Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

For some reason I am drawn to books by Indian women about their experiences with their culture and their experiences with immigration. This is one that feels a lot like Jhumpa Lahiri to me, because it was very well-written and succeeded on a deeper level with themes about mothers and daughters and their problems and relationships. The story covered three generations of women in the same family, and each chapter was from a different perspective, either the grandmother, mother, or daughter, or one of the men from their lives. Each chapter jumps around chronologically as well, so you learn different things about the women at different times in their lives, and goes between India and Texas, where the mother and daughter live. I started this a few weeks ago and stopped reading in the first chapter because I could tell the story in that chapter was going to end badly, and I didn't want to deal with the bad news at the end of the chapter, but once I picked it up again tonight I made it through and read the whole book. It was so sad to me how these relationships between mothers and daughters were so affected by the mistakes they had made, and how the expectations that others (particularly men) had of them. I felt so sad seeing how each of them had to make a mess of their own lives and then had to figure out how to pick back up and continue on.

I really enjoyed this one and I think it was well worth the read. It definitely made me think and was very well done.

HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Method by Marie F. Mongan

I haven't read any birth books since I was pregnant with Dane. I figured once I had done it once I was fine and wouldn't need to change what I was already doing. However, I've been thinking about having this baby naturally, without medication. This is a HUGE shift from where I was even a few years ago, because I've never been interested in trying it or feeling a lot of pain. But I don't know why--I feel like I would like to try having this experience that is a huge part of being a woman. I have been really lucky in that I have hardly had any pain in any of my labors at all--my contractions have never hurt until after my water is broken, and then I've only felt a few contractions before my epidural kicks in, and I have never had any negative side effects from my epidurals. My labors have also gotten faster and faster--it took less than an hour after my water was broken until Lucy was born. So I think I'm a great candidate for a natural birth.

I just wanted to be ready for it and to figure out what I could do to prepare. Several friends who have had babies naturally recommended this book to me. Marie Mongan basically says that everyone can give birth without any pain as long as you stay relaxed and breathe correctly. I was annoyed by her tone in this book for a lot of the time--she basically argues that everything everyone believes about birth is a social construct (like pain, needing to push the baby out, the very idea of birth being hard) and that if we just use our mind to relax our bodies and not feel any fear, then we will have a magical, calm, easy birth. I do think she's probably right about relaxing and that allowing you to give birth more smoothly and easily, and I really appreciate the specific types of breathing and ideas that can help you get through labor. But I feel like she goes way too far in some of her claims, she doesn't provide any actual evidence of her claims (no science here), and the way she writes about birth will definitely make some women feel shamed or guilty if they have a bad experience or if it doesn't go perfectly smoothly like she promises. I definitely plan to try and incorporate the breathing and relaxing, and have been practicing every day for the last week or so, but I also plan to ignore some of her more obnoxious ideas and opinions, and probably go halfway. I also expect it to be pretty painful, but hopefully manageable with these breathing techniques. I am tough, I think I can do this.

The Work and the Glory 5: A Season of Joy by Gerald N. Lund

I really enjoyed this book as much as I did the last one. I like how Lund focused a lot on the Steeds and their family drama (is that super shallow of me, that I want to see a lot of the fictional stuff in with the more dry Church history?). I love how this book covers the beginning of Nauvoo and a lot of the missionary work in England. It seems like a peaceful time in Church history--other than the horrible malaria epidemic that swept through their community the first summer they were there. I remember sobbing the first two times I read this book when I was younger when the young Nathan died (I do hate that part). But the story about how Joseph came through healing people is so inspiring and amazing to read afterwards. I love Will's storyline in this book as well, and the cute little love triangle that develops.

My main complaint for this book: I feel like people swing so violently in their emotions in this series. Like Lydia is so sad about losing her child (as she should be), but after a few months in Palmyra, she feels all better and young Nathan is never mentioned again. She doesn't need any more time to heal, she's all good now. Joshua is another example--he went from hating his family to now living with them and being BFFs and working together all the time. It doesn't seem to cause any issues (other than he doesn't want to get baptized or let his wife get baptized). It just seems like it would be more believable if people didn't make such a quick recovery or complete shift in their beliefs and behaviors after one strong experience. But I suppose that would be a much more difficult thing to portray, and Lund has a lot of characters he's writing about.

