Raising My Rainbow - Lori Duron

Raising My Rainbow: Adventures in Raising a Fabulous, Gender Creative Son

by Lori Duron

I think I have been putting off writing this post because I don't know how I can do justice to Lori and C.J. and all the other people in this book and the people not in this book and...see I'm already starting to ramble.

Lori is a fierce mom who not only stands up for both her boys but has made it her mission to make sure she is doing the best she can for her gender creative younger son. She attempts to become an expert and it all started with a barbie. So C.J. wanted a barbie, was that okay? Should she let him have it? Would it harm him to say no? What about to say yes? She talked to her husband, her brother, a therapist.

"I finally gave up and shook my head in disapproval at myself because I was a mother who had her son evaluated by a doctor because he liked the color pink more than the color blue."
pg. 25

Every time I picked up the book I cried at least once and laughed at least twice. There is so much emotion and truth to Lori's story, because it is Lori's story. Yes, she is telling C.J.'s story but it's not just about him. It's about her fears and doubts when she makes decisions for her children. She is telling the story of parenting, she just has an extra layer on top and it happens to be covered in glitter. She is also telling the story of her older son Chase, who was bullied so severely that he stated "I want to kill myself so that all the fear and anxiety leaves my body. Then I want to be alive again."

The book will break your heart but it will also heal it because Lori never stops fighting. The book started because of her blog and on her blog she is still sharing her fight. Just last week she shared her struggle at a PTA meeting and the backlash she dealt with afterwards.

She does her best; she makes mistakes. It's not always pretty (although it is usually funny). On of my favorite moments was when she told C.J. he couldn't buy princess underwear because there wouldn't be room for his wiener and balls and it might hurt them. And they stared at each other. I don't know why the stare got to me but I could picture the moment and it cracked me up. And then this happened...

"I turned to see where Chase had wandered off to when I heard...
'Mommy, will these hurt my wiener and balls?!'
I turned to look. C.J. was standing about six feet away from me, in plain view of the entire line, and holding up a package of Little Mermaid underwear.
Chase returned to my side quickly, mortified.
I waved C.J. over because I couldn't think of anything else to do. I waved him over more quickly. He interpreted my wave to mean I can't hear you. Say it louder.'I SAID, WILL THESE HURT MY WIENER AND BALLS?!' He enunciated perfectly and yelled loudly."
pg. 138

This book rocked my world, and it's not just me. On vacation recently, I handed the book to my friend, opened to the princess underwear section and told her to read. She didn't want to give the book back. She kept it so long, she passed my bookmark and I had to threaten her with pain and suffering if she spoiled anything for me as if it were a mystery I was going to solve. I decided to let her hold onto it for the flight because I knew the moment I tried to read it I would be the crazy person crying in seat 17B.

I highly encourage you to not only read this book but check out Lori's website.
raisingmyrainbow.com
or follow her on twitter: @RaisingRainbow

**Source: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Children of the Dust Bowl - Jerry Stanley

Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp
by Jerry Stanley

I was browsing my library's downloadable audiobook site when I  came across Children of the Dust Bowl and decided it would be a good audiobook to kick off Nonfiction November. To be honest, I was drawn to it partly because it was so short (only 1.5 hours or so) and it seemed like it might be something I could listen to when I only had 15 minutes here or there but still have time to actually finish the story.

The other reason I was instantly drawn to it was that I have a deep fascination with the Dust Bowl that is usually hidden deep with my memories of reading Grapes of Wrath in school. There was something about that book that stuck with me. I remember the brief scene that talks about Tom Joad (I think that's who it was) driving the car and how he basically became one with the stick shift and clutch because every bump and clink could lead to their demise. I have this image in my head that I don't think has changed since the moment I read it.

Children of the Dust Bowl gives a little snippet of the life of "Okies" but really gets to the heart of what the kids must have been going through. Constantly picked on in school, the kids found strength in each other. They often had little or no food due to the lack of job opportunities for their parents. Then Leo Hart decided to build them a school, and teach them useful things, and care for them. They all worked together and built a pool. It was the first public pool in Kern County. That's crazy!

