"Waiting On" Wednesday: Handle With Care

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Handle With Care

By Jodi Picoult

Publication Date: March 3

From Publishers Weekly:

"Perennial bestseller Picoult delivers another engrossing family drama, spiced with her trademark blend of medicine, law and love. Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's daughter, Willow, was born with brittle bone disease, a condition that requires Charlotte to act as full-time caregiver and has strained their emotional and financial limits. Willow's teenaged half-sister, Amelia, suffers as well, overshadowed by Willow's needs and lost in her own adolescent turmoil. When Charlotte decides to sue for wrongful birth in order to obtain a settlement to ensure Willow's future, the already strained family begins to implode. Not only is the defendant Charlotte's longtime friend, but the case requires Charlotte and Sean to claim that had they known of Willow's condition, they would have terminated the pregnancy, a statement that strikes at the core of their faith and family."

I haven't read everything Picoult has written, but I loved My Sister's Keeper and The Pact. I wasn't a huge fan of her most recent, Change of Heart, but I'm looking forward to her latest release next spring.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Leave a comment with either the link to your own "Waiting On" Wednesday post or just your answer (if you don't have a blog).

100th Post!

Six months, 100 posts...! Yea! What a way to end the year!

I started this blog on June 9, just on a whim, and quickly got hooked on tracking what I read. Who knew it would be so much fun?

I launched "Waiting On" Wednesday on August 20 to spotlight soon-to-be-released books that I'm much anticipating. My thanks to everyone who participates in this event! I hope you're having as much fun choosing your weekly selections as I am.

When I started back to work full-time in August, after working from home for the past five years, my reading (and, subsequently, my posting) took a hit. But, I've started to discover my rhythm and how to balance 40 hours a week in the office again with the rest of my life. Wow. How quickly I forgot how to juggle it all.

I'm re-learning how to make it all work, so you'll see more posting, and more reviews, in 2009.

I really appreciate everyone who follows Breaking the Spine and takes time to visit and comment! A special shout-out goes to Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Reading? for being the first one to comment on my blog and offer such a warm welcome into this amazing community of book bloggers.

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Local News

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

The Local News

By Miriam Gershow

Publication Date: February 24

From Publishers Weekly:

"Bright, precocious but socially awkward Lydia Pasternak reports on the aftermath of her older brother’s disappearance in Gershow’s accomplished debut. Danny was everything Lydia wasn’t: at ease with their parents, popular in school, physically imposing, beloved by the opposite sex. Danny went from being Lydia’s playmate in their youth to her tormentor in high school, so his disappearance leaves Lydia with some very mixed feelings, one of which is relief. Lydia’s perspective gives this Lovely Bones–esque story line an unflinching quality as she details the emotional damage that reverberates even through her 10-year high school reunion."

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Leave a comment with either the link to your own "Waiting On" Wednesday post or just your answer (if you don't have a blog).

"Waiting On" Wednesday: The Sweet By and By

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

The Sweet By and By
By Todd Johnson

Publication Date: February 17

From Publishers Weekly:

"Johnson's bittersweet and often humorous hen-lit debut portrays the lives of five very different Southern women: compassionate Lorraine, bossy Margaret, grief-stricken Bernice, ambitious April and brusque Rhonda. At the center of this character-driven novel is Lorraine, a nurse at the nursing home where Margaret and Bernice live. As the three women drift into friendship, hairdresser Rhonda arrives to take a part-time job, and the older women begin to change her life. Lorraine's daughter, April, meanwhile, is also gradually drawn into the circle. The story unfolds slowly over decades and life milestones, giving the characters plenty of time to reveal themselves. The underlying message of the power of love and friendship resonates, as does its depiction of the way in which people leading unremarkable lives can have a tremendous impact on those around them."

An author's debut? Southern fiction? I'm all about that.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Leave a comment with either the link to your own "Waiting On" Wednesday post or just your answer (if you don't have a blog).

Sunday Salon: Best Fiction of 2008

It's that time of year, and everyone is weighing in on the best fiction releases of 2008. Here's a roundup of five lists:

1. Publishers Weekly

2. Library Journal
Of this list, I read All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (review here), Cost (review here), and Olive Kitteridge (brief review here).

3. Washington Post
I read America, America (review here), Goldengrove (review here), and The House on Fortune Street (before my blog launch). Olive Kitteridge made their list as well.

4. New York Times

5. Amazon

I may need to add a few of these to my TBR, given that there are lots of titles on these lists that I didn't read. One consistent inclusion was Home by Marilynne Robinson, which I just couldn't get through.

I'm curious...what did you think was overlooked that made your personal list of best fiction this year?

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Bridge of Sand

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Bridge of Sand

By Janet Burroway
Publication Date: March 25

From Books-A-Million:

"In this beautifully written novel, Burroway uses a woman's personal loss, coincident with 9/11, to explore race, territory and renewal. Dana, the widow of a Pennsylvania senator, buries her husband the morning of 9/11, only miles from the United 93 crash. After months of paralysis, she sells her house and heads south in an effort to pick up the lost strands of her youth. Set amid the blur of 9/11, this wise, beautifully written novel of love, race, territory, and renewal explores the issues that challenge us all."

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Leave a comment with either the link to your own "Waiting On" Wednesday post or just your answer (if you don't have a blog).

