Leaving Jack, by Gareth Crocker ***

After months in Vietnam, soldier Carson Fletcher has had enough. He's tired of the rain, the mud, the discomfort, the danger - and most of all he's tired of seeing his buddies killed. But when his platoon encounters a yellow Lab named Jack, something in Carson comes alive again. He knows that if he can help Jack survive, he can save himself.

A friend recommended this short story to me. She said she's read it over and over and loves it every time. I've looked, and am pretty sure it's out of print... an audio version of it is going for $63 on Amazon, so I figured it must be a great story. I thought it was good, but not spectacular. The story opened up as the main character stands over his families grave, after an accident. He's already tried to commit suicide once over their loss, and decides to enlist to go to Vietnam to ensure his death in a 'useful' manner. It's a story that's been told many times in various forms, but it has potential.

Being the dog lover that I am, it feels odd to say this, but the story lost credibility when the dog is introduced. Injuries and events are a little to severe to be survived - multiple times. If you suspend your disbelief, the story is based on good premise; I just found it a little too hard to believe to get truly involved.

Falling Home, by Karen White **

Cassie Madison has it all: a high-powered advertising career, a stylish Manhattan apartment, and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiance. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years. When her father dies, he leaves the family home to Cassie, who can't wait to get rid of it and get back to New York, her job, and her fiance, even if it means having a developer tear down the house. But something keeps her in Walton, and she doesn't know if it's her mending relationship with her sister; the irresistible, aggravating Sam Parker, who wants her to preserve her house; or the feeling of finally being home. This sweet book is highly recommended.

I don't recommend this book. It had a few good parts, but you've got to slog through a bunch of junk to get to it. I really didn't like the main character. She came across as a prissy snob with a chip on her shoulder and magically transformed to a considerate and loving family woman through the book. I'm beyond believing that people change that much over a period of a few weeks. Actually, I found too many of the characters to be over the top and predictable. In fact, I had to check the cover a few times to make sure I wasn't reading a Harlequin romance.

Arranged, by Catherine Mckenzie ****

Anne Blythe is lucky. She’s got a brand new book contract, a great newspaper job and a steadfast best friend, and she can land just about any man she sets her sights on—and the ones that appeal are typically tall, dark and handsome. Problem is, the men she chooses never last. Shortly after yet another relationship goes down in flames, Anne comes across a card for what she believes is a dating service, and pockets it just in case. If she’s so unlucky in love, maybe she could use a little assistance. Then her best friend announces she’s engaged, and envy gets the better of Anne. Now’s the time, she decides, to give the service a try—and she is shocked to discover that what the company specializes in are exclusive, and pricey, arranged marriages. After learning of the company’s success rate, however, she overcomes her reluctance and signs on. After all, arranged marriages are the norm for millions of women around the world, and she’s not done so well selecting a mate on her own. So why not use a professional service that claims it can produce the perfect match?
Some time later, Anne is travelling to a Mexican resort, where in one short weekend she will meet and marry Jack, the man they have chosen for her. And against all odds, it seems to be working out, until Anne learns that Jack and the company who arranged their marriage are not what they seem at all.

There's a quote on the front cover of this book that says "Just when you think you've got Arranged figured out, time and again, Catherine McKenzie delivers the flawless, unexpected twist that keeps you glued to the book." That, and the description on the back of the book lead me to believe that there was going to be some mystery. I bought this book because I thought it was going to be a thriller of sorts. It wasn't.

This was a very predictable, formulated love story. It wasn't a bad book - I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. It was probably the perfect intellectual level for my anesthesia brain - but I felt like there was some false advertising in the description.

Left Neglected, by Lisa Genova ***

Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children—Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus.
Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son’s teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it’s a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe.

A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller. Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt.

A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother. Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future.

Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny—her new, true life—may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.

I thought this book was good, but not great. The first few chapters drew me in. I liked the main character and could relate to her life; but it went down hill from there. I wasn't as fond of the dream sequences, where each chapter started with a description of a weird dream that the main character had... I knew those dreams were a way to show how her life was spinning out of control, and that they'd stop after the accident, but I didn't like them. Fortunately, they were written in italics, and I could flip past them and get straight to the 'real' story.

