{Review}: Faithful by Alice Hoffman

 I've read quite a few Alice Hoffman novels in my day. (Will I ever read them all? I don't know! She's so prolific, I can't keep up.)  This month, I read two of Alice's novels back to back: 2011's The Dovekeepers, and the upcoming Faithful, out from Simon & Schuster in November 2016. The Dovekeepers, if you haven't read it, is an epic saga that tells the story of four women who sought refuge on Masada, escaping from Roman persecution after the destruction of the Second Temple.  Faithful, on the other hand, is short and sweet, with one endearing character.  Two books on opposite ends of the novel spectrum but here's what I've come to learn about Alice's novels: they are all about regret, transformation and redemption.

Faithful is the story of Shelby, who is left reeling from a tragedy and because she cannot forgive herself, she starts to self-destruct. In her journey back to herself, she is supported by a cast of characters that see something in her that she cannot see in herself. And once again, Alice is the queen of the plot twist. Shelby receives a series of anonymous postcards, and the reveal of the sender will surprise you, reader!

While Faithful is not the deep, profound prose of Alice's longer, meticulously researched historical novels, it was easy to become attached to Shelby and become emotionally invested in the outcome of her path-- I cried several times during the novel because I felt her pain acutely, thanks to Alice's ability to give Shelby a voice that we can hear. We can all root for a  heroine that makes regretful life choices, flounders a bit in the aftermath, then struggles to overcome and ultimately redeem herself.

About the book:

Faithful by Alice Hoffman is available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be released on November 1, 2016, by Simon & Schuster. 

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage of Opposites and The Dovekeepers comes a soul-searching story about a young woman struggling to redefine herself and the power of love, family, and fate.

Growing up on Long Island, Shelby Richmond is an ordinary girl until one night an extraordinary tragedy changes her fate. Her best friend’s future is destroyed in an accident, while Shelby walks away with the burden of guilt.

What happens when a life is turned inside out? When love is something so distant it may as well be a star in the sky? Faithful is the story of a survivor, filled with emotion—from dark suffering to true happiness—a moving portrait of a young woman finding her way in the modern world. A fan of Chinese food, dogs, bookstores, and men she should stay away from, Shelby has to fight her way back to her own future. In New York City she finds a circle of lost and found souls—including an angel who’s been watching over her ever since that fateful icy night.

Here is a character you will fall in love with, so believable and real and endearing, that she captures both the ache of loneliness and the joy of finding yourself at last. For anyone who’s ever been a hurt teenager, for every mother of a daughter who has lost her way, Faithful is a roadmap.

Alice Hoffman’s “trademark alchemy” (USA TODAY) and her ability to write about the “delicate balance between the everyday world and the extraordinary” (WBUR) make this an unforgettable story. With beautifully crafted prose, Alice Hoffman spins hope from heartbreak in this profoundly moving novel."  (via Amazon) 

{I requested an ARC from the publisher, and was not obligated, nor compensated,  to write this review. This post contains Amazon affiliate links. }

{Review}: The Girls

The Girls, out from Random House on June 14th, left me with the nagging feeling of familiarity. I'm only 36, so it's not because I lived the heyday of the 60s and 70s. Set in Northern California, at the end of the 1960's, Evie's story hits all the hallmarks of teenage angst-- friend drama, divorcing parents, sexual awareness, self-consciousness and endless navel-gazing.  But it has this particular heady sheen that seems gloss over anything set in the 60s and 70s.

We begin with two backstories: an introduction to the novel's antagonists, a roaming band of gypsies that capture Evie's bored imagination, and we get a glimpse into a sensational ending. From there, we go back to the beginning: Evie's life fraying at the edges, her father out the door with a younger woman and her mother taking benign neglect to a whole new level.

After awhile, I began to realize where the familiarity came from. Last year, I read We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves, and The Interestings. Both of these books are about angsty adolescents in the 60s and 70s, and they convey that same sort of dream-like quality, a looseness that comes from an age where things were just plain weird and everyone was high and figuring out how to be liberated, in mind and in body.

Not that I have a problem with that. It works for this book. Evie has a lost summer before being shipped off to boarding school, taking up with the members of a cult living in a run-down house in a remote place. Her mother is too busy finding herself a man, and her father...well, her father is doing his own thing too, so where does that leave Evie?

Left to her own devices, Evie learns a thing or two about herself through compare and contrast, and developing a low-level sense of self-loathing, ashamed of her privilege. Her vulnerability is ruthlessly exploited as she tries to convince herself that she belongs. The shocking events at the end of her lost summer disabuses her of that notion.

