Book of the Week: Backseat Saints

Ro Grandee is the perfect Texas housewife. She's determined to be nothing like her long-missing mother, the one who left her with only a heap of old novels and her father's fists for company, so Ro keeps quiet and takes her husband's punches like a lady. But Ro wasn't always this way. Underneath her pastel skirts and hidden bruises lies Rose Mae Lolley, teenaged spitfire, Alabama heartbreaker, and a crack shot with a pistol. Rose Mae is resurrected when a gypsy's tarot cards foretell doom for dutiful Ro: her handsome husband is going to kill her. Unless she kills him first.

Armed with only her wit, her pawpy's ancient .45, and her dog Fat Gretel, Rose Mae hightails it out of Texas. In a journey that is by turns harrowing and exhilarating, she uncovers long buried truths about her family and herself, running from the man who will never let her go, on a mission to find the mother who did.

Some of the plot points from Joshilyn Jackson's Backseat Saints are farfetched to say the least, but the underlying themes of abuse, abandonment and the struggle to be true to one's self are all too real. I was taken in by Jackson's words and the sympathetic Rose Mae/Ro/Ivy and until the last page I was on the edge of my seat to find out just how things would end up for Rose Mae. And while some of Ro's decisions are sometimes hard to understand she came across, to me at least, as a character worth rooting for.

Have you read Backseat Saints? What did you think?

Book of the Week: Baby Proof

I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating the New Year!  Our weekend away was just what the doctor ordered (not literally, but you know what I mean...)  I even managed to squeeze in my reading - I've been pretty good at keeping up my at-least-one-book-a-week rate.  And while I'm no reviewer I thought it would be nice to share one of the books I've read every week here.

I read Emily Giffin’s debut novel, Something Borrowed, its sequel, Something Blue, and Love The One You're With, awhile back and enjoyed them. (Apparently Hilary Swank's production company has purchased the rights to the first two books). Somehow I didn’t think to read Baby Proof until recently. This book is similar to the others in style, but I enjoyed that it tackled something not often touched in chick lit – children and the women who don't want them.
 

I think there is still something very taboo about a woman who is absolutely sure she doesn’t want children.  I can imagine that for such a woman finding a mate, and constantly having the need to justify their lifestyle, can be both tiresome and frustrating. This is where Giffin’s heroine, Claudia Parr, finds herself at the beginning of the novel. Intelligent and successful Claudia is also dead certain she doesn’t want to be a mother. When she meets Ben and they hit it off right away she counts herself lucky. When Ben announces on their first date he doesn’t want children either Claudia knows she’s met her match.

Unfortunately for Claudia, a few years into their seemingly perfect marriage Ben decides he does want children after all, and that's when everything falls apart.  Baby Proof is about all that follows this fateful turn of events.  I enjoyed this novel, the only thing that didn’t ring true to me was how quickly both Claudia and Ben gave up on their love. As in life there are no easy answers in this book—like who is to blame for the break up, if anyone—but it would have been nice for Claudia and Ben to search a bit more for some solutions before giving up on what was, by all accounts, a happy marriage.



Alla Prossima

Book of the Week: A Vintage Affair

Hope you are all having a wonderful holiday!  My book this crazy week is A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff.

Phoebe Swift is a woman dealing with a career change (from vintage clothing expert at Sotheby’s to proprietor of her own vintage shop), recently divorced parents, a broken engagement, and guilt and sadness over her best friend’s death. To me this wasn't your usual formulaic chick lit book, because the novel is really about Phoebe moving on from an event in her life that has left her devastated and unable to want any real happiness for herself. And, yes, there is romance but its not the main focus of the story.

When Phoebe is contacted by an old woman looking to clean out her closets she meets Thérèse Bell and an interesting parallel storyline begins to develop. Thérèse is a woman nearing the end of her life who has also not fully dealt with the pain and guilt over losing a friend. Travelling back to World War II France with Thérèse helps Phoebe deal with her own demons and I think the older woman’s story adds a nice element to the tapestry of the novel.

"When you buy a piece of vintage clothing
you're not just buying fabric and thread --

you're buying a piece of someone's past."

- A Vintage Affair

I also loved how the vintage pieces were almost like characters of their own in the story. Like a series of “cupcake dresses” – bright American prom dresses from the 50s that Phoebe hangs on her shop walls like art – and the new women they are meant for.

I thoroughly enjoyed A Vintage Affair and taking the journey with Phoebe from death back to life.

