Laura_Poe

Cutting for Stone is a family saga that has it all - birth and death, sin and forgiveness, love and hate, politics and medicine - wrapped in a balanced and gripping plot involving compelling characters and exotic locations. Verghese tells a great story with none of the overwriting so common to "big" novels. His fiction debut is even better than his outstanding nonfiction (My Own Country). This was the best "curl up with a good book" read I've had in ages.

I generally enjoy Sheri Reynolds, but The Sweet In Between will not be on my favorites list. This “dysfunctional Southern family” novel is long on dysfunction. Our heroine’s mother died of cancer, her father is in prison, and she has significant problems with OCD and sexual confusion; Dad’s girlfriend (with whom the heroine lives) is a drug and alcohol abuser with three kids of her own: a sex-obsessed older son, a skateboard-obsessed younger son, and a developmentally-delayed daughter. But why should we care? There’s not much action here; even a murder next door merely spawns more obsession and confusion. When someone does step in the help, the help comes from what the book jacket describes as “a most unimaginable source” – translate that “Where did these people come from?” While the writing itself is good, and Reynolds is particularly skilled in the use of irony and a sort of black humor, this wasn’t a book I enjoyed, and it’s not one I’d recommend.

Part travelogue and part food commentary, this memoir by New York Observer restaurant critic Moira Hodgson brings to mind the work of Ruth Reichl but is not quite as satisfying. Hodgson exemplifies her memories with recipes, sometimes easy to follow and sometimes not. She name-drops relentlessly, particularly in the latter sections of the book, without telling us much about the names she is dropping - I guess we are supposed to know! The writing is entertaining; Hodgson's life as the well-traveled daughter of a British Foreign Service officer, and as a gadabout adult searching for a writing career is interesting and she tells it well. If you are looking for a "foodie" book, though, Reichl is a better bet.