Review: Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots

Source: the Author in exchange for an honest review

Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots by Jessica Soffer
Genre: Literary Fiction, Foodie, Contemporary
Pages: 317 (Hardback)
Author's Website | Twitter | Facebook
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Description:

“Elegant, sensual, surprising, and rich, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots delivers a world to us, populated with indelible characters whose fates, as they become entwined, spur us to read fast, faster, except to do so would be to miss the beauty of Soffer’s language, which is to be savored.” — Dani Shapiro, author of Family History

This is a story about accepting the people we love—the people we have to love and the people we choose to love, the families we’re given and the families we make. It’s the story of two women adrift in New York, a widow and an almost-orphan, each searching for someone she’s lost. It’s the story of how, even in moments of grief and darkness, there are joys waiting nearby.

Lorca spends her life poring over cookbooks, making croissants and chocolat chaud, seeking out rare ingredients, all to earn the love of her distracted chef of a mother, who is now packing her off to boarding school. In one last effort to prove herself indispensable, Lorca resolves to track down the recipe for her mother’s ideal meal, an obscure Middle Eastern dish called masgouf.

Victoria, grappling with her husband’s death, has been dreaming of the daughter they gave up forty years ago. An Iraqi Jewish immigrant who used to run a restaurant, she starts teaching cooking lessons; Lorca signs up. Together, they make cardamom pistachio cookies, baklava, kubba with squash. They also begin to suspect they are connected by more than their love of food. Soon, though, they must reckon with the past, the future, and the truth—whatever it might be. Bukra fil mish mish, the Arabic saying goes. Tomorrow, apricots may bloom.

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Review & Giveaway: A Land More Kind Than Home

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
Genre: Literary Fiction, Mystery, Southern
Pages: 309 (ARC)
Source: TLC Book Tours
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Review: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison
Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 290 (Hardcover)
Source: Publisher: Algonquin Books
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Description:

Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything--his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving, where he is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability, about professionalism, and on how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider. But when Ben is assigned to tyrannical nineteen-year-old Trevor, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, he soon discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him for the reality of caring for a fiercely stubborn, sexually frustrated adolescent with an ax to grind with the world at large. Though begun with mutual misgivings, the relationship between Trev and Ben evolves into a close camaraderie, and the traditional boundaries between patient and caregiver begin to blur as they embark on a road trip to visit Trev's ailing father. A series of must-see roadside attractions divert them into an impulsive adventure interrupted by one birth, two arrests, a freakish dust storm, and a six-hundred-mile cat-and-mouse pursuit by a mysterious brown Buick Skylark. Bursting with energy, this big-hearted and inspired novel ponders life's terrible surprises and the heart's uncanny capacity to mend.

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Review: The Year of the Gadfly & Giveaway

The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller
Genre: Literary Fiction, Mystery
Pages: 374 (ARC)
Source: TLC Book Tours
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Description:

Mariana Academy is a storied institution, built with gothic architecture, founded with a serious honor code and, for the most part, run by its students. But Prisom's Party, a secret society named after the school's founder, has been troubling these quiet halls, naming the student community code an empty motto—Brotherhood, Truth, and Equality for All—and exposing teachers, students, and the school for every indiscretion or dishonesty.

Taken by her parents from the familiar environs of Beacon Hill in Boston to escape the loss of her best friend, Iris Dupont is now living in small-town Nye, Massachusetts, and attending the hyper-competitive Mariana. Her only confidant is a chain-smoking, challenge-wielding spectre named Edward R. Murrow and when he tells her to stop moping and get out there in search of a story, she takes the charge.

Now Iris is on the hunt for a great story, one that will make her the youngest editor-in-chief in the school newspaper's history, but her research is leading her deep into the Trench (the school basement), toward the staff of The Devil's Advocate (the underground news organ of Prisom's Party), and to discovering all the secrets they both hold. Some of them seem to involve her favorite teacher, Mr. Kaplan. Some of them seem to point to the girl who used to live in her house—an albino named Lily Morgan who left the school abruptly twelve years ago and seems to have never returned. And everything seems to be connected to a rare book she found in her borrowed room, Marvelous Species: Investigating Earth’s Mysterious Biology.

Was all of this triggered by the string of incidents that set the school on high alert? Does it trace back to a scandal Mr. Kaplan is hiding in his past? What is the meaning of the strange symbol that keeps showing up in the wake of the Prisom's Party incidents? And when Iris gets deep into the story, torn by her allegiances, her reporter's instinct, and her yearning for a true friend, will it be enough for her to ask: What would Edward Murrow do?

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Review: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Genre: Inspirational, Literary Fiction
Pages: 196 (paperback)
Source: Mom's Bookshelf
Author's Website
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Description:

Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination. It's a place where your life is explained to you by five people, some of whom you knew, others who may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here?

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Review: Taste of Salt

Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate
Genre: Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 281 (Paperback)
Source: Publisher Algonquin Books
Author Website | Twitter | Facebook

From the Back Cover:

Josie Henderson is most at home in and around water, and as a senior-level black female scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, she is practically alone in her field.  But in building this impressive life for herself, she has tried to shed the one thing she cannot: her family roots back in Cleveland.  When Tick, her brother and childhood ally against their alcoholic father, arrives on her doorstep fresh from rehab and teetering on teh edge of a relapse, Josie must finally face her family's past--and her own patterns of addiction.

