Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Title: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Author: Katherine Howe
Source: Library
Rating: 9 out of 10

Summary: Connie is preparing to write her dissertation in colonial history when her mother asks her to take care of cleaning out her grandmother's home for sale. On her first night, Connie finds a key with a slip of paper inside that leads her on a chase to find the rarest of the rare: A real book of magic.


My Two Cents:


I loved this book. Like, a lot. I really enjoyed how Howe wove together the Salem witch trials and fiction to create a believable but fantastic story.  The moving back and forth between the distant past and 1991 was seamless and tied together with all the evidence Connie was finding at a given point in the story.

I generally liked Connie as a protagonist. The one thing I was how she was portrayed as never having a real interest in men until just the perfect one came along. Academic pursuits were more her style. I'm sure there are a lot of women in the world just like this, but I guess I seem to find a lot of them in literature.

Also, the whole ending of the book gets wrapped up in a really neat little bow, all in the last 30 pages or so. Everything just happens so quickly, then everything is over and then the book ends. Bam. I guess I just expected, since it took nearly 350 pages to get to the main climax of the story, that it would take more than 30 pages to resolve that problem. I would have liked to see more because the pace of the rest of the book was pitch-perfect.

All in all, this was a book I was very, very pleased with. I would recommend this to anyone who likes books about family mysteries (Like those by Kate Morton), anyone interested in the Salem witch trials or those who just like a good puzzle to put together in a book.

2012 reading: Catch-up (Part 6)

In an effort to catch up on my reading, I'm writing short reviews of everything I've read thus far this year. This is the final part!

Title and author: Animals Behaving Badly: Boozing Bees, Cheating Chimps, Dogs with Guns, and Other Beastly True Tales - Linda Lombardi
Source: Library
Rating: 9 out of 10

This book was David Sedaris's recommendation of the night when I saw him a few months ago. I'm trying to read more non-fiction, and a book about the crazy things animals do sounded like just the trick. I couldn't believe some of the wild stories in here! Lombardi obviously did extensive research to find the most interesting stories the world over, and it's the quirky quality of the subject that makes this book sing.

Title and author: Into the Minds of Babes: How Screen Time Affects Children from Birth to Age Five - Lisa Guernsey
Source: Library
Rating: 9 out of 10

As the mother of a young toddler, I'm very interested in how exposure to media influences development and learning. I heard the author participate in a discussion on media use by young children on The Diane Rehm Show and picked up her book at the library. Guernsey at times seems to be assuaging parental guilt over allowing children to watch TV by showing that, yes, it can be educational, which bothered my old-fashioned sensibilities. But, at least she did her due diligence and showed that there is no one-size-fits-all answer: Your kids won't be behind the curve if they watch no TV and, if you choose to let them watch TV, moderation and parental discretion is key.

Title and author: Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood - Susan Linn
Source: Library
Rating: 10 out of 10

Linn is cited in Guernsey's book (above), and I was very interested to see her views on marketing toward children, something I feel is out of hand. Turns out, she agrees with me 100 percent. There was a lot of information in this book that I already knew, like how many instructional hours are lost each year to watching Channel 1 or that companies make licensing deals of movie and TV characters to make sales more lucrative, but some of the statistics were just startling and, frankly, frightening. Needless to say, it made our decision not to buy licensed toys and clothing for our son all the more rational in my mind after reading this book.

Title and author: Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? - Mindy Kaling
Source: Library
Rating: 8 out of 10

I've loved Mindy Kaling ever since my first episode of The Office. I think she's smart, funny and would be great to hang out with. If she's anything like she portrays herself in her book, my perceptions of her are 100 percent correct. My only beef with this book is that Kaling repeatedly calls herself "chunky" or says she's bigger than most girls but then reveals she's a size 8. Maybe in Hollywood that's on the high end of the clothing scale, but that's pretty small to normal in the real world.

2012 reading: Catch-up (Part 5)

In an effort to catch up on my reading, I'm writing short reviews of the books I've read so far this year.

Title and author: Divergent - Veronica Roth
Source: Library
Rating: 9 out of 10

Can I just say that I'm loving the dystopian trend? I've always been a sucker for a good dystopian novel, and Roth has created a really interesting world and has peopled it with characters that you actually want to watch. I couldn't stop reading this book (Or, as you'll see in a moment, its sequel) until I had completely finished. I wanted to know what happened, and I really cared about what happened to the characters.

Title and author: Insurgent - Veronica Roth
Source: Kindle
Rating: 9 out of 10

It's hard, for me, to separate this book from its predecessor since I went straight from one into the other. They kind of exist all as one story in my mind, so a lot of my feelings about Insurgent mirror those of Divergent. I did like that Roth began to more fully flesh out the world she created and to give the reader little hints of what may come in the third installment.

