Nonfiction November 2018--Week 3!

This event is being cohosted by the following five bloggers: 

Sarah of Sarah's Book Shelves

Katie of Doing Dewey

Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness

Rennie of What's Nonfiction

Julz of JulzReads

#NonFicNov

I have been too busy to post anything for Week 1 or Week 2 until now, 
but am determined to make time to post for Week 3 during Week 3!
(I apologize for the differently-colored links!)

Week 3 (November 12-16): Be the Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert

(Julz of JulzReads)

There are three ways to participate this week!

You can share three or more books on a single topic 

that you have read and can recommend--BE THE EXPERT

OR

You can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic 

that you have been dying to learn more about--ASK THE EXPERT

OR

You can create your own list of books you would like to read that discuss a topic about which you would like to learn more--BECOME THE EXPERT

I have chosen option 3!
I really want to read more about animals, and particularly the human-animal connection.

One of the very best books I've ever read about animals and the animal-human connection was Lawrence Anthony and Graham Spence's The Elephant Whisperer. 
Each member of the book club I facilitate agreed!
While it may not be considered strictly scientific but rather anecdotal, it is absolutely amazing and excellently demonstrates just how little we humans "know" about animals!
I myself consider such "qualitative data" just as valuable as "quantitative data"! 
Sometimes even moreso! 

Again, more anecdotal evidence, but Anthony Bourke and John Rendall's 
A Lion Called Christian: 
The True Story of the Remarkable Bond Between Two Friends and a Lion 
is a book I absolutely adored! As did each member of the book club I facilitate!
There is an unbelievable reunification video on YouTube 
that demonstrates just how little we may really KNOW about any animal(s)... 
Warning: it makes me cry every time!

These are the related books I fully intend to read in the future:
(Should I happen to live long enough! lol)

Katy Payne's Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants

Carl Safina's Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

Virginia Morell's Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of our Fellow Creatures

Barbara King's How Animals Grieve

Tom Michell'sThe Penguin Lessons
One man. One Penguin. Hidden. Through Customs. Across borders. 
Each member of my book club loved this one as well!

David Quammen's The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
While I am a bit uncertain how much this book will address animal species other than 
homo sapien, I am fascinated by this idea of horizontal gene transfer (HGT).

David Quammen's The Chimp and the River: How AIDS Emerged From an African Forest

Bronwen Dickey's 
Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon

Kathryn Bowers and Barbara Natterson-Holowitz' 
Zoobiquity: The Astonishing Connection Between Human and Animal Health

Frans de Waal's Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
This is something that has always bothered me. 
How do we humans KNOW we are 'smarter' than animals? 
My answer to that question? It's simple, really... We don't... 
But humanity certainly does NOT lack for arrogance in believing we are! 

Peter Godfrey-Smith's 
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness

Sy Montgomery's 
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the World of Consciousness

Susan Casey's 
Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins
I loved her book The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean 
when I read it almost 6 years ago! Truly enjoyed her writing style!

Rachel Smolker's 
To Touch a Wild Dolphin: A Journey of Discovery with the Sea's Most Intelligent Creatures

Susan Casey's 
The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks

David Rothenberg's 
Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound

Wallace Nichols and Celine Cousteau's 
Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do
I found it amazing to discover this book on the heels of all the other books listed above 
that center around underwater animals! Hmmmm...

Linda Spalding's The Follow: A True Story
(formerly entitled A Dark Place in the Jungle Following Leakey's Last Animal into Borneo)
I'm betting this one is a tear-jerker!

How about you? 
Are you an expert? 
Do you wish to become an expert? 
Or would you rather just ask an expert? 

Happy reading!
--Lynn

Nonfiction November 2018--Week 2!

This event is being cohosted by the following five bloggers: 

Sarah of Sarah's Book Shelves

Katie of Doing Dewey

Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness

Rennie of What's Nonfiction

Julz of JulzReads

#NonFicNov

Week 2 (November 5-9): Fiction/Nonfiction Book Pairing

(Sarah of Sarah's Book Shelves)

Pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.

