The Sugar Queen - my thoughts

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
311 pages.
Large print edition
Copyright. 2008

From the back cover:
At twenty-seven, Josey Cirrini bears little resemblance to the wild-haired, temperamental daughter everyone in her North Carolina hometown remembers. Ever since her beloved but elusive father's death Josey has devoted her life to caring for her aging, irritable mother. Her only solace has been nightly escapades to her closet where she hoards sugary treats and paperback romances. Fleeing her abusive boyfriend, local waitress Della Lee Baker has decided that Josey's closet is a safe place to hide. She see right away that Josey's is not the closet of a happy woman. The pair strike a deal: in exchange for her refuge, Della Lee will change Josey's life.

Well, this book was not as enjoyable for me as her first novel, Garden Spells. But it was charming and I did like Josey, except for the fact that I don't believe any self-respecting twenty-seven year old woman would let her mother belittle her on a daily basis and just sit there and take it. That part of the story I had a hard time swallowing, but the rest was a pleasant reading experience. Sarah Addison Allen tricked me though!! I won't tell you how but needless to say I never saw the twist coming and I should've, she put it right under my nose several times to find. I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that I've been under the weather these past three days and sometimes my mind has been too foggy from cold/flu medicine to make sense of things...yeah, that's what I'll blame it on!! If you liked her previous work, then I think you will enjoy this story. There's just enough mystery, romance, and magic to hold your attention!!

And because I love to find passages that touch me, I will leave you with this one:

"Books can be possessive, can't they? You're walking around in a bookstore and a certain one will jump out at you, like it had moved there on its own, just to get your attention. Sometimes what's inside will change your life, but sometimes you don't even have to read it. Sometimes it's a comfort just to have a book around. Many of these books haven't even had their spines cracked. 'Why do you buy books you don't even read?' our daughter asks us. That's like asking someone who lives alone why they bought a cat. For company, of course."

p. 206

Other Reviews:

Dar at Peeking Between the Pages

The School of Essential Ingredients- my thoughts

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
240 pages
Published 2009
From the inside cover:

"The first question people always ask me is what are the essential ingredients." Lillian paused and smiled. "I might as well tell you, there isn't a list a list and I've never had one. Nor do I hand out recipes. All I can say is that you learn what you need to."

Once a month on Monday night, eight students gather in Lillian's restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect. The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian's soulful dishes, but it soon becomes clear that each seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. One by one they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create. Over time, the paths of the students mingle and intertwine, and the essence of Lillian's cooking expands beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of their lives, with results that are often unexpected, and always delicious.

My thoughts:

I absolutely adored this book. For me it a was a very comfortable and comforting read. Food has long been a source of comfort for me and I think it probably is for a lot of people. I enjoyed attending this cooking class with all of these great character's that Bauermeister created. When I finished the book I longed to find a cooking class that I could take so that I could experience the magic of food. I am not a good cook.......my family does not like to try new things. I need to rephrase that, my HUSBAND, does not like to try new things. He's strictly a meat and potatos kind of person. So when I'm planning out the week's menu it is always BORING. That is why this book totally roped me in. I would love to try some of these recipes but I feel unsure of myself in the kitchen. A lot of these characters in the book felt the same way but Lillian, the head chef, had such a calming and confident way about her, that gradually her students realized that they could trust their senses and make dishes that were out of this world. Within each new chapter you get the opportunity to meet each of the students and to get a glimpse into their past and present lives. I fell in love with Isabelle and Tom and the couple Helen and Carl. Their stories touched me at times on a very personal level. If you're looking for a book that you can just sink into and finish with a day or two, and you love food, cooking, and reading about it, then I would highly recommend this book to you...I don't think you'll be disappointed!!

