Making Toast, by Roger Rosenblatt

Making Toast is a memoir written by Roger Rosenblatt, who's daughter Amy died unexpectedly and suddenly from a rare heart condition, while running on her treadmill.  Amy had a husband, Harris, and three children, Jessica, Sammy, and James (affectionately known as Bubbies), who are 6, 4 and one year old respectively.  When Amy died, Roger and his wife, Ginny, moved in with the grieving family to help them somehow rebuild their lives, and to be there for them in their time of grief.  This memoir details the everyday goings on of a family who has lost an integral member, and it shows how life goes on, and how young children deal with grief and loss.

This book is written in a different style than most memoirs I have read.  It isn't broken up into chapters, but instead is divided into small sections, where Roger tells stories of how the family merged into one cohesive unit for the children, and how the children reacted to finding their mother's body, dealing with her loss, and learning to accept the situation.  It is a sad yet sweet book, which celebrates Amy's life as well as memorializes her death.  The tales tell us that grieving is a long and difficult process, that it affects everyone in different ways, and that there is a way to move on from even the most devastating circumstances.

I would recommend this book everyone, but especially to anyone who might be dealing with a form of loss, especially if they have lost a loved one.  It shows us how resiliant people can be, and that even after an extremely sad event such as a mother's death, life finds a way to go on.

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Committed is a book by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the bestseller Eat, Pray, Love.  Liz tells the true story of her life: a divorced woman with no desire whatsoever to get remarried, who met a man with the exact circumstances and views about marriage.  They fell deeply in love, and committed to each other without the need for a ceremony or vows, both knowing how difficult, messy and draining divorce can be on two people.  But here's the catch, Liz's lover, Felipe, is Brazilian and a citizen of Austrailia.  Felipe was staying in America with Liz for 90 days at a time, and would leave the country and return again, for 90 more days, as to follow the visa laws of the United States.  However, on one trip into the country, Felipe was detained, questioned, and then arrested and asked to leave the country.  He was forbidden to return until the two of them obtained a Fiance Visa, and then returned to get married.

Needless to say, Liz was not happy with this arrangement at first, but learned to accept it in order to be with Felipe.  She spends the most of the book telling the reader about different types of marriages she has researched, and she spoke with people from different cultures to try to understand how marriage is done in different parts of the world.

I took issue with a lot of this book.  First off, if you are that much in love with someone as she claims to be with Felipe, getting married should not provide the same effect as a death sentence.  I felt that Liz was extremely overdramatic throughout the book.  Felipe was made to leave the country, and yes, that does suck, but Liz went with him, and they traveled through Southeast Asia for most of the time that he wasn't allowed in America!  Somehow that doesn't seem so bad to me. 

Secondly, I felt the book was very self-indulgent.  Liz kept trying to figure out how to create her marriage and make it work.  Yes, I understand that marriage is a very complicated subject, and many people do it very different ways.  I do not believe that Liz needed to spend 279 pages trying to make up the rules for her own marriage.  I believe that is something that the readers did not really need to hear about at length.

Third, the book does not read like most stories, even when they are about real life.  Liz put so much historical information about marriage and many statistics in the book that at times it felt like work to read.  Don't get me wrong, I like learning about history as much as the next person, but when I am expecting to read a memoir-type book, I do not want to have to read a textbook.

There were a few things I liked about this book.  Liz's interviews with people from other cultures about marriage were fascinating to me.  Also the stories about her family and the marriages that took place through the generations were very interesting.  The ideas about marriage and how it has changed through history were good too, but less would have sufficed. 

Overall, it seemed like Liz was reaching to come up with enough to fill up a book.  I got the impression that she wrote a book because she knew people would buy it because the success of Eat, Pray, Love, and it was lacking in quality.  Her relationship with Felipe was not interesting enough to hold my attention for long, and the truly interesting parts of this book were few and far betweeen.  I had to push myself to finish this book, which generally isn't a good sign.  I don't think I would recommend this book, unless someone was planning on getting married and really wanted to know the history of marriage throughout different parts of the world, and more specifically in America.  However, I don't think I know anyone like that.

I suck at blogging!

Ok, this post is clearly not about a book, but about my inability to figure out a seemingy simple thing such as a blog.  I was looking at my drafts today and discovered that my first two blog posts had never been published!  Boy, did I feel silly.  So they are not in the right order, but the first blog post is about the book "A Long Way Gone," and the second one I wrote was about the book "Have a Little Faith." 