It can be a "If you loved this book, read this!"

or just two titles you think would go well together. 
Maybe it's a historical novel and you'd like to get the real history
by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

Tayari Jones' An American Marriage and 

Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Jones takes the unjust harassment, arrest, charge, conviction, and incarceration 
of "non-whites" to the personal level, 
depicting the devestating, life-altering effects for one fictional couple.
And if you have not yet read Alexander's book, you need to do that right now!
Especially if you happen to be white! (I can say that...I am white.) :)

Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible and Adam Hochschild's 
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa 
(This second one is nonfiction and enraged me! 
I believe it will make most readers uncomfortable at the very least...)
But we need to know our history!
Kingsolver does an excellent job of depicting "unintended consequences" 
when uninformed (and all too often very ignorant) white people 
believe they are improving indigenous people's lives!

Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk and
Jean Craighead George's My Side of the Mountain, 
On the Far Side of the Mountain, Frightful's Mountain
My own children always loved George's books, and I recognized the accuracy of her accounts of Sam training Frightful since I had recently read Macdonald's memoir.

William Maley's What is a Refugee? and Sharon Bala's The Boat People
I have not yet read Maley's book but very much appreciated 
the nonfictional aspects of Bala's fictional account of a (literal) boatload of immigrants landing off the coast... 
I can imagine Maley's book is very informative and I would love to read it and compare.

Susan Wilson's One Good Dog and 
Bronwen Dickey's Pit Bull: The Battle Over an American Icon
I absolutely LOVED Wilson's book and would easily read anything she writes!
(I have managed to read The Dog Who Danced and loved it!
I own two more of her books so hopefully I'll get to read them soon!)
I have yet to read Dickey's nonfiction book, but believe it would make a good pairing 
since Chance's heredity included pit bull!

How about you? 
Have you ever read a nonfiction and fiction book that you felt complemented each well?

Happy reading!
--Lynn

Nonfiction November 2018--Week 1!

This event is being cohosted by the following five bloggers: 

Sarah of Sarah's Book Shelves

Katie of Doing Dewey

Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness

Rennie of What's Nonfiction

Julz of JulzReads

#NonFicNov

Week 1 (October 29-November 2): Your Year in Nonfiction 

(Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness)

Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions:

What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year?

Do you have a particular topic you've been attracted to more this year?

What nonfiction book have you recommended the most?

What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven't read enough of yet?

What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

I analyzed my recent nonfiction reads on my Nonfiction Page October 2018 Update!

Those nonfiction books I've read that I highly recommend: 
Gloria Steinem's My Life on the Road, 
Kate Moore's The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, 
Terese Marie Mailhot's Heart Berries: A Memoir, 
Roxane Gay's Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body,  
Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk, 
Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift From the Sea, 
Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy, 
Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 

and one of the best books I have ever read...
Daniel James Brown's The Boys in the Boat: 
Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics 

There is no way I could ever select just one favorite read. 
Actually, for varied reasons, all nine recommendations listed above qualify!

I love reading science books, particularly about nature and animals, 
but it appears I make little time for those...

However, my main goal for this November is to read two of the nonfiction books I already own and had already committed to reading in prior events!

How about you? 
Have you read any of these favorite nonfiction books?

What is your favorite over the past year that you've read?

Happy reading!
--Lynn

Nonfiction November 2018!

Whoo! Whoo! Look what I found!!

This event is being cohosted by the following five bloggers: 

Sarah of Sarah's Book Shelves

Katie of Doing Dewey

Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness

Rennie of What's Nonfiction

Julz of JulzReads

Before I give you their November schedule, 

I reviewed the listing of nonfiction books I read since 2016...and it was pitiful! 

(At least in my opinion!)

Week 1 (October 29-November 2): Your Year in Nonfiction 

(Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness)

Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions:

What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year?

Do you have a particular topic you've been attracted to more this year?

What nonfiction book have you recommended the most?

What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven't read enough of yet?

What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

Week 2 (November 5-9): Fiction/Nonfiction Book Pairing

(Sarah of Sarah's Book Shelves)

Pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title.

It can be a "If you loved this book, read this!"

or just two titles you think would go well together. 

