didn't dislike them, because I never could find it in myself to like them either. With no feeling of like or dislike for them, I found it hard to care too much about what happened to them. I feel like the ending should have had me either in tears of sorrow, or saying "see? That's what you get. Shoulda listened to your karma a bit". But I felt neither.

I definitely recommend this book for wonderful composition and bravery in subject matter(if you can appreciate this from the perspective of the setting and time it was published), but probably won't hold a place in the heart of my bookshelf....



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