Metropolis: A Novel
by B. A. Shapiro
Highly recommended! (4/1/2022)
This book is both a whodunit and also a what-exactly-happened-anyway? There is a central location - an abandoned storage facility with six or seven units of particular interest to us - and also six or seven characters who we assume connect in some way to the storage facility and probably to each other. By the middle of the book the connections and the facts are mostly clear (we think) and by the end of the book it all connects together in a very satisfying way and everything is clear. This is a very gratifying mystery with great characters, and also a healthy dose of social commentary. Highly recommended!
True Crime Story: A Novel
by Joseph Knox
Very clever mystery (11/14/2021)
This is a compelling mystery in which an attempt is being made to solve the question of what happened to a young woman who disappeared 10 years previously. It is told almost exclusively via interviews with various people who knew her. One thing I really liked is that I was not actually certain that all of the interviewees were telling the truth, and furthermore, assumptions I made about who might be lying and who might not be turned out to be wrong for several characters. It is very cleverly constructed, and once I found out what the actual solution was, I wanted to go back and read some parts again, knowing now where I had been misled.
Mrs. March: A Novel
by Virginia Feito
Disappointing (5/9/2021)
I really wanted and expected to love this book, based on the description and the review comments that were on the front cover of the advanced reader copy. But I didn't. I like emotional darkness in novels, and am intrigued by incipient mental illness in a main character, and I got both of those. But I also got a lot of frustration. There were a lot of threads and characters that got introduced but then didn't seem to go anywhere or whose purpose in the book I just didn't understand. And I so much wanted to know more about her husband's most recent novel. And perhaps because of that frustration, I thought the book was pretty slow. I did not find it gripping like a lot of other readers did.
I will say that Mrs. March's current mental processes were described vividly (and painfully) and I did understand who the achingly sad character was that we were meeting, though I had trouble reconciling her current self with her past self, and her relationship with her husband did not make sense to me.
I would be interested to read further books by this author, though.
The Madwoman and the Roomba: My Year of Domestic Mayhem
by SandraTsing Loh
Uneven (4/10/2020)
I have read other books and articles by this author and have always enjoyed her writing a lot, so I was eager to read this new book. I found it to be uneven, and not as good as her previous work. She has always written about very personal things, but they felt very relatable. This time, a lot of the topics felt much less relatable to me, and the book was sometimes very funny, sometimes tedious. I very much enjoyed (and agreed with) her take on the slow food movement; I found other sections less interesting. I wish I could give a rating of three and a half stars.
American Dirt: A Novel
by Jeanine Cummins
I am in awe (11/25/2019)
I would say that a rating of 5 stars is an understatement. I think it would be impossible to praise this book too highly. I can't remember the last time I loved a book this much or learned this much. It's enlightening; it's inspiring; it's moving; it's thoroughly engrossing. And if anything could have the power to change the debate about immigration in this country, it would be this book. It should be required reading for every U.S. citizen.
Never Have I Ever
by Joshilyn Jackson
Well-written and entertaining psychological thriller (4/28/2019)
This is a very entertaining, well-written entry into the currently popular psychological thriller genre. The author's prose is excellent and not cringe-inducing the way some other books in this genre are. If you are a fan of the this type of book I highly recommend this. I waffled between four and five stars because while the book really held my interest and I enjoyed it, there are some elements of the plot that really don't hold up to close scrutiny. I will say, though, that the book was well-written enough that I didn't notice those things until after I had finished it. If I could I would give this four and a half stars.
A Ladder to the Sky: A Novel
by John Boyne
Patricia Highsmith meets All About Eve (9/8/2018)
This is a wonderfully dark novel, with an evil, ruthless protagonist. There aren't very many of those, so for me it is quite a find when I encounter one. If you are a reader for whom the phrase "wonderfully dark" resonates, then I highly recommend this extremely well-written, entertaining novel. (On the other hand, if you are a reader for whom the phrase "wonderfully dark" is an oxymoron, then I don't think you would like it.)
I also loved the inside take we got on the world of book publishing.
Vox
by Christina Dalcher
MIsogyny run amok (5/3/2018)
This book takes place in a current, recognizable United States, except that women are banned by law from working or speaking more than 100 words per day, with the ultimate goal of turning them into virtually silent Stepford wives. They also cannot use the internet or even access the mail that comes to the house. Homosexuality is also illegal. The fact that it is basically set in the present day makes it feel more chilling and less removed from reality. in the book, the new laws are based on interpretations of Biblical precepts, and are not very different from the actual desires of certain segments of our society.
I found the book hard to put down (it is a page turner) and also hard to keep reading (because it is scary). It felt very timely.
(I had a small quibble with it in that enforcing the 100-word limit required fitting all women with an electronic cuff, and it would have been logistically, physically impossible to do this on 150 million women in the time frame implied in the book, and there were other logistical issues that also would have taken much longer to work out.)
Our Lady of the Prairie
by Thisbe Nissen
Not what I was expecting (11/21/2017)
I waffled between two stars and three stars. Three stars, because even though I did not like the book, sentence by sentence the writing was good. Two stars because I really disliked the main character, and was filled with irritation while I read. I think the author expected the reader to like her (or at least not supremely dislike her) and I was mystified about why other characters in the book liked her, particularly her husband and the other man who is also in love with her. We were also told repeatedly about what a saint she had been during a very difficult period in her daughter's life, but it didn't feel believable, given what I had seen of the character. I really wanted and expected to like this book, but, sadly, I didn't.
Tell Me How This Ends Well
by David Samuel Levinson
Tell Me How This Ends Well (3/15/2017)
This book uses a literary device that I love of letting us see the family history and the events immediately before, during, and after the central event from the point of view of each of the three adult children and one other family member. Each person knows different things and has different feelings about the gathering and each other, and I kept re-setting my understanding of events and people as I progressed through the book. The book is sometimes very funny, especially in the first section, but of course also is intentionally unsettling as we are continually made aware of what is happening in the world and in the country (particularly since none of that seems far-fetched).
I thought it dragged a little in the middle, but the last sixty pages or so make up for that. I loved the last part of the book, about which I do not want to say anything more specific in order to avoid spoilers. I will just say that there is a real payoff at the end.
 (1).gif)
