The BookFetish Blog

In one word, Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reason’s Why is mesmerizing.

From the publisher’s summary: Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker – his classmate and crush – who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and learns the truth about himself-a truth he never wanted to face.

Imagine that a moment. You hear the voice of a dead girl telling you that there are thirteen reasons she chose to end her life, and you factor into that story. It’s almost unfathomable how that could make you feel. But at the same time, it’s such an interesting hook. It sucks you in immediately. Because you’re a good person, right? You think back over every encounter you had with this person, and you can’t think of anything that you did that was so bad, so what was it? You have to know.

The thing Asher does so well with this book is show us how our actions, no matter how innocuous we think they are, may impact people in ways we don’t intend.  He also shows us how much we don’t notice, the subtle ways people may be shouting for help that we – for any number of reasons, some good and some not so good- just don’t see.

Reading Thirteen Reasons Why makes me want to be a better person. To ask, “How are you?” and actually LISTEN to the answer.  To offer a smile to strangers. To think twice about my choice of words in certain situations.  Yes, the book is YA. But we were all teenagers once, and depression isn’t limited to teenagers.

Asher delivers a page-turning, compelling read that really has you hoping for a different outcome.  It’s tragic, yes, but also enlightening and ultimately hopeful, as we see a chance for redemption.  Read this one.

I cried through roughly the last third of Debora Geary’s latest release, An Unlikely Witch. The residents of Witch Central have faced tough times in the past, but there’s always been a solution. In this case, something is going on with Nat and Jamie, and no matter how well intentioned Witch Central is, this isn’t something they and their magic can solve.

This is a story of learning to accept that what we desire most may not be meant to be.  It’s a story of a community embracing their own even when there’s no simple solution to a problem.  It’s a story about love conquering all, even when love is really all there is. It’s a story about being grateful for what we do have. And it’s a story about learning that sometimes dreams do come true, even if it isn’t in quite the way we imagined.

As usual, Geary manages to give me some message that I need to hear, even if I am not fully aware of it at the time. I believe that is a part of the reason that I was a bawling mess through the end of the book.

I talk about this in every review I do of a Debora Geary book- the community, friendship, and love amongst the residents of Witch Central and those who stumble (or who are ported into) their midst is really what makes these stories.   For books that make you feel good, even when they take you through an emotional wringer, you can’t do better than Geary’s  Witch books.

Reading these books makes me want to live life more fully, be a better person, be a better friend, and approach life from a place of love and acceptance rather than cynicism and sarcasm.

Debora rarely gives interviews, but she did give one recently to the folks at Herbiary. You can read it here.

I love these books, and can’t encourage you too much to check them out.

Happy New Year!  I know I’m not the only one saying it, but I cannot believe 2013 is ending and 2014 is raring to go.  I like the number four.  Having a four in the year makes me hopeful for what may unfold in the new year.

I’ve not written the Sunday Win(e)d Down in nearly a month. The holiday season took me by surprise and I just didn’t make the time to do it.  Part of the point of the column was to be more consistent with blogging, so I figure I must do it the last Sunday of the year.

I’ve blown through a number of books recently: The River Witch, An Unlikely Witch, and How To Be A Good Wife to name a few. I’m about to start The Night Circle for my January book club. And on January 14, I’ll be a blog tour stop for Laurel Osterkamp’s latest book, The Holdout.

Over Christmas, I watched the film adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird. Some friends and I are doing a reading/re-reading of the book in the new year. If you want in, let me know.

What else has been going on?  Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time with friends.  And I’ve loved that. I keep reminding myself that we regret most the things we do not do.  So brunches and late nights and concerts and glasses of wine and lingering dinners- all filled with friends- make the world go around.  It’s better to spend this time than not spend it.

I’ve also started working with a wonderful trainer, who is going to help me be fit and and strong.  That’s really all I want- to make my body the healthiest it can be.

I’ve been thinking a lot about being content with what is. Accepting what is.  I’m struggling with making sure I am doing that for the right reasons. I have a hard time separating “giving up” and “accepting” sometimes.  I also think that giving up is sometimes the right thing to do- if it is for the right reasons. It’s this time of  year.  I’m fairly contemplative anyway, but this time of year really brings it out.

I forgot to make my Pigskin Picks today, so only tonight’s game will count for me. It’s probably safe to assume this will be the lowest performing week that I drop.

What about you, readers? Who is making New Year’s Resolutions? Who is planning something fantastic for next year? Who wishes this year could stick around a little longer?

