Review/Discussion: Taylor's Gift by Todd and Tara Storch

This is going to be a little different from the normal format, because this book is a little different. It is also the debut of nonfiction here on Unless you Write It!

This isn't going to be divided into sections for haven't read/ have read. It is also not going to be given a rating. Spoilers don't really apply. It will also be largely about a cause. 

I took care last time I went to the library, carefully examining the books before I checked them out. I didn't want to end up with another Placebo. I try to balance my fiction with a little smattering of nonfiction, so as I was checking out the nonfiction section this book caught my eye. Reading the blurb, I realized I had to read it. I'll explain why in a second. 

This book is about two parents, Tara and Todd Storch. They, along with their three kids, were a happy, fairly affluent Texas family. They were a great family, all very close, all very happy. Then, when Taylor, their oldest daughter, was almost fourteen, the family took a ski trip to Vail. A fun day on the slopes went horribly, terribly wrong, and left two grieving parents surrounding their brain-dead daughter in a hospital room. And then the fateful question; "would you like to donate Taylor's organs?" 

They said, without having to think about it, yes. It's what they knew Taylor would have wanted. The majority of the book is spent exploring their grief (some of the scenes are painfully, brutally, tear-jerkingly written) and also how they channeled their grief into something great: the Taylor's Gift foundation, which promotes and advocates for organ donation. It is also about the people who received Taylor's organs, and how their lives have been changed so dramatically for the better. 

That is why I wanted to read this book. I am a HUGE supporter of organ donation. I always have been. The thought of life-giving organs rotting in the ground or burning in a fire is sickening to me. I am also on the National Bone Marrow Donor registry, if you're interested you can sign up here: bethematch.org. The ONLY thing you have to do is swab a cheek with the kit they send you and send it back. You do not have to do any other medical tests to be on the registry.  

But besides that, I promise that this reading experience will be very visceral. I was a bit skeptical when I saw that there was a ghostwriter (Co-writer? What do you call these people???) named Jennifer Schuchmann. I am always very skeptical of these books because I've always felt that if you can't write a book on your own you probably don't have any business writing one. But then I stopped sticking my nose in the air and realized that this book isn't about literary merit (though, whoever wrote it and in what combination, it is beautifully written). It's about telling a personal story, celebrating a life, and promoting a cause. It is not about extended metaphor and subplot and pacing and all the things on which we normally judge a book. It is a great, though heart-wrenching, read. Should someone be excluded from telling an important story because they aren't the strongest writers? 

One thing I learned was that just because your driver's license says "organ donor" (and mine does, and has since the day I got it on my 16th birthday) doesn't mean your organs will be donated. The best thing to do is make sure you are on your state's official registry, and you can do that through taylorsgift.org (I went and joined the registry just in case). It is also very important to make it very clear to your close family that you want your organs donated, and which ones. I have point-blank told my family, "when I die, I want all my organs donated." They are all very clear on this issue. It is an option to have some organs donated but not others, and if that is your wish, be sure to specify which ones you are willing to donate and which you aren't. Of course, I hope you choose to donate them all! Please note that dying from a disease, such as cancer, does not preclude you from donation. My mom is an oncology nurse and many of her patients, who have died of cancer, donate their corneas. Also, even disease-riddled organs can be very useful to medical research, which can also contribute to saving lives. Barring that, real corpses are needed to do things such as calibrate crash test dummies, which enable manufacturers to make cars safer, and, again, save lives. My objective is for my body to be put to good use after I'm dead. Organ donation is my first choice but if that isn't possible, then I want it to be put to good use in other ways. For a great book about how your dead body can be used, I'd recommend Mary Roach's delightfully macabre book, Stiff. 

Of course, none of us want this to be an issue that crops up soon. We want to die a long time from now. But as Taylor's death shows, you just never know. Isn't it better to take a few simple steps to ensure that your remains could save a life, no matter when you die? You truly can, as Taylor's Gift foundation says, outlive yourself. How cool is that? 

So this for me was more than a book. It was a reminder that good can come out of tragedy and that we can all take a simple step that makes a HUGE difference. Truly Tara and Todd are amazing people. But it also is, inescapably, a book. And, I think, a pretty darn good one. 

Please check out taylorsgift.org to learn more about Taylor and organ donation. 

Book Review/Discussion: Boost by Kathy Mackel

When I finished Invisible Murder, I reached for the next book...and remembered that was it. I had no more books left. And it was Friday. THE LIBRARY IS CLOSED ON FRIDAY!

