Review: Sing For Your Life

Ryan Green was a young man heading for trouble. He lived in a bad neighborhood, his father was gone, and Ryan and his mother frequently get into physical altercations. When he was twelve years old, he was sent to juvenile detention. But twelve years later, he was singing on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House and winning a spot in a national program for the most talented young singers. Sing For Your Life follows Ryan from a cell in solitary to a career as a professional opera singer.

As someone who has studied voice and sings frequently, I was intrigued by Ryan's story. I know the years of practice that it takes to become a good singer and that talent is no guarantee of success. I wanted to know how a young man with little training kept winning competitions and rising in the opera world.

It's wonderful to read about teachers and mentors who chose to believe in and champion a boy who had a difficult upbringing and had spent time in juvenile detention. The adults in his life tried to get through to him at his most violent, gave him the extra instruction he needed to catch up to the other musicians, and encouraged him to dream big.

The most fascinating part of the story though, is seeing the ways Ryan encounters prejudice and is able to overcome it. He remembers the wonder he felt the first time he saw a person of color sing a major role in an opera and how her performance convinced him there could be a place for him too. The most heartbreaking moment comes when he is fairly far along in his opera career and is asked to sing the seminal musical theatre song Ol' Man River. He has already performed several opera roles and knows how to sing in multiple languages, but the wealthy patrons of the arts want to hear him sing a song that hearkens back to the days of slavery and racism.

Sing For Your Life sometimes struck me as being better suited as a series of pieces for a magazine or newspaper and even after spending 300 pages with Ryan, I feel that I have only seen the surface of who he is and what he has experienced. In spite of that,  I am glad I know Ryan's story and hope that he has a long and wonderful career.


Sing For Your Life
By Daniel Bergner
Lee Boudreaux Books September 2016
320 pages
From the library

It's Monday and November is crazy

Hello bookish people! How are things?

I think I hit a bit of a wall this week with things being stressful and crazy around here. I'm trying to make some time for myself to breathe, so it was good to run away for a bit on Sunday afternoon and visit two of my sisters with my mom.

Part of taking good care of me is reading, of course. I read Truevine this week, which follows the lives of brothers who performed in a circus sideshow and the difficulties that shaped their family as poor black people living in Virginia. Then I curled up in bed with the latest edition of Saga. 

           

Next up is Lessons in Belonging From A Church-Going Commitment Phobe and then I will continue my week of faceless women with Kate Forsyth's novel The Wild Girl. 

                                  

What are you reading this week?

October Wrap-Up and What I'm Into

Oh October. You were really long and too short and full of good as well as crazy and stressful. We went on a Disney cruise for a week and had all the fun of festivities of Halloween. It's also been a tough few weeks as my husband deals with some medical stuff and my 3 year old is at peak toddler. I could do with a few easy days during November!

Han Solo loves Princess Leia. 

What I Read/Reviewed:
I only reviewed four books this month? Maybe I will get my book reviewing powers back for November. Two of those books were for review and two were from my library. Three of them were read as a part of Readers In Peril, a fun fall event where we read spooky books during September and October. My favorite of the bunch was probably The Fireman by Joe Hill.


                      


Favorite Kid Books This Month: BG is adoring a series of books about The Jellybeans, a group of four friends who like different things but go together like a handful of jellybeans! D is really into The Elemntia Chronicles, a Minecraft series, and The Treasure Hunters series, James Patterson's attempt to take over the kid's bookshelves too.

         

Favorite posts:
I wrote about our vacation experience on a Disney cruise and I also recorded my 24 Hour Readathon adventures this time around. 

What I've Been Watching:
It's nice to curl up on the couch after putting the kids to bed and watch a show or two with my husband. My current favorites are This Is Us and Jane the Virgin. Yes, I like to cry along with my laughing when it comes to tv.  

What I've Been Cooking/Baking:
I have to confess we have been ordering takeout far more often than I would like. I hope we are going to do better in November! We did make our first Chicken and Dumplings of the season. They are the perfect way to start fall. 

     

Picture from How Sweet Eats

Picture from Love and Olive Oil

   






I also baked these pumpkin chess pie bars and it seems like everyone liked them. There were none left for me to take home at the end of coffee hour! 


What were you into during October?

It's Monday - Happy Halloween!

Hey there, ladies and gents! Happy Halloween!

