The Invaders

The Invaders Karolina Waclawiak 3/5	Published 2015 First Sentence "When Jeffrey's first wife told me he had a voracious appetite for women, I assumed she was just trying to be vindictive."
Publisher's Description: Over the course of a summer in a wealthy Connecticut community, a forty-something woman and her college-age stepson’s lives fall apart in a series of violent shocks. Cheryl has never been the right kind of country-club wife. She's always felt like an outsider, and now, in her mid-forties—facing the harsh realities of aging while her marriage disintegrates and her troubled stepson, Teddy, is kicked out of college—she feels cast adrift by the sparkling seaside community of Little Neck Cove, Connecticut. So when Teddy shows up at home just as a storm brewing off the coast threatens to destroy the precarious safe haven of the cove, she joins him in an epic downward spiral. The Invaders, a searing follow-up to Karolina Waclawiak’s critically acclaimed debut novel, How to Get Into the Twin Palms, casts a harsh light on the glossy sheen of even the most “perfect” lives in America's exclusive beach communities. With sharp wit and dark humor, The Invaders exposes the lies and insecurities that run like fault lines through our culture, threatening to pitch bored housewives, pill-popping children, and suspicious neighbors headlong into the suburban abyss.
Dear Reader, Take a look at that first sentence... it says it all. This is a story centered around the rich Connecticut shoreline snobs, the ones who care what others think, nitpick about everything and judge each other with an evil eye. I know people like this, I live and grew up in Connecticut (even if not in the same social class as these characters). Here's the thing, I've heard people complain that these characters are too over the top... well guess what... they really aren't! These people exist... yep. I hear ya, it's kinda depressing, but it's true. For those of you who haven't read the book, the characters are full of hot air and get all in a huff when their small beach community threatens to be overrun by "tourists". Fortunately, the main character Cheryl didn't grow up in this social circle and has a little disdain for the ridiculous actions of the others. Unfortunately, Cheryl wants to be included in the social circle and this starts to change who she is. We don't get to see much of her past but with some reminiscent chapters, we can tell she came from lower middle working class. Her family is left behind while she gets swept up in her new husband's life. Understandably, the life he shows her is sparkly and new. Little does she know that what she is leaving behind has value, just as much as this new life. The Invaders is a Tournament of Books pick, and I'm happy it forced me to read this one. I didn't love it, but I certainly didn't hate it (as some others did). I feel the beauty of the book lies within the characters and the reality of this world. There is a place for this story, these people exist and why not write about them? I won't deny that the ending was completely unsatisfying and confusing but the journey was truthful and relatable. This book isn't to be taken as a light beach read... there is real depth here and it's up to the reader to find it.   Happy Reading, AmberBug

