We're in Big Trouble Now...

Reviewed by James L. Thane
Four our of five stars


This book has the most intriguing premise of any that I've read in a long while. Set in the not-too-far-distant future, it features Hank Palace as a fledgling detective in Concord, New Hampshire. One night, Hank is called to the scene of a suspicious death in the restroom of a McDonald's restaurant. An insurance man named Peter Zell is lying on the floor with an expensive leather belt wrapped around his neck. The other end of the belt is tied to the handicap grip bar next to the toilet, and the officer who discovered the body has called it in as a 10-54S, that is, a suicide by hanging.

Sad to say, there's a lot of that going around these days, ever since astronomers discovered that a giant asteroid, designated 2011GV, is swinging around the sun in preparation for slamming into the earth at about a billion miles an hour six months hence.

The damned thing just came out of nowhere, one of those giant rocks that occasionally passes "near" to Earth but not close enough to be a concern. When 2011GV first appeared in distant space, all the "experts" insisted that it too would pass by harmlessly and that there was no need for concern. Turns out there was, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. The friggin' planet is about to be destroyed.

As one might imagine, a lot of people are upset about this and some changes have occurred in the wake of the news. The world economy has collapsed; there's a lot of turmoil everywhere; governments have assumed emergency powers, and so forth.

Lots of people are killing themselves; a lot of others have quite their jobs and are devoting their last six months to fulfilling life-long dreams. Then there's Detective Hank Palace, who's doggedly determined to keep doing the job he always wanted for as long as he possibly can.

The truth is that, at this point in time, no one really gives a rip what happened to Peter Zell and how he wound up dead in the McDonald's restroom. But Hank does. The death looks suspicious to him and he is determined to investigate it as a murder until proven otherwise. the book details his investigation which is, as you might imagine, a little out of the norm for a police procedural, given the death sentence hanging over everyone on the planet.

It's interesting to watch Hank work, and one admires his determination. Either that, or you question his sanity. It's also intriguing to watch how the rest of Winters' cast reacts to the coming of the end of the world. Any fan of police procedurals and looming apocalyptic novels will probably enjoy this book.

[SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW THE BOOK ENDS!]

(view spoiler) I do have one complaint about this book. I am compulsive about never reading a book's tease before beginning the book. I don't want to know anything about the plot until it unfolds in the course of the story. As I approached the end of the book, I was very anxious to see how the author would treat the final moments before the big collision between the asteroid and the Earth.

Except that he didn't. The book ends with several months still to go before the big event, and only then did I read the back cover and realize that this is only the first volume in a projected trilogy. I was hugely disappointed to learn that I would have to wait two more books before getting to the moment I was anticipating, and I'm not sure if I'm willing to do that, in large part because, although the premise is very intriguing, I'm not sure that it can be sustained over the course of three books rather than the one I was expecting. Also, I'm not sure I was enamored enough of Hank Palace to want to read two more books with him as the central character. This is a case where I'll probably wait to read reviews of the next two before deciding if I want to continue with the series.

No Need To Imagine, Here's The Goods

John by Cynthia Lennon
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dear John,

You were kind of a jerk to me when we were kids first going out. I mean, you really scared the shit out of me. I understand all the problems you had growing up in a broken family and all. It was definitely hard on you. So I stuck it out and stayed with you, even when the Beatles were forming and getting big. That wasn't easy, you and the boys always being torn away in different directions. I didn't know where you were from one minute to the next. But again, I stayed by your side and how'd you repay me? By shacking up with that Asian slut!…sorry. I'm sorry. I promised I wasn't going to do that. I'm above it, I've moved on, and so have you, obviously. If I'm being honest, I guess I don't fully understand what you saw in her. I'm not going to say anything against her, I don't even really know her. But whatever, it happened. I wish it hadn't, but that's life. Btw, our son is doing fine, if you care.

Sincerely,

Cynth

PS: I am truly sorry you got shot to death.

War And Peace And Love

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Love

That was the one thing I thought was missing from Leo Tolstoy's title, War and Peace. I was wrong. Love is in the title, you just have to look for it.