Title and author: Forever - Maggie Stiefvater
Source: Library
Rating: 7 out of 10

Last books in series always seem kind of rushed to me. You've had a couple books to really lay out a good story, then you have to wrap it all up in one book. In this case, there really wasn't a lot to "wrap up," but all that wrapping happened in such a small portion of the book that I kind of wondered why I'd read the whole thing. Not to mention that the characters we've seen develop in the last two books are just kind of blah. Grace is suddenly all rebellious and angry toward her parents in a confrontational way; Isabel just existed to answer the phone; and Sam, oh, Sam. Once the hallmark of everything I loved about these books, he turned into a Bella-from-New Moon stand-in -- "Oh, my love is away so I'll just totally fall apart and not sleep and go all emo." Yeah, no thanks.

Title and author: Silence - Becca Fitzpatrick

Source: Library

Rating: 6 out of 10

In a way, I liked the concept of this third book in the series: (SPOILER ALERT) Nora loses her memory right after learning all kinds of interesting tidbits about the fallen angels and the Nephilim, then has to gain it back. Unfortunately, the concept would have worked much better if this were a stand-alone book or the first book in the series. We already know all the stuff Nora needs to find out, so it just makes the entire book kind of boring.

2012 reading: Catch-up (Part 4)

In an effort to catch up on my reading for this year, I'm posting short reviews of all the books I've read so far.

Title and author: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
Source: Personal library
Rating: 10 out of 10

What can I say about this book besides I love this whole series? It had been a good decade since I first read this, though I watch the movie at least once a year. There's so much I forgot about this book that pops up later in the series. I now remember why this series became an international phenomenon: great characters, writing that's simple yet challenging to kids and a rich world that allows the reader to dive right in.

Title and author: O Pioneers! - Willa Cather
Source: Kindle
Rating: 9 out of 10

While I didn't like this novel as much as My Antonia (seems to be a pattern with me this year), I can see why this is considered an American classic. Cather obviously had a love for the prairies on which she was raised and for the hardy people who settled those areas. I loved Alexandra as a character, not only because she was a strong female protagonist who lived contrary to the social norms, but also because she seemed like she would have been a great person to know. Thinking that a character would make a great BFF is, to me, the hallmark of a well-written protagonist.

Title and author: Awakened - P.C. and Kristin Cast
Source: Library
Rating: 2 out of 10

I don't know why I've kept reading this series as long as I have. I wasn't too fond of the previous novel in this series for a lot of the same reasons: The characters are awful and stereotypical, the language is too contrived and the plot just doesn't really move along. I guess I figured, I'd invested in seven previous books, so why not try to finish things out and see what happens? Yeah. Not my brightest idea. Do yourself a favor and just skip this series altogether.

Title and author: The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower I - Stephen King
Source: Kindle
Rating: 9 out of 10

Would you believe this is my first Stephen King? I know, right? This is a great book, and I'm excited to see how the series develops over the rest of the parts. I think Roland is a great character based on a great poem, and a lot of the lore that King builds into his fantasy world is spot-on. Sure, there were times I got a little lost (Kind of happens trying to read this over a nursing baby's head), but I thought that it was a great accomplishment that King could make a world so bleak and deserted so rich with description and mystery.

Review: The Lady of the Rivers by Philippa Gregory

Note: I read this book in 2011, after the publisher graciously sent me a copy (How could I pass up a free ARC of one of my favorite authors??), but haven't gotten around to blogging about it until now. In honor of today's paperback release, here's my review (Finally!)!


Title: The Lady of the Rivers


Author: Philippa Gregory

Pages: 435 (I have an ARC, so pages in the finished copy may be different)

Source: Publisher

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From front of ARC):


Descended from Melusina, the river goddess, Jacquetta has always had the gift of second sight. As a child visiting her uncle, she met his prisoner, Joan of Arc, and saw her own power reflected in the young woman accused of witchcraft. They shared the mystery of the tarot card of the wheel of fortune before Joan was taken to a horrific death at the hands of the English rulers of France. Jacquetta understands the danger for a woman who dares to dream.

Married to the Duke of Bedford, English regent of France, Jacquetta is introduced by him to a mysterious world of learning and alchemy. Her only friend in the great household is the duke's squire Richard Woodville, who is at her side when the duke's death leaves her a wealthy young widow. The two become lovers and marry in secret, returning to England to serve at the court of the young King Henry VI, where Jacquetta becomes a close and loyal friend to his new queen.

The Woodvilles soon achieve a place at the very heart of the Lancastrian court, though Jacquetta can sense the growing threat from the people of England and the danger of royal rivals. Not even their courage and loyalty can keep the House of Lancaster on the throne. Henry the king slides into a mysterious sleep; Margaret the queen turns to untrustworthy favorites for help; and Richard, Duke of York, threatens to overturn the whole kingdom for his rival dynasty.

