Audiobook Review: Never Change by Elizabeth Berg

Here is a summary of Never Change from the Shelfari website:

A self-anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.

My Review:

This book will take you on a journey through the final stage of someone's life.  I think that I need to be a bit more selective when I choose these types of books, because although this was a good story, it may have been a little too soon after losing my sister to read something with this type of content.  

Myra has lived her whole life alone, not really reaching out or expecting much from others as she didn't seem to think that people would enjoy her as a friend.  She is a nurse that assists people with their needs in their homes and may have several clients in a day.  Getting the chance to know Myra's clients was kind of a fun and lighter part of the book.  One morning Myra realizes that Chip Reardon has been added to her client list and high school memories of her longing for Chip flood her mind.  But Myra is a professional and she should be able to handle caring for Chip and whatever needs arise as he prepares for his final stage of life because of a brain tumor.

Chip is thankful to see a friendly face that he knows when Myra shows up at his door.  You can tell that he is getting tired of being treated like a patient and hopes that Myra will start to spend time with him as a friend.  They do become much closer and Myra is happy to get to know Chip on such a personal level, but quickly becomes discouraged when Chip's girlfriend Diane shows up on her doorstep.  Since Diane is from out of town, Myra offers her spare bedroom to Diane for as long as she needs it.

During the time that the ladies are staying together you can tell that Myra never really had close, female friendships.  She actually was shocked when Diane suggested that Myra never allowed people to get close to her back in high school.  When Chip later brings to her attention that she is a wonderful person but just needs to let people into her life, it all comes together.

Myra has been with people as they are dying before and she is not afraid to be around them.  She finds it soothing in a way because these people are true and honest with themselves.  You can see the appreciation of life in the eyes of terminally ill people that most individuals just can't comprehend.  From personal experience this is such a special time and I will always have fond memories of the last days I had with my sister.  Of course it is heartbreaking, but I also have the memories of us laughing and enjoying each other's company during that time.

In a way Chip helped Myra as much as she helped him, by helping her find a piece of herself that she didn't know existed.  He helped to bring her out of her shell and realize that she is just as worthy of being loved as anyone.  She was a wonderful individual with so much to offer.  Myra just wasn't sure how she would be able to live without Chip by her side in the future.

I enjoyed this story with it's themes of love, dying, grief, and acceptance.  I have only read a couple of Elizabeth Berg's books, but I feel that she really developed the characters well in this novel.  I do recommend this as an audiobook, but not too soon after losing a loved one.

My Rating:  4/5

Disclosure:  I borrowed this book from the library to listen to for my own entertainment.

Friday Finds-Feb. 12

Should Be Reading asks you to share what books you discovered this week that interest you!


The book that caught my eye this week was One Amazing Thing that I spotted over at Linus's Blanket.

Here is a summary of One Amazing Thing from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's website:

Late afternoon in an Indian visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine wildly individual characters together, their focus first jolts to a collective struggle to survive. There’s little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, “one amazing thing” from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. As their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival—and about the reasons to survive.

I think this sounds like a fabulous story and hopefully I can get my hands on one!
So did anything catch your eye this week?

Book Club Chatter

Welcome to another week of Book Club Chatter where I hope to discuss all things book club on a weekly basis. I thought this would  be a fun way for each of us to share one little tidbit every week.



So here is my question for you this week:
If your group serves refreshments at your meetings, what do you usually have?  Do you wait to serve refreshments until you have completed your discussion?  

My Answer:
We usually have coffee and a wonderful dessert, hence the name of our book club "Sweet Connections".  We also wait until our discussion of the book is over before serving refreshments.  We don't want the host to miss any of our discussion while trying to keep everyone's cup full during our meeting.

There is not a deadline as to when you need to post or answer this question, so please feel free to join in at your convenience. You can either leave your answer in the comments below or post your answer on your blog and leave the link below.

Wondrous Words Wednesday-Feb. 10

 

Bermudaonion asks you to share new words that you have learned during your reading adventures in the last week. Feel free to join in the fun!

Here are some new words that I learned while reading The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley:
Truncheon:  the club carried by a police officer; billy.

Here is how truncheon was used on page 142:
I flirted with the red-turbaned Sikh police who shouted at the cars and hit the rickshaw boys with their truncheons.

Samphire: a European succulent plant, Crithmum maritimum, of the parsley family, having compound leaves and small, whitish flowers, growing in clefts of rock near the sea.

Here is how samphire was used on page 170:
We ate wonderful sweetmeats made from almonds and pear syrup, and invariably ended the banquet with a soup of samphire or chestnuts.

Haberdashery:  a retailer that sells men's furnishings, such as shirts, ties, gloves, socks, and hats.

Here is how haberdashery was used on page 195:
In a glass-fronted chest of drawers of the kind found in haberdashery shops were pairs of white buckskin gloves and fine-seamed nylons stacked neatly in their Cellophane wrappers. 

Shambolic:  Disorderly or chaotic

Here is how shambolic was used on page 236:
Yet it was a good deal more fitting for an emperor than the shambolic Quiet Garden in Tientsin had been.

So did you experience any new words in your reading adventures the last week?

Giveaway: Black Hills by Dan Simmons

With the release of Black Hills this month, Valerie from Hachette is offering to give away three copies of this book to my readers!

I will be reviewing this book in a  couple of months but here is a summary of it from the Hachette website:

When Paha Sapa, a young Sioux warrior, "counts coup" on General George Armstrong Custer as Custer lies dying on the battlefield at the Little Bighorn, the legendary general's ghost enters him - and his voice will speak to him for the rest of his event-filled life.

