The Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris

And that's the most bitter thing about love: you can't understand it, measure it — not all its edges and intricacies — until it's gone and the clear print of its negative self is left behind. 

~p. 12 of The Museum of Forgotten Memories (Advance Reader Copy - the final print version may be different)

In The Museum of Forgotten Memories by Anstey Harris, Cate Morris is still grieving the loss of her husband, four years past, and now she's lost her teaching job and her home. But, she has one last option. Her husband Richard was the heir to an estate with a museum full of treasures from around the world, including stuffed animals collected by his grandfather, Col. Lyons-Morris. For reasons he never explained, Richard stopped talking to his grandfather and never returned to their ancestral home; he even dropped part of his double-barreled last name. Although he never returned before his death, their son Leo has the right to take residence in the sprawling mansion. 

So, Cate and Leo pack up their flat in Islington and travel to the home that contains Hatter's Museum of the Wide Wide World, which is now run by a steely woman named Araminta Buchan and a handful of employees and volunteers. It's on its last legs. Within 6 weeks, it's likely that the board that oversees the running of the museum will close it. They would benefit from its liquidation and it's unlikely that funds will be found to prop it up. Can the museum be saved?

Leo looks just like his father but he has Down's Syndrome and Cate has clung to her parenting role. Now that Leo has arrived at his ancestral home, he's finding a new strength and determination. Will Cate be able to let go and allow Leo to grow and thrive, even possibly start a new life with someone else? 

Richard's best friend, Simon, dated Cate before she saw Richard and felt an immediate spark. He has been a kind presence as Leo's godfather and was a rock during the rough years of Richard's decline but spends most of his time out of the country. When Cate falls for a new man, will it last or will she be drawn back to her dear friend? 

Recommended - OK, first . . . you have to know half the reason I accepted this book for review was because of that stunning cover. How could you not want to know what's within its pages? In the preface, the author talks about the real museum in Kent that inspired the story and the kindness of the Major who preserved the animal specimens the museum was known for. I just added a new place to my bucket list. If it's at all like the fictional museum version, it must be worth the visit. 

As to the story, I had some minor issues with it that aren't worth mentioning and a problem with Cate's romance. The man she fell for moved on Cate faster than lightning. I was completely creeped out by the speed of his advances, to be honest, and never trusted him. Whether or not I was correct and he turned out to be trustworthy, I won't say. But, there are many surprises in The Museum of Forgotten Memories. It has a lot of plot twists that I never could have anticipated and only a couple that I managed to figure out with few enough hints that they were probably lucky guesses rather than a case of too much foreshadowing. 

I will say that I found it challenging to like Cate, at first. She was quick to make assumptions, a little haughty, and so heavily weighed down by her experiences that her inner monologue was a bit dark, sad, and judgmental. But, she was willing to confront her issues and apologized when she was wrong. So, she grew on me. And, while I haven't encountered many Down's Syndrome characters, it felt to me like Leo's character had the ring of truth. I had a friend in high school with a brother who had Down's and he always glowed when he spoke of his brother and how everyone loved him. Leo is like that; he has a temper yet he's also a charmer and everyone adores him. 

Obviously, there's a lot to this book. It has a surprising complexity and a gentle wisdom. And, I do love a book set in a sprawling English mansion. 

My thanks to Gallery Books for the review copy!

©2020 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.

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman is a young adult novel about a teenager who has an undefined mental illness (possibly a combination of illnesses). After his grades drop and he becomes paranoid, telling his father he thinks someone at school wants to kill him and then he acts strangely at school, as well, Caden is eventually hospitalized in a mental ward. There he meets other teenagers who have similar issues, sees a counselor and a psychiatrist, has his medications adjusted and readjusted, and learns to deal with an illness that can only be controlled, at best. 

While Challenger Deep is a young adult book it's not an easy read, emotionally speaking, since you're in the mind of a teenager who's had a break from reality. Sometimes he's hallucinating but the sights and voices are very real to him. 

I can see why this book is an award winner. After reading, I feel like I "get" what it must be like to experience both the illness and the fogginess that goes with having to take a cocktail of drugs to control it. It's clear why people dealing with severe mental illness have a problem with occasionally being non-compliant about taking their medication. 

