And to tell you the truth that’s all of the jacket copy I read.  Because I tend to only read the first sentence of jacket covers in fear of knowing too much about the book.  But that was just enough to make me anxious to dive into the book right away.  A book set during World War II.  Score!  A book set in India during World War II?  Double score! I’ve never read a book set in India during the war that I can recall.

Let me go ahead and share the rest of the summary from the dust jacket with you.  Simply because I’ve written three reviews in a row tonight and well, despite my own avoidance of them, this particular summary does a fine job.

When tragedy strikes, Vidya and her brother, Kitta, are forced to move into a traditional household with their grandfather and their extended family, where men live separately upstairs and the women who live below are meant to be married, not educated.

Breaking the rules, Vidya finds refuge in her grandfather’s second-floor library.  There she meets Raman, a young man also living in the house.  Surprisingly, he treats her like and equal and encourages her intellectual curiosity.  But soon it’s clear Raman wants more than just friendship, and when Kitta makes a shocking choice the family cannon condone, Vidya’s life becomes a whirlwind of personal and political complications.  Will she be strong enough to survive the storm?

What a wonderful book.   I loved Vidya sneaking upstairs and reading Oliver Twist, Hans Brinker, Ivanhoe, Pride and Prejudice, The Mayor of Castorbridge and more.  I loved how Vidya defied all conventions that was expected of her.  She desperately wanted to go to college, she did not want to get married young, and she wanted to be treated as an equal with her male counterparts.  I hated that women in her society were meant only to serve the men.  Vidya wanted so much and stood up for her rights.  I love a girl who can stand up for herself.   I desperately wanted to see her hopes and dreams come true.

A great historical fiction novel set in India.  It was wonderful.

Links of interest:  Padma Venkatraman website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile.  May 1, 2008.
Hardcover, 256 pages. ISBN 0399247467
Climbing the Stairs is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Batuk is just nine years old when her parents throw her a goodbye party.  Can you imagine the parents who love their child enough to give a goodbye party but yet it’s because they will be selling her?  Makes me do a double take and say, “Huh?”   Obviously, it wasn’t a fun party, everybody was uneasy and cried.  Unaware of the occasion, Batuk honestly thought that she was going to die.  But perhaps death was preferable as the next morning her father took her to the city of Mumbai and sold her.  Scared and alone and very confused, Batuk’s virginity is sold to the highest bidder and then she is sent to Common street where we meet her at the age of fifteen working as a very precocious fifteen-year-old who works hard to remain in Madam Mamaki Briila’s favor.

Batuk’s world changes when she is ill and while in the hospital is taught to read and write.  She manages to tuck away a pencil and writes her story in a diary.  Her story is simply haunting and does not spare details.  She shares her memories of home with her parents, and then losing her virginity at age nine to the highest bidder, being raped, beaten, and yet, flirting with the men on the streets so she can bring in more customers.

Although the subject matter is ugly and brutal, the writing certainly is not.  At times it is simple and forward, giving light and explanation to many dark and ugly prostitution practices and at other times it’s very lyrical.  Batuk’s diary writing doesn’t dive deep into the emotional hardships of her occupation but is rather factual, a technique that I  believe Levine uses to illustrate how dead in spirit she has become.  Writing, however does bring out Batuk’s creative side, she is smart and intelligent and given a different environment would thrive.

The Blue Notebook will make you frustrated simply for the reason that we want so much more for Batuk.  She didn’t ask for this life and as the reader we are powerless to pull ourselves into the story and pull her out.  Levine gives a voice to all the powerless girls who have been trapped into the ugly world of sexual slavery.

And after reading this book, you’ll discover that ugly doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Links of interest:  All of the U.S proceeds from The Blue Notebook will be donated to the International and National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children.  More blogger reviews.
Genre:  Literary Fiction.
Published by Spiegel & Grau.  July 7, 2009.
Hardcover, 224 pages. ISBN: 038552871X
The Blue Notebook is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s and Amazon.

Let’s be honest. It took me a good three weeks to read this book which roughly translates into forever! And it probably would have taken me another three weeks if it weren’t for the fact that it was due at the library and I couldn’t renew it. So I pushed through and made it to the end. And since I’m being truthful I don’t see myself adding this to my library, but if I came across a immaculate secondhand copy for a dollar I just might buy it simply so my sister could borrow it. I’m sure she would appreciate and enjoy this book much more than I did.

In this memoir, Elizabeth Gilbert is having a major mental breakdown and panic attack. She wants out of her marriage, has no desire to have kids and basically spends every night crying on her bathroom floor, to which I thought, eeewwww, that’s really gross. Why the bathroom floor?  After her bitter divorce, heartbroken with the man she had an affair with, and deeply depressed she decides to drop everything and sets out to “find herself.” She decides that this can be done by taking a year off from life and simply traveling! Now this is where I got really jealous. What fun! To have the time, money, and resources to just travel. I haven’t been anywhere!   Time out for a pity party for me. Okay, done now, let’s move on.

So she sets out to discover pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and balance between the two in Indonesia. And it didn’t hurt that her publishers had already offered her a book deal about her experiences before she left, which leaves me to beg the question: did the book come out of her experiences or did she create her experiences to write this book? Makes me wonder . . .

We begin in Italy where I began to get really hungry. Elizabeth Gilbert basically eats for four months! What I wouldn’t give to eat out everyday on wonderful food and feel good about it! I just wanted to reach through the pages of the book, pull her plate off of the table and devour it myself.

In India, Gilbert spends time learning how to meditate and draw closer to God by living in an ashram. I understood her desire to use meditation and prayer to draw closer to God. Even in my faith, we go to the temple for this purpose, but I thought her little pep talks to herself were odd. It’s as almost as if she had two personalities. And she has a desire to make out with trees. Very odd indeed.

