Somewhere between three and a half and four stars. I can't decide how much was the book and how much was me. Somewhere between three and a half and four stars. I can't decide how much was the book and how much was me. ...more
This was on NetGalley, just a quick novella meant to serve as a prequel to Moyes' forthcoming The Girl You Left Behind. It tells the stories of two unThis was on NetGalley, just a quick novella meant to serve as a prequel to Moyes' forthcoming The Girl You Left Behind. It tells the stories of two unhappy newlyweds in Paris eighty years apart. In 2002, Olivia is upset that her new husband leaves her alone on their honeymoon to take a work meeting. In 1912, Sophie worries that her painter husband Edouard might return to his habit of sleeping with his models.
This is a perfectly fine, quick little read. Moyes is a good writer and connects the two threads together with ease. Ultimately, though, there's nothing very original about the story she tells and I imagine that it will fade from my memory pretty quickly. I will be curious to see exactly how the prequel fits into plot of the new novel -- I don't looooove Moyes' other novels the way many others do, but I thought they were fine and have every intention of reading the new one.
(view spoiler)[As the marketing copy for The Girl You Left Behind tells us that Sophie's husband goes off to fight in WWI and Olivia's husband dies, I have a sneaking suspicion that this is just to get us invested in the characters to make the book feel extra sad, but we'll see. Maybe I'm just being too cynical. (hide spoiler)]...more
My friend Katie once told me that I should write a blog about all of the awful experiences I had during my two-year tenure as a single lady on the proMy friend Katie once told me that I should write a blog about all of the awful experiences I had during my two-year tenure as a single lady on the prowl. My friend Katie is constantly telling people they should start a blog for all sorts of reasons, so that doesn’t really mean a whole lot.
But then my friend Ted told me that I should write a book about all of the awful experiences I had during my two-year tenure as a single lady on the prowl. I told him that there wasn’t enough of a hook, nothing that would make the book stand out as something unique, something that anyone would want to read. It would just be a collection of bad first date stories and awkward sexual encounters followed by stories of me crying over beer and spaghetti.
“But I’d read it,” Ted told me. “And it would be funny as hell.” You guys don’t know Ted, but trust me when I say that is quite the compliment coming from him.
So apparently I’m a modestly funny lady with a lot of bad first date stories that my friends find amusing. And though I could be wrong, I ultimately don’t think anyone else would really jump at the opportunity to read about my adventures with Douche Canoe, Square Peg, or the Jewish Mummer. But as I travailed through these men (which sounds way sluttier than I intended it to), I’ve often found myself drawn to memoirs written by other funny ladies with a lot of bad first date stories.
That’s ultimately what led me to request this book from NetGalley, though it’s not ultimately what this book ended up being about.
It’s about Torre, a twentysomething Australian who decides to move to San Francisco for a year basically just to prove to herself that she’s adventurous enough to do so. She meets an Argentinian man in a bar one night, the two hit it off, and the next thing she knows, they are sailing across the Pacific Ocean together. All the way across the world’s largest ocean. Just the two of them. In a 32-foot sailboat. For several months.
The title and the cover of this book will probably make those who decry “chick lit” wince and turn away. If you’re one of those folks, I would needle you to give this book a second look. Yeah, it’s about Torre’s relationship with Ivan, but it’s more about learning to embrace her sense of adventure, overcoming her fears, and all that good finding yourself kind of stuff. Torre’s got a great blog out there and she’s an engaging writer. She’s very insightful, honest, and just a little self-deprecating. It’s the book that Elizabeth Gilbert should have written, so if you – like me – enjoy a good “finding yourself” memoir but found yourself disappointed by the self-indulgent rubbish that was Eat, Pray, Love, give this one a shot. ...more
Celia is a widow who doesn't know how to really move on. Five years after her husband's death, she is the landlord of a small apartment building in BrCelia is a widow who doesn't know how to really move on. Five years after her husband's death, she is the landlord of a small apartment building in Brooklyn. She is very picky about whom she chooses as tenants, because she very much wants to be left alone and not be forced to interact with anyone too much.
