Review: The Playgroup: A Novel

The Playgroup: A Novel by Nelsie Spencer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really liked the first half of this book - it's about a woman who enrolls her toddler in a prestigious New York City playgroup (sounded like a preschool to me) and feels like her lifestyle - breastfeeding her other baby, not having a nanny - makes her an outcast. Immediately I got a vibe like the Odd Mom Out show i've been enjoying on Bravo.

But this book takes a turn - a weird one. There are enough complexities to the main character's background to satisfy a book - she is recovering from an eating disorder, and lost a best friend when she became a mother to someone who chose career instead, but the friendship haunts her. And yet even with all that, the author decides that (spoiler alert) a LESBIAN AFFAIR between the main character and one of the other moms is in order. An affair that the other women's husband assists in and supports.

Anyway, what was a fun read to begin with became so unrealistic it was just no fun to finish.

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Review: Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Liane Moriarty has quickly become a favorite of mine. This book was another of hers that was easy to read, with well-developed characters and a juicy plot. What I like about her is that despite all this, the writing is actually pretty good. Evocative of place, and descriptive of emotions.

This story follows three women whose kids all attend the same kindergarten. One is new to town, with a mysterious past; one is happily married with a teenager and a kindergartener, and an ex-husband whose new wife is a yogi; and one lives a seemingly perfect life. However, they all have secrets that unwind themselves as the book unfolds - lies they've told themselves about their families, identities, and problems.

This book truly had an explosive ending - one that I did not expect with a great twist. I will definitely read more books by Moriarty, but this one may be my favorite.

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Review: The Invention of Wings

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Jo recommended this to me, and it sat on my bookshelf for a while, because I read A Respectable Trade and didn't want to read two slavery books back-to-back, worried i would conflate them.

When I finally go to this one, I enjoyed it. It was about a girl named Sarah growing up in Charleston, South Carolina, whose parents "gift" her a slave girl named Hattie when she turns 11. An uncomfortable friendship emerges between Sarah and Hattie, as Sarah believes that Hattie should be free, but can do very little to effect that change. As the girls grow older, the differences in their stations magnify, and Hattie's mother (also a slave) becomes increasingly daring in her efforts to escape the reality of her daily life.

The character development in this book was great - and the story heartbreaking. I learned too that Sarah is based on a historical figure. Sometimes I feel like I've read all the books on slavery that I "need" to, then I stumble on a book like that that reminds me that it's an era in slavery important to continue learning about always.

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Review: Written in My Own Heart's Blood

Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I just can't help myself - I love these books. When Micah was born, I got a bunch of "beach reading" books, thinking that early in maternity leave I'd want some easy novels.

Apparently, not so. After a few poorly-written books I found myself sleep-deprived and hating what I was reading, instead of sleep-deprived and loving what I was reading. So back to Gabaldon I went, to her most recent book, released in paperback on Micah's due date.

This was the first one I thought gave Brianna's storyline the same weight as Claire's. I enjoyed following both stories - opening with Claire in Philadelphia during the Revolution and Brianna searching for her kidnapped son, but of course quickly winding its way to be about significantly different times, places, and concerns.

Overall, this did not disappoint - except the end. Not the ending - which was the most mischievous ever in this series - but that it was over and for the first time I was no longer behind, so now I have to wait for her to write and publish them.

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Review: One Fifth Avenue

One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Meh. This was another book I chose when Micah was a baby, thinking I wanted something easy to read during maternity leave. It wasn't terrible but it wasn't anything to remember either.

This book tells the story of a group of tenants in a famous old New York City apartment building. A newly-minted hedge fund billionaire and his wife, an 'old-money' busybody and her bachelor nephew, the young-at-heart lady, every potential personality is represented in this cast of characters. Some of the characters were relatable and well-developed; others were more thinly veiled versions of familiar archetypes. Reading this book was more about getting to know all the personalities than it was about the plot/storyline of what actually happens.

I love Sex in the City, so I will always be a Bushnell fan, but this was nothing special.

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Review: Confessions of a Shopaholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

This was awful. I took it out of the library when Micah was a baby hoping to have a few mindless novels to flip through but this was terrible.

It is about Becky, a twenty-something with credit card debt, bad luck with men and ... I am about as bored and disgusted writing this as I was reading the book. Poorly written, characters barely developed past caricatures, and unreasonably plot made this a book I could barely finish.

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Review: The Husband's Secret

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought a couple of easy novels for when the baby came, hoping to read some easy things on maternity leave. Moriarty fit the bill exactly, and this book did exactly what it was supposed to do - entertain me the way Grey's Anatomy does.

