What's YOUR teaser today?!?

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

Today my teaser is from A Year and a Day by Leslie Pietrzyk:


~Most girls at school wore makeup, at least some eye shadow and blush, a little lip gloss. Girls who wore real lipstick--not just a clear slick of shiny pink--were the girls who climbed into guys' cars after school, got driven off with a big rush and roar, their hands limply trailing out open windows as the rest of us pretended we weren't watching, wondering which empty park they were headed to, wondering were they really going to do that?~ pg 43.


What's YOUR teaser today?

Book Review - The Perfect Age by Heather Skyler

From Amazon.com:

Helen is just fifteen, lanky and striking. She is a lifeguard at the pool at The Dunes hotel this summer—her first job, a step toward independence in a world beginning to treat her as an adult and a woman. Her mother, Kathy, watching Helen grow up, suddenly finds herself in a place equally uncertain: her children getting older, her stable marriage perhaps too stable, the slow days of summer leaving her adrift. When she meets Helen's boss, the manager at the pool, she chooses an affair that opens her to the idea of a different sort of life.

Following Helen and Kathy through three summers, this novel is an intimate picture of two sexual awakenings under one roof and their aftershocks on a family. Heather Skyler shows us that the validity of life's deepest experiences—love, betrayal, acceptance—is never compromised by age.

My Thoughts:

This story parallels a daughter's coming-of-age, and her mother's exploration of an affair outside of her marriage. It takes place over the span of three summers, in Las Vegas.

15 year old Helen and her boyfriend Leo have been dating forever, and Leo wants to move their relationship to the next level. Helen is not sure she is ready....until she sees her mother with another man, who happens to be Helen's supervisor at work, Gerard. At once, Helen feels the need to lash out and hurt her mother any way that she possibly can, and she knows that actions speak louder than words.

Kathy, Helen's mother, becomes attracted to Gerard, surprising herself. Her marriage has reached the point where she and Edward, her husband, have settled into a comfortable normalcy. When she meets Gerard, she experiences feelings that she hasn't had in a long time. She takes a chance to explore them, to see where they lead.

I found this novel to be reminiscent of Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout. A beautiful story of intimate family secrets, and the love between a mother and daughter, both longing for something different in their lives. Ms. Skyler captures perfect images of Las Vegas in the sweltering summer heat, and proving that love, at any age, is irresistible. I read this book in two nights.....loved it!
Outstanding!

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (May 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393326888
• ISBN-13: 978-0393326888

Book Review - The Girl Among Thorns by Linda Settles

A true-life story of courage and endurance:

Sometimes it's hard to remember what life was like before "the secret" began to happen. Sometimes it's easier to forget the moment, the day, the nightmare that changed everything. And we go on...talking, laughing, and living just as if it didn't happen. But it did happen, and that changed the course of our history.

Chelsey Ann Davenport survived "the secret" and she was determined that none of her siblings would ever go through what she did. She thought she could protect them from the thorns.

My Thoughts:

Wow...what a chilling story this is. Chelsey Ann Davenport is a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of her father. It begins at the age of five. She feels that she must endure her fate to protect the other members of her family. She suffers so her brothers and sisters and her mother will be spared from her father's violent angry beatings. Her mother is aware of what is going on, but is powerless to stop it. Chelsey is able to confide in a counselor at school, but other than that, she endures her abuse quietly, all the while wishing that her father would die. The quiet strength that she exudes is to be commended, and one can only hope that her spirit is not permanently broken from years of suffering at the hands of someone whom she should be able to love and trust. This is a heartbreaking story with an uplifting ending.

Very Good!

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Edict House Publishing (May 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979023866
• ISBN-13: 978-0979023866

About the Author

Linda Settles, counselor, author, wife and mother is also a survivor of sexual abuse. She writes on this topic to reach out to others who have been victimized in the past and help them face the future with the determination of a survivor, the courage of an activist on behalf of others who may suffer still, and the hope of a wounded warrior who will not be satisfied to live any longer with the limitations imposed on her by the pain of her past. Linda lives in the mountains of Virginia with her husband and two daughters. She is active in her church and in recovery ministries. She is a writer and a speaker at womens conferences, to recovery groups, and in abuse recovery workshops.

