The Party by Robyn Harding: A Review

Kim and Jeff Sanders are throwing a party for Hannah, their daughter, on her sixteenth birthday.  Kim and Jeff are very hands on parents and Kim immediately lets the five girls know that the party will only consist of a sleepover, pizza and a movie and not any drugs, alcohol or boys.  Jeff thinks it might be time to let his little girl have a little bit of fun and gives the girls a bottle of champagne.  The girls have a different idea and don't think that is enough.  Each girl sneaks in their own alcohol and drugs and things quickly spiral out of control.  One of the girls gets so intoxicated that she falls into a glass table and ends up cutting her face and eye.  Life is about to change drastically for the girls and their families.

This is an amazing ride of a story!  There are tons of twists and turns and it was so exciting to read it.  There were elements in this book that I didn't expect.  There were also very important elements, as well, such as the lessons about a parent's responsibilities and the realities of over-parenting or under-parenting teenagers.  While the characters were really interesting, they didn't have drastically different voices.  This can all be forgiven, though, because of the complexity of the characters.  Hannah's character is amazingly honest.  At one point, Hannah thinks to herself how much she dislikes some of the things that the so-called popular kids in school do but she would still give up anything to be apart of their group.  Lauren is crazy scary (I don't want to reveal any spoilers- you'll just have to read it to know what I am talking about)!  This book moves incredibly quickly and I felt like I couldn't put it down.  I was hooked from the very first paragraph.  The ending was a true shocker; I didn't see it coming!  I really loved this book and I think it is one of the better books of this year.  Because it can be considered a thriller, a mystery, literary fiction or maybe even young adult fiction, I would recommend this book to any reader.

My rating:
★★★★★

Robyn Harding talks about her book in this video:

Reviews of books like this one:
The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry

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.

Coversations with Friends by Sally Rooney: A Review

Frances and Bobbi used to date and are now best friends who perform poetry together.  When they meet a writer, Melissa, and her actor husband, Nick, the four quickly form a tight friendship.  Frances soon falls in love with Nick and begins an affair with him.

I really didn't find this book too interesting.   It was actually boring for most of the book.  The only interesting part that I found, Frances' health scare, ended very anticlimactically.  The whole book was actually very anticlimactic.  The characters were all equally unlikable.  All of them were selfish, pretentious and uninteresting.  None of the characters had a unique voice or personality.  While the writing was very fluid, I just couldn't enjoy myself while reading this book because the story and the characters were so flat.

Sally Rooney, Lucy Caldwell, Peggy Hughes and Sara Baume discuss new Irish literature in this video:

My rating:
★☆☆☆☆    

Reviews of books like this one:
The Shark Club by Ann Kidd Taylor
Sweet Bitter by Stephanie Danler
All Grown Up by Jamie Attenberg

This book is expected to be released July 11, 2017 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Penguin's First to Read program.  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.

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier: A Review

I first heard about the Hogarth Shakespeare project when I saw Margaret Atwood's retelling of The Tempest, Hag-Seed on the shelf at my local library.  Being that I am a fan of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, I immediately checked the book out and read it.  The project asks accomplished writers to retell the works of Shakespeare.  In New Boy, Tracy Chevalier retells the story of Othello with the characters being elementary school children.  It is the 1970s and Osei's father is a diplomat from Ghana.  His recent transfer has moved the family to a Washington, DC suburb.  Being the new kid, and the only black kid in his school, is never easy but he quickly befriends Dee, one of the most popular girls in the school.  Ian, the local bully, sets his targets on the new boy and begins his plans to harm the budding relationship Osei and Dee share.

