Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee is a South African (white) writer. This story is about a twice divorced man, Prof David Lurie, who seduces young women  (often his students). His obsessions catch up to him when a complaint is finally filed and he is tried by his colleagues who try to help him repent, but he declares himself guilty and unwilling to repent and thus looses his teaching job. He heads out to the country to reconnect with his daughter, Lucy, who eeks out a living farming on a scrap of land. While he is there, a roaming group of young black men come to the house, rape Lucy, kill her dogs and steal David's car. Lucy's reaction to the event "I am staying and not filing charges" baffles her father. His anger toward the young men who commit the crime is full of ironies considering his conquests of young women. Life in the new South African and the relationships of men and women, whites and blacks made this short book a good quick read.

The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard

While this book is not high prose, it is a riveting story about a mother, Beth, whose three year old son, Ben, is kidnapped from the lobby of a hotel when she takes her family to her high school reunion. Beth's plunge into severe depression and fixation on the loss of her son create disintegrating relationships with her family but most especially Vincent, her older son, and Pat, her restaurant manager husband. This books has a surprise twist, which seems a little implausible when the lost boy is found nine years living nearby with a "step dad".  The  mother  in me was affected at  a gut level...I don't know how I would ever cope with such a loss, but I might have taken on some of the same behaviors of guilt and resentment toward those I lived with that Beth does. It reminded me of The Good Mother by Sue Miller. Life can be perfect one day with your young child and the next day a turn of events makes your life hell and you cannot think of anything else but the loss of your child. 

White Oleander By Janet Fitch

I started out liking this book a lot. It was the heart breaking story of a young woman, Astrid, who grows up with a free spirited poet mother. Her mother kills an ex lover and goes to prison leaving Astrid to struggle through a number of foster families in search of  a normal family to love. Many things happen along the way -- she first lives with a born again woman "Starr" and has an affair with her boy friend and "Starr" shoots her in anger, then she lives with Marvel and her family with 2 kids whom she is the live in nanny, but finds an interesting woman, Olivia, next door whom Marvel does not approve of. Then she lives with a woman who padlocks the fridge and starves the girls living there. Then she moves in with Ron and Claire who give her love and attention, but that ends with Claire's suicide...by this time I am in the "enough already" mode and had to skim very lightly the rest of the book. Janet is a good writer but does not know when to quit.