"The Boston Girl": A Sentimental Interview with a Grandma

When my grandmother was 85 years old, my husband and I interviewed her at Thanksgiving.  We did it because we wanted her to be able to tell her stories and we wanted to have her voice recorded for when she was no longer with us.  We asked questions about her family, her courtship with our grandfather, what it was like living through war time, what her holiday celebrations used to be like, what it was like living in inner-city Baltimore in a row home with 12 brothers and sisters, and what her thoughts were on life today.

My grandmother had nothing bad to say about anything.  She never complained about sharing her home's one bathroom with 15 other people or about sharing her home's two bedroom's with all of her siblings.  She kept coming back to the statement, "We were always together, and we always had something to do. We were happy." Her memories were sentimental and rosy, even the ones about the Great Depression and how little they had.

Maybe because I interviewed my grandmother all those years ago, I was particularly touched by Anita Diamant's most recent novel "The Boston Girl." I haven't read an Anita Diamant novel since I read "The Red Tent" (and loved it), so I was excited to read this book even after I read a snarky book review in the Washington Post which basically said that it had all the vibrancy of plastic flowers.  I disagree with that review.

The book is set up as an 85 year old grandmother (Addie Baum) telling her granddaughter (Ava) about her life.  Because of that premise, it is a rather G rated retelling of a life full of tragedy and triumph, and because of my similar experience with my grandmother, I was drawn in from the first page.  Rather than getting too close to the tragedy or even the romance, Addie tells her granddaughter the facts and the fun stories about how her life unfolded in Boston.  Growing up as the youngest daughter of Jewish immigrants, Addie lived in a dingy tenement building.  Her mother was anything but kind choosing instead to criticize and bicker, complain and torment over being loving and comforting.  Addie's father was a little bit better, but as Addie tells her granddaughter, this was the time before men were really expected to be engaged fathers especially with their daughters.

Addie's recalls her time in her Saturday Club where she forged life long friendships and connections that propelled her into her journalism career.  She rebels (safely) from her parents' wishes for her to work in a sweatshop to help provide for the family, and instead pursues a more academic focused life of poetry recitations, meeting famous artists, finding work in journalism and becoming a writer.

There is friendship, romance, death, suffering, family turbulence and signs of the times discussed like child welfare laws and the treatment of women in the workplace.  Because it is a grandmother talking to her granddaughter, there are plenty of aphorisms about life thrown about like "You should always be kind to people, Ava. You never know what sorrows they're carrying around."

What I liked best about this book is the nostalgic look back at a life well lived just like when I listened to my grandmother talk about how beautiful her life was.  Overly sunny? Maybe.  Not tragic or gruesome enough? Absolutely. Worth the read? I think so.

This will be my first Thanksgiving since my grandmother died, and I am looking forward to listening to her recorded voice with all of her memories of a life well lived.

"Lottery": Heartwarming and Likable

The lottery reminds me of Gram. 
When we would buy tickets she would say, "You know, Perry, life's all just one big goddamned lottery. Some of us have brains, some of us don't.  Some people draw cancer.  Others win car accidents and plane crashes.  It's just a lottery.  A goddamned lottery." 

Hasn't everyone at some point in their lives dreamed of winning the lottery? We buy the winning lottery ticket and all the sudden our lives change unexpectedly for the better.  We pay off our debts, give money to charity, go on fancy vacations, spruce up our home, or even buy another house altogether.  We never need to worry about money again. Our kids can attend the college of their choice.  We can stop working and stressing.  Life would be easy.

What would it be like to win the lottery?

Most of us will never know, but for the few that win the lottery, their journeys with money aren't always smooth and easy.

In Patricia Wood's novel "Lottery" (2007), she presents the story of Perry L. Crandall.  He's a 32 year old with an IQ of 76 which as he tells us over and over again doesn't mean that he is "retarded" but "slow." He and his Gram took care of each other after his mother abandoned him.  Gram is a feisty old woman with many lessons for Perry.  "Gram always told me the L in my name stood for lucky.  And that I might be slow, but I'd get to where I was going in my own time." She encourages Perry to be his own person and to embrace all that he has rather than think he is less than anyone else.

