The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon This is the second time I am reading this one to refresh my memory for a book club. It's also the second time I am featuring it in one of these blog entries, which I realized when I went to upload the pic of the book cover. I love this book. I love everything about it. It’s about a woman who is a midwife in a small Maine town, based on a true story, and she helps everyone with their medical issues. One of her friends is raped by 2 prominent men in town and Martha has to testify in court about it. But one of the rapists ends up murdered and her son is one of the suspects. It was an awesome story and all the facts of the story were based upon the real Martha Ballard’s daily diary entries. Martha Ballard is also the great aunt of Clara Barton.
The thing that made it different for me is discussing it in a book club. One of the things in the book is that Martha couldn't testify in the rape trial without either her husband or father present in the courtroom. Of course that's changed, but not by much. When you consider that rape victims need to collect other victims to strengthen their story, and the story of one woman getting raped by one man isn't enough evidence in the trial--like how they needed 60 some odd women to come forward when Bill Cosby was on trial. After all this time, why don't we fully believe women?
All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett This had a very modern day Jane Austen vibe to it. Anna is an American grad student studying in London. She tutors on the side and she’s just barely squeaking by. She gets a student from a very wealthy family. Then she gets invited to go with them to St. Tropez for the Christmas holidays so she can tutor the girl some more. Then she gets wrapped up in the trust fund elite friends of this family. She ends up hiding who she really is for the sake of fitting in with this circle of people and of course it all comes crashing down. It was fun to listen to this one, but I didn’t relate to this main character at all. Like, be who you are. You can hang out with rich people without having to be something you’re not and lie about who you are. If they were truly people that are worth hanging out with then they would accept you for you.
BJ Knapp is the author of Beside the Music, available for purchase here. Please sign up for the Backstage with BJ Knapp mailing list to get updates on events, signings, dog pictures and so much more.