Then I remembered that I'd purchased several books for my classroom library a month or so ago at the Scholastic warehouse sale (which was awesome, by the way). So I decided to read one of those. That makes this the first YA book to appear on Unless You Write It.

My feelings on YA literature are pretty simple: I love it. I don't read it much, but when I do I thoroughly enjoy it. I think it can be just as well crafted as adult literature. There is also really AWFUL young adult literature. But there is also really AWFUL adult literature.

I majored in literature in college and also have a master's degree in it, and one class that stands out is a YA literature class I took in undergrad. It was a very challenging class with a lot of theory, but that's not relevant here. One thing I learned, though, is: there are various definition for YA literature. One definition is that it is written for young adults. Another is that it is written about young adults. I'm not sure which definition I prefer, but at any rate I've found that they usually overlap. YA literature is often both for and about young adults. This book is no different.

 Here goes!

For those who have not yet read Boost

Savvy (short for Savannah) and her sister, Callie, have had a rough year. After their family hit a rough patch financially, the sisters' parents moved the family from Arizona to Rhode Island, where they moved in with Savvy's great-aunt on her sheep farm. Savvy, our first-person narrator, is also a very talented basketball player and throws herself heart, soul, and body into her new team. Callie, a former gymnast turned cheerleader, throws herself into cheerleading (or rather, is thrown, she's a flyer...haha see what I did there?). Both girls have some trouble adjusting, but tough Savvy seems to be doing a better job than sensitive Callie. But when they both start struggling in their respective sports, one of them takes things a little too far.

This isn't a bad book, so I don't mean for this to sound disparaging, but this is what I call a "plane book" (since I'm not really a beach person but I love to travel). It's easy, quick, conversational. Does it exhibit the true art of writing? No. But is it a good read nonetheless? Yes. I read it in one sitting and enjoyed it. It highlights some issues that I think are important. Is it high literature? No. But it's a good book. I enjoyed Savvy's character quite a lot and thought the main characters were solidly developed, though some of the peripheral characters came off as caricatures.

Recommended? 

Yes. 3/5 stars. I recommend it especially to actual young adults, especially athletes and super especially to girl athletes.

Tips

I actually did NOT get this one at the library! As I noted earlier I got it at the Scholastic warehouse sale to put in my classroom library. I imagine it would be pretty cheap on Amazon. As far as stocking classroom libraries go, if you're interested, here is my personal philosophy: get ALL SORTS of books! So that any student trying to pick out a book can find one he or she likes. It is not about what I like. My classroom library would be totally different if I just bought books I like. Anyway, I know that sports are super important to lots of my students, so one of my goals when I went to the warehouse sale was to get a few more books about sports. This book is the result of that goal.

For those of you who have read Boost

Book Review/Discussion: Invisible Murder by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis

So behold, Invisible Murder, the last of my "grab any books at all costs" library run. But first, a confession. I returned this book late. I returned five books late, this was just one of the bunch. Leaving me with not only $1.25 in library fines but also the mortification of having to walk up to the librarian and murmur, "um, I have to pay a fine, please." I was mostly afraid, though, that Mr. Bookman would come after me. 

Luckily, he didn't! I renewed the book just to write this blog, so here we go!

For those who have not yet read Invisible Murder

First off, Invisible Murder is a Danish book, by which I mean it was written by two Danish women and also takes place mostly in and around Copenhagen, though we venture to Hungary a little bit, too. Apparently it is part of a series, which I did not know when I started reading it. It was just fine as a stand-alone read, though. 

Invisible Murder is about a group of illegal alien Roma who fall ill just outside Copenhagen, and nurse/activist (nactivist?) Nina Borger's attempts to help them. It quickly becomes apparent that this is no ordinary illness, and when Nina herself falls sick things get bad, fast. Things also get bad, fast, for Sandor Horvath, a brilliant Hungarian law student who suddenly finds himself entangled in a big mess that he has nothing to do with. Unfortunately I can't really say more about the plot without spoiling it, so just know that what seems to be the Danish equivalent of the NSA (or maybe FBI or CIA, I'm not really sure) get involved as well. 

