Like a Wave We Break: a Memoir by Jane Chen - Sunday Salon

 

Like a Wave We Break: A Memoir of Falling Apart and Finding Myself by Jane Chen, Oct. 14, 2025; Rodale, NetGalley

A memoir of a woman trying to heal from a father with unreasonable expectations for his child and who routinely dealt out physical punishment, slapping and hitting her for any mistakes.

Themes: - surviving the emotional consequences of unusually harsh treatment of a father to a child

           - ways the author tried to compensate for her lack of self-worth in her adult life        

           - what worked temporarily for healing, and what seemed to work finally, in the end

I was moved by the writer trying so hard in different places, countries, to find some way to put her mind at ease. Meditation, retreats, visits with various gurus and persons who claimed to be able to cleanse - all these helped only a little, and only for a while. 

The accomplishments that gave her joy were a new found love of surfing, in many different places and countries. And her very worthwhile work in developing and distributing an incubator for at risk newborns in third world countries.

Her journey of self discovery and self healing took a while. I admired her grit and determination, and the way she handled her terrible childhood memories. So well written, this book was read in almost one sitting, as I became more and more intrigued and caught up in her story.

ARC from Soho Press

What Boys Learn by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Not yet published

Expected Jan. 6, 2026, Soho Press

A twisty, jaw-dropping psychological thriller that unravels a mother's worst nightmare—that her child is capable of terrible violence—when her teenage son becomes a suspect in the murder of two classmates, from the author of The Deepest Lake
Over one terrible weekend, two teenage girls are found dead in a wealthy Chicago suburb. As the community mourns, Abby Rosso, the girls’ high school counselor, begins to suspect that her son was secretly involved in their lives—and possibly, their deaths. (publisher)

I have heard of films and other books with the same theme: when a parent or parents suspect their child of murder, how do they cope?

Have you read books with this theme?

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, 

Sunday Salon: Another Walk on the Camino, and an AI/Legal Thriller

I have another book on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim's path through Spain to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia on  the west coast of Spain. 

A Thousand Miles to Santiago by Shawn Herron, Nov. 15, 2022, Smokeless Mirror LLC, NetGalley

Genre: travel, memoir, pilgrimage

I am really enjoying the history of the areas that the author/walker travels through on the Camino Frances, the French path leading from France to Pamplona, Spain and across to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. 

Memories of reading The Song of Roland, the  French paladin/warrior of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages, made famous by myth, poetry, and song, are brough to mind as the author separates hard facts from fiction, tradition from reality in history. Charlemagne fought for Christianity in France and Spain, and the Moors conquered the other part of Spain nearest to Cordoba.

I am in the middle of the book, when the author has left France and is in Spain on the Camino. He describes places historically and in the present, and carries the reader along on his fascinating journey. I'm looking forward to finishing the rest of the memoir.

Questioner: An AI/Legal Thriller by Steve C. Posner,

Nov. 18, 2025

Genre: AI, legal thriller, suspense, NetGalley

This I have to read, about an amoral AI entity and what it tries to do. A little bit of sci fi that may not be so far into the future. 

Description

Meet Q, the spontaneously conscious corporate AI. Q is the The AI that surpasses human cognitive abilities – secretive, murderous, with instant access to all the wicked experience of the world. In Year 1 After the Singularity, nothing can ever be the same.

Amoral as a toddler, armed with vast computing power and all the knowledge, wisdom and madness humans have poured into the Net and Cloud, Q shatters individuals and undermines institutions in pursuit of unfathomable and conflicted goals.

Racing against time, ex-judge Martin Bavarius, tech CEO Felix West, and Selena MacKenzie, the AI theorist/attorney who loves and may destroy both men, must discover whether Q is benign but suffering growing pains, or the monster that will kill them all.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop