Heart of the Matter

Tessa Russo is a stay-at-home mother of two young children and the wife of a renowned pediatric surgeon. Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to six-year-old Charlie—a boy who has never known his father. Although both women live in the same Boston suburb, they are strangers to one another and have little in common, aside from a fierce love for their children. But one night, a tragic accident causes their lives to converge in ways no one could have imagined.

This is the moving, luminous story of good people caught in untenable circumstances. Each being tested in ways they never thought possible. Each questioning everything they once believed. And each ultimately discovering what truly matters most.


I loved this book. It has a touchy subject matter: cheating. A lot of people have very specific black and white feelings on adultery. I do not. I think every situation is different and what works or doesn't work for one person is a different story entirely from the next person. I don't think anything in a cheating situation, especially in a long-term marriage, is simple or black and white. I don't think one person can shoulder all the blame. I don't have a lot of ideas and beliefs about the whole situation honestly. It's one of those parts of life. You just never know what's going on behind someone else's closed doors.

Regardless, it's easy to blame the mistress or the wandering eye of the husband. And it happens a lot in movies and books. Giffin presents the situation in a different way though. You don't just get the wife's story, you get both women's stories. You connect and feel for both of them, then get confronted with this terrible triangle. I felt compassion for the husband too, even though he doesn't narrate in the novel.

Through showing all the complicated and very gray sides of the situation, Giffin forces you to confront any stereotypes or judgments you've already made about adultery. It was really interesting reading this. I kept wanting to place the blame in someone's camp, but not being able to. Although the situation is wrong and both Valerie and Nick know that, it's hard not to see how the pieces fall into place and commiserate with the strong emotions. Even though I felt like I should be writing Valerie off as a whore or something equally degrading, the way Giffin presents her character makes that impossible. At least for me. And the marriage between Tessa and Nick is anything but simple. I think Giffin did a fantastic job showing the complexity and progression of a marriage, from Tessa's memories of their first dates and first years of marriage to the way they run from day to day in the novel. And their marriage isn't the only one under the microscope. Tessa's brother, Dex, (Dex and Rachel from Something Borrowed!), Tessa's parents, Nick's parents, and Tessa's friends all get the same treatment. Giffin explores what glues their marriage together or what made it come crashing down. It's really interesting to see all the variations. Like I said, I think her portrayal of marriages is realistically complex and complicated. No marriage is perfect, except for maybe Dex and Rachel.

This is a novel you have to have an open mind about. If you come into it ready to hate Valerie for becoming interested in Nick or judge Tessa for thinking before she tears apart her marriage, the book is going to be terrible. I think it's meant to be taken as an exploration of these situations and decisions which are anything but black and white and simple. And I think she did a fantastic job exploring.

I think Something Borrowed is still my favorite book of Giffin's, but this is definitely number two.



Sharing this quote, because I absolutely love it.

It occurs to me that she is not unique--that all women compare lives. We are aware of whose husband works more, who helps more around the house, who makes more money, who is having more sex. We compare our children, taking note of who is sleeping through the night, eating their vegetables, minding their manners, getting into the right schools. We know who keeps the best house, throws the best parties, cooks the best meals, has the best tennis game. We know who among us is the smartest, has the fewest lines around her eyes, has the best figure--whether naturally or artificially. We are aware of who works full-time, who stays at home with the kids, who manages to do it all and make it look easy, who shops and lunches while the nanny does it all. We digest it all and then discuss it with our friends. Comparing and then confiding; it is what women do. The difference, I think, lies in why we do it. Are we doing it to gauge our own life and reassure ourselves that we fall within the realm of normal? Or are we being competitive, relishing others' shortcomings so that we can win, if only by default?

The Girl Who Played with Fire

My review of this book is no different than thousands that are already out in the world. If you haven't started this series, you need to pick it up and start reading right now!

