Siblings Without Rivalry

Siblings Without Rivalry: How To Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

Amazon.com Description:

“Already best-selling authors with How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish turned their minds to the battle of the siblings. Parents themselves, they were determined to figure out how to help their children get along. The result was Siblings Without Rivalry. This wise, groundbreaking book gives parents the practical tools they need to cope with conflict, encourage cooperation, reduce competition, and make it possible for children to experience the joys of their special relationship. With humor and understanding—much gained from raising their own children—Faber and Mazlish explain how and when to intervene in fights, provide suggestions on how to help children channel their hostility into creative outlets, and demonstrate how to treat children unequally and still be fair.”

My thoughts:

As a parent of two little people, I found some great tips in this book. One thing I took away was noticing comparisons I make that I wasn’t even aware of.  

Monday Recommendations

Monday Recommendation List

Random list of 10 books Monday! I have read and enjoyed each of these enough to flag for a potential personal library purchase.

Be bold and just choose randomly, stick to your normal genre...or step outside of your normal reading zone and try something you usually wouldn’t. You can look up the descriptions at Amazon.com, or search my blog for old posts by entering the title in the little search box in the top left-hand corner and clicking the magnifying glass.

This weeks 10 recommendations (in no particular order):

1. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
2. An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
3. Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elissa Schappell
4. Fight Back and Win by Gloria Allred
5. I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish
6. The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman
7. Rescue  by Anita Shreve
8. Simply Irresistible by Jill Shalvis
9. Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag
10. Running the Books by Avi Steinberg

Shattered Rose

Shattered Rose by T L Gray

Amazon Description:

“Avery Nichols knows how to wear the mask. Perfect student, perfect daughter and perfect friend. Nobody would ever guess that inside Avery is a prisoner to her own self loathing. Then she meets him…and everything changes. Handsome, charming and self assured, Jake Matthews sweeps Avery off her feet in an effortless fashion. Avery knows that Jake is everything she needs and all she has ever wanted. She would destroy herself to be loved by him…until he walks away. Broken and lost, Avery meets Parker. His genuine, caring nature reaches past the mask and the shattered pieces of her heart slowly begin to heal. But just when Avery starts to feel whole again, she faces the impossible truth. Jake never really left.”

My Thoughts:

I have been on a romance reading binge. If you’ve read my blog for awhile you have seen that I love this genre...I am a sucker for a happy ending and that warm and fuzzy in between. This book popped up on my list in the romance section, but I wouldn’t classify it there.

Yuck! Do you see anything in the above description about this being a “Christian” romance? No? Me either! So I was enjoying the story and then—BAM! I felt tricked, as the story moves into very preachy territory mid-way through.

Christianity and Sunday sermons are not what I’m looking for in a love story...just saying. At least warn the reader and I would have skipped!

Inconceivable

Inconceivable: A Medical Mistake, the Baby We Couldn’t Keep, and Our Choice to Deliver the Ultimate Gift by Sean and Carolyn Savage

Amazon Description:

“A medical mistake during an IVF procedure. An unthinkable situation . . . you’re pregnant with the wrong baby. You can terminate, but you can’t keep him. What choice would you make? Carolyn and Sean Savage had been trying to expand their family for years. When they underwent an IVF transfer in February 2009, they knew it would be their last chance. If they became pregnant, they would celebrate the baby as an answer to their prayers. If not, they would be grateful for the family they had and leave their fertility struggles behind forever.

They never imagined a third option. The pregnancy test was positive, but the clinic had transferred the wrong embryos. Carolyn was pregnant with someone else’s baby.

The Savages faced a series of heartbreaking decisions: terminate the pregnancy, sue for custody, or hand over the infant to his genetic parents upon delivery. Knowing that Carolyn was carrying another couple’s hope for a baby, the Savages wanted to do what they prayed the other family would do for them if the situation was reversed. Sean and Carolyn Savage decided to give the ultimate gift, the gift of life, to a family they didn’t know, no strings attached.

Inconceivable provides an inside look at how modern medicine, which creates miracles daily, could allow such a tragic mistake, and the many legal ramifications that ensued with both the genetic family and the clinic. Chronicling their tumultuous pregnancy and its aftermath, which tested the Savage’s faith, their relationship to their church, and their marriage, Inconceivable is ultimately a testament to love. Carolyn and Sean loved this baby, making it impossible for them to imagine how they could give him life and then give him away.

In the end, Inconceivable is a story of what it is to be a parent, someone who nurtures a life, protects a soul, only to release that child into the world long before you’re ready to let him go.”

My Thoughts:

This was a very interesting story. It is unimaginable being told that you are carrying a baby that isn’t yours and that you cannot keep. As I read, I found myself trying to imagine being Carolyn (the woman carrying the baby), then my mind would flip, trying to imagine being Shannon (the biological mother). Both women were going through a hard journey.

As I progressed in the book I often found Sean and Carolyn (mostly Carolyn) to be somewhat disingenuous.

First, the faith issues drove me bananas. They talk about being incredibly strong in the Catholic faith, but then they pick which parts of that faith to adhere to. This goes on and on in the book, them justifying why they are “right” to go against certain parts of the faith. This was hard for me to read and make sense of.  

Second, they state many times that their privacy was taken away…but then hold large meetings with family/friends and then write a book? I felt like they were thriving on the drama, at times. Much of the publicity about their family they allowed/induced.

Third, Carolyn takes many opportunities to slam (most times passive aggressively) the biological mother of this child. Even at the end of the book…she is overly rude toward the other family. The part where she insists on calling herself this baby’s Mommy was hard for me to understand. I read that she later had twins using a surrogate and I wonder if this experience changed her view. Or if she thought the surrogate was her children’s “Mommy” as well?  Carrying a baby is the most intimate thing a woman can do. But she made the decision to carry the baby, having to know that it would be incredibly difficult. I could also understand why the biological family would want to distance themselves from this strong emotion.

And one more thing that irked me…Carolyn kept making it a point to say that she would keep this baby “because she was pro-life.” However, I think many women would have made the same decision, pro-life or no. Any woman going through infertility treatment obviously feels strongly about growing a family. This is just another example that set the tone of this book to “Carolyn as a martyr.”

I cannot fathom what these families went through, and even with the criticism above, I felt strongly for Sean and Carolyn as I read their book. I’m glad they are blessed with 5 children.

The biological Mom has also written a book. I haven't had a chance to read that one yet, but it's on the list!

Twilight series

Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer

I was home sick and I happened to catch the first Twilight movie on cable. Movies made from books are a huge annoyance for me. But I was slightly interested in this one. The Twilight franchise is such a phenomenon. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about! While I didn’t really like the movie…it did make me want to revisit the books and remember what I liked about them.

I picked up “Twlight” and read it over a weekend. I love the relationship Meyer creates between Edward and Bella. They have a special chemistry and that was the one thing that was also apparent in the movie. Then I moved to “New Moon” and I like this one a little less. It is a whole book of angst. The redeeming quality, that kept me reading, is getting to know the Jacob character more.  Next up is Eclipse—this one loses me. The part that I hate is when Bella is now “in love” with Jacob, too. That pushed me over the edge to BLAH by ruining the special chemistry I mention above. Breaking Dawn is a decent wrap up to the series. And I thank the author for WRAPPING up and not just continuing to write the same story over and over.

Meyer was a creative new voice in the vampire genre. Many have imitated her, but few have been able to create something as long lasting.  That was what I enjoyed more in the series—the uniqueness.