Tag Archives: Grief

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

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Synopsis:
After dying in a car crash, popular high school senior Samantha has to re-live Cupid day, facing up to her own weaknesses and those of her best friends, and finding a hope that fuels her will to find out how she can avert her own inevitable fate.

Review:
Before I Fall was recommended to me by YA book reviewer extraordinaire Renee Fountain, whose site Book Fetish is chock-a-block with a wonderfully diverse assortment of reviews. I had a lovely breakfast with Renee and enjoyed getting to talk books with a fellow YA-aficionado. She told me I had to read this book, and she was absolutely right.

The story follows a popular high school girl who lives an unexamined life of keg parties, teasing the less fortunate, and basking the reflected glow of her popular best friends. Samantha has never stopped to wonder if she’s cut out for anything more until the night when she is killed in a car accident. The next morning she wakes up on the day she died, and it seems like she’s being given a chance to make things right. Only Sam can’t figure out what she’s supposed to do, and makes some hideous mistakes before finally figuring out what it is she’s supposed to live for. I was tremendously moved by Sam’s journey and loved the way Lauren Oliver made me care about the kinds of girls I tend to hate, the popular, beautiful, lucky ones who don’t care who they hurt as long as they remain on top. The story is fearlessly told with ruthless honesty and no fear of the darker side of life. I loved it!

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Willow by Julia Hoban

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Synopsis:
After accidentally killing her parents, a teen turns to cutting and attracts the attention of a guy who desperately wants to save her.

Review:
Creepiest love story I’ve read in a long time. Ick.

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In the Wilderness by Sigrid Undset (The Master of Hestviken)

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Synopsis:
Medieval feudal lord now widower Olav Audunsson grapples with the sins of old that make each day a torment.

Review:
In the Wilderness had a strong transitional quality to it. I am hoping that the next book completes his spiritual journey because I was really unsatisfied with where he ended up at the end of the book. All he’s done his whole life is justify his misdeeds by claiming his own rights, and that’s just what he’s doing near the end. At this point I’m actually kind of pissed off by his obtuseness and pride. Nevertheless, I trust Sigrid Undset completely so I’m keen to keep going. The book also offers tantalizing hints towards a storyline with wayward Eirik to play out in the final book, so I’m hoping for a strong finish.

Arcadia Falls by Carol Goodman

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Synopsis:
Hired to teach at a secluded, artsy boarding school, a young widow discovers that mystery and murder roil below the bucolic surface.

Review:
I wanted to adore Arcadia Falls, but I only got about 80% there.

I loved the atmosphere that Carol Goodman created for Arcadia, the creepy boarding school in the middle of the woods in upstate New York. The backstory was most excellent, starting with a 1920s artists’ colony founded by two lesbians, one deeply conflicted and not entirely committed to Team Pink. For the most part, I was totally sucked into the story, eagerly turning the pages to get to the next scene.

However, the few missteps that I ignored at the beginning started to pile up so that by the end I had lost faith in the story’s ability to give me a transcendent experience. A few cardboard characters here, some overly expository dialogue there, added finally with an unfortunately predictable endgame led ultimately to disappointment for me.

Many thanks to Ballantine Books for the review copy.

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Say Goodnight, Gracie by Julie Reece Deaver

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Synopsis:
Morgan and Jimmy were best friends, perhaps on the verge of something more, when tragedy strikes.

Review:
Back when I was in high school, Say Goodnight, Gracie was one of my favorite books, and I was curious to see if it held up so many years later. I can remember being drawn powerfully to their friendship and aching over Morgan’s grief. I wanted a best friend like Jimmy, though it wasn’t until reading it now that I realized that author Julie Reece Deaver had planted some seeds showing that they might also be finally falling in love. That was a nice touch that made Morgan’s anguish all the more poignant.

The book feels a bit quaint, now, with some archaic touches like a doctor who smokes in her office, and references not to pop culture but to George Burns and Fred Astaire. Morgan and Jimmy don’t feel like 21st century kids, but I found that refreshing. The story has emotional honesty and resonance and it remains a beautiful read.

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Talking to the Dead by Bonnie Grove

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Synopsis:
After the sudden death of her husband, a young widow begins to hear his voice at the same time she experiences a sort of amnesia about their last months.

Review:
Boy, I was really not expecting Talking to the Dead to be such a page-turner! I thought it was going to be an Anne Tyler-esque meditation on grief, loss, and moving on, and since I feared it might be a little dull, it languished on my TBR stack.

