The Guest Room

The Guest Room, the latest novel by Chris Bohjalian was recently sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Arriving in stores and online on January 5, 2016, this book is a must-read.

Telling the stories of Richard, the reluctant host of the Worst Bachelor Party Ever and Alexandra, a stripper at the party, the book provides a compelling, raw, no-holds-barred look inside the human/sex trafficking industry.

The story is realistic and unsettling and the writing is quietly beautiful. Once again Bohjalian proves that he is more than capable of creating multi-faceted characters with unique voices. The ending is sad but hopeful.  I'm not going to lie - I teared up a little.

As usual, I don't want to risk giving away any spoilers, so I just can't give much story detail in this review - all I can say is that it's one of the best books I've read this year.

The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter

When I was 20, my friends and I went through a mob movie phase. We watched all the Godfathers, Goodfellas, Scarface... all of those great, classic gangster flicks. Back then, I probably would have liked  The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter if for no other reason than that it was an inside look at what my friends and I were watching onscreen.

Co-written by Linda Scarpa and Linda Rosencrance, The Mafia Hit Man's Daughter is billed as the true story of what it's like to grow up with a mob hit man for a dad. The events detailed in the book were compelling, but unfortunately, the writing was not. At all.

Linda Scarpa says she doesn't want this book be a pity party for her, but it really comes off as one. Now, I wasn't raised by a hit man - I had a normal, suburban upbringing with normal, unconnected parents, but I have to say, I'm a bit disturbed by how disconnected Scarpa is from the things her father, Greg Scarpa, aka The Grim Reaper, was responsible for. It must be very difficult to know that your father is a terrible person but telling us repeatedly what a great dad he was when he wasn't out murdering people is a little off-putting. There doesn't seem to be much compassion or remorse (not that I think Scarpa should feel remorse exactly for things she wasn't responsible for) for her father's victims. She says she feels bad for the families of those he murdered, but at the same time, she recounts a time when she tried to cheer her dad up after he gunned down the wrong person by telling him to not feel so bad because after all, that guy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. the thing Scarpa seems most saddened by is that she no longer has the luxurious life she was brought up to believe she deserved.

I was annoyed throughout the entire book. Half of my annoyance came from the absolutely abysmal writing (seriously, did anyone even try to polish this thing up? And if so... how bad was the original?) and the other half came from the whining tone and constant excuses from Scarpa and her awful mother. 

I don't recommend this one for anyone. There have got to be far better books on what it's like to be part of a mob family out there. 

Avenue of Mysteries

You can’t really rush through a John Irving book. There’s so much detail and so much richness to his storytelling that you really have to take your time or you’ll miss so much. And that’s why this review is so, so, so very late. I received an advance copy of Avenue of Mysteries from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Typically I like to have the review up on the day the book publishes, but for this book I just had to take my time.

I’ll start by saying that this isn’t Irving’s best book. The well-developed settings and characters typical of Irving are there, but there's a flatness to the story as a whole that disappointed me. That said, even a flat book by John Irving is a good book. It’s just not a great book. It’s three stars where I expected five.

Avenue of Mysteries is the story of Juan Diego Guerrero, a writer who seems equally transfixed by events from his past and the correct dosages of his betablockers and Viagra. The story is told half in the present, half in the past, in a way I’ve always thought of as inside out. There’s no straightforward, chronological order to the telling - we flip back and forth from the present to the past without warning. At times the story is confusing and repetitive because of the almost heavy-handed foreshadowing used in the scenes set in the past. By the time events happen, we’re almost tired of hearing about them - at times it seems Irving was tired of writing of them too. We are teased about what happened to Lupe, Juan Diego’s sister, throughout the entire book. And then when we finally found out, the scene feels glossed over, the details hazy. The entire novel has an almost dreamlike quality, which I suppose was deliberate and supposed to reflect the dreamlike state Juan Diego seems to be in throughout the story.

I’d recommend this one for existing fans of Irving and his style of story-telling, but I wouldn’t recommend it as anyone’s introduction to him for fear it would put them off and they’d end up missing out on his other, better novels.

Shopaholic To The Rescue

The Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella has long been a guilty pleasure of mine. The books tell the fun, yet often cringeworthy adventures of Becky Bloomwood, The Girl With Impulse Control Issues.
Becky loves to shop and hates to face up to the financial messes her addiction to consumption causes. Repeatedly. Becky is often irresponsible, sometimes delusional and yet, somehow, always irresistable.

The first three books in the series, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan and Shopaholic Ties the Knot, are fun, quick, fluffy reads that I find myself going back to over and over again when I feel stressed and want something to take my mind off things. After the third book though, things started to go downhill in the series.

Kinsella (a pseudonym for the always entertaining Madeleine Wickham) decided sometime in the last decade or so that even though Becky's life was pretty well wrapped up in a nice, neat bow by the end of Shopaholic Ties the Knot, people would want to keep reading about her adventures. The problem with this decision is that, well, you can only read about a person growing up for so long before you want to throw the book across the room and yell, "Enough already!"

