Run, Don’t Walk: The Curious and Chaotic Life of a Physical Therapist Inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center, by Adele Levine *****

Posted on June 12, 2014 by seattlebookmama

I loved this memoir. It came out in May, and you should get a copy. You don’t have to be even slightly interested in reading about physical therapy to enjoy this book. It is a stellar memoir, entertaining and informational in a way that everyone can access and enjoy.

I got my copy through the First Reads program on Goodreads.com. All that means these days is that I screened it before applying for a copy. I have a steady stream of free books coming in the mail, the wonderful symbiosis of retired-teacher-who-likes-free-books-and-writing versus publishing-houses-that-don’t-want-to-pay-for-a-review. I have become fairly persnickety about what I’m willing to read and review–because to my way of thinking, it is not fair to accept the free book and not finish or review it, and I don’t want to poison the well by asking for something I already suspect is not well written or that I may not be entertained or fulfilled by reading. So the publisher chose me, but first, I chose Levine’s book.

I’ve been through physical therapy for things like whiplash from car accidents (yes, some folks really do get whiplash), but nothing like the scale experienced by the veterans and soldiers that Levine treats. And so the first sign of expertise is in the title (where she wisely excluded any reference to amputations), and the fact that it was dropped into the “humor” section of the Goodreads.com giveaways.

Ask yourself: is there a tasteful way to laugh about amputations and amputees, as well as the people who work with and/or visit them?

Amazingly, there is. She’s found it. And at first I could not accept that this was Levine’s first book, because the amount of synthesis and development of characters is not in any way rookie work, and I don’t care how brilliant the writer might be. The book says “experienced writer”. Everything clicked into place when I read that she had been writing a weekly humor column (though what kind of over-achiever can work the hours she works, maintain a relationship, indulge in extreme sorts of physical exercise, write a column, and eventually even become a parent, is beyond me).

Sometimes people write a first book and they get insecure. They pass out free copies to friends and relatives and beg them to get on various readers’ sites and post glowing reviews. So I will prove to you (assuming you are not someone who has read any of my other 500+ reviews) that I am not one of them. I FOUND A FLAW in the book! I did! Here it is:

Levine claims to own only two pieces of furniture during the time frame about which she writes. She has a futon sofa and a lamp. BUT!!! She rushes home to watch her favorite television program. AHA! If a lamp is furniture, then so is a television set.

I rest my case. I am entirely unbiased in my book reviews.

I didn’t set out to learn anything here–it’s not as if I am considering becoming a PT. And as stated, this should not be viewed as a niche book just for medical folk or military types, but for the general book-loving public. It would even make a good beach read.

But I learned some things, nevertheless. I didn’t know that anyone who loses both legs ever has a shot at walking on two prostheses, for example (and indeed, some don’t, but the possibility is strong). I didn’t know some prostheses have computers. And I groaned at the obstacles put in place by the fishbowl atmosphere: deliberately limited computer access so that anyone, celebrities, congressional staff, or John Q. Public, will see the therapists ONLY working with patients, and then they have to stay after their paycheck ends in order to enter notes about progress registered, because people who come to see the circus don’t want to see more than two people using a computer at a time. The banning of coffee for the same reason; nobody wants to see your cup! And I loved reading about the guerilla response to said ban.

There are a number of places I’d like to quote, but I read a galley, so I am not supposed to do that in case they make changes, and this review gets posted TODAY. Characters Cosmo and Major Dumont were favorites (and I will let you find out for yourself how they were developed). And I loved the Jim-quote and how it is used at a party full of insufferable assholes who think that they are really something because they went to Walter Reed and WATCHED the patients and therapists for awhile. (The punch line is awesome. Again: get the book.)

And I really loved the Miracle reference.

I was on my third day with this book (I generally read 4-6 at a time, so it was getting rotated with the others) when someone in my family died. It was a total fluke, someone younger than me whose time should not have been up yet, and it hit all of us in the solar plexus. The writer’s chapter on the bone marrow transplant proved really cathartic. It wasn’t written for that purpose; I just had the right book at the right time, and so I sat with the book in my hand and cried awhile. Thanks; I needed that.

