Mary Hogan (1) (1957–)

This is the first historical fiction I have read that deals with the flooding of Johnstown on May 31st, 1889. This is a very dramatic and tragic aspect of the book and one of the reasons I liked the book so much was just the fact that it really moved me.

But, I'm getting ahead in the story. We are first introduced to the characters in the dual stories, Elizabeth Haberlin a rich young woman who spends the summers by the beautiful lake above the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. She spends the summers rubbing shoulders with the Carnegies, Mellons, and Fricks and she seems at first to be just another rich spoiled girl. But, as the story progresses do we learn more and more about her she is actually a very bright, although sheltered girl. And, a disastrous event will change her whole life...

In the present story do we meet Lee Parker, who on her 18th birthday finally learns more about her real mother. She was adopted as a baby and she loves her adopted mother, but she has a need to find out more about where she came from. In her papers is there a photo of her mother, standing in a pile of rubble from a disaster, besides Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. She got curious and decides to find out more about this...

I really liked this book, the class differences that are a large part when it comes to both stories. At first, I found Elizabeth Haberlin a bit hard to connect to, but after a while did she start to grow on me and towards the end did I find myself really liking her. Contrary did I find Lee Parker to be right from the very start a fabulous character, easy to connect with. I also liked how the Jewish lifestyle was a big part of both stories. All and all is this a great book!… (plus d'informations)

When I saw the cover of the young adult novel Pretty Face by Mary Hogan at my library, I got high hopes for it. I deduced that it was about a plus-size teenage girl living in skinny-obsessed Southern California who discovers to love her body as is during a life-changing trip to Italy after quickly scanning the cover flap. My heart fluttered, because it was reminiscent of one of my favorite books, the memoir An Italian Affair which was about a woman who learns to accept her body (inside and out) while carrying on a long distance relationship with an older man she met while traveling in Italy. I snatched it off the shelf and quickly took to reading it. I held all my hope and reservations in check until I finished it.



Pretty Face is the story of Hayley, an overweight teen who is being badgered (damn near abused) by her mother to lose weight—a woman who lost weight on a Weight Watchers program and now is cooking & badgering her family with the zeal of a skinny convert. Self-conscious Hayley hides her pain of not fitting in with the pretty skinny folks of Santa Monica by binge-eating on comfort food in front seat of her car or making up for being fat by being the funny girl. Feeling she needs a change of scene, her parents send her to Italy to spend the summer with an old family friend. This is where and when the transformations begin.



Hayley is automatically seduced by the long, home-cooked meals and her diet plans fail her. The descriptions of yummy dishes will have your mouth watering. She spends her days at a slow anti-Santa Monica pace. She walks and bikes everywhere. She gardens. She reads and plays board games with her host family. She stops to literally and figuratively soak up everything the small Italian town has the offer. Instead of spending days self-loathing, Hayley begins to enjoy life. And her life becomes very sweet when she finds the gorgeous, gap-toothed Enzo—her first love and lover. Their romance is strong, quick and heady, and they fall under the spell of each other easily. Best of all, he loves her body. She’s his curvy Americana with a beautiful face, and the phrase is not used as an underhanded compliment. Hayley finally accepts and learns to love her big body.



Upon returning to California, she is immediately crushed by her mother’s size obsession as Hayley body has firmed up and slimmed down a bit from her daily walking tours and visits to ancient churches. Hayley does not revel in the compliment of being/looking smaller because she is past needing it. Then on the last page, the book takes a turn. Hayley steps on the scale and is happy about the number on it! The book tried so hard to create a journey of a protagonist who takes care of herself physically AND emotionally for the first time and accepts her body for what it is and can do, but it suddenly kills that positive message by having her equate it to the number on the scale.



With that said, I do come away from the book with less self-loathing about my weight and I’m sure several girls (and maybe boys) will as well. The love story between Hayley and Enzo was sexy without being graphic or smutty. The author also does an excellent job of transporting the reader to a different place, and making one long to take a trip to Italy ASAP. The other downside of Pretty Face is the liberal sprinkling of cultural references that dates the book, and will have readers 3 to 5 years from now running to Wikipedia to understand them all.



On a scale of 5 stars, I give Pretty Face 3 stars. (Five stars for the excellent descriptions of food.)
… (plus d'informations)

I read a lot of mixed reviews on this book before I started it. Some people loved it, others not so much. When my Mom was terminally ill and I was her caretaker, I often fantasized about what I was going to do when it was over. When life was "good" again. I found myself doing the same thing when caring for my terminally ill fiancé. Imagining a bright future helped me deal with the horrors of the present. I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to read this book. I feel like I connected with Fay and I totally understood what she was dealing with.… (plus d'informations)

I read a lot of mixed reviews on this book before I started it. Some people loved it, others not so much. When my Mom was terminally ill and I was her caretaker, I often fantasized about what I was going to do when it was over. When life was "good" again. I found myself doing the same thing when caring for my terminally ill fiancé. Imagining a bright future helped me deal with the horrors of the present. I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to read this book. I feel like I connected with Fay and I totally understood what she was dealing with.… (plus d'informations)