February 12, 2010
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****Featured Review****
As an early fan of Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, I knew that I’d want to read her follow-up book. Committed is an exploration of marriage from a skeptic who must marry. At the end of Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert is happily attached to a new love, Felipe. In this book, we find that the two continue on as a committed couple but have no desire to marry. However, the Department of Homeland Security has other ideas. Since Felipe is not an American citizen, he is not able to continuously hop in and out of the country. On his last arrival, he is detained, spends a night in jail, and must leave the country. Gilbert learns that marrying Felipe will be the easiest way for him to return to the country.
What follows is a different kind of memoir. We know from the outset that the two will marry, but we don’t know why Gilbert is so shaken up by the prospect or how she will resolve her doubts. I found the book to be an interesting blend of story-telling and investigation into the institution of marriage. Some have criticized the structure of the book, but I found that it worked. I particularly appreciated two sections — an investigation into the evolution of marriage within the Christian church and a spirited defense of “aunties,” women, literal aunts or not, who remain childless but are committed to helping to raise other children. In both sections, Gilbert’s voice reminded me of the friend I felt I had made in Eat, Pray, Love. If you connected with Gilbert in her first book, I think you’ll find something to appreciate here.
How about you? Have you read the book yet?
February 2, 2010
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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Participants share two sentences from a random page of their current books.
So, I cleverly figured out how to download Amazon’s Kindle to PC to my husband’s tablet laptop. Instant e-reader! Huzzah! I promptly downloaded Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, Committed, about her ambivalence toward marriage. Since Eat, Pray, Love was one of my favorite books, I knew that I had to read this one! Here’s a tease:
But surely something has been lost, as well, in our modern and intensely private, closed-off homes. Watching the Hmong women interact with each other, I got to wondering whether the evolution of the ever smaller and ever more nuclear Western family has put a particular strain on modern marriages.
While the book isn’t the same as her memoir, it has gotten me thinking more deeply about the institution of marriage. I particularly enjoyed her overview of how Western marriages have evolved.
What’s your tease?
February 1, 2010
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Gayle at Everyday I Write the Book is hosting a discussion of Between Here and April by Deborah Copaken Kogan. Algonquin Books provided copies for those of us who joined in. Be sure to hop over to her site to see the full discussion.
It’s well worth it because there is a lot to talk about in this book! In the novel, Lizzie, struggling with the choices she’s made in life, suddenly starts having flashbacks about a childhood friend, April, who disappeared. Determined to find out what had happened to April, Lizzie embarks on a journey that forces her to confront her own demons.
The novel offers a realistic portrayal of women who make the most desperate decisions. I certainly came away feeling like I understood the unthinkable just a little better. I hope you enjoy the discussion, and thanks for the copy Gayle!
January 29, 2010
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Colson Whitehead’s latest novel, Sag Harbor, is a fascinating coming-of-age novel set in Sag Harbor, an African American beach community. Benji, the main character, spends his school year at an elite, mostly white prep school in Manhattan. However, in the summers, his family retreats to this all-black enclave. For the summer of 1985, Benji and his twin brother are on their own, with their parents only coming to the beach house on weekends. With his new-found independence, Benji struggles to define his identity and his place in the world.
Parts of the novel are laugh-out-loud funny, but overall, I found the book to be surprisingly bittersweet. Whitehead, near my age, has created a work that delicately balances between humor and nostalgia. Benji is an earnest, intelligent young man who struggles to fit in with those who are “cooler” than him. He also struggles to escape the sometimes claustrophobic sense of small town life that this protective community has created over three generations.
While the action of the novel may seem to unfold rather slowly, it is the mundane sense of the everyday that Whitehead manges to capture so well. In the end, we discover the deeper demons that Benji works so hard to hide, and I found the final few scenes a masterful evocation of the peculiar American nostalgia that haunts us all.
January 26, 2010
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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Participants share two sentences from a random page of their current books.
OK, one of the disadvantages of getting books through my library queue: I sometimes get books a little past the season I want them. For example, I’m now reading Over the Holidays by Sandra Harper when we’re all pretty much over the holidays! However, it’s still a fun read. Here’s a tease:
“Richard! Richard, do something!” Dropping the receiver with a clatter, Patience pinched the shoulder of her doting husband. “Libby and that boy are going out for breakfast.”
Mind you, this scene takes place on Christmas morning. Oh, the drama! 
