Attachments

Rowell, Rainbow. Attachments New York: Penguin 201s. Print.

First Sentences:

Would it kill you to get here before noon?

I'm sitting here among the shards of my life as I know it, and you ... if I know you, you just woke up. You're probably eating oatmeal and watching Sally Jessy Raphael. E-mail me when you get in, before you do anything else. Don't even read the comics.

Description:

Jennifer and Beth, employees at midwest newspaper in 1999, daily flaunt the company's computer policy of "No personal communication" by sending numerous chatty emails to each other about their lives, loves, and dreams. To counter such time-wasting employees, the office management hires Lincoln, an Internet Security Officer, to set up a system that will read all company emails and separate non-business messages into a file for Lincoln to review after work hours. He then must send warnings to these email offenders. 

Of course, Lincoln immediately notices Jennifer's and Beth's funny, free-wheeling , personal communications, but just cannot bring himself to issue them stern warnings. In fact, he begins to become interested in their notes and lives. He even harbors thoughts about meeting them, even though they work on different shifts and does not know what they look like.

Such is the set-up to Rainbow Rowell's debut novel Attachments. A complicated, quirky story emerges as readers learn more about these characters, their success/unsuccessful lives, and their loves. Lincoln's high school sweetheart broke up with him in college and he now he lives with his mother, plays Dungeons & Dragons every weekend, and has never had another serious relationship. Beth is living with her college sweetheart, a heavy metal musician who has more than a little growing up to do. Jennifer is married and childless, but whether she's happy and fulfilled is another question.

Lincoln begins hanging out in the company lunch room in hopes that one of the women will work late and he will somehow recognize her. Then one day, Beth writes Jennifer that there is a new cute guy in the break room and comments on her secret interest in him, despite already having a live-in boyfriend. Naturally, Lincoln figures she is talking about him, but how can he ever approach her: "Hi, I'm the guy who's been reading all your emails about your secret fantasies and love life"? You can see his problem ... and hers as well.

With all the humor and casual bravado (and often shyness) from each character, this really is a story about loving deeply and wanting to find someone who can love you back. You pull for each person to have their dreams fulfilled and meet the perfect person, but it is impossible to imagine how what we hope is inevitable will ever happen. 

Really a uniquely funny, thoughtful, intimate read.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Torday, Paul. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen  

A super-wealthy Arab sheikh wants to create a trout-fishing enterprise in his native Yemen, for his own benefit but also to promote tourism. Written in epistle style, the narrative uses only reports, memos, letters, articles, etc. to tell this quirky, funny, outrageous, and clever story of enterprise and love.

Amy Falls Down

Willett, Jincy. Amy Falls Down. New York: St., Martin's 2013. Print.

First Sentences:

Because the Norfolk pine was heavy, and also because she was wearing house slippers, having not yet dressed for the day, Amy took her time getting to the raised garden.

Her house slippers were fuzzy, oversized, and floppy, and if she moved too fast, she would walk right out of them.

Description:

OK, not the greatest of first sentences, but they set the scene immediately for the incident that affects the rest of the book: a loss-of-balance fall by the novel's main character, Amy Gallup, in Jincy Willett's Amy Falls Down. Amy, a 60ish deeply private single woman and former writer of a few minor works, strikes her head on the fall and briefly passes out.

The next thing she is aware of is standing on her front porch waving goodbye to the reporter who had scheduled an interview with her for that afternoon. What Amy said or did during that session was completely unknown to her.

Amy's unexpectedly frank statements are published in a magazine, shared and discussed on the Internet, causing Amy to find herself a celebrity. She is high demand to be interviewed by loutish radio hosts interested in catching some of the popularity of this unknown writer. They often end up the brunt of her sharp wit and devil-may-care opinions.

What are the next steps for Amy as she re-enters the world outside her own household routines? Agents? Travel? Interviews? Book signings of her out-of-print writings? More writing? Students? Celebrity? Someone even creates a new website and blog for her, aptly titles "Go Away." These possibilities terrify her as a private person who is not really sure what all the fuss is about.

