My Antonia

Title: My Antonia
Author: Willa Cather
Pages: 250
Yearly Count b: 1

Told through the voice of her childhood friend Jim Burden, Antonia becomes a beloved character for what she endures, what she gives out and mostly how she inspires. Antonia is an immigrant girl who moves with her family to the plains of Nebraska. There is so much in this book, people learning to accept immigrants and their customs, people getting along, childhood memories, and yet My Antonia is mostly about a woman, her choices, her value and the endurance of love.

This book has been sitting on my shelf for about a year or so. I needed a change of pace and picked it up, I could smack myself for not doing so sooner. I loved My Antonia. It is hard for me to explain all the reasons, but I know that the most significant was the value of unending love and friendship. Jim holds his love for Antonia for years and years, if not in his day to day life in his memory. The unyielding life that the main characters show and just the nitty-gritty of growing up as pioneers is extremely enchanting.


Technically I read this this year (2009) but I can still say that it is in my top 5 books ever. I tried and failed to find even one imperfection with My Antonia, I am stunned by Willa Cather's ability, she did win the Pulitzer prize and know for sure I will have to grab another of her books soon. My Antonia was simple, beautiful and I enjoyed reading every word.

My Antonia easily earned a Happy Chicken award from me!

Wife in the North

Title: Wife In The North
Author: Judith o' Reilly
Pages:352
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Genre: memoir
Yearly Count b:92

So many times we mothers are faced with the decision of being honest about our daily struggles or pretending that we have it all together so that our friends will think better of us. haha, all my friends know I am the freak mom that has chickens in her backyard and lets her kids get really (REALLY) dirty, life is too short! In Wife in the North, her fears, her doubts and her temper tantrums are all laid bare as a release. Judith began documenting her struggles in the form of a daily diary on her blog, Wife in the North and soon it took off, took off into a book contract for the book named by her blog title, Wife in the North.

Judith is a mother, a wife and a city girl who will have to adapt to living in the country for a set period of time. At least she has that, that after the alloted time period the family will make the choice to stay in the northern far-and-away town with no good shopping, or they will embrace the chaos and business of city life by moving back to London. Judith in this memoir is not into sugar coating anything, she hates it. She lives daily in loathing of where she is at and wishing that her husband would come home from his business trips and stay with them for a while. Judith speaks of loneliness, loss and the desire to fit in and at the same time not fit in because that would alter her London city girl image.

I enjoyed this read, I did find it a tad bit negative, but really if I had my inner thoughts written on paper they would be slightly to extremely negative depending on what was being asked of me. More than anything I eat up honesty and Wife in the North is filled with it. I could feel her grief, her loss, her loneliness and feelings of not belonging, not fitting, and that her kids were driving her crazy. It was extremely personable. If you enjoy memoirs, read this one and tell me what you think!

I will soon have an author interview and a giveaway for your own copy of Wife In the North, so stay tuned :) In the mean time, answer me this: What kind of mom or dad are you? Do you let your kids practice the 10 second rule (in our house it is more like the minute rule!)? Do you scrub everything bare with disinfectant and essential oils? What does your day look like as a parent?

Here is her blog, it is really funny, take a look: Wife In The North