Testing out a new murder mystery series. Always interesting when you start reading a new series, will I relate to the lead characters? will I like the premise that the detective's job lends itself toward solving crimes? And the most important thing; does this idea seem plausible?
Kathy Reichs has an incredible background in her real life, forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires e de Medecine Legale for province of Quebec and also Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina. She pours her personal persona into her detective character, Temperance Brennon, who it seems lives out a similar career path working between Canada and the US and adding in a little extra drama and suspense to the life the is normal for Reichs.
This turns out to be a very interesting premise for a mystery series. So much so that for many years, Temperance has also been the TV forensic anthropologist, who goes by the nickname, Bones, on her own TV series.
Death Du Jour is the second in a series which will eventually include 19 novels. The plot here is that Temp Brennon has the skeletal remains of a woman in Montreal whose history she is researching. Another call comes in to work with police detective, Andrew Ryan following up on some remains found in a arson set house fire. This leads them on the trail of some other bodies that are found in North Carolina. How the story progresses to encompass all the different locations and bodies and tie them all together keeps the reader entertained for many pages. There are along with the plot twists in-depth descriptions of how to process the bones, clothes, and flesh of a corpse. There is one point where I think three pages, not exaggerating is spent on the different kinds of bugs that are found around a dead body and at what depths and what that means about length and level of decomposition. Some of these descriptions are not for the faint of heart.
I will try another of the Temperance Brennon mystery novels, just to see if I get addicted to her style.
Thursday, February 22, 2018
The Flying Couch
Onto another book that uses an art medium to convey a message. The Flying Couch is a graphic novel, written and drawn by Amy Kurzwell. Amy is a writer and cartoonist who has drawn for the New Yorker magazine. Using the medium of cartoon and graphic art to weave her memoir, she brings us her personal history in this novel form.
In this book Kurzwell has found another way to tell her life story and the story of her grandmother's escape from the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust. She dedicates the book to the her mother and grandmother, "the women who made me". She starts off with herself as a young child with unusual interests. She is the daughter of a psychologist and the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. She explains her story in reference to those experiences. Her mother always analyzing her, "Sometimes we create minor anxieties for ourselves...to distract us from what we're really anxious about." Later, when she is becoming a Bat Mitzvah and trying to understand her place int he Jewish religion, her grandmother, starts to tell her about her childhood experiences during the Holocaust. Bubbie tells stories, "Oh I could tell you so many stories, I have stories and stories, A thousand and one stories..." As Kurzwell grows up and moves through Hebrew School to College and onto her won adult life in Brooklyn working and drawing she wrestles with the relationships with her mother and grandmother. Call too much, call not enough. It is the age old story of women and their mothers. Amy writes, "The women in my family have certain stories to tell. Why does it feel like I am not the protagonist of my own life?"
It is the problem of the ages, breaking away but not leaving the past behind. Watching and participating as your Bubbie ages and finds out that she is not independent anymore, watching your own mother age, and trying to keep your independence at the same time.
The format is sometimes hard to read, the pictures sometimes jumbled, but the message is there.
In this book Kurzwell has found another way to tell her life story and the story of her grandmother's escape from the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust. She dedicates the book to the her mother and grandmother, "the women who made me". She starts off with herself as a young child with unusual interests. She is the daughter of a psychologist and the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. She explains her story in reference to those experiences. Her mother always analyzing her, "Sometimes we create minor anxieties for ourselves...to distract us from what we're really anxious about." Later, when she is becoming a Bat Mitzvah and trying to understand her place int he Jewish religion, her grandmother, starts to tell her about her childhood experiences during the Holocaust. Bubbie tells stories, "Oh I could tell you so many stories, I have stories and stories, A thousand and one stories..." As Kurzwell grows up and moves through Hebrew School to College and onto her won adult life in Brooklyn working and drawing she wrestles with the relationships with her mother and grandmother. Call too much, call not enough. It is the age old story of women and their mothers. Amy writes, "The women in my family have certain stories to tell. Why does it feel like I am not the protagonist of my own life?"
It is the problem of the ages, breaking away but not leaving the past behind. Watching and participating as your Bubbie ages and finds out that she is not independent anymore, watching your own mother age, and trying to keep your independence at the same time.
The format is sometimes hard to read, the pictures sometimes jumbled, but the message is there.