The book actually has a solid mystery at its core and some fantastic emotional pyrotechnics. Author Bonnie Grove took a lot of risks with her characters and was not afraid to take her characters to some very dark places. I’m very glad I gave this one a chance.

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The Straits by Jeremy Craig

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Synopsis:
After losing his mother and his sister in a devastating hurricane, high school student Jim now faces losing the FEMA trailer he shares with his aunt, so he turns to gambling to win the money to save them.

Review:
I just had to review The Straits, because author Jeremy Craig lives in my neighborhood! A mutual friend told me about the book and it sounded right up my alley. I really enjoyed it.

The Straits refers to the trailer park where Jim and his aunt live. It’s about to be taken down because FEMA needs the trailers, but they have nowhere else to go. Jim can’t stop thinking about the night that his house collapsed with his mother and younger sister inside. He feels like it was all his fault, and the guilt is eating him alive. He used to go to a fancy private school, but had to leave in disgrace after being caught in a gambling ring. He was framed by a friend, but no one will believe him. Now Jim needs money to find a new place to live with his aunt, and gambling seems to be the only way.

Craig makes Jim’s situation eminently believable, thanks to a wealth of details about how displaced persons live. I really felt for Jim and wanted him to find a way out of his despair. The book builds to an inevitable conclusion, but Craig makes the journey really fascinating. Good YA for guys is hard to come by, but The Straits–reminiscent of Chris Crutcher’s work–fits the bill.

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The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand

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Synopsis:
A tight-knit group of 4 couples must deal with the sudden and suspicious deaths of two of their own.

Review:
The Castaways put me off at first because it reminded me of The Big Chill, a movie I’ve never liked. I’ve never really been able to put my finger on why, except I know it has something to do with Glenn Close’s smug smile throughout. Perhaps it was because although they were ostensibly reuniting because of a death, they were so solipsistic in their mourning. I found some of that in The Castaways, with motherly Andrea taking the Glenn Close role as the most annoying among them.

Greg and Tess have always been the golden couple in their group of eight, but when they go out for an anniversary sail from their home in Nantucket to nearby Martha’s Vineyard, their boat ends up capsized and both Greg and Tess are killed. The rest of the group shatters in grief, particularly Addison, who had been having a love affair with Tess, though he cannot share his particular grief with anyone. Andrea, Tess’s older sister, anoints herself the most devastated and takes immediate custody of Greg and Tess’s two children. This hurts Delilah deeply, because she knows that the kids would rather live with her–and would be better off as well. Meanwhile, their spouses follow their own journeys of grief while struggling to repair their rapidly shattering marriages.

Elin Hilderbrand is expert at limning the details of relationships, making choices for her characters that are subtle and unexpected. The Castaways‘s complex twin geographies of mourning and sexual attraction held my interest even though the only character I really connected with was Delilah. While it’s not one I am jumping up and down for, I would recommend it to someone looking for a meaty book about relationships, one with more substance than the usual beach read and with a story rich in emotions and character.

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Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Anne Dayton and May Vanderbilt

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Synopsis:
As her father’s wedding approaches, Christine needs help more than ever to process her grief over her mother’s death, but her friends are all fighting with each other.

Review:
The second book in the Miracle Girls series, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do has a darker tone than Miracle Girls, and as a result goes a lot deeper. Angsty Christine is angrier and sadder than any of Anne & May’s protagonists to date, and in her pain she’s eminently relatable. They also do a good job showing how even the best of friendships can go sour, and present a good model to girls for how to mend broken relationships.

Everything You Know by Zoe Heller

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Synopsis:
After the suicide of his troubled daughter, a British journalist heads out to recuperate in Mexico and flee the ghosts that still linger even after he was acquitted of the murder of his wife.

Review:
Everything You Know is a much better book than its title would indicate. Author Zoe Heller is well-known for Notes on a Scandal, which became a great movie with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. Everything You Know lacks that book’s tawdrily catchy premise, but goes much deeper into its exploration of human nature.

Willy once stood trial for the murder of his wife Oona. Though not found guilty, his daughters Sophie and Sadie severed all ties with him. Sadie has recently committed suicide and sent Willy her diary, which he is reading while convalescing in Puerto Vallarta after a heart attack. Willy’s career has flourished, but his personal life has not, and he’s increasingly unable to account for the creeping despair that inflects his every interaction.

This is a character portrait of a man who has no redeeming qualities, no charm or charisma, and no passions, yet Heller makes Willy utterly fascinating in his quest to figure out why he feels so guilty when he’s convinced he’s done nothing wrong. Heller is a fantastic writer and I look forward to her next effort.

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