A few of my favorite passages:

It made a certain sense for a holiday celebrating survival over starvation, and everyone seemed to revel in the excess of it all, but she couldn't help feeling embarrassed for the food, all smashed together like immigrants in steerage class.

p. 90
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"I used to know a sculptor," Isabelle said, nodding. "He always said that if you looked hard enough, you could see where each person carried his soul in his body. It sounds crazy, but when you saw his sculptures, it made sense. I think the same is true with those we love," she explained. "Our bodies carry our memories of them, in our muscles, in our skin, in our bones. My children are right here." She pointed to the inside curve of her elbow. "Where I held them when they were babies. Even if there comes a time when I don't know who they are anymore, I believe I will feel them here.

p. 187
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"Well...how do you feel about her?"
"She's beautiful and smart and..."
"I mean, " Lillian's voice was patient, "what do you want?"
"I want...." Ian paused, and then his voice cleared. "I would want her for the rest of my life."
"Then that is how you cook."

p. 212
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Please read an excellent review of this book posted by Dar from Peeking Between the Pages. After reading her review, I immediately went to my library's website and requested this book!! Thanks Dar... I loved it!!!

Anna at Diary of an Eccentric has a great post of her interview with the author Erica...check it out here: Interview with Erica Bauermeister

Booking Through Thursday- Author's Blog: Do you visit?

Suggested by Barbara H.:

A comment on someone else’s BTT question this week inspired this question:

Do you read any author’s blogs? If so, are you looking for information on their next project? On the author personally? Something else?

Yes, I do sometimes. I usually stumble across an author's blog AFTER I've read their book and notice that they have one. I don't intentionally go out looking for them. I've visited Shannon Hale's website just to see what was going on and I noticed that she had a blog. I read a few posts and enjoyed them. I even found a great link that I used in my Graphic Novel Post. I went seeking out Nic Sheff's blog after I finished his book, Tweak. Mainly, because I was curious to see what he looked like now after so many years of hard drug use and to see if he was winning his battle against addiction. I don't visit these blogs on a daily basis but every once in a while I will peek in to see what they're up to. The one blog that I do visit weekly is Laurie Halse Anderson's. Her site is on my blogroll. I just like getting a glimpse into her life, her writing struggles and victories, and to see what book I can eagerly look forward to in the future.

So, I guess you could catergorize my author blog viewing as mainly voyeuristic in nature and simple curiosity.

Graphic Novel Mania- a long blustery post!!

Over the weekend I read 3 graphic novels and each one was great on different levels. I've long discounted the graphic novel because I thought it was for TEENS and COMIC BOOK geeks, (like my sons and brother) but last summer I was at Mellymel's blog Lit*Chick and saw this book on her to read list.

The title was Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Speigelman. This book absolutely blew me away. Not only was the drawing spectacular, but the story was so compelling, horrific, and one that I needed to finish. In the end, this book moved me more than The Diary of Anne Frank. The pictures brought this story to life within my mind and it really drove home all the terror, horrors endured, and in the end the ability to continue on with life. After I finished that one I immediately requested Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began. This one was just as superbly written and illustrated like the first. As soon as I started to read, Art's father's voice blossomed in my brain and I could hear his accent. This is a book that I feel high school teachers could do so much with, especially for those students who are reluctant readers and look at The Diary of Anne Frank and see nothing but intimidation by the sheer size of the book. The visual part of the graphic novel is what has sold me. I have ordered a ton of "safe" graphic novels for my middle school library and let me tell you I can't keep them on the shelves!! I love it, because that is exactly what I wanted to happen. Those students who think they don't like to read or have trouble reading, latch on to one of these books and then they take off like rockets!!! I've learned my lesson....graphic novels are a much needed and most welcome addition to my personal reading and to all libraries!!


So here are the 3 books that I enjoyed over the weekend:

Rapunzel's Revenge
by Shannon and Dean Hale
Illustrated by: Nathan Hale

From Goodreads:

Once upon a time, in a land you only think you know, lived a little girl and her mother . . . or the woman she thought was her mother.Every day, when the little girl played in her pretty garden, she grew more curious about what lay on the other side of the garden wall . . . a rather enormous garden wall.And every year, as she grew older, things seemed weirder and weirder, until the day she finally climbed to the top of the wall and looked over into the mines and desert beyond. Newbery Honor-winning author Shannon Hale teams up with husband Dean Hale and brilliant artist Nathan Hale (no relation) to bring readers a swashbuckling and hilarious twist on the classic story as you’ve never seen it before. Watch as Rapunzel and her amazing hair team up with Jack (of beanstalk fame) to gallop around the wild and western landscape, changing lives, righting wrongs, and bringing joy to every soul they encounter.

