Troublemaker by Leah Remini

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini

Publisher: Ballantine Books, November 2015

Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir

Pages: Paperback, 228 pages

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Summary (from goodreads.com):

Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood. But being a troublemaker has come at a cost.

That was never more evident than in 2013, when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology. Now, in this frank, funny, poignant memoir, the former star opens up about that experience for the first time, revealing the in-depth details of her painful split with the church and its controversial practices.

Indoctrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology’s causes grew increasingly intertwined. As an adult, she found the success she’d worked so hard for, and with it a prominent place in the hierarchy of celebrity Scientologists alongside people such as Tom Cruise, Scientology’s most high-profile adherent. Remini spent time directly with Cruise and was included among the guests at his 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes.

But when she began to raise questions about some of the church’s actions, she found herself a target. In the end, she was declared by the church to be a threat to their organization and therefore a “Suppressive Person,” and as a result, all of her fellow parishioners—including members of her own family—were told to disconnect from her. Forever.

Review:

Let me first start off by saying that this book was a BITCH when it came to getting my hands on it... being in Canada, where no one seems to have the rights to it, I had to order it from the US and I swear, they stopped it at the border twice before I finally got it in my mitts. By the time it was finally mine, the desire to read it had waned a little, mainly because the A&E series had finished a couple weeks before and I had moved on.

When it comes to Leah Remini, I absolutely love her. I watched her in Saved By The Bell (ummm, I am a child of the 90's), Who's The Boss and, of course, The King of Queens. My husband and I joked that we were the real life Carrie and Doug so I definitely knew that I loved Leah and would appreciate her 'story-telling' ability. Glad to say that I was not wrong! Leah's ability to tell her story is exactly as I imagined and, in fact, feels like you are right at the kitchen table with her, enjoying a cup of tea (glass of wine) while she's telling you all of the details.

Now, the details is where I found the story to fall kinda flat. After seeing the A&E series, I knew most of the facts behind her leaving Scientology but felt like the backstory was missing... Troublemaker was able to fill in those gaps but after reading it, I feel like I am no better off than I was before. The details are that interesting... they didn't add any feelings about the church one way or another and really, they were kinda boring. Yes, she was able to pull me in with her ability to tell me about them but, overall, it was just not my cup of tea.

Sadly, had the book arrived to me quicker or I had read it before the series aired on TV, I think I would have been able to take more out of this book... it just didn't feel worth the time and effort it took to get it.

Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon

Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks, October 2009

Genre: Fiction

Pages: eBook, 271 pages

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Summary (from Goodreads.com):

One summer day, at a gas station in a small Vermont town, six-year-old Ernestine Florucci is abducted by a person wearing a rabbit suit while her mother is buying lottery tickets. Twenty-three year old Rhonda Farr is the only witness, and she does nothing as she watches the scene unfold – little Ernie goes with the rabbit so casually, confidently getting into the rabbit’s Volkswagen bug, smiling while the rabbit carefully fastens her seatbelt.

The police are skeptical of Rhonda’s story and Ernie’s mother blames her outright. The kidnapping forces Rhonda to face another disappearance, that of her best friend from childhood – Lizzy Shale, whose brother, Peter just so happens to be a prime suspect in Ernie’s abduction.

Unraveling the present mystery plunges Rhonda headlong down the rabbit hole of her past. She must struggle to makes sense of the loss of the two girls, and to ask herself if the Peter she grew up with - and has secretly loved all her life - could have a much darker side.

Review:

I went into this book, thinking that it would be all about the abduction of a little girl and the search to bring her home. Never, in the long time that it was on my TBR list, did I realize that it really wasn't about finding the little girl who had gone missing but was more about solving mysteries from the past.

When I started reading, I was gripped by both ends of the story... the current timeline (2006) and the past (1993) but as I read further, I found my mind drifting and I could tell that if I let myself, I would be skimming the paragraphs just looking for parts of dialogue that added to the overall flow and weren't just words added to fill up more pages. Now, I will say that as the story comes together at the end, it does pick up it's pace and I found that I was reading from the edge of my seat. But for the overall flow, I wasn't impressed.

Now, as far as the two stories go, I can say that they are both very predictable... I had called the ending from, basically, the beginning and I imagine that readers of mystery/suspense books will be able to do this as well. It's definitely a story that I have read before and there was nothing added to it to make me excited.

The characters were okay... I didn't find myself drawn to anyone in particular and actually found Rhonda to be annoying and so wishy-washy that it was bothersome. I mean, who sees a child being lured from one vehicle to another, by A BUNNY, and just sits in their car DOING NOTHING?!?! Glad to know there are stand-up citizens like Rhonda out there to protect the innocent children of the world. (insert eye roll here).

Overall, not a book that I would recommend and while I am always glad to get another book under my belt, this one isn't very memorable.

The Daughter by Jane Schmilt

Daughter by Jane Schmilt

Publisher: Penguin, March 2015

Genre: Fiction

Pages: eBooks, 352 pages

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Summary (from chapters.indigo.ca):

Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon.

But when her youngest child, fifteen-year-old Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, Jenny’s seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.

As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised.

Review:

What just happened? I love me a mystery novel but man, this one was so frustrating that I sit here, having just finished reading it, not knowing whether I enjoyed it or hated it.

Normally, I love stories written from multiple perspectives. 'Daughter' is written all from Jenny (the mom's) point of view, but over a fifteen month time gap. One part of the story is current day, or a year after the disappearance, and the other is at the time of the disappearance. I found that I totally enjoyed the part if the story taking place in the past but the current day narrative was very slow moving and almost seemed unnecessary at times. As the story progressed, that got better but overall, I found the story definitely dragged.

When it comes to the characters, for the most part, I enjoyed them all. I thought Ted was a piece of junk and wanted to punch Ed on multiple occasions, but for the flow of the story, I thought they were all very well written. I related most to Jenny but as a mom, I wouldn't really expect much different.The part of the story that just fell flat, to me anyways, was the ending. I still don't really feel like we know what happened the night Naomi disappeared and I don't feel like we know what the future holds. I want more detail and given that the book is closing in on 400 pages, I think we should have some ideas that answer these, very important, questions.

Overall, good but not great... I never like finish a book and feeling unsatisfied.