Wondrous Words Wednesday (30)

Welcome back, wordy friends!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

Here are three of my favorite new-to-me words from Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson.  All definitions from Dictionary.com (except where noted).

1. carnelian. "Like every other boathouse in Hasselosund, ours was painted a carnelian red with an even darker red pitched roof and white trim around the eaves, doors, and windows."
noun
a red or reddish variety of chalcedony, used in jewelry.

And apparently "chalcedony" is a variety of quartz.

2. tastevin. "A sommelier with a sterling silver tastevin around his neck stood by the bar, ready to guide guests through the extensive French wine list."  
noun
a small, very shallow silver cup or saucer traditionally used by winemakers and sommeliers when judging the maturity and taste of a wine.

I actually got this definition from Wikipedia, because dictionary.com didn't have it.  A neat word for the wine lovers out there!

3. coffered. "Finally, we passed a dining room far more opulent than Belle Avenue's, with upholstered chairs and coffered ceilings, sparkling chandeliers, and columns carved from marble."

adjective

having coffers.

Not helpful, dictionary.com!  "Coffers" are sunken panels seen in ceilings...had to look that one up.

What are your new words this week?

Audiobook Giveaway Winner!

Morning, my dear readers!  Just a quick post today to announce the winner of the audiobook CD copy of Don't Go by Lisa Scottoline.

And the winner (chosen randomly by Rafflecopter) is...

Jennifer from The Relentless Reader!

Woot woooooooot!  Congrats Jen!  Check your inbox for an email from me.  And readers, if you've never been to her blog before, check it out, because it is bookishly fabulous.

Happy Tuesday!

Book Review: I Never Promised You A Goodie Bag by Jennifer Gilbert

Title: I Never Promised You A Goodie Bag
Author: Jennifer Gilbert
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: May 15, 2012
Source: copy received for honest review through TLC Book Tours

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

When Jennifer Gilbert was just a year out of college, a twenty-two-year-old fresh-faced young woman looking forward to a bright future, someone tried to cut her life short in the most violent way. But she survived, and not wanting this traumatic event to define her life, she buried it deep within and never spoke of it again.

She bravely launched a fabulous career in New York as an event planner, designing lavish parties and fairy-tale weddings. Determined to help others celebrate and enjoy life's greatest moments, she was convinced she'd never again feel joy herself. Yet it was these weddings, anniversaries, and holiday parties, showered with all her love and attention through those silent, scary years, that slowly brought her back to life.

Always the calm in the event-planning storm--she could fix a ripped wedding dress, solve the problem of an undelivered wedding cake in the nick of time, and move a party with two days' notice when disaster struck--there was no crisis that she couldn't turn into a professional triumph. Somewhere along the way, she felt a stirring in her heart and began yearning for more than just standing on the sidelines living vicariously through other people's lives. She fell in love, had her heart broken a few times, and then one day she found true love in a place so surprising that it literally knocked her out of her chair.

As Gilbert learned over and over again, no one's entitled to an easy road, and some people's roads are bumpier than others. But survive each twist and turn she does--sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter, and often with both.

Warm, wise, alternately painful and funny, I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag is an inspiring memoir of survival, renewal, and transformation. It's a tale about learning to let go and be happy after years of faking it, proving that while we can't always control what happens to us, we can control who we become. And instead of anticipating our present in a goodie bag at the end of an event, we realize our presence at every event is the real gift.

My Review:

I've read several good memoirs lately, and they have reminded me that their authors have a daunting job.  How do you tell your life story honestly, and keep it intriguing, while also maintaining a tone that doesn't smack of self-aggrandizement?  Balancing those three factors is no easy feat, because you can lose your reader quickly if any of them are off-kilter (especially that last one).  Jennifer Gilbert's memoir impressed me though, because she manages that balance beautifully.  I Never Promised You A Goodie Bag takes you on a candid journey through the highs and lows of Gilbert's life.  She has some amazing life lessons to share, but she also makes it clear that she is still learning as life marches along.  I appreciated that forthrightness, and Gilbert's sincere tone throughout the book is a big reason why I loved it.

Let's talk for a hot second about how amazingly resilient this woman is.  She has faced some seriously devastating tragedies in her life, and the fact that she is now able to look back on them with such clarity is inspiring.  Gilbert has suffered an attempted murder, countless heartbreaks, miscarriages...events that, by themselves, could totally sink someone for a lifetime.  Yet she has managed to pull through, become a successful businesswoman/wife/mother, and write a memoir that allows her to effectively share what she has learned.  If that's not uplifting, I don't know what is.  Her final message is simple ("You can't control what may happen to you in this life, but you can control who you want to be after it happens") but stirring...a good reminder for any difficult times in life.

