Readin', Readin', Readin'

Again, I'm going to lump my book reviews into one big ol post so if you're not so into book reviews you can just bypass this ONE post and come back tomorrow. But I've read a couple good ones lately, so here ya go.

OH--these are going to be very, VERY abbreviated. Yogi does much, much better book review than I. I'm pretty much a "love it" or "didn't like it" kind of reviewer, but I'll try to give you a teeny bit more.

Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas. This was a nice, sweet read about two women living in the mountains of Colorado in the 1930's. One of women was in the twilight of her life (in her late 80s, her name is Hennie) and the other was just beginning her life as a new wife and mother (her name is Nit). They bonded and the elder woman helped guide and prepare the younger woman for the hard life in a mining town in the mountains through her "stories" of her experiences and about the people in their town. This was a delightful, quick read that in the end will have you asking yourself if you could forgive someone after they caused you decades of pain?

I liked this book, I give it 4.5 out of Five Stars.

Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult. This was a good book, but like all (or at least most) Jodi Picoult books, was fairly predictable. This one was about a young girl born with Osteogenesis Inperfecta, the a disease that causes a person's bones to break very easily...a sneeze can fracture a rib or the simple act of jumping can break a bone in the foot/ankle/leg. Anyway...the book is about whether this family (mother) would have carried the baby had she known about the baby's diagnosis early in the pregnancy. There's all sorts of secondary story lines going on...the older sister and her problems, the mother and father and their marital problems, the mother and her best friend and a lawsuit, the mother's attorney and her desire to find her birth mother, etc., etc. It almost gets to be too much at times and dilutes the intensity of the mother's plight to better her child's life. I won't give away more of the book, but I'll just say it was good, just kind of dragged on a bit.

I give this a 3.5 out of Five Stars.

Okay--intermission time. Sing a little song, go get a drink, use the restroom, go answer the phone (oh, never mind, don't do that...if you live in Oklahoma, it's probably just another political campaign asking for your vote).

Feeling better? Refreshed? Let's get back to it.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Ok, this is going to be a quickie. I LOVED this book! I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it!!! It's a novel about a situation that too many people wanted to turn their backs on for a long time. It's about white women in the South (takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963) and their "colored" (that's not my word, that's the term used in the book) house maids. These maids who cooked, cleaned, polished, shopped and raised their children. And who were treated like poo (99% of the time). It's also about a white woman, "Skeeter" who is an aspiring writer and who somehow convinces these maid to tell their stories to her, despite the known consequences of what would happen if they were to be found out. That's all I'm going to tell you. You MUST read this book. It's was very thought provoking to me, I was constantly thinking about my grandmother's maid, Jessie Mae, and wondering, "what if...?", "do you think...?," "I wonder if....?" I knew Jessie Mae in the 70's and I think "no" none of that stuff happened here in Oklahoma. But still, it made me rethink what I always thought to be true about a situation. I loved this book so much that I went out and bought it because I'm sure I will read it again and I want it to be part of my personal library (I like to support our library, so normally I get my books from the library).

I give this book a 5+++ out of Five Stars. Actually I'd give it more if I could.

Embraced by the Light by Betty J. Eadie. This is a book about a woman's near-death experience. Actually it shouldn't be called "near" death...more like her death experience. She died and came back. This is a very thought provoking book that makes you think or re-think what you believed about Heaven and the spiritual life. Some of it I was like "huh? no, I don't think so," but other parts of it made complete sense to me. It really could be a life changing book. I just finished it this morning, and it's going to take me a while to wrap my brain around it and digest everything she talks about in the book. I liked it, it was quite interesting, I just don't really know what to think about all of it. I'd love to hear if there's anyone else out there who has read it and what your thoughts are on it. This is a toughie for me to rate, but I guess...

I give it a 4 out of Five Stars.

Thank you for putting up with this long post. I've got some more books lined up to read and several on hold at the library, so stand-by, I'll be doing another "group review" in August.

Also, I'd love to hear of any good books any of you out there have read. I'm always looking for something good to read. I'm not particular about genre, definitely like some over others, but I'm open to anything.

Happy Reading!