Book Review - The Water Dancers by Terry Gamble

From Goodreads:

Terry Gamble's The Water Dancers is the story of Rachel Winnapee, a poverty-stricken, sixteen-year-old Native American orphan who goes to work at the opulent March family summer home on the shores of Lake Michigan in the post-World War II summer of 1945. A young woman with no delusions about her place in this world of privilege, she quickly adapts to her role as an obedient servant expected to remain silent and unobtrusive while catering to her employers' wishes. Surrounded by a wealth she never imagined, she strives to remain invisible, until she is assigned the task of caring for the family's tragically scarred, emotionally shattered young scion, Woody March.

A veteran who lost a leg in the Pacific conflict, Woody is haunted by his injuries and battlefield experiences -- and by the loss of the older brother he emulated -- and now desires only relief from his twin agonies of pain and memory. He recognizes a kindred spirit in this gentle and mysterious child-woman who is so unlike anyone he has ever known yet who understands the depths of human suffering. In Rachel's eyes, Woody is a noble, tortured prince, and her fervent wish to help ease his torment soon metamorphoses into more intense and irrevocable feelings of love and need.

But if Rachel is a young woman with no future, Woody's has already been mapped out in intricate detail: as the last surviving March son, he is to run a successful banking business, marry the well-bred Elizabeth, and raise a family who will carry on the March name with distinction. Yet the obligations he never questioned prior to the war are becoming increasingly odious to him -- especially now, as he feels himself becoming irresistibly drawn to Rachel in ways no one else in his world would understand or tolerate. As the relationship between two lost and damaged souls intensifies, they move toward the one pivotal event that will alter their lives in ways both heartbreaking and profound.

An unsparing portrayal of the conflicts of race, culture, and class that lays bare the complex passions and deepest yearnings of the human heart, Terry Gamble's The Water Dancers possesses a lyrical, strong, and assured artistry and heralds the arrival of a major new American novelist.

My Thoughts:

I loved this story! This book was a nice change from what I normally read. Through the story, I was able to visit the state of Michigan, Harbor Point, on the water, and the surrounding areas. I learned so much about the area and felt like I was actually there.

This engrossing tale tells the story of Rachel Winnapee, an Indian girl who is hired by The March Family Matriarch, Lydia, to work in their summer home, as a servant. The year is 1945, and The March's son Woody, is returning from WWII, wounded. He will need a nurse to care for him at home. After the nurse that was hired gets fired for alcoholism, Rachel takes her place, and she and Woody fall in love. Their relationship can never be revealed, as Woody is engaged to be married, and Rachel is considered the poor, hired help. Their romance is bittersweet, lasting for just one summer, but something transpires that changes Rachel's life forever.

As a rule, I do not read historical romances, but....this book was an exception. I enjoyed it immensely! I read it quickly, and I will never forget it. Highly recommended!

Very Good!

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060542675
• ISBN-13: 978-0060542672

Book Review - House Rules by Rachel Sontag

A compelling, at times horrifying work that is impossible to put down, House Rules will stand beside Running With Scissors and The Glass Castle as ...more From Goodreads:

Rachel Sontag grew up the daughter of a well-liked doctor in an upper middle class suburb of Chicago. The view from outside couldn't have been more perfect. But within the walls of the family home, Rachel's life was controlled and indeed terrorized by her father's serious depression. In prose that is both precise and rich, Rachel's childhood experience unfolds in a chronological recounting that shows how her father became more and more disturbed as Rachel grew up.
A visceral and wrenching exploration of the impact of a damaged psyche on those nearest to him, House Rules will keep you reading even when you most wish you could look away.


My Thoughts:

While I enjoyed reading this memoir, it was difficult to read about the mental/verbal abuse that Rachel's father bestowed upon her. I would visibly cringe at times at some of the things that her father said to her, all the while Rachel was constantly seeking love and acceptance from him.

Besides experiencing a strong dislike for the father, I felt ambivalence towards Rachel's mother and sister. I felt that Rachel's mother should have supported her more....although I think I understood why she couldn't (or wouldn't). Her life with her controlling husband was already a living hell and she did not want to make things worse. Rachel's sister was more or less the "invisible" child, where Rachel was on the receiving end of her father's constant attention, whether it be good or bad.

House Rules is a truly compelling memoir that was arduous to read but almost impossible for me to put down. Highly recommended!

Very Good!