Certainly there is love in peace. It is the time of children, serenity, growth. The mother peacefully raising her children. The farmer lovingly tending his fields. The elderly passing their final days in comfort surrounded by family.

But there is love in war as well. The love for one's country. Such is a person's violent attachment to their motherland that they will die for it. To give up your own life so another should live, that is love indeed.

What is this preoccupation with love? Well, the Leo Tolstoy I've read is incomplete without this aspect within his writing. I knew this book would be about war, specifically Russia's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, but I didn't right off see where the love would come in. It arrived in spades. There are peace-loving characters and there are those who are uber patriotic. Then there is man's love for the good he sees in another man's actions. And then there is the love that weds a couple for life.

Tolstoy's genius as a writer lies in his ability to dash his pen across all this with the same level of integrity regardless of whether his subject is a gallant officer in love with death or the daisy-fresh, springy step of a blossoming girl smitten by good looks and dash. Tolstoy transcends himself to become these hearty or hapless creatures. Then he marries them to our soul. Over these seemingly effortless hundreds upon hundreds of pages, these characters become family to us. We love them like brothers. We root for them. We are annoyed by them. We hate a few of them, but after all, they are family and therefore we must abide by them at least to a certain degree.

And when you step back from the book and see your attachment to these characters, it amazes you…and then it disheartens you, for you realize they are nothing but Tolstoy's puppets used in a grand way so that he may slash and burn the icon of his hatred, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Tolstoy seethes with loathing for this man. In large spurts through out, he devotes half the book to lampooning the man and his military deeds, and then as if that weren't enough, he piles on an average-sized book's worth of epilogue on essentially the same topic. In an effort to portray fairness, he also fillets his own. The Russian military leaders of the day come in for their share of condemnation. At times Tolstoy pours so much vitriol upon his own that you have to stop to recall who "the enemy" is.

Why is this a 5 star book? After all, it's not perfect, being neither fully a novel nor a military treatise, but rather both and not always successfully joined. For all its many pages, there was only a small handful of moments where I felt my heart fly or crash. Perhaps it is the vast scope of it all and the effortless way in which it is carried off. So much happens. Tolstoy gives us many rare experiences, puts us in battle after battle - whether it's upon the field amidst cannon and rifle fire, within the home during a dangerous pregnancy, or between an embattled couple bereft of love. Each of these scenes rings true, ringing to their own tune and yet all combining into one beautiful symphony.


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The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin.

 

Reviewed by carol

Recommended for: you, if you want an unusual fantasy read

Read on August 17, 2012

★★★★★

 

 

Every now and then, something special brings a new flavor, a blending of colors, an amazing moment, that just leaves me saying ‘wow.’ Jemisin did that for me in The Killing Moon. An unusual story line, an interesting fantasy world, multi-culti characters, and theological sophistication while being oh-so-readable made for an engrossing, delicious read. I sat down today and read until it was finished, breaking only for dinner and to follow the sun as it shifted around the yard.

The story takes place in a low-tech, stratified society roughly based on ancient Egypt. It’s a desert setting, prone to annual flooding; transport is by camels, horses and the occasional ship. Where Jemisin has made in roads into the unusual is in one of the main religions, the worship of the female deity Hananja, that crosses national boundaries. The priest-sect, the Hetawa, use magic taken from dreams to heal and to ease pain, but easing pain is a double-edged sword as they also gently usher people into the next life. Those whose souls are ‘gathered’ are usually those whose time has come, or who have been judged and found guilty of corruption. Jemisin does an astounding job at showing the beauty of what we in hospice like to call a ‘good death.’ The caveat being that it takes place in the night, during sleep and the cultural traditions around it mean it is a solitary experience. But in the end, isn’t it always? The people who hold vigil most likely do it for themselves, although I will say that I feel it is a mark of humanity to bear witness.

But I digress. Ehiru, one of the most experienced Gatherers, makes a mistake during a soul-gathering, causing a crisis of conscience. Unfortunately, one of the trainees is just to the point where he is assigned a mentor, and Nijiri most assuredly knows he wants Ehiru in that role. We get hints of a backstory to their meeting, but it isn’t until much later that we understand how layered their relationship is. Alongside this is the story of the Prince of the country, and Sunandi, a female ambassador from a neighboring country. Her mentor has been killed, most likely assassinated, and she’s left to piece together the puzzle of his research. One of the greatest perversions of the Hetawa is occurring for political means, and she is looking for proof.I won’t go father in plot summary except to say it was both unusual, suspenseful and a pleasure.