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

I listened to this book a few years ago, but I suggested it for a book club read for my book club next month, and read it again today. It was just as good as I remembered it, and so amazing in so many ways. I love the perspective this book gives on WWII for a kid. I've read about the evacuation of kids from London, but this book gives such a great picture of what that was like, and there are bits and pieces about searching for spies and hiding in their bomb shelter from bombs. I also love how well this book does at depicting a child's reaction to trauma and her whole childhood of being abused and mistreated. Obviously I hate to think of children being treated this way, but it doesn't feel hopeless in this book because the book is the story of how she gets out of that situation. But I really appreciate how this book does not sugarcoat how Ada's recovery and adaptation to life in a healthy environment will go. It really bugs me when characters get over things so quickly, but even as Ada makes progress, she has moments when she falls back and where she still doesn't trust anyone. I felt like being in Ada's head was so raw and real, and I really liked how well Bradley did this. This book is exceptionally good, one that I hope my boys will read when they get a little older.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I have heard about this for the last year, like everyone else, because I'm pretty sure every person everywhere has read it. But I'd pretty much decided I wasn't going to bother reading it, until my OB brought me her copy of this book because she'd seen me reading at my appointments and said, "I loved this book; you need to read it!" Since she remembered and gave me her copy to read, I wanted to follow through with her, because it was so nice of her. I read it in just two days, and actually was surprised by how much I liked it. The story follows Kya, who is abandoned by her family and left alone at the age of 7 to live in a shack on the marsh of North Carolina, and is kind of a mix of her coming-of-age, a romance, a murder mystery, and a natural history of the marshes all mixed together in one. I thought the descriptions of the marsh and the nature writing were the best part of this book; Owens is a nature non-fiction writer by trade (and this is her first novel) so you can tell that this is her powerhouse. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the marsh and how the marsh was basically a character in the book.

The thing that put me off this book was the clunky dialogue and characters. I didn't notice the dialogue being a problem during the first half of the book--probably because Kya was a child and so it didn't seem as awkward--but once the romances started happening, I was super annoyed by the awkward things the characters were saying. It was hard for me to focus on the story because I was so distracted by the unbelievable things they were saying. The two male love interests were so one-dimensional; one was all good and one was all bad. And Kya didn't seem as damaged or as affected by her childhood and history of being abandoned one by one by each of her family members and everyone who she loved as she should have been. I read someone's review saying that she was a cousin of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl--the Shy Damaged Brilliant Wild Girl. And that's exactly what I thought about Kya. She went to one day of school but was taught how to read and became this amazing naturalist just by reading biology textbooks, and was so gorgeous that every man who sees her loves her.

But I got sucked in to the story and couldn't put it down. Even with the things that were bothering me, I had to finish it (even though it was kind of obvious where it was going). It was still a good read.

The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

I was so confused while reading most of this book, because I definitely had strong memories of reading a book about Doctor Dolittle as a kid, and some of the things in this book rang some bells in my head, but I definitely didn't remember this story. I didn't realize until afterwards that the book that we had when I was younger was The Stories of Dr. Dolittle, the prequel to this one. This one was written a few years after, but had a few references to things from that book--I strongly remembered the "pushmi-pullyu," a two-headed animal he discovered in Africa, and the parrot Polynesia and the gorilla Chee-Chee. This book was different because it was narrated by a nine-year-old boy who becomes the doctor's assistant and goes on a journey to Brazil with him, where they visit a floating island and become a part of a tribe living there for a few months. As a kid, I think the most appealing part of this story is Dr. Dolittle's ability to talk the languages of the animals. That is definitely true in this book as well; the animals become major characters in the story and have strong personalities. However, reading this book as an adult, it's hard to ignore the imperialism and the negative attitudes towards people of other races and countries. Dr. Dolittle becomes this white savior for the natives living on this floating island--he teaches them how to make fire and they make him their king because they think he is so amazing... it's a little hard to swallow in today's day and age. I don't know that this is one I would read to my kids; I feel like it would take a lot of explanation to make me feel good about it. But that's what happens with books that are 100 years old.

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck

I loved A Long Way from Chicago so much that I read this one in the same night, one after the other. And this one was just as much fun. This book is told from the perspective of Mary Alice, instead of her brother, Joey. Mary Alice is coming for a whole year to live with her grandma, because it is the middle of the Depression and her parents lost their jobs and can't afford to have her live with them for the year. She isn't super excited to live in this tiny podunk town for her junior year of high school. But she has all sorts of adventures and learning experiences ahead of her in store with her grandma. Grandma stays the most interesting and hilarious character--she is willing to steal people's pumpkins but then she also will extract money from people to give to a poor woman who has no income. She is crazy and hilarious and stubborn and always surprising. I loved this book just as much as A Long Way from Chicago and I think both of them were worthy reads for sure. I'm super happy to have both of them on our bookshelf, and I know Dane will love them when he gets older.

A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck

This book was such a great happy surprise to me. I was hesitant to read this because it is a prequel to a Newbery award winner, so I felt like I had to read it in order to get to the winner itself, but I hate to waste time reading something I know nothing about. But I loved, loved, loved this book. It was hilarious, so funny, and had so much spirit and spunk that I couldn't put it down. The book is about a boy, Joey, and his sister, Mary Alice, who go to stay with their grandmother for one week every summer, and each chapter is about their visit each year, and what crazy things happen with their grandmother in her small town. Their grandmother is one of the best characters I've read in a long time. She's totally independent, a woman of few words, insanely tough, but also surprisingly softhearted and does all these good deeds you never expect from someone like her. Every time Joey and Mary Alice go down there, they never know what is going to happen or what crazy thing is going to happen next. I was laughing out loud over and over again at each and every chapter. The book felt like parts of To Kill a Mockingbird to me, just the parts of being in a small town (although this one is in Illinois, not Alabama, and there's no social justice aspect to this story), but the parts that I love about that book. This was such a pleasure to read and I am so glad I made the time for it.

