Book #18: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

I randomly picked this book up at the library where I teach because I vaguely remembered hearing about it a while ago. This book tells the story of the 1936 American Olympic rowing team and their origins at the University of Washington, particularly the story of one "boy in the boat," Joe Rantz, and his difficult childhood and upbringing and how rowing and the crew team saved him. The book and story reminded me of Seabiscuit and Unbroken, probably mainly because of the time period in which it was set, and also because it was a very well-written historical book. Both of Hillenbrand's books have really interesting chapters where she describes side issues like planes in WWII or the requirements of being a jockey in the 1930s, and this book had a lot of interesting information (but not too much to be overwhelming) about rowing/crew, which I'd never honestly thought much about before. It was fascinating learning about the development of the program and the rivalry between UW and UC Berkeley, and how the team trained and developed their skills. I also really liked reading about Joe's story and how he overcame these difficult, demoralizing obstacles without becoming bitter or hateful towards those who treated him badly. It was a really great sports story about a sport that I didn't know anything about, and it was a very good read.

I kind of just wish that Brown had had the idea about this story ten or fifteen years beforehand, so that he could have interviewed more of the original crew before they passed away. Joe Rantz's story was really fascinating, and I think it would have been really interesting to hear more about the other members of the team since Brown told his story so well. It felt a little misleading for the book to be named The Boys in the Boat when it was really just about one boy in the boat, but I guess it was inevitable because Rantz was one of only two surviving members by the time he started writing this book.

Book #17: The Bishop's Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison

This book tells the story of Linda Wallheim, the bishop's wife in her Draper, UT LDS ward, over the course of a few months. She is a somewhat typical stay-at-home mom who's almost finished raising her five sons (only one still at home) and who spends most of her time helping her husband serve the members of their ward. When a woman in their ward supposedly leaves her husband and daughter, Linda thinks there's more behind the surface and does more than she probably should to try and figure out the truth behind what has happened. She ends up trying to solve this whodunit mystery and contributes in a very real way to solving the crime--at some danger to herself and going far beyond the normal parameters of the duties of a bishop's wife.

This is not a typical LDS fiction book. Usually, most LDS fiction I've read is written for an LDS audience, and doesn't delve into complicated issues of history or culture. This book is written for a non-LDS audience and therefore spends a lot of time explaining LDS terms and cultural concepts, through the perspective of Linda. I really liked how even though Linda seems stereotypical from the outside, she actually has a lot of semi-radical views (aka liberal) that are probably not super common in Draper, UT, even if she doesn't talk about them with members of her ward. We get to see things from her perspective, which is pretty realistic and straightforward--she balances her faith and belief in God and the gospel with a skepticism of confusing doctrinal issues and Utah LDS culture. She is totally active in the gospel, but has things she doesn't understand or comprehend, and even things she doubts and major things she struggles with (like losing her daughter who was stillborn twenty or thirty years ago, and not knowing whether she's really a part of their family or not). I really liked how Linda felt very REAL--she shared her innermost doubts and struggles with us, and the things she really believes in. That made me really like this book and the nuanced view it gives of the LDS church and LDS people.

The thing I didn't like about this book was that it kind of felt like Harrison was trying on purpose to reference every single controversial thing about the church. Homosexuality and gay marriage? Polygamy? Blacks and the priesthood? Priesthood being used to control and abuse women? All of the above were mentioned at least. It seemed like every single man in the story had a somewhat controlling view of women--and many of them were downright insane (like the murderer in the end, of course), but Harrison made it seem like they got their insane and dangerous ideas from the doctrines on the priesthood in the Church, which I am sure is not unlikely but which I HATE. Even the good men, like her husband, seem like they're still semi-controlling of the women in their lives, or at least like they don't really understand them, and I don't feel like that's a fair representation of all LDS men either. I know that Tommy, and most of the LDS men that I know very well in my generation, are not like that. But overall, I really enjoyed this story and I thought it was a pretty well-balanced and interesting perspective on Mormonism that I bet non-Mormons would enjoy as well, for the chance to peek in on Utah from an insider view.

