Classy Classics

In today's post, I'm doing something a little different than my usual book review.  Today, I'm posting on a book that's considered a classic. Naturally, such a title hardly requires a review; if it did it wouldn't be considered a classic in the first place (like, duh).  This classics post focuses on Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which was one of my favorite books as a teen and remains so today.  I also associate the book with the holiday season, perhaps because the book begins at this time of year.  Regardless, this is my happy feels book I read almost annually (I really need to break down and buy a nice hardcopy; I've been through 3 paperbacks by now).

The Basics
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. New York: Signet Classic, 2004. Print.

Little Women follows the lives of the four March sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The  girls are 16, 15, 13, and 12 respectively when the book opens, and readers shadow the girls through their teen years as they become young women.  Much of the story is based on Alcott's real life experiences with her own sisters, so it makes sense that the books seem to focus largely on Jo March (the character most closely resembling Alcott). However, the novel does often divert from Jo in order to tell the stories of the other sisters to the fullest.  The book is a heartwarmingly wholesome story for young girls that pulls readers delightfully into the 1860s American household in Concord, Massachusetts. 

Why You Should Read this Book (and/or force it on the nearest young adult)
One of the best features of the novel is its focus on overcoming struggles that life presents and bettering yourself along the way.  Though by no means poverty stricken, the March family has fallen on harder economic times after one of their father's investments goes south.  This puts the girls in the odd position of being in an upper class family without the means to reflect that status. They also face the hardship of being without their father, who has joined the Union army as a chaplain. This leaves the girls, along with the stalwart Ms. March, to run the household themselves. The March girls face these challenges as well as the challenges of their own individual personality flaws as they work to become the best "little women" possible (as patronizing as that phrase can sound, I think this novel means it more as the start to womanhood than anything else).  The books is full of little successes and joys as well as hard times and tragedies, making it a well-rounded, engagingly realistic read.

Little Women is almost entirely character driven. While it has little plot points that occur throughout the novel and a few larger (if more subtle) ones that unite the story as a whole, Little Women is primarily centered on the everyday lives of its heroines.  Meg, the eldest, is a sweet tempered, beautiful girl on the cusp of womanhood. Meg most remembers the March family's former wealth, and her desire to return to that former status combined with her vanity is her biggest struggle.  She must resist the trappings of a wealthy life that would only make her materially happy.  Jo is tomboyish and a little wild with aspirations to become a great writer and avoid becoming a young lady as long as possible. Over the course of the novel Jo works to overcome her more imprudent spontaneity and her hot temper.  Beth is the sweetest, kindest of the March girls, but she is also painfully shy and fearful of strangers.  Her challenge in life is to overcome her shyness enough to make friends and accept kind overtures.  She also faces her own sickly constitution, which she handles with a grace and infinite patience that inspires her sisters to better themselves.  Amy is slightly spoiled, very vain and proud, and somewhat inclined toward selfishness; however, she also has a sweet an loving nature. The first half of the novel sees Amy work to overcome the selfish parts of her nature and begin thinking more of others than of herself.  In the latter half, Amy gradually turns her vanity and pride into being a proper young lady. It's nearly impossible not to like and identify with Alcott's characters.

I also really enjoy the sense of the period that the book provides.  Readers are exposed to a charming  19th century New England that nevertheless maintains a sense of realism.  Through the girls, readers are exposed to ideas of dress, propriety, class and religion common to the era.  You also get a strong sense of womanhood in the period (albeit a specific class level), as well as common activities, socializing and the important role marriage played in a young girl's life.  Along with your enjoyable read, you also get a small slice of history if you're clever enough to notice it.

Extras

• Stop by the Orchard House website to get a real glimpse of the home that inspired the March family's abode. It's now a touring museum! 
• There have been many screen adaptations of Little Women, but my two favorites are the 1994 version starring Winona Ryder and the 1949 version starring June Allyson and Elizabeth Taylor, both of which stay relatively true to the novel.
• A photo of the Louisa May Alcott can be found at her Wikipedia webpage.