Perry (called Per by his best friend Keith) feels lucky even before he wins a $12,000,000 lottery jackpot.  He loves his Gram and his best friend Keith.  He is a loyal employee at Holstead's, a boat supplier company, and he loves his boss, Gary.  He and his Gram have their routines and rituals - buying lottery tickets, reading Reader's Digest, studying words every day out of the dictionary, grocery shopping together, watching t.v. and living simply and happily.  When Gram dies, things go downhill for Perry as his evil family members peck away at the little bit that Gram left for him and leave him with virtually nothing.  No one from his family offers to help him, but his friend Keith and his boss Gary step in and set him up with what he needs to survive.  It's not until Perry wins the lottery that his life changes dramatically.

The vultures in his family want to swoop in and trick Perry into giving them his winnings in order to pay off their bad business dealings.  Their biggest problem is that they underestimate Perry L. Crandall who listened hard to Gram's life lessons about who to trust.  She warned Perry about his family and instructed Perry carefully about choosing who to trust wisely.  Not only did Gram give him the wisdom he needs to help him through the tricky business dealings after winning the lottery, he also has Keith, his best friend who selflessly protects him.

What I loved about this story is how lovable Perry is.  It reminded me a little bit of reading "Flowers for Algernon" and how a below average intelligent person experiences a huge life turn around with unexpected results.  In Charley's case, he won the brains lottery before it was taken away from him.  In Perry's case, he won the monetary lottery and what he wants with the money and how he handles winning are very different than what readers would expect.

Perry is endearing.  So is Gram.  So is Keith.  So is Cherry.  So is Gary.

Perry's blood sucking family members are almost too evil to be true, but when money is involved the worst in people can emerge.

The biggest surprise in this book is that it is way more a story about what it means to be fortunate than what it means to win the lottery.  During this month of gratitude, I am often reminded of how very fortunate I am to have what I have in my life.  I adore my husband.  I love my two healthy daughters who fill my life with so much joy.  I live on a beautiful street in a great neighborhood with amazing neighbors.  I have great friends and family members.  I am healthy.  I do what I love every day of my life.

Just like Perry discovers in Wood's novel, winning the lottery is way more than winning money.  It's about recognizing what good fortune means.  It's about finding what you are good at doing and doing it.  It's about finding the people who make you happy in your life and spending time with them.  It's about getting the people who are draining you of energy off of your back and focusing instead on what is the right thing to do.  It's about being honest and being exactly who you are regardless of what others think of you.

"Lottery" by Patricia Wood made me smile and even more than that it made me realize that although I haven't won the lottery, I sure am lucky.

Ordinary riches can be stolen: real riches cannot - Oscar Wilde

* A huge thank you goes out to Patricia Wood for donating 2 signed copies of her book for our November 2015 Winning the Lottery writing contest

"We are All Completely Beside Ourselves": It will make you think about human and animal behavior

After finishing Karen Joy Fowler's "We are All Completely Beside Ourselves" a week ago, I needed time to really digest it and contemplate what I thought about it.

This book surprised me, made me think, and completely caught me off guard.  Know that if you really want to read this book that you should probably stop reading this post because it will spoil, what to me, was the surprise about Rosemary's (the narrator's) family.

When I picked up this book, I did indeed read the back cover, but somehow the story still caught me completely by surprise. Rosemary begins her story in the middle which became a habit from her childhood.  She talked so much all the time that her father would urge her to "skip the beginning. Start in the middle." And that is what she does.

The middle begins in 1996 when Rosemary gets involved with a semi-crazy college student at the University of California Davis whose breakup scene with her boyfriend in a diner pulls Rosemary from her 22 year old, bored college student life.  Rosemary is lonely, and feels distant from her family.  Her brother is missing and wanted by the FBI, her beloved sister disappeared, and her parents are both aloof and sad.

Rosemary gets tangled up with the disruptive girl from the diner who is named Harlow.  It's unclear why Rosemary, who by all accounts seems very straight and narrow, would form a friendship with such an erratic person, but she does. Interspersed within the story of her blossoming friendship with Harlow and their comical night of drug induced delusion,  Rosemary also recounts awkward Thanksgiving conversation memories. During her trips home, relatives fight about SAT scores and never really say how they really feel, but what isn't said sometimes is even more important than what is said at the dinner table.  She eludes to her siblings, but never actually admits that her sister, Fern, who disappeared one day was a . . . (huge spoiler alert) chimpanzee.  From here, her story weaves from her middle to the past and then finally circles around to the present.