In each book Becky has some sort of epiphany about her behavior, her shallowness, her relentless need to consume  and you cheer for her. Finally! She's grown a clue! And then! A new book comes out and it turns out that, no, Becky hasn't learned a damned thing. She's just found a new mental loophole to justify why this time whatever bad decisions she's made are ok. Until it comes time to grow up yet again.

By the time Shopaholic To The Stars came out, I was beyond ready to call it quits on this series. I couldn't imagine how it was possible to drag yet another book out of this girl's life. And yet, because I am just that masochistic, I read it. Note: I didn't purchase it - I stopped purchasing these books somewhere along volume 5. But I tend to be one of those people who has to see a thing through to the end. So, much as I might dislike that these books are still, endlessly being published, I have to read them.

Shopaholic To The Stars was a massive disappointment. The book was full of book 1 Becky at her worst. And then it ended with a cliffhanger! Dammit! So of course I knew I was going to have to read Shopaholic To The Rescue as soon as I could. And I knew I was going to HATE it.

Imagine my surprise when I didn't. Hate it, that is.

Shopaholic To The Rescue was adorable. Becky at her best. And I might just be getting suckered here, who knows, maybe there'll be 8 more books and I'll be right back here in a couple of years... I don't think so though. I think this was it. I hope so because if it is, it will have almost redeemed the series for me.

I hesitate to give any substantive details of the story in case anyone hasn't read the previous 7 novels in the series. If you haven't, I highly recommend that you read books 1-3, skip book 4 (ugh - such a mistake that one was), then read book 5, skip 6 and then skim 7 and finish off with Shopaholic To The Rescue. Trust me, it will be better that way.

November Wrap-Up and December TBR

Slacker slacker slacker. That's me.

It suddenly struck me today that it's already December 3 and I still hadn't posted my November wrap up OR my December To Be Read lists so here we go with a combined post.

November was kind of hectic for me. Between holiday preparation, a busy workload at my day job and a little traveling (not to mention a fabulous ice storm that knocked out our power for 3 days...) I have barely had time to read, let alone write about reading.

Still, I did manage to get a little bit accomplished.

I finished off the Anne of Green Gables series. I'm so glad I took the time to re-read these books. They are such gentle, peaceful reads. I have to say, the final book in the series, Rilla Of Ingleside, is possibly one of the better books I've read about World War I. I'm a little surprised that this one isn't taught in schools alongside the WWI history unit.  There's lots of detail and it really brings the events of the war, the different battles, the effect it had on the folks back home, etc, into focus without getting mundane or boring.

Along with the Anne books, I worked my way a little way down on my stack of books for review. This month I had the pleasure of reading Now That She's Gone, by Gregg Olsen as well as Coal River by Ellen Marie Wiseman.  Now That She's Gone was ok - I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read the first book in the series (imagine that!) and Coal River was great, even if the ending was a little... implausible.

I also read some Rainbow Rowell: Fan Girl (not such a fan) and Landline (loved it) to be exact. I still can't quite put my finger on what it is that keeps me from just going nuts over Rowell like so many of my fellow bloggers, but there's just something...

For December my plan is to just get to the end of this year in one piece! I had originally set a goal for myself this year of reading 150 books. Well, that's not going to happen. According to my tracker on Goodreads, I'm 98 books. Given that I have a full time job, a side business (I dye yarn! check it out here!), a social life and this blog... I'm calling it good if I get to 100 for the year.

Now that I'm done with the Anne books, I've started on the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. If you've never read them and have only seen the movie, I highly recommend you check them out. They're fantastic, silly, wonderful little books that are great distractions from the heaviness that day-to-day life can bring.

I'm determined to finish up Avenue of Mysteries in the next week or so. This latest work by John Irving was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, I didn't get it until the day before it published (11/3) so I'm a little late with my thoughts on it. I'm liking the book a lot... that's all I can really say for now.

At the library the other night I couldn't help but pick up the latest in the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. Sigh. All I can really say about this guilty pleasure book is that, as much as I enjoyed the first few books in the series, please stop writing them Ms. Kinsella. For the love of god. Please. Stop. Writing. These. Books. I started off loving Becky Bloomwood and now I'm just so disgusted by her inability to achieve real, lasting maturity that I could scream. And yet I can't quit reading these awful crack books!  I'm about a quarter of the way through Shopaholic To The Rescue and I just want my life back.

I've got big plans to read a few more books for review (and even get the reviews published on time this month!) and a few more new releases picked up at my local library. Last but not least, I've started on the Mark of the Lion trilogy by Francine Rivers. These books are Christian Fiction classics that have somehow been recommended to me several times (if you knew me in real life, you'd know how funny it is to see me reading Christian Fiction). The first book is good so far. Some of the history is suspect, but the overall view of ancient Roman culture is right up my alley.

Coal River

Coal River is the story of a small mining town of the same name during the early twentieth century. When New Yorker Emma Malloy is orphaned and forced to move in with her aunt and uncle in Coal River, she is appalled by what she sees. Both mine and town are run by owner Hazard Flint, a greedy, uncaring tyrant who doesn't seem to understand that the people who work for him are, well, people. The grinding poverty of the miners' families and the danger they face sicken Emma, but worst of all is the plight of the breaker boys. Boys as young as 6 are sent to work in the breaker sorting coal until their fingers bleed and interacting with machinery that maims and kills with a terrifying frequency.

