My Review Isn't Grace the luckiest woman alive? She's beautiful and married to Jack, a handsome and successful attorney. She lives in her dream home; Jack's wedding gift to her. He dotes on her. They are never apart. And he just loves her sister, Millie. He's even insisted that Millie, who has Down's Syndrome, move in with them as she ages out of the residential school she attends. Sound's ...
Book Review
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
How could I could not say no when the publisher asked if I'd like to review this book?? Though I don't read many novellas, I am an absolute evangelist for anything written by Fredrik Backman. I would read his grocery lists. (5 stars, I'm sure!) I met the Fredrik Backman at BEA this year and was a little surprised to find that he's absolutely nothing like his aging, curmudgeonly characters. In ...
Review of “Cruel Beautiful World” by Carolyn Leavitt
Cruel Beautiful World is a book filled with so many stories within stories I'm not sure how the author, Caroline Leavitt, managed to incorporate them all so organically and seamlessly into one book. Sixteen year old has run away with her high school English teacher. Though her sister, Charlotte, and her guardian, Iris, do everything in their power to find her and bring her home, Lucy remains ...
Review of “History of Wolves” by Emily Fridlund
History of Wolves is one of those novels that I couldn't put down but, in the end, I have mixed feelings about. Linda is a socially awkward 14 year old girl living in Minnesota with her family. Her parents, especially her mother, are somewhat strange and detached. When the Gardener family moves in across the lake, Linda begins babysitting for their four year old son,Paul, while Paul's mother, ...
Review of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” by Iain Reid
I read I'm thinking of Ending Things a few weeks ago while my blog was being redesigned. As you will read below, I had a strong negative reaction to it. I wrote this review for Goodreads and was hoping I might have warmed a little to this book with some time and a few good reads in between. This has not happened and so the review stands as originally written: This was a very quick read and it ...
Review of “The Orphan Mother” by Robert Hicks
Having not read The Widow of the South, I was concerned that I may have difficulty following along with The Orphan Mother. Thankfully, it is easily read as a stand-alone novel and I'm now inspired to read The Widow of the South. Mariah Reddick is the former slave to Carrie McGavock. Since becoming a free woman, she has established herself as a competent and respected midwife to the women of ...
Review of “The Last Days of Night” by Graham Moore
I do not care so much for a great fortune as I do for getting ahead of the other fellows. - Thomas Edison Until I read this book, I had an impression of what it would have been like to see the night lit for the first time. It was terribly romantic. It was surreal, ethereal, and peaceful. (Sort of like this book's beautiful cover.) There were scientists and engineers of all sorts slapping each ...
Review of “Stranger, Father, Beloved” by Taylor Larsen
The book begins with Michael seeing his wife, Nancy, talking to another man at a party. He decides that this is the man who should be married to Nancy. He promptly begins working on his plan to make this man Nancy's new husband. This is a strange book in the sense that a decent writer (clean, articulate language, etc.) has written a bad story about mostly bad, unlikable characters. My ...
Review of Sober Stick Figure: A Memoir by Amber Tozer
Amber Tozer is super-funny, brutally honest comedian who has bravely chosen to share her story of alcoholism and recovery with the world. If you're thinking this is another super-heavy memoir that will leave you feeling nothing but depression and pity, just take a look at the cover. That sick figure version of Amber makes frequent appearances throughout the book... In a very real ...
Review of Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison For a Murder He Didn’t Commit by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved. - Benjamin Franklin, letter to Benjamin Vaughn dated March 14, 1785 On the evening of October 30, 1975, Martha Moxley, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl residing in the prestigious Belle Haven enclave of the very affluent town of Greenwich ...
