Recent Reads

I actually made my way through a decent number (for me) of books this summer! Here’s what I read and what I thought about them:

The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
3/5

This book was entertaining, especially since I live in the Clear Lake area and am very familiar with the neighborhoods mentioned. It’s interesting to both compare the area then vs. now and compare the life of a wife and mother in the 60s to mine now. It’s hard for me to imagine managing the household alone and taking a backseat to my husband they way they did. And while I knew there had been many divorces among the astronaut ranks, I don’t think I realized the extent of them — and what that says about the strain the space program and its demands put on marriages.

However, I did find that the book suffered greatly from a writing style that seemed choppy and disjointed, flitting from one wife to the next on nearly a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. It was distracting as a reader, and made it difficult for me to feel any real connection with the wives. One of my friends said in her Goodreads review that it read like “a writer trying to stuff as many of her notes into a book as possible, thus forgetting narrative and neglecting character development.” That’s a good summary of my feelings as well.

In addition, some of the anecdotes are ones I’ve heard before, so it’s difficult for me to tell how much information she got from her interviews with the wives themselves vs. how much of this book is simply a compilation of stories about the wives gathered from other publications. Although there were a few wives featured more heavily than the others, I feel like the book could have been better if Koppel had narrowed her focus even more tightly on those — Betty Grissom, Rene Carpenter, Jane Conrad, and Marilyn Lovell, for instance. Instead, I feel like I got a very superficial view of the life of a generic astronaut wife, instead of real women.

Rockabye: From Wild to Child by Rebecca Woolf
3/5

I only started reading Woolf’s blog (Girl’s Gone Child) recently, which I think was a good thing — if I were a long time reader, I’d probably have the same complaints I do about every book-by-a-blogger. But since I didn’t know her back story, this was an interesting read. She’s a little too into the whole “I’m so rock and roll, I’m unique, I’m special, I’m different” thing, but overall I enjoyed watching her shift from single girl to married mom with a child. (This was published several years ago and she has since had 3 more children.)

Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
2/5

Chick lit at its best and worst. On one hand, I liked how mindless this book was because I read it on a beach and didn’t want to think too hard. On the other hand, I’m kind of over stereotypical characters who are ditzy, flighty, dumb, helpless and then conveniently stumble upon a man who “rescues” them from their silly dull lives.

Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
3/5

I’ve been wanting to watch this movie, but kept putting it off so I could read the book first, and I finally was able to do that while in Jamaica. The story wasn’t exactly what I expected, and I’m not really sure how to review this one, really… I found Pat flawed yet rather charming, Tiffany kooky but endearing, and the supporting cast realistically complex. There are so many seemingly random parts — the fanatical Eagles fandom, the dance contest — but somehow it did come together fairly well. It was interesting to watch one season of their lives and how things intertwined.

The Vacationers by Emma Straub
3/5

I spent the first 80% of this book wondering if anything was ever going to actually HAPPEN, instead of just reading about each character’s navel-gazing. The only person I liked at that point was Carmen, the girlfriend, who everyone else in the book seemed to hate for no apparent reason.

The last 20% was much more satisfying as they began to really engage with each other, and I started to become more interested in what each character was going through…but then their vacation was over (and thus the book was over) and their stories were interrupted. I feel like an “after vacation” sequel would be a lot more interesting than this was.

Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman
4/5

This was an interesting, gripping story dealing with something I’ve never thought much about — what a returning soldier experiences while trying to adjust back to “normal” life. There were a couple times I found myself thinking something along the lines of “oh come on, she needs to just get over it” — but that’s the point. There are some things you can’t “just get over.” So this book, for me, was worth reading solely to gain that perspective, and to be forced to think about what soldiers truly see and experience, and to consider what mental illness really is.

I did think the story drifted at times, particularly when focusing on some of the peripheral characters like Lauren’s best friend, her sort-of-ex-boyfriend, and his loser uncles. They helped develop Lauren’s backstory, but there was a lot of focus on their current lives, which seemed extraneous. The story might have been better served by shifting that focus to her father, or her uncle.

Still, of all the books listed here, this is the one I think will stay with me.