Then one of her tenants has the opportunity to travel, but only if Celia will allow him to sublet his apartment for a few months to Hope. Celia finds herself intrigued with Hope and her desire to stay hidden behind walls is put to the test.
This book was...okay. At times. The characters never really came alive to me, staying very flat and never proving to me why I should care about them. In general, I'm not a big fan of the stream-of-conscious narration that Loyd uses and she was given to overwriting.
I felt the radiator in my bedroom, and when its heat did not feel emphatic enough, I pulled my sweater and jeans on, stuck my feet into slippers, and went to check the boiler.
The heat's not emphatic enough? You can't just say you were cold? Oi. Vey.
A spiritual memoir about a man who was raised in the Pentecostal church and even became a pastor only to find himself disillusioned with the church. TA spiritual memoir about a man who was raised in the Pentecostal church and even became a pastor only to find himself disillusioned with the church. Though I am personally not a fan of organized religion, I do find myself uncomfortable with those who take a mean spirited approach against it. I don't care about others' religion as long as they don't care about my lack of religion, but I still want to read about these things to help sort out my feelings. I appreciated DeWitt's story and felt he did a great job explaining himself without mocking or deriding others for their belief. An interesting read for anyone who tires of the vitriol of the Dawkins and Hitchens of the world. ...more
This book reminded me of the "women's fiction" version of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena set in the Balkans instead of Chechnya. Both look at the This book reminded me of the "women's fiction" version of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena set in the Balkans instead of Chechnya. Both look at the role that twentieth century ethnopolitical warfare plays in the lives and relationships of civilians.
Though the events of the books are very different, the circular structure that dances around between different perspectives and points in time is very similar. We follow Jadranka, a young woman who longs to have a career as an artist, as she leaves her home on a fictional island on the coast of Croatia for her cousin's home in New York. Her sister Magdalena stays behind as a teacher in Rosmarina. The two women have long had a difficult relationship with their mother and were essentially raised by their grandparents. When they were children, their uncle Marin defected to the US to escape the turbulent political culture. He lived with their cousin Katarina and her family for a while before disappearing. One day, Magdalena receives a call from Katarina that Jadranka has also disappeared and must go to America to try to find her sister.
The characters in this book just pop right off the page and it's impossible not to get caught up in their lives and their struggles. They are incredibly empathetic and very multi-dimensional. I recommend this book to anyone -- it really does go broader than most books that get labeled "women's fiction" are assumed to go. ...more
I play mama to the classiest cat there is: [image]
She's also kind of a beast, forever reminding me that she's more important then the boyfriend: [imagI play mama to the classiest cat there is: [image]
She's also kind of a beast, forever reminding me that she's more important then the boyfriend: [image]
Still, I love her to pieces and fret that she's gonna call child services on me when I have to leave her overnight. My hope was that learning a little kitty psychology will help soothe my guilt and get her to stop biting my butt. This book didn't give me as much straightforward information as I'd hoped.
Bradshaw spent a lot of time exploring the evolutionary history of the domestic cat -- most of which I honestly skimmed. He then offered some insight into how cats learn to socialize -- most of which I could have told you when I was nine, having grown up with a steady stream of feral cats hanging around the back yard. A lot of heavy scientific discussion to explain that cats aren't likely to be friendly unless they've been around people from a very early age.
I had hoped that maybe the book could be applied a little more directly to my cat's quirky behaviors, but I was rather disappointed. ...more
Granted, this is only my second time reading him, but I have many of the same problems here as I did before.I don't think I am a Chris Bohjalian fan.
Granted, this is only my second time reading him, but I have many of the same problems here as I did before. I actually requested this book from NetGalley because I thought the plot sounded promising, and I worked very hard to give Chris a clean mental slate on which he could impress me and change my opinion.