Character creation was phenomenal, with very dimensional leads that struggled with ethics, their histories, intended actions, sexuality–truly, all encompassing portrayals. Even the villains were more than cut-out, and their motivations were more sophisticated than plain evil. Also a pleasure was the multi-culti aspects of the book–although the caste system is not specifically spelled out, it appears that the darker the skin, the more likely the caste is high. The women are people, not tropes, with insights, prejudices and determination. There’s a very delicate and understated exploration of sexuality in the acolyte that impressed me.

If there’s any complaint I can find at the moment, it’s that very little is explained up front, which more than likely accounts for some of the less enthusiastic reviews. It takes a little time to show us, since Jemisin avoids the dreaded info-dump, so the beginning required a great deal of concentration to focus on names, cultural terms and places–this was not an old, familiar world that one could slip into like a pair of worn shoes. This is, however, a pair that will pay off in wow-value if you can get past the initial break-in.Truly a remarkable work with sophisticated themes, world-building and characters. Highly recommended for fantasy lovers.

The World of Normal Boys

K.M. Soehnlein
Kensington
Reviewed by: Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Overview

K.M. Soehnlein's trenchant, emotionally honest debut novel unfailingly captures the spirit of a generation and an era. "The World of Normal Boys" is told in the haunting voice of thirteen-year-old Robin MacKenzie, a modern-day Holden Caulfield, whose struggle for a place in the world is as ferocious as it is real.It is the late 1970s in suburban New Jersey, and while "normal boys" are into cars, sports, and bullying their classmates, Robin Mackenzie enjoys day trips to New York City with his elegant mother. He dutifully plays the role of the good son for his meat-and-potatoes father, even as his own mind is a jumble of sexual confusion and self-doubt. But everything changes in one, horrifying instant when a tragic accident wakes his family from their middle-American dream and plunges them into a spiral of slow destruction. As the MacKenzie family falls apart, Robin embarks on an explosive odyssey of sexual self-discovery that will take him into a complex future, beyond the world of normal boys.

My Review

I've read lots of coming-of-age stories, but none have dredged up as many sweet and painful memories as this one has. The author has done an amazing job bringing the 70's to life and creating a character that is so believable and so easy to identify and connect with.

Robin MacKenzie is 13 years old and living in a New Jersey suburb with his parents, brother and sister. In many ways he is a typical teenager, wanting to make friends, fit in, and be “cool”. Though Robin is gay, this is a truly universal story about growing up, discovering one’s sexuality, and finding one’s way in the world. It is about friendship, family relationships, grief, guilt, and coping with loss.

There are a variety of well-drawn and dynamic secondary characters with their own baggage that make Robin’s life difficult and help contribute to his growth. This is a wonderful, thought-provoking, rich and compelling story that very accurately portrays the life of a confused and troubled teen.

I am looking forward to the sequel. 

Also posted at Goodreads.

Talk About a Damsel in Distress

The Heroines
by Eileen Favorite
Published by Scribner

1 Out of 5 Stars
Reviewed by Amanda

Sometimes a clever conceit should remain just that--a conceit. Because no matter how you try to develop it, it will never be as as wonderful as the idea itself. Trying to build upon it and give it complexity strips it of its fanciful "What if?" brilliance and plummets it back to earth. And so we have The Heroines, a novel built around one of the most wonderful ideas I've ever encountered--what if the heroines from famous novels needed a respite from the tragedies of their own storylines--and yet promptly clustermugs the whole thing.

