Sometimes I think I would be a much happier reader if I’d never been in a courtroom and never read a police report. I began my obsession with crime fiction when I was only 12 or so and began devouring every Agatha Christie novel in my tiny library. (For a tiny library, they had a massive Christie selection.)
These days you see less Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple types. Instead you see cops and lawyers and cops and lawyers. It’s the way it goes. I have no problem with that. I’ve watched plenty of Law & Order marathons. While sitting around the last few weeks, I watched the entire first season of Murder One on Hulu. (I have also declared my love for Prime Suspect, which I still insist is one of the best cop shows ever even with only 13 episodes.)
But it’s one thing to watch a tv show, where the plot has to be condensed into a short time period. It’s another to read a book. And this is where I start to get picky.
Image from goodreads
Give me a book like Defending Jacob by William Landay and I have two immediate reactions: excitement and fear. I love legal thrillers but I find so many of them lackluster. (So how do I love them? I don’t really know. I love them… hypothetically.) Every now and then I find one that impresses me. I like Steve Martini most of the time. And I was a fan of Missing Witness, which came out a few years ago.
So I have to admit that Defending Jacob may have been at a slight disadvantage having me as a reviewer.
Let’s get to the story.
Andy Barber is a career ADA in a nice suburb. He has a wife and a teenage son. Everything’s pretty nice… until a high school student is killed. And Andy’s son is charged with the murder.
The ADA in him wants to get involved and solve the case, but he can’t be a part of the investigation. He also wants to defend his son, whom he believes is innocent. As Andy finds himself on the side of the accused instead of the accuser he struggles to decide how best to defend his son and clear his name. While Andy believes his son didn’t kill anyone, he is confronted by doubts and his own past, including a family secret he’s kept from everyone he loves.
There are certainly strong reminders of classic legal thriller Presumed Innocent by the daddy of legal thrillers, Scott Turow. Author Landay has certainly learned a thing or two from the master. Andy struggles with a host of legal and ethical issues. The plot is full of twists and turns.
So how does it measure up to a lawyer like me?
The courtroom scenes are excellent. The story is narrated in flashback through grand jury testimony and these scenes crackle with tension. Landay should be proud. He didn’t shortchange the courtroom scenes, he writes believable witness examinations, and the process all felt real. You can tell he knows what he’s writing about. (Unsurprisingly, Landay was an ADA himself before he turned to novels.)
Nevertheless I can’t give Defending Jacob a free pass. While the procedure is top notch, I found the characterization lacking. I tend to think that with decades of experience with the law, Andy is smart enough to know where to draw the line. But I often found his actions and responses unbelievable. He seemed to disregard everything he knew. I understand that when family is involved everyone can get a little crazy. As Andy is the 1st person narrator, I never felt convinced that his actions made sense.
I do seem to be in the minority. At least as far as the advance reviews go, Defending Jacob is picking up a lot of praise and buzz. I certainly can say I recommend it, it’s definitely a readable and well done legal thriller. (And, the ending does NOT disappoint, which is a big deal.) I’ve read enough books to know that my kind of quibble is one that’s personal and that many people won’t share.
So if you do enjoy a good courtroom thriller you should be on the lookout for Defending Jacob.
Thanks to Delacorte Press and Edelweiss for providing me with an advanced copy of Defending Jacob. And thanks to some lovely librarians on Twitter who recommended it. The novel will be released on Tuesday, January 31st.
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A few months ago our lead therapist was transferred off the Bug’s case and replaced by a new one. Our new therapist told us he’d seen our old one recently and the first thing she asked was, “How’s he doing with food?”
Not a surprising question. But I bet she was surprised by our new therapist’s reaction, he seemed kind of puzzled. “He’s doing great!” We’ve reached some big milestones lately and I thought we’d cover how we got here.
Eating can be an issue with any toddler, so I don’t think this is isolated to autistic kids. The kid who eats anything and then nothing is an age-old tale. (My brother only ate peanut butter sandwiches or spaghetti with clam sauce for most of his childhood.)
At 12 months the Bug was a reliable eater of solids. He ate pretty much anything, including my Mexican Casserole. He got lots of veggies, especially zucchini and carrots. And he already had his abiding love for raisins. It stayed that way for a while.
Around 17 months this changed. A lot. The Bug became a grazer.
There were two major contributors. First, the Bug became very picky and wouldn’t eat many foods he would have accepted before. I don’t know why this happened, but it did. Second, we ran into some serious communication problems.
