Category: Fiction

Waiting to Exhale

gr4c5Leave a comment

McMillan, Terry. Waiting to Exhale. New York: Pocket Books, 1993.

Unfortunately, I saw the movie before I read the book. This embarrasses me because I hate picturing the movie characters while reading. It traps me. I don’t like having someone else’s imagination dictate what I see in my own mind, but it can’t be helped this time around. Lela Rochon (who reminds me of Robin Givens), Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine and Gregory Hines have all been cast for me and there is nothing I can do about it.

This is the ultimate chick lit story. Four women, all in their mid to late 30s, all searching for something, have a friendship in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s that friendship that gets them through all the different circumstances they deal with. Okay, I’m being coy. The circumstances mostly involve men. They all want a man to call their own. That’s the one thing they all have in common (besides age and race). Sex and the relentless chase. They all want to be in a relationship solid enough to breathe easy in. Savannah is independent and a little jaded by men. She definitely reminded me of someone I know. Bernadine (Bernie) has been left by her husband for a younger woman, a white woman. Speaking of the movie, she has the scene we all can’t forget: torching her husband’s belongings in the back seat of his expensive vehicle, then selling everything else for a dollar at a tag sale. Robin’s story is told from her perspective. She is a little naive when it comes to men. She believes in the power of astrological signs and smooth lines. Gloria is my favorite. Single handedly raising her teenager son, the father of her child has just told her he is gay. Despite all that she has a good head on her shoulders.

Lines that made me laugh: “He needs to suffer for a while, long enough to realize that a woman’s love is a privilege not his right” (p 46), and “I would have loved to say “Let go of me and go home, you tub of lard,” but you just can’t say that kind of thing without hurting someone’s feelings” (p 55).

Author Fact: McMillan has a really cool website, but what’s even cooler is that she was influenced by libraries at a very young age.

Brook Trivia: Waiting to Exhaleis a best seller that was made into a movie in 1995.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters. First in the chapter called “African American Fiction: She Says” (p 12) and later in the chapter called “Women’s Friendships” (p 248).

Mrs. Dalloway

gr4c5Leave a comment

Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1925.

I felt like I shouldn’t have had this book on my list at all. Nancy Pearl bearly makes reference to it in More Book Lust and it certainly isn’t one of her recommendations. In fact, she only mentions it in reference to another book. After spending several hours mucking through Woolf’s prose I feel I should go back to my Lust list and weed out the “unintentional” recommendations and put them on an “If You Really Care” list.

I didn’t care for Mrs. Dalloway (character OR book). In a nutshell the plot is one day in the life of a middle-aged Londoner as she goes about planning for a party. Nothing more than that. The style of writing is tedious as it is a stream of every character’s inner monologue and one must be careful of character switches for not everything is from the rambling point of view of Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway. The chronology of the story is also a maze of creativity as it bounces back and forth in time. A Wednesday in June post World War I is present day, here and now so to speak.
One detail of Mrs. Dalloway that I found myself fixated on is Mrs. Dalloway’s relationship with a man named Peter. As she goes through her day she thinks about him with regularity. He is the man Dalloway could have married but didn’t. I found myself wondering if she had regrets. Through all the ramblings it was hard to say with certainty she did.

Book trivia: Mrs. Dalloway is the product of two short stories melded together.

Author Fact: Virginia Woolf suffered from depression and at the age of 58 committed suicide by drowning.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Voice” (p 230). Pearl is actually recommending Our Kind by Kate Walbert. In Our Kind a book club is reading Mrs. Dalloway.

Call Me When You Land

gr4c5Leave a comment

Schiavone, Michael. Call Me When You Land. New York: Permanent Press, 2011.

