Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Underside of Joy by Sere Prince Halverson

Joe and Ella have been married for three years with two children from Joe's previous marriage when Joe drowns while taking pictures of the ocean. All this time, Ella thought that Joe's ex-wife, Paige, left him and the children without wanting any more to do with them, but she appears at Joe's funeral and more than one truth comes out. As Ella is dealing with Paige's new presence in her life and reclaiming a presence in her children's lives, she discovers that the store that Joe owned is less solvent than she was led to believe and is near financial ruin. Facing a war on two fronts, she leans on Joe's family to help her make sense of all this news. Along the way, she learns that the story Joe told about Paige isn't the whole truth.

Recommendations:
If you liked when two women came together for a common goal, like in Love Anthony by Lisa Genova.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

So I never read this book in high school. I think we were supposed to when I was a sophmore or freshman, but we never got to it. The story begins with a group of 6-14 year old boys finding themselves stranded on an island without any adults surviving the plane crash. A leader emerges, Ralph, who declares that a fire must be kept burning while they are on the island so they can be rescued. Piggy, a bespectacled heavy lad, thinks it is important to take down everyone's name and to build shelter, but is extremely supportive of Ralph having a leadership role. But Jack thinks finding meat is more important than anything. Eventually, the boys split into two groups: a group with Ralph and a group with Jack. As time goes on, more and more boys defect to Jack's group because they are able to catch wild pig, and with fewer boys able to keep a fire going, eventually it goes out. This leads to a tete-a-tete between Ralph and Jack.  

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson

Robinson continues with his critique of the American education system in this book. It actually took me quite a while to read this one because I kind of lost interest in it since a lot of it seemed like a rehashing of Out of Our Minds.