But others around her love the possibilities and want to help her emerge into the world. Long-lost friends, a rough-talking agent, book publishers, and conference organizers all enter her life with plans for her as well as their own personal agendas. It is up to Amy to address them and her new life in any way she can. And she does deal with them: baiting some on-air with spontaneous lies, toying readers with outrageous ideas, and steadfastly frustrating everyone as she guards her privacy and independence.

Then, there are obscure hints throughout the narrative regarding her earlier years of her life: a mysterious mentor; her husband of convenience; a workshop with a deadly sniper attack; and her decision to quit writing. There is also her notebook where she still records ideas and thoughts for what ... another book possibly?

"I've never played with words in my life," she said..."Do soldiers play with bullets? Do carpenters play with wood? Wordplay is for writers with nothing to say. When I have nothing to say, I don't write."

As I write this synopsis, admittedly it doesn't sound like much of a story or character to capture your interest. But believe me, it is a surprisingly quick-witted, funny, and introspective novel about the dealing with the challenges of writing, celebrity, privacy, and fame. What emerges is a very determined character who gathers strength in her old and new convictions, arriving at unexpected destinations she previously would never have desired or shared with others until after her accident where she fell and hit her head.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Willett, Jincy. The Writing Class  

Focuses on the earlier life of Amy Gallup after her brief success as a writer. Now a widow, Amy loves teaching her writing class with unusual students, one of whom might be a murderer.

LIttle Sister

Gowdy, Barbara. Little Sister. Portland, Oregon: Tin House 2017. Print

First Sentences:

From her office above the Regal Repertory Theater, Rose Bowan watched a Coke can roll down the sidewalk across the street.

It missed the fire hydrant, hit a tree, spun under the cafe's wrought-iron gate, and set off in an arc around the tables, whose languorously twirling umbrellas somebody had better start lowering.

Description:

What an interesting premise is found in Barbara Gowdy's novel, Little Sister. Rose Bowan, a quiet, middle age owner of a family-run vintage movie theater, finds that whenever a thunderstorm hits the area, she briefly falls into a hazy trance and wakes up inhabiting the body of a young woman named Harriett. She sees, hears, and feels the world as Harriett does, but she cannot control any aspect of her host. Rose merely experiences Harriett, watching and listening to her try to decide a course of action in her life and relationships.

Sounds a bit loopy, huh? A bit like the film Being John Malkovich where people are transported into the actor's mind and see through his eyes. But in the hands of the sensitive writing of Gowdy, readers immediately accept this unusual situation and join in with Rose as she listens to Harriett's words, senses her nervous uncertainty, and feels the passion of a young lover. 

Naturally, Rose wonders whether this is all a dream or some alternate reality. So she decides to search for a real-life Harriett. Besides looking to somehow understand this situation, Rose has a second reason to find Harriett. If all this is real, Rose wants to somehow meet Harriett and give her a message.

But there is another unforeseen repercussion for Rose to her transferences. Long-buried events and memories are also being stirred up. Disquieting stories seep into her consciousness involving her aging mother Fiona, her boyfriend Victor, an odd Yoga teacher, and even her own childhood with her dead sister. Each memory is triggered by her momentarily escapades into Harriett and each unfolds into a story or emotion that clarifies who Rose really is.

I couldn't help but keep keep reading to see how Rose would deal with her life (and Harriett's?), to see the roads taken by both these interesting, sensitive characters. I was totally absorbed by this world of everyday characters beautifully written, who slowly reveal their complexities, their dreams, and their guilt.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Gowdy, Barbara. Mr Sandman: A Novel  

Another book by the same author, Mr. Sandman is a tale of the eccentric, passionate Canary family where each person is odd, funny, and mysterious.

The Passenger

Lutz, Lisa. The Passenger. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

When I found my husband at the bottom of the stairs, I tried to resuscitate him before I ever considered disposing of the body.

I pumped his barrel chest and blew into his purple lips. It was the first time in years that our lips had touched and I didn't recoil. 

