A Little Family Reunion

This past weekend was a very special one as three of my cousins and my Aunt Viola drove from Long Island to Pennsylvania to visit my Mom....and me, of course. They haven't seen my Mom since Liz' wedding which was almost five years ago.

From left to right: My cousin Debbie (Viola's daughter), my cousin Pat, my Mom, Aunt Viola, my cousin Carole. Pat and Carole are sisters and their mother was my Aunt Madelyn, who was my mother's and Aunt Viola's sister. She has since passed away. Aunt Madelyn was clearly the sweetest of all the sisters and, I hope they don't get mad at me for saying this, but also the most beautiful. She looked like an angel.

My mother used to live in Queens and was able to see her relatives more often then but, when I moved her to Pennsylvania five years ago, it's been much harder for them to get together simply because my mother doesn't like to drive in a car.

I moved my mother from her apartment in Queens to a beautiful retirement facility here in Bucks County where we joke that she is now "living in the lap of luxury". She has a beautiful one bedroom apartment, goes down to dinner every evening, plays Bingo every Monday, goes on shopping trips once or twice a week and basically lives a stressfree life. That's her reward for raising four children. My cousins and my aunt were excited to see where she lives and they all just loved it.

My Aunt Viola is my mother's oldest sister (92) yet she talks and acts like she is 65. I have a special connection to my aunt as I used to work with her for years at Xerox Corporation. As a matter of fact, she knew my husband Bob even before we were dating as he worked there as well. She must have been in her late fifties when I was working at Xerox and they were looking for a receptionist. Since I practically ran the office, I was able to get her the job. Aunt Viola became a legend at Xerox....everyone just loved her. She is probably a favorite to everyone in our family as well because she's just so nice and so enjoyable to talk to. She always starts a sentence by saying your name first. I knew it was a lot for her to make this trip and I am so appreciative that she did this to see her sister. She hasn't been feeling well since she got home and I know this trip took its toll on her.

We went to eat lunch at Olive Garden which was a good choice because everyone likes Italian food and there's a lot to choose from. We had a big round table which made conversation easy although my mother complained afterwards that she wasn't able to hear anything we were saying.

This trip was in the works for years and it couldn't have turned out any better. As I'm sure all of you know, there's really nothing better than being with your relatives because it's such a relaxed situation. You've known them your entire life and they basically know everything there is to know about you. I never had a sister so my girl cousins are the closest I've ever gotten to having a sister. I just wish we lived closer. It's times like these that I regret our move to Pennsylvania 24 years ago but what's done is done. When you're young and moving away, it's exciting. When you're older and you realize how many family things you've missed out on and will continue to miss out on, it's not so exciting.

I know my Aunt Margie (the youngest sister) is dying to see these pictures and hear about the entire trip so I hope she enjoys this. Since I usually have some funny things in my blog, I thought I might add some of the tidbits that went into planning this trip.

I mentioned this get together to my mother over a month ago and her initial reaction was that they couldn't come because it would be too much housework for her. This surprised me as she lives in a two room apartment and has a housekeeper who comes in once a week. So I waited until three two days before they were actually coming to give her the news.

I called her last Thursday and this is kind of how the conversation went....

Me: Mom, so my cousins are coming this weekend with Aunt Viola.

Mom: They're coming to visit YOU, right?

Me: Well, they're stopping here first and then we're all coming over to see you.

Mom: They can't come on Saturday....you know what I do on Saturday.

Me: Well, perhaps you can do your LAUNDRY on another day.

Mom: Why do they have to come on the weekend? Why can't they come during the week?

Me: Probably because they do have JOBS.

Me: We'll all go to lunch at the Olive Garden.

Mom: You know I don't eat lunch.

Me: Well, perhaps this one time you can.

Mom: Why do they have to come in the summer? Why can't they come in October?

At this point, I had just about lost my temper and I won't even type here what my answer was to that question.

But this is my mother and this is what I have to go through to make anything happen. A few months ago, we had plans to go out to dinner on Mother's Day. I told her about it a week before and she didn't say anything. Two days before Mother's Day, she called to tell me she had stubbed her toe and couldn't go. Typical.

I'm telling you this story because before I hung up on the conversation I described above, my parting shot was, "And please don't stub your toe before Saturday."

