Review: This is Where I Leave You

This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Jo recommended this to me - and it's a current movie starring Jason Bateman. I liked it a lot - it's about a family whose patriarch dies and his dying wish is that the family sits shiva for him - that is, stays together in the house for a week as is Jewish custom.

The family of grown adults, however, are pretty dysfunctional - particularly as a clan. The main character's marriage is falling apart because of infidelity. He has three siblings: one struggling with infertility and bitterness, one whose marriage is helplessly unhappy, and one who is dating someone highly inappropriate. Their mother has secrets of her own. Still, they spend the week together and just barely manage not to kill each other.

The story was well-written and fun to read. Best of all, the ending was good. Lately, too many books I've read have tidy endings, and this one doesn't. This ending is a resolution, but it isn't tidy. Which, given the characters, seems very believable. My only criticism is that parts of the book felt too obviously like they were being written for a movie script. Which....maybe they were.



View all my reviews

Review: Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink

Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink by Katrina Alcorn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I heard Alcorn speak at the Massachusetts Conference for Women and thought her story was interesting enough to buy her book. The book was ok - it was a memoir of how she became overwhelmed as a working mother. She details how her anxiety and panic grew as she took on more responsibility at work and added a second, and then third child to her family. Finally determining that she needed a break from work, she takes time off, only to discover many other women in similar circumstances.

Interspersed with each chapter of her story was a short 2-3 page section about research supporting things she was going through - like maternity leave in different countries, or the percentage of women with undiagnosed post-partum disorders. While she explained in the preface of her book that she did that to make it more interesting than just a memoir, that's where I felt like the book failed. I wanted to hear someone's personal story, not read the same statistics and facts that I keep seeing in the news.

While I applaud her for both finding a solution that worked for her family as well as sharing the personal details of her story with a large audience, I didn't love the book, mostly because it purported to be more than that, when that would have been more than enough.



View all my reviews

Review: Orphan Train

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book was great - I think Jo may have recommended it to me. It's about an actual train that used to take orphans from the streets of New York City and bring them to the Midwest to be adopted by families who either wanted children or wanted cheap labor during the 1920's and 1930's. The book follows one particular girl through her journey and the different families she ended up living with, many of whom were abusive, and only one of whom ever treated her kindly as a member of their family.

This story is unwinding at the same time as another young woman in the 1990's is slowly aging out of the foster care system. As community service for a petty crime, she ends up helping an elderly neighbor clean out her attic, where they find the elderly neighbor's history is as one of these orphans.

While some of the parallels are obvious to the reader and some of the plot rather predictable, overall this book held my attention as I rooted for both orphans to find happiness.



View all my reviews

Review: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I tried with this book - I really did. The premise was cool - a strange circus that arrives unannounced and only operates at night. The circus is actually the site of a decades-long competition between two rival magicians' proteges, which they are only somewhat aware of. The setup was so interesting that I was eager to read the book.

It just got too darn weird for me. Too much supernatural and fairy-tale, not enough character development. I spent half of the book convinced that two female characters were the same character, which didn't make my experience any better, but did make me feel like I was right about character development being lacking. The ending seemed like a cop-out with minor characters suddenly having major parts.

The author, I recall reading, sees herself as a crafter of modern fairytales. If that is the case, she did a good job with that genre - i just didn't care for it.



View all my reviews

Review: An Echo in the Bone

An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I am sad to be catching up to Gabaldon in this series (I read them faster than she can write them) because they are always so.darn.good. This one has Claire and Jamie in the US as the Revolution begins, but soon they leave for Europe - although at 800+ pages, that certainly doesn't go as planned. Some new characters begin to get more air time as well.

Meanwhile, Brianna and Roger have returned to modern times to cure their daughter's health problems, and they are adjusting to life. They learn how Claire and Jamie are doing through a cleverly sent set of letters, but soon they are into their own problems with neighbors and colleagues at work.

With the same meticulous research and character development that fueled the first 6 books, this one continues to enthrall me as a romance and an adventure.



