Plausibility is a subjective concept, especially in reading. There are premises, plots, and characters in novels I love that make other readers put the book down. Today’s mini-reviews exemplify the term because both novels contain characters and situations that I could not believe in and so impacted my ability to enjoy the book as much as someone else might. In other words, ... Read More...
Touch: A Novel by Courtney Maum
The almost biological certainty that the more often you checked your cell phone, the more likely you were to find that one wondrous message or notification that would improve your entire life. In Touch Sloane Jacobson is a well-regarded trends forecaster (which is a real thing) best known for forecasting what is the now ubiquitous swipe used with all touch screen ... Read More...
Lucky Boy: A Novel
Despite its upbeat sounding title Lucky Boy is a novel saturated in desperation. Desperation for a better life, desperation for a child, for success…for happiness. Solimar is eighteen, lives in a dying town in Mexico and with money her parents procure she leaves with a man who is supposed to get her to California where she will meet up with a cousin who has already ... Read More...
December Library Checkout
Happy last day of 2016! Suffice it to say I’m ready to wash my hands of this year. Actually, not the entire year. I had some great personal experiences earlier in 2016 but the second half has been draining and difficult. Like so many people I know, the election results have made staying positive challenging. The bad news seems to keep coming with no respite in sight. Complete ... Read More...
Forty Rooms
It is no small feat to write a novel about one woman’s life that taps into the universality of all women’s lives but Olga Grushin accomplishes just that in her new novel, Forty Rooms. With a construct based on the belief that— Forty is God’s way of testing the human spirit. It’s the limits of man’s endurance, beyond which you are supposed to learn something true each ... Read More...
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
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...
