Review: Quantum Night

Quantum Night by Robert J. Sawyer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was disappointing. I usually really like Sawyer's books, but this was not good. It was about a psychology professor who figures out how to diagnose someone as psychopathic, and with his utilitarian bent on things, he suggests all sorts of dramatic ways to apply what he knows. He finds himself missing 6 months of memories in his life, which concerns him, and he sets out to figure out why. He also reconnects with an old flame, a physicist, who is also studying psychopaths. Too much philosophizing and not enough of the plot just telling itself. What's usually good about good science fiction is that there isn't too much explaining the idea or the science, or the fantasy - there's just the story telling itself. This did not fit that bill at all. I'll wait for his next book, and hope it is better.

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Review: Tell the Wolves I'm Home

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was great. It was about a young girl whose beloved uncle dies of AIDS, set in the late 1980's in NYC when AIDS was misunderstood, feared, and its sufferers isolated. She is befriended by his partner, but forbidden by her parents to interact with him. In some ways, this was a classic coming-of-age story, and in others a thoughtful depiction of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Great writing, a wonderful narrator, and a good story.

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Review: The Art Forger

The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was ok. I read it for a book club that I'm joining. It was about a struggling artist who takes on a commission to secretly counterfeit one of the missing Gardner Museum paintings, but discovers that the painting is itself a forgery. She takes on the commission in the hopes of regaining her reputation, which had been damaged by a forgery claim in the past. While I thought the plot was inventive and unique, the writing wasn't anything special and the character development was weak. I liked learning about the techniques for forgery, and different artists' preferences and styles, but overall that was not enough to carry the book.

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Review: The Widower's Tale

The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was good. It was about a retired man who lets his erstwhile daughter start a preschool in an abandoned barn on his property, and all the relationships and conflicts that ensue. It's full of rich character development, from the main character to his children, neighbors, and love interest, as well as compelling plot twists that are surprising but not far-fetched. This was a very well-balanced book, and one which I looked forward to picking up each night.

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Review: The Rosie Project

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Meh. This was about a professor who had trouble finding love, and decided to make a scientific project out of it, complementary to his autism-spectrum personality. The woman he finds isn't who he expects, and they both grow through the relationship. I was not crazy about the main character - nor was I impressed by him - not much more than a carbon copy of other ASD narrators. I did find the book easy to read, and it went quickly, but I didn't bond with any of the characters, nor did I find myself reflecting a lot once I was done reading it.

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Review: The Swimmer

The Swimmer by Joakim Zander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was really good. I noticed it in the airport and bought a copy. It was about a young woman who gets entangled in an international set of crimes, by no fault of her own, and her estranged father who sets out to rescue her. The plotting was great, and the characters well-developed, particularly for a fast-paced spy novel. Though translated from the Swedish, this was more Le Carre than Dragon Tattoo. A really good read.

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Review: Pirate Alley

Pirate Alley by Stephen Coonts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fun novel. Definitely an airplane read, which was how I consumed it. It was about Somali pirates who kidnap and take over a cruise ship, and how the pirates, the people on the ship, and the US government all react. I didn't see the Captain Philips movie a few years back about this topic, but it seemed similar in plot. A quick, interesting read.

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Review: Fingersmith

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book - maybe my favorite so far this year. It was about a band of thieves in London who figure out a scheme to marry one of them off to a rich woman with a major inheritance. The plotting was great - surprising and wonderfully horrid. I loved the characters, and the author's setting of time and place was amazing. It reminded me a little of A Reliable Wife in its gothic-like storytelling and twists. Highly recommended.

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Review: The Lovers: Romeo and Juliet in Afghanistan

The Lovers: Romeo and Juliet in Afghanistan by Rod Nordland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fascinating book. It was about two teenagers in Afghanistan who fall in love, and because of laws and customs of differing ethnic groups, their lives are threatened when they decide to run away and get married. What I liked most about this book was that while the author was a New York Times journalist, he readily admits early on that his journalistic integrity was superseded by his desire to protect and help these kids, and much of the book was his reflections on their journey and his part in it. I'll also mention that there are some really terrible anecdotes in this book around women, violence, and sexual abuse, which was a tough but important witness-bearing and learning about what was going on in this part of the world.