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Light Within The Shadows
Having grown up in a family of artists, I was drawn to Pnina Granirer's book, Light Within The Shadows. My passion has always been reading. I love reading and I am happy escaping into almost any kind of book. Memoirs and novels about the Jewish experience and the Holocaust have always intrigued me on a very personal level. So I was really very curious when offered the opportunity to read a book that combines both a memoir of an artist who has lived through World War 11 in Europe and also has been apart of the beginning of the State of Israel.
The interpretation Pnina paints of both the world as she was growing up in Romania and the new young state of Israel is wonderfully colorful and descriptive. The reader feels pulled into the painting, almost as if you are walking the streets, you are there with the author.
This book is both an autobiography of the life of an artist as much as it is an historic record of a time in history. Granirer describes in great detail the lives of Jewish families living in the town of Braila, where Jews for the most part would survive the disasters of the war. After the defeat of Hitler, came the New Communist order. Everyone lived in dread of a knock on the door in the middle of the night. "Years later", Pnina writes, "when she asked her parents about their life in Romania before and after the war, their answers were confused. In their minds the fascist and communist era had blended into one painful period. There was one crucial difference however: the treatment of Jews was different under the new dictatorship. Under the fascists the Jews were to be exterminated like vermin: under the communists they suffered as equals along with all other the Romanians."
The war ended and the State of Israel was born. In Romania, the communist party put pressure on everyone to join the Party. Pnina's father narrowly escaped arrest for not becoming a Party member and the family realized it was time to leave the country. At the age of fifteen, Pnina's whole world was about to change. She writes, "...this was it! The dream of living in a country I could call my own was about to come true. The great adventure of my life was about to begin."
Pnina's family boards the Transylvania, a ship designated by Romania to transport emigrants to Israel. They arrived in Haifa port in June of 1950. Interestingly, we learn that though Jewish emigration to Israel at this time was complicated, it was mainly a business transaction for the Romanian government. Granirer explains that she learned later that, "The Jews had become a lucrative export, a good source of hard currency, as well as an exchange card for heavy equipment, for setting up poultry farms and other industries. " Israel was prepared to pay to bring Jews into Israel and Romania realized they had a sought after commodity. Pnina reports that she learned later that she and her mother probably had been worth about $100 each.
On the personal side Pnina describes how she from a young age enjoyed art. She writes that she is not sure where her artistic talent came from as no one in her family was particularly artistic. She presumes that it would follow that if a child is born into a family of musicians than the child might be musical or that children of actors might follow their parents into the theatre. "No one in my family showed any interest in art although my father played the piano. His sister, Maria, would pass some of the time painting small, amateurish pictures that I never saw or heard anyone talk about." writes Pnina. As a reader, I found her questioning the mystery of creativity in each of us interesting. I have often wondered about that myself. Both my parents and my sister are artists by profession. I have always felt somehow the outsider, not having inherited or been blessed with the ability to draw or paint. Though I feel I have found other ways to express creativity, I found it interesting to see my thoughts mirrored in Pnina's words.
As Granirer adapts to life in Israel, learning the language, going to school, and marrying she is also developing her abilities as an artist. She finds different jobs where she can use her artistic talents. Some of these jobs are enjoyable, some are quite tedious. She marries the love of her life and has two children. Her husband, Eddy, will graduate with a doctorate in mathematics. Looking for work will bring the young family to the United States for a few years and then to finally after a few detours and moves they will settle in Vancouver, Canada. Pnina will work hard to balance her art career with her domestic duties, as mother and wife.
Looking back now from the vantage point of 80 years, Pnina has had a long full life filled with wonderful artistic successes. She has shown her work in galleries around the world. She has published a book of poems and artwork called The Trials of Eve. She donated some her work to galleries and museums. Her mixed media painting, Out of the Flames, a work in three panels that takes the viewer through the stages of the Holocaust, is in the permanent collection at Yad Vashem.
Through this memoir the reader is taken into the experience of living through the harsh times during the war and then escaping Romania to Israel. Learning about life in the newly created State of Israel from a different perspective. Also there is much to learn about how an artist has to not only create interesting and beautiful art, but also to market oneself and make the connections that will put their work where the public has access to it. This book covers all of these important topics along with the personal life of Pnina and her family.
The interpretation Pnina paints of both the world as she was growing up in Romania and the new young state of Israel is wonderfully colorful and descriptive. The reader feels pulled into the painting, almost as if you are walking the streets, you are there with the author.