Gilbert's story is sure to pull at your heart strings, because whether you're a daughter, mother, wife, girlfriend, or friend, there is some piece of her journey that you will find relatable.  I was personally moved by the last sections regarding her struggles in pregnancy and motherhood.  She speaks so meaningfully of the hopes and fears we have for our children--it immediately resonated within me.  While I've never suffered the magnitude of trauma that Gilbert has, that doesn't mean her story is out of reach for me as a reader.  She shares it in a way that clearly illustrates her frustration and pain, while also allowing you to relate it to it on your own level.

An added bonus here is that, among the harder subjects, you get some entertaining looks into Gilbert's job as an event planner in New York City.  Her job is not predictable by any means, and she's worked with some...interesting clientele over the years.  These tidbits add some levity, while also continuing to support the other, tougher stories at the heart of the book.

This is a fairly quick read (just over 200 pages), though not necessarily a "light" one.  There are some tough subjects tackled here.  But if you're in the mood for a memoir that will move and inspire, I Never Promised You A Goodie Bag is your next book.  (And admit it, you're kind of intrigued by the title anyway.)  I was going to offer up my copy for a giveaway, but sorry guys--it's too good.  I'm keeping it for a re-read.  NYAH-NYAH.

Much thanks to Trish and TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour!

Check out the other blogs on this book tour HERE.  And connect with Jennifer Gilbert on her website, Facebook page, or Twitter account.

Have you read any inspiring memoirs lately?

Small Fry Saturday #18: Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? by Eric Carle

It's time for installment #18 of Small Fry Saturdays!  This is a when-I-feel-like-it meme to showcase some of books that my 22-month-old Small Fry is currently reading.  Feel free to do a SFS post on your blog (with the graphic above) or leave a comment below about your favorite kiddie reads.

Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? by Eric Carle

This post is kind of a week late, I suppose, but I'll tell you why.  Each night before bed, we let Small Fry pick 2 books for us to read aloud to him.  The night before Mother's Day, he chose this one for the first time ever, and all this week it's been his constant favorite.  HOW CUTE IS THAT.  Right on time for Mom's Day.  However, too late to be last week's Small Fry Saturday post, thus I'm featuring it this week instead.

I am familiar with the well-known Eric Carle books (Very Hungry Caterpillar, etc.) but when Small Fry was born, my eyes were opened to the vast library of other books that he's done as well.  Does A Kangaroo Have A Mother, Too? is one of those.  I'd never heard of it until last year, but it's a cute book with a simple concept.  Each page asks "Does a ________ have a mother, too?" (different animal on each page).  And the answer is always, "Yes, of course they do!" before moving on to the next animal. This gets very repetitive for the adult reading aloud, but at his age, Small Fry loves it.  Every time I turn the page, he yells, "YES!" because he knows that this animal does, in fact, have a mother too.

The illustrations are in the typical fun Eric Carle style, very eye-catching.  This is a great one for younger kiddos that will enjoy the repetition on each page...as well as any young animal lovers that you have in the house.

What's your favorite Eric Carle book?

Book Review: The Bridge of Years by May Sarton

Title: The Bridge of Years
Author: May Sarton
Publisher: WW Norton
Publication Date: April 18, 1946
Source: borrowed from the good ol' public library

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

This novel, first published in 1946, is one of May Sarton's earliest and, some critics think, one of her best. It takes place during the years between the world wars and explores the life of a Belgian family, the Duchesnes, and their mutual devotion which intensifies under the shadow of impending disaster.

Mélanie Duchesne, mother of three, is an active businesswoman, whose courage, energy, and optimism bind the family and its farm together. Paul, her husband, is a philosopher, detached, moody, continually embroiled in the spiritual conflicts of a crumbling Europe.

The last years before the second war are tense ones, a time for stock-taking, for a quickening of the pace of life. But it is Mélanie who encourages her family to proceed with their plans, to continue with their way of life. And it is Mélanie who decides their future as the Germans launch their invasion of Belgium.