This book, by the way, is about a wealthy Italian family during World War II. In 1943, the Rosatis' property is of great interest to Germans who are looking to gather the archaeological artifacts from an Etruscan tomb on the grounds to keep in their own museums. One of the German soldiers involved in the museum coordination falls for the youngest Rosati daughter, Christina. A decade later, Christina's sister-in-law Francesca is murdered in a brutal fashion. Serafina, the first female homicide detective in Italy, has a connection to the Rosatis and wonders how the murder might be connected to the events of the war.
I just don't like the way he writes exposition or foreshadowing. He does it in such a way that his twist endings do not make sense to me in the context of the first 97% of the book. He has a tendency to give away plot points very early on in a way that, for me, saps the tension out of the back half of the story.
I really can't explain why these things didn't work for me without giving away the ending so only open this spoiler if you already know what happens or don't care.
1. There is no explanation offered for why the murders were so brutal. These kind of murders are usually associated with psychotic/sociopathic folk of the Hannibal Lecter variety and it was never really clear to me how or why the murderer devolved into the psychological state necessary for this brutal and complex a murder.
2. The murderer is Enrico, avenging the death of his brother and wife. Along with Serafina, they were partisan fighters resisting the Nazis during the war. They were hiding out on the Rosati property after Serafina was injured and Francesca gave them up to try and protect her husband. Enrico waited 11+ years to start killing Rosatis because he'd been in a labor camp in Russia. Either way, Enrico was not sufficiently developed for me to be shocked by or even interested in his murderous ways.
3. The love story between Christina and Friederich didn't serve a lot of purpose in the bigger story and seemed to me to be little more than obvious misdirection. I'm fine with misdirection, but I think that the elements of said misdirection need to contribute to overall story in a way that this did not.
4. The same can be said for the final bit about how Friedrich died and Decher stole his dog tags in a page out of the Dick Whitman Playbook of Life. Bohjalian had kind of set us up to expect that the murderer was one of the soldiers involved with the Etruscan artifacts, which is all well and good, but this twist didn't add to the story.
All that being said, Bohjalian's a popular guy so if you disagreed with my feelings on The Double Bind, you'll probably disagree with me here, too. I seem to be in the minority as a Bohjalian skeptic. ...more
This may resonate more with someone who's already a fan of Dashiell Hammett or Lillian Hellmann, but it doesn't work for me. It reads toooooo much likThis may resonate more with someone who's already a fan of Dashiell Hammett or Lillian Hellmann, but it doesn't work for me. It reads toooooo much like a biography - not in a good way, but in a stilted, excess backstory kind of way. It also bounces around from two different first-person perspective (Dash's and Lillian's) and a third-person biographer-ish perspective to fill in the gaps. It makes the narrative too cluttered, too busy. ...more
Nothing ever causes me such consternation as the reluctant three-star rating. I sometimes worry that I give too many but to be fair, three stars is avNothing ever causes me such consternation as the reluctant three-star rating. I sometimes worry that I give too many but to be fair, three stars is average and by very definition most books are going to be average.
But there are some books out there that I suspect I would enjoy more if I read them in a different time and place, if I were a member of different demographic, if I had different life experiences. In my former life as a bookseller, I tried very hard to remember that customers wouldn't always have the same taste in books as me and sometimes the right recommendation was for a book that I didn't particularly care for.
If I still worked in a bookstore, Enon might be one of those books.
Paul Harding won the Pulitzer in 2010 for Tinkers, a novel that kind of came out of nowhere, about the ruminations of a dying man. I didn't read it, because I'm not one to jump all over award winners and because it just didn't sound like the kind of thing that would resonate with me. Still, I was intrigued when I found his follow-up on NetGalley. Here Charlie, the grandson of the protagonist from Tinkers, must deal with the sudden loss of his thirteen-year-old daughter. Charlie and his wife have predictably divergent grieving processes and so it comes as no surprise that she moves back to her parents' home in Minnesota, leaving Charlie alone in Maine, a man without a family.
