"Company Town" by Madeline Ashby

Another Canada Reads choice:
From "Goodreads":
"Meet Hwa. One of the few in her community to forego bio-engineered enhancements, she's the last truly organic person left on the rig. But she's an expert in the arts of self-defence, and she's been charged with training the Family's youngest, who has been receiving death threats- seemingly from another timeline.
Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city's stability- serial killer?  Or something much, much worse...??
   This is a review of the book so the language is pleasant, but when you get into the book, it is filled with language that can't be used on T.V. or in newspapers. It is just plain crude.  I realize that the novel is about the sex trade and the language would be questionable, but why choose it for Canada Reads when you are recommending that everyone read it?  I don't agree with censorship, but I expect Canada Reads to choose the best of the best Canadian literature. 
   Sometimes, one character has a foul mouth and it fits into the story, but this language repulsed me.
   There are many people who loved this book.  Perhaps they are science fiction fans and are used to this type of language.

   So, once again, I've reached the limit of my perseverance.  The language was muddling my head, and, since I can't follow the science fiction aspect of the story, there seems to be no point in frustrating my sensibilities through the whole novel.

   Two years ago, I decided not to read "When Everything Feels Like the Movies".  It was too crude and rude for my brain.
 You may wish to read my 'rant' on that book here.

  Perhaps Canada Reads is aiming for a younger audience.  I have loved and supported Canada Reads for fifteen years, but I think perhaps I am 'aging out'.  I sure hate to give up on such a great idea.  Could we start Canada Reads for the older generation?

Re-Reads

  I never recommend a book unless I have read it, so when my book clubs choose a book that I have recommended, I always read it again in preparation for the discussion.  
  This week, I have three book club meetings.  I am leading the discussion in two of the meetings- two books that I love. 
  Both of the books are well worth reading a second - or third time.  This is the third time I have read "The Hero's Walk" by Anita Rau Badami. You can read my review here.

**************************************************************************************************************************

   Later in the week, I am leading a discussion of "Girl in Translation" by Jean Kwok.  It is my third reading of this book as well.  You can read my review here.  These books are both extremely well-written.     Jean Kwok has said :"Sometimes our fate is different from the one we imagined for ourselves".  Both books reflect this theme.      Great books!    Happy to read them again!

"The Break" by Katherena Vermette

author- Katherena Vermette

"The Break" is a Canada Reads finalist this year.
   A 13-year-old girl is viciously attacked in an open field.  A young Metis woman sees, from her house, that someone is in trouble and calls the police.  The piece of land is called "The Break" and I thought that was the reason for the title.  However, there is a much larger theme in this book that is reflected in the title.
  This whole novel centres around the crime, drawing in all the family members- four generations.  Unfortunately, it is mostly the female family members because most of the men have left.     
  Because there are so many characters involved, the story seems disruptive.  But in hindsight, that seems to be the right format for this book.  It is about native women and their lives are very disruptive.  The generational pain is so apparent in the ways all of the women cope with their lives- drinking, crying, switching men. They are constantly looking for 'something'.  And, because the mothers are preoccupied, and the fathers are absent, the children have no stability or direction in their lives. 
   And so, the title: "Broken".  The women are all broken.  It is a cycle that just keeps repeating.  
  This book was ideal for discussion.  
We are very interested to see what Candy Palmater will have to say in her defence of this book on the Canada Reads panel, March 27-30.  Candy is a comedian/broadcaster.

Candy Palmater

Robert Sawyer

   Rob Sawyer is one of my favourite authors.  Why?  Just because I like him. I have listened to him speak several times and find him just fascinating. The way his mind works is of great interest to me.  But I have to admit right here that he goes way beyond what my mind can take in.              The New York Times has called him: "a writer of boundless confidence and bold scientific extrapolation".

Now there's a word that also fascinates me: extrapolation.

I think that is exactly what this author does in his science fiction- imagines what could or might happen, based on known facts.  He takes scientific theory and pushes it to the extreme- maybe, maybe, maybe this could happen. 

