The Undertaker's Daughter by Kate Mayfield

Historical Fiction - 3.5 stars

Sold as a cross between Six Feet Under and The Help, The Undertaker's Daughter is Kate Mayfield's memoir about growing up in 1960s Jubilee, Kentucky in her home that doubled as a mortuary. Her father served as the undertaker as well as the town ambulance driver, and Kate enjoyed every minute she spends with him. She wouldn't, however, spend time in the embalming room.

Mayfield weaves various relationships into the story, from Ms. Agnes, the eccentric older "lady in red," to her bipolar and sometimes violent sister, Evelyn. Subject matter spans many topics, including the argument for concrete vs. metal vaults, desegregation, and small town politics. It is obvious that her father was an alcoholic and a philanderer, but was her favorite person in the world. Poignant and often funny, I recommend this book to anyone who wants a good, interesting read, especially book clubs.

The Yada Yada Prayer Group by Neta Jackson

Fiction - 2 stars

Our April Book Club selection, The Yada Yada Prayer Group, redeemed itself in the end. However, for the first 1/3 of the book I wavered between disgust with the main character (Jodi) and her judgmental, uber-controlling ways and impatience with the lack of storyline. Once I got past the "introductions," the story was somewhat decent, and Jodi definitely grows as a result of her experiences. However, she was still controlling and annoying. This is definitely a book for readers who are interested in stories of "girl power" and not really for people who want an intellectual discussion. That being said, it sparked the best book club discussion we've had. I would only recommend it if you want a really light read about the power of women supporting each other.

First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen

Fiction - 3.5 stars

Sarah Addison Allen is the master of the light, feel-good read. I love her stories of women finding themselves in small-town Southern towns. This story started in Garden Spells, the story of Claire and Sydney Waverly and their struggles with the Waverly heritage. 

In First Frost, the story of the Waverly brood continues. Claire has transformed her catering business into a candy business, but she is not completely happy. Meanwhile, Sydney struggles with her daughter Bay's interest in a forbidden friendship and her own inability to have another child. The best thing about a Sarah Addison Allen book is that all of these problems are resolved and it ends with hope. I recommend it as a bedtime or beach read.

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

Fiction - 3.5 stars

Sage Singer is a baker for a reason. She works at night to escape people, her own loneliness, the guilt from a hidden relationship, and the memory of her mother’s death.Her constant reminder, a significant facial scar, is her constant companion. Sage meets Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, and they strike up an unlikely friendship. They see past each others' scars, and they grow comfortable together.

Everything changes when Josef asks Sage for an unimaginable favor. The request begins a story of horror and heartbreak, and through it, Sage begins a journey of self-discovery that will make her realize who she really is. 

I really liked this book. Though the subject matter is tough (the Holocaust), it is an interesting and easy read. I would recommend it for a book cub read. 

A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White

Fiction - 3.5 stars

I will admit, at first I was a little worried about this book, as it is one of Oprah's book club picks (not a huge fan of Oprah). However, once I got into it, I really enjoyed the story. This is the story of three  outcasts whose paths meet at Café Andres. 

Bobby Banks is a young gay man who grew up in Decatur, Georgia. While struggling with his parents' rejection, the AIDS epidemic in 1980s New York City, and utter heartbreak, he is enlisted by the aging café's owner to revive the place with his new interpretation of southern cooking.  

Alice Stone, the former chef at Café Andres, is famous, but has a mysterious past. During her tenure, she wrote a groundbreaking cookbook celebrating her poor Southern heritage, and it causes problems for a few closest to her. 

Dealing with the breakup of her marriage, Connecticut resident Amelia Brighton seeks comfort from her aunt, an editor living in New York City.  During her time of healing, a family secret is discovered in Alice’s cookbook, and the three lives are affected as they come to grips with the past together. 

Because the story is broken into three parts without explanation of the character changes, the book is challenging to follow at times. However, once the story finally comes together, it is touching. I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber

Fiction/Short Story - 3 stars

This short story is a glimpse into the imagination of Walter Mitty, a daydreaming man who is given tasks by his wife while she gets her hair done. He struggles to remember the tasks due to his overactive imagination. A super-short (maybe 7-8 pages) story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty has inspired two full-length films. The first, from the 1930s,

starred Danny Kaye and was harshly criticized by Thurber, who thought it was ridiculous. The second, one of my all-time favorite movies, was written and directed by Ben Stiller, who stars as Mitty.

