My Name is Leon

My Name is Leon

Kit de Waal

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): For fans of The Language of Flowers, a sparkling, big-hearted, page-turning debut set in the 1970s about a young black boy’s quest to reunite with his beloved white half-brother after they are separated in foster care.

Leon loves chocolate bars, Saturday morning cartoons, and his beautiful, golden-haired baby brother. When Jake is born, Leon pokes his head in the crib and says, “I’m your brother. Big brother. My. Name. Is. Leon. I am eight and three quarters. I am a boy.” Jake will play with no one but Leon, and Leon is determined to save him from any pain and earn that sparkling baby laugh every chance he can.

But Leon isn’t in control of this world where adults say one thing and mean another, and try as he might he can’t protect his little family from everything. When their mother falls victim to her inner demons, strangers suddenly take Jake away; after all, a white baby is easy to adopt, while a half-black nine-year-old faces a less certain fate. Vowing to get Jake back by any means necessary, Leon’s own journey—on his brand-new BMX bike—will carry him through the lives of a doting but ailing foster mother, Maureen; Maureen’s cranky and hilarious sister, Sylvia; a social worker Leon knows only as “The Zebra”; and a colorful community of local gardeners and West Indian political activists.

Told through the perspective of nine-year-old Leon, too innocent to entirely understand what has happened to him and baby Jake, but determined to do what he can to make things right, he stubbornly, endearingly struggles his way through a system much larger than he can tackle on his own. My Name Is Leon is a vivid, gorgeous, and uplifting story about the power of love, the unbreakable bond between brothers, and the truth about what, in the end, ultimately makes a family.

Review: Written from the perspective of an eight year old boy, this novel brought to life the harsh realities faced by a biracial boy abandoned by his mother and sent to foster care in the 1980s.  Leon's voice is pure and authentic and brought me to tears several times throughout the novel.  The story starts with Leon taking care of his baby brother Jake while his mother battles mental health issues and drug addiction.  Leon is broken-hearted when the boys are sent to foster care, but he quickly adjusts to a relatively happy life with Maureen, his doting foster mother, until Jake gets adopted and Leon is left alone.  Leon doesn't understand everything that happens to him, but the author captures his confusion and his love for his brother and his desire to bring his family together again in an authentic and remarkable way.  It was impossible not to fall in love with Leon.

Rating: 4.5 stars

The Survivor's Guide to Family Happiness

The Survivor's Guide to Family Happiness

Maddie Dawson

Genre: Women's Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): Three women, three lives, and one chance to become a family…whether they want to or not.

Newly orphaned, recently divorced, and semiadrift, Nina Popkin is on a search for her birth mother. She’s spent her life looking into strangers’ faces, fantasizing they’re related to her, and now, at thirty-five, she’s ready for answers.

Meanwhile, the last thing Lindy McIntyre wants is someone like Nina bursting into her life, announcing that they’re sisters and campaigning to track down their mother. She’s too busy with her successful salon, three children, beautiful home, and…oh yes, some pesky little anxiety attacks.

But Nina is determined to reassemble her birth family. Her search turns up Phoebe Mullen, a guarded, hard-talking woman convinced she has nothing to offer. Gradually sharing stories and secrets, the three women make for a messy, unpredictable family that looks nothing like Nina pictured…but may be exactly what she needs. Nina’s moving, ridiculous, tragic, and transcendent journey becomes a love story proving that real family has nothing to do with DNA.

Review: A feel good story about a woman who finds her birth mother and sister and manages to bring them together to build an unusual new family.  It had a few too-good-to-be-true moments, and Nina's attitude was a little too Pollyanna-ish to seem real, but it was an enjoyable and comfortable read.  I will look for other books by this author, because her writing style made me think that I could be friends with her characters.

Rating: 4 stars

Pretty Girls

Pretty Girls

Karin Slaughter

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Summary (from Goodreads): #1 internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter returns with a sophisticated and chilling psychological thriller of dangerous secrets, cold vengeance, and unexpected absolution, in which two estranged sisters must come together to find truth about two harrowing tragedies, twenty years apart, that devastate their lives.

