Category: Uncategorized

Book Review, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Uncategorized

Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain ~ Book Review

Morgan

IMG_2870

St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Historical Fiction
Release Date: January 14, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Big Lies in a Small Town is a slow burn, as I often find to be the case with historical fiction. The mystery as to how the two sections of the storyline fit together was intriguing enough that I was sucked into the plot nonetheless. The narrative is split, half grounded in the 1940s, and the other half in 2018. The earlier section, set during the Depression, follows Anna Dale, a young woman selected to paint a post office mural in North Carolina (which spurred some research about the thousands of murals that were commissioned in the United States during this time period — gotta love historical fiction). 

Morgan Christopher, our 2018 main character, is mysteriously released from jail on the grounds that she help restore a mural in the possession of renowned artist Jesse Jameson Williams, who recently passed away. Despite having gone to art school, Morgan is baffled as to why she was chosen for this act of kindness. More importantly, she has no idea how to go about restoring a piece of art.

This book introduces two strong, independent female leads, each with very different circumstances. Anna leaves home for the first time by herself following her mother’s death, and her naivety and struggle to create relationships in her new surroundings was alternately wonderful and difficult to read. The parallels to Morgan, as she sets out on a new post-prison life, completely cut off from all past relationships, was creative, and well constructed given their differences in time period.

The closer the ties between the two time periods became, the more the storyline seemed to speed up, but I did feel that there were parts of the narrative that could have been cut a bit shorter. That being said, the writing was detailed, solid, and believable.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Buy Big Lies in a Small Town on Amazon
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Book Review, Fiction, Romance, Uncategorized

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle ~ Book Review

Morgan

IMG_2633

Atria Books
Release Date: March 3, 2020
Genre: Women’s Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

This book was a perfect storm of a five star read for me. I picked it up on a bus ride home from New York City, not realizing that the entire story takes place there. With the lights of NYC literally fading in my rearview mirror, I could completely visualize the nonstop hustle Serle introduced through the main character Dannie, a corporate lawyer, and her fiancé, David. Their drive and passion for their careers reminded me so much of people in my own life, that I melted into the plot instantly.

Serle is a new author for me, although her previous book has been sitting on my shelf for months now. I will be reading it promptly. Her character descriptions were poignant, touching, believably flawed, and relatable. Dannie has her life planned out. She knows where she wants to be in five years, and she takes steps to get herself there every single day. On the night of her engagement, Dannie has a dream, vision, premonition, call it what you’d like, of her actual reality in five years time. It is nowhere near what she is striving for. Discomfited, she tries to shake it off and go about her life as usual. She takes a new job, she gets lunch with her flighty, ethereal best friend, Bella, and she thinks about her dream.

Rebecca Serle knows how to create characters that readers care about. The backstory of each person, and the sheer number of details that went into creating each of them is remarkable, and the way that they relate to each other is, simply put, wonderful. The setting was perfect for the narrative, something I don’t often consider while reading. New York City seemed to take on a life of its own, pulsing throughout the story, and carrying the characters along the never-slowing whirlwind of life.

I could not have guessed where the narrative was going. My heart was wrenched in a million different directions as I read, and emotions were rampant. I read this in one day, and although I received an advanced eGalley on NetGalley from Atria Books in exchange for an honest review, I fully expect to purchase the finished novel once it is published.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
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In Five Years on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

The Man She Married by Alison James ~ Book Review

Morgan

IMG_2758.JPG

Bookouture
Release Date: January 13, 2020
Genre: Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Alison James is a master at crafting compelling cliffhangers. The Man She Married is split into three sections, and the ending of each of the first two left me shocked. The first segment is narrated by sweet, trusting Alice as she is swept up into a whirlwind romance. It’s obvious that the relationship is unhealthy, to say the least, but Alice doesn’t have much of a support system in her life, and she embraces Dominic’s readiness to become her husband. Although she has a successful career running her own catering company, Alice is blinded by her apparent good fortune at finding a man as wonderful as her new husband.

