The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

Read by Emily Rankin

20 hours, 33 minutes

Published June 2019 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: 

When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents'.

As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt — given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption 15 years before — we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons' past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.

Spanning nearly half a century, and set against the quintessential American backdrop of Chicago and its prospering suburbs, Lombardo's debut explores the triumphs and burdens of love, the fraught tethers of parenthood and sisterhood, and the baffling mixture of affection, abhorrence, resistance, and submission we feel for those closest to us.

My Thoughts:

Twenty hours is a really, really long time to expect readers to pay attention. Also, a really, really long time if you've checked the audiobook out from the library and only have 14 days to listen to it. A week in I decided I needed to pick up the speed...turned it to 125%. Two days later, I turned it to 150%. I'm not really sure I missed anything by doing that. To be fair, if you're telling a story that spans forty or so years, I suppose it shouldn't be all compacted into 200 pages. Certainly there are really long books that I have fallen into and hardly noticed that they were hundreds of pages longer than most books. This wasn't, unfortunately, one of those for me. 

One reviewer on Goodreads (fatma) said, "a family saga is only as good as its family." They need not care for this one at all (surprised they gave the book even two stars) and had a lot of good reasons but one of them was a lack of caring about any of the characters. Which made me realize that, honestly, I didn't care about any of them, either. At first I thought my big issue was that every single person in this family has major issues. I mean, yes, we all have our issues. But not like this family. But after I read fatma's review, I realized that not only did the issues bother me, the way the characters dealt with them, they way they dealt with each other's problems, really made me dislike most of them. Still, you also know that I can find a character unlikable and still love their story. 

Let's just break that down, shall we?

Oh, let's don't. It's not that I entirely hated the book. I just think it could have been better. Better human beings, less book, and way fewer things that made reading it uncomfortable. Multiple times people walk in on others having sex, Lombardo uses the R word more than once, mental illness is treated as a burden for those living with those who actually are suffering. Why didn't an editor suggest that some of these things needed to be cleaned up, made right? There's a good book in here - the story of a couple who meet in college and stay together and remain in love for decades, the story of four sisters and the ways in which they diverge and come together, the story of a young man who falls through the cracks in the system only to finally have a loving family. 

This one does have an almost four-star rating on Goodreads so maybe don't just take my opinion (or fatma's!). Others clearly really enjoyed it and you might, too. 

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez

Read by Alma Cuervo

6 hours

Published April 2020 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Publisher's Summary: 

Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words. 

Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

My Thoughts:

I'll be honest - I picked this book because it was an audiobook that was available and not very long; it was helped by the fact that it was written by an author I'd heard speak a few years ago and was really impressed with. 

Julia Alvarez books are (it seems to this reader who is only on her second Alvarez book) always full of things to think about and to discuss. Here Alvarez touches on family, sibling relationships, immigration, culture, loss, mental illness, and loss of identity. In addition to the questions the publisher's summary asks, I felt like Alvarez was asking us to consider what we owe others and what we owe ourselves and who should we put first. More than once Antonia, when trying to decide what she should do, thinks of the airline imperative to put your own mask on first in an emergency before you try to help others. 

We are often asked to consider if a book is character or plot driven. When I finished this one, I really wasn't sure what the answer was. A lot happens here but I never felt like the action was the true point of the book. Then, too, although we meet a lot of characters here, we only truly get to know Antonia. In the end, I wasn't even sure I knew where Antonia's brain was at. Or, for that matter, what was going to become of any of the characters. As much as I loved all the questions Alvarez asked, her beautiful writing, and all of the references to literature (and Cuevo's reading), I guess I just wanted some answers to what happened to the characters. There are, after all, no answers to so many of the questions the book raises.  

I'm evidently alone in that opinion, though. It was one of Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2020 and Entertainment Weekly called it a tour de force. 

