What secret asian girl is Reading

 Mysteries of Love and Grief
by 
Sandra Scofield

"Frieda is one of a legion: women who have stood at graves and at the doors of empty houses and seen a sea of empty prospects." Not exactly a cheery description to entice readers. Nevertheless, an honest and forthright start to this author's often confusing relationship with her grandmother and the woman who stood between them. It is a stormy relationship; a triumvirate of three generations of headstrong women. Frieda, born in 1906 in Oklahoma, her daughter Edith, and her granddaughter, Sandra, the author. Much of each of their personas are shaped by their circumstances, either by the depression, war, men, poverty, abandonment and sometimes ambivalent pregnancies. But the true parallels in these women's lives are too similar to blame it on just genetics. The anger at each other for irresponsible and often irrepressible behavior is bounced back off their own tendencies and much of the book is a diary-like examination of trying to understand why they don't get along. I'm not certain if the author ever understood that history tends to repeat itself if the cause is never reckoned with. And children mimic parents. Self-respect, it seems, is a learned behavior.

Frieda, a child of abandonment, grows up in a time where women didn't have many choices. She survives, although not without the scars of bad decisions and  buckled by the ghosts of her past. Bad choices, bad husbands and domestic abuse all contribute to her having to pick herself up over and over. It also toughens her resolve to give a better life to her children: Edith, Eula May and Sonny. It also affects her attitudes toward men. "Why kill a man? Let God take care of them. Let them burn in hell." Not exactly the words of a woman in a loving relationship. Her daughter, Edith, fares no better in the marriage department, but her dream-like appearance attracts plenty of suitors which she cannot bring herself to truly love. The author realizes that she is the result of one of these dalliances and begins to doubt her confidence in her mother's ability to care for her, and more importantly, herself. Edith is self-centered. "If there was one orange, Edith would eat it." Sandra goes to live with Frieda but never seems to be able to figure out the hostility between the two older women. She connects to her grandmother as she never could with her mother. Frieda's promises, "I will never complain, I will never ask, "Why me?," I will take care of those I love," become meaningful. As Sandra grows into womanhood herself, she experiences some of the same strife her mother and grandmother did. Like her mother and grandmother before her, she feels the stirrings of rebellion and the need to break away from her family and figure herself out.

The copy of this book that I read was an unedited, advanced reader copy. I hope that the final version is more organized and edited because I found myself lost many times in the timeline. I made a copy of the family tree so I wouldn't get lost but the narrative jumps back and forth, especially regarding Frieda's death in 1983. There's a lot of confusion in the storytelling but there are also pockets of brilliant wisdom and great writing. The description of Frieda's final days was a perfect, ordered way to end a life: in your own home, with all your good-byes said, no loose ends. She wanted no visitors and no mourners. Frieda eventually stopped eating, Sandra says. "Nothing in her needed feeding." I can't think of a better way to come to an end.

If you're a mother, a daughter or a granddaughter you will immediately recognize the coarse strings that hold these women together. They bind us even while we do our best to cut them, stretch them to their limits and even gnaw at them with our teeth to escape. It is only after one of them inexplicably falls free that we feel the terrifying vacuum of their absence, the slackness of the support that once held us up. At least, that is, until we recognize their all too familiar presence lurking within ourselves.


BUY LINKS:

AMAZON - http://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-Love-Grief-Reflections-Plainswomans/dp/0896729419
B&N - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mysteries-of-love-and-grief-sandra-scofield/1121203505?ean=9780896729414
Texas Tech Press - http://ttupress.org/books/mysteries-of-love-and-grief

What secret asian girl is Reading

The Girl Who Slept with God by Val Brelinski.

I don't know if you have to have lived through the 1970's to fully appreciate this book or not but given the detail the author put in, it certainly felt like the time period. From the music to the character's use of Yardley lip gloss, Love's Baby Soft or even the description of sanitary napkin belts, it was clear to me - having used those products myself - that I was in the 70's. When the story takes place is crucial to the plot. Two girls, 17 and 14, Grace and Jory respectively, live with their evangelical elder father and psychologically hindered mother, along with younger sister Frances in Arco, Idaho. The feminist movement had not set foot in this strict but not overly restrictive home, but readers who are used to living in less structured times might be shocked at what these girls have never experienced. Dad, Oren Quanbeck, is also a professor of astronomy at the local college, which, one would think would serve to create conflict but instead validates Oren's already devout belief system. "Science and religion don't have to be mutually exclusive," he insists. While Oren's world is explainable and makes sense to him, Jory is not so sure. Her sister, Grace, has returned from a missionary trip to Mexico pregnant, and convinced she has been chosen to give birth to a divine child of God. The mystery of her conception, whether divine or not, is mostly inconsequential. Here's where religion and the practical world collide, as dealing with the stigma of an unwed teen, the daughter, no less, of a church elder and school professor and doing right by your own child can lead to making unwise choices. 

Pregnant Grace, along with her younger sister Jory, are sent off to live in a nearby town alone with only an elderly neighbor to watch over them. To complicate matters, 14-year old Jory is feeling the teen urges to break rules, push limits and experiment. Cue Grip, a 25-ish loner who drives the creepiest of vehicles, an ice cream truck, and seems to provide friendship and solace to Jory now beset with the trauma of moving to a new school and living with her zealot sister, who refuses to explain her behavior. Jory becomes increasingly disillusioned with her family's religion (Mom is nowhere to be seen, usually off lying down with a headache), her sister's crazy situation, and her dad's inability to see that things are not going to be "all right." Grip provides sanity for her and more importantly, friendship as she navigates her way through a secular school for which she has no proper clothes and feels like she's been living under a rock for the past 10 years. Now she's exposed to situations all teens eventually seem to face: drinking, drugs, betrayal and sex. Can she ever go back to the protected ways of her family or will she choose a life outside of her father's protection? 

Personally, I found this book so engrossing because, while I never experienced the extremes Jory did, there were some parallels to my own life, from the 1969 sea green Chevy Malibu (my sister had one) to the hospital in the book, Good Samaritan, the same name of the hospital where I was born. I like that the story asked hard questions about religious rhetoric, especially when there seems to be an uptick today toward conservatism's least favorable aspects. Feminism sacrificed much to give women a voice and much of traditional patriarchal religion threatens to silence that if we go back. Jory represents the chasm between those two worlds, back in the 1970's. The desire to express yourself pitted against what is or isn't acceptable, according to others. I've been there and have no desire to go back. Regardless of your age, I think you'll find this debut novel an often uncomfortable examination of your own beliefs, or at least open your mind to critical pause, which is what I think every good story should do.