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A Questionable Talisman

Soooooo, about a couple weeks (and by "couple weeks" I mean a month) ago I read the memoir, Three Wishes by Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand, and I've been avoiding writing about it ever since.  Don't get me wrong; it's a pretty good book. It's just one of those that are really hard to put into words.  But the authors managed in the first place, so I can at least  put together a semi-coherent review. (yes? Yesh.)

The Basics
Goldberg, Carey, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand. Three Wishes. New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2010. Print.

All our authors have achieved significant recognition throughout their careers as writers and journalists (they're writers! Who'd a thunk?), writing for the likes of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. And no wonder, since if this book is any evidence, they're all superb writers. The memoir traces each author's journey toward equal success in their romantic and family lives.  As the book progresses, each woman relates her realization that she was tired of waiting for the right man to come along and enable her to have children.  Carey gets things started (so to speak. Sorry, I'm sorry.) by purchasing several vials of sperm from a bank. But before she can really put them to use, she finds love.  The vials are then passed to Beth, and the same process occurs. So they move to Pam, and again love strikes. (Like magic!)

The Book
This was a book that surprised me. Obviously I picked it up because I found the premise intriguing.  I'll admit I also had talismanic images of sperm vials floating through my head, which I found both amusing and disturbing.  Fortunately, the book failed to live up to that expectation.  Instead, I found the book had a rather apt subtitle: "A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood." This is a book about three women growing emotionally and gaining an even stronger sense of independence than they already possessed.  And, in that sense, I think it's a very powerful read.

I think that part of my difficultly with beginning this blog post centers around my inability to fully identify with the protagonists (if you can call real people such. Meh, why not?).  These women are quite different from me, and even as I find places to identify with them, there are an equal number of moments  that I can do little more than intellectually comprehend.  For example, as someone who wants children (you know, someday), I can understand their desire, but I have a harder time understanding the intensity of it. Or again, I have been in a committed relationship since I was 21 and was lucky enough to find someone with whom love comes easily. Thus, it is much harder for me to really understand the depth of their need and some of the things they go through in achieving romantic fulfillment.  I think someone with different life experiences (or just more of them) could get a little bit more out of this memoir. But even without being able to fully empathize, I found the book a very interesting and rewarding reading experience.

The absolute best element to this book is the way each of the three authors is able to pull readers through a huge array of emotions. Each author writes with a certain dry sense of humor that lightens the overall tone of what would otherwise be a very serious book.  It's the kind of humor that's hard to put your finger on; it didn't make me laugh outright, but it did get a couple of sustained smirks.  But the book also has a couple of heart wrenching moments, as the authors endure some of the most crushing blows an expectant mother can face.  Readers will feel each blow and each moment of hope in what is ultimately a very emotionally satisfying memoir, and an empowering one at that.

Extras

• Visit the books very own website for all sorts of extra tidbits, including some family photos!
• Also check out each of the author's personal webpages: Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand.

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Just Like Chalky Valentine Candy

Well, isn't that just a ringing endorsement? While the candy sweethearts might be a little icky, today's book is not.  My Husband's Sweethearts by Bridget Asher first drew me in with it's unique title and premise.  Despite the shoes on the cover, this book is far and away from the fluffy chick lit genre (the girly, Sex and the City genre of the literary world).  Instead the book is a psychologically complex novel that dives into the emotional turmoil of its characters.  It is a book for and about women, but fluffy it is not. The book was not quite what I expected, which made for both a slightly disappointing and ultimately rewarding reading experience.

The Basics
Asher, Bridget. My Husband's Sweethearts. New York: Delacorte P., 2008. Print.

Bridget Asher is one of two pseudonyms employed by the author Julianna Baggott.  Baggott holds an M.F.A. in creative writing and teaches at Florida State University.  She's a fairly prolific author with seventeen novels under her belt. (That's not quite Danielle-Steel-level prolific, but it still sounds impressive to me). Oh, and she writes essay and poems, too; you know, for kicks.