This book imparts many lessons, including bullying, kindness and racism.  The bullying and racism aspects of the book were very realistic.  It didn't seem to be overly done and it included a reasoning behind the bullying.  The bullying was very psychological, which I have found to be very true to life.  The characters were a bit strange.  The elementary school students had a maturity that I would attribute more to high-schoolers and the teachers were very immature, making them seem to be about the same age as the students.  I have read Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring and did not find the characters to be quite as similar to each other but it could have been because New Boy was so short that it didn't have time for the characters to really develop.  Still, I believe that the students should have had a more realistic age and the teachers could have been a bit more mature (though it is sometimes the case that the adults act the worst in a situation like this).  That being said, I really liked the character of Osei who was able to tell a story about racism and radicalism in America through his own experiences.  The story was very enjoyable to read.  I actually enjoyed it more than other retellings of Othello that I have read and seen.  That it was told from the perspective of children was interesting.  I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Shakespeare or stories about beginning romances.  I also think it would be a great book for an older child or teenager to read to help them understand bullying and racism better and for building an appreciation for Shakespeare and literature, in general (though there are some themes and some language that parents of younger children may be offended by).  I really love the Hogarth Shakespeare series and hope that they will continue the work.

My rating:
★★★★☆

In addition to New Boy, the Hogarth Shakespeare project also includes these retellings:
Jeanette Winterson retells The Winter's Tale in The Gap of Time
Howard Jacobson retells The Merchant of Venice in Shylock Is My Name 
Ann Tyler retells The Taming of the Shrew in Vinegar Girl
Margaret Atwood retells The Tempest in Hag-Seed 
Jo Nesbo retells Macbeth (expected in 2018) 
Edward St. Aubyn retells King Lear (expected in 2018) 
Gillian Flynn retells Hamlet (expected in 2021) 

Tracy Chevalier discusses the book in this video:

Reviews of books like this one:
The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo
The Road to Enchantment by Kaya McLaren
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

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 Shark Club by Ann Kidd Taylor: A Review

I was a big fan of The Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd so when Penguin offered to allow me to read an advanced copy of a book by the iconic author's daughter as a part of their First to Read program, I was ecstatic.  What I learned is that each author must be appreciated based on their own work and not be compared to authors that have come before them.  Ann Kidd Taylor's work is completely different from the southern fiction that I enjoyed from Sue Monk Kidd, but still just as fun.

The Shark Club takes place, primarily, in an island hotel in the Gulf of Mexico.  Maeve and her brother lost their parents when she was very young and moved into their grandmother's hotel.  The twins are friends with Daniel, a boy who is grieving the fact that his father left him and his mother unexpectedly.  When Maeve is bitten by a shark and saved by Daniel, she falls in love with both Daniel and sharks.  Soon after her engagement to Daniel, she travels to finish her dissertation so that she can study sharks full-time.  When she is away, Daniel fathers a child by another woman, breaking Maeve's heart and ending the engagement.  When Maeve returns to the hotel after a trip studying sharks, she has to face Daniel, who is now the hotel's head chef, and an illegal shark finning operation in the area.

The characters were a little bit predictable in the book and, while the shark finning mystery was a bit of a surprise, it was also a little bit anticlimactic but I actually enjoyed reading this book.  It is a wonderful beach book.  Even though it addresses issues like animal cruelty and infidelity, it still had a laid back feel and I enjoyed the romance between the characters.  I really love Taylor's easygoing writing style.  While it was very different from Sue Monk Kidd's southern fiction, I really liked Taylor's Florida-based novel.  It is a great book for someone who enjoys women's fiction or romance novels, especially if they also love animals.   

My rating:
★★★★☆

Ann Kidd Taylor co-authored a book, Traveling With Pomegranates, with her mother, Sue Monk Kidd.  Watch Taylor discuss the book at the 2009 National Book Festival here:

Reviews of books like this one:
Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson
June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
Edgar and Lucy by Victor Lodato

This book is currently available 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 Penguin's First to Read program.  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.

And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman

When I read Backman's A Man Called Ove, I fell in love with the author's smooth writing style and quotable lines.  And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer is a sweet little novel about a boy and his grandfather and a boy and his father as the grandfather/ father begins to suffer from dementia.  I appreciated how this book is, mostly, from the perspective of the grandfather.  So often, books are written with the family's pain and anguish at center-stage but we often fail to forget how isolating and frightening this diagnosis can be for the patient.  While we lose one family member, they lose everyone while their body is still here on Earth.  This book also contained some words of wisdom for all of us, such as how grandparents spoil their grandchildren to apologize to their children for not being able to spend as much time with them (and also a word of warning for workaholics).  I want to emphasize that this book was not the tearjerker that so many books on dementia are.  While the subject matter is sad, it had a hopeful and bright feel to it.  I really loved this little book and I think anyone could relate to the loss of family and can glean wisdom from its pages.  I believe that Fredrik Backman's works are classics in the making.

