All Lady July Wrap up and August Preview

Well everybody that is a wrap on All Lady July. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope you did too. I was a little worried about committing to a theme for a whole month but I think it worked out great, a testament to the wonderful variety of work that women authors are producing.

If you are looking for these posts later on, I am going to link them all up on the top of the page up by the "About Me" and "Review" policy. That way you can find them without having to do much searching. (Not that I wouldn't love for you to get all lost in my site and stay awhile, but I know that could be frustrating.).

Thank you all for your comments, your +1s, your tweets and retweets, your sharing with friends, internet hoorays and all the support. It makes this newbie bloggers heart swell with love and pride.

My head is already spinning for All Lady July 2015. Invite guest posters to share their favorite lady authors and why? Maybe have a book read along by a great female author? Maybe read Jane Austen?! (You can't see it but I'm pumping invisible breaks). Let's not get crazy. If you have any thoughts or ideas or want to participate next year email me or let me know in the comments.

So there's our wrap up! On to August...

I am mighty excited for August because it contains one of my favorite things: vacation! I'll be on a week long vacation to beautiful Mexico to celebrate my sister's 30th birthday! August will also contain: a recap of my author signing, an author interview, Ray Bradbury (because duh, why not), 5 books that describe Wisconsin - inspired by Shannon at River City Reading and more! I'd love it if you'd stuck around and see what August holds :)

Me.Here.Soon.

Book Review: "7, an Experimental Mutiny Against Excess" by Jen Hatmaker (All Lady July)

Last official review of All Lady July :(  Wrap up is tomorrow....

This is the second Jen Hatmaker book to show up on All All Lady July. I was going to try to not repeat any of the authors but then B&H graciously sent me a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review and I was not going to say no! So here we are.

Jen realizes that though she wouldn't call herself "rich" that she has far more possessions than the average human. She finds herself thinking "How much is enough?". She found herself "hungering for simplicity" and picked 7 areas in her life that she wanted to cut down on and see "what the Holy Spirit does with the new space that this creates". Publisher's blurb - So, what’s the payoff from living a deeply reduced life? It’s the discovery of a greatly increased God—a call toward Christ-like simplicity and generosity that transcends social experiment to become a radically better existence.

Here's the areas that she wants to cut down on:

-Clothes

-Spending

-Possessions

-Waste

-Food

-Media

-Stress

It's a lot to take on, and she has a group of friends that she refers to as "The Council" to help her. She obviously slips up and they are there for encouragement and keeping her on track (and sometimes making fun of her). A few of the Council members even participated in her cutting down, to some extent.

She starts with food. She can only eat 7 foods for one month. This also means drinking only water and not adding anything special like butter or spices. So when we say 7 foods we mean just these foods: chicken, eggs, whole wheat bread, spinach,sweet potatoes, avocados and apples. She makes it 17 days and then cries. (I don't blame her). But she keeps on.She had some struggles saying "Jesus, help me find gratitude, this whole things just feels stupid". 

Next was clothes. The Council decided that she could have unlimited socks, bras and underwear because...well come on. This challenge was tough because she had speaking events where she had to look decent picking only from 7 items. The bigger problem was that Texas was having a rare cold streak and one of her items wasn't a coat so sometimes she wore pants on her arms. (And by cold streak I meant it was like, 55 degrees, you pansies in Texas. You're killin me.)

Next was possessions. She would give away seven items a day for the whole month. This was made slightly easier by the fact that the previous month she saw how much clothes she had that she never wore. She and The Council got together and brought bags and bags of things to a local center for women and children who were fleeing domestic abuse or sexual assault. In the pile of things there was a hot pink very small purse that Jen had brought. She thought it was silly because it was basically useless but a little girl who had struggled with homelessness was there with her mother and it was like the pink purse was made for her.

Next was Media. She gave up TV, games, Facebook, Twitter, the internet, texting, phone apps. She made exceptions if there was an emergency.

Waste was a little harder to define, so she declares 7 new green habits. Buy more local, try to only use one car, compost, start a garden,recycle, buy more secondhand, conserve energy.They have some success with the garden. Some.

Spending means only spending money at 7 places. None of which is fast food, the movie theater, or anything fun like that. It makes for a lot more family time like taking walks and playing board games.