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Review: In Search of the Rose Notes

In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Aresenault
Genre: Mystery, Adult Fiction
Pages: 369 (paperback)
Source: TLC Booktours and Publisher
Resources: Author's Website

Back Cover:

At age eleven, Nora and Charlotte re the best of friends--until their teenager babysitter Rose, disappears under mysterious circumstances.  They decide to "investigate," using paranormal theories and techniques they glean from a hand-me-down collection of Time Life books.  But their search goes nowhere, and leaves both girls distraight and angry with each other.

In her late twenties. Nora is drawn back to her old neighborhood, and to Charlotte, when Rose's bones are found.  She was probably murdered, and Charlotte is adamant that they solve the crime.  Nora--who was the last known person to see Rose alive--is forced to reconsider her memory of the events surrounding the disappearance, and her own troubled adolescence following those fateful days.  And she's not sure if she's read to face the secrets that begin to surface.

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Review: The Stormchasers

The Stormchasers by Jenna Blum
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 369 (paperback)
Source: Publisher
Resources: Author's' Website | Facebook

From the Backcover:

As a teenager, Karena Jorge always took care of her twin brother, Charles, who suffers from bipolar disorder.  Obsessed with the weather and enraptured by its unpredictability that seems to mirror his own impulses, Charles grows increasingly unstable, until Karena finds herself caught between her loyalty for her brother and fear for her own safety.  When a terrifying storm chase with Karena ends with deadly consequences, the twins are torn apart, and Karena's life is changed forever.  Two decades later, Karena is forced to confront the dark secret from her past and track down her estranged brother before he does further damage to himself or to someone else.  She embarks on an odyssey that will test the strength of their sibling bond and give her an unexpected chance at love and redemption.

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Review: Exposure

Exposure by Therese Fowler
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction
Pages: 366 (Hardback)
Source: Publisher (Ballentine Books)
Author's Site | Discussion: When Books Meet Life
Available May 3, 2011

Book Flap:

Amelia Wilkes's strict father does not allow her to date, but that doesn't stop the talented, winsome high school senior from carrying on a secret romance with her classmate Anthony Winter.  Desperately in love, the two envision a life together and plan to tell Amelia's parents only after she turns eighteen and is legally an adult.  Anthony's mother, Kim, who teaches at their school, knows--and keeps--their secret.  But the couple's passion is exposed sooner than planned: Amelia's father, Harlan, is shocked and infuriated to find naked pictures of Anthony on his daughter's computer.  Just hours later, Anthony is arrested.
Despite Amelia's frantic protests, Harlan uses his wealth and influence with local law enforcement and the media to label Anthony a deviant who preyed on his innocent daughter.  Spearheaded by a zealous prosecutor anxious to turn the case into a public crusade against "sexting," the investigation soon takes an even more disturbing and destructive turn.
As events spiral wildly out of control and the scandalous story makes national news, Amelia and Anthony risk everything in a bold and dangerous attempt to clear their names and end the madness once and for all.

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Double Reviews: Jane Eyre and Insatiable (Audiobooks)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Genre: Classic, Audiobook
Length: 18.2 hours
Read by: Amanda Eland

"Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are! (Jane to Mr. Rochester-Ch. 23)" 

Insatiable by Meg Cabot
Genre: Chick-Lit, Paranormal, Fantasy
Length: 16.75 hours
Read by: Emily Bauer

"It's me." she said.  She heaved a tearful sigh.  His grip on her tightened, not very gently either.  "What are you talking about?" he rasped.  "You drank my blood." she reminded him, "Not a lot so it'll probably go away after your next feeding.  This should teach you to be more careful.  You are what you eat you know." (Mena to Lucian - Ch. 42)

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Reflections: What Are Your Feelings About "Classics"

The other day, I ran into two different quotes about classics...

1.  Niecole from Fantasmagoriese posted an interesting quote by Mark Twain.

"'Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read."

2.  And Lisa from Her Book Self posted a thought-provoking quote from Clifton Fadiman.

"When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than was there before."

Growing up, I read as many books as I could get my hands on.  One summer, my dad bought me a dictionary that included a list of classics.  I decided to read every book on the list for my summer reading.  Well... it didn't go well.  The books that I started, I managed to finish because that's what I do.  However, I didn't enjoy most of them and have steered away from them as much as possible.  I found they were boring and old-fashioned.

Fast-forward some years... I became a teacher!!!

Review: The Penelopiad

 

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Genre: Historical Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 196

From the Back Cover:

For Penelope, Odysseus's wife, running a kingdom while her husband is away fighting in the Trojan War is no simple matter.  Already distressed that he had been lured away because of the shocking behavior of her beautiful cousin Helen, Penelope must also raise her wayward son, face scandalous rumors, and keep more than one hundred lustful, greedy, and bloodthirsty suitors at bay.

Margaret Atwood gives voice to Penelope, one of antiquity's most infamous heroines, so that she can tell her story at last and set the record straight once and for all.

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