Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

My favorite novel by Niffenegger, hands-down, is "The Time Traveler's Wife" - which many have seen in its movie form (sidenote: very well done adaptation).

That being said, "Her Fearful Symmetry" is an intruiging novel with four intriguing main subjects- two generations of identical twins, which alone suggests a mystical connection between two humans that others cannot understand.

The story revolves around the mysterious comings and goings at London flat vacated by the younger twins' deceased aunt- the twin of their mother. The twins quickly discover that they aren't as alone as they think they are...both in the living and in the deceased sense.

Becoming involved in the lives of their neighbors, the twins begin to question their deceased aunt's relationship with everyone around them....including their own mother, whose twin held secrets she never intended to reveal.

As the twins story starts to imbed itself in their mother's and their aunt's story, and eventually plays out, the roles and identities of these four twins become nearly interchangeable.

The book was engaging in the sense that you knew something wasn't quite right, but it wasn't easy to put you finger on exactly what was wrong. The ending, as well, will leave you with the sense that things may not have all come out terribly right in the world, which is another of Niffenegger's themes- happy endings that aren't, always.

Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

I'll probably say this a few times this year, but my goodness, hands-down, no-contest, straight-up, BEST BOOK I HAVE READ SO FAR THIS YEAR.

"Cutting for Stone" is an amazing, beautiful, awe-inspiring, insert-fifty-glowing-adjectives-here type of book. Reviewers use words like "Richly written, vivid, masterpiece," and I couldn't agree more.

Set largely in Ethiopia and America in the 1950s- 1980s, the story is that of two twins born attached at the head. Surgically separated after the horrendous birth that kills their mother and drives their father to leave the hospital - and his babies- behind, the twins are raised by two doctors working at "Missing" hospital in Addis Ababa.

While each twin exhibits unique personality traits, their initial tie remains strong and causes intersections throughout their lives. Both twins will follow in their adopted parents' footsteps to careers in medicine, though their specialties and motivations will differ greatly. One twin will travel to America, and experience life as a medical resident in the 1970s & 1980s, before returning to Addis Ababa.

I literally couldn't put this book down, and am thankful that my mother had the presence of mind to give it to me in the chilly winter months, when I wasn't busy with work and could basically abandon my life for two days to read it while getting ready in the morning, brushing my teeth, eating breakfast, etc etc etc.

It's written by Abraham Verghese, a physician who also wrote "My Own Country," his story of working in an eastern Tennessee hospital and specializing in infectious disease during the onset of the AIDS epidemic, when the first HIV/AIDS patient arrives in the town. This book is absolutely on my list of books to read this year!

Light of Day

by Jamie M. Saul

A few weeks ago, I happened upon a Borders' bookstore that was closing and had marked down their remaining inventory. Though the top two floors had already been seriosly picked over, I hit jackpot in the basement with books marked down to 99 cents!!

I picked up several, including "Light of Day," and figured that at 99 cents each, I'd lump any bad ones as a loss and happily put the $6 total I spent towards the one good one.

I haven't read them all yet, but so far? "Light of Day" makes the entire purchase worth it.

Why?

OH MY GOD.

Compelling storyline.

Amazing characters.

Intruiging friendships.

Revealing sub-plot flashbacks.

Twists and turns.

Everything, absolutely everything, requires you to keep turning the pages until you find out what's next. In the first ten pages alone, you meet Jack Owens, the character who will chart the course of the rest of the book through his actions and memories, and learn that he's a man haunted by the past- despite having left and moved to a small town to escape it.

And that's where the body is found.

I won't give away anything more, because you quite simply just have to go read this book, if you're the sort who enjoys intruige, suspense, and questions that don't always have answers.

Fall of Giants

by Ken Follett

Because Ken Follett can do no wrong, in my eyes, I expected nothing less than greatness when I cracked open "Fall of Giants," a Christmas gift from my mother.

I was not disappointed.

Again following his masterful pattern of taking readers through history by creating small family groups to experience society and events, this book starts readers off in Russia, England, Germany, Austria, Wales, Scotland, and the US in June of 1911, takes them through World War I and the Russian Revolution, and leaves them in January of 1924.

With a cast of characters list six pages long prefacing the start of the book, I worried that I'd be confused at trying to keep everyone's names and whereabouts straight.

But I forgot it was Ken Follett.

I need not have worried.

The characters, stories, subplots and dramas woven into history are so engrossing that, I have to confess, I became somewhat of a nut about reading this book. At 983 pages long, I expected it to take me at least a week, if not a bit longer.

Or, you know.......three days.

Granted, I am a speed-reader, but the length of time it took me to finish this book definitely speaks more to the amazingness of the book than of my skills.

The best part?

It's only the first installment of "The Century Trilogy."

Which means THERE ARE TWO MORE COMING.

*HAPPY DANCE*

The next book is due out in 2012, and will (according to Ken Follett's website) feature the children from Fall of Giants during the Depression and World War II. The third is not due out until 2014 and will feature (again according to the website) future generations during the Cold War.

This trilogy's timeline is of particular significance to me, and many I'm sure, as it depicts the era that our grandparents or great-great grandparents were born into. I can't help picturing my maternal grandfather, born in 1917 and just a year or two younger than several of the children in the book, and my grandmother, born shortly after. My grandparents would live through the Great Depression, with my grandfather surviving health scares that claimed the lives of many. He and two of his brothers would go on to fight in World War II. I look forward to reading the future volumes for the rich detail I know they'll contain about the time my grandparents lived in.

