The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

 The Rosie Effect
Author:  Graeme Simsion
Published:  October 2014
Publisher:  Harper Collins
Pages:  414
ISBN 9781443435901
General:  General Fiction
Source:  borrowed

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back. If you were swept away by Graeme Simsion’s international smash hit The Rosie Project, you will love The Rosie Effect.

The Wife Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York. But they’re about to face a new challenge.

Rosie is pregnant.

Don sets about learning the protocols of becoming a father, but his unusual research style gets him into trouble with the law. Fortunately his best friend Gene is on hand to offer advice: he’s left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie.

As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting Gene and Claudia back together, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his apartment, helping Dave the Baseball Fan save his business and staying on the right side of Lydia the social worker, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him most.

Get ready for The Rosie Effect, the new hilarious and heart-wrenching romantic comedy of the year.

My thoughts:

Graeme Simsion has authored another entertaining romantic comedy in The Rosie Effect, the follow-up to the much loved The Rosie Project.  I adored The Rosie Project because I laughed so much throughout this endearing story about a brilliant man who was terribly socially inept.  He has OCD and is even, perhaps, slightly autistic and he is hilarious, though he's not trying to be. By the sixth page I was in tears - joyous tears of laughter.  I love it when a book can reach me that way.

Rosie and Don are an adorable couple who, like most any couple out there, fail to communicate what they need from each other in a manner that the other understands.  Don's mishaps as he is trying to prove himself are plausible and quite funny but I wouldn't say The Rosie Effect is as humorous as The Rosie Project. The Rosie Effect is a deeper exploration of the human condition and the dynamics of a married couple learning to communicate and to love and accept each other and themselves.

While The Rosie Effect is humorous, there's a lot more depth in Don's character as he discovers he is soon to be a father and doesn't know how to handle the news.  He endeavours to be supportive, learning all he can about pre-natal care and nutrition, purchasing the best and safest pram and crib he can.  But, despite his efforts, Rosie is unsure about Don's ability to bond with a child.  Don must examine himself and learn how to show he is emotionally available and save his marriage.

Gene, a professor of psychology and Don's best friend, is a surprise in this book!  In The Rosie Project he comes across as a bit of a sleaze (who am I kidding, a big sleaze) with no concern for how his behaviour affects his wife Claudia.  Fortunately in The Rosie Effect Gene has matured and we learn a bit more about this man as a friend and father as he plays an important supportive role in this story.

I love The Rosie Effect.  It offers a lot to the reader.  You will laugh, you may require a tissue or two, and you will likely become introspective in regards to your own relationships.  I may not have laughed as much as I did while reading The Rosie Project, but Simsion evokes more emotion at different levels with The Rosie Effect.  I'd venture to say his plot has matured along with his characters and that, my friends, is a good thing too.

Sensitive readers:  language/profanity warning

Meet the Author:

GRAEME SIMSION is an IT consultant and educator. He wrote The Rosie Project as a screenplay before turning it into his first novel. The screenplay won the Australian Writers Guild Inscription Award for Best Romantic Comedy Script in 2010 and then won the 2012 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Best Unpublished Manuscript. Follow him on twitter @GraemeSimsion.

The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic by Hazel Gaynor (book review)

The Girl Who Came Home

A Novel of the Titanic

Author:  Hazel Gaynor

Published:  April 1 2014

Publisher:  William Morrow Paperbacks

Pages:  384

Source:  a complimentary copy was provided by the publisher and TLC book tours in exchange for an honest review.

A voyage across the ocean becomes the odyssey of a lifetime for a young Irish woman. . . .

Ireland, 1912 .

 . .

Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Séamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that fateful night again.

Chicago, 1982 . . 

.

Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about Titanicthat she’s harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace new direction—and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago

.

Inspired by true events, The Girl Who Came Home poignantly blends fact and fiction to explore the Titanic tragedy’s impact and its lasting repercussions on survivors and their descendants.

My thoughts:

As a Titanic buff, I was excited to read The Girl Who Came Home, mainly because this isn't so much a work of fictional characters as it is a work of fiction based upon real characters; a group of fourteen Irish immigrants, known as the Addergoole Fourteen, who boarded the Titanic to join family in America.  Only three of this group survived.  This is the fictional version of the story of one woman who lived.

The Titanic was a luxury liner, built to be unsinkable and with the finest in luxury decor.  There was much excitement and trepidation in boarding the Titanic.  Perhaps the near collision leaving port should have been a warning, but off they went and all was well as the rich enjoyed every luxury to which they were accustomed.  This trip was merely a notch on their belt, a story to share to show how important they were.  Steerage was another matter altogether, being below deck - a most precarious place to be when the Titanic struck the iceberg.  

