Trinity’s World

Posted Friday, February 17, 2006, 09:42 AM

As I get older I’m finding myself drawn to more sentimental reading material. I’m sure it has something to do with the effect my wife has had on my personality. Regardless of what has caused this change in my reading tastes, I really did enjoy this book. It was written by a friend of mine a few years ago, and I’m only just now getting to it (Sorry Joe). The basic story line is that a man reveilles to his family that he has a son and daughter from a previous marriage, and that he and his current wife have hid this from their three daughters either whole lives. Well, Dad is dieing when one of these children contacts him, and he wants to re-establish contact.

What I liked about this book is that you get to see the story through the eyes of each character, and each person is unique. You get the view of the daughter that is jealous of her family and thinks that these long lost relatives are only after her father’s hard earned money. Then there is the daughter who just wants people to get along, and the daughter that plays the go between for all the members of the family. There are others that tell “their” version of how things happen. Most of this is from the first person perspective, either recalling how things happened that day, or as they were happening. All of these things add up to create a window into this family’s world, and makes you really hope that things are going to work.

The one thing that kind of a bummer for me was that it took me a while to get into the story. The first few chapters are good, but I did not find my self needing to find out what was going to happen till about chapter five. Once I got past that point I started to become emotionally invested in the story. I wanted to know who “Danny and Donna” were. I wanted to know if Hugh was going to make it out of the hospital. I wanted to know if Jackie was going to call a lawyer and take some kind of action. But to get to that point I had to trust what others had said about the book, and keep going. I like it when a book grabs me by the nose and forces me to pay attention, and this book is defiantly not that way.

One thing that made me appreciate this book was that the author does not use it as a platform to evangelize the reader. So many Christian Authors turn me off because their books sell Jesus as a cure all for the character’s problems. This book is not about that. This book is about how a family deals with pain, chaos, uncertainty, and change, by finally coming to terms with who they are as a family. All of this happens with imagery of forgiveness, making peace with people, and celebrating that fact that family is more than just the people you grew up with. The characters do have a faith in God, but that is not what the story is about; its about their family.

I recommend this book to anyone who like a good touchy feely book. The perfect thing to follow a story like “She’s Come Undone” with, because it makes you think that people actually do working this out without turning their lives to crap.

At Close of Day
Joseph Bentz
Joseph Bentz’s Website

Posted Friday, February 17, 2006, 09:42 AM

As I get older I’m finding myself drawn to more sentimental reading material. I’m sure it has something to do with the effect my wife has had on my personality. Regardless of what has caused this change in my reading tastes, I really did enjoy this book. It was written by a friend of mine a few years ago, and I’m only just now getting to it (Sorry Joe). The basic story line is that a man reveilles to his family that he has a son and daughter from a previous marriage, and that he and his current wife have hid this from their three daughters either whole lives. Well, Dad is dieing when one of these children contacts him, and he wants to re-establish contact.

What I liked about this book is that you get to see the story through the eyes of each character, and each person is unique. You get the view of the daughter that is jealous of her family and thinks that these long lost relatives are only after her father’s hard earned money. Then there is the daughter who just wants people to get along, and the daughter that plays the go between for all the members of the family. There are others that tell “their” version of how things happen. Most of this is from the first person perspective, either recalling how things happened that day, or as they were happening. All of these things add up to create a window into this family’s world, and makes you really hope that things are going to work.

The one thing that kind of a bummer for me was that it took me a while to get into the story. The first few chapters are good, but I did not find my self needing to find out what was going to happen till about chapter five. Once I got past that point I started to become emotionally invested in the story. I wanted to know who “Danny and Donna” were. I wanted to know if Hugh was going to make it out of the hospital. I wanted to know if Jackie was going to call a lawyer and take some kind of action. But to get to that point I had to trust what others had said about the book, and keep going. I like it when a book grabs me by the nose and forces me to pay attention, and this book is defiantly not that way.

One thing that made me appreciate this book was that the author does not use it as a platform to evangelize the reader. So many Christian Authors turn me off because their books sell Jesus as a cure all for the character’s problems. This book is not about that. This book is about how a family deals with pain, chaos, uncertainty, and change, by finally coming to terms with who they are as a family. All of this happens with imagery of forgiveness, making peace with people, and celebrating that fact that family is more than just the people you grew up with. The characters do have a faith in God, but that is not what the story is about; its about their family.

