Book Journey

Elizabeth Shore used to love to paint and was considered to be possibly good with a little direction and training.  Yet, at a young age Elizabeth met and fell in love with Jack and dreams of painting went to the wayside as they raise two beautiful daughters, and follow Jack around to wherever his sports career will take them.

When the girls are raised and off to college, Jack struggles to keep his career afloat and when an opportunity to jump-start that career is offered, Jack jumps at the chance to take it, once again disrupting their lives for his needs without consulting Elizabeth first.  No longer having the buffer of her daughters, and worrying about her ailing father, Elizabeth decided enough is enough.  She is tired of feeding Jack’s ego while her dreams wash away.  While Jack goes on and on about what HE wants and what HE needs… Elizabeth wondered if he even has a clue of what she would like or need.

Elizabeth decided its time for her to find the woman she lost within herself and asks Jack to move to New York without her for his career while she takes time away.  She goes to their isolated beach house to discover a wonderful womans groups, a link to painting again, and a connection with her step mother she never had before.

Finding herself seems to also open doors to discovering who she is without Jack and leading up to doors opening before her she never dreamed were there and the ultimate decision of choosing a life with or without Jack.

Kristin Hannah has a formula in her writing of couples and families in crisis, separating and them finding happiness again.  Yes it can be predictable, but you know what?  It can also be fun.  Hannah’s characters jump off the pages and I truly felt for Elizabeth’s loss of identity and she for years spent time in her husbands shadow.

What I liked about this particular book is that you do not only get Elizabeth’s side, but Jack’s too.  I liked reading that Jack was surprised when the woman he has loved all his life stands up and says “enough”.  I liked watching his reevaluation of his life and decisions as well, coming to the ultimate decision that could either make or break his connection to his wife.

Distant Shores is a lovely read of love and loss and the possibility of starting again.  Its beautifully written, engaging, and filled with hope.

For a while, Jordan and Courtney were the unlikely  “it” couple in High School.  For a while things were going well, and for a while they even looked like they were going to make it, even planning to go to the same college.  And it was working.

For a while…

Then Jordan meets a girl on the internet and suddenly, Courtney is dumped. 

Two weeks later, the college road trip Jordan and Courtney had planned is happening and since no other arrangements had been planned, the two are forced back together for the drive across country for orientation.  Courtney is hurt and doing her best to hide it, and most surprising of all, Jordan is struggling with deep pain because he does still love Courtney, and he never wanted to break up…

Jordan has a secret one that is ripping him apart and it has everything to do with why they broke up and nothing to do with another girl (and no for you quick thinkers out there, it doesn’t have to do with another boy either. 😉 )  Jordan has been forced to break it off with Courtney and if he told her… she would hate him…. and that, as painful as this is, would even be worse.

Overall I really liked Two Way Street.  The storyline was interesting, two teenagers who had been dating and recently broke up but are now on this planned a while back road trip to their college.  The fact that they are put together in the truck for the long drive is interesting enough, the story behind the scenes of why they broke up and only one of them knowing that reason makes it reach for the next level. 

Twists and turns, I like Jordan a lot who is trying to do the right thing but as we all know, at times when we try to spare feelings and “do the right thing” we weave an even bigger mess.  I like Courtney too but not as much because she is a bit too dramatic and a bit too whiny and yes, yes I know… she is a teenager. 

SPOILER- I have to give out a “Creepiest character” award to… (scroll your mouse over the following text if you want to know:  Courtney’s dad.  Seriously – a bit too involved and the over-calling to Jordan is uber controlling in a way not cool way.

The over all story was good, it kept me engaged and it kept me in my car after I had pulled into the garage so I didn’t have to shut it off (always a good sign).  Two things however stand out to me about this read.  One was that for a 2010 book, they constantly mentioned My Space.   My Space?  I have never used My Space.  Does My Space even exist any more?  AND – the overuse of the word : hooking up. Yes, hooking up.  I don’t mind the word, I even get the word, but seriously… I wish I had the book version just so I could count how many times it was used. I would guess close to 100 times and I am not kidding.  “Then they were hoping to hook up”,  “Next thing you knew they were hooking up”, I hope he didn’t expect me to hook up”, “It was cool that they hooked up”… and so on and so on.  It actually became a game in the car for me.  Every time they said it on the audio I would repeat it by yelling “HOOKING UP!”  *please note, I am usually in my car alone so therefore did not give any passengers heart attacks with my spontaneous yelling.

Seriously though, I did enjoy the book and had fun listening to it.

Bonus note:  Why I think the book may be better than the audio:

As an audio lover, I am always bragging up the many virtues of audio.  However, as any audio lover knows, occasionally an audio does not 100% work for all books – it can be book subject, it can be book topic, and yes, it can sometimes be that the narrator was not the best choice for the book.

Narrator Cassandra Morris has a wonderfully youthful and girly voice. If you look at the list of books she narrates I am sure she adds a great voice to them.  For this book however, If anything her voice struck me as a little too young for college age students.  The hardest thing for me was that Cassandra’s voice did not change between the alternating chapters being told from Courtney and Jordan’s perspectives.  The Courtney parts were fine, but when Jordan was being narrated and talking about hooking up (HOOKING UP!) with girls or checking out someones skirt, it would kill my train of thought because I would have to remind myself that this was Jordan… the boy…. .  I had to pay close attention to when the chapters alternated too as occasionally I would miss that we had switched from Courtney to Jordan and suddenly the conversation would throw me again. 

 

I added this audio review to the fun meme at Devourer of Books:

13 years after Cannie’s debut in Good In Bed, she is back in full size humor and still working on her weight, her Physician husband Peter’s sudden desire to have another baby, and planning her daughter Joy’s bar Mitzvah (without the spaghetti strapped “way too adult” looking dress Joy has chosen for herself.)  Oh yes, there is also that writing career she is supposed to be working on…. well, lets put a pin in that….

When Joy discovers her mothers highly verbal and descriptive novel she wrote years before, Joy feels she has stumbled on all her mothers secrets, including the grandfather Joy feels she has never had the opportunity to get to know and blames her mother for the distance between them.  Joy now 13, and self-conscious and rebellious all rolled into one, makes her mother’s life more interesting by her sneaking off to see her biological father, skipping school, and reconnecting with her grandfather.

For both Cannie and Joy, this is a season of growing up and learning truths.

I am still a little confused about why this book was called Certain Girls.  I must have missed something.  Entirely possible.  😀  Jennifer Weiner is often a hit or a miss for me, yet I enjoy reading her characters and her wit so I keep coming back.

In Certain Girls I was able to revisit Cannie Shapiro and see where her life has gone since the ending of Good In Bed left her with a premature baby.  If you read my review of Good In Bed you will realize that I did not love the book, but I did like it.  Obviously enough to see where Cannie’s life has gone, a rare treat that we as readers do not always get, to see where the characters we have come to know are in their fiction lives years later.  Kind of a “where are they now?” look into their life, fictitious as it is.

I liked Cannie better in this book.  She seemed more sure of herself.  I think the real win for this one was the voice of Joy… typical teenager, self-conscious about her hearing aids (due to her premature birth), feeling that her mom still treats her like a baby, and wanting to know more about the missing people connected to her through family blood. 

Over all, this one was just ok.  The ending was…. anger enducing.  I can’t explain it.  It just felt… disappointing. Frustrating.  Like I had traveled far and then was thrown over a cliff.   I expected something more, and that again, could be just me.