4 out of 5

Alla Prossima

Book of the Week: Dedication

I’m a notorious procrastinator so I'm happy to report that this past week was pretty productive for me. I finished my Christmas decorating, shopping and wrapping, attended two parties and a hockey game, and even fit in some Christmas visits. Not too shabby. I also managed to read Dedication and am now about half way through Portrait of a Lady.

Dedication is a novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, who also wrote The Nanny Diaries. I have read their novel, Citizen Girl, but not Diaries, although I'm considering it now that a sequel has come out. I'm not always on the ball with reading new releases, as you can see!

The novel begins with Kate Hollis throwing her things in a bag so she can rush back to her hometown to confront her high school boyfriend who done her wrong—big time. Kate has just received a call from her best friend to tell her that said boyfriend, Jake, now a world renowned rock star, has arrived back in their small town for a shoot. In desperate need of closure Kate doesn’t hesitate to return back to her old life. Kate has never gotten over Jake (who abandoned her back in the day to go and be famous) and her suffering is amplified because her ex has used her and their relationship as fodder for his music.

Dedication jumps from the present to the past, filling in details of the Kate-Jake relationship and revealing realities and hidden truths about their love, their families and their friendships. As with so many things all is not as it seems—or how it is remembered.

In the past I’ve been a bad boy addict myself, so in some ways I could relate, although Kate (not to mention Jake) doesn't seem to have matured much since their high school days. At some points I just wanted to shake some sense into her. Regardless of the likability of the protagonists the book was an easy read and I kept turning the pages to see what would finally become of Kate and Jake and all their angst. I'd say 3.5 out of 5.


Alla Prossima

Book of the Week - Splendor: A Luxe Novel

What I’d like to try to do every Monday is write about one book I’ve read in the past week, hopefully I’ll be disciplined enough to follow through!

From We Heart It

This week I finally got my hands on Splendor: A Luxe Novel, the final instalment in Anna Godbersen’s Luxe Series. The series begins in 1899 and has a great Age of Innocence- meets-Gossip Girl vibe, there are even snippets of gossip from newspaper columnists interspersed throughout the novels to replace Gossip Girl’s online revelations. I was pretty much hooked on these fun and frothy books from the start and, needless to say, was very excited to finally crack open the final book.

At the end of the third novel, Envy, Diana Holland had cut off all her hair in an attempt to join the army to find her true love, the rich and rakish Henry Shoonmaker. Would Diana find Henry and could they finally be together after three books worth of drama and romantic longing? Would Diana’s sister, Elizabeth, be happy in her sham marriage to her father’s business partner or would she finally find her way back to the handsome and eligible Teddy Cutting? Would Carolina Broad find a place in society and win the heart of Leland Bouchard? And what would happen with Henry’s beautiful and scheming bride Penelope Hayes? So many questions just waiting to be answered!

"It is dull, always keeping up the

pretense of being good." - Rumors

I thought Splendor was a good novel and a very interesting, easy read, but it wasn’t my favourite in the series. I have to say I wasn’t particularly happy with some of the way the storylines were resolved. (Don’t read on if you don’t want to be spoiled…)

I guess I’m one of those loves-a-happy-ending girls and you just don’t get that with the Luxe series. Granted, the ending was probably more realistic than the one I had in mind, but it left me feeling kind of…sad. Diana travelled the world and risked everything to find her Henry only to leave him in favour of a life in Paris when they were finally able to be together.  Bananas!

I guess this choice (freedom over Henry) is supposed to show that Diana’s experiences and travels no longer make her able to survive in restrictive Manhattan society. Diana was always the free spirit and her actions seem in character, but I think it also shows that her love for Henry wasn’t as strong as first thought. It was something I had suspected all along—especially from Henry’s part as he had shown quite a bit of cowardice and weakness in the past when it came to he and Diana being together—but it was disappointing nonetheless.

I had gotten caught up in Diana and Henry’s romantic courtship and their love. I mean, when he gave her the necklace inscribed with “For My True Bride,” it was a moment full of romantic longing, even if it was technically his fault he was married to another woman.  I wanted more for them (and from them) but I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles. Henry belonged in Manhattan and Diana’s spirit couldn’t be stifled by polite society. Perhaps its fitting that Henry and Penelope end up together after all.  They seem, well, made for each other.

I had never been much interested in the Carolina storyline, but I did like the Leland Bouchard character. He and Teddy Cutting seem to be the two totally likeable characters in the entire series. I felt bad that Leland had to find out the truth they way he did. I suppose it’s believable that he could have forgiven Carolina her origins but not her lies.

The one ending I was cheering about was Elizabeth and Teddy Cutting. I had always thought he was her perfect match and I was so glad they ended up together and happy.

Have you read the Luxe series or Splendor? What are your thoughts?


Alla Prossima