Stay

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1969, fourteen-year-old Lucas Painter discovers several new things: that he loves running, that his best friend is severely depressed, and that he (Lucas) can make a difference in the lives of others.

This was a lovely story with beautifully-drawn characters.

I also read recently by this author: Don't Let Me Go

We Are Not Like Them

 Fiction by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story opens with Justin, a fourteen-year-old black kid, walking home from the convenience store, listening to his iPod. But then a pair of white police officers come rushing around the corner, yelling at him to freeze, and Justin instinctively reaches for his pocket to turn off the music. By the time the police realize that what the kid had reached for wasn't a gun, Justin has been shot twice, and it's obvious that he's not the suspect they were looking for. 

Another innocent black man shot by white police officers! A tragedy. For the media and most of the general population, this is a prime example of racial profiling gone wrong, and as poor Justin lies in a coma, he is treated more as a Cause than a person.

For Riley Wilson, a young black woman, this story could be her big break in TV journalism. But she also feels the human side of things, seeing her own brother Shaun when she looks at Justin. But as for Jen Murphy, a white woman who has been best friend with Riley since childhood, all she can see is that her husband was the police officer involved in the shooting. 

This was a good story that gave you a lot to think about, really showing both women's perspectives.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

 Nonfiction by Anne Faidman

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Lia Lee was born in Merced, California, in 1982, the twelfth child of parents who were in a large group of Hmong refugees who had fled Laos and Vietnam. Lia was born with epilepsy, which in the Hmong language is literally translated as “the spirit catches you and you fall down,” and is in their culture often a sign of a shaman. 

Still, Lia’s seizures are severe and terrifying, and her parents are in and out of the Merced County Hospital ER many times. But there follows a huge culture clash between American medical care and the traditional Hmong ideas of treatment. Both Mr. and Mrs. Lee and the hospital care team subsequently blame each other bitterly for Lia’s failure to get better. 

This story is about why they are both wrong to blame the other, but at the same time it is about why neither side is at fault. It’s a really interesting book. 

A Time For Mercy

 Fiction by John Grisham

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1988, John Grisham published his first novel, A Time to Kill, a great courtroom thriller about Jake Brigance, a lawyer defending a man who killed his daughter's rapist. This book returns to the same town and takes place only five years after the events of that first book, although it was published in 2020.

In this book, Jake Brigance once again is defending a murderer in a case of what might be called justifiable homicide. But this story is more complicated, and unfortunately it's less enjoyable to read.

I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending ruined this book for me. The story was good up until I got near the end and realized that no resolution seemed to be in sight. The best thing about fiction is the fact that the author can tell you a full story and its ending. In this book I think Mr. Grisham forgot that his job is to tell us how the story ended.

I also read recently by this author: The Guardians

Maid

Subtitled: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
Nonfiction by Stephanie Land.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Stephanie starts this book out in a homeless shelter with Mia, her toddler daughter; she's left Mia's abusive dad and has nowhere else to go. To be honest, the place she starts out in is way better than most homeless shelters I've come into contact with, but still, it's not where she wants to be. The next steps are far from easy for Stephanie.

This book chronicles her long crawl out of poverty and into a better life for herself and Mia. Stephanie explores the world of food stamps, WIC, transitional housing, section 8, childcare subsidies, and all other the helpful-but-demoralizing government social programs. It's exhausting. Most of her time and attention is on working as a house cleaner (hence the title) and she tells some good stories about the people she works for.

The main idea seems to be that hard work can only sometimes get you where you need to go. As social commentary, this story doesn't really work for me; however, it is a fairly honest memoir and interesting to read. It's better than Nickel and Dimed (on NOT Getting by in America), which got much more annoyingly political and was less personal.

Mama Might Be Better Off Dead

Subtitled: The Failure of Health Care in Urban America
Nonfiction by Laurie Kaye Abraham.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Published in 1994, this story of the "failure of health care in urban America" is a bit out of date. Still, I doubt the health care system of 2018 is any better, to be honest.

