Forever Lily
Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China
by Beth Nonte Russell
240 pages
Memoir
Beth Nonte Russell shares her story in this personal memoir of her voyage to China with her friend Alex. Alex has been trying to adopt a baby from China for a year and a half, when she gets the approval she chooses her friend Beth to go with her. Beth feels she is an unlikely choice, as they are just casual friends and she hasn't been very close in the last several months, but never a woman to turn down an adventure she agrees.
Alex goes throughout a series of doubt and withdrawals while they are in china, she says she just, "doesn't love this baby". The author takes the reader through her own roller coaster of emotions which are choreographed all too well with the manipulation of her friend Alex. She wants the baby, then she doesn't, wants it, then doesn't- the whole time Beth is falling more and more in love with this delightful baby girl. What could be her fate if not brought back to America? She is already months behind in physical and mental development, and soon will probably just fail to thrive.
I wished I would fall in love with this book, and I didn't. I thought it was interesting, but it was too much about the relationship between the two American women and not enough about the baby's or the orphanages or china. The little glimpses of those things that are there are beautiful and a joy to read about. All of the internal wars between the women- that is something that I could have done without. I think that if you were really interested in international adoption it might be different. This one just wasn't for me, I would have preferred the author to tell of a different adoption that wasn't so much about her relationship with Alex, more about their family, and how the girl ended up being integrated into their family.
Also (not to rip on it) but throughout the book there are dreams, dreams that are supposed to be her past connection with this particular child. It was too strange (and disjointed) and didn't really work for me.
What did you think? Did you read it and love it? How do you do when you have to write negative reviews? I can't make all my reviews glowing, and I do not make apologies, this one just wasn't for me.
Other Blogger Reviews:
The Book Nest
The Written Word
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Home Girl
Title: Home Girl: Building a Dream House on a Lawless Block
Author: Judith Matloff
Pages: 290
Genre: Memoir, Travel, Home Repair, Urban Living
Yearly Count:6
Starting off as a travel memoir Home Girl really captured my attention in the beginning. Judith is a traveling world journalist who has been at it for 20 years and loves the whole deal. I couldn't help but relate to her gypsyish dreams of travel and adventure. A time comes though, when life's goals change and it is time for Judith to move into the dreams of family, consistency and not living each day in extreme danger. She and her hubby decide to purchase a house. They have no idea that their adventures overseas only were the tip of the iceberg!
I could relate to the desire to travel, to see things, experience and to live all over. Half way into the home-remodel Home Girl just lost interest for me, I tried to enjoy the rest but it was just too much detail on the freaky street that they chose to buy on and not enough about the little details that make the story relatable. I do see though how many others could relate to this story better than I did. After the initial couple chapters I just didn't feel that strong of a connection because she was so much different than me, in a different stage of life and searching for different things.
Why were Judith and her hubby there in the first place? I don't get it. There are so many, SO MANY, much better places to live than across the street of the crack capitol of the whole east coast!!! Seriously, I willed them to move so many times. What would you do if you found out after buying your home that it was the mecca of drugs and dealers??
It was very amusing though, how she and her husband John paid the drug dealers off the streets to help them renovate their home. I found most of those encounters very touching, humorous and to me they seemed pretty realistic. Judith and her husband kept rooting for these guys to get out of their situations, and it showed just how embedded they were that even after being given chances and time they still often felt the need to scurry back to what they knew and where they were comfortable. I get wanting to be someplace familiar, not even caring what it looks like, familiar makes me happy too. I got it.
All in all it was interesting, but not really my type of book, I just couldn't relate. But, if you are middle aged, just settling down, dealing with miscarriages or into remodeling homes...this could be perfect for you!
Have you ever dreamed of living somewhere to move there and find out you just couldn't wait to get out? Did it grow on you or did you flee like cat thrown in water?
Did you read this too?
They did:
Moment of Truth in Iraq
Title: Moment of Truth in Iraq
Author: Michael Yon
Pages: 256
Genre: Memoir, War
Yearly Count: 5
Michael Yon is a journalist, who since 2004 has chosen to report on the situation in Iraq first hand, yep over in Iraq. He isn't allowed to carry a gun, but goes out on missions, watches, encourages, and reports about what is going on, what he is seeing and does so with such excellence that after finishing the novel I was left speechless. I have started and deleted my review for this book almost ten times.
This is the only book I have purchased for myself in over a year. Does that say enough? I don't think it does. I have dreads, I am a vegetarian, I go hiking for fun and I live in Oregon and I loved this book, maybe that is what I am trying to make sure is understood. My brother is in the Army, he has been an enlisted man for almost 10 years. He has a family, a wife and two kids, he was in Iraq for over 16 months recently. He was injured in Iraq, he received a purple heart, he doesn't like to be called a hero, he says he isn't one, he is a guy doing his job.
