The Dry by Jane Harper: A Review

                                   

The Dry by Jane Harper is not your average murder mystery novel.  What it lacks in tons of twists and turns, it makes up for in family drama and vivid imagery of economic pain and anguish.  Aaron Falk returns to his childhood farm community, which is economically depressed due to a severe drought, to attend his best friend's funeral.  Luke Hadler has been found dead, as has his wife and son, and the whole town believes that Luke is responsible for the murder-suicide.  Falk is not so sure and believes that a death that ran he and his father out of town twenty years prior may have something to do with it.  Falk begins to investigate the deaths with the new town police officer, Raco.  Throughout the details of the investigation, you can feel the pain of the suffering of the families that live in Kiewarra.  The children's artwork that is posted around the local elementary school does not have the usual happy family themes that most children's artwork centers around.  Instead, the children show how unhappy situations are at home and how their favorite farm animals pass away due to lack of water.  The family relationships in the town are frighteningly sad and real.  The characters are very believable and I genuinely felt for them as I read the story.  I don't think this book is only for readers of murder mysteries.  I think anyone who enjoys reading fiction of any kind will like this book. 


This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 


I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

The Weight of Him by Ethel Rohan

 

The Weight of Him by Ethel Rohan follows "Big Billy Brennan", a man who is over 400 pounds as he attempts to publicly lose weight to bring awareness to suicide after the death of his teenage son, Michael.  Billy's family just want peace after Michael's suicide, not to bring about the spectacle that they feel has been created as Billy hosts walks in Michael's honor and promotes his cause in the media.  While his parents, children and wife are not by his side, Billy finds many people who are, including other family members of suicide victims.

I found this book to be a bit more depressing than hopeful.  I believe that the author intended it to be hopeful and there were some hopeful parts but the overall novel just didn't move me the way that I would have hoped.  There were some very insightful thoughts on suicide and death, in general, towards the end of the book but the book mostly centered around Billy's struggle to lose weight and "save lives".  The characters felt a bit one-dimensional and even though Billy stated that he wished to save lives by raising awareness of suicide, his actions seemed to me to be more self-serving than self-sacrificing.  He ignores his family's feelings about the publicity and fashions himself after a soldier who is going to war with suicide.  Almost all of the narrative is about Billy and almost devoid of any stories about his family or even about the son who he states he is doing all of this for.  Even though I didn't enjoy the story or the characters as much as I would have hoped, I still enjoyed this author's writing style.  It is very smooth and easy to read.  Rohan's writing style reminds me of the bright, spring-like writing of Liane Moriarty.  I would be interested in reading more from this author in order to feel that hopefulness in the writing.  I do think there is an audience for this book but it just didn't work for me.

This book will be available on February 14, 2017 and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 

I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

The PHO Cookbook by Andrea Nguyen: A Review

       
The PHO Cookbook: Easy Adventurous Recipes for Vietnam's Favorite Soup and Noodles by Andrea Nguyen is not just a cookbook for soup.  As Nguyen mentions in her book, pho actually refers to both the soup and the noodles in the soup.  For this reason, there are recipes for noodle salads and other noodle delicacies, such as "Deep-Fried Pho Noodles".  Those who are looking for soup recipes will not be disappointed, though.  Nguyen has recipes for both novice and experienced cooks and provides lists of ingredients that are easy to find or provides substitutions and guides on where to find the ingredients.  There are very traditional recipes for Beef or Chicken pho and more creative recipes, such as lamb and rotisserie chicken pho.  Both meat-eaters and vegetarians alike will rejoice that they will be included, as this book contains ideas on how to use ingredients like Gardein to create meat-like soups.  I appreciated the variety of recipes that this book contained and bookmarked several that I plan on trying in the very near future.  There are even recipes for Vietnamese-style coffee and some pho-inspired cocktails.  I also appreciated that the soup's history is outlined in the book and the guide on how to properly pronounce "pho" (so many people mispronounce this word).  The pictures in the book were beautiful and made my mouth water.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Vietnamese cooking, international cuisine, healthy cooking and soup cookbooks.

This book will be available on February 7, 2017 and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 

I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

Little Deaths by Emma Flint: A Review

                             

Little Deaths by Emma Flint is a murder mystery about a young mother, Ruth Malone, who seems to me to be the loneliest person in the world.  She was abandoned by her father when he passed away, by her mother who is cold and distant and by her husband as she falls out of love with him.  All she has are her two children, Frankie Jr. and Cindy, but she feels stifled by being a mother to them.  She seeks companionship with various men and drinks heavily.  When her two children go missing and are then found dead, the police seem to be more interested in finding ways to make her the prime suspects as opposed to conducting a real investigation into who may have killed the children.  Throughout this, a reporter who is looking to make a name for himself, Pete Wonicke, becomes obsessed with the case and with Ruth.

