TJ Hirst

I lost myself in The Host by Stephanie Meyer for my first real summer read, and I rejoice to have finally finished it. Contradictions? Yes, the whole book conflicted me.

Last summer I spent a few days camped in my hammock with the Twilight series (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse). I’d heard a buzz that I had to read them. The youthful adventure and romance provided an easy escape from my serious nature and a possible bridge between my teenage daughter and me.

But you know there’s more to them than that, don’t you? Sure, author Stephanie Meyer writes a captivating story with a plot that carries a reader through its pages, wanting more. But her words are not shallow or hollow; behind the surface story lie powerful issues.

The complexities of love, marriage, and mortality are intertwined with the emotions of human sexuality in Bella’s and Edward’s relationship. Look for them. These characters are not only posing questions for each other but causing us to examine our current culture’s attitudes about sexual love and ask ourselves the same ones.

My daughter threw me into Meyer’s new adult novel, The Host, when she requested it from the library. Since she is only 14, I required that I read it first. Apparently the large-print edition didn’t have as many holds on it, so what we picked it up at the library last week was a 1144 page book that was bigger than a Bible. I didn’t have three days to devote to hammock reading, so I lugged this paperback with me to swim lessons, to exercise at the Y, from upstairs to downstairs and back, and into the late hours of light Minnesota summer nights. Since my vision adjusted to the 14-point type and I couldn’t read anything smaller, I had to set aside all my other reading until I finished.

I discovered three things when I was lost in this author’s latest novel:

First, The Host is definitely an adult novel. It is not overly sexual or violent or over the head for a youngish teenager. But the subject matter and ideas are more advanced than Twilight’s young adult audience. I told my daughter that she could read it, but that it will not be what she came to expect from the others.

Second, the depth of ideas is exactly what I was looking for, and she met those expectations. The Host is the story of a soul, Wanderer, from another planet who inhabits a human body. During her assimilation into her human host and Earth life, ethical challenges hit her hard when she realizes that Melanie, her host, still resides within the body. The plot moves along quickly when her choices pit her against her own. In an unexpected community Wanderer discovers love and hate and that both bring large variations and important choices.

Finally, here’s the conflict—I don’t like science fiction. The first few chapters of Twilight were not overtly weird. I genuinely liked the characters and the setting before I realized the book was about vampires and werewolves. In The Host, however, the first few chapters were clearly science fiction and quite confusing to me. I almost gave up reading it several times. I’m not a fan of this genre and was glad when the story moved closer to a form I could relate to.

Overall, it’s a worthy summer read that can be purely entertaining or just keep Meyer fans satisfied until Breaking Dawn is released on August 2, 2008. But honestly, like Meyer’s other novels, hidden behind the hype is a whole lot more.

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

My goal and purpose in offering monthly reading challenges is to stretch my brain to read and think beyond the usual. That has included reading more or reading with someone else. Thus far, I have not recommended a specific book to read but left the challenge open to personal interpretation. For the last three months I have participated in the Bodacious Bloggity Book Club at Marathon Bird, where we discussed one book each month.

Reading brings me to a place of understanding and when I get there I want to share that same place with someone else. So this month I propose a specific reading challenge that can accomplish this goal with thought-provoking content but still fit into the lazy days of summer:

Read The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom in July.

Alboum, the author of Tuesdays With Morrie, writes this clever story of a man’s death and discovery in heaven of how lives intersect with each other. I’m enjoying it already.

Do you want to Try It With Me? I will write my thoughts and review on July 29th and invite you to join the discussion with your own comments on that post or by writing a post of your own and linking to mine. Come back on Tuesdays between now and then for related challenges.

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.

I’ve been considering our circles of socialization in life and how our circumstances influence our thought and belief system and our influence on others.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Midmorning with Kerri Miller interviewed Howard Fineman: Senior Washington correspondent and columnist for Newsweek and author of “The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country.”

While I have not yet read his book, in the broadcast, “Divided, and United, By Debate” he talked about the importance of debating issues. Essentially, he says that as a nation we have been “born and bred to argue” about fundamental things that we may craft and participate in the political system of our government.

In my view that participation in talking and listening to one another is a means to “figure out” what’s working and what’s not, what we believe and what we don’t, and what is right and what is wrong, not only in politics or government but any aspect of our culture and modern lifestyle. However, as I try to live, talk, write and listen to create a conversation about ideas, I continue to bump into a barrier in all my circles that I haven’t been able to put into words.

Here are Fineman’s words:

There is a whole bubbling conversation taking part in a million different directions every day. My concern is not that the lack of sophistication is there—although that’s a problem sometimes—it’s that there’s a tendency for people stay in their own bubble, that whatever is reassuring to them, they’re constantly in it and they’re not getting out and listening to other people.

It is more comfortable to be in a bubble of people who are like-minded because we can relate to what they are dong and thinking. I have discovered this comfort zone in any community I’ve ever entered whether it be in a leadership capacity, a class at the gym, a neighborhood, church or even in the blogosphere. It feels awkward when we see a group of people around us that seem to fit together and we are on the outside of that. However, the more important point is that when we are in a bubble, it is difficult to see who and what are on the outside of it.

Fineman’s solution is to get out and listen to other people. While he admits that “most people would say that the hardest thing for any human being to do is to listen,” I would say that in my experience it is even more challenging to take the first step, to get out.

