Book Review--Harvesting the Heart, by Jodi Picoult

This book, as Picoult's generally do, alternates between different points of view and periods in time. In this case, the story is told by Paige (in the first person) and from her husband, Nicholas's point of view, but in the third person. Since Paige's parts are told in the first person and Nicholas's in the third, I personally felt a lot closer to Paige's character. I also didn't like Nicholas particularly, and I'll get to why in just a minute.

Paige has some significant demons in her past to overcome. When she was five, her mother disappeared. An only child, she was raised by her father. When she was 18, she had an abortion. This led to a breakup with her boyfriend, and, worried that her father might somehow discover her secret, she chose to run away instead of waiting just a few months until leaving for college. I had a really hard time understanding that. She had been accepted by the Rhode Island School of Design and wanted to study art. Her interest didn't seem to have really waned, and I didn't think she was even having doubts about college. So, she'd had the abortion because she wasn't ready to handle motherhood and wanted to go to college, but then she didn't end up going to college anyway. She ran away to Massachusetts (from Chicago) and got a job in a seedy diner, where she worked as a waitress but also drew pictures of the customers. She was very good at drawing, and also had a uncanny ability to include things about the person in the drawing that she had no real way of knowing, as if drawing a person gave her a glimpse into their subconscious.

Paige met Nicholas at the diner. His life had been one of privilege. He and Paige hadn't known each other very long at all when he asked her to marry him. They got married and several years later had a kid, which was basically when Paige's life fell apart. She quickly became overwhelmed with the demands of motherhood, and Nicholas wasn't at all understanding. He didn't really help at all. In fairness, he worked very long hours as a heart surgeon, so he didn't have a whole lot of time to help, but his lack of understanding was basically why I didn't like him. He didn't understand that while he got few breaks, Paige got NO break, since mothering is a 24/7 job. He would play with the baby a little bit (maybe) and think it was easy and why was Paige bitching so much?

The other reason I didn't like him was that he would do things like insist she entertain a bunch of snobby people and say he was doing it for her, which was bullshit. He was doing it for himself, to further his own career, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I thought he should at least be honest about it. If he were really doing it just for her, he would have quit, since she didn't want to do it and would rather have had more of his time. She was not materialistic or hung up with status.

Anyway, Paige eventually couldn't take it anymore and ran off. I think post-partum depression was likely a major factor. She searches for her mother and tries to deal with her past. She does find her mother and spends some time with her. In the process learns more about herself and her own motives. In the meantime, Nicholas learns that it's not so easy trying to raise an infant. He ends up asking his estranged parents for help. Paige eventually returns, but Nicholas, understandably angry at her for leaving, isn't particularly inclined to forgive her. Even though anyone would be mad about that, I thought he was particularly unforgiving, but maybe that's just because I didn't like him in the first place. Interestingly, his parents are more understanding, especially his mother. His mother, while she had not left her family, had had her own rather difficult quest for her own identity, so she could empathize with Paige more than Nicholas could.

Don't get me wrong; I don't really think it was right for Paige to just leave her baby like that. I don't understand how she could. But I guess I really believe that she just couldn't take it anymore and didn't see another way out. She even believed that she was a bad mother and that her baby would be better off without her. It wasn't true, of course, but I do think she really believed that.

It's fair to say that the book is really gripping. It brought out strong emotions in me--anger toward Nicholas, for example, and identification with Paige. I am not sure why I identified with her since my life isn't like hers (I'm single with no kids), but I suppose I can relate to sometimes feeling overwhelmed by life. And the search for one's own identity is pretty much a universal theme.

Movie Review--Walk the Line

This was an awesome movie. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon were great as Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. I'm not really a Johnny Cash fan, so I hadn't read his autobiography and didn't know anything of his life story. However, one doesn't have to be a Johnny Cash fan to enjoy this movie. The movie begins with a turning point in Cash's life. When they were kids in Arkansas, an accident killed Cash's older brother. Cash's father never really forgave him for being the surviving son. From here, the story jumps ahead several years. After serving in the military, Cash marries his first wife and works briefly as a door-to-door salesman. His desire of course is to be a singer, and he forms a band. He manages to get them an audition, which doesn't go too well when they perform one of their gospel tunes. Things turn around when they perform a song that Cash wrote, and they get a record deal. From there they climb the charts.

