Review: How Far Is the Ocean from Here

In How Far Is the Ocean from Here, author Amy Shearn examines the ripple effects of a single decision, and the unlikely relationships formed when strangers need a family more than they need familiarity.

Susannah Prue signed on to a be a surrogate to matter to someone, to get attention for doing a noble thing, to feel a part of something after a life of many nothings. In the weeks before the birth, in a moment of panic, Susannah leaves Chicago (and the baby's parents), heading on an impromptu road trip to see the desert, to see the ocean, to find herself.

When her car breaks down in the vast stretch of land linking Texas and New Mexico, she settles in at the Thunder Lodge as its only resident, hoping to buy herself some time to think. It is at this decrepit, sad motel that the motley cast of characters comes together. There are Char and Marlon Garland, proprietors of the lodge, and their mentally disabled son, Tim, to whom Susannah is immediately drawn. When Dicey joins them, as a respite on her way to deliver her niece, Frankie, to her father in Arizona, a family of sorts is formed.

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, the couple waiting for Susannah to deliver them a child, Julian and Kit, enter a new stage of waiting...and wondering how to get back the baby that belongs to them.

In the desert, time seems suspended, as the endless, dry days play out, repeating themselves over and over. But Susannah knows her due date looms, and that every day brings Julian and Kit closer to finding her. Again in a panic, she makes another rash decision that will alter the lives of everyone, with both disastrous and heart-warming results.

Have you ever read a book and imagined the movie version in your head?

That's how this book was for me from the very beginning. Perhaps it was the vivid descriptions of the desert landscape and the little motel in the middle of nowhere, or the peculiarity of the characters who could very easily come to life on a screen, or the relationships that were powerful and real enough to survive off of the page.

In her debut novel, Shearn paints with a unique brush a story that kept me wondering how it was all going to turn out, invested in every line.

A Crasis Crisis: Y'all vs. Ya'll

Last night, my husband and I met our weekly trivia group at a sports bar, and I learned a new word: crasis. It means: a contraction of two vowels (as the final and initial vowels of united words) into one long vowel, or into a diphthong (example: y'all).

What? There's a specific word that relates to one of my biggest pet peeves, and I just now learned it?

I can't stand it when I see y'all spelled ya'll. In my opinion, y'all is the combination of the phrase, typically Northern, "you all." When you take away the "ou" the apostrophe replaces it.

I'm constantly seeing references that use ya'll, and I just don't think it's grammatically correct...I think people just like the way it looks, for some reason, and don't think about the placement of the apostrophe as being a technical issue.

Just to tie this in to a book blog...Paula Deen's autobiography, edited and produced in the North, used ya'll throughout (I could barely make it through it). However, her magazine, edited and produced in the South, consistently uses y'all.

However, I recently got into a debate with a friend of my parents about this. He maintained:

The word ya'll isn't a contraction of the words "you all" as many people think. It is a word of other distinct origin, indigenous to the rural South: ye aw. This evolved in a modern-day variation of y'all, where some put the apostrophe after the "a" (ya'll). So, ya'll could be a contraction for ya all.

Also, I was raised also using ya'll as a contraction of the words "ya will" in which case the apostrophe would replace the "wi"...thus, ya'll.

I'm not at all convinced by his argument, but I'm opening this up for debate. Thoughts?

Preview of a Review: The Lace Reader

I wouldn't normally do this, but I'm so excited that The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry was released today. It's been getting tons of buzz, and I love the story behind the story.

From Publishers Weekly:

When Brunonia Barry’s debut The Lace Reader was self-published last year, a starred PW review and a bookseller buzz campaign helped it pop in the market--and land a $2 million republication deal with Morrow.

My first job in book publishing was as the editorial assistant to the editorial director of Pocket Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster). While I was there, she signed a contract with now-bestselling author Vince Flynn, who had self-published his first novel, Term Limits, in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area. Pocket re-published it, and he's since become a wildly successful author. So, I have a soft spot for self-published writers.

Here's the premise of The Lace Reader, courtesy of PW:

Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers, has survived numerous traumas and returned to her hometown of Salem, Mass., to recover. Any tranquility in her life is short-lived when her beloved great-aunt Eva drowns under circumstances suggesting foul play. Towner's suspicions are taken with a grain of salt given her history of hallucinatory visions and self-harm. The mystery enmeshes local cop John Rafferty, who had left the pressures of big city police work for a quieter life in Salem and now finds himself falling for the enigmatic Towner as he mourns Eva and delves into the history of the eccentric Whitney clan.