The book starts with a happily married woman finding a letter her husband doesn't mean for her to find unless he dies. Except he is not dead - just on a business trip. But she reads it and learns a terrible secret about his past. Two other women are introduced in subsequent chapters - one whose husband is leaving her, and the other who still mourns a little girl she lost many years ago.

As the story unfolds - at a brisk, beach-reading pace, these three women's lives intersect. The resolution, if not predictable, does tie up the loose ends, both of the plot, as well as of the characters' lives. I had a good time with this book and look forward to another by her.

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Review: The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With everyone talking about how this book was the next Gone Girl, I decided to get it as part of my "books to read once the baby comes." Turns out, Micah was a great sleeper for the first two days of his life, so I got to start this in the hospital.

I liked it. It was about a woman named Rachel who daydreamed about a couple whole life she could see through the window of the train. When the woman goes missing, Rachel thinks she has information to help the case, and although she is not very credible, partially because she is an alcoholic, she inserts herself into the investigation. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, this couple lives on the same street as her ex-husband and his new wife, and she continues to engage with them as well, despite their desire to stop being disturbed by her.

Soon, Rachel's drinking continues to get worse, and she finds herself waking up drunk one night in their neighborhood. Then the woman is found dead, and Rachel becomes driven to connect those two events and solve the crime.

She is a great character - and her development, as well as that of the other characters who alternate narration, make it a great book. It was a thriller/mystery that masqueraded as a novel, and one that I enjoyed very much.

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Review: Secrets of Eden

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really like Bohjalian - and that made this book a little disappointing. I think that if this had been a different author, I may have given it four stars.

It was about a minister, and his relationship with a woman in his congregation whose husband killed her and them himself. At first a novel, it becomes a mystery, as it becomes apparent that the crime scene may indicate something different had happened. Meanwhile, the minister forms a close relationship with a self-help author who, as a child, had parents whose deaths occurred in the same way. She befriends the victim's daughter.

I expected more from the author - this was too melodramatic, with too predictable a plot, for my taste. I also didn't like the main character enough to side with him - he was pathetic rather than sympathetic.

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Review: Dark Places

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Still looking for some easy reads at the end of pregnancy, and I enjoyed Gone Girl so I decided to try another by Flynn.

I really enjoyed this, maybe even more than Gone Girl. It's about a woman whose family was murdered during her childhood, ostensibly by her father. As an adult, she begins to believe that her father wasn't responsible and sets out to find out who really did it. She's very sympathetic, although not totally likable.

The story had all the characteristics of a good mystery/thriller. Lots of twists, characters with complicated motives, and plenty of misdirection. I enjoyed reading and had trouble putting it down. The conclusion was a surprise, and far-fetched, but not so much so that it wasn't fun to read.

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Review: A Respectable Trade

A Respectable Trade by Philippa Gregory
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Philippa Gregory is a go-to of mine when I don't know what to read. And getting toward the end of pregnancy, I was definitely looking for something good to read that I knew I would like.

This book was a really interesting read. In it, Frances, a woman of "marrying age" is sent from the English countryside to marry Josiah, a man in the city, and while he is reasonably kind, he is controlled by his desire to climb the social ladder, and by his sister, a spinster. Meanwhile, black slaves in England are beginning to be used as house servants, and Josiah decides to acquire several and train them. One slave in particular, formerly a priest in Africa, is brought into their household and develops a relationship with Frances.

Over time, Josiah's business interests become increasingly less successful; his sister becomes increasingly critical, and Frances learns that there is significantly more complexity to the slaves' situation than she believes at first.

I really enjoyed the character development in this book, as well as the history. As usual, I found Gregory to have meticulously researched a particular era in history and created a compelling narrative.

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Review: Tender Points

Tender Points by Amy Berkowitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I will disclose that I am Amy's cousin, so while this review is honest, I also know and love Amy personally.

That said, this book is magnificent. There is not one superfluous word in this book - it is short, but filled with vignettes, poems, and memories, with each word carefully chosen and the theme carefully crafted. The book is about Amy's (I suppose I should be writing "Berkowitz'" but she's Amy to me) struggle with fibromyalgia, and also about women, trauma, rape, punctuated by pop culture references.

It's an incredibly sad book, but also a brave one. Amy shares so much about her experience and her pain. I'd say that I felt like I knew her when I finished it - but that would be cheating.

