Book Review: Escape from Assisted Living

Escape from Assisted Living. Joyce Hicks. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, March 23, 2014, Trade Paperback and e-book, 236 pages.

Reviewed by Renee James.

Escape from Assisted Living is a charming, whimsical title that promises to be a somehow lighthearted and entertaining journey into the world of elderly living. Author Joyce Hicks delivers on that promise in ways that surprise and delight.

Betty is an elderly widow from Elkhart, Indiana who has always gone along to get along, first with her devoted husband Chuck, and then with her devoted but smothering daughter Sharon. Sharon lives in fear of disorder and feels responsible for her mother's health and safety. To relieve her own anxieties, Sharon convinces Betty to move into an assisted living facility filled with happy pictures and contented inmates and perky, patronizing staff people . . . all of which brings out the inner Thelma and Louise in Betty. She decides to slip away from the cloying atmosphere of Elkhart for a train ride west, with a stop in Chicago to check out the contents of her late husband's security box in a downtown bank. Her stop in Chicago opens the door to a series of wonderful escapades, each the product of Betty's unique blend of small-town naiveté and her unleashed sense of adventure.

There is much to love about this book, starting with the elegantly drawn character of Betty who brings a 1950s sense of etiquette and attire into the current day Chicago, and shows us that personal growth can occur just as surely late in life as any other time to those who are willing to explore life's possibilities. Equally compelling, if not always as loveable, is daughter Sharon who personifies oldest-child syndrome—cautious, judgmental, controlling—but who is also unfailingly loving and attentive to her mother. Sharon's growth in this story—and our feelings about her—provides a rich subplot and a touching look at the pressures children can feel as their parents age.

Author Hicks also delivers a series of entertaining secondary characters that roll in and out of Betty's life, ranging from an octogenarian social activist who pickets with her middle-aged daughter, to an elderly widower who works as an extra in movie scenes. Like Betty and Sharon, these secondary characters first appear as paragons of midwestern conformity, but turn out to be delightfully iconoclastic in their own subtle, but colorful, ways.

Escape from Assisted Living is engaging and funny and as comfortable as a warm fire on a chill day. If it has a weakness, it is that it starts slowly. The first two chapters have a lot of back story and shifting points of view. However, those chapters set up what quickly becomes a fast-moving novel filled with unique characters, off beat adventures, and sparkling dashes of wry humor. Escape from Assisted Living delivers on the promise of its title and shows us that there is no age limit on the possibilities of life's adventures.

Book Review: Love’s Perfect Surrender

Love’s Perfect Surrender. Chiara Talluto. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, April 25, 2014. Trade Paperback and e-book, 292 pages.

Reviewed by Jessica Cage. 

Be prepared for a tear jerker.

Love's Perfect Surrender is the debut novel from Chiara Talluto. An outdoorsy, stay-at-home mother and philanthropist, Talluto brings forth a tale of a woman who is facing the crossroads of her life. Antoinette’s story is one that many women can relate to. Having struggled with her inability to bear a child, she is now faced with a husband who is ready to throw in the towel. However, Antoinette isn’t the type to give up easily, no matter how others may view their relationship.

At a moment when she is sure they will fall apart, she turns to her faith in God to help her through. With the guidance of their pastor, Antoinette and her husband, Vito, attempt to patch the holes in their marriage. Just as Vito is finally ready to tell Antoinette he would like a divorce, she finds out she is pregnant! He of course thinks this is just a tactic she is using to keep him around, but when he finds out that it is true, he is still very conflicted about how they should proceed.

This book was very well written and completely captivating. It has been a while since I read a book that had me playing a game of emotional tug-of-war. These characters are so flawed and yet so real. The way that they move through the story and feed off each other’s energy, I felt as if I was a fly on the wall in their home.

This book depicts the struggle of a relationship that is obviously failing, nearing the brink of destruction. They choose to stay together for the sake of their unborn child (something that had me screaming internally about how big of a mistake this was). However, it’s a very real choice that real people make.

The reader is given both perspectives so it’s hard to choose a side. Whatever side you land on, you are in for a great story that will have you laughing, crying, and loving harder than thought possible. The best books have the reader walking away with a message, a perspective about life, even if they weren’t aware they were learning one. Chiara Talluto has done just that. I am eagerly awaiting the next book from this wonderful author.

Book Review: The Rooms are Filled

The Rooms are Filled: A Novel. Jessica Vealitzek. She Writes Press, April 22, 2014, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 236 Pages.

Reviewed by Vicky Edwards.

The Rooms Are Filled, a new novel set in the 1980s by Jessica Null Vealitzek, sees beyond nostalgia of the time to remind us that the era was not immune to feelings of powerlessness and alienation. Homosexuality was sometimes feared and often mocked, grief therapy was rare, and bullying might be seen as boys just being boys. Whether you were the new kid in school, a child in a dysfunctional family, or an adult struggling with his or her sexual orientation, there were plenty of clubs that didn’t want you as a member.

The story begins in 1983, as a Minnesota family is devastated by the loss of the Anne’s husband and young Michael’s father. They can’t keep the family farm, and unhappily move to a suburb of Chicago, where Anne’s brother can make a new life financially possible.

Michael inadvertently raises the ire of a bully in his new school, and it is painful to watch this innocent nine year old struggling with both his grief and his outcast status. The new teacher, herself a recent arrival to the Chicago area, sees what Michael is going through, perhaps because she is also suffering. Although she has tried to escape her feelings of love for a woman, she too has raised the ire of a local bully--a police officer whose advances she has spurned, leading him to save his bruised ego by openly questioning whether she is a lesbian.

