Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart

Every woman wants her very own Mr. Darcy, of course, every woman but Claire, who simply doesn't understand his appeal. He's arrogant, proud, and frequently rude. Yet, Claire finds herself, filling in for her sister, at a seminar in Oxford, England reading a paper about Pride and Prejudice and engaged in some serious flirtations with a tall, dark, handsome, and slightly arrogant modern day version of Darcy.

To complicate matters, a daft old woman shows Claire an original manuscript of the book and Claire discovers that Miss Elizabeth Bennet wasn't always destined for Mr. Darcy. Suddenly her usually negligent boyfriend, Neil, shows up and the "heat" of her emotions as well as her indecision force her to face who she really is.

I'm not sure why little English word like "delightful" always come to mind when I read stories set in England, but delightful fits this book perfectly. The plot is fairly predictable, but the characters are genuine, with deep and true conflicts over self and a touch of romance and mystery make for a lovely, quick read.

Simplify: A Guide to Caring for the Soul

Simplify is a self-help book in the classic "lean on God" genre providing readers with 8 key lessons based on each letter of the word SIMPLIFY. The method is overused, but effective, perhaps that is why its overused.

As with most self-help books, I started this one and got through about 3 chapters before I gave up. I always mean to try their suggestions, but ironically I never find the time. The author, Carolyn J. Rasmus actually encourages the reader to take a chapter at a time and work on it for awhile. Definitely not my strategy, hence the overwhelmed feeling the book produced.

I finally returned to the book after I suggested it to a book club that I'm hosting tomorrow night, and I had to sit down to read it this time. Not really wanting to like this gimmicky book, the author had a hard sell. She succeeded. The section of each chapter called "Getting Started" saved the book for me. Because specific steps were presented, the book goes beyond the "Sunday School" answers.

An LDS read, this book is great for those people feeling overwhelmed by the pace of 21st Century life. The power lies in the focus on priorities, but most importantly on feeding the soul so you can stay focused on the important things in life.

Suite Scarlett

The Martins own a small, historic hotel, The Hopewell, in New York City. Wealthy, the Martins are not, in fact, they've let all of the help go and are relying on their teenage children to keep it all going. Spence, nineteen, is a classic clown-comedic actor who is out of work. Lola, eighteen, is the beautiful perfect older sister, always pleasing others instead of herself. Scarlett is the central figure of the story. She inherits the Empire Suite of the hotel and its permanent guest, Mrs. Amberson, on her fifteenth birthday. Suddenly, Scarlett's life becomes a whirlwind of activity.

Author Maureen Johnson is so hit and miss for me. This novel is odd. The characters are endearing if not quite believable. It takes most of the book to escape their stereotypes, but thankfully they do. I did like Scarlett, she seems the most real, but the parents were so out of it that I really had a hard time buying them as real. Fun and fantastical, the setting perhaps is real for those who have wandered the streets of New York, but felt odd. There's that word again. I can't decide if I like this book or not, but it intrigued me enough that I'm going to read the sequel.

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

Nujood remembers a time when her rural Yemen village was idyllic.
Early childhood was blessed as she played with her sisters, food was plentiful, and her parents were loving. Of course, she was a proper girl and always did what her father and brothers told her.

Life changed suddenly when for reasons no one explained the family packed up and moved to a large city to live in the slums where her father became addicted to the euphoria produced by chewing khat and the whole family suffered. As life grew more desperate, Nujood's older siblings disappear. Nearly alone, Nujood discovers that her father is planning to marry her off at the age of 10 to a man three times her age. Terrified, she appeals to her mother, her uncles, her bothers to no avail. She is married.

Hauled back to that idyllic village, that is to be her living hell, she is beaten by her mother-in-law by day and raped by her husband every night in spite of his promise to leave her alone until she comes of age. After months of torture, Nujood escapes and declares that she will no longer obey the men in her life.

Nujood had nothing in her life or childhood that would have taught her to stand up for herself, and yet she does. She is unsure and scared, as any child would be, but she is also determined.

Written relatively quickly following her release, the novel sounds childlike which seems odd and perfect for this horrible story of child abuse. Nujood is so very genuine. It is the adults who are drawn in the extremes of a child's black and white world; evil is dark while good is unbelievably divine. Still, the adults are not stereotyped, just portrayed through a child's eyes as she searches for understanding.

To say that I enjoyed this story seems wrong, but it touched my soul as I sorrowed for those girls around the world who are used by men and society, and I am grateful that, for now, I can still protect my little ones.