View all my reviews

Review: Maya's Notebook

Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I don't know why I've been so intimidated to read something by Isabel Allende - she's been on my "I should read something by her" list forever. Well this was one I found on a Barnes and Noble trade paperback table and I ended up really liking it. It had great plotting, nuanced characters, and (thwarting my worst fears) absolute readability.

The story is about Maya, a young woman who is raised in her grandparents' home. She ends up as a troubled teenager, in with the wrong crowd, then suddenly in the middle of a dangerous world of drugs and prostitution. To help her escape, her grandmother sends her to a remote island off the coast of Chile, where Maya begins to rebuild her life.

This was a book I was reluctant to put down because it was so compelling, starring a damaged but compelling main character. Also - I'm no longer afraid of Allende. :)



View all my reviews

Year end booklists

There are so many great year-end booklists coming out now.  These are some of my favorites

NPR's Book concierge - great interface

NYTimes Notable Books - old faithful

Millions Year of Reading - lots of different perspectives

Chicago Tribune's Best Books

Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2014

National Book Award Winners

Booker Prize Winners

Also, kind of unrelatedly, Joel Gasciogne also shared his list of 50 books that transformed his business and his life.

Review: Sycamore Row

Sycamore Row by John Grisham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



It happens every time I read a John Grisham book - I forget how much I enjoyed the last one and how good he really is.

This book is about a case where the main lawyer is the same one from [b:A Time to Kill|32542|A Time to Kill (Jake Brigance, #1)|John Grisham|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390195915s/32542.jpg|1804929]. While I didn't remember very much about that book (other than liking it) this one provided enough background to set the stage for the story. In this book, a black maid becomes the only heir to a rich white man's estate, and Jake Brigance (the underdog lawyer from the last book) gets assigned as the attorney for the estate. The book follows Jake as he figures out how to deal with the deceased's children, whether the maid is trustworthy, and eventually what to do about the clear racial issues that surface in the situation.

As usual, this book was eminently readable, familiar but not predictable, and filled with colorful characters, both savory and not.



View all my reviews

Review: Benediction

Benediction by Kent Haruf

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I was excited when I saw this book, I hadn't known that [a:Kent Haruf|16266|Kent Haruf|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1309205400p2/16266.jpg] had written a third book in the [b:Plainsong|77156|Plainsong (Plainsong, #1)|Kent Haruf|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388200586s/77156.jpg|1402373] series, the first of two of which I really enjoyed.

This one didn't hit the mark for me as much. While there were things about it that reminded me of the first two - the same small town, a few of the same characters, small things happening to people that are written about in a profound way - I didn't like this one as much. I found it to be too sappy in some places, and some of the characters doing thing that were too unlikely in others. His other books have a way of drawing a character without too much detail but the right details that paint a picture, and this one didn't do that for me either - I often couldn't picture the characters, even what they were like mentally.

I'd like to read some of his other books and see what I think, but as a follow up to Plainsong and Eventide, this was a disappointment.



View all my reviews

Review: The Time in Between

The Time in Between by María Dueñas

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I really, really liked this book. It had languished on my reading list for several years and I finally got around to grabbing it from the library. It's long, and seems intimidating at the beginning, but it was as gripping a novel as I can remember reading, particularly for something that is more seriously Literature and not at all an Airplane Read.

The story was really unusual - Sira is a young seamstress when the Spanish Civil War breaks out and she flees Spain for Morocco, following a charismatic, but as it turns out untrustworthy man. Alone in a foreign country, she works to become a sought-after dressmaker for expatriates from all over Europe as WWII breaks out. During the war she returns to Madrid, and opens a similarly popular dressmaking business; however, this time she takes advantage of her access to officers' wives to pass information and messages as a spy.

What I liked about this book was that it was a really compelling female character in a sweeping complex story. I rooted for her the entire book - and she does go through some very hard times. The story was adventurous and fun to read.



View all my reviews

Review: The Imposter Bride

The Imposter Bride by Nancy Richler

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book was one of those that I just picked blindly at the library. It was pretty good - it was about a Jewish woman who arrives in Montreal after WWII having assumed the identity of someone else. She arrives somewhat as a mail order bride, but ends up marrying the brother of her intended. When a member of the actual woman's family realizes she isn't who she says she is, things get complicated for her.