Oh, and if anyone can tell me how to underline text, it would be greatly appreciated!  Blogspot does not seem to have the underline icon, which is making me crazy, as I am blogging about books.  If anyone is actually reading this, thanks for putting up with me and my inability to do anything related to technology.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

A long way gone is a memoir written by Ishmael Beah, who grew up in Sierra Leone during their civil war. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel army that fought for 11 years in Sierra Leone, would raid villages, burn down people's homes, rape women and kill the villagers. Ishmael ran from these soldiers in order to stay alive and prevent being recruited as a child soldier. He spent time living in the forest, and traveling to different towns before he was finally recruited as a child soldier. In this book, he shares about his experiences as a soldier when he was 13-15 years old, and then his rehabilitation back into civilian life.

I was very moved by this book, and the authors descriptions of the horrific events that happened in Sierra Leone in the 1990's. He told his story truthfully and vividly, and I feel that it is a story that needed to be told, since I personally had not known about the events in Sierra Leone previous to reading the book. It astounds me that such devastation could still happen in the world today. It was hard to read at times, but you empathize that the author has been through, and hope for the future.

Overall, this book was fascinating. It kept me interested and intrigued, and showed me a part of the world that most people rarely see. If you are interested in learning more about the situation that happened in Sierra Leone or just would like to read an account on a child soldier, I recommend this book.

Oh, and on a personal note, I own a lot of these books that I am going to be reading, so if any of my friends are reading this and want to borrow any of these books to read, just let me know! Even if you don't live close by, I can mail them. Thanks for reading!

Have a Little Faith, by Mitch Albom

If anyone out there is actually following this blog, you might have noticed I have fallen behind a bit in my goal. Life has been a bit busy, but I don't see this as a problem, because if you know me, you know I read a lot, and if I am truly interested and enthralled in a book, I will finish it in a day or two. So here is my thoughts on the second book I have completed this year (not including my triathlon book!).

Have a Little Faith is a true story told by Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie. The story begins when Mitch's 82 year old rabbi, Albert Lewis, askes Mitch to eulogize him when he dies. Mitch agrees, as long as he can get to know Albert as a person, not just as a rabbi. Like Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch visits his rabbi and asks him questions about life, God, the goodness of man, and Albert's life, among other things. He learns about how the rabbi continues the traditions of his ancestors, finds pleasure in the simple things, such as adding cereal to oatmeal, and is truly there for the people he serves. Albert always keeps such a positive attitude, and even sings to the nurses when he is in the hospital.

Simultaneously, Mitch tells the story of another man, Henry Covington, who is a christian pastor at a church in Detroit, who feeds and shelters homeless at his church. Without giving too much away, Henry's background is one that you would never expect from a religious person. The story highlights the similarities between Henry and Albert, it looks at faith and tradition, and overall shows the goodness that people have inside of them.

I thought that Have a Little Faith was a fantastic read. It discusses the topic of different religions without being preachy at all, and it left me with the feeling that even though I don't identify with a religion in particular, I could see why it was so important to these characters. More importantly, the book showed how some people in the world truly believe in helping others, even though they don't have an obligation to do anything. What resonated with me were the stories from the homeless people, and the true acts of kindness in this book. It gave me a little more faith in humanity. It was a remarkable account of two lives, and it was a great, fast read.

You might be able to tell that I really like memoirs and true stories, but next on the lineup are two fiction novels, so I do vary it up a little.

Columbine, by Dave Cullen

The book Columbine, by Dave Cullen, tells the story of the Columbine school massacre, which took place on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. It is a factual account of what happened that day, and also shares the events that led up to the massacre, as well as the aftermath and recovery process for the victims. The story is told from many perspectives, including the killers themselves (through use of their journals and videotapes they had made), the survivors, parents of both the murdered children and the children who survived, the FBI agent who profiled the killers, and the school principal. Since the Columbine massacre was so widely televised, I will skip the play by play of what happened and tell you my impressions of the book.

The book was not an easy read. It is a dark subject matter, and it took me much longer to read than a novel would have. However, it was extremely fascinating to read the background on Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who were the shooters. An agent from the FBI profiled the boys as best he could, through the videotapes, journals, and speaking with basically everyone they had interacted with. The boys had very different personalities, and the agent believed that Eric was a psychopath. The book dispelled a lot of myths about the massacre. The media had been quick to make assumptions, and in the long investigative process, the sheriff's department found out that a lot of them were just not true. Witness accounts are notoriously unreliable, and many students talked to the media, which created a lot of conflicting stories.

I would highly recommend reading this book. It was very well written and researched, and it shows how this massacre impacted so many lives differently. Also I found it interesting to read about the myths that the media had portrayed, and how most of them turned out to be untrue. I won't spell them out for you in here though, as not to ruin the book. If you remember the Columbine massacre or are at all interested in it, you should definitely read this book.