The Story We Find Ourselves In
348021
This, the second book in McLaren's "New Kind of Christian" trilogy is the most satisfying on some levels.  It works better than volumes I and III as story, as fiction.  But, too, it is very stirring theologically, a brave attempt at rethinking the gospel in light of current scientific knowledge.  What stays with me most, now that I've lain the book down, is its vision of heaven.  A provocative yet comforting book.  Not for everyone, yet God bless Brian McLaren from one who needed it.
2750616
We all have a story and this author has found a unique way to share his story.  We get a peak into his daily observations of the world as it struggles with recession, pirates, unusual weather patterns and the death of Michael Jackson.  We have a unique opportunity to understand the challenges an author faces while writing, editing and marketing books through his own personal experience.  We are swept along through daily reflections of the author's life and the day to day events that make up his story.  With the author we travel the road between those birthdays and discover ourselves.
3300346
This story has given me a clear picture of life's struggles which help us to become who we are meant to be.
2912255
Kathleen Novak tenderly explores the territories of our lives that we often leave covered,buried and undiscovered. Those areas that remain memorials to our hurts and failures,our insufficiencies and pain. And amid it all,love.
In a story that is reminiscent of Stanley Kunitz's,"The Layers", the author weaves a tale of memory ,of love,of understanding that transcends time and place. This is as much the reader's own story as it is the main characters', Gigi Paulo and his daughter. We recognize that throughout our lives we ,too, realize that often those closest to us remain unknown to us; that there are gaping holes in the stories that parents tell of their pasts to their children, that we tell to each other,that we admit to ourselves. We look for the truth in each but in the end are left with what we believe.
Ms. Novak is a wonderful writer and every page is filled with her exquisite poetry. This story will accompany the reader for a good long while as different scenes open doors into memories long left untended., In Gigi's own words,"pay attention"- this book has a bit of magic in it.
4525925
Excellent story telling. It was nice to think as I read. We all have a journey in this life we live. How we choose to live with the cards we are dealt is up to us.
2276474
A lovely enriched tapestry of a story whereby you can feel that you are there from the in depth descriptions.
2414728
So many stories lose steam before they reach the end...or they balloon everything in the last few pages. This story grabs your attention at the beginning and continually unfolds the plot until the last page. It is a story of two levels or lines. One grabs your attention with the issue of conspiracy...who you can trust and who is a friend.  The other line that is linked to that is the issue of change. People have a past they must deal with. People can change. Will we help or hinder? is sometimes answered by the way we look at our own life.  This story needs to be made into a movie.
3712675
Rothfuss takes full advantage of telling a story within a story. Kvothe tells us the rules of the tale up front, so we cannot fault him for laying ground work until it is relevant, or remind us of the key components of the past. This allows the reader to focus wholly on the present. This is a story told by a storyteller, an artist, among other things, so the flow of the words, the prose, should be noted. Not only for the plot the weave or the people they describe, but for the richness of its own construction.

Yes, Kvothe does seem larger than life. Yet appropriate obstacles do seem to counter. I'm not sure if its a perfect balance of luck in his favor and out of his favor, but it has made for an intriguing storytelling thus far. His story is not yet done though, so it is far. I don't expect accounts to be fully settled until we perceive the final volume.

