Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

Rating: 4.5

What it's about:
The trial of a midwife in 1980s Vermont. Sybil Danforth, with several hundred deliveries to her name, claims the mother was dead when she opened her to save the baby. The prosecution claims the mother was alive and the operation was illegal. The story is narrated by Sybil's daughter, portraying the trial as another round in the persecution of midwives by the New England medical profession. - taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
Midwives is an engrossing, well written story. It follows the trial of Sybil Danforth, a midwife accused of involuntary manslaughter, after one of her patients dies. The book is told from the perspective of Sybil's 14 year old daughter. The death in question occurs in Vermont in March amid an ice storm. Sybil and her patient are trapped at the house with no option of getting to a hospital when things turn bad. The patient dies and Sybil performs an (illegal) emergency C-section to save the baby. The baby lives but Sybil is accused of performing the C-section on a living woman, resulting in the woman's death. Midwives is a page turner where we see the main characters on a roller coaster ride of emotions. I couldn't wait to get to the end to see what the verdict was and how that verdict would effect the Danforth family and everyone else involved.

Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Stop being a moron and start getting skinny! If you can't take one more day of self-loathing, you're ready to hear the truth: You cannot keep shoveling the same crap into your mouth every day and expect to lose weight. Authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin are your new smart-mouthed girlfriends who won't mince words and will finally tell you the truth about what you're feeding yourself. And they'll guide you on making intelligent and educated decisions about food. They may be bitches, but they are skinny bitches. And you'll be one too-after you get with the program and start eating right.

My thoughts:
Skinny Bitch is a fresh take on the health/diet book. The authors are sassy and bold and they don't mince words! They tell all the "meatheads" why they should quit eating meat. They list all the real ingredients in milk, including pus, and why it's not healthy. They give advice on how to lose your addiction to sugar and cheese. But most importantly, they give the reader information and the knowledge to make good eating decisions. They advise us to use our heads and "stop shoveling shit into our mouths". Read labels! The authors, Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin, are funny and entertaining. They are knowledgeable and give us the informations we need to make informed decisions about our health and happiness. They got me motivated!

Blue Jean Buddha by Sumi Loundon

Rating: 4.0

What it's about:
In an age when the Dalai Lama's image has been used to sell computers, rock stars have used tantra to enhance their image, and for many, Nirvana calls to mind a favorite band, what can Buddhism mean to twenty-somethings? Blue Jean Buddha offers real stories about young Buddhists in their own words that affirm and inform the young adult Buddhist experience. This one-of-a-kind book was named a finalist in the 2002 Independent Publisher Book Awards (Multicultural Non-Fiction—Young Adult) as well in NAPRA's Nautilus Awards. It is about the experiences of young people in America — from their late teens to early thirties — who have embraced Buddhism. Thirty-three first-person narratives reflect on a broad range of life-stories, lessons, and livelihood issues, such as growing up in a Zen center, struggling with relationships, caring for the dying, and using marathon running as meditation. Throughout, up-and-coming author Sumi Loundon provides an illuminating context for the tremendous variety of experiences shared in the book. Blue Jean Buddha sheds light on the practices and experiences of young people striving to bring Buddhism into their lives. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
I read Blue Jean Buddha on a recommendation. Even though I am an atheist, I have always been interested in the philosophy of Buddhism. When I started reading this book, it only reaffirmed my beliefs that Buddhism has certain truths that are relevant for people of all religions or like myself, no religion. The Buddhist mindset is very altruistic. I think the world would be a better place if we all tried to be a little less selfish and aspire to be truly selfless. Buddhism advocates activism for social justice, world peace, nuclear disarmament, and the environment among other causes. This book has essays from young Buddhists about how and why Buddhism is their way of life. You won't be reading about religious dogma in this book. You won't be preached at in these essays. Blue Jean Buddha is a thought-provoking book and an inspiration to be a little more socially responsible.

On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
When Zane shot Death, he learned, too late, that he would have to assume his place, speeding over the world riding his pale horse, and ending the lives of others. Sooner than he would have thought possible, Zane found himself being drawn to Satan's plot. Already the Prince of Evil was forging a trap in which Zane must act to destroy Luna, the woman he loved...unless he could discover the only way out....
The first novel of the INCARNATIONS OF IMMORATLITY series. - from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
On a Pale Horse is like no other book I've read. It is mostly open dialogue. Most books have have a balance of sorts between open dialogue, internal dialogue like thoughts and feelings, and descriptives of people and places. On a Pale Horse is mostly the former. It gets where it wants to go through conversations and discussions.

