Mistaken Identity - Don & Susie Van Ryn and Newell, Colleen & Whitney Cerak with Mark Tabb

From the back:

A grief reversed. A hope deferred. The stunning true story of two families trading places from graveside to bedside.

Five lives were lost in a tragic accident involving a Taylor University van, and one young woman, severely injured and comatose, was rushed to the hospital.

Five funerals were held. Families, faculty, students and communities grieved their losses and joined in prayer and hope as the one young woman, Laura Van Ryn, fought for her life in a hospital bed. The national news spread the story, and people everywhere shared the grief and the hope.

Five weeks passed for the Cerak family. Believing they had buried their
daughter, the Ceraks clung to their faith and worshipped Gof through their tears, learning to look forward with hope to an eternal reunion with their lovely daughter Whitney. They spent weeks of mourning and grief surrounded by loved ones, slowly moving toward healing.

Five weeks passed for the Van Ryns. Keeping a constant bedside vigil over their precious daughter Laura, they sat and prayed and hoped. Confronted with tubes and surgeries, vital signs and healing signs, they rejoiced at each tiny advance toward recovery. Their friends and church and family members, along with a steady stream of students, celebrated with them each sign of Laura's healing.

And then the shock!

"Okay, Laura, I would like you to write your name for me," the occupational therapist said.

W-H-I-T-N-E-Y

An event that could be seen as pure tragedy becomes a celebration of life's unfathomable gifts and mysteries.

Amazing and heartbreaking story. I don't really have the words to express my feelings about this book. I am not a religious person, but both of the families affected by this tragedy really relied on their faith to pull them through these horrific events.

It was eerily odd to read about Taylor University and the towns of Caledonia and Grand Rapids, Michigan. Grand Rapids is about an hour north of my hometown, and I am familiar with the hospital and rehabilitation center where Whitney recovered.

My heart goes out to these families. It's really incredible the bond they forged and that they were able to adopt a positive attitude through their tragedy.

my new project

I decided I don't already have enough on my plate what with work, soccer, volunteering my time for the Children's Advocacy Center and its upcoming fashion show, networking events, time with friends, not to mention the plethora of upcoming weddings of my friends/family, that I would start another blog.

Visit here.

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name - Vendela Vida

First of all, has anyone been paying attention to Tropical Storm Fay? Well it's lingering around my house and won't stop dumping rain and huge wind gusts on us. My boyfriend and I went to Key Largo last weekend to celebrate his birthday and were evacuated on Sunday morning because of the impending storm. Fay has since made her way north and is hovering a bit too close to my territory.

That said, I had some extra reading time today because we had a half hurricane day - and we have another full day tomorrow! Here's to more reading time (maybe).

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name was a fascinating look at Lapland, the area north of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Vendela Vida, who won the Kate Chopin Award for this novel, spent three years and several trips to the icy land to write the book. It begins with the death of Clarissa Iverton's beloved father. Shortly after his funeral, she finds out that he was not her biological father after all, and that her fiance kept that secret from her for years. Clarissa also has not seen her mother in over a decade, and knowing that her mother was once in Lapland, sets out to find her biological father. In the process, she meets some nice Sami folks, who actually know more about her than she thinks in the beginning.

It is there, on the other side of the world, that she discovers she is pregnant with her fiance's child. But she doesn't necessarily want to return to him. After figuring out that her mother was raped and that she is living on this cold, dark side of the world, she tracks her down - only to realize her mother has no interest in being a parent, and does not care that Clarissa is about to be one herself.

This is a devastating story of family; a nice, intelligent woman discovers her whole life has been a lie and that her fiance knew it all along, and that her mother does not care about her, and that she is the product of a brutal rape. It was a very intriguing story, a real page-turner, but the ending was quite anticlimactic and not what I expected. Still, it is worth the read.

In Their Shoes Challenge Update

Completely unintentionally, the last 4 books I read were memoirs! I have officially completed the In Their Shoes Challenge! YAY!

Here's what I read, with links to my reviews:

So Many Books, So Little Time - Sara Nelson*
Lucky Man - Michael J. Fox
The Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama
Candy Girl - Diablo Cody**
The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch
Sister Salty, Sister Sweet - Shannon Kring Biro & Natalie Biro
Night - Elie Wiesel
The Mistress's Daughter - A.M. Homes
Hannah's Gift: Lessons of a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden
Three Little Words - Ashley Rhodes-Courter

*I didn't review this as I started my book blog after I had already finished. I'm including it in the challenge though, because I read it after January 1.
**I did not fully review this book. Click on the link to see my tiny remark.

I'm hoping I can read even more memoirs/biographies before the end of the year, considering the large amount I've got waiting to be read on my bookshelf.

Three Little Words - Ashley Rhodes-Courter

This is Ashley Rhodes-Courter's memoir; the way she pieced together her childhood as she bounced around 14 different foster care homes in 9 years. Her mother was a teenager when she gave birth to Ashley, and always promised to come get her "soon."

This was a heartbreaking but very enlightening tale of foster care, the abuse that happens more often than we thought, and the case workers who fight vigorously for innocent children. Ashley was smart and had a way of putting aside the horror of life to excel in school. One of the homes in which she stayed for eight months was especially appalling, and Ashley and the other foster children (at times more than 10 lived there) were abused and seriously mistreated. Fearing she might endure more torture, Ashley stayed silent for years but eventually lead a fight and several lawsuits against those foster parents.