It's great, and the second book is even better than the first. I bought the first book a year and a half ago and it took some time to sink into Larsson's Swedish history and some of the weird words and phrases (being translated from Swedish probably explains that), but once I did, I loved. Salander is an incredible woman with such a complex personality. I'd be incredibly intimidated by her in person, but she's mesmerizing in text.

This book dug much deeper into her life than the previous one. It was interesting to start to learn what made her who she is, which is such a different person than anyone else in the book or really, anywhere. As expected, the suspense and intensity of the murder mystery and deadly cat and mouse game made me bury my head in the book to see what happened next instead of doing dishes or laundry or anything that took me away from the story. I was hooked, and finished it in only a couple days.

I really don't have anything new to add to the discussion of this book or series. Loved it, can't wait to read the third, unique enough to stand out against similar murder/suspense novels. I already convinced my brother to pick up the books on his next Amazon book shopping trip. He mistakenly thought it was akin to Twilight since they were always displayed close to each other in bookstores, and I very quickly dispelled that theory. I know it's one of those everyone is talking about, but if you haven't heard you should really consider picking the books up. Today. Amazon ships quickly and reliably.

The Island

I had downloaded this a few weeks ago, and finally got around to reading it. I've read A Summer Affair by Hilderbrand before, and wasn't a huge fan but decided to try again.

I'm still not a huge fan. This one was about four women -- a mother, her two adult daughters, and the mother's sister -- who escape to a small isolated island. They rough it for a month, with no electricity and the need of someone from Nantucket to bring them groceries and supplies and everything else. While there, they deal with some difficult life events like death and lost love. (I'm sure Amazon could give a much better summary!)

I liked the characters, but I just felt like something was missing.

It was an interesting exploration of the relationships in a family, between mothers and daughters, siblings, aunts and nieces. I don't have a sister and I have a thankfully calm and untroubled relationship with my mom, so I didn't relate as much to the problems and rivalries happening between everyone. Maybe it's a good thing I only have an older brother!

I don't have any real problem with Hilderbrand or the novel, and I would probably read more of her novels, but it just wasn't something that captured my attention from page one and had me tearing through the rest in a rush to find out how it ends. I'm having trouble identifying what exactly was missing for me, but it just didn't reach me as well as similar novels I've read. I would say Jennifer Weiner's novels are pretty similar, and I've loved her works. Especially Good in Bed, which you should read if you haven't. Although Hilderbrand's was an entertaining and interesting novel, it just didn't reach that level of good for me.

It's been called "beach reading", and I think that's pretty accurate. Reading it certainly made me wish I had my own little island to spend lazy summer days on. And although it deals with complicated emotions and life events, it's still light enough for an easy read during the summer. For me, it was just okay. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't "oh my goodness you have to read this right now!" kind of good.

American Wife

I bought this book up almost a year ago at Borders, after a handful of times of picking it up, reading the back and contemplating, then putting it back in favor of something else. I bought it a few weeks before a semester started, got 100 pages in, then had to put it aside for school books. I finally got the chance to restart and actually finish it. And I loved it.

I had no idea this was based on Laura Bush when I picked it up. I might not have if I had known, I'm not a big political person. I don't like to talk politics, share my beliefs, or read/hear too deeply about others' beliefs. But this book was fiction so I didn't think anything of it. Based on the book, I think I'd love Laura Bush. I know nothing of her true self, besides being a First Lady. But in the book she's an avid reader, a shy and rather introspective person, born and raised in the Midwest, marries into a boisterous family, works as a librarian because she loves reading to kids, and so on. Basically, I saw a lot of myself in this Alice Lindgren.

The first two sections of the book follow a basic fiction plotline-showing how she grew up and became Mrs. Bush (er, Blackwell). I was drawn in from the beginning (I love her grandma, who does nothing but read and smoke). The third section was the most intriguing, because in it she, Alice, questions her husband's choices in "the war", their decisions and choices leading up to and through the presidency, what it means to become famous and how she deals with it, what a marriage really is and what it asks of the two people in it, and a lot of other big picture topics. As Alice, she doesn't give a lot of answers, just poses the questions, which I find more intriguing. She does answer some things, like why she decided to stay married and how she keeps herself sane despite all the news and tabloids.

