Pennsylvania Disasters: True Stories of Tragedy and Survival by Karen Ivory

If you are from Pennsylvania, or are pretty familiar with it, this is a great book. It covers all kinds of famous tragedies and disasters starting in the 1700s and leads up to the Quecreek Mine Disaster in the early 2000s. I enjoyed reading some of the backstory on things I'd grown up hearing about. Agnes comes to mind first and foremost. Agnes was a huge flood in the 1970s that hit Wilkes-Barre in the 70's. My parents remember it well and have often talked about what it was like seeing the damage and hearing the stories first-hand. There was a section about the blizzard and floods of 1996 which I remember very well, having grown up in a flood plain! We got a huge blizzard with up to 2 feet of snow and didn't have school for a week. The following week, it warmed up quite a bit and we got a few days of rain. By the time my sister and I got out of school the final day, the National Guard was driving around with bullhorns telling us all to evacuate. Our house didn't flood, but most of our neighborhood did. Many of our friends and neighbors left their houses in boats. For weeks afterwards, you had to show ID to be allowed in the neighborhood because the National Guard was there helping with the clean-up. All in all it was quite an experience to live through and interesting to read about in this book. I also liked learning about the Yellow Fever epidemic in the 1700s and the many coal mining disasters. My great-grandfather died in the mines and growing up in Northeast PA, you can't help but feel some connection to the anthracite business. All in all, a good read if you like that sort of thing and have any interest in learning a different side of PA history.

Playground: A Childhood Lost Inside the Playboy Mansion by Jennifer Saginor

This book is a memoir written by Jennifer Saginor, the daughter of "Doc" Saginor, aka "Dr. Feelgood" aka Hugh Hefner's personal physician for many years. Jennifer started hanging out at the Playboy Mansion at about 6 years old. She walked in on John Belushi and a playmate and regularly played hide and go seek with the Playmates, and hobnobbed with the many celebrities who spent time there. Her parents had divorced and didn't get along and her father basically brainwashed her against her mother (although her mother didn't seem to do much to protect her from her unstable father). Through the years Jennifer enjoyed being part of such a famous setting and regularly bragged to her friends and lived it up at the mansion. Jennifer got caught up in drugs and drinking at a young age since she was basically living unsupervised. Her father was an abusive drug addict who didn't think twice about what he was exposing his young daughter to (who admits that even now as an adult she doesn't respect women because she was taught that women are objects) day after day. At 14 Jennifer had an affair with one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends (called Kendall in the book, but it's now known that it was actually Carrie Leigh). It's interesting to see what things were like at the mansion back in those days and it paints quite a different picture than what's shown on "The Girls Next Door" on E! The book was interesting, but it's really sad to see how that lifestyle affects Jennifer Saginor, even now years later. She has no relationship with her mother, father, or sister, and as I mentioned before, has a hard time seeing women as anything more than objects. She lived in a fantasy world, but found it to be desperately lonely and she is certainly still paying the price of her parents' mistakes.

Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark

I liked this Mary Higgins Clark book fairly well. It was a quick read with a few interesting twists and turns. The basic premise is that a boy named Mack who is about to graduate from college disappeared without a trace right before graduation. He had been accepted to a prestigious law school and there was no reason that anyone knew of for him to disappear. Every year on Mother's Day his family receives a phone call from him stating that he's ok, but offering no details as to his whereabouts or reasons for disappearing. Finally, after 20 years of this, during his annual phone call, his younger sister Carolyn blurts out that she's going to track him down. This unleashes a series of events that lead others into danger. At the same time, a young female college student disappears and it appears as though her disappearance, along with a few others from previous years may be tied to Mack or linked to his disappearance. Eventually all is solved and the loose ends are tied up. I did enjoy this book, it's a solid mystery novel, however, I just haven't thought that the last few Mary Higgins Clark novels, lived up to her earlier mysteries. They're still good, they just don't have the same level of suspense of others such as Where are the Children, All Around the Town, and I'll be Seeing You. Maybe I'm just getting harder to scare, but I can remember hardly being able to sleep after reading some of those and this one just kept me interested, not terrified!

