In This Our Life Review

I'm not quite sure what to say about this book. It wasn't the best or the worst book I've ever read, it was just so-so. It's a story of a family told from different points of view. Mostly it is from the viewpoint of the dad, Asa. He has been stuck in a loveless marriage for over 30 years and all that he wants is to escape from it and move out to a farm with his friend, Kate. His wife, Lavinia, is an overweight hypochondriac who delights in making her husband's life miserable. She never leaves her bedroom and complains and talks all the time. Asa feels that he needs to stay with her so that someone is there to take care of her and bring her food and medicine. The other thing keeping Asa around is his children. He has two daughters, Stanley and Roy, (yes that is right) and a son named Andrew. Andrew is married to Maggie and they have three kids. They have a great marriage and are fine and really aren't a big part of the book at all. When the book starts out Roy is married to Peter and Stanley is engaged to Craig and their wedding is coming up. A couple of days before the wedding Stanley and Peter run off together leaving Roy and Craig both heartbroken. They each take it in a different way. Roy is very strong and doesn't want to be pitied. When she is working or at home with her family she is fine, but at night she cries and doesn't sleep because of her dreams of Peter. Craig just kind of loses it, he becomes a wreck. When Roy and Craig meet up a few months later they begin to help each other over come their heart ache and soon fall in love.

Meanwhile, in Boston Stanley and Peter aren't doing so well. Stanley writes her mother telling her that she and Peter fight all the time. Soon Peter commits suicide and leaves Stanley heartbroken for a short time. Stanley is the kind of girl that demands things. She wants the best of everything and expects it to be handed to her. Lavinia (Stanley's mother) has an uncle, William, who is the wealthiest man in town and he kind of doted on Stanley and bought her whatever she wanted; this is where Stanley gets it. Stanley is a beautiful young woman and gets lots of attention for her good looks and she knows how to use them to get what she wants. She doesn't mourn long for Peter and is soon restless and wanting to go somewhere besides their city of Queensboro.

I don't want to give the book completely away but other sad and hard things happen with Stanley. The night Asa decides he's going to leave Lavinia and move out to Kate's farm something terrible happens with Stanley and Roy that makes him change his mind.

It was a good story, but the people in the story just think way to much. They can't get over things or move on with things because they just think and analyze WAY to much. I just wanted to say "stop thinking and go do something!" It kind of drove me crazy.

There was a paragraph in the book I wanted to quote only because it was funny and doesn't in any way reflect how I feel about my marriage. It is Uncle William's wife, Charlotte, who is analyzing her marriage and life. This is what it says "Charlotte, who knitted without looking at her needles, did not answer immediately. At the moment, she was busily wondering how women could have survived marriage throughout the ages if knitting had not been invented…" I just got a kick out of that. Again it doesn't reflect how I feel about my marriage or why I knit, just so we're clear on that.

I enjoyed the book but I am not anxious to read it again and like I said earlier there was too much thinking and analyzing and not enough action.

Grapes of Wrath

Yes, I only gave this four balls of yarn. Why? Because it is really sad. I've read this book before and honestly I think I enjoyed it more the first time. It was hard for me to read this time around.

It's a story about a family, the Joads, whose farm is taken away from them and they are forced to move on. They hear that workers are needed in California and how great it is there so they plan on leaving. When they start out there are 13 of them on their truck. Along the way they loose four of their family to death or other ways. Two of the family members are Rose of Sharon and her husband Connie, and Rose of Sharon is pregnant. Connie is one of the people they loose along the way, he wandered off and never came back. After many days on the road they finally make it to California. Along the way they meet people who are leaving California and warn them that there are too many workers and not enough work and that the wages that are being paid are not enough to feed a family on. They discover this for themselves and can't find work. For part of the time they live in this great government run camp where they have hot water and toilets and people are kind to them, but they run out of money and there is no work so they have to move on.

Lots of sadness follows them and they try to stick together as a family, but can't. One son, Tom, who was just released from prison for killing a man at the beginning of the story is hiding out because he killed a man to defend his friend. To keep his family safe he runs off. Their other son, Al, meets a girl and decides to marry her and he wants to work in a garage, which let me sidetrack a little bit here. This is something I thought a lot while reading this book. Why don't they go to the city and find a job in a garage. Both Tom and Al are really good with fixing cars, they both could get a job there I'm sure and have some money come in. It wasn't until the end that I realized that these people were farmers and working on the land was the only thing they knew to do, that's why.

Alright, back to the story. In the end, well I don't want to tell you the end. You'll have to read it for yourself and if you have read it, you understand, don't you.

