Playing With the Grown-ups: A Novel

By Sophie Dahl

This was really an interesting read. The children, Sam, Violet and Kitty are innocent and filled with joy during the days they live in Hay with Bestmama and Bestpapa, their grandparents. The household also includes two aunts, a nanny, and their mother, Marina.

Sadly their innocence comes to a sad and abrupt end When their mother makes some poor choices. It is clear from the beginning that Marina is not blessed with an iota of common sense, and her love for her children seems more an act than a fact. It is Nora, the nanny who provides them with stability and nurturing.

After becoming involved with a cult, Marina chooses to live her life according to Swami-ji, and to do exactly as he says is right for herself and her daughters. This begins with uprooting them from the loving family and haven like home they have always known and taking them far away.

This is really Kitty's story, but of course a child's story is always built on the family she is born to. We see Kitty going from innocent child, to harsh and confused adolescent, and finally to an adult, living her own life.

The story is good, enchanting and funny in places. Sad and dark in places, as well. It seemed to be a bit disjointed. There was a lack of flow between the chapters showing the past and those showing the present. And to me, its the ending that tells the tale. A good story, which this is, deserves a good ending.
I feel this was not the case here, that the ending was rather abrupt and did not live up to the rest of the story.

I would certainly recommend this to others, but as a good book, not an excellent one.

Gossip of the Starlings

by Nina de Gramont

This is definitely a book for the younger female reader. The main characters are prep schoolers.
I was hoping to like this book more. There is a lot of sneaking around and boarding school antics. There are horses, drugs and sex. It seems rather formulaic, as if it were made to order for the young teenager.

Skye, is a senators daughter, Catherine is the one with the horses and blue ribbons. Susannah is Catherine's sometimes overshadowed best friend. They party, they use coke and pot, and they suffer the usual teenage angst. Then things become sticky, when a jealous lover uses information he has to create legal issues for the senators daughter, and chaos ensues.

Have you found her : a memoir by Janice Erlbaum

Have you found her : a memoir by Janice Erlbaum

early review selection

I hardly know where to begin. I have been holding my breath through the entire last half of the book. I am not sure if I was holding it for Janice, or for Sam.

This is the most emotionally provoking book I have read in a very long time. It reads like a novel, but it is all too real. Each page is filled with compassion, yearning and vulnerability. The author is brutally honest about herself and her feelings, her motives.

To say that I could not put this book down is an understatement. Even now, when I have come to the end of the book, I know that it is not a true ending. How can it be? I think I will always wonder what has become of Sam. Will she always be hovering on the edges of the lives of women who cared enough to bring her into their lives, and truly care for and about her? How many more will there be?

I have been angry with Sam, and felt compassion for her. I have mentally raged at Janice, and wondered why she could not see! And I have understood how she could be drawn in. Most of us want to do good things. We want to be helpful. I feel so much a part of what happened here, due to the remarkable storytelling abilities of this author. Before the end of the day I will have ordered her previous book, Girlbomb from Amazon.

I urge everyone to read this book, in order to be reassured that there are still more good people than bad surrounding us. There is love and selflessness., kindness and generosity. There is hope for us, due to the kinsness of strangers.

Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum

Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum

It is simply extraordinary that the author is able to write so dispassionately about her own life.
This is a revealing story about a young girl who made many dramatic choices, and so many of them poor and life altering.

In this coming of age memoir that reads like a novel, Erlbaum relates how she managed to survive in a city filled with temptations and pitfalls. She shares with you the wild ride that took her from her mothers home, through a girls shelter and group home. It is a breathtaking ride through several years filled with drugs, sex and a palpable aloneness.

This is can't put it down read from the author of Have You Found Her. This is actually the beginning of her story, well and simply, if shockingly told. highly recommend this book. Read it, and then read Have You Found Her. You will want to know what happened next.

I look forward to more remarkable stories in the years to come. I suspect that whatever or whoever her subject will be, that they will be revealed in a clear and penetratingly honest way.