“And what if I change?” It seems impossible that Varya’s future is already inside her like an actress just offstage, waiting decades to leave the wings. “Then you’d be special. ‘Cause most people don’t.” In 1969 the Gold children visit a fortune teller who can let you know the exact date of your death. While the foursome don’t share their fates with one another the information they receive shapes their futures. Benjamin divides her story into parts based on whose perspective the reader is privy […]
“Every note played is a life and death.”
Lisa Genova is a brilliant writer who uses her real world neuroscience degree to educate and entertain (if you can call these stories entertaining) a mass audience about a variety of brain disorders. Her most famous novel, Still Alice, tackles Alzheimer’s and was turned into a movie but she has also written about Huntington’s, Autism and unilateral neglect. Her latest novel, Every Note Played, focuses on the cheery topic of ALS, or Lou Gherig’s disease and its March 20th release date feels eerily timely next to Stephen Hawking’s […]
“It’s our memories that make us who we are – those moments that for whatever reason, big or small, stick in our brains, that make up our stories.”
Matty Wainwright and his best friend, Tabby, grew up across the street from each other in their idyllic suburban cul de sac. A few years ago Matty realized he was hopelessly in love with Tabby but is too afraid to do anything about it. Tabby is your typical YA heroine. She is beautiful, but doesn’t know it, smart and funny. She has a fiendish obsession with Nerds candy and will happily play with Murray, Matty’s four year old brother. Half way through Matty and Tabby’s […]
Biography of a Truly Despicable Woman
“She was a relentless, cold-blooded demon, a female smiling Buddah, a very wicked woman,” I was told by a Memphis pediatrician who’d tried vainly to curb her in the 1940s. “She got bigger and bigger the more power she had. She was pompous, self important- she was like Hitler, riding around in a big Cadillac driven by a uniformed chauffeur. She terrorized everyone.” I learned of Georgia Tann earlier this year while reading Before We Were Yours and was both fascinated and disgusted by the woman who, […]
Not all that wander are lost
I stumbled across Geraldine DeRuiter’s memoir All Over the Place while skimming Overdrive for my next audio book and was happily surprised to discover it was such a funny, heartfelt memoir. I’ve never read her blog, the Everywhereist, but I really enjoyed her self deprecating and open style of writing. While her blog, and by extension this memoir, are about travel that is just the surface of what DeRuiter covers. “Sometimes you can’t let a complete dearth of natural talent or ability stop you from doing something.” When […]
“The only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.”
Girl, Interrupted is a short memoir focusing on the nearly two years Susanna Kaysen spent in a psychiatric hospital. Kaysen is initially admitted by a new doctor for a “break” but her stay turns into something more permanent and she is eventually diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. While her story seems almost unbelievable at times, as well as a gross misuse of power by her doctors and parents, she posts her medical charts as evidence to her tenure at McLean Hospital. It has been several years since I have […]
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