When we meet Evie, she is in her 60s, approaching 70, revisiting some hazy time when she was 14 and it was the 60s in California, and some crazy stuff was going down and how did she even get swept up in all of it? But now her life is sad, lonely, aimless. And I can see her so vividly, thanks to Emma Cline's gift for drawing characters with words that evoke a forlorn, pathetic mood, a kind of grayness over everything, even in sunny, bright, optimistic California.

{I received a copy of this book for review purposes. This post contains affiliate links.}

{Review}: The Age of Reinvention

What is the difference between a lie of omission and a lie, period? And is one worse than the other?

I would argue that both are no good, but that a lie of omission has technicality going for it. Technically, one did not utter a falsehood. One merely failed to correct an assumption, which places the responsibility on the other party to do due diligence.

Then, when happens when one has an attack of conscious and feels a desire to finally correct the assumption, but at the risk of losing everything, including the identity that was reinvented?

When Samir Tahar shortens his name to Sam, walks into a French law firm and is given the persona of a Sephardic Jew and a job, whatever hesitation he had is overshadowed by his new prestige as he is taken under the wing of his avuncular boss. And I did wonder, what kind of world is it when being a Jew is an advantage? As much as I embrace my own Jewish-ness, I have never once felt that it was an advantage or bestowed some kind of social privilege on me. I guess, better to be a Jew than a Muslim, which is the exact scenario that Sam enters into in this novel by Karine Tuil, translated from the French by Sam Taylor.

Clocking in at just shy of 400 pages, The Age of Reinvention maintains a frenetic pace throughout that mirrors the runaway train that Sam finds himself on, after he cannot bring himself to correct an assumption, and he puts on his new life like the expensive suits he can now afford. It all comes to a head in the most ludicrous of ways but the scary part is that we readers can easily believe it might happen, in this age of Islamophobia and terrorism. Nothing seems surprising anymore; shocking, maybe but hardly surprising to find out the extremes to which our government might go in the fight against terrorism.

And what international thriller would be complete without a love triangle? Sam's arrogance, his willingness to parade himself around becomes his downfall as he grows vulnerable to exposure and becomes visible to the other two-thirds of the love triangle. Hell hath no fury like a man scorned. The love triangle would be a subplot, but Karine Tuil masterfully draws a thin but substantial line between events that put the plot into overdrive, so that we fall headlong with our characters past a point of no return, especially when a third plot line is uncovered, that proves to be the loose nut that brings it all crashing down around Sam. 

In this book, the reader is treated to a richly painted world that offers an immersive literary experiece that won't soon be forgotten as we turn over my original question: what's worse, a lie of omission or an outright lie?

{I requested a copy of this book for review purposes from Atria Books/Simon and Schuster. This post contains affiliate links.}

{Review}: Writing My Wrongs

We love redemption stories. We love the triumph of the will. We watch the fall from grace salaciously, with judgement but we cheer when grace is restored. Why? Because all of us have redemption stories. Some of them are big, like rags to riches or a life of crime to a life of honesty, but a lot are small, quiet moments in our everyday relationships. We build trust, break trust and restore it again. We disappoint each other, apologize, kiss and make up. In every redemption story, big or small, we see ourselves.

And in Writing My Wrongs, we see how a stubborn streak and parental neglect leads to a fatal mistake that brings the killer low, though it takes Shaka Senghor many years to accept that he has hit rock bottom. His stints in solitary confinement, his realization that he has made an avoidable mistake, his willingness to confront his demons and let go of his anger allows for a degree of introspection that is admirable and difficult. Senghor comes to realize that small, meaningful interventions early in his life would've made all the difference, something as simple as "Are you okay?" "Why are you so angry?" Indeed, the world would be a more peaceful place if we stopped reacting and started listening, looking, wondering, getting at the root of a conflict instead of hitting back.

Writing My Wrongs is a compelling, engaging read that doesn't radically stand out from any other redemption story out there, but the voice carries the reader along. Redemption stories are, by their very nature, predictably full of plot lines that crest, dip then crest again. However, this is the first time that I've really understood how the prison system is designed to rob people of their humanity. The constant upheaval, the threat of violence from all corners, the social isolation-- all of this serves to set inmates up to fail. Should someone be punished for committing a crime? Yes. Should someone be made to feel that there's no hope for change? No. What good does it do to return angry, demoralized people to society? Not much, as far as I can tell, and neither can Senghor, who has made it his mission in life to help children find a way to express their anger, frustration and disappointment without succumbing to violence.