This book is both an autobiography of the life of an artist as much as it is an historic record of a time in history. Granirer describes in great detail the lives of Jewish families living in the town of Braila, where Jews for the most part would survive the disasters of the war. After the defeat of Hitler, came the New Communist order. Everyone lived in dread of a knock on the door in the middle of the night. "Years later", Pnina writes, "when she asked her parents about their life in Romania before and after the war, their answers were confused. In their minds the fascist and communist era had blended into one painful period. There was one crucial difference however: the treatment of Jews was different under the new dictatorship. Under the fascists the Jews were to be exterminated like vermin: under the communists they suffered as equals along with all other the Romanians."
The war ended and the State of Israel was born. In Romania, the communist party put pressure on everyone to join the Party. Pnina's father narrowly escaped arrest for not becoming a Party member and the family realized it was time to leave the country. At the age of fifteen, Pnina's whole world was about to change. She writes, "...this was it! The dream of living in a country I could call my own was about to come true. The great adventure of my life was about to begin."
Pnina's family boards the Transylvania, a ship designated by Romania to transport emigrants to Israel. They arrived in Haifa port in June of 1950. Interestingly, we learn that though Jewish emigration to Israel at this time was complicated, it was mainly a business transaction for the Romanian government. Granirer explains that she learned later that, "The Jews had become a lucrative export, a good source of hard currency, as well as an exchange card for heavy equipment, for setting up poultry farms and other industries. " Israel was prepared to pay to bring Jews into Israel and Romania realized they had a sought after commodity. Pnina reports that she learned later that she and her mother probably had been worth about $100 each.
On the personal side Pnina describes how she from a young age enjoyed art. She writes that she is not sure where her artistic talent came from as no one in her family was particularly artistic. She presumes that it would follow that if a child is born into a family of musicians than the child might be musical or that children of actors might follow their parents into the theatre. "No one in my family showed any interest in art although my father played the piano. His sister, Maria, would pass some of the time painting small, amateurish pictures that I never saw or heard anyone talk about." writes Pnina. As a reader, I found her questioning the mystery of creativity in each of us interesting. I have often wondered about that myself. Both my parents and my sister are artists by profession. I have always felt somehow the outsider, not having inherited or been blessed with the ability to draw or paint. Though I feel I have found other ways to express creativity, I found it interesting to see my thoughts mirrored in Pnina's words.
As Granirer adapts to life in Israel, learning the language, going to school, and marrying she is also developing her abilities as an artist. She finds different jobs where she can use her artistic talents. Some of these jobs are enjoyable, some are quite tedious. She marries the love of her life and has two children. Her husband, Eddy, will graduate with a doctorate in mathematics. Looking for work will bring the young family to the United States for a few years and then to finally after a few detours and moves they will settle in Vancouver, Canada. Pnina will work hard to balance her art career with her domestic duties, as mother and wife.
Looking back now from the vantage point of 80 years, Pnina has had a long full life filled with wonderful artistic successes. She has shown her work in galleries around the world. She has published a book of poems and artwork called The Trials of Eve. She donated some her work to galleries and museums. Her mixed media painting, Out of the Flames, a work in three panels that takes the viewer through the stages of the Holocaust, is in the permanent collection at Yad Vashem.
Through this memoir the reader is taken into the experience of living through the harsh times during the war and then escaping Romania to Israel. Learning about life in the newly created State of Israel from a different perspective. Also there is much to learn about how an artist has to not only create interesting and beautiful art, but also to market oneself and make the connections that will put their work where the public has access to it. This book covers all of these important topics along with the personal life of Pnina and her family.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Brave
The story of a Hollywood film star told through the eyes of Rose McGowan.
After reading this book you will never be able to watch some of the scenes in movies the same way again. She reveals all the hurt and horror female actresses have to suffer through to bring you the few hours of enjoyment you experience in a darkened movie theatre.
This is an amazing book. It is a reveal of the behind the scenes look at Hollywood that I have long questioned and suspected. Rose shows us a side of the silver screen that is very tarnished. She not only acts very bravely looking deep inside herself and saving herself from a life of abuse and degradation, she peels back glitter of the red carpet and uncovers all the abuse and just plan belittling behavior that has been thrust on women in the industry by dominant and powerful men probably since the beginning of the film industry began.
One of the most powerful lines in a book with so many gut wrenching and incredible stories, I think is, when Rose says, "...I was repeating an emotional scene I'd already played. Your entertainment comes at a cost to us performers. You should know that and acknowledge it." She is talking at this moment about acting out marriage scenes. Where as an actor she is getting married, the most important day in a women's real life and she at this point has never experienced it herself in real life. Then by the time she does have her own experience it is cheapened.
