Category: awesomeness

Book Review: In Search of Us, by Ava Dellaira

Title: In Search of Us
Author: Ava Dellaira
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 4/5

In LA in the late 1990s, Marilyn is a pretty 17-year-old with a mom who has ambitions; she expects Marilyn to make it big in Hollywood, so Marilyn can support them. But her mother never asks what Marilyn wants: going away to college and becoming a photographer. With Marilyn landing fewer jobs, they soon find themselves living with Marilyn’s unpredictable uncle.

Marilyn is just biding her time, living for graduation, when her “real” life will start. Then she meets James, the boy who lives downstairs. James shows her how to live in the now.

In the present, Angie has a single mom, a dead father she never met, and no one to help her sort out her identity. With her brown skin and curly hair, she looks nothing like her mom, and she knows nothing about her father. Then Angie finds out her mother has been lying to her all along, and she sets out on a road trip to LA with her best friend, Sam, hoping to discover who she really is.

In Search of Us is an emotional story about family, love, and finding yourself. These two stories are entwined seamlessly, and I’m not sure which I was more emotionally invested in, Marilyn’s or Angie’s. Both feel like their mothers don’t understand them, and both want more out of life. Marilyn is struggling to break her mother’s hold on her, and Angie struggles to find her father in more than just a single old picture. Racism is a strong theme here, portrayed honesty and realistically, with a large helping of grief. I was in tears by the end, and this book made my heart ache, as well as being so vivid I felt like I was a part of the story.

Ava Dellaira is the author of Love Letters to the Dead. In Search of Us is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: I Found My Tribe, by Ruth Fitzmaurice

Title: I Found My Tribe
Author: Ruth Fitzmaurice
Genre: Non-fiction, memoir
Rating: 4/5

Ruth has five active children, and a husband, Simon, with Motor Neuron Disease. Simon can only communicate with his eyes. Ruth’s life is filled with children, caregivers and healthcare professionals, and her love for Simon, but she needs more.

Fortunately, Ruth has her tribe: The Tragic Wives’ Swimming Club, a group of close friends who help each other through the obstacles they face every single day in their lives, and the waves and frigid water they face in their swimming. Swimming in Greystones cove saves them, and their favorite thing is moonlight swims in the ocean under the full moon.

Sometimes, the most unlikely things can save you.

I think a lot of us are looking for our “tribe.” The fortunate ones find them. Ruth is blessed to have friends who both surround her in her difficulties—and they are so very difficult—and who can fully sympathize because of their own similar circumstances. Ruth is an amazingly strong woman: she’s raising FIVE kids essentially alone, while writing full-time and caring for a husband who needs total care and an army of medical staff. I cannot even imagine the kind of strength this takes. This book is a wonderful read about the friends who help us shine a light into the darkness surrounding us.

Ruth Fitzmaurice worked in radio before becoming a wife and mother of five children. I Found My Tribe is her first book.

Note: Ruth’s husband, Simon, passed last October.

(Galley provided by Bloomsbury US in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot, by Mo Isom

Title: Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot
Author: Mo Isom
Genre: Non-fiction, Christian
Rating: 5/5

Sex. (There. Got your attention, didn’t I?) Society is obsessed with it, and the church doesn’t talk about it, apart from an unequivocal “Don’t do it!” Christians don’t talk about it, but we should—because there are far too many people wandering lost in a world that glorifies sex, promiscuity, and sex-pectations.

Mo Isom talks about it as she tells her story of a life lived according to expectations, a life scarred by pornography, misunderstandings, and the silence of the church on a topic that permeates our culture. She takes something the world is obsessed with, removes the bondage associated with it, and turns it into something that glorifies God.

I don’t generally review non-fiction books, especially the Christian books I read. (They’re on my Goodreads and my Books Read posts, though.) However, this book is one that needs to be talked about. I grew up in church—Southern Baptist—and my church never talked about sex. (My current church—non-denominational—does talk about it, some.) None of the churches my friends grew up in talked about sex. But our culture is obsessed with it. So, why is the church not talking about it? Why does the church let the world be the only source of information related to a topic that saturates our culture? And why are we surprised when Christians have a worldly view of sex, and not a Godly view?