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Twain's End

Twain's End Lynn Cullen 4/5	Published October 2015 First Sentence "Isabel's mother watched her tie on her hat with the look of intense pride and suppressed doubt that is particular to the mothers of grown daughters."
Publisher's Description: From the bestselling and highly acclaimed author of Mrs. Poe comes a fictionalized imagining of the personal life of America’s most iconic writer: Mark Twain. In March of 1909, Mark Twain cheerfully blessed the wedding of his private secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager, Ralph Ashcroft. One month later, he fired both. He proceeded to write a ferocious 429-page rant about the pair, calling Isabel “a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction.” Twain and his daughter, Clara Clemens, then slandered Isabel in the newspapers, erasing her nearly seven years of devoted service to their family. How did Lyon go from being the beloved secretary who ran Twain’s life to a woman he was determined to destroy? In Twain’s End, Lynn Cullen re-imagines the tangled relationships between Twain, Lyon, and Ashcroft, as well as the little-known love triangle between Helen Keller, her teacher Anne Sullivan Macy, and Anne’s husband, John Macy, which comes to light during their visit to Twain’s Connecticut home in 1909. Add to the party a furious Clara Clemens, smarting from her own failed love affair, and carefully kept veneers shatter. Based on Isabel Lyon’s extant diary, Twain’s writings and letters, and events in Twain’s boyhood that may have altered his ability to love, Twain’s End explores this real-life tale of doomed love.
Dear Reader, Lucky me! I got to read an advanced copy of this (via netgalley & BEA) from a well liked Author (Hi Lynn!) and a topic close to home. Samuel Clemens has so much history in Connecticut and anyone who lives here has been subjected to many Mark Twain themed educational romps. You can't grow up in Connecticut without some knowledge of who he was and what he wrote. I'm curious if people who haven't grown up around here have the same basic knowledge of him... it would be interesting to find out. My guess would be, other towns/states would have their own historical figure to learn about in detail, ours was just Sam Clemens (Mark Twain). For whatever reason, I had a feeling that I'd enjoy this book more than Mrs. Poe, but that wasn't the case. Although I really, really enjoyed "Twain's End", the subject, setting and characters had me more enchanted in Mrs. Poe.  Even though I had extensive knowledge surrounding SC/MT (my new nickname for him), I learned soooo much more from Lynn Cullen. She really dug in deep (just like she did with Mrs. Poe. Something I did know but maybe I should clarify for those of you reading this... Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens and vice versa (almost like an altar ego). Twain was the beloved (his pen name) and Sam was the grouchy/greedy jerk (the majority of the public only saw him as Mark Twain and didn't know he had this other side). Another tidbit I was aware of was the connection he had with a comet, how he felt it would be with the comet he would meet his death. But it wasn't just the background details that I loved so much, Cullen even added wonderful little references to the times (again, reflecting something I loved about Mrs. Poe): "Now I know why he called his stories 'Just So'. But I think he forgot the second 'so'." I know, I know... I'm not supposed to quote until the finished product but that was too good not to share! If it didn't make you giggle a little, you have a questionable sense of humor. Notorious Cigar Smoker There was so much the book had me questioning, "Is it true?", well rest assured that Lynn divulges all at the end, which makes the story even more enriching. For example, I had no idea Mark Twain was close friends with Helen Keller! Check it out: Helen Keller & Mark Twain That's right, Lynn based a huge chunk of the story on an actual meeting that happened. I never knew! Shame on me. Thankfully, Lynn Cullen is giving me the history lesson everyone wants (the gossipy one). Her books should have a tag line of, "These are the things you don't learn in school". Let's just say this woman opened up my repertoire of  fun facts to use while chatting it up with others - especially in Connecticut. I should also mention that the title of this book is very aptly named and will be something you'll discover once you read it... ahem... wink, wink... shove - go read it already!   Happy Reading, AmberBug P.S. - If any of you readers come to visit Connecticut, you should visit the Mark Twain House (one of the biggest 'not to miss' spots in CT): Mark Twain House in Connecticut

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East of Eden

East of Eden John Steinbeck 5 / 5	Published 1952 First Sentence "The Salinas Valley is in Northern California."
Publisher's Description: Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity; the inexplicability of love; and the murderous consequences of love’s absence.
Dear Reader, When I was on the second leg of a flight to Miami at the very end of 2003*, my seatmate was reading this book and raved to me about it (I unfortunately cannot recall what I was reading at the time, although I am certain it was something not nearly as literary). I have had it on my to-read list (at the time, it was a pen & paper version that I carried around in my Filofax for years!) ever since. And boy, am I glad I finally got around to it!!! What a gorgeous epic of, well, epic proportions. This retelling of the Cain & Abel story was so masterfully done - although, would you expect anything less from Steinbeck? I loved his take on the tale, and how he made things work out in the end. This wasn’t quite up to par with The Grapes of Wrath for me (perhaps because it wasn’t quite so political, so I didn’t feel as if it had a motive other than the telling of a great story), but it was certainly nonstop enjoyable.  Samuel Hamilton and Lee were by far my favorite characters. I wanted to just sit down and hang out with those two. They were down to earth and yet had these amazing views on the world. If you read the book for nothing else, read it for the passages where one of them discourses about the meaning of life. So worth it.  I also just loved how Steinbeck inserted himself into the periphery of the novel, as if this was a story he himself had experienced firsthand as a child. He made it feel as if he had watched it happen to someone else, to a neighbor his family was familiar but not close with. His childhood interactions with the main characters made the story feel so much more real. What a clever device.  Wikipedia says that Steinbeck used the novel as a vehicle for describing the Salinas Valley to his then-young sons. I find that fascinating, because yes, the Valley itself is almost another character entirely - it certainly informs the story and the movements of the characters, for better or for worse. I can see this book being an ode, a love letter, to the area -  its lushness and verdancy in good years, as well as its leanness and cruelty in bad ones. I was fascinated to see my home state of Connecticut feature in the book, as well - although clearly it is not a place that Steinbeck favors.  Speaking of places, I also loved the title - the phrase referring to the location of the Land of Nod, where Cain was exiled after having murdered his twin brother. I was fairly unfamiliar with the Biblical tale going into the book, but luckily Steinbeck offers quite a thoughtful and thorough exploration of the story (and its various interpretations). This book becomes a study on the possibility of hope in the face of fate, and whether you are bound by the blood that flows through your veins. I truly loved it.  Yours, Arianna * If you haven’t experienced New Year’s Eve while wearing a sundress, you must! (Yes, even those of you who don’t regularly wear sundresses...hehe.)