One thing that stuck out to me that didn't before, was that these people were people. Let me explain. The first time I read it I think they were just characters and I didn't connect with them, this time I saw them as people. I could almost see their faces and realized that they were just trying to do what was best for their family. They were treated worse than the animals by the people in California (I do understand why, in a way) but they were just people trying to make their way. I try to imagine if that were me and my family and I'm amazed by the strength that their mother showed through all their trials, trying to feed their family, her daughter being pregnant and her husband running off, trying to find a place to live. Just trying to find the basic necessities in life. I feel that sometimes I take these things for granted. Or I drive by homes that are bigger than mine and I think "my life would be better if I lived there" (which it wouldn't be because then I would have to clean more!). I have everything I need right here in my home, to take care of my family. We have a roof over our heads, food in the fridge and cupboards, clothes to wear, a heater in the winter and a cooler in the summer. I think sometimes we focus on the fancy things that we don't NEED, we just WANT. One thing the Joad family had, thanks to their mother, was love for each other and I think that is what got them through the trials.

This book has made me realize how blessed I am. Yes, I don't have a large closet full of designer clothes, or a big fancy car, or a fancy phone that I can get on the internet with or listen to music. I don't even own an iPad! But I have what I need and that's good enough.

The Yearling

This book has made me think harder than probably any of the Pulitzer books I've read. That seems strange, doesn't it? A simple book like The Yearling hardly seems thought provoking but for me it was. It is a simple story about a young boy, Jody, who is lonely for companionship and longs to have a pet of some sort. After his father, Penny, shoots a doe, Jody rescues a fawn and makes it his own. He loves the fawn and it is his constant companion. The fawn grows up and is no long a yearling and begins to destroy the crops that Jody's family relies on for food and money so he is told he needs to go out and shoot it. Jody can't and so his mother tries and misses and just wounds him so Jody has to put the deer out of his misery. Jody runs away and grows up himself. At the end his father tells Jody that he is no longer a yearling himself but grew up while he was away.

The story is good, but it's not the part that got me thinking, it's the reading of their everyday life. Jody and his father go hunting a lot to get meat for the family. They talk a lot about what they eat on a daily basis and how they gain it and how they preserve it for the winter months. As I read along, not only did I have the desire to go out and shoot a deer and then smoke the meat, but I wondered is this how life should really be? They worked hard and they had to in order to survive. The planting and plowing were a necessity and in the end when they had a good crop it was a reward for all their hard work. They were together, Jody learned good work ethics, he learned right and wrong in the fields, and the love that he and his father had for each other was so strong because they spent this time together. Again, I wonder is this really the way life should be?

I'd like to teach my children good work ethic but I don't know how. We have a small garden ,but we don't rely on it and I can hardly get my kids to stay out there to help me weed. Maybe it's bad parenting but I can't seem to get them to want to work and to realize the importance of it. Maybe we should have a week or a month where we only rely on our garden to survive, and then we'd all die of starvation probably, I'm not that good of a gardener. I wish that my family could be together all the time, that my kids could run off in to the woods and explore and play. I wish that I spent my day doing things that my family needed so that they could be healthy and live comfortably, all with my hands. This would be a good life.

I spent a lot of time wondering this while reading this book, and decided that I'm probably romanticizing these ideas in my mind. That life would be hard and dirty. And I realize I do like to be able to run to the grocery store and buy some marinated artichoke hearts if I wanted to. I like to be able to run my dishwasher and have clean dishes and my washing machine and dryer and have clean clothes. I also like having all my teeth (something Jody's mom couldn't claim). So how do I find the balance? I guess that's something I'll have to spend my life trying to find. In the meantime, I'll dream of a life in the woods, living off the land, and working my fingers to the bone while I eat some marinated artichoke hearts.

Late George Apley

This was just about the most boring book I've read in a long time. I've never been to Boston, let's just get that out of the way. So if you've ever been to Boston, or know someone who lives in Boston, or if you have money to burn or come from a wealthy east coast family then you might like this book.
I've said before that I'm a character reader. I like books with good characters; I feel it's more important than a story line, and this book had neither. George Apley was not an exciting man, he had his own little world and he lived in it very happily. Nothing exciting really happens. You think he's going to break with tradition and marry a girl outside of their social ring but then his father kind of makes it so it couldn't happen and later George marries a girl inside their social ring. They have the perfect life in a big house and are very concerned about the rose bushes in the front. They have a boy and a girl. And he likes to go bird watching (this is the only way I related with the character, because I too am a birdwatcher) with a lady friend (and she's only a friend). His children rebel and go along with the times and George has to conform to it and he does so quite well, better than his wife. His son marries outside the social circle and I was proud at how well George accepted her and welcomed her into his home even though he had a little disappointment in his son's choice.
All in all it is a book I won't read again and I probably won't suggest it to someone, unless they were a Kennedy.