Basically, I feel as though I was sold a false bill of goods. The novel purports to be about a bed and breakfast that attracts the heroines of famous novels. Deirdre of the Sorrows, Franny Glass, Daisy Buchanan, Anna Karenina, Hester Prynne, and Catherine Earnshaw have all signed the guest book and checked in for a few days of freedom from the misery of their lives. This is what I wanted to read about--how the heroines come to be at the bed and breakfast and how they interact with a modern world. I expected quirky, witty, and humorous. What I got was dark, disjointed, and ordinary. Instead of focusing on the heroines (who are little more than footnotes), the novel focuses on Anne-Marie Entwhistle and her daughter, Penny. Anne-Marie and Penny run the bed and breakfast and, unfortunately, the novel chooses to focus on their problematic relationship as a result of Penny's coming of age. WTF? Scarlett O'Hara's pounding on the door and instead of focusing on that, a pedestrian mother/daughter conflict is the subject of the book? And that is, in essence, the root source of my disappointment with the book. When heroines do (very briefly) make an appearance, they are flat, one-dimensional versions of their colorful, complex selves. Hester sets about sewing an A on the front of her dress and throwing just enough "thou" into her dialogue to make her seem authentic; Scarlett wakes in the middle of the night to pull down the curtains (for dressmaking purposes, of course) and try to steal the sweet potatoes; Deirdre constantly weeps. They read as caricatures of themselves.

As for the plot, Penny is rebelling by going out into the nearby woods despite her mother's rule against doing so. While there she meets and falls in lust with the Irish King of Ulster, Connor (better known as Conchobar in the original Deirdre mythology), who has followed Deirdre into our time. Through a muddled turn of events, Penny is locked up in a psych ward and we have to read about her "it's-all-so-unfair!" experiences there. After finally breaking free, Penny returns to the woods with Connor, during which some awkward sexual awakening occurs and Penny is going through withdrawal from the meds given to her in the psych ward. She spends her days smoking pot while Connor hunts deer and builds huts. Aaannnnndddddd that's pretty much it. Basically, there's just enough inexplicable tragedy and unresolved longing in Penny's life to make one wonder if Penny is herself a heroine (a thought which Penny also considers).

Then we have a peculiar shift in narrative and we go back in time to when Penny's mother was a young woman. A point of contention between Penny and her mother has always been the void that is Penny's father. Penny knows that her mother became pregnant out of wedlock, decided to keep the baby against the wishes of her parents, and that her father died in a car accident. Penny's mom is mum on the details of who Penny's father was and what, exactly, was the nature of their relationship. This part of the narrative answers all of the questions Penny has regarding her father. I won't reveal any more here as to do so would be to spoil the ending, but this story line was the best in the book and took about 10-15 pages. The payoff was not worth the other 200+ pages through which I had to drag myself.

The story could have been saved if the characters had been more likable, the heroines had made more frequent (and more satisfying) appearances, or if the story hadn't been so self-aware of how clever it was being with all of its metaphysical musings on the nature of "heroines" and storytelling itself.  

Heart Warming? Maybe. Funny? Yes!

The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

Christopher Moore

Four Stars

Review by Zorena

Summary

'Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.

But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn't run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.

But hold on! There's an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It's none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel's not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he's botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.

My Review

This book is just what I needed. Slightly warped, totally funny and seasonal to boot! The characters are to die for, some literally and some by laughing to death. Like Moore's Lamb, this delivers and even in time for Christmas!

I was a little worried at first that we would be constantly confronted with a Clarence gone bad but the angel makes just the right amount of appearances and not ones you'd expect. They are just enough to keep the title legitimate but not enough for him to overshadow the other well crafted people of Pine Cove. All them being so wonderfully flawed.

I really wish I had the money to buy multiple copies of this and hand them to each person that says I need to watch A Wonderful Life to get in the spirit of Christmas. I much rather prefer to laugh than to cry during the holidays. Tis the season to be jolly!

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

****NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER****

“The old face, crinkled and dented with canals running every which way, pushed and shoved up against itself for a while, till a big old smile busted out from beneath 'em all, and his grey eyes fairly glowed. It was the first time I ever saw him smile free. A true smile. It was like looking at the face of God. And I knowed then, for the first time, that him being the person to lead the colored to freedom weren't no lunacy. It was something he knowed true inside him. I saw it clear for the first time. I knowed then, too, that he knowed what I was - from the very first.”


John Brown the abolitionist.

