The Chick Palace

Can there be such a thing as a coming of age story when the characters coming of age are mid-life moms learning to deal with the changes in their families?  Leslie Davis Guccione, author of  The Chick Palace, would say yes and she would very effectively prove it as she wrote her book!  The Chick Palace shares the lives of the two main characters.  Lilly, a twice divoriced mother of a college aged son, and Johanna, a married mom of two grown children, still in need of mom's input in life.  The story is set at their summer retreat and we are quickly drawn into the lives they are living and sharing their memories of summer loves past and college days.  Ms. Guccione doesn't sugar coat the hard stuff but she presents it with humor and the grace that we've experience from mothers and as mothers.   The Chick Palace, provided a much needed escape from my sometimes "coming of age" life and with the humor and ease I identified with the characters, I found myself wishing for my own "Chick Palace".  Maybe, I'll help build my kids a tree house this summer so when I am empty nesting, I'll have my own memories and stories to remind me life is about the adventure!

Looking Back-A Year of Reading

Already a week into 2012 and I am just now getting around to writing my reading blog.  I wish I could say that is because I have been so engrossed in reading that I couldn't put my book down to write but unfortunately, it's just been that life is so busy, I haven't been able to put life on hold long enough to sit down and write.  In the past year, I have written about books and life and sometimes they have gone hand in hand, but more often than not, the book provides the escape from the everyday and don't we all need a little escape once in a while?  As I was looking back on the year, I looked back on the books I had read, whether it was a book everyone was talking about, like Unbroken  or The Help, or a book that I read because the title looked interesting like, First There Was A River or Gap Creek, I found that each book gave me a moment of escape.  There were also moments when the escape in a book brought me instead to the crushing reality of the truth within the book.  It was at those moments, when I thought I was escaping that I found myself, reading the author's words and applying them to my life.  Do you have books that you have read this past year that brought you escape?  Do you have books that you read this year that challenged you?  Do you have books you read this year that made you laugh?  Do you have books this year that made you cry?  If you are like me, the answer is yes to each of these questions.  As you answer yes, I think you'll be able to see that books really do reflect life because I bet you've also had moments in this past year that you weren't reading when you escaped, felt challenged, laughed and cried!  A book is a remarkable thing.  If you allow it, reading through 2012 can bring each of us to moments we'd never expected and you'll look back on 2012's reading list and you'll be able to say-I escaped, I was challenged, I laughed and I cried.  Join with me and tell me your great reads-we'll share those moments together!