Sisters. Strangers. Survivors.

More than twenty years ago, Claire and Lydia's teenaged sister Julia vanished without a trace. The two women have not spoken since, and now their lives could not be more different. Claire is the glamorous trophy wife of an Atlanta millionaire. Lydia, a single mother, dates an ex-con and struggles to make ends meet. But neither has recovered from the horror and heartbreak of their shared loss—a devastating wound that's cruelly ripped open when Claire's husband is killed.

The disappearance of a teenage girl and the murder of a middle-aged man, almost a quarter-century apart: what could connect them? Forming a wary truce, the surviving sisters look to the past to find the truth, unearthing the secrets that destroyed their family all those years ago . . . and uncovering the possibility of redemption, and revenge, where they least expect it.

Powerful, poignant, and utterly gripping, packed with indelible characters and unforgettable twists, Pretty Girls is a masterful thriller from one of the finest suspense writers working today.

Review: Wow, this was a seriously creepy and disturbing psychological thriller!  I picked it up solely because it was on the top 5 list of a Goodreads Listopia list that I've been voting on - What Women Born in the 1970s Have Read So Far This Year.  All I can say is that women born in the 1970s must have a lot higher tolerance for gruesome violence than I do.  I was immediately drawn into the story; the author has an easy to read style that quickly brings the characters to life.  But I found myself having to skip paragraphs because I couldn't handle the graphic descriptions of unimaginable torture and rape.  I read it all the way to the end because I HAD to find out what happened, but overall, it was just too much for me.

Rating: 3 stars

Keep Me Posted

Keep Me Posted

Lisa Beazley

Genre: Women's Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): Two sisters share the surprising highs and cringe-worthy lows of social media fame, when their most private thoughts become incredibly public in this fresh and funny debut novel.

Sisters Cassie and Sid Sunday have not done a bang-up job of keeping in touch. In their defense, it hasn’t been easy: life veered in sharply different directions for the once-close sisters. Today, beautiful and big-hearted Sid lives an expat’s life of leisure in far-off Singapore, while harried, iPhone-clutching Cassie can’t seem to make it work as a wife and a mom to twin toddlers in Manhattan.

It doesn't help that Sid spurns all social media while Cassie is addicted to Facebook. So when Sid issues a challenge to reconnect the old-fashioned way—through real, handwritten letters—Cassie figures, why not?

The experiment exceeds both of their expectations, and the letters become a kind of mutual confessional that have real and soul-satisfying effects. And they just might have the power to help Cassie save her marriage, and give Sid the strength to get her life back on track.

But first, one of Cassie’s infamous lapses in judgment comes back to bite her, and all of the letters wind up the one place you’d never, ever want to see them: the Internet...

Review: I am tired of books about women in Manhattan looking down on everyone who doesn't live in Manhattan.  That wasn't the focus of this book, of course, which was about a disorganized and whiny SAHM NYC mom handwriting letters to her sophisticated ex-pat sister who lives in Singapore.  But every so often, Cassie would shoot off these one liners about fat tourists from flyover country that would make me so mad.  Her superior point of view didn't add to the story (other than making her sound even more selfish and pretentious than she already was) so why bother to include them?  Is the author trying to alienate women who don't live in Manhattan?  Seems like that would give her a pretty small reader base...

Anyway, that quibble aside, the premise of this book was interesting, and I enjoyed seeing the sisters connect through the hand written letter they mailed each other, which allowed themselves to express their innermost thoughts with an honesty that was missing in their other everyday communications.  However, I found it impossible to like Cassie, given that she is a stay at home mom with a part time nanny, who has the time and money to take yoga and get pedicures every week, and who has no problem shopping for an entirely new wardrobe online just because she feels like it.  If she acted grateful for all these luxuries, that may have been different, but she constantly whines about her life.  I also didn't really buy into the huge drama about her letters going viral - would that really have happened?  No.  Would that have been a big deal in anyone's life?   Probably not.  

