If It's a BOOK, Let's Have It

 Too mushy for me; too perfect an ending for me; just not my cup of tea.   I read a great book by Jennifer Ryan; The Chilbury Women's Choir.  Fun book - also about WWII. But, this book is just too neatly tied up; too sappy and too unrealistic.  It's about three totally different women during WWII; a minister's daughter, who in the beginning is just sort of mousy and compliant. A famous fashion designer whose business and home are totally destroyed in the blitz causing her to return to her family home, where she does not feel welcome.  Living there are her nephew, who is now the care-taker of the estate and his sister, a spoiled woman who is only concerned about herself and fashion. By the end of the unrealistic story, each woman has transformed and each woman ends up with the man of her dreams.   YUCK...two stars and that is a stretch.

 Very intriguing non fiction memoir. Part 1 is the story of Sandra and her dysfunctional family being raised in Chicago.  Her father is emotionally and verbally abusive to the children and their mother.  He is wealthy, but not happy.   A housekeeper is hired and she stays with them for the next 30 years.  She never gives any personal information and closes up when questions are asked about her former life, but she is warm and helpful and supportive of the six children.  All the family adore her. Finally, after many years, the wife has the courage to divorce her husband and she and Lou (the housekeeper) move together to a small town home where they live in peace and harmony.   Part 2 tells the story of the Housekeeper's secret.  On her death bed, she asks Sandra to write her story.  However, Sandy has no information about Lou and her background.  Through a series of interesting coincidences, she learns about Lou and her story.  Which...

  DELIGHTFUL!  Favorite book of the summer.   CeCelia's mentally ill mother either takes her own life or is accidentally hit by a truck one day in the small town in Ohio where they live.  CeeCee's distracted, absent, cheating husband sends CeeCee to Savannah to live with a great aunt.   12 year old CeeCee is angry, upset, and hateful to her father for doing that to her.  But, in Savannah, she is surrounded by older women who love her and help her to overcome her anxieties and to see herself as a wonderful young lady.   The characters are rich and unique and hilarious and generous and colorful.  There are some humorous incidents and some sad incidents relating to the Blacks in the story.  Just before school starts, she meets a girl that will become her friend, which has not happened before because of her mother's mental illness.   So, in the end, CeeCee realizes that when her father told her she would be glad he did that for her, she agre...