Book Reviews: Summer Catch Up

My good friend Linda reminded me that I am not up to date on my book reviews. I think there are two books I have yet to write about, 'The 19th Wife' and 'The Kids are All Right'.

So here goes:

The 19th Wife was a given to me by my mother-in-law. I think she should suggest books for me more often because I always like what she passes my way. She knew I would like this book because as you know, we live in Utah. Mormon Utah. This book is 'Under the Banner of Heaven'-ish. If you haven't read that one yet, I highly recommend it as well. This was in the same vain. It used the historic story of Brigham Young's 19th Wife, Ann Eliza Young and her effort to end polygamy in early Mormon times, and contrasted it with a modern day (albeit fictional) story of a 19th wife who was accused of killing her polygamous husband in a Southern Utah compound. That place does actually exist, and this story loosely fit in the FBI capturing of the 'Prophet' of what they call Mesadale (actually called Colorado City I believe) which is similar to the capture of Warren Jeffs a couple of years ago. It was a long book but really good. It switches back and forth between old and current times. Sometimes I wished they would stick with one story a little longer, or one a little shorter, because when it picked up on the other story again I found I had to remember what happened last. It doesn't help that I am not reading it consistently either. I did feel the length was a little much too. But when you are trying to fully develop two stories for the reader, I am not sure you can do it in much less than 600 pages. I do recommend this one, but if you are interested in learning about the LDS faith then I would start with the aforementioned 'Under the Banner of Heaven' by Jon Krakauer.

Next:
The Kids are All Right. It is funny how I happened on this book. I saw movie previews for a film with the same name. I noticed 4 people in it laughing around a dinner table. Then I was reading Self Magazine while getting a pedicure and there was a little blurb about this book about 4 kids who are orphaned. I wrongly assumed that the movie was based upon the book and decided to read it. When I finished, I discovered that the movie was not at all based upon this book and about something entirely different. Funny, huh? I am not sorry I read the book though. It was good. It is the story of 4 siblings who lose their father (in a tragic car accident) then their mother (to cancer) in the course of a few years. They are orphaned when they are between the ages of 6-17 (if I recall correctly) and then are split up to live with different people. It is told from each of their perspectives because they all remember things differently. The worst off was the youngest, Diana who got sent to live with this seemingly perfect family who treated her very poorly (mentally, not physically). I was glad to see that she turned out to be a well adjusted young adult (I think she's about 35 now). In fact they all turned out fine, thus the title of the book. It was a good quick read (compared to my other 600 pagers) and I recommend it.

Next up are The Shack and The Red Tent. Our September Book Club selection is Eat Pray Love which I read a few years back. So I'm on to other reads :)