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God Spare the Girls

June 23, 2021

god spare

What do you do when your entire family is perfect, but you’re 18 and confused? For Caroline Nolan, in God Spare the Girls, it’s an especially complicated question because her father is Luke Nolan, pastor of a megachurch in Texas. Her mother Ruthie is the perfect matriarch, calm and always perfectly coiffed. Worst of all, is her older sister Abigail, her father’s favorite for ... Read More...

10 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, debut, family, religion

One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

June 7, 2021

one

Bourne has always been a small town, but after the chemical plant polluted its waters, killing off citizens with cancers and producing a generation of children all impacted by carcinogens and other destructive pollutants, the town drew further into itself. It’s been seventeen years since that disaster and for 16-year-old triplets, Mab, Mirabel, and Monday nothing of interest ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, social issues

What Could Be Saved

January 18, 2021

saved

The word “normal” ceases to exist in families who lose a child. Either they re-form together into a new unit or they separate. After 8-year-old Philip disappears in What Could Be Saved, the Preston family is the latter. They shatter, with the four remaining members—father, Robert; mother, Genevieve; daughters, Beatrice, and Laura, leaving Thailand to return home to the U.S. ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: cultural, family, Southeast Asia

Summer Nonfiction Mini-Reviews

August 26, 2020

nonfiction

I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing my astonishment over my nonfiction reading, but honestly, this is the first time in all my years of blogging where I have 3 5-star nonfiction books before the year is even over. And this is just from the last two months! I’m not going to bore you (yet!) with my thoughts on why this is so, but get right to it, with two more  nonfiction books ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature, Non-fiction Tagged: essays, family, memoir

The Majesties: A Novel

August 11, 2020

majesties

Sometimes novels that begin with a bang end with a fizzle. That’s not the case with The Majesties, which opens with Gwen, the main narrator, lying in a coma. After being poisoned by her sister, Estella, along with their entire extended family and closest friends. At a lavish banquet honoring their grandfather. Gwen is the only survivor; even Estella is dead. Now, as Gwen’s ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, family, literary, Southeast Asia

All This Could Be Yours

June 17, 2020

all this

After another evening spent sniping at his wife about her excessive spending, 73-year-old Victor staggers off to bed and suffers a heart attack that leaves him unconscious and at the edge of death for much of Jami Attenberg’s novel All This Could be Yours. Instead of a heartfelt outpouring of memories and love, this is a novel of bitterness and acrimony, all caused by Victor. ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, literary, marriage

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