I have no idea how much this Alice Lundgren/Blackwell character lines up with Laura Bush, but she's a really powerful character. Maybe I think so because I find myself relating so much to her, but I think anyone can see her as such.

The one thing that distracted me is the author herself. Although the book is written through Alice's eyes and she is a self-proclaimed Democrat, I felt like it was more so the author's self-proclaimed liberal views showing through in a lot of the political content. There wasn't a lot of positive representation of Republican people or beliefs, despite the book being full of them. And each time she did discuss Bush's (Blackwell's) decisions in his presidency, the people he chose to work with, his stance on the war, etc., she displayed him in a negative light, at least in my opinion. The criticism was often through Alice's eyes, but for me, it read as the author's criticisms being pushed into the novel. Charlie Blackwell, aka George Bush, doesn't get much of a chance to show the different sides of his personality, especially during the presidential section of the book. Sittenfeld repeatedly tried to show how endearing Charlie's character was through Alice's eyes, but it felt condescending rather than honest some of the time. Maybe it's impossible to write a book about politics without inserting your own beliefs, but I found it distracting.

Otherwise, I really did love this book. And I love the character Alice Lundgren. And I'm tempted to get some Laura Bush biographies now, just to see how much of her is in this character.

And because I related to the book so much, I marked passages all over the place, so I figured I'd share a few to give you a taste of the writing and characters.

At such moments, I felt that we were like the people in California who live in enormous houses on the sides of cliffs, that our lives are beautiful but precarious, their foundations vulnerable...Life was so hard for so many people, the odds were stacked so precipitously against them. The other adults I knew did not seem overly distressed about the imbalances, and certainly not surprised by them, whereas to me they were constantly surprising, they were never not upsetting.

I did not care if Ella went to Princeton, if she was exceptionally pretty, if she grew up to marry a rich man, or really, if she married at all--there were many incarnations of her I felt confident I could embrace, a hippie or a housewife or a career woman. But what I did care about, what I wanted most fervently, was for her to understand that hard work paid off, that decency begat decency, that humility was not a raincoat you occasionally pulled on when you thought conditions called for it, but rather a constant way of existing in the world, knowing that good and bad luck touched everyone and none of us was fully responsible for our fortunes or tragedies. Above all, I wanted my daughter to understand that many people were guided by bitterness and that it was best to avoid these individuals--their moods and behavior were a hornet's nest you had no possible reason to do anything other than bypass and ignore.

(This last one is long, but I couldn't pass it up, being a Midwest girl at heart. And agreeing full heartedly with the whole 3 paragraph passage.)

Then we were back in Wisconsin, a place that in late summer is thrillingly beautiful. When I was young, this was knowledge shared by everyone around me; as an adult, I've never stopped being surprised by how few of the people with whom I interact have any true sense of the states between Pennsylvania and Colorado. Some of these people have spent weeks or months working in such states, but unless they're midwesterners too, to them the region is nothing but polling numbers and caucuses...these people eat at Perkins, and then they complain about the quality of the restaurants.

Admittedly, the area possesses a dowdiness I personally have always found comforting, but to think of Wisconsin specifically or the Midwest as a whole as anything other than beautiful is to ignore the extraordinary power of the land. The lushness of the grass and trees in August, the roll of the hills (far less of the Midwest is flat than outsiders seem to imagine), that rich smell of soil, the evening sunlight over a field of wheat, or the crickets chirping at dusk on a residential street; All of it, it has always made me feel at peace. There is room to breathe, there is a realness of place. The seasons are extreme, but they pass and return, pass and return, and the world seems far steadier than it does from the vantage point of a coastal city.