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (March 24, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061341231
• ISBN-13: 978-0061341236

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.


Here's what I received in the mail last week:

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

Soon by Jerry Jenkins

After The Wall by Jana Hensel

Long Voyage Back by Luke Rhinehart

The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes by Randi Davenport

Leave The Building Quickly by Cynthia Kaplan

What was in YOUR mailbox???

Book Review - Walking Through Shadows by Bev Marshall

From Librarything.com:

When Lloyd Cotton hears that Sheila Barnes is consistently beaten by her daddy, he offers her a room and a job cleaning up around his dairy farm. Despite physical deformity, poverty, and years of abuse, Sheila manages to see the silver lining in every cloud–and her bright spirit touches everyone in the Cotton family, including young Annette who finds an enchanting Best Friend. Stoney Barnes, the handsome boy who milks the cows, is especially taken with Sheila. And when they marry, it seems that God has finally given her the good graces she deserves.But in a cruel twist of fate, Sheila’s body is found in the cornfields. Soon the little town of Zebulon, Mississippi, is awash in scandal. Who would want the innocent young woman dead? Her alcoholic father, her opinionated husband, or perhaps the faithfully married Lloyd Cotton, about whom unsavory rumors swirl? Surprising secrets will crack open a rural community, and more than one family will suffer in the telling.


My thoughts:

This is one book that I thought about a lot when I wasn't actually reading it. The story is narrated by different characters in each chapter. This way you get different views of what is going on, which adds so much to the story.Set in a small town in rural Mississippi just before WWII, it is the story of the death of a young girl, and the events leading up to it.

Sheila Barnes is a character that you can't help but to fall in love with. She comes to work at Lloyd Cotton's dairy farm, and becomes best friends with Lloyd's daughter Annette. The two are like sisters, sharing secrets. Sheila is poor and uneducated, but her wisdom is valuable and wise far beyond her years. Everyone that meets her is transformed by her....she is plain, and has a hump on her back, but after talking with her, no one notices those things....only Sheila's unconventional outlook on life. To Sheila, each day of life is a gift to be treasured. Her outlook on life and love is as magical as she is...forever an innocent child in a cruel world.

I will never forget this story....I am ranking it up there with my very favorite reads. This is the first novel that I have read by Bev Marshall, and I look forward to reading her others




Outstanding!

FRIDAY AT LAST!

Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading.

My find for today is:

A Small Furry Prayer: Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life by Steven Kotler

Steven Kotler was forty years old, single, and facing an existential crisis when he met Lila, a woman devoted to animal rescue. "Love me, love my dogs" was her rule, and Steven took it to heart. Spurred to move by a housing crisis in Los Angeles, Steven, Lila, and their eight dogs—then ten, then twenty, and then they lost count—bought a postage-stamp-size farm in Chimayo, New Mexico. A Small Furry Prayer chronicles their adventures at Rancho de Chihuahua, the sanctuary they created for their special needs pack.

While dog rescue is one of the largest underground movements in America, it is also one of the least understood. An insider look at the "cult and culture" of dog rescue, A Small Furry Prayer weaves personal experience, cultural investigation, and scientific inquiry into a fast-paced, fun-filled narrative that explores what it means to devote one's life to the furry and the four-legged. Along the way, Kotler combs through every aspect of canine-human relations, from humans' long history with dogs through brand-new research into the neuroscience of canine companionship, in the end discovering why living in a world made of dog may be the best way to uncover the truth about what it really means to be human.

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (September 28, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608190021
• ISBN-13: 978-1608190027

What did YOU find today??

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser today comes from Bird In Hand by Christina Baker Kline:

Eventually things would have to change. But now he felt like those prisoners of war he'd read about who were strapped, alive, to the dead bodies of their fallen comrades and thrown into the river. pg 125


What's YOUR teaser today?

Saturday Reflections

Today I am thinking of the past, remembering good times, loving family members and those who are no longer with me. I cherish the time that I have now, and thank God for those whom I shared my past...I love and miss you each and every day.

Book Review - Meeting Lizzy by Sarahbeth Carter

If you heard a strange noise from the apartment upstairs, would you make an effort to find out what happened? What if something happened, but the victim begged you to leave it alone? What if there was obvious evidence of violence, but the denials were adamant? Would you forget about it and walk away? What if you were only 17? I'm Cy McEntire. I wouldn't call myself a typical teenager. I'm only average in the smarts department. Meeting Lizzy was an accident, but one I'd never be able to forget. I was just sitting at home watching Law & Order reruns when I heard a girl in the apartment upstairs. She was hurt. I was breaking the golden rule of being a successful hermit, but I couldn't help it. If what I thought was happening in that upstairs apartment was actually happening, I had to find out. I was so sure that I would be wrong that when I wasn't, I had no idea what to do. So I didn't do anything. It was obvious the girl was being abused, but she adamantly denied anything was wrong. What was I supposed to do? I'm not all-knowing, so I just left. But I couldn't get the girl out of my head.


I was immediately drawn into this story about physical abuse between a high school girlfriend and boyfriend, and the hero who saves the day. This is a boy-saves-girl plot with a modern twist. The story not only deals with abuse, but also the relationships between teens and their parents. I enjoyed it and highly recommend it to anyone who loves YA novels.

Very Good!

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Paperback: 211 pages
• Publisher: Ljw Publishing (September 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976198665
• ISBN-13: 978-0976198666

Waiting On Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This is an unusual and uncommonly moving family memoir, with a twist that gives new meaning to hindsight, insight, and forgiveness.

Heather Sellers is face-blind -- that is, she has prosopagnosia -- a rare neurological condition that prevents her from reliably recognizing people's faces. Growing up, unaware of the reason for her perpetual confusion and anxiety, she took what cues she could from speech, hairstyle, and gait. But she sometimes kissed a stranger, thinking he was her boyfriend, or failed to recognize even her own father and mother. She feared she must be crazy.

Yet it was her mother who nailed windows shut and covered them with blankets, made her daughter walk on her knees to spare the carpeting, and had her practice secret words to use in the likely event of abduction. Her father went on weeklong ''fishing trips'' (aka benders), took in drifters, and wore panty hose and bras under his regular clothes. Heather clung to a barely coherent story of a ''normal'' childhood in order to survive the one she had.

That fairy tale unraveled two decades later when Heather took the man she would marry home to meet her parents and began to discover the truth about her family and about herself. As she came at last to trust her own perceptions, she learned the gift of perspective: that embracing the past as it is allows us to let it go. She illuminated a deeper truth -- that even in the most flawed circumstances, love may be seen and felt.

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (October 14, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594487731
• ISBN-13: 978-1594487736

What are YOU waiting for today?

Book Review - Breath by Martha Mason

From Amazon.com:

"I live with a stable of nightmares," Martha Mason writes, "but hope keeps them in harness."

Some might wonder how Martha could have clung to hope at all. In 1948, on the day of the funeral of her adored older brother Gaston, a quick victim of the great polio epidemic, Martha was struck with the same dreaded disease.

After a year in polio hospitals, she was sent back to her home in the village of Lattimore in the cotton-growing hills of western North Carolina. She was completely paralyzed, with only her head protruding from an 800-pound yellow metal cylinder that breathed for her. Doctors told her parents that she likely wouldn't live for more than a year.

But the doctors hadn't counted on Martha's will, or the hope that drives her still.

An avid reader, she dreamed of being a writer, and after finishing high school in her iron lung, she went on to nearby Gardner-Webb College, then to Wake Forest University, where she was graduated first in her class and elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

After college, Martha attempted to begin a career as a writer, dictating to her mother, who had devoted her own life to Martha's care. But her father suffered a massive heart attack, leaving him, too, an invalid. Her mother, caring for both, had little time for Martha's dictation.

Technology revived Martha's dream. A voice-activated computer allowed her to write without assistance. She got it early in 1994 in a time of great despair. A devastating stroke had altered her mother's personality, causing her to turn on Martha, and eventually to revert to childhood. Martha had to become her mother's keeper, and to run a household from her iron lung.

To help her deal with the crisis, Martha began writing about her mother's selfless love. As she wrote, she found herself telling her own story, without self-pity or sentimentality, and with her usual courage, grace, and humor.

Breath will make readers laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. It is a breath-taking memoir, a powerful testament to the human spirit, and it proves Martha Mason to be a writer whose voice is likely to be long remembered.

My Thoughts:

Martha Mason was an amazing woman. With each chapter, I continued to be in awe of all that she accomplished after being struck with Polio at the age of 12. My favorite part of the memoir was about her childhood. I got a true glimpse of what it was like to be a child in the 1940's, with strong, loving parents, a teasing big brother and lots of friends. Martha experiences a significant loss at a young age, and her health is compromised soon after.
I strongly recommend this memoir. I think it is safe to say that this is the most powerful memoir that I have read to date. With each passing chapter, I grew more fond of Martha and her mother and their loving care-givers. The fact that Martha never let her polio paralysis stop her from anything was truly amazing.

A DEFINITE "5" STARS!



Outstanding!

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Down Home Press (February 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878086952
• ISBN-13: 978-1878086952

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser today comes from Walking Through Shadows by Bev Marshall:

~The one time we had discussed "becoming a woman" Mama had said that was God's way of giving us babies and calves, colts, and litters of kittens, puppies and rabbits. Her face had turned as red as the apples in the fruit bowl on the table, and she had stared at them so hard for a minute I thought she was instructing them about wearing the rag instead of me.~ pg.39

What's YOUR teaser today?

Book Review - Crazy Love by Leslie Morgan Steiner

When Leslie Morgan Steiner was in her early 20's she thought she had met the man of her dreams. Conor was charming and handsome...he swept her off of her feet. At that point in her life, the world seemed to be her oyster. She had a job that any young professional would die for......she was an editor for Seventeen Magazine. Along with her much-loved job, she dated frequently, had a close group of friends, and a shared apartment in NYC.



After a short whirlwind romance, Conor and Leslie move in together and shortly after the trouble begins. At first, there were subtle signs....Conor was extremely jealous of Leslie's friends. She began to distance herself from many of them, to keep Conor happy. Things slowly got worse, until he finally hit her for the first time.



There were actually times while reading this that I felt sorry for Conor. He grew up in an abusive household and suffered at the hands of his step-father. But for the most part, I did not feel sorry.....I wanted to kill him myself. Leslie kept thinking that he would change. "Next time things will be better....." Leslie confided in her closest friend, who advised her to leave him immediately. But, Leslie loved Conor...and kept loving him, even while he was hitting her.
I would get so upset when Leslie kept giving Conor second chances. What would it take for her to leave him for good?



This was a painful memoir to read, although I enjoyed it, looking forward to what was going to happen next and hoping and praying for Leslie's safety and for her to find the strength to leave her abusive marriage.


Outstanding!

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition (March 30, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312377460
ISBN-13: 978-0312377465

www.lesiemorgansteiner.com

Book Review - Fragile by Lisa Unger

Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous.

Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father.

“I know how a moment can spiral out of control,” Jones says to a shocked Maggie as he searches Rick’s room for incriminating evidence. “How the consequences of one careless action can cost you everything.”

As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear. This thrilling novel about one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds will leave readers asking, How well do I know the people I love? and How far would I go to protect them?

My Thoughts:

I love Lisa Unger's novels! Fragile was everything I thought it could be, plus more.

I love Maggie's character...she is so down-to-earth and as a psychologist, cares as much for her patients as she does her own family. Her son Ricky is dating the missing girl and becomes a suspect in her disappearance. Jones, Maggie's husband, is a cop who believes that his own son has something to do with his girlfriend's disappearance.

I liked the way the story was told by multiple points of view, and was tied in to another young girl's disappearance 20+ years earlier, in the same town. She had been a classmate of Maggie & Jones's. In alternating chapters, Lisa tells the tale of Sally's disappearance some 20 years earlier and the eerie similarities between the 2 missing girls, past and present.

Although the main focus of Fragile is the story of a missing girl, Lisa bravely expounds on the subjects of marital discord, family secrets and the familiarity of growing up and living in the same small, tight-knit community forever.

I want to thank Crystal at BookSparks for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Very Good!

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Crown (August 3, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307393992
• ISBN-13: 978-0307393999

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read*
* Open to a random page*
*Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page *

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

My teaser today comes from Breath: A Lifetime in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung; A Memoir by Martha Mason:

~As I grew older, I discovered that the boys in my grade-school classes seemed obsessed with pulling hair and jerking on anything tied in a bow, particularly the ribbons on my braids and the sashes on my dresses. Inadvertently, Mother had made me the primary target for the bow-bashing squad.~ pg. 122


What's YOUR teaser today?