David Copperfield

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am reading this again for my Ravelry "Knitting like the Dickens" group and these are my comments for this reading. December 30, 2013:

I'm finished! (again) This book has been with me for months and months. What will I do without it??? It did drag a bit in the middle, but then it picked up and I wanted it to go on and on. For one thing, I would have had a chapter on Mrs. Micawber's family and how the felt about Mr. Micawber after he was such a success. I bet they would have been on the first boat to Australia swearing they always knew he was going to be successful!

I've read this so many times, but I always see things I missed. When he was traveling and finally realized that he had taught Agnes not to love him and now he realized that he loved her he wrote so beautifully about the regret of missed opportunities and the sorrow of seeing things clearly when there was no way to rectify an earlier action, I realized that he had felt that in his life. I know that sounds obvious, but I don't think I have ever thought about someone of Dickens genius feeling the same kind of feelings we all feel. I see him as so wise and insightful that it's hard to see him as oblivious to his feelings about "Agnes."

That got me to thinking about the tortured lives of many of the greatest artists, writers, dancers, songwriters etc. I've heard the saying that genius is closest to madness, and I am just realizing a bit more about how it happens. First the writer has to have disturbing things happen...for Dickens, his father's imprisonment for one example. He has to allow himself to really feel that pain instead of sublimating it in some way. Then he has to open himself to the pain again in order to write about it convincingly and convey it to his audience, then, he writes of its consequences. Dickens created a new better outcome, but other writers, Sylvia Plath in *The Bell Jar* not so good. All this leads me to a conclusion. If you wish to become a great writer you are going to be very thin skinned and you are inviting tragedy into your life ;>)

For Dickens, another deep pain was the unfairness of Victorian society and the treatment of the poor and infirm. I've have often thought that the nightly news brings us more of the pain and human misery than we can absorb and that can make us callous. Dickens saw that misery all around him and he never allowed himself to become calloused. It is what Jacob Marley told Scrooge. He was cursed to spend eternity seeing the poor and miserable and not being able to do something to help them.

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The Yellow Wallpaper

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful story! There is a adage in writing that the writer must not tell the reader, but let the characters tell their own story. This is all there is in this story. There is no narrator except for the main character. There are no other people telling the story. Everything we see, we see through the main character's eyes.

She is actually suffering from postpartum depression, but everything being done for her is missing the mark. In fact, it is possibly the worst thing that can be done for her. We hear the voices of her husband and others involved with her care, but only filtered through her depression. Are they really that oblivious to what is really happening to her?

I read a book about the Galveston Flood in 1902. One of the reasons the hurricane was so devastating was the hubris of the new National Weather Bureau. They thought they knew all there was to know about the behavior of hurricanes and they were contemptuous of the reports coming in from the "too easily excited" Cubans. I felt the same kind of hubris in this story. The husband and the doctor think they know exactly what his wife needs and they don't listen to her. They also don't question their own wisdom even when she is obviously getting worse and worse. They do everything wrong for what they are sure are the right reasons.

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My Story

My Story by Elizabeth Smart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The only reason I give this only 4 stars is because the writing in some places was weak. As far as the story goes, I give it 5 stars.

I also read a lot of the reviews before I wrote mine and I am amazed at the number who don't believe in God and therefore dismiss Elizabeth's faith. After such a harrowing experience, Elizabeth has recovered and is leading a well-rounded, normal life. She is helping other victims and in every way has risen above this trauma. It is hard to ignore the evidence that there were miracles in her life and that God has touched her in an unbelievable way. Unfortunately, if one of a person's "first premises" is that there is no God, and all evidence is ignored or explained away then that person is forever cut off from faith and no amount of evidence will be enough. For this I feel very sorry.

Elizabeth's book did not go into detail about the sexual abuse and people also criticized that. I can understand why she didn't. First, anyone who watches the news and reads a newspaper knows all too well what kind of things happened to her. Second,for her to write a book about the prurient details of her captivity would be like writing pornography and that is completely alien to any person of faith.