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Review: The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Because this won the Pulitzer, I was a little intimidated by it. No need - it was a great read, complex but accessible.

The story is about a young boy who loses his mother in a bombing in an art museum. He forms a strong attachment to a piece of art that she loved, and it begins to define him. Through his life with an affluent family who takes him in, then an ecclectic art collector who befriends him, the painting is always present in his life.

I loved the development of characters in this book, and the story. Tartt is known for being - well, whatever the opposite of prolific is, so it will be a while before I read something else of hers.

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Review: Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really good memoir of an incredibly unusual medical condition that Cahalan suffered from as a young professional. She had a sudden onset of strange symptoms that seemed like mental illness, but her family and friends continued to pursue doctors and research and ultimately discovered a specific illness that could be cured medically. She uses a unique combination of medical notes, journals, interviews, and other records to rebuild her story, as she lost a lot of her memory from the time.

I liked reading this book the same way I like reading the "Diagnosis" column in the New York Times. It was interesting to follow her symptoms and see how she was diagnosed. I was shocked by how deliberate and strong her family had to be to pursue the right solutions. And I was sympathetic to her experience, rooting for her along the way.


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Review: The Rent Collector

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I did not like this book, which isn't to say that I didn't feel sympathy for the fictionalized characters in the story - I did. The book is set in one of Cambodia's largest garbage dumps, where a small family is struggling to get by. They earn a living by sorting trash and selling it, barely getting by. They live AT the dump, along with several of Cambodia's other poorest families.

The story is about their attempts to improve their lives - by learning to read, getting to the bottom of their son's illnesses, and creating a small safety net past what their landlady collects each month. Ironically it is their landlady (a cantankerous drunk) who teaches them to read and ultimately helps them.

I don't know where to start with what I disliked about this book. The writing was too simple, barely capturing any of the characters' inner voices past their obvious actions. The circumstances in which they lived were deplorable, but described unemotionally. And the story seemed both obvious and contrived. I later learned that it was based on a true story of a family - one that the author's son had filmed for a documentary. Perhaps that is the source of some of the problems - too much of a "movie/video" angle and not enough one of a book.

Whatever the case, not one of my favorites.

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Review: What Alice Forgot

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was time for more of a "beach read" and this was a good one. The story is about Alice, who wakes up in a hospital, finding that the life she thought she had (pregnant with her first child, very in love with her husband) is not true anymore. She is in the middle of an acrimonious divorce from her husband, the father of her three children, and dating someone different. She doesn't remember her children, but finds herself close to her sister, which she learns is not how she left things. Yikes!

The writing was at the level of Jodi Picoult, which is to say well-written enough but not poetic or "literature." Alice is a likable character, and as she pieces her life back together, it's easy to root for her to rebuild into something that makes her happy.

I've already ordered another Moriarty book for the next time I need some light reading that doesn't make me hate myself in the morning.

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Review: The Pearl that Broke Its Shell

The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really unusual book, and one I liked. It followed two women, one in modern-day Afghanistan and one several generations earlier. In each case, the women were in poor situations where dressing and acting like a son rather than a daughter (or a man rather than a woman) was preferable to their alternatives. In modern times, a young girl begins to dress like a boy to help her family. Generations earlier, a woman finds herself alone past marrying age and chooses a role in the royal palace as a man.

I liked reading this book because it was about something completely foreign to me. I also liked how well both sets of characters and situations were developed. When I was reading one chapter (they alternate) I couldn't wait to read what was happening in the other story, and vice versa. Neither plot was predictable, although the stories hung together very well.

Definitely recommend.

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Review: The Children's Crusade

The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm beginning to think that The Dive From Clausen's Pier was the pinnacle of Ann Packer's work. This book was good enough, kept my interest and I was invested in the characters, but here I am about a month later with no real memory of anything outstanding about it.

The story is about a young family who has four kids in the 1960's and '70's. While by all outward appearances, the family is reasonably happy, over the years the fragile framework begins to break down. The mother estranges herself increasingly from the family, losing herself in her art. Meanwhile the youngest child, all but ignored by his mother, grows into a dysfunctional adult. The book is told in flashbacks to childhood, one section by each of the four children.

I can appreciate the complexity and detail of the book but I also found some of the character development stale, relying on familiar tropes. Not a bad read but not an exceptionally memorable one either.

