Main character continually reinvents herself to survive psychologically.
931944
Devoured this book.  Totally mesmerized by main character and spiral of events which begin with Autumn's  life, one which she has built through her self-immersion and identification with a reality blog.  A really good read and escape!
1665551
The author allows the reader to follow a group of survivors as they struggle to keep going in what is described as a "world gone mad." Each "episode" further develops the characters and makes them that much more interesting. There is definitely a big government conspiracy being weaved throughout the plot that gives the story an ominous tone as the reader mentally prepares for the big battle they know is coming. You care about these characters. They are everyday people who out of a need to survive are then transformed into something much stronger than they likely ever imagined they could be.
2686008
This book tells one woman's struggle to survive as a Jew during World War II.  The main character show an enormous capacity for survival in a world where those she loves are destroyed.
681372
lIVING A HALF LIFE BETWEEN HUMAN AND HALF NOT CAN BE TRAUMATICS AT MOST TIMES ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS A SECRET IN YOUR LIFE AND YOUR ACTING NORMALLY AT WORK AND IN SOCIETY. HER INTUITION KEEP KICKING IN AT THE SAME TIME SHE IS EXPERIENCING HEIGHTENED AWARENESS AND ABILITIES BEYOND HUMAN PERCEPTION TOGETHER WITH A WEAKNESS AND THE NEED FOR MORE FRESH BLOOD GROWS STRONGER. LOVED THIS STORY AS ITS ABOUT A GIRL WHO IS HIDING FROM THOSE WHO WOULD DESTROY HER SO SHE PUTS HERSELF INTO HUMAN SOCIETY WHILST AT THE SAME  TIME NEVER REVEALING A SECRET THAT CANNOT BE TOLD.
25087
A story of a young lost girl who finds a place where she belongs, who desperately wants to be better than what society expects her to be, wants to break the cycles that she was born into.
1076449
This book is a highly psychological account of a woman's experience with a particular kind of obsession that scientists will recognize bits of in themselves. Obsession can be contagious and destructive, as the protagonist finds out. The story culminates in personal and professional loss, and all of the consequences which follow. It's very true to life and keeps you turning pages until the end.
4334185
Holds you with its twists and turns sure are some neurotic women though.
1875168
Touching story of a woman who reinvents her life, and finds  what is important.
4924697
Interesting seeing the protagonist fail in very human ways, but keep trying.
608649
Great continuation to Delirium.  Lena has rebuilt who she is as she struggles to find her place in the world.  The book can be a little confusing since it hops from the past and present every chapter.  I feel like it could have very easily been written in a past and then fast-forward to the present setting.  However, Lena learns to adapt to life in the Wilds and finds a group of other survives that help her learn tricks to survival.  In the present, we see her living in secret amidst the city of New York as she fights to push forward the efforts of the Resistance.

While the Resistance is growing and finding more and more supporters to rally around bringing down the government and the required Cure, the DFA is also pushing forward their beliefs.  The DFA pushes for even more strictness in the administration of the Cure to have an even purer world.  Lena is in continuous fight or flight mode and decides that she needs to take a stand on who she personally wants to be.  She loses and gains new friends and allies.

The author did a great job of building a world and characters that make this one enthralling tale from beginning to end. As mentioned previously, I feel that the Past and Present scenes could have been worked out differently, but the author still wrote a fun-to-read tale.
4752149
Connie Ramos has had a very rough life.  Through her trials and tribulations she has had many low points, yet somehow she has still pulled through.  She is the prime example of the woman who wants more in life.  She tries hard not to become her mother, who was a typical Mexican housewife.  She wants to be a working girl, to go to school and be educated.  She also wants to start a family with a good man and to be happy.  She tries to do this, but as in every life things happen to her that prevent her hopes and dreams.

At one point she loses her daughter for striking her.  She was very distraught at the time after losing a man she considered to be her other half and did not do it intentionally. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She is then sent to a mental institution.  Later on in the story she tries to save her niece from her horrible pimp, and hits him in the nose so she is sent to the hospital yet again because her neice, Dolly, allows her father,Luis, and her pimp,Geraldo,to say that she did it because she was insane.  She begins seeing a person from another time named Luciente.  I believe that time traveling is possible but not probable, and you have to remember that this is a science fiction novel in order to interpret it properly.  I think she may have created this alternate reality in her mind in order to cope with what has happened to her.  When reading the story though I try to believe that she really can go there because for me it just makes it more enjoyable to read.

The reason I believe that it is an alternate reality that she has created is because it is everything that is not in her life.  Such as stability, a happy family atmosphere full of love, and all the education that these people's hearts desire.  Connie never has really had any of this and so I think her brain made it up so that could be her so called happy place that helps to keep her sane.