I recommend this book to anyone who like a good touchy feely book. The perfect thing to follow a story like “She’s Come Undone” with, because it makes you think that people actually do working this out without turning their lives to crap.

At Close of Day
Joseph Bentz
Joseph Bentz’s Website

Posting Tuesday, January 31, 2006, 04:38 PM

Once in a while I allow people who are close to me recommend a book. I’m always nervous when they do this because I’m very picky about what I read. My Library has recently be more than doubled, do this wonderful thing called Marriage. As such, I decided to pick up this book because it is my wife’s favorite fiction book. I was very surprised to find that I liked this book.

She’s Come Undone follows the like of a girl named Dolores as she goes through her entire life. (Yes, this is a chick book) The one word of warning that my wife gave me is that this is not a happy book. And she was right. Dolores give a first person account of her life, with out holding any punches. Her father makes a living by having an affair with a rich woman when Dolores is very young, which leads to her parents divorce. She is rapped when she is a teenager, by a man her mother is having an affair with and who also lives in the upstairs room that they are renting out. And the story tracks as she tries to pull her life together over and over again, until she finally hits rock bottom.

I imagine that most women who read this book need a box or two of tissues to get through it. If that is so, my wife and I hart heartless because we did not shed one tear. I like this book because it was so honest and accessible. I hate it when I have to read through jargon or excessive pages of description in order for an author to get an idea across. Wally Lamb is simple and powerful in the way that he just puts you in Dolores’s shoes. In fact, I though the author was a woman until I go the end and saw his picture on the cover. That is how realistically he writes the character as she goes through some very issues and emotions that are only experienced by women.

I recommend this book to anyone who can take an in your face presentation of a person’s decent into misery and heartache. All I can tell you is that if you put in the effort to walk with Delores through the whole ordeal that is her life, the ending is richly rewarding. But this book is not for the faint of heart, nor those who have to have warm fuzzys in order to feel good about a book.

She’s Come Undone
Wally Lamb
ISBN 0-671-00375-5

Posted Tuesday, January 17, 2006, 01:17 PM

I just finished one of the most strange books I’ve ever read. And not the kind of strange that bends your mind around and puts you in imposable situations that can never be real. However, it is an extremely impossible story that bends your mind around in ways that are just scary enough to be real.

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, was a trip. You follow the path of a character named Shadow as he is drug through a world that is both filled of paradoxes. The places in this book are real, but a lot of the names have been changed. For instance, the author leaves us the address for The House on the Hill, just in case you want to go see it when you are done. But in the middle of various trips that Shadow takes to towns across America, we see a snap shot of just what separates America from other nations. Even when it comes to religion, Americans prefer to call themselves “spiritual” rather than religious. The premise of this book is that gods are only as powerful as their followers make them, and Americans are really more of an independent sort of people.

I’m glad I read this book. I was faced with a number of interesting questions I would have never asked myself before, had I not picked it up. How much do I put my own trust and belief in things, how much do I take for granted, how often do I find myself thinking that it is possible for something to be the way it is, just because I happened to be raised a certain way. How many times have I allowed myself to be unwavering on things that really don’t make much difference in the long run?

A great read! I recommend it to anyone who has had any kind of exposure to multiple faiths, or has a love for the old myths and stories about various pantheons.

American Gods
Neil Gaiman
ISBN 978-0-06-055812-3

Posted Monday, November 14, 2005, 04:17 PM

Right on the coat tails of the Lord of the Rings moves, the Chronicles of Narnia are being put into production, with the first to be released in early December. That being the case, my wife and I have decided to start reading the Chronicles. I have not read them since I was in elementary school, and did not understand most of what I was reading at the time. Teresa has to read a few of them for a class she took in college, but that was a while ago. All that to say, I was ready to jump right into the world of Narania, and try to remember all the stuff I forgot.

Those who hated the Lord of the Rings because it was boring, spent too much time talking about the appearance of trees and mountains, and had so little happen for such a long story, will be happy to read any of the Chronicles. C.S. Lewis is the polar opposite of Tolkin. The entire story of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, only has thirteen chapters, and takes up about 200 pages with pictures. But the cool part is that it only takes that many pages to become introduced to Narnia, and to tell a simple yet dramatic story.