His first wife isn't terribly supportive; in fact I read somewhere that one of Cash's daughters was not at all happy with how her mother was portrayed in this movie. It is true that she was angry at him, at first for being more interested in his music than in earning money as a door-to-door salesman, and then because she knew of his attraction to June Carter. But I felt that her anger was justified; I didn't think she was portrayed as being excessively bitchy or anything like that. Upon hearing the gospel tunes that Cash and his band were working on at first, I might have found it difficult to keep the faith as well in the beginning, and obviously he was in love with June Carter, so that was a threat to her.

Cash met June Carter, who along with her singing family had been famous since she was a child, while touring. Both were married to other people at the time, and it is awhile before they actually get together, years in fact. During this time, Carter goes through a bitter divorce, Cash's first wife finally leaves him, Carter briefly marries again, and Cash loses several years to pills and alcohol. But when they do get together, it is forever.

The actors actually sang rather than lip-synched; interestingly, those cast in the lead roles were not singers. The music was very good, though. Both Phoenix and Witherspoon were impressive in their roles, but Reese Witherspoon was especially good in the role of June Carter.

Happy Thanksgiving

I just want to wish everyone who reads this a happy Thanksgiving! If you're traveling, have a safe trip, and I wish everyone good times with family and/or friends.

Book Review--White Lies, Anna Salter

This is the third book in Salter's series featuring forensic psychologist Michael Stone, and probably my favorite.

Reginald Larsen is a noted anthesiologist who may have just made an important discovery regarding adverse reactions to anesthetics. He has been suspended from his hospital pending an investigation of claims of sexual impropriety. He is confident that he can fight the charges against him and wants Michael to do an evaluation as soon as possible. Michael has dealt with the lies of too many sexual offenders to be so sure of his ability to fight the charges.

While Michael is dealing with the Larsen case, a fellow psychologist, Marv, consults with Michael about a case of his where his client has recovered memories (unaided by him) of sexual abuse by her father. She wants to confront her father in a therapy session, which Michael is sure is a very bad idea, since it's unclear if the memories are real and the client has had mush time to work through this in any case. She tries to discourage Marv from allowing this to happen, but Marv says that his client is going to confront her father with or without Marv's help, and Marv feels that he needs to be there for his client. So Michael gets permission from all parties for her to observe behind a one-way mirror, so that at least she can be a witness for Marv if the family sues.

Michael's involvement in these two volatile cases proves to be quite dangerous. Michael has to protect not only herself, but those around her. Michael is brave to the point of being a little crazy, but maybe you'd have to be in her line of work.

Book Review--Fault Lines, by Anna Salter

In this second book featuring forensic psychologist Michael Stone, Michael's worst fears have come true. Alex B. Willy, sadistic child molester, has been released from prison. When Willy was still incarcerated, Michael had visited him to gain insights on child molesters. The insights were valuable, since much of Michael's work involves working with child molesters and victims. However, the information Willy provided may have come at far too high a price. When Willy and Michael had talked, neither had thought he'd ever get out of prison. He was in his early 60s and starting a 30-year sentence. He had spoken freely of how pedophiles operate and even boasted of his crimes on audiotape. Now he has been released on a technicality, and Michael is in possession of lots and lots of information Willy would rather she didn't have. Worse, Willy doesn't have anything resembling a conscience, and Michael shudders to think of the plans he might have for her.

Her friends--Adam, a police chief and Michael's sometime lover, and Carlotta, a lawyer, want her to hide, but Michael is too stubborn for that. So she keeps seeing therapy clients and gets a disturbing email from Willy suggesting that he knows who her clients are and what they are saying during their sessions. She has a friend, a former FBI agent, who educates her about bugs and gives her a bug detector, but it doesn't seem to help. Willy is always two steps ahead of her in a game she has to win. Her life depends on it.

Anna Salter's books are always gripping and hard to put down. She is herself a forensic psychologist and the cases portrayed in the books are chillingly realistic.

New Link for Cat Lovers

I just added a new link to my list of links: Sir Ryder of Cupp. It's a must read for any cat lover--lots of cute cat pictures, a long, distressing step by step account of giving a cat a pill (hilarious if you're not the one doing it), that type of thing. I can definitely relate to the pill thing. When I first got my cat Moonie from a shelter, she had lots of health problems. I had to give her lots of pills, and though we had had pets while I was growing up, I certainly hadn't had to do that kind of thing before and wasn't in fact known for having a great love of or skill with animals. It took awhile but now I am a pro at giving pills to cats.

Anyway, I love cat blogs, so when I saw this, I knew I had to add this link.