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

I feel like it is inadequate to label this book as just "fiction," but I don't have a tab for "Christian meditations" or anything like that. This is classic C. S. Lewis, a novel that seems like an allegory of some sort, where a man gets on a bus that takes him from hell to heaven, and he sees all sorts of people trying to get into heaven and what sorts of problems they have there. I didn't really get into this one as much as I did The Screwtape Letters, though, although this seems like a similar style, and there were definitely huge moments of light, which Lewis does so well. I think part of my problem with it was that I was trying to go quickly instead of being willing to sit and savor it, which means I didn't really get as much out of it as I could have. But I did underline plenty of parts in it for us to talk about at our book club next week. I am glad to have read another Lewis book, which has been on my bookshelf for years and which I've never bothered to read until now.

The Work and the Glory 4: Thy Gold to Refine by Gerald N. Lund

This book was my favorite of the series so far. Lund has definitely improved as a writer, and also--this book is heavy on the Steed family drama and less on the church history as a whole... which doesn't mean that I don't like the Church history aspect of it, but some of it was really dry in the first couple of books. I think he's maybe figured out better how to incorporate the Steeds into these major Church history events without making it a big narrative production. I kind of hate the whole Caroline/Will storyline in this book, to imagine how terrifying it must have been for them and how dramatic it has to be, for them to not know where Will was at the end of the book. I do think the Haun's Mill and Far West and traveling to Quincy part of this book was very well done and very interesting. Moving on to the fifth one soon, after I've gotten through a few other books I've had on my shelf for a while.

The Work and the Glory 3: Truth Will Prevail by Gerald N. Lund

I feel like Gerald N. Lund is really hitting his stride in this book. I love the Joshua storyline in this book. Although, similar to my complaints about the second book, part of me feels like Joshua's character development is so rapid that it's almost like whiplash. He goes from being the bitter, angry character we've seen all of the other books, to being a loving husband and loving his family again. It just feels like it should take longer and more than a few talks with his new wife to help him shift so drastically. But obviously, I am on board with Nicer Joshua, and I love the romance between him and Caroline, and of course the Steed family council at the end of the book was super sweet and touching. I also love the storyline of the missionaries to England, and finding Derek and Peter Ingalls, and Nathan's mission to Canada as well. It is really helpful to add more characters to the story and to see additional places where the Saints were. I found myself skimming some of the sections about the uprisings going on in Kirtland, though, because they seemed overblown and annoying (but that probably had more to do with the subject matter itself instead of the writing). I think this book was the best one yet.

New Kid by Jerry Craft

This is a graphic novel that won the Newbery, which I'm guessing is a first. I really enjoyed reading this though. It is not something that I would have picked up otherwise (surprisingly, I'm not the most into graphic novels) but I liked how this one was a super realistic book, based on a kid going to a new private school in New York City and being one of the only people of color at the whole school. You see everything through Jordan's perspective and all of the micro-agressions the few people of color have to deal with at his school. He slowly makes friends with kids, starts to get to know the school, and adjusts to this new life of his. But not everything is resolved; you can tell that these issues will continue for the next year, but Jordan is ready for it. I really liked seeing everything from Jordan's perspective, and thought this book was funny, interesting, and believable. It was definitely a good read.

Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly

I thought this book was adorable and so well-done. I listened to it on audio, and the narration was awesome. But the book would have been just as good reading it. I loved all of the characters--Virgil, Valencia, and Kaori--and how you kind of learned about them slowly, from each of their own perspectives. I liked how diverse the characters were, including Valencia's deafness, and how normal they all were and not just stereotypes of their diversity splashed on the page. I also liked how creative the story was, and how the book turned into a rescue story, and how the three of them became friends through this wacky adventure. I really enjoyed this and thought it was a great Newbery.

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

I loved this cute middle-grade novel about a girl whose parents get a job running a motel in Anaheim in the early nineties. She and her parents have moved from China to America and are working super hard, dead-end jobs to make ends meet. I loved the look of this immigrant family, and how hard it was for them being poor, and how so many other people were in their same situation at this time. But the book was also about Mia, a fifth-grader who has to learn to adapt and help out and still do well in school, even with all of these things going on in her home. I loved Mia's character, and how much she wanted to help and work, and how she took injustices and problems to heart and was determined to solve them. Mia had real problems, like coming home from school and finding her mom beat up by someone coming to try and rob the hotel, not like some of the manufactured problems that kids deal with in some books (or in their real lives here).. I thought this was a great story, and though the ending seemed a little "too good to be true," I found out there was a sequel that continues Mia's story and shows that it wasn't all perfect after this all.