There are many times in the book Rose describes scenes like this and even more horrific ones involving sex. All these behaviors had become accepted as part of the Hollywood mystique. We the adoring public are mesmorized by the fame of actresses, but we never realize what that fame cost each woman. McGowan represents Hollywood as similar to a cult. Those at the top with the money and power controlling the others, with abuse, belittlement and fear
Also Rose points out that the movies we watch influence our behavior in society as a whole. If men watch women be degraded in a film they think that is the way they can also treat the women in their lives. If women see that only the skinny and most beautiful women are singled out in a film, they change their view of their own bodies and looks. Our behavior and feelings about ourselves are being dictated by a small group of very disturbed, abusive men who wield the power.
Rose McGowan has started to shine a spotlight on the unpleasant behavior that was running rampant in Hollywood, calling our attention to the horrors the country ignored and swept under the carpet. We have pulled back a corner of the rug and peaked underneath but I am not sure we yet ready to pull back the red carpet and clean out all the dirt that has been hiding underneath for years.
After reading this book you will never be able to watch some of the scenes in movies the same way again. She reveals all the hurt and horror female actresses have to suffer through to bring you the few hours of enjoyment you experience in a darkened movie theatre.
This is an amazing book. It is a reveal of the behind the scenes look at Hollywood that I have long questioned and suspected. Rose shows us a side of the silver screen that is very tarnished. She not only acts very bravely looking deep inside herself and saving herself from a life of abuse and degradation, she peels back glitter of the red carpet and uncovers all the abuse and just plan belittling behavior that has been thrust on women in the industry by dominant and powerful men probably since the beginning of the film industry began.
One of the most powerful lines in a book with so many gut wrenching and incredible stories, I think is, when Rose says, "...I was repeating an emotional scene I'd already played. Your entertainment comes at a cost to us performers. You should know that and acknowledge it." She is talking at this moment about acting out marriage scenes. Where as an actor she is getting married, the most important day in a women's real life and she at this point has never experienced it herself in real life. Then by the time she does have her own experience it is cheapened.
There are many times in the book Rose describes scenes like this and even more horrific ones involving sex. All these behaviors had become accepted as part of the Hollywood mystique. We the adoring public are mesmorized by the fame of actresses, but we never realize what that fame cost each woman. McGowan represents Hollywood as similar to a cult. Those at the top with the money and power controlling the others, with abuse, belittlement and fear
Also Rose points out that the movies we watch influence our behavior in society as a whole. If men watch women be degraded in a film they think that is the way they can also treat the women in their lives. If women see that only the skinny and most beautiful women are singled out in a film, they change their view of their own bodies and looks. Our behavior and feelings about ourselves are being dictated by a small group of very disturbed, abusive men who wield the power.
Rose McGowan has started to shine a spotlight on the unpleasant behavior that was running rampant in Hollywood, calling our attention to the horrors the country ignored and swept under the carpet. We have pulled back a corner of the rug and peaked underneath but I am not sure we yet ready to pull back the red carpet and clean out all the dirt that has been hiding underneath for years.
Thursday, February 1, 2018
All I Love and Know
Each of us get up every morning and start our day in a certain direction. What happens in the world around has a affect on how we go through our days and our lives. Sometimes those chain reactions are so small we are not aware of them. Sometimes they are trivial and sometimes they change the course of our day or week. Once in a great while they are life changing. This book is the story of how a life changing event can reverberate through so many lives and across the world.
Author Judith Frank uses this novel to confront so many different issues that people are confronting and thinking about everyday. Where to even start? On the surface this starts out as a story about two young homosexual men at the beginning of their relationship. This would not have been a book I would have stayed with. But as you read on you find out that there are so many other plots and dilemmas that each character is working through that the book becomes a story of people in general and how their personal lives affect each other and how the circumstances of the world around them affect them and their relationships. So complicated!!
Daniel and Matt, two young men building a life together in Northampton Ma. They are each personally working on not only how to live in a relationship with another person but how their sexual preferences have defined who they each are. Daniel’s twin, Joel, a larger than life brother, who lives in Israel, married with two children and a successful television career is killed in a cafe bombing along with his wife. The bombing in an Israeli cafe reverberates around the globe to shake up the world that Daniel and Matt are slowly working through.