My Review:

I'll admit it--when I started looking for a book for this month's Around the World challenge, I wasn't super stoked.  I was having a really hard time finding a good Belgium pick.  I usually try to choose a monthly novel for this challenge that looks at least somewhat familiar to me, but nothing on the Belgium list jumped out.  However, based on its description, I put The Bridge of Years on hold at the library and hoped for the best.

Final verdict: SO GLAD that I gave this one a chance!  May Sarton's writing is absolutely beautiful, and I found myself completely enveloped in the Duchesnes' daily drama right from page one.

I will note right away that this is not a novel with an "action" plot.  Despite being set in a very turbulent political period, this is very much a character-driven work.  Sarton hones in on the relationships between each member of the Duchesne family, and spends a lot of time developing their joys, misgivings, and philosophies as the book progresses.  When the novel begins, World War 1 has just ended--by the end, World War 2 has recently pushed into Belgium.  What Sarton manages to do is create a concise illustration of the Duchesnes' ever-changing family dynamic, as the politics and worries of the wider world bear down upon them.

What is most striking about this novel is how each character brilliantly comes to life on the page.  A period of twenty years goes by in the course of the book, and yet Sarton is able to convincingly portray the maturity and development of each widely-different person: everyone from Melanie, the vivacious and charitable family matriarch, to Pierre, a young family friend who often spends summers with the Duchesnes.  Sarton eloquently delineates every character's inner conflicts, and to me, this is The Thing that makes this novel worth devouring.  She writes, in just 342 pages, words that seem like they belong in a much longer epic novel:

"Life was not lived at the point of intensity...when he finished his first book, when Colette was conceived.  Life might be conceived there, but it was maintained on another level, less pure, less violent, closer to earth, difficult, gradual, asking above all the ability to endure."

The last third of the novel did feel a little slower for me, as politics become a larger part of the Duchesnes' everyday lives.  However, I felt such a bond with the characters by then that it really did not disrupt my reading experience.  And the ending left me with a lot to think about, as the Duchesnes try to determine if their way of life can continue as war becomes their daily reality.

I feel like I can't do this one justice in one small review.  So you'll just have to trust me.  If you're looking for an introspective, fluidly-written, character-driven novel, The Bridge of Years is a wonderful choice.  This one snuck up on me, and reminded me that the more well-known novels are not the only good ones out there!

What novels have taken you by surprise lately?

Wondrous Words Wednesday (29)

Welcome back, wordy friends!

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

Here are three of my favorite new-to-me words from Found Objects by Peter Gelfan.  All definitions from Dictionary.com.

1. roué. "Harl thinks he and I have a lot in common; he sees me as a fellow roué, a man who lives as he wants to and f*ck 'em if they can't take a joke."
noun
a dissolute and licentious man; rake.

What a fancy word for a distinctly non-fancy meaning!

2. misanthrope. "The chances of getting caught prohibited searching his room or his car, so I opted for the favorite tactic of the armchair misanthrope and hit the Web."  
noun
a hater of humankind.

Harsh!  I think the narrator meant it with a bit of cheek here though.

3. verisimilitude. "I'm suspicious of such searches, not only because memory more and more seems like imagination brushed with a patina of verisimilitude, but also because at the time these moments happen, we can't see their consequences and only much later look back upon them as defining."

noun

1. the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability: The play lacked verisimilitude.
2. something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth.

Once I saw the definition, I realized I could have figured it out from the "veri" root.  Good word.

What are your new words this week?

GIVEAWAY and Audiobook Review: Don't Go by Lisa Scottoline

Title: Don't Go
Author: Lisa Scottoline
Publisher: St. Martin's Press/Macmillan Audio
Publication Date: April 9, 2013
Source: CD copy received from the publisher for an honest review

Plot Summary from Goodreads:

Lisa Scottoline's Don't Go introduces us to Dr. Mike Scanlon, an army doctor called to serve in Afghanistan, who is acutely aware of the dangers he’ll face and the hardships it will bring his wife Chloe and newborn baby. And deep inside, he doesn’t think of himself as a hero, but a healer.

However, in an ironic turn of events, as Mike operates on a wounded soldier in a war-torn country, Chloe dies at home in the suburbs, in an apparently freak household accident. Devastated, he returns home to bury her, only to discover that the life he left behind has fallen apart. He’s a stranger to his baby girl, and his medical practice has downsized in his absence. Worse, he learns a shocking secret that sends him into a downward spiral.