Gone With the Wind

I have to start by admitting that in the beginning I wasn't completely thrilled to read this book. I've seen the movie and it was cheesy; how could the book be any good? Well, I think this book is one of the best written character books I've read. The story and the characters pull you in. I've thought a lot about how I could review this book, I'm sure there are many reviews of it so what can I say that is different than the other reviews? Probably nothing. I've decided that I would break it down into more of a character review.

Scarlett O'Hara - Scarlett is one of those characters you want to strangle. At the beginning of the book she is a spoiled little brat that has to have her own way. She is in love with Ashley Wilkes, but he is marrying someone else. Even in the beginning you can see that she doesn't understand Ashley and that she and he are completely different; he just fills an ideal. In the middle of the book where she had to leave Atlanta when it was under siege and go back to Tara, I thought so much of her. She was such a fighter and wasn't going to back down from anything! She worked hard to put food on the table for everyone, she took charge, she was admirable. When she needed the tax money and decided to be Rhett Butler's mistress things went down hill. She married her sister's fiancé and became a business woman. Again she was a fighter but this time she was fighting for selfish things, money in particular. She had no regard for anyone else and was once again a brat. When her second husband died and Rhett proposed to her she then turned into the most selfish human being. This is when I wanted to strangle her, I knew she loved Rhett but she wouldn't give up Ashley and then when she finally realized how much she loved Melanie and Rhett and that she didn't love Ashley it was too late. Such a sad ending, but she kind of deserved it.

Ashley Wilkes - I think Ashley is a bit of a wimp. I'm not impressed with him at all and knew for a long time that Scarlett didn't really love him. They had absolutely nothing in common, I think they were just both in love with the past, when life was careless. They were each other's link to that time of their life. He was an intellectual and had lots of book smarts but no common sense. After the war and he had lost all his money and his land he had nothing. He couldn't support a family and gave in to Scarlett and Melanie (his wife) too easily.

Rhett Butler - I know that I shouldn't have liked him as much as I did. He really is a dirty, lying, cheating scoundrel. He loved Scarlett though, truly loved her and was truly hurt by her. He did all he could for Scarlett , Melanie and Melanie's Aunt Pitty Patt. He knew what a good person Melanie was and recognized it. He had so much passion for those he loved and respected and the rest he treated as fools. I think he liked to push people's buttons. He first met Scarlett when she declared her love for Ashley on the same day Ashley became engaged to Melanie, the war started and Scarlett became engaged to Charles Hamilton (she married him to try to make Ashley jealous and he was Melanie's brother). Rhett fell in love with her right then. When Charles dies and Scarlett moves to Atlanta to live with Melanie and Aunt Pitty Patt, Rhett shows up on and off and helps them out. He tells Scarlett he's not a marrying man and tries to get her to be his mistress, Scarlett turns him down but he doesn't give up. He finally gives in after Scarlett's second husband dies and proposes to her on the day of the funeral. He spends his life trying to make Scarlett love him by pampering her and giving her whatever she wants. Scarlett has a baby girl and Rhett realizes that Scarlett doesn't love him and gives up on her (they actually begin sleeping in separate rooms) and turns all his attention to their daughter. When their daughter dies in a tragic accident, Rhett falls apart and leaves Scarlett just when she realizes that she never did love Ashley, or at least she hadn't for a long time, and that she really did love Rhett. It broke my heart, not so much for Scarlett because she's an idiot, but for Rhett. He really did love Scarlett and did everything he could to show her and to win her love. He had to live with the knowledge that Scarlett loved someone else (or at least she thought she did) and in the end when Scarlett finally comes to him to love him he is so tired and so sad that he doesn't want to deal with it. Maybe I took the wrong side of this story but this is how I felt.

Melanie Hamilton Wilkes - What can I say about her except she is the most loyal friend that anyone could ask for. Scarlett did not deserve her. After Ashley left for the war Scarlett stayed close to Melanie so that she could be close to Ashley. A couple of times Scarlett and Ashley met up in secret and declared their love for each other and when Ashley refused to run away with Scarlett she never showed her love for him again (in the physical sense). Scarlett saved Melanie's life when Melanie had a baby on the day that Atlanta was being raided and they had to evacuate. Scarlett took Melanie, Melanie's new baby and their servant to Tara (after Rhett abandoned them on the road so he could join the army). She fought when they arrived at Tara to keep Melanie and the baby alive, she made sure they had enough to eat. So because Scarlett did all this Melanie became a devoted friend to Scarlett and stood by her even when the city of Atlanta was accusing Scarlett and Ashley of having an affair. Scarlett hated Melanie until the day Melanie died and then she realized that Melanie was the best friend she had.

