The Year of Fog ~ Michelle Richmond

A few years ago, I heard about this book and how wonderful it was.  Reviewers on Amazon.com rant and rave about how absorbing the story line is.  I, however, can't help but disagree.

In The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond we are told about the disappearance of Emma, a six-year-old girl who apparently vanishes into thin air at a San Francisco beach that she visits with her father's fiancee, Abby, one day.  The story then goes on to tell the story of Abby's search for the young girl.  One that absorbs her life wholly.  This is where the story sours for me. 

The beginning of the book truly is absorbing.  The suspense is thrilling.  Where could Emma have gone?  How can a child just disappear without a trace?  But as the reader continues, the story simply goes stale. The search seems almost futile, and when even the father gives up looking for his little girl, you can't help but wonder "When is it going to end?"  I can understand that Richmond may simply be trying to give the reader a glimpse at the despair that a family goes through when a child goes missing, but I simply felt as though the story just dragged.  I honestly considered just flipping forward a few pages and skim through to the end to find out what exactly happened to Emma. Alas, I am cursed to be somewhat of a book purist, and was determined to finish it in good faith, read completely!

The resolution to the story is more of a let down than the slow-moving plot line.   I was definitely disappointed with how the story ended, especially after spending almost an entire Sunday afternoon to just get to this ending and finally figure out what happened to Emma. 

All in all, an okay read.  I kept with it, so there must have been something to keep me going - but it certainly wouldn't top my list of must-read, top recommendations.

The Other Life - Ellen Meister

In Ellen Meister's newest novel,  The Other Life, the reader is introduced to Quinn, a suburbanite and wife to Lewis and mother to Isaac and (unborn baby) Naomi, who is able to do something many of us have undoubtedly pondered at one point or another - Quinn is able to travel through a portal in her current life to live her "other life."  In this "other life," Quinn chose to stay with her boyfriend, Eugene, and is living the life in posh Manhattan.  Additionally, whereas in this life, Quinn's mother is deceased, in the "other life," Quinn's mother is very much alive.  It is this fact that propels Quinn to continue making the journey between lives. However, with each additional passage, the journey between this life and the other becomes increasingly difficult and the portal between lives continues to close more and more.  Towards the end of the story - Quinn is faced with a decision to live either one life or the other, and it is at this cross point, that I feel the story truly peaks and Meister's storytelling talent clearly shines through. 

A quick read, simply because you just cannot put it down, the cover asks the reader - "What if you could return to the road not taken?" And it is this exact question that this blog entry is going to focus upon.  How many of us have thought of this question before at least once in the past few years.  Each and every day people make choices.  Whether it's a larger choice like the decision to marry or have children, or a smaller, more minute choice, like what to have for breakfast or what route to take to work, each and every single choice has a series of effects that follow it - and the question remains what if you had chosen the other?  In The Other Life Meister tackles that larger choice of life partnership, but let's face it - almost every choice has a distinct path that could potentially take your life in a whole different direction.  Take for example the minuscule choice of what to have for breakfast. 

Option A - You have your cereal at home, shower, get dressed, go to work, yadda yadda yadda.

Option B - You decide to splurge and head down to the local Starbucks (I'm in no way promoting Starbucks, just know that everyone has a local one ;) haha).  You order your coffee, bagel, sit down and as your reading the obituary section look up and lock eyes with Mr. Right.  He comes and sits across from you, you have the most engaging conversation you've had in awhile and then exchange Facebook accounts before heading out the door to work.

I know it's a little over the top - but it's true!  Life is like one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels that you can read a hundred times and have a different story each time.  The only difference is that unlike those novels, you can't live life a hundred times over.  I suppose there are some situations in which you can go back and "do things over," in some sense, but you can't go back and change what's happened in the past.  Everyone must live with the choices that they have made.

This isn't to say that it isn't okay to occasionally sit and ponder the question"What if?"

I look at my dog sometimes (usually when she is in one of her "cute" moments - which is like 99.9% of the time haha) and couldn't imagine my life without her.  Yet, I almost didn't get her due to life circumstances at the time.  What if ... I never adopted my pup?  I think my life would be drastically different.  For starters, I would be coming home an empty house each day after work - no one would be running down the hallway and drifting around the breakfast bar to come jump at me.  I would also probably be cold on those frigid Chicago nights when I don't have a real-life Yorkichon scarf around my head and neck.  Most of all, though, I would miss her companionship.  I wouldn't have someone to snuggle with me and need me like she does.  She is definitely a great choice that I made in my life and I am absolutely ecstatic that everything worked out for the best at the time so that I could adopt her. (Shout-out: I love you to bits, little monster!)

Then there are the times where I think about some of the bigger choices I have made, like my choice in college.  The main basis of my choice in university was their excellent teacher education program.  In my 4-year experience, many major life events and experiences transpired.  What if ... I chose a different university?  Would life be different?  Of course! If I chose to go elsewhere at 18, I don't know if I would be living in Chicago.  I wouldn't have my dog in my life. I'm not sure if I would be with my boyfriend.  I don't even know if I would be sitting here writing this blog at the moment!  There are so many factors that play in to every single decision - large or small.

On the same note,  it's unhealthy if always wondering "What if?" takes over your life and you're left questioning and doubting every single decision that you make.  So, I guess the moral of the story is this:

"Be wise in the decisions that you make, but make sure to live your life without regret."

