32 Flavours...and then Some!

Relapse, Jake Anderson 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. (kindle edition)

From amazon:
"A fourth generation fisherman, Jake Anderson grew up in the rich fishing environment of Anacortes, Washington. At age seventeen, Jake began salmon fishing in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and by the age of twenty-five he was crab fishing in the heart of the Bering Sea. Soon after, Jake became a deckhand on the F/V Northwestern and joined the popular television series Deadliest Catch. As an integral part of the show, Jake is known for his hardworking nature that has allowed him to evolve from greenhorn to licensed captain.

Aside from fishing, Jake has a harrowing story that has yet to be told. As an avid skateboarder, Jake aspired to become a professional until he was sidelined by injury, addiction, and homelessness. After relentlessly battling back, he was then confronted with the untimely losses of his sister, father, and mentor, Phil Harris. But with depth and maturity, Jake persevered. In his debut book, Relapse, Jake serves as an inspiration as he candidly shares his private journey to overcome tragedy."
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I LOVE watching Deadliest Catch and Jake is one of my favorite crew members of one of my favorite boats. I was a very happy person when I found out he wrote a memoir and picked it up on my Kindle a few months ago. I wasn't sure what to expect--would it be well-written or just a throw together stab at making more money for himself? It didn't disappoint--Jake's a great story teller and tells his life story so far in a candid and honest seeming way. I learned a lot about this man I didn't already know from the show, which is always a great thing to do when reading a celebrity memoir.

If you're a fan of Deadliest Catch and think Jake's pretty cool, I recommend you read this book. :)

"The Fault in Our Stars", by John Green (kindle edition) 4 out of 5 stars.

From a booklist review found on amazon:

"At 16, Hazel Grace Lancaster, a three-year stage IV–cancer survivor, is clinically depressed. To help her deal with this, her doctor sends her to a weekly support group where she meets Augustus Waters, a fellow cancer survivor, and the two fall in love. Both kids are preternaturally intelligent, and Hazel is fascinated with a novel about cancer called An Imperial Affliction. Most particularly, she longs to know what happened to its characters after an ambiguous ending. To find out, the enterprising Augustus makes it possible for them to travel to Amsterdam, where Imperial’s author, an expatriate American, lives. What happens when they meet him must be left to readers to discover. Suffice it to say, it is significant. Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos—or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations—life, love, and death—with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity. In the process, Green shows his readers what it is like to live with cancer, sometimes no more than a breath or a heartbeat away from death. But it is life that Green spiritedly celebrates here, even while acknowledging its pain. In its every aspect, this novel is a triumph."
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With that particular blurb, I've already given away more about the book than I should've, but the amazon review was only a sentence or two long and didn't give the book much justice. My niece recommended this book highly, and I'd seen that it has also become a major motion picture with decent reviews, so I decided to check it out. I was NOT disappointed! Wow, what an intense and emotional read! If you don't tear up at least once during the course of this read, you can consider yourself an emotional robot! Incredibly well written, I felt so much while reading this one. Full of feels, as some say. Get a box of tissues, head down to your local book shop, and get yourself this book. What a roller coaster!!

The Help Kathryn Stockett (Deluxe hardcover edition) 5 out of 5 stars!

From amazon:
"Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t."
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This was an amazing book. Though fiction, I feel it really told a story of the South during that turbulent time in American history. Though it finished cleanly, I was left wanting for more about the three main characters! Just...Wow!! Ever so glad I finally picked this one off the shelf--so many people had recommended it for me to read since it was first published, and now I know why. I would call this one a "must read" for fans of historic fiction and/or chick lit. Hell you could file this one under womens' studies as well. Wow, that's not a combo you see together every day... ;) Anyway, very well written book, very entertaining and scary at the same time. If you haven't already, go forth and read this book!!

Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Rob Lowe (paperback) 4 out of 5 stars.

From amazon:
"A wryly funny and surprisingly moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye

A teen idol at fifteen, an international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood's top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted to the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood.

The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing, he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and politics both on the set and in the actual White House. And in between are deft and humorous stories of the wild excesses that marked the eighties, leading to his quest for family and sobriety.

Never mean-spirited or salacious, Lowe delivers unexpected glimpses into his successes, disappointments, relationships, and one-of-a-kind encounters with people who shaped our world over the last twenty-five years. These stories are as entertaining as they are unforgettable."
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Rob Lowe was a teen crush of mine, starting even before his role as Sodapop Curtis in The Outsiders. That crush faded over the years of his tabloid exploits and some bad role choices coloured my opinion of him. Still, I followed him through the various news outlets/media over the years and when I found this book on the bargain list on amazon about a year ago I jumped on it. How bad a story could it be, right, especially for $7...