Emma vows to help the breaker boys anyway she can, even if that means drawing the ire of her aunt and uncle (not to mention Flint) and putting herself in danger.

Ellen Marie Wiseman does an admirable job of reminding us of the horrors of the coal mining industry in the early twentieth century with this novel. She lost me a bit at the end though. Without giving away any spoilers, let's just say that the end of the book veers off into fairy tale land which is made even more jarring by how realistic the rest of the book was. Or perhaps that was Wiseman's aim? To make us think about how conditions were so deplorable back then that it would take a miracle to change them all at once? Or maybe some authors will just go to any length to create a happy ending for their characters, realism be damned. At any rate, though the ending was a miss for me, Coal River is an excellent book overall.

Coal River is a book that anyone who questions the need for unions and workplace regulations needs to read. It seems that the farther away from the days before these things existed in any meaningful form, the more we forget how necessary they are or how dangerous powerful people can be when they are purely motivated by greed. 

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Landline

Another day, another Rainbow Rowell review...

I am so happy to report that I have finally found a Rainbow Rowell book that I really liked! I still don't totally get the hype over this writer, but I am at least happy to learn that she can in fact create a plot and finish a story!

So, Landline is the story of a marriage in crisis. Georgie and Neal have been married for nearly 15 years and I think it's safe to say that Neal's pretty much over being the one to make all the sacrifices in the relationship. When Georgie decides that she has to work over Christmas, Neal takes their two daughters and flies home to Omaha without her. Georgie is left behind to figure out what's really important and to decide if she is willing to do what it takes to save her marriage.

Pretty straightforward, grown-up stuff, right? Well, the twist is that Georgie discovers that she has a magic phone that can somehow call 15-years-ago Neal and, using this phone over the course of a week, learns a lot about her husband, her marriage and herself. I don't know how to make that sentence not sound silly and insane, but trust me when I tell you that, somehow, it works.

Rowell does a great job with this book. I would love to see her apply this level of story-telling to her Young Adult novels as well. If she could do that, I could easily see her becoming a favorite.

Fangirl

So this is the part where I make some enemies.

You guys. I don't get Rainbow Rowell. I mean, I don't get the hype. She's an ok writer. She creates great characters, for sure. But where's the plot? Why don't her endings ever feel like endings? I swear, it's like she just lost interest after a few hundred pages and said, "Welp, that's enough. You can imagine the rest." There's not enough resolution.

I don't know. I don't hate her or anything. As a matter of fact, I just picked up another of her books (Landline) at the library today and fully intend to spend the afternoon reading it out on my patio.

I just finished Fangirl this week. It's been on my TBR shelf for a while, but I just hadn't gotten around to it. It was ok. A perfectly serviceable coming of age story about Cath, a girl who is really into writing fanfiction about a faux-Harry Potter series. At first I identified with Cath - she's pretty clearly got some anxiety issues that manifested in ways I could relate to. As the book went on though, Cath turned into something of a caricature. She's passive and reclusive and pushes the boundaries of what I can believe when it comes to being a late-bloomer. (she starts dating a guy she's already kissed and then doesn't let him so much as give her a peck on the cheek for over a month? really? really?)

The thing is, Fangirl didn't have much plot. Cath leaves home to go to college. Deals with her identical twin not wanting to room with her. Becomes friends with her somewhat intimidating roommate, gets a boyfriend, deals with family drama and bam. The book is over. There are enough loose ends to take up a whole second book. For instance: what's going to happen with Cath and Wren's mom? Is their dad really ok now? Or is he just going to continue an endless cycle of stable then manic then stable then manic periods for the rest of their lives? Is Wren going to be ok or is she going to turn into a full-on alcoholic?

Rowell spends hundreds of pages building this world and creating these characters and then just walks away from them. I don't get it. Why do people love her so much?

October Wrap-Up and November TBR

I'm a little late on this so I'm going to combine what would have been two posts into one.

I didn't get through my whole October TBR list - priorities and review deadlines kept shifting, along with my interests. I  ended up reading One Hundred Names, Coal River, Hollie Porter Builds a Raft, Ghostly, Firsts, Mrs. John Doe, The Girl on the Train, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne's House of Dreams.Whew!

My favorites for October were definitely the Anne books. It's been such a joy to go back and re-read these stories that had such an impact on me in childhood and find that, for the most part, they've held up wonderfully. My favorite new book for October was Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn (and I'm not just saying that because Flynn thanked me for my review when I posted about it on Instagram!). Sadly, it's not out until January, but I'm telling you, it'll be worth the wait.

Now, on to November... This month I've been blessed with an absolute TON of advance copies for review so I'll be a busy bee! Look for reviews on Coal River, by Ellen Marie Wiseman; Avenue of Mysteries, by John Irving; and Now That She's Gone, by Gregg Olsen. I'll also be attempting to finish off the rest of the Anne books. I'm most of the way through Anne of Ingleside now, so I don't think it's going to be much of a problem.