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

Nujood, remembers a time when her rural Yemen village was idyllic. Early childhood was blessed as she played with her sisters, food was plentiful, and her parents were loving. Of course, she was a proper girl and always did what her father and brothers told her.
Life changed suddenly when for reasons no one explained the family packed up and moved to a large city to live in the slums where her father became addicted to the euphoria produced by chewing khat and the whole family suffered. As life grew more desperate, Nujood's older siblings disappeared. Nearly alone, Nujood's father announces her marriage at the age of 10 to a man three times her age.
Terrified, she appeals to her mother, her uncles, her bothers to no avail. She is married and her terror becomes real. Hauled back to that idyllic village, that is to be her hell, she is beaten by her mother-in-law by day and abused by her husband every night in spite of his promise to leave her alone until she comes of age.
After months of torture, Nujood escapes and declares that she will no longer obey the men in her life.
Nujood had nothing in her life or childhood that would have taught her to stand up for herself, and yet she does. She is unsure and scared, as any child would be, but she is determined.
Written relatively quickly following her release, the novel sounds childlike which seems odd and perfect for this horrible story of child abuse. Nujood is so very real. It is the adults who are drawn in the extremes of a child's black and white world; evil is dark while good is unbelievably divine. Still, the adults are not stereotyped, just portrayed though a child's eyes.
To say that I enjoyed this story seems wrong, but it touched my soul as I sorrow for those girls around the world who are used by men and by society, and I am grateful that for now I can still protect my little ones.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Lisbeth Salander is the focus of Stieg Larsson's second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire. For two years, Salander has travelled the world on Weinerstrom's billions, and Mikael Blomkvist has wondered why she cut him off cold. Blomkvist and his partners in Millenium have taken on a freelance journalist who is investigating the sex trafficking that is largely ignored in Sweden. Just before the expose is to be published, the freelance journalist and his girlfriend are found murder and the prints on the murder weapon belong to Salander, who has gone underground leaving hints for Blomkvist as he struggles to prove her innocent.
With three busy children and a job that starts at 7:00 a.m., I rarely read until 2:00 a.m anymore, but Larsson caught me. I couldn't put this novel down. Salander is so supremely clever with her own innate sense of morality and justice that she has become for me the ultimate outsider hero. Her sense of alienation in a bureaucratic world full of injustice, but more importantly pain and suffering of the innocent at the hands of the powerful, the cruel and the perverted, oddly enough, makes her an empathetic character. She would hate that. Blomkvist, on the other hand, is all that we imagine ourselves to be, the crusader against injustice, the journalist with integrity and morality fighting the bad guys. The characters are fascinating and the plot suspenseful, and I didn't figure it all out until the last minute. Unfortunately, I'm now waiting to see what happens to Lisbeth in the third installment. Tomorrow can't come soon enough.
A VERY adult book, Played with Fire, is a fascinating crime-social commentary novel that all crime fiction addicts will enjoy.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist, has hit bottom. Recently sued for libel, he retreats to northern Sweden where he is offered a job researching the Vanger family, most specifically the disappearnce of Harriet Vanger, forty years ago. Lisbeth Salander, a talented, tattoed computer hacker, not only profiles Blomkvist for Harriet Vanger's very old uncle, she also ends up making a connection with him, and soon the odd team discovers a truth so ugly, so heinous that Blomkvist questions its publication and then his own journalistic integrity.
Very cool book. Stieg Larsson created a fast, intriguing novel with dramatic but real characters and a stunning look at society with the first of his trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Even though Larsson's characters are so vastly different from myself, I liked knowing their thoughts, discovering their moral compasses, so vastly different from each other, and I admired their strengths even as their flaws revealed themselves to each other and to me.
Definately an adult mystery, crime, saga novel, this novel is not for anyone seriously bothered by sexual references and abuse which, sadly, is becoming all too common.

I've been the librarian at CHS for ten years now, and that seems impossible. Of course, I love reading, but that has been seriously inhibited since we added to little girls to our family. A three-year-old and a one-year old don't let mommy read much. Still, I am currently reading Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire, Dr. Laura Schlessinger's Stop Whining, Start Living, and Malinda Lo's Ash.
I stopped reading Ash on Part II, mostly because it drags, tons of setting description. I like the main character, Ash, and I love the concept of basing it on, YES, my favorite story tale, Cinderella; I even like the "modern" identity-romantic struggle that Ash encounters in the book, but I find it slow. Maybe I'll finish it when school lets out, but probably not, too many other books to try. I think this is a great story, especially for those who like fantasy, and I will recommend it to other readers. I just got a bit bogged down.