Book Club Friday: Call Me Tuesday

 

It's been so long since I've linked up for Book Club Friday!  I'm excited to be back, and to share this book with all of you!  It's been a while since I've gotten so into a book that I can hardly put it down, that was precisely what happened when I picked up Call Me Tuesday during our flight home from Seattle.

 

 

From Amazon:

 

At eight-years-old, Tuesday Storm's childhood is forever lost when tragedy sends her family spiraling out of control into irreparable dysfunction. Almost overnight, the loving environment she's come to know is replaced with unrelenting hostility and twisted punishments, as she's forced to confront the dark cruelty lurking behind the face of the mother she idolizes. Based on a true story, Call Me Tuesday recounts, with raw emotion, her physical and mental torment at the mercy of the monster in her mother's clothes--a monster she doesn't know how to stop loving.

 

This book is heartbreakingly sad.  It goes into detail about poor Tuesday's abuse, and I wouldn't recommend those of you drowning in hormones (ie Me) to rush out and buy it.  I'm not entirely sure how this got on my to-read list, but despite the in-flight tears, it was so worth the read.

 

Call Me Tuesday had me wishing I could jump right into the pages and save little Tuesday from her hellish life myself.  It is compelling, and a little confusing.  Confusing not because it is not clearly written, but because if you're like me, you truly can't comprehend a parent subjecting their child to the kind of abuse Tuesday is put through.

 

 

What's the best book you've read recently?

Book Club Friday: Drinking and Tweeting

It's been way too long since I've linked up with Heather and Katie for Book Club Friday.  Partially because I've been a reading slacker and partially because the books I have read?  Not worth blogging about, sad to say.

But the book I read over our East Coast Vacation?  Totally worth a blog post!

Drinking & Tweeting and Other Brandi Blunders

 

I absolutely adored this book!  It is certainly not going to win any Pulitzers for it's literary genius, but I powered through it because I just enjoyed just about every second of it! 

 

First of all, I am a huge fan of Brandi on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, so if you're not - this probably isn't your book.  But personally I think she is hysterical, raw and real, and all around fabulous.  Any girl who says shut the eff up casually at a dinner party is my kinda chick.

 

The book is honest, and talks about stuff that a lot of celebrities just don't talk about, let alone write a whole book about it! 

 

If you like the Beverly Hills Housewives, especially Brandi, do yourself a favor and read this book!



 

Book Club Friday: Two Kisses for Maddy

Oh.Em.Gee, Y'all...

this book.

From Amazon:

Matt and Liz Logelin were high school sweethearts. After years of long-distance dating, the pair finally settled together in Los Angeles, and they had it all: a perfect marriage, a gorgeous new home, and a baby girl on the way. Liz's pregnancy was rocky, but they welcomed Madeline, beautiful and healthy, into the world on March 24, 2008.

Just twenty-seven hours later, Liz suffered a pulmonary embolism and died instantly, without ever holding the daughter whose arrival she had so eagerly awaited. Though confronted with devastating grief and the responsibilities of a new and single father, Matt did not surrender to devastation; he chose to keep moving forward-- to make a life for Maddy.

In this memoir, Matt shares bittersweet and often humorous anecdotes of his courtship and marriage to Liz; of relying on his newborn daughter for the support that she unknowingly provided; and of the extraordinary online community of strangers who have become his friends. In honoring Liz's legacy, heartache has become solace.

From Me:

If this book sounds completely sad?  It's because it is.

But in one of those amazing reads, even though it makes you completely sob like a crazy person while reading a book, way.  It is horrifically sad - sad in a way that makes tears come to my eyes just writing about it.

But an amazing story, written by an even more amazing author and father.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"I tried to remember how beautiful she looked.  Holding her hand there on her bed, I kept repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."  I knew it wasn't my fault, just like it wasn't anybody else's fault.  But I wasn't apologizing for her death.  I was apologizing for what could have been, what should have been, and for what she was going to miss as our daughter grew up."

"Though I thought I had no tears left, they once again started to flow as I brought the pillow and the shawl up to my face, taking in her scent.  Her perfume was so deeply embedded into both objects, I swore I wouldn't let them go until I'd sniffed every last bit of her from them.  It was remarkable how the smell filled me with hope - hope that I'd be able to sleep through the night, hope that there'd be a dream during which Liz was still alive in my mind.  I ached for just one moment in which this wasn't my reality."

Right?

Do yourself a favor and read this book, be grateful for your life with your loved ones, and cry an ugly little cry - the tears are worth how incredible the book is.

(One suggestion: don't finish reading this book while you're waiting for your husband to get out of emergency surgery.)

Book Club Friday: One Pink Line

Today, I'm linking up with one of my favorite baby mama's, Heather from Blonde Undercover Blonde for Book Club Friday!

This book?  Was fabulous.

I got completely sucked into the story in a way I haven't in a long long time.

From Amazon:

Can the love of a lifetime be forever changed by one pink line? Dina Silver's tender, absorbing novel, One Pink Line, is the warmhearted, wry story of love, loss and family, as seen through the prism of one singular, spirited young couple who find themselves in a predicament that changes the course of their lives, and those closest to them. With heart, humor and compassion, this debut work of women's fiction is certain to stir anyone who relishes a good laugh, can stand a good cry, and, above all believes in the redemptive power of love. This unique, contemporary story gives readers a dual perspective.

Sydney Shephard, a sweet-tempered, strong-natured college senior is young, in love with an exceptional man, and unexpectedly pregnant. Faced with a child she never planned for, she is forced to relay this news to her neurotic mother, relinquish her youth, and risk losing the love of her life. Then there's Grace, a daughter, who believed she was a product of this great love, grows to realize her existence is not what she assumed, and is left with profound and puzzling questions about who she really is.

Spanning generations and every imaginable emotion, One Pink Line reveals how two points of view can be dramatically at odds, and perhaps ultimately reconciled. Simultaneously deeply felt and lighthearted, One Pink Line deftly mines how the choices we make are able to alter so many lives, and how doing the right thing and living honestly can bring unexpected, hard-won happiness. It's a must-read for anyone who craves a great love story, absorbing characters, and plenty of laughs along the way.

Y'all, I love me some good chick lit.

An easy read, with some characters I can get emotionally invested in - is that too much to ask?!

This delivered, and then some.

The author only has one other book out right now, and while the plot's not really calling out to me, I hope she'll come out with another book soon!

Bonus?  It was only $2.99 for Kindle!

(And still is, for now!)

What are you reading right now?

Book Club Friday: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

 

I'm linking up with Heather of Blonde Undercover Blonde for the first time eva today to share a book I recently read and loved.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.

Soon to be made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, this New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of.

(From Rebecca Skloot's Website)

I'm not sure if being in the medical field cinched my interest in this book, but as soon as I picked it up in the bookstore I knew I'd be into it.  It sucks you in, and really makes you think about the medical research industry and all it has evolved from and into.  It is not all science and med talk though - it tells the sad story of Henrietta Lacks losing her horrific battle with cervical cancer, and the unraveling of her family that followed.

Now that I am the proud owner of a Kindle (Thanks, MIL Red!), I may or may not be doing more and more Book Club Fridays - what do y'all think?

Help me stock my Kindle full of goodies to read,

what's the last good book you read?

(And then go link it up to Heather's Book Club Friday!)

PS!

If you're coming over from Blonde Undercover Blonde, make sure to check our my awesome Beauty Bundle GIVEAWAY, complete with makeup perfect for blondes OR brunettes!  (Or redheads, of course.)