"Someday, Someday, Maybe" by Lauren Graham

Sometimes it's good to take a brief respite from being Type-A. Books provide me with that escape, allowing me to delve into someone else's life. Many times it's a life that I would never want for myself, but for a few fantastical hours I can experience something that is refreshingly antithetical to my own day-to-day monotony. While I certainly don't want to be an actress in New York City, there is something inexplicably enjoyable about sinking into that fictional existence for just a little while.

This is how I felt while reading Someday, Someday, Maybe. What drew me to the book initially was the author, Lauren Graham. You may know her from Gilmore Girls. Yes, this book was written by "Lorelei Gilmore." As you might expect from a book by the co-star of The-Best-TV-Show-Ever, this story was filled with the kind of witticisms that Gilmore fans will relish. Lorelei/Lauren transfers from the TV screen to the novel quite seamlessly. Her somewhat autobiographical first novel had me chuckling and grimacing in quick succession. The book had its share of awkward moments, sarcastic musings, and cynical humor. The characters were intelligent, but not pretentious. In short, Someday, Someday, Maybe contained all the ingredients that made Lauren Graham into a fantastic Lorelei Gilmore.

The main character, Franny, is a twenty-something actress living in Brooklyn, trying hard to "make it" in show business. In other words, Franny is a waitress. She has given herself a three-year deadline to achieve her dreams. The book opens with six months to go, and Franny has resolved to double-down on her efforts to land a real acting gig. The story takes us through a whirlwind of the common ups and downs that hopeful thespians face every day. To me, Franny's life seems chaotic and disorganized. She is constantly running out of money, short on time, and without a clue as to where her dream will take her next. Some of the people she meets along the way help her to have faith in herself; others pick away at the shreds of her self-esteem, leaving her dejected, yet never without her keen sense of humor. By her side throughout it all are her two lovable roommates and her delightfully amusing father, whose clever quips and guilt-inducing answer machine messages establish him as the book's most endearing character.

I'll have to admit, the novel is a little short on plot. In fact, it seems throughout much of the story that we're just going back and forth from one audition to another. Acting jobs are few and far between. Franny gets an agent, then loses him. She gets a boyfriend, then finds out he's a tool. She gets an acting job, then realizes she's supposed to be naked. Nothing ever seems to work out. I'll tell you right now that the book doesn't neatly wrap up with her becoming a famous movie star on Gilmore Girls. However, she doesn't go home to get married either. What kept me reading was not the plot, but the wit. Franny's sardonic take on everything from show business, to the men in her life, to her own shortcomings really charms the reader into turning the page. Franny is a girl that can laugh at herself. I like that.

"The Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith (a.k.a J.K. Rowling)

If you're looking for a beach read or something to keep you occupied on a long flight - this is it. A Cuckoo's Calling takes readers on a jaunt through London in the springtime as private detective, Cormoran Strike, and his efficient young secretary solve a high-profile crime case. Galbraith (or rather, J.K. Rowling) introduces us to a host of quirky characters. While none are quite as endearing as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, they do reel us into the plot. I recommend the audio book. Listening to the story narrated in a British accent makes it all the more entertaining.

The story opens with Robin, a young transplant from the English countryside, recently engaged and working at a series of temp jobs while looking for something more permanent. She is rather excited about her next placement. The agency has sent her to temp for a private detective! Detective work has secretly been her lifelong ambition. However, when she arrives at the office building she is nearly taken trampled by an angry female and a lumbering, overweight man in hot pursuit. The two are clearly at the end of a massive fight (or "row" as the British call it). It turns out that the male pursuer is her new boss. Contrary to first impressions, Strike turns out to be a decent character. After an awkward introduction he tries to get her settled in to his dingy office, which doubles as his home since he was recently kicked out of the aforesaid angry female's flat. Soon, a wealthy lawyer named John Bristow shows up at the office with his somewhat frumpy, and seemingly reluctant girlfriend. Bristow is seeking a private detective to investigate the death of his sister, the famed model, Lula Landry. Though Lula's death was a major event in the press, it had been confirmed a suicide, a conclusion that most, including Bristow's girlfriend, accepted as fact. John Bristow, however is not convinced. Strike is even somewhat skeptical about Bristow's interpretation of the death. As a pretty decent fellow, Strike is reluctant to take Bristow's money for a case he feels will reveal few new details. However, Strike's financial circumstances are rather grim and the need for cash ultimately prevails.