So read this book for the story itself, and for a reality check.

{I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books for review purposes. This post contains affiliate links.}

{Review}: The Vegetarian

The Vegetarian is full of powerful and graphic imagery but nothing gory, nothing overly disturbing as alluded to in the many rave reviews of this book. I wondered if something was lost in translation.
The words that come to mind when I think of this book, post-read, are minimalist and sparse. Yet the imagery is vivid, and in sharp relief. Each word has been carefully selected, each phrase carefully turned. There is a distinct lack of superfluity.
At the core of this novel is a woman who we don't really get to understand on her own terms. She is defined by her relationship with others. Her husband is quietly unsatisfied with her, though he cannot say she is a bad wife. Her sister pities her, and feels responsible for her. Her father cares little until he cares too much, refusing to understand her.  There are three voices in this book, and none of them belong to Yeong-hye, as central as she is to the book. 
Yeong-hye commits herself obsessively to being a vegetarian, as the result of a dream. The confusion,  wrath and indignation this elicits from her family is outsized. The more she is excoriated for not conforming, the deeper she digs her heels in, turning herself inside out and driving herself insane.
But is she really insane? Or is that an identity foisted on her by those around her as way of understanding her refusal to be like everyone else? It's hard to tell in this novel. We get the sense that she has discovered something about herself and has become attuned to her own sexuality, in a way that was never revealed to her husband. An inverse relationship develops. As Yeong-hye begins to fall together,  those around her who were so sure of themselves begin to doubt themselves and fall apart.

{I received a copy of this book for review purposes from Blogging for Books. This post contains affiliate links.}

{Review}: Lust and Wonder

Augusten Burroughs has an enviable knack for introspection and self-awareness. He has also has a writing voice that made me wonder at first if I were reading fiction or a memoir--at some points, I actually was not 100% confident Lust & Wonder was a memoir! Burroughs manages to make himself a sympathetic character, though I have a feeling that if I knew him in real life, I probably would not stand him. And he knows it. A funny, self-deprecating story that had me rooting for a marginally unlikeable person, I was genuinely disappointed when I reached the end and there was nothing more to read. 

Lust & Wonder is out from St. Martin's Press on March 29th but can be pre-ordered on Amazon. 

{I received a copy of this book for review purposes from NetGalley. There are affiliate links in this post.}

{Review}: The Best Place on Earth

Have you ever been to Israel? I went when I was 15, and even in my self-absorbed, navel-gazing teenage state, I knew that Israel was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. It was the first foreign country I'd ever travelled to (Canada notwithstanding) and I've been to many others since then. Still the most beautiful place I've seen.

Reading Ayelet Tsabari's collection of short stories, The Best Place on Earth, I pulled heavily from my mental image bank to transport myself to the setting of her stories. While the stories were an enjoyable read, I found them to be somewhat shallow in imagery and flat in character development. There's a layer of gloss over the text that makes it feel like a rom-com or chick flick. In fact, I think I would very much enjoy a screen version of these stories.

Though the stories lack the grittiness needed for more compelling storytelling, the 11 stories are connected by the common thread of main characters that represent groups that have been traditionally marginalized--women, immigrants, non-Israelis, and the poor. Unlike a rom-com, there are no neat endings in this collection. The reader is left to create an epilogue for the characters.  But that's par for the course with marginalized people-- they lose control over their stories, and their voices are co-opted by people (readers, in this case) who are not them.  Empowered characters get to tell readers how it ends, but in this book, the characters become muted.

I came to that conclusion after I finished reading the book, but during,  I was fully engrossed in the collection and finished the book in two days, so it's worth a read, if only for the opportunity to consider what responsibility an author has to her disenfranchised characters.

{I received a copy of this book for review purposes from NetGalley. This post contains affiliate links.}