Jacquetta fights for her king, her queen, and for her daughter Elizabeth, for whom Jacquetta can sense an extraordinary and unexpected future: a change of fortune, the throne of England, and the white rose of York.

My Two Cents:


I may be biased because I seem to just love anything Philippa Gregory writes (Her Elizabethan-era works especially), but this was another great one from her. It has her hallmark talent for character development and minute period detail.

Jacquetta was a really interesting character. I remember the brief glimpses Gregory gave of her in The White Queen, and was intrigued. I'm not very well-versed in this period in history, so I had no knowledge that Jacquetta existed prior to Gregory's introducing her. Boy, did those small peeks into Jacquetta not at all do her justice. She was strong and funny and fierce. And the fact that she lived with a huge secret, a secret that could have cost her and her family dearly, made her all the more real. I really want to look more into the historical person of Jacquetta and learn more about her.

I think my favorite part of this novel was the relationship and love between Jacquetta and Richard. Love stories are everywhere in literature, many of which tend toward the unrealistic when seen in the light of day. Not Jacquetta and Richard. Over the many years covered in the novel, they have their ups and downs and, though they don't spend a ton of time in the same place, run into some of the same day-to-day slog that all couples hit. Yet, they manage to maintain the spark and stay interesting and dynamic as a couple the entire time.

This is another great book in Gregory's Cousins' War series. A must-read for any Gregory or historical fiction fan.

Review: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Title: The Kite Runner

Author: Khaled Hosseini

Pages: 400

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From Amazon):

 Hosseini's stunning debut novel starts as an eloquent Afghan version of the American immigrant experience in the late 20th century, but betrayal and redemption come to the forefront when the narrator, a writer, returns to his ravaged homeland to rescue the son of his childhood friend after the boy's parents are shot during the Taliban takeover in the mid '90s. Amir, the son of a well-to-do Kabul merchant, is the first-person narrator, who marries, moves to California and becomes a successful novelist. But he remains haunted by a childhood incident in which he betrayed the trust of his best friend, a Hazara boy named Hassan, who receives a brutal beating from some local bullies. After establishing himself in America, Amir learns that the Taliban have murdered Hassan and his wife, raising questions about the fate of his son, Sohrab. Spurred on by childhood guilt, Amir makes the difficult journey to Kabul, only to learn the boy has been enslaved by a former childhood bully who has become a prominent Taliban official. The price Amir must pay to recover the boy is just one of several brilliant, startling plot twists that make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the true nature of his relationship to Hassan. Add an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.

My Two Cents:

Note: I read this all the way back in May, just before my son was born, so my thoughts aren't as immediate and full as they normally are.

This was one powerful novel. I have heard all the buzz about this over the years, and stayed away from it for a while as a result (I don't like reading a book just because it's the latest thing). I almost didn't read it, but I'm glad I chose to.

I had a hard time figuring out how I felt about Amir. I disliked him early on as a result of his attitude toward Hassan. He was privileged, standoffish and snobby. But I had to remind myself that he was just a child and, let's face it, a lot of children are the same way. As the novel went on and we saw more of the adult Amir and his quest to return to Afghanistan, I liked him much more. Sure, his future actions did not excuse his childhood problems, but it turned him into a well-rounded, real, somewhat sympathetic character.

I have not read a whole lot of Middle Eastern fiction, and honestly I know very little about the region, so Hosseini's ability to open up the customs and everyday life of Afghanistan in the 1970s helped me a lot. His descriptions of the city and the lives of its people prior to the Taliban's takeover made the contrast when Amir returns even more stark. It's difficult to imagine that people could survive in conditions such as Amir encountered, but Hosseini's ability to paint a picture for his reader makes even the most unpalatable of situations believable.

This is a well-written, affecting novel that is not for the faint of heart due to some graphic scenes. 

Review: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Title: Cold Mountain

Author: Charles Frazier

Pages: 449

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From back of book):

Sorely wounded and fatally disillusioned in the fighting at Petersburg, Inman, a Confederate soldier, decides to walk back to his home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and to Ada, the woman he loved there years before. His trek across the disintegrating South brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign. At the same time, Ada is trying to revive her father's derelict farm and learn to survive in a world where the old certainties have been swept away.

My Two Cents:

I really like fiction set during the Civil War. In school, studying the 1860s always was one of my favorite things in history classes, so it would make sense that I enjoy fiction set during that era, even though I haven't read a lot of fiction set during this period.

One of my favorite things about this book was how the narration flips between the experiences of Inman as he attempts to return home from the war and Ada, who is trying to care for her father's failing farm. The dual narrative gave both perspectives of the war (Even though we hardly had any actual battle narration), so it wasn't all war and it wasn't all the struggle to survive. I liked that we got to see both sides of the experience.

