BookBrowse | Book Reviews and Recommendations

Winter of the World: Book Two of the Century Trilogy
by Ken Follett

Great Literature This Is Not. But Great History It Is. In Fact, It's a First-Rate History Lesson. (4/18/2023)

Great literature this is not. But great history it is.

This is a first-rate lesson in history—from 1933 to 1949 with most of the emphasis on World War II—told with real facts and imaginary characters in a plot-driven novel that will place you, the reader, on the ground in …more

The Chelsea Girls
by Fiona Davis

An Inspired Story That Is Interrupted by Too Many Eye-Rolling, Soap Opera Moments (4/18/2023)

Oh, this book is such a dichotomy! Much of it is absolutely wonderful, if not inspired, but just enough of it is an eye-rolling, soap opera that these melodramatic moments distract from what could have been such a powerful novel.

It's 1950. The United States won a war, the …more

Next of Kin: A Novel
by John Boyne

This Is One of Those Rare Novels: A Literary Delight with a Page-Turning Plot (4/18/2023)

This is one of those rare novels that has all the components of great literature as well as a gripping, page-turning plot. Irish author John Boyne, who is one of my favorite writers of all time, has penned an extraordinary story filled with twists and turns that will keep …more

Clock Dance: A Novel
by Anne Tyler

An Endearing and Enthralling Tale About the Families We Create to Fill Our Hearts (4/18/2023)

This is not your typical Anne Tyler book—until suddenly, it is.

Anne Tyler has a rare gift among writers in that she can perfectly capture the minutiae of life, providing a close-up look at those tiny details that add up to something very important. In addition, she creates …more

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive
by Stephanie Land

Powerful and Heartbreaking: It's Impossible to Read This Book and Not Become More Compassionate (4/18/2023)

This is a hard book to read. Let me amend that a bit. It is an engrossing, gripping, and frightening book to read. It is hard to read not because it is difficult to understand or written in a mind-boggling way; it is hard to read because it is heartbreaking. It is also one …more

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
by Andrew Sean Greer

Impossible, Implausible Plot, But It's a Boldly Imaginative Story and Very Much Worth Reading (4/18/2023)

Even though this book is most definitely not science fiction, the only way to truly appreciate it is to suspend your belief in reality. Be prepared to enter a dreamlike world and just go with it. That said, this literary time-travel novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author …more

American Dirt: A Novel
by Jeanine Cummins

A Suspenseful and Terrifying Thriller That Doubles as Current Events (4/18/2023)

This is a quick-to-read, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thriller by Jeanine Cummins that tracks in often gruesome detail the path of a mother and son as they migrate from Mexico to the United States to escape a brutal drug cartel that wants them both dead. While most …more thrillers are sheer fiction, this one is not. Oh sure, the characters are fictional, but this is no fantasy. It is all too real, and as a good novel will do, it powerfully depicts what is happening over and over and over again every day in Mexico and on the border of the United States. This is fiction doubling as current events.

Lydia and Sebastian lead a charmed and somewhat affluent life in beautiful Acapulco. He is a top journalist, she owns a successful bookstore, and together they have a precocious 8-year-old boy, Luca. But when Sebastian publishes an exposé on the kingpin of the local drug cartel, he and 15 members of his family are brutally executed in Lydia's mother's backyard during a quinceañera celebration. Lydia and Luca miraculously escape, and now they must flee because this cartel is still out for revenge—and will stop at nothing. This book is the story of their trek to the United States, and the suspense and action never let up. (Advice: Don't read this before you go to sleep. It will haunt your dreams—and not in a good way.)

While this is not great literature—it's a straight-up thriller and nothing more—it does waken the typical American reader to better understand the dangerous and terrifying plight of many Mexican migrants, and for this I applaud Jeanine Cummins.

