Tag: friendships

Tree. Table. Book. by Lois Lowry (Middle Grade Fiction)

11-year old Sophie’s best friend is another Sophie — her 88-year old neighbor Sophie Gershowitz. Older Sophie is the one with whom young Sophie has a “true and lasting friendship, a friendship of the heart.” But older Sophie is not doing well — her memory is failing and there are rumors of her being removed to a facility in a distant town. To help, young Sophie tries to prepare her for the memory tests she will be faced with. She tries to get her to remember three simple words — Tree, Table, Book — by cementing them in stories that are important to the older woman. But the stories that come out are heartbreaking, secret, and revealing to the point of translucency. Pieces of history that explain who Sophie G is and how she became that person.

Lowry is (and always has been) an incredible writer. I’ve probably read everything she has written, and she has never failed to catch me in surprise with her revelations. The 86-year old author is able to put herself into the characters of both Sophies beautifully. Young Sophie’s mind meanders like an intelligent, curious, 11-year old. Older Sophie’s mind loses details but holds on tenaciously to the important truths of life. Lowry — as usual — manages to get essence into every single sentence. I was brought to tears multiple times. The tears were not dragged out of me, though, but were natural products of the feelings at the heart of the book. I felt more reading this 200 page book aimed at 8-12 year olds than the most dramatic adult books. And I love the (almost) last line which is included in one of the quotes below.

Quotes:
“I had told Sophie Gershowitz that I always got the dates right, on history tests, always got As. That was true. But I had never really got it, never understood history, how things fit together, because I needed someone to tell me the stories not of politics and dictators, but of berries and bunnies and books. Of how things are lost, and what that means and how it hurts.”

“I prefer curved and winding roads. They make me think about Stuart Little setting off in his tiny car to look for love.”

“In order to understand how it feels to say goodbye to your dearest friend, you need to know about a flowered apron, a Jello-O mousse, an old refrigerator with ice trays, and a whistling teakettle. You need a size-small T-shirt that says Live Long and Prosper. You need a yardstick. Maybe you above all need a yardstick, because you have to measure everything so that it fits together, because you have to aim for an understandable ending.”

“It is exhausting to think about it. There is so very very much to fix. And I know, of course, that a lot of it isn’t fixable. I understand that.
But I can try. I’ll start small.”

Thank you to Clarion Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 23rd, 2024.

Reunion by Elise Juska (Literary Fiction)

June 2021 — Three friends anticipate a Covid postponed college reunion at the Maine campus. Hope — a stay at home mom with an increasingly distant husband — is desperate to return to what she remembers as her happiest time; Adam looks forward to reconnecting but feels guilt at leaving his perpetually sad wife with the twins in the house that she hasn’t left in a very long time; and NYC based single-mom Polly who doesn’t share her friends fond memories, but is persuaded to attend by her reclusive son who wants to visit a nearby friend.

This character-driven novel explores friendships and personal growth against the backdrop of lock down parenting and recovery alongside some pretty intense environmental anxiety. With every relationship comes inevitable clashes and this story covers quite a few. I particularly “enjoyed” the generational clashes — some familiar and some brand new to me as successive generations bear less and less in common with my own. Well written probes into the evolution of friendships
— what connects people with little in common and what decisions can impact the closeness over time. I really liked that the ending for all of our protagonists had a closure that was more about understanding the nature of their issues, thereby clarifying a path towards closure, rather than any kind of quick solution to the problem itself — because there really are no quick solutions to relationship issues…

One kind of funny (to me) quote as Hope thinks about her teenage daughter Izzy: “Meanwhile, Izzy was skeptical of all things where Hope was concerned. Her Spotify list. Her low-carb bread. Her Facebook posts — too frequent, too obviously curated — why was she even on Facebook? Her overuse of exclamation points. Her leather tote. Sometimes Hope secretly wondered if Izzy had become a vegan primarily to get on her nerves.”

Thank you to Harper and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on May 11th, 2024.

Famous in a Small Town by Emma Mills

#2 in the children / YA review series!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. The book will be published on January 15, 2019.

Writing: 4 Plot: 4.5 Characters: 5

A beautifully written book about the strength of friendships.

Sophie loves everything about her small Illinois town of Acadia — the Yum Yum Shoppe with its fourteen flavors, the school marching band, and the music of their one famous singer / songwriter — Meagan Pleasant. Most important is her close friend group, encapsulated in their WWYSE (where will you spend eternity) group chat — though newcomer August is a pretty intriguing addition.

There is plenty of plot — some romance, some adventure, and some revenge planning along with a well-paced unfolding of surprising secrets. However, the real attraction of the book lies in the characters themselves — likable kids dealing with the realities of life in ways that are focussed, but not dripping with drama. The dialog is natural and (very) funny. There were several points where I teared up reading inspired descriptions of the importance of friendships and family in life. While there is little of the grit present in some urban YA novels, it doesn’t shy away from elements in the environment that today’s teens may be exposed to: blended families, drug use, casual sex, single mothers, open sexual preferences, and even relatives in jail. Acadia isn’t a fairytale locale but a very real place where teenagers are simply trying to grow up and understand what is important to them.