The parallels are interesting, and it is a relief to find the teacher and the student able to connect with each other. Many minor characters are also struggling with their own searches to fit in, providing believable supporting evidence that people need to focus on their similarities and not their differences. The story moves at a fast pace, building toward confrontations that make us grateful that the world is a more enlightened place these days.

There are multiple flashbacks to establish the closeness of Michael’s relationship with his now-deceased father and this occasionally causes a few re-reads of passages to mentally establish chronology. The introduction of Rose and Julia is also jarring in the “Wait, do I know who this is?” way. Although the writing is not seamless in getting the back stories and characters established, any confusion is cleared as the story moves forward.

This is a first novel for Jessica Null Vealitzek, and she has struck a good balance between reminding us of icons of the times and telling a story that cautions us that we need to be inclusive and understanding of those who are different, no matter what the era. Although this is not a literary masterpiece (some of the characters and settings feel stereotypical), it is a good read that shows promise.

Jessica Null Vealitzek was born and raised northwest of Chicago, where she now lives with her husband and two children. She is a former reporter and a political communications director. 

Book Review: Reasons for Being

Reasons for Being. Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, February 15, 2014, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 442 pages.

Reviewed by Sierra Kay.

Reason for Being by Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom is a novel about a woman, Phoenix Porter, who is living a partial life, fighting the effects of a brutal past. Each event has cleaved deeper and deeper and separated her from the essence of her being called “Spirit.” Together Spirit and Phoenix tell the tale through dreams and life situations—recounting what led to Phoenix’s current state, its impact on her life, and how she manages to become whole once again.

Phoenix works at a coffee shop with her best friend, Marley, and lives with her other friend, Sabine. She struggles with her life’s direction and purpose. As she watches her friend, Sabine, reach out and realize her dreams, more questioning and a bout of depression arise within Phoenix.

When a family death drives Phoenix back home, her issues bubble up to demand attention, pushing her already unstable life into chaos. Phoenix, with the support of her family and friends, slowly peels back the layers of past hurts leaving her exposed, but providing oxygen needed to heal.

Reason for Being is not a quick read. This is one of those novels that require you to commit, to take the time to settle in with the characters. If the reader does that, he/she will engage in a heavily poetic novel that displays the talents of a craftsman of the English language.

There are times when Mallory Raven-Ellen Backstrom’s writing is as clear and beautiful as springtime in a meadow. You’re amazed at the beauty around you and inhale the delicate natural musk to make it a part of your very being. At other times, her writing is very hard work.

Overall, Reason for Being sometimes lacked clarity and direction, but never creativity with turns of phrases reminiscent of Sonia Sanchez.

Book Review: My Song: Memoir of an ER Physician

My Song: Memoir of an ER Physician. Craig Dean, MD. Lulu Publishing Services, May 7, 2014. Trade Paperback, 427 pages.

Reviewed by Serena Wadhwa.

In My Song: Memoir of an ER Physician, Craig Dean tells 100 stories from his ER experience that have meaning to him. Many people operate under the assumption that ER physicians do not have feelings, and Dean attempts to counter that notion with some insight about both the internal and external world of one ER physician.

As a Chicago native, Dean received his medical training in Illinois and served as the director of the ER at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, IL for 30 years. He initiated the largest hospital-based health and fitness facilities in the nation, is an avid supporter of health and wellness, and is and avid runner. He wrote a regular column both national and locally and was a host/producer of a TV series.  Dean wrote two fiction books, one for children and one for the general reader. My Song is Dean’s first attempt at a memoir.

Let me start with a disclaimer. As a clinician and assistant professor, I listen to countless stories from clients and students and invariably ask follow-up questions to get more of what I need from each story teller. Such follow-up questions aren't possible with a written memoir, of course, and that left me frustrated at times.

That said, Dean's 100 stories provided some touching moments that illustrated his “humanness.” For example, in the story about Athena, Dean writes, “In the emergency room, death is always difficult, and the death of a child is horrific to both the child’s family as well as the ER staff. On this day, mother, father, nurse, and doctor were offered the plate of Viktor Frankl’s tragic optimism. We all would be forever changed by this tragedy that linked our lives and became a potent, everlasting memory. My eyes were reddened that night, but they also saw more the truculent realities of fate.”

Another thing I enjoyed about this book are the snippets of objective facts relating to the story. For example, in the story of “The International ‘Guru’ of Preventive Medicine, William Castilli, MD,” I did not know that a Big Mac has 35 grams of fat (equivalent to a large syringe). Now, I don’t eat Big Macs, but this fact and description was interesting. The book is full of tidbits like this, as well as resources and readings that the author finds important and nourishing.

I also liked the integration of philosophical authors, references, and resources that the reader can seek for their own benefit. While I am familiar with most of them because of my field, I did discover several interesting books and resources that I hope to obtain. His integration of Jung, Greek and French terminology (with explanations), Frankl, Thoreau, and others provided a mix to his story-telling.

I find that memoirs are a different kind of writing than fiction or non-fiction. The author wants to tell a story, without embellishing it, and at the same time, provide a rich picture of the experience. Dean uses imagery to accomplish this goal, with mixed results. While the imagery in some of the stories conveyed the experience well, in other stories the imagery seemed choppy, as the author tried to go from the objective facts of the experience to a Shakespearean description. This criticism may be peculiar to me, because of my own background with stories, and not necessarily something that would bother another reader. Another thing I struggled with was the review sections for most of the stories. I wasn’t clear on the purpose of these and mainly skimmed through them.

While I did not have the opportunity to ask questions and get more of what I seek from Dean's storytelling, I found that most of the stories in this memoir were defining moments that made these the “gold dust” of his career.