My rating:
★★★★★    

Reviews of books like this one:
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Tale of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel
The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian

Another great book on dementia and related diseases is Still Alice by Lisa Genova.  The kindle edition is currently $6.99.
 

This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.  The hardcover is perfect for giving as a gift but the kindle edition is $5.99 at the time that this blog post was published.

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.

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki: A Review

Lady recently asked for a trial separation from her husband, Karl, and is living with her two sons, Seth and Devin.  Seth is an 18-year-old selective mute and Devin is a very talkative toddler.  Lady has accepted a contract to write a book about her experiences with Seth and has hired S Fowler to watch him while she writes.  S is actually Esther Shapiro, an aspiring artist that had an art project that turned out badly.  She has decided to reinvent herself in the image of her alcoholic mom in order to begin a new art project.  Soon, all the lies of all the different characters begin to have an effect on their relationships.

I had mixed feelings about Woman No. 17.  Lepucki's writing style is beyond compare and it was a very easy read.  The story and the characters didn't do much for me, though.  I actually didn't like any of the characters.  Well, maybe with the exception of Devin but he is a toddler so how can I not?  I found Seth to be about as manipulative as S was and Lady came across as selfish and pampered.  I want to give a full disclaimer at this moment and say that I am not a huge fan of performance or experimental art.  Maybe I just don't get it but it seems pretentious to me.  S and Seth's performance art, especially, seemed to me to be something that is only liked by those in the upper crust of society, a people who are often not informed about what the lives of the rest of society are like.  I have a slight inkling that even they don't get it.  I could see the ending from a mile away.  The whole time that I was reading the book, I kept thinking to myself, "Well, this can't possibly turn out well."  I think this book would appeal to some readers but it just didn't appeal to me.  I loved Lepucki's writing style and I would like to read her future work just for that reason but the story did not catch my attention.

My rating:
★★☆☆☆

Edan Lepucki discusses how she feels about bookstores in this video:

Reviews of books like this one:
Best Intentions by Erika Raskin
You Were Here by Sardar
The Road to Enchantment by Kaya McLaren

 This book is currently available 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.

Secrets of Southern Girls by Haley Harrigan: A Review

Julie is a single mother and struggling to come to terms with her part in the tragic death of her friend, Reba.  Sweet, innocent Reba's death was ruled a suicide but Julie believes that she may have killed her friend.  When Reba's old boyfriend, August, shows up with questions and tells her that Reba kept a diary, she travels back to home with August to find the diary and find out what really happened to Reba.

This book had a great beginning.  It takes place in a town full of racism and Reba and August were the star-crossed lovers there.  Julie was an orphan who lacked the love she needed from her new family and looked for it elsewhere.  In addition, there seemed to be an element of a mystery that was unfolding.  It lacked any kind of surprise and the ending was very predictable, though.  While the writing was fluid and kept me moving in the beginning, that lack of a complex story line made it difficult for me to enjoy the book towards the end.  The characters were very stereotypical and lacked authenticity.  I think that the theme of the problematic relationship between Reba and August would have done better if the story were to take place during the civil rights movement.  It would have made it more believable.  While I did enjoy the first half of the book and don't regret reading this, it wasn't my favorite. 

My rating:
★★★☆☆

Reviews of books like this one:
The Sisters of Blue Mountain by Karen Katchur
Once in A Blue Moon Lodge by Lorna Landvik
What's Become of Her by Deb Caletti

This book is currently available 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.

Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith: A Review

Young Adult fiction is not my favorite.  I don't read very much of it and, when I do, there has to be something else about the book that intrigues me.  For Windfall, it was the idea of a young person winning a lot of money in the lottery and being a little bit lost as to what to do with it.  This book was also a bit of a teen romance, as well.