This novel is all about death and what it means to die. After Zane kills the Grim Reaper, he must replace him as the incarnation of Death. Now Zane's job is to go around the world on his pale horse Mortis, taking the souls of dying people who are balanced between good and evil. He then has to read the soul to figure out if it's good enough for Heaven or if it is too corrupt and must suffer eternity in Hell. If you are an atheist and don't believe in an afterlife (like the author Piers Anthony) then upon death you just cease to exist. Along the way, Zane meets with all kinds of dying people in all kinds of circumstances. Through discussions between Zane and his "clients", some pretty profound subject matter is considered. Take for instance Zane's discussion with the atheist. Zane asked the atheist if he is afraid of dying knowing that he will cease to exist. Here is the atheist's response: "I have no terror of the nonexistence before I was conceived; why should I fear the nonexistence after I die?" Other issues Zane has to weigh are incest, human euthanasia, suicide and more. Zane learns that to die is not something to be feared. It can be a beautiful end of pain and suffering. Throughout the novel, Death meets the other Incarnations: Time, Fate, War and Nature. He also meets Satan and takes an interesting tour of Hell. On a Pale Horse is not always deep conversation, it has it's funny moments too. The (sometimes) beautiful Luna brings romance to the story as well.

For a book concerning itself with the afterlife, On a Pale Horse does not concern itself with religion of any kind. It deals solely with morality and mortality. If you are interested in ethics and ethos then I highly recommend On a Pale Horse. It's the first Piers Anthony book I've read but I guarantee it won't be the last!

The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
IT HAS BEEN A YEAR OF CHANGE since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances. Now, as Gemma approaches her London debut, the time has come to test these bonds.

The Order - the mysterious group her mother was once part of - is grappling for control of the realms, as is the Rakshana. Spence's burned East Wing is being rebuilt, but why now? Gemma and her friends see Pippa, but she is not the same. And their friendship faces its gravest trial as Gemma must decide once and for all what role she is meant for. -taken from Barnes&Noble.com

My thoughts:
The Sweet Far Thing concludes the fantastic trilogy by Libba Bray beginning with A Great and Terrible Beauty followed by Rebel Angels. I want more!

The Sweet Far Thing is a delicious read with magic, romance, parties and balls, plot twists, danger and so much more. Libba Bray created a truly magical realm where Gemma and her friends go to play. A storm is brewing in the Winterlands (dark side of the realms) and things just don't seem the same in the realms. Gemma has to figure out how to set things right before the realms and the real world are changed (for the worse) forever. She needs to solve the puzzle and read what her visions are telling her before it's too late. As if this isn't enough, she has her family to deal with in the real world. She tries to keep the Rakshana away from her brother, help her father with his addictions and subsequent illness and figure out how she truly feels about Simon and Kartik.

Libba Bray is wonderful in her descriptions of the magical realms and life for teenage girls in Victorian London society. Though the subject matter in this trilogy is sometimes quite deep, the writing is often humorous and light. This is a fun series and one I will without a doubt be re-reading.

Asylum by Patrick McGrath

Rating: 3.0

What it's about:
Stella Raphael, a woman of great beauty and formidable intelligence, is married to Max, a staid and unimaginative forensic psychiatrist. Max has taken a job in a huge top-security mental hospital in rural England and Stella, far from London society, finds herself restless and bored. Then into her lonely existence comes Edgar Stark, a brilliant sculptor confined to the hospital after killing his wife in a psychotic rage. He comes to Stella's garden merely to rebuild an old, Victorian conservatory, but there's an overwhelming physical attraction to this desperate man that Stella is powerless to ignore. Their explosive affair pits them against Stella's husband, her child, and the entire institution. When the crisis comes, Stella makes her decision -- one that will destroy several lives and precipitate an appalling tragedy that could only be fueled by illicit sexual love.