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawon

Broken (in the best possible way) by Jenny Lawson

Read by Jenny Lawson

Published  April 2021 by Holt, Henry and Company, Inc

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

As Jenny Lawson’s hundreds of thousands of fans know, she suffers from depression. In Broken, she explores her experimental treatment of transcranial magnetic stimulation with brutal honesty. But also with brutal humor. Jenny discusses the frustration of dealing with her insurance company in “An Open Letter to My Insurance Company,” which should be an anthem for anyone who has ever had to call their insurance company to try and get a claim covered. She tackles such timelessly debated questions as “How do dogs know they have penises?” We see how her vacuum cleaner almost set her house on fire, how she was attacked by three bears, business ideas she wants to pitch to Shark Tank, and why she can never go back to the post office. Of course, Jenny’s long-suffering husband Victor—the Ricky to Jenny’s Lucille Ball—is present throughout. 

A treat for Jenny Lawson’s already existing fans, and destined to convert new ones, Broken is a beacon of hope and a wellspring of laughter.

My Thoughts:

I love Jenny Lawson. I love her incredible sense of humor but even more her incredible honesty and openness. I love to listen to her books because she always reads them and I'm certain that they are just that much funnier, that much more thought provoking, and that much more empathetic. Although, I did just find out that the printed book has photos and drawings and I'm a little bummed to miss that. 

“The Bloggess writes stuff that actually is laugh out loud, but you know that really you shouldn’t be laughing and probably you’ll go to hell for laughing, so maybe you shouldn’t read it. That would be safer and wiser.” —Neil Gaiman

Lawson got her start writing a blog, called The Bloggess (hence the reason Gaiman referred to her as such), which is where I first discovered her. In her debut collection of stories, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson talked about her life, from her very unconventional childhood through becoming a parent. I have never laughed so hard when I read (listened) to a book.  Until now. One day, as I drove home from work listening to this book, I swear to you I actually guffawed. I was laughing so hard that I seriously considered pulling my car off the road. 

But things are not all funny. There's a full chapter that's a letter to an insurance company; to say that Lawson's troubles highlight the problem with our entire health care system is an understatement. Lawson has a lot of medical problems, from rheumatoid arthritis to anemias to inactive tuberculosis. And that doesn't take into account her mental health issues which include avoidant personality disorder, anxiety, ADD, and treatment resistant depression. Despite having insurance, she spends hundreds of dollars every month on medicines and treatments that her insurance will not cover but which work for her. Her quiet rage is entirely understandable. I'm certain her fearlessness in sharing her battles with all of this helps other people who face similar battles although she is quick to credit those how have shared, through comments on her blog, their own struggles, which led to her writing more openly about her issues. 

Lawson is probably not for everyone - she does curse quite a lot and reproductive body parts come into play frequently. But if you can handle that, and you don't mind chapters that often veer wildly off the original topic, I promise that you will laugh out loud (not just say "lol"), who will actually get some pretty good insights into what makes a marriage work, and, most importantly, you will get to hear from a woman who wants you to know that you are not alone. That's important to her because she needs readers to remind her that she is not alone either. We're all in this together. 

Eat A Peach by David Chang

Eat A Peach by David Chang

Read by David Chang

Published September 2020 by Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale

Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:

In 2004, Momofuku Noodle Bar opened in a tiny, stark space in Manhattan’s East Village. Its young chef-owner, David Chang, worked the line, serving ramen and pork buns to a mix of fellow restaurant cooks and confused diners whose idea of ramen was instant noodles in Styrofoam cups. It would have been impossible to know it at the time—and certainly Chang would have bet against himself—but he, who had failed at almost every endeavor in his life, was about to become one of the most influential chefs of his generation, driven by the question, “What if the underground could become the mainstream?” 

Chang grew up the youngest son of a deeply religious Korean American family in Virginia. Graduating college aimless and depressed, he fled the States for Japan, hoping to find some sense of belonging. While teaching English in a backwater town, he experienced the highs of his first full-blown manic episode, and began to think that the cooking and sharing of food could give him both purpose and agency in his life.

Full of grace, candor, grit, and humor, Eat a Peach chronicles Chang’s switchback path. He lays bare his mistakes and wonders about his extraordinary luck as he recounts the improbable series of events that led him to the top of his profession. He wrestles with his lifelong feelings of otherness and inadequacy, explores the mental illness that almost killed him, and finds hope in the shared value of deliciousness. Along the way, Chang gives us a penetrating look at restaurant life, in which he balances his deep love for the kitchen with unflinching honesty about the industry’s history of brutishness and its uncertain future.

