Update

Fear not my minions, I am back and reading furiously.  Where was I you ask, well everything started over a week ago when I wound up in the ER in excruciating pain that turned out to be a kidney stone the size of a pea.  Sounds like fun doesn't it? 

The pain came out of nowhere, I was sitting at the computer checking emails and was blindsided with pain in my back and lower right abdomen.  It felt like someone had just stabbed me.  So I laid down on the couch and told Mark that I was in agony and called my mom.  My first instinct was appendicitis, which in hindsight I wish it was that way it could have been removed and the pain would have stopped in a more reasonable amount of time.  So after consulting with Dr Mom, we packed up and went to the ER since the pain was showing no signs of letting up, and I'm pretty tough when it comes to pain.  The ER was a pain in the ass.  They took my vitals after about an hour and a half which was rocket speed compared with the rest.  After the vitals, they stuck me in the world's most uncomfortable wheelchair for the wait of a lifetime for a bed.  Whoever does ER triage needs to be slapped in the back of the head.  Making someone wait with excruciating abdominal pain that could be appendicitis while little Tommy and Billy get stitched up and casted is nonsense.  Those kids were not bleeding profusely nor had bones sticking out of any skin, they could have waited.

I think it took something like 4 or 5 hours to get a bed.  So in comes doc who asks about the symptoms and poke around my belly saying that the pain must not be too bad since he was poking pretty hard.  Um, jerk store my pain was way deeper than your hands could ever palpate.  I told you that, you didn't listen.  After a pelvic exam, an ultrasound was ordered and so was a CT scan.  The CT scan, what fun that was having contrast shoved up my arse that made me puke my brains out an hour later.  Ultrasound showed nothing, CT scan showed a medium sized kidney stone.  The kidney stone could pass on its own, or it could need to be busted up and passed, so the waiting game starts.

Now ER docs are not very well versed in kidney stones, so they shoo you out of there with some expensive name brand scripts and tell you to call a urologist.  Now let's take into account what time of year this is, approaching Turkey day.  Apparently to get an appointment with a urologist within a reasonable amount of time requires either a secret handshake or password.  No one at any urologist's office cares that pain is a 27 on a 1 - 10 scale.  So I was stuck at home in agony, throwing up every half hour, no matter that stomach contents had long since been emptied.  Add in abdominal spasms all over my right side, made getting any rest or any liquids impossible.  The first three days home were spent throwing up and sleeping in 2 hour spurts.  Now mind you, my Mark had to go back to work, so I was left to fend for myself, easier said than done.  So after a few more days I got fed up with being left on my own and packed up to Hospital Mom.

Hospital Mom was a lot better than having a lab/pit mix as a nurse while my husband couldn't be bothered to check in on me.  So after the constant vomiting stopped and I could graduate to Gatorade and toast, the abdominal spasms tried their best to kill me.  ER doc gave me a script for a fistful of pills naively assuming that a urologist would see me in a matter of days.  Thank god I had an emergency stash of pain pills and muscle relaxers that could take down an elephant, but barely did anything for the spasms and agonizing pain.  Happy Turkey day...not!

Let's not forget the pee screen that I was supposed to use.  Maybe a urologist has better pee screens, but since those appointments take weeks to get, I had to attempt to use what they gave me in the ER which was next to impossible.  When your electrolytes are way off and your entire body is seriously malfunctioning where you can barely walk without passing out, peeing into a little screen was no easy task.  Plus everyone told me that passing this stone would be torture.  So I figured I'd know if I passed it or not.

Well over a week later and the pain has simmered to a tolerable level and the spasms have stopped.  I have no clue where this stone is, I don't think I passed it but I don't have a clue in hell.  Hopefully next week's urologist can tell me more and explain why I got this damn stone.

I rarely eat fast food, never drink sugary pop, drink close to a gallon of water a day and have a diet that's not loaded with calcium.  Why I got a kidney stone is beyond me.  Hopefully this is the one and only time I'll have to suffer with this and I'm crossing my fingers that the urologist will have some answers.  

The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard

ISBN:  9780061996054

Grade:  A+

Eternal thank yous to the good people at HarperCollins and Ecco Books!  Thank you a million times for sharing Hannah Pittard with us and introducing us to this gem of a novel.  This is my honest opinion, enthusiasm like this cannot be faked.

So after finishing The Fates Will Find Their Way, I have realized that this is likely to be the best book of 2011 and should be a huge hit.  The book cover will catch your attention with its colorful nature and once inside the pages you will not be disappointed.  This is a book that can be finished in one sitting, but I chose to savor each page not wanting this story to end.  The last 20 pages had me holding my breath at times.

So what is the book about?  It's a story about a girl named Nora who at 16 goes missing on Halloween.  It is not just a story about a missing girl, but a story of a missing girl and the impact on the community.  The story is told from a very unique point of view, first person plural from a local group of boys Nora attended school with.  The narrator is never named and never needs to be, which is much of the charm of this book.  The boys tell the story of Nora and their fantasies of her.  What happened to Nora is never fully defined, and that works like perfection.  The reader is allowed to imagine what happened to Nora.  Did she voluntarily get into someone's car and go to the airport?  Was she abducted and killed?  Did she escape from her abductor and die alone in the cold woods?  Was she pregnant and fled to start a new life in Arizona?  Did she live happily ever after?  What happened to Nora is unique to each an every one of us readers, and might be different each time the book is read and re-read.  What also needs to be mentioned is that Pittard writes from the point of view of adolescent boys effortlessly.  Some authors struggle with writing from the perspective of the opposite gender.  Hannah Pittard writes so well that at no point does the reader ever think that teen boys would have done something differently.  

Equally important to the story is Nora's sister Sissy.  Sissy was cared for by the boys and even loved by one in particular.  She was lusted after however inappropriate it may be to lust for the sister of a missing girl.  These feelings of desire ultimately led to Sissy going away to school and not returning for quite some time.

Another reason why this book gets such an enthusiastic response from me is that there is no hook to reel you in on the first page.  The whole book is the hook, compelling the reader to keep on going.  There are no lulls in the story and at no time could I predict what was going to happen in the next chapter.  All true signs of a great novel.

The characters were so well written that I could really picture them in my mind, quirks and all.  No two characters were alike.  Each character was artfully placed into the story, not one feeling unnecessary.  There was not one awkward word or any word that did not belong.  The story is also realistic and down to earth, although no one could ever wish for this to happen to their own community.  The dynamics between the boys felt like what real 16 year old guys behaved like, different maturity levels but all banded together in a brotherhood of sorts.    

We got to imagine what Nora would or could have been, and we also got to see the evolution of a group of high school boys as they grew into adults never quite forgetting about Nora.  We also got a look inside the inner workings of the families from a Russian vixen mom, a suicidal mom, and equally dysfunctional dads.

Suffice it to say, anyone will be a Hannah Pittard believer after reading this book.  This book will also renew anyone's faith in great literature.  All of us at some point have been let down and disappointed by a book or books.  The Fates Will Find Their Way soothes that, it soothes the soul.  This book can easily stand next to a Joyce Carol Oates with utmost confidence.  

Right now I just can't shut up about this book.  I talk about it to everyone I know, and will be discussing it with the book club this month.  If there is a Hannah Pittard bandwagon or a cheerleader squad, I'm all aboard.  Everyone should read this superb novel as it is perfection.