Are you still reading my review? You have another window open too, right? Because you should buy this book, and if you get the chance to pre-order it, then you should do that so you won’t accidentally let it go by once it’s available. May is Mother’s Day; what a great gift for the mother who likes to read!

To sum up: order the book for yourself. Order another copy for at least one of the mothers in your life. I promise you won’t be sorry.

Buck: A Memoir by M.K. Asante *****

Posted on June 11, 2014 by seattlebookmama

	There are spoilers coming. There’s just no other way to review this one. MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe, but the first time we meet him is in “Killadelphia, Pistolvania”. His family is out of control, and consequently, so is he. His brother is deep into gang life, running guns and drugs. By the time he is 12, MK has “favorite” porn artists, is sexually active, and doesn’t think twice before leaping into a stolen car alongside his brother, who goes by “Uzi”. He adores his brother. His brother is 16 and assumes that he won’t stay long behind bars for the things he does because he is a minor. We never learn for sure whether he is sent to live with a relative in Arizona to keep his influence from affecting MK (too late) or because the local heat has a real itch for him. Once he is there, however, he is tried as an adult for rape, for having sex with a 13 year old Caucasian. He thought she was 16. It’s a huge blow to everyone when he draws hard time. Let’s pause here a moment. If you know absolutely no street lexicon (USA), and if you regard the Philadelphia police force as brothers and comrades, keep your wallet in your pocket. If you aren’t sure, or have seen the cops in major metropolitan cities do low-income teenagers (and even those from the middle class) irreparable harm and no good (or not much), you might be in the right ballpark. I hope you are, because this is a powerhouse of a memoir. But there is no glossary, so for example, if the word “blunt” means something that is not sharp-edged, and nothing else, you may get dizzy and give up. If you don’t know the difference between “nigga” and the N word, and who can say it and who can’t, move on to the next selection on the shelf. But if these things have become either part of your own lexicon, or are familiar because of young people in your life who say them, you can read this just fine and Google any parts where you have difficulty. It’s well worth it. Oh, and lest I forget, here it is: YES! I got this book free, from the Goodreads giveaway. If this had been a lousy read, my gratuity would have been withholding my review. Nobody gets five stars out of me unless I think what they have to offer is worth five stars. The one question I have about this one, is where this urban jewel has been hanging for the last several years. All of hip-hop lyrics, the songs of urban protest, are from the 90’s. It is true that Tupac lives on forever, but in 2013, it seems to me that some years have gone missing nevertheless. I hope Random House hasn’t bought the rights to this book and then parked on it for awhile, and I hope it comes out soon. I began reading within 48 hours of the Trayvon Martin verdict. My own large family is multiracial, and my youngest son, who is African-American and 25, was just packing to move out of the house and in with some friends. Reading the first chapters of this book gave me such an anxiety attack that the man did well to get out of the house before I started sewing name tags into his hoodies and packing him a plastic lunch box to take to school and work. I’m exaggerating, but only a small amount. I think this is a time when family members of young Black men are watching their own closely and holding their breath. Carole/Amina, the mother who provides counterpoint to Malo’s (MK’s) narrative, is anxious too, but mental illness and a deteriorating marriage have deprived her of her voice. She loves her son, but has lost all authority and communication with him. She begs him to take care of her, and he recognizes, when his father leaves, that he is the “man of the family”. He has been deprived of his childhood somewhere along the way. He learns his mother’s thoughts only by reading her diary. He is chronically truant from the private Quaker school she and her husband have sent him to, but she isn’t worried about that. She isn’t worried about the fact that he and a friend regularly steal her car and ride around in it until dawn, even though he is way too young to even have a learner’s permit. I want to scream at her, “Why the hell not???” That’s the easy part. The school principal wants to talk to his family, but nobody is available. Ultimately, MK’s mother attempts suicide (not for the first time) and is institutionalized, as her daughter has already been. When she comes home, Malo’s father, a man known and respected as a civil rights activist and scholar, leaves her. His sole remaining child is enraged by his abdication. Every time his father loses control of the household, his response is absence. The hard part is to say, “What would you do here?” Can you correct the problem with social workers and foster homes? I don’t think so. Most foster kids vote with their feet. They stay for dinner, maybe try to round up some cash, then hit the bricks and don’t go back. Can you fix the problem with a good school? Yes, no, and maybe. I send my own children to a really wonderful alternative school. It has made a huge difference for my kids who were at risk, and also for the child who was always the perfect example. But if other things get bad quickly enough, the school can’t do a damn thing. The Quaker school was majority Caucasian at a time when the author of “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria” says is actually when Black teens need an immersion experience to foster their sense of self. The Quaker school, though some of the staff appeared to mean well, either wrote Malo off as a bad seed (and face it, how many academics want to hear “fuck you” from an angry student?), or decided that he could not produce, as the high school basketball coach gives him permission to spend his class time shooting baskets if he’d prefer. A gym is a safer place than the streets…but what kind of education is that? Is this really the best a gifted young Black man can expect? Not only no, but hell no! The alternative school is one his mother finds after he has been arrested. He agrees to give it a try, and for (amazingly) the first time, he is asked in a friendly, personal yet not invasive environment to write something–anything. As a retired language arts and history teacher, I find this dreadful. Every kid should be given this type of opportunity. I am appalled by the public school teachers who flatly tell the students they don’t want to be there and only show up for the paycheck. Are they expecting the students to react with understanding? I taught in high poverty schools, too, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I apologized to my students if there wasn’t a desk for everyone, and I found a spot for everyone to sit down until I could rectify the situation. Malo was robbed both by the Quakers and the public school system. The alternative school helps him find his own voice. He discovers that until he has begun to read, he has no vocabulary, and without a good vocabulary, he wasn’t able to express himself. But the other critical factor is the reemergence of his father, who to be fair has been trying to call him, trying to get in touch with him, but Malo has been unable to forgive him for abandoning the family and leaving his mother to flounder unaided in an untenable situation. When Malo is arrested, he refuses to phone his father, not wanting to give into his own need, or to see his father’s disappointment. His father finds out and comes to pick him up anyway. And though I have given away a large part of his story, I will leave the climactic scene between the two of them for the reader. Later, Malo performs at a spoken word session when his girlfriend signs him up. The poem “Buck” is one of his own. He tells us that he finally understands why it was illegal to teach a slave to read and write, because there is so much power in the written word. And he decides that he wants to be a writer. He is.