I think the book was just what I expected. My questions weren't about the abuse she endured, but about how she has recovered. The fact that Elizabeth has come out of this experience as a psychologically healthy and poised young woman who is not hiding away continuing to be a victim is something that I think the world needs to know. She now lives her life in the public eye and even appears on ABC news and that is wonderful. Just as Robin Roberts made public her cancer while continuing on Good Morning America, Elizabeth gives people struggling with sexual abuse the example becoming a whole person again. We need people to provide us examples of overcoming.

Her explanation at the end of the book is something that every victim can use. In fact, a person doesn't have to be a victim of this kind of crime to take courage from what she has done. I am afraid our society has become too quick to turn us into victims when anything bad happens. We need to be able to think of others whose examples give us courage.

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Haunted Sister

Haunted Sister by Lael Littke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a short, but interesting book for YA-Juvenile. Janine is in a terrible accident in which she receives a severe concussion and dies on the operating table. She goes into a nebulous state in which she sees people relatives who have died including her identical twin, Lenore, who died when she was 4. Janine is encouraged to come back to earth and when she does, she finds that her twin sister comes with her. When she wakes up, she finds that Lenore, the "bad" twin is talking to her and she wants to participate in the life she feels she has been robbed of. The situation is very much like a person with multiple personality disorder. Once Lenore manages to get out, she attempts to gain more control and causes Janine a number of problems.

The story line is very good and it is well developed. The characters are believable and the conclusion is well thought out. I think it could have been longer, but since it is for the early young adult group, it is probably the right length.

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The Remains

The Remains by Vincent Zandri
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an odd book. It started with an interesting premise. A young woman’s identical twin sister died of cancer and when some odd things begin to happen, she writes a journal in the form of letters to her sister. When they were children they went into a forbidden wood and were molested by a serial killer. They swore to never tell anyone, especially after he was later sent to prison for 30 years for the rape of a woman and was suspected in other rapes and murders. Suddenly, Rebecca starts receiving odd text messages, calls and evidence that someone has been watching her. When she finds that the man has been released, she begins to fear for her life. Added to the plot is an autistic savant artist who paints pictures for her of what seem to be her nightmares.

Unfortunately, the book seemed to fizzle out after the first third. Odd things happen which ought to send a sane person right to the police, but Rebecca seems to be unusually stupid. One minute she is a competent young businesswoman and the next she is a fainting hysteric straight from a Victorian novel. She is totally ineffectual and contributes to most of her worst problems. Another reviewer mentioned the jarring notes in the story and I completely agree. The oddest was the directions for making her favorite scrambled eggs. I could believe that someone substituted a page or two from a cookbook into the manuscript.

The story is interesting and has some novel plot elements, so it is worth the read, but don’t expect to be impressed with the writing.


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The Adventures of Caterwaul the Cat: Feline Pie

The Adventures of Caterwaul the Cat: Feline Pie by Damon Plumides
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great book for middle graders. It's a bit of a "Puss in Boots" story mixed with the wicked queen in Snow White. Caterwaul the cat escapes from the old witch he lives with and ends up with the beauty obsessed Queen. He remembers a recipe for a potion the old witch has and he goes to get the ingredients to make her forever young. In her obsession with being beautiful she has him put a spell on all the mirrors in the kingdom so that anyone who looks in them becomes a cat.

Caterwaul goes on a long adventure to get the recipe and meets a number of interesting creatures along the way. Since the kingdom is awash with formerly human cats, they come with human vices. There is even a cat mafia and a speakeasy with imported French milk.

The book is clever and entertaining. It's probably going to be a series and sure to be a kids favorite.

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The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was reading this for my granddaughter to use in her homeschool free reading and I was very impressed with it. There's lots of action and pretty well drawn characters. Young Percy Jackson has been expelled from every school he has been to. He is ADHD, dyslexic, conduct disorder...you name it. Things just happen around him and they are the kind of things that get people, especially teachers, very upset. Needless to say, he doesn't have a lot of friends, but he does have Grover, a skinny boy who walks funny, and he likes his Latin teacher who is always after him to become very serious about learning Greek and Roman mythology.