Movie Review-Prime

The first thing I am wondering is unrelated to the movie itself. Why is it that movie theaters are never a comfortable temperature? The movie theater in which I saw Prime was freezing. I had my winter coat on the whole entire time. It was like they had the air conditioning on or something.

Comfort aside, I did enjoy this movie. It was absolutely hilarious. Uma Thurman plays Rafi, a woman in her mid-30s who has just gone through a divorce and is seeing a therapist, Lisa (Meryl Streep). Rafi meets a great new guy, David (Bryan Greenberg) and they hit it off right away. Rafi is ecstatic in her new relationship, but at the same time a little unsure if he's the right person, as he is quite a bit younger than she is. Lisa encourages her to go for it and enjoy herself.

Neither therapist nor patient realize right away that Rafi is dating Lisa's son. I loved the moment of dawning horror when Lisa realized whom Rafi had been talking about (in intimate detail) in all those therapy sessions. It was far more than a mother would want to know about her son's sex life; that's for sure. And Lisa is far different as a parent than a therapist. Where she had encouraged Rafi to go for it and not worry about whether the relationship was going to go anywhere, she had strongly encouraged her son not to start something with someone who wasn't Jewish and was older than he (she didn't know at first that it was Rafi he was talking about).

Lisa goes to her own therapist and asks for advice on how to handle the situation. In my opinion, she gets some bad advice, although if she'd gotten better advice the movie wouldn't have been as good, I guess. Lisa's therapist said that if she thought this was just going to be a fling, then she wouldn't be serving her client's best interest by terminating therapy with her. The reason I thought this was bad advice was that it would only work if Lisa was right about it turning out to be a brief fling, and she had no way of knowing whether or not it would be. Hoping it would be a fling wasn't the same thing. And the longer the relationship continued, the harder it would be to tell Rafi that she needed to find another therapist and why. But anyway, Lisa follows the bad advice and ends up hearing more and more details that she really doesn't want to know.

Meryl Streep is great as the therapist and mother to David. Rafi and David are a great couple and the viewer really hopes they will be able to work things out. The movie did drag a little in spots, but mostly it was funny.

Book Review--Shiny Water, by Anna Salter

Anna's Salter's books are rather addictive to me. They just really sweep you along. Shiny Water is the first in a series featuring Dr. Michael Stone, a forensic psychologist (female, despite the man's name). I've actually read all of her books before, but I enjoy rereading them.

This book is about a nasty custody case. Michael is asked to testify because one of the children, aged six, told a teacher that his father was sexually abusing him and his younger sister. The children confirm this in Michael's office. Oddly, though their mother thinks her soon-to-be-ex is a horrible person, she does not believe that the children were sexually abused. She has some problems with paranoia (big problems, actually), and thinks that their father coached the children to say this, that the court would decide it wasn't true, blame the mother for encouraging her children to make up stories about their father, and award custody to the father. Michael is very experienced in sexual abuse cases and believes that the children really were molested, and says as much in court. However, the mother's fears about what the judge would think about the charges of sexual abuse turned out to be accurate, and Michael's testimony was ignored. The father was given full custody, the mother limited visitation.

But then the children are found murdered in their beds when visiting their mother, who is arrested for the crime. Though she knows that the children's mother has mental health problems, she doesn't believe for a second that she murdered her children. She embarks on her own personal quest to find the real killer. It is a quest that may threaten her life, as the killer is much closer than she expected, and someone she never suspected.

Anyway, this book wouldn't appeal to some people, since the subject matter is pretty upsetting. But I love Michael's determination to do what she can to right a wrong. Obviously whatever she does won't bring the children back to life, but she can at least help bring their real killer to justice, even if it's at great cost to herself.

Book Review--Dating is Murder, by Harley Jane Kozak

This is the second book in the series featuring Wollie Shelley, greeting card designer and amateur sleuth. Wollie is also a contestant on a cheesy reality show called Biological Clock, featuring three women in their 30s and three men. Each of the three women has on-camera dates with each of three men, and then the audience votes on which combination should produce a child (with or without romantic involvement). Like I said, cheesy. Wollie is more or less participating for the $500 per week, for only two nights worth of work.

Her main concern is her missing friend Annika, a college exchange student from Germany who is also Wollie's math tutor. Wollie becomes concerned when Annika misses a tutoring session and then Annika's mother calls from Germany, saying that she hadn't heard from Annika for awhile, that her host family wouldn't return her calls, and that she was sure something was wrong.