As the novel develops we, as readers, are privledged to listen into the inner thoughts and perspectives of each of the main characters as they work through conflicts the new lives they will embark on present. Daniel struggles with the feelings he has always felt of being the “invisible twin”. Now thrust into the limelight when the will is read and he becomes the guardian of Joel’s children. Matt, who never thought about settling down and being a parent, works through the process of accepting responsibility and wondering if he capable of really being there for someone else.
We also meet the children, Gal, seven and Noam, two. We watch as they are brought to America and how their new world and the experiences they have been through affect their development and feelings. We are able to listen in on Gal’s reactions, what it is like to start over in a new country without someone you feel you can confide in.
The best part of this novel that the author Judith Frank got right is the individual feelings and interpretations inside each character’s head. I really felt like I could understand each of the characters position, their feelings, their reasoning for how they reacted to different situations.
My feeling was maybe what a therapist may feel when listening to different patients, if each of these people could really put into words and be heard by the other people involved, so many problems could be avoided or solved through conversation. Each character is justified in their actions and feelings. Frank gives us real insight into the feelings of survivors of terrorist attacks. Real insight into the thoughts and feelings of the two men trying to create a family together. Interesting insight into the thoughts around the Israeli-Palestian problem from a more personal point of view. I think she also captures the feelings of a child who looses her parents and is starting over in a new environment trying to fit in. The child also carries the burden of the adults around her and not wanting to upset her grandparents or new parental figures. She carries the heaviest burden.
This is fabulous novel, so well developed. You really understand and wish you could help the characters talk to each other and work through their problems together for a happy ending.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Hotel Paradise
Amazingly, I just found out that Martha Grimes is not a British author!
I have read all her Richard Jury mystery novels and they all have titles that are supposed to be English Pubs. So surprise that Grimes is actually from Pittsburgh and Maryland. This novel, Hotel Paradise, is autobiographical of a setting that Grimes grew up with. As a young girl she spend her summers at the Hotel her mother owned and managed.
Similar to the main character in this series of mysteries, Emma is a young girl who. while her mother is busy running the kitchen of the Hotel Paradise, finds interesting ways to occupy her time. She is expected to help out in the kitchen and wait tables at meal times, but otherwise she has a lot of free time on her hands. She has an elderly aunt who lives in the hotel who she visits in her room. She brings her drinks and food in exchange for stories about the past. In this mystery novel Emma has discovered a story of a young girl who drowned forty years ago. Through newspaper articles and talking to her aunt and other older citizens of the town who may have lived there at the time, she tries to reconstruct what happened. She tries to find out what would make a twelve year old girl commit suicide or was it murder? She seems to spend her days hanging out with a waitress at the local diner and following the police chief around town.
The book has wonderful descriptive language that is more a character study of the people in this small area. There are many different types of people living here being described from the perspective of a twelve year old girl. She seems to accept her position in life and be accepting and tolerant of all the people around her. Though the other characters point out the stereotypes and prejudices toward others, Emma, our protagonist is always reasonable and understanding. There is no violent crime and the actual mystery does not seem to be the focus or point of the plot. The mystery just seems to be the vehicle that drives the story of Emma and her adventures.
I have read all her Richard Jury mystery novels and they all have titles that are supposed to be English Pubs. So surprise that Grimes is actually from Pittsburgh and Maryland. This novel, Hotel Paradise, is autobiographical of a setting that Grimes grew up with. As a young girl she spend her summers at the Hotel her mother owned and managed.
Similar to the main character in this series of mysteries, Emma is a young girl who. while her mother is busy running the kitchen of the Hotel Paradise, finds interesting ways to occupy her time. She is expected to help out in the kitchen and wait tables at meal times, but otherwise she has a lot of free time on her hands. She has an elderly aunt who lives in the hotel who she visits in her room. She brings her drinks and food in exchange for stories about the past. In this mystery novel Emma has discovered a story of a young girl who drowned forty years ago. Through newspaper articles and talking to her aunt and other older citizens of the town who may have lived there at the time, she tries to reconstruct what happened. She tries to find out what would make a twelve year old girl commit suicide or was it murder? She seems to spend her days hanging out with a waitress at the local diner and following the police chief around town.
The book has wonderful descriptive language that is more a character study of the people in this small area. There are many different types of people living here being described from the perspective of a twelve year old girl. She seems to accept her position in life and be accepting and tolerant of all the people around her. Though the other characters point out the stereotypes and prejudices toward others, Emma, our protagonist is always reasonable and understanding. There is no violent crime and the actual mystery does not seem to be the focus or point of the plot. The mystery just seems to be the vehicle that drives the story of Emma and her adventures.