Book #16: Divine by Nichole Van

Divine is the sequel to Intertwine, featuring James's sister Georgiana, her longtime friend Sebastian, and a lot more time travel. Georgiana traveled to the 21st century in Intertwine because she was dying of consumption, and was cured by the magic of modern medicine. She stayed in the 21st century and was mostly happy there until she found an old love letter, written in 1813--by herself. She knows she has to go back to the past to investigate this letter and find out who she loves so deeply. At the same time, her childhood friend Sebastian, who's always been in love with her, is looking for her to convince her to marry him--but nobody seems to know where she's gone. Georgiana returns to 1813 and finds Sebastian, gets mixed up in a mystery, and all sorts of romantic and time-travel hijinks happen. (Spoiler alert: she ends up in love with Sebastian at the end. Unbelievable, right?)

My only complaints with this book are similar to Intertwine--mainly, the characters (particularly the 1813 characters coming to 2013) seem to transition far too easily from the past to the present without too much culture shock or surprise at how things have changed in two centuries. I feel like it should be way more of a big deal to go forward 200 years. (But I guess she wants to focus more on the romance than on the time travel deal, so I get it, kind of.) For only having lived in the present for one year, it is kind of unbelievable how much Georgiana has transitioned to being a "modern" woman, being all concerned about going back to the nineteenth century where women aren't equal. It also always annoys me when there's a boy in love with a girl and the girl somehow fails to notice it for YEARS and years. It really seems unlikely that a girl would be completely oblivious to the fact that someone is in love with her. But Georgiana eventually figures it out, and figures out her feelings about Sebastian (which, according to her thoughts, are a lot related to the fact that he's a very good-looking manly man, more than anything else), and they work things out in the end. Despite these issues, I really liked this book too and rushed through it really fast to figure out how they would resolve it.

Book #15: Intertwine by Nichole Van

Emme is a normal twenty-first-century woman, working on her PhD in history and in love with the Regency period. She's also not very normal--she finds a nineteenth-century locket with a picture of a man inside, and insists that she feels a strong connection to him and that they are meant to be together. She spends years obsessing about this man in the locket and ends up going to England to research more about him and see if she can finally find out who he is so that she can get him out of her head. While there, she falls into a magic time portal and ends up in 1812, where she meets James and ends up falling in love and needing to decide what to do--should she give up her life in 2012 or give up James?

Honestly, a lot of the premises of this book are a little bit of a stretch. Or, a LOT of a stretch. I found the beginning of the book, where Emme is just obsessing about the locket and this mystery, 200-year-old man, really weird. No matter how normal Emme may seem later on, that really goes beyond my scope of imagination. Also, the whole time travel thing--not that it's SUPPOSED to be believable, but it seems way too convenient for the storyline. However, I really like that the time travel aspect allows Emme to be a modern woman living in a historical period, because a lot of the historical romance novels you read have these heroines who are far too spunky, independent, and outspoken to be believable for the Regency period. Time traveling really helps to negate that problem. Another issue I had was that Emme had amnesia after she got to 1812 and couldn't remember anything about herself, allowing her and James to fall in love without the complication of knowing she was from the 21st century--and again, seeming a little too convenient. But lastly, I felt like the clashing of these two eras happened a little too neatly. Once Emme regained her memory, she just told James she was from the future, showed him her tablet, let him play Angry Birds, and he had no problems understanding or fathoming or imagining what she was saying. It really seems like it should have been a lot more unbelievable for him to hear that his love interest was from 200 years in the future, and that all the technology and advances she showed him or described to him should have been a lot more intimidating and difficult for him to understand.

And even after all of those complaints with this book--I REALLY liked it. I thought the characters were fantastic--Emme and James were well-rounded and I like how they complemented each other well. The book was full of all their thoughts and their longings for each other, which works for the romance (although Van seems very fond of talking about how "her fingers were searing through his gloves", etc.--a little over the top). But it was a perfectly clean romance and a pretty satisfying ending with how they wrapped up the issue of which-century-should-we-live-in and staying together. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it!

Book #14: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

I feel like this book is one of those books I've seen sitting on people's bookshelves for years, which looks super familiar but which I'd never considered actually reading by myself. I'm really glad that I finally did. Enger writes a beautiful story about the Land family and their attempts to stay together even in the face of a huge tragedy. The narrator, eleven-year-old Reuben Land, writes about his family's chase after his older brother Davy, who shot two bullies who were threatening their family and then broke out of jail and ran away. Reuben, his younger sister Swede, and their father follow after where they think Davy went to look for him, and have a pretty big adventure across the Dakotas.

