Boulder - Eva Baltasar

 A quick read about a couple where one decides to have a baby and the other reluctantly goes along. It examines choosing a relationship vs being true to yourself. 

Published: 2023. Read: April 2023. Genre: Fiction

Motherhood - Shelia Heti

My sister suggested this a few years ago and I finally got to it.  The authors chose a unique way of writing, using 3 coin flips to answer 'yes' or 'no' and responding based on the result of the coin flip.  She leads us through several years of trying to decide if she wants to have children before her biological clock runs out.  The story read like a stream of consciousness as she struggles with the expectations and norms of society and her own personal desires.  A good read.

Quotes:

"What is the better thing to steer your life by? Whatever seems to bring happiness? Yes.  So your values, happiness and the things the people around you need.  Those are he things by which you should steer your life."

"I have only two choices: to trust him or be suspicious of him; to believe in him or to doubt.  Then I ought to make the choice to trust him, because what good does it do me to be suspicious or to doubt?  That is causing myself pain in advance of any real pain."

"Happiness and joy are feeling like you belong to the world, and are at home in the world, at the level of nature, humanity and time."

"And you are never lonely while writing, I thought, it's impossible to be--categorically impossible--because writing is a relationship.  You're in a relationship with some force that is more mysterious than yourself."

"Only when a woman is no longer attractive to men, can she be left alone for enough moments to actually think."

Published: 2018  Read: June 2022  Genre: Memoir/Philosophy 

In the Name of Friendship - Marilyn French

Why have I not heard of this author before?  She was a major influence on feminism with her 1977 book, The Woman's Room.  She wrote many, many scholarly articles and books as well as works of fiction.  I am so glad I found this one! 

She tells the story of four women friends, from their late 70's to early 30's.  Their voices are so real, their conversations intimate, kind, meaningful.  It is a book written completely from the female perspective, with no apologies or stereotypes - so refreshing!  I bought another one of her books and will read her first.

She did a dissertation on James Joyce's Ulysses and has written extensively on feminism in Shakespeare. 

I liked this quote :

"What really happened in aging was that every day your got more and more amenable to dying."

Published:  2005  Read: July 2018  Genre: Fiction

 

All She Ever Wanted - Rosalind Noonan

I wanted to read this after reviewing the teaser write up on the back because it is a story of a new mother suffering from postpartum depression, something I have first-hand experience with.  The author did a good job of describing the feelings and thoughts of a new mother suffering with this horrible condition, which took up the first two-thirds of the book.  As a consequence of her state, an incident occurs (I won't spoil it) that give dramatic drive to the story.  Worth the read for an understanding of the state of mind of the mother and the way she appears to those around her.

Published:  2013   Read: June 2018  Genre: Fiction

The Truth of the Matter - Robb Forman Dew

A mother adjusting to her children going off to start their own lives after WWII and coming back later to put down roots.  Quick, not very memorable read.

"...she was afraid she was losing the ability to love the people in her life.  It seemed to her that the protective passion that had governed her existence for all the years the children were growing up had just evaporated into thin air.  And too, although she had never thought that she expected reciprocity for what was simple, instinctive maternal love, she continued to be surprised every time she saw a look of annoyance cross one of her children's faces when she said something...that implied a particularly intimate knowledge of their personalities."

Published:  2005  Read: October 2016  Genre: Fiction

The Aviator's Wife - Melanie Benjamin

This is an historical fiction account of Ann Morrow Lindberg, the wife of Charles Lindberg who was the first to cross the Atlantic solo.  I didn't enjoy this book at first.  I was frustrated at the passivity of Ann and her acceptance of whatever she was told to do.  Later in the book I realized this set the stage for her futuer growth as a person with her own ideas and desires.  I was familiar with Lindberg's Nazi admiration but was not aware he had fathered other children with three other women in Germany.

It was sad and disturbing to see how celebrity and public life is so destructive and disruptive to the individual and their family.  A good read.


Published: 2013  Read: August 2016  Genre: Historical fiction

The Bookstore - Deborah Meyler

Oh, this was a good read!  A young English woman comes to NYC to study art history on a scholarship to Columbia and takes a job in a bookstore.  She falls in love with Michael, a suave, rich, intoxicating man who loves her, leaves her, loves her and leaves her again and pregnant.

She learns some life lessons through it all, finding true friends through the bookstore.  A feel good book that was like having a very good fresh bagel and coffee.  I liked her dedication: "To my father..who taught me how to be happy".  Well said.

Published: 2013  Read: June 2016  Genre: Fiction

Forty Rooms - Olga Grushin

I heard about this book on the NYT Review of books podcast.  The story of a woman's life is told as a series of experiences in different rooms in her life, from the nursery where she is a small child to the foyer of her home in old age.  The heroine is not given a first name; we know her only as Mrs. Caldwell.  Her life begins in Russia as a child with a vivid imagination.  She loves words and early in her life composes poetry to capture the world around her and the one she imagines.  But her dreams are thwarted by the expectations of the life of a female - relationships, marriage, children, and a home. Throughout the story she faces choices and her decisions leave her wondering if she should have chosen differently.

I liked the style of the book and the writing was lyrical. Each chapter is titled with the name of a room and a phrase hinting of the content.  There is a dreamy, reflective quality to the writing that is reinforced by the conversations she has throughout her life with her imagined friends and her thoughts.  Some examples:

"For this, I know at last, is why I am here: to experience deeply, my senses a heartbeat away from exploding, then take everything I am feeling - the insignificance of being human, the enormity of being human...and use the best words I have to convey it all...and make it bright, make it personal, make it forever."

"Now, as always, you have a choice.  ...you must remember this: Whenever you come to a fork in the road always choose the harder path, otherwise the path of least resistance will be chosen for you."

For what, after all, is the difference between a memory and a fantasy?  Are not both a succession of imprecisely rendered images further obscured by imprecisely chosen words and animated only by the wistful effort of one's imagination?  And who is to say that a vividly imagined moment of happiness is not, in the end, more enriching to the spirit than a hazy semi-recollection of some pallid pastime?" 

I was left unsettled in the end, wondering if I have made the best choices in my life, if I've chosen the harder path.  I think that's a sign of a good story, it makes me think.


Published:  2016  Read: April 2016  Genre: Fiction

ISBN:9 781101982334