My Thoughts:

I am not a foodie. I mean, I like food, I enjoy trying new recipes and eating out, and I watch food shows. But I do not have the least clue who the latest chef superstar is or the name of the hottest restaurant. So when I heard about this book on a podcast, I had no idea who David Chang is or why he'd earned the right to have his story published. But they raved about the book and I thought it would be a nice change of pace. 

Chang has a lot to say about a lot of things. His heritage has impacted his life in both positive and negative ways; it certainly made his relationship with his dad difficult. He is very open about his battle with bipolar disorder and suicidal thoughts. He's equally open about his anger management (a misnomer - he doesn't seem to be able to manage his anger) and the ways that has pushed his empire forward but also caused tremendous damage. Of course, the focus of the book is how Chang's determination to open a restaurant that focused more on great food and less on ambiance and stuffy service changed the restaurant business and helped him build an empire. It feels brutally honest and open and is terrifically interesting. 

When I finished the book, I decided to look up David Chang and his restaurants. And I found this article on Eater, written by a former employee. It is her contention that Chang has always been honest about his anger issues but he's neglected to address the cost to those he has, in her words, "abused."

"Despite the formative role that Chang’s rage plays in both his personality and the memoir, as someone who witnessed it, its scope and its effects on the people around him never feel adequately described, partly because he favors hazy generalities over specifics, and partly because he claims to suffer from memory lapses in and around the maelstrom of his anger."

"The recipients of Dave’s anger — his employees — lack the same power to forget, or to leave the consideration of its impact to others."

In Chang's defense, when he was contacted about that article, he did apologize. And while the writer of the article accepted the apology, she also said that it cannot change the fallout of the moment. And that might have been what Chang needed to acknowledge in this book, that he has these issues and that while he is working on them, he feels regret at the damage he has caused. 

All that being said, I did enjoy this book and Chang does a good job reading it. And now I want to be able to get back to eating out and trying new foods. 

 

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
Read by Molly Pope
Published May 2019 by Scribner
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher’s Summary:
Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.

Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next 40 years. Luminous, heartbreaking, and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story, while haunted by echoes from the past, is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.

My Thoughts:
Many years ago, a neighbor came to my door to tell me that she couldn’t keep a school commitment she’d made because she was getting divorced. While I didn’t know her well, my husband knew her husband. He had no idea about the divorce. No one in the neighborhood, not one of the people who thought they knew this couple, had any idea that this husband was leaving his wife for “the other woman.” Jump forward twenty years and social media only serves to emphasis how little we really know about those we think we know and how little we actually talk about the truths of our lives.

Mary Beth Keane gets to the truth of her characters’ lives even as she reminds us how little we really know about even those to whom we are closest – how we often don’t know what has happened to a person in their past that will inform their future, how close to the breaking point a person might be, the crutches a person might be using to prop up their lives, the daily struggles just to put one foot in front of another every day.

As I have with so many books, I picked this one up after reading so many glowing reviews. But by the time I was able to listen to it, I’d completely forgotten what the book was about, for which I was grateful. Keane moves her forward in time, through different characters, often with leaps in time. We are allowed to see the growth of each character, often through another character's eyes; we are allowed to see them succeed and fail; we are allowed to fully see them, to judge them on the whole of their lives.

Keane has touched on so many themes in the book: gun violence, marital strife, mental illness, infidelity, substance abuse, family ties, abandonment, sexual assault, emotional scars, loss. All of it is seamlessly worked into a quiet novel about two families whose lives become irrevocably intertwined, much like a marriage for better or for worse. Mostly though, this is a thoughtful novel about forgiveness. There is not a character in this book who’s blameless; but there is also not a character in this book who is not capable of redemption. This one is going on the book club list.

Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
Read by Jenny Lawson
Published September 2015 by Flatiron Books
Source: audiobook from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
In LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, Jenny Lawson baffled readers with stories about growing up the daughter of a taxidermist. In her new book, FURIOUSLY HAPPY, Jenny explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

According to Jenny: "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos."