There are so many factors involved in health care legislation that I wonder if it's even possible to "fix" it at this point. The health insurance system alone (both public and private) is a money and power giant that I don't see caving anytime soon to being streamlined or regulated.

So in a way, reading this book was kind of a waste of my time, if we are talking about finding a way to actually solve this huge problem that's been growing for oh-these-many-years. In general, this is why I dislike "political" books: they spend pages and pages on The Problem without ever offering a viable solution.

But what interested me in picking up this book in the first place was the story of a family. The author followed a specific "poor" family in Chicago with chronic health problems (the husband had kidney failure, the old grandmother had uncontrolled diabetes, the father was also disabled, and the poor woman who had to take care of all of them was raising three kids) and reported on how they personally navigated the convoluted setup of public health care. So I was interested in learning about these people and their lives.

The thing that struck me while reading this was, although the Health Care System is a problem I can't by any means solve, or even really understand, it was individual people who really made a difference in this family's lives. There was mentioned one doctor, one social worker, and one intern in the sea of health care workers that this family had to deal with who genuinely tried to connect and care as best they could. And interestingly, these were described as religious people, including an Orthodox Jew and Catholic nun.

So I'm taking that as inspiration when face with The Unsolvable: just to do what I can to care and connect with people.

I'm pretty sure that's not the point the author intended, but...

The Whole Golden World

Fiction by Kristina Riggle.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This "ripped from the headlines"-type story is about a teenage girl who has an inappropriate relationship with her calculus teacher.  (Does anyone else think it's weird that he's a math teacher? Isn't teaching English more romantic? But I digress.)

The interesting thing is how everyone else in her life is affected by it, from her parents to her classmates to the offending teacher's wife. It's a good character story, and really explores a difficult issue without turning the people into tabloid-y cardboard cutouts. It's a good book.

A Case of Need

Fiction by Michael Crichton.


http://www.barnesandnoble.com

This was Crichton's first novel, written way back in 1968. It's a straight medical thriller with a bit of a political argument thrown in-- a pro-abortion one, interestingly enough. They had those back before Roe vs Wade. It's funny to almost to hear that side argued with the same half-desperate I-know-I'm-morally-right-but-the-establishment-will never-get-it air that the pro-life movement seems to have now.

All told, it's an interesting period piece, and not a bad mystery.

Leaving Time

Fiction by Jodi Picoult.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com

To begin with, I'll point out that Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. This is because of her ability to tell a good story about realistically-drawn characters, and to tell that story from diverse points of view. Sometimes the people she invents are likable and sometimes they are not, but they are always believable.

Often she writes about an "Issue" (political or otherwise), but the important part of the story is always, to me, the characters. Also, her stories always elicit a strong emotional reaction, which can be good or bad. (See her reviews! Wow. But watch for spoilers from the disgruntled.) To me, this is the point of a good novel , and what makes it Art: the emotion it wrings from the reader. (Although, to be fair, I don't like a novel that makes me feel bad, no matter how Arty it is. See We Need to Talk About Kevin.) But the emotions I get from Jodi Picoult's novels are not bad ones, and I think often it is the "Issue" that upsets the angry reviewers.

Anyways...

This particular story is about Jenna, a thirteen-year-old girl who wants to find her mother Alice, an elephant researcher who disappeared without a trace when Jenna was three. The story is told by both Jenna in the present (she hires a detective AND a psychic) and Alice in the past, and many of the Alice segments are about her obsession with elephants. (The fact-heaviness of the elephant parts apparently bothers some readers, but I thought is was interesting, and consistent with Alice's character.)

I was beginning to read this book when I went to the dentist and she asked me about it. I explained the basic premise, and the dentist asked me, "So does she find her mother?"

"Well," I said, "I'm only on like page fifty, so I don't know yet."

But now I know the answer is...

Read the book and find out. Heh heh heh....



I also read by this author: The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Sing You Home