It was around this time that I started worrying about the Bug’s communication, which ultimately led to his autism diagnosis a couple months later. The Bug began to get picky and wanted specific things to eat. But he had no way of letting me know. He wasn’t yet pointing. He wasn’t talking. He would stand at the gate to the kitchen and get more and more upset as I tried to find what he wanted.
It was brutal for both of us. I compensated by putting out little bowls of almost everything. I couldn’t give him raisins all day (which is probably what he wanted) but he had no way of understanding when I told him ” no more raisins.” For several months, much of my day consisted of ever-escalating crying and screaming from the Bug as I helplessly tried to meet his requests.
Eventually we began introducing some new foods and saw a little improvement. Cereal, crackers and frozen go-gurts became staples. But mostly we continued to work around his temper.
When therapy started, there was a heavy focus on communication. Once the groundwork was set, we focused on responding positively to his requests. If he asked for food, he got it. Sometimes he would ask for something particular. Sometimes he’d go into the kitchen and point. So he was still a grazer, eating what he wanted when he felt like it. But he was eating something and he wasn’t as upset. We took it as a win.
Around the time Graham turned 2, we focused on having him eat one or two bites of one food before he could get another food he liked better. It didn’t go too badly, but we found out from the pediatrician that Graham was underweight. I had a few explanations for this. Graham had stopped drinking whole milk and mostly requested water when summer came. Plus he would sometimes forget about eating all together when he was caught up in play. So we went back to his grazing style, though we started to incorporate more foods to try and made sure he was getting plenty to eat.
One thing I did that made a lot of the communication-focus period easier was finding foods I could feed the Bug quickly once he asked for them. Fruit was great (apples, bananas) so are the fruit/veggie pouches. Granola bars. Cereal. Cottage Cheese. Applesauce. Frozen waffles. Frozen chicken. Brown rice. Anything microwaveable had to be ready in less than a minute. It made the system a lot easier when he got his request met quickly.
As time passed, this became less urgent. I started giving him pasta, which he had to wait for while it cooked. He didn’t like waiting, but waiting was one of his programs in therapy so it was a word he understood. He started to understand the concept of getting food “hot.”
Finally we found ourselves with a Bug who was back at a healthy weight and who could request any of his foods. It took several months but now he specifies what granola bar he wants by the color wrapper. (Orange for peanut butter, purple for oatmeal raisin, etc.) He knows an orange must be peeled. He will request some foods hot.
So what was the next challenge?
Now that we’d overcome communication and made food something the Bug knew he could access, it was time to add structure.
My new attempts started last week. I was a little ambitious and decided to add 2 things at once.
First, I wanted to get vegetables back into his repertoire. Every couple months I try and fail, but this time I felt like we have the vocabulary to talk it through. I also suspected he’d eat more than he let on. Another advantage of his time in daycare this fall was that I saw what he ate every day and got good reports that he’d eat his food. I suspected he avoided new foods in part because he was at home where he knew he could get what he wanted.
Second, I wanted to institute more formal meal and snack times. Therapy is often interrupted by Graham’s requests for food, so I decided he would now have Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. And a snack in the morning and afternoon. There are already meal time pictures for his visual schedule so it was easy to get that started.
When it’s meal time I call the meal by name. Sometimes I choose items for him, sometimes we talk about what he wants. If he’s getting a treat I let him choose it. Or if it’s a granola bar or cereal he can choose which kind. At meals I serve him two or more items and a drink. The biggest challenge right now is trying to contain mealtime within 30 minutes. He is constantly up and about.
I’m hopeful that as he gets more used to it that we will move meals to the dining room (right now he does them at the table in the living room where he does therapy). The eventual goal is to have him eat dinner with us when possible. That would be a great improvement over now, when we can never eat until the Bug’s gone to bed.
As for veggies, I started simple with green beans, peas, corn and carrots. For ease and simplicity I’m using canned for now. At our first attempt, I used green beans and the Bug eyed them warily. He ate all of his chicken but couldn’t be bothered to touch the beans. I told him he could have his “treat” (I believe it was one of his granola bars) if he ate one bean.
The Bug is quite the actor and he did a good job of picking up a bean, inspecting it, putting it down, putting a bean on a fork, moving it toward his face, putting it in his mouth, and then pulling it right back out. But eventually he ate the bean. And then he ate all the rest. As I suspected, it was all about the first step.
Since then he has requested veggies at lunch in addition to having them at dinner. We’ve been successful with all 4 veggies. Our one hiccup was when I gave him peas & carrots, which he finds disturbing for reasons I can’t discern as he likes both peas and carrots. (Perhaps he will be one of those my-foods-can’t-touch kids?)