I've got this in my hands, and as soon as I finish How Far Is the Ocean From Here, I'm on it. Review to follow...

Review: House & Home

It's interesting that this week's Booking Through Thursday question (post here) asked about your favorite first line of a book, considering that the book I just finished, House & Home by Kathleen McCleary, had the best first page I've read in a long time:

"She had conceived children in that house, suffered a miscarriage in that house, brought her babies home there, argued with her husband there, made love, rejoiced, despaired, sipped tea, and gossiped and sobbed and counseled and blessed her friends there, walked the halls with sick children there, and scrubbed the worn brick of the kitchen floor there at least a thousand times on her hands and knees. And it was because of all this history with the house, all the parts of her life unfolding there day after day for so many years, that Ellen decided to burn it down."

Sold.

After an early married life of moving around frequently, Ellen Flanagan is quite comfortable in her Portland home of 12 years. And, for her two girls, it's the only home they've ever known. The house has been the scene for the pivotal moments in her life, but when her entrepreneur husband puts them in financial straights for yet another invention, Ellen believes she has no other option but to sell the house...and divorce her husband. However, is she really prepared to leave? It doesn't help that Ellen has strong feelings about the new owners and their plans to change her home completely once she's gone.

Her emotional ties to the house run very strong, stronger than I personally can imagine. But, I'm not very sentimental about houses. In fact, anyone who knows me knows that I would move tomorrow. Don't get me wrong...I like my house, but I'm always up for a change of scenery. I'm very comfortable being "at home," wherever that may be. It's just that the particular space is largely interchangeable to me.

That said, this was an enjoyable debut novel, and Kathleen McCleary is certainly an author to keep your eye on. This was a quick and easy read, ideal for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Sunday Salon: July 27

It's hard to believe I'm saying this, as a newspaper junkie, but in the few weeks I've been a part of the Sunday Salon community, I have been leaving the thick Sunday paper languishing in the yard until I've had my fill of book reviews with my morning coffee. It's incredibly relaxing to read about what other people are reading...I think it's a perfect way to begin the day.

Here's what I read this week:

1. Time Is a River by Mary Alice Monroe (review here)

2. The Condition by Jennifer Haigh (review here)

I'm almost done with House and Home by Kathleen McCleary...I have heard so much about this book, and I'm eager to throw my thoughts in the ring.

Up next: How Far Is the Ocean From Here by Amy Shearn

Review: The Condition by Jennifer Haigh

"To anyone who knew Turners syndrome, her condition was obvious. She was short but not petite; her broad chest seemed to be sized for a much taller person. Her short legs were thick and muscular. She had the powerful build of an Olympic child gymnast: the narrow hips, the shield chest."

Such describes Gwen, the middle child (and only daughter) in the McKotch family, sentenced to live her life as an adult forever stuck in a child's body.

At first glance, it appears that this is the condition for which the book is named...yet, when it comes down to it, "the condition" really describes the state of a fractured family, one torn apart by a physical condition yet remaining broken by emotional ones.

As the story begins, in 1976, the seed of "there's something wrong with Gwen" has just been planted, as the girl's smallness, at age 12, is suddenly painfully obvious. Life changes as the family knows it...this would be the last summer at the family's Cape Cod summer home, the last summer Paulette and Frank McKotch would be married, the last summer that everything would be normal.

Fast forward 20 years, where the bulk of the book takes place...Frank and Paulette McKotch are divorced, having not been able to weather the storm over their daughter's diagnosis and how to treat her. Oldest brother Billy is a doctor in New York, estranged from his father and carefully close to his mother. Youngest brother Scotty is the family's disappointment, long since relegated to the role as underachiever.

Gwen is living in her carefully constructed world, working in the dark basement of a Pittsburgh museum, where her size goes unnoticed. She's guarded and emotionally stunted, until a fateful and unexpected scuba diving trip shows her that she is capable of living large, despite her body.

This is a compelling book about how the condition of one child can forever alter the course of the family as a whole. Told from each family member's perspective, this engaging novel charts a family's journey toward understanding one another for who they are. I'm always a fan of family-related dramas, and this one didn't disappoint.

Booking Through Thursday: Beginnings

Here is this week's Booking Through Thursday question:

What are your favourite first sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its first sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the first line?

My first thought was, I have no idea. Nothing comes to mind. Curious, I pulled a dozen or so of my favorite books from the shelves to read the first line...nope. Nothing. They were certainly books that I love, but (apparently) it wasn't because of their first sentences.