In Indonesia, she simply steps off the plane and begins her search for a medicine man whom she had met years earlier. I couldn’t believe how brave she was. Since I’ve never traveled, I couldn’t imagine arriving somewhere with absolutely no plans. One, she’s by herself. Two, she has no idea where she’s staying. Three, she doesn’t even know if this guy is even alive. Sounds like fun except for the fact that she’s traveling alone. I couldn’t do it. But everywhere she goes Elizabeth Gilbert makes best friends with everybody, so she’s never lonely for long. It’s also here that she meets her future husband and basically shuts herself in his bedroom where they have sex for what seems like months on end.

So probably not the best in depth review but those were some of my thoughts as I read the book. The book gets pretty deep and philosophical as Gilbert takes us on her journey to discover herself. I had to keep reminding myself that this was Gilbert’s honest experience and not a self help guide for the rest of us, although we could glean some life lessons from it.

Some of my favorite quotes in Eat Pray Love:

The Lazio fans always stop here on their way home from the stadium to stand in the street for hours, leaning up against their motorcycles, talking about the game, looking macho as anything, and eating cream puffs.
I love Italy.

This was the only part of the book that I read out loud to my husband for this reason: He LOVES cream puffs. He said, yumm, I want a cream puff!

You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.

Richard from Texas says this one. Now this is something that I could see my mom saying. I’m sure she liked this line when she came across it. My brothers and sisters were all raised to be assertive and independent and there’s nothing that she has little patience for is someone who’s, well, for lack of a better word, a wuss.

Groceries [Richards name for Gilbert], you need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same you select what clothes you’re gonna wear every day. This is a power you can cultivate. if you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind [ . . . ] Because if you can’t learn to master your thinking, you’re in deep trouble forever.

Another one from Richard and another one that makes me think of my mom who is a firm believer in the law of attraction and the power of thoughts in your life. And, Mom, I do agree.

I’ve heard it said that prayer is the act of talking to God, while meditation is the act of listening. […] When I ask my mind to rest in stillness, it is astonishing how quickly it will turn 1) bored, 2) angry, 3) depressed, 4) anxious, or 5) all of the above.

I totally can relate to this one. I have awful habit of letting my mind wander during prayer. Need to work on this one.

Well. A word about masturbation . . .

And I’m not even going to finish it. Hated this paragraph. This was the worst passage from Eat Pray Love. She mentions towards the end of the book that she’s so embarrassed to have a bladder infection from having way too much sex, but yet she puts this in there. A little to honest for me! And I really don’t need to know.

I love you, I will never leave you, I will always take care of you.

This is the end result from Gilbert’s year long soul searching adventure. It’s what she says to herself. Not a bad end result.

So did I like it? Yes and no. It was fun to read about her adventures, the writing style was personable, she certainly learned a lot of lessons that we could all try to apply in our own lives. But there was something a bit irritating about it as well. I didn’t relate to her character very well. And perhaps, I was jealous of the opportunities that she had to travel abroad for so long.

Would I recommend it? Yes and no. Depends upon who you are and what your life experiences are like. That and you’re attitudes about life in general.

Feel free to debate in the comments!

Links of interest:  Elizabeth Gilbert website, Eat PrayLove – the movie,  more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Non-fiction, Memoir
Publisher: Viking Adult. February 16, 2006.
Hardcover, 352 pages. ISBN 0670034711
Eat Pray Love is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Updated to add:  Elizabeth Gilbert has a new book published titled Committed, which you may purchase here.

At first, I was really confused at the beginning of this book. What was this Indian woman doing in Iowa by way of New York, pregnant with a invalid’s baby, and the adoptive mother of a Vietnamese refugee, and who is this Taylor that she keeps referring to? This story began at the end thus we learned how she came to be as the story unfolded. At one point, I finally thought, okay, now I’m into this story and made a point in which to look at what page I was on. Page 70 of a 241 page book.

Jasmine is about one womans’ struggles as she immigrates to the United States in search of a better life after she is widowed in India at the young age of 14 (I think 14, I could be wrong here). America isn’t what she thinks it’s going to be and she has a whole new set of problems. After many difficulties she creates a life for herself as a “day mammy” and feels as though she is finally happy when that too is torn apart and she must create another life for herself. Throughout the book, she calls herself different names for different parts of her life. I didn’t care for the way the book ended. Won’t reveal it, but I’m not sure what I was supposed to do with it or the point that she was making.

Jasmine was an interesting and enlightening read, but I’m not sure if I’d call it a favorite or a must read. You may just have to find out for yourself if you like it or not. As for me, I’m still trying to decide.

Lakshmi is a poor, thirteen-year-old girl who lives in a tiny hut in the high mountains in Nepal. Life is hard, but simple and pleasurable for Lakshmi as her and her mother dream of what they would do if they just had a bit more money. Lakshmi’s stepfather gives Lakshmi to an “Auntie,” and the innocent girl thinks she will be working in a glorious city for a wealthy employer as a maid. It isn’t until she arrives at the red light district in Calcutta and is brutally shown to her first “customer” does she realize that she has been sold into prostitution. Her life becomes a nightmare, but above it all Lakshmi not only endures but triumphs.

Although, this story was brutally honest, heart wrenching, and a difficult subject matter, the storytelling in itself was refreshing. Told in poem like vignettes, McCormicks’ writing style was a pleasure to read. So much so, that I couldn’t wait to read more of her. I now have her two other books, My Brother’s Keeper and Cut, waiting for me at the library. I’ll let you know what I think.

Visit Patricia McCormick’s website for book reviews, summaries, and more.

Update: Looks like I’m not the only one who puts stock in the jacket cover art: