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It’s Almost Here!
The Monsters of Templeton, the first novel written by Lauren Groff, will be released on Tuesday, February 5. For those of you who did not get an opportunity to read this as part of Barnes and Noble’s First Look Book Club, I highly suggest that you go out and get yourself a copy. You won’t be disappointed! If you have read this book as part of the program, I received an email from Lauren and they’ve added some cool stuff to the hardcover based upon what they learned from the book club readers. Go and get yourself a hardcover!
Prayers Needed
My oldest childhood friend, Kristin, was hospitalized last night due to a high fever. My mother found out this morning that her kidneys were failing. I humbly ask all of you reading this to please say a prayer for her. Even if you don’t believe in prayer, she does. Maybe it will be of help and comfort for her. Depending upon her circumstances, I may be traveling home to Grand Rapids at any time. I really want to see her. I have lost touch with her since I’ve moved to Virginia and I want her to know how precious she is to me.
Kristin, my prayer for you is that your loving God will heal you and bring you back fully to us. If that is not for the best, I pray equally hard that you find delight and joy in His arms. You are my dearest childhood friend and I love you so much. My favorite childhood memory is us riding our bikes down the hill screaming “The Heart of Rock ‘n Roll” at the top of our lungs – especially when we got to “DETROIT!” I thank you for everything you are. You are one of my life’s biggest blessings.
Amen
Update 01/31/2008
The doctors have stabilized Kristin and had hoped to get an MRI taken during the night. They were unable to do so before. The weather between Virginia and Grand Rapids is not good tomorrow through at least the early part of next week. I’m going to take my chances and wait until later in February to drive home. With her being stabilized, I feel like I can plan around the weather and will still be able to see her – and hopefully while she’s on the mend.
I appreciate everyone’s prayers so much. She needs them.
Update 2/1/2008
I am sad to say that things are not sounding very good. Kristin is in a coma, on a ventilator, and undergoing kidney dialysis. Her situation sounds frighteningly like that told in this story about a Calvin College professor who died in the middle of January. My mother gave me a number to call tonight at 9pm. Kristin’s mom is going to hold the phone to her ear and let me talk to her. Just thinking about it makes me cry. How am I going to be strong? I just have to be.
The weather in Grand Rapids is supposed to be very bad between now and Monday. I haven’t purchased the tickets yet, but I found a good deal on a flight with a rental car leaving Charlotte, NC to Grand Rapids on 2/7 with return flights on 2/11. Hopefully that will give the conditions a chance to normalize and make the flight into GR possible. I am praying very hard that Kristin can hold on. I just want to hold her hand. It won’t be long now.
Update 2/4/2008
I held up much better than I expected when I spoke to Kristin Friday night. It helped that I talked with her sister, Kim for about 10 minutes before they put the phone to Kristin’s ear. I have felt so much better since then. That was such a gift to me and I greatly appreciate it. This is a hard time for the family and they didn’t have to even think to offer me that opportunity. They are working on removing the ventilator, which is good. Kim was hopeful on the phone. That being said, the nurse said that if you took a 12 inch ruler, with 12 being healthy, Kristin is at between 1 and 1 and a half. There is a long road ahead and I pray that she makes it.
I have purchased plane tickets from Virginia to Grand Rapids for later this week. They are anticipating more bad weather there today, but hopefully that will subside by the end of the week. I actually got a great deal through Priceline.com that included a rental car as well. Given the cost of the tickets and the wonderful flight times, I took that as confirmation that I’m doing the right thing by heading home. If all goes as scheduled, I should be sitting next to Kristin by 5:30 or 6pm on Thursday. I’ll return to Virginia by noon on Monday. Not too bad and no long drives on my part. I am so thankful!
I am so appreciative of everyone f0r their thoughts and prayers. I hope to have some good news when I return.
Update 2/8/2008
I spoke with Kristin’s sister again today. Kristin’s kidneys are starting to function again and she’ll soon be off dialysis! Now they just need her to wake up from her coma. They were working on that yesterday and will be trying again today. I will be seeing Kristin on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday. I can’t wait to see her and her family. Thanks again so much for your prayers!
