Book reviews

I highly recommend My Father's Gardens, by Karen Levy.  I picked it up originally because the author is from around here and is coming to temple to talk about it in a few weeks, but I soon forgot why I was reading it, and just gobbled up every page.  It's a memoir of the author's transitory life.  Her parents constantly moved back and forth from Israel to CA, often spending one year or two or three in one country, then moving back.  It's a tale of belonging, of language, of deciding who to be and where.  I obviously related a little bit, but would have read even had I never been to Israel; it's beautifully evocative and makes the sounds, smells, and visual aspects of both Israel and CA come alive.  Plus, her family dynamics are fascinating.

The Good Dream, on the other hand, by Donna VanLiere was only okay.  The writing was nice but I think it was the plot itself that I couldn't swallow.  A woman in her 30s in 1950s Tennessee is considered an old maid and has to constantly defend herself against town criticism and trying to be set up.  Concurrently, a small boy is being horridly abused up in the hills.  Their paths cross when he steals food from her garden, and as she attempts to uncover his story and adopt him, long-held secrets in the town come to light.  I admit I probably don't like it that much because I don't fully understand what it was like to be in the pre-civil rights South.  But oy, one woman lets herself be abused for years and everyone knows it because she had to keep up appearances; another woman runs off with a certified rapist rather than tell her dad she got pregnant; the main character keeps defending all the idiots who try to undermine her, and with a few exceptions, the men are alcoholics and small-minded.  Was the South really this way?  Was any small town this way?  It makes me glad to live in 2013, let me tell you that much.

Not a book review, but a review nonetheless - Cars is incredible for kids my age, but I actually found Cars 2 disappointing for my boys.  Cars is a coming-of-age story, all about friendship and learning not to be selfish.  I hadn't realized that the sequel was put out five years after the first, and the filmmakers were going for the same kids, just grown up.  Hence the sequel is a kid James Bond movie, a spy film where there is a definite enemy and every character has to be avoid being killed by gunfire.  It was a good film, don't get me wrong - but for the 11 year old set, not the 4 year old set.  I was shocked that both were rated G, when one had no violence and the other was stuffed with it!  Doesn't make much sense to me.  But obviously I'm not the target audience.

Anyway, family, now you have something to read while I'm off to sort pictures!