So far it’s been a great success despite a couple bumps in the road. I’ve ordered a booster seat so Graham can sit at the dining room table (once we actually set it up…. that’s another story) and I’m planning to continue to expand his palate.
What I’d love to hear from you is how you got your picky toddlers to turn back into normal food-eating kids. In particular the Bug needs more protein in his diet and I’m curious about which meats or beans I should introduce him to and how to do it. I still rely heavily on foods that take minimal preparation and plan to keep it that way for a while so I don’t mess with a good thing. Perhaps one of those microwave-egg things? He used to eat lots of scrambled eggs but hasn’t taken to them lately.
Any tips you can share about getting your toddler to eat meals or new foods?
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Cross-posted with Very Slow Cooker.
There are lots of things that are quintessentially Boston. The Freedom Trail. Harvard Square. Southie. But on Sunday I had a brunch that was about as Boston as you can get.
Here’s what I saw when I stepped out of my car.
That would be Fenway. (I didn’t have to tell you that, right?)
Sitting down to an Irish Breakfast at a pub right across the street from Fenway made me feel about as Bostonian as I can get.
This was another fabulous outing with the Boston Brunchers, this time our destination was the Lansdowne Pub. This isn’t one of those tiny Irish pubs where everyone is jammed close together. This place has plenty of room and plenty of ambience.
My blurry phone pics obviously don’t do it justice. But you can tell it’s a great place to party after a Red Sox game. What you may not have known is that it’s a great place for a weekend brunch. Who would’ve thought?
The Lansdowne opens at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday so you can pre-game there. Or stop in before you hit Newbury Street.
Pubs can be great fun. And they’re usually reliable for great drinks. The question for many of us is, how’s the food?
I’m pleased to answer that it is spectacular.
Our group tried several different breakfast items. The Pancakes with Strawberries and Bailey’s Whipped Cream made an appearance. There were several diehard fans of an Irish Breakfast. As for me, I had a tough time making up my mind. I usually prefer savory brunch dishes, but lately I’ve had a bit of a sweet tooth. I gave serious consideration to the Stuffed French Toast with chocolate and bananas. But in the end I went savory and chose the Lansdowne Pie.
Once again, my terrible camera photo does NOT do it justice. The pie had a nice crust and then was layered like I’ve never seen. Eggs, potatoes, Irish ham, cheese, spinach and onions. On the top was a tasty cheesy crust. It didn’t fall apart when I took a bite, it was one well-built pie.
I often order omelets because I love eggs with other tasty stuff. But this pie was far more satisfying than an omelet. Something about baking all these things together had it moist and creamy and the flavors all blending together. It was creamier and more delectable than a quiche, even if it was a kind of similar idea. The egg held everything together and tasted great without dominating the dish.
It came with a good size order of home fries, which are one of those sides that either shine or fail miserably. Mine had the perfect amount of onions and peppers with them so I just dabbed them in a teensy bit of ketchup instead of having to smother them to make up for lackluster taste.
Like any good brunch there were a variety of drink specials. They had your trusty mimosa and Bloody Mary. But the Brunchers ordered lots of their coffee drinks, with names like Liquid Caramel Coffee and Muddy River. I, of course, could not imbibe and looked on with envy. Everyone seemed VERY pleased with their drinks.
I would be more than happy to return. In fact, I’d kind of like to do a Lansdowne Pub brunch and a Fenway tour, something I still haven’t done. (In the winter, tours run on the hour from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) Kenmore Station on the Green B, C and D lines is just a couple blocks away. And in the morning I found parking easy to come by.
I don’t know that this makes me Boston Irish, but I sure did feel like it for a little while.
Thanks to the Boston Brunchers and to Lansdowne Pub for providing our group with a complimentary brunch item of our choice. A review was not required, all opinions are my own.
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There are a couple books I tend to be more likely to recommend than others. There are a small number that I think virtually anyone will read and love. I try to pick books people may not have heard about.
One of these books, perhaps the one I recommend most often, is gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson. It is so full of Southern-fried charm, quirky characters and a killer mystery plot that I don’t see how anyone could read it and not love it.
gods is her first novel, but now she’s on her fifth, A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty, and I follow her and take pride in her the way I would one of my closest friends. So we haven’t ever actually met. But I read her blog faithfully. (I would tell you to read her blog, but then you will see how constantly witty and funny she is and YOU will want to be her BFF and you will find a way to steal her from me and then I would hate you forever.) After I read another of her books I loved, The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, I sent her a fangirly email and she sent me a very nice thank you response. So obviously we are besties, no? (Yes. Obviously.)