A heartwarming and deep film, Stiller's version is also different from the short story, and I can only wish that Thurber could have seen it.  The story's good, but the movie's awesome.

Endangered by Eliot Schrefer

Youth Fiction - 3.5 stars

Endangered is a compelling tale of Sophie, a young American girl visiting her mother at her bonobo sanctuary in Africa. After her mother leaves for a release site, revolution breaks out and the sanctuary is attacked by roving bands of militant rebels. Sophie and the bonobos must hide in the jungle and travel to find her mother. Together, they will fight to keep safe, to eat, and to survive.

Megan and I read this 2012 National Book Award Finalist for Young People's Literature in her Montford Book Club before the end of the last school year. In the book, Schrefer asks readers to ponder what safety means to them, the importance of sacrificing to help others, and what strengthens family relationships. We really enjoyed the book, and it was an eye-opener for Megan, who had never read about Africa's revolutionary culture. She also enjoyed reading about the bonobos and their almost human interactions. I highly recommend it for the teen crowd.

The Lost Art of Mixing by Erica Bauermeister

Fiction - 3.5 stars

In this sequel to The School of Essential Ingredients, Bauermeister continues to tells the stories of characters first brought together in Lillian’s cooking classes, adding a few new stories to the mix. Al, the restaurant’s accountant, is stuck in an unhappy marriage with Louise, his wife of 29 years. Chloe, Lillian's young sous-chef who is terrified of love and connection; Isabelle, an elderly woman struggling with giving up pieces of her life due to the onset of Alzheimer’s; and Finnegan, the tall dishwasher whose depth surprises even himself. Tom, the widower who begins a relationship with Lillian, is tested when he discovers that their future is bound together. I enjoy Bauermeister's writing style, and while she does not dwell with any character for very long, the reader gets enough of each person's story to get a glimpse into their struggles. Another quick read, The Lost Art of Mixing is as enjoyable as its predecessor.

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

Fiction - 3.5 stars

Claire Waverley is a caterer who uses plants from her garden to evoke feelings in her clients. She works in her garden, talking to her mysterious apple tree as if it can hear her. Family legend says that if someone eats from the apple tree, he sees the most important event in his life. Claire's sister, Sydney, flees with her daughter from her life across the country with an abusive man. She comes back to Claire in Bascom, NC and finds herself in the very place she escaped. Evanelle, an older cousin, has the gift of clairvoyance, and distributes gifts before the receiver know they're needed. These Waverley women are the talk of the town, and their legacy of loneliness and magic brings them closer together as they find love and friendship. Garden Spells is an enchanting, easy read, and like The Peach Keeper, it's just a good story. It's an awesome read for a lazy Sunday.

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

Fiction - 3.5 stars

In her novel, The Peach Keeper, Sarah Addison Allen blends friendships, sibling relationships, and Southern hospitality into a sweet story with a very happy ending. Thirty-year-old Willa Jackson returned to her rural North Carolina home in Walls of Water to escape her failures. Instead of escaping them, she faces them head-on, reconnects with her family, and begins new relationships that she never thought she'd have.  In the meantime, she becomes involved in a 75-year-old murder mystery involving her grandmother and the beautiful mansion her family occupied in the 1930s. While not a Pulitzer Price winner, the book club candidate is an easy read, perfect for the beach or to read while sitting on your front porch swing, sipping sweet tea. It took me all of two days to read it, and I loved every minute of it.

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Youth Fiction - 3.5 stars

Choose to lie, or you will most certainly die. This is the introduction the reader gets to, Conner, a nobleman who devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son, Jaron, and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are less then honorable, but he must be chosen to play the prince or he will be killed. 

As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner's palace, treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a truth is revealed that, may prove more dangerous than all of the lies.

