The Good Women of Safe Harbour

Finished July 30

The Good Women of Safe Harbour by Bobbi French

This novel follows Frances Delaney through the last weeks of her life. She's recently been diagnosed with a disease that will end her life, but hasn't told anyone about it. She has no close friends, has never had a romantic partner, and lives alone. 

She's grown very close to the teenager in the family she is a housekeeper for. They are very well-off and busy and part of her job had been seeing over young Edie when her parents aren't home. This is her final week of work as she worries that her illness is affecting her ability to do things. When she given notice she doesn't tell them why she is leaving, just recommends someone else. Edie is going through her own issues and relies on Frances in a way that is that of close friends. The two have shared many things as Edie has grown up. Now she finds that Edie is determined to stay part of her life and help her in this time. 

We see Frances' backstory gradually as she reminisces of her childhood growing up in a small fishing town in Newfoundland, and dealing with her mother's grief after her father's death. Beside her all the time was her best friend Annie and Annie's mom was also a big support in her life. We learn the trauma she went through as a teenager and why she left Safe Harbour and moved to St. John's. 

Edie encourages her to return to Safe Harbour and reconnect with Annie, and the results are interesting and involve forgiveness on both sides. 

This is a moving story of a woman that felt like an outsider all her life, with a deep yearning for connection, but without natural social skills. I liked seeing the stories of all three characters at the centre of the novel, Frances, Annie, and Edie. They are strong in different ways, and their friendships are very close and complex. Highly recommended.  

Death and Other Happy Endings

Finished July 12
Death and Other Happy Endings by Melanie Cantor

Set in London, this book opens with Jennifer Cole in her doctor's office getting her results from her recent blood tests, as she hopes for help finding a cause for her low energy. She is completely unprepared for the result that she has a rare and incurable blood disorder and has only a few short months to live. Jennifer is in her early forties, divorced after her husband cheated on her when she was in depression after her third miscarriage. She lives alone and isn't currently in a relationship. After commiserating with her best friend, Jennifer is talked into writing letters to the people she has been hurt by, getting out those feelings that she's always hidden behind her niceness.
One letter is to her ex-husband and his wife (the woman that he cheated on her with). Another is to a more recent boyfriend, who also cheated on her. The third is to her older sister, a woman who she has grown increasingly distant from but used to idolize.
Jennifer decreases her hours at work, wanting the distraction that work brings, but not able to keep working full-time, and takes time to reflect on her life. She finds herself reconnecting with people, doing things that are more spontaneous, and being more open to new experiences.
The book has humour, interesting situations, and a few surprises.
An enjoyable read.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Finished February 26
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
This teen novel is written in the voice of Greg Gaines, Jewish, 17, a senior in high school in Pittsburgh. Greg has worked hard to stay under the radar, aligning himself with none of the different groups at school and generally passing through without fully engaging.
He is the typical teenage boy who is worried about what others think of him, wants to not get beaten up or publicly embarrassed, is drawn to girls but unaware of how to engage in conversation with him. His best friend is Earl, a boy with a severely dysfunctional home life. The two of them eat lunch together in the office of one of the teachers, and spend a lot of time together at Greg's house watching movies, making movies and just hanging out. When a girl that Greg was friends with when he was in sixth grade is diagnosed with leukemia, Greg's mom thinks it would be good if he renewed the friendship and spent some time with her. Greg struggles with this, not sure how to go about and ends up using weird humour riffs to entertain Rachel.
The book is written with a very strong "this is what is going on in my head" streaming style, and go back and forth between regular text and script style. Greg and Earl made films for fun because of their own fascination for certain movies. The films definitely play a role here. Greg is struggling through the high school years, unsure about how to relate to the people around him, and that really comes through here.
Can't say for sure since I haven't been one, but I get the sense that this book would really appeal to high school boys. But the appeal goes beyond that because of the growth in Greg and the issues he is dealing with.

Great mystery

Finished April 18
The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe
This is supposed to be the first in a series of books featuring DI Hazel Micallef, of the Port Dundas, Ontario police. In this book, she has been acting head for a few years as the powers that be have delayed replacing the head for her detachment. She is divorced and her mother, the former mayor, lives with her.
When a elderly woman in the community is found murdered Hazel is faced with the most difficult case she has ever had. When they begin to find links to cases elsewhere in Canada, she faces a decision whether to forge ahead in order to keep from alerting the killer or to involve other police forces. The relationship between her and the other police staff is done very well, as is the relationship between her and her mother, Emily.
Hazel is also suffering from back pain, and that reflects on her ability to function. She has a lot of faults, that make the character more realistic.
The author is writing under a pseudonym and as I write this, we do not know who they are. The publicity states: "a well-known North American writer". I would hazard a guess that he/she is Canadian, and either living in, or familiar with Ontario. It will be interesting to see who it is.

For Older Teens

Finished March 8
Before I Die by Jenny Downham
Tessa is sixteen years old and dying of leukemia. But there are so many things she hasn't experienced and together with her friend, Zoey, she aims to do some of them while she can.
Tessa lives with her Dad, and her little brother, Cal, with her mother living in an apartment nearby. She feels frustrated and angry with her situation and sometimes takes out those feelings on her family who struggle to understand.
Tessa starts with a list of ten things she wants to do before she dies, the first of which is sex. Zoey helps her achieve some of these experiences, and for others she turns to her family and the young man next door who has his own issues, and learns that sometimes getting what you want isn't as good as you thought it might be. She also finds out that some things are more important than she thought. As we travel with Tessa down her final few months of life, we are touched by her strength, her frailty, and her too short life.
I was weeping by the end of this one.