Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot ~ Book Review

Morgan

St. Martin’s Griffin
Genre: Memoir
Release Date: May 6, 2014 (originally published 1972)
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

What a wholesome, heartwarming book of stories! All Creatures Great and Small chronicles James Herriot’s life as a vet, primarily for farm animals in rural Yorkshire. It starts as he sets out to begin his career and brings the reader through a series of short vignettes each outlining a different humorous and beautifully detailed occurrence in his job.

The characters Herriot encounters seem almost like caricatures in the best of ways. They are over-the-top in their responses to his diagnoses and their constantly dubious natures. I couldn’t stop smiling while reading about each of them. Although this book is classified as a memoir, it reads like fiction, and I constantly had to remind myself that it was real. If you’re looking to get into more nonfiction, I highly recommend this book as a way to ease yourself in.

From cows that seem to magically heal themselves, to overly pampered dogs, to dates gone wrong, these stories never lost my interest and were anything but predictable. James Herriot is definitely an author I’ll be turning to in the future when I need a smile.

Buy All Creatures Great and Small at an indie bookstore near you
All Creatures Great and Small on Goodreads

Uncategorized

Thirteen by Steve Cavanagh ~ Book Review

Morgan

Orion
Genre: Mystery
Release Date: January 30, 2018
My Rating: 🍪🍪.5

Even though I love thrillers, I always struggle with crime dramas and detective mysteries. I’d heard so many good things about Thirteen that I decided to give it a try regardless. The main character is a known murderer from the start. He is incredibly twisted as well as empowered by a strange lack of ability to feel pain. From the start, we watch him methodically follow steps to work his way onto a jury, by impersonating a man he’s killed. The stages of his plan were fascinating to watch.

Once the trial began, and the detective, Eddie Flynn started to uncover a suspected serial killer, the story got kind of dry for me. It jumped back and forth between the main character killing people in insane ways and getting away with everything, and Eddie magically coming up with realizations about the case. I found both the storyline and the writing style very repetitive.

The premise of the book, and the motive of the serial killer were interesting, but I finished this read mostly frustrated.

Buy Thirteen at an indie bookstore near you
Thirteen on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Romance, Uncategorized

The Simple Wild by K.A. Tucker ~ Book Review

Morgan

Atria Books
Romance
Release Date: August 7, 2018
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

I’ve seen countless rave reviews for The Simple Wild, so my expectations going into it were high. The story follows 26-year old Calla Fletcher, who leaves her life in Toronto to go and spend time with her father, who she last saw when she was a baby, in Alaska. Her father, Wren, is dying of lung cancer, and Calla knows this will be her last chance to form any kind of relationship with him.

Upon her arrival, Calla meets Jonah, a pilot who seems intent on making her stay miserable, and pointing out her materialistic ‘city-girl’ ways. She also meets a close friend of her dads, Agnes, and her daughter Mabel. The characters in this book were extremely well written. Tucker paints a beautiful picture of the close knit community in Bangor, Alaska, and the types of kind-hearted, rustic individuals who make it up. Each one was unique and detailed enough to feel very real. I felt like I knew them.

Jonah and Calla’s story predictable followed the hate-to-love trope. Their relationship was cute, but I wasn’t entirely blown away or convinced by it. I was more invested in Calla’s relationship with the community as a whole and with her dad. As she gets to know her dad more at the end of her life, she finds solace in forging friendships with those who were closest to him, and spends her days learning about how he’s lived her life.

Calla’s growth as a character was notable as she comes to appreciate the life her father chose in rural Alaska and the people who make the town so special. Tucker wonderfully explores the intricacies of life in Alaska, an element that added a lot to the story and elevated it from a standard romance. For me, this one was a little over-hyped, but I still liked it a lot.

Buy The Simple Wild at an indie bookstore near you
The Simple Wild on Goodreads

Uncategorized

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth ~ Book Review

Morgan

William Morrow
Genre: Horror
Release Date: October 20, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

I hesitate to call Plain Bad Heroines horror, but I’m not quite sure what I’d classify it as– maybe some sort of gothic sub-genre. It’s a split storyline, and the two are very different. The modern storyline follows Audrey, Harper, and Merrit as they are shooting a movie at the old Brookhants School for Girls. 100 years before, it was the site of multiple mysterious deaths, two, Flo and Clara, stemming from savage yellow jackets, and tied to a then-scandalous novel by an author named Mary Maclane. The film recreates their deaths and the tragic happenings at the school at the time. The other part of the book takes place when the school is still open and the deaths are discovered. It is told by the school’s principal and those she surrounds herself with.

The juxtaposition of the two timelines was really interesting in this story, and particularly the way the movie director tried to play up the cursed nature of the setting. I was never quite sure what was really happening, and what was meant to be movie magic — and neither were the girls. The story features a lot of queer relationships during both timelines, and the relationships between the three modern girls were constantly shifting. That being said, I did not find any of the three of them particularly likeable.