This book was totally cool!! I loved the whole concept from the very beginning and the colorful pictures totally drew me into Rapunzel's world. She has been kidnapped and taken away from her real mother and a wicked witch Gothel is raising her. When Rapunzel realizes what Gothel has done she is sent away to live inside of a tree. With a lot of ingenuity she manages to escape her prison and meets up with a boy named Jack (yes, from the beanstalk) and together they have adventures and daring encounters as they work their way back to Gothel's land so that she can free her mother. I think a lot of kids would love to have this one read out-loud to them, while the older kids 11-13 would rather read it themselves. I found this great link from Shannon Hale's website about a father and his experience reading this book to his kids. You MUST read it!! click here- Bookie Woogie. If you see this book pick it up and read it...I think you'll like this strong, witty, and wonderful character that Hale has created in Rapunzel!!

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Kin (the Good Neighbors, Book One)
by Holly Black
Illustrated by: Ted Naifeh

From Goodreads:
Rue Silver's mother has disappeared . . . and her father has been arrested, suspected of killing her. But it's not as straightforward as that. Because Rue is a faerie, like her mother was. And her father didn't kill her mother -- instead, he broke a promise to Rue's faerie king grandfather, which caused Rue's mother to be flung back to the faerie world. Now Rue must go to save her -- and must also defeat a dark faerie that threatens our very mortal world.


I have read almost all of Holly Black's books and for the most part I've enjoyed them. I've seen mixed thoughts about this graphic novel but when I came across it the other day at the library I figured what did I have to lose?
I wasn't in love with but I didn't hate it either. The illustrations are awesome. Ted is extremely talented and while it was kind of a shock to the system after reading Rapunzel (being so colorfully illustrated) to Kin which is very, very dark, I loved looking at the pictures. At times some of the faces were hard to make out, but I know that it goes to the plot and how she wants you to feel about the characters and the mystery of everything. I wish that she would have developed the characters just a little bit more and not rushed in some parts. For example, at one point Rue finally realizes that she's a fairy or something like it, and without anyone really showing her how or practicing, she can all of a sudden make herself invisible from humans!! I had to stop and re-read because I thought I missed a page! I will read her next ones because I need to find out what will happen to the world as we know it and how these new events will change Rue, for the better or for the worse?
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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
written and illustrated by: Alison Bechdel

From Goodreads:

This breakout book by Alison Bechdel takes its place alongside the unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs and Mary Karr. It's a father-daughter tale pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings and like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolisa story exhilaratingly suited to the graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift . . . graphic . . . and redemptive.

All I'm going to say is that this books hit me in the gut, not once, but several times. It touched me on a lot of levels so I will not write any more of my thoughts about it, but instead, share some of my favorite passages.

Passage 1:
( Setting the background for you)
Alison finally gets the courage to tell her parents she's a lesbian. She writes them a letter and then anxiously waits for them to contact her, when they do she can't believe what her mother tells her.

Then a phone call in which she dealt a staggering blow.

"Your father has had affairs. With other men."
What?
I'd been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parent's tragedy.

My thoughts: She waited for so long to tell her parents that she was gay and when she does her dad's homosexuality takes center stage and she's left holding the bag.

Passage 2:

(setting the background for you)
Allison and her father go into a diner one day for lunch. A woman walks in dressed much like a man and her first thoughts were:


I didn't know there were women who wore men's clothes and had men's haircuts. But like a traveler in a foreign country who runs into someone from home--someone they've never spoken to, but know by sight--I recognized her with a surge of joy.

Dad recognized her too.
"Is that what you want to look like?"

What else could I say?
"No"

But the vision of the truck-driving bulldyke sustained me through the years...as perhaps it haunted my father.


Passage 3:

(setting the background for you)
Allison was taking English classes at college and shared the list with her father for over a year and a half but after awhile she felt that his excitement was suffocating her. She realized that she had neglected to do a short project and so she signed up for James Joyce's Ulysses and decided to share this with her dad.