Alice has had her fair share of bad luck.  When she was nine, both of her parents passed away and she moved from San Francisco to Chicago to live with her uncle, aunt and cousin, Leo.  Leo and Alice have been best friends with Teddy since she moved in with her new family but, recently, Alice has started to have stronger feelings for him.  On the night of Teddy's eighteenth birthday, Alice buys him a lottery ticket as a gag gift, thinking it a long shot that anyone would ever win.  A surprise to both of them, Teddy does win and now has over 50 million dollars to spend.  For a young person who lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his mother, the money is truly life-changing.  Everyone else is delighted with the windfall of cash but Alice has mixed feelings about it, worrying that the money will change everything.

When I read about this book, I was interested in it.  Who hasn't fantasized about winning the lottery?  I know I have.  I was somewhat disappointed with this book, though, and it was for the same reasons that I dislike most YA books.  The characters are very predictable and flat to the point of being boring.  Dumbing down of characters and story lines is disrespectful of the young adult reader.  I don't presume to believe that readers of YA fiction are not intelligent enough to appreciate complex characters with personality and depth.  While the characters were not impressive to me, I did enjoy the story line, both the lottery win and the romantic tension between Alice and Teddy.  It was a very touching romance between the couple and it was fun to read about all the things that a young person would buy if he had almost unlimited funds.  I think that this book was just not a good fit for me.  I believe that this would be a better pick for someone younger and who is not too focused on the complexity of characters.

Jennifer E. Smith discusses Windfall in this video:

My review:
★★★☆☆

Reviews of books like this one:
The Windfall by Diksha Basu
Marlena by Julie Buntin
City of Saints & Thieves by Natalie C. Anderson

This book is currently available 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.

The Changeling by Victor LaValle: A Review

Apollo's father disappeared from his life when he was very young and this feeling of abandonment affected him throughout his childhood and into his adulthood.  When he meets a fiesty librarian, Emma, he falls in love with her and the couple marry.  For the first few weeks after the birth of their child, life seems perfect.  After Emma must return to work after her six week maternity leave, she begins to act strangely.  Her sister and Apollo chalk it up to postpartum depression and exhaustion but Emma swears that she is receiving photos taken of her baby, Brian, as texts that are then deleted when she tries to show them to others.  After she plans to have Brian baptized without notice to Apollo, Apollo refuses and locks Emma out of their apartment.  When he wakes up, Emma has tied up Apollo and is killing the baby.  Emma hits Apollo with a hammer and knocks him out and escapes by jumping through a window.  In his grief counseling, Apollo hears a story from another woman who claims to receive similar texts that disappear and meets a man who claims to be able to help Apollo find Emma but does the man have ulterior motives?

This book floored me!  It was so exciting and kept me up until late at night as I tried to cover more ground in the story.  I was simply too excited to sleep while reading this.  This book is horror and fantasy and fairy tale all rolled into one.  I really enjoyed reading about the origins of old fairy tales like Rapunzel and trolls.  The ending was a complete shock for me.  The characters were so interesting and felt so real.  Apollo is bookish, enterprising, smart and likeable.  You feel as if you know him after you read the book.  I felt the same was about Emma and even more secondary characters like Patrice.  The book held an important lesson for me to be careful with the information that is shared online.  This book was exciting from the beginning to the end and I really enjoyed the wild ride.  I would recommend this to any reader who enjoys a little magic and "glamour" from their fiction.

My rating:
★★★★★

Victor LaValle explains his inspiration in this video:

Reviews of books like this one:
The Only Child by Andrew Pyper
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
Ill Will by Dan Chaon

This book is currently available 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.

The Only Child by Andrew Pyper: A Review

Lily is a forensic psychiatrist that has seen trauma of her own.  When a man without a name is admitted to the facility she works out after ripping a man's ear off, he tells Lily his name is Michael and that he was the inspiration of Dracula, Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, and Frankenstein's monster.  He also tells her that he is over 200 years old and her father.  He offers to tell her how her mother was killed when she was a child.  Lily finds herself questioning her scientific beliefs when she follows the man to Europe.