After a harrowing visit back home with his mother and step-father, Percy finally learns why he has such trouble fitting in with his peers. It turns out that his peers are all "half-bloods;" children who have one parent who is one of the ancient gods of mythology. He barely makes it to the "half-blood camp" after being chased there by monsters. From there on, the action really begins.

This is a great book for middle graders and up.

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Albion's Seed

Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America by David Hackett Fischer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful book, especially for genealogist. The author takes the first four waves of immigration to America: The Virginians, the Puritans, the Quakers and the Scots-Irish. For each group, he gives information on what part of England they came from, their motivation, their characteristics, religion, habits, beliefs, influences, and any other attributes they had. He then discusses the place where they settled, the relationship they had with the people they found here and other factors such as the climate and quality of the site they first landed.

Briefly, the Virginians were speculators and adventurers, the Puritans were austere and disciplined looking for a place to worship in peace. The Quakers sought the same freedom, but were a completely different type of religious group. Finally, the Scots-Irish were independent Highlanders from the borderlands between Scotland and England and were fiercely independent, stubborn, proud and often a law unto themselves.

These are the people who came to America and became its first citizens. They left their mark on the people who descended from them and influenced the course of events that led to the United States of America.

There is so much information here that is vital to genealogists. It is possible to look at an ancestor and find the year they came to America, the area they settled and their naming patterns and determine which of these four groups they probably belonged to. In my case, I can't find the place my Munn ancestors came from, but they came at a time when the Scots-Irish were immigrating, they have sandy reddish hair and ruddish complexion, they are fierce stubborn people with a number of disowned children and feuds, sometimes violent tempers and they settled first in the Appalachian Mountains. I feel safe in believing that they came from the borderlands especially since Andrew is a favorite given name. When I looked at that area, I found that there were records of Munns. I still don't know exactly where they came from, but the preponderance of evidence tells me that they were Scots-Irish.

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The Sociopath Next Door

The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this years ago and it's one of those books that changes a person by reading it. It opened my eyes to the motivations of some of the people I've known whose behavior was incomprehensible to me. It seemed to me at the time that these people just wanted to control every situation but there was a maliciousness in their actions that I couldn't account for. This book made their behavior a lot clearer.

After reading this the first time I became more aware of the characteristics of a sociopath and found that there are more people like that around. It also made the behavior of some public figures make more sense. In some cases, the person not only betrayed the people who trusted him/her but actually ran for election again! Hmmm, the mayor of Toronto may be a very good example.

Reading it again, has given me more insight, especially the last chapters which discuss risk taking behavior. I thought immediately of ex Senator Gary Hart in 1987. At the time of the presidential campaigns, he had already had one close call when a young woman was seen leaving his residence and he was outraged at the press. He actually taunted the Miami Herald which continued to investigate. Almost immediately the trip to Bimini with Donna Rice was exposed. Even that wasn't enough; he tried, unsuccessfully, to enter the presidential race again. I remembered being so confused because he was obviously an intelligent person and yet his behavior belied it. This book made everything so clear. He, and a lot more public figures fit the pattern of a sociopath perfectly.

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Miranda's Shadow

Miranda's Shadow by Mark Micloskey
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Actually, I'd give it no stars except that looks like I haven't read it.

I'm 5% done with Miranda's Shadow: I am having a lot of problems with this book. The writing is terrible. I'm sorry to be so negative, but the grammar errors and misuse of words make it very hard to read. I am also having trouble with the diagnosis. This is not a doctor, but a person Miranda only knew via the Internet. They didn't meet until the book was finished. I might not finish this one. —
Later:
I read another chapter and then gave up, but not without a great deal of concern for Miranda. The author confronts her with a number of harsh realities in an Instant Message session with no thought to the fact that she is depressed, has a death wish and has been known to cut herself. He has never met her, is obviously miles away from her…possibly even states away…with little thought about her mental state after these revelations. It’s a wonder she is alive. He makes sweeping generalizations about the abusers, her parents and grandparents without knowing the facts. He is a complete train wreck and I fear for this woman’s safety.