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Review: The Last Good Paradise

The Last Good Paradise by Tatjana Soli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed Soli's book The Lotus Eaters and was excited to read this one. The premise of this was strange - an unusual collection of people end up on a quiet island in Polynesia, among them a couple who is escaping a financial and personal crisis as well as an aging rock star, not to mention the island's staff (a distant extension of a luxury hotel across the water). There was a point in the book where I thought it was jut too far-fetched and contrived. But like Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, somehow Soli makes an unlikely collection of characters in an awkward situation seem credible.

The character building was done incredibly well, as was the crafting of the story itself. The final quarter of the book was nothing that I could have anticipated, involving class issues, a critique on the media, and very core relationship pain between individuals. After all that is her best skill as shown in The Lotus Eaters - her ability to depict the rawest part of relationships without fear.

I look forward to her next book.






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Review: All Our Names

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can appreciate that this book represents good writing but I just didn't love it. It is the story of a young man who escapes the war in Uganda (where he has become involved in the military) and lands in the Midwest. He begins a relationship with his social worker as he tries to adjust to life in America.

The story alternated between time in Uganda and current time - the latter told from the social worker's point of view. While some of the storytelling was unique, a lot of the plot was familiar if you've read a lot of African literature - how local militias come to power, impact on young people, who gets pulled into being a revolutionary and why.

To me, this was just a retelling of themes I had heard in the past. Not bad, just not unique.

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Review: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really really enjoyed this book. It was on my list from the NYTimes Notable list I think and when I got it from the library I didn't remember what it was about and started reading it blindly. Which I completely recommend! Because there is a major plot twist about half way through the book and it made it all the more better to read.

The story follows a young woman who grows up with a brother and sister, but something happens to the family and once she is college aged, the sister is no longer part of the family, and her brother is a federal fugitive on the run. The plot was unique and shattering, and the themes of family responsibility, sibling relationships, and regret were well-developed.

A great read, especially if you don't know much about it ahead of time.

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Review: The Story Sisters

The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really, really liked this book. Alice Hoffman always does something special with her books - infuses a bit of magic or supernatural. And this is no exception, although the supernatural in this book is imagined by one of three sisters who is slowly descending into mental illness. While her exact diagnosis is never named, it seemed like schizophrenia to this armchair psychologist.

The story follows three sisters who are very close until the eldest becomes sick with some illness. They have a secret language and secret imaginary world that are harmless at first but become the center of the eldest's illness and delusions. While she copes with her illness and becomes dangerous and increasingly unhappy, her sisters and mother cope with her absence and its impact on the family.

All the characters were very well-developed in this book, which I appreciated. I also appreciated the skill with which Hoffman represented mental illness, not just as a set of familiar symptoms but as an imaginary world come true. While the denouement of the book was long and somewhat manufactured, the rest of it held my attention as a unique and masterful portrait of a girl in trouble, both from her perspective and that of her family.



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Review: The Tiger's Wife

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a really unusual book. It takes place in Eastern Europe somewhere, kind of like Croatia or Serbia, but the country is not identified. A young woman is traveling across the border to vaccinate children at an orphanage when she finds out her grandfather has died. She wants to retrieve his belongings and also to provide the vaccines, and as she does both she also reminisces about the stories her grandfather has told her about his childhood.

The stories are really unique - fairy-tale esque in a lot of ways. One about a woman who marries a tiger, and one about a man who doesn't die. They are interwoven into the modern-day storyline in pieces, as this woman comes to terms with her grandfather's death, and tries to understand what is happening in her country, besieged by war.

I liked this book because it was different. It wasn't the story itself or the allegories that I enjoyed so much as the surprise of reading something different than a linear narrative.



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Review: Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed by Glennon Doyle Melton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Meh. I really like Glennon - I read her blog regularly and really enjoyed her TedX talk. She's obviously a very strong person whose vulnerability and transparency are both very generous. (She is known for being a "Mommy Blogger" but her life was dominated for many years by eating disorders and drug abuse until finding out she was pregnant and hurriedly marrying her boyfriend at the time.)

I guess the thing about this book was that there wasn't that much new in it. As someone who has read a lot of her posts and essays, I didn't find a new part of her story or a new angle. It was more of a collection of her best essays, or her best stories, and perhaps some new ones, but nothing thematically new. It was also a bit more religiously oriented than her other stuff seems to be, which I didn't really mind but didn't do anything for me either.

I'm still a big fan of hers, and grateful for her writing, but there wasn't anything special about this book.



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Review: Gold

Gold by Chris Cleave

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really enjoyed this book. [b:Little Bee|6948436|Little Bee|Chris Cleave|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344401905s/6948436.jpg|4126074] remains one of the most haunting books I've ever read, and this was not that impactful, but the story was really compelling and I looked forward to my commute when I could continue reading it.