Can I really remove myself long enough from my own circumstances, concerns, insecurities and beliefs to get out of the bubble and see and hear those around me who have different circumstances, concerns, insecurities and beliefs?

On the broad scope of debating he suggests accepting the “fundamental humanity of the other people who are speaking.” On a more personal note, I suggest listening occurs more effectively when we let go of our own defensiveness.

Ultimately, the small ways I move outside my own thoughts, perspectives and conversations to listen to others enlightens my belief system to expand and strengthen it. Unfortunately, I realize I still only occasionally really listen outside my own bubbles and feel hampered in popping those bubbles altogether.

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

Today, I had an unfortunate post office experience. I complained.

I had purchased a roll of 100 stamps three days before the price was increased from $0.41 to $0.42. No sign was posted announcing the change that was only days away. Nor did the sales clerk communicate it to me when I asked for this large quantity of stamps. On the morning of the change when I heard of the price increase on NPR news, I seethed. I knew it was only $1 extra for all of those stamps, but they were worthless three days after I bought them without that extra one cent stamp that I now had to return to purchase.

When I went to the post office I told them of my complaint, which was primarily that no one communicated the price increase with words or with a sign. I didn’t think I was rude; I just expressed that I was a little “perturbed.”

The clerk, whom normally has a smile and a joke for everyone, put me in my place with his ultra polite, “Well, it has been difficult for all of us.”

But it didn’t feel like he understood me or even acknowledged my concern. So I upped my emotion. Then he said things like, “You asked a question, can I have a chance to talk, now?” I felt my confidence diminish that I had even stood up to speak.

KH and NH stood beside me during this attempt to express myself. Later when I asked KH about it, she admitted it was a bad scene. “A little embarrassing,” she said. “And your voice was shaking.”

So I wondered, how else was I supposed to handle it? Not saying anything? Act as if it doesn’t matter? I am opinionated, and sometimes I have a hard time knowing when I need to step up and say something and when I don’t.

But the good news is that I am mentoring my own daughter to know how. She received a late slip from the public library for a book she thought she had returned. Apparently she didn’t. She looked for the book everywhere at home. She even stayed after school to clean out her locker just too find it, but still no book. It was lost.

She stressed over it for many weeks. Every time she wanted to check out a book at the library, the outstanding fee prevented it and reminded her of the loss.

She waited until the end of the year to pay the $25 for the lost book and the $5 late fee thinking that maybe it could still show up. For a 14-year-old that is a high price to pay for a book that you won’t even get to read again.

This morning, she moaned about the “consequence” for losing the book and insisted that she had learned her lesson to be more careful. She resolved to pay it with her own money.

At the library, she paid her fee. After, I found her in the young adult stacks. She pulled out a book. “This is the book I paid for.”

“You mean you think it is the actual book that you checked out?” I said.

She hemmed and hawed, not wanting to commit. She explained something about the computer listing only one copy at our library, and that it was lost and paid for, but she said, “This must be from one of the other libraries.”

She hesitated as if she didn’t really believe that, so I pressed her. “Do you think that is the same book you checked out?”

She wasn’t completely sure, but I could tell she felt something growing inside of her. I encouraged her to trust her feeling and tell the librarians.

I sat on a bench with my other children and watched her in action. She took her concern to the front desk. She handed them the book and said she thought this was the book she just paid for.

They checked the barcode. Indeed it was. She had paid for a book that was sitting on the shelf the whole time she was stressing about it. They acknowledged that they should have looked on the shelf first. Two librarians thanked her for coming to tell them, which built her confidence in speaking up.

What a genuine learning experience in so many ways! Why couldn’t my “speaking up” at the post office have looked this good?

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

When I committed to the May Reading Challenge to read to or with someone, I wanted an unexpected opportunity to present itself. I waited. I trusted that such an opportunity would come and I would see it. I waited. I wondered. I made an alternate plan to pursue something else. But close to my deadline, it happened!

First, some background. Last year I read the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. When my daughter turned 14, I encouraged her to expand her reading genres and try these. Yet, I knew they were a little more mature and wanted to talk about some of the scenes and themes with her.

After she finished Twilight in two days, she started New Moon. She admitted they were better than she expected. Although I wanted her to slow down and let us talk about them, she is quick and not a big talker. Me—I’m a BIG talker; yet, she was plowing through them and wasn’t pausing for communication.

Until . . .

Sickness sidelined her unexpectedly on a school day, and I saw the opportunity. I rearranged my plans for the day. We settled into the couches where I read a chapter of New Moon to her. While she was a bit frustrated by the slower pace of listening, it did open her up to discuss the series. We engaged in some interesting conversation. And that was my goal!

Even as she returned to her book alone, I picked up my book, Watership Down, and we read for a couple of hours on the couch together. Interestingly, that opportunity opened my thinking about a plan to extend this challenge throughout the summer.

I thought my days of reading aloud with my children were over. They are becoming increasingly more independent and mature. But this summer may just be our window of opportunity to try one more read-aloud book together. And after finishing Watership Down, that might just be the right one. Or do you have some suggestions for a read-aloud with ages ranging from 9-14?

Did you read to or with someone this month? What benefits do you see from reading together? Tell me about it in the comments below or send me a link to your own post about it.

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.