Books

Reading is the delight of my summer. If I was utilizing more common sense, I would devise and gain a job where I got paid to read books of my choosing - don't they always say you should find a job you truly love, and then you'll always be happy to go to work? So my most peaceful moments of the summer are spent on my front porch, sprawled in a porch chair, reading. Or at the pool, taking occasional dips in the water to cool off and keeping on eye on where exactly Lauren is in the pool. I subscribe to the "I feel no pressure to read quality literature in the summer" theory. I've read Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovitch, and the latest book in the Charlaine Harris series (the one the True Blood show is based on). I've reread some of the Harry Potter books, and the latest James Pattersons. I've read a bunch of light reading "girly" books that honestly all kind of blur together - Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Crusie, etc. But I've read 3 that stick out for me: Moon Over Manifest, Handle With Care, and A Reliable Wife.
Moon Over Manifest is by Clare Vanderpool. She is a Wichita, KS author, and she just won the Newberry award for this book. It is actually a YA book, set in KS, with details that appealed to me because they were so authentic. I was hoping to be able to read this book aloud to my class, but I think it will be over their heads. However, for Kansans in particular, this was a worthwhile read. Set during the Depression, the main character, a young girl, is shipped by her drifter father to his hometown, to be taken care of by an old friend, while her father travels and looks for work. The story tells about her searching into the past of the town, looking for clues about her father.
Handle With Care is about a young girl born with brittle bone disease. It's told from her mother, father, and older sister's points of view, all directed to her. Her mom ends up suing her obstetrician, on the grounds that she would have aborted her daughter had the disease been diagnosed earlier. The mom is doing this expressly for the purpose of gaining money to be able to care for her daughter. The father fights on the other side of the lawsuit. It was kind of heart-wrenching for me to read as a mom - how far you'd go to provide for your children, and how your choices ripple out to affect others.
A Reliable Wife is the best-written book I've read in ages. It is set in the early 1800s in rural Wisconsin. A man who basically owns a town - his company employs 95% of the population there - puts an ad in an East-coast newspaper advertising for a wife. A woman answers his ad, they get to know each other through letters, she comes to visit to see if they are compatible. However, this book slowly unfolds and becomes a rich and detailed and unforgettable story. It is fairly risque, but has incredible writing - I had to stop reading it at the pool, because I would forget to check to see if Lauren was all right.