He doesn't handle it all that well.
This book is sad as hell, but you know that going in. And it means there's some lovely writing these brief pages but Harding doesn't let it cross into emotionally manipulative territory. And yet -- there's nothing particularly new here. It's all territory that's been well-worn by many other writers and Harding just doesn't offer anything fresh. I felt like there was a superlative novel bubbling underneath the surface, but Harding didn't quite push it through. At the same time, I don't doubt that there is an audience that will be able to more fully relate to Charlie and will find that this book resonates. ...more
Interesting and well-researched, but it's very academic and not very narrative so it won't have a broad audience.Interesting and well-researched, but it's very academic and not very narrative so it won't have a broad audience....more
I've only made it about halfway through this one, but I think I am going to put it on hold.
A.N. Dyer is a literary giant in the vein of J.D. Salinger.I've only made it about halfway through this one, but I think I am going to put it on hold.
A.N. Dyer is a literary giant in the vein of J.D. Salinger. His breakout novel, Ampersand was a classic of adolescent angst comparable to Catcher in the Rye -- in Gilbert's world, you're either a Dyer fan or a Salinger fan much as you're either a Beatles fan or a Stones fan. Dyer has three sons, but he hasn't spoken to Richard or Jamie much since the sudden appearance of their half-brother Andy -- the result of an affair -- tore the Dyer marriage and family apart seventeen years ago. Dyer emerges from a life of Upper East Side seclusion to attend the funeral of his lifelong friend Charlie Topper, where he suffers a very public breakdown. He then summons his two older sons back to New York, along with Charlie's son (and our narrator) Phillip, to sort of settle things as he sees his own twilight approaching.
I find myself reading this in fits and starts, which is never a good sign. The first fifty pages were phenomenal, but as I've continued I find that I'm having trouble connecting to the characters and the writing can be a little verbose and rambly. It doesn't make sense to me, either, why the story is narrated from Phillip's POV but with the perks of a omniscient third-person narrator that gets into each character's head. Still, I think this book would be enjoyable and meaningful for someone who can better relate to the characters. I'm just not that someone. I may come back to it, but I'm moving on for the time being. ...more
This was a strange little novel and I'm not sure how I feel about it just yet, so this review might change.
The book is about a young girl in 1960 MisThis was a strange little novel and I'm not sure how I feel about it just yet, so this review might change.
The book is about a young girl in 1960 Mississippi. Starla's mother ran away to chase stardom in Nashville and her father works aboard an oil rig, so Starla is left with her strict, proper Southern Lady grandmother. Starla is a precocious child and when her grandmother decides to send her to reform school, Starla decides to run away to find her mother in Nashville.
There's a lot going on in this book. It's a coming of age novel about yearning and loving someone to whom you are not a priority, but it's also about the complicated race relations of a specific time and place. Starla is a great character and narrator. She's precocious, insightful, scared, and realistic. I rather enjoyed her conflict with her grandmother, as I could genuinely understand both sides of the story: my grandmother doesn't accept me for who I am versus my granddaughter is too ornery for her own good and it's not my responsibility to deal with this anymore.
The story gets crazy in the middle, though, and I can't decide how I feel about these turn of events. Much of what happens feels too over the top, too harrowing, and I couldn't quite get a grip on exactly what Crandall wanted her reader to feel.
I need some time to think about the plot a bit more before I decide for sure how I feel about this one so be sure to check back with me. ...more
I grabbed this off of NetGalley because I am now, apparently, the kind of person who will continue to read semi-academic books that could have been soI grabbed this off of NetGalley because I am now, apparently, the kind of person who will continue to read semi-academic books that could have been source material for her master's thesis more than two years after graduation.