I found the more modern part of this book fascinating, detailed, and incredibly unique. The part set in the 1900s was a little harder for me to follow. I think part of the problem for me was that I listened to the audiobook, and the story was over 600 pages. It would have been helpful to be able to flip back and reference past chapters (I’ve also heard the physical book has illustrations!). Overall, this was an incredibly unusual, twisty storyline with an omniscient narrator guiding the reader through the years.

Buy Plain Bad Heroines at an indie bookstore near you
Plain Bad Heroines on Goodreads

Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole ~ Book Review

Morgan

William Morrow
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: September 1, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

There was a lot I appreciated about When No One is Watching. As an avid thriller reader, it was refreshing to get a totally new take on the genre. This book focuses on gentrification in America and Brooklyn specifically. The reality of the situation made it all the more scary. Sydney feels out of control as she watches her neighbors move out and her neighborhood completely change around her. She decides to create a walking tour that’s fully transparently representative of the history of the area.

Along with the help of a new neighbor, Theo, Sydney digs into the racism that’s permeated the area for decades. The narrative brought in systemic racism through shocking, sadly believable facts and evidence. It was interesting to see the difference in Sydney’s reaction to this information, and Theo’s, since he was wholly unfamiliar with much of it prior.

The action in this book felt very unevenly distributed. The beginning dragged for me. As Theo and Sydney visited different groups to learn about the history of the area, I was unsure why so many characters needed to be introduced. There were some times when Sydney felt uneasy about how quickly her surroundings were changing, but it didn’t feel like a thriller. The second half jumps full tilt into disturbing and twisted thriller mode. The premise from there on out was incredibly different from anything I’ve read before and there was no way I saw it coming. It was thought-provoking and terrifying. That being said, it felt like too much all at once for me. If everything was spaced out evenly through the book, I think it all could have worked, but as it was, I felt overloaded at the end and things didn’t feel fleshed out enough. If you’re looking for a thriller that doesn’t fit the stereotypes of the genre, and grapples with prevalent and timely issues surrounding systemic racism, I would recommend trying this one.

Buy When No One is Watching at an indie bookstore near you
When No One is Watching on Goodreads

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah ~ Book Review

Morgan

Doubleday
Genre: Memoir
Release Date: November 15, 2016
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Born a Crime is an eye-opening and insightful account of Trevor Noah’s experience growing up in South Africa during apartheid, as a mixed-race child. His writing is very straightforward, and I really appreciated how he wrote exactly from his own point of view. As a kid, he didn’t know anything different from his own experiences. Being mixed-race made his birth itself a crime, and he focuses a lot on how being half white privileged him throughout his childhood, and how he didn’t understand why.

I learned so much about the culture in South Africa during apartheid from this book, and many of the details were heartbreaking. It was easy to visualize each story or anecdote that Trevor detailed, and the whole book played out almost like a movie in my head. He crafted an incredibly comprehensive account of the different phases of his life he went through and the creativity and ingenuity he employed to enrich his life: from waiting in the lunch line for other students to get a cut of their lunch money, to selling CDs he mixed and burned himself.

One of my favorite parts of this book was Trevor’s descriptions of his relationships with various family members. The dialogue and interactions felt like they were taken directly from his memories. One thing I would have liked more of is Trevor’s later life, and how he got to his current career and notoriety, but it definitely wasn’t necessary to make the memoir feel complete.

Buy Born a Crime at an indie bookstore near you
Born a Crime on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

His & Hers by Alice Feeney ~ Book Review

Morgan

Flatiron Books
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: July 28, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

I listened to the audiobook of His & Hers (thanks to Libro.fm for my copy) and really loved the narration. There is, of course, a ‘his’ narrator and a ‘hers’ narrator, but there’s also a very creepy mystery third voice that sounded especially ominous because I listen to my audiobooks sped up. The ‘her’ in question is Anna Andrews, a BBC news presenter whose job is in jeopardy. The ‘him’ is Detective chief inspector Jack Harper who also happens to be Anna’s ex-husband.

When a murder is discovered in their town, Jack and Anna find themselves suddenly crossing paths again. The situation is made all the more tangled when it’s discovered that the murder victim is a woman they both knew. As more women show up dead, all with connections to the couple, it becomes clear that something very sinister is going on.

I liked that, rather than just a random serial killer, there was a connection between the murderer and Anna and Jack, that I got to try to parse through as the story went on. There were flashbacks to Anna’s childhood, when she was friends with the victims, and it was shocking to see how her past informed the present. The added element of Jack and Anna’s relationship was really interesting and unique as well.