Now before you think I’m completely biased in my review, I will admit that while I have my favorites of her novels, I have not-as-much-favorites, too. I liked Between, Georgia but found it a bit too twee for my liking. And I didn’t actually finish Backseat Saints because it and I just weren’t getting along. We respected each other and all, but we are not meant to be friends. So I went into AGUKOP with high hopes but knowing we weren’t necessarily destined for each other.
Image from Goodreads
Turns out, it’s her best book yet. It has the darkness of her last couple novels, a willingness to get into real sadness and pain. It has the brightness of her voice, full of spirit. It is, of course, fantastically plotted. And it contains, of course, wonderful, full characters. More than anything, though, I think her writing here is spectacular.
Jackson’s books are all related to one another. They’re all spread throughout the South. They follow gutsy and willful women through missteps and hard times and love. Still, I would never classify them as “chick lit.” They are not fluffy, even if their covers are sweet like sugar. I’d say they’re more like molasses: distinctive, strangely sweet, rich and darkly warm.
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty is about 3 generations of women: Big, Liza and Mosey Slocumb. Every 15 years they’re cursed. Big was 15 when she had Liza. Liza was 15 when she had Mosey. And now another 15th year has come. So far Mosey is safely out of trouble, but they’ve already been stricken with tragedy when Liza had a stroke. And now everything will get more dangerous when a mysterious box is unearthed in the backyard.
The three women are all quite different. Big was a good girl who made one big mistake and then worked as hard as she could to make up for it. Liza was a wild child who ran off shortly after Mosey was born, only to return later in need of rehab from drugs, alcohol and men. Mosey is their pet who loves them both but is struggling to find her own identity.
All three of them find themselves reeling. Big struggles to keep her family together. Liza has more secrets to explain but doesn’t have the words to say them. And Mosey finds herself careening towards the kind of mistakes her mother and grandmother have made before her.
While I have tried to make it clear that there’s plenty of darkness in Jackson’s novels, I also want to be clear that they are a JOY to read. This is the kind of book I stay up too late reading. It propels you along but not so quickly that you can’t get to know the characters.
Once again, I feel like I’ve found a book I can recommend to nearly anyone. If you like chick-lit, I know you’ll like it. If you avoid chick-lit like the plague (as I do), you’ll like it. When a book is just plain good, one needn’t worry about such silly things as genre or whether the cover has a pretty picture.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go tweet this post so that my bestie Joss will see it.
Thanks to Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for giving me an advanced e-galley of the book. A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty comes out Tuesday, January 24th and should be available in bookstores everywhere. As part of her book tour, you can get signed first editions from The Alabama Booksmith of this or any of Joshilyn’s books.
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In the first half of 2011 I waxed eloquent on how much I loved my book club.
Then I promptly stopped going.
It wasn’t for any one reason. Sometimes the scheduling was bad. I tend to avoid meetings where we do poetry or Shakespeare readings. (Fun in theory, but I can’t get away often and I want to get a book under my belt if I make the time.) And sometimes I’d already read the book or didn’t want to read it.
Add in the fact that they meet around once a month and all of a sudden I haven’t gone since… June.
The last time I was at book club I had a conversation with a few people about kids. (Virtually none of the people in my book club have kids. Some are too young. Some are childless by choice. Some are retired with children long out of the house. I am a bit of an odd duck in my group.) I told them that we SO weren’t ready to have another kid yet.
I was already pregnant… I wouldn’t find out for another week. Whoops!
Anyway. So I got my email for the next book club meetup as I always do. And as fate would have it, it was one of the meetings where I couldn’t say no.
They are reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. That book has been sitting on my bookshelf for over a decade, waiting for me to finally read it. (Seriously. It still has its BYU Bookstore price tag on the back.) I’ve started a couple times but never finished.
I feel I owe it to Dickens because as it currently stands I have read 2 of his novels. (Yeah, yeah, shame on me.) I loved A Tale of Two Cities. I despised David Copperfield. When presented with this conundrum, Dickens fans assure me that I should try Great Expectations. I will like it, they say. I am more than willing to give Dickens another shot, but it’s definitely the kind of prospect that takes motivation. And here is my book club motivating me.
So I guess I finally have to take a little break from going through library books and advance copies so that I can devote my energies to finally getting Great Expectations off my list of literary sins of omission. If I dislike it, I will feel validated in parting ways with Dickens and saying the two of us just aren’t a good fit. (Of course, if I like it I will feel obligated to find more Dickens… eventually… like in another decade.)
