My Mother's Rules

My Mother's Rules: a Practical Guide to Becoming an Emotional Genius by Lynn Toler

You might recognize the author as Judge Lynn Toler of the nationally syndicated show, Divorce Court.  In a mix of inspirational memoir meets self help, Toler shares with us her mother's "rules" for life.  Rules that were founded upon a need to do more than just survive.  A childhood of poverty, a mentally ill, alocholic husband, and two little girls ... this is where her mother began and her rules helped Toler become the successful woman that she is today.

Growing up in Ohio, the author takes us through her childhood, living with a father whose moods could be volatile, and a mother who managed to keep every one together.  We see how her mother's ability to keep her own feelings in check made it possible to somewhat gauge her husband's reaction to life's daily battles.

Toler describes, rather frankly, not only the outbursts she witnessed from her father as a child, but also how "the Beast" in her can also take over all rational thinking and replace it with fear.  We learn that the tools her mother used in living with a mentally ill husband, also work for Lynn when she is battling the demons that reside in her own mind.

These rules cover everything from knowing where your feelings come from, tackling them head on, and turning them around to make them work for you instead of against you ... working through an issue or avoiding one completely ... ignoring insult, helping others see what you're saying, and when to ask for help.

Most people are not, I have realized, emotionally well practiced.  We tend to misunderstand our fears and misinterpret our desires.  We act when we ought to sit still; we feel when we should instead think, and in the end, this allows our emotions to handle us as opposed to us handling them.

I came across this title on Amazon's recommended books and after reading a sample of it on my kindle, had no issue in paying for the rest.  I personally have my own set of "rules" in dealing with my emotions as a way to keep a handle on my bipolar.  By using what I've learned here, I feel confident that I can gain more control over the situations that I usually let slide by.  Things like displaced anger, blowing up over a small issue because I am still upset about something that happened earlier in the day, can be put aside until the time is right to deal with it.  This not only saves me the energy used in losing my cool, it also saves the embarrassment and guilt I'd feel later.

I'd recommend this book in a heartbeat.

Freedom (a novel)

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Once in a while a novel comes along that is everything a novel should be: engrossing story line, believable characters whom you care about, and a completely engaging writing style. This is one of those novels, at least in my estimation. I actually wasn't going to read it, but I kept hearing buzz about it and finally gave in and downloaded it to my iPad, and I'm so glad I did.

Meet Patty, Walter, and Richard. The first chapter of the book takes the reader quickly through the implosion of Patty's and Walter's life together. The rest of the book takes the reader back to the beginning and then on the long path of life these people travel, showing how it all unwinds.

Patty is a talented athlete who carries childhood scars. Her college basketball career is abruptly ended by a devastating injury, and shortly after, she throws herself into marriage to Walter and raising her kids, trying to be The Best Mom Ever, at least to some degree as a reproach to her own emotionally unavailable family.

Walter is a somewhat geeky and tenderhearted man who has escaped his own childhood demons. He is a passionate environmentalist and a genuine good person, and falls hard for Patty.

Richard is Walter's best friend and polar opposite in almost every way. A selfish, drug-dabbling musician, he uses women, and is cynical. He falls for Patty in his own way.

What develops is something of a love triangle: Richard loves and admires Walter like a brother; but, alas, his best friend's girlfriend-then-wife gets under his skin and becomes an itch he can't quite scratch. Patty, too, loves and admires Walter, but, despite constant effort to be "her best person," she can never seem to get past feeling both not good enough for Walter, and as though she settled for Walter in some way because she also has an attraction to bad boy Richard.

Woven throughout the story is the theme of freedom: personal freedoms and the ways in which we abuse them and the prices we pay for them, set against a backdrop of national freedom and the devastation that has wreaked in many ways. It was hard to read all the environmental stuff and not look at my own carbon footprint with a critical eye.

The story is utterly believable and the characters so vivid and real, all of them extremely flawed, but each with a story to tell. I couldn't help but laugh and cry at their foibles, and in the end, the reader is left with a feeling of hopefulness.

On some level, it evoked for me a similar flavor as She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, one of my all time favorite novels. This is one of those books I picked up every spare moment I had, and was sorry when it came to an end.

Blue Boy

Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal

Kiran Sharma is a smart, talented twelve year old boy.  He is admired by most of his teachers, adored by the Indian Aunties, gets straight A's in school, goes to temple and is very observant of the people around him.  Kiran also likes to wear his mother's make-up, play with dolls and he thinks he is Krishna, reincarnated.