The narrator of our tale is Henry/Henrietta Shackleford who is peacefully growing up a slave on the Kansas frontier... until John Brown shows up. In an ensuing argument between John Brown and Henry’s owner the boy’s father ends up dead. Henry is spirited away to freedom and none too happy about it. Later when Brown is on lecture tour he asks Henry to participate.

”And I might ask you to tell some of our donors about your life of deprivation and starvation as a slave. Being hungry and all. Whipped scandalous, and them type of things. You can tell them that.”

I didn’t want to confess to him I weren’t never hungry as a slave, nor was never whipped scandalous. Fact is, only time I was hungry and eating out of garbage barrels and sleeping out in the cold was when I was free with him.

Now Henry is obviously a boy, but because of a mixup from the beginning John Brown thinks he is a girl.

See, my true name is Henry Shackleford. But the Old Man heard Pa say “Henry ain’t a,” and took it to be “Henrietta.” which is how the Old Man’s mind worked. Whatever he believed, he believed. It didn’t matter to him whether it was really true or not. He just changed the truth till it fit him. He was a real white man.

So Henry soon finds himself in a dress and most of the time it works for him because the Old Man didn’t believe in women fighting. Henry dreams about the carefree days when he was a slave living in relative comfort before he was caught up in Brown’s crazy schemes to free the black man.

Sometimes being in a dress doesn’t work so well, for instance, when he meets Frederick Douglass.

He squeezed the back of my neck, then stroked it with fat fingers. “This slender neck, the prominent nose--this too, belongs to the slave owner. They feel it belongs to them. They take what is not rightly theirs. They know not you, Harlot Shackleford.”

“Henrietta.”
“Whatever. They know not you, Henrietta. They know you as property. They know not the spirit inside you that gives you your humanity. They care not about the pounding of your silent and lustful heart, thirsting for freedom; your carnal nature, craving the wide, open spaces that they have procured for themselves. You’re but chattel to them, stolen property to be squeezed, used, savaged, and occupied.”

Well all that tinkering and squeezing and savaging made me right nervous, ‘specially since he was doing it his own self, squeezing and savaging my arse, working his hand down toward my mechanicals as he spoke the last, with his eyes all dewy, so I hopped to my feet.

MR. DOUGLASS!!!, you forget yourself sir.


Frederick Douglass may have had designs on our Little Onion.

James McBride does confess to us that all that Henry “Little Onion” Shackleford says may not be exactly true.

"I love the language of, you know, the old, black, country man with a blues guitar and ... boots and the quick banter. ... I just love that voice and I wanted this character to be an old man looking back on his life and then telling a, just a grand whopper."

James Brown, inflamed with righteous indignation, and convinced that the Lord was on his side starts a war, a crusade, against slavery. The powder keg that is waiting to be lit is in Kansas, a state that must come into the union as a free state. Missouri pro-slavers are riding throughout Kansas intimidating Anti-slavery settlers and even burned the town of Lawrence. Brown’s followers sliced and diced five pro-slavers with broadswords in retaliation.

A tad radical.

He raises an army and fights in several skirmishes with Missouri pro-slavery militia.
In the middle of all this is his good luck charm; Little Onion, the schemer, who is trying like hell to get away from this crazy man. Between all the hours of feverish praying and the constant lecturing Henry knows he can’t be the only one that thinks The Old Man’s cheese had slid off his biscuit.

Henry meets a whole cast of interesting characters during his pell mell journey around the United States and Canada. The descriptions that James McBride crafts of these characters are so memorable, and so creative that I feel like I was standing there with Little Onion when he met them.

Like Harriet Tubman.

Them eyes were staring down at me. I can’t say they was kind eyes. Rather they was tight as balled fists. Full. Firm. Stirred. The wind seemed to live in that woman’s face. Looking at her was like staring at a hurricane.


Harriet Tubman, her face was like looking into a hurricane.

Or how about Pie, the whore that Henry falls head over heels in love with.

She was a mulatto woman. Skin as brown as a deer’s hide, with high cheekbones and big brown dewy eyes as big as silver dollars. She was a head taller than me but seemed taller. She wore a flowered blue dress of the type whores naturally favored, and that thing was so tight that when she moved, the daisies got mixed up with the azaleas. She walked like a warm room full of smoke.

