Movie Review: Breathe - Highly Recommend

I don't often watch movies and I rarely write movie reviews, but this movie couldn't go without comment. I had no idea what it was about but simply requested it because I saw that it starred Claire Foy and I recognized her from her remarkable role in The Crown (a popular series about Queen Elizabeth). The Chicago Sun-Times declared this "the most inspiring movie of the year." I was swept away by this tender, remarkable story of triumph over tragedy and highly recommend it (there are so few movies to highly recommend these days!).

Breathe tells the true story of Robin and Diana Cavendish. When Robin succumbs to the results of polio (given months to live because he is paralyzed and on a ventilator), he wants to die rather than spend the rest of his days in a vegetative state lying in a hospital bed. His wife replies, "I won't let you die, but tell me how I can better help you live." They decide to secret him away from the hospital, against doctor's orders (no patient had ever received treatment outside of a hospital before), to be cared for at home with his wife watching to be sure the ventilator continued to breathe for him. The couple refuses to give up in the face of obstacles. With the help of his wife and friends, Robin lives a very full life, watches his son grow up, travels the world, and advocates for better opportunities for the severely disabled.

At the end of the movie, I discovered that Diana Cavendish never re-married. Moreover, the son Jonathan, produced this movie (along with Diana's triplet grandchildren - ha). Impressive! It was truly a magnificent love story and one I will be recommending to anyone seeking a meaningful movie experience. Follow this link to view the movie's trailer.

Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Highly Recommend

Eleanor Oliphant might think she's completely fine, but I think she's marvelous! What a unique and quirky protagonist Gail Honeyman has created. I adored this book. It was both sad and funny, both tragic and hilarious, both depressing and heart-warming. How is that even possible? How do gifted writers bring such characters fully to life on the page? I loved Eleanor and her personality. I cried for her heartbreak and I cheered for her survival and success. She will stay with me for a long time.

Thirty-year-old Eleanor Oliphant works an office job and spends her weekends drinking vodka and watching television. It might not be much of an existence, but she's comfortable in it. All that changes when she meets Raymond, an IT man from the office. As the two of them scramble to assist an elderly man who has a spell on the street, they begin a friendship that just might take Eleanor to a level higher than simply fine.

I don't wish to give away any more details. The novel is best savored with no idea where Eleanor has come from or where she might go. Anticipate meeting a wonderfully endearing protagonist. As the inside cover proclaims so eloquently: "Smart, warm, uplifting, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes the only way to survive is to open your heart." If you want to encounter something new and refreshing, if you are prepared for a hard road, and if you need a reminder that life is precious, give this fine book a chance. You won't regret it!

Book Review: Where Things Come Back

I'm always on the look-out for boy-friendly fare, so when the Brightly Newsletter mentioned John Corey Whaley's Where Things Come Back, I placed the title on one of my endless lists. Although it was indeed written with young male readers in mind, I didn't care for it very much. I think, perhaps, I was most annoyed with the author's habit of shifting between third person and second person point of view. I bristled every time another paragraph started up with "When one is ..." or "When you are ..." followed by a present-tense description of what happens when the mind wanders and boys imagine zombie attacks, etc. It would have been better if it had simply continued on with third person past tense.

I also didn't quite care for the protagonist's propensity for coming up with possible book titles. The titles felt inane and useless. In addition, the book seemed to have an undercurrent of religious disbelief (mocking religion by pointing to a farcical character who clings to prophecies from the apocryphal Book of Enoch and is prompted to commit a heinous act). I couldn't get behind any of the characters and never felt invested in the story, yet I read on wanting to know whether or not the missing boy was found.

Where Things Come Back tells the story of a young teenager whose fifteen-year-old brother goes missing one day. The whole town seems more absorbed with the possible reappearance of an extinct woodpecker than with solving the mystery of Gabriel Witter's strange disappearance. The chapters weave back and forth between describing the despair of Cullen Witter and the fanaticism of Benton Sage (would-be-missionary) and Cabot Searcy (Book of Enoch devotee). Eventually the two parallel tales converge in one tragic event that explains where the plot has been heading all along.

