Nonfiction Book Reviews

I picked up Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein because the title caught my eye. Identical strangers? Wow - talk about a mind-bending idea!  How would it be to have a twin somewhere in the world but never know it growing up, and only finding out the truth as an adult? And when those twins first find out the truth, how do they deal with it?  And (question of the century!) why on earth would the twins be separated in the first place?

As you can tell, I was quite intrigued by the premise of the story, and I started reading it with high interest.  It was a lot like my reasoning behind picking up Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor: There’s really not that many people out there who have this kind of thing happen to them in real life.  It was a plot worthy of a Hollywood movie.

I’m sad to say my interest soon waned, and I ended the book feeling “ehh” about it.  Yes, you heard me - ehh.  It’s the technical term for “so-so/blah/or otherwise not inspired.”  Now you know.

First, a bit of background on what happened:

Elyse and Paula were identical twins born to a mental health patient who was not married and could not take care of her children. She gave the children up for adoption, but unbeknownst to her, the Jewish adoption agency, Louise Wise Services, had agreed to be part of a scientific study being conducted on twins.

The scientists had a goal in mind: They wanted to settle, once and for all, the debate between nature and nurture.  They decided that if they took identical twins and split them at birth, then they could watch them grow up and see how they turn out.  Would they still be similar, despite the different environments?  Or would they be molded by their families and show that nurture really does triumph over nature?

The book goes through chronologically, starting with how Elyse first found out that she had a twin sister, to contacting Paula, to meeting each other for the first time, and on to developing a relationship with each other.  The book switches back and forth between the two, first one talking exclusively in first person and relating an event, and then switching to the other twin who was also talking in first person and (usually) relating the same event you just finished reading about.

This style of writing allows you to “see” inside of each person’s head which gave me a feeling of immediacy, as if I was really living through all of this.  Unfortunately, with the repeating of information again and again, it got to be boring and repetitious.  (In reality, life is boring enough the first time around - almost no one except apparently Britney Spears has an interesting enough life that it bears being repeated again and again.  Paula and Elyse are not exceptions to this rule.)

Also, they spent much of the book upset about being a part of the study done, and working to uncover what the study was for, who was doing it, etc.  Although I understood their need to know this information, it honestly wasn’t that interesting to me.  Just because I knew they cared didn’t mean that I did.

Along with trying to find out information about the study, Elyse and Paula also spent much of their time looking for their mother.  That is what actually got me to the end of the book - would they find her?  Would she welcome them into her life, or say ‘No way, you’re part of my past’?  I won’t ruin the ending for anyone who picks the book up, so I won’t say what happens there, but I will say that that question was really the only thing that kept me reading.

It was a very honest and real book - the twins spend quite a bit of time talking about each other and their innermost thoughts that most people wouldn’t tell the world.  They didn’t always get along after they met, and they are genuine enough in the telling of their story to repeat all that happened.  I give them kudos for being truthful in their memoir.

But in the end, I guess I just felt like it was a book that could have been helped with some editing work.  I didn’t need to hear the same conversation repeated, this time just from another point of view.  Also, I had a hard time keeping the twins straight in the beginning (now which was which?) and so when the story would jump from one head to the other, sometimes it just plain lost me all together.

I think this would be an especially interesting read for anyone who was adopted, or was a twin (or, even better, both).
If you are a gigantic fan of memoirs everywhere, then you’d probably want to pick this one up, if only for the unique idea behind it.  But for the rest of the world, I’d probably recommend to just skip Identical Strangers.

Although there was plenty of interesting information in it (like some of the stories they dug up about other twins who had been separated and reunited - there are some doozies out there!) there was just enough uninteresting information and repeated “stuff” to make me yawn one too many times.

I give Identical Strangers 3.75 out of 5 stars.

Hava

PS If you are interested in memoirs about adoption, make sure to check out my review of China Ghosts by Jeff Gammage.  That is a beautifully told story of international adoption, and its impact on a family.

Today is the opening ceremonies for the Olympics in China, so of course, I had to review a book about China. China: People, Place, Culture, History was the book I chose, and I’ll admit: I chose it because it had a beautiful cover. I know there’s that old saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but in this case, that would have meant me missing out on a gorgeous book.

China: People, Place, Culture, History was definitely meant to be a coffee table book. Large, with a woven red cover and gold lettering, it’s an eye-catching book. But coffee table destiny or no, this book was crammed full of beautiful photos, great history, and interesting information. It’s thick (355 pages) and so chock-full of information, it could take a dedicated reader several weeks to get through the whole book.