Description:

In Lisa Lutz's compelling thriller, The Passenger, we meet "Tonya" standing at the bottom of the stairs of her home. Her husband has just fallen down the stairs to his accidental death, but Tonya feels the police will blame her. Worse yet, they might discover her true identity and name. So she takes to the road and changes her name, actions we soon learn she has been doing for the past ten years.

Along the way she stops in backwoods towns, meeting several people of questionable pasts like her own, and flees each location just before she is questioned too deeply. But what exactly are her secrets? 

Author Lutz follows Tonya/Amelia/Debra/Emma/Sonia/Paige/Jo closely through her stream of consciousness narration and inner thoughts. We readers are sitting next to this seemingly normal yet elusive character as she makes up new identities and continues to run with no real plans for a future except to keep moving ahead of discovery. There is even another killing, which definitely complicates Tonya's life and any hope of regaining her former peaceful life. 

If you murder someone once, even with a tenuous argument for self-defense, you can blame it on chance, being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong name. But the next time you kill someone, you have to start asking the hard questions. Is it really self-defense or a lifestyle choice? 

But there are hints about her history. Short email correspondence from the past years are revealed that were sent between Tonya and "Ryan," someone who seems to be a friend from the past but also seems to be an enemy who can no longer be trusted. Through these notes, vague hints are given to tease readers about what happened to make Tonya hit the road and never look back.

How long can she survive without much money? Where will she stop next? What identity will she create for herself? Who can she trust? Tonya is an extremely complex character, yet her thoughts reveal her as someone not so different from anyone else. Awkward circumstances and feelings of self-preservation have dictated the course of her life over the last decade, and we ache to see her triumph somehow and be freed from the questionable events of her past.

Highly recommended for its crisp writing and dialogue, as well as a clever story that holds one in suspense up to the very last pages, my favorite kind of tale.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Mackintosh, Clare. I Let You Go.

A woman involved in a tragic car accident that killed a small child disappears with a new name and life on an isolated coastal village, trying to hide avoid the past catching up with her.. (previously reviewed here)

A Life Discarded

Masters, Alexander. A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

One breezy afternoon, my friend Richard Grove was mooching around Cambridge with his shirt hanging out, when he came across this skip [dumpster]. 

...Clustered inside a broken shower basin, wedged into the gaps around a wrenched-of door, flapping in the breeze on top of the broken bricks and slates, were armfuls of books.

Description:

Who can resist a story about 148 notebooks recovered from a trash bin in Cambridge, England? And when these notebooks turn out to be a multi-volume, 15,000-page diary covering over 50 years, well, I'm hooked. Such is the lure of Alexander Masters' A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash, and his dogged journey to read these missives and discover the identity and life of the author. And, incidentally, who threw these books into the dumpster? And why?

Covering the years from 1952 through 2001, a few months before they were discarded/found, the diaries recount the thoughts, events, and dreams of one unknown person. But Masters slowly uncovers certain interesting facts about this writer. First, the person, referred to as "I" (male or female?) was 13 years old when the first entries appeared, a date known because there were entries throughout the volumes describing the diarist's birthdays, Such chronicles continued until the author was 62.

A person can write five million words about itself, and forget to tell you its name. Or its sex.

Masters refers to the author as "I" or "Not-Mary" since there was an entry about a teacher who forgot the diarist's name, called the writer :Mary," and was corrected that her name was "not Mary." Of course, that meant the writer was a woman. [Sorry, this is not exactly a spoiler since the discovery occurs in the first few pages of the book.]

But where did the diarist live? Where did she go to school? What did the numerous cartoonish drawings appearing throughout the notebooks mean? And who were the fondly-referred to but highly critical "E" (a lover?), the detestable Peter ("Stinky Peter", her "gaoler") and the caricatured, flat-faced "Clarence"?

Masters consults with a graphologist to understand what traits the diarist's handwriting might reveal and why the lettering drastically changes over the years. He also meets with a private detective who specializes in missing persons, and talks with archivists who look at histories of the areas mentioned. He visits a potential school where 'Not-Mary" might have attended, explores the ruins of a manorial house that might have been her home, and interviews a former art teacher (who does not remember any student, much less the diary's "I").