The book received both the ALA's William C. Morris Debut Award and the Michael L. Printz /Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Obviously, other readers held a far higher opinion of the book. With few male-oriented YA novels available, I'm glad the author managed to secure these awards, but I doubt I'll recommend the title to any young male readers I know. I would actually recommend the other Whaley book I read for book club last year, Highly Illogical Behavior. That was a far better reading experience.

The cover above is the one on the library copy I read. I much prefer the second cover because of the rich blue and the words etched in the background of the bird.

Book Review: The Little Paris Bookshop

Oh, how I wanted to love this novel! Paris! Books! A premise about a literary apothecary who prescribes books to meet various human emotional needs. A secretive letter long ignored with the potential to heal a two-decade-long heartbreak. The back cover proclaims "The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives." Sadly, the entire book was written from a worldview I cannot countenance and lauded a lifestyle I cannot embrace.

Monseiur Perdu is a bookseller working from his Paris book barge to recommend the perfect titles for each customer who darkens his door. Unfortunately, he helplessly casts about for a remedy to his own soul-sickness, a lost love who left him a departure letter twenty years before. When a new destitute neighbor moves into his apartment building, he is cajoled into offering up a small table to help furnish her space. The woman opens the drawer of the table and finds the long-forgotten (or ignored) letter. When Perdu finally opens the missive, he is shocked to find news he couldn't have anticipated and should have responded to immediately.

As I said, the premise is so full of promise, yet the execution left me yelling at the CD player in frustration. The underlying message to the story proclaims that because "restless love has been with us since the beginning of time," therefore, "love doesn't need to be restricted to one person to be true." Basically, the novel attempts to glamorize adulterous love. How could a person be expected to limit their sphere to one source of love? Why should a person show fidelity to a vow of love? Love, after all, is a magical thing not to be denied. What hogwash! Just because lust has tempted mankind from the moment Eve took of the apple doesn't automatically follow that it is right and good to indulge and cater to that lust. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find an individual betrayed by adulterous love who felt it was right and good that their fidelity was answered with infidelity.

I'm actually quite surprised that I kept listening to the darned thing; it wasn't like I was enthralled with the story line - the trip down the Seine felt endless. Perhaps it was due to the mental fog created by my bout with bronchitis. I should have abandoned it. Although the writing was very poetic, I bristled at the very foundation laid in this novel. I could have done with a lot more emphasis on the ode to books and less persistence with the delusional argument for the preeminence of love over faithfulness. I'm not alone in my dislike. The book garnered 157 one star reviews on Amazon. Would that I had spent those eleven hours listening to something more edifying!

Book Review: The Music Shop

One of my all-time favorite novels is The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce (see my review). Whenever I talk books with a stranger, I recommend it, especially if they exhibit any kind of love for England. Now, if I come across individuals with an intense love of music, I can direct them to this novel, The Music Shop. It is a love song to music. But, even if you are not necessarily a music lover, or not familiar with the pieces mentioned in the book, you will be swept away by this tale of love and loss and reclaimed life.

The premise of this novel is quite like the book I am listening to at the moment, called The Little Paris Bookshop, by Nina George. In George's book, the main character runs a bookshop where he prescribes books to meet every customer's personal needs, serving as a sort of literary pharmacist. In a similar way, Frank, the shop owner in The Music Shop, has an uncanny ability to assess each customer's need for particular music. He sizes them up and makes his suggestions, even providing specific instructions like "Lie down while you listen."

Frank's vision for his music shop is simple and direct. He will only sell vinyl records, despite the growing trend toward CDs (the story begins in 1988). His shop exists with a handful of other small establishments on a crumbling side street, but he takes joy in serving each and every customer. When Ilse Brauchmann faints in front of his shop one day, she ends up leaving with a recording of "The Four Seasons," fresh with Frank's instructions of what to listen for within the music.