Full disclosure - I picked up this book because I've had a traumatic brain injury, and it's about a similar injury to mine, stemming from the same sort of accident. I read that the author has her PhD in neuroscience from Harvard, and I wondered how accurate the book would be. I was a bit disappointed that she didn't touch on any of the other issues that stem from a right hemisphere brain injury - it focused entirely on Left Neglect (when the brain doesn't recognize the left side) and left out everything else - that made it harder for me to buy into the story. Luckily for me, I did not experience left neglect; but I did (do) deal with a whole host of other issues stemming from the brain injury that weren't even mentioned in the book. I found it unrealistic that she only had that one (major) problem to deal with. That left the story feeling incomplete to me.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak ****

Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesel's story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative.

This is an excellent book. It's a story narrated by Death, who tells about a young girl who is left with a German foster family during WWII. Her communist parents are unable to care for her and her brother, and her brother dies en route to the foster family's home. Her foster family teaches her to read and embraces her in their life as they live through air raids, food rationing and hiding a Jew in their basement. Every chapter is a little story of its own - very well done, and not nearly as dark as you'd expect.

My Best Friend's Girl, by Dorothy Koomson ***1/2

When Kamryn (Ryn) Matika gets a call from college friend Adele Del Brannon, she reluctantly heads to the hospital where Adele is dying of cancer. The two had been odd couple friends (working-class Ryn is black, posh Adele is white) while attending Leeds University, but their friendship did not survive Del's admission of an affair with Ryn's fiancé Nate Turner, which also ended Ryn's relationship with Nate. The affair did result, however, in the now-five-year-old Tegan, and Del has called Ryn to ask her to adopt the adorable girl. Ryn agrees, but must face down Del's stepmother, Muriel, to do it. She finds surprising help from new boss Luke Wiseman, who, after meeting her unceremoniously, loves Tegan (and eventually Ryn, too), but the return of Nate, who doesn't know Tegan is his daughter, promises to reopen old wounds. Koomson's U.S. debut is a three-hankie delight. (Mar.)

I picked this book up because I thought the idea was original. If your best friend cheated on you with your fiancé and got pregnant, could you raise the child? It's an interesting idea that I thought was handled well from the beginning. I also liked the descriptions of Ryn transitioning from a career minded single female to somebody who is very suddenly a single mother. I thought that the start of this book was excellent, but was a little disappointed that the ending turned more into a story about a love triangle and romantic angst. I wish the focus could have stayed with the little girl, and the adjustment of adding her to Ryn's life. It was a pretty good book, though, and a quick easy read. I liked it, but it wasn't spectacular.

The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton ****

Like Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved classic The Secret Garden, Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden takes root in your imagination and grows into something enchanting--from a little girl with no memories left alone on a ship to Australia, to a fog-soaked London river bend where orphans comfort themselves with stories of Jack the Ripper, to a Cornish sea heaving against wind-whipped cliffs, crowned by an airless manor house where an overgrown hedge maze ends in the walled garden of a cottage left to rot. This hidden bit of earth revives barren hearts, while the mysterious Authoress's fairy tales (every bit as magical and sinister as Grimm's) whisper truths and ignite the imaginary lives of children. As Morton draws you through a thicket of secrets that spans generations, her story could cross into fairy tale territory if her characters weren't clothed in such complex flesh, their judgment blurred by the heady stench of emotions (envy, lust, pride, love) that furtively flourished in the glasshouse of Edwardian society. While most ache for a spotless mind's eternal sunshine, the Authoress meets the past as "a cruel mistress with whom we must all learn to dance," and her stories gift children with this vital muscle memory. --Mari Malcolm --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

I think the description of this book is deceiving. It's not the "Secret Garden, and it's not about fairy tails. Fairy tails are discussed in the story, but not part of the plot. Based on the description, I expected another "Secret Garden"; maybe a little "The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe"... that was my own assumption, but I think I was a little disappointed when it was proven wrong.

This book is a mystery about how a little girl wound up on a ship across the world by herself. She ends up in Australia with amnesia (which is never really explained) and doesn't know who she is or where she came from. She's adopted by a family and grows up to live what seems like a fairly normal life. The story begins when her granddaughter discovers some of her history, and heads to England to find out the rest. There are flashbacks between the granddaughter, the child who was abandoned and her parents. The book wasn't an easy read, but it was enjoyable. I think the closer I got to the end and started finding answers, the more I liked it. That said, it was also a bit of a relief when I was finally done. (I'm normally a quick reader, and it took me three weeks to get through it.)