If Nancy Pearl had to categorize this book for one of the chapters in Book Lust this would easily fit into either her “Families in Trouble” or “First Novel” chapter. If she had to categorize this book as a selection in More Book Lust it could easily fit into her “Men Channeling Women” chapter. First, there’s Katie Olmstead. Alcoholic, artist, single mother slowly losing her grip on reality. Then there’s Katie’s reality, C.J., the angst-ridden son. C.J. is uncommunicative, lonely and lost. Finally, there’s great-uncle Walter. Coughing up blood, stoned, patient and pathetic. Parsing out words of wisdom to said mother and son while quietly raging against his own frailty. Spoiler: he disappears from the story halfway through; a disappointment because he was the glue that held mother and son together.
All of these characters fit an eye-rolling stereotypical mold. Katie, in a spurt of mothering, makes her son breakfast. C.J. isn’t used to seeing his mom awake much less standing at that hour is skeptical and more than a little suspicious. Their dialogue is full of cliche zingers like, “what’s your deal this morning?” and “I’m not poisoning you.” Character development is minimal. People like Peter and Caroline pop up without introduction. There is a lot of backtracking to fill in the blanks.
To be honest I read this book like it reads: in fits and starts. It wasn’t the kind of book I could read for hours on end without coming up for air. I was beyond frustrated by all the name brand products. Aquafina, Alka-Seltzer, Aleve, Advil, Best Buy, Barolo, Benadryl, Ben & Jerry’s, Coors, Claratin, Cabernet, Capri Sun, Chips Ahoy, Clearasil, Dunkin Donuts, Disney, Dewars, Diet Coke, Dairy Queen, Desitin, Dolce & Gabbana, Emergen-C, Eggos, Febreze, Fruit Rollup, Gap, Gatorade, Grand Marnier, Halo 3, Hydroxycut, Hot Pocket, iPhone, J. Crew, Joy, Keds, Kools, Kleenex, Liz Claiborne, Mountain Dew, McDonalds, Marc Jacobs, Odwalla, Pepsi, Pellogrino, Palmolive, Prozac, Ray-Bans, Ritalin, Rockstar, Rice-a-Roni, Ragu, StairMaster, Starbucks, Sprite, Snuggie, Shiraz, Splenda, SeaWorld, Timberland, Tylenol, Trader Joe’s, Target, Tag, Tuff, Tropicana, Tanquerey, Under Armour, Visine, Vasaline. I know I could list a dozen more. If this were a movie the product placement would be nauseating. Writing should be timeless. If the products aren’t around ten years from now the piece becomes dated and clunky. There is the danger of alienating the reader as well. Not everyone will know what Halo 3 or Rockstar is. Something gets lost in translation when the product is the punchline to a funny line.

What I liked best about Call Me When You Land is the potential for a happy ending. The promise of change is hanging in the air. Differences are happening and that’s all that matters.

Snow Falling on Cedars

gr4c5Leave a comment

Guterson’s fall back on the descriptions of mildew and a soggy wetness happened enough times that I felt like I had to wring myself out periodically. Snow Falling on Cedars (for those of you who haven’t seen the movie) is about a Washington state coastal community rocked by scandal. A fisherman is found dead in the water. Evidence at the scene points to foul play and incriminates an obvious suspect: a man who has had a well-known, long-standing family grudge against the victim. The most alluring characters are the accused’s wife and a winsome reporter covering the case. Of course, there is history between them and that only complicates the case.

Aside from being “damp” I thoroughly enjoyed Guterson’s novel (liked it better than the movie, of course). The characters are intricate enough that I felt like I was progressively getting to know them as I would in real life. Coming from a close-knit, teeny-tiny fishing community I could relate to the drama and intensity the trial brought to it. Of course, no love story would be complete without a heart wrenching love triangle and this one lives up to the drama.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “What a Trial That Was!” (p 244). Oh! And also from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Living High in Cascadia” (p 153).

Dive From Clausen’s Pier

gr4c5Leave a comment

Packer, Ann. The Dive From Clausen’s Pier. New York: Random House, 2002.

I have to start off by saying this seems to be the month for reading about selfish women. The Dive From Clausen’s Pier is about Carrie Bell, a young woman who doesn’t really give a lot of thought to other people’s feelings. After her fiance is paralyzed from a diving accident (hence the title of the book) Carrie must decide if she can spend the rest of her life with a quadriplegic she doesn’t really love anymore. After the decision has been made the rest of the book is more of the same, Carrie steamrolling over people’s emotions while she forges ahead in search of what makes her happy. The Dive From Clausen’s Pier is extremely well written. Character development is flawless. Carrie is supposed to make you angry. Her family and friends are appropriately hurt and slow to forgive. You may not agree with the character (I certainly didn’t when it came to her second big decision), but you will agree with the pages on which she comes to life.

