about a book

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: The Atlas of Love by Laurie Frankel

I picked this up from a Borders clearance sale that Brandon and I popped into recently (all books 90% off…it was sad and exhilarating at the same time). I thought the cover looked cute and I’m never one to turn down a book that costs about $1. (Again, so sad!)

Because I paid such a low price for the book and because it was one of the “leftovers” in the fiction section, I didn’t have high expectations. I just wanted to be entertained and thought it looked like a good, light read…perfect for reading in the bath or with a cup of tea.

Instead, I was happily surprised that Frankel’s dialogue and character development grabbed me from the first page and held my attention until I finished. It’s her first published book, but you wouldn’t know it. She has a confident voice and the interesting details in this book kept it from being your cliched “baby on the cover” novel. The book’s pace does ebb and flow, but I was charmed enough by her writing to keep powering through.

The Atlas of Love is the story of three English-lit graduate students: Janey, Katie and Jill, who band together to help Jill when she becomes unexpectedly pregnant. After Jill’s boyfriend makes a break for it, Janey and Katie become substitute parents—living with Jill and Atlas (her son) and helping with everything from feedings to naps to play time. The book is thought-provoking, especially as tensions grow between the girls as Jill starts to pull away from the intimacy of their unconventional “family” situation.

The book is thoroughly charming and I hope Frankel continues on to write a sequel, since several of the character’s story lines have plenty left to explore. If you need a heart-warming “chick lit” book but would rather do without the cliches that usually come along with the genre, this is a good place to start.

P.S. Have you entered my book giveaway yet?

Have you read this book? What did you think?

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

I don’t remember how I heard about this book, but I had added it to my library queue (I often add books to my library queue haphazardly and on a whim). Last night, during a particularly ridiculous bout of insomnia, I grabbed a cup of tea and settled in to read. Several hours later, I turned the last page. Maybe I was slightly delirious from lack of sleep (it’s been a rough couple of weeks), but this book knocked my socks off. Good til the last drop.

The Leftovers is the story of the people left behind after a Rapture-like event occurred on earth. It’s not weirdly religious like the Left Behind series, but is instead just about regular people coping with loss and confusion in different ways. The story centers around the small town of Mapleton, and zeroes in from there on a few families in particular. In one tragic example, a Mapleton woman lost her two small children and her husband in what becomes known as the Sudden Departure. In response to these events, she slides into a Spongebob Squarepants obsession, insisting on watching every episode and then journaling about it afterward in an attempt to feel closer to her lost children.

It could have been a more pointed book, taking on the American response to loss, how the world continues with massive holes in pop culture icons (Jennifer Lopez disappears in the Sudden Departure, by the way), how religion plays into the entire thing. Instead, the book just shows how these ordinary people decide to respond to what happened in ways that you or me may find strangely recognizable.

It’s not a haunting book in the way that some other loss-related or post-apocalyptic novels are, but it has stuck with me in a way that a book hasn’t in quite some time. I keep imagining myself in their place, wondering how I’d react. What I would do. While I appreciated that Perrotta mostly kept spiraling emotion out of the text, I see some other reviewers disagree with me and wish there had been more emotions in play.

Have you read this book? What did you think?