Maybe it's a historical novel and you'd like to get the real history 

by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

Week 3 (November 12-16): Be the Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert

(Julz of JulzReads)

There are three ways to participate this week!

You can share three or more books on a single topic 

that you have read and can recommend--BE THE EXPERT

OR

You can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic 

that you have been dying to learn more about--ASK THE EXPERT

OR

You can create your own list of books you would like to read that discuss a topic about which you would like to learn more--BECOME THE EXPERT

Week 4 (November 19-23): Reads Like Fiction

(Rennie of What's Nonfiction)

Nonfiction books are often praised for how they stack up to fiction. 

Does it matter to you whether nonfiction reads like a novel?

If it does, what gives it that fiction-like feeling?

Does it depend on the topic, the writing, the use of certain literary elements and techniques?

What are your favorite nonfiction recommendations that read like fiction?

And if your nonfiction picks could never be mistaken for novels, 

what do you love about the differences?

Week 5 (November 26-30): New to My TBR

(Katie of Doing Dewey)

By now, it has been a month full of amazing nonfiction books!

Which ones have made it onto your TBR listing?

(Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book!)

So, now I need to dig out at least two nonfiction books 

that are NOT memoirs to read in November!

Here are two I know I own:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

(Huh. There was a TV movie released in 2017.)

and

Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice by Dr. Willie Parker

Happy reading!!

--Lynn

Top Ten Tuesday for October 2!

Here are previous Smoke & Mirrors Top Ten Tuesday posts.

This meme was created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by that site until

January 2018 when That Artsy Reader Girl took on the hosting duties!

Today's theme for Top Ten Tuesday is Authors I Would Love to Meet!
Wow. Honestly, there are so many! 
Although I have perhaps met more authors than I ever expected to be able to meet, 
there are more I would love to have the opportunity to meet...
(Perhaps I'm just never satisfied! LOL)

I don't know if I can limit this list to ten or not...but here goes!

First and foremost, Janet Evanovich! 
Her Stephanie Plum series is one of the silliest I've ever read, 
but also one of my absolutely favorite and most entertaining ways to spend time!
The newest installment, Look Alive Twenty-Five, is due to be released November 13th! 
That is a Tuesday. If at all possible, I will schedule myself off work for a day of vacation, head to my local bookstore that morning as soon as they open, 
purchase my pre-ordered copy, and enjoy my afternoon!
I am certain to be laughing out loud many times as I read.
The only question is how many times and how loudly! :)
I cannot imagine being the person whose imagination works in ways 
whereby you create Stephanie's world and all the very unique people and situations 
contained therein! Pure genius! (IMHO) :)

I have been privileged to have met many of the authors who might otherwise 
appear next on my list:
Garth Stein, Erica Bauermeister, Carol Cassella, Jennie Shortridge, Elizabeth Berg, 
Marisa de los Santos, Laurie R. King, Terese Marie Mailhot, Roxane Gay, Junot Diaz, 
AJ Finn, Lori Rader-Day, Annie Sullivan, Summer Heacock, 

And I feel as if I've met others due to having spoken with them via Skype/telephone and/or extensive contact via email/social media: Andrea Busfield, W. Bruce Cameron.

But to continue with the list of those I would love to meet in the future:

Jacqueline Winspear (I love her Maisie Dobbs series!)

David Rosenfelt (I love his Andy Carpenter series!)

Alexander McCall Smith (I love his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series,
Isabel Dalhousie series, and Corduroy Mansion series!)

Sarah Addison Allen (I love her magical realism!)

Kevin Kwan (I love those crazy rich Asians!)

Joyce Maynard (I loved Labor Day and The Good Daughters!)

Alafair Burke (I've loved all 10 of her books I have read!)

Susan Wittig Albert (I love her China Bayles series!)

Gennifer Choldenko (I adore her Al Capone at Alcatraz series!)

Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants--one of my all-time favorite books)

Emma Donoghue (Room was amazing!

Bill Clegg (I loved his debut, Did You Ever Have a Family!)

LaShonda Katrice Barnett (Jam on the Vine!)

Paula McClain (The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun!)

