Baseball in April

Baseball in April and Other Stories

by Gary Soto

Genre: Juvenile Fiction, Short Stories

Synopsis: In this unique collection of short stories, the small events of daily life reveal big themes-love and friendship, youth and growing up, success and failure.  Calling on his own experiences of growing up in California's Central Valley, poet Gary Soto brings to life the joy and pain of young people everywhere.

The smart, tough, vulnerable kids in these stories are Latino, but their dreams and desires belong to all of us.

from the back of the book

Review: This book is made up of a collection of short stories about Latino kids in California.  The kids are mainly early teenagers which makes this book a hard one to figure out what is the appropriate age for the reader.  The reading level is not too complex but the characters are mature so I would recommend this book for junior high age kids.  None of the stories really grabbed me but as I've mentioned in other reviews, I'm not a fan of short stories.  The characters and language seemed a little dated which makes sense as this book is copyrighted in 1990.  I'm not sure that kids today would relate to the stories.  Some books are written in a way that make the book timeless but this one was not.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Harmony

Harmony

by Carolyn Parkhurst

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis: How far will a mother go to save her family? The Hammond family is living in DC, where everything seems to be going just fine, until it becomes clear that the oldest daughter, Tilly, is developing abnormally--a mix of off-the-charts genius and social incompetence. Once Tilly--whose condition is deemed undiagnosable--is kicked out of the last school in the area, her mother Alexandra is out of ideas. The family turns to Camp Harmony and the wisdom of child behavior guru Scott Bean for a solution. But what they discover in the woods of New Hampshire will push them to the very limit. Told from the alternating perspectives of both Alexandra and her younger daughter Iris (the book's Nick Carraway), this is a unputdownable story about the strength of love, the bonds of family, and how you survive the unthinkable. 

from GoodReads

Review: This book appealed to me because of Tilly and her "undiagnosable" condition. Right from the beginning you can tell that Tilly sees the world differently than other people.  Her language can be quite crude just to give you the head's up.  You see the family's world mainly from Iris's perspective who tells the story of the present day.  She is Tilly's younger sibling who is a more typical child.  You also get the perspective of the mother, Alexandria, but only as to what happened before the family decided to move to the family camp.  There are a few chapters from Tilly's perspective but her chapters don't tell the story of what was currently happening.  Her chapters are more about the future.  Generally I don't care for books that change first person perspectives because the voices generally aren't that different but I didn't care for the change from first person to second person perspective in this book.  The voices were totally different but all of Alexandria's chapters use the pronoun "you" which confused me.  It just didn't work.  As for the plot, I liked the premise of the story but Scott Bean creeped me out quite early on.  There was something off about him as we kept getting hints about him that showed he wasn't all sunshine and rainbows and we knew that something happened in the middle of the summer but we didn't know what.  My mind went a different direction that what actually happened (which actually is a good thing).  The climax was anything but.  I just didn't buy into what happened.  This was just not the right book for me.

Rating: 2 1/2 stars

A Piece of the World

A Piece of the World

by Christina Baker Kline

Genre: Historical fiction

Synopsis: To Christina Olson, the entire world was her family's remote farm in the small coastal town of Cushing, Maine.  Born in the home her family had lived in for generations, and increasingly incapacitated by illness, Christina seemed destined for a small life.  Instead, for more than twenty years, she was host and inspiration for the artist Andrew Wyeth, and become the subject of one of the best-known paintings for the twentieth century, Christina's World.

As she did in her beloved bestseller Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline interweaves fact and fiction in a powerful novel that illuminates a little-known part of America's history. Bringing into focus the flesh-and-blood woman behind the portrait, Kline vividly imagines her life-with her complicated relationship to her family and her past, and her special bond with one of our greatest modern artists.
from the book jacket

Review:  Perhaps this was not the right kind of book for me but I loved Orphan Train and the writer's style but this book was just so dull.  I should have abandoned it but for some reason I stuck with it probably because I thought it would get more interesting.  The story just dragged on and on with it not going anywhere.  The timeline jumps back and forth between when Christina is an adult, child, teen and young adult.  I found this to be distracting. So many characters were introduced and I did not know who they were but yet it seemed like I was already supposed to know who they were.  It was an interesting premise however just not well executed.