There are spoilers coming. There’s just no other way to review this one.

MK Asante was born in Zimbabwe, but the first time we meet him is in “Killadelphia, Pistolvania”. His family is out of control, and consequently, so is he. His brother is deep into gang life, running guns and drugs. By the time he is 12, MK has “favorite” porn artists, is sexually active, and doesn’t think twice before leaping into a stolen car alongside his brother, who goes by “Uzi”. He adores his brother. His brother is 16 and assumes that he won’t stay long behind bars for the things he does because he is a minor. We never learn for sure whether he is sent to live with a relative in Arizona to keep his influence from affecting MK (too late) or because the local heat has a real itch for him. Once he is there, however, he is tried as an adult for rape, for having sex with a 13 year old Caucasian. He thought she was 16. It’s a huge blow to everyone when he draws hard time.

Let’s pause here a moment. If you know absolutely no street lexicon (USA), and if you regard the Philadelphia police force as brothers and comrades, keep your wallet in your pocket. If you aren’t sure, or have seen the cops in major metropolitan cities do low-income teenagers (and even those from the middle class) irreparable harm and no good (or not much), you might be in the right ballpark.

I hope you are, because this is a powerhouse of a memoir. But there is no glossary, so for example, if the word “blunt” means something that is not sharp-edged, and nothing else, you may get dizzy and give up. If you don’t know the difference between “nigga” and the N word, and who can say it and who can’t, move on to the next selection on the shelf. But if these things have become either part of your own lexicon, or are familiar because of young people in your life who say them, you can read this just fine and Google any parts where you have difficulty. It’s well worth it.