Or how about Darg.

He had a thick chest, wide shoulders, and big, thick arms. He wore a straw hat an coveralls and a shawl around his shoulders. His lips was the color of hemp rope, and his eyes was so small and close together, they might as well have been shoved in the same socket. That fool was ugly enough to make you think the Lord put him together with His eyes closed, guessing. But there was power in that man, too, he was raw powerful, and looked big enough to pick up a house.

It all culminates in a final desperate plan to take Harper’s Ferry, liberate the weapons stored there, and give them to the negroes so they can fight for their freedom. Part of Henry’s job was to HIVE the negroes, but no matter how much buzzing he did he found most of the slaves unwilling to risk their lives for freedom especially with a CRAZY WHITE MAN.


The Longer the campaign the more GOD LIKE his appearance became.

John Brown accepted long before even the most fervent abolitionists that peaceful calls for the ending of slavery were never going to lead the blacks any closer to freedom. He knew the entrenched ideas of the Southern culture and their economic ties to slave labor would not be changed without militant insurrection. John Brown fought his own civil war before Lincoln was even elected president. He was, in my opinion, insane, but unswervingly committed to his cause, and certainly on the right side of history. He was a man from Connecticut, who instead of sitting around in meeting houses talking about the horrors of slavery, threw himself into this battle before most of the country had even a glimmer of a thought that a war would be necessary to purge this barbaric practice. Change is so difficult that maybe, we will always need a few bat shit crazy people to force us to move forward.

“Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full.”

Highly recommended!!





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The Aftermath of a Hurricane

Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
2013
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars



This book is a devastating account of what happened at a hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Sheri Fink spent years reporting on this story and her writing is strong, filled with grim details and dreadful scenes, but it needed to be told.

After the storm, Memorial Medical Center was flooded and lost power, stranding a large staff and nearly 200 patients, many of whom needed oxygen and ventilators to help them breathe. Due to communication breakdowns, a lack of emergency preparedness, and massive failures from both the hospital's owner and the government, rescue operations were slow and stalled, leading doctors and nurses to prioritize patients into groups of who would be rescued first, or at all. 

"Nobody wrote it directly in a message, but some employees began to worry that the choice of which patients went out first could affect their medical outcomes. A realization dawned on Memorial's incident commander, Susan Mulderick, that day. The variability in the sizes of helicopters that were landing and the length of time it was taking to move patients to the helipad left her with one conclusion: not all of the patients would be getting out alive."

On the third day after the hurricane, the most critical patients — the ones who staff members didn't think could be evacuated and who had a slim chance of survival — were given drugs that would help ease their pain, and also helped them to die. Some called it euthanasia, others called it a necessary decision during an extreme disaster:

"In the days since the storm, New Orleans had become an irrational and uncivil environment. It seemed to [Dr.] Thiele the laws of man and the normal standards of medicine no longer applied. He had no time to provide what he considered appropriate end-of-life care. He accepted the premise that the patients could not be moved and the staff had to go. He could not justify hanging a morphine drip and praying it didn't run out after everyone left and before the patient died, following an interval of acute suffering. He could rationalize what he was about to do as merely as abbreviating a normal process of comfort care — cutting corners — but he knew that it was technically a crime." 

The first half of the book provides almost an hour-by-hour account of what happened leading up to the storm and in the days following its landfall. It is a gripping, emotional read, and the situation is unimaginable. As conditions worsened inside the hospital — it was stifling hot without air conditioning, the only light came from flashlights and there was a overpowering smell of urine and feces because the sewers were overflowing — the staff described it as a hellish war zone and as a place that was no longer America.

The second half of the book, called The Reckoning, focuses on the investigation into the patient deaths. One doctor and two nurses were eventually arrested, but charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence, overwhelming public and political support for the workers, and criticism of the lack of preparedness and support from the government: "The issue of larger responsibility and blame, regardless of whether it would be admissible in a court of law, was on many people's minds. Individual decisions at the hospital had occurred in a context of failures of every sort. Since the storm, government agencies, private organizations and journalists had churned out reports that analyzed and found fault with actions and inaction at nearly every level of every system." 