This book was tiny but packed an emotional punch. It made me, at times, ashamed to live in a state that could treat people so terribly, with such little care. There were happy moments too though, and they reminded me that there are people who show compassion for no other reason than because it is the right thing to do.

I didn't realize it was categorized as a children's book but now the length makes more sense. I think I may have to find the actual book because there are pictures in it that I just didn't get to enjoy from the audiobook.

Building the pool at Weedpatch Camp

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn

What can I say about Gone Girl that hasn't already been said? Actually I'm not sure about the answer to that because I have done quite a good job of keeping away from all spoilery type things without even trying. I wasn't even sure I was going to read the book until this month. At some point I saw a lonely copy on my library's sale cart and picked it up for $2 (finding an inscription that made me smile). So, the movie came out and Shannon at River City Reading posted this post which I allowed myself to read the first paragraph and then tucked it away until I had finished the book. After I started the book I found myself in a conversation that went like this:

Friend 1: I don't like the way it ended.
Friend 2: I think it ended the way that it had to.

Not much said here but this tidbit...it HAUNTED ME. All through the book I was going back and forth. Analyzing and then reanalyzing. What do I want to happen? What do I not want to happen? What do I think is the only thing that CAN happen? I got to page 80 and realized I had to do something I never do in works of fiction. I wrote in the book. I wrote all over this thing. I listed my guesses on the very last page and placed hateful comments and smiley faces throughout.

So now, I am going to give you a glimpse into my mind and share with you some of those comments.

Spoilery things lurking ahead (cuz it's Halloween-time obviously)

On the Blue Book plant: Awwe, memories. 
Maybe that's the point, her intention.
Yeah! HA! no...
I'm over this disposable phone. Just tell us who it is already or stop ringing. 
WTF! I want to punch this book in the face. When did he become okay with being suspicious?
On page 193 "Hey, Nick": Just got a flash of Double Jeopardy when she "comes back from the dead" his name was Nick too right?
Shit! Is Boney on to Amy?
Why is she making us hate her now?
I hear that!
On page 338 "Something bad was going to happen. My wife was being clever again." :)
Amy and Nick both do that, maybe they were meant for each other after all. 
That's what I was thinking!
On page 399 "Nick and me (the correct grammar): This actually makes me happy. She can point it out and it's not the author being annoying because it is Amy and it fits.

And all of my speculation on the back cover:

At page 110: He hired hit man, she found out and set him up. He thinks he murdered her but she is framing him. 
Page 136: She is pregnant. (while I was correct...sort of, the reason I guessed it was because the cops kept asking about her still being a size 2 which was actually about the panties hinting at cheating)
Page 341: Is Amy going to say Desi kidnapped her? (BAM!)
Page 372: I think the only ending I'll hate is if it all goes back to normal and all is forgiven between them. 
Page 394: Now I don't know what ending I'd be happy with. Nothing sounds like a good way to go. Maybe Amy getting found out. 
End:
Dude! I like the end, as of right now. Right before the last entries for Nick and Amy I was...unsettled/irritated/bored. After Nick I was okay because it was pathetic but almost closure in a sick way. Then I read Amy and I was glad it ended with an uncertain psycho comment. It seems more...real? It just seems to fit. 

I'm making this part of my Halloween Reads

The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith

The Cuckoo's Calling
by Robert Galbraith

Oh J.K. you write such good mystery. Is Snape good or evil? Was Lula Landry's death murder or suicide? And if it was murder, who killed her? I can't wait to find out what happened to Owen Quine.