I really liked all the main characters, too. It's not often that I like even the unsavory characters, like Stobrod, but even he had his fiddling obsession that kind of endeared him to me. At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like Ada. She seemed like nothing more than a damsel in distress who just kind of said, "Well, I don't know how to do any of this stuff around the farm, and I'm not really going to try." But, when Ruby comes along, Ada changes drastically and I really grew to like her.

My favorite parts of this book were Inman's interactions with various types of people in his travels. No matter what was doled out to him, he didn't become overly vicious or greedy; he simply treated people the way they treated him and he went out of his way to help those who needed the extra assistance. I also thought seeing the imagined experiences of people on the fringes of society added to the richness of the ambiance set out in this book.

I realize I'm probably about the last person on the planet to have read this book (And I haven't seen the movie, either!), but if there's someone out there who likes historical fiction and really interesting narratives who hasn't read this novel yet, give it a try.

Review: 13, rue Therese by Elena Mauli Shapiro

Title: 13, rue Therese

Author: Elena Mauli Shapiro

Pages: 268 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies may differ)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From back of book):

American academic Trevor Stratton discovers a box full of artifacts as he settles into his new office in Paris. The pictures, letters, and objects in the box relate to the life of Louise Brunet, a Frenchwoman who lived through both world wars.

Trevor begins to piece together the story of Louise's life: her love for a cousin who died in the war, her marriage to a man who works for her father, and her attraction to a neighbor in her building at 13, rue Therese. As Trevor becomes enamored of the charming, feisty Louise of his imagination, he notices another alluring Frenchwoman: his clerk, Josianne, who planted the mysterious box in his office and with whom he finds he is falling in love.

My Two Cents:

The story of how this book came to be and the concept around which Shapiro builds her novel is really interesting. The author acquired a box of artifacts -- letters, pressed flowers, gloves -- that belonged to an upstairs neighbor when she lived in Paris. It is around these real-life things that she builds this book and from which she imagines the life of the real Louise Brunet. She then takes those artifacts and frames them within the story of Trevor, an American who finds the box in his new office in Paris. I think the framework and the real-life story behind all the things we see scanned into the book is what I liked best about this book.

Due to the framework of the novel, I found it difficult to actually get to know Trevor as a character. This was kind of disappointing to me, as I would have liked to know him more since he basically is the one telling the story.

We do, however, get to know Louise very well. I honestly wasn't sure what to think of Louise. There were times when I liked her and times when I did not like her one bit. She was very much a Scarlett O'Hara to me, without the extended periods of complete and total loathing. Overall, though, I think she was a really interesting main character and I enjoyed the fact that, even though she likely was nothing like the real Louise Brunet, she was based somewhat on a real person.

This is an enjoyable, easy read that I would recommend to anyone looking for a fun little mystery to figure out along with their reading.

Review: House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

Title: House of Sand and Fog

Author: Andre Dubus III

Pages: 365

Source: Personal library

Rating: 5/10

Summary (From back of book):

In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.

Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course.

My Two Cents:

Even though I felt compelled to read this book, even staying up late to read a good chunk of it, I can't say I enjoyed it. I think I really just wanted to know what happened at the end, to see how everything played out.

A lot of my issue with the book was that two of the characters, Kathy and Lester, just made me so mad. I could not find any single shred of sympathy for either of them. I thought they both were terrible, reckless people and reading their sections of the book found me rolling my eyes on nearly every page. I don't know why I hated them so much, but I did. Ugh.

I think another part of my problem with the book was that I only felt any sympathy for Behrani. He not only was truly the one who did no wrong in the whole situation (Yes, you can argue he could have given the house back, but why should he have to pay for someone else's mistake?), but the whole action of the book just comes crashing in on his family. I spent the last 100 or so pages just so mad and sick that, had my desire to find out not won, I would have put the book down. It just angered me something fierce.

Now, I'm no prude, but I also took a lot of issue with the amount and description of the sex in this book. Do I know it happens? Yes. Do I know it's not always as chaste and pure as the driven snow? Uh, yeah. But I don't need to read about it every 30 or so pages. In detail. There are just so many other things that could have been done in those spaces, in my opinion.

Review: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Title: The Red Tent

Author: Anita Diamant

Pages: 321

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From back of book):

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons in the Book of Genesis.

Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood -- the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers -- Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah -- the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that are to sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates and intimate, immediate connection.

My Two Cents:

I really, really enjoyed this book. I was familiar with the very short story of Dinah from the Bible, and didn't really give it a second thought until reading Diamant's take on the whole ordeal.

