Invisible as Air by Zoe Fishman

Either he did this all the time or he would make a one-time exception for a friend; she didn't care. She just wanted the pills. So badly. 

Just these few hours without them in her system, her world was too much. Edges were sharper, the sun was hotter, her unresolved emotions too present. Sylvie much preferred the alternative. She would do what she had to do. 

~ fr. p. 252 of Advance Reader Copy, Invisible as Air


Teddy stopped eating, his stomach suddenly full. His parents didn't so much argue when they argued; his mom just lobbed firecrackers while his dad retaliated with water balloons. 

~ fr. p. 260 of ARC


In Invisible as Air, Sylvie has been privately grieving her stillborn daughter for 3 years but she has been unwilling to even say Delilah's name aloud. She's become distant and snappish. Her husband, Paul, has channeled his grief in a different way, exercising vigorously and becoming a shopaholic. He's purchased so much unneeded exercise equipment that credit card debt has become a problem. Their son Teddy is on the cusp of turning 13 and Sylvie is nervous about planning his bar mitzvah while dealing with work, the PTA, homemaking, and a homebound husband who has broken an ankle in a biking accident.

As a newish health nut, Paul has decided to battle through the pain of his broken ankle rather than taking the prescribed painkillers and one day Sylvie decides to take one of his pills. Just this once, she'd like to feel a little lighter. The pill makes her feel relaxed, happy, and less stressed. It even makes her kinder to the people around her. So, she starts taking one a day and then two. It doesn't take long before she's hiding the pills and then stealing to keep from having to stop taking them. While she's sinking into addiction and spiraling out of control, her new attitude actually seems to be a good thing from Paul's perspective. But, when Sylvie can no longer bear the thought of doing without the pills, can she stop taking them? Or, will her family find out and intervene?

Recommended - Unputdownable. at least for this reader. An easy read with great flow, nicely paced, which is told from three separate points-of-view: those of Sylvie, Paul, and Teddy. While I was slightly surprised by some errors (bearing in mind that I have an Advance Reader Copy) that I tend to think of as typical of newer writers, which Zoe Fishman is not, they were blips. I just had to know what was going to happen with Sylvie and stayed up way too late finishing the book. There's also one possible research flaw that I consider significant. But, again, because I found Invisible as Air so gripping, I only knocked off a point for the things I found questionable.

I think it's worth adding that Invisible as Air could be triggering for anyone who has lost a child to stillbirth as it really digs into the lasting grief felt by each of the family members and how they responded to it.

I received a copy of Invisible as Air from HarperCollins in exchange for my unbiased review. The paperback has some extra features: a conversation with the author, reading group guide, and information about other books by the author. My thanks to HarperCollins!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

In Pain by Travis Rieder

First the simple description, which I wrote immediately after closing In Pain by Travis Rieder:

A fascinating memoir and exploration of how we mishandle pain management in America.


And, now a deeper description:

In Pain is part memoir, part analysis. The memoir portion is the story of author Travis Rieder's personal experience with opioids after his foot was crushed and degloved (the skin almost entirely removed) in a motorcycle accident. His injury was so severe that he had to be heavily medicated to cope with the pain. But, he had one doctor who was a bit conservative about medicating him and another who came up with a non-opioid solution to cover the time between doses when he got "behind" the pain and was in agony for an hour or two while he waited for the next opioid dose.

After the surgeries, Rieder was on a heavy regimen of regular painkillers and he thought he was doing pretty well until one of his doctors disagreed. He shouldn't need that much pain medicine, anymore. But, out of all of the doctors he'd dealt with (including the one who helped him manage his dosages in the first place) not a single one was willing to work with him on tapering off his opioid medication so that he could learn to live with minor pain and the least pain medication possible. Not even a pain management clinic would take him. And, he wasn't an addict so he didn't technically belong in rehab. One doctor made a "tapering" recommendation that shocked me. I wasn't surprised when Rieder, upon following his advice, went through a miserable withdrawal. What surprised me was that he didn't slow it down. Instead of cutting out an entire dose every 4 hours (that's an example; I didn't write down the specific details), maybe he could cut out half a dose twice a day?

At any rate, Rieder was dependent upon the opioid medication he took but not addicted. And, here is where the meat of the book lies. What's the difference between dependence and addiction? Who is responsible for helping people who are dependent on to drugs taper off of them as safely and easily as possible? Why don't doctors seem to know anything about how to safely dispense or taper opioids? And, what can be done to keep people from literally dying by the thousands during the opioid epidemic? Is there a way to prevent needle-borne disease and accidental overdose? Is there a way to keep people in chronic pain from getting entirely cut off from painkillers and ending up in such agony that suicide seems the only solution?

Because Rieder is a bio-ethicist and works with doctors, there was actually no reason at all that he should have had to go through the horror of withdrawal without help. He had friends he could have turned to. But, Rieder mentions, because we think of addicts as people without will, he was ashamed of his dependence and it didn't even occur to him to reach out. Imagine what it must be like for people without the resources he could have called upon.