Annika frequently hangs out on the Biological Clock set, so Wollie asks others on the set if Annika had said anything recently that might shed light on her disappearance. Disturbingly, she finds out that Annika had wanted to know how she could get a gun. Upon visiting Annika's host family, Wollie learns that Annika may have been involved with drugs. Both pieces of information are shocking to Wollie; Annika had hardly seemed like the type of person to want a gun or be involved with drugs.

Reporting Annika's disappearance to the police doesn't really do much good, and in investigating on her own, Wollie finds herself being followed. Actually, she is being followed by more than one person, some of whom have to do with the television show and trying to fix the results. You might say that Wollie's life has become rather scary on several levels.

This book was a lot better than the first book in the series, as I mentioned in my last post. Wollie is a very likeable character. Despite her tendency to get involved in some rather ridiculous projects (the TV show in this one and the dating "research" in the first book), she is actually quite intelligent and creative. I actually rather enjoyed the Biological Clock angle just because the show was so bad it was funny. Anyway, I imagine that there will be another book about Wollie, and I will most likely read it.

Book Review--Dating Dead Men, by Harley Jane Kozak

This is the first book in a new series starring Wollie (short for Wollstonecraft, if you can believe it) Shelley, a greeting card designer and amateur sleuth. I actually read the second book in the series first, but decided to review them in order. It's a good thing I read the second book first, though, or I probably would not have read on.

In Dating Dead Men, Wollie is concerned about the card shop she manages. If her shop is upgraded she can buy it. The shop also carries some greeting cards she designs, as well as cards from many other sources. Wollie is also involved in a "research" project. A radio talk-show host is writing a book, How to Avoid Getting Dumped all the Time, and Wollie is helping out with the research by dating 40 men in 60 days.

After receiving an urgent call from her brother Wollie is driving to see him at the state mental hospital (he's paranoid schizophrenic) when she stumbles across a dead body. She gets to the hospital and sees that her brother is all right and in fact, fast asleep. So she leaves, but if briefly taken hostage by a "doctor" who is on the run from the mob. Fortunately his only desire was to escape and not to harm Wollie, and by the time they have driven together for a ways, they have become friends of sorts. Wollie is worried that her brother, who somehow knew about the corpse before she came across it, is involved in the crime, so she tries to solve it herself rather than going to the police. This involves encountering some rather sinister types, to say the least. The dead body and "Doc's" run from the mob are connected, and Doc keeps trying to keep Wollie out of harm's way, which doesn't work because she doesn't take his advice.

Anyway, I didn't like this book as much as I liked the second one (which I will review in a later post) because I thought this book was confusing. It was just hard to follow in spots, and I am not sure if this is because of the writing, or if I kept getting lost because it failed to hold my interest. But like I've said, the second book is better, so I do think there is hope for this particular series.

Movie Review--Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story

This was just a touching story. It's a tearjerker in spots and a great family movie. Kurt Russell plays a horse trainer, Ben Crane. His daughter, Cale (Dakota Fanning) loves horses. She accompanies her father to work one day when one of his favorite horses, Sonador (Spanish for Dreamer), breaks her leg during a race. The breeder, Ben's boss, wants the animal to be put down immediately, but Cale is there watching, and Ben argues with his boss and manages to save Sonador's life. He also manages to get fired, but he takes Sonador with him. He figures that he can nurse Sonador back to health, and though she'll never race again, he could breed her and sell the colt for a lot of money. And Cale is delighted to have the horse with them, the only horse on what was once a large horse farm. There is only one problem with Ben's plan: the horse is infertile.

Faced with financial ruin, Ben tells his wife that he would have let the vet put Sonador down the day she broke her leg if Cale hadn't been there that day and he'd still have his job. Cale overhears and plans to run away with the horse (a bold plan, to be sure). She gets on the horse, who gets spooked when Ben's truck pulls up. The horse runs out of open gate with Cale, who can't get her to stop. Ben manages to drive up alongside them, gets out of the truck, and gets Cale to jump off of the horse and into his arms. It was then that they realized the horse could run, and run fast. So they start training her to race again.

As one can surmise from the title, this is based on a true story. I read online (on the MSN movie info; the synopsis is by Mark Deming) that it's based on the story of Mariah's Storm, a horse who broke her leg in 1993, but who made an incredible comeback. In 1994 she won the Arlington Heights Oaks, and in 1995 won the Turfway Breeder's Cup.

Another New Link

I have added another new link to my list: The Rubin Review. Check it out, it's really funny.