Stress. If Jen had a magic formula to get rid of stress this is where she would have shared it with us. I think she tackled this one last because it can be at the root of all the other things. She used something called  seven sacred pauses to help her de-stress. She would stop whatever she was doing and pray at midnight, dawn, mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon and early evening to pray. She floundered sometimes. One day her friend offered to take the midnight prayer and was surprised by how much it moved her.

There was an interesting little side story in this section. During this experiment the Hatmakers were going through the adoption process. One day Jen just was consumed by tears thinking about her yet unadopted kids and what struggles they might be going through. She didn't know why it affected her so badly on this day but it was all consuming grief. One friend suggested she make a note of the date, and maybe something somewhere in the future would maybe make sense. Jen found out much later that that day was the day that the little African girl who would be her daughter was brought to an orphanage. Cue the heartbreak.

There was a great quote in the book that I honestly should get tattooed on my forehead "Obedience isn't a lack of fear, it's just doing it scared".

This was the first of Jen's books I had read and it hooked me. (When I got done with the possessions section I set down the book, went to my bedroom, made at least 3 bags of Goodwill donations, came back, and finished the book). I want to read everything she sets her hands on. Her website and her twitter are also funny and inspirational. The family even has a show on HGTVcoming out in August, so Jen is plenty accessible. I give this book 3.5 stars for being awesome!

Book Mini- Review: "Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home" by Sheri Booker (All Lady July)

Sheri is a sheltered 15 year old when she randomly starts working for Mr Wylie at his funeral home in inner-city Baltimore. She starts out just answering phones and answering the door during the evening shift (4pm-9pm) but gradually gets more and more responsibilities. Eventually she's talking more to clients, handling important paperwork, and elbows deep in accounting.

Due to the funeral homes inner-city location, a lot of their clients are victims of violent crime. Mr Wylie is an expert on patching wounds and filling holes, which is a good skill to have in this case.They have have had violence or the threat of violence break out at more than one funeral. Sometimes they even suspect that a murder victim's killer is in attendance at the funeral.

 Sheri has a sad day at work when she has to dress a nine month old baby who died suddenly. There's also a funeral for an 18 year old transgender woman, who was buried in an outfit that included some very elaborate underwear that also included some tissue stuffing for enhancements.

She also sort of ends up dating/seeing the boss's son which ends badly which also puts a strain on things.

She works there for almost ten years and then quits over something that on the surface seems kind of like a petty argument.The end is kind of abrupt and random after all the time that she puts in there, but everyone stops at a job somehow, right?

The book was okay. I liked the different insights but it didn't really thrill me or make me feel like I absolutely HAD to know what happened next. I think it kind of suffers from the fact that it's all only from her perspective, being as how it's a memoir that's not surprising but it would have been nice to hear other people's takes. I give it a high 2 out of 5 stars.

Book Review : "People of the Book" by Geraldine Brooks (All Lady July)

Before we start our all lady July post I wanted to tell you about my weekend. I was working taking tickets at a tiny county fair in the city where my husband grew up. I wanted some extra cash for my upcoming Mexico trip (less than 20 days away!) so this year I joined him in selling tickets at the gate. I know I've mentioned before that my math is bad, and making change for people on the spot is not one of my better skills. It went pretty okay. I hope I didn't accidentally give anyway too much or too little change too often! The best part of the time working was when it was slow I could sneak off and pet the little baby animals in the petting farm area. I think this was technically for children but I don't care. Each time I came back Josh patted down my pockets to make sure I didn't bring one back with me. I was mightily tempted. 

If the name Geraldine Brooks sounds familiar, it's because this isn't her first appearance on the blog. I reviewed her book "March" here.That book didn't tickle my fancy, but this one was better.

The book starts with Hanna, a book conserver who is called upon to preserve a newly rediscovered book in Bosnia. The book is a haggadah which is a book that Jews use to celebrate Passover. Hanna is intrigued by things she finds in the haggadah: wine stains, pieces of a insect, and more. The book flashes between Hanna making these discoveries, and back in time in the book's long history to see how the things in the book got there. (That was not a clear description, it will get more clear I hope).


I feel like if I tell you too much it ruin the unfolding of the book's mysteries so I will give it to you in broad strokes. Hanna's story takes part in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then we move backwards chronologically in time and in the life of the book.

-We start in the 1940s with a young Jewish girl who has an encounter with the finished book as she is fleeing from certain death as the Nazis invade her town. The most heart wrenching part of the whole story was just a few short sentences in this section. Oh sadness.

