Such a Fun Age
by Kiley Reid
clutter of characters... (10/9/2020)
I like to change it up every once in awhile and read a contemporary cozy or fluff piece. Usually I really like them because they are of a light subject and easy read. In my literary world they are a pallet cleanser, entertaining and easy on the brain.
However... I was not a fan of this book. It was not a problem with the writing, or with the story line. My problems came from the clutter of characters. It seemed like all the major characters in this book carried their own entourage. I felt all they did was clutter up the story. I did however love the character Briar.
I also did not like the story ending. It seems that Emira was short changed by everyone, friends, boyfriend, employer - everyone.
Now with all this said, I would still try another book by Kiley Reid. I don't think the story premise was bad, nor was the writing in this story. With a bit more experience, with less to prove, I think Reid may end up a good, well sought after, author. This one, her debut book, just missed the mark with me.
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
will you commiserate with Agnes... (10/9/2020)
I like historical fiction in general, but I really liked this story. Add mystery on top of historical fiction and that made it all the better. This was based on a true story, and even some names and places are actual, while others were changed for privacy reasons and the story was filled in where no actual fact could be found.
It is 1829 in Iceland. A woman is sent to be housed with a family, that doesn't want her, while she waits her execution. She is to be executed for murdering her previous master. Her crime and trial is based on the stories of others. While working as free labor for this host family she is visited multiple times by a young priest and it is through his visits that her side of the story is told.
You know going in that Agnes dies. She is the last person to be beheaded in Iceland. But it is her story that captivates. How she got into the position to be charged with killing two men, how she survived the loneliness and cruel treatment of her host family, and how she withstood her trip to the gallows.
The writing is impeccable and transfers you to that North Iceland homestead Agnes has been assigned to. You feel her loneliness. You empathize with the family forced to harbor a criminal. You await the execution right along with Agnes, as you finally hear her side of the story. It is very easy to lose yourself in this harrowing story, as you feel the pending doom and commiserate with Agnes.
The Vanishing Half: A Novel
by Brit Bennett
our past helps to dictate our future... (10/9/2020)
We all know that our past helps to dictate our future. We can run from our past, turn our backs on people and places from the past, disavow our past in many ways, but still it remains. Everyday of our life stays with us, including the past.
Two girls, twins, take separate and very different paths in life. African American, but very light skinned, one remains black and one chooses to be white. One twin was defiant, one recessive and shy. How different their lives become.
We spend time getting to know these twins as children, how they were raised. Then after they separate, we follow the lives of each adult, comparing and contrasting. This pattern also tracks the offspring, each of their daughters. Both so very different. Until one daughter seeks the truth and finds her cousin.
I found this book to be even better than I expected. Having read Bennett before, I knew how strong her writing was, how well she developed characters and how intricate her plot can get. I think this book is ever better than her debut book, The Mothers. However... similar to her first book, I was disappointed in the ending of this story. If Bennett has a flaw in her writing ability, it is book endings. As with her first book the ending of this book just seemed to fall off, fall flat. It does not leave you wanting more, it leaves you with a loss, a feeling of non completion. The ride through the story was great, nice and smooth, entertaining and comfortable, then it came to a screeching halt, lost in a fog, wavering disbelief, no idea of what path to follow.
In hopes that her story endings will improve, I will not hesitate to pick up another Bennett book. The ride is worth the dubious ending.
Curious Toys
by Elizabeth Hand
All the elements that I like... (10/9/2020)
All the elements that I like - some characters based on real live people, takes place in the early 1900's, a little bit of a mystery, and set in an amusement park.
The protagonist is Pin, a young girl, who dresses as a boy (not a spoiler) and roams the midway while her mother tells fortunes. After a crime is committed in one of the attractions, it becomes known that there is a killer on the loose. Pin gets fully entangled in the investigation trying to track down the infamous child killer.
This book had a lot of early 1900 inventions. Lots to do with the cinema and carnival life. It mentions a number of then current movie actors, such as Charlie Chaplin. It highlights the slums of an early Chicago, along with the bias of class distinctions and how the police department discriminated, but all told within the story format.
One character was based on a true to life person and he became a central character in the story. There was a two page follow up on the real life of this person and also a number of books referring to him in the Bibliography.
I did enjoy this book, however I also felt that the mystery portion of this book could have been a bit stronger, given that the author is a well established writer.
The Big Door Prize
by M.O. Walsh
enjoyable... (10/9/2020)
Swab your cheek. Read your DNA. Change your life! What could be easier?