First things first: who is dressing up today? What is your costume? Our family will be going full Star Wars this year, with a tiny Princess Leia, a young Luke Skywalker, Han Solo (me), and Obi Wan Kenobi (husband). It's the first year we have ever done a theme for the whole family and I have to confess that it's a lot of fun! We will have to see if we can get a few more years of it before someone decides they are too cool for such things.

This week, I read Alice Hoffman's newest book Faithful. The story is about the aftermath of a terrible accident in the life of a girl. Then I picked up Split Second, and took a rare journey (for me) into the serial suspense/mystery genre.

            

Today I started reading Truevine and my timing is perfect because Nonfiction November is on the horizon! Up next is Lessons in Belonging From A Church-Going Commitment Phobe.

               

 What are you reading this week?

Ten Things I Learned On Vacation

Our family of four plus my mom and sister went into NYC on a Saturday and boarded a giant cruise ship. We spent a few days at sea before arriving at a beautiful private island in the Bahamas. The next day was spent at Disney World and then we cruised back up the East Coast before arriving back in dreary, cold New York.

I know, it's not Tuesday and these points are mostly not about books (gasp!). But I wanted to share a bit about our recent trip, so here you go!


1. The wind out at sea is no joke.

                  

2. You will find that you permanently have something in your eye when your toddler squeals with joy and runs into the arms of every character you encounter. When she waves to the princesses as they take their bows at the end of a show, you may find yourself having a sudden allergy attack.

3. Even the "too cool" big kids turn back into excited little ones when Mickey Mouse is involved.

4. If you have a boy who eats you out of house and home like I do, it may be the only time in your life that you encourage your kids to please eat more food. After all, you've already paid for it.


5. I love New Jersey beaches. But the water in the Bahamas is blue from far away and clear up close, people. You can see through to the sand and see shells and fish!

       

6. Formal dinner on a cruise ship seems so silly, but it's a lot of fun.

7. Cruise ship architects/designers are brilliant. There was so much room for all of our stuff in our cabin. Also, BG slept on a bed that pulled out of the sofa and D's bed came out of the ceiling!


8. Princess Leia does not like posing for pictures, even if she gets to trick or treat two whole weeks early.

9. Vacations with kids are both fun and stressful. We had so much fun with our kids, but we also really appreciated a quiet dinner with fancy food and wine for the two of us.


10. There are much worse places to read than a lounge chair on the deck of a cruise ship sailing into the Bahamas. (See? It always comes back around to reading.)

Ok, fellow Disney fans, it's time to out yourselves. Who loves Disney? Who has been on a Disney cruise?

RIP Review: The Girl With All the Gifts

Melanie starts each day with being tied down and removed from her prison cell. A guard takes her into a classroom with several other children and she has the best part of her day, as her teacher Helen Justineau tells the students wonderful stories. While Miss Justineau gives Melanie her affection, she seems sad about the girl's future. She knows that Melanie will never leave the army base where they live. The world outside has been divided into survivors and hungries and no one is safe.

If you are hoping to avoid spoilers for this two-year-old book and its upcoming movie, you may not want to keep reading!



The Girl With All The Gifts is a bit of a different spin on a zombie story. Instead of a strict survival tale, we begin with a relationship between a young girl and her teacher. They adore each other, but they know that their relationship will always be tempered by restraints, cells, and the knowledge that one of them is a human and the other is a very intelligent zombie who can (usually) control her hunger. While this book certainly has its fair share of heart-stopping moments, it is mostly about morality and ethics in time of crisis. Melanie's hopeful teacher with her kind heart is contrasted with Dr. Caroline Caldwell, a scientist who will go to any ends for her research. She believes anyone and everything is expendable, when it comes to helping humanity as a whole.

This book is perfect for wimpy readers like me. We like the thrill of a tense moment without having to double-check the locks on our doors before going to bed. The Girl With All The Gifts is an engaging read that will make you think about what lengths you would go to in order to survive. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention how wonderful it was to read a book full of action that revolves around three women.


The Girl With All The Gifts
By M.R. Carey
Orbit June 2014
460 pages
From the library

I read this book for Readers Imbibing Peril, hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings.

It's Monday and we are home again

Hello friends! How are you doing?

It's been two weeks since I did one of these posts. In the meantime, I went on a week-long cruise to the Bahamas and Disney World and then I participated in an abridged Readathon this past Saturday.

Vacation time plus Readathon means that I've gotten a lot of reading done lately. Here are the books I've read:

                                            
                  
                               

Now I'm planning to read Alice Hoffman's new novel Faithful and then catch up on the latest edition of Saga if it arrives at my library in the next few days.

What are you reading this week?