-The part of the journey is in Vienna in 1894. It involves one of the most beautiful parts of the haggadah and an embittered doctor who helps the most prestigious of Viennese society who are afflicted with venereal diseases.So if you're eating lunch while reading the books be cautious because there are descriptions of penises with "craters" and oozing pustules on private places. The doctor in this section kind of irritates me.

Oh Vienna. Come for the delicious baked goods, stay for the crotch rot.

-The wine stains come from Venice in 1609 courtesy of a drunken priest with a mysterious past and an identity crisis.

-A girl with a secret life that she uses to get away from her wretched family is our next stop in 1492 southern Spain.

-Cats become important to our story in 1480 Seville, the very beginning of the haggadah's life.

I really liked this book, which makes me glad because my last run in with Geraldine March was not as good. My small complaint is that I think her secondary characters are more interesting than her main characters. I always wanted to hear more about them and their stories then what was given in the book, though one of the secondary character's stories does get tied up quite nicely.I give it a 4 out of 5, so Miss Brooks and I are even steven. Also realized that her husband is an author I thoroughly enjoy, Tony Horowitz!

Book Review: "A Woman in Berlin" by Anonymous (All Lady July)

This is a pretty extraordinary book. It's actually a journal. The actual author is known but to a few people, and the book was only published after her death, at her own request. We don't even have a pseudonym or anything to refer to her as, and only know spotty things about her background.We know she was a journalist and editor before and after the war, and that she had done a lot of traveling. She had even been to Russia and had managed to pick up a little of the language, this would be a godsend several times in the coming weeks.

We know that she is living by herself in an apartment building in Berlin during World War II, and that she is still living there when the Russians come into the city on the heels of Hitler's suicide and the unraveling of the Nazis. Our author knows that the Russians coming to town is not necessarily good news. While the Nazis wouldn't be in control any longer, the reputation of many of the Russians are preceding them. There was a lot of discussion about how the Russians were raping, looting and pillaging their way west; while some people hoped it was just propaganda there were enough facts and witnesses to testify to the fact that these were not all fabricated lies.

Our author begins keeping her journal on April 20th 1945, and goes through June 22nd. She records the hunger, the bombs, the fear. The Russians invading, ransacking empty and occupied apartments, taking whatever they wanted including women. Old women, young women, sick women, and little girls, no one was immune. Husbands and wives squirreled their daughters away in false ceilings, hidden rooms or anywhere they could think of to keep them safe and away.

There are so many things to struggle through that the book presents:
-Rape as a weapon of war
-Rape as retribution
-Moral scruples vs survival
-How to keep your humanity in a world gone mad
-Hopelessness

I know that this sounds horrible and depressing and maddening. The only thing that kept me from being miserable reading this book is twofold:

1) The story of these people deserves recognition.In a lot of wartime stories you don't hear much about the people who are left behind to fend for themselves while the battles rage on in distant theaters. By best estimates (the true number isn't known) 100,000 women were raped in Berlin during this time. And some victims were raped multiple times.

2) Our writer writes with such composure and calmness. These terrible things are happening to her, the journal itself could get her in major trouble if it were found but she never falls into self-pity or complaining, even at the darkest moments.

It feels weird to rate this book, especially because it's basically a journal. But it's an incredibly worthwhile read. It's short, it goes fast but it does pack a heavy hit. Though it never is explicit or overly graphic.

Book Review: "Howl's Moving Castle" by Diana Wynne Jones (All Lady July)

Tip of the hat to Tiff, from Book Bloggers International and Tiff Talks Books fore recommending this book to me when I put out a call for great books by women writers on Google+ in preparation for this months theme!

The story takes place (mostly) in the city of Market Chipping in the land of Ingary, where magical things, including witches and wizards, were kind of commonplace.In this city there were 3 sisters who all worked in the family hat shop, Sophie (the eldest), Lettie and Martha. The hat shop gets in a bit of a slump and can't afford to keep each of the three girls working in the shop. Sophie stays on at the hat shop (being the oldest she knows that she is doomed to failure and to a monotonous life while the other girls have better chances of marrying and well and having adventurous). Martha is sent to study magic with another witch, and Lettie is sent to apprentice in a bakery.

Sophie is lonely working in the hat shop by herself so she starts to talk to the hats as she makes them. She tells them things like "oh a wealthy woman will be so proud to wear you" and telling another "oh you're very mysterious!" What she doesn't realize is that she is somehow talking life into these objects which effects them and their wearer. This brings some negative attention on her, and she is cursed by the Witch of the Waste, who is most definitely a bad witch. Sophie is suddenly turned into an old woman, and is unable to tell anyone that she is under a curse. Unsure of what to do she immediately leaves the shop and goes to find Wizard Howl who she hopes will  help her despite his fearsome reputation for eating the hearts of young girls. She figures she's an old woman so she isn't to his taste. (Pun intended).

Sophie gets more then she bargains for as she finagles her way into Howl's moving castle. There's a young apprentice, a demon that lives in the fireplace, and a wizard who spends an insane amount of time in the bathroom. He is a high maintenance wizard for sure! There are other interesting characters that flesh out this fun, fast moving, mostly light story. Though there are some dastardly villains, it reminded me of a less gritty Neil Gaiman story. I love the grittiness of Neil's stuff but it was nice to have it dialed back a little here.

A note on the movie: there is a movie. It one a lot of awards. I haven't seen it but I know people really rave about it. If you've seen it and read the book I'd love to hear what you thought!

I thought this book was very fun. I loved that the castle moved (as the title suggests, haha) and that each of it's doors open to a different place. So clever! What I didn't like was the scarecrow, he scared me. The thought of an animated scarecrow chasing me is enough to keep me out of a corn maze for awhile. I give it 3 out of 5 stars!

Book Review: "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier (All Lady July)

I remembered watching this movie with my Mom a long time ago. It's a Hitchcock, so it's fabulous. I remember thinking that the movie was amazing but I could only remember bits and snatches of the plot and that there was a big twist ending. Well then here comes All Lady July and a great opportunity to revisit the story and to see if it is as awesome of a book as it was a movie. Oh was it ever.

Our narrator (she never tells her name) is a poor 21 year old who has the uneviable job of being a lady's traveling companion. She has no family and not much for education so this job enables her to go places and see things but also have to wait hand on foot on an insufferable older woman. At the hotel they are staying at in Monte Carlo our narrator meets the mysterious Mr de Winter. She knows him by reputation, as does almost everyone, as the owner of Manderley, a grand English estate that sits right on the sea. She spends more and more time with him (as her lady companion is bed ridden for a little while and therefore has no need of her). They spend the days in his car motoring in the countryside and picnicking. She is drawn to him, but he's a little bit older (about 39) and has a sad/mysterious past that she is to afraid to ask him about. He likes her even though she is shy and awkward and really nothing like the other women that he knows, with noble legacies and rich families.

Disaster strikes when suddenly she and her old lady companion are supposed to go to New York very suddenly. She barely has time to find Max and tell him what happened. She is desperate to not go to New York, and he doesn't want her to go. So he proposes. And after a few weeks of knowing each other they are married, vacation for a time in Italy and then start making their way back to England. Our narrator is nervous; she knows Manderley is an icon in the area and she has no experience running a household of that magnitude. Max tries to put her at rest by explaining that there is a whole fleet of servants and the place run the place.

The new Mrs de Winter is confronted almost immediately with the ghost of the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca. Not the actual ghost (like chains and eyes cut out of sheets and whatever) but the influence that she has even though she's dead. All the new Mrs de Winter hears about his how lovely/wonderful/friendly/gracious/social Rebecca was and she feels cowered by the pressure to be like this woman.Rebecca had died in a boating accident the year before and it was all very sudden an unexpected and horrible and it seems like everyone is still reeling from it, especially Mrs Danvers. Mrs Danvers is the head of all of the servants and she rules the rest of the staff with an iron fist. Mrs Danvers was devoted to Rebecca and she is disdainful towards the new Mrs de Winter and seems to always be criticizing her even if she doesn't say so in words.Its mostly just deep sighs and glaring.

The de Winters decide to throw their annual costume ball as a kind of coming out party for the new Mrs de Winter and thats pretty much when the wagon's wheels wall off, through no fault of the new Mrs de Winter and then all the crazy twists and turns happen....When I got to the big twist at the end I was like "I can't believe I forgot that, it was so good!"

It's scary and surprising and keeps you guessing and tense and all kinds of things that make a book wonderful. I give it a 4 out of 5. A lot of people give this book flack because they think it's too close to Jane Eyre. I think Jane Eyre is wonderful too. Do we not have enough shelf on our collective world literary bookshelf that we can't have multiple books about rambling English estates and mysterious men? Sign me up for that!