One thing that I liked about this book is that it offers a peak into life in an idyllic European country. Maybe it's just me, but I'd be willing to bet that many Americans feel this way too: I grew up thinking that life in Europe must be perfect. People sipped drinks outside cafes on beautiful European streets and explored and read books and went to museums all day. Actually living in Europe for a year didn't do much to dissuade me of that notion, to be honest, because I found my time in Europe to be pretty much like that (with a liberal dose of school work mixed in). But this book goes to show that, well, it's true...people are alike all over. I mean, look at these pictures of Copenhagen: 

I think we're pretty tempted to think that life would be pretty much perfect across the board if you lived in a place like that. Or in Istanbul, where Sandor lived before his life was interrupted: 

I mean, life there has to be PERFECT, right? Not so much, as we learn from Invisible Murder. I'm sure for some people life in these places is as perfect as it gets, but certainly not for everyone, as we see in the novel. Some people have small problems in these places, and some people have huge problems. Sandor finds himself in a huge problem, and he also introduces us to another very real problem: the Romani people, who are the largest minority in Hungary, face massive amounts of discriminations. From the (admittedly cursory) research I've done, it's not unlike how we in the US treated blacks before the civil rights movement. It's that bad. 

So as far as the writing goes, it's hard for me to say on a translated work. I always wonder, how much of the art of the writing is lost (or invented) in translation? Plot-wise, it's solid. It kept me interested. Character wise, also solid; I cared about the characters, especially Sandor and Nina. But the craft of the writing, which is a major point for me...again, it's hard to say due to translation. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't say it was beautiful, either. There was one aspect of the plot that I thought was absurd and poor writing, but I'll get to that in the next section. 

However, that said, I enjoyed this book, mostly due to the insight it afforded me to those living in countries I've never been to (but I'd love to go, especially to Budapest...which actually used to be two cities, Buda and Pest, until they were united in to one). I also enjoyed learning about the political and social realities of these two countries. Isn't it amazing how we can learn so much through fiction? A good, solid read. 

Recommended

Yes. 3/5 stars. 

Tips

The book before this is The Boy in the Suitcase. You might want to read that first, though I did not. 

For those who have read Invisible Murder 

Book Review/Discussion: Placebo by Steven James

I finished this book several days ago and am just now blogging it, a much longer turn-around time than I have done in the past and would like to do in the future. Part of this is the hectic nature of the last few days of school (I'm a middle school teacher), and part of it is due to the fact that I just am not excited about this book. Again, apologies to Steven James, you've at least finished and published a novel which is way more than I've done, but I didn't think this book was any good. It was one of my "quick grab a book before the library closes, any book, just grab a book!" books. Not a great technique, apparently. 

For those who have not yet read Placebo 

Placebo is a thriller/crime novel/medical drama. It follows Jevin Banks, our protagonist, a former escape artist/stage magician who now creates debunking shows for TV. It seems to be pretty obvious that Jevin's show is based on Penn and Teller's Bullshit, which is one of my favorite shows. I thought that was pretty cool, but it also got my hopes up that this would be a real anthem for skepticism, but by about halfway through I realized it was anything but. Anyway, I think Jevin was written as a Houdini/wannabe Penn Jillette hybrid. I don't buy it. Penn is one of my idols; I've read his book, I've seen every episode of Bullshit, I listen to his podcast, I've even seen his stage show in Vegas and met him afterwards.  You, Jevin Banks, are no Penn Jillette. But that's okay, it's not like Steven James ever said he was Penn Jillette, so I can let that slide. Jevin is his own character. 

Here is what I will not let slide: The blurb about his book proclaims it is "rooted in groundbreaking science and inspired by actual medical research." Well I'm sorry, but if you claim the book is inspired by actual medical research, I damn well except to see a work cited page. Spoiler alert (not really): there is no work cited page. 

Wait, wait, let's back up to a synopsis. The book opens as Jevin Banks watches the bodies of his wife and young twin sons be pulled out of the water. As it turns out, his wife had purposely driven off the pier in an obvious effort to kill herself and her sons. This leaves Jevin devastated and would have been a really interesting thing in and of itself, but wait, it's about to get muddled up in our "real medical research" (cough snort cough). As a result of this personal tragedy, Jevin quits his stage show and starts his "expose" TV show. This is where the action really starts: Jevin, along with his beautiful assistant Charlene, his whacky conspiracy theorist friend Xavier, and his homeschool mom/ uber-hacker helper Fionna (along with her four precocious children), set out to debunk some unbelievable research about quantum entanglement and realize that the researchers might actually be on to something...and that a very dangerous plot is brewing. The plot is so bizarre that I can't even really explain the rest cohesively. Just know that the other cast of characters involves a psychopathic doctor, another psychopathic doctor, a psychopathic freelance assassin,  a voodoo priestess (perhaps also a psychopath), two stony special-forces twins who can kill people with their minds (quite definitely psychopaths) , yet another psycopathic doctor, a non-psycopathic doctor, the Undersecretary of Defense, and the god damn president of the United States (why not throw POTUS into this cluster eff?). 

