Book review: Blackout: Remembering the things I drank to forget

Title: Blackout: Remembering the things I drank to forget

Author: Sarah Hepola

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary:  Sarah's a blackout drinker.  What's a blackout?  A blackout is essentially an empty space in your mind where you don't remember what happened. Blacking out is not the same as passing out. Sarah would wake up in a strange bed (or her own bed) and have no idea how she got there.  Sometimes there'd be a man in the bed with her and she'd have no idea who the guy was.  Sarah decided she needed to get alcohol out of her life and come to terms with who she was without alcohol.

Review: I've always been a sucker for addiction stories. I watched Intervention for years and recently got sucked back into it.  I have a fascination with understanding what led people to go down the path of addiction (or get dragged) and what motivates them to get better.  This book was right up my alley.  Sarah's accounts of her alcoholism and blackouts is raw and honest.  It takes a lot of courage to share that she doesn't remember things.  Highly recommended.

Time to write: 4:23  

Book review: Sisterland

Title: Sisterland
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary: Kate and Violet, twin sisters, have known since they were little that they were different because of their "senses".  Kate has ignored her skills and has focused on a suburban life near St. Louis raising her kids with her husband.  Violet, the more eccentric of the sisters, has used her skills to make a living.  When Violet senses that a major earthquake is coming to St. Louis, the sisters are reunited and Kate is torn between shunning her sister and quietly wondering that Violet may be right.

Review: I read this book a few months ago but I'm behind on my reviews.  However, even when I'm behind I start the draft and put my rating in and then come back to it.  When I came upon this draft I couldn't remember what the book was about at first.  I knew it was about identical twin sisters but I couldn't recall any details beyond that.  When I reread the summary online I thought, "huh, only three stars?  Because this was considered to be one of the best novels of 2014."  However, I am always wary of those raves.  What can I say?  I'm a skeptic.  I thought about upping the rating to four stars but I can't really remember what happens in the end, so clearly it wasn't memorable enough for my terrible memory.  I guess this book was good enough?  I think I liked it, but the inability to remember why leaves me at three stars.

Time to write:4:11

Book Review: Boston Girl

Title: Boston Girl
Author: Anita Diamant
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary: Addie Baum was born in 1900 to immigrant parents.  She grew up in the North End of Boston.  This story kicks off with Addie's granddaughter asking her, "How did you get to be the woman you are today"?  Which leads to Addie telling her story.

Review:  Wow.  I'll be the first to admit that I might be a little biased to read a book where the main character's name is Addie (which happens to be the name of one of my daughters for those of you who don't know that) and it takes place in Boston, but wow.  There are so many things to like about this book. For one, Addie is such an individual for a time when it wasn't easy to be a woman or an immigrant.  She wants things but her parents don't support her dreams.  There's a lot of sadness during this time period too, and while usually I like to see how characters really feel about pivotal events that shape who they are, in this instance I think the lack of this exploration works.  I think it's also the point--many people died for various reasons and when it happened, the family wasn't really allowed to mourn.  Great book!

Book review: The Wives of Los Alamos

Title: The Wives of Los Alamos
Author: TaraShea Nesbit
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary: During World War II, scientists were moved to New Mexico for a top secret project to build what was ultimately the atomic bomb.  The scientists' families were moved along with them.  They couldn't tell anybody where they were going or when they were coming back.  The wives knew nothing about what their husbands were working on for years (there were some women scientists there too, but they were the minority).  These families were thrown together with other families and forced to live in fake town of sorts.  Houses were assigned based on family size, things were rationed, and any communication was reviewed and censored.

Rating:  I've never quite read a book like this before.  There were no real characters and everything was written in the plural first person.  It was really frustrating to read a book with no characters. I originally gave this three stars but I downgraded to two because while I finished it, nothing really happened.  The lack of characters didn't provide any depth as to how the families dealt with the realization of what the men had been working on for the past several years and how their wives and children (those who were old enough to understand) felt about it. It was alluded to, but as with everything else in this book, nothing was really explored.