But all in all it was a great little reunion that turned out so well despite all of my mother's complaints and I can't wait to do it again.

The Bachelorette Finale

So tonight's the finale where Jillian chooses who she would like to be with. Here is one reason not to choose Ed. He has worn this same bathing suit/tank top combo on every single show. And what's going on with those shorts/bathing suit....this is what guys wore in the 70's. It really goes great with his wife beater tank top.

I can't wait to see who she chooses but, for me, the clothes would have been a deal killer.

EDIT: Well, she picked Ed, shorts and all. And, on last night's After The Rose show, she actually said she liked those shorts and he just bought another pair that were even shorter. Go figure.

A Review That Could Have Been Close To My Heart

NOT THE BROOKLYN OF MY YOUTH!!!

I don't even know where to begin with this review as my thoughts are all over the place so it's best I start at the beginning. First off, I don't think it's a great idea for an author to give a name to a character that a good percentage of his readers won't know how to pronounce. In the novel Brooklyn, we are introduced to an Irish lass named Eilis. I've never even seen this name before and, when I first looked at it, I thought it said Elias. Consequently, every time I saw the name thereafter, I always pronounced it as Elias and clearly this main character was not an Elias. I know this is a minor point but it's one that bothered me.

I grew up in Brooklyn and, when I was living there, I couldn't wait to leave and, now that I'm gone, I'm always in search of any book that will bring me back. I guess that's what nostalgia is all about. Years ago, I came upon another book with Brooklyn in its title, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Jennie Fields, and it's one of my favorites because it really brought me back there. Fields also grew up in Brooklyn so everything she wrote about was very authentic. I corresponded with Fields after that and it was she who recommended this book to me.

This story starts out in Ireland post WWII and it's where we first meet Elias....oh, excuse me, I mean Eilis. She's just out of school and looking for a job but, in her town of Enniscorthy, jobs are hard to find. She lives with her mother and older sister Rose and it's Rose's job that basically supports the entire family. Through a priest, who's visiting Ireland from Brooklyn, Rose arranges for him to sponsor her sister Eilis' emigration to the states where jobs are plentiful and a future is possible. Eilis is heartbroken to leave but goes along with the plan. Once she arrives in Brooklyn and begins her job, she's not sure if she did the right thing. But she perseveres and makes a life for herself working, going to school and eventually finding a boyfriend.

I really enjoyed the story Toibin was telling. Even though his main character is very passive, it works within the story. I loved all the supporting cast and felt they were all believable. But then the main problem came into play for me. It all started when Eilis is at Nathan's with her boyfriend and his brother and the author talks about them putting ketchup and mustand on their hotdogs. At this point, not being familiar with this author, I had to look at the back jacket to see where he was from and I could see he never lived in Brooklyn. I'd like to report here and now that no one, and I mean NO ONE, put ketchup on a hotdog at Nathan's in Brooklyn in the 1950's. The only reason Nathan's even had ketchup on its premises is for the french fries. Then one night, in the midst of a calamity, Eilis decides to take the train to her boyfriend's house in Bensonhurst. The author says that the trip should take a little more than an hour. A little more than an hour??? There's nowhere in Brooklyn that's going to take you more than an hour to get to via train from another location in Brooklyn. You could go all the way out to Suffolk County on Long Island in less time. I know these are things only someone from Brooklyn would probably pick up on but my feeling is if you're going to write a book that takes place in Brooklyn and then make the title of the book "Brooklyn", then you better have your facts straight before you put it out there for your readers. Or better yet, have someone edit it who actually lived there during that time.

Many times an author tries to make a location a character within the book. I love when they do this but there is no way Toibin tried to do this. He couldn't because he simply doesn't know the place. I never felt for one minute that I was in Brooklyn. Other than the trips to Coney Island and Ebbets Field, it could have been Anywhere, USA. While Eilis was working on Fulton Street in a department store, I would have loved to have had her make a visit to A&S or Mays department store. I would have loved for her to sit at a lunch counter drinking an egg cream. I would have loved for her to be walking in the street while watching some kids play stickball. I would have loved to see her witness a dog at a Johnny pump. This is the real Brooklyn but it's not the Brooklyn that came across on these pages.