"Quantum Night" is on the Canada Reads longlist and I was intrigued by it.  Don't understand some of it- but he certainly does extrapolate to the extreme.
  The theme is the neuroscience of morality.  Oh, yes, he really goes for stretching the mind.
But I could really believe some of the theory.  That is, three stages of consciousness:
Q1  robotic, do what you are told or what others are doing
Q2  psychopathic- lack of reflection and rumination
Q3 developed conscience, thoughtful
Don't we all know people in all of those stages?  And in this book, they discover a way to move a person- maybe the whole world to a different level.
And Rob always has something to say about the U.S.  In this book, he really plays with the election and the relationship between the U.S. and Russia- with Canada in the middle.  Rob is Canadian.

Canada Reads discussion group

Here is our group of Canada Reads "keeners".  I call the group 'apricity" because we sit in a corner window booth and enjoy snacks and coffee, while we discuss books that have been chosen for Canada Reads.
Apricity means 'the warmth of the sun in the winter'.  It comes from the Latin meaning "to bask in the sun".  And the sun did come out for our first gathering.  It was delightful!
We shared thoughts about books on the longlist as well as our expectations for the discussions in March.
My daughter has observed that I have blogged lately about many books that I didn't enjoy.  She is right.  And the reason?  I am willing to 'hang in' there with Canada Reads because even though I don't enjoy all the books, sometimes I find a gem.  That happened last year- "The Hero's Walk".  I am reading it for the third time and love, love, love it!!!!  That makes up for the others that I didn't enjoy.
Maybe there will be a gem this year.

Canada Reads 2017

   Canada Reads has made the final announcement of books and panel.

   Their launch this year was very disappointing to me, because I had been at a Canada Reads launch in the past that was open to the public, where the authors and panelists each gave a short speech and visited with the public. It was very dramatic and exciting- worth the drive to Toronto!

   But this year, Canada Reads posted a photo of the panelists with the list of books early in the morning of 'presentation day'.The next day there was a video with each panelist giving a short blurb.  No mingling with the public.

Here are the books and panelists:

Chantal Kreviazuk

Chantal Kreviazuk
Chantal is defending "The Right to Be Cold" by Sheila Watt-Cloutier.
Chantal is a singer/songwriter/activist.
She was born in Winnipeg and now lives in Toronto with her husband and three sons.

Humble the Poet

Humble the Poet
Humble the Poet is defending "Fifteen Dogs" by Andre Alexis.
Humble's real name is Kanwer Singh, but he chose a new name for the stage.  He is a teacher/ poet/ hip-hop artist with a YouTube channel.

Tamara Taylor

Tamara Taylor
Tamara is defending "Company Town" by Madeline Ashby.  She was born in Toronto  and is an actress, with a role in "Bones".

Candy Palmater

Candy Palmater
Candy is defending "The Break" by Katherena Vermette.  She was born in New Brunswick.  She is a lawyer/ braoadcaster/ comedian.  She has hosted Q radio.

Jody Mitic

Jody Mitic

Jody is defending "Nostalgia" by M.G. Vassanji.  Jody lost both legs with the Canadian army in Afghanistan.  He is now a city counsellor in Ottawa, living there with his wife and 2 daughters.

Canada Reads 2017

Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman has become extremely popular with many readers.

On a recent trip to Chapters, one of the staff spoke very highly of this author.

I had read "A Man Called Ove" and wasn't impressed, but thought I should give Fredrik Backman a closer look.

He lives in Stockholm, where his books are all number one bestsellers.  His books have been translated into 35 languages! Wow!  He is a popular writer.  
I have written a review here about "A Man Called Ove".

Well, I decided to try this one.  It seems to have two titles- perhaps because it is translated so often.   The other title is: "My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry".
The story is about Granny who reads "quality literature" and relates everything to fairy tales.  Her granddaughter is Elsa, a very precocious 7-year-old.
Page 42: "Having a grandmother is like having an army.  This is a grandchild's ultimate privilege: knowing that someone is on your side, always, whatever the details.  Even when you are wrong.  Especially then, in fact."
  I didn't read much further than this because there were descriptions of nearly everyone that lived in their apartment complex.
  Granny is 'unusual' for sure.  And I think that is the appeal of this book.  Not for me.

   Well, here is another unusual character- Britt-Marie.  She is 63 years old and is another 'strange' character.  I felt at first that she was autistic.  She is definitely OCD and socially inappropriate.
  I thought of "The Rosie Project", where the protagonist had Asperger's.  Ron Tillman was certainly more interesting.  I wasn't 'over the moon' about that book either, but I did like it better than this one.  Britt-Marie is just plain rude.  

