Meredith Efken

Lucky Baby by Meredith Efken is a brutally honest telling of the emotions that some families deal with when adopting. The author adopted a child herself but this not her story is sort of the worst case scenario. Meg Lindsey had a cold and controlling mother so she never saw herself as a mother. Her husband also had parental problems. His father was aloof and cold and his mother left him when he was a child and he never saw her again. What is unusual to me is the use of magical realism. That is magical events that occur in an otherwise realistic story. It does seem to fit into the story very well.

I am not sure when Meg decided that she wanted to adopt but the idea took over her life and yet she still had doubts that she could be a good mother.
In Shanghai, two little girls, one soon to be blind and the other had a hare lip, were becoming close friends. Wen Ming and Zheng An bonded tightly together because they found themselves being rejected by the others in the Children’s home.

This book through its story teaches many lessons about love, the differences between mother and child love and the difficulties that may arise with adoption. One thing that I really liked is the counseling was a part of the healing process and the characters, all of them, mother, father and children all learned from life. Religion itself is not a focus of this book, but rather a focus on being open, honest and forgiving.

I highly recommend this unusual and spell bounding book.… (meer)

I have the tendency when I find a really good book to drop everything and just read it. Sometimes this means staying up til 2am finishing a (non school related) book. For example, when the last Harry Potter book came out, all I did for 2 days straight minus 2 hours for church was read. (It was well worth it btw). Why am I talking about reading times? Well today at 2:00pm I started reading "SAHM I Am". I finished it at 5:07pm. I read a 325 page book in 3 hours. Even THAT is a record for me. It shows how good a book it was.

SAHMs are Stay At Home Moms. Of course I am not one, but I will prally be one in the future (check back with me in about 8 years). However, even with that I totally enjoyed this book. It is written in email format, with a group of women who are members of a email mailing list for SAHMs. The book focuses on 5 women who bond together, in a chat outside of the email list, and the moderator of the list who is dealing with issues with her younger sister. The women are real and very relatable with hilarious and heartwarming situations. My favorite character is Dulcie and the funniest part in the book for me involved a romance novel inspired love letter. I laughed and laughed at her reaction. Another thing I liked is that the 5 women are not afraid to speak their mind and they let us know that they are annoyed with Rosalyn and the way that she comes off across in her moderator posts. But the reader finds out why she acts the way she does so it's understandable, but for a while yes, this reader agreed with the 5 women. I enjoyed the sarcastic emails that would follow showing how the characters would feel after a Roslayn post. It made the books feel more real. I am really looking foward to the next book. In the meantime here's the prequel of SAHM I Am called "Bedtime Battles" that was posted as an online serial on eharlequin.com. Very funny stuff.

The fact that there are no chapters in this book made it very hard to put down, as there is no stopping point. You just want to keep reading and reading. You really feel as if you are a part of the list as a lurker. However even with all the different storylines going around, you never feel lost. I hope that next time if I become a SAHM I am able to find a email group or something akin to this so I can find the same friendships and bond like these women do.… (meer)

It's time to rejoin the SAHM email group and it looks like Rosalyn is back in charge but as a changed person! Instead of her former condescending self, a new women who is trying to be a better person is back. Joining her are the rest of the SAHM group including Dulcie, Zelia, Jocelyn, Paige, etc. New to the group are Iona and Hannah, both with personalities that take the group by surprise. This time the group faces issues such as grad school advisors that won't help, dealing with adoptive children who have emotional problems, being a working mom and having a stay at home husband and trying to find out what the perfect birthday party is. To top it off, the group decides they are going to meet for the first time at a get together. It's never a dull moment being a SAHM!

If you have been a loyal reader of this blog from the beginning, then you know what a HUGE fan I am of Meredith Efken's SAHM series. I was so excited when I heard there was going to be a third book in the series. This is probably my absolute favorite set of books to read. I read this book during the 24 Hour Readathon during the 3-5am hour. I knew that this was going to be toughest stretch of the Read-a-thon so I went with something I knew was going to keep me awake due to laughing. Did I make the best choice ever. I nearly died with laughter throughout this book. The women in here are so realistic. It's amazing how we can know their personalities just through their forum post, chats, emails and IMs. This book introduces two new characters to the mix: Hannah, a 19 year conservative mom and Iona, a creative poetry loving mom. They both add their unique personalities to the group. Iona, while initially coming off as a bit eccentric, finds that she fits easily into the group while Hannah, seems to keep putting up walls that drive the other women away from her.

Throughout the book, I found myself totally siding with the women and the decisions they made. There are plenty of serious issues discusses in the book but they are handled in a light hearted way and that email format is just so easy to read. There are no chapter breaks so it's incredibly hard to put the book down. As I said, this is one of the funniest series of books I have ever read. The scene where I just died laughing was the chatroom scene where someone forgets to private chat one of their messages. Just the way it was all handled, I had to literally put the book down, laugh for about 5 minutes before I could resume reading. It was like that throughout the book. This is one of the few series where I have found absolutely nothing wrong with the book.

I'm sad that with this book, the series comes to a close but everything is tied up very nicely. It's great to see how all of the characters have grown and changed since the first book. I really feel like I'm a part of their SAHM group and I would love to find a group of women like this next time. This series is one of my absolute favorites and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Whether you are a mom or not, chick lit fan or reader of emails, you will enjoy this book. VERY HIGHLY recommended.… (meer)

She has put out another book that I proceeded to finish in just a few hours. I was actually in the process of reading two other books, but I dropped them both to read this one. It was definitely worth it. I declare it tied for best book of the year!

In @Home, the sequel to SAHM I AM, we again are meeting up with members of the SAHM (stay at home moms) email group. Rosalyn is now on better terms with her sister Veronica but the two are still at it with their sibling rivalry. They propose to hold a contest as to who can have more readership with their posts, while each facing their own personal situations. Dulice finds herself in the position as a working mom while her husband has become a SAHD. Zelia is in the process of adopting two children from Zimbabwe while Brenna is trying her luck with egg donation adoption. Then there's also Jocelyn who's slowly busying herself to death, Paige who has to take over for her pastor husband who's fallen ill, and Marianne, the newest member who finds herself with the baby blues and a very unruly 2 year old. The women still find time to get together and talk about everything through the email loop.

I looooooooved this book. It's so addictive to read because there are no chapters to stop at. I found everyone's story funny, sad, touching, and very very real. The only thing I didn't like was the attitudes of some of the women when Dulcie was talking about her work experience. While it's understandable that things have changed with her life, it still wasn't fair for the group to gang up on her and accuse her for not being true to herself. I don't think it's right for people to tell others what to do simply because that is what work for their own selves. Dulcie enjoyed going to work, the other women should not have put guilt trips on her for doing so. There were some times I wanted to strangle Rosalyn with her snobbishness but at least this time we had Veronica there to tell her off about it. The sisters' relationship was very funny and realistic. I really enjoyed reading this book. It's such a fun and easy and enjoyable read and it helped to get me in the holiday spirit.

(i also must confess that I never got the hang of the Christmas song game and only figured it out after I visited Meredith's website and saw the answer *sheepish look*.)… (meer)