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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