About the bruhaha over "American Dirt": I have read a lot about the objections some Latinos have to a white woman writing this story—one who now lives in New York City and grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. Yes, not many authors—of any ethnic descent—will get the star publishing treatment Cummins has received. And I do appreciate that inequity. Still, Cummins did extensive, years' long research for this book to make her characters and plot as authentic as possible. Many (many!) novelists write outside their lifestyle, and that is perfectly acceptable provided the research is done. To say that only a Latino/Latina can write a book like this is just not reasonable or even advisable. That said, this controversy has made me want to read more books by Latino/Latina authors, especially Luis Alberto Urrea. (less)

The Guest Book
by Sarah Blake

This Is a Really, Really Good Story That You Won't Be Able to Stop Reading! (4/18/2023)

What a book! This engrossing and ingeniously plotted three-generation family saga will take you back to a time and place of incredible wealth, gracious manners, and deeply-guarded secrets.

It's 1936. While the rest of the country is in the depths of the Great Depression, …more

Shipping News: A Novel
by Annie Proulx

An Intelligent Novel with Exquisite Writing. This Is a Book to Be Savored and Treasured (4/18/2023)

Oh, the writing! This book by E. Annie Proulx takes place primarily in Newfoundland. Even in the summer it's cold. And windy. I don't know how she did it, but Proulx's exquisite writing mirrors the iciness of the barren land. If ice and snow had a writing style, this would …more

Washington Black
by Esi Edugyan

An Adventure Story Like No Other! (4/18/2023)

Magnificently written by Esi Edugyan, this is an adventure story, albeit a highly unlikely one. Just suspend your sense of reality, and go along for the magical ride. And what a ride it is!

George Washington Black (nicknamed Wash), age 10 or 11 (he doesn't really know), is …more

Little Gods
by Meng Jin

This Is a Strange Story with a Cumbersome Structure, But It's Also Beautiful and Compelling (4/18/2023)

Oh, this is a strange little book. It's also strangely beautiful and strangely compelling.

Who ARE you…really? Ask that question of anyone who is close to you, and you'll probably get different answers. That's because we are perceived differently by different people. And …more

Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid

An Important Message About Prejudice and Forgiveness Wrapped Up in a Fabulous, Intriguing Story (4/18/2023)

This book grabbed me on page one and never let go. It's a riveting page-turner not because it's a thriller or a whodunit but because it's a compelling story about people…people who are acting up, while trying to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons—and utterly …more failing.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020, this is billed on the cover as a social satire about privilege in America. It's the story of two women—one White, one Black. One is the employer; the other is the employee. Alix Chamberlin is a privileged, wealthy, slightly dishonest mother of two adorable girls, who is used to getting her own way and always coming out on top. Her husband, Peter, is a local TV news anchor. So Peter can get a better job, they move out of New York City to Alix's childhood hometown of Philadelphia, and Alix mourns the loss of the big city. They live in a huge home in a prestigious neighborhood. Alix has a book contract, so she hires Elmira Tucker as a part-time babysitter for the girls to give her time to write. Elmira is Black, and even though she is a Temple University college graduate she is 25 and hasn't figured out what she wants to do with her life. She has no money and is about to lose her health insurance when she turns 26 in a few months.

The novel opens when Elmira receives a frantic call from Alix very late one night to immediately come get Briar, the two-year-old, and take her to the nearby grocery store for about an hour. Why? Peter (we find out later) said something very stupid on air, and their house got egged, causing one of the windows to break. Peter and Alix are calling the police, and they don't want their little girl to witness this. Elmira is all dressed up and out having a grand time at a friend's birthday party, but drops what she's doing to go get Briar, a precocious child whom Elmira dearly loves. While they are in the grocery store, the security guard confronts Elmira, accusing her of kidnapping Briar. A crowd gathers, and a witness named Kelley Copeland, captures the scene on his phone. It is this video that guides the rest of the story in ways that are hilarious, profound, degrading, shocking, and (finally) liberating.

Ingeniously plotted with superb pacing, this is a fabulous story with an important message about prejudice and expectations, deception and forgiveness, but one that is wrapped up in an intriguing storyline, brilliant (and sometimes blistering) dialogue, and colorful characters. Read it! (less)

The Island of Sea Women
by Lisa See

This Is a Novel Masquerading as Nonfiction: A Gripping Story That Is Rich in Historical Detail (4/18/2023)

Some books we read for entertainment. Some books we read for information. And some books, such as this one by Lisa See, provide both. Actually, there is so much factual information in this book that it is almost a novel masquerading as nonfiction.