Don't worry, I think I have some more rants left in me. Remember when I said that I wasn't ready to accept it was based in real medical research without a work cited page? Well, that real medical research seems to be all about quantum physics. I've seen a lot of documentaries about quantum mechanics, as well as read some popular science books about it. It's an interest of mine. And one quote always seems to surface: If you think you understand quantum physics, you don't understand quantum physics. And this is obviously the case with the author. When the best scientific minds in the world can barely understand quantum physics and its implications, how can we expect a novelist to? It reads like make believe, because it pretty much is. To quote Penn Jillette: real medical research "my aching ass." 

Okay. Done. For now. 

Recommended? 

No. Don't even bother. 

Tips

Find a better book to read. (Ouch, harsh. I know, I know, I'm sorry. I just felt that this book was really a waste of time and I resent it for that). 

For those who have read Placebo

Book Review/Discussion: The Prophet by Michael Koryta

This is one of the books I hastily pulled off the shelf as the library was closing. Just a few pages in, I realized that I was NOT in the target demographic. Even remotely. I am in a woman in her mid-twenties. I think this was written quite exclusively for middle-aged men who have at least a moderate interest in football. But, I will say that the plot kept me interested just enough to press on. 

For those who have not yet read The Prophet 

Koryta tells the story of two brothers whose lives were shattered due to the murder of their sixteen-year-old sister, Marie. Now around 40, both men have taken an extremely different path in life. Older brother Adam, a senior and star high school football player when Marie was killed, is now a bail bondsman living with a married woman whose husband is in prison. Younger brother Kent, who was a freshman at the time of Marie's murder, is head coach of the acclaimed Chambers High School Cardinals, who both he and his brother played for. Besides coaching, Kent is also involved in prison ministry and has a wife and two young children. The two brothers have not spoken in years. 

Everything they have settled into, however, is shaken by the murder of 17-year-old Rachel Bond, the girlfriend of one of Chambers' star players and a frequent babysitter of Kent's children. Both men are drawn into the case when they realise they both played an unwitting role in her murder. Driven by guilt, both due to Rachel's murder and Marie's, the brother have to reach a tentative truce--and maybe even rekindle a genuine relationship--to get to the bottom of things. 

Fair enough, right? I'll admit the description I wrote sounds interesting. The problem with the novel, though...is that it's really not. Interesting, I mean. It's not interesting. I think this is partly due to the fact that (and please please I hope he never googles this book and reads this and I'm super sorry in advance, Michael Koryta, but this is how I feel) Michael Koryta is not a particularly gifted novelist. His prose falls flat. The brothers seem like caricatures. The twist is dropped out of nowhere, built from nothing, just a sinister perversion of a deus ex machina out of the sky. One of the villains, a prison-hardened stalker, speaks in such an exaggerated erudite way that Koryta may as well given him a monocle and a mustache to twirl. I half expected him to skip off to the railroad tracks and tie a damsel to them. 

Listen, here's the deal. I love a well-plotted story. I love twists and turns. As much as it pains me, and it does pain me, I like thrillers. I don't want to be the type of reader who likes thrillers. But I do. However, I have standards. I want my thrillers to be beautifully written, as much a work of art with the prose as with the plot (for example, see anything written by Liz Jensen). This book did not give me beautiful writing, at all. And the plot wasn't really anything to write home about, either. So I felt that this book really didn't have much to offer me, and I'll leave it at that. Maybe it has something to offer to you. 

Recommended? 

Not really. But I'll say this; I admitted from go that I was NOT in this book's target audience. Maybe you are. I personally give it 2 out of 5 stars. So I do not recommend it to readers like me. I would give it a tentative recommendation to people who like James Patterson and football.

Tips

This is a library find so I'll repeat the advice I always give: check your library first! Be ready to skim or even skip several pages at at a time if football is not your thing or you are just a casual football viewer. 

For those who have read The Prophet

Book Review/Discussion: Fever by Mary Beth Keane

A few days ago I raced to the library right before it closed, and arrived with about 15 minutes to spare. When the librarian's quiet, soporific voice filled the library, announcing over the speakers that the library would close in five minutes, I panicked. I had not picked a single book. So, I rushed over to the new book section, grabbed four books that didn't look at first glance sappy romances or westerns, and checked those out. 

When I got home, I reviewed my hastily-selected haul to see what exactly I had ended up with. To my astonishment, one of the books, Fever by Mary Beth Keane, was about Typhoid Mary! Just the previous day I had been visiting my parents and we'd talked about Typhoid Mary, which is a pretty unusual topic of conversation. Needless to say, I was pretty astounded by the coincidence, and decided to read Fever first. 