I spent most of the book trying to figure out who the third narrator was. I feel like there were some red herrings along the way, and I suspected pretty much every character at one point or another. I liked that it kept me guessing, but I had some problems with the ultimate unveiling. First of all, it was done at the very end, without any time to really make me believe it. Looking back, I didn’t see hints that could have gotten me to the conclusion, and that always frustrates me with thrillers. The whole wrap-up left me unsatisfied even though I was enthralled throughout the rest of the story.

Buy His & Hers at an indie bookstore near you
His & Hers on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Uncategorized

Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman ~ Book Review

Morgan

St. Martin’s Griffin

Genre: Historical Fiction

Release Date: August 4, 2020

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

Paris Never Leaves You had a bookish central theme that I really appreciated. The plot alternates between Paris during WWII, and New York City in the 1950s. In Paris, Charlotte works at a bookstore, while trying desperately to keep her infant daughter Vivi fed. In Manhattan, she works at a publishing company.

Charlotte’s escape to America was different from other WWII books I’ve read. I thought that it was a really interesting twist on a more traditional telling of this type of story, and her guilt and uncertainty about whether to be honest with her daughter enriched the plot.

Feldman’s writing is incredibly impressive. Her details and descriptions are unusual and eloquent and made for a really pleasant and fast reading experience. I liked the literary elements of the book. 

There were certain parts of the story that didn’t feel fully integrated. Charlotte’s romance during the war wasn’t totally believable, and I didn’t feel like Vivi’s relationship with her neighbors in Manhattan was explained enough.

Despite some loose strings in the plot, this was a quick and interesting read, and I enjoyed Feldman’s writing.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

Buy Paris Never Leaves You at an indie bookstore near you

Paris Never Leaves You on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Uncategorized

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams ~ Book Review

Morgan

IMG_6058

Orion Publishing
Genre: Fiction
Release Date: March 19, 2019

Much of the cultural conversation in Queenie was incredibly strong and powerful. Queenie is a 25 year old Jamaican British woman living in London. After she and her boyfriend decide to go on a break, she quickly loses sight of herself. Queenie finds herself in a toxic cycle of sleeping with men to feel some sort of validation. The sex is often disturbingly violent and illustrates the darkness of Queenie’s mental state. The book explores the racism she’s experienced, especially during sexual encounters, the stigma surrounding therapy, and the difficulty in finding self-worth.

The themes that ran through this story made it stand out for me. There are so many important conversations going on through Queenie’s story, and they were written in a very straightforward manner. The reader is left to analyze and sympathize with everything Queenie is struggling with. The general premise of a lost 25-year-old after a breakup isn’t in itself very unique, but Queenie was unique because it did not shy away from the very real and very upsetting ways that the main character dealt with her life circumstances.

The actual plot of this book was slow and felt repetitive to me. It didn’t feel like it really built toward anything, and after having finished I can’t really pick out pivotal moments. I would have liked a little more of a story arc, personally, as a plot-oriented reader. That being said, I think this was meant to be more of an exploration of how the day to day microaggressions and biases in Queenie’s life, as well as her past, wore her down over time.

Buy Queenie at an indie bookstore near you
Queenie on Goodreads

Book Review, Memoir, Nonfiction, Uncategorized

Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener ~ Book Review

Morgan

Uncanny Valley with treats
MCD
Genre: Memoir
Release Date: January 14, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

For some reason, Silicon Valley and the startup tech industry really intrigue me. Uncanny Valley is an in-depth, personal depiction of Anna Wiener’s experiences working there. I loved how her career evolved. She starts out working in publishing and then is slowly drawn into tech. It was really interesting to see how she chose and justified this switch. The very real and honest way she thinks about her life and career, especially in her early to mid-twenties in a job that doesn’t pay much felt like a story that would be accessible and relatable to a lot of people. Still early on in her career and not making a lot of money, does she take the chance at jumping into an industry she has no understanding of? Yes, she does.

Anna’s bravery in diving headfirst into her new life was admirable. Fully out of her comfort zone, she finds herself redefining her wardrobe and her lifestyle, and struggling to adjust to the fraternity-esque work environments she encounters in California. The descriptions of startup culture in Silicon Valley were incredibly insightful, and often uncomfortable. Anna doesn’t shy away from outlining the many issues that exist in the industry as well as the ways that employees quietly make millions overnight.

I enjoyed this memoir much more than I anticipated. Anna’s honesty in her portrayal of her time in tech, and the relationships she made during that time were different from anything I’d ever read about before. The people she met often felt like caricatures, and often also made me distinctly uncomfortable. The book reads like an unearthing of the darker sides of the industry, but also highlights the great successes and opportunities it affords people. If you’re at all interested in startup culture or the inner workings of Silicon Valley, I highly recommend Uncanny Valley.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Buy Uncanny Valley at an indie bookstore near you
Uncanny Valley on Goodreads