The Grave of God's Daughter by Brett Ellen Block

There's a certain joy in reading a book that all your blogger friends love and loving it, too.  I do it with some frequency, and it's always awesome having your faith in all your most trusted blogger brethren affirmed.  There is another joy, however, and that is discovering a great backlist book that it seems that none of your blogger friends, or really any blogger that you can find has reviewed.  It's a bizarre and rare sensation to enjoy a book that seems to have elicited no blogger attention.  I mean, jeez, book bloggers as a collective entity read a ton of books both new and old, so in my insular little world, it seems that there must be at least one blogger out there that has read each worthy book, however incredibly ludicrous that thought might be what with there only being so many bloggers, and book blogging becoming popular only lately.

Fear not, I am coming to a point.  Any moment now.  Wait for it.  Waaiiit for it....

So, I had this book on my shelf that I'm pretty sure I didn't even buy.  I think my well-intentioned parents (yay for well-intentioned parents!) attended a book sale that I couldn't make it to, and plucked this trade paperback from obscurity.  It then landed on my shelf thus re-attaining its obscurity for any number of years, which I hesitate to even surmise.  After which, one February day in 2013, LibraryThing and Random.org delivered into my hands a, "I can't choose, oh just surprise me," read, and thus I stumbled (again) upon The Grave of God's Daughter by Brett Ellen Block, which I read and loved and am happy to introduce to the blogosphere.  Ahem, there will be no need to link up your post where you rave about the awesomeness of this book, thus proving me wrong and raining on my parade.  Okay, you can, but I won't know whether to be excited or mad at you, so you might be taking your chances.  Hopefully (?) nobody is now struggling with this quandary, and you're all just like, "Shut it Megan, and start talking about the actual book!"

The Grave of God's Daughter begins with a woman returning to her hometown for her mother's funeral and remembering her girlhood in Hyde Bend, a factory town nestled in the Allegheny mountains.  Most of the town's residents are Polish immigrants who use their language to blockade the town from outsiders.  The families in the town, most of the all the narrator's, live hardscrabble lives, eking out a living working either in the town's steel mill or its chemical plant, and faithfully attending Mass at Saint Ladislaus church.  It's the type of small town where everybody seems to know everyone else's business, but secrets still run deep.

Times are especially hard for the young narrator's family, so hard that her mother has fallen to pawning their meager belongings while her father drinks his paycheck at the town's one tavern.  Determined to buy back one of her mother's most prized possession, the girl secretly gets a job delivering packages for the local butcher.  Through the job and the momentous events of that year, the girl is startled to discover a deep well of secrets lurking beneath the surface of the town, not the least of which involves her own family.

I was actually, for some reason, staggered by how much I enjoyed this book.  Whenever I was forced to put it down, I found myself saying to myself in surprised awe, "I really like this book." The Grave of God's Daughter is a different kind of page-turner.  Usually when I find myself referring to a book as a page-turner it's because it's a very plot-heavy, action packed, thrill-a-minute sort of read, but I'd hesitate to describe The Grave of God's Daughter as such.  Rather, it is so well-crafted and well-paced with such a supremely engaging narrator that it's hard to put down. In fact, I was so caught up in the narrator's tale, in her breathing life into her hometown and the mystery of it as it intertwined with her own life, that it took me nearly two thirds of the book to realize that said narrator is never actually given a name. 

Block expertly brings to life the hardscrabble life of her unnamed narrator. She shares a bed with her brother in a house with three rooms, is frightened of the old lady down the street, discovers a dogfighting operation while posing as a boy to make the butcher's deliveries, has the profoundly guilty conscience of a Catholic schoolgirl, and sincerely believes that when she started lying, she set into motion this momentous time of her life when all the lies of a family and a town are beginning to be revealed to her.  The Grave of God's Daughter is a profound coming of age tale set in a unique place with absolutely vivid characters that I would recommend to anybody who doesn't mind a bit of darker story and discovering a diamond in the rough.

Unplugged

What a bizarre (almost) two months.  I have been effectively almost unplugged from social media since the end of March, not because I made any special commitment to be, just because it kind of happened that way.  Other than trolling Facebook for e-book deals and arbitrarily "liking" the cute things all my friends' babies keep doing (provided they were cute enough to fend off my irritation that everything in my Facebook feed is either somebody announcing they're pregant or posting a picture or story of their cute freaking baby, whose cuteness is often a subject of debate).  Oh, and Instagram.  I occasionally have the desire to prove by photographs that I do lots of fun and awesome things, so Instagram gets in there once in a great while, because, as it turns out, I, uh, don't do that many fun/awesome/photo-worthy things, but I mean, there was that one time I went to DC....

