Book 19 of 52: The House of Tides by Hannah Richell

One thought ran through my mind as I read The House of Tidesby Hannah Richell: GOD this is depressing.

House of Tides is about one family, the Tides, and their family tragedy. The book starts with daughter Dora, an advertising executive in London who has just found out that she's pregnant. She doesn't think she has a right to be a mother because of some tragic thing that happened to her family, from whom she is estranged. The story then jumps back to her mother, Helen, who was also in a similar situation of finding herself pregnant though in a much different situation: she hasn't finished college, and she's only been dating the man for a few months where Dora is living with the father of her unborn child.

The story of what happened is then told between flashbacks and scenes from present day life with the perspective rotation through different characters. Both timelines moving forward as the book presses on, revealing a little bit more of the horrible story of what happened with each one. Even though parts of the story are told from others' perspectives, this is really a book about Dora and Helen, and how their choices have and will affect their lives, and how they more than anyone else have been held back by a death in the family.

In a lot of ways, The House of Tides is a typical British melodrama. Think about Downton Abbey. No one can ever, ever be happy. Just when things look like they're on the straight and narrow, someone leaves or, more typically, dies. But Downton Abbey had something extra that made me keep watching - some snippets of joy in between and of course all of that wonderful history. Of course tragedies are worth reading. Otherwise, Shakespeare would not be what he is today. But there has to be more to it to keep you reading. The House of Tides just didn't have that something extra.

So why did I stick with it? I'm a few days away from my marathon, and I'm not reading as much, so I'd just pick at the book here and there. I also didn't have anything else I really wanted to read, so I figured I might as well finish the book.

Also - am I the only one getting tired of the rotating point of view? It can work - Elin Hilderbrand's a master at it - but I think it's being overused in fiction recently. Anyone else agree or disagree?

Book 18 of 52: Fathermucker by Greg Olear

Another huge gap between books, I know. But marathon training is almost over and I hope I won't be falling asleep with the light on every night.

Another reason why finishing the next book took so long: I wasn't sure if I was going to hang with Fathermuckerby Greg Olear. I had the same issue with this novel as I had with Book 2 of 52, Truth in Advertising, the "wheeeee look at what I can do with these words!"

But instead of an advertising guy, here we have a stay at home dad. He has two children, Roland and Maude. Roland has Asperger syndrome, and it isn't until Olear dives into the history of autism and Asperger, starting with when these children were thought to be demonized, that the novel settles down and gets on with it, and Fathermucker becomes less about an attempt to put dazzling words around parenting, but a story about a family that might be coming apart, and how they fit in with the other less than perfect families in town (no, I'm not giving it away, dear readers). The book is also about what happens when two create people settle down and have a family - and what ambitions were lost, and if that's a good or bad thing.

I ended up liking the book in the end, which was surprising given the start. I still think the beginning could have used a good, hard edit, but the book was published in 2011. Too late for that.

I must have met Olear at Book Expo America - my copy is a galley, and it's signed - and I lugged this book through not one but two moves. I found it when I unpacked my books. I'm glad I held onto it.

Book 17 of 52: Straight Flush by Ben Mezrich

I know it's been a few weeks since I posted a review, and I'm even having a hard time believing I've gone this long since finishing a book for the blog, but I've been on the run - literally. I'm in the height of training for the New Jersey Marathon, and I'm exhausted. I've been falling asleep before 10 p.m. every night, and since I do most of my reading before I fall asleep, that leaves a lot less reading time.

I'm still...cranky with my reading material. I keep picking books and then changing my mind - one being a romance novel bought at CVS because my hotel mate decided to go to bed early, and since I was running the next day (Ocean Drive 10 miler), I couldn't go out and drink. It worked in a pinch, but after five chapters, I just didn't care enough anymore to follow through because the main character annoyed me.

I had started Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Online Poker Empire--and How It All Came Crashing Down . . .by Ben Mezrich while in Vancouver, and put it aside for Book 16 of 52: Theo Pauline Nestor's How to Sleep Alone in a King-Sized Bed because Nestor's book fit in my purse while Mezrich's did not. I was also less interested in internet gambling than break ups, so I didn't have a huge incentive to keep reading, but I did want to get back to it after I finished Nestor's book, and here we are.

Straight Flush is about the University of Montana fraternity guys who launched Absolutepoker.com - a pipe dream that started by playing poker in bars near college, then set up shop in a rented house in Costa Rica on its way to becoming a billion-dollar company. But, as the first chapter, which is about one of the key members turning himself in to U.S. authorities, all did not go well.

Then the narrative jumps back to these guys in college, and the story unwinds from there. There's plenty of stories about young men with lots of money living it up in another country. I found that less interesting than the business aspect, of how they did manage to put together a legitimate business that, overnight, the U.S. made - possibly - illegal.

This is definitely a Mezrich topic. He also wrote The Accidental Billionaires about Facebook and became the film The Social Network, and Bringing Down the House, which was about MIT card counters and was turned into the movie 21. I've read parts of Bringing Down the House, but found this story much more interesting if not exactly exciting enough to keep me anchored to my chair to finish the story.