This book was scary in a supernatural kind of way.  It had my heart beating as I feared for Lily and was mesmerized by Michael.  Michael was a very interesting character.  I wish that more of the book centered around his origin story but he is a very scary character.  Lily was a bit of an unknown.  I wondered throughout the book if she was also insane as she often seemed to experience hallucinations.  The writing was very well done.  It was a bit slow for me at some parts but those slow parts helped to build suspense.  I enjoyed the comparisons to Dracula, Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde and the monster of Frankenstein.  The monster in The Only Child was very much like these characters but also more modernized.  It added a sense of old world horror to the story when Pyper brought the old classics into the story while allowing Michael to remain interesting and contemporary.  This book was a little bit scary but it wasn't as scary as some other horror that I have read and I would say that this book is part horror and part mystery.  Will's character and the chase around the world reminded me of a murder mystery or a crime drama.  Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  It would be a great book for those that enjoy supernatural horror, especially vampire novels, or mystery novels that are a bit more scary than average.

My rating:
★★★★☆

Watch an interview with Andrew Pyper here:

Reviews of books like this one:
Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard
Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
The River At Night by Erica Ferencik

This book is currently available 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.

The Heirs by Susan Rieger: A Review

When Rupert Falkes dies of cancer, his wife and children are devastated.  As they are mourning, a woman claiming to be a mistress of Rupert's encourages her sons to file a lawsuit against the family for a portion of the inheritance.  The family must decide whether they want to investigate the woman's claims, provide her money regardless of the circumstances or fight the claims.

When I put this book on my to-be-read list, I believed that it would be more about the claims of additional heirs.  Instead, it was really more of a saga of a family and their friends.  The stories of the lives of the various members of the family were interesting but I think I would have been more interested if the book centered more on the drama of the woman's claims of being the mother to Rupert's children.

Most of the characters were upper-class, old moneyed New Yorkers.  Eleanor was very likeable but the other characters seemed to complain too much.  At one point, one of her (millionaire) sons complains about having too much money when he says, "I can't get rid of the money, it's like a sin, 'a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing'".  They come off as elitist and out-of-touch.  That is not to say that the characters were not complex, though.  On the contrary, Rieger did a wonderful job building unique and developed characters.

The ending really bothered me as I felt that the story really started to get interesting at the very end of the book but questions were asked that failed to be answered.  While I was a bit disappointed by some of the parts of the book, I did enjoy reading it.  The writing is very fluid and easy to read and I found myself finishing the book quickly.  While it wasn't one of my favorite books of the year, I would recommend it to a reader who enjoys books about characters more than stories.

My rating:
★★★☆☆

Reviews of books like this one:
Tell Me How This Ends Well by David Samuel Levinson
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

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 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 Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon: A Review

Cassie is living with her husband, Dan, in Amman while he works.  She has been looking forward to adding to her family with Dan but the couple have failed to conceive, thus far.  When Margaret and her husband move to the embassy, Cassie and Dan are asked to be their sponsors, showing them around and helping them adjust to life in a foreign country.  When Margaret gets into a fender-bender and must go to the police station to fill out paperwork, Cassie agrees to watch Margaret's baby, Mather.  After Margaret does not show up for hours, Cassie becomes worried and begins to read Margaret's journal to gain insight into the mind of her new friend.  Margaret is more of a mystery to Cassie than she realized.

Cassie is a bit annoying.  She is so cautious that she comes off as culturally insensitive.  She assumes that all of the men in Jordan wish her harm and all of the women are judging her for not being conservative enough.  Margaret is more open-minded and caring about others, regardless of their nationality.  Margaret may be a little too trusting but she does so with the aim of being kind to other people.  This book was really interesting and unique but could be slow, at times.  Rarely have a I read a book about living in an embassy in another country from the perspective of the wives, though.  I really appreciated that angle and the story kept me moving along.  The writing was interesting but the constant references to the origin and definition of words quickly turned from interesting to annoying.  Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  It is a great work of Women's Fiction with a bit of multiculturalism thrown in and any reader who enjoys books like that will enjoy this book.

