You will need a BOX of tissues and many free hours for my April pick: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. It’s the love story of two cancer-stricken teenagers; Hazel and Augustus. It sounds depressing, but it’s not. Yes, you will cry, but you will also laugh. A lot. Hazel and Augustus meet in a cancer support group and they’re an instant match with similar quirky humor and their perspective on sickness and death. Hazel is very sick but could survive indefinitely with a trial drug. and Augusts us in remission and attending the support group to support a friend. Their conversations and interactions are charming, heartfelt, and often heartbreaking.

As they are getting to know each other, Hazel shares her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction, with Augustus and admits that the thing she wants most in the world is to know what happens to the characters. The book is about a teenage girl with cancer and it ends literally in mid-sentence. It’s the only book every written by the eccentric Peter Van Houten and Hazel has been writing to him for years with no response. Augustus is determined to help Hazel find out what happens and he is able to contact the author’s assistant in Amsterdam and gain permission for them to visit. Augustus uses his one wish with a Make A Wish-type foundation to make the trip happen.

The novel and the trip to Amsterdam helped move the plot forward but it was an unrealistic part of the book. I found it to be very contrived and unnatural. Augustus and Hazel fall in love on the trip (and consummate their relationship) but they fail to find out the ending to the novel because the author is a complete jerk/drunk. At the end of the trip, Augustus reveals to Hazel that his cancer is back and all over his body. They travel back to the states and grow closer even as he is dying. He asks Hazel and best friend Isaac to write eulogies that they read to him before he is too sick. That scene is incredibly depressing and funny and endearing.  Augustus eventually succumbs to his cancer and his death is terrible and sad and my book would be tear-soaked from that part except Kindles are pretty tear-proof. Mean, nasty Peter Van Houten appears at his funeral. It turns out that he is a bitter shell of a man because he lost his only child to cancer when she was very young (he wrote An Imperial Affliction about her).

The last pages of the book are a eulogy that Augustus wrote for Hazel and sent to Peter Van Houten to review. The ending is similar to An Imperial Affliction in that there is no real “ending.” But Hazel was kind enough to let us know beforehand that  her parents will be okay; her mother was training to become a grief counselor for other teens with cancer. The ending is appropriate and doesn’t feel like a harsh let-down. So many books suck you in with such engaging characters and plot lines only to cut you off like a heroin addict in rehab at the ending…but this ending felt like a gentle letting go.

I enjoyed this book immensely. It was fresh and different and funny and sad. It was a gentle reminder to just enjoy life. Read it!

 Overall Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Dark and Twisty Meter: Low on Dark, Medium on Twisty

Page Turner Rating: High

May’s book is The American Heiress.

WARNING: This book review contains spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know details about the plot and ending of the novel.

My March book club pick was so good that I read it early in the month and completely forgot to post about it! I chose a nonfiction book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks of Rebecca Skloot. It’s the story of a woman named Henrietta Lacks who donated her cervical cancer cells (via a biopsy) to science in the 1940s just months before her painful and miserable death. Her understanding of the “donation” of the cells is unclear. Henrietta’s cells were used to create the first human line of immortal cells (which basically means they reproduce endlessly in a petri dish instead of dying off like most cells). This was monumental at the time because it allowed research to study human cells in a way that had never been done before. Henrietta’s cells are known as HeLa in the scientific community and they are widely used in labs around the world even today. Testing on her cells led to numerous vaccines (polio and HPV among them) and advances in cancer treatment and a whole host of other benefits to humanity.

The author of the book faces a lot of adversity in trying to tell Henrietta’s story, much of it from Henrietta’s immediate family, In a way, their distrust of the scientific community and refusal to cooperate with interviews is understandable given their view that Johns Hopkins stole Henrietta’s cells and made millions off them. (In actuality, the hospital made no money from the cell line, nor did the scientist who originally developed it, but many labs did and do make money growing and selling the cells.) As we get to know the Lacks family through the author’s relationship with them, we learn that their understanding of HeLa cells use in science is extremely limited in a large part due to their lack of education. That’s a harsh thing to write, but it’s true. The science behind the HeLa cells is not simple stuff, and the Lacks family certainly can’t be faulted for not understanding it. Add that to a general distrust of the medical community and you have a tenuous relationship between the author and the family. It was sometimes uncomfortable to read actually. Henrietta’s daughter Deborah has the closest relationship with the author and she is a hard woman to understand, She’s manic and suspicious and sometimes physically aggressive. She passed away before the book was published and I wonder what she would think of it.

Henrietta’s life was a true slice of American history, and I was very interested in reading about it. She married young (to her first cousin, not unusual in her family) and had four children by the age of 30. She moved from an extremely isolated rural community to Baltimore where she lived in the last years  before her death. Her eldest daughter Elsie was mentally disabled, described as “deaf and dumb’ in her lifetime. Elsie was left to die a likely horrible death in a mental institution after her mother became ill because no one in the family could or would care for her.  (Elsie’s story was truly depressing to me. The treatment of the mentally ill, physically disabled, and even limited intelligence people throughout history is a black mark on humanity’s soul.) Henrietta’s story is brief, like her life, but it was interesting to know about the woman behind the cells.