Still much better than a romance novel with a wishy washy heroine, though.

Book 16 of 52: How to Sleep Alone in a King-Sized Bed by Theo Pauline Nestor

I picked up Theo Pauline Nestor's How to Sleep Alone in a King-Size Bed: A Memoir of Starting Overat the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat in Leavenworth, Wa., this weekend. The conference was about - you guessed it - memoir writing, and it was organized by Nestor herself.

I'd read some of the presenter's books alreading, including Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trailby keynote speaker Cheryl Strayed, but I'd never heard of her before (sorry Theo!) I enjoyed the classes she taught this weekend, so this is the one I bought.

It starts with Nestor putting a chicken into the oven, and by the time she takes it out, her husband's gone. The book chronicles the year (or so) after that moment, with flash backs giving insight into Nestor's own feelings about divorce, which include being split up from her sister because dad got Kathy and mom got Theo after their owner separation. As a child of divorce myself, I could relate to some of the anger, hurt and guilt. I think I got lucky, though. I was in college when my parents divorced, and I knew they weren't right for each other. I was relieved when it was over between them, and I think they're both much happier now.

But it still hangs a big cloud over my perception of relationships, which I've been thinking about a lot since my own breakup. This passage rang true. It's a quote not from Nestor but another writer friend. "As far as I'm concerned...there are two camps of people. Those of us who lived through our world being ripped in two and those who haven't. Those who haven't can try, but I don't think they can ever understand how ill at ease we are, how we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop."

I had more to say about the book - other than I really liked it - but I took the red eye home and sat next to a man who maximized his seat space but taking up some of mine. So I'm a bit fuzzy.

BUT! I can share a few pictures of our retreat spot, which is called Sleeping Lady. It's been a while since I sucked down some crisp, clean mountain air. I didn't so much enjoy the high altitude running, but it sure was pretty.

I spent some time in Seattle, too. I knew about the Space Needle (of course), but had no idea so much other World's Fair architecture had been saved. This is the Pacific Science Center, which had been part of the United States Science Pavilion, which was part of the 1962 Worlds Fair

I also stumbled up on this little diner/bar called Mecca while looking for a quiet spot to eat on Monday  not easy since it was St. Paddy's Day and most people I passed near my hotel had been drinking all day. Behold, a few of my favorite things:

BLT, hash browns, pickle and Tecate. Happy St. Paddy's Day to me indeed.

I have mixed feelings about the retreat itself. I heard a lot of great things that I think will help me with my own memoir project (which is way stalled), but some of the classes were duds. Maybe it's an East Coast/West Coast writer thing, but some instructors seemed more focused on the no/low pay zine model than, say, writing essays from your book for magazines and real money. The only other magazine writers in the group were friends who came with me. We felt a bit out of place.

One more note: in 2008, I got stuck in the Phoenix International Airport and noticed that a lot of books for women featured the back of someone's head.  Go look at the cover of Nestor's book again.

I think it's time to retire this trend, book cover designers.

Book 15 of 52: Ladies' Night by Mary Kay Andrews

I did not pick Mary Kay Andrews' Ladies' Nightbecause of the author. I'd never heard of her before the galley of her book, which comes out in June, showed up at my house. I certainly didn't pick it because of the cover - pink with drink umbrellas (I'll add a cover picture when I'm not writing on my iPad). And I absolutely did not pick it because of its title which, after reading the book on my flight to Seattle, seems to dumb down the book.

No, I picked it for this description from the back of the book: "Rising lifestyle blogger Grace Stanton's life gets torpedoed..."

Well hello there.

As some of you may know, I write for Runner's World magazine. I got so fed up with terrible/unethical/bad advice dealing running bloggers, and their posts with 15,000 pictures each - even one where the runner went through the finish line multiple times to get *just* the right post-race photo - that I pitched a story on how to not be a bad running blogger.

The end story was a flip of that, about how blogging can help your running (it's not online). That's typical for me. Most of my articles for them start with something that bugs me and turns into a piece that can be helpful to readers.

After writing that story, I stopped peeking at those bad running blogs, and bad lifestyle blogs, and bad mommy blogs. A group of fellow runners like to share these posts and mock them, but I didn't find it to be worth the hassle or the time. Besides, I have a feeling that most of these bloggers are hiding behind their DSLR cameras, putting on a show about how perfect their lives are, how great "the hubs" is, and how everyone should be like them when, really, their lives are big messes that can't be completely covered up by pretty pictures (for the best take on this kind of stuff, check out Cheaper Than Therapy. She has actual stuff to say while also poking fun at the blogging community. And she likes beer).

Which is exactly the case for Grace Stanton, the main character in this book. She runs a blog called GraceNotes, which she started when the housing market went bust in Florida because her interior design work went bust with it. The blog took off, bringing in $20,000 a month in ad revenue. Grace's husband, who is her employee, squeezes out even more by trading editorial space for discounts on their home, free stuff, etc. - another bugaboo I have with some of these bloggers who write about products like they're the best thing since sliced bread but don't disclose that they were paid to write such nice things about it.