  This is a very short novella about a boy and his grandfather.  It is popular and took awhile to get a copy from the library.  It is the author's attempt to deal with  the loss of loved ones.
Quote: "Noah holds the old man's hand, the man who  taught him to fish and to never be afraid of big thoughts and to look at the night's sky and understand that it's made of numbers.  Mathematics has blessed the boy in that sense, because he's no longer afraid of the thing almost everyone else is terrified of: infinity."
Poignant.  Short and sentimental.  Snatches of thought.

Cutting for Stone

   I read this book in 2009 and really enjoyed it.   Basically it is a novel about a nun who has twin boys.  I enjoyed the story of the boys growing up in Ethiopia, both becoming doctors.
  On second reading, I was frustrated.  It took over 100 pages to get through the story of the birth.  I knew that there was a more interesting story to come, but it was taking too long to get there.



   This author, Abraham Verghese, fascinates me.  He is a 
doctor who has been awarded the National Humanities Medal in the U.S.  His specialty is empathy and healing.
   He has done some TED talks and is most fascinating.  He has coined the term "ipatient", in other words, the virtual patient that is in the computer.  It seems that most doctors spend more time with the information on the computer than with the patient.   Verghese strongly believes that physical examinations are more important than the computer record.  Also, the patient feels more cared for with this personal touch.  Verghese talks about 'healing' rather than 'curing'.

  It took Verghese eight years to write this book- his first fiction.   
  The novel was on the New York Times bestseller's list for 2 years and is now on Amazon's list of 100 books to read in a lifetime.
  It may be a great novel but it will not be on my list of 'best books'.  The plot is buried in so much description- much of it medical. 

"Fifteen Dogs" by Andre Alexis

    Here is another book on the Canada Reads longlist.  It is not science fiction, but it is unusual.  It is called an apologue.
Apologue- definition: a moral fable, especially one with animals as characters.
  Yes, this book is about dogs licking, peeing, mounting and fighting.  Does that sound like an award winner?
   Well, it was published in 2015 and won the Giller Prize and the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize in that year.
  It is the second book in a series of five that the author feels is "examining faith, place, love, power and hatred".
   Fifteen dogs are given the gift of human consciousness and language by the gods Hermes and Apollo.  Apollo thought that they would be more unhappy than humans if they had human intelligence.  The gods make a bet about whether the dogs will be happier at their death.  The dogs die one by one- mostly killed by the other dogs in the pack.  The gods also interfere in the lives of the last two dogs.
  I have no idea about this book.  I have read revue after revue praising it, but I saw absolutely no value in the whole book- just dogs licking, peeing, mounting and fighting.

"Sleeping Giants" by Sylvain Neuvel

   This is Sylvain Neuvel.  He dropped out of school at 15.  But this young man is obviously not what you might expect from a high school dropout.
   Listen to what he says about himself, "My main interests are word-based morphology, computational morphology, as well as formal and lexical semantics and most of my work focuses on a formal characterization of polysynthesis, compounding and agglutination in word-based morphological terms."
   Yes, this man has amassed quite an education in spite of his disinterest in high school- in fact, he is now in his forties. He is the director of translation services and a software engineer for a Montreal company, but his personal interest is in robotics and science fiction.
  Neuvel interests me as well as his novel "Sleeping Giants".  You can tell from the first page that this is not your regular author.  He has an extremely creative mind.  This story is told through interviews, newspaper headlines, and journal entries.
  It begins with a young girl falling into a large hole in the ground and landing on a 20-foot long mechanical hand.  Oh, yes, and there was a  bright light emanating from it.
  The novel has a lot of intrique and I have read that it is being made into a movie.  I think it will equal 'Jurassic Park" in action and excitement.  The author plans to continue the story in two more books.
P.S. This is another book from the Canada Reads longlist.  I'm whipping through the science fiction.

"Nostalgia" by M.G.Vassanji

Here's an author that I recognize.  I have read "The In-Between World of Vikram Lall".  I found Vassanji's writing enjoyable- great description. And so, I tackled this science fiction book that is also on the Canada Reads longlist.

Vassanji lives in Toronto and speaks in the area often.  He has won the Giller Prize twice as well as many more prizes.
He really is a good author, but this book made no sense to me. Perhaps this is his first book in this genre.