In this world that Luciente is from they have made life more simple with not so much technology even though they have it.  I think that I would like to live in this world because everything that means something to me in my life is in this world.  A good family, friendship, and intimate relationship.  They also get to peruse any line of work they want and never have to worry about money or possessions in my mind this would be the perfect world.

 I do not think I would appreciate it if I had not gone through what I have in my life.  If I were just brought into it as I was into this world I would probably take it for granted and that is the downfall.  Another thing that I think I prefer about our world is being a mother.  In this world you have to share that responsibility with two other people and only for twelve years.  I want to experience it with only my husband because it is something you can never experience until you actually do.  I want to see how my child will look and what their life will turn out like as a result of what I taught them.

Towards the end of the story Connie comes up with a plan that will ultimately save Luciente's world.  I think that she is only acting in self defense against her brother so that she may have a chance to live. The actions that she took as I said save the other world and that is why I think that she can no longer contact it.  Because really the other world is herself so she saves herself and doesn't have to save her future anymore.
4587275
This story is a psychological study of a woman who seeks redemption in her life through reflection of her past experiences. To do this, she challenges herself to a long distance hike in the wilderness. She has to be resourceful to deal with whatever she encounters on the way. The action is slow moving at times.
982177
This novel goes through the dysfunctional life of the main character who often participates in uncouth sexual practices and binge drinking. The author is able to capture the social innocence of the main character as a young teenager which is juxtaposed with the mature actions she takes part in. There is a sense of surrealism in how the narrator observes actions, making the reader experience that much more interesting.
2141160
I really like this book because the character Emily was going through several transitions: moving to a new city, conflicts with her spiritual beliefs and adapting to her current environment, and just trying to find herself.

I can definitely relate because as a college graduate trying to find myself in the "real world" it can be really trying.
2311620
I really liked the journey of the main character in the book. She starts as a weak person who is afraid to fight afraid of conflict and she is faced with horrible choices in order to complete her goals. Just being able to see that journey through becoming a person able to depend on themselves I wouldn't mind if the book had a sad or happy ending.
3013673
This book uses humor to convey ways people cope  with the realities faced by the protagonist.  A female working in male dominated environment finds ways to push through  her responsibilities and come out  on top.  Well written.
3246379
In 1980s England, it is ten years after the shocking denouement in Every Day is Mother's Day, the characters having moved on with their lives. (While it isn't necessary to read the prior novel, it adds historical context- and menace- to this one.) No longer beleaguered by the spirits who haunted her mother, Evelyn, a medium, the hulking, crafty Muriel is a product of her environment, properly institutionalized for the last few years. Evelyn's death has seemingly put an end to the disturbing case of a mother and daughter living in isolation, successfully avoiding the social workers assigned to them. The other peripheral characters have moved on with their individual lives, unconcerned with the fate of Muriel Axon, "that reclusive slab of a woman".

Social worker Isabel Field, traumatized by her short but violent involvement with the Axon's, has married, but is still plagued by self-doubt and depression, unable to give her husband a child. The brief distraction of her affair with married schoolteacher Colin Sidney in the `70s met a predictable end with the pregnancy of Colin's wife, Sylvia, the social worker just another victim of the folly of loving a married man. Currently, Isabel derives more comfort from the bottle than her husband. For his part, Colin clings to the memories of his affair with Isabel as a respite from Sylvia's incessant carping about their unruly children and the career she might have had. With the impending arrival of their fourth child, the Sidney's have moved house, snapping up the Axon residence as a bargain, next door to Colin's unmarried sister, Florence.

Muriel is the star of the piece, an enigmatic creature whose cunning enables her to escape the tangled bureaucracy of the social welfare system. Ingenious in reentering the world without the taint of her past, Muriel is set on revenge with very specific targets in mind. Her personality forged by a crippling childhood and hostile mother, this single-minded gorgon embodies the dark side of human nature, her stunted emotional growth disguised by an ungainly body, unexpectedly delighted at the coincidences that abet her mission. And while family entanglements baffle both Isabel and the Sidney's, each character plays a part in the final drama, the outcome turning on the erratic behaviors of those who exist on society's margins and the odd coincidence.

Mantel brilliantly contrasts middle-class life and the deceits born of mental illness and chronic institutionalization, from Muriel's crafty assault on the past to Isabel Field's descent into alcoholism, Colin's chronic ineptitude and Sylvia's escalating demands for attention. Although Every Day is Mother's Day and Vacant Possession are separate novels, I imagine them combined into one chilling tale, a seamless narrative of dysfunction and retribution, where "blind chance... could catch you a painful blow with her white cane". Luan Gaines/2010.