The story is about two friends who are both olympic-caliber cyclists. They have a long and complicated friendship while competing with each other over many years, and the book alternates between present time and history to build the story. One is married, with a daughter who becomes very sick, and this impacts her dedication to racing. The other is a lifetime loner whose entire life is about cycling. As the book goes on, the relationship between the women, as well as with the married one's husband and daughter, and their coach becomes more complex.

What I really liked about this book was how Cleave unfurled the story - similar to Little Bee, there were secrets and twists and things that weren't revealed right away, which built characters across multiple dimensions.



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Review: Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



After reading [b:Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption|8664353|Unbroken A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption|Laura Hillenbrand|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327861115s/8664353.jpg|12946965], I put this one on my list. It was ok. If you were to tell me that I'd want to read an entire book about racehorses during the Great Depression I probably would not have believed it, so from the perspective of learning something completely alien, it was great. But on the scale of everything I read, it was not my favorite.

Horse-racing during the 1920's and 1930's was a national obsession - to the degree that the NFL is today. People traveled around the country for races and more newspaper inches were dedicated to many of the heroes and the horses than to the wars and presidents of the time. I had no idea.

This book follows a particular horse, Seabiscuit, who is an underdog from the start. By carefully crafting a story around how horses are bred, groomed, and sold, the unlikeliness of Seabiscuit becoming a hero is made clear early in the book. Yet he does become a great racehorse, and Hillenbrand does a comprehensive job of describing all the people involved in getting him there - the handlers, jockeys, owners, competitors, and fans. The relationships among these people are fascinating too, and she dedicates significant word count to each of their backstories.

I am glad to have read this but can't say it was a page-turner. Some required reading never hurt anyone thought.



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Review: How to Get Your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Much

How to Get Your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Much by Ellyn Satter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This might be the best book on parenting I've read so far. I have had a lot of anxiety around Sasha's food consumption - no doubt based on my own ambivalence around food issues, but nevertheless it has been stressful. Is she eating enough? Is she eating enough of the right things? What do I do when she doesn't want to eat?

Satter's premise is simple. As a parent, it is my job to determine what Sasha eats, and her job to decide how much of it to eat. When put that way it seems so simple, but the ramifications in our family have been staggering. It has enabled me to completely let go of feeling stressed out at meal times. It is easy to say "you don't have to eat that if you don't want." And it has definitely reduced the "control" oriented fights around food. Satter is realistic too - she says that having family dinners is probably the best thing you can do, and that they should have carbs, protein, and vegetables. But then she says that if the only way to do that is with a frozen pizza, then do it with a frozen pizza. She also suggests that as your child is learning to try new foods or doesn't like what's being served that you should be sure that there are carbs at dinner for them to fill up on. She has other helpful tactics for snacks, kids who don't want to eat at the table, etc. She is completely against feeding kids a separate meal than adults, which I believe in too, but has some ideas on how to make that palatable (pun intended) for everyone. For example - every meal should have at least one item on the plate the kid likes. Hence our dinner the other night of spinach lasagna and strawberries.

The book starts with newborn feeding and goes through adolescence, so there are parts of the book I didn't find relevant, but I did like that the themes she suggested would be relevant over the long haul - that the tactics might change but the strategy would be consistent. There were also sections devoted to more serious eating disorders than a picky toddler, but while irrelevant to me, was still good to see her method applied in different ways.

I've been recommending this nonstop to parents of young kids. A classic in our family's library for sure.



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Review: The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I first heard Pariser speak when this book was initially published - maybe on NPR or a TED Talk. His thesis was intriguing - the tools we use to access the Internet (like Google) are filtering our view of news and information in an effort to customize for us. For example, as you like things on Facebook, the algorithms find more things similar to that to show you - so if you like a few liberal-leaning articles, or news sources that are liberal-leaning, more will begin to populate your feed.

I filed this idea away, occasionally thought about it, and put the book on my booklist. Finally got around to reading the whole book and I learned a lot more. The first thing that I learned was that the reason that Google and Facebook do this is all about revenue. Maybe this is obvious but I enjoyed the analysis of how all these corporations make money and use our information. Even though the book is now a few years old, it was still valuable to read.

The rest of the book had similarly interesting content around things like a long-term perspective on news sources, and how democracy is impacted by this "filter." While a few of the sections on historical context went a bit long for my taste, it didn't ruin the book for me. Overall I am glad to have read it, and it keeps me thinking as I use the Internet for information how to try to get to the information that is outside my "bubble."



