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Reviews by Cathryn Conroy

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A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara

An Elegiac, Heartbreaking Story That Is a Literary Masterpiece (4/19/2023)

This truly exceptional book by Hanya Yanagihara is a literary masterpiece. It is, quite possibly, a work of genius. It is also the saddest, most upsetting book I have read—perhaps ever.

This is not a book I would casually recommend to anyone. It is dense. It is intense. It …more is more about misery than joy, and it sucks the reader down into that misery like quicksand. It is desolate. There is (extremely) disturbing violence. More than anything, it is absolutely, totally heartbreaking. (See below for my reasons why you should read a book that is so melancholy and deeply sorrowful.)

This is the story of four college friends and roommates—Willem, Malcolm, JB and Jude—who presumably, although it is only implied, went to Harvard. The book begins soon after they have graduated and ends decades later. Brilliant and creative, each is flawed in some important way. Eventually, the story focuses more on Jude, the most damaged and broken—physically and psychologically—of the four men, who was abandoned as an infant and was severely abused, both physically and sexually, throughout his childhood. He shields and protects the dark and tragic secrets of his past from his three very close friends. We readers gradually learn the gritty, obscene and absolutely appalling details of Jude's past, but only in bits and pieces, until eventually all is revealed. And it is truly horrific. This is not for the weak-hearted. The one thread of hope that runs throughout the book is the salvation we find in the love of enduring and abiding friendship.

So…why read a book like this, a book that is nothing but depressing and will make you feel absolutely wretched? One simple reason beyond the fact that it is truly incredible literature: It will make you a better person. It will give you empathy and understanding for those who are suffering unimaginable curses of their past. If you love someone who is depressed, suicidal, or engages in self-harm, this may give you more understanding so you can perhaps help or comfort—even if it's only in a small way.

This is definitely not a book that I can say I enjoyed reading. Quite the opposite, in fact. But I am in awe of it. And that counts for a lot. (Near the end of the book is this line: "What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier." NOT this one!)

Told with remarkable perception of the human psyche, this elegiac work of art will haunt me for a long time to come. (less)

News of the World
by Paulette Jiles

Read This Book, and a Simple Dime (Yes, the 10-Cent Coin) Will Never Be the Same Again (4/19/2023)

If you read this book, you will never hold a dime—yes, a simple 10-cent coin—in your hand again and think of it in the same way. No spoilers here! I won't tell you why, but trust me that it is worth reading the book just to find out.

The Civil War has ended. The wilds of …more

The Year We Left Home: A Novel
by Jean Thompson

Warning! This Book Will Induce a Book Hangover (4/19/2023)

Warning! This book will induce a book hangover.

This is a story about family. Everyone's family. The family in which we are born and the family we create. The expectations for our life others have for us and the expectations for our life we create ourselves. This beautifully …more

The Secret Chord: A Novel
by Geraldine Brooks

An Extraordinary Tale! You'll Never Read the Biblical Story of David the Same Way Again (4/19/2023)

This extraordinary novel by Geraldine Brooks tells the biblical story of King David in such a compelling and riveting way that you will wish she would do the same for all the holy scriptures! Told in the first person by the prophet Natan (Nathan), who spent his entire life …more

Speak No Evil
by Uzodinma Iweala

Powerful and Profound. It Is Impossible to Read This Book and Not Feel Stunned by It (4/19/2023)

Oh, this book broke my heart. But in a good way, because the powerful and profound message it delivers speaks the truth. It is raw. It is brilliant. It is deeply affecting. It is impossible to read this book and not feel stunned by it.

Niru is 18 and in his senior year at an …more

The Nest
by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

Unlike Most of the Reader Reviewers, I Liked This Book! (4/19/2023)

I liked this book! And it would appear that based on many of the reader reviews this is distinctly a minority opinion.

Granted, it's not great literature, but most definitely it is not as awful as so many are depicting it. Written by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, this is a story …more

Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward

This Book Is Worth Reading Just for the Writing! The Words Simply Sing (4/19/2023)

Poetry. Sheer, beautiful, pure poetry. But it's prose. Of course, it is. This is a novel. And. Every. Word. Is. Perfect. That is what makes it poetry. That is what makes the language sing. This book is worth reading just for the writing.

Jojo is 13, almost a man, but still …more

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
by Balli Kaur Jaswal

The Clever Title Should Win an Award…But the Book—Not So Much (4/19/2023)

I admit it! I admit it! I bought and read this book by Balli Kaur Jaswal because of the title. While the book itself is only OK, the clever title should win an award.

Here's the short version: This book is so bad…it's (almost) good. Soap opera, anyone?

Nikki is 22, a recent …more

Normal People
by Sally Rooney

Stunning, Intelligent, and Accomplished. This Book Grabbed My Heart and Soul (4/19/2023)

What does it really mean to be in a relationship? What does it mean to be in young and in love? With sparse but beautiful language, author Sally Rooney has written a (literary) love story for the ages.