I liked, and did not like this book. I liked it because Lewis did not spend time on something unless it was important. If something was described it was important to the story. And the really cool part about this book is that is written like the author is having a conversation with you. There are even points where the narrator and the readers have a few privet jokes between them, that the characters do not know about. This is very different from other fantasy books that feel like they are being recited by some court bard in some form of high chant. Simply put, this book was simple and easy to access.

What I did not like about this book is it left me asking too many questions. One of my big flaws as a reader and fan of fantasy in particular, is I love a good character that is developed. When I read the Lord of the Rings, or the Wheel of Time books, I feel like I am personally invested in a particular character. I care weather or not the person succeeds or is killed. I don’t have that feeling with the characters in this book. Honestly, I feel like I’m listening to a story being told around a camp fire, that kind that does not have to be developed only make a good point. And this book certainly does make excellent points, but it is just not the kind of book I enjoy the most.

That having been said, read this book. It was good. I just want to know how on earth they are going to turn this book into a movie. They are going to have to create a lot of dialogue to make it fit into a two hour format. This book is that concise and compact, that I don’t know if they can do it straight forward (where as they had to leave whole story lines out the Lord of the Rings to keep it under three hours each movie).

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis
ISBN 0-06-447104-7

Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005, 11:01 AM

In preparation for the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, my Fiancé and I have decided to read books 4 and 5 out loud to each other. This is something we enjoy doing, as it is something that we can do that is fun and does not cost money (our libraries are both diverse and large so we have a lot of books to read without buying more).

I think that this book is my favorite by far. The reason being that Harry is goes through that all important stage of adolescence where he feels that he is misunderstood by everyone and anyone around him. That, and post 911 and Patriot Act in America, this books hits home for me on a lot of issues that have to do with censorship and government making hasty legislative actions. Fun that that you can find both of these themes woven so well into a book that is about a boy coming of age.

I don’t believe in spoiling a plot, so I won’t say much about it even though by this time if you don’t know what happens in the book you probably live under a rock (I’m a little biased on this as I work with elementary school kids all day long and they talk about this series constantly). But Harry has to cope with some serious stuff in this book that test is character, and his friendship with his friends like it has never been tested before. To be honest, Harry is a bit of a…well a self absorbed adolescent boy. But in the end, he is faced with circumstances that force him to move past this, and take yet another step closer to being a man.

All in all, this was an amazing book. I can’t wait to finish reading the next one. This book sets the stage and tone for the rest of the series, and it is wickedly clever.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
J.K. Rowling
Scholastic
ISBN 0-439-35806-X

Posted Wednesday, July 13, 2005, 12:12 AM

My Fiancé and I just finished rereading this book. I love the Harry Potter series. J.K. Rowling has created a great fantasy universe that mixes so well with life as we know it. I like stories that take place in the near present day, but have a whole world that happens be hind the scenes that takes place while we go about our daily lives.

This book is not my favorite of the series, but it is an extremely important book for the story line. I think this book rates at #2 on my list currently. You get the chance to see how Harry Deals with the fact that he has learn to do things on his own. Yes, he can get help from his friends, but when it comes time to get the job done this time around he is on his own. And I love the interplay between the Ron and Hermione characters in this book. I don’t know where Rowling is going in terms of the Harry, Ron, Hermione triangle, but I keep reminding myself that this is a story about kids who have more important things to worry about then who they are going to go out with. This book also doe a great job of showing adolescent teenagers going though the awkwardness that is regular life, in spite of the fact that the are all faced with a variety of challenges ever step of the way.

This is a great book, but be warned. I would not let my non-teenage child read it alone. It would be a great book to read to our child/children, but there are some very dark and very scary things that happen in this book. But any teenager could benefit from seeing how important friendship is, how important it is to do the right thing, and that life really can be enjoyable in the midst of turmoil. This is a book about a teenage boy, who deals with his lot in life as best as he can.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
J.K. Rowling
Scholastic
ISBN# 0-439-13959-7

Posted Monday, February 7, 2005, 11:52 PM

Since I’ve decided to put my thoughts and opinions out there for all to see, thought that it would be fitting if I created a book review category for my Blog. If you have any recommendations, I would be happy to give them a chance (especially since I am shameless enough to go to Barns and Noble to read it there in the store without buying it). Just to be up front about my biases, I like Fantasy stories a lot. I also have read some very good SciFi books, and do enjoy books on Philosophy. Humor books of any kind are also a must. Stay tuned for new reviews from Trinity.