Anyhow, yeah, I haven't posted anything since Easter.  It's more than likely that I've not commented on your posts, much less read them.  Okay, I might have read some because Feedly is on my phone, and I need a dose of the bookish once in a while, but comments?  Not so much.  I have been traveling and having epic yard sales and cleaning the house and watching The West Wing and eating dinner with friends and driving to far places to eat dinner with other friends and not always making myself feel like I'm choosing to do the wrong thing.  I expect more of the same in the near future.

You see, as soon as the sun came out and springtime came, any desire I had to boot up my laptop after yet another grueling day spent slaving away on the computer at work was totally lost.  I've been addicted to my computer for so long  that the thought that I could pretty much abandon it and not miss it has been astonishing me.  As you might be able to tell by my sudden and probably unexpected reappearance I have, at least in part, started to miss it.  But these last months have been good.  It turns out that when I turn my computer off for a while I have so much more time to do all of the other things I enjoy that I forgot that I enjoyed - like keeping up with friends I get to see in person, hanging out with my family, watching great TV, and, you know, reading books without the looming task of having to always have something to say about them and being chained to my computer for most of every Saturday because weekdays are full of full-time jobs and assorted life responsibilities, not so much writing blog posts. 

I have so very much enjoyed my two months, but at long last, I've found that I've missed being occasionally immersed in the bookish, ergo, this is not a farewell letter, as a few weeks ago it might have been following numerous days of navel-gazing over the wisdom of keeping up with such a demanding hobby that turned out to be so easy to lay aside for weeks and weeks.  As it happens, I've started to miss reviewing books and seeing what my internetty friends are up to and so on and so forth. 

So I am calling forth the latest of many lazy blogging renaissances in which I commit to being a suckier blogger than ever, but while I'm sucking, I will damn well be enjoying it on my own lazy, inconsistent terms.  I'm sure I'll stop by and comment on your blogs in utterly sporadic fashion and will post content here in just as random a manner, and if you still read my ramblings I will be most certainly happy.  I've been a little weary of blogging since it became about creating "an audience" and maintaining a "brand."  I don't want to feel like I need to promote myself on sixteen different social media sites to be worth reading.  When I started doing this, just reading and talking about books was enough, and it was easy and it was fun until things changed and it became hard work to keep up with the blogging hordes who started after me and rapidly surpassed me and blogging began to feel like another exercise in always feeling not quite good enough.  So I'm flipping the off switch on building "my brand" and "my audience."  I'm closing the door on stretching myself too thin throwing myself into all different kinds of social media and creating 650 unique ways for you to follow my blog.  I'm not interested in challenging myself, and I probably won't be reading along, either.  When I comment on your blog, I'm going to do it because I want to comment on your blog, not because I have some unhealthy need to get you to comment on mine or because I feel guilty for disappearing for *insert lengthy period of time here*. 

I'm ready to cut some of the "fat" and the guilt off of my blogging and be more undependable than ever. If I lose readers that I haven't already lost, that's okay, I can learn to like talking to myself, and reviewing books can be its own reward.  That said, I sure hope some people will still stick with me, because it's much more fun (not to mention less crazy) to talk with friends than to talk to myself. 

And that is all, at least until the forthcoming reviews that will indeed be coming forth. 

*takes a bow*

Loose Leafing: Happy Easter and Good Stuff

Happy Easter, everyone! 

I actually did my Easter celebrating with both family and friends yesterday.  Instead of having several Easter activities spanning two days, we compiled them all into one.  It was a fantastic idea.  Not only was it a nice low-key dinner, we also had fun dyeing eggs together, and celebrating my now eleven-year-old cousin's birthday.  Even better, yesterday's weather was beautiful, while today's is kind of drizzly, so all in all, yesterday was the perfect un-Easter and today is the perfect day to relax and catch up on some reading and blogging. 

After one day of nice weather and hope for some more in the near future, it's dawned on me how down in the dumps I have been about, well, everything.  With the return of decent weather, I've found a new drive to try and focus on the good things about life instead of being always mired in the less good things.  So, today I'm not going to tell you about how I'm playing a months long game of whack-a-mole with various physical ailments that seems not to be flagging or how my job will soon be piling on more work that might make it physically impossible to stay there in the long term, but I will tell you about...

Dogsitting.  I'm live-in dog/house sitting for a friend of an acquaintance again.  This has been one of those mixed blessings where it seems like it should be easy money, and in a way it is, but then a slew of unexpected events kind of put a wrench in the whole "easy" part - escape artist Yorkies, malfunctioning garage doors, an assortment of murdered small animals, etc.  Now, on the eve of the last day of what will probably be my last time dogsitting (they're moving away), I've come to enjoy the time to kind of put my life on pause, relax, step back, and re-orient myself in what's going on with me because I don't have to be bedeviled by the details.  That, and a little extra cash is nothing to sneeze at, too.  Even with all its bumps in the road, I really think I'm going to miss this. 