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The Bloodletter's Daughter (A Novel of Old Bohemia)

The Bloodletter's Daughter by Linda Lafferty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read several negative reviews on this book, but I found it to be fascinating. I just didn’t see the stylistic problems noted by some others. The author’s words did not get in the way of a gripping tale of history and madness.

I checked on the internet to see what was known about the historical figures and found that the book followed what I read. I thought the character of Marketa, bloodletter's daughter, to be very well drawn. She was an inexperienced young girl and the fact that she misunderstood the reality of mental illness is plausible. When I was and Evaluator at the Diagnostic Center for the Dept. of Juvenile Corrections, the supervisors accidentally left me alone in the building while I was interviewing a very disturbed (and very large) 17 year old boy. All my experiences with the boy had been very positive until I pointed out that he couldn’t be released to his mother because he told me he hated her. Suddenly, my 6’ x 8’ office became very small when he reacted very badly to being challenged. I barely breathed while he struggled for control. (A few weeks later, I saw him handcuffed to his waist and waiting to be transferred to a mental hospital for an involuntary commitment.) I could well understand how Marketa could think that her special relationship with Don Julius would protect her.

I also found the history of the Hapsburgs fascinating. I started looking for images of the “Hapsburg lip” and found some interesting information about their inbreeding and mental problems. The mental problems of Don Julius became understandable as well as his father’s refusal to admit to the extent of his illness.

For anyone who enjoys history and especially this time period, this is a great book.


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Silencing the voices: one woman's experience with multiple personality

Silencing the voices: one woman's experience with multiple personality d by Jean Darby Cline
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book about a woman with multiple personalities or dissociative identity disorder is very well written. It is told from the viewpoint of Jean, the patient with some parts seen through the eyes of her alters. There are parts that are very difficult to read. The splitting off of personalities is not difficult to understand when you read of the terrible abuse. It is incredible that children survive this kind of background.

One thing this book has that I have never read before is what happens to the family when the sexual abuse comes to light. Jean and her sisters told their mother what happened when she asked if there ever was any sexual abuse. It is hard to understand why the mother brought the topic up because she did not want to hear the answer. In this case, at least 2 of the sisters confirmed that there had been horrific sexual, physical and emotional abuse and the other two daughters confirmed the physical abuse and believed their older sisters. From the younger two sisters comments it was likely that at least one other was sexually abused but was not ready to confront her memories. The brothers also believed their sisters and each had a child or step-child molested by the father and all confirmed the horrible physical abuse.

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The Haunting of Maddy Clare

The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book turned out to be pretty good. I wasn't sure in the beginning. Sarah Piper was working at a temp agency and she was interviewed by the dapper and handsome Alistair Gellis, who had a interesting proposition. He wished to hire her to help him make contact with a ghost...a man hating ghost. Sarah doesn't have many options, so she agrees to the task.

The ghost, a 19 year old serving girl named Maddy Clare, hanged herself in a barn which she continued to haunt. The two elderly ladies who had once employed her have sensed her increasing distress and want to help her make the transition to the afterlife.

There is more going on though. Sarah makes contact with her and senses her tremendous anger. Something is not right and Sarah and Alistair, with the help of his assistant, Matthew Ryder, begin to suspect that she has not committed suicide, but has been murdered.

There are interesting plot turns and a bit of romance and intrigue which make for a very entertaining ghost story. I will be reading more of this author.

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The Visitation

The Visitation by Frank Peretti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What would it be like if Jesus came to our town and started doing miracles right and left? It sounds nice, but this fascinating book shows what kind of things could happen. First, how many people would know how to tell if he truly was Jesus? Just because someone does miracles doesn't mean that they are from God. The Bible is very clear about a time in our future when people will do miracles in Jesus' name and they won't be from God.