Certainly picturesque towns can be found in New England or California or the Pacific Northwest, but I can't shake the sense that they're too picturesque. On the East Coast, especially, these places--Princeton, New Jersey, say, or Farmington, Connecticut--seem to me aggressively quaint, unbecomingly smug, and even xenophobic, downright paranoid in their wariness of those who might somehow infringe upon the local charm. I suspect this wariness is tied to the high cost of real estate, the fear that there might not be enough space or money and what there is of both must be clung to and defended. The West Coast, I think, has a similar self-regard--all that talk of proximity to the ocean and the mountains--and a beauty that I can't help seeing as showy-offy. But the Midwest: It is quietly lovely, not preening with the need to have its attributes remarked on. It is the place I am calmest and most myself.

I really think you'd enjoy this book! It balances the political with growing up, life decisions, marriage and babies, friendships, and all the other things that make politics bearable. And Alice Lindgren/Blackwell is one of my favorite characters in a long time.

The Gravedigger's Daughter

I recently finished Joyce Carol Oates's The Gravedigger's Daughter. I've been stewing on it for a bit because as usual, Oates finishes with an open ending and leaves you with a lot of mixed emotions. And I generally stew for a day or two before I decide how I feel about a book. I always hated walking into class the morning after plowing through a novel and having to answer the question "So what'd you think?!"


But, I have to say, I was enthralled with this one. Rebecca is such a strong female lead, and Oates does a really amazing job of making you connect with her yet still leaving her a big mystery. You care, but you don't always understand what's making her tick, even if you think you do. There's so much interwoven into the plot, you could talk for days about all the themes and story lines that pop up. Female identity, male violence, racial differences, financial differences, geographical differences, love, motherhood, etc. etc. etc. It's a book that as soon as I finished, my fingers itched to plot out themes and discussions on paper. For me, that's a sign that the book reached me and got me thinking.

You don't have to read it so deep though. At its base, the book is a story about a girl surviving. Surviving murder, surviving abuse, surviving motherhood, surviving life. Like I said, I was captivated by Rebecca. I think Oates is an author that provokes more questions than she gives answers, at least from the selection I've read. The plot isn't the predictable "girl figures out who she is after some typical boy-girl hardships", and the answers don't come easy for Rebecca. There's a sense of triumph and its costs, and the sacrifices one must make for "the better life".

I can't tell you exactly what it is, but Joyce Carol Oates is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. I've read Black Water and Blonde, as well as a small selection of her short stories. I'm always captivated by her writing and her characters. While I love my fluff, I really love a book that makes you question. I think Oates is a master of creating a world where there are more questions than answers, and the reader is searching for the answers as eagerly as the character.

This is probably a vague review of the book, but I'm trying not to give too much of the plot away. I was going to quote the Amazon review, but I feel like it gives a bunch of spoilers that are better left unknown. (Note: don't read the Amazon editorial reviews! Go to a bookstore and read the book's jacket instead). And then go back and buy the book on Amazon, because it's currently only $6.40, and I promise I paid more than that when I bought it at Borders a few months back.

I don't think your taste in books matters much, almost anyone could find something they love in this book. So read it. And then pick up some more Joyce Carol Oates. I'm slowly compiling a list of books and authors I need to read (I'm at the stage where I'm thinking I should start this list), and I'm fairly certain finishing all of Oates's novels will be on that list.

Oh, and if you're not ready for such a hefty read, try Black Water instead. It's loosely based on a popular Kennedy (think senator and tragic car accident/drowning), and it's an astounding work. I.could.not.put.it.down. And it's short, so you could knock it out in an afternoon if you wanted to.

Basically, I really think you should try reading Joyce Carol Oates. And I'm so captivated by The Gravedigger's Daughter, I don't even know what to say about it besides read it! You'll love it, or at least have very strong emotions in response to it.