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Review: The Lovers: Romeo and Juliet in Afghanistan

The Lovers: Romeo and Juliet in Afghanistan by Rod Nordland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fascinating book. It was about two teenagers in Afghanistan who fall in love, and because of laws and customs of differing ethnic groups, their lives are threatened when they decide to run away and get married. What I liked most about this book was that while the author was a New York Times journalist, he readily admits early on that his journalistic integrity was superseded by his desire to protect and help these kids, and much of the book was his reflections on their journey and his part in it. I'll also mention that there are some really terrible anecdotes in this book around women, violence, and sexual abuse, which was a tough but important witness-bearing and learning about what was going on in this part of the world.

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Review: Crazy Rich Asians

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really, really liked this book. I read it in the middle of a set of "beach read" books, and it stood out. It's about a Chinese-American woman whose boyfriend is from a rich Singaporean family. I mean, really rich. Really, really rich. She goes home with him for a wedding one summer in college and all the politics, backstabbing, and plotting that you can imagine goes on within his family. She is judged as "American-born Chinese" ABC, which is less prestigious than her boyfriend's native standing. All in all a fun, funny, book and I was delighted to see there is a sequel!

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Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was ok. It was recommended on a moms' email group that I read as a fun, light read. I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of it - Bernadette is an iconoclast mom whose only daughter goes to a high-end preppy school, and she stirs up all kinds of trouble. It was fun to read about her kapers, and also read the other characters' reactions to them, often in letters or memos. The book went a bit off the rails at the end, though, almost as if the author didn't know what to do after the main plot lines went in a certain direction. A fun read, but not too satisfying of one.

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Review: Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions

Beyond Belief: The Secret Lives of Women in Extreme Religions by Cami Ostman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This ended up on my reading list because I had read an excerpt in some other publication. It was ok. Each chapter was short, just a few pages, and told the story of a woman in an "extreme" religion, from Orthodox Jewry to Mormonism. While I liked many of the stories, the editing was uneven, so some were much more multi-dimensional than others. I applaud each of the women for sharing her story, but wish the writing was more consistent and that a clearer theme arose across all the memoirs.

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Review: China Dolls

China Dolls by Lisa See
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lisa See never disappoints. This was about three friends who work in the nightclubs of San Francisco in the 1930's. They are Chinese, or at least they are in the clubs, and their lives take all sorts of twists and turns as they interact with their families, lovers, and each other. This book was incredibly evocative of time and place, and I really enjoyed the story as well as the settings See created.

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Review: Lucky Us

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was kind of a wild ride. It was about two half-sisters from broken families who build their own new sense of family from people they meet throughout their lives. It's set in the 1940's and '50's, mostly in the Northeast but some parts in LA. The characters are very colorful, and the situations they find themselves in seem contrived at times, or at the least, unlikely. There are strange connections between characters and unusual choices. Told mostly through narrative, but also with some letters between characters, this kept my interest despite its strange storylines.

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Review: The Argonauts

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Wow. I rarely come upon a book that I feel like was too "hard" for me, but this was one. My cousin recommended it to me, which is a testament to her overestimation of my intellect. This is a memoir, sort of, well, at least it is a set of writings and reflections based on the author's life, where she is married to an artist who is genderqueer and she has their first child. It's a short book, but she packs in observations about parenthood, pregnancy, feminism, gay culture, transgender culture, and race, to name a few topics. She quotes a lot of sources I was unfamiliar with, really digging into some of the texts. Overall I finished the book feeling like "this was great, but a lot of it over my head."

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Review: All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book seemed to be everywhere. On all the lists and in all the stores. I thought it was really good. It's about two young people during WWII. One is blind, and has oriented herself to her surroundings though models that her father makes. The other is a gifted engineer who is drafted by Hitler Youth to fix radios for the Nazis. I've read a lot of Holocaust literature, but this was really a unique story. The writing was good, but the story was really interesting to discover.

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Review: Everything I Never Told You

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I heard about this on the New York Times end of year list. I liked it. It was about a young woman who is found dead, and the biracial family she came from. The story uncovers the reason for her death and the family dynamics that formed the basis for it. The plot wasn't that unique, but the writing and character development were excellent. I'll look forward to her next book.

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