{Review}: The Prime by Kulreet Chaudhary

What was it that possessed me to request this book for review? I don't normally pick diet books, preferring to read actual literature and knowing that most of what it inside diet books is freely available on the Internet. Maybe it was the phrase "spontaneous weight loss." Maybe it's because I caught up in the "new year" frenzy to do something, anything differently than how I was doing it before. Who knows?
It's not a secret that I struggle with my weight, and I know I'm not alone. More specifically, I struggle with cravings. Overall, my day to day diet is not terrible. It's a mostly vegetarian diet with actual vegetables in it. I don't eat a lot of processed food. Give me sugar and carbs, though and it feels like I've gone out of my mind. Even when I'm mindful of what is happening, I have to slap my own hand to come to my senses. If you remember, awhile back, I reviewed Gretchen Rubin's Better than Before. In that book, I learned that I am an Abstainer. As long as I don't have even one piece, I'm not tempted. But give me a taste, and all is lost.
The sticking point is those cravings. If I could master control over those, I think I'd be golden. The Prime , written by a neurologist, is based on the premise that you need to first "prime" or cleanse your body of the things that cause cravings. The word "cleanse" always gives me pause-- was this going to be another bit of quackery that required me to spend a shitload of money on mystery powders that make nasty shakes full of who knows what from who knows where?
That misperception died pretty quickly once Chaudhary explained that rather than changing or overhauling or eliminating things for your daily diet, you tap into Ayurvedic principles of eating, using ingredients commonly found in Indian households. She recommends using a combination of spices and herbs to clear out your gut and improve your gut health, drinking bone broth, and ingesting only warm foods and drinks. She also tethers physical well-being to mental well-being.
The first part of the book, when Chaudhary tells the story of how she came back to Ayurvedic principles after being derailed when she became a teenager, ditching her family's traditional diet for a more American one, a habit that followed her to college and beyond, is compelling and engaging. After that, Chaudhary delves into the tradition behind Ayurvedic principles and how it applies in a weight loss context, which I found fascinating and useful. After that, it became hard to maintain focus and I found myself fast-forwarding to the sections where she describes implementation because it becomes repetitive at some points. Overall, the book was a good read, and because of Chaudhary's credentials, it seems more creditable than other diet books out there. I suppose the true measure of the book's worth comes from trying out The Prime, and seeing what happens. Here goes nothing.

I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books, for review purposes. This post contains affiliate links. 

{Review}: Miller's Valley by Anna Quindlen

This is my first experience with an Anna Quindlen novel. She's an author that is on my radar but somehow, none of her books made it to my TBR list. When this book came up on NetGalley, I admit that I judged this book by it's beautiful cover, so I leapt at the chance to read my first Anna Quindlen novel. I only wish now that I had a paper copy of this book. (The book is available for pre-order and will be released on April 5th of this year.)

Mimi Miller, of Miller's Valley, comes from a respected but not wealthy family in a town that is being eyed by the government for a dam project. As the threat of both natural and intentional flooding looms, the people of Miller's Valley carry on, living out their lives and waiting for the inevitable, doing nothing to speed it up or slow it down. This is not a novel full of dramatic twists and turns, though there are moments where the reader does feel that it might go that way. This confirms my belief that, despite what reality shows and the evening news would have you think, most people live perfectly ordinary lives, full of triumphs, joys and tragedies. This is a novel about one human experience, that while we may not be able to relate to setting or time or plot, we can certainly relate to on a higher level-- reaching crossroads in our lives that force us to choose a direction, to shun or embrace opportunity.

With it's rich imagery, expertly drawn characters and Mimi's storytelling voice, I found myself immersed in her world, not willing to leave until I knew the outcome. I will say that I found much of the ending to be superfluous and long-winded, but that does nothing to damper my enjoyment of this novel.

I received a e-galley of this book for review purposes from NetGalley.  

{Review}: Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy

Stop me if you've heard this before. It's been a long time since I wrote a blog post. I don't what the point of this is anymore. etc. etc. etc. 

The point is that sometimes I have things I want to say and I like to share them, and hope other people don't mind too much. Actually, I started a blog post earlier this month about my new Word of the Year but then I got interrupted by needy children, and when I went back to finish many days later, I FORGOT WHAT MY WORD OF THE YEAR WAS GOING TO BE. No joke. I think it was going to be Patience, but I'm not 100% sure about that. I'm hoping I have it written down somewhere. Anyway, let's move on because this post is supposed to be a book review.

I'm the most annoying kind of writer--the kind of writer that thinks about writing all the time but never actually writes anything. I love to read about writing, which is why I requested a review copy of Dinty W. Moore's Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy.  (Two things: Sorry, Blogging for Books, for taking so long! And also, sorry, Mr. Moore, I'd never heard of you before reading this book...) It seemed like a fun book and I totally was judging this book by its cover when I hit the request button. I finally picked it up the other day, resisting the siren call of my iPhone and Two Dots to whip through the book. I finished it in two days, which apparently passes for "whipping through" these days, though in the past, it meant mere hours. Whatever.
The premise of the book is that writers wrote in their questions about essay writing to Mr. Moore, and Mr. Moore wrote letters back, each followed by an essay written by way of example. It took me awhile to decide whether the letters were real, and as of this writing, I'm still not sure... BUT I really admire the way Mr. Moore was able to crank out these neat little essays to demonstrate the various conundrums presented by advice seekers. Sometimes I give away the books I get for review, but I'm keeping this one on my shelf as inspiration. You really can write an essay about absolutely anything and I would be well-served by the reminder every time I feel like I have nothing to write about.