My rating:
★★★★☆

Reviews of books like this one:
Best Intentions by Erika Raskin
You Were Here by Gian Sardar
The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

This book will be available on June 27, 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 Penguin's First to Read program.  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 Windfall by Diksha Basu: A Review

Windfall is a classic story of keeping up with the Joneses.  The Jha's are hardworking parents to Rupak, living in a working class neighborhood in Delhi, when Mr. Jha creates and sells a website for millions of dollars.  The unexpected windfall it creates leads to the couple moving to a more upscale neighborhood and Mr. Jha struggles to show off his wealth.  All of the mothers from the old neighborhood vie for Mrs. Jha's time so that they can show off their eligible daughters, in hopes that Rupak will marry one of them.  Mrs. Ray, a widowed friend of Mrs. Jha, also has a life-changing experience from the windfall when she meets an eligible bachelor in the Jha's new neighborhood.

This was a very light, fun read.  It had a bit of comedy, a bit of romance and a bit of culture.  It also contained an important lesson on jealousy and being satisfied with what one has in life.  Mr. Jha spends so much time trying to impress Mr. Chopra that it is hard to imagine that he has any time to enjoy himself and his new life.  He is also very insensitive to his wife's discomfort with their newfound wealth.  The characters were very likeable and interesting, though.  I really enjoyed the story and it was a fun book to read.  I would recommend it to those that enjoy books on romance, different cultures or women's fiction.

Watch Diksha Basu answer questions such as what kinds of books she is reading:

Read my review of the book that Diksha is reading, The Accusation by Bandi here.

My rating:
★★★★☆

Reviews of books like this one:
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge
June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

This book will be available on June 27, 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 Penguin's First to Read program.  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.

Here and Gone by Haylen Beck: A Review

Audra has been clean for awhile now but her abusive husband has convinced child services that she is not in order to gain custody of the children after Audra left him.  Audra is worried that her husband will be awarded custody in court so she decides to take the children to California after her friend offers her a place to stay.  As she is driving through Arizona, Audra is stopped by a police officer who finds marijuana in her car but there is something very fishy about the stop.  Audra hasn't smoked marijuana in years and doesn't know where it could have come from.  She is detained at the jail and her children are taken by another police officer but when she inquires where the children are taken to, the police refuse to give her answers.  The police state that they never saw any children in the car and accuse Audra of being the cause of the missing children.  Nobody seems to believe Audra except for Danny, a man who has experienced a similar fate.  Danny and Audra must work together to find the children before something really bad happens to them.

Since the second chapter, I could feel my heart start to beat a little bit faster and felt myself rushing to finish the page so that I could get to the next one and find out what was going to happen to Audra and the children.  This story, featuring missing persons cases and dangers of the Dark Web, is truly terrifying.  What happens to Audra is a nightmare for any parent.  This book reads very quickly and I finished it in one sitting, staying up all night to finish it.  The one criticism that I would have with this book is that the characters don't really have different voices and are not very complex.  They are somewhat predictable and all sound the same.  The small town sheriff is the typical bigot and Danny is a typical tough guy.  It is very unlikely that a six-year-old child would ask, "You nearly done?" as a detective would.  The ten-year-old seems to think and speak like a miniature adult, also, as he talks his mother into leaving his abusive father and believes that his father's money comes more from his grandmother than his father's hard work.   The cliched and unrealistic characters are made up for by the excitement that the book offers, though.  This psychological thriller will more than satisfy fans of Mary Kubica and Gillian Flynn.  I really enjoyed this book and I look forward to reading more by Beck in the future.    

My rating:
★★★★☆

Reviews of books like this one:
The Child by Fiona Barton
Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica
Little Deaths by Emma Flint

This book will be available on June 20, 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 Penguin's First to Read program.  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.

Tell Me How This Ends Well by David Samuel Levinson: A Review

In the not too distant future, after the fall of Israel, the Jacobson family is living in a time of intense antisemitism.  Jacob lives in Berlin with his partner and teaches English to displaced Israeli refugees, Mo is a washed-up actor who now has a reality show staring his children and Edith is a professor of Ethics that is facing questions about the ethics of her actions with a student.  The three siblings have come together to spend what is likely the last Passover with their mother and with a plan to kill their emotionally abusive father after learning that their mother is dying.

Levinson has written the most honest account of a dysfunctional family that I have read in a long time.  The satire is perfect but there isn't so much humor that it allows the reader to gloss over the true drama of a family in crisis or the horrors of antisemitism and racism.  There were some excellent one-liners, though; "You stupid motherf***er.  You got raspberry in my eye."

