Coming Up for Air

I dearly loved this book. It pulled at my heartstrings, made me teary-eyed, and left me hopeful. What more could I ask for?

Coming Up For Air is such an appropriate title for this book. It relates to an amazing phenomena that happens at the Summer House, and also to Ellie herself, stagnant in a suffocating marriage and desperate for air. It is the mystery she finds in her late mother's journal that is her catalyst. In uncovering her mother's secret life, those missing years in the early 1960s, and the impact they had on her, Ellie rediscovers herself.

This was a beautifully written novel about love lost and found again. About heartbreak and hope. With a well-drawn cast of characters and a magical setting, it was easy to be absorbed in the show more story. Keep the tissues handy. show less

Patti Callahan Henry is a new author to me but that won’t last for long because she’s already become a trusted friend. Her novel is a poignant and fragile story of love loss, love gained and what the brokenness of a heart does to a person’s perspective on life, whether they learn from that loss, wallow in it or close their heart to it. It’s one woman’s search for something she didn’t know she was looking for. It was a glimpse of the present and the future by looking to the past. Her narrative is a smooth placid lake with intermittent eddies and crashing waves that brought the sights, smells and scenes straight from her pages onto a view screen in my mind. Her dialogue is the poetry of the south and it resonated in me with show more every ya’ll and hey she said. Her characters though, those are the stars of her tale, her Ellie and Hutch demanded attention and I breathlessly waited to see what would happen, plus the mystery that was Ellie’s mother hooked me. It is a love story and yet it’s more, it’s a story of life and how the choices made effect it.
If you love the work of Karen White or Dorothea Benton Frank give this author a try and I believe like me you’ll come back for more.
Little did Ellie Calvin know that her mother’s death would be a catalyst to her finding secrets hid deep. That when her old love Hutch O’Brien contacts her for help with her mother’s part in his exhibit on Atlanta’s Women of the Year in the 60’s she’d learn that the woman she knew her mother to be was once someone very different. That when she opened the Pandora’s box that is her mother’s journal she would find between the pages a spirited and righteous woman who put herself smack dab in the middle of the civil rights movement in Alabama, she’d find a woman who had a secret love, one who wasn’t her father. And this was a mystery because Ellie has followed in her mother’s footsteps with her own methodical life, she used the doubt her mother planted about Hutch’s inappropriateness as a husband to turn in another direction. She didn’t know that working with Hutch would open up ancient wounds that never really closed. She didn’t know that digging around in her mother’s past would somehow dictate her future. But she’s about to discover not only who her mother was, but who she, Ellie, is as well. Ellie will have to make some decisions about what she wants from now on and some of those decisions will have irrevocable effects on those closest to her. She’ll wonder if trying her wings is worth the fall it may bring.
Please go to my blog for information about a special app the author is giving her readers and for a picture of the seedlings she sent me as a gift.
http://thereadingfrenzy.blogspot.com/2012/06/review-of-coming-up-for-air-by-patt... show less

"Coming Up for Air" by Patti Callahan Henry is a beautiful story about reconciling your past with your present. Ellie's mother Lillian has passed away, and while Ellie is taking care of, and sorting through, her belongings she comes across her mother's journal locked away from the eyes of the world. This discovery raises many questions for Ellie who, in order to find answers for them, decides to leave her home and husband in Atlanta to travel to Alabama to stay with her mother's best friend, Miss Birdie. In the meantime, Ellie's ex-boyfriend, and her first-love, surprises her by showing up at her mother's funeral - it turns out that he is doing a documentary on ten women and Lillian, Ellie's mother, is one of them.

So together Ellie and show more Hutch try and uncover the real Lillian, before she was a mother and a wife, who she really was. And in trying to uncover the mysteries of her mother's past, Ellie learns a lot about her own self, her marriage and her life. It is this journey within her own self, and coming to the conclusions that she does, that results in Ellie's "Coming Up For Air".

