Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

This is a book about the love affair between Mamah Borthwick Cheney and Frank Wright. It is not until about 3/4ths through the book that you learn how to pronounce Mamah's name. Small things like that drive me crazy. So do the big things such as how Mamah walked out on her family including two young children to go to Europe with Frank. I never felt the character development was strong in this book- it seemed mostly like an obsessed rambling from Mamah who was bored with her husband and smitten with the architect who designed their home. I feel she gets her just desserts when the house in Wisconsin Taliesan where she and Frank lived burned down - unfortunately it killed her kids but not Frank who manages to keep building houses and adding 2 wives to his portfolio.

Identical Strangers by Elise Schein and Paula Bernstein

This is a book about two girl twins who are adopted as babies and find each other at the age of 35 without realizing they were twins. The NY adoption agency was part of an experiment to separate twins whose mothers had mental health problems and observe them growing up in different families to see what part heredity vs environment plays in the twins' mental health. While the writing is a bit sloppy, I liked how the twins Elise and Paula wrote about the experience each from their own perspective. Elise was the eager one (also single and living in Paris) seeking out her twin, the mystery of the adoption agency and her birth mother. Paula was reluctant to have Elise become apart of her life- she was married and had a little girl. They had many similar interests such as film, and yet were also quite different. I was struck by the nasty and secret nature of the adoption agency and their unwillingness to help the twins piece the puzzle together about why they were separated for adoption. I found it touching when their birth uncle agrees to meet with them just once at the end to share the story of their severely depressed mother and what happened to her. This will make for some good book club discussion next week!

Eclipse and Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyers

I have now finished the Twilight series. In these last two books, I definitely preferred Eclipse and the major role Jacob plays. The tension between him and Bella works nicely. Things I did not like about these books was how Bella always manages to hurt herself. "Be careful Bella" is Edward's patronizing phrase. In Breaking Dawn things get weird as Bella marries Edward and then becomes pregnant. I really lost interest in the last book but plowed through the big fight scene and ending which wraps things up way too nicely. Thank you Stephanie for not writing a 5th book in this series. The first one is still the best!