Rating: 2 stars

Love, Amalia

Love.Amalia

by Alma Flor Ada & Gabriel M. Zubizarreta

Genre: Juvenile Fiction

Synopsis:  Amalia's best friend, Martha, is moving away, and Amalia is feeling sad and angry.  And yet, even when life seems unfair, the loving, wise words of Amalia's abuelita have a way of making everything a little bit brighter.  Amalia finds great comfort in times shared with her grandmother: cooking, listening to stories and music, learning, and looking through her treasured box of family cards.

But when another loss racks Amalia's life, nothing makes sense anymore.  In her sorrow, will Amalia realize just how special she is, even when the ones she loves are no longer near?

from the book jacket

Review:  In this book, Amalia struggles with her feelings about her best friend, Martha, moving.  Her grandmother tries to help her but before Amalia can feel better a tragic event happens in Amalia's life.  Amalia's grandmother has always been a huge part of her life and someone who helped her with many things.  Amalia loved learning about her heritage through her grandmother's stories and baking.  This book was just too simple for me and was very flat.  Amalia was one dimensional as were the other characters.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Today Will Be Different

Today Will Be Different

Maria Semple

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): A genius novel from the author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette, about a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, forced to abandon her small ambitions when she awakes to a strange, new future unfolding.

Eleanor knows she's a mess. But today, she will tackle the little things. She will shower and get dressed. She will have her poetry and yoga lessons after dropping off her son, Timby. She won't swear. She will initiate sex with her husband, Joe. But before she can put her modest plan into action-life happens. Today, it turns out, is the day Timby has decided to fake sick to weasel his way into his mother's company. It's also the day Joe has chosen to tell his office-but not Eleanor-that he's on vacation. Just when it seems like things can't go more awry, an encounter with a former colleague produces a graphic memoir whose dramatic tale threatens to reveal a buried family secret.

TODAY WILL BE DIFFERENT is a hilarious, heart-filled story about reinvention, sisterhood, and how sometimes it takes facing up to our former selves to truly begin living.

Review: I had high expectations for this book because of how much I loved the author's first book, Where'd You Go, Bernadette?  Sadly, this book didn't live up to the hype.  Eleanor was a mostly unlikeable, spoiled and self-involved woman, which may have made for an interesting book if she wasn't also completely dull.  There were definitely a few funny parts in the book, but overall, I just didn't care for it.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Most Wanted

Most Wanted

by Lisa Scottoline

Genre: Mystery

Synopsis:  Donor 3319 Profile: Tall, blond, blue eyes.  Medical student.  Wanted for murder.

Christine Nilsson and her husband, Marcus, are desperate for a baby.  Unable to conceive, they find themselves facing a difficult choice they had never anticipated.  After many appointments with specialists, endless research, and countless conversations, they make the decision to use a donor.

Two months pass, and Christine is happily pregnant.  But one day, she is shocked to see a young blond man on the TV news being arrested for a series of brutal murders-and the blond man bears an undeniable and uncanny resemblance to her donor.

Delving deeper to uncover the truth, Christine must confront ad terrifying reality and ace her worst fears.  Riveting and fast-paced, with the depth of emotionality that has garnered Lisa Scottoline legions of fans, Most Wanted poses an ethical and moral dilemma: What would you do if the biological father of your unborn child was a killer?

from the book jacket

Review:  This book fell flat for me.  The characters were very flat and one-dimensional which lead me to not understand why characters acted the way that they did.  From the plot description I thought it would be a very interesting and engaging story and while I wanted to know whether the man accused of murder was the donor or not, I didn't really care for how the story progressed.  The whole story was quite unbelievable.  There was no motivation behind the murders even once we find out for sure who did it.  I've read one other book by Lisa Scottoline and while it was simplistic story it was enjoyable.  This one does not make me want to read another book by her.