What follows is, at the outset, a somewhat disorganized investigation into the various and sundry characters who wafted in and out of Lula's life in her final days. Strike, an oafish middle-aged Afghan war veteran and Robin, a smart and savvy budding detective herself, make a superb and somewhat comical team. The inauspicious beginning to Robin's stint with Detective Strike foreshadows many more awkward moments. As the two skirt in and out of the lives of the rich and famous and those who cater to their every whim, they find a complex network of drama lurking at every turn. The investigations even takes them to a couple individuals from the lower rungs of London society. Thus we get a diverse cast of characters that adds color and spark to the novel. We soon learn that this eclectic mix of individuals is not quite as random as they may seem. The investigation takes us through a web of intrigue, full of all the twists and turns that make for an engaging detective novel.

The Cuckoo's Calling was a legitimately amusing story. It wasn't anything earth-shattering, probably not very memorable, and certainly not the greatest book J.K. Rowling's ever written (she's at a distinct disadvantage here). However, if we take it for what it is: a London detective novel - and not a-London-detective-novel-by-the-author-of-Harry-Potter then it will most assuredly serve its purpose as a thoroughly enjoyable read.

"Oryx and Crake" by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood refers to Oryx and Crake as a work of "speculative fiction." This first installment of the MadAddam Trilogy launches us into a futuristic dystopia where humans have genetically engineered solutions to every real or imagined problem. The novel opens with "Snowman" alone in a ghastly post-apocalyptic urban wilderness. The landscape contains remnants of human life, yet Snowman is likely last of his species. He is lives alone, scavenging on the outskirts of a "humanoid" colony - a people he calls the "Crakers." He stands in stark difference to the Crakers, avoiding the suns rays and clothing his body in a thin sheet. His nickname represents how poorly adjusted he is, unable to withstand the elements, frail and sickly, compared to this new species which epitomizes the results of unnatural selection. These beings have been altered to eradicate all of the complicating facets of human life. They are intelligent, yet innocent; they are vegetarians who live at harmony with their environment, and they have efficient mating rituals to ensure optimal levels of procreation. Their skin is designed to absorb the suns rays without harm, they see no need for clothing and are perplexed by Snowman's garment. They are animalistic, yet advanced - a paradox in their very essence.

Snowman relays the story of humanity's downfall through a series of engrossing flashbacks.  Snowman, once Jimmy, grew up as the child of scientists, living comfortably on biotech company compounds. These scientific microcosms contained homes, schools, shopping centers, bullet trains, genetically enhanced food and genetically engineered pets called Rakunks (a mixture of a raccoon and a skunk). Only rarely did the inhabitants have to venture out into the "pleebands" where human life seemed chaotic, messy, and yet secretly alluring. Jimmy befriends young Crake, a somewhat demented genius. Soon after, Jimmy is first exposed to Oryx while watching internet porn in Crake's bedroom. He is captivated by her face, a face that represents human suffering amidst innocence and beauty. Upon graduation from high school Crake is recruited by the nation's premier scientific university, while Jimmy finds himself on a lower rung of the academic ladder. It is not until they graduate from college that the paths of Oryx, Crake and Jimmy intertwine. By this time Crake has completed his crowning achievement: a perfected race of humans.

Atwood's bleak depiction of humanity's future is not altogether unrecognizable. I'm confronted by this every time I buy the unnaturally large and juicy chicken breasts from my local grocery store. I can't help by recall Atwood's "ChickieNobs" derived from genetically engineered "chickens":

""Those are chickens," said Crake. "Chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They've got ones that specialize in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit.

"But there aren't any heads..."

"That's the head in the middle," said the woman. "There's a mouth opening at the top, they dump nutrients in there. No eyes or beak or anything, they don't need those."