Frank hasn't allowed himself to love anyone since the death of his beloved mother, the one who nurtured his deep and abiding love of music. But it feels safe to grow close to Ilse because she has already declared the existence of a fiance. When she begs him to give her music lessons (teaching her about the pieces and how to best experience them), he hesitantly agrees and then pours out his soul to her as he describes his favorite pieces and the ways the music transports and changes him. Unfortunately, both Frank and Ilse carry burdens and baggage from the past. They will need to tap into the healing power of music.

Just as she did in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Joyce manages to create a situation where the whole community bands together to rally behind a cause. I don't wish to provide any spoilers, but the community's grand gesture to reach out with the power of music brought me to tears. I relished learning about the music, even when it was unfamiliar (a difficulty remedied when I discovered a note at the end of the book offering a Music Shop Playlist on Spotify - now to figure out how to access Spotify, ha!). I was shocked to learn (at least this is what Frank's mother asserts) that Bach lost his vision because of a botched surgery performed in the market square by a con man posing as a doctor and then Handel went to the same doctor for the same operation with the same results.

Although I still prefer Harold Fry's story, this one definitely tugged at my heart strings. The music interlaced within the story held meaning and purpose. The sympathetic characters were endearing. The build-up to the resolution was dynamic and powerful. I would happily read another offering by this fine author.

Cover love: The cover at the top is the library copy cover, but I also found these other two (my favorite is the bottom one).

For another brilliant novel that presents a love song to music, try The Song of Hartgrove Hall, by Natasha Solomons.

Humorous Hoop Sketch

I have been laid low with an extended bout of bronchitis and have been unable to muster the energy or concentration for reading. Thus, I'm resorting to sharing one of my favorite video sketches made by my boys back in 2016:

Book Review: The Woman in the Window

I started this 427 page thriller just two days before the library due date. Wouldn't have really mattered! I blazed through it in no time flat. It was an absolutely riveting page-turner. The writing flawlessly sucked me in and held me fast.

With a premise similar to Hitchcock's Rear Window, The Woman in the Window plays on the idea of a peeping-Tom who observes a crime through a neighbor's window. Former child psychologist Anna Fox lives alone, trapped in her Harlem house by crippling symptoms of agoraphobia. She has little to bide her time and much on her mind. She spends most of her time photographing what she sees out of her window and thinking about her estranged husband and daughter. In gradual increments, the reader learns Anna's secrets - what caused the separation, what triggered the agoraphobia, and what now propels Anna to get so involved in the neighbor's lives and affairs. But, always, the reader is left to wonder whether the narrator is really reliable. After all, she drowns her sorrows continually in alcohol and pills.

I really enjoyed A.J. Finn's writing style. Words were clearly chosen with care. Here are a few of the passages that truly sing: "A storm. The ash tree cowers, the limestone glowers, dark and damp. I remember dropping a glass onto the patio once; it burst like a bubble, merlot flaring across the ground and flooding the veins of the stonework, black and bloody, crawling toward my feet." What a powerful, well-worded image! At other times it was simply the play with words that delighted. "The glow blossoms, the blossoms glow." "Wedged in the library wingback, thoughts tumble-drying in my brain." "The phone lies there immobile. An immobile mobile."

Finn sets the scenes so well. The atmosphere is dark and dismal. The players strut across the stage presenting lines to mimic the old black-and-white movies Anna uses to dull the pain. Moreover, the pacing of the plot is frantic. Just when you think it is all wrapped up, the mystery picks up again with another unnoticed clue, another avenue to explore. I did think the story could have functioned perfectly well without the one sex scene, but modern writers seem to feel every book should have one. Plus, it took over 100 pages to actually introduce the crime; nonetheless, it kept me reading, waiting to know what was going to happen.

