The Myth of the Uterus: Shaping Women's Bodies
Author: Melissa F. Crown:

Reviewer: Sharon D. Anderson: “This book is very well written and thought provoking… it certainly puts a woman in touch with her uterus, her body and her purpose… the writings take one right to woman’s center, her core for being… Melissa is opening up a new venue as to how women see and address their bodies…”

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Sixtyfive Roses: A Sister's Memoir
Author: Heather Summerhayes Cariou
Reviewer: Gillian Culff

You could say this memoir is one woman’s struggle to come to terms with loss and to explore and understand the complex family dynamic that evolved in the context of her sister’s terminal illness. You could also say it’s a book written to satisfy a death-bed promise to “tell our story.” On both levels, this is a monumental piece of self-reflection and painstaking re-creation.

But to stop there is to acknowledge only the motivation for the book and the challenge of writing it and to ignore its broader impact on the reader. In this page-turner of a memoir, Cariou has taught us what it is like to live with a family member’s chronic, severe, incurable illness. This book chronicles a family learning to tolerate the intolerable, to endure the interminable, to ameliorate the unmitigable and to understand the inconceivable. How do you watch your best friend and closest relation die for twenty-two years? How do you live fully, when your life exists on that liminal plane that most of us only experience briefly during times of crisis? Cariou has no clear-cut answers for these questions, only her own family’s example of surviving and moving forward—at times coping brilliantly and achieving greatness (as in their founding of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation) at others, scraping for the smallest reassurance that they’d all turn out okay.

This book is not sentimental, nor does Cariou portray the individuals involved as deities or villains. She reveals each family member with the matter-of-factness of an observer, rarely judging, except to say that, in spite of their failings, everyone did the best they could, under the circumstances. In Heather we see the jealous, angry, teenage older sister who lashes out, as well as the heartbroken protector, faced with the choice of living her own life or standing by her sister's side. We never feel that the author's actions are heroic—only human, and driven by the usual human motivations of fear, guilt and love. Eventually, the author even manages some self-forgiveness, implicitly encouraging us to do the same for ourselves.
In the end, this is a book about a relentless human struggle; it's a call for compassion and understanding and a reminder to us all—including Cariou herself—to be better human beings and to live our lives by Pam Summerhayes’s legacy: to surrender, to have faith, to be unafraid, and to give and receive love freely, making the most of each day.

Finding Our Forever Families
Author: Sharon D. Anderson, Ph.D.
Reviewer: Sue Tyrrel

With Finding Our Forever Families, Sharon Anderson has not only written a sweet book about how formerly homeless animals have found permanent homes for themselves, but she has also provided a blueprint for people who may want to create a similar ‘no kill’ animal shelter in their own community.

Finding Our Forever Families contains one charming story after another about how pets have found their “forever families.” The vignettes are told from various “points of view;” sometimes by the new owner, and some from the animal’s “perspective.” Each story is accompanied by a photo (mostly cats and dogs, but also a possible coyote or coyote/dog hybrid, and even a pig!). Along the way we learn about the various characteristics of the different breeds of dogs and cats, and how some animals, once thought to be hopelessly anti-social, turn out to be fabulous pets after receiving the love and proper attention they so richly deserve. We are especially moved by the plight of Elsa, a cat that was rescued in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, who was improbably reunited with her owner two years later.

Some of the animals never do find a “real” home, but Sharon details the remarkable care they receive at the no kill Dogs & Cats Forever Shelter located in Port St. Lucie, Florida.