At one point, Eilis makes a trip back to Ireland and it's here that the author, who is from Dublin, is clearly more comfortable. Even with everything I've already said, I was still enjoying this story and actually stayed up late one night to finish it. At this point, it was a 4 star book for me. Not great but certainly a good read. That is, until the ending where I feel the author must have gotten a call from his publisher telling him he had to wrap it up. Because that's what he did and before I knew it, the book was over. To say I didn't like the ending would be an understatement.....I hated it.

So nostalgia aside, because I never felt any, this Brooklyn was definitely not the Brooklyn of the 50's where I grew up. I agree with other reviewers that Toibin can write but it's a shame that my first introduction to his work was not a 5 star one.

3 out of 5 stars

Book Review Time

You're Not In The Emerald City Any Longer SCARECROW!!!!

I added this up last night and discovered that I have read more books by Michael Connelly (16) than any other author I've read. So I guess one could say I'm a huge fan. The amazing thing is that they were all five star books (except for Chasing The Dime, of course). I find this almost hard to believe but it's true. And I'm actually one of the readers who started reading Connelly before his real fame came into being with the publication of The Poet.

I guess it's only fair then that his latest offering features journalist Jack McEvoy....the same Jack McEvoy who appeared in The Poet. Connelly's true fans have been awaiting a reappearance by one of their favorite characters for years now and in The Scarecrow, Jack's return does not disappoint for one minute. I loved this book from the beginning to the end.

Having started his career as a journalist, I'm sure this book is close to Connelly's heart as he watches the slow demise of the newspaper industry. The fact that technology is killing newspapers becomes only too clear as the book starts off with Jack getting a pink slip from the LA Times. But "our" Jack is intent on going out with a bang and makes it his business to come up with one last story that will be Pulitzer prizeworthy. He will set out to prove that a sixteen year old gang member is not guilty of the murder for which he is being accused. The good news to Jack's fans is that he will need to ask FBI agent Rachel Walling for her help as he starts to get too close to the answer to the mystery and much too close to The Scarecrow. Their "coupling" in this book is well worth the wait as they make such a great team.

We learn at the beginning of the book who the real villain is and I enjoy when an author does this because I then get to follow the thoughts of the "bad guy" right up front. As Jack is closing in on The Scarecrow, we get to view this villain as he becomes a bird being scared by a scarecrow as opposed to the opposite way around. I enjoyed all of the Wizard of Oz references in the book as well. At one point, music is playing in the background and it's Eric Clapton in concert singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." In addition, the city editor of the LA Times where Jack works is "Dorothy" Fowler and guess where's she originally from....you guessed right...Kansas. I also love when an author references one of his other books within the book I'm reading. In this case, Jack mentions reading a series of stories about a lawyer who did his business out of a Lincoln. Nice shoutout to Mickey Haller of The Lincoln Lawyer fame.

Unlike other authors who don't have Connelly's talent, he doesn't have to make his stories so convoluted that you can't even understand them. He also doesn't resort to having the villain be one of the investigators as so many other authors "cop out" and do. He writes a clear-cut story from start to finish and it's always one you can't put down. I always comment that I read very few books in a given year that would get a "10" rating from me. In the mystery/thriller category, this is one for 2009, a "Big 10". The only other two books in this genre that I've read this year and have also received a "10" rating from me were The Lincoln Lawyer and The Brass Verdict. Surprise, surprise, they were also written by Connelly. This is obviously one satisfied fan.

OMG -- I LOVE "BIG BROTHER"

There is no show on TV that I look forward to more than the new season of Big Brother. Tonight began Season 11 and I've actually been counting the days off until it started again.

One of the things I like the most is the motto of the show, "Expect The Unexpected", so that every season is different than the season before. And, unlike other reality shows like Survivor, Big Brother is on three times a week. But that's not even enough viewing to know what's really going on in the house because the show is edited so much that unless you follow the houseguests more than the three times it's on during the week, you will only get to see what the producers want you to see.

So last year, Showtime started three hour live coverage beginning at midnight and ending at 3AM. Oh no, there's no way I can miss that so now I end up losing sleep watching this additional coverage. Thank goodness for DVR's because I'm able to tape what I miss when I fall asleep in the middle of it.