I don't know why I didn't comprehend the truth about Fern when I read the back of the book, but somehow I gleaned over the part about the chimp and my brain latched onto the part that said this book was about "loving but fallible people whose well-intentioned actions lead to heartbreaking consequences." The well-intentioned action of trying to raise a baby chimp and a baby human together as siblings to study their behavior was indeed a flawed plan which resulted in the complete dissolution of a family in ways that none of them could have predicted.  Rosemary's mother went into a deep depression after Fern disappeared.  Rosemary's moody brother Lowell left, and her father became more distant than ever.  Rosemary herself tried to run away from her past - the stigma of being the "monkey girl" and the difficulty she had of communicating with children her age growing up, never left her.

Karen Joy Fowler gave me so much to think about in this book.  What does it mean to be human? How do we treat animals? What do we do in the name of science and humanity? Where does humanity stop and become cruelty? How do we right the wrongs of our past?

As Rosemary struggled to remember the details of her time with Fern and why Fern left their family, and then tries to piece together what happened to her brother, she begins to form a clearer truth of her past.  I love that she can't answer every question.  She can't completely forgive herself, but at the same time there is really no one to blame even though blame is thrown around quite a bit.  While she is piecing together the past, her present friendships and class lectures disturb her and make her question things even more.

The journey of Rosemary's coming-of-age story is a profound one.  Every family deals with loss and heartbreak and although Rosemary's family is anything but ordinary, the grief they feel over their mistakes and choices are universal.  Fowler deserves the high praise this book received for it's unique structure but even more because it will make you rethink what you really see when you look in the mirror, how we construct our memories, and how we define the meaning of family.

"Devil in the White City": Pure Evil and Pure Triumph at Chicago's 1893 World's Fair

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. - 
-Daniel H. Burnham
Director of Works
World's Columbian Exposition

I lost count of the number of people who recommended that I read Erik Larson's "The Devil in the White City"(2003) over the last 12 years.  That number increased when I told people I was moving outside of Chicago.  Even the woman who worked at Tumble Town in the York Galleria Mall suggested it to me.  "I would love to go to Chicago and see all the things in that book," she said as I peeled the name tag stickers off of my sweaty girls.  "Everyone in my book club loved it, and most of the time we fight about books," she said as she looked at me intently.  I handed her my credit card as she continued, "I mean, if you are moving out there, you really need to read it." Most of the time friends would reference it and say, "What do you mean you haven't read it?" almost as if they were mad at me for neglecting my duties as an avid reader.

When we moved to Crystal Lake, my cousin who lives in Chicago visited us and brought her copy of "The Devil in the White City" with her and dropped it off at my house. She repeated the same thing everyone else who has read it said, "You'll love it.  It's really amazing, and now that you live near Chicago, it's a must read."

Still I was unswayed to pick it up immediately.  I thumbed through and noticed that the words inside were really small and it looked rather long.  And non-fiction history isn't really my favorite thing to read.

I put it on a shelf and proceeded to read many other books.  Then, one day, I was passing by my bookshelf and the cover of "The Devil in the White City" was facing me, and I decided that it was time.

The subtitle of this book is "Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America" and murder, magic and madness take center stage throughout the book. Larson's book tells two stories that are equally compelling in flip flopping chapters.  With one story he recounts Chicago's improbable journey of winning the bid for the 1893 Columbian World Fair and the treacherous road that the architects and landscape artists traveled in order to showcase a fair such as the world had never seen.  The second story tells the tale of the twisted Dr. H. H. Holmes who constructed his own house of murderous horrors and turned it into a hotel during the World's Fair in order to trap and kill unsuspecting prey.

Although through the first 40 pages or so names and places overwhelmed me, both stories quickly gathered steam and I was drawn into the mayhem of both.  Larson used his stellar research to weave two equally sensational historical oddities together, and I loved every detail in both story lines.  I never tired of all the set backs due to weather or the naysayers who repeated "it's never been done before" or the constraints of the budget or the unions who were against the fair's progress.  I loved every fact about nails and bolts equally as much as I marveled that Ferris was able to achieve something no one had ever seen before with his towering rotating wheel.  At the same time, I was horrified by the gruesome accounts of the seductive and cunning Dr. Holmes who carefully chose his victims and then disposed of bodies in chemicals and his high temperature basement furnace. His murderous spree went undetected largely in part due to the distraction of the World's Fair.