Eh, this was kind of uninspiring. Not much of it was particularly fresh and what was new was pretty contrary to most of the other reading I've done on the subject but in an off-putting, defensive kind of way. ...more
If there were a third Gilmore Girl, one who left Stars Hollow to make it on Broadway and wrote about it, this book would be the result. It's pretty flIf there were a third Gilmore Girl, one who left Stars Hollow to make it on Broadway and wrote about it, this book would be the result. It's pretty fluffy, but it's fluffy in that witty, zingy way that Lauren Graham's characters are known for. Any Lorelai-and-Rory fan who's looking for a fun, quick read that definitely has an show-business-insider feel will surely enjoy this. ...more
I've read novels on all sorts of subjects, but I dare say that this is the first one I've read about a polygamous cult. What a curious book this was.
I've read novels on all sorts of subjects, but I dare say that this is the first one I've read about a polygamous cult.
Amaranth was the first of fifty wives to Zachariah, a man who imagines himself a prophet. Their congregation has lived a life of relative simplicity, cut off from the world on a mountain compound where they raise their children in ignorance, praying and preaching the impending Armageddon. Then a series of cataclysmic events -- kept somewhat enigmatic for the reader -- spurs Amaranth to grab her two teenage daughters, Amity and Sorrow, and run. She drives for four days before crashing somewhere in rural Oklahoma. With no money and an intense fear that Zachariah will chase her, Amaranth seeks help from Bradley, a struggling farmer. Sorrow has been led to believe that she is an oracle, the one who can speak to God and transmit his message to the congregation. Armed with this belief and the fact that she has never known anything but this strange way of life, Sorrow proves that she will stop at nothing to defy her mother and go back to the congregation. Amity, the younger of the two daughters, is trapped in the middle, obligated to obey both her mother and her oracle sister.
It's certainly a unique story, one that offers up ample opportunity to explore interesting questions and themes. Unfortunately, I found that I just couldn't lose myself in it.
The biggest problem is the third-person narration that shifts between Amaranth's point of view and Amity's. As a result, Sorrow isn't examined as much as a character despite the fact that she's arguably the most important. As the oracle, she played a special role in the congregation and many of the events that drove Amaranth to run centered on Sorrow. Sorrow’s determination to return to the congregation is one of the primary sources of conflict in the story and yet her point of view is largely neglected. As it stands, Sorrow is examined mostly from Amity’s perspective, which is one of confusion, fear, and naiveté. It felt like a wasted opportunity to fully explore the dichotomy between the oracle and her mother’s goals.
The narration also takes for granted that we already know why Amaranth is running from her husband, what the climactic, fiery event at the compound was all about, and the rules of the compound that remain difficult to break even in Oklahoma. Surely this is done to build tension, to tease the story out for the reader. However, for me, all it did was cause confusion and frustration. Not fully understanding these rules meant that I didn't understand why the characters behave the ways they did, I couldn't really get into their heads and follow their train of thought.
I had a problem understanding Bradley's actions, as well. When he first discovers Amaranth and her daughters, he insists that he doesn't want them around but essentially shrugs when they stay. Sorrow's "lashing out" behaviors cause many problems for Bradley, and yet nothing will spur him to take action against these unwanted visitors.
In the end, I only read half this book. I think there was a lot of potential and I’m sure many other will find it gripping. I just found it rather limp. ...more
A widowed doctor -- who is also a seminary student -- explores the use of music as a method of treating TB patients in 1920s Louisville. Also, the KlaA widowed doctor -- who is also a seminary student -- explores the use of music as a method of treating TB patients in 1920s Louisville. Also, the Klan is doing their usual thing.
There wasn't anything particularly wrong or "bad" about this book, I just found it rather boring. The plot moved very slowly and I had trouble getting interested in the characters. I didn't find the writing particularly engaging, and there were some passages that read more like a history text than a novel. It's one of those books that I'd set down and feel no drive to get back to. ...more
Ruta Sepetys wrote one of the most beautiful, haunting – and unfortunately named — books of 2011, Between Shades of Gray, so I was incredibly excited Ruta Sepetys wrote one of the most beautiful, haunting – and unfortunately named — books of 2011, Between Shades of Gray, so I was incredibly excited to find her follow-up on NetGalley.