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Review: Pigs in Heaven

Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really enjoyed reading this book. Silly me, however, I didn't notice that it was a sequel to [b:The Bean Trees|30868|The Bean Trees (Greer Family, #1)|Barbara Kingsolver|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1362981087s/30868.jpg|1095121], which I read long enough ago that I didn't really remember it. I may have liked it even more if i had re-read that first, although this was pretty great as a standalone book too.

The story follows a woman and her adopted daughter who are involved in a newsworthy situation that lands them on Oprah. This publicity arises the attention of a Native American rights attorney, because the daughter is Native American, and she begins to investigate the circumstances under which the girl was adopted. Naturally, they turn out to be hazy, and a custody trial ensues, but the plot is far from predictable.

As usual, Kingsolver has created a universe seemingly effortlessly of 360-degree complete characters, tough decisions, and thorough scenery. I find her to be one of those authors whom I don't remember to read enough of, then delight myself by re-finding.



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Review: Songs Without Words

Songs Without Words by Ann Packer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This book was fine. Packer's debut novel [b:The Dive From Clausen's Pier|16059|The Dive From Clausen's Pier|Ann Packer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390408629s/16059.jpg|1617177] set the bar so high for her it would have been difficult for anything to stand up to it. This book was compelling enough to want to finish and I invested in the characters, but writing the review a few weeks later I can barely remember a lot of the details of it.

The story follows two lifelong best friends from adolescence through adulthood. As children, one of them loses their mother to suicide, which defines and cements their relationship. As adults, their lifestyles are very different - one a wife and mother, the other remaining single. A large portion of the book explores what happens when tragedy strikes again - as adults.

I'd probably read Packer's next book because this one did hold my attention, but if you're looking for something that is of the caliber of Clausen's Pier, this isn't it.



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Top Books of 2014

Happy New Year, Readers!

2014 was a great year for my family - and my reading!  We'll get to books in a minute, but to catch you up on the year: I left Dell in January and started working at a software startup in Cambridge in March.  Webster continued to work for his west-coast-based software startup, so at least we're geographically diversified.

We bought our next door neighbors' condo when they moved to Hawaii (tough life, right?) so we now have more light and more space - the latter of which has been necessary as Sasha is now talking up a storm and running around constantly, often in pursuit of Lucy's tail.  The extra space will also come in handy when Sash becomes a big sister in May :)

But enough of the chatter, let's get to the books.  This year I read an even 50 books, 19 of them non-fiction, including memoirs.  That's a lot of books - which I credit somewhat to having a month off in February between jobs, and somewhat to having a bus/subway commute rather than a car commute, so I get an extra 20-40 minutes of reading time a day.

Here were my favorites, in alphabetical order:

Fiction:

Crow Lake - after their parents' untimely death, two elder brothers raise their younger sisters

February - a woman raises her children as well as she can after losing her husband to an oil rig disaster

Maya's Notebook - a young woman flees her dangerous lifestyle, finding solace in a small island off the coast of Chile

Ordinary Grace - murders shock a small town as a minister's son comes of age one summer

Orphan Train - orphans, separated by two generations, lead parallel lives of growing up

Secret History - a deadly secret bonds six college students together in a small liberal arts school 

Shoemakers Wife - young lovers, first in Italy, then in the United States, have decades of "almost" reuniting

Silver Star - two young sisters make the best of the situation when their flighty mother abandons them

Skeletons at the Feast - a unique set of perspectives in this Holocaust novel

Sycamore Row - Grisham revisits the attorney from A Time To Kill and his latest case

The Time in Between - a young woman flees the Spanish Civil War and ends up in a life of espionage 

Non-fiction:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers - the lives of several families who live in Mumbai's poorest slums

Collision Low Crossers - a journalist embeds with Rex Ryan and the New York Jets for the 2011-2012 season

Exploding the Phone - the history behind the phone company and the hackers who found ways to exploit early technology 

Lean Startup - arguably the quintessential book on strategy for startup company success

Sliver of Light - three Americans captured in Iran share the story of their imprisonment

Someone Could Get Hurt - a popular sportswriter's humorous memoir of parenting young children 

Townie - a famous author's childhood memoir, caught between his mother's poverty and his father's carefree university existence

When They Come for us, We'll be Gone - a thorough and fascinating history of Jews in the USSR from the 1960's through the 1990's

Wild - after her life falls apart, this memoirist hikes much of the Pacific Crest Trail on her own