Dinah is a fabulous character. Even though she comes from a time so far removed from my own, I could easily visualize her and found Diamant's portrayal completely believable. As the only daughter among 12 sons, it is a given that she would be doted on by the women and pretty much forgotten by the men. There are very few interesting, well-rounded females in the early portions of the Bible, so it was really nice to see one pulled out and given her own story. I really liked that she felt compelled to take care of other women as a midwife, so we got to see her interactions with people of all classes as well as those within her family. From what I know of the time in which Dinah would have lived, every detail of Diamant's narrative makes sense.

There is just so much in this book I hardly can begin to deal with all of it here. I'm usually not one for obviously feminist literature, but this book worked for me. My favorite scenes were those within the red tent, when Dinah and her four mothers spend three days each month talking and enjoying one another's company. It actually made me wish that there still was a tradition such as this in today's world.

For anyone who likes historical fiction, wants to know more about Dinah or who just is interested in a really rich narrative, I would suggest this book.

Review: Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez

Title: Salvation City

Author: Sigrid Nunez

Pages: 280 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies may differ)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 6/10

Summary (From back of book):

After a flu pandemic has killed large numbers of people worldwide, the United States has grown increasingly anarchic. Orphaned Cole Vining is lucky to have found refuge with an evangelical pastor and his family in sheltered Salvation City, which has been spared much of the devastation.

But it's a starkly different community from the one Cole has known, and he struggles what his changed world means for him. As those around him become increasingly fixated on their vision of utopia -- so different from his own parents' drams -- Cole imagines building a new and different future for himself.

My Two Cents:

I really liked the concept of this book. A ravaged United States, and world, after a pandemic should create a really rich opportunity to explore a lot of deep issues, right? We should be dealing with food shortages and cleanup and broken families and a crumbling government. But, there's really not much of that here in this book. This book, mostly, is about Cole's suddenly different life, going from an atheistic home of free-thinkers to the home of an almost frighteningly evangelical pastor and his tiny little community of believers.

I think the story line that Nunez created would have worked independent of the flu pandemic. But I didn't feel as if it worked as well as it could have the way it was written. I kept waiting for something to really depend upon the pandemic, but besides Cole being tossed in an orphanage, there didn't seem to be any reason for the pandemic to be used as a device here. Nunez's point easily could have been accomplished had Cole's parents died in, say, a car accident. I guess I was just left disappointed by this.

Salvation City is very well-written. It's an easy read with some great, albeit a little startling at times, detail. Nunez also creates some interesting characters, including Cole and Pastor Wyatt. These factors did keep me going through the book despite my disappointment at the plot itself.

Review: Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

Title: Cat's Eye

Author: Margaret Atwood

Pages: 446

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From book flap):

Painter Elaine Risley, pushing fifty, returns from Vancouver to Toronto for a retrospective of her work, which has been much celebrated by the women's movement and much attacked from other quarters.

Toronto is the city she fled many years earlier, hoping to leave behind the tyrannical and obsessive memories of her early life there -- from her post-World War II school days and fifties adolescence, through the avant-garde art scene of the sixties, to the advent of feminism in the early seventies.

Now, as she wanders the streets of the city, which are no longer puritanical and dowdy but resplendent with eighties glitz, Elaine confronts the submerged layers of her past -- her unconventional family, her eccentric and brilliant brother, the self-righteous and dangerous Mrs. Smeath, and the two men Elaine later came to love in diverse and sometimes disastrous ways. But it is the enigmatic Cordelia, once her tormentor, then her best friend, whose elusive yet powerful presence in her life Elaine finally comes to understand.

My Two Cents:

At first, I wasn't sure how I was going to like this novel. It didn't capture me right away like the other two Atwood works I've read, but as I continued reading, it had me hooked.

I really liked Elaine as a main character, although I liked her better in her younger form than as the mature, adult narrator. She had an unconventional childhood, especially for the first eight years of her life. She really, to me, seemed like someone I would have liked to have as a friend as a child. With a lot of her interactions with Cordelia, especially, she spoke to me as having a very typical young girl experience with groups of mean girls. Elaine was just a character who was easy to relate to and to see in myself and a lot of people I know.

While much of this book happens in the past and there really isn't a whole lot of action as far as everything in the book is leading up to this huge climax, I was incredibly interested in where Atwood was going to go. I liked that we saw Elaine as an adult, so we know how she turned out, but we were able to see her evolution and how she became the adult she is.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes Margaret Atwood or who just wants an interesting story that will keep you reading much longer than you had planned.

Review: City of Dreams by William Martin

Title: City of Dreams

Author: William Martin

Pages: 447

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From book flap):

"Can I interest you in saving America?"

That's the text message Peter Fallon receives from a Wall Street bigwig. It's not a challenge he can turn down, especially since the country is in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The stock market is wobbling. The Chinese have stopped buying our T-bills. If we don't get control of our deficit, our economic future looks grim.

