February is more than halfway gone but for the sake of brevity let's just call these midmonth mini-reviews. Three quick hits of books I've read while being waylaid with this season's mega-cold. I hope you're all reading this from a place of warmth and comfort and not the huddled against records levels of snow and below zero temperatures. Her by Harriet Lane: This ... Read More...
Of Things Gone Astray
Magical realism is the moving force behind author Janina Matthewson’s, Of Things Gone Astray, an enchanting novel about the everyday realities of life. In it she follows six different people in London who wake up one day to find that something important in their lives has disappeared. For Mrs. Featherby it is the entire front wall of her house, for Robert his job—literally. His ... Read More...
The Missing One
The Missing One is billed as a psychological thriller but by page 218 I’m convinced that the novel is actually about the joys of motherhood and the psychology of toddlers. Debut author Lucy Atkins spends more time on the smell of the protagonist’s small child than she does describing any other element in the novel. And the adjective used most often is “sweet”—sweet ... Read More...
The Word Exchange: A Novel
I've finally been hit by what so many of you have in the last few months- a whopper of a cold that has left me unable to formulate even the simplest thoughts. The Word Exchange just came out in paperback and as it was one of my favorite books for 2014, I'm sharing the review for the second time. A meme (/ˈmiːm/ meem) is "an idea, behavior, or style that ... Read More...
The Jaguar’s Children
There is always some fact in fiction but in The Jaguar’s Children by John Vaillant there is likely to be much more than expected. The story is a simple one in terms of characters and staging because it takes place inside a water tanker truck over the course of three days when it is left in the desert near Nogales, Arizona after stopping due to mechanical problems. The ... Read More...
The Girl on the Train
Take the unreliable narrator format from Gone Girl and multiply it times three and you’ve got Paula Hawkins’ debut novel The Girl on the Train. Three women—Anna, Rachel, and Megan—all pass through the same time and space but each from a very different perspective, varying from sad to what appears to be flat out crazy. For Rachel, being unable to conceive leads to solace found ... Read More...
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