My thoughts:
Asylum is a slow paced novel about the sexual obsessiveness of Stella and the consequences it has on the lives surrounding hers. I found I cared nothing for the characters and I very much disliked Stella, the main character. It's hard to care much about a book if you don't like the people who inhabit it's pages. Asylum is a slow paced book with not much happening on the outside. The book follows more closely the happenings on the inside of the characters, what they are thinking and feeling emotionally. There are a couple of things about Asylum I like. One is the descriptive scenery, especially when Stella and her husband move to a country house in Wales. The other is when Stella goes to live with the escaped mental patient Edgar (who murdered his wife in a psychotic rampage) and he starts to turn on her. She starts to see the side of Edgar who is imbalanced and brutal and it gives the novel some much needed suspense. Will Stella survive Edgar's psychosis? Can she mend her marriage with Max? Will her 10 year old son Charlie forgive the mother who walked out on their family? This novel is about obsession, guilt, forgiveness and what it truly means to seek asylum.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

Rating: 3.0

What it's about:
This is Morris's highly acclaimed account of Theodore Roosevelt's life, encompassing the years from Roosevelt's birth to his service in the White House.

He was one of our most vibrant presidents; his image still haunts our past and our present. This fascinating and comprehensive biography of the extraordinary naturalist, adventurer, soldier, and politician, tells the improbable, but very real, story of a man determined to get what he wanted, an American who helped define our century and our very character.

My thoughts:
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is the very informative biography of a great man detailing his childhood all the way up to his Presidency. I found the chapters recounting his childhood, first love, marriage and his personal life in general to be interesting and pleasing to read. Much of the book though I found to be tedious and tiring. It's taken me a long time to finish this book because most of the time I could only get through a few pages before becoming bored. If a person is interested in the young Roosevelt's political rise, then I'm sure this is a relevant book. I guess I found his personal life to be much more alluring.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
This is the kind of book where you can smell and hear and see the fictional world the writer has created, so palpably does the atmosphere come through. Set on an island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, where everyone is either a fisherman or a berry farmer, the story is nominally about a murder trial. But since it's set in the 1950s, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism helps fuel suspicion of a Japanese-American fisherman, a lifelong resident of the islands. It's a great story, but the primary pleasure of the book is Guterson's renderings of the people and the place. -from Amazon.com

My thoughts:
Snow Falling on Cedars is a beautifully atmospheric love story/murder mystery. It takes place on San Piedro Island off the Pacific Coast. The story alternates from the trial of a Japanese American on trial for murder in 1954 to the background stories of the relevant characters leading up to WWII and after. Snow Falling on Cedars brings up questions of loyalty, racism and forgiveness. The mood of the novel matches it's scenery, dark and stormy. The love stories are passionate and emotional. The writing is beautifully descriptive. David Guterson brings the island of San Piedro and it's inhabitants vividly to life in a novel I'll not soon forget.

The Tell-Tale Corpse by Harold Schechter

Rating: 5.0

What it's about:
Ever since childhood, Edgar Allan Poe has seen things that are not there, heard voices others cannot and felt utterly at home in the realm of human darkness. In Harold Schechter’s intriguing, suspenseful, and delightfully wicked mystery series, Poe makes the perfect hero to unravel cases of the murderous and the macabre.
The Tell-Tale Corpse begins as Poe pays a visit to his old friend P. T. Barnum, who implores the wordsmith to travel to Boston to secure for Poe’s wife an urgent medical cure–and to acquire some particularly garish crime-scene evidence for Barnum’s popular cabinet of curiosities, the so-called American Museum. The crime in question is the recent butchery of a beautiful young shopgirl. Once in Boston, Poe makes an immediate deduction: The sensational murder is only one in a string of inexplicable killings–the center of a single, shadowy pool of deceit and ghoulish depravity.
Several deaths later, Poe finds himself leading a frantic investigation, with the assistance of a highly unusual girl named Louisa May Alcott, who has literary ambitions of her own–and whose innocence belies her own fascination with the dark side. As his wife’s health falters and a city panics, Poe pursues a strange circle of suspects. He must now see what others cannot: the invisible bonds that tie together seemingly unrelated cases–and the truth that lies behind a serial murderer’s ghastly disguise.
From a cameo by the narcoleptic Henry David Thoreau to a charming portrait of the four Alcott sisters at home in Concord, The Tell-Tale Corpse brings to life nineteenth-century New York and Boston and a world of intellectuals,charlatans, discoverers, dupes, daguerreotypists, and amateur morticians. As Poe comes closer to unraveling the fiendish riddle, the poet must admit at last that he is up against a fellow genius–a genius not of words but of death.

My thoughts:
This fourth installment of the Edgar Allan Poe Mysteries is in keeping with the previous three. It's a perplexing mystery filled with an unforgettable cast. Harold Schechter sure has an appetite for the macabre! This is a very enjoyable series I highly recommend.