I started Now That She's Gone last night and I'm really enjoying it so far. I read Coal River in October and can't wait to tell you all about it. It publishes on 11/24 so look for my review in the next few weeks. As for Avenue of Mysteries... John Irving is one of my all-time favorites so I cannot wait to get started on that one.

Ghostly

Ghostly is a wonderful little collection of spooky stories edited and illustrated by Audrey Niffeneger (The Time Traveler's Wife).

There's something for everyone in this collection - from creepy stories to funny ones. There are tales that are heartbreaking and others that are just plain odd. Standouts for me were The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe, Honeysuckle Cottage by P.G. Wodehouse, The Mezzotint by M.R. James, The Open Window by Saki and August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

One Hundred Names

Cecelia Ahern is one of those hit-or-miss authors for me. Sometimes she's fantastic (PS I Love You, Love, Rosie) sometimes... not so much (The Book of Tomorrow, If You Could See Me Now) and sometimes she's in-between (The Gift).

One Hundred Names is a definite hit for Ahern's resume, as far as I'm concerned. It's the story of Kitty Logan, a journalist who's hitting rock bottom. She's just epically blown her first major story, she's about to be kicked out of her apartment and her best friend and mentor, Constance, has just died.

Just before Constance's death, she tells Kitty about the story she never wrote, the one that got away, so to speak. She directs Kitty to a file that contains a list of one hundred names and nothing else. Kitty instinctively feels that this will be the story that brings her career back - if she can only figure out what it is.

One Hundred Names is a beautiful and fun book about the story that lives in each of us, no matter how boring and everyday we may seem to the casual observer.

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss

Dahlia Moss has issues - she's a broke, unemployed, directionless mess. She's that annoying, whiny millennial stereotype we all love to hate and yet... there's something kind of adorable about her. When she bites off way more than she can chew and goes off looking for The Bejeweled Spear of Infinite Piercing, you can't help but root for her, even as you roll your eyes and groan at her impulsive stupidity.

The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss is not a serious book. It does not contain the answers to any of life's big questions and it will not leave you thinking deep, existential thoughts. What it does contain is a lot of humor and a LOT of fantastically geeky references and in-jokes.

Max Wirestone has done a great job creating the characters of Dahlia Moss's world and I hope my hunch that this is the first in a series is right - I would love love love to read more stories about Dahlia and her insane roommate Charice. Also, (spoiler alert) some resolution on the guy front would be nice too!

I really have to thank Redhook Books for providing me with an advance reader copy of this one - the timing could not have been better. I had to rush back home recently for a funeral and this was the perfect book to bring along - it was light and funny and just plain goofy. It absolutely took my mind off of all the sad stuff I had to deal with and kept me distracted through drama with my flight(s) on my trip from hell.

Firsts

Where do I even start with this book?

This book, this amazing book, Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn, is quite possibly the most raw, realistic Young Adult novel I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It's just good.

Mercedes Ayers sleeps with other girls' boyfriends. A lot of other girls' boyfriends. She's not having sex with these boys because she likes them or because she wants to hurt their girlfriends. No, Mercedes is sleeping around for altruistic reasons. Really. She wants to make sure that no other girl has as bad a first time as she did, so she offers herself up to their nervous, fumbling boyfriends as practice for the real thing. She tells the guys what to say, what to wear, how to set the mood, how to make things perfect.

Of course it all has to blow up in her face.

This book goes where most Young Adult novels fear to tread. It discusses sex unflinchingly and realistically. I know that YA is meant to be for teenagers and therefore most YA novels have a PG-13 rating at the highest, but I also remember high school. As much as we all like to pretend our teenagers are still children that do nothing more than hold hands and maybe kiss on the lips (no tongue!)... the fact is, an awful lot of them are having sex. This book was refreshing in that it didn't pretend that the only people doing it in high school are there as a lesson to be punished accordingly: Don't do this or you'll get pregnant/AIDs/depression or die like this minor character the heroine is totally going to learn from, kiddies!

There were some aspects of the story that made me uncomfortable - there's an unwillingness to label some iffy behavior as rape or attempted rape, but even that I can let go when I remember how it felt to be 17 and confused about rights and what constitutes what when it comes to consent. Or non-consent, as the case may be. That stuff that makes me uncomfortable is supposed to make me uncomfortable.

I loved this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who liked the Jessica Darling books by Megan McCafferty, Forever by Judy Blume, or Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. This is the book that proves that all YA isn't silly, dystopian, fantasy nonsense. Some of it is real and true and lovely.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Note: the book won't be out until January 5, 2016, but it is available on pre-order from Amazon.

Mrs. John Doe

Why did no one ever tell me about Tom Savage?

Seriously. He's fantastic! Right up there with Michael Connelly or early James Patterson.

I received a free review copy of Mrs. John Doe from the publisher last week and was immediately sucked in. It's a fun, thrilling, fast-paced, twisty-turny spy story that had me completely hooked.

Nora Baron has a pretty darned good life. She's got a good job, a good kid, and is married to the love of her life, who also happens to be a spy. When Nora receives a call from London letting her know her beloved husband has been killed in a car accident, she flies to England to claim the body and thus begins a series of events that grab hold of you from the start and don't let up until the very end.