Rating: 3 stars

Salt to the Sea

Salt to the Sea

Ruta Sepetys

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): Winter, 1945. Four teenagers. Four secrets.

Each one born of a different homeland; each one hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies…and war.

As thousands of desperate refugees flock to the coast in the midst of a Soviet advance, four paths converge, vying for passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom.

Yet not all promises can be kept.

Inspired by the single greatest tragedy in maritime history, bestselling and award-winning author Ruta Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray) lifts the veil on a shockingly little-known casualty of World War II. An illuminating and life-affirming tale of heart and hope.

Review: It was fascinating to learn more about the little known Lithuanian refugees during World War II; I always appreciate a book that teaches me something new about history while telling a compelling story.  I was astonished to learn that this book was based on the true story of the largest maritime disaster of all time; the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, which I had never even heard of.  The author has clearly done lots of research about the subject, and managed to bring the story to life in a gripping and tragic way.

However, I had a heard time connecting with the characters, possibly due to the narrative jumping around quickly between the four different narrators.  In the beginning, it was even hard to remember which character was which, and that didn't improve as the story went on.  In my opinion, this book would have been so much better with more depth of character.

Rating: 3.5 stars

The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin

The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin

Stephanie Knipper

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): Sisters Rose and Lily Martin were inseparable when they were kids. As adults, they’ve been estranged for years, until circumstances force them to come together to protect Rose’s daughter. Ten-year-old Antoinette has a severe form of autism that requires constant care and attention. She has never spoken a word, but she has a powerful gift that others would give anything to harness: she can heal things with her touch. She brings wilted flowers back to life, makes a neighbor’s tremors disappear, changes the course of nature on the Kentucky flower farm where she and her mother live.

Antoinette’s gift, though, puts her own life in danger, as each healing comes with an increasingly deadly price. As Rose—the center of her daughter’s life—struggles with her own failing health, and Lily confronts her anguished past, they, and the men who love them, come to realize the sacrifices that must be made to keep this very special child safe.

Written with great heart and a deep understanding of what it feels like to be “different,” The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin is a novel about the lengths to which people will go to protect the ones they love.

Review: Full of beautiful prose

Rating: 4.5 stars

Girl Underwater

Girl Underwater

Claire Kells

Genre: Fiction

Summary (from Goodreads): An adventurous debut novel that cross cuts between a competitive college swimmer’s harrowing days in the Rocky Mountains after a major airline disaster and her recovery supported by the two men who love her—only one of whom knows what really happened in the wilderness.

Nineteen-year-old Avery Delacorte loves the water. Growing up in Brookline, Massachusetts, she took swim lessons at her community pool and captained the local team; in high school, she raced across bays and sprawling North American lakes. Now a sophomore on her university’s nationally ranked team, she struggles under the weight of new expectations but life is otherwise pretty good. Perfect, really.

That all changes when Avery’s red-eye home for Thanksgiving makes a ditch landing in a mountain lake in the Colorado Rockies. She is one of only five survivors, which includes three little boys and Colin Shea, who happens to be her teammate. Colin is also the only person in Avery’s college life who challenged her to swim her own events, to be her own person—something she refused to do. Instead she’s avoided him since the first day of freshman year. But now, faced with sub-zero temperatures, minimal supplies, and the dangers of a forbidding nowhere, Avery and Colin must rely on each other in ways they never could’ve imagined.

In the wilderness, the concept of survival is clear-cut. Simple. In the real world, it’s anything but.

Review: This novel was less about how Avery and her companions survive a terrible plane crash in the winter in the Rockies, and more about how Avery handles her survival, how she learns to be a part of her regular world again.  I'm always a sucker for a good disaster book (or movie!) so I would have appreciated having more detail around the plane crash and the survivors' ordeal in the wilderness.  But I enjoyed learning more about the competitive swimming world and watching the relationship between Avery and Colin develop.  The novel is beautifully written, with stunning descriptions, realistic characters and lively dialogue.  It was easy to read, while at the same time completely heart breaking.

Rating: 4.5 stars