Seamlessly weaving together the stories of Paha Sapa, Custer, and the American West, Dan Simmons depicts a tumultuous time in the history of both Native and white Americans. Haunted by Custer's ghost, and also by his ability to see into the memories and futures of legendary men like Sioux war-chief Crazy Horse, Paha Sapa's long life is driven by a dramatic vision he experienced as a boy in his people's sacred Black Hills. In August of 1936, a dynamite worker on the massive Mount Rushmore project, Paha Sapa plans to silence his ghost forever and reclaim his people's legacy-on the very day FDR comes to Mount Rushmore to dedicate the Jefferson face.

Now for the giveaway!

To enter this contest you must be at least 18 and live in the U.S. or Canada.

For one entry leave me a comment including your email address below.

For two additional entries, blog about this contest or add the link to your sidebar.

Please include your email so I will have a way to contact you if you win.

You will have until February 28th to enter and I will draw for winners on March 1st.

Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

Here is a summary of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt from the Penguin website:

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.

My Review:
Saving CeeCee Honeycutt was such a special novel that gripped my heart on so many different levels.  I have read nothing but rave reviews of this novel so you may not be surprised to learn that this is another review with nothing but compliments.  I honestly believe that this story will show you the importance of having strong, loving women in your life to count on at all times.  I have always enjoyed Southern fiction and the female relationships that were created in this novel was just the icing on the cake!

CeeCee is a young girl who really hasn't had the opportunity to enjoy her childhood the way most children have.  Her father is a traveling salesman who is hardly ever home and as CeeCee's mother's mental state worsens his trips home become less and less.  Before you know it CeeCee is the one taking care of her mother rather than the other way around.  Her mother frequently visited the local Goodwill store in search of a new prom dress, since that is what she wore on a daily basis.  I can only imagine the horror that CeeCee felt when coming home from school only to find her mother doing yardwork in her latest prom dress purchase.

Early in the novel CeeCee's mother is killed in an unfortunate accident and her father decides that he probably doesn't have what it takes to raise her.  When her mother's Aunt Tootie arrives after the funeral offering to take CeeCee back to Savannah, Georgia and raise her, he doesn't hesitate at the opportunity.  Although CeeCee feels that her father is abandoning her once again, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to her under the circumstances.

Tootie is a caring, strong woman who lives alone in a big old house in Georgia.  When they arrive at her home she finds herself surrounded by the beauty of various flower gardens and more strong women that would do just about anything for their neighbors.  Tootie takes on the role not only of caregiver but also a friend and I found it interesting how each woman that entered CeeCee's life played a special role and they seemed to have their own little secrets between them.

Oletta has been Tootie's servant and cook for as long as they both can remember and she was definitely one of my favorite characters.  She developed a special kinship with CeeCee almost immediately and was probably the first person that CeeCee opened up to and let out her emotions in full swing.  Miz Goodpepper was Tootie's kooky neighbor that you could never predict.  I couldn't help but laugh out loud when she showed up at Tooties door in a beautiful gown but happened to be using duct tape for a bra...now that is a use for duct tape that I don't think I will ever try!

Mrs. Odell was CeeCee's loveable elderly neighbor when she still lived with her mother.  During that period of her life Mrs. Odell was probably her only link to sanity and when she first had to leave her childhood home to move to Savannah it was Mrs. Odell that was going to be missed the most.  But when Mrs. Odell explained to CeeCee that we all had our own Life Books with different plans in them for different reasons it helped her to cope with her move.  Later on in the novel CeeCee reflects about her Life Book in the following phrase from page 276 of the uncorrected proof:
I thought about how we all had Life Books--Mrs. Odell, Aunt Tootie, Oletta, and me, and how someone, somewhere, had seen fit to write our names on one another's pages. 

Throughout this novel CeeCee is dealing with what has happened to her mother, wondering if the same illness could possibly strike her at any point in her life.  As she starts to be more comfortable with herself you can see that the memories of her mother's insanity are starting to be replaced by good heartfelt memories.  CeeCee remembered when her mother was telling her about how oysters are like women in the following excerpt from page 255 of the uncorrected proof:
   "Oysters are a lot like women.  It's how we survive the hurts in life that brings us strength and gives us our beauty."  She fell silent for a moment and gazed out the window.  "They say there's no such thing as a perfect pearl-that nothing from nature can ever be truly perfect."
   Abruptly she turned to me, and the look in her eyes was fierce.  "But they're wrong," she said, pulling me close.  "You, Cecilia Rose, are a perfect pearl.  My Perfect little pearl."

This book brought tears to my eyes several times and just verified to me the importance of having solid relationships with good women.  I think I could really go on and on about this book all day and I know I will be passing it around to the ladies in my book group.  If you enjoy Southern fiction with themes of acceptance and forgiveness with some strong and quirky women I am sure you will enjoy this book.  So my final question is, Do you have plenty of pearls written in your Life Book?  I know I do!

My Rating: 5/5

Disclosure:  This book was provided to me from Library Thing as part of the Early Reviewer's program in exchange for an honest review.

Mailbox Monday-Feb. 8

 

Thanks to Marcia of The Printed Page for hosting the Mailbox Monday Meme that has us list the books that we received last week. You can go to her blog to see what everyone else got last week or to play along.

Ok, so I am cheating this week since I really didn't receive anything in my mailbox.  I'm not sad about that though, since I have so many wonderful books to read that I already have at home.  A few weeks ago, one of the gals in my book club won a set of books for our whole group though, and I realized that I forgot to post about that one.  So even though I received this book about a month ago and it was actually sent to someone elses mailbox...here is what I have:

 

Where Grace Abides  by BJ Hoff

So what was in your mailbox this last week?