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The First Rule of Swimming

June 19, 2013

The First Rule of Swimming

  It did not help that on Rosmarina there was no such thing as privacy, one house so near to the next that a man could hear his neighbor’s toilet flush. Grudges went back generations and children were judged by things their parents had done, sometimes years before their birth. Magdalena and her younger sister Jadranka live on the island of Rosmarina with their ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, Eastern Europe, Little Brown and Company

The Silver Star

June 14, 2013

The Silver Star is author Jeannette Walls’ latest foray into fiction. Her memoir, The Glass Castle, is an intimate look at her childhood, when benign neglect, became not-so benign, as neither of her parents had the selflessness or aptitude to raise children. The Silver Star treads familiar territory in that the mother, while flamboyant and fun, is a narcissist with no interest ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1970s, book clubs, coming-of-age, family, Scribner

Crazy Rich Asians

June 12, 2013

Crazy Rich Asians

  “I don’t think she cares how fat her ankles get. Do you know how much she inherited when her father died? I heard she and her five brothers got seven hundred million each." When a novel begins with a woman and her children being turned away from a fancy hotel and she’s so upset her husband buys the hotel that same night, you can count me in. Kevin Kwan doesn’t miss ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: China, contemporary life, cultural, debut, Doubleday, satire, wealth

Revenge Wears Prada

June 7, 2013

Revenge Wears Prada

It’s been ten years since Andrea Sachs told her boss off in The Devil Wears Prada and when Revenge Wears Prada opens, a lot has happened. While she still gets nauseous if she hears that infamous Nokia ringtone, the H.O.R.R.O.R that was working for Miranda Priestly has receded into a mostly faint memory. She has an adoring new fiancée and is the editor of a chic up-and-coming ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: chick lit, fashion, Manhattan, Simon & Schuster

The Shining Girls

June 3, 2013

The Shining Girls

  There was a lot of buzz at Book Expo America about Lauren Beukes’s new novel, The Shining Girls, and for good reason. The most often heard synopsis I heard was “Time Traveler’s Wife meets Silence of the Lambs”. If you’re squeamish that may be all you need to know but if you can handle a serial killer who disembowels his victims, Beukes creates a creepy but compelling ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Mulholland Books, mystery, suspense

Darkest: Daddy Love

May 31, 2013

daddy love

  Joyce Carol Oates is a seductress who leads you into whatever world she is exploring. This can be poignant, uplifting, or deeply disturbing. In the case of Daddy Love it’s the latter. The first four chapters recount the same time span in a mother’s life—the moment when her child is taken from her. Yet she was conscious of the terrible loss. The child’s hand had ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, Mysterious Press, social issues, suspense

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