Patti Callahan Henry is indeed, as the blurb suggests, a tour de force. When I won this novel, and looking at it's cover, I thought it would be a sugary sweet, rot your teeth out sweet, kind of a novel. But I was pleasantly shocked to find out that it is nothing of the sort. Although author Patti Callahan Henry sure knows how to spin a romantic tale, she knows its place in the narrative, and never forces the romance beyond its bounds. Although, I must admit, this author definitely knows how to characterize the dynamics between different relationships. And although the narrative deals with the Civil Rights Movement, ethics and social inequities, it never ends up being preachy or tedious. I also love that this tale is set in the South - anywhere else, and this story may have fallen flat. I love the dialect, the way of life, and the tales/stories that emerge from the South - they have a culture of their own down there, and it is absolutely beautiful to read about.

All in all, "Coming Up For Air" really was like coming up for air for me. My past few reads have been really fast-paced thrillers. This books incorporates some mystery into its narrative and is very well-paced, but it is far more about the characters within the novel, than it is about the mystery to be uncovered. I loved being able to connect with Ellie on various levels, and at times with Lillian as well. This book was a breath of fresh air, and I am really looking forward to more by author Patti Callahan Henry. It's a beautifully written novel, and one I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading about family dynamics, family secrets, the Civil Rights Movement, or generally about "the South". Enjoy! :) show less

Coming Up for Air is a tale of unrealistic southern expectations of roles for women. Women are required to be beautiful, organized, socialable, agreeable, and acquiescent to parents and husbands.

Ellie loves her parents and her daughter Lil. But when her mother dies unexpectedly, she questions everything about her life. She discovers her mother's journal and is stunned by what she learns about her life in the early 60's.

Spending time at Summer House helps her reconnect with her mother's past, and with Hutch, her old boyfriend. This respite from her fraught marriage to Rusty gives her the time to process her life and consider her future.

Hard to comprehend how Ellie's mom could discourage her relationship with Hutch after her own show more experience with lost love.

Good quick read. show less

I received this book as a Goodreads First Reads! The first edition will be released in Sept. 2011.

Overall, I liked this book. It is chick lit through and through with a familiar theme of “dissatisfied” women in their marriages. Both mother and daughter cannot seem to let go of the past and “young love” and the fantasy (life would be so perfect if…) that goes along with it. In this area of their lives they both seemed silly and immature. The descriptions of Bayside, AL were beautiful and gave the book a wonderful, vacation like atmosphere. I especially enjoyed the description of Jubilee. It was a good summer read that moved along at a nice pace.

This is a story about choices, discovery and saving your own life. Her mother's sudden death sends Ellie on a journey to uncover a pivotal period in her mother's life and to reexamine her own. At age nine, Ellie re-wrote Cinderella - tired of waiting for her prince to come, she saves herself. Years later she finds her mother saved the drawing in her journal & rediscovers the story. It leads to a re-examining of her own life choices and how she wants to live the rest of her life. The author lets the story unfold without resorting to easy answers. A good read.

Bought for Myself
Overall Rating 4.25
Character Rating 4.25
Story Rating 4.25

NOTE: I admit I picked up this book because I met Patti Callahan Henry at a Book Signing. She was funny, genuine, and personable---all attributes that come across in her writing. It was a great venture outside my normal reading comforts!

What I Loved: This book was written for every daughter that isn't/wasn't/can't be sure they have/are/could live up the perceived expectations of their mothers. Even though this book is set in the south, I think everyone who has been a daughter and/or has a daughter could identify with the story. The most wonderful thing in Coming Up for Air is the connection formed through a few journal entries that Ellie finds in a journal that show more her mother Lillian kept. Even though there is only one entry a year (every New Years Eve), the story that unfolds is richly told and very emotional. Grab a hanky, you will need it at points. I don't want to give away any plot points but there are several interactions that tugged at my heart.

What I Liked: So many of the questions that Coming Up for Air asks are built to make you think! I don't think it was probably done on purpose but the story is a good catalyst for remembering to live your life fully and truly.

Complaints: None

Why I Gave it a 4.25: Contemporary Fiction is not something that general lands on my reading radar. I am glad that this book did because it was fantastically written. show less