Book Review--Better Read than Dead, by Victoria Laurie

This book is the second in the "Psychic Eye" mysteries. Very light reading, but lots of fun, in my opinion. Abby makes her living doing psychic readings for people. I guess one has to suspend disbelief if one doesn't believe in that sort of thing. However, her gift comes in handy outside of her work, especially since she tends to get into dangerous situations.

Abby is eagerly awaiting her reunion with her new boyfriend, Dutch, who is just getting back from FBI training when she gets a call from a fellow psychic, Kendal. Kendal's timing in calling in a favor that Abby owes him could not be worse, but she cancels her date with Dutch and reluctantly agrees to help Kendal do psychic readings at a wedding (interesting choice of reception entertainment, but then the wedding is on Halloween).

Kendal and Abby belatedly discover that the wedding is actually a mob wedding. They decide to leave early--and quickly--but not before Abby's psychic gifts catch the attention of a mob boss who wants her help. Abby tries to stand up to him, being way braver than I could probably be in those circumstances, but he doesn't exactly take no for an answer.

Meanwhile, the police recruit Abby to help out on a case involving a masked man who's attacking women. Her sister makes an unannounced visit, and Abby has prevent her from finding out about the mob boss and keep her out of harm's way. Dutch's new partner in the FBI makes it clear to Abby that she wants Dutch, despite rules against her dating a subordinate. You might say Abby's life has gotten rather difficult to manage, even with her psychic gifts, which can be impressive but seem to be rather selective (it's not like she saw this coming).

I really like Abby; she's very no-nonsense and straightforward, despite her unusual profession. The psychic angle is really interesting. Anyway, this is just a fun book, and a fun new series.

Movie Review--The Weatherman

This was a rather dark movie, but with an overlay of humor that kept it from being depressing. The story centers on a middle-aged divorced man, David Spritz (Nicholas Cage), who is a TV weather forecaster in Chicago. His father is a famous author who is terminally ill. Both of his kids are troubled. Feelings of inadequacy are definitely an issue for David. He can't measure up to his Pulitzer-prize-winning father, who gives him a hard time about getting divorced and about the kids. He doesn't have a degree in metereology and thus doesn't truly understand a lot of what he is saying on the air. Sometimes people who recognize him on the street throw things at him. Things are possibly looking up on the job front, though. David is in the running for a network job in New York. When he has to drive his dad to the doctor, David places a letter about the job where he thinks his dad is sure to see it and comment on it. First his dad sits on it, so when they get in the car after the appointment, David places the letter on the passenger side of the dashboard. His dad falls asleep without ever noticing it.

David contemplates his life, his career and his relationships. He's a likeable, sympathetic character. Who among us has not experienced at least some of these things--feelings of inadequacy or not feeling respected in our careers, worry about kids, grief over failed relationships, etc. It's easy to relate to his character.

The movie is kind of hard to characterize; I guess I'd call it a comic drama. David's character narrates his thoughts, and he has a kind of dark sense of humor. So if you like movies that are rather deep but with some humor to lighten things up, you'll probably like this.

Another New Link

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to another new link that I just added: Bond Hunter's Guide to Internet Counseling. Lots of good resources and interesting entries to read. Check it out.

Book Review--The Wonder Spot, by Melissa Bank

This book begins when Sophie, the protagonist, is 12 years old. Then she is struggling in Hebrew school and trying to convince her parents that she doesn't want a bat mitzvah. In Hebrew school, she befriends a former enemy from school.

The book is in several sections, different slices of Sophie's life over a span of about 25 years. There is a section from when she is in college and critiquing her roommate's love life, a section from when she is just out of college and trying to teach herself to type (in the days of the typewriter). Attempting to find lasting love is a common theme of many of the sections, as is her career satisfaction (or lack thereof). All involve her search for identity in some way.

I liked the book, but it's kind of hard to review in that it's more character development than plot. One thing I didn't necessarily like was the way it jumped around to different parts of her life; sometimes I was wondering whatever happened with a certain person or situation, and then the book jumps ahead several years. But it was all quite interesting, and I liked how Sophie didn't let other people's warnings about how a certain guy might be her last chance (to get married and have a family) sway her into marrying someone she didn't want to marry. I just thought, You go, girl! I think if people were only in relationships because they truly wanted to be with that person, and not because they think they need the security or are afraid to be alone or are worried about missing their chance to have a family or whatever--well, I think there would be a lot more single people in this world.