Personal aside: Probably the person I connected with the best is Paul Frasier, better known as Kilroy. There was something magical and intriguing about his character. For days after finishing Dive From Clausen’s Pier I couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Best lines: “How could you become anything without having wanted to be that thing first?” (p 227), and “Lane and I were like lines that intersected and then split apart again, without a pattern but with a kind of purpose” (p 281). I have a friendship like that. We can go for months without speaking, living those parallel lives, until one day our paths cross and it’s like we never were apart.

Author Fact: This is Packer’s first novel.

Book Trivia: The Dive From Clausen’s Pier was made into a Lifetime Original movie.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “First Book” (p 89) because indeed, The Dive From Clausen’s Pier is Ann Packer’s first novel. Also, in More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ready, Set, Liftoff: Books to Ignite Discussion” (p 192). I would also agree with this selection because it’s the ultimate topic for discussion: what would YOU do?

Lord of the Flies

gr4c54 Comments

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Perigee Books, 1954.

What high school English lit teacher hasn’t put Lord of the Flies on his or her syllabi? What student hasn’t read at least one excerpt from this book? I shudder to think classrooms have moved to the movie version, but if that means Golding’s story lives on, so be it.

This could be called the most chilling sociological experiment of all times (besides Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game.) What happens when you take the most prim and organized society (proper English boys from a prep school), hand it the suggestion of chaos and violence (they are escaping a nuclear war), then leave it to its own devices without guidance (a deserted island without adults)? All normalcy goes out the window when the boys try to build their own hierarchical, structured society. In a Darwinian approach some boys, the strongest & smartest, rise to the top while weaker boys become scapegoats and victims of paranoia. In the beginning the group is held together by necessity. They recognize the need for fairness and organization, especially if they want to be rescued. But all that vanishes when the younger boys become increasingly convinced there is a monster on the island. No amount of rationalizing can calm them. Fear and violence escalates until there is no turning back. All calm is lost to tragedy.

Probably the most frustrating part about the book was something very deliberate on Golding’s part. When the boys are finally rescued the Naval officer is embarrassed by the children, especially Ralph’s emotional breakdown when remembering how it all fell apart. You want the officer, the adult, to be more understanding, to take the boys more seriously.

Book Trivia: Lord of the Flies influenced musicians like U2 and Iron Maiden and sparked television parodies but a full length movie has yet to be made.

Author Fact: Golding won a Nobel Prize for literature.

Favorite line: “The group of boys looked at the conch with affectionate respect” (p 128).

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads: Decade by Decade (1950s),” (p 177).

While I Was Gone

gr4c5Leave a comment

Miller, Sue. While I Was Gone.

My mother borrowed this book from a house she manages. For that reason I needed to finish it before leaving the island. Piece of cake. I was able to read this, start to finish, in two days. Mostly because I found myself thinking about it long after I had put it down.

While the plot was amazing Jo Becker wasn’t a likable character for me. Which is probably what Sue Miller wanted from me. I found her to be deceitful, conniving, and more than a little self centered and selfish. Jo is a woman of lies; an easy liar. So much so that her everyday relationships are tinged with half truths and falsehoods. Even her daughters recognize her deceit and are sensitive to her phoniness. When an old roommate from Jo’s past resurfaces more lies are uncovered.
But it’s not her falsity that hangs like sour fruit. It’s her selfishness that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She misinterprets the intentions of the old roommate and begins to fantasize about an affair with him. When she thinks about how easy it would be to commit adultery she barely gives thought to whether or not her husband has ever thought about straying. When a terrible secret stands between Jo and having the affair she expects her husband to support her and not be upset by the turn of events.
The best part of While I was Gone was the character development of Jo’s husband. Watching Daniel struggle with jealousy and anger was like a metamorphosis. He emerges a different man.
This book made me question secrets. Which is worse? A half truth or a half lie?

Best line: “With the closing of the door I felt released from the awareness of his sorrow that had held me in his orbit” (p 8).

Author fact: Sue Miller has connections to Western Massachusetts.

Book Trivia: While I Was Gone was made into a 2004 movie starring Kirstie Alley.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Wayward Wives” (p 232).

Accounting for Murder

gr4c5Leave a comment

Lathen, Emma. Accounting for Murder. New York: Pocket Books, 1974.