So if you don't yet know, Robert Galbraith is the nom de plume (a year of college French and that's what I got) of J.K. Rowling. And if you are just now finding this out, then welcome back from the cave you have been living in. Take moment to step away from the computer, get some sun, stretch your legs, then pick up The Cuckoo's Calling and come back and we'll chat. It's about a British veteran PI named Strike who investigates the death of a model while trying to keep his temporary, yet remarkably clever, secretary in the dark about the fact that he is living in his office after his breakup with a woman way out of his league.

Did I mention it is written by J.K. Rowling?

Mine too Jo!

So of course I was going to read it but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading things like:

"Jus' celebratin' my fiancee zengagement," he said, raising his eleventh pint in an unsteady toast. "She shou' never've left'm. Never," he said, loudly and clearly, "have. Left. The Hon'ble. Jago Ross. Who is'n outstanding cunt." -pg 301

It's so adult, so not Harry Potter.

So anyway...I loved the book and I was concerned that my expectations were going to be too high so I think that says a lot. It's funny, every time Strike went to the police and gave them a tip about the murder I was thinking "what are you doing!You never bring the cops back into it." Apparently I have been ruined by TV and movies.

As the mystery unfolded, I was struck by how much I didn't hate the little hints Strike dropped that never went anywhere. It was just enough to let me think I was piecing it together but not enough to make me try so hard that I really thought I knew whodunnit (which was good because I was all over the map). It reminded me of a teacher dropping hints for the students to figure out the answer for themselves but then becoming distracted by something else before actually answering. Then I finally got to the part where it was all being laid out and...I had to go to work... Gah! This is why I shouldn't read during breakfast. But work only lasts so long and I was able to finish it tonight...and I already have the sequel...

**Source: Purchased from a local bookstore with my own sweet loot.

Lost Lake - Sarah Addison Allen

Lost Lake
by Sarah Addison Allen

 Welcome Spring. I feel as though every one of Sarah's books (I feel as though we are on a first name basis by now) set me up to dance into a beautiful Spring. They have a history of being light and airy with a touch of magic and I am always happy while I am living inside them. Lost Lake was no different. The characters were all so wonderfully unique and developed to perfection. I want to visit Lost Lake, I want to stay.

My book is marked with tabs and I had plans to quote one or two here but as I read them over I find that they fall a bit flat out of context. I didn't mark them for the wonderful sentence structure, I marked them because they had the ability to evoke so much emotion in the moment for me. So you will just have to read it to see what I mean.

I will include one because, as a book lover, this one really made me think.

"She had laughed and said, 'I've read them all. I want to remember them the way they were. If I read them now, the endings will have changed.'"

**Spoiler-ish things ahead...

I can't talk about this book without talking about the end of the book and while I won't say exactly what happens I have to say what I felt about what I thought was going to happen in relation to what actually did. I got about halfway through the book and thought I knew exactly how it was going to end. This wasn't exactly a bad thing and I came to terms with it pretty quickly. I mean I was looking forward to a happy ending and all so I would have been disappointed if it hadn't ended all neat an pretty. But as I'm reading I'm contemplating some upcoming twists or surprises knowing that Sarah had something aside from a straight line to the finish for me. And I got a little mixture. And then I got to page 289 and read this:

"Sometimes, the best endings are the ones that surprise you. 
Sometimes, the best are the ones that have everything happening exactly how you want it to happen. But the absolute perfect endings are when you get a little of both."

Well played Sarah Addison Allen, well played.

**purchased from a local bookstore

Stillwater - Nicole Helget

Stillwater
by Nicole Helget

 It's weird, I read the first chapter of Stillwater and it didn't really draw me in the way I hope first chapters to do. It was a bunch of names of people I knew nothing about and there was a logjam in a river and okay where was this going? I didn't even remember this first chapter until I just picked the book back up after finishing it but now after getting to know all the people and the town of Stillwater I think this is my favorite chapter of the book. It was like I reread the book in just that one chapter (and yet I kind of want to reread it for real right now) because while that first chapter didn't initially give me any warm fuzzies, by the second chapter I was hooked.