Oh, and lest I forget, here it is: YES! I got this book free, from the Goodreads giveaway. If this had been a lousy read, my gratuity would have been withholding my review. Nobody gets five stars out of me unless I think what they have to offer is worth five stars.

The one question I have about this one, is where this urban jewel has been hanging for the last several years. All of hip-hop lyrics, the songs of urban protest, are from the 90’s. It is true that Tupac lives on forever, but in 2013, it seems to me that some years have gone missing nevertheless. I hope Random House hasn’t bought the rights to this book and then parked on it for awhile, and I hope it comes out soon.

I began reading within 48 hours of the Trayvon Martin verdict. My own large family is multiracial, and my youngest son, who is African-American and 25, was just packing to move out of the house and in with some friends. Reading the first chapters of this book gave me such an anxiety attack that the man did well to get out of the house before I started sewing name tags into his hoodies and packing him a plastic lunch box to take to school and work. I’m exaggerating, but only a small amount. I think this is a time when family members of young Black men are watching their own closely and holding their breath.

Carole/Amina, the mother who provides counterpoint to Malo’s (MK’s) narrative, is anxious too, but mental illness and a deteriorating marriage have deprived her of her voice. She loves her son, but has lost all authority and communication with him. She begs him to take care of her, and he recognizes, when his father leaves, that he is the “man of the family”. He has been deprived of his childhood somewhere along the way.

He learns his mother’s thoughts only by reading her diary. He is chronically truant from the private Quaker school she and her husband have sent him to, but she isn’t worried about that. She isn’t worried about the fact that he and a friend regularly steal her car and ride around in it until dawn, even though he is way too young to even have a learner’s permit.

I want to scream at her, “Why the hell not???”

That’s the easy part.

The school principal wants to talk to his family, but nobody is available. Ultimately, MK’s mother attempts suicide (not for the first time) and is institutionalized, as her daughter has already been. When she comes home, Malo’s father, a man known and respected as a civil rights activist and scholar, leaves her. His sole remaining child is enraged by his abdication. Every time his father loses control of the household, his response is absence.

The hard part is to say, “What would you do here?”

Can you correct the problem with social workers and foster homes? I don’t think so. Most foster kids vote with their feet. They stay for dinner, maybe try to round up some cash, then hit the bricks and don’t go back.

Can you fix the problem with a good school?

Yes, no, and maybe.

I send my own children to a really wonderful alternative school. It has made a huge difference for my kids who were at risk, and also for the child who was always the perfect example. But if other things get bad quickly enough, the school can’t do a damn thing.

The Quaker school was majority Caucasian at a time when the author of “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria” says is actually when Black teens need an immersion experience to foster their sense of self. The Quaker school, though some of the staff appeared to mean well, either wrote Malo off as a bad seed (and face it, how many academics want to hear “fuck you” from an angry student?), or decided that he could not produce, as the high school basketball coach gives him permission to spend his class time shooting baskets if he’d prefer.

A gym is a safer place than the streets…but what kind of education is that? Is this really the best a gifted young Black man can expect? Not only no, but hell no!

The alternative school is one his mother finds after he has been arrested. He agrees to give it a try, and for (amazingly) the first time, he is asked in a friendly, personal yet not invasive environment to write something–anything.

As a retired language arts and history teacher, I find this dreadful. Every kid should be given this type of opportunity. I am appalled by the public school teachers who flatly tell the students they don’t want to be there and only show up for the paycheck. Are they expecting the students to react with understanding? I taught in high poverty schools, too, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I apologized to my students if there wasn’t a desk for everyone, and I found a spot for everyone to sit down until I could rectify the situation. Malo was robbed both by the Quakers and the public school system.

The alternative school helps him find his own voice. He discovers that until he has begun to read, he has no vocabulary, and without a good vocabulary, he wasn’t able to express himself.

But the other critical factor is the reemergence of his father, who to be fair has been trying to call him, trying to get in touch with him, but Malo has been unable to forgive him for abandoning the family and leaving his mother to flounder unaided in an untenable situation. When Malo is arrested, he refuses to phone his father, not wanting to give into his own need, or to see his father’s disappointment. His father finds out and comes to pick him up anyway. And though I have given away a large part of his story, I will leave the climactic scene between the two of them for the reader.

