AHML Staff Choices

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Together, these books tell the gripping and emotional tale of Nic Sheff’s decent into drug addiction and the impact his addiction has on the entire Sheff family.  While both books artfully chronicle Nic’s drug addiction and the ups and downs of addiction and recovery, each book is told from the author’s own point of view and personal experience.   

BEAUTIFUL BOY:  A FATHERS JOURNEY THROUGH HIS SONS ADDICTION

From the parental perspective, David Sheff masterfully provides insight as to what it was like for him to helplessly watch his son fall into the grips of drug addiction.  The author details the nights he lay awake wondering if his son was alive and days of driving through the streets of San Francisco looking for his son.  As a reader you begin to understand that as a father David Sheff must learn to seperate his son from his addiction and you absolutely feel the love he has for his son, despite his addictions.  Ultimately, this book is an amazing and engaging tale of the struggles many parents face in our society as they lose their kids to drug addiction.  Beautiful Boy  was written as a result of a New Yorks Times Magazine article that David Sheff wrote about his sons addiction and the impact on the family.  After the article appeared, the author was inundated with questions and comments from readers.  Expanding on the magazine article David Sheff then wrote this New York Times Best Seller book. 

TWEAK: GROWING UP ON METHAMPHETAMINES

From the addicts perspective,  David’s son, Nic honestly and heartbreakingly describes his addictions and struggles for recovery.  I read this book immediately after Beautiful Boy.  As a reader, I found it very enlightening to read about the exact same person’s drug addiction, but this time from the addict himself.  Nic describes how he turned to drugs as an escape as a teenager and quickly found himself neglecting all of the activities and people in his life.  Just as I could empathize with a father’s struggle with his son’s addiction, I found myself caring deeply about Nic and rooting for him to overcome this addiction that has taken so much of his life.

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This is a great thought provoking young adult novel.   The premise is really “out there” but the book is extremely well written with rich characters that you really love and root for.  The protaganist, Liz Hall ends up in Elsewhere when she is killed in a bicycle accident.  Elsewhere is where you arrive when you are dead–it is quiet and peaceful, no once gets sick, it is usually sunny and warm. . . Elsewhere turns out to be a place like earth where you age backward from the day of your death until you become a baby again and return to earth.  The book follows Liz as she meets her Grandmother in Elsewhere, makes friends, finds love, misses her family on earth and all sort of emotions that Teenagers feel.  I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in young adult fiction but wants age appropriate, thought provking reading material.  I definitely will read this author again and will recommend this book to my preteen daughter.

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This is Thomas Mullen’s debut novel and he received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Historical Fiction for it!  The novel is set in the small Pacific Northwest town of Commonwealth during the the 1918 flu epidemic.

As the book opens, the town of Commonwealth is threatened from all sides– World War I is raging, and with the fear of spies rampant, the loyalty of all Americans is coming under scrutiny. Meanwhile, the flu epidemic has fallen across the region striking down surrounding communities.

Commonwealth votes to quarantine itself against the flu and guards are posted at the single road leading in and out of town.  But, a tired–and apparently ill–soldier presents himself at the town’s doorstep begging for sanctuary. The encounter that ensues, and the shots that are fired trigger a series of events and consequences throughout Commonwealth escalating until every human value–love, patriotism, community, family, friendship–not to mention the town’s very survival, is in question.

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This novel is told through the lives of its characters –Fos, an amateur scientist and his wife Opal,  their impulsive best friend Flash, and their son, Lightfoot.  The story touches on many themes such as the price of scientific and technological progress, the American Dream, and the enduring power of love.  Set between the two world wars, the novel weaves personal tragedy with large-scale tragedy, as Fos unwittingly contributes to both the sickness of his wife and the development of the atomic bomb.  Marianne Wiggins’ writing is beautiful, poetic and insightful.  This novel touches both your heart and the mind.

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In my opinion, this second book by Khaled Hosseini more than lives up to its predecessor, The Kite Runner. In A Thousand Spendid Suns, Hosseini takes us through thirty years of war and upheaval in Afghanistan’s city of Khabul. The book follows two generations of women brought together by war and personal tragedies. Together they struggle to survive, raise a family and find happiness. All these life events are set against the backgound of the Soviet invasion, the reign of the Taliban and finally the post-Taliban rebuilding. I highly recommend this book and hope that he writes a third!

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2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

The novel follows Max Morden, a middle-aged man as he confronts his past. After his wife dies of cancer Max retreats to a seaside town where he spent summers as a child. While there, he alternately remembers his life with his wife and that summer holiday where he became infatuated with the wealthy and sophisticated Grace family, first with the mother, and then with the daughter. These relationships with these three women were the uneasy mess of life that helped define who he has come to be.

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Two families awaiting the arrival of their adopted infant daughters from Korea meet at the airport. The families lives become intertwined after the Donaldsons, a young American couple invite the Yazdan’s, Maryam, her son and his Iranian American wife to an arrival party, which becomes an annual event. Maryam, who came to this country thirty-five years earlier, feels her values threatened when she is courted by a newly widowed Donaldson.

In this novel, Anne Tyler provides interesting insight on the American way as seen from two perspectives, those who are born here and those who are still struggling to fit in.