But it wasn't only Larson's impeccable research that made this book so amazing.  He was also able to construct both story lines into nail biting narratives that read more like a novel than a fact based history book.  During certain parts I wanted to stand up and applaud Larson's writing prowess and his ability to keep me turning pages.

I also gained new respect for the city of Chicago and the amazing progress that the 1893 World's Fair brought with it.  From actualizing an urban landscape that is beautiful and technologically advanced, to improved sanitation efforts, to making cities a place that people want to visit, to beating impossible odds, Chicago proved to be both an unforgiving landscape for the Fair as much as it was the best location ever for a fair.

Because Larson's book reads more like a novel than a non-fiction book, I raced to get to the conclusion.  What happened to Holmes? I had to know, so I shut out the world and read on.  What other pressures would the World's Fair face? I couldn't wait to find out how each obstacle surfaced and how the builders and planners forged onward.

Everyone who urged me to read this book was right.  It was an incredible book, and I can't wait to visit downtown Chicago and see it with new eyes.  Not only that, I recently learned that the movie version starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese will be released soon. I promise not to wait 12 years to see it.

"After You": Not as Enjoyable as Me Before You

Before I begin explaining the title of this blog post, I want to first emphasize the fact that I love Jojo Moyes books.  They are witty, charming, romantic, and I always look forward to reading them.  Actually, I get a bit giddy when I have a Jojo Moyes book in my hands at the library check out.  Because I only discovered her books a year ago, I've been catching up on Jojo Moyes books, and I even went on binge in the summer to prepare for reading her latest novel, "After You." And, I actually went to Barnes and Noble and finally used the gift card my sister sent me in June for my birthday to buy "After You" the day it was released.

What makes Jojo Moyes books so lovable stems from the fact that they all have the same sort of plot structure which involves the following:
A working class girl who is extra ordinary but doesn't really know it falls on hard times.  She meets a more wealthy or more seemingly put together bloke who is always dashing but he struggles with flaws of his own. The two fall hard for each other, but they both need to overcome incredible odds or their own inner demons in order for everything to work out.

The female characters are usually bumbling in one way or another, but also extra ordinary in one way or another.  At the heart of the heroine is always kindness.  Add a romance, a cast of supporting characters who enhance the charm and wit of the plot.  Finally add more dips and bumps in the road than the average human being can handle and have the characters work through those dips and bumps by falling hard but always brushing themselves off to overcome.

Moyes writes the kind of books that make me want to bury myself in my couch, grab a big cozy blanket, light a candle, grab a cup of tea and then get lost in the story.  She is a master of rom com and it's no wonder she has a legion of fans who adore her books.

I am a dedicated new fan which is why I couldn't help but be disappointed in the sequel to "Me Before You."

I want to apologize to all of you who are Jojo Moyes fans and loved this book.  I wanted to love it.  I really, really did, but I didn't.

Here are my reasons:
1) I love the character Lou, and I loved her relationship with Will Traynor in "Me Before You" BUT I feel like she grew so much in that novel and she didn't just take a few steps back, she took leaps and bounds back in the outset of this book.  She chose to work at a crappy job (and then stay there), she chose to live a life of isolation, and then she chose to wallow.  All of those things seemed out of character to me of the Lou that I watched grow in "Me Before You." I get that she was devastated by the loss of Will, but I just expected more from her.

2) I wasn't thrilled with the addition of Will's daughter that he never knew existed.  This seemed like a strange twist in the story and for me it didn't work.  Lily felt unfinished and hurried as a character which is odd coming from a master of character creation like Moyes.  I did not like the "Lily backstory" chapter where the reader learns why Lily is so surly and so unpredictable.  It didn't fit for me and felt thrown in. The angst was too much. The situation that she struggled against too improbable.  Her mother was too evil to be real, her step-father's business associate too creepy, and the reconciliation of the whole Lily situation seemed too tidy.  If a strange teenage girl showed up on your doorstep, would you really allow her to just live there without consulting the mom? Would the mom really be that unfeeling that she abandons her altogether because she's too much trouble?

3) The shooting scene with Sam and Donna was too farfetched.  That's all I'll say about that.

4) The entire situation with Lou's job at the airport bar.  From the costume to the boss to the staying on to help.  It all felt contrived.

Because the two main female characters were in situations that I wasn't crazy about, I had problems loving the entirety of the book.  That's not to say that I didn't love parts of it.