Enger's style is beautiful and the themes of the book are pretty powerful. I really liked how religious themes came across in the book. Reuben's father was portrayed as being very close to God, always praying in a very straightforward way and reading the Bible, and that enables him to perform miracles of the same style that we are familiar with in the Bible--healing, parting the Red Sea (of a style), walking on air, etc. But nobody seems to recognize or notice these miracles other than Reuben, who sees himself as a witness to his dad's miracles and shares them with us in a very matter-of-fact way (acknowledging how unbelievable they sound, even to him). I also loved how close their family was to each other. Davy running away and leaving them seemed unfathomable to them, even knowing what he'd done, and they couldn't let him just disappear, which was why they set off in chase of him. Probably the best part of this book was the character of Swede, though. She's an incredibly precocious nine-year-old who writes epic poetry and is obsessed with Westerns and can make a whole turkey in the oven by herself. She was so much fun to read about and to see the interactions between Swede and Reuben particularly.

Book #13: The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley

I actually really enjoyed this book--I didn't want to put it down, funny enough, even though it's not your standard un-put-down-able novel. Ripley is concerned about the state of the American education system (like everyone), and was interested in what differences there were between America and other countries that score higher on international tests. There are certain countries that regularly score at the top of the world on certain academic tests, including Finland and South Korea, and others that have made recent dramatic increases in students' test scores, such as Poland, and Ripley decided to try and delve into what these countries were doing right in their education systems. In order to do that, she did plenty of interviews with lots of people in those countries, but she also followed three American teenagers who were foreign exchange students in each of those three countries, and used their experiences to learn about what those countries were doing well. It was very interesting to hear about each of those countries and what they do in their education systems, particularly from an insider's view with the three exchange students, and I feel like there were some great insights into how things could be improved across the board. One thing that Ripley emphasized a lot was the amount of rigor that students and teachers put into school, the amount of work and effort that was expected in order to gain an education. In those other countries, education was simply taken more seriously, and parents and students expected to have to work hard and to fail when they didn't work hard enough. American students kind of expect to pass through school without all that much work, in comparison. Another thing was that in Finland, teachers had to be in the top ranks of their classes in order to get into the highly selective teacher education colleges, and went through six or seven years of training before they were allowed to work teaching students, and they were paid accordingly. The American system doesn't demand enough respect or training for teachers, and therefore doesn't get high quality teachers everywhere.

The good news is that everywhere that Ripley went around the world, everyone thought that their education system was flawed and could be improved. So it's not all bad news for America--even in Finland, with consistently the highest rankings in education, people complain about how their schools work. So there is definitely work to do, but hopefully it is doable and possible. I thought this was a really interesting read, and I'm glad that I found out about it.

Book #12: All the Money in the World by Laura Vanderkam

I really liked 168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam, about managing your time, but I wasn't planning on ready her second book about money until I heard some good reviews about it. She doesn't get into the nitpicky details about how to manage your money, whether a 401(k) is better than an IRA or what sorts of stocks to invest in. She instead looks at research and people's experiences about how we can use our money in the optimal way to make us happier instead of always just stressing about money and focusing on how we don't have enough of it (which is probably an almost-universal worry). I liked this idea as her focus, and thought it would be worth checking out.

I enjoyed the book, but unfortunately, it still stressed me out about  money. One of the things she talks about a lot in the early chapters on making money is how we always focus on how to be frugal and scrimp and save the money that we have, but maybe it would be more efficient to focus on making more money instead of clipping coupons. We should figure out how to maximize our income instead. This makes a ton of sense, but this stresses me out because I'm on the verge of deciding whether or not to teach next semester and getting rid of the small amount of income I do bring in right now, and it was making me feel more and more guilty about even considering it. Vanderkam also advocates not getting rid of all of the "little pleasures" like lattes (for some people) that cost some pocket change but make you significantly happier. You should consider what spending gives you the most pleasure and allow yourself to continue that instead of torturing yourself and feeling deprived all the time. I liked that idea. Mostly, money is kind of stressing me out, with having goals of trying to save our money and use it appropriately, but I think some of the tips in this book are probably helpful in not just making the most money, but being happier about the money you have.

