The Woman Upstairs

I just started reading The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud.  It was recommended by Good Reads as one of the nominees for best books of 2013 and the plot description sounded intriguing to me.  My mom also started reading it last week and told me she couldn't put it down.  We typically share the same taste in books so I decided I would start it after finishing The Accidental Mother.

Here is a basic plot summary from Good Reads:

"Nora Eldridge, a 37-year-old elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is on the verge of disappearing. Having abandoned her desire to be an artist, she has become the "woman upstairs," a reliable friend and tidy neighbour always on the fringe of others' achievements. Then into her classroom walks a new pupil, Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale. He and his parents--dashing Skandar, a half-Muslim Professor of Ethical History born in Beirut, and Sirena, an effortlessly glamorous Italian artist--have come to America for Skandar to teach at Harvard.

But one afternoon, Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies who punch, push and call him a "terrorist," and Nora is quickly drawn deep into the complex world of the Shahid family. Soon she finds herself falling in love with them, separately and together. Nora's happiness explodes her boundaries--until Sirena's own ambition leads to a shattering betrayal."

This description immediately drew me in for several reasons:
1) I am a teacher and it is amazing how quickly you can connect to some students and how much you feel responsbile for helping them.
2) I felt like Nora was well-described and I felt like I could empathize with her.

The plot intrigued me.  I wanted to know how Nora's influence helped Reza and his family; I also wanted to know why she was "disappearing" and if she came back from being "the woman upstairs."

So far, I really like the writing style.  Claire Messud has done a nice job of establishing Nora's voice and I really feel connected as a reader.  I am only 12% in right now though, so I have a ways to go.  The only thing that makes me a bit leery are some of the reviews on Good Reads (see link above).  Several were fairly negative, but I will continue to have an open mind as long as I'm still enjoying the book.  And so far, I am.

The Accidental Mother

It has been much harder for me to read over this break then it is when I am working.  Mostly because I have three children five and under and I am just exhausted by the end of the day, which is when I normally do the most reading.

Despite this, I still managed to finish my last book and start another called The Accidental Mother.  I also have my Kindle chock full of books I intend to read in the next month.  Most of these came from the Good Reads list of the best books of 2013 so I am pretty excited to get started on them.

The Accidental Mother is basically about a woman who is living a pretty carefree young adult life in London…until she learns that her childhood best friend has died in a car accident and left custody of her two young girls, Bella and Izzy, to her.  She has to change the way she handles her day to day life.  What starts out as a temporary solution where Sophie (the accidental mother) just tries to get by on a day to day basis turns into a longer term situation where she actually cares for and loves the girls.  Here is a line I highlighted that shows this character change in Sophie: "Not because she had to, she discovered as they waited at the bus stop, but because she wanted to.  And she wanted to not only for the children, whom she had gradually started to admire and even like, but for Carrie, whom she was slowly beginning to miss from the outside in, like a spring thaw."  I love the simile at the end, showing how Sophie is both finally starting to grieve, as well as connect to Bella and Izzy.

I think the plot twist is coming my way though, as they just found the girls' father, who abandoned them years ago and in on his way back now that he learned the fate of his ex-wife.  Here are a few questions I have:

• Is the father really going to want to be in their lives now considering he previously abandoned them?
• Will the girls want to live with their father os Sophie?
• Will Sophie put the girls ahead of her career?

Update coming soon!

Finished!

I finished Learning to Swim yesterday and all in all, it was pretty good.  The author did a fabulous job building suspense in such a way that you couldn't stop reading and also couldn't wait for the surprise you knew she had in store.  I don't want to give away the ending, but I will let you know that the dad was an honest guy and not involved in the kidnapping whatsoever.  I was very happy about that, as you want to see the best in people and he genuinely seemed thrilled when Paul was returned.  I don't want to give anything away though in case someone is interested in reading it.

So I've reached (actually exceeded) my reading goal of 42 books in 2013.  And that was starting in August when we began blogging.  Not too shabby for a mom of three little ones who works full time!  I am thinking of making my 2014 goal 75 books.  Hopefully I can make that happen.  What will your reading goal for 2014 be? Time to start thinking about it.  We will be updating our goodreads goal in January.  Happy holidays!

Learning to Swim

I am about  65% through Learning to Swim by Sara Henry.  I actually saw this title on the Cincinnati Public Library downloadables page and it sounded really intriguing.  I had never heard of the author before, but I really enjoy her style and the plot is engaging.

Summary:
Troy (a girl) is riding on a ferry near Virginia.  She sees another ferry crossing paths with hers and sees a young child being thrown overboard.  She sees his eyes specifically, pleading with hers and makes the snap decision to jump in.  She swims towards where she saw him go under and eventually rescues him.  After a long swim to shore, she discovers two somewhat strange things: no one is waiting for him (she was expecting ambulances and a worried set of parents) and there is an adult sweatshirt tied around him, binding his arms to his body so he can't move.  This was intentional.  Troy probably doesn't make the best decision here.  She fails to involve authorities and takes the boy back to her house.  She feeds and bathes him and makes sure he is comfortable and then tries to investigate who he is and who did this to him.  Paul, the boy, is Canadian and eventually reveals to Troy that he and his mother were kidnapped together.  His mother was killed and he was kept in a room for months before thrown off the ferry.  His father is still living in Canada.

Troy decides to go and see the father for herself to determine if she thinks he is innocent or was involved in the kidnapping.  After their initial visit, she feels that the father, Phillipe, is innocent and therefore reunites the boy with his dad.  Paul has really bonded with Troy though, and so Troy accompanies the boy to Canada and stays in the family house for awhile to help ease the transition.  Once there, it becomes clear that the lead investigator is suspicious of Phillipe and so Troy starts digging around in the house and on the family's home computer.