Everything seems to be going on just fine until Grace finds her husband with his pants down (literally) in the company of her personal assistant. That leads Grace to drive his $175,000 Audi into their pool. That gets Grace into more than just hot water with her soon to be ex-husband, but also a anti-woman judge who orders Grace to take divorce counseling classes. That's where Ladies' Night comes in - the women in the group (plus one man) start having drinks post-class at Grace's mother's dive bar.

This isn't all light fluffy stuff, even though some of the characters are archetypes (the slutty assistant! The heartless husband!) In one therapy session, their counselor asks the group to remember a good time they had with their exes. It's a good reminder for me, fresh from a breakup, that there WERE good times. My ex is watching my dog while I'm away. After I dropped her off, I hung out in his kitchen to borrow some WiFi (mine's not hooked up yet) while he made his dinner. That reminded me that I wasn't crazy for having dated him, or for living with him. We did like each other, even if the relationship end didn't work out. It was a good feeling, though, yes, still a bit awkward.

I liked this book. A lot. It'll be a big beach read - literally. It's 685 pages. With no WiFi for my flight, I read most of those 685 pages on the way over to the left coast. I even dug the renovation stuff in the book (Grace ends up working on a 1920s Florida home, the exact kind I'd have bought if I'd moved to Tampa - the book takes place in that general area though more on the Gulf Coast).

It'll be published on June 4.

Book 14 of 52: Sweet Valley Saga: The Wakefield Legacy: The Untold Story

On January 3, Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches sent out the following tweet: "Okay, I may regret asking this, but what's the weirdest sex location you remember from a romance novel?"

Her followers had some interesting answers, including on the back of a galloping horse and a camel. My answer, though, brought me around to re-reading Sweet Valley Saga: The Wakefield Legacy: The Untold Storythis week. That answer was a building that collapsed during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (apparently, Sweet Valley is not the only book to, uh, tackle this situation).

This book was published in 1992, what I'd consider the tail end of Sweet Valley's dominance over teens and tweens at the time. I was 12. I read this and the first Saga, Sweet Valley Saga: The Wakefields of Sweet Valley, after I'd read just about all the "Sweet Valley Twins" and "Sweet Valley High" books available. The Sagas tell the history of Jessica and Elizabeth's ancestors, making stops in history along the way. Here, we have the great flu epidemic of 1918, the crashing of the Hindenburg, WW II, Southern California hippies, and the 1906 earthquake.

The first saga book tells the twins' maternal history, and this one the father's. The stories overlap in many places, suggesting that destiny wanted these two families to be together at some point. Yes, there is a woman's story told here - you can guess what happens to an 18 year old who has sex the morning of her wedding, and what happens to the father. This is a "saga" after all. There are two more after this - for Lila Fowler's and Bruce Patman's families.

The book is much cheesier than I remembered, but 12-year-old me was much more susceptible to melodrama. It was so scandalous back then. Broken love affairs! People having sex! (even though you don't read anything about it, just what happens after) HIPPIES! It was a nice step back in time for 32 year old me.

I'm bummed the reboot of Sweet Valley didn't work out, at least for me. I hated Sweet Valley Confidential and didn't even know that there were more new books under the series "Sweet Life." Diablo Cody insists that she's still working on a movie musical version of the series.

Hopefully, that'll fare better than the book reboot did. The original series was so fun, as were these Sagas. I want the brand to consider, but in the right way (and to show that I'm still invested in this...I've been thinking waaaay too much about casting).

Book 13 of 52: Pound Foolish by Helaine Olen

This is one of those reviews where work gets in the way. I've written a Q&A with Helaine Olen about her new book, Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry, for a financial website, and don't want to give away too much here before that interview runs.

So what I'll say is this: Olen has put together a remarkably researched and scathing view of the personal finance industry. If you feel like you're getting squeeze money wise, and that advice dispensed by talking heads on TV doesn't add up, this book explains why. Whatever most personal finance experts say won't make up for growing income inequality, rising healthcare and education costs, and the disappearing safety net. This idea that it's up to us to save more to make up for these things is ridiculous, says Olen. We need to work as a group to change these major problems, and no skipping on the Starbucks coffee is going to make up for the difference. Throw onto that life's unexpected events, like a major medical bill, divorce, etc., and it's easy to see why people get into debt and feel hopeless about money, and retirement.

It's a good, long read, especially for skeptics. Her goal, she says, is to start a conversation so we can start addressing this as a society instead of an individual. I hope it works.

On a freelance writing note: I read the entire book before I interviewed Olen, which not only made for more pointed and specific questions, but also earned thanks from Olen. So many times, reporters won't read the book before interviewing the author. I get that some of that is time, and I've had to scan books before, but try try try to finish the book before the interview. It'll make for a better piece.