Part two of the book is told by Dominic. His perspective of his courtship with Alice, and the backstory that led him to her, are both vastly different from the ‘Alice’ chapters. The layers of deception and deviance that sum up his life are shocking.

I enjoyed the way that James used Dominic’s section to go back and fill in the questions Alice posed through her thoughts and dialogue. It was done very neatly and cleverly, and tied the two perspectives together completely.

The third part of the story was slower than the other two, and dragged on a little longer than seemed strictly necessary. It became more of a detective plot at that point, as Alice tries to uncover the truth about Dominic, much of which the reader already knows. The setup felt like it may have been aiming to ensure that Alice had some semblance of a happy ending despite her (extremely) unfortunate circumstances, which I didn’t have a problem with. This was a very unique, twisted, and enthralling thriller that I highly recommend. Thank you to Bookouture and NetGalley for providing me with a free galley in exchange for my honest review.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
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Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

Behind Every Lie by Christina McDonald ~ Book Review

Morgan

 

Behind Every Lie with Jingle Jangle

Gallery Books
Release Date: February 4, 2020
Genre: Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪.5

What really knocked this book down for me was the dialogue. It was unrealistic to the point that I questioned whether the author was doing it on purpose. It felt incredibly stiff, and I was acutely aware that I was reading dialogue, not actually listening to a conversation. It was obvious to me from very early on who the true antagonist was, and I got bored waiting for the plot to catch up to me.

The storyline follows Eva, upon awakening in the hospital after having been struck by lightning. She comes to find out that her mother, Kat, has been murdered, and it soon becomes apparent that she is the prime suspect. Unable to recall anything from the night she was injured, Eva is easily able to convince herself that she is capable of murder, and must have been the one to kill her mom. I love a good unreliable narrator, but the plot was pushing Eva’s memory loss too hard for me to believe that she was as unreliable as she seemed convinced she was, if that makes sense? 

Eva goes on a hunt to discover the truth about her mom’s past. This portion of the narrative kept me intrigued. The segments from Kat’s youth, with baby Eva, and the heartbreaking abusive relationship she was involved with were difficult to read, but added a much appreciated level of depth to the book. It was an interesting secondary storyline to have in a thriller, and set the book apart from other similar stories.

My Rating: 🍪🍪.5
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Book Review, Fiction, Uncategorized

Star-Crossed by Minnie Darke ~ Book Review

Morgan

Star-Crossed with mug and blondies

Crown
Release Date: May 21, 2019
Genre: Romance
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

I love books about writers, or people who work in publishing. It might be because I feel like we have a common interest, I’m not quite sure, but I was immediately drawn in by the prospect of Justine’s role trying to work her way up to be a journalist at a magazine. She spends most of her days running errands for the rest of the staff and endlessly crossing her fingers that one of their journalists retires. 

Above all, this is a love story. Justine runs into her old friend Nick, and is immediately plagued by memories of the last time they saw each other, when they spent an evening making out on the beach as angsty teenagers. And, as angsty teenagers do, they never spoke about it. Seeing Nick again reminds Justine of why she was so attracted to him.

Nick is a struggling actor, and he lives his life in accordance with his star-sign, religiously checking and trying to interpret his horoscope in newspapers and magazines. When Justine realizes how serious Nick is about the stars’ influence on his life, she wonders if she might be able to use the quirky tidbit to her advantage. 

As to be expected from a light romance, chaos ensues, and nothing goes as Justine plans. This story wasn’t deep, by any means, and you have to put aside any disbelief that someone would actually base large life choices off of horoscopes, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Justine’s progression within the magazine was not entirely believable, but the characters were distinct and interesting. Justine’s propensity to run around the city with a pen correcting grammatical errors made her seem real to me.