Frank Peretti is great at creating characters who are flawed, but resonate with the reader. Even people whose religious background seems different are created with the good and the bad of each denomination. The main character, Travis Jordan, was an eager Pentecostal minister before his beloved wife sickened with cancer and died. He resigned from his church to examine his priorities and sort out the spiritual fallout from this difficult time. Unfortunately, the present minister of his church won't let him sit on the sidelines. As irritating as Kyle is, Travis can see himself in the young minister and somehow is able to separate the chaff from the wheat.

Kyle needs all the help he can get when a young man comes to town working miracles and preaching love and fellowship. If everyone in town will just love and believe in themselves, then heaven will reign on earth...only it isn't that simple. What is interesting about this book is that it takes some superficial beliefs and draws them to their complicated conclusions. If people believe that they just have to be true to themselves and follow wherever their desires lead them what happens to the people whose lives are linked to theirs? Poor Jim and his daughter just want to know what to do about dinner and what do they do while Dee is out finding herself? Things are not as simple as sound bites might lead us to believe.

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Who Could That Be At This Hour? (All The Wrong Questions, #1)

Who Could That Be At This Hour? by Lemony Snicket
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you like Lemony Snicket, will like this. It is full of quirky plot twists and unbelievable characters. Unbelievable characters is what Lemony Snicket does best. I think a good bit of genealogical research would turn up Charles Dickens in Snicket's ancestry. Is this book as fun for kids as it is for adults? I am not sure, but someone is taking them off the library shelves!

This is like a prequel. We get to find out more about Lemony Snicket as an apprentice spy well before he went on to write the "Series of Unfortunate Events." He has drawn the worst possible trainer, but he manages to finish his assignment although we are left with a lot of questions. It is obvious that this is going to be the start of a new series.

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Jennifer and Her Selves

Jennifer and Her Selves by Gerald Schoenewolf
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is hard to say a book like this is enjoyable when you are dealing with the unraveling of a life full of pain and abuse, but it was captivating. Jennifer was subject to physical and emotional abuse and to cope with the pain, she dissociated into 7 different personalities. Each personality was "born" as a response to a horrifying situation that the child, Jennifer, was not able to cope with. In her creative mind, another personality emerged who was able to bear the pain and betrayal. While these alters enabled her to cope with her situation, they eventually began to cause her problems. Jennifer was unaware of the alters, but she was aware of losing time. When she would awaken, sometimes in an strange location, she would find that days or weeks had disappeared. Frequent suicide attempts and "cutting" brought her to mental hospitals and new therapist until she finally arrived at Gerald Schoenewolf's office.

Shortly after she began work with Schoenewolf, her personality changed so drastically that he finally became aware that he was dealing with a multiple personality. The book deals with the portion of her therapy that dealt with exposing all of the alters and eventually integrating them. The story is a fascinating look into the way a creative and intelligent mind protected a vulnerable child from abuse that she could not cope with.

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Lost Boy

Lost Boy by Brent W. Jeffs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the forth book on this subject which I have read recently. It covers a different perspective than the others. It concerns the boys who were raised in the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS)and were either forced out by the prophet, Warren Jeffs, or who ran away. Boys were undervalued in this society because the church leaders often had 40, 60 or more wives and they married girls as young as 12. There was always a need for more young girls, but that left scores of boys for whom marriage was impossible. This was doubly difficult since a man was unable to enter the "Celestial Heaven" unless he had at least three wives.

These boys were forced out of a closed society which totally controlled their lives. When they left, they were penniless, abandoned, ill educated, and totally alone. They not only lost their homes, families, and friends, but their whole culture. These boys were raised to not only distrust the "gentiles," (non FLDS) but to hate them. The schools they went to while in the FLDS emphasized church history and were devoid of subjects like science and US or World history. They were hopelessly under educated and unprepared for life outside the FLDS. Most of them drifted into drugs and alcohol and many died of overdoses or suicide.