I really enjoyed this book. The science was not overly complicated or dull (but I was a chemical engineering major for my freshman and sophomore years of college so…grain of salt). The author managed to write about technical content in an accessible way. The general topic of medical research on human cells is an important one for everyone to know about. What happened to Henrietta and her cells is sort of a gray area to me – she freely gave them and no one, not even the scientist who took them, could have foreseen how valuable they would become. All of those consent forms and notifications of privacy laws that we sign at regular doctor’s visit didn’t exist in the 1940s. But this stuff is not going away. Companies can and do patent human cells (it even extends into agriculture, where companies like Monsanto patent seeds. I’ve even heard of patented fish.). So while this story was fascinating to me, it’s also important for people to be aware of how the medical and scientific community is using human genetic material.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Dark and Twisty Meter: Non-existent

Page Turner Rating: Medium-Low

April’s book is The Fault in Our Stars. You will need tissues and lots of free time because it’s a tear-jerking, page-turner.

WARNING: This book review contains spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know details about the plot and ending of the novel.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles draws you in from the start with hints about love gone wrong and society misfits.  I was intrigued by the setting (1930s New York City), and found myself easily sucked into the plot. Katey is the narrator, Evey is her wild BFF, and Tinker is the man they both love (or do they?). Evey and Katey are working as typists at various NYC firms, and they share a room at a women’s boardinghouse. Katey is an orphan of Ukrainian descent, and Evey is a blonde, all-American beauty from a well-to-do Midwestern family. A lot of bluster is made about Evey wanting to make it on her own and rejected her father’s money.

Katey and Evey are celebrating New Year’s Eve in a seedy jazz club where they meet Tinker Gray. There is a spark between Tinker and Katey that is quickly overshadowed by Evey’s large personality (and ample bosom, I would guess). She quickly calls dibs on him.  Their New Year’s Eve is silly, but probably a bit wild for the era – lots of champagne, a snowball fight, fraternity boys, and a man in a diaper.

The threesome gets together again at another seedy jazz club (this time Russian) with further hints at unspoken attraction between Katey and Tinker. But on the group’s third outing there is  a life-changing car accident. Tinker is driving (drunk) and Evey is seriously injured. Her legs are broken and her face is badly scarred. Tinker is filled with guilt and won’t leave her side at the hospital, and he even brings her to his apartment after her discharge, becoming her caregiver (and eventually her lover). All the while, Katey appears to be moving on with her life – a new job, a new apartment, even a boyfriend – but she is obviously in love with Tinker.

The relationship with Evey and Tinker is odd and definitely not based on love. She’s using him for his money and status. They travel to Europe and Miami…eventually he proposes and she turns him down. Evey disappears to California, and we’re left to finally see what will happen with Tinker and Katey.

There were hints from the beginning that all was not as it seemed with Tinker. He and Katey get together, and she’s sure that she loves him until she discovers his terrible secret. He’s a gigolo in a long-term relationship with a woman who Katey admired and even sought advice from. Needless to say, Katey’s world is shattered. She tries to go back to the life she’d created, but she breaks down and seeks out Tinker. She finds him living in squalor in a barely inhabitable apartment. After a night of passion (hardly believable, given the circumstances and surroundings), he disappears and she’s pretty much like “well. whatever.”  Her meh attitude sorta made me wonder what all the point was. She gave up a relationship with a man who adored her to get together with the spineless Tinker only to have almost zero feelings about him completely disappearing on her. This is where I started to not like Katey. I’d been on her side through the whole novel, but I couldn’t understand any of her choices. She was a smart character but so passive about her own life.

I thought her BFF Evey was a terrible friend – selfish, distant, and unreliable. I don’t understand Katey”s constantly forgiving attitude towards her and her acceptance of behavior that is completely unacceptable. Evey just seems to skate by on her looks and icy demeanor.

As for Tinker…ugh, not a man I’d chase all over Manhattan. He’s weak, simpering, and not likeable – even before we discover that everything we know about him is a charade.

This book sucked me in, and I read it very quickly, but it left me dissatisfied. Katey’s choices frustrated me and the other main characters were completely unrelatable and unlikeable.

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Dark and Twisty Meter: Non-existent

Page Turner Rating: Medium-High

March’s book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks., It’s non-fiction, which will be a nice break.

I’ve gotten lots of good response to the book club! I’m glad that so many of you will be reading along with me. I also promised you a list of the books I loved in 2012 so I’m making good on that today.

Most of my choices were dark and twisty, starting with Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. It is a delicious and dark read with characters you will love…and hate. It sucked me in right from the beginning, and I couldn’t put it down. I was underwhelmed by the ending, but it was still a solid story.   I liked it enough to check out Gillian Flynn’s other novels – Dark Places and Sharp Objects. Dark Places was also good, better than Gone Girl, I think. It has a strangely likeable oddball heroine with a very bad past. I  DO NOT recommend Flynn’s other novel, Sharp Objects. The characters are flat and the story is unbelievable, but even worse than that, it’s uninteresting.

My favorite find of 2012 was the Jackson Brodie detective novels by Kate Atkinson. There are four books (Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, and Started Early, Took My Dog ) in the series (write another one already!!!) and I’d definitely recommend reading them in order. The books stand on their own, but the back story of Jackson Brodie gets developed with each book. The novels are so well-written and so delightfully British. I read each of the books like an addict. I could hardly put them down. And I discovered recently that there is a BBC series about Jackson Brodie! Yes, please.