This book takes us through a few months of Kiran's life.  The author shows us how this little Indian boy actually splits his time in two worlds - that of his school, where he is the only Indian child and longs to play with the popular girls, talking about saved by the Bell and Beverly Hills, 90210.  and that of his Temple, where he is surrounded by other Indian families, engrossed by all that he loves about his culture, but is still not accepted by the children.

I downloaded this book on my Kindle while it was offered as a freebie in honor of the students that took their lives as a result of bullying.  I'm not really sure what I expected out of it.  As usual I didn't read about the book before diving into it's pages.  While I was impressed with the colorful pictures painted in my mind about Indian homes, food and Temple, I was left feeling a little lost.  Like I was just observing the scenes without a clear direction in order.

It turns out the book was leading to a talent show where Kiran wanted to honor Krishna in song and dance.  Along the way though, we were sidetracked with naked teenagers having sex in the park, a friend who spurred on prepubescent sexual curiosity with playboy magazines hidden under his bedroom desk, and a nagging question of, is Kiran attracted to boys?  or does he just want to be a girl?

I read so many rave reviews about this book that I am left wondering if maybe I was just preoccupied while reading the book.  I absolutely loved the description of Indian customs, clothing, food and decor.  The narrative of his parents speech reminded me of my own Indian friends and I loved imagining them saying the words the author wrote (I'm weird like that).  But as for the rest of the book??  I was kinda left ... stumped?  In the story Kiran does something totally out of character, and while I kept thinking he would own up to it, he never does and hardly shows any remorse for the act.

Decide for yourself.  This one may need a second read from me.

 - I know what you're thinking .... what in the world possesses me to read these books??

After

After by Amy Efaw

Fifteen year old Devon is a talented soccer player with "unlimited" potential. She is an honor student, has a 4.15 GPA and is well liked by the adults around her as well as her peers.

Devon has a very strict sense of the person she is and wants to become.  She pushes herself to excel at everything she does, and with an absent mom, she is the only one she is accountable to.

Devon has also been arrested for the attempted murder of her newborn baby.

This story starts out with the police canvasing the Tacoma area after a man walking his dog, finds a newborn baby in a dumpster.  When the police arrive at Devon's apartment, they find her nearly unconscious and covered in blood.  We move with her through the trip to the hospital, her arrest, her court proceedings, her time in juvenile detention and through her confusion in all of the chaos.  Through flashbacks we learn how Devon had allowed herself to fall for a boy slightly older than her, have one sexual encounter, and then deliver a baby all alone in her bathroom after denying the pregnancy for 9 months.

This book is labeled Children's Literature: 8th grade and up, and was recommended to me by my 18 year old daughter.  Quite honestly, I don't know that I would have gotten out of it at 13 or 14, what I did at 30-something.  The book is very well written and I didn't feel as if I were reading a Children's book at all. It was an easy read, though I found myself skipping some overly descriptive paragraphs to get to dialogue here and there (I swear I'm as impatient in reading as I am in real life).

While I admit the topic seems horrifying, the author focused more on the psychological aspects surrounding the event, than on the act of leaving a baby to die.  I worked for Social Services and with children who've been abused and neglected for a number of years, so I had a little coldness in my heart for Devon when I started reading the book.  I know there are two sides to every story, but when it comes to babies I tend to only take one side.  Imagine my surprise as I start to feel empathy for this girl despite the depravity of her crime.

I think the author says it best in her note at the end of the book ...

The "dumpster baby" phenomenon is an invisible American tragedy, poorly understood and rarely acknowledged.

Though most people would consider the behavior inexplicable and unusual, its occurrence is disturbingly common ...

...Texas was the first state to enact what would later be termed "safe haven" legislation.  that was in 1999, and since then, all forty-nine other states have passed similar legislation. Yet news outlets all over the United States are still reporting these "Dumpster baby" stories with alarming regularity.  So why is this still happening?  After attempts to answer that question.

