Are you guys ready for the holidays? I have been falling behind on a lot of stuff but I did go to my Book Group on Tuesday. I wouldn’t miss that! We met up for our yearly book exchange and dinner and of course book discussion.

We talked about The Alienst by Caleb Carr. I didn’t re-read the book after all because that is quite the chunkster and I am behind on so much of my other reading but it was still fun. I can’t say that I remember a lot about the book although I found an older book journal and I had jotted some basic notes about how much I enjoyed the book because of the setting. I originally read the book in 2002. Wow.

So after all the food and discussion we had our book exchange. Our book exchange is about bringing books you’ve read and want to pass along, I managed to snag the following books: Murder Is Binding by Lorna Barrett, The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy and Red Bones by Ann Cleeves.

In the New Year we will be reading books by Alexander McCall Smith, A.D. Scott and Ruth Ware. I think we our year will be off to a great start with these books!

Hope you’ve been having a great week so far!

“Maribeth Klein was working late, waiting to sign off on the final page proofs of the December issue, when she had a heart attack.”

Leave Me
By Gayle Forman

Like many working mothers, Maribeth Klein is juggling her career and four year old twins and trying to keep sane. When she starts to feel unwell one day she attributes it to indigestion but luckily an already planned visit to her gynecologist soon has her on her way to the ER to get check out.

As she’s getting tests and seeing specialists she is still trying to coordinate schedules and is even trying to downplay the seriousness of what is happening to her but she is in the middle of a medical crisis and requires a bypass. Finally after some scary moments and several days in the hospital, Maribeth is fine and returns home.

She is scared after what she’s been through but once she’s home the demands of family life kick back in and Maribeth decides that the only way to survive is to run away. She leaves a note for her husband and takes a train to Pittsburgh to get away from everything.

In her new apartment, away from phones, deadlines and to-do lists, she starts to relax and to take care of herself. She finds a network of support in her young neighbors, a cardiologist that actually listens to her, and she even decides to look for her birth mother. Being away from her life means she can finally see what went wrong in her marriage and how she can get back to a healthier lifestyle.

What captured my attention first about this book is the idea of running away. Who hasn’t thought about that at one time or another when life is stressful or you are dealing with a major situation at home? I was quickly reading through the pages to find out what Maribeth would do and there were a few surprises along the way.

Source: Advance Review Copy