Before Green Gables

Before Green Gables

Budge Wilson

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): A must-read for generations of book lovers. This remarkable, and heart-warming prequel to the classic Anne of Green Gables was specially authorized by L.M. Montgomery's heirs to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of the original novel.

Before Green Gables is the story of Anne Shirley's life before her arrival at Green Gables-a heartwarming tale of a precocious child whose lively imagination and relentless spirit help her to overcome difficult circumstances and of a young girl's ability to love, learn, and above all, dream.

Published in 1908, L. M. Montgomery's coming-of-age classic Anne of Green Gables has enchanted generations of readers, both children and adults. The story of the spunky red-haired orphan from Prince Edward Island is known to millions, and copies of the eight titles in the series have never gone out of print.

But when readers first meet Anne, she is eleven, and has just been sent from an orphanage to meet her new family. No one ever learned the events of Anne's life before she arrived at Green Gables.

Until now.

For the millions of readers who devoured the Green Gables series, Before Green Gables is an irresistible treat; the account of how one of literature's most beloved heroines became the girl who captivated the world.

Review: I enjoyed this story of Anne's young childhood, but it was missing some of the magic inherent in L.M. Montgomery's writing.  The author clearly did her research into Anne's early life as described in the Anne of Green Gables series, and she even worked in the history of some of Anne's little quirks, like her wonderful vocabulary.  I felt that the 3 or 4 year old Anne was completely unrealistic, though.  Could a precocious child of that age handle that much responsibility, even a hundred years ago, and would she have the grasp of language to talk in such a manner as Anne did in this book?  I sincerely doubt it.  The emphasis on Anne falling in love with Prince Edward Island also seemed like a bit of a stretch, but that's a minor complaint.  Overall, when I finished this book, I was so caught up in Anne's life that I dug out my Anne books from a box in the basement and read the first four in the series over the weekend.  So despite my complaints, the author must have done a nice job bringing Anne to life.

Rating: 3 stars

The Orchardist

The Orchardist

by Amanda Coplin

Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis:  At the turn of the twentieth century, in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a reclusive orchardist, William Talmadge, tends to apples and apricots as if they were loved ones. A gentle man, he's found solace in the sweetness of the fruit he grows and the quiet, beating heart of the land he cultivates. One day, two teenage girls appear and steal his fruit at the market; they later return to the outskirts of his orchard to see the man who gave them no chase.

Feral, scared, and very pregnant, the girls take up on Talmadge's land and indulge in his deep reservoir of compassion. Just as the girls begin to trust him, men arrive in the orchard with guns, and the shattering tragedy that follows will set Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect them but also to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past.

Transcribing America as it once was before railways and roads connected its corners, Amanda Coplin weaves a tapestry of solitary souls who come together in the wake of unspeakable cruelty and misfortune. She writes with breathtaking precision and empathy, and in The Orchardist she crafts an astonishing debut novel about a man who disrupts the lonely harmony of an ordered life when he opens his heart and lets the world in.

Review:  This was a well written book but just not a book for me.  I read the whole thing because I was curious about where it was going but I didn't like it.  The descriptions of people and places are amazingly well detailed and very poetic.  All of the characters were keep to themselves kind of people and they didn't talk hardly at all.  That means that there was virtually no dialogue and I missed it.  From the book description, I would have expected most of the story to take place while the two young girls show up at Talmadge's place.  But that is not the case, the story spans about 16 years.  The book was unnecessarily long.  I don't understand the main character (Talmadge)'s motivation to try to keep track of Della long past when she left the orchard and his obsession with trying to help her.  The characters didn't appeal to me.  There was a part to the story that was really disturbing and hard to get past-I almost abandoned it right then but something made me keep reading.  I did want to find out what happened to the characters and was hopeful that they would redeem themselves or make changes for the better but I don't think that happened.

Rating: 2 stars

The Buddha in the Attic

The Buddha in the Attic

by Julie Otsuka

Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis:  Julie Otsuka’s long-awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divineis a tour de force of economy and precision, a novel that tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” nearly a century ago.

In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the picture brides’ extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war.

In language that has the force and the fury of poetry, Julie Otsuka has written a singularly spellbinding novel about the American dream.

Review: I had such a hard time getting into this book.  I was so thrown off by the "we" narration.  There were no single characters in this book.  Everything talked about we and our.  So when the author wrote the section about giving birth there were sentences such as "One of us gave birth in the fields.  Another one of us gave birth..."  (Those aren't quotes from the book, they are similar to what I remember).  Towards the middle of the book (which is only about 95 pages), I did get into the plural narration but I still longed for stories of a few of the characters.  I couldn't get a feel for how many women were in the story.  I saw a review on GoodReads that called this book a combination of a poem and a novella and once I saw that I understood the perspective better and I liked it better.  But if you are looking at it as a novel, it leaves much to be desired.

Rating: 3 stars

Cold City

Cold City

F. Paul Wilson

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads):  The first of three Repairman Jack prequels, revealing the past of one of the most popular characters in contemporary dark fantasy: a self-styled “fix-it” man who is no stranger to the macabre or the supernatural, hired by victimized people who have no one else to turn to.

We join Jack a few months after his arrival in New York City. He doesn’t own a gun yet, though he’s already connected with Abe. Soon he’ll meet Julio and the Mikulski brothers. He runs afoul of some Dominicans, winds up at the East Side Marriott the night Meir Kahane is shot, gets on the bad side of some Arabs, starts a hot affair, and disrupts the smuggling of preteen sex slaves. And that’s just Book One.