Home for Christmas, I found dad's delight about Ulysses a bit galling.
"Here, take this. It's the copy I used in college."

But it was nice to have his attention.

Can I write in it?
"Here's Dubliners, too. The first three stories are life drafts from portrait."

I realized I had missed it, however vicarious it may have been.

"And the dead. you have to read the dead. Or at least the very least, the last paragraph."
Okay

In a burst of tenderness, I encouraged him further.

So...what should I read this weekend?

Her father's face is elated...

"Hmm..let me think."


My thoughts:
This interaction between the father and daughter made me full of emotions and brought glaringly into the light my loss of relationship with my own dad. After locking her father out of her English reading life, she realizes how much happiness her father receives by sharing this passionate interest with her. The drawings are spectacular, as you're reading the text and looking at the drawings it makes everything that much more intense.

I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys graphic novels and I want to also acknowledge that I got this title from Wendy at Musings of a Bookish Kitty.(Wendy, if you read this please shoot me the link to your post!! I looked all over and can't find it to save my life!! EDITED 2/16/09 I found the link!! Click on Musings above and you will see her review!!) She posted some of her hubby's favorite graphic novels and I read about this one and thought it would be interesting. And of course it was much more than that!!

For all of you that made it to the end of this long post...I thank you and send you much love!!

Teaser Tuesday and It's Tuesday....Where are you?

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

The first time he kissed her---it had taken six weeks--was over hamburgers, two inches thick, juices running. He had leaned over and licked the grease off her arm without thinking.

p. 112 The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister






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It's Tuesday...Where are you?

Right now I'm in a quaint kitchen full of ingredients, gadgets and the most interesting group of people I've ever met. I am learning how to cook with my senses, NOT from a recipe. Our head chef Lillian is so talented that it is scary, and the older couple...well they're just cute to watch. Plus they work really well together. I have yet to learn the others stories but I'm sure than once we are cooking together we'll all let our walls down and start to share. So far I haven't burnt anything but hey it's still early........

What Makes Me Happy at this Moment in Time...

I've been tagged by JonJon over at ...a Dedication of Love.....

The rules:
1. Link to the person who has tagged you.
2. Write down six things that make you happy.
3. Post the rules, tag one other and let them know you did it.
4. Then tell the person when your entry is complete.

• My husband and my two sons (most of the time!)
• A good friend who lets me rant and rave and then will tell me the truth be it good or bad.
• A sunny day, a good book, and no where to be.
• Having the phone ring at 5:45 am and hearing that school is closed due to snow!!
• My job working as the Library Lady at my son's middle school.
• Date night with my hubby!

Now I'm going to tag my sister-in-law Heather at A Day in the Life because she doesn't blog enough to keep me happy!!!

Weekly Geeks #5- Cover Art

Judge a Book By Its Cover!

This week it's all about judging books by their covers! Pick a book--any book, really--and search out multiple book cover images for that book. They could span a decade or two (or more)...Or they could span several countries. Which cover is your favorite? Which one is your least favorite? Which one best 'captures' what the book is about?

Well, I wanted to post the cover to the two books that truly influenced me to be the reader that I am today: Charlotte's Web and The Little House on the Prairie. The only problem is that the cover does not have very many different editions. So I decided to post Little Women instead. I love this book and can never pass up the opportunity to watch the movie version that Katherine Hepburn starred in...She is Jo!!



The first one I'm not that crazy about, it shows Beth in her sick bed and I just think it's kind of bland. I do like the second cover. I would pick this book up and see what the story was about.







Sometimes I like movie covers on books but this is not the case for this edition. I do however love the second book cover!!






Well a lot can be said for book covers that is for sure. Some covers I spot from across the room and instantly attract my attention, while others I wonder why in the world they chose that particular art/photo to express what this book is about. I know that I shouldn't judge a book by its cover but I have to be honest and say that I do, and I do it a lot!! So far I don't feel that it has been a hindrance in regards to choosing a good read or not. I will always go with my initial gut reaction and then see where it leads me!!


And on a side note: the book that I own of Little Women is extremely old and tattered, there is no cover art on the front, but it has the most beautiful color pictures within the covers!! I found it in a library sale!!