The first act is done. The foundation is set. What tales lie ahead?
3332543
This is a beautifully conceived story.  It is a book that leaves you enriched for the reading of it and more determined to be positive about humanity and the individual parts we play out in the course of our lives through the understanding of ourselves and the relationships we have with others.  It left me feeling hopeful.
1343280
The chief character(s) in each chapter are linked in some way--as the reader discovers--with those in other chapters, making the point of our human inter-connectedness in sometimes surprising and meaningful ways.  There are many ways of viewing this book, but for me it's about how beauty and love can appear within the most sordid of realities, that there is hope and goodness in sad/bad situations, that we can stretch ourselves beyond the ordinary, drawing strength from/with others.
4901176
Conrad draws us into the journey and we are there for the duration.  His character descriptions are colorful.  The writer has us from page one.
229165
Once again, the author has gave us another great story. I like the fact every characters has their flaws exposed for us to see and even the most heinous character has jsut a dash of goodness. This book feels real which is what I look for in fiction. The author tells an engaging story in a style that teaches us about ourselves.
1725811
Each of us has one--a friend who tells such a vivid and inviting story that the narrator and the telling are characters in themselves, and, as if just by listening, we, too, are woven into the passions and losses of the characters. Even as our friend is wild-eyed, spinning deeper and deeper into the story, abandoning now the "facts" and digging into some essential truths about the story and its characters, as detail gives way to hyperbole and our credulity is strained, we keep listening. It's not indulgence--we know others whose stories are long and involved--but with them we yawn and stretch and think about laundry and e-mail. With our storytelling friend, our wild, howling, tempest of a friend, we are rapt.
One imagines a hazy Florida night, the air thick with bugs, ice clinking and settling in our glasses, the light changing into shades of mauve. John Dufresne's voice rises over the din of insects and cuts through the suffocating heat. He begins quietly, starting with one protagonist, stripping him away, and bringing in a new one, a first-person narrator that either is Dufresne or a fictionalized Dufresne. In speaking to us, he toys with fact and fiction. Confuses narrator and author. At the end of our wondering which is which--novel that is memoir or fictionalized memoir?--we cease to care. We are too entertained by the warmth and strangeness of his characters and the humor and power with which he is telling the story.
And those characters. Requiem, Mass. is full of them. Dozens of them, each inhabiting a life and a universe, some glowing and flaming out within a few pages, and some moving through the story with us. Some are oddballs, some starkly sane, some are genuinely mentally ill. And it's here that Dufresne shows his power--he can write these humorous and wild characters with such warmth and with such a total lack of condescension. They elicit more empathy than ridicule, more delight than horror. Serving as more than just "color," they become the soul and wit of the story--worthy vehicles for this looping and poetic novel.
The central force of the novel is Dufresne's narrator, who observes and participates, reflects and responds. As those insects buzz around us in the Florida heat, the ice now melted in our glasses, he is at times quiet and gentle in his requiem, and other times passionate and howling: "Any meaning is better than none. Ask any Catholic or Methodist or Hutterite or Hmong. You believe in a God who, in his exquisite loneliness, created the universe and little you. Or you believe that we, in our terrifying loneliness, created God. Doesn't matter which. Ask any Vietnamese child kneeling in the mud, praying, choking on her tears, feeling the hot muzzle of an M16 at the nape of her neck, hearing the screams of her grandparents, inhaling the sting of smoke and cordite, know that this soldier here behind you dear, his about to make his own meaning by firing a burst of bullets through your head. At that moment there is no arrow of time for you, there is no there, no then. There is only this singularity, this Planck instant, this big bang. At that moment you are borrowing energy against time and shaping your brief life into a quantum of meaning."
1429747
A wonderful reflection and examination on how story affects our thoughts, our lives, and the whole of Life, written in way that's easily understood and that anyone can relate to.
4833824
Caveat - I am only a quarter a way into the book after receiving it as a gift.  The giver and I have been taking turns the last week reading it aloud to one another and luxuriating in the prose - both in our mouths and in our minds.  I'll update this review once I finish the book but felt compelled to provide a mid-way review because I feel that it has already provided a book's worth of story and thought.  We find ourselves separately thinking about the story and bringing aspects up to discuss, knowing that when we revisit Dar Oakley's world more questions and discussions will arise.

The story is not linear and the narrative shifts and changes as the protagonist learns and changes - but so far I've been entranced.
726028
We identified with the story, my heritage, my family's story-- a  great read
2362950
Protagonist Eloise Hempel is trying to write a book about location and identity.  She hasn't succeeded by the end of "The History of Us," but the theme is nevertheless thoroughly explored in Leah Stewart's novel.

Eloise's life is changed forever when her sister and brother-in-law are killed in a freak accident.  She leaves her dream job as a Harvard professor to return to Cincinnati and assume the care of the couple's three children.  The story picks up seventeen years later with each family member at a crossroads.  With the children grown, Eloise hopes to sell the family home and recover a semblance of her former life.  But the house still belongs to her mother Francine, who creates a competition for it between Eloise, her nephew Josh, and nieces Theo and Claire.

Cincinnati is very much a presence in the story.  Eloise dreams of escaping her hometown, while Theo can't bear the thought of leaving.  Josh has given up a musical career and returned to Cincinnati.  Claire, a ballerina, is supposed to be leaving for New York, but she has a secret that she hasn't shared with the others.  We see the ties that each character has to Cincinnati, and how each of them is shaped by the Queen City.

"The History of Us" was especially interesting to me because I have lived in Cincinnati for the past thirty years.  I was pleased to see that Stewart, who teaches creative writing at the University of Cincinnati, is accurate in her geography and other local references--in contrast to some other authors, notably Mona Simpson, who took great liberties when she wrote about my hometown of Green Bay, Wisconsin.  (And yes, I know Simpson writes fiction, and yes, I know that she can take liberties.  It bothers me anyway.  But Stewart's Cincinnati is spot-on.)

I enjoy novels that are character-driven, and Stewart takes us deep into the minds of Eloise, Theo, Josh, and Claire.  We get to know them well and empathize with them.  Stewart gives us a satisfying ending, although few issues are actually resolved.  She leaves her characters with a lot of work to do.  But that's realistic, and at least she gives them hope.

"The History of Us" left me wanting more.  I'm anxious to check out Stewart's three earlier novels.  I'd also love to see a sequel to "The History of Us."