The author of the book, Brent Jeffs, also had to cope with horrible nightmares and an all pervasive fear. His drug use was a double edged sword; it blunted his dreams and memories, but it also left him less able to repress the horror of his childhood. After the suicide of his beloved brother, Clayne, who had recently confessed to his family that his uncle Warren Jeffs had repeatedly raped him as a young boy, Brent's nightmares and panic attacks reached a level which left him unable to cope. He was beginning to remember his own attacks by Jeffs beginning when he was 5.

Eventually, Brent’s story and those of other lost boys led to criminal and civil charges of Warren Jeffs and ultimately his downfall. The book is well written and documented and provides a much fuller understanding of the FLDS and it’s prophet, Warren Jeffs.


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The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook-- What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook-- What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a fascinating book! It answered many of the questions I have had about people who commit horrible crimes. It is actually a book about how the brain develops and what happens when something goes terribly wrong in the early years of brain growth. The early experiences of children determine how there brains will grow. If the are given no stimulation or are traumatized, the early brain can't develop properly and every additional experience will be influenced by the missing stages.

I've read a lot of books about feral children, serial killers, sociopaths and psychotics in an attempt to figure out what makes them the way they are. Most of what I have read is limited to what they do instead of why. I keep looking for the missing link. This book is the closest to an answer as I have found. The author uses a medical model of brain development to explain the changes in the brain from trauma or isolation and yet leaves room for individual personality. To me this is the key to why not all children who experience this kind of trauma go on to become murders, serial killers and predators.

As someone else mentioned in a review, this book has made me more compassionate towards people who do heinous things and yet made me more aware of why they cannot be trusted to be free among us. The case of Leon was the best example. Guilty of the rape and murder of two young girls, Dr. Perry was called on to give a pre-sentencing report to decide if his sentence was life in prison or the death penalty. Dr. Perry found that Leon had been left alone in an apartment all day long, day after day. He had no stimulation or love which impaired his ability to relate to others. Sadly, it was a vicious circle for him. He was unlovable because he wasn't loved in infancy but he couldn't get love from the people around him because he was unlovable. He developed into a brutal young man with no conscience and low impulse control. He was damaged by his childhood, but he turned into a man who could not be allowed to live in society. Dr. Perry does not say what happened in his sentencing, but I would have given him life in prison without parole.

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The Third Wheel (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, #7)

The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this to see if it would good for homeschool free reading. It's written for middle school readers and I can see why the kids like it. Greg is his usual bumbling self as he tries to find a date for the school dance. He's pretty nerdy and unsure of himself, so he is easy for middle graders to identify with. He also manages to be one of those kids for whom everything that can go wrong does go wrong.

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Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints

Prophet's Prey: My Seven-Year Investigation into Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints by Sam Brower
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of the Warren Jeffs saga told from the viewpoint of the private detective who spent seven years of his life tracking down Jeffs and helping to bring him and his henchmen to justice. Sam Brower was uniquely positioned to deal with the FLDS as he is a Mormon and understands how this polygamist cult differs from the mainline church and the effects of the abuses of the practice of polygamy. He also had and continues to have strong feelings about the abuse, sexual, financial and psychological, that the majority of the members suffer from. The FLDS is not just a sect that believes in polygamy between consenting adults, but includes incest, child abuse, rape, murder, kidnapping, and the abandonment of a great many of the young boys who have little value in this society. In fact, since the upper level of the "priesthood" have upwards of 50 wives, there are not enough for the young men so they are pushed out at the slightest offense.

While it might appear that this books, which deals with investigations and court battles, would be dry and uninteresting, but that is not the case. Brower is an excellent writer and he is able to convey the complexities of the law in a way that makes interesting reading. He also takes a stab at the psychological aspect of Jeffs character which is one of the main reasons I am reading about this subject. I have to say, that I agree with his thoughts on Jeffs mental state. This book also fills in a lot of the gaps in the understanding of this sect and the damage it does its members. It was interesting to read this book after reading The Witness Wore Red and Stolen Innocence as it seemed to complete the picture.

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