I loved this book and can't wait to get my hands on even more from this author. I highly recommend that anyone who likes suspense/mystery/spy novels give this one a try. Best of all? It's only $2.99 on Amazon right now.

"There are so many unpleasant things in the world already that there is no use in imagining any more."

I finished my re-read of Anne of Avonlea last week so it's time for some more awesome L. M. Montgomery quotes! 

The post title quote is my favorite from Anne of Avonlea - probably because it's something I have to tell myself all the time. The rest of these are pretty good too, in my opinion...

When Anne starts to think that maybe there's something more than friendship between her and Gilbert:

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.

Miss Lavender explaining her depression so perfectly:

I'm just tired of everything…even of the echoes. There is nothing in my life but echoes…echoes of lost hopes and dreams and joys. They're beautiful and mocking.

Charlotta the Fourth's thoughts on marriage:

“Oh, of course there’s a resk in marrying anybody,” conceded Charlotta the Fourth, “but, when all’s said and done, Miss Shirley, ma’am, there’s many a worse thing than a husband."

Anne's realization that she and her friends are growing up, whether she's ready or not:

This was succeeded by a queer, little lonely feeling…as if, somehow, Diana had gone forward into a new world, shutting a gate behind her, leaving Anne on the outside.

Mr. Harrison's outlook on change, which I think fits in well with the quote above:

“Changes ain’t totally pleasant but they’re excellent things,” said Mr. Harrison philosophically. “Two years is about long enough for things to stay exactly the same. If they stayed put any longer they might grow mossy.”

Anne's observation on the way bad news is spread:

“Have you ever noticed that when people say it is their duty to tell you a certain thing you may prepare for something disagreeable? Why is it that they never seem to think it a duty to tell you the pleasant things they hear about you?” 

And Gilbert being Gilbert (sigh):

"It's a splendid profession," he said enthusiastically. "A fellow has to fight something all through life. . .didn't somebody once define man as a fighting animal?. . .and I want to fight disease and pain and ignorance. . .which are all members one of another. I want to do my share of honest, real work in the world, Anne. . . add a little to the sum of human knowledge that all the good men have been accumulating since it began. The folks who lived before me have done so much for me that I want to show my gratitude by doing something for the folks who will live after me. It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can get square with his obligations to the race."

And finally...: 

“It takes all sorts of people to make a world, as I've often heard, but I think there are some who could be spared,' Anne told her reflection in the east gable mirror that night.” 

Anne, I completely agree.

The Girl on the Train

The Girl on the Train has been recommended to me by at least a dozen people in the last year and it keeps popping up on lists of books for people who loved Gone Girl so obviously I had to give it a read.

I'm so glad I did. Author Paula Hawkins is absolutely talented at building suspense and setting a scene, but she where she really shines is her ability to create real, gritty characters. The people in this book are simultaneously pathetic and revolting and very, very, uncomfortably real.

There's Rachel - the titular girl on the train. She's depressed and she's lonely and she's a mess. She rides the train into London every day, staring out the windows and making up stories about strangers in an effort to avoid her own problems. Her husband is gone, she's been fired from the job she pretends to go to each day and she's obviously (to everyone else, anyway) an alcoholic. I pitied her, but at the same time wanted to shake her by her shoulders and tell her to get a grip already. Stop being so weak. Right up until the end I found myself withholding sympathy from her, figuring that she was using the classic addict's technique of manipulation to make herself seem less blameless than she was. To make excuses and avoid taking responsibility. And really, the fact that I thought I was being manipulated by a fictional character goes to show exactly how good a writer Hawkins is.

Megan - the mystery of the story. Where did she go? What happened to her? I found Megan to be hard to connect with.  Her sections were the only ones I had trouble with. I couldn't relate in any way to her. She seemed so detached from life.

Anna, the Other Woman who has stolen Rachel's life. I don't have much to say about her other than that she is just. The. Worst. Imagine the bitchiest, most insecure junior high school mean girl and that's Anna.

And Tom. Awful, awful, awful Tom. Rachel's ex - Tom is the biggest gaslighter ever in the history of the world. I hated him from the start and only hated him more as the story went on.

So. All these characters with hardly a redeeming quality among them to make you want to root for them and yet - I loved it. Truly. I stayed up late 2 nights in a row to finish it. The story just sucked me right in and didn't let go.

Hawkins has a gift for capturing the inner voice of alcoholic Rachel and the spiteful attention-seeking of Anna. So many writers fail at giving characters individual voices when shifting perspectives in a novel, yet Hawkins seems to do it effortlessly. Even the disconnectedness of Megan may well have been on purpose - no one seems to be able to get very close to her in the book either.

I look forward to reading more from this author.

I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

Recognize that quote? It's from Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery and it's one of my favorites. Not just because I love fall so much but just because it always makes me smile to think of this character, Anne, who is so delighted with everything in the world that she can't help herself from sharing it with everyone around her.

I recently bought all nine of the Anne books for 99 cents through iBooks. I loved these books as a child and I wanted to see how they held up now that I'm all grown up.

When I was a little girl, Anne Shirley was totally my hero(ine). I too knew the pain of having bright red hair and of constantly being shushed for talking too much. And Gilbert Blythe? Totally my first book boyfriend. Oh the crush I had on him...