The book is told with each sibling in mind at a time.  The characters are really interesting.  I keep trying to figure out if the family patriarch, Julian Jacobson, has indeed changed from his bullying ways and is being kinder to his wife, Roz, or is playing a role.  Mo, Jacob and Edith say that they want to kill Julian for the benefit of their mother but they all seem to remember more unkind things that Julian did to them as children, as opposed to cruelties toward their mother.  They are also preoccupied with the money their mother has that will be controlled by their father if she passes before he does.  The siblings simultaneously harangue one another, as siblings will do, while also coming together in their hatred for their father.

The book read a little slowly for me but it was interesting.  It seemed to become more interesting as the story started to unfold.  Overall, I really liked this book.  It was very different from any other book I have read.  This would be a great book for someone who enjoys humor and satire.  Those who enjoy fiction by Maria Semple or Jen Lancaster will be sure to love this book.

My rating:
★★★★☆

Reviews of books like this one:
Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
What To Do About the Solomons by Bethany Ball

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 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 Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda: A Review

Journalist Leah has to leave Boston due to being accused of libel and harassment of a professor.  Emmy has recently returned from a Peace Corps trip and is seeking a new home, as well, due to problems in her most recent relationship.  The two women have decided to move together to rural Pennsylvania where they can start anew.  Leah takes a job as a teacher and Emmy cleans hotels and houses until she can find something that she is more interested in doing.  At the same time that a young woman that looks eerily similar to Leah is beaten into a coma and left for dead, Leah finds that Emmy is missing.  Emmy must use her former investigative skills to help local detective, Kyle, find her friend but soon finds that what she thought she knew about her friend may not be true.

This book was okay.  There were some twists and turns but the ending was pretty predictable.  It was easy and quick to read but there was a lack of excitement to the book.  There were times when I doubted my initial instincts and was hoping for a certain outcome but it didn't work out that way.  While the characters of Emmy and Leah were interesting, it wasn't enough to make up for the lackluster story line.  I still had times when I enjoyed the book and think that it would be good for fans of suspense but realize that this is not the best suspense or thriller out there.

My rating:
★★★☆☆

Reviews of books like this one:
Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica
I See You by Clare Mackintosh
Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris 

This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.  The kindle edition is currently $2.99.

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.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood: A Review

I first heard about Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in my high school English class during a lesson on banned books.  My teacher had lined up books that had been banned at one point in time or another and allowed us to choose from them.  I didn't get to the book that day and ended up choosing another book, The Cider House Rules by John Irving, but I wanted to read The Handmaid's Tale since that day and ended up reading it a few years later.  Since then, it has become one of my favorite books and I am a fan of Atwood's work.  It is easily one of the best examples of dystopian fiction, of all time. 

The United States is now the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic police state.  The Bible has now replaced the Constitution.  Due to a pandemic of infertility, the wives of the leaders are unable to get pregnant and populate the new country.  For this reason, the fertile women of the community are sought out and are used as surrogate mothers for the wives of the leaders.  Women of all ranks are oppressed in this society and we soon learn that "better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some."

Atwood's account should be seen as a warning to us all about the consequences of political and religious extremism.  While this book was written awhile back, it still feels very current and relevant today.  I have loved everything about this book.  I loved all of the characters but especially Offred.  She is faced with such horrific circumstances but she is so strong and resilient, no matter what happens to her.  Serena Joy, wife of the Commander of Offred, seems cruel and cold but we soon find out that there is much more to her than is at first glance.  She has had her fair share of pain and anguish, just like the rest of the women in Gilead.  The story is so interesting that it is easy to move through the book quickly and with ease.  This book should be on everyone's to be read list.  This is, by far, one of the most important books of all time.

The Handmaid's Tale is also a new series on Hulu.  I have seen all of the episodes that have been released thus far and I have felt that they have lived up to the original.  Watch a trailer of the show here:

The Handmaid's Tale is currently available on Amazon Prime and Amazon Unlimited to read for free.   Follow this link for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Prime and this link for a 30-day free trial of Amazon Unlimited.

Reviews of books like this one:
Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Accusation: Forbidden Stories From Inside North Korea by Bandi and Deborah Smith

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.