Friday, January 19, 2018
Little and Lion
This is a very interesting book for a teen novel. I am not sure if this is a book I can picture teenagers reading. The subject matter is very intense. There is issues of mental illness and sexual orientation discussed, as well as participating in sexual activity and underage drinking and drugs. It is hard to image that our children have to deal with all these things at such a young age.
Written by Brandy Colbert, the book deals with what it is like to be different within your social circle. The insecurities of being a teen complicated by be a different color, religion or having a different sexual preference. Suzette is a young girl dealing with all those differences, trying to figure out who she is. Also trying to figure out how comfortable she is sharing all her thoughts with others. The fact that she is African American cannot be hidden, but she and her mother live as a family with a white Jewish man and his son. Suzette converted to Judaism and was even Bat Mitzvah because she wanted to fit in with her new family. But when she gets to boarding school she is not sure she is comfortable sharing the fact that she is Jewish. It is easy to leave her Star of David necklace in her dresser. Then she tests out her attraction to both girls and boys. Being away from home and missing her family she gets into a sexual relationship with her roommate. She is not sure if this is what is right for her and when Suzette goes home for the summer the friend she never seemed interested in romantically is looking very attractive.
Colbert talks about growing up in a town where everyone seemed to be exactly the same. She was surprised by the diversity she discovered when she went away to college and later on,
"Moving to Los Angeles after college, I was astounded by how different it was from my hometown. People wore what they wanted and their outfits didn’t all look the same. They had varying shades of brown skin and diverse backgrounds to go with them. They spoke multiple languages and observed various religions—or, sometimes, they practiced nothing at all. They were gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender and queer. They talked openly about their physical disabilities and mental illness. Sometimes one person claimed several of these identities at once."
Not sure if author, Colbert is trying to take on too many issues at once when she also adds in Suzette's brother's struggle with mental illness. Her "brother" Lionel, nicknamed Lion, is dealing with learning he suffers with bipolar episodes. As they try to balance his medication and accept his mental illness as a family, Suzette, or Little as her brother calls her, has to also choose whether to keep an important secret her brother entrusted her with or tell her parents.
There are so many different issues being presented in this novel. There is so much that a teenager is working through or thinking about themselves that maybe at least of the topics touched on in the book could help the reader. At least there is a lot that could be discussed between a parent and their teen after reading this book. Though the story os complex, it all seems to pull together nicely in the end. I enjoyed reading this book.
Written by Brandy Colbert, the book deals with what it is like to be different within your social circle. The insecurities of being a teen complicated by be a different color, religion or having a different sexual preference. Suzette is a young girl dealing with all those differences, trying to figure out who she is. Also trying to figure out how comfortable she is sharing all her thoughts with others. The fact that she is African American cannot be hidden, but she and her mother live as a family with a white Jewish man and his son. Suzette converted to Judaism and was even Bat Mitzvah because she wanted to fit in with her new family. But when she gets to boarding school she is not sure she is comfortable sharing the fact that she is Jewish. It is easy to leave her Star of David necklace in her dresser. Then she tests out her attraction to both girls and boys. Being away from home and missing her family she gets into a sexual relationship with her roommate. She is not sure if this is what is right for her and when Suzette goes home for the summer the friend she never seemed interested in romantically is looking very attractive.
Colbert talks about growing up in a town where everyone seemed to be exactly the same. She was surprised by the diversity she discovered when she went away to college and later on,
"Moving to Los Angeles after college, I was astounded by how different it was from my hometown. People wore what they wanted and their outfits didn’t all look the same. They had varying shades of brown skin and diverse backgrounds to go with them. They spoke multiple languages and observed various religions—or, sometimes, they practiced nothing at all. They were gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender and queer. They talked openly about their physical disabilities and mental illness. Sometimes one person claimed several of these identities at once."
Not sure if author, Colbert is trying to take on too many issues at once when she also adds in Suzette's brother's struggle with mental illness. Her "brother" Lionel, nicknamed Lion, is dealing with learning he suffers with bipolar episodes. As they try to balance his medication and accept his mental illness as a family, Suzette, or Little as her brother calls her, has to also choose whether to keep an important secret her brother entrusted her with or tell her parents.
There are so many different issues being presented in this novel. There is so much that a teenager is working through or thinking about themselves that maybe at least of the topics touched on in the book could help the reader. At least there is a lot that could be discussed between a parent and their teen after reading this book. Though the story os complex, it all seems to pull together nicely in the end. I enjoyed reading this book.
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