Is this where we're headed? I ponder this as I take chicken breast out of its individually wrapped packet. It is the size of my whole hand. Atwood's work is a cautionary tale written in 2003 (the sequels have been released in recent years). I'm hopeful that in my lifetime that the burgeoning slow-food movement will effectively resist uncontrolled genetic engineering. It's really only been in the last 75 years that scientifically altered food has become a staple of the American diet. In the old days food was grown and often consumed seasonally. In the spring and summer people ate berries, in the fall there were peaches and apples. Sometimes women would can or preserve fruits and vegetables at home. The children would be sent out to pick the apples and they would assist in the peeling and coring process, watching as they were ground down into applesauce and perhaps savoring the smells of apple butter cooking over a fire pit. In the winter when mom opened that mason jar of applesauce, the children knew exactly where it came from and all the work that went into creating that nourishment. Similarly, meat came fresh from the butcher, or it was raised, slaughtered and preserved in one's backyard.

Fast-forward to WWII. The Industrial Revolution had only begun to change food production. The Great Depression was over and factories were producing in high gear. While some industries produce weapons and enriched uranium, others are canning applesauce and Spam. Additives and preservatives kept the food flavorful and prevented spoilage.  It kept our men and women alive and nourished to fight the Nazis.  However, when the war ended factories faced a dilemma. How would they sustain profits now that all the troops are home? The answer was easy. Food production companies marketed their wartime foodstuffs to the new American housewife. The baby boom was under way, women were back in the kitchen, but who said they needed to be a slave to a hot canner? Soon we got ads like this one:

This was just the beginning. Boxed cookies and cake mixes came next. They took a little longer to catch on because women felt like they were cheating the system if they could bake without cracking an egg. The mixtures were modified to take out the powdered egg product, allowing women to crack an egg and thus feel like they were fulfilling their role.  As America launched itself into the Cold War, we began to take pride in our neatly packaged  T.V. dinners, our Kraft Mac and Cheese and our Hamburger Helper. And it if all else fails there's always MacDonalds.

By the late '60s and '70s the women's rights movement was in full force. Betty Friedan wrote A Feminine Mystique, encouraging women to realize their full potential in the workplace, and Margaret Sanger and other feminists were gaining strides in the fight for birth control. I'm not knocking any of this. I love it! But working women also don't have time to can their own peaches or bake cakes from scratch. It became commonplace, even trendy to eat out of a box or a can. By the closure of the century agribusiness and biotech firms were getting involved in the growth of our produce and meats. Now even the fresh stuff is comprised of questionable genetic and chemical elements. Is it harmful? The jury is still out. According to all the mommy blogs and yoga pundits we're all going to get cancer or autism - or both. Actual science is far less conclusive on the potential health effects of bovine antibiotics or GMO strawberries (though conspiracy theorists like to point out that science gets kickbacks from Monsanto). Whatever the verdict, I believe that buying tennis-ball-sized strawberries in January is harmful to my soul. 

I grew up eating "slow food" before it was a "thing."  In fact, I thought it was normal. (I also thought mommies who bought their children cookies from a box were bad people.) I grew up shopping at our local farmer's market, even playing in the fields with the owners' daughter. Long before farmers' markets became the hip and somewhat pretentious Saturday morning ritual among professional suburbanites, we frequented our local one for fresh-picked corn on the cob and heaping bushels of peaches and apples. This would commence canning season. Those cans of peaches and applesauce were stocked on our basement shelves and enjoyed throughout winter. I knew where they came from. I knew that peaches did not naturally occur in January. The sweet juicy peaches were the product of long hours of labor on a hot August day.

Many children grow up with no knowledge of each season's produce. I'm thankful that I've grown up playing in the dirt and harvesting its gifts. I've known for as long as I can remember that strawberries grow in the spring, while blueberries show up in July-August. Blueberry picking is as much a summer ritual for me as fireworks on the Fourth of July. I also remember many a summer afternoon when I would pick beans from the backyard garden and Mom would cook them up for dinner. A few weeks later, on the first day of school we always had warm chocolate chip cookies made from scratch, baked fresh in time for our arrival home. Once winter came there would be blueberry pie and homemade blueberry muffins, baked with those same berries we'd picked and frozen so many months earlier. It would almost make that blustery January evening feel warmer, as if the berries contained some remnant of the summer sun.