I found this book to be sad, at times, because I felt the pain that Ruth was going through but it didn't slow this book down for me, at all.  I felt as if I could not put this book down and, indeed, stayed up long past when I would normally fall asleep to find out what really happened in the Malone household.  This book does not have the dramatic twists and turns that a lot of other mystery novels do but it does not get boring.  On the contrary, it feels more real than other novels.  This may be because the author enjoyed reading true crime fiction since she was a young girl (according to her biography).  The characters in this book were not super-developed but I didn't mind as much because it was still a very interesting book to read.  The realness that this novel portrays really makes me want to read more by this author.  I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mystery novels, women's literature and true crime books.

This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 


I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

Disaster Falls by Stephane Gerson: A Review

Disaster Falls: A Family Story by Stephane Gerson, a book about a family's grief after the accidental death of their son and brother on a water rapids trip, was incredibly moving.  There were times when it was difficult to read but only because of the sadness of the case.  This book does feature information about the accident that killed eight-year-old Owen Gerson but it is more about the grief that the family suffers.  The author is incredibly honest about how family members often feel towards those who try, or don't try, to comfort the survivors.  The different ways in which Stephane, his wife, Alison, and son, Julian, grieve also show that everyone grieves differently but the most striking example of how some people grieve in different and confusing ways is how Stephane's father reacts to hearing Owen's name even years after the accident.  While he remains silent and appears to want to erase Owen from the family's history, he still feels profound pain, as the author discovers when Stephane brings up Owen over lunch with his him.  A few years after Owen's passing, Stephane's father is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and is not given a positive prognosis.  As his father dies, Stephane is able to confront his father for the harsh treatment he received as a child. Through the pain of his losses, the author uses the words of past writers who have shared the experience of losing a child with the Gerson family.  These words, intertwined with the wisdom of the author, are a comfort to those who have had the experience of losing a family member.  This book was actually more of a comfort to me that that of the popular book on grief, When Bad Things Happen To Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner.  While Kushner also experienced the death of a child and spoke honestly about grief (and gave sage advice on how to handle the guilt that often accompanies it), I found the words in Disaster Falls more comforting.  I don't think that one has to lose a child in order to read and understand this book.  Everyone will lose a family member at some point and this book will help the reader through the pain and anger that one would feel during such a difficult time. 

Upon completing this book, I could not get enough of this author's story.  There is a video on the website for the book where the author explains what his book is about and what compelled him to read it.  Please visit the author's website disasterfalls.com.

This book is currently available and can be purchased from major booksellers  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.  Visit the publisher, Penguin Random House, for booksellers and information about the book.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 

I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen: A Review

                            

For the most part, I prefer novels over short stories but I really enjoyed The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen.  I had read Nguyen's novel, The Sympathizer, and was impressed with his writing and honesty and wanted to read other books by the author.  I'm glad that I did as I found that I actually enjoyed The Refugees more than I did The Sympathizer (though I still loved and would recommend The Sympathizer anyday).  The stories in this book are moving and emotional and they stick with you for a long time.  That is not to say that all of the stories are serious, though.  There are enough funny parts in it while still being thought-provoking.  All of the stories are about refugees from Vietnam or people that are somehow connected to Vietnam.  From the very first story, in which a young girl meets with the ghost of her deceased brother, to the last, in which a young woman meets her older half-sister whom she is named after and whom she suspects is loved more by her father than she is, the stories spoke to me.  Though the stories were short, I still felt connected to the characters.  I was truly wowed by this book and Nguyen's writing style and I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.

Watch the author on Late Night with Seth Meyers:

This book will be available on February 7, 2017 and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 

I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee: A Review

 

I was lucky enough to win an advanced copy of Pachinko by Min Jin Lee from a giveaway on Goodreads.  I love books that feature families, especially those families from international countries, and this book really hit the spot for me.  Young Sunja, daughter of the owner of a boardinghouse in Korea, meets a rich Korean man who lives in Japan and becomes pregnant with his child.  When she finds out that he is married to a Japanese woman and has children, she finds that she can't be with him any longer.  A Korean Christian boarder who is moving to Japan to live with his brother and work as a pastor, Isak, finds out about her pregnancy and offers to marry her so that her and her child can avoid shame.  Sunja travels with Isak to Japan and the couple and their young child, Noa, struggle there more that they did in Korea.  Koreans are regularly discriminated against by the local Japanese and the family struggles to make money and find suitable living arrangements.  Through all this, the family sticks together and helps one another to overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds in front of them.

There were times when this book seems to be a bit long-winded and there are some parts that seem unnecessary, at times, but this book will not disappoint.  This book spans many generations of a family and it is satisfying to watch the young Baek family grow and adapt in a new land.  Most immigrant stories center on families that travel from other countries to the United States but this is an immigration story of a different kind but it shows that immigrants struggle, and learn to persevere, anywhere.  The stories are rich with history and will teach the reader about how current events have come to be.  The characters are all complex but intertwined with each other.  The author has not made the mistake of making all of her characters likeable or made them all seem to have evil tendencies, either.  I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to any reader of historical fiction or who enjoys multicultural stories.

   

This book will be available on February 7, 2017 and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads. 

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 

I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.