I'm happy to report that I am enjoying Anne Shirley as much as an adult as I did as a child. As I've been reading, I've been taking note of my favorite quotes and I thought I'd share a few from each book as I finish them.

From Anne of Green Gables there's the title quote about Octobers but then there are also what I call the "isn't it splendid" quotes:

"Isn't it splendid to thing of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive -- it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we knew all about everything, would it?"

and

"Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world?"

I always loved this on on Anne's favorite time of day:

"In the mornings I always think mornings are best; but when evening comes I think it's better still."

And then there's this one... Again, I am a redhead and I got teased about it a LOT as a child. I still do sometimes. It's hard being a redhead. Sometimes I think the reason we have a reputation for having bad tempers is because we're so sick of hearing about how we have bad tempers.

"You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair," said Anne reproachfully. "People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is."

Amen, sister.

'Salem's Lot

“That above all else. They did not look out their windows. No matter what noises or dreadful possibilities, no matter how awful the unknown, there was an even worse thing: to look the Gorgon in the face.” - Stephen King

Have you ever read ‘Salem’s Lot? If you haven’t, you totally should. It’s one of Stephen King’s earliest books and it’s a favorite of mine. First published in 1975, the book is King’s take on vampires. Not sparkly vampires. Not soulful, romantic vampires. No, these are old-school vampires. The kind that will rip out your throat and laugh as the blood sprays. Scary vampires.  Probably not an ideal book for a 12 year old to have been reading, but that was the rule in our house – we could read or watch whatever we wanted (this was, of course, long before the internet became a fixture in every household) as long as it didn’t give us nightmares.  Nightmares meant waking up my mother and that simply Wasn’t Done.

So. It was a dark and windy night. I was curled up in my bed reading long past midnight. The house was dark and quiet – my older brother was off spending the night at a friend’s house, my parents had gone to bed hours earlier. It was just me and my book in the quiet.

Slowly I became aware of a tapping noise at my window. I brushed it off at first. There was a large oak tree close by and the wind would sometimes push the branches against the window.

I was at a point in the story where a boy is visited by a vampire knocking on his second story window when I remembered that my stepfather had cut the branches of the oak tree back not 3 days earlier. He’d been proud of his work, telling me that I no longer would have to listen to the scraping of the branches at my window.

I froze, mid page turn. If the branches had been cut back, what was tapping at my second floor window?

“I’ll ignore it,” I thought. “He must have missed a branch, that’s all. It’s really windy and he missed a branch and that is what that noise is. Vampires aren’t real.”

My resolve lasted all of 15 seconds. Then the tapping started up again, stronger now. I turned out the light and crept towards the window. I slowly, slowly, slowly parted the blinds and peeked through the crack. A bat stared back at me. A bat. A freaking bat! It had somehow made it’s way past the screen and was fluttering crazily against the window panes.

I bolted down the pitch black hallway to my parents’ room, sure that something was going to pop out and grab me as I ran.

“Mom! Mom!,” I whisper-hissed when I got to her bedside.

“Mmm?” she said, half asleep still. “What is it? What time is it?” She was coming more awake now. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a bat, there’s a bat, there’s a bat in my window Mommy!” I was half-hysterical at this point.

“A what? A bat?” she said. “Wait a minute. What book are you reading?”

“’Salem’s Lot,” I answered.

She rolled over. “Go back to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

“But Mom!”

“Go. To. Bed. I am not getting up in the middle of the night because you’ve scared yourself silly over a book. Good night.”

I went back to my room, packed up most of my things, and moved into the guest room down the hall where I sat up the rest of the night reading Babysitter’s Club books in an effort to distract my brain from all things creepy and dark.

In the morning my mother came to check on me before she left for work and I showed her that I had not been dreaming the night before. I hid behind my almost closed bedroom door and watched through the crack as she slowly opened the window and carefully raised the screen (a corner of which had not been in its track – the bat had pushed it’s way inside but then been trapped) so that the now-sleeping bat could get out when it woke up in the evening.

She apologized, laughing. “I’m so sorry honey. I just thought you were dreaming. I mean really, a bat? In your window? I’ve read that book. I just thought you were having a nightmare.”

I can look back on The Incident With The Bat now and laugh but at the time...not so much. I had trouble sleeping in my room for a week and it took me a month to pick ‘Salem’s Lot back up.

Seriously, if you haven’t already read it, pick up a copy and read it now. And when you get to the part where there’s tapping at the window, think of me and my bat.

October TBR List

I've got a heavy-ish load on my nightstand this month. In addition to advance electronic copies of The Winter Girl, Bats of the Republic and The Guest Room that I'm reading for review, I'm also finally getting around to The Girl on the Train and am planning to finish up The Distant Marvels and read One Hundred Names, which I picked up at the library last night on a whim. I'm sure that won't be all for me this month, but I haven't decided on what comes next yet.

Any suggestions?

The Heart Goes Last

There's something about Margaret Atwood.

I first discovered her writing via a used copy of Cat's Eye found in a secondhand bookstore when I was a teenager. I've been in love with her work ever since. It's not always an easy love - she has a tendency to push the boundaries of what my mind can comfortably grasp - but it is unwavering and, because of this, she's easily one of my favorite authors.

This is all a roundabout explanation as to why I was so excited to received an email from Doubleday letting me know I had been selected as an advance reader for Atwood's newest book, The Heart Goes Last.

The Heart Goes Last is the story of Stan and Charmaine, a couple left homeless and (mostly) jobless after a massive economic collapse. Charmaine is relentlessly optimistic while Stan is more of a realist. When Charmaine sees an ad for the Positron/Consilience Project, she knows that it's the answer to all of their problems. Once inside though... things get messy.

I liked this book but it's not one of Atwood's best. While I do think she has a gift for dystopian fiction that feels possible, this one left me a little cold. The story felt compressed, as if I was reading an abridged version. Atwood has such a talent for writing rich prose you can sink your teeth into but that was mostly missing in this novel. The story was good, the characters felt real, it all worked - I just wanted more!

Luckiest Girl Alive

TifAni FaNelli may be the least likable heroine in all of current popular literature. She's abrasive, selfish to the point where you start to consider that maybe she's a sociopath, and she's that particular type of social climber that just makes your teeth hurt from clenching. She's greedy and hard and bitter and cynical. Above all else though, TifAni is heartbreaking and that redeems her just enough that you find yourself caring about what happens to her.

Luckiest Girl Alive sat on my to-read list for months before I finally broke down and read it. I'd heard so many things about this book - comparisons to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl (although I personally think a more apt comparison would be with Flynn's Dark Places), to Megan Abbott's Dare Me and The End of Everything. I heard that I had to read it. I heard that I should avoid it like the plague. 

I hated TifAni FaNelli and her grasping, desperate ways but at the same time, I empathized with her. She's got awful parents (really the only thing you need to know about them is that they named her TifAni for Christ's sake - it only gets worse from there) and she's just so lost in the world. It's no wonder she got hard. People like TifAni either go depressingly soft or they become frighteningly hard. TifAni's a damned diamond. 

The first half of the book wasn't good. It just wasn't. It's almost cliche to say this, but it just tried too hard. I could feel author Jessica Knoll pushing at me through the page, trying her best to shock me, to make me uncomfortable. To make TifAni edgy for the sake of being edgy. 

But then, somewhere around the middle of the story it was almost as if she let go and just let the story take over. Once that happened everything shifted and the book became great. I suddenly understood all those comparisons I'd been hearing. 

It's hard to give much of a plot summary that you won't find already printed on the dust jacket of this book without giving any of the twists away so I won't bother with all that here. Suffice it to say that this book was good and fans of Gillian Flynn and Megan Abbott (and all the other dark and twisty authors that are becoming so popular these days) should definitely give this a chance. 

Blood & Salt

I received an advance copy of this book through Penguin's First To Read program in exchange for an honest review.

Blood & Salt is the first in a planned duology by Kim Liggett and I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of it. I liked it, but I didn't always fully understand what was going on - I think this might be one of those stories that makes a better movie than book? It was dark and creepy, but not quite horror. There was a love story, but this wasn't really a romance. I've seen it referred to as "romantic horror" but that doesn't really fit, in my opinion. I'd call it YA twisted magic realism, maybe.

The book tells the story of Ash Larkin, her twin brother Rhys, and their connection to a very creepy cult in Kansas known as Quivira. There's a lot of world-building going on in this book. And it's a very cool world, full of murderous corn and immortality-hungry villains. There's insta-love, but it's magical in origin, so you can kind of forgive it. There are great secondary characters (note to author: more Beth in book 2 please!). I'm almost disappointed that it's only going to be a duology. In my humble opinion, there's enough going on here for at least three books. And maybe a prequel that gives a fuller history of Quivira and the whole Katia/Coronado backstory. As it is, most of the cult's backstory is told via dream flashbacks and I was never quite sure if those dream sequences were meant to be reliable or a bit twisted up and, well, dreamy.

Liggett has a talent for depicting settings and characters and I look forward to seeing her progress as a writer. I am looking forward to reading the second and final installment in this series when it comes out next year.

Also... I'm never going to be able to look at a field of corn the same way again.

First Frost

Sarah Addison Allen tells such wonderful stories. Her particular style of gentle, southern (but not campy, over the top southern), magic realism is like comfort food in the shape of a book for me.

I discovered her several years ago at my local library. Her first novel, Garden Spells, found its way onto my stack of books one day (I liked the cover picture) and I devoured it in one sitting. Since then, she's been one of my favorite authors and I look forward to each new book she writes.

First Frost is a book that didn't need to be written. That's not to say it shouldn't have been written - it's a good book and I'm so glad it exists. But it didn't need to be. Garden Spells could easily have remained a standalone novel - I never felt for one second that I'd been left hanging at the end. That said, I'm so very glad Allen did write a sequel. Opening this book and getting lost in the continued story of the enchanting Waverley women of Bascom, North Carolina was such an unexpected treat.

There are cons, of course. There always are, aren't there? The plot was a little thin - there wasn't a lot of there there, if you know what I mean. I got the impression that maybe this book was written as an answer to the question authors must get all the time when it comes to beloved characters: "But what happened after that?" Fortunately, Allen is a talented enough writer that she can even make an unnecessary sequel into a pretty darned good read.

Allen has a real talent for creating wonderful settings you find yourself wishing you could visit and for creating characters you wish you could meet. She's gifted in weaving the magical elements of her stories into reality. That's why I think of her as gentle magic realism. She doesn't hit you over the head with her world's quirks. She doesn't make the magical elements so over the top that they take you out of the story. She mixes just enough fairy dust into her stories that you start to think that maybe somewhere out there, there is someone who just knows where things belong. Or who can cook her feelings into the food she prepares.

Was this book her best? No. As I've mentioned, the plot was thin and wrapped up a little too hurriedly and easily at the end. There are some loose threads that make me wonder if there is to be a third Waverley novel and there's just not quite enough Evanelle. There's also just the faintest bit of detachment throughout. As I hinted at earlier, I wonder what the ultimate motivation for the writing of this particular story was. Allen's other books are just a little bit fuller, a little bit richer. This one had a little bit of going-through-the-motion-ness to it that I've not ever experienced from one of her novels before. Still, it's a good book and an enjoyable read. I don't think I'll be re-reading it as often as I do her other works but it still ranks pretty high on my list of favorites this year.

The First Affair

"Oh my God Jamie! Being the President's girlfriend doesn't make you a grown-up - it makes him a child."

Jamie McAlister has problems. She's a recent college grad in a down economy with a train-wreck of a family. Also? She's got a pretty serious case of immaturity and is almost too naive to live. 

Jamie manages to land an unpaid internship at the White House along with a free luxury apartment (belonging to the parent of a friend) but she's still not happy. Because she deserves more. Because she's earned it somehow. By existing, I guess. She, almost by accident, finds herself having an affair with the President of the United States a la Monica Lewinsky and the book details the affair itself and the fallout when it's discovered.

I wanted to like The First Affair so much. I loved The Nanny Diaries and have always thought the writing team of Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus was great but this book just left me disappointed. 

I don't know if it was the blurriness of the main character or if it was just the fact that the whole book read like weird real-life fanfic but it just didn't work for me. Jamie never became a real person for me. Even though the story is a first-person narrative, her personality just never quite came through. She's just sort of there. Vacuous and insecure, floating through life passively. I could never quite get a sense of her beyond that I didn't like her.

As for the "weird real-life fanfic" observation... to be fair, that may be on me. This might be a fantastic book for anyone who doesn't remember the whole sordid Clinton-Lewinsky ordeal of the late nineties. For those of us who can remember the scandal though? This book is like an almost-but-not-quite retelling of that story with a few details changed - Jaime doesn't come from a wealthy family and it's a coat that provides the DNA evidence, not a blue dress from the GAP. 

I will say that the last quarter of the book was better than the rest. The pace picked up from its previous plodding, repetitive tone and the drama increased once the affair was leaked. There were still moments of frustration as Jamie proved herself to be dumber than dumb at times but there were also stand up and cheer moments, like when Jamie's horrible, narcissistic older sister Erica piped up with the quote I opened this review with. I actually said out loud as I read that line, "Thank you!"

Pink Slip

Pink Slip is an older book (published in 1999) by Rita Ciresi that I'm embarrassed to admit I forgot about. I picked it up from my local library on a whim and was a full chapter in before I realized I knew these characters, I knew this story. Full disclosure - I even used to own this book and it somehow made its way into a donation bin along with most of my other books in one of my Great Purges several years ago.

Don't mistake my donating the book to mean it's bad. It's not. It's a solid read and now that I've rediscovered it (and learned that a sequel was written!) I'm regretting letting it out of my hands.

Pink Slip tells the story of Lisa (Lise) Diodetto a twenty-five year old woman on the verge of becoming... something. Whole maybe? An adult, certainly. She's a first-generation Italian-American who hates her parents and has happily escaped her New Haven upbringing only to find herself back in the suburbs when life in NYC doesn't quite work out how she'd hoped.

The story begins with Lise starting a new job as an assistant manager in the Editorial department of Boorman Pharmaceuticals. She quickly begins an affair with her boss which is a bad idea for all of the obvious reasons and the story gives a realistic and sometimes funny view into the ups and downs of their relationship and all of its challenges.

Despite the pink cover and the silly tagline "Lisa's mother wants her to get married so badly anything in pants will do" this book is not your typical chick lit. There are frank discussions about serious issues and the plot isn't all silly misunderstandings and madcap shopping trips. Lise comes off as a real person with real flaws and personality. Eben Strauss, the love interest, is a little more wooden. He never quite makes it off the page for me, but the story is so Lise-focused that this doesn't really matter as much as it seems like it should. This is a love story that's more about learning to accept a happily ever after, warts and all, than it is about the romance. There aren't a lot of hearts and flowers here, and that's a good thing.

I can't believe I let this one get away from me once. Maybe I needed to read it in my 30s vs. my 20s to really appreciate it. I'm looking forward to tracking down the sequel, Remind Me Again Why I Married You and reading it next.