   The theme of "Nostalgia" is immortality.  After a lifetime, you are given a new "fiction" and become a GN (new-generation person).
   I have a million questions that were never answered.  It appears that you get a new body as well as a new fiction- or memory.  All memories from that past life are erased.
   The protagonist is a doctor that makes sure that the past doesn't leak into the present.  This is what happened with one of his patients and the doctor becomes very involved in his life until you realize that he had been related to this man in a previous life.
  I didn't enjoy the writing and didn't understand the concept.

The Just City

   I decided to check out some of the books in the Canada Read's longlist.
   There are several science fiction novels on the list, so I decided to start reading a few of them.  I thought I would start with the most bizarre (although science fiction itself is a little bizarre for me).

   "The Just City" is about an experiment to set up Plato's "Republic".  In other words, to set up a city based on "justice".
   Plato died in 437 BC.  Socrates was his teacher. Although Plato is not in this novel, Socrates surely is.  In fact, he is the person that actually ruins the experiment and convinces people that it is not really a 'just city'- that people do not have free will and volition.
The novel is based on Greek mythology - even Apollo is here.  He decided to be born into a mortal life. People were brought to this city (on an island) from all over the world and from all time periods.  
  The mating procedure is strange.  People are matched for a day and expected to procreate.  Then have no sexual contact for another 6 months.  The city is more just because you don't have one lover or one baby of your own.  You care for everyone.  In fact, you never know which child belongs to you.  Excellence is the aim.
  The belief is that justice is more important than happiness or liberty or anything else.
 There are robots that Socrates discovers can think and respond.  There are many long philosophical discussions around Socrates and volition is one important topic.
Well-written but way 'out there'.

This is Jo Walton, the author. She was born in Wales in 1964.  She is a poet and an author.  She has been writing since she was 13, but her first novel was not published until 2000.
She has won many science fiction awards.  She now lives in Montreal.

Canada Reads 2017

"What is the one book Canadians need now?"  That is the question.
The longlist has been announced and the final five books as well as the list of panelists will be announced on January 31.

Here is the longlist:
1. "The Break" by Katherena Vermette
2. "Company Town" by Madeline Ashby
3. "The Elephants in My Backyard" by Rajiv Surendra
4. "Even This page is White" by Vivek Shraya
5. "Fifteen Dogs" by Andre Alexis
6.  "I Am Woman" by Lee Maracle
7.  "The Just City" by Jo Walton
8. "Knucklehead" by Matt Lennox
9. "Nostalgia" by M.G. Vassanji
10. "One Hour in Paris" by Karyn L. Freedman
11. "Quantum Night" by Robert J. Sawyer
12. "The Right To Be Cold" by Sheila Watt-Cloutier
13. "Sleeping Giants" by Sylvain Neuvel
14. "Today I learned It Was You" by Edward Riche
15. "Waiting for First Light" by Romeo Dallaire

Ali Hassan 

  The Canada Reads website tells us that "The five panelists will take stock of where the nation stands today, explore its diverse perspectives and reflect on where we are heading."
 Their books will be chosen from this longlist.

The host this year will be Ali Hassan from CBC's "Laugh Out Loud".

The Seven Sisters

   This book has a very intriguing introduction.  Pa Salt, a multimillionaire, adopted 6 girls from around the world.   
  They were mostly raised by a very loving housekeeper.  Their life was idyllic, as Pa Salt encouraged each girl to follow her dreams and interests in life. So they were all well-established in life when Pa Salt suddenly died, with none of the girls nearby.  His instructions were followed and he was immediately buried at sea from his yacht.  The girls, surprisingly, knew nothing about their father's business or his life in general.  

armillary sphere

  When the girls arrived at Pa Salt's house after his death, they were each given a letter and shown an armillary sphere (used in astronomy)  that was specially made with one band for each girl, showing the coordinates of her birthplace.