Wow. I was *not* disappointed. Mr. Lowe wrote this book on his own as far as I can tell, and he's a witty and intelligent person. Much more than just the pretty-faced bad boy I'd thought he was all those years. His is a very entertaining and somewhat sad romp through a much more eclectic career than I had ever imagined. I actually sorta feel bad that I thought of him so shallowly for all those years! Not an angel, but not evil, either, his is what I believe to be an honest albeit somewhat windy and self-serving tale, but aren't most celebrity memoirs that way to some extent? I definitely recommend this book if you're a Rob Lowe fan--very well-written and thoughtful.

Now I want to go on Netflix and stream The West Wing, a show I've never seen. ;)

Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter-A Memoir, Melissa Francis (Kindle Edition) 4 out of 5 stars.

From amazon:
"The Glass Castle meets The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother in this dazzlingly honest and provocative family memoir by former child actress and current Fox Business Network anchor Melissa Francis.

When Melissa Francis was eight years old, she won the role of lifetime: playing Cassandra Cooper Ingalls, the little girl who was adopted with her brother (played by young Jason Bateman) by the Ingalls family on the world’s most famous primetime soap opera, Little House on the Prairie. Despite her age, she was already a veteran actress, living a charmed life, moving from one Hollywood set to the next. But behind the scenes, her success was fueled by the pride, pressure, and sometimes grinding cruelty of her stage mother, as fame and a mother’s ambition pushed her older sister deeper into the shadows.

Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter is a fascinating account of life as a child star in the 1980’s, and also a startling tale of a family under the care of a highly neurotic, dangerously competitive “tiger mother.” But perhaps most importantly, now that Melissa has two sons of her own, it’s a meditation on motherhood, and the value of pushing your children: how hard should you push a child to succeed, and at what point does your help turn into harm?"
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I was always a Little House fan, but by the time Ms. Francis came on the show I'd largely lost interest in it. Still, I remember her from the show and from many of her appearances on TV commercials when I was young, so when it came up as a bargain download for Kindle and I read the teaser on it I decided to give it a go. I was NOT disappointed! Wow, what a ride this young woman had! :/ Her relationship with especially her Mom was incredible!! WOW! At times I read her story and did a bit of a double take in my head because it all sounded so outrageous, but at the same time, so outrageous it just had to be true. A haunting, compelling tale of some of the darker sides of being a child star...

Cat Daddy: What the World's Most Incorrigible Cat Taught Me About Life, Love, and Coming Clean, Jackson Galaxy (Kindle book) 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.

From amazon:
"Cat behaviorist and star of Animal Planet's hit television show My Cat from Hell, Jackson Galaxy, a.k.a. "Cat Daddy," isn't what you might expect for a cat expert (as The New York Times noted, with his goatee and tattoos, he "looks like a Hells Angel"). Yet Galaxy's ability to connect with even the most troubled felines -- not to mention the stressed-out humans living in their wake -- is awe-inspiring. In this book, Galaxy tells the poignant story of his thirteen-year relationship with a petite gray-and-white short-haired cat named Benny, and gives singular advice for living with, caring for, and loving the feline in your home.

When Benny arrived in his life, Galaxy was a down-and-out rock musician with not too much more going on than a part-time job at an animal shelter and a drug problem. Benny's previous owner brought the cat to the shelter in a cardboard box to give him up. Benny had seen better days --- his pelvis had just been shattered by the wheels of a car -- and his owner insisted he'd been "unbondable" from day one. Nothing could have been further from the truth. An inspiring account of two broken beings who fixed each other, Cat Daddy is laced throughout with Galaxy's amazing "Cat Mojo" advice for understanding what cats need most from us humans in order to live happier, healthier lives."

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I'll start off with I mostly LOVE Jackson Galaxy. Yeah, he gets a little bit too holistic sometimes with his advice, but that's not necessarily advice to ignore, either. Anyway, this book is a eclectic mixture of his personal story, cat stories of his personal cats and of cats he's cared for, and advice for cat owners to use in their own homes. I found it to be a particularly inspiring read--Jackson has overcome some shit to become the man he is today, and I always love a good, gritty, inspirational story. And the nice part is, it doesn't get sappy at all anywhere in it, at least it didn't feel that way to me...

I highly recommend this book for all cat lovers!! :)