I tend to approach mysteries with Agatha Christie's rule in mind. I attended a Christie play once and heard in the pre-play commentary, that Christie usually addressed the dilemma of "whodunit" by asking herself which character seemed to be the least likely suspect. I also think about details very carefully. When an author introduces a minor character and puts particular words in their mouth, it is always for a reason, so I take note. Thus, I did guess the perpetrator long before the mystery was solved and had a good idea of how they managed to pull it off. Still, it was every bit as fun getting to the final sentences. I can see why there's quite a buzz about this debut novel. The author blurb on Amazon indicates that the book is being made into a movie and the author would like to have a cameo appearance. Ha!

Book Review: Faith, Hope, and Ivy June

I think Faith, Hope, and Ivy June is the first Phyllis Reynolds Naylor book I've read since Sean and I finished reading her beloved The Boys Start the War series (a set of twelve books we couldn't wait to consume). This stand-alone novel was every bit as perceptive and faithful to a youthful spirit. The characters were sweet and endearing and the conflicts were serious and engaging. But, this book provided more depth than the fun and frolicking series.

Ivy June Mosley and Catherine Combs have been selected to participate in a two-week exchange program between their different schools in Lexington and Thunder Creek, Kentucky. Ivy June begins by staying in the city with Catherine for two weeks. It is a whole new world for Ivy June as she experiences daily showers in an indoor bathroom, is driven to Catherine's private school, and enjoys time at both a horse farm and a performance of Oklahoma. Catherine then visits the rural coal-mining town where Ivy June lives with her grandparents (due to the large number in her family home). She uses the outhouse (encountering a wild animal Ivy June's brother trapped inside for a prank), takes a bus to the country school, and observes the beauty of the mountains. Both Catherine and Ivy June have secrets to share and stereotypes to unravel.

The story provides an outstanding opportunity for discussion about prejudice and stereotyping, about similarities and differences between social classes, and about the importance of faith and hope when confronting situations beyond our control. I think it would make an excellent read-aloud selection for 5th-7th grade classes. I enjoyed the audio narration by Karen White and will happily keep my eye out for further opportunities to enter the fictional worlds created by this outstanding prolific author.

Book Review: The Grave's a Fine and Private Place

I'm always eager to crack open another Flavia de Luce mystery. Alan Bradley has written quite a string of them (this is the ninth novel in the series, plus a short story I haven't read). I didn't seem to enjoy the tale as much when Flavia was transplanted to Canada for a year of school, but now that she has returned to the English countryside in this volume, she was back to her usual antics and Bradley's writing back to its stellar form.

In The Grave's a Fine and Private Place, we find Flavia travelling with her sisters down a river while taking a holiday with Dogger. It is no surprise when Flavia happens upon a dead body in the water. Nor is it a shock that she plans to ferret out the clues and solve the mystery. In this novel, there are five dead bodies to account for. Two years back, three women died after taking communion and the vicar was tried and executed for their murder. But, when the vicar's son shows up snagged by the teeth from the river, Flavia feels certain that there's a connection somewhere.

I think my love of Flavia stems from several aspects of her personality. She is plucky and strong. Her love of chemistry flavors every situation. And, best of all, she has wonderful asides where she thinks aloud to herself about her own precocity. It makes me laugh every time. Flavia de Luce is truly the best twelve-year-old sleuth I've encountered. I agree with the Daily Mail, she "is as addictive as dark chocolate."

I was touched by the section in the author's acknowledgements devoted to Bradley's wife. He writes, "And finally, as always, to my wife, Shirley, who has allowed Flavia to occupy our days, our nights, and our home for nearly ten years. If anyone deserves a medal, it is Shirley, and so I hereby award her the first and only Companion of Valor, First Class, for love and patience and tolerance far, far beyond the vows of marriage." Beautiful! I pray her patience endures and Bradley continues to conjure up more Flavia for readers in the coming decade.