The NEST Familiy Ties that Bind & Unravel Over an Inheritance

Cynthia Sweeney's debut novel is a family dysfunctional dilemma embedded in a lair of interesting quirks & a major jerk.  The Plumb family is meeting to discuss their waning inheritance they're about to receive on the 40th birthday of the youngest sibling.  Melody is the youngest of 4 siblings, and the only parent with teenage twins.  Leo is the leader of the Plumb pack which includes Jack, the gay brother who deals in antiquities & Bea wanna be writer.  Their father prudently put aside a trust to ensure his offsprings a tidy sum to supplant their financial security.  Leo is a self-serving narcissist who oozes charm.  He is the reason for a major debit from the fund.  The novel begins with a catastrophic car crash caused by Leo. Leo lures a young waitress with supposed music connections to abscond in his porsche.  Extremely intoxicated & distracted while driving he runs into an oncoming van.  The accident results in an amputation of the girl's foot and a major cut from the "nest." Their widowed mother, the executor of the estate, thought best, to pay off Leo's indiscretion to avoid scandal.   A familiar familial cry of not fair embroils the others.   All parties had plans for their anticipated & direly needed windfall.  Leo cons his siblings into giving him a few months to adjust for the incremental reduction to their shared nest.  This is a frothy, fast read as we discover the hidden secrets of each siblings' sequestered stash or lack of cash.  We're intrigued by the siblings who are drawn into Leo's commanding orbit & remain tied to one another.  There are plenty of side characters, such as the twin sisters and love interests that keep this novel enticing.  The NEST is a light read of family bonds.  Some fall away and others are sustained.        

Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death and Redemption in an Amer Prison by Shaka Senghor

"Writing" My Wrongs, Shaka Senghor's auto-biography has resounding messages and disturbing accounts of life in prison and on the streets of Detroit as a drug, dealing thug.  I'm going to take a hardline with aspects of Senghor's soul bearing account of his Hellish ordeal & road to redemption.  Senghor was sentenced to 40 yrs in prison for the 2nd degree murder resulting from a drug deal turned deadly.  Senghor bears his gut wrenching life dealing crack & becoming a drug addict as a juvenile.  This candid account is a severe wakeup call for making poor choices and for holding oneself accountable.  What compelled me to continue reading Senghor's life depicting the underbelly of  Dante's Inferno?  Senghor discovered a penchant for writing that proved a turning point. His writing has a clear, inescapable prose.  However, I agree with his 1st parole officer who seemed predetermined to keep him behind bars and did not credit his writings with absolving him of the murder & the severe beating of a prison guard.  I dislike the wordplay "Writing" my wrongs.  It discredits the seriousness of  his heinous & fatal actions.  On the other hand, our nation must reaccess & rectify our inhumane incarceration practices.  Solitary confinement is torture & must be rectified.  Senghor is correct "isolation causes a disconnect in the deepest part of the human psyche."  I do not agree with the death penalty, life without the possiblity of parole or solitary confinement.  "We can never know the power that a word of indness or an act of forgiveness will have on the person who needs it most."  (SS)

"Everything I Never Told You" by Celeste Ng Named Amazon Book of the Year 2014

Celeste Ng's melahcnoly family drama is a poignant portrait of grief, misguided love and missed opportunities.  "Everything…" is Ng's 1st novel.  It garnered numerous Best Book of the Year Awards in 2014.  "Girls at Play," Ng's short story collection received the Pushcart Prize 2012.   The matriach of the family, Marilyn, is one of the few co-eds in 1960.  She finds herself drawn to her history prof. James, the only Asian on campus.  Feeling sympathetic by the shameful bigotry towards the young prof., Marilyn seeks him outside class.  She makes a pass.  An affair ensues and the two marry despite  Marilyn's mother warnings.  She beseeches her not to marry James as "it's not right and she'll regret it."   What Marilyn regrets most is abandoing her medical studies to care for James & their 3 children.  Themes of feeling ostracized as an outsider are prevalent.  The bi-racial family live in a small, all-white,  midwest town.  Yet, it's the dynamics within the family that are most moving.  Ng's novel is both a gripping mystery and a poignant family drama.  The bonds between siblings: Nath, Lydia &  Hannah are each other's life-lines.  But, parental love becomes suffocating & toxic as it tilts towards a favored child.  Marilyn's resentment for her own shortcomings cause her to over burden Lydia.  For Lydia, it was hard to inherit her mother's dream.  "How suffocating to be so loved."  Ng's haunting novel navigates the grief and recriminations felt by parent's and siblings for what was left unsaid that may have prevented the tragedy of Lydia's death.  Happiness is fragile & easily shattered.  "Slowly, they will piece together other things that have never been said."  I'll tell you, read Ng's formidable debut.