Review: Mating for Life

Declaration time! I have found a new Canadian author to love after reading Mating for Life. Marissa Stapley's debut novel was so good and I enjoyed every second I spent reading it.

Here's the synopsis:

Former folk singer Helen Sear was a feminist wild child who proudly disdained monogamy, raising three daughters, Liane, Ilsa and Fiona (each by different fathers) largely on her own. Now in her sixties, Helen has fallen in love with a traditional man who desperately wants to marry her—and while she's fearful of losing him, she’s equally afraid she’ll betray everything she's ever stood for if she goes through with it.
Her youngest daughter, Liane, has just ended her own tepid engagement, and is in the heady early days of a relationship with the love of her life. But he has an ex-wife and two daughters—and her new role as “step-something” doesn’t come with an instruction manual. Ilsa, an artist (and classic middle child), has broken away from a bohemian past and is fervently hoping her second marriage will stick. Yet her world feels like it is slowly shrinking, and her painting is suffering as a result—and she realizes she may need to break free again, even if it means disrupting the lives of her two young children. And then there's Fiona, the eldest sister, who has worked tirelessly to make her world pristine. When she discovers her husband has been harboring a huge secret, her own past becomes harder to ignore, and Fiona loses her tenuous grip on happiness. To get it back, she must face some truths that she’d rather keep buried,
and alter the impossibly high expectations she’s been holding everyone – including herself – up to.
Interwoven with these narratives are glimpses of the lives of the women that surround Helen and her daughters: the first wife of Liane's great love; the girlfriend of a man Ilsa is drawn to; the young woman that Fiona's husband has kept a secret. Through these alternating perspectives, and with pitch-perfect honesty and heartwarming humor, Stapley explores sex, marriage, and how the many roles that women play are often at odds with each other. Ultimately a celebration of the redemptive power of love in all its forms, Mating for Life is a stunning, memorable debut.

I had received an ARC so long ago that I had forgotten what the book was really about, let alone that it was written by a Canadian. There are oodles of amazing Canadian authors out there. Some of those authors have written really great women's fiction. What I lack in my reading life (which, let's be honest, is my entire life) is women's fiction set in Canada. It just doesn't often happen. So, I was thrilled when I realized (remembered?) that Mating for Life was set in Muskoka and Toronto. This may not mean much to anyone else but ever since interning at Project Bookmark Canada (and, actually, I think there are some awesome Bookmark opportunities with this one) I've been trying to read more CanLit and it's hard when one of my preferred genres isn't represented. So, thank you, Marissa , for writing just the book I wanted to read.

I really loved the relationships in this novel. Stapley did an amazing job of capturing the nuances of the relationships between a mother and her daughter and between sisters. Because, as much as the marriages and other romantic relationships played a part in this novel, that's really what the story was all about - Helen and her three daughters and they way they interacted and felt about each other. I liked that even if you had a good relationship with your own mother or sister, as I do, you could still identify with Helen, Fiona, Ilsa, and Liane. You knew where they were coming from even if you couldn't understand, for example, how Liane didn't mention her engagement to her sisters, or even to her mother (those would be my first two phone calls should I ever get engaged). The family dynamic was just so real. I don't know how else to really explain why I liked the female relationships in this book...they were just really well done and I felt connected to their story and their lives as I was reading.

If you follow me on Goodreads you may be wondering why, if I'm obsessing over this book so much, I didn't give it five stars (if you don't follow me on Goodreads, I gave this one four, and only because I can't do halfs on the site!). This was purely for a personal reason. It is very common for me to not like a book when it switches perspectives. I like being in the head of one character (sometimes two is ok) but I'm not usually a fan of books that switch between three or more characters. Mating for Life switches between many characters but...I was pretty much ok with it. It still bothered me because I wanted to know what was happening in one character's life but then the chapter would end and it'd be onto someone else's world. It worked, totally, but it made me wish for more time with certain characters. It's also worth it to note that there were usually gaps in time between chapters and you're sort of left scrambling and playing catch up as you try to figure out what had happened with a character since you last heard of them. Again, this really worked with the way the story was being told but it was a little something that I didn't totally love. 

A small thing to note but I liked it so I wanted to share: each chapter started with the name of an animal (fox, squirrel, seagull) and a description of their mating behaviour. And I am pretty sure the name of that animal is mentioned within that chapter. I missed a few of them but I definitely caught others. So neat! Here's an example:

I'm a bunny owner. Of course I picked the rabbit one!

