Book of the Week: Summer

Karen Kingsbury's second book in the Sunrise series, Summer, continues to follow Dane and Katie Matthews, the Flanigans, and Dane's biological family, the Baxters. I'm really enjoying this series! Can't wait to read the next one! 

Book of the Week: Sunrise

This week's book, Sunrise, was the first of the Sunrise series by Karen Kingsbury. It follows the story of multiple families, including Dane and Katie Matthews, Dane's extended family, and the Flanigans, a family that Katie temporarily lived with. Well written, this book is definitely a huge draw for moms everywhere.

Book of the Week: Laced

This week's book was Laced, by Carol Higgins Clark. I'd never heard of this author before, but the book was a fun, quick read. It seemed to be geared a bit towards young adults, but I did enjoy it although it didn't seem to be the most mature bit of reading. (And it's not as though I've been reading any really thought provoking stuff lately, anyway! If I'm not going to be tested on the material, I'm choosing the most immature reads I can find. It's all about relaxing, people!!!)

So anyway, Laced was a pretty fun little book, about Regan Reilly and her brand new husband, Jack Reilly. They are in Ireland for their honeymoon and a relic (a famous lace tablecloth) is stolen from the castle in which they are staying. It is discovered that it was stolen by Jack and Regan's archenemies, John and Jane Doe, some very well known jewel thieves that Jack has been trying to apprehend for some time.

There are a variety of sub stories going on within the book that introduces a wide variety of characters and connects them all, which made the read a bit more interesting, as well. Overall, I had fun reading as Jack and Regan did their best to nab the bad guys!!

Book of the Week: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

This week's book was The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. At the beginning of the story, a doctor's wife gives birth to twins during a winter storm at her husband's office. One baby, a little boy, is a perfectly typical little baby, but the other, a little girl, is born with Down's syndrome.

Based on the medical knowledge of the times and his experience growing up with a younger sister with a medical disability, the doctor chooses to have his daughter sent to a home for cognitively impaired individuals. He instructs the nurse that assisted him in the delivery to take the little girl to the home and leave her there. However, she chooses not to leave the baby there after a brief time spent in the lobby waiting for the contact person to meet with her to take the child.

Due to a series of other events, the young mother holds a funeral service for the baby girl she believed to have been stillborn, the doctor feels that he can no longer inform his wife of the girl's existence, and the nurse chooses to keep the little girl as her own, moving states away to raise her.

The story then chronicles the doctor and his wife's relationship, the life and struggles of the young girl and the nurse who adopts her, and the childhood of the brother who is believed to be the sole survivor of the birth.

Book of the Week: Heartburn

Nora Ephron wrote/co-wrote three of my favorite chick movies, When Harry Met Sally, You've Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle, so when I saw the book Heartburn at my library last week, I grabbed it up. Though she wrote Heartburn, I actually had no idea that it was autobiographical prior to reading it!

I researched it a bit after I finished reading, and though she changed some details (names, professions, gender of her kids, and other little details about the people in the book), it was very interesting to read about her personal life from the perspective with which she wrote! It was a pretty sad story (the premise of the story is her discovery of her husband's, Carl Bernstein, affair while she was seven months pregnant with their second child, and the resulting end of their marriage), but at the same time she made it very humorous and quick.

I enjoyed the book so much that I searched Netflix and found the movie adaptation, and watched that, as well. Meryl Streep has never been a favorite of mine, nor has Jack Nicholson, but I tell you what! Meryl's role in this movie turned my opinion of her around! Her performance was so great, and she was so elegant and humorous and graceful, that it almost made the whole terrible situation in the book/movie better. 

At any rate, this has only solidified my love for Nora Ephron as a writer and director, and has made me come to appreciate her as a human being, as well!

One of my favorite Nora quotes: 

"...if I tell the story, I control the version.

...if I tell the story, I can make you laugh, 

and I would rather have you laugh at me than feel sorry for me.

...if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much.

...if I tell the story, I can get on with it.”

And some words to live by, "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim." 

- Nora Ephron, 1941-2012.