Book Review: Hyacinth Girls




The storyline of Lauren Frankel's Hyacinth Girls hit a little too close to home. It is a disjointed story of a young girl being bullied and the lack of awareness by the adults as to what's happening.


Recently a 13-year-old middle school girl in our town killed herself after being bullied. The other kids called her all kinds of things, said she was gay, and made up websites to torment her. Her parents and the school officials were seemingly unaware. Her suicide is such a horrible tragedy.


I could not help but think of her as I read this book. But, the main character in Hyacinth Girls is a girl named Callie who was first a bully her self and then was bullied. She was completely unlikeable. I had trouble drumming up any sympathy or empathy for her, even as she moved toward suicide as the only way out. It's hard to like a book that doesn't let you care enough about it's middle-school-aged character to care whether she lives or dies.


Plus, the book had a lot of flashbacks to her caregiver's younger days and I found that storyline completely uninteresting. What kept me reading was the fact that I was trying to wade through the facts and figure out whether my narrators were even reliable. I didn't entirely trust that what they were telling the reader was true.


Thought-provoking.


*I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

Book Review: The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly

I could not put this book down! I read the entire memoir in one day and felt like I was on a roller coaster ride the whole way through.


The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly is Matt McCarthy's memoir of his first year of residency at Columbia Hospital. He starts off with one of his first medical diagnostic mistakes; one that haunts him for months (maybe years?) to come. We see immediately how vulnerable these young, fresh-out-of-school residents are and how much they have to learn on-the-job -- which is scary because the only way they can learn to practice medicine is by literally practicing on people!


I have never wanted to work in the medical profession and never will. But recently, my son has decided that he wants to go to medical school and he has already completed a year of EMS training. I couldn't picture my son as a doctor until I read this book and saw so much of him in Matt -- the idealism, the high's and low's, the curiosity, and the sureness that you are making a difference in the lives of these people.


I was appalled as I read some of it. Like the time Matt had to insert a large IV tube into a cardiac arrest patient and missed the spot three times before getting it. Or the time he pushed on the tender belly of a drug mule to assess whether any of the heroin-filled balloons inside her had burst. Both instances turned out fine, but I was as nervous about these things as he was.


Then there was the time that he drew blood from an HIV patient and accidentally pricked himself with the needle right afterward. I won't tell you what happens from there. You have to read the book yourself.


Matt McCarthy is actually a man of many talents. He started out as a baseball player, then went into medicine, and has proven himself a talented writer as well. I don't know what he'll go on to do with his life, but I hope he keeps on writing!




* I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

5 Years of the Same Question

I love this little gold journal! I'm on Year 5 of my Q&A Diary and it's been much more insightful than I could have ever imagined.


I learned early that it's best to provide a detailed answer to each daily question. Some questions seem like they only need a one-word answer:

• Are you a student or a teacher?
• Are you happy?
• When was the last time you exercised?

You could answer with one word, but if you add a little more information, it's so much more interesting to look back and reflect on how you've changed year-to-year.


There are other, more provocative questions, such as:

• What would you like to say to your father?
• Who is your nemesis?
• What would be your theme song?

I always give detailed answers for these and am amazed at how many times my answer is the same. For instance, my nemesis stayed the same for 3 years in row. It was a co-worker of mine who finally left the company. Each year, I included some detail on why she was my nemesis again, and then finally had to identify a new one this year. (Sadly, it wasn't hard.) More insightful to me was that I've chosen the same song as my theme song for 2 of the 5 years: 'Wide Open Spaces" by the Dixie Chicks. And that was without reading my previous answers first. I always answer the question of the day before I look to see what I said in my answers before. To do otherwise seems like cheating.




I was thrilled to receive another copy of this little book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review because I'm about to start Year 6 and now won't worry that I'll miss a single day. In fact, I've bought copies of this diary for my whole family. I truly love this little book!

Book Review: It Was Me All Along

It should come as no surprise that a food blogger like Andie Mitchell has spent her lifetime in a love-hate relationship with food. In many ways, it has defined her. And like many who struggle with weight issues, it has owned her. Andie goes on to lose a lot of weight (133 lbs) and deals with the emotional issues at the heart of her obsession with food.


The book is at times inspiring, at times, painful, but always relatable. Anyone who's ever eaten to fill an emotional void, or because food can be so damn comforting will find truth in Andie's memoir.






*I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for this review.

Book Review: The Expats

I liked The Expats for the same reasons I like the television series The Americans: more than a spy show, it's about marriages based on lies and the dynamics involved.

In The Expats, Chris Pavone takes us to Luxembourg and the oddness that the CIA-wife feels about moving to a country she knows almost nothing about and giving up her career as an agent. Her husband has no idea what her former profession was and she, in turn, knows little about what he actually does for a living. "Something in financial security." Apparently, she wasn't a very good spy; she leaves it at that.

I expected that we'd get a story of him being the same secretive spy that she was, but the story we get seems even more convoluted than that. Honestly, the "spy" part of this spy novel didn't interest me much at all. I read it for the same reason I watch The Americans: to see how the domestic life of these spies works out. Certainly wouldn't be the marriage for me!


*I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review: A Letter to My Cat

I think I'm about to send my cat a Christmas card. Reading Lisa Erspamer's book, A Letter to My Cat, has made me feel like she's a much more integral member of the family than I'd realized.

I read this book with my cat curled up on my lap. I stopped to show her pictures; she didn't care. She usually closed her eyes just when I asked her to look. I think she was mad that she wasn't allowed to lay on the book. Now that I'm finished, she can lay on it t her heart's content.

This was such a sweet, enjoyable read. I especially liked the Prime Minister's wife's story of their cat. But it's hard to choose favorites. Each cat is special in his/her own way, as is mine.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for a review. If you're a cat lover, I encourage you to pick up a copy and read it with your cat.

Book Review: Prayers for the Stolen

   It starts with this sentence:
                                            Now we make you ugly, my mother said.


We're immediately taken to Guerrero, Mexico, near Acapulco, where scorpions, snakes and fire ants abound, men are scarce, drug traffickers run rampant, and girls are stolen. They are hidden from view, passed off as boys for as long as possible, then tucked away in holes dug in the ground. The women in this harsh, rural area must hide their daughters, or their daughters may very well disappear.


The story is riveting. It's one of those novels that's almost impossible to put down. We are transported to a spot in this world that few of us will ever see. Through the author's words, we can imagine it so clearly, and then we have to wonder -- how much of this story is true?


A look at the Author's note in the back tells us that most of this is true. Though the story of Ladydi and her friends is fiction,  it is based on the author's interviews with hundreds of Mexican women and the reality that girls in Mexico often disappear.


As I started to realize how thorough the author's understanding of this problem is, alarm bells went off in my head. I wanted to scream from the rooftops that something must be done! The world needs to know, just as we've been alerted to the honor killings in the middle east and the genital mutilation of girls in Africa, girls in Mexico are being stolen and sold!


This novel is hard-hitting and honest. I cannot imagine living in an environment like Guerrero. I cannot imagine the poverty, hopelessness, or danger. As much as Jennifer Clement let us see, and let us imagine it, I cannot fathom it. This is a story and problem I won't soon forget.


It's the best book I've read this year.




(Lucky me, I received this book from Blogging for Books to review.)