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The Futures: A Novel

January 18, 2017

futures

  Evan and Julia are college sweethearts who decide to take the next step and begin post-college life together in NYC. But while Evan is on a clear path in the world of finance, Julia is a bit more untethered. She finally gets a job as an assistant at a foundation owned by her parents’ friends, but only as a way to pay the bills. The Futures is Anna Pitoniak’s take on the ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, contemporary life, friendship, Little Brown and Company, Manhattan

Bellweather Rhapsody

January 16, 2017

bellweather

  Remember the movie The Shining? If so, forget what you thought about it in relation to Stephen King’s book and just recall its many amazing visuals. Now, turn it into a campy musical, turn it back into a novel and you have Kate Racculia’s Bellweather Rhapsody. Set in the Catskills in early November with a grand old hotel about to be the scene, once again, for a huge ... Read More...

15 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, humor, mystery, teen years

Idaho: A Novel by Emily Ruskovich

January 13, 2017

idaho

  When a mother brutally murders one of her young children in the first quarter of a novel there is an expectation that the motivation behind the act will be a theme or, maybe, her backstory and how it led to such an act, but in Emily Ruskovich’s debut, Idaho, neither happens. I picked up, put down and tried to re-engage this novel multiple times in the course of several ... Read More...

16 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: debut, family, literary, Random House

Lucky Boy: A Novel

January 11, 2017

lucky boy

  Despite its upbeat sounding title Lucky Boy is a novel saturated in desperation. Desperation for a better life, desperation for a child, for success…for happiness. Solimar is eighteen, lives in a dying town in Mexico and with money her parents procure she leaves with a man who is supposed to get her to California where she will meet up with a cousin who has already ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, literary, marriage, Putnam, San Francisco, social issues

The Second Mrs Hockaday

January 9, 2017

second mrs hockaday

  Placidia is seventeen when she meets Major Hockaday and when he proposes that very same day she says yes. That he is a widower and has a small son makes little difference to her. It’s 1865 and given the war there’s no point in waiting for a proper courtship and wedding. In fact, the very next day they set off for the Hockaday’s home. From there, Susan Rivers’s novel The ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Algonquin Books, Civil War, debut, historical fiction, marriage, mystery, Southern life

High School Trauma and Drama: Mini-Reviews

January 5, 2017

dangerous

There are few people who look back on high school as the best years of their life and, quite frankly, I don’t trust them. These two novels encapsulate what may or may not be the truth of high school life in America today. Is it accurate? Dear God, I hope not, but I’m so far removed from that time that all I can do is share my thoughts on them as novels. Mostly, they made me ... Read More...

15 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Atria Books, contemporary life, debut, mini-reviews, Random House, teen years

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