But all may not be lost. Hidden somewhere in New York City is a box of 1780s bonds with a face value of ten thousand dollars, part of a series of bonds called New Emission Money. The Supreme Court is about to decide if these bonds still have value. If the decision is yes, those ten thousand dollars, at 5 percent interest, will be worth a very pretty penny. A lot of very pretty pennies.

Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline Carrington, must find the box -- and fast. Suddenly, their race against time becomes a race through time as Peter and Evangeline track the stories of New Yorkers whose lives have been changed by the bonds. They'll confront frightened booksellers, heartless businessmen, former flames, renegade treasury agents, and the Russian mafia ... and all while they'll unravel the thrilling and inspiring origins of the City of Dreams.

My Two Cents:

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I'm not normally one to enjoy the whole suspense/thriller genre, but I do like a book that has a good historical story. So, I gave it a try.

The best thing about this book, in my mind, was how Martin traces the bonds in question through time and how he is able to bring each time in history -- 1770s, 1890s, 1920s, 1980s and present day -- to life. It was also interesting to see that, since these bonds were basically lost in the New York City, each time period's action was centered in New York. As a result, the reader really got to see how the city changed from its earliest roots to what it is today. The whole historical background was most interesting to me.

I did find some of the action and events, especially those in present day, a little hard to believe. I have a hard time believing, for example, that a building could be blown up and a man shot in the middle of the street nearly unnoticed by police. But, although the somewhat outlandish events contributed to the suspense feel of the book, it did not take anything away from my enjoyment of the book or my desire to find out what happened next.

I also found that I really could not connect to any of the characters. They all seemed very one-dimensional. And while that did bother me some, again, it did not cause me to dislike the book or to make me want to put it down.

If you like historical novels or history in general, give this book a try.

Review: The Body Artist by Don Delillo

Title: The Body Artist

Author: Don Delillo

Pages: 124

Source: Personal library

Rating: 5/10

Summary (From book flap):

In this spare, seductive novel, he inhabits the muted world of Lauren Hartke, an artist whose work defies the limits of the body. Lauren is living on a lonely coast, in a rambling rented house, where she encounters a strange, ageless man, a man with uncanny knowledge of her own life. Together they begin a journey into the wilderness of time -- time, love and human perception.

My Two Cents:

I just need to learn to stay away from Don Delillo's books. I read White Noise in college and thought it was fabulous. So, I gave Underworld a try. I barely made it through that huge tome, and all I remember about it is that it was about baseball. I figured, though, that maybe that was a fluke of a book and I didn't take to it since I dislike baseball so much. That led me to giving The Body Artist a try.

I had the same issue with this book that I had with Franny and Zooey: Nothing happens. I know this is like the hallmark of all those esoteric modern novels that hipsters worship, but it just doesn't work for me. I found myself, even in just 124 pages, spacing out and wishing for it to be over. I know this sounds harsh, but there just wasn't much about this book that I liked.

The one saving grace of this novel is Delillo's writing. He certainly is one of the great craftsman of the English language currently alive. His sentences are varied and complex, and he has a knack for turning a phrase. But, really, that's about all I found to like about this book.

Review: Mr. Toppit by Charles Elton

Title: Mr. Toppit

Author: Charles Elton

Pages: 387 (I have an ARC, so page numbers in finished copies may differ)

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From back of book):

When Arthur Hayman, an unsuccessful screenwriter turned children's book author, is accidentally hit by a cement truck in London, his dying moments are spent with a passing American tourist, Laurie Clow, who is fated to bring posthumous fame to his obscure series, The Hayseed Chronicles, and the enigmatic and sinister Mr. Toppit who is at the center of the books. While Arthur doesn't live to reap the benefits of his books' success, his legacy falls to his widow, Martha, and their children -- the fragile Rachel, and Luke, reluctantly immortalized as the fictional Luke Hayseed, hero of his father's books. But others want their share of the Hayseed phenomenon, particularly Laurie, who has a mysterious agenda of her own that changes all their lives as Martha, Rachel, and Luke begin to crumble under the heavy burden of their inheritance.

My Two Cents:

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I thought Elton's writing had a great flow to it and made this book really easy to read. I also thought he created some really solid, vivid characters, especially Laurie and Rachel. Also, he created a really interesting concept with The Hayseed Chronicles. It was so intriguing that I actually found myself often wishing that the series really existed so I could read it.

My big hang-up with this book, though, is that it just didn't seem to feel very cohesive. Sure, all the scenes orbited around Luke and the fame of his father's books, along with the downfall of his family, but it just seemed as if there were episodes thrown in for shock factor alone. The section where Luke is visiting Laurie in Los Angeles is full of these non sequiturs, and the whole portion just kind of hangs together limply. I think maybe it's because we really don't get to know Luke outside of the fact that he really dislikes all the attention paid to him because he is the iconic main character of his father's books. I couldn't tell if things that he did and said while at Laurie's house really were in or out of character for him, so they all just kind of seemed to come out of nowhere.

