by Lee Woodruff
First published 2009
Lee Woodruff opens her jewelry box and sees her entire life reflected in its contents. Each piece tells a story of love, loss, and the memorable moments that shaped her journey as wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. After co-writing about her husband Bob's recovery from a traumatic brain injury in Iraq, Woodruff now turns her lens inward. She chronicles the chaos of raising adolescent children whose bathroom doors seal tighter than government nuclear testing grounds. She confronts her changing body as her knees begin forming dreaded smiley faces underneath. When life overwhelms her, she finds solace swimming in the velvet wet of a bluish green world where she can dive deep and sob without trace. Through it all, she maintains her Leave It to Beaver sensibility rather than Sex and the City sophistication. Woodruff traces both quiet moments and significant events with fresh irreverence and candor, embracing the chaos around her while discovering beauty in life's imperfections.
Genres: family-life, autobiography, memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, personal-growth
256 pages · Hardcover · Random House