Getting My Picture Taken With the Easter Bunny.  A co-worker of mine and I happend upon the Easter Bunny in the halls of the hospital where we work on Friday, and we couldn't pass up the chance to nab him for a photo-op.  I truly can't remember the last time I had my picture taken with the famous Bunny, but it put a smile on my face.

Travel Plans.  Travel plans are always good and I finally have a trip to D.C. set in stone.  I'm looking forward to wandering museums, marveling at monuments, and dining on delicious food a few weeks from now.  Even better, it seems like this could be just the beginning of a good season of getting out of town!

The West Wing.  Speaking of D.C., how excited am I that I and the parents have re-subscribed to Netflix just in time to stream the episodes of one of my very favorite TV shows ever that I had totally forgotten was one of my very favorites.  Here's to a show that shows you that your jaded attitude toward politics is totally valid while at the same time giving you some hope that there might be out there in politics a few decent people who want to do some good for the American people in whatever way they can.  Watching it again, I'm pretty sure I might be able to blame Aaron Sorkin in large part for my political science degree that I'm putting to no good use.  I think younger me wanted to be as articulate and passionate as his characters.  Younger me also failed to notice that said articulate and passionate characters all had (fictional) law degrees from Ivy League universities and probably weren't getting anywhere paying their law school loans while they were busy serving at the pleasure of the President.  Oops.  My career aspirations aside, I freaking love this show, and it's put me off nearly all the shows that are actually airing new episodes right now. 

Keeping In Touch.  The whole living in somebody else's house thing that I've been doing this past week really helped eliminate most of the distractions that keep me from doing a better job keeping in touch with a lot of friends.  I spent a lot of Friday night phoning and texting some people that I'd been neglecting, and it was good to catch up with them, so good I hope to do it more often.  Turns out I miss these people.  They should all travel with me, and then we could have a good stuff double-whammy!

I think that wraps up the good stuff for now.  That's quite a bit more good stuff than I expected, as it so happens.   Here's hoping I can find so much good in the coming weeks. 

So, what's good in your life?

Leafing Lessons #2: Embracing Your New E-reader

After the success of last week's "class" on more purposeless reading, I've decided I might just as well keep preaching my various and arcane bookish lessons at you.  It's far more easy and entertaining than doing the practical work of, you know, reviewing books I've read.  This week we'll delve into how to love your new e-reader, the gadget that maybe you thought you'd never have much less actually enjoy having.

Disclaimer:  It is possible, nay, highly likely that you will find little to no useful advice in this post, but with any luck, you will be mildly entertained.

Further disclaiming:  Once again we're enjoying frenetic changes of point of view in which the words "I" and "you" both pretty much refer to me as I give sage advice make excuses for my odd bookish behavior.  But maybe also actually you, too!  Carry on being perplexed. It's all part of the fun.

• Buy Cheap Ebooks.  Download free ones.  It's fun, it's easy, and very often, I've found, you can come by unexpectedly excellent reads on the cheap.  Deals abound - I heart Daily Cheap Reads and also when April at Good Books and Good Wine writes up her Fill Your Kindle posts.  Also, you can get lots of classics for free and then read them in a font size that won't cripple your eyesight forever. 

• Um, then read some of those books.  Sure the little cover pictures are fun to look at, but once in awhile it might befit you to read some of those excellent and exciting books taking up residence on that book buying device of yours.  Ask me how I know.

• Let not your conscience trouble you about your fresh ebook obsession.  Do you feel like a poop for holding out so long on getting an ereader only to quickly dismiss all your objections to abandoning the paper books of your youth for their e-cousins?  Fret not, just open your wallet a little wider and buy all the books, paper and plastic (?) alike!  Extra points for buying the e-book version of the paper book you already have, and vice versa, of course.  Is your obsessive tracking of the Kindle Daily Deal and the monthly $3.99 and under specials making you feel like a nutcase because you actually wake up early on the first of the month to see what new treasures await?  Additionally, do you feel occasional guilt for feeding the Amazon machine? Fear not, any money spent on books and any excitement felt about books is never wasted.  Also, everybody knows you're a nutcase already.  Just go with it.

• Slurp up a few "Read It Now" selections on NetGalley.  All the fun of reading and reviewing e-galleys before they're available to the public without that unpleasant fear of rejection or that vaguely disgusting feeling of selling yourself to publishers by talking about how you are universally loved (or, uh, not) across sixteen types of social media where you post insightful content (or, ummm, not) with stunning, nearing on robotic regularity (or...well...not). Maybe you can work up to requesting books later,  when your self-esteem has increased, and after you're caught up with all the paper ones.  Quit laughing.  I can catch up any time I want.  If I quit my job...and sleeping...and eating...  Wait, I can read and eat at the same time.  Put eating back on the menu.

• Revel in being able to turn pages with no more than your pinkie knuckle.  Do you have a serious need to peel and eat an orange but can't bear to put your book down long enough to do it?  Now you can! Just make sure you don't get any juice on your pinkie knuckle or you might find yourself trying to "turn pages" with your markedly less dexterous elbow which is mildly more challenging.

• Get in the Cloud.  And welcome to the 21st century where you can sync your reading across six different devices (or whatever) that are about 74.5555% smarter than even you can contemplate.  I mean, I've got no great love of reading books on my iPhone, but it feels good knowing that if I'm stuck waiting somewhere without a book with me (horrors!), my trusty Kindle App can save my foolish @$$ from certain boredom unless I've fallen into a scary 3G dead zone. 

• Find excuses to travel.  Then when you say things like, "I only got this thing so when I travel I don't have to lug around my weight in books just so I'll have an appropriate amount of reading options while away from home," it will no longer be total crap.  And you get to travel.  Without any lasting damage to your spinal cord.

• E-books?  Ebooks?   Are you bewildered by whether you need to use that pesky dash between your "e" and books or reader?  Me too.  You should probably use a mixture of the two and hope no one notices.  Extra points for then drawing attention to the already obvious fact that you are a dolt. 

This post brought to you by my Christmas Kindle Paperwhite, an obsession I never thought I'd have.

Now, if you wanted to recommend a few more sites where I might find decent ebooks on the cheap, that would totally not be enabling me.  That would just be a really nice thing for you to do.  Just saying.

Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips

Ren Taylor has been haunted for most of her life.  Ever since her older brother was killed in a car accident when she was twelve, he has been lingering on the fringes of her life, a comfort to her as her family disintegrates in his absence.  As an adult, Ren becomes an archaeologist bent on re-creating the stories of people who lived ages ago.  It's then that she discovers that Scott isn't the only ghost she can see.  A girl, an artist of a long dead race, reveals herself to Ren and leads her to a career-making discovery.  Years pass with no more sign of the artist's work until the portentous phone call of another archaeologist who may just have unearthed the key to the rest of Ren's artist's history.  When Ren joins the dig, her ghosts are closer than ever, but clinging to them might cost her a real chance at love in the here and now.

Come In and Cover Me has most certainly cemented Gin Phillips as one of my favorite authors.  While it might not quite equal her debut effort, The Well and the Mine, which would be incredibly hard to equal, Come In and Cover Me has Phillips' talent on full display.

First of all, the setting is stunning.  I have to admit that I don't read many books set in the American Southwest, and Come In and Cover Me practically has me wanting to go pay it a visit.  Phillips' descriptions of both the unexpectedly lush canyon and the desert terrain where they are digging are absolutely stellar.  It's not often that I'm so captivated by a place in fiction that I wouldn't mind spending the day digging for bones and pottery in the hot desert wind.  The days and nights Ren spends at the ranch digging for, what is for them, buried treasure and discovering a romance blooming between herself and the other archaeologist on site, Silas, practically glow with the kind of surreality I associate with good memories.

Next up are the characters, each of which is carefully crafted.  Ren is a tightly wrapped package that spends the entire book being unwrapped.  One moment she is prickly and closed off, the next she is alive with passion, and still the next, she is desperate for love.  She's as often unlikeable as she is loveable and sympathetic.  In other words, she's entirely realistic.  Silas is Ren's near opposite, an open book eager to discover Ren's past by sharing his own.  When it comes to work, she's driven by people, and he's driven by data, and their mostly friendly arguments and testing of each other is pitch perfect.  Their chemistry is instant, but their relationship has a slow build that satisfies.  Both of the main characters are great, and Phillips gives them a strong supporting cast, too.  Ed, a retired government employee who took on archaeology later in life, has a straight-faced sense of humor that entertains, and Paul, the young wanna-be archaeologist is both earnest and awkward alongside the rest, and creates a natural avenue for answering some readers' questions about archaeology. The characters' interactions are so natural that you can't help wanting to pull up a chair to their campfire to enjoy their company awhile.

Finally, Phillips reveals herself to be gifted at weaving many stories into one.  The way the book unfolds slowly unpacking Ren's stored-up grief while examining the scars and struggles it leaves her facing in the present all while opening up a window on the life of Ren's artist is downright artful.  The shifts in the story are never jarring, and while the talking to ghosts is a little odd at first, Ren's interactions with them reveal her passions and the lessons she has yet to learn.  The way Phillips peels off layer after layer to get at the heart of Ren's story reminds me of another of my favorite authors, Maggie O'Farrell.

Come In and Cover Me is a well-crafted narrative, seasoned with history and magical realism, that explores one memorable character's journey out of grief and into learning to love again.

I can't wait to see what Gin Phillips comes up with next!

(Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review.)