Review: A Guide for the Perplexed

A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I did not "get" this book at all. It was a free PJ Library book, and I chose it from a few options. It was about a famous computer genius who gets kidnapped in Egypt, and a parallel story about a scholar in Egypt (100 years earlier) looking for ancient manuscripts purported to be written by famous Jewish scholar Moses Maimonedes. I didn't care enough about any of the characters to propel me through the book. And the technological tie-ins were not that interesting, neither was the parallelism of the stories. All in all, not a good read.

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Review: The Windfall

The Windfall by Diksha Basu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was another Book of the Month Club choice. I liked it. It was about an Indian couple who move from a comfortable neighborhood to an affluent one after the sale of their husband's Internet business. It also follows their son's life in America. It was funny at times, and romantic. Also satiric and a great depiction of sudden wealth and how it can change families. In some ways it reminded me of The Wangs vs. the World in its depiction of an Asian family and the havoc money wreaks on their families.

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Review: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I just adore everything that Anne Lamott writes. And shame on me that I don't appreciate how she and her editors group her essays, either by book or by section, I just gulp them down. This didn't disappoint - she writes more about her finding her own faith, about her relationship with her son, and with her church, all her "greatest hits," but in a familiar way (like a new U2 album that's great but the same as their old ones). She truly is my therapist when I can't see my actual therapist. And she'd say she's Christian, but I think she's more Human than anything else.

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Review: All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was the Book of the Month Club's Book of the Year for 2016 and it didn't disappoint. I'm not sure I liked anything as much as this since A Little Life. That still trumps anything else I've ever read, but this was itself amazingly written, complete with empathetic characters and a truly beautiful story. It is about a young girl who is befriended by one of her meth-cooking father's employees, and how he impacts her life. While certainly morally confusing at times, that is part of the beauty of this book - not how it glorifies morally ambiguous decisions, but how it presents them as they are, with conflict and all.

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