I have cried when I think about what he has given up, the time that has lost with his family the worry his wife has endured, but he has told me before that he doesn't think of it that way. He saw the Iraqis, he saw the people there he saw changes, he saw what most journalists aren't there to report on, the victories.
Michael Yon is there, he is side by side with these heroes who are too humble to think of themselves that way. For them that word, hero conjures up images, images of a men they admire but not themselves. Yon was out there when my little brother was fighting with Operation Arrowhead Ripper.Unknowingly I picked up a copy of this book and asked my brother if he had heard of this guy, he said he didn't know but then I jokingly said, "look at the picture, you might recognize him!" he looked at the jacket flap and did!
I have come to admire Michael Yon in many ways, but the most important to me right now are that he is an insane brave man, and his objectiveness, sure he is over there with these guys, but I saw that he didn't speak all about the good things, he covered the losses and the wrong choices being made. Yes, even if they were being made by the leadership of the army, even if it didn't make the army look good, his honest voice was what I admired the most. Tell me what it was like, what you saw, that is what I want to know!!!
This review could go on for a day and a half, and I have quotes underlined that could go on for longer, but I'll stop. It was good, I loved it. More than anything I have heard, read or seen has given me a much fuller perception of the current situation in Iraq. I would recommend Moment of Truth in Iraq to everyone, but in a big way to those who just want to know what is going on over there. I have never felt a portrayal to be more ballanced than this one by Michael Yon. I recommend this book with no reservations, and in case you were wondering....yes of course it got my happy chicken award!
Michael Yon's Online Magazine (blog)
The Shiniest Jewel
Title: The Shiniest Jewel: A Family Love Story
Author: Marian Henley
Pages: 176
Yearly Count: 72
A graphic novel memoir of Marian Henely's experience with foreign adoption, and all that surrounded her life at that time. Her father is getting sick, she is learning to understand her parents approval for what it is, and Henely's vulnerability really is laid out in this book. The Shiniest Jewel, I could not put it down. I sat down with it unstarted, and got up with it finished. I cried, laughed and felt the range of emotions in between. I loved this graphic novel memoir. It is the best graphic novel I have ever read. Marian Henely's illustrations are minimalistic and clear, but really help the reader understand even more deeply than just the writing alone would her ups and downs, her stresses and all the setbacks in the process of adoption. I can't say enough.
I think books like this one, The Shiniest Jewel really help bring awareness of what adoptive parents go trough. I know not all foreign adoptions are the same, but all the stories I have heard personally have been equally difficult. Hopes up one moment, hopes dashed the next. I watched a friend of mine mourn when the girl they were supposed to fly over and adopt from Nigeria died before the fight was confirmed. The idea that they would KNOW her, an ocean away, and morn for her is understandable, isn't it? It is just like a pregnant woman who almost carries to full term, dreaming of all the meals she will eat with her child, all the baseball games they will watch together, all the shoes that will need to be tied, and then the baby does not make it.
Because foreign adoptions are such a big thing these days, this book is published in excellent timing. To help those who are going through the emotional circus of the adoption process, but also to help their friends, family and anyone else understand the difficulty and joy in bringing home a baby from a world away.
Amazing book.
Author Website: MarianHenley
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An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: a memoir
Title: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: a memoir
Author: Elizabeth McCracken
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pages: 188
Yearly Count: 61
In this AMAZING memoir Elizabeth McCracken tells her story, the life she has and the one that she lost. A book for those gone, so early in their little lives that it would seem they were almost a figment of our imagination. Written by a woman who knows what it feels like, what it looks like and how it is all perceived. What? A stillbirth, the loss, the pain, grief, the lists of firsts, of places never returned to, of a child that faded way before he was even seen.
McCracken's emotion in this book is not theatrical, over dramatic, or written about in a long prose of self-mope. It is a book of reality, of memories, and memories that should have been, but were not and of the life that continues and the loss that is still felt even when others forget.
If I had a stillbirth, this is the book I would grab, and if you haven't this is still the book I would recommend. I do not know this pain or the suffering that surrounds the death of a child, of one not even allowed to experience the first breath. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination speaks soothing while raw words, from the depths of honesty inside McCracken's stunning pen-shaped-heart.
As powerful as Elisabeth McCracken's memoir is, it is endearing, hopeful, sad and unique. This is the story of a woman, and her husband in a country not their own. The story of a baby that was not born, and his brother (born later) who would not ever take his place, but who would fill his parent's hearts with joy, even if they would never forget their sweet Pudding (that is what they endearingly named their first child). In reading it I felt encouraged, and uplifted, the way Elizabeth puts it down really mostly makes you think. It makes you see things in a new light, and from the angle of someone who has gone through loss. Ya gotta read it!!
Audio Excerpt by Elizabeth McCracken
Chapter Excerpt An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
Blog Tour Stops for: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
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