The Great Perhaps by Joe Meno is a book that I picked up after reading Jackie’s review a couple weeks ago; her praise is high and I was really looking forward to reading it.  After finishing reading the book, I have to say that while I agree with everything Jackie said in her review, I am also of two minds about it.  On the one hand, I do think that it is an interesting portrayal of the American family.  I don’t think that the writing style was gimicky and in fact I really enjoyed it.  I think The Great Perhaps‘s biggest flaw is that it goes against its own philosophy that there is beauty in the ordinary.

The Casper is a “family of cowards.”  Jonathan is a scientist who has been searching for the elusive giant squid for years with little success, but he also has a strange form of epilepsy that causes him to have a seizure whenever he sees a cloud or a cloud-shaped object.  I found this to be very flawed, because at one point Jonathan goes into a seizure at the sight of a white car.  What about pillows?  What about potato chip bags?  What about rice?  I mean, there are just hundreds of things that you see every single day that are shaped like a cloud.  Why did some of them make him have a seizure and others did not?

Madeleine, his wife, is also a scientist, but she is studying the behavior patterns of pigeons.  When she realizes that Jonathan doesn’t have any room for her in his life, she leaves him and her family for a while.  I really didn’t like Madeleine or enjoy her parts of the novel.  I did not understand the  ”cloud man” she follows or what that could possibly mean.  I did not understand her intentions or motivations.  I just did not like her.  I liked Madeleine through the eyes of her husband much more, because he seems to be in love with a totally different woman.

Amelia, their oldest daughter, is an angry, communist teenager who is building a bomb for her history project.  I also disliked her, but I really loved the way her character grew and changed over the course of the novel.  Her story ended up being one of my favorites because when her shell finally begins to crack and she realizes what she has done, it is an amazing moment.  I loved her interactions with her classmate towards the end.

Thisbe is Jonathan and Madeleine’s youngest daughter and her storyline was by far my favorite.  I loved every single minute of it and I wish Thisbe could have had her own book.  Thisbe, raised by two atheists, has found religion.  She prays all the time, she goes to church to light candles and she is always concerned with how God will feel about the things she does.  When she starts to have feelings for other girls, Thisbe’s relationship with God becomes very interesting.  Joe Meno really won me over with Thisbe.  There is nothing more realistic in this novel than Thisbe’s prayers – I feel like they are exactly how a 14-year-old would pray:

Dear Heavenly Father, Thisbe says silently, closing her eyes, let the world be as nice tome today as this cat.  Please do not let anyone utter a harsh word or give me a dirty look  for being a spaz.  Please do not let me drop anything while I am walking in the hallway.  Please do not let certain people pretend that I do not e xist.  And please do not let anyone I love die anytime soon, at least until I am in my thirties.  Through Christ, our Lord, amen. (401)

Isn’t that just perfect?

Finally there is Henry, who has the second best story out of the entire family.  He was a teenager during WWII and also a first generation German immigrant.  His father is taken in by the FBI, though we’re never certain if he is guilty or not, and the entire family is put in an internment camp.  After a while, the family is given an option of leaving the internment camp to return to Germany and everyone accepts except Henry.  He becomes obsessed with trying to find the Japanese twin girls he sees die in a fire at the internment camp.  We meet Henry when he is at a nursing home.  Every day he decides to use less words until there is nothing left to say.  I really loved Henry’s part of the book, except for the radio shows, but I wish it had been shorter.  There were some things I found unnecessary to the story.

Ultimately, I loved the beginning of this book, adored the ending, and despised the middle.  I thought about giving it up, but I’m truly glad I did not.  I think that this book celebrates ordinary life and all of the oddities within it, and I wish Meno had kept it at that.  The inclusion of some very strange events and details really threw this book for me, otherwise it would have been one of my favorites for the year.  I think a lot of people will adore this book, like Jackie did, and a lot of people will be frustrated with it.  Still more will be somewhere in between, like I am.  There are absolutely things to love about this book, so I can recommend it.

So go read this!:  now | tomorrow | next week | next month | next year | when you’ve exhausted your TBR

Also reviewed by: Farm Lane Books, Largehearted boy.

Book  provided by: the library.