   And so, the author has chosen to write a series of books as each daughter searches for her heritage.
   The author has done much research and included fascinating information on each birthplace.  This first book follows Maia's search for her heritage and she ends up in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, where she discovers an interesting love story involving her great grandmother and meets her grandmother on her deathbed.
  Maia falls in love with an author, Floriano, whose books she has translated.
  But....the book ends with the beginning of Alley's story.  She is in the family home, picks up the telephone to make a call and.....
"Holding the receiver to my ear as I made to dial the number, I realized someone else in the house was already on the line.  The shock of hearing the familiar, resonant tones of the voice that had comforted me from childhood forced me to interrupt the conversation.  "Hello?"  I said, hurriedly reaching over and turning the CD player down to make absolutely sure it was him.  But the voice at the other end had become a monotonous bleeping, and I knew he had gone".....
   MYSTERY!  Is Pa Salt still alive??????

Lucinda Riley

   Lucinda Riley was born in Ireland.  She was an actress in film, theatre and television.  Then she began writing.  She had written 7 books when she got the inspiration for this series of books, based on the constellation "Pleiades"- the Seven Sisters.
   Lucinda now divides her time between England and Ireland with her husband and four children.

This series of books will include 7 books and the mystery that was set up at the beginning of the first book will not be divulged until the last book.
Already written:
Book 1: The Seven Sisters
Book 2: The Storm Sister
Book 3: The Shadow Sister
So it will be four years before we get to know the mystery of Pa Salt.  In the meantime, there is a lot of reading to be done.  These books are long- but interesting!

Statistics-2016

Statistics for 2016

   
   Since I retired I have read between 60 and 75 books a year.  In 2016, I read 63 books, ending the year with "The Scarlet Pimpernel".
  I quite enjoyed this book about the French Revolution, when the starving French peasants overthrew the monarchy.
  The Scarlet Pimpernel, an Englishman, enlisted 19 other men to aid him in rescuing innocent Frenchmen from the guillotine. 
   Even his wife did not know his identity, and unknowingly put his life at risk.  But that Scarlet Pimpernel was crafty!  His exploits were fun to read.

   The writing is marvellous, although overly sentimental at times. Great description of the times- clothing, landscape, lifestyles.  Very interesting!
   The author was Emma Orczy (1865-1947).  She lived in Hungary, then Brussels, then Paris and finally London.

Noah Hawley

   How do I discover new books to read?  Well, sometimes friends recommend books or I read other blogs.  My daughter lets me know when her quilting bloggers write reviews of books.  And so, I started following "Sister's Choice Quilts".  Quilters are often great readers!
   Please click here to see what this blogger had to say about Noah Hawley's book "Before the Fall".
   Since Christmas is approaching, I thought that a book about a plane crash was not a good idea, but perhaps I could try another book by this author.

   So I tackled "The Good Father".  I realized that it was about a young man who shot a U.S. senator running for president, but the story was written from the viewpoint of the father and I was curious to see how a family would deal with this horrendous disruption in the family.
   Well, I got quite attached to the father, a very interesting doctor, and read right through to the end in order to discover how he finally came to terms with his son's act.      However, in the meantime, the author included many stories of other assassins- such as Sirhan Sirhan and Lynett "Squeaky" Fromme.  I had no idea that there were so many assassinations or attempted assassinations.  And the details of these lives interested me not at all!
   However, I always check what other readers have to say and some people are very intrigued by these assassins and what makes them tick.
  Actually, human nature does fascinate me and this author can definitely write. The father said, "I had spent the last three months trying to compile the evidence, to add up all the moments from Danny's childhood that could provide a diagnosis. a definitive answer to who he was and why he did the things he did, and yet in life everything is open to interpretation."
  I enjoyed the writing, but the content was too violent for me.

Noah Hawley

   Noah Hawley is an American film and television producer, screenwriter, composer, and author, known for creating and writing the FX television series Fargo.
  Noah has writtten five books, but our library only has these two.

Choosing books for 2017

   This is the time of year that my Monday Night Book Club chooses books for the coming year.  
   I love this kind of planning!  In fact, I guess I convinced the group to operate in this manner.
  We all bring suggestions to this "Battle of the Books" and make a pitch for our favourites.
  I have been going though books and lists to come up with my suggestions.  We alternate classics with contemporary novels.  
   
   I discovered this book discussion group in the mall in 1998.  They were planning to read "Middlemarch".  Wow!  880 pages.  But the next month they read "A Suitable Boy" with 1400 pages.  I realized immediately that these readers were serious.
  And so, since then, we have read over 100 classic novels.  It is becoming difficult to find titles in the library.  Even book stores don't carry much of a collection of classics.  Sometimes we can order the books or get them from interlibrary loan.

