{Between the Pages: "Nineteen Minutes"}

Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes is a strikingly real taste of the lives, dynamics, and circumstances of a community rocked by a school shooting.

Relying on several key characters to lay out the story, Picoult weaves their lives around one another, shedding light on the events that lead a social outcast to exploit his deepest desires.  In doing so Picoult effortlessly draws her reader to question reason and moral.

I loved this novel.  It was very easy to get into, drawing me in from sentence number one.  I like a book that makes me think, challenges me to question what I know, and gives me a story that takes me to places I wasn't expecting.  Picoult brilliantly does all of these things, while taking on a subject every parent should be acutely aware of: bullying.

What happened to the school shooter in this novel could be the story of thousands of students across America, and the underlying questions persist throughout: What makes one cross the line of no return and not another? Who could have prevented it? What were the warning signs? How could no one have known?

As an educator and a parent I find the subject matter fascinating and important.  Picoult tackled the subject matter respectfully and honestly, and as a reader I appreciated the way she allowed her characters' stories to unfold.

I highly recommend this book to people who enjoy a well-written, thought-provoking story with an ending you don't see coming.

[GIVE AWAY: My copy is up for grabs.... the first to comment for request gets the book!]



{Between the Pages: The Wednesday Sisters}

A coming of age book for young moms, The Wednesday Sisters is a novel by Meg Waite Clayton set in the late 1960s/early 1970s drawing together five young women as they grapple with their pasts, motherhood, marriage, their dreams and their futures, all while getting caught up in a friendship that would define their individuality and their spirit.

The Wednesday Sisters brings together women whose friendship is created in a park with their children.  Accrued by their curiosity of one of the friend's oddity, the women weave a friendship that fosters their growth personally, professionally, and profoundly for future generations by virtue of the book's culture-changing backdrop.

I thoroughly enjoyed this piece of literature.  I found the characters to be entirely relatable, and while I felt drawn to some more than others, I appreciated the way Clayton told their stories and explored their faults and strengths while keeping their dignity even when there was little left to keep.

Like Frankie, the novel's voice, I could sympathize with what life is like as a woman from the Midwest living in a new environment and enjoying the company of women whose backgrounds are quite different from my own.  I was immediately drawn in.

I also found myself completely compelled by their desire to write and dream.  Since moving away from home I have fostered my niche for story-telling, and in doing so have found my own voice.  These women find theirs through each other's love, friendship, encouragement, and persuasive pushing.  It is a beautiful story of growth.

I recommend this story to anyone who enjoys an uplifting book about the sisterhood of friendship, women's empowerment, and female self-discovery.  It's a story of encouragement in following your dreams.  A testament to the saying, "It's about the journey, not the destination."  A narrative that has left me inspired to write a novel of my own.  Truly a great read.  Thank you, Susie, for passing it my way!

[GiVe AwAy: I'm done! The book is yours if you're the first to comment for request.]

LaUrA, tHe BooK iS yOurS. CoNgrAtS & eNjoY!

{Between the Pages: "Little Bee"}

A hush-hush novel, Little Bee by Chris Cleave is the story of two women, voiced by two women.  It is a book about life, choice, chance, and fate.

I was told very little about the book before I read it; Little Bee is our book club's selection for the month.  I was drawn in by the premise: two women brought together by fate and one having a terrible choice to make.  With that, I made the choice to learn nothing else about it and dive right in.  In fact, it wasn't until I was a couple of chapters into the novel I decided to read the author's bio and found out it was penned by a man!  Little Bee beautifully represents these two women, their thoughts, feelings, behaviors.... His only miss, in my opinion, is when he has one of the main characters repeatedly pressing her forehead to a glass window; any women I know would refrain for doing such a thing because of the mark it would leave behind. Hah!

Nonetheless, I found the book difficult to put down.  I've never read a novel scripted in this form.  It is thought-provoking on many levels and has made me rethink my opinions and adjusted my perspective.

