BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

Reviews by Eileen E. (Asheville, NC)

When She Woke: A Novel
by Hillary Jordan

Close to the bone... (10/23/2011)

This novel is written very close to the bone. Jordan transports us into a world that is at once frightening and plausible. It is The Scarlet Letter moved forward to a future society that is as puritanical as it was back then. Could we regress to that today? This book …more

The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel
by Adam Johnson

The Stepford Wives revisited (10/22/2011)

North Korea--a country shrouded in mystery.
The author opens the gates and I was shocked, sometimes horrified by what was behind them.
Jun Do is the orphan masters son, and it is through his eyes that we see this repressive paranoid country unfold. Kim Jong II, the only …more

Snowdrops: A Novel
by A.D. Miller

Come to the cabaret.. (12/1/2010)

Moscow at the time capitalism begins to take hold is a intoxicating mixture of corruption and celebration. Ultimately, everything is on a downward slide, where greed and sin rule, and no one escapes the temptation. An engrossing read, thought of Gorky Park , the bleakness …more

Solomon's Oak: A Novel
by Jo-Ann Mapson

Solomon's Oak offers hope.... (10/6/2010)

A wedding chapel located under a two hundred year old oak tree, Solomon's Oak, provides a young widow, Glory Solomon, with a strong link to her memories of living on their California farm.

This is a story of three people, from three different walks of life and what they …more

The Nobodies Album
by Carolyn Parkhurst

Learning from the past for the present.... (6/24/2010)

Olivia Frost is a successful novelist who has come up with an imaginative idea for her most recent book. It is a compilation of the endings of her previous books, rewritten the way she thinks they should have concluded. Her general equanimity is rattled when she finds out …more

Learning to Lose: A Novel
by David Trueba

A City comes alive and pulses (5/5/2010)

From the minute I started reading this book I knew I was embarking on a trip with an extraordinary writer. We are seriously considering this title for our book club because it has all the elements that get a good conversation started.

Morality, sexuality, reality, and other . …more

BookBrowse Book Club

Lies and Weddings
by Kevin Kwan

A forbidden affair erupts at a lavish Hawaiian wedding in this wild comedy from the author of Crazy Rich Asians.

About Discuss
The Girls of Good Fortune
by Kristina McMorris

Brave the Shanghai tunnels in this tale of love, identity, and resilience passed through generations.

About Discuss
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.

About Discuss
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.

About Discuss

Members Recommend

Songs of Summer
by Jane L. Rosen

A young woman crashes a Fire Island wedding to find her birth mother—and gets more than she bargained for.

Read the Reviews
Erased
by Anna Malaika Tubbs

In Erased, Anna Malaika Tubbs recovers all that American patriarchy has tried to destroy.

Read the Reviews
The Original Daughter
by Jemimah Wei

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

Read the Reviews
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.

Read the Reviews