Helpful votes received on reviews:
86% (12 of 14)
Location: Lake Bluff, IL
In My Own Words:
I am a retired teacher whose reading interests include contemporary American fiction, memoirs, sports and the Holocaust. Enjoying the quiet life in northern Illinois, I am an official in basketball, baseball and softball.
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Reviews
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Meet Abby Goodman. She lives in a comfortable suburban San Jose, California, home in the early 1970s with her staid, predictable father, her precociously bright younger sister and her mother, Shirley. It is Shirley's descent into suicidal mental illness that sets Abby's internal compass spinning out of control in Jackie Moyer Fischer's redemptive debut novel, "An Egg on Three Sticks." Abby is absolutely believable; she is at once self-absorbed and powerfully affected by her mother's erratic, self-destructive behaviors. Abby comes-of-age during a time of extreme family disintegration, and lacking the anchor of a stable mother, her otherwise understandable thirteen-year-old behaviors… Read more
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The now storied "Greatest Generation" did not come full-blown into glory. It evolved from childhood, and Samuel Hynes' gentle, understated and illuminating memoir, "The Growing Seasons," assists in our understanding of how the generation that fought and won World War II came to be. Fiercely independent, perpetually inquisitive and unabashedly self-conscious, Samuel Hynes comes of age in America's heartland during the Great Depression. His story, crafted with gentle humor and exquisite detail, gains transcendence and slowly emerges as a representation of millions of youngsters grappling with the age-old obligation of developing an identity, but doing so in an era of frayed innocence and… Read more
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In the afterword of Joyce Maynard's sensitive and instructive "The Usual Rules," the author shares with readers her motivation in writing the novel. She hopes to "tell the story of how it is that a young person can survive great and terrible heartbreak" and restore a sense of hope about her future. Not only does Maynard succeed in this goal, but she has also crafted a work that deals with adolescent identity, family reformation and person response to social disaster. Using sympathetic characters who struggle with sudden death, the author brings needed insight as to how Americans might overcome the trauma of September 11. Thirteen-year-old Wendy complains about her… Read more
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