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You Should Have Known

You Should Have Known Jean Hanff Korelitz 3.5 / 5	Published 2014 First Sentence "Usually people cried when they came here for the first time, and this girl looked as if she'd be no exception."
Publisher's Description: Grace Reinhart Sachs is living the only life she ever wanted for herself, devoted to her husband, a pediatric oncologist at a major cancer hospital, their young son Henry, and the patients she sees in her therapy practice. Grace is also the author of You Should Have Known, a book in which she castigates women for not valuing their intuition and calls upon them to examine their first impressions of men for signs of serious trouble later on. But weeks before the book is published, a chasm opens in her own life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disast and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.
Dear Reader, Wow, it's been AGES since I finished a book! I mean, "ages" in mine & Amber's time, which really shouldn't count because we're kind of obsessed with books. ;) Anyway - I picked this one up because I had received it as a Goodreads First Read back in April, and I'd been meaning and meaning to read it. The impetus that finally did the trick? We found out that the author would be one of the panelists at the Hachette Book Brunch we attended in New York City a few weekends ago. Because of this (and because I erroneously received my complimentary keynote author's book too late to get started on it), I decided to see how much I could get through You Should Have Known before the event. The verdict? About half, which isn't too shabby considering it was a 400+ page book! It didn't take long to get really into the story, though. (Which I am sure helped me fly through it.) I had gotten a very different impression from the book blurb when I entered to win a copy earlier this year, and was entirely blown away by the intensely psychological situation this book explored. I had known the premise was that there was a woman (Grace) who had written an advice book on marriage, just before her own (seemingly perfect) marriage fell apart. I thought it was going to be a book about how a smug know-it-all got her comeuppance (or at least learned about hubris and what it means to be humble). But it was SO much more than that! Because it is the current "it book" to reference, think of the premise I just described, but with a Gone Girl twist: an unexpected and unexplainable mystery is stirred up maybe one-fifth of the way into the book. Many people feel as if the main character is unlikeable, which I can absolutely see. But I found I certainly liked her more than I thought I would. She wasn't really full of herself, she was just blind, and perhaps that was even a self-defense mechanism. Who knows. But she really did manage to pick up the pieces of her life relatively well. (Of course, she was lucky that she inherited not one but two homes, and could afford not to have to work immediately after her life had been entirely upheaved. Most don't have those luxuries.) Don't let yourself get turned off by Grace's seeming materialistic ways, though - the Birkin bag section which made her sound so petty actually comes around full circle in the end. And I think it was a good way of showing that while she was surrounded by people who could afford $10,000 handbags (multiples of them!) she didn't want that kind of excess for herself. She was content to have a small home and a happy family. Finding out she didn't ultimately have the either, and the repercussions of that discovery, is really what the author was trying to convey. And I think she did a great job of writing one woman's reaction to that. Yours, Arianna

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Orange Is the New Black

Orange Is the New Black Piper Kerman 3 / 5	Published 2010 First Sentence "International baggage claim in the Brussels airport was large and airy, with multiple carousels circling endlessly."
Publisher's Description: With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there.
Dear Reader, I have just begun watching the TV series that is based on this book, so I won't be discussing much about that. AmberBug gave me this audiobook a few years ago, having received it from a publisher friend. This was well before the show had been made, and so while I was interested in reading it, it wasn't until everyone was talking about the show that I really started to push it up towards the front of my queue. I'm glad I did; it was certainly interesting! A very unique story, really. Piper Kerman is unfortunately forced to pay for a small mistake she made over a decade ago, and must serve time in prison. She is sentenced to 15 months at the Danbury FCI - this also interested me greatly, since until a few weeks ago, I worked at Western Connecticut State University, which is located in the same city. (And, WCSU does get a brief mention! That made me smile.) Kerman is a typical upper-middle-class white woman, which made her experiences so enthralling to me because I would often think about how I might have handled the same situations she encountered while on the inside. Some things she dealt with the way I probably would have; others, she went an entirely unexpected direction, but things always seemed to work out all right. (Which sometimes surprised me!) What I liked best about the book was how the author concluded by realizing that, ultimately, our American correctional system is broken. People are incarcerated and simply left to their own devices; there is no help to minimize recidivism. I've been seeing this for years with my past work in the Prison Book Program: training programs for convicts are abysmal, for the most part. They don't help prisoners prepare the necessary skills (technology they've missed out on being a big one that Kerman mentions) that they'll need for when they are released, and therefore find it much easier to go back to a life of crime. I think that part is what will stick with me most after having read this book. The author herself sometimes bothered me, but she kept the book moving with anecdote after anecdote, and managed to make it one cohesive story. Her interactions with the woman who put her behind bars in the first place was the most interesting part to me: I don't know if I could have reacted the same way Kerman did. However, you never do know until you are in that sort of a situation - and I hope to goodness that I never am! Yours, Arianna