That is the premise of the story. Small town Louisiana installs a photo booth type DNAMIX fortune teller in their local grocery store. For $2 change your life - get the readout and learn just what your potential really is. It doesn't take long for everyone in town, teens, housewives and professional people to try their luck. Among them are a married couple Douglas Hubbard and his wife, Cherilyn - who up to that time thought they were very happy. Then the changes begin...
Wow! Very enjoyable book ! Something new -not the same old, same old. A bit science fiction but I would say more magical realism. Once you are in this book the pages turn like softened butter - very smoothly you move from one thing to the next. Marriage, evolution, community, separation, division, redemption and wonder.
Tired of the same old thing? Open this book - take a journey like non other. Wow! Very enjoyable book !
Ruthie Fear: A Novel
by Maxim Loskutoff
Very unusual... (7/9/2020)
2.5 stars Thank you to BookBrowse and W.W. Norton Company for allowing me to read this book. Expected publication: September 1st 2020
For me this book was very unusual. There were some beautiful descriptions of the Montana landscape and mountain ranges throughout the story, but the plot line was an all together different manner. The story revolved around death - both animal and human.
Ruthie Fear was the main character - from her youth, with only a father to raise her in a poor hollow of undeveloped land to her adulthood in the same poor scratch for a living substance, just outside a Native American reservation.
Native American themes, fantasy monsters, pain and sorrow, and death propels this story along. In many parts I felt the story was very disjointed and really made no sense with the only thing to fall back on was Ruthie's age and where her situation was at the time.
Very unusual that a male author would decide to write a book through the eyes of an adolescent girl. Possibly that is where I read the lack of common elements and felt the story was disjointed.
The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem
by SandraTsing Loh
Neurotic !! (5/4/2020)
2 stars Thanks to BookBrowse and W W Norton and Company for allowing me to read this ARC. Publishes June 2, 2020
Totally neurotic!! Throughout the whole book there was only a couple of spots that I could relate to this woman. Having been born to a hypochondriac drama queen, it was easy for me to recognize the type. Every simple little itty-bitty thing blown out of proportion. A knack for taking the mundane and dramatizing. A book of individual essays - each mundane, boring, yet fabricated as something special.
I believe that this author, Tsing Loh, has a syndicated radio program. I do believe that had I ever heard the program I would never have opted for the book. And now having read the book - will certainly never go looking for the radio program.
Totally not my taste in book, writing or authors. I suffered enough as a child - this exaggerated hype, while all too familiar to me, is the last thing I ever want to come close to again!
He Started It
by Samantha Downing
Surprise... (3/25/2020)
From page one I started enjoying this book. It is a book of secrets, told through a family trip. And a trip it is, not a vacation.
A family of three sibling, plus spouses, take a cross country trip, one they took as children. Then they took the trip with their Grandfather and things did not turn out well. Now they are re-stepping the same path, although mandated, to be included in their Grandfather's generous will. As they travel, they become a smaller group and many secrets are revealed.
Of the four siblings and others you begin to pick your favorites. Then you follow them with expectations. By the end of the book your alliances may have changed.
This book reads really well. It is smooth and easy to read. My only objection was the ending. It seemed very abrupt and not a good closure. I believe this portion could have been done better.
I Want You to Know We're Still Here: A Post-Holocaust Memoir
by Esther Safran Foer
'A Post Holocaust Memoir' (12/15/2019)
It has been a while since I have read a book on the Holocaust. Although I am not of Jewish faith, each book seems to dredge up feelings and images that are simply overwhelming. Knowing that this was a memoir - dubbed as 'A Post Holocaust Memoir' - I went into it very slowly, while also reading a couple other books, to even out the drama and sadness of this one.
I found that I both liked and disliked this book. There were plenty of sections that delved into the lives of Foer's family - I especially liked the parts referring to her Grandmother. But there were also parts that just seemed out of place - such as her repeated mentioning of her sons achievements.
I understand that having to ferret out your past history and family would take a lot of resilience and research. And I admire Foer for what she undertook, especially under the auspice of the Holocaust. However, I believe this book may have been better had her son written it instead.
The Big Finish
by Brooke Fossey
Laugh out loud funny... (11/5/2019)
What a funny, funny book. Has been some time since I have laughed out loud at a book. But this one did it.
A local nursing home, an old curmudgeon and his roommates granddaughter. These make for a cute, funny and heartfelt story. As Duffy and Josie come to an understanding, Duffy's room mate Carl and the rest of the group from the nursing home rally around to see to it that Josie has the best of care.
Easy reading, good character development and a heartfelt story plot, with a lot of witticism from the lovable curmudgeon, Duffy. Light, entertaining, enjoyable book. Worth the read.
Never Have I Ever
by Joshilyn Jackson
slow start to devious plot (8/9/2019)
A knock comes at your door. A new neighbor introducing themselves. How innocent can that be?