As the plot leads up to the sinking and the events of that night, which is a good portion of the novel, the scenes become intense and dramatic.  I found this well sculpted, thorough, and interesting. Perhaps I am a bit sadistic in this but then the thousands of others who are enthralled with the story of the Titanic might be considered to be also.  I've done a lot of reading and research on the Titanic over the years. It is still curious to note so many incidents that alone would not have sunk the ship, culminated  together and made it impossible to stay afloat.  But the Titanic had seemed indestructible in design and theory.  A flaw indeed.  A sad reminder that man is fugacious and not omnipotent.

The Girl Who Came Home goes beyond this tragic event to explore how this tragedy affected the families and loved ones of those involved.  I haven't seen this done before and found it made the novel a moving tale that allows the reader to further feel empathy for those who survived as passengers and those who grieved as this writing makes it a more personal account.  The Girl Who Came Home is a remarkable fictional version of one of the most haunting tales in history. It's gratifying to encounter a new voice on the subject who puts a face upon the tragedy and the generations that followed.

Meet the Author: 

Hazel Gaynor is an author and freelance writer in Ireland and the U.K. and was the recipient of the Cecil Day Lewis Award for Emerging Writers in 2012. Originally from North Yorkshire, England, she now lives in Ireland with her husband, two young children, and an accident-prone cat.

Connect with Hazel on Facebook.

You Can't Resist "The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry" by Gabrielle Zevin - book review

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Author:  Gabrielle Zevin
Published:  2014
Publisher:  Viking, a division of Penguin Random House Company
Pages:  260
Source:  borrowed

An irresistible novel about second chances and finding room for all the books - and all the love - that transform our lives

A.J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island—from Chief Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who's always felt kindly toward him; from Ismay, his sister-in-law, who is hell-bent on saving A.J. from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who persists in taking the ferry to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.'s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, A.J. can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.

And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It’s a small package, though large in weight—an unexpected arrival that gives A.J. the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J., for the determined sales rep Amelia to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light, for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.’s world. Or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn’t see coming.

As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read and why we love.

My Thoughts:

There's been a lot of buzz about the newest novel by Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, and I'll tell  you why.  A.J. Fikry is a bit of a grouchy bookseller.  Recently widowed, the bottle has become his means of escape.  Even the new rep from one of the publishers he does business with receives a most cold reception.  After sending her on her way and preparing to close up shop he hears and then finds a toddler with a note asking him to take care of her.  No mother or anyone in sight.

What does he know about babies, changing diapers, feeding a baby? he asks himself.  Turns out, you can Google that!  This sweet child changes his life, as often children have a knack of doing, and the rough edges that make up A.J. Fikry begin to soften and wear away.  

Not only does he change his lifestyle, but soon even his business is affected, his friendships, and the sales rep makes a welcome reappearance.

I absolutely love this novel.  It's hard not to.  The setting is a bookstore, the protagonist a bookseller, and we have the added joy of reading about various titles recommended and/or on his daughter's reading list.  A.J. Fikry even decides he loves short story collections.  Gasp!

"The most elegant creation in the prose universe is a short story.  Master the short story and  you'll have master the world, he thinks just before he drifts off to sleep.  I should write this down, he thinks." (page 246)

The author, Gabrielle Zevin, truly must love books.  She understands her reader does too for she writes, "We need to know we're not alone.  We read because we are alone.  We read and we are not alone.  We are not alone."  

"My life is in those books, he wants to tell her (Maya).  Read these and know my heart....We are not quite novels...We are not quite short stories.  In the end, we are collected works."

He has perfect insight - "We aren't the things we collect, acquire, read.  We are, for as long as we are here, only love."

Fikry's life has changed so much and the journey forward warms your heart as you read about this imperfect man who finally finds perfect meaning.  When you lose yourself in love, that is when you find yourself, as Fikry did.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry is a warm, charming, intellectually stirring story... of romance, love and books and a man who finds he has it all after all. 

Rating:  a favourite of 2014

Meet the author:

Gabrielle Zevin has published six adult and young-adult novels, including an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book, Elsewhere. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages. She is the screenwriter ofConversations with Other Women, for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination. She has also written for The New York Times Book Review and NPR’s All Things Considered. She lives in Los Angeles.

Guest Post: Author Tanya J. Peterson Shares Why "Leave of Absence" Needed a Voice

One of the characters in Leave of Absence is Penelope, a woman who experiences Schizophrenia. In this scene, she is lamenting one of the ways it has impacted her life: “I used to be proud of myself. I graduated from the University of Chicago and worked as an advertising executive at Anderson Fletcher.” She paused and hugged the beach ball against her chest. When she resumed, she spoke quietly. “But then I changed, and I’m not the same anymore. I had to take quit the job I loved. At first, I thought I could take a leave of absence, just a little break to get well and then go back. But I never got better enough to go back. I had to quit completely, and now I’m just a loser.” Tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto the ball.