It starts out focusing on geography by publishing a single photo spread out over two pages.  The first whole chapter is set up this way.  Some of the vistas were breathtaking, and some of them reminded me of Idaho, which is strange, because I never associated that kind of geography with China.

I guess with a country as large as China (it is roughly the same size as America) you’re going to have a lot of variation in geography. I had just honestly never thought about it, and imagined the whole country to be one large bamboo forest interspersed with lots of rice paddies and huge cities. Boy, was I wrong!

To accompany the photos, there was a small paragraph that explained the photo, and a Chinese poem that somehow related to the picture. It was a fun way to start off the book, and I felt like I had had a great visual tour of China.

China: People, Place, Culture, History then switches to history, and gives a timeline for important Chinese dates, a section lasting 45 pages. Although dry historical dates and facts tend to be boring, they did a great job of spicing it up with photos and sidebars with more in-depth information.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how well done the book was - I looked and realized that the book was written by DK Publishing, the same company that does the Eyewitness Series for kids (I reviewed the Titanic: Discover the Luxury of this Famous Ship by them.) I had thought DK Publishing only did kids’ books, so that was fun to see.  After realizing that, I started to pay attention while at work, and realized that quite a few “coffee table books” have been done by DK.  I somehow missed that along the way…

China also covers people, culture, and architecture in their own sections, with enough information on each that you’ll feel like a grad student in Chinese culture by time you’re done. For any homeschooling families who reading this and are interested in studying China, I highly recommend that you check this book out of the library (or buy it) and make it a large part of your studies. I think all of the photos will help keep even the younger kids interested.

Overall, I give China: People, Place, Culture, History 4.5 out of 5 stars. Great job, DK Publishing!

Hava

PS My coworker said that the Chinese chose to start the Olympics today because 08-08-08 is considered to be a “lucky day” for the Chinese.  I have no idea if that’s true or not, but it is a pretty cool date, regardless.

Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog by John Grogan was an absolute joy of a book.  I laughed so hard I cried, and then did it all over again three pages later.  And then again five pages after that.  At one point I was doubled up on the bed, gasping for air, as the tears streamed down my cheeks.  I don’t know if it’s because I have two terrible dogs of my own (as I briefly mentioned in my review of Be the Pack Leader) or if it’s just because John’s that darn funny and would be to everyone, but either way, I adored this book.

The greatest part of all is, I didn’t want to read it.  Have you ever heard about a movie or book that you knew would be a real tear jerker, so you purposefully never watched/read it, because you didn’t want to cry and go on the emotional rollercoaster that a truly wonderful story puts you on?  When Titanic came out into movie theaters, I didn’t want to go watch it, because I knew I’d cry.  I went anyway, and sure enough, I bawled.  I haven’t watched the movie since, despite owning it (I won in it a radio contest, but never got the guts to watch it again).

Well, I had heard that Marley and Me was also a tear-jerker, and quite frankly I wasn’t in the mood to cry.  So it sat on my bookshelf for several weeks.  Then I looked at my schedule of books (yes, I’ve gotten to the point where I have so many books that I want to read, that I have actually written up a schedule to keep track - I’m pathetic, don’t remind me) and groaned when I saw Marley and Me on the list, up next.  I pulled the book off the shelf and decided that if I was going to suffer through reading the book, I might as well enjoy a nice long soak in the bathtub while doing it.

Well, I read until the water got freezing cold, and then just kept going.  I was mesmerized by the story, and laughing so hard I thought I’d surely burst a blood vessel or two before the book was done.  I’ve been having good luck with journalists lately - perhaps I should start looking specifically for autobiographies written by a journalist, because they seem to be of a much higher quality than a regular “first-time” book by an amateur.  Ironically enough, both of the journalists-turned-authors that I’ve read lately (Jeff Gammage and John Grogan) work for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Just how many novelists do they have working there?

Anyway, back to the book, and an example of a great snippet: Basically, John had given his wife, Jenny, a plant as a gift.  A plant she killed off in no time flat.  She got upset about that, and decided that they needed to get a dog, because she was worried that if she couldn’t keep a plant alive, how could she raise a child?  So she wanted to get a dog to practice on before advancing to an “actual” child.  Here’s the story in his words - see if you agree with me on the funny quotient:

 …she promptly went on to kill my gift to her with an assassin’s coldhearted efficiency.  Not that she was trying to; if anything, she nutured the poor thing to death.  Working on the assumption that all living things require water, but apparently forgetting that they also need air, she began flooding the plant on a daily basis.

“Be careful not to overwater it,” I had warned.