Fink's epilogue highlights the lessons learned, if any, from what the hospitals in New Orleans faced after Katrina. Fink compares the situation to what happened after the earthquake in Haiti and Hurricane Sandy hit New York City. In both cases, health care workers had to make tough choices about who would get access to limited medical resources. Fink's reporting is alarming because it addresses the issue of how many hospitals and other medical facilities have their generators on the ground floor, which can become useless in event of flooding. Similarly, not enough has been done to plan for emergency situations, such as a massive flu outbreak or another natural disaster. "Life and death in the immediate aftermath of a crisis most often depends on the preparedness, performance and decision making of the individuals on the scene. It is hard for any of us to know how we would act under such terrible pressure."

I would highly recommend the book to health care professionals, first responders, those interested in bioethics, and anyone who appreciates excellent reporting.

Girlfriend, You Need a Makeover

The Truth About Style by Stacy London
2012
Reviewed by Diane K. M.
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars


I have a girl crush on Stacy London. Back when I had cable, I watched her on "What Not to Wear" every week and wished I could go shopping with her. She is so funny and lively and chic! She seems like a woman who has it all.

Her book, "The Truth About Style" was surprisingly personal. It was a relief to find out that the fabulous Stacy London also struggles with body image and confidence issues. As a child, Stacy suffered from a severe outbreak of psoriasis, an autoimmune disorder that left red welts and crusty skin all over her body. She said she spent years wearing only turtlenecks and long pants, even on the hottest days. She felt like a freak, and the kids in her school made fun of her. She eventually recovered from psoriasis, but in college she became anorexic, her weight dropping down to 90 pounds. Later, she couldn't stop binge eating and her weight climbed to 180. Stacy, now in her 40s, said her weight still fluctuates a bit, but she's smarter about knowing how to dress her body.

"Style, unlike fashion, is personal. It's about the individual. You have to know yourself in order to utilize style. Style isn't selling you a false promise. It's reality based, and operates on the knowledge of what is right for you. ... Style is about enhancing who you are, and not attempting to look like someone you'll never be. With style, there are as many ways a woman can look beautiful as there are women."

After sharing her story, Stacy introduces nine different women, each one who needs help with their style. Some women don't know how to dress for their age or a change in weight, others have trouble finding clothes because they're curvy or plus-sized or tall or petite; one is a breast cancer survivor who wants to feel feminine again, another is a perfectionist and is scared to buy anything in case it's the wrong choice, and one is a busy mom who hasn't bought anything for herself in years because she gives it all for her kids. Stacy said she solicited appeals from hundreds of women who wanted a style makeover, which she calls "start-overs," and she picked nine women who represent problems lots of us face.

"Making excuses and letting fear rule our style stop us from expressing our true selves and what we could look like at our best. We get in the way of our own potential instead of reveling in it. Negative thought-loops are self-perpetuating. If we don't like what we see in the mirror, we either ignore it or we overcompensate for it ... By changing your style, you're forced to change the way you perceive yourself. And if you can see yourself differently, you can start to feel differently. If you put on clothes that actually flatter your figure, you suddenly may not feel as badly about your body anymore. When you think positively about one aspect of yourself, it becomes easier to believe in yourself in lots of different contexts."

I related to several of the women's stories and appreciated the style advice Stacy gives to each. The book has lots of photographs, including before and after photos, and descriptions for the clothes and accessories. Stacy always advises people to dress the body they have now, not the one they wish they had:

"Nobody is perfect. Don't approach the mirror and hope, each time, that you'll look like someone else. You're going to be disappointed if you do ... No matter how much you subjectively love or hate your shape, it's still the same body you're going to wake up with each morning. Stop exhausting yourself hoping, wishing, praying to be someone different, and take pleasure in knowing that you are who you are, in all your fabulous uniqueness. Go about the business of working with that real body to create a style you love and can love your shape in."

At the back of the book, Stacy includes a shopping guide of stores and designers for different women's needs, such as plus sizes, petites, glamazons, shoes, denim, etc. I would recommend this book to any woman who feels like they are stuck in a style rut and needs a boost to get out. It's like getting a hug and helpful nudge from a fabulous friend.