I wrote Leave of Absence because no one experiencing mental illness should ever have to feel like a loser. I’d like to be one of those who is working to correct the existing negative stereotypes and increase understanding and compassion.

I possess a unique combination of experiences that I carried with me into my writing of Leave of Absence. I carry it into all of my writing, actually—the articles that appear on my blog as well as the new novels I will write. That I write about mental health is no coincidence, for I have experienced mental health and mental illness from both sides of the proverbial couch. Having been both a counselor and a patient, I have a deep understanding of how people can suffer emotionally in so many ways, how people can triumph emotionally in so many ways, and of how every human being deserves empathy and understanding. I use my many experiences to create stories that, while themselves fictional, are a very real manifestation of mental health and mental illness. It is my hope that Leave of Absence will help people understand each other more deeply.

I have a rather intimate relationship with mental illness. I understand it intellectually thanks to an intense graduate program, and that lends a solid factual background to my stories. I understand it professionally thanks to all the people I have counseled with in various capacities; in working with people, I have developed a real-world understanding of what people need in order for them to help them help themselves heal, and I weave this into my stories. And I understand mental illness personally thanks to my own experiences with it. I try to draw on all of these aspects to infuse my novels with not only facts but feeling. (As I reader, I love character-driven stories, so I set out to make Leave of Absence character-driven. I hope readers connect with Oliver, Penelope, and William!)

My own roller coaster ride with mental illness officially began in 2004 when I sustained a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. Because I could walk, talk, and physically care for myself, I didn’t qualify for brain injury rehabilitation programs. That didn’t mean that I was functioning well in other areas of my life, though! Over the course of several years, I saw a psychologist for counseling, and when that wasn’t enough, I was admitted into a behavioral health hospital. The Airhaven Behavioral Health Center that is the setting for much of Leave of Absence is actually based on the hospital in which I stayed. The characters are completely made up, of course, but the physical description and other little details (such as Oliver’s hatred of the ticking clock in his room) are based on my own personal experience in the hospital. I was in and out of that hospital five times over the course of several years, and it was there that I was officially diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder. Understanding Bipolar I disorder and looking back over my life, I firmly believe that I experienced it long before that car accident; however, I was able to manage it until the brain injury threw everything into chaos.

So it’s on multiple levels that I understand what it means to suffer mentally and emotionally, how mental illness impacts every single facet of one’s life, what it’s like to live with the stigma and have people shun you both personally and professionally.

I believe passionately in the importance of bringing these issues it to light. When we learn about each other as human beings, when we take time to really listen and look, we begin to understand. Through understanding come empathy and compassion.

Coming tomorrow, my review of Leave of Absence.

Coming May 8, a Q&A with the author you don't want to miss!

Doppler by Erlend Loe (book review)

Doppler
Author:  Erlend Loe
Translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw
Published:  2012 (this edition)
Publisher:  Anansi Press
Pages:  183
Genre:  fiction
ISBN  9781770893009
Source:  borrowed

After the death of his father, Andreas Doppler abandons his home, his family, his career, and the trappings of modern civilization to live in a makeshift tent in the forest.  There, he reluctantly adopts an orphaned moose-calf he names Bongo. Or is it Bongo who adopts him?  They soon grow to depend on each other in unusual and unexpected ways, and together they devote themselves to the art of survival with some surprising results.

Hilarious, touching, and poignant is the spirit of John Irving's best novels, Doppler is also deeply subversive and a strong criticism of modern consumer culture.

"Shamelessly charming." ~ Stavanger Aftenblad (Norway)

I chose to read Doppler as a recommendation and figured why not, it's a quick read?  Yes, it is, and an entertaining one at that.  It's like nothing I've ever read before.

A knock on the head following a cycling accident changes Andreas Doppler's view on his life.  No longer will he work for his living, abide by the social norms, pay taxes, nor even live in his house with his wife and two children.  Not for him any more, the socialization of society.  Now he hates people!  Oh, and his father died shortly before the accident and this too weighs on his mind.

Whether from a mental breakdown, or a rebellion toward the norms of society, it's hard to say, but I am sure some would admire Doppler's retraction from the world to live in a tent in the forest.  Is it unusual to want to leave the stress of life behind and live in a world where nothing is expected of you?  Where you can be bored and enjoy it?  Where your best friend is a moose calf whom you've adopted after killing the mother for food?  How odd is that?