Highly recommended - I had tears of relief streaming down my face when the main character, Caden, was finally able to leave the mental ward. A beautifully-written, engaging, distressing, fascinating book about what it's like to lose touch with reality and how it feels to be treated so you can get back to at least a tolerable life, if not a totally normal one. 

©2020 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.

When Elephants Fly by Nancy Richardson Fischer

In When Elephants Fly by Nancy Richardson Fischer, Lily Decker has a long-range plan. She's 18 and has entered the age during which people are most likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, a disease that has attacked the women in her family for at least 3 generations. Her mother had paranoid schizophrenia and tried to throw Lily off a roof to make her fly. Lily is still haunted by her mother's actions and the way her father watches over her doesn't help. For the next 12 years, Lily plans to keep her life calm, avoid drugs and alcohol, and have her best friend, Sawyer, regularly quiz her to see if she's showing signs of schizophrenia.

There's only one problem: life is becoming stressful. After getting an unpaid internship at the local newspaper and coming up with a "name the baby elephant" fundraiser for the zoo, Lily goes to interview the zookeeper. The baby elephant, Swift Jones, is attacked by her mother while Lily's there. Remembering her own mother's attack, Lily steps between the calf and her mother. She's fortunate not to get killed, but the incident and the article that ends up being published will complicate her life.

*****WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP DOWN TO WHERE I'VE DECLARED IT SAFE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR TOO MUCH ABOUT THE PLOT*****

Now not only the calf's life is in danger but her future, as well. Swifty, as Lily begins to call her, is the offspring of a zoo mother and a father who belongs to a privately-owned circus. Lily tries to keep her article about the interview generic to avoid bringing the danger to the attention of the public. But, when her article is substituted for another that tells the unvarnished truth about Swifty being attacked by her mother, the circus insists that Swifty must be flown from the zoo in Oregon to their home in Florida, where she will learn to perform.

Lily ends up going along and finds that the conditions are not good. Baby elephants are sensitive and it's hard enough to get Swifty to eat, now that she's been rejected by her mother. But, things get even worse in Florida. Will Lily be able to come up with a plan to save the elephant calf before it's too late? When the stress and fatigue begin to get to Lily and she starts to hear voices, is it just her imagination or is she beginning to have symptoms of schizophrenia? Is there anything she can do to stop it?

*****OKAY, IT'S SAFE NOW. YOU CAN UNCOVER YOUR EYES.*****

OK, hmm. I have a lot of thoughts about this book. First of all, I found it utterly compelling because of the idea of what it must be like to live with the fear that you might be hit by a hereditary mental illness. It has a bit of a horror story feel in the vein of Richard Matheson's short stories, where something begins to happen and the horror is in not being able to do anything at all about it. Lily has researched medications and seen the difference between her mother on meds and off -- she knows that medication carries its own risks. And, then there's the elephant's story. The two stories deliberately play off each other: elephant and teenager rejected by their mothers and attacked. But, the themes are kind of different. For Lily, the theme has to do with the importance of living her life, even with a threat hanging over her head. For Swifty, it's more a subject of endangered animals and how quickly elephants are being driven to extinction.

I had a few minor problems with the story but I found it engaging and thought-provoking enough to keep me reading.

Recommended - When Elephants Fly is moving and heartbreaking, thought-provoking, and meaningful. I really enjoyed the story and I particulary think it would make a great discussion book.  My biggest problem with it was a sagging middle, although there were some other elements that bothered me. Of those, the one that nagged at me the most was the idea that a person who didn't work for the zoo would even be allowed anywhere near the elephants, much less be able to get herself into a situation in which she could have been killed or (later) allowed to travel with the zoo staff. I also wondered about the mental illness aspect. Is it likely that a person would suddenly begin to have symptoms of schizophrenia after having a totally normal first 18 years of life or would she have potentially shown some signs earlier? That seemed somehow "off" to me and a psychologist who wrote a review at Goodreads had some interesting but harsh words to say about the book because she didn't think the psychological elements were quite right.

Having said all that, I also realize it's fiction and it's YA. Although accuracy is certainly preferable, the story might not work as well if the author hadn't taken a little creative license. Part of what keeps the story moving forward is that question about schizophrenia and the main character: "Will Lily be okay?" I think it would make an excellent choice for a mother-daughter or young adult book club. When Elephants Fly opens up an opportunity for discussion about both mental illness and the preservation of wildlife on our planet, both excellent topics.

©2018 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.