Connections:
It's kind of a mystery novel and in some ways reminds me of a couple of my favorite authors: Diane Chamberlain, Jodi Picoult, and Gillian Flynn.  Sara Henry really has me curious about Phillipe and if he was really involved in the kidnapping.  I also wonder what will happen to Paul if his dad is/was involved.

There have been several real life kidnapping cases, where children are abducted and forced to live in a small, secret space for long periods of time.  Most notably, the Ariel Castro victim's in Cleveland, Ohio.  Fortunately for Paul, he was only held in captivity for five months, but you can see through the author's details that it has really impacted him.  For example, he didn't have any access to laundry, so he could rinse out his own clothes in the sink and hang them to dry.  He started doing this at home, even though his father was very wealthy and he had a washer and dryer (and even a family maid to was his clothes for him).  He is having a hard time letting go of some of these survival tactics he developed while in captivity.

I'm glad it is winter break, as I know I will have time to finish this book soon and get started on another one.  Happy holidays!

Google Glasses

This weekend I was able to try out Google glasses.  My older brother works for Google and he just got a pair last week.  (Right now, buying them is pretty exclusive.  You have to have an invitation to buy them and they are $1500).  But, since my brother owned a pair and we had talked about them in 451, I decided I had to try them on and take a picture.  Since he had some inside scoop, I thought I would share a few things I learned about them.  First of all, Google is not planning to release them for purchase to the general public until the cost is down to around $500.  Secondly, since they are still a very new technology, its abilities are somewhat limited.  Here are my honest thoughts:

1. The screen you saw while wearing them was a true holographic computer screen, displayed above my right eye, a bit in the distance.
2. There were not actual lenses over my eyes...I thought there would be.  According to my bro, they will be available with prescription lenses as well.
3. The blye part near my right eye could be used as a motion sensor to switch between screens and see new information, kind of like how your finger swipes a smartphone. 

Will I own my own pair in the near future?  Probably not.  Pretty much everything they can do can also be done on my smartphone and I think it looks a little too Jetson-like for me at this point in time.  Regardless, I'm still excited I got to try them on! 

 

Now I know this technically is not independent reading BUT it does connect to 451, so I feel like I can share it on my reading blog.

The Rosie Project

I just started reading this last night, at the recommendation from my mom.  We share a Kindle account and she had bought this book and was telling me about it so I decided to give it a go.   Couldn't hurt, as it was already paid for!

It seems kind of like a "chick lit" book so far, but I haven't read one of those in awhile, so it's kind of relaxing.  The protagonist is a young adult/middle-aged man who has asperger's syndrome.  If you know nothing about this, please go back and click on the word Asperger's to take you to an informational piece.  Anyways, Don is highly intelligent, a professor.  And he is healthy, works out, has a good job, etc.  One of his few friends (a common quality of people with asperger's is social awkwardness) suggests he would be a good husband, so he decided to get married.  In the first 10% that I've read, Don decided a wife is a good idea, and he may as well make his search for a wife a scientific one.  He creates an interest inventory that he gives to women, where their answers must line up to his very specific responses.  He goes on two dates (one is more of a young professional's group dinner).

I already know from the back of the book that he is going to meet someone named Rosie who does NOT fit his ideal description of a wife but that love doesn't always follow a mathematical equation.  I totally agree with this.  I used to have this whole list of qualities that my husband would have to have, and when I met him, I just knew he was the one.  The list of criteria didn't really matter, so I'm assuming this is what will happen to Don in regards to Rosie.

I do have a few questions.  Hopefully I'll be able to return and update this post at the end of the week; I have a feeling it is going to be a quick read.

• How do Don and Rosie meet?
• Are there any funny stories of bad dates before he meets her (based on the writing so far, I will predict yes)
• Has this author written any other novels?  I'd never heard of him before.
• What about Rosie will not meet Don's ideal criteria?  (For example, he wants someone who enjoys red meat and is always on time, among others)

Happy reading!

Fahrenheit 451

I have always loved teaching Fahrenheit 451. There are many things I love about this book:

1. Students almost always enjoy it.  Especially because dystopian novels are "in" right now and this somewhat fits the bill.
2. Bradbury's writing style is phenomenal.  He has such interesting figurative language and imagery…something we will be looking at and discussing in detail later this week.
3. Many of his predictions for futuristic America are correct.  He predicts we will become complacent, addicted to television and that human relationships will suffer as a result.  This is somewhat true, though change television with smartphones and you have yourself a connection!
4. I have always loved science fiction books, so the fact that I get to teach an entire sci fi novel just makes me happy!

Currently, my students are all through part one of the novel.  We have been introduced to the four main characters: Montag, Mildred, Clarisse, and Beatty.  We have been introduced to the setting: futuristic America where technology has really overtaken many of the human relationships and/or responsibilities.  And we have been introduced to the conflict: Montag realizes books may have valuable information and perhaps he should stop burning them (his job as a fireman is to burn books in case you have never read the novel).

I saw this video on the news the other day and it totally seemed like something Ray Bradbury might have predicted:

The thought that this could be in our near future is just insane to me!  (Though I can't say I wouldn't use it; I'm a big fan of Amazon).   I also read an article about it that suggested you could order something online and have it at your door in thirty minutes or less.  The article also discusses the current limitations on this service.  What an innovative idea!  Have you seen this video?  What are your thoughts?  Any other cool new technologies you know about?  I'd love to hear details!