Elizabeth_W

Four insomniacs form a support group. From there bonds and friendships develop. People reach out and learn to trust each other. Family members are forced to get creative when they can no longer tolerate toxic relationships. The characters are well delineated and evolve as their acquired families grow closer. I would recommend this entertaining and well-written novel.

An immersive novel set during the Korean War depicting the hardships, brutality and starvation endured by the people in the conflict between north and south. The narrative follows the path to survival of a female American war correspondent of Asian heritage, Ellie Chang, who is shot down in enemy territory. She is found, befriended and rescued by a Korean woman searching for her missing daughter, likely forced either into slave labor or life serving as a "comfort woman" i.e. sex slavery.

Ellie is taken in, protected and nursed back to health by the woman's family and joins them in their escape from the advancing enemy, the North Koreans aided by the Chinese. The depiction of this harrowing journey vividly describes the chaos, the fear of the unknown, the blind faith required to survive such an ordeal. The plot deepens as family grudges, misrepresentations and assumptions are revealed. Friendship, sisterhood, family bonds and chosen family ties are explored. The author's afterword pays tribute to the ongoing research and revelations regarding sex slavery and the acknowledgement and reparations that still need to be forthcoming.

A very engaging read, highly recommended!

An amusing, entertaining plot. The action takes place in New York City; there is a lot of tongue-in-cheek, insider humor. Trivia is part of the entertainment. The twists and turns of the plot are believable. The protagonist and her lawyer are Sri Lanken and they bond over food and the emigrant experience. Light and entertaining.

The novel's strengths for me
-Vividly drawn characters and relationships
-friends from different socio-economic backgrounds trying to honor the past and negotiate the harsh realities of the present.
-A rabbi accepting and responding to a temporary lapse of faith
-A thirty-year-old on the cusp of accepting responsibility for his actions and moving into his future
-A son responding to the expectations of his father and dealing with the father's end-of-life illness

I enjoyed the writing: meticulous, and descriptive.
I especially enjoyed the everyday moments; playing poker, football matches, remembrances of growing up together.
And the creativity and patience Teo needed to call upon to respond to the mundane needs of a two-year-old.
Well done!!

The book is divided into topics each written by an expert in the subject being explored. The writing is concise and spares no details. As the book progresses many connections are made between the underlying economics of slavery, fear and humankind 's need for power and basic distrust of "otherness".

The 1619 Project made me aware of my limited knowledge of the history of race relations and how much that history has impacted our present-day social issues.
I appreciated the photos, the poems, and excerpts from essays pertinent to a specific incident in US history.

A grand undertaking and a must-read.

All You Have to Do is Call took a while to get into; it felt light and a bit too much like chick-lit as the characters were first introduced. But the author carefully builds her characters and fleshes them out. The budding of women's liberation and the march forward on abortion rights are the frameworks of the novel. The characters are appealing and the drama and trauma are true to life. Halfway through I found it hard to put down.
The women-run abortion clinics in Chicago are a piece of history I was unaware of and was happy to be enlightened. Sadly, this country is headed backward on this issue, at least according to the Supreme Court.
By the way, Girl Scout is a troop, not a troupe. I found some of the sentences to be awkward.
Overall, an enjoyable and impactful book.