"Most of my favorite people are dangerously f*#ked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'"

My Thoughts:
As with her debut book (Let's Pretend This Never Happened), Furiously Happy is an impressive blend of hysterical humor and painful reality. Sure, some of the humor is of the "so stupid and lame it's funny" sort. On the other hand, in the "you can't make this shit up" vein, some of it is hilarious. Laughing-out-loud-in-your-car-while-people-stopped-at-the-red-light-next-to-you-think-you're-crazy kind of hilarious. Except when it's not funny at all, but incredibly sad. It's uneven, to be sure; but Lawson seems to want readers to understand that life is uneven and we have to make the most of what we have been given. She also wants people to stop stigmatizing mental illness and to talk about it.

Lawson is a woman who has waged a lifelong battle with a number of mental illnesses. She's also a woman who has learned how to not only survive but to thrive. She has chosen to live life furiously happy when she is not in the depths of a depressive episode, to make the most of the life she has. It can lead to some pretty hilarious situations. Like the time her friend convinced her to go to Australia and they visited koalas, Lawson in a full koala costume.

"Be bizarre. Be weird. Be proud of the uniquely beautiful way that you are broken. 

Be furiously happy."

As funny as this book is, in the end I came away feeling like I'd just been through therapy with a therapist who 100% understands what it's like to live with mental illness and would like me to understand that I am not alone and that there is always joy to be found in life.  Sometimes you just have to survive by knowing that you will survive. And sometimes you have to survive by living furiously happy.

*I checked out this book from my library. There is so much in it that I want to share that I will likely buy at least one copy. But not for my mom, because she will not be fan of the language. You've also been warned.

**I highly recommend the audiobook. This is the kind of book best read by the person who has lived this life. It also makes the chapter about recording the audiobook sort of meta. AND there is some bonus material for audiobook "readers."

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett
Published May 2016 by Little, Brown, and Company
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher's through Netgalley

Publisher's Summary:When Margaret's fiancé, John, is hospitalized for depression in 1960s London, she faces a choice: carry on with their plans despite what she now knows of his condition, or back away from the suffering it may bring her. She decides to marry him. Imagine Me Gone is the unforgettable story of what unfolds from this act of love and faith. At the heart of it is their eldest son, Michael, a brilliant, anxious music fanatic who makes sense of the world through parody. Over the span of decades, his younger siblings — the savvy and responsible Celia and the ambitious and tightly controlled Alec — struggle along with their mother to care for Michael's increasingly troubled and precarious existence.

Told in alternating points of view by all five members of the family, this searing, gut-wrenching, and yet frequently hilarious novel brings alive with remarkable depth and poignancy the love of a mother for her children, the often inescapable devotion siblings feel toward one another, and the legacy of a father's pain in the life of a family.

My Thoughts:
When I started this book, I couldn't at all recall what it was about, why I'd requested it from Netgalley. Generally, I find that to be a good thing, going into a book with no preconceived ideas or expectations. I'm not sure that was a good thing with Imagine Me Gone. Five pages in I was certain I knew what kind of book this was. Fifty pages later, I knew it was a different book but still a book I would enjoy. Then it went somewhere entirely different and I began to have to fight my way through it.

It's not that Imagine Me Gone doesn't have some brilliant moments and some truly unique elements. It has five well developed characters and Haslett does a terrific job of exploring the complexities of mental illness and its impact on families. He blasts the pharmacy industry and the doctors who are all too ready to medicate patients but also makes clear that there is no easy solution to the problem.

But...(there's that word again)

I just could not become attached to any of the characters, despite ample reason to empathize with them. Some of that had to do with the fact that Haslett didn't necessarily mean for them to be sympathetic. The constant shifting of perspective was an issue for me but the bigger problem was the long passages where he gave Michael's mind room to roam in strange ways. I get that it highlighted his issues and was meant to make readers understand what his family had to deal with. But some of it went on for pages and pages and pages and it took me completely out of the story. Then there was the problem of trying to figure out how Haslett wanted me to feel about the book. Should I be devastated by the incredibly sad things that happen? But then, wait, what's with this black humor section? I just couldn't settle with it and without being able to do that, I couldn't connect.

