From Goodreads:

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.


Station Eleven is the best book I've read so far this year. As I read I thought, "This is post-apocalyptic fiction for people who are generally kind of tired of post-apocalyptic fiction."

Much of the book centers around the life and death of Arthur Leander, who had a heart attack less than 24 hours before the rest of the world came to a screeching halt thanks to a crazy flu that wiped out 99.9% of humanity. His existence should be inconsequential in the face of something much bigger but he echoes in the lives of survivors and serves as a reminder that ultimately it's the little things that matter the most.

At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen

From Goodreads:

After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis’s father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to his being colorblind. 

To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war. 

Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants. 

The novel tells of Maddie’s social awakening: to the harsh realities of life, to the beauties of nature, to a connection with forces larger than herself, to female friendship, and finally, to love.


This was the first book in a LONG time that I stayed up late to finish. It wasn't amazing or particularly complex but it was thoroughly enjoyable. It's more of a fluffy beach read than it initially appears.

I read this immediately after China Dolls, in which I had to fight SO HARD to like the characters. Maddie, however, is very likeable and becomes even more so as the book goes on. One of the criticisms I've seen of this book is that the main characters are all just spoiled rich kids doing what they want but...that's kind of the point. They're absurd and eventually Maddie realizes she doesn't want to be that person anymore. 

My one big criticism is that the love story left me going, "Wait, what?" They had the odd interaction then she saw him with his shirt off and suddenly they were both goners. That could have used a bit more development. 

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung

From Goodreads:

Chronicles the brutality of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, from the author's forced ''evacuation'' of Phnom Penh in 1975 to her family's subsequent movements from town to town and eventual separation.

I dated a guy in college who served his LDS mission in Cambodia. His occasional comments and recollections constituted 90% of my knowledge of Cambodia. The other 10% came from watching Tomb Raider (which had a few scenes filmed there).

I'm always a little embarrassed that I know so little about other countries and world events so when this title popped up as recommended in my Overdrive app I requested it. 

The book is narrated from a child's point of view but I couldn't help but read it as a mother. These kinds of books devastate me since having children. I can't stop putting myself in the shoes of Loung's mother, desperately trying to keep her children alive while slowly watching them waste away from hunger and overwork. When the father was killed I bawled great big tears onto my nursing baby's head. I can't imagine being in that situation and losing Aaron. The women who survived the Khmer Rouge were made of stronger stuff than I am.

This book is absolutely phenomenal, even if it led to me squeezing Emmy until she squirmed while I promised her she would never know that kind of pain or hunger. Reading the cold facts of the Cambodian genocide doesn't do justice to the horror and privations experienced by the people. I think books like this should be required reading in high school- when you learn about the events you should also learn about the people.

I Don't Know What You Know Me From: Confessions of a Co-Star by Judy Greer

From Goodreads:

You know Judy Greer, right? Maybe from The Wedding Planner, 13 Going on 30, Carrie, Arrested Development, or The Descendants. Yes, you totally recognize her. And, odds are, you already feel like she’s your friend. 

In her first book of essays, I Don’t Know What You Know Me From, Greer writes about everything you would hope to hear from your best friend: how a midnight shopping trip to Walgreens can cure all; what it’s like to wake up one day with stepchildren; and how she really feels about fans telling her that she’s prettier in person. Yes, it’s all here—from the hilarious moments to the
intimate confessions.

But Judy Greer isn’t just a regular friend—she’s a celebrity friend. Want to know which celebs she’s peed next to? Or what the Academy Awards are actually like? Or which hot actor gave her father a Harley-Davidson? Don’t worry; Greer reveals all of that, too. You’ll love her because, besides being laugh-out-loud funny, she makes us genuinely feel like she’s one of us. Because even though she sometimes has a stylist and a makeup artist, she still wears (and hates!) Spanx. Because even after almost twenty years in Hollywood, she still hasn’t figured everything out—except that you should always wash your face before bed. Always.

This was an emergency download. I am incapable of cleaning my house without an audiobook and my house was in dire need of cleaning. This book was immediately available from my library's digital collection and I generally really like Judy Greer so I nabbed it and got scrubbing.

When it comes to this kind of book, audio is really the way to go (especially when it's narrated by the author). Judy has such a distinctive voice and, like the blurb mentions above, she already feels like a friend. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it nearly so much in print form, but as an audio book? It was lovely. And now my house is clean.

Coroner's Journal: Stalking Death in Louisiana by Louis Cataldie

From Goodreads:

The frank and unvarnished memoir of a life spent stalking death in the Deep South.

Baton Rouge is a little town with big-city problems. Rich with Creole history, colorful locals, and a strong sense of community, it's also the home of Napoleonic codes, stubborn cops, and a sometimes-troubled leadership. Baton Rouge-which literally means "Red Stick"-lives up to its bloody namesake.

And after more than ten years as a deputy coroner and then as its chief coroner, Louis Cataldie has seen his fair share of unusual and disturbing cases. They range from the bizarre to the heartbreaking: an LSU professor killed by a barn door; the bones of a young woman found scattered in a churchyard; and as many as three serial killers loose at one time under Cataldie's watch. He has worked the scene of one of the Malvo/ Muhammad Beltway Sniper shootings and had a hand in bringing to justice serial killer Derrick Todd Lee in a controversial investigation that was featured in an ABC Prime Time special with Diane Sawyer and Patricia Cornwell.

Coroner's Journal is an unflinching look at a world that television dramas such as CSI can only begin to show us.

The stories in this book were fascinating and sometimes heart-wrenching (I bawled any time children were involved). I kept getting hung up on the writing though! Cataldie is a coroner, not an english major and it shows. Where was his editor?? Sometimes when I write a blog post I'll go through and rewrite a sentence here and there- the key, though, is to delete the original version so you don't have two sentences next to each other saying basically the same thing. This is like Editing 101, yes? It was weird coming across those kinds of mistakes in a published work.

Also, Cataldie was needlessly melodramatic and occasionally included details that were clearly for shock factor. His book is chock full of bodies but he declined to detail the process of slicing someone open for autopsy until halfway through, when he described it on a four-year-old boy who had been killed in a fire. I mean, really? That's an emotional sucker punch and totally unnecessary.

All that being said, I came out really liking Cataldie. He seems like a good guy who genuinely cares for the victims that come to him. He played a big part in the post-Katrina cleanup and spent months IDing bodies and returning them to families. Good guy, good stories, should probably change editors (call me!) if he decides to write another book.

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

From Goodreads:

Brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty insist they were commanded to kill by God. Krakauer's investigation is a meticulously researched, bone-chilling narrative of polygamy, savage violence and unyielding faith: an incisive, gripping work of non-fiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behaviour.

I've been wanting to read this book for AGES but I'm glad I didn't read it until now. It's mostly about polygamy but also includes some Mormon history that isn't particularly flattering. I don't know that I would have believed some of the history in this book until this year. Some people I'd been taught all my life to revere did some pretty sketchy stuff back in the day (I'm a lot more aware of that now, though).

I hesitate to say that I enjoyed this book- the subject matter is pretty awful- but...I enjoyed it. It was fascinating, especially as someone who comes from Mormon roots and has lived in Utah. I've read a few books about fundamentalism as well, so there were some familiar characters. Overall I thought Krakauer does a great job tying events together in such a way that helped explain people's actions and reactions. He weaves disparate tales about people and events together to create a cohesive narrative on polygamy and the history of violence among the saints (and their offshoot brethren).

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

From Goodreads:

From the bestselling author of Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird comes a chronicle of faith and spirituality that is at once tough, personal, affectionate, wise and very funny. With an exuberant mix of passion, insight, and humor, Anne Lamott takes us on a journey through her often troubled past to illuminate her devout but quirky walk of faith. In a narrative spiced with stories and scripture, with diatribes, laughter, and tears, Lamott tells how, against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. She shows us the myriad ways in which this sustains and guides her, shining the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life and exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope. Whether writing about her family or her dreadlocks, sick children or old friends, the most religious women of her church or the men she's dated, Lamott reveals the hard-won wisdom gathered along her path to connectedness and liberation.

My friend RA recommended this one to me after a long series of emails between us about faith and the struggles I've had over the past four years. I hadn't heard of Anne Lamott but apparently she's actually kind of well known, which just goes to show you how much of a bubble I live in.

I found her memoir incredibly eye-opening. She has a deep Christian faith but she approaches it from the complete opposite direction of most of the uber-conservative religious types I know. She's a sort of hippie liberal with dreadlocks who is all about seeing Christ in the brokenness. I wonder if she ended up there because of how hard she had to work to get where she is. She was a drug addict who ended up a single mother in deep poverty. She accepts the brokenness in others because she sees it in herself and knows where it can take you.

Lots of good thinking came from this one.