Stillwater wasn't a difficult read but I wouldn't call it an easy one either. As Helget takes us through the intertwined lives of our characters there is racism and sexism and just plain nasty old men farting all over the place (and farting doesn't usually bother me, I work with teenage boys for goodness sake!) but it was the way the world was so realistically created that got to me. When I read about Angel, the daughter of a wealthy politician, things were pretty and smelled good but not happy. As opposed to when I was with Beaver Jean the trapper and everything was disgusting and offensive. But still the complexities left me sometimes feeling bad for the characters I didn't like (Beaver Jean) but he got it (and by "it" I mean an axe in the head) in the end, which was really the beginning so that isn't a spoiler because it happens in chapter 3.

Which leads me to the timeline of the story. We began at the end and then moved to the beginning before finally filling in all the middle. It sounds confusing but was actually really easy to follow and quite enjoyable. The only thing I had an issue with was the part at the end about the middle when our main characters Angel and Clement are growing up. There were a few times I completely lost track of how old they were supposed to be but it didn't slow me down and I caught on quickly enough. The story was wonderful in all the connected twists and painful turns. I didn't want to set it down.

 

Publication Date: February 4, 2014
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Hardcover; 336p
ISBN-10: 0547898207 

Synopsis:  Clement and Angel are fraternal twins separated at birth; they grow up in the same small, frontier logging town of Stillwater, Minnesota. Clement was left at the orphanage. Angel was adopted by the town’s richest couple, but is marked and threatened by her mother’s mental illness. They rarely meet, but Clement knows if he is truly in need, Angel will come to save him.

Stillwater, near the Mississippi River and Canada, becomes an important stop on the Underground Railroad. As Clement and Angel grow up and the country marches to war, their lives are changed by many battles for freedom and by losses in the struggle for independence, large and small.

Stillwater reveals the hardscrabble lives of pioneers, nuns, squaws, fur trappers, loggers, runaway slaves and freedmen, outlaws and people of conscience, all seeking a better, freer, more prosperous future. It is a novel about mothers, about siblings, about the ways in which we must take care of one another and let go of one another. And it’s brought to us in Nicole Helget’s winning, gorgeous prose.

For more information on the book tour check out:

Tour Page: http://hfvirtualbooktours.com/stillwatertour

Tour Hashtag: #StillwaterTour

About the Author

Born in 1976, NICOLE LEA HELGET grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota, a childhood and place she drew on in the writing of her memoir, The Summer of Ordinary Ways. She received her BA and an MFA in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato. Based on the novel’s first chapter, NPR’s Scott Simon awarded The Turtle Catcher the Tamarack Prize from Minnesota Monthly. 

Nicole Helget shares her thoughts on writing and her influences, as well as beautiful photos of her family (including six children!) at her blog. You can also follow her on Twitter.

 

 

Buy the Book

 Alibris
  Amazon (Hardcover)
  Amazon (Kindle)
  Barnes & Noble (Hardcover)
  Barnes & Noble (Nook)
  Book Depository
  Google Play
  iTunes

**Thank you Amy at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for providing me with an ARC for review.

The Princess and the Opal Mask - Jenny Lundquist

The Princess in the Opal Mask
by Jenny Lundquist

So you take one part The Man in the Iron Mask, one part Cinderella, shake, serve over ice with a sugar rim and you have The Princess in the Opal Mask.  Sign me up!

I started to read this and then put it down and then picked it up and then put it down.  I wasn't in the mood and something in my gut was telling me to save it until I could really appreciate it. I'm so glad I did.  I loved the story and the fierce girls it follows. Elara is stubborn and independent and just wants to be free. Wilha is uncertain of the power she holds and caring and also just wants to be free.  I enjoyed watching as they navigated their way through the turns their lives took, slowly learning more about themselves as well as each other. Okay I wish they learned more about each other in this book but I guess I'll just have to wait for the sequel for that.