The diaries are the frenzied writings in tiny script of the events of an unknown mind as she works her way through life, people, jobs, and loves. She seems to be artistic, sensitive, troubled, and a bit of a hypochondriac. Other that these brief peeks into her life, it is dogged work for Masters to uncover and interpret any writing to reveal the diarist.

...the rotted pages were filled with handwriting, right up to the edges, as though the words had been poured in as a fluid.

Challenging, fascinating, frustrating, and humorous, A Life Discarded is a true-life detective tale with real people with genuine emotions and thoughts. It can be eerie, as Masters discovers, to read a woman's innermost thoughts, but he continues on with his quest to unravel the mystery. But always in the back of his mind is a slight hesitation, even after five years, to find the answers to his questions and solve her identity, and thus end this fascinating journey. 

What drives the book is the honesty and truthfulness of the diarist who writes what she feels, thinks, and dreams, always, on good days and bad. An intimate look into the mind of one person over five decades as she lives her life.

"I cling to life very desperately -- feel I could do great things -- very afraid of physical disaster, nothing could be worse --could not bear to die before I had given of my gifts to the community -- have already worked & suffered so to bring my gifts towards fruition."

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Lansky, Aaron. Outwitting History

One man's effort to discover and preserve Yiddish books from the trash and discarded libraries of people who brought them when they fled Europe during World War II. (previously reviewed here)

The Japanese Lover

Allende, Isabel. The Japanese Lover. New York: Atria. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

When Irina Brazili began working at Lark House in 2010, she was twenty-three years old but already had few illusions about life.

Since the age of fifteen she had drifted from one job, one town, to another. She could not have imagined she would find a perfect niche for herself in that senior residence, or that over the next three years she would come to be as happy as in her childhood, before fate took a hand.

Description:

Sometimes a book I had no intention of pursuing grabs me and won't let go. It may have all the warning signs: "too romantic," "a woman's book," "no action." All these excuses soon didn't matter for this particular book as author Isabel Allede slowly, inexorably pulled me into her newest novel, The Japanese Lover. And I found it to be right up my alley: great characters, exquisite writing, and a story of persistent love over many decades. Yes, I am a romantic and occasionally am absorbed by an enduring love story such as this.

Covering over 70 years, The Japanese Lover tells the stories of two women: Irina, a young woman trying to hide from her mysterious past, and Alma who is old and living her dream with a secret lover she has known since her childhood. The two women meet in a home for the elderly where Alma lives and Irina works.

[Irina's] secret must be her ability to listen to the same story a thousand times over as if she were hearing it for the first time, all those tales the old folks keep repeating to accommodate the past and create an acceptable self-portrait, erasing remorse and extolling their real or imagined virtues. Nobody wants to end their life with a banal past.

Alma hires Irina to be her secretary to organize Alma's mementos and scrapbooks as well as her daily routines. Soon Irina is uncovering pieces of Alma's earlier years of wealth, travel, and relationships. She begins to pick up hints about a mysterious Japanese lover from Alma's past and possibly even her present. But Irina is reluctant to confront Alma as Irina has secrets of her own life and loves that she prefers to keep secret. 

Moving easily between the past and present for each of the women, Allende slowly unfolds two unique lives, each filled with abandonment, privilege, love, insecurity, and decisions about relationships that carry on into the present.

Maybe this sounds too soft, too cloying, too "something" for many readers. But I enjoyed it and read it quickly to find out what happened to these women and their loves. Maybe this story is not for everyone, but for me I was hopelessly involved from the first pages to the last. A lovely, complex tale of family, relationships, and strong love over the ages, with all its rewards and disappointments. 

Very few old folk are happy ... It's the most fragile and difficult stage of life, more so than childhood, because it grows worse day by day, and there is no future other than death.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Haruf, Kent. Our Souls at Night

Wonderful story of two elderly people who seek out a relationship of friendship and comfort with each other despite the disapproval of friends and family. (previously reviewed here)

Everything She Forgot

Ballantyne, Lisa. Everything She Forgot. New York: HarperCollins. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

Margaret Holloway wrapped her scarf around her face before she walked out into the school parking lot.