Rating: 2 1/2 stars

The Virgin Blue

The Virgin Blue

by Tracy Chevalier

Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis:  Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin—two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family’s French ancestry. As the novel unfolds—alternating between Ella’s story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier—a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.
from GoodReads

Review:  I listened to this book in the car and I struggled with it a bit because there was so much French in it that never was translated into English.  If I had been reading the book, I could have looked some up on the internet and had it translated.  There seemed to be stanzas in French that were important to the story (one of the Psalms) and that I was missing out on.  I also had a problem with the book because Ella was looked down on so much by the French people in the small town in which she lived and it made me dislike the setting so much plus I didn't really like Ella's whining.  I was intrigued by the story of Isabelle and I wish that I could have just fast forwarded to the chapters about her.  Although even Isabelle's story slowed down in the middle.  There were a lot of details that I just didn't follow in the historical part but perhaps that is because I know absolutely nothing about the 1600s in France.  I feel that there could have been more explanation of what was going on but then I also felt that the story didn't move fast enough for me.  Towards the end, I thought I was going to have to abandon the book because of something horrible that I thought was going to happen.  I just couldn't handle what I thought was to come.  But something slightly different happened and it wasn't described at all so I wasn't as emotionally torn apart as I thought I would be.

Rating: 2 stars

The Other Daughter

The Other Daughter

by Lauren Willig

Genre: Historical fiction

Synopsis:  Raised in a poor yet genteel household, Rachel Woodley is working in France as a governess when she receives news that her mother has died, suddenly. Grief-stricken, she returns to the small town in England where she was raised to clear out the cottage...and finds a cutting from a London society magazine, with a photograph of her supposedly deceased father dated all of three month before. He's an earl, respected and influential, and he is standing with another daughter-his legitimate daughter. Which makes Rachel...not legitimate. Everything she thought she knew about herself and her past-even her very name-is a lie.

Still reeling from the death of her mother, and furious at this betrayal, Rachel sets herself up in London under a new identity. There she insinuates herself into the party-going crowd of Bright Young Things, with a steely determination to unveil her father's perfidy and bring his-and her half-sister's-charmed world crashing down. Very soon, however, Rachel faces two unexpected snags: she finds she genuinely likes her half-sister, Olivia, whose situation isn't as simple it appears; and she might just be falling for her sister's fiancé...

from GoodReads

Review:  I found this book on the new audiobook section at my library and was intrigued by the premise not realizing that I had added it to my to-read list a year and a half ago!  As I started listening to the book, I was trying to figure out if I really cared.  Rachel seemed to be whiny, immature, and demanding of other people.  I also thought that some of the events and attitudes did not seem to fit with the time of the book but perhaps I just don't know what England society was like in the 1920s.  Sometimes I thought I was back in the 1800s in England.  There was not enough story to make this book move along quickly.  Once you get to the end, the story changes to be a romance and there was really nothing leading up to the end that would make you think the Rachel was romantically involved with someone.  Everything didn't connect in this story for me.

Rating: 2 stars

Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?

Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?

Lisa Scottoline & Francesca Serritella

Genre: Memoir - Humor

Summary (from Goodreads): The unstoppable, irreverent mother-daughter team presents a new collection of funny stories and true confessions that every woman can relate to. From identity theft to the hazards of bicycling to college reunions and eating on the beach, Lisa and Francesca tackle the quirks, absurdities, and wonders of everyday life with wit and warmth. As Lisa says, "More and more, especially in the summertime when I'm sitting on the beach, I'm learning not to sweat it. To go back to the child that I used to be. To see myself through the loving eyes of my parents. To eat on the beach. And not to worry about whether every little thing makes me look fat. In fact, not to worry at all."


So put aside your worries and join Lisa and Francesca as they navigate their way through the crazy world we live in, laughing along the way.

Review: I would never have picked this book up, but it was recommended by the adult services librarian when I went to ask for a good book to read (after she had suggested about 30 that I had already read).  Each chapter is very short, I believe reprinted from a newspaper column that both women write for, written by either Lisa or Francesca.  I suppose I should have suspected this would be the case, given the title, but too many of the chapters dealt with food or body image for my liking - I had been hoping that the title was just designed to catch your eye, and that most of the book would be unrelated.  While I recognized myself in some of the articles, I didn't have much in common with the twenty-something woman with dating woes or the fifty-something twice-divorced woman with no love life and a dying mother.  And I didn't find very much of the book funny.  I guess I just am not the target audience for these writers.