“Okay,” she had replied, and then dumped on another gallon.

The sicker the plant got, the more she doused it, until finally it just kind of melted into an oozing heap.  I looked at its limp skeleton in the pot by the window and thought, “Man, someone who believes in omens could have a field day with this one.”

Now here she was, somehow making the cosmic leap of logic from dead flora in a pot to living fauna in the pet classifieds.  Kill a plant, buy a puppy.  Well, of course, it made perfect sense.

~Page 3 of Marley and Me

I laughed hard at that, because my husband and I made the same (not-so-logical) leap.  To a woman who is worried about becoming a mom for the first time, killing a plant is a very worrisome thing. Thus, getting a dog to practice on only makes sense.  Right?  Right.

So that’s how John and Jenny ended up with Marley, the goofiest, most neurotic, and fiercely loyal dog that ever walked the earth.  His antics put my two dogs to shame, and I started to realize that on a scale of 1 - 10, with Marley being a 13, my dogs are really only a 4 or so.  They have never torn up a couch cushion, mattress, or door (yes, you read that right: A door.  Marley used to eat his way through wooden doors.  And drywall.  And electrical wiring.  And anything else he deemed interesting).  My dogs yank and pull on a walk, and sometimes they escape out the front door when we don’t want them to, but really, in comparison to Marley’s antics, my dogs are full-blown saints.

If you’re an animal lover, you’ll absolutely adore this book.  And even if you’re not a dog owner/lover, the humor and the fast-paced read (I read it in roughly two and a half hours) will make this worth it to pick up.  John Grogan is an extremely talented author, and I hope to be hearing more from him in the future.

5 out of 5 stars.  I would not change a thing about this book.

Havs

PS If you do love dogs, make sure to check out the Canine Connection here at Today - great blog for the dog lovers out there!

China Ghosts: My Daughter’s Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood by Jeff Gammage was an excellent autobiography. I’ve read a string of less-than-stellar autobiographies lately (ie Hope’s Boy, Shattered Dreams, Enter the Past Tense) and I was ready for a great one. I found that in China Ghosts.

Jeff Gammage is a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and I think that had a LOT to do with how much I enjoyed the book - a newspaper reporter has to learn early on to weave a deft and interesting tale without using too much over-the-top descriptions, and that writing experience shows in his writing of this book. I’m starting to realize that I can put up with almost anything but a poor writing style: Typos, missing information that I think is important, and even swearing doesn’t bother me like bad writing does. Luckily, China Ghosts is very well written.

He spares no quarter for himself; he talks about how he never had any desire to have children, because he was self-centered and if there was another person in the equation, then that would mean his family and wife would pay attention to someone else other than himself - the horrors! He didn’t want that, and thus, he would’ve been happy if he and his wife stayed childless. Or so he thought.

But his wife was born with a nurturing instinct, and she wanted children, so Jeff said yes to make his wife happy. They tried for several years to have children, but eventually it was declared that they were infertile. My heart broke for them at this point - that’s actually something that my husband and I are struggling with. We have been trying for 4 years to get pregnant, and thus far, nothing has happened. It’s a very tough row to hoe. (If that’s something you also struggle with, make sure to check out the Infertility blog here at Today - it’s a great blog for infertility information).

Anyway, back to Jeff Gammage: He and his wife finally decide to go the adoption route, and for reasons he explains in detail in the book, they decide to adopt from China. He jumps back and forth in time, keeping your interest high, wondering what will happen next. This is not just a book about adopting a toddler, but of becoming a father, an especially difficult task for him since he had no previous experience with children. His transformation is astounding, and you realize that a parent’s love is truly boundless. When they finally pick their new daughter up, he falls head over heels in love with her, which was so sweet to see. It was beautifully written and by the end, I too had fallen in love with his daughter. She’s a cute little girl, and I loved watching her “grow up” (the book ends when she’s 6 years old).

He spends time explaining the background on different cities in China, and since that wasn’t as interesting to me, I simply skimmed those parts. I think that could have easily been left out of the book, but it wasn’t a huge deal. Even with that in there, it was a quick read (I finished it one day - I had a hard time putting it down!) and I’m hoping to someday read a “sequel” by his two daughters (he eventually adopts a second daughter from China). That would just be so fun for me.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. And don’t forget - with the Chinese Olympics coming up quickly, it might be a good read for anyone interested in learning more about China. Oh, and if you’re thinking about adopting a girl from China, I would rate this book as an absolute must read - it had so much interesting and helpful information in there about the whole process. Two thumbs up!

Havs