Welcome to the magical world of transformation…

I personally *LOVE* this novel. In fact, it is definitely one of my all-time favs. Total two thumbs up and 5 stars. The writing was superb. There wasn’t a single wasted word. I loved the pace and created an instant “movie in my head” from the very first page. The story was vivid and I love May. This felt like a novel that was alive – the story took shape through the characters who I genuinely cared about. Fergus did an amazing job writing so many female characters. In the back of my copy, he shared about how writing women characters allows him to step farther outside of himself as opposed to writing male characters.

Description from jimfergus.com
“One Thousand White Women begins with May Dodd’s journey west into the unknown. A government program, in which women are brought west as brides for the Cheyenne, is her vehicle. What follows is the story of May’s adventures: her marriage to Little Wolf, chief of the Cheyenne nation, and her conflict of being caught between two worlds, loving two men, living two lives. Jim Fergus has so vividly depicted the American West that it is as if these diaries are a capsule in time.”

Tags: book club, Book Reviews, books

Total thumbs up for Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert!

Before I became self-employed I used to read a ton of fiction and being involved in a book club was mandatory. I simply loved talking about books and connecting with others.

Back in 2005 when I went back to school to become a life coach and founded my own practice I completely let go of fiction and book club. I delved into non-fiction like never before. In fact, before this time in my life I used to say things like, “I hate non-fiction!” But, I discovered that I loved dissecting humanity and universal questions like, “Why am I here?” and “What the heck am I meant to be doing because I hate my career?!”

Anyhow, fast forward 3 years and I discovered that I missed reading fiction and being a part of a book club. So I got together with a friend of mine and asked her if she wanted to start a book club together. She agreed and we founded the Bellano Book Club (we meet at Bellano Coffee half way in between our homes). So once a month I plan on posting a book review here based on the books we are reading.

Last month we read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. What a phenomenal read! It is the true story of a woman who took a year off to travel to Italy, India, and Indonesia to reconnect with herself. Basically, she was a miserably successful woman who was so confused about her misery that she traveled the world to figure it out. And boy did she ever! She writes so candidly about experiences that probably all of us go through, but rarely ever talk about it. And she shares openly about all of her messy feelings, relationships, and short-comings. Needless to say, it was a refreshing read! I highly recommend it to everyone – male and female alike even though this book could easily be categorized a “chick book” – because she really let’s us look into the heart, mind, and soul of the modern day woman. Both genders can benefit from that!

p.s. We have an on-line forum for our book club and that would be awesome if you joined us. You can check out all the books we’ve read, create a profile, and join in the discussion. To join, click here. It’s free to join, but it is a private forum and you must be approved for membership.

Tags: book club, Book Reviews, books, Eat Pray Love

The next book for our book club is Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. I’m looking forward to reading a novel written by a woman. Our first two picks were both written by men and interestingly enough the main characters were women. Wally Lamb did a much better job writing a woman in She’s Come Undone because he delved pretty deep into her process and I felt like I stepped right into her skin – which was quite disturbing actually! The last book was Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins and it was a spectacular read, but very intellectual. Ultimately, it was a political statement about how politics and religion suck. The woman Robbins wrote was super horny with a huge head of unmanageable hair. I guess she was supposed to be a modern-day Jezebel. I didn’t care so much how he wrote the characters – they didn’t really flesh out – but, the book was funny as hell and I loved how he ripped to shreds a whole bunch of everything. In a weird and twisted way, he was encouraging people to look inward for happiness and to connect with God while embracing our humanity, which is a message that I really like. It’s just too bad that there’s so much craziness to get to the core message. But, then again maybe he buried it on purpose – to force the reader to go after it, to work for it.

Anyhow, I’m looking forward to our next read because I think it’s cool to read a book that someone else picked out. The person who picked it says that it’s “about a mysterious plot to bring down a boys boarding school in England…themes of class and an old-fashioned professor who has been discounted by the newer faculty who figures out what is really going on….” Sounds good!

Tags: book club, books, reading