Far From You - Lisa Schroeder

Far From You
Lisa Schroeder
195 pages

Lost and alone...Down the rabbit hole.

Alice thought she knew
what solitude was:
Her mother—gone.
Her father—remarried with a newborn
daughter.
Now...
Trapped
in the icy embrace
of a deadly snowstorm,
Alice faces the true meaning of loneliness.

But hope
may not be as far away
as she thinks....


I enjoy the unique way Lisa Schroeder writes her stories in verse with tons of emotion and detail to what the character is feeling. I loved the character in this book, Alice. She was smart, different and was dealing with so many changes- her mother passing, her father remarrying, and a newborn baby sister. Meanwhile Alice was dealing with not having  her best friend, Claire, around.

Alice wants to keep her distance from the family she no longer feels apart of. When forced to go on a Holiday vacation to her new Step Mom's parents' she can't wait to get home and get back to Blaze, her boyfriend, and when her Dad has to leave the trip early for business, she begs to go with.

Tragically Victoria, Alice and Baby Ivy get stranded on back roads in a snow storm on their way home. Alice is forced to face Victoria and they bond over the tragedy... until days pass and no one rescues them from their icey prison. Running out of food, formula and heat.. Victoria ventures out to find help leaving Alice alone to care for Ivy..

Then ending is touching and Alice's realization to how she has been acting, regrets flood her thoughts, as she prays and hopes for the safety of her Step Mother, & Baby sister. The morals portrayed through this story are deep and well written. I love the tragedy and happiness of Lisa Schroeder's work.

Nice weekend read.

Crazy Love

Crazy Love A Memoir
Leslie Morgan Steiner
St. Martin's Press 2009
322 pages


I came across this book in an article I read In the April 2009 issue of glamour. The article was an Open Letter Rhianna written by the author Leslie Morgan Steiner in regards to Domestic Abuse. I ordered the book the next day and have finished it in awe to the events the memoir unfolds.

I struggled reading this book, it is just tragic to read the details of someone else's misfortune and you feel as though you are there with her through the brutal events as you turn the pages. She describes in great detail her ventures of New York, just graduated from Harvard and taking on a new career at Seventeen Magazine. Through the pages she weaves her childhood and upbringing into the story as she falls in love with a man named Conor. Their relationship feels so right and perfect, even when he shares with her that he was abused as a child, she vows to help him and never abandon him.

She doesn't rush to the horrific details of the crazy moments of abuse, but walks you through her journey of dating and then marrying a man who abused her and used her- breaking her down emotionally, physically, and financially. I found serenity in the moments she describes the Indian summers in the half renovated home they shared in Vermont, or the summer she spent away at an internship, the time she spent on campus at Business School and every moment she was able to escape Connor.

Every wave of emotion I felt with every changing event in this women's life. Through everything I couldn't help but cheer her on as she pulled herself out of this disaster, and stood strong despite the crazy Love she had for Connor.

This book is a good read for anyone, as Domestic Abuse can happen to anyone.
Here is the link also to her web page & Glamour article:

http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/2009/04/an-open-letter-to-rihanna
http://lesliemorgansteiner.com/