These are the main characters of the story. Of course, there are many others but I won't go into all of them. Gone With the Wind is an epic novel and even though it is over 1,000 pages it keeps you involved and interested the entire time. I don't think at any point I was bored and anxious for it to end. I always judge a book by how I feel when it is over. If I'm happy it's over than the book wasn't that great for me. If I mourn the loss of the companionship of the characters from the book than that book goes on my favorites list. I mourned the loss of these characters and thought of them often after I put the book down. I enjoyed Gone With the Wind and highly recommend it as a classic everyone should read.

Honey in the Horn

This book was rather refreshing to read. After the last few books that have all been sad and a bit depressing this book had none of that. It was a good old Western novel. It is about a young man named Clay who has a strange family history and is taken in by an old man who loves to tell stories. When the book first starts it seems that this man will be the main character of the story and that he will go on and on about these old stories, but thankfully it only lasts for the first chapter or so. Well, this old man has a couple of sons who are bad kids and law breakers, but have outsmarted the law until now. His older son was killed and the younger son was arrested. The older man goes to Clay and asks him to help break his son out of jail. Clay who is a bit of a hard and ornery young man agrees to help. He passes a gun to the guy in jail and then takes off. He becomes a sort of outlaw running from the law. At one point he sees a young girl who is traveling with a horse racer (who is her father) and he kind of falls for her. Luckily they meet up again and he travels with them. This girl, Luce, and Clay kind of fall in love. They both have secrets: she doesn't know that he helped a man escape from prison, and he doesn't know her secret, which is tied up in his secret. But they are happy not knowing each other's secret.

They go along traveling and working in different places. They have a fight and then get back together and become even stronger and leave her father and mother (they are strange in their own way) and go out on their own. At one point she becomes really sick and is afraid for him to leave her but he knows that he can't help her so he leaves her to go find someone to help her, but she told him that if he left her when he came back she wouldn't be there. He leaves anyway and comes back and she is gone. He goes on and works odd jobs and eventually they meet up again and stay together.

This book didn't "move" me or make me think real hard about life and things, it was just a good story and was enjoyable to read. I learned to like Clay, even though at the beginning he's kind of a stinker, in the end he is a good guy and does care about people around him.

Now in November

I've been thinking a lot about what to write about this book, not because it moved me to ponder much but mostly because it DIDN'T move me. It's a story about a family with three girls, a mother, and a father. The father gets laid off at a factory job so he decides to farm. They have to mortgage their farm and this is like a monkey on their backs. The girl, Margret who is the middle child, is the narrator and she often refers to the mortgage as something they have to bear and constantly worry about. The father sounds like an unfeeling, over stressed man. He doesn't seem to care for his girls and is so worried about the farm and all the work that comes with it that he rarely seems happy at all. Luckily his wife is a kind, loving woman who makes up for her husband's lack of emotions. The oldest daughter, Kerrin, is a nutcase, seriously. If I had a psychiatry degree I could diagnose her problem for you, but I don't so all I can say is "cuckoo". The summary on the outside of the book says that she wishes she was a boy, I didn't get that at all. To me she just seemed like she needed to escape the farm and fall in love and go away to a big city where there is lots of excitement and she would kind of blend in with the crowd. As it is she is stuck on the farm and to me it seemed she hates the farm and all the work that goes with it. She becomes a teacher in the nearby town but gets fired because she isn't really teaching at all and is very short wit the students. That's kind of the second to last straw for her. Then the narrator, Margret, is kind of a plain Jane who no one really thinks of but everyone likes. She does her chores and helps out the best she can. The youngest is Merle; everyone loves Merle. She is very quiet and kind and apparently beautiful. A young man Grant comes to live with them and help their Dad work on the farm. Kerrin and Margret fall in love with Grant, but Grant falls in love with Merle and Merle won't have anything to do with Grant in that respect. In fact, Kerrin tries to make a pass at Grant and he didn't respond and that was the very last straw and she ends up running off with her Dad's knife and kills herself.

The family has lots of hardships as the depression comes on. It describes the months of no rain and how it affects their farm and their livelihood. One night a fire breaks out on their property and they all run out to put it out and while they're doing that their mom catches fire and later dies from those injuries. There are stories of neighboring farmers who also have nothing. One is a family who is renting a farm and just can't make ends meet to pay the rent and they are kicked off their property. It's a sad view of life during this stage of the depression and what they had to endure and how they had hope that it would end soon.

I only gave this book two balls of yarn mostly because it was sad, and I think I'm tired of reading sad books. It was also written very abstractly. For the first third of the book I wasn't sure if I was reading about the present or past. Near the end of the book I began to understand the writing and really started enjoying it and then it ended. It was hard for me to feel engaged or to care about the characters. The only character who caused me to feel anything was Kerrin and she only made me uncomfortable. I actually bought this book because it was so hard to find here, but I think it might be one I'll give to the Friends of the Library for the book sale, not my favorite.