It's a man's world of hunter-gatherer, roughing it in the wild, no niceties of civilization at hand which men will find highly entertaining.  I do understand his desire to escape.  While some do so with a vacation, Doppler doesn't do things half-way.  With humour, sometimes a bit crass, Doppler takes on his new life with relish.  As a woman, I enjoyed it.  Not just to laugh at men, which I did in Doppler,  (he has the most patient of wives!) but because I too sometimes want to escape the pressures of time and bills.  To go somewhere where no one knows me, where I am free to do my bidding as I wish, to relax and read and sleep.  That's a vacation or retirement.  Right?  The fact that Doppler takes it further than we would even imagine, playing games with a moose, building a totem pole in tribute to family, literally fighting for his right to be left alone; makes this book that much more unusual and entertaining.

Erlend Loe's Doppler is shameless, as Aftenblad said, and, in its own way unusually charming in an odd manner of speaking. Certainly good for a chuckle!  This is fiction, right?

Warning:  some language

What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang (A TLC Book Tour Review)

What the Zhang Boys Know
Author:  Clifford Garstang
Published: October 2012
Publisher: Press 53
Pages: 218
ISBN 9781935708612
Source:  A complimentary copy was provided by TLC Book Tours and the publisher which in no way influenced my opinion nor my review of this book.  All opinions expressed here are my own.

What the Zhang Boys Know on Amazon.com:  http://www.amazon.com/What-Zhang-Boys-Clifford-Garstang/dp/1935708619

The author's website:  cliffordgarstang.com

The publisher's website:  http://www.press53.com/BioCliffordGarstang.html

Set in a condominium building on the edge of Chinatown in Washington, D.C., these stories present the practical and emotional struggles of Zhang Feng-qi, originally from Shanghai, to find a new mother for his sons following the death of his American wife. Along the way, the stories spotlight Zhang’s neighbors as they seek to fill gaps in their own lives: the young bookseller diagnosed with a life-threatening illness; the young lawyer trying to cope with a failed marriage; the obsessive painter haunted by the image of a face; the middle-aged woman forced to sell her possessions in order to survive; the sculptor, overwhelmed by longing for the son he didn’t know he had. And then there are the Zhang boys, who firmly believe that their mother is coming back. What is it that they know?

My Thoughts:

Each chapter comprising What the Zhang Boys Know belongs to a different resident in a condo complex, which is a unique method of story-telling.  The characters' lives intertwine to an extent, making the sum of the short stories into a short novel.  All the residents are neighbours of Zhang Feng-qi, a recent widower raising two young sons and in search of a mother for his children.  As the individuals' stories reveal their lives, trials and loves; we learn that the young Zhang boys know a lot more than one could imagine. Are they, perhaps, the thread that unites the residents of the condominium?  What are the secrets they have been entrusted with and are they good at keeping them? The reveal comes piece by piece, little by little with What the Zhang Boys Know.

I like the unique approach in connecting the characters, making a community from the people.  In the short time given to allow the reader to get to know the residents, it is rather easy to empathize with some.  I consider this a feat of talent!  Clifford Garstang writes in an easy, fluid manner though I found some of the subject matter not to my personal reading tastes.  Overall, it's much like a soap opera mini-series which is carried off very well by Mr. Garstang.  The ending surprised me and I found myself adding to the story to resolve the story to my liking.  I like things tied up in a perfect little bow.  Perhaps that is what he intended from the reader after all? Let's just say it is.

Warning:  mature situations, sexual situations, violence and profanity

Clifford Garstang is the author of What the Zhang Boys Know (Press 53, 2012) and the prize-winning linked story collection In an Uncharted Country (Press 53, 2009). His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines including Bellevue Literary Review, Blackbird, Cream City Review, Shenandoah, Tampa Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review, and has received Distinguished Mention in the Best American Series. He has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. He holds an MFA in Fiction from Queens University of Charlotte and is the co-founder and editor of Prime Number Magazine. He is also the author of the popular literary blog Perpetual Folly.

After receiving a BA in Philosophy from Northwestern University, Garstang served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Korea, where he taught English at Jonbuk University. He then earned an MA in English and a JD, magna cum laude, both from Indiana University, and practiced international law in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Singapore with one of the largest law firms in the United States. Subsequently, he earned a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and worked for Harvard Law School as a legal reform consultant in Almaty, Kazakhstan. From 1996 to 2001, he was Senior Counsel for East Asia at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., where his work focused on China, Vietnam, Korea, and Indonesia.

Garstang teaches creative writing at Writers.com and elsewhere. He currently lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

For more information on Cliff and his work, visit his website: cliffordgarstang.com.

Casual Vacancy Takes Off in Edmonton!!!!

The big day has finally arrived!!!!

Today is the release for Casual Vacancy, the first adult novel by 

J K Rowling!!!  I can't begin to convey how much I have looked forward to reading it!  

Here's what you will likely see across the country(ies) in the bookstores!!!  These displays were front and centre this morning!

Now that I've obtained a copy, you'll understand 

if I excuse myself for a bit, right?