Bulls Island by Dorothea Benton Frank

Bulls Island is the latest installment of Dorothea Benton Frank's books about life off the coast of the Carolinas. Every one of them has made me want to move to the islands she writes about. She grew up there and does a fabulous job of bringing the scenery and culture to life. This one is about a girl named Betts who flees her home in Charleston and her new fiancee after a tragic turn of events and ends up in New York as a very successful businesswoman. Twenty years after leaving, she ends up back in Charleston working with her former fiancee on a business deal involving Bulls Island, a formerly protected island off the coast of South Carolina. She still loves her former fiancee J.D., who unfortunately is now married to someone else. All in all this is a great story written by a fabulous author who has quickly become one of my favorites. The only thing I missed in this story is that she usually finds a way to weave in characters from her previous novels and I didn't spot any of that in this one. Other than that, no complaints. I'll definitely be re-reading this one at the beach sometime!

Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner

Certain Girls is the sequel to Good in Bed. It takes place 13 years after the end of the first book and Cannie's daughter Joy is now 13. Cannie and Joy take turns as narrator every other chapter. Overall, it's a really entertaining book. It would probably have helped me to re-read Good in Bed before tackling this one, if only so the events would have been a little more clear in my mind. It took me a few "oh yeah" moments to really remember certain details. It's an interesting take on a mother-daughter relationship that gets a bit rocky due to the mother's trying to protect her daughter from the details of her younger days. I was entertained. The only complaint I have is the HUGE surprise ending that I felt was somewhat unnecessary...almost like it was just for shock value. In that light it worked because I was shocked, however, I think it would've been possible to wrap up the story without such a dramatic turn of events.

Beautiful Boy by David Sheff

I finished Beautiful Boy, which is the same story told in Nic Sheff's Tweak, however, the story is told from the father's point of view. The style of this book is pretty different. You can tell that David Sheff is a much more experienced writer, however, the tone is very similar. In a way I thought this was a sadder story. While Nic's experiences are tragic, of course, it's almost unbearable to read about the worry and devastation his family went through while he was using and even while he's not. You can tell they live on eggshells, hoping he won't relapse, but understanding that the odds are against Nic and in return, against them. David Sheff intersperses the personal trauma with a lot of technical information about methamphetamines and addiction, which I found interesting and terrifying. For example, he states that because there are so many meth labs in California, often the chemical waste is dumped in yards and as a result has seeped into some of the food supply (produce) in California. He also explained the effect that meth use has on the brain and that it takes at least a full two years before a former meth addict's brain scans are "normal," and in some cases, they're never "normal" again. All in all I thought it was pretty frightening. The worst part of the whole book for me was reading about the confusion and heartache that Jasper and Daisy, Nic's much younger brother and sister, have been forced to endure for almost all of their lives. At one point, Jasper, who was about 8 years old at the time told his dad that he thought Nic had stolen his $8 in savings. Unfortunately, he was right. Even though he received an apology letter (which he carried around in his wallet for years) with $8 enclosed once Nic was again sober; I'm pretty sure nothing fully takes away the pain of having your much revered older brother steal from you. In the end, this book is fascinating, troubling, and heartwarming all at once. Reading the experiences of the entire Sheff family throughout Nic's addiction just gives more reason to root for Nic's continued sobriety because it shows how much really is at stake.

Tweak by Nic Sheff

I just finished reading Tweak by Nic Sheff. It's a pretty gritty (true) story about a guy who becomes addicted to crystal meth. It's interesting because Nic comes from such an interesting family. His mother is an editor for Newsweek, his father, David Sheff, is a well-known writer who has written a few books as well as contributed numerous articles to Playboy, Newsweek, and other publications, and his stepmother is the illustrator Karen Barbour. Nic was actually published in Newsweek at 16 when he wrote an article for the 'My Turn' column about his life as a child of divorce and what it was like to be shuttled back and forth between his mother and father. Overall, the book is tough to read because it's so brutally honest. You get all the gory details of how Nic almost lost his arm due to an infection from a dirty needle, how he turned to prostitution to earn drug money, and how he stooped so low as to steal from his 8 year old brother. It's especially heartbreaking to read because it's blatantly obvious that Nic is a good, kind, loving, creative, and talented boy, which makes it all that much more difficult to reconcile that side of him with the frightening shell that he becomes throughout his drug use. I ended this read hoping that Nic will defy the odds and remain sober because I would love to read more from him. I liked his honesty and writing style. I'm currently in the middle of David Sheff's book, Beautiful Boy, which tells essentially the same story, but from the father's point of view. So far I'm enjoying it just as much Tweak, but I'll write more when I'm finished with it.