Marianne and Connell grew up in the same small Irish town. She is wealthy, …more

The Dark Monk: A Hangman's Daughter Tale, Book 2
by Oliver Potzsch

A Really Good Tale Well Told (4/19/2023)

Part historical novel, part adventure story and part murder mystery, this intriguing book, the second in "The Hangman's Daughter" series by Oliver Pötzsch, is quite the page-turner. Underneath an intricate plot, this is also a none-too-subtle statement about Christianity— …more

Unsheltered: A Novel
by Barbara Kingsolver

When the World as You Know It Inexorably Changes, What Would You Do? (4/19/2023)

What happens when the world view you have always known inexorably shifts? Do you embrace the change as forward-thinking or fight it for all you're worth? If you simply deny that the change is real, will those words be enough to bring back the good old days? That is the …more

My Life as a Rat
by Joyce Carol Oates

A Deeply Affecting Book About Forgiveness (4/19/2023)

This is a deeply affecting and heart-wrenching book about forgiveness. And it's about the most difficult form of forgiveness: Forgiving oneself.

Violet Rue is the youngest of seven children in the Irish Catholic, blue collar Kerrigan family of South Niagara, New York. While …more

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids
by Alexandra Robbins

This Book Is Deeply Disturbing…and That Is Exactly Why You Should Read It (4/19/2023)

This book is deeply disturbing. And that is exactly why you should read it.

Written by Alexandra Robbins, the book follows four juniors, three seniors and one graduate of Walt Whitman High School in tony Bethesda, Maryland for a little more than a year during 2004-2005. As …more the title would indicate, these teenagers have it all and do it all. They are highly intelligent and deeply motivated. They not only excel at their schoolwork—be it AP English or AP physics—but also excel at athletics, art, and music. They participate in a dizzyingly high number of extracurricular activities. The only thing they don't do is sleep.

This is what it feels like to be an overachiever:
• Getting a B is like getting an F.
• Cheating is perfectly OK if it means getting the A.
• Sabotaging other students' work is a legitimate way to compete.
• It's perfectly OK to take unprescribed ADD drugs for better focus.
• If you're going to play a sport, you absolutely must be a superstar. Or don't play.

While many of the students profiled in the book are highly self-motivated, some of them are pushed—relentlessly and (in one case) cruelly—by their parents. The students and parents truly believe that if the kids don't go to an Ivy League university or an Ivy-wannabe, all the effort, time and lack of sleep in high school was worthless. It's Harvard-Yale-Princeton or nothing. And that is a lot of pressure!

This book is nonfiction, but Robbins is so talented that it reads more like a novel. It was hard to put down because I wanted to know what happened next to Julie, Taylor, Sam, C.J., Ryland and the rest of the crowd.

I have only one quibble with this extraordinary book: Except for one student, those who are profiled all come from wealthy families. The cost of college is not a concern. So while the parents and students stress over an A- or a "low" SAT score of 1410 (out of 1600), at no point is there any discussion—much less worry or stress—about the outrageously high cost of these top-tier colleges to which they all aspire. There are overachievers at every high school in this country, but it is truly rare when parents can easily write checks to cover $65,000 a year. Most overachievers also have to lose what precious sleep they do get wondering how they will pay for it all. (less)

The Orchid House: A Novel
by Lucinda Riley

What a Huge Disappointment! Weak and Boring…Nothing More Than a Mediocre Soap Opera (4/19/2023)

Oh, what a huge disappointment! The publisher's plot summary is spectacular, and based on that this could have been a wonderful, compelling ChickLit book. But it wasn't. Why? The writing is stilted, the dialogue is strained and unrealistic, and the characters' actions are …more

Courting Mr. Lincoln
by Louis Bayard

Not a (4/19/2023)

What this book is: A fascinating, extraordinarily well-written historical novel on a young Abraham Lincoln, whose future wife, Mary Todd, was making eyes at him across the well-to-do parlors of Springfield, Illinois in the early 1840s, while at the same time the future …more

The Art of the Wasted Day
by Patricia Hampl

Thought-Provoking and Scholarly, But NOT an Instruction Manual for How to Be a Lazy Bum (4/19/2023)

I admit it! I bought this book for the title. For me, wasting a single hour, much less an entire day, is an anathema, so I was fascinated about an entire book on the topic.

As it turns out, the book is not exactly an instruction manual for being a lazy bum.

Instead, it's a …more

The Great Believers
by Rebecca Makkai

This Is the Rarest of Books: A Heartbreaking and Devastating Story, But I Couldn't Stop Reading (4/19/2023)

This is the rarest of books. It is a story of loss and separation—the kind that is foisted upon us by death and the kind that is inflicted upon us by estrangement—but it is also a story about the abiding power of love and friendship. It is a riveting, can't-put-it-down …more

The Other Americans
by Laila Lalami

There Is Always Another Side of the Story (4/19/2023)

There is always another side of the story.

Author Laila Lalami has taken this adage to heart in this searing and ingenious tale about the death of Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant living in the small town of Mojave, California with this wife, Maryam. The couple have two …more

Hazards of Time Travel
by Joyce Carol Oates

A Dystopian Novel and Also a Coming-of-Age Love Story…But Not One of Joyce Carol Oates's Best Books (4/19/2023)

Many us have wondered in recent years if our democracy is under a very real threat. If you are one of these people, this dystopian novel by Joyce Carol Oates may give you nightmares because what should be a horrific fantasy limited to the pages of a book may feel more like …more

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
by Erik Larson

This Is the Best Kind of Nonfiction Book: A Fact-Filled Page-Turner (4/19/2023)

Crescendo. That is the best word to describe this book.

From page one, the story slowly builds to a crescendo that is searing, heartbreaking, tragic, and absolutely frustrating—because at so many points along the way, the sinking of the famed passenger ship Lusitania by a …more

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