Generally, though, I did enjoy this book. 

Review: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Title: The Blind Assassin

Author: Margaret Atwood

Pages: 521

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From book flap):

The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.

Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience. The novel has many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes together, readers will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be -- but is, in fact, much more.


My Two Cents:


I have not read any Atwood for several years, and my only experience with her (Short of following her on Twitter!) is with The Handmaid's Tale, which is still one of my favorite books. I'm glad I expanded my Atwood repertoire, because I truly think she is one of the best modern writers. In my totally unofficial, based-on-two-books opinion, of course.


Atwood weaves a very complicated tale, moving back and forth between Iris' past and present, the text of The Blind Assassin and various news articles. She is able to switch her narrative voice to suit each need while still maintaining a through line and a cohesive feel to the book, which isn't an easy feat.

I liked the main character, Iris, much more as the narrative unfolded. At first, I felt sorry for her and realized she had gotten into a situation for which she was unprepared. As the novel went on, I continued to feel sorry for her because Atwood made it seem as if she was a totally helpless party in everything: Her marriage, the decline of her family's business, her sister's health. But, there were moments where Iris' strength and defiance shone through, partly in the narrative portions where she is older, but also in events from the past. Even though I could predict the big revelation that came at the end, it did not ruin my experience of the novel as a whole.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes good, solid writing and character development along with an interesting story (Who doesn't?).

Review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Title: Gilead

Author: Marilynne Robinson

Pages: 247

Source: Personal library

Rating: 8/10

Summary (From book flap):

In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowa preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father -- an ardent pacifist -- and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the Union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.

This is also the tale of another remarkable vision -- not a corporeal vision of God by the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

My Two Cents:

I thought this was a really interesting book. I don't read a whole lot of epistolary fiction, especially epistolary fiction told only by one person. I did start to get a little frustrated (I think part of it was because I was starting in on the latter portion of the 24-hour Read-a-Thon) because, since the book is told through one person's letters and one person's point of view, the plot did not develop in any really linear fashion. As I was reading, I wasn't so fond of that device, but after I had finished the book and reflected on it a bit, I think the device worked better for telling the story than any traditional narrative would have.

Robinson's writing is really easy to read, but still very rich and descriptive. I liked how she was able to bring her own narrative style forward while still keeping the voice believable as coming out of Ames's mouth. I never have read a Robinson book before, but I think I will give some others a try.

Review: Proust's Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini

Title: Proust's Overcoat: The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust

Author: Lorenza Foschini

Pages: 120

Source: Publisher for review

Rating: 7/10

Summary (From Amazon):

Jacques GuÉrin was a prominent businessman at the head of his family's successful perfume company, but his real passion was for rare books and literary manuscripts. From the time he was a young man, he frequented the antiquarian bookshops of Paris in search of lost, forgotten treasures. The ultimate prize? Anything from the hands of Marcel Proust.
GuÉrin identified with Proust more deeply than with any other writer, and when illness brought him by chance under the care of Marcel's brother, Dr. Robert Proust, he saw it as a remarkable opportunity. Shamed by Marcel's extravagant writings, embarrassed by his homosexuality, and offended by his disregard for bourgeois respectability, his family had begun to deliberately destroy and sell their inheritance of his notebooks, letters, manuscripts, furni-ture, and personal effects. Horrified by the destruction, and consumed with desire, GuÉrin ingratiated himself with Marcel's heirs, placating them with cash and kindness in exchange for the writer's priceless, rare material remains. After years of relentless persuasion, GuÉrin was at last rewarded with a highly personal prize, one he had never dreamed of possessing, a relic he treasured to the end of his long life: Proust's overcoat.
Proust's Overcoat introduces a cast of intriguing and unforgettable characters, each inspired and tormented by Marcel, his writing, and his orphaned objects. Together they reveal a curious and compelling tale of lost and found, of common things and uncommon desires.

My Two Cents:

I don't read a whole lot of non-fiction, so my expectations for this spare book were pretty low. I was pleasantly surprised by how much this book read like a novel instead of a piece of non-fiction. It moved at a quick pace (Of course, at 120 pages, it's hard not to move quickly) and kept me interested.

Foschini does a great job of painting Jacques Guerin, who you could theoretically call her main character. Sure, he was a real person, but his obsession with Proust and his quest to collect pieces of the author's life. I found Guerin a fascinating person, and could see the source of his eccentricities.

My main problem with this book, however, is that there was so much emphasis placed on Guerin's collection of things such as Proust's manuscripts and his bed that there was very little time left for his overcoat, the title object. Foschini's entire introduction is dedicated to her viewing of the coat, yet the coat only really comes into play for about 20 pages of the book. I would have liked to hear a lot more about the coat, if possible, and think it would have added to this book.

If you like non-fiction about authors and their legacies, or you like reading about people who collect things, you may want to check out this book. 

Review: Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

Title: Sons and Lovers

Author: D.H. Lawrence

Pages: 436

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary:

This novel tells the story of the Morel family: Father Walter, mother Gertrude, and children William, Annie, Paul and Arthur. Not finding any sort of satisfaction in her marital relationship with drunk, abusive, brash Walter, Gertrude places all her love and devotion onto her sons. Her desire to protect them eventually leads to William's dangerous lifestyle and Paul's inability to move out of his parents' home.

My Two Cents:

I really, really enjoyed this novel. For some reason, Lawrence always has kind of held the same lofty place in English letters of James Joyce and, to an extent, Shakespeare. He just wasn't an author that, going through school, a lot of people read for fun. There was one short story that every English major at my college read, but I think I only knew one or two other people who read him extracurricularly. As a result, Lawrence just gained this kind of aura that I never tried to breech. However, I'm glad I finally did read Lawrence and can't wait to read more by him.

I really oscillated back and forth as to whether or not I liked or even felt sorry for Gertrude. For the first portion of the novel, I absolutely felt sorry for her. She had an absent husband who did not give her enough money to keep the home running each week. Walter constantly was out drinking and, when he came home, he was loud and mean. The only good relationships she had were with her children, who keep multiplying even though she hates her husband. But, as the children grew, I liked her less and less. She became one of those mothers who just cannot cut the apron strings. Her suffocation eventually leads to William leaving the house and going against pretty much everything he ever has been taught, to his detriment. Gertrude's hold on Paul, mostly because of what happened to William, is just frighteningly strong. By the end of the novel, he is in his late 20s, has ruined two potential romantic relationships because of his mother's co-dependency and still living at home. There just was something so wrong and even creepy about Paul's relationship with his mother as an adult that I just could not get over.

While I spent most of the novel wishing that Paul would just cut the cord on his own and leave his parents' house (He nearly does a few times), and I could understand that his care and concern for his mother was the driving force behind his inability to grow up, I still couldn't really feel very sorry for him. I think it's because of the way his worry for his mother manifests itself in his relationships with the women in the book. Instead of making things clear about his relationship with his mother from the start, he leads two women on for long periods of time, coming close to marriage a couple of times, only to turn into a rogue and a rake and treat the women horribly. I just could not feel sorry for Paul, not one bit.

Lawrence's writing is gorgeous. He really had a knack for evoking not only the physical landscape of the industrializing English countryside in which his novel is set, but he is able to render the overall atmosphere of the setting with stunning accuracy. I really felt as if I could picture not only the physical surroundings, but I could feel as downtrodden and low as many of the characters in his novel. This was just a beautiful novel that flowed really easily, and I could sit down to read and, before I knew it, I was 50 pages farther into the book.

Review: The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

Title: The Mayor of Casterbridge

Author: Thomas Hardy

Pages: 326

Source: Personal library

Rating: 9/10

Summary (From back of book):

Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in early nineteenth-century England, the story builds into an awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power -- only to achieve a most bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to his own destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, "Hardy's Lord Jim ... his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroes in all fiction."

My Two Cents:

It's easy to see why this is considered by many to be Hardy's greatest novel. It blends all the classic qualities of Hardy's work -- fatalism, the plights of the lower classes and rural workers, a rustic setting -- and weaves a story that is compelling for the reader. As usual, Hardy's clear writing style full of stark description makes reading even the unpleasant scenes a joy.

Michael Henchard is probably my favorite Hardy protagonist of the four (Jude, Tess, Bathsheba and Michael) that I have met. He has an unwavering pride and ambition, but also a severe conscience that allows his remorse for his past wrongs to interfere with his plans for the future. As the novel opens, the reader is meant to hate Michael for his deplorable actions. Even as the early action unfolds, I didn't feel sorry for and even wished for Michael's downfall. However, as things really get rolling, I began to wish that things would look up for Michael and that he would stop being so hard on himself.

This change in opinion, I think, is why Michael is my favorite Hardy protagonist. Tess is a pitiable character from day one and there's really no change throughout the novel. Jude is much the same and an obvious victim of nothing but his circumstances. I just wasn't fond of Bathsheba at all, even though she's a unique female protagonist. But Michael is master of his own fortunes and his dynamic character changes make him much more interesting to watch.

If you are a fan of Hardy, fatalism or just want a really good story, I'd suggest picking up The Mayor of Casterbridge.