Description:

Granted it's not the most electrifying first sentence, but still it sets the tone for how the writing style and narrative will unfold: simple, straightforward, calm. And you keep reading Lisa Ballantyne's Everything She Forgot because the plot and characters soon reveal themselves to be equally solid, real, and so very conflicted. 

What had happened to Margaret had sculpted the space between each of them, the way grief sculpts the soul, so that the unspoken took on a tangible shape, defining their family.

It is a thriller and mystery, as well as a sensitive portrayal of current and past lives. I don't want to give too much more and spoil the intricate twists of plot and overlapping characters. The book includes an awful car wreck involving a teacher who escapes physically unscathed but now has long-forgotten memories bubbling to the surface. There is a lost bag of thousands of ill-gotten dollars. Then there is a kidnapping of a 7-year-old girl by a man with only good intentions. There are gentle people growing up in violent environments, people longing for love, for relationships, and for a better future - longings that are sometimes resolved and sometimes end badly.

Enough of that. It is a compelling narrative that jumps between the present day and 30 years in the past. It is a car ride of discovery, a mystery of long-lost relationships, a story of love, of parents and children, and yes, even a little violence. 

In the end, it is a story of human nature vs. human nurture, both the good and bad. Only in the final pages are the different people and plot lines finally brought together for a satisfying, highly emotional ending.

And who cannot enjoy a book that offers so much depth of character and plot, one that keeps you hanging until the last sentences? Certainly not me.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Ballantyne, Lisa. The Guilty One

A criminal lawyer must defend an 11-year-old boy accused of murdering his 8-year-old playmate on a playground. But the lawyer, following the twists and turns of the case, begins to relive his own troubled childhood. Great narrative, characters, and plotting switching from present case to past memories. 

Watson, S.J. Before I Go to Sleep

Every morning Christine wakes up without knowing her name, her face, the man lying in bed next to her, or anything from her past. She desperately wants to learn why her memory is erased each night while she sleeps, what her life is about, and who she can trust to tell her the truth. Fantastic. (previously reviewed here)

Before I Go to Sleep

Watson. S.J. Before I Go to Sleep. New York: HarperCollins. 2011. Print.

First Sentences:

The bedroom is strange.

Unfamiliar. I don't know where I am, how I came to be here. I don't know how I'm going to get home.

Description:

A woman wakes one morning with no memory of where she is or even who she is. There is a greying man snoring in bed beside her. When she looks into the bathroom mirror she views a woman in her late 40's, a disturbing image to her as her last memory is her as a college student. Decades apparently have passed and are completely unknown to her. There are photos pasted to the mirror of a man, the same man from the bed, with the notation that "This is Ben, your husband." Again, she does not recognize him. 

So begins each and every day for Christine in S.J. Watson's imaginative novel, Before I Go to Sleep. When Christine faces Ben over breakfast, he has to tell her he is indeed her husband, they are very much in love, and that she was in a serious car accident that put her in a coma and took away her ability to retain memories. As her "first day" passes, she finds she is able to remember things that happen during day, but as she sleeps at night these memories are erased and she again has to re-meet Ben and learn of her past each and every morning. 

A phone call from a Dr. Nash informs her that she and the doctor have been meeting secretly to work on her memory loss. Dr. Nash is a local neuropsychologist who has given Christine a notebook to record anything during the day so she can read it and understand who she is and what she knows. Dr. Nash asks her to keep their visits and the notebook secret from Ben because her husband doesn't want Christine to go through any more heartbreaking experiences with doctors.

When every scrap of information about her life comes to Christine from strangers she just met, she begins to wonder who can she really trust? Christine feels Ben, in answering her questions, has not been telling the entire truth. Is he protecting her from further disturbance to their settled life? When confronted, he tells her the real story and she secretly writes it down in her notebook to consult the next day. But she also wonders whether Dr. Nash is all he claims to be as well. 