The suspense as the story shifted between each of their perspectives was well done. There were a couple moments that cringed because a character did something that I found not entirely realistic but just as a began to grow frustrated that it was all for a dramatic scene that I thought was coming a curve-ball was thrown and my frustration was forgotten. I didn't want to stop living in the world that was created even with all the bad guys and assassination attempts and life decisions.  I found the strength of the girls empowering and also appreciated when they accepted the help of others.

I can't wait to read the sequel.  Bummer it's not out until Fall 2014 but the author lives near my old stomping grounds. Maybe I'll go visit the in-laws and friends and see if I can casually bump into her at the grocery store.  Is that stalking?  Shucks.  Guess I'll just have to bank on meeting her at a future book signing.

**Source: from publisher 

Little Fish - Ramsey Beyer

Little Fish: A Memoir
By Ramsey Beyer

From publisher's website:

Told through real-life journals, collages, lists, and drawings, this coming-of-age story illustrates the transformation of an 18-year-old girl from a small-town teenager into an independent city-dwelling college student. Written in an autobiographical style with beautiful artwork, Little Fish shows the challenges of being a young person facing the world on her own for the very first time and the unease—as well as excitement—that comes along with that challenge.

I'm doing this review a little differently.  Above it a synopsis and below are my feelings...in the form of a letter to the author...which (in going along with the theme of this story) includes a list.

Dear Ramsey-

Can we hang out?  I think you are:

-Awesome

-Hilarious

-Creative

-A lot like me

-Similar to many college freshmen

-Courageous

-Genuine

-Talented

-A risk taker

-Unique

Thank you for writing a book that was so easy to read and connect to and yet said so much.  I was drawn into the story but still had a running list in my head of things that were like me and parts of me that I hadn’t even thought about yet.  When I looked up from the book it took me a moment to remember where I was and what day it was, like coming out of a deep dream.

I loved learning about your experiences in such a unique way and I appreciated all the ways we were similar.  My first year of college was a year before yours and I felt the connection in the time-frame but your story is so real that I know people who have been out of college for decades, are in college now or are thinking about going to college will all connect to it in their own way.

**Source: Amazon Vine

Seduction - Guest Post

Yesterday I reviewed Seduction by M.J. Rose and today I am lucky enough to sahre with you an excerpt from M.J. Rose:

 

“It is most pleasant to commit a just action which is disagreeable to someone whom one does not like.”
―Victor Hugo

Excerpt from SEDUCTION - From Chapter 22   

            The shadow’s voice was plaintive and laced with sadness. From the sound of it, I knew he lived in his own hell. And I felt a momentary pang of guilt that I was condemning him to remain there.

Do I not even tempt you?

            Of course he did, but I could never admit that to him. A spirit as strong as he was could use that against me, turn it back on me somehow.

“No, I am not tempted to allow this child to die so that my daughter might be reborn.”

But even as I protested, I felt dizzy with desire at the idea of her—of Didine—of my wondrous daughter, my light, coming back to me. What would the cessation of such mourning be like to experience?

But to take one soul in exchange for another?

About the Author

M.J. Rose is the international best selling author of eleven novels and two non-fiction books on marketing. Her fiction and non-fiction has appeared in many magazines and reviews including Oprah Magazine. She has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, USA Today and on the Today Show, and NPR radio.  Rose graduated from Syracuse University, spent the '80s in advertising, has a commercial in the Mus

eum of Modern Art in NYC and since 2005 has run the first marketing company for authors - Authorbuzz.com.  The television series PAST LIFE, was based on Rose's novels in the Renincarnationist series. She is one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers and runs the blog- Buzz, Balls & Hype.  She is also the co-founder of Peroozal.com and BookTrib.com.

Rose lives in CT with her husband the musician and composer, Doug Scofield, and their very spoiled and often photographed dog, Winka.

For more information on M.J. Rose and her novels, please visit her WEBSITE. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.
 

For more information on the book and blog tour check out:

My review
The tour schedule
Twitter Hashtag: #SeductionVirtualTour