I look forward to discussing Little Bee at our next book club meeting and hearing the various takes on this compelling story, that while fiction could quite possibly be true.

I recommend Little Bee to anyone who appreciates a human story and the lives and choices women have to make.

[GiVe AwaY: I've completed the book, so after our book club on March 9th my copy is up for grabs.... The first reader to comment for request is the lucky recipient.]

{Between the Pages: "The Red Tent"}

Anita Diamant's The Red Tent is a work of historical fiction told by one of the Bible's silent characters, Dinah.  As Dinah tells the story of her life, she beautifully details the life of a family's women, their importance, their struggles, and their interconnected relationships with one another, their children, and the men that hold their fate.

While The Red Tent is a story rooted in biblical times it is not a story centered around religion, but rather a story of a tender woman silenced by the nature of the time in which she lived, and circumstances she was powerless to control.

Dinah details her autobiography beginning long before her birth.  Her story begins with her father, Jacob, a sheppard, and how he became married to her mother and her aunts.  Dinah learns of her history primarily through the stories she is told in the red tent.

As a young woman, Dinah experiences a tragic, life-changing event, altering the course of her life in a direction she clearly never could have imagined.

I found The Red Tent slow to start; as I reached the depths of the book it became clear why the set-up of the story was so pivotal to its premise.  There is a complex network of characters, which Diamant has illustrated in the front pages for reference.

While I'm a avid fan of history, I'm always hesitant to take on a work that does not portray pure fact.  Diamant does an exquisite job of weaving her research of existence in the ancient world into the life of a woman silenced by her circumstance.

The novel began reading as an educational tool.  Slowly, the author brought to life the thoughts, feelings, tastes and smells of what I had only learned as biblical stories; it was then I began to view the characters as relatable.  As the novel progressed their seemingly parallel world blended into the world in which I live by virtue of humanity.

I recommend this book to anyone (male or female) who finds an interest in stories of the Bible and/or history.  However, much like The Future Homemakers of America, it is at its roots an elegant story of women.  Whereas The Future Homemakers of America focuses on the relationships of a group of women, The Red Tent concentrates on one character and delves even deeper into her inner thoughts, struggles, and pleasures.

I found Dinah completely relatable; her experiences refreshingly real, and oddly comforting.  The life and death of this woman is worth telling.  Diamant did it brilliantly.

[GiVe AwaY: Since I've completed the book, my copy is up for grabs.... The first reader to comment for request, the book is yours.]

AnD tHe bOOk gOeS tO cOrrIe!

{Between the Pages: "The Future Homemakers of America"}

The Future Homemakers of America by Laurie Graham tells the tale of five Air Force pilots' wives and a chance-meeting local friend they happen on while stationed in England in the 1950s.  The novel follows these tightly-connected women on life's journey with the military, their husbands, children, and careers in a changing world that brings them right into the new millennium.  While fiction, the story gives a raw depiction of the adversities the women faced and the friendship that tied them and their varying paths together.

I found the book hard to get into.  Several of the ladies were from Texas, and the dialog and text were written as they speak; needless-to-say, the lack of grammatical integrity was difficult for me to navigate.  In addition, the author throws a lot of names at you: the main characters, their children, acquaintances.... I paused often to gather the who's who of the moment.

Although the book is slow to start, I'm glad I stuck with it.  As a former Air Force wife, I could relate to these women and enjoyed examining our parallels and the contrasts brought by our generation gap.

What captivated me most of all was how quickly life moves on, and the retrospective opportunities the book provides on how and why life takes us on our designated paths.  It is funny, raw, scandalis, and in one section I was so overwhelmed with tears I had to set it down to dry my face, but couldn't wait to get back to its pages.

I recommend this book to women who enjoy the special connection a group of women can posses, and especially to young military wives.  A great you're-in-good-company read!

[GiVe AwaY: Now that I'm finished with the book it's up for grabs.... The first interested reader to comment for inquiry, say the word and it's yours.] AnD tHe BooK gOeS to SuSiE!