Rating: 2 stars

The Chocolate Cupid Killings

The Chocolate Cupid Killings

Joanna Carl

Genre: Mystery

Summary (from Goodreads): Ninth in the scrumptious-and national bestselling-Chocoholic Mystery series. 

TenHuis Chocolade is wall-to- wall with chocolate hearts for Valentine's Day. But Lee is getting no love from Private Detective Derrick Valentine. He's looking for their employee-a woman Lee and her Aunt Nettie have been harboring for an underground railroad-type organization that aids abused women. Luckily, they manage to not spill the cocoa beans and clue him in. But the situation becomes a complex confection when Valentine meets his end. And it's Aunt Nettie who becomes a suspect. Lee will have to find a way to free Nettie of guilt without exposing the innocent-and find a killer with a bitter heart that's definitely not made of chocolate...

Review: I was working on puzzles with Nathaniel in the children's section of the library, and Amelia wandered over saying she had picked out all her books.  So I sent her over the adult fiction section of the library and told her to pick out a few books for me to read.  She seemed unsure about how to pick out books for me, so I told her to grab ones that had interesting titles or covers or plots on the back of the book.  This is one of the ones that she chose for me (and the only one that I finished - the others were not my style at all!)  There's the long explanation for why I read this particular book.

This cozy mystery is clearly part of a series, and while the beginning of the book gave pertinent background information, there were definitely things I felt like I had missed because of not reading the first eight books in the series.  It was interesting enough, but a little confusing (perhaps because of all the characters, who would be well-known to readers of the series).  I was mostly mystified as to why Lee felt like she needed to solve all these mysteries herself without police assistance.

Rating: 2 stars

Wedding Season

Wedding Season

by Darcy Cosper

Genre: Chick Lit

Synopsis: Joy Silverman and her boyfriend, Gabriel Winslow, seem perfect for each other.  Living together in New York City, they have everything they want and everything in common-most important, that neither one wants to get married.  Ever.

But when Joy finds herself obligated to attend seventeen weddings in six months (including those of her father, mother, younger brother, and five of her closest girlfriends), the couple is forced to take a new look at why they're so opposed to marriage when the rest of the world can't wait to walk down the aisle.  As the season heats up and the pressure mounts, Joy must confront what it means-and what it costs-to be true to one's self.

from the back of the book

Review:  I have not been in a read mood lately and I thought that lighter chick lit books might help me start reading again so I picked up this book at the library just by looking at a random shelf (alphabetical order-letter C) and knew nothing about it.  It did get me reading again but then part way through the book I stopped to read another book and I thought about not even finishing this book because I just wasn't that interested in what happened to Joy.  Joy had 17 weddings to attend in six months but that just made the book repetitive and uninteresting.  The author does try to make each wedding different and more interesting by creating a huge variety in the cast of characters but then the characters come off as caricatures of a culture.  Joy has quite the mix of friends!  Joy is adamant that she does not want to get married and she does not believe in marriage.  Her beliefs are tested while so many of her friends tie the knot.  What happens later in the book didn't fit with what we learned about Joy and the ending leaves us unsatisfied.  While I wouldn't say that I didn't like the book, this book was just blah.

Rating: 2.5 stars

The Nest

The Nest

by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis: Every family has its problems.  But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional.  Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger.  The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, "The Nest," which they are but months away from finally receiving.  Meant by their now-deceased father to be a modest midlife supplement, The Nest's value has unexpectedly soared along with the stock market, and the Plumb siblings have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.

Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and two looming college tuitions for her twin teenage daughters.  Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open.  And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can't seem to finish her overdue novel.

Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love?  Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they've envisioned?  Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.

from the book jacket

Review:  I am not sure how this book got so much hype.  It is uninteresting, lacks a plot that moves somewhere, and has unlikable characters.  If I had not been reading it for a book club, I would have abandoned it after the first several chapters because those chapters only focus on describing the characters who I found to be petty and self absorbed.  All they worry about is the money that they know will be coming to them and how to get the money back from Leo.  They seem to have no concern for anyone in their family but themselves.  The book gets slightly better over half way through the book which is why I did not rate this a 1 star book.  The f word is used over and over again in this book which was completely unnecessary.