Ashley eventually was matched with an adoptive family, with whom she now gets along fabulously. It was hard in the beginning to adjust as she constantly thought her behavior would warrant her return to foster care. Ashley continued to excel in school and advocate for better foster care in the state of Florida (ironically, the state in which I now reside) and eventually earned an invitation to the White House for a reception; she was personally invited by Hillary Clinton! She had been recognized for an essay she wrote in USA Today about J.K. Rowling and how the Harry Potter series changed her life (she also met Rowling, obviously). She also won an essay contest hosted by the New York Times Magazine for the essay about her adoption day, titled "Three Little Words," which she eventually turned into this memoir.

This was a fascinating look into foster care, although I was raging when reading the abusive parts. I am really appalled that the state of Florida's foster care system was so lacking for many years - Ashley was technically considered missing for 9 months because the paperwork showed inconsistencies! I cannot imagine having lived through this nightmare, but Ashley is still thriving. She won several other prestigious awards, including a college scholarship, and a quick visit to her website shows that she is still engaging in speaking opportunities around the country, advocating on behalf of America's foster care children.

Hannah's Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden

WARNING: this one is quite the tear-jerker!!

Three-year-old Hannah has a rare cancerous tumor that even after 2 surgeries just will not leave her alone. This is her mother's story of first battling that tumor, then living with the fact that it will kill Hannah. This story is so beautifully told; Maria was really, truly present with Hannah (and the rest of the family) throughout the cancer battle. And Hannah! What a true doll. So adorable.

Hannah and her brother Will, who is five at the time, make the most of the rest of her life, including asking many questions about death and what happens after death. Hannah was rarely afraid of dying, she was just very curious. Maria and her husband, Claude, made it a point to always be honest with the children, even if they thought it would crush them. Maria told the story of Hannah's last birthday, last holidays, a trip to Walt Disney World (thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation) and many other "lasts."

I don't even have kids and I cried like a baby. Maria tells the story so clearly I had a vivid picture in my head and I couldn't handle it when Hannah actually died in her mother's arms. It was too much for me. How can you outlive your child? It just hurt reading it, I can't imagine living it. Kudos to Maria and her family for truly living, and truly telling, the story of Hannah's life.

this and that

Did you notice my blogroll to the right?! I finally added one :) PLEASE leave me a comment if I have left you out, and I apologize in advance. I can't possibly keep track of all the great book blogs out there.

Also, did anyone know that Randy Pausch passed away last week? He was inspirational and really became a celebrity after his last lecture. I reviewed his book, The Last Lecture, not too long ago (read it here) and I was almost in tears when I read about his passing. If you haven't already, please read his book! It's a quick read, but highly motivating.

Also, I've been working on a new blog, one that will be an outlet for all of my everyday thoughts and happenings - from business to news to politics to books. Stay tuned!!

The Mistress's Daughter - A.M. Homes

Author A.M. Homes was born to a 22-year-old woman blinded in love by her "boyfriend," who happened to be an older, much married man with a family of his own, and was adopted shortly after birth into a nice family, where she grew up with an older brother.

Homes learned of this adoption at the age of 31. Once her parents dropped the bomb, Homes eventually got in contact with her mother, Ellen, then her father. Her mother turned out to have never lived her life at all - never married, never had more children, really never stopped loving Homes's father, Norman. He, as it turned out, continually lied to Ellen when she was pregnant, telling her he was leaving his wife and family to start fresh with her and their baby, and even moved a pregnant Ellen to Florida with a message that he would soon follow. He never did.

Homes does not feel a connection to her birth mother, and eventually we see why - Ellen is very clingy. When A.M. does not return calls, or refuses to see her, Ellen continuously calls wondering why and when they can meet. Norman, however, makes A.M. submit to a DNA test before he will have anything to do with her. She and her father do meet a couple of times, but eventually he wants nothing to do with her.

Homes becomes obsessed with her birth parents' family history, and pays several hundred dollars and many years obtaining genealogy details. Her constant quest for information consumed a large portion of the book, but it was rather interesting the history she was able to piece together, through data, through joining websites, to researching in libraries, to exchanging emails with distance relatives. She finally hit a roadblock when her father refused to produce a copy of the DNA test she submitted to, a document which she needs to provide to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She speaks to several lawyers, even considers suing her father to prove that he's her father, but decides to let it go.

And we leave her with the knowledge of her own little girl, Juliet. I do recommend this book; it's short and quick and really well written. Very interesting, considering all the details she obtains about her lineage. And sometimes witty. I just love memoirs.

Night - Elie Wiesel

As I mentioned before, I think I am probably in the minority of those students who didn't have to read this book for school curriculm. It is Wiesel's true account of shuffling through concentration camps in Nazi Germany, surrounded by thousands of marching men and constantly trying to avoid being sent to the creamatories.

These are some passages I bookmarked while reading:

All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguishing future. He played that which he would never play again.

Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every man for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even your father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone.

This book was easy to read, hard to understand. It's amazing that this kind of hate really existed.