{I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review. This post contains affiliate links.} 

Escape from Here.

Books have always been my escape. As a hearing impaired child, and now as a hearing impaired adults, books are the one place where I'm never out of the loop. Everyday conversation is tiring because I expend so much energy just listening and processing everything I'm hearing, and making up for what I can't hear. My brain is constantly using its powers of deductive reasoning to fill in blanks. There are so many variables that affect the quality of my interactions with people-- a female voice is often easier to understand than a male voice, people mumble or cover their mouths when they speak, they look away while speaking, they don't enunciate, background noise interferes with my ability to discern speech, if I have a cold and I'm congested, I can't hear, if my hearing aids need to be adjusted, I can't hear.
But in a book, none of that matters. The only thing that trips me up is an unknown word here or there that I can look up in a dictionary. I can follow all the conversations and never feel lost (unless the writing just plain sucks, in which case, the book goes back on the shelf...). There are no awkward moments caused by answering a question with something from left field.
Books are a time-honored prescription for anyone that does not fit in a certain box. Whatever ails you, there's a book that'll make you feel like you belong, a book that won't judge you, a book that'll make you feel included and keep you in the loop.
I wanted to end this post with a list of books aimed at specific ailments, a la The Little Paris Bookshop but the truth is, I devour the books, take what I need from them, and then move on to the next one, so I'd be hard-pressed to proffer a list of books off the top of my head--the downside of being a escape artist, I guess. But you can take this neat Book Apothecary for a spin and see what comes up! Just click the book cover below.

Click the book to try out the apothecary! 

Disclosure: This post was inspired by the novel The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, where Monsieur Perdu--a literary apothecary--finally searches for the woman who left him many years ago.. Join From Left to Write on October 8th as we discuss The Little Paris Bookshop. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes. This post contains affiliate links. 

{Review}: Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie

I have so many thoughts about this book, it's hard to know where to begin.

First, I have to confess that though I knew of Salman Rushdie, thanks to his notoriety, this is the first book of his I've actually read. And now, I'm wondering what I've been missing all this years. I was only a few pages into this stunning novel before I knew I'd be adding his other titles to my TBR list.

Let me also say this: the older I get, the more pleasure I get out of reading. Being able to bring my 36 years of experience with the world makes reading a much richer experience as I'm able to pick up on cultural allusions and subtexts that would go over the heads of younger, less experience readers.

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is what I would call magical realism, is an allegory for our times. Rushdie rips off the veil of complacency, so that we can not ignore, or unsee, the terrible things that the human race has wrought upon itself. We cannot absolve ourselves of our responsibility  and cannot use ignorance as an excuse. Here are our choices: we change, we fight to change or we accept the terrible state of the world and let it lie. We can leave the mess for someone else, in some other time, if we want to. The consequences for all those choices are dire. It's a case of damned if we do, damned if we don't.

In this book, the worst thing that happens is truth-telling. It's the thing that knocks down the house of cards, and does everyone in. The truth-teller takes an unexpected, but not surprising, form.
A few weeks ago, right when I was getting into the thick of this book, I was driving my usual route home that takes me down a winding, sylvan road lined with modest and not-so-modest homes. And I struck by a terrible thought:

Behind closed doors in every town in America, horrible, unspeakable things are happening everyday and we just don't know until we know. Then, we take a collective gasp and ask, "how could this happen right in front of us?" 

Indeed. How could it? And what is our responsbility?

Besides the allegorical message, readers will be taken in by the powerful imagery, the explicit character development, the stream-of-consciousness pace of the storytelling. I have the ebook but will be getting a paper copy for my shelf, to be re-read in a few years. It feels prophetic, this book.

{I received a  complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley for review purposes.  This post contains affiliate links.}

{Review}: Everyday Detox by Megan Gilmore

 Last month, my sister and I did this cleanse by a doctor that shall not be named. The cleanse itself wasn't so terrible-- a shake hree times a day, plus two light meals, which is about all I have time for anyway these days. But the shake was pretty gross, plus the vitamins that had to be taken with each meal made me nauseous. (I'll spare you the details of the time that I threw up in the bathroom at a hibachi restaurant ON MY DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY.) In any case, I stopped using the shakes and the vitamins but stuck to the basic idea of the cleanse, which included the usual no-nos: no dairy, no eggs, no caffeine, no wheat, no nightshades. It wasn't that hard but none of the meals were satisfying.