Later, Malo performs at a spoken word session when his girlfriend signs him up. The poem “Buck” is one of his own. He tells us that he finally understands why it was illegal to teach a slave to read and write, because there is so much power in the written word. And he decides that he wants to be a writer.

He is.

The Dog Lived (and So Will I) by Teresa J. Rhyne****

Posted on June 11, 2014 by seattlebookmama

	Thanks! I needed that. (My fifth star is generally reserved for works of greatness or the extraordinary; as light reads go, this one is as good as it gets). In late April of 2013, my teenager went out walking with our beagle, as is her custom, after school. We live in a major urban US city, and our home is on a secondary arterial. It was Friday at rush hour, and she was deep inside her head. When the two of them crossed the street without looking, the driver who hit them hadn’t the time to even brake or sound the horn. It was so fast, and so sickening. Two months later, my daughter has recovered from her concussion and broken leg, but when I found this wonderful e-book, the dog was still in the cone-o-doom, and he had worn my patience right down to the nub. At first we were, naturally, just delighted he was alive and did not lose his leg, but doing nurse duty for an injured beagle 24/7 will take it out of a person. I was looking for a not-too-pricey book for my e-reader, and this one looked just like what the doctor ordered. And it was. In The Dog Lived (and So Will I), Seamus (for you non-Gaelic-proficient folks, that’s SHAY-muss) the beagle gets cancer, and like me, the writer has a cone-headed beagle that needs constant attention. I laughed my butt off at the typically beagle-like incidents involving garbage, stolen food, and the time he got his cone-headed self stuck in the doggie door. Yes, yes, yes. Rhyne is dumbfounded, just as the dog is pronounced clear and clean, to find that the lump in her right breast is what she feared it was. Though I have never had cancer, I have nursed a spouse through a particularly sinister type of the disease, so again, this struck home. She takes an appropriately serious tone, but also includes enough of the kind deeds of others and the coping mechanisms she used to lighten it up to readable level. There is no funereal air to it; it won’t bring you down. And just as the title suggests, she gets through it, comes back clean, and we can all go to sleep at the end of the book feeling oh, so much better. My only sorrow is that I went through it so quickly! I need another book now. Aroooo!

Thanks! I needed that. (My fifth star is generally reserved for works of greatness or the extraordinary; as light reads go, this one is as good as it gets).

In late April of 2013, my teenager went out walking with our beagle, as is her custom, after school. We live in a major urban US city, and our home is on a secondary arterial. It was Friday at rush hour, and she was deep inside her head. When the two of them crossed the street without looking, the driver who hit them hadn’t the time to even brake or sound the horn. It was so fast, and so sickening.

Two months later, my daughter has recovered from her concussion and broken leg, but when I found this wonderful e-book, the dog was still in the cone-o-doom, and he had worn my patience right down to the nub. At first we were, naturally, just delighted he was alive and did not lose his leg, but doing nurse duty for an injured beagle 24/7 will take it out of a person. I was looking for a not-too-pricey book for my e-reader, and this one looked just like what the doctor ordered. And it was.

In The Dog Lived (and So Will I), Seamus (for you non-Gaelic-proficient folks, that’s SHAY-muss) the beagle gets cancer, and like me, the writer has a cone-headed beagle that needs constant attention. I laughed my butt off at the typically beagle-like incidents involving garbage, stolen food, and the time he got his cone-headed self stuck in the doggie door. Yes, yes, yes.

Rhyne is dumbfounded, just as the dog is pronounced clear and clean, to find that the lump in her right breast is what she feared it was. Though I have never had cancer, I have nursed a spouse through a particularly sinister type of the disease, so again, this struck home. She takes an appropriately serious tone, but also includes enough of the kind deeds of others and the coping mechanisms she used to lighten it up to readable level. There is no funereal air to it; it won’t bring you down. And just as the title suggests, she gets through it, comes back clean, and we can all go to sleep at the end of the book feeling oh, so much better.

My only sorrow is that I went through it so quickly! I need another book now. Aroooo!