The Best of Us by Joyce Maynard

It is an unimaginable thing when someone we dearly love becomes terminally ill. In Joyce Maynard's The Best of Us, Joyce shares with her readers the sweet love story of meeting her second husband, Jim, when she is nearly sixty years old and all the hopes and dreams the two of them have for a long life together. Those dreams are dashed, however, when barely a year into the marriage Jim is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Before we reach that diagnosis, we get quite a long back story on Joyce herself and even a little about Jim and what their lives were like before they met, their first marriages, and their relationships with their children. When Maynard does begin telling the readers about falling in love with Jim and their marriage, it is a lovely story. It provides hope for anyone who has been single for a long time and still wishes to find a partner.

I struggled with this book. As much as I wanted to like it, the story had some serious stumbling blocks. Maynard is honest about some things that not everyone would admit to, which I suppose makes her brave, but I'm not sure I can say that I like her. I find it difficult to read a memoir by someone I consider unlikable. The book was also fairly repetitive. She mentions certain things so many times that I'm not sure she realizes she is repeating herself or if she just really wants to be sure the reader didn't miss the point. She really likes skinny dipping; her first husband somehow ended up with the dream farm she bought herself when she was nineteen; she loves to dance alone in the middle of a crowd, making herself the center of attention. Also the timeline is really wonky and their are no clear changes between the present in the story and a flashback, making it difficult for the reader to keep track. Finally, toward the end she mentions a Facebook community that has been following her posts about Jim's health crisis and the disjointed flow suddenly makes sense. This book sounds almost exactly like she has just printed out all her Facebook updates and stapled them together and slapped a hardcover on the front.

There were good things, too. I learned a lot about pancreatic cancer and about being a caregiver for a terminally ill loved one. I appreciate the author's willingness to be open and honest, but the risk in that is that the reader may not like what she has to share. I'm sorry I didn't like this book. I really wanted to connect with the author and her situation, but that just didn't happen.

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been making my way through the works of Ruth Ware and, frankly, it's been making me a little paranoid. A girl can only read so much suspense, especially when it isn't her usual genre, without questioning everything she thinks she knows. Ruth Ware is a master of making you think you have it figured out and then smacking you in the face with another plot twist.

My latest read is The Lying Game about a foursome of young girls at boarding school who immerse themselves in a game of, you guessed it, lying. Kate and Thea, friends already, meet Isa and Fatima, new girls to the school, on the train at the start of term. They quickly become an impenetrable clique developing a real "us-them" mentality. Things fall apart before long and the girls go their separate ways, each leaving the school. Nearly twenty years later, they are called back together to account for the biggest lie they ever told and it may cause their whole world to come crashing down on them.

Of the three Ware books I've read, I liked this one the best. It isn't because the mystery is so much better, but because the storytelling felt more like a story, more like fiction with a mystery thrown in than a mystery trying super hard to be mysterious. I will say I wasn't a big fan of then ending which felt a little flat, but the rest of the book was really fun to read.

Looks like I only have In a Dark, Dark Wood left to read. What's your favorite Ware novel?

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

I appear to be on a bit of a Ruth Ware kick. I've just finished The Woman in Cabin 10 and I'm starting another Ruth Ware today. I had heard lots of good things about The Woman in Cabin 10 so I was happy it was chosen for my online book club, pushing me to finally pick it up and read it. Laura Blacklock, called Lo by all her friends, has an amazing opportunity as a travel writer to join the maiden voyage of a new luxury mini- cruise ship. With only ten cabins available it is ultra-exclusive and something Lo would never be able to experience were it not for her boss, who usually benefits from the magazine's travel perks, being on leave. Shaken by a break-in at her flat, Lo begins the cruise wrong-footed and completely exhausted, but she is determined to make the best of it. When she witnesses what she thinks is a murder in the middle of the night, she isn't completely sure if she can trust herself. After all, all passengers and crew are present and accounted for and the cabin she swears was occupied by a young woman has been vacant the whole time.

When I read The Death of Mrs. Westaway, I was bothered by something in the writing on which I couldn't quite place my finger. I had the same experience with Cabin 10, though I still can't say what it is that bothers me, only that I feel like it isn't very well developed. I felt like it was a bit awkward and unpolished. A pet peeve of mine is when an author uses an unusual phrase more than once, especially when those occurrences are too near one another. For this book, the phrase was "raw-silk". She used it to describe curtains and dresses and décor and it was too much. I was also irritated with a main character that knows she is at an important business function or in a dangerous situation, but who can't stop herself from drinking too much. It just isn't very smart.

Overall, this book was interesting enough. I've said before that mysteries aren't my favorite genre so perhaps someone who likes them better would be able to appreciate this one more than I did.

Let me know if you enjoyed it more than I did.

What I've Heard- What Thought This Was a Good Idea?

I really enjoy learning about the behind the scenes workings of politics and when I heard about Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? by Alyssa Mastromonaco, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for President Obama, I couldn't wait to read it. Or listen to it, in this case. When I learned it was read by the author, I opted for the audio version. Especially with autobiographies and memoirs, I really enjoy listening to the author read/ tell their own story. It feels more personal to me and gives me a greater sense of the action to hear it told by the person who wrote it.

Mastromonaco worked for Obama for nearly a decade, starting in his Senate office, working on his  campaign for president, and then holding two positions within the White House- Director of Scheduling and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, the youngest woman to ever hold that position. Her book, Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?, tells about her time in those positions as well as her personal life and what led her to politics in the first place. Especially useful, I felt, was the practical every day advice that Mastromonaco gives to young people, and young women in particular, about beginning a career and learning how to negotiate early adulthood. 

My only complaint about this audio book is that the author reading was actually a bit stale. I expected her to sound like she was telling a story and instead she was clearly reading off a stack of hastily printed pages fresh from the office printer. It almost didn't sound like she hadn't read these words prior to sitting down in front of the microphone. Her tone just left something to be desired, but I still really enjoyed what she had to say. Even if politics aren't your thing (and really, they should be everyone's thing since they affect us all), this book still has a lot to offer and I hope you'll give it a try.