Why do a cleanse anyway? I always joke that we all already have a detoxer-- the liver! But a detox cleanse is a way of pressing the restart button on your eating habits, if they've gone awry, or to learn some good habits in the first place, if you've been inhaling ho-hos and chugging quarter water since you came out of the womb.  After the cleanse I did last month, I did feel pretty good, especially without dairy, which I've finally accepted is not good for me or my sinuses. I wanted to keep up with the "detoxing" but I needed something more substantial than two light meals a day, which basically amounts to a salad with some protein on it. Boring.

When Everyday Detox by Megan Gilmore, the blogger behind Detoxinista came across my radar, I was immediately taken in by the front cover. I didn't know what it was but it looked delicious. This was the kind of detox diet plan I could get behind. I wasn't familiar with Megan's blog at this point though I'd heard of it and read a few posts, so I didn't know what to expect when I sat down with the book. It turns out that this book is all about food combining-- the idea that certain foods should be eaten with certain other foods, or certain food combinations should be flat-out avoided. Food combining helps to improve digestion, and makes meals simpler by virtue of having less variety on your plate. At each meal, you pick one category of food: fruit, starches, animal protein or nuts & seeds. To that, you add non-starchy vegetables to make a complete meal. For example, in one day, you might start out with a chia pudding for breakfast, then a salad for lunch, and a butternut squash pilaf for dinner.

I decided to do the seven-day jump-start menu included in the book. After reviewing the shopping list, I realized that I had a lot of the ingredients in my pantry already but the grocery list for the fresh produce and proteins is pretty long, and some of the pantry staples are pricey. As I shopped for the ingredients, it became apparent that for someone on a strict grocery budget and three kids to feed, the jump-start was going to put me way beyond my grocery budget for the week. I allowed myself to go a little over budget and decided to do what I could, and omit the rest. One thing you'll notice is that recipes that call for coconut flour also call for a lot of eggs, like a crazy amount of eggs. In my house, eggs are a major source of protein and there's no way I could use eight eggs for one batch of pancakes, for example because I only buy farm-fresh eggs and they are more expensive than grocery store eggs so I ration them throughout the week.

But for the most part, the recipes are do-able, pretty easy to prepare and delicious. The chocolate chia shake is a great post-workout drink, and my two year old loves it, too. I've never used dates in a smoothie before. The dates made it satisfyingly sweet without being cloying. In fact, dates weren't a pantry staple for me at all but the last time I went shopping, I stocked up because I discovered my son loves them in oatmeal, and so do I! I also really liked the banana walnut smoothie. Despite it's green color, it totally tasted like banana bread, thanks to the cinnamon. It never would've occurred to me to put SPICES in a smoothie.

A photo posted by The Real Nani (@the_real_nani) on Aug 5, 2015 at 12:12pm PDT

A photo posted by The Real Nani (@the_real_nani) on Aug 5, 2015 at 5:22am PDT

A photo posted by The Real Nani (@the_real_nani) on Aug 4, 2015 at 9:24am PDT

A photo posted by The Real Nani (@the_real_nani) on Aug 3, 2015 at 3:47am PDT

I also loved the "parmesan" cheese, which is nutritional yeast and walnuts blitzed together. I keep a container of it in the fridge and throw it on top of every salad I eat.

I lent the book to my sister, who tried a few of the recipes in the book. Her favorites were the Everyday Basil vinaigrette and the Skillet Fish Tacos. The tacos look amazingly delicious and they are on my menu this week!

I have a lot of cookbooks on my shelf, and there are only a few that are well-worn with stained pages.  Everyday Detox is one of them, even though I've only had the book for a couple of weeks. If you're looking for delicious, easy meals that will make you feel good, add this one to your cookbook collection.

{I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review. This post contains affiliate links.} 

{Review}: Living With Intent by Mallika Chopra

So, that last post was really supposed to be a book review. When I started writing, I realized that before I could write the review, I needed to give some background and then it morphed into a post in and of itself.

I'm here, parenting alone with the kids (with help from my sister and my mom!). Being the sole parent 24/7 is pretty stressful and the first week Henry was gone, I did okay for a few days but by the end of the week, my nerves were frazzled, and my fuse was short. I was in the middle of reading Living with Intent by Mallika Chopra during this time.

