Eloquent Silence

When I can't sleep, I have a bad habit of picking up a book and reading until I can. Tonight I picked up Sandra Brown's Eloquent Silence because it was shorter.

Okay, here's what you need to know. She (Lauri) is teacher for deaf students. He (Drake Rivington, which I thought was awesome) is a (you have to be ready for it) soap star. He also has a daughter (Jennifer) who is deaf. He hires Lauri to move from New York to Arizona to privately tutor Jennifer.

Of course, there's this really strong attraction right from the beginning. Both are widowers. The difference? Drake is still in love with his dead wife, while Lauri was glad (in a non-creepy, non-black widow kind of way) that her husband died (she was sad at first, I swear).

Anyway, as Drake is in New York, filming, Lauri and Jennifer are bonding in Arizona.

Then Drake comes to Arizona. They (of course) become lovers after (many annoying) near misses, and (are you ready?) when her parents (a minister and his wife) show up unexpectedly at the house, Drake tells them (as to save her reputation) that they got married!

Oh my gosh. It all kind of spirals out of control from there. A reporter shows up, and suddenly everyone knows.

And she's mostly okay with it until Jennifer goes through the boxes of the dead wife's things, and Drake flips.

He leaves for New York, and when he come back, they hash it all out.

The best part of this book? The cheesy romance lines. "Drown me in your love, Drake!" (Oh man...so inappropriate...).

I can't even keep going, because the best ones are really, really inappropriate (especially given the context...oh my gosh), and I try to keep this (at least mostly) family friendly.

Anyway, it was fine. Good for an (inappropriate) laugh, but a fine story line too. Characters who were a little annoying, but not overly.

I liked it just fine.

Embrace Me

So, Carter, who is Lola's fiancee, lent Lola the book Embrace Me by Lisa Samson. Lola read it, and then told me that I had to read it, so she left it on my bed yesterday. I'm done with it now, and let me tell you---amazing.

Okay, so the story goes back and forth between a man and a woman. The man (Drew) happens in 2002/2003, and the woman (Valentine) happens in 2008/2009.

Here's your warning--this is a blatantly Christian novel. Big talk about Jesus and praying and redemption and the Church.

That said...

Drew is an ex-pastor who did everything wrong. He was kind of in it for the right reasons, but mostly for the wrong ones. When we meet him, he's left his mega-church and is living at the beach. He's detailing his sins for Father Brian, even though Drew isn't Catholic. It's a sad story of a man who wants power and approval, and will do anything to get it.

Valentine works in a Sideshow. Her face has been burned, and she dresses up in a green costume to become the Lizard Woman. Her best friend is Lella, the legless-armless woman. Val is bitter about her past, and churches in general.

It's the off-season in Val's time, so they're hanging around Mount Oak at the owner's house. A bunch of them who work in the sideshow stay together in the off-season.

Anyway, while Drew is working through his issues, so is Val.

It's amazing. Well written, well twined together, the story line is amazing. While the end gets a little cheesy, it is still poignant and beautiful.

I was a little sad that Gus stuck to his vows, but that's the (usually pushed aside and beaten up) romantic in me.

Oh, and let me just say that, for the record, the sins they deal with are things we all deal with. Wanting more. Greed. Unforgiveness. A likelihood of putting ourselves and our wants before anyone or anything else.

I loved it.

Books Can Change Your Life

I know this is a book review blog, but sometimes I need to deviate from just reviews. Sometimes, I need to say something else about books. I don't know if y'all come to read the reviews or the deviations, or both, but this is a deviation.

I'm a major nerd. In case you hadn't yet realized this, I really am. That said, books can change your life.

Any book. Not just the classics. As brilliant as Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shelly (either Shelly), Dickinson, Bronte, Austen, Socrates, Ovid, and all the rest of those geniuses in the canon are, other authors can change your life too. Stephen King, Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Danielle Steele, James Frey, Judy Bloom, Dan Brown... they can change your life too.

King Lear changed my life. Made me realize that Shakespeare was meant to be acted, not read. Great Expectations was the novel that made me realize that I'm not all that into classics. I was in 7th or 8th grade when I read it. The Crucible was one of the first "classic" novels that I liked. I didn't read it until 11th grade (a rather good year for me, literature-wise). Come 12th, we were reading "modern classics from around the world," things like 1984, Things Fall Apart, The Little Prince, all of which I liked.

Stephen King's On Writing was the first book that made me realize that it was okay that I wasn't into deep literature. Any myriad of Nora Roberts books made me realize that I'm not always happy with the happy ending. Joshilyn Jackson's books taught me about love and sadness and how they can sometimes be so intermingled that it's hard to see the former for the latter. Judy Bloom's Summer Sisters taught me that not everything stays innocent. Dean Koontz taught me about love with Odd Thomas, and Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game taught me about the dangers of government.

To Kill A Mockingbird taught me about injustice and separation. Charles Martin teaches about acceptance. Laurie Anderson taught me about the importance of speech, while Ellen Hopkins taught me the dangers of seduction.

I'm not saying I learn something, either about the world as a whole or myself in specific, every time I read something. Not even the second or third time I read something. Sometimes, I just learn that I really do like serial killer novels.

But once in a while, a book comes along that rocks my world. Makes me sit and think and stare into the distance until I figure out just what it is that sits with me.

Any books that did that for you? Feel free to leave a long list... I'm always looking for new things to read.

It could be anything. I like (some) classics, along with (some) modern stuff.

Oh, and I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that just because I don't love classic literature doesn't mean I was a bad English major. Some of us just aren't suited to long passages about slicing bread.