Category Archives: Books

What I’m Reading: All Fall Down

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What I'm Reading copy

From Goodreads.com:
Allison Weiss has a great job…a handsome husband…an adorable daughter…and a secret.

Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, aging parents, a demanding daughter, and a marriage. But when the website she develops takes off, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed. Her husband’s becoming distant, her daughter’s acting spoiled, her father is dealing with early Alzheimer’s, and her mother’s barely dealing at all. As she struggles to hold her home and work life together, and meet all of the needs of the people around her, Allison finds that the painkillers she was prescribed for a back injury help her deal with more than just physical discomfort—they help her feel calm and get her through her increasingly hectic days. Sure, she worries a bit that the bottles seem to empty a bit faster each week, but it’s not like she’s some Hollywood starlet partying all night, or a homeless person who’s lost everything. It’s not as if she has an actual problem.

However, when Allison’s use gets to the point that she can no longer control—or hide—it, she ends up in a world she never thought she’d experience outside of a movie theater: rehab. Amid the teenage heroin addicts, the alcoholic grandmothers, the barely-trained “recovery coaches,” and the counselors who seem to believe that one mode of recovery fits all, Allison struggles to get her life back on track, even as she’s convincing herself that she’s not as bad off as the women around her.

With a sparkling comedic touch and tender, true-to-life characterizations, All Fall Down is a tale of empowerment and redemption and Jennifer Weiner’s richest, most absorbing and timely story yet.

My review:
I was really looking forward to this new book by Jennifer Weiner. It had been a while since I had read of of her novels, so when I caught wind last year that All Fall Down was being released in 2014, I got pretty excited for it.

As a whole, I thought All Fall Down was a decent read. I wanted the main character, Allison, to “win”, but I had a hard time sympathizing for her. Her situation really wasn’t as awful as she made it out to be; she just seemed like your typical Desperate/Real Housewife. Her “woe is me” story didn’t phase on me at all and I think she got off a little too easily with her mistakes. She lost nothing because of her mistakes, other than perhaps her husband, but it seemed like that was bound to happen regardless of her behaviours.

That’s not to say that the hidden message within the pages of the book isn’t important. Allison was lucky enough to be addicted to “just painkillers” before she got carried away into a darker world of heavier substances. I think the story could have been a bit more intense if Allison really did have a true “rock bottom.” Like I said before, other than her marriage, which was seemingly already circling the drain, and perhaps some serious judgement from her daughter’s teacher, Allison didn’t lose anything.

Maybe that’s the point that Weiner was trying to get across – that sometimes we don’t really notice how good we actually have it until you’re surround by others who are less fortunate.

It was different to read something other than your stereotypical chick-lit from Weiner, but refreshing as well. I like surprises from authors, and while I didn’t LOVE love All fall down, I did enjoy it overall. I’m going to give it 3 out of 5 stars. I felt a little duped at the end, that the story could have gone on for a couple more chapters so it didn’t feel like there were so many loose ends.

What I’m Reading: The One and Only

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What I'm Reading

From Goodreads:
Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade.

But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets.

Thoughtful, funny, and brilliantly observed, The One & Only is a luminous novel about finding your passion, following your heart, and, most of all, believing in something bigger than yourself . . . the one and only thing that truly makes life worth living.

My review:
The One and Only is definitely different from Emily Giffin’s other works, and so I had a hard time adjusting to it. Not that it was a bad book; I really enjoyed the main storyline and Shea’s battle to figure out what – and who – she really wants in life. What I didn’t like, and it totally doesn’t take away from how good the book is, was the football lingo and talk. I’m not a football fan in the very least, so a lot of the dialogue in that regard bored me a little.

But still, I found myself not able to put the book down and read it all within a week. (Not bad when you have a toddler!) I couldn’t wait to learn which path Shea decided to take, though it was a little obvious to me which one she would ultimately end up on in the end.

So, in the end, did I LOVE love this book? Well sadly, not really. But did I enjoy reading it? Of course! Overall, I give it 4 stars out of 5. I just couldn’t relate to all the football talk, especially at the college level, but it was still a good story.

What I’m Reading: The Storyteller

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What I'm Reading

From Goodreads.com:
Sage Singer befriends an old man who’s particularly beloved in her community. Josef Weber is everyone’s favorite retired teacher and Little League coach. They strike up a friendship at the bakery where Sage works. One day he asks Sage for a favor: to kill him. Shocked, Sage refuses…and then he confesses his darkest secret – he deserves to die, because he was a Nazi SS guard. Complicating the matter? Sage’s grandmother is a Holocaust survivor.

What do you do when evil lives next door? Can someone who’s committed a truly heinous act ever atone for it with subsequent good behavior? Should you offer forgiveness to someone if you aren’t the party who was wronged? And most of all – if Sage even considers his request – is it murder, or justice?

My review:
I don’t read much of Jodi Picoult’s work – My Sister’s Keeper was the only other work I’ve read by her. Regardless, I heard a lot about The Storyteller and the description sounded interesting. so I thought I’d give it a go. (I’m also a bit of a sucker for historical fiction, if there is such a genre.)

The Storyteller has a little bit of everything, and I really enjoyed reading every part of it. From Sage to Minka to Josef/Reiner to Leo … their stories were wonderful. Especially Minka and Josef’s. While the book itself is fiction, you know that their stories are probably very true in regards to the Holocaust.  I couldn’t pull myself away from reading what their lives were like during the war, as hard as it was sometimes.

Even the story within the story – the one of Ania and Aleks – was good to read.

I couldn’t help but like Sage. Between her trying to figure out what to do with Josef’s request, to figuring out what love really is, I couldn’t help but cheer for her.

I really don’t have too much else to say about The Storyteller other that it was really just great to read. I give it 5 stars out of 5!