"Knowing that tree of ghosts is there makes the skin on my back burn, like hundreds of ants are crawling up my spine, seeking tenderness between the bones to bite." It is not very often that I read a book that leaves me feeling completely gutted. Sing, Unburied, Sing drew me in very slowly, but ultimately, very completely. This is a book that will stay with me for a long, long time. At its ...
Literary Fiction
August Book Club – The Vegetarian and Blossom Restaurant
For our August book club, the NYC Ladies of Fine Dining and Fiction read The Vegetarian by Han Kang. We held our discussion at Blossom on Columbus, a popular vegan destination on the Upper West Side. As for the book, I will say that I was in the minority, but not alone, in simply not liking it. Truth be told, I hadn't even finished it in time. Though it was a very short book, I found myself ...
Throwback Thursday: The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. Throwback Thursday is an awesome opportunity to share old favorites as well as older books in our TBR. I love this idea as I only started blogging about a year and a half ago. Therefore, I have lots of old favorites to talk about. While I may not remember all of the details needed to write a complete review, I’m happy to share ...
Review of The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve
Having never read any of Anita Shreve's earlier novels, I was drawn to The Stars are Fire because I enjoy learning about historical events I know little or nothing about. This events in this book unfold as a result of what has become know as the Great Fires of 1947, a series of forest fires that devastated hundreds of thousands of acres in Maine. Grace Holland is five months pregnant when the ...
Blog Tour: A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline
Welcome to my stop on the TLC Books blog tour of A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline! I'm extra-super excited to be on this tour because this book is the best book I've read in 2017! The Blurb: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the smash bestseller Orphan Train, a stunning and atmospheric novel of friendship, passion, and art, inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s mysterious and ...
Review of Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley
Lily and the Octopus opens on a Thursday evening. Ted knows it was a Thursday because that's the day he and Lilly, his beloved dachshund, reserve for talking about boys they think are cute. (They don't always agree but they do tend toward younger men.) He suddenly notices the octopus. On Lily's head. He's not sure how or when it came to reside there and he clearly feels some guilt over not having ...
Giveaway and Review Of Christodora by Tim Murphy
My Review Christodora contains all of the elements you'd expect to find in an epic novel. There's 40 years worth of history, tragedy, triumph, and human drama. Surprisingly, it's well laid out in only 428 pages. I mention this because I can only imagine the difficulty in finding the balance between providing enough context and detail without adding unnecessary length. This novel essentially ...
Review of A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
My Review "Some years later, the Count would come to understand that he had been looking at the matter upside down. The pace of evolution was not something to be frightened by. For while nature doesn't have a stake in whether the wings of a peppered moth are black or white, it genuinely hopes that the peppered moth will persist." A Gentleman in Moscow is the story of Count Alexander Ilyich ...
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 ...