Here are the things I loved:
1) I loved the character Sam.  What's not to love about him? He's a handsome, caring man who loves his nephew, his job, and he's building a house from the foundation up.  He's open with his feelings and wants to be in a committed relationship.

2) I loved the conflict between Lou's mom and dad.  Her mom wants more freedom and her dad wants everything to stay the same.  The fighting led to funny moments and the only time I actually got teary eyed while reading (which is saying a lot because usually I'm a mess by the end of most Jojo Moyes books).

There's more to love, but those were my favorite things about it.

For the hardcore fans of Jojo Moyes, I know they will be entertained and most of them will disagree whole heartedly with my criticisms.  I haven't read all of her books (that's why I consider myself a new fan).  The upsides: I read it fast.  I didn't cry a bunch.  It was a little enjoyable and somewhat touching, but it definitely did not grab me the way that other Jojo Moyes books have.  I will continue to read Jojo Moyes with hopefulness that her next novel will be way better than this one.

"Rising Strong:" Just Go Out and Buy It

"The opposite of recognizing that we're feeling something is denying our emotions.  The opposite of being curious is disengaging.  When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don't go away; instead, they own us, they define us.  Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending - to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened.  This is my truth.  And I will choose how the story ends."
- Brene Brown

I used to buy every single book that I wanted to read, but then I realized that
#1) Books take up a bunch of space
#2) Books are heavy when you need to move and movers charge by the weight of your stuff
#3) Not all books are worthy of keeping after you have read them
#4) Books are expensive
#5) Although many people love to read from their devices, I still love the solid feel of a book in my hands (which brings me back to numbers 1-4)

In the past few years I've been way more of a library junkie, making sure to put holds on all the books that I would like to read.  When I saw that Brene Brown released a new book called "Rising Strong" I decided to purchase it instead of waiting for it to come in at the library. Brene Brown's Ted Talk on the power of vulnerability is one of my favorites because it really made me think about how I constantly need to show everyone how strong I am rather than allowing myself to appear vulnerable.  I also really enjoyed reading her book "The Gifts of Imperfection" (my wonderful friend, Nikki sent it to me right after I moved).  That book allowed me to ease into my move without feeling overwhelmed by perfectionism that can sometimes cripple me.

Not only do I not regret this purchase, I am encouraging others to go out and buy Brene Brown's new book, "Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution."  I've actually recommended it to so many others and several of them are reading it and loving it. Why? Because there are so many take aways from this book, that it's one that you will want to come back to when you are struggling through conflicts, work drama, family issues, or just trying to own the story of your life.

I actually annotated as I was reading (which prompted raised eyebrows from both of my daughters who have had it drilled into their heads at school that you NEVER PUT MARKS IN BOOKS.  They asked me with strained voices, "Mommy, why are you writing in your brand new book?!").  I told them I would never write in a library book, but this book was mine and there were things that I wanted to remember and if I took notes in the book as I read, I could easily find them again.

I underlined and annotated more things than I can effectively share in this post, but I will tell you some of my biggest take aways.  My first take away is from Brene Brown's story about meeting the Pixar creative team.  During their meeting and subsequent correspondences, she realized that the struggles we all face are very similar to the creative process of creating a story and the struggle that the story writers and animators face. When a creative team maps out a story they follow the steps of a hero's journey or archetypal theory; they see this as three acts to the story.  It's Act 2 that the creative team struggles with the most.  This is the act where the hero has to reach rock bottom, the lowest of the low point, before he or she can rise and achieve redemption.  Applied to real life, act two is where many people don't dare touch because it is messy, it's complicated, it's emotional and it's where we are at our most vulnerable.  Let's face it, most people don't enjoy being uncomfortable.

Brene Brown's take away from this is that we need to rumble through this messy Act Two phase in order to rise strong as we create the stories in our lives.  She realized that story is an integral part of our vulnerability.

For me, this was a big point of wisdom because I do believe that telling our life stories honestly and being able to share them makes us not only vulnerable, but helps us to connect with others. That's why our tag line at stageoflife.com is "changing the world one story at a time." Our stories humanize and connect us, and the more vulnerable we are willing to become in sharing our story, the greater human connections we will make.  In Brene Brown's book she wisely says, "The irony is that we attempt to disown our difficult stories to appear more whole ore more acceptable, but our wholeness - even our wholeheartedness - actually depend on the integration of all of our experiences, including the falls."