This seemed to go hand in hand with The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe. Both take place in New York on Wall Street. The big numbers game. I have to admit I was bored by this book. None of the characters interested me enough to care what happened to them (another similarity with The Bonfire of the Vanities). Each and every one of them seemed dull and flat. In addition the plot was slow moving and I kept asking myself  “where and when is this murder? I know this guy dies so when does it happen?” Accounting for Murder is supposed to focus on amateur silver-haired detective John Putman Thatcher and yet for the first 60 pages he’s barely in the story. Initially, he is invited to a lunch with Mr. Fortinbras who late winds up dead.

Author Fact: Emma Lathen is actually two authors collaborating as one. Mary Jane Latis (1927 – 1997) and Martha Hennissart (b. 1929 – ). Both women were businesswomen in the field of economics.

Book Trivia: Accounting for Murder is actually part of a series with banker and amateur detective John Putnam Thatcher as the main reoccurring character.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery: (p 117).

Daughter of Fortune

gr4c5Leave a comment

Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune. New York: Perennial, 2000.

This took me three days to read thanks to a five hour car ride, an hour boat ride and an evening by the sea. Read the day before, the day of, and the day after Isabel Allende’s birthday.

Daughter of Fortune is the didactic tale of what happens when you become so obsessed with a thought, a feeling that you carry the obsession long after you remember why or what it was all about. This is the complicated saga of Eliza Sommers, raised as an orphan by a Victorian brother and sister – strict and unfeeling Jeremy and his spinster sister Rose. Secrets abound in Daughter of Fortune. When Eliza falls in love with delivery boy Joaquin Andieta her whole life changes. An obsession to be his “slave” claims her and compels her to follow him from Valparasio, Chile to California during the gold rush of 1849.

Best lines to remember: “Many years later, standing before a human head preserved in a jar of gin, Eliza would remember the first meeting with Joaquin Andieta and again experience the same unbearable anguish” (p 80). This line, if you remember it 150 pages later, gives away the entire story. Another line to remember, “The girl felt that she was opening like a carnivorous flower, emitting demonic perfumes to attract her man like a Venus’s-flytrap, crushing him, swallowing him, digesting him, and finally spitting out the splinters of his bones” (p 94) and one more, “‘I told you before that a fixation of the heart is very stubborn: it burrows into the brain and breaks the heart. There are many fixations but love is the worst'” (p 129). Wise words from the Machi.

Best word in the book: epizootic.

Author Fact: According to Allende’s website she has received 12 honorary doctorates. I enjoyed poking around the family photos the most.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “Dewey Deconstructed: 600s (food)” (p 73).


August ’11 is…

gr4c5Leave a comment

I know that I will spending my first week of August out to sea. Such an enjoyable place for enjoying books! I know that August is another chance at music – Miss Rebecca Correia and a little band called 10,000 Maniacs. What else do I know about August? Not much. I know I am taking two books with me:

  • Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende. If I want to still “honor” something I could say I’m reading this in honor of August being National Ocean month. Allende’s lead character takes a boat from Chile to America in search of her gold rush crazed lover.
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf ~ bringing this for the sake of something else in the bag.

As for anything else I haven’t the slightest idea. I am still trying to read the books within my reach so the whole “read-this-book-to-honor-this-thing” isn’t really happening. I have been enjoying this seat of my pants kind of selection. Other books I hope to get to:

  • Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  • While I Was Out by Sue Miller
  • The Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer

I will have another Early Review book soon but until it actually arrives it’s best not to mention it.

July ’11 was…

gr4c5Leave a comment

Where the fukc do I start (besides the fact that I’m posting this very late)? July 2011 was hell with a twisted sense of humor. Chronological speaking the first week of July was first a new car, then a wedding, then a quick trip to Monhegan and Kennebunkport (not impressed). A first week of fireworks and fun. The second week of July was an eight hour drive to Chautauqua, New York to see (from dead center second row, thank you very much) Miss Natalie Merchant at her best. A stunning performance I won’t soon forget. The third week was another trip to Maine, burying my grandfather, having my house robbed, and struggling to make sense of administrative setbacks. Week four was Kisa having to replace a tire on the truck, replace a cracked skimmer on the pool, our hot water heater flooding the basement in the middle of the night and lots and lots of home security upgrades. The ongoing issue is Jones freaking out. I don’t know what happened during the robbery but I do know he’s not the same. Insane to get out, he claws and cries and scrambles frantically at every door and window. He acts like a tortured prisoner. In the midst of all this chaos I have tried my best to keep reading. It was only semi-successful. Many fitful starts, few finishes:

  • Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts ~ in honor of it being a book within reach while I was on Monhegan. I think this should be a movie.
  • House of Mirth by Edith Wharton ~ in honor of New York becoming a state in July. Greedy book. I didn’t completely finish it. I got the point three quarters of the way through it and got the point.
  • Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe ~ in honor of Burton Bennett’s birthday. This was made into a movie & no, I didn’t finish the book or see the movie. Another greedy book.
  • Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin ~ in honor of it being a book in the library. I was ten pages shy of finishing this one.
  • It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life by Lance Armstrong ~ in honor of the Tour de France. I will never look at this book the same way again for it was what I was reading on the ride home from the burial…and yes, I finished it …when we pulled into the driveway.
  • Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field ~ in honor of going to Rachel’s “home” state, Maine.
  • The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen ~ I barely finished this (supposed to be read in August in honor of Franzen’s birth month). I’m waiting for the movie version.

And for LibraryThing and the Early Review Program:

  • Deadly Indifference: The Perfect (Political) Storm: Hurricane Katrina, the Bush White House and Beyond by Michael D. Brown and Ted Schwarz ~ I didn’t finish this. After awhile it got really repetitive with all the blame and finger pointing.
  • Pretty by Jillian Lauren ~ I loved this book. I loved how raw and messed up it was.

We ended July the exact same way we started it – with a road trip and awesome music. A blog about Rebecca Correia’s fantastic farm show will be posted on the other side.

Corrections

gr4c5Leave a comment

Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections. New York: Picador, 2001.

The Corrections tackles the global scope of economic crisis while microscopically analyzing the dynamics of a family in turmoil. This is Franzen’s criticism of society on multiple levels.The time line bounces around a family history to give the reader a complete profile of each family member; a sort of explanation for why they are the way they are, if you will. Mom Enid is a submissive housewife who feels trapped by her tyrannical husband, Alfred. And she is. Dad Alfred is a retired railroad engineer who suffers from the early stages of dementia and Parkinson’s disease. Eldest son Gary is an alcoholic banker who thinks his life is being controlled by his wife and three sons and becomes increasingly paranoid as a result. Middle child Chip is a professor who lost his tenure-tract position when he indulged in an affair with a student. Finally, youngest child Denise is an accomplished chef who loses her job when she indulged in an affair with her boss and his wife. If the characters aren’t straying they’re thinking about it. The entire novel centers around the fact Enid wants her entire family home for Christmas. The needling, begging, whining and general malaise of the every character will strike a chord with all readers.

I wanted to read something by Franzen in honor of his August 17th birthday but found myself jumping the gun when I needed something interesting to read on yet another road trip.

Author Fact: Franzen created controversy when he voiced concern about The Corrections being selected for Oprah’s book club. His opinion was men wouldn’t read it if Oprah’s book club label was on the cover. As a result Oprah rescinded the selection.

Book Trivia: A movie version of The Corrections has been in the works for a long time but nothing is “in the can” so to speak.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in two different chapters – first, in the chapter “Families in Trouble: (p 82) and then in the chapter called “Postmodern Condition” (p 190).

House of Mirth

gr4c5Leave a comment

Wharton, Edith. The House of Mirth. New York: Signet Classic, 1964.

House of Mirth is one of those classics you read to analyze society from several different angles: society and the woman’s role it in; society and the pitfalls of economic status (or lack there of); society and the role of etiquette. House of Mirth is the book you read in college, in grad school and then go on to write about in your dissertation.
In a nutshell, Lily Bart is an orphaned young woman desperate to keep up with the Joneses. She is in love with status and wealth. After her father’s ruin and subsequent death, Lily’s mother pins her hopes of future fortunes on her daughter’s good looks. Only she too passes before Lily can put her beauty to good use and be married off to some wealthy bachelor. Lily is then taken in by a wealthy relation who tests Lily’s morality in the face of greed and luxury. In a modern spin, Lily is a classic gold digger, looking to “land” a prosperous mate at whatever cost.

