Steve and Me - Terri Irwin

I picked this book up because I happen to think the crocodile episodes are outrageously funny. Steve Irwin had quite a presence and his death was so heartbreaking I wondered how his family could possibly be coping. It isn't the type of book that I feel comfortable judging. There were a couple of places that repeated themselves a bit but truth be told this book gave me goosebumps. Terri talks about how she and Steve met, what type of man he was, what their life was like together, and how she and the children are dealing with his death. First off let me just say the man was crazy about animals and did some crazy things to have access to them. Secondly his wife was crazy about him. Reading their story you realize there really was no one else for Steve and no one else for Terri. On the other side of the word Terri found her other half and now he's gone. Third this is about heart break. There is a point where she talks about how every second she's like, "well I made it through another second without Steve," and when you read that you feel how deeply that cuts for her to have to make it through another second without him. Also when she talks about her son Robert and how he is walking around like a little lost puppy, crying in the tub, waiting for his dad to come home from heaven, well that just cuts as well. It isn't all sadness. The way they met and the story of their first date is hilarious. My DH and I will probably being saying, "Well you're not a lady at all," for the rest of our lives, but this is the kind of story that makes you want to give your hubby an extra hug at night and pull your kids in close for an extra hug, for yourself and for Terri as well.

How Doctors Think - Jerome Groopman M.D.

How Doctors Think is a grouping of interviews with doctors across the country in varying fields. They talk about patients with whom they've had success and patients whom they've failed. They discuss what they do right and what they do wrong with the hopes of teaching new doctors to be better critical thinkers, patients to be better informed, and let all of us out there know medicine is an imperfect science and things don't always work out perfectly.

On the Five Star Scale

Readability (*****) - 336 pages. Interesting read.

Final notes (*****) - You know I got this book for selfish reasons. I wanted to have a little extra clue into what was going on in the mind of Dr. J. Three things hit me right away. First, this book was just as much for Dr. J as for anyone else. Here are seasoned doctors saying, "gee after 25 years this is what I wish I would have known, or these are the red flags I keep for myself to prevent me from making mistakes". Which is why I spent most of this book saying, "honey, listen to this." So if you know someone who is a doctor or in med school this may be a perfect gift for them. I also realized this would have been helpful to read before that whole nasty appendicitis thing happened. Maybe then I could have said to the ER doctor. Yes I realize that you think I have swollen lymph nodes but just saying these things sometimes happens is not good enough for me. Lets do the scan and then we can talk. It might have saved me that whole appendix bursting and having to have a drain hanging out my body for a week. YUCK! Thirdly this really is just a great book on decision making and critical thinking and it is INTERESTING. Not dull like a text book, so hopefully you will enjoy like I did.

My Enemy's Cradle - Sara Young

During World War II Cyrla who is half jewish goes to live with Dutch relatives when it becomes to unsafe to stay home. When the Nazi's come though she realizes that her secret is no longer safe. Meanwhile her cousin Annika becomes pregnant with a German soldiers child. Her father enrolls her into a Lebensborn where Aryan mothers can go to have babies that will then be adopted by German families. Annika does not want to go and dies in a tragic accident. In order to save Cyrla, her aunt sends her to Lebensborn in Annika's place.

On the Five Star Scale

Naughty Bits (****) - Annika becomes pregnant out of wedlock and then dies of a botched abortion she tries to perform herself. Cyrla convinces a friend that she loves dearly that if she has to go to Lebensborn she needs to be pregnant to go. She then convinces him to help her make that happen. Cyrla is raped. Later on she connects with Annikas old boyfriend. Some of this stuff I could just skip over but some of it you read before you realize.

Readability (****) - 384 pages. Easy read.

Final notes (***) - I keep saying I'm not into historical fiction and then I just keep reading more and more. The story was interesting. The history was interesting. WWII was so horrible and people were forced into such bad situations. Sara Young took liberties and I'm not sure anyone would be willing to hide in the nest of the enemy like that but I've ready many holocaust journals and it really is amazing what people will do to survive. Again like Esperanza some of the most interesting stuff is in the ending notes where Young talks about the Aryan "breeding" program. Pretty scary stuff.

Mermaids in the Basement - Michael Lee West

Mermaids in the Basement is the tale of Renata DeChavannes a Hollywood screen writer who becomes overwhelmed trying to deal with the death of her mother and the supposed cheating of her long time boyfriend and work partner which is being documented by paparazzi while he is on assignment in Ireland. After an accidental hair cutting she books a flight to Alabama to stay with her grandmother Honora DeChavannes. While there she has a fight with her soon to be new stepmother, is accused of putting her into a concussion, and spends many hours drinking while be brought up to speed on what really went wrong in her parents marriage.


I'm going to move to a five star scale because it just makes more sense.

On the Five Star Scale *****

Naughty Bits (****) - This book is funny but really crass and after a while just wasn't worth it to me.

Readability (****) - 304 pages. Beach reading.

Final notes (**) - You know this book started out and easy read and funny but there was a lot of crude humor.