And where are her former friends from before the accident? And why has she written "Don't Trust Ben" on the opening page of her notebook? Questions, questions, and more questions every day from Christine make her even more confused. 

Watson has a gripping writing style in his stream of consciousness narrative from Christine's confused mind. We quickly grasp Christine's confusion, her fears, and her drive to understand who she and these people around her really are. As Christine repeatedly consults her journal to relearn about her past and present, she slowly adds new information about her life. Then, she too begins to keep secrets from various people.

Riveting right up to the final pages when the climax and truth are finally revealed, and she finally understands her past and future.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Shreve, Anita. Stella Bain

A woman wakes up in a French military field hospital during World War I with no memory of her identity or how she arrived in this situation. She painstakingly struggles to uncover her past and what the future hold for her. (previously reviewed here)

Stir

Fechtor, Jessica. Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home. New York: Avery. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

They say that trauma functions like a merciful eraser, wiping away into dust what the body most needs to forget.

That's not how it worked for me. I remember all of it: the shifting hum of the treadmill as I cranked up the speed; feeling strong and fast until, in an instant, I wasn't. 

Description:

Hard to imagine that a lover of thrillers and sports writing like me would be at all interested in Jessica Fechtor's memoir of recipes, love, and medical trauma. But what first-time author Fector offers in Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home are my personal big three of worthwhile books: great plot, interesting characters, and quality writing. With that trio, I will read and love anything. And Stir definitely proved well worth it for me to move outside my usual box of acceptable topics to pursue.

Fechtor offers a memoir that contains three intertwined plots: her medical trauma and recovery; her love story with friend/fiance/husband Eli; and her discovery of the healing power of food and its preparation. Can these disparate themes co-exist? Oh, yes, if in the able hands of Jessica Fechtor.

When I tell people that I am writing the story of a bloodied and broken brain -- and, oh, by the way, there will be recipes, too -- I get some strange looks.

A healthy twenty-something, athletic, married Harvard grad student, Fechtor suffered a brain aneurysm one morning while running on a treadmill. The incident nearly killed her. During her long months of recovery, she dreamed of returning to her "everyday" life of the kitchen and cooking.

Food has powers. It picks us up from our lonely corners and sits us back down, together. It pulls us out of ourselves, to the kitchen, to the table, to the diner down the block. At the same time, it draws us inward. Food is the keeper of our memories, connecting us with our pasts and with our people....Food -- like art, like music -- brings people together, it's true.

Fechtor transports readers into her world of illness and recovery with MRI's, angiograms, ultrasounds, medicines, doctors, and tests. The feelings she records are so honest and heartfelt that they brought back memories of my own illness and hospitals. For those wondering what it is like to anticipate dire consequences based on the results of the latest medical test, but then also to feel the warmth of friends and family as they stand by you unflinchingly and completely every day, then Stir is the book for you.

But this is also a love story. Eli, her husband, is the man any woman would want beside her in joy and in crises. From courtship to marriage to fatherhood, he is always at Fechtor's side, providing words of encouragement, dealing with doctors and families with firmness and sensitivity alike, and providing Fechtor a worthy partner in the healthy life they create. In stories of helping Fechtor learn to ride a bike to designing their engagement ring, Eli is the perfect companion in all conditions (unless he has poured milk onto his cereal and cannot be disturbed for anything). It is always a pleasure to read a great love story between two smart, interesting, caring people.

Then, there are the recipes and cooking memories so vital to Fechtor's recovery and relationships. Four months after the aneurysm, Fechtor starts a food blog (Sweet Amandine). In the blog, she shares favorite dishes along with photos she takes of the dishes,all delivered with her splendid writing. Fechtor shares past memories of the kitchen and the influential people who guided her interest in food and cooking, from her mother and step-mother, to friends, fellow chefs, and other family members. Her blog followers grew and grew, in numbers as well as probably in girth with all the lusciously photographed and described recipes presented.