And then CBS also has a live feed that you can purchase where you can watch it 24/7 if you like. Last year I swore I wouldn't do this because I spent too much time the summer before watching these houseguests (or hamsters as they are referred to) 'round the clock. But midway through the show, I caved in and started watching it whenever I got a free minute.

Yesterday, I was on the phone with Michael and reminded him that Big Brother was coming on this week. His response was, "Don't tell me you're going to be watching this on the computer all the time." He knows me too well. It's a good thing I don't have an IPhone because I'd probably be able to watch this when I'm away from the house and away from my computer. Usually this is on while we're at the shore during the summer so I'm spending vacation time watching it. This year, we won't be at the shore so I might not have as much time as I've had in the past to watch it.

One unfortunate thing is that none of my friends watch this show so I can't call them up to talk about it. I tried calling Pat today to get her to watch it but she couldn't be coerced. Linda won't watch it because if it's something Jim doesn't want to watch, we're out of luck. She has enough of a problem trying to catch some of the "Housewives" episodes when he's not around since he won't watch that either.

Tonight they introduced the twelve new houseguests and divided them into four groups....the popular ones, the brainiacs, the athletes and the offbeats. They likened it to being in high school and the cliques these people were probably in during that time. It should be interesting.

One of the new twists was bringing a past houseguest back into the house to compete. There was a chance that my favorite houseguest of all time, Jessica, could get back in but the "popular" group had to win the challenge in order for this to happen. Instead the "athletes" won and Jessie, the bodybuilder, got to go back in. If Jessica had gotten to go back into the house, it would have been a dream season for me. It still will be but to dangle a carrot like that and then to have it slip away is downright cruel to a true Big Brother fan.

So right now, it's about 10PM and I've seen the first episode and there are only two hours to go before the Showtime coverage begins. I say, "Let The Season Begin". I'm in my glory!!!! I just wish I had some friends to share this with but, since I don't, I will regale all of you blogger readers with my Big Brother coverage. I think, however, that Michael will come through for me because he always ends up watching it.

Review of "Cutting For Stone"

A CUT ABOVE THE REST

As a reader, I'm always in search of that book I would rate a "10" but, unfortunately, these books don't come around that often. Sure I've read books in the past year that I've given 5 stars to but their actual rating was less than a "10". They probably fell in the "8" or "9" range. I've read some really good mysteries this year but I rate them according to their genre so I don't really put them in the same category as good literature. I knew the second half of this year had some potential as three of my favorite authors, John Irving, Pat Conroy and Richard Russo, all have books coming out. But then I started hearing some buzz about this book, Cutting For Stone, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's not one I would have picked up on my own simply because the title was so weird. Cutting For Stone....what the heck is that? With the long 4th of July weekend looming before me, I knew I wanted to read something great and decided to take a chance with Verghese's novel. I'm so glad I did.

I've always been the type of reader that loves when an author takes me somewhere I've never been before and, while there, teaches me things I've never known. When they're able to do this teaching without preaching, it's an extra added bonus. I've never been to Ethiopia and I know I'll never go there. When I think of Ethiopia, I have visions of a totally undeveloped country. While I'm sure these visions are partially true, Verghese really opened my eyes to another part of the world in a country where medical teams still strive for perfection without the kind of money that easily flows into many of the hospitals of which we're familiar. Verghese's Ethiopia is filled with people who love their country and their food and their smells and their customs. And when a time comes that they leave their beloved country behind, they miss it as much as we would miss ours. Just recently, I was driving down a street in Manhattan and I saw an Ethiopian restaurant. Other than thinking that they surely have every single kind of restaurant in NYC, my other thought was, "Who would go to an Ethiopian restaurant?" After reading this book, it is clear to me how much business this restaurant probably gets from all of the people who have made their way to this country from Ethiopia and what a blessing it must be for them to get some real home cooking on foreign soil.