Excellent job, Ms. Meister!  A fun summer read turned out to be quite the "thinker."  I hope to see more from you in the future ...

These Things Hidden - Heather Gudenkauf

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf is an engrossing story about 2 sisters, a girl, a family, and a town ripped apart by the decisions that people make.  I don't want to give too much away as to the plot, but I must say that, in my opinion, Gudenkauf authentically portrays each of the characters in this gripping tale.

Sadly, the issue at the heart of the novel - Safe Haven laws - really isn't a fictitious issue at all.  For many women across the country, Safe Haven laws have provided a way for them to do something positive for their child.  If you are unfamiliar with the issue of Safe Haven laws, I quote from the website for the Administration for Children and Families in explaining what these state laws essentially allow.
"Many State legislatures have enacted legislation to address infant abandonment and infanticide in response to a reported increase in the abandonment of infants. Beginning in Texas in 1999, "Baby Moses laws" or infant safe haven laws have been enacted as an incentive for mothers in crisis to safely relinquish their babies to designated locations where the babies are protected and provided with medical care until a permanent home is found. Safe haven laws generally allow the parent, or an agent of the parent, to remain anonymous and to be shielded from prosecution for abandonment or neglect in exchange for surrendering the baby to a safe haven."
These "safe havens" include hospitals, police and fire stations; community locales that are staffed 24/7, essentially, by people that can provide the necessary care for the child.  There is also a maximum age of, typically, 30 days for the child to be relinquished without any consequence of abandonment charges, etc.

So the debate remains, do Safe Haven laws make sense?

I believe that the Safe Haven laws enacted in 49 of the 50 states, plus Puerto Rico, are a positive and worthwhile option.  Abortion is a hot topic issue, that we are not going to get into in this posting, but is an option in unwanted pregnancy (no comments on whether it's a positive or negative option - as of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, it is an option for women by law).  Adoption is also an option.  In my opinion, Safe Haven laws are essentially adoption.  It can be assumed that most infants that are left in the care of medical professionals are adopted by loving families that desire them and are able to care for them, unlike their biological parent(s).  When a woman decides to take advantage of the Safe Haven laws in her state, she is choosing a better life for her child, is she not?  Just like a woman who chooses adoption.  The difference between Safe Haven laws and adoption, however, is the anonymity that goes along with the law.  Researching the Safe Haven law in my own state, I find that although the child must be handed to a representative of the institution, beyond having to look someone face to face in handing off your child, there really isn't much more that must be done - no name, no age, no addresses or phone numbers.  A mother (or couple) may choose to leave medical history, just for the child's knowledge in predisposition to disease, but it seems that the entire process is shrouded in anonymity, something that adoption - even closed adoption - does not provide.

So, do Safe Haven laws provide women with additional options in the case of unwanted pregnancy?  Definitely.  Are these state laws able to prevent infanticide? One would hope so; but as Gudenkauf shows us in her sophomore novel, who knows what a young girl may do in a state of panic.

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine - Alina Bronsky

There are a lot of things out there that boil down to genetics - your height, your eye color, sometimes even your mannerisms and personality type.  It's a constant debate of nature vs. nurture on what's inherited and what's learned, but I like to think that my love of good books is a genetic trait I inherited from my mom.  Both she and I have no issue spending an entire day curled up on the couch - or even better, in bed! - reading a good book.  As such, we often like to share what we're reading with each other and make recommendations.  Granted, my mom sometimes likes to read books that are sad and serious, which I often find just depressing, a lot of the time she actually has some good recommendations.  The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky is a book that my mom recommended to me after she read it upon finding an article about it in The New Yorker.

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is narrated by Rosa - a spunky woman who has a comment for everything (hmmm, reminds me of quite a few Russian women I know.)  Rosa finds that her only daughter, Sulfia, is mysteriously pregnant at 17 "from a dream."  (The fact that this belief is hardly even questioned throughout the story makes me wonder if maybe there should have been a bit more "sex education" in the former Soviet Union...) Rosa attempts many "old world" remedies to abort her grandchild with the help of dwelling-mate Klavdia, but none work and 9-months later, Aminat is born.  Rosa instantly falls in love with the child, who unlike her own daughter is beautiful - "Tartar through and through," - and essentially begins to raise her as her own.  The rest of the book goes on to tell the story of the struggles these women go through as their lives change and eventually they end up in Germany where Sulfia is intended to marry a journalist who in reality has his eye on Aminat. But even though they are out of the Soviet Union, life doesn't get any easier, and adjusting to a new way of life is harder for the two older women.

The story ends on a fairly bittersweet note, I think. Rosa is a woman full of character at the beginning of the book and throughout, but towards the end, you can really sense how she has changed as a person based on the experiences that she has gone through.  Towards the end, you really start to feel sorry for her and all hat she has endured.

Although a good story, and a fairly fast read, in my opinion (I read it in 3 days),  The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine might be more appreciated by someone who has actually endured the struggle of emigration.  Granted, I am myself an immigrant - coming to the United States at the age of almost 2 from the former Soviet Union - but I think someone that can actually recall the hardship and accurately compare/contrast lifestyles would really appreciate the little nuances in this book.  For example, Rosa's bribery of figureheads with fruits and chocolates.  Although I understand this logic based on stories from my parents and grandma about life in the "old country," I think someone like my mom - who came here at the age of 22 and can remember actually living through that use of logic - would be more appreciative of this story.