Still, though I’ll probably grudgingly go through the book, I am determined to finish it. It’s my first challenge-book of the year. And I love that my book club is motivating me. And that I will get to go to a meeting again. Of course, they might be just a teensy bit surprised by the giant belly. (Our meetup is 2 weeks before my due date.)
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Twitter is a great equalizer. You can @ anyone. They can ignore you or block you, but you can basically have open access to anyone.
My favorites have been tweets from authors. You may have noticed that I get just a touch giddy about them.
I had a whole conversation with Chris Bohjalian (author of the awesomely spooky book The Night Strangers, which I have reviewed) after I realized I’d been confusing him with Michael Ondaatje (author of The Cat’s Table, which I have NOT reviewed and now feel bad about because it’s a Tournament book now.)
Having a little chat with a New York Times Bestselling author is one of the joys of Twitter.
One of my greatest triumphs was getting a tweet from Colson Whitehead, who isn’t just a great author but a supremely amazing tweeter. Remember when I was reading his new book Zone One about zombies while recovering from the flu?
@colsonwhitehead I am stuck in bed with a terrible stomach bug and I’m about to start reading Zone One. Is this a very bad idea?
@jessicaesquire
Jessica
And he RESPONDED! Complete with his dry wit!
That was a pretty impressive one.
Lately I’ve been making fangirl tweets at Joshilyn Jackson, whose new book A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty I will be reviewing this week. (And it will be a glowing review.) I always feel like Joshilyn and I are friends because I’ve read her blog for years and almost got to meet her many times in Atlanta. But the thing is we’re not really friends, she doesn’t read my blog, and I never actually did meet her.
But she tweeted me the other day! All my swooning tweets must have made an impression!
The only problem with this tweet is it wasn’t specifically replied to one of mine. I can’t find my older swooning tweets, so I assume she was replying to a tweet I’d made a few minutes before while looking at pictures of the Golden Globes red carpet: Glenn Close is 64. Surely she must drink the blood of babies to look this amazing.
Otherwise… congrats to me and good bones??
Anyway.
This is all a lead-up to my most impressive Twitter conversation yet.
Behold:
Packing for Sundance re: Payback doc @zeitgeistfilms @MongrelMedia @thenfb: What to wear? If “casual chic” I’m lost. Think pink, pack black?
@MargaretAtwood
Margaret E. Atwood
@margaretatwood All anyone wears at Sundance are furry boots and puffy jackets.
@jessicaesquire
Jessica
@jessicaesquire: Thanks re: Sundance wardrobe hints. Anything other than funny boots + puffy jackets? (Such as pants?) Just want to Conform.
@MargaretAtwood
Margaret E. Atwood
@jessicaesquire: For “funny boots” read “furry boots.” H’mm. Are mine furry enough, I wonder?
@MargaretAtwood
Margaret E. Atwood
@margaretatwood I never looked at their pants! I think these days the kids are all about the skinny jeans.
@jessicaesquire
Jessica
You guys, I gave Margaret Atwood fashion advice? (Which she might not trust if she actually saw what I’m wearing right now.)
And I was so twitterpated that she responded that I totally missed the obvious no-pants joke.
I had semi-comedic banter with Margaret Atwood!
I mean, how many authors of a higher caliber exist… not to mention being on Twitter??
I was just a little giddy.
Uh, you guys. MARGARET ATWOOD JUST TWEETED ME. I think this is the part where I die happy, yes?
@jessicaesquire
Jessica
I have no idea where I should set my sights next! Graham Greene is dead, and even if he were alive I don’t think he’s the Twitter type. But seriously, what more can I ask for? I had a semi-conversation with a Booker-prize winner who happens to have written some of my very favorite novels. I guess the only bridge left to cross is to see if I can get Salman Rushdie. (He did win the Booker of Bookers… so you know.)
Do not worry, though, I have no delusions of grandeur. I do not seek to be Twitter-famous (which isn’t really famous) but since I don’t make it out to many book signings these days, this is a perfect way to soothe my book-nerdy ego.
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About Me
Jess is a procrastinator, a former working mom who is suddenly staying at home, a Dr-Dr's wife, a non-practicing lawyer, an Autism Mom, a devoted reader, a penny pincher, a coupon clipper, a new New England-er, a low-key agnostic, a nice girl, a top-notch speller, a hardcore blogger and a Twitter fiend.
The blog covers everything from coupon tips to Autism support to adorable toddler pictures to hilarious tales of my daily grind with the occasional review & giveaway thrown in for good measure.
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