I don't know what else I can say about Mating for Life except: read it. Seriously. Marissa Stapley has written an absolutely wonderful novel and I think so many others would love it too. You can bet I'll be pushing this one on almost every reading woman in my life. If you're looking for a well written, emotional, real women's fiction novel (an added bonus if you want a Canadian to have written it), Mating for Life should be your next read. It will be released, appropriately enough, on July 1. Buy it, devour it, and then let me know what you thought of it!

*I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada, in exchange for an honest review.*

Project Bookmark Canada Internship Wrap Up

Well, friends, my life as an intern has officially come to an end. My last day of interning at Project Bookmark Canada was June 21 and, truthfully, I wanted to wait to post a final update because I had hoped I might have some exciting job news. No such luck, unfortunately, but I'll get into that more at the end of this post. For now, I'll update you on what I did since my last internship post (which you can read here if you missed it).

As I mentioned before, one of the major things I did for Bookmark was read books set in Calgary to see if any could be potential Bookmarks. I was a one woman reading machine with a goal of building a database! This was probably my favourite part of my internship - and not just because I was allowed to read all day (though that was an awesome bonus). I got to read about a city that I've never been to and visit it through the eyes of the authors. Sometimes there weren't any mentions of the city and sometimes very specific Calgary landmarks popped up (Nose Hill, the Bow River, Stampede grounds, and so on).

There were a few books that mentioned the town of Frank and the massive rock slide that demolished the city years ago (Googling...it happened in 1903). I found this interesting and so sad but I never looked into the history of it (which is why I just had to look up when it happened). The first (and, I admit, only) time I saw a picture of the slide was when author Angie Abdou tweeted a picture of her kids at the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre. (If her name sounds familiar it's because I read (and loved) her novel The Bone Cage and mentioned it in my last update.) Isn't that picture crazy? This exchange also makes me love Twitter even more. Thanks for sharing the pictures and info, Angie!

Because I'm sure you're oh so curious, here's the list of books I read over the course of my internship:

419 - Ferguson, Will (good but not my kind of book. I'm not surprised it won the Giller Prize)                                        

Fishing for Bacon - Davie, Michael 

Outcasts of River Falls - Guest, Jacqueline

Feather Brain - Bush, Maureen

Man & Other Natural Disasters - Parry, Nerys

Deadly Fall - Calder, Susan

Cleavage - Bischoff, Theanna

Kalila - Nixon, Rosemary

Roost - Bryan, Ali (great novel for moms, not so much for a 26 year old)

The Shore Girl - Kimmel, Fran

Iced Romance - Boyd, Whitney

Love Minus Zero - Hahnel, Lori (a really neat book about the Calgary punk scene in the 80s)

Swallow - Bischoff, Theanna (great read)

Poltergeeks  - Cummings, Sean

The Enchantment Emporium - Huff, Tanya (if you're a fantasy lover, read this one!)

The Space Between Us - Martinez, Jessica (a really enjoyable YA read)

Queen's Park - Ryan, Garry

Cobalt Blue: Stories - Borsky, Mary

Monoceros - Mayr, Suzette

The Bone Cage - Abdou, Angie (loved loved loved)

Reading these twenty books helped me see how varied Canadian literature can be. I used to always think it was boring and/or confusing literary fiction. Don't get me wrong, some of the above books fell into that category and I struggled to get through them. Others, though, were quite enjoyable. 

Speaking of building a database, if you read any Canadian fiction and think it would be suitable for a Bookmark let me know! I can pass it along to Miranda. Or, if you're really interested in donating or helping out, visit their site and learn more about becoming involved.

During my non-working hours I also tried to read some the books that already have Bookmarks. I only managed to read three of the twelve but I think that's pretty good considering all the other reading I had to do! I read Garbo Laughs by Elizabeth Hay (the Bookmark is in Ottawa. I briefly saw while driving by when I was visiting my friend in April), The Queen of Unforgetting by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (this is the book set in Midland, my hometown), and Sailor Girl by Sheree-Lee Olson (this Bookmark is in Port Colborne, near Niagara Falls). Reading these books, especially the latter two, really made me realize how awesome Project Bookmark Canada is. I was so excited when places I knew popped up in the books. The more Bookmarks we have in place, the more novels, poems, and short stories we can highlight, and the more cities and towns we can celebrate. (Yes, I notice that I'm still using "we"...) When I was reading Sailor Girl, a book that has the main character working on ships, I was really excited when Midland was mentioned. So much so that I had to take pictures:

I went to Port Colborne the weekend after I finished reading the book and knew I had to stop by the Bookmark. I think being able to do that is just so cool!