You're going to read reviews that say Imagine Me Gone "brilliant" and "transcendent" and "eloquent." Those reviewers may well be right. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. But read those reviews. It may be that this was just the wrong book at the wrong time for me.

The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks

The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R Saks
352 pages
Published October 2007 by Hyperion
Source: a book club friend

When Elyn Saks was eight years old, she began having night terrors and developed obsessive compulsions.  That alone would have been a frightening development.  Then one day she was walking home from school and thought that the houses were sending her messages.  Even so, this was nothing compared to what would eventually happen.  After completing her Bachelor's degree at Vanderbilt, Saks went to Oxford to study.  It was there that things went from very bad to absolutely terrifying.  She began hearing voices in her head and having suicidal thoughts.  She was hospitalized and spent years in therapy, including an extra year after she was done at Oxford just because she was unable/unready to leave therapy.

After all of that, Saks did not really think she was ill.  She sincerely believed that everyone had these voices in their heads, these thoughts, but that they were better able to control them.  And with the right therapy, she believed that she, too, should be able to control the thoughts.  Even after she had another psychotic break while attending Yale Law School, one that initiated her into the horrifying world of inpatient "care" for psychiatric patients in the United States, Saks continued to believe that she should be able to fight these thoughts.

"To be weak is to fail; to let down your guard is to surrender; and to give up is to dismiss the power of your own will."

Saks battled taking medication for her symptoms, sometimes with disastrous consequences, for years.  Given the side effects and long-term effects, it's hard not to understand why she would be so adamant.  But the result was that she frequently found herself on a roller coaster of psychosis and often at odds with her doctors.  Further, Saks had been in therapy for years before she finally received the diagnosis that she had been fighting--schizophrenia.

"Schizophrenia rolls in like a slow fog, becoming imperceptibly thicker as time goes on.  At first, the day is bright enough, the sky is clear; the sunlight warms your shoulders.  But soon, you notice a haze beginning to gather around you, and the air feels not quite so warm.  After a while, the sun is a dim lightbulb behind a heavy cloth. The horizon has vanished into a gray mist, and you feel a thick dampness in your lungs as you stand, cold and wet, in the afternoon dark."

Despite this enormous obstacle, the numerous setbacks, the therapy, the medication, Saks managed to earn numerous degrees, become a tenured professor and finally find the love of her life.  What Saks has been able to accomplish is impressive, particularly in light of her diagnosis.

If you follow me on Twitter, you got pretty used to reading tweets from me saying how much this book was scaring me.  Of all of the things that worry a mother, I long ago added the fear that one day one of my kids would develop schizophrenia.  It was my boys I was most worried about; statistically, schizophrenia is more common in males. So for all of these years, I've been sure that I could finally relax about this concern once Mini-me made it through his early twenties (most males develop schizophrenia in their late teens/early twenties).  When I was handed this book, the idea that a woman had suffered so profoundly made me rethink my worries.  Clearly I was going to need to add my daughter to my concern about this disorder.

Then I discovered that Saks had begun having unusual symptoms as a young child.  Well, good then, none of my children suffered from any thing like this.  They're safe, right?  Wrong.  Saks, in addition to suffering from this disorder, has studied it extensively and shares what she's learned.  One of those things is that symptoms we may overlook, particularly in teens, may actually be early warning signs--bouts of depression, inability to focus.  Also, for females, the onset of full-blown schizophrenia might not manifest until the late twenties.  So now I find that I have another 15 years to worry.

Reading about what Saks has been through is heartbreaking, frightening and, eventually uplifting.  She is incredibly detailed in describing her episodes, treatment and inner thoughts which is insightful but I must admit that at a certain point, I began to feel like it might have been too much detail.  As bad as her episodes were, they began to blend in my mind and started to lose some of their emotional punch.  Saks does a lot of writing but her writing is primarily articles for law magazines and books about the mental disorders and diseases. It leaves the book lacking emotional depth, particularly later in the book.  I learned a great deal but readers should know going in that this is every bit as much a lesson about the disorder and treatment as it is a story of Saks' own battle.