In my own home, I would have no issues with my children reading After. I strongly recommend that a parent read it if their child shows an interest in this book.  The topic brings up issues that should definitely be a conversation piece between parent and child.

my book is up for grabs, if anyone is interested ... and yes, I am aware of my tendency for the morose story ;)

For You Mom, Finally (memoir)

For You Mom, Finally by Ruth Reichl

In this slim volume, the author, a former New York Times food critic, editor of Gourmet magazine, and author of several books, delves into the life of her mother, now deceased, trying to figure out what made this woman tick. Her mother's life was always fraught, and she succeeded in driving her daughter away with her eccentricities and deep unhappiness and dissatisfaction with her own life. After her death, the author sets out to locate a box of her mother's letters and diaries that was supposed to exist, and find the box she does. Inside she is is finally able to get inside her mother's head and get to know a woman she never really knew or understood when she was living. It ends up being a journey of self-discovery for the author, as well as an opportunity to finally begin to heal from old wounds. She wrote this book as a gift to her mother, believing that her mother would have liked her story to be told so that she could be understood, and to thank her for the lessons and gifts she now understands that her mother gave her.

I bought this book on a whim on a recent trip to the bookstore because (a) I'm a sucker for a memoir, and (b) I tend to be drawn to stories having to do with mother-daughter relationships because my own relationship with my mother has always been so volatile and unhealthy. There is a part of me that hopes, I guess, to find the key by reading other people's stories of their own mother-daughter relationships - not the key to reconciling with my mother, but to understanding where it all went so terribly wrong, and to preventing it from happening with my own daughters.

This was also a fascinating read to me because it came on the heels of having read When Everything Changed, and this is an actual, personal (though somewhat second-hand) account of one woman's experience of having lived in an era when even the brightest, most motivated and ambitious women were encouraged to squelch any dreams they may have had outside of getting married, raising children, and maintaining households.

I really enjoyed this book and found it moving and thought-provoking. It's a quick read, and mine's up for grabs.

Empress Orchid (novel)

Empress Orchid by Anchee Min

The book opens with the title character at seventeen years old, left in poverty with her mother, sister and brother after the death of their father, a political figure in nineteenth century China. Orchid is given a chance to interview to become an Imperial Concubine, as the current Emperor is looking for mates to produce an heir to the throne. After being selected as an Imperial Concubine, she is given the rank of Fourth Wife and ends up producing the Emperor's only male heir (who will become "The Last Emporer"). The Emperor dies when his son is only five years old, amid much political and social unrest in China, and Orchid manages to eventually become the most powerful woman in China, although the book doesn't take the reader that far.

Based on actual history and people, this is a fictionalized, first-person, and sympathetic account of Empress Dowager Cixi's early life in the Forbidden City. Although rich in details pertaining to customs, beliefs, landscape and history, I found that the story tended to drag for long periods. The characters all seemed shallow, and it was difficult to relate or feel sympathetic to any of them. The author tends to use some verbage which I think is probably historically incorrect (did anyone really say "potty" back in the mid-1800s, or even "retarded"?), which I found irritating. Without spoiling anything, the story ends with a weird surprise regarding Empress Orchid's sister, which is never developed or explained, and, of course, the predictable love interest, which I don't know is historically accurate or just part of the fiction of the novel, but seemed unlikely to me. It does show a fascinating glimpse of the lives of concubines and eunuchs (eunuchs: an excellent example of the totally effed-up things we humans do to one another), and life during the Second Opium War.

I think this book might appeal more to someone especially interested in Chinese history. I read it because it's the current selection for my book club; I was glad to finally be done with it.

book give-away

A short while back, my daughter won a Dr. Phil gift basket at a Dodger game.  It came with a stack of books written by Dr. Phil and his wife, Robin.

My daughter, the book lover that she is, proudly gathered them into her arms and whisked them off to her room.  More than once I've gone in to get her up for school and found her reading one of these new treasures.  I was impressed, a little shocked even.  But last night she brought them all into my room and asked if I could find a home for the books.  Turns out, they were just a tad over her head.

at least she tried Ü

I figured I would put them up for grabs here.
First replied, first served.
Leave me a comment with the title you'd like and your email address so I can get with you on the shipping address.  The offer is good til the end of the month and then I will figure out something else to do with them.  So, for anyone interested ... here is the list!

Self Matters: Creating Your Life from the Inside Out
(autographed, hard cover)

NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Real Life: Preparing for the 7 Most Challenging Days of Your Life
(autographed, hard cover)

Family First: Your Step-by-Step Guide for Creating a Phenomenal Family
(autographed, paperback)

Love Smart: find the One You Want - Fix the One You Got
(autographed, hard cover)

The Ultimate Weight Solution: the 7 Keys to Weight Loss Freedom
(autographed, paperback)

Christmas in my Home and Heart
(hard cover)

Inside My Heart: Choosing to Live with Passion and Purpose
(paperback)

From My Heart to Yours: Life Lessons on Faith, Family and Friendship
(hard cover)