Another little perk, other than being able to work from home and read books all day, was getting a Bookmark t-shirt!

Don't I look snazzy? :)

Over the last couple of weeks of my internship I did more admin stuff for Miranda (more accounting type things that really made our brains hurt), more researching (I learned about Library Way in New York City), and thought up some ideas for a project Miranda is working on (secretive, I know, but I'll share as soon as she launches it!).

So, where am I now? I've been unemployed for the past week and haven't had much luck jobwise. I had a brief spike of hope when I had a prescreening phone call for the job I really wanted but that seems to be all I was going to get. There are still two other jobs I'm waiting to hear about - one is in publishing and one is back in non-profit. I think it's because I had a few options that I've been able to treat this unemployment as a vacation of sorts. I haven't become too bummed out yet but there are definitely moments that I wonder what the hell I'm doing and if I'll ever be able to find a job I really love. It's been nice, though, that the weather has been hot and I've done lots of reading - since the 21st I've read four books (I really thought it was more, lol). But, I'm trying to stay positive and am looking forward to some more reading time. I'm also going to try to work on my blog a little more - more scheduling posts, more posts that aren't just reviews, and maybe some design changes. And I'm hoping I'll finally have time to read Miranda's book of short stories!

Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me though this crazy journey. My friends have listened to be ramble on about not knowing what I want to do with my life and being worried that I won't find a job...ever. My family has done the same while also providing much needed advice and money. Finally, my poor boyfriend has put up with me when I was super tired from the ridiculous commute to Toronto, he made sure I had food to eat, and also dealt with my super chatty self when I was working at home alone all day (as bunnies don't make for good conversationalists). Thank you to all of you. I couldn't have made it through all this without you! Keep your fingers crossed for me! Hopefully I'll have some good news to share soon. :)

Time for an Internship Update

I'm nearing the end of my internship at Project Bookmark Canada but I wanted to give an update before my final wrap up post. Truth be told, I started this post about two weeks ago but just didn't have the time to finish it. Now instead of six weeks left I have four...maybe. I'm not entirely sure when my last day is! So far, things have been really great. I've been doing a lot of reading and researching, with the odd admin days thrown in. I've got lots of pictures to share that will help tell the story of my internship so far, so let's begin!

So, this is a Bookmark! This is the one that's in my hometown of Midland (bonus points if you're from Canada and know where that is...points not applicable to family and friends) that had recently been graffitied (er, how exactly do you spell that?) The book the excerpt is from is The Queen of Unforgetting, a great read. My sister had given me the heads up that it had been tagged, I told Miranda, and she asked if I would be able to clean it the next time I visited my mom. No problem! We made a family event of it - my mom helped me clean it, my sister took the photos, and my stepdad supervised and pointed out spots we'd missed. As you can see we successfully cleaned it! Yay us!

The main part of my position right now is reading. Specifically, reading books set in Calgary (so if you know of any, let me know!) It's been really interesting and I'm enjoying the fact that I'm recognizing certain landmarks and roads as they come up in multiple novels. It's actually making me want to visit Calgary! My library card is getting quite the workout and so far I've only had one late book. Oops! It was bound to happen with the number of books I have checked out! What I've loved about this is the fact that I'm reading so much great Canadian literature. I went into this internship without much experience reading Can Lit but I've really enjoyed many of the books I've read so far. My favourite definitely has to be The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou. It's about a wrestler and a swimmer who are trying to make it to the Sydney Olympics and is such a good read.

One of the great things about this internship is that I get to work from home. It's a nice change from having to embark on a two hour commute, one way, every day to Toronto. I did have to venture into the big city for a meeting with the lovely Amy from Penguin but it was oh so worth it. I got to pick her brain about social media and then she brought me back to the office and threw some books at me. Not bad for a day of work!

I mentioned having to do some admin stuff. I've gone to Hamilton to work with Miranda at her home office a few times so far. The first couple days I went we organized and shipped off books and Kobos to winners from our recent Page Turner campaign. As you can see from the above pictures, there were a lot of books to mail out! I've also helped her with some bookkeeping stuff (and let me tell you...two bookish people trying to do accounting stuff is pretty funny) and receipting, which I'm used to with my background in nonprofits.

So there we have it. Once I finish my twelve weeks, I'll give you more of my thoughts on the overall experience. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life and I've come close to having a meltdown over the past week but I'll figure it out. Here's hoping I have some good news in my final intern wrap up post!