Kaui Hart Hemmings

Set in Hawaii, this novel is a nuanced portrait of a family in distress. There’s Matt, the father who long ago checked out on his family. He’s forced to start parenting again when an accident puts his wife Joanie in a coma. He is left to reconnect with his two daughters, the troubled teen Alex, and 10-year-old Scotty who is growing up too fast, as they come to terms with Joanie’s situation.

Along the way he discovers Joanie might have been having an affair and quickly his grief becomes show more twisted with bitterness and confusion. He begins to question the decisions he has made over the past few years. Like most families, they are dysfunctional, yet they truly love each other.

The character of Joni is fascinating because we see her only through memories and her husband and daughter’s points of view. We never hear why she made the decisions she did, which doesn’t take anything away from the story, but it leaves us feeling as frustrated as Matt is.

This was one of the rare cases when I saw the movie first, but I’m still glad I went back and read the book. The movie version is excellent, but the book adds even more depth because we can hear Matt’s internal monologue and struggle as he tries to reconnect with his daughters and come to terms with his relationship with his wife.

BOTTOM LINE: I was surprised by how much I loved this book. Even though the two teenage daughters were annoying at times, it was necessary for the dynamic of the story. It was a great study in grief and love and all the confusing emotions in between.

“That's how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can't experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too.”

“Get used to it. She'll be there for the rest of your life. She'll be there on birthdays, at Christmastime, when you get your period, when you graduate, have sex, when you marry, have children, when you die. She'll be there and she won't be there.” show less

How to Party With an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings is a highly recommended humorous, yet moving account of being a parent and a person.

Mele Bart is a single mom living in San Fransisco. After a few failed attempts at meeting other moms, she's managed to find a mother's support group where she fits in with the members. Her group joined the official San Francisco Mommy Club. Now SFMC is having a cookbook competition and Mele is filling out the entry form. Actually, the whole book is Mele show more filling out the form and telling corresponding stories about those in her support group while finding the perfect recipe based on the story shared. Mele is also trying to deal with her daughter Ellie's father, Bobby, and his upcoming wedding. He wants Ellie to be a flower girl.

Mele and her friends are dealing with their feelings of inadequacy and failure, so their stories reflect this fact. In between the story telling, Mele is very candid about her life and experiences, including those she's had with other SFMC groups and her ex. Interspersed in the entry form stories are excerpts from an online message board. Seriously, the mommy wars rage as people express their firm beliefs about one thing or another, while one member is wonderfully funny and satirical.

This is a great selection for anyone who can relate to Mele's search for like-minded moms:
"She smiles to herself, remembering those early days, when she was one of those friendless parents - the ones that smile too eagerly at other moms and apologize if their babies sneeze. The ones who use lame pickup lines like "I like your burp cloth" or "How do you like your Britax Roundabout?" Mele would hit up all the hot spots - Gymboree, Day One, Music Together, playgrounds, parks, and museums - hoping to meet someone. She’d see other mothers in groups, laughing on polka-dot throw mats and think: Where do I find them? And how do I act once I do?"

I found How to Party With an Infant a wonderfully entertaining light read, which I need every now and then. It is very well written and the stories are funny, poignant, touching, and hopeful. If you have ever struggled to find or fit in with a mommy group, you will understand Mele's situation. Or if you've ever experienced a part of the mommy wars, you'll find yourself laughing and commiserating with Mele. The fact that she found a group of such diverse individuals with stories that are sometimes raw and heartbreaking to share is heartening. Mele is very honest in what she writes for the cookbook entry, both in her feelings and observations and her friend's stories.

Disclosure: My advanced reading copy was courtesy of the publisher for review purposes. show less

Yes, I read this because Alexander Payne made a movie. But wow, so glad I did. I have read many books over the years that have a first-person narrator who is wigging out with anxiety over problems, real and perceived. Most of those narrators I have wanted to slap. The whining, the angst, the self-indulgence just rankles me (maybe because it hits so close to home). But Hemmings' Matt King has the perfect narrative voice. He has REAL problems and earns every second of his emotional turmoil. I show more also love that the plot is utterly believable. Things don't necessarily turn out as you might expect, but it's done so right, and the characters roll with the punches well enough that you absolutely have to go with them. Supporting characters, setting, thematic elements, all good, good, good. Even incidents that in other writers' hands might play as cheap gags felt to me like moments of "yeah, crud like that happens, doesn't it." She just gets it right. I hope my library has more of her books. Hemmings has earned my continued interest. -cg show less

The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings is a very highly recommended novel about a mother dealing with her grief.

Three months ago 43 year old Sarah St. John's 22 year old son, Cully, was killed in an avalanche. Set in Breckenridge, Colorado, where Sarah is a talk show host, she tries going back to work after a three month absences, but understands all too well that she may not be ready. She silently entreats "Please, give me strength. Strength to return, to get back to life. My plan is to show more move in seamlessly, drawing as little attention to myself as possible. I will reemerge wearing a figurative cap, similar to the one my twenty-two-year-old son wore, what the kids wear—a cap to hide their eyes, their face, a cap that says I’m here but I’m not here." (Location 88)

While Sarah and her father, Lyle, are trying to deal with their grief as much as they can, they chose opposing strategies. Lyle is coping through buying things off the Home Shopping Network while Sarah feels the need to cleanse her home, Cully's room. Her best friend, Suzanne, offers to help Sarah clean up and organize Cully's room, but she is also trying to cope with her own grief from her divorce and she thoughtlessly shares this, "The anger, the sadness, the letting go. We all go through these stages. Divorce is a kind of death, and... there are stages of grief. I find it comforting that we’re not alone. Big tragedies, small ones—” (Location 501)

Cully's father, Billy, is also trying to recover. Even though he and Sarah never married, they are friends. Sarah admits to him:
“It’s hard to talk to people. It’s hard to be with people. They really bother me now. People at work, friends, Miss Irony over there.”
“I don’t like people either,” he says. (Location 1299)

Sarah knows that one of the saddest parts about a death is being burdened by a lot of things our loved ones left behind. But all the time Sarah is trying to come to terms with Cully's death, she also begins to realize that she didn't actually know everything about her son's life anymore, especially when several baggies of pot and a large stash of cash is discovered. She also learns that Cully had a life quite apart from her and often called his father, Billy, just to talk. It seems that Cully shared things with Lyle and Billy that he didn't with Sarah.

While Suzanne's daughter, Morgan, plans a memorial service at the community college, Sarah and Lyle meet Kit, who also knew Cully, it seems that this family has much more to consider as they mourn the all-too-young loss of a loved one. Clearly Cully is grieved and mourned by many,

I love The Possibilities.

Hemmings did a marvelous job capturing the strong conflicting emotions during a tragedy of this magnitude. Her writing is superb and her ability to capture the raw emotions in the aftermath of tragic circumstances in a family who has no choice but to keep moving forward is commendable. There is poignant insight and a depth of understanding the grieving process present in the characters and their actions/words. This is also about the family moving on, finding their way in a world without Cully and has a few rather humorous moments too.

After suffering from two tragic deaths in my immediate family in under two months, I could understand Sarah's tortured emotions - her anger and sadness all mixed together. I am also experiencing the need to simplify, to get rid of stuff, to cleanse my life because you leave it all behind in the end. Grief is a fickle emotion; while it seems fathomless it can also take on a crass and greedy mantle. People can want a part of what might have been possible rather than looking at the possibilities in their own lives.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Simon & Schuster for review purposes. show less