However, I keep a quote book, and I do have favorite lines in general from books. I love that feeling when I read a line and I think, "This has to go in the book. Immediately."

In no particular order, here are five favorites:

"Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes.
Take their love."
(She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb)

"Bread was what you wanted over the long haul, when you got right down to it. When you got right down to it, you wouldn't want a lifetime of cake."
(Charming Billy by Alice McDermott)

"Take the green bowl. Take all the green bowls. Love what you love without apology."
(The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg)

"I want to inhabit my life like a porch."
(Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells)

"I was remembering the way it feels at just that moment when you begin to turn, when you're poised exactly between the things in life you want to do and those you need to do, and it seems for a few blessed seconds that they are going to be the same."
(While I Was Gone by Sue Miller)

So, faithful readers, I'd love to hear one of yours!

Review: Time Is a River

For the second installment in the Southern Summer Reading Challenge, I chose Time Is a River by Mary Alice Monroe.

I have no good reason why I haven't read anything by this author before. She seems very much along the same lines as Anne Rivers Siddons and Dorothea Benton Frank, both of whom I like very much, so I'm surprised that I haven't picked up one of her 10 previous novels, all set in the South.

Her latest is a captivating read, rich in details and full of small-town "Southern-ness."

Returning home to Charleston after a fly-fishing retreat for cancer survivors in North Carolina, Mia Landan finds her husband in their bed with another woman. Stricken, she goes to the first place she can think of...back to the site of the retreat. Her instructor, Belle Carson, loans her the old family cabin in the woods for the summer as a place to lick her wounds.

Belle's family is legendary in the small town, and as Mia settles into the cabin, restoring it to a liveable condition, she learns more and more about Kate Watkins, the previous inhabitant of the cabin and Belle's grandmother (and the subject of many long-held rumors).

In her journey back to herself, Mia develops independence, a love of fly fishing, and an understanding of (and kinship with) the woman many residents vilified and speculated about for years.

I really enjoyed Monroe's writing style. I felt very connected to her thorough descriptions...I could really visualize the cabin going from shabby to sparkling, I could smell the woods, and I could hear the river. Her words brought the book to life off of the paper.

I think this should make your TBR list, particularly if you are a Southerner. I will definitely check out her other books.

Sunday Salon: July 20

I spent last weekend in Nashville working a trade show, so I missed the Salon. Being gone for four days, especially over a weekend, seriously cut into my reading time, but I managed to sneak a little time in at the Opryland Hotel pool.

So, here's what I have reviewed since my last SS post.

• How Perfect Is That by Sarah Bird (review here)
• So Long at the Fair by Christina Schwarz (review here)
• Cost by Roxana Robinson (review here)

I have just started my second book in the Southern Summer Reading Challenge, Time Is a River by Mary Alice Monroe. It looks like an easy read, so expect a review by the end of the day.

I hope everyone has a great Sunday. I'm looking forward to seeing what you all are reading. If you get a chance, let me know if you have a good addition to my TBR pile.

Update: I ended up going to see Mamma Mia! with my mom (so good!) this afternoon, so I got off my reading for awhile, but I'm almost done with Time Is a River, so expect a review tomorrow.

Review: Cost

I am drawn to the show Intervention on A&E. It sucks me in every time, and I get wrapped up in the addict's story and the emotional effect on his or her family.

Reading Cost, by Roxana Robinson, was like reading a transcript of an episode of this show.

It is the story of a young man with a life-threatening addition to heroin and his family's desperate measures to save him.

Artist and professor Julia Lambert is enjoying the last few weeks of vacation at her summer home in Maine with her aging parents. She is awaiting the arrival of her older son, Steven, who is traveling across the country from Seattle. However, when Steven arrives, having stopped to visit his younger brother in Brooklyn on the way, he brings with him disturbing news...that he believes Jack is a heroin addict.

The family, including the boys' father (and Julia's ex-husband), must rally together to fight for Jack's life. But, is it too late?

Told from each family member's perspective, the book is powerful, gritty, and emotional. I found myself as anxious as the characters themselves, with a knot in my stomach as they struggled not only with Jack's addition, but also the fractured relationships among them.

My favorite part of watching Intervention is the black screen that comes up at the end, updating viewers on where the addict is now (thankfully, it's far more often positive than not). As I neared the end of Cost, I was holding my breath to see what the book's black screen would say.

I highly recommend this book.