The Postmistress

I was so excited to read this book.  So excited!  But my excitement quickly faded by just how slow this novel took to get anywhere.  The story set up a very exciting and intriguing possibility, but then dragged on from there.  From a historical perspective, though, I thought it was pretty interesting, especially of the feeling depicted of the U.S. prior to involvement in World War II.  But I felt that this great possibility was set up that never really came to be in a very interesting way.  The concept set up in this book was a such a good one and had the ability to be amazing... but it kind of fizzled out and was fairly anticlimactic in that area.  What would happen if the person in charge of delivering the mail, didn't deliver one select piece of mail?  What would happen to that person?  How could that affect their life?  What happens when the person whose job it is to deliver the news decides not to?    This book was successful of making you feel the terror and urgency of having a person be present in one moment and gone in the next, but that was about it.  I was disappointed :(  I need someone else to read this book and tell me if I just missed something major.  Maybe I'm being too hard on it, but I just felt that the hugeness of what Iris, the postmistress in Franklin, and Frankie, the journalist who traveled in England and France and eventually Franklin, might deliver or withhold from delivering, would be a bigger climax in the story, and to me they just kind of happened in a very blah, everyday kind of way.   Did Iris choosing not to deliver a letter change what would have happened in the story?  No.  And that change is what I was looking for.

I'd Know You Anywhere

I have a weird affinity for mystery stories carried by female detectives...which is how I first discovered Laura Lippman as an author.  Her Tess Monaghan series more than fills my excessive need for mysteries solved by fearless, smart women.  When this new title by Lippman came into the library, I automatically placed a hold for it because I thought it was another one in the Tess series.  When I finally started reading it I realized it was a stand alone title.  And it was written nothing like her other novels.  It did not start with a murder or theft that needed to be solved.  Instead, it is a mystery of a different sort, mixed with the details of a psychological thriller.  The story is told from the point of view of several characters and flips back and forth between the 1980s and the present day.  Elizabeth Lerner (later Eliza Benedict) was kidnapped for six weeks as an early teen and raped just before her abductor was caught and she was returned.  Her kidnapper/rapist had raped and killed other girls and Elizabeth's testimony sent him to death row.  Elizabeth, now Eliza, married with two children, cherishes her simple life devoting herself entirely to her husband and children.  Then one day she receives a letter from Walter and her past is brought immediately to the present.  Walter makes a seemingly heartfelt apology to her and Eliza's need to understand why he let her live, drives her to comply to his request for further contact.  Walter pushes further, more than an aplogy, now, he wants Eliza to help save his life.  Eliza has to relive her painful past and find strength now that she didn't have then... to heal herself.  This book reminded me again of the complexity of human relationship, emotions, and the circumstances of life.  I found myself drawn into the characters, both those portrayed good... and bad.  I found sympathy where one wouldn't expect to find it and also the fear and anger for both the characters and the reader.  This novel helps show how heavy the fear and obedience that are quickly injected into kidnap victims that helps explain a little to those who are constantly badgering with questions of "why didn't you try to escape?"    And while fear and confusion weighed the victim of this book down in many ways in her past and present, it was amazing to see her finally find her voice and her strength.  This was one of the rare novels where I truly felt that I was feeling what the characters were feeling.  This had a very Jodi Picoult-ish style to it.  Though I wanted a little more from the ending of this book, both with the story from the past and the family situations of Eliza's present, I loved this book and could not put it down.

Blue Plate Special

Do you ever pick up a book to read without first reading the inside flap or back cover?  That's what happened with this book... and it made it that much better!  I remembered reading a great review about it and ordering it based on that, but did not remember what the actual review said.  I picked it off the shelf and started skimming the first page just before I was leaving work.  I. could. not. put. it down.  I secretly read it in my office and then quickly drove home and dove back into it.  I didn't leave the couch that night until I had finished the book.

"You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family."  Three girls from three different decades discover that their lives are connected in unimaginable ways.  Each of them finds strength that brings her closer to healing a painful family past, and faith that there is a happier future.  They find out that it's what they do with their leftovers that matters, because life is your own blue plate special.

*a blue plate special is a special low-cost meal served at diners made up of leftovers from the previous days meals.