Rating: 2 stars

Endgame: Sky Key

Endgame: Sky Key

by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Synopsis:  Endgame is here. Earth Key has been found. Two keys—and nine Players—remain. The keys must be found, and only one Player can win.

Queens, New York. Aisling Kopp believes the unthinkable: that Endgame can be stopped. But before she can get home to regroup, she is approached by the CIA. They know about Endgame. And they have their own ideas about how it should be Played. Ideas that could change everything.

Kingdom of Aksum, Ethiopia. Hilal ibn Isa al-Salt narrowly survived an attack that leaves him horribly disfigured. He now knows something the other Players do not. But the Aksumites have a secret that is unique to their line. A secret that can help redeem humanity—and maybe even be used to help defeat the beings behind Endgame.

London, England. Sarah Alopay has found the first key. She is with Jago—and they are winning.But getting Earth Key has come at a great cost to Sarah. The only thing that keeps the demons at bay is Playing. Playing to win.

Sky Key—wherever it is, whatever it is—is next. And the nine remaining Players will stop at nothing to get it. 

from GoodReads

Review:  After reading the first book in this series, I had to continue because I wanted to know what happened after Earth Key was found.  This book was long and wordy.  The authors are so set on putting a puzzle in the book for someone to solve that they give up making the book fluid.  There were so many precise numbers that had no bearing on the story and got in the way.  There were so many times that I rolled my eyes with the exaggerated strength and speed.  It was just way too much.  This book could have been cut in half and just included the story of the Players trying to figure out what and where Sky Key was.  In fact, the more I think about it, there wasn't even that much of a story here.  It was mainly all action.  This book definitely could have been cut way down.  Am I going to read the third book?  Yes because I have a hard time not finishing a story.

Rating: 2.5 stars

To see my review of Endgame: The Calling, click here.

The Love Goddess' Cooking School

The Love Goddess' Cooking School

Melissa Senate

Genre: Chick Lit

Summary (from Goodreads): Camilla’s Cucinotta: Italian Cooking Classes. Fresh take-home pastas & sauces daily Benvenuti! (Welcome!)

Holly Maguire’s grandmother Camilla was the Love Goddess of Blue Crab Island, Maine—a Milanese fortune-teller who could predict the right man for you, and whose Italian cooking was rumored to save marriages. Holly has been waiting years for her unlikely fortune: her true love will like sa cordula, an unappetizing old-world delicacy. But Holly can’t make a decent marinara sauce, let alone sa cordula. Maybe that’s why the man she hopes to marry breaks her heart. So when Holly inherits Camilla’s Cucinotta, she’s determined to forget about fortunes and love and become an Italian cooking teacher worthy of her grandmother’s legacy.

But Holly’s four students are seeking much more than how to make Camilla’s chicken alla Milanese. Simon, a single father, hopes to cook his way back into his daughter’s heart. Juliet, Holly’s childhood friend, hides a painful secret. Tamara, a serial dater, can’t find the love she longs for. And twelve-year-old Mia thinks learning to cook will stop her dad, Liam, from marrying his phony lasagna-queen girlfriend. As the class gathers each week, adding Camilla’s essential ingredients of wishes and memories in every pot and pan, unexpected friendships and romances are formed—and tested. Especially when Holly falls hard for Liam...and learns a thing or two about finding her own recipe for happiness.

Review: I was hoping this book would be more in the women's fiction genre, but it turned out to be total chick lit, and I think I'm just old to appreciate chick lit now.  The characters were formulaic, the plot predictable, and the romance too cheesy.  I was especially frustrated by the fact that Holly, who admitted she didn't know how to cook, was able to take over her grandmother's business and cooking school after practicing for what, two weeks?  Completely unbelievable.

Rating: 2 stars

The Crown

The Crown

by Kiera Cass

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Dystopian Fiction

Synopsis:  When Eadlyn became the first princess of Illéa to hold her own Selection, she didn’t think she would fall in love with any of her thirty-five suitors. She spent the first few weeks of the competition counting down the days until she could send them all home. But as events at the palace force Eadlyn even further into the spotlight, she realizes that she might not be content remaining alone.