Highly recommended - I'm going to hand this book to my doctor, the next time I see him, and may even buy a copy or two to pass around. I am so impressed. The author mentions ideas that challenge our strict, puritan thought process. Needle exchange programs to keep people from getting HIV, for example, often make Christians cringe. "We're encouraging drug use!" they say. Rieder disagrees. If they're going to use needles anyway, why not make doing so safe? Non-opioid medicines that work equally well or sometimes even better than opioids (depending on the kind of pain) are withheld by hospitals because they cost more — opioids are cheap. Why allow hospitals to refuse the use of a medication merely because it will affect their bottom line?

Doctors need more training on how and when to dispense pain medication and how to taper people off of it. There's more. I'm babbling because I think In Pain is such an important book. He also talks about the fact that the worst of the opioid crisis has actually passed, and yet legislators are writing panic legislation that punishes people who actually need regular pain medication ("legacy" patients) for long-term conditions. This is true where I live. It ties the hands of the prescribing physician, threatening them with losing their license if they go over draconian prescribing guidelines.

I received a copy of In Pain from HarperCollins in return for my unbiased review. If I could, I'd pass it out to every doctor in the country; at the moment it's a new release and a bit on the expensive side, but I will at least buy one copy to pass around and hope it comes back to me. Know any billionaires in need of a mission? I've got one for them. My thanks to HarperCollins!



©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

Amy and her best friend Charlotte are preparing for the neighborhood book group when a stranger, the current occupant of the rental home down the street, barges in and takes over, sweeping up the women into a game in which they confess their dirtiest deeds. But, Amy has worked hard to bury her secrets and create a calm, ordinary life with her husband, a stepdaughter, and a baby boy.

Roux is beautiful but sinister. Amy is suspicious of her from the moment she walks in the door. And, she's right to be nervous. When Roux brings up one of Amy's two darkest secrets and tells her what she wants, though, Amy is not going to fold over like Roux's usual targets. Roux has no idea what she's gotten into. Because Amy is willing to play her game. And, she means to win.

I'm going to stop right here and tell you that I'm giving away next to nothing because I think it's best to go into Never Have I Ever knowing as little as possible so that you can enjoy the unfolding plot as much as I did. The only thing you really need to know is that Never Have I Ever is a fantastic read.

Highly recommended - Absolutely captivating! Never Have I Ever is next-level writing for Joshilyn Jackson, in my humble opinion. Not so much cat and mouse as two cats circling each other with their tales fluffed. Which will pounce? Who will flinch You are always aware, as you're reading, that either woman could win. Roux has clearly targeted people before. But, Amy is no ingenue. She has lived through the pain of knowing what she did wrong in the past; and, she's both tough and wily. A new favorite.

I received an ARC of Never Have I Ever from HarperCollins in exchange for an unbiased review (and without anticipation of the sleep it would steal). Many thanks!


©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Learning to See by Elise Hooper

Learning to See by Elise Hooper is a novelization of Dorothea Lange's life story. For those who aren't familiar with her, Dorothea Lange was a photographer who is probably best known for her Depression-era photographs, particularly "Migrant Mother".

Dorothea's story begins with a crime. She is 22 and has traveled to San Francisco intending to go on to Hawaii with her friend, Fronsie. But, then Fronsie discovers their money has been stolen and they realize they can go no further. Fronsie easily finds a job but Dorothea has to be a bit more clever finding work. With a leg damaged by polio and many employers unwilling to hire a "cripple", she has to pretend she has a minor injury to get a job. Later on, with experience working in a photography studio back East and money from her work locally, she starts her own studio and quickly builds a business photographing wealthy clientele.

This is the beginning of Dorothea's story and I realized, as I was reading it, that I knew little to nothing about her. I knew she was among the photographers hired to document the Depression, but that was about it. Learning to See illuminates her journey from portrait photographer to documentary photographer recording human struggle and how it affected her marriages and her children. If you're interested in photography, as I am, you may be slightly disappointed by the lack of technical description. There is pretty much none. Learning to See is about Dorothea's burning desire to bring light to human suffering, her need to keep moving and working, her hardships and triumphs. It's less about the photography than the photographer and her subject matter.

Recommended but not a favorite - Learning to See is great primarily for the examination of Dorothea Lange's life. I've admired Lange's photography and have seen "Migrant Mother" and other Depression-era photographs by Lange in various books for as long as I can remember, so I enjoyed learning about her. There was something about the book that kept it from being a favorite, though, and I can only describe it as feeling somewhat flat -- perhaps the dialogue didn't ring true to me or I didn't sense a depth of emotion? I'm not even certain I know what it was about the book that I didn't love. But, it was never anything that made me consider setting the book aside. I was enjoying learning about her life too much. I knew so little about Lange that I didn't even realize Lange was not her real name but her mother's maiden name.

Dorothea Lange hung out with other artists and photographers and was married to an artist, so I spent some time looking up the artwork and photography of her acquaintances during the reading. That may have been one of my favorite things about the book, finding artists and photographers who were new to me. The book appears to have been very, very thoroughly researched. At times, I bristled against certain aspects of her life and realized that I didn't want them to be true. Did she really think this, do that? I don't doubt that she did. One of the hazards of learning more about one of your minor heroes is that they always turn out to be human.

I received a copy of Learning to See from HarperCollins in exchange for my review. Many thanks!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.