Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: Step Back in Time to the Roaring Twenties!

Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties

Vera Abramowitz is ready for a change - living with her mother who plans for her to work in the family's stockyard and meatpacking plant, Vera longs for a more glamorous and glitzy life. Lucky for her, it's the Roaring Twenties and pretty girls can drink and dance all night in Chicago nightclubs. After she makes her move to the big City, she quickly hooks up with not one, but two gangster boyfriends. Times sure are fun, until Vera realizes she may have gotten in over her head, especially after she becomes pregnant and finds out the true identity of her lovers.

Per Library Journal Reviews, "as Vera's life unfolds and the consequences of her choices become clear, the novel evolves with her - from a coming-of-age tale, to a love story, and, finally, a lesson on redemption and coming home."

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

Step Back in Time to the Roaring Twenties!

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