Megan and I read this incredible Game of Thrones for middle-schoolers for her school book club, and we were both impressed with the storyline, with the character development, and with the integrity of the main character. We both highly recommend it!

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Fiction - 5 stars

In this full-length novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville is said to have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound which has haunted his family for generations. However, when Dr. Mortimer involves Sherlock Holmes in the mystery, Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. Claiming to be immersed in another case, he sends Dr. Watson to protect Sir Henry, the Baskerville heir, and to observe the suspects first hand. Mystery abounds in this story, and Megan and I thoroughly enjoyed Conan Doyle's deliberate use of character to keep the reader out of the loop. While it stands on its own as wonderful story, for its time, I can imagine that reading each chapter in The Strand was something for which people held their breath.  Megan and I both recommend it highly!
                       

 

The Call of the Wild and White Fang, by Jack London

Fiction - 5 stars

Megan presented three books for her book club to choose the one their next going to read, and White Fang was one of her three choices. While they did not pick that one to read, I decided to read it anyway, I got the combo of The Call of the Wild and White Fang on my nook, and I really couldn't read one without the other.

So, I began with The Call of the Wild, London's masterpiece about Buck, 1/2 St. Bernard, 1/2 Scotch shepherd who lives a comfortable life as a family dog in California. He's taken from his pampered surroundings and shipped to Alaska to be a sled dog. In Alaska, the landscape is as harsh as life itself during the gold rush of the 1890s. All but forgetting his earlier existence, Buck succumbs to his instincts, encountering danger and adventure as he becomes the leader of a wolf pack and undertakes a near-mythical journey, ultimately to answer the undeniable call of the wild. The details come from London's knowledge of Alaskan frontier life, and they make the writing exquisite. Once it was finished, I immediately began reading White Fang.

Although written much later, White Fang has often been called a companion novel to The Call of the Wild because it takes the story and reverses it. The story begins with a glimpse into the life of a wolfpack, hunting and finding prey often among the sled dogs of the 19th Century Klondike Gold Rush. White Fang's mother is part dog, part wolf, and when she and another wolf have puppies, White Fang is the only survivor.  Living in the frozen north, he learns to hunt in the wild, and then is "adopted" by Gray Beaver, an Indian living in a camp on the Mackintosh River. White fang is the alpha male, and he is well-known for his ability to strike dogs dead in an instant. When Gray Beaver enters Fort Yukon with White Fang, he is immediately noticed by Beauty Smith, a cruel man who manipulates Gray Beaver with whisky and gambling to gain White Fang as a debt payment. Beauty places White Fang in the dogfight ring where he is undefeated, until a pitbull is introduced and White Fang is nearly destroyed by the men's vicious cruelty. He is saved by Weedon Scott, and under Scotts care, White Fang is lucky enough to experience the one thing that can save him human love. He gradually comes under the spell of man's companionship, and when Scott returns to his family home in California, White Fang is is constant companion and eventually proves his worth to everyone.


I can't say enough about these books. I enjoyed them from the moment I began, and while the cruelty is hard to read, it gives a true glimpse into a period of history that many of us don't know about. People, as well as their dogs, had to be tough survivalists, doing anything to stay alive. Also, the adventurers who went to Alaska to seek fortune in the gold rush were not all peace-loving men. They were a mix of entrepreneurs and alcoholics, low-lifes and fur traders, businessmen and ex-convicts. London again had first-hand knowledge of these men, and depicts their lifestyle vividly in both books.

I love them both and recommend them to anyone who likes animals or is interested in the history of our country. 

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Youth fiction - 4.5 stars

May's Mother-Daughter Book Club book was a short, but somewhat deep novel about friendship and support set in 1970s New York City. While her mother is prepping to be a contestant on The $20,000 Pyramid, Miranda begins receiving a series of mysterious notes. While she doesn't immediately make sense of them, they are clues that her favorite book, A Wrinkle in Time, may not be entirely far-fetched. She meets a series of friends, all the while trying to figure out why one friend has left her. the story comes together in the end, and Stead closes it up with a super happy ending.