Inspired by the book, I decided I needed to set an intent to be more patient, both with the kids and with myself, especially as we get used to this new set-up. I wrote it down in my journal: "Intent: Be More Patient" and I've been trying to internalize it. Part of being more patient means letting go a little bit. And I have. Whether or not that is a good thing remains to be seen. Alice said to me the other day, "Since Daddy left, you say yes a lot more." Ha ha? or Mmh....?

Living With Intent is the kind of book that you need to read more than once. The first time, you kind of get the lay of the land. The second time, you start to stuff into motion. What I really appreciated about this book is that Chopra acknowledges that there is a lot of one step forward, two steps back and that though we might try to take action, we might not be ready for it and so we fail, and fail again, and berate ourselves, and feel badly. It's all part of the process and we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves.

And what is the process? Chopra devotes a chapter to each step: Incubate, Notice, Trust, Express, Nurture and Take Action, but the process is reiterative, not linear and some steps take longer than others. Throughout the book, Chopra illustrates the process with stories and observations from her own life, and each chapter ends with an exercise designed to help you practice the chapter's focus. At the back of the book, you'll find a section for recording your daily intents, a mind map, and a balance wheel to make the ideas in the book more concrete and to guide towards purposeful practice.

This is a book that I will keep on my shelf and return to, time and time again. Highly recommended for anyone feeling a little lost and looking for some direction.


{This post contains affiliate links. I received a review copy of this book from Blogging for Books.}

You've Got Mail!

Communication is so easy and immediate these days. Texting, tweeting, facebooking. Who needs a landline anymore, or regular old snail mail? Even email seems quaint!

When my husband left for Texas, he suggested that we email each other back and forth, in addition to texting. It made sense-- we could share so much more in an email--things that weren't urgent or on the fly. One of my favorite things about e-mailing is that I find it easier to express myself in writing, to say the things that I find it hard to say out loud.

What I didn't expect was that waiting for an e-mail from him would be like waiting for a letter to show up in my mailbox! We are both so busy, and a long e-mail full of updates and the little things we share with each other means that we have to find time to sit and write the e-mail.  I find myself waiting in anticipation for a e-mail response from him. It's kind of like the early days of our relationship, when I couldn't wait to see him again and felt giddy at the prospect of it.

It's the same feeling I used to get as a kid when I had a pen pal, never knowing when the letter would show up, and wondering what the letter would say. To this day, I love checking the mailbox and wondering what surprises it might hold for me. Of course, as a grown-up, I'm more likely to find bills and other boring stuff but every once in a while, I'll get a package I forgot I was expecting or a new book to be reviewed.

In this age of instant gratification, there is something to be said for slow communication, to have no choice but wait for a response, to have something to look forward to, to know that whatever response you get, it wasn't off the cuff-- someone took the time and care to craft a letter and share their thoughts with you, to make your day a little more special.

And so I wait for my husband's response to my latest e-mail. Whenever it comes, I know it'll make me smile.

This post was inspired by The Mapmaker’s Children by Sarah McCoy, a novel about two women connected by an Underground Railroad doll. Join From Left to Write on May 19th as we discuss The Mapmaker’s Children. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.This post contains affiliate links. 

Thrilling: A Series of Vignettes Inspired by Under Magnolia by Frances Mayes

On my pink two-wheeler, I coast down a steep ramp off an overpass, ahead of my family. Flying down, and picking up speed, I'm gripped by both thrill and fear. What happens at the bottom? Things are moving fast, the leafy trees are green blurs. I find myself on the ground, with both knees opened and blood pouring out.  I probably cried. I definitely had to finish the ride home, trailing behind my family now. 
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A few years later, in a new neighborhood, I do a short run down a dirt hill that leads into a cul-de-sac, this time on a ten speed road bike. The neighborhood kids and I run down, and drag the bikes back up, and run down again. Coming down off the hill, I deftly turn into the circle and coast around before heading back up the hill. No bloody knees but the same thrill. 
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Many more years later, I ride up onto the George Washington Bridge approach to the pedestrian path, huffing and puffing up a minor ascent until it flattens out somewhat and I can enjoy the view of the mighty Hudson stretched out below, snaking its way north and south, as far as the eye can see. I crest the bridge and start the descent into Fort Lee, following a pack of riders in this charity ride. It's not such a big hill and I relax a little. Then, comes a climb up to the start of a route that takes us through Englewood. I stop at the top of the hill, look down at the long slope unfurling before me, take a deep breath to gather my nerve and take off, not sure where this hill is going to end. Always, the thrill. 
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2004. In a sleepy coastal town in Ecuador, popular with surfers, I borrow a bike of questionable safety from the hostel while my friends sleep. I head off down the road to seek out a dirt hill we had driven past the day before. As soon as I saw that hill, I knew I wanted to ride down it. I huffed and puffed my way to the top, on this crappy bike that probably hadn't been tuned up ever. At the top, I prepared for descent. From that vantage point, I could see that the hill was deeply and erratically rutted which gave me pause. But 24 year olds have a lot of confidence, and they feel invincible besides. And I had to get back down anyway. I took off, going slow and then picking up speed as I lost my trepidation. Then, I was going too fast. I lightly squeezed the brakes  in an attempt to slow down, but of course, of course, the brakes were shot. I leaned back, letting one foot dangle down to slow my descent. I hit a rut and I flew over the handlebars, landing with a sickening thud, my temple bouncing off the ground. I lay there, sprawled out and very still, wondering if anything was broken, besides my dignity. I gingerly picked myself and examined myself for damage. Bloody knees. Bloody elbows. But I can walk. I push the bike down the rest of the way, and drag myself back to the hostel. I return the bike, the hostel owners gasping and fretting over me. I wave them off. Back in the room, a stream of f-bombs comes pouring out of my mouth, waking my friends from their hungover stupor. I look in the mirror and realize why the hostel owners had gasped. My very first black eye. 

