Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

Reviews by Barbara C. (Riverside, CA)

If you'd like to be able to easily share your reviews with others, please join BookBrowse.
Order Reviews by:
Secret Daughter: A Novel
by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
The Facets of Family (1/21/2010)
Seeing India and Mumbai from the points of view of so many people made it a feel-good sociological study. Who could not fall in love with Asha from the day she was born? These were real people and the writing improved as the book went along. I have a soft heart and I wasn't disappointed. I have never wanted to go to India, but now I am not so sure.
Await Your Reply
by Dan Chaon
Devices galore! (7/29/2009)
I would love to give this book to a psychiatrist and see what she could make of these sad characters. I love pathetic people as much as the next person, but this book seemed to contain devices designed to shock or confuse. Yes, I had to read it all just to find out what happened to the characters, but I cared most about the almost normal ones. Is that a character flaw in me?
How We Decide
by Jonah Lehrer
Making Decisions - heart or mind? (1/5/2009)
Emotion or rational thought? This book presents an enthralling explanation of the processes that the brain uses to decide what decisions it will make. Full of stories and anecdotes, it kept this reader’s interest throughout. The chapter on psychopaths and why they are so dangerous is chilling. The book is very current and includes information regarding the 2008 presidential election and how emotion and rational thought played out in the selection of candidates. Even the acknowledgments at the end are fun--the book was written because the author couldn't decide which type of Cheerios to buy!
Greasing the Piñata
by Tim Maleeny
Greasing the Pinata (10/8/2008)
This book appears to have an identity crisis. Perhaps if I had read the first two about the characters it would be more clear. However, it has elements of "male cozy' with broad humor about stereotypical car salesmen and mafia, scary fish in the toilet, etc. combined with very dark violence, Chinese triads, and drug lords. I would prefer better developed characters that I really cared about.
  • Page
  • 1
  • 2

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Lilac People
    by Milo Todd
    For fans of All the Light We Cannot See, a poignant tale of a trans man’s survival in Nazi Germany and postwar Berlin.
  • Book Jacket
    Lessons in Chemistry
    by Bonnie Garmus
    Praised by Parade and The New York Times Book Review, this debut features a 1960s scientist turned TV cooking star.
  • Book Jacket
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Based on the author’s family story, comes an extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ escape from Taiwan.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Serial Killer Games
    by Kate Posey

    A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

  • Book Jacket

    Ginseng Roots
    by Craig Thompson

    A new graphic memoir from the author of Blankets and Habibi about class, childhood labor, and Wisconsin’s ginseng industry.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

Who Said...

Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B W M in H M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.