That's all I'm giving away! One of Megan's book club selections was A Wrinkle in Time, and without reading it, this book would have been a little obscure. Overall, we really enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to middle schoolers looking for something a little deeper.

Boys are Dogs by Leslie Margolis

Youth fiction - 2.5 stars

April's Mother-Daughter Book Club selection was so bubble-gum/pop, I could not give it more than a 2.5. The story of Annabelle, a sixth-grader who comes home from summer camp to find that her mother has moved in with her boyfriend, Ted (or Dweeble), which causes Annabelle to leave her all-girls school and enter the world of the public middle school. She also gets a new puppy, complete with dog training book. Annabelle learns from the book how to talk so a dog will listen, and tries out her new techniques on some of the boys who torment her. She learns that self-confidence is essential when dealing with both. There is a lesson, but this book is in no way deep, and was definitely not my favorite selection.

Maximum Ride by James Patterson

Youth fiction - 3 stars

Our March Mother-Daughter Book Club pick was the first in a series about human genetic experiments trying to discover the secrets of their origins while simultaneously trying to stay alive and out of the lab. Maximum Ride delivers a good story that is definitely for the early teen crowd. It's a light "beach read" kind of book, with little character development, but a lot of action and angst. I enjoyed reading it, as did Megan because of the action, but I don't think I'll go on with the series. I've seen a lot better from James Patterson.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Historical Fiction - 4.5 stars

When I first began reading this book, I'll admit I was a little skeptical. One reason was the endorsement from Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love on the front cover. I do not think it is a secret that I thought her book was silly, unrelatable, and I didn't care for it. The second reason was that it is written completely in correspondence format - letters and wires mainly. This turned out to be a surprisingly nice change from the traditional novel format. The book itself was a glimpse into a part of history that few people know about, the German occupation of the channel islands off the coast of Britain. This was a fascinating story of a writer, Juliet, who travels to Guernsey and learns the story of a heroic young woman, Elizabeth. The star of the book is the history itself, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves to watch a story unfold. The perfect book club book, too!

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Fiction - 5 stars

Our February book club selection, Pride and Prejudice, is probably my favorite story of all time. The story is of Elizabeth Bennett, 2nd daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennett of the British landed gentry. She is a girl with gumption. In the story, she meets Mr. Darcy, a proud aristocrat who immediately turns her off, and she doesn't mind telling him so. However, she uses such manners and grace in telling him that he is drawn to her spirit despite her dislike and initial refusal of him. As he seeks to win her respect, he in turn makes her fall deeply in love with him. (I know this is a spoiler, but if you don't know the story of P&P, you need to crawl out from under that rock!) Neither of these characters is a pushover, and both have intelligence, integrity, and are incredibly loyal. These characteristics are what make me love them so. I highly recommend this book to everyone!

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Youth Fiction - 4.5 stars

Another mother/daughter book club selection, Stargirl is the enchanting story of a free-spirited newcomer to a small Arizona high school. Stargirl is told from the point of view of Leo, director of Hot Seat, the school's talk show. Leo becomes the love interest of Star Girl, but her free-spirited ways, at first accepted by the other students, soon become a source of contention between them. To show her love, Stargirl gives up her free-spirited ways and becomes "normal," but her reputation with the other students is beyond repair. She only has one true friend who likes that she is not like everyone else, and is angry when she changes to please Leo.

This sweet story about the price of popularity, the meanness and exclusiveness of high school, and the challenge of first love is probably one of the book club selections that Megan most identifies with. We both loved it. It is a quick read, but so provocative and insightful.

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

Youth Fiction - 3 stars

From the author of Ella Enchanted, Fairest is the reworking of the classic tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves by the Borthers Grimm (one of my favorite fairy tales).  In the story, Aza is a large orphan girl taken in by innkeepers in the Kingdom of Ayortha, neighbor kingdom to Frell. Aza embarks on a journey that brings her to the castle where she meets the new queen and Prince Ijori. A story of love, self awareness and choosing between right and wrong, Fairest is full of references to the original story. Megan really enjoyed the book, and it is perfect for the tween crowd, especially if they love fantasy/fairy tales. I think the moms in the book club thought it a little too silly. What we do for our daughters!