Thrilling, yes. 




This post was inspired by Under Magnolia by Frances Mayes, a memoir of her return to her roots in the South. Join From Left to Write on April 30th as we discuss Under Magnolia. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes. This post contains affiliate links. 

{Review} Better Than Before.

If my twenties were all about figuring out who I am, trying on different personas to see which one would stick, my thirties have been about coming to terms with the person that I’ve become, both the good and the bad. More importantly, I’ve had these a-ha moments where I recognize emerging patterns in my behavior.  I’ve never been very good at recognizing patterns and relationships. If you point them out to me, I will make the connection but tell me to look without giving me a clue and I come up empty-handed. Is it any wonder that I’m drawn to self-help books?

I don’t know how Gretchen Rubin would feel about being labeled “self-help” because the genre does kind of have a weirdo, fringe reputation but her new book, Better than Before, has been a kind of revelation for me.  I needed someone to do the pattern-finding legwork for me so I could just say, “hey, that’s me!” and go from there. That’s exactly what Gretchen does in this book. First, she describes what she calls the Four Tendencies, her framework for helping people figure out the best way to break or start a habit. The Tendencies are like personalities. There might be overlap between them but for the most part, you’ll find yourself relating to one in particular. From there, the book walks you through different strategies for making the changes you want to see in yourself, in that classic Gretchen way of using herself and her friends as guinea pigs, and of course, copious amounts of research, evident from her nearly twenty pages of notes at the end of the book.

If you are looking for answers, you will find them here.  At least, that is how I felt while reading this book. There are many, many books out there with advice about habits, but they tend to take a One-Size-Fits-All approach. In Better than Before, Gretchen offers strategies that speak to specific Tendencies. Right away, I understood that I am what Gretchen calls an “Obliger,” someone who meets outer expectations but resists the inner ones. And it’s true—I hate to let people down and I am motivated by external accountability.  So, if I want to adopt or shed a habit, I need a form accountability that comes from outside of myself. I am a major procrastinator. For example, in school, I was motivated to get good grades. At work, I am motivated by positive feedback and feeling useful.  So, these motivations spur me out of procrastination. Another way that I break free of procrastination is to put potential distractions out of sight, out of reach and out of mind. This makes me an “Abstainer.”  I can never do just a little of something, I can never just eat one chip or read just one blog post. It’s all or nothing with me, and here’s the thing about Better Than Before. Instead of being told to change who I am, Gretchen says to accept who you are and change your environment to suit that.  So, I don’t buy the chips and I leave my phone or computer in a different room when I sit down to read a book.  Someday, my kids will learn that we never have Oreos in the house not because they’re unhealthy and junky (I mean, yes they are…) but because mommy can’t control herself around cookies.  Sorry, kids!

But make no mistake. Even with this blueprint that maps everything out for you, the job is still not easy. Since finishing this book, I’ve turned Gretchen’s words over and over in my mind, and I’ve gone back to the book to re-read the sections that speak to me the most but making the leap to action is a different story. Gretchen is good, but not that good. 

Fans of The Happiness Project and Happier at Home won’t be disappointed by this book, and readers looking for a different, more intuitive and gentler way to change their habits will also get a lot from Better Than Before. 

{I received a copy of this book for review from Blogging for Books. This post contains affiliate links. A version of this post was published at From Left to Write. }