When you have an author who grew up in the country he's writing about, it makes everything seem so much more real as these are his real experiences. It reminded me of reading The Kite Runner by Hosseini and how much I got to learn about Afghanistan because it's where that author spent most of his life. In this case, not only did Verghese grow up in Ethiopia but he also became a doctor. The fact that a majority of this book takes place in a hospital lends itself to some more first hand knowledge from this very gifted author. Another part of the knowledge I amassed was about the politics of Ethiopia under the rule of Emperor Haile Selassie and the political coups during that time to try to take him down. I found this part of the book fascinating.

Before I give you the impression that this book has no story and it's just a learning experience about a country and its ruler, I have to say that it is every bit the story for which every avid reader is searching. It's a novel that's epic in scope and begins on a ship sailing from India to Yemen where a young nun meets a very seasick British doctor and is able to nurse him through that voyage. Some years later, they will meet again in a hospital in Ethiopia where she will become his right hand through every one of his surgeries. Until one day, she doesn't show up in the operating room and the real story begins. Twins are born, secrets are not revealed, lives are shattered and all of this will be narrated by one of the male twins...Marion. I am not even going to go into the entire summary of the book because too many other reviewers here have given too much away already. Suffice it to say that you will not be able to put it down. Every time I picked it up, I was wondering where each of these characters had been since I was last reading. The author does an amazing job of inserting you into their lives and developing characters you will come to love...Matron, the ruling nun of the hospital; Hema, the gynecologist; Ghosh her beloved husband and surgeon; Dr. Thomas Stone, head surgeon; Sister Mary Joseph Praise, his loyal assistant and the twins Shiva and Marion. I'm already making this review longer than I wanted so I'll leave the story there because I know you will be reading it yourself.

It's a tale of love and hope and desire and "enlightenment". I say enlightenment for two reasons. Clearly each of these characters will have their eyes opened in such a way that it will make a mark on their souls. But I can't help but think that there are some references to Buddha that can't just be coincidental. In two separate cases, the author has one character returning from prison...after 49 days of imprisonment...while he has another character becoming unconscious....after 49 days of the onset of an illness. This is the exact number of days (49) that Buddha meditated before he became enlightened. I would love to know if this was done intentionally.

Some other reviewers have stated that there were a lot of medical references and explanatons of surgeries that they found tedious. I found these fascinating. They were told in such a way that the lay reader could actually understand what the surgeon was doing. The book also opened my eyes to the importance of donations and how much these foreign organizations depend on us to keep them going. I'm always afraid that my money is not being used appropriately but it's clear to me now just how much these places rely on us to give them aid. My eyes were also opened to the fact that these foreign doctors come to America and never get interviews with the major hospitals which is why you'll find so many foreign doctors in remote areas of our country or hospitals where American doctors wouldn't think of working.

And how can I end without an explanation of the title...Cutting for Stone. It is part of the Hippocratic Oath taken by all doctors and it says..."I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art." So I guess the title wasn't that weird after all. The fact that one of the main characters has the last name "Stone" makes this title even more poignant. English Lit classes would have a field day analyzing this one. I'll just leave it at that.

I recently had a friend tell me that they had given up on reading books that had in excess of 500 pages. I can't understand this statement because most of my favorite books were definitely in that category. So what else can I say about the book that was clearly my favorite so far this year. I just wish there were more books like this and more authors who could tell a story like Verghese. All I can say is thank you for 534 pages of reading bliss.

5 out of 5 stars....It's a "10"

Review of "Trust No One"

TRUST NO "TWITTER"

Oh the power of a simple "tweet". I had no knowledge of this book and hadn't previously read anything by this author until I read a "tweet" by one of my favorite authors encouraging all of his followers to read this "great" book. Within hours, I had the book in my hands and prepared myself for a great reading experience. It had to be great, right? It's been recommended by someone who definitely knows a great thriller when he reads one as he, himself, is a master thriller author.

The book certainly starts off with a bang as Nick Horrigan, dressed in his pajamas, is pulled from his condo while the SWAT team who is taking him away is also thrashing his apartment at the same time. Wow, he must be some kind of terrorist, I thought. I was, however, wrong as Nick is a social worker, who works with homeless people. But the SWAT team is bringing him to talk to a terrorist who claims he will blow up a nuclear reactor, so he must be involved in some way. Wrong again. He doesn't even know this man but the man claims to have known his stepfather and passes on some information and a secret key to Nick.