Best lines:
How Lily describes New York, “”Other cities put on their best clothes in the summer, but New York seems to sit in its shirtsleeves”” (p 7). How I sometimes feel, “She wanted to get away from herself, and conversation was the only means of escape that she knew” (p 20).
The perfect example of Lily’s “sacrifice” for wealth, “She had been bored all the afternoon by Percy Gryce – the mere thought seemed to waken an echo of his droning voice – but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptabilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honor of boring her for life” (p 29). Really?

Author Fact: Edith Wharton got married when she was in her early 20s in 1885 but wasn’t afraid to get a divorce 28 years later. Rock on, girl!

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “New York, New York” (p 170). But, also from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1900s (p 175).

Giovanni’s Room

gr4c5Leave a comment

Baldwin, James. “Giovanni’s Room.” Early Novels and Stories. New York: Library of America, 1998. 221 – 360.

I want to say Giovanni’s Room is ground breaking but that’s only because it puts homosexuality front and center at a time when one’s sexual orientation wasn’t so openly discussed (1956). The beauty of the story is that it could take place today or tomorrow in any city or town on the planet. Admitting homosexuality isn’t any easier today than it was over a half century ago. Giovanni’s Room has been called autobiographical because it mirrors Baldwin’s personal life: an American expatriate living in France openly engaged to a woman while secretly attracted to men. David is constantly questioning his manhood because he seeks the company of men. His engagement to Hella is nothing more than a cover for his true desires. When his Italian bartender/lover is accused of murder David’s world falls apart. More than the plot, Baldwin’s writing much be savored. The pictures he paints are raw and honest.

Favorite line: “And we got on quite well, really, for the vision I gave my father of my life was exactly the vision in which I myself most desperately needed to believe” (p 235). I think that is the most telling line of the whole story.

Author Fact: Baldwin was a child Pentecostal preacher before the age of 17. He died of stomach cancer in his early 60s.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: He Says” (p 10).

Hitty: Her First Hundred Years

gr4c52 Comments

Field, Rachel. Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. New York: Dell, 1957.

When I first learned of the premise for Hitty I cringed. It has gotten so hard for me to read outlandish stories. The suspension of belief is getting much harder to suspend these days. But, I am happy to say Hitty was different.

In a nutshell Hitty: Her First Hundred Years is about the first hundred years of a doll’s life. Made out of well-seasoned mountain-ash wood, Hitty is a sturdy, made to last doll. She is given to a small girl named Phoebe Preble sometime in the early 1800s. The Preble family makes their home outside of Portland, Maine and Phoebe’s father is a whaling captain. When we first meet Hitty, she is a resident of an antique store and has set out to write the memoirs of the first hundred years of her life. And what a life the first hundred have been! During her time with the Preble family she was abandoned in a church, kidnapped by crows, taken out to sea where her ship first springs a leak and later catches on fire; she becomes lost at sea, found again only to be given away as a heathen idol, and finally, dropped somewhere in India – never to be seen by the Preble family again. Hitty (whose real name is Mehitabel) goes on to be owned by a succession of little girls, some kind, some not. There are great periods of time when she is stored in an attic trunk or wedged in couch cushions. One hundred years goes by very quickly for both Hitty and the reader. (I was able to read the whole book in less than three hours.)
My only complaint – Hitty admitted to not knowing what a train was yet in India she recognized a cobra on sight.

Favorite line, “Which only goes to show how little any of us can tell about our own futures” (p112). I like this line because it’s in reference to not knowing when Hitty will return to Maine. I can relate.
The other element I liked about this book is the timelessness of it. Someone “threatens” to wear a nose ring when she is older. I can picture the same “threat” being made today. Another example: later Hitty attends a concert of a famous singer. The throngs of people crowding around the celebrity is very much like the crush of crowds at any concert today.

Author Fact(s): Field was originally from Stockbridge, MA and moved to Maine when she was 15 years old. She died when she was only 48.

Book Trivia: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years won two awards, the Newbery Award when it was first published in 1929 and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award many years later.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the introduction (p x) – mentioned as a book Nancy Pearl read as a child.