She encourages us to own our stories, and shares her own stories of conflict in her relationships as examples to show how the process works.  Through examples from misunderstandings with her husband, to professional missteps, to how to handle miscommunication in meetings, Brene Brown's greatest asset is her ability to make everything clear and connected.  She uses references from Anne Lamott's book "Bird by Bird" and her concept of a "shitty first draft" (SFD) and how we often get caught up in the story that we tell ourselves about a situation.  Being able to say "The story I am making up about this situation is . . . " puts things into perspective.  We honestly don't know all the angles of a situation or conflict.  We only know our own story, so if we can own the story that we are telling ourselves and even be vulnerable enough to share our own insecurities with others, we may be able to rise strong through  the rumble in act two rather than let it control us.

Pretty cool, right?

As I read this book (which is a really fast read), I shared the parts I underlined with my husband every night.  He could apply everything to his own situations at work and told me that as soon as I was done that he wanted to read it.  "Rising Strong" is a book that you will want to pass along to others, because it just makes sense.  

"Luckiest Girl Alive": Mean Spirited and Darkly Twisted

I read yet another book that is capitalizing on the success of Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" and yet another thriller with psychotic women at it's core that has the word "girl" in the title.  Even Reese Witherspoon has tweeted about how amazing Jessica Knoll's twisted novel "Luckiest Girl Alive" but does it live up to the hype and it's instant New York Times Bestseller status?

I'm a firm believer that just because everyone else thinks something is fantastic doesn't mean that it actually is.  I also don't always agree with the books that everyone thinks are amazing.  Page turning doesn't always equate to awesome book.  For me, "Luckiest Girl Alive" didn't have a soul or the soul of Ani (formally TifAni) FaNelli was as black as the rose on the front cover.

As the lone narrator of this book, Ani, invites her readers into her seemingly perfect life as she prepares for her amazing wedding in Nantucket to her amazing, blue blood fiancee who seems to adore her.  Ani works as a feature writer at The Women's Magazine in New York City.  Her main work revolves around sex tips for women and she aspires for something greater even though many would kill to have her job, and her fiancee, and her fancy labeled clothes (which she constantly references), and her ever shrinking, wedding preparation waist line (which she is obsessed with).

But Ani has a huge blemish on her past that she longs to forget and that the reader isn't really privy to until the last half of the novel.  The immensity of her teenage days as TifAni, an outsider who is plunged into the old money world of the very prestigious Bradley School and the privileged and ugly lives of her classmates, gave her the ambition to stop at nothing in order to make others believe she is worthy.  While at Bradley she was willing to sacrifice her reputation, her safety and in some instances her sanity in order to make the popular kids like her, but the mean spirited nature of the school sucks her in even further and further.  The bottoming out is horrific and maybe not as poignant as it should be?

This novel reminded me of the very dark and twisted movie Heathers (1988) starring Christian Slater and Winona Rider, but with even more disturbing aspects in it.  I quite liked Heathers (at least I did when I was a teenager, but I haven't seen it in many years), but found more of a distaste than a fondness for "Luckiest Girl Alive." Ultimately this novel felt like a mean YA novel full of spoiled rich kids who mistreat themselves and others while Mommy and Daddy's money protects them from consequences.  I guess that might be why the emotional weight of what happens to everyone didn't feel as heavy to me.  Each character in this book is contemptible in different ways.  Ani is an insatiable snob who doesn't really care about anyone but herself even after all the events play out.  Her best friend Nell is the same.  Ani's mother only cares how things look to others.  The popular students at Bradley are ridiculous stereotypes of every mean girl and mean bully movie ever created.  Ani's fiancee's cluelessness doesn't seem to fit and the scenes which feature his bland mother and father and overly racist cousin ring false.  The few characters who do garner compassion also disappoint as the story unfolds.  One becomes a monster, and the other a lewd predator.

I always have high hopes for any new thriller that promises to be entertaining and intense, but mostly I am let down by how psychotic and shallow everyone in many thrillers are.  I find myself drawn in more by psychologically complex characters who lose their way, or are aware of their darkness, or are  compassionate in some way.  For me, "Luckiest Girl Alive" lacked that sensitive side and ultimately felt bleak and heartless.

Reese Witherspoon has already bought the rights to make it into a movie, and it will most likely be very popular and many people will read "Luckiest Girl Alive" and love it.  I'm just not one of them.