That's how the story begins....as preposterous as it may sound. I'm not saying the beginning wasn't exciting and I really was on the edge of my seat but, as the story progressed, it just seemed so unbelievable that this could be happening. They say you have to know someone's backstory to understand them and Nick certainly has an involved one. Hurwitz brings us back to a time when Nick was a high school baseball star and his mother is married to a Secret Service agent. He has great respect for this man who will die long before his time. This is where Nick's real backstory will begin. He goes into hiding and doesn't surface for years. Just when he thinks he's in the clear, the SWAT team arrives out of nowhere and Trust No One really begins.

Nick is very adept at sifting out clues. As a matter of fact, Nick, the social worker, is better at this than the U.S. Government as Nick seems to be able to get to everyone who will clear up the mystery before the FBI,CIA, Secret Service and police detectives can. It almost doesn't seem plausible and that's because it isn't. This is my real beef with this book. While there was a good story there, it wasn't believable and I think I had it figured out by the time I had finished the first third of this book. Once that happened, I kept shaking my head as I was reading the rest because it was not to be believed.

I know I'm being unusually critical with this review and there are probably many readers who will think it is a great book as is evidenced by the many positive reviews here. If you read a few books a year and want to bring something with you on vacation, this might be the book. If you're an avid reader and can easily see through a book's faults, then this might not be the one for you. I had to smile when, in the Acknowledgment section, the author thanked his good friend Joe Finder for all his help. Yes, it's the power of this help that got me to read this book.

3 of 5 stars

Review of "Beach Trip"

NOT A GOOD TRIP

I am always, always in search of another great women bonding book similar to Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney or Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik. When I came upon Beach Trip, I thought it had potential. Certainly the cover was beautiful, the premise of four college roommates meeting up again some 20 years later was a good one and the author seemed to have a huge fan base. I was getting ready to leave for a Las Vegas vacation and decided this would be the book I would take with me. Reading on the plane, reading at the pool....I could picture it all as I was packing my bag.

So I started it en route to Las Vegas leaving from Philadelphia and probably put it down by the time we reached Ohio and opted instead for a magazine. That was not a good sign as Ohio connects to Pennsylvania. So I tried again at the pool. After about 10 pages, I put it down thinking perhaps it was too hot outside to read. Each time I picked it up, I had a different reason for putting it down. The book jumped back and forth between the years the girls were living together in college in 1980 and their week's vacation on Whale Head Island, North Carolina twenty-three years later. As the story was jumping back and forth, I was doing the same thing in picking it up and putting it down.

At this point, I'd like to make a statement about women bonding books. If you are an author and you want the reader to bond with these women, the reader has to like them. Why would a reader bond with characters they don't like? I didn't like any of these characters. And, here's another tidbit...if you have your characters drinking from the minute they wake up in the morning until they close their eyes at night, I like them even less. I'm not saying that a reader has to like every character in every book they read. But in a "bonding" book, such as this, it would help.

I can't figure out if I liked them less as college students or less as the women they became. In college, we will meet Lola....beautiful and from a wealthy political family where the world will be her oyster. When we meet her again, she has married the man her mother has chosen, seems very ditsy and definitely is not in love. Then there's Mel....very outgoing in college and getting every guy she wants. We meet her again and she is twice divorced, very outspoken and definitely can't commit to one man. In college, Sara stood in the background and didn't go after what she wanted. Later she is a married attorney with an autistic son but definitely able to go after what she wants. Annie is the OCD college student spending more time cleaning than enjoying her college days (or so her friends think). Now she is married and experiencing empty nest syndrome while still cleaning her house with every waking hour she has.

Now I ask you, do these sound like women you would want to be friends with? During the vacation week, when they aren't drinking, they are eating and fighting and shopping and lounging and trying to pick up younger men and drinking some more. It's here that many of the secrets, that were supposedly hidden from the reader and each other, will be exposed. I can't imagine that there are too many readers out there that didn't figure out these secrets long before the author chose to spell them out.

You're probably wondering how I ended up finishing this book after putting it down so many times. It all happened in the Las Vegas airport when my flight home was delayed three separate times because of bad weather in Philadelphia. At one point, we had already gotten on the plane only to be told to get off again. So in a way, the book ended up giving me a respite from all the aggravation I was feeling with my situation. I just wish the book I had chosen for this trip had been a better one.