Penelope Lively (I loved Moon Tiger)

Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See...be still my heart!)

Susanna Kearsley (I've read two and need to read more!)

And if they were still alive: Kent Haruf and Sue Grafton 

Trust me! I could add more--but time has run out!

Happy reading!

--Lynn

Literary Wives #35

An American Marriage 

by Tayari Jones

I selected the "Georgia" font for this review since Roy's pet name for Celestial was "Georgia"!

This book was an Oprah Book Club selection for 2018 and 

Oprah is supposedly going to make a movie based upon this novel. 

I can imagine this translating well to the big screen.

Here is the NPR interview with Karen Grigsby Bates and Tayari Jones.

There are also many reviews out there to read...

What was my opinion of this book? 

Well...Tayari Jones is now on my 

Goodreads "absolute favorite authors" shelf! 

Wow. This woman can write. 

I read this book basically in one day. 

But don't let that fool you! 

It read quickly, but was enthralling 

and the complexity of the characters and their 

intertwined lives were revealed in a straightforward 

easily understood manner. 

There are not many authors capable of writing this way, 

in my opinion.

I own a copy of Silver Sparrow and am anxious 

to read it now.

I venture to say I would never hesitate 

to read a book written by Tayari Jones. 

In reading about some of her upcoming events, 

I see she will be in Nashville, Tennessee on October 14th "in conversation with Celeste Ng" who wrote Little Fires Everywhere and Everything I Never Told You. 

I read and adored the latter but have yet to read her newest release, Little Fires Everywhere.

This is the Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word 

in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the 30th year for this annual event.

If only I had the time and money... It is notable this event is free!

Ah...but I digress...

The first of the three main characters we encounter is Roy. It is Roy who endures the most horrific of life events: unfairly arrested, charged with a crime, convicted, and incarcerated. Oh, if only that never occurred in our society! It is one of the injustices that always makes my heart stop and my eyes tear up. I never ever will forget reading Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. Bryan is the founder of Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. This man is an absolute hero. Truly. A. Hero. No question. Again, I end up asking myself how humans can be so inhumane to other humans. I do not understand. Nor do I subscribe. But back to Roy...

I realized the irony of reading this particular book during the Kavanaugh/Ford controversy playing out in our nation's capitol. Though Roy's accuser believed her attacker was him and the room was completely dark, etc., so she was unable to truly see the man to recognize him or not. Whereas Ford knew her attacker and his accomplice very well. 'Nuff said. 

I loved Roy's admission of the help he received to get where he was as an adult:

All my life I have been helped by leg-up programs--Head Start when I was five and Upward Bound all the way through. If I ever have kids, they will be able to pedal through life 

without training wheels, but I like to give credit where it is due. (4)

Ah, that phrase "pedal through life without training wheels," isn't that a beautifully apt  analogy? I immediately thought of Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance. Whereas Vance mentions the various social programs by which he advanced himself out of the poor Appalachian culture to which he was born, he fails to give them their "due" or note appreciation for them, rather crediting only himself. (At least that was my interpretation of his story.) And at the end of his book he berates such helpful programs, but offers absolutely no alternatives... In my head I was saying, "He makes an excellent representative of the current Republican party--all negativity and criticism, but no thought of alternatives." That accomplishes exactly zero. No improvement. I appreciated Roy's character citing his appreciation and giving credit to the social programs that helped him. Of course, I credit Jones for her insight...

Atlanta is where I learned the rules and learned them quick. No one ever called me stupid.

But home isn't where you land, home is where you launch. 

You can't pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. 

Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land....

I'm not talking bad about Eloe... For one, Eloe may be in Louisiana, not a state brimming with opportunity, but it is located in America, and if you're going to be black and struggling, 

the United States is probably the best place to do it. (4)

Upon reading this passage, I sighed to myself and thought, that's probably correct, even given today's current social and cultural regress that seems to have occurred. Though I feel for black males--this is not a fair world for them. Or for any non-white, especially males. Just look at the prison population. The amount of non-white folks jailed for drug violations. Yet drug usage among white folks is estimated to be a much higher percentage than that for non-white minorities. Something just doesn't add up. 