Book #11: Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

Maybe a year ago in North Carolina, a friend in our ward invited a lot of people over to watch the season premiere (or maybe finale?) of Call the Midwife on PBS. I'd heard of it before but never seen it, and wanted to go just for the girls' night out fun. I really enjoyed the episode we watched, but oh, I hate, hate, hate watching births. I am always so terrified that there's going to be a "twist" and the mom is going to get eclampsia (a la Downton) or the baby's going to die--and I hate imagining those possibilities when I'm in this childbearing phase of my life and going through pregnancies and births myself. So although I think I would like the show in general, I can't make myself watch any more of it because of the fear that it will be too realistic. But I have heard good reviews of the book and decided to check it out--because reading about births is so different than seeing them, and also because the historical setting makes it really fascinating to learn about this time and era that I've never thought much about (midwifery in 1950s East End London). I always love discovering these pockets of history that aren't part of the usual History-with-a-capital-H narrative--and of course, there are too many of those to count.

I really enjoyed reading Call the Midwife. Although there is a PBS series based on it, which makes you think it's fictional (and I'm sure the PBS series isn't all factual), the book is actually a memoir based on Jennifer Worth's true experiences as a midwife in London in the 1950s. The fact that it's all real and it truly happened, and that things really were that way at that time makes the book all the more fascinating. Worth (or, Jenny Lee at the time) lived in a convent with nuns who ran the midwife/nursing for the poor, slummy area of the East End, and she helped to take care of pregnant women and delivered babies in these crowded, dirty, dilapidated flats. The book is made up of stories of individual births and gritty experiences of the times, and also stories about the nuns and the other nurses who worked in the convent and the neighborhood. This is NOT necessarily a feed-good story though--there are some pretty sad/horrific chapters on prostitution (Worth meets and rescues a pregnant prostitute and hears her whole story), abuse, terrible living conditions. But there are also wonderful, happy people that she meets and sweet stories about happy, living babies and families. I thought it was a super interesting perspective and time in history, and I'm glad I got the chance to read it--but I don't feel the need to read the sequels (it's a trilogy).

Book #10: This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

Everything I've read by Ann Patchett has been the best. I love, love, love her beautiful writing style and how amazing her use of words is. Every time I read one of her books, I always mean to sit down and read more of them, until all the other books I have on my to-read list get in the way. This one has been on my list for a long, long time, and I've checked it out from the library more than once and had to return it without getting into it. This time, it's more than a week overdue and I just couldn't give it back without getting into it this time. I started it last night and finished it today--and absolutely loved it. This book, instead of being a complete novel or memoir, is a compilation of her nonfiction essays she'd written over the years (decades) and published in various magazines and journals. However, each of the chapters seem to work together to tell a complete story about her life, almost like this is a memoir that she happened to publish in pieces and separately over the years. I love the personal essay genre and Patchett has mastered it--a process she writes about in the introduction to the book, which was as interesting as the rest of the essays too. She writes different essays about her childhood, her dog, her bookstore, her writing process, her friend Lucy (who she wrote about in Truth and Beauty), her marriages and her husband. I loved it.

Book #9: The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry

I read most of this book while I was in the hospital with Graham, and finished it when I came home. I'd read several great reviews about this middle grade mystery novel, and it sounded funny and witty enough that I wanted to check it out myself. The book is set in the Victorian era, at a small girl's school called St. Etheldreda's, with only seven students. At the beginning of the novel, their headmistress and her brother both drop dead in the middle of dinner, and the seven girls decide to try and cover it up and live on their own without telling anyone so that they're not sent back home to live with their families. They bury the two bodies and try to hide the suspicions and also figure out who was responsible for the murders. They get into some misadventures and eventually stumble upon the real story of what happened.

I thought this book was pretty sweet and funny. I liked how the seven girls, who all had very different personalities and opinions about things, all loved each other and got along and called themselves "sisters." It was funny how each character was called by an adjective before their names: Smooth Kitty, Disgraceful Mary Jane, Pocked Alice--it helped you to keep all of them straight and to remember their backstories and what they were known for in the group (although it wasn't necessarily the most believable thing). I didn't love all the characters--Dour Elinor, for example, was obsessed with death and that was all she thought and talked about, and I found it annoying and unbelievable--but overall, the story was funny and it was a cute, quick read. I don't know how likely it is that a middle grades audience would enjoy this book, but it mostly worked for me.