Spanning 70 years from 1938 …more

The Lake House
by Kate Morton

A Can't-Put-It-Down Novel That Is Totally Captivating (4/18/2023)

The best way to describe this can't-put-it-down novel by Kate Morton is: multilayered. No, wait. Multi-multi-multi-layered. There is SO much going on here! And every bit of it is a literary delight.

At its very core—deep, deep down—this is a mystery. But because it's so much …more

Varina
by Charles Frazier

Ingeniously Plotted, Lyrical Language…But the Storyline Is Confusing and Can Be Difficult to Follow (4/18/2023)

This is the elegiac story of people living in and somehow surviving the perilous crisis, conflict, and calamity in the days, weeks, and years following the end of the American Civil War. But what makes this particular tale unique is that it is told through the eyes of one …more

Women Talking
by Miriam Toews

Emotionally Charged and Haunting. Not an Easy Book to Read, But Vitally Important (4/18/2023)

This is a novel that will haunt you. It is not only deeply disturbing, but also an ominous warning about the powerful authority and absolute control some men exert over women — both their minds and their bodies.

Taking place in a tightly-knit and isolated Mennonite …more community, virtually the entire book is the minutes of several secret meetings a group of women is holding in a hayloft. They are discussing their future. All of them, along with almost every other woman and girl in the colony, were repeatedly raped over five years by eight men in the community, who stole into their bedrooms in the middle of the night, knocking them out with an animal anesthetic, and then having their way with them. The women and girls would awake in the morning groggy and confused and covered in blood, feces, and semen. Even a three-year-old girl was violated in the same way. The women were told that Satan had visited them to punish them for their sins.

But that is not the story of this book.

The story is what happens after the women finally figure out what is going on. Because one woman attempted to kill one of the men with a scythe, the police were called to take the men to jail in the nearby city — for their own safety. And now the women are trying to discern what they will do to protect themselves in the future, including possibly leaving the community — a bold and intimidating step, since they have no idea where they are geographically. However unlikely it is, the narrator of the story is a man. The women trust him, and since they are illiterate, they want him to write what happens at the meetings.

There are many ways, some of which could have been quite salacious, that author Miriam Toews could have written this story, which is (shockingly) based on true events in a Mennonite community. What she did was to zero in on how women everywhere solve their problems: by talking about it. These hayloft discussions, filled with anger and deep-seated psychological pain, are heated with diverse opinions, sometimes unfocused, but always fruitful. Above all, the discussions are philosophical reflections on the meaning of their lives.

And at the root of it all is the question the women must eventually answer: Can they forgive the rapists, who are, after all, their husbands, brothers, uncles, and nephews, for the evil deeds they did? Is forgiveness even possible? And if not, how can the women remain in community with the men?

Because it is so emotionally charged, this is not an easy book to read. But it is an important one…a vitally important one. (less)

News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories
by Jennifer Haigh

Big Stories About Small Town Life: Touching, Insightful, and Haunting (4/18/2023)

This touching, insightful, and haunting book of short stories by Jennifer Haigh continues the story of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a fictional coal-mining town, that she introduced in "Baker Towers: A Novel" and continues after "News From Heaven" in "Heat and Light: A Novel."

…more

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
by Garrett M. Graff

To All the Unsung Heroes: This Is the Story of Ordinary People Who Did Extraordinary Deeds (4/18/2023)

This book will make you cry. A lot. As in, you had better have a tissue in hand when reading it.

While it is emotionally draining, this is such a vitally important book that I think everyone should read it. If you were alive on 9/11, you should read it. If you have children …more

This House is Haunted
by John Boyne

Goosebumps and Shivers! A Chilling Ghost Story for Literary Types (4/18/2023)

I think this book is brilliant! It is a chilling ghost story for literary types, complete with a cameo by Charles Dickens.

Written in the Dickensian style by the inimitable John Boyne, this gothic tale opens on a cold and rainy night in London in October 1867 when Eliza …more

All He Ever Wanted
by Anita Shreve

A Powerful Book! Deeply Disturbing Psychological Study About the Possessiveness of Marriage (4/18/2023)

Author Anita Shreve is such a surprise! While none of her books — other than the "Fortune's Rocks" series — can be said to be similar to the others, this one is a true outlier. And while it took me a good while to get into the story, once I did, I was mesmerized by it.

Quite …more