Overall, I wouldn’t jump to recommend this book, but it was a nice, easy read that left me feeling satisfied.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
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Book Review, Fiction, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

My Friend Anna by Rachel DeLoache Williams ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Friend Anna and monster cookie

Gallery Books
Release Date: July 23, 2019
Genre: Nonfiction/True Crime
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

I couldn’t look away from this book, mostly because I couldn’t believe it was nonfiction and that Anna is a real human person who’s actually out there somewhere. Rachel’s memoir explores the inception, and ultimate deterioration of her friendship with Anna. They are both living in New York City, Rachel pursuing a dream career at Vanity Fair, and Anna, trying to start her own foundation. Anna is eccentric and carefree, especially with money. She lives at a hotel, and never thinks twice about paying for extravagances far past the point of reasonable. Rachel finds herself sucked into Anna’s crazy life. Anna is always generous with paying, and Rachel understands that she gets monthly payment installments from her billionaire parents. 

Much of this book is about Anna’s extravagant lifestyle, and reads kind of like an elongated magazine article. I guess that’s not terrible surprising coming from a writer who works at magazine. This didn’t seem like a fault to me. It was exactly what I expected from this book, and I ate up every page.

Anna’s character is, to say the least, unstable. She lacks the basic instincts of a functioning adult, and refuses to admit faults, and Williams’s  writing articulated this wonderfully. The secondhand frustration I felt towards Anna was intense enough that I honestly cannot imagine how awful actually dealing with her must have been for Rachel. The depiction of Anna talking herself in circles was horrifying, and fully enthralling.

I did have a bit of a problem with Rachel’s apparent passivity throughout the book. Despite expressing anxiety and insomnia in regards to debt she racks up due to Anna’s refusal to pay her back for certain expenses, she didn’t explain any changes or plans she was making to actually try to deal with and address it. The second half of the book seemed a little thin in regards to insight from Rachel about her life outside of trying to contact Anna, but didn’t stop me from plowing through the story.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
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Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard ~ Book Review

Morgan

Rewind with cookies

Corvus
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: September 5, 2019
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

Rewind starts off with a bang, or, a stabbing, if we’re being more specific. In any case, murder takes place early on in the story, and then we pause and rewind back in time to start filling in backstory. Honestly, the format of this book seemed unnecessary, even though it comprised the entire premise given the title. I think it could have been written more effectively as a straightforward narrative and nothing would have been lost. I’m not sure what was behind the decision to have it jump around the way it did. A large part of the plot focuses on video recordings, but if that was the main impetus behind structuring the entire book this way, it seems kitschy and unnecessarily pushy.

Despite occasionally being hard to follow because of its format, the plot of this book was intriguing. As always, it is refreshing to get my hands on a thriller that doesn’t read like a thinly veiled copy of another book. This one was very unique. It centers on Natalie, an up-and-coming Instagram influencer, and Audrey, a young writer who takes it upon herself to pursue and report on Natalie’s disappearance.

Much of the story takes place in Shanamore, a largely deserted seaside village, and at a set of holiday rental cottages there. The setting and the distasteful characters who lived there were very well depicted, and I felt distinctly uncomfortable reading about them. The scene was well set up for a murder.

There were a lot of pieces to this book and I was dubious that they would all fit together. The wrap-up did not seem entirely believable, but it did combine all the threads of narrative into a package that made sense given everything that had happened. For the most part, I was sucked into this story, but it wasn’t my favorite. It was more of a detective style of story than I was anticipating. As Audrey tries to assert herself as a reporter, and the police get involved, it trended towards the detective genre, which I don’t usually like. If you’re a fan of those, as well as thrillers, you’ll probably find Rewind to be a more compelling read than I did.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
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Book Review, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Uncategorized