  I had been interested in reading "Hans Brinker', but it is difficult to find enough copies.  It is a children's classic, but we have read several children's classics- "Black Beauty" for sure!
 

I also would like to do another Wilkie Collins book.  We read "Woman in White" and it was great. "Moonstone" is a mystery but hard to find.


  I settled on "The Time Machine" by H.G.Wells.  I am able to get several copies through the library and it is very small and the girls will love that for a change.

  
   However, the contemporary books that I was considering are very large.  I bought "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt but haven't found time to finish it yet.  It is 773 pages.

  
   I also considered an older book that Oprah had on her show "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski.  It is a great story involving training dogs, but also a mystery.  It has 688 pages, but does drag on occassion.
  

  
   What about "The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert? She wrote "Eat, Pray, Love", but this book is very different.  A 48-year-old woman studies botany and evolution and is searching for the origins of all things.  Very deep!

   I finally decided that I would have to recommend "The Hero's Walk" by Anita Rau Badami.  It was a Canada Reads book and I have read it twice and it is the best book that I have ever read. 

   

I wonder what the others in the group will suggest?  We vote on which books to read, so my books may not be chosen at all!

"Room" by Emma Donoghue

  I found myself in a 'book club dilemma' again.  This is the November choice for one of my book clubs.  I read it when it was first published in 2011 and really didn't enjoy it.
  However, I have a commitment to my book clubs, so I decided to re-read the book.
  I know that this book has been very popular.  It has won many awards and was made into a movie.  Some of my friends really enjoyed it.
   Once again, my opinion is not the popular one.
   "Room" is written in the voice of Jack, 5 years old.  His mother had been abducted 7 years previously and held captive in a windowless shed where she was used for sex by "Old Nick"- the kidnapper.  She had one baby that died because Old Nick wouldn't help at the birth.
   Jack has a strange speech pattern which irritated me.  His mother interacted with him all day with games and stories, so why wouldn't he talk like her?  The sentences are so disjointed that there is no flow to the story.
   Then, after they escape, you read all the terms used by the social workers- cognitive distortions, depersonalization.  It just doesn't fit when it is first person narration.
  I didn't think it worked to use the voice of the boy.  

Author Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue, 47, born in Ireland, now lives in London, Ontario with her partner and children.  Her latest book was published this year- "Wonder".  The publisher says it is: "a tale of two strangers who transform each other's lives, a powerful psychological thriller, and a story of love pitted against evil."

Love Warrior

   This book was waiting for me at the library and I didn't recognize the title.  Then I saw the stamp saying that it is a 2016 selection for Oprah's book club.  I put many books on hold and forget why.  This book was on hold for a long time!
   I immediately disliked the cover and considered passing up on it.  Covers really affect me and the red, black and white colours with the 'warrior' title did not interest me. 
   However, I trust Oprah to choose good books and I have read many of her choices.

On to the book:
Glennon Doyle Melton, the author of this memoir, is an enigma to me.  From the age of ten she struggled with body issues and identity.  She became anorexic, alcoholic, and overly sexual.
Why?
Her childhood seemed magical.  But at such an early age, she had severe struggles.
Her life was more difficult than I can imagine and I expected that something terrible must have happened to her as a child.  I am left with this question: Why do some people have such a difficult life?

 Here is Glennon's explanation:
"For twenty years, I was lost to bulimia and alcoholism and bad love and drugs.  I suffered.  My family suffered.  I had a relatively magical childhood, which added an extra layer of guilt to my pain and confusion.  Glennon-why are you all jacked up when you have no excuse to be jacked up?
My best guess is that I was born with an extra dose of sensitivity to love and pain.  I didn't want to walk through the battlefield of life naked.  So when I was ten years old, I made up my own little world called addiction and I hid there for decades. I felt safe.  No one could touch me."


  This book certainly was very detailed and I can never understand how someone writes every detail of their personal life for all to see, and then goes to the supermarket or sits in church.
  Glennon finally found her way out of the pain through extensive counselling, yoga, breathing workshops, and God.  She researched the Biblical word 'helpmate' and rather than believing that women are made to be helpers, she decided that they are warriors, thus the cover and title.
  Some readers found the book self-indulgent.  Others just felt it was terribly raw.