3 of 5 stars

Reading More Than Blogging

It's seems that lately I've been doing a lot more reading......definitely reading a lot more than I'm blogging since I haven't posted here in over a month. As a result, I have four reviews to post all in one day. So enjoy the recommendations, or should I say, one recommendation.

STUCK IN HIS OWN "TURNAROUND"

My introduction to George Pelecanos dates back many years ago when I saw him at a book signing with his friend Michael Connelly. At the time, he had just written Right As Rain, which was a real departure from his Nick Stefanos' series. I'm guessing I've read at least seven of his books so my review is not coming from someone who is new to this author.

So many of his books have pieces of him in them. He once worked in an appliance store and characters in his previous books have also done so. His father owned a cafe and he used to work at the lunch counter as does Alex in this book. He was known to play around with his father's gun when he was young as does Raymond with his brother's gun in this book. The Turnaround is probably his most autobiographical work so far. He vividly describes his hours working with his father and uses a similar theme I have seen in many of his books where your upbringing is everything...it's the beginning and end of who you are and what you do.

Set once again in D.C., it's always about the journey with Pelecanos and not the actual crime. He's a historian so every book is a learning experience on the history of D.C. At this point, I feel I probably know more about where he grew up than I do about where I did. On the one hand, I understand that Pelecanos is trying to create accurate pictures of the way things were in the eras he's writing about but at times I want to say, "enough is enough". I grew up in Brooklyn and perhaps if he was writing about Brooklyn, I'd be so into going down memory lane with him. He develops his characters and they always have the same interests as his....cars, sports, music, music, music, music...until I can't take it anymore.

Family is always lurking in the background of each of Pelecanos' offerings as he writes about race, crime, social issues and morality. Looking back at the characters' family usually gives you an edge into how the book will turn out.

In life, you find that there are two kind of turnarounds...the one you get stuck in and the one you come out of. This story is one of three kids out for an afternoon summer joyride and driving through an area they shouldn't be in and exacerbating the situation by having words with some of the other kids living there forcing a racial altercation that will have dire ramifications. The driver of the car feels he can just drive in, do his damage, go through the turnaround and leave. But, he will find out too soon that this is the turnaround you get stuck in. In Pelecanos' world, there usually aren't any cops as the justice is dished out right on the streets. And on this day, justice will be dished out on a silver platter or should I say silver "gun".

The book centers around what happens when the characters, who are now in their 50's, come upon each other again some thirty years later. A few have been in jail, some have been disfigured while others live in their own kind of hell with the knowledge of what really happened. If you've read as many of Pelecanos novels as I have, it will be easy to see that what you're reading really isn't what really happened if you remember how much morality and family plays into his stories. So, for this reader, there weren't too many surprises.

When I had read the premise of this story, teenagers doing something bad in their teens, being punished for it and then meeting up again later in life, I had dreams of another "Sleepers" by Lorenzo Carcaterra. Unfortunately, this was not to be.

Listen, I love Pelecanos and feel an affinity to him but after so many novels, I think he owes his fans "the book"....the one that's going to push him over the top. I'm not even going to mention the other novels I'm thinking of that separated their authors from the mainstream because any real reader knows who and what I'm referring to. I'm just dying to read this from Pelecanos. And I want him to be able to drop all of his security blankets and leave out the music and sports references completely. Well, perhaps he can add a few. I know certain authors have certain things they must add in each book even if it's just a one line mention. Carcaterra needs to have a St. Jude and Yankee's shoutout while Irving needs his bears and Vienna shoutouts. I get it that Pelecanos needs his music shoutout but he has to know that many of his readers are tiring of it. I understand how it's supposed to set the stage for the time and place but this reader feels he overdoes it.

After I finished this, I actually said to myself that I'm done with Pelecanos. Then I remembered that I had recently bought The Way Home and it was too late to return it. I also have one or two more of his Nick Stefanos' series here waiting to be read. So I guess I'm not done. I'm in my own "turnaround" and hoping one of these days he's going to enter the turnaround that you don't get stuck in and come out with the novel we've all been waiting for.

3 of 5 stars