In this case, nothing but madness. As Roux injects herself into Amy's life all hell breaks loose. Amy is a happy comfortable house wife with a new baby, step daughter and wonderful husband, who is also a part time deep sea diving instructor. Her family is comfortable and her friends are many. Her best friend Charlotte is a treasure. But Amy has secrets - and Roux plans to use those secrets to her advantage.
This is another great book by Jackson. After what I thought to be a slow start, her story moves along nicely, her devious plot keeps growing, and her characters are first rate. Betrayal, deception, and the ability to uncover facts, takes this story into the deep recesses of one person's hell.
My Life as a Rat
by Joyce Carol Oates
Relationships, survival, and overcoming family separation... (7/21/2019)
3.75 starts Thank you to Ecco for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Published on June 4, 2019.
How do you make moral decisions? Does it depend on the circumstances? Depend on who may be involved? Depend on the outcome or on who knows what your decision is? Would that be different if you were a 12 year old child?
This is the story of Violet who had to make a moral decision. She had a secret. A secret about her brothers. She kept that secret, until she couldn't keep it anymore. Once revealed everything in her life changed. She had to leave her school, her friends, her very home. Her family shunned her. And not for a short time, but most of them for the rest of her life. She was 12 years old and the youngest of 7 children and none of them, including her parents, spoke to her for years afterward.
Two of her older brothers had killed a boy - a racial killing. Violet had overheard them talking and they shared their secret with her. Both brothers were convicted and sent to prison. Her family went into financial debt due to this and her father never forgave her.
The novel continues with the life Violet lived. How she processed what she had done. How she made a new life for herself and how she at long last related to the remaining members of her family, which also included one very traumatic episode.
A story of relationships, survival, overcoming family separation, loyalty, regret and love.
In my opinion one of Joyce Carol Oates' best books.
The Silent Patient
by Alex Michaelides
Where does the transference start and stop? (7/21/2019)
4.5 stars
Ewww! I feel like an idiot! I did not follow the clues at all! I was gobsmacked when the plot twist happened. This was a good book! I look forward to reading more by Michaelides. This book is worthy of a seasoned author, and being Michaelides' debut novel only has me hoping that he is well into his next book.
Criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber is treating Alicia Berenson. She has shot her husband, then has gone silent and has been placed at the Grove, a secured inpatient psychiatric center. Theo is trying to track down why she shot her husband when it seems they had a great life. Alicia is a painter, her husband Gabriel is a fashion photographer.
In the interim Theo and his wife Kathy begin to have marital problems. How much of his own trauma is rubbing off in his treatment of Alicia? Or is the treatment of Alicia worming its way into Theo's life? Where does the transference start and stop?
This is an exceptionally good debut novel. One you should not miss.
The Spies of Shilling Lane
by Jennifer Ryan
More meddling busybody than WWII spies... (7/21/2019)
3 stars Thank you to Crown for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Published June 4, 2019.
London, WWII, spies and a mother/daughter situation. Controlling, busybody Mother went in search of her daughter in London. Once there she finds out that she had been lied to and daughter Betty is missing. Betty is involved with M15 and is a spy. However Mom has been keeping a few secrets from Betty also.
Personally I did not connect very well with any of the characters - other than Mr Norris. He came across as a Don Knotts type character, which I did find refreshing.
Characters and story in this book are suitable for a cozy mystery series. There is some humor and some violence - however shaded. It is not a story that puts you on edge or forces you to turn pages, but more of a beach or cozy read. Don't expect a great spy novel or a great WWII story - this book is neither. It is not a heavy hitter. Even the serious and quasi-violent parts are more in the flavor of the Keystone Cops or Three Stooges.
When considering this novel think more meddling busybody than WWII spies.
Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit: A Kopp Sisters Novel
by Amy Stewart
Things are a changin'.... (7/21/2019)
3.5 stars rounded up
Another cute caper by the Kopp Sisters. This is book #4 in the series. This series started out based on a real story about Constance Kopp, first female deputy sheriff in Hackensack New Jersey. I believe now, into the fourth book, that maybe fiction has totally taken over.
As we come to the end of Robert Heath's reign as Sheriff we are left with a less than fulfilling ending. Constance is up in the air as to what her future will be. The new man voted in as Sheriff does not believe that there is any need for a female matron at his jail.
After a heroic rescue of a hand cuffed man in the river, helping to release a wronged wife from the insane asylum, and suffering through her sisters building of a traveling pigeon coop, many things are changing for Constance.
I fear that one of the main characters of the book may on his way out - which would be a shame. But book #5 Kopp Sisters on the March is already published - so off to the library to see how this series will continue....