Now is the time to confess my finicky-ness when it comes to fictionalized accounts of real events or people. In theory, I love the idea. Why not take something interesting from history and use it as a basis for a great work of fiction? But the logical part of my brain, which I have trouble turning off, doesn't quite know what to make about fictionalized history. I am constantly trying to decipher what is real, what isn't, desperate to be able to separate the truth from the speculation or outright invention. But, what the heck, I decided to give it a whirl. 

For those who have not yet read Fever 

For those of you who aren't even passingly familiar with the story of Mary Mallon, aka Typhoid Mary, let me give you a primer: she was an Irish immigrant to New York identified as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid in the early 1900s. That pretty much sums it up. Many of you probably know how things eventually turned out, but in case you don't or have forgotten, I'll leave that for those who have already read the book. 

There is no doubt that Mary Beth Keane is a talented writer, though I've not read her other book and, to be honest, won't seek it out. I thoroughly enjoyed Fever even though I knew what was going to happen at the end, being familiar with Mary Mallon's story. To write about someone so well known means that Keane had to invest more in the journey than the destination, and I feel that she did that quite successfully, inviting us to be privy to Mary's rich and often contradictory inner thoughts. In fact, only a brief courtroom scene makes this feel like a medical drama at all. It's much more about an immigrant woman with a strong will, a temper, and a dubious boyfriend. The whole "typhoid" part of "Typhoid Mary" is really quite secondary, the "Mary" part being the most important to the novel. 

The best part of Keane's novel is that we as readers are forced to grapple with our own feelings towards Mary. Do we like her? Do we despise her? Can we like her and despise her simultaneously? Do we root for her, or for her enemies? Can getting to know a person on a human level make their mistakes, even crimes, all the easier to forgive and even forget? At what point is a person complicit to, or even actively courting, disaster? These are tough questions that Keane makes us at least try to answer, and I applaud her for that. 

I do feel Fever suffered some mishaps. There was a jump in point of view that I found unnerving. The novel was written in third person prescient with the focus on Mary, except for a small section where the focus jumped to her lover, Alfred. It was a strange and awkward leap, unnecessarily jarring for the reading experience. Besides that, I thought the story was handled skilfully, and some passages were truly beautiful. 

Recommended? 

Yes, especially for people who like character-driven works. Three out of five stars. 

Tips

As always, check your local library!  I also recommend doing some quick googling about Mary Mallon either before or after you read, so you can start to pick apart what is real and what is fiction. 

For those who HAVE read Fever 

Book Review/Discussion: The Burning Air by Erin Kelley

I pulled this book off the shelf of the library, it sounded pretty interesting, so I took it home. I must admit that I didn't have huge hopes for The Burning Air, but my curiosity was piqued just enough to give it a go. And...I am so glad I did!

For those who have not yet read The Burning Air 

For some reason, the last, like ten books I've taken home from the library have turned out to be from British writers and set in Britain. This is NOT something I'm doing on purpose! I think it's a pretty funny coincidence. So, yes, Erin Kelly is a British author and this book is set in England. 

The Burning Air tells the story of the MacBride family, a very close, well-to-do family that has just lost their matriarch, Lydia (this is not a spoiler, you find this out from go). As a way to seek some closure after Lydia's death by scattering her ashes, the MacBride clan gathers at their Dorset country home, Far Barn, for a get-together. Arriving at Far Barn are the widower Rowan, his oldest daughter Sophie, her husband and their four children, his daughter Tara, her long-time boyfriend and her child, and his son Felix and his new girlfriend. But, as they come together to grieve, a threat long-since brewing in their midst is about to come to a head. 

This book is predominantly about one thing: obsession. I mean, straight-jacket-worthy obsession. It is what drives one of the major characters and all of the events. This novel is full of twists and turns, and Kelly is a skilled enough author to handle them masterfully. I also enjoy how we see several of the pivotal scenes from two perspectives, adding an interesting dimension to the novel. The aforementioned obsession does come off as a little much at times, could someone really be that obsessed?, but the outcome speaks for itself....I couldn't put this book down. 

Recommended? 

I can definitely say YES. This is an enjoyable read and Kelly is clearly a very talented writer. My heart ached with these characters. Four out of five stars. 

Tips

This is another library find, so check your library first as they might have it. Also, try to read this novel quickly, as having details fresh on your mind is important. 

For those who HAVE read The Burning Air