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Dystopian Summer: Mini-Reviews

August 3, 2017

amatka

The title of this post might make you think I’m alluding to the dumpster fire that is current American politics, but you’d be wrong. Although the generalized anxiety so many of us are feeling is likely caused by the chaos, I’m only referring to two novels I recently read. Summer might not seem like the time for dystopian reading, but somehow it’s happened to me this summer. ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: dystopia, Riverhead Books, science fiction, Vintage

The Widow Nash: A Novel

August 1, 2017

widow

  Call me vulgar, but when a book opens with a young woman, a father who’s dying of syphilis, missing money and a murderous ex-fiancé, I’m all in. It’s the early 1900s, the young woman is twenty-four-year-old Dulcy (short of Leda Cordelia Dulcinea) and her father, Walton Remfrey, is an eccentric but brilliant inventor and engineer with a penchant for women (hence the ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 20th century, book clubs, Counterpoint, historical fiction, mystery, women

July Reading Wrap-Up

July 31, 2017

july

  First of all, isn’t that photo dreamy? I could lie there all day reading. Of course, that would mean I had a month’s worth of books I couldn’t put down, which, based on my Friday post, was not the case. I read 14 books in July, but only because three of them were DNFs. For a booklover this is a very sad state of affairs. Except that two July books were 5 star worthy ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature, Fiction, Reading Tagged: mini-reviews, Pamela Dorman Books

The Dreaded DNF: Summer Edition

July 28, 2017

dnf

What can I say? 2017 is halfway over and my reading has been bipolar all year. I might think it was me, but I know too many other readers who report the same thing—high highs and low lows. And then the blahs in-between. Sadly, either the books are getting worse or my patience is waning because I’m moving from blah to nah. Here are two books I gave up on this month. I'm hoping ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Feature, Fiction Tagged: 1950s, Little Brown and Company, mini-reviews, Riverhead Books, social issues

Gather the Daughters

July 26, 2017

gather

  Initially, it’s difficult to tell the time period in Jennie Melamed’s novel, Gather the Daughters. It is life on an island with little in the way of modern conveniences—no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no weapons beyond knives and a limited food supply of grains and small animals. Later, we learn about “wanderers”, the “wasteland”, defective babies that die at birth, ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, childhood, dystopia, Little Brown and Company, women

Tornado Weather: A Novel

July 24, 2017

tornado

The town is Colliersville, Indiana, but it could be any number of small towns scattered across the United States. Towns where, as the jobs get smaller, the economic disparity gets bigger. This is where Deborah Kennedy chooses to set her debut novel, Tornado Weather and it’s the epitome of the tinderbox that is America right now. It’s a greedy dairy farmer who, in an effort to ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, debut, Flatiron Books, literary

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