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See ~ Book Review

Morgan

Scribner Release Date: March 21, 2017 Genre: Literary Fiction My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪 This book reminded me, thematically, very much of Where the Crawdads Sing. It is an exploration of a young girl’s life, essentially from start to middle age, who grows up in a very remote and particular culture. Li-yan and her family are members of the Akha people. They live in China, and grow tea for a living. The cultural practices that make up the Akha way of life are fascinating, from their unusually contemporary take on sex before marriage, to their heartbreaking traditions about “human rejects.” Lisa See artfully weaves in the details that makes up their ways of life, and paints a picture of a truly unique culture. All around the village, in the greater China area, the world is moving forward. There are changes in trade and in government, but life for the Akha seems stagnant. Li-yan is a strong student. Her teacher believes she is smart enough to leave the village and pursue further education as she gets older. When Li-yan falls pregnant, her path in life suddenly seems uncertain. Forced to give her baby up, Li-yan is tormented by the thought of her daughter growing up without her. This novel explores the changes occuring in China around the millenium, and the way that trade and increased interest in specific varieties of tea changed the way of life for those growing it. There is also a heavy focus on motherhood, and the bond between Li-yan and her mom, who goes against the long held village traditions to do what is best for her daughter. The importance of this connection over all else, is mirrored in the loss Li-yan feels over giving up her daughter. Li-yan does eventually break away from her village life, and is slowly assimilated into modern China, and eventually America. Her journey to becoming a small business owner, is influenced not only by the new skills she gleans through further education, but also by the knowledge gained growing tea throughout her childhood. Her connection to tea roots her as everything else in her life changes. Lisa See covers a lot of ground int his novel. Not only does she paint a comprehensive picture of an entire culture and way of life, she forges and breaks strong relationships and emotional bonds in Li-yan’s life in a believable and interesting manner. It was alternately relieving, and heartbreaking, to see the ways Li-yan moves away from Akha traditions as she is exposed to new ways of life, and how the connection to her mother stayed strong as the world changed around them. My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪 Buy The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane on Amazon The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane on Goodreads

Scribner
Release Date: March 21, 2017
Genre: Literary Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

This book reminded me, thematically, very much of Where the Crawdads Sing. It is an exploration of a young girl’s life, essentially from start to middle age, who grows up in a very remote and particular culture. Li-yan and her family are members of the Akha people. They live in China, and grow tea for a living. The cultural practices that make up the Akha way of life are fascinating, from their unusually contemporary take on sex before marriage, to their heartbreaking traditions about “human rejects.” Lisa See artfully weaves in the details that make up their ways of life, and paints a picture of a truly unique culture. 

All around the village, in the greater China area, the world is moving forward. There are changes in trade and in government, but life for the Akha seems stagnant. Li-yan is a strong student. Her teacher believes she is smart enough to leave the village and pursue further education as she gets older. When Li-yan falls pregnant, her path in life suddenly seems uncertain. Forced to give her baby up, Li-yan is tormented by the thought of her daughter growing up without her.

This novel explores the changes occurring in China around the millennium, and the way that trade and increased interest in specific varieties of tea changed the ways of life for those growing it. There is also a heavy focus on motherhood and the bond between Li-yan and her mom, who goes against the long held village traditions to do what is best for her daughter. The importance of this connection over all else, is mirrored in the loss Li-yan feels over giving up her daughter. 

Li-yan does eventually break away from her village life, and is slowly assimilated into modern China, and eventually America. Her journey to becoming a small business owner is influenced not only by the new skills she gleans through further education, but also by the knowledge gained growing tea throughout her childhood. Her connection to tea roots her as everything else in her life changes.

