Inside Jacket

I remember Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott being a good book.  Sadly, it has fallen ill to the passage of time.  I read it much too long ago and I simply can not remember anything about it.  And that my friends is a very sad thing because Elizabeth Scott rocks.  I have no hesitations in recommending her books.

I can tell you what Love You Hate You Miss You is about from reading synopsis’s myself.  In fact, I’ll share with you from Scott’s website:

It’s been seventy-five days. Amy’s sick of her parents suddenly taking an interest in her. And she’s really sick of people asking her about Julia. Julia’s gone, and Amy doesn’t want to talk about it. No one knew Julia like she did. No one gets what life is without her.
No one understands what it’s like to know that it’s all your fault.

Amy’s shrink thinks she should keep a journal but instead, Amy starts writing letters to Julia. And as she writes letter after letter, she begins to realize that the past holds its own secrets–and that the present deserves a chance.

Looking over some of the reviews myself, it feels vaguely familiar but yet I cannot recall any feelings nor basic details about the book.  However, other reviewers were very enthusiastic about Love You Hate You Miss You and sad that it didn’t receive more attention at the time of it’s release.  Hey, it’s Elizabeth Scott, I say go read it despite my not being able to remember anything about it.  Will it stand the test of time?  For me, obviously not.  But I didn’t dislike it in the least.  I don’t think all books have to have staying power.  It was a good read at the time.

As a side note – I find it interesting to note how our feelings for a book change over time.  Do you find yourself  not being able to remember basic plotlines of books that you’ve read in the past?

Links of interest: My book reviews of Something, Maybe, Living Dead Girl.  Elizabeth Scott website and blog.  Other blogger reviews.
Genre:  Young Adult
Publisher:  Harper Teen.  May 26, 2009.
Hardcover, 288 pages.
Love You, Hate You, Miss You is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Hush, Baby Ghostling by Andrea Beaty and ilustrated by Pascal Lemaitre is the perfect bedtime Halloween book for the much younger set and one that won’t leave them frightened at all.

Mama ghost sings her sweet baby ghostling a soft bedtime lullaby:

Hush, Baby Ghostling.
The haunting hour is past.
The bats have ceased their swooping
and  the dawn is coming fast.

So nestle safe beside me
in our happy haunted home,
And dream a dream of darkness
where the wild monsters roam.

Mama leaves a bit of darkness in the hall, in case he’s scared of the light and will reassure baby ghostling that the songs and laughter is just the wind outside.  She’ll search the closet for that little boy with ten pink toes, blue eyes and golden hair who might give him a fright.

She sends him to bed with sweet kisses and dreams of hisses, howls, screeching owls, of bats and banshee cries. “Now dream a little nightmare while the ghoulies dance and sway. Dream a dream of darkness where the wild monsters play.”   The book ends with hugs, kisses, and the whisper of I Love You.

Although I like Pascal Lemaitre’s illustrations in Andrea Beaty’s other books like Firefighter Ted and Doctor Ted, I’m not a huge fan of the illustrations here.  It’s as though everything glows.  And maybe it’s supposed to?  But all in all, I can see past the illustrations to a cute bedtime lullaby. Great for those kids who will understand the turnabout of the words and how baby ghost is more scared of us than we are him!

Links of interest: Andrea Beaty website, Pascal Lemaitre website, Maw Books reviews of Firefighter Ted, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry.  August 4, 2009
Hardcover 32 pages. ISBN 1416925457
Source: Review copy for 2009 Cybil’s nomination for which I was a panelist.
Hush, Baby Ghostling is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Such a gorgeous picture book!  Last year Amanda at A Patchwork of Books was so enthusiastic about this book that I just knew I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll and illustrated by Howard McWilliams was something special long before I got my hands on it.

Ethan can’t go to sleep properly.  Not when his resident under the bed monster, Gabe, has gone on a week-long fishing vacation.  How would he ever go to sleep without Gabe’s familiar scary noises and his spooky green ooze?  He  missed his ragged breathing, his nose-whistling, and the scrabbling of his uncut claws.  Luckily, he has a substitute monster appear under his bed.  Unluckily, his panting wasn’t scary enough and he didn’t have claws.  A second, third and fourth monster arrive but upon inspection none are as scary as Gabe and quickly dismissed.

Was I being too picky? NO.

I knew that my monster needed to be well-clawed and menacing.

The whole point of having a monster, after all, was to keep me in bed,
imagining all the scary stuff that could happen if I got out.

My boys love the monsters and are quick to fall into a fit of giggles over one particularly monster with a rather large tongue.  I was a bit worried that my boys would be scared of monsters under the bed but no fear, it’s an adorable story of a rather unique friendship.  Almost makes me wish I had my own monster under the bed.

A perfect read-a-loud book and illustrations to drool over.  Seriously gorgeous illustrations.  Highly recommend that you pick I Need My Monster up.  It’s a beautifully spooky book full of monsterly fun!

Links of interest: Amanda Noll website,  more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Flashlight Press.  April 1, 2009.
Hardcover, 32 pages. ISBN 0979974623
Source: Review copy for 2009 Cybil’s nomination for which I was a panelist.
I Need My Monster is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Forgive me for using the book jacket description for Cult Insanity: A Memoir of Polygamy, Prophets, and Blood Atonement by Irene Spencer.  I am so backlogged in the number of reviews I need to write and I’m finding that often it is the summary that slows me down.  When I sat down to begin to write this one out I became so overwhelmed.  So book jacket it is.