In her second novel, Sepetys moves about as far away from her debut as you can imagine, going from the harsh Siberian work camps of WWII to a New Orleans brothel in the 1950s. The story follows Josie, the teenage daughter of a prostitute whose only dream is to get out The Big Easy and into Smith College. Josie spends the summer of her 18th birthday cleaning the brothel and working at a bookstore in the French Quarter. Her mother, Louise, is tangled up with a dangerous man named Cincinnati, who may or may not work for a mobster. Louise and Cincinnati strike out for California suspiciously soon after a wealthy man from Memphis is murdered at a nightclub in town. Josie's only connection to the man is that he bought two books from her shortly before his death, but she feels drawn to the case after she discovers his watch at the brothel.
I ultimately found the book rather underwhelming. It wasn't a bad book by any stretch of the imagination and Sepetys is a perfectly fine writer--I just wasn't blown away. Most of the characters never grew beyond cliche or caricature and because of that I often had trouble buying into the reasoning behind their actions. Take for example, the love triangle. For much of the story, Josie is romantically drawn to both Patrick, her bookstore coworker and longtime confidant, and Jesse, the town badboy who knows what it's like to be looked down upon. I never truly got a sense of Jesse as a person and couldn't understand why Josie was drawn to him or why his presence in the story was really needed.
Then there was the fact that, even with my lack of personal experience in this area, I couldn't shake how vanilla this whorehouse seemed. I know it was a teen book but if you're gonna take on a seedy underbelly I don't think you should sugarcoat it. It's not that I wanted Sepetys to get into the nitty-gritty of the whores and the johns; I don't need to know how Sweety's pillowcase got torn. The problem was that I never really felt like Josie was at all that much of a disadvantage (apart from being broke -- and that could've been a factor in the story without the prostitutes). It seemed to me that all the people in her life knew that she wasn't like her mother, that she was a smart girl who was capable of bigger and better things.
These two complaints are both embodied in the madam of the brothel, Willie. When we first meet Willie, she's snarling at the fact that she doesn't like kids. Josie is just seven when her mother brings her to the brothel, but Willie is open to giving Louise a second chance. She's often talked about as a cranky, harsh, demanding woman but she's more often shown being kind and protective of Josie. Willie's the only one who attends Josie's graduation, she buys Josie and expensive birthday gift, and offers her shelter when nefarious characters want to hurt her. And yet, she discourages Josie from aspiring to Massachusetts and Smith. It felt to me less like Willie was a complex, multidimensional character than Sepetys couldn't decide how she wanted Willie to be.
That inconsistency, in turn, left me feeling like there wasn't a whole lot of tension in the story. The prologue gave me the impression that Willie would be a source of conflict, but she never lived up to that once the story got going. And the rest of the dramatic elements - the murder mystery, the blackmailing, the dementia-stricken writer - never gave me a sense that there was anything at stake. It was just events happening, not events building to something.
I feel like I'm being really harsh on this book, given that I really didn't dislike it. I consider myself a fan of Sepetys and am looking forward to her next book; I just got to the end of Out of the Easy and felt, "Meh."...more
An enjoyable memoir of what it was like to grow up in 1970s Minnesota, well-written but a little lacking in focus.
Rachel Hanel's father was a grave dAn enjoyable memoir of what it was like to grow up in 1970s Minnesota, well-written but a little lacking in focus.
Rachel Hanel's father was a grave digger in their small town, so she grew up somewhat unfazed by death and cemeteries. These were all simply part of her day-to-day life. She writes about what that was like, while also giving us a peek into her family's history and exploring some of the losses therein. I liked reading Hanel's story, but I wish she had further plumbed some depths as I ultimately wasn't left with any real takeaways. ...more