I loved Mo Isom’s voice in this. (So much so that I’m now reading her first book.) She does talk about sex: her exposure to it growing up, the silence on it she experienced in the church, and her struggles to give it its rightly place—not a worldly one. Her voice is like a comfortable chat with a friend and makes this a must-read book.

Mo Isom is a New York Times-bestselling author, a former All-American soccer goalkeeper, and the first female to have trained with and tried out for an SEC men’s football team. She is the author of Wreck My Life: Journeying from Broken to Bold and her newest book, Sex, Jesus, and the Conversations the Church Forgot.

(Galley provided by Baker Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Blunt Force Magic, by Lawrence Davis

Janzen’s life as a package courier in Cleveland, Ohio isn’t glamorous. He works, hangs out at a hole-in-the-wall bar, and goes home drunk to his dog. It’s a life, just a dull one. Five years ago, Janzen was an apprentice Artificer, living on the edge in a group of practitioners intent on fighting evil, but now he’s alone.

So, Janzen works, drinks, and sleeps. And repeats. Until the day he’s delivering a package and finds himself fighting for his life against a Stalker—a creature from the Abyss—defending a young witch against the dark predator.

Now Janzen must figure out who sent the Stalker, delving into his past for any scrap of help he can find, before the monster succeeds in killing him—and the witch. All in a day’s work, right?

This book. From the first page, I was drawn in by Janzen’s dry, self-deprecating humor and his unflinching honesty. He left the magical life behind years ago, but he doesn’t hesitate to step back into his role when danger threatens a young stranger. This character made the book—but the whole gritty urban fantasy/detective noir feeling didn’t hurt, either. A great read!

Lawrence Davis is the author of Blunt Force Magic, the first book in The Monsters and Men trilogy.

(Galley provided by WildBlue Press in exchange for an honest review.)

More reviews at <a href=” https://tamaramorning.com/”>Tomorrow is Another Day</a>

Book Review: The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton

In the world of Orléans, people are born damned. Gray. Above all, they want Beauty. It is only with the help of Belles, who control Beauty, can they be made beautiful.

Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. All her life, Camellia has wanted to be the favorite, the Belle chosen by the Queen to live in the palace and work with the royal family. The most talented Belle.

But at court, Camellia and her sisters learn there’s far more to this world of beauty than they ever imagined, and there’s more to their powers than they know. When the Queen asks Camellia to help the sick princess, Camellia must decide whether to help the Queen—and risk her whole world—or to continue to be the favorite Belle, the one who does everything that’s expected of her.

So, this book is more than a fairytale/fantasy epic. Orléans absolutely reminds me of the Capitol (from The Hunger Games), with over-the-top costumes and obsession with appearances and popularity. So much. But this book is really a commentary on issues we face in society today—and not just vanity—with layers and layers of reality and mystery twined together. On the surface, a book obsessed with beauty isn’t my cup of tea. But the world is richly-detailed, and the characters are complex and driven, and I can’t wait to see where the author takes them next.

Dhonielle Clayton is an author and the COO of We Need Diverse Books. Her newest novel is The Belles.

(Galley provided by Disney Books in exchange for an honest review.)

What I Read in January (2018)

I upped my reading goal this year from 100 to 150, since I read 174 books last year. Who knows if that’ll happen, but it’s good to have goals.

Topical Books/Monthly Goal Books

The Birdwoman’s Palate, by Laksmi Pamuntjak (cultural book of the month). Rather conveniently I thought, this was one of the Amazon First picks for January, so I snapped it up. This books was pretty much all about food, but I enjoyed the characters very much.

O Pioneers, by Willa Cather (classic book). I was actually very surprised with how much I enjoyed this book. I thought it would be kind of dry and boring, but there was a lot going on!

Satisfy My Thirsty Soul, by Linda Dillow (spiritual book). I enjoyed this very much.