To expand the blog into a book, Fechtor expanded the focus to more of her personal journey in her relationship with Eli and how these helped her deal with the aneurysm. A small incident remembered from her hospital bed triggers a warm description of the preparation of a particularly delicious item. The recipes for these special dishes are included, but I cannot comment on their complexity or deliciousness as I am not a foodie. But I trust Fechtor to provide food-loving readers with accurate road maps to creating the same goodies that so influenced her life and recovery. It is enough for me, an indifferent eater, to read Fechtor's descriptions of ingredients and the adventure of combining them to convince me about the power of food. 

You bake to share....Baking is an act of generosity, and thereby an act of freedom,since to be generous is to be free from the smallness of thinking only of yourself. Illness had made me dwell unnaturally on my own body and mind.I wanted to be generous again.

Who cannot enjoy a book with such a high level of self-awareness and exquisite writing? Whether you read to understand a medical survivor's tale, a wonderful love story, or possibly just for the recipes, Stir will satisfy your mental, emotional, and literary appetite.

Thinking about food means thinking about everything that goes on around it. The dash from the breakfast table out the door, the conversations that shape us, the places and faces that make us who we are. What besides food could I think of that would encompass my life so roundly? 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Gaffigan, Jim. Food: A Love Story

A hilarious (and I don't ever use that word, but in this case it is accurate) portrayal of author Gaffigan's relationship with every aspect of food as an all-consuming "Eatie," rather than a more selective "Foodie." He explores food across the United States, his personal favorite restaurants, and best food (bacon, "the candy of meat"), delivering all observations and comments with laugh-out-loud humor. (previously reviewed here)

The New Neighbor

Stewart, Leah. The New Neighbor. New York: Touchstone. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

Where before there was no one, suddenly I, Margaret Riley, have a neighbor

I went out on the back deck this morning like every morning, and there she was. Across the pond, sitting on her own back deck. I was startled. That house has been empty a long time. My first impulse was to go back inside, as if I'd come upon something shameful, or embarrassed myself. As if I were out there naked...

Description:

Lately I seem be fluctuating in my reading choices between violent thrillers like Life or Death and Nobody Walks and then gentle tales of people living quietly in small towns (Juliet in August and Our Souls at Night). Then I stumbled on Leah Stewart's The New Neighbor.

Not exactly a thriller, this is definitely a mystery with a hint of violence lurking behind the lives of two women carefully guarding their secret pasts while living in isolated homes in the mountains of Tennessee. Margaret, a 90-year-old World War I nurse is content with her self-chosen solitary life, but becomes intrigued when Jennifer and her four-year-old son Milo appear on the deck of the cottage across the lake. These two women shyly take days to even wave to each other, but is it really shyness or does each have a strong sense of protectiveness?

Margaret, a devoted reader of mysteries, wants to know about Jennifer and sets about trying to contact her, probing about for her secrets. Eventually, Margaret persuades her new neighbor to record Margaret's memories of her War experiences as a nurse in France, hoping that by opening up herself that Jennifer will also reveal her past. But nothing gets her neighbor to speak up. So Margaret pushes harder at boundaries to dig out information. And then she steps over a line.

Chapters are narrated alternately between each woman, so we readers soon start to piece together Jennifer's (and Margaret's) secrets long before they are revealed to each other. There is sadness in both of their stories, hints of great loss, and also the possibilities that these women had roles in their own fates and those of others close to them.

....conceal, reveal; reveal, conceal. People don't ever understand. No one will love us if they know the worst and yet if they don't know the worst we can't trust their love.

A strong book beautifully, compassionately and honestly written of damaged women seeking to satisfy their own dreams, no matter the affect on others they have allowed into their lives. These unforgettable women will work their way into your mind in unexpectedly tender, yet often frustrating ways that are not soon forgotten. 

So much depends on every choice we make. This is obvious and yet endlessly to be marveled at. So many tales of what ripples outward, so many dreams of parallel universes. Because we tell stories about the things we find impossible to bear. Then we can pretend they are only stories.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Shreve, Anita. Stella Bain

A woman wakes up in a World War I French hospital bed with no memory and tries to find out about her past and the people in her life. (previously reviewed here)