#73: One True Thing

One True Thing, by Anna Quindlen

(New York:  Dell, 1995)

Summary:

"Ellen Gulden is in jail, accused of the mercy killing of her mother. She says she didn't do it; she thinks she knows who did.

"When Ellen learns of her mother Kate's cancer, the disease is already far advanced. Her father insists that Ellen quit her job and come home to take care of her, and as Ellen begins to spend her days with Kate, she learns many surprising things, about herself, her mother, and the life choices they both made. But as Kate's illness progresses, and her pain increases, so do the dosages of morphine. And so does Ellen's belief that her mother's suffering is unendurable....

"Widely admired for her intelligence, humor and insight, and for the depth of her perceptions about the public and private lives of ordinary people, Quindlen writes masterfully, and with great sophistication and grace about love and death, sexuality and betrayal, the triangles within a family, identity, growth, and change. Exploring the ambiguities that make up marriage, character, family, and fate, One True Thing takes each of us to the mysteries at the heart of the person we think we are, of who and what we know."

Opening Line:
"Jail is not as bad as you might imagine."

My Take:
This one is beautiful, heartbreaking, powerful. Not in a very wordy mood for once, but really loved it. 

#57: A Proper Education for Girls

A Proper Education for Girls, by Elaine di Rollo  

(New York: Crown Publishing, 2009)

Summary:
"Not since the Brontës have we seen the likes of the Talbot sisters, plucky peach growers with a peculiar upbringing and a flair for subversion. Set in England and India in the mutinous year of 1857, A Proper Education for Girls tells the story of Alice and Lilian Talbot, twins separated for the first time in their lives by their martinet father. After an affair comes to a tragic end, Lilian is banished from the Talbot mansion and married off to a sickly missionary in India. Unwilling to play the part of the demure missionary wife, beautiful, tomboyish Lilian quickly takes advantage of her husband’s hypochondria and her newfound freedom as a British expatriate, tramping off into the jungle to paint pictures of the indigenous flora and secretly learning the language and customs of her adopted homeland.

"Meanwhile, the plain but sharp-witted Alice remains on her father’s isolated estate, serving as curator to his strange and vast Collection under the watchful eye of the malevolent Dr. Cattermole. The Collection, which has taken over every inch of the rambling estate, is the essence of Victorian England -- antiquated and ingenious, austere and excessive. Twelve perfectly synchronized grandfather clocks stand at attention at the bottom of a staircase. Botanical specimens have overrun the conservatory, turning the room into a tropical greenhouse. Forgotten houseguests roam amid fossilized sea creatures, display cases of Greek pottery, and mechanical contraptions. A peach tree, inherited from their mother and planted in a wheelbarrow for portability, is a constant reminder of Lilian’s absence.

"Though Mr. Talbot has cut off all communication between the sisters, a cryptic letter from Lilian manages to slip through, and hidden in the envelope is a puzzling photograph of a tiger hunt. Alice sets about cracking the code in the letter, finding an unlikely ally in Mr. Blake, the photographer hired to document the Collection. While Mr. Talbot is absorbed in the eccentric but seemingly benign Society for the Propagation of Useful and Interesting Knowledge, Alice plots her escape from both her oppressive father and Dr. Cattermole’s unspeakable plans for her future.

"Intrigue is rife in India as well, where Lilian continues to defy convention. Playing her many admirers off one another, she quietly works toward the goal of reuniting with her sister. But the violent onset of the Indian rebellion against British rule threatens to derail her plans. And back at the Talbot estate, the Society’s experiments are taking a menacing turn. Will the sisters' resourcefulness and profound devotion to each other be enough to save them? Capturing the Victorian era in all of its whimsy and horror, A Proper Education for Girls is a superb debut novel about the power of sisterhood."

 

Opening Line:

"Travelers unfamiliar with the countryside around the great house would come upon its boundary walls with some surprise." 

My Take:

Not usually my favorite era for historical fiction, but I enjoyed this one a lot more than I expected to -- probably because of the sisters' ingenuity at making very close call escapes from what could have been truly horrific circumstances. Worth a read.

#53: The Interruption of Everything

The Interruption of Everything, by Terry McMillan  

(New York: Viking, 2005)

 

Summary:

Since Terry McMillan’s breakout novel Waiting to Exhale surged onto the bestseller lists, critics and readers alike have been captivated by her irreverent, hilarious, pitch-perfect tales of women’s lives and contemporary issues. With The Interruption of Everything, her sixth novel, McMillan takes on the fault lines of midlife and family life, reminds us once again of the redeeming power of friendship, and turns her eye toward the dilemma of how a woman starts to put her own needs higher on the to-do list while not shortchanging everyone else.

"Marilyn Grimes, wife and mother of three, has made a career of deferring her dreams to build a suburban California home and lifestyle with her husband, Leon. She troubleshoots for her grown kids, cares for her live-in mother-in-law, Arthurine (and elderly poodle, Snuffy); keeps tabs on her girlfriends Paulette and Bunny and her own aging mother and foster sister—all the while holding down a part-time job. But at forty-four, Marilyn’s got too much on her plate and nothing to feed her passion. She feels like she’s about ready to jump. She’s just not sure where.

Highly entertaining, deeply human, a page-turner full of heart and soul, The Interruption of Everything is vintage Terry McMillan—and a triumphant testament to the fact that the detour is the path, and living life 'by the numbers' never quite adds up."

Opening Line:
"The only reason I'm sitting on a toilet seat in the handicapped stall of the ladies' room is because I'm hiding."

My Take:
One of my more expensive finds from the May booksale at the Boston Public Library (think I paid a dollar for it), and a highly entertaining read. Things do tend to wrap up a bit too neatly and quickly at the end, which is often a peeve of mine, but it wasn't necessarily a bad ending -- just one that might have benefited from a loose end or 2.

 

#49: Lone Wolf

Lone Wolf, by Jodi Picoult (New York: Atria Books, 2012)

Summary:
"Edward Warren, 23, has been living in Thailand for five years, a prodigal son who left his family after an irreparable fight with his father, Luke. But he gets a frantic phone call: His dad lies comatose in a NH hospital, gravely injured in the same accident that has also injured his younger sister Cara.

"Cara, 17, still holds a grudge against her brother, since his departure led to her parents’ divorce. In the aftermath, she’s lived with her father – an animal conservationist who became famous after living with a wild wolf pack in the Canadian wild. It is impossible for her to reconcile the still, broken man in the hospital bed with her vibrant, dynamic father.

"With Luke’s chances for recovery dwindling, Cara wants to wait for a miracle. But Edward wants to terminate life support and donate his father’s organs. Is he motivated by altruism, or revenge? And to what lengths will his sister go to stop him from making an irrevocable decision?

"Lone Wolf looks at the intersection between medical science and moral choices. If we can keep people who have no hope for recovery alive artificially, should they also be allowed to die artificially? Does the potential to save someone else’s life with a donated organ balance the act of hastening another’s death? And finally, when a father’s life hangs in the balance, which sibling should get to decide his fate?"

Opening Line:
"In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have freed the tiger."

My Take:
Granted, that's a cool opening line -- but a review for this one is hardly worth my time or my reader's. (Dontcha like how I manage to be both self-deprecating and poke tongue-in-cheek fun at the apostrophe abuse that so grates on the nerves of the grammarians among us there?) It's a Jodi Picoult book, and you either like that sort of thing or you don't. I do now and again but don't expect the earth to move (unless the dizziness from the author's shifting-fonts-to-represent-different-characters technique counts).