My Husband's Sweethearts tells the story of Lucy, an auditor who has been separated from her husband for the last six months after discovering that he had been cheating on her with two "left over" girlfriends and one new one.  She returns home after she learns that Artie, the cheat, is dying a slow death from congestive heart failure.  The story really gets going once she drunkenly calls up some of the numbers in his little black book and invites them to take a turn at his death bed (ah, drunk dialing, your so Klassy).  The novel follows Lucy's journey toward coming to terms with her own emotions, her husband's infidelity and looming death, and the makeshift family she forms along the way.

The Book
When I first opened this book, I was expecting a novel in which plot was the most important feature. Instead, I wound up with a book about character where plot is only present to keep things moving.  At first, I had a difficult time getting into the novel; it had a bit of a slow start.  Looking back, I realize this had a lot to do with Lucy.  At the opening of the book, she's a little distant and we're in this prelude stage of the book before things really get going and we can see the characters interact.  But, by chapter two I'm hooked when we get a glimpse of Lucy's personality beyond the cheated upon spouse. As she boards the plane, she encounters her disgustingly cheery seat-mate, who is too oblivious to stand and let Lucy slip to her seat.  Lucy handles this by sliding in butt-to-face in a delightful moment of passive aggression.  Lucy is interesting to follow (thank goodness, since she's the main character), and the more I read the more I grew interested in her funny, sarcastic commentary and her emotional ups and downs as she learns to cope with Artie's actions and his death.

I also enjoyed the little family that is formed around Lucy.  Her own mother is a hoot with her velour track suits and her jock strap toting dachshund (just think about why that's necessary).  Eleanor, one of Artie's many wronged lovers, whose precise organization skills coordinate the parade of ex-lovers visiting Artie's deathbed is entertaining. John, Artie's faux son, helps Lucy's coping process by accompanying her on the "Tour d'Artie" that takes them through various stages of Artie's life.  And Elspa, my personal favorite, has the most compelling side-story as the others help her get her child back and become a mother in fact.

I do have a few bones to pick with the novel, however.  For one, I didn't care for the running theme of all men as dogs/ liars/ weak.  While the women of this book have been wronged, they have been wronged by only one man that we see.  Lucy's mother does come from an earlier generation that (according to the book) expected men to be weak willed and unfaithful. But the younger women's protests against the idea and demands that men be held accountable rather than excused as weak alos imply that men are naturally flawed.  The author does not seem to agree with this assessment, given her "about the author" that makes it clear her own husband has never given her reason to doubt him.  So, why not give us another option besides Elspa's mostly silent belief in the good in people? My more minor complaint centers on the little twist about John's origins, which seems like a cheap way out of the squickiness of he and Lucy potentially being in love.

But overall, Asher pulls a wealth of emotions from her readers during the course of the book.  We often encounter hilarious moments, such as Bogie the dachshund making advances at one of the sweetheart's cylindrical dachshund-esque handbags or the granny-like sweetheart who turns out to be Artie's highschool math teacher.  We have moments of intense hope when Lucy goes to convince John to visit his father's deathbed or Elspa finally confronts her parents and takes on the responsibility of mothering Rose. And, we have moments of heart wrenching sadness when Lucy finds herself initially torn between love and hate for Artie, unable to settle on one when he's so close to being gone forever. Poof!  To love someone as much as Lucy does him but be so angry with him when he's dying must be terrible.

Despite my small qualms, I found My Husband's Sweethearts to be a really interesting and enjoyable read.  I liked that it was unpredictable and able to surprise me rather than following a formula. By the end of the novel, I felt like everything had come to a suitable resolution and I was satisfied.

Extras

• Visit the author's website and learn more about Julianna Baggot and her more recent novels.
• Hey, you can visit her blogspot blog Baggott & Asher & Bode.
• She also has a charity, Kids in Need, Books in Deed, hosted on blogspot.
• Here are some alternate book covers, including the one I read on the left:

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