Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger

Years ago, my mom and I went on a trip together to Ashland, Oregon where I read Audrey Niffenegger's first novel, The Time Traveler's Wife. I was so engrossed in it that we were almost late to see The Tempest. So, it was only fitting that this week, while on vacation on Kauai with my mom (and husband) that I decided to bring along her second novel. Her Fearful Symmetry takes place mostly in Elspeth's flat in London. She has recently died of cancer, and left her place (minus her important diaries) to her twin nieces from America, Julia and Valentina. The girls move to London, never having done anything apart from each other - despite their obvious differences in temperment and interests. They learn to navigate the city, and try to understand the relationship between their Aunt Elspeth and their own mother, who just happens to be Elspeth's twin. Valentina develops a relationship with Robert, a cemetery tour guide, and Elspeth's old beau, while Julia gravitates to Martin, the shut-in upstairs suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder. All the while, Elspeth's spirit remains in the flat, growing stronger by the day, attempting to communicate with the people she's left behind, and determined at any cost to return to the land of the living. While this book took some clever turns, they were for the most part predictable. I came to root for Valentina, Robert, and Martin - but their ability to be easily manipulated by Elspeth and Julia left me saddened and uncomfortable. At times, I felt as if Niffenegger was so intent on developing secrets in the first two-thirds of the novel, and then spilling them all the in the final third, that she failed to take the time she really needed with her characters. It is the same weakness from her first novel - the cleverness of the time travel often overshadowed the actual relationship between the characters. Though, I felt the emotions in the The Time Traveler's Wife much more acutely - crying quite a bit at the end. While Her Fearful Symmetry features the same themes of lost love in a variety of contexts, I just didn't feel as strong a connection with the pairings. This was certainly an enjoyable read - especially lying on the beach under a palm tree, and while being lazy on the lanai, but not as memorable as her first one.

The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson (Millenium Series #2)

In this follow-up to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander, a genius hacker who has been declared incompetent by a Swedish court, finds herself at the center of a multiple homicide investigation. Her appointed guardian is found shot, along with two journalists, and Lisbeth's fingerprint is on the gun. The only link between Lisbeth and the journalist victims is her old pal Mikael Blomkvist. With Lisbeth in hiding working behind the scenes to figure out the mystery, Blomkvist tries to convince the police that they're barking up the wrong tree. The answer lies somewhere in a complex sex ring scandal involving an enigmatic man named Zala, and a bonecrushing giant whose only goal is to make sure Lisbeth doesn't make it to the truth. While I don't think you would necessarily need to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo first to enjoy this great thriller, I think I was immediately taken in by it because of my familiarity with the characters. Lisbeth's background is heartbreaking and her attempts to make it on her own, while consistently throwing away all efforts from help of the people who care about her, is both frustrating and tragic. The mystery itself takes a number of wild turns, while following up on a number of characters Larsson introduced in the first novel. The third and final book in the series, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest was apparently just published in the United States on Halloween - I may have to break my library borrowing policy and snap it up the next time I'm in an actual bookstore.

Living Dead in Dallas - Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #2)

A perfect book for Halloween...well, not perfect, but definitely in the right ballpark. The vampire saga in Bon Temps, Louisiana continues in installment #2 featuring Sookie Stackhouse, the telepathic waitress dating Bill the Vampire. This time, Sookie finds herself indebted to vampires who have saved her life, and is sent to Dallas to put her mind reading skills to good use by tracking down a missing vampire. Again, the writing in this series is horrendous. I am repeatedly shocked by how quickly the action unnecessarily moves along and by how poor the dialogue is. But, I am addicted to the television series "True Blood" and so while I am awaiting its return to prime time, I will slog my way through the rest of this series.

Some of Tim's Stories - S.E. Hinton

Growing up, The Outsiders was one of my favorite books. Like so many other kids, I just read it over and over. I also watched the movie over and over. Along with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye, I felt like it captured so much of what it felt like to be a kid in a world that you didn't have very much control over. In middle school, I read Hinton's other novels, but never quite felt the same way about them. Then a couple years ago, I came across this collection of short stories by Hinton (published in 2007), and I hoped I would be able to get some of that magic back. It took me awhile to get around to reading them - I've had this problem before - so eager to check something out, but so afraid it won't live up to my hopes. Some of Tim's Stories is a collection of 14 stories about cousins Terry and Mike. When they lose their fathers in a car accident, the cousins become like brothers, but Mike endures a horrible step-father, Terry finds his way to prison. The stories are filled with overwhelming feelings of loss - the loss of a parent certainly, but more strongly, the loss of a future that could have been. They are also filled with a deep sense of guilt - of living while others die and of being free while others are locked up. As often happens when authors write many short stories about the same characters, I wish Hinton had just written a novel about the lives of the two boys. The stories themselves feel incomplete, though the frustration I felt while reading them may have been the intended result of learning about pepole whose lives are themselves frustrated. The second half of the book contains interviews with Hinton about her writing, the success of The Outsiders, her experience in film, and her writing process. The interviews provided an interesting glimpse into Hinton's mind - and how she has made the transition from a teenage success (she was only 16 when she wrote The Outsiders) to an adult author. Some of Tim's Stories did not live up to my expectations. I read through the stories quickly, and after just a day none of them have really stayed with me. But, going back to Hinton was a good reminder to me of how special it is when you do find that book that stays with you forever. Even if I couldn't get the same feeling again from the same author, I'm sure it'll come back to me soon from someone new.

Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese

From the beginning, I knew this was going to be one of those generational tomes that I love, so I was excited to get into it and really get to know the characters. Set in Ethiopia, Marion and Shiva are twin brothers born to an Indian nun and a British surgeon. Their mother dies in childbirth, and their father, unable to comprehend her death flees to the United States. The boys are adopted by two other doctors in the hospital and raised to develop their own fascination with medicine. The story is told from Marion's perspective, the more passionate protective brother, who falls in love with the girl-next-door amidst the backdrop of a revolution. The story foreshadows Shiva's betrayal of Marion, and Marion's own departure from the family in search of his own identity in the United States. But, while you know it's coming (it's revealed on the book flap), this climactic scene actually doesn't happen until about three-quarters of the way through the novel. Instead, the book is more driven by coming to know Marion and the chaotic world around him, of wondering about his biological father while he develops an unbreakable bond with his adopted dad, and the twins' unspeakable love for each other but their inability to truly communicate. At times, I felt that the pages went on without advancing the story - but I think this was more a testament to the fact that I really wanted to know what was going to happen to Marion and I feared that he would be hurt and not find peace for himself. Mostly, I enjoyed the unfolding of Marion's life. The book is written by a Stanford physician, and the medical aspect of the novel is finely woven through the story line - fascinating without becoming too technical. All in all, this was a wonderful, though at times painful, story of family.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog - Bruce Perry

Bruce Perry is a child psychiatrist who, in this book, explores what happens to a child's brain as a result of trauma and extreme neglect. He weaves stories of his actual heart-breaking patients with information from neuroscience and psychology to explain how a child injured in infancy can possess long-lasting effects far into adulthood. Perry also focuses on the healing process - how best to deal with children immediately after they suffer a horrifying experience, and how to retrain young adults who were mistreated when children. Each of Perry's chapters looks at a different example of trauma or abuse/neglect. For me, the most powerful looked at the long term effects of neglect. I think most people assume that unless kids experience affirmative abuse, that they will be fine. But Perry had examples of children with parents who did love them, but just did not know how to parent. They assumed if their infants were changed and fed that they would be fine - and so they would leave them alone in their cribs for hours. They did not read to them or talk to them much. As a result, physically, their brains were stunted and in some cases even shrank. They also were unable to attach and to experience or express emotions that most people take for granted. The impact of the treatment of these children in their first two years was incredible. Perry also talks about his work with children who were raised in the Branch Davidians (David Koresh). He also talks about the delicate work of determining whether children have actually experienced trauma or whether they have been coerced into making false accusations. Reading books like this always makes me so sad - I think about the fact that as I write this review there are children everywhere who are not receiving the attention and love that they deserve. But, at the same time, it makes me so grateful that such a book has been written in such an accessible format. I feel like this should be required reading for everyone, but particularly for people with children, people who work with children, and law enforcement that come into contact with child witnesses. It really provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the effects of trauma, and hopefully giving us all the tools we need to protect and help heal those who have experienced it.

The Library at Night - Alberto Manguel

This book was a reminder to me that no matter what random topic you can think of, someone has probably written a book about it. Manguel's book of essays centers around the theme of libraries. Inspired by his own process for picking and choosing the books for his home library, Manguel explores the idea of libraries as, among other things, space, imagination, island, identity, and home. He is more concerned with how one goes about choosing the books that are important and necessary to them, than he is about the content of the books themselves. He looks at what it means to have a collection of books - the power that books hold and the various systems of organization that they engender. Each of Manguel's chapters is self-contained, and the book does not contain a cohesive theme - other than the overarching idea of libraries. I generally relish books about reading, particulalry ones that introduce me to new books. This is not quite that kind of book - it is more a celebration of the tangible book and a meditation on the meaning of libraries as a single unit with a given purpose, as opposed to the individual books themselves. Manguel's chapters are far ranging - from the history of libraries to the history of censorship, psychological analyses of what our collections say about us as individuals and as societies, the secrets that libraries hold while also being full of the answers to unlocking all sorts of mysteries. My public library card is one of my most important possessions, and I enjoy visiting people's homes and looking through their personal collections. Libraries do say so much about us - what we love, what we value, and ultimately, who we are. I found myself amazed over and over at the creativity in this book - it made me look at libraries and books in many varied ways, and appreciate that even though I will never even read all the books in my own home, there is still tremendous value in having them all here together.