Eadlyn still isn’t sure she’ll find the fairytale ending her parents did twenty years ago. But sometimes the heart has a way of surprising you…and soon Eadlyn must make a choice that feels more impossible—and more important—than she ever imagined.

from GoodReads

Review:  Since I read the other 4 books in this series, I found that I had to read the conclusion to the series.  This book was cheesy.  Really, really cheesy.  I read the first couple as guilty pleasure reads but this one was just too much.  Either I overlooked the writing style in the other books or this one is much more poorly written.  I still didn't like Eadlyn.  She is flat and unrealistic (I know that princess stories are not mean to be realistic but she was just too unbelievable).  The men in the Selection were too good to be true.  Everyone seemed to fawn over Eadlyn and I just didn't understand why.  I would recommend not reading this series past The One.  Stop with America's and Maxom's ending.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Life Without Summer

Life Without Summer

by Lynne Griffin

Genre: Women's Fiction

Synopsis:  Tessa Gray's life changes forever when she loses her four-year-old daughter, Abby, in a hit-and-run accident outside her preschool.  Once a vivacious, joyful mother and wife, Tessa now spends her days holed up in Abby's room, sleeping in her bed, clutching Abby's Tootsie Rabbit stuffed animal-anything to keep her memories close.  As Tessa grapples with a terrible grief, made worse by the police's insistence that the case is unsolvable, she finds solace in Celia Reed, the therapist her husband pushed her to see, and in the journal she's keeping, where she compulsively counts the "days without Abby" and maps out her plan for catching the driver who tore her family apart.

As Celia struggles to keep Tessa from getting caught up in a bleak crusade for answers, she finds that their sessions open the door to emotions that she's spent years ignoring, forcing her to face the rising tensions in her life-her troubled teenage son, her alcoholic ex-husband, and her fragile new marriage.  Celia begins to realize that she must come to terms with the tragic mistakes of her past and the choices that have led her family to their own brink of destruction.

from the book jacket

Review:  The first third of this book was uninteresting.  The characters were one-dimensional, flat, and mainly unlikable, Celia's new husband being the worst of them and sadly, he does not improve at all in the book.  I have some words that I would like to use to describe him but they aren't nice words so I will refrain.  He causes so many problems in Celia's relationship with her ex-husband and son.   Honestly, I think he could have been left out of the book.

I kept reading because I really wanted to know how Celia and Tessa were connected, in a way beyond therapist-client, who ran Abby down, and what the title had to do with the book (that was not self explanatory).  Once Tessa started doing more than just grieving, the book picked up.  The story is supposedly journal entries written by Tessa and Celia but they don't seem to be journal entries-the sections lack emotions and are much more like prose than something that a character would have written.  The ending is predictable.

Rating:  2.5 stars

The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

Mary Simses

Genre: Chick Lit

Summary (from Goodreads): A high-powered Manhattan attorney finds love, purpose, and the promise of a simpler life in her grandmother's hometown. 

Ellen Branford is going to fulfill her grandmother's dying wish--to find the hometown boy she once loved, and give him her last letter. Ellen leaves Manhattan and her Kennedy-esque fiance for Beacon, Maine. What should be a one-day trip is quickly complicated when she almost drowns in the chilly bay and is saved by a local carpenter. The rescue turns Ellen into something of a local celebrity, which may or may not help her unravel the past her grandmother labored to keep hidden. As she learns about her grandmother and herself, it becomes clear that a 24-hour visit to Beacon may never be enough. THE IRRESISTIBLE BLUEBERRY BAKESHOP & CAFE is a warm and delicious debut about the power of a simpler life.

Review: The title of this book is deceptive; it is NOT about a bakeshop and cafe.  Instead, it's a story of an accident prone young woman who keeps getting herself into unlikely situations and developing more and more ridiculous lies about her life.  I could just see her digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole, and I tend to really dislike that type of character and plot.  But that is just something quirky about me.