#55 Stealing Buddha’s Dinner
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: A Memoir
Sometime toward the end of the year I was adding some books to my library on LibraryThing and wanted to add a book I received from my parents for Christmas the year before. It is a book of vintage postcards from Grand Rapids, my home town. I was sitting in the office at the time and the book was in the living room. I was feeling too lazy to walk into the other room and, figuring that there couldn’t be that many books about Grand Rapids, Michigan, I just used “Grand Rapids” to search for it. Much to my surprise, there were quite a few interesting books about my home town. Of those, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen stuck out when I read the following description:
“As a Vietnamese girl coming of age in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Bich Nguyen is filled with a rapacious hunger for American identity. In the pre-PC era Midwest, where the devoutly Christian blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jennifers and Tiffanys reign supreme…”
I was one of those blonde-haired, blue-eyed (well, slightly green as well) Jennifers and I was very curious to learn how I reigned supreme (it didn’t feel that way at the time). Because I wanted to read this book very badly, I rented it from the library (I’m trying to economize). I figured that if I loved it the way I knew I would, I’d buy it later. In the end, I’m glad that I just rented it.
There is something fun and invigorating about reading about your home town and it was even more exciting for me when the author’s family moved to the Ken-O-Sha area. That’s very close to where I grew up. I recognized many of the locations mentioned in the book as well as the type of people as well. I may have been Dutch, blonde, and named Jennifer, but there are more ways of sticking out like a sore thumb in southeast Grand Rapids than by being Vietnamese: you could be Roman Catholic. In an area heavily populated by members of the Christian Reformed Church, being Catholic is just as “unfortunate.” As Nguyen describes her early experiences living next doors to CRC neighbors, it brought me back to my childhood as well.
This first third of the book felt very authentic to me. I laughed out loud at the way she described her uncle he discovered after enrollment that Calvin College was “serious” about being a CRC school. I related to the scenes where Nguyen experienced orchestrated attempts to “save” her under the auspices of a neighbor girl simply bringing other girls over to play. I know very well the disgusted way those other girls reacted when she made it clear that she was not interested in their God. I was five or six the first time I was told by another child that I was going to hell for “worshiping Mary.” It was so frightening and I can remember the way my chest felt as I ran home crying to my mother. When there aren’t vocal attempts to convert you, there is always the feeling of being held away at an arm’s distance. There was one CRC family that wouldn’t let their children play with my siblings, but they had no problem asking my parents to borrow our camper. That always made me so angry. So, when a scandal rocked our neighborhood in the late 80s, I did take delight in it. The neighbor lady from across the street had apparently been having an affair with one of the husband around the block. I did feel bad for the pain the children and the other spouses experienced, but for me also felt somewhat like a vindication. Although I’m not proud of feeling this way, it was nice to see two people from that group, who made no secret that they were better than my family simply because of their religious affiliation, fall in such a public and shameful way.
While I related to Nguyen’s early experiences, I did not find her memoir enjoyable as a whole. About a third of the way through it went back in time for no apparent reason. From that point forward, the book felt disjointed. There were also large portions of the book that described food and books in such minute detail that I found myself often jumping over large sections until the story picked up again. In the section where she describes the books she read and enjoyed at the time, I was taken back in time to the books I loved so well. Unfortunately, this section began to feel like a book report. Why spend so many pages describing each of the scenes in The Little House on the Prarie that made her wish that was her family? One example would have been so much more effective.
I really wanted to like this butt, but in the end I couldn’t even finish it. I set it aside with only 7 or 8 pages to go. I just didn’t care to continue to read every painful detail of her reunion with her mother. Yes, this should have been a strong way to end her novel. To me, it felt like it was going no where – and very slowly at that. Stealing Buddha’s Dinner would have been more effective if it ended about a third of the way through with the stories about her grandmother from later in the book added to that portion.
Read the first third if you’re interested in what it was like to grow up in the midwest when you’re not a WASP or if you’d like to read about the Vietnamese experience in America in the 70s and 80s. Otherwise, I would pass this book by.
*******
To buy this book, click here
Life Has Interfered With My Blog
I’m sorry I haven’t posted much since the New Year. Life has been extremely busy on all fronts. Added to my commitments and responsibilities at home and work, I’m taking two courses at the local community college this semester. The first class is on using Dreamweaver and the second is an introductory course on software programming. Both are going well so far, but they’re just getting ramped up. We’re using Alice for the programming course and I think that’s going to be a lot of fun to work with.
I have done some non-academic reading this year. I’ve finished Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen. I will write a review and post it as soon as I can. Right now I’m reading the House at Riverton by Kate Morton. It is the second book in Barnes and Noble’s First Look Book Club. I’m about half way through and am enjoying it so far.
I hope that the New Year has been wonderful to everyone!
Book Blogger Con
Have you heard about the 1st Annual Book Blogger Convention that will be held in NYC during the BEA? You should check it out. I know it will be a fantastic experience. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend due to family obligations, but I'll be trolling blogs for up to the minute news.
WE Magazine’s A Woman Blogger to Watch
Literate Challenges
What's in a Name? 3
Random Reading Challenge