At the same time, the book alternates between this time and several years in the future, when her daughter (whom she abandons as an infant) is trying to figure out what her real life story is, and why she left.

I liked this book for a few reasons - the plot was unusual and not in any way formulaic. I enjoyed the characters, all of whom were very well-developed, and I really liked reading about a Jewish community outside of the US.



View all my reviews

Review: The Lost Wife

The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I've read a lot of Holocaust fiction yet I keep being surprised that authors find new ways to describe both the mass horror and individual losses and triumphs in stories. This book was no exception.

The story is about two young Jewish people who fall in love in Prague just as WWII is beginning. While there is a short window of time when they can both leave Europe and escape the Nazis, and they marry hastily, ultimately the woman (Lenka) declines, preferring to stay with her family until they can all leave together. The book follows both her story, through the concentration camps of Europe, as well as her husband (Josef)'s resettlement in America. They quickly lose touch. Prior to the war, Lenka is an art student, so she survives the camps through creating art for the Nazis (as well as a great deal of resilience and of luck.) Josef makes a life for himself in America, but always wonders about his first wife who he left behind. Eventually Lenka makes it through the war and herself marries and has children as well.

It is only at their grandchildren's rehearsal dinner decades later that they accidentally reunite. The plot was an unusual twist, and I really enjoyed reading about the theme of art throughout the book. The writing was wonderful, and the characters very well-developed.



View all my reviews

Review: Everybody's Got Something

Everybody's Got Something by Robin Roberts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Let me start by saying - Roberts herself is a five; it's just this book that is a three. I first learned about Roberts at last year's Mass Conference for Women, where she was a keynote speaker. Familiar to those who watch Good Morning America, she is also a cancer survivor, a former ESPN anchor, and an all-around nice person. She was also reasonably well-known for her coverage of Hurricane Katrina, which involved her search for her own family members, as well as her coming-out upon her most recent remission from cancer.

So my issue with this book wasn't Roberts, or any of her life decisions. In fact, I think she's a pretty amazing woman, and I enjoyed reading some of the backstory of the major events I knew about her. What I was missing in the book was any reflection, or commentary. It was a lot like reading a log of what happened to her and only a small amount of what she felt. It wasn't that she didn't share, or didn't divulge what she was feeling at different times, but it was more that she had so many stories to relate that she didn't leave herself enough space for reflection.

That said, I did enjoy reading it, and as someone who doesn't watch GMA, it did make me into a Robin Roberts fan nonetheless.



View all my reviews

Review: Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood

Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood by Drew Magary

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a fun book to read, and a quick one. I enjoy Magary's writing for Deadspin - always funny and usually smart. This book is his take on raising kids and did not disappoint.

The book opens with one of his children having a life-threatening condition as an infant and he immediately dives in to the gory details and the practical nature of how scary and gross it all is. While he could veer into being a typical guy in his book's narrative, he doesn't; instead he demonstrates being a pretty sensitive, self-aware, and involved father. True, he and his wife align on classic gender roles and she is indulgent to his boy-like behaviors, but most of the book is a humorous reflection on parenting from someone who has spent a long time thinking about it.

I add as a footnote the following link, a sort of denouement to this book, wherein he gets a vasectomy and it goes a bit wrong...http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-amazing-true-story-of-my-exploding-balls-1661128148



View all my reviews

Review: Identical

Identical by Scott Turow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a great train commute read. Like many people, I read Turow's [b:Presumed Innocent|425029|Presumed Innocent (Kindle County Legal Thriller, #1)|Scott Turow|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404412704s/425029.jpg|7732] many years ago, then kinda forgot about him. I'm glad I noticed this one.

The story is about a set of identical twins - one is up for parole for murder, while the other is running for mayor. The book flashes back through their backgrounds, as well as the backgrounds of the victim, her family, and various law enforcement officials who are also involved. While there are some obvious plot twists Turow could have chosen for a whodunit with identical twins, what he did was significantly more clever.

Parts of this book were a little slow, but overall it was a perfect airport/T station read. Particularly cool was that the story took place within the Greek community, and he brought in several allusions to Greek myths throughout the book.



View all my reviews