I am happy to report that I was able to read an advance copy of Angela Correll’s debut novel, Grounded.

From the Amazon book summary: New York City flight attendant Annie Taylor is grounded. Turbulence in the airline industry leads to her job loss—putting a halt to her weekends in Rome and independent city life. Just when she needs him the most, she loses her boyfriend and her apartment. Annie flees the city for the family farm in Kentucky. Her arrival is met by a shotgun-wielding grandmother, a suspicious stranger moving into the old stone house, and her attractive childhood friend Jake about to make the biggest mistake of his life. Struggling against her grandmother’s stubborn ways, Annie disagrees with her on the fate of the family farm but stays on to help her grandmother through a knee surgery by tending the garden and learning how to can the vegetables. Through the summer’s trials, Annie is forced to face her own past mistakes and the consequences. When the phone call comes from New York earlier than expected, Annie must choose between coming to terms with her deep roots or leaving it all behind for a return to the city.

Overall, I liked Grounded. Anyone who has lived in or spent time in small southern towns will certainly recognize the language, colloquialisms, and sense of community. That part felt very familiar to me as I was reading- almost as if some of my own relatives were speaking. As is the case in many southern towns, the church is a social center, so a tolerance for church relationships and mentions of Jesus are a must for readers to stay engaged and enjoy the book.

Annie is a believable character who grows as a person through the course of the story- albeit in a somewhat predictable manner. That’s not to say that it isn’t enjoyable, just that I wasn’t terribly surprised by certain turns of events as the book progressed.

I liked the way the characters relate to each other. Sometimes you don’t need high drama to tell an interesting story, and understated can be just as entertaining as a tale fraught with tension.

I enjoyed Grounded and I’m looking forward to reading more from Angela Correll.

I finally got caught up on a couple of reviews. I posted my thoughts on I Am Malala yesterday.  My review of Angela Correll’s Grounded will post late Tuesday morning.  I just finished Nora Roberts’ The Dark Witch and have just started A People’s History of the United States 1492 to the Present so lots of reading going on.

I have friends doing some fun things this week. Because of when I changed jobs this year, I won’t be taking off a lot of time for the Holidays.  I enjoy Thanksgiving. I’m beginning to plan for Christmas – but I won’t officially begin to celebrate until after Thanksgiving.

And that leads me to what I am thinking about today. I was reminded this week of the fun of play.  When my mother was pregnant with me, she painted some wooden ornaments for our Christmas tree.  These are the ornaments of my childhood, treasured memories. When I moved out, mom sent them with me to use on my own tree. Several years ago, doing some post-Thanksgiving browsing, I found some similar ornaments and bought them. I intended to paint them and add them to the collection on my tree.  Like many ideas, this started enthusiastically and I painted several of the ornaments but then put them away where they sat in a box for more years than I can really remember.

Last week, I decided I wanted to paint these ornaments and use them this year. Of course, I had to buy new paints.  The original paints had long since dried or were well past their prime in other ways.  I sat down and started painting and quickly found myself lost in it, really enjoying it.  I’m not artistic and coloring in the lines was always a challenge to me as a child because I didn’t want to be careful enough to make coloring neat. Painting, until last week, had been that way, too. Now, though, I enjoyed the smaller, precise strokes. I found myself in the zone, enjoying painting for painting’s sake, and found myself with a quiet mind. 

Now, here’s the part about the fun of play. Any time I’ve had a few spare minutes this week, I’ve sat down to paint some more.  Some of the ornaments are cuter than others, more my style.  I was painting them all because they were there, but I wasn’t really enjoying painting some of them, or looking forward to putting them on my tree.  That’s when some voice inside me said , “Don’t paint the ones you don’t really like.” Hello, light bulb and what should have been obvious.  Then I thought about the cutouts from the boxes, providing guidance on colors for the ornaments. That subversive little voice inside my head said, “You know those are just suggestions, right? You can paint these any color you like.” Again, Duh!

But so much of life is orderly- follow the traffic laws, pay bills on time, follow processes at work- that I had forgotten that in play, you get to follow the rules. Or not. You can make up new rules, or decide there are no rules.  It is so liberating to embrace play even in this small way.  So I have put aside the ornaments I don’t really love. I’m using purple where pink is suggested, or glitter paint on some pieces, or deciding that the scarf doesn’t need to be red and green but blue and yellow, or any other number of things.

I’m having fun, I’m seeing hints of whimsy. I’m following my gut.