Review: Dark Matter

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was good, and not what I expected. It starts when a man goes out one evening to meet a friend for a quick drink, and soon after, wakes up in a lab, being told that he has succeeded in a bold quantum physics experiment. He doesn't know what to believe - which life is his "real" life, and risks everything to get back to his happy life with his beloved wife and son.

This book played on traditional sci-fi themes around multi-verses and alternate realities, but did it while portraying a character who was flawed, relatable, and emotional. There were ways in which it reminded me of The Hike, although this was less surreal and more traditionally science fiction. The ending will also stay with me for a long time.

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Review: Seveneves

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was amazing. I love reading Stephenson, and this was no exception. The story starts with an astronomical event that scientists soon figure out mean that the earth will be destroyed and nobody will survive. Representatives from different countries and cultures and with different skill sets are sent up to space to represent the future of humankind. The book follows what happens to those people, and the generations that come after them. It's part space science, part sociology, and part adventure.

Not only was this book obviously meticulously researched, but it was well-written, smartly plotted, and filled with rich characters. The book is long, like most of his works are, and it is great fun to see seeds sown early in the book grow into critical plot points later. Thoroughly engrossing and enjoying.

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Review: One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Both Lindy West and Jessica Valenti have blurbs on the back of this book, so it was kind of an obvious choice. It is a series of essays by Koul, an Indian-Canadian author who writes for BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and The New Yorker, among other outlets.

At first, I was disappointed. The first few essays were more Mindy Kaling than Arundathi Roy. I found the humor distracting; it undermined her message for me. However, either I got used to her, or her later essays were more serious, because by the end of the book I was enjoying it a lot. Her commentary on race was well-illustrated through her own experience, and that of her young niece, her father, and many other people in her life.

I need to read more intersectional feminists. This was a great start.

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Review: Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I wish I had liked this book more, because Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead was very influential to me. This book was about Sandberg's unexpectedly losing her husband, how she coped, and how other people can cope with great challenges as well.

Unfortunately the book didn't hit the mark. I spent the entire book feeling pulled in different directions among a memoir, self-help book, and sociological study. I would have been interested in reading any one of the three, but the way the book was constructed, I didn't think it did any of them particularly well.

I understand this may be partially because Sandberg co-wrote this with Adam Grant. If she needed to do that to get through the heartbreaking subject matter, than I'm glad she did - for her. As a reader, the empathy I felt for her loss still didn't make me like the book any more.

One nugget I took with me, however, was the idea that kids with a "growth mindset" were more resilient than those without. It was the first I'd heard of a growth mindset, and it immediately changed how I've been talking to my kids.

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Review: Emma in the Night

Emma in the Night by Wendy Walker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This starts as a standard mystery - two sisters disappear and years later, one returns. The detectives and forensic psychologist who responded to the original crime resume their investigation. However, a few things tipped me off early that this was no formulaic beach read. First off, the psychologist has an unusual background herself. Second, seeds are planted early in the story that the sister who returns may not be a completely reliable narrator. Also, their mother is completely nuts. As the authorities (and me, as the reader) try to figure out what really happened, increasingly more psychological dysfunction is revealed. I was able to forgive some of the less-than-perfect character development, and some of the basic techniques used for developing doubt and leaving clues, because the plotting and story was just that good.

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Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is my first Neil Gaiman book, and I'm not sure I've ever read anything quite like it. It starts out as a book about a man going back to his hometown for a funeral, but doesn't follow any familiar tropes or plots after that. It becomes part memory, part fairytale (complete with a mean stepmother-ish character). But it was so incredibly well-written and the characters well-developed, that it wasn't cheesy or tired, it was spellbinding. I would never have read a book that someone described to me this way, I'd have thought it wasn't my style, but wow - was this good.

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Review: The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley

The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was really enjoyable to read. It was about a girl and her father, and alternated chapters between their current life, and the father's life in the past. The father had been involved in many illegal heists and scams/schemes, yet made a reasonably normal life for his daughter. (OK, to be fair, it wasn't "normal" or "stable" in that they moved often, and quickly, and there was a strange shrine to the girl's mother kept in the bathroom of whatever their current home was, but compared to his past, it was as good as he could do.) I really liked both the father and the daughter, and am still not quite sure which was the protagonist. Well-written, great character development, and surprising plot.

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Review: Rise: How a House Built a Family

Rise: How a House Built a Family by Cara Brookins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I hate when this happens - when someone is strong and brave and interesting, and publishes a memoir that is not well-enough written and edited. This was my issue with Casting Lots: Creating a Family in a Beautiful, Broken World and it's my issue here. Brookins is amazing - she escapes an abusive marriage (which she outlines in flashbacks throughout the book) and decides that what she and her four school-age children need to do is build a house - from scratch - to reboot their lives. And they do. From Sheetrock to flooring to framing, they literally build a house from scratch. I admire her and I loved the story, but I wish the writing had been better - more descriptive about the emotions, and less of a progress log. Brava Cara, but wish I had enjoyed reading about this more.

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Review: The Women in the Castle

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this book browsing at the library and didn't know anything about it. The plot was intriguing - after WWII, a woman seeks out the wives of several Nazi resisters whose husbands were killed as part of an unsuccessful plot to murder Hitler. She brings them together in an old estate, where the form a support system and kind of a family together. The book alternates between pre-war and post-war times, and I enjoyed learning about the characters' backstories, and also seeing what happened to them going forward. This was both well-written and well-plotted, with twists, disappointments, and victories, all of which made me see how much I had been invested in the characters.

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Review: Since We Fell

Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was advertised on what seemed like every bus in Boston, and I like Dennis Lehane so I gave it a try. Like his other books, this was an addictive page-turner. This novel starts at the end - with protagonist Rachel shooting her husband. The next 3/4 of the book is her life story, leading up to that moment. Rachel doesn't have an easy life, and as a newscaster, she has an on-air meltdown, which leads her to years as a recluse. Once she realizes her (otherwise) picture-perfect life with her husband is anything but, she overcomes her anxiety and the novel gets really fun, with a movie-script amount of action. Did not disappoint.

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Review: The Blinds

The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. It was about a town where people who were criminals or witnesses can go, get their memories wiped, and live "normally" for the rest of their lives. The novel had a very colorful and well-developed cast of characters, and did a good job setting up the town and the situation before diving into the mystery and action than dominates the second half of the book. I predict this becomes a mini-series on NBC :)

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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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