Grief-stricken, Mike makes decisions upon returning to Afghanistan which will change his life forever.  It’s not until he comes home for good that he grasps the gravity of his actions, and realizes he must fight the most important battle of his life, to reclaim his life and his daughter. Along the way, he discovers that everything is not as it seems, and he learns ugly truths about those he loves the most, as well as the true meaning of heroism.

My Review:

One of the first reviews I ever did on this blog was for Lisa Scottoline's Look Again.  While I didn't give it a roaring endorsement, I was left feeling like I needed to give her work another shot.  Read the plot summary of any one of her books (this one included), and I think you'd be hard-pressed not to want to pick it up like NOW.  She comes up with some truly unique and twisty plot ideas, and since most of them fall into a "women's fiction" category, my interest is always piqued.

Her latest release is Don't Go, and I decided it was high time for me to give her novels another shot.  Overall, I'm glad I did, though this book had its high and low points for me as well.

The best thing about this novel is the sense of mystery surrounding it, right from the first chapter.  It's told from Chloe's perspective as she dies, and there's a cliffhanger ending to the chapter that left me saying, "Okay, I'm committed to reading this entire book now, WELL PLAYED."  As with Look Again, I often thought I knew exactly who was involved in each part of the mystery--in fact, at one point I was not looking forward to writing this review, because I was going to have to call the book out for being so predictable.  However, SMUGNESS IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.  Learn from me.  My predictions were totally wrong, and the ending took a turn that I truly did not see coming.  I love it when a book can completely unravel my super-sleuthing skills, so this was certainly a big advantage for the novel.

The flip side to this is that, at times, the details of the plot seemed carelessly handled--and in one place, they were downright wrong.  I never do this, but I have to throw in a SPOILER ALERT right now so that I can illustrate my point.  Did you see it?  I SAID SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILERS ALL UP IN THE PARAGRAPH BELOW!  You have been warned.

Okay, so when Mike returns from Afghanistan, he finds out from Chloe's autopsy report that she was 4 weeks pregnant.  OH MAN, major downer, because in the words of Maury Povich, he is NOT the father since he was in Afghanistan at that time.  Mike then finds some emails between Chloe and a mystery suitor proving that they had sex while Mike was away.  Here's the detail that (really REALLY) bothered me: Chloe died December 15.  The emails show that she had sex with Mystery Guy around November 11.  THAT DOES NOT MAKE YOU 4 WEEKS PREGNANT ON DECEMBER 15.  It makes you roughly 6-7 weeks pregnant.  This is biology, people, so get ready for some knowledge.  The first two weeks of pregnancy, you're not really pregnant.  You conceive at around the 2 week mark.  If she was 4 weeks preggo on December 15, she conceived around the end of November.  This was an absolutely GLARING mistake, and since it plays a significant role in the mystery around Chloe's death, it bothered the heck out of me.

SPOILERS OVER.  CARRY ON.

There was also a point in the novel where Mike got in a fight, the cops were called, and the cops showed up and immediately arrested him without interviewing him OR the person he fought first.  This is another example of a head-scratching detail that detracted from the reading/listening experience for me.  I just wish a little bit more care had been given to finer points such as these.

Okay, enough of my overzealous attention to detail.  Let's talk about the narration on the audiobook.  Jeremy Davidson did a really excellent job voicing this novel.  He's a perfect pick as the main character (Mike)--especially because many of you may recognize him from the TV show Army Wives.  However, he also had an impressive array of other voices that he had to portray, and he did a great job making each character distinct for the listener.  I'd say the only one I was iffy on was Mike's friend Jim--he was supposed to have a Philadelphia accent that came out more like a southern California surfer dude.  But that aside, Davidson does excellent work here, and lends an appropriate air of drama to the entire story.

Overall?  Don't Go is a fantastic pick if you want a family drama with lots of unpredictable twists.  Scottoline definitely excels in making readers second-guess their ideas about a plot, and I think that's a huge plus in her novels.  However, the details weren't always handled well, which led to a clunky reading experience for me.  Readers who are less hung up on nitty-gritty plot points may, admittedly, have a smoother ride than I did!

Other reviews of Don't Go:
An Unconventional Librarian
Ramblings of a Marine Wife
Robin Reads and Writes

Now, A GIVEAWAY!

I have one audiobook CD copy of Don't Go to give away to a lucky reader.  It's been used (once, by me!) and is in great condition.  Just enter using the Rafflecopter below (US entrants only please).  Giveaway closes May 20!
a Rafflecopter giveaway