When the Past Blends with the Future

You Cannot Mess This Up: A True Story that Never Happened by Amy Weinland Daughters

I initially bought this because a friend and former coworker mentioned it on Facebook. The author is from the same area I am, and graduated from the same high school I did (which is also where I teach). This takes place roughly six years before I moved to the same area, but the things she mentions, I can see them in my mind's eye. We even had the same fourth-grade teacher. So that aspect of the book would have put it near the top of my list of great books this year on its own, but then there is the story itself.

This is a weird mixture of autobiographical and fiction, which is not something you usually encounter--ever--but it somehow works. It starts in Ohio in 2014, where Amy currently lives. It is the day before Thanksgiving, and she is flying home to the suburbs of Houston, Texas, where her family lives, to meet with her siblings and parents to discuss financial matters while her parents are still alive and in sound mind to make decisions. She is taking a tiny plane, flown by her husband's boss' wife. She falls asleep on the plane, and wakes just before landing. They land at the wrong airport. Instead of an airport on the west side of town, they land at Hooks airport, mere minutes from where Amy grew up.

More importantly than landing at the wrong airport, they land on Thanksgiving Day, in 1978. Mary, the pilot of the plane, drives Amy to the house she grew up in, but tells her that is has been explained to her family (including her ten-year-old self) that she is a distant cousin from Ohio. She also tells Amy that she can't screw this up, meaning things will still turn out ok is she messes up. What ensues is both hilarious and touching as Amy re-experiences this time with her family, seeing everyone in a different light. 

I can't recommend this book enough. Go out and buy it and share it with your friends.

It's *Not* The End Of The World As We Know It

When The World Didn't End by Caroline Kaufman

Apparently, I have had this one for a while, but didn't realize it. I was going to read something else tonight, but I accidentally spilled Coca Cola everywhere, and my book was a casualty. Oops. This was one of the books I grabbed off of the stack on the bookcase in my living room, and being poetry, it was a quick read.

I am torn on this one. Some of the poems I related to--ones dealing with relationships and being pressured by boys to have sex (I was a teen once). The ones about harming herself and contemplating suicide, not so much. Even the poems at the end, that were supposed to be sort of triumphant, weren't that triumphant.

I didn't hate it, and may even buy her other book of poetry, if I haven't already.

Apologies

Apologies That Never Came by Pierre Alex Jeanty

I bought this about six months ago, started it and never finished it. It felt right to buy it at the time since I was (and still am) going through a divorce. I felt that odds were pretty good I would relate, as there are several things in my 20+ years of marriage that I will never get an apology for. There are other instances in my life that I will never get apologies for. Reading this, I think I am ok not getting the apologies. The poet seems bitter, which I get, but reading this did not offer me the solace I sought. That in no way means that this wasn't worth the time, just not at this moment for me, I guess.