Book review: Inside the O'Briens

Title: Inside the O'Briens

Author: Lisa Genova

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary: The O'Briens are born-and-bred Irish Catholics who live in Charlestown.  Patriarch Joe is a 44-year-old cop married to Rosie and a father of four.  When Joe is diagnosed with Huntington's Disease, his world and his family's world is changed forever.  As his family witnesses his deterioration as a result of his disease, his children grapple with whether they should get a genetic test that will identify if they carry the gene that will lead to their own Huntington's diagnosis later in life. Two of his kids want to know and have to deal with their test results.  Two others struggle with whether they want to know, and the not knowing leads to its own stresses.  In the meantime, Huntington's continues to take away Joe's ability to be a cop, husband and dad.

Review: I initially gave this book three stars, but the more I think about it, the more I like it.  As somebody that has potentially passed on the BRCA gene to her daughters, I am sympathetic to the guilt that Joe felt passing the gene for this disease on to his children.  Additionally, as somebody that inherited the BRCA gene from my mom, I am also sympathetic to not blaming a parent for passing something like this on.  However, let me state that passing along the Huntington's disease gene is far worse than passing on the BRCA gene.  Genova did a great job describing this disease (or at least I was convinced).

As somebody that wasn't born and bred within certain towns in Massachusetts (translation: "blue-collar", non-wealthy towns?  I'm trying not to insult friends that are born and bred in Massachusetts here), I'll never be a townie.  As a result, I don't think I'll ever truly understand townies.  I don't think the author is a townie.  As a result, I'd argue that she didn't really capture what it's like to be a townie.  I could be wrong--she could have nailed it.  But something about the way she created these characters seemed oversimplified.  That said, I liked the kids a lot.  I think it was more her depiction of Joe and his wife Rosie that sort of bugged and led to four stars over five. However, I LOVED the ending.

Time to write:  9:10

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 Race Underground

Title: The Race Underground
Author: Doug Most
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Summary:This book details the development of the Boston and New York Subway systems.

Review: This is a non-fiction book.  I don't read many non-fiction books these days.  In my mind these require more brain power.  Perhaps this is true, perhaps it isn't.  In this case, there were so many different characters involved, it was hard to keep track of at times.  Anyway, this was a really interesting book.  There were times I almost gave up--after the Boston subway was completed and New York still hadn't started their own I couldn't help but think, "so where is this going?".  But in many ways the development of the New York subway was even more interesting than the Boston part.  I think anybody that lives in either Boston or New York will enjoy reading about what the cities looked like back at the turn of the century.