AND THE WINNER IS: Perfection by Julie Metz

Result: 25

25

11/4/2010 1:06:58

Inspired Kathy

bkhabel

An email has been sent to the lucky people named above (first part of their email address in case my note ends up in spam). They have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.


Thanks to all who entered.



Didn't win? Order your copy from my Amazon link:

GIVEAWAY & REVIEW: Perfection by Julie Metz

Description

Julie Metz had seemingly the perfect life--an adoring husband, a happy, spirited daughter, a lovely old house in a quaint suburban town--but it was all a lie.
Julie Metz's life changed forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapsed on the kitchen floor and died in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old became the young widow in her bucolic small town. But that was only the beginning. Seven months after Henry's death, just when Julie thought she was emerging from the worst of it, came the rest of it: She discovered that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.
Perfection is the story of Metz's journey through chaos and transformation as she creates a different life for herself and for her young daughter. It is the story of rebuilding both a life and an identity after betrayal and widowhood, of rebirth and happiness--if not perfection.

About the Author

Julie Metz is a graphic designer, artist, and freelance writer whose essays have appeared in publications including Glamour and Hemispheres magazines and the online story site mrbellersneighborhood.com. The recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, she lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter and partner.

Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Voice; Reprint edition (May 18, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401341357
• ASIN: B003XU7VWE

SOURCE:  PUBLISHER

 MY THOUGHTS
ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT

Spoiler Alert!  

This is probably one of the best memoirs I have read this year.  It is also one of the most honest and truthful one I have read.  Julie Metz leaves nothing unsaid and the story unfolds much like a mystery novel.  You can't stop reading until you find out what happens next.  I am so glad that there is a happy ending for her.  Well, I guess I just ruined the ending for some of you.  To me that is what life is all about and making the best of a bad situation and learning from it are two of the best things about this book.

The story starts out typically enough, the author's husband suddenly dies and she is left a young widow and must rebuild her perfect life.  Or what she thinks is perfect.  Julie doesn't pay attention to those telling details about her husband's trips to the West Coast and it is amazing that the clues of her husband's infidelities don't really register with her.  As she finally wade through her "perfect life" and regains her confidence, she becomes whole.  I know several women that this same thing has had happen to them, well, not the death part, but the slow dawning that something is just not right.

I also applaud her reaction to the "other" women as she searches them out to find the truth.  I don't know if I could personally track down each and every one of them since I would probably want to remain in the dark, but there is a part of me that can see how this would bring closure.  I really love reading memoirs and this was our book club pick one month.  I didn't get to participate that month, but I am glad I had a chance to finally read this one. 


WANT TO WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK?

Contest is open to anyone with a US mailing address (no PO Boxes)
Contest ends on 11.17.10 and Winner will be chosen by Random.org on 11.18.10
Winner will have 48 hours to respond to email or a new winner will be chosen.
This giveaway is sponsored by Voice and 1 book will be available.
Only one winner per household address!

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20 QUESTIONS WITH: Julie Metz, author of Perfection

I really want to thank Julie Metz, author of Perfection, for stopping by BookHounds to answer my silly 20 Questions. 





20 Questions:


1. Bookmarks or dog ears?
When I read hardcovers I use a bookmark. Paperbacks I often treat like my college books—I make pencil notes and dog-ear pages I love. Post-It notes make a good bookmark.

2. Dust jacket on or off when reading a hard back?
I usually keep the cover on. Sometimes I take off the dust jacket and use it as a bookmark. As a graphic designer, I love looking at book jackets. A great one truly enhances the reading experience.

3. Favorite author?
Oh jeez, please don’t make me pick!...(in no particular order and incomplete:Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Jane Austen, the Brontes, Dickens, E.M. Forster, Richard Ford, Tom Perotta, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vladimir Nabokov, Alice Munro…

4. Favorite genre?
 Fiction: Novels and short stories. Occasionally a thriller/mystery, but nothing too gory. And sometimes a biography. This year I finally read the terrific biography of Edna St Vincent Millay: Savage Beauty.

5. What is the best book you have read in the last year?
Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad, and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (sorry, that’s two). And The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman. Okay, I know, that’s three.

6. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I think Savage Beauty would make a fantastic period film. Edna St Vincent Millay was such a rock star poet—it would be a great role for a younger actress, with plenty of early hardship, romance, drama, and fantastic settings from New York to Paris to rural Maine and New York State. I just Googled it and it seems that there is one in the works…

7. E books: Friend or foe?
I do not have an e-reader…yet. I accept the practicality of e-readers, I know they are the future but I will miss the aroma of paper and ink and the tactile experience of turning the pages. But I know I am old-fashioned.

8. Was there a book that inspired you to write?
n.a

9. What are you reading right now?
I am re-reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

10. What is the last book you bought just for the cover?
Stickwork—about the art of Patrick Doughterty. He builds these amazing structures from branches. I had seen one on a school campus and when I saw the cover photo I remembered my wonderful in-person experience and I just bought the book on impulse. 

11. What is the last book you received in the mail?
Schooling by Heather McGowan

12. What is the number of books you own?
Whatever number fits into 70 boxes! I know this because we just moved and those boxes are still in our basement.

13. What is the first book you remember reading by yourself as a child?
I Can Fly, a picture book. I still have it.

14. Do you have a favorite place to read?
In bed, at night, under the covers.

15. What is next for you, publishing-wise?
I am working on a novel…

16. Do you have a favorite place to write?
We just moved to a new apartment in Brooklyn. I now work at a small desk in our living room. It’s quiet and peaceful, with good light, which is all I ask for.

17. Do you have any pets ?
We have two cats. One is an ancient gray and white lady. It’s like having an adorable grannie living with you. Somehow she is hanging in there. The other cat is younger and pretty much a chowhound. I have no one to blame but myself. I did what I never did with my own daughter—I succumbed to whining!

18. How does your garden grow?
I have a real garden again at last, a 20 by 40 Brooklyn back yard. It was a wasteland when we moved in, but now I have a small tree, shrubs and I am awaiting a shipment of bulbs. In the spring I will order roses (winter will be spent happily poring over catalogs!) It’s weird I know, but I truly love weeding.

19. The last thing you Googled?
The website for Burning Man. I will never go, I was just going on a vicarious road trip.

20. What makes you cringe?
Among many other things, my own eagerness to read junky magazines at the gym.