In Shattered Dreams, Irene Spencer told the devastating story of her arduous life in a polygamous fundamentalist Mormon sect [Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times], sharing her husband with nine other women (and fifty-six children) in abject poverty and intense mental and emotional anguish.  As harrowing as the story was, it was only just the beginning.

Cult Insanity delves deeper into her story, focusing on the terrifying acts of Ervil LeBaron,, her brother-in-law and a self-proclaimed prophet who determined he had been called to set the house of God in order.

The older brother of Irene’s husband, Verlan, Ervil LeBaron had a zeal for living and teaching that was at first admired but soon took on a sinister tone.  Ervil’s ambitions quickly turned lethal when he uncovered a doctrine concerning blood atonement – the act of redeeming a sinners soul by taking his or her life.  Seeing himself as God’s Avenger, he used the role as a means to terrorize and destroy those who challenged him.

Irene quickly became enveloped in a dark cloud of fear and anguish.  Survival for herself and her ever-growing family turned into a constant flight from one desert camp to another across the harsh badlands of Baja, California.  Food was scarce and living conditions abhorrent.  Irene didn’t see her husband for months, never knowing if Ervil would make good on his vow to kill him.

I previously read Irene Spencer’s first memoir, Shattered Dreams, My Life as a Polygamist, two years ago and called it one of the best books I’d read all year.  While I would recommend that you read Shattered Dreams first, Cult Insanity can easily be read as a stand alone. Where Shattered Dreams focuses more on the intimate details of Irene’s feelings about living life as a polygamist, Cult Insanity dives deeper into the politics of the Church of the Firstborn of the Fullness of Times and the LaBaron family.

There are a lot of people to account for in Cult Insanity and Irene jumps around a lot in her telling, making the not linear account sometimes a bit difficult to keep track of.  But the account that she gives is as the title aptly calls it, pure insanity.  Just like Shattered Dreams, I couldn’t put this book down.  Shattered Dreams felt a bit more personal to me and thus I liked it a bit more. Don’t get me wrong though, this book was just one bit as interesting and also just as appalling.

Even as I continue to read these types of memoirs, I never cease to be shocked with what kind of behavior goes on behind closed communities.  If interested in polygamy and religious extremist groups and wanting to read a personal, firsthand experience about life among the LeBaron group then Cult Insanity is the book for you.

Links of interest:  Irene Spencer website, Maw Books review of Shattered Dreams, My Life as a Polygamist,  more book blogger reviews. Other polygamist memoirs I’ve reviewed: Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall with Lisa Pulitzer, Escape by Carolyn Jessop,
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher:  Center Street. August 12, 2009.
Hardcover, 352 pages. ISBN 0446538191
Copy source: Review copy sent from the publisher at my request.
Cult Insanity is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

The Widow’s Season by Laura Brodie has a great first line, “Sarah McConnell’s husband had been dead three months when she saw him in the grocery store.  He was standing at the end of the seasonal aisle, contemplating a display of plastic pumpkins, when, for one brief moment, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes.”

Did he fake his death?  It could be possible.  After all, he died in a freak flash flood and his body was never found.  Was it his way out of their marriage?  Or is she simply going crazy and imagining all of their encounters and conversations.  Has her grief become so consuming that she no longer can tell reality from vision?

I was so anxious to get to the end of this book.  No, not for it to be over. This is a haunting beautiful book.  It could easily be called a ghost story but it’s so much more than a simple ghost story.  It’s a story of marriage, of grief, of love, resolution, discontentment, starting over, loyalty, and the questioning of one’s sanity and reality.

I was anxious to get to the end of this book because Brodie perfectly convinced me, just like Sarah, that one can not be so sure about the realities they are experiencing.  Was Sarah’s husband David really dead or was he really alive?  As a reader, I honestly no longer knew.  I wanted to believe that yes, he was really dead – a figment of Sarah’s imagination.  But then the next chapter Brodie would easily convince me that he was really alive. A great depth and complexity of the characters and their relationships with each other.  I love character driven novels and this one certainly is that.

I remember reading the ending of the book sitting on the couch with my husband, closing the book and then saying, “Ah!  I can’t believe this book! “  And that was in a total good way.

I loved the widow’s support group that Sarah attended:

She had almost come to accept David’s appearances as a sign of mental breakdown, a delusion sparked by her isolation.  But here were these women insisting that she wasn’t crazy, she was normal.  Somehow the idea didn’t soothe her; a touch of insanity was preferable to the status quo.
She glanced over at Margaret, who was leaning against the kitchen doorway.  “What do you think?”

Margaret hesitated, apparently choosing her words more carefully than usual.

“I think it’s going to be hard for you to have any closure until David’s body is found.””

“Which means you think this is all in my head?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you don’t believe in ghosts?”

Again Margaret hesitated.

“I believe there is a lot more going on in this world than we can comprehend.  Whether or not that includes ghosts, I don’t know.  But I’ll say this much – if you are really seeing David, there must be a reason.  Either he is somehow trying to reach you, or you are trying to reach him.  Most likely the latter.  There’s probably something unresolved in your mind.”

I really liked The Widow’s Season.  Feels like the perfect book for the fall.  I’d highly suggest reading this one curled up on the couch with a quilt on hand.  And if you’re like me you won’t be able to put it down.  I read the second-half of the book in one sitting.

Links of interest: Laura Brodie website, more book blogger reviews,
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Berkley Trade.  June 2, 2009.
Paperback, 320 pages. ISBN 0425227650
Copy source: Review copy sent from the author
The Widow’s Season is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.