Three Line Tales week 107
Secrets Treasures
A few weeks after the funeral, she went back to the house where she grew up to sort through her mother’s things to ready the house for sale. Her mother was a shy woman who lived a quiet sheltered life with no secrets or great passion. Looking at the few things her mother kept in the trunk in her bedroom she was surprised and wistfully smiled; her shy and quiet mama did have passion in her life and maybe more than a few secrets.
A Black Cat Book Review
Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult
The Warren family can barely be called a family. They share blood but little else. They are so distant from one another that they cannot see how alike they are in their differences. But now there has been
an accident that will make this family come together after years of separation.
In Picoult signature storytelling style each family member tells the story as they see it. Luke Warren, wolf researcher and expert, is in the hospital with a brain injury as a result of a car accident that he was in with his teenage daughter, Cara. Cara is also in the hospital but her greatest pain is in her memories. Edward, has lived in Thailand since leaving home at eighteen because of a secret he was afraid he would reveal to his family, has returned. Georgie, Cara’s and Edward’s mother, has been divorced from Luke and is now remarried. She has moved on but it has not been easy and now with Luke in critical condition and their children having to face the past to decide the future she is questioning her part of the past.
Luke is closer to wolves than to his family. He understands wolves and can relate to them but he does not understand or relate to his ex-wife and children. He sees the four of them as a pack, like wolves, not really as a family. He wants his family to see that the similarities of wolf packs and human families are greater than the differences. He wants the strengths of a wolf pack to be their strengths. He does not, or cannot, see why this will never be.
Now his children must decide Luke’s fate. What should they do? What would he want? What do they want? Will Luke live or die?
This novel of Picoults is, as usual, about a family and what family means. The characters are likable and well written, although, I think Cara is a bit of a stereotypical teenager. The use of the characters voices to tell the story keeps it moving at a good pace and does develop the plot nicely. Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors and overall I liked this book as I have liked the others I have read but I was disappointed with the last chapter. It just did not have that totally unexpected surprise at the end that make her books remarkable. There is a surprise but it is not really unexpected; you sort of see it coming. Still, the book is good and I recommend it.
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
A Black Cat Book Review
Jacob Jankowski is 90 or 93, he doesn’t remember which, lving in a nursing home and all he has is his memories.
He remembers his plans to join his father’s veterinary
practice as soon as he graduates from Cornell. He remembers a girl he thought he loved. And he remembers the day it all changed and he ran away and joined the circus.
What he remembers most vividly is the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, beautiful Marlena, abusive and insane August, the dwarf, Kinko and his dog Queenie, and the elephant, Rosie. He hasn’t told anyone at the nursing home about the circus because of what happened there and the secret he has never told anyone.
Life with the Benzini Brothers circus was brutal. Animals, and people, were abused and used until no longer able to perform or there was no money to pay them. Then they were disposed of quickly.
Through it all Jacob maintains his integrity and comes to love all the animals, and some people, of the circus. He also learns what cruelty is and to hate those who use it to get what they want.
Jacob was, and still is, a good man who, like everyone, has had good and bad in his life. But not like everyone he has kept an awful secret for 70 years.
When a circus sets up across the street from the nursing home Jacob is determined to go and see the Greatest Show on Earth. How he refuses to be denied this last look at the world he once was a part of is inspiring.
After the brutal and often tragic memories that Jacob tells about, the last chapter is a surprise and a delight.