I loved Roy's story about a date who pulled a gun on him in the middle of an Urban League Gala! She "flashed it inside her purse under the table" and stated that she knew Roy was cheating on her with "some chick from the Black Bar Association." I had to shake my head and laugh at that one. "Little Roy" continues to tell his Daddy, Big Roy, about how he had "lost his touch with the ladies for a minute" after that. No kidding! Ya think?!? ;) Big Roy's response?

"You don't want no woman that brandished a firearm, son."

I tried to explain that what made it remarkable was the contrast between the streetness of the pistol and the glitter of the evening. Besides: "She was playing, Daddy." 

Big Roy nodded and sucked the foam from his glass of beer. 

"If that's how she plays, what's going to happen when she gets mad?" (6)

Yep! Dad's definitely got a valid point there! :) 

I especially appreciated Jones' notation that 

White people say, "It beats digging a ditch"; black people say, "It beats picking cotton." (8)

There is a distinct difference... In thinking of raising children, Roy states

I'm not going to remind my kids that somebody died in order for me to do everyday things. (8)

Then Celestial promises

...she will never say that they have to be twice as good to get half as much. "Even if it's true"... (8)

I think I tried to convince my children of this last bit just simply because we were so poor when they were young. Though as with most, I don't believe they realized it until they got to school... They spent their youth fairly isolated in the country, which helped. 

Roy describes Celestial:

She was the perfect balance in a woman, not a button-down corporate type, 

but she wore her pedigree like the gloss on a patent-leather shoe. 

In addition, she popped like an artist, without veering into crazy. 

In other words, there was no pink pistol in her purse, but there was no shortage of passion either.     Celestial liked to go her own way and you could tell that from looking at her...

Even before you knew she was a genius with needle and thread, 

you could tell you were dealing with a unique individual. (8)

Roy works so that Celestial can stay home and build her business making dolls. Yep! She eventually makes a living making dolls! As they discuss this with Roy's mother and Daddy, Olive (Roy's mother) cannot believe people would pay $5,000 for a doll. "I guess that's why God invented white folks." I had to laugh at that! 

At one point, Roy realizes he has 'misspoken'. :)

If you have a woman, you recognize when you have said the wrong thing. 

Somehow she arranges the ions in the air and you can't breathe as well. (16)

That prompted another laugh from me! 

We are here to answer the Literary Wives question:

What does this book say about wives or about the experience of being a wife?

Please make sure you read 

the other hosting bloggers' reviews:

Emily of The Bookshelf of Emily J

Naomi of Consumed by Ink

Kay of whatmeread
Eva of The Paperback Princess

I thought this book had much to say about 

"being a wife"!

Little Roy is sentenced to 12 years for rape. He is totally innocent and was with Celestial. But he ends up serving 5 years until Celestial's uncle finally convinces a federal court to reverse his conviction and release him from prison. However, after three years, Celestial stops writing and visiting Roy. This coincides with Olive's death. Little Roy's mother died from cancer when he had been incarcerated for three years. Big Roy remains at the cemetery and personally shovels all the dirt into the hole himself, covering his wife's casket.

Celestial sighed. You'll never see anything like that again, no matter how long you live."...

"Roy has been away so long." she whispered. "I've done everything I'm supposed to do. 

I haven't thought about any other man, let alone touched one. 

But when I look at Mr. Roy out there, at his wife's grave, I feel like I've been playing at marriage.
    That I don't know what it is to be committed." (153)

She is tired and wants to live her life. She and Andre/"Dre" have been best friends since they were 3 months old bathing in the sink together, and have been next-door neighbors throughout their lives. They end up as a couple during those last two years of Roy's incarceration and Dre buys her a ring and asks her to marry him. But Celestial no longer believes in the whole idea of marriage, stating that 

"Till death do us part" is unreasonable, a recipe for failure.

I asked her, "So what do you believe in?"

She said, "I believe in communion."

