Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

IF you want to know what it's about, read the published reviews. I'm beginning to think that it is the emotional response to books that is important.

(view spoiler)[Tell the Wolves I'm Homeis a coming-of-age story of a family in 1986 dealing with the consequences of their gay uncle dying from AIDS. As Uncle Finn points out, they knew nothing about the disease when he became ill - it hadn't even been named yet. 14-year-old June, her sister Greta, and their mother, Finn's sister, have been visiting Finn each month. The girls are sitting for a portrait painted by their famous uncle. June doesn't even know yet that Finn is ill. As the months carry on, Finn becomes weaker and weaker, and eventually June is told.

June suffers a great deal. Finn is her favorite Uncle, the only person who understands her, as she understands him. But she cannot understand how he could die and how no one in her family has told her until almost the end.

And Finn's "good friend", Toby, is never seen or mentioned in front of the girls. Their mother's condition for making the visits. After Finn's death, Toby sends June some gifts that Finn has set aside for her. She eventually meets Toby, realizes he is alone, and cares for him as he dies. (hide spoiler)]

Reading the book, I remember vaguely those first days of AIDS. No one knew what it was, except that it was fatal, and endemic in the gay community. There was no end of cruelty based on ignorance from the general public and medical personnel. Medical personnel were infected accidentally. Some AIDS sufferers intentionally infected others. Infected hemophiliacs were ostracized in their communities. Reading the book brought all of this back to me. But to be in the midst of the suffering of June, of Greta, and of their mother as they watch Finn die. June develops a toughness she didn't have before. She and Greta go through alienation, then becoming loving sisters again. Greta deals with her own anxieties, and suffers a crisis. They all suffer, grieve, and grow, and allow us to vicariously do the same.


P.S.  This book is also considered a YA novel by some.  It is the 2013 pick for the Alex Awards, awarded to literature for teens 12 - 18.  I would recommend it for teens, but also for anyone who was a teen or young adult at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.





View all my reviews

The Talk-Funny Girl

The Talk-Funny Girl: A Novel by Roland Merullo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very powerful. A powerful tale of a girl who has grown up in isolation in rural Connecticut, who speaks an unusual form of English. Her parents, afraid of contact with other people, are under the spell of a wicked preacher. Reverend Pastor Schect preaches that children are evil, and must undergo "penances". Now 17, Marjorie Richards is beginning to pull away from her fearful & cruel community. Her aunt engineers a job for her away from her parents where she works with a slightly older young man. Sands (his nickname) is building a stone "cathedral" on the site of an old church which had burned down. He teaches Marjie stonework and construction.

Margie is strong and determined to escape her parents' miserable existence. Reading her story is a highly emotional experience that will open your eyes to the evil lurking in the world.  Although some have placed this book in the YA/teen book category, I think it is more than that.  Any woman, young or old, will identify with Marjie, Sands and Aunt Elaine, who saves her.  The book is suitable for older teens, but equally so for adults.

View all my reviews

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When Lina is 15, her family is deported by Soviet troops. Her father is arrested and sent to prison. She, with her mother and brother, Jonas, are hearded first onto trucks, then into train cattle cars. The travel east for six weeks with barely enough to eat, no higiene and no knowledge of where they are going. Bodies are dumped at each stop along the way to the Altai labor camp, in the southern Soviet Union (near Biysk). They are working on a beet farm, where they are each given 30 grams of bread per day - if they work. I someone cannot work, they get no bread. Generally speaking, the people work together to keep everyone alive - pilfering potatoes and beets, other food from the soldiers mess. After 8 months, part of the group is taken to Trofimovsk on the Artic Ocean at 72.6 degrees north. When they arrive, nothing is there except a partially build barracks for the soldiers. The starving prisoners must unload supplies from their steamship and complete the barracks, a bakery, and a fish factory. Young boys were sent to fish, but had to give the fish to the Russians. Again they were alloted 30gr of bread per day. The prisoners had to build their own hut (yurt) out of what they could find - before the first snowfall. It was already August.

The Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Finns who were deported by the Soviets to Siberia generally stayed 10 years - if they survived. This is a story from this terrible injustice.

The book is told in the voice of Lina. You can hear her go from a sheltered girl to determined woman in the book. Please read this book.

View all my reviews

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dellarobia is running away from her circumscribed life when she witnesses a miracle in the forest - thousands of butterflies have roosted in a southern Tennessee valley. She tells no one, but the butterflies change her life. Dellarobia becomes involved with the inevitable researchers who arrive as land lady and lab assistant.

This is the best book I have read this year. There is happiness and sadness, hope and despair. Kingsolver explores the effect of living in small rural communities; and how polarized segments of our society are.

View all my reviews

Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Susannah recounts her descent into madness, caused by a very rare autoimmune disease.  Her experience demonstrates how important it is to have family and friends and doctors who will not give up.  Because her disease was so rare and so newly described, it took the talents of a wonderful neurologist who thought creatively and looked at Susannah as a person - not a strange case.

Susannah has interviewed her family, friends, and medical staff to put together a picture of herself during her "madness" - a period which she largely can't remember.  The book is well written, a good combination of explanation of the medical issues and what is going on with her.





View all my reviews

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rowling demonstrates the difficulty of rising above poverty. Krystal tries to take care of Robbie, go to school, and joins the rowing team. In spite of help from Mr. Fairbrother, she was never able to escape the dragging poverty.

View all my reviews
Pagford & Yarvil - adjoining Parishes

Cast of Characters: (in order of appearance, more or less)

Barry Fairbrother - Pagford parish councilor, grew up in the Fields, started girls rowing club.  Dies of ruptured aneurism in parking lot of local golf club. Leaves the "Casual Vacancy" on the council.
Mary Fairbrother - married 19 yrs, has 4 children
Niamh,

Howard Mollison - father of Miles,  owns local deli - chair of local Council
Shirley Mollison - did not like Fairbrother & others on Council, mother of Miles, administers Council website
Miles Mollison - solicitor, partner of Gavin
Samantha Mollison - wife, who runs a lingerie shop


Gavin Hughes - single, dating Kay, solicitor, partner of Miles, Barry is his best friend

Colin Wall - friends of the Fairbrothers, asst principal of school, plagued by obscene thoughts, "Cubby"
Tessa Wall
Stuart Wall - nicknames Fats, Fatboy, friends with Andrew "Arf" Price

Ruth Price - wife of  Simon, mother of
Simon Price - bully & thief
Paul Price - younger brother of Andrew
Andrew Price - peanut allergy, "Arf", friend of

Dr. Vikram Jawanda - cardiac surgeon
Dr. Parminder Jawanda - G.P., another Councillor, secretly in love with Barry?
Jaswant, Sukhvinder and Rajpal Jawanda - children of


Kay - Gaia's mother, social worker
Gaia - new girl in school, Andrew has crush on her

Krystal Weedon - from Fields, sleeps around,

Maureen - business partner of Howard Mollison - the Deli owner

The sudden, casual vacancy, sets in motion an avalanche of conniving by the adults to gain the upper hand in the council.  The two factions are either trying to move the Fields into the neighboring Parish (Yarvil), or keep them in Pagford.  The issues of the poor are represented by Krystal, her addicted mother, and her brother Robbie. In spite of efforts to help them out of their poverty, they fail.

Daily Show interview with J.K. Rowling

Worth reading!

The Good Girls Revolt by Lynn Povich

The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace by Lynn Povich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Lynn Povich was one of the "good girls" working for Newsweek in the sixties.  The women working there as researchers were as talented and as well-educated as the male reporters and editors.  One by one, these women began to think "why can't I work as a reporter?"  They got together, and filed a class action lawsuit agains Newsweek, owned by the Washington Post whose CEO was Kay Graham.  This suit opened up women at other media outlets to the possibilities.

Well worth reading if you are female, or know anyone who is.  We must not forget what these women did for us while we were in diapers.


View all my reviews