Recently, I heard a story about a kid who was arguing with a farmer about where food came from. The child said that the fruits and vegetables he ate came from the grocery store. It is sad that so many children today do not understand how their food gets to their table. Why is this important? Well, like it or not, eating is fundamental to our lives. For millennia people's entire days were centered around acquiring food. Though we no longer have to work so hard for our food, eating is still the one thing we do several times a day (that and excreting it). It is an activity that brings family and friends together, that allows for the exchange of cultureand the transfer of ideas. Food also represents heritage; our food traditions reach back centuries. Some foods represent elements of our faith (i.e. Jewish matzo bread) or family traditions that bind generations of family who've never met (i.e. my Great-Grandma's sugar cookies). Food also represents labor. In a society where most of our day-to-day labor is disconnected from our actual survival, there is just something so wholesome about actually growing, picking,and preparing one's own food.

I know there are many other arguments in favor of the slow food movement. All of which have their merits. I do not profess to be a paragon of clean or slow eating. My freezer is stocked with the aforesaid GMO chicken breasts (they're cheap and convenient). I do enjoy bananas and pineapple far too much for any moral arguments over conserving fossil fuels to prevail upon me. However, for me, the slow food initiative is really about a daily quest to live intentionally. Since a significant percentage of my household budget goes toward food, I strive to support ethical companies and empower local farmers who are good stewards of the land. If I can get eggs from well-loved chickens, I'm happy to pay a little bit more. But perhaps even beyond that, I don't want to lose those traditions of my childhood and the lessons that sowing and reaping provide. In no other area of life does the value of hard work prove true in such tangible ways. The work we do in the spring will pay off at harvest. The work we do at harvest will pay off as we're enjoying warm blueberry muffins on cold winter nights. Labor and food are two elements fundamental to our existence, to our humanity. God created humans to labor in a garden. We have since reinvented and often perversely repackaged the gifts and responsibilities He's given us.  Slow food means slowing down, reconnecting with the Earth, with the seasons, and with our Creator. If we miss out on where our food comes from, we take one of God's most fundamental blessings for granted. If we don't know how to sow, reap, and prepare our food, we don't have a chance to reflect on the bounty and the diversity of the Earth, and the sheer creativity of its Designer.

Which brings me full circle. Reading Oryx and Crake reminded me that while humans are capable of amazing feats, none of us can recapture the perfection and beauty of the world that God created. Though sin has perverted much of it, human efforts at "fixing" nature's flaws often leave us worse off than we were before. And most importantly, we'll never be able to genetically select the perfect human. Only God can do that. In fact - He already did.

"Beautiful Day" by Elin Hilderbrand

Please do not judge me for reading this book. (It is a very judgement-worthy book). Beautiful Day is a story of "rich-people problems" all brought on vanity and selfishness. It is "light reading" if you dismiss the many dysfunctional relationships. To be fair, the main characters are still working through the loss their mother, but that doesn't really arouse a whole lot of sympathy on my part since most of the conflicts stem from poor decision making and lack of moral standards. I have little patience for "rich people problems."

The story is set over the course of one weekend as two families all come together on Nantucket to celebrate the wedding of Jenna Carmichael and Stuart Graham. The narrators of the story rotate. We get a new cynical perspective on love from every chapter. However, we never hear from the bride herself, Jenna Carmichael, an innocent hippie-wannabe who has lived a comfortable and spoiled lifestyle. We do hear from Jenna's father, still mourning the loss of his first wife, and struggling through a rebound marriage to an insecure divorcee named Pauline. Then there's the older sister Margot, a single mom with a penchant for making poor choices in men. She's successful in her career, but quite frankly a failure as a mother. We meet the two brothers: one a jock and a player who lives for casual sex and partying, and the other, the somewhat arrogant "perfect child" with the nice wife and two relatively normal kids. The soon-to-be in-laws also feature prominently. The Grahams are a divorced-and-remarried couple who were temporarily torn apart by marital infidelity and are still dealing the awkward circumstances brought on by the presence of an accidental "love child."

Featured most prominently throughout the story is "The Notebook." These are the dying words of Beth, the family matriarch, who used her last bit of energy to pen the blueprint of Jenna's future wedding. They are, ostensibly, suggestions, but Jenna has followed The Notebook rigidly, much the chagrin of her jealous stepmother. My first very judgmental thought was: "What kind of controlling person spends her dying days writing up a notebook about how to throw an extravagant wedding for a girl who doesn't even have a boyfriend!?!?" From there, my disdain for these characters went in every direction. Margot, the older sister, probably took the brunt of my judgement. Her lack of discipline is reflected at every turn, not only in her relationships but also in the way she raises (or doesn't raise) her children.  There wasn't one single character in the book that I liked. The characters were all the fraternity/sorority types, overly concerned with personal appearances, success, partying, and casual sex.

So why did I keep reading? Well, in part, because I never got around to finding another available audio-book from the library and I wanted something to listen to while walking my dog. Also, it was like a train wreck - you just couldn't look away. However, it wasn't a wholly wasted experience. I gleaned some important life-lessons from other people's shortcomings. For instance, Pauline (the stepmother) was a little overly-obsessed with her weight, to the point where she was constantly complaining to her husband and oftentimes deprived him of perfectly good meals because she had reached her caloric limit. She annoyed me, but I'll have to admit that there have been several times when I've reneged on Friday night dining plans after putting on my jeans.  The book also made me appreciate my own wedding so much more. While my wedding turned out far more extravagant than I ever expected, and even exceeded my own Yankee sensibilities, it was actually comparatively simple and drama-free by most standards. True, this book was a work of fiction, but I've heard countless real-life horror stories from brides and many more from bridesmaids. (I'm happy to admit that of all the ladies in my wedding party I was the one with the least bit of fashion-sense, thus my bridesmaids pretty much had free rein, as long as they wore green.) In the end, the book reaffirmed my original sentiments about weddings: it's all a little ridiculous.

I probably won't read any more of Elin Hilderbrand's books. I like to read books in which there is at least one person with whom I could befriend. The characters in Hilderbrand's book where all out of my league. And quite frankly, I'm pretty content in my own league.

"Lost in a River of Grass" by Ginny Rorby

There are only a few places in the world where I do not want to travel. The Everglades is one. (The Amazon and Clyde Peelings Reptile Land are others) Even reading a book about the Everglades was a bit of a stretch for me. The reason? I'm utterly terrified of snakes.

Or course, so was Sarah at the beginning of the book. As the book opens, fourteen year-old Sarah had just begun attending the Glades Academy, a private school where she'd been accepted on a swimming scholarship. However, she quickly realizes that she is the girl from the "other side of the tracks." When she finds herself miserably traipsing through the Everglades on a weekend field trip, it doesn't take much convincing for her to ditch her classmates and join a nice local boy named Andy on a rather sketchy airboat ride. He promises her they'll be back before lunch.

Well, if they had returned before lunch, there would not have been much to write about.  The sketchy airboat sinks in a very remote part of the Everglades. Sarah and Andy realize that they have to trudge back to civilization on their own, sharing a can of Spam and a bottle of Gatorade between them. However, to provide a bit of comic relief throughout the ordeal, the author causes the two teens to cross paths with an orphaned baby duck. This of course spurs a bit of tension between the two. Andy who wants to abandon the duck and let nature take its course, has no hope of prevailing against a determined Sarah who quickly adopts the duck and names her Teapot.

I have read survival books in the past, but this is the first one that I truly believe might give me nightmares. There were a lot of mosquitoes, alligators, and of course, SNAKES! Every shape, size, and color of snake was represented in this book. (At least it seemed that way to me.) There was even a particularly disturbing scene where a Burmese python consumed an alligator. If this is ever made into a movie I will not be able to watch it.

Now I don't want you to think that I hated the book or regretted reading it. Despite my terror, I felt like Rorby conveyed a valuable message to those of us who struggle with our own internal phobias and insecurities. Throughout the story Sarah's fear of nature slowly turns into respect and admiration. The two teens realize that they need to learn from one another. They begin to eschew personal pride in favor of mutual dependence. As Sarah overcomes her fear of snakes, and of nature in general, she develops into a confident and strong young lady.  No longer does she need to seek out the constant approval of classmates. Sarah realizes that the obstacles in her life have indeed made her unique - but she is proud of accomplishments, and she has learned to appreciate her own distinctiveness.

That being said, I'm happy to let my experience with the Everglades end there. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll always be afraid of snakes. Getting over a phobia often means being exposed to it. I'm quite content to keep my phobia and stay away from all snake habitats.

"Five Days At Memorial" by Sheri Fink

In a world of 30-second news blips and catchy sound bites, Five Days At Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged City offers an uncommon investigative expose. In her book, Sheri Fink, shines a light inside a hospital at ground zero of Hurricane Katrina. It was a natural disaster followed by a bureaucratic disaster. The forces of nature and human error collided into a horror where post-apocalyptic fantasies became reality on the grounds of New Orleans' most esteemed medical facilities.

Fink's story begins in the days before the hurricane hits. New Orleans' citizens are no stranger to hurricanes, and the medical staff at Memorial embarks upon their normal pre-hurricane routine. Doctors, nurses, and other personnel, flock to the hospital as they have done in all previous storms. The hospital, with its sturdy construction and back-up generators is a refuge in the storm. Hospitals are supposed to be built to withstand the most treacherous elements, as they are rarely evacuated when storms hit. The medical staff comes with their families, their pets, and coolers full of food in tow. This is standard operating procedure for Memorial. They have to let the families come - including the pets. If they did not, all qualified medical staff would be hightailing it out of the city with their loved ones.

This storm will be different. Katrina's deadliness was not simply in the strength of her winds, but in the flooding levees and the waters that raged throughout the city. The hospital's backup generators were on the first floor. Slowly they started shutting down, taking with them the life-force that many terminally ill patients depended on.

When Katrina hit, Memorial had an unusually high proportion of patients on hospice care. The Lifecare facility, which provided this type of care and operated as a hospital-within-a-hospital, had imported some patients from other facilities in the days before the storm. Four days in, the staff and volunteers are exhausted The heat, the stench of human waste, the hopelessness, and the fear of looters bear down on them hard. Helicopters are coming irregularly. There is no organization to the rescue effort. The hospital's execs, miles away in Texas don't want to foot the bill to charter a private helicopter company, so they leave evacuation to the overextended Armed Forces, who are flying day and night in the wake of the storm. These pilots are torn between rescuing premature babies from hospitals and desperate people off rooftops. All sorts of questions arise. Who goes first? The ones with the greatest chances or survival? Or the sickest? Where are they going? If they are seriously ill, will they receive appropriate care wherever the helicopter lands? Do we send the old? The young? What about the 300+ pound man that would be almost impossible to move up to the helipad?

They start by euthanizing the pets. I nearly cried. Not the dogs! The next step was clear. And somehow, killing sick people saddened me far less than killing healthy dogs. When I pictured the terminally ill Lifecare patients, lying hot, sweaty, wafting in and out of consciousness in their own vomit and feces, I really couldn't help but be glad for them. According to Fink, the order was given to inject the patients with Do Not Resuscitate orders. These patients were given a cocktail of sedatives that would lead to a quiet, peaceful, and somewhat dignified death, under the circumstances. But, as Fink points out, a DNR order only means that the patient does not want to be revived if his or her heart stops beating. It does not mean they are signing themselves up to be sacrificed for the greater good. And, ironically, as the order was given Tenet executives were finally signing on with a private contractor to send in helicopters and evacuate the rest of the patients. By the time these round-the-clock airlifts were provided, there were significantly fewer patients to be airlifted.

The second half of the book deals with the aftermath of the tragedy. It largely centers around Dr. Anna Pou who, according to Fink, commandeered the euthanasia at Memorial. At this point in the book it is somewhat difficult to follow. There are a lot of attorneys, Tenet execs, doctors, patients, and nurses whose stories weave in and out of the book. While it is clear that Fink assumes Dr. Pou was guilty of euthanizing patients, I do not get the sense that Fink is entirely repulsed by Pou's decision. As I read the book, I found myself attributing most of the blame to the Tenet company itself, and to the hospital's shoddy disaster-preparedness plan. This plan seemed to have been made up from a standard template downloaded off the Internet. It is ridiculous to me that a hospital located below sea level would put its generators on the ground floor. And that is only one of the many failings in the bureaucratic mess that was Katrina. The medical personnel never should have had to choose between life and death. This whole thing could have been easily avoided.

But they did. They felt, in the moment, that they had to choose. We know now that Tenet's contract with the private helicopter firm would have evacuated all the patients, but the doctors did not know that at the time. Communication was abysmal. What galls me, as one of the interviewees pointed out, was that Dr. Pou was arrested and put on trial while violent murderers and criminals roamed the streets of New Orleans. New Orleans has one of the highest per capita crime rates. Dr. Pou should not have been the priority for law enforcement.  Even in the days following the hurricane, the city was plagued by looters. There are haunting stories of rapes and violence at the Superdome. But this doctor, if she was indeed "guilty" of administering lethal doses of sedatives, was forced to endure a long trial and a media frenzy because she was making, what she felt to be, the most humane choice in a disaster.

I know that life is sacred, and obviously doctors shouldn't be going around euthanizing patients without proper consent under normal circumstances. I know that most of my fellow Evangelicals, and religious people in general, stand firmly opposed to euthanasia. But I often wonder why.  If we're the ones with the most hope for an afterlife, why are we so attached to keeping our lives here on this earth? If we truly believe we're not made for this world, that our earthly bodies are dying from the moment they are born, then why do we work so hard to stick around? Quite honestly, if I were a terminally ill patient at Memorial, I'd be asking for that cocktail! Get me out of this broken body ASAP! While it's true, that most of the patients at Memorial were not being artificially kept alive at the moment (most of those who depended on ventilators, etc had already been evacuated), I wonder how many were still breathing only because advanced surgeries, expensive drugs, and high-tech equipment prolonged their physical lives months and years after they had lost all quality of life. Do we ever use our advanced medical knowledge to subvert God's will to take life? Is that possible to do? You often hear the anti-euthanasia set rail on their opponents for "playing God." But don't we play God every day by offering chemotherapy, cholesterol drugs, resuscitation, etc? Or do we assume that He's given us the knowledge and ability to prolong life so it's always His will for us to use it? Are we only supposed to use our God-given intelligence to artificially prolong life?  Or are we allowed to use our knowledge to end life when it seems humane and appropriate? And personally, I wonder, is it wrong to want a Fast Pass into Heaven? I mean I would love to just bypass all the pain and suffering that comes with old age and death (pain and suffering that our drugs and technology often prolong). I don't want my body to outlive my brain - and with my genetics I'm a little afraid that's going to happen.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against using medical knowledge/technology to prolong life and save lives - especially when there is hope for recovery. But at some point, I feel like we're not doing ourselves any favors. While I don't think it was right for doctors at Memorial to make a decision without the consent of the patient or proxy, I don't exactly blame them either.  At any rate, it does us cause to stop and ponder some of these end-of-life issues. Do we really want to be alive, but confined to a bed or a wheelchair?  Perhaps, more practically, the book has given me impetus to think about making a living will (not that any of that was followed at Memorial, but I'm going to hedge my bets on probabilities and assume I won't die during a natural disaster).

In conclusion, Five Days At Memorial was a heavy, heavy book. Literally and metaphorically. It was quite long and chock full of information. It was easy to get lost. However, in the end, it made me think. It didn't leave me with any easy answers, but it forced me to take a look into the complex world of medical ethics and ponder its convergence with Divine intervention. Medicine is a realm I don't often ponder, and Divine sovereignty is a thing I don't really understand.  But journeying into the unfamiliar and unknown, is, after all, the whole reason why we read.

"Awaken" by Katie Kacvinsky

Now here is a futuristic dystopian society that I actually like. Kacvinsky's Awaken probably does not have its intended effect on those of us who are homebodies. Kacvinsky creates a society in which fear and technology have evolved to form a world where people rarely leave the house. All shopping is done online, and "going to the movies" with a friend means that both individuals are watching in the same movie, at the same time, in separate places. Coffee houses are virtually nonexistent. Having coffee with a friend means making coffee at home and chatting together online. I've got to admit, none of this sounds all that bad to me. Granted, I'd much rather go running outside than have a simulator creating a virtual beach around my treadmill - but then again - that would be a very cool treadmill.  Other than the fake trees and faux grass, I'm pretty much completely on board with this dystopian society!

This is the story of a teenage girl named Maddie, whose father is the wealthy head of the virtual schooling program that has been mandated nationwide. Parents, afraid of the growing violence in society, have chosen to sequester their children at home. All socialization occurs virtually, away from the threat of school shooters, drug dealers, and rapists. In the confines of their homes, students build multiple online profiles. They form relationships on various levels, carefully maintain their chosen personas, and never, ever get a scratch or a scar.

Maddie tried, and failed, to fight against her cloistered existence years ago. Despite her hacking prowess, she was not able to escape her father's clutches and the omniscience of computers. Maddie's first attempts to take down Digital School were found out, and rather than getting sent to a reeducation facility, Maddie was put on a sort of internet probation. Certain sites are blocked and her activities are closely monitored - at least those that are online.

But when Maddie ventures out from the online realm she's able to live for the first time. She meets - and falls in love with - the leader of an organization seeking to take down Digital School and stop the technological brainwashing. For the first time she makes real, face-to-face friendships. Society has become so dependent on monitoring what people do online that it doesn't know how to handle plots that are devised offline. These social misfits meet in underground coffeehouses and dance clubs.  They eschew the belief that technology can improve our lives. Sure, it keeps us safe, but at what cost? When Maddie's new round of rebellious behavior is found out, she is once again in danger of being sent to a reeducation facility. But the world has become so dependent on technology that when she ventures off the grid she cannot be tracked. She is indeed awakened. She is awakened to the camaraderie of friends, to the salty sea air of a real beach, to the blazing warmth of a bonfire. She receives her first scars - both physical and emotional. She gets her first broken heart - and her first mended one. She finds that real life begins when we switch off the devices and actually choose to look at one another.

Despite my earlier comments about being a homebody, I do understand what this author is trying to communicate. I enjoy that technology allows me to shop from home, keep up with dear friends miles away, and get information instantaneously. However, for many of us, it can be a crutch used to replace meaningful interaction. Technology is a way for us to mask our insecurities and to create a persona who is - at least in part- a fictional one. And technology responds in kind. Amazon knows what I like, Facebook knows what's on my mind, and Google always reads my email. It's safe to say that my internet browser knows me better than many of my friends do.

I think in realizing my initial positive response to this futuristic society, I've realized a flaw in my own character. Where other fictional dystopias  have repulsed and scared me, I find myself hunkered down in the midst of a snowy winter, wishing I lived in Katie Kacvinsky's world. In the warmer months I do enjoy being outside - taking my dog for long walks, picking berries at our local CSA, and running miles in the early mornings. But even these things are generally solitary activities for me. I rarely socialize outside of work. Of course, I'm not always running to technology. Oftentimes I'd just prefer to be home with a book. I'm more comfortable with fictional companions that real ones. I'm never disappointed when plans are cancelled or when the weather gets in the way of a social gathering. I go to parties rather begrudgingly. While reading this book, a snowstorm enabled me to stay sequestered in my house for five days straight. Not once in that block of time did I crave human outside contact. I was quite content with my husband and my dog. I don't know if it's safety that keeps me at home as much as comfort. I really like my house and I have everything I need here.

I'll never stop being an introvert, and I don't think Kacvinsky's book is really intending to make us all extroverts. But it is cause for reflection. Technology allows my introversion to thrive - to an unhealthy level. I believe it can be detrimental for extroverts too. Extroverts seem to get a whole lot more text messages than I do, (I get 2-3 a week and usually from my mom) but they also seem to to be juggling several conversations at once, and trying to keep up their personas in each one. So, rather you are an extrovert or an introvert, a homebody or a partygoer, I think this book does give us reason to pause. To think. To perhaps intentionally change our relationship with the Internet - or at least to be conscious of how it's changing us.