This book had an interesting premise, a lovable cast of small-town characters, and a satisfying sense of the main character discovering her true self.  It just happened a little too quickly and a little too predictably for my taste.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Somebody I Used to Know

Somebody I Used to Know

David Bell

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): When Nick Hansen sees the young woman at the grocery store, his heart stops. She is the spitting image of his college girlfriend, Marissa Minor, who died in a campus house fire twenty years earlier. But when Nick tries to speak to her, she acts skittish and rushes off.

The next morning the police arrive at Nick’s house and show him a photo of the woman from the store. She’s been found dead, murdered in a local motel, with Nick’s name and address on a piece of paper in her pocket.

Convinced there's a connection between the two women, Nick enlists the help of his college friend Laurel Davidson to investigate the events leading up to the night of Marissa’s death. But the young woman’s murder is only the beginning...and the truths Nick uncovers may make him wish he never doubted the lies.

Review: This book didn't hold my attention like I hoped it would.  While I was initially intrigued by the mystery surrounding the young woman, I found the main character a bit boring, and the plot twists too contrived to be realistic.  Perhaps the main character dwelt too much in the past, making it difficult to get a sense of him as a 40 year old man.

Rating: 2.5 stars

The Cranes Dance

The Cranes Dance

by Meg Howrey

Genre: Fiction

Synopsis: Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company, is struggling to keep her place in a demanding world, a world she can't help satirizing even as she balances injury and self-doubt to maintain her place within in.  At every turn she is haunted by her close relationship with her younger sister, Gwen, a fellow company dancer whose career quickly surpassed Kate's but who has recently suffered a breakdown and returned home to Michigan.  Alone for the first time, Kate is anxious and full of guilt about her role she played in her sister's collapse.  As we follow her on an insider tour of rehearsals, performances, and partners onstage and off, she confronts the tangle of love, jealousy, pride, and obsession that are beginning to fracture her own sanity.  Funny, dark, intimate, and unflinchingly honest, this book pulls back the curtains to reveal the private lives of dancers and explores the complicated bond between sisters.
from the back of the book

Review:  I listened to this as an audiobook so my review and rating of this book are also based upon the narrator of the story.  The first two chapters of this book are Kate's cattiness about the ballet and it made her seem really bitchy and ungrateful. The beginning was boring and there seemed to be no plot except for Kate complaining and making fun of the ballet.  Luckily the plot picked up in the third chapter but it still didn't move very quickly.  There were a lot of looking back and reflecting on what Kate could have done or should have done in regards to her sister, Gwen.  Kate's mental state is questionable throughout the book and it made me wonder if she herself was the one who had the breakdown.  Unfortunately, the book doesn't pick up that much and the plot goes nowhere until the very end of the book.  The book was somewhat interesting but also a little dull.  There was also enough vulgarity and profanity in this book that it made me cringe a bit at times.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Wave

Wave

by Sonali Deraniyagala

Genre: Memoir

Synopsis:  On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived. In this brave and searingly frank memoir, she describes those first horrifying moments and her long journey since. She has written an engrossing, unsentimental, beautifully poised account: as she struggles through the first months following the tragedy, furiously clenched against a reality that she cannot face and cannot deny; and then, over the ensuing years, as she emerges reluctantly, slowly allowing her memory to take her back through the rich and joyous life she’s mourning, from her family’s home in London, to the birth of her children, to the year she met her English husband at Cambridge, to her childhood in Colombo; all the while learning the difficult balance between the almost unbearable reminders of her loss and the need to keep her family, somehow, still alive within her. 
from GoodReads

Review:  I feel heartless saying this but I didn't really feel anything for the author and her tragic situation.  I cannot even fathom the grief that she has felt from losing her entire family: her husband, children and parents but the author somehow did not evoke any emotions in me.  I felt like the book was a bit robotic and I wanted so much more.  The book was basically a reflection of her life with her family before the tsunami and how empty her life was after it.  Perhaps writing was cathartic for her (at least I hope it was) and she needed to express these stories in writing but it didn't make for a good book.  I would have liked to hear that her emotional state was improving and that she was finally able to look forward but that wasn't there after seven years.  My rating has nothing to do with the experience the author had, it is in the writing style.

Rating: 2 stars