Review: I was so excited to discover this new author, who has written quite a few novels about this character named Repairman Jack.  This book is a prequel to his other novels, so I know there will be lots of other books to read, and in fact I've already checked out another of his books from the library.  The character reminds me a little of Jack Reacher, in that he solves other people's problems in clever ways, but there's a lot more descriptions of violence in this book.  This book is the first in a prequel trilogy, and my biggest complaint about it is that it didn't have an ending.  AT ALL.  There was no cliffhanger, it just stopped, making me wish I could pick up the next book and start reading it immediately to learn how the stories end.  And the next book isn't due out for a while.  I hate it when authors do that.

Rating: 4 stars

The Survivor

The Survivor

Gregg Hurwitz

Genre: Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads):  One morning in Los Angeles, Nate Overbay—a divorced former solider suffering from PTSD and slowly dying from ALS — goes to an eleventh-floor bank, climbs out of the bathroom window onto the ledge, and gets ready to end it all. But as he’s steeling himself, a crew of robbers bursts into the bank and begins to viciously shoot employees and customers. With nothing to lose, Nate confronts the robbers, taking them out one-by-one. The last man standing leaves Nate with a cryptic warning.

Nate soon learns what that message meant. He is kidnapped by Pavlo, a savage Russian mobster and mastermind of the failed heist. Unable to break back into the bank to get the critical item inside, Pavlo gives Nate an ultimatum—break in and get what he needs or watch Pavlo slowly kill the one thing Nate loves most—his ex-wife Janie and his teenaged daughter Cielle—both lost when he came back from Iraq broken and confused. Now he’s got one last chance to protect the people he loves, even if it’s the last thing he is able to do.

Review: This is the first book I've read by this author, and I will definitely be checking out his other books.  It's an action packed thriller with sympathetic characters, realistic dialogue, little snippets of comedy, and even some feel-good relationship moments.  Sure, there were moments when the action felt too over-the-top made-for-a-movie-ish,  and times when the teenage daughter and her boyfriend were annoying.  And, from the beginning, you can tell that there's no way to have an entirely happy ending.  But all in all, it was a very entertaining, fast-paced, easy to read book.

Rating: 4 stars

The Inn at Rose Harbor

The Inn at Rose Harbor

Debbie Macomber

Genre: Women's Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  From #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber comes a heartwarming new series based in the Pacific Northwest town of Cedar Cove, where a charming cast of characters finds love, forgiveness, and renewal behind the doors of the cozy Rose Harbor Inn.

Jo Marie Rose first arrives in Cedar Cove seeking a sense of peace and a fresh start. Coping with the death of her husband, she purchases a local bed-and-breakfast—the newly christened Rose Harbor Inn—ready to begin her life anew. Yet the inn holds more surprises than Jo Marie can imagine.

Her first guest is Joshua Weaver, who has come home to care for his ailing stepfather. The two have never seen eye to eye, and Joshua has little hope that they can reconcile their differences. But a long-lost acquaintance from Joshua’s high school days proves to him that forgiveness is never out of reach and love can bloom even where it’s least expected.  

The other guest is Abby Kincaid, who has returned to Cedar Cove to attend her brother’s wedding. Back for the first time in twenty years, she almost wishes she hadn’t come, the picturesque town harboring painful memories from her past. And while Abby reconnects with family and old friends, she realizes she can only move on if she truly allows herself to let go.

A touching novel of life’s grand possibilities and the heart’s ability to heal, The Inn at Rose Harbor is a welcome introduction to an unforgettable set of friends.

Review: This is a typical Debbie Macomber book - a gentle little story about family dynamics that is easy to read and has a happy ending.  Sometimes I'm in the mood for that kind of a book, and Debbie Macomber usually satisfies.  This book, however, left me feeling a little disgruntled.  I understand the desire to bring back characters from her Cedar Cove stories; I've read some of those books, and wouldn't mind an update on what the characters are doing now.  But so many of them made appearances in slightly awkward ways, and I found it hard to believe that friendships would develop so quickly between those old Cedar Cove friends and a new-to-town stranger.  But most importantly, the two guests experience dramatic changes in their viewpoints on life over a single long weekend, and I found the timeframe completely unrealistic.  Since the point of this new series is to see how guests change during short stays at a bed and breakfast, I would expect that all future books in this series would have the same problem.  It just doesn't work for me.

Rating: 2 stars

Family Tree

Family Tree

Barbara Delinksy

Genre: Women's Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads):  For as long as she can remember, Dana Clarke has longed for the stability of home and family. Now she has married a man she adores, whose heritage can be traced back to the Mayflower, and she is about to give birth to their first child. But what should be the happiest day of her life becomes the day her world falls apart. Her daughter is born beautiful and healthy, and in addition, unmistakably African-American in appearance. Dana’s determination to discover the truth about her baby’s heritage becomes a shocking, poignant journey. A superbly crafted novel, Family Tree asks penetrating questions about family and the choices people make in times of crisis.

Review:  I generally like Delinsky's books for what they are, and I'll classify that as chick lit for moms.  This book had an interesting premise, but didn't live up to my expectations for many reasons.  The thing that bothered me most is that when the mother thought she had a great-grandparent who was part African American (giving her a heritage that was 1/16th African American) she immediately questioned who she really was, telling her family that she is now an African American.  Really?  Would suddenly finding out you are 1/16th of any nationality at all really make much of a difference in how you view yourself or how you live your life?  I don't think so.  And shouldn't the concern here be focused on how the child's looks will affect her life?  Also, the controversy between husband and wife about genetic testing was unbelievable; the husband's refusal to discuss it logically with his wife made me MAD.  I also questioned whether Delinsky had every been around a newborn, given the ease with which the mother suddenly took over a yarn store and care of an elderly relative, while toting around a newborn baby.  I frequently reread some of Delinsky's earlier novels that have sympathetic characters, strong and believable dialogue, and discuss family issues, but this one I will donate to Goodwill.

Rating: 2 stars