Recursion
by Blake Crouch
Your 'untrue life' ... (7/21/2019)
Thank you to Crown for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Published on June 11, 2019.
Another great novel by Blake Crouch. Having read Dark Matter a couple years ago I was taken by this author. I am not a great fantasy or science fiction fan. However, this author can twist that science fiction into something that sounds and feels real. Maybe futuristic, but a good possibility of being right on track. He hit the nail right on the head again with Recursion.
"False Memory Syndrome " is the current project of Neuroscientist Helena Smith. It was so named by the media because it causes people to remember an untrue life. There comes a point in their life that they remember all these memories of a life that never happened. A parallel life to their own, that finally drives them crazy.
Smith buddies up with a rich philanthropist to further her work, until she realizes that she has been taken advantage of and he only wants to use her invention in a personal selfish way and not for good.
Once she escapes from this bad situation she rebuilds her chair and numerable times under goes the process to stop and return time in the hope of saving the world before her opponent destroys it. Done in a very good way this equates to "Groundhog Day" with the repeating of this time frame again and again - with each time being spent in a different location.
There was some techie talk in this story, that might be hard to follow if you are not aware of technical terms. However, it by no means ruins the story or interferes with the flow of the narrative. For me it just advanced the futuristic feel of what Crouch made seem...all to possible.
The Confessions of Frannie Langton
by Sara Collins
The slave's confession... (7/21/2019)
Through the written confession of a slave, a maid, we find out whether or not she committed the murder that she is being tried and convicted of. Frannie Langton has been accused of killing the woman she loves - a wealthy woman whose illness puts her in frail state. Not to mention her addiction to opiates.
Educated by her Jamaican 'Massa' so that she could help with his experiments on his slave population, he then 'gifted' her to his London scientific-writing partner in crime. Once she became her Mistresses personal maid she saw the disparity between her and the Mister and took her mistresses side in all accounts, only to find this action would hurt her in the near future.
When arrested for the murders of her new owners, Frannie is not sure. She is also now a opiate addict, thanks to her Mistress, and cannot remember what actually happened. The final account of her life she writes as her trial takes place.
Collins did a good job not only on character development but on the way she presented the story. Chapters are interspersed between Frannie's final letter and her murder trial. It is only in the last pages that Collins brings the story together. With this type of work as a debut, this author will be one to watch.
Her Kind of Case: A Lee Isaacs, Esq. Novel
by Jeanne Winer
Winer writes to her own experiences - wonderful! (5/24/2019)
There are not many books that get a 5 star rating from me. However this book rose right to the top. I had to often remind myself that this book is fiction. In story and character it ranked right up there with the true crime books that I often read.
Lee Isaacs is a defense attorney. She takes on the case of one young man who is accused of helping skinheads kill a gay man. Her client, Jeremy refuses to talk to her, but he has confessed to the crime. Lee must use all her experience and vices to fester out what really happened, who is really to blame, and why her client refuses to help defend himself.
This is my first read by Winer, who is a retired criminal attorney herself. Writing to her own experience is indeed much to the readers delight. This novel was tight, succinct, and a definite page turner. There was belief in the characters, a couple of laugh out loud moments, and building suspense as the book developed. It is well worth the time to read.
Heart in the Right Place: A Memoir
by Carolyn Jourdan
Laugh out loud humorous. (5/11/2019)
Most non-fiction that I read is historical, about a trial, a murder, a famine, a famous person. However, this non-fiction was family-oriented, and humorous. Laugh out loud humorous.
Carolyn Jourdan was where she thought she wanted to be. She had the job she thought she wanted. She was in the glitz and glimmer. Then she was needed at home. Her father was a small town doctor, often taking this years fresh tomatoes in payment for his services. He needed a receptionist for his office - temporarily. What else could she do - she moved home - temporarily - to Tennessee, the place that she wanted most to be away from.
This book is written in a quasi-vignette style. Jourdan tells some of the best of the best stories about working in her Dads office. She tells of the escapades of the local people and how her dad treats his patients, with both tenderness and understanding. How death reverberates back to the doctors office and that staff. And how the interaction of each of their jobs effect this tight knit community.
by
mirrors today's true to life situation. (5/11/2019)
A topic very much in the headlines today - Immigration. Although this is a fictional story it mirrors today's true to life situation.
Nina caring for her elderly mother, gets roped into smuggling immigrants. Her God son befriends a young boy, who she is hiding and things spin out of control. Nina is trying to juggle the police, human traffickers, those she is hiding, her sick mother and her God son. Nina's mischief brings out secrets from her past.
This is my first book by Oscar Casares. I liked the book well enough to try another from this author, but would like for it to be different subject matter.
Power Reviewer
