The Gilmore Guide to Books

Connecting Books and Readers One Review at a Time

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Reviews
    • Reviews by Author
    • Reviews by Title
    • Reviews by Genre
  • Podcast
  • Policies
    • Review Policy
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Policy

The Word Exchange: A Novel

February 6, 2015

word exchange

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...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, dystopia, literary, science fiction

The Jaguar’s Children

February 2, 2015

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...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, debut, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, literary, Mexico, social issues

We Need to Talk About Kevin

December 10, 2014

we need to talk

  The point is, I don’t know what exactly I’d foreseen would happen when Kevin was first hoisted to my breast. I hadn’t foreseen anything exactly. I wanted what I could not imagine. I wanted to be transformed; I wanted to be transported. I wanted a door to open and a whole new vista to expand before me that I had never known was out there. The holidays are not generally the ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary life, crime, family, Harper, horror, literary

Free Range Reading: Tinkers

December 8, 2014

tinkers

Tinkers opens with George Crosby, lying on a bed in the living room of the home he built himself, as his mind swirls and flows between the reality of his family gathered to bid him goodbye to the most exquisite reminiscences on life itself and his place in its great tiled framework. …I will remain a set of impressions porous and open to combination with all of the other ... Read More...

3 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, family, literary, New England

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

November 10, 2014

we are all completely

Narrator Rosemary Cooke begins We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves in the middle of her family’s story, which is a quick indication of how this unusual and highly imaginative novel is going to go. The year is 1996 and she’s in her fifth year of college. A gregarious child she has morphed into a quiet and secretive young woman, largely due to the circumstances regarding the ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary fiction, family, literary, mystery, Putnam

A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing

October 22, 2014

girl half formed

  The heart cannot be wrung and wrung. Eimear McBride brings her main character to life with prose so fractured that A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing reads a bit like Clockwork Orange. There is no made-up language, but McBride uses a combination of Magnetic Poetry and Yahtzee to throw out words in random order with punctuation as an afterthought. Abandon any hope for sentence ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews Tagged: Coffee House Press, contemporary fiction, debut, literary

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • …
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • …
  • 74
  • Next Page »
  • Bluesky
  • Email
  • Goodreads
  • Instagram
  • Substack

Save time and subscribe via email

No time to keep checking for new reviews? Enter your email address to subscribe and receive notifications of new posts by email. No spam!

Bookshop

Currently Reading

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
by Emily Nagoski
The Dutch House
The Dutch House
by Ann Patchett
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me
by Adrienne Brodeur

goodreads.com

Affiliate Disclosure

I’m an affiliate for Bookshop. If you click on a link that takes you to their site and make a purchase I’ll earn a small fee, which goes towards the costs of maintaining this site. Your support is appreciated. Thank you!

Archives

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2026

Copyright © 2026 · Beyond Madison Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in