false 10 55 47 true 5826381 read 3 true 3472571 currently-reading 5 true 3472570 to-read http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/74195200 to: If I Get to Five: What Children Can Teach Us about Courage and Character (Living Planet Book) by Fred Epstein
Very sad and uplifting at the same time... ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72487825 The Out-of-Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Processing Disorder, Revised Edition (Paperback) by Carol Stock Kranowitz
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72487731 Sarah's Key (Hardcover) by Tatiana de Rosnay
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72487697 The Castaways (Hardcover) by Elin Hilderbrand
bookshelves: to-read
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72160518 Love in the Time of Cholera (Paperback) by Gabriel García Márquez
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68931385 to: So Brave, Young and Handsome: A Novel (Hardcover) by Leif Enger
There were some things about the book I liked. Enger has a way with his prose that is often beautiful. He also does an excellent job developing the voice of his narrator almost immediately.

However, I had a difficult time with the plot as the story progressed. It just didn't grab me and I found myself skipping over some parts. In all fairness, the cowboy genre is not really my thing!

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/69757527 to: Without a Net: Middle Class and Homeless (with Kids) in America by Michelle Kennedy
Boo! So many reasons why this book FRUSTRATED me.

This isn't a book about homelessness. This is a book about a woman who continually makes bad decisions and puts her children at great risk. She has a college education, but she rarely thinks through situations. For example, why bring all three children apartment hunting when she is continually turned down because of the kids?

The part that got my goat, so to speak, was at the end **SPOILER ALERT** when she gets with a man, quits her steady, well-paying job with benefits and has another baby! And she admits that they are still just a few dollars away from homelessness again. Are you kidding me!? ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/62215535 Kristie's review of Admission
by Jean Hanff Korelitz

I agree that the admissions thing dragged on a bit toward the end.

I also had problems with Portia's mother. She was painted as this liberal, peaceful, loving woman who would take in "stray" women, and yet Portia did not feel comfortable enough to go to her with the pregnancy? And it caused a huge, irreparable tear in their relationship?

]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68931409 The Heretic's Daughter (Hardcover) by Kathleen Kent
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/68546067 to: The Housekeeper and the Professor: A Novel (Paperback) by Yoko Ogawa
Yoko Ogawa's "The Housekeeper and the Professor" is a book for people who love to read and and who love the beauty of words.

In this novel translated from Japanese, all of the characters are devoid of names; we just know them as the "housekeeper" and the "professor."

The professor, a brilliant mathematician, had a head injury that allows him to remember only the last eighty minutes. After that, he won't remember anything.

There is so much to love in this book. First, I am not a math person, but Ogawa shows us the beauty and even the poetry of math as the professor teaches the housekeeper and her son about his love of the subject.

Second, the story is cerebral and doesn't rely on an exciting plot like typical American novels. Rather, the reader is enveloped in the characters and how relationships can form when one of the participants won't remember you from hour to hour.

The book gives us more questions than answers and you are actually sad when the story ends because you don't want to leave this world. It's a book you'll be thinking about long after it's finished.
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