To Review

immortalists_1

The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin. So…I have mixed feelings about this book. Or, at least, less than positive feelings about it. It’s about four kids in the 1960s who go see a Gypsy psychic, and the woman tells them the exact dates of their deaths. Then it’s an in-depth look at the lives of each sibling in turn. I found the first two sections almost annoying, because of the choices the first two siblings made. The third was moderately more interesting, but still evoked mostly head-shaking from me. The final section was the best, in my opinion, and allowed me to actually care about the final sibling.

before i let go

Before I Let Go, by Marieke Naijkamp. I still don’t know what to think about this book. The writing is good. The characters are interesting—with a side of weird in some cases—and the setting is vividly drawn. (Okay, the thought of having to live in a tiny Alaskan town gives me the heeby-jeebies on a lot of levels.) Corey and Kyra grew up as best friends, but Corey left Kyra behind when she moved away. Then Kyra dies, and Corey goes back to say goodbye, and finds her hometown has become a strange, dark place, filled with secrets and people she doesn’t understand, all of them linked—somehow—to Kyra’s death.

an eye for an eye

An Eye for an Eye, by Caroline Fardig. The second murder mystery in the Ellie Matthews series. While the book fits comfortably in the murder mystery niche–forensics, questions, running out of time—the characters make it stand out from the rest. Ellie is a very conflicted person.

What the Valley Knows, by Heather Christie (read to review, but didn’t finish). I read about 30% of this—maybe—before giving up. The characters struck me as one-dimensional and the foreshadowing was pretty…blatant, to me, so I just passed on the rest of it.

thisisnotaloveletter_comps

This is Not a Love Letter, by Kim Purcell. I’m not sure I can talk about this book yet. I picked it up on a Friday evening…and finished it around 11 p.m. Two days later, it is still fresh in my mind, and I’m still sad over the ending. And, let me tell you, I was sobbing when I finished it. True story. This is about love, race, and mental illness in a small town.

intraterrestrial

Intraterrestrial, by Nicholas Conley. This book is about traumatic brain injury, bullying, and aliens. Yes, really. When Adam is injured in a car wreck, the voice he’s been hearing in his head makes sense, as the alien asks for his help escaping the Nothing that will destroy them all. Are there really aliens, or are they part of Adam’s TBI?

White Chrysanthemums. Okay. This is an emotional, sad book. It’s about the Korean women/girls who were forced to be military sex slaves in the Korean/Japanese conflict. The idea is horrifying to me, but the book is so well-done and evocative it’s well-worth reading.

the night child

The Night Child, by Anna Quinn. This was not what I thought at all, but it was a good read.

lullaby road

Lullaby Road, by James Anderson. This is the second Anderson book I’ve read, the second about Ben and the desolate stretch of highway he lives and works on. While the book doesn’t sound all that interesting—a middle-aged truck driver hauling freight from one desert ghost town to another—the book is very, very good. The characters are quirky, but so believable! Definitely read Never-Open Desert Diner first, but read this!

thehazelwood

The Hazel Wood, by Melissa Albert. Sheer magic. Dark magic, to be sure, but I was enthralled from the first page of the story about Alice, who has spent her 17 years on the move with her mother as bad luck plagued them. When her mother is kidnapped by the Hinterland, Alice must brave the Hazel Wood and face her own story if she is to rescue her mom. So good!

the gone world

The Gone World, by Tom Sweterlitsch. I’m not going to lie: this was a weird book. NCIS meets time travel, with space travel and multiple futures thrown into a murder investigation.

Just Because

Ricochet Joe, by Dean Koontz. I got an email about this book on January first, and decided to read it because…I used to read everything Koontz wrote. I’m a chicken, and his books used to terrify me, but sometimes his writing was so lyrical it amazed me. (There was one sentence, in one of the Odd Thomas books, that took my breath away. Making a mental note to read all of those again this year…) I found the Kindle in Motion aspect of this tale kind of cool, but the story itself was…sub-par, in my mind. Perhaps it’s been too long since I read a Koontz book?

Linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy for Quick Lit.

Book Review: Lullaby Road, by James Anderson

Ben Jones hauls freight on the lonely highway of Route 117, through the desert of Utah. The few people he meets are reclusive at best, possibly dangerous at worst. And winter is coming to 117, covering everything in a blanket of snow and ice.

When Ben finds a small, mute Hispanic girl abandoned at a gas station with a note pinned to her shirt that reads “Please Ben. Watch my son. His name is Juan. Bad Trouble. Tell no one,” he is unprepared. He has no idea what’s going on, but he knows it’s bad, so he takes the girl. And finds himself in the midst of dark circumstances he’s not sure if he can find his way out of. But he’s determined to keep the girl safe, even when she’s set on disappearing into the snowy wilderness without a trace.

