Things are starting to turn around in Charlie Boykin’s life. The child of a single mother who works as a cocktail waitress, he’s been one of the only white boys at his school and in their Nashville neighborhood. Now, he’s gotten a needs-based scholarship to Yeatman, a prestigious, private high-school. Even better, he’s assigned an upper classman mentor who turns out to be the ... Read More...
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
I’m a fan of modern retellings of classics. I realize they can risky and there are times they don’t work (I’m looking at you Anna K), but when I saw someone was taking on Jane Eyre I was ready. The Wife Upstairs is set in Birmingham, Alabama not England, and is about Jane, a young woman trying to build a new life for herself. She walks dogs in a wealthy neighborhood, ... Read More...
The Last Castle by Denise Kiernan
One of the main nonfiction backlist books I wanted to read this month is The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home by Denise Kiernan. I loved her book The Girls of Atomic City about the women in America who were part of the effort to win WWII. The Last Castle is about an almost mythical point in American history where money ... Read More...
Anna K: A Novel by Jenny Lee
One of the staples of fiction is the modern retelling of a classic novel. It’s a bit dicey—sometimes it works and other times it goes awry. Anna K is Jenny Lee’s reimagining of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina—a sweeping 800-page saga about a married woman and mother who falls in love with a debonair count, giving up everything to be with him and losing it all when he moves on. Lee ... Read More...
Necessary People: A Novel
It always seems as if being the friend of a really wealthy person would be fun—going expensive places, but never having to pay, exotic vacations, great gifts. But it never plays out that way in fiction. The last novel I read about a rich girl/poor girl friendship was Social Creature, which I disliked when its plot veered into the wildly implausible. So, I was hesitant to read ... Read More...
Summer Fun Reading: Mini-Reviews
Summer fun reading means something different to everyone. For some it's a chance to finally slow down and sink into longer, deeper reading, but for others it's a time of toss-away reading—books that you're not invested in, that you don't care if they get left behind at the beach, pool, or vacation spot. It's not a bad thing. In fact, it can be a welcome relief after reading ... Read More...