"Waiting On" Wednesday: Life Without Summer

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

Life Without Summer
By Lynne Griffin
Publication Date: April 14

From Publishers Weekly:

"Griffin’s fiction debut is a spellbinding tale of loss and hard-won redemption. When Tessa Gray’s four-year-old daughter, Abby, is killed by a hit and run driver, there are no witnesses. From first meeting, Tessa distrusts the detective assigned to the case and, with her journalism background and ties to newspapers in nearby Boston, she begins to dig for her own answers to the identity of Abby’s killer. Meanwhile, she vents her grief with Celia, a compassionate but reserved therapist. Outside therapy, Celia’s and Tessa’s narratives remain separate until they shockingly intersect and lead the way to hard-won healing for both. Griffin’s carefully crafted characters ring heartbreakingly true and her finely wrought plot will snare readers from the first page."

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Leave a comment with either the link to your own "Waiting On" Wednesday post or just your answer (if you don't have a blog).

Sunday Salon: Book Blogging

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

There is something that I have been meaning to address on the blog, so I'm going to take TSS to do so. There has been lots of buzz recently in the book blogging community over the issue of Advance Review Copies and whether the acceptance of them obligates one to a positive review (my brief opinion: it doesn't).

I have never gotten into the ARC process, simply because my reading list is full enough as it is, and I didn't want the responsibility of moving these to the top of my list to ensure a timely review. I was concerned that it could be a Pandora's Box for me...that once I opened that door, it would dominate my TBR list.

That said, with my experience in the book publishing industry, I completely understand the importance of ARCs in the reviewing process. I just have chosen to stay out of this particular arena.

This brings up another point. You will notice that my site features predominantly positive reviews. That is by design. When I launched this site, it was primarily as a means to provide recommendations to friends. I was reading so many books that they were starting to run together, so I started the blog to keep up with the great fiction I was reading and pass it along.

I quickly found that when I finished a book I didn't like, when I sat down to write the review, I questioned myself. If this is a book that I wouldn't recommend, why am I spending time writing a less-than-favorable review? (And, because I don't accept ARCs, I'm under no pressure to review every book I read, favorably or not.)

I address this because I have realized that the positive reviews could potentially discredit the site in a reader's mind...as in, "She couldn't possibly enjoy every book she's reading." I'm not...there are many books that I read and don't like, and many that I don't even finish. I'm just posting about the ones I want to recommend to others.

This is purely a personal decision, and I don't fault blogs with a mix of good and bad reviews at all. That is what makes this community so vibrant and diverse, that we have the freedom to craft our blogs as we choose to reflect our own personalities and objectives.

I'd love to hear the thoughts of other bloggers out there...good or bad! :)

Review: Kissing Games of the World

"You know what freedom is? It's something people say they want when they're afraid they can't have what we all really crave: somebody to love. You think love is just these little, these little kissing games of the world you play..."

In Kissing Games of the World, author Sandi Kahn Shelton details an unconventional family, making their way through life, without the typical parameters of what defines a household.

Jamie, an artist and a single mom, is raising her five-year-old son, Arley, in the same house as Harris, a 60-something construction worker raising his five-year-old grandson, Christopher, on his family's Connecticut farm.

The group came together in the most unlikely of ways, but despite the unusual conditions, their situation works...and there's nothing physical to it, despite what everyone in town speculates. Arley and Christopher are best friends, raised like brothers, with the four coming as close to a family as any of them has ever known.

The two have complicated pasts, with Jamie having moved to Connecticut to escape a relationship with an unpredictable graffiti artist who is unfit to parent their child, and Harris having taken on his grandson when his equally unpredictable son, Nate, is unable to raise him after his wife's sudden death. For Harris, it's a way to make right his past, having left his wife and young son years earlier.

But, when Harris up and dies one day from a heart attack, Jamie's carefully constructed world is thrown up in the air. Her permission to stay on in the house is questioned, especially when Nate returns to (somewhat reluctantly) collect his son and settle his father's estate. Nate is estranged from the family, having spent the past five years on the road as a successful salesman, but with no stability and no knowledge of how to reacquaint himself with his son and raise him in his chaotic lifestyle.

Nate takes Christopher on the road with him, and Jamie and Arley move back into her sister's condo...and they try to navigate in their new worlds, with hits and misses along the way.

This book is both heart-breaking and heart-warming, and Shelton's writing is immediately engaging and sustains itself throughout. She makes us care about all of these characters...and keep caring about them even through questionable decisions and actions.

There is a lot of emotion here, with the breakup of the two close-knit boys, each having already experienced a fair amount of loss in their short lifetimes. At its heart, though, are the journeys and evolutions of Jamie and Nate, as they struggle to find out who they really are and what they really want, and need, from life.

I'm going to have to go back and read Shelton's earlier work, What Comes After Crazy and A Piece of Normal now that she is on my radar. Highly recommended...

"Waiting On" Wednesday: True Colors

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:

True Colors
By Kristin Hannah
Publication Date: February 3

From Books a Million:

"The Grey sisters had only each other when their mother died years ago. Their father provided for them physically on Water's Edge, the ranch that had been in their family for three generations, each of them however, longed for their father's love. Winona, the oldest, knew early on that she could never get it. An overweight dreamer and reader, she didn't exhibit the kinds of talents and strengths her father valued. Vivi Anne, the youngest, had those things. And it was Vivi Anne who only ever saw a glimmer of their father's approval. When Vivi Anne makes a fateful decision to follow her heart, rather than take the route of a dutiful daughter, events are set in motion that will test the love and loyalties of the Grey sisters. With breathtaking pace and penetrating insight, this is a novel about sisters, vengeance, rivalry, betrayal and, ultimately, what it truly means to be a family."

This is a little "lighter" type of read for me, but I read Hannah's Firefly Lane earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I have her latest on my list.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week?

Leave a comment with either the link to your own "Waiting On" Wednesday post or just your answer (if you don't have a blog).