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We Are Water

We Are Water Wally Lamb 4 / 5	Published 2013 First Sentence "'I understand there was some controversy about the coroner's ruling concerning Josephus Jones's death.'"
Publisher's Description: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Hour I First Believed and I Know This Much Is True, a disquieting and ultimately uplifting novel about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy In middle age, Anna Oh - wife, mother, outsider artist - has shaken her family to its core. After twenty-seven years of marriage and three children, Anna has fallen in love with Vivica, the wealthy, cultured, confident Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her professional success. Anna and Viveca plan to wed in the Oh family's hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut, where gay marriage has recently been legalized. But the impending wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora's Box of toxic secrets--dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives. We Are Water is an intricate and layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs--nonconformist Annie; her ex-husband, Orion, a psychologist; Ariane, the do-gooder daughter, and her twin, Andrew, the rebellious only son; and free-spirited Marissa, the youngest Oh. Set in New England and New York during the first years of the Obama presidency, it is also a portrait of modern America, exploring issues of class, changing social mores, the legacy of racial violence, and the nature of creativity and art. With humor and breathtaking compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience in vivid and unforgettable characters struggling to find hope and redemption in the aftermath of trauma and loss. We Are Water is vintage Wally Lamb-a compulsively readable, generous, and uplifting masterpiece that digs deep into the complexities of the human heart to explore the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives.
Dear Reader, As usual with Wally Lamb, this was a solid and really enjoyable book. Not unexpected, but it had been QUITE some time since I'd read one of his novels. (I think maybe 5 or 6 years? I guess since his last novel came out...) So this book was a pleasant reminder of why he is so beloved. He writes people SO well. Men, women, children - even pedophiles, for Pete's sake! He just really knows how to get inside his characters' heads. His work reminds me a lot of Jonathan Franzen's, because it examines an entire family and all of the outside and inside influences on the people who comprise a family unit. Plus, his stories usually span several generations, going backwards and forwards through time in order to truly tell the whole, comprehensive story. For instance, as upsetting as the sections are to read, Lamb's portrayal of a pedophile and particularly how the character became so corrupted was fascinating. There were of course points where I was squirming from listening to Kent's story, and there was one point where I was so upset with him I wished I could reach through the book and throttle some sense into his warped head! - But really isn't that just the mark of an amazing writer? And Lamb really writes Kent's history such that who he becomes is almost understandable, in a way. NOT excusable. Just...it makes quite a bit of sense that he became who he became, based on what he'd been through. And I applaud the author for his ability to do that! Let me point out that this book is not all about pedophiles, though. And there are very few of those uncomfortable parts (but just to warn you, they are not easy to read). For the most part, the book is fascinating and really enjoyable reading, as chapters jump between a bunch of different characters - there are perhaps 8 or 9 distinct first person narratives in the book - some of whom you revisit, some who you never see again. But all of  their stories are important and play a vital role to the story as a whole. The reader gets to see the perspective of Annie, who has left her husband for her art dealer,Viveca; Orion, who is the newly divorced husband; their children; and a handful of other characters - including a chapter that features Dr. Ruth! Lamb writes each person so distinctively and truly. I didn't want to put this book down, and despite its length I really flew through it. I audiobooked it, and I would highly recommend that for those who enjoy listening to books - the voices (including the author, who reads the part of Orion) are wonderful and add an extra layer of personality to each character. Yours, Arianna

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