Last night, when I began reading Savor, I sat down at my couch with my dinner plate.  The television was on, my roommates and I were having conversations here and there about what was on TV, my computer was in front of me so I could check Twitter updates and Google Reader updates now and then, I was munching on my panko-breaded chicken and green beans and all the while trying to read Savor.  Then I read the introduction and took a long hard look at what I was doing and realized that I was completely ignoring my mindfulness about eating and was therefore, mindlessly eating.

The best concepts in this book come at the very beginning, with the introduction and the first few chapters, to introduce you to the concept of mindfulness to beat out mindlessness.  I have been struggling with my weight since I was in the fifth grade.  I have read diet books before, but I don’t think I would classify Savor as a diet book.  This book is certainly more about changing your entire life and your perceptions of the world and your actions in it.  Will this book change your life?  It could, but even though it certainly made me more aware of what I am eating and how, it didn’t drastically change mine.

Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life is written by a Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh with the help of Dr. Lilian Cheung and it applies Buddhist principles to all aspects of our lives, from eating and choosing what to eat, to interacting with family and friends and even surviving a commute.  This book is at its strongest when it is directly applying Buddhist concepts and ideas to food, but unfortunately it delves into too many other topics keeping it from having as great an impact.

For some people, like me, Savor will be a book that they glance at and take some principles from.  Even though many books and magazines have told me “chew your food slower!”, Cheung and Nhat Hanh’s approach to really appreciating your food and thinking about where it came from to get to your plate struck me as a more contemplative and helpful way of eating your food slower.  Savor encourages eating less meat and promotes the benefits of vegetarianism, along with abstaining from alcohol.  What I liked about their approach was they never said, “Don’t eat meat!”  What they ask is that readers be completely conscious of what it took to get that meat to your plate.  If, after being entirely knowledgeable about the process and detriments of eating meat, you still are not interested in giving it up entirely, please only eat it a little bit.  This was very appealing to me, in comparison to other books that do not take life necessities into consideration.

Over the past five months or so, I have become increasingly more conscious of what food I put into my body and how it affects my body.  Over the past four weeks, I have begun to eat much healthier.  It has been a combination of motivation from friends and family, books I have read and my own personal research on the internet that has made this transformation for me.  At this point I really do feel as though I can call it a transformation, because I feel different than I ever have in my life and my cravings have finally left.  I loved fast food.  It began as a time constraint from commuting and it turned into something much worse, where I was constantly craving fatty foods, even if I had a delicious dinner to make at home.  I have started eating as minimally processed foods as I can, I eat much less meat (though I’d have a hard time giving up eggs as Savor suggests), I’ve reduced my dairy consumption to two servings a day and my calorie intake is significantly lower.  I’ve been going to the gym consistently for four weeks now.  Do you know the last time that happened?  Never.

So did Savor have much of an impact on how I’m approaching this change in my life?  I’m not sure.  I definitely plan on being more conscious of my food and how it got to my plate.  I will be aware of how my decisions affect others, perhaps, but for the most part I think this book reaffirmed a lot of what I already believed.   I think that I would love to attend one of the seminars discussed in this book and think that the information probably could have been organized better, or even in a different medium than a book.  A lot of the information seemed repetitive, but in terms of actively putting it to use, I’m sure it will be helpful, especially all of the breathing exercises.  Will I be passing this book on to family members?  Absolutely.  I’ll let you know what they think of it.

If you are interested in reading Savor or learning more about what mindful eating is, head over to Savor’s website.  It’s very helpful and well-organized (I’m a sucker for a beautiful, well-organized website) and there is a community of folks who are trying to live their lives mindfully.

So go read this!: It’s hard to say.  I think everyone could benefit from reading this book, but I don’t think everyone is going to get the same, or even the same number of, helpful tips for successfully having a healthier relationship with food.  I recommend it, but with the knowledge that it’s not a perfect book or perfect for everyone.

Thanks to TLC tours for sending me a copy of this book to review today!

Other stops on the tour: I write in books, Bibliofreak Blog, Rundpinne, Escape from Obesity, Balanced Health and Nutrition, Pasta Queen, Happy Lotus, The Token Fat Girl, Laughing Through the Chaos, The Tippy Toe Diet, Crunches for Cupcakes, 133ov, Fit Bottomed Girls, Nutrition Unplugged, A Blog Blog.