As for me, I'm modern and traditional at the same time. I, too, believe in intimacy--who doesn't? 
But I also believe in commitment. (105)

But as much as I could understand Roy's opinion that Celestial should remain faithful and wait for him, she eventually cannot hold out any longer and needs to live her life. And, it's not as if Roy had been absolutely faithful during their brief 18 months together as husband and wife. Celestial discovered a note with a woman's name and number written on it, as well as a receipt for two pieces of lingerie when Roy had gifted her only one of those. But I believe Roy felt that was no big deal. He admits to having been a real ladies' man while single. As I have mentioned before I will never understand why a man refuses to keep his pants zipped and remain faithful. Sheesh!  I did feel Dre was being a bit hypocritical in that he was screwing his best friend's wife but insisting upon "commitment" from her in their own relationship. What?!? Yep! Some irony there, huh?

And although Celestial's parents appeared to be totally devoted to each other, her father had  his own questionable beginning with Gloria. He was married at the time he started a relationship with her. He didn't reveal that to her until they had been dating for a month! She was his mistress for three years! It took him a long time to win her over before she would agree to marry him, but once they were married they were seemingly committed to each other.

So being a wife is what each female makes of it. Though Celestial and Roy seemed to fight quite often, at least in my opinion, she was trying to be a committed and sincere partner to her husband, though she did call him on his missteps. By refusing to marry Dre she was refusing to feel that sense of commitment again. It was overwhelming to her, and unattainable given the extreme situation in which she had found herself while married to Roy. I could understand that. Roy's parents appeared to be totally devoted to each other as well as totally devoted and committed to Roy as their son. And though Celestial's mother and father perhaps had a rather questionable start to their relationship with her being the mistress for the first three years until he was once again single, they had remained together for many years. I believe Jones was realistic in revealing that each individual makes of their marriage/parental role in life what works for them. It isn't the same for any two people. Being a wife, being a husband, being a father, being a mother--each individual serves in these roles differently. 

Perhaps more than the idea of being a "wife," I found both Little Roy and Dre's relationship with their Daddy to be fascinating. Dre's mother and father had divorced when he was a young child and his Daddy ended up marrying someone else and starting another family, fathering two children with his second wife. And he stayed around and raised those children, whereas he had abandoned Dre. His Daddy did at least pay for Dre to attend college, though he had not paid child support through the years. Dre ended up going to his father as a young adult and establishing some semblance of a relationship. 

I don't believe that blood makes a family, kin is the circle you create, hands held tight. 

There is something to shared genetics, but the question is, what exactly is that something? 

It matters that I didn't grow up with my father. It's kind of like having one leg that's a half inch shorter than the other. You can walk, but there will be a dip. (193)

I teared up at this passage. Having never even met my biological father and never having had a step-father, I can so relate. I have ALWAYS felt "incomplete." And my life has felt "incomplete" in many ways. I sometimes wonder if my rather extreme independent attitude  as a female is hard-wired in me or if it developed as a result of needing to fill that lack...of something missing in my life. Just a thought...

Little Roy discovers that Big Roy is not his biological father after all. His mother had legally changed Roy's name, though she retained his biological father's name as his middle name: Roy Onithal. (Onithal...what a name, eh?) Big Roy did everything in his power to be a real father to Little Roy. And Little Roy realizes that his true father is Big Roy; the one who cared for him in every way possible, even giving him his name. But of all the ironies, once he is incarcerated he eventually discovers that his cell mate is actually his biological father who paid a high price for him to be transferred to his cell so he could help Roy endure imprisonment. His biological father has abandoned more women than just his own mother once they became pregnant. Interestingly, Celestial is pregnant, from the last time she and Roy were together the night of his arrest, and he realizes that in his own way he abandoned his own child before s/he was born by indicating he didn't care what Celestial did and agreeing with her idea to abort the baby. (We learn this was not the first time Celestial underwent an abortion. Though her first pregnancy was under quite different circumstances--with a married man as the father.) 

As I composed this review I realized that each and every character was much more flawed than I had realized while reading the book. Tayari Jones stated that her goal was for people to not be able to feel they could relate more to any one character than another. I did feel that way at the end. I could relate to each character to a certain degree, but not any one more than the others. 

 If you've read this book, what was your reaction?

Join us on December 3rd as we review The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve.

Happy reading!

--Lynn