Lullaby Road, like the first book, The Never-Open Desert Diner, is set in a startling and memorable place and filled with characters that are…quirky and frequently scary and sad at the same time. Ben is both an awesome character and a hateful one, with his temper and his lack of impulse-control. The land is as much a character as any of the people, and this compelled me from the very first page. But I don’t think I’ll be visiting Utah anytime soon.

James Anderson was born in Seattle and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Lullaby Road is the follow-up to The Never-Open Desert Diner.

(Galley provided by Crown Publishing in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Hazel Wood, by Melissa Albert

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have been haunted by bad luck as long as Alice can remember. Not run-of-the-mill bad luck, either, but strange things happening in even stranger circumstances. And Alice’s mom won’t allow her to speak of her grandmother, a reclusive author who lives on a mysterious estate called the Hazel Wood. It’s the two of them against the world.

When Alice’s grandmother dies, Alice’s mom is stolen away by mysterious creatures from the Hinterland—where Alice’s grandmother’s creepy tales are set. The only lead Alice has is her mom’s message, “Stay away from the Hazel Wood.”

But Alice will stop at nothing to save her mom. The only person she can turn to is Finch, a Hinterland superfan…and Alice is sure he’s hiding something. To save her mom, first they must find the Hazel Wood. Then Alice must venture deep into the woods, where she just might find out what’s wrong with her own story.

The Hazel Wood is absolutely magic! Dark magic, to be sure, but magic all the same. Alice is such a fascinating character, filled with rage but yearning for the light. The Hinterland and the Hazel Wood are places of magic…terrifying magic. I was enthralled with the story from the very first page, and that continued through to the very last page. Loved this book!

Melissa Albert is the editor of the B&N Teen Blog. The Hazel Wood is her first novel.

(Galley provided by Flatiron Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: White Chrysanthemum, by Mary Lynn Bracht

In Korea, 1942, Hana is a haenyo, a diver who provides for her family by what she finds in the sea. Her heritage makes her proud, and she’s fiercely protective of her family. Then Hana saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier. As a result, she is sent to Manchuria to become a “comfort woman” in a Japanese military brothel. When other girls surrender and give up, Hana’s pride as a haenyo keeps her going. She will make it home.

In South Korea, 2011, Emi has been searching for her sister for over 60 years. She hasn’t forgiven herself for being the reason her sister was taken away, and she wonders if she can find Hana and gain forgiveness for herself. But Emi has been hiding the truth from her children, and she must shine light into the dark places of her life if her children are ever to heal their own wounds from the war that scarred Emi’s home and family forever.

White Chrysanthemum was not an easy, fun book to read. This book tells the harrowing story of untold numbers of Korean women, and the horrors inflicted on them in the 1940s. Told from Hana’s and Emi’s viewpoints, this story is emotionally wrenching and sad, but beautifully written and moving. Very much worth reading.

Mary Lynn Bracht is American, of Korean descent, and lives in London. White Chrysanthemum is her new novel.

(Galley provided by Putnam in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: This is Not a Love Letter, by Kim Purcell

thisisnotaloveletter_comps — Image belongs to Disney Book Group.

Jessie and Chris were on a break. Just one week, so Jessie could get some perspective, then they could make all the big decisions looming with graduation. Jessie just needed a little bit of time to think.

Then Chris disappears on a run by the river, on the same path where, a few weeks before, he was beaten up by some guys from a rival high school. Chris is popular. He’s good looking. And he’s black, a rarity in their small, paper mill town.

When the police decide Chris ran away, Jessie speaks up, and voices her fears that Chris’s disappearance is race-related. She’s terrified of what might have happened to Chris, but she’s not prepared for the threats she receives.

Chris has written Jessie a love letter every Friday since they started dating, now it’s her turn to write him, telling him everything that’s happening while he’s gone, what she’s afraid of, and some truths she’s kept hidden.

I’m just going to say it straight out: this book almost broke me. I’m not sure if it was the situation, or if I just identified with Jessie that strongly, but I was in tears (sobs) by the time I finished reading this. Straight through, in one sitting, I might add. Jessie, while not always rational or sensible, made sense to me. She seemed real. Her relationship with Chris, which she remembers in detail while he’s missing, was charming and inspiring. Their town has problems, and sometimes the issues were ugly and hurtful, but they were always truthful. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

Kim Purcell is from Canada, but now lives in New York. This is Not a Love Letter is her newest novel.

(Galley provided by Disney Book Group in exchange for an honest review.)

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