Where We Belong by Emily Giffin

Chick-Lit often gets a bad wrap. It's treated like junk food, tastes really good but not really worth the calories. But like any genre there are good books and not so good books.
I find Emily Giffin books to be among the really good ones. They are more then just light and fluffy cotton candy, they are more substantial, think a really good gelato.

Where We Belong is a story about what it means to be a family set against the story of a teenager, Kirby, who has always known she is adopted feeling like she doesn't fit in with her family and so upon turning 18 chooses to find her birth-parents, Marian and Conrad.

Learning to find out who you are and where you belong, how to forgive and be open, what is means to love, isn't easy at any age and in the most normal of families. Add in all the additional stresses that happen when biological families and the families that adopted their baby try to become one and it's so much harder. That's the story that Giffin tells here.

(Finished March 23, 2014)


Other books by Emily Giffin I have read:
Heart of the Matter
Love the One You're With
Something Borrowed
Something Blue
the diary of darcy j. rhone

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax

I was drawn to this because of the Downton Abbey connection.

Three women, Claire, Samantha and Brooke, live in the same apartment on Peachtree St. They are different ages, at different stages in their lives and from different economic backgrounds. Samantha is married and has two really bratty siblings she raised after her parents died. Claire is an author and single mom whose daughter just let for college. Brooke is a stay at home mom who is divorced from a man she dubs, well deservedly, his assholiness and has 2 young daughters.

The new concierge in their building is an Englishman named Edward who organizes a weekly gathering in the building around the watching of Downton Abbey.

The three women become friends and the process of their personal growth and the growth as friends is the story that Wax tells.  Nothing too heavy here. Just a well told story that has likable characters you well feel drawn too and unlikable characters that you will really want to punch joined around an interesting hook, a show I love and know many of you do too.

(Finished March 22, 2014)

The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan

You might expect that because this is a book about the creation of the atomic bomb and everything that went into compiling the materials needed that it would be dry and boring. You would be very wrong.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was all real and these women were all real. The writing is so engaging and well paced that it felt like a story about some amazing women with WWII as the backdrop. 

The story of The Manhattan Project and the testing of atomic bombs in New Mexico is pretty well known. What is lesser known is the story of Oak Ridge Tennessee and the community that sprung up there in almost complete secrecy. No one knew exactly what and why they were doing things, they only knew what to do to get their job done. It was forbidden to talk to each other about what you did at your job. And people complied. The people who came to Oak Ridge to work believed in their mission, to help end the war and bring their men home.

Kiernan doesn't sugar coat the story of Oak Ridge. One of the women whose story she writes about is a black woman names Kattie. Because of her skin color she was not allowed to bring her children or even live with her husband who also worked there. The white families were allowed to bring children, married couples were allowed to live together. The food served to the white population was better, many of the black residents got sick from the poor food they were served. The housing conditions were much better for the white residents. White residents lived in dorms, trailers and prefab houses while the black residents lived in crowded sub-par structures. The pay for the same job was less for the black workers than what was paid to their white counter parts. Part of Kattie's story was how she managed to get a worker to make her some biscuit pans out of scrap metal and she was able to make cornbread and biscuits and used them to bribe the guards so she wouldn't get hassled for visiting her husband and for cooking in the hutments even though it was forbidden. She was a loving wife and mother, a very patriotic woman who did her job above and beyond what was expected of her and just wanted to help her country and make money to support her family. She never complained.

This was a really interesting story and a part of history that should be remembered.

(Finished March 20, 2014)

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

I don't even know where to begin in describing this book. It was gruesome. Painful. Spiritual. Lovely.

A porno actor, director, writer, womanizer, druggie gets into a horrific car accident and is terribly burned but rather than kill him it starts his life.

He meets Marianne Engel who just might be certifiably nuts. She spins the most amazing tales that are full of love and lessons on living.

Marianne's story is incredible and shoe gives it out in small pieces but the stories she shares about others are just as amazing. But are they true? Maybe. Maybe not. But after all is said and done it doesn't matter, it's better to just take it in and enjoy.

I found this to be a well written, heartbreaking yet lovely read.