The Rest Of Her Life and While I'm Falling

by Laura Moriarty



I was trolling around in the bargain areas at Borders when I discovered "While I'm Falling" by Laura Moriarty. The book cover was intruiging enough, but what really grabbed me was the single-sentence review on the cover.



"Moriarty keeps getting better and better."- Jodi Picoult.



JODI. PICOULT.



Um, confession. I might have a slight obsession author crush fondness for Jodi Picoult.



The kind that makes me run out and buy every single one of her books, the day it comes out, in hard cover, at full price.



Ahem.



Anyway, I figured that any book Jodi liked I'd be a fan of as well, so I picked up "While I'm Falling," and discovered a gem of a novel about the events in a character's life surrounding the first time she falls in love, including her relationship with her mother as her parents own marriage is questioned.



Later in the year I also picked up (or somehow acquired- it's possible, in fact, that this was one of my mother's book club picks that she passed along to me) "The Rest of Her Life," another Moriarty book with a Picoult endorsement on the cover. This one, again, focuses largely on the relationship between mother and daughter following a tragic accident.



In both, her characters are incredibly realistic and well done. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more of her books!

The Weight Of Silence

by Heather Gudenkauf

On a quiet morning two little girls - one a mute and the other her best friend - go missing in the woods.

Over the course of the coming hours, their families will face fear, history, relationships, unanswered questions and new revelations as they search for the girls and deal with the outcomes of the morning.

Well-written and descriptive, the author tells the story through the characters of Callie, a 7-year-old who has, for reasons that will be revealed, not spoken in years; her mother Antonia; her older brother Ben; Deputy Louis, who searches for Callie while confronting his complicated feelings for Antonia and the crumple of his own marriage, and Martin Gregory, the father of her best friend Petra, also missing.

Like many books in which I become immersed, I found myself wanting to jump into the book at certain times- to shake the mother, for never leaving her awful abusive husband, to protect the children from their dad, to force the deputy's wife to leave him alone so he can find the girls, to beg Callie to talk and beg those around her to understand why she can't, and force them to ask themselves why.

It's a fascinating book that will pull you in quickly and surprise you along the way.

Our Lady of The Lost And Found

by Diane Schoemperlen

The book jacket reviews call it "one of the most charming novels you're likely to read this year," (New Orleans Times-Picayune) and I have to say that I'd agreee.

The novel opens with the narrator becoming the author - who never reveals her name - as she writes the account of what has just happened to her over the course of a week she has spent with her new friend, Mary.....

.......as in, Mary, the Virgin; Mary, the Blessed Mother; Mary, who has been appearing to those in need for many, many years and is in need of a respite from it all.

That Mary.

So what initially seemed like a quirky, light read soon finds interesting questions brought to mind as the friendship between Mary and the author develops.

The novel runs between the author revealing bits of herself to Mary, spliced with historical accounts of Mary appearing to others in their time of need. We also see the development of Mary as a real, and witty at that, person- the kind that, as the author does, you might hang out at the mall with cracking jokes as the expense of the woman selling anti-aging cream ("Heaven forbid that a woman should look her age, Mary said, slipping her arm through mine. Imagine what that stuff could do for me. I'm two thousand years old and don't look a day over two hundred.")

I also found it extremely interesting how well the author developed the narrator's character, given the hinderance of never knowing her name. Instead, she chooses to divulge small insights into the narrators life throughout the book as well as lovely descriptive aside passages that help us develop a sense of her without naming her, for example, a passage setting the scene of doing a household chore while having a conversation:

"Ironing, I can honestly say, is one household chore that I do truly enjoiy. I find it relaxing and comforting; the smooth pointed glide of the iron, the steam hot smell of the fabric, the tug of the muscles in my upper arm. I still use a heavy steam iron that must be twenty years old now. I bought a new one once, not bcause there was anything wrong with the old one but just because I thought it was time. But I found it unsatisfying. It was too light in my hand, altogether lacking the serious and stalwart heft of the old one, so I returned it to the store with a flimsy excuse, got my money back, and caried on happily as before."

Seriously, I love this. I love this woman and her flimsy excuse and her crazy old steam iron.

There was one particular, longer passage about finding things that I loved towards the middle of the book, as well, which sums up quite a bit about the book for me.

"This new proliferation of Marys in my life would seem to bige lie to the popular nothiong that you are most likely to find something when you're not looking for it. This idea is most often offered in the spirit of consolation and encouragement to a single woman looking for a man and repeatedly coming up empty-handed and/or broken-hearted.

-Don't worry, people say. You'll find him when you least expect it. Once you stop looking, you'll find him for sure.

These well-meaning advisors may or may not go on to mention how a watched pot never boils.

In light of my recent experience of running into Mary everywhere I turn, it now seems to me that, much as the old notion of finding something when you're not looking for it has often been proved true, the opposite is also equally true: you find what you are looking for. Sometimes, once your blinders have been removed, you find it over and over again.

So there was Mary: on television, in newspapers and magazines, in a friend's neighborhood, in my stamp collection, at the beauty salon, the grocery store, and my favorite downtown restaurant.

And, on a Thursday afternoon in April, there she was among the lawn ornaments just where she had always been. If only I had thought to look."

Look. Read. Enjoy.