Lisa See covers a lot of ground in this novel. Not only does she paint a comprehensive picture of an entire culture and way of life, she forges and breaks strong relationships and emotional bonds in Li-yan’s life in a believable and interesting manner. It was alternately relieving, and heartbreaking, to see the ways Li-yan moves away from Akha traditions as she is exposed to new ways of life, and how the connection to her mother stayed strong as the world changed around them.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Buy The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane on Amazon
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson ~ Book Review

Morgan

Never Have I Ever with Cat Pastry

William Morrow
Release Date: July 30, 2019
Genre: Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

This book was almost a DNF for me. The fact that it was able to redeem itself up to four stars speaks for itself. The beginning was slow. Amy Whey’s life appears very normal. She has a baby son and a teenage stepdaughter, Maddy. Maddy affectionately refers to Amy as Monster (or step-monster) and I enjoyed their relationship. Angelica Roux storms into Amy’s life, disrupting her friend Charlotte’s book club by getting everyone drunk and starting a disturbing game where each player lists the worst thing they have done that day, then that week, then that month — you get where this is going. Charlotte is incredibly annoyed by this immaturity, and the subsequent failure of her bookclub meeting. I was also annoyed. It felt very childish and I was wholly uninterested.

Jackson weaves flashbacks and dreams into Amy’s narrative. Amy comes back to one event from her childhood over and over again. As the pieces slowly fit together, it becomes clear that Roux’s game is uncomfortable to Amy for reasons none of the other women could match or ever guess.

Roux’s son begins to spend time with Maddy, and Roux inserts herself bit by bit into Amy’s life. Roux is a twisted character the likes of which I have never read before. Her offhanded comments about using people for power, information, or wealth are shocking. Revelation after revelation show just how dark her psyche truly is. 

Amy grew on me as a character the more I read. She started off as quite a ho-hum kind of person, but each time she fought back against Roux’s advances, I appreciated her more. Her dedication to keeping her perfectly created life fully in tact was admirable, and I was excited to see how she would one-up Roux while maintaining the persona her friends and family expected of her.

The end of this novel truly took the entire story to a new level. The twists Jackson added were completely, and totally unexpected, and there were multiple. The darkness that seeped into this story was unimaginable and truly disturbing, and I loved the juxtaposition of the setting: a middle class suburb. My advice: power through the dry start of this novel, it’s worth it.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
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Book Review, Fiction, Uncategorized

Severance by Ling Ma ~ Book Review

Morgan

IMG_1871

Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: August 14, 2018
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

This book was electric. The descriptions, told with poetic, sophisticated language, flowed down the pages. I couldn’t read fast enough, not so much because of a riveting plot, but because I couldn’t get enough of Ma’s word choices and metaphors. The writing truly brought this book to an entirely different level. This is not to say that the plot wasn’t great too.

I don’t typically tend towards apocalyptic storylines, but this one felt very grounded in reality. Candace lives in New York City. Much of the opening chapters are dedicated to depictions and assessments of the city as alternately soul-sucking, and magical. If you have been to New York City, this is an especially on the nose understanding of what it is like to exist there, as both a resident and a tourist. Candace feels mediocre about her job. She has a blog she (very) occasionally updates. Her boyfriend breaks up with her. It’s a pretty normal existence until Shen Fever begins a near-global epidemic.

Reading this novel in the midst of EEE outbreaks and a sudden increase in mysterious vaping-related lung diseases was thought provoking. Ling Ma’s imagining of what the apocalyptic fever entailed was especially unusual. Fevered individuals repeat normal everyday activities over and over, as their bodies burn up on the inside, and break down outwardly. It wasn’t a crazy norovirus contracted by contact, but rather, was carried on spores. The randomness was horrifyingly believable.

Candace remains in New York City as residents flee, and as tourists flock there because of vastly reduced prices and then stop altogether. Eventually, as seems to be a trope of the ‘end of the world’ genre, she finds a ragtag group of fellow survivors and they join up to try to figure out how to exist in their new reality.

The ending seemed kind of clichéd and unfinished, a ‘driving off into the sunset’ sort of fallback, but it barely took away from my enjoyment of reading Severance. It is rare that I find a book where the language and writing style is this captivating. I may need to go out and purchase this one, so I can revisit it when I’m feeling uninspired in my own writing.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
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